A federal judge has allowed Chevron to subpoena filmmaker Joe Berlinger for hundreds of hours of footage not used for “Crude,” a 2009 documentary. “Crude” is about the 17-year, $27.3 billion lawsuit brought against Chevron for allegedly dumping toxic oil waste in the Amazon sector of Ecuador. The 30,000 residents of the area have filed […]
Last week, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I – Conn) introduced the “Terrorist Expatriation Act” – legislation that would allow the State Department to revoke the citizenship of Americans who provide support to a foreign terrorist organization. Yesterday morning, Attorney General Eric Holder and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani discussed last week’s attempted terrorist attack in Times Square […]
I wrote about The Melting Himalayas over a year ago. Notwithstanding the relatively absurd brouhaha in January caused by the discovery of a one-paragraph error in the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, research on glacier loss in the Himalayas has been continuing apace. The minor peccadillo in the report was […]
Europe has certainly made headlines recently, and unfortunately not for good things. From an ongoing volcanic ash plume out of Iceland to the Greek debt crisis, it appears that it is Europe’s turn to hold the news spotlight. One of the many headlines coming out of Europe is of course the general election held last […]
In an effort to stem the deepening collapse from the Greece Sovereign Debt crisis, finance ministers from the European Union agreed on a deal that would provide $560 billion in new loans and $76 billion under an existing lending program. Elena Salgado, the Spanish finance minister, who announced the deal, also said the International Monetary Fund was prepared to give up to $321 billion separately.
On April 27, a little-noticed hearing took place on Capitol Hill regarding an important and controversial issue that has been a sore spot in U.S.-Russian relations for some time: the status of the historic Jackson-Vanik Amendment. Not only is this issue worth examining for its effect on the Obama Administration’s “Russian Reset” agenda, it is […]
The role of U.S. films in cultural diplomacy is not new, nor is the distribution of American films around the globe. But those phenomena bear a reexamination every once in a while. In this case, it is through the movie Shrek,a worldwide blockbuster (with various sequels and spin-offs). That big green ogre has something to […]
Here are some of my favourite reads from the week, focusing on maternal health in honour of Mother’s Day: State of the World’s Mothers was released on Tuesday by Save the Children. The report ranks 160 countries in terms of where it is best and worst to be a mom. Norway is at the top […]
Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother. -Lin Yutang, Chinese writer Today is more than a day to celebrate your Mother, it is a day to celebrate all women. It is women around the globe who give new life and hope to the world. Women who raise future leaders, […]
On May 30 Colombia will hold elections to decide who will govern the country the next four years. Last February, after the Constitutional Court of Colombia banned President Álvaro Uribe from seeking a second reelection, it appeared that the race would be defined by voters choosing among two candidates who sought to present themselves as […]
I told one of my classes last week, after the Gulf of Mexico disaster, that the next time I heard someone talk about the romance of the internal combustion engine, I was going to deck them. As with coal, so with oil. (See last post below.) We don’t need it, and the sooner we transition […]
Time for another roundup of great stories I’m not great enough to get to. The immediate response mechanism of Twitter and other instant tech systems can be good for our altruistic side, too, whatever it might cost when… I’m sorry, what were we talking about? Some great old tech commercials. Ah, those were the days. […]
Popular from Press
