Help a Child in Need this Holiday Season
December 15, 2009 3 min. read

Tis’ the season of giving and time to evaluate how privileged in life you are, and see how you can help someone in need. Therefore here is a few ideas to help you in your unquenchable need to help underprivileged children, and help make a child’s life better this year. Why not pick a few […]

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Monday's news
December 15, 2009 1 min. read

1) Greece is at serious risk of total economic collapse—Prime Minister George Papandreou is proposing dramatic spending cuts, and tax hikes on banker’s bonuses, to ease the crisis. 2) Dubai has been bailed out by Abu Dhabi to the tune of $10 billion. 3) From FP: “How we invaded Afghanistan” (the Russians) 4) The New […]

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U.S. Supreme Court Denies Review of Rasul, et al. v. Myers, et al.
December 14, 2009 1 min. read

From the SCOTUSBLOG: The Court’s denial of review of Rasul, et al., v. Myers, et al. (09-227) leaves intact a federal appeals court ruling that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ten military officers are legally immune to claims of torture and religious bias against inmates who were at Guantanamo but have since been released.  […]

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Copenhagen Buzz
December 14, 2009 2 min. read

There’s plenty of sturm und drang coming from COP 15.  The “FT” reports this morning that the African states first walked out then returned, having claimed “…that they had won some concessions.” The “Financial Times” front page this morning declared China signals climate funds shift.  Apparently, the PRC “… abandoned its demand for funding from […]

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Copenhagen Walkout
December 14, 2009 1 min. read

The  G77, a group representing 130 developing nations, has walked out of the Copenhagen negotiations.  Find out more about it here. Also, find out more about the implications for global security here, where you can download CNA’s report, “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.”

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"UN Human Rights Council – an Orwellian institution"
December 14, 2009 2 min. read

Dr. Emmanuel Navon, a member of the Likud party, knows his history.  Or rather his version. As he addressed a small gathering of journalists last week at the International Press Centre in Brussels, Dr. Navon spoke on his own personal terms.  In other words, what he said is officially…unofficial. The Council of the European Union […]

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Op-Eds
December 14, 2009 1 min. read

1) (Dawn, Pakistan) Iran Husain tackles a fundamental issue in South Asian affairs: Pakistan as a security state. 2) (The Daily Star, Lebanon) Saif Nasrawi examines a growing political trend in Egypt. 3) (Hindustan Times, India) The Indo-Chinese climate change axis. 4) (Dar al-Hayat, Lebanon) Abdullah Iskandar on the Kurdish question and democratic government in […]

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Topic: Year in Review: Migration – Rich Basas
December 13, 2009 4 min. read

Migration over the last year has been dominated by economic issues, as European migration became a balance, and sometimes a conflict, between new cultures and old cultures. Rights and migration were the questions in places like Calais and reducing illegal immigration on European beaches and discovering a new way to take in immigrants who can […]

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Obama and Copenhagen
December 12, 2009 5 min. read

I have not been, like most of the rest of the climate change cognoscenti, writing nonstop about Copenhagen this week.  I have been working on reviewing thesis work from students in the MS in Global Affairs program at NYU where I teach on climate change.  I’ve had one blockbuster thesis on how to make the […]

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Obama's Nobel Lecture: The Brief, Unexpected Recognition of Climate Change
December 12, 2009 2 min. read

As we’ve come to expect from this president, Obama’s Nobel Prize lecture was sophisticated and brave, as he addressed the obvious paradox of receiving a peace prize one week after ordering a major war escalation. With a solemn obligation to address such a weighty matter, it was surprising that climate issues – commonly sidelined – […]

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Abortion and human rights: Ireland defends its abortion ban in the European Court of Human Rights
December 12, 2009 4 min. read

Access to safe and legal abortion could soon be declared a human right in Europe.  Irish reproductive rights advocates and 3 female plaintiffs have brought a case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), claiming harm suffered by Ireland’s abortion ban.  Ireland is unique amongst European countries in the extent to which is has […]

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Population density in Afghanistan
December 12, 2009 1 min. read
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Where is the COIN strategy going to be centered? A helpful map of Afghanistan’s population density can be found here. Despite my repeated calls to do a better job sealing the border, I’m beginning to think we don’t have nearly enough troops to do even a halfway adequate job. We had a chance to win […]

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