How Strong is U.S. Support for Georgia?
August 12, 2009 3 min. read

As you know, the U.S. has refused to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and has made statements officially supporting the territorial integrity of Georgia after last year’s war with Russia. The news that Russia will be building up a military presence there is sure to prompt an American reaction. According to this report in The […]

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12:08 East of Bucharest (2007)
August 12, 2009 2 min. read

Maybe you have to be Romanian to get this movie. A comedy, it focuses on two men who claim they were part of the revolution that brought down Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in December 1989. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/AZ7MfFB14xo” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] While being interviewed by a local TV personality, the pair face callers who claim […]

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More Than Just a Random Tragedy—Pennsylvania Shooting was a Gender Motivated Hate Crime and Congress Should Ensure Updates to Federal Hate Crime Legislation
August 12, 2009 6 min. read

The August 4 mass shooting of a women’s dance class in Collier, Pennsylvania, in which three women were killed and six others wounded, should be considered a bias motivated hate crime and should reinvigorate our work to end gender based violence. There is a tendency when hearing a story like this one—in which 48 year […]

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Priorities: 5 Million Dead vs. Clinton’s ‘Bad Day’ in Kinshasa
August 12, 2009 2 min. read

A few facts about the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Numerous individual conflicts  since 1996, involving up to 7 nations and 25 armed groups.  Estimates of between 3.5 and 7.8 million deaths since 1998.  Hundreds of thousands of refugees.  Over 200,000 UN reported rapes in the last decade.  Women in the […]

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Tomato enthusiasts beware
August 12, 2009 2 min. read

For you tomato lovers out there, good luck this season. According to Dan Barber’s op-ed piece in the New York Times, tomatoes have been scarce this year, especially in the Northeast United States, and we’ve already seen price increases of 20%. So what’s the problem? Late blight—the same plant disease that caused the Irish potato […]

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Embassies and "Talking to Our Enemies"
August 12, 2009 3 min. read
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The UACES: Exchanging ideas on Europe blog has an excellent post by Michael Siebert of the German Embassy in London (this came to my attention through John Brown’s blog on public diplomacy – a must read for anyone interested in PD).   John quotes this part of Siebert’s post:     “As a member of the Political Department of […]

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Rebalancing the World Economy
August 12, 2009 1 min. read

The Economist has been publishing a series of articles and videographics on how the world’s largest economies – including the United States, China, Germany and an analysis of Japan next week – must change to ensure future global growth. “A rebalanced global economy requires America to consume less and save more. That means the world’s […]

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No "Savior of Journalism" Here
August 11, 2009 3 min. read

There is little in this world that I find more confounding than when Rupert Murdoch is portrayed as the last great hope for journalism. First of all, no single person should be allowed to own as many media as he does. There are a plethora of rationale for a statement like this, not the least […]

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Debating the U.S. Role in Afghanistan
August 11, 2009 1 min. read

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy The video above from MSNBC notes the surge of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and gives a quick update on the state of the war there. The U.S. Army is encouraging debate on the war in Afghanistan and in this blog post they note […]

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There Oughta Be a Law
August 11, 2009 3 min. read

You will notice in this diagram from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) depicting the total electricity flow in the US for 2008 that “conversion losses” account for 63% of the energy generated.  Got that?!  Nearly two thirds of the energy used to make electricity, 51% of that from coal, 21% from nuclear, and 17% from […]

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Sham in Burma
August 11, 2009 2 min. read

Aye Chan Naing, Executive Director of the Democratic Voice of Burma, was in Brussels last April for the One World film festival where Danish film maker Anders Ostergaard had screened Burma VJ.  I spoke to Aye afterward and was struck by his resilience and determination in the face of an oppressive military junta. “We now […]

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Green tech leaders complain about lack of funding, but it is not just money
August 11, 2009 2 min. read

Green tech leaders meeting this week in Las Vegas at the National Clean Energy Summit conference sponsored by Democratic Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid used the opportunity to complain about the lack of government support. Despite recent announcements from the Obama Administration that some initiatives are moving, the money is not going out the door […]

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