Dear Esteemed Readers, Please accept my deepest apologies for the delayed and more infrequent postings in the last month or two. I assure you that the posting will soon becoming more frequent and I am working to ensure that there are no less than 3 posts a week, but hope to soon bring you 5-7 […]
The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China will meet this Tuesday in Yekaterinburg, Russia for the first official BRIC summit. The emerging markets are looking for greater global clout. During the gathering, the BRIC leaders are set to discuss the economic downturn, possible reforms for international financial institutions and long-term options for a new […]
Who’s afraid of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s fondness of “mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir—rice, beans and pork”? The Grand Old Party, apparently. I think that if there are questions about the influence of patitas de cerdo con garbanzo on her judicial philosophy during the confirmation hearings, it will be immensely entertaining for […]
Iran is ruled by a small group of clerics, desperate to stay in power. They have opened enough avenues of expression to channel social pressures. This give-and-take can become a game of chicken that the authoritarians in the end ultimately lose. […]
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was criticized by some members of the human rights community when she said that pressing China on human rights “can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.” Clinton made her comments in February before arriving in China to foster warmer ties […]
“Each of us must come to care about everyone else’s children. We must recognize that the welfare of our children is intimately linked to the welfare of all other people’s children. After all, when one of our children needs life-saving surgery, someone else’s child will perform it. If one of our children is harmed by […]
After China and the US, which together contribute 40% of the world’s burden of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, you come to Indonesia and Brazil. Why? In a word, deforestation. Japan, because of its industrial emissions, comes in 8th overall. So when there’s news on the intentions of these major economies on reducing their GHG, we should […]
Christopher Hitchens, on Slate.com, has written a piece on Guantanamo Bay and the current Presidential policies that has made me re-consider my understanding of tolerance (at least for a time). After much consideration, though, I have to say that this Hitchens article is not very compelling. He basically argues that the Guantanamo Bay Prison Camps […]
This post can also be seen in FPA’s Latin America Blog. BBC World and BBC Persian services have done a remarkable job in the last two weeks highlighting the Muslim world after President Obama’s speech in Cairo, elections in Lebanon and today’s election in Iran, as well as international links to changing events in the […]
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has an ambitious 100-day plan. Jason Overdorf and Sudip Mazumdar detail Singh’s bold domestic agenda in the current issue of Newsweek International. The “surprisingly decisive victory” for the Congress Party and Singh in last month’s election has raised expectations for India to realize its potential. While the leaders still face […]
I continue to be knocked out by all the innovation and hard-driving progress in building out a zero-carbon world. I was telling a young man today, a very smart carbon offset development consultant, that I truly never thought, 15 years ago, that I’d live to see the day when we would have the activity and […]
What is a criminal act and what is standard operating procedure? That is the question asked again and again in this excellent documentary about the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Director Errol Morris (“The Fog of War”) does a wonderful job of showing the gray area of what happened there. He […]
Popular from Press
