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U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner appears to have had a nice meeting with Chinese leaders today. Smoothing over any ruffled feathers of the recent past. Stressing cooperation. Setting it up nicely for a little Obama administration “good cop, bad cop” routine, starting with a meeting in late July, with Secretary of State Clinton playing the role of the baton-wielding heavy.

Cross-strait relations between the Chinese mainland and the Republic of Taiwan have made significant progress with an extension of goodwill to Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which strives for Taiwanese independence. Earlier this month, Kaohsiung municipality Mayor Chen Chu became the highest ranking DPP official to have set foot on the mainland. Not only is […]

A long-time China hand, Mandarin speaker, East Asia major at SAIS, son of an East Asia expert who opened the Ford Foundation’s office in Beijing, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in China to jumpstart the Obama administration’s “strategic and economic dialogue.”  This effort puts a stamp of change on Bush’s “strategic economic dialogue,” the so-called G-2, or regular meetings between […]

Iranian human rights activist and former journalist Emad Baghi has been awarded the 2009 Martin Ennals Laureate Award.  For a man who has been thrown in jail, threatened with death, and continues to struggle against the insurmountable odds in Tehran, Baghi is testament to a passion for justice and fundamental rights. A peacemaker, his controversial […]

Earlier this month Nicolas Kristof, a long time advocate on all forms of modern slavery, wrote a piece entitled, Girls on Our Streets, in which he sought not to bring attention to modern slavery itself, but to the plight of young girls right here in our own backyard.  American teenage girls continue to work the […]

Green Roofs – I have seen the future and it works.  (Well, in the case of the Soviet Union, it didn’t, but with green roofs, it definitely does and will.)  I’ve written before on this unbeatable approach to lowering the urban heat island effect, diminishing the troublesome problem of stormwater runoff, and providing a stunningly […]

A lot. India has come under increased fire by international human rights groups for its lack of action during Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tiger rebels (LTTE).  Some have even called India complicit in the killing of 20,000 Tamil civilians in Sri Lankan due to its provision of arms to the Sri Lankan government, […]

Last week Judge Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama to the Supreme Court. Politico is not alone in interpreting the move as part of the Obama administration’s “relentless courtship” of women and Latinos who were key in securing his election. Sonia Sotomayor’s appointment to the Supreme Court would be historic. She would be […]

“We worry about what a child will be tomorrow, yet we forget that the child is already someone today.” -Stacia Tauscher In a world that is increasingly fast paced we focus on today and we rarely look past the moment at hand, towards tomorrow and what will come following. However it is this inability to […]

A U.N. human rights team is scheduled to visit the Gaza Strip during the weekend to investigate Israeli conduct during the Gaza offensive in December. South African Judge Richard Gladstone, the former chief prosecutor with the international tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, leads a team of four to the Gaza Strip, entering through […]

This blog has also been posted in FPA’s Latin America Blog. Mexico in 2009 has become the recipient of at least half of the most famous biblical plagues starting in 2008. This past week brought yet another earthquake to Mexico, the second this month that received some media coverage outside the country. In addition to […]

The “NY Times” reports today on the massive cost overruns of a nuclear power plant at Olkiluoto in Finland and, in the end, the uncertainty of the date of its completion, testing and operation – if ever.  The article reports that the difficulties with this flagship in the new generation of nuclear plants is making […]