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Despite opposition from top military generals, Russia is moving ahead with an overhaul of the country’s armed forces. 35,000 officers will be fired in 2009 to streamline the military. The shrinking numbers are part of Russia’s wider military reforms and modernization. Moscow wants to trim the force below one million by 2012 (the Soviet Army […]

Teen loitering is nothing new in any corner of the globe, in fact its a mainstay that appears to transcend most ethnic divides.  For what does one do when you simply have no where to go, parents cramp your young adult style, you tend to have little money, and there really isn’t any place to […]

In this post to the progressive site Foreign Policy in Focus, John Feffer examines Obama’s first 100 days of foreign policy with a reference to Twitter (practically unavoidable these days) inspired brevity: The score for foreign policy isn’t so clear-cut. In TwitterWorld, the temptation is to evaluate change on the basis of headlines and rhetorical […]

There is an image that strikes me.  In September of 2007, a Japanese reporter is lying on the ground.  He has just been shot at close range and yet with the little life force still in him, he continues to film the brutality of a regime bent on destroying a movement for democracy.  His body is finally […]

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released a report today detailing the global arms trade. The United States, Russia, Germany, France and the United Kingdom are the five biggest suppliers of major conventional weapons. The US and Russia account for over half of all exports. Two rising powers – China and India – are the […]

Bound to tradition, some families, communities and leader’s around the globe, hold steadfast to the practice of child marriage.  One in seven girls in developing countries, with the exception of China, is married before their 15th birthday.  The practice of child marriages is more prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, however child marriage continues […]

Domestic & Global Economic impact of the Swine Flu pandemic, and links to helpful resources.

The Great Decisions Television Series is highlighting Egypt, one of the U.S.’s strongest allies in the Middle East. In the episode From Pharaohs to Facebook: Egypt Today, they talk to a wide variety of commentators about life in modern Egypt: Thirty years after the historic Camp David Peace Accords, Great Decisions traveled to Cairo for […]

  I found the coverage of this item by the New York Times (NYT) of real interest, and amazingly  reminiscent of a post I wrote several days ago about the emergence of America’s ‘New Oligarchs’ — the ‘Titans of Wall Street’.  Now, it appears, U.S. Treasury Secretary and former New York Federal Reserve Bank President, Timothy F. Geithner, […]

Just the fact that Al-Jazeera angers westerners as well as Arabs is one indication it’s on the right track. “Control Room” follows the Arab news organization during the second Iraq war with the United States. It has been called Osama bin Laden’s mouthpiece by some in the United States but has also been banned by […]

New York Mayor Bloomberg harnessed the green power of Earth Day to unveil a plan that would require NYC buildings – responsible for 80% of the city’s emissions – to undergo regular energy audits and retrofits, as needed, in order to become more energy efficient. The announcement was made just a couple weeks after Bloomberg […]

OPEC and large Asian oil consuming countries led by Japan, India and China met on Sunday for the third Asian Ministerial Energy Roundtable. The group’s goal is to To foster dialogue between Asia’s resource producers, primarily Middle East countries, and consumers, such as China and India, and to send a message to the world that […]