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On February 19th, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) program PM aired a segment on a new United Nations report examining the global food crisis. In the piece, ABC interviewed food policy experts about the causal factors of the recent food crisis, including population growth, urbanization, climate change, and the development of biofuels.  The experts are also asked […]

As food prices and the demand for alternative fuels increases, so do looming concerns about the effects climate change will have on the global food supply.  Food policy experts contributing to this Time online article warn that the continued emission of greenhouse gases, prominent contributors to global warming, could mean that many climates will be […]

At the Foreign Policy Association’s Rising Powers blog, we have highlighted news stories about China’s buying and lending spree across the globe, including in Russia and Latin America.  Today’s New York Times published an article detailing strategic deals China has made with natural resource companies worldwide, exploiting today’s low equity prices and dearth of capital […]

“Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.“ – Albert Einstein  Violence often stems from the launch of a new idea, a new way to move forward…from a resistance to change.  The opposition to such ideas is often met with violent conflict, sweeping up the minds and lives of young children as it continues […]

Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch  Moscow, Tanya Lokshina, says the prosecutor in the Anna Politkovskaya murder case lost a crucial piece of evidence. A video recording of the hitman pulling the trigger was “misplaced” a few days before the trial went to the Moscow District Military Court .  Two Chechens and a former police […]

The recession this year may not in fact be global.  Planet Earth could possibly squeak by with slightly positive growth in 2009.  This is thanks to growth, albeit slower, in the major Emerging Market economies, notably the BRICs, and in spite of contraction in the advanced industrialized world.  Certainly, forecasting growth this year will be as accurate […]

The use of rape in times of war dates back to war itself, however the scale at which rape is used and savagery of it appears to only be increasing. This year V-Day is brought special and much needed attention to atrocious levels of rape in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, […]

Since last summer’s arrest of Radovan Karadzic, General Ratko Mladic is the top remaining fugitive from the war in Bosnia. Mladic served as commander in chief of the army of the Serb Republic in Bosnia during the war, and the indictment against him handed down by ICTY accuses him of genocide, crimes against humanity, and […]

We noted the preliminary agreement between the Sudanese government and Darfuri rebels concluded yesterday in Doha, Qatar. A day after the preliminary agreement – which was, by its plain terms, merely an agreement to continue discussing whether to come to an agreement – hostilities have re-ignited. Agence-France reports that the Sudanese government has bombed positions […]

China’s rise has been export-driven, like Japan’s and Korea’s before it.  China took note during the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s that foreign exchange reserves are king.  By keeping its currency undervalued, China has encouraged exports (the latter helped as well by tax rebates) and amassed foreign exchange.  With the drivers of demand […]

UPDATE 4/10/09: The Peanut Corporation plant in Texas fined for conditions that contributed to the salmonella outbreak in the company’s peanuts. On the heels of the Peanut Corporation of America’s president Stewart Parnell’s refusal to testify before Congress, the company filed for bankruptcy.  The Washington Post takes a look at the “rise and fall” of the […]

As discussed in the Great Decisions 2009 article “Global Food Crisis,” many food policy analysts have argued against the current, prevalent strategy favored by developing countries for providing food aid.  Called “dumping” by its critics, this strategy includes requirements to use the developed countries’ surplus crops as the source of food aid.  An alternative strategy […]