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The Sudanese government is set to begin its own Darfur trials, without Colonel Al-Bashir as a defendant. International fugitive Ali Kushayb, however, reportedly will be tried. Meanwhile, Colonel Al-Bashir is holding an international peace conference on Darfur without the participation of Darfuris. It is not clear what al-Bashir hopes the conference will accomplish.

There are approximately 700,000 to 800,000 Christians in Iraq, and in recent weeks, the violence against this religious community has intensified. Some reports say that "it is the work of Al Qaeda." However, a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official has said, "there are no indications that Al Qaeda is involved in forcing Christians to flee." […]

The final presidential debate is now history and it proved to be remarkably free of foreign policy questions. Initial commentary seems to suggest that the overwhelming winner of the debate was Joe The Plumber. I’d like to repeat my practice of parsing the debate transcript, devoting comment sections for the candidates responses to the foreign […]

“Welcome to Sierra Leone, one of the world's worst places to live.” Not really the slogan you want to read on a travel brochure, but what happens when you have no choice and that place is your home? According to the 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI), which was released on the 14th, showed Sierra Leone, […]

October 15th is the first annual UN Global Handwashing Day, set in conjunction with 2008 being the UN International Year of Sanitation, the day is set to both echo and reinforce the UN's call for improved hygiene practices across the globe. The goal of the week of activities is to encourage people, especially children, to […]

Electric Cars – There’s more good coverage on the promising trend to ZEV surface transportation.  See Any colour as long as it is green* from the “FT” yesterday.  Mitsubishi is getting out in front of GM and Renault-Nissan on electric cars.  The car is small but it’s got range and it’s ten times cheaper to […]

It comes as no surprise that the United States is leaving Grosvenor Square, the historic park in the heart of London that was home to the U.S. embassy since 1938. This is part of a regrettable trend, in which the State Department builds drab, fortress embassies on the outskirts of foreign capitals, leaving American diplomats […]

The final Presidential Debate between Barack Obama and John McCain will air live tonight, Wednesday, October 15th at 9 pm ET, 6 pm PT, on every major broadcast network and cable news network. Hofstra University is the host for this debate, and Bob Schieffer of CBS News is the moderator. This is the official website […]

As time quickly passes by and our daily lives seem to be one endless “To Do List”, the worlds “To Do List”, the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) still has a lot of things to be checked off. Now that we are more than half way to “D-Day” what begun to weigh heavy on most […]

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, the UK's upper house of Parliament dismissed two key provisions from the government's new Counter-Terrorism Bill. WHY? Political EXPEDIENCY. Ministers base their opposition to the legislation on both human rights and constitutional grounds, but politics is surely the overarching principle of the day; a very dangerous game indeed. […]

In autumn, most children return to school. For those unfortunate to live in the countryside of Uzbekistan, most have debarked on an annual two-month field trip.  To pick cotton. Some as young as seven are forced to work the fields, toiling in the heat and in the pesticide ridden crops.  There is little to no […]

As you may already know (or have seen it), Bill Maher – with director Larry Charles (from ‘Borat’) – has made the new movie Religulous. It came out on October 3. In an interview, Maher described his approach to the movie as confronting people of faith. He said, “In America, every politician gets on the […]