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“The well-being of children requires political action at the highest level. We are determined to take that action.” , World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children, 1990 As I mentioned in my last blog with the exception of the US and Somalia the UN party countries have signed and ratified the convention […]

A stunning report came out in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS):  "The importance of the Montreal Protocol in protecting climate." The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987 by virtually every nation on the planet, including the U.S., sought curbs on the production of stratospheric ozone-destroying chemicals such as the chlorofluorocarbons that […]

“Human rights are inscribed in the hearts of people; they were there long before lawmakers drafted their first proclamation.” , Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights I know anyone reading this blog has an interest in the welfare of our children and I know most of you understand their fundamental rights.  However […]

I will touch on the economics of climate change a lot in the coming months, and also how businesses, large and small, are driving so much of the action.  For openers, I want to refer to a really terrific special section of the "NY Times" that came out on March 7:  Business of Green.  What […]

The US announced that it will hold Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT's) for 14 suspects transferred from "black sites' operated overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency. Among these detainees are Khalid Sheik Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a senior al-Qa'ida officer and member of the Hamburg cell implicated in […]

The US Defense Department revamped its initial charges against David M. Hicks, an Australian national, held at Guantanamo Bay for the past five years, in violation of the laws of war.  Mr. Hicks was initially charged with "conspiracy to commit war crimes; attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent and aiding the enemy."  The new charges […]

Something to Think About: Whose responsibility is a child?  The parents’ or guardians’, the state's, the international community's, the church's?  Who protects the child who lives alone on the streets or the child who is forced into slavery?  Who watches the child who lives each day staring death in the eye, as he fights a […]

In July 1995, in the United Nations mandated "safe area' of Srebrenica, Serbian forces summarily executed some 8,000 Bosnian men. The forces of the Army of Republika Srpska, led by General Ratko Mladic (still at large in Bosnia for war crimes), "stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their […]

The Khmer Rouge was an extremist Communist power that was the ruling party, under Pol Pot, in Cambodia from 1975-1979. The Khmer Rouge sought to establish a "New People" through isolation from outside influence. They tried to exploit communist ideals to create a classless society by way of an agrarian utopia through isolation, hard labor, […]

Hello Blog Readers! Welcome to the Children's Blog, my name is Cassandra Clifford.  I'm very excited to be one of the eight blogger/writers for the Foreign Policy Association's "Great Decisions" 2007 series.   I hold an MA in International Relations and have spent much of my career dealing with various topics in Central and Eastern Europe, mostly […]

I've got bad news and I've got good news.  The bad news is that we have managed over the past 250 years or so to begin to dangerously overheat our planet, primarily by the burning of fossil fuels:  coal, oil, and natural gas. What's worse is that we have accelerated this process as industrial civilization […]

Roughly beginning in 2003, the Janjaweed paramilitary force in Sudan began a systematic cleansing campaign against the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups in Darfur. Accusations of genocide have been widely circulated since the conflict began; many human rights groups cite some 400,000 deaths from the conflict, with millions displaced. In January, 2005, The International […]