Like many of you, this week for me has been a hectic week of post-holiday busyness and as I know that many of you are still digging out (both literally and figuratively) I thought I’d call your attention to two important speeches that deserve your attention when things settle down. The first speech (full text), […]
With the election of Andre Dawson to the Baseball Hall of Fame, I have been thinking about one way that I initially became interested in other cultures – through baseball. Let me explain: from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, Dawson played for the Montreal Expos, a major league baseball team that existed from 1969 through […]
All the usual caveats about uncertainty assumed, here are 7 climate and energy trends we’re already seeing, that will pick up speed in to 2010: 1. We’ll get better at making reasonable distinctions between solutions that are politically, versus scientifically, versus economically possible. The current debate over whether carbon emissions should be reduced to 450 […]
Today U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech on development at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The full speech is available here. The speech gives an overview of how development should work in coordination with defense and diplomacy and offered some specific insights into the ongoing Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review and […]
The above infographic, from Journalism.org, depicts the site’s 2009 weekly news summaries compiled from over 55 television, print, internet and radio news sources. The bigger the story, the bigger the block. See climate change anywhere? Or even general environmental issues? On both accounts, no. (Although depending on your science, the California fires come close). For […]
Last month Vivek Wadhwa had an interesting piece on U.S. brain drain in Yale Global Online. Wadhwa outlines the enormous contribution made by international graduate students, faculty and researchers (as measured by patent filings) in science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM) disciplines – and to the U.S. economy overall. In 2006, immigrants contributed to 72 […]
“Because that’s where the money is” – Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks ——————————————————– The New York Times ran a story this past Sunday noting that some U.S. universities that set up operations in Dubai are having trouble attracting enough students. Apparently, the economic downturn there has hit Michigan State and the Rochester […]
The Foreign Policy Association has asked the blog team to write a special post in which we review the year in light of the specific focus of our blog. I’ve reviewed my past blog posts and the Twitter posts to try to get a sense of the year, to see what made an impression on […]
COP15 is over and Christmas is over which means I can spend some time digesting news that I ignored in December. Here are some of the lighter bits: While the United States begins mobilizing the Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative (“Climate REDI”), the uptake of renewable energies in developing countries is inching forward. Kenya-based Nomadic […]
The New York Times is reporting that three Malians have been arrested and charged with being part of an operation that smuggles drugs across West and North African routes into Europe. The money then goes to groups associated with Al Qaida, so the charge goes, and also involves “the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or […]
The year 2009 in public diplomacy was a year for re-branding America in the world. The first African-American in the White House, who also happened to be the most eloquent U.S. President since John Kennedy, would have made for an auspicious year for the international image of the U.S. in any event. In fact, however, […]
As a follow up to James Ketterer’s 2009 Year in Review, here is my part, which focuses on U.S. engagement on climate issues. In 2009, it became clear that scientists are now observing, rather than simply forecasting, a global environmental crisis. New data on melting snow and ice formations, rising sea levels, deforestation, and atmospheric […]
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