Swanee Hunt, director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and chairwoman of The Initiative for Inclusive Security, published an op-ed piece in today's <i>Boston Globe</i> praising the progress Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, “Ma Ellen,” has made in Liberia in her first year as that country's president:
Despite 14 years of civil war, Johnson-Sirleaf demonstrated that she is capable of leading Liberia into new possibilities. Her government embraces minorities and opposition members. She has initiated sweeping anti corruption reforms as well as initiatives to resettle and reintegrate tens of thousands of refugees and ex-combatants. Sanctions on timber have been lifted. Her administration has begun training new security forces, restored electricity and water to parts of the capital, substantially increased primary school enrollment, and begun to rebuild roads. She has increased government revenues by more than 40 percent; and not only is foreign aid streaming in, there's even a growing trickle of foreign investment.
For more on Liberia, go here.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
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The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
