July, 2008

The Cabinet Office of the UK government has What Product “Kills Up to Half of Those Who Use It As Intended”?

The U.S. Navy: Building Maritime Security One Fish at a Time

The refrain, “not your lane,” is an increasingly irrelevant commentary on U.S. Naval Forces, Europe and Africa - U.S. SIXTH Fleet (CNE-C6F) activities in West and Central Africa. On the surface: international fleets of African, European and Asian ships are stealing fish hand over fist and CNE-C6F is paying attention. But since when should a blue water navy care about pair trawling?

The logic is deceptively simple: the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy calls for Global Maritime Partnerships (GMP). CNE-C6F’s regional interpretation of that directive is to develop partnerships to build Maritime Safety and Security (MSS). The African states identify fish poaching as one of their MSS foci. So if CNE-C6F wants to be responsive to region-specific concerns, then one way or another fish are on the table.

Commentary | On the Edge in Somalia

Somalia is on the brink of a disastrous food shortage. This comes from Mark Bowden, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

Today the European Commission issued an extremely critical report on Bulgaria’s fight against corruption

Although the Economist changed the title of its article from “Arrest of a monster” to “

Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady Delta on May 2nd and 3rd, caused more than $4 billion worth of damage

Despi

A study (Hat Tip: Foreign Policy Passport) published by

As part of Time magazine’s extensive feature about the war in Afghanistan, Rory Stewart argues that “despite massive Western investment, Afghanistan is close to being a failed state.” Thousands more troops and billions more in foreign aid won’t solve Afghanistan’s problems. Ultimately, Afghans will have to rebuild Afghanistan.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a role for the international community. Stewart contends that the West has a part to play but that it “should invest in what it does well.” In Stewart’s view, this means supporting “more effective aid and a more limited military objective.” Investing in small-scale development projects in the relatively secure parts of the country and sustaining a counterterrorism (as opposed to a counterinsurgency) military strategy will give Afghanistan the greatest chances of success.

How to rebuild Afghanistan has been the operative question since the Taliban fell in 2001. Amidst a din of voices, Stewart offers a unique view on what constitutes useful aid. He addresses Afghans’ growing frustration about the slow pace of progress, noting that many obstacles impede development. Some of these difficulties are beyond aid agencies’ control—for example, all the problems that one might expect to find in a nation fractured by thirty years of continuous violence. But the aid agencies have created a mess of their own, resulting in millions of dollars of wasted funding. Lack of coordination between organizations is part of this. So is corruption. Far more vexing is a general lack of accountability—to donors, taxpayers, and the Afghan people, to name just a few interested parties.

More than half

Time magazine highlights the most recent findings regarding earthquake prediction—the subject of

It is hard to be optimistic about the cost of gasoline (currently around $145 per barrel), but some still manage to see the s

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) might have disproven the old adage “a watched pot never boils” (Hat Tip: MIT Fosters Design for Development

Today marks the first day of an intensive

Last week, Iran made waves by test-firing missiles that could easily reach Israel, as well as any other

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The U.S. educational system is at a critical juncture. We’re pouring more money into our schools than ever before—an average of $8,701 per student in 2005, according to the Census Bureau--and outspending all but one OECD country in education. Yet despite this investment, the performance of U.S. students is steadily falling behind that of students in other countries. By some standards, the quality of our public schools is approaching a nadir.

The U.S. has discovered that more money doesn’t necessarily buy better results. After the failure of No Child Left Behind to improve public education, citizens, teachers, and policy-makers agree that our educational system still needs substantial reform. But this has been a refrain for decades. The question remains, what kind of reform? And the tough follow-up is still, how do we implement the necessary changes?

When it comes to the quality of our educational system, the numbers almost speak for themselves. A university education is prohibitively expensive. The price of attending the most elite institutions in the U.S. is nearly $45,000 per year, sometimes more. At the same time, it’s becoming harder for many students to make it to any university, not just top-flight schools. According

Indian Prime Mini

India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan came under attack on Monday in a deadly suicide bombing, one of the most destructive attacks

Many

In spite of promises to allow the media greater freedom before the Olympic Games, China continues to restrict foreign journalists, according to The Danger Zone

The World Bank has issued a report entitled Double

In the last few years video game compa

U.S.

Scientists are researching what could become the newest form of HIV prevention: gene editing.  In the 1990s,

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