The recent failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (JSCDR) to reach an agreement on the reduction of the federal deficit may turn into a full-blown military budget crisis with enormous, unforeseen consequences for national security if the United States does not act soon.

Antarctica is home to more than emperor penguins and a few dozen humans with science citizenship barricaded in small hermetic bases. It is also host to an estimated 200 billion barrels of hydrocarbons, alongside large quantities of gold, silver, uranium, and many other rare metals underneath a pristine ice cap still virgin of commercial exploitation. Securing a territory with such a rich underground, in whole or in part, would bless any country with durable energy security and, thereby, increased political independence in the international arena.

The problem with the firmly partisan prism of the media through which most of American politics is dissected is that we lose the many nuances of our political realities. Complexities become distorted and disfigured as they are forcefully shoved into the binary classifications of party politics. Perhaps the most extreme example is the way foreign policy has almost disappeared in today’s political consciousness, not in the least because the Obama administration’s policies defy easy political branding. However, despite the media’s predisposition to ignore what happens outside of Wall Street and Main Street this election season, President Obama’s first term has been rather eventful on the foreign policy front.

Consider the flying toilet. The term comes from the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Within the slum, there is often less than one latrine per 50 shacks, with each 12-foot by 12-foot shack containing, on average, eight people. Kibera sits on government land that never fully transferred legally to its pre-independence residents, and, as such, the government treats residents as squatters with no right or entitlement to legal, social, or economic protection. A complete lack of governmental presence within the slum means that at night, with no street lights and collections of roving thugs (and, at times, predatory policemen looking for a shakedown), using toilets can become dangerous. In response, shacks stock up on plastic bags, defecate or urinate into them after dark, and fling them from their windows out into the streets to bake in the morning sun.

If indeed Occupy Wall Street has failed to become a force in the political mainstream, it is because mainstream politics, and not the movement, is failing to constitute any class or even sub-class (unless that sub-class is the very rich).

The last year has been a big one for American labor unions. From Wisconsin to Alabama to the NBA, policy makers are re-examining their stances on collective bargaining.

Anyone remember the FTAA? Probably not. The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) was supposed to be revolutionary. But today, the FTAA is dead in the water.

This is supposed to be the week in which President Obama’s bid for re-election takes a populist, progressive turn. By positioning himself as the candidate who believes in giving the common man “a fair shot,” it is clear that the President hopes to turn his yet-to-be-determined Republican opponent into a straw man for the big banks and the one percent.

Dr. Wahhab or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love (Or At Least, Not Fear) the Islamists

Now you see, in Kenya the most seemingly innocuous organizations, teams, or associations usually have a much darker underbelly than you would expect.

A growing sense of anxiety has begun to simmer in the eurozone as the year’s dramatic events put the single currency in an increasingly precarious position. Earlier this month, Silvio Berlusconi’s announcement that he would step down and allow technocrats to try to salvage the Italian economy seemed extraordinary. Now, however, pundits are looking fondly at the days when they could bite their nails over the collapse of individual countries as the euro itself appears to be in mortal danger.

At the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Honolulu, President Obama continued his march towards massive free trade expansion, and the most prominent headlines from the summit had to do with a the radical new proposal for a mega free trade area—the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP).

Pamoja FM's and Jah-Army's Day of Change

“Meet the new boss - same as the old boss.”

Syria's Suspension

The February 2008 election of Raúl Castro has brought some market-oriented reforms to the country, most notably a new law that will allow Cubans to buy and sell property for the first time since 1959.

The situation has grown so dire that it has forced Berlusconi, who has dominated Italian politics for decades and survived over 50 votes of confidence, to announce that he will resign after austerity measures are passed.

As the geopolitical chessboard of Asia evolves, it is becoming clear that Myanmar is an increasingly critical piece. Still Myanmar’s future is both crucial and uncertain.

It’s 4:30 am in Kibera, and a train had fallen off the tracks.

Since the beginning of its economic reforms in 1978, the People’s Republic of China has become our lender and our factory, our second-largest trading partner and our number one economic competitor.