In the past year, revolutions have swept through Northern Africa and the Middle East in what has been dubbed the Arab Spring. How has this wave of reformative spirit affected the condition of countries around the Middle East, either in terms of internal or diplomatic change? What do you foresee as potential reconciliation for the instability and popular dissatisfaction that persists?
Read MoreThis past year has been one of the most tumultuous ones that I can recall. Social movements have sprung up all across the world from the Middle East to India to South America to Europe to, without a doubt, here at home in the United States. Some of the most entrenched systems are being resisted and, in some cases, even shaken. The energy and enthusiasm of these movements are palpable – who hasn’t had a conversation or a heated debate with a friend, relative, or stranger about one of the movements?
Read MoreSome of the snapshots from Chile’s ongoing student movement depict a lighthearted mobilization. Led by the charismatic Camila Vallejo, the students have used Twitter and Facebook to stage kiss-a-thons and superhero-themed costume protests. But other images have been more violent.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreAntarctica 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreConsider 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.
Read MoreIf 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).
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreRon Suskind, critically acclaimed author of narrative nonfiction, has been a leading voice in addressing and explaining critical issues impacting Americans on the national stage.
Read MoreAnyone 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.
Read MoreThis 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.
Read MoreDr. Wahhab or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love (Or At Least, Not Fear) the Islamists
Read MoreNow you see, in Kenya the most seemingly innocuous organizations, teams, or associations usually have a much darker underbelly than you would expect.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreAt 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).
Read MorePamoja FM's and Jah-Army's Day of Change
Read More“Meet the new boss - same as the old boss.”
Read MoreSyria's Suspension
Read MoreThe 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.
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