Philippines ‘witness’ recounts killings Al Jazeera. 26 November 2009. This video is the best I have yet seen on the Mindanao massacre. Al Jazeera has once again has trumped Western news organizations in investigative ability. The composure of Ismael Mangudadatu is astounding. To lose a wife and a sister and still have the fortitude to […]
Human Rights Watch sent this gem to my inbox today: Saudi Arabia: Witchcraft and Sorcery Cases on the Rise.Human Rights Watch. 25 November 2009. (Kuwait City) – The cassation court in Mecca should overturn the death sentence imposed on Ali Sabat by a lower court in Medina on November 9 for practicing witchcraft, Human Rights […]
East vs. West — the Myths that Mystify Devdutt Pattanik. TED. November 2009. I endorse this presentation with some hesistance. Pattanik’s presentation is convincing, even brilliant, but there are limitations to the argument he makes. It has been 30 years since the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism. The book’s publication brought about the collapse of […]
I know I used this line two weeks ago. I ask you to excuse me for recycling it. At the time of the original post I had thought that the CATO headline was the cleverest I was going to see – readings in international affairs are more dry than you would think – but it […]
I have added two new sites to the ‘Naturalist’ section of my blog roll, Yale Environment 360 and Wandering Gaia. Two articles posted at Yale Environment 360 prompted its addition to my feed reader. The first is an essay by Jonathan Foley titled “The Other Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis in Global Land Use”. The abstract […]
Prime Minister Mahoman Singh has called them “the single biggest security challenge ever faced by our country”. Fourteen Indian states are struggling to battle the insurgency waged by their 20,000 fighters. Over the last three years some 2,600 people have died by their hands. These are the Naxalites, the source of India’s scariest security challenge. […]
…Neal McCluskley of the CATO Institute. If China Jumped Off a Bridge, Would We Do It To?Neal McCluskley. CATO@Liberty. 2 November 2009. Of late CATO@Liberty has produced some content sure to be of interest to readers of the Stage. While ideologues to the core, the CATO folks have a special talent for brevity, humor, and […]
Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Acidification National Resource Defense Council. 17 September 2009. I have long held that the greatest challenge posed by industrial carbon emissions is not anthropogenic global warming but ocean acidification.* Geoengineering and adaptation schemes offer policy makers answers to the problem posed by climate change; these options do diddly squat […]
Earlier this month I wrote an in depth summary and analysis of the U.S.-Eastern European missile shield kerfuffle. Recent events require me to write a short update to that post. These recent events are adequately summarized in an excerpt from last week’s news: Poland to Accept New US Missile Defense ShieldAFP. 17 October 2009. WARSAW […]
A common theme here on the Stage is the need for pundits and analysts alike to have a better understanding of the internal structures, dynamics, and divisions of the Chinese Communist Party. As stated before, there are few human beings whose actions have so large an influence over the course of world affairs but receive […]