All Commentaries
Away from Universal Access
In the sweeping fashion of global development commitments, 2010 marks the year by which countries and health agencies worldwide have pledged to scale up their HIV/AIDS interventions “towards universal access” to treatment. In the more sobering reality of shifting donor priorities, funding shortfalls in 2010 may actually represent the beginning of a move away from universal access in the global HIV/AIDS response.
Method to the Madness of Iraqi Insurgents’ Mindless Violence
You’d think that insurgents who strike out at both Shia and Sunni would alienate most Middle-Easterners, but they may know what they’re doing.
Israel’s Shrinking Minority Rights
Palestinian Arab citizens are a sizable minority in Israel who make up 20 percent of the country’s population. They experience institutionalized discrimination in their daily lives much like the African-American community before and during the U.S. civil rights movement. But consistent, trustworthy information about the problems and specific concerns of this community is in short supply.
India: Militarizing Space with U.S. Help
U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have a meeting scheduled in Delhi on November 8. Certain to be on the agenda is the removal of the last remaining export controls on U.S. dual-use technology and military hardware to India, including technology appropriate for development of space weapons. Since President Obama pledged in 2009 to seek a ban on space weapons, the United States should not be helping other countries develop these weapons. But with the final hurdles of export control removed, Washington could be doing just that for India.
Defy the Creditors and Get Away with It
The unexpected death a few days ago of Nestor Kirchner deprived not only Argentina of a remarkable, albeit controversial leader. It also took away an exemplary figure in the Global South when it came to dealing with international financial institutions.
Kirchner defied the creditors. More importantly, he got away with it.
Note to Al Qaeda in Iraq: How Does Attacking Your Own People Undermine Their Confidence in the Government?
Attempts by Iraqi insurgents to undermine confidence in the government only undermine confidence on the part of the public in their cause.
Brazil’s First Female President Expected to Carry on Lula’s Work — for Better or Worse
The new Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff may once have been a Marxist guerilla but her administration is no more a friend to the left than President Obama’s is.
Midterm Miscarriage
Even before the polls opened for voting in the U.S. midterm elections, the finger-pointing had already begun. The Obama agenda, instead of coming to term after four years, was suffering a miscarriage halfway through. The potential culprits were many and diverse.
Was Church Attack Blowback for Would-Be Koran Burner?
Were Rev. Terry Jones’s threats to burn the Koran enough to inspire the carnage that Islamic State of Iraq inflicted on the church in Baghdad?
Postcard from…Kampala
To drive in Uganda’s capital is close to impossible. It is a madness of deep and treacherous potholes, dust, winding streets, beggars that overflow to the roadways. So I leave my car at the hotel and hire a driver to take me to the Kasubi Tombs that burned to the ground earlier this year during riots and tribal violence.
Things do not go smoothly.