Anwar al-Awlaki knew that America targeted him as a leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. In early February The New York Times reported that President Obama authorized al-Awlaki’s targeted killing. If he missed that article, the Hellfire Missiles that hit his car on May 5, 2011 in an unsuccessful attempt to take him […]
Tag: Global Policy Studies and International Security
Ten years ago George W. Bush was sitting in a Florida classroom with a 51 percent approval rating. When the dust had cleared at the end of the day, three buildings had collapsed into rubble and 3,000 Americans were dead. American foreign policy would never be the same. America needed a leader, and Bush was it. […]
On December 15, 2010 the International Criminal Court (ICC) revealed the names of six Kenyan government officials involved in the 2007-2008 post-election violence in the country. The highly publicized announcement had been long-awaited by the Kenyan population. Citizens stopped their daily activities to tune into the announcement made by chief ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. […]
The world is full of endemic, intractable problems that we as a rich developed nation are asked to help solve: poverty, hunger, health problems, inequality, and more. Our efforts to address these problems through aid have had mixed results. Sometimes progress emerges, sometimes the same progress is reversed, and often it seems all our aid […]
We are approaching the 5-year anniversary of the creation of the Human Rights Council, a new human rights body within the U.N. intended to correct the shortcomings of its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights. This week, an open-ended working group will hold its first session in Geneva to review the work of the Human […]
A word of praise is in order for the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Two weeks ago they awarded the honor to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident currently serving an 11-year prison term for having the audacity to think that China should afford its citizenry basic human rights and freedoms. Some say this year’s recipient is […]
Twenty-one million people. Sixty-two thousand square miles of land. These figures have meant little to the international community, but for Pakistan it means unprecedented destruction which has rolled back its already limited development by years. To put these figures in perspective, the floods in Pakistan have affected an area larger than England and displaced a […]
The international sound and fury over the Pakistani floods has died down – and yet, flood victims still face a serious crisis. Most notably, the health crisis associated with the flooding has only recently begun to unfold, and yet the international aid and attention just is not there the way it was in the very […]