In a World Press Freedom Day message yesterday May 3, President Biden warned that “the truth is under attack” and that “authoritarians” are trying to undermine the media globally. In a statement on the White House website, the president praised objective journalists around the world and urged them “to continue holding those in power to…
Myanmar, or Burma, on May 1st entered its fourth month under a brutal military regime. That regime has killed more than 700 citizens and innocent civilians since it seized power on February 1. That was the very day a newly elected democratically parliament in Myanmar was about to hold its initial meeting. The Association for…
At a two-day Washington virtual summit April 22-23, President Biden urged the 40 participating nations to counter the problem of increasing planetary pollution seriously and with the urgency that crisis demands. One approach: what philanthropist Bill Gates describes as huge new public and private investment in innovation globally to avoid catastrophic climate change. “Just using…
The epidemic in the world’s second most populous nation (with 1.3 billion residents) is difficult to fathom: According to VOA News on April 26, India posted 2,812 COVID-related deaths the previous day, the most in a procession of expanding daily fatalities since the middle of the month. The total India death toll is now at…
Vartan Gregorian, an internationally-known teacher and president of New York’s Carnegie Corporation, passed away unexpectedly on April 15 shortly after being hospitalized with a stomach pain. He was 87 years old. Dr. Gregorian was an honorary board member of the Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, and earlier served for nine…
Ancient ruins, a prime asset for Egypt’s soft power, just made new headlines. Egypt’s most famous archeologist, on the scene in Luxor on the Nile, told journalists from around the world on April 10 that his team has unearthed brick houses, artifacts, tools from a large city buried for three millennia. The archeologist, Zahi Hawass,…
From East Asia to North Africa, we are witnessing a determined effort on behalf of proposed democracies struggling to overcome authoritarian regimes. These occur in two key countries, Myanmar (previously known as Burma) in East Asia, and Algeria on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. Daily and unrelenting protests in Myanmar threaten a dictatorship that…
The limited flow of traffic through the Suez Canal in late March and likely in the first day or so of April has wreaked havoc on the global economy. That’s because a huge freight ship twisted sideways, lodged its bow and stern in both canal banks and blocked all vessels from using the vital link…
Who are the Rohingyas? Short answer: more than a million displaced refugees who fled from Burma to neighboring Bangladesh to escape persecution four years ago, and whose future remains very uncertain even today. The Rohingyas have long have been a matter of regional, as well as international concern. On March 25, Pakistan, Bangladesh’s western neighbor,…
Can the North African country of Libya offer hope for reforms elsewhere? On March 16, a new national unity civilian government took power in Tripoli. In the words of a recent Washington Post editorial: “After a decade of chaos, the oil rich nation has taken a significant step toward a new political order.” Libya’s recent…