2009 Failed States Index - The Last Straw
Hopelessly overcrowded, crippled by poverty, teeming with Islamist militancy, careless with its nukes—it sometimes seems as if Pakistan can’t get any more terrifying. But forget about the Taliban: The country's troubles today pale compared with what it might face 25 years from now. When it comes to the stability of one of the world's most volatile regions, it's the fate of the Himalayan glaciers that should be keeping us awake at night.
A Transforming World: Year Ahead 2015
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Survey: IMF Proposes "Green Fund" for Climate Change Financing
Strauss-Kahn unveils his proposal for a “Green Fund” to assist countries in adapting to a low-carbon growth model and combat climate change (photo: World Economic Forum) World Economic Forum IMF Survey online January 30, 2010 Strauss-Kahn proposes “Green Fund” to help finance shift to low-carbon world Says IMF to release proposals in a few weeks Fund could be created partly through issuance of IMF’s special drawing rights (SDRs) The world must adopt a low-carbon model for growth as it rebuilds from the global economic crisis, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
FT Magazine - Seven days in south Asia
Sunday: Calcutta I am sipping Assam tea in the palatial official residence of M. K.
The limits of the new “Nile Agreement”
On Monday, March 23, 2015, leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan met in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to sign an agreement that is expected to resolve various issues arising out of the decision by Ethiopia to construct a dam on the Blue Nile. The Khartoum declaration, which was signed by the heads of state of the three countries—Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt), Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), and Halemariam Desalegn (Ethiopia), has been referred to as a “Nile Agreement,” and one that helps resolve conflicts over the sharing of the waters of the Nile River. However, this view is misleading because the agreement, as far we know, only deals with the Blue Nile’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project (GERDP) and does not tackle the broader, still contentious issues of sharing of the Nile River waters among all riparian states. Thus, the new agreement does leave the conflict over the equitable, fair, and reasonable allocation and utilization of the waters of the Nile River unresolved.
The billionaire Koch brothers’ war against Obama
On May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H. Koch was being celebrated for his generosity as a member of the board of trustees; he had recently donated $2.5 million toward the company’s upcoming season, and had given many millions before that.
Pakistan on the Brink - The New York Review of Books
To get to President Asif Ali Zardari’s presidential palace in the heart of Islamabad for dinner is like running an obstacle course. Pakistan’s once sleepy capital, full of restaurant-going bureaucrats and diplomats, is now littered with concrete barriers, blast walls, checkpoints, armed police, and soldiers; as a result of recent suicide bombings the city now resembles Baghdad or Kabul. At the first checkpoint, two miles from the palace, they have my name and my car’s license number. There are seven more checkpoints to negotiate along the way. Apart from traveling to the airport by helicopter to take trips abroad, the President stays inside the palace; he fears threats to his life by the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda, who in December 2007 killed his wife, the charismatic Benazir Bhutto, then perhaps the country’s only genuine national leader. Zardari’s isolation has only added to his growing unpopularity, his indecisiveness, and the public feeling that he is out of touch.
The Search for Water Wars: Looking beyond the State
Before you read this, turn your tap on. Turn it off quickly, you don’t want to waste it. Did clean water flow from it immediately, just like it did yesterday?
