Blogs

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” How have the Isle of Man and other small states responded to those recent COVID-19 related weeks? The Isle of Man is an island of around 85,000 people and 227 square miles, located in the Irish Sea roughly midway between England, Scotland and Ireland. It is […]

As a frequent traveller to China, having been to several cities there in November and to Hong Kong in January, I nervously tracked news of the outbreak of a new viral disease in Wuhan as it emerged. With the number of cases of infection growing in the UK, I was surprised by the complacency of […]

Immigrants have been vital to this nation’s success pre-COVID, and they will be key participants in ensuring the U.S. economy grows when the pandemic is over. Foreign born workers were instrumental in powering the consistent economic growth the U.S. saw from 2010 to early 2020. To see that growth again, it will take native-born Americans […]

William ‘Bill’ Nichols served as a volunteer consultant through the United States Agency for International Development’s Farmer-to-Farmer Program (USAID F2F) for two weeks in January 2020. From New Mexico, his collaboration as an F2F volunteer improved the tree nursery production of four cooperatives in southern Morocco. One immediate benefit of his visits with Moroccan farmers […]

America First is clearly a failed policy – for the United States and the world at large. This Trumpian isolationist doctrine appeals to a small base of nativist Americans who subscribe to hard-core isolationist views. As America pulls back from the very international institutions it helped establish in the post-World War II era, the guardrails […]

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected that a best-case scenario sees global GDP growth falling to negative 3 percent in 2020 (IMF). Their worst-case scenario, in which the pandemic’s spread does not diminish in the second half of 2020, subtracts an additional 3 percent from GDP growth (IMF). Before the coronavirus pandemic began circulating […]

Research led by a U.S. trafficking group stated that arresting survivors of human trafficking for their testimony in criminal prosecutions creates more trauma (REUTERS). According to The Human Trafficking Legal Center (HTLC), witnesses who do not want to testify can be detained (REUTERS). Victims who are detained risk losing custody of their children, jobs and […]

New research shows that China’s Mekong River dams held back large amounts of water during a damaging drought in Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam (NY Times). The findings by Eyes on Earth Inc, a research and consulting company specializing in, were published in a US-government funded study (Bangkok Post). The drought, which saw the […]

Brazil’s Environment Minister Ricardo Salles has fired the country’s top environmental enforcement officer after a news program broadcast a dramatic raid on illegal mining in the Amazon (Reuters 1). The move appears to be the latest attempt by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro to undermine the federal environment agency Ibama, which fights against deforestation […]

India has extended the world’s biggest coronavirus lockdown until May 3rd, 2020 (AP). India went into lockdown on March 25th, 2020, closing schools, offices, factories, parks, temples, railways, and airspace (NYT). The lockdown was originally set to be lifted on April 14th, 2020 but will now last for a few more weeks. At the end […]