I first spoke to Rick Steiner more than three months ago — about two weeks into the Deepwater Horizon disaster — after a source recommended I talk to him for I was writing about the spill as a teachable moment. Steiner is a marine conservationist and activist in Alaska who started studying oil spills when…
STORY HIGHLIGHTS In many African nations natural resources have led to economic instability Resource wealth can lead to corruption, cronyism and violence Conflicts in DR Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been funded by diamonds Botswana and Ghana have largely avoided the “resource Many African countries are blessed with oil and mineral wealth that has…
U.S. soldiers salute during a handover ceremony in Baghdad’s Green Zone on June 1. The last American combat brigade began leaving Iraq on Thursday as part of the plan to reduce U.S. troop presence As the U.S. war footing in Iraq officially ends, officials say the world’s largest embassy — the U.S. mission in Baghdad…
Saeed al Shehri. (AP photo)
Khodorkovsky, The Prisoner who Unsettles Putin French publication Marianne’s special correspondent in Moscow, Anne Dastakian, comments in detail on Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s second trial. For Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the prosecution suffers from “legal schizophrenia”. Many celebrities, including US President, Barack Obama, support the former head of Yukos. Deported to Siberia and deprived of his oil company, Khodorkovsky,…
Despite months of warnings, aid agencies have fallen badly short in raising funds to head off a hunger crisis imperiling more than 10 million people in some of Africa’s poorest countries on the southern edge of the Sahara. This week the World Food Program said that because of a massive funding shortfall, it will not…