A devastating earthquake leveled the Chinese town of Wenchuan, leaving in its wake over 60,000 dead and five million homeless throughout Sichuan Province. It will take years to heal the damage of this tragedy. Nevertheless, even as aid organizations and local government scramble to erect temporary housing and supply drinking water, it’s important to step… Continue reading Wenchuan as Eco-City
For decades the world was held hostage to a Cold War that pitted the capitalist West against the communist East. The United Nations, which was created in part to bridge that emerging divide, could not help but succumb to the Manichean politics of the Cold War era. The structure of the international body, designed to… Continue reading Turkey: Uniter or Divider?
In our special Memorial Day edition, World Beat is publishing an obituary for Diplomacy, which died prematurely last week after an extended illness. The last seven years or so were difficult ones for Diplomacy. According to press reports, the mainstay of foreign policy began complaining of chest pains and nausea in 2001. In the lead-up… Continue reading The Day Diplomacy Died
Few people still dismiss global warming. Some climate deniers still mouth off in Congress, like James Inhofe of Oklahoma who called global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” Novelist Michael Crichton, with his 2004 novel State of Fear and subsequent press briefings, has seemingly gotten mixed up about where non-fiction ends… Continue reading Climate Industrial Complex
When an infant touches a hot stove, it learns a lifelong lesson: don’t touch a hot stove. The infant might grow into a thoroughly irresponsible person, might acquire a nasty heroin habit or provoke a barroom brawl with Mike Tyson. But never again will he or she touch a hot stove. When it invaded Iraq… Continue reading Burned Again?
The National Library in Sarejevo still stands in ruins, 16 years after Serbian military forces shelled the building and destroyed over 90% of its priceless contents. The European Union and the Austrian government have helped rebuild the roof and the atrium. Last year Spain offered a little over $1 million to finish the reconstruction. But… Continue reading Books not Bombs
During the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo, the inhabitants of the Bosnian capital received thousands of cans of food from the international community. The shipments helped keep the city alive. So it is perhaps not surprising that Bosnian artist Nebojsa Seric Soba would construct a Monument to the International Community in the form of a… Continue reading Postcard from Sarajevo
In a Russian novella by Yuri Tynyanov, the tsar mistakenly hears an underling refer to a “Lieutenant Kije” and immediately assigns the imaginary officer to guard duty. The wheels of bureaucracy begin to turn, and the army must come up with new tasks for this non-existent Kije. Much hilarity ensues. Irfan Besirovic has suffered quite… Continue reading The Erased
The huge yellow banners on the façade of the building under renovation contain short statements that could be part of an advertising campaign or perhaps a conceptual art project. But the stories that are now appearing on this building (pictured) and bus shelters throughout downtown Ljubljana, the capital of the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia,… Continue reading Postcard from Ljubljana
Imagine a young, energetic leader taking over after a long and frustrating stretch of Paleozoic politics. The new leader immediately implements a new Iraq policy and signs the Kyoto protocol on global warming. The new leader promises a more nuanced relationship with China. And, in a startling departure from conventional wisdom on race relations, the… Continue reading Fair Dinkum Leadership