On Oct. 3, with the fall semester in full swing, the dining hall at Georgetown Law School was packed with students slumped over bookbags and laptops. Squeezed among their plates and papers were tabletop displays announcing that the day’s meal was part of an “Eat Local Challenge” that required the school’s chef to create a… Continue reading The Challenge Facing Local Food
The risk of war on the Korean peninsula remains high, and the U.S. government is raising it higher by opening an economic front. In September 2005, one day after regional negotiations produced an agreement with the potential to defuse North Korean-U.S. tensions, the U.S. government charged North Korea with counterfeiting $100 bills. Calling this alleged… Continue reading Sanctions and the Road to War on the Korean Peninsula
The movie Good Night, and Good Luck depicts how journalist Edward R. Murrow took down the most dangerous U.S. demagogue of his era with a simple, yet elegant, act of annotation. Murrow played excerpts on his CBS news show of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s speeches about the “Communist menace” and then refuted the charges. The lies… Continue reading Don’t Mourn, Annotate
Thousands of young people with long hair and studded tongues pay good money several dozen times a year to listen to lectures about genocide. Well, “lecture” is perhaps not the best way to describe Serj Tankian’s delivery. The tall lanky Tankian, who has cascades of curly hair and looks like the long-lost offspring of Frank… Continue reading Headbangers against Genocide
The headlines this week will be all Iraq, all the time. President Bush will unveil his not-so-secret plan of a military “surge” to rescue Iraq from all its other disastrous surges—in civilian deaths, pervasive violence, and unemployment. FPIF analyst Dan Smith, in Bush to Iraq: More War, argues instead that “Congress needs to act as… Continue reading Nuking Iran
Capitalism and democracy go together like … like what? Peanut butter and jelly? Or a fish and a bicycle? The leaders in Beijing are happy to eat their peanut butter sandwiches without jelly. Since launching economic reforms in the late 1970s, the Chinese government has promoted rapid economic growth but without much in the way… Continue reading Iron Fist Economics
“Covering the Mekong,” Foreign Policy In Focus, December 29, 2006 “All Talk,” World Beat, December 18, 2006 “China’s Multilateralism or U.S. Bilateralism,” Inter Press Service, December 14, 2006 “China and the Uses of Uncertainty,” Foreign Policy In Focus, December 13, 2006 “Political Football,” World Beat, December 11, 2006 “China: What’s the Big Mystery?” Foreign Policy In Focus, December 4,… Continue reading 2006 Archives
“U.S. Media Coverage of North Korea” Thursday, October 12, 2006 6:30 p.m. Sejong Society Johns Hopkins University SAIS Benjamin T. Rome Building 1619 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, DC “Breaking Into Political Journalism” Wednesday, July 5, 2006 6:45 p.m. – 8:45 p.m. SALSA 1112 16th St., NW Washington, DC Register here “Writing that Grabs” Full day seminar… Continue reading 2006 Events
Washington vs. Pyongyang: War or diplomacy? In this analysis of US policy, John Feffer shows how Bush’s combination of uncompromising negotiating positions, strong rhetoric and firm containment measures has served to accelerate North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme instead of ushering in the de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Unfortunately, Republican reverses in the recent US… Continue reading Washington vs. Pyongyang: War or Diplomacy?