In The News

There’s No Such Thing as Anonymous Data

Scott Berinato February 13, 2015
Analysis of huge datasets offers the potential for lifesaving health care, productive economies and workplaces, and smooth highway traffic. Yet consumers must assume that every electronic transaction could be compromised, suggests Scott Berinato for Harvard Business Review. Berinato reports on a paper published in Science by Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye showing how “anonymous credit card data can...

The Future of Force

Joseph S. Nye February 11, 2015
Security threats have evolved in recent decades, and governments must likewise prepare strategies beyond the use of force to monitor, control insurgent groups that are destabilizing so much of the Middle East and Africa. Joseph Nye of Harvard University who coined the phrase soft power points to a trend pf blurred boundaries between military troops and civilians: “Accelerating this shift is the...

US Government Faces Pressure After Biggest Leak in Banking History

Paul Lewis February 9, 2015
A huge leak of undeclared bank accounts will prompt regulators and justice officials to explain the investigation’s status and punishments. The data suggest that suggests the Swiss offices of HSBC helped clients – hedge fund managers, athletes, fashion models, entertainers and royalty, including the king of Jordan – hide more than $100 billion in assets. So far, 61 of 106,000 clients have been...

Global Rate-Cutting Frenzy Could Freeze US Economic Recovery

David Parkinson February 6, 2015
Central banks around the globe, including those in Canada and Australia, continue to reduce interest rates, pump more money into their economies and reduce the value of their currencies to strengthen exports. “Countries appear to be lowering rates at least in part to discourage investors from buying their currency, as they jockey for position with trading partners doing the same,” reports David...

Earth's Dashboard Is Flashing Red – Are Enough People Listening?

Dennis Dimick February 4, 2015
The year 2014 was the warmest on record, and evidence that human activity contributes to climate change is overwhelming. A Pew Research Center survey suggests only half of Americans accept evidence that carbon trapped in the atmosphere is putting the planet under stress, writes Dennis Dimick for National Geographic: “We are burning record levels of coal, oil, and natural gas to fuel modern...

Encyclopedias: The Truths du Jour

Immanuel Wallerstein January 20, 2015
Encyclopedias are plentiful, designed to assist contemporary scholars with research. Yet they're also historical documents, reflecting choices made for a period of time and a society’s understanding of the globe. In making room for new events, encyclopedia editors tend to shrink the past. “We can learn much about the evolution of the world’s institutions and modes of thinking by using...

US Congress Blocks World Bank Move to Slash Safeguards

January 16, 2015
The US Congress has inserted a provision in an appropriations act that requires greater “protection for the environment or for human rights than the bank’s current safeguards,” reports Environment News Service. The United States is the largest contributor for World Bank operations, and the measure formalizes criticism about the World Bank’s 2014 proposal on environmental and social safeguards: “...