New stresses have emerged in recent years that threaten global food security, writes Marion Guillou of INRA for ParisTech Review. The globe produces, on average, 800 more calories for each person than needed. Yet climate change contributes to price volatility which in turn destabilizes developing...
A few years ago, one could think that the problem of feeding the world was about to be resolved. Indeed, the situation has improved significantly over the last fifty years. The planet had three billion people in 1960 and six billion in 2000. At the...
After hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2008 Olympics, South Africa and China were left with expensive facilities with few alternative uses. Analysts are debating whether the same happens to Brazil when it hosts these same events in 2014 and 2016: Some say that the public-relations value of...
Click here for the article in the Guardian.
The discomfort over record floods, droughts and wildfires is merging views around the globe – with many hoping for decisive action from the more than 200 nations gathering for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban. This YaleGlobal series focuses on the challenges confronting...
WASHINGTON: Confronting an environmental future that promises more unstable climate, the nearly 200 nations convening in Durban for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have no easy answers. The world seems stuck in the 20th century, and...
Citizens in troubled economies like the US and Europe are increasingly lashing out against immigration. Such blame is misplaced. Fears about depressed wages, stretched benefit programs and brain drain are exaggerated, suggests this article in the Economist, and governments must do a better job of...
Click here for the article in The Economist.
Internet users, like patrons at a library or a grocery store, value privacy and cringe about how reporting even a few choices may influence advertisers, insurers or creditors to make incorrect assumptions about an individual’s health or career prospects. Internet companies, politicians and law-...
Click here for the article in Spiegel Online.
In China, a new agency will police that nation’s internet, punish abusers and oversee telecommunication firms that provide online access. “The mushrooming growth of China’s Internet business has spawned a sort of land rush for regulatory turf by government agencies that see in it a chance to gain...
Click here for the article in The New York Times.
Russian-Turkish relations hit a low point in November after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that had strayed into its territory from Syria. Both countries are experiencing deteriorating ties with the West, and presidents Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Erdogan, the latter who survived a failed...
Russia and Turkey moved toward restoring full trade and economic relations on Tuesday when Russian President Vladimir Putin met his visiting counterpart Tayyip Erdogan, at a time when both countries have strained ties with the West.
Putin said he...
Assassinations of popular leaders prompt many to speculate what might have been had they lived. Citizens mourn that a violent killer or a small group of extremists can dash the hopes and choice of many as was the case with US President John F. Kennedy. “America’s national politics is so poisoned by...
Click here for the article in Project Syndicate.
