February 2012 archive

Working on College 2.0

Not long ago I wrote a blog post on the changes that President Obama wants to bring to universities.  Many of his changes revolved around student loans, and helping young people get the best out of their higher education experiences.  The president has been calling for education changes in rapid succession, and recently asked Congress …

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RIO+20: The future we want?

This coming June, the UN will have an important conference on Sustainable development, Rio+20. As my fellow intern Katherine has indicated in a recent post, the objective of the conference is to renew political commitment of UN’s member states to secure sustainable development, and it will focus on two key issues: promoting a green economy …

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Rape: A Weapon of Choice in War

Mathilde, a mother of six, lived a quiet life in her village in Rwanda. One day as she went to the field towards her crops, she saw two men approach her. She ran when she recognized that they were wearing the insignia of the FDLR, a militia group, on their clothing. As she fled, she …

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U.S. Domestic Violence Laws in America: How They Fail Women?

Domestic violence is a painful issue that women have faced for centuries in the United States and abroad.  As time goes by and our legal system becomes more progressive addressing complex issues such as cyber terrorism and modern day piracy I am amazed how domestic violence laws haven’t made much progress.  In fact it may …

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UN Resolution on Syria: What’s the Point?

I’ve written a lot about Syria these last several months, and if you’ve read any of my posts you know that I am not very optimistic about the situation.  Al-Assad has repeatedly promised the Arab League that he will end the violence in his country, and yet every day there is another story in the …

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Weblebrity Fundraising – Do Famous Faces Help Campaigns?

Weblebrities are the new thing. They’re created when online fundraising campaigns use celebrities to enhance their image and monetary intake.  Weblebrity: a celebrity on the web. You might have seen something like this before, notably in a campaign called NoH8, which was created in 2008 to fight Proposition 8 in California. For a while Facebook …

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Hitting Close to Home

Last fall, I was having lunch with family friends during a stay in Fort Worth, Texas.  Per usual, we were discussing, family, friends, and our projects at work.  Our one friend began discussing her work for an energy company that was beginning to drill for natural gas.  As she explained the drilling process and her …

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Lights Out

Green, green, green. It’s the new black. It’s everywhere we turn. From LEED certified buildings to electric vehicles, efforts to be more environmentally friendly and energy efficient seem to be sprouting up everywhere. “Going green” has become so popular that it’s now trendy. Celebrities cruise around in their hybrid vehicles, supermarket shoppers carry around their …

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Deadly Voyage Home

The Hardanis family, made up of Mohammad, his wife and two young girls were among the approximately 250 people on board a people-smuggling boat headed to Australia. The vessel carrying the migrants sank during the journey. Only 47 people survived.  One of his daughters was rescued by a fishing boat that was in close proximity.  …

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Violence Without a Source

The high level of violence that Central Americans live everyday can be attributed to a million different factors, including one of the major problems, which is the poor infrastructure of their governments.  However, it is not only the government intervention (or lack of) that has facilitated an extraordinary level of violence, but also the obscure …

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