Shrimp farming, an industry that supplies the world with over 5 million metric tons of shrimp each year, is known throughout the environmental community as one of the world’s most destructive coastal industries. Aquaculture, the type of industry utilized by shrimp companies in areas like Southeast Asia, dramatically reduces biological diversity, degrades habitats, reduces genetic variability, [...]

When it comes to the topic of environmental degradation in Borneo, conservationists have become the new colonialists. From the conservationist standpoint, forests are seen as pristine sources of wilderness and wildlife, untouched by the human hand and unseen by the human eye. The goal of conservation in Borneo is to preserve important areas of biodiversity [...]

By Alex Shams The Arab Spring electrified progressives around the world in a revolutionary momentum unlike any we have witnessed in a generation. Images of square after Arab square filled to the brim with protesters calling for democratic reforms have helped provide those of us struggling to maintain our faith in “people power” with a [...]

Despite the passing of laws forbidding organ sales, socioeconomically vulnerable people in the global south continue to sell parts of their body to survive. In 1994, India’s Parliament passed the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA) to make organ sales illegal. Although superficially beneficial, the lived outcomes of this action were anything but advantageous. After [...]

Headlines in late August 2011 were quick to announce the results of a UN Report declaring a 20% decrease in the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Asia and Pacific Region. While the decrease is no doubt a wonderful feat, it is difficult to diagnose it as a direct result of international medical programs (rather than [...]

by Adam Pourahmadi WASHINGTON – Qatar’s independent foreign policy is proving to be a formidable response to the changing geopolitical dynamics of the Arab Spring’s Middle East. A new cadre of diplomatic cables released by the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks reveals the shrewd policies of Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. The ability of this small [...]

On January 28, 2011, the UK agreed to develop formal partnerships with China to accelerate the development of low-carbon technologies in both countries. In a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by UK climate change secretary Chris Huhne and Chinese Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, the governments outlined plans for a Low Carbon Cooperation (LCC) initiative designed to facilitate the [...]

On a tourist trip to Iran in the summer of 2010 I decided to visit the famous “Big Bazaar” in Southern Tehran. On my way, I found myself in a men’s compartment of the metro. In Iran, the last two compartments of each metro tram are women-only sections, and the rest of the compartments are [...]

After reading Lauren E. Bohn’s article “Tunisia’s Forgotten Revolutionaries,” in Foreign Policy tonight, several questions came to mind: How come the citizens of the country wish to vote for the party that simply facilitates the means to ends – if not the ends themselves, as a government should be partially responsible for – yet, almost [...]

While discussions of the budget deficit have been common in US politics for the last 20 years, the 2010 midterm elections and emergence of the Tea Party have drawn unprecedented attention to demands that the US government dramatically reducing spending and shrink the federal debt. Unusually, these calls for reducing government spending have reached the [...]