Today I’d like to highlight a wonderful organization, HEAL Africa, which provides holistic care to people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As some of you may know, the DRC has been called the “worst humanitarian disaster since WWII” since about 5 million people have died since 1998. Despite the unstability of the country and…
Today, President Obama spoke to Africans in his speech to the Ghanaian Parliament. Before reading, I was kept in anticipation, exciting to hear the new vision of our President with regards to Africa. I was excited, especially, after the revelations in his Cairo speech – and I hoped that he would bring a fresh perspective…
Oftentimes, it seems to me that criminal justice reform falls to the wayside in light of many more seemingly pressing issues, even within the broader human rights community. People tend to look down on criminal justice reform, wondering why resources need to be spent on assisting those who are accused of crimes, when they would…
A few days ago, I had the privilege of attending a lecture at LSE by Professor Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion. He talked about the topics in his new book: Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places. I haven’t read it yet, but am itching to get my hands on a copy…
We need more – we need the truth. We need to look back at the Bush Administration and investigate what went wrong with America’s rule of law during our “war on terror”: torture, illegal wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and other human rights violations. Why did this happen? Who let it happen? And how can we ensure…
I’m currently reading The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria and he makes some extremely useful observations with regards to democracy and liberty. He says there is a clear division between ‘democracy’ and ‘constitutional liberalism’ – something we tend to lump together in the Western world, having lived in liberal democracies our whole lives. But…