Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting supports journalists covering dangerous areas and underreported issues on all continents except Antartica, as is shown by this handy Google map showing all 45 projects. Among the projects are Caucasus, focusing on the easternmost part of Europe where just today conflict broke out, Scars and Stripes: Liberian Youth After the War, The Soybean Wars, about the booming demand for soybeans in South America, Alaska, global warming and its effects on Alaskan glaciers, Understanding Iran looks at ordinary Iranians, and Iraq: Death of a Nation? (Revisited). Links to stories are generally in sidebars on the left and right. The Pulitzer Center also has a blog called Untold Stroies which is frequently updated and keeps tabs on all 45 projects as well as related events, such as the recent TED Talk by PRI CEO Alisa Miller on the paltry reporting of international issues in American media with arresting graphs and visuals, which serves to place the mission of the Pulitzer Center in context.
posted on Aug 8, 2008 - View this thread

Texas executes Mexican national who was denied consul visit.
posted on Aug 6, 2008 - View this thread

The Scholar Ship , an international floating university stewarded by top universities in Morocco, the United Kingdom, China, Australia, Mexico, USA, and Ghana, have temporarily suspended all voyages due to lack of funds - mainly caused by the withdrawal of main sponsor and initiator Royal Caribbean International. The program ran two voyages in 2007 and 2008 before shutdown. Alumni and prospective students on Facebook and Ning are busily sourcing options to revive the organization, while Semester at Sea is offering spaces to students who were accepted for the now-cancelled voyages.
posted on Jun 14, 2008 - View this thread

The Japanese master intercultural stereotyping. Is it racist when non-whites do blackface?
posted on May 25, 2008 - View this thread

The International Dance Party is a complete plug 'n' play party in a box (video). "The machine comes as a large, non-suspicious looking flightcase. Internally, it is equipped with cutting edge radar sensing technology, an ear blasting state of the art 600W sound system, tons of psychedelic light and laser effects, and even a professional grade fog machine." [via, via]
posted on Mar 25, 2008 - View this thread

The pound has hit its highest level against the dollar in 26 years.
posted on Oct 30, 2007 - View this thread

Albert A. Gore Jr. shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted." Still not running for president.
posted on Oct 12, 2007 - View this thread

The KaosPilots, deemed "the world's most adventurous alternative business school", teaches social entrepreneurship and leadership through real-life situations.
posted on Oct 7, 2007 - View this thread

The British Ministry of Defence has been thinking about the future , and 2037 looks like it'll be a doozy. Others have been thinking about it too, and they believe they'll be mainly hot, sweaty, dirty and confusing. Of course, if you're the Canadian military, you get a science fiction author to write your future for you.
posted on Apr 24, 2007 - View this thread

Wanna get nuked? the Active Denial System [just say no?] was launched yesterday - its a microwave ray gun that makes people feel like they're going to catch fire. Wasn't there a ray gun at a certain point in a book we trashed a while earlier?
posted on Jan 25, 2007 - View this thread

Get your international pop tune fix. Slate has an article on the funky pop and rock gems available from the Japanese iTunes Store. From Straightener to NICO Touches the Walls, the Japanglophonic music scene is available to the whole world in the standard 30-second snippets, but the article hints at ways to buy songs for those located in other places. If you just want a crack at the weekly free downloads, you can take a crack at workaround and score yourself an account on any one of the 22 iTunes Stores. (via Macslash)
posted on Jan 24, 2007 - View this thread

The 100 Most Powerful Women in the world has been an education in showing me the beauty inherent in strength, particularly when a woman has embraced her own sense of power. Look at these red lips, these kohl lined eyes, this frank face full of mischief. These are Queens, Presidents, Prime Ministers, Heads of State, powerful government officials, CEO's and more. Just reading their bios tells you so much about who they are and what they believe in. Would a similar collection of 100 men offer as much to ponder over and respect?
posted on Nov 23, 2006 - View this thread

Future Phone: Call a number in Iowa, give them the international number you want to call, talk for free - well, at American long-distance rates anyway. No headphones required.
posted on Oct 20, 2006 - View this thread

Webcasts from the Clinton Global Initiative conference (all wmv, archived of past 2 days and live tomorrow) --covering energy, healthcare, agriculture, poverty, religious and ethnic conflicts, etc. They're trying to turn "practical ideas into meaningful action". More here, including a cool waterpump/merry-go-round thing.
posted on Sep 21, 2006 - View this thread

Meet our new Special Envoy to Darfur, where genocide is taking place-- Andrew Natsios--he did a heckuva job at the Big Dig in Boston, and in misunderestimating the costs of Iraq, and --while head of USAid--at refusing funding AIDS drugs in Africa because many Africans 'don't know what Western time is.
posted on Sep 19, 2006 - View this thread

The Trade Surplus and the Olive Tree The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has seen its loan portfolio drop 73 per cent since 2003. Nobody seems to be defaulting on their loans lately, and there hasn't been a big bailout since 2001. The IMF's summit this week in Singapore will look at this issue and how to better the world balance of trade betweed the developing world and the industrial economies of the west. But is there really a place (warning: PDF) for the IMF in the trade agreements between China and the US?
posted on Sep 15, 2006 - View this thread

Start or stop Atlantica. [via CBC]
posted on Jun 11, 2006 - View this thread

rockpaperscissors is a nifty little place where you can scope out music from all over. The archive profiles all sorts of artists and provides free full-length samples to help you decide how to get your groove on.
posted on Apr 5, 2006 - View this thread

Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices From a New Generation of Women is a new online exhbit from the International Museum of Women "featuring personal stories, paintings, photographs, essays and poems by hundreds of young women from more than 100 countries around the world" answering the question, "What defines your generation of women?" [via]
posted on Mar 14, 2006 - View this thread

March 8 is International Women's Day. And I stumbled across some stunning graphic design, a collection of classic Russian posters, the history of the poster as a form of protest, this cool pin to wear tomorrow, and much much more. Take a moment to commemorate a special woman tomorrow.
posted on Mar 7, 2006 - View this thread

How important are cultural and religous values? Children might starve, free speech might get banned, and a fledgling democracy might fail. Is American Constitutional legalism a culture of it's own, or is it our only hope?
posted on Feb 2, 2006 - View this thread

"The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny." What's the article about? The NSA, and you, if you've ever called internationally or sent email overseas: ...the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, ... (very long, NYT--and the NSA's mission is to spy only on communications abroad)
posted on Dec 15, 2005 - View this thread

Today is "Talk Like a Pirate" Day. Yarr! Do yer part, landlubbers, by translating yer favorite webpage into pirate-speak. Yarr!
posted on Sep 19, 2005 - View this thread

What if there were an established international legal precedent for addressing the terrorism problem? Maybe there is. And maybe it involves a plank. Or an eyepatch. Or, like, a hook instead of a hand. [via aldaily]
posted on Aug 19, 2005 - View this thread

The life of an average Wang.
posted on Aug 11, 2005 - View this thread

U2 Can B A Rock Star Prez. The president of the World Bank is traditionally an American. But in a recent editorial the L.A. Times nominated third-world debt relief activitist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee and--oh yeah--U2 frontman for the soon-to-be-vacant position. With economic tutoring from "probably the most important economist in the world", the singer/activist (and self-confessed egomaniac) has spent the last 5 years lobbying the World Bank and IMF to help African nations break the decades' old cycle of debt by combining debt relief with improved trade and AIDS assistance. After a stint as celebrity spokesmodel for Jubilee2000, then founding a similar DATA Agenda funded by Bill Gates, he's developed cred as "a serious player on Third World debt". "It's about the right to begin again," Bono says. "The right to be free of your past..." President Bono: a chance to reform the World Bank from the inside, or celebrity poser? Readers' response... [BugMeNot for the reg-only sites]
posted on Mar 1, 2005 - View this thread

Onomatopoeia around the world. Wonder no more how a cow's moo sounds in Japan, or a car's engine revs in China.
posted on Dec 26, 2004 - View this thread

Micronations have existed for some time. Some were a frauds and shams. Some were seized or destroyed. Some for profit and others for promotion. Australia had a rash of them. Meanwhile others were lost dreams that others wish to resurrect. Some were created for artistic reasons. Some were meant as protests both playful and serious. Some dedicated to old ideas and others to new ones.
posted on Dec 23, 2004 - View this thread

Worse Than the World Bank? Export Credit Agencies--The Secret Engine of Globalization The amount of investment that export credit agencies (ECA) support worldwide is significantly greater than the total amount of lending from the World Bank, IMF and all other multilateral institutions combined. ECA's account for the single biggest component of developing country debt and half of all new greenhouse gas-emitting industrial projects in developing countries have some sort of ECA support. Investments in places like Guatemala, South Africa, Pakistan, Chile [PDF], have had unacceptable social, environmental and economic consequences. Administered or backed by a government, an ECA uses taxpayer money to make it cheaper and less risky for domestic corporations to export or invest overseas. ECAs privatize the profit and socialize the risk while negatively impacting indigenous cultures and enironments, all with little or no governmental oversight or public awareness of the matter. So what can we do about it? [PDF]
posted on Nov 26, 2004 - View this thread

And they're like, it's better than yours. The automotive arms race continues -- what's bigger than a Hummer or Ford F350? The Navistar CXT. Or is this all about hauling power for people who don't just want to buy a Kenworth?
posted on Oct 23, 2004 - View this thread

Just getting into the spirit of things ready for tomorrow. Again.
posted on Sep 18, 2004 - View this thread

Photoblogging becomes international There are photoblogs from China, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Israel. How about photoblogs by languages: Persian, Chinese, and Malay.
posted on Jun 9, 2004 - View this thread

US elections: the world-wide vote.
"In November 2004, U.S. citizens will elect their new President. The outcome of these elections directly influences the lives of citizens around the world. Theworldvotes.org seeks to apply new technologies to provide citizens around the world with a voice in matters that affects us all. Ensure that your voice is heard by registering electronically and add momentum to a worldwide drive to establish global democracy."
Noble sentiments, but isn't this an admission of submission to the empire? A surrender of sovereignty? A call for a new Caracalla's edict? Is this a good idea both for the US and the "rest of the world"?
posted on Jan 30, 2004 - View this thread

An attempt by developing countries to put management of the Internet under United Nations auspices is likely to be shelved at next month's world information summit in Geneva - but the issue is now firmly on the international agenda.
posted on Nov 10, 2003 - View this thread

PublicRadioFan.com An extensive customizable list of (almost) all public radio stations that offer streaming audio and what they have playing now and in the future.
posted on Oct 28, 2003 - View this thread

Postcard Man: Worldwide Vintage Postcards.
posted on Oct 6, 2003 - View this thread

Does India belong on the UN security council? A fascinating analysis of UN politics from a developing country's perspective.
posted on Sep 23, 2003 - View this thread

Bush OKs troops in Liberia even though President Charles Taylor remains. (Taylor's abdication of the presidency had been a US requirement before troops would be sent.) It's obviously a tough call for the White House to make, but are we in for a repeat of Somalia 1993?
posted on Jul 25, 2003 - View this thread

The Elliot Avedon Museum and Archive of Games. Board games from a thirteenth-century 'Book of Games', Inuit games, card games, row games, puzzles, ethnographical papers on games, etc.
A different kind of game at Streetplay - stickball, hopscotch, galleries, and street games worldwide.
posted on Jul 16, 2003 - View this thread

Who will heal the rift between France and America? Woody Allen will give it a go. Yet another Hollywood bigwig makes a stab at world affairs/international diplomacy.
posted on Jun 15, 2003 - View this thread

Bosnia. Here's a news story which has received precisely no attention over the last few days. We should all be joyful that international justice, still in its infancy, helped along by this man amongst others, has led Milosevic to trial.
posted on Apr 3, 2003 - View this thread

Despite American efforts, world criminal court is born With China, Russia, and the United States refusing to go along with this international court, just how effective can it become? And will the refusal of these major nations to join in add the what now appears the disintegration of global attempts at moderating international affairs?
posted on Mar 11, 2003 - View this thread

That other great bone of transatlantic contention, the International Criminal Court, was finally born today. Dead at birth, or a source of hope for victims??
posted on Mar 11, 2003 - View this thread

What's that flag? Flags of the World is an awesome website full of all sorts of vexillological info. If you don't know your canton from your burgee, are trying to ID a strange flag, or learn the difference between the Stars and Bars (not the battle flag) and the Star-Spangled Banner, this is the site for you.
posted on Jan 17, 2003 - View this thread

Global Beauties More info than you would ever care to know about international pageants like Miss World.
posted on Dec 7, 2002 - View this thread

Poetry International Web opens today. "Hundreds of poems by acclaimed modern poets from all around the world, both in the original language and in English translation."
posted on Nov 6, 2002 - View this thread

"A sad day for the United Nations." When it comes to international law, there's one law for the USA and one law for the rest of the world. Disgusting.
posted on Jul 12, 2002 - View this thread

Food summit 'waste of time' and a shame for many first world countries. Berlusconi and Spain’s prime minister Aznar were the only leaders of wealthy countries present during the summit. And Silvio Berlusconi made the summit end two hours early in order to watch his country's crucial World Cup game with México. I wish the War Against Hunger woukd receive the same attention than the War Against Terror…
posted on Jun 13, 2002 - View this thread

Are national governments about to take over the Internet? Has ICANN done such a terrible job that they should be permitted to?
posted on Jun 13, 2002 - View this thread

U.S. Declares Itself Above the Law. Powell says that a groundbreaking United Nations International Criminal Court would be harmful towards maintaining U.S. military action. But what does skipping out on such niceties as genocide and human rights abuses say to the rest of the world about accountability in Washington? Discuss.
posted on May 6, 2002 - View this thread