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When she was only five years old, Song Kosal, was a little girl growing up in Cambodia. 300 grams of TNT exploded. A GYATA 64 anti-personnel mine produced by Hungary changed her life. She survived and in her mid twenties, her poster-size picture was carried down a run-way by girls and women from a Cambodian community in Norway at the South Norway Museum of Modern Arts at the Miss Landmine Cambodia finale-in-exile on November 14th. Song Kosal heard the news that her government had banned the Miss Landmine Contest only days before the event was supposed to take place.

The Fair Trade Certified™ skeptics sent me on a journey to ask some important questions and here are the results - by the way, if you're in SF on Thursday night, TransFair USA is hosting San Francisco's first ever Fair Trade Wine Night. Pick which neighborhood wine bar is closest to you. See http://www.fairtradewinenight.com/ for details.

These problems have very little to do with short-term or even medium-term budget arithmetic. The U.S. government is having no trouble borrowing to cover its current deficit. It's true that we're building up debt, on which we'll eventually have to pay interest. But if you actually do the math, instead of intoning big numbers in your best Dr. Evil voice, you discover that even very large deficits over the next few years will have remarkably little impact on U.S. fiscal sustainability. No, what makes America look unreliable isn't budget math, it's politics. And please, let's not have the usual declarations that both sides are at fault. Our problems are almost entirely one-sided - specifically, they're caused by the rise of an extremist right that is prepared to create repeated crises rather than give an inch on its demands.

About twenty years ago, Professor Nicholas Ashford of MIT came to Washington and testified before Congress in great detail about how and where safety regulations create jobs and make the economy more efficient in avoiding the costs of preventable injuries and disease.

A historian's account of the political memoirs of various soviet leaders on the "Afghanistan Trap" and their similarities to Obama's situation today.

It's a coming-of-age story, you see. It's about a representative who has come of age from the voting booths of a town to accept the responsibilities of performing rousing debates on the floors of Congress with the interest of a constituency in mind while adhering to house rules. Don't fear, I'm not describing a remake of the "Cider House Rules" replacing the doctor with a Congressional representative. No, I'm describing the latest shock-and-awe disorderly behavior by a representative of a member of the 111th Congress. Enter Joe Wilson, a Congressional representative from South Carolina. In the aftermath of inappropriate timing, will the enforcement of ethical standards be abdicated in the US while many see that taking precautions in keeping the public trust in Congress is still the responsibility of everyone sitting in that room?

Japan and Russia have never signed a peace treaty over World War II. The reason for this is that there is a dispute over four islands off Hokkaido that were occupied by Soviet forces that were once in Japanese hands. A 1956 Japanese-Soviet joint declaration signed in Moscow stated that Shikotan island and the Habomai islets would be returned to Japan after a peace treaty was concluded between Japan and the Soviet Union.

"We have a 200-plus-page text riddled with square brackets," Yvo de Boer said at the opening of the Bonn UN Framework Convention on Climate Change informal negotiating session happening now. "And it worries me to think how on earth we're going to whittle that down to meaningful language with just five weeks of negotiating time left." According to Marianne Bom, the head of the UN's Climate Secretariat was referring to 2,000 square brackets indicating unresolved issues.

Kazakhstan has a commitment to become more democratic. Are they living up to it?

flocking to Malta

ecotourism and new corridor in Kazakhstan

On September 28th and 29th, two Ecuadorian community leaders were assassinated. Both Miguel Lapo and Miguel Pinzon were connected to the Colombian violence through their direct assistance to Colombian refugees along the border between Ecuador and Colombia. Lapo was assassinated in Barranca Bermeja and Pinzon was assassinated in the town of San Martin. Both are border towns, both are in the province of Sucumbíos.

relations between Uzbekistan and India