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The leaders of the BRIC countries Brazil, Russia, India, and China hold their first stand-alone summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on Tuesday, June 16, but the timing of this meeting is hardly coincidental, as discussed by Andrew Weiss for ForeignPolicy.com .
A more thorough understanding of how to make ART scale-up more cost-effective and efficient, while still providing quality care, is critical to program administrators, government officials, and funding agencies that are aiming to make ART access widespread and sustainable in sub-Saharan Africa.
Drug-related violence in Mexico has more than doubled over the past 18 months, with a sharp increase in crimes that can only be understood as atrocities. The executions, assassinations, and decapitations may all seem wanton and senseless. But this violence actually has a purpose, write Benjamin Bahney and Agnes Gereben Schaefer.
Establishing security is the sine qua non of stability operations, since it is a prerequisite for reconstruction and development. Security requires a mix of military and police forces to deal with a range of threats from insurgents to criminal organizations. This research examines the creation of a high-end police force, which the authors call a Stability Police Force.
In the rush of constant news updates on swine flu, we must recognize that controlling the spread of this disease is not simply a health concern but also one of national security. And in today's globalized world, the spread of swine flu has become not just a U.S. national security threat but every country's national security threat, writes Melinda Moore.
The recent French and American rescues of hostages held by pirates off the coast of Somalia were necessary and proper. No one believes these actions will end piracy. But unless we impose risks on the pirates—which means taking some risks ourselves—piracy will certainly flourish, writes Brian Michael Jenkins.
Organized crime increasingly is involved in the piracy of feature films, with syndicates active along the entire supply chain from manufacture to street sales. While crime syndicates have added piracy to their criminal portfolios, the profits from film piracy also have been used on occasion to support the activities of terrorist groups.
Lawlessness in Mexico is approaching terrorism and becoming a U.S. security issue along the border according to this commentary by Brian Michael Jenkins for Homeland Security Today.
While al Qaeda is the primary terrorist/extremist threat in East Africa, the region suffers more broadly from a danger of radical Islamist groups and organizations that the United States and its allies must address to reshape the region's security environment.
Lower high school graduation rates and higher rates of obesity are two of the reasons that many Hispanics are denied entry into the U.S. military. Although Hispanics do well once in the military, they are underrepresented in all branches of the nation's armed forces, primarily because they often fail to meet eligibility requirements.
The international community is at something of a loss as to how to respond to the increasingly audacious nature of piracy off the Horn of Africa.... What's needed is a less dramatic and more nuanced approach, one with a greater focus on the land-based violence in Somalia, home of the pirates, writes Peter Chalk.
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox and RAND Corporation Executive Vice President Michael Rich signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a joint research program that will study ways to fight poverty and aid vulnerable groups in Mexico and Latin America.
For some 15 years, Liberia was wracked by unprecedented levels of brutality, corruption, incompetence, intrigue, and foreign adventures that engulfed the entire region in intertwined conflicts. This Policy Insight, based on work the RAND Corporation conducted at the request of President Johnson-Sirleaf, offers an architecture and strategy to give Liberians the security sector and the peace they need and deserve.
RAND researchers found that the program's incentives to raise student test scores, which were used to measure educational quality, had a negligible impact.
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