Development

One popular way for developing nations to announce to the world that they have made it onto the global stage in the early 21st century is to host a major international sporting event: From China's Beijing Olympics in 2008, to Russia's upcoming Winter Games in 2014, South Africa's World Cup stewardship in 2010 and Brazil's double coup of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics; staging a spectacle of this magnitude is a clear signal to the world that you are now a country of note.  This was certainly the motivation for Poland and Ukraine's joint bid to host the Euro 2012 soccer championships this month.  But the event that was suppose to b

Their meeting made for some uncomfortable visuals as Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf defended a national law that criminalized homosexuality in front of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, long an advocate for gay rights, who was visiting Liberia in his capacity as the founder of the African Governance Initiative (AGI), a nonprofit dedicated to building the capacity of African governments.  But the terse exchange masked a deeper, more serious question: should Western leaders try to impose their mora

Earlier this week, the team from Zambia won the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament.  The Zambian side, known as the Chipolopolo, or Copper Bullets, were an underdog in the 16 team field.  Their victory over the heavily-favored Cote d'Ivoire side was a thrilling enough outcome, but that it happened in Libreville, Gabon, where a generation earlier Zambia's entire national team had been wiped out in an airplane crash proved to be nothing short of a national catharsis.

According to a report in Foreign Policy, sales of the Nano automobile in India have been disappointing.  Launched with great fanfare just two years ago and billed as the “world's cheapest car”, the Nano has been equal parts savvy marketing campaign and act of social responsibility on the part of its creator, Tata Motors.  A marked transition has been underway in Indian society as the population becomes more affluent and more urban.  Unfortunately, the infrastructure of most Indian cities has not been able to keep up;

With control of his nation reduced to a handful of loyalist redoubts, there is a palpable sense of joy in Western capitals - and an equal sense of relief at NATO headquarters in Brussels that the seemingly moribund alliance was actually able to achieve something - over the impending end of the Moammar Gadhafi era in Libya. Countries around the world have been quick to recognize the Libyan rebels' National Transitional Council (NTC) as the “legitimate” government of Libya. Countries around the world, that is, except for the continent of Africa, where leaders have been far less willing to embrace the rebels or to toss aside Gadhafi.

After listening to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his recent swing though the United States I can only assume that Bibi just doesn't realize it's 2011.  How else to explain his repeated comments, including his insulting dressing down of President Barack Obama at the White House, explaining why Israel cannot return to their 1967 borders because Israel would then lack the “strategic depth” to defend itself.  Strategic depth?  Why?

It was one of those simple, glad-handing moments that national leaders find their days filled with; last Friday Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin climbed into a prototype for Russia's first domestically-designed and built hybrid car along with billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who financed the construction of the “Yo-mobile,” for a drive from Putin's dacha (vacation home) to President Dmitry Medvedev's nearby compound.

Simon Griffiths graduated from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Engineering and a Bachelor of Commerce. His love of problem solving, innovation and markets led him to work as an electrical engineer for ExxonMobil, then as an investment banker for Morgan Stanley before realising neither of these jobs appealed to him.