Marie O'Reilly
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Uneasy Truce Between Gangs in El Salvador: Interview with Steven Vigil
Homicide rates plummeted by an estimated 40 percent in El Salvador in 2012—a dramatic turn of events for a country that in 2011 had the second-highest homicide rates in the world. The decline followed a historic truce between the two largest street gangs there, MS-13 and Barrio 18, which will see its first anniversary this … Continue reading
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“This modern humanitarian system is evolving towards something of a global welfare system,” said Jérémie Labbé, Senior Policy Analyst in charge of IPI’s Humanitarian Affairs program, in this interview. He said the system has “growing ambitions to be on all fronts: on the front of complex emergencies and conflicts; on the front of sudden onset … Continue reading
“’Big data’ is a term that has come into vogue only in the last couple of years, and it refers to the tremendous explosion in volume and velocity and variety of digital data that is being produced around the world,” said Robert Kirkpatrick, Director of UN Global Pulse. “The statistics are somewhat astonishing: there was … Continue reading
A 14-year old girl was shot in the head in Pakistan’s Swat Valley last week in retaliation for speaking out against the Taliban’s ban on girl’s education. It now seems Malala Yousafzai will survive, but the story of her attack provoked outrage around the world. How can such a despicable attack be condemned using the … Continue reading
When Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf tried to establish a community center with a mosque in it in lower Manhattan, he was attacked as a “militant Islamist” for trying to build a “ground zero mosque.” The Cordoba House project was intended to help heal the wounds of 9/11, promote interfaith understanding, and work against violent extremism, … Continue reading
As momentum builds in the lead up to the Spanish general election on November 20th, neither the governing Socialist Party nor the conservative Partido Popular (PP) appears to be softening its stance on talks with the Basque separatist group ETA, which is widely considered to be a terrorist organization. In its election manifesto launched last … Continue reading
Bertie Ahern was Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland from 1997-2008 and participated in negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Recently he was among a group of world leaders that called on the violent Basque separatist group ETA to permanently give up its armed struggle. On October 20th, ETA declared a “historic” … Continue reading
Nobel peace laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf came out ahead in provisional results from the first round of Liberia’s presidential election last week. While the incumbent president is unlikely to reach the fifty percent hurdle required for an outright win in the first round, her chances of winning the now-imminent runoff increased on Monday when third-place … Continue reading
After another spring break spent lugging 50-pound buckets of vegetables and using sharp shears to cut onions, Norma Flores López returned to school with her hands too swollen to hold her pencil. She fell behind in her schoolwork. It wasn’t the first time. From age 12, López, who is now 26, worked 12-hour days, seven … Continue reading
Before mass protests forced Hosni Mubarak to resign as president of Egypt last February, there was a broad consensus that societies with high proportions of young people would be prone to conflict and terrorism, not peaceful revolutions. Large, unemployed and disaffected masses of youth would contribute to the “coming anarchy” of the post-Cold War era … Continue reading
The heated debate over emission cuts and adaptation funding at the Copenhagen climate conference has so far centered on the tension between wealthy nations and developing states. With today’s announcement that the United States will join the European Union in contributing to a $100 billion annual fund to help developing nations fight climate change, the … Continue reading
Last June, the graphic footage of a young Iranian woman’s dying moments gave the outside world a shocking insight into the tumultuous situation in the city of Tehran. Neda Agha-Soltan was shot in the chest—apparently by a pro-government militia-man—while participating in a protest over the disputed presidential election result. The video shows the 26-year-old collapse … Continue reading
