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Perspectives, Print Perspectives, Americas
At Home and Abroad

The United States’ preeminent position as the leading democracy in the world is threatened today by a breakdown in our politics that can be traced back to the 2000 election and the policy failures that occurred in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. I have seen this erosion in America’s standing firsthand in my work abroad. For the last 17 years I have worked on campaigns outside of the United States as a political consultant. That work, regarding the way in which American consultants run high-level political campaigns abroad, has been the subject of a study group that I led this fall at the Harvard Institute of Politics.

By Thomas A. (Tad) Devine  |  April 10, 2012  |  13
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Features, Global, Print Features
After Apollo

Just over 200 years ago an American president initiated a program of exploration that sent two men to the Pacific Ocean. Fifty years ago, another  American president initiated a program of exploration that sent two men to the Sea of Tranquility. Fifty years after Lewis and Clark we had the California Gold Rush, and it was just another 16 years to the completion of the first transcontinental railroad with the Golden Spike. But fifty years after the beginning of the Apollo Program, the New Frontier of space has been trailing far behind the pace of the frontier of the American West. Why the striking contrast?

By Martin Elvis  |  April 2, 2012  |  8
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Features, Global, Print Features
Leadership By Default

The United States’ leadership in space is a natural result of its high standing among the world’s democracies and its vast wealth, which enables it to spend more than US$35 billion annually on civil and national security space activity, far surpassing all other nations. NASA’s manned space shuttle, representing tens of billions of dollars of investment, embodied US leadership in space. It was the foundation on which the International Space Station, the largest and most complex undertaking in space, was built.

By Warren Ferster  |  April 2, 2012  |  24
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Features, Print Features, Americas
Strengthening Space Security

Fifty years ago, the Space Age was not yet five years old but the broad outlines of US space interests were visible. The year 1962 saw the first US human orbital flight by John Glenn on a converted Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Telstar 1 demonstrated the first transatlantic television, telephone, and fax transmissions by an active satellite. The United Kingdom became the third country to operate a satellite with the US launch of Ariel 1. Later that year, both Telstar 1 and Ariel 1 were seriously damaged when the United States detonated a 1.4-megaton nuclear device 250 miles over the Pacific Ocean in what was titled the Starfish Prime test.

By Scott Pace  |  March 30, 2012  |  3
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Perspectives, Print Perspectives, Asia Pacific
Success Despite Injustice

The world often views Afghan women and girls as passive victims to be pitied, oppressed by religion, traditional Afghan culture, and the Taliban until the United States and their international allies liberated them after the invasion in 2001. This is incorrect on many counts. Afghan women were denied their basic rights under the Taliban, but for decades they, similar to other women across the world, fought for and received their right to become educated and to participate in society. Afghan women are survivors who have served as active agents in civil society and the economy for decades.

By Gayle Lemmon  |  March 30, 2012  |  1
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Features, Global, Print Features
Commercialization in Space

The concept of private enterprise exploiting space to build and grow thriving business ventures is nothing new. It has been around since 1965. That’s when the first commercial satellite, called Early Bird, went into regular revenue service with 240 telephone circuits.

Since then, the private sector has continued to expand its involvement in space activities beyond anything most people could have imagined 50 years ago, when President Kennedy exhorted the nation to land Americans on the moon and return them safely by the end of the 1960s. As celebrated as NASA’s Apollo missions were, climaxing in Neil Armstrong’s radio transmission, “That’s one small step for mankind…” from the moon’s surface in July 1969, it is easy to overlook the fact that private enterprise has designed, built and helped operate the spacecraft and infrastructure for every US civil and military space mission. And the same goes for every other space mission in the Free World.

By Anthony Velocci  |  March 30, 2012  |  39
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Cleaning Up Space

In an unheralded action in December 2007, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed a comprehensive set of space debris mitigation guidelines, which had been adopted just six months earlier by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). This landmark decision represented the culmination of a 10-year strategic plan by the United States that was as much unconventional as it was methodical. Today, all the world’s major space-faring nations and organizations recognize the need to control the creation of man-made debris in Earth orbit to protect the space environment for future generations.

By Nicholas Johnson  |  March 30, 2012  |  3
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Interviews, Web Interviews, Americas
Northern Juggernaut? A Look Inside the Canadian Economy with Don Drummond

Don Drummond is the Matthews Fellow on Global Public Policy at Queen’s University at Kingston. From 2000 to 2010, he was the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist for TD Bank Financial Group. In March 2011, he was appointed Chair of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services. 

When Canada is mentioned in the international business press, it is often mentioned in a positive light. We read about Canada’s sound banking system and relatively low public debt or we hear about its GDP and employment growth that has outstripped other G7 countries. But could you give us a more complete picture? What is going well in Canada’s economy and what is going not-so-well?

By Winston Gee  |  February 17, 2012  |  9
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Global Notebook, Europe
Saving Spain's Economy

After the Portuguese government requested a bailout from the European Union, many argued that Spain would be next in line. Although recent reforms led by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero provide reason to be optimistic about Spain’s economy, they have come at a high political cost. In fact, Zapatero has announced that he will not run for a third term as Prime Minister to keep his party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), in power; however, current polls indicate that the PSOE will lose the next election anyway. Despite this weak standing, Zapatero is determined to continue pushing forward controversial economic reforms. 

By Jonatan Lemus  |  January 12, 2012  |  70
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Global Notebook, Asia Pacific
No Revolution Here

In late February, dozens of helium-filled balloons drifted on southerly winds into North Korea. The seemingly innocuous incident drew a fierce response from Pyongyang, as North Korean officials threatened to target and kill those responsible for releasing the balloons.

By Kristine Lee  |  January 12, 2012  |  5
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