In a Washington Times Op-Ed, a Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting member Ted Lipien warned about a pro-Putin bias in the Voice of America Russian programs. Lipien reported that a highly respected independent journalist in Russia hired by the Broadcasting Board of Governors to evaluate the VOA Russian website concluded last year that it has […]

read more from this topic.....

It’s hard to follow American politics from ten thousand miles away (I live in the rural Philippines, and we get the news a day late), but as a Democrat, I was bemused to read in today’s papers that Rick Santorum just won in the Republican primaries of Minnesota and Missouri.
Santorum? I wasn’t aware he […]

read more from this topic.....

To watch the film “The Iron Lady” is like trying to learn about a person from a list.
Grocer’s daughter, check. Politician, check. Anti Thatcher demonstrations, check. Falklands war, check. Going to celebrate the fall of the Iron curtain, check.
For anyone not aware of the history of the 1970’s and 1980’s, the quick scenes depicting some […]

read more from this topic.....

World War I is getting some attention in the entertainment industry lately, with the high class hit “Downton Abbey” and now the Stephen Spielburg film “War Horse”.
The plot is simple: think of Lassie comes home (the 1943 version) of a beloved animal separated from his master and trying to survive. Except in this one it […]

read more from this topic.....

On New Year’s Eve, Jessica Munday watched helplessly as her close friends, Matt and Melanie Capobianco were forced to hand over their adopted little girl, Veronica, to her birth father. Now Munday and Stephanie Brinkley (a Charleston adoption attorney) are on a mission to “save Veronica.”

read more from this topic.....

Here in the Philippines, thanks to Wikileaks, we know that not only American money is behind our “Reproductive Health Bill”, but that the American State Department is pressuring our president to pass the bill.
Heaven knows that the Philippines does need access to cheaper Birth control, but it’s not as if it’s not available: they sell […]

read more from this topic.....

(London, UK) Autism Sunday celebrates 10 Years (2002 - 2012) on Sunday the 12th of February this year. Autism Sunday is the brainchild of British autism campaigners Ivan and Charika Corea - what started as a small acorn of an idea in their front room has turned into a massive global event, celebrated in many […]

read more from this topic.....

A commentary by BBG Watch
Cute High School Intern
Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) officials have gotten so used to running their small federal agency like their own private country club that they still frequently forget that at least some of their meetings can now be viewed online.
While the video from the last BBG meeting was streamed […]

read more from this topic.....

Though supporters of the Indian Child Welfare Act say it has safeguards to prevent misuse, Veronica and numerous other multi-racial children across the U.S have been hurt by it. Children who have never been near a reservation nor involved in tribal customs are affected. The Cherokee Nation alone is currently tied up in about 1,100 active Indian Child Welfare cases involving some 1,500 children.

read more from this topic.....

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) employees are both annoyed and amused by the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) Director Richard Lobo’s memo in which he justifies bonuses paid to BBG executives as being in line with awards received by executives employed by other federal agencies. As some employees point out, there is a problem with […]

read more from this topic.....

I hate air pollution.
When I travel in Manila, I have to use an asthma inhaler to stop an attack. Here in the provinces, I only have to use an inhaler in spring, when they burn off the weeds in the fields.
However, science reporting on “green” issues often is so inaccurate that a lot of […]

read more from this topic.....

It rained last night, and more coming. In some ways, this is good news, because it means we don’t have to pay so much to irrigate our “dry season” crop. But it is bad news for the south, which is still recovering from the devestating storm that killed over a thousand people..
Superficially, the storm makes […]

read more from this topic.....

iovation is the leader in device reputation technology. They work to prevent all types of fraud and abuse on the Internet, including account takeovers, which occurs when your existing bank or credit card accounts are infiltrated and money is siphoned out. iovation also helps prevent new account fraud, which refers to financial identity theft in […]

read more from this topic.....

BBGWatch.com - December 20, 2011 - Victor Ashe, a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), has called for keeping open the radio broadcasting facility on U.S. territory that is capable of transmitting shortwave radio programs to China. Some Obama Administration officials want to shut down the last remaining U.S.–based international broadcast station located […]

read more from this topic.....

The president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers Reggie Littlejohn, who is also a member of the Advisory Board for the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB), said that Christian Bale is a hero for trying to visit Chinese human rights advocate Chen Guangcheng who is kept under house arrest in China.
Women’s Rights Without Frontiers is […]

read more from this topic.....

History buffs who avoid the heavy handed history tomes might want to check out the best seller Killing Lincoln.
The book reads like a best seller (which it is) of the modern real crime stories. In other words, if you have a PhD in history, go elsewhere. If you like an easy read which will teach […]

read more from this topic.....

Yes, Ladies, there is another Stephanie Plum book out, and this one is better than most.
Stephanie comes back from a Hawaiian vacation with a suspicious mark on her ring finger. And she doesn’t want to talk about it. So who was it? And where is the ring?
In the meanwhile, the problem is that someone slipped […]

read more from this topic.....

BBG Watch has learned that a top Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) executive has racked up $108,000 in travel expenses so far this year. Sources tell us that the official has no real responsibilities but likes to show up to take credit for the work already done by other BBG employees. According to one source, […]

read more from this topic.....

The NYTimes has an article about problems with the Global fund to fight AIDS.
It seems that they checked the books and found some of the money was stolen or diverted, and as a result, a lot of European donors are not giving any more money until the problem is cleared up.
You want honesty at […]

read more from this topic.....

I do not usually republish articles, but this one really disturbed me - Simon
10,000 Tibetans converge in Tawu for funeral, Chinese Forces Seen Entering Monastery
 
Footage can be viewed here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6955112/Tawu%20Footage.mp4

High resolution footage can be downloaded here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6955112/Tawu%20Footage.dv
Dharamsala/New York - The most comprehensive footage of protests in Tibet this year, including shocking images of Palden Choetso, a […]

read more from this topic.....

I read a name from the past in today’s news: Medgar Evers.
The name takes me back to the days of when as a child we visited our aunt who lived in the deep south, and I was astonished that there “colored only” restaurants and water fountains.
Evers was one of the heroes who fought for the […]

read more from this topic.....

It takes a lot to shock Hollywood. But the news that Newt Gingrich has bumped Jon Corzine as supervillain Two-Face in the next Batman is making jaws drop in Dream City. Corzine was reportedly in like Flynn; his duplicitous doings at MF Global made him Two-Face to the max. Sure, Jon had heavy competition from […]

read more from this topic.....

I am bemused to see that there is a moderate earthquake in Oklahoma making the news.
Such things are not unknown, of course, but the “Green” oriented blogs are all blaming the earthquake on “fracking”.
This is a “hot” item, since the oil shales of North Dakota and Pennsylvania are potential “black gold” that will rewrite the […]

read more from this topic.....

This just in from Hollywood– Jon Corzine, who until about a week ago was Top Dog in the tanking Wall Street unreality series My Own Private MF Global has been cast as supervillain Two-Face in the next Batman opus. Buzz sez Bat producer Michael Uslan saw the Reuters piece The Two Faces of Jon Corzine […]

read more from this topic.....

The LATimes has a story that India has now produced a thirty five dollar tablet computer for it’s students, or sort of…
The plan is to distribute thousands of the computers in coming months to students at a government-subsidized rate of $35.
It has taken several years to develop, faced a lot of skepticism and received […]

read more from this topic.....

I see the “Occupy Wall Street” folks are still there.
But what is puzzling me: usually a movement starts with a few activists and then slowly grows, as more who believe the same things join.
So exactly how many are in these rallies?
We know who is in the rallies: From Fastcompany.com via the Democratic underground.
Among the […]

read more from this topic.....

A lot of Republican bloggers in the US are rolling their eyes up in mockery at the report that President Obama plans to send in US troops to fight the so called “Lord’s Resistance army” in Uganda.
A typical response is this, from the National Review Blog The Corner:
This is even crazier than getting involved in […]

read more from this topic.....

The name Richard Grund will be a familiar one to everybody that followed the Casey Anthony investigation and trial. Richard is the father of Casey Anthony’s ex-fiancée.
Wishing to cash in on the Casey Anthony story in October/2009 the National Enquirer ran one of there famous exposes. They postulated that Caylee Anthony had been the victim […]

read more from this topic.....

While CNN International is the “Michael Jackson trial” 24/7, and Google News’ major story is about someone called Amanda Knox, the story here in SE Asia is the floods from the typhoons.
Here in the Philippines, large areas remain flooded, partly due to the fact that the irrigation dams are still open to drain the run […]

read more from this topic.....

The New York Times had an interesting article about HIV and artificial birth control.
There seems to be a statistical increase in the risk of getting HIV with the shot:
The most popular contraceptive for women in eastern and southern Africa, a hormone shot given every three months, appears to double the risk the women […]

read more from this topic.....