When does bad practice cross the line and become corruption? Strictly speaking, corruption refers to the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It includes the obvious: Stealing public funds through accounting fraud or bribery to live a luxury life. But when the abuse isn’t “abuse” so much as it is “flexibility” or when private…
Almost 23 years ago, Brazilians invented a new word. The reason? A story of conversion of two apparently opposing concepts. Here is the story: In preparation for hosting the groundbreaking UN Summit on Environment and Development, best known as ‘Rio-92’, the tensions of approach that remained between the social justice sector and the wilderness…
The world is at a point and time in its evolution, when a shift – and a very rapid one at that – is inevitable. In fact it is already happening. To take a broad sweep – rapid environmental degradation, hazards, and disasters; increasing conflicts; weakening - or in countries like mine, failing States; and…
Dear Friends, We are grieved and outraged to see, in just a week’s time, two grand juries fail to indict police officers who killed unarmed black men: Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and Eric Garner in Staten Island, NY. In just the past few weeks alone, more black men and children have been killed or harmed…