Why is Japan so off-the-wall in insisting on waving the bloody shirt in front of the world public by slaughtering whales and dolphins in the most inhumane manner possible and then defending the bloodshed with bogus claims? Japan's outrageous actions in supporting the carnage are truly breath-taking. 

Both the number and growth of Chinese students at American universities is one of the more startling phenomena in higher education. A welcome one, too: study abroad would seem to promise a future where U.S.-China relations might be characterized by greater firsthand knowledge of American culture among the Chinese. By generating greater understanding, their experience in the U.S. should also expand their sense of common interests, brightening prospects for cooperation between the world’s main powers.

The absence of a federal ministry of education and the largely circumscribed role of the federal government in education in both the United States and Canada result in international education policy falling between the cracks of federal (foreign-international affairs) and state-provincial (higher education) responsibility. The two jurisdictions thus provide an interesting comparative context to examine factors shaping the federal role in international education and consequently its influence on higher education.

 The United States government’s decision to place Uzbekistan in the lowest category of its annual human trafficking report sends a message of solidarity to the well over a million Uzbeks forced to pick the country’s cotton crop, the Cotton Campaign, of which Human Rights Watch is a member, said today.

Sheikia Norris, known lyrically as “Purple Haze”,  was born and raised in the birthplace of Hip Hop itself—the Bronx, New York. Sheikia earned her Bachelor’s degree in Community Health Education from Johnson C. Smith University, and she has worked in health education and arts education for over eight years.  She was part of the Next Level, a crew of American hip-hop artists who performed at the American Center, Kolkata. She speaks to BE’s Abhijit Ganguly.

US President Barack Obama ordered American troops back onto Iraqi soil. Granted, it's only a few hundred this time, and they are ostensibly there just to protect the US embassy in Baghdad — a far cry from the thousands that flooded the country after the 2003 invasion.  Still, US troops in Iraq carry the baggage of that long, bloody war, a fact that is not lost on the average Iraqi.

In this podcast, Rockower and 2-Tone explain the value of hip hop as a form of cultural diplomacy, and give first person accounts of their experiences in India. This is a rare glimpse at some of the creative work the United States is doing overseas, complete with audio samples of 2-Tone’s work.