united states

The United States fear that the potential European trade deals with Sub-Saharan African nations (the Economic Partnership Agreements or EPAs currently under negotiations) might affect the benefits to its own companies, as reviews its own preferential trade initiative with the continent, Voice of America informs.

August 24, 2013

It often seems the more well-known a concept becomes, the less it is understood. Such was the case with Francis Fukuyama’s End of History theory, which proclaimed—quite accurately thus far— that the end of the Cold War was also the end of the Hegelian dialectic struggles between opposing universalistic worldviews. With communism and fascism discredited that world was left with only one remaining self-proclaimed universal ideology, that of liberal democracy.

The Obama Administration has embraced the concept of science diplomacy as a way to bridge cultural and economic gaps between the United States and the rest of the world. The director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, John P Holdren, regularly meets with his science policy counterparts from Brazil, China, India, Japan, Korea and Russia. The US State Department has sent a series of American scientists abroad as "Science Envoys" in hopes of using scientific relationships as an olive branch to the Muslim world

August 23, 2013

Nephi Craig graduated from culinary school in 2000 and began a promising career. In a few years, he was working his way up the stations at Mary Elaine’s, Arizona’s only five-star French restaurant, led by James Beard Award–winning chef Bradford Thompson. “I was getting a great French, classical training, but something was missing,” says Craig, who is 33. “The French tradition isn’t my tradition, and I wanted to cook in the tradition of my people: Apaches and Navajos.”

About a year ago, in Washington’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, an independent grocer called Bestway changed hands. The new owner is In Suk Pak, a South Korean by way of Pennsylvania. He renamed the store Bestworld, replacing the second word of the big-block letters out front. Then he rejiggered the store’s product mix to fit the neighborhood’s changing demographics, adding gourmet chips and high-end beers, and Asian items like wasabi peas and dried seaweed.

Globalization has been changing U.S. foreign policy since the beginning of the American Republic. From our first diplomatic post in Tangier, Morocco founded in 1777, to the more than 285 diplomatic facilities around the world today operated by the U.S. Department of State, the business of diplomacy has evolved over time. While it is obvious that thriving markets and global security go hand in hand, along with America’s central role in both arenas, often our diplomacy and institutions do not reflect this reality.

New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter uploaded this video showing the final minute of Current TV and the first five minutes of Al Jazeera America, which began broadcasting at 3 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday. It’s mostly a promotional video, which hits repeatedly on two main themes: a heavy subtext of Americanness (it refers to the United States as “home”) and the not-so-subtle implication that other American TV news networks lack seriousness.

Over the past few years, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings has collaborated with a wide variety of U.S. metro areas to develop localized export plans and explore the importance of increased global engagement. One of the questions frequently raised by local participants revolves around the role mayors and their associated local economic development offices can and should play in global trade and investment. Some assume this is an area private sector firms can best manage on their own.

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