In 2008, the  world's food system began to fall apart. However, threatened with hunger, rich countries have started buying up and leasing fertile tracts of the developing world. With 60% of all arable land in the world in Africa, this is where investors have firmly set their sights. In Mali, 75% of the population are farmers, but rich, land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are leasing Mali’s land in order to turn large areas into agribusiness farms.

Join in the celebration of this amazing school that has been serving young people in the East Bay for 4 decades. There will be food, music, entertainment and a silent auction. Tickets are $40 and available on line at www.streetacademy.org

The ongoing nuclear proliferation issues with Iran and North Korea have put nuclear arms high up on the American foreign policy agenda. These media grabbing developments can sometimes overshadow traditional nuclear arms reduction talks and stockpile maintenance. With that said, President Obama made reducing existing nuclear weapons a foreign policy priority during his first term. Now that Obama has begun his second term with the New START Treaty between the US and Russia signed and in force, should the US consider other nuclear arms control steps to enhance American security?

Emerging from a long and brutal civil war, Liberia has endured one of Africa’s bloodiest conflicts, claiming the lives of more than 200,000 people and displacing countless refugees. Liberia was established by the American Colonization Society as a new home for freed slaves from the United States. In addition to facing horrendous hardship, those returning slaves subjugated the indigenous people there, creating a chain of multigeneration trauma that caused ethnic friction, corruption and civil war.