United States
United States
Fair Observer provides inclusive, insightful and non-partisan analysis of important American issues, events and trends.
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360° Analysis / Albus Cavus / Graffiti / Peter Krsko / Street Art / United States / urban art / urban improvement / Washington DC / Washington DC art scene / Arts & CultureBy Peter KrskoPeter Krsko, founder of Albus Cavus urban art collective from Washington DC, talks about the importance of art in developing local communities. The development of healthy communities in urban centers depends on active involvement of their members. One of the most effective ways to educate and encourage the young generation to be responsible and motivated citizens, is to provide them with creative resources that are relevant to positive civic life. Albus Cavus, a collective of artists, scientists and educators, has been practicing this community-focused creative approach for building healthy and robust urban neighborhoods. In the last decade, the group has established and maintained a...
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360° Analysis / Annika Schall / Boston bombing / Chechnya / Dagestan / Dzhokhar Tsarvaev / Politics / Ramzan Kadyrov / Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik / Tamerlan Tsarnaev / United States / Europe / Global SecurityBecause the Boston Bombers came from Chechnya, the country is now back on the public agenda. Uwe Halbach analyzes the situation in Chechnya and sheds light on the background of Islamist terror in the Northern Caucasus. With the Boston Bombings, public attention has returned to the subject that disappeared from the media over the last few years: Chechnya, the attackers’ country of a origin. At present, it appears that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were acting independently. There is evidence that suggests the older brother, Tamerlan — who seems to have initiated the attack — had travelled to the Northern Caucasus where he could have taken on radical Islamist views....
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360° Analysis / Barack Obama / Bashar Al-Assad / Diplomacy / Israel / Jeffrey Laurenti / Lakhdar Brahimi / Negotiations / Nobel Prize / Politics / Recep Tayyip Erdogan / Ryan Crocker / Syria / Syrian Civil War / Turkey / UN resolution / United States / Europe / Middle East / Global SecuritySyria is not Iraq. Outside Washington, the US seems strongly opposed to deep involvement in the Syrian conflict. Obama's caution is on the mark, argues Jeffrey Laurenti. As pressures mount in Washington for a more aggressive American involvement on behalf of at least some rebel groups in Syria, President Obama has seemed intent on proving the Nobel committee was farsighted in awarding him its peace prize four years ago. He sent Secretary of State John Kerry to Moscow this month with an initiative to re-engage diplomatically with Russia to end the war, through an international conference in June. It could not come soon enough. The Syrian government has, by all accounts, begun to win back...
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Andrew Haldane / Dodd Frank Act / Financial regulations / Glass Steagall Act / Irish Prime minister / John Bruton / prime minister / UK tax system / United States / Europe / Finance & Economics / Focus Article / Business & EntrepreneurshipBy John BrutonFormer Prime Minister John Bruton asks, why are modern business regulations so complex? I believe that, across the Western world, we may be reaching some sort of limit in the complexity of rules governing business. The response to the financial crisis has been ever more complex rules, that only a tiny number of professional advisors could ever hope to remember, or understand properly. In the United States, the Glass Steagall Act, introduced to regulate banking after the Depression of the 1930s, ran to 37 pages. In contrast, the Dodd Frank Act, introduced in the wake of the recent crisis, runs to 848 pages of basic text, plus 30,000 pages of implementing rules. In the United...
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Crowdfunding / Hollywood / Kickstarter / Knowledge@Wharton / Startups / United States / Veronica Mars / Veronica Mars Kickstarter Campaign / WB / Focus Article / Business & EntrepreneurshipThe success of the "Veronica Mars" Kickstarter campaign has illustrated that crowdfunding is a reliable source of capital for both start-up businesses and established firms. The campaign to front a movie based on the cult television show "Veronica Mars" through crowdfunding broke records for the fastest project ever to raise $1 million on Kickstarter. It was the website's biggest film project so far, and it has the most backers of any project to date. What it probably didn't do, Wharton experts say, is throw open the doors of crowdfunding to major motion pictures. But that's OK: Crowdfunding is successfully helping entrepreneurs raise capital without the need...
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Adobe / Cloud Computing / Computing / Creative Suite / Knowledge@Wharton / Online Cloud Services / Photoshop / United States / Focus Article / Business & EntrepreneurshipAdobe is favoring subscription-based software and online "cloud" services. If support for the company's cloud transition sticks, other vendors may quickly adapt. Adobe, the leading software company targeting creative professionals, is exiting the shrink-wrap software business in favor of subscription-based software and online "cloud" services. While perhaps painful at first, the business model change will be ultimately beneficial for consumers and Adobe alike, and other software companies are likely to follow, say experts at Wharton. On May 6, Adobe said it would stop developing its flagship Creative Suite, which includes applications such as Photoshop, in...
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Antony Evans / crowd-funding / Deeba Fahami / Fundraising / Glowing Plants Project / Kickstarter / Stanford / synthetic biology / United States / Vibrio Fischeri / Focus Article / Science & Technology / Environment & SustainabilityBy Deeba FahamiIn a world of austerity and shrinking research budgets, the crowd-funding method at the core of the Glowing Plant Project offers a radically different approach to scientific research funding. The first synthetic biology project that has launched on Kickstarter, the Glowing Plant Project, brings a whole new approach to scientific research. This project, which has raised over $365k in under four weeks, aims to create a real glowing plant using synthetic biology. The project is testing the new frontier of science in which science is conducted outside the walls of a big institution. About the Project Antony Evans, the project manager says: "The goal of the project is to educate the public...
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360° Analysis / Algerian War / Colonialism / Extremism / France / Informed Comment / Islam / Juan Cole / Muslims / Russia / Stalin / terrorism / Tsar / United States / World War 1 / World War 2 / Europe / Middle East / Africa / Global Security / AsiaBy Juan ColeTerrorism is a tactic of extremists within each religion, and within secular religions of Marxism or nationalism. No religion, including Islam, preaches indiscriminate violence against innocents, argues Juan Cole. Contrary to what is alleged by bigots like Bill Maher, Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions. Murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States. As for political violence, people of Christian heritage in the 20th Century polished off tens of millions of people in the two world wars and colonial repression. This massive carnage did not occur because European Christians are worse than or different from other human beings, but...
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360° Analysis / Boston Bombings / Chechen-Russian War / Chechens / Chechnya / Iliana Hagenah / international security / terrorism / Tsarnaev / United States / Europe / Global SecurityHistorically, radical jihadists in Chechnya do not have the ideological ambition to form a network of Chechens against the US, argues Iliana Hagenah. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher once called Chechen rebels "freedom fighters" but they are now seen by many as radical Islamists. Chechen Islamists have recently been making the headlines. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the two brothers who recently bombed the Boston Marathon, are suspected to be products of the radical Islamist movement that has gripped Chechnya and parts of the Chechen Diaspora. Chechen history offers clues about whether these radical jihadi Islamists are part of a broader anti-American network...