James5

Kevin Heller has an extremely interesting post on his first meeting with Radovan Karadzic in the UN Detention Unit in the Hague. It’s a fascinating insight into the world of international criminal law.

Popularity: 4% [?]

The Mothers of the Srebrenica are suing the United Nations for reparations for the failure of the UN to stop the genocide that killed more than 7,000 of their relatives. This will be a very interesting case to watch as it examines the limits of the responsibilities of international institutions.

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The two videos below are quite excellent in their execution.

Haunting version:

More prosaic version – that was made first:

For some reason it reminds me of that excellent movie, Children of Men – something about the world falling apart. It’s also interesting how awkward it feels just watching the presenters not saying anything for 2 minutes – tells me something about my social mores.

If you’re wondering how they did it…They split the screen into two and stitched together all the instances each presenter wasn’t talking. It’s more obvious in the second clip. Very clever.

Popularity: 9% [?]

This speech by Clay Shirky is probably one of the most important things I’ve read for a while. In it he answers that question I get asked all to often – “Where do you find the time?”. He estimates that the time Americans watch TV every year is equivalent to 2,000 Wikipedias! In fact, the time watching advertisements is 1 Wikipedia every weekend. Crazy stuff.

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Three must read Blattman posts and comments for anyone considering a “one month stint in Africa”. First, so you want to go to a post war zone, then development tourism, and finally development tourism, revisited.

Popularity: 7% [?]