President Obama’s announced plan for accelerated troop reductions in Afghanistan puts at risk the hard-earned battlefield gains made by the coalition forces over the last 10 months, but he rightly highlighted significant progress in training Afghan security forces: Afghan security forces have grown by over 100,000 troops, and in some provinces and municipalities we’ve already begun to transition responsibility for security to the Afghan people. In the face of violence and intimidation, Afghans are fighting and dying for their country, establishing local police forces…” Progress in preparing Afghan security forces …
He may have won a Nobel Peace Prize for spurring economic growth in the developing world, but on March 2 the government of Bangladesh ordered Muhammad Yunus to leave his post as managing director of the Grameen Bank, which is credited for starting the spread of microfinance across the globe. Yunus founded the Grameen Bank and built it from the ground up to become the powerhouse it is today. Using microfinance, it has lent money to countless numbers of poverty-stricken women across the country and helped reduce starvation and illiteracy, …
A featured op-ed in The Wall Street Journal last week documented the recent, surprising successes of Bangladesh. Henry Kissinger dubbed it a “basket-case” at its inception. It has little economic freedom, and many in the international community saw little hope for it, but it has made some large achievements in recent years. The economy is on an upward spiral, birth rates are down, and commendable progress has been made in tackling the influence of Islamist extremism in a Muslim majority country. The current government has helped with these upswings, but …
