The images are devastating, as are the numbers. The floods in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, by now reaching as far south as the Punjab, have affected more people than all major natural disasters in the past six years combined. But international donors have not rushed in, writes CIGI Distinguished Fellow Jorge Heine.

Urban warfare in downtown Kingston has led some to refer to Jamaica as the next narco-state (we already have one, Guinea-Bissau). Christopher (“Dudus”) Coke, the don whose requested extradition by the United States has triggered this furore, is being compared to Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug cartel boss. The unofficial figure of 60 dead in four days (including two policemen and one soldier), and the pictures of pitched gun-battles in the barricaded streets of Tivoli Gardens between the Jamaican Defence Force and reputed members of the Shower Posse led by Coke are not reassuring.

Instead of caving in to the so-called imperatives of globalisation, as so many other developing nations have done, Lula has led Brazil to assert its autonomy and independence.

The Jan. 12 earthquake that hit Haiti is the largest natural disaster in the Western Hemisphere. A little more than 100 days later, the death toll has exceeded 300,000 people. Damage is estimated at $11 billion U.S. Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have indicated that Canada will step up its efforts to support Haitian relief and reconstruction.