As famine spreads in Somalia, it is more important than ever to ensure that food aid reaches the starving. It's unlikely that the US military, haunted by the memory of Black Hawk Down, will step in. And as long as supply chains are easily looted, hundreds of thousands of Somalis will continue to starve while al Qaeda-linked militants perpetuate conflict and instability in the country.

Ever since its founding in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has maintained an aggressive and bellicose international security posture. Today, fully two decades after the end of the Cold War, North Korea's external defense and security policies look arguably more extreme and anomalous than ever.

Environmental policies that banned the only viable form of protection against locusts have caused direct harm in Niger.

Kim Jong Il was nothing less than an economic catastrophe for North Korea. His political ascent, in fact, tracks almost precisely with that ill-fated nation's shift to economic stagnation and then its frightening free-fall into abject mass misery.

A dismal fiscal picture may force state officials to compromise performance-based educational reforms launched in the 1990s. A new Urban Institute study explores how school districts allocate education dollars in the face of changing fiscal conditions.

At this event, Jane Hannaway, director of the...

Very bad times seem in store for North Korea as food prices are higher than ever and the economy risks hyperinflation.

As the international community and the US discovered in the early 1990s, getting humanitarian aid to needy Somalis is not an apolitical undertaking. It may not even be possible without being drawn into conflict in the Horn of Africa once again.

Not all professors are radicals and not all students are timewasters.Many still seek knowledge, if not wisdom, but gap between the ideal and the reality has seemingly never been greater.