July 16, 2010 at 9:44 am
The Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, an 842-square-mile submerged plateau off Massachusetts with a wealth of endangered whales and old shipwrecks, has finally got the attention of the federal government. A newly released management plan builds a scientific case for better protecting the sanctuary from humans. Biology Professor Les Kaufman, who had a hand in devising it, says in a BU Today interview that the compromise plan still doesn’t fully protect the area from overfishing and endangering the whale population but it’s a good start.
“Most important of all, it acknowledges that the existing management structure isn’t working, the sanctuary’s health isn’t what it should be, and that’s the goal, to restore its health. Those are landmark statements, as obvious as it sounds, because one of the options was to do nothing.”
Contact Les Kaufman, 617-353-5560, lesk@bu.edu
July 15, 2010 at 5:01 pm
With the Senate finally passing the complex financial regulatory reform law and sending it to President Obama for his signature, the work now turns to the hundreds of regulations and dozens of studies which must be completed to implement the most sweeping financial reform since the Great Depression. But while regulators work on all of that, says Political science Professor Graham Wilson, others will be watching how it all plays out politically for Obama and his embattled Democrats.
“Combined with health care and the stimulus, this gives Obama a notable legislative record. But unless he and the Democrats can do a better job of explaining to the American people what their plan is for economic recovery, this record won’t be noticed outside the Beltway.”
Contact Graham Wilson, 617-353-2540, gkwilson@bu.edu
July 15, 2010 at 1:15 pm
For the first time since the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which Seoul blames on the North, officials from North Korea met with the American-led United Nations Command which enforces the armistice that ended the Korean War. International relations Professor William Keylor, author of "A World of Nations: The International Order Since 1945," said the whole affair has a back-to-the-future flavor to it, with face-to-face metings in Panmunjon 60 years after the Korean armistice and U.S. gunboat diplomacy 112 years after the Spanish-American War.
“What an engaging exercise in nostalgia for a bygone era, and a welcome distraction from the economic problems we face -- unless the outcome is a new war on the Korean peninsula.”
Contact William Keylor, 617-358-0197, wrkeylor@bu.edu
July 14, 2010 at 4:54 pm
In hopes of slowing the growing scourge of killer bacteria, the Food and Drug Administration has released a policy document that says agricultural uses of antibiotics should be limited to assuring animal health. But the FDA again stopped short of banning antibiotics in feed given cattle, chickens and pigs -- as European regulators already have. School of Public Health associate Professor Wendy Heiger-Bernays, in a BU Today interview, says until a major food-related illness alerts Americans to the dangers of the industrialized food suply, it's a battle that agribusiness will continue to win.
"If the public wakes up and looks at where their food is coming from, I suspect there’ll be a significant push ... But I don’t think we’re going to see something significant until we have numbers of cases of illness in the human population traced back to factory farms."
Contact Wendy Heiger-Bernays, 617-638-4620, whb@bu.edu
July 13, 2010 at 11:57 am
With all eyes toward November's mid-term elections, a new Washington Post/ABC poll shows only 43 percent of Americans approving the job President Obama is doing on the economy, a new low for him. A new CBS poll has that number at 40 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. Political science Professor Graham Wilson, author of "Only in America? American Politics in Comparative Perspective," says studies show voters' memories are short so if the economy were to recover over the next few months there would still be hope for the Democrats in the fall.
“But the Democrats are very vulnerable because Obama, supposedly a great communicator, has failed to tell voters a story that they can understand of why the state of the economy isn’t his fault and why the steps he’s taken to address it make sense. So at this point, the Democrats’ future is out of their control."
Contact Graham Wilson, 617-353-2540, gkwilson@bu.edu
July 13, 2010 at 11:31 am
George Steinbrenner, long-time owner of the New York Yankees, died today in Tampa, FL at the age of 80 after
suffering a heart attack.
Boston University Professor of Sports Journalism Frank Shorr reacts to the passing of the baseball icon calling Steinbrenner a "lightning rod" who made the sport better:
"He was a lightning rod certainly, but always had the best interest of his team in mind. He never failed to make the Yankees better and, in turn, baseball better. Sure, he spent a lot of money, but he filled ballparks, albeit with teams you often loved to hate."
Contact: Frank Shorr, fshorr@bu.edu or 617-353-5163.
July 13, 2010 at 11:03 am
The lethal, coordinated bombing attacks in Uganda during the World Cup final have accelerated concerns among anti-terrorism authorities in the United States about the previously local Islamic group, the Shabab, that now is using the Al Qaeda playbook to spread terrorism across borders. International relations Professor Charles Stith, director of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center (APARC) and a former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania, says how Africa manages the challenge of overcoming the factional divide within Islam has profound long-term implications for peace, stability, and development on the African continent.
"For historical and contemporary reasons, Africa is fertile soil for fringe elements of Islam to take hold. The problem radical Islam poses for Africa is neither abstract nor isolated; there are clear and present dangers all across the continent."
Contact Charles Stith, 617-353-5452, crstith@bu.edu
July 12, 2010 at 4:36 pm
During the Crash of 2008, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said it lacked access to need information to evaluate the risk being taken by banks which later either collapsed or needed taxpayer bailouts to stay afloat. Now regulators at the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have given the FDIC specific, unlimited authority to examine banks. Law Professor Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law and a former counsel to the Fed Board of Governors, says the agreement is an improvement in interagency cooperation, but sound bank regulation ought not be something negotiated among sometimes competing federal agencies.
“Coming on the eve of financial reform legislation passing the Senate, it serves principally to highlight the opportunity that Congress and the administration missed by their failure to make part of the new reform law a rationalization of our chaotic bank regulatory apparatus."
Contact Cornelius Hurley, 617-353-5427, ckhurley@bu.edu
July 12, 2010 at 1:19 pm
As the Senate is poised this week to vote on the House-passed compromise bill reforming the financial regulatory system, Law Professor Tamar Frankel, an authority on securities law and author of "Trust and Honesty: America's Business Culture at a Crossroad," speculates about the future of derivatives trading once the reform act is enacted. More important than regulating the trading of derivatives, the instruments that helped bring down the financial system in 2008, Frankel feels that citizens should turn away from the "medicine men" (and women) who created the risky bets.
"Unless the geniuses who created the enormously risky ‘risk reducers’ and those who sold them take part of what they sell, and never again bet against what they have created and sold, we will continue to have the enlightened age of a sophisticated financial system -- unemployment, enormous national debt, and the death of the middle class that used to be America’s backbone."
Contact Tamar Frankely, 617-353-3773, tfrankel@bu.edu
July 12, 2010 at 6:00 am
Assistant Professor and Faculty Coordinator in the City Planning and Urban Affairs Program at Metropolitan College Enrique Silva offers insight into the rebuilding of Port-au-Princeto the Huffington Post:
"When we talk about rebuilding or restructuring Haiti, we are talking about much more than the massive collapse of buildings and infrastructure. We are also talking about political, social, and economic structures that could not mitigate the impact of the quake. From a purely technical perspective, the physical reconstruction of Haiti and its capital region might be the easiest, but no less daunting, task ahead. In terms of physical reconstruction and building, priority needs to be given to housing, road networks, and basic utilities like electricity and clean water. Without safe shelter and reliable infrastructure, Haitian households and businesses will have a difficult time becoming stable and productive. "
