“Leopold’s Café? No way!” My first reaction was of utter horror. I was at Leopold’s Café, one of the stages of the attack on Mumbai, last Christmas. Housed in a colonial building, Leopold’s opens to the sidewalk through two wide rectangular arches with no doors. I remember sitting on the table next to the arches sipping beer from a three foot tall glass tumbler. If anyone decided to start firing indiscriminately through the arches into the café, there would be absolutely no escape.

But who would attack Leopold’s? And why?

In August of 2005, Americans watched with rapt attention as Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, destroying the fabled city and causing chaos both on the streets and in the city’s makeshift shelters. Later that summer, Texans watched in horror as people evacuated in panic from Houston and the Gulf Coast to escape Hurricane Rita.

In June of 2008, I held my breath and crossed the border into Goma, in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the backyard of the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa. Goma, in times of “peace,” was nothing short of an explosive volcano waiting to erupt. Despite a five year old ceasefire, the war has cost over 5 million lives since 1998, and refugees and war victims from the surrounding areas continue to trickle in daily. I spent a week in Goma visiting some of the victims raped in the countryside by the pervasive rebel militias or government troops.

International art trafficking violates cultural property rights law. Plundering and pillaging cultural objects have been with us as long as the wars that have made stealing art convenient. Unfortunately, bad habits die hard, especially in the absence of vigorous cultural property enforcement.

After numerous deaths in committee, failed amendments and missed opportunities, network neutrality is returning to the foreground as a key priority of President-elect Barack Obama's technology agenda. Senators Byron Dorgan and Olympia Snowe have also stated their intention to reintroduce legislation on the issue. With a new administration and a new Congress, the time has come for Washington to finally enact meaningful network neutrality regulation.

2008 has been a tumultuous and expensive year for the American people. At the same time that the average American family is struggling to pay the mortgage, fill the gas tank and put food on the table, some major businesses are getting an unwarranted helping hand from the government.

Recent news headlines like these have led American politicians to worry about the stability of a Pakistan equipped with nuclear arms:

Squandering US$10 billion from precious reserves in less than 10 months, the country goes begging for $10 billion more… Standard and Poors downgrades the country’s credit rating to junk… Double digit inflation shoots by 25% within an economic quarter… Real estate values are depleted by 20 to 30 percent and foreign exchange reserves are reduced by more than half…

The flavor of last month seemed to be health care policy in America. It has taken a back seat to the overall economic crisis, but is still lingering in the minds of voters and the politicians who sought their vote. Barack Obama is promising a health care policy that gives health insurance, or a government equivalent, to those who cannot afford it themselves.

As the United States forms a new government in the coming days, developing nations anticipate a change in the approach to international development. Can President-elect Obama increase the impact of foreign assistance? During the campaign, Obama said he would double the amount of U.S. foreign aid to $50 billion by 2012. Yet, the question is not how much money is given, but how well it is spent. He has a golden opportunity to exhibit leadership on the international stage by taking a more effective approach to aid.

According to the Case-Shiller Index, median housing prices doubled from 1987 to 2000 in major housing markets, including L.A., Miami, D.C. and San Diego. In less than half that time, from 2001 to 2006, housing prices in L.A. and Miami almost doubled, while prices in D.C. and San Diego shot up 1.5 times. Overall, nationwide median housing prices doubled from 2001 to 2006. In an economy as mature and developed as the United States, how could nationwide housing prices almost double in a span of only six years?