In 2013, nearly 300,000 women died during pregnancy and childbirth. The majority of those deaths were in developing countries and entirely preventable. Much of the effort towards reducing this number has been focused on what governments should do differently, but the private sector plays just as important a role as the public sector, said a panel of experts at the Wilson Center on September 17. [Video Below]

The United States: The world’s lone remaining superpower, home of the world’s largest economy and military, the world’s largest producer and consumer of natural gas, and soon the leading producer and consumer of oil.

The world’s second most populous country – projected to be first by 2022 – is developing faster than ever before, roiling the social, political, and environmental landscape. [Video Below]

“Clean energy has gone from being the ‘right thing to do’ in combating climate change, to being the most cost-effective option for many energy-insecure countries,” said Carrie Thompson, deputy director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Regional Development Mission for Asia, during a day-long conference on renewable energy at the Wilson Center on October 27 (read part one of our coverage here).

The renewable energy sector has reached a critical inflection point where costs are competitive with fossil fuels and investment is ramping up in a big way, said more than a dozen experts at a day-long conference co-hosted by ECSP and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Global Climate Change on October 27.

In the midst of a minefield on day two of Desert Storm Task Force Ripper, Marine Corps Operations Officer Richard Zilmer stepped out of his armored personnel carrier, squinted up at the sky, and saw nothing but black from horizon to horizon. Iraqi forces, trying desperately to blunt the attack of coalition armies, had set fire to hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells and oil-filled trenches.

More than 225 million women in developing countries want to avoid or delay pregnancy but are not using safe, modern, and effective contraceptive methods. Such a gap between women’s contraceptive behavior and reproductive goals is called an unmet need for family planning, and no region has more unmet need than sub-Saharan Africa. [Video Below]

The focus of the global community on the outcomes of the Paris Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December is unprecedented. The world awaits, anticipating the details of an international and legally-binding agreement to address climate change. [Video Below]