POLITIX 07/05/13 By Michael Shank President Barack Obama’s decision to suspend trade relations with Bangladesh due to worker safety concerns sets new a precedent for two major trade deals on the administration’s docket – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These proposed pacts […]
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 06/19/13 By Michael Shank and Cassidy Regan As the U.S. government gears up to militarize more of the Middle East by arming rebels in Syria, we are witnessing a similar mission creep toward the African continent. Not merely in the more obvious military interventions into […]
HUFFINGTON POST 06/13/13 By Michael Shank and Sabina Dewan A high-level panel appointed by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon released its recommendations last month for a global development agenda when the Millennium Development Goals expire at the end of 2015 and when approximately one billion people will still […]
THE HILL 06/12/13 By Michael Shank and Sabina Dewan Last week, a high-level panel appointed by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon released its recommendations for a global development agenda when the Millennium Development Goals expire at the end of 2015 and when approximately one billion people will still […]
THE HILL 06/05/13 By Hill Staff Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker public interest firm, has hired Michael Shank as a lobbyist to focus on foreign policy issues, including climate change, global poverty, and U.S. military and nuclear weapons policy. Shank most recently worked as Rep. Mike Honda’s (D-Calif.) […]
WASHINGTON POST 05/08/13 By Michael Shank and Lindsay Schubiner Mayor Vincent C. Gray(D) proposed a bill last week that would permit undocumented District residents to acquire driver’s licenses and identification cards. D.C. is the latest in a string of states that have taken similar steps in response to immigrant rights […]
THE HILL 04/29/13 By Michael Shank and Sabina Dewan The World Bank has always focused on poverty reduction; it is their stated mission to ‘help reduce poverty’. But actually ending it, with a target date, was never their explicit goal, until now. In Washington, at their annual spring meeting last […]
CNN 04/26/13 By Michael Shank and Madeline Rose One year ago this week, President Barack Obama launched the Atrocities Prevention Board to find ways to get ahead of the kind of crisis we’re seeing in Syria, and the kind we witnessed in Darfur and Rwanda. The board’s aim is to […]
HUFFINGTON POST 04/21/13 By Michael Shank While the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the G20 meets in Washington DC this weekend to discuss economic growth, a completely different, and much more diverse, group of stakeholders met in Delhi, India, to discuss a model that turns the IMF, World […]
WASHINGTON POST 03/27/13 By Michael Shank and Allyson Mitchell With DC Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s call this month for educational equity across the District’s divide, there is a great opportunity to address one driver of this inequity: the high school truancy and chronic absenteeism, especially for students who attend schools east […]