Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
Norway attacks reinforce need for united stand against intolerance
By Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu ISTANBUL, Turkey: The horrific and tragic incident that happened in Norway reminds us again of the importance of combating religious intolerance and promoting cultural understanding. Anti-Islam and anti-Muslim attitudes and activities, known as Islamophobia, are increasingly finding a place in the agenda of ultra-right wing political parties and civil societies in the West …
Against simplification
By Norman Manea NEW YORK: It is said that Americans have a genius for simplification. Gradually, however, the quest for it has become a global trend, one that continues to conquer new territories, just as blue jeans once did. The speed of our daily life is visibly increased — and not for the better — by …
Saudi Arabia vs. the Arab Spring
By Bernard Haykel PRINCETON: Saudi Arabia is widely perceived as leading the counter-revolution against the Arab Spring uprisings. In reality, the Kingdom’s response is centered, as its foreign and domestic policy has long been, on “stability.” The Saudis don’t want anti-Saudi forces, including such enemies as Iran and Al Qaeda, to increase their influence in the …
Jews and Muslims in America: more in common than we think
By Joshua Stanton NEW YORK, New York: Contrary to common assumptions, many Jewish and Muslim Americans enjoy warm relations. Yet we are only beginning to understand how and why this is so. A Gallup report released last week goes a long way to explaining this unexpected trend, which shows that the two diverse communities have more …
US and Iran: Working together in Iraq
By Hamid Alkifaey It may sound strange to some, but the United States and Iran have been “working together” ever since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. This “cooperation”, albeit behind the scenes, can be seen clearly in Iraq. The two countries are officially and actually …
All man’s land
By Rakesh Mani NEW DELHI: Ernest Hemingway’s collection of stories, Men without Women, examines tense gender relationships. In a particularly poignant story, a young man convinces his partner to have an abortion, viewing their unborn child as a hindrance to the status quo. Frustrated, the woman gives in. That story, published more than 80 years ago, …
When elephants fight, it is only the grass that suffers
By Safa Hussein The geopolitics of the Middle East has changed drastically over the past ten years, and remains unsettled. Soon after the occupation of Iraq in 2003 and the complete destruction of its military capability, the strategic power balance in the region roughly manifested itself in two competing alignments: the United States, Israel, and Saudi …
AN ISRAELI VIE: Justified, despite the many mistakes
By Yossi Alpher Successive Israeli governments since those of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have made nearly every mistake possible in creating the West Bank security fence. Yet the fence has not only served its original security purpose well; it has also delineated the broad outline of a future Israeli-Palestinian border everywhere in the West Bank except …
The Berlin wall’s children
By Reece Jones HONOLULU: Fifty years ago today, on August 13, under the cover of darkness, East Germany broke ground on the construction of the Berlin Wall, which became one of the most iconic symbols of violence and exclusion the world has ever known. When the Wall fell in 1989, the images broadcast around the world …
America’s fiscal isolationism
By Christopher Hill DENVER: Patience might be a virtue, but not necessarily when it comes to American foreign policy. Consider “the long war,” a bold concept embraced a few years ago to describe the continuing struggle against terrorism, the grudging progress that could realistically be achieved, and the enormous financial burden that it would impose for …
Russia-Georgia War remembered
by Archil Dzuliashvili Three years have passed since the Russian intervention of August 2008, when a military operation to invade Georgia was launched by order of the Kremlin. The Russia-Georgia war lasted only five days but the impact and consequences were dramatic and devastating for thousands of Georgians who left their homes and properties for looters …
The walls of August
By Nina Khrushcheva MOSCOW: History’s milestones are rarely so neatly arrayed as they are this summer. Fifty years ago this month, the Berlin Wall was born. After some hesitation, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union’s leader, allowed his East German counterpart, Walter Ulbricht, to erect a barrier between East and West Berlin in order to ensure the …
With love from Tottenham to Tahrir
By Philip Whitfield CAIRO: Top-of-the-pops ringtone is the Beatles’ From Me To You: If there’s anything that you want. If there’s anything I can do. Just call on me and I’ll send it along. With love from me to you. I should declare my interest. I grew up with John Lennon. We’re both Ashlars — we …
Of gladiators, little boys and wolves
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: The Wikipedia definition describes a gladiator as an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic through violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their legal and social standing and their lives by appearing in the arena. Most were despised as …
Iraq and the end of the empire
By Arshin Adib-Moghaddam The current crisis in Iraq contains all the factors that are shaping the new political realities in the region. After two invasions of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, an ongoing Cold War against Iran and a war on terror that is losing traction in the mountainous labyrinth of the Hindu Kush along the Afghan-Pakistani border, …
A dim light on global warming
By Bjørn Lomborg COPENHAGEN: Amid a growing wave of concern about climate change, many countries — including Brazil, Australia, the United States, and the members of the European Union — passed laws in the 2000’s outlawing or severely restricting access to incandescent light bulbs. The intention was understandable: if everyone in the world exchanged most light …
America’s first debt crisis
By Mark Roe CAMBRIDGE: The West is ensnared in a debt crisis. The United States, as everyone knows, came perilously close to defaulting on August 2, and Standard & Poor’s downgraded US debt from AAA on August 5. In Europe, the outgoing head of the European Central Bank recommends more centralized fiscal authority in Europe in …
A PALESTINIAN VIEW: Still seeking victory
By Sharif Omar It was in September 2003 that the meaning of the Wall that Israel had constructed between me and my land began to sink in. Despite our refusal to apply for permission to cross the Wall, Israeli officials had gone ahead and issued permits to some of the farmers in Jayyous, where I live. …
Can the sun save Greece?
By Georg Zachmann BRUSSELS: German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has proposed that developing green-energy resources could be a good way for Greece to generate much-needed economic growth. On paper, it sounds like a perfect solution to the country’s dire fiscal problems: Greece, according to Schäuble, could export solar electricity to Germany. At first glance, monetizing an …
There is a better way
By Rev. Wayne Lavender VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia: Human history has been written in blood and tears. The terrorist attack on September 11 was simply one more act in a long running play: they kill us, we kill them. Repeat. This is the eternally-contemporary drama of human interaction since the time of Cain and Abel. It is …
The human element in a champion team
By Ricardo Guerra One of the biggest challenges confronting head coaches in professional football today is managing different players’ personalities. In a society that worships individuals and deifies celebrities, there is perhaps no bigger task than convincing a superstar athlete with an oversized ego to favor the interests of the team above his own. The most …
A PALESTINIAN VIEW: West Bank wall: Illegal, unjust and ultimately destructive
By Ghassan Khatib Ten years after Israel started building a Wall in the occupied West Bank, the project has not proven Israeli arguments in its defense, but rather illustrated the Palestinian view that this is one more component of illegal Israeli settlement expansion. Israel, for the most part, said that the Wall was needed for its …
Translating growth into poverty reduction
By Vinod Thomas and Marvin Taylor-Dormond Many countries experienced unprecedented economic growth and a significant reduction of poverty over the past decades. With an average yearly growth rate of 10 percent, China was able to cut poverty by nearly three quarters since 1990. In Latin America and the Caribbean poverty fell by a quarter between 1995 …
Oslo attack sheds light on polarizing public debates
By Aslak Sira Myhre OSLO: When terror struck Oslo, many in the West’s first response was to blame Muslims. In pubs and on the streets of Oslo, girls wearing headscarves and boys who looked South Asian were immediately harassed. On Facebook, Muslims and immigration-friendly politicians were slandered. It was only when it was clear that the …
A planet for all apes
By Peter Singer MELBOURNE: Two new movies released this month — one a science-fiction blockbuster, the other a revealing documentary — raise the issue of our relations with our closest non-human relatives, the great apes. Both dramatize insights and lessons that should not be ignored. Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the …
Egypt’s urban inflation eases to lowest since December
CAIRO: Annual urban inflation in Egypt eased to 10.4 percent in July, its lowest in seven months, on the back of a slowdown in food prices which contributed to the mass protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year. Urban consumer price inflation, the most closely watched indicator of prices, reached its lowest level …
US ‘encouraged’ by tougher Arab stand on Syria
WASHINGTON: The United States said Monday that it was "encouraged" and "heartened" by a tougher stand from Arab countries toward Syria’s deadly crackdown pro-democracy protesters. "We are very much encouraged, heartened by the strong statements that we’ve seen over the weekend by the Arab League as well as by the Gulf Cooperation Council," State Department …
US vs. Iran over Iraq: Avoiding the rational
By John Limbert In a reasonable world, the United States and Iran would long ago have discovered that, as the wise walrus said, “The time has come . . . to talk of many things.” Among those many things is Iraq, where both sides’ common interests far outnumber their differences. Although both Tehran and Washington recognize …
Tymoshenko’s trial and Ukraine’s future
By Carl Bildt STOCKHOLM: There is little doubt that the embarrassing spectacle of the trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko — and her recent arrest on contempt charges during the proceedings — is causing great damage to her country. And there is little doubt that how Ukraine develops will be of great importance for …
China’s ethnic tremors
By Brahma Chellaney NEW DELHI: In the face of spreading civil unrest among China’s Uighur population, the Chinese government’s love-fest with its all-weather ally, Pakistan, may be starting to sour. Indeed, the authorities in China’s Xinjiang province are charging that a prominent Uighur separatist that they captured had received terrorist training in Pakistan. No less embarrassing …