Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
In Syria, a wild and far-fetched idea
By Alon Ben-Meir Will Assad have the courage and the vision to rise to the historic occasion and change the geopolitical dynamics throughout the Middle East? The time and circumstances have presented Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad with a clear choice: Continue to convey an image of an impotent dictator sounding eerily similar to the embattled, aging …
A sensible future
By Mennat Maassarani The democratic awakening that has crept through most Arab countries in the past few months has left the planet in awe of the magnitude of a place long labeled the “third world”. Every Arab has witnessed a rapid change in societies long stagnant, ruled by dictators. The people are still far from achieving …
Accept with minor “interpretations”
By Yossi Alpher There is a certain formalistic justification in Israel’s standoffish attitude toward the Arab Peace Initiative. After all, the API was never seriously “marketed” to Israel. The concluding paragraph of the API asks every relevant institution in the international community to “pursue the necessary contacts to gain support for this initiative” —everyone, that is, …
Fukushima and derivatives meltdowns
By Mark Roe CAMBRIDGE: Financial commentators have likened Japan’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear catastrophe to derivatives’ role in the 2008 financial meltdown. The resemblance is clear enough: each activity yields big benefits and carries a tiny but explosive risk. But the similarity between the two types of crisis ends where preventing their recurrence begins. For the …
How risky is the global economy?
By Mohamed El-Erian NEWPORT BEACH: Three years after the global financial crisis, the global economy remains a confusing place — and for good reasons. Should we draw comfort from gradual healing in advanced countries and solid growth in emerging economies? Or should we seek refuge against high oil prices, geopolitical shocks in the Middle East, and …
Taking the fat out of global warming
By Ian Roberts LONDON: Mitigating climate change presents unrivaled opportunities for improving human health and well being. Indeed, policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions promise to bring about substantial reductions in heart disease, respiratory illness, cancer, obesity, diabetes, depression, and road deaths and injuries. These health benefits arise because climate policy necessarily affects two of the most …
AN ISRAELI VIEW: The peace process: A hollow, cynical concept
By Amira Hass It is not the “process-ization” or the business-world terminology that killed the notion of peace. But the tedious, two-decade-long ritual of meetings-for-meetings-sake and the overdose of “mechanisms” have certainly exposed the enormous gulf between what peace means for Israeli Jews and what it means for the Palestinians. It is a gulf that separates …
A PALESTINIAN VIEW: More process than peace
By Ghassan Khatib After eight months of no negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, it is useful to clarify that recent experience has demonstrated that the existence of a peace process does not necessarily mean moving towards peace. The peace process that was launched in Madrid in 1991 included declared objectives of reaching a peace settlement between …
Pools of danger
By Charles Ferguson WASHINGTON, DC: The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis in Japan has underscored the dangers of storing highly radioactive spent fuel in pools of water that are susceptible to breaches from natural disasters and hydrogen explosions from accidents. The crisis should serve as a wake-up call for governments and industry to take action to reduce …
Strauss-Kahn’s choice
By Luigi Zingales CHICAGO: When Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, was appointed Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund in 2007, many developing countries objected — not to him, but to the tradition that gave the IMF’s top job to a European, with the Americans installing one of their own at the World Bank. …
Now that’s what I call a revolution
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: Minutes after the confirmation late Tuesday and early Wednesday that ousted president Hosni Mubarak was remanded in custody at the Sharm El-Sheikh International Hospital and his sons Gamal and Alaa were flown to Torah prison, also after being remanded in custody for 15 days pending investigation, someone wrote on twitter, “Now …
The Goldstone reversal
By Aryeh Neier NEW YORK: Justice Richard Goldstone was condemned by many apologists for Israel’s human-rights record for his conclusion that Israel intentionally targeted Palestinian civilians as a matter of policy during the 2008-9 Gaza war. Goldstone’s United Nations-backed report accused both Israelis and Palestinians of war crimes, and called on both sides to investigate, prosecute, …
The sun will rise again
By Yuriko Koike TOKYO: In Japan, memorial services for the dead are normally held 49 days after their passing. The bereaved mourn throughout this period. The number of victims of the earthquake and tsunami that assaulted the Tohoku region of northeast Japan has now reached around 30,000, if those who are still missing are included. This …
Bhatti’s legacy for Pakistan
By Qurat ul Ain Siddiqui KARACHI, Pakistan: Last month, Pakistan’s Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, was assassinated outside his Islamabad home. The so-called Tehrik-i-Taliban (Student Movement) of Punjab claimed responsibility for the attack in pamphlets discovered at the scene of the shooting. The perpetrators stated that their act was a response to the minister’s opposition to …
No nukes?
By Bjørn Lomborg NEW YORK: When parts of Japan were devastated recently by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami, news of the human toll was quickly overshadowed by global fears of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant. The concern was understandable: radiation is very frightening. I grew up in Denmark at a time when …
Wickets and wariness
By Shashi Tharoor NEW DELHI: India-Pakistan relations — a challenge at the best of times, and in the doldrums since the terrorist attacks on Mumbai of November 2008 – received an unexpected boost last month from an unlikely source: cricket. When the two countries became semi-finalists in the game’s quadrennial World Cup, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan …
From victim to survivor: a foundation for peace
By Colin Parry LONDON: My 12-year-old son Tim was killed on 20 March 1993 by a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army in Warrington, England. He was shopping for football shorts associated with his favorite English football team, Everton, when the bomb exploded. Tim sustained horrific facial injuries from which he died five days later. …
Beyond the referendum, and Tahrir – squared
By H.A. Hellyer CAIRO: The “yes” camp in last month’s referendum for constitutional reform, which was supposed to bring forward early parliamentary elections in Egypt, got 77 percent of the vote. The “no” vote got the rest. And now people are trying to figure out what this means. There are several things both the “yes” voters …
Saif Qaddafi and me
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Not long ago, a Harvard colleague wrote to me that Saif Al-Islam El-Qaddafi, a son of Libya’s dictator, would be in town and wanted to meet me. He is an interesting fellow, my colleague said, with a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); I would enjoy talking …
Nigerian democracy grows up
By Ike Okonta ABUJA: Nigeria’s legislative elections, to be followed by a presidential poll on April 16, indicate that the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) has lost its near-total grip on the country’s politics. Of the four main opposition parties that fielded candidates for the 469 parliamentary seats in contention, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) …
A Roma roadmap
By Heather Grabbe and Kori Udovicki BRUSSELS: The European Union, at long last, is taking a significant step to improve the lives of Europe’s millions of Roma. Rather than proposing a grand plan for EU-level action, the European Commission’s recently released “EU framework for national Roma integration strategies up to 2020” calls on each member state …
Is China overtaking America?
By Joseph Nye CAMBRIDGE: The twenty-first century is witnessing Asia’s return to what might be considered its historical proportions of the world’s population and economy. In 1800, Asia represented more than half of global population and output. By 1900, it represented only 20% of world output — not because something bad happened in Asia, but rather …
Arms or Allies?
By Imants Liegis RIGA: It should surprise no one that many in Latvia view the sale by France of fully-equipped assault warships to Russia with grave concern. Other European Union member states seem to be looking increasingly towards Russia as a potential purchaser of military equipment. But is it wise for EU and NATO members to …
Breaking down barriers in the South Hebron Hills
By Michael Omer-Man WEST BANK/JAFFA: On an otherwise serene Saturday morning in late March, in the southern Hebron Hills, over 30 activists — mostly Jews — non-violently confronted a platoon of Israeli soldiers guarding the hilltop settlement of Ma’on. In an act of solidarity and civil disobedience protesting discriminatory policies often used to deny Palestinians access …
The Dragon and the Crescent: Chinese investment in the Arab world – The potential and the problems
By Richard Banks During my last visit to China, I had continuous meetings with leading Chinese companies. I went to Beijing to discover the Chinese reaction to the Arab spring and to learn if recent events had changed their perceptions of the Middle East as a destination for partnership and investment. China had ambitious targets for …
America’s Arab comeback
By Daoud Kuttab AMMAN: Without much fanfare, the past few months have seen no anti-American demonstrations and no burning of American flags across the Arab world. Arabs seem increasingly willing to accept — and even applaud — the Obama administration’s policy toward the region. Of course, Arabs are still unhappy with the United States’ continued bias …
Why Gender Equality?
By Maha Ghalwash Egyptian activists celebrated International Women’s Day (8 March) by organizing a million-person-march. These activists, some of whom were men, called for gender equality in the new Egypt. They pointed to the fact that the constitutional amendments did not grant women equal opportunity to run for Egypt’s highest public office — the presidency; and …
Three paths for indebted democracies
By Raghuram Rajan CHICAGO: Democratic governments are not incentivized to take decisions that have short-term costs but produce long-term gains, the typical pattern for any investment. Indeed, in order to make such investments, democracies require either brave leadership or an electorate that understands the costs of postponing hard choices. Brave leadership is rare. So, too, is …
War, Debt, and Democracy
By John Ferejohn and Frances Rosenbluth NEW YORK: As the United States takes up the decision to lift its self-imposed debt ceiling, we would do well to remember why America’s public debt is as large as it is, and how it matters. With the rise of the Tea Party, Republicans may rail against raising the debt …
Islam and/in the West
By Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu JEDDAH: The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt provide examples of largely peaceful transitions of power after decades of unflinching authoritarian rule. Yet change in these and other Arab countries caught the world by surprise. Talk of an “Arab Spring” has dominated Western media and political debate for months now. Many Muslims living …