BUDAPEST: The economic and financial crisis has been a telling moment for the economics profession, for it has put many long-standing ideas to the test. If science is defined by its ability to forecast the future, the failure of much of the economics profession to see the crisis coming should be a cause of great …

WATERLOO, Canada: Ever since the tragic events of 9/11, the diverse voices claiming to speak with authority about Islam have become increasingly cacophonous. Few contemporary topics are more controversial than that of how to interpret Islamic practices and beliefs. In the West as well as in the Muslim world, interpreting Islam has become a virtual …

LONDON: Seen and Not Heard is an assessment of young Muslims in the UK, by Sughra Ahmed of Britain s Policy Research Center. The study, conducted over 18 months and released in September 2009, aims to give voice to young Muslims who are often analyzed by researchers, but rarely heard from. And as someone who …

KARACHI, Pakistan: Access to justice is a major concern in Pakistan. Pakistan was ranked 134 in the world, lower than Rwanda and Libya, in the 2008 annual Corruption Perception Index released by Transparency International. In fact, one reason some communities in the North West Frontier Province cautiously welcomed the Taliban was the promise of a …

NAIROBI: When I met Eunice Wangari at a Nairobi coffee shop recently, I was surprised to hear her on her mobile phone, insistently asking her mother about the progress of a corn field in her home village, hours away from the big city. A nurse, Wangari counts on income from farming to raise money to …

CAIRO: The worst thing about the current debate over niqab (face veil) is that it gives the impression of a “healthy and “free society that openly discusses all contending views of its most pressing problems. This is an illusion. Neither is niqab a pressing problem in today’s poverty-stricken, underdeveloped Egypt, nor is the arena of …

CHICAGO: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been called many unflattering things. Yet from his recent talk at the University of Chicago, he can now add “fu**ing snake! , “piece of sh*t! and a slew of other vulgarisms to his repertoire. What is shocking is not necessarily the language itself, fuelled by passions and legitimate grievances …

MILAN: With all the official and media attention given to the worldwide trade in illicit drugs, the public has at most a dim awareness of the serious problems affecting the production, testing, and sale of the legal kind: the medicines that we take to treat or cure everything from AIDS to Yellow Fever. The development …

TEL-AVIV: In the year 2000, when I was in the ninth-grade, we studied our history from a large and expansive book. Because history teachers in the junior high school are free to some extent to determine what is studied in the classroom, we learned 19th century European history and other subjects which could be categorized …

CAIRO: Since its inception in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has never experienced a crisis like the one it was subjected to last week. The announced reason for the current crisis was the refusal of the MB’s Guidance Bureau (the group’s highest executive body) to promote leading Brotherhood member Essam El-Erian to the Bureau’s membership …

KIBBUTZ KETURA, Israel: A few years ago, long before he was named US special envoy for Middle East peace, George Mitchell made the point that wars are usually fought until a conclusion of the conflict has been reached. He then made the point that the tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was, and still is, that …

CAMBRIDGE: Since assuming the presidency earlier this year, Barack Obama’s primary legislative focus has been on reforming the financing of American health care. Yet his proposals are meeting strong opposition from fiscally conservative Democrats as well as from Republicans, owing to their potential impact on future fiscal deficits. Because those deficits are the primary cause …

BRUSSELS: Cursed as they are with bad leadership, the sad saga of the Palestinian people fluctuates between tragedy and farce. As if contending with a crushing occupation, embargoes, closures and the complete physical separation of the West Bank and Gaza were not enough, over the past couple of years, they have also seen the two …

I am often asked these days why Turkey s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is so upset with Israel. It s so dramatic people say, adding: Why did the AKP un-invite Israel to Anatolian Eagle (a NATO air force exercise held in Turkey)? Is this the beginning of the end of Turkish-Israeli ties that …

Syria could not be more ecstatic at the row that has recently developed between Turkey and Israel. Turkey, once among Israel s staunchest allies, now sees eye-to-eye with Syria regarding the difficulties in dealing with Israel and Israel s abusive treatment of Palestinians. Turkey began to feel uneasy with Israel when, following four promising rounds …

BEER SHEBA, Israel: Educating children in a conflict zone is no simple matter. More often than not, those responsible for the curricula succumb to the masters of war and adopt a pedagogical approach that exacerbates rather than diffuses strife. Israel, unfortunately, is no exception. Consider the way Jewish and Palestinian children are educated. Segregation in …

PARIS: By awarding its Peace Prize for 2009 to Barack Obama, the Nobel Committee took a big risk. Even if Obama is obviously something of a pacifist, the president of the United States leads the world’s most powerful military, one that is still waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq. So, on its face, the choice …

CHICAGO, Illinois: Although Israelis and Palestinians have been meeting and communicating at a grassroots level to better understand one another and work toward a more peaceful future, the initiatives that bring them together do not receive the recognition they deserve. Until a comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is found, these grassroots initiatives remain vitally …

CAIRO: Ever since the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico last April and the Egyptian government has been gripped with a virus – long before it was pronounced a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Over one month before it was detected here in early June, the government began a series of frantic moves …

MILAN: Although the financial crisis is winding down, the prospects for growth in the global economy are unlikely to pick up. This is, in part, inevitable. But it is also the result of poor coordination between governments as the world economy rebalances. Prior to the crisis, American consumers, on average, either saved nothing or accumulated …

WASHINGTON, DC: One of the most pressing dilemmas facing Afghanistan today is the gap between Afghan and Western views on what constitutes an effective political system and a functional nation-state. For the majority of Afghans, life revolves around their immediate community. Authority is exercised by local leaders not necessarily affiliated with the central government. For …

LONDON: This month saw the launch of a report authored by a theologically diverse group of leading British Muslims entitled Contextualising Islam in Britain . The scholars and practitioners who contributed to the report, published by Cambridge University, sought to answer a deceptively simple question: What does it mean to live faithfully as a Muslim …

The conflict, or should one say, the conflicts in Yemen arise from a mosaic of reasons. On the surface, the ongoing armed conflict in the country was sparked by a clash in 2004 between government security forces and a group of students protesting the war in Iraq and the deployment of US forces there. The …

BERKELEY: The blogosphere is abuzz with reports of the dollar’s looming demise. The greenback has fallen against the euro by nearly 15% since the beginning of the summer. Central banks have reportedly slowed their accumulation of dollars in favor of other currencies. One sensational if undocumented story has the Gulf States conspiring with China, Russia, …

LONDON: The economist John Maynard Keynes wrote The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936) to “bring to an issue the deep divergences of opinion between fellow economists which have for the time being almost destroyed the practical influence of economic theory. Seventy years later, heavyweight economists are still at each other’s throats, in …

COPENHAGEN: The United Nations Climate Change Treaty, signed in 1992, committed the world to “avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system. Yet, since that time, greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The United States has proved to be the biggest laggard in the world, refusing to sign the 1997 Kyoto Protocol or to adopt …

CAPE TOWN/LONDON: On Sept. 27 at the Vancouver Peace Summit, amongst some of the world’s most well-known peace-makers – including Nobel Prize winners and internationally-acclaimed authors – we had the opportunity to invite people everywhere to rediscover the Golden Rule. The Charter of Compassion was composed by leading thinkers from many different faiths. It is …

JAKARTA: Every Friday, Muslims, especially men, gather in their local mosques for the noon prayer and a sermon known as the khutba. When attending these prayers in different mosques around Jakarta – the capital of a diverse and largely tolerant country – I sometimes hear preachers deliver sermons expressing hatred for people of other faiths. …

BUDAPEST: At a recent conference of newspaper editors in which I took part, a small crowd gathered to talk about journalism and new media. When I told the group that I had begun my career as a magazine fact-checker, several of them grew misty-eyed, as if someone had told a group of priests about his …

JATT, Israel: The concept of “shared citizenship refers to all citizens of a state being able to take equal part in the public and civic space of that state. The Israeli education system does not have a policy of promoting real and active shared citizenship either in principle or in practice. When we claim that …