DOHA: How is it that one religion – Islam – seems capable of undermining women and promoting them at the same time? Anyone attempting to take stock of the position of women in the Muslim world cannot help but be confused. One finds stories in the media all the time about injustices committed against Muslim …

CHENGDU: Last month saw the 50th anniversary of what Tibetan activists like to call Tibetan National Uprising Day, the day in 1959 when Tibetans in Lhasa revolted against Chinese Communist Party rule. The rebellion was crushed. The Dalai Lama fled to India, and for at least a decade things became a lot worse: many Tibetans …

WASHINGTON, DC: An argument could be made that the Middle East, as the birthplace of the Abrahamic religions, is a center of dialogue between Muslims and Christians. Where their holiest places of worship and pilgrimage exist, Muslims and Christians have provided models of historical co-existence and cooperation. But when there is tension, either for religious …

JERUSALEM: The warmth, openness and seeming naiveté of sources in the Middle East often confound reporters in our region. So many people seem ready and eager to talk that it s easy to believe you’ve happened upon a fresh and authentic source of information. Let us never forget that there is no such thing as …

It wasn t even my story, but I should not have been surprised by the amount of flak I got this week for Amos Harel s report. The stories told by alumni of the Oranim pre-military academy about their experiences as soldiers in Operation Cast Lead were not going to blow over anytime soon, and …

WARSAW: The agreement by the American and Russian presidents to renew strategic arms reductions has revived hope for the global abolition of nuclear arms. The urgency can hardly be exaggerated: nuclear weapons may come into the possession of states that might use them, as well as of stateless terrorists – creating new threats of unimaginable …

ROME/STOCKHOLM: The ongoing global economic crisis is shaking beliefs and approaches that have long been enshrined in European policies. Indeed, the crisis is calling into question the very foundations of the European Union. There is thus an urgent need to reassert the core character and identity of Europe. The very nature of our European model …

PARIS: After four decades, France has returned to NATO’s unified military command. At a stroke, President Nicolas Sarkozy overturned one of the pillars of French policy – and of the legacy of Charles de Gaulle, the founder of Sarkozy’s own political party. The decision is consistent with the way Sarkozy has governed since his election …

WASHINGTON: Pressure on President Obama to recast the failed American approach to Israel-Palestine is building from former senior officials whose counsel he respects. Following up on a letter dated 6 November 2008, which was handed to Obama late last year by Paul Volcker, now a senior economic adviser to the president, these foreign policy mandarins …

CAIRO: Mother’s Day wasn’t the only festivity to be marked in Egypt on March 21. Most Egyptians didn’t know that the date also marks the Bahai new year (the Nowruz feast) until an explosive Dream TV program broadcast on March 28 aired footage of the celebration in a talk show pitting two Egyptian Bahais against …

I cannot understand the hostile attitude against the new Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who says that does not accept the existence of a Palestinian state and that the new government led by hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not bound by any previous agreements. It is true that the whole world believes that the …

In Washington we have yet another acronym: AfPak, which stands for Afghanistan and Pakistan. More specifically, the contraction relates to the area of responsibilities of Ambassador Richard Holbrook, the special adviser to President Barack Obama for the two aforementioned countries. Beyond the swelling of the field of acronym-ology, the term AfPak sends a clear message …

TEL AVIV: The most immediate result of the arrest warrant issued for Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court last month was the expulsion of most aid agencies from the country. But this global focus on Sudan’s Darfur region, though justified, has overshadowed an even more vital issue: sustaining the quest for …

SEOUL: Once again, tension is rising across Asia over North Korea’s missile program. Unlike its previous “surprise missile launches, North Korea’s government this time notified international agencies in advance that it will launch a “satellite sometime between April 4 and 8. The question for the world now is not whether the North Korean regime will …

History reminds us that Afghanistan long ago acquired the label of tomb of empires . US President Barack Obama at least admits that the US is not winning there and cannot win unless some fundamental changes in strategy are made, and that is what he has begun. The concept appears to be to craft a …

These are dangerous times in the Arab World. The glimmers of hope which first emerged in the mid-1990s that the Arab-Israeli conflict could be resolved (the emphasis here is on the word could) have been replaced with the resignation that Tel Aviv is not capable nor willing to make peace with its neighbors except on …

WARSAW: “Poland – 10 years, Hungary – 10 months, East Germany – 10 weeks, Czechoslovakia – 10 days. So chirped many in Prague in November 1989, reflecting the pride and the joy of the Velvet Revolution, but also the sustained effort that was needed to end communism, whose demise began in Warsaw the previous February. …

LAGOS, Nigeria: The world economy is in severe recession. Trade is deteriorating every day. Political pressures demand import restrictions to protect employment: this is what makes a depression Great. The Group of 20 top industrialized and developing economies meets in London on Thursday in an attempt to kick-start the world economy. Of course, expectations are …

PARIS: Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have been stalled for more than three years. For six years, the voices of reason have largely been drowned out, with passions and delusions claiming primacy. Countries sitting on their own nuclear arsenals seem to think that they can give Iran orders; it’s a case of “do as I …

NEW YORK: The US dollar is plunging, the economy is imploding, and a crisis of identity is shaking countries around the world. So, what are Americans obsessed with at this critical moment? “Octamom : the saga of Nadya Suleman, a young single mother in Los Angeles who, having already given birth to seven children, underwent …

PARIS: The World Monetary and Economic Conference took place in London 76 years ago, in June 1933, with 66 countries meeting to put an end to the unfolding monetary disorder and trade wars while trying to draw the lessons of the Great Depression. When it was over, the negotiators admitted failure. On April 2, 2009, …

WASHINGTON, DC: The latest Israeli attack on Gaza made little strategic difference, leaving Hamas still in charge of the strip, diminished militarily but arguably strengthened politically. Israel s use of disproportionate military force yielded political and public relations setbacks, with the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit still in captivity and occasional rockets still being fired …

CHICAGO, Illinois: On Nowruz, the day when Iranians celebrate the coming of spring and the new Iranian calendar year, US President Barack Obama took the helm of American foreign policy towards Iran and dramatically communicated his will to chart a new course away from the failed policies of the past. My administration is now committed …

COPENHAGEN: So far, Europe’s leaders seem to be mostly preoccupied with finding national answers to the global economic crisis. In particular, the leaders of “Old Europe have been reluctant to open up their coffers for the countries of “New Europe. If this attitude prevails, there is a grave risk that the European Project will become …

WASHINGTON, DC: For three weeks in Washington, DC, tens of thousands of Americans visited the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for the Arabesque Festival and experienced the richness of the arts and the diversity of Arab culture. This unprecedented celebration of music, dance, theater, film, literature, art, photos, sculpture, cuisine, design, mosaics, crafts, fashion …

BERKELEY: Unemployment is currently rising like a rocket, because businesses that normally would be expanding and hiring are not, and those businesses that would normally be contracting and shedding workers are doing so very rapidly. Businesses that ought to be expanding and hiring cannot, because the depressed general level of financial asset prices prevents them …

WASHINGTON, DC: A new J Street poll finds that large majorities of American Jews support US President Barack Obama s active engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even if that means exerting pressure and publicly disagreeing with Israel. American Jews would also like the United States to deal with a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas …

BERLIN: On the banks of the Rhine and in Prague, NATO and the European Union will pay homage to the new American president in early April. There will be pretty pictures and lofty speeches on the future of the transatlantic relationship – in other words, business as usual. But prior to the Strasbourg and Prague …

ACCRA: The United States suffers rising job losses. Britain nationalizes its banks. Once high-flying small economies like Ireland, Hungary, and Iceland break down. Even robust China and India are experiencing slower growth, curtailed ambitions, and broken dreams. Yet, in sub-Saharan Africa, there are few hints of the global financial crisis that is consuming the capitalist …

PRINCETON: To understand how we got ourselves into our current economic mess, complicated explanations about derivatives, regulatory failure, and so on are beside the point. The best answer is both ancient and simple: hubris. In modern mathematical economics, many people in the rich world decided that we had finally devised a set of scientific tools …