JERUSALEM: President-elect Barack Obama’s plans for the Middle East, the region where his predecessor’s policies shattered America’s standing around the world as a benign superpower, represent a welcome departure from President Bush’s grand design to redress the region’s ills through “constructive chaos. Unfortunately, Obama’s all-encompassing promises might prove to be just as unrealistic. Obama’s agenda …

FLORIDA: There is both good and bad news regarding attitudes about peace in the Holy Land. A Gallup Poll released last week indicates that 63 percent of Israelis and 66 percent of Palestinians still support the peace process. However, only 29 percent of Israelis and 18 percent of Palestinians polled believe that permanent peace is …

PRINCETON: Throughout his tenure as South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki rejected the scientific consensus that AIDS is caused by a virus, HIV, and that antiretroviral drugs can save the lives of people who test positive for it. Instead, he embraced the views of a small group of dissident scientists who suggested other causes for AIDS. …

PARIS: Sixty years ago this week, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first international proclamation of the inherent dignity and equal rights of all people. To this day, the Universal Declaration remains the single most important reference point for discussion of ethical values across national, ideological, and cultural divides. Yet …

PHEONIX: “Hi, I’m Anne and I’m a Christian Scientist. “I’m Tex, a Methodist. “I’m John, a member of the LDS church. “I’m Dilara, a Muslim. No, this isn’t a religious AA meeting – it’s the monthly meeting of the Arizona Interfaith Movement (AIFM), whose mission is “to build bridges of understanding, respect, and support among …

NEW YORK: President Islam Karimov’s regime in Uzbekistan has survived for 19 years, in no small part because it has resorted time and again to police brutality and torture to extract confessions from people who have committed no crime, and to break the spirits of political opponents and intimidate anyone who might think of becoming …

CAMBRIDGE: In August 2008, Russian troops moved into Georgia. Observers dispute who fired first, but there was a little-noticed dimension of the conflict that will have major repercussions for the future. Computer hackers attacked Georgian government websites in the weeks preceding the outbreak of armed conflict. The Russia-Georgia conflict represents the first significant cyber attacks …

CAIRO: Whenever I come back from abroad, I find the strangest voicemail messages on my mobile phone, which I insist on not taking with me when I travel, otherwise, I’d feel that I’m still in Egypt. After two weeks abroad, I came back to find a warning message that my inbox is full and that …

CAMBRIDGE: There is a silver lining for developing nations in the present crisis, for they will emerge with a much bigger say in the institutions that govern economic globalization. Once the dust settles, China, India, Brazil, South Korea, and a handful of other “emerging nations will be able to exercise greater influence over the way …

NEW YORK: It has become popular to suggest that when the dust settles from the global financial crisis, it may become clear that the United States-led post-war world has come to an end. If so, the global system that has secured peace, security, openness, and economic growth over the past six decades could be in …

CAIRO: “To die is to go into the collective unconscious, said German Nobel Laureate Herman Hesse; and what better way to do that than by spreading ideas. That was the mission of Egypt’s iconic publisher Hajj Mohamed Madbouli (1938-2008), who died last week at age 70 after a battle with cancer. The self-taught owner of …

AMMAN: It’s bailout time! As the world economic crisis worsens, banks, mortgage companies, auto giants and other troubled businesses are desperate for government intervention. Multi-billion dollar stimulus packages have already been adopted by European and American governments. China, Japan and other Asian countries have already stepped in to rescue ailing industries and support financial institutions. …

NEW YORK: The financial crisis has been uppermost in the minds of most world leaders. Yet, however high the price of a global bail-out, we know one thing: it pales next to the enormous costs – and profound human consequences – of delaying action on climate change. There is a sort of beauty in this …

The recent Mumbai bombings which killed nearly 180 people and injured 300 will be a turning point in the future of “jihadism around the world. Now it is possible to distinguish between two major phases. The first phase is message-giving/ideological jihad, which we witnessed with the emergence of jihadist movements in Egypt in the 1970s …

In the article “Honey, I’m homosexual which was published by Daily News Egypt on Dec. 5, I was shocked at how the article steered the subject of gay husbands in the direction of them being infected or diseased beings. You end for example with this sentence: Other specialists explain that homosexuality is not necessarily a …

Thank you for the advice you gave us Ms. Carr in your comment “Homosexuality is not an illness published by Daily News Egypt on Dec. 10. I promise you that the Egyptian people will reconsider. After all Egyptians love nothing more than being told what to think and what to believe and we have all …

NEW YORK: With George W. Bush’s presidency about to end, what will happen to the neo-conservatives? Rarely in the history of American politics has a small number of bookish intellectuals had so much influence on foreign policy as the neo-cons had under Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, neither of whom are noted for …

WASHINGTON, DC: The era of free-market capitalism launched in the 1980’s by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – often called “neoliberalism by its opponents – is over. This ideological wave has crashed with the ongoing financial market crisis, but its decline was a long time coming. In the last few years, while American leaders continued …

With reference to an article published by Daily News Egypt on Dec. 5 titled “Honey, I’m homosexual , I’d first like to thank you for picking up such a hot subject and for highlighting the plight of the women – and men – concerned. But please note that homosexual or bisexual people are not deviant …

OXFORD: The growing Muslim presence in Europe has become a central issue for all European countries, east and west. The numerous debates that have been breaking out across the continent about “multiculturalism, “secularity, or even “identity are almost always connected to this “Islamic factor. This link is not necessarily bigoted, because there is a fundamental …

JOHANNESBURG: “If the law supposes that, Mr. Bumble says in Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, “the law is an ass. A criminal law that makes it preferable for carriers of HIV not to know that they are infected and capable of spreading it to others, including their loved ones, seems particularly suited to Mr. Bumble’s …

Today we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that marked a crucial turning point in human history as the first international agreement setting out freedoms, rights and entitlements for all humanity to claim. Six decades ago, it affirmed that the force of shared ideas and a common vision …

BANGKOK: “Thailand’s future is up for grabs, proclaimed the eminent Thai scholar Thitinan Pongsudhirak just before the country’s Constitutional Court ruled, in effect, that the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and its two smaller coalition partners are “illegal, and hence must disband due to “election frauds committed by party executives a year ago. Party leaders, …

A clever new gadget was described in a newspaper a few weeks ago. It pulls water out of the atmosphere and delivers you a glass of clean, chilled H2O. It’s wonderful what technology can offer for the wealthy. But there is no such luck for millions of Africans who face disruption to the rainfall on …

I traveled to Canada to attend the Montreal International Book Fair, leaving behind our venerable press busy with the killing of a Lebanese singer, but when I came back one week later I found it busy with the slaying of the daughter of a Moroccan singer. Since I failed to understand the first crime due …

CAIRO: Do we ever really get to know the truth when heinous crimes that defy any semblance of logic are committed in Egypt? I’m not a conspiracy theorist and don’t have any crucial evidence to cast doubt on the super-human ability of the Egyptian police to solve a double homicide in five days. Indeed you …

NEW DELHI: The fallout from the terror attacks in Mumbai last week has already shaken India. Deep and sustained anger across the country – at its demonstrated vulnerability to terror and at the multiple institutional failures that allowed such loss of life – has prompted the resignations of the Home Minister in the national government …

NEW YORK: The most important contribution of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly 60 years ago, on December 10, 1948, was to assert a powerful idea: rights are universal. Rights do not depend on membership of a particular community or citizenship in a certain state. They do not …

WASHINGTON, DC: Because expectations across the Middle East are so high and the need for change is so great, during the next two months, all eyes will be focused on the early decisions made by President-elect Barack Obama. But precisely because the need is so great, I believe that the region’s leadership should be more …

The concept of charisma – derived from the Greek word for grace – has held a vital place in the vocabulary of social sciences since the German sociologist Max Weber introduced it in his masterpiece The Theory of Social and Economic Organization as one of the three types of political authority. At times of stress, …