The arrest of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, who was treated as a threat by his own school and police for bringing in an electronic clock he’d made as an engineering project, was not an isolated event. This was completely in line with a problem that has been growing over the past year: Islamophobia, which is the […]
Contrary to what incompetent propagandists keep saying, it was not Gorbachev who ruined the Soviet Union, but the top of the state machinery who revolted against his democratic reforms. Boris Yeltsin’s deadly enmity played a disastrous role. Leonid Kravchuk, the former ideology chief of the Communist Party in Ukraine, made the second largest personal contribution […]
Some believe, or fear, that Modi is so powerful that he is a shoo-in for a second term in 2019. But a year in office has made it apparent that Modi’s mind is too old for the composite mind of India. In 2014, a youth wave voted Modi into power. It does not seem impossible […]
The rivalry for Iran’s future has played out over WhatsApp, Viber, and Tango. All three are used heavily to make free calls, send messages, and post photos or videos. They’re also ways to share the deliciously naughty political humor that Iranians love, without getting caught by the Committee to Determine Instances of Criminal Content. Read […]
What is this culture that everyone in Java speaks of? In the nation’s most populous island, syncretism is locked into the DNA. It is bizarre for the Javanese to think of their religion and their cultural history as incompatible; Hindu stories are part of their legacy, even though their religious affiliation might lie elsewhere. Read […]
China has been making major efforts to increase its ability to influence other countries without force or coercion. In 2007, then-President Hu Jintao told the Communist Party that the country needed to increase its soft power; President Xi Jinping repeated the same message last year. They know that, for a country like China, whose growing […]
The first decade of this century witnessed an historic reduction in global poverty and a near doubling of the number of people who could be considered middle income. But the emergence of a truly global middle class is still more promise than reality. Read Here – Pew Research
Futurists and science-fiction writers have at times looked forward to machines’ workplace takeover with a kind of giddy excitement, imagining the banishment of drudgery and its replacement by expansive leisure and almost limitless personal freedom. And make no mistake: if the capabilities of computers continue to multiply while the price of computing continues to decline, […]
History clearly didn’t end with the triumph of market capitalism and democracy. Those who seek to disprove this old dogma often point to the eruption of radical Islam and the counteroffensive by the West — two events which have indeed overshadowed the last decade in many countries. But history has accelerated more dramatically — in […]
The Iraqi people have been the subject of mass executions, rape, torture and, in addition, the destruction of the country’s infrastructure. The international community has been mostly deaf to the needs of Iraqis, who have undergone difficulties much greater that during the regime of President Saddam Hussein. Read Here – Japan Times
looking beyond borders 