In The News

China Eases Curb On Dalai Lama Images

June 27, 2013
Chinese authorities in the Sichuan province have announced that followers of the Dalai Lama can publicly display his images, and officials in the area have been ordered to cease criticism of the spiritual leader, according to a report by US-funded Radio Free Asia. China took control of Tibet in 1951 and has since demonized the Dalai Lama after he established a government in exile in India. Since...

Mixing Sushi and Samba

Milena Veselinovic June 19, 2013
Brazil is home to 1.8 million people of Japanese descent, the largest Japanese immigrant population in the world. The first Japanese immigrants came to Brazil in 1908 to work as coffee laborers after the abolition of slavery, and most had the opportunity to achieve an education and relative wealth within one or two generations. Nowadays, Japanese Brazilians have had an influence on Brazilian...

Limits of Saudi Oil Power

Fahad Nazer May 30, 2013
Saudi Arabia is facing multiple fronts for potential destabilization. A modern society and wealthy citizenry have depended on millions of skilled and unskilled foreign workers to build infrastructure and keep homes, banks and, restaurants running smoothly. Oil money is also behind tremendous investment in education and other social benefits. Yet fossil fuels are limited. Competition is keen as...

Tunisia Turns Up Heat on the Salafis

Roula Khalaf May 30, 2013
Salafi Muslims promote a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran, insisting on original Arabic translations and rejecting moderate Muslims as infidels. Freedoms won in Tunisia after the 2011 Arab Spring revolution allowed Salafis to evangelize. Now the government is cracking down on the controlling ways of Ansar al-Sharia. “As elsewhere in the region, not least in Egypt, formal politics in...

Temporary Immigrants Mean Temporary Loyalties

Ratna Omidvar May 23, 2013
The lingering effects of global recession contribute to high unemployment rates and immigration policies favoring temporary guest-worker arrangements over an eventual path toward citizenship. Canada has reduced emphasis on family reunification, treating parents and grandparents as tourists and imposing a two-year period of “conditional” residence on sponsored spouses. The country still offers a...

India-China Love-Hate on the Silver Screen

Coonoor Kripalani May 21, 2013
In April Chinese troops moved inside the temporary line of actual control along the disputed border with India. Indian troops countered by setting up camp nearby in a standoff that ended 20 days later, before the official visit of China’s Premier Li Keqiang to New Delhi. For Indian cinema buffs, the recent events along the frozen heights of Ladakh, may seem like life imitating art, or the 1964...

“I Am With the Uprising of Arab Women”

Marcia C. Inhorn May 21, 2013
It may surprise those who view Arab society as traditional and conservative that many Arab Muslim men are supportive of women’s rights. Marcia Inhorn, a Yale professor of anthropology, interviewed more than 300 men from 14 Arab nations – and reports in Slate that many men seek love and companionship in marriage and education and equality for their daughters. “The hundreds of professions of love...