In The News

Global Migration: A World Ever More on the Move

Jason DeParle June 29, 2010
People’s movement around the globe – for work, wanderlust or safety – has long reordered the world in ways comprehended only decades, even centuries later, notes Jason DeParle for the New York Times. New arrivals influence trade, work habits, schools, culture and politics at all levels. Mobility is at historically high levels, and the United Nations estimates the globe has more than 200 million...

Move Over US Soaps, Telenovelas Seduce the Globe

Susan Froetschel June 1, 2010
There was time when the US dominated daytime television programming with soap operas designed for housewives. Spanning decades, television producers and storylines kept up with social themes, like AIDS or racism, but did not adjust to changing US demographics or work patterns. Directors in Mexico, on the other hand, tweaked the US model early on, initially emphasizing Catholic values, but also...

Hear Them Roar

Rana Foroohar April 16, 2010
In countries and conflict zones where female voices are traditionally stifled, women have proven to be some of the most active dissidents. This tendency is not limited to the ranks of activists as female participation in politics and business has grown dramatically worldwide. In the developing world, the levels of basic education for women are rising. There are now as many girls as boys in...

Gendercide: The World Wide War on Baby Girls

March 5, 2010
In ten years, China will have more boys than girls. Skewed sex ratios, a result of infanticide and sex-selective abortions, have become a huge problem not only in China, but also in India, South Korea, Singapore, and even some ex-Soviet states. Reasons for preference for boys include a desire to avoid the cost of dowries to be paid on the daughter’s wedding, a woman’s adoption into her husband’s...

Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push

Jeffrey Gettleman January 21, 2010
Uganda, a Christian majority nation, hosted three American evangelicals in March 2009 who gave talks describing the gay agenda and its threat to Bible-based values and the traditional African family. The men, widely discredited in the US, spoke to large, rapt audiences, but claim they did not intend what followed a month later: the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 which threatened to hang...

The Post-Berlin Aftermath

Jean-Pierre Lehmann November 9, 2009
While the world celebrates the anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin wall, there are still numerous walls all over the world that need to be torn down. Professor Jean-Pierre Lehmann argues that the world is divided between a rich class of global elites scattered around the world’s major urban centers, and a class of the “globally disenfranchised.” The divide between the two is...

The Gay Sons of Allah: Homophobia Sweeps the Muslim World

Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Daniel Steinvorth September 21, 2009
Across Muslim states of the Middle East, violence and persecution of gay men and women is on the rise. Such persecution, however, is an exception to the past, despite the reputation for repression many of these governments in the region enjoy. Indeed, interpretations of passages in the Koran as referring to homosexuality and laws against homosexual acts are largely the products of British 19th...