In The News

This Is Not Only a French Crisis - All of Europe Must Heed the Flames

Timothy Garton Ash November 10, 2005
With urban insurrection raging from Normandy in the north to Marseille in the south, it is now impossible for the French to dismiss the country’s enormous demographic faultlines with appeals to republican greatness and unity. The riots revealed that France, the European country with the largest proportion of men and women of immigrant descent, faces a tremendous social and cultural crisis. In a...

Nigeria Can Help Create More Moral Global Economy

Ken Wiwa November 9, 2005
Nearing the tenth anniversary of the execution of nine Nigerian political and environmental activists, questions still remain as to whether their sacrifice has been in vain. Ken Wiwa, a journalist whose father Ken Saro-Wiwa was instrumental in voicing the unjust corporate practices of Shell and other oil companies in the Niger Delta, here writes of the opportunity for Nigeria to escape the dark...

A Gender Jihad for Islam’s Future

Asra Q. Nomani November 7, 2005
To conservative Muslims, Islamic feminism is an insult to Islam. To a growing group of moderates, however, it’s a return to fundamental Islamic theology, a reaffirmation of rights granted to women at the foundation of Islam but stripped by “manmade rules and tribal traditions masquerading as divine law”. Asra Q. Nomani, an American activist, was among twelve women to lead a conference on...

The Final Outcome of Summit: Two Americas

Andres Oppenheimer November 6, 2005
The fourth Summit of the Americas has fractured the hemisphere into two blocs—one consisting of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Paraguay, and Uruguay; the other consisting of most of the rest of the Americas—that could not even agree on a joint post-summit press conference. They certainly do not agree on the fundamental issue behind the split: free trade. There is hope for agreement in the...

Sarkozy Pledges Police Crackdown after Riots in Paris

Jon Henley November 1, 2005
Following four nights of violent rioting in the Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to aggressively police many of the nation’s poorer, largely immigrant ghettoes. The unrest – the likes of which France has not seen in years – began on Thursday when two boys of North African origin, named only as Ziad, 17, and Banou, 15, died of electrocution after...

China, India Superpower? Not so Fast!

Pranab Bardhan October 25, 2005
Every day, countless commentators prophesize the ascendance of the world's next superpowers, China and India, the two "Asian giants" shaking off their ancient slumber and rising to the call of the 21st century. According to popular punditry, their place in the firmament of globalization's success stories is already guaranteed. Yet economist Pranab Bardhan argues that a much...

Terrorism and Oil

Mohamed Sid-Ahmed October 24, 2005
When the price of oil spiked in the 1970s, the profits were lost to corruption and thus only deepened oil-producing nations’ social problems. We can do much better this time, argues Mohamed Sid-Ahmed: the current boom in oil prices is an opportunity for oil producers to further develop their economies and lift their societies from poverty. There are signs of encouragement on this front: today...