In The News

Celebrate Koran Oath as an All-American Moment

James Zogby January 5, 2007
Critics lashed out at one US congressman’s decision to use the Koran rather than a Bible for taking his oath for office. Some critics said Keith Ellison’s decision to use the Koran “undermines American civilization.” Indeed, most members of Congress don’t use any book at all. Ellison’s decision to use a Koran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson – author of the Declaration of Independence, the third...

India: Emerging as Eastern or Western Power?

Kishore Mahbubani December 19, 2006
Asian nations grow more confident, more optimistic, even as the US withdraws from global leadership, fearful after the 9/11 attacks and lashing out in anger like a wounded animal, without plans or purpose. By condoning torture and instigating war while overlooking pressing problems, the US has abandoned lofty principles it once embraced. With that context, former Singapore ambassador to the...

China Eases Limits on Foreign Media for 2008 Olympics

Mei Fong December 11, 2006
China will temporarily lift restrictions on foreign journalists, allowing them to scrutinize the Olympic Games as well as the Chinese economy, politics and society – but only through October 2008. Foreign journalists will no longer have to request or wait for formal invitations from Chinese groups before conducting interviews or writing articles. However, domestic journalists will still confront...

Kazakhstan Learns to Love Borat

Ryan Kennedy December 1, 2006
Kazakhstan leaders were appalled at how the movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” portrayed their nation as backward and anti-Semitic. The comedy-documentary, with a British actor posing as a Kazakh journalist seeking to learn lessons from the US, has yet to be shown in either Kazakhstan or Russia. Initial Kazakh reactions to the film – such as removing...

Ivy League Investors

Robert J. Shiller November 30, 2006
For more than 20 years, one man has supervised Yale University's endowment portfolio, which regularly posts high annual rates of return, averaging more than 16 percent. Surrounded by academics and holding a doctorate degree himself, David Swensen invests for the long term and defies the conventional wisdom that individual investors cannot beat the markets. Yet a track record such as Swensen’...

Globalization and God – Part II

Bruce Mazlish November 28, 2006
A spike in religious violence around the globe leads many observers to assume that secularism has a diminished influence in international politics. But surges of religious fervor in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the US are a backlash against modernity, whose ideas and freedoms cannot be swept under some global rug and forgotten. In the second part of this two-part series, historian Bruce...

Universities Move to Hide Work From US Eyes

Caroline Alphonso November 13, 2006
The internet tool RefWorks allows professors and students to organize and store research, automatically creating bibliographies. The firm RefWorks describes itself as an international company – but it is based in the US, home of the Patriot Act, which after the 9/11 attacks granted federal authorities wide powers to examine databases without warrants or notice for security risks. Concerned about...