In The News

The Social Laboratory

Shane Harris August 4, 2014
Big data – “emails, phone logs, Internet searches, airline reservations, hotel bookings, credit card transactions, medical reports” – can point to patterns in motivation and behavior. Eager to expand such programs for security purposes, some US officials envy Singapore’s law-and-order attitudes and the uninterrupted power of the People's Action Party since 1959: “They are drawn not just to...

Illegal Immigration Illogic

Joseph Chamie July 22, 2014
Countries are torn over tough enforcement for immigrants who enter without authorization: employers welcome flexible, low-cost labor while workers and taxpayers resent competition over limited jobs and community resources. The influx of children crossing into the United States from Central American states with high poverty, unemployment and fertility rates underscores the problem for nations with...

Big Projects Face Growing Resistance

Sven Böll, Horand Knaup and Paul Middelhoff July 16, 2014
The internet and social media have transformed grassroots protesters into rapid-response teams. Modern movements are “Well-informed, confrontational and devoid of respect for authority” with a “radical undercurrent,” notes an article in Spiegel Online: “Wherever ambitious construction ventures loom on the horizon in Germany – from the cities to the countryside, from the coastlines in the north to...

The Islamic World and the West: Recovering Common History

Nayef Al-Rodhan July 15, 2014
One out of five people in the world are Muslim, and many Europeans express fear about growing numbers of Muslim migrants. “Islam in Europe tends to be viewed as not only a recent, but also a foreign and threatening presence,” explains Nayef Al-Rodhan, University of Oxford philosopher, neuroscientist and geostrategist. “Europe and the Arab-Islamic world have brushed shoulders for centuries, and...

Protesters Turn Back Busloads of Immigrants in California

Ricardo Cano July 2, 2014
An ugly welcome was waiting for detained immigrants as about 100 protesters, waving US flags, blocked three buses from entering a California processing center, reports Ricardo Cano for the Desert Sun. The United States confronts a humanitarian and immigration crisis as thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America cross the border, crowding detention centers and straining government...

Islam – Up for Grabs

Ooi Kee Beng June 26, 2014
The world is on the watch for Islamic extremism – recent examples include the execution of some 1,700 Shia solders in Iraq and the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria. Two dynamics are underway that confound international relations, argues Ooi Kee Beng, deputy director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies: First, a tendency among some Muslim nations to extend Islam rigidly...

Call for Inclusiveness May Not Work for Middle East's Sectarian Divide

Dilip Hiro June 18, 2014
ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, began as an Al Qaeda offshoot in Iraq and is described as more fanatical than the parent group. With up to 5000 troops, ISIS controls an area of Syria and now storms through northern Iraq exploiting power vacuums and frustrations over minority rights. The group imposes a rigid Sunni interpretation...