China invests billions on Confucius Institutes and CCTV broadcasts to spread Chinese language, culture and perspectives on world news. But China’s harsh authoritarian rule, exposed by a few incidents or individuals attracting global attention, can undermine efforts to build soft power through a...
HONG KONG: Buoyed by its massive foreign-exchange reserve, China has spent billions of dollars to boost its soft power. Direct Chinese television broadcasts and Confucius Institutes around the world are aimed at winning the world’s respect. But a...
Donald Trump won the US presidency with less than a majority vote and governs with a level of support that struggles to reach 40 percent. The administration’s ineffective policies reflect a larger society that thrives on “an unrelenting barrage of crude and voyeuristic entertainments, most of which...
Reality TV presidency: Donald Trump shows his own rubber mask; Willie Robertson, actor with reality TV show Duck Dynasty, addresses the Republican National Convention
LAFAYETTE, INDIANA: Even now, polls suggest that about 40 percent of Americans...
Individuals increasingly expect the right to be informed and make their own decisions about health care, including control over the timing of death. Close to 800,000 people commit suicide every year, nearly 80 percent in low- and middle-income nations, reports the World Health Organization. As a...
Life and death: All forms of cancer combined are why most patients seek assisted suicide; surgeons use a robot to treat a patient's prostate cancer, and David Goodall, 104, leaves Australia to die in Switzerland with the help of Exit International (...
New digital technologies known as “deepfake” can manipulate images and faces in realistic ways that trickl viewers. Governments and companies have long adjusted photographs and videos for propaganda or advertising purposes. However, Moisés Naím explains that deepfake is more dangerous, with...
Spending priorities and alleged corruption in India's defense industry have become campaign issues in the midst of parliamentary elections, set to conclude 23 May. “The French Dassault Rafale has a troubled procurement history, and the controversy has influenced the political environment in...
Aerial dogfight: Former French president François Hollande was in India to finalize the Rafale deal; India's effort to launch its indigenous light combat aircraft Tejas ran into trouble
NEW DELHI: India is in the midst of its parliamentary elections...
Researchers continue to warn that previous climate studies may have been conservative and – without immediate mitigation and interventions – flooding, wildfires, extreme weather will be worse than earlier predicted. Accurate measurements of coastal elevations are costly, and past models...
The state once controlled narratives of memorialization, often confined to specific geographic spaces in museums or archives. The world has more technologies than ever before for gathering and conveying evidence of mass atrocities – from the internet and social media to holograms, artificial...
Global grieving; New technologies help museums and individual gather evidence and relay history – Holocaust survivor Sam Harris answered hundreds of questions to help create a hologram; global movement Together We Remember relies on social media to...
Trade policy is among the issues prompting US voters to coalesce around Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as presumptive nominees for president. Clinton opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, calling for a crackdown on trade violations and more enforcement; Trump is critical of nearly all trade...
Skills and trade: Presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, need smart policy to save both workers and trade, top; American workers queue up to look for jobs in Nassau, New York
I’m writing to you both as...
