Centuries ago, traders and travelers bearing commodities and ideas forged a series of routes crossing Central Asia, connecting China with Rome. What became known as the Silk Road is the epitome of early and unprecedented globalization. Archaeological excavations in the oasis areas of the Tarim...
CHICAGO: A series of Tweets broke the good news the morning of February 11th: “The MUMMIES are back for our ‘Secrets of the Silk Road’ exhibition!” announced the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Archaeology and Anthropology at 9:03 am. Then...
Will the 21st century see China become a strong but benevolent superpower? Since late 2003, top-level Chinese officials have used the term 'peaceful rise' to describe an ideal growth plan for Chinese economic, political, and military expansion. Whatever the future evolution of this...
Wen Jiabao and George W. Bush were all smiles in Dec. 2003, but will Wen's 'peaceful rise' policy quiet talk of a 'China Threat'?
WASHINGTON: China recently conducted a quiet but important policy debate over the...
Global confidence in US policies plummeted during the early months of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Only Russia showed a marked increase in confidence in the United States under Trump. A median of 22 percent in the survey report confidence in Trump to do the...
Declining stock: Protesters in Brussels show displeasure with Donald Trump, but the Vietnamese seem willing to give him a chance as Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is welcomed at the White House
WASHINGTON: Though just six months old,...
Popular culture reflects and shapes political opinion – and leaders harness music, communications and sports to legitimize their programs and shape attitudes. Vladimir Putin has demonstrated “impressive ability to adapt and capture existing symbolic reservoirs” by understanding the “cultural habits...
Rock and brand: Russian pop group Lyube gives a concert in St. Petersburg in 2018, and President Putin welcomes the group’s lead singer, Nikolay Rastorguyev.
WASHINGTON, DC: The analytical tools of political science, which variously describe the...
Cities and nations inspire, not when their citizens fear and denigrate immigrants, but instead welcome the newcomers’ skills and ideas and celebrate their rising influence. “In a world where terrorism and Islamophobia is spreading rapidly, London showed its inherent multicultural, diverse character...
In a world where terrorism and Islamophobia is spreading rapidly, London showed its inherent multicultural, diverse character when it elected the first Muslim Mayor, Sadiq Khan. He won the maximum number of votes garnered by any other mayor of the...
With a history of colonization, debt, US trade boycotts and domestic corruption, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. Recent natural disasters, including hurricanes, storms and the 2010 earthquake compounded the challenges. Writing for the Guardian, Jonathan Glennie recommends that...
Click here for the article in The Guardian.
A major success in a poverty-reduction goal for the new millennium – halving the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.25 per day – largely went unnoticed. The World Bank estimates poverty levels, but the most recent data is from 2005. By combining the recent country survey data of...
Road to growth: Millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty, thanks to trade
WASHINGTON: It is customary to bemoan the intractability of global poverty and the lack of progress against the Millennium Development Goals. But the stunning fact...
Boasting uninhibited women, lush tropical backdrops, and cheap production costs, Brazil has become a prime destination for adult film outsourcing. But Brazil also has the second highest incidence of HIV and AIDS in the western hemisphere. Last month, the porn industry's increasingly global...
SAO PAULO - Flush with dollars, American porn film directors swoop into Brazil for its exotic and uninhibited women, dazzling tropical backdrops and cheap production costs -- a phenomenon that has turned South America's...
