With the spread of reproductive technology, surrogate parenting has risen sharply in recent years; it's estimated that half of all such births since 1978 occurred during the last six years. Regulations and costs for the practice vary worldwide, report demographers Joseph Chamie and Barry...
Birth of debate: In 2010 a French gay couple returned to France with twins delivered by a surrogate Indian mother (top); recently, a mass demonstration was held in Paris opposing surrogacy
NEW YORK: What used to be a costly, sci-fi solution to...
Around the world, many still feel chills remembering the reports from July 20, 1969, that two men had landed and walked on the Moon. Zulfikar Abbany, writing for Deutsche Welle, describes how the American story is “a Cold War story, too — of a Free World against a closed, communist world. And in...
Some customs, from security procedures at airports to requirements for suits and ties at restaurants, divide people in unnecessary ways. But the election of US President Barack Obama – "a Chicago man, born in Hawaii, with an African father, an Indonesian stepfather and a mother from English-...
Security guards at the airport just made me take off my belt. Huh? How could my belt be a threat? Did I really look like I could subdue 300 people on a jumbo jet using only a 30-inch strap designed to stop my trousers...
The European Union labeles some palm oil as unsustainable, responsible for high rates of deforestation. Indonesia has filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization over EU renewable energy policy. The European Union plans to phase out use of biofuels by 2030, and Indonesia officials express...
Lawmakers in China, India, Malaysia, Russia and many other countries are cracking down on non-governmental organizations and activists that press for reforms. CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations, describes “serious threats to civic freedoms” in 96 countries, as reported by...
Read the article.
Read the 2015 State of Civil Society Report from CIVICUS.
Immigration, transfer of new technologies and evolving work ethics have put entire industries in flux. This has stirred anti-immigration fervor in some communities as demonstrated by big gains of far-right parties in the European Parliament elections. Author Pallavi Aiyar analyzes the forces of...
Diamond business not forever: Traditional Jewish diamond cutters in Antwerp, Belgium (top); newcomer Indian diamond merchant Baron Dilip Mehta
ANTWERP: I had never heard the word “work,” made to sound like a term of abuse until a visit with the...
The global economic crisis is now starting to be felt in even remote countries like China’s Inner Mongolia and normally less cyclical professions like goat herding. Demand for cashmere sweaters knit in China and exported to the US and Europe is down 30 percent this summer, causing raw cashmere...
Click here for the article on The New York Times.
