World
Lo Queremos Todo y Lo Queremos Ya
Lessons From Madrid “Reformas de educación! Quiero trabajo! 9/11: Inside Job!” These shouts of frustration are only a sample of the diverse viewpoints expressed in the initial months of Spain’s Indignado (Outraged) Movement. With national unemployment hovering above 20% and…
Learning From Ai Weiwei
China’s Dissident Extraordinaire The Arab Spring did not quite make it to China. There, the Jasmine Revolution met a premature end, halted at the cyberspace stage of indiscriminate calls for action. The Chinese government responded swiftly to the protests, dispatching…
Burma: One Step Forward or One Step Back?
Despite its status as one of the most resource-rich countries in the world, Burma is rarely acknowledged or even noticed by the international community. Pressed between China and India and boasting sizeable reserves of gold, rubies, teak, rice and beaches…
Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Dispute
The Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, Hebrew for “House of the Sun,” recently witnessed a modern-day reenactment of Rosa Parks’ refusal to move to the back of a bus. Rachel Weinstein, a secular Beit Shemesh resident, earned international recognition after…
Remember Darfur
A forgotten twenty-first century genocide. This is how Daowd Salih, founder of the Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy in Sudan, referred to the current situation in Darfur. Since February 2003, Darfur, a western Sudanese region, has suffered intense conflicts…
Revitalizing Turkey’s Future with its Ottoman Past
Since the inception of its protracted European Union bid in 2005, Turkey has scrambled to fulfill the requirements dictated by current E.U. member states, including human rights reform and far-reaching economic legislation. These talks have recently ground to a halt,…
A Tale of Two Revolutionaries
The Antithetical Legacies of Václav Havel and Kim Jong-Il On December 18, 2011, history was provided with an odd coincidence that invites further reflection — the simultaneous deaths of Václav Havel, a dissident playwright, essayist, and poet who became the…
Female Leadership in Latin America
Latin America is a region of unlikely contrasts. UNICEF data reveal that 29 percent of women in Latin America and the Caribbean are married by age 18, yet Latin America leads the world in number of female presidents and prime…