Source: Reuters (Reuters) – If the world follows the demographic habits of Europe — and that’s a big if — by the year 2200 it could be home to a population of less than half its current level, living in housing built for almost three times that number. With the […]
AsGilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by Hamas more than five years ago, was finally released in a vast prisoner exchange, it made me think about the relentless pursuit of his release by Israel. Such a pursuit by one’s family is both natural and understandable. Yet, not only was his […]
Source/Credit: The Huffington Post : By Syed Ali Abbas Zaidi | October 26, 2011 I was in Kasur, a small town near Lahore, Pakistan, where the celebrated mystic poet Bulleh Shah is buried. Thousands gathered for the 254th anniversary of his death. Slogans chanted on that occasion would be branded ‘blasphemous’ by […]
Source/Credit: Religion Dispatches By Haroon Moghul After Libya’s interim leader Abdul-Jalil’s Sunday speech, many have raised concerns about the place of Shari’ah law in Libya. Of course, you could take Juan Cole’s angle on this, and ask why we weren’t as concerned about the Islamic nature of the “new” Iraq […]
Source: Spiegel International The new rail route being built between Berlin and Munich is nothing if not ambitious — as well as being the most expensive transportation project to take shape since reunification. But the line is yet another example of how France beats Germany in the high-speed rail game and critics […]
Cathedral may be set to reopen, but the bitterness over the Church’s attitude to protesters has deepened St Paul’s Cathedral looks set to reopen tomorrow as The Church of England appeared to be in the grip of a crisis of conscience surrounding its stance on London’s anti-capitalist protest. Those camping […]
October 26, 2011 Crony Capitalism Comes Home By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Whenever I write about Occupy Wall Street, some readers ask me if the protesters really are half-naked Communists aiming to bring down the American economic system when they’re not doing drugs or having sex in public. The answer is […]
October 25, 2011 Limits of Magical Thinking By MAUREEN DOWD Steve Jobs, the mad perfectionist, even perfected his stare. He wanted it to be hypnotic. He wanted the other person to blink first. He wanted it to be, like Dracula’s saturnine gaze, a force that could bend your will to […]
Source / Courtesy: Bloomberg From his 33rd-floor penthouse apartment with sweeping views of the Nile River, Naguib Sawiris, Egypt’s best-known billionaire and most prominent Christian, can hear the chants of Friday prayers in the distance. As he sits down to a breakfast of taameya and ful, dishes made from fava beans, demonstrators are gathering […]
BRUSSELS — European leaders, in a significant step toward resolving the euro zone financial crisis, early Thursday morning obtained an agreement from banks to take a 50 percent loss on the face value of their Greek debt. The agreement on Greek debt was crucial to assembling a comprehensive package to […]
A number of matchmaking events involving Buddhist monks, who are permitted to marry and have families in Japan, have taken place in the capital. Read more
Source: CNN Author: William Bennett In his first inaugural address in 1953, newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower told the American people, “History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. We must acquire proficiency in defense and display stamina in purpose.” This was […]
Source: Reuters Reporting By: Adrian Croft Pakistan’s security service provides weapons and training to Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and British troops in Afghanistan, despite official denials, Taliban commanders say, in allegations that could worsen tensions between Pakistan and the United States. A number of middle-ranking Taliban commanders revealed the extent […]
‘Religious Tolerance Bill’ would only entrench discrimination, critics say. By: Sarah Page Compass Direct News Members of a church in Bogor, West Java, are determined to continue meeting outside their sealed building each Sunday until they are granted freedom to worship inside it, despite a ban on street meetings issued by […]
By Prashanth Parameswaran Under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia has emerged as a success story in many ways. It has waged a resilient campaign against terrorism, achieved the third-highest economic growth rate among G-20 countries and demonstrated dynamic leadership within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Moreover, this political […]
Source: Qantara In Germany, Islamic theology is being introduced as a university course – a much debated issue in academic terms, but also politically. In this interview, Mathias Rohe, Germany’s most renowned academic expert on Sharia law, talks about what this means for the development of Islam in Germany and, potentially, on […]
Source: The Local Move over, Alexander Graham Bell, Germany is marking the anniversary of the first phone call today – a century and a half after Johann Philipp Reis first transmitted a spoken sentence over a cable. The age of telephony was not hailed with Bell’s summons to his assistant, […]
Source : The Local This week marks the 50th anniversary of the treaty bringing hundreds of thousands of Turkish “guest workers” to Germany, a move which dramatically altered the fabric of German society. On October 30, 1961, booming West Germany signed a recruitment agreement with Turkey to supplement its workforce. […]
Source: Spiegel International In a major setback for Tunisia’s elite, the Islamist Ennahda Party looks set to lead the country’s first democratically elected government. They appealed to the common people who sought greater credibility in politics. But concerns the country might soon become a new theocracy are exaggerated, because Tunisian Islamists are looking to […]