Opinion

An Innovation Agenda for Europe Monday, September 16th, 2019

Doctored Admissions: The US University Admissions Scandal as a Global Problem Friday, September 13th, 2019

Not so much a Desperate House Wife as a desperate mother, a contrite Felicity Huffman, known for playing Lynette Scavo, has been convicted for her role in the university admissions scandal in the United States. The scene is set for another dramatization, though few can go past the sheer levels of..

Read Full Story »

Trump’s New Troubles Thursday, September 12th, 2019

As the US Congress reconvenes this week after a six-week recess, the administration is mired in controversies, almost all of them set off by President Donald Trump. Trump’s behavior has been at its most peculiar since he took office, undoubtedly partly owing to panic over the 2020 election. He..

Read Full Story »

What’s Wrong with the News? Wednesday, September 11th, 2019

The British public can’t get enough news about Brexit – at least, that’s what news platforms’ data analytics say. But, according to the Reuters Institute’s latest Digital News Report, 71% of the British public tries to avoid media coverage of the United Kingdom’s impending departure..

Read Full Story »

Pakistan’s Literacy Problem Friday, September 6th, 2019

In every country, literacy has been essential to support a wide range of social and development goals, from political participation to good health outcomes. Among literate mothers, infant mortality rates drop significantly. Children from low-literacy areas, by contrast, not only do worse at school,..

Read Full Story »

The Courage of Saying No: Children, Rebellion and Greta Thunberg Thursday, September 5th, 2019

There is something to be said of wariness when it comes to revolutionary voices. As Albert Camus argued in that beautiful tract of illumination and contradiction, The Rebel, “All modern revolutions have ended in the reinforcement of the power of the state.” But he also argued that humankind..

Read Full Story »

The True Toll of the Trade War

Another day, another attack on trade. Why is it that every dispute – whether over intellectual property (IP), immigration, environmental damage, or war reparations – now produces new threats to trade? For much of the last century, the United States managed and protected the rules-based trading..

Read Full Story »

China is Committed to Multilateralism Wednesday, September 4th, 2019

In recent years, China’s lead role in establishing new multilateral institutions – including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the New Development Bank – has raised fears that the government aims to topple the existing world order...

Read Full Story »

America’s Uneven Future of Work Tuesday, September 3rd, 2019

The US labor market is posting healthy numbers – for now. Yet Americans’ economic prospects vary significantly, depending on who they are and where they live, and these differences will sharpen as the pace of automation picks up in the decade ahead. For starters, some of the US economy’s..

Read Full Story »

Don’t Blame Economics, Blame Public Policy Monday, September 2nd, 2019

It is now customary to blame economics or economists for many of the world’s ills. Critics hold economic theories responsible for rising inequality, a dearth of good jobs, financial fragility, and low growth, among other things. But although criticism may spur economists to greater efforts, the..

Read Full Story »

Timor-Leste and Australia: A Loveless Affair at Twenty Sunday, September 1st, 2019

Cringe worthy, a touch molesting in sentiment: this was the celebratory occasion of the gathering of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison with his East Timorese counterparts. During the course of its history, the state has been pillaged and bombed, its residents massacred and its politicians..

Read Full Story »

Two Systems, One World Friday, August 30th, 2019

With the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaching, the issue of freedom has returned to the fore in Moscow and Hong Kong, albeit under very different historical and political circumstances. We are reminded that the modern era was built on freedom, and on the recognition that all..

Read Full Story »

The Lifesaving Power of Sex Education Thursday, August 29th, 2019

When I was a bright-eyed eighth grader in my native Sri Lanka, I couldn’t wait for my first sex education class. In our early teens, my classmates and I were as curious as we were clueless about sex and sexuality. Yet, instead of receiving reliable answers to pressing questions about our bodies,..

Read Full Story »

America Does Not Need a Rabbi-in-Chief Wednesday, August 28th, 2019

If anything is sacred to Americans, it is the US Constitution, the founding document that contains the country’s source code. Sadly, one of that code’s key components – the First Amendment – is under attack from an aggressive virus unleashed from within the White House. In 1802,..

Read Full Story »

I Am Not Boris Monday, August 26th, 2019

Ever since Boris Johnson moved into 10 Downing Street vowing to renegotiate the United Kingdom’s withdrawal agreement with the European Union, the conventional wisdom among many Brexit opponents has been that the UK’s new prime minister is “doing a Varoufakis” and will be crushed in similar..

Read Full Story »

Imperial Sentiments: Donald Trump, Greenland and Colonial Real Estate Friday, August 23rd, 2019

Haven’t the critics worked it out yet? US President Donald Trump chugs to the coal of nonsense that may come in the wrapping of some sense. Initial mad-cat comments, when cobbled together, might reveal some pattern in time. Take, for instance, the recent offer to purchase Greenland. Considered..

Read Full Story »

Planetary Thinking Wednesday, August 21st, 2019

The Swedish climate truthsayer Greta Thunberg has set sail for the United States in a zero-emissions racing yacht to generate waves in a different part of the world – including at next month’s United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York. She will arrive in America at a time of growing..

Read Full Story »

INDIAN PRIME MINISTER’S CALL FOR POPULATION CONTROL – NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON

It is good that Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has, at last, called for population control in India during his 73 rd Independence Day address at Delhi. During his first term of office for five years, Mr. Modi spoke on several much needed reforms and implemented a number of progressive..

Read Full Story »

What Russia Thinks About Multilateralism Tuesday, August 20th, 2019

When Russians hear paeans to the “rules-based” order, their standard rejoinder is to ask who is actually writing the rules. In fact, that same question now encapsulates the Kremlin’s attitude toward Western-championed multilateralism. The way Russia sees it, the United States will not..

Read Full Story »

Forgetting Palestine Monday, August 19th, 2019

Israel is approaching another parliamentary election, and Palestinians have barely been mentioned. The vote comes at a time when the United States is pushing its poorly conceived economy-focused Peace to Prosperity plan. With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict no longer undermining Israel’s..

Read Full Story »