Jean AbiNader reflects on Morocco's challenge of reforming the labor market and realigning government subsidies.
After a year away, I returned to Morocco today for ten days. I am sure that I will find the visit both challenging and satisfying. My central interest is to better understand the tangible governance issues facing the PJD (Justice and Development Party)-led...
The combination of wealth, power, and sacredness is a trinity that may lead to the overthrow of the monarchy in Morocco.
The last time I looked up the word "sacred" in English and Arabic dictionaries, “Mohammed VI, the King of Morocco” was not part of the definition. In ancient times the term was associated with spiritual practices which could assure rain...
Despite modest constitutional reforms by the Moroccan King following the start of the "Arab Spring", Morocco is not an exception to the regional political upheaval and could soon see its own uprising, argues Fouad Oujani.
In spite of the reforms declared by King Mohammed VI, the Moroccan ruler still holds major control of the executive, legislative and judicial powers...
The recent self-immolations of unemployed graduates in Morocco’s capital illustrate an increasingly dire economic situation created by decades of authoritarian politics.
Since January 5, a group of unemployed graduates, les diplômés chômeurs, have staged a sit-in in Rabat demanding jobs and calling for economic reform. After suffering from...
Brazil, while quickly becoming an emerging economic power, is still struggling to improve the socioeconomic problems brought on from the legacy of its autocratic past. This is the final part. Read part one here.
...Brazil, while quickly becoming an emerging economic power, is still struggling to improve the socioeconomic problems brought on from the legacy of its autocratic past. This is the third of four parts. Read part one here....
Brazil, while quickly becoming an emerging economic power, is still struggling to improve the socioeconomic problems brought on from the legacy of its autocratic past. This is the second of four parts. Read part one here.
...
Brazil, while quickly becoming an emerging economic power, is still struggling to improve the socioeconomic problems brought on from the legacy of its autocratic past. This is the first of four parts.
Brazil is widely known for her beautiful, multicultural heritage, and offers a variety of practically anything one can imagine. She is famous for her ethnic cuisine, her varieties...
Is China’s growing influence in Africa really benefitting everyone involved?
Although Sino-African diplomatic relations were first established in the mid-1950s, ties have only recently grown significantly stronger. During the late 1980s and 1990s, China began concentrating on Africa because of its rapidly growing domestic economy and export-focused manufacturing sectors,...
China’s economic relation with Africa is forcing the EU to rethink its strategy towards the continent.
China and the European Union: Relations and Perceptions with Africa
Sino-African trade relations are becoming stronger by the day - this is now an indisputable fact. However, because there is a discrepancy between their interests and...
The second part of an interview with Professor Lai Zhijin, the Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute in Leipzig. This segment of the interview concerns Confucius Institute instructors and events, plus the future of the Institutes particularly in Germany.
Confucius Institute Courses and Faculty (cont.)
CNPolitics:...
This is the first of a two-part interview with Professor Lai Zhijin, Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute in Leipzig. In 2009, the Confucius Institute in Leipzig was awarded the title of “World’s Most Innovative Confucius Institute” by the People’s Republic of China, and in 2011 Professor Lai was similarly given the title of “World’s Most...
Confucius Institutes, which promote Chinese culture abroad, are bolstering China’s soft power.
It has been eight years since the first Confucius Institute was inaugurated in 2004. According to Hanban, the Chinese government department that oversees the Confucius Institute initiative, there are now 322 Confucius Institutes and 369 Confucius Classrooms around the world, and...
A hundred years since his words carried currency in China, Confucius—the 2500-year dead sage—is seeing an apparent resurgence of popularity. Scholars at flagship universities like Tsing-hua and Peking University write editorials based on the works of the sage. More than 300 state-sponsored Confucius Institutes have opened in 94 countries since 2004. A statue of Confucius was even...
Amy Edelstein reflects on the influence of the Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)
In the digital age, where anyone with a smartphone, tablet, PDA, twitter feed or wordpress account can become a journalist, it’s hard to imagine a time that marked the advent of what was to become an inseparable part of our education, our...
Why is the road trip such an appealing American tradition?
It was 1933, Hoover was out, Roosevelt was in, and Harry L. Hopkins had sent the irascible Lorena Hickok on the road to report the state of affairs in a ragged and stricken America.“What I want you to do,” instructed Hopkins, “is to go out around the country and look this thing over.” That...
Somewhat surprisingly, these two radically different concepts have a shared history.
It is common knowledge that among developed western countries the two leading socioeconomic systems are socialism and capitalism. The former is often associated more closely with European systems of governance and the latter with the American free market economy. It is also generally known that...
With a death toll paring that of low intensity warfare, and with one of the highest rates of drug addiction in the world, Iran stands on the frontline of the War on Drugs. Yet, Human Rights Watch and other international groups are calling for the freezing of funding to Iran’s drug control programs.
In recent years, the global War on Drugs has been given increasing...
The lucrative cocaine trade from Latin America to Europe has furthered the globalization organized crime, causing an increase in violence and a deterioration of the rule of law in countries throughout the Caribbean and West Africa.
While reports on drug trafficking from Latin America to North America are common, the increasingly important routes to Europe are seldom mentioned...
Nameless and faceless, migrants traveling through Mexico inhabit the shadowy intersections of drug war violence, government corruption, and poorly designed policy.
The price of winning the drug war includes the nearly 250,000 migrants passing through Mexico each year, a factor which the incoming administration will be forced to address.
In one horrific incident on...
In the attempt to fight drug wars, Mexico's President-elect Peña Nieto has to decide severely on an aggressive fight or a more compromising approach towards the cartels.
The presidential election of Enrique Peña Nieto from the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) is unlikely to alter Mexico’s approach to fighting the drug war. While the 45-year-...
How Spirituality can contribute to resolve conflicts
'We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience' – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
We customarily measure the cost of any conflict/violence or disaster, natural or otherwise, in terms of money, lost production and number of civilians,...
How can meditation make us happier?
There are a lot of advantages to modern living. Advances in nutrition and sanitation have increased the human lifespan almost threefold compared to ages past. Modern technology provides widespread conveniences historically reserved for the aristocracy. Modern medicine can cure an increasing variety of ailments. Around the world, billions of...
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar discusses a new era of spirituality that is compatible with modern, western living.
Interview conducted by Aaron Prosser.
Question 1: It seems like more people are searching for inner peace and meaning in their life. This is especially true in...
Efforts to destroy Colombia’s powerful cartels have only succeeded in fragmenting these once mammoth criminal organizations.
Medellín and Cali are Colombian cities that ring familiar for their association with two of the most powerful drug cartels that once provided the vast majority of cocaine across the US, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
However,...
The FARC rebels emerged from decades as minor insurgency into a major threat. But over the last ten years, a Colombian military offensive has beaten them along the war path and forced them to the negotiation table.
For nearly 50 years, a revolutionary movement has been pulsing through the heart of the Colombian Amazon. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s...
Though the near half century of conflict with Colombia’s longest running guerilla insurgency may soon come to an end, the FARC are just one player in a much larger field of violent actors.
A New Dialogue with a Long Past
After two months of negotiations between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the...
In organized crime, Los Zetas are like cancer. Once bad cells take hold of an area, their metastatic nature soon spreads them in all directions.
Los Zetas defy smaller countries like Guatemala, where they reckon with weaker security forces than in neighboring Mexico. The new Guatemalan administration (which took office in January), led by a retired general, President...
The performance of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in government has at best been mediocre. The Muslim Brothers have used the chance they have been given to entrench their own rule, argues Sarah Eltantawi.
As I write this, a Coptic cathedral in Cairo's Qalioubiyya has been attacked by masked gunmen during a funeral for victims of an earlier...
The Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is being heavily criticized. However, the complicated situation in Egypt urges the observer to take a closer look. Stephan Roll scrutinizes the five most important points of criticism.
...
The recent court verdict and escalating violence puts the ball in Morsi’s court. Reform of law enforcement would open the road towards reducing political volatility and creating conditions for economic recovery.
Escalating street violence in the wake of a partial verdict in the Port Said soccer brawl case pits arch enemies – militant soccer fans and Egypt’s...
As Egypt marks the second anniversary of its revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians are at the base of a new "purgatory", argues Sarah Eltantawi.
In Dante’s Purgatorio, the poets finally make their escape from hell just before Easter Sunday in the year 1300CE. Cato of Utica — purgatory’s gate keeper — at first regarded them as...
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