The ever stronger monastic politics in Sri Lanka is fast changing the rules of power in the tiny island nation.
Given the categorical departure of religion and politics, Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka...
A multidisciplinary, multinational, multimedia journal that provides analysis of and context for issues, trends and events of global significance.
-
Who Betrays Whom? Buddhism and Monastic Politics in Modern Sri Lanka
By Chipamong ChowdhuryThe ever stronger monastic politics in Sri Lanka is fast changing the rules of power in the tiny island nation.
Given the categorical departure of religion and politics, Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka maintains its apolitical entity and separation from the political sphere. Since the early 20th century, however, it has become impossible for scholars to ignore...
National Unity is the Solution to Lebanon's Refugee Crisis
By Shereen EldalyAs Syria’s civil war rages on, thousands of refugees flee daily to Lebanon. The Lebanese state needs to focus on national unity to avoid further political instability.
By the end of 2013, Lebanon estimates that there will be a staggering 1.2 million Syrian refugees within its borders, in addition to hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylum-seekers from the...
The Arab Spring and Africa's Place in History
By Jonathan HillDr. Jonathan Hill looks at the coining of phrases surrounding "Spring Revolutions" and how Africa follows its own path.
"At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it has no historical part in the world; …Historical movements in it – that is in its northern part – belong to the Asiatic or European World." Few...
Pakistan: The Uneasy Tie Between Educational Reform and Violence
By Maria KhwajaMaria Khwaja examines the rhetoric of educational reform during the general election and obstacles on the ground in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi
In December, I hurriedly snapped a photo of five men at Qasim-ul-Uloom School in Karachi. Located in the ethnically volatile Orangi-town area, Qasim-ul-Uloom educates a diverse group of children: Pathan, Sindhi, Balochi, and...
-
Africa’s 2040 Employment Problem
By Lee-Roy ChettyNorth and sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing a demographic youth bulge. However, there is a severe mismatch between the skills possessed by young workers and those demanded by employers. The education system needs to be restructured to build the skills needed to compete globally.
Over the last decade, six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were in sub-Saharan...
Global Business in Emerging Markets: Potential for Transformational...
By Jean AbiNaderThe role of workforce development in crafting solutions should not be overlooked or minimized as simply giving people jobs. Jean AbiNader analyzes the importance of job skills training in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), global dexterity, the renegotiation of the social contract, and impact investing in a post-Arab Uprisings environment.
At a recent corporate...
Who are the Real Winners From Complex Financial Regulations?
By John BrutonFormer Prime Minister John Bruton asks, why are modern business regulations so complex?
I believe that, across the Western world, we may be reaching some sort of limit in the complexity of rules governing business. The response to the financial crisis has been ever more complex rules, that only a tiny number of professional advisors could ever hope to remember, or understand...
Unilateral Economic Sanctions Against Iran: Unexpected Implications (...
By Nikolay KozhanovThe international sanctions against Iran have been effective. However, they also made the Iranian elite more practical and cynical by teaching it how to survive under external economic pressure. This is the last of a two part series. Read part one....
-
Guyana: Mining, Forests and Indigenous Rights
By Oda AlmåsIn light of increasing gold prices on the world market, the actual commitment under-pinning Guyana’s agreement with Norway to save its rainforests, which also includes an obligation to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, can be questioned.
The unprecedented high price of gold on the world market is leading to rapidly increasing pressure on land that may...
Africa’s 2040 Employment Problem
By Lee-Roy ChettyNorth and sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing a demographic youth bulge. However, there is a severe mismatch between the skills possessed by young workers and those demanded by employers. The education system needs to be restructured to build the skills needed to compete globally.
Over the last decade, six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were in sub-Saharan...
Equity in Extractives: A Clarion Call from the Africa Progress Panel
By Solomon AppiahThe recently launched African Progress Report 2013 addresses the important topic of equality in extractives, and recieved a lot of media attention.
A Little History
There are critical junctures in human history where a clarion call is issued against an injustice so great but tolerated in one or more parts of the world. The succeeding...
Who Will Be Syria's Knight Sans Armor? (Part 1/2)
By Jennifer F. Helgeson“Without our voices, we have no choices. And without choices, we could be stuck forever in violence.” A reflection on discussions with Syrians in and outside of Syria. This is the first of a two part series.
The civil conflict in Syria has raged for over two years. The large majority of aid workers outside of the United Nations World Food Program are...
-
Albus Cavus: An Art of Social Responsibility
By Peter KrskoPeter Krsko, founder of Albus Cavus urban art collective from Washington DC, talks about the importance of art in developing local communities.
The development of healthy communities in urban centers depends on active involvement of their members. One of the most effective ways to educate and encourage the young...
Who Betrays Whom? Buddhism and Monastic Politics in Modern Sri Lanka
By Chipamong ChowdhuryThe ever stronger monastic politics in Sri Lanka is fast changing the rules of power in the tiny island nation.
Given the categorical departure of religion and politics, Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka maintains its apolitical entity and separation from the political sphere. Since the early 20th century, however, it has become impossible for scholars to ignore...
Media and Politics in Georgia: A Partisan View
By Katherin MachalekDespite the recent change in leadership, Georgian media seems unlikely to develop non-partisan reporting in the near future, argues Freedom House analyst Katherin Machalek.
Amid great fanfare, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili appeared at a rally in Tbilisi on April 19 in support of his United National Movement (UNM), which had ruled the country from 2003 until it lost the...
Colombia: A Step Back for Gay Marriage
By Dylan HerreraA campaign against discrimination has been launched by gay activists in Colombia. Denying civil rights to a specific group in society, resembles the struggle against anti-Semitism and the African-American civil rights movement.
In 2005, the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in Spain approved gay marriage. The big question was whether the approval was...
-
Global Business in Emerging Markets: Potential for Transformational...
By Jean AbiNaderThe role of workforce development in crafting solutions should not be overlooked or minimized as simply giving people jobs. Jean AbiNader analyzes the importance of job skills training in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), global dexterity, the renegotiation of the social contract, and impact investing in a post-Arab Uprisings environment.
At a recent corporate...
Protecting Singapore Businesses from Cyber-Espionage
By S.Rajaratnam School of Internationa...Cyber-espionage is a real and growing threat to businesses and economies in Singapore. Some counter-measures can be taken by the private sector. But the government plays an important role in protecting its businesses from cyber-exploitation.
By Senol Yilmaz
Over the few decades, Singapore’s economy has moved up from a mere producer of material...
Who are the Real Winners From Complex Financial Regulations?
By John BrutonFormer Prime Minister John Bruton asks, why are modern business regulations so complex?
I believe that, across the Western world, we may be reaching some sort of limit in the complexity of rules governing business. The response to the financial crisis has been ever more complex rules, that only a tiny number of professional advisors could ever hope to remember, or understand...
The Growth of Crowdfunding: Risks and Rewards
By Knowledge @ WhartonThe success of the "Veronica Mars" Kickstarter campaign has illustrated that crowdfunding is a reliable source of capital for both start-up businesses and established firms.
The campaign to front a movie based on the cult television show "Veronica Mars" through crowdfunding broke records for the fastest project ever to raise $1 million on Kickstarter. It was...
-
After the Boston Attacks: The Role of Terrorism in the Northern...
By Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)Because the Boston Bombers came from Chechnya, the country is now back on the public agenda. Uwe Halbach analyzes the situation in Chechnya and sheds light on the background of Islamist terror in the...
Obama Earns His Nobel Prize on Syria
By Jeffrey LaurentiSyria is not Iraq. Outside Washington, the US seems strongly opposed to deep involvement in the Syrian conflict. Obama's caution is on the mark, argues Jeffrey Laurenti.
As pressures mount in Washington for a more aggressive American involvement on behalf of at least some rebel groups in Syria, President Obama has seemed intent on proving the Nobel committee was farsighted...
Alwiya Ahfaad ar-Rasool: A Growing Force in the Syrian Armed...
By Nicholas A. HerasAlwiya Ahfaad ar-Rasool is a growing force against the al-Assad government in Syria. It is poised to become one of the most heavily observed and commonly cited fighting forces of the Syrian Civil War.
Alwiya Ahfaad ar-Rasool (Brigades of the Descendants of the Prophet) is an increasingly powerful national umbrella organization of locally-based Syrian Sunni Islamist...
Terrorism and the Other Religions
By Juan ColeTerrorism is a tactic of extremists within each religion, and within secular religions of Marxism or nationalism. No religion, including Islam, preaches indiscriminate violence against innocents, argues Juan Cole.
Contrary to what is alleged by bigots like Bill Maher, Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions. Murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very...
-
The Glowing Plant: A New Paradigm for Funding Science?
By Deeba FahamiIn a world of austerity and shrinking research budgets, the crowd-funding method at the core of the Glowing Plant Project offers a radically different approach to scientific research funding.
The first synthetic biology project that has launched on Kickstarter, the...
The Importance of Technology in Economic and Social Development
By Lee-Roy ChettyMobile technology offers extensive help on various forms of social and economic development. Lee-Roy Chetty explores why such initiatives can have a positive impact in Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, and beyond.
Technological innovation and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) represent a way for developing world nations to foster economic development, improve levels of...
Countering Maritime Piracy: A Collaborative Approach
By Ari KatzSynergizing resources and technology from private and public stakeholders, can produce more effective and cost efficient counter-maritime piracy measures.
In light of sequestration, analysts project that countering maritime piracy will take a back seat to the Asia rebalancing and other more existential US foreign policy issues. Unfortunately, this rationing of focus has the...
The Making of the Higgs
By Felix HaasWhat is this mysterious particle that the mainstream media calls "the God particle" and that governments spend billions trying to find?
Scientists working in particle physics were under real pressure to deliver something new, when the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva started measuring its first low energy collisions in March 2010. They were particularly eager...
-
Combating Diabetes: Some Things Money Can’t Buy
By INSEAD - Business SchoolFaced with a deadly and expensive diabetes epidemic, Gulf states are looking at innovative business marketing techniques to promote healthy behaviour and keep a cap on spiralling health costs.
By Jane Williams
Strong oil prices have bankrolled an affluent lifestyle in the Middle East’s Gulf region, with deadly consequences. Rich foods, decreased...
Politics of Scarcity
By Dr. M. KrishnamurthiThe scarcity of food, water, education, and transportation is negatively affecting both urban and rural populations in India.
More than sixty percent of the Indian population depends upon agriculture and agriculture-related activities for their livelihood and live in rural areas. When they followed traditional practices, all agricultural inputs were locally available such...
Mindfulness and the Pursuit of Happiness
By Norman FarbHow 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...
A Spiritual Life: Exclusive Interview with HH Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
By Sri Sri Ravi ShankarSri 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...
-
Guyana: Mining, Forests and Indigenous Rights
By Oda AlmåsIn light of increasing gold prices on the world market, the actual commitment under-pinning Guyana’s agreement with Norway to save its rainforests, which also includes an obligation to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, can be questioned.
The unprecedented high price of gold on the world market is leading to rapidly increasing pressure on land that may...
One Horned Rhinos in Assam: Drones to the Rescue
By Nava J. ThakuriaIn India, elite forces on the ground and drones in the sky aim to safeguard Assam's wildlife.
Assam, which has been in the national and international media for incidents related to insurgency turned terrorism, is on the verge of witnessing a new battle. Unmanned remote-controlled aircraft popularly referred to as drones which are being used by NATO forces in...
The Glowing Plant: A New Paradigm for Funding Science?
By Deeba FahamiIn a world of austerity and shrinking research budgets, the crowd-funding method at the core of the Glowing Plant Project offers a radically different approach to scientific research funding.
The first synthetic biology project that has launched on Kickstarter, the...
Americans Still Want Renewable Energy
By Anthony W. OrlandoAmericans still want investment in renewable energy in a bid to distance themselves from Middle Eastern oil producers.
James Gaddy knows manure. Chicken manure, to be exact. He’s spent years working with it. That may not sound like much fun to you and me, but Gaddy is on a mission to power the earth — and, in the process, save it.
Specifically,...
