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We have come a long way from the times when women were classified as militants and arrested for demanding voting rights, stepping in front of galloping horses to garner attention. In just over two years, the #MeToo movement has made us question the notion of sexual engagement, our understanding of...
In a remarkable confluence of events, the right-wing national leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel find themselves, at least for a brief historical moment, besieged by criticism and stark political dangers. In the US, President Donald Trump is facing a more serious...
It is a hallmark of right-wing populists to make a preposterous policy and then be forced — by opposition, by circumstance, by the laws of physics — to retreat. Three very recent examples involve US President Donald Trump, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Turkish President Recep Tayyip...
The TED website describes Kishore Mahbubani, a career diplomat from Singapore, as someone who “re-envisions global power dynamics through the lens of rising Asian economies.” This description is not just apt for Mahbubani but also for his new book, “Has the West Lost It?” The title may...
Two years ago, my wife and I went to a dog “salon” in a small French town on the other side of Geneva. The puppies were adorable, but even more were the kittens one breeder was exhibiting together with his puppies. Taking advantage of my obvious immediate infatuation with the tiny creatures,...
“She said to me: ‘I’m not pointing the finger’ and I said: ‘You have just annihilated me in public and hung me out to dry. The whole world hates me!’” So says wide-eyed Rebekah Vardy, seemingly incredulous at her friend Coleen Rooney’s very public, even flamboyant disclosure that...
In September, the highest-ranking counterterrorism officer in Britain, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, declared the far-right to be the fastest growing terrorist threat to Britain. According to the Met, in the last year, a quarter of all terrorism related arrests were of...
The recent publication of the British Social Attitudes Survey offered dismal reading for the Church of England and British Christianity more broadly. As Polly Toynbee put it in The Guardian, the findings showed that Christianity in Britain was in rapid retreat. In little more than a decade, the...
Led by young people, climate strikers blocked traffic on two mornings at the end of last month in Washington, DC. On the first day, protesters chained themselves to a boat three blocks from the White House, and 32 activists were arrested. On the second day, activists targeted the Environmental...
Despite being marketed as cooler and healthier alternatives to smoking, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that e-cigarettes should come with similar health warnings as regular tobacco products. Yet, while further research is needed to determine once and for all whether...
Driven by the rise of the far right and white nationalist movements, Islamophobia is on a rising tide, with widespread discrimination and record-high attacks on Muslims across the Western world. Norway recently avoided a tragedy when three Muslim men prevented a 21- year-old gunman from carrying...
