Being a non-smoker in Cairo is a tiring experience, never mind the inhalation of suffocating fumes from vehicle exhausts and hovering industrial smog or the annual mass combustion rice grains that sends a colossal billowing cloud over the city. Never mind the lack of concern and consideration for clean air...

Imagine a low-income country in the developing world suddenly discovering a large endowment of natural resources within its borders. Perhaps a large oil reserve is found just offshore, or a deposit of valuable natural minerals is uncovered just below the earth's surface. Surely, such a discovery would be a blessing,...

An important story happened in Jordan in the last few days. A Jordanian woman by the name of Vivian Salameh, who happened to belong to the four percent Christian minority in the country, sued her employer for imposing the headscarf on her as part of their uniform.

No one knows what Israel's actual intentions are regarding Iran and its nuclear program. How much of what Israeli leaders say reflects their real intentions and how much is intended to goad the international community to action is unknown. The revelation of the sophisticated computer virus known as

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed a dangerous piece of legislation (H.R. 4133) which would undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, weaken Israeli moderates and peace advocates, undercut international law, further militarize the Middle East, and make Israel ever more dependent on the United States.

The margin...

Fifteen years ago, Mexico did something that, until then, only rich countries had dared to do -- it began to transfer cash directly to its poor. The payments were conditional: the recipients had to help themselves by keeping their children in school and vaccinating them. Today, some 70 developing countries...

Someone is pounding on the door. It is 3:45 a.m. The pounding gets louder. The father goes to open the door, and immediately they enter: two men dressed in civilian clothes, flanked by police officers bearing heavy guns. They go straight towards the boy, who has pulled on a baggy...

Several weeks ago, controversy ignited in South Africa when a Johannesburg gallery opened an exhibition by artist Brett Murray featuring The Spear -- a painting which depicted Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa (and its ruling party, the ANC), with his genitals exposed.

There has been much gnashing...

According to a new study by Oxfam, the ammunition trade tops $4 billion and yet the world has little regulation to control and keep track of who the bullets are sold to. The report, "Stop a Bullet, Stop a War," has been published ahead of this summer's Arms...

Boys playing baseball in Havana. Photo: MJ Porter/Translator

Monday night could have ended with a roar running through the city or, instead, a silence growing from every house. The latter is what happened, because the capital's baseball team lost...

While negotiations between the G-5 and representatives of the Islamic Republic have captivated the world, the fact that a growing number of Iran's human rights activists, journalists, lawyers, students -- many of them women -- are in jail or on their way to jail, has received little international attention. The...

The U.S. has been financing both sides of the war in Afghanistan since 2001 as a startling percentage of foreign aid continues to flood Taliban coffers on a daily basis, according to Douglas A. Wissing in his new book, Funding the Enemy: How U.S. Taxpayers Bankroll the Taliban.

In the summer of 2008, when Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, Americans took a timeout from watching the Olympics to express their collective outrage. John McCain boldly declared, "We are all Georgians," even dispatching his wife to Tbilisi to investigate. Yet when Syria's regime brutally slaughters thousands of its own...

There have always been countries whose leaders have behaved criminally. Today is no different and in most of the world's nations, graft, dishonesty in the use of public funds and the "sale" of government decisions to the highest private bidder are common. Corruption is the "norm" and we have become...