This week, The WorldPost focused on media issues. Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay and president of First Look Media, calls social media one of the great leaps of human civilization, connecting people across cultural differences as never before and enabling networks of individuals to challenge power. British philosopher Alain de Botton argues that the minute by minute avalanche of news fragments need to be put into context in order to be meaningful and, when done properly, can actually prove interesting to the reader. To make his point, we published a feature from his "Philosophers' Mail" blog titled "Paris Hilton Reads Epicurus."
We returned to a discussion on governance in China. Deng Xiaoping's favorite English language interpreter, Zhang Weiwei writes "The Five Reasons China Works." In response, Francis Fukuyama, known for his book "The End of History and the Last Man" acknowledges the capacity of China's "high-quality" bureaucracy to make rapid decisions and implement them over the long-term. He worries that, without the rule of law, "the bad emperor problem" will always be an issue. We also streamed live a HuffPostLive interview with the Dalai Lama.
Following up on the overthrow of the government in Ukraine, economist Anders Aslund examines the tough economic challenges that country now faces. Former top U.S. diplomat Nicholas Burns commends the prescience of Bill Clinton in expanding NATO to Eastern Europe over a decade ago now that Russia is again flexing its military muscle at the borders of Ukraine and in the region.
Nicolas Berggruen writes from a Madrid town hall meeting of the Council on the Future of Europe about the need for a "road map" to move forward in the face of rising populist and nationalist challenges to European unity. The event was streamed live on The WorldPost on Feb. 27 and 28.
Finally, we also posted video excerpts of a passionate speech by Enrico Letta, the former Italian prime minister, at the Madrid meeting on the threat of populists who are "only against, and have no alternative to propose."