Nathan Gardels, Editor-in-Chief, The WorldPost.
This past week, The WorldPost published several perspectives from around the globe on the rapidly shifting world order. Analyst Charles Kupchan argues that we have entered a moment where no one -- not Europe, not the U.S., not China -- is in charge. "It will be no one's world," he writes. German President Joachim Gauck departed from the usual restraint of German leaders and said his country needs to step up to the world stage. Eric X. Li, the Shanghai scholar and entrepreneur, makes a case that while China has taken advantage of the Western-built global system, its modern worldview is the same as that of the ancient Middle Kingdom: keep the barbarians out and don't invade others. In a ONE ON ONE video, Tony Blair tries selling the fading idea of a united Europe to the up and coming generation.
Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the Islamist Ennahda party, discusses Tunisia's new constitution and the civil peace that has come from power-sharing. In a provocative blog post titled "Pity the Rapist," Indian journalist Jehangir Pocha explores the social conditions that have given rise to the rape epidemic in India.
The WorldPost Middle East correspondent Max Rosenthal reports that the humanitarian effort to evacuate refugees from the Syrian city of Homs falls far short of what is needed to address the scale of the crisis. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Azmi Mikati and Gordon Brown, former prime minister of the U.K., issued an appeal for more international aid for Lebanon which has become overwhelmed with nearly a half million refugees from Syria.
"Transparent Society" author David Brin proposes that the best way to counter NSA surveillance is for citizens to monitor government from below -- "sous-veillance." Former U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson III questions the value of digital and electronic snooping. "There is no substitute for the pragmatic, cerebral intelligence of policymakers derived from an understanding of history and from experience in the real world -- and the courage to act on it. Foreign intelligence is no substitute for foreign policy," he writes.
Also this past week, Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson talks with Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen about their new book, "The New Digital Age."
On the literary front, "Reading Lolita in Tehran" author Azar Nafisi discusses Iran and the impact of the Internet on literature. Mexican poet and environmentalist Homero Aridjis makes a plea to save the endangered North American monarch butterfly migration.