Innovative uses for mobile phones will reshape the world, says Andreas Rothe  Seven out of 10 Indonesians own a mobile phone number. In many European and Arabic countries, as well as in the US and Malaysia, there are even more SIM cards than inhabitants now. A leader in this regard is the United Arab Emirates, [...]

By Ghada Karmi Can Israel survive its recent battering in public opinion? Many believe that this may be a defining moment in a long history of Israeli impunity. Hitherto, Israel’s record of recovery from international censure has been impressive. A string of past misdeeds – the 1982 Lebanon invasion and siege of Beirut, the Sabra [...]

Juliette Schmidt looks at Islam’s holy month of fasting in Morocco, Pakistan and the US Working with an international, multi-faith team at Search for Common Ground (SFCG), a non-profit conflict transformation organisation, Ramadhan impacts not only colleagues who adhere to a diet and lifestyle that affords greater time for spiritual reflection, but also cross time-zone [...]

Graeme Dobell, reviewing a new book on the Rudd Era, examines an inevitable outcome and a bizarre election Instant history doesn’t come any better than Canberra Times journalist Nicholas Stuart’s immediate accounting of the Rudd era. Rudd’s Way is well written because the writing wasn’t instant. Stuart started thinking about, talking about and penning this [...]

By Rabbi Marc Gopin The creation of an independent Palestine has been a dream dashed many times, but there may be a practical path forward emerging from a surprising place. I often heard the phrase “business is business” growing up in the 1960s among gritty American Jewish immigrants; my father said it all the time. [...]

By Joseph Mayton Beyond the most obvious hardships brought about by the Gaza blockade, there is another less commonly discussed environmental calamity in the making that could have terrible long-term implications. According to a report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Israeli-Egyptian blockade on the Strip is causing severe water shortages and preventing [...]

By Bill Costello The world has been turned upside down: Socialism is on the rise in the US and capitalism is on the rise in China. The former is a result of an uneducated electorate that fails to understand socialism’s history of producing poverty; the latter is a result of pragmatic leadership able to put [...]

By Luther Kembaren Persistent promotion of peace and tolerance among religious groups is needed The beginning of 2010 saw a great deal of violence directed towards Indonesia’s religious minorities. On January 3, a group called the People Communication Forum burned down Filadelfia Church, a house of worship for the Protestant Batak Christians in Bekasi, West [...]

By Omar Sha’ban  A partial lifting of the blockade will not be enough to repair relations between Israelis and Palestinians The Gaza flotilla brought the blockade into sharp relief and highlighted its failures. We must seize this moment and take advantage of the world’s interest in Gaza not only to alleviate the blockade, but more [...]

By Ziad Asali Too often Israeli-Palestinian relations are seen as a zero-sum conflict in which whatever is good for one party is bad for the other. In reality, both parties, for different reasons, need the same thing: a negotiated agreement that ends the occupation and the conflict once and for all. Palestinians cannot achieve their [...]

North Korean behaviour has gotten so bad, according to East-West Center Visiting (EWC) Fellow Victor Cha, that foreign policy experts are really at a loss about what to do. You do want to have some sort of diplomacy or engagement, but what do you do if a country just refuses to engage, and in the [...]

By Liam Hardy In recent weeks, Turkey has been internationally reappraised after a Turkish Gaza-bound aid ship raided by Israeli troops led to nine deaths, and a Turkish-Brazilian brokered deal foreshadowed a “no” vote on sanctions in the UN Security Council over Iran’s nuclear programme. These events have incited media commentary over a “shift in [...]