PARIS – As is so often the case, it was an artist who sounded the warning. His name is Barbet Schroeder, and the alert that he issued came in the form of his fine, sober film The Venerable W., a portrait of Myanmar’s Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu. Known as “W,” Wirathu is the other face of a religion that is widely perceived as the archetype of peace, love, and harmony.
GENEVA – The world’s refugee crisis is most often measured in numbers. But for young refugees missing out on an education, the crisis can also be tracked by an irreversible metric: the passage of time.
OXFORD – In recent years, the world has become increasingly preoccupied with the catastrophic potential of global warming and other human-induced environmental changes, and rightly so. But one of the most serious risks has been all but ignored: the threat to human health.To be sure, concerns about what a rise in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels could mean for the planet are entirely justified.
BERLIN – US President Donald Trump’s nearly eight months in office have been characterised by a series of disturbing political developments. But Trump is not entirely to blame. His presidency is just the latest act in a long-running political tragedy.From a foreign-policy perspective, the problem began in the 1990s, when the United States squandered the post-Cold War peace dividend.
It’s generally agreed in Washington, DC, that President Donald Trump’s presidency is entering a new phase. Defining just what that phase is, is proving to be problematic.The widespread expectation was that the removal of Stephen Bannon – the former White House chief adviser and resident avatar of white American nationalism – would make the administration run more smoothly, mitigate (though not eliminate) infighting, and reduce the number of leaks.
ISTANBUL – In Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has been working to centralise political power, opposition parties have lately had few reasons to be optimistic. This month’s massive rally in Istanbul was a rare exception.On July 9, after walking for 25 days from the capital, Ankara, Turkey’s main opposition leader, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, urged supporters to resist the decline in democratic freedoms.
BEIJING – At the start of 2017, China announced that it would invest 360 billion dollars in renewable energy by 2020 and scrap plans to build 85 coal-fired power plants. In March, Chinese authorities reported that the country was already exceeding official targets for energy efficiency, carbon intensity, and the share of clean energy sources.
Shock belts, spiked batons, and electrified thumbscrews can serve no other purpose than to inflict pain on people.
DHAKA – Myanmar is in crisis. The Rohingya – a Muslim ethnic minority group in a predominantly Buddhist country – are under attack by the military, with many fleeing for their lives.
MUMBAI – A debate about job creation and employment is heating up in India, fuelled by data that seem to show the country is entering a period of jobless growth. Official statistics suggest that overall labour-force participation declined between 2011 and 2015, with fewer than two million new jobs created annually.If those numbers were the whole story, then India, a country where 16 million people reach working age every year, would be heading for economic trouble.
LONDON – Most pundits agree that the least bad way to deal with North Korea’s nuclear sabre rattling is a continued combination of tight containment and aggressive diplomacy.
SEOUL - North Korea has produced a number of nuclear warheads and is developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering them around the world. Many governments are debating how to prevent or slow further advances in North Korea's capacity and what should be done if such efforts fail.These are obviously important questions, but they are not the only ones.
