MELBOURNE - With daily headlines focusing on war, terrorism, and the abuses of repressive governments, and religious leaders frequently bemoaning declining standards of public and private behavior, it is easy to get the impression that we are witnessing a moral collapse. But I think that we have... więcej

MADRID - The triumph of democracy and market-based economics - the "End of History," as the American political philosopher Francis Fukuyama famously called it - which was proclaimed to be inevitable with the fall of the Berlin Wall, soon proved to be little more than a mirage. However, following... więcej

WARWICK - The just-concluded French presidential election seemed to suggest that the old left-right divisions are as potent as they have ever been - and certainly in their birthplace. But are they?... więcej

NEW DELHI - One of my favorite photographs shows a Hindu sadhu right out of central casting - naked body, long matted hair and beard, ash-smeared forehead, rudraksha-mala around his neck, the works - chatting away on a mobile phone. The contrast says so much about the land of paradoxes that is... więcej

NEW YORK - These are interesting times in China. A senior Communist Party official, Bo Xilai, is brought down - accused of offenses that include wire-tapping other party bosses, including President Hu Jintao - while his wife is investigated for her alleged role in the possible murder of a... więcej

BRASILIA - Roughly 20 years ago, an important Argentine minister startled a newly arrived Brazilian ambassador by telling him that "Argentina is prodigal in three things: meat, wheat, and insane gestures." The decision to expropriate 51% of YPF, Argentina's biggest energy firm, from the Spanish... więcej

HAIFA - Not long ago, a Dutch journalist interviewed me about the Iranian nuclear question. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has allegedly banned politicians from giving interviews on the subject, so the journalist had no choice but to seek other candidates, perhaps more "intellectual,"... więcej

SEATTLE - Very soon, it will be economically feasible to sequence human genomes and collect massive amounts of different types of health data as standard medical practice. Already, there are remarkable examples of how these new genetic data are changing our thinking about disease and diagnosis.... więcej

TEL AVIV - The failure of the Obama administration, its Western allies, and several Middle East regional powers to take bolder action to stop the carnage in Syria is often explained by their fear of anarchy. Given the Syrian opposition's manifest ineffectiveness and disunity, so the argument... więcej

MADRID - Mohamed Merah's killing spree in and around Toulouse in March, like the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 2005 suicide attacks in London's Underground, has highlighted once again the dilemmas that Europe faces with regard to its growing Muslim minority. No social-integration model has... więcej

NEW DELHI - A favorite theme in international debate nowadays is whether Asia's rise signifies the West's decline. But the current focus on economic malaise in Europe and the United States is distracting attention from the many serious challenges that call into question Asia's continued success.... więcej

BRUSSELS - Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin as Russia's president was always a foregone conclusion. But, when he is sworn in on May 7, he will retake formal charge of a country whose politics - even Putin's own political future - has turned unpredictable.... więcej

MOSCOW - In just six months, from the end of September 2011 to March 2012, Russia was transformed. The state's gradual decomposition - its degenerate ethos of rent-seeking and appropriation of public goods - finally pushed Russia's citizens, especially its young post-communist middle class, into... więcej

NEW YORK - Almost no one had read the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) before it was rushed through the United States House of Representatives in late April and sent to the Senate. CISPA is the successor to SOPA, the "anti-piracy" bill that was recently defeated after an... więcej