More on Current Events and Politics
World peace has eluded humankind for millennia, despite the fact that many of the greatest thinkers of our age have proposed plans for achieving it. One proposal now on the table aims for world peace by 2048. Will it be any more successful than its predecessors?
Current Events: Feeding a world of 9 billion will require fundamental changes to unsustainable but well-entrenched policies and practices.
The “Occupy” movement is international in reach. The most fervent believers insist that the “occupations” are not political, despite an obvious effort to influence political discourse in every nation where the protests have occurred or are occurring.
Though many nations currently struggle toward some form of democracy, no system of government has yet proven to be the answer to humanity’s problems. In the final article in the series we ask: Is there such a thing as perfect government?
Who can deny that ours is a world filled with injustices of every description? Do we have the resources within us to right all the wrongs we see in our communities and around the globe?
Justice and righteousness are two aspects of God's character.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) has become a part of the fabric of the modern world and has been integrated into the constitutions of several nations. It is noteworthy, therefore, that none has yet succeeded in ending injustice.
To bring change, we must first change ourselves. Right behavior begins at the individual level.
“We the People” became a rallying cry for a young nation more than 200 hundred years ago. Today the sentiment still resonates as nations seek the freedom they equate with democracy. But so far, we the people have been unable to create the perfect world we long for.
International agencies calculate that nearly a billion people go hungry every day. What will it take to solve the perennial problem of inadequate food and freshwater in vast regions of the world?
Special Report: Hope in the Face of Disaster-Four articles address doomsday speculations by examining them in a more hopeful light. Is the world really coming to an end?
With this issue Vision begins a new series examining critical problems facing the world, with an eye to solutions both on a global level and close to home.
Since the middle of the 20th century, the "nuclear club" has been an exclusive inner circle of the international community. However, as more nations seek nuclear power as a source of clean energy, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure nonproliferation. Are we on the verge of a nuclear renaissance or an age of nightmarish ever-expanding nuclear–weapons?
As the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches, Europe appears poised for another moment of pivotal historic change. European leaders recently met in Brussels to seek a way forward for the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Their efforts were rewarded on Tuesday, November 3, 2009, when the lone holdout, Czech President, Vaclav Klaus signed the accord. Will the Lisbon Treaty enable the European Union to play a more active role in international affairs? Across the Atlantic two former European heads of state, now academics at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, were also addressing the future of European unity. The two-day event titled “The European Union in a Moment of Crisis,” took place in Providence, Rhode Island, October 28 and 29, 2009.
The idea that world peace can be achieved through world government has a long history. Though all previous efforts in that direction have failed, some are hoping that globalization—regulated by the emerging European style of governance—will lead humanity to its elusive goal.
Regardless of potential challenges to morality, the overriding concern about the process model is functional: will it work?
In 2003 the EU debated the role religion should play in its constitution. Secularism won out over Europe’s Christian heritage. Europe is secular and proud of it.
On the heels of extensive government intervention in economies around the world, Ayn Rand is making a comeback. Vision looks at her philosophy and asks, Is that where our economic salvation lies?
A review of the current financial crisis reveals that humanity has been here before. And we'll be here again, unless we start taking a fundamentally different approach.
Today buyers and sellers do not trust each other; citizens’ faith in their governments is at an all-time low, as ever-increasing percentages of personal wealth are confiscated through taxes and we now wait to be ravaged by inflation; financial institutions are without credibility (even among themselves); and the economic activity essential for civil order and prosperity has all but stopped for many nations.
“Any Government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But you and I know that a continuation of that habit means the poorhouse.” —U.S. PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, RADIO SPEECH, JULY 30, 1932
An old adage from the book of Acts declares, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). In a world that has cultivated the importance of self-interest, of looking out for Number One, that sentiment is often hard to accept. Does benevolence, treating others as one would like to be treated, offer tangible benefits?
People around the world, among them journalists, commentators, bloggers, scholars and government leaders have decried the Israeli attack on Gaza. What will it take to resolve this seemingly impossible impasse of brothers on the same land?
The United States Federal Reserve System turns 95 this week. It has never been more active and visible—marching out a parade of stunningly ambitious initiatives in the last few months. Yet illiquidity persists and the capital crisis is dragging the global economy into a protracted recession.
If capitalism isn't dead, it is certainly badly injured. Who crippled it, and how? And what do we do now?
According to the FBI, identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States—it claims more than 10 million victims a year, and this number is expected to rise.
Thursday August 21, 2008, I.O.U.S.A. opened in select theaters across the United States.
The Federal Reserve System is the lungs of our modern financial system. It provides the mechanism by which the supply of currency can expand and contract, conveying currency like oxygen. In a normal environment, expansion and contraction can occur without crisis.
Although it is impossible to be completely safe from the theft of personal identity information, there are many simple and inexpensive steps that can be taken to reduce the danger.
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) pledges &700 billion to procure illiquid mortgage-backed securities and distressed real estate loans.
Russia’s struggle for national identity sheds light on our own need to know who we are and what’s expected of us. How does one form a sense of identity, whether as a nation or as an individual?
Rights have never been so extensively defined as today. But what happens when the perceived rights of two individuals or groups clash? Is there any basis for resolution?
Some feel that a lack of style is present in the newly signed treaty for the European Union. And serious questions and concerns about it have surfaced quickly after EU leaders signed the document in Lisbon on December 13, 2007.
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson could not have been more different in terms of personality and political persuasion: indefatigable macho realist meets professorial Calvinist idealist.
Henry Nau, professor of political science and international economic affairs at George Washington University, believes what drives the differences in international affairs today revolves around U.S. national identity and the use of power. In a recent speech, he explained how some international relations theorists separate the various perspectives.
It’s almost impossible to talk about HIV/AIDS in South Africa without Nkosi Johnson’s name coming up. Nkosi died in June 2001. Four months later, John Meakin and Robyn Page spoke with his foster mother, Gail Johnson, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The situation in Darfur continues to worsen even as world leaders turn more attention to the humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations describes the ongoing tragedy in Darfur as one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today. Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls it “little short of hell on earth.” Aid workers and analysts talk to Vision about the tragedy that's been unfolding in Sudan.
Three astronauts are slated to board the International Space Station this fall. Will the ISS play a role in the human conquest of space? Or is there another route to the ends of the universe?
Both Palestinians and Israelis claim a right to the eternal city, but what makes the issue so contentious?
How soon the world oil supply will run out is debatable. But underlying that question is another, more serious issue.
Vision speaks with Malise Ruthven, a noted authority on Islam, about the events of September 11, 2001.
Oil isn't the only resource that helps shape the peace and regulate the balance of power in the Middle East.
Solving puzzles often requires a change in perspective and thinking. The greatest puzzle facing humanity today is a case in point.
Book Review: Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists by Joel Best; It Ain't Necessarily So: How Media Make and Unmake the Scientific Picture of Reality by David Murray, Joel Schwartz,and S. Robert Lichter; Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News by Bernard Goldberg.
Historian Bernard Wasserstein offers a Jewish perspective on the importance of Jerusalem to the Jewish people and on the likelihood of a peaceful resolution of the Jerusalem Question.
There is a new optimism that the Palestinian Israeli conflict can be resolved. But can peace emerge from the thicket of thorny issues surrounding this age old conflict?
Originally touted as a means to deter the Soviet Union from advancing on Europe, MAD designers believed a systematic plan to counter the superior conventional forces of the U.S.S.R. with nuclear force would prevent an invasion.
Thanks to the MAD doctrine, the Cold War left its mark on two regions of the former Soviet Union.
Book review of Wilson’s Ghost by Robert McNamara and James Blight and Does America Need a Foreign Policy? by Henry Kissinger.
Preeminent military historian, Sir John Keegan, talks to Vision about the impact of September 11 and what it means for the future of war.
What is the basis to Arab and Palestinianan claims to Jerusalem?
First in a two-part series examining the political and religious complexities of Jerusalem.
Can a seemingly unrelated field of study point the way to a solution of the Arab Israeli impasse?