Current affairs

The great mystery of education policy today is why the Obama administration is embracing the Bush program.

President Obama's push for a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict has given the Palestinians an historic opportunity to end their disastrous state of affairs.

As the world digests President Barack Obama's recent historic speech in Cairo, one conclusion is readily apparent: it will take more than a single speech to effect reconciliation between the United States and the Islamic world, after years of hostility and mistrust.

The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, ended Sunday on a somewhat sour note, with some critics and former winners wondering how the jury could award the top prize jointly to the two young winners - one a Chinese teenager, the other a blind, autistic Japanese b

Amidst the whirlwind of activity surrounding President Obama's diplomatic efforts to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, one issue has stood out among others as particularly contentious.

Some West Bank settlers think Barack Obama is defying God's will. Obama wants to stop the growth of the settlements, whereas (according to these settlers) God wants the people of Israel to populate all of the promised land; it says so in the Bible.

With all the talk of "green shoots" of economic recovery, America's banks are pushing back on efforts to regulate them.

For the past three centuries, humans' effects on the global environment have escalated. Most importantly, our emissions of carbon dioxide may cause global climate patterns to depart significantly from their natural course for many millennia to come.

TEL AVIV - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent visit to Washington highlighted fundamental disagreements between Israel's current government and President Barack Obama's administration.

SINGAPORE - It is unwise to underestimate the near-metaphysical significance of the recent Indian elections. The Indian electorate decisively pushed world history in the right direction with the re-election of the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi partnership.

Following on the heels of his meetings with a number of Middle East leaders, President Barack Obama is en route to Egypt where, on June 4^th, he will deliver a much anticipated speech to the Muslim world.

I am departing from my usual analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict as I profoundly feel that these are neither ordinary times, nor ordinary circumstances.

Between May 15, when President Obama announced that he would keep the Bush-era Military Commissions to try enemy combatants, and May 21 when he replied to the opponents of his decision to close Guantanamo, we had an opportunity to judge the temper of this adminis