If current demographic trends continue, within the next half-century Muslims will constitute a sizable part, perhaps even a plurality, of Russia’s population; indeed, Moscow currently has more Muslim inhabitants than any other European city. And unlike those in Amsterdam or Paris, most of Moscow’s Muslims are citizens, not immigrants ― products of the Russian Empire’s 19th century southward expans

“The army is the people’s army and Mubarak is no longer our president!”On the 13th day of the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the anti-regime protesters’ chants still ring loud.I walk briskly toward the square, past the long queues of people impatiently waiting to get in, and join the protesters who have now set up makeshift camps. Today’s “newcomers” have to pass several security checkpoints b

TEL AVIV ― It should be clear to all by now that talks between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cannot produce a peace agreement. Yet it would be wrong to dwell excessively on current leaders’ weaknesses, for to do so presupposes that with different leaders at the helm, an Israeli-Palestinian agreement could be reached through bilateral negotiations

Events in Egypt are seesawing so quickly it is difficult to assess if the current trajectory points toward gradually escalating violence or a more orderly transition that will end President’s Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.Yet here is what is clearly not happening ― an Iranian-style Islamic Revolution.As anyone watching television can see, the demonstrators filling Tahrir Square are not Islamic radi

During the State of the Union address, President Barack Obama challenged the nation to invest in clean-energy technologies so the U.S. would “out-compete” and “out-innovate” the rest of the world.Indisputably, this country needs less polluting and more efficient energy sources to make the critical transition from fossil fuels to the 21st-century technologies needed to keep the nation economically

Events in Egypt have journalists around the world asking: Hmmm, could that happen here?In Tokyo, the answer is no. The student riots of 1968 remind us never to say never. The thought of today’s youths congregating at Shibuya Crossing, tossing Molotov cocktails and demanding the ouster of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, though, is a colossal reach. Mass protests in Japan are a rare, rare thing.Yet there

NEW DELHI ― Egypt’s fate has had the world riveted in recent days to newspapers and televisions, as the unfolding consequences of Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” seem to portend a wave like the liberal revolutions of 1848 for the Arab world. Amateur historians ask breathlessly whether this could be the year of decisive change in the Middle East, the year when regime after regime falls prey to risin

The revolution unfolding in Egypt and other Arab lands has set Israeli hearts racing with anxiety. There are so many ways in which regime change in Egypt could prove calamitous for Israel that it’s hard to know where to begin. And yet, the very fact that Israelis have to spend their nights worrying about what comes tomorrow in a country with which they signed a peace treaty more than 30 years ago,

For the most part, economic markets have shrugged while the turmoil in Egypt has escalated. If President George W. Bush was right about the long-term impact of the Iraq War, that might change.We may all have to share in economic hardship as the price for a freer world.There are sound arguments, to be sure, that the economy will remain calm. On its own, the uprising in Egypt seems unlikely to cause

GENEVA ― Switzerland’s direct democracy allows citizens who have gathered enough petition signatures to challenge government policies and laws in nationwide referenda. After a spate of AIDS deaths during the 1980s, the Swiss came face to face with a problem that has destroyed millions of lives in the United States, Russia, Latin America, the European Union, southern Asia, and other regions. Intrav

We should all be Egyptians today. We should all be in solidarity with those thousands of courageous people who exercised fundamental rights to speech and assembly and moved a dictator to declare that he is finished.The days and weeks ahead will be difficult for these custodians of a treasured world culture. There is a risk that the democratic tide will ebb and that extremists will seize power. The

Inspired by Tom Paine, Americans have fermented revolution around the globe. From Prague to Tiananmen, expanding the will of the people has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. But this principle is increasingly contradicting key components of America’s international agenda as well as running up against the realities of dampened influence.For example, George W. Bush vigorously backed Ukraine

In these days of tiger-mother hysteria about raising children with academic backbone, President Barack Obama has weighed in with yet another cause for paranoia. The president dropped India and China into his State of the Union speech, just long enough to say they are educating their children earlier and longer.Generally, school days are longer in Asian countries, and vacation breaks, though more f

No sooner had President Hosni Mubarak announced that he wouldn’t seek re-election than the protesters who brought him low rejected his gesture. As a result, it’s still unclear whether Mubarak will leave abruptly or after a period of transition; that, ultimately, will be up to the Egyptian people. But either way, the country appears to be on the verge of a post-Mubarak order. It’s not too soon to p

The tale of the Stuxnet worm is one of those seemingly good-news stories that grows more worrisome over time.Security experts first became aware of the mysterious Stuxnet malware last summer, but it wasn’t until months later that they agreed on its likely target: Iran’s secretive nuclear weapons program. The worm hid itself benignly in personal computers, spreading (often through USB drives) until

WASHINGTON ― Just like children forced to take castor oil hated the experience, millions of Americans loathed the intrusive body-scan and pat-down security measures imposed at U.S. airports last fall.Surprisingly, though, the revulsion period was briefer than first assumed as travelers realized the added security rules may, after all, be good for them.The real question is, of course, how much safe

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is apparently trying to burnish his credentials in the race for the GOP presidential nomination by encouraging states to default on their debts. Gingrich is the leading cheerleader for the idea of letting states declare bankruptcy to evade problems with unfunded public employee pensions and other benefits for future retirees. Those problems are real, but letting

President Barack Obama had been readying himself for Tuesday night’s State of the Union address since the Nov. 2 election, the electorate’s repudiation of big government and big spending. Obama had to respond to what he admitted was a “shellacking.” So he agreed to extend President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, recruited centrist Democrat William Daley of Chicago as his chief of staff and, on Friday,

Koreans appear to be taking an increasingly narrow definition of the family. According to a recent survey, only 23.4 percent of Koreans consider their paternal grandparents to be part of the family while 20.6 percent recognized their maternal grandparents as family members. Five years ago, 63.8 percent of Koreans counted their paternal grandparents in while 47.4 percent viewed their maternal grand

A controversy has flared up over President Lee Myung-bak’s promise on Monday to help domestic corporations set up R&D centers in Seoul and the adjoining Gyeonggi Province. Meeting with the heads of the nation’s top 30 conglomerates, Lee said, “Corporations need high-caliber staff to increase exports and expand investment. Having R&D centers in the capital area would help attract talented researche