The Gelephu Mindfulness City project is not only an economic and infrastructure project, but it is a challenge to us to get over our comfort zone of mediocrity and the mindset of pettiness when someone challenges that mediocrity. While the media likes to cite others as examples it is probably …
Read More »The Google Trial’s Dangerous Secrecy
WASHINGTON, DC – The largest antitrust trial of the modern internet era, which wrapped up last month, has pitted the world’s most popular search engine, Google, against the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The case hearkens back to the DOJ’s landmark lawsuit against Microsoft in the 1990s, but with a critical difference: most …
Read More »Biden and Xi Pick the Low-Hanging Fruit
NEW HAVEN – “A Better Biden-Xi Summit?” was the title of my commentary last month, and the emphasis was on the question mark. With good reason: Last year’s summit in Bali was a flop. Owing to poor preparation and an overemphasis on slogans (setting a “floor” for the troubled US-China relationship), any …
Read More »The Rules-Based International Order Is Collapsing in Gaza
ISTANBUL – In 2007, I found myself in a car with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and then-Israeli President Shimon Peres en route to Turkey’s Grand National Assembly. During their historic visit to Ankara, which I had the privilege of hosting, both leaders addressed the Turkish parliament, advocating peace and a …
Read More »Western media failures in Gaza
It has been more than two weeks now since another war in Gaza started. More than 6,500 Palestinians have been killed by relentless Israeli bombardment and 1,400 Israelis died in the attack by the armed Palestinian resistance group Hamas on southern Israel. Watching the media coverage of these events, I …
Read More »People in Gaza are dying
As we speak, people in Gaza are dying. They are dying only from bombs and strikes. Soon, many more will die from the consequences of siege imposed on the Gaza Strip. Basic services are crumbling. Medicine is running out. Food and water are running out. The streets of Gaza have started overflowing with sewage. Gaza …
Read More »The Real Dividing Line in Israel-Palestine
LJUBLJANA – The barbarism that Hamas has unleashed on Israel should be condemned unconditionally, with no “ifs” or “buts.” The massacres, and abductions of civilians from villages, kibbutzim, and a music festival was a pogrom, confirming that Hamas’s true goal is to destroy the state of Israel and all Israelis. …
Read More »The Spiral of Violence that Led to Hamas
PRINCETON – Hamas’s brazen and vicious attacks within Israel have rightly drawn condemnation from around the world. If this is a war, as both sides agree it is, then Hamas’s deliberate targeting of civilians counts as a major war crime. But the brutality demonstrated by Hamas did not emerge in …
Read More »Democracies Are Not “Backsliding”
PRINCETON – It seems that 2023 will be another dismal year for democracy. There have been several coups in Africa. Tunisia – long touted as the Arab Spring’s one democratic success story – has seen the consolidation of an authoritarian (and xenophobic) regime. And Donald Trump appears on course to …
Read More »How to Achieve Universal Cancer Care
GENEVA – At the upcoming second United Nations High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage, the world’s governments are expected to adopt a new set of commitments focused on accelerating implementation of UHC. No resolution will be complete without the explicit inclusion of comprehensive cancer services. Cancer causes an estimated ten …
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The Bhutanese Leading the way.