Think online education is limited to the traditional trio—reading, writing and ‘rithmetic? Not anymore. The New York Times reports that music teachers are also taking to the internet to peddle their expertise via Skype: Students who used to limit the pool of potential teachers to those within a 20-mile radius from their homes now take […]

Where better to set up solar panels than California’s Death Valley? The sun’s always shining and from May to September the temperature doesn’t stray much below a whopping 100 degrees Fahrenheit.Yet even in Death Valley government-funded solar projects are floundering.  The L.A. Times has the story: A new $800,000 solar project at Death Valley National […]

In December 2011 the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (Washington) issued A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population. Some of the data were developed in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (South Hamilton, Massachusetts). The two institutions are responsible for the bulk of reliable […]

As the Italians scrambled to unify their country during the 19th century, Italian governments made promises to one European power after another in order to gain support.  How can you possibly keep all those promises to all those governments, the Italian prime minister was asked.“Italy will astound the world,” he replied, “with its ingratitude.”German Chancellor […]

In one of the stranger pieces of news to come our way here at Via Meadia lately, Prince Orhan Aal Othman, a descendant of the former ruling dynasty of the Ottoman Empire, is quoted in an interview blaming Theodor Herzl, the founding father of modern Zionism, for the collapse of his family firm.  As the […]

Most of what appears in the press about North Korea is either obvious (horrible regime, starving people, psychotic diplomacy, nukes) or speculative (it will reform/it won’t reform/the Kims are secure/they aren’t secure). Much better than the usual swill is a recent piece of  analysis from B.R. Myers in the NYT that highlights the stability and […]

In June 1948, David Ben-Gurion, prime minister of the fledgling state of Israel, ordered the sinking of his own countrymen’s ship. The vessel, Altalena, was carrying weapons to arm the Irgun, a Revisionist Zionist militia led by the far-right Menachem Begin. Ben-Gurion understood that a sovereign state could not countenance an independent fighting force acting […]

Bits are selling better than bites, and apps are selling better than hotcakes. From the FT: More than 1.2bn apps were downloaded on to mobile phones and tablet devices during Christmas week, according to a new study, marking the first time that more than a billion app downloads have been recorded in a single week[…] […]

Dreams have a way of coming true in New York and this week it looks like it is time for some OWS protesters to have their hopes fulfilled.  The Wall Street Journal reports that Wall Street firms are drastically cutting bonus packages for their top earners, citing: lower trading revenue, languid deal-making, new regulations and […]

I’m reproducing the transcript of parts of a talk I gave in Geneva last November at the Latsis Foundation Prize Ceremony on “European Identities.”  This excerpt deals with how different European countries have dealt with Muslim immigrant assimilation, and the second excerpt will discuss the lack of identity at a European level.Let me then move […]