» A cacophony of views on what to teach children about God
20/07/18 09:52 from International
IT IS becoming a commonplace that in matters of belief and religion, Western societies are disintegrating into micro-communities that struggle to understand each other. A Babel-like array of introverted faith groups and a secular majorit...

» Concern about “sexualised” children often misses the point
19/07/18 09:55 from International
IN JAPAN it is hard to avoid the disturbing spectacle of young girls being treated as sex objects. R orikon , an abbreviation of “Lolita complex”, is ubiquitous. In M’s Pop Life, a sex shop in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, known for its po...

» The commemoration of an act of regicide falls short of expectations
17/07/18 11:14 from International
THE COMMEMORATION could have been a great and solemn moment of truth, a time to reflect on the passage from one era of Russia’s tragic history to another.  As it was, the proceedings were impressive enough: tens of thousands pe...

» Belgium struggles to manage its burgeoning Islamic scene
14/07/18 14:21 from International
As Donald Trump stormed through Brussels this week, alternatively dishing out anti-European tirades and paeans of fawning praise, he had little time to mingle with the city’s residents or take in its cultural and architectural landscape....

» The welfare state needs updating
12/07/18 09:48 from International
IN JUNE 1941 William Beveridge left the office of Arthur Greenwood, a British cabinet minister, with tears in his eyes. A well-known academic and civil servant, Beveridge had sought a big job in the war effort. The 62-year-old was brilli...

» Jean-Louis Tauran opposed the Gulf war and mended fences with Islam
09/07/18 11:11 from International
THE months leading up to the Anglo-American assault on Saddam Hussein in 2003 produced some tense moments in diplomacy of the religious, as well as the secular, sort. To the dismay of American conservatives, especially Catholic ones, the...

» Ukraine wants a national church that is not beholden to Moscow
06/07/18 09:00 from International
THE row is over points of ecclesiastical history and procedure that most people, including ordinary folk who belong to the relevant churches, find utterly obscure. But the geopolitical stakes are enormous. That is one way to describe the...

» How Iraq was deprived of its weapons of mass destruction
05/07/18 09:57 from International
ROLF EKEUS, a Swedish diplomat, once personified the most sustained effort ever undertaken to deprive a country of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He was the leading figure in a programme to enforce peace terms on Saddam Hussein, Iraq...

» North Korea presents nuclear disarmament’s biggest challenge yet
05/07/18 09:57 from International
SIEGFRIED HECKER, a professor who used to run America’s nuclear laboratory at Los Alamos, recalls the most recent of the seven trips he has made to North Korea, in 2010. His hosts were showing off their sprawling Yongbyon atomic-energy c...

» Britain’s future king faces up to Jerusalem’s religious politics
29/06/18 12:15 from International
THE tortured relationships between two royal families, Jerusalem, Israel and the Jews came to a head this week as Britain’s future king (and unless something changes, the future head of the Church of England) toured the city, which is he...

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