The current moment confronts us with a paradox. The first fifteen years of this century have been a time of astonishing advances in communications and information technology, including digitalization, mass-accessible video platforms, smart phones, social media, billions of people gaining internet access, and much else. These revolutionary changes all imply a profound empowerment of individuals through exponentially greater access to information, tremendous ease of communication and data-sharing, and formidable tools for networking. Yet despite these changes, democracy — a political system based on the idea of the empowerment of individuals — has in these same years become stagnant in the world.…

Geert Wilders, the far-right Dutch parliamentarian, is having quite the heady week in the United States. Following his attendance at the site of an attack of a cartoon exhibit outside of Dallas, Wilders is firmly inserted into a broader American debate about the limits of free speech. It’s safe to say that no Dutchman has impacted American politics and foreign policy as much as Wilders since Peter Schagen announced the purchase of Manhattan from the Lenape Indians in 1626. Wilders returned to the national radar last week when two Democratic lawmakers asked President Barack Obama to prevent the member of the right wing Party for Freedom from…

  لقد أثرت الخلافات الداخلية في الحكومة الائتلافية الأفغانية كثيرا على الأوضاع السياسية والأمنية والاقتصادية للبلد. ومنذ تشكيل هذه الحكومة على أساس تقاسم السلطة مناصفة تامة ولدت الأزمة. حتى الآن وبعد مضي ما يقارب سبعة أشهر تزداد المشاكل يوما بعد يوم، وتتبدل الآمال يأسا. وعود لم تتحق لقد وعد الرئيس أشرف غني بأنه سيشكل حكومة عارية من الفساد، وسيختار وزراء مهرة خلال 45 يوما، وأنه يكافح الفساد الإداري، ويحل أزمة “بنك كابول”، التي ورثها من حكومة كرزاي. ووعد أشرف غني خلال حملاته الانتخابية بأنه يُجري عملية السلام بطريقة جادة، لأن السلام برأيه كان من أهم أولويات أفغانستان من أجل الرقي…

Since the beginning of 2014, representatives from Israel and Saudi Arabia have had five secret meetings to discuss a common foe, Iran. On Thursday, the two countries came out of the closet by revealing this covert diplomacy at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. Among those who follow the Middle East closely, it's been an open secret that Israel and Saudi Arabia have a common interest in thwarting Iran. But until Thursday, actual diplomacy between the two was never officially acknowledged. Saudi Arabia still doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist. Israel has yet to accept a Saudi-initiated peace offer to create a Palestinian…

Former National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden was quietly vindicated on Tuesday when the US Senate passed a bill to end the government’s bulk collection of phone records. The USA Freedom Act passed with 67-32 votes in the Senate after previously clearing the House of Representatives, and is the most significant overhaul to surveillance policy since 1978. The NSA will stop collecting meta data and calling records from December. Not everyone was happy with halting the surveillance programme. Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell, who fought to extend the Patriot Act (which legalised the majority of NSA activity and…