Harvard

Conflict about the role of religion in state affairs is acute in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. Are religious cleavages more prone to violent conflict than other cleavages? What is the relationship between religion and political violence? These are important questions in the study of politics but, more importantly, the answers we give have important implications for policy. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Before we continue with this discussion, it is important to clarify certain concepts and set straight some common misconceptions. Anyone who is studying the relationship between "religion" and "political violence" has to confront the conceptual ambiguity that arises from the common usage of these terms. For example, different religious doctrines and faiths have a wide range of dispositions toward the political sphere. Moreover, there is wide variation in organizational structures (e.g., more or less hierarchical, transnational, or state specific), practices (e.g., ...

The article discusses the outbreak of measles in Katanga province of the Republic of Congo. It mentions that the outbreak is emblematic of how a combination of inadequate surveillance systems, politically motivated decisions, poor healthcare for local communities and little response capacity from health systems. It notes that the outbreak was complicated by malnutrition and malaria wherein most of the children in the intensive care unit struggled to survive.

Since the 1980s, exporters of hazardous waste have targeted developing countries. Some of this waste is destined for dumping or disposal, while other waste is directed to resource recovery, recycling, or reuse. To protect developing countries from the dangers associated with hazardous waste, the international community adopted the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, which first regulated and then banned the trade of hazardous waste. Although lauded as a landmark for global democracy and environmental justice, the ban has created a dilemma for developing countries with large recycling industries that rely on hazardous waste imports for their continued operation. Environmental problems arising from the disposal of hazardous waste in developing countries did not gain international attention until the late 1980s, when several incidents of dumping were reported in African nations. One of the most serious cases occurred in 1987. Several ...

The first lens considers the circumstantial permanence of climate change. The second lens invites the reader to contemplate how we might convince climate change deniers. This paper focuses on emphasizing the shared values of individual and community members. The third lens considers how the media prioritize environmental issues. The fourth lens interweaves all of these concepts into a worthwhile position.
Celebrities can alter the opinion of even the most die-hard climate change deniers. This scope objectively examines their level of involvement with the media. From here, we consider what Leonardo DiCaprio shared with the UN Climate Summit in 2016. Among the considerations are the pressing issues from the perspective of a climate scientist and his colleague. We conclude this discussion with proposals for direct action.

In a climate of renewed interest in the synergy between neurology and psychiatry, practitioners are increasingly recognizing the importance of exchange and collaboration between these two disciplines. However, there are few working models of interdisciplinary teams that freely share expertise in real time, while providing clinical and academic training to future physicians who specialize in the central nervous system. Over the past 11 years, the McLean Hospital Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurology service has provided proof-of-principle for such collaboration, demonstrating that a team comprising psychiatrists, neurologists, and neuropsychologists can function effectively as a unit while maintaining the autonomy of these three disciplines and also synthesizing their combined knowledge. In addition to delivering enhanced patient care and promoting medical research, this clinical service has provided enriched cross-specialty training for fellows, residents, and medical students. The practical functioning of the team is described, and case vignettes are presented to illustrate the team's collaborative synergism in practice.

This article is a practical, often ethnographically based, argument for the current value and future potential of virtual worlds in education that attempts to specifically address the concerns and reserva-tions of the many thoughtful educators and observers who are not yet convinced. It relates our experi-ence teaching the course "CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion " at Harvard and in Second Life and the principles for successful teaching in a virtual environment that we derived from it: (a) use the technology for what it is good for and not for what it does not do well, (b) seek advantages in what appear to be limitations, and (c) where new capabilities are offered, find ways to use them.

Harvard Webcast intervention: Social Contracts? One of the main problems I see is that the pharmaceutical industry, as well as the entire health system, absorbs lots of profits. Healthcare is at the foundation of human rights, and all people should benefit. How do you see the health care system regulated as to respect human rights? The instability found in the social contract has to do with healthcare and retirement being secured for people. If there’s instability, it can lead to “civil unrest at different levels.” I think maybe we have seen a little bit of that with the Occupy Wall Street feelings about how society is ordered.

... Gillian Straker's writings6,7 on her work with South African youths describe the ethical dilemmas involved in conducting psychotherapy with parti-cipants in violent social struggles, and ... Roberta J. Apfel, MD, MPH, David Geltman, MD, Bennett Simon, MD, and Amanda Sims, MD ...

US foreign policy is in the midst of an unprecedented, but incomplete, diplomatic revolution. This transformation began in earnest after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and has resulted in new levels of cooperation in a worldwide war against terrorism. Yet it has also initiated a risky process that signifies a profound change in the nature of alliance systems, as well as a fundamental reassessment of relations with former Cold War enemies and friends. Six interrelated factors are driving this reassessment. First, states and terrorist organizations that are willing to use tactics of asymmetrical warfare and extreme violence have emerged as new threats. Second, the post-Cold War US rapprochement with Russia has been followed by the post-September 11 emergence of Russia as a potentially close ally. Third, NATO has continued to spread into areas formerly under Soviet influence. Fourth, the revolution in military affairs and technology has given the United States clear military superi...

Аннотация With the Cold War now an almost fond memory of a good cause won, democracy should be secure in the world. Yet, events since the famous victory provide opportunities to confront basic issues of democracy, sovereignty, and political ...

Recently, public policy debates over the political accommodation of ethnic minorities of migrant origin in Europe have focused on Muslims. The real or perceived difficulties Muslims face in adapting to the Western societies in which they have chosen to settle is an electoral issue for radical right populist parties, including the Front National in France, the Lijst Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, the Vlaams Blok in Belgium, and the Det Konservative Folkepartei in Denmark. There has been a shift from multicultural towards more civic integrationist governmental policies in Britain, and also in the Netherlands, which had previously gone furthest towards transforming multicultural principles into policies. In Britain, US-style citizenship rituals now allow migrants to express their allegiance when becoming naturalized Britons, while, as of July 2004, Dutch migrants will only receive funding for education in Dutch, not in their native language. In addition, the real threat of terrorist atrocities by Islamic extremists in European cities after the March 2004 bombings in Madrid has made a fresh negative impact on the public imagination regarding Muslim migrants and their descendants on European soil. At the same time, attempts by Muslim organizations to condemn terrorism ring hollow against the speeches of a small minority of extremist Islamic clerics. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Even before September 11, 2001, the position of Muslims in European societies was already a key reference point for scholars and commentators in fiercely contested debates about the consequences of multiculturalism. At stake in these controversies is the state's capacity for maintaining social cohesion as well as the liberal conception of individual rights on which it rests. Problems arise from the increasing demands that migrants put forward for special group rights and recognition, exemptions from duties, and support from the state for cultural differences and identities. Public controversies have raged in response to Muslims' cultural demands, which sometimes appear to challenge the very essence of liberal values. One high-profile case involved the British Muslims' demand that Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses be banned for blasphemy, in which Muslims took to the streets to burn effigies of Rushdie as well as copies of his book. The "headscarf affairs"--conflicts over the wearing of religious symbols in state institutions--have rumbled on across Europe, principally in France, since 1988, when a headmaster first sent headscarf-wearing Muslim girls home from school. In addition, there have also been problems associated with cultural practices of Muslims. Some issues, such as food requirements, have been easily accommodated, as they were in previous generations for Jewish migrants. Others, such as polygamy and female circumcision, quite clearly contravene most liberal moral understandings of individual and gender equality. Much depends on the extent to which Muslims wish to practice such cultural traditions. Nonetheless, in light of such issues, which have received many column inches on opinion pages, the presence of Muslims has often been depicted by politicians and commentators as a challenge to the norms, values, and principles of liberal democracy. From the European experience, it appears that Islam has been particularly resilient to political adaptation, maintaining a seemingly difficult relationship with liberal democratic states. The role of religion in politics has not been sufficiently taken into consideration as an explanatory factor by public and academic understandings of this topic, both with respect to the political accommodation of religion by the state and with respect to religion as a form of identification and belief that shapes political behavior. Religion Matters In social science, there is an overriding tendency to be blind to the role of institutional religions and religious belief. This unacknowledged built-in bias has often led sociologists to see religious identification as some backward or reactionary form of "false consciousness" simply masking objectives and interests that are actually secular in nature. …

International failure in responding to genocide in Darfur should be occasion for the deepest shame. Inaction has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and caused untold human suffering--but the catastrophe is far from over. The example of Darfur should prompt considerable reflection on whether the world community feels any "responsibility to protect" civilians endangered because of inaction, or indeed deliberate actions, on the part of their own governments and regimes. Have we reached the point in confronting atrocity crimes at which we put civilian lives ahead of expedient claims of national sovereignty? An answer in the abstract was provided by all UN member states in September 2005. At that time, countries declared themselves "prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council" when national authorities fail to "protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity." We know--from a staggering number of human rights reports and assessments, and myriad accounts from journalists and humanitarians in the region--the relevance of this clause to events in Darfur. For almost five years, Khartoum has committed all the crimes enumerated here in an attempt to destroy the perceived non-Arab or African civilian base of support for Darfur's rebel groups. Current humanitarian conditions reveal that a grim genocide by attrition is the regime's means of sustaining this strategy, which includes continuing harassment and obstruction of aid efforts. As this brutal counter-insurgency effort is set to enter its sixth year, hope for protection resides entirely in the success of an unwieldy, unprecedented, and inauspiciously begun UN-African Union "hybrid" peace support operation, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1769 in July 2007. In October 2007, the force had begun deploying without adequate resources, or even land for housing its personnel, and was burdened by a crippling dependence upon African Union personnel--this at the insistence of the Khartoum regime, which is determined to control the mission as much as possible. Consequently, there is likely to be little significant near-term improvement in the acute security crisis that threatens millions of Darfuri civilians and the vast humanitarian operations on which they depend. At the same time, the National Islamic Front (NIF), which dominates the merely notional "Government of National Unity" in Sudan, appears bent on precipitating renewed north-south conflict. The NIF has no only reneged on key terms of the January 2005 peace agreement that ended more than 20 years of unfathomably destructive north-south civil war, but has engaged in a series of provocative actions directed against both the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and its military forces. In October the SPLM responded by suspending its participation in the national government. The prospects for renewed war are greater than at any time since January 2005, and the consequences of such a war would be catastrophic. Whatever Darfur cease-fire might be in place, or whatever peace process may be inching forward, would readily collapse under the weight of nation-wide civil war. Darfur's staggering figures make the questioner international response all the more exigent: hundreds of thousands already dead; 2.5 million displaced, most losing anything; and 4.2 million human beings dependent on the world's largest and most endangered humanitarian operation. Answers are at once numerous and complex--and bluntly obvious. There has simply never been any stomach to confront, in effective and concerted fashion, the ruthless tyranny of the NIF. The regime came to power by military coup in 1989, deposing the elected government of Sadiq el-Mahdi and deliberately aborting Sudan's most promising chance for peace since independence. Yet there have never been coordinated economic sanctions targeting the NIF leadership. …

Sapphire waves cascade against the white, sandy shores as the sun illuminates towering palm trees. Beach-goers of a wide variety of tones and colors bask in the radiance while others frolic amongst the tides, enjoying their leisure time at one of the many great sites nature has to offer their island nation. There is no doubt that Cuba is full of beautiful scenery and home to a diverse range of inhabitants. But soaking in the delightful vistas, it is easy to forget that the nation has been shunned for decades by the United States and its allies. During the Cold War--a time when the world hastily split into opposing capitalist and communist camps under the wing of the United States or Soviet Union--the United States imposed an embargo banning trade and travel to Cuba that still exists today. The successful Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel Castro from 1953 to 1959, created a new communist and pro-Soviet regime that allowed the Soviet Union to install missiles on the island. The Cuban Mis...

Mood disorders such as bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder are common, chronic, and recurrent conditions affecting millions of individuals worldwide. Existing antidepressants and mood stabilizers used to treat these disorders are insufficient for many. Patients ...

Track Two Discussion and Regionalism In a world of nation-states it is natural to think of diplomacy as a formal and exclusive activity. Official speeches, defense white papers, and elaborate diplomatic etiquette further reinforce this impression. Government-to-government exchange, however, is not the only method by which diplomacy can be conducted. Nor, for that matter, is it a sufficient vehicle to help nations enhance their multilateral relations. In East Asia, Track Two Diplomacy (T2)--otherwise known as "private-citizen diplomacy"--has acquired a peculiar and distinct form. Paralleling the formal dialogues that are held in the region, T2 has evolved into a plethora of multilateral exchanges designed to help governments deal with issues ranging from economic cooperation to peacekeeping and conflict prevention. An Academic Network These dialogues, conducted in academically oriented conferences throughout the entire region, are sustained by scholars and political analyst...

The article focuses on mental health of refugees. Topics discussed include child suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Germany that can be improved through nurturing and treatment, resettling help the refugees in order to reduce mental disorders and misunderstanding as well as stigmatization of mental health by the people.