Islam, America and other free reads from The Economist
By Paul
Islam, America and Europe; Why so many Muslims find it easier to be American than to feel European; The difference between America and Europe in dealing with Islam reaches down to some basic questions of principle, such as the limits of free speech and free behaviour. America's political culture places huge importance on the right to religious difference, including the right to displays of faith which others might consider eccentric. In the words of Reza Aslan, a popular Iranian-American writer on Islam, “Americans are used to exuberant displays of religiosity.” So the daily prostrations of a devout Muslim are less shocking to an American than to a lukewarm European Christian. American society is open to religious arguments—and to new approaches to old theological questions—in a way that Europe is not.
The West and Islam; Tales from Eurabia
How to save the world- Bolton v Gore; A question of priorities: hunger and disease or climate change?
Africa's economy; A glimmer of light at last? Nor have Africa's faster-growing economies done much yet for Africa's millions of poor; about half of sub-Saharan Africa's 750m-plus people still live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has been pretty static since 1990, whereas in South Asia it dropped from 39% in 1990 to 30% in 2001 and is dropping further, while in eastern Asia (mainly China) it fell from 33% to 17% in the same period and is now falling faster still. Most foreign investment in Africa still goes to oilfields or mines, rather than factories, services or farming. Mineral riches provide governments with cash but do not create many jobs. Most people in Africa still work in the informal sector, while unemployment is rife. With a few exceptions in Africa, private business, especially the job-creating small and medium sort, is weak. Even South Africa, with its diverse economy, has failed to create jobs fast enough: at least a quarter of its people have no work.
Face value- Bill Gates replaces himself as Microsoft's software boss with Ray Ozzie; The first signal that Mr Gates had tapped Mr Ozzie to lead Microsoft into this new world of internet services and advertising came last October, when Mr Ozzie, rather than Mr Gates, wrote a lengthy internal memo called “the internet services disruption”. In it, Mr Ozzie politely but ruthlessly analysed how Microsoft had wasted opportunities to come to grips with the new environment, how it was losing ground to rivals (“Google is obviously the most visible here”) and what it would take to avoid disruption
Brazil's elections; An outsider with a (slight) chance
China's next building site; Building the nation
German history; Still haunted by a communist spectre
Prisons; The British government has been accused of both stuffing prisons and letting too many convicts out. Oddly, both accusations are true
Newspapers; The Tribune Company is in trouble with some powerful shareholders
Chinese tourism; Last year more than 31m Chinese travelled outside mainland China and the World Tourism Organisation expects this number to grow to 50m by 2010 and 100m by 2020
American inflation; The problem is that the Fed's stern talk may backfire. The statistical nuances of owners' equivalent rent suggest that core inflation may rise further and will remain above Mr Bernanke's boundaries for the rest of the year, even as the economy slows. If they are to avoid pushing up interest rates too far, Fed officials may soon have to explain why figures they now regard as “troubling” and “corrosive” are not so worrying after all. That task would be easier if their rhetoric had been more boring in the first place
Fundamental physics; Gravitational waves were predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity in 1916. This theory views gravity not as a force but as a consequence of the curved geometry of space and time. Space-time, as it is known, has four dimensions: the three familiar spatial ones of length, breadth and height, and time
Agriculture; An international seed bank is being set up in the Arctic
Tintin and the broken metaphor
Charles Haughey, four times taoiseach of Ireland, died on June 13th, aged 80
Part-time work; In the past decade there has been a sustained increase in the importance of part-time work, notably in the Netherlands, where it now makes up 36% of total employment. Mostly it is done by women, who account on average for 73% of such work across the OECD. Many governments are taking steps to promote part-time jobs as a means of raising overall employment rates
Oil reserves; The world had 1.2 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves at the end of 2005, according to BP. If overall production continues at last year's rate, known oil will last for 41 years. But it will run out more slowly in some countries than in others. At today's extraction rate, Saudi Arabia's reserves, which account for more than a fifth of the world total, will last for 66 years.
Staffing globalisation;As companies send more employees abroad, they are offering fewer perks and finding more recruits in developing countries ($ required)
Economics focus; The euro and trade; IN THE continuing controversies about Europe's bold experiment in monetary union, there has at least been some agreement about where the costs and benefits lie. The costs are macroeconomic, caused by forgoing the right to set interest rates to suit the specific economic conditions of a member state. The benefits are microeconomic, consisting of potential gains in trade and growth as the costs of changing currencies and exchange-rate uncertainty are removed… A new study by Richard Baldwin, a trade economist at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, scythes through these and earlier, even higher, estimates….($ required)
Muslims and the West; FOUR authors of recent books about America's conflict with Islamism are like blind men feeling an elephant—each one describes the problem in a slightly different way. What unites them, though, is a single, overarching question: if the jihadists are just a bunch of bloodthirsty, head-chopping, woman-haters, why does the West have such a hard time gaining the moral high ground in what America persists in calling the “war on terror?” ($ required). The four books reviewed are below;
While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within By Bruce Bawer
Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too By Claire Berlinski
Storm from the East: The Struggle Between the Arab World and the Christian West By Milton Viorst
The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe By Jytte Klausen
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