Archive
Reuters blog archive
from Tales from the Trail:
Election shines light on long path to post-racial America
So much for post-racial.
Supporters watch as U.S. President Barack Obama celebrates his re-election during his election night rally in Chicago, Nov. 7, 2012. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
When President Barack Obama won his historic bid for the U.S. presidency in 2008 as the nation's first black president, there was a lot of talk about a new era for America.
But his re-election on Tuesday showed that in U.S. politics, race has far from become a back-burner issue.
The Democratic victory driven by strong support from Latinos, blacks and Asians leaves many re-examining the impact of minority voters not only on future elections but on policies ranging from immigration to education.
from John Lloyd:
The unemployed generation
Western youth are not what they used to be. Richer, better educated, more independent-minded than their forebears –they were once equipped for all conceivable futures.
But now, what future can they conceive?
These are the young men and women for whom the forward march of the generations has halted. Social normalcy was once defined as things only getting better. But now, not. What mixture of circumstances, what global alchemy, can put them back on that track once more?
from Mohamed El-Erian:
Learning from tomorrow’s leaders
Have you tried speaking to a group of bright high school students wondering about what the current state of the world means for them and what they should do about it? I am grateful to have done so last week: I ended up gaining insights into how some of tomorrow’s leaders are thinking about the world they will inherit.
My presentation was divided into three parts. The conversations that ensued, both at the talk and thereafter, were broader in scope and, yes, much more interesting.
from Global Investing:
Moscow is not Cairo. Time to buy shares?
The speed of the backlash building against Russia's paramount leader Vladimir Putin following this week's parliamentary elections has taken investors by surprise and sent the country's shares and rouble down sharply lower.
Comparisons to the Arab Spring may be tempting, given that the demonstrations in Russia are also spearheaded by Internet-savvy youth organising via social networks.
from The Great Debate:
The deludedly optimistic youth of America
By Chadwick Matlin
The opinions expressed are his own.
Friday was a slightly-better bad day to be a young person in America. The morning’s unemployment said 14 percent of Americans 20-24 years old are now unemployed, down 0.7 points from September. Teenagers’ rate was similarly down, dropping 0.5 points to 24.1 overall.
But still—14 and 24.1 percent! Well above the national average of 9 percent, which isn’t exactly something the Millennials can look forward to.
from FaithWorld:
Mideast Christians struggle to hope in Arab Spring, some see no spring at all
(A Muslim holding the Koran (top L) and a Coptic Christian holding a cross in Cairo's Tahrir Square during the period of interfaith unity on February 6, 2011/Dylan Martinez)
Middle East Christians are struggling to keep hope alive with Arab Spring democracy movements promising more political freedom but threatening religious strife that could decimate their dwindling ranks. Scenes of Egyptian Muslims and Christians protesting side by side in Cairo's Tahrir Square five months ago marked the high point of the euphoric phase when a new era seemed possible for religious minorities chafing under Islamic majority rule.
from FaithWorld:
Tajikistan moves to ban adolescents from mosques
(A Tajik boy in a mosque during Friday prayers in Dushanbe October 12, 2001/Shamil Zhumatov)
Tajikistan has taken the first step toward banning children and adolescents from worshipping in mosques and churches, drawing criticism from Muslim leaders who oppose the Central Asian state's crackdown on religious freedom. The lower house of parliament in the impoverished ex-Soviet republic this week passed a "parental responsibility" bill that would make it illegal to allow children to be part of a religious institution not officially sanctioned by the state.
from MacroScope:
The promise of middle age
The wave of popular discontent now sweeping the Middle East and North Africa has been driven by the region's youth, frustrated by chronic umemployment and enraged by widespread corruption.
In a special report entitled 'Youth bulges and equities', Deutsche Bank argues that the proportion of angry young men to the general population is not only a gauge of socio-political stability but also a key indicator of market performance.
from Entrepreneurial:
Entrepreneur says youth must create their own jobs
When Brown University student Walker Williams had difficulty finding part-time job listings, his response was to launch his own job-search website, Jobzle.com. But a crucial factor in transforming the website from a hobby to a business was the funding it got through startup accelerator Betaspring.
“It gave us the money, the offices, resource space and mentorship to focus on the product 100 percent,” the 22-year-old Williams said.
from FaithWorld:
Scathing U.S. view of French unrest and Muslim integration in WikiLeaks
(Photo: Local youths watch firemen extinguish burning vehicles during clashes in the Paris suburb of Aulnay sur Bois, early November 3, 2005/Victor Tonelli)
The U.S. embassy in Paris turns out to be one of the sharpest critics of France's track record in integrating its Muslim minority. Thanks to WikiLeaks, we now have its unvarnished view of the 2005 unrest in the poor suburbs of Paris and other large cities. It is a scathing indictment that goes beyond even what many of the government's domestic critics at the time were saying. It may also go beyond most if not all of the criticisms of domestic policy found in cables from other European capitals (has anyone found anything more devastating elsewhere?). Here is our overall news report on the cables. Some excerpts from the key cables are copied below.
For FaithWorld, it's especially interesting to see what the embassy says about "what the violence is not". Back in those days, some American media were throwing around terms like "Paris intifada" and "Muslim riots" as if Huntington's "clash of civilisations" had reached the outlying stations of the Paris Metro network. The cables are clearly written to refute that view. Yes, many of the rioters came from a Muslim background, but this was a socio-economic protest by a growing underclass, as we have argued in earlier posts such as "Smoke without fire – there was no 'Paris intifada' in 2005" and "Why we don’t call them 'Muslim riots' in Paris suburbs."
