The End of History

Having gone through The Clash of Civilizations, we might want to touch on something as dramatic, like The End of History. I haven't read it myself, although I have just read this.

Meanwhile, we could visit Wikipedia to read up on criticisms of Civilisations and Huntington.

• Wikipedia:The Clash of Civilisations
• Wikipedia:Samuel P Huntington

Homosexuality

Renckens' wrenching idea

Intellectual and spiritual torpor: present-day Catholic Church views on homosexuality

There was a post on it last year:

The Bible as justification

To modernise but not to westernise

Apart from Japan, we might want to examine how other countries are coping

Bhutan lets down its guard, to dissonant effect

Bhutan reluctantly embraces democracy

The Painstaking Essays.

Go to the folder in TLN yourself!

How Asians can have more babies

... a lesson that East Asia has yet to learn... Investment in children through government spending may provide a much better return than accumulating vast fiscal surpluses to be invested in low yielding foreign assets or unnecessary infrastructure.

There is a dumb arrogance in East Asia's approach to excess savings and its inability to face up to the reasons for its abysmal fertility rates. The two are linked. That must change if the whole region is not to be a geriatric poorhouse. Read more...

The kind of leadership the GST hike is paying for.

Yet more reactionary leadership

"Some Articles On..." - Globalization

Letter From China: In Asia, the past divides and alienates. (Political implication of globalization)

International law creeping over sovereignty (Political implication of globalization)


Migration benefits all (Economic implication of globalization)

Environmentalism

More:

Wind farms offer more power, possible problems

Climate experts: Tech a last resort

Asian rice emits greenhouse gas

Delegates debate on greenhouse gas emissions

Environmentalism

“The environment should be saved at all costs.” Do you agree?

It's not easy being green

Business sees green in going green

Carbon market aims to slow global warming

Differences between Civilisations

"The people of different civilisations have different views on the relations between ... These differences are the product of centuries. they will not soon disappear. they are far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and political regimes. Differences do not necessarily mean conflict, and conflict does not necessarily, mean violence" - Clash of Civilisations

Putting citizenship to the test

3 Japanese Americans challenge U.S. detention of Muslims

Is Islam compatible with the West?

Democratic Systems

"The common experiences of European history - feudalism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French revolution, the Industrial revolution; they are generally economically better off than the peoples to the east, and they may now look forward to increasing involvement in a common European economy and to the consolidation of democratic political systems. the people to the east and south of this line are Orthodox or Muslim; they historically belonged to the Ottoman or Tsarist empires and were only lightly touched by the shaping events in the rest of Europe; they are generally less advanced economically; they seem much less likely to develop stable democratic political systems" - Clash of Civilisations

Now comes a new argument - that the demography of a country's population(age) is also a factor for the success of a democratic system:

Very young populations contribute to strife, study says

Africa's crisis of democracy, with Nigeria at forefront

Free Trade Talks

Asean and Japan try to reach trade deal

U.S. and South Korea reach free trade agreement

EU and South Korea opening free-trade talks

Logic.

Beware the slippery slope! - "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering!" "Your sisters and mothers will become maids in foreign countries"

Death to America.

The tension between the Islamic world and the West gets all the attention and press. However, this article will remind us the the US has been ruffling feathers elsewhere.

"Around the world, by every measure, America's reputation and image has never been so poor."

You can download the mp3 or podcast from the above site; alternatively, you can get it from tlnexus: "Death to America".