Nathan Gardels is the editor-in-chief of Noema Magazine.
This week, The WorldPost hosted a book party in Los Angeles for CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria as part of the launch of his new treatise, “In Defense of a Liberal Education.” He is also a member of the Berggruen Institute’s 21st Century Council.
Attendees included, among many others, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, financiers Steve Schwarzman, David Bonderman and Mohamed el-Erian, California State Senator Bob Hertzberg, former California Governor Gray Davis and Hollywood producers Brian Grazer, Lawrence Bender and Mike Medavoy. Economist Nouriel Roubini, essayist Pico Iyer and Harvard historian Niall Ferguson also attended. Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban sparred with Zakaria over the rights of Palestinians and the future of Israel as a democratic state.
Jack Miles, editor of the “Norton Anthology of World Religions,” writes in The WorldPost this week that America is losing in the Mideast because its foreign policy has been technology-focused (drones, etc.) instead of humanities-focused (history, religion, etc.).
World attention this week was riveted on the tragedy of a massive earthquake in Nepal. Associate World Editor Nick Robins-Early looks at the dysfunctional politics in that Himalayan nation that led to both a lack of preparedness for the earthquake and a hindering of recovery efforts. Other World editor reports cover how aid agencies are rallying to help the victims, how families abroad are tracking down their loved ones and how the kind of aid the country needs is also an important factor to consider in this disaster.
Reporting from Kathmandu for The WorldPost, Amie Ferris-Rotman notes how the “earthquake babies” are seen as a sign of hope. She also reports on how the rural poor are the worst hit, how the riverbanks of Kathmandu have been turned into a gigantic crematorium of funeral pyres and how volunteers are mobilizing to guard Nepal’s heritage amid the damage. Jorge Berástegui, who lived in Kathmandu three years ago, recalls how fear of “the big earthquake” was a constant worry among residents.
WorldPost Middle East Correspondent Sophia Jones reports from Tel Aviv on how Nepal’s quake shines an unexpected spotlight on gay rights in Israel.
One of India’s most prominent commentators, Samir Saran, says it is time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make “credible” the “incredible” story of India he has promoted.
As the Saudi assault on the rebellion in neighboring Yemen falters, former MI6 Agent Alastair Crooke writes from Beirut that a region once reliant on the oil-rich Gulf states is now turning toward China as its development plans stretch into the Mideast. Writing from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, says ISIS, “which is neither Islamic nor a state” should be called “obscene.” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in New York this week for a United Nations meeting on nuclear nonproliferation, said at an event at New York University that Iran, the U.S. and Saudi have a “common interest” in combatting groups such as the Islamic State.
Scholar Akbar Ahmed says Europe can learn from Bosnia when it comes to relations with the Muslim community.
In this month’s “Following Francis” blog, Sébastien Maillard writes from Rome on how Pope Francis aims to help avoid a “Third World War” as he increasingly speaks out against persecution of religious minorities, mistreatment of migrants and climate change. Rebekah Rodriguez-Lynn writes about how her family was torn apart by American immigration rules.
As The WorldPost reports, California Gov. Jerry Brown this week announced the most aggressive effort in North America to cut carbon gases 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Environmentalist Carl Pope documents how American consumption drives Chinese pollution. Noted scholar Taisu Zhang examines why China’s leftists are now embracing Confucianism as an alternative to Western values.
From Beijing, WorldPost China Correspondent Matt Sheehan reports on how Chinese “birth tourism” is flourishing in California. He also reports on a raid by Chinese authorities on Uber to curb “black cabs” and on models who are dressing as beggars in protest because their scantily-clad appearance at car shows has been banned.
Time has run out on reaching a deal between Greece and its debtors. Writing from Athens, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis spells out his last-minute terms. Writing from Berlin, former German Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer slams the Syriza party’s inability to make the transition from opposition to governance. Harvard’s Joseph Nye contests the notion that America is in decline like Rome because of imperial overstretch.
In light of a wave of deadly attacks against immigrants that have rocked South Africa in recent weeks, The WorldPost speaks to expert Loren Landau about the politics behind the violence.
NextGen scientist Aaron Pomerantz this week looks at a bizarre caterpillar from the Amazon with tentacles that stretch out when it hears loud noises.
In our Singularity University series we ask what happens when smartphones become more intelligent than we are. Fusion looks at the slowly disappearing Everglades in Florida. And lastly, our “Other Entrepreneurs” series this week looks at Ghana, where one man is making the most of his resources by fashioning bicycles out of bamboo.
WHO WE ARE
EDITORS: Nathan Gardels, Senior Advisor to the Berggruen Institute on Governance and the long-time editor of NPQ and the Global Viewpoint Network of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media, is the Editor-in-Chief of The WorldPost. Farah Mohamed is the Managing Editor of The WorldPost. Kathleen Miles is the Senior Editor of the WorldPost. Alex Gardels and Peter Mellgard are the Associate Editors of The WorldPost. Katie Nelson is the National Editor at the Huffington Post, overseeing The WorldPost and HuffPost’s editorial coverage. Eline Gordts is HuffPost’s Senior World Editor. Charlotte Alfred and Nick Robins-Early are Associate World Editors.
CORRESPONDENTS: Sophia Jones in Istanbul; Matt Sheehan in Beijing.
EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Arianna Huffington, Eric Schmidt (Google Inc.), Pierre Omidyar (First Look Media) Juan Luis Cebrian (El Pais/PRISA), Walter Isaacson (Aspen Institute/TIME-CNN), John Elkann (Corriere della Sera, La Stampa), Wadah Khanfar (Al Jazeera), Dileep Padgaonkar (Times of India) and Yoichi Funabashi (Asahi Shimbun).
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Moises Naim (former editor of Foreign Policy), Nayan Chanda (Yale/Global; Far Eastern Economic Review) and Katherine Keating (One-On-One). Sergio Munoz Bata and Parag Khanna are Contributing Editors-At-Large.
The Asia Society and its ChinaFile, edited by Orville Schell, is our primary partner on Asia coverage. Eric X. Li and the Chunqiu Institute/Fudan University in Shanghai and Guancha.cn also provide first person voices from China. We also draw on the content of China Digital Times. Seung-yoon Lee is The WorldPost link in South Korea.
Jared Cohen of Google Ideas provides regular commentary from young thinkers, leaders and activists around the globe. Bruce Mau provides regular columns from MassiveChangeNetwork.com on the “whole mind” way of thinking. Patrick Soon-Shiong is Contributing Editor for Health and Medicine.
ADVISORY COUNCIL: Members of the Berggruen Institute’s 21st Century Council and Council for the Future of Europe serve as the Advisory Council — as well as regular contributors — to the site. These include, Jacques Attali, Shaukat Aziz, Gordon Brown, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Juan Luis Cebrian, Jack Dorsey, Mohamed El-Erian, Francis Fukuyama, Felipe Gonzalez, John Gray, Reid Hoffman, Fred Hu, Mo Ibrahim, Alexei Kudrin, Pascal Lamy, Kishore Mahbubani, Alain Minc, Dambisa Moyo, Laura Tyson, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Raghuram Rajan, Nouriel Roubini, Nicolas Sarkozy, Eric Schmidt, Gerhard Schroeder, Peter Schwartz, Amartya Sen, Jeff Skoll, Michael Spence, Joe Stiglitz, Larry Summers, Wu Jianmin, George Yeo, Fareed Zakaria, Ernesto Zedillo, Ahmed Zewail, and Zheng Bijian.
From the Europe group, these include: Marek Belka, Tony Blair, Jacques Delors, Niall Ferguson, Anthony Giddens, Otmar Issing, Mario Monti, Robert Mundell, Peter Sutherland and Guy Verhofstadt.
MISSION STATEMENT
The WorldPost is a global media bridge that seeks to connect the world and connect the dots. Gathering together top editors and first person contributors from all corners of the planet, we aspire to be the one publication where the whole world meets.
We not only deliver breaking news from the best sources with original reportage on the ground and user-generated content; we bring the best minds and most authoritative as well as fresh and new voices together to make sense of events from a global perspective looking around, not a national perspective looking out.
