The high octane debate over Park 51, the proposed Islamic community center of lower Manhattan, rages on. The Americans I know have only compassion in their hearts for the devastating losses of September 11. In fact, one Muslim-American friend of mine, born in Cairo, was especially grief-stricken on that day, due to her love of America and the provence of those terrorist acts.

The public is wary of the financial industry’s political power in Washington. But is it wary enough? The Baseline Scenario, an engaging blog that breaks down the complexities of the financial disaster for math-challenged readers like me. Begun in 2008, the blog is already cited by a plethora of major magazines and newspapers. The co-author’s new book, “13 Bankers, The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown,” is one we should all be reading.

Shiza Shahid, a 20-year-old Stanford student, took Taliban denial of education for girls into her own hands last year after the insurgents ordered all girls schools to closed in the Swat Valley. Shahid’s anger, who grew up only 100 miles outside Swat, drove to mobilize assistance to 26 girls, who joined her last summer in Islamabad

Barack Obama is edging closer to a decision on whether to reinforce the 68,000 U.S. troops who will be fighting in Afghanistan by year’s end. Since routing out Al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts in Afghanistan after 9-11, the Taliban has made a steady comeback, fueled by failures of the Bush administration, profits from the opium trade,

Not a day passes without world news that demonstrates the need for powerful words, like those of Hindu leader Mahatma Gandhi of India: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” The Charter for Compassion (and Ted Talks) recently assembled a diverse group of contemporary leaders to convey a core message of peace between all major faiths.

The Alliance of Nations was established in 2005, at the initiative of the Governments of Spain and Turkey, under the auspices of the United Nations. The program seeks to counter extremism through action based upon cross-cultural dialogue and interfaith cooperation. 20 individuals from

A cross-section of American leaders met recently via the U.S. Muslim Engagement Project in order to address the underlying causes of terrorism, and to help set a new course of action in the Middle East. Terrorism measurements are difficult to pin down. But most intelligence data suggest linkage between the “war on terror” and significant increases in terrorism worldwide.

The record crowd of seven million people impelled to Washington D.C. on Inauguration Day included a huge percentage of students. Nicholas Anderson, 21, who traveled from the University of North Carolina to bunk with friends in Virginia, says he and his friends stepped aboard the metro train January 20th at 3:00 AM, in time to garner a decent view of Barack Obama’s being sworn into office as the 44th President of the United States.

In follow-up to my Gateways post on September 25th, Scholar Karen Armstrong is leading the call for a “Charter for Compassion” to be created by people all over the world. As every religion has a history of intolerance, so each religion has principles for overcoming intolerance. The Charter aims to shift religious conceptions and relieve

We are entering a period that promises renewal in our country. Most of us are optimistic that a return to our most deeply held collective values