Years ago, when I was earning my master’s degree at the London School of Economics, I had a memorable conversation with a classmate of mine from Istanbul named Deniz. Over a couple beers at the Three Tuns, Deniz explained Turkey’s two most pressing problems—the rise of political Islam and the Kurdish separatist movement—and he tied...Read More

“Across the Middle East, where Christianity was born and its followers once made up a sizable portion of the population, Christians are now tiny minorities,” writes Kristen Chick. “Driven by different factors — the search for better opportunities abroad, their status as targets of Iraq’s sectarian conflict, a low birth rate, and discrimination — the...Read More

We’ve written pages on the “College Admissions Wave” Today, we came across some new demographic data from the Pew Research Center. It is no shock to anyone with college-aged children that college campuses are a lot more crowded these days. Much of the focus in the media has been that a higher percentage of American...Read More

By now, everyone should be aware of the anti-regime protests taking place in Iran.   The country is experiencing unrest not seen since the 1979 Islamic revolution that deposed the Shah and brought the current regime to power.  The “spark” that ignited this rebellion was the disputed presidential election, of course.  But the “tinder” that...Read More

We recommend you grab a copy of George Magnus’s The Age of Aging. Mr. Magnus is a senior economic advisor at UBS, and his new book is probably the best “big picture” analysis on demographic trends that we have seen since Philip Longman’s The Empty Cradle.  Magnus’s work is a fine complement to our own...Read More