Offset against grey skies and the black uniform of an average Istanbulite bundled against the cold, the bright yellow and turquoise banners of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) bring a hint of the Arab Spring to Taksim Square.

Perhaps the most critical and least acknowledged impediment to the negotiation of a conflict is the manipulation of language. No peace process can come to fruition when representatives from conflicting parties are embroiled in debates on semantics, yet individuals in both government and media inevitably employ strategic language at various stages in the process.

In Russia’s parliamentary elections on December 4, 2011, United Russia – the party of President-turned-Prime Minister-turned-current-President Vladimir Putin – won the majority of seats in the Duma, the Russian Parliament, amid cries (and video evidence) of widespread election fraud.

Currently, the world’s geostrategic center is shifting northward, and few of us are paying attention.

In the beginning of October 1949, the bloody Chinese Civil War was nearing its end, and Mao Zedong had proudly declared the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). With the Nationalists defeated, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could now focus on its aims on fully reuniting the country and instituting socialism. The disastrous effects of the latter aim are well-known.

This week marked the beginning of the trial of Anders Breivik, charged with the killing of 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree last July in Norway.

The Summit of the Americas

Imagine a world in which up to one half of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) was not taxed. Imagine capitalist investors and heads of companies escaping the long-handed reach of state coffers, thereby avoiding their due contribution of hundreds of millions of dollars to the very citizenry that helped create their wealth to begin with.

It has long since become cliché to wax poetic about the momentous changes that are now sweeping the Middle East.

The United States and the other members of the P5+1 group (the permanent five members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) are entering “last chance” negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program in Istanbul this week.

In a report from The Economist on Saturday discussing the massive buildup and modernization of China’s army, known as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), one particular passage caught my eye.

This April marks the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the conflict in Bosnia, which carried on for three and a half years from 1992 until the Dayton Peace Agreement in late 1995.

Of the most controversial topics in Latin America today, few are as divisive as the politics of dam building.

Earlier this year at the summit of the African Union in Ethiopia, United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-Moon made a practically unprecedented speech in favor of LGBT rights, a speech that fomented much unrest among delegates in the room.

On Sunday, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt announced that it would nominate Khairat el-Shater as its nominee for the presidential elections in May.

It has now been over one year since northeastern Japan was devastated by what has been dubbed by many as the “triple disaster” – consisting of an earthquake, a deadly tsunami, and the nuclear meltdown of the now-infamous Fukushima nuclear power plant.

As predicted, Vladimir Putin won the March 4 Russian presidential elections with over 60 percent of the vote. What followed were the expected accusations of illegitimacy from members of the opposition.

"If you do that then you will lose the people of the community, and then you will lose the organization.”

A multitude of reasons exist why Americans are monolingual. That’s not the point: What is exasperating is the idea that everyone south of the border is brown and sólo habla español.

Over the weekend, Coptic Christians all over the world mourned the death of their Church’s leader, known as Shenouda III, Pope of Alexandria.