Soon after World War II, the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, a legally binding multilateral treaty, defined who is a refugee, what rights they have, and established the obligations of nations in their regard.[1] In the broader field of migration, however,[2] apart from a convention on migrant workers,[3] until now there has been no comparable international agreement regarding migrants in general. In 1951, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was established as an intergovernmental organization, working with governmental, intergovernmental and nongovernmental...
In the fall of 2008, a tsunami devastated global finances, dragging down with it some ancient banking institutions and causing panic on the main money markets. In less than a month, shares listed on Wall Street had lost a third of their value and, consequently, a few trillion dollars went up in smoke. In September 2008, Ben Bernanke, then-president of the United States Federal Reserve (FED) and a learned expert of the Great Depression, asserted when presenting his Troubled Asset...
The current crisis between Iran and the United States is the worst since the Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini[1] and the diplomatic crisis of 1979-81 when young Islamic revolutionaries stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran taking fifty two diplomats and other citizens, hostage for 444 days. The present situation was triggered by President Donald Trump’s May 8, 2018, withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement, which is known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed in 2015 by Iran and...
The deeply rooted Latin concept of the “sacred” was integrated into the Chinese lexicon with the creation of a specific word. The term shensheng is primarily used by scholars and Christians – especially Catholics[1] – but can also be used by all Chinese attempting to describe a mysterious place, full of spiritual energies. This includes more than geographical locations. For many, their sphere of intimacy or their spiritual situations are the place of the truly sacred. A study was conducted...
The end of the seventh chapter of the Letter to the Romans contains an exclamation in which Saint Paul gives voice to a deep pain that permeates his entire existence: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24). At first glance, it seems that the apostle is making a very severe judgment about his own body, as if he almost preferred to do away with it so as to live serenely the...
Over the last decades interreligious dialogue in Asia has faced some tough challenges. Even though many religious leaders, organizations and thinkers have been working constructively and efficaciously, at the popular level religions often limit themselves to coexisting rather than engaging in dialogue and collaboration. Besides, tensions and conflicts, both short- and long-term, continue to be all too frequent. Two reasons explain the difficulties that are faced in this field. First, conflicts are very rarely “simply” religious: they are generally mixed...
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