The Christian Science Monitor

Still another reality: Broad adherence to the Washington-driven international economic prescriptions of recent decades, under which the market and private sectors took over for a reduced state, is a thing of the past.

"This crisis has finished off the Washington consensus," the standard package of free-market reforms promoted by Washington and the Bretton Woods institutions to replace the state-run economies of developing countries, says Anatol Lieven, a professor at King's College London and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation… more

Malaise has made a comeback.

How else to describe the results of a recent Rockefeller Foundation/Time magazine poll in which 49 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds surveyed said that America was a better place to live in the 1990s and will continue to decline. Nine in 10 of all respondents agreed that just getting by is as hard as or harder than ever before.

At the root of such pessimism is the failure of the nation's social contract – the policies and institutions that support… more

Undersecretary Glassman does not shrink from placing radical Islam at the center of the US effort. But the new US focus, he says, is more about providing alternatives of thought and action than about trying to impose an American or Western vision of what is right. Speaking recently at the New America Foundation in Washington, he said, "Our role is to be a facilitator of choice – to allow young people to make their own choices, rather than imposing them." LINK

With continuous cross-border attacks from Pakistan fueling a resilient insurgency, Afghan President Hamid Karzai finally snapped. If Islamabad did not move more forcefully against Islamic militants in the country's tribal region, he declared recently, Afghan forces would enter Pakistan and do it themselves.

While the remark shocked Pakistani authorities and sparked a brief diplomatic row, it is not just President Karzai who is concerned about militancy in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Policymakers in London, New Delhi, and Washington are… more

Arguments Mount for a National Healthcare System (Christian Science Monitor)

...In the current campaign season, Senator McCain calls for dozens of reforms to bring down costs and make expenditures more effective in health results. And he states, "we can and must provide access to healthcare for all our citizens." His proposals, though, don't fully embrace the uninsured.

Shannon Brownlee, a senior fellow at the centrist New America Foundation, charges that McCain is "so wedded to the free market that he… more

After an unexpected show of strength at a rally on Monday by supporters of the Palestinian Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip, rival Hamas forces – which control the area – moved quickly to arrest hundreds of Fatah activists, increasing the likelihood of more conflict in the territories.

The Palestinian split into two camps, a Fatah willing to compromise with Israel and a Hamas still insistent on refusing to recognize the right of the Jewish state to exist, and the newly… more

As baby boomers enter the starting gate into retirement, the cost of America's entitlement programs – foremost, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – is projected to balloon to levels that are unsustainable.

Already, those three programs make up 40 percent of the federal budget. If reforms are not enacted, Social Security will eventually go bust; in 40 years, on the current path, the two medical programs alone could equal the size of today's entire federal budget according to the US… more

Having belatedly realized that Cuba's communist regime is not doomed to collapse simply with the passing from power of Fidel Castro, the Bush administration is launching new pro-democracy initiatives with the decades-old U.S. hope of fostering a shift from communism.

But little suggests that the road to a democratic Cuba is suddenly open to new U.S. measures - or to renewed American pressure. Fidel's brother Raul has consolidated control of the Cuban system since the elder Castro relinquished power… more

In 1990, newspapers around the country profiled the story of Grace Capetillo, a welfare mom from Milwaukee who, after managing to save $3,000 in the bank, was hauled into court by the county Department of Social Services and charged with fraud. Having breached the limit on allowable assets, Ms. Capetillo was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine of $1,000, spend down another $1,000 of the money she had worked hard to save, and promise not to save again… more

...Daniel Levy, a former peace negotiator for Israel [and director of the Middle East Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation], says on his blog Prospects for Peace that it appears Israel is less committed to the US desire for regime change in Syria out of practical considerations, especially since one winner from any major political change in Syria could be that country's Muslim Brotherhood, which is aligned to Israel's enemy, the Palestinian Sunni militant group Hamas.

"Indications are… more