OP ED – Common Ground News. London – In October, the Dutch Senate will consider the ban on ritual slaughter enacted by the parliament’s lower house in June 2011. Self-described as “an institution that pays little heed to ideas which happen to be fashionable at the time,” the Senate has no one party that holds [...]

OP ED. The Platform. Sunday 21 August was declared a national day of mourning in Norway as the country still tried to come to terms with how one of their own could commit such heinous crimes. Even Norway’s 74 year-old monarch, King Harald, struggled with tears as he told the nation that he believed freedom [...]

OP ED. Scotsman. Looting and rioting – the hyperbole is out there and it’s getting in the way of a dialogue that this country needs to have. AS A Scot of South Asian heritage, I watched recent news reports of violence in Europe with horror. Images of burning shops looted by rioters across England, and [...]

OP ED. Scotsman. Adding to the horribly expensive failures of Iraq and Afghanistan, we now have a quagmire in Libya. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it and if we needed yet one more lesson on the folly of trying to bomb our way to democracy, the situation in Libya is a powerful [...]

OP ED. Huffington Post. Turkey’s secular democracy is increasingly establishing itself as a fulcrum for East-West relations, notably as a bridge to Iran and Syria. Its pending application to join the European Union is seen by some to be a powerful opportunity for better Middle East relations, enriching the possibilities of a more effective