...Karl E. Meyer Copyright © 2006 World Policy Institute 2006 C#DA Who (Really) Owns the Past? The nub of what follows can be simply expressed. Who has true title to antiquities or art treasures? Is it the country of origin? Or even a tribe? Does a good-faith purchase...

... WORLD POLICY JOURNAL: What inspired you to start working in a kitchen, and what inspires you about food? FLYNN MCGARRY: My mom was a really bad cook, so I kind of thought ‘oh I could do this better,’ and then she was more than happy to push the cooking duties on me. I started trying out recipes...

... of political consciousness amongst Afro-Brazilians and a long history of struggle. The majority of people I know in North America don’t really get that Brazil has the largest population of black people outside of Africa. I wanted to know more about how you see the struggle of Afro-Brazil in relation...

... is the changing nature of cultures. People in this globalized world are acquiring multiple identities. Just to give an example, you have more Manchester United [soccer] fans in Asia than in the UK. We are really seeing more and more that behaviors are coming closer together. There’s a wonderful bridge built...

... for this kind of uprising. WPJ: But when we look around China today, we see that many people are living better lives than ever before and that they appear to be quite happy. How do you explain this? Ai Weiwei: I don’t think anybody is really happy. I have many friends, and they’re all cursing now...

... in the community. I really like talking to, say, the city manager, and getting into the details of his job. I don’t fully understand what a city attorney or a city clerk does, but the more you understand that nitty-gritty stuff, the more effective you can be as a citizen. I guess the flip side is that when you’re...

... on beauty and excellence as the elites, a group they have been attacking. That’s how they degrade language. That’s familiar to me, because I come from a country where people who have been endowed with power and who make policy in areas such as culture and education are sub-literate. It is really painful...

... since then to stabilize the British markets and, by extension, the global markets. XAVIER ROLET: Well, global markets is of course a big liquidity pool, but we’ve taken a number of micro measures, and this is really in Europe, a little less so in the United States, where until 2013 we did...

.... For me, as a woman, I can walk in the mall. Before, I used to be really reluctant to go to the mall if I wasn’t completely veiled. I would always take care, if there is something showing, otherwise the police would come. But now I feel a lot more at ease going out. The changes in Saudi enabled me...

... that is the example of an unknown unknown that worked out in a very favorable way to produce a new kind of culture nobody expected, and it had a happy ending. WPJ: The last time you wrote for us, you observed that there hadn’t been anything really dramatically new invented in probably a hundred years. Since...

... innovations in warfare that there have been only refinements, really, since the invention of gunpowder. Of course there have been new delivery vehicles—missiles, rockets, jet aircraft, nuclear weapons. Do you think we are on the cusp of change today? Major General Jonathan Shaw: I think you’re focusing...

..., despite all these pressures and constraints that were put on Iran, was able to emerge as a leading scientific and technological country where justice is being applied. there’s nothing in the nuclear field that we have not really achieved, and the technology is within our reach . What do I mean...

... the infrastructure available to allow people to do that, they will do so. I do however think that some of the policy choices that we’re making concerning the Internet aren’t really helpful for people to get in touch and communicate in spaces and ways that they find meaningful. WPJ: The Pirate Party has made...

..., “Oh, that’s a problem with foreigners, with immigrants.” It’s such a disconnect; it’s really troubling. The last thing I’d like to talk about is your book—a narrative nonfiction account of the work OpAntiSH did during the Egyptian revolution. One incident I had a tough time with was the mob...

... of its release. Discussions about air pollution overwhelm all other news, including the Conference in Beijing. Then the government orders the film removed from all websites. The next day, he gets a short text message from Zhao, “A good job. I really appreciate it.” It’s a gamble, but it might...

.... “The term tipping point has not been well defined.” In the Arctic, says Serreze, “what we’ve seen is that you can have periods of rapid ice loss, but it is not a threshold so to speak—it is not really a tipping point.” Specifically, Serreze points to Arctic summer ice loss in 2007 as huge. But 2008, Serreze...

... that they are the truth. This particular assumption is not really valid in postnormal times. So we have to transcend that—not that we should give up the absolute nature of our religion, but absolute only for us and our community, and not for anyone else. As for other people, they have their own absolutes that are equally...

... before.” And they said, “Really? How much?” He’s still working on it. WPJ: Wasn’t the very process of monetizing property assets at least part of the cause of the financial crisis, especially in the United States? In developed economies, wasn’t there too much capital— in the form of subprime...

... good. It may be a cliché to say that the road and Daws never address seriously is what if to hell is paved with good intentions, but by going down the road Annan has directed surely it is not too much to insist that good us toward (and, whether or not he calls it intentions are really...