In the News, April 23, 2015

April 23, 2015

Today's religion and world affairs news from the United States and around the globe: the World Bank launches an interfaith initiative to end poverty, Turkey continues to deny the Armenian genocide, and a look at why Westerners have joined ISIS. 
AROUND THE WORLD
World Bank Launches Interfaith Push to Eliminate Extreme Poverty
by Heather Adams
Religion News Service
http://www.religionnews.com/2015/04/22/world-bank-launches-interfaith-push-eliminate-extreme-poverty/
The World Bank is teaming up with global religious leaders in a 15-year effort to end extreme poverty by 2030. About 35 religious groups worldwide, including Bread for the World, Islamic Relief International, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Sojourners, endorsed the call to action. Supporters include Christians, Jews, Muslims, Baha’is and others.

The Cost of Turkey’s Genocide Denial
by Ronald Grigor Suny
New York Times op-ed 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/opinion/the-cost-of-turkeys-genocide-denial.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
Reconciliation of Armenians, Kurds and Turks will require a hard look backward in order to move forward. 

From Calvin to Caliphate
by John M. Owen IV
Foreign Affairs
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/143326/john-m-owen-iv/from-calvin-to-the-caliphate
The Muslim world today is going through religious turmoil similar to that which raged across northwestern Europe 450 years ago. The West’s own history of ideological and religious radicalism offers key lessons for understanding and managing modern-day crises elsewhere. 

Working Through the Past
by Serge Schmemann
New York Times op-ed
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/opinion/working-through-the-past.html?ref=opinion
As some world leaders minimize their countries’ own history of atrocities, efforts to settle questions of culpability for the Holocaust take on even more importance. 

When Migrants Free Progress, Not War
by Michela Wrong 
Foreign Policy
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/22/end-poverty-stifle-happiness-mdgs-mediterranean-eritrea/
Nearly one-fifth of people crossing the Mediterranean are leaving a country touted for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Turns out, a better life requires more than a U.N. checklist. 

Counting on the Kurds
by Denise Natali
Foreign Affairs
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/143723/denise-natali/counting-on-the-kurds
Peshmerga forces are using coalition air strikes to engineer territorial and demographic changes that are antagonizing Sunni Arabs—the very communities the United States needs on its side to degrade ISIS.  

DOMESTIC
The Children of ISIS
by Janet Reitman
Rolling Stone 
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/teenage-jihad-inside-the-world-of-american-kids-seduced-by-isis-20150325
Why did three American kids from the suburbs of Chicago try to run away to the Islamic state, and should the Feds treat them as terrorists?
Opens in a new window