Berkley Center

by Laurie Garrett

While some Liberian religious leaders are harnessing fears over the Ebola outbreak to further an anti-gay agenda, other churches are preaching peace, calm, and a chlorine rinse.

by Elias Groll

Amnesty International published a report early Wednesday accusing Israel of war crimes in its 50-day war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip this summer, saying its military showed “callous indifference” to civilians in airstrikes on homes that felled entire families.

 

by Rick Gladstone

Saudi Arabian security officials moved aggressively on Tuesday to crush an outbreak of anti-Shiite violence, arresting 15 people in six cities and killing two others in connection with what the Interior Ministry called a terrorist ambush on mosque worshipers in a minority Shiite community.

 

by Waqar Gillani

An enraged mob tortured a Pakistani Christian couple and incinerated their bodies in a brick kiln in eastern Pakistan on Tuesday after they were accused of burning a Quran, police officials said.

 

by Austin Ramzy

Communist Party investigators have warned officials in the eastern province of Zhejiang, where several Christian churches have been demolished or forced to remove prominent crosses over the past year, against practicing religion.

 

by Ben Hubbard

For many Iraqi Shiites who commemorated the death of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, on Tuesday in an event called Ashura, the current threat against their community from the extremists of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has profound historical parallels.

 

by Paul Hockenos

For years, Germany has enjoyed the noble distinction of being the only major European country without a significant right-wing, anti-euro party. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) burst onto Germany’s political stage this year.

 

by Mark Silk

According to yesterday’s exit polls, the religious layout of the electorate looks almost identical to the last midterm election in 2010, and not much different from the 2012 presidential election.