Hamilton Spectator

In Uganda, the land has uncommon beauty, and life has its own strange mix of dark memories of killings, talk of restorative justice, and forgiveness.

Booming, oil-rich city is luring outsiders. That s likely why it feels so hollow.

The feet of ‘ragged men’, Vincent Van Gogh and the story of the prodigal son all come to mind as Easter dawns in Yemen.

Daniel Pearl and Walid al-Saqqaf would have enjoyed furthering Muslim-Jewish dialogue in, say, some juice bar in Tehran with Bob Dylan playing.

I treat most things said here in Yemen about Jews with skepticism. The latest gem came from a Yemeni colleague ranting, in an unpublished column, about the so-called Jewish conspiracy. He cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, purportedly Jewish texts from the late 1800s, describing Jewish plans to enslave the world.

Chronic illiteracy in Yemen reflects the belief that teaching a woman to read will empower her at the expense of men.

We’ll never know why some parts of the human family get more than their share of natural disasters such as tsunamis.

Merry Christmas, don't get too busy, and remember: don't eat too many cookies, because you still have to get around next year.

I hate politics. You can't trust anyone. I mean, if I was Maqtada Al-Sadr, the dangerously political Shiite cleric who's jostling for position in Iraq now, I wouldn't trust my grandmother.

If we are in a so-called war of civilizations, the biggest battlefields may not be in places like Iraq but in the classroom.

Ever wonder why you don't live in a George Orwell novel, a place where up is down if the right person says it's so; a place that sooner or later, like a rotten empire, will always implode under the weight of its own self-deceit?

George Bush and rival John Kerry could both have picked up a few good tips from the wild-haired genius.

It's no wonder that so many folks from Muslim nations want to emigrate to western nations.

Yemen is the cradle of Islam. But it’s not Iraq. Bullets aren’t falling like rain. Nobody is getting beheaded. It’s no Disneyland, but, besides the white-knuckle driving, most days pass without terror.

ST. GILDEN, AUSTRIA ✦ OK, for the record, nobody rocks like Mozart. But Julie Andrews made plenty of Austrian stores come alive with the sound of ka-ching, after her famous opening to the Sound of Music, filmed 40 years ago on a mountain near this lake-district resort town. The movie initially raked in a cool $165 million, about $800 million in today's dollars. Now tourism cash still flows from it like a river, especially an hour from here in Salzburg, Mozart's hometown, where the visitors never really leave.