Depending on what time you arrive, the first thing you might notice about Istanbul is the distinct Muslim call to prayer. It happens five times a day: twice in the morning, once at noon, and twice in the evening. The singing Imam’s voice projects from each mosque’s amplification system. In...

Evacuees stand around Shinjuku Central Park in Tokyo Japan March 11, 2011. (Photo: REUTERS/KYODO Kyodo) The earth is groaning. Floods. Cyclones. Earthquakes. And that’s not all. Revolutions. Wars. Rumours of wars. My mind echoes with the booming words of preachers from my youth, warning that the days...

Like most people, I still haven’t been able to comprehend the staggering toll from Japan’s worst disaster since World War II. Nuclear radiation leaks, rolling blackouts that continue to put hospital patients and others (especially the elderly) at risk, a critical lack of sanitary water, the...

Imagine that the dome of the White House had fallen in on itself. Or a disaster hit of such magnitude that nearly everyone west of the Mississippi was affected. This is what happened in Haiti last night.  The presidential building collapsed in on itself when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the island....