SYRIA: Revolution

Tall, dignified Shukri el-Kuwatly had been called the George Washington of his country, but as Syria's first elected President, ailing, aging El Kuwatly acted more like a traditional, feckless Arab politician. He failed to stamp out corruption, stood indolently by while food prices soared

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The Syrian President’s Speech: Surprise! There’s No Surprise

It’s not as if President Bashar al-Assad didn’t have time to go through a few revisions of his much anticipated, much delayed speech before he finally delivered it to Syria’s pliant parliamentarians on Wednesday. It fell well short of the expectations of many, but the MPs gushed over their 45-year-old leader, rising to their feet several times to cheer and chant “with our souls and with our blood we will sacrifice for you Bashar!” and “God, Syria, Bashar — only!” At least a dozen stood to shout their support during his speech, or spout sycophantic poetry — though some of the TV shots seemed to have been set up to capture these ostensibly spontaneous events before they happened.

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Nearly 1 in 4 people worldwide is Muslim, report says

Nearly one in four people worldwide is Muslim — and they are not necessarily where you might think, according to an extensive new study that aims to map the global Muslim population. India, a majority-Hindu country, has more Muslims than any country except for Indonesia and Pakistan, and more than twice as many as Egypt

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