News stories by Azza Karam, page 3

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 03 (IPS) - In 1994, Dr. David R. Hawkins wrote a book positing the difference between power and force (Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior - the latest revised version came out in 2014).

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 04 (IPS) - A decade ago, it was difficult to get Western policy makers in governments to be interested in the role of religious organizations in human development. The secular mind-set was such that religion was perceived, at best, as a private affair. At worst, religion was deemed the cause of harmful social practices, an obstacle to the "sacred" nature of universal human rights, and/or the root cause of terrorism. In short, religion belonged in the ‘basket of deplorables'.

NEW YORK, Aug 16 (IPS) - The French philospher Voltaire once said that "if we believe in absurdities, we shall commit atrocities."

Indiscriminate killing of self and innocent others, ostensibly in the name of some religion, is among the most absurd of beliefs. And rather than ceasing, the spiral of violence appears to know no end. There appears to be no locus, and no focus, beyond random killing.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 06 (IPS) - In 2007, an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune argued that you "gotta have faith in the U.N".