Editor's Picks
Back to homepage
Natalia Vodianova: Rags to Riches Russian Style
Her face has graced the cover of all the major magazines, from Cosmopolitan to Marie Claire to Vogue in its many incarnations. Natalia Vodianova is one of the world’s top-earning models and the protagonist of a rags to riches fairy
Read More
Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck: Life outside the Comfort Zone
You have geniuses and then you have Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck; filmmaker extraordinaire, fluent in five languages, pupil of Richard Attenborough (the elder brother of David), and a direct descendant of General Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher,
Read More
Martha Lane-Fox: Dot Everyone to Reclaim the Net for Civil Society
Seeking succour for the digitally-challenged, Britain’s Martha Lane-Fox – or Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho as she is known around Westminster – is determined to get Britain online – all of it. Appointed digital commissioner by the last Labour government, she
Read More
Ahmed Mater: Flower Power, Saudi-Style
I shop, therefore I am. Globalisation has arrived in the Middle East and with it the brand-name accoutrements of the consumer society. Entire cities have been erected to celebrate this new age of unbound consumption, or of consumerism on steroids.
Read More
Marina Silva: Insistence That May Yet Pay Off
Brazil may not yet be ready for her, but Marina Silva is the name to watch. The former senator for Acre, a small state in the western part of the Amazonian rainforest, and presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, Marina
Read More
Peter Carington: The Sole Survivor of a Bygone Era
The first casualty of the 1982 Falklands War, and one of the last scions of the empire-building Eton / Sandhurst generation, Lord Peter Carrington played a major – if not always visible – role in British conservative politics between 1946
Read More
Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz: A Pragmatist Claiming Centre Stage
It is a long lane that has no turning. The life of Mauritanian president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz is marked by quite a few abrupt twists and turns. In August 2008, Mr Abdel Aziz masterminded the military coup that toppled
Read More
Mary Jo White: Pushing Back Softly but Relentlessly
Over the course of her career, Mary Jo White, the current chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has accumulated much experience going after mobsters, terrorists, and financial fraudsters. As New York district attorney, a position she held
Read More
Bill Clinton: Words of Real Value
As nations and economies converge, interdependencies are created between people and give rise to new challenges. To strengthen the capacity of people to deal with these and the other changing realities of the contemporary world, the Bill Clinton Foundation was
Read More
King Abdullah II: An Insistent Appeal to Moderation and Reason
As Jordanians look back on twenty years of peace with Israel, they find little reason to celebrate the anniversary of the peace treaty between the two countries in anything more than a perfunctory manner. Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Khaled Kalaldeh
Read More