1) With Iranian involvement against ISIS in Tikrit and Saudi invasion of Yemen, the Middle East has entered a new war according to a former MI-6 agent. 2) A senior fellow at Brookings notes that globalization creates awareness of opportunities elsewhere. 3) A philosopher from China says Singapore has become more compassionate, with people helping disadvantaged members of society.

1. World News, Foreign Policy and International Affairs
BEIRUT -- With the Iranian involvement against ISIS in the assault on Tikrit, and the Saudi invasion
of Yemen to stem the tide of Iranian influence, we have entered a new Middle Eastern war.
Alastair Crooke
Fmr. MI-6 agent; Author, 'Resistance: The Essence of Islamic Revolution'
The interconnected nature of the world thanks to information technology and globalization creates
an acute awareness about opportunities elsewhere.
Ömer Ta?p?nar
Senior fellow, Brookings Institution; Professor of National Security Strategy, U.S. National War
College
BEIJING -- I can testify from my own experience in Singapore that the country has evolved into a
more compassionate society. In the early 1990s, the talk was all narrowly selfish behavior and being
afraid to "lose" in a highly competitive society. Two decades later, Singaporeans take pride in
behaving well to others, including disadvantaged members of society, even when nobody is
watching.
Daniel A. Bell
Philosopher, Tsinghua University; author "The China Model"
SINGAPORE -- Freedom is being able to walk on the streets unmolested in the wee hours in the
morning, to be able to leave one's door open and not fear being burgled. Freedom is the woman who
can ride buses and trains alone. These are the freedoms that Singaporeans have, freedoms that were
built on the vision and hard work of Lee Kuan Yew.
SEOUL -- Equipped with high-quality education, Asia's rising middle class will demand higher-quality
public services. Increased confidence in their country's political systems and institutional structures,
enhanced by improved perceptions of upward mobility, will help to strengthen the rule of law. And
there will be more opportunities for women to learn and work, leading to greater gender equality.
Lee Jong-Wha
Professor of Economics and Director of the Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University
There have always been crazy groups claiming they have some sort of divine or nationalistic right to
kill other people. These groups have a few things in common -- psychotic tendencies, bad taste in
fashion and a horrible sense of humor.
Bassem Youssef
"Jon Stewart of the Arab World;" Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

2. ISIS has been operating from the pedophile's playbook.
Mia Bloom
Professor of Security Studies, University of Massachusetts, Lowell; research fellow, Center for
Terrorism and Security Studies
LAHORE, Pakistan -- I write from a country where people like you and I live with our families --
loving grandparents, self-sacrificing parents with babies, innocent children and know-it-all
teenagers. Where we search for tools of peace-building to heal our fractured but shared world.
Amineh Hoti
Executive Director, Centre for Dialogue and Action, Forman Christian College, Pakistan
The feeling that everything can be accelerated has made some within Cuba reevaluate the price per
square foot of their homes, others predict where the first Apple Store will open in Havana, and not a
few begin to glimpse the silhouette of a ferry linking the island with Florida.
Since many French people today think that the National Front should govern, let us try to
understand what would happen if support for France's far-right National Front continues to grow
until 2017.
Jacques Attali

3. Founding president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; President of PlaNet
Finance
SINGAPORE -- Lee Kuan Yew died on Monday at the age of 91. And with his demise, modern Asia
has lost all of its postwar political wizards, men and women who carved entire countries from the
clangor of colonial rule or from disputes with neighbors. This year, his beloved Singapore will mark
its 50th anniversary of independence.
Pranay Gupte
Bestselling author, historian, biographer, foreign correspondent
Though the founding father of a tiny country on the tip of the Malay peninsula, Lee Kuan Yew was
one of the giants of the arriving Asian century. Not only did he miraculously transform the
impoverished colonial entrepôt of Singapore, rife with drugs and prostitution, into a gleaming model
city-state of the 21st century; his practical vision of soft-authoritarian capitalism also became the
template for Deng Xiaoping's "opening up and reform" in China, laying the basis for the rise of a
prosperous East Asia.

4. We discover, laid bare by an expert, the inner workings of the staggering extortion scheme that is
the heart of Putin's system, and we understand that the act of revealing those workings is the most
unforgivable crime in the country.
MOSCOW -- Today's Russia rejects Western-style competition, the rule of law and independent
institutions while allowing capitalism and certain changes to economic and social policy under
strictly controlled limits. The result is an attempt to strengthen the Soviet experiment and take it to
its logical conclusion. Thus, the Putin regime defines "better" not in absolute terms, but as
improving upon the performance of former Soviet leaders.
BERLIN -- Germany bears responsibility for Greece. But that has nothing to do with World War II.
TEL AVIV -- The Israeli right's current political dominance is fed by a widespread yearning for Jewish
roots, a deep-seated fear of Arabs, and an uncompromising mistrust of a "world," the so-called
international community, with which Jews have a centuries-old dispute. The left's yearning for peace
is seen as naive, if not an exercise in political lunacy (and in either case an unpardonable betrayal of
Jewish identity).
Good defense will force those who want to surveil us to choose their targets, and they simply don't
have the resources to target everyone.
Bruce Schneier
Author, Data and Goliath; Fellow, Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet
AMMAN -- The Israeli electorate had a choice to make. By reelecting a leader who publicly reneged
on his commitments to peace and a two-state solution, they voted against peace.
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