Pope Benedict XVI's first year has been quiet and at times confusing to his critics. But experts caution against reading too much of a theological shift into the pope's tranquil beginnings.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright speaks on her new book The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs as part of the Council’s Religion and Foreign Policy Series.

Vali Nasr, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, discusses the role of Shiite power in the Persian Gulfregion.

Weekend marketplace bombings kill dozens in Iraq and wound hundreds more, seem to have unleashed another wave of sectarian fighting. Three years after the United States launched a war to oust Saddam Hussein, the insurgency remains unbowed, with no real political solution in sight for the country’s new government.

France faces a problem with its Muslim population, but it is not the problem it generally assumes.Paradoxically, it is the exhaustion of political Islamism, not its radicalisation, that explains much of the violence, and it is the depoliticisation of young Muslims, rather than their alleged reversion to a radical kind of communalism, that ought to be cause for worry. 

A string of attacks in Baghdad renew fears of sectarian civil war a week after the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra. The continuing violence has forced a debate in Washington over U.S. troop levels in Iraq and threatens to delay the formation of a new Iraqi national-unity government.

Hauwa Ibrahim, a human rights lawyer, discussed the constitutionality of Shariah in Nigeria and her experiences defending Nigerian women in Shariah courts in the country.

George Weigel discusses what he sees as the increasing secularization of Europe and how it affects U.S.-Europe relations and Europe’s role in the world.

The United States Institute of Peace released a report on Muslim American opinion, concluding that American muslims do not see contradictions between Islam and such ideals as democracy, pluralism, or political activicsm. In recent years, several national groups have made it their primary mission to reconcile all three with Islamic values.

This report on Lebanon from the International Crisis Group was prepared before the start of the present round of hostilities: it warns that deep sectarian divisions, widespread corruption, and political gridlock all conspire to make Lebanon's transition to stable democracy highly uncertain.