As a professor and scholar in my own field of human knowledge, I am — as I assume the rest of us in the field are — concerned about the future of higher education learning and teaching institutions. How would they be like in 2040?

I am not on top of this subject; I only know a handful of academic ranking systems: QS (World University Ranking); Times Higher Education; Academic Ranking of World Universities; the CWTS Leiden and the Webometrics.Some of these consider rudiments of academic excellence, fac

No one knows for sure yet what the particulars of the so-called “deal” of the century are all about! The word "deal", rather than solution, is a business, un-political, problematic and an awkward term.

Addressing the Knesset on January 22, 2018, US Vice President Mike Pence avowed that the US embassy would be open in Jerusalem towards the end of 2019, thus reiterating his administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the legitimate capital of Israel.

In plain words, anti-American blowback is an adverse reaction to American policies, ideals, values and culture beyond native borders.

Many of us in the academy (myself included), particularly those from business backgrounds, no longer look at universities as seats of knowledge and academic merit, but, more so nowadays, as “corporates”.

When much attention is given to higher education today, it is necessary to reconsider the role of the university in an ever changing and globalising world. For universities are seats of knowledge that cannot be separated from their regional and international societies.

Up to 1699, the year that witnessed the culmination of the centuries-long Ottoman threat to Europe, when the Treaty of Karlowitz between the Ottoman Empire and Austria, Poland and Venice was signed, it was through hostility and suspicion the West (including America down the road)

Historically, the relationship between our part of the world and the West (including the US) was first troubled by virulent and agitating mediaeval wars spanning more than two centuries, only to be aggravated further by the dreaded Ottoman threat.