Index for Volume 10, Issue 1 / April-June 1998

In Stockholm, a global dialogue on microcredit focuses on social impact

Some 80 leading specialists on microfinance, gathered for a face-to-face exchange, warn of new challenges as large financial institutions and other major players increasingly turn to small-scale lending.

In Norway, a classical composer strives for a new musical paradigm

Lasse Thoresen, well-known in his native country, integrates meditation and music within the complex framework of classical composition; a new CD and a book map out his intended direction.

PERSPECTIVE: The Spiritual Foundation of Human Rights

Human rights are essentially a codification of mainly spiritual laws which are themselves the cumulative achievement of the world’s religious traditions.

In Thailand, a provincial school paves the way for education in a global society

A learning environment that encourages a global vision and moral action.

YASOTHON, Thailand - Every May in this quiet provincial capital, people gather to fire elaborately designed handmade gunpowder rockets into the atmosphere. The Rocket Festival is held to wake the great dragon in the sky, so that he will splash in his lake and bring rain. This ancient ritual speaks volumes about the importance of tradition here.

Eight International Convention a showcase for diversity

An electoral process that stands as a "functioning model of global governance."

HAIFA - More than 1,100 Bahá'ís from around the world gathered here at the end of April to choose the membership of the international governing council of the worldwide Bahá'í community, the Universal House of Justice.

Hospital Bayan wins government support

PALACIOS, Honduras - Hospital Bayan, a Bahá'í-sponsored community hospital and medical center, has entered into a three-year agreement with the Ministry of Health and the municipality.

Review: Women, putting differences aside with love and faith, fight a terrible tradition

At first glance, Do They Hear You When You Cry seems to be a fairly straightforward institutional horror story, about an African woman who flees to America to escape female genital mutilation at the hands of her tradition-bound family in Togo and ends up imprisoned for more than a year in the United States as an illegal immigrant.