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Sixty years ago the European Union didn’t exist; now it’s a fully mature political entity. It’s time for NATO to recognise Europe’s capacity for independent foreign and military policy.

Gender mainstreaming needs to become an issue for society as a whole. To fundamentally change the relationship between the genders, we need not just a legal framework, but bottom-up policies, a strengthening of initiatives that target equality, and more men on board.

Shlomo Brom analyses the objectives of the Israeli campaign in Gaza and suggests possible ways for Israel to maximise a sound exit strategy in light of these objectives.

It is clear that Operation Cast Lead will end with a new ceasefire. Still, it remains to be seen what the new US Administrations policies for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are.

What we need is the allotment of finance to the overdue restructuring of economy and society. We must use the crisis for making our educational system fairer and more efficient and for creating the foundations for a green industrial revolution.

Issue 05/2008 of Perspectives discusses South Africa's young democracy. It seems inevitable that 2008 will prove itself to be a definitive year for South Africa’s young democracy. Exactly what kind of future trajectory it will deliver is to be seen – the current state of the nation is that of flux.

Far from achieving the intended blow against al-Qaeda and Sunni insurgents in Iraq, the recent American incursion into Syrian territory undermines voices of moderation in Syria, and facilitates the recruitment efforts of extremist Islamist groups in a country that has every reason to be wary of the terrorist threat.

The particular danger of islamophobia is its potential to forge a broad alliance of otherwise opposed political forces: Muslims serve as the embodiment of the ultimate enemy for conservatives striving for Western hegemony – and for progressives standing up for freedom of expression, rationality, human rights, and the rights of women.

Ethnic and religious conflicts have increased significantly. The international community was largely helpless in the face of genocide in Rwanda and the Balkan wars. Nation building and state building in fragile states has thus become an instrument of international policy. Managing ethnic and and religious conflicts involves finding equilibrium between the territorial integrity of a state and its inherent promise of stability and the principle of a peoples' right to self-determination.

The Heinrich Böll Foundation has awarded Chinese defence lawyer and human rights advocate Zhang Sizhi with the Petra Kelly Prize 2008. Sizhi is known among Chinese lawyers as “the conscience of lawyers”.