It's not Twitter or Facebook that’s reinventing the planet. Eighty years after the first commercial broadcast crackled to life, television still rules our world. And let’s hear it for the growing legions of couch potatoes: All those soap operas might be the ticket to a better future after all.

By Charles Kenny

'See you soon, if we’re still alive'

The only two Westerners living on their own in Kandahar have been bombed, ambushed, and nearly sold to kidnappers. Here’s what they’ve learned about the country where war just won’t end.

By Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn

The best-selling author of Outbreak has an exclusive tale for FP about a catastrophe of global proportions. And by the way, it’s not fiction.

By Robin Cook

Why we need God more than ever—and why secularism is as dangerous as fundamentalism.

By Karen Armstrong

Recipe for Failure

Why Copenhagen will be a bust, and other prophecies from the foreign-policy world's leading predictioneer.

By Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

Shadowy Finance

Schemers didn't lose in the economic crisis. They won all over again. And here's why.

By Moisés Naím

Doped

How two plants wreak havoc on the countries that produce and consume them—and everyone in between.

By Beau Kilmer and Peter Reuter

English Spoken Here

How globalization is changing the Indian novel.

By Chandrahas Choudhury

Howard Roark in New Delhi

The surprising popularity of a libertarian hero in India.

By Jennifer Burns

My secret plan to overthrow the mullahs

By Larry Franklin

Epiphanies from Akbar Ganji

Iran's dirty workers

Hot potato

Take me back to Constantinople

By Edward Luttwak

Reality Check: The hermit kingdom

By Christian Caryl

Plus, FP tests your knowledge of the world.

Steven Clemons and Stephen Walt sound off on Paul Wolfowitz’s critique of realism and Obama’s foreign policy.

Peak oil advocates Matthew Simmons and Kjell Aleklett say Daniel Yergin has the future of energy all wrong.

Energy analyst Michael Lynch wonders why Peter Maass’s examination of oil and society focuses on the negative.

Kathryn McPhail and Francisco Paris argue that there’s a way out of the "oil curse" described by Moises Naim.