In Peace, Love, & Liberty, a publication by Atlas Network and Students for Liberty, editor Dr. Tom G. Palmer presents the evidence regarding what fosters peace, and what disturbs it with conflict.

On Monday, August 18 at 10 a.m. EDT, Atlas Network Executive Vice President for International Programs Tom Palmer will speak on his latest book, Peace, Love, & Liberty during a live Atlas Leadership Academy webinar. Peace, Love, & Liberty is a series of essays edited by Dr. Palmer. The book presents how the key philosophical ideas of free markets, trade and mutual respect are making the world a safer place.

Peace, Love, & Liberty will be distributed to free market organizations and student groups around the world. During our webinar, learn how you can request your own copies of the book to share with friends and receive tips on hosting discussions on peace with your community.

Attendees receive one credit with the Atlas Leadership Academy, the Atlas Network’s training and learning center for free market leaders. Find out more information and enroll in the Academy today.

While the results might be surprising today, “it is not a coincidence that the 1920 Depression was so short lived that history usually overlooks it, but the memories of the Great Depression still lingers.”

Read more here.

Since the last report, there was a 5 percent decrease in number of local government executives making more than £100,000. However, there are facts in the report that would inflame any taxpayer. For example, Executive Director of Social Care Services at Glasgow Council took home £486,303 ($816,906 USD). This report highlights how executive pay in many town halls across the UK continues to be insulated from economic reality, despite the urgent need to find savings and the fact that many councils claim that they have insufficient cash to fund frontline services, and enforce pay freezes on their rank and file staff.

Chief Executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, Jonathan Isaby, said, “It’s particularly galling in places where councils are pleading poverty and demanding more and more in Council Tax. Taxpayers expect their council to be filling potholes, not pay packets.”

To read the full story, click here.

To learn more about the TaxPayer’s Alliance, click here.

Children in private schools in Canada “significantly outperformed their peers from public schools”, and parents choose to send their children to private schools “for a variety of reasons: bullying, lack of teacher care or availability, concerns with the curriculum, neglect of their child’s special needs, or poor academic results.”

They remind Hehr also that the “government resources” he says are mis-allocated if spent on private schools “are also known as the tax dollars of every parent”, and that if the welfare system were handled like the education system in Canada, that recipients could only shop at government stores, noting “the point, of course, is not private or public provision but to ensure that everyone has an abundance of food to eat or is abundantly educated, regardless of who provides the food or the education.”

Read the article from Milke and Van Pelt here.

Learn more about the Fraser Institute here.

One of the finalists, a student from Uzhgorod, Urkaine, wrote about a generational shift in attitudes that has occurred in his country, from strong nationalistic sensibilities to more of a focus on individual freedom. Citing globalization as a key factor in broadening the perspective of young people, he explains that it is no longer just the very powerful or the very wealthy who are able to see the world and, in so doing, learn to appreciate the possibilities both beyond and within one’s borders. This perspective, he says, awakens a stronger sense of oneself.

The 61 finalists were each invited to attend this year’s summer school, August 24-31, to be held at the Free University of Tbilisi training center in Bazaleti Georgia. Finalists will learn from teachers of liberty, including Atlas Network Executive Vice President Tom Palmer, and will present their own ideas and discuss how to secure peace and freedom in the region. The most promising participants will be invited to enroll in the Atlas Leadership Academy.

It is a critical time to have active voices for free-society ideas in Yemen, as the country is going through a transition period to draft a new constitution. A youth movement, sympathetic to liberalism, finds itself competing for influence amid radical Islamists and members of the military.

The Foundation for Cultural Development hopes to ensure a peaceful transition in Yemen that lays the foundation for a society respectful of individual liberty. The FCD’s inaugural event, titled “Civil and Political Transition in Yemen After a National Dialogue,” attracted government ministers, academics, and local media. Nouh El Harmouzi gave the opening address on “The Culture of Toleration in a Liberal Democracy.” Seven television channels covered the event, and Aljazeera Live broadcast it from beginning to end. Aljazeera Live also broadcast a seminar two days later, held as a joint project of the Arab Center and the Center for Studies and Economic Media on “Economic Challenges After the Arab Spring” where El Harmouzi again had the opportunity to advocate for creating an legal and cultural environment conducive to private sector-driven economic development.

El Harmouzi met with Tawakol Karman, winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize and president of Youth for Revolution in Yemen, who are members of the coalition to draft a new constitution. They discussed the importance of the rule of law, respecting individual and civil liberties, limiting the scope of government, and the separation of powers.

On June 23, 2014, it met with leaders of the Liberal Egyptian Party to share ideas for its economic platform in the run-up to parliamentary elections. It also held a joint event in Cairo with the Arab Institute of Research and Studies, which is the think tank of the League of Arab States and a meeting ground for influential Egyptian intellectuals (see photo below). The main message of the conference called for more political freedom, and not giving up freedom for stability and security.

While Egypt has a difficult path ahead to revive a stagnant economy, there is some good news to be found in reforms that went into effect on July 5, cutting subsidies that artificially lowered the cost of fuel and electricity. Press reports project the Egyptian government may save $6 billion annually by reducing these market distortions.

The video includes an excerpt of Arab Center executive director Nouh El Harmouzi’s speech in Tahrir Square following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. He presciently warned, “protect your freedom” and called for “a civilian-led state — not military, not clerical” while urging, “a free Egyptian people can accomplish miracles.”

The full video demonstrates that a genuine movement is being built in the Arabic-speaking world, thanks to the ongoing work of the Arab Center for Scientific Research and Humane Studies and the MinbarAlHurriyya platform it runs in partnership with Atlas Network.

While many Mapuche leaders and policymakers have rallied behind the idea of land expropriation for the sake of “fairness,” the Executive Director of the Fundación Chile Intercultural, Venancio Coñuepan, noted that the conflict isn’t an issue of equity, but rather of property rights.

To read more from FCI, click here.