In this year's Peace Proposal, SGI President Ikeda emphasises that 2015 could be a decisive moment in ridding the world of nuclear weapons. He proposes holding a conference for a nuclear weapon free world at the G8 Summit in 2015, which is also the seventieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Three years ago my mother died and we inherited her 13-year-old Shetland sheepdog Nutkin, writes Julia Stephenson. His sibling had just died with severe joint damage and arthritis and Nutkin was in similarly bad shape too. He was overweight, listless, limped badly and his teeth were covered in plaque.

To a group of pioneering anthropologists, 'weird' means both unusual and 'Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic'. Do their findings suggest another validation of the Buddhist principle of esho funi - the oneness of life and the environment?

One amazing painter!

In society and in our educational systems we tend to overrate IQ, writes David Hare. To paraphrase the multiple intelligences theory of esteemed psychologist Howard Gardner, we measure how clever you are (intellectually) rather than how you are clever (which could include loads of other talents, such as fixing a car or knowing how to build rapport with people).

Thirty years ago SGI President Daisaku Ikeda predicted that Africa would be the continent of the 21st Century. In a recent  interview with This Way Up, the inspirational leader of SGI Buddhists in Nigeria, Dr Bamgboye Afolabi, claims that the happiness-making machine is roaring into life across Africa