This week’s 16 must-read stories

1. Can you build your way to economic success? How Dubai and Abu Dhabi can move from soaring skylines to a solid bottom line.

2. How can we tackle the backlash against gay rights? The moral case and the economic case are clear. So why are so many countries going backwards?

3. Top 10 trends for the world in 2015. Al Gore on the challenges that will dominate global affairs, for our Outlook on the Global Agenda report. Expert commentary on inequality, jobless growth, a crisis in leadership, geostrategic competition, fraying democracy, pollution, extreme weather, nationalism, water stress and the cost of healthcare.

4. Four ways to change the way we lead. Let’s stop talking about good guys and bad guys, says Ngaire Woods. Also: why is politics such a bunfight?

5. This is the future calling. How mobile phones mean better education for Africa.

6. Logging off. Deforestation causes more carbon dioxide emissions than the world’s cars, trucks and planes combined. But is the end finally in sight?

7. “The key to transformation is the spirit of innovation.” Professor Klaus Schwab opening the Summit on the Global Agenda 2014 in Dubai. (Saudi Gazette)

8. What is geostrategic competition, and why does it pose a threat? (CNN) Our Outlook on the Global Agenda report’s focus on inequality also made headlines. (Business Insider) (CNN)

9. Will computers replace our brains, hearts and souls? This, and four more tough questions about emerging technologies, from the Forum’s Kristel van der Elst. (Scientific American)

10. From the future of jobs to central banks to robots, analysis from our Global Agenda Council experts made news. (Al Arabiya)

11. Womenomics in the Muslim World. Saadia Zahidi, our head of gender parity, wins the Bracken Bower Award for the best business book pitch. (FT)

12. How did the European Central Bank decide to do “whatever it takes” to save the Euro? The FT has the transcripts that didn’t make it into Timothy Geithner’s book.

13. Is the next Cold War between Saudi Arabia and Texas? A view from the oil battlefields.

14. The US-China climate pact. Three reasons why it marks a significant turning point.

15. If literature is timeless, then why read new books?

16. The 100 most-cited science papers of all time. Nature scales the paper mountain.

Author: Adrian Monck is Managing Director of Public Engagement at the World Economic Forum, and Professor of Journalism at City University London.

Image: People climb the stairs of the Apple store in New York April 27, 2014. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri