HER voice is high and birdlike. Tiny, she is fond of finger wagging. Her party, the Trinamool Congress, has just 19 of the national parliament’s 543 elected members. She offers little beyond vague talk of the “common man”, and after a year running West Bengal she looks ill-at-ease in office. Yet Mamata Banerjee feels she […]
The protest, argued all those engaged, was a spectacle of solidarity, and it appeared so at first glance: Beginning September 16, anti-Japanese grievances that had been simmering for months over the Diaoyu Islands, called the Senkaku in Japanese, overflowed into Chinese streets, engulfing more than a dozen cities in an arc along the country’s eastern seaboard. […]
Germany shoulders much of the blame from the rest of the Eurozone. Instead of searching for fiscal solutions, many countries are retreating to stereotypes of the past. For four years, Europe has been trying to solve its financial difficulties. Those who hold political power – especially Germany and France – are attempting (with limited success) […]
Much has already been said about former Pakistani ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani’s return to the public sphere after being accusedof requesting an American intervention in Pakistani politics. The crux of Haqqani’s argument—to be developed in a forthcoming book on U.S.-Pakistan relations, Magnificent Delusions—is that the United States and Pakistan willfully mislead themselves about what […]
What was most significant about the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit that was held in Tehran recently was that almost all of its 120 members gathered there in the face of U.S., allied western nations and Israeli attempts to pressure and isolate Iran to abandon parts of its nuclear programme. Great pressure was even brought on […]
Chinese streets were quiet today after anti-Japan protests, many of them violent, rocked more than a 100 cities last week. Large demonstrations continued through Tuesday, the 81st anniversary of Japan’s invasion of Manchuria. The disturbances, triggered by a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, are commonly described as the worst anti-Japan riots […]
Rage is all the rage. As we all know, radical Muslims are enraged about blasphemous videos and cartoons—so much so that an American ambassador to a country liberated by the United States was murdered by a howling mob in Libya. I worry about that. I worry even more about this administration’s lame response to it. But […]
The rise of information and communication technologies has not only revolutionized how people interact with each other but also forced many governments to operate in significantly altered political landscapes. In some cases governments can help unleash the full potential of an open and free internet; for instance, by ensuring that the web is accessible and affordable […]
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes his final appearance at the United Nations this week as a leader vilified abroad and with dwindling popularity at home. With nine months left before his final term expires, Ahmadinejad, 55, presides over an economy hobbled by European and U.S.-led sanctions and a currency collapse that’s firing inflation. As Israel repeatedly warns that it may bomb Iran […]
Two new books about the May 2, 2011, raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama bin Laden are scribbling in the margins of the first draft of history. No Easy Day, written by Matt Bissonnette (under the pen name Mark Owen), a Navy SEAL who participated in the operation, offers a fresh accounting of what will […]
