On Tuesday, a Palestinian medical team cranked open the West Bank grave of former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, took samples of his remains, and handed the evidence over to European experts to determine whether Arafat was poisoned — by Israel, the theory goes — before his death in 2004. “This will bring closure,” Arafat’s widow observed, “We […]
IN THE negotiations to reduce America’s long-term deficit and to avoid the “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the year’s end, Republicans have so far done most of the retreating. But they still want something in return. Emerging from the first—and so far only— negotiating session with Barack Obama on November […]
When oil prices spiraled much higher in global markets between 2003 and 2008, the governments of several oil-producing nations — including Algeria, Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Russia and Venezuela — responded by expropriating local assets of independent oil companies that had contracted to operate in their territories, or by imposing large windfall taxes on their oil […]
Southeast Asian leaders sought to ease tensions with China over maritime disputes before a regional summit tomorrow involving U.S. President Barack Obama as concerns persist over weaker demand in the global economy. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations will confine discussions on a set of rules for operating in the South China Sea to the bloc’s meetings with China, […]
It’s time to think legacy. For the last four years, President Obama has had plenty of reasons to pull his punches: at first, he was a new and inexperienced president, relatively unversed in how to make Congress and the executive branch work, and he mostly avoided going out on limbs. Then it was time to […]
There’s a lot to learn in the aftermath of a natural disaster, especially about your elected officials, as anyone living in New York and New Jersey can tell you. Natural disasters separate effective policies from ineffective ones because those policies are suddenly required to work, and politicians are judged by how they respond and how […]
It is time for economists to admit that they are stumped. Four years after being blindsided by Lehman Brothers’ collapse, the profession is still stumbling in the dark. Policymakers and pundits still make confident pronouncements, but the conclusions are radically different. The expert disagreements give away the truth: ignorance reigns. Read Here – Reuters
China shuffled three senior military officials amid political horse-trading at the highest echelons of the Communist Party before a once-a-decade leadership transition next month. General Ma Xiaotian, the army’s deputy chief of staff, was named to lead China’s air force, while Zhu Fuxi, former director of the air force’s political department, replaces Tian Xiusi as political […]
It is hard to believe now that the founding dream of Pakistan, born out of the partition of British India in 1947, was a secular one. The founder of this oddest of nations, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a Bombay barrister who was a firm believer in British law and Indian nationalism. He had married his second wife outside the […]
looking beyond borders 