South Korea’s Not-Really-Iron Lady

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. During her ultimately victorious presidential campaign last year, South Korea’s new conservative president, Park Geun Hye, rarely touched on foreign policy. (Though it’s a fair question as to whether North Korea really constitutes “foreign” policy as far as Seoul is concerned.) When I traveled with Park as she campaigned across […]

Rate this:

India’s (Bad) Moment

INDIA will soon have a fifth of the world’s working-age population. But many are worried that it is squandering its opportunity. During the boom of the 1990s and 2000s it became fashionable to talk of India’s demographic dividend – evoking the experiences of East Asia. There, working-age populations rose at the same time as the […]

Rate this:

China’s Great India Folly

One hopes China has genuinely reconsidered picking a fight with India, a great power with which it shares a long land frontier. Beijing has created headaches aplenty for itself through its conduct in the South China Sea and East China Sea. The last thing it should do is open another axis along which to disperse energy […]

Rate this:

Brazil’s WTO Win

Brazil, one of the world’s largest emerging markets, achieved a major diplomatic victory with the election this week of its candidate, Roberto Azevedo, as director-general of the World Trade Organization. In this heavily disputed election, involving 159 member countries, Brazil cashed in on a long campaign, cultivating support among the developing countries of Africa, Asia, […]

Rate this:

India Urges Efforts to Avoid China Border Tensions

China and India need to work harder to avoid flare-ups along their disputed border and resolve those that do happen more quickly, India’s top diplomat said Friday. On the second day of a visit to Beijing, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid praised the relatively smooth resolution of a three-week standoff between border troops from either […]

Rate this:

The Return Of The Lion?

If Pakistan‘s May 11 parliamentary elections unfold according to recent national opinion surveys, two-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif will once again take power in Islamabad. Deposed in a 1999 coup led by General Pervez Musharraf, Sharif fled for nearly a decade of Saudi-sponsored exile. Today, however, it is Musharraf who lives under house arrest just outside Islamabad […]

Rate this:

The Saudi King And His Legacy

Even if most Saudis recognised the significant progress recorded under the leadership of King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, few appreciated the epochal reform decisions that provided and ensured a high standard of living, which also transformed and continue to change Saudi Arabia into the key Arab pivot in world affairs. For eight continuous years after […]

Rate this:

America Has Something to Prove to South Korea

South Korean President Park Geun-hye meets President Obama on Tuesday in Washington. The South Koreans created a slogan for the summit, “Bound by trust, forward together,” the first time they have adopted an English language motto for an event of this sort. During her visit, Park may talk about “the most successful alliance in history”—the mutual defense pact turns 60 […]

Rate this:

Can Mubarak’s Cronies Buy Their Way Out of Jail?

On March 28, Egypt’s former trade minister, Rachid Mohamed Rachid, was removed from an arrest list after he paid back a total of 15 million Egyptian pounds (approximately $2.2 million) to the state as part of a reconciliation program under President Mohamed Morsi. Rachid, who served as minister from 2004 to 2011, fled just before […]

Rate this: