Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday reiterated his desire to engage in direct talks with the United States, on the condition that the West stop pressuring his country. “Take your guns out of the face of the Iranian nation and I myself will negotiate with you,” he said at an event attended by tens of […]
IN THE months since China implemented its once-a-decade leadership transition, American policymakers have been watching closely to see whether changes in personnel might augur any change in Chinese policy toward the United States. As the year of the dragon draws to a close and Barack Obama busies himself trying to replace many of his most […]
China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, a milestone in the Asian nation’s challenge to the U.S. dominance in global commerce that emerged after the end of World War II. U.S. exports and imports of goods last year […]
As China and Japan fight over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, Yeap Swee Chuan is benefiting. Yeap is president and chief executive officer of Aapico Hitech, a Thai auto parts maker that supplies Toyota and Honda as well as small and midsize Japanese companies. The company’s stock price has more than doubled in the […]
In March 2001, Taliban fighters solemnly gathered around the giant Buddha statue, a famed 6th century monument in the Bamiyan Province of Afghanistan, laid explosives at its feet and blew it to smithereens. Mullah Omar Mohammad, then the group’s leader, had proclaimed triumphantly: “Muslims should be proud of smashing idols [for] it gives praise to […]
There is a consensus among commentators that the visit of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Egypt – complete with red carpet and kiss on both cheeks from President Mohammed Morsi – does not amount to a breakthrough. The view of US think-tanks is that it does not amount to very much at all, and […]
The sequel seldom improves on the original. Yet Shinzo Abe, Japan’s newly re-elected prime minister, has already displayed more conviction during his second spell at the Kantei than in the entire year of his first, unhappy premiership. Political energy is a plus only when it’s wisely deployed however, and some fear that Abe is picking a […]
An unintended consequence of the current economic and political crises in Europe has been the completion of the continent’s decolonisation, commenced in the middle of the 20th century. As the gross domestic products of developing countries continue to grow, while many crisis-stricken EU economies are contracting, some of the formerly colonised nations, alongside China, are […]
Eighteen days of protests in Egypt in 2011 electrified the world. But more than twice that many days of protest in Iraq have gone almost unnoticed in the United States. Iraqi army troops killed five Sunni protesters in Fallujah on Jan. 25, after a month of anti-government protests in Anbar, Nineveh and Salahuddin provinces and elsewhere for which thousands turned out. Al-Qaeda in […]
The second anniversary of the “Arab Spring” in Egypt was marked by riots in Tahrir Square that made many observers fear that their optimistic projections in 2011 had been dashed. Part of the problem is that expectations had been distorted by a metaphor that described events in short-run terms. If, instead of “Arab Spring,” we […]
