The new leaders of the Chinese Communist Party may have moved into office, but so far their new policies have not. Yet if these men at the top—led by party General Secretary Xi Jinping—are to resolve a daunting array of problems at home and abroad, they must move quickly to prevent bad situations from growing […]
Khin Yu Waddy Myint is manager at Pyrex Trading and Distribution, a Burmese pharmaceutical company that employs 250 people across the country. Part of her job is to source and import medicines from India and Australia, a task she concedes she doesn’t know enough about. “It is the first time for me to learn many […]
With 2012 coming to an end, here are some of the larger trends to watch in Chinese cybersecurity in the upcoming year. There are rumors that there will be another round of bureaucratic reforms in the spring. Chinese analysts have pointed out that one of the great weaknesses in their defenses is that institutional oversight of […]
As secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton has boogied the night away in Bogotá, chatted about life’s dreams with schoolgirls in India, and fended off one persistent African goatherd’s proposal to take her daughter as his next bride. When Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts replaces Secretary Clinton as secretary of State – the job that President Obama nominated Senator Kerry for on Friday – expect […]
President Barack Obama will announce his nomination of Senator John Kerry as secretary of state to succeed Hillary Clinton, senior administration officials said. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, had been widely tipped for the post as America‘s top diplomat after U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew […]
After the Queen’s visit to the Foreign Office this week, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that the southern part of the British Antarctic Territory will now be known, at least on British maps, as “Queen Elizabeth Land”. Within hours of this announcement, made in acknowledgement of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee and her service to the […]
Indian democracy is governed by cold hard calculation, not hype or mere moralism. It does not offer the comfort of unalloyed virtue or simple ideological shibboleths. It is not swept up in waves where power rolls on unchallenged. Even amidst great triumphs, there are reminders of the fragility of power. Both the BJP and the […]
Few people are happier to see 2012 end than Hu Jintao, Yoshihiko Noda or Lee Myung Bak. It was a rocky year for the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea, who leave office with legacies in tatters. Gripes about President Hu doing little about China’s biggest challenges outnumbered the accolades. Noda’s premiership ended as ingloriously as those of the […]
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have concluded negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) in services and investments. The background work clears the way for greater economic and political integration between India and the bloc of 10 countries that accounts for a GDP of about […]
The signs are unmistakable. Once again, the West is preparing to escalate military intervention in the Arab and Muslim world. This time the target is Syria. Since the US presidential election, the warnings have multiplied. First, in a breathtaking reprise of the falsehood that paved the way for the invasion of Iraq, US and British […]
