WHEN India won independence 65 years ago, its leaders had a vision for the country’s future. In part, their dream was admirable and rare for Asia: liberal democracy. Thanks to them, Indians mostly enjoy the freedom to protest, speak up, vote, travel and pray however and wherever they want to; and those liberties have ensured […]
China has raised the politico-diplomatic ante with Japan over the disputed islands in the East China Seain a definitive manner through a formal Cabinet-equivalent announcement in Beijing and the follow-up of this assertion at the foreign minister level in New York on Tuesday (September 25). Territorial disputes with certain key Asian countries is a high-octane issue […]
At a time when nearly one third of the world’s population has accessed the Internet, governments have in recent years devised various methods to obstruct the openness of online communications. The report’s findings indicate that such restrictions on Internet freedom in many countries have continued to grow since January 2011. Even more problematic, governments’ methods […]
China appears ever more willing to use its economic muscle to strategic ends. Japan is the most recent target, as tensions flare over a maritime territorial dispute. Customs processing has been delayed for some Japanese goods, and visas are somewhat less forthcoming. There are concerns about consumer boycotts, especially of Japanese cars. It’s reasonable to […]
They say a good news story is like an onion. The more one peels it, the newer and fresher are the layers that surface. If depth and longevity are the gold standards for a news story, then the assassinations of four Iranian opposition members at the Mykonos Restaurant in Berlin in September 1992 surpasses that […]
It had been a brutal August for India’s Congress party: economic growth was wilting, the monsoon rains were failing and the opposition had it cornered on yet another corruption scandal. In stepped Sonia Gandhi to revive the morale of the ruling party’s lawmakers, exhorting them at a meeting to “stand up and fight, fight with a […]
The most important facts about Iran go unstated because they are so obvious. Any glance at a map would tell us what they are. And these facts explain how regime change or evolution in Tehran — when, not if, it comes — will dramatically alter geopolitics from the Mediterranean to the Indian subcontinent and beyond. […]
Beijing, New Delhi and Islamabad are jockeying for position in Afghanistan after the US draws down most of its forces by the end of 2014. Against this backdrop, the first-ever triangular meeting between the US, India and Afghanistan on Tuesday in New York sent yet another signal that the US is looking to replace Pakistan […]
FEWER dictators means better timekeeping at the UN General Assembly. In past years delegates braced themselves for the rambling rants of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi (record: 90 minutes in 2009). This year’s meeting of the UN’s big representative body featured only a handful of long-winded speakers. Iran‘s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad managed just under 40 minutes, bemusing some delegates […]
Singapore will continue to take in foreigners even as citizens complain about overcrowding and increased competition for jobs, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said. “We have slowed down the intake of foreigners but we will continue taking in foreigners at a pace” that citizens “find comfortable,” Lee, 89, said at a conference in Singapore. Read Here […]
