Since World War II’s end, the dollar has been used to invoice most global trade, serving as the intermediary currency for clearing international payments among banks and dominating official foreign-exchange reserves. This arrangement has often been criticized, but is there any viable alternative? The problem for postwar Europe, mired in depression and inflation, was that […]
China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country’s vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory. Cheered on by the U.S. and other Western governments, which see Asia’s giant as […]
As the football commentators might put it, it was a week of two speeches. I’m not generally one of those people who believe that a political speech is an actual event in the world: it’s only somebody talking, after all. A political leader can say pretty much anything, and however moving or courageous it sounds, […]
Last week, tens of thousands of protestors descended into the heart of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, demanding that the federal government make sweeping electoral reforms and then give way to an army and judiciary-endorsed caretaker government that would oversee general elections. The protestors were dedicated, braving the cold, and, at times, rain, for four nights. They were disciplined, […]
This week the world’s wealthiest and the best-connected have gathered in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. An exceedingly diverse group of business and policy titans are schmoozing, paneling, and work-shopping their way through the world’s top intractables: climate change; a tattered euro zone; and who could forget the eternally vexing problem of “Catalysing Multistakeholder Value”? […]
A serious strategic partnership between Australia and India has long been a missing link in the security architecture of Indo-Pacific Asia. Now the gap is at last being filled, if a high-level visit this week is anything to go by. Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr was in New Delhi on January 21st and 22nd, to […]
Most analysts believe that US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy in the four years of his second term will be preoccupied with the Asia-pacific region and the perceived threat posed by China. Indeed, presenting China as the No 1 global challenge to US strategic and economic interests is by no means a novel trend in […]
More than half of Afghanistan’s population is under twenty-five, which shouldn’t be surprising since the average life span there is forty-nine. But the United States Agency for International Development looked at this group and decided it needed help because, it said, these young people are “disenfranchised, unskilled, uneducated, neglected—and most susceptible to joining the insurgency.” […]
HIS foes accuse Mahinda Rajapaksa of many sins during his seven years as Sri Lanka’s president. They blame him for the savagery that cost so many civilian lives as his army defeated the rebel Tamil Tigers in 2009. They bridle at how he has carved up the government among his brothers, like a thriving family-run […]
The world is awash in easy money, with consequences that are starting to worry some central bankers and business leaders at the DavosWorld Economic Forum (WEF), though so far inflation fears seem overdone. With developed world government finances constrained by huge debts and deficits, central banks have pumped trillions of dollars into the system to try to […]
looking beyond borders 