No one in the 20th century was responsible for more deaths than Mao Zedong (1893-1976), chairman of the Chinese Communist Party; not Lenin, Stalin or even Hitler. The sheer size of China meant that Mao’s vicious, carefully premeditated policies led to more death, starvation, suffering and bloodshed than the work of anyone else in history’s […]
In 2006 Egyptian human rights activist Wael Abbas posted a video online of police sodomizing a bus driver with a stick, leading to the rare prosecution of two officers. Later, Abbas’s YouTube account was suddenly suspended because he had violated YouTube‘s guidelines banning “graphic or gratuitous violence.” YouTube restored the account after human rights groups informed its parent company Google that Abbas’s posts were a […]
Perhaps the most intensely debated issue on the outcome of the clichéd once-in-a-decade transition in China that has drawn the attention of the strategic community is the PLA-Party relationship and its influence on the possible outcome of the transition process. The reason for this is not hard to guess – recent reports emerging out of […]
Here is one way you can put the life of Brajesh Mishra in context. If you asked the top leadership of this UPA government to name one person they could inherit from the NDA, the answer was instant: Brajesh Mishra. Obviously, this was not primarily for his strategic (as in security and foreign policy) talent. […]
If you were to list the factors with the biggest potential impact on the business world over the next few decades, you’d likely cite some common themes – evolving technology, the globalization of markets, and fiscal challenges in Western countries, perhaps. But here’s one you might not have considered: women. According to our research, nearly […]
FOR investors around the world, the recovery seems assured. The MSCI global share index has risen almost 10% since July. The credit for this largely goes to central bankers. In July Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), said he would do whatever it takes to hold the euro together. In early September […]
The move by Australia’s central bank to lower interest rates from October 3 is the latest sign of pessimism about the prospects of the China-led resources boom. In announcing an unexpected cut to the official cash rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) indicated that the global outlook was […]
The roiling dispute over a remote set of rocks in the East China Sea, known to the Japanese as the Senkaku Islands and to the Chinese as the Diaoyus, is more than a mere diplomatic spat between two of the world’s largest economies. It has stripped away the thin veneer of cooperation between the two […]
In 2006 Abe Shinzo, appointed again last week as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Japan’s main opposition party, wrote; “It will not be a surprise if in another decade, Japan-India relations overtake Japan-U.S. and Japan-China ties.” Such a prediction now, as it was then, is improbable, but the prospect of Abe assuming Japan’s top office […]
After decades of dealing with the Indian hand in their country’s domestic affairs, Nepali politicians are now confronted with another assertive neighbour — China. Moving from a relatively detached approach to high-profile engagement, Beijing has now started making its views known about Nepal’s political transition. In the past, efforts by sections of Nepali politicians to […]
looking beyond borders 