As nationalist war-mongering goes, the anti-Japanese demonstrations taking place across China have been relatively tame. Chinese authorities have maintained tight control over the protesters, some of whom call for an armed response against Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea: Plastic bottle-throwing is allowed, glass bottle-throwing discouraged. For all the jingoistic talk, the […]
The 2012 U.S. presidential election presents a contrast to the 2008 election in terms of their perceptions by the Russian elite. In 2008, then-President Dmitry Medvedev expressed a desire to work with a “modern” U.S. leader rather than one “whose eyes are turned back to the past.” He was referring to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. But influential Russian elites voiced their support for the Republican candidate, John McCain, despite […]
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 […]
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 […]
MINUTES after last week’s violent attacks on America’s missions in the Middle East, the country’s embassy in Cairo was already on Twitter. It tweeted an emergency number for American citizens. It criticised Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood for supporting the protests on their Arabic feed. And it thanked fellow tweeters for their condolences on the murder of […]
The protest, argued all those engaged, was a spectacle of solidarity, and it appeared so at first glance: Beginning September 16, anti-Japanese grievances that had been simmering for months over the Diaoyu Islands, called the Senkaku in Japanese, overflowed into Chinese streets, engulfing more than a dozen cities in an arc along the country’s eastern seaboard. […]
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes his final appearance at the United Nations this week as a leader vilified abroad and with dwindling popularity at home. With nine months left before his final term expires, Ahmadinejad, 55, presides over an economy hobbled by European and U.S.-led sanctions and a currency collapse that’s firing inflation. As Israel repeatedly warns that it may bomb Iran […]
It is one year this week since the Palestinians applied for UN membership. President Mahmoud Abbas’s impassioned plea to the UN General Assembly for support of the We Palestinian case on September 23, 2011, won him much praise — even from his detractors. But it came to nothing. Read Here – Gulf News
The other day I was on a talk show where the host asked me, “Are we better off now than we were before the Arab Spring?” And I said, “Who is we?” The furious attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts in the Middle East have left many Americans feeling that the neighborhood was a lot safer when […]
looking beyond borders 