Nothing can describe this irony better than The Indus Saga , in which Aitzaz Ahsan writes in the preface: “… a nation in denial of its national identity is unfortunate. But when it chooses to adopt an extra-territorial identity, it becomes a prisoner of propaganda and myths… This is the Pakistan of today, not the Pakistan of […]
This isn’t a temporary tightening, but rather the new reality of President Xi Jinping’s internet. China’s censors have shown they can erase political criticism and dissent, and are now growing more ambitious, aiming to shape the world online to reinforce Communist Party values and morals. While embracing the efficiency and growth of the internet, what Chinese […]
The dysfunctional relationship among the Lee siblings might have stayed behind closed doors but for two inconvenient details. First, they were fighting over the house of Lee Kuan Yew, the man who was virtually synonymous with Singapore for five decades. Second, the eldest among the siblings is the current Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien […]
Nepalese citizens hold an estimated $500 million in the banned notes, most of them sent back as savings by the more than one million Nepalese nationals working in India, says Chiranjibi Nepal, governor of the country’s central bank, the Nepal Rashtra Bank. Yet seven months after the ban, India has yet to exchange those notes […]
President Donald Trump has a plan. It’ll be ready in two weeks. From overhauling the tax code to releasing an infrastructure package to making decisions on Nafta and the Paris climate agreement, Trump has a common refrain: A big announcement is coming in just “two weeks.” It rarely does. Read Here – Bloomberg
President Trump may be the face of America’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, but, as deeper reporting is making clear, it’s the Kochs and their fellow fossil-fuel industry donors who really own the policy. Whether responsibility for such a consequential move will redound to their favour remains to be seen. Read Here – The […]
China’s strategy has targeted the information ecosystem at its source. Rather than simply trying to censor unfavourable stories or burnish its image, China is going after the infrastructure of information—whether through Hollywood acquisitions, the global media that informs international opinion and policy, or the norms, standards and corporate platforms powering the Internet, a medium through […]
Why is Trump so out of sorts? It could be that he’s simply found, in fire-and-brimstone Donald, his latest role. Yet it seems equally likely that Trump has stumbled into an Aesop’s fable of his own making. Having received what he so fervently wished for, he’s now found that leading the free world is a […]
In the sort of diplomacy that Tillerson must conduct now, secret talks certainly have their place; for example, in forging breakthroughs like President Nixon’s opening to China or President Obama’s to Cuba. More routinely, however, diplomatic success requires using interviews, press conferences, social media, and speeches to address and shape public and legislative opinion simultaneously […]
Faced with a U.S. president who is uncommonly critical of conventional expertise and many components of the U.S.-led international order, who communicates in tweets and consumes information via one-pagers and maps, Brookings has reacted in Blob-ian fashion: with a 63-page defense of traditional U.S. foreign policy that contains exactly 37 footnotes and exactly zero maps. […]
looking beyond borders 