Nelson Mandela was the country bumpkin made good, running away from his rural home as a teenager to become a lawyer in the big city and, later, one of the world’s most famous guerrilla leaders and most lionized political prisoners. After 27 years of incarceration, he was freed in 1990 and, in 1994, elected leader […]
Yet, it was what an unblinking Manmohan Singh said sotto voce, and what he left tantalisingly unsaid, that may be more politically significant. In the spaces between his prepared speech, what he was effectively saying was that what the country needs is more of the reforms that former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao unleashed in 1991 (with Manmohan Singh as […]
Yoshihiko Noda will doubtless win his party’s leadership race this week. There’s little certainty, though, that Japan’s prime minister is up to putting his country, the world’s No. 3 economy, on stronger footing. For starters, Noda’s victory may be Pyrrhic. He is under pressure to dissolve parliament and hold national elections, perhaps as soon as November. […]
Bill Clinton has a favorite Robert Rubin story. It’s 1999, and the Cabinet has gathered to discuss the business of the American people. Except no one can focus because the impeachment crisis is raging, and even the most veteran Washington power players are, for lack of a better term, freaking out. “It was amazing what […]
China’s economic slowdown may persist into next year amid a lack of funding for approved infrastructure projects, according to an academic adviser to the nation’s central bank. Expansion will be 7.3 percent to 7.4 percent in the fourth quarter and 7 percent to 7.5 percent in the first half next year, Song Guoqing, a Peking University professor, said […]
It is too early to write off Mr. Medvedev, who recently turned 47. He is now prime minister and remains the leader of the governing United Russia party and the second-most-important politician in the country. A year ago he demonstrated his loyalty to Mr. Putin by walking away from a second term, and Mr. Putin […]
When most people think of Indonesia today, they think of beaches and temples or of its famously teeming cities, but this country of 240 million and counting is a much more modern, diversified, and dynamic economy than many international investors and companies assume. To make the most of Indonesia’s vast potential, they’re going to need […]
FOR A Communist leadership that prides itself on bringing political and economic stability to its 90m subjects, the past few weeks in Vietnam must have seemed like a nightmare. There have been more bank runs, executives on the lam, arrests and credit panics than the country has seen in years. So febrile is the atmosphere […]
“Our generation is not wise enough to find a common language on this question,” Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said in 1978 about his country’s territorial dispute with Japan. “Our next generation will certainly be wiser. They will certainly find a solution acceptable to all. In the meantime, Deng proposed, the two sides should jointly develop the […]
The situation in East Asia is tense. Japan and China, two of the most powerful countries in the world, are locked in a bitter dispute over eight tiny, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. The volatility of the issue — compounded by the fact that the waters around the islands are rich in natural resources — is […]
looking beyond borders 