When Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite channel has both the Saudis and the Israelis demanding its closure, it must be doing something right. To bring Saudi head-choppers and Israeli occupiers into alliance is, after all, something of an achievement. But don’t get too romantic about this. When the wealthiest Saudis fall ill, they have been known […]
Donald Trump once famously owned New York’s Plaza Hotel. Perhaps it’s no coincidence, then, that his economic worldview, and policies toward China, are stuck in a time when that pop-culture landmark found itself at the very centre of global markets. Read Here – Mint
The more power China has accumulated, the more it has attempted to achieve its foreign-policy objectives with bluff, bluster, and bullying. But, as its Himalayan border standoff with India’s military continues, the limits of this approach are becoming increasingly apparent. Read Here – Project-Syndicate
The British Foreign Office approached the Truman administration on more than one occasion in late 1952 to propose a coup to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, according to freshly declassified State Department documents. Posted today for the first time, two previously Top-Secret memoranda from senior officials at State refer to a series of communications […]
Through rounds of reshuffles and a relentless war on corruption that has felled more than 200 senior officials, Xi has managed to place loyalists or associates of close allies in key positions in central and provincial government and powerful party departments. Many are now poised to be elevated to the Central Committee and some to […]
Just a few months ago, another term seemed all but guaranteed for the recently disqualified prime minister. How did it all go so wrong for him? And what does the House of Sharif have in store for the future? Read Here – Dawn
Watching Tillerson’s first six months, one wonders whether Trump picked him as a way to diminish the State Department, similar to how Richard Nixon chose William Rogers for the express purpose of ensuring that the department remained weak. As Henry Kissinger recalled of Rogers, “few secretaries of state can have been selected because of their president’s confidence […]
Max Boot, a lifelong conservative who advised three Republican Presidential candidates on foreign policy, keeps a folder labelled “Trump Stupidity File” on his computer. It’s next to his “Trump Lies” file. “Not sure which is larger at this point,” he told me this week. “It’s neck-and-neck.” Read Here – The New Yorker
The wider world has largely forgotten that short border clash 55 years ago, playing out as it did in the shadows of the more momentous Cuban missile crisis at the peak of the cold war. But in this part of the world, the ghost of that war still lurks – it is the key to […]
After the pomp and ceremony of China’s big military milestone this week, the sudden absence of President Xi Jinping and other key leaders from state television news bulletins on Wednesday was a familiar sign for China watchers – Beijing’s summer conclave has begun. Read Here – South China Morning Post
looking beyond borders 