The Holy See has played an important but understudied role in intelligence and diplomacy through its diplomatic service, which is one of the oldest in the world. The extensive presence of the Holy See’s diplomats combined with their neutrality provides them access to unique information in the far corners of the globe.
As the Islamic Republic enters its fifth decade, keeping the revolution “alive” will depend on the ability of its image-makers not only to appeal to a younger population that wants change but also to build consensus among members of the younger generation within the regime’s own ranks. The task before the Islamic Republic is to win over a broad cross section of its citizens while simultaneously defining what shape its revolutionary project, and its state apparatus, will take over the long term.
Whichever side emerges victorious in May, the consensus in India is that the Nehruvian construct of secularism is dead—killed by its one-time supporters as much as by its dogged opponents. What will replace it is unclear. In the battle for India’s soul, only one side has shown up ready to fight.
The murder of more than 250 churchgoers, tourists, and other civilians in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday should serve as a reminder that Asia is now the world’s leading site of Islamist extremism. The region’s leaders must either address the problem at its source or prepare for more bloodshed in the coming years and decades.
Also Read: Easter Sunday Bombings Point To Colombo’s Failure In Bridging Communal Faultlines
It is now beyond doubt that China is undertaking a program of mass incarceration of the Uyghur population of its northwestern province of Xinjiang (which many Uyghurs refer to as East Turkestan) in a region-wide network of detention and “re-education” centers.
Over 200 people were killed and at least 450 injured in bomb blasts that ripped through churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, the first major attack on the Indian Ocean island since the end of a civil war 10 years ago. Seven people were arrested and three police officers were killed during a security forces raid on a house in the Sri Lankan capital several hours after the rash of attacks, some of which officials said were suicide bombs.
Also Read: Why Sri Lanka Risks Return To Violence
The world’s fourth most populous country is a pluralist, multiparty democracy that officially extends civic and religious freedoms to everyone living across a staggeringly diverse archipelago. But by the time anyone even showed up at the polls, both the structure of this young political system and Jokowi’s turns toward the religious right meant that many issues were already decided.
In the absence of international censure, China has stepped up its systematic persecution of Muslims, under the dubious pretense that it is fighting “terrorism” and protecting its economic interests. But more than just an attack on human rights, the crackdown is representative of President Xi Jinping’s totalitarian ambitions.
Arab regimes spend millions of dollars on think tanks, academic institutions, and lobbying firms in part to shape the thinking in Western capitals about domestic political activists opposed to their rule, many of whom happen to be religious. The field of counter-extremism has been the ideal front for the regional governments’ preferred narrative: They elicit sympathy from the West by claiming to also suffer from the perfidies of radical jihadis and offer to work together to stem the ideological roots of the Islamist threat.
Beyond support for armed militias which take orders more from Tehran than Baghdad, Sistani is also aware that Iraqis, including most Iraqi Shiites, resent more mundane issues such as Iran’s dumping of cheap manufactured goods on the Iraqi market, thereby undercutting struggling Iraqi businesses. The anti-Iranian sentiment is so widespread that when fertilizer run-off poisoned fish in the Tigris River, rumors spread across Baghdad that Iran had killed the fish to force Iraqis to buy from them instead.
