History matters, but in different ways. In some places and for some people, history means eternal clashes that are shaped by profound geopolitical forces: four centuries ago is the same as yesterday. Elsewhere and for other people, history suggests a need to find ways to escape from ancient predicaments and outdated prejudices. It is this […]
Most concrete walls in Sri Lanka have been demolished in the past four years since the ethnic war ended, but the emotional barricades remain as the country battles its bloody past and tries to make peace with itself. It’s easier said than done. Read Here – ThisDayAndThat
THE biggest achievement of the Commonwealth, its admirers say, is the fact of its unlikely existence. That so many former British colonies and dominions should be content to co-exist in a club which has the queen as its head is remarkable. Read Here – The Economist
The heads of government of the 53 nations of the Commonwealth come together every two years for a summit. This time, several have decided to stay away, to boycott the gathering in Sri Lanka Read Here – BBC
The departure of Gambia and the fight over the Sri Lankan summit reveal how weak Commonwealth institutions have become. The secretariat is accused of actively dodging any politically sensitive issue, and its reticence to speak out means that the Commonwealth suffers from a very low public profile. A 2009 poll in seven countries showed than […]
As the U.S. government debates what to do about Syrian chemical weapons use—and the stated aim threads the needle between nothing at all and a strike that would markedly affect the course of the civil war—it’s a good time to reflect on the declining utility of overwhelming global military dominance. The good news is that […]
Six years ago, two Microsoft cryptography researchers discovered some weirdness in an obscure cryptography standard authored by the National Security Agency. There was a bug in a government-standard random number generator that could be used to encrypt data. Read Here – Wired
The alternative to the proposed US strike is not inaction, but rather a more comprehensive approach which takes into account the underlying reality in which the horrors at al-Ghouta took place: the proxy war in Syria. Come what may, only talks aimed at achieving a ceasefire, including wrangling with Russia and Iran, will stop the […]
The United States, by all indications, will soon become a belligerent in Syria’s civil war. The Syrian government‘s alleged use of chemical weapons to kill hundreds crossed a redline that U.S. President Barack Obama claimed a year ago would be the game changer, and the game for Washington, London, and Paris has clearly changed. Yet […]
By the time Tony Blair left office in 2007, he had built a surveillance state unrivalled anywhere in the democratic world. Parliament passed 45 criminal justice laws – more than the total for the previous century – creating more than 3,000 new criminal offences. That corresponded to two new offences for each day parliament sat […]
looking beyond borders 