In his compelling essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell links the decline of civilizations to a self-reinforcing relationship between muddy thinking and bad writing. “If thought corrupts language,” he writes, “language can also corrupt thought.” Read Here – National Interest
In the 12 months since Xi Jinping assumed the presidency of China, he has amassed more power more swiftly than any Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping, foreshadowing changes in the way China governs itself and deals with the rest of the world. Read Here – Businessweek
The huge coming out party in Myanmar since 2012 has officially veered into hangover territory. That’s the gist of this Asia Sentinel feature that cites recent World Bank and U.S. State Department warnings about everything from the difficulty of doing business to unproductive investments to infrastructure-related bottlenecks, writes William Pesak Read Here – Bloomberg
A confident-looking Abdel Fattah el-Sisi strides across the tarmac at Almaza Air Base, dressed in a blue blazer and his trademark sunglasses. He is not yet Egypt’s head of state, but certainly looks like one Read Here – Politico
Ukraine has become a battleground for western influence and Vladimir Putin’s dream of an expanded Russian sphere of influence Read Here – DNA
China has revolution envy. The world’s largest energy consumer wants a natural gas boom to match the speedy transformation in the U.S., where shale gas production more than quadrupled between 2007 and 2012. Read Here – Bloomberg
The “Allah” crisis is masking a nuanced and historic racial debate in Malaysian politics. Read Here – The Diplomat
China’s $3.8 trillion of currency reserves are the largest stockpile ever amassed. Economists have long seen that money as a strength — the ultimate rainy-day fund should China’s shadow-banking system blow up. Trouble is, the value of those holdings depends on China’s $1.3 trillion of U.S. Treasuries. If they plunge in value, all hell breaks loose […]
For Grant Felgenhauer, a money manager whose hedge fund owns $110 million of Iraqi equities, the 15 explosions that rocked the country on a single day in mid-January weren’t a reason to stop buying. Read Here – Businessweek
Will deepening ties between India and Japan hurt the U.S. foreign policy view in Asia? Read Here – The National Interest
looking beyond borders 