Some of America‘s biggest social media and tech companies have been denying in recent days that they were aware of the National Security Agency’s recently-exposed “PRISM” and telephone monitoring programs. But these denials obscure a larger truth: The government’s massive data collection and surveillance system was largely built not by professional spies or Washington bureaucrats […]
China’s lack of transparency has long posed a daunting challenge to outside observers trying to understand what the government’s interests, goals, and intentions are. Gary King, a Professor in Government at Harvard University, has provided telling new insights into these questions with his research on the government’s censorship of social media websites. Read Here – The […]
Little noticed during last weekend’s milestone summit between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping was another landmark event: China’s currency hit a record high, reaching almost 6 yuan to the dollar. In recent years, one of the few things Republicans and Democrats could agree upon was that an artificially cheap yuan damaged U.S. exports and stole U.S. jobs. The […]
Burma’s transition to a world of economic opportunity, and political freedom was always going to be difficult, and the success of the new regime is still far from assured. Decades of corrupt military rule have left deep scars on the country. And recovering from this will be extremely difficult whilst ever these same military people […]
This style of summitry is in marked contrast to the recent bilateral meetings held between President Obama and his counterparts in Japan, America’s key ally in Asia. From the outset of Obama’s presidency, Japanese prime ministers have made a point of being the first in line among world leaders to meet with him at the […]
It’s official. We are living in a surveillance state. This week’s revelations that wave after wave of Verizon call data, and an endless sea of emails and Facebook posts, are all being trawled by government dragnets are shocking but not really surprising. We’ve known for years that the government’s intelligence machinery has invisible means of cultivating […]
China and the United States will increase comprehensive exchanges, as the countries commit to building a new type of power relationship, the presidents of the world’s two largest economies said. After the first meeting of their two-day summit, President Xi Jinping and US counterpart, Barack Obama, stressed the importance of the countries’ ties in a globalized […]
Pakistan’s Army has managed the country’s policy on Afghanistan since 1978. It must now start sharing the burden with civilian leaders. The army should enlist Mr. Sharif to talk to the Afghan Taliban, whose leaders are mostly living in Pakistan. Read Here – The New York Times The Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid has become the […]
The new Chinese President, Xi Jinping, and the US President, Barack Obama, are meeting for two days of talks at Sunnylands, a private estate near Los Angeles. It will be their first meeting since Xi assumed the presidency. The future fortunes of the world are bound up with the two countries finding a new kind […]
Just a few months ago, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and now President Barack Obama’s choice to be the next national security adviser, saw her main chance to become secretary of state dissipate before her eyes, as Senate Republicans excoriated her for, as they saw it, misleading the public about the attacks on […]
looking beyond borders 