As the 2012 presidential election draws near, it is clear that American voters will face a stark choice on issues ranging from a woman’s right to choose to the future of America’s social safety net. Differences over foreign policy, in particular, have recently taken on renewed significance. In his speech at the Democratic National Convention, […]
To those who met them in Japanese-occupied Manchukuo in 1935, the Swiss businessman Charles Emile Martin and his American partner, Cy Oggins, must have seemed an enigmatic pair. Oggins was a distinguished-looking man with craggy features, well-made suits, and a penchant for silver-topped walking sticks. He seemed to know a great deal about Oriental antiquities, […]
It’s like Eskimos running out of ice: A recent report by Citigroup warns that Saudi Arabia — the world’s biggest crude exporter — may need to import oil by 2030. How did Saudi Arabia allow its fortunes to slip, even as it supplies an eighth of the world’s oil and natural gas liquids? The country […]
In a high-stakes game marrying geopolitics with big business and international espionage, is turnabout fair play? According to one very opinionated corner of the Chinese Internet, the answer is a resounding yes. Yesterday, the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a report casting a heavy shadow over Chinese telecom behemoths Huawei and ZTE. […]
Immigrants play vital roles at 4 out of 10 Silicon Valley start-ups, and a third of those immigrants are Indians. But the US isn’t the only one to gain, according to India‘s Hindustan Times. Last year, Indians living abroad pumped $66.13 billion into the economy, compared with only $46.84 billion in foreign direct investment, the paper said. And […]
Mitt Romney may have talked about the Middle East yesterday in what was billed (and panned) as a major foreign policy address, but ad spending by both candidates’ camps shows that global affairs are still low on the list of key campaign topics. Fewer than 10% of ads aired in the U.S. presidential race to date have made […]
Want to find a job? That’s not a problem if you are trained as a technician and looking for work in China or Brazil. Ditto for sales representatives, who are in hot demand in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Japan, engineers won’t sit idle. Meanwhile, in Ireland, IT workers are needed. In the Netherlands, it’s […]
On October 2nd, the South African website Politics Web published an extraordinary historical document, a 26-page memorandum from then-British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Loyd detailing the issues that he thought would affect British policy in Africa over the next decade. The memo gives a sense of just how much was at stake for a British empire in […]
China rejected on Tuesday as “groundless” U.S. accusations that two top Chinese telecoms equipment makers posed a security risk. The U.S. House of Representatives‘ Intelligence Committee urged American companies on Monday to stop doing business with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp., warning that China could use equipment made by the companies to spy on […]
Mitt Romney has delivered a lot of dishonest speeches in recent months, but Monday’s address on foreign policy may be the most mendacious yet. It was expected that he would distort President Obama into a caricature of Jimmy Carter. But it was astonishing to watch Romney spin a daydream of himself as some latter-day George Marshall, bringing […]
looking beyond borders 