As international attention focuses on resolving issues on the Korean peninsula, trouble is brewing in a different Asian arena. The South China Sea is one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, an extremely productive fishing area, and is reported to contain vast deposits of oil and natural gas. The Sea is bordered by Brunei, China, […]
Rai al-Shaab (Opinion of the People), a Sudanese newspaper run by opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi, published an article earlier this month describing a secret weapons factory run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Sudanese soil. Sudanese officials have since arrested and tortured al-Turabi and several of his staff members and shut down the […]
Secret directive signed by General Petraeus in September gives U.S. military special forces the power to operate in friendly and hostile states in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Exposed by the New York Times on Monday, this order increases the power of U.S. armed forces abroad and authorizes clandestine military operations against terrorists and […]
Will the departure of U.S. forces derail recent development success? Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s Kurdish population faced policies of genocide, forced assimilation, and ethnic cleansing. That changed after 2003 when Kurds emerged as a leading democratic force in the new Iraq. For several years, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has been a model of successful […]
We are a people who don’t have money, food or clothes. But we are sleeping on gold. ~ Mohammad Ibrahim Adel, former Afghan minister of mines. Afghanistan is the second most corrupt nation in the world and its people are the poorest outside of Africa. Developing a legitimate economy, effective government, and safety for its […]
The debate over Justice Goldstone continues – The Atlantic correspondent Jefferey Goldberg and Jonathan Chait at The New Republic both recently wrote about Goldstone’s time as a judge in apartheid South Africa. Sasha Polakow-Suransky again draws attention to Israel’s own involvement with the apartheid regime, which involved several decades of arms business. *********** Hizbul Islam […]
The Middle East Channel at Foreign Policy has an interesting story on Israel’s escalating attacks on South African judge Richard Goldstone, written by Foreign Affairs senior editor Sasha Polakow-Suransky. Goldstone was the leader of a UN report on Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the January 2009 clash […]
A bad problem grows worse: ransom money moves abroad as pirates and Islamists jostle for influence. Members of Hizbul Islam took over the Somali town of Haradhere earlier this week, pushing out the town’s previous pirate rulers. Everything happened without a shot being fired: the pirates gathered their TVs and trucks and simply moved north […]
Pakistan’s short-sighted foreign policies and military spending will not lead to long-term regional stability.
By Aarti Tikoo Singh Twenty years ago, “freedom struggle” in Kashmir meant seeking the political rights and political justice that had been denied by India since Jammu & Kashmir’s accession to the Indian union in 1947. But before the idea could even evolve into a mass awakening movement, it burst into religious extremism and cross-border […]
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