On Monday, Mar. 24, news broke that South Korea expects to pay around $6.79 billion for 40 F-35 fighter jets. It also confirmed plans to shell out for four of Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawks. According to Reuters, South Korea will likely use the Hawks to “monitor its prickly neighbor North Korea.” South Korea is the […]
Pakistani born British author, Nadeem Aslam, once said that “Pakistan produces people of extraordinary bravery. But no nation should ever require its citizens to be that brave.” Aitizaz Hasan is one such brave 15-year-old boy. Born and raised in the village of Ibrahimzai, Hangu, in the North-Western province of Khyber Pakhtunkwa of Pakistan, Aitizaz was […]
Gokudo Uyoku Connection is a new series of documentaries by Sebastian Stein, director of Twilight of the Yakuza. Like his earlier film, Stein gives his audience a rare inside look into a group few foreigners (and few Japanese) ever get to see up close. In his new series, Stein draws attention to the connection […]
As one of the godfathers of modern neoliberalism, it would be interesting to get Columbia University Professor Jeffery Sachs’ take on the recent government crackdown on protesting garment factory workers in Cambodia. The former Harvard economist once said “my concern is not that there are too many sweatshops, but that there are too few.” The […]
“47 Ronin” is based on a true story that didn’t involve witches or demons or dragons. Here is a rough summary of the historical incident from the early 18th century. Asano Naganori, a young daimyo (warlord) from Ako, was ordered to Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to pay his respects to the shogun (military dictator). This was […]
Until very recently, Ou Virak was President of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. Being a human rights activist in Cambodia, a country with too many abuses in that category to possibly list here, is quite the daunting task. The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) have notoriously […]
The Chinese Communist Party has issued guidelines calling for tightened control of media and education in China, according to a report by the state-run Xinhua News Agency on Dec. 24. These guidelines were issued in the name of “bolstering core socialist values and pooling positive energy to realize the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.” Included […]
In a piece on Foreign Policy’s website the other week, Tim Roemer, the immediate past U.S. ambassador in New Delhi, urged Washington officials to pay closer attention to India as a geopolitical and economic partner. In his view, the country needs to be at the center of the U.S. strategic pivot to Asia and both capitals must, among […]
As ordinary Americans are continuously distracted by Holiday shopping deals, Dancing With the Stars, and things in their own, personal lives, the wealthy one percent class of elites that we hear so much about has kept its eye on the prize. Ordinary Americans might be wondering if the Dow Jones Industrial Average is at record […]
Oscar Wilde in his masterpiece The Picture of Dorian Gray stated that, “nothing is more essential than being young and beautiful.” Unfortunately, today, the political space of India and Bangladesh is neither young nor it can be categorized as beautiful. To better understand this argument, it is important to take into consideration the aspirations of […]
Unable to mollify ongoing demonstrations staged by anti-government protestors throughout Bangkok over the past several weeks, Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra dissolved Parliament on Monday and called for snap elections to take place in the beginning of February. The announcement from the country’s first female premier did little to deter the protestors, estimated at around […]
China sent the diplomatic world into a spin on November 23 by declaring an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea. This is cause for some concern, given the state of Sino-Japanese relations. The concern has been boosted by some vague and rather provocative Chinese statements but also by the fact that […]
In a rare slap in the face to Beijing, last week the U.S. flew two of its unarmed B-52 bombers into China’s newly-established East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone. The air defense zone had been recently created in order to assert Beijing’s claim to disputed territorial waters of the East China Sea and to […]
Criticizing the conventional wisdom about the inevitability of China’s global ascendancy and American strategic decline is a regular preoccupation for this page. Indeed, a recent post took aim at the prevailing notion, subscribed to by a wide-ranging group that includes Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, that Beijing can translate its vast holdings of dollar-denominated assets into policy […]
If you thought U.S. President Barack Obama was suffering from a political crisis in the wake of his problematic healthcare rollout, you should see the situation in Thailand these days for beleaguered Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. A day after the World Court ruled in favor of Cambodia in a territorial dispute over an ancient temple […]
