No sooner had my previous post — warning of an imminent massacre of Muslims in Burma — been published two weeks ago, deadly sectarian riots swept through the town of Meiktila in central Myanmar leaving an estimated 32 people dead, according to a government official. Alternative estimates claim that the death toll is quite a […]
Secretary of State John Kerry toured around some of the thorniest foreign policy issue-countries on his plate. A seemingly hostile partner in President Karzai, now friends again; Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s move to potentially undercut U.S. credible commitments on Syria by allowing use of Iraqi air space; Syria. Syria. Syria. Syria.
At first glance, the temperature on the Korean Peninsula appears to be tense but stable, and at a time when the United States is successfully concluding an annual military exercise with South Korea. Last week the U.S. publicly announced that strategic bombers — B-52s capable of launching nuclear weapons — would take part “in flight […]
This is the third in a 3-part series on Shahbagh, its history, its politics and the normative views it captures (and fails to capture). What recommends the Shahbagh movement for any praise whatsoever? Mainly that it registers in form the demands for justice for those killed during the Liberation War against Pakistan in `1971; justice […]
What could be worse than living in a North Korean labor camp? Apparently, not much. This documentary centers mainly on Shin Dong-Huyk, an inmate who escaped Camp 14 and who now lives in South Korea. The tale he tells is horrific: beatings, torture, hard labor and near starvation are all the norm. He began hard […]
As foreign tourists flock to an apparently open and reforming Myanmar, ethnic conflict continues in the regions along its borders. One such conflict involves the Kachin, a Christian/Buddhist/animist people who have been fighting for greater autonomy and political rights for decades. A 17-year ceasefire between the government and the Kachin broke down in June 2011, […]
Never again. Remember that? The world was very determined to never allow another attempt at genocide after the Holocaust. We know now that those words were as empty and hollow as a whiskey barrel on the George Bush ranch. Genocides have happened again and will continue to happen if it is not in the “international […]
My previous attempt to get ahold of Shahbagh, its recent history and its politics has left many questions answered, many issues untouched. In this present attempt to gather some understanding of the currents in Shahbagh, I’ll address the political resonances of the protests begun February 5th, 2013, on the heels of Abdul Qader Mollah life […]
The following post is based on an address I delivered at the Shanghai Maritime Strategy Research Center two weeks ago. The punditry gods were smiling when Beijing and New Delhi declared 2012 as the Year of Sino-Indian Friendship. After all, it was a most curious designation, and not just because 2006 had received the same […]
A picture of Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde; a picture of murderer and rapist Ram Singh; a picture of a guileful, fatal bus ride, caught on CCTV. Ram Singh, age 34, the leader of the gang of six that raped and murdered a 23 -year-old physiotherapist, was found dead yesterday, hanging in his jail cell […]
Shahbagh: The Set Up (Part 1 in a 3 Part Series about the Shahbagh Movement, its Politics and its Moral Content) Since this past February 5, now for the past month and more, the “youth” of Bangladesh have ebbed and flowed in the hundreds of thousands from the neighborhood of Shahbagh, in Dhaka. An occupying […]
My last post focused on the domestic implications in Pakistan of the latest revelations about the 1999 Kargil mini-war. Since the crisis is a key point of contention – a sort of Rorschach test, really – in the debate over whether the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia has stabilized or aggravated the India-Pakistan […]
Give the people sports and they will forget all about politics. Such a maxim could be attributed to all manner of political figures from Commodus to Machiavelli. We can now add Kim Jong Un to that list after the North Korean leader welcomed former NBA weirdo Dennis Rodman to Pyongyang for a basketball game between […]
On Sunday, February 24, 2013, a regional peace accord was agreed upon in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by 11 African nations from both the Great Lakes region and Southern Africa in an attempt to finally end two decades of conflict that have plagued most sections of the war-riddled country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), particularly its mineral-rich eastern provinces. Appropriately labeled […]
For those physically-challenged weaklings who are constantly badgered and harassed by stronger bullies, joining a gym and working out can be a rational response. A quicker method, however, would be to enlist the assistance of your friends. No longer having to rely on your own limited defense against a stronger bully, you can take greater […]
