The student affiliates of the major political parties have always had a major hand in the decades long perverse politicking in Bangladesh. Time and again mutually non-deterrent and devastating clashes have shut down the major cities in Bangladesh. Student leaders of these political groups often find lucrative contracts in the private sector; alternatively they […]
The media in Bangladesh is awash in ink reporting on the highest level U.S government delegation to Bangladesh. U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Judith McHale congratulated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s attempt to reaffirm the rule of law and pluralist democracy in Bangladesh and asserted that, going forward, Bangladesh would be amongst the […]
I opened my email today to find, once again, a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece of commentary from PacNet, the newsletter maintained by the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Pacific Center in Hawaii. Since signing up a year ago I have consistently enjoyed fresh looks on political affairs in the Asia-Pacific and have often found […]
Can favorable consolidation of democracy in Bangladesh serve as a bulwark against fanatacism and instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The simplest answer is yes. There are two ways, cases really, in which it might serve as a bulwark. The first case: Bangladesh’s democratic consolidation serves as an exemplar to show interested parties in Afghanistan […]
The New York Times just published a heart-wrenching piece on the death of an innocent 12-year-old girl in Pakistan who worked as a servant in the home of a wealthy lawyer. That poor child, little Shazia Masih, might have died from injuries sustained from vicious physical abuse from her employer. Now, simply switch the […]
Malaysia: The NY Times has an article concerning ANOTHER Anwar Ibrahim trial. Over the last 30 years, Mr. Anwar has not been a stranger to Malaysian jails, nor to the charge of sodomy, but his latest running-a foul with the political elite may have some serious repercussions in Malaysia, as well as to the nation’s […]
A little over three months into the Hatoyama administration and it is now clear that the new government is taking engagement with its East Asian neighbors seriously. Major missions of DPJ lawmakers to China and high-level cabinet meetings with South Korean counterparts have signaled a newfound interest in and commitment to diplomacy and détente in […]
With this weekend’s spat over U.S. arm sales, yet another dispute has come to roil the U.S.-China relationship. The “world’s most important bilateral relationship,” already frayed by tense disagreements over Internet freedom, cyber-security, Iran, trade, and currency policies, has now been further burdened with the Obama administration’s sale to Taiwan of USD 6.4 billion in […]
Amnesty International appoints its first Indian Secretary General: Salil Shetty will take over as the new Secretary General of Amnesty International in June 2010. Shetty has served as the Director of the UN’s Millenium Campaign for the past six years. According to Peter Pack, the chair of Amnesty International’s Executive Committee, “As we approach our […]
Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis gave an insightful speech last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that addresses the Obama administration’s trade priorities in the Asia-Pacific and outlines the complex challenges (regional architecture, rising China, and others) that will undoubtedly temper the US trade policy stance for years to come. This […]
Politics in Bangladesh matters to me. Politics in Bangladesh might matter to you. But why should the U.S. government worry about politics in Bangladesh? I have at least 2 arguments in response to that question. The first response attaches to ongoing developments in the attempt to establish regional security in South Asia, to a) support […]
In the midst of the tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti, China has given the international community a glimpse of its humanitarian spirit. The Chinese government wasted no time in dispatching a team of 15 rescuers along with several millions of dollars in aid, and later sent 45 or so medical staff. At the same […]
Henry Hoyle, the China Blogger here at FPA, has a great post up about a grand rapprochement between Japan and China in 2010. He is certainly not alone in wondering what might come of a more robust bilateral relationship. Speculation of a so-called “grand rapprochement” is pervasive, as many are eager determine how, and by […]
The sitting Awami League government has hanged the 5 individuals convicted of assassinating President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975. The executions came some 14 hours after the Appelate Division of the Supreme Court rejected a review of the Supreme Court verdict. Quite apart for the normatively retrograde administration of capital punishment in Bangladesh, The Daily […]
Micheal Pettis has a great post up at his always worth-a-read blog China Financial Markets. In “The Myth of the Blithe Consensus,” the Carnegie Endowment fellow and Peking University finance professor reviews the evidence that China’s madcap loan growth of 2009 has returned with a terrible fury in the first weeks of 2010, with dire […]
