As news broke yesterday that a Cambodian solider was killed on the border with Thailand, the site of a border dispute that was just recently adjudicated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a brief but critical analysis is required in order to ascertain the significance of such a development. The Phnom Penh Post reported […]
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of seeing author Joseph Braude speak in New York City. He was interesting and his perspective on the Middle East was unique, and I felt compelled to do an interview with him for my readers. Just to provide some background, Joseph comes from an Iraqi-Jewish family and […]
During the 4th meeting of SAARC Home/Interior Ministers recently in Thimpu, Bhutan, India has proposed regular direct contact among police chiefs of SAARC nations to fight terrorism and other trans-national crime, and formation of a regional organization on the lines of Interpol, called SAARCPOL. Underlying that fighting terror and other trans-national crimes in a unified […]
When a hundred people are suddenly killed in Norway, it’s an unprecedented national catastrophe. But in Russia, it’s more like an average summer. Today, the final victims of the sunken Bulgaria were freed from the ship’s wreckage, bringing the toll to 122. Earlier, a helicopter crash, a bus collision, and a spike in various fatal […]
NPR has sent some of its journalists to the Arctic to study the consequences of melting sea ice on the surrounding states. They are documenting their experiences in a series of blog posts. So far, correspondents have visited Iceland, Russia, and Greenland. Posts range from an illustration of the boredom huskies experience in the summer to […]
I can’t let go of an article from the July 2 edition of the Economist. “Who’s Overheating” proposes an “emerging-markets overheating index” that crunched six factors: 1) Inflation 2) GDP growth since 2007, compared to the past decade 3) Unemployment 4) Credit growth 5) Real interest rates, and 6) Change in current-account balance. Twenty-seven countries […]
Courtesy: Dawn.com A veteran diplomat, Ms Wendy Chamberlin was serving as the US ambassador to Pakistan when terrorist struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. A former High Commissioner of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Chamberlin is currently the president of Middle East Institute, a prestigious think-tank […]
For those interested in the current state of military affairs on and around the Korean peninsula, a recent report out of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Korean Military Balance, is worth a look. Spearheaded by CSIS’s indefatigable Anthony Cordesman, the report provides a fine-grained analysis of the strategic balance of forces on the […]
Quoted directly from John Campbell at his Council on Foreign Relations’ Africa in Transition blog: The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has released ten case studies on “Assessing Risks to Stability in Sub-Saharan Africa.” The reports cover Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan and Uganda. The papers, commissioned by the U.S. […]
For many in India, Secretary Clinton’s visit this week was reassuring; reassuring that India was still United State’s most favored partner in the region. Secretary Clinton’s visit was part of the second annual India-U.S. Strategic Dialogue initiated last year. Strategic dimension of the interactions received maximum attention in the media and among analysts. The insistence […]
Amnesty International has put up a petition addressed to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, appealing for the release of Jabbar Savalan, the young pro-democracy activist who was charged with drug possession and convicted in May. As noted on this blog earlier, Savalan was arrested “after calling for protest actions on Facebook and attending a youth conference in […]
This week the Syrian Uprising has taken on a newly sectarian character, a disturbing development, and one that could spell a much more violent and unpredictable future for the unstable nation. On Sunday, Homs, Syria’s third largest city, saw the first openly sectarian violence of the now almost five month old unrest. It appears that […]
From Amnesty International–Tania Stewart | Media Relations Assistant | Amnesty International USA (Washington, D.C.) — Graphic new video footage of a public hanging in Iran this week highlights the brutalization of both the condemned and those who watch executions, Amnesty International said today. The video can currently be viewed on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YTlbObayk8 . The video provided to […]
“The United States has always been a Pacific power because of our very great blessing of geography. And India straddling the waters from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean is, with us, a steward of these waterways. We are both deeply invested in shaping the future of the region that they connect. And there are […]
All is not as friendly as it appears Just as U.S.-India ties were at a nadir following New Delhi’s nuclear tests in 1998 – and just as the United States and China were declaring their own strategic partnership – Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee famously characterized Washington and New Delhi as “natural allies” who would […]