Need some reading for the weekend? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Need some reading for the weekend? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
In an interview with Jerusalem Online News this week, Jordanian Palestinian pro-democracy activist and journalist Mudar Zahran, who has been mentioned as a possible successor to the Jordanian king, came out against Kerry’s peace plan, stressing that the main person who benefits from it is the Jordanian monarchy. Zahran feels that the average Palestinian and […]
Today Palestinian top negotiators will meet with United States Secretary of State John Kerry’s team in Washington to go over the U.S. position on all the issues that will be a part of a framework agreement that Kerry aims to share publicly in a few weeks. A senior Palestinian source told Haaretz, “we want […]
In mid-January, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) announced that its foreign exchange reserves had grown by a breathtaking $157 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013. That influx of reserves brought annual growth for 2013 to $508 billion (the largest calendar-year increase ever) and pushed the total amount of China’s reserves toward the $4 […]
Over the weekend of January 25-26, the Chinese government sentenced human rights activist Xu Zhiyong (许志永) to four years in prison and announced its charges against detained Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti (Uighur: ئىلھام توختى, Chinese: 伊力哈木土赫提). Xu was sentenced following a one-day show trial in which in which he wasn’t allowed to call defense witnesses […]
Trade ministers for World Trade Organization (WTO) member nations reached agreement in Bali December 7, setting standards for customs, and addressing food and agricultural issues, among other matters. The measures in themselves are limited, but the Bali deal revives the WTO as a channel to approach trade policy. U.S. policy should reassess other approaches […]
This is Danny Pearl’s Final Story The Washingtonian By Asra Q. Nomani In 2002, Asra Nomani’s close friend and colleague Danny Pearl was kidnapped and brutally murdered at the hands of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks. In this deeply moving piece, Nomani describes her encounter with her friend’s murderer at Guantanamo Bay in 2012 […]
China has been on its very worst behavior this week. As prominent human rights activist Xu Zhiyong (许志永) went on trial January 22, Chinese police dragged protestors away from the scene and harassed foreign journalists attempting to report on the trial. Xu’s trial is the first in a series of trials for activists associated with […]
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to face an uphill battle when it comes to finding a solution that is acceptable to both the Israelis and Palestinians over the future of the Jordan Valley. The Palestinian side refuses to accept any kind of Israeli military presence within the Jordan Valley, while Israel adamantly […]
Police detained this supporter of Xu Zhiyong who had gathered with other activists outside the court Human Rights Watch accused China on Tuesday of failing to meet its people’s demands for political reform and for its pursuit of anti-corruption activists — despite its declared crackdown on graft. The New York based organization accused the Chinese […]
China is engaged in a soft-power war with America and the West. America may not have noticed this, but China has. While America takes its soft power around the world for granted, China struggles to win even the “hearts and minds” of its own citizens. “Soft power” is defined by Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye […]
Relationship managers across Asia have a potently difficult year ahead as news reports continue to highlight actions and words that are anything but conducive to cooperation and understanding between regional states. When a former British ambassador to North Korea writes an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph titled “Are China, Japan and South Korea fanning the […]
In recent months, Turkey—more specifically, Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan and his Justice and Development party (AKP)—has been the center of controversy and the subject of passionate debates. The other side of this political controversy is the spiritual leader of the Hizmet or Gulen Movement, Fethullah Gulen. However, as with all matters political; things are […]
Prominent Chinese legal scholar and human rights activist Xu Zhiyong (许志永) will go on trial January 22 on charges of disrupting public order. A founder of the pro-democracy New Citizens’ Movement (中国新公民运动) and an outspoken advocate of greater transparency in Chinese government, Xu has been detained since July 2013. Xu and his lawyers believe that […]
Credit: PostonPolitics.blogspot.com On January 13, Marvin Kalb, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, published an interesting post on his blog on the think tank’s website. Kalb contended that in order for Israel to stir up the peace process pot, it should publicly accept the 1967 lines as the basis for a permanent peace […]