Israel’s government currently lacks a credible plan for getting it out of a diplomatic tight spot if the Palestinians go ahead with a plan to seek U.N. recognition of a state in September. But don’t bet against the Palestinian leadership letting the Israelis off the hook as a result of their own divisions over whether to go the U.N. …
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Power Play: How the Childish Behavior of Top Politicians Shapes the World
Democracy is an exercise in adulthood. We don’t want our elected leaders to style themselves, as despots so often do, the fathers of our nations, but we assume them to be responsible grown-ups, focused on carrying out the mandates we have granted them. It’s a nice idea. Unfortunately the more we find out about our political masters—and …
The Drumbeats of War? Tensions Rise in the South China Sea
Disputes over the South China Sea often provoke feelings of déjà-vu. That was especially the case this week, when Vietnam accused a Chinese ship of deliberately cutting exploration cables that were being towed by a seismic survey vessel working for PetroVietnam, the state-run oil and gas group. Vietnam says the June 9 incident occurred …
Swift Justice in Murder that Stirred Anger in China
One month after a traffic fatality touched off widespread protests in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, a court has sentenced a coal truck driver to death for running over and killing an ethnic Mongolian herder. The rapid trial and sentencing showed the speed with which Chinese authorities have moved to tamp down unrest in …
Jacques Chirac’s Presidential Memoir: A Sarkozy Smack-Down
So much for locking his lips and throwing away the key. Just four years after leaving the Elysée with a pledge to never, ever comment on his successor and erstwhile foe Nicolas Sarkozy, former French President Jacques Chirac is now dishing some less than flattering views on France’s current head of state—and only 11 months ahead of …
Raising the Heat on Gaddafi, NATO Concerns Turn to the Day After He Goes
NATO’s daylight bombing of Tripoli on Tuesday appears to be part of an effort to bring the Libya conflict to a crescendo that topples Muammar Gaddafi: French and British ground attack helicopters have also been deployed in the effort to force the collapse of the regime, and new mediation efforts are afoot — with even the previously …
Are Executed Prisoners’ Organs Still Being Harvested in China?
Transplant tourism is one of those dangerous businesses that proliferate in many developing-world countries. The intersection of rich foreigner frantic for a kidney, cornea or liver and poor local desperate to make money has spawned an illicit organ-trafficking industry, from India to Brazil. China, which is the subject of a new article …
Why It’s Too Soon to Celebrate in Yemen
The situation in Yemen took another dramatic turn this weekend, when President Ali Abdullah Saleh left Yemen for Saudi Arabia, sparking both joy and confusion on the streets. In this excellent Bloggingheads video Princeton’s Bernard Haykel and Charles Schmits of Towson University explain the roots of the …
China’s Military Tries to Reassure Wary Neighbors
Years of sharp increases in military spending coupled with territorial disputes with some of its neighbors have contributed to growing suspicions over Chinese intentions. So China’s military brass is on a campaign to reassure governments in the Asia-Pacific region that the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army poses no …
How Will China’s Food Supply Weather the Year of Drought?
In China food supplies and food prices are deeply sensitive topics. So by the time the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization issued a special alert warning in February that a prolonged drought in the North China Plain was a “potentially serious problem” for the country’s winter wheat crop, China’s leaders had already …
The Looming Food Crisis: Are the World’s Elites to Blame?
Julian Cribb’s The Coming Famine opens in Hokkaido, Japan, at a meeting of the G8. It’s 2008, the financial crisis is underway and food prices are soaring. Nonetheless, the attendees tuck into an eighteen course feast of caviar, sea urchin roe, Kyoto beef, conger eels, truffles and champagne, prepared by some sixty chefs. They also …
Global Briefing, June 1, 2011: The Thrill is Gone
Nuclear Fallout — In an essay for Dawn.com Rafia Zakaria mulls the meaning of ‘the bomb’ in Pakistan’s collective consciousness. “The bomb that was supposed to deter and defeat has been unable to frighten anyone into leaving us alone,” she writes. “It has revealed, instead, the flimsy remains of our national pride and a confused, …
Global Briefing, May 31, 2011: ‘Happy Birthday, Salman Taseer’
Remembering Taseer — In the Express Tribune Ayesha Tammy Haq reflects on the life and death of Salman Taseer. “Today he would have been 67-years-old but we have silenced him and with him, killed hope,” she writes. Moderate Pakistanis must speak out against the violence: “The quieter we stay, the more difficult it becomes for people to …