Choreographed political events rarely provoke serious questions, much less existential ones. After all, a key aim of the choreographers is to skirt debate lest debate reads to the wider public like dissent. In that respect, Britain’s Conservatives can judge their four-day conference in the northern English city of Manchester, which …
Syria Escapes U.N. Sanctions, But Not Turkey’s
Nobody ought to be surprised by the Russian and Chinese vetoes of a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Syria’s brutal crackdown on its citizenry and hinting that sanctions could be invoked if repression continues. That sanctions threat had been watered down in the hope of winning Russian and Chinese consent, but to no avail …
From Europe With Love: U.S. ‘Indignados’ Occupy Wall Street
As the momentum surrounding the Occupy Wall Street protest grows, so too has the urge to frame it in the context of other struggles around the world. Already, Zuccotti Park, the patch of Lower Manhattan taken over for weeks now by the protesters, has been hailed as an American Tahrir Square, a font for a “U.S. autumn” as that …
Can a Stronger Chinese Currency Save the U.S. Economy?
Give Charles Schumer credit for persistence. The New York Senator first introduced legislation that targeted Chinese currency in 2003, and has been a leading congressional advocate of the view that China keeps the value of its currency, the renminbi, artificially low, giving its exporters an unfair advantage when competing against …
Is Israel Again Weighing an Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities?
“I think the most effective way to deal with Iran is not on a unilateral basis,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters in Israel on Tuesday, stressing that the Israeli government needed to act in concert and consensus with the international community. Israeli reporters noted his repeated use of the word together when it came …
Whose Line Is It Anyway?: India Rethinks Its Poverty Schemes
Indian policy-makers have called a truce to end an escalating political battle over how it measures poverty. In doing so, India may have begun a radical new experiment in giving subsidies to the poor.
India draws its poverty line based on how much people spend — not how much they earn. There are certainly other ways of measuring …
From the Magazine: Gangless in Glasgow
After covering the Tottenham riots, I was curious why England rioted and Scotland didn’t. Glasgow, after all, has far greater problems of economic inequity and youth violence. In some neighborhoods, the average life expectancy for a man is just 54 compared to 82 in neighboring areas.
So, I went up to Glasgow to take a look at what …
Another Tibetan Monk Sets Himself Ablaze—and the Karmapa’s Take on the Fiery Protests
Kham is on fire. This year, five Tibetan monks have set themselves ablaze in the ethnically Tibetan-dominated region of China’s Sichuan province that is part of an area called Kham in Tibetan. The most recent self-immolation was on Oct. 3 in a market in the town of Aba (in Mandarin) or Ngaba (in Tibetan), according to exile Tibetan …
A Landmark Moment in Bangladesh’s Slow Crawl Toward Justice
In Dhaka, a war crimes tribunal charged its first suspect on some 20 counts, including crimes against humanity. Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a leading figure in the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s most important Islamist party, will now go to court Oct. 30. If you haven’t heard of the case, it’s not your fault — the 1971 genocide in …
Battle of the Oligarchs: Russian Exile Seeks Billions from Former Business Partner
Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch sitting on an estimated fortune of $16 billion, “betrayed and blackmailed” his erstwhile mentor, coercing him to sell his stake in a Russian oil company at a fraction of its value, a High Court in London heard this morning.
Boris Berezovsky, once one of Russia’s most influential oligarchs, …
Should the U.S. Deem Pakistan a State Sponsor of Terrorism?
It seems not a week goes by without more accusations heaped upon Pakistan’s controversial military intelligence agency, the ISI. The shadowy agency, seen by many as an enabler and tacit ally of militant extremists and terrorist groups in South Asia, had just been in headlines following a Taliban assault on the U.S. embassy and …
Why the Pentagon’s Panetta is On a Hiding to Nothing in Israel
Israel is becoming increasingly isolated, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned on Sunday, on the eve of his arrival there for talks with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The — perhaps unconscious — subtext of that warning, of course, is that Israel’s isolation in the Middle East accelerates the decline of …
From the Magazine: Tibet’s Next Incarnation
He has never been to Tibet, never breathed the thin air of the high plateau, nor spun a prayer wheel in the shadow of the great Buddhist monasteries. Yet on Aug. 8, 43-year-old Lobsang Sangay was sworn in as the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile. Born in a refugee camp in India and educated in the U.S., Sangay holds no passport or …