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THE ROVING EYE
And the winner is ... Khamenei
Iran's roster of would-be presidents has been whittled down to eight from nearly 700, courtesy vetting by the Guardian Council. Two potential big draws are ruled out - former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim, too much outgoing President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's man. That leaves an uninspiring bunch and one sure winner whoever wins - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
- Pepe Escobar
(May 22, '13)
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Miles to go for Thein Sein
Myanmar President Thein Sein's welcome in the White House this week is due in large part to his government pushing through important reforms and the growth of civil society. Yet he will need all the outside support he can get for the next tough phase of more thorough democratic reforms, as the country has a long way to go before it can honestly claim to be a functioning and durable democracy. - Aung Tun
(May 22, '13)
SINOGRAPH
China nears point
of no return with Kim
China is losing patience with North Korean leader Kim Jong-eun, slowly but surely moving into the US orbit to deal with his threats and blackmail. As Beijing will sooner than later reach the point where it has little to lose from falling out with North Korea, Kim had better start contemplating his own mortality. - Francesco Sisci
(May 22, '13)
New spark in the South China Sea
Sanctions Taiwan has imposed following the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman by the Philippine Coast Guard, including a hiring freeze on Filipino workers and banning tourism to the Philippines, are shows of sovereignty aimed at bolstering the administration's sagging approval ratings. Manila has no such problems, but economically and diplomatically it can't afford another front opening in the South China Sea.
- Julius Cesar I Trajano
(May 22, '13)
Survivors of factory collapse speak out
Harrowing survivors' tales from the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh recount an ordeal of darkness and screams, with many recalling how bosses threatened them with dismissal for questioning the sanity of working in the crumbling building. New safety standards have been rushed out, but punishment for the bosses looks unlikely. - Naimul Haq
(May 22, '13)
The case for
hope, continued
The crushing feeling of defeat felt by anti-Iraq war activists in 2003 as the invasion was launched is revived today by glass-half-empty Americans who say the Arab Spring failed and the Occupy movement faded. This ignores that, just as that failed war led to the toppling of a neoconservative elite, so to today's revolutions will generate waves of change that grow into social tsunamis. - Rebecca Solnit
(May 22, '13)
SPEAKING FREELY
The sea rises in age of drone terror
The Obama administration's drone campaign in Pakistan, with its killing lists and execution boards, is reminiscent of the French Revolution's "Reign of Terror". Just like the guillotine - invented as an "enlightened" mode of killing - the unmanned weapons have ended up slaying hundreds of innocents.
- Dallas Darling
(May 22, '13)
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Japan tips its hand via North Korea
Tokyo characterized the revelation as a diplomatic fiasco maliciously inflicted by North Korea. Seoul slammed it, and the US was kept in the dark. Whatever the truth, the "secret" dispatch of Japanese envoy Isao Iijima to Pyongyang has broken a united stand and revealed Japan's determination to move beyond being an obedient US ally to being an independent regional force. - Peter Lee
(May 21, '13)
Philippine 'pivot' in the South China Sea
As Manila views Chinese naval occupation of disputed territory in the South China Sea as a "when" not an "if", it is under no illusion that US support can be counted upon, hence a change in tack to diplomacy through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The group may be more amenable now Cambodia no longer holds the chair, but it so far lacks the heft to shift Beijing's robust stand.
- Richard Javad Heydarian
(May 21, '13)
Syria highlights US political impotence
Contradictory discourse in the US over the Syrian civil conflict underlines how American strategy in the Middle East has become watered-down to the point of impotence. It's a far cry from the days of invading Iraq and carving up the region through "peace deals" - yet this was the likeliest end result of a foreign policy almost entirely reliant on blowing things up. - Ramzy Baroud
(May 21, '13)
OBITUARY
A last dance with Kenneth Waltz
 By the time of his death on May 12, international relations visionary Kenneth Waltz's core theories of how great powers interacted in an "international anarchy" had been eroded by the onset of a multipolar world and the increasing influence of violent non-state actors and ruthless multinational corporations. However, Waltz's gems are left to us as relics of a historic American era.
- Sreeram Chaulia
(May 21, '13)
Explosives shatter lives in Kashmir
Maimed victims of landmines in Kashmir are struggling to pay for medical treatment and prosthetic limbs with the menial government compensation on offer. With many farming families forced to sell land and beg as a result, the impact of such accidents lasts long after the detonation.
- Athar Parvaiz
(May 21, '13) |
THE ROVING EYE
Assad talks, Russia walks
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wasted a golden opportunity in an interview to explain to the Western public, even briefly, why petro-monarchies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, plus Turkey, have the hots for setting Syria on fire. While he was talking, Russia was walking, sending a message it is ready to go where the Pentagon and others fear to tread.
- Pepe Escobar
(May 20, '13)
Assad counteroffensive reverberates loudly
Steady gains by regime forces by no means indicate they are about to win the Syrian civil war, even as the reversals suffered by the rebel forces and their penetration by ever-more extreme groups prompt international backers to have second thoughts about their support. Meanwhile, the potential for a spillover of violence in the region is growing.
- Victor Kotsev
(May 20, '13)
SPENGLER
Syria's madness and ours
While atrocities in Syria, such as the cannibalism viewable on YouTube, transfix the West, the real horrors of war are still to come in the Middle East. Americans, whose appetite for horror shows little sign of satiation, cannot abandon the region, but should avoid the conflict in the grim recognition that civilizations determined to destroy themselves cannot be prevented from doing so.
(May 20, '13)
China's influence spreads to Atlantic
A billion-dollar loan from a Chinese firm to Portugal and a free-trade deal between Beijing and Iceland's government have one thing in common - both potentially open the door to increased Chinese influence over the European countries' strategic holdings in the Atlantic Ocean. - Emanuele Scimia
(May 20, '13) |
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Time Taiwan joined global air-safety body
Around 50 domestic and foreign airlines fly from Taiwan to more than 100 international destinations, while some 1 million flights pass through its "flight identification region". Yet the island is excluded from the safety standard-setting International Civil Aviation Organization. It is time that changed, for the safety of all.
- David Brown
Alibaba stocks up on
mobile deals before share sale
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is going shopping for mobile-Internet related companies to match a transition of customers away from computers to smart-phones and tablets and in advance of a possible share sale that may raise more than US$70 billion. - Sherman So
(May 21, '13)
Russia leads the way
in post-Fukushima world
A Western backlash against nuclear power following the Fukushima plant disaster has seen atomic energy's contribution rolled back in numerous countries. Energy needs in developing nations demand acknowledgement that, thanks to Russian specialists, the impact of human error in the nuclear sector has considerably decreased.
- Igor Alexeev (May 21, '13)
CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
Financial euphoria
At this stage of an inflationary asset market boom, it's perfectly rational to double-down with the "house's money" and play for the spectacular big win, using unprecedented ultra-loose finance and government backstops to accumulate as much financial wealth as possible.
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
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Xi returns to California
By coincidence or not, the White House announcement on Monday appeared even as Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang was in the middle of his visit to India - that a US-China summit is scheduled to be held on June 7-8 in California.
- M K Bhadrakumar
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[Re Japan tips its hand via North Korea, May 21, '13] Japan announced a year or two ago that it would re-engage with North Korea as a handslap to South Korea over a territorial dispute on uninhabited islands. Pyongyang's nuclear test shelved that initiative. Now with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe back in power, reconnecting with the DPRK is on track.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam
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