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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)
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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) |
US-IRAN TIES: A SPORTING CHANCE
The basketball bridge
Jonas Lalehzadeh, as an American-born basketball player who plays in Iran and for the Islamic Republic's national team, has more insight than most into how passionate Iranians are about the sport. Insisting that sport transcends politics, Lalehzadeh says his fans forget about tensions whenever the National Basketball Association and its players such as Kobe Bryant are mentioned.
- Garrett Nada
(May 21, '13)
SPEAKING FREELY
The decline of Malaysian apartheid
Scapegoating of Chinese in the wake of its disappointing recent polls reflects the degree to which the United Malay National Organization, leader of Malaysia's ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, remains invested in perpetuating race-based politics. However, there are clear signs of the demise of that model as desires grow for an inclusive modern nation free of corruption. - Sunil Kukreja
(May 20, '13)
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Thein Sein heads to the White House
Myanmar President Thein Sein is poised to receive red carpet treatment today at the White House in Washington even as his army wages war against Kachin inside his country and religious violence scars the Southeast Asian nation. Of more importance to Washington is progress in its ties with Myanmar's military, starting with the navy, and issues of regional security. - Bertil Lintner
(May 20, '13)
Myanmar needs a new nationalism
The development of violent outbursts against Mynamar's Muslim population has brought Burmese Buddhists to a crossroads in which they need to initiate conversations about the ways in which the Buddhist community should adapt to the reality of multiculturalism without abandoning its distinctive core values.
- Matthew J Walton
(May 20, '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)
Are Kaesong curtains drawn for good?
Those Pyongyang watchers who insist there is a calculated strategy behind its escalation of tensions likely find it hard to explain the rationale behind its closure of the Kaesong industrial complex. In sacrificing the joint complex, Kim Jong-eun hoped to show his steel and scotch a potential source of ideological contamination. But such moves simply open the door to Chinese domination of the economy.
- Aidan Foster-Carter
(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)
Fox leads US tiger into China's crosshairs
 "Irritating Japan" is well on its way to replacing "Rising China" as the meme favored by the United States as Abe Shinzo's new nationalism exploits US backing to advance its own goals. Beijing sees "the fox pretending to the tiger's might". Tokyo is pushing bigger game, the weakened US Asian "pivot" itself, into Beijing's crosshairs.
- Peter Lee
(May 17, '13)
THE ROVING EYE
Catfight - and it's US vs EU
Forget about the Pentagon "pivoting" to Asia; nothing compares with the catfight developing between the United States and European Union over a free-trade pact proposed by Brussels, feared by many in Europe, and now pursued with a vengeance by Washington. Much lies in the hands of a European determined to be a personal winner in this transatlantic tussle, whatever its revolutionary potential.
- Pepe Escobar
(May 17, '13)
DYSFUNCTION TRILOGY
 The phase that launched
a thousand bubbles
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has presided over a thousand economic bubbles. Rather than ushering in investors who could help turn around economies, he and his ilk have created a class of traders who roil asset prices and maximize leverage, but produce no lasting benefits.
- Chan Akya (May 17, '13)
This ends a three-part series.
Part 1: Keynes stole your ship
Part 2: Bernanke stole your pension |
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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
SPEAKING FREELY
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
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 Snaking the Scotch, May 6, '13]Is it hubris or perhaps it's an example of religious bigotry to imply one's own God is so important and "true" that other Gods are "marginalized".
Jon Lonergan
Australia
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