|
|
|
Mindanao examines rebel siege scars
Using "human shields" for their rebel siege was never going to endear the Moro National Liberation Front to the people of Mindanao. But as the badly scarred Zamboanga City, with over 100,000 displaced people, regroups after last month's sustained attacks, reflection is due on the chain of events that lead to urban warfare in the southern Philippines, beginning with a 1996 peace deal. - Sergio de la Tura
(Oct 2, '13)
|
Netanyahu pours scorn on Rouhani
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his turn at the UN General Assembly to dampen euphoria surrounding hopes for detente following Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's reception at the same podium last week. Netanyahu described Rouhani as a "wolf in sheep's clothing" and urged the US to keep up the sanctions pressure to "knock out Iran's nuclear weapons program".
- Jim Lobe
(Oct 2, '13)
Abe shoots blanks in New York
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's concern expressed at the United Nations over a rise in China's military budget conveniently ignored that the increase is line with the China's economic expansion. Meanwhile, Japan's defense spending is outstripping national growth as it surges to its highest since the Cold War. Little wonder Beijing responded by pointing to Tokyo's imperial past.
- Brendan P O'Reilly
(Oct 2, '13)
COMMENT
Sisi can't break Egypt-Gaza bonds
The new Egyptian ruler's orders to  destroy tunnels to Gaza and close the Rafah border are particularly painful for Palestinians who have long seen Egypt as the "mother" of Arab nations. Despite what modern regimes in Cairo such as General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi's do to please Washington and Tel Aviv, Palestinians and Egyptians share a historic bond that politics can't break.
- Ramzy Baroud
(Oct 2, '13) |
People pressure puts patronage on trial
Filipino protesters are piling pressure on President Benigno Aquino to clamp down on corruption after "the mother of all scams", a US$220 million scandal in which legislators allegedly created ghost public works to line their own pockets. While Aquino has vowed to prosecute officials, some say he should seize the chance to upend the entire political-patronage system in the Philippines.
- Richard Heydarian
(Oct 2, '13)
SPEAKING FREELY
India and Pakistan have to walk the talk
While India has said Pakistan must cease being "the epicenter of terrorism in our region" before a historic settling of differences, Delhi will face difficult decisions of its own - principally over Kashmir - along the roadmap being proposed towards peace. Viewing rapprochement as key to its plans to remain in Afghanistan, the United States can be relied upon to nudge the doubting couple together.
- Irshad Salim
(Oct 2, '13)
 To submit to
Speaking Freely click
here |
Thai army: new line-up, same fault-lines
Today's reshuffle of the Thai military top ranks,  the first directly overseen by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, points to her party's bid to assert more civilian control over commanders responsible for the 2006 coup that ousted her brother, former premier and current ruling party de facto leader Thaksin Shinawatra. A rise in factionalism, with implications for political stability, appears the order of the day.
- John Cole and Steve Sciacchitano
(Oct 1, '13)
THE ROVING EYE
Breaking American exceptionalism
What if the US government actually shut down to mourn the passing of Breaking Bad, arguably the most astonishing show in the history of television? It would be nothing short of poetic justice - as Breaking Bad is infinitely more pertinent for the American psyche than predictable cheap shots at Capitol Hill.
- Pepe Escobar
(Oct 1, '13)
SINOGRAPH
A devious blueprint
to empower the party
Everything has to change in order to change nothing. That is the central message of an ingenious blueprint for the Chinese Communist Party to retain power in the face of worries that reforms may stall and lead back to a Maoist path. According to the blueprint, in charting a course to make China great President Xi Jinping would do well to look to Western democracies for inspiration. Timing is everything.
- Francesco Sisci
(Oct 1, '13)
Middle East turns
a deaf ear to the US
The United States' authority in the Greater Middle East was slumping well before Barack Obama entered the Oval Office. The process has accelerated in the wake of the Arab Spring, with Egyptian generals, Saudi princes, Iraqi Shi'ite leaders and Israeli politicians now regularly defying Washington's diktats. The role reversal is a far cry from the pacified region neoconservatives envisioned. - Dilip Hiro
(Oct 1, '13)
Interrogating an Assad militiaman
Pro-government militamen or shabiha captured by rebel forces in Syria often admit to multiple killings and rapes, while claiming that poverty and violence coercion forced them to join the Assad regime's forces. Though shabiha are eager to make such confessions, telling all is unlikely to help them escape the rebels' brutal and rudimentary justice system.
- Shelly Kittleson
(Oct 1, '13)
THE BEAR'S LAIR
Many more defaults coming
In the past five years, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has allowed us a financial holiday from history, with defaults and disasters being remarkably scarce, given the severity and duration of the downturn. This is about to change. - Martin Hutchinson
(Oct 1, '13)
Obama moves on Iran, Putin keeps Syria
Russian triumphalism over the UN resolution on Syria's chemical weapons contrasts with US President Barack Obama's inaudible sigh of relief at the weekend that he can avoid military action - for the present at least - and focus on the feelgood Iran file. Yet amid celebrations that Washington and Moscow actually agree on something, a dark foreboding is simmering away. - M K Bhadrakumar
(Sep 30, '13)
Islamabad forced to rethink India policy
As Pakistan increasingly realizes that terrorism and militancy are by-products of its strategic depth maneuvers in the 2000s, instinctive mistrust of India is fading. The benefits of peace will also soon become clear, with high hope invested in the success of bilateral dialogue that such as that between the countries' prime ministers on Sunday.
- Deedar Hussain Samejo
(Sep 30, '13)
Pakistan rots from the top down
Pakistan's capacity for change has been badly fractured as its moral, intellectual and political consciousness is undermined by incompetent, corrupt leaders. Unless the people can develop a collective consciousness and focus on putting a younger, educated generation in power, the violence will continue and Pakistan will never fulfill its destiny of becoming a peaceful Muslim nation.
- Mahboob A Khawaja
(Sep 30, '13)
|
|
|
 |
Hong Kong refuses
to bank on Alibaba's
next treasure trove
Alibaba's multi-billion dollar initial public offering looks set to go to New York rather than Hong Kong. With it goes share dealing not just in China's biggest e-commerce outfit, but also what is set to be the country's future top private financial group. - Gabriele Battaglia
Xi builds up power
in Central Asia
Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent sweep through Central Asia, involving billions of dollars in trade and other contracts, was treated lightly by Russia. A photograph of the region's leaders in Kyrgyzstan last month suggests a different story.
CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
Z1 and the doves
An economy on firm footing would demonstrate at least a reasonable balance within the real and financial sectors. We instead see ultra-low interest-rates and inflated incomes, corporate cash flows and earnings and a Federal Reserve struggling with even the most timid reduction of monetary inflation.
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
|
|
Why Saudis are
upset with Obama
The Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal used the meeting of the Friends of Syria ministerial forum meeting at New York on Friday to launch an attack on the US-Russian initiative on chemical weapons. He said the initiative should have been followed up with a UN Security Council resolution under Chapter VII.
- M K Bhadrakumar
|
|
The mirage of Amerikan exceptionalism making us unique on the planet and thus inherently superior in our value system to anyone else on earth has long been considered a bedrock of our collective ideology.
H Campbell
Texas
|
|
Go to Letters to the Editor |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this website is
copyright and may not be republished in any form without written permission.
Copyright 1999 - 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings),
Ltd. Plesk.
|
|
Head Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li
Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East, Central, Hong Kong
Thailand Bureau: 11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua
Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
