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Due to public holidays, Asia Times Online will next upload on Tuesday, April 2.
US, China and playful AfPak frogs
US Secretary of State John Kerry is learning bit-by-bit the secrets of the Asian bazaar and the frustrating problem of keeping live toads on the balancing scale. Mollifying Afghan President Hamid Karzai - even if that did not serve US interests - was one thing. Keeping the Big Frog, the Pakistan military, from then upsetting the pan was quite another. And the Big Frog is the one Washington needs the most.
- M K Bhadrakumar
(Mar 28, '13)
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Sabah crisis sends wider ripples
Government leaders in Manila and Kuala Lumpur, both facing electoral challenges in the near future, must go carefully in their handling of the fighting in Sabah initiated by a Philippines-based group laying claim to the Malaysian territory, which is home to thousands of their compatriots with many more living in peninsular Malaya.
- Richard Javad Heydarian
(Mar 28, '13)
The Syrianization of Syria rolls on
Syria is overtaking any other part of the world as the paradigm of complete fragmentation of a geographic and political entity. In the race to disintegration of the regime or the main rebel groups opposing it, the fissures may overtake the sweeping (and some say inaccurate) concept of Balkanization as shorthand for failed state.
- Victor Kotsev
(Mar 28, '13)
Iranian people caught in crossfire of duel
Dueling messages between United States President Barack Obama and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei make it clear that the Iranian people are caught in the rhetorical crossfire, as subjects to be wooed and courted but whose economic welfare is not of much concern. - Farideh Farhi
(Mar 28, '13)
The US's other dark legacy in Iraq
Often overlooked in post-mortems of the US occupation of Iraq is the spectacularly poor job the US did in governing the conquered state. From simple water and sewage to the provision and other basic utilities, Washington's knack at fostering corrupt practices has resulted in a failing state apparatus as much doomed by its inefficient foundations as today's woeful security situation. - Joy Gordon
(Mar 28, '13)
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South Korea, Japan: a reignited rivalry
 The ascendency of K-pop as Western interest fades in facets of Japanese pop culture that so intrigued in the 1990s reflects a shift in East Asia's power dynamic as Japan's post-World War II "economic miracle" drifts into memory. With territorial disputes replacing post-colonial tensions, it seems that despite Seoul and Tokyo's overlapping economic and security interests, another delicate stage in relations looms. - Jieh-Yung Lo
(Mar 28, '13)
Child-abuse victims jailed in Afghanistan
Activists in Afghanistan say children are imprisoned for "moral crimes" in some child-abuse cases while their adult assailants escape prosecution. The country's independent commission rights lists numerous cases. The government won't say how many abused children are in detention and describes the commission's claim as a lie. - Mina Habib
(Mar 28, '13)
SPEAKING FREELY
Anti-Hindu attacks rock Bangladesh
A wave of anti-Hindu attacks in Bangladesh launched by hardline Islamist group the Jammate-E-Islami Bangladesh has seen hundreds of temples, statues and shops demolished, with purportedly secular ruling party the Awami League failing to protect the minority by punishing the vandals. Unless the government takes aim at the extremist politics taking root, the nation's stability will be under threat. - Swadesh Roy
(Mar 28, '13)
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ASIA HAND
No war, no peace in Thailand
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has presided over a period of detente in the country's still unresolved political conflict, even as her brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra remains in self-exile. The sustainability of Yingluck's present position hinges on the interplay of her own threatened legal standing, Thaksin's strategic mindset, and the royal household's state of health. - Shawn W Crispin
(Mar 27, '13)
Passing the buck on North Korea
East Asian and Western calls for China to crackdown on North Korea, which surface each time the former's "little brother" launches another nuclear provocation, ignore the regional instability that would be unleashed if Beijing really cut off Pyongyang. The same critics seem blind to the real goal of the North's brinkmanship: security assurances, diplomatic recognition and trade concessions from the US. - Nadine Godehardt and David Shim
(Mar 27, '13)
Musharraf returns as Pakistani democrat
Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf has returned from self-exile amid death threats from Islamist extremists, criminal charges from the now-powerful judiciary, and his own aspirations for political power. The former dictator enters the stream as a democrat in the May general election but is unlikely to make much impact on a very changed country from the one he left four years ago.
- Syed Fazl-e-Haider
(Mar 27, '13)
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Iraq, 10 years later
Appreciation of Iraqi suffering was as absent from US coverage of last week's 10th anniversary of the invasion as at the time, with few Americans dwelling on the lives destroyed then or on the corrupt, failing state created today. As the two potential pillars of the US legacy - dismantling a dictatorship and delivering security - rapidly crumble, all that's left is chaos and death.
- Dahr Jamail
(Mar 27, '13)
Blunt sanctions fail to deter Iran
A new report based on interviews with senior Iranian political officials, analysts and businesses, shows that sanctions are failing in their stated aim of changing the course of Tehran's nuclear program. Amid the undercurrent of economic curbs as a means for effecting regime change, the blunt tool of sanctions must be sharpened by better diplomacy.
- Jasmin Ramsey
(Mar 27, '13)
THE ROVING EYE
BRICS go over the wall
Atlanticist, Washington-consensus fanatics who say the BRICS grouping is on its deathbed are blind to the reality that its members - while protecting the global economy from casino capitalism - will increasingly take a political role in a multipolar world. As the North is overtaken by the global South at a dizzying speed, all stagnant and bankrupt Western elites can do is cling on for grim life. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 26, '13)
SPENGLER
Obama converts
to neo-realism
With an Israeli-Palestinian agreement as unlikely as at any time in the past two decades, President Obama went to Israel for one simple reason - where else in the Middle East could he go? With the Passover holiday imminent, it was also a useful place to declare his own personal Exodus from idealism (as in Cairo 2009) to neo-realism and recognition of who is the US's only Mid-East ally.
(Mar 25, '13) |
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Race on for ports,
pipelines in Myanmar
While India envisions a democratized Myanmar as crucial to the "Look East" policy designed to expand Delhi's influence in that direction, China sees the country as a transshipment point for fuel piped overland. As competition ramps up for economic preeminence, the former pariah state could reap the most benefits. - Eric Draitser
WTO chief warns on
agriculture subsidies
Export subsidies for agricultural products are the most egregious form of trade-distorting support, leading to decreases in world prices, with negative consequences for producers and exporters from developing countries. The World Trade Organization secretary general calls for a recommitment to commodity sector development to promote growth and eradicate poverty. - Pascal Lamy
CREDIT
BUBBLE BULLETIN
Cyprus and money
Market participants have appeared confident that the German government will talk tough before caving and bit-by-bit backstopping the entire euro zone. Last week's high-stakes drama over Cyprus may have market players rethinking a few things.
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
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Catch a rising (Iranian) star
Exactly a month ago, when I wrote that a candidate to watch in the Iranian presidential elections on June 12 would be former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, it was a shot in the dark but also was a considered opinion after watching closely the Byzantine corridors of politics in Tehran and Qom in the recent months.
- M K Bhadrakumar
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[Re: BRICS go over the wall, Mar 26, 13] While the BRIC nations' developmental paths will no doubt be checkered, with its collective population exceeding 40% of the world total, the economic (and perhaps one day geopolitical) bloc's best days yet lie ahead.
John Chen
USA
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