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RUSSIAN DIPLOMACY
Moscow issues Eurasia ultimatum
Russian President Vladimir Putin is drawing new battle lines to protect his Eurasian Union project, which aims at integrating the former Soviet republics under Moscow's leadership. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's "all or nothing" threat to Ukraine to cease flirtations with Europe and revert its eyes eastward is telling: Russia is concerned that the "defection" of its biggest neighbor will undermine ambitions to build more strategic depth.
- M K Bhadrakumar
(Sep 24, '13)
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Putin wins the war on terror
Russian President Vladimir Putin's policy of combating jihadists wherever possible and his will to put Russia's full diplomatic and military weight behind his fight against terror are in stark contrast to the Obama administration's focus on dialogue and humanitarian actions. Russia's international prestige is growing as it outplays the US in a fight it started but seems unable to finish.
- Riccardo Dugulin
(Sep 24, '13)
Optimists to fore before Iran-US encounter
Behind the historical brush between two presidents being lined up as an "accidental" encounter at the UN are deliberate signs of detente between the United States and Iran. Against a background of grumblings of appeasement, old hands are remarkably optimistic that some breakthrough in relations is possible after 34 years of hostility.
- Jim Lobe
(Sep 24, '13)
SINOGRAPH
Parochial limits to
China's world view
China's responses to the political crisis in Taiwan and to the Syrian malaise reflect distinctly different approaches; Taiwan prompting rumblings over the limits of democracy, and events in Damascus bringing stoic, non-interventionist silence. The common thread through both is a parochial approach to politics that suggests nationalism keeps Beijing out of touch with international destiny. - Francesco Sisci
(Sep 24, '13)
Christians protest Pakistan church killings
The deaths of more than 80 Christians in a suicide-bomb attack on a Peshawar church brought protest rallies in cities across Pakistan. With a string of attacks against the Christian minority, the response adds to past criticism that the government in the troubled northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is failing to protect a community regarded as a soft target by Islamist militants. - Syed Fazl-e-Haider
(Sep 24, '13)
Philippines struggles with Muslim rebels
The Muslim rebel siege in the Christian-majority Zamboanga City has exposed the fragility of security in the southern Philippines and dealt powerful blows both to the government's peace initiatives and to genuine expectations of a new era of stability and economic prosperity in the region. - Richard Heydarian
(Sep 24, '13)
FROM OUR AFRICAN PARTNER
Nairobi attack: Why Kenya and why now?
When Kenya sent thousands of soldiers across the border to hunt down al-Shabaab in Somalia, the Islamist militant group warned they would get their revenge. On Saturday, and through the weekend, the nightmares promised by al-Shabaab became a bloody, body-strewn reality.
- Simon Allison
SPEAKING FREELY
Modi and minority rights
Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate for prime minister in 2014, strikes a competent figure for those wishing to entrust the Indian economy to his hands. But the controversial record of the Gujarat chief minister shows he is the wrong man for minority rights, the unbiased rule of law, and secularism.
- Liam Anderson
(Sep 24, '13)
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THE ROVING EYE
Welcome to the Hotel Bo Xilai
When rising tiger turned crouching criminal Bo Xilai checks into his prison cell in the hills north of Beijing, courtesy of the Chinese Communist Party, he'll have all the trappings of a corrupt Mob boss in a California jail. Many powerful friends in the party would be bang to rights with him if his conviction was all about corruption. Instead, Bo waits for his key ally in Beijing to join him. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 23, '13)
No next act for shamed princeling
Many of Bo Xilai's supporters still hope for his exoneration and rehabilitation, even as the shamed former senior Communist Party member starts a life sentence in jail. His famed father showed what can be done in the political Lazarus stakes by surviving a decade-long purge to rise once more to the top. But this is one Bo who will not bounce back. - Kent Ewing
(Sep 23, '13)
INTERVIEW
Zarif turbocharges Iran's diplomacy
New Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad  Javad Zarif has a diplomatic marathon to run in New York this week, where the eyes of the world are on his country at the UN General Assembly. Zarif brings turbocharged energy to a portfolio that includes nuclear negotiations and the belief that it is time to tell the US that "the free lunch is over" on sanctions.
- Kaveh L Afrasiabi
(Sep 23, '13)
Soviet lessons for China in Xinjiang
While China's presence in the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region resembles Russia's colonization of Central Asia countries in the Soviet era, the fact that segregation and revolts were less common in the latter suggests nationalities like the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz found it easier to relate to their northern neighbors. Nonetheless, Beijing's combination of huge monetary investment and a carrot-and-stick policy for its restive Uyghur people is having results. - Igor Rotar
(Sep 23, '13)
Syria diplomacy helps shuffle global order
The United States has lost the respect and the belief of the international community as power gradually diffuses on a global scale. That is one lesson to be learned from US President Barack Obama's failure to gain followers to attack Syria. Another is the striking influence of grassroots opinion on international policy, not seen since the Vietnam War. - George Gao
(Sep 20, '13)
Shanghai to top Hong Kong
Shanghai's efforts to reclaim its 1920s' role as East Asia's center of trade and finance are moving forward fast, and the days of Hong Kong being the primary venue in China for financial transactions could be numbered.
- Dan Steinbock
(Sep 20, '13)
THE ROVING EYE
Obama-Rouhani: lights, camera, action
Though a meeting with Barack Obama at the UN next Tuesday is by no means certain, it's well-established that the stage is set for President Hassan Rouhani's administration to talk directly to Washington about Tehran's nuclear program. The question is whether Obama will have the "heroic flexibility" to face 34 years of history and stare down the spoilers. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 19, '13)
Israel, eying Iran, comes off Syria fence
A statement by Israel's ambassador  to the US, Michael Oran, makes clear Tel Aviv's preference for the "bad guys" fighting Bashar al-Assad (rather than the "bad guys" who now run Syria). The timing of the pronouncement of support for US-backed forces signals further twists in the Syrian civil war, and focuses minds on the possibility of a grand bargain between Washington and Tehran.
- Victor Kotsev
(Sep 18, '13)
SPENGLER
US plays Monopoly,
Russia plays chess
As Russia's president carefully gauges how each Syria maneuver impacts on Moscow's spheres of interest, the US administration continues to view geopolitical real estate in isolation. The big prize is a restoration of Russia's great power status, and as American popular revulsion over foreign intervention intensifies, Vladimir Putin can simply wait as the clock runs down. - Spengler
(Sep 16, '13) |
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Xi Jinping brings out Central Asia critics
President Xi Jinping's visit to Central Asia this month underlined the region's growing importance to China. As his officials handed out loans and signed financial deals, critics ramped up their claims of dangerous Chinese expansion.
- Fozil Mashrab
THE BEAR'S LAIR
WTO becoming useless
New World Trade Organization chief Roberto Azevedo may yet surprise us, but there are increasing signs that the WTO can’t do its job and may ultimately preside over a collapse in world trade. If so, the world will have only itself to blame. - Martin Hutchinson
CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
The Fed goes too far
The Federal Reserve's decision to furlough QE "tapering" means that this time it has pushed the envelope too far. It is yet another blunder by chairman Ben Bernanke's team, and the likely price will be only greater market instability.
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
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US-India ties in transition
The absence of Robert Blake, the former assistant secretary of state in the US state department’s bureau for south and central asia, is keenly felt. Blake would have raised high expectations by now over the “working visit” of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the White House hardly five days from now, on Friday. There is no (misleading) rhetoric this time from the American side.
- M K Bhadrakumar
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[Re Soviet lessons for China in Xinjiang, Sep 23, '13] The Soviets never tried to overwhelm through massive implantations of Russians. China does, to the point of overwhelming the Uyghurs so much that they feel strangers in their own land.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Messina, Italy
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