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Obama: A hapless and wandering minstrel
Prospects for the Geneva process on Syria may be looking less dismal today than at dawn in New York on Tuesday. Yet, what lingers after President Barack Obama's United Nations speech is the sense of a lone superpower in a diminished role as a hapless regional power, unable or unwilling to assert itself. An era seems to be ending.
- M K Bhadrakumar
(Sep 26, '13)
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Iran's liberalism shifts with oil price
 Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's decision to allow moderates in Iran to participate and ultimately win an election reflects a sober realization of the economic situation on the ground, but also mirrors past liberal stints in Iran when diminished oil revenues provoked a jolt towards democracy. Disheartening for diplomacy, removing sanctions could simply reawaken cocksure, oppressive governance.
- Amin Shahriar
(Sep 26, '13)
Taliban splinter groups damp peace talk
Peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban were a key part of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's electoral promise to end bloodshed. But with no end in sight to violence at the hands of Taliban splinter groups, Islamabad is reconsidering its offer of unconditional negotiations.
- Ron Synovitz and Majeed Babar
(Sep 26, '13)
Azeri presidential race a non-starter
The absence of visible campaigning for  next month's Azerbaijan presidential election on streets and airwaves underlines how the incumbent Ilham Aliyev dominates despite rising discontent over inequality, justice, education and healthcare. While government officials have reportedly used financial resources to tilt the playing field in Aliyev's favor, the opposition bears responsibility for poor preparation.
- Shahin Abbasov
(Sep 26, '13)
The real North Korean threat
Irresponsible farming by desperate North Koreans is leading to a spread of desert and semi-desert regions that, as much the North's nuclear posturing, could threaten the future of South Korea and Northeast Asia. Only long-term international engagement and cooperation can bring the North's ecosystem back from the brink of a catastrophe that will affect generations.
- Emanuel Pastreich
(Sep 26, '13)
SPEAKING FREELY
Libya: Still Gaddafi's fault?
Western media decrying a lack of support for Libya's nascent democracy blame poorly run institutions created by former dictator Muammar Gaddafi rather than the chaos that has followed "Operation Odyssey Dawn". At the forefront of critics seeking deeper US engagement are lobbyists for energy firms bemoaning the fact that an anticipated rebuilding bonanza is yet to materialize.
- Dieter Neumann
(Sep 26, '13)
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THE ROVING EYE
Rouhani surfs the new WAVE
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani came to the United Nations, listened "carefully" to US President Barack Obama officially recognize the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons - and then called for a global coalition for peace to replace coalitions for war - in effect a call for a World Against Violence and Extremism. Now for the heavy lifting ... - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 25, '13)
US, Iran trade cautious overtures at UN
Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani both put diplomatic cards on the table at the United Nations. The real action begins on Thursday in the nuclear arena, when US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif meet for the highest-level formal encounter of the two countries since 1979.
- Kitty Stapp
(Sep 25, '13)
Why Obama needs a pen pal in Tehran
US media say Hassan Rouhani offers a chance to break a cycle of successive US administrations trying their best to pull obstinate Iranian leaders towards democracy. The reality is that past approaches from Tehran were blocked because the Middle East balance of power was skewed in Washington's favor. Deft Russian diplomatic maneuvers have brought an end to that. - Ramzy Baroud
(Sep 25, '13)
The day Kim Il-sung died his first death
On a winter's day in 1986, loudspeakers on the North Korean side of the no-man's land that divides the Korean Peninsula began broadcasting news that Great Leader Kim Il-sung had been shot dead. The news died its death two days later when Kim appeared alive and well (he was to die eight years later). The mystery of the morbid propaganda lives on.
- Fyodor Tertitskiy
(Sep 25, '13)
Delusional reality of Pakistani peace
Pakistani political parties who blame the US's war on terror and drones attacks for the rise in militancy appear blind to factors such as the state's past support for sectarian outfits, the incapacity of law enforcement agencies to tackle terrorism and the impact of Islamization programs. Unless these root causes are recognized, militants will retain the strategic upper hand and peace talks will fail.
- Sameera Rashid
(Sep 25, '13)
Afghan women face growing threats
A series of abductions and assassinations of high-profile women in Afghanistan highlights dangers that limited rights gains will be reversed once international forces pull out of the country in 2014. Taliban kidnappers this month freed a female politician in exchange for the release of insurgent prisoners. - Mina Habib
(Sep 25, '13)
Laos looks for more workers
Laos says it needs to triple the number of foreign workers in the country to counter a shortage of skilled labor, even as locals suffer from a lack of job opportunities in projects such as hydropower dams and mines.
(Sep 25, '13)
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)
Putin wins the war on terror
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)
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)
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) |
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Almaty blaze leaves traders facing ruin
A blaze that devastated the most extensive market complex in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, has left traders struggling to recover, due to an absence of insurance and a government that insists landlords must shoulder responsibility.
- Stanislav Kraskov
MICHAEL PETTIS
After the party runs dry
A truly clever economist never makes a verifiable prediction, but two years after suggesting that once the current liquidity-driven boom subsides the BRICS nations and rest of the developing world will be hit hard, the prediction is looking unpleasantly close to reality.
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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Time to think big
on India's Iran ties
The US president Barack Obama was pipped to the Tehran post by Moscow by a whisker. Clearly, Obama planned his big announcement of making the historic overture to Tehran for the big annual occasion on Tuesday at Turtle Bay. But the Kremlin got wind of it, for sure. On Monday, Iranian media reported that Russia and Iran have reached agreement to build a new nuclear power plant at Bushehr.
- M K Bhadrakumar
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While Assad battles a CIA-funded insurgency (itself an illegal act of war), and civilians naturally are victims of the chaotic violence engulfing Syria, Obama is himself cold bloodedly murdering Afghan and Pakistani civilians willy nilly with his "collaterally damaging" drones.
Hardy Campbell
Texas
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