In The News

The Economist: The Boycott of Qatar Is Hurting Its Enforcers

October 27, 2017
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt “closed their borders and cut diplomatic ties with Qatar” in June and in the four months since, the effects of the broad-based boycott have hit both ways, observes the Economist. The quartet continues to push the Qatar to stop supporting political Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and “to shut down Al Jazeera, the Arab world’s most popular...

The Washington Post: North Korean Ship Seized Off Egypt With Cache of Weapons

Joby Warrick October 2, 2017
A ship bearing the Cambodian flag with a North Korean crew was stopped just before entering the Suez Canal in August. Acting on a tip from US intelligence officials, Egyptian custom agents found more than 30,000 Soviet-style rocket-propelled grenades with removable, non-lethal warheads onboard– the “largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic...

Mail & Guardian: Land Reform Is a Broken Ladder

Leslie Bank and Tim Hart September 28, 2017
The rural people of South Africa expect land reform. Land is being redistributed, but the demand for small tracts is not being met, reports the Human Sciences Research Council, “as the state has sought to increase the percentage of land in black hands, it has focused increasingly on transferring large farms, often to established black businesses and commercial operators, rather than on supporting...

BusinessKorea: Saying Good-Bye to China

Michael Herh September 21, 2017
More than 25 percent of South Korea’s exports went to China as the world’s second largest market in 2013. “However, when the THAAD Incident broke out, excessive dependence on China boomeranged against South Korean companies,” writes Michael Herh for BusinessKorea. China found South Korean products less desirable; for example, Hyundai Motor sales plummeted by 50 percent, and South Korea – despite...

The Globe and Mail: China Used Research Mission to Test Trade Route Through Canada’s Northwest Passage

Robert Fife and Steven Chase September 13, 2017
China used a research icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, to check if Chinese cargo ships could rely on Canada’s Northwest Passage rather than the Panama Canal, reducing delivery time by 20 percent. The report came from Xinhau News Agency, which “also reported that China sent six merchant ships through Russia's Northeast Passage this summer as the world's second-largest economy hopes to take...

Washington Examiner: Trump Administration Waives Jones Act to Get Fuel to Florida Ports

Josh Siegel September 8, 2017
The US Merchant Marine Act of 1920, also known as the Jones Act, is often referred to as a case study in protectionism. Generally the act “prohibits any foreign built or foreign flagged vessel from engaging in coastwise trade within the United States,” explains the Maritime Law Center, noting that the courts have given wide interpretation and the “term applies to a voyage that beginning at any...

South China Morning Post: China-India Row as Catalyst?

Sarah Zheng August 28, 2017
India and China agreed to disengaging troops in the Doklam area of Bhutan after a two-month standoff. The announcement came just before the BRICS summit, starting September 3, for representatives of China and India as well as Brazil, Russia and South Africa. BRICS could be the ideal setting to develop an ongoing process for handling such disputes, suggest economists and researchers interviewed by...