In The News

Turn to Religion Split Suspects' Home

Alan Cullison, Paul Sonne, Anton Troianovski, David George-Cosh April 25, 2013
Investigators are scrutinizing every routine for the family of two brothers, 26 and 19 years old, who set off two homemade bombs at the Boston Marathon. The hope is to prevent a tragic repeat. The Wall Street Journal presents one of the more comprehensive reports, with attention focused on the family’s divide over religion. The mother and farther met in Elista, provincial capital of the Kalmykia...

To Lift Afghan Women, Educate All

Susan Froetschel April 8, 2013
As NATO plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, stability is in doubt for a country with inept governance and stubborn opposition from an obscurantist group. Crime reports from Afghanistan suggest the Taliban are waging attacks on police and schools, including the recent attack on a convoy delivering school textbooks, which killed a young US State Department staffer. NGOs and diplomats, often...

Can China and Turkey Forge a New Silk Road?

Anna Beth Keim, Sulmaan Khan January 18, 2013
China and Turkey are taking steps to reinvigorate their relationship and role as strong bookends to the Asian continent while encouraging new connections along the routes of the ancient Silk Road network. The two countries aim to boost bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2020, and plans are underway to connect Ankara and Beijing by rail. But there are complications, too. Turkey, NATO member, also...

Two Diverging Roads for Afghanistan

Thomas Barfield January 11, 2013
US President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are meeting throughout the day at the White House, developing specifics on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the US role in the region. Afghanistan faces two futures. “The direction depends on whether Afghanistan breaks its longstanding lack of economic integration with the outside world,” suggests Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan...

Iran’s Nuclear Program: Handle With Care

Jamsheed K. Choksy, Carol E. B. Choksy November 14, 2012
Both the United States and Iran must contend with polarized politics. Yet large majorities of Iranians and Americans do not support Iran’s development of nuclear capability for military purposes and do not want to start a war over the issue. An attack on Iran’s nuclear program, which it insists is for peaceful purposes, is useless because the knowhow is there, as it is in many other places, and...

Mongolia in Globalization’s Chokehold

Mark Juergensmeyer October 19, 2012
Landlocked Mongolia is in the heart of Asia, a land of great mineral resources and of rapid change since it abandoned communism in 1990 with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Mark Juergensmeyer, director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, visited shortly after that transition and more recently – ascribes many changes to the...

The Court Rules in Pakistan

Paula Newberg June 21, 2012
Pakistan has a history of its civilian government being removed from power by the military, and last week the country’s Supreme Court mounted what could be the first judicial coup. As Pakistan faces terrorist challenges, political turmoil and economic crises, the activist Supreme Court has compounded the challenges – ruling that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani’s contempt-of-court conviction...