President Obama faces two equally unpleasant alternatives if he wants to defeat Al Qaeda, according to Haider Mullick, Senior Fellow at the US Joint Special Operations University in this second part of a two part series on Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan Quandary. These alternatives are: help bolster...
Enemy to the west: Pakistanis demonstrate against Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who is accused of colluding with India
WASHINGTON: Breaking away from the President Bush’s goal of democratization of the Islamic...
Lake Sarez in Tajikistan began with an earthquake and a landslide that created a natural dam. Geologists express concern about stability of the dam and explore ways to relieve the water pressure, especially considering that water is in short supply in other parts of Central Asia. One idea is to...
Lake Sarez is a natural wonder of Tajikistan, containing 17 billion cubic meters of one of Central Asia’s scarcest commodities – water. Tajik leaders are now searching for a way to unlock the lake’s economic potential...
Washington’s uproar surrounding China’s handling of its currency risks becoming more than a trade spat, according to international trade expert Jeffrey E. Garten. If the US labels China a currency manipulator and imposes tariffs on Chinese goods, not only could this action wreck the recovery, as...
HONG KONG: As the April 15 deadline for the US Treasury to designate China as a “currency manipulator” approaches, the air is charged with electricity. Both Washington and Beijing have accused each other of engaging in protectionism in their...
China is caught in North Korea’s tangled web. As US Naval War College Professor Jonathan Pollack notes, despite offering economic life-support and friendly relations, Beijing does not seem able to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions nor can it extricate itself from supporting the isolated regime....
NEWPORT: The 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and North Korea earlier this month provided the occasion for a high-level Chinese visit. But Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s visit also underscored China’s daunting tasks in...
Britain, facing a March deadline, struggles to reach agreement on ending its EU membership. Increasing awareness about membership benefits has triggered second thoughts, and some leaders urge a second referendum. Ending Brexit would not be helpful for Britain or the EU, argues Markus Becker for...
Political leaders, frustrated by collapsing economies due to the Covid-19 pandemic, consider providing assistance for domestic companies to pull operations out of China. “The goal is threefold: Punish China for the coronavirus, eliminate a source of vulnerability in production lines of critical...
Value chain: Tim Cook, as chief operating officer for Apple and now CEO, spent years re-engineering an elaborate supply chain to produce the iPhone; workers assemble Apple products in a Taiwan assembly plant
NEW HAVEN: Global supply chains –...
With a trade war and rising tensions between China and the United States, ASEAN members offer substitute markets for both nations. To date in 2020, ASEAN members account for about 15 percent of China’s trade volume, compared with about 14 percent with Europe and 11 percent with the US, reports DBS...
Japan's language schools for foreigners are experiencing a reputation crisis. While trying to help their foreign students, many of whom are from China, to get through the college entrance exam in Japan, these schools have found that not all of the students are serious about learning and...
Students at the Japanese-language school Tokyo Nichigo Gakuin are encouraged to speak their minds, and to do so as fluently as possible.
Foreign students attend a class at Tokyo Nichigo Gakuin, a Japanese-...
