An avalanche of secrets exposed by a former National Security Agency contract worker is complicating US relations with southern neighbors. Reports allege that the United States spied on countries regardless of poor or good relations. Stopping the Bolivian president’s plane in Europe for a few hours...
Trading accusations: The Bolivian president's aircraft is forced to land and searched by Austrian police in the Vienna airport (top); Brazilian President Rousseff with President Morales, united in denouncing the US
MEXICO CITY: The Latin American...
The motto of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is “One Vision, One Identity, One Community.” But the economic powerhouse to the north – China – directs more attention to ASEAN’s mainland members in the Greater Mekong subregion than its maritime members. The subregion comprises of five...
CANBERRA: Last year the Association of Southeast Asian Nations celebrated its 43rd anniversary with fanfare, but cracks were visible in the organization. Thanks to the lopsided development of the Greater Mekong Subregion, propelled by China with...
If the world’s fertility rates remain constant, global population would more than triple and reach 26 billion by the end of the century. However, many demographers assume fertility rates will ease. The most commonly used projection assumes that global fertility rates decline to 2 births per women...
African challenge: While the continent is set to make the world a highly populous place, a growing rank of unemployed head across the Mediterranean in search of opportunity
NEW YORK: World population, now 7.4 billion, is at a record high and will...
A New York Times article on May 5 says that “tacitly acknowledging that North Korea may not be deterred from producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, President Bush is now trying to marshal international support for preventing the country from exporting nuclear material.” While preventing the...
Pakistan test launches Ghauri, the renamed North Korean Nodong and [inset] Kim Jong Il: Washington wants to choke off this export.
SEOUL: It is still uncertain whether North Korea, as it claims, really possesses, or is capable of producing,...
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made the decision to present terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and Iraq as a linked triple threat. Susan Moeller, professor of media and international affairs at the University of...
White House press room: The US media listened too much to the White House and ignored independent experts.
WASHINGTON: Although Americans were already shivering from frissons of fear provoked by the post -...
Governments can set goals to compete in specific industries, and South Korea’s global ambition is to exceed other countries in advanced robotics. Currently the nation ranks fourth in development of industrial robots, after Japan, the United States and the EU. The three nations and Germany represent...
Click here for the article in Bloomberg Businessweek.
Chile has formed a Constituent Assembly, charged with proposing a new constitution. Bruce Ackerman, constitutional law professor of Yale University, offers guidance and maintains that the assembly should not include delegates who are members of the existing government. “If you allow the existing...
"One of the great ironies of the Chilean situation is that its Constitution was imposed by a military dictator and yet the country has conducted seven entirely fair presidential elections over the past thirty years.” – Bruce Ackerman, Sterling...
A bloodless coup transformed Thailand’s absolute monarchy into a constitutional system in 1932, yet the country does not enjoy full democracy today. Thailand’s elite do not trust citizens with decision-making, and there is a “reinvention of modern-day authoritarianism in the form of a triumvirate...
