The World Trade Organization, long dependent on US trade policy, now struggles to intervene in the current trade war with China. The WTO is forced to remain a bystander as the United States blocks nominations to seats to the dispute settlement board even as the number of trade disputes rise....
Iranian and Hezbollah clerics have tried to co-opt the Egyptian opposition movement, suggesting that their brand of Islamic fundamentalism and 1979 revolution were influences. But the suggestion is outlandish, considering Iran’s brutal crackdown on its own young protesters seeking political and...
Iran and its ally Hezbollah have been quick to claim kinship with the mass demonstrations in Egypt, describing them as part of a "regional Islamic awakening," but the reaction from Egypt's own Islamic movement has been lukewarm.
The latest...
东盟作为一个促进地区经济发展和贸易的成功联盟，其地位在很大程度上未曾受过质疑。然而，该联盟在作为一个由现代民主国家组成的论坛 ，追求诸如人权之类的更为宏大的目标方面，该联盟表现不佳。事实上，印尼编者梅蒂亚塔玛•苏由蒂宁格拉特（Meidyatama Suryodiningrat）指出，涉及一些成员国的人权问题会减弱该联盟的相关性。差不多40年前，东盟创立，当时目的在于促进经济发展和稳定，因相当数量的成员国为专制国家，故尊重人权一直并非加盟的要件。实际上，对某些在侵犯人权方面劣迹斑斑的成员国，东盟一直是轻描淡写一带而过。缅甸即是一例，各成员国对它的指责无关痛痒，...
雅加达：12年以前，印尼已故外长阿里·阿拉塔斯（Ali Alatas）在为东盟向
如缅甸、柬埔寨、老挝等威权国家敞开大门进行辩护时曾指出，“无一国际组织将人权作为 加盟的条件，甚至联合国都没有”。随着印尼这个东盟最大成员国在民主方面大踏步的前进，以及其他国家（尤其是缅甸）对政治权利和公民权利的不断侵犯，重程 序轻实体的考量已然成为东盟一项挥之不去的责任。对东盟而言，缅甸现任政权既让新加坡这样的温和型威权政体、也让印尼这样蒸蒸日上的民主政体感到无比尴 尬。此种尴尬凸显于最近召开的东盟年度峰会。...
Speaking before the upcoming Asian-African Summit, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called on leaders from the two continents to initiate increased use of renewable energy. High investment costs and limited incentives make renewable energy a tough sell across the region. Yet as...
Amid the decline in conventional energy resources and rising global pollution, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono suggested on Monday that nations from Asia and Africa initiate the use of renewable energy resources...
The 21st century has ushered in less controlling social attitudes about sexual and gender identity, and wider acceptance has both reduced stigma and discrimination while revealing the prevalence of sexual attraction and gender categories that extend beyond traditional male/female relationships and...
Diversity and human rights: Transgendered Indians struggle for dignity, and LGBTQ supporters demonstrate in the United States
NEW YORK: With its antecedents brewing for decades, the 21st century has ushered in a sexual, gender and identity...
Strava is a social media site that aims to connect and motivate athletes around the globe: “Strava works with your mobile home or favorite GPS device to track your activities and share your efforts with friends.” An Australian student studying Middle East security, Nathan Ruser, studied Strava’s...
China’s active, even confident suppression of dissent has diminished western hopes for democracy in the world’s largest nation. “China’s foreign policy relies on keenly calculated self-interest, at the expense of the international institutions, standards and obligations the United States has sought...
Click here for the article in The New York Times.
Wesley K. Clark is a retired United States Army general, a former NATO supreme Allied commander in Europe and a consultant. He is the author, most recently, of Don’t Wait for the Next War: A...
After World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, world powers carved up the Middle East. The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres would have partitioned Turkey and created an autonomous Kurdistan, but Turkish nationalists rejected that plan. The Treaty of Lausanne that followed in 1923 granted independence...
Invasion looms? Kurds in Irbil protest the Turkish Parliament's decision to
authorize sending troops into northern Iraq
LONDON: The Kurdish problem has been a running sore for Iraq and Turkey since their emergence...
