– China’s foreign minister visits Japan for the first time since the DPJ took power. – China and Vietnam agree to boost economic ties. – China and Burma agree to establish railroad and banking links to facilitate resource flow. – Remarks by President Barack Obama in Korea reflect how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have transformed U.S. forces stationed there — like the Army reserves back home — into an operational, as opposed to a strategic, reserve. – The leader of the Hurriyat, a Kashmir political coalition advocating for self-determination, declared his support for the U.S.-China joint declaration regarding [...]
It is a strange kind of republic in which presidents serve for life. It is an even stranger one in which rulers inherit power from their fathers. Yet, that is the direction in which the Arab Republic of Egypt is headed. Egypt has experienced hereditary rule for millennia, from the pharaohs who began their reign 5,000 years ago to most (but not all) of the dynastic rulers who have called Cairo home for the last thousand years. The dissolution of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 marked a turning point in Egyptian politics, ushering in military control and eliminating privileges that [...]
In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the annual arrival of the holiday season brings with it the sinking realization that no matter the developments of the preceding 12 months, the end of the year will be accompanied by more violence, more sexual assault and more displacement of the civilian populations living in the shadow of the darkly beautiful volcanoes in the Kivu provinces. This year’s tragedy is tinged peacekeeper blue. The world’s largest and most expensive U.N. peacekeeping mission, MONUC, has now conducted nine months of joint operations with the Congolese army, the FARDC. But that dismal and undisciplined force [...]
