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Earlier this month, the leaders of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and host country Thailand gathered for the first-ever Mekong River Commission (MRC) summit to discuss the future of the Mekong, one of the world’s longest and most resource-rich rivers. There was much to discuss. The Mekong — which flows through China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, and provides food, water, and transport for about 65 million people — is now at its lowest level in two decades due to a prolonged drought. Its future is also in peril due to a host of natural and man-made threats. Unless riparian states […]

Last week, I highlighted the “bad news” that came out of Brasilia with regards to Washington’s Iran policy. There was, however, a silver lining that should not be ignored. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva hosted two meetings that week — that of the Brazil-Russia-India-China group (BRIC) and another for the India-Brazil-South Africa forum (IBSA). What is interesting to note is that China’s interest in playing a greater role in IBSA — with some even talking about expanding that group to become CHIBSA — was politely rebuffed. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stressed that IBSA is not simply a […]

Nick Clegg’s boyish good looks and silver tongue have been compared to former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair. But the more appropriate comparison is with U.S. President Barack Obama. For the unexpected surge in popularity of the neophyte leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats is proving to be transformative. British politics, it seems, will never be the same again. Until the first televised leaders’ debate in the current electoral season, Clegg’s party was unable to break through the 20 percent barrier in the polls. Within hours of that first debate, the Lib Dems had catapulted to more than 30 percent. And […]

When the finance ministers of the G-20 nations met on the sidelines of the annual IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington last weekend, it marked the sixth time they had convened since the fall of 2008. When the G-20 leaders meet this summer in Toronto, the total number of summits held since the global financial crisis erupted will hit double digits. And yet, despite early cooperation that addressed the global liquidity shortfall, little substantial progress has been made in the area of international financial regulation. Given the trauma that the entire world economy has suffered, in part due to a lack […]

One week ago, headlines around the world announced a definitive decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The news, on the surface, was not good. “Netanyahu Rejects Settlement Freeze,” shouted newspapers the world over. But there was something a little too final about the announcement. For months since U.S. President Barack Obama had demanded a freeze in construction in the Occupied Territories, Netanyahu had been seeking a formula to placate Washington. Now, suddenly, his office was eagerly confirming the news that he was giving a firm, “No,” to Israel’s most important ally. It was all a little suspicious. Few items […]

Despite fist fights and smoke bombs within the parliament building as well as protests outside the Supreme Rada, Ukrainian legislators yesterday ratified the controversial Russian-Ukraine base-for-gas agreement. According to the deal’s provisions, in exchange for Moscow accepting lower prices for Ukraine’s gas purchases, the Russian Navy can remain at its Sevastopol base in the Crimea for another 25 years after the current lease expires in 2017. Ukrainian protesters attacked the new government under President Viktor Yanukovych for allegedly “trading sovereignty for gas.” While the precise amount of revenues that Russia will forego by subsidizing gas sales to Ukraine will depend […]

Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna returned from Beijing this month with bombshell news. Krishna said Chinese authorities had finally admitted what the Indian government had long suspected: Beijing is building a massive, power-generating dam on China’s Tsang Po river, which also runs through India — where it is known as the Brahmaputra — and Bangladesh. Amid protests, Krishna reassured the public. “We have an expert-level mechanism to address the issue,” the minister said during a meeting of parliament, according to press reports. “A meeting of experts from both India and China is scheduled to take place between April 26-29 […]

Pakistan may not have been able to secure a nuclear deal from Washington, but it seems to have sewn up an agreement for building additional reactors with longtime ally China. Announced late last month, the agreement comes at a time when Pakistan’s economy remains moribund, even as its energy requirements continue to rise. While this specific deal is unlikely to make a significant dent on Pakistan’s energy deficit anytime soon, it nevertheless serves as a symbol of the durability of the Sino-Pakistani “all-weather friendship” against which Islamabad often judges its relations with Washington. The two countries will proceed on the […]

At a meeting last week in Tallinn, Estonia, the foreign ministers of NATO’s member states began addressing the question of what to do about the estimated 200 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. The missiles’ controversial presence is shaping up to be the most important issue facing the alliance’s heads of state during their November 2010 summit in Lisbon. Many critics argue that these weapons have no plausible military purpose. In a World Politics Review briefing early last month, Johan Bergenäs offered a variety of reasons why the Obama administration should unilaterally withdraw […]

At first glance, it is difficult to put a positive spin on hardliner Dervis Eroglu’s victory in Turkish Cyprus’ presidential elections on April 18. The result certainly challenges the future of negotiations to reunify the 1.1 million inhabitants of the Mediterranean island, 80 percent of whom are Greek Cypriots and 20 percent Turkish Cypriots. Eroglu, who has been prime minister of the self-declared Turkish Republic of North Cyprus for 19 of its 27 years, won just over 50 percent of the votes. President Mehmet Ali Talat, the pro-compromise incumbent whose pledge to solve the Cyprus problem had brought him to […]

The last few months have witnessed a resurgence in expert chatter on the possible demise of Kim Jong Il’s rule in North Korea. Growing evidence of regime frailty has focused attention on potential scenarios of endgame dynamics, most of which feature some combination of Kim striking out against the West, and China being forced to step in to prevent the dreaded refugee flow north. But while the nuclear issue remains a driver of Western policy toward North Korea, China’s current focus seems less ideological than predatory. Like a mafia don “busting out” a victimized business partner, Beijing now seems mainly […]

The summit meetings held last week in Brasilia — of both the India-Brazil-South Africa forum (IBSA) and the Brazil-Russia-India-China group (BRIC) — seem to confirm that any Iran sanctions resolution likely to secure passage in the United Nations Security Council will not live up to the Obama administration’s expectations. The leaders of the emerging “world without the West” — who all traveled to the Brazilian capital after attending the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington — were able to compare notes from their bilateral meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama as well as from other communications with senior U.S. officials. Indian […]

On May 9, voters in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) take to the polls to decide what in the past has typically been a quiet, local parliamentary election with little impact on the national agenda. This year, however, is different. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her center-right Christian Democratic Union-Free Democratic Party coalition government are in danger of losing the Bundestag, the upper house of the German government, in the elections. Plagued by infighting and the inability to agree on a comprehensive agenda, the coalition has stumbled through a number of domestic missteps, from an unpopular tax […]

Voters in Colombia are reluctantly preparing for life without the man they view as the nation’s savior. On May 30, they will go to the polls to elect a successor to President Alvaro Uribe, the leader they chose eight years ago in a bold break with tradition. It was a decision that paid off spectacularly for a country that stood perched on the brink of catastrophe. But Uribe’s success in tackling the nation’s problems and his resulting sky-high approval ratings created a dangerous challenge for the country’s democracy. Colombians pondered the prospect of granting their president an unprecedented third term. […]

The tragedy in Bangkok on Saturday, April 10, marked what is for now the low point of the ongoing political crisis that has plagued Thailand since mid-2005. The deadliest political violence the country has seen in almost 20 years claimed a total of 24 lives, including 18 protesters, 5 soldiers and a Japanese news cameraman, and injured more than 800 people. On the surface, the incident appeared to be a clash between the soldiers and the so-called “Red Shirt” protesters. In reality, however, Thailand’s political struggle is much more complex and involves multiple players, each with their own specific, and […]

On March 30, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak unveiled a new growth strategy designed to transform Malaysia into a high-income economy by 2020. But while the New Economic Model (NEM) contains much-needed reforms to boost Malaysia’s economy and political image in the face of dwindling foreign investment and rising competition, severe doubts remain about whether Najib can actually implement them. The NEM pledges to boost Malaysia’s per capita annual income from the present $7,000 to $15,000 through a raft of measures, including enhancing the role of the private sector, improving worker skills and productivity, and reducing the dependence on foreign […]

On April 16, a Chadian helicopter with at least three people aboard crashed in Adre, a town abutting the border with Sudan in the desert region shared by the two countries. One person died in the crash, while two were injured. The incident was an unwelcome reminder of five years of conflict between the two impoverished nations — even as that conflict finally shows signs of winding down. On April 17, the two countries re-opened their official border crossings. “Sudanese taxis are going back and forth and so are the people,” a government official in Adre told AFP. Until a […]