September was supposed to be the month in which operations began at a rare earth processing facility located in Kuantan, Malaysia, a fast-growing port city situated along the South China Sea. The project, awarded to the Australian-based Lynas Corporation, was originally envisaged as a lofty effort at breaking the Chinese monopoly of the production of […]
Once again, it’s time for business leaders to step forward As earlier posts have argued, relations between Washington and New Delhi – which not too long ago seemed destined to reach for the stars – are now feeling the heavy tug of gravity. In place of soaring rhetoric and high-profile undertakings, ties between the two […]
Just a quick post to draw attention to a short piece by Georgetown’s Victor Cha, who, while touring China with the Hoyas, witnessed the Great Brawl of China first hand. Given Cha’s up-close and personal experience of the event and his recent book on the politics of sport in East Asia, he is doubly qualified […]
U.S. ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten American diplomats, under the leadership of U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten, met the 16-member senate majority on Wednesday Aug. 24, 2011 in an attempt to break through the political stalemate depriving the country of a government, thus bringing major reconstruction efforts to a screeching halt. More than 100 […]
Turkey’s policy in Libya raises questions of how patient it will be with neighbor Syria. In an effort to show Turkey’s leading role in Libya, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutolgu arrived in Benghazi, Tuesday (August 23rd), to meet with the leaders of the National Transitional Council (NTC), becoming the first foreign minister to visit Libya […]
The Palestinian’s unilateral declaration of statehood at the United Nation’s in September is right around the corner, but what was initially considered by some as a shrewd maneuver to force their terms as part of the peace process is now facing a much larger uphill battle. Given that the peace process — propelled by […]
The government said Tuesday that Japan’s jobless rate climbed to 4.7 percent in July, up 0.1 percent from a month earlier, while household spending fell a real 2.1 percent to 280,046 yen ($3,649). While a jobless rate of 4.7 percent seems relatively low considering that the U.S.’s unemployment rate for July was 9.3 percent, this […]
In her most recent post at CFR’s Asia Unbound, Elizabeth Economy lays out the range of Chinese reactions to PM Noda’s election, which has spanned, in her words, “from the bleak to the belligerent.” She writes, “Chinese analysts point out that the prime minister has not renounced his comments to the effect that Class-A Japanese […]
As Russia desperately struggles to make amends with Libya’s rebel government, a fantastic new article uncovers some amazing parallels between Libya’s revolution and Russia’s transition from Communism. Writing in the Exiled, the web-only successor of the defunct Russian gonzo paper, “War Nerd” Gary Brechter observes that Gaddhafi’s Libya and Brezhnev’s Russia were very similar: Libya […]
Oil giant Exxon Mobil has secured a contract with Russia’s state oil company, Rosneft, to explore the floor of the Arctic Ocean for oil. At a surprise signing ceremony in Sochi, site of the coming Winter Olympics, Vladimir Putin stated, “The scale of the investment is very large. It’s scary to utter such huge figures.” […]
This isn’t going to be one of my typical analytical postings, but there was some interesting news as well as a few fascinating/disturbing videos that were brought to my attention this week that I felt I simply had to share. Firstly, there was a chilling scene outside a Phnom Penh money exchange yesterday that resulted […]
On the occasion of Eid, the celebration at the end of the month of Ramadan, Mullah Omar declared the Taliban are willing to deal politically with the U.S and President Karzai’s government Kabul. The Taliban leader let it be known that even though he is now principally interested in a workable prisoner swap, in the […]
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