On July 21, I tweeted the following reflection: “A society can govern itself with custom instead of modern law, tribal system instead of government; (however) it cannot ride both horses at the same time.” Reacting to that old tweet, a few days ago, I received a one-liner e-mail that read “We must be doing […]
A quick glance at the above map is enough to boggle anyone’s senses, but these lines are likely to be heavily debated by officials from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, following meetings over last weekend. Senior Asean officials and China yesterday agreed to speed up the process of finishing the […]
By Dr. Shakti Prasad Srichandan In the backdrop of the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian authorities against its own civilian population, a U.S.-led armed intervention in Syria, if it ever materializes, will have regional and global implications. What concerns India most is the likely impact of the crisis on oil supply, which will have […]
An A-list film adaptation of Robert Edsel’s The Monuments Men is slated for a Christmas release. It’s a story ready-made for the screen; an ideal and award-ready prestige picture for the holiday season. I recently read Edsel’s book after hearing the author lecture on his subsequent work, Saving Italy, at the National Gallery of Art. […]
Most people out there will have many jobs over the course of their lives. Some will stay within a relatively defined sector, but many will decide to take a jump into an entirely new field. While this process may be a bit easier when jumping from one private sector job to another (or one non-profit […]
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This past week was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and part of Judaism’s High Holy Days. To commemorate, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu issued his annual holiday greeting. The video was in English and came in just under five minutes in length. In it, he wished Jews, in Israel and beyond, a sweet New […]
By Manuel Langendorf Does Hamas hold a unified position on the use of violence for resistance? A crucial player in the conundrum that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hamas has always been a controversial actor. It was founded in 1987 by late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, as […]
Discussions of possible intervention in Syria, like the run-up to the Iraq War, have focused on the nature of the available intelligence. The intelligence task in Syria is fundamentally different from the one in Iraq—and actually much easier—and getting the facts right is certainly worth the effort. Still, the emphasis on intelligence is unusual in […]
By W.A. Schmidt In the heat of the ongoing debate about whether or not to react by force to the recent chemical weapons attacks in Syria, a look at the larger historical picture may shed some light on which course to follow. To the casual observer a snapshot of our time reveals a perplexing […]
In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq the American mainstream news media underwent a period of intense introspection (and by that I mean brief and superficial reflection) about how little critical reporting and analysis they offered in the run-up to the war. Is there a danger that the news media will once again […]
Crossing the Line By Steve Coll The New Yorker President Obama’s response to the chemical weapons attacks on August 21, 2013, in a suburb of Damascus have been burdened not just by his comment about chemical warfare as the “red line” for U.S. action in Syria, but also by memories of Iraq. Yet even with […]
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