-
BY: John Pomfret | The Washington Post
The Obama administration has adopted a tougher tone with China in recent weeks as part of a diplomatic balancing act in which the United States welcomes China's rise in some areas but also confronts Beijing when it butts up against American interests.
-
BY: Andrew Bacevich | Mother Jones
Although Western liberalism may retain considerable appeal, the Western way of war has run its course.
-
BY: Jeffrey Fleishman | Los Angeles Times
The Yemen summer has seethed with pitched battles and bloodshed, raising fears that the country will tumble into further disarray even as Washington has more than doubled its military and security aid.
-
BY: Tony Karon | Time
Palestinian reticence is grounded in a well-founded belief that Netanyahu has no intention of offering what the Palestinians consider their minimum requirements for a credible peace.
-
BY: Phil Sands and Mitchell Prothero | The National
Fears are growing that a peace agreement between Lebanese factions, sealed two years ago in Doha, is in jeopardy following claims that Hizbollah, the Shiite Islamist movement, is to be implicated in the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
-
BY: David E. Miller | The Media Line
Posters depicting the portrait of Gamal Mubarak, son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, have emerged on Cairo streets, sparking debate on the possible launch of an unofficial election campaign.
-
BY: Tim Arango | The New York Times
In a brazen late-afternoon attack in the heart of this city’s most prominent Sunni neighborhood, gunmen struck two police checkpoints on Thursday before a series of roadside bombs detonated on police and army patrols responding to the violence.
-
BY: Karen DeYoung | The Washington Post
As part of its attempt to boost Afghanistan's economic and political development, the United States is paying thousands of Afghan contractors and subcontractors to perform much of the work that supports U.S. efforts there. But the "Afghan First" program could be achieving just the opposite of its intended effect.
-
BY: Alissa J. Rubin | The New York Times
Even 15 months ago Baghlan was not like this. It had a few trouble spots, according to Afghans and Americans working on development projects, but for the most part it seemed safe.
-
BY: John C. K. Daly | ISN Security Watch
Like a star shell bursting high above a hotly contested battlefield at midnight, the thousands of documents recently released by Wikileaks have thrown the nine-year war in Afghanistan into stark and brutal relief, illuminating “where ignorant armies clash by night."
-
BY: Daniel Howden | The Independent
Whatever its failings the transitional government in Mogadishu has to be preferable to an absolute takeover of Somalia by the radical Islamists of al-Shabaab. This has been the red line that cannot be crossed in international thinking about the devastated Horn of Africa nation.
-
BY: Dan Bilefsky | The New York Times
Hundreds of Kurdish children were imprisoned under a tough antiterrorism law, introduced in 2006, that equated protest activities like attending an illegal rally with being a member or supporter of a terrorist group.
-
BY: Andrew Feldman | Foreign Policy in Focus
The potential accession of the Balkan countries isn't the first time the EU has welcomed states with troubled histories.
-
BY: Valentina Pop | EU Observer
The European Commission on Thursday said it is up to member states to decide whether they expel Roma people, but only on an individual basis and respecting the principle of "proportionality", in reaction to France's announcement it will dismantle 300 Roma camps within three months.
-
BY: Tom Parfit | The Guardian
President Dmitry Medvedev signed off on a new law giving the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, the right to caution people suspected of preparing acts of extremism, or to jail them for obstructing the agency's work.
-
BY: Sam Kahn | Global Post
A month after ethnic clashes devastated southern Kyrgyzstan, Uzbeks are leaving the region in droves, citing police harassment and widespread discrimination.
-
BY: Fabio Scarpello | World Politics Review
Whether or not the re-engagement with Kopassus can help the TNI to reform will largely depend on how the U.S. proceeds from here.
-
BY: Bill Gertz | The Washington Times
An international investigative team released new details this week to bolster earlier conclusions that the South Korean warship Cheonan was sunk by a high-tech North Korean torpedo that exploded beneath the ship.
-
BY: Benjamin Birnbaum | The Washington Times
e top U.S. general in Latin America and the Caribbean said Thursday that he is closely monitoring the activities of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas in the region.
-
BY: Spencer Akerman | Wired
leftover unexploded ordnance can be a war’s legacy, particularly when small and unstable munitions lay around areas where civilians rebuild their lives after the fighting stops. That’s why a new international ban on cluster munitions will take effect on Saturday. The U.S., however, isn’t part of the accord.