Asia

Once upon a time, if it was big and it was a technological advance, I’d expect to hear it was happening in the United States. As Trump flushes the toilet on true American greatness (its intellectual capital, ability to attract talent from around the world, its open-mindedness and freedom for innovation, its commitment to the […]

Featured

India stands with Iran against Trump Sanctions

Juan Cole

India’s External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, on Monday did not mince words in delivering a sharp rebuke to US plans for sanctions on trade with Iran, including National Security Adviser John Bolton’s threats against third parties like India. She said, according to The Hindu, “Our foreign policy is not made under pressure from other countries […]

Afghanistan

On Memorial Day, US Troops still Dying in Afghanistan but 1/2 the Country is Lost

Juan Cole

The Afghanistan government controls only about half of Afghanistan, 229 of 407 districts. Maybe because it is a bad news story, our Afghanistan War, the longest in our history, keeps slipping our minds, along with thoughts of the Americans still fighting there. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, has issued a report […]

China

China’s Green Shift is Positioning it to Overtake US in Energy Technology, Security

Juan Cole

The Guardian reports that air pollution in 62 Chinese cities fell by 30% between 2013 and 2016, according to the World Health Organization. Beijing, the capital, fell from a global 4th place ranking on polluted air to 187th. I was in Beijing in March, 2015, for a conference, and did a jaunt out to the […]

Featured

How Peak Hype crashed Trump’s N Korea Summit/ Nobel Peace Prize

Juan Cole

Trump’s petulant letter to North Korean President Kim Jong Un cancelling the planned Singapore summit between the two leaders was all but foreordained. The entire endeavor was poorly conceived and badly planned, and attended with fantastic, typical Trump snake oil and hype. North Korea does not have the slightest intention of renouncing its nuclear weapons. […]

Pakistan

To Fight Talibanism, Pakistan finally gives Rights to People in Tribal Areas

Sajjad Tarakzai

Islamabad (AFP) – Pakistan passed legislation Thursday paving the way for its restive tribal areas, long a focal point in the global war on terror, to enter the political mainstream, ending a colonial-era arrangement that endorsed collective punishment and fuelled militancy. The constitutional amendment would see the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the […]

China

China picking up Iran Gas Deal Trump forced France’s Total to Give Up… In Yuan, not Dollars

Julien Girault

Beijing (AFP) – The US decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran could scare off European investors but oil-thirsty China may step into the void and ramp up business links with the country. China, which is already Iran’s top trade partner and one of its biggest buyers of crude, has signalled that it intends to keep […]

China

The Dragon and the Lion: How China will Win Big from Trump’s Scrapping of Iran Deal

Neil Thompson

London (Informed Comment) – China has rhetorically thrown its weight behind Russia and Europe in continuing to back the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 countries after US President Donald Trump announced that he was withdrawing America from what he called “the decaying and rotten” agreement set up to contain […]

Music

Pakistan’s Sufi music fights to be heard after singer’s Killing

AFP

By David STOUT | – – Karachi (AFP) – Nearly two years after Pakistan’s foremost qawwali singer Amjad Sabri was gunned down in Karachi, the devotional music of Islam’s Sufi mystical sect is struggling to survive, as fears of sectarianism and modern pressures slowly drown out its powerfully hypnotic strains. Thousands poured into the streets […]