Syrian state-controlled media blames most of the deaths on armed groups (which it calls terrorists). These allegations have awakened Russia’s dormant–but not forgotten–memory of the Saudi-American alliance that created the Mujahidin networks in Afghanistan, which in turn defeated the Soviet Union.
Washington's military withdrawal from Iraq and problems in Afghanistan are forcing a change of strategy. Barack Obama's political fate will determine how far it will go.
Beijing is concerned by Washington's more assertive regional policy in Asia. But here as elsewhere the Chinese leadership's inability to talk to the rest of the world in a natural way blunts its capacity to respond, says Kerry Brown.
Taiwan's presidential election saw the incumbent Ma Ying-jeou win another four-year term in office over his opponent Tsai Ing-wen. But the interpretation of this outcome by Washington and Beijing misses an important dimension of Taiwan's political reality. Their flawed understanding could have dam
Join the author for a toddy in a place where politeness has not gone out of style
A range of military and political developments, from the very rare planned deployment of three huge United States armadas in the Persian Gulf to Israeli fears of Barack Obama’s re-election, is evidence of rising danger around Iran.
In New Orleans in the summer of 2005 you needed transport and fuel in order to eat. In this landscape of dead refrigerators and flooded stores, abandoned by government, the author describes how individual improvisation woven into collective action fed empty stomachs
The cost of the United States's trillion-dollar pension system is high on the presidential-election agenda. But turning problems into workable proposals is hard, reports Matt Kennard.
The daring designer plunge, the sledgehammer swing and a crawfish culinary classic are all ways to get noticed, swamplands-style
The prognosis of a thirty-year war looked outlandish as Saddam's regime toppled, persuasive as Iraq's insurgency erupted - and now less plausible amid American forces' retreat. But two core issues continue to give it life.
As the first anniversary of the February 14 uprising approaches, the regime and the country at large find themselves at a crossroads in which there is dangerously little space for a strong middle ground.
