Z. Alipour, ALM
Only 3% of incumbent Iranian members of parliament are female, but Iranian women are campaigning to drastically change the parliament's huge gender imbalance through the ballot box.
Con Coughlin, Telegraph
David Cameron faces an awkward dilemma as he weighs up how best to respond to the Government-funded inquiry into the death of the former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, which publishes its conclusions this week. Ever since British security investigators realised that the Russian dissident had been poisoned with polonium-210 – a rare radioactive isotope made only at closed nuclear facilities controlled by Russia – during a meeting with Russian intelligence officers at a London hotel... Читать дальше...
Jeff Daniels, CNBC
Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries are scooping up farmland in drought-afflicted regions of the U.S. Southwest, and that has some people in California and Arizona seeing red.
John McLaughlin, Cipher Brief
The U.S. will have to remain very flexible in its China policy, constantly prepared to blow the whistle when Beijing pushes past commonly accepted rules of international conduct, but prepared at the same time to reach out positively when our interests coincide.
Joseph Dana, National
The war on drugs lacks the ideological element of the war on terror. Drug cartels are concerned with profits and their revenue rivals the world’s richest companies. Increasingly, however, extremist groups are using the drug business to fund their murderous rampages, while drug cartels are turning to other forms of crime, such as extortion.
Chandrahas Choudhury, Bloomberg View
India is now home to 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, so its clear that the countrys urbanization is set on a completely unsustainable course. The Delhi governments new policy is the first major effort by an Indian government to counter more than three decades of negative externalities generated by a combination of rising car ownership and a car-centric transport policy.
Hugh White, Lowy
The trickiest part of Malcolm Turnbull's speech in Washington today was always going to be the passage about China. This was the issue on which, to judge by what he said before becoming Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull's ideas are most at odds with Washington's and with his predecessors.
Renuka Rayasam, Foreign Policy
Refugees and cool kids are living side-by-side -- but not together -- in one of Germany’s most immigrant-heavy neighborhoods.
Doug Bandow, Japan Times
North Korea may be the most vexing problem for the United States and its allies. Three successive U.S. presidents have insisted that the North simply cannot, must not, develop nuclear weapons. Yet it has. So attention naturally shifts toward China, which joined Washington in criticizing the latest blast. China is the Norths most important investor and provides it with substantial energy and food assistance. Beijing also has protected North Korea by weakening past U.N. Читать дальше...
George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures
Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said on Jan. 18 that Russia is considering not making any more loans to foreign governments during the current economic crisis, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. Storchak said, "The budget is strained, more than strained. I think we are in a situation where we are forced to take a break from issuing new loans." It is not quite clear how this will affect loans that the Russian government has promised but not yet closed. Читать дальше...
Brice Pedroletti, Worldcrunch
YANJI — It's a geographic and political paradox. North Korea, one of China's official allies, is within easy reach, but it's China's southern ally that authorities in its Yanbian Autonomous Prefecture are courting. At the end of September, they rolled out the red carpet for China's new South Korean Ambassador Kim Jang-soo, and dozens of South Korean companies have already established themselves there.
Bret Stephens, WSJ
In Syria, Bashar Assad is trying to bring his enemies to heel by blocking humanitarian convoys to desperate civilians living in besieged towns. The policy is called “starve or kneel,” and it is openly supported by Hezbollah and tacitly by Iran, which has deployed its elite Quds Force to aid Mr. Assad’s war effort.
Stanly Johny, The Hindu
Much of the blame should lie with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After becoming Prime Minister in 2003, Mr. Erdogan adopted an assertive foreign policy. He opposed the Iraq war, grew critical of Israel’s atrocities on the Palestinians, and presented Turkey as a regional power in West Asia. But his approach also pandered to sectarian Sunni sentiments and to Islamist Turkish nationalism, which counterposed the Kemalist secular order. When the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt... Читать дальше...
Pamela Geller, Breitbart
I did not expect for one moment that the Brits would ban the U.S. presidential candidate who may very well be the next President of the United States. A nation whose national self-esteem (or what’s left of it) is rooted deeply in its place in history would be infamous for having banned the leader of its closest ally, the one that saved her from the Nazi onslaught.
Mark Leonard, Project Syndicate
Cameron is doing all he can to renegotiate the terms of membership in order to persuade voters to choose to remain in the EU. But referendums are notoriously unpredictable. And there is no reason to believe that the storms of populism blowing across the continent will not make landfall in the UK.
H. Abdul-Hussain, NOW Lebanon
The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran is not one between Sunnis and Shiites as such, but rather a confrontation between a state and a revolution.
Lyle Goldstein, National Interest
A recent publication details the fallout from a strike on the United States.
Matthew Brummer, The Diplomat
To sell the image of a non-threatening Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) at home and abroad, important both in terms of domestic politics and international diplomacy, Tokyo has and will continue to utilize a web of affective cultural and entertainment resources – the Creative Industrial Complex (CIC) – to influence perceptions of Japan’s military establishment. The alignment between the CIC and the JSDF is nuanced, storied, and important for understanding both how Japan... Читать дальше...
Ben Caspit, Al-Monitor
Unlike Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, some Israeli security officials share President Barack Obama's view that satisfactory progress has been made in blocking Iran's nuclear program and the Iranian people could now choose a different path in upcoming elections.
Mark Gilbert, Bloomberg View
There's plenty to be anxious about in the world at the moment, from terrorism to the ever-present threat of a pandemic. What's disturbing though, is how splintered the world's worries are on a regional basis, according to the 11th edition of the annual Global Risks report produced by the World Economic Forum. And the threat that's deemed most troubling is one that you would hope world leaders are on the way to eliminating.
Nicholas Burns, New York Times
Palo Alto, Calif. — THE dramatic events of this past weekend mark a potential turning point in the modern history of the Middle East. Estranged for the last three and a half decades, the American and Iranian governments are talking and working with each other once again.
Dana Milbank, Washington Post
For Americans watching, it was useful proof that Trump is a reviled and preposterous figure to our most important ally and that America would be the laughingstock of the world if we elect him.
John McCain, The Cipher Brief
We must remember that our soft power is the shadow cast by our hard power. And we must remain clear-eyed about the implications of China’s rise and its evolving foreign and defense policy. China is engaged in a rapid military modernization deliberately designed to counteract or thwart American military strengths.
