Economics & Business Archive

Sino-Indian relations have registered significant progress in the past five years. Beijing and New Delhi have engaged in a series of summit meetings, frequent high-level visits, joint antiterrorism training exercises between the two militaries, and fast-growing bilateral trade. During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China in January 2008, the two countries issued a joint document on a Shared Vision for the 21st Century, pledging to promote a harmonious world of peace and stability and further strengthen the Sino-Indian Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity. These developments have encouraged analysts across the Himalaya to talk about the return […]

To say that the geopolitics of South Asia is in a state of flux might sound like a cliché for a region that is nowadays commonly described as the most dangerous place on the planet. The horrific terrorist attacks on the western Indian city of Mumbai in November underscore the grim reality. The region indeed finds itself at a crossroads. There are huge uncertainties about regional security. The pall of gloom is deepening. The war in Afghanistan inevitably becomes the focal point. But that isn’t everything. Not a day passes without one form or other of violence gripping South Asia. […]

KAMPALA, Uganda — When I got off the small plane chartered by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) that had whisked me from Kampala, Uganda, to a small town on the border with eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, I had less than half a day to conduct interviews, take photos, and file content for major Western news agencies. I looked around at what had become typical sights: women carrying everything they own on their backs, children with nothing to do, lounging men glancing suspiciously at the influx of journalists, and everyone visibly tired. Tired of running, tired of violence, tired […]

The National Intelligence Council (NIC) released Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World last week, with its avowed purpose to “stimulate strategic thinking about the future by identifying key trends, the factors that drive them, where they seem to be headed, and how they might interact.” The release of the report was more specifically timed to inform the thinking of the incoming Barack Obama administration about the broader strategic challenges and opportunities it will confront upon assuming office on Jan. 20, 2009 — and before officials of the new administration become overwhelmed by their daily inboxes. The authors of Global Trends […]

TOKYO — At last week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Japan and Russia had been expected to announce plans for a visit by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Japan by the end of this year. But the decision to instead postpone the visit until early next year is a fair reflection of the state of political relations between the two nations — technically still at war — in recent years. “Relations have remained stunted,” says Joseph Ferguson, adjunct professor at the University of Washington, who argues that political relations currently lag some way behind economic ties. Ferguson, author of “Japanese-Russian […]

NO JOY AT THE SUMMIT — To French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s disappointment, Barack “One-president-at-a-time” Obama stuck to his word and refused to meet with any of the world leaders who attended last week’s economic summit in Washington. The French pressed hard, arguing that as current president of the European Union Sarkozy had hoped to be the first transatlantic leader to meet the American president-elect. Throughout the week-end, Sarkozy had a plane on standby to leave for Chicago at a moment’s notice. But no summons came from the Windy City. Meanwhile, there was no sign in Washington of the warm relations […]

Global arms sales continue to grow, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), with the value of worldwide weapons contracts rising by an estimated 9.2 percent in 2007. The CRS put the value of major arms transfer agreements at almost $60 billion, up from $54.9 billion the year before. The United States accounted for over 41 percent of the sales, or approximately $24.8 billion, a significant increase from the 2006 figure of $16.7 billion. Russia still ranked second, but the value of its arms transfer agreements actually fell from $14.3 billion in 2006 to $10.4 billion in 2007. Conversely, the […]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo entered a complicated phase last week, with allegations that Angola and Zimbabwe had either deployed troops in the mineral rich Central African country, or had mobilized them in a bid to bolster President Joseph Kabila’s army. Last month, Kabila requested that Angola — which boasts one of Africa’s strongest armies — back him against the predominantly Tutsi rebels led by renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda in the volatile eastern province of North Kivu. Officials within the United Nations peacekeeping force in the province’s capital of Goma have also confirmed […]

LIMA, Peru — Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim met last week with his Iranian counterpart in Tehran, where the two diplomats discussed expanding bilateral economic ties. Trade between Iran and Brazil quadrupled between 2002 and 2007, and if Iran gets its way, it will further increase as much as five-fold, from $2 billion to $10 billion annually. The move reflects the fact that while Washington’s attention has been focused in recent years on Iraq and the War on Terror, Iran’s influence in Latin America has quietly but steadily grown. In addition to Brazil, Iran has signed dozens of economic agreements […]

FROM SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE TO PRESIDENT-ELECT — Amid the global euphoria — to say nothing of the often grudging admiration for the United States — following Barack Obama’s landslide victory, European ambassadors in Washington were already cautioning their governments that the new president will be no pushover. One ambassador said Friday, “On many major issues, there’s not a lot of difference in substance between an Obama administration and a McCain administration. However, where McCain could have been unpredictable, the Obama leitmotif has been mending international fences, so we can expect him to be tough, but hopefully open to reason.” While it’s […]

NEW DELHI — The Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline — a proposed $7.5 billion, 2,700-kilometer pipeline linking Iran’s abundant natural gas reserves to energy-hungry Pakistan and India — has been under consideration for years. But despite both India’s and Pakistan’s desperate need for energy sources, progress on the project has been hampered so far by strategic calculations, mutual suspicions and disagreements on pricing and tariffs. Indications, however, are that the Iran-Pakistan stretch of the pipeline may take off soon. And with the U.S.-India nuclear agreement now concluded, India might be giving it more serious consideration, too. Officials in India’s foreign ministry […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — “What America needs now is a drink,” Franklin Roosevelt famously declared upon repealing Prohibition in 1933, amidst a bleak economic climate. But according to the U.N.’s top anti-drug official, consumers of prohibited substances — particularly cocaine — might not have the same reaction to today’s comparable economic turmoil. “There is no doubt the [economic] crisis will have an impact [on the drug trade],” Antonio María Costa, the director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told Reuters last week. “It may turn cocaine into a much less desirable discretionary income expenditure.” Costa was referring to European […]