In Islamabad gunmen have shot dead Pakistan’s Minister for Minorities. Shabaz Bhatti, the only Christian in the government cabinet, was murdered on Wednesday in the gun attack on his car. The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the killing, calling Bhatti a blasphemer. He had been calling for changes to the country’s blasphemy law under which anyone who speaks ill of Islam can face the death penalty.
The Middle East Institute recently presented a lecture and discussion with Andrew Exum, Fellow at the Center for A New American Security, assessing the possibility of a new Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and its ramifications for U.S. strategy there. The below video is the first of several parts of Exum’s talk. Additional parts can be found at the Middle East Institute. A related World Politics Review interview with Exum conducted as part of WPR’s special report on the Afghanistan war can be found here.
A recent visit to China by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev resulted in deals that further expanded China’s extensive energy and infrastructure investments in the Central Asian country. In an e-mail interview, Niklas Swanström — director of the Institute for Security and Development Policy and executive director of ISDP’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and its Silk Road Studies Program — discussed China-Kazakhstan relations. WPR: What is driving the recent expansion of China-Kazakhstan trade relations, on both sides? Niklas Swanström: The most obvious factor behind the expansion is China’s willingness and ability to invest in economies in the region, particularly in energy-rich Kazakhstan. […]
With the aftershocks of the global financial crisis continuing to rumble, leaders of the world’s major economies have struggled to define a meaningful role for the G-20. Meanwhile, the European Union has been pushed to the limit in efforts to address a gathering debt crisis among members of the eurozone. And the threat of a currency war has strained relations and tested the role of the dollar as global reserve currency. In this special report, World Politics Review considers global finance through articles published in the past year. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers […]
With the Russian government having assumed an increasingly aggressive posture regarding the country’s territorial dispute with Japan in recent months, the question naturally arises, Why? Senior Russian leaders including President Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov have broken with precedent and visited what the Russians call the Southern Kurils and what the Japanese label their Northern Territories. The Russian government has also announced plans to enhance the islands’ socio-economic development and defenses. The escalating crisis led the counselor for European Affairs at the Japanese Foreign Ministry to characterize the Russian-Japanese relationship last week as being at its lowest point […]
With the Russian government having assumed an increasingly aggressive posture regarding the country’s territorial dispute with Japan in recent months, the question naturally arises, Why? Senior Russian leaders, including President Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, have broken with precedent and visited what the Russians call the Southern Kurils and what the Japanese label their Northern Territories. The Russian government has also announced plans to enhance the islands’ socio-economic development and defenses. The escalating crisis led the counselor for European Affairs at the Japanese Foreign Ministry to characterize the Russian-Japanese relationship last week as being at its lowest point […]