Nearly two weeks of continuous rain have caused floods to sweep through Manila as well as nearby areas, killing at least 23 people so far and affecting nearly 2 million. The deadly floods in the Philippine capital are the latest in a series of flooding-related disasters to strike the region. Last month, the heaviest rainfall to hit Beijing, China, in six decades forced the evacuation of 650,000 people from their homes, while three months of heavy rains in Bangkok, Thailand, last year claimed at least 500 lives. According to Edward Blakely, honorary professor of urban policy at the University of […]

Over the past several weeks, a series of articles have noted the absence of any discussion of the Afghanistan War in the U.S. presidential campaign. President Barack Obama might be avoiding the subject, but for better or worse, his policy is a matter of record. By contrast, GOP candidate Mitt Romney has yet to articulate an Afghanistan policy. Of course, it shouldn’t strike anyone as curious that the Romney campaign is as reluctant to talk about Afghanistan as the Obama administration. After all, the war is terribly unpopular. The administration has apparently determined the safest thing to do politically is […]

In March 2008, a widow in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency made a public appeal to Mangal Bagh Afridi, the leader of the Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) militant group operating in the area, to help arbitrate a land dispute. Several of her family members had been killed in the dispute, and the formal justice system was not responding to the crimes. Bagh took up her case, ruled in her favor and promptly sent armed militia members to punish the people he determined were responsible for the deaths. Soon afterward, wealthy families, often the targets of kidnapping and extortion, started appealing to Bagh for help […]

The back-to-back visits to India last month by U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, in charge of that country’s military-industrial complex, demonstrate the heightened competition for India’s defense import market, currently the largest in the world. India has been the leading global arms importer in recent years, with its weapons purchases totaling $12.7 billion from 2007-2011, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Over that period, 80 percent of India’s defense imports came from Russia, making New Delhi the leading purchaser of Russian arms. But Russian officials fear that various […]

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series examining the crisis of the global middle class. Part I examined the challenges facing the global middle class and the implications for international politics. Part II examines ways to strengthen the global middle class and avoid the potential dangers of economic polarization. The damage done to the global middle class, while significant, is not irreparable. The solutions are as varied as the countries themselves, but they all share several key features that influence whether a consumer-driven economy will flourish or not. First and foremost is access to capital for small […]

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series examining the crisis of the global middle class. Part I will examine the challenges facing the global middle class and the implications for international politics. Part II will examine ways to strengthen the global middle class and avoid the potential dangers of economic polarization. When Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, set himself on fire outside a local government office in December 2010, his desperate act set off an unexpected yet wide-ranging chain reaction throughout the region. Demonstrations that broke out in his small town spread all the way to […]

During a visit to New Delhi in July, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed an agreement to continue training Singapore troops at Indian military facilities. In an email interview, Jayati Bhattacharya, a lecturer in the South Asian studies program at the National University of Singapore, discussed India-Singapore relations. WPR: What is the extent of India-Singapore diplomatic, trade and defense ties, and how have they evolved in recent years? Jayati Bhattacharya: The long-standing relationship between Singapore and India has been accelerated and facilitated by the tectonic shift of economic power in the Asia-Pacific region. […]

Officials in India are working to identify what caused the electrical grid failures that led to two massive blackouts Monday and Tuesday. Two experts who spoke with Trend Lines emphasized that the grid failures should also be seen as an opportunity for the country to figure out how to invest and innovate in the power sector so that it can meet the growing needs of the population. “The underlying issue is that there is not enough generation supply to meet the load demand,” said Anjan Bose, a professor in the College of Engineering & Architecture at Washington State University. And […]

A common theme in international relations debates today centers on the need to move beyond stovepiped bureaucracies and policy solutions to more effectively respond to the interconnected challenges of a world defined by the forces of globalization. In particular, numerous governmental and multilateral strategic policy directives over the past few years have emphasized the importance of combining efforts that build defense and security capacity with projects to further development needs. While widespread and pragmatic implementation of this powerful rhetoric remains a relative rarity, recent efforts by the Japanese government offer a good example of one way forward for this kind […]

Japan Releases annual Defense Paper

This piece produced by the Chinese government-run Xinhua News Agency takes a look at Japan’s recently released annual defense report. Japan’s report raised concern over Chinese naval vessels’ activities in the Pacific Ocean and said China is likely to expand its sphere of maritime activities. Video News by NewsLook

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