Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a welcome ceremony in Ankara, Turkey, Dec. 1, 2014 (AP photo by Burhan Ozbilici).

Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Ankara last week for talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The biggest news coming out of the visit was Putin’s announcement that he is scrapping the South Stream pipeline project that was to bring Russian gas to Southern Europe. Putin cited the European Union’s opposition to the project as the reason for the cancellation. The EU has raised concerns that the Russian state-owned energy firm Gazprom would own both the pipeline infrastructure and the gas being transported, which would violate the EU’s competition laws in the energy sector. South Stream, originally agreed upon […]

Thai Explosive Ordnance Disposal officers inspect the site where their colleagues were killed by a bomb detonated by suspected Muslim insurgents in Bacho, Narathawat province, southern Thailand, Oct. 28, 2013 (AP photo by Sumeth Panpetch).

On Dec. 1, during Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha’s first visit to Kuala Lumpur, he and his Malaysian counterpart, Prime Minister Najib Razak, agreed on the conditions to restart peace efforts to resolve the deadly southern Thailand insurgency. While the resumption of Malaysia-hosted peace talks between the Thai state and Malay-Muslim rebels is an encouraging sign, the parties are likely to encounter formidable challenges as they attempt to structure a political solution that will lead to a durable peace and end Southeast Asia’s most lethal ongoing conflict. Since the latest outbreak of the insurgency in Thailand’s Malay-Muslim-majority southernmost provinces in […]

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with members of the National Security Council in the Situation Room of the White House, Sept. 10, 2014 (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza).

Fifty years from now, when historians look back at 2014, they will likely be struck by how many seemingly contradictory trends co-exist in today’s world. The crisis in Ukraine suggests a fraying of the liberal international order and its consensus against territorial conquest, even as relatively robust international crisis-management mechanisms manage to deter or contain conflict elsewhere. A global rise of anti-pluralist populism has led to the resurgence of nationalism at the same time that national sovereignty is increasingly embedded in a globally integrated and largely supranational economic order. In Asia, historical grievances at times slow down but cannot derail […]

Palestinians hang a national flag from the apartment of Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi in East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities demolished it after Shaludi’s deadly attack with his car on a Jerusalem train station last month, (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean).

The spikes in violence in Jerusalem last month, including the brutal killings in a synagogue after a series of stabbings and hit-and-run attacks on pedestrians, are extreme instances of ethnically based violence that has been mounting since last summer, when the flames of local unrest were fanned by the war in Gaza. But at stake are more than familiar grievances in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While access to the holy sites of the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif remains contentious, the violence in Jerusalem’s shared public spaces and on public transportation in particular reflect that this is not merely an issue […]

Xu Caihou, right, deputy chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission, and Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai attend the closing session of the National People’s Congress, Beijing, China, March 14, 2012 (AP photo by Vincent Thian).

The recent announcement that investigators seized a metric ton of cash, jewels, antiques and other luxury goods from the villa of retired Gen. Xu Caihou sheds new light on corruption within China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Xu, who had been a vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party’s powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), was the second senior PLA commander to be charged with corruption in recent years. In 2012, Gen. Gu Junshan, a deputy commander of the PLA General Logistics Department, was detained after years of rumors that he had been involved in under-the-table deals involving PLA-controlled land. Several active […]

Oman’s Sultan Qaboos at Bait al-Baraka in Muscat, Oman, May 21, 2013 (AP Photo/Jim Young, Pool).

Last month, Oman’s Sultan Qaboos addressed his nation via a video message from Germany, where he is allegedly receiving treatment for colon cancer. The 76-year-old monarch was going to miss Oman’s national day celebrations on Nov. 18, which is also his birthday, and he wanted to ease the uncertainty at home that has developed as a result of his five-month absence. Qaboos’ ailing health has, however, created a flurry of media coverage on the future of Oman and the leadership transition, while raising important questions about the risks it poses to Oman’s decades-old stability. The sultanate, a high-income and ethnically […]

Supporters of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan attend a rally in Abuja, Nigeria, Nov. 11, 2014 (AP photo).

Last Tuesday, Nigeria’s central bank devalued the country’s currency by 10 percent in an effort to shore up foreign reserves hard-hit by falling oil prices. The move comes months before a presidential election and highlights the country’s vulnerability to the price of oil, which makes up 70-80 percent of the Nigerian government’s revenue. With Brent crude hitting a four-year low of $77.83 per barrel in early November, Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, is feeling the pinch. Government coffers are emptying, and construction companies and other employers have begun to lay off workers. As oil prices could remain low for 2015, […]

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