Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
Can radiation be good for you?
By Henry Miller STANFORD: The earthquake and tsunami-related problems at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power plant have inspired endless commentary and speculation. Unfortunately, much of the debate about the disaster and its implications has been uninformed and problematic. Radiation levels have increased by as much as 400 times the normal level 12 miles from the Fukushima plant; …
Europe’s subprime quagmire
By Daniel Gros BRUSSELS: Back in 2007-2008, when the financial crisis was still called the “subprime” crisis, Europeans felt superior to the United States. European bankers surely knew better than to hand out so-called “NINJA” (no income, no job, no assets) loans. These days, however, Europeans have little reason to feel smug. Their leaders seem unable …
Indonesian example counters fears of radical religious states in Tunisia/Egypt
By Testriono JAKARTA: Many scholars are pessimistic that Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution and the political transition in Egypt will successfully bring about democracy in these countries, and worry that there is a significant risk of Islamic political groups, some with radical interpretations of sharia (Islamic principles of jurisprudence), taking on an inordinately influential role during the political …
Learning to float
By Yu Yongding BEIJING: Despite shaky economic fundamentals, US government securities are usually regarded as a safe haven. Whenever a crisis erupts, the value of US Treasury bonds gets a boost. Indeed, US Treasuries were among the few assets that did not decline during the global financial crisis in 2008-2009. But the safe-haven status of US …
Measuring the revolutionary wave
By Ian Bremmer NEW YORK: A prediction three months ago that popular protests would soon topple a dictatorship in Tunisia, sweep Hosni Mubarak from power in Egypt, provoke civil war in Moammar Qaddafi’s Libya, and rattle regimes from Morocco to Yemen would have drawn serious skepticism. We knew that the tinder was dry, but we could …
Crisis mis-management
By John Drake LONDON: It has been some time since so many crises affected the Middle East and North Africa and many companies have been caught out — and there is more to come. Those who were comfortable working in relatively crime-free Libya found themselves in a war zone overnight. Tourists in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain …
Japan’s political tremors
By Ian Buruma NEW YORK: Rarely — indeed, perhaps not since World War II — have the Japanese had such good press abroad. Even South Korean newspapers have been full of praise for the self-discipline of ordinary Japanese in dire circumstances. And coming from Koreans, not usually Japan’s biggest fans, that is no small thing. When …
Gambling with the planet
By Joseph Stiglitz DUBAI: The consequences of the Japanese earthquake — especially the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant — resonate grimly for observers of the American financial crash that precipitated the Great Recession. Both events provide stark lessons about risks, and about how badly markets and societies can manage them. Of course, in …
Inflationary angst
By Harold James PRINCETON: Can central banks contain inflation? We once thought they could. Over the past 20 years, central banks around the world, including the United States Federal Reserve, pursued price stability with remarkable success. But now, in the wake of the financial crisis, a tide of distrust is sweeping the world — including a …
Democracy at the local level in Pakistan
By Geoffrey Weichselbaum and Katherine Vittum ISLAMABAD: While Pakistan has made significant gains in deepening the democracy that its people worked hard to achieve during the 2008 general elections, democratic institutions still require serious reforms in order to empower citizens and ensure sustained civilian rule. Perhaps most significantly, local government elections have not taken place since …
Deconstructing Saleh
By Mai Yamani LONDON: Ali Abdullah Saleh is finished as Yemen’s president. Popular democratic protests that started on a small scale in mid-February outside Sanaa University have widened to encompass the whole country. The continuity and strength of the demonstrations clearly indicate that the regime’s days are numbered. Tribal leaders have joined the protesters. Even close …
A PALESTINIAN VIEW: Six months to September: Returning to our references
By Ghassan Khatib Palestinians look at the approaching September deadline as a very critical and decisive crossroads. It is the end of the one-year time-frame for the bilateral negotiations that started upon the initiative of the United States last September. It is also the end of the two-year plan of the Palestinian government for achieving national …
AN ISRAELI VIEW: Six months to September: The wages of Palestinian ambiguity
By Yossi Alpher “I’ll speak in vague sentences,” stated Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last week at a meeting in Ramallah when asked to discuss Palestinian plans for the period beginning September 2011. That is when the United Nations General Assembly reconvenes, with a request to recognize a Palestinian state probably high on its agenda. Of course, …
Demographics, war for resources and state-directed capitalism
By Ron McMillan and Graham Hayward The future of the banking industry remains uncertain, but there are a number of long-term catalysts such as the expected demographic shift and the rise of state-directed capitalism that will further shape the global financial sector. This is the fourth installment in a series of articles by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the leading …
The Arab Young and Restless
By Jeffrey Sachs NEW YORK: Many factors underlay the ongoing upheavals in the Middle East: decades of corrupt and authoritarian rule, increasingly literate and digitally-connected societies, and skyrocketing world food prices. To top it off, throughout the Middle East (as well as Sub-Saharan Africa and most of South Asia), rapid population growth is fueling enormous demographic …
Turkey and the Future of Europe
By Chris Patten LONDON: This is my last column for a while. I am off to become Chairman of the BBC Trust — the strategic authority of one of the greatest broadcasting organizations in the world. So I have to take a Sicilian vow of omerta on controversial issues for the term of my chairmanship. That …
All sorts of interventions
By Ziad Abu-Rish The focal point of the Arab Spring has shifted from the successful uprisings of Tunisia and Egypt to the bleak developments in Bahrain and Libya. As the military forces of Britain, France and the United States take “all necessary measures” to topple Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya, troops from the Gulf Cooperation Council …
The many faces of the Arab Spring
By Shlomo Ben Ami MADRID: The attack by a Western-led alliance on Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in Libya is driven largely by principled motives. Had it turned its back on the Libyan rebels, the West would have betrayed its very identity. Of course, the same principles are not being applied to save the brutally repressed masses in …
26 questions Egyptians are asking
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: In an ironic numerical coincidence, 67 days after the January 25 outbreak of the popular revolt that toppled Egypt’s 30-year regime and its dictator ex-president Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians have returned to Tahrir Square to “save the revolution,” For some, the connection between 67 days and the Naksa is all too poignant. …
Libya’s troubles: no clear way out yet
By Richard Dalton Three weeks ago I wrote something that helps explain why foreigners have interfered in this crisis and not in others: “Humanitarian intervention is not yet firmly rooted as a concept or in practice. And UN members are selective in the crises they wish to address. They often disregard situations that are objectively worse …
The Arab spring and interventionism
By Vitaly Naumkin There is an age-old tradition of explaining everything that happens in the Middle East in terms of external conspiracies. The present-day “Arab revolutionary spring” is no exception. I shall cite two conspiratorial theories purporting to explain current events in the Middle East. One, supported among others by certain Russian analysts such as Sergei …
Which side is the world on?
By Mai Yamani The revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, and Yemen — and protests in Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria — will all eventually result in a political solution. But influential outside actors, ranging from the United States and the European Union to the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council, have greeted developments …
Egypt’s referendum, reason for guarded optimism
By Jason Petrucci COLLEGE PARK, Maryland: On 19 March, Egyptian voters approved a package of constitutional amendments recommended by a committee that was appointed by the transitional military government. With the exception of an angry mob that attacked presidential candidate and former IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei as he tried to cast a “no” vote, voting was …
Limitations of foreign intervention
By Gamal Soltan Revolutions in the modern age are never only a domestic development, and Arab revolutions are no exception. The state is one of several building blocks in an international system. A revolution in one country is a sign of change, for better or for worse, in one of these building blocks. It is likely …
The false promise of green jobs
By Bjørn Lomborg COPENHAGEN: Political rhetoric has shifted away from the need to respond to the “generational challenge” of climate change. Investment in alternative energy technologies like solar and wind is no longer peddled on environmental grounds. Instead, we are being told of the purported economic payoffs, above all, the promise of so-called “green jobs.” Unfortunately, …
Microfinance matters, now and for the future
By Deepak Khanna Recent events in Egypt and across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have demonstrated the urgent need for sustainable job creation and employment in the region. Microfinance is one way to help the self-employed by providing entrepreneurs with the financing they need to grow their businesses and extra cash to help families …
Talking to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt
By David Phillips A secular youth movement may have deposed President Hosni Mubarak, but the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt is positioned to take power in September’s parliamentary elections and assume a leading role in drafting Egypt’s future constitution. The Obama administration cannot ignore that the Brotherhood is a broad-based popularly supported national movement whose message of …
Yemen’s regime change gets personal
By Barak Barfi SANAA: When Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered his military on March 18 to fire on peaceful protesters calling for his resignation, he sealed his fate. A wave of military, government, and diplomatic defections, led by his long-time ally First Armored Brigade Commander General Ali Muhsin Al-Ahmar, rocked his regime. But, although Al-Ahmar …
Japan’s recovery bonds
By Yuriko Koike TOKYO: The tsunami raced through the town at eight meters per second, the speed of a gold-medal sprinter. The wave’s height reached 15 meters, towering above even the highest pole-vault bars. Ships were heaved onto hills, and cars floated like boats. After the wave passed, a chaotic mountain of debris was all that …
The hard right goes soft
By Guy Sorman PARIS: The central paradox of French politics was confirmed once again on March 27. In a nationwide vote to select local authorities (the so called Conseiller Général), the far-right National Front gained 11 percent of the votes cast, but secured only 0.1 percent of the seats. This discrepancy between the National Front’s popular …