General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha has been the head of the ISI, Pakistan's notoriously independent intelligence agency, for the past three months. He makes a cosmopolitan impression and says he takes his orders from the civilian government. But how much control does Pasha have over his own organization?
Susanne Koelbl
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It is the custom on New Year's day for people to make resolutions. You must have listed your good resolutions already. But may I politely suggest that you also resolve to do the following in pursuit of Change.
Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and Former Prime Minister of Malaysia
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Noting improvements in cross-Taiwan Strait relations since May 2008, Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the US Pacific Command which is responsible for preserving security, stability, freedom and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region, remarked recently that he could now sleep well most nights. A direct result of warming cross-Taiwan Strait relations is that the likelihood of a US-China military clash over Taiwan has greatly diminished. However, military relations remain the weakest link in the ever-expanding US-China bilateral ties.
Zhiqun Zhu
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The measure of success of president-elect Barack Obama's new "Afghan strategy" will be directly proportional to his ability to delink the war from its geopolitical agenda inherited from the George W Bush administration.
M K Bhadrakumar
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Anti-Russian stereotypes have become commonplace in the west. It's up to the media not to spoil a vital relationship
Guardian
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We are witnessing the utter failure of the great experiment launched by Western civilization to turn the declaration-defined human rights concept into an ideological stick, which would enable it to dominate many other countries. There were too many cases when everything started with a well-orchestrated human rights campaign, and ended with a war to change a political regime.
RIA Novosti
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The centre for this December rebellion is the Athens Polytechnic, where students have been out on the streets with wheelbarrows and shopping trolleys to collect and recycle rocks and pieces of marble used in the previous night's assaults.
BBC NEWS
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The scale of the financial crisis facing the incoming Barack Obama administration almost beggars description, with the US financial crisis certainly the worst in the post-World War II period. The new government will inherit, besides sheer financial chaos, the largest fiscal deficit, projected at US$1.5 trillion in 2009, the highest level of public debt, and arguably the most expansionary and destabilizing monetary policy in US history.
Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene
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No sooner had the guns fallen silent and the terrorist carnage ended in Mumbai than a keen three-way diplomatic tussle began involving India, Pakistan and the United States. The two South Asian nuclear powers are locked in race to get the US on their respective side. For the US, though, it is no longer a matter of acting as a fair-minded, neutral mediator. Today, Washington is a full-fledged participant with its own stakes in the South Asian strategic power equations, thanks to the war in Afghanistan, which is critically poised. Indeed, the South Asian brew couldn't be more strange.
M K Bhadrakumar
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Ukrainian political scientist Yuriy Romanenko in an interview for DespiteBorders
Juraj Marušiak | 14.10.2008
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On Friday November 21, the world came within a hair’s breadth of the most colossal financial collapse in history according to bankers on the inside of events with whom we have contact.
F. William Engdahl
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The secretary general of the Commonwealth of Independent States' Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Nikolai Bordyuzha, recently announced the planned formation of an international force in Central Asia that "should be prepared to repel any threat".
Sultan-Khan Zhussip
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Exit polling figures indicate that Mr Obama's campaign, which broke new ground in the use of technology to raise money and mobilise supporters, won over several key groups on its way to victory.
Telegraph
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The financial crisis, Bush's one-dimensional economic policies and general neglect since 9/11 have alienated Latin America from the US.
Eliot Brockner for ISN Security Watch
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Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported on US plans to open direct negotiations with Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.
Alex Lantier
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