Back when the post-Soviet states of Central Asia gained independence, there was much talk of Pan-Turkism, a word that had been largely forgotten during seven decades of communism and Russian linguistic influence. The idea th...
A Young Nation South Sudan became an independent nation in 2011. The new-found independence brought with it the hope of a fresh beginning. At least hope in the sense that things would get better and not worse. Yet hope, for a...
For the last few weeks, Asian relations seem to have been put on hold. Tensions over territory and resources which dominated attention over the summer receded into the background as attention turned first to the United States, ...
The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa described Mexico under the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) as the ‘perfect dictatorship’; an exquisite balancing act of entrenched special interests. Much like Mexico under ...
There is an urban legend within the US State Department of a US Senator who, upon his first trip to Jerusalem, was so shocked by the violence between Palestinians and Israelis within the holy city that he demanded a briefing fr...
When you think about nuclear weapons, what is the first thought that comes to your mind? Destructiveness? Maybe, death? For me at least, power, danger, and control are probably the first three words I associate with nuclear w...
We all knew this day was bound to come sooner or later. Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, has long suffered from ill-health, including a severe case of dementia. The hero of the right, and villai...
Do you have ‘skin in the game’? Ayn Rand, Noam Chomsky, and Jérôme Cahuzac, interestingly, do or did not have that. ‘Skin in the game’ refers to a person putting his or her money where his or her mouth is. P...
Politicians are paying more attention to the issues of mental health but there is a long way to go before it is taken as seriously as physical health. One in four people will experience a mental health problem at some point in ...