One week before the official Asia-Europe government meeting (ASEM) gathers in Milan, over 400 people from 42 countries in Europe and Asia gathered at the 10th Asia-Europe Peoples forum (AEPF) to present their demands and recommendations.
Whether or not the day’s events in Egypt constitute a military coup d’etat, the removal from office of President Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian military portends great excitement but even greater dangers.
What the civil war in Syria has exposed is that the massive political and social transformation, and real regime change under way is led by people themselves. US military involvement serves only to escalate the destruction.
Debate over the 10-year-plus war in Afghanistan tends to focus on how and when it "can be won," obscuring the fundamental question of whether it was morally acceptable in the first place. Now as the US gets closer to consolidating its imperial presence in the region for decades to come, the high cost to the Afghani people continues to be ignored.
American newspapers lead the new angle of biased critisim on Turkey. Such a shame because Ankara has proven to be an independant regional influence in the Middle East, with its own brand of soft power diplomacy.
The WikiLeaks saga demonstrates that secrecy plus power results in corruption and crime, and that an informed citizenry is essential to prevent our's from becoming a society where civil liberties are a pipe dream and torture is the norm.
George W Bush made democracy-support a central theme of his presidency. Barack Obama, by contrast, has downplayed it. Yet the latter's approach may achieve more effective results.
Achin Vanaik sets out the complex socio-historical backdrop to the Nepalese Second Democratic Revolution of 2006 that overthrew the monarchy, the ensuing struggle for a new republic, and the tactical challenges facing the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).