Regions & Nations

When it comes to economic relations with China, U.S. political leaders are responding to the problems of yesterday rather than preparing for tomorrow.

Lawmakers in both parties -- from Republican Mitt Romney to leading Democrats on Capitol Hill -- continue to criticize China for its currency manipulation just as economic problems in China are deepening, potentially leading to dangerous spillover effects for the U.S.

A dramatic shift is taking place in Israel and America. In Israel, the deepening occupation of the West Bank is putting Israeli democracy at risk. In the United States, the refusal of major Jewish organizations to defend democracy in the Jewish state is alienating many young liberal Jews from Zionism itself. In the next generation, the liberal Zionist dream—the dream of a state that safeguards the Jewish people and cherishes democratic ideals—may die.

Viktor Bout made his first major foray into the weapons business in 1995, on a pleasant summer day in Bulgaria. A Russian entrepreneur who was then twenty-eight years old, he had flown to Sofia from Sharjah, the third largest city in the United Arab Emirates, where he had lived for the previous two years. Sharjah was a kind of postmodern caravansary—as Bout told me recently, it was a place with “practically no law.” Although he had arrived in the Emirates not knowing much about Arab culture, he had a cosmopolitan ability to adapt to new circumstances.

The intensity of background spin emanating from Washington and Jerusalem threatens to leave very little to the imagination in advance of the March 5 meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Various U.S. officials, current and former, named and anonymous, have shared their skepticism regarding Israel's ability to inflict decisive damage on Iran's nuclear-enrichment program, as well as their trepidation at the costs, consequences, and retaliatory attacks that might follow from an Israeli strike.

Rosa Brooks and Charles Kenny discuss the challenges facing the US military in Afghanistan after reports of Korans being burned, the role of humanitarian aid in conflict zones, and the status of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Pamela Chan hosts.

The Syrian uprising should be the kind of story that takes social media by storm. It has extraordinary acts of resistance, ordinary citizens fighting for freedom, and the Internet's power to break through a government's wall of silence. On Thursday, a U.N. panel declared that the Syrian government has engaged in “gross human rights violations.”

So why hasn't Syria gone viral?

There is a near-consensus among those grappling with the crisis in Syria on the urgency of unifying the Syrian opposition. But 11 months into the uprisings, the Syrian opposition remains divided and fragmented. Such disunity complicates military and non-military strategies alike, makes arming the Syrian opposition a daunting proposition, and strengthens the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Amidst growing calls in the U.S. Congress for arming the Syrian opposition, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S.

Afshin Molavi and Sam Sherraden discuss The tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear development program, the state of manufacturing jobs in the US, and how China’s growing influence is affecting economic and political relations around the world. Pamela Chan hosts.

Ayalon's claim that Arab states deny refugees basic rights as demographic warfare against the Jewish state is also out of context. All Arab refugee-hosting countries endorsed the Arab Peace Initiative (API) in 2002 and again in 2007. The API contains an implicit compromise proposal to implement the right of return in a manner sensitive to Israel's demographic interests following Israeli recognition of international principles. As political landscapes shift in the Middle East, so may Arab foreign policies.

Entrepreneurs, businesses, NGOs, and governments exalt mobile technology as a game-changing tool to fight global poverty. But what if our eagerness to connect the world is inadvertently exacerbating the global economic divide?