WASHINGTON
They are unpopular all over the world, with one exception. According to a
new Pew Research Center poll, the only country where a majority of citizens support drone strikes is the country that uses the new technology most regularly: the United States.
It's not an easy time for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
It's happening in Buenos Aires. It's happening in Paris and in Athens. It's even happening at the World Bank headquarters.
It's a deal that's been more than 15 years in the making and the unmaking. The United States and Japan have been struggling since the 1990s to transform the U.S. military presence on the island of Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan.
In early February, Iran launched its third successful commercial satellite in three years. The Barack Obama administration, the United Nations, and the news media barely acknowledged the accomplishment. North Korea, on the other hand, has created a furor each of the three times its satellites failed to reach orbit.
The geopolitical centre of gravity, as measured in arms spending and transfers, has shifted to Asia.
After three years of frozen relations between North Korea and the United States, the two longstanding adversaries are on the verge of a thaw.
After three years of frozen relations between North Korea and the United States, the two longstanding adversaries are on the verge of a thaw.
When Hu Jintao took over as the leader of China in 2002, U.S. companies welcomed his accession as a "good sign for American business"." Political analysts described Hu as a member of the fourth generation of Communist party leadership who might very well turn out to be a "closet liberal".
For the last two decades, U.S. administrations have come in like a lion and out like a lamb with their policies on North Korea. Determined to demonstrate Washington's resolve, U.S. presidents have played hardball with Pyongyang in an effort to precipitate regime change or at least bully the intransigent country into knuckling under.
It's not the topic of George Packer's latest essay that's particularly surprising. Inequality, he writes, is undermining democracy. Progressives have been hammering home this message for years if not decades.
President Barack Obama intended to use the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting last weekend in Hawai'i to signal a shift in U.S. foreign policy away from the Middle East and toward the Asia-Pacific region.
The South Korean government has been campaigning to have its southern island of Jeju recognised as one of the seven new wonders of nature. A favourite honeymoon spot in Asia and an official "island of peace", Jeju already boasts several UNESCO World Natural Heritage sites.
The United States and South Korea maintain a close military alliance. Congress just passed a free trade agreement that will boost economic ties with Seoul. And the leaders of the two countries form a small but very powerful mutual admiration society, which The New York Times has termed a "presidential man-crush".
Peace has never been a particularly popular word in Washington, DC. This is, after all, the home of the Pentagon and the major military contractors, not to mention all the think tanks and congressional lapdogs that lie in the king- size family bed with them.
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