SRI LANKA: Media Face Uncertainties in the Run-up to Elections

The string of events involving the Sri Lankan press over the past week has once again brought the embattled Fourth Estate into the limelight. This comes into sharp focus as the country eagerly awaits the upcoming presidential elections.

MIDEAST: Israel Cannot be Sultan

A bizarre diplomatic incident - even by the Byzantine-like standards of the old near East - has threatened already strained relations between Israel and Turkey.

IRAQ: Will Elections Bring Stability, or More Turmoil?

Iraq's upcoming parliamentary elections are widely considered a barometre of the country's progress and march toward stability, but they could also have a serious destabilising impact, as the U.S. prepares for a major reduction of its troops by August.

MIDEAST: Israel Cool to New U.S. Pressure

In the past, whenever there was even a semblance of pressure from Washington on Israel, nerves in Jerusalem went all a-jangle.

POLITICS: Iran Uses Fear of Covert Nuclear Sites to Deter Attack

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Iran had "quietly hidden an increasingly large part of its atomic complex" in a vast network of tunnels and bunkers buried in mountainsides.

BOLIVIA: Evo Morales, the Best Ally of the Middle Class

Just five years ago, an alliance between an indigenous leader and Bolivia's small but influential middle class seemed virtually impossible.

THAILAND: With Hmong Expulsion, Army Asserts Foreign Policy Role

The recent deportation of Hmong asylum seekers to Laos has shown that Thailand’s powerful military remains the dominant player in shaping the relationship between this South-east Asian kingdom and its immediate neighbours.

IRAN: New Revelations Tear Holes in Nuclear Trigger Story

New revelations about two documents leaked to The Times of London to show that Iran is working on a "nuclear trigger" mechanism have further undermined the credibility of the document the newspaper had presented as evidence of a continuing Iranian nuclear weapons programme.

TURKEY: Peace May Come to Pass in 2010

With newfound liberties for the Kurdish minority and the government's ‘Democratic Opening' initiative the prospects for peace in 2010 are brighter than they have been in the last 25 years. The fly in the ointment is the ban in December of the pro-Kurd, Democratic Society Party (DTP).

MIDEAST: ‘Prince of Peace’ – Obama or Netanyahu?

United States President Barack Obama’s intended broad Mideast policies are running into the complexities of peacemaking - especially after the ‘Prince of Peace’ began insisting on the necessity of, sometimes, fighting for peace.

POLITICS: Whither Iran?

The confrontation that took place in the streets of several large cities in Iran on the occasion of Ashura has brought the acrimonious political fight among the Islamic Republic's elite into focus in significantly different ways than before.

U.S.: Digging Out or Digging Deeper?

As 2009 draws to a close, the big question here is whether President Barack Obama is succeeding in digging out of the hole – international as well as financial - that he inherited from George W. Bush or digging deeper into it.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Ice Melting Faster Everywhere

From the Arctic sea ice to the Antarctic interior and the mountainous peaks of Peru, Alaska, and Tibet, ice is melting at an alarming rate. The accelerating loss of ice sheets, sea ice, and glaciers is one of the most powerful and striking indicators of a warming climate.

U.S.: White Supremacists Crash Anti-Obama Tea Party

It began with Apr. 15 Tax Day protests as thousands rallied in a number of cities across the country.

INDIA: Despite Failed Climate Talks, More Green Awareness

The world supped on an alphabet soup of acronyms over the nearly two weeks of climate change talks that just ended – UNFCCC, COP-15, IPCC, CDM, LDCF, MEF, CCS. But did any of these filter down to reach the average citizen?

POLITICS: The Week the IAEA Applied a Nuclear Double Standard

In 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that a member state had violated its Safeguards Agreement by carrying out covert uranium conversion and enrichment activities and plutonium experiments for more than two decades. The nature of certain of those enrichment activities, moreover, raised legitimate suspicions of interest in a nuclear weapons programme.

CLIMATE CHANGE: No Real Deal, and No Exit

The roof of our house is on fire but our leaders, our economic system and we ourselves are ignoring the alarms and continuing to add more fuel. There are no exit doors in our house; there is nowhere else to go.

EUROPE: Cosy With Israel, Despite the Headlines

Israel's relations with the European Union were tense for most of 2009 - if newspaper headlines are to be believed. In the past week, a British court drew fierce criticism from Israeli politicians after it issued an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister, following a complaint that she had authorised war crimes in Gaza.

BURMA: A Celebration of Life through the Arts under the Junta

The Burmese military spares nothing with its iron grip on power – not even art.

IRAN: Domestic Conflict Shifts into Higher Gear

Although the tumult that has gripped Iran since the contested Jun. 12 election has never abated, two recent occurrences have highlighted the further sharpening of internal conflict and the government's inability to restore stability in the face of creative ways the opposition has learned to use the symbols of the Islamic Republic in order to sustain itself.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Future Energy Scenario Unfavourable to Asia

Much of the discussion in Copenhagen has revolved around targets and deadlines for cutting carbon emissions. But a weekend seminar in the idyllic Danish island of Samsoe, titled "Future Energy," helped journalists locate the problem in the context of the world's biggest emitters.