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Since Egyptian legislative elections were held in December 2005, the National Democratic Party (NDP) has backslid on democratisation, reclaiming the ground of openness that it ceded over the past two years and reversing the short-lived tide of liberalisation. These and other factors indicate that democratisation is back to square one, unless the opposition can force the government's hand.
The lack of democratic breakthroughs worthy of mention in Arab countries has spurred debate about barriers to change. The debate would be incomplete, however, without a discussion of the means by which authoritarian Arab regimes control their societies, particularly the critical roles performed by security services.
A country's borders should not be confused with those familiar dotted lines drawn on some musty old map of nation-states. In an era of mass migration, globalization and instant communication, a map reflecting the world's true boundaries would be a crosscutting, high-tech and multidimensional affair.
Nathan Brown, a leading expert on Palestinian politics and Islamic law at the Carnegie Endowment, says that since neither Israel nor Hamas has much experience dealing with the other, what is needed is a period of "quiet diplomacy."
Missile defenses have come to reflect both an example of, and a means toward, the steady improvement in U.S.-Indian ties occurring in recent years. A deepening bilateral relationship has become part of New Delhi's larger solution to increasing India's capacity to defeat those threats requiring active defenses in the future.
China’s investments in Sudan and Burma have come under harsh criticism of late. Energy-hungry China will need to be convinced that bad governance in places like Burma or Sudan fosters instability that is bad for Chinese investment before it will rein in its rogue client states.
President Mahmoud Amadinejad of Iran sent a letter to President Bush raising questions about American "justice" and questioning whether the United States or Iran is more righteous. This letter should be answered in kind by the Bush administration. Unfortunately, there is likely to be no such reply.
U.S.-Russian relations are "rather precarious" and could spiral downwards. The Russians are struck by what looks to be a sort of breathtaking exercise of double standards on the part of the Bush administration.
Russia's two decades of geopolitical decline started with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and included the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it is possible that 2005 may be viewed retrospectively as a historical turning point -- the end of Russia's decline. This recovery might be based on the shaky foundation of high oil prices, but it's real nonetheless.
The revelation shows that half-hearted reforms have addressed merely the symptoms of China’s financial fragility. Poor business practices are blamed for NPLs but the real source is political. As long as the ruling Communist party relies on state-controlled banks to maintain an unreformed core of a command economy, Chinese banks will generate more bad loans.