A highly anticipated report from the United Nations chronicles China’s mistreatment of the Uyghur ethnic group, a Muslim minority in the far western region of Xinjiang that according to the United States is suffering genocide. The report includes testimony from 40 people who say they were subjected to arbitrary detention as well as various forms of torture and humiliation, including […]

Pakistan’s historic flooding covering a third of the country is a complex humanitarian disaster illustrating how excessive water can quickly overwhelm land by brute force. Understanding the fluid dynamics of increasedflooding because of quickening climate change is essential to create preventive measures involving water runoff, water tables and tides. The basic data is alarming. The worst flooding occurred along the […]

The massive floods that have hit Pakistan couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. Struggling to keep its economy afloat by relying on the lifebuoy of international loans, the widespread destruction caused by the unprecedented deluge will only make its financial situation even more precarious. And while the UN and international community has pledged financial assistance and material aid […]

Crypto trading volume, and co-movement with equity markets, has surged in the region. Few parts of the world have embraced crypto assets like Asia, where top adopters include individual and institutional investors from India to Vietnam and Thailand. This raises the important issue of the extent of integration of crypto into the financial system in Asia. While digitalization can aid […]

Background Businesses are rightly more concerned now over the outbreak of hostilities in the Taiwan Strait and its impact on physical security, assets/investments, and business continuity. Given the Chinese response to US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s 2-3 Aug 2022 visit to Taiwan, the risk of significant business disruption is perceived to have shifted up a notch from a […]

Friday’s deadly bombing at a mosque in Afghanistan’s western Herat province has been condemned widely by individuals, governments and organizations. At least 18 people including a prominent cleric, Mujeeb-ur-Rahman Ansari, were killed in the explosion at Gazargah mosque in Herat city, where people gathered to offer congregational Friday prayers. 23 others were wounded, according to officials. The United Nations mission […]

Thousands of people attended the funeral Saturday of a popular Herat Imam, Mawlavi Mujeeb-ur-Rahman Ansari, who was killed in a suicide bombing at a mosque on Friday. Mawlavi Ansari was killed along with 19 others at the Guzargah Mosque, officials said. Mawlavi Fazil Rahman Ansari, the deceased’s brother, has replaced Mawlavi Mujeeb-ur-Rahman Ansari as the mosque’s imam. “Abdullah, who is […]

The Taliban celebrated the first anniversary of the withdrawal of US and allied troops from Afghanistan, including declaring Wednesday a national holiday. An official ceremony was held on Wednesday at Bagram Air Base, formerly the largest US military base in Afghanistan. The plane carrying the last US troops took off from Kabul airport at one minute before midnight on August […]

In the run-up to the 2015 presidential elections, All Progressives Congress (APC) party candidate Muhammadu Buhari’s unique selling point was his background as a former general and former military head of state. Many believed he had what it takes to combat the war on terror. As it happened, he went on to win that election, defeating the incumbent President Goodluck […]

There is an overwhelming boisterous ignorance that characterises Australia’s foreign policy approach to China. When Beijing was boxed and derided as emerging, weak and well-behaved, everyone supposedly got on. Washington remained the region’s patriarch and Australia its policing deputy. Everyone could get on plundering resources and making some ruddy cash along the way. Then, assumptions started being challenged: the cheeky […]