Abdallah Schleifer I never thought the day would come when I would have to turn to Russian media to get a sense of what was going on somewhere in the world. But just for a start, look at the videos on Youtube from Russia Today, the 24/7 Russian English language news channel. Videos of scenes […]

THE contours of the Crimean crisis are becoming clearer with all the huffing and puffing from the West and Russia’s effort to soften western reprisals while strengthening its grip on the peninsula. At the heart of the crisis is the western overreach in seeking to bottle Moscow geopolitically by taking its only remaining buffer state […]

China played no role in the Ukraine crisis until  the situation spiraled into an overt geopolitical face-off between Russia and the West. Due to China’s status as a major geopolitical power in Eurasia and a permanent member of UN Security Council, its support weighs heavily in the state of play and amassment of morale for […]

The United States and Russia are at odds over a host of issues, from Ukraine to Syria to Edward Snowden, prompting talks of a new Cold War. Their next confrontation could take place on the coldest place on earth. Last week, a Russian military official told Russian media that the Kremlin was forming a new […]

Pierre Marthinus Opinion News Does the argument that “a choice isn’t a choice when made with a gun to your head” really stand? Unfortunately not. The Indonesian revolutionary rallying call was “merdeka atau mati” — the equivalent of Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death”. In the early years of the Indonesian revolution, […]