Jung Chang’s Wild swans: Three daughters of China, 2004 [1991], skewers Mao and Maoism like no other memoir of the surreal hell that China descending into from 1954 until the death of Mao in 1976. Both her parents were model communists, her father one of Mao’s early disciples in Yunan, the golden age for Mao. Both were tormented starting in […]

Satellite images released in early-October revealed recent construction at Ream Naval Base on Cambodia’s Gulf of Thailand coast, part of a China-backed redevelopment plan. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative reported that over August and September, three new buildings had been constructed, while several areas had been cleared of foliage and a road was under development. The activity comes amid concern […]

In fact, if the Heartland were to succeed in joining the Rimland, the maritime superiority of the United States and more generally of the thalassocratic powers would be over. At that point, the U.S. would only have to shift all its military weight to the Indo-Pacific region and unleash a war directly against China, perhaps under the pretext of Taiwan […]

Following the Galwan conflict in June 2020, China-India relations have gone through one of their worst phases. Despite several rounds of military and diplomatic talks, progress in military disengagement has been painstakingly slow, and there is a deployment of 50,000-60,000 troops on each side of the line of the actual control (LAC), the temporary border between India and China. Even […]

In recent months there has been a significant expansion of the Taliban power within Afghanistan. It includes areas once controlled by the Northern Alliance—particularly Badakhshan, Takhar and Panjshir, which the Taliban had largely failed to capture in the 1990s. The international community has maintained a cautious stand vis-à-vis the Taliban, but Tajikistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan, has been […]

Militant attacks inside Pakistan have been rising, highlighting an uncomfortable truth: America’s exit from neighboring Afghanistan has emboldened would-be militant extremists. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has had a knock-on effect in Pakistan. Attacks by a group known as the Pakistani Taliban are on the rise. Last week, the government signed a one-month cease-fire with the group. But as NPR’s […]

Islamic State militants detonated an explosive device on Saturday inside barracks of the Pakistani police in the district of Bajaur, the group said on Telegram. A police officer and a policeman were killed, it added.

A magnetic bomb attached to a passenger minivan exploded in a heavily Shi’ite area of the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, causing an unknown number of casualties, Taliban officials and local residents said. A recent spate of such attacks has heaped more pressure on the Taliban rulers, who took power following the collapse of the Western-backed government in August and […]

A Taliban provincial spokesman says a bomb exploded in a mosque during Friday prayers, wounding at least 15 people in eastern Afghanistan, where Islamic State group militants have been waging a campaign of violence. Qari Hanif, the government spokesman for Nangarhar Province, said the bomb appeared to have been planted inside the mosque in the town of Traili, located in […]

Afghanistan’s Central Bank (Da Afghanistan Bank) announced Monday that it would auction off around $10 million this week, in a bid to help bring some stability to the Afghan currency. Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) called on commercial banks, money exchangers, and companies that provide money services to attend the auction on Tuesday. The development comes a day after the Afghani […]