But some observers see other motives in pulling back Syria’s nuclear curtain. Andrew Semmel, the former top State Department official for nonproliferation, tells Voice of America the release may have been aimed at “putting a positive spin” on intelligence that was bound to leak. Dar Al-Hayat columnist Elias Harfoush sees the disclosure as an attempt [...]

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The question many Israelis are now asking is that, if the Syrians, whose every move is closely monitored by Israeli spy satellites, were able to achieve so much progress with their nuclear programme, how much does the West really know about the true extent of the Iranian programme, much of which is hidden away at [...]

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Diplomatic novice Dmitry Medvedev will take over next week as Russian president with a thick stack of foreign policy challenges in his in-tray.
Here are some of the international issues that will confront Medvedev when he replaces his mentor Vladimir Putin as head of state on May 7:
NATO ENLARGEMENT
The Western military alliance agreed at its summit [...]

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This article provides an excellent example of how things that never occurred to you could derail China’s charge on the world scene today. China will not overtake the United States for many reasons: demography, corruption, enviromental damage and more. Now we can add in invasive plants, and China’s inability to cope.
The relatively recent expansion of China’s [...]

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China bills the tropical island of Hainan as a new Hawaii. Its sparkling beaches are lined by hotels patronised by western expatriates, Russian package tours and China’s new middle classes.
Sanya, the town on its southern tip, is best known for hosting Miss World in recent years. But right next door, China’s forward-looking naval strategists are [...]

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The end of the unipolar moment, underlined by the American fiasco in Iraq and by the ascendancy of China, Brazil and India, raises again questions about the structure of the global system and how Europe fits within it.
After the end of the cold war and with the accelerating pace of globalisation, Europeans were inclined to [...]

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