Current affairs

MUMBAI - In most cities of South Asia, hidden beneath the grime and neglect of extreme poverty, there exists a little Somalia waiting to burst out and infect the body politic.

BERKELEY - The global financial crisis has breathed new life into hoary arguments about the euro's imminent demise.

A mounting chorus of voices -- including President-elect Obama's -- are linking any economic stimulus or any related bailout of Detroit to environmental and energy independence objectives.

CAMBRIDGE - The European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the euro are about to celebrate their tenth anniversary.

The euro has been something of a political scapegoat despite its runaway success, says Joaquin Almunia.

Because expectations across the Middle East are so high and the need for change is so great, during the next two months, all eyes will be focused on the early decisions made by President-elect Barack Obama.

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.

WASHINGTON, DC - The financial crisis that began in 2007 has been persistently marked by muddled thinking and haphazard policymaking. Now, the United States Treasury is headed for a mistake of historic and catastrophic proportions by refusing to bail out America's Big Three automakers.

Haven't we seen this before? As Chrysler, Ford Motors and General Motors beg both the Bush administration and the transitional team of President elect Barack Obama to relieve them of financial woes, the similarities with the late 1970s can't be ignored.

There is an old cliché which says that the victors write history.

One of the most important changes envisaged by the Barack Obama administration will be new and softer ways to deploy American influence abroad. Eight years of hubris under George W. Bush has taken its toll, as the failed "Freedom Agenda" drove the U.S.

Decline-o-mania is back! Talk of America's diminished weight, a "non-polar world" and the rise of Asia's new superpowers to overtake the West dominates political and academic debate on both sides of the Atlantic.

After eight years of misguided policy by the Bush administration in the Middle East, the time is overdue for an enlightened strategy to tackle the region's woes.

NEW HAVEN - The world's fundamental economic problem today is a staggering loss of business confidence.

Quite suddenly, everyone has started looking at maps again. With energy prices spiralling out of control - and energy producing countries growing in confidence as a result - the great game of geopolitics has made a dramatic and unwelcome return.

The growing speculation, fed by the musings of Vice President Elect Joseph Biden, that the incoming Obama Administration would shortly face a nice, neat - if painful - "generated" test of its abilities and its courage is not likely.