An interesting foreign policy aspect of the situation in Xinjiang is the region’s place within the wider global war on terrorism. When compared to the conflict in Chechnya, one can find a number of interesting similarities in the central governments’ narrative of the issue. However, in order to find them, it is first worth engaging [...]

Give peace a chance. This is the message of the High-Level Panel, who singled out peace as a cornerstone of the post-2015 development agenda in their much-anticipated report released yesterday. The report stresses how freedom from conflict and violence are not just a means to an end, but ends in and of themselves. Such freedoms are “fundamental [...]

Modernity’s jihad against religion seems to be in retreat. The incarceration of religion within the private sphere of human affairs under the assumption that with the spread of modernity, religion would cease to exist, has not worked out as was envisaged. America and Europe, the epitome of the West, have not been able to achieve [...]

Somalia could fall into the same trap as Afghanistan and Iraq where massive influxes of aid create a short-term boom in the economy but don’t necessarily lay the groundwork for sustainable growth, said Aisha Ahmad, assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and chief operation officer of the Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation, an internationally [...]

As the ‘Friends of Syria’ met in Istanbul in late April 2013, one of the questions dominating the meeting was whether Western nations should arm Syria’s rebels. Thus far, such a strategy has been resisted by the United States, while countries such as France and Britain have advocated a relaxing of arms embargoes so that [...]