Asia & the Pacific

"...[I]t's unclear who — if anyone — would buy North Korean nuclear technology. However, the nightmare scenario of North Korea selling it to the highest bidder merits consideration."

"China's size and relatively rapid economic growth will bring it closer to the US in terms of its power resources in the next few decades. But this does not necessarily mean it will surpass the US in military, economic and soft power."

"China does not want a nuclear or belligerent North Korea, but it is even more concerned about a failed state collapsing on its border. China has tried to persuade Kim's regime to follow its market-oriented example, but Kim is afraid that an economic opening would lead to a political opening and loss of dictatorial control. So, while China is trying to moderate the current crisis, its influence is limited."

"Honesty is the least bad option for the Obama administration. He should address the concerns, and acknowledge that the deployment is not going as he had hoped. That way, he can begin to lay out the groundwork for how he is going to turn this around, and take the American people with him. Or, even better, how he is going to facilitate power-sharing with the least extreme Taliban, and bring American troops home, before the situation gets any worse."

"...[W]e should resist the temptation to react to the fear of terrorism by turning inwards, reducing ties to foreign countries, and denying more students entry. Reducing the number of foreign student Visas would be counterproductive. The US tried it after September 11th, but has now reversed its approach, realising the harm it is doing. To do the same would be to be cowed into becoming a more closed society. We must remain open, outward-looking and vibrant. It is precisely many of these foreign students who will help their countries to reduce terrorism over the long run."

"EVEN as Russia and Georgia continue their on-again, off-again struggle over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a frenzied tea-leaf reading about the war's global political ramifications has broken out across airwaves and think-tank forums. But as the situation on the ground recedes inevitably to some new form of the pernicious "frozen conflict" that has plagued the region since Georgia's civil wars of the early 1990s, few are paying attention to a less portentous but equally critical international threat: an increase in the longstanding, rampant criminality in the conflict zones that is likely to further destabilize the entire Caucasus region and at worst provide terrorist groups with the nuclear material they have long craved."

"African universities could be the continent's gateways into the global knowledge economy for local diffusion of new technologies. But this potential remains unrealized because universities and research institutes in Africa remain digitally isolated from the rest of the world. This is partly because of government neglect and lack of strategic policies on Internet access....Providing low-cost, high-speed Internet access to African universities will help Africa build the capacity it needs to solve its own problems. It is one of the most strategic investments that the G-8 countries can make in Africa in the coming few years."

African countries are increasing the allocation of funds to scientific research. But such investments will be wasted if they are used for basic research rather than product innovation.