Asia & the Pacific

"The tools available to India in the 1960s are not sufficient to address the challenges that African agriculture now faces. These include a rapidly-growing population, productivity loss due to ecological disruption, environmental decay, droughts, climate change, and conflict. Biotechnology offers additional tools that can help Africa address some of these challenges. It is another moment that calls for the kind of political courage that led to the adoption of the Green Revolution."

"George W. Bush's presidency really was that bad — and the fact that Obama has largely followed the same course is less a measure of Bush's wisdom than a reminder of the depth of the hole he dug his country into, as well as the institutionalized groupthink that dominates the U.S. foreign-policy establishment."

"China’s ability to respond rapidly to requests for investment in new areas such as infrastructure has emboldened many African leaders who are under pressure to meet their electoral promises....Many of the transactions between China and Africa are kept confidential and little is known about their terms. Promoting greater transparency and mutual learning from those arrangements will help to improve the image of Chinese businesses in Africa."

SOME IN the West have recently begun referring to the 2008 Beijing Olympics as the "Genocide Olympics" because of China's continued business ties with Sudan and its reluctance to intervene decisively in the Darfur conflict....

WASHINGTON needs to learn to talk, listen, and engage more and condemn less.

"...the Bush administration's foreign policy rests on a deep misreading of contemporary world politics. Conducting foreign policy on the basis of flawed premises is like designing an airplane while ignoring gravity...."