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Just published America's politics of defence, Paul Rogers Why Hamas is no ‘extremist', Alastair Crooke The Left and Hamas, Nadine Rosa-Rosso Sudan, the ICC and genocide, Martin Shaw China local, China global, Kerry Brown The Pakistani identity crisis, Rabia Mughal Who'll stop the rain?, Swetha Regunathan The struggle for the soul of Irish republicanism, Tom Griffin

America's politics of defence, Paul Rogers Barack Obama's political inheritance is one of the most difficult ever faced by a new United States president. But if the agenda of major policy challenges - short-term and long-term, domestic and foreign - is lengthy, three areas in particular stand out as unavoidable priorities: the economic recession and accompanying unemployment at home, a strategy on climate change after the near-decade wasted under George W Bush, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Paul Rogers is professor... more » Why Hamas is no ‘extremist', Alastair Crooke In the mechanistic template imposed by western leaders on the Middle East, of ‘moderates' who must be supported versus ‘extremists' who must be isolated and undermined, Hamas has to be painted, by mechanical necessity alone, as ‘extremists'. Hamas has become the ‘extremists' to answer in neat symmetry to the ‘moderates' of Ramallah, who for other reasons American and European leaders wish in any event to support.Alastair Crooke is co-director of Conflicts Forum, a... more » The Left and Hamas, Nadine Rosa-Rosso Massive demonstrations in European capitals and major cities in support  of the people of Gaza highlighted once again the core problem: the vast majority of the left agrees in supporting the people of Gaza against Israeli aggression, but refuses to support its political expressions such as Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The left not only refuses to support them, but also denounces them and fights against them.Support for the people of Gaza exists only at a... more » Sudan, the ICC and genocide, Martin Shaw It is by any standards a landmark decision. On 4 March 2009, three judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) chose to uphold the indictment of the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Sudanese government forces in the country's Darfur region. This represents the latest stage of a process begun when the prosecutor of the court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, made the indictment on 14 July 2008; and as in the wake of that earlier... more » China local, China global, Kerry Brown In China's industrial zones today, there is a palpable feeling of the great wheels of this enormous, complex economy grinding down. The northeast city of Harbin is deep in state-owned-industry territory - part of the Heilongjiang region where the then-premier Zhu Rongji was in the 1990s willing to see millions laid off work in order to rationalise and streamline the state sector. Kerry Brown is an associate fellow on the Asia programme, Chatham House, and director of Strategic China Ltd. He... more » The Pakistani identity crisis, Rabia Mughal Last Monday, at 10pm, my phone beeped. "The Sri Lankan cricket team attacked by terrorists in Lahore," read the text message. "This is outrageous," my husband mumbled, reaching for the TV remote. I did not register footage of the attack in real time. Instead, as the bedlam played out around the Liberty Roundabout in Lahore, my mind turned back to November 2007 when I passed that spot on my last visit to my homeland. The call to prayer had prompted... more » Who'll stop the rain?, Swetha Regunathan The air had been eager from the moment we arrived in Chennai for my cousin's wedding. We were there in November, typically one of the wettest months for India's southeast coast. It took a week for the rain to begin to fall in torrents, like angry fists. Two days after the wedding, I awoke to the roaring static of the rain, something like a lost radio frequency. Great, I thought, I'll be stuck inside all morning, if not all day. After all, where there's heavy rain in this part of... more » The struggle for the soul of Irish republicanism, Tom Griffin Tom Griffin (London, OK):The agenda behind the dissident republican attacks of the past few days was acutely summed up yesterday by Irish News commentator Brian Feeney: The killings were designed to accomplish a number of objectives – to embarrass Sinn Fein; to provoke a disproportionate response from the British; to cause division between Sinn Fein and the DUP and make it less likely that policing and justice will be devolved to northern politicians. All of these aims add up... more »