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The Current Crisis between North and South Korea

This article is written by brother Adnan Khan What has led to the current crisis? North Korea has fired artillery shells onto a South Korean island across its disputed western maritime border, injuring civilians, soldiers and property. South Korea has returned fire and raised its military alert to its highest non-wartime status. The Northern Limit Line (NLL) is disputed by North Korea and comes as South Korea's annual Hoguk military exercises get under way. The incident took place with renewed talks on North Korea's nuclear programme, including revelations of an active uranium enrichment site and preparations for another nuclear test. Taken together, the nuclear demonstration and the attack are widely interpreted as an effort to bolster the credentials of Kim Jong-un, the heir apparent as the country's leader, and the son and grandson of the only two men who have run the country. When his father, Kim Jong-il, North Korea's ailing leader, was establishing his cred

Global Economic Crisis - The Quest for Growth

This article is written by brother Adnan Khan The IMF's annual gathering in Washington had one message, that the worlds economies need to work together to achieve sustainable economic growth. "The most important policy question we confront together is how to strengthen the pace of growth and repair," US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reiterated the same remarks at a Brookings Institute speech. At the G-20 summit in June, world leaders pledged to coordinate their economic policies, putting particular emphasis on the need to refrain from currency actions that could endanger global economic health. But a sluggish global economic recovery set the stage for fractious talks on currencies and growth-rebalancing as financial leaders from the world's largest economies gathered at the G-20 conference in South Korea. Charles Dallara, head of the Institute for International Finance, which represents many of the world's largest private banks, said the lack of collabor

NATO: Divergent Interests Plague Alliance

This article is written by Brother Saqib Bukhari 28 heads of state convened in Lisbon, Portugal, today to discuss a new ‘Strategic Concept' for the North Atlantic Treaty organization (NATO) as a means to deal with the threats, issues and challenges it faces in the next decade. A lot of speculation is circulating amongst western academics in relation to the end result of such a convention and how it will shape global politics. A number of statements have been made by many a policy maker concerning the efficacy and purpose of NATO and such statements have ranged from the institution being an outdated coalition to a necessary mechanism in order to deal with security issues and the like. For one to better understand the current reality of NATO as well as its future forecasts, it is imperative to appreciate its history based on the causes for its inception in 1949. Following the end of WWII in 1945, European countries faced an array of problems. Economic hardship, inflation and i