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Hyping China: The Reality Behind the Great Wall

By Steven Mufson and John Pomfret
WITH THE AMERICAN economy struggling and the political system in gridlock, there is one thing everyone in Washington seems to agree on: The Chinese do it better.
Cyberspace? China has an army of hackers ready to read your most intimate emails and spy on corporations and super-secret government agencies. (Just ask [...]

How Iran Containment Could Mean War

By James M. Lindsay and Ray Takeyh
AS IRAN relentlessly moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, calls will grow for the United States to think seriously about how to contain Tehran. A preventive attack will not work, some will argue, and could unleash a wave of terrorism that would further imperil Iraq and Afghanistan. Conversely, [...]

After the Financial Crisis, Praise for Wall Street’s Wizards

By Carlos Lozada
REMEMBER when we admired Wall Street’s financial wizards, the math and computer geeks who dreamed up all those credit default swaps, mortgage derivatives, collateralized debt obligations and the like? They were wise. They won Nobel Prizes. They made the economy more efficient. And they earned tons of cash.
Today, of course, they’re the villains, [...]

Eliminating the US-Muslim World Trust Deficit

By Huma Yusuf
Gathered around a table with Karachi-based bloggers one evening last week, Farah Pandith, the US Special Representative to Muslim Communities, asked, “Can’t a person do more than one thing at a time?”
The question was raised as a way to get around the fact that most conversations about America’s relations with Muslims around the [...]

The Punishment of Banks: To Whose Benefit?

Michael R. Czinkota and Charles J. Skuba
Large banks are under siege by governments. There are widespread cries of outrage as banks announce their bonuses for 2009 performance.
In the UK, Alistair Darling, the finance minister, already revealed a 50 percent “supertax” on all UK bank bonuses above £25,000 (US$ 40,000). France has announced that it will [...]