US military

Smart Reads May 16, 2013

May 16, 2013 1:57 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ Pharmaceutical companies are worried that the battle in India over patents will inspire other emerging economies to change their laws and make it more difficult to register or extend patents.
♦ Joshua Foust makes the liberal case for drones: “a lethal autonomous drone could actually result in fewer casualties and less harm to civilians.”
♦ The US military has seen a baffling rise in suicide numbers from 10.3 per 100,000 troops in 2002, to above 18 per 100,000 now.
♦ Gazans have a real taste for KFC and one entrepreneur has set up a business smuggling the fried chicken in from El Arish, Egypt. “Despite the blockade, KFC made it to my home”, says one satisfied customer. Read more

Tags: chicken, drones, Gaza, India, KFC, pharmaceuticals, suicide, US military
Posted in Foreign affairs, Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads May 9, 2013

May 9, 2013 1:26 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ We love our multilateral organisations here at the FT, so we’ve taken a close look at how Roberto Azevêdo managed to win the WTO DG nomination – visiting a mere 47 countries along the way. Mr Azevêdo struck a pragmatic note in an in interview with the FT, saying a year-end Bali meeting would focus on the “do-able”: “It’s… about instilling confidence that we can still negotiate, that we can still deliver multilaterally.”
♦ After David Cameron welcomed Uhuru Kenyatta to London this week, Richard Dowden considers the diplomatic earthquake that could occur when Kenyatta is expected to report to the ICC. Will Britain “abandon the ICC or isolate their closest political and security ally in East and the Horn of Africa”? Will Kenyatta run the country from a Dutch prison using Skype?
♦ Israel has warned the US about an imminent Russian deal to sell ground-to-air missile systems to Syria.
♦ US military camouflage has developed from two types to 10, just one example of inefficient duplication between different government agencies.
♦ Arguably the most haunting photograph of the collapse of the garment factory in Bangladesh. Read more

Tags: Bali, Bangladesh, David Cameron, ICC, Israel, Kenya, missile, Roberto Azevêdo, Russia, Syria, Uhuru Kenyatta, US foreign policy, US military, WTO
Posted in Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads March 15, 2013

March 15, 2013 4:11 pm by Amie Tsang

Iraq may be unsafe and treacherous, but adventurous Iraqis are reaping the benefits of a growing consumer economy. However, some businesspeople are frustrated that it is not safe enough to bring their families into the country and others lament that the profits are being made in nearby countries like Jordan.
David Gardner argues for arming Syrian rebels: “The past two years have taken an awful toll… Whole swaths of Syrian cities such as Aleppo, Homs, Hama and, now, the suburbs of Damascus have been razed.” Philip Stephens thinks the country is also paying the price for US timidity: “What is happening – or rather not happening – in Syria is in part a reflection of what happened in Iraq.Once bitten, the US is twice shy.”
C.J. Chivers reports from Heesh in Syria on the “bitterly personal war, in which Islamic and more secular fighters share an immediate goal: to protect their own families, an ambition they accuse the West of not adequately supporting.”
Google’s announcement that their RSS reading tool will be shut down was met with outrage from an unexpected source: Iranians using Google Reader to evade government censorship.
Swiss researchers have been studying satellite images of nighttime lights from 1992 and 2009 and China, India and Africa are growing brighter.
Spencer Ackerman at Wired looks at how the US military has missed out on significant insights into the Iraq war by not collating Iraqi accounts of what happened – particularly when it comes to the influence of Sunni tribes in preventing the US occupation “from descending into an even bigger fiasco”.
Take a look at the Economist’s special report on competitiveness in the US, in which Edward McBride argues that while political gridlock is bad for America’s economy, underlying growth prospects are brighter than they seem.