I have often (OK, twice) been asked who my favourite travel writers are. I know I am supposed to answer with a soliloquy on the comparative merits of Bruce Chatwin and Bill Bryson, perhaps throwing in something about how, of course darling, the genre has not been the same since...

The United States, Britain, France, and others, have just recognized a rebel coalition as being Syria's legitimate representatives. However, serious questions are being raised about the coalition, including by Canada, which is refusing to recognize it until it rejects extremism and pledges to protect minorities --...

Corruption is literally built into the foundations of modern China. The construction and infrastructure sectors are two of the most corrupt in country, putting at risk China's vaunted development, and also potentially endangering its neighbors.

All across China, everything from sidewalks to apartment buildings to...

It seems like a small story -- local politics in an island nation at the edge of the map. But it is typical of the sort of dynamics that are seriously undermining western security in a critical period, and in a geostrategic location.

This particular story started over a year...

It's going from bad to worse to farce for free speech in India. In fact, by the time you reach the end of this blog, its contents might be illegal on the subcontinent.

First, a few months ago, India's Communication and IT Minister Kapil Sibal decided that Indians were texting...

Across the US, critical military installations are being put at risk by environmental change. According to the US Department of Defense's (DoD) 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Report:

In 2008, the National Intelligence Council [NIC] judged that more than 30 US military installations were already facing elevated levels of...

This is Part Two of a two-part series on the roots of corruption in India, and some of what is being done to weed it out. This first part looked at causes of corruption in modern India. The second part looks at how the battle against corruption in...

There is a revolution in India.

Individual by individual, an anti-corruption wave is growing within Indian civil society. In recent months, people from all sectors of Indian society have said 'enough is enough' and, each in their own way, are doing something about it. Some are taking to the...

On Christmas Day, 1991, five new countries were born. This year Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan turn 20. A lot has changed.

When the Soviet Union fragmented in to its component parts, and the new nations of Central...

India is in the throes of what some are calling a "second freedom struggle." Across the country, citizens are on the streets, in the courts and on the internet, fighting to break corruption's chokehold on the nation. It is a critically important...

New Delhi. Some of India's biggest fish are getting caught up in the country's fast-growing wave of anti-corruption activity. In what could be India's equivalent of a judicial jasmine revolution, previously invulnerable politicians, business icons, and pillars of the community are all nervously keeping their lawyers on speed-dial.

The...

The nuclear tragedy currently unfolding in Japan started decades ago on a piece of paper. Before any infrastructure project that size is approved, a risk assessment needs to be done. Hazards are identified and a cost/benefit analysis is made about how to approach those risks.

If constructing in a...

Nuku'alofa, Kingdom of Tonga. WikiLeaks has given New Zealand's Sunday Star-Times 1,490 diplomatic cables from the United States' Wellington Embassy. To date, only a few of those cables have been publicly released. However, they clearly indicate an increasingly close relationship between New Zealand and the U.S.,...

Nuku'alofa, Kingdom of Tonga. The small South Pacific country of the Kingdom of Tonga has been busy. In a two-week period around the start of September, separate military delegations from the US, New Zealand, Australia, UK, India and the UN stopped by for a visit. The French sent a frigate...

It was a bit of a you-got-your-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate-no!-you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter moment.

As a journalist, I had been covering how China was increasingly making friend and influencing nations around the world. As a result, I was on a tiny, beautiful island in the South Pacific where China was becoming one of...