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How volleyball and pop have shaken China's idea of race
by Isabel Hilton
EARLIER this year, China picked Ding Hui, a young man from Hangzhou, for its national volleyball team. Last month, a 20-year-old Shanghainese, Lou Jing, made the last 30 in the Chinese version of Pop Idol. Neither event would have attracted unusual notice but for the one thing both have in common: They are in a small, and for China, novel category of mixed-race citizens - children of black fathers. Their emergence into the limelight has forced the country into an uncomfortable an

All hail the generals
Man United midfielder Darren Fletcher. AFP
Like lead singers in a rock band, strikers by and large hog the headlines - there's nothing cooler than a guy scoring regularly. The gifted attacking midfielders get their fair share of the limelight, too. They stylishly set up the goals, they prompt and...

Nothing else matters
Will it be a full house at the National Stadium when Singapore take on Thailand on Nov 14? TODAY FILE PHOTO
I wonder what went through the minds of the Indonesians players when they walked out onto the pitch to be welcomed by their small band of supporters, and a whole swathe of grey at the National Stadium on Wednesday. Officially, 6,107 people turned up for...

Pay MPs the rate for the job
by Philip Stephens
DOES Britain want a Parliament peopled by the rich, the retired, the young and the childless - perhaps with a few party hacks thrown in? That is the way it is heading by stripping MPs of their allowances. The historian Thomas Babbington Macaulay observed that there was no spectacle so absurd as that of the British gripped by one of their periodic fits of...

Analysis
Republican hopes rekindled
by Adam Nagourney
THE Republican victories in the races for New Jersey and Virginia governors put the party in a stronger position to turn back the political wave President Barack Obama unleashed last year, setting the stage for Republicans to raise money, recruit candidates and ride an energised base as the party heads into next year's midterm elections. But a Democratic...

A Break-up template
by Matthew Lynn
IT'S too late, too timid, and comes with too many questions attached. Even so, the United Kingdom government deserves some credit for finally moving to break up a bloated, failed banking industry. It has done two things that were urgently needed. The banks that were bailed out at such huge cost to the taxpayer will be forced to become more competitive. And...

Analysis
Roadblock to a nuclear deal
by Michael Slackman
IRAN'S leadership has once again equivocated after agreeing to a deal that would ease its nuclear standoff with the West. But this time, that may be as much a product of the nation's smouldering political crisis as it is a negotiating tactic, analysts say. Tehran has yet to state publicly why it objects to the deal, in which it would ship its low-enriched...

Analysis
Obama team loses face
by Lachlan Carmichael
Mrs Clinton sought to reassure Arabs on Monday after angering them with her remarks on the Jewish settlement. AFP
UNITED States President Barack Obama's team has disappointed many Palestinians and other Arabs who long for it to fulfil its initial tough stance on settlements and a broader pledge to improve ties with the Muslim world, they said. During a Middle East tour,...

Why Africa is saying welcome to the Chinese
by PAUL KAGAME
THERE is a debate among geopolitical and economic commentators about the merits of Chinese versus Western involvement with Africa. One argument is that Chinese investment is exploitative and undermines the development of democracy and human rights on the continent. Others view the matter in terms of competition, arguing that China is encroaching on the...

Japan a major worry
by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The Daily Telegraph
JAPAN is drifting helplessly towards a dramatic fiscal crisis. For 20 years the world's second-largest economy has been able to borrow cheaply from a captive bond market, feeding its addiction to Keynesian deficit spending - and allowing it to push public debt beyond the point of no return. The rocketing cost of insuring against the bankruptcy of the...

Analysis
No choice but Karzai
by Robert H Reid
President Hamid Karzai's leadership is weak, his government corrupt, and nearly a third of the votes he won in the August election were thrown out as fakes. But in the end, the Obama administration is sticking by the Afghan President because it has few other good options. Mr Karzai is far from the strong partner that Washington had hoped would emerge from...

Has Obama made good his promises?
by Keith Richburg
Approval ratings for Mr Obama have dropped. AFP
BEFORE he was elected President on Nov 4 last year, Mr Barack Obama, in The Audacity of Hope described himself as ''a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. ''I am bound to disappoint some, if not all of...

Analysis
An eye on revenge
by Sebastian Smith
Republicans are looking to wound President Barack Obama's Democrats on Tuesday in three closely-fought elections seen as barometers of a vital battle for Congress in 2010. In the governor's race in Virginia - where Mr Obama caused a sensation last year by becoming the first Democratic presidential contender to win since 1964 - Republican Bob McDonnell looks...

The end game draws near
Redknapp (top left) and Wenger (front) hope this season will be a fruitful year in silverware terms. AFP
The smart ones think ahead. Way, way ahead. Chess grandmasters plot not just their next move but their next six, at the very least. The simpleton grabs, the smart man plots, he'd rather get his pieces in place to close out the game. All eyes will be on the...

Drivers' compromise
A MOTORIST was stumped momentarily when I asked on Monday what would make him give up his car. ''Only when I can't afford it,'' was his eventual reply. Later that night, I caught a lift in a friend's new $80,000 car and the passengers - me included - marvelled at his new ride. More than just a luxury item, the car is viewed as a necessity by an increasingly...

Beginning of the end?
by Baradan Kuppusamy
PARTI Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) spiritual adviser Nik Aziz Nik Mat may have the party rank-and-file behind him in his opposition to PAS working closer with the ruling United Malays National Organisation (Umno), but the mood among the state power brokers and entrenched leadership is to bottle him up. The PAS leadership network at all levels across the country is...
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