Opinion

While the Taliban officially launched their annual spring offensive this week pledging large-scale attacks, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) will for the first time in 15 years be able to deploy a light attack aircraft specifically designed for counterinsurgency operations in their fight against the insurgents. The Afghan Air Force (AAF) will begin this year’s fighting season ...

There is a consensus that aggression by one nation against another is a serious matter, but there is no comparable consensus about what constitutes aggression. Waging aggressive war was one charge against Nazi leaders at the 1946 Nuremberg war crimes trials, but 70 years later it is unclear that aggression, properly understood, must involve war, as commonly understood. Or that ...

  The reports of consensus over oil output freeze following talks between Saudi Arabia and Russia and signs that global glut will ease in the US, saw the crude climbing to the highest level in more than four months on Tuesday. Speculations were already rife that the two oil majors had reached an agreement, boosting expectations that a wider deal ...

  Albert R. Hunt SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Donald Trump is getting some unlikely assistance from his opponents in his uphill effort to win a majority of Republican presidential delegates. Ted Cruz and John Kasich remain too busy battling each other to unite in opposition to the front-runner. Cruz and Kasich have the same goal: to prevent Trump from getting ...

  My recent column on the sixth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, generated some energetic criticism — or, rather, half a paragraph of it did. While I acknowledged that many Americans have benefited from the law, I also said that the Obama administration was too eager to give it credit for slowing the growth of ...

While the attention of the United States continues to be focused on the Middle East and the battle against IS — despite President Obama’s hope to “pivot to Asia” — China has been behaving in an increasingly aggressive way in the Eastern Pacific, claiming large swaths of ocean as its territorial waters. It has built artificial islands on reefs in ...

  Pending government approval, a group of 35 doctors and nurses based in Shanghai will soon become the nation’s first medical team to join the World Health Organization’s emergency response system, specializing in disaster relief. It’s a big step, but China is no tenderfoot. Long gone are the days of the chijiao yisheng, or “barefoot doctors,” when farmers with rudimentary ...

  The biggest source of fresh cash in American equities isn’t speculators or exchange-traded funds — it’s companies buying their own stock, by a 6-to-1 margin. There’s been a lot of chatter about stock buybacks the past few years. Some people believe share repurchases are propping up the market; others think this is a myth, or a non-story. There is ...

As Republicans head toward what could be a stalemated convention, they might recall how the party healed itself in 1952 in what was known as the “winter of discontent.” The Republicans drafted a military leader, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, as their presidential candidate. The looming showdown between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz is a potential “train wreck,” to quote my ...

In its drive to diversify economy, the UAE’s government has outlined several strategies, notably the scheme to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by giving foreign investors attractive incentives. Annual Investment Meeting (AIM), a world leading emerging markets’ FDI platform, is being held in Dubai within this context. It connects the top FDI investors, experts, and practitioners in the world. The ...