Opinion

  David Lai / Fred Gellert SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS The events of the last year have seen a shift in Beijing’s relations with China’s neighboring states and the United States. New Chinese challenges to the international order such as assertions of territorial ownership, pronouncements of international initiatives, military build ups and maneuvering, and land creation in the South China …

  Mihir Sharma Walk into a coffee shop in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru (formerly and more commonly known as Bangalore) and you’re likely to find it full of young people drawing up business plans or meeting with funders. You’d be forgiven for thinking the city — once a leafy and cool retirees’ paradise, now a gridlocked concrete jungle …

WASHINGTON The Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week ought to be interesting, but whether it will be informative is another question. Barring a last-minute surprise, the delegates will nominate real estate magnate Donald Trump to be the GOP presidential candidate, and he will pledge — probably repeatedly — to “make America great again.” Just how he plans to do …

  The European Central Bank’s (ECB) decision-making governing council will on Thursday, a month after the Brexit, assess market turmoil shock triggered by the Leave vote. Though volatility has subsided, it is widely believed that the extent of economic damage is still unclear. ECB President Mario Draghi and his colleagues look forward to an uphill task to decide what to …

  Eli Lake After the horror at Nice, perhaps the most depressing comment came from France’s prime minister. Calling for unity in the face of terror, Manuel Valls observed: “Times have changed, and we should learn to live with terrorism. We have to show solidarity and collective calm.” If this sounds like resignation, it shouldn’t. Valls is no squish. After …

On July 12, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague handed down its long-awaited ruling on a case brought by the Philippines against China regarding the South China Sea. Judging by the international reactions to the ruling so far, the consensus (outside China at least) has been that this is “a huge win“ for the Philippines and a …

  France is in the line of fire. Of the 16 terrorist incidents that took place in Western nations this year, five were in France, including the deadliest one — Thursday’s apparent lone wolf attack in Nice, which killed at least 84 people. A little more than a week before the attack, a commission set up by the French parliament …

Russia’s lease of the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, at $115 million per year, extends until 2050. Although Russia’s new spaceport, the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East, saw its first successful launch in April, the facility is a long way from completion and already behind schedule. Periodic reports that Russia intends to leave Baikonur before 2050–such as news last summer …

  Noah Smith After a landslide victory in Japan’s election on July 10th, the Liberal Democratic Party now has a supermajority in both the upper and lower houses of the Diet. Essentially, there is no longer any effective political opposition in Japan. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has more power than any leader in decades — even more than his famous …

In an important decision with immense consequences for data storage services and law enforcement, a federal appeals court has quashed a warrant for e-mails that Microsoft was storing on a server in Ireland. Unless Congress changes the relevant law, this ruling creates the incentive for criminals — or anyone else who wants privacy protection from government surveillance — to make …