Mark Beeson

Fifty years ago on May 16 the Cultural Revolution began. Don’t expect this event to be given much attention in China itself, though.

Just when you might have thought the Philippines was on the mend, morbid symptoms of untreated problems re-emerge. It really shouldn’t be this way.

Geography matters. Whether countries are rich or poor or safe or vulnerable still has more to do with physical geography than we usually acknowledge.

It’s not every day we get to see a country seemingly intent on committing political suicide.

Some things never change, it seems. For my entire life people have been protesting about the madness of nuclear weapons. Policymakers have been studiously ignoring such protests for just as long. Not only have the bombs remained unbanned, they have also proliferated and become bigger and “better.”

What goes on in the mind of a suicide bomber? What motivates someone to spend their last day on the planet blowing up complete strangers? Bad enough, perhaps, if the strangers in question are soldiers, police, or other representatives of the state. But holidaymakers and commuters?

Brazil’s problems may be especially acute, but they are emblematic of the tarnished image of the other BRIC economies—Russia, India, and China—too.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a bit of a pain. Its leader, the remarkably youthful Kim Jong-un, is a caricature of tin-pot despotism. While we may be fortunate enough to find some of his antics amusing, it’s unlikely the poor downtrodden North Koreans see the funny side. To do so would be to risk winding up in a concentration camp or worse.