The World Today

More troops might further inflame local frustration, but getting tribes to do the fighting could be costly too. Then there is the tricky question of talking to the Taliban, does it include insurgents in Pakistan as well?

The terror attacks on Mumbai have created, and were clearly intended to create, a rapid deterioration in relations between Delhi and Islamabad. With elections looming, and the public demanding action, India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has little choice but to press Pakistan to act against militant groups. But India is well aware that the more pressure it puts on Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, the weaker he becomes, potentially destabilising the country even further. Pakistan’s decision to take action against Lashkar-e-Toiba, the militant group held responsible for the attacks, may stabilise the international situation, but could well result in a domestic backlash.

Images of disgruntled tourists marooned at Bangkok’s airport have drawn unwelcome international attention. Mass demonstrations organised by the misnamed People’s Alliance for Democracy to unseat the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat not only disrupted tourism in the ‘land of smiles’ but also lost the export oriented economy $78 million per day. Yet the unfolding crisis represents only part of a wider pattern of political uncertainty besetting the leading economies of Southeast Asia and threatening the growth and integrity of the regional Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) which had to postpone the summit it planned to hold in northeast Thailand in mid December.

As United States President-elect Barack Obama prepares his inaugural speech and builds his dream-team whose task will be to fulfil campaign promises for change, Israel is bracing itself for another bruising election campaign. To argue that these elections are crucial is no more than a cliché – they have all been important. These are no exception, yet they take place when negotiations with both Syria and the Palestinians are stalled; after a prolonged period of growth, the economy is slowing down in response to the global economic crisis; corruption stories frequently hit the headlines, and the war of words with Iran is becoming more intense.

At the best of times, Czech President Vaclav Klaus does not inspire feelings of warmth and camaraderie in Brussels. The fact his country is about to take up the European Union’s revolving presidency at a time of global financial crisis and amid intra-union anxiety about whether the Irish referendum earlier this year has, or has not, sunk the Lisbon Treaty, is being greeted with barely concealed consternation.

The history of the European Union has been of increasing political and economic integration and enlargement, punctuated by periods when these processes have stalled. The single currency, launched operationally on January 1, 1999 was designed, in part, to accelerate the historic impulse towards ever closer union. But, today, the EU is facing an existential question. How big is the risk that the worst systemic global financial and economic crisis since the 1930s will, for the first time, set in motion negative forces which could power the disintegration of the Union, weakening the single currency and dividing member states?