- Recent army exercises in Siberia are a reminder that China is a 'source of profound security fears' for Russia. (Thanks Malcolm.)
- Another article pushing back against fears of nationalism under Japanese PM Abe. There's also not much to be worried about in Japan's new five-year defence plan.
- Dealing with North Korea: we don't need a strategy, we just need to muddle through.
- New study concludes that the economic gains of abolishing travel visas are substantial.
- The steep decline of South Africa's defence force. Same goes for Britain's Royal Navy.
- Global narrative about a troubled Chinese economy may be wrong, but in the end, it's confidence that holds economies together.
- A brief historical overview of North Korea's 1994-1998 famine, which is thought to have killed somewhere in the order of 600,000 to 1 million people.
- John Naughton in The Guardian on what Edward Snowden's revelations mean for the internet. The article has provoked responses here, here and here:
...the days of the internet as a truly global network are numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty.