Portside

In recent years, workers across the country have been turning their aspirations into action, staging more than 1,100 strikes and protests between June 2011 and the end of 2013, according to China Labor Bulletin. In a sign that labor unrest is rising, there have been more than 200 strikes, including 85 in the manufacturing sector, in the past two months alone, the group said.

As China looks set to overtake the US as the world's largest economy, a multipolar world can only be good for democracy.

Computer modelling showed intensification of US-bound Pacific storms, driven by fine aerosols from coal power plants and traffic.

This new Cold War is not about communism taking over the world. It is more about returning to 19th century balance of power interests, borrowing the phrase John Kerry has used against Putin. It is about dividing up the spoils of the first Cold War among the triumphal capitalist democracies, as if Russia is defeated and short-lived. Pushing Western capitalism and NATO towards Russia was sure to touch off the current escalation, and worse may come.

The air pollution in Beijing in mid-February was more than 10 times the WHO-prescribed safe limit. It led to the authorities shutting down chemical, metallurgical and other such industries, besides banning outdoor barbecues and even asking people to stay indoors.

Red Guard's mea culpa; Cuba nabs Russian homophobe; Politics of Downton; A hidden MLK tribute to DuBois; Korean Americans deserve a break today

A behind the scenes look in North Korea to explain the dramatic recent events in Pyongyang. Events there show a Shakespearean tragedy that has ended with the execution of the person widely seen as the power behind the throne. No one performs Shakespeare in the theaters of Pyongyang. Instead, he is enacted in the corridors of power.

Washington has an eagerness to extricate itself militarily from more than a decade of war in the Greater Middle East and “pivot” its strategic focus and resources more toward the Asia/Pacific and its highly complex relationships with China and key U.S. allies there.

Turkey’s Regional Politics – Old Wine, New Bottle – actually the bottle isn’t that new...After the Egyptian military coup, a number of reports surfaced on Turkey's indignation on the turn over the events there. Yeni Shafak the newspaper close to the Turkish prime minister published a scathing article against the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, UAE as well as Palestinian Mahmud Abbas calling them the "the axis of evil" in the Middle East.