Jamil Maidan Flores: To Save the BBL, the SAF-44 Had to Die
Vidal Erfe Querol was Philippine ambassador to Indonesia from 2007 to 2010. Before that, he led the Philippine National Police (PNP) National Capital Region command. A batch mate of former Indonesian...
View ArticleJamil Maidan Flores — Gen. Almonte: A Portrait of the Spy as Philosopher
Last week in the run-up to the 29th anniversary of the 1986 people power revolution in the Philippines, retired army general Jose T. Almonte, launched a book he co-authored with investigative reporter...
View ArticleJamil Maidan Flores: China Creates New Flashpoint in S. China Sea
Philippine Supreme Court Justice Antonio T. Carpio is in Jakarta this week to speak before an audience put together by the Indonesian Council on World Affairs (Icwa). Expect him to dismantle China’s...
View ArticleJamil Maidan Flores: Et Tu Brute? US Allies Flock to China-led AIIB
“Et tu Brute?” And you, too, Brutus? Those were the dying words of Julius Caesar, as he realized that even his best friend would drive a knife into his guts. Caesar ruled Rome and the known world, from...
View ArticleJamil Maidan Flores — Goodbye Goodluck: Nigerian President Gains Respect in...
My Nigerian friend, Sonala Olumhense, is a syndicated columnist with strong views on his country’s politics. He once regaled me with stories about how his president, Goodluck Jonathan, was uncannily...
View ArticleJamil Maidan Flores: A Refinery in Java and the Iran-P5+1 Nuclear Deal
I heard it first from Ambassador Iwan Wiranata-atmadja soon after he completed his tenure as Indonesia’s chief diplomat to Teheran in 2011: there had been an agreement between Pertamina and the...
View ArticleJamil Maidan Flores — A Sad Assad: Syrian Strongman Loses Ground
Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president who lost legitimacy due to the bloodbath, not to mention chemical attacks, he inflicted on his own people, now admits that his army has suffered a string of...
View ArticleJamil Maidan Flores: The Indian Ocean Idea
Writing in 2009 for Foreign Affairs, political scientist Robert D. Kaplan said that the Indian Ocean is not just a geographic feature. “The Indian Ocean,” he said, “is also an idea. It combines the...
View ArticleJamil Maidan Flores: A Leap of Faith
Signed recently by the P-5+1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia+Germany) and Iran, the agreement, officially titled the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA), took 20 tortuous months to negotiate,...
View ArticleJamil Maidan Flores: Never Again Should Asean Kowtow to China
For a while it looked like it would happen again. In 2012, with Cambodia as Asean chair, for the first time in the 45-year history of the regional organization, a regular ministerial meeting failed to...
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