Oil and the status of Kirkuk continue to divide Iraq's central government and the Kurdish region, but signs of political progress are emerging.

Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese nationalism, says China’s ethnic Han majority views minorities like Tibetans and Uighurs as "people who should be incorporated into the larger Chinese state."

Pakistan’s civilian government has asserted a new policy in dealing with terrorists on its territory, posing challenges for Washington.

Newsweek's Melinda Liu argues that even though the Dalai Lama wants to talk peace, the anger of his long-suffering people is only hardening.

Security gains in Iraq have been overshadowed by renewed intra-Shiite violence in Baghdad, Basra, and elsewhere. Some experts worry the worst is yet to come.

Henry Siegman, an expert on Middle East negotiations, says no peace will be possible between Israel and the Palestinians unless Hamas is brought into the talks.

Ethnic tensions with minority Chinese and Indians leads to an election setback for Malaysia’s governing coalition.

Washington’s representative to talks on Kosovo, Frank G. Wisner, says Serbia will never recognize an independent Kosovo and that Russia’s role has been “unbelievably regrettable.”

Noah Feldman explains that “if Turkey is to continue its integration into European and Western civilization, it needs to show that liberal values and Islam are not only compatible but complementary.”

The growing appetite of Iraq’s Kurdish government, Washington’s most trusted ally, for control of their own national destiny has sparked worries that Kurdish nationalism could undermine fragile political progress in Baghdad.

Selig Harrison of the New York Times says that whatever the outcome of the Pakistani elections, the existing multiethnic Pakistani state is not likely to survive for long unless it is radically restructured.

More than six years since the Taliban’s ouster, violence against women seeking to broaden their rights continues. But some experts see reason for hope.

Carl Minzner, a CFR fellow and expert on Chinese domestic issues, discusses the need for institutional reform to address the grievances raised by social unrest in China.

Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, addresses Council members as the 2007 Russell C. Leffingwell Lecturer.

Backgrounder: The new Congress shares President Bush's reform approach but new legislation is by no means assured.

Security experts warn the next terrorist attack on the United States could well be the work of a U.S. citizen. Instrumental in preventing such an attack is the cooperation of an increasingly alienated American Muslim community.

France faces a problem with its Muslim population, but it is not the problem it generally assumes.Paradoxically, it is the exhaustion of political Islamism, not its radicalisation, that explains much of the violence, and it is the depoliticisation of young Muslims, rather than their alleged reversion to a radical kind of communalism, that ought to be cause for worry.