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After weeks of protests, King Gyanendra bowed to popular demands to reinstate the parliament in Katmandu. Not everyone is pleased; Maoist rebels, who have led a decade-long insurgency, want the king to step down. Foreign Policy asked Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times, about the king’s future, the alliance between the opposition and the Maoists, and whether India should be worried.

In recent years, Western aid donors have started asking more of their African recipients in the form of transparency, human rights, and economic openness. But there’s a new powerhouse on the continent that is willing to cut deals, no questions asked.

Much ado about very modest reform—that’s the French protests in a nutshell. The protesters don’t seem to understand that France must change its ways or fade into economic obscurity, and France’s old-school leadership has done a terrible job of teaching them about the realities of the global economy.

Oil is not America’s only energy addiction. With domestic gas production in decline, the United States and many of its allies will grow more dependent on imports to generate electricity and heat homes. Gas suppliers will band together in response to the growing global demand, just as oil producers did decades ago. Few people talk about the looming U.S. dependency on imported natural gas, but it could be painful.

I used to think that the Bush administration wasn’t seriously considering a military strike on Iran, because it would only accelerate Iran’s nuclear program. But what we're seeing and hearing on Iran today seems awfully familiar. That may be because some U.S. officials have already decided they want to hit Iran hard.

The new U.N. Human Rights Council is already a dramatic improvement from its predecessor. Even better for its top detractors, the United States and Israel, is that the council can still be shaped and molded in the coming years. The first step is to keep human rights abusers off the council in May, when its first members are elected.

Chinese dissident Harry Wu spent nearly two decades in Chinese prison camps called laogai. The geology professor-turned human rights activist recently spoke to Betsy Huang and explains why he thinks U.S. policy toward Beijing is severely lacking.

When President Bush speaks derisively about advocates of “cutting and running” from Iraq, he has in mind people like Nir Rosen, a journalist whose reporting has led him to the conclusion that U.S. withdrawal is the best policy. Rosen recently explained to FP why leaving Iraq is the best option, why Moktada al-Sadr is the only man who can keep Iraq together, and why Iran and the United States are natural allies.

There’s a straightforward way for Washington to end America’s addiction to foreign oil, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and resolving the impasse on international trade: Turn farm subsides into fuel subsides.

Kazakhstan’s citizens don’t seem to mind mild authoritarianism—as long as the oil money is flowing. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has no complaints, and U.S. pressure is weak. But if President Nursultan Nazarbayev doesn’t put his country on the path to reform soon, Kazakhstan may be on the path to unrest.