Diplomacy & Politics Archive

The France-based non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders recently released its Worldwide Press Freedom index, which ranks Russia as 147th on a list of 168 countries in terms of protecting journalists and media expression. Russia’s 147th ranking is five spots behind the Democratic Republic of Congo, the site of the bloodiest conflict in the world, and just a few spots ahead of Iraq, where 85 journalists have died violently since 2003. Russia even allegedly lags nineteen spots behind Kazakhstan, where President-for-Life Nursultan Nazarbayev erected a golden statue of himself and whose government has threatened to sue the British comedian Sacha Baron […]

Gaza is close to exploding into war. The only major issue appears to be which will come first — a new war with Israel or a Hamas-Fatah civil war. With crushing domestic pressure on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in the wake of foreign aid cuts — the result of Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist — Hamas and other terrorist groups have been smuggling an unprecedented level of weaponry into Gaza from Egypt. But any move by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led PA and set up an emergency government — thereby defusing the growing […]

Editor’s Note, July 9, 2012: Due to facts that have recently come to our attention about the reliability of the primary source for this article, World Politics Review is retracting it. The information attributed to “a special adviser to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan” is unreliable and possibly false. We deeply regret this error. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has rescheduled for Nov. 4 the repeatedly postponed all-parties national reconciliation conference, seen as crucial to salvage rapidly diminishing hopes for a national accord in that war torn country. Most recently set for Oct. 21, the conference was called off indefinitely […]

In late 1979 Craig Etcheson was an impressionable 23-year-old who divided his time between rock concerts and first year Ph.D. studies in mathematical models of war at the University of Southern California School for International Relations. The Blue Oyster Cult, Deep Purple and The Grateful Dead were his bands of choice. Then Vietnam invaded Cambodia and lifted the veil on the true scale of carnage committed by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Images from the Killing Fields shocked the affable Etcheson. The slaughter of about one third of Cambodia’s population in the previous three-and-a-half years was something the young mathematician found […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Just two months ago, Colombia was buzzing with hope and optimism. A flurry of comminiqués between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group and the hardline president, Álvaro Uribe, suggested that an agreement to exchange prisoners was imminent. Three European countries, France, Spain and Switzerland, acting as peace facilitators, proposed to demilitarize a zone in southwestern Colombia where hostages held by FARC would be swapped for imprisoned guerrillas. It was hailed as the possible beginning of future peace talks between the country’s largest rebel group and the government which had shown a rare glimpse of […]

The closer the mid-term elections get, the less responsible the debate over Iraq is likely to become. Inversely, post-election political dynamics will favor arguments and options more grounded in reality than rhetoric. The national debate over the way forward in Iraq will become much more consequential the evening the votes are counted. Regardless of which party finds itself in control of Congress on Nov. 8, the new political constellation will favor a reduction in partisanship and some unusual political bedfellows. If the Republicans retain control of Congress, they will give increasingly less fealty to a lame-duck White House. Regardless of […]

Nicaragua’s former left-wing dictator Daniel Ortega appears set to win his fourth attempt to be the democratically elected president of his country, which is still trying to recover from the ravages of a long civil war. The latest opinion polls show he could win election on the first ballot, on Nov. 5. A poll published Oct. 18 by the daily El Nuevo Diario showed the former Sandinista rebel commander has 37.5 percent support against 20.1 percent for his closest rival, former Vice President Jose Rizo, of the Liberal Party. Under Nicaraguan election law, the leader of the first-round ballot is […]

I volki syty i ovtsy tsely. “The wolves are full and the sheep are still alive.” That Russian version of “having one’s cake and eating it too” describes the current state of Russian foreign affairs in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In the few past weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not only intensified Russia’s policy regarding Georgia, but convinced the United Nations Security Council, led by the United States, to pass a resolution that gives Russia unprecedented clout in the sovereign territory of its struggling southern neighbor. Russia introduced the resolution, which passed on Oct. 16, as part […]

WASHINGTON — Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said North Korea’s nuclear test was “a cry for help”, and Iran’s defiant refusal to halt its nuclear program is aimed at forcing the United States to normalize relations between the two countries. Speaking at Georgtown University in Washington Monday, the winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize told a gathering of foreign policy specialists and college students that testing a nuclear bomb was “the only trump card” North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il had. The North Koreans “feel isolated and threatened,” ElBaradei said. Their message was […]

BAMAKO, Mali — One three-letter acronym, ATT, encapsulates Mali’s most powerful political brand. Across West Africa’s largest country, it is the universal code for President Amadou Toumani Touré. Elected to a five-year term of office in 2002, Touré can boast of a genuine popularity amongst his citizens. “Because ATT is good. Because he works,” Sekou Camara, a security guard, said. “If people say something, then he listens.” Such praise extends beyond those on the economic margins. Amadou Konta, the general manager of Loulo mine, owned by offshore Randgold Resources and listed on the NASDAQ, proved equally effusive about Touré. “He’s […]

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie was in Yorktown, Va., Thursday to preside over 225th anniversary celebrations of the decisive siege that effectively ended the American Revolution, and she used the occasion to underscore the importance of French-U.S. relations. A parade of American and French troops in the city on the Chesapeake represented the military partnership that forced British General Charles Cornwallis to ask for surrender terms on Oct. 17, 1781, and to capitulate two days later. There was no senior member of the Bush administration at the Yorktown ceremonies, and a Defense Department source called the commemoration “a French affair.” […]

Iran would be at or near the top of a list of countries Americans would least like to see have nuclear weapons, and the reasons for apprehension have deepened dramatically in the past year with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran under the mullahs since the revolution of 1979 has been a weird and ominous country. With Ahmadinejad’s new prominence, the weirdness quotient has reached new levels. Iran is now headed by an individual who expresses the hope that Israel be wiped off the map and denies that the Holocaust ever occurred. Those are sentiments not found in civilized […]

After emerging from decades of single-party rule in 1998, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has become a symbol of freedom in a region that recently has been slowly sliding away from democracy. Today, Indonesia’s story is that of reformasi, or a spirit of reform. After enduring a troubled, violent separation, the culturally distinct province of East Timor is now free. The insurgent Free Aceh Movement has signed a cease-fire with the central government. And, in 2004, the country’s first direct presidential election brought Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono into office. This year, Freedom House upgraded Indonesia from “Partly Free” to […]

Elbowed out of the headlines by North Korea’s nuclear test, U.N. peacekeeping forces have continued to expand their presence in southern Lebanon in an atmosphere that is both nervous and uneventful, according to official reports from the area Monday. Troops from Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and other European countries have been arriving in Lebanon since early September, and taking up positions in the south alongside the Lebanese army. Their role is to ensure observance of the mid-August cease-fire that ended the 34 days of fierce fighting between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. With Iran defying admonitions by the U.N. Security Council […]

ACCRA, Ghana — The name Robert Kabushenga probably languishes in obscurity in the West. Knowledge of the man is limited to Ugandans and anyone, be they diplomats, aid workers or journalists, with an interest in Uganda. That’s a shame, for Kabushenga is a strident foe of the free press, not unlike Zimbabwe’s disgraced, ex-information minister Jonathan Moyo. His zealotry manifests itself in his evangelical belief in the unrivaled brilliance of Uganda’s 20 years-and-counting president, Yoweri Museveni. In his rhetoric and his actions, Kabushenga has frequently crusaded against those reporting and documenting the realities of Uganda and the direction his patron […]

It was raining in Beijing the morning of Oct. 8 as new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe flew to the city on his maiden official trip to China. As his aircraft touched down in the Chinese capital, the rain stopped and the sky began to clear, a phenomenon cited by both Abe and the Chinese media as a sign that Sino-Japanese ties were slowly but surely on the mend. An editorial in the China Daily, the country’s national English-language newspaper, said the break in the rain illustrated “optimism in the long-strained ties between China and Japan” and urged the two […]

Last February wasn’t a good month for Terry Semel. Not only was the Yahoo! Chairman and CEO in the middle of an ambitious overseas expansion project, but his web search company had been called before Congress to testify about its involvement in a high-profile international incident. Bad news for any businessman, but for U.S. foreign policy it was a sudden and unsettling introduction to the reach of the information age. The trouble for Yahoo started with the jailing of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist who had been convicted of “illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities” after an email he […]