Diplomacy & Politics Archive

WELL-VERSED DIPLOMATS — What would Talleyrand make of next week’s European Union poetry marathon in Washington? The accommodating 19th century French diplomat, who managed to serve in succession the French revolutionary government, Napoleon, and the restored monarchy without missing a beat, advised “Pas trop de zele” (not too much zeal, or don’t go overboard) in his profession. But on May 5, diplomats from the EU’s 27 member states will spout 136 poems from their respective countries, together with translations, over five hours — and that involves a lot of zeal.For those who miss the marathon, the poems will also be […]

With the results of the first round of France’s presidential election in, the conventional wisdom says the May 6 runoff between Gaullist Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Ségolène Royal will be decided on the merits of two distinct economic and social visions: Sarkozy’s impatient laissez-faire reform vs. Royal’s defense of France’s traditional welfare state. But, trumping policy, the results of the election may actually be decided on the strengths of two very different political styles: the first, Sarkozy’s, rooted in the political machinery of the past, and the other, Royal’s, an as-yet untested strategy tailor-made for the current media age. The […]

BANGKOK, Thailand — The rekindling of formal diplomatic relations between Burma and North Korea this week completes a bizarre circle of skulduggery between two pariah states. The visit by Pyongyang’s deputy foreign minister, Kim Yong-Il, to Rangoon and the half-built new capital Naypyidaw is a formality, and certainly not the first visit by North Koreans since relations were formally severed in 1983. There have been persistent reports in recent years of North Korean technicians working in Burma, including isolated Naypyidaw — which means the abode of kings — 200 miles north of the old capital of Rangoon, a nine-hour train […]

China isn’t comfortable. The country’s spectacular growth over the last two decades has made it ever more thirsty for energy, but policymakers are not sure they can secure their energy supply into the future. Rather than gain confidence as the United States has stumbled in the Middle East, many Chinese take U.S. problems in the region as a sign of Chinese vulnerability as well. Some in the United States feared China would soon stand out as a rival to U.S. influence, but in recent months, the Chinese government has shown an interest in being helpful. That cooperation needs to be […]

Ambassadors from the 15 U.N. Security Council member states have begun a fact-finding mission to assess the current situation in Kosovo. The mission is expected to visit the Serbian capital of Belgrade from April 25-26, the Kosovo capital of Pristina from April 27-28, and then Brussels, where the ambassadors will confer with NATO and EU leaders. Upon returning to New York, they will report their findings to the Security Council. The council is currently deliberating whether to implement the recommendations on Kosovo’s status offered by U.N. Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari last month. Ahtisaari’s Comprehensive Proposal does not explicitly advocate granting […]

In the past couple of months, news about Turkey has been littered with reports about the spasms of violence between Turkish troops and militants of the terrorist Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) in the rugged, mountainous eastern part of the country. After a decade of cease-fire, old hatreds have resurfaced with a vengeance, costing the lives of more than 250 soldiers in the past year, and 10 soldiers and 29 Kurdish guerillas this month alone. Mothers and wives kneeling and wailing over their sehit (martyr) sons draped in the Turkish flag have become regular images on Turkish television screens and in […]

In an interview with the mass-circulation German tabloid Bild Zeitung, German Chancellor and current EU president Angela Merkel marked the EU’s 50th birthday celebration by revealing that her wish list includes a European Army. What Merkel and other EU leaders want is not a perpetuating of existing arrangements, but a “European fighting force” independent of, but working with, NATO. Given the complexities of existing EU defense arrangements, it is easy to understand the desire of European leaders for the kind of unified command and control structure a European Army would need. While Merkel claimed the prospect had “come closer,” the […]

KATMANDU, Nepal — While thousands of Nepalese gathered to mark the first anniversary of the king’s humiliating capitulation on April 24, 2006, King Gyanendra was, quite literally, praying for survival. At the Dakshinkali Temple, just outside of Katmandu, the king and Queen Komal oversaw the ritual slaughter of five animals — a rooster, duck, goat, sheep and water buffalo — in a ceremony to appease the bloodthirsty deity, Kali. It was on this day last year that King Gyanendra announced he was ending his 15-month autocratic reign, after 19 days of protests in the streets of Katmandu and around the […]

LUNATIC FRINGE COULD BLOCK THE ROYAL FLUSH — The French press calls them the “eight little Indians,” and they are the lesser candidates left behind after Sunday’s first round in France’s presidential elections. They could only ever hope to receive a handful of votes — 1 or 2 percent each — but those votes were siphoned off from the main candidates, mainly the Socialist Ségolène Royal. Still, by the May 6 runoff their names will be all but forgotten. Because of the heavy state subsidy, you don’t have to be rich to run for office in France. Olivier Besancenot, the […]

IRBIL, Iraq — A guard armed with a machine gun stands at the gate of the compound, which shares a high concrete wall with a prison at the rear. But inside the University of Kurdistan, the only English-language university in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, free minds are at work.Gates open to a freshly laid lawn area. Off to the right, a four-story steel-and-glass facility comes equipped with lockers, air-conditioned computer labs and prayer rooms. Faculty members and students say their college is a break from the Saddam Hussein era, when the curriculum was controlled from Baghdad. “Freedom of expression is the mark […]

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s April 11-13 visit to Japan helped advance the modest détente that has marked Sino-Japanese relations since Shinzo Abe became Japanese Prime Minister in September 2006. Abe has made improving ties between China and Japan — which had deteriorated sharply — a priority. Despite some achievements, however, the summit failed to resolve the underlying economic and especially security tensions between the two countries. Wen’s sojourn represented the first visit by a senior Chinese leader to Japan in seven years. He described his trip as an effort to “melt the ice” that had characterized Sino-Japanese relations in recent […]

U.S. NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — The recent conviction of Australian kangaroo-skinner turned globetrotting jihadist David Hicks may, at least temporarily, bring an end to years of judicial power struggles that have surrounded the creation of a special war crimes tribunal here. However, while the special tribunal will bring some form of justice for men like Hicks and other high-profile detainees — including admitted Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the fate of hundreds of lesser-known prisoners is still undetermined. As Hicks inked a deal in late-March to plead guilty to providing material support for terrorism in exchange […]

Sapurmurat Niyazov, the Kim Jong-il of Central Asia, left quite a legacy: a crumbling infrastructure, egregious human rights abuses, rumors of mass starvation outside the capital, and a personality cult capped by a funny name. Turkmenbashi, the father of all Turkmen, left some pretty big shoes to fill when he died last December. As a result, Gurbanguli Berdymuhkammedov, Turkmenistan’s second dictator and the world’s most powerful dentist, faces some serious choices. The first is how closely he’ll stick to his election promise of keeping Niyazov’s policies in place. There are many encouraging signs that President Berdymuhkammedov will open his country […]

BANGKOK, Thailand — The quaint 1956 Hollywood musical “The King and I,” which most people might regard as innocuous, probably would have been banned in Thailand under broadening definitions of “national security” now being cited by military coup leaders to justify their increasing censorship. But in any case, the movie, starring the late Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, is already outlawed under another device that curbs public opinion, the increasingly catch-all “les majeste” rule. Brynner’s singing and dancing routine has long been considered by the authorities to insult the institution of the Thai monarchy, and to distort Thai history. The […]

Earlier this month, the government of Uzbekistan completed its ratification of the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (CANWFZ). The signatories of the so-called Semipalatinsk Treaty also include the former Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Although the accord could provide timely support for international nonproliferation efforts, the signatories still need to satisfy the concerns of Britain, France, and the United States regarding possible loopholes in its underlying treaty. Article 3 of the CANWFZ prohibits the signatories from researching, developing, manufacturing, stockpiling or otherwise trying to acquire a nuclear explosive device. Furthermore, they pledge not to allow other parties to […]

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe — At a meeting held in a Catholic church here Saturday, dissident and Christian leaders from Zimbabwe and around Africa called for the removal of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s 83-year-old president, and urged the country’s people to unite and fight for their rights. The prayer meeting was organized by the Save Zimbabwe Campaign, a coalition of churches, students, labor groups and opposition political parties that is fighting for democracy in Zimbabwe.In his speech at meeting at St. Patrick’sHall in Makokoba suburb, Rev. Morris Nduri, the secretary general ofMalawi´s Presbyterian Church, was among those who said Zimbabweans should remove Mugabe’sgovernment […]

Editor’s Note: Corridor’s of Power is written by veteran foreign correspondent Roland Flamini and appears in World Politics Review every Sunday. Click here to browse past installments of the column. THEY CAN RIOT, BUT THEY CAN’T VOTE — France’s growing population of Islamic immigrants is now reckoned by some to make up almost 10 percent of the population, but the candidates in the coming presidential elections don’t have to worry about the Islamic vote because there really isn’t one — yet. Though there may be as many as six million Muslims in France, almost half are not French citizens, and […]