Diplomacy & Politics Archive

If the critics of the United Nations were to design a scenario to make the organization seem absolutely irrelevant, it would look a lot like this week’s debacle over Syria. On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council was meant to vote on a Western resolution to impose sanctions on Syria unless the government of embattled President Bashar al-Assad ceased significant military operations within 10 days. The vote was delayed after three high-ranking members of Assad’s inner circle, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and Defense Minister Gen. Dawoud Rajiha, were killed in Damascus that day. But with fighting escalating in Syria, the […]

During the Soviet era, Russian trade unions were state run and had nothing to do with helping workers fight for their rights against employers. That changed following the Soviet Union’s collapse. This report by Euronews takes an in-depth look at the evolution of Russian trade unions and the battles they face today.

On Monday, a U.S. Navy refueling ship in the Persian Gulf opened fire on what turned out to be a fishing boat, killing one Indian man and wounding three others after they ignored several warnings to stop their rapid approach. While the U.S. has offered condolences to the families of the fishermen, it has suggested that the use of force was justified, particularly in the context of a Navy that is more wary than ever of the dangers small boats can pose to large ships. “Starting with the USS Cole attack, the U.S. Navy came to recognize that there were […]

MOMBASA, Kenya — Following a barrage of accusations that the Rwandan government is fueling conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the presidents of the two nations met Sunday to broker a deal authorizing an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force in the conflict-prone region. Held on the sidelines of an AU summit in Addis Ababa, the face-to-face talks constitute a rarity for the central African neighbors. In recent years, each side has repeatedly blamed the other for arming various insurgencies in the mineral-rich and chronically chaotic territory of the eastern DRC. The U.N. released a report in June […]

Libya, that sparsely populated North African country on the shores of the Mediterranean, has a history of punching above its weight. The Libyan people, in their first postrevolutionary elections, have just done it again, defying the conventional wisdom by thoroughly trouncing Islamist parties at the polls. Whether through the antics of its outrageous former dictator, the flamboyant Moammar Gadhafi, or through its opposition’s so-far-unmatched success at enlisting NATO’s firepower in deposing his oppressive regime, Libya has managed to make headlines and even to bend the curve of history. Conceivably, the latest electoral results, which still leave many unanswered questions, have […]

Cambodia and Thailand are replacing their military troops with police near their disputed border. World News Videos by NewsLook

A few weeks ago, a couple of articles appeared in two Israeli newspapers — Israel Hayom and Maariv — criticizing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. At first glance, there was nothing terribly significant about the articles. After all, one can hardly open a newspaper in any language these days without reading a criticism of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. I have written several myself in these pages. But what stood out about these two articles is that they were written by people working for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As such, they represented a departure from a historical norm on both sides […]

The Pentagon’s annual assessment of Iran’s military power (.pdf), which was released last week, is notable for the amount of attention it devotes to Iran’s missile capabilities. While mentioning Iran’s other military assets in passing, the report describes Tehran’s missile capabilities in extensive detail, noting the improvements Iran has made to existing missiles, its efforts to develop more-sophisticated systems and the growing competency of Iranian forces in operating these systems due to more-frequent live-fire drills. Iran itself has also been placing greater emphasis on its missile capabilities recently, particularly in responding to the European Union’s implementation of oil sanctions earlier […]

Colombian security forces are in demand internationally, with the United Arab Emirates seeking to hire 3,000 Colombian soldiers and Mexico and Honduras turning to Colombian security officials for advice on fighting crime. In an email interview, Elyssa Pachico, a researcher, writer and senior editor for InSight Crime, discussed Colombia’s status as a security exporter. WPR: How has the international profile of Colombia’s security forces changed over the past decade or so? Elyssa Pachico: In the 1990s, Colombia’s security forces were seen at best as unprofessional and at worst as totally corrupt. Right up until the implementation in 2000 of Plan […]

Twenty Ethiopian journalists and opposition figures accused of trying to topple the government will now spend between eight years and the rest of their lives in prison. As the New York Times reported, these defendants, who were convicted on terrorism charges, were the victims of security concerns being used “as an excuse to crack down on dissent and media freedoms.” The Horn of Africa country, located between Sudan and Somalia, is seen by the U.S. as a source of stability and as a key regional partner in the war on terror, explained Claire Beston, the Ethiopia researcher at Amnesty International. […]

Somalia is facing yet another hunger emergency due to poor rains, conflict and a likely later-than-normal harvest. World News Videos by NewsLook

In its just-released final audit report (.pdf), the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Funds (SIGIR) last week warned that billions of U.S. dollars may have been wasted or misappropriated in the process of reconstructing Iraq. While reports of waste surfaced early in the post-invasion occupation of Iraq, problems have also plagued the transition since 2010 from a military- to a civilian-led U.S. mission in Iraq. Many of those shortcomings came to light during a recent hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to assess the interagency effort in Iraq now that all U.S. combat […]

High levels of crime and violence have given Central America the inauspicious title of having the world’s highest homicide rate — about 10 times the world average. Reversing this trend will require collective, crossborder action and regional partnerships that include the private sector. Unfortunately, for this to be possible, the mechanisms needed to do so must be strengthened significantly. Statistics paint a grim picture of what lies ahead if meaningful cooperation is not taken soon. Honduras, the most violent country, registered 91.6 homicides per 100,000 people in 2011 — nearly triple the rate observed in 2004, according to the U.N. […]

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto ran on an agenda alien to many in his once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party: change. More specifically, Peña Nieto emphasized the need for structural reforms that many in the PRI have showed little enthusiasm for approving in recent years. But Peña Nieto says times have changed, and he has promised that an ambitious agenda of structural reforms will mark his presidency. He also insists there’s no going back to the past, when the PRI earned a checkered reputation for corruption and crony capitalism prior to losing power in 2000 after 71 straight years […]

In 2000, when Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel formed a coalition government with Jörg Haider’s far-right populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), the 14 member states of the European Union immediately agreed to sanction the country. Acting on the basis of bilateral relations, as the EU Treaty did not justify such sanctions, the EU member states froze diplomatic relations and sought to isolate Austria in international institutions, despite the fact that Haider and his FPÖ had been democratically elected. Today, with populism on the rise across the member states of the EU, this kind of forceful reaction is no longer even […]

Protesters hurled tomatoes and water bottles at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s motorcade in Egypt’s second city of Alexandria. World News Videos by NewsLook

Moqtada al-Sadr, the populist Iraqi Shiite cleric, has returned to Iraq from Iran once more, ready to take on a prominent role in mainstream politics. For Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia was responsible for some of the bloodiest violence during the U.S. occupation, it is the latest of several evolutions since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Matthew Duss, director of Middle East Progress at the Center for American Progress, told Trend Lines that Sadr will have his work cut out for him moving forward. “Here is this firebrand who very effectively exploited popular anger at the American occupation, […]