Briefing Archive

In his presentation at the June 1-3 annual Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared much more sanguine about the possibilities of establishing a constructive Sino-American military relationship than his own Defense Department. A few days earlier, DOD had released the latest version of its annual publication, “Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2007” (pdf file). The report’s content is replete with warnings about China’s growing military capabilities, something Gates downplayed at Singapore. As directed by Congress, the report focused on the potential threat posed by China to Taiwan. Its authors warn that China continues to […]

OPATIJA, Croatia — Immediately, the signs along the road started to look familiar. The landscape tried with some success to transport me to an awfully different, dangerous time. I felt my back stiffen a little: back to the Balkans. This time, however, no checkpoints manned by armed men awaited. No bombed out homes marked the path of spreading carnage. Before I even had a chance to blink away the images of the 1990s in this region that brought the world that horrific expression “ethnic cleansing,” my 21st century cell phone beeped with a text message. “Welcome to Croatia!” The same […]

KABUL, Afghanistan — Based on total signage space, Arnold Schwarzenegger may be the second most popular man in Afghanistan. First place indisputably goes to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the mythic guerilla leader assassinated by al-Qaeda agents in 2001 after decades of fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. His image is venerated with a fervor that borders on the religious in government ministries, street side cafes and on bumper stickers. But take a drive around the capital known for its modesty, and massive homemade billboards of the shirtless former Mr. Olympia turned action star turned California governor are hard to miss. The […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — When, in May 1998, former President Suharto’s 32-year rule came to an end, Indonesia, a secular nation with the world’s largest Muslim population, started a democratization process that has been praised worldwide. However, democracy has also opened the door for a previously dormant wing of radical Islam that wants to turn the country into an Islamic state. The clash between the two could soon be played out in the voting booth if, as suggested late last month by Indonesian Mujahedin Council (MMI) spokesman Fauzan al-Anshori, radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir decides to run for president in […]

In a high-stakes referendum held last month, Romanian President Traian Basescu won an important vote of confidence from the Romanian electorate. Although the holding of the referendum was duly noted in the international media, surprisingly little was said about the stakes involved for Romania: a young post-Communist democracy and new EU member state that found itself precipitated into an unprecedented constitutional crisis by an attempt to oust the president that clearly resembled a parliamentary coup. Basescu’s first two years in office had been distinguished by an aggressive anti-corruption campaign designed to meet the expectations of Romania’s European partners and by […]

HONG KONG — Pakistan’s main lawyer’s organization plans to fight until Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is removed from power, according to an attorney representing Chief Justice Iftikar Chaudhry, whose dismissal from Pakistan’s Supreme Court earlier this spring sparked a nationwide backlash that threatens Musharraf’s grip on power. Musharraf suspended Chaudhry March 9, leading to the largest political protests Pakistan has seen in 24 years. Pakistan’s lawyers, or “blackcoats” as Pakistanis have taken to calling them, were among the first to protest in the wake of Chaudhry’s suspension. Television images of lawyers battered by government police forces helped galvanize the nationwide […]

Editor’s Note: Corridors of Power, penned by WPR Editor-at-Large Roland Flamini, appears in WPR every Monday. SORRY ABOUT THAT NO. 1 — It’s generally considered poor form in the international community for a foreign leader visiting a friendly country to have a private meeting with the leader of the opposition, but President George Bush wasn’t going to be in Rome and pass up a chance to spend quality time with prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Prior to Saturday’s presidential visit, the Italian government had made it clear to the White House that a meeting with Berlusconi would not be appreciated, and […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a new weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. GOING DIGITAL ON DARFUR — Amnesty International launched a new program Wednesday to monitor villages in Darfur in the hopes of putting pressure on the Sudanese government to admit a large United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force. Under the program, the rights group is using satellites to track some of the most vulnerable villages in war-ravaged Darfur, posting images online and urging members of the public across the world to log on to www.eyesondarfur.org and […]

The Russians, Tom Clancy’s old reliable villains, are back. The American techno-thriller author has lent his name to several computer games, including the intricate new title from Ubisoft known as EndWar. The video game’s scenario? In the next twenty years, America deploys a space weapons system to protect the United States and Europe from nuclear attack, while a sullen Russia stays out of the missile shield club. A few years later, the world’s peak oil doomsayers are suddenly proven right and all of the world’s major oil producers — except for Russia — are found to have massively inflated their […]

Russia has put a price tag of half a billion dollars on plans to build a nuclear “research” center in Burma, one of the world’s poorest countries, where electricity is a luxury for most inhabitants. Rangoon’s new diplomatic friend North Korea set a precedent for a destitute country managing to find the means to develop nuclear capabilities. But many Burma watchers take the view that on the issue of nuclear power there is little comparison between the North Korean and Burmese regimes. The former is run by a dynastic demagogue, while the latter is controlled by self-enriching generals who rarely […]

PANAMA CITY, Panama — Renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuels was supposed to be the focus of this week’s Organization of American States General Assembly. Instead, the ongoing war of words between the United States and Venezuela dominated headlines here. Though the assembly’s final declaration was entitled: “Energy for Sustainable Development,” newly unveiled projects like the one to promote ethanol production in El Salvador played second fiddle to diplomatic row between Washington and Caracas. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to the Panamanian capital armed with new criticism of populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, this time over […]

Zambia’s former president, Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba, is famous for his clothes. In a raid, 349 designer shirts, 206 jackets and suits, and 72 pairs of shoes, many of them bearing Chiluba’s personalized FJT monogram, were seized as part of an investigation into corruption and graft. In May, he was found guilty of siphoning millions from state coffers while in power, and his clothes were cited as “the most telling example of corruption” by the London high court judge presiding over the case. The story of Frederick Chiluba and his monogrammed designer clothes, in a country where the majority of […]

KABUL, Afghanistan — The arrival of close to 100,000 deported Afghan migrants from Iran over the past month has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis in a country already strained by poverty, corruption and a robust insurgency in its southern and eastern provinces. Iran says the mass expulsion is targeting only those Afghans working illegally and plans to forcibly remove one million people by next March. But there are reports some migrants have been deported in spite of having proper documentation; others have allegedly been beaten, split up from their families and whisked away without any personal belongings. “We lost […]

LONDON — “He killed my ma. He killed my pa. I will vote for him.” With those words chanted in the ruined streets of impoverished, war-torn Liberia, Charles Ghankay Taylor was swept into office in 1997, capping a bloody eight-year campaign that began with the savage ouster of dictator Samuel Doe. Meanwhile, in next-door Sierra Leone, one of the most brutal wars in modern history raged, fought by drug-addled youngsters and characterized by savage rapes and the hacking off of limbs that left thousands of people without arms or legs, lips or noses. It is for the crimes he is […]

Nicholas Burns, the U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, hastily ended a brief visit to India last weekend after failing to reach an agreement with Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon on the long-anticipated U.S.-India nuclear deal. Both countries, however, appear hopeful that the issue is going to get a renewed push from the highest political level this week when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President George W. Bush meet on the sidelines of the Group of 8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany. The way the proposed deal is laid out now, the United States would ship nuclear fuel […]

The latest report by illegal logging watchdog Global Witness has received the highest accolade an investigative NGO’s work can receive from the Cambodian Government: It has been banned. The reason? It exposes the country’s largest illegal logging syndicate and its links to senior government officials, including the prime minister. Plus, it details the way the army has been used as a log courier service for the secret trade with Vietnam and China. Now, as Cambodia’s annual pledge-a-thon approaches, international donors are scrambling to react to accusations they haven’t done enough to protect Cambodia’s forests.Global Witness, the U.K.-based logging and blood […]

From May 28 through June 1, the International Federation of Journalists held its 26th World Congress in Moscow. The hundreds of media representatives present chose the Russian capital as their venue for the prestigious triennial event in part to draw international attention to the Russian government’s encroachment against media freedoms. In March 2007, the U.S. State Department published its 2006 Reports on Human Rights Practices, which reviews civil rights practices in foreign countries. The report on Russia, whose dismal findings were echoed the following month in a separate State Department assessment on global media freedoms, warned that the Russian government […]