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Rumor has it that Democrats are eager to use their newly acquired power in Congress to “investigate” a variety of “uninvestigated scandals” linked to the Bush Administration: among them, the use of “CIA secret prisons” in the war on Islamic terror organizations. If an inquiry is opened into this latter question, one can expect a Democrat-led congressional panel to follow the pattern of investigations that have already been undertaken by the Council of Europe and the EU Parliament. It is indeed the latter investigations that are largely responsible for having converted a practice of detaining enemy operatives that might otherwise […]

The U.S. military has recently acknowledged that the U.S. and Chinese navies nearly engaged in a direct military clash at the end of last month near the Japanese island of Okinawa. Although the Chinese government has denied knowledge of the incident, U.S. government sources have provided some details of the encounter, which occurred in the international waters of the East China Sea. On Oct. 26, a Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine unexpectedly surfaced within five miles of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. The submarine was apparently rehearsing how to sink the carrier with its torpedoes and cruise missiles — a […]

JAKARTA, Indonesia — When in May 1998 thousands of Indonesian students converged in the streets of the capital, Jakarta, demanding a democratic country and a law system equal for all, the air was filled with tension. Then, when their Reformasi (renovation) movement managed to end the 32-year rule of Dictator Suharto, tension gave way to expectation. Yet, the winds of change have lately turned into just a light breeze, and recent events have shown that in this archipelago nation the law remains lopsided, with the Suhartos and the armed forces still largely outside the reach of justice. The latest slap […]

It was billed as the, “chance of a lifetime,” by Panama’s President, Martin Torrijos, and 77 percent of Panamanian voters backed this view when they approved plans to expand the Panama Canal in a national referendum last month. The $5.25 billion expansion will make one of the engineering wonders of the world 60 percent wider and 40 per cent longer. The eight-year project involves enlarging existing locks, deepening navigation channels and adding a third set of locks to ease bottlenecks and allow larger container vessels, known as post-Panamax ships, to traverse the famous passage linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. […]

When Poland’s president and prime minister, the Kaczynski twins, visited Washington, D.C., in September 2006, they both voiced their support for former Polish chief of state, the post-Communist Aleksander Kwasniewski, who aspired to be the new secretary general, or gensek, of the United Nations. The White House responded with an embarrassing silence. Although George W. Bush had earlier supported Kwasniewski, the United States resolved to back the Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon. Many assumed that Bush discarded Kwasniewski because the Pole could no longer deliver for the United States, as he had by committing Polish troops to the invasion and […]

VALETTA, Malta — On Memorial Day, a senior officer of Malta’s tiny army placed a wreath at the Monument of the Fallen situated just outside the capital. The granite column topped by a golden eagle commemorates the Maltese and British defenders who lost their lives in the heroic 1942 siege, in which Axis planes bombed the island into rubble but failed to take it. The siege of Malta is an incredible saga of resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. But bygones are bygones: Since 2004, the former British colony has been tied to Europe as the smallest member of […]

The Bush administration recently published an unclassified version of its new National Space Policy. Like the 2005 National Defense Strategy and the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, the new policy stresses the vital interest of the United States in remaining a major space power. Although it acknowledges the value of international cooperation in space and the right of “free passage” for all countries’ satellites and other space-based objects, the policy reaffirms the intent to protect U.S. space capabilities by all available means. The new policy will likely intensify Chinese and Russian fears that the United States intends to deploy weapons in […]

DAMASCUS, Syria — On Monday, top Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk announced from Damascus that Hamas supports Mohammad Shabir as the new prime minister of Palestine, a candidate also supported by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. This brings an end to the political deadlock that has crippled Palestinian life since Hamas came to power in January 2006. The outgoing Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya, age 43, came to power with big dreams and promises for Palestinians. Among these were improving the livelihood of average citizens, combating corruption, and punishing those responsible for misuse of public office under Fatah, which reigned […]

LONDON — British officials believe an American exit from Iraq will be the goal of a new Bush strategy in the war, and defense sources in London were quoted in the British press Sunday as saying Britain will be doing the same with its 7,500 troops currently in southern Iraq. According to a report in the London Sunday Times, “senior sources” have been saying for some time that British Prime Minister Tony Blair postponed a phased drawdown of his country’s Iraq contingent because “he was reluctant to embarrass Bush before last week’s elections.” Now, however, reports say the British pullout […]

LONDON — The head of the British Security Service (MI5), Eliza Manningham-Buller, who rarely makes public pronouncements, rattled off some chilling statistics Thursday about the Islamist terrorist threat to Britain. The service, she said, is investigating at least 30 top-priority terror plots. Under surveillance are about 200 groups or networks, comprising more then 1,600 individuals “who are actively engaged in plotting or facilitating terrorist acts here or overseas,” she said in a speech at Queen Mary College, London. Her under-strength operation (despite a manpower increase of 50 percent since Sept. 11, 2001) has had to make choices about which threats […]

A C-295 aircraft, the first of two candidates to become a new “joint cargo aircraft” (JCA) for the U.S. Army and Air Force, appears to have passed its early flight tests, according to an official from Raytheon Co., the leader of a corporate team bidding for the JCA business. The Army is aiming to speed the acquisition of the new cargo aircraft because of its potential to reduce improvised explosive device attacks. The plane would do so by taking troop convoys off the roads in battle zones such as Iraq, transporting troops by air instead.The flight tests, concluded Nov. 1, […]

BANGKOK, Thailand — Gambling is illegal in China, but Macau, the special administrative enclave on the coast of Guangdong province, is this year expected to outstrip the United States’ Las Vegas Strip with casino revenue turnover of about $7 billion. The explosive growth of casino gambling in the tiny former Portuguese colony is yet another staggering statistic that illustrates the story of China’s breakneck development. Macau has been transformed in a few short years from a relatively sleepy, rather quaint oddity on the South China Sea into a brash waterfront of ugly, modern casino “resorts” that smother the old colonial […]

The second failed test launch of Russia’s experimental Bulava (R-30 SS-NX-30) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) in as many months has renewed doubts about the viability of the country’s strategic nuclear deterrent, and in turn increased fears that Russian policy makers might adopt “hair-trigger” operational procedures to guarantee that their nuclear forces could survive and respond to a first strike. The Bulava is a three-staged missile designed to carry up to six individually targeted nuclear warheads for a range of approximately 8,000-10,000 kilometers. The two back-to-back failures have effectively suspended the test program. Previously, the missile had been scheduled to enter […]

Diplomatic activities and discourse in Southeast Asia are popularly described as the “ASEAN Way.” What this amounts to is an informal, loose, and non-legalistic process of conducting regional relations among the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. That the bilateral conflicts among ASEAN members have not spilled over and affected regional relations serves as a significant testament to the diplomatic maturity of member states in ASEAN. In the words of former Deputy Secretary General of ASEAN, Mokhtar Selat: “What is bilateral should be kept bilateral. What is regional should be regional. ASEAN works on this basis. And […]

The news last week that six Arab states are beginning efforts to acquire nuclear technology — although the technology is ostensibly for civil power generation — is stark evidence that non-proliferation efforts around the world must not be neglected. The world has been focused on the Oct. 9 North Korean nuclear test and the Iranian nuclear program and its regional consequences. But the threat of nuclear proliferation is not limited to Asia and the Middle East. South America also poses a threat. South American allies Argentina and Brazil abandoned their relatively advanced nuclear weapons programs, signed the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) […]

Think Fidel Castro is going soft in his old age? A recently published report from Reporters Without Borders, “Going Online in Cuba: Internet Under Surveillance,” suggests you should think again. In fact, if authors Claire Voeux and Julien Pain with the French journalism organization are correct in their assessment, even the information age hasn’t changed much about daily life in this Caribbean nation of 11 million people. “With less than 2 percent of the population online, Cuba is one of the world’s most backward countries as regards Internet usage,” reads an excerpt. “The worst off by far in Latin America […]

PERUGIA, Italy — Naples, Italy’s third largest city, is experiencing a wave of killings that has left 12 dead in 10 days. The killings are the result of a feud between clans belonging to the Camorra, the loose criminal system operating in the region of Naples. Interceptions collected throughout the year by the Carabinieri — the Italian military police — in the Neapolitan quarter of La Sanita’ were published last week by Il Mattino, Naples’ most widely read newspaper. After the killing of a clansman, an unidentified man was quoted as saying: “Now I will repay you with the same […]