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IRIBA, Chad — Four years after some quarter-million people fled ethnic cleansing in Sudan’s Darfur province for the relative safety of eastern Chad, one of the world’s most persistent humanitarian crises shows no signs of letting up. Indeed, there are signs that Darfuri refugees are in Chad to stay, despite acute shortages of water, firewood and food. Today the Darfuri refugees are housed in a dozen U.N.-administered camps that, over time, have become more like permanent towns and less like the squalid tent cities of popular conception. But appearances can be deceiving: Despite seeming self-sufficient on the surface, the camps […]

At their June 26-27 summit in the Siberian town of Khanty-Mansiisk, located in the heart of Russia’s energy industry, EU and Russia officially launched negotiations on a new EU-Russia Agreement. Although the formal agenda consisted mostly of economic and energy issues, the participants devoted considerable time to security questions as well as assessing how the presence of Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, might affect the negotiations. For the past few years, Russian-EU relations have been addressed within the framework of four “common spaces” — the Common Economic Space (covering economic issues and the environment); the Common Space of Freedom, Security […]

WASHINGTON — Eleven U.S. states have adopted legislation to divest public pension funds from companies with financial ties to Iran’s petroleum, defense, and nuclear sectors in an attempt to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program and alleged sponsorship of terrorism. Almost 20 more states are considering similar legislation to supplement existing federal and international sanctions. This is the first time that state investments have been leveraged for nonproliferation goals. During the 1980s, anti-apartheid activists urged state and local authorities and some universities to divest holdings from companies invested in or doing business with South Africa. During the […]

SEOUL, South Korea — The six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program are expected to resume this month after a six-month deadlock. But Washington says many questions remain unanswered regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Last week, North Korea handed over a long-awaited declaration of its nuclear activities dating back to the mid 1980s and also demolished the cooling tower of the disabled Yongbyon nuclear reactor. The disclosure was originally supposed to be submitted by the end of last year. The documentation, which was handed over to the Chinese Foreign Ministry by Pyongyang’s ambassador in Beijing, revealed details of the […]

Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga is accused of committing some truly awful crimes. Forcibly conscripting children as young as 10 into the brutal, tribal combat of eastern Congo tops the list, which is why he was turned over to the International Criminal Court at The Hague in 2006. Lubanga’s trial was supposed to be the ICC’s first case and its first test. But with the trial now indefinitely delayed due to prosecutorial misconduct, the ICC has failed the test. No one should be surprised by this. The problems with the ICC’s ability to try the Lubanga case stem from the prosecution’s […]