PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Shortly after Vietnamese tanks rumbled across Cambodia’s border in late 1978 the Khmer Rouge elite fled the capital and a new regime first attempted what the United Nations is poised to try again more than a quarter of a century later — account for the grisly deaths of up to two million people. Pol Pot and perhaps his closest friend from their university days in France, Ieng Sary, were long ago sentenced to death in absentia for genocide, in a trial widely regarded as a legal farce. It was so badly handled and wrapped-up in Cold [...]
On May 26, 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), a collaborative program aimed at securing vast stocks of dangerous nuclear material scattered around the globe. The program, run by a semi-autonomous agency within the DOE known as the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), has two central elements: repatriating or otherwise securing nuclear fuel; and converting reactors to use new, more proliferation-resistant technology. The program has seen some success and has even received more funding than expected, but so far progress has been slower than initially hoped. Programs like GTRI (others include the [...]
I just returned from a short trip to Beirut — my first since the ceasefire was implemented on Aug. 13, 2006. Apart from the roads and bridges damaged by Israel on the Damascus-Beirut road, everything seemed fine and normal in Lebanon. Malls were busy, offering 60 percent discounts, and so were clubs, casinos, hotels, and restaurants. Commercial billboards, usually reserved for advertising, were all booked by Hezbollah and showed signs praising the Lebanese resistance and its leader Hasan Nasrallah. One notable billboard showed a huge picture of Israeli troops carrying the coffin of a slain soldier, draped with the Israeli [...]
