In The News

Somalia: Why the International Contact Group Should Support the Islamic Courts Union

Abukar Arman July 1, 2006
The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) currently controls Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu, and has managed to bring a level of security to the city that had been unimaginable for the last decade. The ICU’s ability to bring a modicum of peace to the country means that the movement has, writes Abukar Arman, been embraced by Somalis as a “spontaneously formed populist uprising against the abuses and...

Supreme Court Blocks Trials at Guantánamo

John O’Neil June 30, 2006
Protesters throughout the world have vehemently opposed the US indefinitely holding suspected terrorists in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba – and the US Supreme Court has lent some support to that argument. The court ruled against the US use of military tribunals to try detainees held in the Guantánamo prison, and in so doing, finally delivered the Bush administration from a legal limbo. In a 5-3 ruling,...

Surveillance Disclosure Denounced

Peter Baker June 29, 2006
US President George Bush denounces “The New York Times” for publishing an article concerning the president’s secret anti-terrorism program that involves access, unapproved by US Congress or the courts, to bank records from nearly 8,000 banks in more than 20 countries. The paper also broke news earlier this year about a government telephone-surveillance program. Supporters of such surveillance...

Holocaust Memories Hover Over Refugees

Peter Hirschberg June 20, 2006
Sudanese refugees who have illegally crossed the border into Israel are either forced back into Egypt or arrested and detained. Some of those arrested are released by the courts and taken in by kibbutzim, while others remain in prison waiting to be charged. The refugees pose a moral dilemma to the citizens and government of Israel; the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, wrote in...

A Global Web of Justice Is Up and Running

Luis Moreno-Ocampo June 19, 2006
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, describes the relative success of three recent ICC investigations: war crimes in the Congo, the Lord's Resistance Army killings in northern Uganda, and the genocidal events in Darfur, Sudan. The ICC, which carries no allegiance to any one country, intervenes in domestic criminal adjudication only when national...

Mexico Worries About Its Own Southern Border

Ginger Thompson June 15, 2006
While Mexican authorities have chided the US for its policy of increasing militarization of the US-Mexico border, Mexico’s President Vicente Fox also makes plans for more patrols of the southern border in his own country. Indeed, Mexican regulations on immigration are far tougher than those in the US. Detentions and deportations have risen by about 74 percent in the past four years, according to...

Web Ads Present New Front in Hacker Wars

Riva Richmond June 15, 2006
“Pay-per-click” online advertising, how many websites charge customers, is a new target for computer hackers. Illegal software, which can be surreptitiously attached to private PCs, generates false clicks in massive numbers. The potential for false accounting could place advertisers in financial conflict with servers like Google and Yahoo and could be used by rival companies to attack one...