In The News

How Not to Fight Terrorism

David Cole May 9, 2006
The high-profile trial of Zacarias Moussaoui has concluded, and the result, after four years, is a life sentence – which Moussaoui was prepared to accept when the proceedings began. In the intervening years, the US government sought to prove that Moussaoui was the 20th hijacker set to participate in the 9/11 attacks and blocked his access, with questionable legality, to witnesses and other...

Think Again: International Courts

Helena Cobban May 8, 2006
Human-rights activists envision international courts as a source for justice and peace. Author Helena Cobban, however, questions the worth of international courts, especially when cases are prolonged as in the case of Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Serbia. In Rwanda, the court has spent more than $1 billion prosecuting about 25 cases from the 1994 genocide. Cobban says the court...

Militants Warn China Over Oil in Niger Delta

Craig Timberg May 2, 2006
Immediately after the Nigerian government signed agreements on oil access and other investments with Chinese President Hu Jintao, militants detonated a car bomb and threatened Chinese investors and officials, as well as oil workers, offices and storage facilities. One militant group labeled the Chinese, who have a $2.2 billion stake in Niger Delta oil field, as “thieves.” Currently, the US is...

East Asia’s Troubled Waters – Part III

William Underwood May 2, 2006
The bitterness from invasions and atrocities can last for generations, and international protocol calls for one-time aggressors to apologize for mistakes and extend some symbolic reparations, even if miniscule compared with the true costs of suffering. Before and during WWII, Imperial Japan invaded cities along the Asia Pacific coast, particularly north China, abducting young men to toil in...

On Tape, Bin Laden Warns of Long War

Craig Whitlock April 24, 2006
Osama bin Laden insists that the US War on Terrorism is really a War on Islam and warns his followers by audiotape to prepare for long conflict. The tape contradicts his previous message from January that called for a long-term truce with the US for withdrawal from Iraq. In the April tape, bin Laden urges followers to head to Sudan and fight with peacekeepers, suggesting that the West wants to...

Anti-Christian Extremism Attacked

United Press International April 19, 2006
Newspapers in the Arab world have weighed in on recent attacks against Christian churches in Alexandria, addressing issues of extremism’s threat to Egyptian society. To overcome the forces of ignorance, hatred and sectarian sedition, leading newspapers call for concerted action on the part of government, religious and civil institutions to unify citizens against extremism that could lead to a “...

Gas Deal Roils Ukraine and May Have Cut Leader's Vote

Steven Lee Myers April 16, 2006
A mysterious company called RosUkrEnergo, whose executives and addresses are largely unknown, brokered a deal in January to resolve a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine over the price and sales of natural gas in the Ukraine. The company has links to Russia's state energy monopoly, Gazprom. Opposition to that deal reflects concerns about other corrupt privatization deals of the past –...