In The News

Letting Sudan Get Away with Murder

Ben Kiernan February 4, 2005
Over 200,000 people have died in the violence in Sudan's Darfur provinces. And as the bloodshed continues, genocide scholar Ben Kiernan writes, members of the international community – who may actually have the influence to halt the killings and prosecute the perpetrators – have been preoccupied with semantic and jurisdictional wrangling. Kiernan provides an historical background to the...

Democracy Won, but do Americans Care?

Maggie Mitchell-Salem February 1, 2005
The largely successful democratic election in Iraq was made possible only by tens of thousands of deaths, both Iraqi and American. In the United States, many initial supporters of the war are growing increasingly wary of mounting costs and casualties, suggests this Daily Star commentary. This wariness comes as President Bush uses the elections to justify a continued US presence in Iraq and –...

Germany's "Project Cleanup" Could Deport Hundreds of Radical Muslims

Markus Deggerich February 1, 2005
With the passage of a tougher immigration law, Germany is waging its own kind of pre-emptive strike in the war against terror: It will now have the ability to deport people suspected of possibly committing a terrorist act in the future. The burden of proof for deportation will employ a lower standard than the current one. As one government official said, "The fact that someone spent time...

Voting, Not Violence, is the Story for Arab Press

Hassan M. Fattah January 31, 2005
Yesterday's historic elections in Iraq proved, by many accounts, to be a relative success, but the story of the day may be the measured reaction of the Arab press. Popular news outlets Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, who have spent most of the last two years broadcasting images of violence to the Middle East and the rest of the world, took a step back from this type of coverage to provide...

A Fiesta of Protest at Porto Alegre

Dominic Sachsenmaier January 31, 2005
Each year, over 2000 corporate and political bigwigs congregate in a luxurious skiing resort in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum. Simultaneously, at the far less opulent locale of Porto Alegre, a much larger, less well-heeled, and considerably more diverse body gathers at the World Social Forum. This diversity, however, may be its weakness, argues Professor Dominic Sachsenmaier....

Counting Sheep?

Seema Sirohi January 28, 2005
Christian missionaries are no strangers to the lands surrounding the Indian Ocean. Europeans traveled to the region throughout the 19th century in an effort to spread their belief in the "one true God." Even today, missionaries work tirelessly in South and Southeast Asia to draw converts from local Hindu and Muslim populations. Yet their zeal has irked the ire of many in the region...

Preparing for a New Global Threat – Part II

Thomas Abraham January 28, 2005
Almost as quickly as scientists upgrade vaccinations, communicable viruses are adapting – by genetic mutation – to break through vaccine barriers and transmit faster. Thomas Abraham warns against a "biological tsunami" that is "brewing deep within the microbial world": avian influenza virus, or H5N1. Bird-to-human transmission was once believed impossible, but recently...