In The News

Taiwan’s Success Could Show the Way for Tibet

Humphrey Hawksley March 31, 2008
Demands of the global supply chain and tightly interconnected trade have tempered both China’s rejection of capitalist ways and the West’s criticism of politics and human rights in the world’s largest communist country. But independence movements in Taiwan and Tibet have the potential for ruffling relations. The Taiwanese-Chinese relationship – avoiding direct political control while continuing...

EU Weighs Olympic Boycott Over Tibet

Robert Marquand March 28, 2008
As protesters in Tibet plead for religious freedom and other human rights from Chinese authorities, China insists that the Dalai Lama is the troublemaker, trying to disrupt plans for the August Beijing Olympics. But that claim has not convinced Europe, whose leaders call for restraint and point out that the Dalai Lama did not call for an Olympics boycott, reports Robert Marquand for the Christian...

After Bush

March 27, 2008
The Bush administration has been bedeviled by foreign-policy problems – and the Economist predicts that Bush’s successor will struggle likewise. To be sure, Democrats and Republicans have foreign-policy differences: Democrats oppose the war in Iraq, favoring multilateralism and diplomacy, while Republicans remain committed hawks. Inheriting an overburdened national-security establishment, the...

Tibetan Capital in Turmoil as Violence Erupts

Jim Yardley March 14, 2008
China took over Tibet in 1951, and relations have been tense since. As Beijing prepares to host the Olympics in August, ethnic groups that disagree with Chinese policies also take advantage of the global spotlight. Buddhist monks and ethnic Tibetans in Lhasa attempted a protest march, to draw attention to their human-rights complaints, before a clash with Chinese security forces that prompted...

Bush Vetoes Move to Ban Water Torture

Ed Pilkington March 13, 2008
Using his veto power, US President Bush put a stop to US congressional plans to limit interrogation methods by the Central Intelligence Agency. The administration claims that any restrictions would tie the hands of CIA interrogators in its fight against Al Qaeda, but legislators worry about the moral standing of the US in the world. "Torture is a black mark against the United States,"...

It's the Dollar, Stupid

Judy Shelton March 6, 2008
As many in the US fret about a failing economy, other countries express specific concern about a falling dollar. The US dollar is the world’s key reserve currency and yet US leaders limit their focus on domestic policy, shrugging about global worries, explains author Judy Shelton, in an opinion essay for the Wall Street Journal. She offers a reminder that currency woes contributed to the Great...

The USS Cole and America's Election

Michael Young March 6, 2008
President George W. Bush is in his final year of office, and there are two ways of looking at the administration’s delaying any reduction of troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East until after the November election. Keeping a large force in place this year could either be a gift or a curse for the next president: The gift is that the next president can perhaps quickly reduce troop levels,...