In The News

Vietnam Goes Global

Jordan Ryan December 15, 2005
Although Vietnam had hoped to join the WTO before that body’s December ministerial meeting, an accession deal is not likely to finalized before mid-2006. Still, Vietnam’s eagerness to join the global trading system marks a noteworthy ideological shift for the ruling Communist Party, writes Jordan Ryan, the United Nations Development Program Representative in Hanoi. Vietnam’s Communist leaders...

Russian Civil Society Will Find It Harder to Breathe

Liliana N. Proskuryakova December 8, 2005
Since 1991, hundreds of thousands of non-governmental orgnanizations (NGOs) have sprung up in Russia, enjoying a level of freedom unthinkable in the Soviet years. Yet following the pro-democratic revolutions in the former members of the Soviet Union, that freedom may be disappearing, says Liliana N. Proskuryakova. Russian civil society will face a host of new restrictions under new legislation...

Is Strategy For Victory in Iraq an Empty Package?

Joan Johnson-Freese December 6, 2005
Nearly three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the White House has released its plan to bring stability and democracy to Iraq. Yet, while that plan adequately addresses the role that Iraqis are to play in securing their country, it must now be followed by a strategy that addresses the roles that the American public and army will play in that same long fight. At the moment, the American...

Indonesian Democracy’s Enemy Within

Sadanand Dhume December 1, 2005
The common wisdom that democracy will help subdue the Islamic militantism is being questioned in Indonesia. While the world condemns the terrorists who have struck Indonesia in recent years, Sadanand Dhume reports that one of Indonesia's own political parties embraces those terrorists' Islamist ideology. The Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) shares the radical beliefs of Egypt's...

Fox’s Performance Leaves Many Puzzled

Kelly Arthur Garrett November 15, 2005
Having failed to persuade other American leaders to move towards a pan-hemispheric free trade pact, Mexican President Vicente Fox now faces a political firestorm at home. Fox’s support for the Bush Administration’s free-trade stance has led to charges that he is an entreguista (a stooge or turncoat)—charges surely inflamed when Fox criticized the president of Argentina for “obeying Argentine...

Excessive Profits Erode Security

November 15, 2005
President Bush’s current tour of East Asia, specifically mainland China, challenges the scruples of his Administration’s prevailing foreign policy. Intensely critical of undemocratic regimes from Iran to North Korea, the US, in the case of China, has let political concerns wither on the wayside in the wake of its more pressing economic needs. An editorial in the Taipei Times warns of “the...

In Vino Vilitas

Barbara Supp November 9, 2005
Once the rarefied realm of connoisseurs, the wine industry now must bend to the forces of the market and not the tastes of the palate. Europe, the birthplace of wine, can no longer rely on its continental sophistication and experience to control the wine market. Experts estimate that 2005 will be the first year in which wine imports into Europe will outnumber wine exports. Fearing the loss of...