In The News

Prisoner's Release Does Not Herald a Xinjiang Spring

Dru C. Gladney March 30, 2005
The recent release of a Uyghur businesswoman from a Chinese prison may have appeased the visiting US Secretary of State, but the gesture also underscored the continual frictions between China and its Uyghur ethnic minority. Beijing's official stance is that Muslim Uyghurs separatists pose a terrorist threat, but as Dru C. Gladney suggests, this may actually be a case of so-called "...

La liberation d’un prisonnier ne prefigure pas un repit au Xinjiang

Dru C. Gladney March 30, 2005

Le Maître du Kirghizistan est renversé, mais la politique du juste milieu pourra-t-elle tenir ?

Paula R. Newberg March 28, 2005

Kyrgyz Ruler Is Toppled, but Can the Center Hold?

Paula R. Newberg March 28, 2005
The flight of the president of Kyrgyzstan, facing angry demonstrators, has suddenly thrust the small Central Asian republic into the international limelight. But as regional expert Paula R. Newberg notes, the overthrow of President Askar Akaev was a long time coming, and may have serious repercussions in the neighborhood. As Newberg warns, Kyrgyzstan's more conservative authoritarian...

Japan-South Korea Ties Take Turn for Worse

Kakumi Kobayashi March 23, 2005
Two recent diplomatic snafus by Japan have resulted in a flaring up of tensions with South Korea. The first is a prefectural government proclamation of a Japanese commemorative day on Takeshima, an uninhabited island in the Sea of Japan that both countries claim. The other is the proposed publication of a Japanese history book which paints Japan’s period of colonial rule over South Korea in...

Al Qaeda and its Affiliates

David Ronfeldt March 21, 2005
Al Qaeda and its affiliates are operating much like a global tribe waging segmental warfare, writes David F. Ronfeldt, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, in this independently published paper. Ronfeldt describes the dynamics of classic tribes – what drives them, how they organize, how they fight – and argues that Al Qaeda fits this tribal paradigm. The war they are waging...

On NATO's future

Mohamed Sid-Ahmed March 18, 2005
The bipolar geopolitical order of the Cold War is no longer relevant, and one of the major military organizations of that era is preparing to shift its identity accordingly. Al-Ahram Weekly commentator Mohamed Sid-Ahmed opines about the nature of NATO's transformation, and how Arab states – Egypt, in particular – might approach collaboration with the group. Even the name, North Atlantic...