In The News

Malaysia Harbouring Militants?

Reme Ahmad April 7, 2004
Bilateral relations between Thailand and Malaysia have been unfailingly polite, states this news report in Singapore's Straits Times. The "diplomatic niceties" appear to have been put aside now, however, as Thailand and Malaysia discuss the contentious issue of terrorist bombings in Thailand. Thailand has accused Malaysia of harboring Muslim separatist terrorists believed to be...

Arab World Risks Missing its Development Goals

Majdoline Hatoum April 2, 2004
Illiteracy, gender inequality, and unemployment plague Arab countries, despite the region's concentration of oil wealth. Arab leaders addressed these issues at a recent development conference. They proposed various plans and strategies to help Arab countries meet the Millennium Development Goal, which was signed by 189 countries in 2000 as part of the UN's Millennium Declaration. The...

No More Rwandas

Michael E. O'Hanlon April 2, 2004
Ten years after the genocide in Rwanda began, is the international community better positioned to prevent another such horror from occurring elsewhere? The deaths of 800,000 Rwandans should have taught the world much, say Michael O'Hanlon and Susan Rice, senior fellows at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. In 1994 the US, France, and the UK failed to muster the political will to...

India Seethes as US Warms to Pakistan

Edward Luce April 1, 2004
The United States recently removed all remaining sanctions placed on Pakistan when that country’s current leader, General Pervez Musharraf, was installed in a 1999 military coup. After September 11th, Musharraf lost his pariah status and emerged as a key US ally in the anti-terror fight. The partnership was cemented this week, as Musharraf deployed troops to hunt Al-Qaeda along the Afghan border...

A Normal Country

Andrei Shleifer March 30, 2004
In this Foreign Affairs’ essay, Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman argue that the popular image in the west of Russia as a “disastrous failure” needs to be rethought. General belief holds that Russia has failed to leave its communist past behind, and as a result, has transformed itself into “a collapsed state inhabited by criminals threatening other countries with multiple contagions.” Contrary...

Foreign Ministers Meet on North Korea Nukes

Choi Soung-ah March 29, 2004
The third round of the six-party negotiations on the North Korean nuclear “standoff” is scheduled for June 2004 in Beijing. In preparation for the negotiations, South Korean foreign minister Ban Ki-moon paid an official visit to Beijing to meet with his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing. With Ban addressing the issue of North Korean defectors detained in China and Li relaying the outcome of his...

Terror Fight to Intensify

William Pratt March 26, 2004
Official anti-terror plans emerge in Germany following a report that three Moroccans suspected of planning the Madrid bombings had lived in Germany. The three men had previously been identified by German officials as “potentially violent Islamists”. With the fear that Germany could be used as a potential base and/or target for future terrorist attacks, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has begun...