In The News

Seven Nuclear Sites Looted

Barton Gellman May 10, 2003
Seven nuclear facilities in Iraq were heavily damaged or destroyed by mass lootings that began with the arrival of US ground forces in Iraq in April. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and U.N. resolutions, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has the sole legal authority to carry out inspections of the nuclear sites. But all that changed with the Iraq War. IAEA has even had...

Korea’s New Wave

Suki Kim May 10, 2003
North Korea and South Korea have vastly different political systems and economies, and occupy distinct positions in world politics. Yet in recent years, people in North and South Korea seem to be share a growing resentment towards American involvement in Korean affairs. In spite of the apparent ‘Americanization’ of South Korea, most South Koreans believe that American involvement has impeded a...

Parents, Shopping for Discipline, Turn to Tough Schools Abroad

Tim Weiner May 9, 2003
Wwasps, a Utah-based private school organization, has taken to setting up shop abroad, where rules on student treatment are not as tight as in the US. Beating students’ heads against concrete, enforcing prolonged periods of isolation, and creating affection-less environments are the mainstays of these “behavior-modification” schools, which call themselves “specialty boarding-schools”. Without...

Early Globalization and the Slave Trade

Robert Harms May 9, 2003
While many are aware of the "triangular" slave trade among Europe, Africa and the Americas in the 18th century, few people realize that Asian-European trade was also instrumental in sustaining the exchange of human slaves. For example, French ships carrying European goods to Asia returned with cowry shells and Indian textiles valued by West Africans. On the African coast, traders...

Please Pass the Parma Ham

May 6, 2003
This New York Times editorial argues that of all the issues separating the Old and New Worlds, a food fight just seems silly. The EU's push – through the World Trade Organization – for increased protection of geographical indicators is being opposed by the US and other countries. Feta cheese, the EU's argument goes, is really Greek and should be protected as a Greek trademark....

Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted

Barton Gellman May 4, 2003
A specially trained US Defense Department team inspected a major Iraqi radioactive waste repository and discovered that the site had been severely looted. Computers, furniture and equipment appear to have been looted by Iraqi civilians since the beginning of US led military action. However, US authorities remain uncertain as to who might have taken the nuclear materials and why. On site...

Why the Security Council Failed

Michael J. Glennon May 1, 2003
The UN was weak and irrelevant long before the divisive US-led war on Iraq made this painfully obvious, International Law scholar Michael Glennon maintains. He explains that Iraq is more a symptom of UN structural problems and changes in its geopolitical environment than a cause.. The UN was created to preside over a multi-polar world and now finds itself dealing with an unrivalled US hegemony...