In The News

North Korea Builds Up Missiles

Joo Sang-min May 5, 2004
According to a South Korean newspaper, North Korea is building two underground launching sites capable of deploying intermediate-range ballistic missiles. If successfully established, the new missiles could reach as far as Guam and possibly Hawaii, says the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. Defense experts say that Pyongyang is trying to demonstrate its limited military muscle. But, they caution, it could...

North Korean Ends 'Candid' China Visit

Edward Cody April 22, 2004
Unexpected private talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and leaders in Beijing resulted in what is being called a "broad common understanding." During the talks, Beijing reiterated its desire for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula while also addressing North Korea's 'rational concerns,' a hint at North Korea's desire for security guarantees from the US. For his...

Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Media: Anatomy of a Failure

Susan Moeller April 14, 2004
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made the decision to present terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and Iraq as a linked triple threat. Susan Moeller, professor of media and international affairs at the University of Maryland, argues that in the “stultifying patriotic climate” that followed the attacks, most mainstream...

Uncle Sam's Sly Sally

V. Sudarshan April 5, 2004
After effusively proclaiming US-Indian relations to be best they have been in years, US Secretary of State Colin Powell offered Pakistan membership in the exclusive club of Major Non-Nato Allies (MNNA). Though Powell had met with India’s foreign minister mere days earlier, the Indian government learned about the agreement from the media. Washington claims that it had not wanted to announce its...

While the US Looked for Iraqi WMD, North Korea Built Theirs

Jack Pritchard March 31, 2004
As Washington pressed on with its effort to rid Iraq of its suspected weapons of mass destruction - read nuclear weapons - early last year, North Korea's nuclear program shifted into high gear. Or so Pyongyang would have the US believe. In this first-hand account of the recent unofficial American inspections of North Korea's nuclear program, Jack Pritchard, a North Korea specialist at...

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...

UN Inspection in Iraq Was No Sham

Jessica Tuchman Mathews March 26, 2004
Despite White House claims that United Nations inspections of pre-war Iraq were a "sham", the post-war evaluation of Iraq's weapons programs - or lack thereof - reveals that international inspections met with significant success. Jessica T. Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq international...