In The News

Mystery Illness Highlights Taiwan's Health Isolation

Melody Chen March 18, 2003
An outbreak of a mysterious flu-like illness in several Asian countries has prompted international coordination to identify and contain the spread of the condition. But although Taiwan has reported three cases of the 'SARS' problem to the World Health Organization, Taiwan is disadvantaged in attacking the problem because it is not a WHO member. "We can't quickly know how...

From Mars to Venus Via the Atlantic

Lionel Barber March 16, 2003
Although a US-led war against Iraq has not yet begun, the damage it has produced is already painfully visible. The NATO alliance suffered some of these wounds. The Financial Times' Lionel Barber argues that many leaders of the alliance are either courting the pacifists, or steadfastly asserting power, thus engendering divisions and magnifying differences. However, amidst talk of building a...

Chinese Astronauts to Compete for Final Frontier

Joan Johnson-Freese March 14, 2003
A chain reaction of space activity, begun by Soviet-U.S competition in the 1960’s, has been duly catalyzed by China’s own manned space effort. The Middle Kingdom began its ventures into space in 1999, but soon it hopes to be only the third nation to have achieved human spaceflight. If this does happen, China’s position vis-à-vis the world - and particularly vis-à-vis the US - is bound to change...

The Right War for the Right Reasons

John McCain March 12, 2003
Although it is uncertain whether the United Nations Security Council will authorize American and British armed forces to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein, Senator John McCain firmly endorses this potential war, and praises it as an act of justice. He dismisses most critics’ claims that nonviolent options have not been exhausted by citing the UN's failure to disarm Iraq using nonviolent...

World Court for Crimes of War Opens in The Hague

Marlise Simons March 12, 2003
"The most ambitious initiative in the history of modern international law" begins today in the Hague. Charged with prosecuting crimes against humanity, genocide, and other grave atrocities when national governments refuse or are unable to seek justice, the new International Criminal Court has been ratified by only 89 signatory countries. Notable exceptions include the United States,...

Just War – or a Just War?

Jimmy Carter March 9, 2003
As the question of Iraq looms over Washington, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter expresses his concerns with America’s current abandonment of premises of religious principles, respect for international law, and wise alliances, upon which sound foreign policy is based. Mr. Carter outlines the preconditions for a just war with Iraq, including the exhaustion of nonviolent options, avoidance of all...

Why North Korea is Different

John R. Bolton March 6, 2003
U.S. Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton writes in this week's Far Eastern Economic Review on the difference between Iraq and North Korea, and why they deserve different responses from the United States and its allies. Mr. Bolton says that while the US has "run all conceivable diplomatic and economic options to their logical conclusion without a modicum of success" in Iraq, in...