In The News

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...

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...

U.S.-N.K. Tension Unlikely to Lead to War, Experts Say

Seo Hyun-jin March 6, 2003
Talking in Seoul, experts on Korean politics proclaimed that North Korea’s interception of a US reconnaissance plane was a pre-negotiation effort designed to pressure Washington. North Korea, said one analyst, is hoping to begin talks with the US before Washington enters into a war in Iraq. – YaleGlobal

2 Companies Pay Penalties for Improving China Rockets

Jeff Gerth March 6, 2003
Two months after the US State Department accused Hughes Electronics Corporation and Boeing Satellite Systems of 123 violations of export laws in connection with the Chinese data transfers in the 1990's, the two firms agreed to pay a record $32 million in penalties to settle the charges. Because the technology used in launching civilian rockets is similar to that used in launching missiles,...