In The News

Iran Playing With Fire

October 3, 2003
Iran faces harsh international scrutiny in coming weeks about its nuclear weapons program as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) begins new inspection. In question are traces of weapon’s grade enriched uranium found in Iran that Tehran officials claim were contaminated before Iran received them. The IAEA has warned that Iran could face international sanctions backed by the US if Iran...

Politics in Command

Jonathan Schell September 29, 2003
In war, true victory means the achievement of an express political aim. Although Saddam Hussein has been toppled, the political objective of the American war in Iraq appears far from fulfilled. An author and journalist who has written extensively about war and peace, Jonathan Schell, says what should worry Washington more than the daily attacks on US troops is its failure to win the hearts and...

U.N. Official Plans to Urge U.S. to Reconsider Farm Subsidies

Elizabeth Becker September 24, 2003
The director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) may find his message to Washington falls on deaf ears. With the 2004 presidential election on the line (and agribusiness's lucrative campaign donations very much in every politician's mind), congressmen and White House officials alike hesitate to believe that the $22 billion in subsidies offered to American farmers is a cause...

Ability to Reason Vital in Fighting Terrorism

Kofi Annan September 23, 2003
At a conference on terrorism held today, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan argued that a clear, rational approach to dealing with terrorism is the only way to defeat it. "The rage we feel at terrorist attacks must not remove our ability to reason. If we are to defeat terrorism, it is our duty, and indeed our interest, to try to understand this deadly phenomenon, and carefully to...

Pressuring Tehran

Mustafa El-Labbad September 19, 2003
Iran has come under increasing pressure since Washington officially ended its war in Iraq and turned its eye on other countries in the region. Now, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear monitoring body, has passed a resolution giving Iran until October to declare the extent of its nuclear program and sign the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation...

Our War With France

Thomas L. Friedman September 18, 2003
"France is not just our annoying ally," asserts Thomas Friedman in this opinion piece for The New York Times. "France is becoming our enemy." By advocating a hasty transfer of power to a symbolic Iraqi sovereignty, France seems bent on US failure in Iraq. If the French government truly wished to see the US succeed in Iraq, Friedman argues, it would use its influence in the...

Korea: The Hexagon of Uncertainty

Francesco Sisci August 30, 2003
The six-way talks on North Korea's nuclear program made significant headway, even if the communist country did threaten to test a nuclear bomb. This article in the Asia Times notes that amidst much of its usual belligerent rhetoric, North Korea backed down on two previous demands by partaking in the talks, simultaneously giving up on bilateral negotiations with the US and meeting without a...