In The News

A Primer for Cross-Strait Relations

Chen Hurng-yu June 11, 2003
If Taiwan ever wants to improve cross-strait relations and free itself of interference from Beijing, it will need to depart from the 1971 framework and change its foreign policy, says Chen Hurng-yu, professor of history at Taiwan's National Chengchi University. The overlapping claims of Taipei and Beijing to sovereignty over China – a dispute that has continued since the UN denied Taiwan’s...

Crisis Puts Burma Back in the Spotlight

David I. Steinberg June 11, 2003
The current flurry of interest in Burma occasioned by the arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will likely wane, as it has so often in the past, before another episode thrusts it back to the world's attention. David Steinberg, a Burma scholar, says that such sporadic focus, accompanied by sanctions, has not made any change in the Burmese situation. He maintains that current policies...

Burmese Junta's Remedy: Crackdown

Seth Mydans June 10, 2003
Despite international condemnation led by the United States, the ruling generals of Myanmar are continuing to crack down on supporters of the democratic opposition. The crackdown began last week when the opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was attacked and arrested, prompting US President Bush to back a bill in Congress to enforce sanctions on Myanmar and cut off imports. The US protest of...

Pressure Alone Will Not Deter Iran from Its Nuclear Path

George Perkovich June 9, 2003
Iran apparently has been seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but it can still be dissuaded from its dangerous course, writes George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Despite Iran's inclusion in US President Bush's 'Axis of Evil', Perkovich believes that with subtle but substantive diplomacy from the US, Tehran could be...

Truths and Consequences

Bruce B. Auster June 6, 2003
As the War on Iraq has come to an end and no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have yet been found, many people are now questioning the accuracy of American intelligence. In the past several months, says this article in the U.S. News and World Report, there have been heated discussions on how credible intelligence information is even within the U.S. government. The Vice-President and the hawks in...

In Africa, Pricking the West's Conscience

Somini Sengupta June 2, 2003
A French-led peacekeeping force of 1,400 is expected to arrive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo later this week. The recent surge of violence in the Congo has raised fears that, unless action is taken immediately, another peacekeeping fiasco like the one in Rwanda might take place. The violence that plagues the DRC has made the delivery of aid (in food and medicine) very difficult, making...

We've Seen This Situation Before

Mark Turner May 21, 2003
Almost a decade ago half a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in Rwanda through a "state-sponsored genocide." Recent reports of ethnic killings in the northeastern part of Congo have international observers fearing a repeat of Rwanda. But this time the UN seems determined not to have the international community be mere bystanders, and already efforts to form a sizeable...