In The News

Iraq Deal With US to End Immunity for Foreign Contractors

Patrick Cockburn June 18, 2008
With a new security agreement being negotiated between the US and Iraq, the two countries tussle over control. Some Iraqi analysts criticize the overall agreement as a signal that the US plans long-term occupation of the country. But others note that a new policy, no longer extending immunity to foreign contract workers who break Iraqi law, signals that the Iraqi government could be taking more...

Networks, Olympics Organizers Clash

Stephen Wade June 16, 2008
Foreign media that paid top dollar to cover the Olympics are descending on Beijing – and bristle about rules and regulations. The journalists protest the limits on live coverage and delays in shipping technical equipment. “Any interference with news coverage will be at odds with promises made seven years ago when Beijing was awarded the games,” writes Stephen Wade for the Associated Press,...

Smugglers Had Design for Advanced Warhead

Joby Warrick June 16, 2008
A computer seized from a Swiss businessman, part of an international smuggling ring, included plans for constructing a small, yet deadly nuclear device. Former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright, now president of the Institute for Science and International Security, points out that the plans for the device may have long been sold and e-mailed far and wide, to regimes like Iran or...

Rid of Violence, a Reforming Bosnia Emerges as a Model

Humphrey Hawksley June 12, 2008
The history and circumstances of conflict in Bosnia and Iraq vary in many ways. But the bottom line is that swift US intervention succeeded in ending civil strife and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The political planning for Bosnia since the 1995 peace agreement, with the international community deeply engaged in shaping it as a modern European state, could serve as a model for Iraq and...

With Olympics Approaching, US Reconsiders Sonic Blasters for China

Daniel Pepper June 10, 2008
The LRAD, or long-range acoustical device, was developed by the American Technology Corp. after the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and is most often characterized as a “warning device.” The device is capable of emitting high-energy waves that are painfully loud when aimed at specific targets. LRAD, currently classified as a communications system, is not subject to US export-control regulations. But...

Linked Global Groups Are Not Political Parties: Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Fantasy of the Caliphate

Jean-Pierre Filiu June 3, 2008
Some Islamists believe that establishing a broad jurisdiction under an Islamic leader, last seen with the Ottoman Empire in 1924, could deliver stability. Calling for such a caliphate is Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Islamic Party of Liberation, which has re-emerged in Palestine since the divisive clash between Hamas and Fatah. Hizb ut-Tahrir refuses to participate in elections, and its supporters blame...

The Paradox of Muslim Weakness

Sadanand Dhume May 27, 2008
Seven years after 9/11, views on the Islamist threat remain polarized and both are flawed, argues journalist and author Sadanand Dhume: The right overplays the danger to Europe and the United States, while the left underestimates its impact on Muslim-majority countries. Ironically, the very patterns of weakness in Muslim societies strengthen minority Islamists, among the most organized and...