In The News

Startling His Neighbors, Australian Leader Favors First Strikes

John Shaw December 2, 2002
Close on the heels of President George W.Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive attack to deter terrorist strike against the US, a close ally, Australia has adopted the same principle. In a television interview Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he would be willing to strike at terrorists in another country if there were evidence of a plan to attack Australia. . He said that it was necessary...

Kenya's Muslims: Resentments Both Local and International

Dexter Filkins December 1, 2002
Close-knit global communication is helping to spread information and arouse passions about developments in far-away places. This New York Times report finds widespread resentment among Kenya’s Muslim community about their condition at home and abroad. Much of that resentment is born of a widespread belief among Kenya's Muslim minority that they have long been the victims of discrimination...

Whither Arab Independence?

Basheer M Nafi November 27, 2002
What does America's effort to clamp down on Iraq mean for the Middle East as a whole? According to historian and Islamic scholar Basheer M Nafi, the US-led, UN-sanctioned weapons inspection project is simply another attack on the already brittle sovereignty of Arab nation-states. Writing in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly, Nafi argues that "Western imperialism has made a comeback in the...

Bin Laden Material Found at Alleged Bali Mastermind's House

November 25, 2002
The interrogation of the prime suspect of the Bali blast in October and forensic evidence have raised the tantalizing possibility that the attack was a suicide bombing. If this turns out to be true this would be the first suicide attack by a Muslim in Indonesia, perhaps in Southeast Asia. While suicide attacks by Tamil Tiger guerillas in Sri Lanka has been a common phenomenon and in recent years...

Police Say Bali Mastermind Was a Cool Killer

November 22, 2002
Imam Samudra, who Indonesian authorities say was the mastermind behind the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, can be seen as a product of the dark side of globalization. A star student in high school, police describe him as an "architectural computer expert" and an engineer. In addition to his computer skills, he is also believed to have spent some time in Malaysia and completed terrorist...

Thaksin Dismisses 'Time' Terror Report

November 22, 2002
Governments understand the influence of international publications. A Time magazine article disclosing terrorist training bases in Thailand has riled Thai officials. "It is not acceptable that a world-standard magazine like Time would run a report that quoted only a single source. The magazine's report… is close to fiction," said Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. A Royal Thai...

Crazy in the 'Hood

Thomas L. Friedman November 20, 2002
The power of weapons of mass destruction means their possession concerns not only the immediate neighbor but the neighborhood. How to deal with a country like North Korea, which appears to have developed nuclear weapons, is thus not only a worry to South Korea. But the killing power that North Korea packs vis-à-vis its southern neighbor makes US decision-making more complicated. As Thomas...