In The News

Civil War Returns to Sri Lanka

Rüdiger Falksohn August 31, 2006
For more than 20 years, the Tamil Tigers have fought to establish their own state in Sri Lanka. Representing about 18 percent of the small island’s population, the largely Hindu group suffered persecution for years before signing a treaty with the Sri Lankan government in 2002. Not long after the December 2004 tsunami, brutal ethnic violence broke out with assassinations and bombings of schools...

A Misreading in India

Amelia Gentleman August 24, 2006
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo executives were confident that they could handle allegations, made by the Center for Science and the Environment, that products sold in India contained pesticides. But executives did not anticipate how quickly the news would spread through India, how local politicians would seize the opportunity to denounce the multinational corporations, and how explosive the issue could...

Somalia for the Somalis: An Idea in Peril

Harun Hassan August 22, 2006
The hope for stability that came with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) defeat of warlord militias in the Somali capital of Mogadishu has since dissolved into a division between two centers of power, both claiming to speak for the Somali people. Both are backed by separate outside forces. The interim coalition government, largely confined to the town of Baidoa, has received pledges of support...

Japan-China: Nationalism on the Rise

Brahma Chellaney August 16, 2006
Political parties that pander to nationalism and spread xenophobia threaten Asia’s economic and social renaissance. For example, Japanese politicians insist on making pilgrimages to war shrines, refusing to admit any remorse for atrocities committed during World War II. Countries, including China and Japan, tend to overlook history or develop their own warped version to invade territory, seize...

Europe's Muslims: Economic Worries Top Concerns About Identity

August 11, 2006
Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the UK share worries about growing Islamic extremism, even though European Muslims as a whole tend to favor moderate Islam, according to a spring 2006 poll on immigration and identity, conducted by the Pew Research Foundation. The results follow a year that included bombings in London and Madrid and the riots sparked by Danish cartoons, but were released before...

Taiwan Says China’s Embrace of Chad Will Hurt Ties

Keith Bradsher August 10, 2006
Winning over of a landlocked, poor and conflict-riddled African nation might not seem like a great victory, but any time a country switches allegiance from Taiwan to the People’s Republic, China regards it as a diplomatic coup. Chad once recognized Taiwan, calling China a “common enemy” because of that country’s alleged support of Sudanese militias and Chadian rebels destabilizing its eastern...

Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship

August 10, 2006
Human Rights Watch has issued a report, titled “Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship,” documenting how Western-based internet companies assist Chinese censorship. The report details how search engines such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google and Skype have taken measures to block results containing sensitive terms, censor blogs and text chats, and even released some...