A year after a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in Bangkok that killed at least 90 people, not a single official has been charged. Now, Human Rights Watch, an influential American NGO, says they’ve collected evidence that government snipers targeted civilians, including unarmed medical personnel. Their claims are laid out …
Geo-political tensions
Avenging Bin Laden’s Killing: Terrorists Will Need Time
As yesterday’s story following Osama Bin Laden’s death indicated, security officials in Europe don’t foresee the demise of the al Qaeda leader sparking an immediate flurry of retaliation terror strikes by his followers. The logic behind that thinking doesn’t under-estimate the desire for revenge jihadists everywhere are doubtless …
Could Bin Laden’s Death Speed The End To The Afghan War?
As accumulating press reports confirm, intelligence agencies, security officials, and independent experts around the globe agree the death of Osama Bin Laden in no way lowers the curtain on his al Qaeda organization, nor extinguishes the myriad radical groups and individuals sharing its ideology of international jihad. But if there’s …
Ambassador Loses Fighter-Jet Bid, Takes Marbles, Goes Home
Some big news from New Delhi today on one of the world’s biggest outstanding defense orders: the $10 billion contract to supply 126 fighter jets to the Indian Air Force. After the news broke that both U.S. bids were out of the running, the U.S. Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, resigned.
This morning’s newspapers revealed that the …
World Bank to East Timor: We Messed Up
East Timor was supposed to be the poster child for nation-building. In 2002, after two centuries of Portuguese rule and two decades of Indonesian occupation, this tiny half-island became the century’s first country. Its path to nationhood was paved by a host of international organizations keen to make the fledgling state a model of …
A River’s Fate: Battles Loom over the Mekong
The Mekong River is one of the world’s most evocative waterways, a crucial channel that begins in China and runs through five other countries: Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Nations downstream, in particular, consider the river a lifeblood. But upriver in China, recently built dams have constrained the Mekong’s force, …
Two Nigerias?
Nigeria is in the midst of its cleanest election ever. Ironic, then, that it should also be one of its most violent – with hundreds dead in the run-up to this month’s vote, and scores more in its aftermath.
Opposition claims that the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan rigged the polls to ensure his overwhelmingly victory in the presidential …
Why the BRICS Summit Won’t Accomplish Anything
Yep, just what the world needs—another international summit. On Thursday, leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa convened under the palm trees of China’s Hainan Island for the third BRICS summit. The acronym was coined back in 2001 by an economist at Goldman Sachs to describe the bright emerging economies of Brazil, …
Whose Human-Rights Record is Worse? The U.S. or China?
It’s a spring ritual. Each year, the U.S. publishes its report on China’s human-rights record the previous year—and then China presents its findings on America’s own performance in the same realm. Both countries, as might be expected, find plenty wrong with each other. Indeed, instead of highlighting the actual human-rights …
After Gbagbo’s Arrest, What’s Next for the Ivory Coast?
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Laurent Gbagbo, Ivory Coast’s isolated and besieged strongman, was finally seized by opposition forces in the country’s biggest city, Abidjan. His arrest follows weeks of bloodletting and mayhem in the West African country, fueled in large part by Gbago’s stubborn refusal to accept …
Sarkozy Goes to War: Is France Back Once More at the Center of World Affairs?
France’s predominant role in international operations like the NATO-led mission over Libya–or this week’s United Nations helicopter strikes in Ivory Coast–have generated a flurry of media reports suggesting formerly Clark Kent-like French diplomats have shed their earlier mild mannered restraint, and have started wading into …
Ivory Coast: As Violence Intensifies, U.N. Finally Enters the Fray
For weeks, the U.N.’s mission in the Ivory Coast has sat pinned down in its quarters, watching as this West African country lurched toward civil war. An escalating conflict between the rival forces of Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara has led to hundreds, probably thousands of deaths and has displaced, by some counts, over a million …
China’s National Defense White Paper: How to Look Tough, but Not Too Tough
For Beijing, managing perceptions of the country’s military modernization program is no easy task. On one hand, it is important for China’s leaders to show, both to citizens at home and potential rivals abroad, that they are cultivating a capable and powerful fighting force. At the same time, too enthusiastic a display of armed …