About Get Alerts Login
November 21, 2009
Browse by Regions and/or Topics

October 27, 2009

Media Roundup

Get Media Roundup Daily Alert

Search Our Media Roundup Archives

  • Georgia: Are Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Heading for Tbilisi?

    BY: Molly Corso | Eurasia Daily Monitor

    A senior Georgian official tells EurasiaNet that Tbilisi and Washington are discussing the possibility of Georgia accepting suspected terrorists currently being held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba.

  • The Arrest and Torture of an American in Burma (And Why You Never Heard of Him)

    BY: Alex Wagner | Politics Daily

    The Burmese courts have charged this American, Kyaw Zaw Lwin, with fraud and forgery, though the ruling regime's official mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, has also accused him of terrorist activities. Kyaw Zaw Lwin's defense counsel has said that his client was physically tortured during his detention and denied any allegations that he was plotting to incite unrest. Last week, his trial began.

  • Opportunities Fade Amid Sense of Isolation in Gaza

    BY: Ethan Bronner | The New York Times

    Ten months after the Israeli military said it invaded this Palestinian coastal strip to stop the daily rocket fire of its Islamist rulers, there are many ways to measure the misery of Gaza.

  • A Syrian Drought

    BY: Rachelle Kliger | The Media Line

    A severe water shortage in Syria is forcing farmers to look for alternative means of livelihood but the drought's impact doesn't end with the crops.

  • Israel Accused of Denying Palestinians Access to Water

    BY: Donald MacIntyre | The Independent

    Israel is accused today of denying the West Bank and Gaza access to adequate water through a "total" and "discriminatory" control that enables its own people to consume four times as much as the Palestinians.

  • Iraq Reaches Voting Deal as Toll Rises in Bombings

    BY: Rod Nordland | The New York Times

    Iraqi officials reached a tentative agreement on a new election law on Monday, even as workers continued to recover more bodies from the wreckage of Sunday’s bomb attacks, including an uncertain number of children from two day care centers.

  • Iraq Bombings: U.S. Military spokesman Praises Iraqi Response

    BY: Jane Arraf | The Christian Science Monitor

    Brig. Gen. Stephen Lanza lauds Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for focusing on rebuilding, rather than rushing to assign blame as he did in the wake of the Aug. 19 bombings.

  • Election Tensions at an Iranian Expo

    BY: Thomas Erdbrink | The Washington Post

    Usually a low-key event showcasing Iranian news outlets and international media with offices in Iran, the expo, scheduled to run Oct. 20-27, turned into the latest indicator that Iranians remain divided after this summer's post-election violence, when dozens of people were killed and hundreds arrested in a crackdown on street protests.

  • Party’s Power in Mozambique Is Criticized as a Barrier to Democracy

    BY: Barry Bearak | The New York Times

    In the past few months Mozambique has been deemed to fall short in a vital category on the donors’ scorecard: democracy. Elections will take place Wednesday, and many here think the governing party, Frelimo, has used back-room sleight-of-hand to keep a major opponent off the ballot in most of the country.

  • U.S. Sudan Policy Goes from Rhetoric to Reality

    BY: Georg-Sebastian Holzer | ISN Security Watch

    It took the Obama administration nine months to come up with a comprehensive Sudan strategy, and success will in part depend on whether Darfur lobby groups are willing to face a reality check and refocus on a constructive US-Sudan engagement.

  • Tunisian President Wins Fifth Term

    BY: John Thorne | The National

    Zine el Abidine Ben Ali cruised to a fifth consecutive term as Tunisia’s president in elections on Sunday, garnering 89.62 per cent of the vote, the interior ministry announced yesterday, in what the government hailed as an advance for democracy.

  • Erdogan Hits West Over Iran Nuke Pressure

    BY: Iason Athanasiadis | The Washington Times

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan began a high-level visit to Iran on Monday with criticism of Western pressure on Iran over its nuclear program and promises to double trade with the Islamic republic by 2011.

  • Fury as Karadzic Refuses to Turn Up for War Crimes Trial

    BY: David Charter | The London Times

    The victims of Radovan Karadzic voiced outrage yesterday after the former Bosnian Serb leader made a mockery of the first day of justice for the worst atrocities seen in Europe since the Second World War.

  • Moscow Struggles to Stabilize Ingushetia

    BY: Mairbek Vatchagaev | Eurasia Daily Monitor

    The Kremlin is maintaining its policy of trying to impose “external” rule on Ingushetia. The individual assigned to the post of prime minister of the republic is not only an outsider, but also an ethnic Russian. Such actions have aroused indignation within Ingushetia.

  • Pakistan's Civil Society Still Needs U.S. Support

    BY: Jamsheed K. Choksy | World Politics Review

    The goal is to enhance Pakistan's local capacity for sustainable communal and economic growth so that counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts can be successful. Rebuilding civil society will be even more important as a bulwark against militancy once the Pakistani military's current offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan ends.

  • One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

    BY: Simon Roughneen | ISN Security Watch

    ASEAN's new human rights commission is a tiger with no teeth and highlights the organization's continuing unwillingness to confront member states who thumb their nose at democracy.

  • Thailand's Railways: Wrong Track

    BY: Philip Bowring | Asia Sentinel

    Recent chaos on Thai railways is symptomatic of much bigger problems which are holding the whole country back. Just at a time when the nation needs strong, well-directed public sector investment to offset weak external demand and a cautious private sector, the woes of the railways are showing just how difficult this can be.

  • U.S. Sending Envoys to Try to End Crisis in Honduras

    BY: Ginger Thompson | The New York Times

    Senior Obama administration officials are scheduled to travel to Honduras this week in an effort to resolve a political crisis that began nearly four months ago when soldiers detained President Manuel Zelaya and forced him into exile.

  • U.S. Hits Effort on Religious Speech

    BY: Betsy Pisik | The Washington Times

    Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that the United States opposes an effort by Muslim nations at the United Nations to ban religious "defamation," because the proposal would conflict with freedom of speech.

  • Haitians Press Obama on Immigration Goals

    BY: Lesley Clark and Jaqueline Charles | The Miami Herald

    Haitian-American and immigrant activists who greeted President Barack Obama's election with high hopes are growing frustrated with the administration's failure to deliver one of their top goals.

  • Romania's Amnesia-Induced Ambivalence

    BY: Gregory Rodriguez | Los Angeles Times

    By refusing to confront its past, the Eastern European nation has left its future in doubt.

  • Russia's Unsustainable Energy Model

    BY: David Clark | Financial Times

    Russia has taken a significant step in its bid to become a dominant international energy supplier, one that has important implications for its relations with the European Union and its prospects of returning quickly to the high growth rates that have underpinned its national recovery in recent years.

  • Europe Does Not Need a Big Shot

    BY: Gideon Rachman | Financial Times

    There are two problems with nominating an EU president. First is the job’s shaky legitimacy. Second is a lack of unity that bedevils efforts to create a European foreign policy. Both issues would be made worse by appointing Tony Blair.

  • Britain's on the Wane: the EU Is Our Only Hope

    BY: Mary Riddell | The Daily Telegraph

    Tony Blair's resurfacing as President of Europe could transform the bloc. President Blair will be a price worth paying if he can transform Europe’s role.

  • Keeping Our Allies on Our Side in Afghanistan

    BY: Leo Michel and Robert Hunter | Los Angeles Times

    'There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies," observed Winston Churchill in 1945, "and that is fighting without them." It's a truth worth recalling as the Obama administration nears crucial decisions on Afghanistan.

  • Either/Or in Afghanistan

    BY: Eugene Robinson | The Washington Post

    Sometimes a "war president" has to decide to start bringing the troops home.

  • A Plan for Afghanistan

    BY: JOSE RAMOS-HORTA | The Wall Street Journal

    In the cacophony of opinions being circulated, few have mentioned what would have to be an element of any plan—bringing all Afghan parties, including the Taliban, into talks to figure out how they can live side by side without killing each other.

  • 'NATO Has the Watches, We Have the Time'

    BY: James Shinn | The Wall Street Journal

    One key element of both the Bush and Obama strategies is getting lost in the debate—that we must apply the military and economic resources for the time required to achieve our goals.

  • Britain Resolves, U.S. Wavers

    BY: Roger Cohen | The New York Times

    More troops for Afghanistan? As Barack Obama hesitates, a talk with David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, offers as good an indication as any of what the president will do.

  • Delay, Confuse and Backtrack

    BY: Frida Ghitis | Miami Herald

    Here is a test for news junkies: On Oct. 21, Iranian nuclear negotiators left Vienna after negotiations with the United Nations, Russia, France and the United States. In their briefcases they carried a proposal requiring authorization from their government.

  • What Are Iran and Venezuela Up To?

    BY: José R. Cárdenas | Foreign Policy

    While the foreign-policy establishment has understandably been focused on myriad global crises elsewhere, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime has been steadily expanding its reach in what it undoubtedly sees as America's "soft underbelly."

  • The Key to Obama's Success in China: Young People

    BY: Mark C. Eades | The Christian Science Monitor

    Since the long-term future of the US-China relationship is in their hands, the president should take advantage of his support there while he has it.

  • Life in the Hermit Kingdom

    BY: Interview: Barbara Demick | The New Yorker

    Demick, the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times and the author of the forthcoming book “Nothing to Envy,” gives a rare glimpse into the daily life in North Korea.

  • China's North Korea Conundrum: How to Balance a Three-Legged Stool

    BY: Jonathan D. Pollack | The Daily Star

    The 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and North Korea earlier this month provided the occasion for a high-level Chinese visit.

  • Tokyo Needs to Get Over the G8

    BY: Robert Dujarric | The Japan Times

    The G8 today serves no purpose, and it is in Tokyo's interests to move away from a framework that is irrelevant and dysfunctional.

  • Caned for Drinking Beer?

    BY: Mona Eltahawy | The Washington Post

    The chief Islamic law judge of the eastern state of Pahang upheld a religious court's verdict to cane a Muslim woman for drinking beer.

  • Take Me Back to Constantinople

    BY: EDWARD LUTTWAK | Foreign Policy

    Economic crisis, mounting national debt, excessive foreign commitments -- this is no way to run an empire. America needs serious strategic counseling.