Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Anatoly Serdyukov, the director of the Federal Tax Service since 2004, as Russia’s new defense minister. Since then, Serdyukov has kept a low profile, despite a recent visit to China to promote military cooperation and Russian arms sales with Beijing. Serdyukov was a surprising choice. Apart from serving his obligatory two years of military service after graduation from the Leningrad Institute of Commerce in 1984, Serdyukov never worked in the defense community. He has now become the first genuine civilian to head the Russian Ministry of Defense. His Russian and Soviet predecessors had […]

GAUR, Nepal — In a small concrete shed next to Gaur town hospital in southern Nepal, the corpses of 13 young Maoists lay sprawled in a mess of drying blood. A red communist flag was bunched under one outstretched hand and outside the shed another 12 bodies were lined up in the midday sun. The gruesome scene was the aftermath of the worst single day of violence since the Maoists rebels signed a peace agreement with the government last November. A day after the carnage of March 21, leaders of Nepal’s top political parties arrived by helicopter to assess the […]

From the moment Iranian forces captured a group of 15 British sailors and Marines, the tensions among competing power centers within Iran began bubbling to the surface. One can almost imagine the heated debates raging among assorted Mullahs, military men and politicians about what to do with the 14 men and one woman taken on March 21 in the waters of the Persian Gulf. That, not coincidentally, was the day before a scheduled meeting of the United Nations Security Council, which approved new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, demanding yet again the suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program. There are […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — While most of the world has discarded the idea of communism, the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), is still fighting for a “people’s dictatorship” in the Philippines, arguably Southeast Asia’s most westernized country. As the 38th anniversary of the NPA draws nearer, analysts agree that there is no end in sight for the war that has killed over 40,000. “For the foreseeable future, it looks like a pattern of protracted people’s war and counterinsurgency going on and on inconclusively,” said Soliman Santos, Asia coordinator of the […]

Corridors of Power

Corridors of Power is written by veteran foreign affairs correspondent Roland Flamini and appears in World Politics Review every Sunday. Click here for the Corridors of Power archives. NEVER GIVE UP — Pope Benedict XVI has marked the 50th anniversary of the European Union by reviving the Vatican’s campaign to have a reference to Europe’s Christian roots included in the draft constitution. Speaking in the Vatican Saturday, Pope Benedict called on Catholic politicians to challenge “the secularists who want to keep quiet about the Christian culture in Europe and in the world.” Elaborating on one of his top concerns, he […]

VALENCIA, Spain — An outsize effigy of George Bush was burned here in the annual Fallas festival Tuesday, reflecting the president’s unpopularity in Spain, and the country’s continued preoccupation with its past involvement in the Iraq war. Every year in this Spanish coastal city, Valencia artists make hundreds of large, Carnival-type figures for the ancient three-day spring festival. But it’s hardly a carnival atmosphere, as the long Fallas weekend culminates with the figures being set on fire. Satirical themes abound, but the satire is even-handed: Pope Benedict XVI and Spanish Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero were also featured […]

Muslims often complain that the West only looks their way when there is something negative to say about Islam and its people. This time, they have a point. A most extraordinary event took place earlier this month in St. Petersburg, Fla., and it received only scant attention outside the blogosphere. The Secular Islam Summit brought together some 200 delegates determined to speak their mind about the direction of the Muslim world and to redraw the battle lines of today’s overarching ideological conflict. Describing themselves as “secular persons of Muslim societies,” and explaining that they are “believers, doubters, and unbelievers,” they […]

Rwandan President Paul Kagame came to power following the 1994 genocide in his country. Before that, starting in 1990, he was the leader of the Tutsi rebel force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR). Accusing Paris of being “implicated in the genocide,” he has no intention of conceding in a confrontation that, according to him, began more than twelve years ago. Last November, Kigali broke off diplomatic relations with Paris after the French investigative judge Jean-Louis Bruguière recommended that the Rwandan President be tried for his “presumptive participation” in the shooting down of the jet of his predecessor, Juvénal Habyarimana. The […]

Following the success of an outlet in Karachi, Pakistan, Cafe Coffee Day, India’s No. 1 retail coffee shop chain, said last month it would open 19 new outlets in neighboring Pakistan, a move that would have been inconceivable even two years ago. But that’s how far talks between India and Pakistan have come since the two nations almost went to war in 2002 following an attack on Indian Parliament by suspected Kashmiri militants, who India says were backed by Pakistan. Since then, the two sides have held four rounds of talks, the most recent of which ended last Wednesday (March […]

On March 14, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council together with Germany submitted a draft resolution that would broaden the embargo against Iran. As part of the international effort to derail Tehran’s nuclear program, the proposed resolution seeks, amongst other things, to ban procurement of Iranian “arms or related material.” Though harsher sanctions will be required before Iran thinks again about suspending its nuclear program, a global embargo on its defense exports could nevertheless be a painful blow.<<ad>>In 2005, Iran exported around $100 million worth of military hardware. Its defense industrial base has grown significantly and today […]

In April 2006, the German government appeared finally to have consented to grant scholars full access to the documentary depositories of the International Tracing Service (ITS), a vast archive of files on the crimes of Nazism, including, of course, the Holocaust. ITS is managed by an international body of 11 custodian nations. Germany’s consent should have been sufficient to encourage the others, and the International Red Cross, to follow suit. Unfortunately, a year later, there is still no access. Berlin’s glacial sluggishness on the issue encouraged Rome to stonewall the issue ever more blatantly. Pundits like Anne Applebaum suspect fear […]

Corridors of Power

Corridors of Power is written by veteran foreign affairs correspondent Roland Flamini and appears in World Politics Review every Sunday. Click here for the Corridors of Power archives. FLAG OF CONVENIENCE — This week, the foreign minister of Malta, Michael Frendo, was in Washington to sign the Bush administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative. The tiny Mediterranean island is the smallest member of the European Union (pop: 410,000, acreage: 90 square miles), but the signing is not as marginal as it seems at first glance. Malta has the world’s eighth largest ship registry, so the agreement will enable U.S. inspectors to board […]

MIAMI — U.S. forces in Colombia may have pushed the outer envelope of their rules of engagement by accompanying Colombian troops on a recent raid of a rebel stronghold where American civilians were being held, said some experts. Others, including officials on Capitol Hill, maintain that the operation was well within the rules of engagement for U.S. military personnel operating in the restive South American country. According to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, which first broke the news over the weekend, American troops and their Colombian counterparts in late January entered a rebel base where three U.S. contractors have been held […]

A fresh analysis of the war in Iraq concludes that parts of the conflict can now be described as “civil war.” In its March report to Congress, the Pentagon says that while not all of the violence in Iraq falls into that category, “some” of it does. It is the first time the Pentagon has publicly used such language. Have the military elite finally wiped the tar from their field glasses and glimpsed reality? What makes this interesting is not that the Pentagon finally admitted what many have known for months, but the potential repercussions the admission may bring. For […]

On March 2, the Bush administration announced the winner of the year-long competition to design the first new U.S. nuclear weapon in almost two decades. The stated objective of the upgrade is to create a new generation of nuclear warheads that are environmentally safer, more secure from accidental or unauthorized use, and easier to maintain, despite their longer lifespan, than the existing stockpile of U.S. warheads designed and built during the Cold War. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), selected a design submitted by the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. […]

Editor’s Note: This article is the second of a two-part series on the gang culture and violence in Guatemala. Read Part I. GUATEMALA CITY — A few days after arriving in Guatemala City, we receive an offer to meet with members of MS-13, the notoriously violent international gang with active factions in countries across Central, South and North America. Photographer Angela Catlin and I came in October 2006 to document the escalating violence and lawlessness in a nation desperately struggling to overcome the legacy of a 36-year civil war that ended some 10 years ago. To coincide with the 10th […]

A scan of the Near East’s political horizon is enough to throw the most earnest of peacemakers into despair. A few days ago, al-Qaida’s chief commentator on world affairs, Ayman al-Zawahri, blasted Hamas for agreeing to a power-sharing deal with Fatah in the Palestinian territories. Not to worry, Hamas promptly reassured Osama Bin Laden’s right-hand man, Hamas remains thoroughly committed to destroying Israel. While the leading party on the Palestinian side reaffirms its unwillingness to accept a two-state solution, the diplomatic world is in a flurry of activity that seems to ignore that reality. Israel has been holding talks with […]

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