Diplomacy & Politics Archive

African leaders made plain their disappointment and concern over Sudan’s handling of the conflict in its western Darfur region by rejecting the central African country’s bid to lead the African Union during an annual summit this week that also saw a first effort at African mediation by new U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Prosperous and stable Ghana instead assumed the mantle of the 53-member pan-African grouping at the meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, amid warnings from Sudanese rebels that they would attack an under-equipped AU peacekeeping force operating in Darfur should Sudan be tapped to succeed the Congo […]

Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of articles by Rhea Wessel on the rights of Muslim women in Europe, particularly Turkish women in Germany. The stories will appear occasionally on World Politics Review. FRANKFURT, Germany — Forcing girls and young women into marriage is illegal in most countries and banned under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but that doesn’t keep the practice from remaining prevalent in dozens of countries. In Europe, immigrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East continue to force partners on their children for economic security, clan continuity or the preservation of a […]

Lawless Afghan-Pakistani borderlands have emerged as a flash point between officials on both sides over who is responsible for bringing order to a known Taliban safe haven in the face of a gathering insurgency. The blame game ignores the reality that the “Pashtun belt” at ground level belongs to neither country, with a history of rejecting would-be occupiers. The same rugged tribal areas that Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida operatives retreated to following the U.S.-led 2001 invasion to topple the Taliban have become a rear base for Taliban militants launching cross-border attacks against NATO-led security forces in Afghanistan […]

It is no longer possible to chin up in Zimbabwe. Not with the profusion of woes rending the country each passing day. Dozens are dying at the country’s public hospitals following a monthlong strike over pay by the few remaining doctors, inflation is fast approaching the 1,300 percent mark and political oppression has reached epidemic proportions. Formerly a major tobacco producer and breadbasket for southern Africa, Zimbabwe continues to hurtle down the tubes, producing an endless stream of sob stories. It rivals war-torn African countries in spewing out displaced people and refugees running away from the country’s socio-economic meltdown. A […]

The relationship between Russia and Serbia has remained close despite numerous turnovers of leadership in both countries. The continual upkeep of this relationship finds its roots in similar cultural traditions. Both countries boast many of the same Slavic traditions, including the Cyrillic alphabet, Orthodox Christianity and a Slavic brotherhood that differentiates itself from the West. It should come as no surprise then why Russia, despite the breakup of the Soviet bloc, has continued to side with Serbia in its post-Soviet years — specifically regarding the current controversy surrounding Kosovo, which holds the status of an autonomous territory within Serbia. However, […]

EXTRA TIME — More on the IRS investigation of Washington’s foreign embassies: The German Embassy has complained to the Revenue that the Feb. 20 deadline for embassy employees to file back taxes from 2003 through 2005 is “unreasonably short” and asked for an extension to June 30. The extra time would “afford employees the possibility to prepare” their returns, the embassy said in a letter written to the State Department for forwarding to the IRS, as protocol demands. In November, the IRS proposed what it called a “settlement initiative” for thousands of non-diplomatic employees — both foreign and U.S. citizens […]

NAIROBI, Kenya — Six months of peace talks to end more than two decades of conflict in northern Uganda have been virtually for naught, and their progress is now being held up by a simple question of geography. Bellicose rhetoric from Sudan President Omar al-Bashir that the Lord’s Resistance Army would be expelled from the south of his own embattled nation “by the end of this month” has emboldened the shadowy rebellion to demand a new host — and mediator — for negotiations to end the war that has made night travellers of tens of thousands of children and displaced […]

BANGKOK, Thailand — Astrology and superstitious belief are part of everyday life in impoverished Burma, where hope for every family hangs on some fortune-teller’s prophesy. But there is one prediction no one in the country is prepared to make — who will succeed ailing leader Than Shwe. Rumor is rife in Rangoon that the hardhearted general who cherishes his family life is seriously ill with intestinal cancer. His death or withdrawal from a position of influence is seen by some Burma-watchers as a small chance for a break in the long-running deadlock between the hard-line military regime and the suppressed […]

Last week’s resignation of Maj. Gen. Daniel Halutz, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force (IDF), could precipitate the long-expected change in Israel’s military and political leadership as a result of the country’s perceived poor performance during last summer’s conflict in Lebanon. There had been numerous calls within Israel for Halutz’s departure ever since the military failed to achieve its two major objectives in the war — securing the release of the two IDF soldiers abducted by Hezbollah guerrillas and destroying that group’s military infrastructure in Lebanon. The massive scale of the fighting that ensued quickly overshadowed the […]

Take a seat at one of the many waterfront restaurants bordering the Sea of Galilee in the Israeli city of Tiberias and nature immediately gives you a lesson in history, geography and military strategy. The lapping waters of Lake Kinneret, as it is known in Hebrew, shimmer placidly at your side, evoking images of biblical history. But what really grabs your eye is the soaring terrain rising ominously on the other side of the water, the Golan Heights. The land rises sharply from the eastern side of the lake. Sitting in the Golan’s shadow, there remains little doubt that control […]

With most of Congress in an uproar over new White House plan for the war in Iraq, one could be forgiven for thinking that the new strategy is diametrically opposed to last month’s report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. To be sure, the harsh tone towards Iran and Syria was not something that James Baker and Lee Hamilton recommended, but in several respects the ISG and the White House are actually singing in tune. First, sending reinforcements to Baghdad was not opposed by the Iraq Study Group. The ISG report clearly states that it could “support a short-term redeployment […]

NO RED CARPET FOR PRODI — Ten months after Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s election, he still has not been invited to the White House, and political commentators in Rome have concluded that the center-left coalition leader is being given the Bush cold shoulder. It’s unusual for the new prime minister of a key NATO country not to have visited Washington sooner, but the word from Italy is that this is the Bush administration’s way of expressing its displeasure with the way the bilateral relationship is going. The left wing of Prodi’s government, which includes the Communists, is pressing for […]

PUERTO ASIS, Colombia — About a year ago, Carolina saw the fumigation planes flying low over her family’s farm near the Ecuadorian border here. They were trailed by clouds of herbicide, which killed the family’s crops of coffee, yucca, peanuts and bananas. The United States-financed spraying is supposed to kill illegal coca bushes, the base ingredient for making cocaine. But Carolina said her family had no coca, although many of their neighbors did. “They fumigated the whole land, corn, rice, bananas, pineapples and forage,” she said. “The three animals we had, cows and calves, died three weeks later.” While she […]

On Dec. 29, China published its latest white paper on national defense. In the past, the government’s security-related publications have been rich in generalities about China’s good intentions but sparse in specifics about its actual capabilities. “China’s National Defense in 2006” continues in this tradition. The United States and other countries have repeatedly called on the Chinese government to make its military budget and programs more transparent in order to minimize misunderstandings about China’s intentions. They caution that China’s excessive military secrecy may alarm its neighbors and impede China’s integration into regional security institutions. The new paper attempts to address […]

On a cool evening in March, 2006, I toured a makeshift prison on an Iraqi army base in northwestern Baghdad, not far from the dim chamber where Saddam Hussein would later be executed. The jail was crude, a few rooms guarded by men in track suits who casually balanced rifles over their shoulders like golf clubs. The cells were unbarred, unclean, and unlocked; nothing more than rooms in a large building that might once have been a school. The prison was run by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, a shambling bureaucracy that had by then already been accused of […]

Palestinian leaders preparing for a joint meeting with their Israeli counterparts and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a bid to move the stalled peace process forward, are having trouble keeping their own internal struggles in check as the situation in the territories spins rapidly out of control. If the Palestinians cannot present a united front ahead of the meeting set to take place within the next several weeks, they risk further delays in the of the hoped-for establishment of a Palestinian state and continued ills for their troubled population. Dozens of people have been killed and more than […]

TEHRAN, Iran — It wasn’t the news of the raid by the U.S. Army against the Iranian interests section in the northern Iraqi town of Arbil that set off the alarm bells. Nor the announcement by Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that “twice in the past two or three weeks . . . we’ve captured Iranians,” followed by former Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk threatening “serious consequences” as a result of Bush’s new strategy of escalation against Iran. The announcement that a second aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. John C. Stennis, would be moving […]