Diplomacy & Politics Archive

DILI, East Timor — All is calm in East Timor, but tension bubbles under the surface in this island state a few days before the historic, first post-independence parliamentary election, slated for June 30.Fourteen parties and coalitions arevying for seats in an election whose only certainoutcome is the creation of a meaningful political opposition, and thus potentially a more functional democracy than this former Portuguesecolony has ever known. However, only the next few months will prove whether that will translate into the stability and peace needed for real development, or into more trouble. The real political battle is between former […]

Before the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm, nonproliferation experts in the U.S. government lobbied the other member countries to endorse another so-called “10 + 10 over 10” plan that would have extended G-8-led multinational WMD threat reduction efforts after 2012. As in 2002, the United States would have pledged $10 billion, with the other seven G-8 governments contributing another $10 billion, during the decade after 2012. If adopted, the U.S. proposal would have extended the “Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction,” launched at the June 2002 G-8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada. At the summit, however, […]

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has won a power struggle with officials of Turkmenistan’s government who played key roles in building and maintaining the oppressive regime of his predecessor, and who helped bring the new president to power. It remains unclear, however, whether Berdymukhammedov intends to use his consolidated power to continue down the dictatorial path of former leader Saparmurat Niyazov, or to institute promised reforms. The influential head of the presidential security service, Akmurad Rejepov, who served the late Niyazov loyally for nearly 20 years, was removed from office in mid-May. While Turkmenistan’s state television said Rejepov […]

GLASGOW, Scotland — Gordon Brown becomes Britain’s new Prime Minister today amid growing speculation over what kind of foreign policy can be expected from a seasoned politician who has rarely spoken out on foreign affairs in the past. Despite recent speeches on Britishness, national security and climate change, Browns views about the wider global policy agenda, and whether they will differ greatly from Tony Blair, are not yet clear. Central to Blair’s foreign policy was his close relationship with George W. Bush and his loyal backing for U.S.-led military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Given the situation he inherits in […]

The Middle East, the land that gave the world the very concept of the Messiah, is about to receive a new one. So, why don’t we hear any Hossanas in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or Rammallah over Tony Blair’s imminent anointing as the new Middle East envoy by the International Quartet for Middle East Peace? By now, after a decades-long parade of envoys, special representatives, shuttle diplomats, mediators, negotiators, intermediaries, and every variety of peace-making performers and reconciliation evangelists, the one creed that is spreading in the region, beyond the three major monotheistic religions, is the gospel of cynicism. That’s the […]

BRUSSELS — Europe’s most successful, charismatic and internationally recognized center-left leader steps down Wednesday, but there will be little mourning for British premier Tony Blair in London and most continental capitals. An opinion poll carried out for the Financial Times newspaper last week reveals just how divisive a figure Blair remains. Asked whether he would make a good first president of the European Union — a post created at a June 21-23 EU summit in Brussels — 64 percent of Germans, 60 percent of Britons and 53 percent of French respondents said nein/no/non. Few Europeans would deny that Blair oozes […]

Editor’s Note: Corridor’s of Power, written by WPR Editor-at-Large Roland Flamini, appears every Monday in World Politics Review. RHINEMAIDEN’S SWANSONG — The grand finale of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s six months as president of the European Union (Portugal takes over next week) was not exactly a triumph, but it wasn’t Gotterdammerung either. To stick with Wagnerian metaphors, it was more The Flying Dutchman, in which the 27-nation European Union is destined to sail eternally from one compromise to another. Still, at last week’s EU summit Merkel — reportedly with an energetic assist from French President Nicolas Sarkozy — seems to […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a new weekly column on the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. CHINESE LABOR PRACTICES — Revelations concerning widespread abuse of workers in brick kilns continue to shake China, where authorities have arrested dozens amid growing calls for the resignations of Communist Party officials linked to kiln owners and the adoption of new municipal and regional regulations to halt the practices. Shanxi’s provincial government Wednesday enacted new regulations banning the purchase of cheap clay bricks for all cities beginning at the end of next year, while […]

HERAT, Afghanistan — Thirteen-year-old Morvary’s face had melted away as a candle does, with only the faintest of breaths as proof she was still alive after setting herself ablaze. Mummified in white gauze and full of morphine to ease the pain of third-degree burns covering her entire body, she died two days later at Herat regional hospital, yet another victim in this conservative Western province where nearly 100 self-immolation cases were recorded last year. Human rights officials and doctors say the real number is much higher since only those who seek help are registered and even then causes are not […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia – A decision by the Colombian government to release hundreds of guerrillas from state jails has sparked controversy and provoked criticism among political allies of Álvaro Uribe, the Colombian president. Earlier this month, over 150 imprisoned Marxist guerrillas were transferred from prisons to a temporary holding center as part of a unilateral prisoner release that Uribe hopes will kick-start a prisoner swap and prompt the country’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), to free scores of hostages held by the rebels in remote jungle camps across the country. Among the 56 so-called political hostages, […]

Editor’s Note: Corridors of Power appears this week on Wednesday, but will return to its normal Monday slot next week. SOME EUROPEANS MORE WELCOME THAN OTHERS — High on the talks agenda of George Bush’s hosts everywhere he went in the New Europe was the visa waiver issue. Visitors to the United States from 15 European Union countries haven’t needed entry visas for years, but nationals of the 12 recently admitted members do, and the latter want equal treatment. Among them are the Eastern European countries on Bush’s recent travel itinerary. They complain that they supported Bush on Iraq, and […]

Editor’s Note: Click here to watch a video report related to this article. ISLAMORADA, Florida — Bound at the wrists and ankles, a Cuban man accused of smuggling a boatload of his countrymen from the communist island to U.S. shores is loaded off the deck of a Coast Guard Cutter and onto a small, swift vessel that whisks him to the Florida Keys. There, customs and immigration officials await his arrival at Coast Guard Station Islamorada beneath a picnic shelter used as an impromptu interrogation center. The suspect — a resident Cuban alien — is questioned about the knife, bullets […]

CARACAS, Venezuela — In a fit of rage last Thursday, Maria Bausson gripped her nearly empty water bottle, rushed over to a metropolitan police officer and thrust it into his hand as a nonviolent gesture. “There, have my bottle. It’s all I have,” said Bausson, 22, an architecture student at the Central University of Venezuela. After police blocked the path of university students supporting national reconciliation and civil liberties en route to Plaza Caracas, students allowed their passions to flare. Student leader Yon Goicoechea remounted the vehicle that served as the protesters’ stage and sound system after allegedly getting pepper […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — After a military-civilian clash over disputed land in East Java turned deadly last month, outraged locals are urging Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to act decisively in taming trigger-happy soldiers and reigniting the stalled reform of the Indonesian armed forces. The incident is bound to echo in Washington, where some legislators in the now Democrat-controlled Congress have shown signs of uneasiness over President George W. Bush’s 2005 decision to resume U.S. ties and funding to the Indonesian military, also known as the TNI. The latest uproar was precipitated May 30 when Indonesian marines fired on protestors gathered […]

The Russian government warned that it might implement its threatened unilateral “moratorium” on observing its commitments under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty after an extraordinary conference of the treaty signatories, held this past week in Vienna, failed to address Moscow’s concerns. Russia called for the emergency meeting, the first in CFE history, after complaining for months about the stalemated status of the treaty’s implementation. Anatoly Antonov, the chief of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s security and disarmament department and head of the Russian delegation to the conference, told the session that Russia remains committed to conventional arms control in […]

LONDON — After months of fruitless shuttle diplomacy, threats of sanctions, broken promises and politicking, Sudan’s government has agreed to accept a coalition of United Nations peacekeepers to back up the beleaguered African Union mission in its western Darfur region. The deal, announced June 12 from the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, would bring an additional 17,000 to 19,000 troops and 3,700 police officers into Darfur, a region the size of France where fighting between troops, government-backed militias and rebels has raged since 2003. An estimated 2.5 million people have been made homeless and some 200,000 have lost their lives […]

TEL AVIV, Israel — As a seemingly inexhaustible source of bad news, the Middle East is arguably the perfect place to go in search for the silver lining that the proverb promises for every cloud. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki demonstrated last week how it is done: In an article in the Wall Street Journal, he argued eloquently that the desperate situation in Iraq should be seen as part of a struggle comparable with the American civil war and he challenged skeptics with the question: “Why expect freedom to come easy to Iraq?” As it turned out, al-Maliki is […]