Wednesday’s release of the much-anticipated Winograd Report on Israel’s conduct of the 2006 Lebanon War is bringing the Israeli political system to the boiling point. The heat is rising quickly under the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who led the country in the war against Hezbollah, the first war in Israel’s short history in which the country did not win a decisive victory. Olmert remains deeply unpopular, but he may yet survive. In the end, it could be another politician — the other Ehud — who ends up the loser. Nobody knows what will remain after the temperature drops […]

Italy’s Government Collapses

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned yesterday after a no-confidence vote in parliament that was, to say the least, contentious, the New York Times reports: ROME — Italy’s government finally fell Thursday, after Prime Minister Romano Prodi lost a confidence vote that made it clear that Italy’s leaders know they face a deep political and economic crisis but are venomously divided over how to solve it. Emblematic of those divisions, during the debate one senator rushed in fury to the desk of a colleague, Stefano Cusumano, and taunted and apparently tried to attack him. Mr. Cusumano, 60, reportedly cried, then […]

“When Benazir died, I started calling her by the nickname we used all those years ago: Wadi Bua, which in our dialectic in [the] Sindh [province] is a term of endearment for father’s elder sister. I don’t know. It was just natural, spontaneous. All of a sudden, she stopped being the political opponent of recent times and went back to being the Wadi Bua of my childhood games, when I was five and she was thirty-five. They tell me she was killed by a bullet in the neck. Just like my father Murtaza, her brother. I’ve sort of suspended judgment. […]

While much of the region is busy analyzing the aftermath of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s high-profile visit to China this month, one fragile nation finds itself squeezed harder in the middle. For nearly two years, leading political parties and former Maoist rebels in Nepal, sandwiched between the Asian giants, have been precariously following a New Delhi-brokered roadmap to peace. Amid the uncertainty, China has stepped up its role in the tiny landlocked Himalayan nation. The future of Nepal, including whether it becomes a republic or retains some form of monarchy, seems inextricably linked to its neighbors. Reconciling them will […]

Editor’s Note: Today we present the second installment of Transatlantic Intelligencer, a new column written by World Politics Review translations editor John Rosenthal. Drawing from predominantly European foreign-language news sources, Rosenthal posts each “Trans-Int” item on the WPR blog as he uncovers it. At the start of the next week, we publish all of the items in this full column in our news section. GERARD SCHRÖDER, NOW AND THEN — With important elections upcoming later this month in the German states of Hesse and Lower Saxony and next month in Hamburg, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has returned to the public […]

BELGRADE, Serbia — The two leading contenders in Serbia’s presidential election are mixing their messages on Europe, Russia and nationalism. Campaign posters across the country show Democratic Party candidate President Boris Tadic, a pro-European, in front of the national flag. The tricolor, however, is difficult to spot on nationalist Tomislav Nikolic’s posters. Instead, he is telling all he is a lifelong pro-European, despite also saying that EU membership will have to wait until Serbia’s sovereignty over the province of Kosovo is assured. That outcome is far from certain with Kosovo’s declaration of independence set to come soon after the presidential […]

Although Donald Tusk has only been Polish prime minister since early November, he has already made clear that reconciling with Russia is a key goal for his new government. He told a recent news conference that, “The improvement of relations between Moscow and Warsaw is a priority goal of current Polish foreign policy.” The two sides have resolved some strains and begun addressing others. The key issue now facing the Polish government is the extent to which it can both satisfy Moscow and enhance its leverage with Washington without antagonizing either party. Tusk, a former Solidarity activist and leader of […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — Some want him pardoned and remembered as the “Father of Development.” Others say his name should forever be linked to the crimes he committed. Almost 10 years since he was deposed by a student-led movement, former dictator Suharto still divides Indonesia. As he teeters on the edge of death in a hospital in Jakarta, the battle over his legacy has begun. The result of the battle will be a strong indicator of the current state of democracy and the rule of law in Indonesia. Suharto reigned over a brutal and corrupt military regime that kept Indonesia under […]

Gerhard Schröder, Now and Then

With important elections upcoming later this month in the German states of Hesse and Lower Saxony and next month in Hamburg, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has returned to the public eye: campaigning for his Social Democratic Party (SDP) and leading the charge against the rival Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The incumbent CDU Governor of Hesse, Roland Koch, has come in for particularly severe criticism from the former chancellor. Following a brutal attack on a senior citizen in a Munich subway station last month, the themes of “youth crime” and “foreigner crime” [Ausländerkriminalität] have come to dominate the headlines in Germany. […]

Beijing likely will interpret the overwhelming victory of Taiwan’s opposition Nationalist (Kuomintang) Party in this weekend’s nationwide legislative elections over the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as confirming the wisdom of continuing China’s atypically moderate pre-ballot approach toward the island. The results, combined with other developments, could reduce the risks of war across the Taiwan Strait. Such a confrontation would wreak havoc on world markets and could escalate into a direct battle between the Chinese and U.S. militaries. According to Taiwan’s Central Election Commission, the Kuomintang (KMT) won 81 seats, the DPP secured 27, and independents and representatives of minor […]

McCain and Lieberman: ‘The Surge Worked’

Fresh off his come-from-behind victory in New Hampshire’s Republican primary, Sen. John McCain co-authored an op-ed published in today’s Wall Street Journal (the online opinion section of which, is now totally free) with Sen. Joe Lieberman. Their message: The surge has worked, but it’s unclear whether its gains can be sustained after the United States completes a planned drawdown to the pre-surge level of 15 brigades. Thus, they write, a hasty further drawdown would be risky: Gen. Petraeus has already announced that five “surge” brigades will be withdrawn by mid-July. The process is now underway. The Pentagon has also announced […]

According to official results released yesterday, Mikheil Saakashvili won a definitive first-round victory in this weekend’s snap presidential elections in Georgia. Saakashvili received a narrow majority of votes, thereby obviating the need to engage in a runoff with the next-highest vote getter. The Central Election Commission concluded the former president garnered 53 percent of the vote on Saturday, while the second-place finisher received 27 percent. Whatever their effects at home, the events of the last few months are unlikely to either improve Georgia’s already troubled relationship with Moscow or bolster its chances of joining NATO, which Saakashvili, his main political […]

Benazir Bhutto’s presumed assassination was a disaster waiting to happen: She had predicted it herself. After years of exile, she was welcomed home on Oct. 18 with a suicide bomb attempt, and there was no reason to suppose that her many enemies would be content with that failure. The likely prospect of her winning the now-postponed Jan. 8 parliamentary elections and becoming the prime minister of a non-religious government threatened, in different ways, the current leadership, Islamic fundamentalists, the Taliban and al-Qaida, and her old nemesis, the army. Her assassins, therefore, tried to make sure of a kill by first […]

On Dec. 23, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives approved the formation of a new interim government, thus providing a respite from an institutional crisis that had seen the country without a government for some six months since general elections in June. The crisis was provoked by the inability of leading political parties from Flanders and Wallonia — the Dutch-speaking north and the French-speaking south of the country respectively — to come to terms on a governing coalition. It has transformed the hitherto merely theoretical prospect of a break-up of Belgium into a real possibility. One party that explicitly favors the […]