On Aug. 27, U.S. military forces in Afghanistan killed 12 Taliban fighters located in Pakistan’s tribal zone after the insurgents attacked U.S. and Afghan troops in eastern Afghanistan. The following day, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tom Casey stated that the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States had an agreed mechanism for resolving these kinds of cross-border exchanges. Pakistani authorities immediately denied that they had ever granted Afghan or coalition forces permission to attack fighters on their territory. This recent incident underscores the longstanding controversy regarding military operations in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. Last week, while reviewing more than […]

NEW DELHI — American football star Michael Vick is not the only mega-celebrity whose ill treatment of animals has recently earned him hard time. Over the weekend, Salman Khan, a leading man in India’s Bollywood film industry, began serving a stiff five-year jail sentence for a poaching incident that took place nearly a decade ago. Khan, convicted of killing a rare Chinkara Gazelle on a desert wildlife preserve in 1998, was done no favors by an Indian legal system known to enforce strict laws in defense of endangered species. But contrary to the Atlanta Falcons quarterback’s admission of guilt, which […]

French President Nicolas Sarkozy once made headlines with the remark, “If Turkey were Europe, we would know it.” In July, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso gave voice to similar European sentiments in a Greek newspaper interview: “Let’s be honest,” he said, “Turkey is not ready to become an EU member and the EU is not ready to accept Turkey as a member. Neither tomorrow, nor the next day.” Despite the overwhelmingly positive European response to Erdogan’s recent triumph at the polls, and calls to revamp Turkey’s political and economic reforms by European leaders, one fact remains clear: Turkey’s membership […]

DENPASAR Indonesia — The long overdue reform of the murky Indonesian intelligence service, Badan Intelijen Negara (BIN), could be spurred by revelations emerging in the trial of the alleged killer of the country’s top human right activist. Munir Said Thalib, known simply as Munir, died from arsenic poisoning while on a flight on Garuda, Indonesia’s national airline, from Jakarta to Amsterdam via Singapore on Sept. 7, 2004. Pollycarpus Budi Priyanto, an off-duty pilot who travelled on the same flight to Singapore, was first jailed for the murder, but then acquitted in October 2006 by the Supreme Court due to lack […]

Whatever consequences might ensue from the election of Abdullah Gul as Turkey’s new president, a change of direction in Turkey’s relations with Russia is unlikely to be one of them. Since the government, led by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) took office in 2002, Turkey has been drifting eastward — but not toward the Islamic world. Ankara’s disputes with European countries over Turkey’s proposed entry into the European Union and with Washington over U.S. policies toward northern Iraq have weakened Turkey’s traditional westward orientation. In the east, however, the AKP government has been more eager to cultivate relations with […]

For several years, Iranian officials have sought to strengthen their ties with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Iran became a formal observer nation at the July 2005 SCO summit, but the country’s leaders have continued to pursue full membership. In April 2007, the Iranian Foreign Ministry submitted an official application to this effect. Even before the seventh annual SCO summit convened in Bishkek on Aug. 16, however, the existing SCO full members announced that they would indefinitely postpone accepting new members. In the case of the SCO, a primary Iranian objective has been to keep other Eurasian countries from aligning […]

BAKU, Azerbaijan — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad paid his first official visit to northern neighbor Azerbaijan last week (Aug.21-22), aiming to counter growing U.S. influence in the oil-rich country and forestall further advances on a move to allow American use of the Russian-operated Gabala Radar Station in Azerbaijan. Ahmedinajad and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev emphasized the ethnic, religious and economic ties between the two nations on the Caspian Sea, but security and defense issues were the focus of the talks. During the visit, during which five bilateral agreements were signed, both sides attempted to highlight the positive aspects of their […]

Before the United States and India can consummate their nuclear pact, a major hurdle remains: The guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) prohibit nuclear export to countries that, like India, lack full-scope safeguards. Many expected that, at Washington’s behest, the NSG would rubber stamp an exception for India — until Beijing hinted again this week that it might block such a rules change. The Nuclear Suppliers Group, a cartel of 45 nuclear fuel producing countries that coordinate export controls to non-nuclear-weapon states, is little known outside of nonproliferation circles but plays a critical role in limiting access to uranium […]

TOKYO — In a desperate attempt to jump-start the ruling party’s fortunes after a recent electoral drubbing, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to announce a reshuffle of his Cabinet next week. But it’s going to take more than that if he wants to breathe life into his premiership. Last month, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost its majority in the House of Councilors, which is now led by a member for the opposition for the first time in 50 years. The loss was hardly a surprise — the government’s poll numbers had been on the slide almost since […]

BAKU, Azerbaijan — In its latest effort to wean itself from dependence on the Middle East for its energy needs and to counter rival Russia’s influence in resource-rich Central Asia, the United States has signed an agreement with Azerbaijan to examine the feasibility of expanding the so-called Trans-Caspian Pipeline project to transport oil and gas from the region. The remote and isolated nations of Central Asia are the new playing field in the battle for control of the world’s dwindling resources of natural gas and crude oil, and Azerbaijan, wedged between Russia and Iran on the Caspian Sea, is a […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. CHINA’S ID PLAN — Beginning this month, the more than 12 million residents of the Chinese city Shenzen will be required to carry identity cards fitted with powerful computer chips including not only their names and address, as with previous identity cards, but also data on their work history, education, religion, ethnicity, police record and even personal reproductive medical history. Chinese authorities have ordered all large Chinese cities to phase in similar high-tech residency card […]

On Aug. 14, 165 million Pakistanis celebrated their country’s 60th anniversary as an independent nation state. The festivities were tempered, however, by the widespread realization that the country is experiencing its most serious political crisis since Gen. Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999. The decision by Musharraf to dismiss Chief Supreme Court justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on March 9 precipitated the situation. The president claimed he acted after learning of unspecified misconduct performed by Chaudhry. Most observers, however, view Musharraf’s move as an attempt to eliminate a potential impediment to his securing another five-year term as president. Musharraf assumed the presidency […]

SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan — While seven political parties are campaigning to win seats in Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament, common Kazakhs remain largely indifferent to the election, believing the results aren’t likely to bring change from a government whose commitment to democracy is lately in doubt. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev dissolved the parliament’s lower house, the Mazhilis, June 20 and called for new elections. Ninety-eight deputies of the Mazhilis will be elected Aug. 18 in accordance with a system of party-list proportional representation that allocates seats among parties winning at least 7 percent of the vote. (The remaining nine seats of […]

HONG KONG — Just as growing numbers of newly affluent Chinese are planning to buy the status symbol they seek most, along comes a spoilsport government with a plan to limit the number of cars on the roads. Beijing today, Shanghai and other cities tomorrow? The central government is enforcing a test run this week of a plan to take more than 1 million cars off Beijing’s roads. The object is to see how effective it will be in cleaning the capital’s filthy air for China’s “green” Olympics in August next year. It’s a desperate measure in a country that […]

On August 9, the Bush Administration issued its revised U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy for Afghanistan. The main innovation is the explicit use of enhanced “sticks and carrots” to change Afghans’ behavior. Protracted infighting within the administration in recent weeks about timing and tactics had twice delayed the new strategy’s publication. Despite the extra editing time, senior Democrats and Republicans in Congress called the revisions inadequate given the magnitude of the problem. Preliminary assessments of the data the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime plans to release next month indicate that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by 15 percent during […]

On Monday, Presidents Bush and Karzai concluded their Camp David meeting with a press conference at which they stood united on every major issue. By Thursday, the bloom was off the rose: In a snub to both Bush and Karzai, Pakistan’s President Musharraf backed out of a tribal assembly that the United States had orchestrated, and a British commander made headlines when he said America’s counterinsurgency operations are undermining NATO’s efforts. Not once during their eight meetings over five years have the two presidents faced such challenges at home. Karzai finds his once-meteoric popularity waning in the face of his […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. OLYMPIC COUNTDOWN BRINGS CHINA CRITICISM — Condemnation of China’s human rights record rained down from all sides this week as Chinese authorities marked the one year countdown to the beginning of the 2008 Beijing Games with a lavish celebration. Amnesty International released a scathing report on the status of human rights in China Aug. 7, charging China has broken promises it made when bidding to host the games by increasing abuse and surveillance of political […]

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