Musharraf Impeachment Proceedings

Arif Rafiq at The Pakistan Policy Blog on the announcement that the Pakistani governing coalition will seek impeachment proceedings against Pervez Musharraf: Though the declaration was clear, many questions remain: – Will the governing coalition follow through on its promises? All of them or just some?– Has there been a compromise on the judges issue?– Do they have enough votes to impeach?– How long will the process take?– Impeachment is akin to a trial. What will Musharraf be charged with?– Will Musharraf resign before or during the impeachment proceedings? Or will he fight? What weapons will he use? Article 58(2)B. […]

When the Olympic Games begin in Beijing on Friday, it will be just about impossible to avoid getting caught up in the excitement. The world’s collective eyes will become fixed on Beijing, or rather on television screens beaming images from China’s meticulously organized games. Behind the human drama and dazzling athleticism, however, will continue to loom troubling truths about the Olympics: truths not just about these games, but about the entire exercise, the organization that runs it, and the way the spectacular event has been manipulated over decades for political purposes. The Olympics long ago became the ideal platform for […]

SEOUL, South Korea — Following talks here this week with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, U.S. President George W. Bush said North Korea must do more if it wants to retire its membership in the “axis of evil.” And for the first time during the six-party talks, U.S. diplomacy appears focused on North Korea’s human rights record.Seoul was the first stop of Bush’s last tour of Asia while in the White House. At a press conference following his third meeting with Lee since the conservative South Korean president took office in February, a reporter asked Bush if North Korea still […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs covers the world’s major human rights-related news and appears every week. Click here to browse the Rights & Wrongs archives.REPORT: CHINA’S TIBET CRACKDOWN HAS INTENSIFIED — China’s crackdown on Tibet has only intensified in days before the Olympic Games, according to a new report from the International Campaign for Tibet, a human rights group with offices in Washington and Europe. “Despite its promotion of a ‘peaceful Olympics,’ China has intensified its crackdown on Tibet this week following the most significant uprising in nearly 50 years,” the Aug. 5 report, “Tibet at a Turning Point: the […]

Recent developments in a Swiss nuclear smuggling incident have reawakened global concern about the lasting damage the nuclear smuggling ring led by Abdul Qadeer Khan may have inflicted on the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Although it is unclear if, during his visit to Washington last week, U.S. authorities asked Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for additional information about Khan, who has requested a relaxation of his terms of detention, recent revelations about the Swiss incident underscore the importance of continuing to investigate the ring. In 2004, German authorities arrested Swiss engineer Urs Tinner for allegedly aiding Libya’s now-abandoned nuclear program. […]

BEIJING — In Athens, four years ago this week, Greek officials were still scurrying to put the final touches on sporting venues and other civil infrastructure that had been constructed for the games. China’s Olympic infrastructure has been ready for much longer, yet Chinese officials are still in panic mode: With just hours to go before the opening ceremony, Beijing’s notorious pollution clouds refuse to budge, and Chinese Communist Party officials remain on edge about displays of political dissent. In Athens, where I covered the event for the BBC, at the conclusion of two stimulating weeks of competition, the after-hours […]

The recent clashes in eastern Afghanistan thrust the “forgotten war” back into the public eye. At a time when admittedly fragile stability is taking hold in Iraq, it is also an important reminder that the need for improved counterinsurgency capabilities neither began nor will end there. The international effort to stabilize Afghanistan is in peril, and the United States and its NATO allies lack many of the resources required to effectively secure and reconstruct that war-torn country. Against this backdrop, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s inauguration of the Civilian Response Corps is a very welcome development. The demands of large-scale […]

Cambodia-Thailand Temple Dispute Escalates

PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — The standoff between Bangkok and Phnom Penh over control of temples along the border of the two countries escalated after Thai troops moved into and occupied another holy site in the disputed border region. The second temple at Ta Moan Thom is about 200 miles west of Preah Vihear. A Cambodian government spokesman said Cambodian soldiers would work to avoid any showdown with Thai troops, who were ordered into the area after UNESCO responded to lobbying by Cambodia and listed Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site. Reports said 70 Thai soldiers had been occupying the […]

The French-Indian Un Deux Trois Agreement?

You’d think that after all the recent drama over the Indian nuclear safeguard agreement, the news that the IAEA Board of Governors approved the deal last Friday would make a splash. But it seemed to pass under the radar. Outside of India, that is, where opponents of the deal are up in arms because it puts India at the mercy of both IAEA inspections and the Hyde Act’s prohibition on further nuclear testing, with no guarantees for nuclear fuel supplies in the event of interruptions. In other words, while most people are worried that India’s exemption from the NPT undermines […]

Saving Afghanistan

A propos whether success is possible in Afghanistan, Hampton forwarded me this Time article by Rory Stewart which is must reading. His arguments are specific to Afghanistan, a country he knows intimately from having walked across it in 2002, but also read as a manual of restraint and modesty in the conduct of foreign policy, especially when that foreign policy is increasingly outsourced to the military. I’m tempted to clip a paragraph or two, but instead I’ll just strongly encourage you to click through and read through to the end.

Is Success Possible in Afghanistan?

With the news that American intelligence has effectively linked Pakistan’s ISI intelligence/security apparatus to militants targeting American and Indian interests in Afghanistan, it’s become obvious that the only real differences between Pakistan and Iran are that, 1) Pakistan already has nuclear weapons while Iran is only allegedly pursuing them; 2) Pakistan is undermining our efforts in Afghanistan while Iran is operating mainly in Iraq; and 3) Pakistan has received $10 billion in American military aid over the past seven years while Iran is the target of American military contingency plans. It also bears mention that unlike Iran, where the central […]

On July 21, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi signed a treaty in Beijing that formally ended their four decades’ old border dispute. The accord finally demarcated the last pieces of their 4,300-km (2,700 mile) frontier, the longest land border in the world. The deal ended a confrontation that in 1969 led to a brief shooting war between the two countries over some contested islands along the Amur River. Since the Soviet Union’s disintegration, Russian and Chinese leaders have made resolving the contested border issue a priority in their relations — for undersatndable reasons Russia’s […]

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