Briefing Archive

The issue of Muslim women wearing veils in public has ignited an unprecedented national debate on the subject and on multiculturalism generally across Britain. This time the debate pertains to Islamism as a political and cultural movement rather than the usual narrower discussion of Islam as religion. When former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made plain his views on asking Muslim women to remove the veil in his constituency consultations a few weeks ago, he must have known the furor he risked. But it appears to have been an issue troubling Straw for some time. And his comments have clearly laid […]

As I write, CNN is reporting the breaking news that a threat about the planned simultaneous detonation of seven “dirty bombs” at this weekend’s National Football League games, posted Oct.12 on an Internet chat site, is not considered credible by U.S. authorities. Although the Department of Homeland Security initiated prudent security measures by informing and advising the NFL, it has determined the threat is unreliable. How and why did DHS determine the threat is empty? Is it technically and organizationally feasible to launch such an attack with radiological dispersion devices (RDDs) — so called “dirty bombs” — on the U.S. […]

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie was in Yorktown, Va., Thursday to preside over 225th anniversary celebrations of the decisive siege that effectively ended the American Revolution, and she used the occasion to underscore the importance of French-U.S. relations. A parade of American and French troops in the city on the Chesapeake represented the military partnership that forced British General Charles Cornwallis to ask for surrender terms on Oct. 17, 1781, and to capitulate two days later. There was no senior member of the Bush administration at the Yorktown ceremonies, and a Defense Department source called the commemoration “a French affair.” […]

Iran would be at or near the top of a list of countries Americans would least like to see have nuclear weapons, and the reasons for apprehension have deepened dramatically in the past year with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran under the mullahs since the revolution of 1979 has been a weird and ominous country. With Ahmadinejad’s new prominence, the weirdness quotient has reached new levels. Iran is now headed by an individual who expresses the hope that Israel be wiped off the map and denies that the Holocaust ever occurred. Those are sentiments not found in civilized […]

After emerging from decades of single-party rule in 1998, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has become a symbol of freedom in a region that recently has been slowly sliding away from democracy. Today, Indonesia’s story is that of reformasi, or a spirit of reform. After enduring a troubled, violent separation, the culturally distinct province of East Timor is now free. The insurgent Free Aceh Movement has signed a cease-fire with the central government. And, in 2004, the country’s first direct presidential election brought Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono into office. This year, Freedom House upgraded Indonesia from “Partly Free” to […]

Elbowed out of the headlines by North Korea’s nuclear test, U.N. peacekeeping forces have continued to expand their presence in southern Lebanon in an atmosphere that is both nervous and uneventful, according to official reports from the area Monday. Troops from Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and other European countries have been arriving in Lebanon since early September, and taking up positions in the south alongside the Lebanese army. Their role is to ensure observance of the mid-August cease-fire that ended the 34 days of fierce fighting between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. With Iran defying admonitions by the U.N. Security Council […]

Europe’s new concerns about reliance on Russia for much of its energy security are nothing compared with the worries in many other capitals around the world about the problem posed by China’s growing demand for oil and gas, say analysts. Those worries are little mollified by repeated assurances coming out of Beijing that China’s insatiable appetite for energy is not a threat to the rest of the world. Beijing’s assurances don’t sound convincing, many analysts say. Each year since the early 1990s, China has been consuming more and more energy to fuel its fast-growing economy. Last year, the Chinese accounted […]

The merger announced last month by Ayman al-Zawahiri between al-Qaida and Algeria’s GSPC represents a significant strategic move by the al-Qaida leadership. It is the latest example of a new chapter in al-Qaida’s efforts to both outsource operations and more aggressively re-brand once autonomous or loosely affiliated groups. It is a well-known fact that al-Qaida has become highly decentralized in the years since 9/11 and the fundamental nature of the organization has changed dramatically. With no physical base from which to draw and train recruits or launch attacks, and with its hierarchy severely damaged, the role of al-Qaida-central (as some […]

ACCRA, Ghana — The name Robert Kabushenga probably languishes in obscurity in the West. Knowledge of the man is limited to Ugandans and anyone, be they diplomats, aid workers or journalists, with an interest in Uganda. That’s a shame, for Kabushenga is a strident foe of the free press, not unlike Zimbabwe’s disgraced, ex-information minister Jonathan Moyo. His zealotry manifests itself in his evangelical belief in the unrivaled brilliance of Uganda’s 20 years-and-counting president, Yoweri Museveni. In his rhetoric and his actions, Kabushenga has frequently crusaded against those reporting and documenting the realities of Uganda and the direction his patron […]

ATLANTA — Somewhere in the world, the sun is setting and its time to break fast. The world’s Muslims are in the middle of Ramadan, a month of daytime fasting, followed by evening communal meals and prayer. It will end with the celebration of Eid-al-Fitr, a morning of prayer capped by days of celebration, eating and visiting. Three hundred nightly regulars at Masjid al-Farooq follow the same schedule as every other Muslim in the world. But al-Farooq’s location is a little different. It is in Atlanta, Ga.,the chief city of the American Southeast, located in the middle of the Bible […]

It was raining in Beijing the morning of Oct. 8 as new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe flew to the city on his maiden official trip to China. As his aircraft touched down in the Chinese capital, the rain stopped and the sky began to clear, a phenomenon cited by both Abe and the Chinese media as a sign that Sino-Japanese ties were slowly but surely on the mend. An editorial in the China Daily, the country’s national English-language newspaper, said the break in the rain illustrated “optimism in the long-strained ties between China and Japan” and urged the two […]

Georgia is on the brink of war with Russia, a place where journalists get murdered by government hit men. But really we should be watching nearby Belarus, the capital of illegal arms deals. Everything is coming undone in Nicaragua and 650,000 have died in Iraq, from which U.S. troops should pull out immediately. These were among the striking claims put forth by op-ed writers this week. But let’s not kid ourselves. Really, it was North Korea, North Korea, North Korea all the time. Not since the Israel-Hezbollah conflagration three months ago have the world’s opinion pages been so blindingly focused […]

Last February wasn’t a good month for Terry Semel. Not only was the Yahoo! Chairman and CEO in the middle of an ambitious overseas expansion project, but his web search company had been called before Congress to testify about its involvement in a high-profile international incident. Bad news for any businessman, but for U.S. foreign policy it was a sudden and unsettling introduction to the reach of the information age. The trouble for Yahoo started with the jailing of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist who had been convicted of “illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities” after an email he […]

KARACHI, Pakistan – The status of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the octogenarian chieftain of a tribe in the restive southwestern province of Balochistan, almost reached the mythical this summer when a late-August operation by the Pakistani military resulted in his death in a cave in the mountains of Dera Bugti. Government officials moved swiftly to bury him quietly and suppress any news of the follies committed during the military operation, which occurred amid nationwide protests and deadly violence in Balochistan. Ten people had already died in bomb blasts, attacks and clashes with police during August, following a year of pitched […]

“From today, I am declaring jihad against Ethiopia which has invaded our country and taken parts of our homeland.” The words of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, leader of the Islamic Council that now controls much of Somalia, on Oct. 9. He was reacting to the seizure of a town by the Council’s opponents — reportedly alongside Ethiopian troops. It was the latest broadside in a rapidly escalating war of words — and sometimes of weapons — involving Somalia’s Islamists, the beleaguered transitional government and regional states. At stake: whether Somalia will become the battleground for a wider war, a new […]

In the aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon war, the Lebanese are divided like no time since the civil war of the late 1970s and 1980s. One is either with Hezbollah or with the Lebanese government. Gray areas are evaporating and being replaced by tribalism and patron-client loyalties, for which the Middle East is particularly famous. In a recent trip to Beirut, I witnessed this rising tension firsthand. The pan-Arabic weekly magazine al-Mushahid al-Siyasi (The Arab Viewer) recently wrote that the next three months in Lebanon will be characterized “either by permanent stability, or frightening deterioration.” One side is represented by the […]

In the latest human rights blow to a Central Asian nation dominated by Soviet-style oppression, Uzbek officials are proposing tougher measures against Uzbek citizens practicing their religion. Under a proposal revealed by the Uzbek government’s Religious Affairs Committee in August, massive fines and imprisonment will await anyone who shares religious convictions with another person outside of an officially sanctioned house of worship. Under the new plan, through which officials say individual religious leaders will be held accountable for the actions of those in their congregations, a first offense would earn the guilty party a fine between 200 and 600 times […]