Briefing Archive

The political and historic intricacies of the war raging between Russian and Georgian forces in South Ossetia are rather complicated, but the message fired off by the relentless Russian onslaught is as clearly discernible as the blast of a cannon: The territories of the former Soviet Union will answer to Moscow — whether they want to or not. That smoldering salvo has its intended audience, more than anywhere else, in those former Soviet territories: in lands that include Georgia, of course, but also other former Soviet republics than have worked to moved away from Moscow’s influence. The message is meant […]

Although the precise catalyst for the war between Russia and Georgia is unclear, the escalation was almost inevitable given the years of tension and the diplomatic stalemate over the status of the pro-Russian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well as other fundamental issues such as Georgian aspirations to join NATO. The question was always whether Moscow would exploit its local military superiority to compel Georgia’s formal dismemberment or would instead hold the threat of armed interventions in reserve in an attempt to influence Georgian foreign policy without incurring the damage to Russian-Western relations that might ensue from […]

BEIJING — The games of the 29th Olympiad are shaping up as a coming out party for China, a country that seeks to show the world it has arrived as a 21st century power. But China remains a country of contradictions — an ancient culture amid restless ambition to create a modern society, poverty alongside ostentatious wealth, and political repression in parallel with economic openness. On the eve of the opening of the games in Beijing, journalist and photographer Iason Athanasiadis visited Beijing and the northern city of Shenyang. A man walks past Shenyang’s central train station in northern China […]

In recent months, Pakistan’s new leaders have been insisting that U.S. forces were not conducting covert operations against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants inside Pakistan and that their government would never allow such missions. They have insisted that Pakistani regular troops and paramilitary forces could adequately deal with the insurgents and any high-value terrorist targets. According to a variety of sources, however, U.S. military forces, though not permanently based in Pakistan, continue to conduct military attacks from Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan’s loosely governed northwestern territories. On July 9, U.S. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of the […]

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 […]

The excitement — however artificially stimulated by opening rock bands and generously inflated crowd estimates — of Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin is now passed. What remains are some serious questions: notably, for German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit. The two leading Social Democrats — both touted as possible candidates for the chancellorship in the 2009 German elections — were also the two politicians most closely associated with the push to have the American presidential candidate give a high-profile public speech in the German capital. It is a well-established principle of international law that […]

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — On the road into Tripoli from the south, Lebanon’s condo- and casino-dotted coastline rises sharply inland to hills crowded with apartments, churches and mosques. Cable cars running to the high ground provide spectacular views of the turquoise Mediterranean to the west, and of Beirut to the south. Further on, as traffic enters Tripoli, a reassuring sign overhead reads: “Relax, you are in Al-Mina, the city of waves and horizon.” Al-Mina is the name for the section of the city surrounding the pristine harbor, where tourists can take boat trips to islands in the Mediterranean, under the shadow […]

ISTANBUL, Turkey — It seems a rarity these days that a political party’s religiosity would work against it. In the last several decades, parties with religious affiliations have scored victory after victory in voting booths around the world, and seldom does their piety put them in jeopardy. Yet in Turkey, where the country’s secular establishment still wields considerable power, that’s very nearly what happened this week when its national court narrowly avoided banning the majority AK Party — a coalition of moderates with decidedly Islamic roots — from the country’s political scene. The court’s decision brought an end to a […]

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 […]