Briefing Archive

As an IMF note to the G-20 leaders gathered at the recent London summit put it, “Growth also plunged across a broad swath of emerging economies. Against this backdrop, global activity is expected to contract in 2009 for the first time in 60 years.” In 1998, the Asian financial crisis left a lasting mark on politics in Southeast Asia. The Suharto regime fell in Indonesia and, arguably, ongoing turmoil in Malaysia and Thailand can be traced to the impact of ’98. However, this time around, the region is expected to come through the current recession relatively unscathed, in comparison with […]

LIBREVILLE, Gabon — When the unarmed medical teams from the amphibious ship U.S.S. Nashville arrived for a scheduled visit at Centre-Arc-en-Ciel, a children’s shelter in this lush West Africa capital, the roughly 20 children there panicked. They fled into the shelter’s boys’ dormitory, one tiny boy even curling up into a ball on the bottom shelf of a locker. Seeing the uniforms, some of them camouflaged like army uniforms, the children thought the sailors were carrying guns, explained Gabriela Escudero, a humanitarian liaison from the U.S. embassy in Libreville. “They’ve had difficult lives,” Escudero said. With some coaxing, Escudero showed […]

One local candidate is comparing his crime-fighting abilities to Batman’s. A would-be president has promised to raise the minimum wage to $77, because seven is a good number. And the government’s “revolutionary” version of the Beatle’s song “Hey Jude” has incurred the wrath of the copyright administrators. Yet if Ecuador’s election season seems strange, it pales in comparison to the chaos that went before. Seven presidents in the decade following 1997. Three leaders overthrown. A banking and currency collapse. This was Latin America’s basket case. Today political stability has been restored, thanks in large part to one president’s popularity. Rafael […]

Several analysts have noted that China is leveraging the global financial crisis to increase its economic clout — for example, by going on a commodities “shopping spree,” contributing $40 billion to the International Monetary Fund at the G-20 summit, and pushing for a greater voice in reforming international economic institutions. Recent developments, however, suggest that it is going further. China is using the crisis to step back and consider how it can rise in a more sustainable manner. That move is borne not only of its desire to be a world power, but also of its recognition that its strategy […]

Russia and NATO have been trying to “reset” their relations in parallel with the ongoing reconciliation between Washington and Moscow. Although progress along these lines has occurred, Russia-NATO differences over Georgia remain a major impediment. Belying Moscow’s hopes that the new American administration and other NATO members might reduce support for the current Georgian government in order to secure Russian assistance regarding Afghanistan, Iran, and other issues, the alliance appears unwilling to abandon Tbilisi despite Russian threats and inducements. NATO’s decision to conduct a major military exercise, “Cooperative Longbow/Lancer-09,” in Georgia from May 6 through June 1 has reignited the […]

Last week, Frida Ghitis wrote this in her WPR column on the U.N. conference on racism in Durban: As for the official U.N. meeting, deciding whether to attend has become even more complicated for the U.S. now that Iran’s Ahmadinejad says that he, too, will sit in. The Iranian announcement of his trip mentioned the “racist policies of the Zionist regime,” offering a preview of what Ahmadinejad may say during his turn at the microphone. For U.S. diplomats, sitting in the same room with the Iranian president offers a tempting but risky opportunity to interact with Iran. The move represents […]

TEL AVIV — There are three new cards in Israel’s game of chance and opportunity with its enemies. The first is the “bomb Iran” card, the second is the “Hezbollah smack-down” card and the third is new Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. In recent days the Israeli press has been all over Hezbollah’s actions along the Israeli/Egyptianborder, where agents of the self-styled Party of God have been allegedly using resource-starved Bedouins to smuggle guns and money into Gaza. There have also been reports of Hezbollah drug smuggling operations into Israel along the Lebanese border. From Israel’s point of view, Iran’s ayatollah’s […]

The biggest electoral show on earth is now under way in India. But despite India’s reputation as a growing power on the international stage, foreign policy is set to play at most a marginal role in the decisions of most of its estimated 714 million voters. “I think foreign policy comes up mostly for the English-speaking urban elite and for the television audiences,” says Lawrence Prabhakar, associate professor of political science at Madras Christian College. “But for India’s hinterland, particularly the rural areas, there’s no debate at all on foreign policy. . . . By and large 90 percent of […]

NEW DELHI — A shift in India’s strategic defense thinking has become increasingly apparent over the months following the Mumbai terror attack in November. Before the Mumbai attacks, India’s military infrastructure was predominantly oriented to building against a long-term threat from China, aided by some plodding from a U.S. keen to counter Beijing’s rise in the region. Post-11/26, however, there is every sign that India’s defense preparedness is more focused on the immediate threat from Pakistan. India’s massive $50 billion defense modernization plans are being tweaked accordingly. Indian intelligence agencies have warned that a conflict situation with Pakistan could arise […]

The time has come, once again, to castigate the United Nations. In response to North Korea’s test-missile firing, the Security Council remained deadlocked in its anachronistically Cold War ways and couldn’t muster a full resolution. Instead, it passed a presidential statement, which the U.S. has since had to argue is even legally binding. North Korea has since expelled U.N. weapon inspectors and said it will again pursue weapons-grade plutonium. This comes on the heels of a general failure of the Human Rights Council, a missing-in-action secretary general and the U.S. boycotting the U.N.-hosted World Conference on Racism in Geneva this […]

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan’s Swat Valley area used to be known for its lush trees, towering mountains and flowing water gushing through the valley from the glaciers above. Swat was for lovers — young honeymoon couples beginning a new life, families enamored of nature’s display of bounty. An area where you could buy handmade crafts direct from artisans’ humble studios, sipping tea in the shade as apprentices wrapped up your purchases. Yet as 2008 passed into 2009 the trickle of stories coming out of the area concerning public floggings, school bombings, beheaded police officers and political assassinations turned into a […]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Zimbabwe’s national unity government faces imminent collapse, due to its failure to get critical financial aid from the international community. Experts have now warned that the government might soon fail to pay its workers, with the potential for serious civil unrest as a result. Zimbabwe needs at least $8.5 billion in financial aid in order to reconstruct its economy. But its appeals have so far drawn blanks due to donors’ skepticism over President Robert Mugabe’s sincerity in working with the opposition. Even the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) — which brokered the accord establishing the […]

There is no doubt that Zimbabwe needs financial help to revive itseconomy and social services. It is also indisputable that the SouthernAfrica Development Community (SADC) is the best-positioned organizationto spearhead this effort. An extraordinary summit of SADCleaders last month pledged to support Zimbabwe in implementing ashort-term emergency recovery plan, with promises of “budget support,lines of credit, joint ventures and toll manufacturing.” But while theregional group’s ambition to raise $10 billion for Zimbabwe is noble,its approach is bound to fail. A figure like $10 billion mightnot sound like much to Western observers. But in Africa, that amountrepresents the annual budget of […]

President Barack Obama’s visit to Mexico today marks the culmination of a month-long binge of attention from the U.S. government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a heavily publicized trip to the country in March, followed soon thereafter by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric Holder and a congressional delegation, who took part in a series of meetings in Mexico City on immigration and border issues. The diplomatic flurry couldn’t have come at a better time, steadying a bilateral conversation that the Obama and Bush administrations had increasingly lost control of over the last six months. U.S. […]

Only a few days remain before the opening of the United Nations anti-racism conference in Geneva, and maneuvering surrounding the controversial event is reaching a fever pitch. The stated goal of next week’s Durban Review Conference, as it is officially named, is to “evaluate progress” in the global fight against racism since the U.N.’s 2001 anti-discrimination conclave held in Durban, South Africa. That original Durban meeting turned into an embarrassing fiasco for the U.N., prompting Western nations to brace for a difficult and possibly unsuccessful effort to keep the “Durban II” gathering in Geneva from becoming another propaganda tirade in […]

The tiny desert town of Abeche, in eastern Chad, offers a curious sight: Sandwiched between the mud huts that most people call home and the compounds belonging to international aid workers is a humble Chinese restaurant catering to Chad’s growing population of Chinese engineers and managers. Significantly, no equivalent American-style restaurant is to be found. The same holds true across the resource-rich, institution-poor developing world, in countries as remote as East Timor and as dangerous as Somalia. While much of the military establishment in Washington continues to plan for a possible conventional war with China, Beijing is studiously avoiding a […]

Roughly 47 years after having banned Cuba from the Organizationof American States, Latin American leaders are angling to reinstate theisland nation, despite the fact that it lacks the democraticcredentials spelled out in the OAS charter. The effort is aprominent storyline heading into the April 17-19 Summit of the Americasin Trinidad and Tobago, where 34 leaders from the hemisphere will meetto discuss the global economic crisis, energy policy and securityissues, among other things. But the meeting’s narrative also includesPresident Barack Obama’s first opportunity to redefine U.S.-LatinAmerican relations, which took a backseat under former President GeorgeW. Bush. “The perception coming up from […]