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 [...]
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 [...]
