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ACCRA, Ghana — Henry Kobby, 22, opened his family’s store here, which sells drinks and food, 18 months ago. But what seemed like a viable business idea in early 2006 is now undermined by power shortages that occur at least 24 hours of every three days. When the power goes, so does the refrigerator Kobby needs to keep the drinks cold and the microwave he uses to warm up the pies and pastries. The power cuts began last August when low water levels were registered at Ghana’s southeastern Akosombo Dam, the country’s major source of electricity, which forced the government […]

NEW DELHI, India — Notwithstanding the deployment of an estimated 90,000 Pakistani troops along the Afghan border in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, the situation is far from stable in a region that is vital to Islamabad and Washington. State authority is increasingly fragile in the region, with recurrent violence undermining official Pakistani claims that the situation is “under control.” Despite the “intense” Army operations in FATA, frontline Taliban and al-Qaida operatives still maintain a significant presence in the region, adding to the problems of the already-challenged U.S.-led coalition forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Although the Musharraf regime […]

Editor’s Note: In March, Kurt Pelda, Africa Bureau Chief of the Swiss daily the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, traveled to eastern Chad on the border with the Sudanese crisis region of Darfur. Over 200,000 Sudanese refugees live in eastern Chad, having fled the violence in Darfur. The region likewise serves as staging grounds for the Darfur rebels fighting against the Sudanese government. During his three weeks traveling in the region, Pelda kept a diary, which provides a portrait of the Darfur conflict that is perhaps unrivaled in its detail and nuance. In daily installments through the beginning of August, World Politics […]

SARKO THE PERSUADER — That French President Nicolas Sarkozy was going to be the Energizer Bunny of international politics was clear from the moment he first bounced up the steps of the Élysée Palace in his jogging shorts. But he has also shown strong powers of persuasion. One prime example: Sarko persuaded the European Union — over breakfast, no less — to back France’s candidate for managing director of the International Monetary Fund in Washington. The governments of Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands all had their own nominations to succeed the Spaniard Rodrigo Rato, who is resigning in October. But […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. DETAINEES APPEAR ON IRANIAN TELEVISION — Two detained Iranian-Americans appeared on Iranian television Wednesday and Thursday evenings in a program apparently aimed at building a case they had traveled to Iran to foment regime change. Haleh Esfandiari, head of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Middle East Program, and Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant for the Open Society Institute, were seen on the program “In the Name of Democracy” speaking in heavily edited […]

Editor’s Note: In March, Kurt Pelda, Africa Bureau Chief of the Swiss daily the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, traveled to eastern Chad on the border with the Sudanese crisis region of Darfur. Over 200,000 Sudanese refugees live in eastern Chad, having fled the violence in Darfur. The region likewise serves as staging grounds for the Darfur rebels fighting against the Sudanese government. During his three weeks traveling in the region, Pelda kept a diary, which provides a portrait of the Darfur conflict that is perhaps unrivaled in its detail and nuance. In daily installments through the beginning of August, World Politics […]

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — As he watched children and teenagers play soccer in the courtyard of apartment buildings with faded facades, Moussa Damiba recalled better days here. Lots of white people lived in these buildings before the crisis, the 32-year-old said. “The crisis” is the catch-all term used to describe the years of instability, defined by a coup d’etat, a country-dividing civil war and political violence. But Damiba worries about the future too after last month’s attempted assassination of Guillaume Soro, the leader of the rebel New Forces who is now Ivory Coast’s prime minister. When Soro’s plane landed in […]

NEW YORK — America generally has had an uneasy relationship with the Non-Alignment Movement, which represents some 118 countries, mainly in the developing world. More than a half century ago — on June 9, 1955, to be precise — John Foster Dulles, the U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, upset the leaders of several non-aligned countries, including former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, when he chastised in a speech that “neutrality (a term used by the then U.S. administration to refer to non-alignment) has increasingly become an obsolete and, except under very special circumstances . . . […]

Editor’s Note: In March, Kurt Pelda, Africa Bureau Chief of the Swiss daily the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, traveled to eastern Chad on the border with the Sudanese crisis region of Darfur. Over 200,000 Sudanese refugees live in eastern Chad, having fled the violence in Darfur. The region likewise serves as staging grounds for the Darfur rebels fighting against the Sudanese government. During his three weeks traveling in the region, Pelda kept a diary, which provides a portrait of the Darfur conflict that is perhaps unrivaled in its detail and nuance. In daily installments through the beginning of August, World Politics […]

On June 13, the Japanese government approved the latest edition of its annual defense white paper, “Defense of Japan 2007.” The report identifies North Korea and China as Tokyo’s primary strategic concerns while reaffirming Japan’s alliance with the United States, commitment to international peacekeeping, and intent to keep defense spending slightly below 1 percent of its gross domestic product (some $39 billion). This version of the white paper was the first published by Japan’s new Ministry of Defense, which before January 2007 only had “agency” status. Compared with the previous Defense Agency, whose main function was to manage the Japanese […]

Did you feel the earth shake after President George W. Bush took to the podium on Monday and announced he would work to propel the Mideast peace process by calling an international meeting this fall? No? That’s because the proposal was simply not earth-shaking. The call, made gravely, in a speech filled with heady talk of pivotal choices, and peace, and decency and hope, does not amount to a grand strategy for reaching an Arab-Israeli agreement. Instead, Washington’s proposal represents one tactical piece in the very limited, focused, and trouble-filled plan to prop up the unpopular government of Mahmoud Abbas, […]

BANGKOK, Thailand – Ethnic clashes that have led to 11 deaths in Moreh, an Indian town on the border with Burma, have barely raised a blip on the global news meter but have brought much trade between the two countries to a standstill. Moreh is a fly-blown place in a remote corner of India’s troubled and underdeveloped northeast region and remains largely under lock and key guard by units of the Assam Rifles regiment. And yet Moreh is regarded by the central government in faraway New Delhi as the gateway to Southeast Asia in its “Look East” economic growth policy. […]

Editor’s Note: In March, Kurt Pelda, Africa Bureau Chief of the Swiss daily the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, traveled to eastern Chad on the border with the Sudanese crisis region of Darfur. Over 200,000 Sudanese refugees live in eastern Chad, having fled the violence in Darfur. The region likewise serves as staging grounds for the Darfur rebels fighting against the Sudanese government. During his three weeks traveling in the region, Pelda kept a diary, which provides a portrait of the Darfur conflict that is perhaps unrivaled in its detail and nuance. In daily installments through the beginning of August, World Politics […]

The “Color Revolutions” that swept through Eastern Europe and Central Asia in 2004-2005 have mostly faded out. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution has given way to political clan warfare and hopes for reform have been put on hold. The Tulip Revolution brought little more than a change of personnel to Kyrgyzstan. Only Georgia’s Rose Revolution has maintained its hue. Why has Georgia been able to maintain its revolutionary spirit despite several setbacks over the past three years? One reason seems to be the talented, young technocrats the revolution placed in Georgian ministries. Just as the “Chicago Boys” famously helped right Chile’s economy […]

Editor’s Note: In March, Kurt Pelda, Africa Bureau Chief of the Swiss daily the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, traveled to eastern Chad on the border with the Sudanese crisis region of Darfur. Over 200,000 Sudanese refugees live in eastern Chad, having fled the violence in Darfur. The region likewise serves as staging grounds for the Darfur rebels fighting against the Sudanese government. During his three weeks traveling in the region, Pelda kept a diary, which provides a portrait of the Darfur conflict that is perhaps unrivaled in its detail and nuance. In daily installments through the beginning of August, World Politics […]

Editor’s Note: Click here to watch a video of Carmen Gentile reporting from Cité Soleil. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Edith Destiny remembers the days when gunfire in the Haitian capital’s slums kept her awake all night. “Things are beginning to improve here — I don’t hear nearly as many gunshots as I used to,” said Destiny while deep-frying a batch of Haitian “marinade” for potential customers along a busy thoroughfare in Cité Soleil, one of Port-au-Prince’s largest, and most notoriously violent, slums.<<ad>>The 38-year-old mother of two said fewer gunshots means better business for her and the other merchants along 19th Street, […]

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Not long ago, the thought of President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel New Forces leader Guillaume Soro serving in the same government seemed absurd. In 2002, Soro’s rebels attempted to overthrow Gbagbo’s regime, which they called discriminatory because it viewed northerners, including those who served in the army, as non-Ivorians. A civil war then erupted in what was once West Africa’s most stable and prosperous country. Gbagbo deployed military force to crush the rebels — his loyalists sneered they were armed bandits controlled by France — who seized Bouake, the country’s second-largest city. When the fighting subsided, […]