Part II: The RSF Rankings In light of the casualness with which media organizations and “human rights” groups regularly cite the Press Freedom rankings of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), one might well expect RSF’s Press Freedom Index to be accompanied by a detailed report explaining how the organization established its rankings and providing a summary analysis of the situation of press freedoms of each of the 169 countries included. This would surely not be too much to expect of an organization disposing of an annual budget of nearly four million euros: much of which, as shown in Part I of [...]
SEEKING REASSURANCE — After French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Washington last week, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, at the weekend, the flow of high-level European visitors continues in early December when Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano is due to visit — followed in February by Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. The White House wants to show it has friends in Europe to support its tough Iran policy, its efforts in Afghanistan, and its new missile defense deployment in Eastern Europe. Visiting European leaders, on the other hand, are seeking reassurance that Bush’s lame duck [...]
The inadequate international reaction to September’s premeditated attack on the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) base in Haskanita, which killed 10 peacekeepers, has renewed concerns about the prospects for a successful peacekeeping mission in Darfur. Optimists hope that the conversion of AMIS into a joint African Union-United Nations mission (UNAMID) will prevent a recurrence of incidents like Haskanita by strengthening the peacekeepers’ military capabilities. Already, however, severe problems have arisen with the planned transformation, which call into question UNAMID’s ability to change matters fundamentally. Current plans are for UNAMID to have almost three times the number of troops as [...]
