Paco: South America’s New Drug of the Poor

20 June 2008: A new drug, known simply as paco, has swept the slums of cities like Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro. Previously discarded as the garbage remaining after the production of cocaine, and both highly addictive and dangerous, it has found a home among South America’s poor.

Bosnia: The anti-terror back and forth

OpEd: The U.S. in Iraq - Time for a Clear Exit Strategy

18 June 2008: The United States today stands at a crossroads in Iraq; it can choose to remain in Iraq indefinitely, maintaining the Bush Administration’s vow not to “cut and run,” or it can decide to begin withdrawing troops, either immediately or in stages over the next couple of years. The question of which of these paths the U.S. will take depends in large part on which of the two candidates, John McCain or Barack Obama, wins the presidential election this November.

The Uncertain Future of Kashmir

Bolivia: Separatist Referendums Signal Growing Backlash against Leftist Politics in the Country and the Region

13 June 2008: Last week voters in two Bolivian states voted overwhelmingly for more autonomy from La Paz and Evo Morale’s government.  The referendums signal a growing opposition in Bolivia that is mirroring a growing backlash against leftist politics across the region.

Bringing Order: Strategies for Conflict Resolution in Somalia

Lessons learned: China's Approach to the Sichuan Crisis

Alphabet Soup: NATO snub delivers the VMRO-DPMNE a KO in the FYROM

Macedonia’s government chose to dissolve itself and call snap elections years ahead of schedule after a long-simmering dispute over the country’s name boiled over at April’s NATO summit in Bucharest. Greek leaders, who maintain that the name ‘Macedonia’ threatens the territorial integrity of a Greek province of the same name, made good on a long-standing threat to veto Macedonian aspirations to join the military alliance.

Guatemala’s Dark Past

6 June 2008: The recent convictions of five Guatemalan paramilitaries for their role in the 1982 massacre of 177 indigenous women and children is an important step toward finding closure for the victims of the country’s 35 year long civil war. It remains to be seen, however, whether or not these convictions are little more than a token attempt at justice.

Help Wanted: Iraqi Refugees Go to Work, Not School

Imagining a Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe

Out in Africa: Surveying Gay Rights Throughout sub-Saharan Africa

The renaissance of Dharavi; Mumbai’s‘megaslum’

Mischa’s Mischief

27 May 2008: President Mikheil Saakashvili’s rightist-liberal United National Movement triumphed in Georgia’s parliamentary elections on May 21, taking 59.2% of the vote and crushing the hopes of a hitherto emboldened opposition.

Talking to the Brotherhood

23 May 2008: Muslim Brotherhood movements in Jordan and Israel are struggling to negotiate their relationships with the state and to overcome internal divisions as they seek a broader role in political and social life.

Kenya in the Somali Crossfire

Bhutan’s Nepalese Minority Skeptical of Country’s Democracy

20 May, 2008:  It has become fashionable in recent years for think tanks and policy wonks to regard democracy as on the decline globally. “There has been an increasing amount of talking and thinking that democracy is in trouble and it’s been a bad decade for democracy,” says Dr. Thomas Carothers, who oversees the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.

Slobodan the Europhile?

16 May 2008: The collective sigh of relief could be heard from Berlin to Ljubljana after the May 11 Serbian Parliamentary election. But Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic may be considering cutting a deal with the party of Serbia’s late iron-fisted dictator Milosevic.

Afghanistan’s Poppy Alternatives

Il Cavaliere, Back from the Ashes

13 May 2008: He’s back. Fresh off a surprisingly decisive electoral victory, Silvio Berlusconi will be Italy’s prime minister for the third, and perhaps final, time. In power briefly in 1994 and again from 2001 until his defeat in the 2006 elections, Signor Berlusconi has proven himself a veritable phoenix of Italian politics time and again. He now looks poised for a stable (if unremarkable) five years in power.

Nations of Inflation

9 May 2008: Much of the talk in the U.S. and global media recently has surrounded the strength of the American economy and the viability of the U.S. dollar. But let’s put things in perspective. In 2007 the inflation rate in the U.S. was 2.70 percent. In Zimbabwe the rate was well over 100,000 percent.

Milblogs: Letters from War

8 May 2008: If Vietnam is remembered as the first war that the media brought to the living rooms of America, then the war in Iraq will be remembered as the first war that the soldiers themselves brought to the living rooms, offices, and bedrooms of America.

Lebanon in Limbo: Political Vacuums Make for Dirty Politics

Song for Eviction? Kyrgyzstan and the West

30 April 2008: Once hailed by the West as an oasis of democracy, the Kyrgyz Republic (more commonly known as Kyrgyzstan), may be the only Central Asian state that is openly friendly to the West. The Kyrgyz government has allowed Canada and the United States to have a dominating presence in the country for many years both militarily and commercially.

China and India’s Economic Rise

Is a Denuclearized North Korea Realistic?

Liberian Truth and Reconciliation from Afar

Name Games?

Greece and Macedonia’s name dispute threatens stability in the Balkans

17 April 2008: Discussion of the United Arab Emirates has penetrated the American media, but primarily with regards to Dubai’s impressive architecture, rapid pace of urban development, attraction as a luxury tourist destination, and aim to be the financial capital of the Middle East. Rarely addressed--if at all--is the role of women in the UAE, and their growing representation in education, government, and diplomacy.

Poland on the Nile
Parallels between the Solidarity Revolution and Egypt’s Mahalla Riots

16 April 2008: Towards the end of the Cold War, factory workers in Poland went on strike seeking better wages to offset skyrocketing food prices. In doing so, they began a revolution.  Today, workers in Egypt are rioting as bread grows unaffordable. Is history repeating itself?

Olympic attention to hasten China’s environmental strategy

15 April 2008: China’s rapid ascendancy to its current high profile position on the international stage is in many ways a result of years of unprecedented economic growth. There is little doubt that this phenomenon had much to do with the International Olympic Committee’s decision to award Beijing the honor to host the 2008 summer games. This economic explosion had made China a topic of much interest to those in the international affairs community well before it won its Olympic nomination in 2001.

Rwanda: 14 Years of Remembrance, Reconciliation, and Recovery

Economic Challenges and Solutions for Conflict-Affected States

NATO’s newest enlargement efforts aimed at improving regional stability

Expansion Negotiations Move Forward for UN Security Council Members

A proposal was submitted in late March to reform the United Nations Security Council. Drafted by ambassadors from six member states including Britain and Germany, it seeks to expand the Security Council by seven seats, enlarging its membership from 15 to 22 states.

Op-Ed: Terrorism Remains Pakistan’s Chief Export

1 April 2008: Chinese authorities recently disclosedthat the would-be hijackers of a domestic airplane, who were thwarted in early March, carried Pakistani passports and had been trained in Pakistan. Does this confirm terrorism to be the prime export item of this volatile country? It is certainly the latest shred of evidence in an unsavoury track record for which Pakistan has gained international notoriety as the cradle of extremist jihad.

Armenia Ends State of Emergency
Doubts remain about the future of democracy in the country

26 March 2008: Last Friday saw the end of a state of emergency in Armenia with the army withdrawing from the capital Yerevan, leaving doubts about the future of democracy in the country and the likelihood of continued political stability.

Internal Divisions Threaten Kosovo’s Fragile Independence

24 March 2008: Pristina, Kosovo – A month after the declaration of independence by Kosovo’s Assembly in coordination with EU and U.S. officials, the new state is witnessing the first violent opposition within its newly-declared territory.

22 March 2008:  It only took a month in office for just-elected Cypriot President Demetris Christofias to make good of his words. He met with Turkish leader Mehmet Ali Talat of the Turkish occupied side of divided Cyprus and, together, they may have just revived a stagnant period of diplomatic inactivity that has lasted nearly four years.

Haiti’s Path to Environmental Regeneration

19 March 2008: The distressing visible consequences of man’s unbridled carelessness with the earth’s resources have mobilized attention to the state of global ecosystems. Deforestation is one of the biggest concerns—many forests and jungles in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America have been severely depleted.

11 March 2008: The Malaysian people voted to end more than 40 years of domination by the ruling coalition in parliamentary elections on Saturday March 8. The Barisol Nasional (BN), or National Front, lost its two-thirds majority but still has a 139-seat majority in the 222-member legislature.

7 March 2008: In reading Leo Tolstoy’s epic work War and Peace, a clear demarcation becomes apparent. War revolves around men, while the crux of Peace is women. The women socialize and emote, consumed by issues of love, while the men negotiate the landscape of warfare. Bellicosity is in a man’s blood, it seems, while women navigate society with a far more humane comportment.

U.S.-Libya Rapprochement Tested by $6 Billion Judgment

6 March 2008—New York, NY: On September 19, 1989, UTA Flight 772 exploded in mid-air over the Sahara, killing 170 people. The French-operated plane was flying from N’djamena, Chad to Paris, France when a suitcase bomb planted by Libyan agents caused the aircraft to crash into the Niger desert, killing all passengers and crew, including seven Americans.

29 February 28, 2008: Although officially undeclared, it appears evident that the opposition parties have won a significant victory and a coalition government has tentatively been agreed upon, drastically altering the balance of political power away from current president and long time ruler Pervez Musharraf.

28 February, 2008: The European Union (EU) Reform Treaty, formally known as the Treaty of Lisbon, amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, is the document signed by all 27 EU states on December 13, 2007, in Lisbon, Portugal.

26 February 2008: For many, the post-electoral violence that has gripped Kenya over the last two months appears like an unfortunate blip on an otherwise spotless record. How could, the reasoning goes, the model of peace and stability in East Africa, the nation of hakuna matata, suddenly fall off the wagon?

On February 8, 2008, in a televised address to ministers and regional governors, Russian President Vladimir Putin conveyed that Russia is ready and willing to counter beefed-up U.S. defense systems that it feels threatened by. These perceived threats may include NATO expansion, U.S. desires to install missile defense shields in Eastern Europe, and increased funding and development on high-tech weapons systems, such as the Reliable Replacement Warhead, or RRW. 

18 February 2008: The world’s newest nation was born on Sunday, February 17, 2008, as Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence. Prime Minister Hashim Thaci stood before parliament in Pristina, proclaiming a Kosovo that would be “proud, independent, and free.”

12 February, 2008: Burmese monks stole worldwide headlines last September when they took to the streets to protest the ruling military junta. Their actions failed to spur a coordinated international reaction to their plight, but internal pressures from the Burmese people eventually may crack the regime’s hold on power. 

6 February, 2008: Nearly every presidential candidate has talked about the need to either reinstate (in the case of Democrats) or continue (in the case of Republicans) the U.S. role as the leader of the free world. Globalization has put countries like the U.S., China, and Russia in the hot seat—the world is watching them; they want to see how they tackle international issues like global warming, nuclear weapons, international conflict, trade, and more.