Posted in WORLD Digest on Aug 4th, 2008 No Comments »
_ by Dani Rodrik
[Dani Rodrik, Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the first recipient of the Social Science Research Council’s Albert O. Hirschman Prize. His latest book is One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth.]
CAMBRIDGE – Will they or won’t they? Will the world’s […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Aug 4th, 2008 1 Comment »
_ by Achim Steiner
[Achim Steiner is Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which is assisting the Beijing Organizing Committee on environmental issues.]
Images of the Beijing skyline seemingly bathed in a soup of smog and haze have been a common sight on the world’s TV screens […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Aug 3rd, 2008 No Comments »
LONDON (Reuters) - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet dissident writer and Nobel literature prize winner, has died aged 89, the Interfax news agency reported on Sunday.He died of a stroke, the agency said, quoting literary sources in Moscow.
Solzhenitsyn served with the Red Army in World War Two but became one of the most prominent dissidents of […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Aug 3rd, 2008 No Comments »
By PAUL ALEXANDER
,
AP
-President Bush’s visit to Beijing almost looks like a vacation _ right down to a family reunion. But his three-nation Asian trip also takes him to the doorsteps of two troublesome regimes while forcing him to balance the Olympic spirit with the delicacies of diplomacy.
It will be mostly business first, with a one-day […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Aug 2nd, 2008 No Comments »
_ by Naomi Wolf
[Naomi Wolf, the author, most recently, of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot and the forthcoming Give me Liberty: How to Become an American Revolutionary, is co-founder of the American Freedom Campaign, a US democracy movement.]
Is it possible to fall out of love with your own country? […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Aug 2nd, 2008 No Comments »
_ by A.B. Yehoshua
[A. B. Yehoshua is one of Israel’s most acclaimed novelists and essayists. His most recent novel, A Woman in Jerusalem, was awarded the Los Angeles Times book prize for 2006.]
TEL AVIV – Police investigations, commissions of inquiry examining the errors committed during the Lebanon war of 2006, repugnance at former President Moshe […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Aug 2nd, 2008 No Comments »
_ by Shashi Tharoor
[Shashi Tharoor, an acclaimed novelist and commentator, is a former Under-Secretary- General of the United Nations.]
NEW DELHI – As the world awaits the Beijing Olympics, many wonder whether China’s grand coming-out party will also mark the occasion when it wrests dominance of the medal tally from the United States. China’s dedicated athletes […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Aug 1st, 2008 No Comments »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seven years after the September 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named “the long war” against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue.
The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 29th, 2008 No Comments »
_ by David P Calleo
[David P. Calleo is the Dean Acheson Professor and Director of European Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.]
WASHINGTON, DC – Senator Barack Obama’s recent European tour hints that the Illinois senator is Europe’s choice to be America’s next president. But Europeans should not expect […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 26th, 2008 No Comments »
_ by Bruce McEwen
[Bruce S. McEwen is a researcher in the Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University, New York.]
NEW YORK – Stress contributes to the onset of cardiovascular disease and depression, among other illnesses. And it is not only major stressful life events that exact a toll on our bodies; the many conflicts and […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 26th, 2008 No Comments »
By JOHN HEILPRIN, AP
UNITED NATIONS -One of South Africa’s leading female jurists who won acclaim defending apartheid opponents was nominated Thursday to serve as the next United Nations high commissioner for human rights.
Navanethem Pillay was formally put forward for the job by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who cited her “outstanding credentials in human rights and […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 24th, 2008 No Comments »
Reuters
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council will hold a special meeting on a border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand that has sparked fears of a military clash, France and Vietnam said on Wednesday.
French Ambassador to the United Nations Jean-Maurice Ripert told reporters the council discussed a request by Cambodia to take up the […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 23rd, 2008 No Comments »
_ by Chris Patten
[Lord Patten is a former Governor of Hong Kong and European Commissioner for External Affairs. He is currently Chancellor of Oxford University and Co-Chair of the International Crisis Group.]
Maybe it is time to be a bit more generous to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and look at the outcome of what he does […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 23rd, 2008 No Comments »
_ by Bennett Ramberg
[Bennett Ramberg served in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the George H.W. Bush Administration. He is the author of several books on international security.]
LOS ANGELES – Forty years ago this month, more than 50 nations gathered in the East Room of the White House to sign the Treaty on the Nonproliferation […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 23rd, 2008 No Comments »
_ by Jeffrey D. Sachs
[Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also a Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals.]
The G-8 Summit in Japan earlier this month was a painful demonstration of the pitiful state of global cooperation. The world is in deepening crisis. […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 23rd, 2008 No Comments »
_ by Nava Thakuria
Loosing an important ballot race in the Constituent Assembly for the ‘Head of the State’ and his subordinate, the rebellion communists of Nepal find themselves in an embracing situation. The emergence of a three party alliance, opposing the Maoists, has even compelled the Maoist leader Prachanda, who was projected as the Prime […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 21st, 2008 No Comments »
By The Associated Press
,
AP
-Excerpts from the 1995 U.N. war crimes tribunal indictment charging former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, with genocide and crimes against humanity in Bosnia:
___
_ “They are criminally responsible for the unlawful confinement, murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery and inhumane treatment of civilians; […]
Posted in WORLD Digest on Jul 16th, 2008 No Comments »
_ by Michael G Kulma
[Michael G. Kulma is Director of Policy Programs at the Asia Society.]
NEW YORK – At the outset of the ongoing violent protests in South Korea over imported beef from the United States, the entire cabinet of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak offered to resign. Last week, President Lee fired three of […]