Articles in English

MundoAsia,

The west's admiration for China's rush for wealth is becoming like the left's interwar praise for ­Stalin's Soviet Union. It is a triumph of materialism over ­humanity. If there is one place on earth I have long wanted to visit, it is old Kashgar, fulcrum of the silk road, Peter Fleming's "oasis of civilisation" hovering between the Pamir mountains and the Taklamakan desert. It was used for the Afghan movie The Kite Runner, Nato having rendered the real location, Kabul, too dangerous for filming. Now the old city is to be systematically demolished. The steamroller of destruction that is China's rush for wealth is claiming yet another casualty for world culture.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, ,

Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul and Said Ali al-Shihri may be the two best arguments for why releasing detainees from Guantánamo Bay poses a real risk to America. Mr. Rasoul, who was transferred to Afghanistan in 2007 and then released by the Kabul government, is now the commander of operations for the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. Mr. Shihri, sent back to his native Saudi Arabia in 2007, is now a leader of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen.

Are these two men exceptional cases, or are they emblematic of a much larger problem of dangerous terrorists who, if released, will “return to the battlefield”?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Korea has been such a huge and intractable problem for so many decades now that it is easy to think of it as just an unpleasant fact of life, like drizzle or midges or the aches and pains of age. There it lies on the far side of the world; we know something's wrong over there, but we can't always remember what.

The Korean War was the one that our grandfathers were too old for, and our fathers too young. We could probably find it on an atlas, but it would take a while. No one we know has been on holiday there.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

After years of rightly criticizing President Robert Mugabe’s authoritarian rule in Zimbabwe, Western countries now face a different, and difficult, set of decisions.

Since February, Zimbabwe has operated under a unity government led by Mr. Mugabe with the opposition’s leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, as prime minister. Had last year’s elections been free and fair, Mr. Tsvangirai would have been elected president, but instead of continuing to contest the results he eventually agreed to serve as prime minister. The transition has not been smooth; cabinet posts have been divided up awkwardly, while many people inside and outside the country have criticized Mr. Tsvangirai for seemingly being co-opted by Mr.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalEconomía

As the dust settles after the Great Depression That Never Was, the worldwide financial crisis is starting to look less like the seismic historical transformation so widely expected. With every week that passes, President Sarkozy's predictions about the death of Anglo-Saxon capitalism sound more premature, while ahistorical comparisons with the end of communism in 1989 seem ever sillier.

And yet it is clear that some permanent changes in the global balance of power really are occurring, as I saw this month while visiting Brazil and South Africa, two large economies hard hit by the crisis in statistical terms, but seemingly more emboldened by the experience than depressed.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

A framework agreement between Washington and Pyongyang reached under the Clinton administration specified that the US, with ­Japan and South Korea, would build two light-water reactors to supply power in North Korea and that fuel oil would be provided until the reactors were operating. In return, North Korea would shut down the plutonium-producing reactor and reprocessing line at Yongbyon and sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) as a non-weapon state.

When George Bush took office in 2001, he refused to confirm his administration was bound by a "no hostile intent" statement, declared North Korea part of the "axis of evil", stopped the shipments of fuel oil, and in 2003 suspended the project to build the reactors.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

There is a narrative about the prison at Guantánamo Bay that has stubbornly clung to the collective conscience since those first, notorious photographs emerged in early 2002 of the detainees in orange jumpsuits shackled inside open-air cages and ferried to interrogation sessions in wooden wheelbarrows.

Combined with a litany of Red Cross reports alleging abuse and torture inside the jail, and terrible tales of beatings told by many of the 550 inmates who have been released in the past seven years, the common assumption is this: Guantánamo Bay is a modern-day gulag, a filthy, wretched chamber of horrors filled with the screams of innocent men.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

The Obama administration is gearing up for its impending and ­possibly decisive moves ­towards relaunching the Middle East peace process, with a series of consultations with Arab leaders, including the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, later this week. After ­meeting with Barack Obama in ­Washington last week, the Israeli prime ­minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, pressed his demand that the Palestinians should recognise Israel as a Jewish state, ­posing it as the sine qua non for any ­future agreement. This demand seems to be gaining some traction in the US and in western capitals.

But Washington and the international community should be very wary of progressing any further down this path; for behind what may appear an innocuous demand to accept Israel for what it deems itself to be lies an ideologically motivated attempt to force the Palestinians into an unprecedented repudiation of their history.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea,

Drip, drip, drip: The neverending stream of revelations has been compared by one British member of Parliament to "torture" -- waterboarding? -- and rightly so. One day, it emerges that a senior MP has charged British taxpayers £2,000 (about $3,200 as of yesterday) for the cleaning of the moat on his 13th-century estate. A few days later, another MP is revealed to have charged 1,645 pounds for a floating duck house. Almost every day for the past two weeks, in fact, the British press has published accounts of the ginger crinkle cookies, stainless steel dog bowls, swimming pool heaters, spousal iPhones and the trouser press (119 pounds) that British legislators charged to the British government.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

The North Korean launch of its Taeopodong-2 missile and its second nuclear test have laid bare the paucity of President Obama's policy options. They have exposed the futility of the six-party talks and, in particular, the much-hyped myth of China's value as a partner on strategic matters. The Obama administration claims that it wants to break with the policies of its predecessor. This is one area where it ought to.

After decades of diplomacy and "probing" Pyongyang's intentions, one thing is clear: Kim Jong Il and his cronies want nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. What will dissuade them?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

With extraordinary speed, China has morphed from a diffident player in international finance into an impatient table-banger. Six months ago, one could muse about whether the Chinese were interested in a larger role within the International Monetary Fund or in helping to rebuild the crisis-battered global system. Now, the Chinese are pumping almost $40 billion into a new East Asian version of the IMF, browbeating trading partners into using the yuan, and floating fantastical ideas about a new international reserve currency. Visiting Beijing last week, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva picked up on his hosts' changed mood. Calling for a "new economic order," he suggested that it was time to stop denominating trade in dollars.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

It’s known as the baobab in English, sito in Mandinka, gwi in Wolof and Adansonia digitata in botanical circles. Sometimes it’s called the upside-down tree, because its weirdly shaped branches resemble roots. It was made famous in the West by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s fable “The Little Prince.”

In Africa, the baobab tree is steeped in mystique and surrounded by superstition. Many people believe that its spirit protects the community around it, and its tangible properties certainly nourish those who live near it. Parts of the tree are used to make rope and fishing line; to feed goats, sheep and cows; and to provide shelter, food and medicine.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

President Obama has called for a world without nuclear weapons, not as a distant goal, but as something imminently achievable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed up, saying that American and Russian “leadership” in arms control and nonproliferation was “at the top of the list” of her priorities. Although the administration may be counting on the eyelid-lowering effect of arms-control terminology to minimize Congressional and public scrutiny, its plans are deeply troubling for America.

First, the administration’s bilateral objectives with Russia play almost entirely to Moscow’s advantage, as in arms-control days of yore. Hurrying to negotiate a successor to the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty by year’s end, which Secretary Clinton has committed to, reflects a “zeal for the deal” approach that benefits only Russia.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

When a man walks down the street firing a gun over your head, it is difficult not take it personally. When a dictator with a million-strong army and a well documented dislike for the “imperialist aggressors” of the West, lets off a nuclear weapon, it feels much the same. This sentiment informed foreign reaction to North Korea's nuclear test yesterday, from Washington to Tokyo to Helsinki: how dare he do this to us?

“North Korea's attempts to develop nuclear weapons, as well as its ballistic missile programme, constitute a threat to international peace and security,” President Obama said. But there is another way of thinking about North Korea and its dictator, Kim Jong Il, just as there is about the armed loser who shoots up the neighbourhood.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Since the sudden announcement by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the United States was changing commanders in Afghanistan, much has been written about the "inadequacies" of the departing commander, Gen. David McKiernan. The charges include that he is overly conventional, that he is too focused on big-army tactics, and that he does not understand the nature of the insurgency and what is required to defeat it. I have spent the past year in Afghanistan working directly for McKiernan. I have seen his tactics and his beliefs in action. America deserves to know what David McKiernan has accomplished here.

Over the past year, I have seen our focus in Afghanistan shift from kinetic military operations to one of engaging the population, building the capacity of the Afghan government, and ensuring that the military's top priority is the training and mentoring of the Afghan army and police.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalIglesia CatólicaEuropaUnión Europea, , ,

Understandably distracted by our own little crisis of trust, we have perhaps not taken in the apocalyptic import of a bigger one across the Irish Sea.

Perhaps it is a vague sense that we knew it all; perhaps reluctance to engage with the horrid details of the Ryan report into child abuse by Irish clerics. Perhaps some think it is old history, a 1950s horror. Maybe there is even a decorous sense that — as a new Archbishop of Westminster is enthroned here — it is tasteless to dwell on the wickedness deliberately concealed by his Church right into the 1990s.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

When U.S. and Israeli officials say that "all options are on the table" for stopping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, that's usually taken to mean aerial bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and other locations.

But there is another option for impeding the Iranian program -- a covert campaign to disrupt and deceive Iran's nuclear establishment. Despite the secrecy surrounding such efforts, reports about Israeli and U.S. sabotage efforts have surfaced recently in newspaper stories, which undoubtedly have been read with interest in Tehran.

These published reports raise an interesting question: Do secret sabotage programs offer a "magic bullet" for dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat -- raising the cost to Iran of pursuing its program, while avoiding the chaotic backlash that would follow a conventional military strike?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

The venue from which President Obama addresses Muslim communities is integral to the substance of his message. While the president and his team are to be commended for extending a hand of cooperation and understanding to the world's Muslims, Egypt's democrats cannot help being concerned over the decision to deliver the address from Egypt on June 4. Voices for a Democratic Egypt and supporters of democracy in general hope that Obama will choose a neutral venue within Egypt and make clear his support for the Egyptian people in their aspirations for basic rights and freedom.

Egypt is a weighty Arab and Muslim-majority country, and undoubtedly its status as the trendsetting heart of the Arab and Muslim worlds informed Obama's choice of venue for a speech that is likely to be a historical mark in his presidency.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

President Obama's Iran policy has, in all likelihood, already failed. On its present course, the White House’s approach will not stop Tehran’s development of a nuclear fuel program — or, as Iran’s successful test of a medium-range, solid-fuel missile last week underscored, military capacities of other sorts. It will also not provide an alternative to continued antagonism between the United States and Iran — a posture that for 30 years has proved increasingly damaging to the interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East.

This judgment may seem both premature and overly severe. We do not make it happily.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

In mid-October of 2003, Specialist Sabrina Harman of the 372nd Military Police Company was assigned guard duty on the military intelligence cellblock at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. That was the block where prisoners of the American occupation forces were held pending and during interrogation. The M.P.’s had no military training as prison guards, and they were told to do whatever the interrogators — a mix of military intelligence and C.I.A. officers and civilian contractors — asked them to do to the prisoners.

Specialist Harman and her comrades were astonished to find a number of prisoners on the block naked and trussed to the bars in painful “stress positions,” their heads hooded by sandbags, or by women’s panties.…  Seguir leyendo »