The Washington Post had a confusing piece this weekend about the State Department's efforts to block compensation claims of the 52 American hostages held by Iran. The story attempts to paint a picture of the Bush Administration in general, and the State Department in particular, displaying callous disregard for the claims of the hostages against Iran. Quoting Rep. Brad Sherman,...
On a much lighter note, the LA Times has an update on just one of many sources of tension in the China-Taiwan relationship: pandas. China has been offering the pandas as a goodwill gift to Taiwan, but Taiwan's pro-independence government won't take them, suggesting an acceptance would be a "Trojan Horse" reducing Taiwan's psychological defenses. China has been playing up...
According to a recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of persons seeking asylum in the industrialized countries has fallen by 50% since 2000, reaching their lowest level in nearly two decades. In most individual countries, the 2005 total was the lowest in many years. The number of persons who sought asylum in Germany was the...
A Spanish Judge, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has indicted 32 suspected Islamic militants for conspiring to drive a truck carrying 1,100lbs of explosives into the National Court in Madrid. The judge said that the attack could have killed more than 900 people, although he he did not release a date for the planned attack and no explosives have ever been found....
A military jury today found SSgt Michael Smith guilty of six out of 12 counts: two counts of maltreatment, one count of conspiracy to make detainees urinate and defecate on themselves, dereliction of duty, assault and an indecent act. Full information is at the Human Rights First Trial Blog. Sentencing to follow. This is an important act of accountability in the grim...
Here are some of the slogans that were on display during the French student revolts of 1968: Nous ne voulons pas d'un monde où la certitude de ne pas mourir de faim s'échange contre le risque de mourir d'ennui. (We want nothing of a world in which the certainty of not dying from hunger comes in...
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs had a very brief press conference in Algeria yesterday where he endorsed Algeria's Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation (for a brief summary see here). The Charter was suspiciously but overwhelmingly endorsed by a referendum last year and ends judicial proceedings against alleged extremist Islamic terrorists. Of course, it...
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has published a great study on the impact of trade liberalization on developing countries under different scenarios currently contemplated at the Doha Round of negotiations. The press release is here and the full text is here. The press release describes the study as follows:"As the global trade regime has expanded to include most developing...
As the world continues to wring its hands over the slow-motion genocide in Darfur, libertarian legal scholars are beginning to point out one possible solution that doesn't involve the United Nations or even NATO: Arm the victims of the Sudanese genocide. Indeed, they would go farther and enshrine an international human right to resist genocide, that includes the right...
From the department of the obscure but important news, the U.S., Japan, and Australia have been holding a "Trilateral Dialogue" on security issues (see a joint statement released today here). On its face, all this means is that the three countries will have regular ministerial-level consultations, which doesn't seem very important. Certainly, it is a far...
The ICC held a hearing for Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, its first arrestee, today. He has a provisional defence counsel and will get a full hearing in June. According to the BBC, Lubanga is a rebel warlord leading a group battling rivals from the Lendu ethnic group, partly for control of large deposits of gold in the Democratic Republic of...
Voice of America reports that an Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, is facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity from Islam, a capital offense under Afghanistan's Islamic law. The case points to an fundamental tension in the new Afghan constitution. On the one hand, the constitution declares Afghanistan an "Islamic Republic" (Ch. 1, Art. 2) and prohibits...
