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Kofi Annans utkast till fredsavtal mellan grek- och turkcyprioter har sedan det offentliggjordes i mitten av november diskuterats dygnet runt på den delade ön. Annan-planen utgör en sinnrik kompromiss som tillmötesgår flera av parternas viktigaste krav men som också innehåller inslag som både grek- och turkcyprioter kommer att ha mycket svårt att acceptera och det av helt motstridiga skäl. Den närmaste tiden, och det helst innan EU:s toppmöte i Köpenhamn 10-12 december, måste deras politiska företrädare ta ställning till om om de efter fyra decennier av konflikt kan sluta upp bakom Annan-planens framtidsvision: ett återförenat Cypern vars grundsten utgörs av ett nytt Œpartnerskap‚ mellan grek- och turkcyprioter på likställd basis. I så fall kan grek- och turkcyprioter under decembermötet gemensamt få klartecken från EU och den långa vägen mot politisk återförening påbörjas ˆ detta förutsatt att Annan-planen också lyckas vinna över en inledningsvis skeptisk folkopinion. Tanken är att ett färdigförhandlat avtal...

LONDON – The new Bob Woodward book “Bush at War” tells us that the Bush entourage has been at times quite rattled by the criticism of its policies towards Afghanistan and Iraq. That gives me comfort. As a long time proponent of the thesis that the pen in the end is mightier than the sword it is good to know that some of the scribblers’ darts have found their target. Thus we critics should keep up our good work, particularly when we are so convinced the policy from Washington is both wrongheaded and counterproductive. Yet and but. Perhaps for now we should be a little quieter. The United Nations has spoken and it has spoken at its highest level and with an amazing, almost unprecedented, unity on a matter of such dire consequence. Is not this what many of us in the critical camp have always yearned for- life being breathed...

COPENHAGEN – Enlargement of the European Union to bring in the former communist nations of Eastern Europe and after that Turkey was never meant to be so tense an affair. When the Berlin Wall came down opinion makers in Western Europe were breathless before the quite unexpected overthrow of tyranny and were falling over themselves in their attempt to wave broadly stretched arms of welcome to those who could join the historic mission of making Europe one. In the event the incorporation of these nations into NATO (where Turkey has long been an unquestioned member) was easier to pull off than economic integration into the EU. It needn’t have been. It wasn’t the economics of the argument. It was the politics: in the military arena politicians simply have more independent room for manoeuvre. And anyway president Bill Clinton was pushing for it for his own internal political reasons- he needed the...

London – Elections do have a way of clearing the air, sometimes as with Turkey’s earlier this week, bringing in an entire new weather pattern. So it was too with last month’s election in Kashmir. The Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, presiding over a government of Hindu nationalists, gave his opposition rival, the Congress party of Sonia Gandhi, tacit encouragement to form a coalition government with a local moderate Muslim party, the People’s Democratic Party. Despite being scorned by the Congress secularists for too often playing the Hindu chauvinist card and despite being continuously brow beaten by the ultra nationalists, in particular the Bombay-based politician Bal Thackeray, who regularly threatens to bring down the prime minister, Vajpayee not only masterminded the first free election in Kashmir for as long as any one can remember, he has in effect handed over a large part of India’s Kashmir policy to those who...

The breakthrough in the second round of talks between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government signifies progress well ahead of expectations. At the end of the second round, three important agreements on political, military and economic matters have been signed. These agreements to address political issues, improve security and restore normality shall be followed up by setting up joint committees for the purpose. The crucial agreements were topped with the LTTE announcing its intention to enter democratic politics, signifying the rebel outfitís desire to turn a new leaf for wider political acceptance in Sri Lanka and abroad. This is expected to spur international financial and developmental assistance for relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction as the negotiations brokered by Norway and hosted by Thailand is the first effort involving western facilitators and supported by India, Japan, the EU and the US. Given the failure of four...

Statement at the European Parliament, October 22, 2002 Thank you for inviting me to speak today. I have come here to urge you all, individually and collectively, to do everything in your power to oppose a US war against Iraq a war that can have no good end. I believe that we have within our reach the ability to stop this war before it begins.  If we succeed, we will save the lives of innocent Iraqis who have suffered enough, and also the lives of young American soldiers, who enlisted in the military with the primary purpose of obtaining the resources to go to college. We will also prevent the creation of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of new terrorists, whose activities will undoubtedly affect Europe as well as the United States.  America Does Not Speak with One Voice The Bush administration would have the world believe that America speaks...

Introduction There are at least two problems with the phrase “Agenda for Human Rights workers in Southeast Asia”, apart from the usual politics of agenda setting. First, the term “human rights workers” is purposively selected to both emphasize the human side of working for human rights and to undermine the increasing tendency in some corners to relegate human rights activities to mainly be in the hands of experts. Second, the term “Southeast Asia” as a complex topography can hardly be discussed in general without essentializing it. But while there may be no underlying unity nor Southeast Asian essence which is shared by all Southeast Asian societies, to assume a total absence of broad family resemblance in the area would also be contrary to common experience. (1) One of the direct implications of this understanding then, is there could be no uniformed agenda for human rights workers in Southeast Asia, though...

New Delhi – The slumbering giant may be about to awaken again. The danger of returning to the Hindu growth rate will be washed away at next year’s election. The era of indecision and drift, with only the decision to become an open nuclear weapons state as evidence of decisiveness, will hopefully be consigned to the dustbin of history. This is how senior members of the Congress party would like it to be – and maybe they are largely right, although very few in the electorate of the largest democracy in the world will forget that while Congress, the party of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, led their country to independence from the British, it also produced the “emergency” of Mrs Indira Gandhi (Nehru’s daughter) when democracy was suspended and when it finally was allowed to return she was swept out of office, and the corruption of the administration of Rajiv...

London – At first the news from North Korea seemed like an almighty setback to thoIse who believe we can deal with grave security problems more by engagement rather than confrontation. Not only did it appear to knock the shine off Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize, since his greatest achievement, apart from Camp David, was his successful diplomacy that brokered the 1994 freeze on the country’s nuclear bomb making, it appeared it might well open the doors again to those Republicans who eight years ago were arguing for the U.S. to bomb North Korea. A strange thing appears to have happened in those eight years. For all the bluster with President George Bush’s notion of an “axis of evil”, no longer is the talk this wild. The accent is all on diplomacy and an emphasising of what is still apparently being honoured in the old 1994 agreement, the freezing of plutonium...

The Problem of Cultural Paranoia My topic today is Terrorism and Cultural Diversity. The tragic events of September 11 are still reverberating around the world. I am sure that the question of the role of cultural diversity in providing the breeding ground for “terror” is on many people’s minds. Does “terror” arise from cultural distance? Is it the “foreigners”, those people we do not understand, who are the “troublemakers”? To be anxious about strangers in our midst is a natural reaction. In times of fear and panic, the “aliens”, the “foreigners” become suspect. We must be very careful to distinguish between realistic threats to security from those paranoid reactions against all foreigners. The very great danger in times of crisis is the focusing of anxiety and anger on outsiders. This leads to “ethnic profiling”, or “stereotyping”, and then, as a direct result of this, the “scapegoating” of innocents. Such times...

This table contains quotes from three sources concerning two Iraqi biological weapons production facilities. Below please see von Sponeck’s contrasting on-site observations.  Al Dora Foot & Mouth VaccineProduction Unit Al Fallujah IIICastor Oil Production Plant IISS:”Work appears to have started. The facility has about 25% of its 1991 capacity.” (1a) IISS:”Plant destroyed in Dec. 1998. Current status unknown.” (1b) US Government:“One of two known bio-containment level-three facilities that have an extensive air-handling and filtering system.” (2a) US Government:No reference. UK Government:“Facility of concern”. (3a) UK Government:“Facility of Concern. The castor oil plant was damaged in UK/US air attacks in 1998 but has been re-built. The residue from the castor bean pulp can be used in the production of the biological agent ricin.” (3b) NOTES: 1. International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS): “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction – A Net Assessment.”, London, 9 Sept.2002, (1a) & (1b), p.30 2. US Government.:”A...

Today is a bleak day for America, and for all Americans. Congress, in its fear and conformity, has voted to grant authority to the President to conduct a preemptive war against another nation. Congress has joined the President in assuming an imperial mantle, granting powers above and beyond our obligations under international and domestic law. Would that Congress had heeded its wiser and saner voices, such as Senator Robert Byrd, who cautioned restraint and warned that the vote to authorize the rush to war undermined our Constitution. Only Congress has the power to declare war under the US Constitution. It cannot legally give this power over to the president. We are at the gravest of moments,î Senator Byrd told his colleagues. Members of Congress must not simply walk away from their Constitutional responsibilities. We are the directly elected representatives of the American people, and the American people expect us to...