All Commentaries
Base Closures: How to Reap Savings from Base Realignment and Closure This Time
As we enter a new period of postwar downsizing, a new BRAC can achieve substantial savings that Congress professes to crave.
New U.S.-Pakistani Supply Accord Seen as Tenuous
As NATO supply convoys began crossing from Pakistan into Afghanistan for the first time in more than seven months Thursday, analysts here warned that the reopening of the key route does not necessarily signal a new dawn in the fraught relations between Washington and Islamabad.
Largest Demonstrations in Half a Century Protest the Restart of Japanese Nuclear Power Plants
On 29 June, Japan witnessed its largest public protest since the 1960s. This was the latest in a series of Friday night gatherings outside Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko’s official residence. Well over one hundred thousand people came together to vent their anger at his 16 June decision to order a restart of Units 3 and 4 at the Oi nuclear plant. This article discusses the events of the last several weeks which sparked this massive turnout as well as the nature of the protest. It begins by outlining the Japanese government’s recent policies affirming nuclear power, from Noda’s nationwide address of 8 June justifying the Oi restarts on the grounds of ‘protecting livelihoods’, and continuing with the move on 20 June to revise the Atomic Energy Basic Law and establish a law to set up a new, yet potentially toothless, nuclear regulatory agency.
We are all 132! Mexico’s Student Movement for Defense of the Vote
For Enrique Peña Nieto, the leading candidate in Mexico’s upcoming election, the worst day of his presidential campaign was the day that sparked “#Yo soy 132” (I am number 132), a youth movement for social justice. When the candidate visited Iberoamerican University–a private, Jesuit-run college in Mexico City–last month, a crowd of young people stood up and called him “coward,” “liar,” and “assassin.”
Iran’s Parchin Clean-up a “Tease”
To Iran, uranium enrichment is mainly intended as a bargaining chip.
Will the Burma Road End in Democracy?
Most visitors to Myanmar these days, when the country is opening up, limit their trips to Yangon, better known in better times as Rangoon. They rarely make the five-hour trip to Naypyitaw, the site upcountry to which the ruling military regime has transferred the capital.
Why Couldn’t the Left Prevail in Mexico?
The tired old Institutional Revolutionary Party was returned to power in Mexico.
Has the Developing World Abandoned Iran?
In a recent interview, the eminent geo-strategist Ian Bremmer suggested that a “nuclear-armed Iran” is inevitable because, in an emerging “G-Zero World” where no single bloc of countries can dominate international affairs, the emerging powers can frustrate the West’s efforts to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. But recent years have given lie to this argument.
KSM May Never Be Brought to Justice for the Murder of Daniel Pearl
“Enhanced interrogation” presents obstacles to prosecuting alleged war criminals.
Caught Red Handed: Rwanda, Violence in Eastern Congo, and the UN Report
The atmosphere was tense during the DRC Briefing at IPS on June 29, 2012. The audience of 45 squeezed into the conference room to hear the updates on Rwanda’s most recent breach of Congolese sovereignty, and the Q & A session threatened to reach a fever pitch.