North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
What awaits the refugees now living in Ingushetia if the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeds in its stated goal of getting all of them to return to Chechnya by March? Anna Politkovskaya reported in the February 16 issue of Novayagazeta on her visit to the hamlet of Okruzhnaya on the outskirts of Grozny—which construction workers hired by the Kadyrov administration are supposedly making livable.
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Last week's terrorist atrocity on the Moscow subway system, in addition to killing dozens of unsuspecting civilians, underlined an ugly reality of Russian politics. The Putin administration has now created, or at least thinks it has created, an emotional atmosphere such that it can blame terrorist acts on Chechens even when there is no specific evidence or claim of responsibility.
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The Jamestown Foundation: Chechnya Weekly Table of Contents Questions Raised About UN Education Aid Pressure Intensifies to Close Refugee Camps Kadyrov Maneuvers For More Influential Role Saudi Arabia and Russia: A Budding Rapprochement? Kremlin Rights Observer is Removed From Post International Community Criticized For Chechnya Response Thoughts on Dubrovka.
Michael Bhatia, Kevin Lanigan, and Philip Wilkinson
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:
Prime Minister Tony Blair's 2003 declaration that the international community “will not walk away from” Afghanistan missed the real question: When will the international community really walk into Afghanistan, and make the necessary commitments and investments that will give the Afghan people a reasonable chance at building a peaceful and stable country?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Development, and Terrorism
President George W. Bush declared recently that “the people of Afghanistan are now free.” While the president boasts, Afghanistan's opium industry, which fosters terrorism, violence, debt bondage, and organized crime, has expanded to the point that it could undermine the entire U.S. and international effort. As President Bush's own special envoy and ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, recently admitted, ''[r]ather than getting better, it's gotten worse. There is a potential for drugs overwhelming the institutions – a sort of a narco-state."
The scope of mankind's activities has experienced expansion from land to ocean, from ocean to atmosphere, and from atmosphere to outer space. Space technology, which emerged in the 1950s, opened up a new era of man's exploration of outer space.
In January 2004, China formally requested to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an informal multilateral export control regime that aims to contribute to the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons through the coordination and implementation of guidelines which govern transfers of nuclear material and technology. The NSG's membership comprises the principal nuclear supplier states in Europe and the Americas, as well as Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, South Africa, and a number of former Eastern Bloc states, including Russia. The group's decisions, including those concerning the admission of new members, are made on a consensus basis, but the informal nature of the organization means that its decisions cannot be construed as legally binding upon its member countries.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Asia, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand
Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Sudan on Tuesday, June 29, stopping first in Khartoum before visiting the war-torn western province of Darfur. Powell will be the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Sudan since Cyrus Vance in 1978. In addition to meetings with Sudanese officials, Powell will confer with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, who will be in Sudan as part of a three-week tour of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Sudan, Middle East, Asia, and Arab Countries
Tracing the political history of the global concept of 'security' through a variety of national and regional inflections in Indonesia, this paper argues for the analytical usefulness of the concept of 'vernacular security'. Entailed in this is a proposal to treat the concept of security as a socially situated and discursively defined category that needs a politically contextualised explication rather than as an analytical category that needs refined definition and consistent use.
The basic arguments of this paper are, first, that the current US-missile defense, being operative from fall 2004, is based upon the former experiences with missile defense, second, that missile defense closely associated with weapons of mass destruction has gained the highest priority in American national security policy due to the 9.11 attacks, and third, that the superior argument for establishing an American missile defense is to maintain global, long term political-strategic superiority.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Weapons of Mass Destruction