Search

Issues concerning the sinking of the Kursk, the Russian nuclear-powered submarine, are discussed. Two explosions were heard coming from the area of the Kursk and the shock waves were recorded 2000 miles away.

Japan and China have begun building an economic relationship, but many within both countries resent the other nation. Many older Chinese who experienced the horrors of the World War II remember Japanese soldiers killing more than 200,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians. In the 1990s, Japan invested billions of dollars in China and Shanghai is home to more than 10,000 Japanese residents.

Investigations of scandals at Japan's Ministry of Finance have revealed a corrupt culture based on overly close ties among businessmen, bureaucrats and politicians. Sordid revelations have compounded the crisis of confidence in financial institutions caused by Japan's recession. Economic reforms to revive Japan's economy are underway, but change will be slow.

This is how Yasir Arafat deals with terrorism: careering through the muddy, storm-soaked streets of Gaza one evening last week, the crack troops of the Palestinian Preventive Security forces roared [...]

This being the holly land, it was probably inevitable that the assassin would claim to be acting in the name of God. American assassins -- to take a more familiar [...]

Issues concerning the dilemma facing illegal immigrants who are desparate to begin a new life away from conflict are presented. Reference is made to the tragedy in Dover where 58 Chinese people lost their lives. Wealthy countries must deal with the controversial and complex issues of illegal immigration, which has become big business.

This article discusses opium production in Afghanistan, and the relation of the opium trade and the Afghan government, run by the Islamic militia Taliban. Topics include the reliance of the Taliban on earning taxes from opium poppy famers and heroin labs, and its unwillingness to curb opium production.

This article describes how extremist Albanians in Kosovo are now perpetrating atrocities against Serbs and Gypsies, with many of the victims being Serb Orthodox priests. Relevant points include the destruction of Orthodox churches by ethnic Albanians and the suspected role of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

On January 12th, the day that Tsering Tashi set himself on fire, he didn't seem particularly troubled. He ate an early breakfast with his wife and his parents in the [...]

AL GORE HAD JUST SAT DOWN to cold cereal and mixed fruit with the chief American negotiator at the climate-change conference in Kyoto, Japan, last week. The international meeting was [...]

Byline: Robert J. Samuelson and Jeffrey Bartholet Obama tapped her to set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Can she create a more honest market? When do you aim [...]

Byline: Jeffrey Bartholet One of Obama's oldest friends and most trusted advisers on the personal constraints of White House life--and the occasional urge to break free. Bartholet: How is [the [...]

Byline: Jeffrey Bartholet and Daniel Stone; With Richard Wolffe and Dina Fine Maron in Washington Many of Obama's top advisers, like an increasing number of Americans, have learned and lived [...]

Byline: Michael Hirsh and Jeffrey Bartholet Mogadishu is a place most Americans would rather forget. During the 1990s, the 'Black Hawk Down' debacle symbolized the dangers of dabbling in far-off [...]

Byline: Kevin Peraino, Dan Ephron and Jeffrey Bartholet (With Joanna Chen in Jerusalem, Nuha Musleh in the West Bank, Michael Hirsh and Richard Wolffe in Washington, Christopher Dickey in Paris [...]

James Nachtwey has been described--by a fellow photographer--as the Angel of Death. If you see Nachtwey in a ravaged land, and people are not dying in front of his lens, [...]

Nobody has voted, so we've got an order to collect them,' the Indian soldier explains. Nearby, seven Kashmiri men, eyes hard with what could be anger or fear, are squatting [...]

Byline: Jeffrey Bartholet The Indian soldier, in full battle gear and armed with an AK-47, seems only mildly embarrassed. He's herding a dozen men and women down a narrow road [...]

Enter the offices of an African big man and have a look around. The first security guard you meet is a wiry fellow with suspicious eyes and a shirt collar [...]

A bystander might have thought some ghastly catastrophe had struck the earth. In the predawn gloom near New York's East River, diplomats from around the globe were sleeping on the [...]

Beit Jala, an ancient jumble of Palestinian homes on a hill opposite Bethlehem, used to be a quiet place. When my wife and I lived there in 1993 and 1994, [...]

When a convoy of U.S. diplomats drove through Srebrenica last week, nobody along the road cheered the peacemakers. One man held up a three-fingered Serb victory sign. Another grabbed his [...]

The people who stormed into rebel leader Foday Sankoh's Freetown villa on May 8 weren't conducting your usual search-and-seizure operation. Enraged by the renewal of a nine-year-old rebellion in the [...]

Imagine a huge mafia funeral. Some mourners cry from grief, others from fear, others from relief. And soon after the burial, among the closest relatives the talk turns to the [...]

Orphaned politicians in Damascus, who had paid obeisance to one and only one leader for 30 years, had a little succession problem on their hands. The Syrian Constitution clearly stated [...]

Every dying language had an adventurous youth. Eyak can be traced to an ancient mother tongue that was centered near the Yukon and Tanana rivers in North America. Three millennia [...]

To his neighbors in the leafy Athens suburb of Nea Erithrea, Brig. Stephen Saunders lived an ordinary life. The military attache to the British Embassy walked his dog after work, [...]

It never occurred to Queen Rania not to visit Saudi Arabia with her husband, King Abdullah. The fresh-faced Jordanian royal, at 29 the youngest queen in the world, knew the [...]

The calculus of Israel's long history in Lebanon seems, at first glance, simple enough. Add up the invasions, 'operations,' commando raids, kidnappings and massacres by proxy militias. Then count the [...]

The calculus of Israel's troubled history in Lebanon seems, at first glance, simple enough. Add up the invasions, 'operations,' commando raids, kidnappings and massacres by proxy armies. Then count the [...]

The abandoned foundry complex in central Freetown now thrums with an energy both malignant and benign. Thousands of jittery people are camped under a huge corrugated steel shed, among enormous [...]

In 1991, a visitor to rural Uganda could peer through the portals of hell and glimpse the holocaust to come. It took a little work then. You had to hire [...]

Zuber has a gaze that's a little too steady. Taken together with his bushy black beard, shaved head and tan shalwar kamiz--the pajama-like clothes that Afghan men wear--the effect is [...]

Madeleine Albright seemed like a good foil. She's a woman--the first ever to be U.S. secretary of State. And she's pro-choice on abortion. Surely, feminists and family-planning activists would listen [...]

Nawaz Sharif was democratically elected, but he isn't a democrat. The former Pakistani prime minister, ousted last week in a coup, acted more like a despot after his landslide election [...]

Two Russian fighter-bombers, flying low and tight over the high mountain ridges, dropped eight cluster bombs on the Chechen village of Elistanzhi. One bomb hit the local school, killing at [...]

Eurico Guterres is not a very imposing enemy. On one level, he's just a two-bit thug, a former gang boss who allegedly controlled prostitution and gambling rackets in East Timor. [...]

The three women entered the United Nations office in East Timor and softly appealed to an American volunteer, Pamela Sexton. Could she help them with an injured man? Sexton knew [...]

In New Zealand, where sheep outnumber people 15 to one, folks know how to party. This weekend's bash promises to be the biggest in a long while. Five top chefs [...]

A profile of Osama bin Laden, the person believed to be behind the terrorist attack on New YOrk, United STates, in September 2001, is presented. Particular attention is given to bin Laden's education and charismatic personality.

The world's financial markets in Jul 1998 reacted to Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's resignation and speculation that Japan may adopt policies that would end its financial difficulties. Financial markets' positive reactions were also based on the assumption that Hashimoto will be succeeded by either Junichiro Koizumi or by two of the Liberal Democratic Party's oldest members.

The Asian economic crisis has resulted in South Korea opening its market to foreign ownership. The government with its new president is allowing this in hopes of bailing out some of the hardest hit businesses. In Dec. of 1997, 1,226 business went bankrupt and the number is likely to grow in 1998. In the meantime, a culture of corruption may be exposed as South Korean companies open internal accounts to foreign banks and investors.

South Korea's president Kim Dae Jung is attempting to solve his country's economic crisis. The nation owes over $15 bil to foreign banks and unemployment increases weekly. Dongsuh Securities Co. Ltd., one of the country's best-known traders, collapsed in Dec 1997, and its workers will have no jobs unless the company is purchased. More than a million workers may have to be fired to meet South Korea's economic targets set by the International Monetary Fund.

It's a slow-motion catastrophe largely hidden from outsiders. But the latest visitors to North Korea confirm the world's worst fears. A nation of 23 million people is starving, slowly and [...]

If Hwang tells all, it's disaster for the North HWANG JANG YOP, NORTH KOREA'S top ideologue, told colleagues in Beijing that he was going to a department store. Instead he [...]

An apology raises hopes for an end to the last great cold-war standoff THE CEREMONY ALONG THE DEMILITARIZED zone was proceeding smoothly and solemnly, as befits the handing over of [...]

WHEN GODZILLA THREATENS TO expose himself, it's clear Japan is changing. Hideki Matsui, a.k.a. Godzilla, plays right field for the Yomiuri Giants, Japan's most revered--and conservative--baseball team. It was strange [...]

MASAKO OWADA BEGAN TO disappear on June 9, 1993, the day of her wedding. She was a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard, an up-and-coming diplomat who spoke five languages. [...]

PEOPLE WHO MAKE PEACE IN THE Middle East are called a lot of things. 'Traitor' and 'dupe' are among the mildest. And as PLO leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime [...]

Issues discussed concern preparation for the 1999 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in New Zealand. Topics addressed include the unstable Asian economy, the management of APEC, and US-China relations.