Opinion and Analysis Archive

30.06.2006 The determination of Britain's political elite to maintain the country as a nuclear-weapons state is rooted in a half-century of military planning to which the possibility of tactical and first use of nuclear weapons is central, says Paul Rogers.

28.06.2006 If President Bush wanted to deal with Iran by "bombing them back into the stone age" (as an American general put it during the Vietnam War), now would be the time. With everybody riveted to the World Cup, says Uri Avnery, who would notice?

28.06.2006 Bangladesh is increasingly tornbetween economic progress and insecurity, law and impunity, Islamism and secular politics, violence and democracy. Liz Philipson portrays a troubled country approaching its next major electoral test.

27.06.2006 Five years after Western countries promised Afghans to rebuild their country, Afghanistan is on the brink, facing its worst crisis since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001, says Ahmed Rashid.

27.06.2006 Josep Prior, Medecins sans frontieres' head of mission in Somalia, describes how the coming to power of the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu, after 15 years of control by warlords, has affected civilians and MSF's projects.

26.06.2006 A year on from the G8 and Live 8, parts of Africa are making good progress. But it's not thanks to the money and the debt relief that often prop up the wrong kind of leader, says Robert Calderisi.

23.06.2006 China's plans to exploit the power of Southeast Asia's last great wild river by building a giant staircase of dams stretching from Tibet down through Yunnan province puts a region of unique natural and cultural wealth under threat, says Ola Wong.

23.06.2006 Combating "honour crimes" requires supporting the leadership of women in Muslim countries — women who are struggling for rights within their countries and for their countries' right to freedom from US intervention, says Yifat Susskind.

22.06.2006 The Brazilian authorities have every reason to be grateful that the soccer world cup in Germany arrived just in time to divert people's attention from the crisis of violence and confrontation in the country's largest city, says Sue Branford.

21.06.2006 Ahead of the July African Union Summit on 25 June in Banjul, Faith Cheruiyot looks at contrasting experiences from two largely Islamic west African countries that reveal the importance of the AU Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa.

21.06.2006 The people of Darfur have faced more than three years of government-sponsored genocide, says Africa Action. As the death toll continues to rise, there has been no real response to this genocide, as the organisation's chronology shows.

20.06.2006 On one side, the big phone companies and cable providers, who want Congress to help them speed up the move into the video market and keep government regulation at a minimum. On the other side: customers, who want Congress to make sure that the Internet does not become a fast lane for those who can pay - and a dirt road for those who can not. Gail Russell Chaddock reports.

20.06.2006 Inspiration stories and experiences on World Refugee Day.

19.06.2006 More women are blogging in Saudi Arabia, getting the attention of censors and their conservative counterparts, reports Rasheed Abou-Alsamh.

16.06.2006 As Africa celebrates the Day of the African Child (theme: Protecting children from violence), many children in Africa are faced with a desperate situation of poverty, illiteracy, disease and conflicts. Louise Sackie talks about how Liberia's civil war has affected her life, and her hopes for the future.
+ Harm children no more: Why Africa must rediscover Soweto
+ Soweto 1976

16.06.2006 The future of sustainable agriculture depends on countries agreeing on how to share genetic resources, says Emile Frison.

15.06.2006 The cruise industry: more ships, more passengers - more pollution.

14.06.2006 Media in the lives of young people: documentaries, blogs, art installations, personal poetry and music... or propaganda, stereotypes, violence and destruction?

13.06.2006 Guilty or innocent, Arabs will be the last to leave Guantanamo, says Clive Stafford Smith.

13.06.2006 "If you do not have a cow, you have no respect, no voice in the community." Lisa Matthews talks to a people coping with a devastating drought.