World
The Telltale Scar
Budapest—On the banks of the Danube, it is quite natural to ask whether the idea of Central Europe has been just a whim of a few intellectuals, or acquires now a new significance thanks to the aspirations for democracy that have been reawakened in many countries. The simple fact is that our perspective, whether we are Poles or Hungarians or Yugoslavs, is different from the perspective of Western Europeans, Russians, or Americans. But the common denominator cannot be established theoretically, only empirically. READ MORE >>
War Without End
JUBA, THE SUDAN--Khali al-abidyakul al-abid—"Let the slave eat the slave," goes an old Sudanese saying from the 19th century, when Arab slave merchants dominated southern Sudan by pitting one black African tribe against another. Now Sudan's government has revived memories of that old slogan with its conduct in the country's six-year-old civil war. Caught up in geopolitical intrigue and tribal rivalries, and armed with modern weaponry, southern Sudan seems to be eating itself alive. READ MORE >>
The Global Zeitgeist Checklist: England
1. LONG TO REIGN OVER US READ MORE >>
The Empire Breaks Up
“Great Russia has forged forever the indestructible union of free republics.” —from the Soviet national anthem READ MORE >>
The Afghan Ayatollah
The Shot Heard Round The World
"Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world." —Hymn sung at the completion of the Battle Monument, Concord, July 4, 1837 READ MORE >>
Red Forest
Chernobyl – The workers here called it the Red forest, an ironic political joke and an accurate description. In the months after the explosion at Chernobyl hundreds of acres of pine trees surrounding the power plant reacted to the intense radiation that had showered the area by turning red and slowly dying. All of the trees have been removed now except for one surrounded by red flags. The Nazis to hang Soviet partisans during the war, so it is a shrine and scientists have tried to keep it alive. Nearby that tree workers in huge machines continue to cart away radioactive topsoil. READ MORE >>
Who’s Killing Haiti?
A short two years ago, the White House had high hopes for Haiti. It was a textbook case of a “transition to democracy”: an alliance between impoverished peasants and a liberal professional class toppled a military dictatorship, helped in part by the Roman Catholic Church and some prodding from Washington. There was to be an intermediate period of benign military rule, followed by free election and continued economic aid. Philippines, the sequel. READ MORE >>
The Barricades and Beyond
Going to Extremes
TODAY CHILE IS careening, quietly and in a carefully planned way, toward the greatest political catastrophe of its history. Within the next year or so, its people will be permitted to decide by plebiscite whether or not to accept a president proposed to them by their ruling military junta. READ MORE >>
