Daisy Sindelar is the vice president and editor in chief of RFE/RL.
The White House yesterday admitted the United States is no longer actively searching for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. U.S. President George W. Bush originally cited the threat of a WMD stockpile as the main reason for invading Iraq in the spring of 2003. But in a new television interview, Bush defends the invasion as "absolutely" worth it, despite the lack of weapons evidence. He says the world is a safer place without former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Bush says it remains to be determined why WMD intelligence-gathering failed prior to the war.
UNICEF and other groups are warning that the threat to children is far from over (UNICEF courtesy photo) In the wake of the Asian tsunami disaster, a new tragedy is looming. Amid the chaos of the massive cleanup efforts, there are fears about the fate of thousands of children left parentless by the deadly waves. In addition to worries about psychological trauma, disease, and homelessness, child-welfare activists say they are concerned many of these children will fall into the hands of traffickers. Some of the tsunami-hit countries have already issued a one-year ban on adoption to prevent children from being smuggled into sex or labor rings abroad.
China has gone to extreme lengths to stem population growth with its "one-child" policy. But the government is now facing new, longer-term problems: a shortage of marriage-age women, and an abundance of elderly. The one-child policy has increased the use of selective abortion to allow families to control the gender of their child. The strong preference for sons means that as many as 117 boys are now being born for every 100 girls. The sex-ratio gap has already led to a reported rise in kidnapping and trafficking of marriageable women. The Chinese government is now focusing on how to reverse the bride shortage, as well as how to cope with the rapid "graying" of a country where by mid-century, some predict, one out of every five people will be over the age of 65.
China hit a major benchmark this week when its population officially reached 1.3 billion people. It's a staggering figure, and yet demographers say China is actually a population-control success story. Just 30 years ago, Chinese families were having as many as five children. Now, the country's "one-child" policy has brought the birthrate so low that China's population is due within decades not only to peak, but to begin a decline.
Experts say an early-warning system could have saved thousands of lives Few natural disasters are as terrifying as the tsunami. The massive waves can race through ocean waters with the speed of a jet airplane, but remain virtually invisible until they hit land. When they strike, they can be as high as 35 meters and crash down with a deadly force that can destroy bridges, overturn trains and turn cars and buses into dangerous projectiles. The South Asian tsunami, which has so far claimed nearly 70,000 lives, was all the more deadly for its unexpectedness. Even a few minutes of warning could potentially have saved thousands of lives.
Damage from the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia Two days after massive waves called tsunamis struck coastal villages bordering the Indian Ocean, the death count is approaching 60,000. The disaster poses a staggering challenge for aid agencies racing to deliver food and fresh water to the region. The United Nations has warned that survivors face their greatest danger in the days ahead, as contaminated drinking water and putrefying bodies could cause epidemics of intestinal and lung infections.
U.S. officials say the 21 December explosion in a dining tent at a military base in Mosul -- an attack that left 22 people dead -- was most likely the work of a suicide bomber. The admission has sparked criticism of security measures at U.S. facilities in Iraq. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday defended his commitment to the safety of U.S. troops. Some observers say the Pentagon is doing a sufficient job of keeping U.S. soldiers supplied and secure. But others say attacks like the Mosul bombing show it is time for the United States to rethink its strategy in Iraq.
Prague, 22 December 2004 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. military investigators have begun work to determine what -- and who -- was behind yesterday's deadly blast in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that killed 22 people, most of them U.S. soldiers.
A U.S.-based organization that tracks the progress of political rights and civil liberties across the world says Russia has fallen to the status of "not free." Freedom House points to a growing trend under President Vladimir Putin to "concentrate political authorities, harass and intimidate the media, and politicize the country's law-enforcement system." Elsewhere, Belarus, Armenia, and Romania also saw setbacks, while the organization found encouraging democratic gains in Georgia and Ukraine. Turkmenistan rated among the most repressive countries.
Putin said the political reforms would help ensure the country's security The year 2004 will long be associated with two major events in Russia -- the Beslan hostage tragedy and the launch of sweeping reforms aimed at consolidating power in the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced the reforms just days after the bloody end of the siege in Beslan, vowing that a stronger state would protect Russians from the scourge of terrorism. But are Beslan and Putin's reforms really related? And how will the events of 2004 shape the year ahead? RFE/RL reports that terrorism has helped set the stage for what some critics say will be a crushing blow for democracy in Russia.
The Russian Army will soon conduct its first-ever joint military excercises with China (file photo) The government in Beijing says China and Russia will hold their first-ever joint military exercises in 2005. Moscow has long been the major arms supplier to its massive eastern neighbor. The announcement could signal that the former Cold War rivals are now seeking closer ties in order to act as a counterbalance to U.S. dominance. But one military analyst says the exercises will be more show than substance.
Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai today became the first African woman ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In an elaborate ceremony in the Norwegian capital Oslo, Maathai received a gold medal and a $1.5 million award for her efforts to restore African forestland and to protect the rights of women and children. In her acceptance speech, she urged the international community to approve reforms to overcome challenges like global warming and the spread of AIDS. Maathai did not address the controversy surrounding her reported views that the disease was the possible result of a failed laboratory experiment -- or that it was devised by Western scientists as a way to kill Africans.
The global anticorruption watchdog Transparency International has released the results of a public survey looking at which institutions private citizens find the most corrupt. In more than half the countries surveyed, the general public rated politics as the institution most affected by corruption. The Transparency survey, released today to correspond with the first United Nations International Anticorruption Day, ends with a plea for the global community to adopt a policy of zero tolerance toward political corruption.
Women continue to suffer profound discrimination in Afghanistan A new report by the human rights watchdog Amnesty International says that women and girls bear the brunt of violence in armed conflicts throughout the world. The report documents accounts of rape, torture, and mutilation of women in places ranging from Africa and South America to Iraq, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. It cites the failure of governments to address the crisis and calls for global action to challenge the violence.
As many as 1 million people in Russia may be infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. And meager health funding and government indifference mean the problem is likely to grow. The number of people in Russia dying from AIDS is still relatively low. But the figures are likely to skyrocket within the next few years. As the globe marks World AIDS Day today, RFE/RL spoke to one health expert, who said that not enough is being done to prevent a full-blown epidemic in Russia.
For the past decade, Russia has been a leading source of adoptive children for families in the West. Thousands of Russian children are adopted each year. Other former Soviet countries -- notably Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Belarus -- are seeing the number of international adoptions grow, as well. New parents in the West say there are special challenges to raising children whose birth country may be thousands of miles away. But in the end, they say, a family is a family -- and every child benefits from loving parents, no matter how far it takes them from their native land. In the second of a two-part series, RFE/RL looks at the challenges of international adoption -- for parents and children alike. (Click here --> /featuresarticle/2004/11/6e3dc79c-070d-43f9-9fc7-6af6fec02a52.html for Part 1 of this series, which looks at the challenges of foreign adoption for children and parents.)
Throughout the world, the number of parentless children is growing. In Russia alone, there are estimated to be at least 700,000 orphans under the age of 16 who are eligible for adoption. International adoption agencies have made a business out of connecting thousands of these children with new parents in the West. But some critics say these children can be subject to abuse and isolation as they travel thousands of miles away from their birth countries. In some cases, countries have cracked down on international adoptions. Many are working to make domestic adoption a more viable option. In the first of a two-part series on foreign adoptions, RFE/RL looks at the argument for keeping parentless children in the countries where they were born. (Click here --> /featuresarticle/2004/11/296e7eb5-9781-42a3-80f8-6c398e9f6799.html for Part 2 of this series, which looks at the challenges of foreign adoption for children and parents.)
It has been an uneasy week in the Netherlands. First, the brutal killing of outspoken Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, followed by the arrest for his murder of a Dutch-Moroccan man with suspected ties to Islamic extremists. Then, a string of revenge attacks on Islamic schools and cultural centers -- the most recent taking place just hours after van Gogh's funeral yesterday. Amid the chaos, officials have called for a return to the Dutch tradition of tolerance. But the Muslim community is growing rapidly in Holland, and many are questioning whether liberal immigration laws and religious acceptance have changed the character of the country forever.
For the second time in four years, the U.S. presidential election was marred by allegations of dirty tricks, long lines, and a bias against black and minority voters. To be sure, the controversy of this year's vote appeared milder than the chaos of 2000, when George W. Bush was named president after an emotional 36-day legal battle leading all the way to the Supreme Court. Is the U.S. electoral system looking increasingly flawed to the rest of the world?
Kosovo is preparing for general elections on 23 October that could have a major impact on the final status of the province. The parliament that is elected this week will be in power when the United Nations begins negotiations sometime in 2005 on whether to grant independence to the Albanian-majority protectorate or keep it nominally as part of Serbia. Western officials are urging voters to head to the polls in high numbers. But Kosovo's minority Serbs are threatening to boycott the vote, saying they want better security guarantees and political representation.
Load more
