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Pakistan: women's quest for entitlement

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Open Democracy - By Pippa Virdee - Aug. 04 (News Analysis) - The emancipation of women is often linked to the progress of a society in transformation from a feudal society to a modern state. The story of women in the country that became Pakistan can indeed be told in such terms: as part of a struggle for advancement with education at its centre, and linked at critical moments to wider goals of national emancipation and social reform.

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Russian Cyberspace - reflecting, not changing reality

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Open Democracy - By Floriana Fossato - Mar. 10 (News Analysis) - Russia's internet is increasingly being used by the state to consolidate its power, says Floriana Fossato. Do Russian users want to use this tool to mobilise activism? Or is this just Western wishfulness?

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Obama’s six problems | open Democracy News Analysis

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Open Democracy - By Fred Halliday - Jan. 22 (Opinion) - Among the advice Obama has received on the middle east is that the US should treat it as interconnected, while avoiding the mirage of a single or "comprehensive" solution to what is in reality a mosaic of interlocking crises and interests. In that spirit, and before "events" (unexpected or not) have had a chance to spoil the luxury of a fresh canvas, here are six states in the broad region of "greater west Asia" that the new president must keep in mind.

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Can Russia use nuclear weapons? International Security after the Crisis in Caucasus.

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Open Democracy - By Alexei Arbatov - Oct. 16 (Opinion) - Alexei Arbatov considers the possibility of a military conflict in which Russia, defeated with conventional weapons, would strike back with nuclear weapons with unpredictable consequences. In his response to the former British ambassador in Moscow Sir Roderic Lyne, Alexei Arbatov also suggests how this fatal course of events might be avoided.

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Kosovo to Kashmir: the self-determination dilemma

Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Open Democracy - By Sumantra Bose - May. 22 (Opinion) - the caution and circumspection that define the stance of the United States and major European Union countries towards the Kashmir dispute are typical of the attitude of the "international community" and its dominant players towards claims to self-determination. The record of the international order since 1945 is that self-determination movements tend to receive a sceptical hearing at best, and no hearing at all in many cases. The vague and somewhat outdated principles of international law relevant to the issue of secession are broadly supportive of the territorial integrity of states, and recognise the legitimacy of self-determination only in situations of colonialism. Between 1945 and 1990 the only fully realised case of national self-determination outside the decolonisation framework was Bangladesh in the early 1970s, facilitated by an Indian military intervention that resulted in the total defeat of Pakistani forces in the former East Pakistan. During those decades, dozens of other self-determination movements struggled in vain.

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One, two or many Chinas?

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Open Democracy - Feb. 17 (Special Report) - China is continually part of the global news agenda, a tendency that is certain to accelerate in 2008 as its supercharged economy develops and as Beijing hosts the Olympic games on 8-24 August. In such times, it is important if not always easy to avoid the tendency to oversimplify contemporary China. But how can outside observers escape this trap?

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The Iraq project

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Open Democracy - By Paul Rogers - Feb. 11 (News Analysis) - the overall strategic environment in Iraq suggests that a massive and sustained US military presence will be required in any circumstances. This is the view of independent observers such as retired US general Barry McCaffrey, whose firsthand experience of the country helps underpin a deserved reputation for accuracy in his assessment of the progress of the Iraq war. In his view "an active counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq could probably succeed in the coming decade with 25 US Combat Brigade Teams" (this would represent more than half the army's available combat troops). Such a commitment, which would require large numbers of soldiers in supporting roles, would imply a long-term occupation of Iraq by over 150,000 US soldiers

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Poland after PiS: handle with care - openDemocracy

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:09:07 -0700

Open Democracy - By Neal Ascherson - Oct. 26 (News Analysis) - those who voted for Tusk did so because they could no longer stand the PiS regime, not because they loved the neo-liberal policies of the Platform. And those who voted for PiS...remain a formidable, highly identifiable social block ....Old-fashioned nationalism, meaning a jealously independent Poland which guards its frontiers, which protects all its children against misfortune and foreign interference, seems to them the obvious champion against "cosmopolitan" economic liberalism. True, the Kaczynski government...squalled and cursed until it made itself ridiculous...and its fall is a brilliant day for democracy. But not all its enemies were ghosts.

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Science finds god

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:37:37 -0700

Open Democracy - By Yves Gingras - Aug. 20 (News Analysis) - Scientists who indulge mystical and religious fantasies in the interest of popularisation are betraying their professional calling, says Yves Gingras.

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Washington's double vision

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:09:44 -0700

Open Democracy - By Paul Rogers - Aug. 16 (News Analysis) - There's no escaping Iraq. Two incidents in recent days bear heavily on the unending conflict in that country. More broadly, they reveal how the United States administration's definition of its "war on terror" (or "long war") reflects entrapment in a way of thinking that requires it constantly to press the real world into the service of a partisan, dangerous, and self-defeating ideology.

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Colin Powell's responsability

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 06:54:56 -0700

Open Democracy - By Sidney Blumenthal - Aug. 15 (News Analysis) - He played a key role in the Iraq war. Will he now speak out against neocon manipulation?

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Lebanon and Israel: back seat, front line

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:59:59 -0700

Open Democracy - By Bissane El-Cheikh - Aug. 01 (Opinion) - Two worlds collide in a London taxi. Bissane El-Cheikh was one.

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The world women make: beyond development lite

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 04:56:06 -0700

Open Democracy - By Andrea Cornwall - Jul. 28 (Opinion) - Women's real, diverse journeys make a progressive-sounding orthodoxy look stale

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Scotland's nationalist-Muslim embrace

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 04:38:11 -0700

Open Democracy - By Tom Gallagher - Jul. 26 (Opinion) - cotland's establishment has responded to an abortive terrorist operation by reaffirming support for the country's Muslim minority. The silences as well as the words are politically significant, says Tom Gallagher.

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Lady Bird Johnson: a political journey

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 02:41:29 -0700

Open Democracy - By Sydney Blumenthal - Jul. 17 (Opinion) - The wife of Lyndon B Johnson made her own contribution to her husband's pioneering civil-rights agenda, says Sidney Blumenthal.

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A not so quiet American

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:32:34 -0700

Open Democracy - By Patrice de Beer - Jul. 16 (Opinion) - John Gunther Dean is a former United States ambassador with a lifetime's diplomatic experience whose trenchant views on American foreign policy, Israel and Lebanon won him enmity in high places. Patrice de Beer talks to him.

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What is terrorism?

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:50:31 -0700

Open Democracy - By Charles Townshend - Jul. 04 (News Analysis) - The absence of a shared international definition of one of the most toxic words in the political lexicon handicaps efforts to understand the reality behind the term, says Charles Townshend.

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London, Glasgow... and Helmand

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:39:59 -0700

Open Democracy - By Paul Rogers - Jul. 03 (News Report) - The response to the abortive attacks on Britain indicates that space is opening for fresh debate about the "war on terror".

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Against impunity: justice after torture

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 03:07:13 -0700

Open Democracy - By Carla Ferstman - Jun. 29 (News Analysis) - The case of four British citizens incarcerated in Saudi Arabia highlights the importance of opening a legal route to redress for torture survivors, says Carla Ferstman.

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Palestinians under siege in the West Bank

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:23:42 -0700

Open Democracy - By Rosemary Bechler - Jun. 06 (News Report) - For the fortieth anniversary of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories as a result of the six-day war of June 1967, the international secretariat of Amnesty International has compiled a hauntingly illustrated and scrupulously documented audit of the human-rights violations arising from the hundreds of checkpoints, closures and blockades, the 700-kilometre wall and the burgeoning settlements or "Israeli colonies" that now pervade the West Bank.

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Haleh Esfandiari: Iran's cultural prison Rasool Nafisi

Thu, 17 May 2007 10:19:26 -0700

Open Democracy - By Rasool Nafisi - May. 17 (Opinion) - The detention of Haleh Esfandiari, a senior Iranian scholar based in the United States who had returned to Iran to visit her elderly mother and to touch the roots of her beloved country, has refocused the attention of political analysts on the Islamic Republic of Iran's motives. In seeking an explanation for the new wave of arrests - of which Esfandiari's is only one - some western observers have repeated the threadbare argument that American policy toward Iran is itself the culprit. This line of thinking identifies the $75 million programme request from the US state department to promote democracy in Iran, unveiled in February 2006, as the trigger for Tehran's crackdown on various groups of activists and intellectuals. The problem with such an analysis is twofold: first, it focuses principally on Washington (without being necessarily convincing even about that) rather than on Tehran's own agency; second, it assumes that the Iranian government needs threats of regime change from the Bush administration to perpetrate such violations.

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