E-Notes

It is no secret that signs of social, political, and economic progress in Africa have been rare indeed. What is less often discussed is the responsibility borne by African leaders for the misery of their own people. But powerful...

U.S. policymakers seem to have given up on Japan. Who can take a country seriously when its June 25 elections featured almost no debate on how to revitalize a stagnant economy? When the electorate returned to power one of...

The debate over whether Hafez al-Assad of Syria would ever make peace with Israel has now been settled: not in his lifetime. Assad’s death at the age of 69 on June 10, 2000, removes from the scene a stubborn...

On September 5, 1978, then President Jimmy Carter convened a summit conference at the Camp David retreat to save a faltering peace negotiation between Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Twelve days later they produced...

When the United States Supreme Court unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law that restricted the state’s government agencies’ purchases from companies doing business in Burma, the Court’s decision was, as a matter of constitutional law, fairly unremarkable and, in...

The unexpectedly upbeat tenor of the Korean summit meeting is prompting analysts to consider the possibility of unexpected strategic challenges for the United States in East Asia. Although it seems unlikely that either a comfortable peace settlement or swift...

In a tender love song from the late 1970’s, Bob Dylan asked, “Can you cook and sew and make flowers grow, do you understand my pain?” To the ensuing barrage of feminist criticism, the somewhat shaken but unrepentant song...

“Pay attention!” That was the message I heard on a recent visit to Hong Kong. In one form or another, it was the message from government officials, business community boosters, as well as political leaders critical of the current...

In the early 1990s, St. Petersburg’s First Deputy Mayor Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was a powerful figure in Mayor Sobchak’s liberal administration, often regarded as acting mayor. Without his help my American-owned company would probably have disbanded. Because of his...

The capture of Abdullah Ocalan by Turkish commandos last February ignited a national celebration in Turkey.  After all, Ocalan, the supremo of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was held responsible for the deaths of some 30,000 people, half...