China used the Beijing Olympics as a showcase for its new found economic clout and ascendancy as a leading member of the international community. Although the resounding success of the Games has bolstered China's authoritarian regime and shielded it from the scrutiny it deserves on human rights issues, China deserves praise for embracing the world.
The State Department's Middle East Partnership Initiative represents a critical element in the Bush administration's policy of attempting to transform the Arab world into a zone of liberal democracies and free market economies.
On March 1, the Quartet (the United States, United Nations, European Union, and Russia) and other donors will meet in London to discuss ways to support the new Palestinian leadership in carrying out political, economic, and security reform, as well as preparing for Israeli disengagement from Gaza.
The prominent role of the internet in propagating and perpetuating violent Islamist ideology is well known. As such, identifying methods to short-circuit internet radicalization has become an urgent goal for numerous governments. Saudi Arabia has quietly supported initiatives to combat internet radicalization. One of the most developed programs is the Sakinah Campaign.
Russia's invasion of Georgia raises doubts about the common assumption that, in the post-Cold War world, geopolitical conflict will eventually be replaced by economic interdependence and cooperation. As countries like Russia and China begin to strengthen, however, this trend does not necessarily mean that America must relinquish its superpower status.
With President Bush's May 2003 announcement that the United States will work to create a US-Middle East free trade zone by 2013, the White House has given free trade a leading role in its strategy for the economic and political transformation of the Arab world. As President Bush declared, "Free markets will defeat poverty and promote the habits of liberty."
Ten years after the 1995 signature of the Barcelona Declaration (which established a European-Mediterranean partnership for peace, stability, prosperity, human development, and cultural exchange), Mediterranean issues are at the heart of the international agenda. Despite the continued relevance of the Barcelona process, its effectiveness has been rather harshly assessed.
Are economic and political reforms an effective way to combat corruption, or do changes such as privatizing state industries actually increase opportunities for corruption? There is not a single answer to the question, but a closer look at the types of corruption
Labor markets are rarely considered in discussions of political reform in the Middle East. Yet the unprecedented labor crisis confronting the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region underscores the urgent need for both a new social contract—the basic laws and understandings that define the relationship between the state and labor—and for political reform.
The January 2005 peace agreement has improved Sudan's standing in the international community, as demonstrated by $6 billion in economic support raised at a donors' conference in Oslo in April 2005. Inside Sudan, however, the agreement has revealed new sources of instability.























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