CORRUPTION
Michael Bronner
August 16, 2008
"When the War Ends, Start to Worry"
Op-Ed, New York Times
"EVEN as Russia and Georgia continue their on-again, off-again struggle over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a frenzied tea-leaf reading about the war's global political ramifications has broken out across airwaves and think-tank forums. But as the situation on the ground recedes inevitably to some new form of the pernicious "frozen conflict" that has plagued the region since Georgia's civil wars of the early 1990s, few are paying attention to a less portentous but equally critical international threat: an increase in the longstanding, rampant criminality in the conflict zones that is likely to further destabilize the entire Caucasus region and at worst provide terrorist groups with the nuclear material they have long craved."
www.new-pakistan.com
July 25, 2008
Pakistan needs strong judiciary for stability
News
By Beth Maclin, Communications Assistant
Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar President Aitzaz Ahsan discussed what is needed to fix the country’s dire judicial situation at a seminar hosted by the Project on Managing the Atom and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
AP Photo
July 11, 2008
"Follow the Leader: We Must Go Beyond the 'Big Man' Approach"
Op-Ed, Globe and Mail
By Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations
"History is often written in terms of military heroes, but the enormous potential of human leadership ranges from Attila the Hun to Mother Teresa. Most everyday leaders remain unheralded. The role of heroic leadership in war leads to overemphasis of command and control and hard military power. In America today, the presidential debate is between Senator John McCain, a war hero, and Senator Barack Obama, a former community organizer.
The image of the warrior leader lingers in modern times. Writer Robert Kaplan points to the birth of a new "warrior class as cruel as ever and better armed," ranging from Russian Mafiosi and Latin American drug kingpins to terrorists who glorify violence just as ancient Greeks did in the sacking of Troy....Indeed, an oversimplified image of warrior-style leadership in President George W. Bush's first term caused costly setbacks for America's role in the world...."
June 2008
100 Grams (and Counting...): Notes from the Nuclear Underworld
Report
This report on the 2006 seizure of weapon-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) in Georgia, by journalist Michael Bronner, provides new insights on both nuclear smugglers and those trying to stop them.
AP Photo
March 4, 2008
"Police Reforms: Agenda of Change"
Op-Ed, The International News, (Pakistan)
By Hassan Abbas, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program/Project on India and the Subcontinent
"...Besides leading to bad governance and a deplorable law and order situation in the country, police failures also have compounded the threat of religious extremism and terrorism. Poor data collection on crime and criminals and inadequate analytical capabilities hamper effective law enforcement. In many instances, banned militant organisations continued with their publications and in some cases wanted criminals, and terrorists changed their party affiliations (hurriedly joining groups that were not under government scrutiny after theirs were banned) and the police remained clueless. Here the police was also handicapped as many militant groups were producing "freedom fighters" for Kashmir and Afghanistan and had working relations with the intelligences services, and hence police officials were reluctant to go after some of these elements thinking that they might be the assets of some "other state institution." Things are reported to be progressively changing in this sphere lately, but the serious challenge remains...."
Mudsi
December 29, 2007
"Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? We All Did"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Globe and Mail
By Rami Khouri, Dubai Initiative Senior Fellow, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and Editor-at-Large of the Daily Star
"The tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto has engulfed Pakistan in grief and turmoil. But her death symbolizes the wider calamity that envelops us all - throughout the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the United States. The real significance of this killing - and the others sure to follow - is not their surprise, but rather how common, almost inevitable, this sort of event has become in our part of the world. If we wish to end this horror show engulfing more Arab-Asian regions, and increasingly sucking in American and other Western armies, we should get serious about what it means and why it happens."
AP Photo
December 20, 2007
"Our MPs Should Keep off CDF"
Op-Ed, Business Daily, (Nairobi)
By Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project
"Kenyans go to the polls to elect leaders that they hope will help them improve their welfare. They have one powerful instrument against which to judge their performance: the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
Much attention has been devoted to CDF misuse. But a more serious issue is the conflict of interest among parliamentarians. There should be separation between legislative roles and executive functions as foreshadowed in the Constitution....Parliament is the right place to adopt laws that govern the use of funds. But MPs are unlikely to encourage legal provisions that demand higher accountability standards."
Associated Press
April 25, 2007
"A Nation in Decay"
Op-Ed, Globe and Mail
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
Nelson Mandela emerged from prison in 1990 to demonstrate the power for good and the best practices of democratic African leadership. His affirmation of inclusionary and participatory values, moreover, matched those that had been affirmed for decades in neighbouring Botswana under presidents Seretse Khama and Ketumile Masire.
vaXzine
January 14, 2007
Exiting via Iran
Op-Ed, The Boston Globe
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
For the United States, the road out of Iraq runs through Tehran. The only way to promote sustainable peace, stability, and order in Iraq is to forge an unholy alliance with Iran -- and accept Iran's dominant influence in the Middle East. Only by accepting Iranian hegemonic pretensions, odious as they are, can the United States extricate itself somewhat honorably from Iraq.
Winter 2007
On Improving Nation-State Governance
Journal Article, Daedalus
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
Good governance is essential if citizens of nation-states or subordinate political jurisdictions seek to maximize their inalienable rights assubjects, taxpayers, or mere residents of the polities to which they owe or are compelled to pay allegiance.
