A Whole Lot of Talk but Not Much Action Negotiating with North Korea is never easy. Yet last week's talks in Beijing over ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs will still be unfondly remembered as an exercise in exquisite frustration--with peppery rancor added for good measure. The discussions ended with almost nothing that could be called progress, save for some ideas by South Korea for turning a vague, if hopeful, September agreement on denuclearization principles into a plan of action.
North Korea demanded light-water nuclear reactors before it rejoins the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; the United States and the other countries in the six-party talks replied that that wasn't the deal. Pyongyang asked for rewards in return for a freeze of its nuclear activities; the Bush administration, averse to a reversible suspension like that agreed to in the Clinton years, refused. The North demanded that Washington lift sanctions on North Korean firms accused of trading in weapons overseas and stop accusing it of counterfeiting greenbacks (such as the $100 "supernotes"). But the senior American at the talks, Christopher Hill, dismissed those complaints as law-enforcement matters not up for discussion.
The Americans, meanwhile, urged the North--even before a deal is finished--to shut down its Yongbyon reactor, thought to be cooking up more plutonium destined for bombs; no way, replied Pyongyang, whose diplomats also denounced President Bush's recent jab at their leader, Kim Jong Il, as a "tyrant." So it was no surprise that negotiators vowed to reconvene another day--but couldn't agree when.
Israeli Politics Are Stirred and Shaken The label "revolutionary" is often applied to Israeli national union leader Amir Peretz, and last week he lived up to it fully--at the ballot box. By upsetting the incumbent, the iconic Shimon Peres, in Israel 's Labor Party's election for chairman, Peretz, 53, known for his working-class rhetoric and modified Zapata mustache, has turned Israeli politics upside down. The Moroccan-born firebrand, a bona fide dove, is standing by his pledge to take Labor out of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government, thus virtually ensuring early elections, possibly in March. But by then, the race might not be between Labor and the ruling Likud party as usual, but rather Labor, Likud, and a new party led by--that's right--Sharon, whose No. 2 could be--right again--Peres. Peretz's victory only added to troubles for Sharon, 77, whose authority was undermined by right-wing Likud "rebels" aiming to oust him for uprooting Jewish settlements.
Labor's upheaval means decision time, too, for Peres, 82, who is now reduced to figurehead status in his party. A joint effort by the aged duo to create a centrist party is called the "Big Bang," and the odds of it going off just increased. For Labor, which got battered by the Palestinian intifada, Peretz is a burst of energy.
Can Liberia Escape Its Long Nightmare? For a time, Washington seemed to care about its distant relation Liberia, the West African nation founded in the mid-1800s by freed American slaves with help from U.S. religious groups. A century later, U.S. companies controlled Liberia's valuable resources: rubber, iron ore, and hardwood timber. And during the Cold War, it hosted a key CIA electronic listening post as well as a relay station for Voice of America. Then, starting in the 1980s, Liberia fell into a period of murderous dictatorships, rapacious corruption, and civil wars that claimed more than 200,000 lives and devastated the nation.
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