The World
The Post-Nuke Political Fallout
With U.N. Security Council sanctions in hand-along with evidence of telltale radioactive debris from North Korea's first nuclear test blast-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week flew off on a whirlwind trip to press Japan, South Korea, China, and Russia for tough enforcement of the ban on movements of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons materials, as well as on missiles, other large weapons systems, and luxury goods. Rice also sought to reassure Japan and South Korea-in an indirect warning to Pyongyang-that the two treaty allies can count on the "full range" of American protection under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
Seoul appears determined to preserve its joint economic projects with North Korea, key to its engagement strategy. China's potential pressuring role is even more central. But it is refusing to interdict North Korean ships on the high seas, a favored U.S. tactic. Still, China is inspecting North Korean trucks at the border and refusing to handle some financial transfers for the North. China also dispatched an envoy to meet with the secretive North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, who reportedly expressed regret about the first nuclear test and said he had no plans for more. Point made?
Mullah Omar, Where Are You?
The finger-pointing by the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan is showing little letup despite mediation efforts by President Bush. Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the Associated Press last week that the top Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammed Omar, is hiding over the border in the city of Quetta. Is not, countered a Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman. "The entire world knows that he [Omar] is in Afghanistan." While Karzai and Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, continue their blame game, NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says additional NATO troops are needed to supplement the current 31,000 alliance troops in Afghanistan.
Some Not-So-Thinly Veiled Tensions
A contentious debate has erupted in Britain over the niqab, the full-face veil worn by some Muslim women, that simultaneously punches a number of political hot buttons: multiculturalism, religious freedom, and women's rights. Last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair weighed in, calling veils "a mark of separation" that makes people "outside the community feel uncomfortable." Blair backed the suspension of a grade school teaching assistant who refused to unveil. (Students said the veil, which leaves only an eye slit, made her hard to understand.)
The controversy over veils began earlier this month when House of Commons Leader (and former Foreign Secretary) Jack Straw said he wished Muslim women wouldn't wear them because they made community relations difficult. Some Muslims call the remarks insulting to a religious obligation; others, however, say they've sparked a useful debate. Feminists tend to back Straw, saying veils are anathema to equal rights. Editorialists generally support Straw, too, though the left-leaning Guardian newspaper worried his remarks might give cover to racists. On the right, the Daily Telegraph hoped the debate signaled the end to the policy of multiculturalism, which as practiced "is antithetical to integration." However, Anne Phillips, a professor at the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics, warns: "More and more young women will start doing it now, because they're really cross about what they see as government intervention in their religion." Ironically, Straw's efforts to remove a cultural divide may instead instigate an even more divisive in-your-face backlash.
Nicaraguan Bad Boy Ortega Is Back
Look who's making a political comeback. Daniel Ortega, who was President Reagan's foe as leader of Nicaragua's Sandinistas in the 1980s, is leading the field in the November 5 presidential race. Now 61, balding, and, by his account, more moderate, Ortega claims he would maintain good relations with Washington and even cooperate with the once despised International Monetary Fund.
Ortega led the 1979 revolution that toppled dictator Anastasio Somoza and headed the subsequent leftist government that Reagan viewed as a communist threat. About 50,000 Nicaraguans died in the war between the Sandinistas and the U.S.-backed contras before it ended with elections in 1990, in which Ortega lost to a U.S.-backed presidential candidate. He has since lost in two other elections but now holds a lead in the field of five candidates. Polls put Ortega close to the threshold-35 percent of the vote and a 5-point lead over his nearest rival-required to avoid a runoff.
In a twist on history, Ortega's running mate is former contras spokesman Jaime Morales, while two of his rivals are former comrades, including Eden Pastora, a legendary Sandinista fighter once known as Comandante Zero.
With Thomas Omestad and Thomas K. Grose in Britain
This story appears in the October 30, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.