The World
For Blair, a Jimmy Carter Moment
It began as a rather low-key hostage crisis, but by week's end, the standoff between Britain and Iran over the fate of 15 captured Royal Navy sailors had escalated into a tense deadlock. British Prime Minister Tony Blair was pledging to "ratchet up" pressure on Iran, while Tehran scolded Britain for its "incorrect attitude" and put the captives on TV. Iran claims the sailors had entered its territorial waters; Britain's satellite data show the boat was nearly 2 nautical miles from Iranian jurisdiction.
Iran broadcast video of several sailors, focusing on crew leader Faye Turney, who seemed under duress. Wearing a head scarf and smoking a cigarette, she stated that the crew had entered Iranian waters. She repeated that in a letter to her parents that Iran released. In a second letter, Turney urged Britain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. On Friday, Iran issued a video apology from a second crew member. London angrily accused Tehran of using the sailors for propaganda. An "outrage," the tabloid Daily Mirror screamed.
Still, Britain seems intent on solving the dispute diplomatically. "A military option is off the table and deeply impractical," says Middle East expert Robert Lowe. Moreover, while events in Iran have angered Britons, there's little appetite to risk conflict given that the Iraq war is hugely unpopular in Britain. As for the also unpopular Blair, he'll most likely face criticism even if diplomatic efforts succeed. Notes Andrew Cooper, director of polling firm Populus: "Blair can't buy a break. People now view anything he does in an unpopular light."
Sharing Power in Northern Ireland
Nine years ago, Protestant and Catholic parties in Northern Ireland inked the Good Friday agreement, intended to bring peace, prosperity, and limited self-government to the province where sectarian warfare had killed more than 3,600. The peace has held, and that has ushered in better economic times. Efforts to form an ecumenical government have kept collapsing, though, mainly over Protestant doubts that the terrorist Irish Republican Army had ditched its weapons and criminal ways.
But last week, the province's two most extreme parties, Sinn Fein (the IRA's political arm) and the Democratic Unionist Party, cinched a power-sharing deal that will unlock the Northern Ireland Assembly's doors May 8. Ian Paisley, the fiery preacher and DUP leader, had long vowed never to form a government with Sinn Fein. He's now set to be first minister.
What changed? The IRA convinced officials it has disarmed, and Sinn Fein agreed to support the police force. Paisley's DUP simply ran out of reasons to say no. Will the deal last? Queen's University political scientist Adrian Guelke thinks it will, despite continuing enmity and distrust. "This is a cold peace."
The Nonvoters Have Their Say, Too
Voters in Egypt, predictably, gave President Hosni Mubarak an overwhelming (76 percent) "yes" vote for a set of constitutional amendments—though critics denounced the measures increasing the president's power as a setback for democracy. Still, it was hardly a vote of confidence in Mubarak. Only 27 percent of the 36 million registered voters showed up—many apparently heeded opposition calls for a boycott—versus a 54 percent turnout for a 2005 referendum.
Plutonium Won't Fill Empty Stomachs
The United Nations World Food Program says that North Korea is facing its worst food crisis since a deadly famine a decade ago. Millions of people are going hungry following a poor harvest, restrictions on aid workers, and a big drop in foreign food aid that coincided with the North's belligerent missile and nuclear tests. The WFP, which fed as many as 6.5 million people in past years, currently is reaching only about 700,000, raising fears about further chronic child malnutrition.
Having now promised to give up its nuclear weapons programs, Pyongyang is admitting that it needs more foreign food help. Getting that aid may depend in part on the North's imminent actions. South Korea, which cut aid after Pyongyang's July missile tests, resumed shipping fertilizer for the North's spring planting season, but it is delaying major rice shipments a few more weeks awaiting the North's moves on shutting down its main nuclear reactor.
The Multibillion-Dollar Human Trade
To get an inkling of the problem, just Google the words human trafficking. On any given day, there are a few news stories from around the world about this modern form of slavery in which criminals sell poor women and girls into prostitution and poor boys and men off to toil in fields and dangerous factories. These reports barely scratch the surface: Experts say that at any given time, some 2.5 million people are being trafficked and enslaved.
Last week, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the United Nations launched a "global initiative" to raise public awareness of the problem—including among potential victims—and to press governments to do more to stop traffickers. A major international conference is planned for November in Vienna.
A recent report identifies Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine among the countries that are the greatest sources of trafficked persons. The most common destinations: Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey, and the United States.
With Thomas K. Grose in Britain and Associated Press
This story appears in the April 9, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.