May 2009

Second nuclear test: North Korea does what it says By Scott Snyder, Global Security, May 25, 2009 North Korea did exactly what it said it would do on May 25, 2009, when it conducted a nuclear test as promised in its April 28, 2009, statement in response to UN sanctions imposed on three North Korean [...]

Iran nuclear danger downplayed in reports By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2009 A pair of reports released Tuesday by prominent think tanks downplay the potential dangers presented by Iran, concluding that Tehran is at least six years away from building a deliverable nuclear weapon and that its ability to wreak havoc in [...]

And he shall be judged By Robert Draper, GQ, June, 2009 On the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful [...]

Obama and the Middle East By Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, New York Review of Books, May 14, 2009 The time will come for the US to unfurl a grand diplomatic initiative. Not now. The most urgent task is to prepare the way for that day by countering the skepticism that has greeted and torpedoed [...]

Obama reverses position on release of photos of detainee abuse By Michael D. Shear and Scott Wilson, Washington Post, May 13, 2009 A month after making public once-classified Justice Department memos detailing the Bush administration’s coercive methods of interrogation, President Obama yesterday chose secrecy over disclosure, saying he would seek to block the court-ordered release [...]

Gaza laid bare By Jason Larkin and Jack Shenker, Guernica, May, 2009 Israel’s air assault on Gaza began with attacks on the Strip’s main police stations, including one in Rafah’s densely populated Junaina neighborhood which left twenty-five officers dead. Over the course of the war, approximately two hundred and fifty civilian policemen would be killed [...]

A million displaced in Pakistan’s war with Taliban By Isambard Wilkinson, Daily Telegraph, May 8, 2009 Pakistan’s offensive against the Taliban has forced a million people to flee their homes, the United Nations said. Air strikes rocked Mingora, the main town in the Swat Valley, on Friday as the armed forces pressed ahead with the [...]