The World Today

What happened to the spirit of Yitzhak Rabin who gave his life for peace? The Israelis must now muster all their human resources and resolve to capture that spirit again.

Here, two long-serving members of counter-organised crime and anti-corruption communities focus on the connection between the two in the context of national defence and security structures and post-conflict environments, and stress the need to tackle the two threats jointly.

As Pakistan grapples with its ongoing political and socio-economic battles, the recent spate of political assassinations and friction with the United States (US) over the arrest and subsequent release of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent have further exposed the inordinate challenges for the fragile civilian government.

The political tide that has turned against dictatorial leaderships in Tunisia and Egypt, and is swiftly spreading across North Africa and the Middle East, has led to intense speculation on whether China may be next.

In early March, United States (US )Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made unusually direct comments to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about America’s position in the Pacific. “Let’s just talk straight realpolitik. We are in competition with China,” she said. All over the Pacific, China is trying to “come in behind us and come in under us.” And it is working. China’s influence in the island nations of the Pacific is growing dramatically, and the repercussions are global.

The fertile banks of Ethiopia’s Omo river have become the battleground of a struggle between two opposing camps: those who champion the construction of the Gibe III dam on the Omo, focusing on the potential for hydropower to boost Ethiopia’s economic development, and those who feel that the price paid by the Omo’s traditional agro-pastoralist communities would be too devastating to ignore.