By William Pfaff
Since the return of democracy in Spain, Spain’s political leaders and political society have demonstrated an extraordinary determination to start anew, after the crisis-afflicted 75 years that began with what the Spaniards have called “the catastrophe” – the collapse of the Spanish empire under blows from an exuberant and adolescent United States that [...]

by Chandra Muzaffar
As the protests fizzle out in the wake of the military junta’s violent crackdown, many are wondering whether there is any hope for change in Myanmar. Are the people of Myanmar condemned to eternal suffering? Is their ordeal and anguish some sort of bad karma from which there is no escape?
There is no [...]

By Chandra Muzaffar
Of the various proposals made so far on how one could coax the military junta in Myanmar to heed the voice of the people, the most feasible is perhaps the one that seeks to convene a conference of heads of Asian governments to be held under the auspices of the United Nations. The [...]

By Thom Shanker
The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study to be released Monday. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers.
The global arms market is highly competitive, with manufacturing nations seeking both to increase [...]

By Jonathan Freedland 
One of the few foreign policy achievements of the Bush administration has been the creation of a near consensus among those who study international affairs, a shared view that stretches, however improbably, from Noam Chomsky to Brent Scowcroft, from the antiwar protesters on the streets of San Francisco to the well-upholstered office of [...]

By Sean Parnell and Mark Dodd.
A GLEAMING, high-walled building in the middle of a muddy marketplace will be the focal point for tens of thousands of US and Australian troops as they improve their preparedness for war.
To a growing number of protest groups, the newly constructed building - part of the Urban Operations Training Facility [...]

by Dilip Hiro
For countries — small, middling, or great — acquiring nuclear weapons is all about the most basic requirement: the survival of the regime or nation. Joining the “nuclear club” has proved an effective strategy for survival. The possession of city-busting, potentially planet-ending weaponry threatens to bring about a MAD — the Cold War [...]