Arcadia Foundation

“Be wary of China, for when she wakes, she will shake the world”. – Napoleon Bonaparte

The United States have long exerted themselves moral leaders in the geopolitical community. Their bilateral relations with China however, especially given the new economic playing field in the wake of the international economic recession, has left U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration on the ropes in the field of human rights.

Indeed, of late human rights have fallen to the background of his administration’s priority list, most recently noted in its absence from being raised during the Asian tour, in part due to the growing economic strength emanating from China.

Incredibly, while Chinese President Hu Jintao smiled broadly and shook the hand of Mr. Obama, the Chinese government was covertly preparing to hold trial proceedings for Zhou Yongjun. Read Full Paper

A student leader of China’s 1989 pro-democracy movement who has long lived in the United States went on trial in China on Thursday, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama finished a visit that raised human rights.

Zhou Yongjun faced fraud charges at the trial in Shehong County in southwest Sichuan province, his long-time girlfriend and a friend at the courthouse told Reuters.

Zhou was a leader of the Beijing Students’ Autonomous Union in the 1989 protests that ended in a bloody army-led crackdown in the streets around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. He later obtained a green card from the United States, giving him residential rights, but not full citizenship.

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In a slightly more presidential manner, especially for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, while speaking at the UN World Food Summit on food security in Rome, Mr. Mugabe highlighted climate change as one of the main problems facing food security in Africa.

However, and to no one’s surprise, he later blames sanctions imposed by western powers for the economic and food crisis his country faces.

Although the European Union has put restrictions on Mugabe’s travel to EU countries, he is allowed to attend meetings under the auspices of the United Nations.

Opinion Editorial by Anne Frances Durfee, Princeton University

(The views expressed in our submissions are independent and do not necessarily reflect those of the Arcadia Foundation)

Soon after Somalian pirates release their occasional Western hostage unharmed, Somalia drifts back to the unknown sea of hidden world politics. American media quickly reverts its attention to the hunt for Islamic terrorists and the expediency for human justice.

Quietly, the American government has captured and incarcerated Islamic terrorist suspects and their associates in secretly contracted prisons with the help of Ethiopia. Through contracting local Ethiopian warlords, the government is able to keep suspects in these prisons where they are interrogated by both U.S. and foreign officials. Many times, prisoners await transfer to the Guantanamo Bay detainment facility. Read Full Paper

A doctor who died at the Kahrizak detention center, closed after the deaths there of several protesters against June’s disputed election, committed suicide, state media said on Wednesday.

Iran’s parliament has begun an investigation into the death last week of Ramin Pourandarjani, who was serving his military service as a doctor at the facility.

“The death of Ramin Pourandarjani was the result of suicide,” the official news agency quoted police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam as saying.

“The doctor had complaints of being threatened with a five-year jail term and had lost his spirit,” he said, referring to an apparent will Pourandarjani had written.

“He committed suicide after he was summoned to the court.”

Kahrizak was closed in July on orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after at least three people, arrested during the post-election unrest, died in custody there.

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Please click below for Robert Carmona-Borjas’ opinion from (HRN Radio Honduras) about the deposed Honduran President Mel Zelaya’s letter to U.S. President Barack Obama, claiming that he no longer accepted “any agreement” for his reinstatement in power.  

Less than two weeks from the elections that will name the next president of Honduras, the deposed former leader of that Central American nation is aiming his sharpest criticism towards the United States and specifically against President Barack Obama. As reported by the Associated Press, and followed in an insightful commentary by the Orlando Examiner’s Blas Padrino, Mr.Zelaya lambasted President Obama for his administration’s apparent backpedaling regarding Zelaya’s re-institution. It seems more and more apparent that Mr. Zelaya will not be returning to power in any way, shape or form before these legal elections take place, and that no doubt has led the former President to show his truer colors, stepping out from behind a the veil of the victim.

His complaints against the U.S. took a more personal tone. In an interview with local station Radio Globo he said that Lincoln

“. . . gave an example to the American people that this [Obama’s] government doesn’t want to follow. These are not true heirs of Lincoln.”

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told American TV audiences that Afghan President Hamid Karzai needed to take steps to fight graft, including setting up a new anti-corruption task force, if he wants to keep U.S. support. Less than 24 hours later, there was Karzai’s interior minister at a luxury hotel in Kabul — flanked by the U.S. and British ambassadors — announcing exactly that. A new major crimes police task force, anti-corruption prosecution unit and special court will be set up, at least the third time that Afghan authorities and their foreign backers have launched special units to tackle corruption.

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Human rights are one of the most contentious issues in U.S.-China relations that will come up during President Barack Obama’s four-day visit to China, and will be a topic difficult to side-step, an issue impossible for Mr. Obama to ignore.

Here are some questions and answers about Chinese human rights and how the topic is likely to play out during his visit.

The United States has a tradition of pressing other states, especially communist ones, about their restrictions on citizens’ political, legal and religious rights.

Communist Party-ruled China has been a focus of such criticism from the White House, Congress and U.S. organizations, especially since 1989 when the Chinese army crushed student-led demonstrations for democracy centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Reuters’ Chris Buckley documents that China has long rejected U.S. criticism as “meddling and Cold War-style subversion”. Read Full Paper