David R. Sands

Colombian DM basks in hostage release

Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos offered a first-hand account Friday of the stunning operation earlier this month that freed three Americans and 12 other hostages held for years by left-wing guerrillas.

July 26, 2008

Israel-Syria talks hindered

An Israeli-Syrian peace deal could be signed by the end of this year, but that requires Bush administration involvement that has not been forthcoming, the head of a high-profile Syrian delegation visiting Washington said Thursday.

July 25, 2008

Iraq barred from Beijing games

Iraq's Olympic athletes have been barred from the Beijing Summer Games next month after the International Olympic Committee on Thursday upheld a ban on the team's participation, citing political interference from the government in Baghdad.

July 25, 2008

Syrian visitors’ meeting scrapped

In an abrupt about-face, the State Department on Wednesday scrubbed plans to meet with a visiting delegation from Syria, a meeting that could have signaled an easing of tense U.S. relations with Damascus.

July 24, 2008

Serb minority welcomed by government

The government of Kosovo is reaching out to the country's minority Serbian population and will not allow the fledgling nation to break down along ethnic lines, President Fatmir Sejdiu said at the end of a Washington visit Tuesday.

July 23, 2008

Karadzic: Balkan war-crimes suspect captured

Former Bosnian-Serb military leader Radovan Karadzic, accused of genocide in the Balkan wars of the mid-1990s, was captured after more than a dozen years on the run, Serbian officials announced Monday evening.

July 22, 2008

Officials defend Tibet policy, tout new talks

A delegation of top Chinese officials and scholars on Tibet on Thursday defended Beijing's handling of anti-government riots earlier this year and denied charges by followers of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader, that talks to end the crisis have broken down.

July 18, 2008

Irish critic declares EU reform treaty ‘dead’

The European Union's massive reform treaty is "dead" and will not be revived until leaders of the 27-nation bloc learn to trust their own voters, according to Declan Ganley, the businessman widely credited with engineering Ireland's stunning rejection of the treaty in a national vote last month.

July 16, 2008

Seoul refutes shooting account

South Korean officials are sharply questioning the official account of the killing of a Seoul housewife walking along a beach at a North Korean tourist resort last week, but Pyongyang on Monday continued to block any proposal for a joint investigation of the incident.

July 15, 2008

G-8 faces setbacks to U.N. goals

As the Group of Eight focuses on the slumping world economy at its summit that kicks off Monday in Hokkaido, Japan, reports say the prospects of achieving the ambitious U.N. Millennium Development Goals to eliminate global poverty by 2015 have dimmed.

July 7, 2008

Civil rights activist criticizes U.S. as ‘oblivious’

U.S. policy toward Pakistan is "deaf and oblivious to the voice of the Pakistani people" and is undermining popular support for the war on terrorism, one of Pakistan's best-known civil rights activists said in an interview.

July 3, 2008

Taliban border havens targeted

Last week's Pakistani offensive against an Islamist warlord near Peshawar was an example of what's in store for extremists who challenge the nation's new government militarily, Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani said Monday.

July 1, 2008

Pakistan prepares to act along Afghan border

Pakistani security forces are preparing a string of actions in the coming days to follow up on the operation last week against a top Islamist militant near Peshawar, Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani said Monday.

June 30, 2008

Gun control in most countries more stringent than in U.S.

Few countries go as far as the District of Columbia government did in effectively banning handgun ownership, but gun control abroad tends to be far stricter and more intrusive than in the United States.

June 27, 2008

U.S. doubts resolve to fight militants on border

The United States expressed doubts Wednesday over a Pakistani pledge to fight militants along its border with Afghanistan amid escalating violence that included a massacre of tribal elders and growing tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

June 26, 2008

Left parties block nuclear deal with U.S.

The stalled U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal faces a make-or-break hurdle Wednesday as warring factions within India's coalition government meet to decide whether to push ahead with the ambitious pact.

June 25, 2008

China, India hasten arms race in space

India became the latest country to boost its defense presence in space, announcing last week plans to develop a military space program to counter the fast-growing space defense efforts of neighboring China.

June 25, 2008

Ethics of military drug testing questioned

Colombian and Indonesian troops have been drafted to test new anti-malaria drugs. South African researchers used Tanzanian soldiers to study the effectiveness of an unorthodox treatment for HIV/AIDS.

June 22, 2008

Odinga suggests the removal of Mugabe

In an unusually pointed attack on a fellow African leader, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Tuesday said Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe was an "embarrassment" for the continent and said he would back an international force to remove him from office and oversee new elections.

June 18, 2008

Nuclear dangers rise with oil costs

The rush of countries seeking to obtain nuclear power as the price of oil soars is going to make U.S. efforts to contain nuclear proliferation and keep terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction even harder, the Energy Department's top intelligence chief warned Monday.

June 17, 2008