Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay

The European Union finally decided to add the LTTE to its list of terrorist organisations on May 29. The Tigers would have seen the ban coming, when on May 17 the European Parliament (EP) adopted a resolution on the situation in Sri Lanka, in which it strongly condemned the LTTE attacks on a Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) vessel a week earlier. The decision was in fact expected for some time, given that the EU had decided to deny official receptions to LTTE delegations earlier on September 26, 2005.

• Published: June 06, 2006
• IDSA Comments

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) of the United Kingdom has come out with a White Paper on British international strategic priorities for the next ten years. British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, while launching the sixty-page vision statement titled "Active Diplomacy for a Changing World: The UK's International Priorities" also delivered a lecture on this occasion at a conference of senior British diplomats in London on March 28, 2006.

• Published: March 31, 2006
• IDSA Comments

The visit of US President George Bush to India in the first week of March and the signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal have evoked reactions in Western media as expected. Viewpoints expressed in the vast English media, professional websites as well as other discussion fora present a spectrum of analyses. However, it is pertinent to have a look at the vernacular German media which have been closely observing the Indo-US strategic partnership not episodically but with thorough interest.

• Published: March 18, 2006
• IDSA Comments

The unprecedented worldwide protests and street demonstrations against the publication of a series of satirical cartoons by a Danish newspaper have become a topic of intense debate over the limits of free speech and what has been described as the ‘place’ of Muslims in the West. On September 30, 2005 the major Danish daily Jyllands-Posten from Aarhus printed a set of 12 caricatures depicting Prophet Mohammad, which Muslims believe is blasphemous.

• Published: January 2006
• Strategic Analysis

New Delhi July 25 A Briefing Paper published by the independent British think tank, The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), has become an embarrassment for the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair even as Britain is trying to overcome the shock of the terrorist attacks on July 7 in London claiming the lives of more than fifty as well as the foiled attacks on July 21. The Briefing Paper for July 2005 titled “Security, Terrorism and the UK” says:

• Published: July 25, 2005
• IDSA Comments

The move by the European Union (EU) to lift the 15-year old arms embargo on China seems at present to have been set aside till the end of 2005. An informal meeting of the EU Foreign Ministers on April 15 at Gymnich, Luxembourg under the present Luxembourg presidency concluded to take no decision regarding the embargo. The press release issued after the meeting is a carefully drafted document. Essentially the press statement seems to please everyone.

• Published: May 02, 2005
• IDSA Comments

On May 17, 2005, the Federal Interior Ministry of Germany published its annual report on the Protection of Constitution for 2004. For the last few years, the country’s domestic intelligence agency – Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) – under the Federal Interior Ministry, has been publishing such reports on its website.

• Published: April 2005
• Strategic Analysis

Putting an end to all speculations, protests from the media and other quarters and hectic Chinese diplomatic parleys in Brussels before the EU-China Summit in December 2004, the EU finally declared (December 8) that the arms embargo on China would not be lifted for the time being. The embargo, which was sanctioned against China in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square tragedy in 1989, remained one of the most debatable issues before the summit. The EU however informed that there was a willingness within the Union to work towards the lifting of the ban.

• Published: March 10, 2005
• IDSA Comments

Suicide bombings in Jammu and Kashmir are patterned on Palestinian methods established that those actually originated in Europe and thus added an intriguing component to the Indian terror scenario. Mainly, the European intelligence agencies have closely observed the terror scenario in Europe as an international phenomenon, its causes, ramifications as well as the recruitment procedure.

• Published: April 2004
• Strategic Analysis