Khatami and His “Reformist” Economic (Non-)Agenda
Two months after Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a pact to end their two-year border war, an agreement to move ahead with its implementation has finally been ironed out. The 4,000 UN troops brought here to monitor the truce are preparing for deployment to the contested frontier. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of war-displaced civilians remain in camps behind the lines, waiting to see if the truce will hold.
In May, Iranians will go to the polls to pass judgment on the record of President Mohammad Khatami and the reform movement he symbolizes. Although observers of Iran typically characterize the Islamic Republic's factional divisions as a single left-right split dividing the regime into unified "reformist" and "conservative" blocs, a multitude of potential cleavages belie this simple dichotomy. Since the 1979 revolution, a variety of opinions have existed within the regime's accepted confines.
December 18 the Knesset partially amended Israel's electoral law—the so-called "Bibi bill"—allowing Binyamin Netanyahu to run against Ehud Barak for prime minister. The law had stipulated that when a government resigns, as Barak's did December 9, elections are held for the prime ministership only, and that only Knesset members may present their candidacy. By the amendment, Netanyahu, who resigned from the Knesset after his 1999 defeat, could have run.