If Myanmar's military leaders appear immune to internal pressure for change, and if they care little about the protestations of the "international community" unless such pressure can directly effect their interests, the two rising world powers on Myanmar's borders perhaps hold the last hope for influencing the junta. The conventional wisdom says that even if China is unwilling to play a positive role, India can be counted on. In reality, however, both countries have responded fecklessly to the violent crackdown.

JERUSALEM -- Ever since this June's open warfare between rival Palestinians of Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the accusations, recriminations, smears and hoaxes have been flying wildly in the Palestinian Territories. In addition to the violence that still pits supporters of Hamas against followers of the more secular Fatah, the parties have launched elaborate publicity campaigns to bolster their own side and discredit the other in the eyes of fellow Palestinians and the rest of the world.

Late last month, Turkish Minister of Energy Hilmi Güler said Ankara and Tehran plan to sign an accord on the exploitation of the natural gas reserves of South Pars on the southern Iranian coast. In addition, the two countries plan to cooperate on a pipeline system that will extend to eastern Turkey. Güler has stressed that the Turkish-Iranian deal will not only serve to provide Turkey with new energy, but should also be of benefit for the Nabucco pipeline project to transport gas from the Caspian region to Europe.

On Sept. 28, Belarussian Defense Minister Leonid Maltsev warned that U.S. plans to deploy ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems in Poland and the Czech Republic could have "unpredictable consequences." Maltsev's comments, delivered after a meeting of the defense ministers of the member states of the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization, have revived concerns that Russia might place nuclear weapons in Belarus as a countermeasure to the U.S. BMD deployments.

In this week's Rights & Wrongs: A United Nations investigative team finds abuses in Angola's legal system; more nations commit to the Paris Principles to prevent the use of children on the battlefield; the U.S. House of Representatives seeks sanctions against Ethiopia for human rights abuses; and an international trade union group reports on the state of workers' rights worldwide. Rights & Wrongs is written by Juliette Terzieff and appears in World Politics Review every week.

The intense political and media scrutiny directed towards Blackwater Inc. this week evokes the old Irish saying that "calm waters run deep, but the Devil lurks in the depths." During congressional hearings, the rock was lifted to reveal one of the most profound developments in the American way of war since perhaps the use of conscription during the Civil War: civilianization of the battlefield. This trend has produced two dilemmas, both of which are at the heart of what has been labeled "Blackwatergate."