Barbara Crossette

Barbara Crossette is The Nation's United Nations correspondent. A former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, she is the author of several books on Asia, including So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1995 and in paperback by Random House/Vintage Destinations in 1996, and a collection of travel essays about colonial resort towns that are still attracting visitors more than a century after their creation, The Great Hill Stations of Asia, published by Westview Press in 1998 and in paperback by Basic Books in 1999. In 2000, she wrote a survey of India and Indian-American relations, India: Old Civilization in a New World, for the Foreign Policy Association in New York. She is also the author of India Facing the 21st Century, published by Indiana University Press in 1993.

India's Muslims

December 3, 2008

The deep grievances of marginalized Indian Muslims are a source of major societal rifts, exacerbated by the anti-Muslim propaganda of Hindu fundamentalists.
The Battle for Human Rights

December 3, 2008

Which idea of human rights will prevail: Western notions of freedom from fear or poorer nations' insistence on freedom from want?
Peace Prize Comes With Criticism

November 30, 2008

As Martti Ahtisaari receives the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, it is clear that the hard work of peacemaking does not guarantee universal acclaim.
Thailand in Chaos

November 27, 2008

Its airports shut, Thailand is now ungovernable, as an educated elite attempts to overthrow the populist government it couldn't defeat at the ballot box.
UN: Hope that America Rejoins the World

November 5, 2008

Quiet relief, an undercurrent of caution and hope for a new approach to human rights, the environment and the problems of the poor.
Peaceful Revolution in Maldives

November 3, 2008

An island nation long gripped by authoritarianism votes for democracy--and wins.
Father d'Escoto's United Nations

October 29, 2008

The General Assembly's new president is a champion for the world's most dispossessed.
India's Persecuted Christians

October 29, 2008

Members of India's poorest classes who converted to Christianity to escape the caste system now find themselves the targets of brutal persecution by Hindu nationalists.
Listen to the Women

September 14, 2008

As the UN meets today to assess its plan to heal a suffering world, the billions of women who still lack fundamental rights--especially reproductive rights- must be heard.
After Musharraf

August 19, 2008

Pervez Musharraf is history, but his opponents seem unable to agree on what to do next. After so many disappointments, can Pakistan rise to the occasion?
New Era for Pakistan--and Kashmir?

August 18, 2008

The resignation of Pervez Musharraf and a looming election in India offer hope that with the right leadership, the sixty-year faceoff over Kashmir might finally be resolved.
Women's Advocate Is UN's New Human Rights Chief

July 27, 2008

Despite the Bush Administration's scramble to scuttle her nomination because she is--gasp!--a feminist, a South African judge is named high commissioner for human rights.
The Bureaucracy of Rape

June 30, 2008

Pressured by the Bush Administration, the United Nations issues a ringing declaration and solicits pledges that decry rape as a weapon of war. How about actually doing something?
The Clintonian Legacy

April 27, 2008

Bill Clinton's foreign policy record, on which his wife is running, was anything but stellar.

2007

Benazir Bhutto: An Age of Hope Is Over

December 27, 2007

As the world mourns the loss of Benazir Bhutto, it would be myopic to focus only on Islamic-inspired violence and on Pakistan. For all of post-independence history, South Asia has been a region drenched in blood.
State of the World 2008

December 24, 2007

The United Nations' chief troubleshooter and mediator, Lakhdar Brahimi, considers what should come next in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan and how US foreign foreign policy went so far astray.