CURRENT AFFAIRS

France leads walkout during Ahmadinejad’s UN speech

2009-09-25T03:38:00.001-07:00

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24: France on Wednesday led a walkout of a dozen delegations, including the United States, to protest a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the UN General Assembly.

“It is disappointing that Mr Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric,” Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the US mission to the UN, said in a statement.

Delegations from Argentina, Australia, Britain, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand and the United States left the room as President Ahmadinejad began to rail against Israel.

Israel had called for a boycott of the speech, and was not present when the Iranian leader began his address. Canada had already said it would heed the boycott call.

In his address, Ahmadinejad again took aim at Israel but without mentioning the country or Jews by name, referring only to the “Zionist regime”.

The firebrand leader, re-elected in disputed June elections, accused Israel of inhumane policies in Palestine.

“How can the crimes of the occupiers against defenceless women and children... be supported unconditionally by certain governments?” Ahmadinejad asked.

“And at the same time, the oppressed men and women be subject to genocide and heaviest economic blockade being denied their basic needs, food, water and medicine?”

Suggesting there was a Jewish conspiracy, Ahmadinejad added: “It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks.”

And he accused Jews of seeking to “establish a new form of slavery, and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the US, to attain its racist ambitions”.

A French diplomat said the Iranian leader’s speech was “unacceptable”, adding European delegations had coordinated in advance what action to take if they found parts of the address unpalatable.—AFP

Senate triples US aid to $1.5 billion

2009-09-25T03:35:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK, Sept 24: The US Senate on Thursday approved a compromise legislation to triple non-military aid to Pakistan, President Barack Obama told an international summit in New York.

“How nice that the US president could announce it personally,” US special envoy Richard Holbrooke later told a briefing while emphasising the importance of the announcement made at the Friends of Democratic Pakistan summit.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who came out of the summit meeting with a huge smile on his face, also stressed the significance of Mr Obama’s gesture, telling the reporters that it reflected the confidence the international community had in the new democratic set-up in Pakistan.

“We have come a long way. The democracy has completed a full circle,” he said. We have a message for the extremists: There’s no place for them in the civilized world.”

The president said that at the FODP summit, the entire world recognised that “our struggle against terrorism must be fought not just on the battlefield, but in education, in health, in jobs, in trade, and above all for the hearts and minds of our people.”

He added: “A stable, prosperous Pakistan is the world’s greatest hope against the spread of extremism and terrorism.”

He said that the elected government provided “political ownership to the war against extremism and terrorism” and involved the entire nation in this fight.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who addressed a joint news conference with Mr Zardari after the summit, endorsed the Pakistani leader, reminding journalists that “leaders from more than 20 countries” expressed their confidence in the new set-up in Islamabad.

Mr Holbrooke later explained how the Kerry-Lugar bill passed through the US Senate. “We worked all night to ensure that the bill is approved unanimously,” he said, adding that some Republican lawmakers had reservations which were removed.

“The entire room burst into spontaneous applause as President Obama announced the approval of the bill,” said Mr Holbrooke.

“I am not suggesting that one bill changes history but it is an important step,” he said, noting that “it’s for the first time in the modern era that the US Congress made a multi-year commitment” to another country.

The legislation, known as the Kerry-Lugar bill, will bring about $1.5 billion a year to Pakistan for each of the next five years, as part of a plan to fight extremism with economic development.

The bill, approved on a voice vote, had been agreed between the Senate and House sponsors of legislation passed separately in each chamber earlier this year. It also had the “full support” of key members of the Obama administration.

Mr Holbrooke said that chairman of the House Committee on International Relations had informed him that the House would take up the bill next week and it would soon be sent to President Obama who would then sign it into a law.

Supporters of the legislation — an updated version of a bill backed by President Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, when they were senators — say the measure aims to banish any doubts that Washington has made a long-term commitment to helping Pakistan.

The measure, which seeks to use economic development to battle the despair that can fuel extremism, comes at a time when President Obama has vowed to overhaul US strategy for Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan.

More pledges were met at the summit where, according to the British prime minister, almost all participants agreed to increase the pledges they had made earlier.

At an earlier FODP meeting in Tokyo in April this years, a host of donor nations pledged almost $6 billion to Pakistan but the IMG confirmed on Tuesday that only “a fraction of those pledges have so far realised.”

Although almost 26 countries participated in the summit and some -- the US, Britain, France, Japan, Canada and others -- sent their presidents or prime ministers, Pakistan’s two key allies chose not to do so.

Both China and Saudi Arabia only sent their UN ambassadors, although their foreign ministers were in town.

“Canada has a longstanding and important friendship with Pakistan,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the summit. “This meeting was a valuable opportunity for leaders to show our commitment to working with the government and the people of Pakistan as they seek to build a more secure future.”

President Zardari, President Obama and Prime Minister Brown co-chaired this first leaders’ meeting of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan. It was convened to demonstrate the international community’s continued support at the highest level for Pakistan’s civilian and democratically-elected government as it faces complex security, economic development and humanitarian crises.

The discussions centred on combating violent extremism, addressing energy shortages and fostering socio-economic development in Malakand and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. These have been the areas of focus of ministerial-level meetings of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan.

Prime Minister Brown, besides increasing Britain’s pledge to Pakistan, also announced a separate aid of 50 million pounds for the areas bordering Afghanistan.

The Friends of Democratic Pakistan first met in New York on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2008. The founding members include Pakistan, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the United Nations and the European Union.

At the New York summit, the Asian Development Bank, which also participated in the meeting, agreed to set up a fund to help Pakistan overcome the energy crisis while the World Bank agreed to set up a separate fund for dealing with the economic crisis. The Pakistani government will make an integrated plan for dealing with the energy crisis, with the help of the ADB.

The participants vowed to support Islamabad’s political and strategic strategy for dealing with militancy.

They promised to enhance their support to Pakistan’s efforts to fight extremism.

They acknowledged Pakistan’s sacrifices in the war against extremists and “praised the brave armed forces of Pakistan,” as Prime Minister Brown said.

They also recognised the recent operation in Swat and Malakand as a successful operation. They endorsed a plan presented before a ministerial meeting in Istanbul earlier this year.

The participants also agreed to strengthen Pakistani institutions, particularly in the tribal areas.

India wants N-power status to sign NPT

2009-09-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI, Sept 24: India on Thursday snubbed the UN Security Council’s unanimous resolution on nuclear disarmament, saying it would not sign the NPT unless it is given the status enjoyed by the five legal nuclear powers.

Indian envoy to the UN Hardeep Puri in his letter to his US counterpart Susan E. Rice, who is also the current president of the Security Council, said India could not accept foreign prescriptions on the issue since it would have implications for the country’s sovereign rights as a nuclear power, albeit outside the purview of the NPT.

“India cannot accept externally prescribed norms or standards on matters within the jurisdiction of its Parliament or which are not consistent with India’s constitutional provisions and procedures, or are contrary to India’s national interests or infringe on its sovereignty,” Mr Puri said.

“India cannot comply with non-proliferation obligations to which it has not provided its sovereign consent.”

Mr Puri said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had stated in parliament in July this year that there was no question of India joining the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state.

“Nuclear weapons are an integral part of India’s national security and will remain so, pending non-discriminatory and global nuclear disarmament.”

“We remain committed to a voluntary, unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing,” Mr Puri wrote. “We do not subscribe to any arms race, including a nuclear arms race. We have always tempered the exercise of our strategic autonomy with a sense of global responsibility. We affirm our policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons.”

G20 under pressure to reform IMF

2009-09-25T03:29:00.000-07:00

G20 members are under pressure to back reform of the International Monetary Fund in order to give emerging economies more clout.

Speaking at a two-day summit in Pittsburgh, USA, of the world's major developed and developing countries, Xie Duo, director-general of the People's Bank of China, said he expected a major political decision on Friday.

"We think the core of the reform of international financial institutions is emerging markets. Developing countries are under-represented in these institutions," Xie said.

"We believe that the top priority at this moment is total reform."

China, with its current 3.7 per cent of the vote, has less influence than France, at 4.9 per cent, although its economy is one and a half times the size of France, according to IMF data.

Rebalancing goal

The Chinese and other emerging countries have pressed reform of the IMF's outdated governance structure for years to better reflect their growing weight in the global economy.

But finding a formula for rebalancing its structures and rebalancing voting power has proved a much tougher challenge.

On the prospect of increasing China's quota, Xie said, the important issue was to bring about reform of the IMF before the G20 target of January 2011.

"China is ready to further its discussions with the relevant member states on quota reform with an open attitude" and in line with the charter of the IMF, he said.

The Chinese comments cast a decidedly positive light on what had been a contentious first day of the summit, with divisions between Europe and emerging nations over IMF reform on display.

China's rise

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Friday, Manu Bhaskaran of Centennial Asia Advisers, based in Singapore, said he believed IMF reform was necessary only in the case of China.

"I think we in the developing world shouldn't kid ourselves ... there is really only one developing country that has clout - and that is China. The rest are there basically as guests that have been invited to the party", he said.

"Really it is an issue of how to manage China's rise ... not the entire lot of the BRIC or the larger group of the G20."

BRIC refers to the emerging bloc comprised of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Nevertheless, other developing nations want to see change at the IMF too.

Before leaders had even sat down for the formal dinner to open the Pittsburgh summit, Marco Aurelio Garcia, a senior adviser to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, hit out at Europe's "resistance" to giving emerging nations more weight.

For emerging countries, it is crucial to achieve a breakthrough in negotiations in Pittsburgh so the IMF can endorse the reform at its October 6-7 annual meeting in Istanbul.

"That would be ideal," Garcia said.

The EU supports an IMF rebalancing but opposes any "taxation without representation", Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister of Sweden, which holds the bloc's rotating presidency, said.

Reluctant countries

Reinfeldt expressed the reluctance of the advanced economies, which contribute the most to the IMF's finances, in particular the European countries, to give up power to other countries that contribute less.

The Europeans had backed a reform adopted by the IMF in April 2008 which rebalances voting rights, notably tipping the scale towards China and Brazil.

But the reform is in limbo, due to a lack of ratification by some national legislatures, including that of Brazil.

The BRIC countries called in September for a quota reduction of the most developed countries to 50 per cent, from 57 per cent.

The US has proposed that over-represented developed countries - an indirect way of designating European countries - transfer five per cent of their voting rights to the under-represented, a move that would mainly benefit China.

Iran announces new enrichment plant

2009-09-25T03:27:00.000-07:00

Iran has informed the UN nuclear watchdog that it has a second uranium enrichment plant.

Spokesman Marc Vidricaire told Al Jazeera on Friday that Tehran had notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the plant's existence in a letter earlier this week.

"On 21 September, Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel enrichment plant was under construction in the country ... the enrichment level would be up to 5%", Vidricaire said.

"Iran has assured the Agency in the letter that further complementary information will be provided in an appropriate and due time".

In response, the IAEA has requested Tehran provide specific details, and expects access to the facility as soon as possible.

"This will allow us to assess safeguard verification requirements for the facility, but we understand that no nuclear material has been introduced as yet".

Iran was previously known to have one enrichment plant at Natanz, under daily surveillance by IAEA inspectors.

The Islamic Republic is currently under UN sanctions for refusing to suspend enrichment and failing to clarify suspicions that its nuclear activity is aimed at developing atom bombs, not generating electricity as it says.

The Iranian letter was addressed to Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA director-general.

Things are getting better?

2009-09-25T00:43:00.000-07:00

Things are getting better?
By Max Fraad Wolff

The first and best response to this statement is always a series of questions. The first two inquiries should be, which things and for whom? We are not in the habit of asking these two questions and it shows. To see why these questions are not asked, let us ask them. Let us also acknowledge that many things have gotten better.

What is getting better? Our remaining financial institutions are more profitable and less subject to public and business suspicion. These firms are also bigger and face significantly less competition. Many financial firms have used new legal options, special programs, government handouts and reduced competition to begin to rebuild. This is a marked improvement over the dire circumstance of one year ago. As you read this, we have

emerged from the first anniversary of the nine days that shook the financial world.

The period between September 7, 2008, and September 16, 2008, witnessed the collapse of much of the US investment banking and home mortgage lending systems. We lost Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers, AIG and independence for Merrill Lynch in just over a week. Today, we are not all seized by panic as the financial world collapses atop our heads. It remains to be seen and tested how many of our deep structural problems have been fixed. I am skeptical.

Who is benefiting? Public sentiment is better than it was one year ago and asset markets have done very well. The S&P 500 Index is about 125 points, 12%, below where it was one year ago. This masks the reality that asset prices plunged from September 2008-March 2009 and have spent the past six months surging back. On the close of business, Wednesday, September 9, we are 40% and more than 290 points above the lows reached in February and early March 2009.

S&P500 Index, 1964-2009

Corporate profits have also begun the process of rebounding from their recent crash. Corporate profits rose 5.7% even as the economy contracted by 1% in the second quarter of 2009. Profits and assets have done well. Thus, the commanding heights of America's stratified income structure have begun to heal themselves across the past few months.

The three graphics included here offer a valuable view. What we call "recovery" is a return to the structural economic conditions that created the problems that came to a head in 2001 and 2007. We are getting back on trends that have created the consumer debt problems and the bubble, boom and bust cycle that has defined the US economy for more than a decade.

The great mass of Americans live on income earned from employment. Here, the story is very, very different. The number of hours worked presently hovers near a 40-year low. America's average work week has fallen to 33.1 hours. We have only kept these numbers for 45 years.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides multiple measures of unemployment. The official unemployment rate, widely reported at 9.7%, is too narrow to speak to the extent of job weakness in America. The most inclusive measure, called U-6, includes involuntary part-time workers and people out of work and desiring jobs who have given up looking. The inclusive U-6 unemployment rate in America is 16.8%.

Perhaps this more inclusive unemployment rate helps to explain our 350,000 foreclosure filings a month and the 1 million homeless school children starting the new school year. American consumption is 69% of the US economy and 14% of world GDP.

Let's ask one last question. How did we get here? The two charts below, all data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, illustrate the challenges facing the bottom 80% of Americans. These problems have been a long time building.

Look closely at the vertical axis in each graph. The range of values is fairly small. This is particularly crucial in Figure 2, "Average hourly earnings in 1982 dollars". Our average hourly earnings, corrected for inflation, have been stuck between US$7.50 and $9.00 for 45 years. Only real and sustained wage and job growth will allow most Americans to announce recovery. We have not seen either yet.

Figure 1: Average weekly hours of production workers, 1964-2009

Figure 2: Average hourly earnings in 1982 dollars, 1964-2009

Beijing faces a fresh legitimacy test

2009-09-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

HONG KONG - When the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China is celebrated early next month, it will be an apt occasion for reflection on its six decades of rule.

Ahead of the October 1 National Day, the party-controlled state media have gone into overdrive to promote the "great achievements" made by China under communist rule, proudly highlighting the economic progress in the past three decades that propelled China towards becoming the third-largest economy in the world.

But will the "economic miracle" necessarily grant legitimacy for the continuation of the Communist Party in power? It seems even

the party itself is not quite sure.

At the end of the annual plenary session of the powerful Communist Party Central Committee last week, it candidly admitted that many problems threatened its political standing, including rampant corruption, ethnic tension and social inequality.
These problems have "harmed the flesh-and-blood ties between the party and people, hampering efforts to consolidate the party's ruling status", and its "mission to strictly manage the party has never been so arduous and urgent", the plenum communique stated.

With an estimated 100,000 street riots and disturbances across the country taking place last year, a yawning rich-poor gap and continued ethnic turbulence in Tibet and Xinjiang, Chinese leaders are clearly thinking about how best to continue their rule.

Amid widespread social discontent, many people were now questioning the legitimacy of the Communist Party's rule, said former Chinese Academy of Social Sciences historian Zhang Lifan.

"The promises it made 60 years ago have not materialized, for instance, a directly-elected National People's Congress [China's legislature]," he said. "The [uneven wealth] distribution issue has not been resolved - all these affect the legality of their rule."

Many people were so disillusioned with the communist government that they no longer believed in the promises their leaders made, he said. "They haven't produced any good solutions to make people believe in them. So whether the government has done good or not, people think by default that 'the government must be deceiving me'."

To win back its people's hearts, the Communist Party should strive to become more like a genuine modern political party, said Bao Tong, who was the director of the Political Reform Bureau before the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy movement was crushed.

"It isn't difficult, what it should do is abide by the law, what it shouldn't do is lead everything," said Bao, who spent seven years in prison after the crackdown and still lives under tight surveillance.

"According to the constitution, the People's Republic's power belongs to the people, not the Communist Party," he said. "When the party can achieve this ... then it will achieve legitimacy."

Bao said China, which calls itself a "republic", should work on a step-by-step roadmap which tells people when it will start moving towards democracy.

However, there are few signs that China is about to do that.

Instead, the government has this year adopted more heavy handed tactics to target people it considers a threat, such as cracking down on non-government organizations and disbarring many-human rights lawyers as well as arresting several high-profile rights activists.

With the recent social unrest in Tibet and the far western region of Xinjiang, the government also vowed at the party plenary session to "effectively prevent and resolutely crack down on ethnicity-related separatist activities".

Yet despite these tough measures, the government appears convinced that it can still use economic growth and nationalism as a uniting force to secure the loyalty of its people.

The Beijing Summer Olympics Games last year, the space program and the military parade on the October 1 anniversary all help boost the feeling of national pride, said Willy Lam, adjunct professor of history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"The basic thing is to persuade most Chinese that their standard of living has increased, along with a heady dose of nationalism - stirring up pride in China's 'greatness'," he said.

Veteran China watcher and journalist Ching Cheong said China had accumulated so much political capital during the past decades it still had a very special place in the hearts of ordinary Chinese people.

Although China was invaded and occupied by various foreign countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Communist Party's courage in fighting against the United States in the Korean war in the early 1950s and the former Soviet Union over border issues had earned respect from ordinary Chinese, he said.

And in the latter 30 years of its rule, China's efforts in eliminating poverty, and its stellar economic performance were also a source of pride for Chinese people. "These have helped to strengthen its rule and uniting people behind it ... and are a rich source of legitimacy," Cheong said.

"The question is, how much longer can this keep going?" he asked.

Analysts warn against complacency - they say if China's leaders do not push for political reform and introduce genuine democracy, this political capital will soon be used up.

"This thinking: 'I have military and economic control' produces a powerful illusion and it's not good for someone to feel so euphoric," said Zhang.

Bao urged the authorities to push for democracy sooner rather than later, warning that their current method of ensuring stability was a precarious, short-term solution.

"When the situation is relatively stable, I hope they will take the initiative to announce a roadmap for universal suffrage," he said. "Don't wait until things are so unstable that you have to be pushed into it."

The world according to Gaddafi

2009-09-25T00:37:00.000-07:00

The world according to Gaddafi
By Thalif Deen

NEW YORK - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's maiden address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday was in some ways predictable, but only in that it was long on rhetoric and short on substance.

In a rambling statement, the loquacious Gaddafi thrashed the big powers for their veto powers, rebuked the United States for its military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and reiterated his call for the 53-member African Union (AU) to be given a veto-wielding permanent seat on the Security Council.

At the AU election last February, the flamboyant Gaddafi, 67, was hailed as the "king of kings" - an honor he readily accepted, perhaps as his political birthright.

has ruled Libya since 1967, wore a shiny black pin in the shape of Africa pinned on his chest, and his trademark brown and tan Bedouin robes.

He did not repeat his earlier calls for the creation of a United States of Africa or the "abolition" of Switzerland - as he claims most of that country's banks are "safe havens" for ill-gotten gains.
But he did catalogue a list of "injustices" committed, mostly by Western powers accused of "looting" the economic resources of countries they occupied as one-time colonial powers.

In his early remarks, Gaddafi suggested the H1N1 flu or swine flu virus was created in a US military laboratory, though he later claimed it was the creation of pharmaceutical companies. "What's next? Fish flu?" he asked rhetorically.

He asserted that al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden, who is described as a mastermind of the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001, is "not a Taliban nor an Afghan".

"So why invade Afghanistan?" asked Gaddafi, who recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of a bloodless military coup that brought him to power in Libya.

The terrorists responsible for the attacks were also not Iraqis. "So why invade Iraq?," he asked. "We should leave Iraq for the Iraqis and Afghanistan for Afghans," he said, pointing out that civil wars were best left to combatants on the ground in native soil.

There was no "outside interference", he said, during civil wars in the United States, Spain or China.

Known for pitching a large Bedouin tent on his trips abroad, Gaddafi this time pitched it on famous US entrepreneur Donald Trump's 86-hectare estate in Bedford, a town about 50 kilometers north of New York, after New York police turned down his request to erect it in Central Park.

In his speech, Gaddafi chastised the United Nations for failing to intervene or prevent some 65 wars around the world since the world body was founded in 1945. He called for reform of the UN Security Council - abolishing the veto power of the five permanent members - or expanding the body with additional member states to make it more representative.

"Sixty-five aggressive wars took place without any collective action by the UN to prevent them ... It should not be called the Security Council, it should be called the 'terror council', he said.

The veto-wielding Security Council members - the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia - treat smaller countries as "second class, despised" nations, Gaddafi said in his 90-minute speech.

Although one of the most long-winded in recent memory, Gaddafi's statement will not find its way into the UN record books. The two record holders for sheer verbosity are Krishna Menon of India, who addressed the Security Council for eight hours on Kashmir in January 1957, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who held forth for four hours and 29 minutes before the General Assembly in September 1960.

Gaddafi's statement, sometimes incoherent and most times disjointed, covered events going back decades: colonialism, the assassination of former US president John F Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, the US invasion of Grenada and Panama, the Vietnam and Korean wars, and the hanging of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

He also showed his disdain for his pet peeves: international sanctions (which his country was subject to) and sodomy.

"It was vintage Gaddafi," said an Arab diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity. "I don't think he missed anything of political significance that happened over the last four decades since he came to power."

Waving the UN charter from the podium of the General Assembly, Gaddafi detailed a laundry list of "violations" that had taken place in recent years, implicitly arguing that the charter was not worth the paper on which it was printed.

In contrast to Gaddafi's meandering speech, most other world leaders were focused in their addresses to the assembly on Wednesday, the opening day of the 64th session.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said the international community should adhere to the purposes and principles of the UN charter and seek peaceful solutions to regional hotspot issues and international disputes.

"There should be no willful use or threat of force. We should support the United Nations in continuing to play an important role in the field of international security."

South African President Jacob Zuma stressed the "devastating impact" of climate change on Africa. "It will severely undermine development and poverty eradication efforts," he told the assembly.

"Developed countries bear the greatest responsibility for climate change and impact. We must therefore strike a balance between adaptation and mitigation," he added.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the world was witnessing growing nationalist moods, numerous manifestations of religious intolerance and animosity.

He said it would be extremely useful to create a high-level group on inter-religious dialogue under the auspices of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. "This is especially relevant on the eve of 2010, declared by the United Nations as the Year for Rapprochement of Cultures," Medvedev said.

Libya welcomes a hero (Aug 26, '09)

Gadding with Gaddafi (Jan 24, '03)

1. More questions on 9/11

2. Things are getting better?

3. The US on a new mission in Pakistan

4. US perches in an eagle's nest

5. The general and his Afghan labyrinth

6. Cautious welcome for Japan's Asia drive

7. A short, happy story on silver

8. Asia impacted by US missile shift

9. Energy at the Xtreme edge

10. Russia hangs on to recovery

Long reputed for his eccentricity, on Wednesday Gaddafi, who

US perches in an Afghan eagle's nest

2009-09-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

US perches in an Afghan eagle's nest
By Zahid U Kramet

LAHORE, Pakistan - Now that the coals have been well and truly raked, the fires that burn in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan will not easily be extinguished by democratic dispensation. Nor are they really expected to. The election of August 20 is factually a red herring, as the United States and its allies have every intention of overseeing affairs personally in Afghanistan until stability is restored.

Afghanistan's elections, in any case, have been a fiasco, with President Hamid Karzai's victory remaining open to question, not just by his rival Dr Abdullah Abdullah, but pertinently by Afghan tribal leaders and the warlords who are the ultimate arbiters in the territory. This is the hard reality taken into consideration by

Foreign Policy's Denial Markey in his article "Don't waste Afghan poll crisis".

With administrative, military and political structures still a long way from taking root in Afghanistan, the Talibanized tribesmen who inhabit these territories will continue to resist "foreign occupation" under the banner of sharia law. And, without a shadow of any doubt, the fundamentalist hand of al-Qaeda will steer the sundry warships. The US does not look to be going anywhere until this problem is resolved.

There is, at the same time, an elemental difference between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The latter battle to preserve antiquated tribal arrangements, which include trafficking in narcotics, gun-running and smuggling in the absence of other means of gainful employment; the former seek to run an anti-globalization campaign looking to win the minds - and energy resources - of the Muslim world.

The seeds of their message fall on fertile ground in most, if not all, of the impoverished Muslims nations, especially with the US with the Western coalition seen to be gaining little ground either in Iraq or Afghanistan. At the same time, the displacement of the Palestinians by the expansionist policies of Israel is a festering sore.

Meanwhile, the country that has suffered the most from the terrorist onslaught has been Pakistan. With the Western alliance forces struggling to contain the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the fallout of this on Pakistan, supposedly Washington's closest non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally in the "war on terror", has been cataclysmic. Much of this comes from its own shortcomings, but as much from the US failing to comprehend Pakistan's predicament of having to fight its own people.

As Pakistan battles to keep the Taliban at bay within its territory and simultaneously prevent them crossing the porous border to confront the coalition forces in Afghanistan, it runs up a bill it is unable to pay. Its government is therefore in dire need of such US largesse as the promised Kerry-Lugar aid bill - which earmarks US$1.5 billion of annual assistance to Pakistan for five years - along with supplementary assistance from the Friends of Democratic Pakistan. This is in addition to the military hardware needed to fight the war.

But, in exchange for their continued largesse and arms, the Americans demand credible evidence that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are no longer headquartered in Pakistan, as alleged recently by Admiral Michael Mullen, the commander of the regional US forces, and earlier by Peter Bergen in his CNN News article, "Where is Osama bin Laden?" And, with Pakistan unable to deliver a satisfactory answer on this, it seems the US has taken it on itself to unearth the man accused of masterminding the 9/11 bombings from its Afghan base.

The outcome has been the US Senate Appropriations Committee's unanimous approval of $636 billion as the Defense Department budget in the coming year, with $128 billion of this marked for Iraq and Afghanistan to up the ante of the Iraq-Afghanistan war chest to more than $1 trillion. This comes together with the assurance that the US is not about to leave Afghanistan in the lurch, as it had done after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

There is every reason then to surmise that the US troop surge, over and above the 21,000 already assigned, is a certainty - more so with such hawks as Republican Senator John McCain pleading the case of the field commanders in Afghanistan for an additional force of 45,000. (See Obama faces backlash over Afghanistan, Asia Times Online, September 16, 2009.)

Taking up the cudgels on behalf of the expanded US troop surge belligerently are senators McCain and Lindsay Graham, with Democrat Senator Joseph Lieberman among those riding in the posse. This becomes manifest in their joint Wall Street Journal statement, "Only force can prevail in Afghanistan", the title of which speaks for itself.

With this in view, Democratic Senator Carl Levin's suggestion that the Afghan military should be helped "to become self-sufficient before we consider whether to increase US combat forces", falls flat. So, too, do, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announced reservations, likely based on a recent CNN poll showing 57% of the American public standing opposed to the war.

To most vigilant analysts, however, all of this is easily decipherable as a "good-cop-bad-cop" routine, with the scrapping of the planned missile defense shield in Eastern Europe making headlines. But should, as a consequence, Obama win Russia over to the US side with this startling new initiative, it would make for a game-changing scenario in which other aspiring regional players could be relegated to the sidelines.

Obama's surprise move has taken not a few notable observers seriously aback. Asia Times Online's MK Bhadrakumar, for one, suggests it could be unproductive. Writing under the title Obama drops a missile bombshell (Asia Times Online, September 19, 2009), the eminent author mulls over a "seemingly weakening" Obama administration and "stunning national security reversal" meriting few dividends.

Others remain skeptical as well. Among these, Meir Javedanfar, in an article titled "Did the US do a deal with Russia" writes in The Guardian, "To some, especially American neo-conservatives, Washington's decision to scrap the system may be interpreted as capitulation to Russia." However, he concludes with a telling "Although the missile defense shield is important, stopping Iran from becoming armed with nuclear weapons is far more vital." Javedanfar reminds at the same time, "America could always replace the system in the future."

For all of this, Obama is finally making his presence felt on the international circuit. And, the bottom line of that could be the long-awaited thaw in US-Russia relations with the expectation by the US of Russia persuading Iran to open its nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. Should that somehow come to fruition, the open confrontation between the US and Iran could become less pronounced and, with that, the needed prolonged presence of the US in Afghanistan secured.
Yet, the Obama administration is leaving nothing to chance. Not too long ago, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of a "defense umbrella" in the Persian Gulf if Iran refused to agree to IAEA inspections. But with the Gulf states serving notice of their reluctance to endorse any action against Iran, more likely the "umbrella" will serve as a "Rapid Deployment Force" back-up of the US's "eagle's nest" overseeing the region from its strategic perch in Afghanistan.

Should Russia somehow reconcile to this as a quid pro quo, the US could comfortably move forward on its dual mission of evicting al-Qaeda forcibly from the immediate area and focus on reconstruction and rehabilitation. A free run for that would naturally also need the cooperation and tacit approval of China, which may not be too long in the coming, given the economic interdependence of these two great world powers and the unrest in its adjoining Xinjiang province.

But the US-Russia detente is as yet not a "done deal", with the Republican neo-con brigade active and resistant to the type of change Obama appears to envisage with the US-Russia trust deficit. The president of the United States will make history if he follows through, but unfortunately reports filtering in indicate he has already begun to backtrack on the issue. That does not augur too well for peace in Afghanistan in the immediate future.

Obama makes a plea for Pakistan

2009-09-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

United States President Barack Obama's speech on Wednesday, the second day of the 64th summit of the United Nations General Assembly, was a strident challenge to world leaders - an ostensible rallying cry to join the US and its allies in the war in Afghanistan.

"Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," said Obama, in what many see as preparation for an expected troop surge in Afghanistan.

An even clearer signal of Washington's quest for stronger participation from its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the non-NATO allies, was a secret meeting between Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Central Intelligence

The meeting, reluctantly confirmed by Pakistani officials, was meant to review the next stage in the post-Afghan presidential elections and the regional "war on terror" theater. This next chapter in the war, many experts believe, will be its hottest time to date.

A formal request to Obama from the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, to send more troops in Afghanistan is likely to be made soon. The Pentagon's rationale for the increase is the upward spiral of Taliban violence - but some feel it has as much to do with protecting Pakistan.

Despite the excellent performance of the Pakistani armed forces against the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal areas and the Malakand area, Washington remains unsure over the level of the Pakistan army's cooperation. The Pentagon was quick to note that Pakistan army leaders recently refused a ground operation in the North and South Waziristan tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, McChrystal is expected to ask for at least 40,000 additional troops to be deployed mainly in the southern border provinces with Pakistan, such as Helmand and Ghazni, and provinces such as Wardak and Kapisa, in Afghanistan's northeast. The troops will reportedly undertake active operations against the Taliban as well as regular ground campaigns.

The Obama administration is worried that if Pakistan changes course and becomes inactive, US forces could be trapped along the border - resulting in an horrific casualty rate that would be catastrophic for the White House in the mid-term US elections next year.

The indications from different Asia Times Online sources are that next summer the battle between the Taliban and NATO forces will no longer be restricted to Afghanistan - it will expand inside Pakistan. The primary reason for this, sources say, is the deployment of coalition forces in Afghan border provinces such as Helmand.

The Taliban's main sanctuary in Helmand is Gereshk district, which borders the Pakistani district of Noshki. The porous border between Noshki and Gereshk serves as a haven for anti-Western Taliban fighters as well as anti-Pakistan Baloch insurgents.

Neither Afghan nor NATO authorities have any control in the region - and neither does Pakistan. As a result, it is inevitable that in hot pursuit of the Taliban through the area, NATO troops will cross into Pakistan and expand the war. This threat also looms over Afghanistan's Kunar province and Pakistan's Mohmand area and some other tribal areas, but to a lesser degree compared to Helmand.

In preparation for the anticipated military expansion, the US has revamped its embassy in Islamabad, taken over a five-star hotel in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, and procured other land in Pakistan. The US has also rented 200 bungalows in the capital - a move now under investigation by Pakistan - and increased the operations of controversial US contractors in the country. The US is seemingly intent on directly targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistani cities.

What is now a low-intensity insurgency in Pakistan may develop into a full-scale offensive which sweeps through the country. In this scenario, American resources would be insufficient and the US establishment is actively looking for international help.

It may be a tough sell; the UN has noted that the number of foreign troops killed in action so far this year is 334, the highest total since the invasion of 2001. The UN also reports the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan this year has jumped 24% compared to 2008 - making the coalition ever more unpopular. So far, only Britain has committed to sending additional troops to Afghanistan, and is unlikely to send more than 1,000 soldiers.

France, Germany and Italy - among other Western countries - have already been shying away from combat operations. The recent killing of six Italian soldiers raises yet another question mark about additional European support for the Afghan war.

Although the world's reaction to Obama's military plea has yet to coalesce, his administration was due to gather a blue-chip crowd in New York on Thursday to give a boost to Pakistan. Obama and five high-ranking US officials were to attend a summit-level meeting of the FODP - Friends of Democratic Pakistan - including a host of world leaders [1] as well as other European Union officials and officials of the Islamic development bank and the International Monetary Fund.

In all, it has been a week of unprecedented pleas for international unity with Pakistan - such support was not even seen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Still, pledges of support are not the same as boots on the ground - and as the war in Afghanistan spills into Pakistan, the US may find itself increasingly alone in Islamabad.

The president is in the trunk

2009-09-24T06:43:00.000-07:00

An historical irony has placed little Honduras at the eye of the volcano in both the United Nations General Assembly in New York and the Group of 20 (G-20) meeting in Pittsburgh this week - even though United States corporate media would rather focus on Libyan Muammar Gaddafi and the tribulations of his traveling tent. [1]

As much as the 2008 financial crisis exposed the economic fallacy of US-propelled neo-liberalism, the June 28 oligarch-directed military coup in Honduras has exposed the fallacy of the

Barack Obama administration's pledge to uphold democratic values around the world. Stolen elections in Afghanistan? We don't like it, but ... Military coup in Honduras? We don't like it, but ...

What passes for official US policy at the G-20 consists of telling big exporting powers such as China, Germany and Japan to engage in an orgy of consumption (as the US used to) while vaguely promising the US will finally boost savings. Fat chance.

As for Honduras, this is now the Obama administration's hour of truth: will it finally come clean and follow world opinion - also expressed by the UN, the European Union and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) - in condemning and isolating the coup plotters?

The stick, or deafening silence
Deposed, rightful Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has been to Washington no less than six times since the coup. Not once was he allowed to meet Obama. Then, this past Monday morning, Zelaya showed up at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras' capital, after a spectacular run that started in Nicaragua, involved a flight to El Salvador on a plane offered by Venezuela, and a 15-hour odyssey across the border to Honduras on foot and by car, evading myriad checkpoints manned by local intelligence - which is, crucially, funded, trained and maintained by the Pentagon. Zelaya was smuggled into the Brazilian Embassy in the trunk of car.

Zelaya may have had help from Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, under the umbrella of the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA). But now the strategic game-changer has been to shift the attention towards Brazil - and that means under the UNASUR.

Whether Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva knew it before hand or only at the last minute (as the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs insists) is irrelevant. It was not the US that called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council this week; it was Brazil.

Lula forcefully demanded the restoration of democracy in Honduras in his speech at the UN General Assembly - with strong applause from the plenary. Obama's speech came right after Lula's. Not a word on Honduras. Obama spoke of a "new era of engagement" or at best an "inter-connected world" - while Lula spoke about the emergence of a real multilateral world; its subtext means the hyperpower does not have the monopoly anymore, be it on the word, the stick, or deafening silence.

Obama even stressed the US "can't fix it alone" - as if the war in Afghanistan and confrontation with Iran were global, and not only US, obsessions. (By the way: Lula met Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad face-to-face for over an hour on the sidelines of the UN assembly. He later said that as much as Brazil had the right to develop its own peaceful nuclear program, so did Iran).

By Obama's own admission, the US can't fix Honduras alone, but at least it could have emitted the right signals, delegitimizing the coup politically, militarily, economically and diplomatically from the beginning.

So far, the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) has engaged in a pantomime negotiated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias which calls for Zelaya's return as president, coup plotters integrated into the government, and amnesty for everybody, including installed coup President Roberto Micheletti.

This is ludicrous. It's as if in the (failed) George W Bush administration-supported 2002 coup against Chavez in Venezuela, the plotters would have been allowed to stay as his ministers.

Only the minimal Honduran oligarchy and the media they control support the coup. They have no social base. A communique by the National Front Against the Coup stresses that some businessmen and military who initially supported the plotters are now leaving the country. The coup plotters - emboldened by force, as if this was Latin America in the 1970s all over again - reverted to, what else, mass repression, a state of siege and tear-gassing everyone in sight.

What the majority of the people in Honduras want is their rightful president back in power and a constituent assembly, for which they are campaigning all around the country. Zelaya's own counter-coup has been to risk his life and install a government in exile - but not in exile, inside his own country - the ultimate nightmare of any dictatorship. For the coup plotters, there are only two endgames: unleash state terrorism or get out of Dodge and beg for asylum in Panama.

The Pentagon power play
Washington's glaring ambiguity is easily attributed to the ongoing, fierce internal war in the US. The true US supporters of the coup in Honduras are US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and the State Department. But even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been forced to back down. On Monday, she finally was forced to admit "the remainder of President Zelaya's term [is] to be respected".

Crucially, Obama has to know how the ambiguous US stance on Honduras is a dagger pointing to his heart. It leaves his lofty promise of a new relationship between the US and Latin America in tatters. Worse still, it unveils how helpless he is facing his - in theory - subordinates at the Pentagon and the State Department, no to mention vast reactionary forces across the US for whom multilateralism means a surrender to "socialism" and to America's enemies.

As American political activist, author and lecturer Noam Chomsky has pointed out, Central America is still traumatized by the "Reaganesque terror" of the 1980s. In a wider context in Latin America, the US used to exert control either by hardcore violence, direct or indirect, or by applying an economic stranglehold. This belongs to the past - as much as coup lovers in the Pentagon may regret it.

Coups, anyway, are far from gone. The Bush administration tried (and failed) in Venezuela in 2002; now Washington engages in subversion/propaganda via an extensive media network and National Endowment for Democracy-style support for the disgruntled local oligarchies. In Haiti, both France and the US got rid of the government and sent the president to South Africa. Honduras is a more complex case. The International Monetary Fund has just approved an enormous loan to Honduras - which will cover for the lack of direct US "assistance".

Most of all, the US role in Honduras is a Pentagon-playing-the-New Great Game matter. The coup is intimately linked to ongoing remilitarization of Latin America - from the reactivation of the dormant Fourth Fleet to the installation of seven new military bases in Colombia. (See US's 'arc of instability' just gets bigger, September 3, Asia Times Online.)

In pure Pentagonese, Honduras under Zelaya fell under the good old Cold War domino theory. The government had to go because it was linked to ALBA, which means Nicaragua and, above all, Venezuela. Chavez is playing a high stakes New Great Game - he just bought US$2 billion in weapons from Russia at a time when Moscow wants access to the Orinoco oil wealth, and he is also doing energy megadeals with China. The Pentagonese response is an array of bases in Colombia to monitor him. Now Zelaya's move to the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa introduces an even juicier element.

Last December, Brazil struck a strategic military partnership with France - involving a multibillion-dollar purchase of submarines, helicopters and jet fighters - with full technology transfer included. Lula is privileging the French over Boeing - and obviously the US industrial-military complex is not amused. Brazil projects power independently from the US and France in South America. This is all about multilateralism in action - of the kind reactionary forces in the US simply abhor.

Brazil is a key G-20 member at the Pittsburgh summit - the largest economy in Latin America, swinging its way towards great power status, and still a key ally and trading partner of the US. Brazil may not solve the crisis in Honduras. But Lula - whom Obama immensely respects - may convince him it's time to finally come clean, and side with the people of Honduras.

This might do wonders for Obama's global credibility - especially now that he has seemingly backed down on his demand for a freeze on Israeli settlements on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. (See Netanyahu and Obama: Who's fooling who?, Asia Times Online, September 24) Were Obama not to make his move, the impression would remain that if he can't even control his own reactionary/militarist backyard in Washington, not to mention Latin America, how will he face up to Russia and China on the global stage?

Pakistan Taliban head 'likely dead'

2009-08-08T01:26:00.000-07:00

Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, is likely to have been killed, along with his wife and bodyguards, in a missile attack, Pakistani officials have said.

The country's interior minister said on Friday that Mehsud was suspected to have been killed earlier this week, but that there was no material confirmation of his death.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/08/200987141240512757.html