Geopolemics Home Page

Afghanistan

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:13:26 +0000

A long summer
The August presidential elections are now widely seen as a major blow to the credibility of the state-building effort in Afghanistan. The massive and badly managed rigging exercise not only discredited the exercise per se, but its waves impacted badly on the UN and on Washington as well. The UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) was badly shaken by internal divisions over how to handle the fraud, which ended in several resignations, the sacking of the respected Deputy Special Representative Galbraith and lasting bitterness. Washington, on the other hand, saw its internal divisions highlighted by the crisis. The line advocated by Galbraith and Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, of pushing hard for not accepting the fraud, was contradicted by the attitude of Ambassador Eickenberry, who privately congratulated Karzai not long after the vote. Even as the Electoral Complaints Commission found that fraud had occurred on a large scale and cut Karzai's percentage from over 54% to under 48%, opinion remained divided as to how to proceed. The preferred option, particularly as winter was about to set in, making a second round of voting difficult, was to engineer a coalition government between Karzai and challenger Abdullah. Although in principle neither candidate refused the idea of a coalition government, they found it difficult to agree on the respective 'prices'. Karzai is widely believed to be the likely winner of a second round and is in a position to force

Albania

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:03:20 +0000
Crisis mounts as Berisha is back
Albanian President Bamir Topi has appointed Sali Berisha, the incumbent, as the country's next prime minister, local media reported in September. Topi also called on Berisha to form the new government and Berisha handed in a list of a new cabinet to the president soon afterwards. Berisha has been dominating Albanian politics for nearly two decades.

Berisha's governing Democratic Party won 70 seats in the country's 140-seat parliament in the June 28 general election.

The opposition Socialist Party led by Edi Rama won 66 seats, while the left-wing Socialist Movement for Integration under Ilir Meta got four seats. Thus, the Democrats secured enough seats to govern for another 4-year term after they allied themselves with the Socialist Movement for Integration.

The Socialists is boycotting the parliament, claiming the Democratic Party rigged the elections and calling for investigations. Berisha denied the accusations. It is an unprecedented achievement in a transition country for the incumbents to be re-elected. Naturally suspicions of vote-rigging have been aroused.

New cabinet is formed
Albania's conservative prime minister named his new cabinet, giving key posts to small leftist partners and reappointing a former minister who is on trial in connection with a deadly ammunition blast last year.

Berisha, 64, named Socialist Movement for Int

Armenia

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:31:12 +0100
The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia began in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan.�

Since 1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. Some 10 percent of the Azeri population was displaced due to a series of bloody clashes both between and within the two neighbouring countries.�

In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which time the active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group are currently holding peaceful negotiations.

Turkey brings together Armenia and Azerbaijan in historic meeting
Something more direct is required to resolve the issue. The Turks have come up with what may be an answer.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan arrived in the U.S. on September 19 to attend the United Nations summit in New York. Turkey also will push for its bid for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council ahead of the voting in October.

A new chill in East-West relations overhung the U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders, the first major international meeting since Russia-Georgia in August. The financial turmoil on Wall Street also cast a pall over the annual week of speechifying, whose main theme this year was stepping up aid to impoverished countries.

But for Turkey the

Azerbaijan

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:24:44 +0100
Averting Armageddon
We all know that the world is in a grave crisis. Actually there is a cluster of crises that interlock and need concurrent attention. The 10th International Conference entitled "Energy, Ecology and Economy," which kicked off in Baku in mid-September, addressed them all. It was launched with organizational support from the Ministry of Industry and Energy, the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) and the International Ecoenergy Academy.

Fagan Aliyev, President of International Ecoenergy Academy, said at the opening ceremony that Azerbaijani scientists submitted 275 and foreign scientists submitted 30 scientific works to the conference. It is no big surprise that the bigwig behind the whole affair is an Aliyev. Everybody that counts in Azerbaijan, from the President Ilham Aliyev down, belongs to the clan.

The conference heard reports on "Best practices in construction: the advantages of high-quality buildings," "Introduction of new technologies for environmental friendly plating production ", "Deployment of Satellite SAR system to monitor the possible risks in oil, gas and water extraction," "Importance of legislative instruments for development of renewable sources of energy"," Development Trends of Azerenerji "," Current status of bioresources of the Caspian Sea "," Water-salt balance of the Caspian Sea "," Environmental problems related to Azerbaijan's production of refining and petrochemicals , "Cl

Bangladesh

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:38:20 +0000
Banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir Accounts Frozen
The central bank of Bangladesh has ordered the non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs) to freeze accounts of the banned Hizb ut Tahrir Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country's central bank, issued a fresh order in this connection on Monday and asked the chief executives of the country's 29 NBFIs to find out the organization's accounts and freeze them. The fresh order came a day after the central bank asked the chief executives of the country's 48 commercial banks to freeze accounts of the banned Islamic outfit. "We've issued the directive for the NBFIs on the basis of the existing Anti-Terrorism Act," a BB senior official told AHN in Dhaka, adding that the central bank has asked the NBFIs to immediately freeze accounts of those involved with the organization. He also said the anti-terrorism laws enacted earlier this year empower the central bank to freeze accounts of suspected terror outfits and give directives to the NBFIs to halt monetary transactions meant for supporting militancy. "We have been empowered to freeze any bank account for a maximum of 60 days in two phases to examine overall transactions of the suspected account," the BB official added. Hizb ut Tahrir, an Islamic political party founded in Jerusalem in 1953, started its journey in Bangladesh in 2001. A number of countries, mainly in Central Asia and Middle East, have banned its activities due to the outfit's terror links. On Oct. 22, Banglad

Belarus

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:48:20 +0000
An axis of the future?
Belarus might seem to be the ultimate backwater. An unkind critic could say: "It is downwind of two unpleasant realities, the Chernobyl disaster and Russia; a radioactive marsh in the wrong part of the world."

This is not the view of Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, downwind of the US. He knows that the disaster at Chernobyl in March 1986 was tragic, certainly, but failed to have the fall-out expected. The winds blew most of it away.

He is convinced that Belarus is an important geopolitical player. It is astride energy routes from Russia to Europe, likely to be of growing importance in the years to come. It has a special relationship to Moscow in more ways than one.

The Russians always knew and still know that the Belarussians are their only true friends in the FSU, White Russians as one. They have consequently confided in them military secrets that they would never divulge elsewhere.

Belarus is the site of immensely sophisticated former Soviet defence capabilties, namely air-defence systems. It is the repository of top-secret secrets, whose value is literally incalculable.

Chavez knows this full well. He spotted an opportunity, the fact that the Belarussians and the Russians have rather fallen out. It is over the price of energy, that is of oil and gas. He could do what might be a brilliant deal he appears to have done it.

The new Castro<

Bosnia Herzegovina

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:41:48 +0000
A divided country
A certain event in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on June 28, 1914, set off the First World War. It is a place of dire portent.

It became the scene of Europe's bloodiest recent war in 1992-95, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced as refugees. Divided into two barely functioning administrative entities, a Bosnian Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat federation, the country has made so little progress in the 14 years since the war ended that Bosnians still need a visa to travel anywhere in the European Union (EU).

Failure of the EU
In principle, the EU already has a wealth of tools to shape Bosnia's future a 2,000-strong military force, a police mission, a special representative, huge investment and leverage on local politicians who aspire to join the bloc. In practice, Bosnia-Herzegovina has only illustrated Europe's shortcomings.

In many ways, the country already ought to be a showcase success for European "soft power". Since the United States brokered the 1995 Dayton accord, the EU has largely taken charge. Its special representative, Valentin Inzko, doubles as the high representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, an office established at the talks in Dayton, Ohio. He has wide powers to overrule feuding local politicians.

However, analysts say Bosnia-Herzegovina is politically paralysed. They fear nationalist tensions are so strong and European officials unable to

RECOVERY OR RUIN

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:23:19 +0000

"FEAR HAS REPLACED TRUST IN OUR APPROACH TO THE ECONOMY"

"The great economic thinkers of the 20th Century, Keynes and Galbraith, knew that left to their own devices, the bankers and financiers would bring the roof in on the whole system. Banking as we have known it has totally failed and must be replaced by a new and preferably more democratically structured global format".

"The mind-boggling global financial derivatives market, including interest rate and credit default swaps at the end of 2007, had a gross value of an estimated $393 trillion. Ignorance plays a large role here. The truth is that even now nobody knows exactly how bad things are and how many trillions of uncollected derivative debts are still out there. More than $200 trillion in open derivative contracts were not on the balance sheets because so many of the derivatives were zero sum contracts where one liability was set off against another credit elsewhere.

"What is called for in this global economic crisis is an entirely new economic order".

Bulgaria

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:42:36 +0000
Bulgarian woman wins UNESCO top job
The evening hours of September 22, Bulgaria's Independence Day, brought good news for those who had backed ambassador in Paris and former foreign minister Irina Bokova to be elected the new Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO. After five days of voting, Bokova, who was also Bulgaria's permanent representative at UNESCO, beat Egypt's culture minister Farouk Hosny in a final round run-off to succeed Koichiro Matsura as head of the international body.

Bokova was nominated for the post by the previous government in 2008, and Bulgarian officials devoted considerable effort abroad in face-to-face lobbying to win support for her. The vote in her favour by the UNESCO board, which chose her from an original nine candidates, is still subject to confirmation by a vote in October by the general assembly of the organisation, which has 193 member states.

Prior to the rounds of voting by the board, Bokova said in a message on her website: "The greatest challenge is to lead the world into a new era of peace and humanism, to create more inclusive, just, and equitable societies through sustainable economic and social development, based on science, innovation and new technologies that will serve mankind and will preserve the environment". Reacting to the election, she repeated her pledges to reform UNESCO, to make it more effective and less bureaucratic

Croatia

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:54:30 +0000
Irish vote helps Croatia
The Irish voted for the Lisbon Treaty at the end of September. This is incredibly good news for the Balkan countries applying for EU membership, none more so than for Croatia.

The 27-nation bloc became well aware after the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 that it needed to put its own house in order. The Irish have now enabled it to do so.

David Cameron has refused to accede to the demand that the UK has a referendum in turn, well aware that the EU is deeply unpopular in his country. He is being opposed in this decision to fudge the issue by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London.

The Demiurge of Dalmatia
Croatia was once the heartland of a major province of the Roman Empire, Dalmatia. Several great Roman emperors hailed from there, notably Diocletian and Constantine, who converted the empire to Christianity.

Suitably enough Croatia became a staunch redoubt of Roman Catholicism. It cleaves to Rome in the shape of the Vatican.

It would now dearly love to join up to the product of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, then called the Common Market, now the European Union (EU). As the Demiurge of Dalmatia, it has as much right as anybody to do so.

With its border dispute with Slovenia out of the way, Croatia's eventual entry into the EU is now all but certain because of its accession's symbolic importance to the rest of the turbulent Ba

IRAN: NOW THE WORLD'S NUMBER ONE PROBLEM

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 20:13:40 +0100

With discernible progress on the North Korean front and a real prospect of the de-escalation that the world seeks from Pyongyang, IRAN swims into focus as the principal global unfinished business. IRAN's position was always more complex than North Korea's, some details of which it may be worth re-considering. It is a theocracy, so ultimately beyond rationality, which would be problem enough! It is also on these grounds able to summon up from its fanatical supporters, a level of sacrifice at the service of the state, as was exemplified by the human-bomb and human mine-sweeper volunteers, during the war against IRAQ. In addition, its theocracy is that of an heretical branch of Islam (ie not of the Sunni majority), and therefore the focus for hatred of equally fanatical Moslems of another sectarian stripe. It is big - with a 70 million population. Not an Arab state, but with many such as its neighbours, all apart from IRAQ having much smaller populations. There are age-old suspicions between them. IRAN sponsors its often violent co-religionists in non-Shia states - IRAQ and the Lebanon are prime examples. Saudi and the Gulf States fear Iranian influence on their own Shi'ite minorities. IRAN also neighbours war-torn AFGHANISTAN and nuclear- armed PAKISTAN, as well as NATO member TURKEY, an ancient adversary for regional dominance in western Asia, but now no longer.
The international dispute coalesces around IRAN's drive to create a n

Czech Republic

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:29:05 +0000
German-Russian energy moves alarm the Czech PM
The Czech Republic is concerned by close energy ties between Germany and Russia because they may threaten Czech energy security, PM Topolanek said on November 20. Topolanek, a right-wing prime minister who took office last year, said the country was developing diplomatic activity and practical plans to diversify oil and gas supplies. "We have big concerns, and I talk about it very openly so I can say it here, from the kind of new big friendship between Berlin and Moscow," he told a business conference.

The Czech Republic takes about 80 percent of its gas and most of its crude oil from Russia, and Topolanek's centre-right cabinet has made energy security one of its priorities.
Relations between the pro-U.S. government and Russia have been strained since the Czechs began to contemplate a US request to build part of a U.S. missile defence shield in the country, earlier this year. The Czech Republic is hostile to the whole idea, which it sees as directed against the Russians, not rogue regimes the other side of Eurasia. Geography would appear to bear them out.

But Toplanek and President Vaclav Klaus are out-and-out Atlanticists and both markedly reserved about Russia, whom they well remember as oppressors of their country before 1989.

Russia and Germany are planning a 1,200 km (745.6 miles) pipeline under the Baltic Sea, called Nord Stream, that will take 55 bill

Estonia

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:14:51 +0000
There is no doubt that there is a Nordic communality of nations. They have a common past and they hope a common future. There is a common constant - fear of Russia.

Nordic and Baltic prime ministers meet in Oslo
The Estonian Prime Minister feels that everyone should be concerned about developments in Russia. "Naturally I am worried about the way things are developing in Russia. Only three years ago the state accounted for 50 per cent of the Russian national economy: now it is 70 per cent." Andrus Ansip said in the Norwegian capital Oslo, where the prime ministers of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania met on November 12, along with their colleagues from the five Nordic countries.

The leaders of the Baltic countries were nevertheless cautious in their statements on how the possible accession of President Putin to the post of Prime Minister after his presidency runs out might affect the situation in the Baltic States. "Let's see what happens in March. Today we can only speculate, and that is not the job of a prime minister", said Lithuania's Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas. Latvia's leader was also cautious. "Nobody can predict what will happen in the elections for the Duma and the Presidency. We are open to cooperation", said Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis. As it so happens, it will not be his job to be so, as he became obliged by a domestic crisis to step down on December 5.

Only Ansip would ponder the implicatio

Georgia

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:27:54 +0100
Wars may last only five or seven days and yet decide the fate of countries, indeed a whole region, for decades or even centuries.

The outcome of the Seven-Day War in June 1967 has decided the fate of the Middle East to date.

The even shorter five-day war between Russia and Georgia in August last year looks like it has settled the fate of the Caucasus for a long time to come.

Russia to stay
Russia has signed an agreement with two Georgian rebel regions to maintain military bases in the independence-seeking territories for nearly five decades. The pact with Abkhazia and South Ossetia was signed on September 15.

Moscow already has a temporary military presence in both former Georgian provinces, following the brief war with Georgia last year over Tbilisi's aggression on South Ossetia.

Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov signed the long-awaited agreements with his de facto counterparts, Abkhazia's Merab Kishmaria and South Ossetia's Yury Tanayev. The deal allows Moscow with "the construction, use and improvement of military infrastructure and military bases on the territory of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov was quoted as saying.

Interfax said the agreements were binding for 49 years. Kuznetsov added that the deal allowed 1,700 troops to be stationed in each region.

The figure was announced in Aug

Greece

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:30:51 +0000
Greece and Turkey open gas pipeline
Greece and Turkey are edgy neighbours, who have, nevertheless, been getting on better of late.
As a symbol of good intentions as well as for more mundane reasons, they opened a $300 million pipeline on November 18, creating an energy corridor that connects the rich natural gas fields in the Caspian Sea region to Europe, bypassing Russia and the volatile Middle East. The 300-kilometre pipeline brings natural gas from Azerbaijan to Greece and will be extended to Italy and the rest of Western Europe.

The 178-mile pipeline solidifies improved ties between Greece and Turkey, linking the long-time Aegean rivals through a project that will give Caspian gas its first direct Western outlet and help ease Russia's energy dominance as oil and gas prices soar. The two leaders have sought to use an often-cited good personal bond to improve relations between their two countries, which have been strained over decades of territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea - and centuries of shared history within the Ottoman Empire, and later. Karamanlis also shares a personal bond with Erdogan after serving as a witness at his daughter's marriage in 2004.

"This project will bring significant benefits both for Greece and Turkey," said Kostas Karamanlis, the Greek prime minister, who inaugurated the project with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It shows "we can live in harmony and both gain from it," Mr

Hungary

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:32:35 +0000
At the brink
Hungary is in a ghastly hole. It began to run a huge public deficit, nearly 10%of GDP. The ex-communists who ran the show kept making promises that they could not keep.

The government is nearing the end of its period of severe fiscal austerity, but the structural reforms will continue and a budget deficit of less than 3% of gross domestic product is within reach in the coming years, Prime Minister Gyurcsany said on November 15.

"The period of austerity measures seen in the past 1.5 years is over but this doesn't mean that the reforms are done. Now a period of improvement and construction is to come," Gyurcsany said at a conference organized by domestic think tank GKI.

The ongoing painful reforms of Hungary's healthcare, education, and public sectors are not only aimed at bringing the budget back to a sustainable course but also at putting an end to stop-go fiscal cycles, and at convincing Hungarians that no more can be spent on social services than is received in the budget.

"In a small and open economy such as Hungary's, we need to aim to have a budget that has not a 3% deficit but which is totally balanced (with no deficit)," Gyurcsany said.

Hungary recorded the biggest budget deficit as a percentage of gross domestic products in the European Union last year, at 9.2%. The austerity measures carried out this year and last year amounted to 7.5% of GDP, one of the bigg

India

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:35:00 +0000
Pakistan-India Border Tensions Re-ignite
Pakistani troops, in the last few days, fired at Indian army positions across the de facto border dividing Kashmir between the two nations. The Indian army has accused Pakistan of violating a ceasefire. Pakistani troops fired from light and medium machine guns towards Indian forward posts in the southern Poonch sector. An Indian soldier was wounded in the "unprovoked firing that lasted for some 30 minutes. This has been deemed as yet another violation of the ceasefire line by the Pakistani troops. India in the past has accused the Pakistani army of providing covering fire for infiltrating militants. Islamabad denies the charge. On the 24th, Indian troops shot dead a Kashmiri youth who tried to enter their camp after injuring a soldier by hitting him with an axe, an Indian army spokesman said in Srinagar. Pakistan has also been very critical of India of late for expressing a "self-serving" concern about the safety of its nuclear weapons. Responding to comments made by Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons after a suicide attack at the Kamra aeronautical complex on Friday, the Foreign Ministry in Pakistan has asked New Delhi to "stop its opportunistic propaganda against Pakistan." (Source: The Hindu). The Pakistani Foreign Ministry issued a statement stating that, "such remarks are evidently self-serving and integral to India's efforts to seek unilateral advantage at the cos

Iran

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:37:06 +0000
Nuclear Iran: a temporary deal and not even certain yet
Following the leak from the IAEA in September, concerning the ability of Iran to already produce an atomic bomb, in October US president Obama announced the discovery of a secret enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. The IAEA has also determined that Iran has been actively researching for years the development of nuclear warheads. As a result, tension between Washington and Teheran reached the highest level since the new US administration has taken charge. In the US the press was publishing opinion polls, suggesting that a majority of Americans would support air strikes against Iran. The Geneva agreement on having Iran's uranium enriched in Russia and France came after these revelations and was the result of secret negotiations between the Iranians, the Americans and the Europeans, with the IAEA as intermediary. The agreement does not fully resolve the problem and in fact merely buys time for further negotiations as it avoids weaponisation for at least some months; it also allows Iran to enrich uranium itself up to a certain level, which is feared might undermine the non-proliferation treaty. The Iranians, however, would not settle for anything less than this as they want to be able to make the symbolic claim of having won the right to enrich uranium. The Iranians also made concessions, including accepting a French role; Ahmadinejad dislikes Sarkozy because he took a rather hawkish line vis-�-vi

WHEN ANGER IS APPROPRIATE

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:54:59 +0100
Anger is perhaps not just forgivable but highly appropriate, after reading the following report on 21st century slavery. But emotion is always misplaced unless the facts are themselves objective, well sourced and sensibly interpreted. Thus our report refers to "Europe's Modern Slave Trade - Human Trafficking" - rather than the long existing Latin America-to-USA traffic; or the equally heinous intra-Asian variety, to which of course we make reference. This is partly because in Europe, this scandal is probably newer with the collapse of communism. Thus it is reasonably well documented.�

We also make a distinction between regrettable male and female 'human smuggling,' where those often economic refugees being smuggled, are complicit with their smugglers. This we see as distinct from the unmitigated evil of old-fashioned slavery, where an unwilling victim, often a stolen child or helpless young woman, is under the control and at the disposal of the trafficker.�

But also we refer to Europe because the remit of newnations.com is to report the affairs of currently forty-five 'nations in transition,' and we name here several of those nations as being involved. Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. All these are named in this report as being the greatest sources of trafficked victims.�

A current exhibition of worldwide human trafficking in the Museum of World Culture in Sweden's Gothenburg, reports amo

Iraq

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:33:43 +0000
End of the Awakening
The government campaign against the Awakening movement has been in full sway for some months now, driving several leaders abroad and getting other arrested. As a result the Awakening movement is seriously weakened. Its leaders maintain that many of the charges against them are fabricated. Such weakening might be linked to the upsurge of violence in recent months, whether because of the decaying ability of the Awakening leadership to keep a lid on extremist elements or because of the complicity of some Awakening elements with the insurgents, in revenge for having been targeted by the government. There is also a power struggle within the Awakening councils going on, which is contributing to weaken them. Prime Minister Maliki seems intentioned to bring a minority of the leaders onto his side and marginalize or eliminate the rest.

Rigged elections epidemic might be reaching Iraq too
The forthcoming January elections are also becoming quite contentious. The impartiality of the Electoral Commission is in doubt, after cases of corruption and favouritism were discovered in the past provincial elections. The forthcoming parliamentary elections are also the object of a controversy because the parliament could not reach an agreement on the election law yet, due to an ongoing controversy over Kirkuk. In the meanwhile various political forces continue to negotiate alliances in order to position themselves for the elections

Kazakstan

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:33:07 +0100
OSCE chairmanship brings a new drive against corruption
There may be something to be said for exploiting the natural human proclivity to be liked. Kazakhstan has seen a string of high-profile arrests for corruption this year. Dozens of top businessmen and government officials -- most recently powerful defence minister Danial Akhmetov -- have been sacked or arrested on corruption charges in the past several months.

This is not unconnected to the fact that the Kazakh government is set to take over the rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe next year. It is keen to portray the arrests as a crackdown on illegal practices.

But analysts have suggested they may be part of a power struggle centring around the succession of ageing President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the ex-Soviet state since it won independence in 1991. Curiously, the regime is proposing a new measure to make Nazarbayev president-for-life. The proposal was naturally criticised by opposition parties. But it was totally endorsed in the parliament, utterly dominated by regime stalwarts.

There is something eerie about it all the same. When Margaret Thatcher said that she was going to go on 'forever and ever' in mid-1990, her end was well and truly nigh.

Kazakhstan arrests banker for billion-dollar theft
At all events the latest arrest concerns a prominent financier. Police in Kaz

Kyrgyzstan

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:21:50 +0000
The revolution continues
The 'revolution' carries on, insofar as no one can any more dictate the political course of events. The situation is still volatile in Kyrgystan. After months of wrangling between government and opposition, it is agreed that there should be new elections to parliament in December.

But there is now huge controversy over what form they should take.

Concern is being raised in Kyrgyzstan over a requirement that political parties must pass a certain threshold in each of the country's seven regions in order to win parliamentary seats in elections. Kyrgyzstan's first parliamentary elections based on party lists are set for December 16 after a new constitution and laws were passed in an October referendum.

These are the first parliamentary elections since President Askar Akaev was ousted in the so-called Tulip Revolution in March 2005.

The new dispensation
The Central Election Commission has ruled that according to the new election law, parties must get at least 13,500 votes, or 0.5 percent of the overall total of registered voters nationwide, in each of the country's seven provinces and two biggest cities, Bishkek and Osh - a rule meant to prevent purely regional parties with no other qualification from making it into the national parliament. Very hard for Kyrgyzstan's clan-based politics to come to terms with.

This requirement is in addition to the 5

Latvia

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:24:59 +0000
Resignation Of Premier Aigars Kalvitis
The news broke on November 7 that the Latvian Prime Minister, Aigars Kalvitis, will step down on December 5. He has been Prime Minister since December 2004.

Kalvitis announced his decision after a November 7 meeting with President Valdis Zatlers, who has gone on the record saying that the government should resign once it has passed a budget for 2008.
The December 5 deadline should give Kalvitis time to push the budget through as well as ratifying a definitive border treaty with Russia and possibly also completing reorganisation of local government.

However, it seems that Kalvitis intends that the government itself should continue even after his departure. According to a report in November 8's Dienas Bizness, he will appoint new ministers for the Economy, Foreign Affairs and Welfare before his departure, a signal to Zatlers that a dissolution of parliament would be untimely.

Not surprising in the circumstances
Mr Kalvitis' resignation is hardly surprising and comes after a period of intensified political and economic crisis in Latvia. Nonetheless, his resignation clearly intensifies the crisis further and increases uncertainties about the political and economic situation in the country.

It seems clear that Mr Kalvitis' resignation has been masterminded by the power brokers in the three governing coalition parties that undoubtedly will blam

Lithuania

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:28:55 +0000
With winter rapidly approaching, everyone in the Baltic states is concerned with energy. Lithuania is in the same boat as the other Baltic states vis-a vis energy, an over-reliance on one supplier - Russia. It is also the key state to help them to diversify, as we shall see.

Energy issues
A paper on a European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy issued by European Union Energy Commissioner Latvian Andris Piebalgs in March 2006 referred to the Baltic states as an "energy island." It was the first time the phrase was used, it caught on and has been going the rounds ever since.

Piebalgs's label for the Baltic states refers to their being cut off from supplies of oil, gas, and electricity. With few natural resources of their own, the Baltic states are increasingly reliant upon external suppliers. More troubling for states that only managed to break free of the Soviet Union 16 years ago, the word "suppliers" can be replaced, for all intents and purposes, with the singular, "supplier": Russia.

Piebalgs revived his catchphrase while speaking in Riga in May, saying: "I would like to see the Baltic states at the heart of [the EU's energy] transformation. This would fit well with the acute need for greater security of energy supply in these states, which have for too long been an energy island dependent upon one major supplier of gas."

Worries about the reliability of Russian oil and ga

Libya

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:58:22 +0000
The Lockerbie Thorn Endures
Far from ending the 20-year long saga in Libya's international relations, Scotland's release (on humanitarian grounds) of Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of placing explosives aboard Pan Am flight 103, has effectively reopened the case amid doubts and speculations. Al-Megrahi's triumphant welcome in Tripoli, last August, prompted a series of international condemnations, inducing the start of a backlash, even as the Libyan's steadfast denial of responsibility continued to raise doubts about the validity of the Lockerbie case against Libya. Indeed, by releasing al-Megrahi, Scotland effectively averted a possible appeal trial that may well have ended up refuting the al-Megrahi conviction, relying on the terminal nature of his illness and imminent death. After rumors to the contrary, Libyan authorities say that al-Megrahi is still alive as is the Lockerbie case. Indeed, Maltese and Scottish authorities have decided to re-examine key evidence and witnesses, because of the many doubts that have emerged in the wake of al-Megrahi's release.

The 'Daily Telegraph' reported that the Maltese government intends to question Tony Gauci, the owner of the clothing shop, who identified Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi as the man who bought clothes from his shop, the remnants of which were found in the debris of the crash. The clothes enveloped the bomb that exploded in a suitcase aboard the plane. Al-Megrahi

Macedonia

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:18:40 +0100
New coalition and government formed
On July 5th, Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and ethnic Albanian leader Ali Ahmeti agreed a coalition for the troubled country's new government.

In June 1 snap parliamentary poll Gruevski's nationalist VMRO-DPMNE won by a landslide, while Ahmeti's Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) dominated in the Albanian minority, making up one-quarter of the 2.1 million Macedonians.

In the previous government, which lasted less than two years, Gruevski partnered with the bitter rivals of the DUI, the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA).

The rivalry between the DUI and the DPA stirred violence which marred the June 1 elections and forced a repeat vote at nearly 200 polling stations in Albanian-dominated north-western Macedonia.

Below-standard elections like this, as well as systemic corruption and stalled reforms have prevented Macedonia from progressing far toward European Union membership since winning the status of a candidate in 2005.

Kept out of the EU
In addition, diplomatic wrangling with Athens over the name Macedonia, which Greece claims for its northern province, left it on the doorstep of NATO three months ago, while two other Balkan nations, Croatia and Albania, received a membership invitation.

The Macedonians would be well advised to forget about the name change until after they are well inside the EU. They

Moldova

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:31:23 +0000
The fall-out from Rome
Moldova cannot but be adversely affected by the rumpus developing between Romania, its alter-ego, and Italy, in which Romanian crooks and worse, rapist murderers, are now loose in Rome, Milan and elsewhere. It all certainly puts back any prospect of Moldova following Romania soon into the EU fold. It is all about subscribing to the Treaty of Rome after all.

This is anyway an unlikely eventuality so long as the territorial integrity of the Moldovan state remains in question, although it remains a reasonable long-term goal.

Moldova in crisis
Accusations of double standards are flying across the Dniester river, as Pridnestrovie (also known informally as Transnistria) blames Moldova for saying one thing but acting in a totally contrary way.

The issue: The first talks to resolve their differences in more than a year and a half, which were supposed to be held in November in Madrid, but which had to be called off after Moldova announced that it wouldn't take part. Pridnestrovie had already confirmed its willingness to attend.

On 13 November 2007, a meeting was supposed to have taken place in Spain, between representatives of the sides, mediators, and observers within (a cumbersome title for a complex affair) the Permanent Conference on Political Issues in the Framework of the "5+2" Moldova-Pridnestrovie Settlement Negotiation Process. The meeting was planned as the fir

Montenegro

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:30:20 +0000
The newest of the new
Montenegro became the latest country to emerge last year when its people voted just enough, 55% in May, to obtain independence. Any rerun would see this victory repeated with a landslide, so popular has the independent reality been.

Montenegro separated from its former federal partner, Serbia, in June 2006 after a referendum on independence. It was an independent state until 1918 when its leaders opted to join the newly-formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes that later became Yugoslavia. Montenegro was the smallest among the six republics in federal Yugoslavia and it was the only republic to stay in a federation with Serbia after 1992.

Montenegro is poised to do really well. It is a jewel of a new country on the Adriatic. It has everything a nature-lover could want and is a tourist paradise close to the heart of Europe.

Its property market is the most expansive on the continent. It can expect a continuing flood of rich entrants, boosting prices. In particular it has attracted Russians some of whom have purchased the choicest developments.

But its own people have problems all the same. Not everything is paradise for them.

The EU beckons
This became clear in the EU report on Macedonia for this year.The Commission expects Montenegro to produce significant results in relation to improving administrative capacity and tackling corruption.

North Korea

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:10:34 +0000
North Korea: Waiting and hoping
As of late October the mood around North Korea is one of cautious anticipation. The month has seen little movement, especially on the nuclear issue and with the US; although bilateral talks with the latter are expected soon. Inter-Korean relations, by contrast, witnessed more tangible progress in the form of family reunions; there are also rumours that the two Koreas have held secret discussions on a possible summit meeting. A high-level Chinese visit raised hopes, but also highlighted ambiguities. Beyond this, a relatively uneventful month offers an opportunity to note and flesh out some other notable recent developments from September.

China's premier visits Pyongyang
The month's main event was a trip to Pyongyang by China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, on October 4-6. Formally this was to mark the 60th anniversary of PRC-DPRK relations. (The latter is the elder state of the pair, having been founded in 1948: a year before Mao's forces sealed the victory of communism in China.) North Korea pulled out all the stops for this visit. Wen was met and hugged at the airport by Kim Jong-il in person. A red scarf is not the usual fashion accessory of China's urbane and grey-suited premier, but Wen kept smiling when a Young Pioneer tied one around his neck. If this was Kim's hint about keeping the old faith, for his part Wen no doubt urged his host to turn over a new leaf and get with the times.

2008 - A YEAR OF DESTINY

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:50:53 +0100
With the summer behind us, it is not too soon to consider 2008, when the most powerful job in the world will change hands and also what is perhaps the world's second to the top job, a contender for the next most powerful presidency - because Russia's leader must be in the running for that distinction. Within no more than seventeen years from the collapse of the USSR - when Putin's eight year presidency terminates, the crippled federation of nations that emerged from the wreckage is looking transformed today. When Putin came to power, the centre was a shambles - close to anarchy with many of its 89 constituent republics going their own way and its economy in the hands of oligarchs, who with state connivance had acquired control of the commanding heights of financial power. Many of its citizens had forfeited their life savings - victims of an economic shock therapy that led to meltdown. Few of the faults of the soviet command economy had been rectified and Russian manufacturing was at its lowest ebb. Right across the vast expanse of the world's largest nation, gangsters had become the new aristocracy, the rule of law had given way to the rule of the gun, indeed it was widely called by involved westerners, "the Wild East". The nation was close to becoming a basket case.

It is hard to fully appreciate how fundamentally things have changed. Putin, relying on his trusted cohorts from the security services and the military, as Cromwell did with his major generals, ha

Outposts of Tyranny

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:16:40 +0100
Condi Rice named six nations described as 'Outposts of Tyranny.' and "Fear Societies". These are Cuba, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Iran, North Korea and Belarus.

These are all good choices, but we note that no allies of the US or 'hosts' of US military bases, or oil and gas supplier nations are listed except Iran, with whom the US has famously had a spat for 30 years now. Did she overlook any others?

We invite readers to add any more nations, particularly since the Fourth Division of our Democracy Report consists of 74 nations, many of which fall into her category of 'Fear Societies.' :-

Pakistan

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:19:48 +0000
Now or never for the Obama administration
The Obama administration has approved a US$7.5 billion aid package to Pakistan. What characterizes the package is a number of conditions, including the verification that Pakistan is actively dismantling militant networks operating within its territory and that it also working against nuclear proliferation, as well as the strengthening of civilian oversight over the army. In Pakistan, however, many see the proposed aid bill as an infringement on Pakistani sovereignty. The Army, in particular, has been actively lobbying against it. In an unusual move, Army generals, including Chief of Staff Kayani, have been appearing on TV talk shows, arguing against the bill. Kayani is also known to have met Shahbaz Sharif, Nawaz's brother, a development which marks a shift in the Army's attitude towards Pakistani politicians as until recently it had been more sympathetic towards the PPP, if not President Zardari himself, whom Kayani despises. In the parliament MPs from Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League have been very aggressive against the bill, accusing the government of betraying the national interest. The Army is driven towards the Muslim League also by the desire to prevent a strengthening of civilian control over it. Kayani will end his 3-years term in 2010 and is said to be lobbying for an extension, which would be an unprecedented step in a time of civilian government. Still Washington has huge leverage, as not only Pakistan needs

Philippines

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:34:34 +0000
At the time of writing this piece, storm warnings have once again been raised in Central and Southern Luzon as Typhoon "Santi" (international codename, "Mirinae") has entered the Philippines area of control and is expected to make landfall by the All Saints holiday weekend (October 31/November 1). And once again residents have been advised to evacuate low-lying areas and mountain slopes as precautionary measures against flash floods and landslides. Those living in coastal areas have been warned to expect storm surges and large waves induced by the approaching storm.

This latest typhoon comes as Luzon�the northernmost part of the Philippines archipelago�is still recovering from two previous devastating storms that claimed more than 1,000 lives during the past month.

Tropical storm "Ondoy" (international code name "Ketsana") dumped the heaviest rains in more than four decades on Metro Manila on September 26. More than a month's rain, 455 millimetres, was dumped on the national capital in less than 24 hours, Ondoy surpassed the amount of rain (200 250 mm) unleashed by Hurricane "Katrina" on the southern parts of the United States in August, 2005.

Much of Manila was without power for several days and many areas were under more than 20 feet of water. The deluge submerged houses, washed away many shacks and shanties in squatter areas and forced many residents to scramble to rooftops to await rescue which in some cases took more than

Romania

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:50:20 +0000
The Romanians experienced the worst dictatorship in recent European history. It came to an end on Christmas Day 1989, the best Christmas gift a nation has ever had. They are now revelling in their new-found democracy.

Consequently there is chaos. There are some cynical older folk who think maybe there was a point to the dictatorship after all.

Romania in disarray
The government in Bucharest collapsed in October, as the coalition broke up, subsequent to the firing of the interior minister, Dan Nica, on October1.

He was accused by Premier Emil Boc of injudicious comments about the forthcoming presidential elections, the first round of which is on November 22. He did, indeed, suggest that they might not be scrupulous and fair, with Boc a close ally of the incumbent president seeking re-election. After the interior minister lost his post, a key one in Romania, the Social Democrats, to which he belonged, pulled out of the coalition.

This left the Democratic Liberal Party stranded without sufficient parliamentary support to survive on its own. It lost a no-confidence vote by 254 to 176. President Trajan Basescu appointed a 52-year old technocrat, Lucian Croitoru, as an interim premier. Parliamentary approval, which Croitoru is expected to seek on November 4, could be difficult as the three main opposition parties have an absolute majority and have repeatedly rejected his nomination. They want to make li

Russia

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:20:29 +0100
The Russian state is always aware of its sheer immensity, across eleven time zones, and that it is the inevitable foil of the US.

Its personification today and for the foreseeable future is Vladimir Putin, premier of the Russian Federation. He decides who rules in the 89 constituent regions and republics of Russia.

Its one true enemy, or perhaps it would be better to say, counterfoil, is always going to be the US, as dominant in its own hemisphere as Russia is in Eurasia for now. But then there is after all China.

Obama at the UN
President Barack Obama is well aware that the number one geopolitical relationship for Washington is that with Moscow, master of the vast tracts of the heartland of Eurasia.

In his speech at the UN on September 23, Obama committed himself and his administration to a mighty idea the supersession of nuclear weapons. He was addressing the world, but primarily Russia.

He is fully apprised of the fact that the US and Russia possess 90% or more of the world's nuclear weapons. They could destroy the world zillion times over and the Moon as well no doubt but what is the point of that?

They were amassed of course during the Cold War, which ended in 1991. Negotiators from Russia and the United States opened on September 21 a new round of talks aimed at a replacement for the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which expires shortly on D

Serbia

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:58:34 +0000
First ever Russian presidential visit
Russia liberated Serbia from the Ottoman yoke in 1878, after nearly half a century of subjugation since the fatal loss of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Russia had a hand in liberating the Serbs from the Nazis in 1945, although this was really a self-liberation by the Serbs under the Partisans, led by Tito.

The UK gave massive assistance, as it so happens, approved by Churchill, at the instigation of a real man of action, Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean, only 34 at the time in 1945, Churchill's emissary to Tito. But the Red Army, the main victor, was beating the stuffing out of the Wehrmacht at the time in the heart of Europe, which it proceeded to swallow up. Hence Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech and the Cold War!

Largely self-liberated Yugoslavia was out on a limb and in 1948 defected from the Soviet camp, freezing relations with Moscow for decades. But Khrushchev made a profuse apology to Tito in person for the Kremlin's previous pointless animosity. After the dour Brezhnevite years, 1964-85, Gorbachev re-activated relations with Belgrade. But he never visited, having rather more urgent matters on his plate.

It is rather astonishing in the circumstances that the first ever visit by a Russian president took place only on October 27 this year. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev brought a $1 billion loan to recession-hit Serbia, as Moscow sought to expand its political and economic

Slovakia

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:54:23 +0000
Dispute over a land deal threatens coalition, says Smer
Its former dictator, Vladimir Meciar, continues to haunt Slovakian politics. He had the good grace to accept the verdict of the polls nine years ago in 1998 and stand down and has thus been able to remain in mainstream politics. His party is now causing ructions inside the governing coalition, which would lose its majority in parliament without its support.

The Slovak senior ruling party, Smer-Social Democracy of Prime Minister Robert Fico, said on November 20 that a dispute over a (corrupt) land deal threatens the existence of the coalition government. "The situation in the governing coalition is serious," Silvia Glendova, a spokeswoman for Smer, told Slovak TA3 news television.

She said her party blamed the junior People's Party- Movement for a Democratic Slovakia of Meciar. "Smer is not interested in participating in a coalition which would tolerate such managing of land in the Slovak Land Fund," Glendova said.

At issue is a piece of land near the High Tatras mountain range that was purchased by a company close to Meciar's party for some 13 million koruna (euro392,300; US$580,000) from owners who had received it as restitution in a deal approved by the Slovak Land Fund. The land's real value is reportedly 1.5 billion koruna (euro45.3 million; US$67.0 million). Fico's Smer called the deal "scandalous."

The Slovak agriculture minister, Miroslav

Slovenia

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:55:46 +0000
The departing president, who remains head of state until just before Christmas, is an unusual man and deserves this tribute:-
Martin Fletcher, Times Online

It is not often that you ask a European head of state whether he has gone loopy, but in the case of Janez Drnovsek, Slovenia's reclusive President, the question seems almost unavoidable.

Bald, monkish and skeletally thin, Drnovsek has abandoned his capital for a mountain retreat. He no longer speaks to his Government. He boycotts state occasions, and disappears for weeks at a time. He has turned vegan, talks like a New Age mystic of his quest for "higher consciousness" and "inner balance", and communicates with the Slovenian people through books on spirituality. He set out to tackle the problems of the world from a country smaller than Wales, and has become a champion of progressive causes.

It is an astonishing transformation for a man who, as Slovenia's Prime Minister from 1992 until he was elected President in 2002, was regarded as a dull, grey technocrat. It was triggered by the prospect of imminent death. In 1999 he found that he had kidney cancer and, in 2001, that the cancer had spread to his liver and lungs. His doctors said his condition was incurable.

Any serious illness comes as a shock, but "the shock can be beneficial because one is caught in patterns of behaviour and somehow you do them mechanically and without really thinking about them

Poland

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:47:07 +0000
New government sworn in
Following a resounding victory in October parliamentary elections, Poland's new Prime Minister Donald Tusk was formally sworn in by President Lech Kaczynski on November 16, before he and his coalition government's ministers took office in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Warsaw.

"So help me God," said Tusk, leader of Poland's election-winning liberal party, as he pledged to serve the country, using a formula, which although optional, is traditionally used in government ceremonies in deeply-Catholic Poland. His 18 ministers were then sworn in one by one.

Tusk said his ministers were "well prepared and decent," adding "state power should serve the people, not dominate them." His government intended to focus on "health, wages and home security," Tusk added.

Tusk's Civic Platform (PO) Party beat the conservative Law and Justice Party in a snap election on October 21 and ended the unprecedented political double act of deposed Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski with his identical twin, who of course remains the president, Lech Kaczynski.

The PO victory also ended the rule of Kaczynski's fractious three-party coalition, which had struggled through two years of in-fighting, scandal and criticism.

A new coalition forms
Tusk takes over with a new coalition, forced on him due to the fact that Civic Platform missed its goal of obtaining

South Africa

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:19:55 +0100
POLICE AND MILITARY CLASH
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) said the violent protest August 26 by soldiers came at a time when the military was in a state of high alert. Four soldiers were taken to hospital and 18 were injured when about 2000 servicemen scuffled with police at the Union Buildings. The clash over salaries and employment conditions took place after the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ruled against a march organised by the South African National Defence Union (Sandu). The chief of the air force, Lt- Gen Carlo Gagiano, said "high alert" did not mean South Africa was under any threat of attack. "The activity levels at the moment are so high that we have to be ready for any eventuality especially as we have thousands of foreign soldiers on our soil," he said. Outrage followed TV footage of running battles between the police and the protesters, many of whom sought to force their way into the Union Buildings. Several police and military vehicles were damaged by a petrol bomb. The SANDF issued an apology to "our commander-in-chief and the people of South Africa for the embarrassment and inconvenience caused by the incident". Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said the protesters could be fired. "Following due processes, the ultimate sanction is dismissal," she said.

ANC Allies Call for Halt to Dismissals of Protest Troops
TWO allies of the African National Congress (ANC) threw their weight behind 2000 sol

A McCain presidency next?

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:58:31 +0000

What would McCain do for the world?
With Senator McCain so far out ahead of Republican candidates, it is now possible to evaluate his role as president if he were to go on and win the presidency. As to the likelihood of that, one can only say nine months before, that nobody knows. Polling intentions this far away from November are completely unreliable. Another vital aspect of the competition, is which one of the two Democrats, Clinton or Obama, will be his opponent. That may not be known until August, which gives McCain quite an advantage, affording him time to look and sound presidential, and build his campaign, whilst the two democratic front-runners in their laborious struggle for supremacy, will inevitably continue to damage each other.

It would probably be true to observe that if McCain were to win in November, he would take power in a situation where the Democratic Congress, the party, and Democrats in the country would be in trauma. Not to win in this years election, with a choice between two seemingly attractive candidates, and after eight disastrous years of a Republican administration, with the outgoing President considered by many to be perhaps the worst ever, is for the Democrats the worst possible nightmare.

The privacy of the polling booth where people will decide - not necessarily in the way they have told friends and pollsters - is a key element on the day itself. Will deep-seated prejudice against a woman or a bl

Syria

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:48:09 +0000
Mending Relations with Saudi Arabia
In early October, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visited Damascus, in what was the culmination of a protracted warming of relations between Riyadh and Damascus that started with the Arab League summit in Kuwait prompted by the Israeli war on Gaza in January 2009. At least for the immediate future, Syria can now expect to be fully reintegrated in the Saudi-Egyptian sphere, even as it maintains ties to Iran, which holds disputes with Saudi Arabia on various fronts. Fears of the emergence of an Iran dominated Shiite crescent reaching into Lebanon prompted Saudi Arabia and other predominantly Sunni Arab states like Egypt or Jordan to shun Syria, which was literally ostracized after the murder for which nobody has been convicted given the dismissal of the main suspects: two Syrian intelligence officers of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. This only served to bring Syria closer to Iran. Until 2005, Syria and Saudi Arabia had enjoyed relatively good relations, particularly since the 1989 Taif accords that ended the Lebanese civil war. King Abdullah visited Damascus often on personal (one of his wives is Syrian) and formal reasons. The Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 and its failure to crush Hezbollah enabled Syria to survive and prove that it is a key state in the region. Syria has appointed a new ambassador to Riyadh, former information minister Mehdi Dakhlallah. In late September, president al-Asad visited Saudi Ara

Taiwan

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:25:20 +0000
The Republic of China, as Taiwan is officially known (at least locally) celebrated its 98th National Day celebration on 10th October, an occasion commonly known as "double Ten". It was a more subdued affair that usual in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot which hit Taiwan with full force in August killing more than 700 people. Money usually set aside for the annual birthday celebrations�around NT$70 million (�1.3 million), were this year transferred to the flood relief fund to help victims of the typhoon.

In his National Day address, President Ma Ying-jeou pledged improved safety measures to prevent a recurrence of such a tragedy in the future. Ma had earlier been wide criticized for the initial slow response of the government to the plight of the victims. Much of the remainder of his address was directed towards justifying his policy on cross-straits relations and, in particular, the signing of nine new economic and cultural agreements based on the "1992 consensus". In that consensus both Taiwan and Chinese negotiators agreed that there was only one China but each side was able to give its own interpretation to that principle.

While saying that cross-straits ties had improved dramatically under this leadership, he denied that he would seek peace with China by compromising Taiwan's national security. Taiwan and China, he said, still had "doubts and differences with historical roots that would take time to resolve." In contrast to his predecessor

Tajikistan

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:34:42 +0000
Bombing kills a security guard near presidential palace
A strong blast shook a conference centre near Tajikistan's presidential palace on November 14, killing a security guard and scattering debris, just as a European Union-run conference was due to start.

The blast, described as a terrorist act by the prosecutor general, occurred at the centre only 350 metres from President Emomali Rakhmon's palace. Observers said it may have been timed to coincide with the 15th anniversary of Rakhmon becoming head of this Central Asian ex-Soviet state. The president had left Dushanbe a few minutes earlier for anniversary ceremonies in the north of the country.

Police said the dead man was a guard who picked up the device concealed in a plastic bag while inspecting the site. Ironically, the conference, which was organised by the European Union, was to be devoted to disaster preparedness!

The EU's ambassador in the region, Adriaan van der Meer, said there was no reason to believe the blast was aimed at the EU. "There is no indication whatsoever that it was against the EU.... We are waiting for exact news, and expect a thorough investigation," he told AFP.

Several hundred people were believed to be in the building as the blast struck, blowing out the building's windows. The dead man's body could be seen lying on the ground under a white sheet. The conference was to be attended by Tajik Prime Minister Akil Akilov; howe

Turkey

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:59:28 +0000
Thaw with the last enemy?
It really is beginning to look as if Armenian-Turkish relations are coming out of the deep freeze that has prevailed since 1915 when the Turks perpetrated genocide against the Armenians, so the latter claim. Armenia was in the process of leaving the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. It does appear that at least one and a half million Armenians were massacred. The Turks say that Armenians were killing Turks too, which is almost certainly true.

But a full impartial investigation needs to be set up to find out the truth. But who is impartial in this matter? Russia, the US and the EU all have large influential Armenian populations. Yet nobody really wants to alienate such a big, strategically placed country as Turkey. It is perhaps a job for the UN, although it is a hot potato for that body as well.

President Abdullah Gul of Turkey is a forward-looking man of peace, a real statesman. He has already established good relations with several old rivals, Greece, Syria and Iran. He now appears determined to do so with the last remaining foe, Armenia.

Gul in Yerevan
In Ancient Greece the Olympic Games were important for promoting peace between the quarrelsome Greek city states. It was understood that a truce prevailed during the course of the four-year event, giving diplomats a chance to arrange a more permanent peace.

In the modern world this irenic impact of internation

RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 22:37:12 +0100

Russia must find its own way towards democracy. It has never known this desirable state of affairs and at many levels is deeply suspicious about the implied western values being imposed upon it. Of course this is primarily a top-down attitude but there is little evidence that there is much in the way of public "demand" for the various freedoms, that the western world characterises as democracy. 'Interference' is how the state regards foreign-funded NGO campaigning and right now the state has a lot of support from the people. Even more offensive in Russian eyes, are the otiose public pep-talks made by western leaders such as the US President, pointing out their slippage, or lack of achievement in democratic standards. The Russians can and do respond by referring to a long list such as: the disgracefully undemocratic Florida conclusion to the US presidential election of 2000; to the US engaging in an offensive war in Iraq without UN sanction, resulting in scores, perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and many more injuries; to the US unilaterally departing from the Geneva conventions on prisoner of war treatment at its prison camps, Guantanamo and elsewhere; they refer to such scandals as Abu Gharaib and of US agencies hijacking suspects 'for rendition,' off the streets of other countries - the list goes on. It can be summarised as people that live in glass houses should not throw stone

Turkmenistan

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:35:50 +0100
The mad dictator is dead
The Turkmen situation has undergone a profound transformation. In December 2006 the crazed dictator of the country died, Saparmurat Niyazov, needless to say the former Communist boss of the former Soviet republic.
It can now at last open out to the wider world. Niyazov was a parochial megalomaniac. The only people prepared to put up with him were the Russians. He was totally unable to establish relations with anyone else. He even kept Turkmenistan out of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), too afraid to leave his country.

Amnesty national
Turkmenistan, a reclusive Central Asian state viewed by the West as a potential source of natural gas, has freed 1,284 prisoners including 21 foreigners in a traditional amnesty, state television has reported.

The amnesty, in mid-September, was linked to the Muslim holiday of Laylat al-Qadr, marked towards the end of Ramadan. State television said. "Yet another act of pardoning is a tribute to the humane traditions of our ancestors," it said.

Rights groups say Turkmenistan's undisclosed prison population includes political prisoners locked up during the 21-year rule of autocratic leader Saparmurat Niyazov, who died in 2006. His successor Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, believed to be his natural son, has sought to promote a more liberal image, but human rights campaigners say his reforms have been cosmetic.

The

Ukraine

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:40:50 +0100
The coming crunch
Ukraine is coming up to a very important presidential election in January. Moscow is intent on influencing the outcome. But it is by no means clear that it will do so successfully from its own point of view. Indeed its meddling could backfire.

The incumbent, Viktor Yushchenko, is deeply unpopular, as he takes the rap for a dire economic situation. The Russian-backed candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, the head of the Party of the Regions, actually represents the Russian-language regions, some ten million people among a fifty million population, not enough to prevail.

Neither Viktor is in fact likely to be a victor. That is possibly to be the destiny of the woman in the race, Premier Yulia Timoshenko, a real good-looker, who is as sharp as they come. Indeed her enemies accuse her of being too sharp by half, having accumulated a multi-billion dollar fortune in the 1990s in the energy sphere by dubious means. Actually Boris Berezovsky, the Russian mogul, says that nobody could have amassed a fortune in the post-communist world of the 1990s without breaking the new rules.

As politicians in Ukraine prepare for the country's January 17 presidential election, opinion polls show Yushchenko with just 4% support, trailing Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko by 10 percent and Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych by 20 percent.

She is beset by association with the black economy. But, if she bent th

Vietnam

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:28:56 +0000
Identifying the problems
The Communist Party will remain the dominant political force in 2005-2006, but its long-term hold on power will be under threat if it fails to tackle the endemic corruption within its ranks. In an effort to shore up public confidence, the party chief, Nong Duc Manh, has championed a tough anti-corruption stance over the past few years. He has been closely supported by the Prime Minister, Phan Van Khai, who has been displaying greater mettle in dealing with corrupted officials. Khai recently announced plan to establish an anti-corruption agency. Although this development is welcome, there remains some scepticism over whether its investigations will be extensive and fully impartial.

Uzbekistan

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:37:59 +0100
The Polish plenum
Experts meeting at the 19th Economic Forum in the Polish ski resort of Krynica have reached two conclusions about the future of relations between the European Union and Central Asia.

One was that, with its vast oil and natural-gas resources, Central Asia is emerging as an important region for the EU, which is dependent on energy imports.

The other was that the EU, its energy needs notwithstanding, must uphold democratic standards in Central Asia, which has been criticized for plodding reforms and a disregard for human rights.

This is the first year the four-day Krynica forum -- which focuses largely on pan-European issues -- had dedicated discussion time to Central Asian issues.

Two seminars held on September 10 heard opinions from officials and energy experts from the EU, United States, and Russia, as well as the Central Asian states.

Import Diversification
Many panellists noted that the EU's complicated relationship with Russia, which serves as Europe's main energy supplier, makes it imperative that Europe diversify its energy sources.

Energy experts pointed out Central Asia's potential as an alternative source of oil and gas for the West.

Some of the Russian panelists, however, suggested it is unlikely Central Asian oil and gas will reach Europe any time soon.

Konstantin Simonov, the head of Russia's N

Zimbabwe

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:18:57 +0000
The UK annexed Southern Rhodesia from the South Africa Company in 1923. A 1961 constitution was formulated that favored whites in power. In 1965 the government unilaterally declared its independence, but the UK did not recognize the act and demanded more complete voting rights for the black African majority in the country (then called Rhodesia). UN sanctions and a guerrilla uprising finally led to free elections in 1979 and independence (as Zimbabwe) in 1980. Robert MUGABE, the nation's first prime minister, has been the country's only ruler (as president since 1987) and has dominated the country's political system since independence. His chaotic land redistribution campaign begun in 2000 caused an exodus of white farmers, crippled the economy, and ushered in widespread shortages of basic commodities. Ignoring international condemnation, MUGABE rigged the 2002 presidential election to ensure his reelection. Opposition and labor groups launched general strikes in 2003 to pressure MUGABE to retire early; security forces continued their brutal repression of regime opponents.

Saudi Arabia

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:36:06 +0000
Regional Balance of Power and Coming to Terms with a Nuclear Iran
Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran continue amid a series of counter accusations of involvement in each other's affairs. Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of fomenting a Shiite revolt in Yemen, while Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of backing a terror attack against its Revolutionary Guards. The situation is made even tenser by Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear technology. Iran has been careful not to violate the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT); however, it is developing its nuclear potential such that, in a rapid move, it could rapidly move from civilian only to military nuclear potential. Iran has engaged in negotiations aimed at controlling the amount of uranium enrichment it is able to pursue. An IAEA plan drafted by the agency's chief Mohamed el-Baradei suggests Iran might export most of its enriched uranium, while Iran wants to maintain greater control, allowing it to enrich uranium locally under UN control. The latter option would leave Iran with a greater ability to develop a nuclear warhead. While the plan may help slow Iran's nuclear weapon pursuit, it does not rule out the fact that Iran is an increasingly dominant regional power and that it will have to be recognized as such even by traditional enemies such as Israel or the United States.

The advent of a nuclear military power in the Persian Gulf could prompt either a regional arms race, or a wide scale negotiation ro

Wanted a world leader

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:20:02 +0000
TOPIC : “WANTED A WORLD LEADER”

In November 2006 newnations.com published a Special Report with the above title, regretting that the constructive world leadership the USA offered throughout the Cold War, and indeed the Balkans wars, has been dissipated by the Bush/Cheney administration. Now there is a leadership vacuum. Who else we asked, could give world leadership? In the absence of any obvious candidates we observed:-

Whilst it is true that no other single nation state has the standing to provide unique world leadership it is not unreasonable that a group of nations may at least collectively provide this in areas in which the US will not, or for other reasons, does not engage.

NOMINEE LEADERS

Perhaps an intelligent or at least interesting solution to raise the action level, and avoid sterile circular debate with little achieved, would be for some of the topics (illustrated by the selection above), to be raised by a group of nations in the UN General Assembly. There they would seek the power to second one of their number to lead in devising an action plan, with an invitation to all nations to take part in its implementation. Perhaps the US could be shamed into acquiescence and reassert its ability to lead, not to go even further out on a self-indulge

African Yellowcake and the Intelligence Stew

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:35:51 +0000

OTHER TOPICS:

Shafting Al-Jazeera

AFRICAN YELLOWCAKE & THE INTELLIGENCE STEW

On 28 January 2003 President George W Bush gave his annual State of the Union address and as part of the build-up for invading IRAQ included an "infamous 16 words" quoting British Intelligence sources, relating to IRAQ procuring Uranium from Niger. "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

It is now agreed by all, that whilst there was some circumstantial evidence of Iraqi interest some years before, a letter purporting to prove this, had been professionally forged. As is well known, the furore that followed sent the various allied intelligence communities involved into a flat spin. To read them at their most devious, the leaks and plants that followed are well illustrated in the Wikipedia extract we include below in 'Background'.

Shafting Al-Jazeera

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:41:24 +0000

OTHER TOPICS:

African Yellowcake & the Intelligence Stew

SHAFTING AL-JAZEERA

"In November 2005 we produced a special report "Shafting al Jazeera," based on a leaked memo from the office of Prime Minister Blair of a conversation between him and President George.W Bush.

Just about now, the British civil servant David Keogh, and political researcher Leo O'Connor are due to go on trial under the Official Secrets Act, for allegedly leaking the document.

We forecast that the story would "run and run, well into this century," but we got that wrong, because the British Government threatened dire consequences to any of the media that published the leaked memo, which of course we have not seen.

Various explanations of Bush's comments have been offered and rebutted, as can be seen in our background below.

Has US democracy lost its way?

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:20:50 +0000
TOPIC : “HAS US DEMOCRACY LOST ITS WAY?”

Our newnations.com Special Report, "The Ministry of Truth" asked this question from which comes this extract:

DEMOCRACY AMERICAN STYLE

This presidency may be judged as having achieved something many would have previously have thought of as impossible. The USA, which despite its less than full respect for human life, and uneven record on domineering foreign policy - Central and Latin America in particular come to mind - had managed to hold to an image as a model of what democracy could be, a beacon of light for an oppressed world. Because this coincided with being the militarily most powerful nation on earth, the leader of the winning side in the cold war, America could be and was represented as being the national equivalent of the moral high ground. There was always an ugly side, but by straight comparison with that half of the world led by the USSR, given the balance of good versus evil in the rival systems, the US was then undoubtedly a long way ahead. But Bush/Cheney have radically altered this perception of America.

HAS US DEMOCRACY LOST ITS WAY?

Essentials of democracy

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:21:19 +0000
TOPIC: "ESSENTIALS OF DEMOCRACY"

In the current edition of www.WorldAudit.org our Publishers Overview makes the following observations:

ESSENTIALS OF DEMOCRACY

We find the term democracy being consistently misused by people who should know better, particularly in the current middle-eastern context, as merely the opportunity to register a vote.

Without the depth of the other key democratic criteria, that just makes no sense. What kind of choice is possible for a democratic citizen, when the only available decision is between a repressive military government and a religious party seeking to turn the clock back to the seventh century. (Egypt and Algeria were recent examples of such a stark choice, Iran's version is that all candidates have to be approved by the religious authority, (just as in the USSR all candidates had to be communists). Iraqi elections, with the addition of an ethnicity (Kurds), became effectively a census between Shia and Sunni Moslems, with secular parties nowhere.

The essentials to create a platform for democratic choice are: Justice

RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:21:56 +0000
Russia must find its own way towards democracy. It has never known this desirable state of affairs and at many levels is deeply suspicious about the implied western values being imposed upon it. Of course this is primarily a top-down attitude but there is little evidence that there is much in the way of public "demand" for the various freedoms, that the western world characterises as democracy. 'Interference' is how the state regards foreign-funded NGO campaigning and right now the state has a lot of support from the people. Even more offensive in Russian eyes, are the otiose public pep-talks made by western leaders such as the US President, pointing out their slippage, or lack of achievement in democratic standards. The Russians can and do respond by referring to a long list such as: the disgracefully undemocratic Florida conclusion to the US presidential election of 2000; to the US engaging in an offensive war in Iraq without UN sanction, resulting in scores, perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and many more injuries; to the US unilaterally departing from the Geneva conventions on prisoner of war treatment at its prison camps, Guantanamo and elsewhere; they refer to such scandals as Abu Gharaib and of US agencies hijacking suspects 'for rendition,' off the streets of other countries the list goes on. It can be summarised as people that live in glass houses should not throw stones, let alone take a high moral line with other 'malefactors'.
In 2008 Russ

PAKISTAN: CRISIS... OR WHAT?

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:22:29 +0000
In posing the question : is the outside world "talking up" the level of the political crisis in Pakistan we have to be aware that the western media in particular are easily influenced by the supporters of the dynastic candidate Benazhir Bhutto, who had high hopes of getting back into power at some level, after the forthcoming legislative elections. Her chances of being allowed back into PAKISTAN without being arrested on spectacular corruption charges relating to her period in office, are presently dashed, which is not to say that it won't change again. It is often revealing in such circumstances of unrest, to look at a nation's financial markets, normally a barometer of the seriousness of the national mood, and see what they are telling us. As we report, the ongoing political crisis - including a recent alarming loss of life in street clashes- shows no signs of affecting the economic and financial situation, which is on the 'up,' as we detail. It hardly sounds as though revolution is just around the corner!
What is not in doubt is that Musharaff is hard-pressed, partly through the widespread ignorance in parts of the western media that suggests that somehow, fanatical islamists of which Pakistan has too many, have an interest in democracy, and that Musharaff's perceived anti-democratic moves, like the suspension of the Chief Justice, confirm that restoring to power the corrupt political parties of his predecessors, w

'Rockets on Israel'

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:45:52 +0100

IF YOUR COMMUNITY WAS BEING ROCKETED BY A NEIGHBOURING, ALTHOUGH FOREIGN COMMUNITY, WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT YOUR GOVERNMENT TO DO?

BUYING-UP THE AFGHAN POPPY

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:23:06 +0000
In our Newnations October '06 Publishers Overview we made the following proposal about the Afghan Poppy crop, which accounts for 90% of world supply of opiates. In the March '07 edition of the UK magazine "Prospect" in an interview with President Musharraf of Pakistan we discover that he endorses this approach. "Prospect" also tells us that the original idea of buying the whole crop, first saw the light of day on being floated by Emmanuel Reinart of the Senlis Council- a development think-tank, in 2005.
Is this not a classic example of an idea whose time has come?

AFGHANISTAN - A POPPY STORY
Consider these statistics which are included in this month's (OCT '06) AFGHANISTAN report:
1) "The yearly shortfall in cereal production is of 1.2 million tonnes out of a total consumption of 6 million tonnes, leaving 2.5 million Afghans at risk."

2) "The new poppy crop 50 % higher than last year will add a new boost (to the economy)".
Hurrah for boosts to the economy but now it's an acknowledged 'crop' - a part of the agri-business - what kind of madness is this?

It is true that the cereal shortfall is due to drought but clearly opium poppies are a preferred crop. So the wretched heroin users in the US and Europe and Russia will continue to get supplies whilst so

Predictions 2008

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:20:40 +0000
"a man may prophesy, with a near aim, of the main chance of things" Shakespeare. (Henry IV).

Fortunately for the prophecy industry the standard is not high since the record is so deeply unimpressive. Fair enough perhaps, that we are all incapable of predicting such specific cataclysms as the December 2004 Tsunami - an underwater earthquake after all - that devastated large areas of South Asia. But we in the west are anyway inured to such disastrous acts of nature happening, so long as it is such a long way away. Look at the almost annual devastation of Bangladesh - a combination of predictable violent weather in the Bay of Bengal, inadequate government in Dhaka, and the vast numbers of people living with few defences in the low-lying Ganges estuary. Were that Europe, then the best case example of the largely below sea-level Netherlands, shows how it would be dealt with. The difference perhaps, lies in the political system and in access to the immense capital required for such massive civil engineering. [Although when a similar event happened in New Orleans, the presumably advanced US technology failed].

In foreseeing natural events we get fairly regular predictions about worldwide 'flu epidemics, of a general or specific kind. 'Bird flu' for example. The tabloids in their never-ending daily pursuit of conflict and sensation, tend to fall back on world-wide plagues on a slow news day. We have been spared the ravages of new str

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:43:15 +0100

Special Reports

REDLAND-WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:23:37 +0000
A tour d'horizon of future conflict
It is in the nature of military planning that we are never going to know quite how, in times of peace, the evaluation of risk takes place in respect of potential enemies. This, should be the most critical element in planning military expenditure - but is it? It is not to say that we can discount the human traits in the responsible committees, of going for a number they think they might get, in competition with other government priorities. Nor can we disregard the substantial weight and inducements of arms lobbyists, given the way politics is done in some of the big spending countries. Even other factors like the 'whose turn' it is, amongst the top brass of certain third world army, navy, or airforces, for the substantial 'commissions' that flow to them with big arms orders, can determine whether it is to be jet fighters, tanks or submarines, procured in any given year.
Assessing future risk in terms of defence expenditure is an awkward business particularly now, when novel weapons systems and their massive R&D budgets need to be in place and expended during many years before they are to become operational. Nothing could illustrate that better than the current US anti-missile missile, which is planned to go operational, and causing a big row with Russia as a result, even though it is not yet, and may never be reliable.

The arms industries of the world of course have a veste

SO HOW IS DEMOCRACY DOING?

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:33:18 +0000
This is the fifteenth world audit report of the millennium, in which we review the state of public corruption; current practice in human rights; political rights; free speech; and the overall state of the rule of law in 150 nations (all those exceeding one million population). By reference to these, we compile the world democracy table with its subsidiary statistical tables. We recommend that readers check out our methodology (button on left hand sidewalk of democracy table) to make the most sense of these results and the commentary below.�

We also recommend readers who seek more in-depth, regular information, to our sister website, www.newnations.com This offers updated monthly analytical reports currently for 45 'nations in transition' (emerging or submerging); many polemical, geopolitical 'special reports', plus five years worth of easily accessible archive material.�

SO HOW IS DEMOCRACY DOING?The very term democracy is routinely misused by people who should know better. The opportunity to cast a vote can be quite meaningless unless there are transparently honest elections, with genuine voter choice of parties and people. Also as Stalin is said to have observed, "its not important who stands for elections what matters is who counts the votes." What that has come to mean for objective commentators, is that with nations outside established democratic practice and the rule of law, who, and how many im

AFGHAN DRUGS

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 22:37:40 +0100

The problem gets worse with even greater quantities of opiates being produced by Afghan farmers. The way the 'official' US line has it, these illicit drugs are funding the Taleban war effort, but this is to ignore that the Taleban are only resurgent in certain parts of Afghanistan and therefore the Taleban can only be partly responsible. Meanwhile these illicit drugs are by far the countries largest export, bigger than anything in the 'white market.' The money that is engendered at every level in government both national and regional, including the ability of the freewheeling warlords to hold down their regions and arm their supporters, has been and remains dependent on the drugs trade.
But various means of destruction employed, despite claims of some success, have to stand alongside new data on increased acreage and greater yields.

Our PRESCRIPTION is to have the Afghan government working alongside allied and friendly governments who must fund the solution, to impose an intervention buying regime for one harvest, paying a price marginally below the current price of grain (or whatever alternative crop is indicated and to provide that seed for the next growing season). That all the intervention-purchased poppy crop should be burned, less whatever part international Big Pharma would be prepared to buy-in for legitimate pharmaceutical use. That it be made clear that an

IRAQ

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:18:38 +0000

The root problem which will not go away when the western troops leave, is that there is now such visceral hatred and fear between the two rival sects of Islam, and this is not excluded from the Iraqi army and police, who on present form will in the absence of foreign troops, probably be out of civilian control - and of course there are waiting in the wings, the massive sectarian armed militias. It could take a generation to enable the communities to live together without well justified fear. The path that the US is taking with the only possible successor power to themselves, the elected civilian government, ignores the fact that unlike a 'proper' democracy, these politicians are for the most part not elected on any platform of proposed policies, but in the interests of the tribal and sectarian groups from which they come. That can only mean in such a crude and vengeful environment that the sectarian majority will oppress the sectarian minority, who will have no recourse to justice - except that which comes from the barrel of a gun!

Our PRESCRIPTION is that Iraq should quickly become a federation. They should recreate (approximately) the boundaries of the three historic Ottoman provinces that preceded the end of WWI and the subsequent 1932 British creation of an independent state of Iraq, which can be seen to have spectacularly failed under quite different forms of government.

Government of each component province should be strong and a federal

WORLD LEADERSHIP

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 22:38:28 +0100

From midway through WWII and throughout the cold war, indeed until the end of the 20th C the democratic nations looked for leadership from the elected presidents of the USA, and on the whole they did a pretty good job. Bush /Cheney changed all that, despite the massive amount of goodwill that accrued to them following 9/11.
After a full-hearted wave of international support for the military intervention in the Afghan civil war, to overthrow the Taleban hosts of the al Qaeda terror group, suddenly many nations came to the realisation that they could not follow such a further lead as Washington was to next offer. This was primarily in the irrelevant invasion of Iraq in pursuit of a US neo-con policy with no acceptable logic to Europeans and many others. The discovery that there had been a false prospectus for the Iraq invasion made matters worse. This, plus dismay at the calibre of the Bush-Cheney presidency, for the first time in more than half a century resulted in a US administration which many significant nations were no longer prepared to follow, as they had their predecessors. It does not help that the outstanding problem of Iran and it's nuclear ambitions, could hardly be moderated by a US whom itself refuses to give up the ability to conduct experimental nuclear explosions, and has easily the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world, having just announced a modernisation program to cover t

Trans-national Terrirism

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:27:28 +0000
Trans-national Terrorism

It might be worthwhile for the UN to recommend a procedure to encourage all nation states suffering external terrorist attacks, to set up in each instance an emergency committee with intelligence analysts from both the victim nation and the nation accused of the outrage, chaired by a UN appointed neutral. They should first pool their information, identify and seek to agree on what the terrorists hoped to achieve, and then counsel their governments to do the opposite.

Water Wars

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:36:23 +0000

Georgia

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:59:44 +0000
Our New Nations solution to the GEORGIA problem is to model a treaty on that of the Panama Canal Zone and have the EU (whose markets these mainly are for), lease a pipeline corridor for the existing and new pipelines through GEORGIA, with EU nations troops to protect the corridor. That would mean that RUSSIA would not invade, short of WWIII, and it avoids the obvious risks of extending NATO alliance membership to GEORGIA who would of course enjoy enhanced leasing and transit fees.

Predictions about South Africa

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:16:04 +0000
Predictions about South Africa

Obama's First Hundred Days

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:13:31 +0100

OBAMA'S FIRST HUNDRED DAYS

As he approaches the 100 day mark, we now know three things about Barack Obama that were not clear before. First, he is a war president, not a peace president. Second he wants to reform capitalism, not to transform it. Third, he is almost as much on his own, struggling with a world which is hostile, indifferent, or simply seeking advantage, as was George W.Bush. Obama's style, elegance, and intelligence are obviously in marked contrast with his predecessor, and the quality of his advisors higher, and there is a warmth of feeling toward him in almost every quarter which is unprecedented since Kennedy. Yet the combination of the weight of the Bush legacy and the conservatism of Obama and his team means that he is mapping out his presidency along lines which show a strong continuity with the Bush years. The key question for the future is whether he will become more or less radical as that presidency develops.

A War President
When Obama outlined his plans for Iraq in February, he significantly chose to do so before a military audience. He spoke first to American soldiers because he knew he was not going to be announcing an end to their exposure to the dangers of combat but forecasting a considerable extension of it. His speech was supposedly about withdrawal, but it was in truth about nothing

WORLD AUDIT DEMOCRACY 2009

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:17:42 +0000

The Chindia Project

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:59:48 +0000
THE CHINDIA PROJECT

India and China in Comparative Perspective

By

Surjit Mansingh

India and China, China and India, the phrase slips off the pages of books, financial reports, intelligence estimates, journals, as if the two Asian giants were twins demanding comparison. Some similarities are striking, such as the continuity, extent, length and wealth of their ancient civilizations, their large populations of over one billion each, their emergence in the mid-1940s from foreign domination, their aspirations to sit at the high table of international decision-making, and their positions as the fastest growing economies in a world showing a discernible power shift from West to East. Thus, Western writers frequently compare India and China, though few know and understand both large and complex countries equally well and most are naturally concerned with how the rise of China or India might affect Western (or specifically American) commercial and strategic interests. For many historical reasons, Americans know and respect China more than they do India and their economic and other interchanges with the former are much more extensive and deep, amounting to interdependence, than with the latter. For that very reason, perhaps, the recent

Publishers Overview

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:22:29 +0000

CAN DEMOCRACY RECOUP?
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