Geopolemics Home Page

Afghanistan

Fri, 29 May 2009 13:25:50 +0100

A new 'Mc'
During May the replacement of the ISAF commander McKiernan by Obama was breaking news; McKiernan is an armour commander with little familiarity with counter-insurgency and is being replaced by McChrystal, who comes from the Special Forces. It is not clear what this change at the top will mean on the ground, but the abrupt character of the replacement created some ill feelings in the Armed Forces (it was the first such replacement since McArthur's in 1951) and signalled some nervousness in Washington. But at least in May a positive sign came when the Uzbek President Karimov came to the rescue and offered an air base to replace Manas in Kyrghizstan, which is closing down. The deal was sponsored by the South Koreans, but it is not clear what is the Russian position in its regard.

Not so easy to bypass Karzai
The Americans reportedly plan to bypass Karzai as much as possible in the future, as they do not like him, and instead work more closely with the ministers and with the provincial governors. However, given the strongly centralised presidential system that Afghanistan has today, it remains to be seen whether Karzai will allow Washington to bypass him. As the unofficial Afghan electoral campaign unfolds, the issue of civilian casualties becomes more and more important. After a major incident in Farah province, the Afghan parliament became seriously involved in the debate. Several MPs even invoked a jihad against Washingt

Albania

Wed, 27 May 2009 14:48:26 +0100
The coming elections
The big thing in Albania is that it will shortly hold elections. Its polity is essentially dominated by two big parties, the Democrats and Socialists, but small parties play an important role as coalition partners.�

In July 2005, Albania held a legislative election, which was deemed by international observers as having "complied only partially with international commitments and standards for democratic elections." Final results gave the Democrats 56 seats in the legislature, and 42 seats to the Socialists.�

Democrat Sali Berisha, a veteran of Albanian politics, took office as prime minister in September. Under the proportional representation system, ten other parties earned seats in the Assembly of the Republic.

Socialist leader and Tirana Mayor Edi Rama will lead the opposition in challenging Berisha's Democratic Party-led coalition in the June 28 elections.�

Small party defects
One small party has abandoned the governing coalition just weeks before the country holds the elections. The Human Rights Union says it is rejoining the Socialist-led opposition coalition after having abandoned the grouping when it lost the 2005 vote.�

Berisha on June 14 appointed former Deputy Justice Minister Viktor Gumi as the new labour minister to replace Human Rights Union member Anastas Duro, who is an ethnic Greek.

The defection of the small party is a

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

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:34:03 +0100
Resolving the thorniest problem of all
With the world an increasingly stormy and fraught place, beset by economic crisis and a legion of wars, it is high time Armenia and Azerbaijan resolved their differences over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan. Both republics could benefit from a deal, more especially right now.

Armenia could see the trade embargo lifted against it by Azerbaijan and Turkey, while Azerbaijan could see its refugee problem overcome, restoring hundreds of thousands to their homes. A trade boom could replace a regional Cold War.

There are new players on the stage who are bringing a fresh eagerness for a deal, both in the republics in question, in Russia and in the US. Presidents Medvedev and Obama are keen to see progress. So is President Erdogan of Turkey, a man of peace.�

In early May, it seemed as though Baku and Yerevan were closer than they had been for years to resolving the Karabakh conflict.�

The two countries' presidents, Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev, met one-on-one for more than an hour on May 7 on the sidelines of the EU's European Partnership summit in Prague. While neither president made any official statement after those talks, the co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group that has been mediating peace talks since 1992 were upbeat, speaking of an imminent "breakthrough."�

The Russian angle
The emergence of President Dmitry Me

Bangladesh

Fri, 29 May 2009 14:29:55 +0100
Bangladesh Hit by Another Cyclone
Cyclone Aila which hit parts of northeastern India and Bangladesh last week has displaced millions of people in India and Bangladesh, only a fraction of whom have access to food and drinking water, officials said on Wednesday. The cyclone has killed at least 210 people in the flood-prone region. Officials suspect that the death toll could rise and rescuers have struggled to reach millions still marooned. Officials say more than one million people were displaced in India's Sundarban islands in West Bengal.At least 135 people have died in Bangladesh and 75 in West Bengal, and hundreds are still missing, according to officials. In Sundarbans there were fears for the fate of the more than 250 tigers in the reserve. In Bangladesh, Aila destroyed tens of thousands of acres of crops. As water levels slowly recede, hundreds of thousands of families who sought refuge in shelters, schools and other buildings are now returning to find their homes either washed away or submerged in water. Disaster management officials said more than 175,000 families have lost their homes while another 270,000 homes have been damaged.

Public Report on Mutiny
Bangladesh has made public a report on the country's worst paramilitary mutiny in February. The report stated that "unidentified masterminds" of the carnage remained behind the scenes and had tried to destabilize the country. The report on the February 25-26 rebellion in

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

Wed, 27 May 2009 14:21:29 +0100
The US to the rescue again
There is no doubt that there is one country that has been a tower of strength in the Balkans of late, (alas the temporal qualification is important), namely the US. It got into the show late; but when it decided to act it, it did its stuff.�

Richard Holbrooke, the roving ambassador of Bill Clinton, and now of Barack Obama, is a very intelligent and firm man. He is married to a Hungarian woman, very well apprized of the problems and difficulties of the Balkans. The Hungarians are virtually honorary Balkans themselves.

She primed him up to the machinations of Milosevic, indeed of Karadzic et al, and to alert Bill Clinton as to how to defeat them. Thence came American intervention in the dreadful Bosnian war - and the Dayton agreement in 1995, negotiated by Holbrooke himself.�

Holbrooke has been seconded in the next Democrat Administration of Barack Obama's to Central Asia and the Caucasus, once again as a roving ambassador. But his advice will certainly have been sought about the Balkans.

The eternal Bosnian conundrum
Many diplomats and experts consider Bosnia the least stable part of the Balkans whose troubles could potentially slow the region's common desire to integrate into the Europe Union.

It is no doubt thanks to Holbrooke that U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Bosnia on May 19 hoping to bolster a country still plagued by instability

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

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:21:01 +0100
Economic woes abound
Real GDP in Bulgaria dropped by 3.5% in the first quarter, below the -2% market consensus and the 3.5% real GDP growth reported in the fourth quarter of 2008.�

The government has been holding to the line that the economy should be relatively insulated from the global crisis, but the data just affirms that no one is safe. Bulgaria's fixed exchange rate regime, which has left the Lev amongst the most over-appreciated currencies in the region, leaves it especially vulnerable; albeit the strong fiscal position (in surplus, and with a hefty fiscal reserve, with almost no net public sector debt) provides some elbow room.

An electoral season opens up
The ruling coalition is bound to make the most of the sound public finances. It is led by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) of Premier Sergei Stanishev and includes the ethnic Turkish party, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS).�

It faces a strong challenge from the Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), led by the Mayor of Sofia, Boiko Borrisov, a charismatic opponent. There are two forthcoming elections, the first on June 7 to the European Parliament, the second general elections in Bulgaria itself on July 5.

The European elections coming first might seem to help GERB. In a sense they do. But the EU, which Bulgaria joined in January 2007, is not a uniformly popular subject in the new member state.

Croatia

Wed, 27 May 2009 14:23:04 +0100
The Slovenian niggles
There is no doubt what the primary national goal of Croatia is to enter the EU as soon as possible. The great hurdle here is winning over the Slovenes, already a member and most decidedly proud of being the only former Yugoslav republic to be so.

The Slovenes have a territorial dispute with the Croats in the Adriatic, which they want decisively concluded in their favour before agreeing to Croatian EU entry. Slovene President Danilo Tuerk, who was in Jordan for a two-day working visit, strongly rejected on May 16 the statement from his Croatian counterpart Stipe Mesic that the "Slovenian-Croatian border dispute will sooner or later be solved on the basis of international law."

The Croats would be well advised to take a large view of the matter. They have a magnificent Adriatic coastline, with lots of incredibly beautiful islands off-shore. The Slovenes don't; indeed their stretch of the coast is a mere ten miles. They covet every promontory and isle.�

Above all they desire unequivocal access to the world's waterways. The Croats, who already have it, would be wise to extend it to the Slovenes too.�

A compromise in their favour could pay handsome dividends for the Croats. Once in the EU, Croatia would become a magnet for FDI from around the world.�

The Sri Lankan lesson
As an instance of this, one may note that the Sri Lankans, with a very beautiful cou

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

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:35:49 +0100
The detritus of conflict
Georgia is living in the aftermath of its war with Russia last year, which it duly lost. South Ossetia and Abkazia, still formally provinces of the country, are gone for good. There is an important difference all the same in their fate, as South Ossetia is now basically joined up with North Ossetia inside Russia, while Abkhazia is cleaving to a measure of independence.

The origins of the war remain a mystery. One hardly takes on the Kremlin lightly, more especially when it is just flush from victory in Chechnya, as it was last August. Did somebody in the departing Bush Administration give false encouragement of US support?�

With the Americans bogged down in two ghastly conflicts already in Afghanistan and Iraq, was it ever plausible that they would want to come and intervene against Russia in the Caucasus?

NATO comes to town
Washington is showing solidarity of a sort, nevertheless, by organising NATO exercises in the republic, with subaltern support from the usual loyalists, the UK to the fore. But the French and Germans are staying aloof. They regard the whole exercise as needlessly provocative of Moscow.

The political fall-out from defeat at home has naturally been profound. President Mikhail Saakashvili's position at home has become precarious to say the least.

Saakashvili agrees to meet with opposition�
Saakashvili's presidential

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, 29 May 2009 13:57:40 +0100
India Elections
In the recent elections, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's party emerged victorious. Singh has distributed key Cabinet portfolios and most ministers are from the previous Cabinet. Mr Singh's previous administration worked quite hard to provide a relatively clean and secular government as well as political stability. However, there was a lot to be desired on the economic front. The Congress-led alliance has a strong reign over the legislature and the main opposition party, the BJP has significantly weakened. This could well mean that Singh's cabinet will be able to exercise more freedom in legislative and executive operations. Critics argue that one of the biggest challenges facing the current government is dealing with the federal budget deficit, which stands at around 6 per cent of GDP for the year ended March 31, more than double the target of 2.5 per cent. The government will also have to take steps to reform political governance, giving more representation to younger leaders.�

The Effects of Pakistani Instability on India�
Anyone who has been keeping abreast of political affairs in South Asia is familiar with the deterioration in Pakistan's internal politics and the resurgence of the Taliban within the country. Former head of the Canadian armed forces, General Rick Hiller addressed an audience in Calgary recently where he stated that what happens in Afghanistan in the next six-to-12 months would entirely

Iran

Fri, 29 May 2009 13:55:43 +0100
Three challengers for Ahmadinejad
The Guardian Council has completed the vetting procedure of the presidential candidates and the leading four who had advanced their candidacy got through. Several other hundreds were banned from running. Apart from Ahmadinejad, the other three are: two reformists, Mehdi Karroubi and Mirhossein Moussavi, and a conservative, Mohsen Rezaei. Both the reformist and the conservative fronts are therefore split, but both have a leading candidate (Ahmadinejad and Moussavi) and a minor candidate (Rezaie and Karroubi). In this sense the contest is going to be relatively balanced. Opinion polls are rare and not very reliable in Iran, but for what they are worth they give a strong advantage to Ahmadinejad with over 50% of the voting intentions; Moussavi appears a distant second with over 20%. Although these polls show that Ahmadinejad's advantage is declining, it is still massive. All the opposition candidates are focusing on Ahmadinejad's adventurist foreign policy, including Rezaie who come from the radical conservatives like Ahmadinejad himself. Supreme Leader Khamenei is believed to be supporting Ahmadinejad, who has publicly invited the voters to shun what he called 'pro-western candidates', that is implicitly Karroubi (who openly claims that he will improve ties to the West) and Moussavi. Several of Khamenei's statements seem to go in the direction of inviting people to support Ahmadinejad. Evidently Khamenei is not as convinced of

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, 29 May 2009 13:52:02 +0100
Peace is not for everybody�Majority rule
Maliki declared in May that the consensus pact established in 2003 should be eventually dismantled and that the country should return to majority rule. This is in line with Maliki's centralisation policies and reflects his growing confidence that he can handle the situation and control his rivals. Needless to say, Sunni Arabs and Kurds are mostly unhappy about his statement, but the Prime Minister is well positioned to play 'divide and rule' among them, particularly the Sunni Arabs. The recent upsurge in violence, which has mainly targeted Shiites, might be related to the dissatisfaction of the Sunni Arabs with what Maliki has been offering them and the prospects for the future. What Maliki has in mind for those of them who are willing to cooperate is a junior role in a government dominated by his loyalists, but this clearly will not be acceptable to all of them. Negotiations with former Baathist officers in exile about the possibility of a national reconciliation are not going very well; many Baathists do not believe that Maliki's call for reconciliation is genuine. At the beginning of May another Sunni militia leader, Nadhim al-Jubouri, was arrested. This time the accusation was that he was involved in the massacres of Shiite civilians in 2006-7, rather than in more recent criminal acts as was the case of previous arrests of militia leaders. Such a move could well contribute to rekindle the fire of the civil war. At

Kazakstan

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:41:47 +0100
Opposition mounts
A small, but vociferous, demonstration of 300 assembled in May in Almaty, the former capital, to protest against Premier Karim Masimov, who is blamed for economic incompetence. It was organised by the opposition Azat party. Its spokesman, Vitaliy Yakovlev, demanded the premier's resignation.

Actually world forces have been primarily responsible for the downturn, but the government failed to develop infrastructure in the boom years, particularly railway track and roads, so vital in the huge, land-locked country.

The economy in deep trouble
The Kazakh economy is no longer doing phenomenally well, as it was earlier in the decade, growing at 10% or more per annum. The buoyancy of energy and commodity prices was the key to success, now in reverse.�

It is unlikely that GDP growth will make 2-3% this year and next.�

A tardy and bungled devaluation
The Central Bank, after years of pursuing a stable currency, devalued the tenge in February by 22%, which will alleviate the pressure on exporters. But with low oil and other primary commodity prices, there can be little prospect of an export boom, such as fuelled growth for a decade.

The manner in which the tenge was devalued can certainly be queried. There was a strong case for devaluing it from October, when it began to depreciate seriously. The sudden timing has certainly hurt many, notably large ban

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, 03 Jun 2009 14:10:26 +0100
Qadhafi's Growing importance to European Union
For many years Qadhafi was set aside and until recently accused of supporting international terrorism. He started to travel to the West last year when he visited Madrid and Paris setting up his traditional tent to receive visitors. Since then Qadhafi has traveled to the Kremlin as well. In June, however, Qadhafi will make a very important visit, from the symbolic point of view, to Italy, Libya's former colonial master. Qadhafi's Italy visit will be an opportunity to discuss bilateral matters, including Libyan investment in strategic Italian energy, power generation and even football clubs. It will also be an opportunity to discuss the issue of illegal migration, which concerns all of the European Union, which wants to curb the flow of Africans and Asians trying to reach Europe from the Libyan shore. Although Libya and Italy have already taken steps along these lines in May the Libyan navy took delivery of three brand new patrol boats from an Italian shipyard intended to help the country control its coastline boats smuggling migrants continue to reach Italian or Maltese territorial waters. Last February, the EU agreed to give Libya EUR 20 million to further improve its patrol units and training, but the Libyan government says this is not enough to help it stop the flow of migrants. Libya's interior ministry asked the EU "to provide additional technical aid, training and equipment".

The Italian

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

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:33:24 +0100
Big bang, small sense

Roh Moo-hyun RIP
Two severe shocks rocked the Korean peninsula late in May, just two days apart. Early on the morning on May 23 South Korea's previous president, Roh Moo-hyun (2003-08), took his life by jumping from a cliff near his home village of Bongha. Unusually, Roh had quit Seoul on leaving office to retire to the countryside where he grew up. Latterrly his rural idyll was disturbed by a corruption scandal: prosecutors grilled him for allegedly taking US$ 6 million while in office from a wealthy local shoemaker who has been indicted for bribery.

All this falls outside our scope here. (An obituary of Roh by this writer can be found at www.guardian.co.uk.) For our purposes, he is important as having continued the 'sunshine' policy of engaging the North initiated by his predecessor Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003). In particular, as we reported in NewNations at the time, it was Roh who in October 2007 solemnly walked across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), drove to Pyongyang and met Kim Jong-il in the second-ever inter-Korean summit.

By rights and reciprocity Kim should have come to Seoul. Yet fears that the wily dear leader would run rings around a na�ve Roh proved misplaced. They agreed on a range of business projects, most of clear mutual benefit. It is an abiding mystery, and may go down in Korean history as a terrible error of judgment, that Roh's successor, the conservative but self-styled pragm

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, 29 May 2009 13:08:21 +0100
Washington wants Zardari and Sharif to be friends again
The Obama administration is now trying to get Zardari and Sharif to work together, in what could actually be a transition towards a Sharif Prime-ministership at some point. Sharif was long unpopular in Washington because of his avowed Islamist sympathies and the fact that Washington has grown increasingly inclined to deal with him is a clear indication of how much trust is left in Zardari and his party. Their reassurances of loyalty to Zardari begin to sound somewhat hollow, therefore. Opinion polls place Sharif's popularity at 83%, while Zardari's is not much above 10%. Both leaders and their parties have expressed support for the recent offensive of the Army in Buner and Swat, but from there to getting them to work together for any length of time might be a very long haul. The fact that Defense Secretary Gates is now approaching the Saudis to 'help' sort out the crisis in Pakistan there also favours Sharif, as he maintains infinitely better relations with the Saudis than Zardari. Perhaps scared by Sharif's steady gains, Zardari shows signs of trying to appease the Americans; the sudden shift from deal making in Swat to an all-out military offensive might in part have also been motivated by American pressure. Indeed Zardari was congratulated by Washington for his firmer stand after the Americans had been very critical of the Swat deal. However, one of the negative consequences of public American critici

Philippines

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:38:52 +0100
Is the Philippines the next Asian country to fall into the mire of recession? That is the question that is being asked increasingly. The government has taken a rather cocksure attitude to present trends claiming that the domestic economy was "recession proof" and that economic growth target while less than previously forecast would still be in the range of 3.1 4.1 percent. Even that revised target now looks to be in danger of being overly optimistic.

What has prompted the reassessment is the release of final figures for the first quarter economic performance which showed, in raw terms, that the economy expanded by a mere 0.4 percent year-on-year in the first three months of 2009. When seasonally adjusted, the number changes to negative 2.3 percent which, if continued into the later quarterly data, would translate into an almost ten percent annual decline. Virtually all drivers, with the exception of agricultural output which accounts for only a small percentage of overall GDP (around 20 percent) are showing ominous signs of trouble ahead.

Domestic consumption in the first three months of the year fell by 3.1 percent from the previous quarter or more than 12 percent on an annualized basis. This came about despite a continued high remittance inflow that set an all-time record of $1.47 billion in March 2009 and an increase of just 2.7 percent over the same period last year. This has prompted a number of analysts to speculate that the high n

Romania

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:23:34 +0100
A denial syndrome
The global crisis is impinging on Romania as on virtually everyone else. The Romanians want to believe it must be for the best. Having endured the most grim anti-capitalist regime imaginable under Ceausescu, they simply think that any Western alternative must be preferable.

Well, maybe they will prove right in time. But things are certainly grim at the moment. Officially GDP is contracting by only 3% or so; it is certainly doing so by far more. The authorities have not yet lost the old communist habit of talking things up.

Policy makers in Romania, and indeed generally elsewhere in the region, have been in denial as to how seriously the global crisis would impact on their economies. They have been arguing that their cheap skilled labour base/low tax regimes would still stand them in good stead, and would continue to attract net FDI (some have argued that net FDI into the region would accelerate which is clearly a ridiculous assertion - the total pool of trade/capital/FDI is contracting as a de-globalisation process works through the globe).�

The Romanian central bank is also upbeat and reported that the current account deficit narrowed to just EUR 95 m in March, from EUR 1,451m one year earlier. For the first three months of the year the deficit fell to EUR 709m, from EUR 3,955m one year earlier.�

Presidential elections by November
The presidency in Romania is a very

Russia

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:30:30 +0100
The lamentations of Mikhail Gorbachev
Is there wisdom in hindsight? Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev harshly criticised Russia's political system on May 21, saying that the nation's leaders have steadily rolled back the democratic achievements of his rule. Is this true?

Gorbachev accused Russia's current government of trying to consolidate its grip on power and stifle opposition voices, but avoided specific mention of President Dmitry Medvedev or his predecessor Vladimir Putin, who is now prime minister. "We have seen the step-by-step monopolisation of political activities," Gorbachev said at a conference marking the 20th anniversary of the first democratically-elected Soviet parliament on May 21, 1989.�
History does not quite see it Gorbachev's way. He is of course agreed to be a great reformer and a great man, a massive dose of good news in the Kremlin. Nevertheless, he never took the plunge of putting his own presidency to the popular vote, a deficiency that led to his losing it, and the very country of the USSR, to someone who did, Yeltsin.

Gorbachev did something utterly remarkable. He could not quite bring himself to put his own hold on the line, well aware of how untoward everything he was up to was, But he made it mandatory that regional governors in the incredibly vast country, covering eleven time zones, should henceforward be elected. This was an incredible development, It was democratisation from the gras

Serbia

Wed, 27 May 2009 14:44:21 +0100
Goodbye to Kosovo
In principle the most important problem before Serbia is to reverse the secession of Kosovo, declared on February 17, 2008. In practice it is an irreversible fact.�

The West did not go to war ten years ago almost to the day to defend the Albanian Kosovars for nothing. Even the Russians persuaded the Serbs that they should desist. This was the clincher. Ex-Premier Russian Viktor Chernomyrdin won over Milosevic to peace in June a decade ago.

The Kosovar leadership played their cards well, after that quite extraordinary turnaround in their favour. They waited to allow the reality to face the Serbs. They let it wait for nearly a decade. Kosovo is gone for good.

President Boris Tadic, who is a realist on this issue, but has to keep up the appearance of Serb claims, has suggested new negotiations with the Kosovar leaders, obviously to effect a compromise. The Serbs simply need a face-keeping formula, while the Kosovars get on with their own affairs.

On a point of international law, which is intensely conservative in these matters, the issue is clear Kosovo is a province of Serbia. In point of international fact, 58 countries have already recognised its independence, including the US and most of the EU countries.

Biden in Belgrade
US Vice-President Joe Biden made his most important stop in his Balkan tour on May 20 when he came to Belgrade. On Kosovo the two

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

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:43:21 +0100
The New President Speaks
Freshly inaugurated South African President Jacob Zuma has pledged that his administration would not deviate from the task of nation-building and reconciliation, firmly etched by former President Nelson Mandela. Delivering his inaugural speech at the Union Buildings May 7, Mr Zuma paid tribute to the father of the nation saying he had healed the country's wounds and established the rainbow nation very firmly. Mr Zuma also acknowledged outgoing President Kgalema Motlanthe whom he described as his friend, comrade and brother. He said Mr Motlanthe came into office during a period of great anxiety, and brought about calm, stability and certainty.

President Zuma announced his new cabinet May 10. The new cabinet, to serve for the next five years, compromises old and new faces, and promises a "type of government structure that would best serve our goals," said Zuma May 10. He said the structure of Cabinet and national departments had been re-organised to achieve better alignment between the structure, the party's electoral mandate as per the African National Congress (ANC) election Manifesto, and the developmental challenges that need to receive immediate attention from government. The most notable change in the new structure is the advent of the National Planning Commission (NPC). The NPC will be responsible for strategic planning for the country to ensure one National Plan to which all spheres of government would adhere.

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, 03 Jun 2009 13:06:51 +0100
Is Washington Delaying the Inevitable?
The United States continues to delay the inevitability of having to come to terms with Syria, and Iran indirectly if it wants to achieve any meaningful change in the Middle East. Even as the Obama White House has pursued much closer relations with Syria - a fact demonstrated also by the fact that special Middle East envoy is expected to visit Damascus to meet president al-Asad in mid June the US administration has contradicted itself as far as the forthcoming Lebanese elections are concerned. Yet, that same administration has renewed sanctions against Syria. Damascus was not impressed, particularly as all the signs from the current US leadership have suggested that the United States was interested in pursuing much closer relations. Evidently, the Obama administration has chosen to pursue the Middle East peace via the Palestinians first, instead of the easier route of the Golan; the renewal of sanctions was therefore justified by Syria's "support of militant organizations in the region and because Syria continued to not meet its international obligations" according to the State Department.

The Syrian ministry of foreign affairs called the decision "foolish". However, it is foolish to expect any change from Syria to be achieved from sanctions. As in most cases of sanctions, the population pays the highest price. Ordinary Syrians who mistrusted the United States will continue to do so. The renewal of sanct

Taiwan

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:23:43 +0100
It is now one year since President Ma Ying-jeou took office, returning Taiwan to rule by the Kuomintang (KMT) Party after eight years where the presidency and administration was under the control of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). He campaigned on a promise of restoring Taiwan to robust economic growth and to building a modus vivendi with China after the provocative confrontations engendered by the pro-independence administration of former President Chen Shui-bian.

But he has not delivered and dissatisfaction with his government appears to be growing. Instead of the promised six percent economic growth, Taiwan's economy has contracted now for four successive quarters, diving by 8.36 percent in the final quarter of 2008 alone. This was a record but not of the kind that Taiwan likes to notch up. Unemployment is at a record high and many migrant workers, who do many of the dirty and menial jobs that the Taiwanese are unwilling to undertake themselves, are returning home, or to be more precise, are being told to go home. Companies have cut the salaries of domestic workers and a number are being forced to take either unpaid leave or reduce working hours. At present the 4:3 formula is being applied in many business establishments whereby employees work four days and take unpaid leave for three. The fear is the 4:3 formula may soon evolve into a 3:4 variant whereby workers only work and get paid for three days of work per week.

Mr. Ma can

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

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:25:59 +0100
Turkey in turmoil
The Turks are experiencing the full impact of the world crisis. The economy is reeling; and the polity is in grave distress.

Everything stems from the victory of the Islamicist AKP party in 2002 and its re-election five years later in 2007, which affronted the secularist establishment. Turkey really is a democracy. The bulk of the masses are behind the AKP. But they take an independent line on occasion; for instance, they opposed Turkish participation in any way in the Iraq War in 2003 and rejected the idea of US troops using Turkish territory to invade Iraq. The Turkish parliament flatly refused permission, even though the AKP government was in favour.�

There is rich irony in the fact that the AKP is genuinely popular with the masses, even to some degree the Kurdish ones, and with foreigners of many a stamp from successive US administrations to the Brazilian one of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who paid a state visit on May 20-21. The UK is an ardent fan, even though France and Germany, with large Turkish immigrant communities already, are wary of encouraging Turkey's EU entry hopes.

Still, foreigners by and large are keen on the AKP leadership as that most desirable of things, a moderate, emphatically anti-extremist, Islamicist movement. President Abdullah Gul and Premier Tayyip Erdogan are obviously reasonable men, with whom one can do business.�

Trial against the presi

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

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:44:06 +0100
The Central Asian nightmare - reprised?
Those of us following Turkmen affairs were in despair - they seemed to be forever fixed in a ghastly reprise, the dictatorial grip of Saparmurat Niyazov, a ghastly megalomoniac. Then a providential thing happened - he expired in his sleep in late December 2007, a posthumous Christmas present for a Muslim nation.�

Nothing much seemed to change. But it takes time -and immense cunning - to transform a dictatorship.

He was succeeded by his doctor. Stalin would never have approved of the same the discovery of the Doctors' Plot of early 1953 caused his final apoplexy and demise in March of that year.�

The man with the most unpronouncable name in the world is throwing his name and his weight about. There are plenty of small indications that he has been biding his time. There are now some big ones.

The new Turkmen scenario
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is shaking up the management of Turkmenistan's state-controlled oil and gas entities. The semi-official Turkmenistan website confirmed on May 18 that Berdymukhamedov sacked the deputy chief of Turkmenneft, Toidurdy Durdiev, and the first deputy chair of Turkmengaz, Durdy Tadjiev, "for serious shortcomings" in the execution of their responsibilities. The phasing of a presidential press service statement hinted that the pair had been removed due to incompetence.�

Energy development and

Ukraine

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:51:30 +0100
Tug-of-war between the top two
The name of the political game in Ukraine is a permanent struggle between President Viktor Yushchenko, the hero of the Rose Revolution in 2004, and Premier Julia Timoshenko, its delectable heroine. They cordially detest each other, as is often the way with 'political allies.' One just has to think of Thatcher and Heseltine, the very difference in gender adding venom to the spite.�

They are preparing to face each other in presidential elections this year or early next year. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine may appoint a date for elections to the presidency at the next plenary week scheduled for June 2-5.

The Verkhovna Rada chairman, Vladimir Litvin, has proposed a presidential election for January 17 2010. Two alternative election dates are November 22 2009, initiated by an MP from the faction, Bloc Our Ukraine People's Self-Defense, Hennady Moskal, and December 27 2009 initiated by an MP from the faction, The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Andrei Shevchenko.�

Russia slights Yushchenko
Yushchenko is playing the anti-Russian card for all it is worth. He knows how profoundly most Ukrainians distrust the Russians, who regard Ukraine as the original Rus, their very backyard. Russia made a sensational statement in mid-May: "If Mr. Yushchenko continues to carry on a policy of the glorification of the UPA (The Ukrainian rebel army), we may prohibit him entrance to Russia."�

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

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:47:55 +0100
Never forget Andijan
May 13 marked four years since the violent suppression of a protest in Andijan, in the Ferghana Valley. Officially 187 people were killed in the incident when Uzbek authorities opened fire on demonstrators in the unfortunate city. The real figure is almost certainly much higher, closer to 1,000. The authorities blamed the demonstration on Moslem extremists. But then they would, would they not?

Uzbekistan is not such a wonderful place, an earthly paradise, that there is nothing to demonstrate against. Living conditions are decidedly bleak for many, even in the lush Ferghana Valley.�

In Moscow, on May 13, this year, as on previous years, a small group of demonstrators commemorated the tragedy with a protest at the Uzbek Embassy, urging the world community to demand an investigation into what some call the Andijan Massacre. The handful of demonstrators in Moscow were outnumbered by police and journalists who gathered near the Uzbek Embassy.�

The frustrated opposition
Daria Sobolova, a member of Russia's Memorial human rights organization and an outstanding protagonist for human rights everywhere, says that the Andijan demonstration gets smaller with each passing year, not because people have forgotten, but because they fear repression. Soboleva says relatives of activists who demonstrate in Russia are persecuted in Uzbekistan. She adds that if an activist is not a citizen of Russia,

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

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:09:39 +0100
Wherein the Oil Sheikhs go Nuclear
Saudi Arabia and other oil producing Arab states in the Persian Gulf region may soon be generating electricity from nuclear power stations thanks to help from the United States. The fact that the region has at least 100 years of oil reserves suggests that the ultimate goal of the plan is to counter Iran's own nuclear ambitions and re-emerging hegemony.

As the G8 summit approaches, Saudi Arabia will be invited at the energy summit in Trieste in mid-June, the United States has already signed an accord with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the world's third largest oil exporter, to help develop a nuclear power station within the next ten years all using American supplied technology and expertise. The deal had in fact been devised in the last weeks of the Bush administration, but president Obama signed it into law on May 19, noting that it would "promote common defense and security". The Democrat controlled Capitol is expected to approve the USD 40 billion deal in spite of issues pertaining to a torture case involving Abu Dhabi. GE, Westinghouse and Bechtel are among the leading candidates to win contracts for the deal, though the US approval suggests that the UAE may also look to other countries to supply technical capability; Japan has also expressed interest, while France signed a deal with the Saudi government to build a nuclear power station on May 11. UAE type nuclear energy accords with Saudi Arabia, Egypt,

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

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:48:46 +0100

newnations.com
Monthly reports on finance, business, trade,
economics, & political analysis

NEWNATIONS BULLETIN: 01 JULY 2009

TURBULENT PRIESTS

Iran's Turbulent Priests
The story of modern IRAN has been often retold in the context of the Islamic republic. Most recently the world watched and marvelled as they held an election for the third level of government power, the presidency, currently held by the man the west 'loves to hate,' President Ahmadinijad. The outcome was that he remains in office but any evidence of the vestigial democracy that sits below the theocratic levels of power, has been blown away. A cartoonist observed, "You vote, God decides."

Obama and the middle-east
We

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