| Foreigners killed in Afghan attacks | |||
Five Canadians and eight Americans have been killed in two separate attacks in Afghanistan, with officials saying that the Americans were working for the CIA, the US intelligence agency. The Taliban on Thursday claimed responsibility for the attack on the Americans, carried out at a US base in the eastern province of Khost, saying that the attacker was an officer in the Afghan army. "This deadly attack was carried out by a valorous Afghan army member when the officials [Americans] were busy gaining information about the mujahideen," Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said in an email. The Afghan defence ministry denied that the bomber was an Afghan army officer. The suicide bomber reportedly evaded security at the base and detonated an explosive belt in a room used as a fitness centre on Wednesday. A former senior CIA officer who was stationed at the base said a combination of agency officers and contractors operated out of the remote outpost with the military and other agencies. Initial reports suggested the men killed had been soldiers. 'Reconstruction staff' "There has been a great deal of confusion when the reports emerged yesterday," Hashem Ahelbarra, Al Jazeera's correspondent reporting from the Afghan capital, Kabul, said. "Then he came back to us in half an hour and said there had been a great deal of confusion and actually 'no, these are not US soldiers but civilians'. They are members of the PRT, which is the provincial reconstruction team." The PRT was established in Afghanistan in 2002 by the US to assist in reconstruction efforts at district and provincial levels. US media reports said the Americans killed were employed by the CIA. The Washington Post newspaper, citing US officials, said the eight killed were working for the CIA, while the Associated Press cited an unnamed US official as saying CIA employees were believed to be among the dead. According to The Washington Post report, the CIA has been bolstering its ranks in Afghanistan in recent weeks, mirroring the increase in troops. The CIA has not yet commented or confirmed the deaths. The base in Khost, known as Forward Operating Base Chapman, is a centre for personnel working on reconstruction projects in the country. The US has committed to send hundreds of civilians to support work on development projects that aim to undermine support for the Taliban and other fighters. But as the security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated, many of the civilians working outside Kabul have retreated to army bases. Several other people, none of them US or Nato troops, were wounded in the explosion, US defence officials said. Canadians killed The five Canadians were killed in a attack in the southern province of Kandahar just hours later. The group, made up of four Canadian soldiers and a journalist accompanying them, were visiting community reconstruction projects and were killed when their armoured vehicle was hit by a bomb, the Canadian defence ministry said. The journalist, Michelle Lang, was with The Calgary Herald. The paper said Lang had been in the country since December 11 and was the first Canadian journalist to die in Afghanistan since Canada joined the international mission there in 2002. The attack was the worst against Canada's military in the country in two years and brought its military deaths in Afghanistan to 138. Canada has 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, but the mission has become increasingly unpopular at home and it is scheduled to be withdrawn at the end of 2011. | |||
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Thursday, 31 December 2009
Foreigners killed in Afghan attacks
Yemen 'can handle al-Qaeda menace'
| Yemen 'can handle al-Qaeda menace' | |||||||
The Yemeni government has vowed to deal with the "menace of al-Qaeda in Yemen" after the group claimed responsibility for a plot to bring down an aircraft bound for the US city of Detroit on Christmas. Saying his government would not authorise or co-operate with any potential US strike on its soil, Abdullah Alsaidi, Yemen's permanent representative to the United Nations, told Al Jazeera that his country "is capable of taking care of its own problems". Alsaidi welcomed co-operation with and assistance from the US "with respect to intelligence information", saying it was necessary to Yemen's battle against al-Qaeda. But he added that "we are not encouraging US attacks, we are saying that Yemen will take care of this problem on its own". Hideout raided On Wednesday, Yemeni security forces raided an alleged al-Qaeda hideout in a western province, sparking a gun battle with fighters. A security official speaking on condition of anonymity said the target was a house owned by an al-Qaeda sympathiser. The official said the owner was arrested, a suspected al-Qaeda member was injured and several fighters who fled were being pursued.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian passenger, was arrested last Friday on suspicion of trying to bring down the Northwest Airlines aircraft carrying 289 people. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of Osama bin Laden's group based in Yemen, claimed it was behind the attempt. US investigators said Abdulmutallab told them he received training and instructions from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. Yemen's government said Abdulmutallab spent two periods in the country, from 2004-2005 and from August to December this year, just before the attempted attack. And Alsaidi told Al Jazeera that Abdulmutallab "was probably in touch with terror cells" in Yemen, although the envoy denied that the explosives from the failed attack came from his country, saying Abdulmutallab "most likely picked them up somewhere else". "I have also heard from other governments that he picked them up in other African countries closer to Nigeria," he said. Abdulmutallab's Yemen connection has drawn attention to al-Qaeda's presence in the country. US role Before Wednesday's clashes, Yemeni forces backed by US intelligence carried out two major strikes against al-Qaeda hideouts this month, reportedly killing more than 60 fighters.
Bryan Whitman, a US defence department spokesman, said Yemen received $67m in training and support under the Pentagon's counterterrorism programme last year, second only to $112m spent in Pakistan. "We are going to work with allies and partners to seek out terrorist activity, al-Qaeda, wherever they operate, plan their operations, seek safe harbour," he said, adding that "this is an effort that is years old now". But US officials downplayed reports that retaliatory strikes in Yemen would be launched. "These reports are inflammatory and do not address the issue," Barbara Bodine, a former US ambassador to Yemen, told Al Jazeera, adding that "we need to understand the size, configuration of the al-Qaeda presence in Yemen". "Any moves would be better done by the Yemen military. Conducting air strikes would not help either, as you would end up with collateral damage. Actions such as these are merely reactionary, but not aimed at solving the problem," she said. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, the US president, has demanded a preliminary report by Thursday on the security lapses in the plane bomb plot. He said the intelligence community should have been able to piece together information that would have raised "red flags" and possibly prevented Abdulmutallab from boarding the airliner. Abdulmutallab had been placed in one broad database but never made it on to more restrictive lists, despite his father's warnings to US embassy officials in Nigeria last month. The failed attack in Detroit was launched almost a year after al-Qaeda's operations in Yemen and Saudi Arabia united to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, making Yemen its base. | |||||||
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Protests held against Gaza siege
| Protests held against Gaza siege | |||||||
Activists, both from Gaza and abroad, have held demonstrations on either side of an Israeli border crossing to the Palestinian territory, protesting against its continued siege by Israel. Hundreds of protesters gathered around the Erez crossing on Thursday, to denounce the blockade that has caused immense suffering to those living in Gaza. Nisreen el-Shamayleh, Al Jazeera's correspondent who was on the Israeli side of the crossing, estimated that about 600 protesters were present, many from mainly Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem. "They represent Israeli-Palestinians as well as other Arab civil society organisations inside Israel and also with the support of some Israeli groups," she said. "Their major demand is for Israel to stop the siege on Gaza and to stop the suffocation of Gazans living under this blockade. They're also calling on the international community to intervene." The Gaza Strip has been under Israeli blockade since 2007 when Hamas seized power in the territory. The Erez crossing is the main entry and exit point to and from Gaza used by medical patients, journalists, diplomats and aid groups. International support On the Gaza side of the border, the demonstration was slower to get started, but protesters there were joined by 86 activists from the Gaza Freedom March, an international group that has been trying to get into Gaza with food and supplies. Most of the Gaza Freedom March's 1,300-strong group were refused entry into Gaza by Egypt, which controls the Rafah crossing point, because of what Egyptian authorities said was the "sensitive situation" in the territory.
Ali Abunimah, the co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website, who was at the Cairo protest, told Al Jazeera the group had been surrounded by the police. "I've spoken to some people who were pushed or kicked by police and a few people have [had] their cameras taken away," he said. "I'd say there are about 200 people here. We had anticipated quite a few more, but earlier today police barricaded some of the hotels where we are staying ... I can't tell you how many people have been prevented from joining us." A separate aid convoy has also been trying to reach Gaza through Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba. Lorries from the Viva Palestina convoy began crossing from Jordan into Syria on Thursday. The events around Gaza coincide with the one-year anniversary of Israel's devastating 22-day war on Gaza which left about 1,300 Palestinians dead. Thirteen Israelis also died in the conflict. | |||||||
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Iran faces nuclear deal deadline
| Iran faces nuclear deal deadline | |||
The deadline for Iran to agree to international demands that it ship its nuclear material abroad for enrichment is set to expire. Iran has until Thursday to agree to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) proposal, designed to calm the fears of the US and its allies that Iran might use its nuclear programme to make a nuclear weapon. Under the terms of the deal, Tehran would transfer its low-grade nuclear material abroad where it will be further enriched and returned to fuel a medical research reactor. Iran denies that is trying to make a weapon and says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only. Kristen Saloomey, Al Jazeera's correspondent in New York, said efforts were under way to establish a multi-lateral approach to sanctions should Iran miss the deadline. "Diplomatic sources tell Al Jazeera that the United States is considering a menu of sanctions," she said. "Those could be imposed on Iran by the United Nations if they can get the entire five permanent, veto-wielding members of the Security Council to agree to them, or could be imposed unilaterally by the United States and by its European allies. "As for what sanctions might be considered, the United States is reportedly looking at targeting the oil sector with an eye towards destabilising Iran's economy. "Of course, it must tread very carefully here - it doesn't want to be seen as hurting the Iranian people or interfering in any way in Iran's domestic affairs." 'Targeted sanctions' Several diplomats said the United States and at least some of its Western partners want to avoid hitting Iran's life blood - its energy sector - for fear it would trigger a broad-based Iranian nationalist reaction. They also doubt such sanctions would gain the support of China and Russia, which have been more reluctant than the Western powers to impose sanctions. Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Washington may target the Revolutionary Guard, which "are managing Iran's nuclear programme, liaising with extremist groups throughout the Middle East, and overseeing the brutal suppression of non-violent protesters." She told AFP that punishing the Guard "makes sense because it potentially kills several birds with one stone", without alienating the Iranian opposition. Aside from it nuclear disagreement with the West, Iran is facing unrest at home from opposition protesters following the country's disputed presidential polls in June. | |||
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Deaths in Finland mall shooting
| Deaths in Finland mall shooting | |||
Four people have been killed as a gunman opened fire at a shopping mall in Finland's second largest city, Espoo, the police have said. Witnesses said a man dressed in black had started shooting randomly inside the Sello mall on Thursday morning. "I can confirm that four people are dead," Jyrkky Kallio, the local police chief, said. "But we do not know yet whether there are other casualties and how many there are." A witness said an employee was seen lying on the floor covered in blood, Finland's national broadcaster YLE reported. Many ambulances were called to the scene. Police identified the shooter as 43-year-old Ibrahim Shkupolli. The shooter's nationality is unclear. Motives unclear Lisa Karvinen, a journalist at YLE, said the police have not released any details about possible motives for the shooting. "Police is searching for him ... They have searched some local trains which have passed the station [near the mall]", she told Al Jazeera. The director of the shopping centre said the mall had been evacuated and public transport services in the area were rerouted. The shooting is the country's third multiple shooting incident in as many years. In September 2008, a lone gunman killed nine fellow students and a teacher In November 2007, an 18-year-old student fatally shot eight people and himself at a high school in southern Finland. Finland, a nation of 5.3 million, has 1.6 million firearms in private hands and ranks among the top five nations in the world in civilian gun ownership. | |||
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Ex-Indonesia president laid to rest
| Ex-Indonesia president laid to rest | |||||
Indonesia's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, has been given a state funeral and laid to rest at his birthplace in Jombang, East Java. Flags were at half mast as a sign of respect for Abdurrahman, who died in hospital on Wednesday aged 69, due to complications arising from diabetes and stroke. More commonly known as Gus Dur, Abdurrahman became Indonesia's fourth president after Suharto was ousted from power following a student-led uprising against the general's three-decade rule. Abdurrahman defeated Megawati Sukarnoputri to win the presidency in a parliamentary vote in 1999, even though her Democratic Party of Struggle put in the strongest showing in a general election earlier that year. She replaced him after he was sacked by the national assembly in 2001 amid unproven allegations of corruption and incompetence. A religious scholar, Abdurrahman was a critic of Suharto but was himself criticised for his erratic leadership style while he was in office. Still, he gained a reputation for religious tolerance and reformist policies. He rose to political prominence as leader of one of the country's biggest mass Islamic movements, the moderate Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and helped put the country on the path to democracy following Suharto's fall. 'Enormous service'
In a nationally-televised address on Thursday, Yudhoyono called on Indonesians to pay Abdurrahman their "highest respects". "I say this with prayers and hope that he is accepted at the side of God for his enormous service to the public, the nation and our beloved state," he said. | |||||
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Deadly blasts hit western Iraq city
| Deadly blasts hit western Iraq city | |||
At least 23 people have been killed in twin suicide bombings in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi. Another 57 people were injured in the blasts on Wednesday in Anbar province, including Qassim Mohammed Abid, the provincial governor. A suicide bomber in a car caused the first blast and a suicide bomber on foot caused the second, Lieutenant-Colonel Imad al-Fahdawi, a police official, said. The first attack was at about 9:30am local time (06:30 GMT) at a traffic junction in the centre of city close to the provincial administration buildings. A separate bombing 30 minutes later at the entrance to the nearby provincial council offices. It was in this bombing that Abid was injured as he came out of his office to inspect the damage, a source at a Ramadi hospital was reported as saying. "Some security people held him back, and he detonated himself." Governor wounded State television briefly reported that the governor had been killed in the blast, but those reports were quickly denied by Hikmet Khalaf, his deputy. The AFP news agency quoted a doctor at Ramadi General Hospital as saying: "The governor is wounded. American forces came and took him for more treatment." The US military did not immediately confirm that its troops took Abid to a US-run hospital. Ahmed Rushdi, an independent journalist in Baghdad, told Al Jazeera: "There is now a curfew inside Anbar - [the roads] are only for police cars and ambulances. All the members of the council and the governorate have mild injures." Anbar province was the heart of Iraq's Sunni uprising following the US-led invasion of Iraqi in 2003 but it became relatively secure after local tribal fighters accepted US-backing in 2006. But a spate of recent attacks has raised fears that violence will increase ahead of Iraq's general elections in March 2010. | |||
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Somali pirates hijack three ships
| Somali pirates hijack three ships | |||||||||||||||||||
Somali pirates have captured a freighter, a bulk carrier and a chemical tanker - despite a large foreign warship presence in the Gulf of Aden. Andrew Mwangura, from the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Programme, said the tanker was seized en route from Spain to Thailand but had been commandeered near the northern Somali coast. He said the vessel's last safe port of call was Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and that the crew included seamen from Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Philippines, Poland, Georgia, India and Turkey. 'No regulation' On Monday, Somali pirates captured a Greek-flagged bulk carrier transporting fertiliser, Mwangura said. The 52,000-tonne Navios Apollon was hijacked "en route from Tampa, Florida, USA, to Rozy, India," with a crew consisting of a Greek captain and 18 Filipinos. The ship was boarded by 10 men on speedboats in the Indian Ocean northeast of the Seychelles archipelago, the Greek coastguard said.
"The only realistic way that piracy can be stopped at sea ... is for those vessels to be pratically prepared to prevent piracy occurring, preventing them getting on board and preventing them from getting close to the vessel ... the navies cannot be there all the time. "You haven't got a blanket requirement by all shipping companies travelling through these dangerous regions or a regulation that requires them to adhere to security requirements." Earlier, pirates seized a Yemeni freighter and 15 crew members. The Al-Mahmoudia2 left the port of Aden, in Yemen, on December 18, the Yemeni authorities said on Monday, without revealing the nature of its cargo or destination. The Yemeni freighter and the UK-flagged chemical tanker were intercepted by pirates in the Gulf of Aden, key maritime bottleneck near the entrance to the Red Sea. Huge ransoms The two attacks in the Gulf were the first since August and came as international naval missions were trumpeting the results of a year-long effort to secure the area. Since the end of the summer monsoon season allowed pirate attacks to resume three months ago, Somali pirates had abandoned the Gulf of Aden for the wide open seas of the Indian Ocean, venturing as far as the Seychelles and beyond. Despite the increased international presence off Somalia's coastline - the longest in Africa - pirates raked in huge ransoms. On Sunday, pirates said they collected $3.5m for the release of the Chinese bulk carrier Dexinhai. The Singapore-flagged MV Kota Wajar was also released nearly 10 weeks after being hijacked, the European Union naval task force said on Monday. The amount of the ransom is not yet known. In captivity The latest captures and releases bring to at least 11 the number of ships currently held by pirates, together with close to 250 seamen, according to Ecoterra International, an environmentalist NGO monitoring maritime activity in the region. Among those in captivity are a British couple captured on October 22 while sailing their yacht to Tanzania.
The pair were briefly held on board the recently released MV Kota Wajar. Alongside the EU, the US, Nato and other national navies also deployed warships off the Somali coast in December 2008 to protect vessels and secure maritime routes in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Thanks to state-of-the-art technology, huge budgets and ever-improving co-ordination, the foreign armada has thwarted many attacks. They have also captured dozens of pirates, generally equipped with rudimentary skiffs, ladders and grapnels. But one out of four ships sailing through the danger zone still does not comply with international recommendations for safe passage, the navies say. | |||||||||||||||||||
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Israel 'approves W Bank structures'
| Israel 'approves W Bank structures' | |||
Israel has approved a plan to promote the construction of 14 structures in northern settlement of Kiryat Netafim in the occupied West Bank, the Haaretz newspaper says quoting a radio station. The defence ministry on Tuesday approved the Kiryat Netafim construction plans to legalise the construction of 14 structures, the paper quoted Army Radio as saying on Wednesday. Peace Now, a leftist human-rights group, petitioned Israel's High Court of Justice recently against the construction of 14 structures that were illegally built, some of them on Palestinian land without any authorisation. The paper described the decision as surprising following the government recent declaration of a 10-month settlement construction freeze. The paper quoted Yariv Oppenheimer, Peace Now's secretary-general, as telling Army Radio that while Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, calls for relaunching peace talks with the Palestinians, in practice he and Ehud Barak, the defence minister, are doing everything in their power to promote new construction plans in the West Bank and to authorise illegal construction in outposts and settlements. The new constructions followed the Israeli housing ministry's approval on Monday of plans to build almost 700 new apartments in three illegal Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. Monday's announcement invited construction companies to bid to build 198 housing units in Pisgat Zeev, 377 homes in Neve Yaakov and 117 dwellings in Har Homa. Palestinian officials and the US were quick to condemn Monday's move as incompatible with efforts to restart the stalled peace process. About 190,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem and another 290,000 settlers currently live in the occupied West Bank. | |||
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Migrant workers flock to Mumbai
| Migrant workers flock to Mumbai | ||
Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers flock to India's biggest and richest city, Mumbai, every year. They come from all over the country to find stable work, but many remain on the street for years. Casey Kauffman followed one man seeking a living in the city, beginning with his two-day train ride to his first day looking for work. | ||
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Online gaming grows in China
| Online gaming grows in China | ||
The world's most populous nation also has the world's largest number of internet users. At least 338 million people use the internet in China, and more than half of them are online gamers. But with the gaming industry expanding, the government is finding it harder to maintain control. Melissa Chan reports. | ||
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Yemen in focus over US bomb plot
| Yemen in focus over US bomb plot | ||
The US is increasing its security assistance to Yemen following a failed airline bombing attempt in the US. A Yemen group calling itself al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed to be behind the attempted attack and Yemeni officials said security forces clashed with suspected al-Qaeda fighters on Wednesday in the western part of the country. Al Jazeera's Owen Fay reports. | ||
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A decade of digital advances
| A decade of digital advances | ||
| By Tarek Bazley | ||
In the fast-changing world of technology, one electronic component has been the star of what is being called the digital decade: memory. Back in 2000 it was expensive. This meant powerful computers and electronics were costly, just toys for the rich or tech-crazy. But as the cost of memory has come down, a new world of consumer electronics has become possible. The ipod – first launched in 2001 - made use of a tiny hard drive. It put hundreds of songs into the palm of one’s hand. Its popularity made it a hit and the device fast became a design icon. "If we look at the 1990s where technology and software was all about empowering business, with the likes of Oracle and Microsoft, I think that the last decade that we have had has all been about empowering the individual – particularly in the last couple of years. The emergence of mobile technology", Mark Casey, a London-based technology expert, says. Simple telephone handsets have fast incorporated music-players, video gaming, cameras and satellite positioning technology. In the developing world the advantage of a wire-free mobile network and the falling cost the mobile phone have seen sales rocket. African advances About 350 million Africans now have mobile phones and their uses continue to expand, even allowing Ugandan farmers to check the prices at market before they harvest their crops "People are hungry for market information. People are hungry to network and stay in touch with relatives in far-off places. People are hungry for selling or buying things as simple as it can be and there is no simpler way than just sending a code to your telecom operator for anything that you want” John Kibuuka, the owner of an Internet Café in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, says. Along with more powerful devices – a leap in connection speeds, the internet has fast become a place where we work, play, communicate and interact. It started with weblogs or blogs – but soon video-sharing sites like Youtube gained popularity. Whether used to share family moments – or circumvent government censorship – the internet has fast become a potent force. So what will the decade ahead likely bring? Pundits are predicting the continuing convergence of multimedia – songs, films, photo, maps and more - and the opportunity to buy or sell – all on one handset. Challenge ahead Breakthroughs in microscopic technology – or nanotechnology – make concepts like morphing handsets a possibility, allowing phones to change shape, colour and look to suit the owner. Those handsets, connected to wireless networks, will allow the owners to remotely control everything from their banking to the heating in their so-called "smart" homes. Advanced high-speed networks will allow "cloud" systems – where all files and programmes are stored and accessed from a remote server on the network, rather than one’s own computer – making computers lighter and cheaper. And it is this question of affordability that will open up all these technological developments to the developing world. A quarter of the world’s mobile users are already in China – and many millions more expected to sign on in the coming years. For any new technology to make it on a global level it will have to cross cultural and cost barriers. That is the challenge for the decade ahead. | ||
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The Bubble Decade
| The Bubble Decade | ||||||
| By Adhip Chaudhuri | ||||||
It is befitting that Time magazine made Bernard Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, as its “Man of the Year” for 2009. Surely, the decade of 2000-09 will go down in history as the decade of the forming and bursting of one of the biggest financial bubbles ever. Though this was the decade of 9/11, followed by the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the economic ups and downs may have put more of a signature on the decade 2000-09 than even those world-altering events. The decade of 2000-09 began with an economic smarting due to the dissipation of the personal computer-internet boom. The PC-internet boom was a major technological epoch covering more than the previous decade. It had brought about high and sustained economic growth to the US and most of the world. But by 2000, not only was the technological epoch over, but the financial bubble that had accompanied the real growth had also burst. As the US economy was floundering around aimlessly, the only policy issue being talked about was the Bush tax cuts, which once implemented transformed the US government’s annual budgets from surpluses to deficits. And then came 9/11. Wall Street crashed in the ensuing days, and there was a serious concern that the US would go into a downturn.
In response, the Fed [the US federal bank] under Alan Greenspan started creating money at an unusually high rate. This brought the Fed’s lending rate to commercial banks to 1% and sometimes even below. The Fed continued to pump money into the banking system for a long period of time, making it one of the longest binges of money creation in it's history. Where was all this liquidity supposed to go? As mentioned before, there was nothing happening in the real economy once the PC-internet boom was over. Most of this money found its way into the real estate sector, and by 2003 a real estate boom had begun in the US. The boom was not driven by construction as it was in China, India and Dubai, but mostly by Americans turning over the existing stock of housing among each other. This artificial boom was the cause of the financial crisis in the latter part of the decade. Real growth However, while financial booms were the order of the day in the US, and as we shall explain below also in western Europe, most of the rest of the world was enjoying real economic growth. China, which had already achieved 10 per cent growth rates of GDP in the1990s, continued its turbo-charged growth rates into the first decade of the 21st century. What was really new in this decade was that even India managed to raise its growth rates to about 7-8% per annum. While South Korea did not have the same high growth rates as China and India(having had its share in the 1990s), it recovered rapidly from the so-called East Asian Financial Crisis of 1998, and established itself as a leading manufacturer of high-end industrial products. The rest of East and South-East Asia also did very well, with Vietnam achieving high enough growth rates to herald itself as yet another successful newly emerging country from that region. Even Indonesia, the fourth-most populous country in the world, finally recovered from the east Asian crisis and achieved high growth rates. In Asia, only Japan stagnated, or worse still, declined. Good news came from many sources. In fulfillment of our hopes and wishes, sub-Saharan Africa started growing at an average annual rate of 5 per cent, outperforming their population growth rate of 2 per cent. The AIDS situation in Africa started improving thanks to the efforts of many: the WTO; the US and European governments; pharmaceutical companies from not only the West, but also from Brazil and India; private charitable trusts like the Bill Gates and the Clinton foundations; and several others. Latin America also poised itself for economic “take-off”. Brazil, under the new leadership of Lula, laid the foundation for the latest economic miracle -- the unfolding of which we are witnessing now, and will most definitely continue into years to come. The Middle East, especially the oil and natural gas exporting countries, performed remarkably well too. Qatar, for instance, became one of the richest countries in the world. It also became evident that the Russian economy’s performance was also tied to the price of oil.
The speculators in the oil futures were the same entities who were betting in the real estate markets -- Goldman Sachs, for example. The insane rise in the price of oil did some real damage to the world economy. The precipitous rise in the cost of jet fuel bode disasters for many airlines companies. In the US, this artificial rise in the price of oil put the last nail in the coffin of General Motors, which had mistakenly bet on gas guzzlers like many models of SUVs and the unforgettable, “in your face,” Hummer. However, the speculative mania of the last decade took the strongest hold in Dubai. The emirate came to represent the worst aspects of economic activities which took inordinate risks with cheap money. Regional economic integrations made a lot of news in the last decade. The European Union (EU) kept on expanding in membership, but more importantly, established a common currency—the euro. The euro was introduced at the beginning of the decade at a denomination at par with the dollar, but can now buy one-and-a-half dollars. The euro has indeed become a currency on par with the British pound and the Japanese yen for providing the world with an alternative to US dollar. The EU also introduced free internal movement of labour and capital which integrated the economies of the member countries even more in the last decade -- an integration which bore fruit in a strong co-operation between France, Germany, and the United Kingdom that withstood the financial crisis. Countries like Iceland, which stayed away from the EU on a rationale of “small is beautiful,” found out the virtue of being a part of the union when it went bankrupt in 2008. Multilateral gains Multilateralism did not do so badly either. Even though the Doha Round has all but collapsed, there were notable achievements in multilateral agreements. Meeting in Cancun in 2003 under the auspices of the Doha Round, the WTO allowed many poor African countries to import affordable generics to cure AIDS by extending waivers to circumvent international patent agreements. But at the same time, the US and the EU failed to lower agricultural subsidies which they had promised to do by the end of the Uruguay round in 1994. Four African countries, Benin, Burkina-Fasso, Mali, and Zambia, known as the ‘Cotton-4’, came to symbolise the hardships of the African farmers who could have improved their standards of living under free trade. But free trade made progress in the past decade, too. China joined the WTO starting in 2001, and has dramatically changed its policies toward protecting the intellectual property of foreign firms. The US has formally abolished the massive garment import quota system called the Multi Fiber Agreement. India has joined the international patenting system, and both Brazil and India have lowered tariffs on industrial goods as they had promised under the Uruguay Round. Surely the biggest multilateral achievement of the decade is the Copenhagen Accord where the US with the help of BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) pulled out a victory from the jaws of defeat, or more aptly, something from nothing. A nice way to end the decade! Saving United States Lastly, we come to the US where we started. The financial crisis has caused a deep recession in the US and while there are signs that the recession is bottoming out, by the time the US regains full employment and thereby starts producing its potential GDP, it could be three years all told. During the same time period China will have grown at a compound rate of 40 per cent! With all their shenanigans, the financial sector did create the perfect bubble, because when it burst it became clear that it was full of only air. The Dow Jones was at 10,000 in the year 2000, it is at 10,500 now. The latest news is that housing prices have fallen back to their pre-mania levels. Finally, the hourly wage rate in the US, allowing for inflation, had hardly changed during the last decade. But getting back to the low levels of unemployment and the higher growth rates of the GDP of 2000 will take some time, when it does happen we should thank Bernanke, the Fed chairman. Unlike during the Great Depression when the Fed sat on its hands, it is the activism of the Fed during 2009 which has saved the US. Adhip Chaudhuri is a professor of international economics at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. |
South-Eastern Europe: a crystal ball for 2010
South-Eastern Europe: a crystal ball for 2010
'A year of little change for Obama'
| 'A year of little change for Obama' | ||||||
| By Richard Grenell | ||||||
This past year has not been a successful one for the 44th president of the US. Although the Barack Obama administration has had the incredible luxury of having its own political party - the Democrats - control the House of Representatives and the Senate by wide margins, there has been little progress on domestic and international issues. Obama and his team have the ability to pass any bill and create any new law they want without relying on a single Republican vote. And yet, the Obama administration has failed to capitalise on that advantage. As Obama came into office, he promised lots of change. But so far, not much has changed. Domestically, the US is facing the largest unemployment rates in decades and the American budget deficit is at an all time high. Internationally, it may now appear to be more popular but that is largely because we are not asking countries to do much these days. The Obama team is not leading the world. They have chosen the easy path of non-confrontation. Copenhagen is proof. Sadly, the administration has confused popularity with progress. Let's take a closer look at a few of the Obama administration's foreign policy priorities over the last year: Iran - 'pushing the reset button'
Resolution 1737 imposed strict sanctions on the government of Iran and was passed unanimously by the Security Council on December 23, 2006, after weeks of negotiations and stalling tactics from China and Russia. Resolutions 1696, 1747 and 1803, all passed during the Bush administration, kept the pressure mounting on Iran to abide by the international community's demands to suspend all nuclear enrichment activity. Despite grumblings from Security Council members about having to vote for such measures, the Bush administration forced the votes and in the end was able to get multiple resolutions passed with unanimous support. Where Bush successfully isolated the government of Iran, the Obama administration has eased the pressure on them and the members of the Security Council. Instead of building on all of the work that had been done to negotiate sanctions, the Obama administration pushed the "reset button" and started over, thereby releasing the mounting pressure. The Russians and Chinese were relieved that UN resolution negotiations were not proceeding with urgency. China and Russia even complimented the Obama administration as a group of "good listeners" and the new process as "respectful". The government of Iran, too, was pleased to have more time to enrich uranium and less pressure to stop their delivery system testing. The Obama administration has not produced a single UN Security Council resolution on Iran since it took office - the last one was passed by Bush a full 15 months ago. The Obama administration's policy on Iran has been a complete failure and has only strengthened Iran's resolve. AfPak - 'Obama's war to win or lose' President Obama's December announcement that he will send 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan was a welcomed sign for the peoples of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iraq - 'Candidate Obama v. President Obama' Candidate Obama promised to pull troops from Iraq as soon as he took office. But President Obama learned that it was not possible. Israel and Palestine - 'Missteps and missed opportunities'
Even some in the US were hopeful that Obama would be able to reassure the Palestinians and that America's historical tie with Israel would be sufficient enough to bring the parties together to form a permanent peace. But Obama stumbled early on with his Cairo speech and his directive on settlements. He failed to challenge Arabs to act during his Cairo speech and it was seen by Israel and many in the US as a missed opportunity. His public instruction that Israel cease all settlement activity was also a misstep. American presidents can privately cajole and push the parties to negotiate but no American president can dictate to the parties what should be done. Obama must learn that the Palestinians and the Israelis must each bargain and agree to the terms of any peace deal on their own if it is to last. In 2001, George Bush, the former US president, appointed Richard Grenell as the director of communications and public diplomacy for the US permanent representative to the UN. In this role, he advised four US ambassadors - John D. Negroponte, John C. Danforth, John R. Bolton and Zalmay Khalilzad - on the formulation and articulation of US policy at the UN. He and his team have led communications strategies on issues such as: the 'war on terrorism' in Afghanistan and Iraq; peacekeeping operations in Haiti, Liberia, the Congo and Sudan; the conflict in the Middle East; Iran's nuclear weapons programme; a North Korean missile test; the conflict between Syria and Lebanon; and the UN's Oil for Food Corruption investigation, to name a few. | ||||||
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Somali pirates hijack three ships
| Somali pirates hijack three ships | |||||||||||||||||||
Somali pirates have captured a freighter, a bulk carrier and a chemical tanker - despite a large foreign warship presence in the Gulf of Aden. Andrew Mwangura, from the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Programme, said the tanker was seized en route from Spain to Thailand but had been commandeered near the northern Somali coast. He said the vessel's last safe port of call was Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and that the crew included seamen from Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Philippines, Poland, Georgia, India and Turkey. 'No regulation' On Monday, Somali pirates captured a Greek-flagged bulk carrier transporting fertiliser, Mwangura said. The 52,000-tonne Navios Apollon was hijacked "en route from Tampa, Florida, USA, to Rozy, India," with a crew consisting of a Greek captain and 18 Filipinos. The ship was boarded by 10 men on speedboats in the Indian Ocean northeast of the Seychelles archipelago, the Greek coastguard said.
"The only realistic way that piracy can be stopped at sea ... is for those vessels to be pratically prepared to prevent piracy occurring, preventing them getting on board and preventing them from getting close to the vessel ... the navies cannot be there all the time. "You haven't got a blanket requirement by all shipping companies travelling through these dangerous regions or a regulation that requires them to adhere to security requirements." Earlier, pirates seized a Yemeni freighter and 15 crew members. The Al-Mahmoudia2 left the port of Aden, in Yemen, on December 18, the Yemeni authorities said on Monday, without revealing the nature of its cargo or destination. The Yemeni freighter and the UK-flagged chemical tanker were intercepted by pirates in the Gulf of Aden, key maritime bottleneck near the entrance to the Red Sea. Huge ransoms The two attacks in the Gulf were the first since August and came as international naval missions were trumpeting the results of a year-long effort to secure the area. Since the end of the summer monsoon season allowed pirate attacks to resume three months ago, Somali pirates had abandoned the Gulf of Aden for the wide open seas of the Indian Ocean, venturing as far as the Seychelles and beyond. Despite the increased international presence off Somalia's coastline - the longest in Africa - pirates raked in huge ransoms. On Sunday, pirates said they collected $3.5m for the release of the Chinese bulk carrier Dexinhai. The Singapore-flagged MV Kota Wajar was also released nearly 10 weeks after being hijacked, the European Union naval task force said on Monday. The amount of the ransom is not yet known. In captivity The latest captures and releases bring to at least 11 the number of ships currently held by pirates, together with close to 250 seamen, according to Ecoterra International, an environmentalist NGO monitoring maritime activity in the region. Among those in captivity are a British couple captured on October 22 while sailing their yacht to Tanzania.
The pair were briefly held on board the recently released MV Kota Wajar. Alongside the EU, the US, Nato and other national navies also deployed warships off the Somali coast in December 2008 to protect vessels and secure maritime routes in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Thanks to state-of-the-art technology, huge budgets and ever-improving co-ordination, the foreign armada has thwarted many attacks. They have also captured dozens of pirates, generally equipped with rudimentary skiffs, ladders and grapnels. But one out of four ships sailing through the danger zone still does not comply with international recommendations for safe passage, the navies say. | |||||||||||||||||||
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