Baithak World Apr 21: UN Calls, Skype, Britain-Afghan, Asia-West, Hosni Mubarak, Afghanistan, DARPA, Barak-Hilary, OPEC, Murdoch, Arab B. Charter, Da
President Hamid Karzai has blamed what he called an "extremely ethnic" report in the London Times for his decision to turn down the appointment of Lord Paddy Ashdown as the United Nations super envoy for Afghanistan. As history recounts, Afghanistan and Great Britain have been in three major conflicts, known as the Anglo-Afghan wars. Occurring within the span of 70 years, the wars represented the geopolitical situation of the 19th century, giving rise to the Great Game, the competition for territory and influence between the colonial British and the Russian czar empires. However, centuries later, on the heels of September 11, 2001, history appeared to be repeating itself as the British returned to Afghanistan, this time not as occupiers but as a major ally contributing to the international efforts for the implementation of a United Nations mandate to establish peace, and "to help Afghanistan build a more stable and secure future". By the same token, the United Kingdom came forward as a key donor nation, pledging substantial development and reconstruction funds to help Afghanistan recover from the scourge of war and mayhem. In early 2006, Britain hosted a historic UN-sponsored international conference on Afghanistan in London, which specified benchmarks for a strengthened partnership between Afghanistan and the international community, set out in the conference's final document known as The Afghanistan Compact. Britain caught out in Afghan ploy
By Sharif Ghalib
At this moment in world history, China and India are pushing for recognition and status on the global stage. They are beyond the phase of suppression or containment by the United States and its Western allies. Former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani's new book describes an untenable situation in which Asia is growing heavier in power scales while the West is obstinately unwilling to accede to a bloodless transition to a fresh world order. The author's thesis is that Western societies are apprehensive about Asia's galloping modernization. Instead of celebrating Asian resurgence, Westerners fear that the undemocratic world order built to sustain their domination will be overthrown by it. The world could be safer and less violent if the West could learn to work with, rather than against, Asia's renaissance.
The book opens by hailing the empowerment of hundreds of millions of Indians and Chinese who are escaping poverty and its impact on global productivity and creativity. To Mahbubani, Asia is marching ahead because its teeming denizens feel that they can finally take charge of their own destinies. Asia pushes, West resistsThe New Asian Hemisphere by Kishore Mahbubani
We don't know if Mubarak had the chance to watch the television drama King Farouk in 2007. It spoke about the last king of Egypt, showing how gradually the street turned against him, for a variety of reasons (much of it economic) in July 1952. In disbelief, Farouk watches how ordinary Egyptians cuss him on the street and tear apart his portrait, chanting "Ya Farouk, ya Antiqa". (O ancient one.) He is saddened by public anger and decides - at curtain fall - not to fight to stay in power, abdicating with relative ease in favor of his infant born son, Ahmad Fouad II. Farouk came to this realization - that he had been wrong - at the age of 32. Mubarak has not reached it yet at the age of 80. Officially and in public, Mubarak boasts of certain facts that only depict one side of the Egyptian coin. The economy has been growing at a 7% rate and foreign investment stands at US$11 billion a year. These, along with the relative stability in Egypt, are feats for which the Egyptian leader must be remembered. Along with Saudi Arabia, Egypt remains an Arab heavyweight, 30 years after signing peace with Israel, and still walks the delicate tightrope of Arab nationalism while receiving military aid from the United States. Trade with America is at $8 billion. If Mubarak steps out of his comfort zone and reads what the regional and international press are saying, however, he would realize how concerned the world is with Egypt. Over 53% of Egyptians are below the age of 24 and they are anything but pleased with the aged Egyptian leader. The president's health, the boiling anger on the Egyptian street, and the latest municipality and village elections that took place on April 8 where the president's supporters won with ease, gaining over 70% of the seats. A birthday present for Mubarak By Sami Moubayed
Three or four seemingly unconnected statements within the space of the past week, and the "war on terror" in Afghanistan acquires new shades of meaning. On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said during a visit to the holy city of Qom that the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq "under the pretext of the September 11 terror attack". A day earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, who was on a visit to London, publicly expressed skepticism over the conduct of the Afghan war by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He warned that NATO is "courting disaster". On Monday, addressing a student gathering in Beijing's Tsinghua University, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf urged Chinese and Russian help in stabilizing Afghanistan. But in the ultimate analysis, it is the sensational revelation by erstwhile Northern Alliance leaders about their ongoing contacts with the Taliban that makes nonsense of the battle lines of the Afghan war. The United States' monopoly of the Afghan war is beginning to come under serious public challenge. Afghanistan moves to center stage By M K Bhadrakumar
The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, that secretive band of Pentagon geeks that searches obsessively for the next big thing in the technology of warfare, is 50 years old. To celebrate, DARPA invited Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Defense Secretary well aware of the Agency's capabilities, to help blow out the candles. "This agency brought forth the Saturn 5 rocket, surveillance satellites, the Internet, stealth technology, guided munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles, night vision and the body armor that's in use today," Cheney told 1,700 DARPA workers and friends who gathered at a Washington hotel to mark the occasion. "Thank heaven for DARPA." So what's hot at DARPA right now? Bugs. The creepy, crawly flying kind. The Agency's Microsystems Technology Office is hard at work on HI-MEMS (Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical System), raising real insects filled with electronic circuitry, which could be guided using GPS technology to specific targets via electrical impulses sent to their muscles. These half-bug, half-chip creations - DARPA calls them "insect cyborgs" - would be ideal for surveillance missions, the agency says in a brief description on its website. Scientist Amit Lal and his team insert mechanical components into baby bugs during "the caterpillar and the pupae stages," which would then allow the adult bugs to be deployed to do the Pentagon's bidding. "The HI-MEMS program is aimed at developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis," DARPA says. "Since a majority of the tissue development in insects occurs in the later stages of metamorphosis, the renewed tissue growth around the MEMS will tend to heal, and form a reliable and stable tissue-machine interface." Such bugs "could carry one or more sensors, such as a microphone or a gas sensor, to relay back information gathered from the target destination." Unleashing the Bugs of War
In the final push before Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton aggressively went after each other in a last-minute attempt to woo voters. Obama accused Clinton of being willing to do anything to win, according to The New York Times: The Clinton campaign released an ad accused Senator Barack Obama of taking money from lobbyists over the last 10 years, while the Obama campaign fired back in its own commercial, describing the Clinton ad as misleading and complaining of "11th-hour smears." The back and forth came as Mr. Obama on Saturday called Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton a "slash-and-burn" game player who will do anything to win. Both candidates continued a brutal schedule of campaign appearances, with Mrs. Clinton courting voters in the morning in Philadelphia suburbs, which the Obama campaign has been courting heavily, and Mr. Obama planning to go later in the day to Scranton, where Mrs. Clinton has family roots. ABC News, on the other hand, reported Sunday that Bill Clinton is saying the Obama camp is "throwing the kitchen sink" at his wife: "And let me just say this -- don't you think for a minute that if you don't get her -- if you give her a big victory here -- after all the blizzard of money and all these ads and the kitchen sink has been thrown at her. I asked her about that -- I said, 'They are throwing the kitchen sink at ya.' She said, 'Well, Harry Truman said if you can't stand the heat you should get out of the kitchen.' So the only thing I said is, 'Well, you have got to figure out how to keep the kitchen sink in the kitchen now,'" Clinton told the crowd. Clinton's view of the "kitchen sink" is a new spin on a story line already familair to many voters, thanks to Sen. Clinton's opponent in the race. Sen. Barack Obama has spent the past few days, as the race in Pennsylvania winds down, claiming that the Clintons have been doing everything in their power to throw the kitchen sink at him. "Slash-And-Burn" Vs. "The Kitchen Sink"
ROME — OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah el al-Badri said Sunday oil prices would likely go higher and that the group was ready to raise production if the price pressure was due to a shortage of supply _ something he doubted. "Oil prices, there is a common understanding that has nothing to do with supply and demand," al-Badri said on the sidelines of an energy conference in Rome. Oil prices reached a new high Friday at $117 a barrel. A host of supply and demand concerns in the U.S. and abroad, along with the dollar's weakness, have served to support prices, even as record retail gasoline prices in the U.S. appear to be dampening demand. Crude prices have risen as much as 4 percent last week. The OPEC chief said the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries "will not hesitate" to increase production if the group thought the higher prices were due to shortages. But he said more oil will not solve the high prices. OPEC chief: Oil prices would go higher regardless of supply
It isn't hard to guess which role Murdoch will play in this fight. Caricatured as the heir to Hearst's brand of yellow journalism, he was pilloried in much of the "respectable" press when he made his $5 billion, $65-a-share bid for Dow Jones last spring. Journalistic purists bellowed that he would sully the Journal with a mix of sensationalism and self-interested editorializing. But Murdoch presumably knows it would be idiocy to destroy the Journal brand (this is a flamethrower who appears to know the difference between scorching something and giving it sizzle). The new Journal is as respectable, restrained and readable as it has ever been—but with a broader world view designed to appeal to audiences well beyond its traditional, pin-striped base. But is that what Journal readers want? To understand why the 77-year-old Murdoch has been itching for this particular fight, look no further than the mogul's three passions: print, power and respect. Using his knowledge of the first (he started his empire when his father bequeathed him Australia's Adelaide News when he was 22), Murdoch achieved the second. As for respect? Well, that's been more elusive, bestowed only grudgingly by those who simultaneously respect, detest and envy him. Murdoch has assembled one of the globe's biggest media empires, a conglomerate valued at $60 billion that will one day pass to his six children and seems destined to be run by his younger son, James. Critics like to paint Murdoch as a Machiavellian barbarian bent on world domination. So acquiring the venerable Wall Street Journal and then dethroning the nation's newspaper of record? Now that's something to bring a man respect. Murdoch, Ink. By Johnnie L. Roberts
Al Jazeera had problems with Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and lately with Saudi Arabia that led to the severing of ties with that country. All these problems preceded the charter. So when the problems arose, did the countries refer to a broadcast charter? Or was it a political game? Isn't a key reason for the Qatari-Saudi rift Al Jazeera? Didn't it hit the fan when Al Jazeera reported on the controversial arms deal "Al Yamama" (the dove) between Saudi Arabia and Britain, and pointed a finger at Prince Bandar bin Sultan the crown prince's son, who reportedly pocketed billions in commissions? To my knowledge, the program that aired on "Al Yamama" was produced at the highest levels in Qatar. So I asked the ministers: "If the aim is to protect media freedom, and uncover the truth, you (Qatar) broadcast the first part of the show, why did you stop it after that?" Why did they prevent Arab viewers from seeing and hearing the truth? And that was before the charter. Qatar clamped down on freedom long before the document was ratified. The political game was such that once ties were restored with Saudi Arabia, the show was stopped. So when matters are complicated we push a button and bar broadcasts, and when they're resolved we press a button and broadcasts are permitted. Arab Broadcast Charter: Setting the Record Straight Magda Abu-Fadil
MOTEGI, Japan — Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history Sunday, taking the Indy Japan 300 after the top contenders were forced to pit for fuel in the final laps. Patrick finished 5.8594 seconds ahead of pole-sitter Helio Castroneves on the 1.5-mile Twin Ring Motegi oval after leader Scott Dixon pitted with five laps left and Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan came in a lap later. "It's a long time coming. Finally," Patrick said. "It was a fuel strategy race, but my team called it perfectly for me. I knew I was on the same strategy as Helio and when I passed him for the lead, I couldn't believe it. This is fabulous." The 26-year-old Patrick won in her 50th career IndyCar start, taking the lead from Castroneves on the 198th lap in the 200-lap race. Danica Patrick Becomes First Female Winner In IndyCar History
INDEPENDENT GRAPHICS
In Riyadh, the college day begins for female students behind a locked door that will remain that way until male guardians come to collect them. Later, in a female-run business, everyone must vacate the premises so a delivery man can drop off a package. In Jeddah, a 40-year-old divorced woman cannot board a plane without the written permission of her 23-year-old son. Elsewhere, a female doctor cannot leave the house at all as her male driver fails to turn up for work. These scenes make up the daily reality for half of the Saudi Kingdom, the only country where women legally belong to men. After more than a decade of lobbying, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has finally been granted access to Saudi Arabia, where it has uncovered a disturbing picture of women forced to live as children, denied basic rights and confined to a suffocating dependency on men. Wajeha al-Huwaider, a critic of Saudi's guardian laws that force women to seek male permission for almost all aspects of their lives, is one of a growing number demanding change. "Sometimes I feel like I can't do anything; I am utterly reliant on other people, completely dependent. If you are dependent on another person, you've got nothing. That is how the men like it. They don't want us to be equals." Saudi women appeal for legal freedoms
Every year I marvel again at the genius of this ceremony. It unites the whole family, and everyone - from the venerable grandfather to the smallest child - has a role in it. It engages all the senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. The simplistic text of the Haggadah, the book which is read aloud, the symbolic food, the four glasses of wine, the singing together, the exact repetition of every part every year - all these imprint on the consciousness of a child from the earliest age an ineradicable memory that they will carry with them to the grave, be they religious or not. They will never forget the security and warmth of the large family around the Seder table, and even in old age they will recall it with nostalgia. A cynic might see it as a perfect example of brain-washing. Compared to the power of this myth, does it really matter that the Exodus from Egypt never took place? Thousands of Egyptian documents deciphered in recent years leave no room for doubt: the exodus of masses of people, as described in the Bible, or anything remotely like it, just never happened. These documents, which cover in the finest detail every period and every part of Canaan during this epoch prove beyond any doubt that there was no "Conquest of Canaan" and no kingdom of David and Solomon. For a hundred years, Zionist archeologists have devoted tireless efforts to finding even a single piece of evidence to support the Biblical narrative, all to no avail. The Lion and the Gazelle - Uri Avnery
posted by temporal at 4/22/2008
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