BEIRUT, Lebanon — Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman, who over nearly five decades in power transformed his Persian Gulf kingdom from an isolated enclave into a developed nation known for brokering quiet talks between global foes, has died, the Omani government announced on Saturday. He was 79.
His death was announced by the official Oman News Agency. The announcement did not mention the cause, but Qaboos had been receiving treatment in Europe for cancer since at least 2014.
Qaboos’s decades as an absolute monarch who used oil wealth to pull his country from poverty made him a towering figure at home, with roads, a port, a university, a sports stadium and other facilities bearing his name. Internationally, as the longest-serving leader in the Arab world, he used Oman’s place in a turbulent region, next to one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, to become a discreet but essential diplomatic player.
In a region rife with sectarianism, political divides and foreign interference, the soft-spoken, diminutive Qaboos championed a foreign policy of independence and nonalignment. He became a rare leader who maintained ties with a wide range of powers that hated one another, including Iran, Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Update: Oman’s new ruler vows to uphold late sultan’s peaceful policy
Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts
Friday, January 10, 2020
Saturday, March 2, 2019
Deadly Shelling Erupts in Kashmir Between India and Pakistan After Pilot Is Freed
NEW DELHI — Intense shelling erupted along the disputed border between India and Pakistan on Saturday, killing several civilians and making it clear that hostilities between the two nuclear-armed nations were hardly over — only a day after Pakistan handed over a captured Indian fighter pilot in what it called a “good-will gesture.”
At least five civilians and two soldiers were killed, according to officials on both sides.
At the same time, independent security analysts continue to questionIndia’s claims this past week that it had killed “a very large number” of terrorists at a major training camp in a cross-border airstrike. The bold strike set off an enormous mobilization of Indian and Pakistani forces and a cycle of military attacks, bringing South Asia to red alert.
Michael Sheldon, a researcher at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington, said on Saturday that after studying satellite imagery of the area in Pakistan that India had bombed, he could see “no evidence any buildings were hit.” He added, “It appears to me they didn’t hit their targets.”
Instead, he said, all publicly available evidence and accounts from witnesses on the ground indicated that the Indian bombs had landed in an unpopulated forest and had taken out some pine trees. He set out his argument in an online article titled “Surgical Strike in Pakistan a Botched Operation?”
The administration of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who faces an election in a few months, had presented the airstrike as a robust response against a terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, that claimed responsibility for a devastating suicide bombing in February that killed more than 40 Indian troops. ContinueReading
At least five civilians and two soldiers were killed, according to officials on both sides.
At the same time, independent security analysts continue to questionIndia’s claims this past week that it had killed “a very large number” of terrorists at a major training camp in a cross-border airstrike. The bold strike set off an enormous mobilization of Indian and Pakistani forces and a cycle of military attacks, bringing South Asia to red alert.
Michael Sheldon, a researcher at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington, said on Saturday that after studying satellite imagery of the area in Pakistan that India had bombed, he could see “no evidence any buildings were hit.” He added, “It appears to me they didn’t hit their targets.”
Instead, he said, all publicly available evidence and accounts from witnesses on the ground indicated that the Indian bombs had landed in an unpopulated forest and had taken out some pine trees. He set out his argument in an online article titled “Surgical Strike in Pakistan a Botched Operation?”
The administration of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who faces an election in a few months, had presented the airstrike as a robust response against a terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, that claimed responsibility for a devastating suicide bombing in February that killed more than 40 Indian troops. ContinueReading
Sunday, July 1, 2018
Thousands Protest in Hong Kong on Anniversary of Handover to China
HONG KONG — Thousands of Hong Kong residents marched on Sunday to observe the 21st anniversary of the territory’s return to China from Britain, a public demonstration of their dissatisfaction with the local government and their fears about the Chinese Communist Party’s growing influence in the territory.
Previously a British colony, Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 with the promise that it could maintain for 50 years its own political and economic systems, including civil liberties that the Chinese government denies to citizens on the mainland. But many in the city believe that its freedoms and relative autonomy are already eroding.
Organizers said about 50,000 people attended the protest this year, one of the lowest totals since the march was first held in 2003; the police had not released their estimate as of Sunday evening, although the figures from Hong Kong law enforcement tend to be much lower than those provided by pro-democracy groups.
According to some estimates, about 60,000 people participated last year, when China’s president, Xi Jinping, came to Hong Kong to observe the 20th anniversary of the handover, though he left the city hours before the march started.
Hong Kong residents march every year on the anniversary of the handover, demonstrating for democratic values and usually calling attention to particular causes. In a first, this year’s march, which was organized by the Civil Human Rights Front, explicitly called for the end of one-party rule in China.
This year, marchers protested the local government’s decision to let mainland Chinese police operate in part of a new train station scheduled to open this year. They also demonstrated against the house arrest in China of Liu Xia, the widow of the Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, that has restricted her movements since 2010. ContinueReading
Thursday, June 28, 2018
China’s Xi Jinping Warns Mattis Beijing Won’t Back Down on Disputed Territories
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad sworn in after shock comeback victory
BBC - Mahathir Mohamad has been sworn in as prime minister of Malaysia again after a shock election victory, 15 years after he stood down.
Supporters waved flags and cheered outside the Istana Negara palace in Kuala Lumpur as took the oath inside.
The former strongman who governed for more than two decades has become, at 92, the world's oldest elected leader.
He came out of retirement and defected to the opposition to take on and beat former protege Najib Razak.
His historic win ousted the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which has been in power since independence in 1957.
Supporters waved flags and cheered outside the Istana Negara palace in Kuala Lumpur as took the oath inside.
The former strongman who governed for more than two decades has become, at 92, the world's oldest elected leader.
He came out of retirement and defected to the opposition to take on and beat former protege Najib Razak.
His historic win ousted the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which has been in power since independence in 1957.
Monday, March 12, 2018
At least 49 dead in Nepal after plane crashes on landing, officials say
KATHMANDU, Nepal — A survivor of a plane crash near Kathmandu’s international airport said Monday that the US-Bangla Airlines plane began “behaving strangely” on descent before it crash-landed, killing at least 49 people.
Basanta Bohara, a Nepali tour operator, said the nearly two-hour flight from Bangladesh’s capital was uneventful until the plane began to wobble on its descent into Kathmandu, hitting a field near the airport and catching fire.
“Thank God I was able to escape through a cracked window,” Bohara said in an interview at Norvic International Hospital, not far from the airport, where he was taken with several other injured passengers. “I hope I will survive now.”
Authorities said the 78-seat airplane caught fire after crash-landing around 2:20 p.m. Monday and breaking into large pieces. The twin-propeller Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft was carrying 67 passengers and four crew members. A police spokesman, Manoj Neupane, said that at least 49 people died and that 22 injured were being treated at three hospitals.
Raj Kumar Chhetri, general manager of Tribhuvan International Airport, said at a news conference Monday afternoon that there was a “problem” with the landing alignment of the aircraft and that when air traffic control ordered the plane not to land, “there was no response from the pilot.” The plane narrowly missed hitting a parked aircraft and crashed in the airport compound on the eastern side, he said.
The aircraft had taken off from Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. Officials said 32 Bangladeshi nationals, 33 Nepalis, one Chinese and one Maldives citizen were among the 71 people aboard.
US-Bangla Airlines, a private carrier based in Bangladesh, set up a hotline for information on the fate of passengers aboard its Flight BS211. ContinueReading
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Proposal to Scrap China's Term Limits Could Allow President Xi Jinping to Stay in Office
(BEIJING) — China’s ruling Communist Party has proposed scrapping term limits for the country’s president, the official news agency said Sunday, appearing to lay the groundwork for party leader Xi Jinping to rule as president beyond 2023.
The party’s Central Committee proposed to remove from the constitution the expression that China’s president and vice president “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms,” the Xinhua News Agency said.
“Xi Jinping has finally achieved his ultimate goal when he first embarked on Chinese politics — that is to be the Mao Zedong of the 21st century,” said Willy Lam, a political analyst at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, referring to the founder of communist China.
Xi, 64, cemented his status as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao in the 1970s at last year’s twice-a-decade Communist Party congress, where his name and a political theory attributed to him were added to the party constitution as he was given a second five-year term as general secretary.
It was the latest move by the party signaling Xi’s willingness to break with tradition and centralize power under him. Xi has taken control of an unusually wide range of political, economic and other functions, a break with the past two decades of collective leadership.
“What is happening is potentially very dangerous because the reason why Mao Zedong made one mistake after another was because China at the time was a one-man show,” Lam said. “For Xi Jinping, whatever he says is the law. There are no longer any checks and balances.”
Xi is coming to the end of his first five-year term as president and is set to be appointed to his second term at an annual meeting of the rubber-stamp parliament that starts March 5. The proposal to end term limits will likely be approved at that meeting.
Term limits on officeholders have been in place since they were included in the 1982 constitution, when lifetime tenure was abolished.
Political analysts said the party would likely seek to justify the proposed removal of the presidential term limit by citing Xi’s vision of establishing a prosperous, modern society by 2050.
“The theoretical justification for removing tenure limits is that China requires a visionary, capable leader to see China through this multi-decade grand plan,” Lam said.
“But the other aspect of it could just be Mao Zedong-like megalomania; he is just convinced that he is fit to be an emperor for life,” he said.
Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based political commentator, said while Xi might need an extra five-year term or two to carry out his plans, the country is unlikely to return to an era of lifetime tenure for heads of state.
“President Xi may be in a leading position for a relatively long time,” Hu said. “This is beneficial to pushing forward reforms and the fight against corruption, but it’s impossible for China to have lifetime tenure again.”
“We have drawn profound lessons from the system of lifetime tenures,” Hu said, referring to the chaos and turmoil of Mao’s 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
Xi’s image dominates official propaganda, prompting suggestions that he is trying to build a cult of personality, and evoking memories of the upheaval of that era. Party spokespeople reject such talk, insisting Xi is the core of its seven-member Standing Committee, not a lone strongman.
At last year’s party congress, Xi hailed a “new era” under his leadership and laid out his vision of a ruling party that serves as the vanguard for everything from defending national security to providing moral guidance to ordinary Chinese. At the close of the congress, the party elevated five new officials to assist Xi on his second five-year term, but stopped short of designating an obvious successor to him.
Political analysts said the absence of an apparent successor pointed to Xi’s longer-term ambitions.
Sunday’s announcement on term limits came before the Central Committee was to begin a three-day meeting in Beijing on Monday to discuss major personnel appointments and other issues.
The son of a famed communist elder, Xi rose through the ranks to the position of Shanghai’s party leader before being promoted to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee in 2007.
When Xi did assume the top spot in 2012, it was as head of a reduced seven-member committee on which he had only one reliable ally, veteran Wang Qishan. He put Wang in charge of a sweeping anti-corruption crackdown that helped Xi eliminate challengers, both serving and retired, and cow potential opponents.
Xi, whose titles include head of the armed forces, has lavished attention on the military with parades and defense budget increases. But he’s also led a crackdown on abuses and a push to cut 300,000 personnel from the 2.3 million-member People’s Liberation Army, underscoring his ability to prevail against entrenched interests. ContinueReading
The party’s Central Committee proposed to remove from the constitution the expression that China’s president and vice president “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms,” the Xinhua News Agency said.
“Xi Jinping has finally achieved his ultimate goal when he first embarked on Chinese politics — that is to be the Mao Zedong of the 21st century,” said Willy Lam, a political analyst at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, referring to the founder of communist China.
Xi, 64, cemented his status as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao in the 1970s at last year’s twice-a-decade Communist Party congress, where his name and a political theory attributed to him were added to the party constitution as he was given a second five-year term as general secretary.
It was the latest move by the party signaling Xi’s willingness to break with tradition and centralize power under him. Xi has taken control of an unusually wide range of political, economic and other functions, a break with the past two decades of collective leadership.
“What is happening is potentially very dangerous because the reason why Mao Zedong made one mistake after another was because China at the time was a one-man show,” Lam said. “For Xi Jinping, whatever he says is the law. There are no longer any checks and balances.”
Xi is coming to the end of his first five-year term as president and is set to be appointed to his second term at an annual meeting of the rubber-stamp parliament that starts March 5. The proposal to end term limits will likely be approved at that meeting.
Term limits on officeholders have been in place since they were included in the 1982 constitution, when lifetime tenure was abolished.
Political analysts said the party would likely seek to justify the proposed removal of the presidential term limit by citing Xi’s vision of establishing a prosperous, modern society by 2050.
“The theoretical justification for removing tenure limits is that China requires a visionary, capable leader to see China through this multi-decade grand plan,” Lam said.
“But the other aspect of it could just be Mao Zedong-like megalomania; he is just convinced that he is fit to be an emperor for life,” he said.
Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based political commentator, said while Xi might need an extra five-year term or two to carry out his plans, the country is unlikely to return to an era of lifetime tenure for heads of state.
“President Xi may be in a leading position for a relatively long time,” Hu said. “This is beneficial to pushing forward reforms and the fight against corruption, but it’s impossible for China to have lifetime tenure again.”
“We have drawn profound lessons from the system of lifetime tenures,” Hu said, referring to the chaos and turmoil of Mao’s 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
Xi’s image dominates official propaganda, prompting suggestions that he is trying to build a cult of personality, and evoking memories of the upheaval of that era. Party spokespeople reject such talk, insisting Xi is the core of its seven-member Standing Committee, not a lone strongman.
At last year’s party congress, Xi hailed a “new era” under his leadership and laid out his vision of a ruling party that serves as the vanguard for everything from defending national security to providing moral guidance to ordinary Chinese. At the close of the congress, the party elevated five new officials to assist Xi on his second five-year term, but stopped short of designating an obvious successor to him.
Political analysts said the absence of an apparent successor pointed to Xi’s longer-term ambitions.
Sunday’s announcement on term limits came before the Central Committee was to begin a three-day meeting in Beijing on Monday to discuss major personnel appointments and other issues.
The son of a famed communist elder, Xi rose through the ranks to the position of Shanghai’s party leader before being promoted to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee in 2007.
When Xi did assume the top spot in 2012, it was as head of a reduced seven-member committee on which he had only one reliable ally, veteran Wang Qishan. He put Wang in charge of a sweeping anti-corruption crackdown that helped Xi eliminate challengers, both serving and retired, and cow potential opponents.
Xi, whose titles include head of the armed forces, has lavished attention on the military with parades and defense budget increases. But he’s also led a crackdown on abuses and a push to cut 300,000 personnel from the 2.3 million-member People’s Liberation Army, underscoring his ability to prevail against entrenched interests. ContinueReading
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Discovery In India Suggests An Early Global Spread Of Stone Age Technology
- Somewhere around 300,000 years ago, our human ancestors in parts of Africa began to make small, sharp tools, using stone flakes that they created using a technique called Levallois.
The technology, named after a suburb of Paris where tools made this way were first discovered, was a profound upgrade from the bigger, less-refined tools of the previous era, and marks the Middle Stone Age in Africa and the Middle Paleolithic era in Europe and western Asia.
Neanderthals in Europe also used these tools around the same time. And scientists have thought that the technology spread to other parts of the globe much later — after modern humans moved out of Africa.
But scientists in India recently discovered thousands of stone tools made with Levallois technique, dating back to 385,000 years ago. These latest findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggest the Levallois technique spread across the world long before researchers previously thought.
The Indian team uncovered these tools at one of India's best known archaeological sites — Attirampakkam, which is located near the present-day city of Chennai in southern India.
"It has a very, very long history of occupation of different prehistoric cultures in this one site," says Shanti Pappu, an archaeologist at the Sharma Centre for Heritage Education in Chennai and one of the lead authors of the new study.
The oldest artifacts from the site — big hand axes and cleavers — date back all the way to 1.5 million years ago, and are associated with the older Acheulian culture of the Early Stone Age.
The more recent tools, which date between 385,000 to 172,000 years ago, are small and clearly made with Levallois technique; it relies on first creating a starter stone in the shape of a turtle shell, then hitting that preformed stone to create a flake with sharp edges.
The flakes were used as knives and scrapers, scientists say; the technique gave the toolmakers more control over the size and shape of the tool.
"It's a very specific technology, very clearly identifiable and very similar to what you see in Africa," says Pappu.
The more than 7,000 artifacts discovered at the site run counter to what's been the prevailing theory about when the technology first reached the region.
"It was believed that this particular cultural or behavioral package perhaps came to India about 125,000 years ago, by modern humans dispersing out of Africa," says Pappu. Another hypothesis suggested that the technology came even later to India, around 70,000 years ago.
"The findings of this paper clearly knock those ideas out of the water," says paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, the head of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, who wasn't involved in the study. "It has to be earlier."
"This is a marvelous discovery," says Michael Petraglia, at the Max Planck Institute for The Science of Human History, who also had no role in the recent research. "It fills a very important gap in our knowledge of cultural history of humans in South Asia between 400,000 to 175,000 years ago."
The team in India found no human or hominin fossils at the site, which makes it hard to know what ancestral human species lived here and made these tools. ContinueReading
The technology, named after a suburb of Paris where tools made this way were first discovered, was a profound upgrade from the bigger, less-refined tools of the previous era, and marks the Middle Stone Age in Africa and the Middle Paleolithic era in Europe and western Asia.
Neanderthals in Europe also used these tools around the same time. And scientists have thought that the technology spread to other parts of the globe much later — after modern humans moved out of Africa.
But scientists in India recently discovered thousands of stone tools made with Levallois technique, dating back to 385,000 years ago. These latest findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggest the Levallois technique spread across the world long before researchers previously thought.
The Indian team uncovered these tools at one of India's best known archaeological sites — Attirampakkam, which is located near the present-day city of Chennai in southern India.
"It has a very, very long history of occupation of different prehistoric cultures in this one site," says Shanti Pappu, an archaeologist at the Sharma Centre for Heritage Education in Chennai and one of the lead authors of the new study.
The oldest artifacts from the site — big hand axes and cleavers — date back all the way to 1.5 million years ago, and are associated with the older Acheulian culture of the Early Stone Age.
The more recent tools, which date between 385,000 to 172,000 years ago, are small and clearly made with Levallois technique; it relies on first creating a starter stone in the shape of a turtle shell, then hitting that preformed stone to create a flake with sharp edges.
The flakes were used as knives and scrapers, scientists say; the technique gave the toolmakers more control over the size and shape of the tool.
"It's a very specific technology, very clearly identifiable and very similar to what you see in Africa," says Pappu.
The more than 7,000 artifacts discovered at the site run counter to what's been the prevailing theory about when the technology first reached the region.
"It was believed that this particular cultural or behavioral package perhaps came to India about 125,000 years ago, by modern humans dispersing out of Africa," says Pappu. Another hypothesis suggested that the technology came even later to India, around 70,000 years ago.
"The findings of this paper clearly knock those ideas out of the water," says paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, the head of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, who wasn't involved in the study. "It has to be earlier."
"This is a marvelous discovery," says Michael Petraglia, at the Max Planck Institute for The Science of Human History, who also had no role in the recent research. "It fills a very important gap in our knowledge of cultural history of humans in South Asia between 400,000 to 175,000 years ago."
The team in India found no human or hominin fossils at the site, which makes it hard to know what ancestral human species lived here and made these tools. ContinueReading
Monday, January 29, 2018
Indian man dies after being trapped in MRI machine
chicagotribune.com - A man in the Indian city of Mumbai died Saturday night after being sucked into a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, an accident that has sparked concerns about the chaotic and sometimes dangerous conditions in India's government-run hospitals.
Relatives said that Rajesh Maru had entered an MRI testing room at the hospital holding a cylinder of oxygen, after a hospital staff member gave him the okay to proceed. They didn't know that the machine was turned on, and Maru was pulled into it and trapped by the machine's magnetic force, according to local news reports.
Maru died within minutes, his hand trapped against the machine by the leaking oxygen tank. He was freed and taken to the emergency room in 10 minutes but pronounced dead on arrival.
A postmortem report said he died from excessive air entering his lung, according to the Indian Express. Authorities are investigating the incident.
"It is a tragic incident and we will cooperate with police officials," Ramesh Bharmal, the dean of Bai Yamunabai Laxman Nair Charitable Hospital, told NDTV news channel.
MRI machines work through extremely powerful magnets and radio waves that scan the body and give an image of internal tissue. When the machine is on, all metal objects must be kept away from it.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Cambodia charges foreigners after pornographic dance arrests
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodian prosecutors charged 10 foreigners Sunday with producing pornographic pictures after they were arrested at a party in Siem Reap town, near the country’s famed Angkor Wat temple complex.
Police said they raided a rented villa on Thursday where the foreigners were taking part in what organizers billed as a pub crawl and found people “dancing pornographically.” While almost 90 foreigners were detained, all but 10 were released.
The 10 arrested are five British nationals, two Canadians, one Norwegian, one New Zealander and one from the Netherlands. A statement on the arrests posted on the National Police website Sunday included photos showing clothed young adults rolling around together on a dance floor.
The prosecutor of the Siem Reap provincial court, Samrith Sokhon, told The Associated Press by phone that those charged face up to a year in prison if convicted.
He said after producing the photos, the foreigners shared them on social media.
“Any people producing pornography is contrary to Cambodia’s traditions,” he said.
The United Kingdom’s Foreign Office confirmed they were in contact with British nationals in Cambodia.
“We are assisting five British men arrested in Cambodia and are providing support to their families,” the office said in an emailed response to questions from the AP. ContinueReading
Police said they raided a rented villa on Thursday where the foreigners were taking part in what organizers billed as a pub crawl and found people “dancing pornographically.” While almost 90 foreigners were detained, all but 10 were released.
The 10 arrested are five British nationals, two Canadians, one Norwegian, one New Zealander and one from the Netherlands. A statement on the arrests posted on the National Police website Sunday included photos showing clothed young adults rolling around together on a dance floor.
The prosecutor of the Siem Reap provincial court, Samrith Sokhon, told The Associated Press by phone that those charged face up to a year in prison if convicted.
He said after producing the photos, the foreigners shared them on social media.
“Any people producing pornography is contrary to Cambodia’s traditions,” he said.
The United Kingdom’s Foreign Office confirmed they were in contact with British nationals in Cambodia.
“We are assisting five British men arrested in Cambodia and are providing support to their families,” the office said in an emailed response to questions from the AP. ContinueReading
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
What's Behind North & South Koreas' Olympic Diplomacy?
usnews.com - For many Western ears, Pyongyang and Pyeongchang sound very similar. Both are names of cities on the divided Korean peninsula. But the former is North Korea's capital and show city, and the latter is the host town of the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea's Gangwon Province. It is located just 80km south of the heavily fortified border between the two countries.
Some observers may think that this choice of location was ill considered. But it allowed South Korea to claim in its application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2011 that the event would also contribute to an improvement of inter-Korean relations.
As the games approach, this is becoming more of a reality. On Jan. 17, the two Koreas agreed to march under one flag, and to field a joint women's ice hockey team. And on Jan. 20, representatives from both countries met at the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, to discuss and agree the details of North Korea's participation in the Winter Olympics.
The focus of the Lausanne meeting was on Olympic protocol. The unified team at the opening ceremony on Feb. 9 will be called Korea, marching with the Korean Unification Flag, carried by an athlete from each country. The team's anthem will be the Korean folk song Arirang. Under a "wild card" system, North Korean athletes will compete in figure skating, skiing and the joint ice hockey team.
Until the final days of 2017, this looked extremely unlikely as the governments of both Korean states had not talked to each other for over two years.
Foreign policy – and sports diplomacy is part of that domain – usually happens behind closed doors, as do the processes behind it. Detailed knowledge of North Korea and the country's internal, political dynamics is also rather limited. This is the most secretive and least understood country in the world, and as a result, some issues have been overlooked or misrepresented regarding the upcoming Olympics detente. ContinueReading
Some observers may think that this choice of location was ill considered. But it allowed South Korea to claim in its application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2011 that the event would also contribute to an improvement of inter-Korean relations.
As the games approach, this is becoming more of a reality. On Jan. 17, the two Koreas agreed to march under one flag, and to field a joint women's ice hockey team. And on Jan. 20, representatives from both countries met at the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, to discuss and agree the details of North Korea's participation in the Winter Olympics.
The focus of the Lausanne meeting was on Olympic protocol. The unified team at the opening ceremony on Feb. 9 will be called Korea, marching with the Korean Unification Flag, carried by an athlete from each country. The team's anthem will be the Korean folk song Arirang. Under a "wild card" system, North Korean athletes will compete in figure skating, skiing and the joint ice hockey team.
Until the final days of 2017, this looked extremely unlikely as the governments of both Korean states had not talked to each other for over two years.
Foreign policy – and sports diplomacy is part of that domain – usually happens behind closed doors, as do the processes behind it. Detailed knowledge of North Korea and the country's internal, political dynamics is also rather limited. This is the most secretive and least understood country in the world, and as a result, some issues have been overlooked or misrepresented regarding the upcoming Olympics detente. ContinueReading
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Who Is Narendra Modi? India's Controversial Prime Minister May Offer A Role Model For Donald Trump
Forbes - Riding high on unprecedented polling numbers and rapid economic growth, India's controversial Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give the keynote address at the opening session of the 48th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) this Tuesday. The WEF is the annual meeting of the world's great, good, or just plain rich held every January in Davos, Switzerland.
Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, is the star attraction. His American counterpart Donald Trump may or may not make it to Davos, due to the U.S. government shutdown. If he does go, the Swiss locals may not make himvery welcome, even if the WEF grandees can't very well turn him down. Modi, by contrast, is very much the man of the moment.
International relations weren't always so smooth for Modi, who in 2005 as Chief Minister of India's Gujarat state had his U.S. visa revoked and was denied permission to enter the country. The reason? He was allegedly implicated in fomenting (or at least failing to contain and condemn) inter-ethnic riots in 2002 that resulted in more than 1000 deaths. Think of it as "India's Charlottesville," only much, much worse.
In 2014, Modi was narrowly elected India's Prime Minister with just over half the seats in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India's parliament), but less than one-third of the popular vote. India's first Twitter Prime Minister is widely reviled among the country's bickering intellectual elite. Modi, who rose from humble origins as a grocer's son, has been ridiculed as an uneducated chaiwala (tea seller), a label he has since embraced with pride.
Political pundits dismissed him as a knee-jerk populist who came to power by making simplistic promises of national revival. Modi stands accused of dog-whistle politics, endangering the nearly 40% of India's population that belongs to religious, ethnic, or regional minorities. He is regularly condemned as dangerous, a strongman, and adictator by Indian and Western elites.
And he is a huge success, both economically and politically. The economy is booming, and Narendra Modi is the most popular Indian leader since Mahatma Gandhi, both inside and outside the country.
Now a little more than midway through his five-year term, his job approval rating stands at 88%. If he really has oppressed 40% of the population, they must not be aware of it. ContinueReading
Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, is the star attraction. His American counterpart Donald Trump may or may not make it to Davos, due to the U.S. government shutdown. If he does go, the Swiss locals may not make himvery welcome, even if the WEF grandees can't very well turn him down. Modi, by contrast, is very much the man of the moment.
International relations weren't always so smooth for Modi, who in 2005 as Chief Minister of India's Gujarat state had his U.S. visa revoked and was denied permission to enter the country. The reason? He was allegedly implicated in fomenting (or at least failing to contain and condemn) inter-ethnic riots in 2002 that resulted in more than 1000 deaths. Think of it as "India's Charlottesville," only much, much worse.
In 2014, Modi was narrowly elected India's Prime Minister with just over half the seats in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India's parliament), but less than one-third of the popular vote. India's first Twitter Prime Minister is widely reviled among the country's bickering intellectual elite. Modi, who rose from humble origins as a grocer's son, has been ridiculed as an uneducated chaiwala (tea seller), a label he has since embraced with pride.
Political pundits dismissed him as a knee-jerk populist who came to power by making simplistic promises of national revival. Modi stands accused of dog-whistle politics, endangering the nearly 40% of India's population that belongs to religious, ethnic, or regional minorities. He is regularly condemned as dangerous, a strongman, and adictator by Indian and Western elites.
And he is a huge success, both economically and politically. The economy is booming, and Narendra Modi is the most popular Indian leader since Mahatma Gandhi, both inside and outside the country.
Now a little more than midway through his five-year term, his job approval rating stands at 88%. If he really has oppressed 40% of the population, they must not be aware of it. ContinueReading
Friday, January 12, 2018
Saudi football clubs call on women fans to kick off historic weekend matches
JEDDAH: Saudi football clubs are appealing directly to female fans for support through ad campaigns and social media as women are allowed into stadiums for the first time on Friday.
The official Twitter account for Al-Ittihad directed a tweet toward the club’s female fans on Tuesday. It said that women were powerful agents in the success of the team, just like their male counterparts.Two weeks ago, a campaign was launched for fans to show their support for their favorite teams through SMS texts. Al-Ittihad’s tweet is riding on the hype surrounding women attending the club’s match.
Al-Ittihad’s offical tweet generated a massive response from the team’s lovers and haters alike. Elaaf tweeted: “We’re finally being addressed as a part of Ittihad’s fanclub.”
Many couldn’t believe they were finally being noticed. One Twitter user said: “I never thought I’d live to see such a tweet, we’re all here for you.”
Others such as Twitter user Shikha provided proof of their contribution by posting photos of the sent text, while many women declared they were now switching support to Al-Ittihad for being the first to address them as an audience.
One die-hard fan tweeted: “I will attend the classico match and I’ll even pay for tickets for other girls attending.”
Dedicated Al-Ittihad female fans are preparing to attend the club’s first match of the year against Al-Hilal on Jan. 13, in Riyadh’s King Fahd International Stadium. Al-Ahli fans will be called on to show up for a Jeddah match against the visiting Al-Batin team on Friday in the King Abdullah Sports City stadium.
The General Sports Authority (GSA) revealed the seating plan for the Riyadh match. Inside the stadium, women will occupy the northern area through gates two, three and four, and the southern area through gates 40, 41 and 42. They are are expected to fill 7,500 seats.
Head of the Saudi Federation for Sports Media, Raja Al-Sulami, told Arab News that they have made the stadium ready to receive women. He added: “In cooperation with the Saudi Federation for Community Sports, we have made all necessary arrangements to receive them in an atmosphere that respects their privacy.” He added that there are 14,000 seats at the Jeddah’s “Shining Jewel” stadium ready for the occasion. ContinueReading
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
North Korea agrees to send athletes to South Korea Olympics
nbcnews.com: SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea will send a delegation of officials and athletes to next month's Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, it was announced Tuesday after the first high-level talks between the countries in more than two years.
The two nations also agreed to hold military talks aimed at reducing animosity along their tense border and to "actively cooperate" in the Games, which open on Feb. 9 in PyeongChang some 50 miles from the boundary.
The sensitive discussions, held in Panmunjom, in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), were closed to outside observers.
“We have high expectations that the Olympics turn out to be a peace festival with special guests from the North," said South Korea’s unification minister, Cho Myoung-gyon.
His North Korean counterpart, Ri Son Gwon, added that he was optimistic about the talks as long as their “innocent intention and cooperation are united.”
In the past, talks have not gone smoothly.
Duyeon Kim, a visiting senior research fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum, a think tank in Seoul, said previous summits were plagued by posturing and “nitpicking.”
“It’s clear that the North is focused on the atmospherics and the PR aspects of these talks this time,” she said. “The big question will be what actions North Korea shows after the Winter Olympics. How will Kim Jong Un prove he is serious about inter-Korean relations?”
During the latest talks, North Korea brought up sending a large entourage — including a high-level delegation, a performing arts group, athletes, cheerleading teams, media and others — to the Games, said South Korean Deputy Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung.
The South raised other possible areas of cooperation, such as reuniting families separated by the Korean War in 1950-53 and ways to ease military tensions, Chun added.
The discussions came afer the U.S. and South Korea on Thursday announced the suspension of military exercises during the Games.
"When the ancient Greeks used to hold the Olympics, they held a truce," said Moon Chung-in, a special adviser on foreign affairs and national security to South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in. "We are living in a civilized world. It is the logical choice." ContinueReading
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Ringing in 2018: The other side of the globe gets this party started
latimes.com - A look at how people around the world are saying adios to 2017 and ringing in 2018:
AUSTRALIA
Fireworks lighted up the sky above Sydney Harbour, highlighting the city's New Year's celebrations.
The massive fireworks display included a rainbow waterfall cascade of lights and colour flowing off the harbor's bridge to celebrate recently passed legislation legalising gay marriage in Australia.
Over a million people were expected to gather to watch the festivities. Security was tight, but officials said there was no particular alert.
Sydney officials said the event would generate some $170 million for the city and “priceless publicity.” Nearly half the revelers were tourists.
NEW ZEALAND
Tens of thousands of New Zealanders took to the streets and beaches, becoming among the first in the world to usher in 2018.
As the new year dawned in this southern hemisphere nation, fireworks boomed and crackled above city centers and harbors, and party-goers sang, hugged, danced and kissed.
In Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, tens of thousands gathered around Sky Tower as five minutes of nonstop pyrotechnics exploded from the structure's upper decks.
But on nearby Waiheke Island, 20 miles away, authorities canceled the planned fireworks display because of drought conditions and low water supplies for firefighters.
CHINA
Those willing to brave the cold in Beijing will join a countdown at the tower at Yongdingmen Gate, a rebuilt version of the Ming dynasty-era landmark gate at the southern end of the city's north-south axis.
Bells will be rung and prayers offered at temples in Beijing, but the Gregorian calendar's New Year's celebrations are typically muted in China compared to the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, a time of fireworks, feasts and family reunions.
SOUTH KOREA
After spending an exhausting year that saw a presidency toppled by a corruption scandal and nuclear-armed North Korea firing missile after missile, South Koreans enter 2018 in need of a happy distraction. The upcoming Winter Olympics just might do it.
Thousands of people are expected to fill the streets near Seoul's City Hall for a traditional bell-tolling ceremony to usher in the new year. The group of dignitaries picked to ring the old Bosingak bell at midnight includes Soohorang and Bandabi — the tiger and bear mascots for the Pyeongchang Winter Games and Paralympics in February and March.
INDIA
Security was tight in the southern Indian city of Bangalore to prevent a repeat of incidents of alleged groping and molestation of several women during last year's New Year's Eve celebrations.
Sunil Kumar, the city's police commissioner, said at least 15,000 police officers were on duty and were being aided by drones and additional closed-circuit television cameras.
Last year, police first denied that any sexual harassment had taken place during the celebrations in Bangalore, India's information technology hub. But later, police detained at least six men after several video clips of women being attacked by groups of men spread on social media.
PHILIPPINES
Hours before midnight, authorities had already reported that at least 86 people had been injured by celebratory firecrackers in the Philippines, which has some of the most raucous new year's celebrations in Asia.
Although the number of injuries has tapered off in recent years, largely due to hard economic times and government scare campaigns, the figures remain alarming. President Rodrigo Duterte signed an order in June confining the use of firecrackers to community-designated areas, such as near shopping malls and parks.
Many Filipinos, largely influenced by Chinese tradition, believe that noisy New Year's celebrations drive away evil and misfortune. But they have carried that superstition to extremes, exploding dangerously large firecrackers and firing guns to welcome the new year despite threats of arrest.
TURKEY
Security measures were ramped up across Turkey, which was hit by a New Year's Day attack a year ago that killed dozens.
In Istanbul alone, 37,000 officers were on duty, with multiple streets closed to traffic and large vehicles barred from entering certain districts. Several New Year's Eve street parties were canceled for security reasons.
Early on Jan. 1, 2017, an assailant shot his way into Istanbul's Reina nightclub, where hundreds were celebrating the new year. Thirty-nine people were killed — mostly foreigners — and 79 wounded. Islamic State claimed responsibility.
On Sunday, some 100 people gathered outside the nightclub to remember the victims of the attack.
ROMANIA
Romanians prepared to usher in a new year in which the focus is expected to be an anticorruption fight as the government seeks to push through legislation that critics say will make it harder to punish high-level graft.
Television stations broadcast live from supermarkets full of last-minute shoppers, while beauty salons reported full bookings as revelers geared up for traditional celebrations of copious meals that can run to hundreds of euros.
Others meditated and prayed at Orthodox churches and monasteries. In rural eastern Romania, villagers danced traditional pantomime-like jigs to welcome the new year, wrapping themselves in bear furs or dressing as horses.
In his new year message, President Klaus Iohannis praised Romanians who staged the largest protests since the end of communism.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Tens of thousands of revelers will ring in the new year in Las Vegas under the close eye of law enforcement just three months after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Tourism officials expect about 330,000 people to come to Las Vegas for the festivities, which are anchored by a roughly eight-minute fireworks display at the top of seven hotel-casinos.
Acts including Bruno Mars, Britney Spears, Celine Dion and the Foo Fighters will keep partiers entertained before and after midnight at properties across Sin City.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department will have every officer working Sunday, while the Nevada National Guard is activating about 350 soldiers and Air Force personnel.
The federal government also is sending dozens of personnel to assist with intelligence and other efforts.
AUSTRALIA
Fireworks lighted up the sky above Sydney Harbour, highlighting the city's New Year's celebrations.
The massive fireworks display included a rainbow waterfall cascade of lights and colour flowing off the harbor's bridge to celebrate recently passed legislation legalising gay marriage in Australia.
Over a million people were expected to gather to watch the festivities. Security was tight, but officials said there was no particular alert.
Sydney officials said the event would generate some $170 million for the city and “priceless publicity.” Nearly half the revelers were tourists.
NEW ZEALAND
Tens of thousands of New Zealanders took to the streets and beaches, becoming among the first in the world to usher in 2018.
As the new year dawned in this southern hemisphere nation, fireworks boomed and crackled above city centers and harbors, and party-goers sang, hugged, danced and kissed.
In Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, tens of thousands gathered around Sky Tower as five minutes of nonstop pyrotechnics exploded from the structure's upper decks.
But on nearby Waiheke Island, 20 miles away, authorities canceled the planned fireworks display because of drought conditions and low water supplies for firefighters.
CHINA
Those willing to brave the cold in Beijing will join a countdown at the tower at Yongdingmen Gate, a rebuilt version of the Ming dynasty-era landmark gate at the southern end of the city's north-south axis.
Bells will be rung and prayers offered at temples in Beijing, but the Gregorian calendar's New Year's celebrations are typically muted in China compared to the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, a time of fireworks, feasts and family reunions.
Authorities throughout China are also on high alert for stampedes or terror attacks at large public gatherings. Police in the central city of Zhengzhou are putting 3,500 officers on duty across the city while residents gather to watch a light show and cultural performance in a public square.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that President Xi Jinping sent a New Year's greeting to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, saying Beijing is ready to boost cooperation with Russia in 2018.
JAPAN
Many Japanese are celebrating the arrival of the Year of the Dog in the traditional way of praying for peace and good fortune at neighborhood Shinto shrines, and eating New Year's food such as noodles, shrimp and sweet black beans.
Barbecued beef and octopus dumpling stalls were out at Tokyo's Zojoji Temple, where people take turns striking the giant bell 108 times at midnight, an annual practice repeated at other Buddhist temples throughout Japan.
North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes cast a shadow over Japan's hopes for peace, said 33-year-old cab driver Masaru Eguchi, who was ready to be busy all night shuttling shrine visitors.
“The world situation has grown so complex,” Eguchi said, adding that he also worried about possible terrorism targeting Japan. “I feel this very abstracted sense of uncertainty, although I really have no idea what might happen.”
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that President Xi Jinping sent a New Year's greeting to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, saying Beijing is ready to boost cooperation with Russia in 2018.
JAPAN
Many Japanese are celebrating the arrival of the Year of the Dog in the traditional way of praying for peace and good fortune at neighborhood Shinto shrines, and eating New Year's food such as noodles, shrimp and sweet black beans.
Barbecued beef and octopus dumpling stalls were out at Tokyo's Zojoji Temple, where people take turns striking the giant bell 108 times at midnight, an annual practice repeated at other Buddhist temples throughout Japan.
North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes cast a shadow over Japan's hopes for peace, said 33-year-old cab driver Masaru Eguchi, who was ready to be busy all night shuttling shrine visitors.
“The world situation has grown so complex,” Eguchi said, adding that he also worried about possible terrorism targeting Japan. “I feel this very abstracted sense of uncertainty, although I really have no idea what might happen.”
SOUTH KOREA
After spending an exhausting year that saw a presidency toppled by a corruption scandal and nuclear-armed North Korea firing missile after missile, South Koreans enter 2018 in need of a happy distraction. The upcoming Winter Olympics just might do it.
Thousands of people are expected to fill the streets near Seoul's City Hall for a traditional bell-tolling ceremony to usher in the new year. The group of dignitaries picked to ring the old Bosingak bell at midnight includes Soohorang and Bandabi — the tiger and bear mascots for the Pyeongchang Winter Games and Paralympics in February and March.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to flock to eastern coastal areas, including Gangneung, the seaside city that will host the Olympic skating and hockey events, to watch the sun rise on 2018.
INDIA
Security was tight in the southern Indian city of Bangalore to prevent a repeat of incidents of alleged groping and molestation of several women during last year's New Year's Eve celebrations.
Sunil Kumar, the city's police commissioner, said at least 15,000 police officers were on duty and were being aided by drones and additional closed-circuit television cameras.
Last year, police first denied that any sexual harassment had taken place during the celebrations in Bangalore, India's information technology hub. But later, police detained at least six men after several video clips of women being attacked by groups of men spread on social media.
PHILIPPINES
Hours before midnight, authorities had already reported that at least 86 people had been injured by celebratory firecrackers in the Philippines, which has some of the most raucous new year's celebrations in Asia.
Although the number of injuries has tapered off in recent years, largely due to hard economic times and government scare campaigns, the figures remain alarming. President Rodrigo Duterte signed an order in June confining the use of firecrackers to community-designated areas, such as near shopping malls and parks.
Many Filipinos, largely influenced by Chinese tradition, believe that noisy New Year's celebrations drive away evil and misfortune. But they have carried that superstition to extremes, exploding dangerously large firecrackers and firing guns to welcome the new year despite threats of arrest.
TURKEY
Security measures were ramped up across Turkey, which was hit by a New Year's Day attack a year ago that killed dozens.
In Istanbul alone, 37,000 officers were on duty, with multiple streets closed to traffic and large vehicles barred from entering certain districts. Several New Year's Eve street parties were canceled for security reasons.
Early on Jan. 1, 2017, an assailant shot his way into Istanbul's Reina nightclub, where hundreds were celebrating the new year. Thirty-nine people were killed — mostly foreigners — and 79 wounded. Islamic State claimed responsibility.
On Sunday, some 100 people gathered outside the nightclub to remember the victims of the attack.
ROMANIA
Romanians prepared to usher in a new year in which the focus is expected to be an anticorruption fight as the government seeks to push through legislation that critics say will make it harder to punish high-level graft.
Television stations broadcast live from supermarkets full of last-minute shoppers, while beauty salons reported full bookings as revelers geared up for traditional celebrations of copious meals that can run to hundreds of euros.
Others meditated and prayed at Orthodox churches and monasteries. In rural eastern Romania, villagers danced traditional pantomime-like jigs to welcome the new year, wrapping themselves in bear furs or dressing as horses.
In his new year message, President Klaus Iohannis praised Romanians who staged the largest protests since the end of communism.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Tens of thousands of revelers will ring in the new year in Las Vegas under the close eye of law enforcement just three months after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Tourism officials expect about 330,000 people to come to Las Vegas for the festivities, which are anchored by a roughly eight-minute fireworks display at the top of seven hotel-casinos.
Acts including Bruno Mars, Britney Spears, Celine Dion and the Foo Fighters will keep partiers entertained before and after midnight at properties across Sin City.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department will have every officer working Sunday, while the Nevada National Guard is activating about 350 soldiers and Air Force personnel.
The federal government also is sending dozens of personnel to assist with intelligence and other efforts.
Thursday, December 28, 2017
China’s bold advances challenge India’s sway over small neighbours
theaustralian.com.au - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said this month that his country “disapproves” of spheres of influence in international affairs. He was speaking in Delhi, India’s capital, a fact that underscored a point China is making increasingly clear by other, less diplomatic means: the thing it really disapproves of is India maintaining a sphere of influence.
Separated from the rest of Asia by the world’s biggest mountains, India is the elephant on its own subcontinent. Leaving aside perennially hostile Pakistan, it has effortlessly dominated smaller neighbours much in the way the US does in the Caribbean: they may grumble and resent their sometimes clumsy big brother, but they have learned to stay out of its way. Lately, however, China’s bold advances are challenging India’s sway.
Consider the past few weeks. On December 9 Sri Lanka granted a 99-year lease of a strategic port on its southern coast to a company controlled by the Chinese government. The same week an alliance of two communist parties swept parliamentary polls in Nepal; they had campaigned for closer ties with China and more distant ones with India. At the end of November, after a hasty “emergency” session of parliament with no opposition members present, the Maldives became the second South Asian country after Pakistan to ratify a free-trade agreement with China. The low-lying archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which sits beside trade routes along which an estimated 60,000 ships pass every year, has also leased an island to one Chinese firm and awarded big infrastructure projects to others.
India has faced challenges in its traditional sphere before, says Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution, a US think tank. What is different is the scale and speed of China’s incursion.
Until 2011, for instance, China did not even have an embassy in the Maldivian capital, Male. But after a state visit to the island republic by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014 — the first by a Chinese leader — military, diplomatic and economic ties have strengthened rapidly. China now holds some 75 per cent of the Maldives’ debt, reckons Mohamed Nasheed, an exiled former president.
Following the Maldives’ sudden free-trade deal with China, India’s Foreign Ministry could only drily intone: “It is our expectation that as a close and friendly neighbour, (the) Maldives will be sensitive to our concerns, in keeping with its ‘India First’ policy.” Rather than reaffirm its commitment to upholding Indian interests, however, the Maldivian government abruptly suspended three local councillors for the sin of meeting with the Indian ambassador without seeking prior permission. In the past, the Maldives, with its 400,000 people, would not have dared snub its neighbour of 1.3 billion so blatantly. The affront is all the more glaring given that a muscular foreign policy is one of the electoral planks of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose party just won a hard-fought election in his home state of Gujarat.
In Nepal, too, the Chinese dragon has advanced swiftly. As long ago as the 1950s its rulers had reached out to China to counterbalance India, which controlled nearly all access to the landlocked kingdom — as it was then — and was pressing the royal family to allow some democracy. “But all it took to manage Nepal then was a few boxes of whisky,” says Constantino Xavier of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, another think tank. Decades later, when Nepal’s king again made overtures to China, India mounted an 18-month economic blockade that ultimately persuaded him not only to shun his northern neighbour but also to allow multi-party elections. When Nepalese Maoists, briefly in government in 2008 following a 10-year civil war, went to China seeking aid, they came away empty-handed. “They were told a mountain has two sides; know which one you are on,” says Xavier. In other words, Nepal should recognise Indian dominance.
Nepal, now a republic, issued a new constitution in 2015. India saw it as unfair to lowland regions that lie along its border, and so again showed its muscle. But rather than crumple in the face of a new blockade (which was imposed by Nepalese protesters but tacitly backed by India, which still controls nearly all road access), Nepal’s wobbly government held its ground. To assert its independence it signed several deals with China. In the just-completed elections this policy paid off handsomely for Nepal’s communists, who were able to promise giant Chinese investments in hydropower, roads and the country’s first railway. This will run not downhill from Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, to India, but over the mountains to China.
Nepal’s ties to India remain extremely strong. Millions of Nepalese work there; it is Nepal’s biggest trading partner; and the two countries’ armies have historically been tightly bound. But whereas India has counted on this legacy to sustain its influence, China has busied itself with funding scholarships, think tanks and junkets to China for Nepalese journalists and academics. Back in the 1960s, a Nepalese delegation met Mao Zedong, recalls Xavier. “He told them that only in 50 years, when a train reached from Tibet to Kathmandu, could China match India’s influence.”
India has met China’s push with consternation, and the occasional pushback. Quite literally so: Indian troops this year crossed onto territory claimed by another small country in India’s orbit, Bhutan, to block a road-building incursion by Chinese forces. The intervention did stop China, but has tested India’s relations with a country that relies heavily on Indian aid and is such a close ally that it has yet to establish diplomatic relations with its only other neighbour, China. This may have been the intention. China has long been quietly offering to resolve its border disputes with Bhutan through an exchange of territory. India has blocked the idea, fearing it would strengthen China at a point of military vulnerability for India.
In that particular contest India may be a match for China, in determination if not in strength. India’s foreign-policy establishment is well aware of its other weaknesses in relation to its northern neighbour and has worked hard to address them. It used to rely on the sheer immensity and harshness of the Himalayas to act as a barrier, and deliberately built no roads that a Chinese invader might use. That has changed: India is furiously struggling to catch up with China’s burgeoning and impressive border infrastructure.
But retaining an Indian “sphere of influence” remains a tricky task. Aside from the fact that India’s economy is only a fifth of China’s in size, and that its messy democracy makes policymaking slow and cumbersome, India suffers important institutional constraints. Its entire corps of diplomats amounts to just 770 professionals, compared, for example, with the US’s 13,500 foreign-service officers. Indian aid to its neighbours has suffered from poor delivery through inefficient public-sector companies. And until recently India has shied away from working with other countries that are equally concerned by China’s expansionism.
All of this is changing, however. The Indian elephant may be slow to learn, but it is hard to budge.
Separated from the rest of Asia by the world’s biggest mountains, India is the elephant on its own subcontinent. Leaving aside perennially hostile Pakistan, it has effortlessly dominated smaller neighbours much in the way the US does in the Caribbean: they may grumble and resent their sometimes clumsy big brother, but they have learned to stay out of its way. Lately, however, China’s bold advances are challenging India’s sway.
Consider the past few weeks. On December 9 Sri Lanka granted a 99-year lease of a strategic port on its southern coast to a company controlled by the Chinese government. The same week an alliance of two communist parties swept parliamentary polls in Nepal; they had campaigned for closer ties with China and more distant ones with India. At the end of November, after a hasty “emergency” session of parliament with no opposition members present, the Maldives became the second South Asian country after Pakistan to ratify a free-trade agreement with China. The low-lying archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which sits beside trade routes along which an estimated 60,000 ships pass every year, has also leased an island to one Chinese firm and awarded big infrastructure projects to others.
India has faced challenges in its traditional sphere before, says Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution, a US think tank. What is different is the scale and speed of China’s incursion.
Until 2011, for instance, China did not even have an embassy in the Maldivian capital, Male. But after a state visit to the island republic by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014 — the first by a Chinese leader — military, diplomatic and economic ties have strengthened rapidly. China now holds some 75 per cent of the Maldives’ debt, reckons Mohamed Nasheed, an exiled former president.
Following the Maldives’ sudden free-trade deal with China, India’s Foreign Ministry could only drily intone: “It is our expectation that as a close and friendly neighbour, (the) Maldives will be sensitive to our concerns, in keeping with its ‘India First’ policy.” Rather than reaffirm its commitment to upholding Indian interests, however, the Maldivian government abruptly suspended three local councillors for the sin of meeting with the Indian ambassador without seeking prior permission. In the past, the Maldives, with its 400,000 people, would not have dared snub its neighbour of 1.3 billion so blatantly. The affront is all the more glaring given that a muscular foreign policy is one of the electoral planks of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose party just won a hard-fought election in his home state of Gujarat.
In Nepal, too, the Chinese dragon has advanced swiftly. As long ago as the 1950s its rulers had reached out to China to counterbalance India, which controlled nearly all access to the landlocked kingdom — as it was then — and was pressing the royal family to allow some democracy. “But all it took to manage Nepal then was a few boxes of whisky,” says Constantino Xavier of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, another think tank. Decades later, when Nepal’s king again made overtures to China, India mounted an 18-month economic blockade that ultimately persuaded him not only to shun his northern neighbour but also to allow multi-party elections. When Nepalese Maoists, briefly in government in 2008 following a 10-year civil war, went to China seeking aid, they came away empty-handed. “They were told a mountain has two sides; know which one you are on,” says Xavier. In other words, Nepal should recognise Indian dominance.
Nepal, now a republic, issued a new constitution in 2015. India saw it as unfair to lowland regions that lie along its border, and so again showed its muscle. But rather than crumple in the face of a new blockade (which was imposed by Nepalese protesters but tacitly backed by India, which still controls nearly all road access), Nepal’s wobbly government held its ground. To assert its independence it signed several deals with China. In the just-completed elections this policy paid off handsomely for Nepal’s communists, who were able to promise giant Chinese investments in hydropower, roads and the country’s first railway. This will run not downhill from Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, to India, but over the mountains to China.
Nepal’s ties to India remain extremely strong. Millions of Nepalese work there; it is Nepal’s biggest trading partner; and the two countries’ armies have historically been tightly bound. But whereas India has counted on this legacy to sustain its influence, China has busied itself with funding scholarships, think tanks and junkets to China for Nepalese journalists and academics. Back in the 1960s, a Nepalese delegation met Mao Zedong, recalls Xavier. “He told them that only in 50 years, when a train reached from Tibet to Kathmandu, could China match India’s influence.”
India has met China’s push with consternation, and the occasional pushback. Quite literally so: Indian troops this year crossed onto territory claimed by another small country in India’s orbit, Bhutan, to block a road-building incursion by Chinese forces. The intervention did stop China, but has tested India’s relations with a country that relies heavily on Indian aid and is such a close ally that it has yet to establish diplomatic relations with its only other neighbour, China. This may have been the intention. China has long been quietly offering to resolve its border disputes with Bhutan through an exchange of territory. India has blocked the idea, fearing it would strengthen China at a point of military vulnerability for India.
In that particular contest India may be a match for China, in determination if not in strength. India’s foreign-policy establishment is well aware of its other weaknesses in relation to its northern neighbour and has worked hard to address them. It used to rely on the sheer immensity and harshness of the Himalayas to act as a barrier, and deliberately built no roads that a Chinese invader might use. That has changed: India is furiously struggling to catch up with China’s burgeoning and impressive border infrastructure.
But retaining an Indian “sphere of influence” remains a tricky task. Aside from the fact that India’s economy is only a fifth of China’s in size, and that its messy democracy makes policymaking slow and cumbersome, India suffers important institutional constraints. Its entire corps of diplomats amounts to just 770 professionals, compared, for example, with the US’s 13,500 foreign-service officers. Indian aid to its neighbours has suffered from poor delivery through inefficient public-sector companies. And until recently India has shied away from working with other countries that are equally concerned by China’s expansionism.
All of this is changing, however. The Indian elephant may be slow to learn, but it is hard to budge.
Monday, December 18, 2017
Myanmar: Could Aung San Suu Kyi face Rohingya genocide charges?
Oh deer...
BBC - Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, is determined that the perpetrators of the horrors committed against the Rohingya face justice.
He's the head of the UN's watchdog for human rights across the world, so his opinions carry weight.
It could go right to the top - he doesn't rule out the possibility that civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the head of the armed forces Gen Aung Min Hlaing, could find themselves in the dock on genocide charges some time in the future.
Earlier this month, Mr Zeid told the UN Human Rights Council that the widespread and systematic nature of the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar (also called Burma) meant that genocide could not be ruled out.
"Given the scale of the military operation, clearly these would have to be decisions taken at a high level," said the high commissioner, when we met at the UN headquarters in Geneva for BBC Panorama.
That said, genocide is one of those words that gets bandied about a lot. It sounds terrible - the so-called "crime of crimes". Very few people have ever been convicted of it.
The crime was defined after the Holocaust. Member countries of the newly founded United Nations signed a convention, defining genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy a particular group.
It is not Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein's job to prove acts of genocide have been committed - only a court can do that. But he has called for an international criminal investigation into the perpetrators of what he has called the "shockingly brutal attacks" against the Muslim ethnic group who are mainly from northern Rakhine in Myanmar.
But the high commissioner recognised it would be a tough case to make: "For obvious reasons, if you're planning to commit genocide you don't commit it to paper and you don't provide instructions."
"The thresholds for proof are high," he said. "But it wouldn't surprise me in the future if a court were to make such a finding on the basis of what we see."
By the beginning of December, nearly 650,000 Rohingya - around two thirds of the entire population - had fled Myanmar after a wave of attacks led by the army that began in late August.
Hundreds of villages were burned and thousands are reported to have been killed.
There is evidence of terrible atrocities being committed: massacres, murders and mass rapes - as I heard myself when I was in the refugee camps as this crisis began.
What clearly rankles the UN human rights chief is that he had urged Ms Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar, to take action to protect the Rohingya six months before the explosion of violence in August.
He said he spoke to her on the telephone when his office published a report in February documenting appalling atrocities committed during an episode of violence that began in October 2016.
"I appealed to her to bring these military operations to an end," he told me. "I appealed to her emotional standing… to do whatever she could to bring this to a close, and to my great regret it did not seem to happen." (ontinueReading
BBC - Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, is determined that the perpetrators of the horrors committed against the Rohingya face justice.
He's the head of the UN's watchdog for human rights across the world, so his opinions carry weight.
It could go right to the top - he doesn't rule out the possibility that civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the head of the armed forces Gen Aung Min Hlaing, could find themselves in the dock on genocide charges some time in the future.
Earlier this month, Mr Zeid told the UN Human Rights Council that the widespread and systematic nature of the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar (also called Burma) meant that genocide could not be ruled out.
"Given the scale of the military operation, clearly these would have to be decisions taken at a high level," said the high commissioner, when we met at the UN headquarters in Geneva for BBC Panorama.
That said, genocide is one of those words that gets bandied about a lot. It sounds terrible - the so-called "crime of crimes". Very few people have ever been convicted of it.
The crime was defined after the Holocaust. Member countries of the newly founded United Nations signed a convention, defining genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy a particular group.
It is not Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein's job to prove acts of genocide have been committed - only a court can do that. But he has called for an international criminal investigation into the perpetrators of what he has called the "shockingly brutal attacks" against the Muslim ethnic group who are mainly from northern Rakhine in Myanmar.
But the high commissioner recognised it would be a tough case to make: "For obvious reasons, if you're planning to commit genocide you don't commit it to paper and you don't provide instructions."
"The thresholds for proof are high," he said. "But it wouldn't surprise me in the future if a court were to make such a finding on the basis of what we see."
By the beginning of December, nearly 650,000 Rohingya - around two thirds of the entire population - had fled Myanmar after a wave of attacks led by the army that began in late August.
Hundreds of villages were burned and thousands are reported to have been killed.
There is evidence of terrible atrocities being committed: massacres, murders and mass rapes - as I heard myself when I was in the refugee camps as this crisis began.
What clearly rankles the UN human rights chief is that he had urged Ms Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar, to take action to protect the Rohingya six months before the explosion of violence in August.
He said he spoke to her on the telephone when his office published a report in February documenting appalling atrocities committed during an episode of violence that began in October 2016.
"I appealed to her to bring these military operations to an end," he told me. "I appealed to her emotional standing… to do whatever she could to bring this to a close, and to my great regret it did not seem to happen." (ontinueReading
Sunday, December 17, 2017
North Koreans mourn on anniversary of Kim Jong Il's death
Dec. 17 (UPI) -- On the anniversary of the death of the the former North Korea leader Kim Jong Il, the state news agency published footage of thousands of mourners bowing, paying their respects and laying flowers at the foot of a statue of Jong-Il.
The "Dear Leader" died on December 17, 2011. It is also the anniversary of the death of Kim Il Sung, the country's founder. According to reports, senior government officials visited the mausoleum where the remains of Kim Il Sung are interred.
Some experts predicted leader Kim Jong Un would launch another test missile on the anniversary of his father's death, but history suggests the North Korean government rarely tests missiles during the winter.
World leaders and security officials expect the provocations to ramp back up in the spring. Though no new missiles have been tested in recent weeks, tensions in the region remain high.
Last week, Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was asked to weigh in on the changes of the United States engaging in a military conflict or intervention in North Korea.
"I would say there's a three in 10 chance we use the military option," Graham told the Atlantic.
Graham said the odds would jump to 70 percent if Kim Jong Un's government conducts another nuclear bomb test.
Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, argue that now is the time to purse diplomacy and work to tamp down tensions before North Korea begins testing missiles again.
"The data [reveals] that there is a clear uptick in provocations starting in the months of March and April, which is the period when U.S. and South Korea conduct their annual Foal Eagle and Key Resolve joint military exercises," Lisa Collins said in a CSIS newsletter published last month.
"This anticipated uptick in provocations in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2018 would not provide favorable conditions for diplomacy with North Korea," Collins said. "The space for dialogue may therefore be limited to the next three months when we can expect fewer provocations from North Korea."
Last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States could be open to peace talks with North Korea without preconditions. The U.S. has previously insisted that an abandonment of North Korea's nuclear program is a prerequisite for any diplomatic discussion.
"It's not realistic to say we're only going to talk if you come to the table ready to give up your program, they have too much invested in it," Tillerson told the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank.
However, Tillerson said North Korea needs to "earn its way" back to the discussion table by refraining from further military provocations. ContinueReading
North Korea Explained:
Thursday, December 7, 2017
China protests India's drone intrusion in Sikkim sector
China's Defence Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Indian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crashed into the Chinese side of the border recently.
"Recently an Indian Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) invaded Chinas airspace and crashed in the Sikkim section of China- India border," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a media briefing here.
He said the Chinese border troops had taken a "professional and responsible attitude" to verify the device.
Geng did not spell out when the incident had taken place.
In New Delhi, India's defence ministry today said an unmanned aerial vehicle had "crossed over" the border with China in the Sikkim sector after losing contact with the ground control due to some technical problem.
It said the Indian border security personnel, as per standard protocol, immediately alerted their Chinese counterparts to locate the UAV and they later reverted with its location.
The defence ministry said the exact cause of the incident is under investigation.
Sources said the UAV belonged to the Indian Army.
The incident comes to light days before Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to New Delhi to attend the Russia- India-China trilateral meeting.
"I want to point out that the Sikkim section of the China India border has been delimited," Chinese Foreign ministry spokesman said, in an apparent reference to the 1890 China- British Treaty.
Beijing often referred to the 1890 Britain-China treaty during the lengthy Dokalam standoff, stating that it has defined the Sikkim section of the boundary with Tibet, therefore the border in that area has been settled.
"The action of the Indian side violated China's sovereignty and it is not conducive to the peace and tranquillity of the border area and China is dissatisfied with this and lodged solemn representation with the Indian side," Geng said.
In its diplomatic protest to India, "China asked the Indian side to stop the activities of the devices near the border and work with China to maintain peace and tranquillity of the border areas", he said.
Geng declined to reveal the details of the drone. He did not confirm whether the crash has taken place near the Dokalam where the two countries were locked in a 73-day-long border standoff which ended on August 28.
The standoff ended after Chinese troops stopped building a key road close to India's Chicken Neck corridor.
Asked whether the protest was lodged in Beijing or Delhi, he said he is not aware of the details. "I know that China has lodged solemn representation to the Indian side," he said.
Earlier, the Chinese military alleged that an Indian drone has "intruded" into its airspace recently and crashed into the Chinese side of the border and voiced strong dissatisfaction and opposition over the incident.
The Indian UAV "intruded" into China's airspace and crashed recently, and China's border troops have conducted identification and verification over the vehicle, Zhang Shuili, deputy head of the combat bureau of the Western Theatre Commands joint staff department said.
The Chinese military's western theatre command jurisdiction covers all most all of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and including Tibet's border region with India and the Ladakh region.
"Indias move has infringed upon China's territorial sovereignty, and we are strongly dissatisfied with and opposed to this," Zhang has been quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency as saying.
"We will fulfil our mission and responsibility and defend China's national sovereignty and security resolutely," he said.
Asked whether the drone issue would figure in Wangs talks with Indian officials when he visits New Delhi, Geng said the "goal" of the Chinese foreign ministers visit was to attend the RIC meeting.
"When he is in India he will meet with the senior officials of the Indian side. At that time, the two sides will exchange views on China-India relations and other issues of the common concern," he said.
Wangs visit to Delhi will be the first visit by a top Chinese official to India after the Dokalam crisis and commencement of the second five-year term for Chinese President Xi Jinping. (ontinueReading
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Bangladesh wants amicable ties with all neighbors, says PM
DHAKA, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Sunday that her country needed to develop amicable ties with all its neighbours.
She made the remarks at the inaugural session of a conference of Bangladeshi envoys based in foreign countries.
Being a peace-loving country, Hasina said: "We have to solve our problems through negotiations."
With reference to an agreement signed with Myanmar on Thursday for repatriation of the Rohingya refugees, Hasina said the consensus is a result of bilateral negotiations.
"We want to solve this (Rohingya) crisis without hampering our good relations with our neighbor (Myanmar)."
"Door with neighbours for negotiation should not remain closed. We have to keep contact with neighbors," she said, adding her country would be benefiting from the good relations with neighbors.
Hasina said the foreign policy principle of Bangladesh is "Friendship with All, Malice to None."
Bangladesh will remain a pacifist nation, she said.
"Our policy is very clear and we will not allow anybody to use our land for carrying subversive activities against any country, or as a route of smuggling arms, drugs or human trafficking."
She urged the envoys to promote the country's interest and image abroad, and specially to look into the matters of expatriate workers.
The prime minister said her government has opened 17 new missions abroad.
Terming poverty as the common enemy of South Asian countries, Hasina said: "We have to fight together against poverty."
"We're attaching utmost importance to sub-regional and interconnection initiatives," she said.
Meanwhile, Hasina said: "We have already joined BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar) Economic Corridor, which is aimed at bolstering trade, strengthening friendly relations and socio-economic development of the region."
The three-day conference, the first of its kind since Bangladesh's independence, is participated by high commissioners, ambassadors and permanent representatives of Bangladesh. (ontinueReading
She made the remarks at the inaugural session of a conference of Bangladeshi envoys based in foreign countries.
Being a peace-loving country, Hasina said: "We have to solve our problems through negotiations."
With reference to an agreement signed with Myanmar on Thursday for repatriation of the Rohingya refugees, Hasina said the consensus is a result of bilateral negotiations.
"We want to solve this (Rohingya) crisis without hampering our good relations with our neighbor (Myanmar)."
"Door with neighbours for negotiation should not remain closed. We have to keep contact with neighbors," she said, adding her country would be benefiting from the good relations with neighbors.
Hasina said the foreign policy principle of Bangladesh is "Friendship with All, Malice to None."
Bangladesh will remain a pacifist nation, she said.
"Our policy is very clear and we will not allow anybody to use our land for carrying subversive activities against any country, or as a route of smuggling arms, drugs or human trafficking."
She urged the envoys to promote the country's interest and image abroad, and specially to look into the matters of expatriate workers.
The prime minister said her government has opened 17 new missions abroad.
Terming poverty as the common enemy of South Asian countries, Hasina said: "We have to fight together against poverty."
"We're attaching utmost importance to sub-regional and interconnection initiatives," she said.
Meanwhile, Hasina said: "We have already joined BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar) Economic Corridor, which is aimed at bolstering trade, strengthening friendly relations and socio-economic development of the region."
The three-day conference, the first of its kind since Bangladesh's independence, is participated by high commissioners, ambassadors and permanent representatives of Bangladesh. (ontinueReading
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