INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Tentative deal in Iraq keeps Maliki in power
Iraq’s political leaders reached a tentative deal on November 10, 2010, to form a new government by giving a second term to Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, thus breaking the eight-month political stalemate that had plagued the country. The unexpected compromise, after a more than seven-hour meeting, came after the largely Sunni-backed bloc of Iraqiya, which won the most votes in March polls, begrudgingly agreed to back Maliki.
But even as the deal was announced, some Sunni leaders expressed dissatisfaction, a potentially troubling sign for the US as it moves toward the planned withdrawal of all of its forces by the end of 2011. A feeling of exclusion among Sunnis could prompt them to abandon the political process and renew an insurgency that has quieted significantly in recent years, although steady levels of violence continue.
US officials had been pushing a power-sharing agreement between Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, and Maliki, whom they tacitly backed for PM, as a way to break the Shiite leader’s monopoly on government authority and give the Sunni Arab minority a powerful role in Iraq’s next government.
Under the new agreement, it was agreed to appoint a speaker from Iraqiya, then name the current Kurdish President, Jalal Talabani, as President of Iraq. He, in turn, named Maliki as Prime Minister.
Junta’s proxy seeps Myanmar poll
Myanmar’s military-backed party captured 77 per cent of the Parliamentary seats contested in the November 7, 2010 elections, following polling widely decried as manipulated and unfair.
The results point to an overwhelming victory, but there has never been much doubt about the outcome because the junta-proxy, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), fielded candidates in nearly every district, whereas the largest opposition party was able to contest only 164 of the 1,159 parliamentary seats.
The government said the elections, the country’s first in two decades, were a major step towards democracy, but critics, including US President Barack Obama, said they were neither free nor fair.
The polling also sparked violence and some fears of an outright civil war among Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, who make up about 40 per cent of the population. Some have been fighting the central government since Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948.
The West denounced army-ruled Myanmar’s first election in 20 years while State media in China, a key ally of the regime, struck a discordant note by hailing the polls as a sign of progress.
Led by US President Barack Obama, numerous countries decried the vote as neither free nor fair and called for the release of political prisoners, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who was sidelined in the polls.
China has long helped economically dysfunctional Myanmar to keep afloat through trade ties, arms sales, and by shielding it from UN sanctions over rights abuses as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council.
Backgrounder: Elections are very rare events in Myanmar. In the last half a century there was only one—in 1990, followed by the latest held on November 7). A devout Buddhist politician, U Nu, set up an unstable administration on the withdrawal of the British, survived the first two elections, but voluntarily retired after the second. His successor asked the army, soon after, to stand in for some time in the capacity of a caretaker. Nu returned for a second try at governing the multiple insurgency-ridden country, by decisively winning the 1960 election. Yet, in less than two years, the army dethroned the elected government in a coup.
The first military dictator, General Ne Win, was toppled by a students-led agitation in 1988, but another General took power and the military has since then showed no intention of loosening its grip on the country. Currently, Senior General Than Shwe is the top boss and nearing 80 in age.
The Generals did try to create a democratic façade for their rule at one stage by organizing a general election in 1990, but did not know how to tailor it to their desired narrow self-interest and watched their own make-believe civilian political party crushed by the voters. That largely fair election, witnessed by foreign journalists, gave only 10 of 492 seats to the army’s party and 392 to Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD).
The junta responded with iron fist. The result of the election was annulled. Suu Kyi and her NLD were turned into targets for unceasing persecution. Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 15 of the 20 years since then. She could not collect the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded. Nor could she participate in the November 7 election because the military junta’s electoral laws were largely directed against her and her party.
Twenty years after that failed election, the army has staged another. This is an attempt no doubt at easing the growing pressure of adverse world opinion. As could be expected, the Generals were careful this time not to make the mistakes of 1990. A new constitution was framed and adopted by a referendum in which 99 per cent of the voters participated and over 92 per cent of them cast “yes” votes. The constitution reserves for the army one-fourth of the seats in each of the two Houses of Parliament and the more important ministries. Also, no constitutional change will be possible without a majority of more than three-fourths. A political party has been created with leading roles in it for about a score of men who were military officers till sometime back.
Prime Minister General Thein Sein resigned from the army to lead the civilian-looking outfit named the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).
The electoral laws ruled out Aung San Suu Kyi’s participation. Neither convicted persons nor individuals opposing the State organizations could stand for any seat. Roughly 300,000 Buddhist monks representing the religious order were disenfranchised. So were the people in some rebellious ethnic minority areas. No one whose spouse or children are foreign citizens can become the head of the Myanmarese State. Suu Kyi’s British husband is now dead and her two sons are also British living in the UK.
Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy found the dice so heavily loaded against them that they only had one choice—boycotting the sham election. Yet the junta wanted to be doubly sure; it ordered the dissolution of NLD and a few other parties on the ground that they failed to apply for permission to continue political activities.
There were no election observers from abroad and unlike in 1990, when 60 foreign journalists were granted visas a few days before the polling, no news-person from outside was let in.
Democrats lose control of US House of Representatives
A disenchanted American electorate, in a snub to President Barack Obama, handed a bruising defeat to his Democratic Party and put the Republican Party back in control of the US House of Representatives in mid-term elections on November 4, 2010.
The loss of Democratic control of the House will be an obstacle to Obama’s ability to push through his agenda over the next two years. However, it is by no means an indicator of the President’s own fate. In 1994, the Republicans took control of Congress under Bill Clinton’s Presidency. Clinton, a Democrat, went on to serve for a second term. Besides Clinton, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower both lost control of at least one house of Congress in the mid-terms. No President in the past century has lost his bid for a second term in office after losing the majority in the mid-term elections.
However, Republicans are in no mood to work with the Democrats and the party’s leaders have vowed to do everything possible to ensure that Obama is only a one-term President.
Ireland becomes second Euro nation to seek aid
On November 22, 2010, Ireland became the second euro country to seek a rescue as the cost of saving its banks threatened by a re-run of the Greek debt crisis that destabilized the currency.
The aid, which Irish officials said as recently as November 15 they didn’t need, marked the latest blow to an economy that more than doubled in the decade ending in 2006. The bursting of the real-estate bubble in 2008 plunged the country into a recession and brought its banks close to collapse. With Irish bond yields near a record high, policy makers are trying to keep the crisis from spreading.
The package for Ireland will total as much as 60 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 47 percent for Greece.
The bailout follows two years of budget cuts that failed to restore market confidence as the cost of shoring up the financial industry soared.
UNDP Human Development Report
India is ranked 119 out of 169 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) of the UNDP’s 2010 Human Development Report.
This marks an improvement of just one rank between 2005 and 2010 though the report, a special 20th anniversary edition, places India among top 10 performers globally in terms of HDI measured on income growth. The category is led by China. India comes 10th after Botswana, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Mauritius.
China has improved eight notches (from 2005 to 2010) to secure the 89th position. In South Asia, Nepal has gained five places to reach the 138th rank. Maldives has risen four places to 107; Sri Lanka at 91 too has beaten India in the rankings, though Pakistan has lost two ranks to fall to 125, while Bangladesh is up one at 129.
Though high on GDP growth, India reports severe inequalities (the report for the first time measures inequalities, gender gaps and multidimensional poverty as markers of human development) while several low-income nations have posted huge profits by investing in education and health. Nepal is the only South Asian country, which despite low income, stands as the third best performer in the top 10 movers the report highlights.
These movers are the 10 nations (out of 135 studied for development indicators) that made the largest HDI improvements over the past 40 years. Oman leads the pack having invested its energy earnings in health and education. Except China, which is second on this list thanks to income gains (recording 21 fold jump in per capita income since 1980), all other nine countries are top movers due to health and education benefits. These are Nepal, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Lao PDR, Tunisia, South Korea, Algeria and Morocco. India is 16th in the category.
While India’s HDI value has increased from 0.320 in 1980 to 0.519 in 2010, higher than South Asia’s average of 0.516, India still lags behind among medium HD nations. South Asia, particularly India, post shocking percentage losses in HDI values if inequalities are counted.
The best HDI ranker in the world, Norway, loses just 6.6 per cent to inequality while China loses 23 per cent and Bangladesh 29.4 per cent.
Global giants join hands to save climate
On November 29, 2010, the first day of the Cancun Climate Summit, the global consumer goods industry announced two major initiatives on climate protection: to halt deforestation practices and phase out climate damaging refrigerants that have high global warming potential.
In a statement issued from Paris, this was announced by the Consumer Goods Forum, a CEO-level organisation of 400 global consumer goods manufacturers and retailers with combined revenue in excess of $ 2.8 trillion. The initiatives were announced by the board of directors, comprising 50 CEOs and co-chaired by Muhtar Kent, CEO, The Coca-Cola Company and Lars Olofsson, CEO of Carrefour.
On deforestation, the Consumer Goods Forum decided to mobilise their collective resources to help achieve zero net deforestation by 2020.
On refrigeration, the Forum agreed to begin phasing out hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants as of 2015 and replace them with non-HFC refrigerants.
Deforestation is one of the principal drivers of climate change, accounting for 17 per cent of greenhouse gases today. The consumer goods industry, through its growing use of soya, palm oil, paper and board, creates many of the economic incentives which drive deforestation.
Refrigeration plays a vital role in the retail and consumer goods industry but is also a significant and growing source of greenhouse gases. HFCs are powerful greenhouse gases that are thousands of times as potent as carbon dioxide. While they currently have a relatively small aggregate impact on global warming, HFC emissions are projected to represent 9-19 per cent of projected greenhouse gas emissions in 2050. The US government has targeted HFC reduction as a priority climate action under the Montreal Protocol, and garnered support from 91 nations at 2010 Montreal Protocol conference in Bangkok.
World mayors sign climate change pact
Mayors from around the world have signed a voluntary pact in Mexico City to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The pact was signed at a meeting meant as a precursor to the UN-sponsored talks in Cancun.
Participants from some 135 cities and urban areas signed the pact committing them to adopt a number of measures to stem climate change.
Meanwhile, a new study has found that fossil-fuel gases edged back less than hoped in 2009, as falls in advanced economies were largely outweighed by rises in China and India.
Annual emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of oil, gas and coal were 30.8 billion tonne, a retreat of only 1.3 per cent in 2009, compared with 2008, a record year.
USA, Australia ink space surveillance pact
On November 8, 2010, Australia and the US signed a pact to increase space surveillance over the Asia-Pacific region by expanding the reach of US military satellites.
The two countries signed a ‘space situational awareness’ partnership at the conclusion of the annual US-Australia security and military dialogue, under which Washington would place more satellite tracking sensors in Western Australia.
The network would give Americans a strategic surveillance capacity over the southern hemisphere to track space and missile launches from China as well as Korea.
The signing of a space pact comes as US and its allies in the Pacific region have accused China of trying to militarise space by investing heavily in space technology.
A space situational awareness partnership statement issued at the conclusion of the security meet said that the US and Australia shared a deep concern about the “congested and contested nature of outer space”.
G-20 Summit
The Seoul Action Plan, agreed at the end of the two-day Summit of the G-20 leaders, called for moving towards more market-determined exchange rates. An undervalued Yuan or a weak Dollar also has ramifications for India and several other countries in terms of their exports becoming uncompetitive. The G-20 group includes India, the US, China, Germany, France, Brazil, Russia and Japan.
In the face of a currency war between the US and China, global leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, agreed to refrain from ‘competitive devaluation’ and bring in exchange rate flexibility to ensure that no country gets undue advantage.
These measures, the leaders said, would help mitigate the risk of excessive volatility in capital flows facing some emerging market economies.
Cablegate Crisis in USA
The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis on November 29, 2010, with the leaking to various international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February 2010. At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership.
The cables include comments on a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high-level concerns over Pakistan’s growing instability, and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al Qaeda in Yemen. The cables also contain specific allegations of corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from Caribbean islands to China and Russia.
The State department’s legal adviser wrote to the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, warning that the cables were obtained illegally and that the publication would place at risk “the lives of countless innocent individuals … ongoing military operations … and co-operation between countries”.
The electronic archive of embassy dispatches from around the world was allegedly downloaded by a US soldier and passed to WikiLeaks.
The US embassy cables are marked “Sipdis”—secret internet protocol distribution. They were compiled as part of a programme under which selected dispatches, considered moderately secret but suitable for sharing with other agencies, were automatically loaded on to secure embassy websites, and linked with the military’s Siprnet internet system.
More than 11,000 are marked secret, while around 9,000 of the cables are marked noforn (no foreigners).
North Korea shells South Korean island
On November 23, 2010, North Korea fired scores of artillery shells at a South Korean island, killing two soldiers, in one of the heaviest attacks on its neighbour since the Korean War ended in 1953. South Korea was conducting military drills in the area at the time but said it had not been firing at the North.
The attack came as the reclusive North, and its ally China, were pressing regional powers to return to negotiations on its nuclear weapons programme and revelations that Pyongyang is fast developing another source of material to make atomic bombs.
It also followed moves by leader Kim Jong-il to make his youngest, but unproven, son his heir apparent, leading some analysts to question whether the bombardment might in part have been an attempt to burnish the ruling family’s image with the military.
At least 200 North Korean shells hit Yeonpyeong, which lies off the west coast of the divided peninsula near a disputed maritime border. Most landed on a military base there. Photographs from Yeongyeong island, just 120 west of Seoul, showed columns of smoke rising from buildings.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who has pursued a hard line with the North since taking office nearly three years ago, said a response had to be firm following the attack. But he made no suggestion the South would retaliate further, suggesting Seoul was taking a measured response to prevent things getting out of hand.
The two Koreas are still technically at war—the Korean War ended only with a truce—and tension rose sharply early 2010 after Seoul accused the North of torpedoing one of its navy vessels, killing 46 sailors.
The US strongly condemned the attack and called on North Korea to “halt its belligerent action,” and urged nuclear-armed North Korea to “fully abide by the terms of the Armistice Agreement” that ended the Korean War.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned the shelling, warning of ‘colossal danger’ from Korean tensions and calling for an end to any hostilities.
The third summit on Global Agenda was held in Dubai in November 2010. The summit gave an opportunity to social, political and business leaders across the world to benchmark key developmental issues against global realities.
The 16th United Nations Climate Change Conference took place in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29, 2010. India was among the 190 UN members who took part in the 12-day event.
The UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has included French food in its list of world’s “intangible cultural heritage”. Peking opera and Spanish flamenco dancing have also been included in the list.
Chinese President Hu Jintao has been named the most powerful person in the world by Forbes magazine, ahead of US President Barack Obama who takes number two spot. Mrs Sonia Gandhi has been ranked 9th, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh 18th. Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Tata Chairman Ratan Tata and head of ArcelorMittal Lakshmi Mittal are also part of the list of 68 people.
India was ranked 119 in terms of human development, according to UNDP’s Human Development Report 2010.
Barack Obama was the fourth US President to address Indian MPs in the historic central hall of Parliament. Three of his predecessors—Dwight Eisenhower in 1959, Jimmy Carter in 1978 and Bill Clinton in 2000—were given the rare honour of addressing the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs. Before Obama, former Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe addressed Indian MPs in 2007.
UN World Day of Remembrance for Road Accident Victims is observed on November 21.
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