june-09-international

CURRENT INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Iran’s Presidential polls
On June 14, 2009, hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner of the Presidential election held on June 12. The result was, however, bitterly contested by the opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Ruling out any recounting of votes country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election victory was credible and insisted that the Islamic republic’s election mechanisms allowed no cheating. He said the street protests to pressure for change were not acceptable.

Khamenei insisted the elections showed off the country’s religious democracy for the world to see, shrugging an unprecedented challenge to the country’s ruling clerics by opposition supporters, who claimed the June 12, 2009 Presidential election was rigged. He said there was “definitive victory” and no rigging in the disputed Presidential elections.

“There is 11 million votes difference, Khamenei said. “How one can rig 11 million votes?” “The enemies (of Iran) are targeting the Islamic establishment’s legitimacy by questioning the election and its authenticity before and after (the vote)”.

On June 14, 2009, the Iranian police clashed with people protesting in Tehran against the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The unrest that rocked Tehran and several other cities was the sharpest expression of discontent against Iran’s leadership for years. Supporters of defeated moderate Mirhossein Mousavi, who dismissed Ahmadinejad’s triumph as a “dangerous charade”, gathered in central Tehran, chanted his name and threw stones at police.

The scale of Ahmadinejad's triumph upset widespread expectations that the race would at least go to a second round, and his victory is unlikely to help unblock a standoff with the West over Iran's nuclear programme. Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, an ally of hardliner Ahmadinejad, declared that the President had been re-elected to a second four-year term with 62.6 per cent of the vote, against 33.7 per cent for Mousavi, in a record 85 per cent turnout.

The bitter election campaign generated strong interest around the world and intense excitement inside Iran. It revealed deep divisions among establishment figures between those backing Ahmadinejad and those pushing for social and political change. Ahmadinejad accused his rivals of undermining the Islamic Republic by advocating detente with the West. Mousavi said the President’s “extremist” foreign policy had humiliated Iranians.

The three-week election campaign was marked by mudslinging, with Ahmadinejad accusing his rivals of corruption. They said he was lying about the economy. Inflation, officially put at 15 per cent, and unemployment were core issues in the debate.

On June 22, locked in a continuing bitter contest with Iranians who were of the view that the Presidential polls were rigged, the authorities finally acknowledged that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters. But the authorities insisted that discrepancies, which could affect three million votes, did not violate Iranian law and the country’s influential Guardian Council said it was not clear whether they would decisively change the election result.  Iran’s top election body, however, ruled out cancelling the disputed Presidential vote as the world voiced increasing alarm at the violent crackdown on opposition demonstrators, posing the most serious challenge to the Islamic regime in 30 years.

Israeli PM endorses Palestinian Statehood
Under pressure from the US President Obama’s administration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for the first time endorsed a two-State solution in the Middle East, drawing praise from the West but flak from Palestinians who rejected the offer citing the tough conditions attached.

In a policy speech on June 15, 2009, that came a week after US President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the “Palestinian State” would have to be demilitarised and recognise Israel as a State of the Jewish people.

The hardliner Israeli Premier had resisted agreeing to a two-State solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict all through his political career and his veiled acceptance was couched under several other conditions, including refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to settle in Israel and keeping united Jerusalem the capital of Israel.
The address at Bar Ilan university, considered the bastion of Israeli right, came in the wake of Obama’s insistence that Israel impose a complete freeze on West Bank settlement construction and recognise the two-State solution.

President Obama welcomed the speech as an “important step forward” while the European Union described it as “a step in the right direction”.

However, the Palestinians were skeptic and angry. “Netanyahu’s remarks have sabotaged all initiatives, paralysed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions,” said Nabil Abu Rdeineh, a close aide to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. Reacting angrily to Netanyahu’s assertions that Palestinian refugees will not be allowed to settle in Israel and undivided Jerusalem will stay its capital, Rdeineh said, “this will not lead to complete and just peace”.

Nepal revokes army chief’s sacking
In order to avoid possible tussle between President Dr Ram Baran Yadav and Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, the newly formed Cabinet decided to uphold Yadav’s decision to retain the sacked Chief of Army Staff Rookmangud Katawal to his post.

The Cabinet has also nullified the controversial decision taken by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal–Maoists (UCPN-M)-led government to appoint Lt. Gen Kul Bahadur Khadka as the acting Chief of army.

After receiving pressure from the party rank and files, including the commanders of the Maoists combatants, the then Prime Minister and UCPN-M chairman Prachanda’s cabinet, on May 3, 2009, had sacked Katawal unilaterally and appointed Khadka as acting chief. As a result it had invited serious political and constitutional tussle between the President and the then government that finally forced the Maoist chairman Dahal to step down on May 4.

The meeting has annulled the May 4 Cabinet decision where the Dahal-led Cabinet’s last meeting had dubbed the President’s move to retain sacked army chief Katawal as “constitutional coup” and asked President Yadav to correct his unconstitutional move to uphold the civilian supremacy.  However, Yadav had refused to do so saying that whatever he had done was based on good faith and it was his responsibility to protect the constitution as Head of the State and avoid possible rift within the national army as its patron.

Burqa not welcome in France
The Islamic burqa is “not welcome” in France because it is not a symbol of religion but a sign of subservience for women, as per a statement by President Nicolas Sarkozy. “We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity,” he said.

“It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic,” Sarkozy told a special session of Parliament. He further added that he was in favour of holding the inquiry sought by some French lawmakers into whether Muslim women who cover themselves fully in public undermine French secularism and women’s rights.

But the president added “we must not fight the wrong battle; the Muslim religion must be respected as much as other religions in France”.
The proposal to hold an inquiry has won support from many politicians from both the Left and Right, but France’s official Muslim council accused lawmakers of wasting time focusing on a fringe phenomenon.

In France, the terms “burqa” and “niqab” often are used interchangeably. The former refers to a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with only a mesh screen over the eyes, whereas the latter is a full-body veil, often in black, with slits for the eyes.

France had enacted a law in 2004 banning the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, sparking fierce debate at home and abroad. France has Western Europe's largest Muslim population, an estimated five million people.

One billion go hungry world over
One in six people in the world or more than one billion are now hungry, a historic high due largely to the global economic crisis and stubbornly high food prices, according to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Compared with 2008, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they receive fewer than 1,800 calories a day, FAO said. Almost all the worlds undernourished live in developing countries, where food prices have fallen more slowly than in the richer nations, the report said. Poor countries need more aid and agricultural investment to cope, it said.

The silent hunger crisis, affecting one-sixth of all of humanity, poses a serious risk for world peace and security, said the Director-General of FAO, Jacques Diouf. Soaring prices for staples, such as rice, triggered riots in the developing world in 2008. Hunger increased despite strong 2009 cereal production, and a mild retreat in food prices from the highs of mid-2008. However, average prices at the end of 2008 were still 24% higher in real terms than in 2006.

Globally there are now about 1.02 billion people hungry, up 11% from 2008’s 915 million. The estimates are based on analysis by the US Department of Agriculture. Asia and the Pacific, the world’s most populous region, has the largest number of hungry people at 642 million. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest hunger rate, with 265 million under-nourished, representing 32% of the region’s population.

G-8 nations see signs of economic stability
Citing “signs of stabilisation” in their economies, G-8 Finance Ministers have decided to ensure that such trends emerging in the global economy should be nurtured and asked the IMF to study exit strategies to “unwind” their hefty stimulus packages. On macroeconomic conditions, the Ministers recognised that the coordinated policy action implemented so far has borne some fruit, citing a recent rise in stock prices, a decline in interest rate spreads, and improved business and consumer confidence. “There are signs of stabilisation in our economies,” said a joint statement of the ministers from the G-8 countries—Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States—after their two-day meeting in Lecce, Italy, in June 2009.

The G-8 ministers said they discussed “appropriate strategies” on how to find a way out of big fiscal spending once their economies recover. They, however, noted that the framework for unwinding the unusual measures taken so far to fight the global economic crisis should “vary from country to country.”

US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner warned after the meeting that nations should not implement policy restraint too early as the global economy has yet to enter a recovery phase despite recent signs of improvement. But he echoed the G-8 statement’s call for charting the future course for the restoration of fiscal balances, saying financial and economic recovery “will be stronger and more sustainable if we make clear today how we get back to fiscal sustainability when the storm has finally passed.”
The ministers also reaffirmed the importance of combating all forms of money laundering and the financing of terrorism. In addition to macro-economic issues, major items on the meeting agenda were climate change, food security, financial regulation and strengthening the lending capacity of international organisations to assist developing countries.

IMF bond plan attracts emerging nations
The International Monetary Fund's plan to issue bonds for the first time has attracted several large emerging countries looking to diversify investments to the detriment of the dollar, whose lustre is dimming under the mushrooming US budget deficit.

After the G-20 major developed and emerging market countries pledged in April 2009 to boost the IMF's resources by $500 billion, each country must determine just how to deliver. To help gather such a colossal sum, the 185-nation IMF has decided to take the unprecedented step of issuing bonds.

Three countries lined up for the notes in the space of two weeks: Russia, China, then Brazil. Both Russia and Brazil are in the market for $10 billion worth, while China is aiming for $50 billion. Other G-20 members could follow, such as India or Saudi Arabia.

The new bonds will be offered in the IMF accounting unit, Special Drawing Right (SDR), whose value is based on a basket of currencies, re-balanced daily, in which the dollar represents only a 41% share. It is the dollar's relative weakness in SDRs that has raised market concerns that some countries are seeking to distance themselves from the greenback, the world's reserve currency.

For some, the announcements by Russia, China and Brazil are troubling rumbles for the US. "It is a clear sign that these countries are not comfortable with their large dollar holdings and should be read by the US as an additional signal of market unease about their large budget deficit," said Desmond Lachman of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

Green energy investments in developing nations rise 27%
The global economic crisis hasn’t deterred the developing countries from their green energy investments, which surged 27% in 2008 to $36.6 billion. According to a recent report of United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) on Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment, 2009, global investment in clean energy witnessed a four-fold increase in 2008, compared to 2004.
Of the $155 billion invested in 2008 in clean-energy companies and projects worldwide, China, India, Brazil and African countries, among others, contributed almost a third of the amount. While China led investments in Asia with an 18% increase over 2007 to $15.6 billion, green energy investments in India grew 12% to $4.1 billion in 2008.

However, growth in clean energy sectors stalled in developed countries, said the report, which is being jointly prepared by the UNEP and global information provider New Energy Finance.
The total transaction value in the sustainable energy sector—including corporate acquisition, asset refinancing and private equity buyout— during 2008 was $223 billion, an increase of 7% over 2007. However, the capital raised via stock markets fell 51% to $11.4 billion as share prices of clean energy companies lost 61% of their value during 2008.

According to UNEP estimates, the world needs $750 billion to finance a sustainable economic recovery by investing in the greening of five key sectors: buildings, energy, transport, agriculture and water.

Pak diverted US aid to N-programme
Pakistan diverted a whopping sum of over $5 billion provided as aid by the US to fight Taliban militants into its nuclear programme, according to a report by security expert Andrew Cockburn. "Most of the aid we've sent them over the past few years has been diverted into their nuclear programme," the report published in 'Counter Punch' quoted a senior national security official in the Obama administration as saying.

Most of this 'diverted aid' was officially designated "Coalition Support Funds" for Pakistani military operations against the Taliban.
The report said the US allowed Pakistan's nuclear programme to continue in violation of its policy of non-proliferation, as it needed its help in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan, among other things, and even the Obama administration has not changed this policy.

Pakistan has also misused a substantial amount of military aid from the US, meant to fight terrorism, to build up its army with modern weapons and equipment for a conventional warfare against India, according to released Pentagon documents. All this was done with the knowledge of the then Bush administration, which not only provided $1.9 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF), but also signed agreements with Pakistan for military sales worth nearly $5 billion during the period.

While the Taliban and Al-Qaida gained ground in the tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, Islamabad bought eight P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft and their refurbishment worth $474 million. It also placed orders for 5,250 TOW anti-armour missiles worth $186 million.
Besides buying more than 5,600 military radio sets worth $163 million, Pakistan bought six AN/TPS-77 surveillance radars worth $100 million and six C-130E transport aircraft and their refurbishment worth $76 million.

Under the Excess Defence Articles (EDA), it was granted 20 AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters, which were then refurbished.

Pakistan also used a substantial chunk of America’s FMF to purchase up to 60 mid-life update kits for F-16 A/B combat aircraft valued at $891 million. Of this, it paid $477 million from the FMF funds given by the United States.

Similarly, of the $87 million worth order for 115 M-109 self-propelled howitzers, it paid $53 million from FMF. And all this happened while Pakistan’s economic situation deteriorated.

US President Obama calls for a new beginning between Islam and West
On June 4, 2009, extending a hand of friendship to the Muslim world, US President Barack Obama called for a “new beginning between the United Sates and Muslims around the world,” saying together they could confront violent extremism across the globe and advance the timeless search for peace in the West Asia. “This cycle of suspicion and discord must end,” he said.

In a speech that was littered with references to the Quran, Mr Obama, who has been trying hard to repair ties with the Muslim world that has been alienated by US policy, rolled out his plan for engaging with the Muslim world. The President also used his own Muslim roots to push across the message that the US was not against Islam or the Muslim world.

President Obama started his highly anticipated Cairo speech by going back in history and tracing tensions that were rooted in history. “The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars,” he said. After going into history, he also touched on the main sources of current tension including the situation in West Asia, Afghanistan and the nuclear stand-off with Iran.

On West Asia, the US President said that he understood both the Israeli and Palestinian position. Expressing sympathy for the Palestinian cause, he supported an independent Palestinian State that co-existed peacefully with Israel. Saying he would not see the conflict from just one side, he said that Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s and that Israel must live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can develop their society.

On Afghanistan, he said the US had gone to Afghanistan out of necessity after the 9/11 attacks in which the al-Qaeda killed 3,000 people. He further said the US did not want to keep troops in Afghanistan. “We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case,” he said.

Finally on Iran, President Obama said the US has made it clear to the Iranian leadership that it is prepared to move forward. He said he understood the protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. “No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons.” He said that any country, including Iran, had the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

All in all, his speech was largely well-received and there was anticipation that this could set the stage for an easing of tension between the US and Muslim world.

SCO and BRIC nations meet at Yekaterinburg
Participating in back-to-back SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) and BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) summits at Yekaterinburg, Russia, in June 2009, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for greater global cooperation to defeat terrorism and reform of international financial institutions.

Delivering his first speech at an international forum during his second term as the Prime Minister, he told the SCO Summit that terrorist crimes today were transnational in nature, adding "it is imperative that we genuinely cooperate with one another and on a global scale to resolutely defeat international terrorism."

India, along with Iran, Pakistan and Mongolia, participated as an observer at the summit of the SCO, a six-nation regional grouping that brings together Russia, China and the Central Asian Republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

This was the first SCO summit at which an Indian Prime Minister participated. The SCO leaders had decided to include observer countries in full-format discussions at their last summit in Dushanbe.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh later attended the first BRIC Summit along with the Presidents of Russia, China and Brazil. In a joint statement adopted by the BRIC leaders, the four nations strongly demanded reforms of international financial institutions to reflect changes in the world economy. "The emerging and developing countries must have a greater voice and representation in international financial institutions, and their heads and senior leadership should be appointed through an open, transparent and merit-based selection process."

On the global economic situation, the BRIC leaders emphasised that the poorest countries had been hit the hardest by the financial crisis. “The international community needs to step up efforts to provide liquidity for these countries. The international community should also strive to minimise the impact of the crisis on development and ensure the achievement of the millennium development goals."

The four nations called for strengthening coordination and cooperation among BRIC States in the field of energy, including among producers and consumers of energy and transit states, in an effort to decrease uncertainty and ensure stability and sustainability. They also underlined the need for a more democratic and just multi-polar world order based on the rule of international law, equality, mutual respect, cooperation, coordinated action and collective decision-making of all States.

The BRIC nations condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and reiterated that there could be no justification for any act of terrorism anywhere or for whatever reasons.

Pak among top 10 failed States
Pakistan, split in the middle with terrorist attacks and facing an economic crisis, remains among the top 10 failed States, says an index prepared by the Fund for Peace, an independent research organisation. The country, placed ninth among all countries in 2008, in terms of its overall achievement, has improved its position only by a notch—it was placed 10th in the index for 2009. The annual exercise, now in its fifth year, ranks countries on the basis of the following factors: demographic pressure, refugees/internally displaced persons, group grievance, uneven development, and economic decline, de-legitimisation of the State, public service, human rights, factionalised elites and external intervention.

The top 10 failed States in the latest list are: Somalia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Guinea and Pakistan.
India is placed 87th among the 177 countries under study, with its score showing an improvement over 2008.