March-2012-International

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Parliamentary elections in Iran
Clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tightened his grip on Iran’s faction-ridden politics after loyalists won over 75 percent of seats in Parliamentary elections at the expense of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a near-complete count showed.

The widespread defeat of Ahmadinejad supporters—including his sister, Parvin Ahmadinejad—is expected to reduce the President to a lame duck after he sowed divisions by challenging the utmost authority of Khamenei in the governing hierarchy.

The outcome of vote, essentially a contest between conservative hardline factions with reformist leaders under house arrest, will have no big impact on Iranian foreign policy, notably its nuclear stand-off with the West. But it will boost Khamenei’s influence in next year’s Presidential election.

Independents and women candidates fared relatively well in many provincial towns, where they campaigned on the immediate concerns—generally economic—of their constituents.

Iran's energy-driven economy is suffering badly from Western sanctions, imposed over its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear activity and give unfettered access to UN nuclear inspectors.

Putin is elected President of Russia
Vladimir Putin triumphed in Russia’s Presidential election on March 4, 2012, calling his victory a turning point that had prevented the country falling into the hands of enemies.

Putin’s opponents, however, complained of widespread fraud, refused to recognise the results and said they would press ahead with the biggest protests since he rose to power 12 years ago.

But the former KGB spy said he had won a “clean” victory and was on course to return to the Kremlin after four years as Prime Minister.

Despite the opposition, mainly among well-educated and relatively well-off young professionals, Putin’s support remains strong in the provinces and his victory had not been in doubt.

The mood, however, has shifted in the country of 143 million and many people are uncertain whether he will be conciliatory and reformist, or stand in the way of political and economic change.

Putin, who will be inaugurated in May, is likely to revert to the fighting talk against the West that was the trademark of his first Presidency and his election campaign.

Economists say a key test of Putin’s return will be how far he is ready to go to reform an economy heavily dependent on energy exports, and caution that his populist campaign spending promises could return to haunt him.

Putin has remained Russia’s dominant leader and its most popular politician since stepping aside in 2008 to make way for his ally, Medvedev, because he was barred from a third straight term by the constitution.

Two billion more people get safe water to drink
More than two billion people have gained access to better drinking water sources, such as piped supplies and protected wells, between 1990 and 2010, according to the UN officials.

The figure means the world has met the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halve the proportion of people with no safe drinking water well ahead of a 2015 deadline.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this was “a great achievement for the people of the world” and noted it was one of the first MDGs to be met.

The Millennium Development Goals were a group of targets set by the international community in 2000, seeking to improve health and reduce poverty among the world’s poorest people by 2015.

A report by the UNICEF and the WHO has found that at the end of 2010, 89 percent of the world’s population, or 6.1 billion people, had access to improved drinking water—higher than the 88 percent MDG target. The report estimates that by 2015, 92 percent of the global population will have access to improved drinking water.

The news needs to be taken by caution, as at least 11 percent of the world’s population—or 783 million people—still have no safe drinking water, and some 2.5 billion do not have improved sanitation facilities.

The report said the world is still far from meeting the MDG target for sanitation, and is unlikely to do so by 2015. Only 63 percent of the world now has improved sanitation access, a figure projected to increase to only 67 percent by 2015, well below the 75 percent internationally agreed aim. Some 1.1 billion people still defecate in the open because they have no toilets and the vast majority of them live in rural areas.

Greece successfully closes bond swap
On March 8, 2012, Greece successfully closed its bond swap offer to private creditors, opening the way to securing the funding it needs to avert a messy default on its debt.

The biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history will see bond holders accept losses of some 74 percent on the value of their investments in a deal that will cut more than 100 billion euros from Greece’s crippling public debt.

After initial fears that the deal could fail altogether, pitching Greece and the euro zone into fresh crisis, the result provides a rare piece of good news for the government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos.

The so-called private sector involvement (PSI) deal is a key element in a broader international bailout aimed at averting a chaotic default by Greece and a potentially disastrous banking crisis across the euro zone. The European Union and International Monetary Fund have made a successful bond swap a pre-condition for final approval of the 130 billion euros bailout.

Despite the apparent success, the deal will not solve Greece’s deep-seated problems and at best it may buy time for a country facing its biggest economic crisis since World War Two and crushed under debt equal to 160 percent of its gross domestic product.

Underlining the severe problems facing Greece after five years of deep recession, latest data shows unemployment running at a record 21 percent in December, twice the euro zone average, with 51 percent of young people without a job.

There has been growing resentment over the austerity medicine ordered by international creditors, which has compounded the pain from a slump which has seen the economy shrink by a fifth since 2008.

U.S. intelligence sees global water conflict risks rising
Fresh water supplies are unlikely to keep up with global demand by 2040, increasing political instability, hobbling economic growth and endangering world food markets, according to a report by the office of the Director of National Intelligence, USA.

South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa will face major challenges in coping with water problems that could hinder the ability to produce food and generate energy.

The report said that a “water war” was unlikely in the next 10 years, but that the risk of conflict would grow with global water demand likely to outstrip current sustainable supplies by 40 percent by 2030.

The report, drafted principally by the Defence Intelligence Agency and based on a classified national intelligence estimate, said that water in shared basins would increasingly be used by States to pressure their neighbours.

During the next 10 years, the over-pumping of ground water supplies in some agricultural areas will pose a risk to food markets and cause social disruption if mitigating steps such as drip irrigation and improved agricultural technology are not implemented. The report also said that through 2040 water shortages and pollution would likely harm the economic performance of important US trading partners by limiting the use and development of hydro power, an important source of electricity for developing countries.

According to the report the risks were greatest for the Brahmaputra which flows through India and Bangladesh and the Amu Darya in central Asia.

How the West rendered USSR bankrupt
A new analysis showing how the radical policies advocated by western economists helped to bankrupt Russia and other former Soviet countries after the Cold War has been released by researchers at the University of Cambridge.

The study, led by academics at the University of Cambridge, is the first to trace a direct link between the mass privatisation programmes adopted by several former Soviet States, and the economic failure and corruption that followed.

Devised principally by western economists, mass privatisation was a radical policy to privatise rapidly large parts of the economies of countries such as Russia during the early 1990s. The policy was pushed heavily by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

Its aim was to guarantee a swift transition to capitalism, before Soviet sympathisers could seize back the reins of power.

Instead of the predicted economic boom, what followed in many ex-Communist countries was a severe recession, on a par with the Great Depression of the United States and Europe in the 1930s.

The reasons for economic collapse and skyrocketing poverty in Eastern Europe, however, have never been fully understood. Nor have researchers been able to explain why this happened in some countries like Russia, but not in others such as Estonia.

Some economists argue that mass privatisation would have worked if it had been implemented even more rapidly and extensively. Conversely, others argue that although mass privatisation was the right policy, the initial conditions were not met to make it work well.

Further still, some scholars suggest that the real problem had more to do with political reform.

Second World Nuclear Security Summit
South Korea hosted the second world Nuclear Security Summit on March 26, 2012, a gathering first convened in 2010 by President Barack Obama with the goal of securing vulnerable nuclear material by 2014.

At the end of the two-day nuclear security summit a bland statement by the leaders reaffirmed the need to work harder to ensure a “safer world for all”.

In a communiqué long on general commitments but short on specifics, the 58 delegates reiterated a joint call to “secure all vulnerable nuclear material in four years” and backed the “essential role” of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in “facilitating international cooperation”.

North Korea and Iran's nuclear weapons programs were not on the agenda at the summit in the South Korean capital and neither country was invited to the forum.

US President Barack Obama had first outlined plans for the nuclear security summit in a 2009 speech citing the threat of nuclear terrorism–terror acts using a nuclear blast or the spread of radiation–as the most serious threat to global security.

Concern had been building following the September 11, 2001 US attacks, the worldwide proliferation of nuclear material, and efforts by North Korea and Iran to develop atomic programmes in defiance of international wishes.

Aside from direct casualties from an explosion or radiation, security experts warn an attack could have far-reaching psychological impact on targeted societies, severely disrupt commerce, and provoke security crackdowns that could impinge on civil liberties.

Estimates say as much as 1,600 tons of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) and 500 tons of plutonium exist in the world, sometimes stored under questionable security in former Soviet States and elsewhere.

There are millions of other radioactive sources such as nuclear power plants, research facilities and hospitals, which store isotopes used in treating cancer and other conditions. Security experts say this could be used by terrorists to spread contamination through a “dirty bomb”. Only about 55 pounds of HEU or 17.6 pounds of plutonium would be required to build a working nuclear bomb, according to experts.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed 20 cases of theft or loss of HEU or plutonium in the past two decades and hundreds more cases of other nuclear material going missing.

BRICS Summit
Determined to end the hegemony of rich Western nations in navigating global economic policies, the BRICS nations, on March 29, 2012, signed two key accords to promote trade among them in their local currencies and explore the possibility of setting up a development bank for mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects.

The Master Agreement on Extending Credit Facility in Local Currency and the Multilateral Letter of Credit Confirmation Facility Agreement are being seen as a major step towards replacing the dollar as the main currency for trading amongst the five nations.

On the political side, there were hardly any surprises in the declaration as, contrary to apprehensions, the leaders of the five emerging economies arrived at common formulations on Syria, Iran and Afghanistan after a brief debate during their closed-door meeting. The BRICS’ stand on Syria and Iran will obviously not go down well with the Western nations, which have been on a collision course with these two countries.

On Iran, the declaration said the BRICS countries felt that the situation in the Islamic republic could not be allowed to escalate into a conflict, the disastrous consequences of which would be in no one’s