Law catches up with leadership
On December 16, 2009, the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared the National Reconciliation Order (NRO) null and void. Lawyers termed the decision as a landmark judgement and demanded that President Asif Ali Zardari step down from his post. The Court ruled that the decree protecting Zardari and his allies against charges of corruption was illegal and against the constitution.
The Supreme Court further ruled that all cases under investigation or pending enquiries and which had either been withdrawn or where the investigations or enquiries had been terminated on account of the NRO shall also stand revived and the relevant and competent authorities shall proceed in the matter in accordance with law.
The NRO, issued by former President Pervez Musharraf, had scrapped all corruption cases against politicians and bureaucrats filed between January 1986 and October 1999, on the grounds that they may have been politically motivated. The ordinance had allowed Benazir Bhutto and her husband Zardari to return to Pakistan.
In the first fallout of the Supreme Court ruling arrest warrants were issued against Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar on December 18, 2009. Both were also barred from going abroad on an official visit.
The National Accountability Bureau, Pakistan’s main anti-corruption agency, also banned 250 other officials from going abroad following the order.
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY
Japan unveils new $81 billion stimulus plan
Japan’s government has unveiled $81 billion of new stimulus spending to keep the world’s second-biggest economy from lurching back into recession.
Despite shrinking tax revenue, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Cabinet agreed to 7.2 trillion yen ($80.6 billion) in new spending after days of negotiations with coalition partners.
The largesse underlines that the world’s biggest economies are still too fragile to get by without government life support even as a recovery from the global recession takes shape. In export-reliant Asia that’s partly because demand from Europe and the US is improving only tepidly and efforts to reduce dependence on trade by boosting consumer spending will take several years to fully bear fruit.
Japan also faces falling prices while brand-name exporters like Toyota Motor and Sony are losing record amounts of money as a galloping yen adds to their woes.
ENVIRONMENT
A face-saver in Copenhagen
The Copenhagen Accord, the first global agreement of the 21st century to comprehensively influence the flow and share of natural resources, was agreed upon by 26 most influential countries in the wee hours of December 19, 2009, in the capital of Denmark. The US led the pack of architects with the BASIC four—China, India, Brazil and South Africa (in that order)—working as sometimes reluctant and sometimes willing, but always key partners in framing the agreement.
The accord demands that increase in global temperatures be kept below 2 degrees on the basis of equity. It requires global emissions as well as all national emissions to peak at a certain time but is mindful of concerns of economic development. It asks industrialized countries, except the US, to take emission cuts in future, but not necessarily under the Kyoto Protocol. It lays out up to $30 billion of quick-start finance and $100 billion starting 2020, using all the routes of transfer possible. It requires mitigation actions from developing countries for the first time to be listed in an international agreement.
The rules of multilateral engagement got re-written as new alignments created a coterie of the powerful that brokered deals in closed rooms: each working at the end to preserve, if not improve its immediate economic status.
The pact they forged did cause heartburn as less powerful economies felt left out. Tuvalu and Sudan said it was too weak, while Venezuela and Bolivia were upset because it had not been negotiated in the open by all the 192 countries attending the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference. The low-ambition deal was seen as a triumph of the US which defied estimates to influence the outcome. But the negotiations also saw the Chinese leveraging their clout in the resource-rich African continent, at a multilateral forum.
For India though, the Accord came out of hard bargaining lasting almost 20 hours among Heads of governments of some of the most influential countries in the world. At the end of the day, when the battle was over, India appeared to have ceded ground on some issues but blocked intrusion on other red lines.
With stakes too high and the rich countries making abjectly clear that they were not playing to the rules, but to change the rules altogether, the four emerging economies decided to instead scratch up a low-ambition deal—a pact that would lower the pressure on them by lowering the demands off the rich countries in parallel.
Finally the Copenhagen Accord take a morphed form of the US-backed schedules approach of ‘pledge and review’. The Copenhagen Accord is not what the US or Europe would have wanted it to be, but it still contains some elements India would have to, at best, fight to defend again in coming years or those that could be titled a lost battle by the end of the talks.
India, along with the other three emerging countries, fought hard and won the battle to retain the reference principle of common but differentiated responsibility which creates the firewall between the commitments of the rich countries and the actions of rest. India was also able to wrest the creation of a green climate fund as well as fight back the attempt to force emission cuts through the back-door.
But fighting a defensive battle, evidently wanting not to be labelled obstructionist by the US, India, along with the other three partners loosened up its stance on some key issues. This loosening of stance may not hit home immediately but it left the window open for growing inequitable burden falling on India’s head to prevent climate change.
Major Highlights
- The final draft after the Copenhagen summit has agreed to cuts in emissions and hold increase in global temp below 2°C.
- A proposal attached to the accord calls for a legally binding treaty by the end-2010.
- Developed countries to provide adequate financial resources and technology to support developing countries. A goal of mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries has been set.
- Details of mitigation plans are included in separate annexure, one for developed countries and one for voluntary pledges from developing countries. These are not binding, and describe the current status of pledges—ranging from ‘under consideration’ for the United States to ‘adopted by legislation’ for the European Union.
- Emerging economies have been asked to monitor their efforts and report the results to the United Nations every two years, with some international checks to meet transparency concerns of West but ‘ensure that national sovereignty is respected’.
- The accord agrees to provide positive incentives to fund afforestation with financial resources from developed world
- Carbon Markets are mentioned in the accord, but not in detail. The deal promises to pursue various approaches, including opportunities to use markets to enhance the cost-effectiveness and promote mitigations actions.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has cleared the way for regulation of greenhouse gases without any new laws being passed by Congress, reflecting President Barack Obama’s commitment to act on climate change. The agency can now begin to make rules to regulate emissions from vehicle tailpipes, power utilities and heavy industry under existing laws.
The EPA ruling applies to six gases scientists say contribute to global warming, including the main one, carbon dioxide.
The UN climate summit finally passed the Copenhagen accord Saturday after two days of intense negotiations and back-room manoeuvres. The accord, proposed by India and four other countries, is now “operational”, a relieved UN chief, Ban Ki-Moon, said. The accord that is meant to be a first step towards fighting the climate change that is affecting millions worldwide was still held up for hours by four countries.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Siberia pipeline to reach APAC markets
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin inaugurated the East-Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline on December 28, 2009, which will enable Moscow to enter markets in Asia- Pacific region and reduce dependency on European customers.
The project is designed to pump up to 1.6 million barrels (220,000 tonnes) of crude per day from Siberia to Russia’s far east and then on to China and the Asia-Pacific region. The project’s first leg envisages the construction of a 2,757-kilometre section with annual capacity of 220.5 million barrels of crude. It will link Taishet, in East Siberia’s Irkutsk Region, to Skovorodino, in the Amur Region, in Russia’s far east. The second stretch will run 2,100 kilometres from Skovorodino to the Pacific Ocean.
Currently the crude beyond Skovorodino goes by rail to China and the Pacific coast.
India moots trans-SAARC container train
India has floated a concept paper among the SAARC countries to start a container train on a pilot basis, running from Bangladesh to Pakistan via India and Nepal, in a bid to give a big boost intra-regional trade. The possible corridor for running the train is from Chittagong Port in Bangladesh to Katihar in India, Birgunj in Nepal and to Lahore in Pakistan.
The proposal being considered could unify the entire region and will lead to a seamless, border-less trade.
At present, India operates one passenger train each to Pakistan and Bangladesh for the benefit of the citizens on the either side of the border. While the train to Pakistan operates between Delhi and Lahore, the other to Bangladesh operates between Kolkata and Dhaka.
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
FBI indicts Headley for 26/11
David Coleman Headley aka Daood Gilani, has been formally charged for conspiracy in the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008. After an intensive probe, the FBI has said that Headley delivered, placed, discharged and detonated explosives and other lethal devices in, into, and against places of public use in India.
The FBI has indicted Headley on six counts. Significantly, the FBI has also formally charged a retired Major of the Pakistan army, Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, for the plot against a Danish newspaper that Headley wanted to attack for the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad. Indian officials said Rehman was closely linked to the ISI. He has been arrested by Pakistan; if the charges are upheld during the trial, it would be the first smoking gun that the ISI is involved in exporting terror.
New Af-Pak policy of USA
US President Barack Obama, who unveiled his administration’s Af-Pak policy on December 2, 2009, ordered a surge of 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan and a “transfer of forces out” to begin in July, 2011.
The strategic and security communities are uneasy over the President’s withdrawal plans. While The Washington Post called it a “surge, then leave” policy, security experts are of the view that withdrawal decisions must be determined by the conditions on the ground and not by arbitrary deadlines. “The Obama administration has no exit strategy, it has only exit timeline,” said Republican opponents.
As the speech clearly rejected the counter-insurgency principle of “clear, hold and build,” there are fears that any setback would only invigorate the jihadist cause and put untenable pressure on Pakistan and India. But President Obama appears to be keen on winding down the war when he enters the political build up to the 2012 Presidential election.
In his address, President Obama described Pak-Afghan border as the epicentre of the violent extremism practised by Al-Qaeda. “It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. “The people and governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan are endangered. And the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that Al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them.”
In his address, President Obama said the US will deny Al Qaeda a safe haven and will reverse the Taliban’s momentum and crush its ability to overthrow the government. “We’re in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That’s why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border,” he said justifying inclusion of Pakistan in his Afghan policy.
Stating that this was an international effort, President Obama sought the same war escalation measures from his allies. “Some have already provided additional troops, and we are confident that there will be further contributions in the days and weeks ahead. Our friends have fought and bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan. Now, we must come together to end this war successfully. For what’s at stake is not simply a test of NATO’s credibility; what’s at stake is the security of our allies, and the common security of the world,” he said.
Scare aboard Delta Airliner
On December 27, 2009, US Federal officials brought criminal charges against a Nigerian man suspected of trying to destroy a Northwest Airlines aircraft on December 25, 2009 as it approached the airport in Detroit, Michigan.
The US Department of Justice said that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, had boarded the plane in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and tried near the end of the nine-hour-flight to set off an explosion using PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, a high explosive.
Fellow passengers rushed to subdue the terror suspect after they heard popping sounds and saw smoke and fire coming from Abdulmutallab's seat.
Even though the US authorities are yet to confirm the Yemen connection of the 23-year-old Nigerian man's plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, they see Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's account that Al-Qaida had supplied explosive powder to him in Yemen "highly plausible."
The suspect, reportedly, told US investigators that he had obtained explosive chemicals and a syringe that were sewn into his underwear from a bomb expert in Yemen associated with Al-Qaida, as part of a "mission to bring down a jet on US soil".
London: Terror capital of the West?
Britain has now emerged as the "terror capital of the West" as whenever a major terrorist attack is attempted, suspicion swings on this country, according to a media report.
“It comes as no surprise to learn that the Nigerian accused of blowing up the US airliner is said to have been living here. We have become the number one source of terrorism in the Western world. We shelter foreign jihadis, and even grow our own… For years now, Islamic extremists wanted on terror charges in their own country have taken sanctuary in Britain… Our judges (not our politicians) say it would be cruel to send them back to their own countries, in case they're tortured,” the 'News of the World' quoted the Editor of Spectacle, Fraser Nelson, as saying.
Years ago, the CIA had a name for it: "Londonistan".
No comments:
Post a Comment