March 2008

March 28, 2008 Jonathan Power DAR ES SALAAM – For once the optimists have been proved right – and it’s happening in that “dark, backward” continent, Africa. The ex British colony of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, renamed Tanzania after their union in the 1960s, is exceeding by a significant margin the economic projections of the International Monetary Fund made a mere three years ago. That was towards the end of the term of former socialist journalist, Ben Mkapa, the president who dug Tanzania’s capitalist foundations. Jakaya Kikwete has been president barely two years but in that time the economy has jumped from an annual growth rate of 6% to 7.5%. David Robinson, the resident head of the IMF, expects it to hit 8% before long, which would be higher than any other country in the world, except China and India (and Angola which is almost exclusively an oil economy). In fact mainstream...

March 20, 2008 Jonathan Power LONDON – In the Chinese government’s eyes it has two rebellious provinces on its plate – Tibet and Taiwan, and both are in a volatile state. In Tibet protestors are clashing with police and soldiers. In Taiwan there is no occupation but 1000 Chinese missiles are pointed at its heart. The Tibetans, by and large, no longer try and argue for independence, but even the notion of autonomy is not acceptable to Beijing. In marked contrast, while confronting Taiwan and its significant independence movement, the Chinese offer autonomy as long as Taiwan will accept sovereign rule from Beijing. At the moment, however, there are no takers, neither in the outgoing government of President Chen Shui-bian’s Democratic Progressive Party, which likes to talk about independence and membership of the UN, nor in the opposition party descended from the Nationalists of China, settled by a retreating General...

Niels Harrit, Associate professor, PhD, Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen When viewed in the rear-view mirror of history, the attack on USA on September 11th, 2001 (9/11) might very well prove to be the single most important political event since World War II. It sparked the so-called “war on terror”, which has left a trail of casualties and refugees, with numbers running into the millions. Military expenses and security budgets have soared. As have the number of terrorists. Civil rights have been curtailed for everybody. Fear is prevalent. Our children and grandchildren are left with a less secure world – and a mountain of debt. In spite of this profound impact, the physical and technical realities of 9/11 have never been satisfactorily explained by the US Government. Before considering this claim and its consequences, it is worthwhile reminding ourselves of the “scientific method”, which has served our western societies...

March 12, 2008 Jonathan Power LONDON – So what if the phone rings in the new American president’s bed room at 3am! It can only be because the radar has picked up a flock of geese. The chances of Russia attacking the U.S. with its missiles is as close to zero as one can get without falling off the graph paper. Ditto China, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. As for the putative Iranian bomb, at best within 10 years it could reach Europe in some primitive rocket but by then the White House will have changed ownership again. Mrs Hillary Clinton’s jibe, suggesting that Barack Obama wouldn’t have the experience to deal with a night time emergency, is so wide of the mark and so anachronistic that it should be relegated to the basement of the Imperial War Museum. If anyone tries to make a nuclear explosion in an American...

March 8, 2008 Jonathan Power LONDON – It is almost unbelievable that Senator John Cain has tried to play the Al Qaeda card against Senator Barack Obama. Cautiously, Obama had said that “if” Al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq then the U.S. will have to take action. McCain seized on the word “if” to scorn Obama’s ignorance. But Obama was exactly right to talk carefully and McCain, who appears to want more war and the extension of war to Iran, was very much off the mark. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had nothing to do with 9/11. It is a consequence of an American/British invasion based on a misleading reading of the intelligence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. AQI is not popular in Iraq and if the American forces withdrew, Sunni insurgents, who loath the organization because it has brought in foreign jihadists and massively attacked civilians, would...

March 5, 2008 Richard Falk Written in mid-February 2008 It now seems all but certain that John McCain will be the Republican candidate for president of the United States, and will be likely opposed by Barack Obama or possibly by Hilary Clinton. At first glance such a contest poses a clear choice, especially as McCain is being driven further and further to the right by the ultra-conservative and evangelical right-wing of the Republican Party. McCain identifies closely with George W. Bush on most foreign policy issues, above all on Iraq policy, and does not devote much political energy to such major domestic agenda items as jobs and health care.  McCain is still somewhat engaged in a battle for the Republican nomination with Mike Huckabee, who although trailing badly in the delegate count, has mounted a surprisingly strong challenge with the ardent backing of both religious and secular social conservatives (that...

March 4, 2008 Vicky Samantha Rossi One sunny morning last December I joined John Torday, an Operations Support Officer (OSO) (1), on a visit from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA)(2) HQ in Jerusalem to New Fahme, a village in the vicinity of Nablus in the West Bank. The aim of the trip was to confirm whether or not the residents of New Fahme were registered refugees who had somehow been overlooked by UNRWA and were in need of assistance. On the road heading out from Jerusalem, John explained that the OSO mandate is to try to maintain the neutrality of United Nations (UN) property from abuse by Israelis or Palestinians; this includes the movement of UN food and medical convoys through Israeli checkpoints. OSOs also have a protection mandate; they might, for example, be asked to evaluate the local population’s level of food security, or to assess...