People's Daily
Obama consults with Turkish PM on Libya
U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday continued his phone consultations with foreign leaders on the situation in Libya by talking to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as calls are mounting for action against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to stop his use of violence against protesters.
The two leaders expressed their deep concern about the Libyan government's use of violence against its people, saying it is " completely unacceptable," the White House said, noting that they discussed "appropriate and effective ways" for the international community to immediately respond.
They affirmed their strong support for the universal rights of the Libyan people, including the right to peaceful assembly, free speech and the ability to determine their own destiny, and agreed that these rights must be respected, the White House said.
It said that the two leaders discussed "the range of options" that both the United States and Turkey are considering to "ensure the security of our citizens in Libya and hold the Libyan government accountable for its actions."
Obama said on Wednesday that he had asked his administration to "prepare the full range of options" to respond to the crisis in Libya but the U.S. would coordinate with its allies and partners. He made separate phone calls on Thursday to leaders of France, Britain and Italy.
U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said on Thursday that the United States was expecting to take action in the coming days.
Libyan protesters took to the streets last week in a bid to put an end to Gaddafi's 41-year rule, plunging the OPEC member nation into chaos and bloodshed, pushing up oil prices in the global market.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90852/7300946.html
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Korea: S. Korea requests US for nuclear redeployment
Korea Times
PJ: As the world watches the Middle East, tensions remain on the Korean peninsula with the US, again, in a precarious position where the north (and China) could interpret its actions as provoking conflict.
Chung calls for redeployment of nukes in South
By Kang Hyun-kyung
A senior lawmaker called on the United States, Friday, to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea _ which were withdrawn in 1991 _ to thwart any nuclear threat from North Korea.
The remarks made by Rep. Chung Mong-joon of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) were expected to cause a stir as a nuclear-free Korea has been a core U.S. policy toward the peninsula.
During a parliamentary session, Chung told Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin that South Korea had no other cards to play to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.
“Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea has six nuclear bombs,” he said.
Chung went on to say that he overheard that former Secretary Condoleezza Rice told former U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill that “Don’t try to solve it (North Korea’s nuclear weapons program). Try to manage it.”
The lawmaker took these remarks made by the two U.S. officials as meaning that the U.S. government may accept the North as a nuclear state.
Chung said Seoul cannot accept Pyongyang as a nuclear state under any circumstances.
“But the problem is our hands are tied. We have no options to frustrate the North’s nuclear ambitions,” he said. “That explains why some people here say that South Korea needs to be armed with nuclear weapons. This reflects that we have few other options to tackle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.”
Last November, then Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told a parliamentary committee that South Korea would consider asking the United States to redeploy nuclear weapons. The defense chief’s remarks sparked debate.
Hours after this, an official from the presidential office tried to control the damage. He told reporters on condition of anonymity that there had been no discussion about the redeployment of nuclear weapons to the South and it would never be an agenda item between Seoul and Washington.
Rep. Chung, a presidential hopeful, reignited the controversy months after the former defense minister started it. The lawmaker also questioned China’s motives over the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program.
“China looks as if it opposes a nuclear-armed North. But this may not be its real intention,” he said. “Even though the North has one or two nuclear bombs, China would not feel threatened by this because it also has two other nuclear-armed neighbors in India and Pakistan,” Chung said.
“Some pundits say having a nuclear-armed North Korea as its neighbor is not so bad for China because it will pose a joint threat to the United States and Japan.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung-hwan disagreed. Mentioning his recent talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Kim stressed that there was no question that Beijing stood firm on the dismantlement of Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/02/116_82114.html
PJ: As the world watches the Middle East, tensions remain on the Korean peninsula with the US, again, in a precarious position where the north (and China) could interpret its actions as provoking conflict.
Chung calls for redeployment of nukes in South
By Kang Hyun-kyung
A senior lawmaker called on the United States, Friday, to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea _ which were withdrawn in 1991 _ to thwart any nuclear threat from North Korea.
The remarks made by Rep. Chung Mong-joon of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) were expected to cause a stir as a nuclear-free Korea has been a core U.S. policy toward the peninsula.
During a parliamentary session, Chung told Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin that South Korea had no other cards to play to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.
“Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea has six nuclear bombs,” he said.
Chung went on to say that he overheard that former Secretary Condoleezza Rice told former U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill that “Don’t try to solve it (North Korea’s nuclear weapons program). Try to manage it.”
The lawmaker took these remarks made by the two U.S. officials as meaning that the U.S. government may accept the North as a nuclear state.
Chung said Seoul cannot accept Pyongyang as a nuclear state under any circumstances.
“But the problem is our hands are tied. We have no options to frustrate the North’s nuclear ambitions,” he said. “That explains why some people here say that South Korea needs to be armed with nuclear weapons. This reflects that we have few other options to tackle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.”
Last November, then Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told a parliamentary committee that South Korea would consider asking the United States to redeploy nuclear weapons. The defense chief’s remarks sparked debate.
Hours after this, an official from the presidential office tried to control the damage. He told reporters on condition of anonymity that there had been no discussion about the redeployment of nuclear weapons to the South and it would never be an agenda item between Seoul and Washington.
Rep. Chung, a presidential hopeful, reignited the controversy months after the former defense minister started it. The lawmaker also questioned China’s motives over the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program.
“China looks as if it opposes a nuclear-armed North. But this may not be its real intention,” he said. “Even though the North has one or two nuclear bombs, China would not feel threatened by this because it also has two other nuclear-armed neighbors in India and Pakistan,” Chung said.
“Some pundits say having a nuclear-armed North Korea as its neighbor is not so bad for China because it will pose a joint threat to the United States and Japan.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung-hwan disagreed. Mentioning his recent talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Kim stressed that there was no question that Beijing stood firm on the dismantlement of Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/02/116_82114.html
Middle East: Caos in Libya
Al Jazeera
Libya descends into unprecedented chaos
CAIRO - Protesters Monday overran several Libyan cities and regime stalwarts began defecting as the pillars of Moamer Gathafi's hardline rule were targeted in Tripoli amid reports he had fled the country.
Cities including Benghazi in the east had fallen to demonstrators opposing Gathafi's 41-year-old regime after military units deserted, said the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR).
With gunfire crackling in the streets of Tripoli, protesters also attacked police stations and the offices of the state broadcaster, Gathafi's mouthpiece, as well as setting government buildings ablaze.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon told Gathafi in a phone call that the violence "must stop immediately" and called for a broad-based dialogue, a UN spokesman said.
In Brussels, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Gathafi may be heading to Venezuela, citing "information that suggests he is on his way," but Caracas quickly denied this.
U.S. President Barack Obama was "considering all appropriate actions" on Libya, as Washington ordered out all non-essential staff and warned Americans to avoid travel to the north African country.
Two Libyan warplanes with four personnel on board who said they had escaped Benghazi air base after it was overrun by protesters landed in Malta, military sources said.
Italy put all military air bases on maximum alert after the Libyan fighters landed, ANSA news agency reported.
Two civilian helicopters also arrived in Malta with seven people who said they were French and worked on oil rigs near Benghazi, the Maltese sources said.
Libyan state television said security forces were battling "dens of terrorists" in a sweep that has killed a number of people, without specifying where this was or who was being targeted.
State television reported that Gathafi's son, Seif al-Islam, had set up a commission to probe "the sad events currently taking place in Libya," and that it would include "members of Libyan and foreign rights organisations."
He had already appeared on television overnight to warn that the country faced civil war.
"Libya is at a crossroads. If we do not agree today on reforms... rivers of blood will run through Libya," he said in a fiery but rambling speech that betrayed a note of desperation within his father's regime.
"We will take up arms... we will fight to the last bullet. We will destroy seditious elements. If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other... Libya is not Egypt, it is not Tunisia."
IFHR head Souhayr Belhassen said protesters had control of Benghazi, Sirte, Tobruk in the east, as well as Misrata, Khoms, Tarhounah, Zenten, Al-Zawiya and Zouara, closer to the capital.
Witnesses in Sirte denied that Gathafi's coastal hometown was under the control of protesters, but others in Al-Zawiya told AFP that police had fled that city.
The IFHR said that besides soldiers and diplomats, other senior regime officials had also defected to the side of protesters, demanding that Gathafi go after more than 41 years in power.
It said the protests had resulted in up to 400 deaths. Human Rights Watch earlier cited a death toll of 233.
Protesters in the capital attacked the state broadcaster's offices and overnight set alight branches of the People's Committees that are the mainstay of Gathafi's regime, witnesses told AFP.
Broadcasts on both channels interrupted on Sunday evening resumed on Monday.
"Protesters burned and ransacked the ministry of interior building," in central Tripoli, one witness told AFP by email.
Earlier, heavy gunfire erupted in central Tripoli and other city areas for the first time since the uprising began in eastern Libya, witnesses and an AFP journalist reported.
"When we heard the unrest was approaching, we stocked up on flour and tomatoes. It's definitely the end of the regime. This has never happened in Libya before. We are praying that it ends quickly," a resident of a suburb east of Tripoli told AFP in Cairo by telephone.
Seif al-Islam Gathafi, 38, who holds no formal government post but wields vast influence as heir apparent, suggested that Benghazi was out of government control.
"At this moment there are tanks being driven by civilians in Benghazi," he said, insisting that the uprising was aimed at installing Islamist rule and that it would be ruthlessly crushed.
Libya's justice minister, Mustapha Abdeljalil, resigned in objection to "the excessive use of force" against demonstrators, the Quryna newspaper website reported.
In Cairo, Libya's Arab League envoy said he had resigned to "join the revolution."
Tripoli's ambassador to Delhi also quit, as did a lower-level diplomat in Beijing, Al-Jazeera television reported.
Oil prices soared above $105 per barrel on the turmoil, and the Fitch agency downgraded Libya's debt rating a notch from BBB+ to BBB, adding that a further drop was likely.
British energy giant BP said it was preparing to evacuate some staff from Libya, which holds Africa's biggest oil reserves, and French oil giant Total said it was repatriating most of its expatriate employees and their families.
Portugal and Austria sent military planes to evacuate their nationals, as European governments and firms scrambled to evacuate their citizens from a Libya facing the looming spectre of civil war.
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/Libya-descends-into-unprecedented-chaos.html
Libya descends into unprecedented chaos
CAIRO - Protesters Monday overran several Libyan cities and regime stalwarts began defecting as the pillars of Moamer Gathafi's hardline rule were targeted in Tripoli amid reports he had fled the country.
Cities including Benghazi in the east had fallen to demonstrators opposing Gathafi's 41-year-old regime after military units deserted, said the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR).
With gunfire crackling in the streets of Tripoli, protesters also attacked police stations and the offices of the state broadcaster, Gathafi's mouthpiece, as well as setting government buildings ablaze.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon told Gathafi in a phone call that the violence "must stop immediately" and called for a broad-based dialogue, a UN spokesman said.
In Brussels, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Gathafi may be heading to Venezuela, citing "information that suggests he is on his way," but Caracas quickly denied this.
U.S. President Barack Obama was "considering all appropriate actions" on Libya, as Washington ordered out all non-essential staff and warned Americans to avoid travel to the north African country.
Two Libyan warplanes with four personnel on board who said they had escaped Benghazi air base after it was overrun by protesters landed in Malta, military sources said.
Italy put all military air bases on maximum alert after the Libyan fighters landed, ANSA news agency reported.
Two civilian helicopters also arrived in Malta with seven people who said they were French and worked on oil rigs near Benghazi, the Maltese sources said.
Libyan state television said security forces were battling "dens of terrorists" in a sweep that has killed a number of people, without specifying where this was or who was being targeted.
State television reported that Gathafi's son, Seif al-Islam, had set up a commission to probe "the sad events currently taking place in Libya," and that it would include "members of Libyan and foreign rights organisations."
He had already appeared on television overnight to warn that the country faced civil war.
"Libya is at a crossroads. If we do not agree today on reforms... rivers of blood will run through Libya," he said in a fiery but rambling speech that betrayed a note of desperation within his father's regime.
"We will take up arms... we will fight to the last bullet. We will destroy seditious elements. If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other... Libya is not Egypt, it is not Tunisia."
IFHR head Souhayr Belhassen said protesters had control of Benghazi, Sirte, Tobruk in the east, as well as Misrata, Khoms, Tarhounah, Zenten, Al-Zawiya and Zouara, closer to the capital.
Witnesses in Sirte denied that Gathafi's coastal hometown was under the control of protesters, but others in Al-Zawiya told AFP that police had fled that city.
The IFHR said that besides soldiers and diplomats, other senior regime officials had also defected to the side of protesters, demanding that Gathafi go after more than 41 years in power.
It said the protests had resulted in up to 400 deaths. Human Rights Watch earlier cited a death toll of 233.
Protesters in the capital attacked the state broadcaster's offices and overnight set alight branches of the People's Committees that are the mainstay of Gathafi's regime, witnesses told AFP.
Broadcasts on both channels interrupted on Sunday evening resumed on Monday.
"Protesters burned and ransacked the ministry of interior building," in central Tripoli, one witness told AFP by email.
Earlier, heavy gunfire erupted in central Tripoli and other city areas for the first time since the uprising began in eastern Libya, witnesses and an AFP journalist reported.
"When we heard the unrest was approaching, we stocked up on flour and tomatoes. It's definitely the end of the regime. This has never happened in Libya before. We are praying that it ends quickly," a resident of a suburb east of Tripoli told AFP in Cairo by telephone.
Seif al-Islam Gathafi, 38, who holds no formal government post but wields vast influence as heir apparent, suggested that Benghazi was out of government control.
"At this moment there are tanks being driven by civilians in Benghazi," he said, insisting that the uprising was aimed at installing Islamist rule and that it would be ruthlessly crushed.
Libya's justice minister, Mustapha Abdeljalil, resigned in objection to "the excessive use of force" against demonstrators, the Quryna newspaper website reported.
In Cairo, Libya's Arab League envoy said he had resigned to "join the revolution."
Tripoli's ambassador to Delhi also quit, as did a lower-level diplomat in Beijing, Al-Jazeera television reported.
Oil prices soared above $105 per barrel on the turmoil, and the Fitch agency downgraded Libya's debt rating a notch from BBB+ to BBB, adding that a further drop was likely.
British energy giant BP said it was preparing to evacuate some staff from Libya, which holds Africa's biggest oil reserves, and French oil giant Total said it was repatriating most of its expatriate employees and their families.
Portugal and Austria sent military planes to evacuate their nationals, as European governments and firms scrambled to evacuate their citizens from a Libya facing the looming spectre of civil war.
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/Libya-descends-into-unprecedented-chaos.html
Friday, February 25, 2011
India: Venezuela echoes Cuba's accusation about collusion in Libya
Indian Express
PJ: Just as Gaddafi makes claims about the reason for the unrest (about how, aided by the US, bin Laden is drugging the protesters), leaders in Venezuela and Cuba have echoed each other's claims of conspiracy by the west. Could it be that the three leaders, who rule their countries with an iron fist, fear for their power? And by making the west, or the US, the enemy they might escape the fate of Mubarak?
Venezuela: US, allies fomenting Libya's violence
Venezuela's top diplomat on Thursday echoed Fidel Castro's accusation that Washington and its allies are fomenting unrest in Libya to justify an invasion to seize North African nation's oil reserves.
Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro claimed the United States and other powerful countries are trying to create a movement inside Libya aimed at toppling Moammar Gaddafi.
Maduro did not condemn or defend the violent crackdown on Libyans participating in the popular uprising against Gaddafi's long rule.
He called for a peaceful solution to the upheaval in Libya and questioned the veracity of media reports on the bloody uprising, which has crept closer to Gaddafi's stronghold in Tripoli.
"They are creating conditions to justify an invasion of Libya," Maduro said.
"Libya is going through difficult times, which should not be measured with information from imperial news agencies," Maduro added, referring to Western media.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/venezuela-us-allies-fomenting-libyas-violence/754694/
PJ: Just as Gaddafi makes claims about the reason for the unrest (about how, aided by the US, bin Laden is drugging the protesters), leaders in Venezuela and Cuba have echoed each other's claims of conspiracy by the west. Could it be that the three leaders, who rule their countries with an iron fist, fear for their power? And by making the west, or the US, the enemy they might escape the fate of Mubarak?
Venezuela: US, allies fomenting Libya's violence
Venezuela's top diplomat on Thursday echoed Fidel Castro's accusation that Washington and its allies are fomenting unrest in Libya to justify an invasion to seize North African nation's oil reserves.
Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro claimed the United States and other powerful countries are trying to create a movement inside Libya aimed at toppling Moammar Gaddafi.
Maduro did not condemn or defend the violent crackdown on Libyans participating in the popular uprising against Gaddafi's long rule.
He called for a peaceful solution to the upheaval in Libya and questioned the veracity of media reports on the bloody uprising, which has crept closer to Gaddafi's stronghold in Tripoli.
"They are creating conditions to justify an invasion of Libya," Maduro said.
"Libya is going through difficult times, which should not be measured with information from imperial news agencies," Maduro added, referring to Western media.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/venezuela-us-allies-fomenting-libyas-violence/754694/
India: Clinton recognizes teachings of Gandhi in Middle East protests
India Express
Clinton sees validation of Gandhi's principles in Egypt
Effusively praising Egypt's youth for bringing about a bloodless revolution, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the success of the country's uprising had validated yet again the principles propounded by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
In a web-social media interaction with Egyptians and later in her remarks at a conference, Clinton said leaders like Gandhi and King showed to the world how to bring transformation without picking a gun.
She said their teachings become all the more relevant in today's context when people across the Middle East have taken to the streets, protesting peacefully for change.
"I am very proud of what Egyptian young people have done. You have set such an extraordinary example of non-violent, peaceful protest," Clinton said during her social media dialogue with Ahmed Ghanim of Egypt for which more than 6,500 questions were received through Facebook, Twitter and Masrawy.com.
A
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/clinton-sees-validation-of-gandhis-principles-in-egypt/754330/
Clinton sees validation of Gandhi's principles in Egypt
Effusively praising Egypt's youth for bringing about a bloodless revolution, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the success of the country's uprising had validated yet again the principles propounded by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
In a web-social media interaction with Egyptians and later in her remarks at a conference, Clinton said leaders like Gandhi and King showed to the world how to bring transformation without picking a gun.
She said their teachings become all the more relevant in today's context when people across the Middle East have taken to the streets, protesting peacefully for change.
"I am very proud of what Egyptian young people have done. You have set such an extraordinary example of non-violent, peaceful protest," Clinton said during her social media dialogue with Ahmed Ghanim of Egypt for which more than 6,500 questions were received through Facebook, Twitter and Masrawy.com.
A
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/clinton-sees-validation-of-gandhis-principles-in-egypt/754330/
India (via Time): What to expect when Palin goes to India
Global Spin Blog (Time)
PJ: To read the comments on this article, click on the link provided below.
What to Expect When Sarah Palin Goes to India
Posted by Ishaan Tharoor
Sarah Palin is going to India next month to speak at the 10th annual India Today Conclave, a high profile talk shop of "global thought leaders" hosted in the Indian capital by one of the country's leading magazines (its cover design is conspicuously similar to another newsweekly with a red border). Palin will be speaking alongside heavyweights such as Mohammed ElBaradei — at one stage, the figurehead of Egypt's pro-democracy movement — feminist firebrand Germaine Greer, and the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Her speech, according to reports, is tentatively titled "My Vision for America."
Televised adventures in Alaska notwithstanding, Palin is not known to be much of a traveler. I was on the scene in September 2009 when she delivered her first speech abroad, in Hong Kong, at a packed conference of bankers and fund managers. Those in attendance represented, according to that conference's PR flaks, some $10 trillion in assets, and though no official figure came out, it's safe to assume Palin commanded a six-figures speaker's fee. Moreover, her address was strictly off-limits to the press, and so we grubby servants of the fourth estate had to chase desperately around the lobby of Hong Kong's Grand Hyatt, seeking comments from pinstriped Masters of the Universe who had heard Palin speak. What we pieced together was... interesting.
Here are some highlights, from my report of the event.
She spoke of the Great Recession...
Addressing the financial crisis, she declared there was no need for new regulation: "Lack of government wasn't the problem. Government policies were the problem. The markets didn't fail. Government failed."
... talked about her connections to Asia:
According to many delegates, Palin's home state of Alaska dominated the talk. "She rambled on about the place for ages," says an Indian banker with a major U.S. firm. "Palin even talked about Alaska's land bridges with Asia and how animals once went across." Based on a recording it reviewed, the Wall Street Journal says Palin invoked her husband Todd's Eskimo heritage as a sign of shared "bloodlines" between the continents.
... and didn't take many questions:
Though dubbed "a conversation with Sarah Palin," the event turned out to be more of a monologue. She spoke for almost 90 minutes, all the way to 2 p.m., when the session was supposed to end. As an attendee said while walking out, "she clearly wanted to keep talking so there'd be no questions."
In retrospect, it seems the Hong Kong speech was a kind of beginner's level as Palin cultivates her political persona abroad. Insulated by a phalanx of business elites in a slick chrome and glass city that is ruled, ultimately, by authoritarian Beijing, Palin had the luxury of jetting in, checking into her suite at the Hyatt, and slipping away through back corridors surrounded by an officious security cordon. It's unclear if she spent even a moment seeing any of Hong Kong's tourist sites. In any event, no one in the city seemed to care — while Hong Kong's foreign press corps ran around like headless chickens, few of the city's prominent local tabloids even sent a reporter to cover the event.
That will probably not be the case in India, where its voluble media — especially its many English language 24-hour cable news networks and newspapers — have the resources and the interest to throw the proverbial full court press at Palin. It's also hard to imagine India Today, a magazine, preventing other journalists from covering the event. Palin and her speechwriters will have to be prepared for the intensity of the media glare that falls on public figures in India. A lot of things can go very wrong for a foreign dignitary caught up in the heat of the moment. Just ask Prince Charles.
About Ishaan Tharoor
Ishaan Tharoor is a writer-reporter at TIME's headquarters in New York and editor of the Global Spin blog. After graduating from Yale, he joined TIME in 2006 at its Asia headquarters in Hong Kong and went on to report extensively on Asian geopolitics, traveling to, among other places, Maoist camps in Nepal, election rallies in the far south of the Philippines and to Mumbai in the aftermath of the 2008 terror attacks. He is an Indian by citizenship and a New Yorker by upbringing.
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/02/24/what-to-expect-when-sarah-palin-goes-to-india/#respond
PJ: To read the comments on this article, click on the link provided below.
What to Expect When Sarah Palin Goes to India
Posted by Ishaan Tharoor
Sarah Palin is going to India next month to speak at the 10th annual India Today Conclave, a high profile talk shop of "global thought leaders" hosted in the Indian capital by one of the country's leading magazines (its cover design is conspicuously similar to another newsweekly with a red border). Palin will be speaking alongside heavyweights such as Mohammed ElBaradei — at one stage, the figurehead of Egypt's pro-democracy movement — feminist firebrand Germaine Greer, and the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Her speech, according to reports, is tentatively titled "My Vision for America."
Televised adventures in Alaska notwithstanding, Palin is not known to be much of a traveler. I was on the scene in September 2009 when she delivered her first speech abroad, in Hong Kong, at a packed conference of bankers and fund managers. Those in attendance represented, according to that conference's PR flaks, some $10 trillion in assets, and though no official figure came out, it's safe to assume Palin commanded a six-figures speaker's fee. Moreover, her address was strictly off-limits to the press, and so we grubby servants of the fourth estate had to chase desperately around the lobby of Hong Kong's Grand Hyatt, seeking comments from pinstriped Masters of the Universe who had heard Palin speak. What we pieced together was... interesting.
Here are some highlights, from my report of the event.
She spoke of the Great Recession...
Addressing the financial crisis, she declared there was no need for new regulation: "Lack of government wasn't the problem. Government policies were the problem. The markets didn't fail. Government failed."
... talked about her connections to Asia:
According to many delegates, Palin's home state of Alaska dominated the talk. "She rambled on about the place for ages," says an Indian banker with a major U.S. firm. "Palin even talked about Alaska's land bridges with Asia and how animals once went across." Based on a recording it reviewed, the Wall Street Journal says Palin invoked her husband Todd's Eskimo heritage as a sign of shared "bloodlines" between the continents.
... and didn't take many questions:
Though dubbed "a conversation with Sarah Palin," the event turned out to be more of a monologue. She spoke for almost 90 minutes, all the way to 2 p.m., when the session was supposed to end. As an attendee said while walking out, "she clearly wanted to keep talking so there'd be no questions."
In retrospect, it seems the Hong Kong speech was a kind of beginner's level as Palin cultivates her political persona abroad. Insulated by a phalanx of business elites in a slick chrome and glass city that is ruled, ultimately, by authoritarian Beijing, Palin had the luxury of jetting in, checking into her suite at the Hyatt, and slipping away through back corridors surrounded by an officious security cordon. It's unclear if she spent even a moment seeing any of Hong Kong's tourist sites. In any event, no one in the city seemed to care — while Hong Kong's foreign press corps ran around like headless chickens, few of the city's prominent local tabloids even sent a reporter to cover the event.
That will probably not be the case in India, where its voluble media — especially its many English language 24-hour cable news networks and newspapers — have the resources and the interest to throw the proverbial full court press at Palin. It's also hard to imagine India Today, a magazine, preventing other journalists from covering the event. Palin and her speechwriters will have to be prepared for the intensity of the media glare that falls on public figures in India. A lot of things can go very wrong for a foreign dignitary caught up in the heat of the moment. Just ask Prince Charles.
About Ishaan Tharoor
Ishaan Tharoor is a writer-reporter at TIME's headquarters in New York and editor of the Global Spin blog. After graduating from Yale, he joined TIME in 2006 at its Asia headquarters in Hong Kong and went on to report extensively on Asian geopolitics, traveling to, among other places, Maoist camps in Nepal, election rallies in the far south of the Philippines and to Mumbai in the aftermath of the 2008 terror attacks. He is an Indian by citizenship and a New Yorker by upbringing.
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/02/24/what-to-expect-when-sarah-palin-goes-to-india/#respond
UK: The fall of the US?
Telegraph
How will America handle the fall of its Middle East empire?
By Peter Oborne
Empires can collapse in the course of a generation. At the end of the 16th century, the Spanish looked dominant. Twenty-five years later, they were on their knees, over-extended, bankrupt, and incapable of coping with the emergent maritime powers of Britain and Holland. The British empire reached its fullest extent in 1930. Twenty years later, it was all over.
Today, it is reasonable to ask whether the United States, seemingly invincible a decade ago, will follow the same trajectory. America has suffered two convulsive blows in the last three years. The first was the financial crisis of 2008, whose consequences are yet to be properly felt. Although the immediate cause was the debacle in the mortgage market, the underlying problem was chronic imbalance in the economy.
For a number of years, America has been incapable of funding its domestic programmes and overseas commitments without resorting to massive help from China, its global rival. China has a pressing motive to assist: it needs to sustain US demand in order to provide a market for its exports and thus avert an economic crisis of its own. This situation is the contemporary equivalent of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the doctrine which prevented nuclear war breaking out between America and Russia.
Unlike MAD, this pact is unsustainable. But Barack Obama has not sought to address the problem. Instead, he responded to the crisis with the same failed policies that caused the trouble in the first place: easy credit and yet more debt. It is certain that America will, in due course, be forced into a massive adjustment both to its living standards at home and its commitments abroad.
This matters because, following the second convulsive blow, America’s global interests are under threat on a scale never before seen. Since 1956, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles pulled the plug on Britain and France over Suez, the Arab world has been a US domain. At first, there were promises that it would tolerate independence and self-determination. But this did not last long; America chose to govern through brutal and corrupt dictators, supplied with arms, military training and advice from Washington.
The momentous importance of the last few weeks is that this profitable, though morally bankrupt, arrangement appears to be coming to an end. One of the choicest ironies of the bloody and macabre death throes of the regime in Libya is that Colonel Gaddafi would have been wiser to have stayed out of the US sphere of influence. When he joined forces with George Bush and Tony Blair five years ago, the ageing dictator was leaping on to a bandwagon that was about to grind to a halt.
In Washington, President Obama has not been stressing this aspect of affairs. Instead, after hesitation, he has presented the recent uprisings as democratic and even pro-American, indeed a triumph for the latest methods of Western communication such as Twitter and Facebook. Many sympathetic commentators have therefore claimed that the Arab revolutions bear comparison with the 1989 uprising of the peoples of Eastern Europe against Soviet tyranny.
I would guess that the analogy is apt. Just as 1989 saw the collapse of the Russian empire in Eastern Europe, so it now looks as if 2011 will mark the removal of many of America’s client regimes in the Arab world. It is highly unlikely, however, that events will thereafter take the tidy path the White House would prefer. Far from being inspired by Twitter, a great many of Arab people who have driven the sensational events of recent weeks are illiterate. They have been impelled into action by mass poverty and unemployment, allied to a sense of disgust at vast divergences of wealth and grotesque corruption. It is too early to chart the future course of events with confidence, but it seems unlikely that these liberated peoples will look to Washington and New York as their political or economic model.
The great question is whether America will take its diminished status gracefully, or whether it will lash out, as empires in trouble are historically prone to do. Here the White House response gives cause for concern. American insensitivity is well demonstrated in the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA man who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore. Hillary Clinton is trying to bully Pakistan into awarding Davis diplomatic immunity. This is incredible behaviour, which shows that the US continues to regard itself as above the law. Were President Zardari, already seen by his fellow countrymen as a pro-American stooge, to comply, his government would almost certainly fall.
Or take President Obama’s decision last week to veto the UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Even America itself accepts that these settlements are illegal. At a time when the Middle East is already mutinous, this course of action looks mad.
The biggest problem is that America wants democracy, but only on its own terms. A very good example of this concerns the election of a Hamas government in Gaza in 2006. This should have been a hopeful moment for the Middle East peace process: the election of a government with the legitimacy and power to end violence. But America refused to engage with Hamas, just as it has refused to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or to acknowledge the well-founded regional aspirations of Iran.
The history of the Arab world since the collapse of the Ottoman caliphate in 1922 can be divided schematically into two periods: open colonial rule under the British and French, followed by America’s invisible empire after the Second World War. Now we are entering a third epoch, when Arab nations, and in due course others, will assert their independence. It is highly unlikely that all of them will choose a path that the Americans want. From the evidence available, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are muddled and incapable of grasping the nature of current events.
This is where the British, who have deep historical connections with the region, and whose own loss of empire is still within living memory, ought to be able to offer wise and practical advice. So far the Prime Minister, a neophyte in foreign affairs, has not done so. His regional tour of Middle Eastern capitals with a caravan of arms dealers made sense only in terms of the broken settlement of the last 50 years. His speeches might have been scripted by Tony Blair a decade ago, with the identical evasions and hypocrisies. There was no acknowledgment of the great paradigm shift in global politics.
The links between the US and British defence, security and foreign policy establishments are so close that perhaps it is no longer possible for any British government to act independently. When challenged, our ministers always say that we use our influence “behind the scenes” with American allies, rather than challenge them in the open. But this, too, is a failed tactic. I am told, for example, that William Hague tried hard to persuade Hillary Clinton not to veto last week’s Security Council resolution, but was ignored. It is time we became a much more candid friend, because the world is changing faster than we know.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100077625/how-will-america-handle-the-fall-of-its-middle-east-empire/
How will America handle the fall of its Middle East empire?
By Peter Oborne
Empires can collapse in the course of a generation. At the end of the 16th century, the Spanish looked dominant. Twenty-five years later, they were on their knees, over-extended, bankrupt, and incapable of coping with the emergent maritime powers of Britain and Holland. The British empire reached its fullest extent in 1930. Twenty years later, it was all over.
Today, it is reasonable to ask whether the United States, seemingly invincible a decade ago, will follow the same trajectory. America has suffered two convulsive blows in the last three years. The first was the financial crisis of 2008, whose consequences are yet to be properly felt. Although the immediate cause was the debacle in the mortgage market, the underlying problem was chronic imbalance in the economy.
For a number of years, America has been incapable of funding its domestic programmes and overseas commitments without resorting to massive help from China, its global rival. China has a pressing motive to assist: it needs to sustain US demand in order to provide a market for its exports and thus avert an economic crisis of its own. This situation is the contemporary equivalent of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the doctrine which prevented nuclear war breaking out between America and Russia.
Unlike MAD, this pact is unsustainable. But Barack Obama has not sought to address the problem. Instead, he responded to the crisis with the same failed policies that caused the trouble in the first place: easy credit and yet more debt. It is certain that America will, in due course, be forced into a massive adjustment both to its living standards at home and its commitments abroad.
This matters because, following the second convulsive blow, America’s global interests are under threat on a scale never before seen. Since 1956, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles pulled the plug on Britain and France over Suez, the Arab world has been a US domain. At first, there were promises that it would tolerate independence and self-determination. But this did not last long; America chose to govern through brutal and corrupt dictators, supplied with arms, military training and advice from Washington.
The momentous importance of the last few weeks is that this profitable, though morally bankrupt, arrangement appears to be coming to an end. One of the choicest ironies of the bloody and macabre death throes of the regime in Libya is that Colonel Gaddafi would have been wiser to have stayed out of the US sphere of influence. When he joined forces with George Bush and Tony Blair five years ago, the ageing dictator was leaping on to a bandwagon that was about to grind to a halt.
In Washington, President Obama has not been stressing this aspect of affairs. Instead, after hesitation, he has presented the recent uprisings as democratic and even pro-American, indeed a triumph for the latest methods of Western communication such as Twitter and Facebook. Many sympathetic commentators have therefore claimed that the Arab revolutions bear comparison with the 1989 uprising of the peoples of Eastern Europe against Soviet tyranny.
I would guess that the analogy is apt. Just as 1989 saw the collapse of the Russian empire in Eastern Europe, so it now looks as if 2011 will mark the removal of many of America’s client regimes in the Arab world. It is highly unlikely, however, that events will thereafter take the tidy path the White House would prefer. Far from being inspired by Twitter, a great many of Arab people who have driven the sensational events of recent weeks are illiterate. They have been impelled into action by mass poverty and unemployment, allied to a sense of disgust at vast divergences of wealth and grotesque corruption. It is too early to chart the future course of events with confidence, but it seems unlikely that these liberated peoples will look to Washington and New York as their political or economic model.
The great question is whether America will take its diminished status gracefully, or whether it will lash out, as empires in trouble are historically prone to do. Here the White House response gives cause for concern. American insensitivity is well demonstrated in the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA man who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore. Hillary Clinton is trying to bully Pakistan into awarding Davis diplomatic immunity. This is incredible behaviour, which shows that the US continues to regard itself as above the law. Were President Zardari, already seen by his fellow countrymen as a pro-American stooge, to comply, his government would almost certainly fall.
Or take President Obama’s decision last week to veto the UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Even America itself accepts that these settlements are illegal. At a time when the Middle East is already mutinous, this course of action looks mad.
The biggest problem is that America wants democracy, but only on its own terms. A very good example of this concerns the election of a Hamas government in Gaza in 2006. This should have been a hopeful moment for the Middle East peace process: the election of a government with the legitimacy and power to end violence. But America refused to engage with Hamas, just as it has refused to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or to acknowledge the well-founded regional aspirations of Iran.
The history of the Arab world since the collapse of the Ottoman caliphate in 1922 can be divided schematically into two periods: open colonial rule under the British and French, followed by America’s invisible empire after the Second World War. Now we are entering a third epoch, when Arab nations, and in due course others, will assert their independence. It is highly unlikely that all of them will choose a path that the Americans want. From the evidence available, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are muddled and incapable of grasping the nature of current events.
This is where the British, who have deep historical connections with the region, and whose own loss of empire is still within living memory, ought to be able to offer wise and practical advice. So far the Prime Minister, a neophyte in foreign affairs, has not done so. His regional tour of Middle Eastern capitals with a caravan of arms dealers made sense only in terms of the broken settlement of the last 50 years. His speeches might have been scripted by Tony Blair a decade ago, with the identical evasions and hypocrisies. There was no acknowledgment of the great paradigm shift in global politics.
The links between the US and British defence, security and foreign policy establishments are so close that perhaps it is no longer possible for any British government to act independently. When challenged, our ministers always say that we use our influence “behind the scenes” with American allies, rather than challenge them in the open. But this, too, is a failed tactic. I am told, for example, that William Hague tried hard to persuade Hillary Clinton not to veto last week’s Security Council resolution, but was ignored. It is time we became a much more candid friend, because the world is changing faster than we know.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100077625/how-will-america-handle-the-fall-of-its-middle-east-empire/
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