#what lies ahead in india-pakistan relations | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

go-redgirl · 4 years ago

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Breaking: Donald Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize Metro ^ | Sep 9th | Jen Mills

US President Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.

The nomination came from right-wing Norwegian politician Christian Tybring-Gjedde and relates to the ‘historic peace agreement’ between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. ‘For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,’ Tybring-Gjedde said to Fox News.

He said in his nomination letter: ‘As it is expected other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE, this agreement could be a game changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity.’

He also discussed the president’s ‘key role in facilitating contact between conflicting parties and … creating new dynamics in other protracted conflicts, such as the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan, and the conflict between North and South Korea, as well as dealing with the nuclear capabilities of North Korea.’

Tybring-Gjedde also said that Trump had withdrawn many US soldiers from the Middle East.

Last year, Donald Trump said: ‘I think I’m going to get a Nobel Prize for a lot of things, if they gave it out fairly, which they don’t.

‘They gave it out — well, they gave one to Obama immediately upon his ascent to the presidency, and he had no idea why he got it. And you know what? That was the only thing I agreed with him on.’

TOPICS: Breaking News; Culture/Society; Israel; News/Current Events; War on Terror

KEYWORDS: abrahamaccords; braking; israel; jerusalem; lets have jerusalem

;mohammedbinzayed; nobel; nobelpeaceprize; search; trump;uae; nitedarabemirates;waronterror

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INDIVIDUALS/COMMENTS/POSTS:

To: RandFan

Great move!!! Bravo,Trumpie!!! Upcoming Trump Political Rallies this week:

- Freeland, Michigan, Thursday,09/010/2020

- Reno, Nevada, Saturday, 09/12/2020

- Las Vegas, Nevada, Sunday, 09/13/2020

Be there with tens of thousands loyal POTUS, Donald J. Trump supporters to celebrate & cheer our fantastic, great POTUS, Trump!!!

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To: cgbg

He should definitely get it.

Looks at his accomplishments..

posted on9/9/2020, 5:59:22 AM byRandFan (3C)

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To: RandFan

This is YUGE! So proud of him!He’s also brokering Kosovo-Serbia & other Gulf countries now want to do business with Israel because of the UAE-Israel deal. I think that Bahrain, Oman & Qatar are on deck.

posted on 9/9/2020, 6:02:11 AM by Silvie Waldorf MD (A Realistically Really Real Housewife)

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To: RandFan

Dems are going to LOSE THEIR SH!T today!

Exploding heads, for sure!

Grab some popcorn.There is not one word on *NN about this!

Not one word!

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To: USS AlaskaI

just looked it up Alaska and you’re right.. though its still news he has been nominated. I wonder if anyone will cover it.

posted on 9/9/2020, 6:35:20 AM by RandFan (3C)

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To: cgbg

Obama did nothing for “peace”, just the opposite.15 posted on 9/9/2020, 6:39:03 AM by caww

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To: a real Sheila

Any of us still on Facebook should post this all day long. That may be the only way our d friends and relatives will know. They will not believe us because they didn’t hear it on TV. Lol!!

posted on 9/9/2020, 7:16:52 AM by EnquiringMind

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To: RandFan

The Rats are going to freak over this one. 😂

posted on 9/9/2020, 7:18:54 AM by hawkaw

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To: RandFan

Excellent...No one has ever deserved it more. And it would be for real....unlike Obama.28

posted on 9/9/2020, 7:24:51 AM by Sacajaweau

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To: EnquiringMind; All

I’m still on Facebook with 5,000 friends. I will post it.

posted on 9/9/2020, 7:27:53 AM by BlackFemaleArmyColonel (No weapon formed against me shall prosper! (Isaiah 54:17))

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To: BlackFemaleArmyColonel

Perfect!

I just posted it, too.31 posted on 9/9/2020, 7:28:45 AM by EnquiringMind

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To: wastedyears

what! a worthy recipient at last?33

posted on 9/9/2020, 7:36:56 AM by MAGAthon

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To: cdcdawg

Trump hasn’t started any wars. That’s at the root of why they hate him, particularly the ones in his own party.^^Truth^^

posted on 9/9/2020, 7:48:59 AM by silent_jonny ("Forward to what lies ahead" ~ Phil. 3:13)

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To: RandFan

Trump should also get a peace prize for ending the Obama/ISIS caliphate, the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe, and the impending war with North Korea.

There is probably more.

posted on 9/9/2020, 7:52:27 AM by UnwashedPeasant (Trump is solving the world's problems only to distract us from Russia.)

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To: RandFan

He deserves it. The media has been deliberately hiding the deal brokered by Trump and instead finding little things to trash him over.

posted on 9/9/2020, 8:32:57 AM by I want the USA back (The media is acting full-on as the Democratic Party's press agency now: Robert Spencer)

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OPINION: Wow! That’s outstanding news to hear. He most certainly deserve it. 👍🌈 🇱🇷😇🍀

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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In December, here is what the government did - india news

At the end of each month, Hindustan Times will bring to its readers an update of the key decisions in government, their significance, and what lies ahead for the ministries concerned.Here is a snapshot of all that happened in December, in the first instalment of the series:Ministry of FinanceThe big decision: The finance ministry focused on the implementation of the 32 measures it took to stimulate the economy since August 2019 and engaged with various sectors to address issues faced by them. Two most important focus areas have been measures to boost investment and consumption.Significance: The ministry is seeking to help industry by resolving regulatory bottlenecks so that the September 20 decision of reducing Corporate Tax rates, which was aimed at attracting investments, can be effective.On the consumption front, the public sector banks’ (PSBs) customer outreach saw investors and retail consumers borrowing a whopping Rs 4,91,834 crore in just two months. In order to incentivise bank officials, the government on December 28 announced a mechanism to protect banks’ executives for their genuine commercial decision.What next: The Budget is expected to be presented in Parliament on February 1, 2020, amidst concerns of economic slowdown. The Budget is expected to boost consumption by giving more money in the hands of people through relaxations in personal taxation and by enhancing amount of the direct transfer of benefits in the bank accounts of the poor, particularly in the rural areas. It is also expected to bring more regulatory reforms for ease of doing business to boost investments.Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)The big decision: India and Iran have agreed on measures to boost the economic viability of Chabahar port after achieving the political objectives behind developing the facility on the Gulf of Oman, including a route to access Afghanistan while bypassing Pakistan.Significance: India will offer incentives such as higher subsidies to attract more merchant shipping to Chabahar. The waiver offered by the US for the port will help India push the acquisition of equipment such as cranes to improve the efficiency of Chabahar.What next: The MEA will have to focus on improving ties with Bangladesh, which have been hit in recent months by the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship (Amendment) Act and remarks by top BJP leaders about deporting infiltrators.Ministry of DefenceThe big decision: The government cleared the appointment of India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) who will be a four-star General and head the new department of military affairs in the defence ministry, four months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his Independence Day speech the creation of the post for more effective coordination between the three armed forces.Significance: The appointment of the CDS - pending for almost two decades after the Kargil Review Committee recommended it - is a major reform in India’s higher defence management. While the CDS would act as the principal military adviser to the defence minister on all tri-services matters, the three service chiefs would continue to advise the minister on matters exclusively concerning their respective services.What next: The new department, under the CDS, will focus on promoting jointness in procurement, training and staffing for the three services through joint planning and integration of their requirements. It will also facilitate the restructuring of military commands for optimal utilisation of resources by bringing about jointness in operations, including through establishment of joint/theatre commands.Ministry of Home AffairsThe big decision: The ministry shepherded the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in Parliament, which provides for expedited citizenship to religious minorities from three neighbouring countries. The government subsequently announced the decision to update the National Population Register (NPR), which is a list of ‘usual residents’ of the country, from April till September, 2020. The Cabinet also approved Rs 3,941 crore for the exercise. Subsequently, Rs 8,754 crore was earmarked for Census 2021.Significance: The CAA has provoked widespread protests across the country. In the case of NPR, demographic details of every individual are required for every resident on 21 points including date and place of birth of parents, last place of residence, Permanent Account Number (PAN), Aadhaar (on a voluntary basis), voter ID card number, driving license number and mobile number. In the last NPR done in 2010, the data was collected on the 15 points. It didn’t include ‘date and place of birth of parents’ and last place of residence. NPR is different from National Register of Citizens (NRC), which excludes the foreigners. Opposition parties have said that NPR is the first step towards the NRC while the government has claimed they are not linked.What next: A big challenge lies ahead for the ministry of home affairs in January as the anti-CAA protests refuse to die down and paramilitary forces deployed for law and order duties are overburdened since General elections, nullification of article 370 in Kashmir, elections in several states and recent violence.Ministry of AgricultureThe big decision: The ministry decided to create a database of all farmers in the country, based on Aadhaar, for a unified and integrated IT-based repository, containing multiple information about a farm household, from financial details to landholdings. Aadhaar-based data generated from key farm-sector programmes such as PM-KISAN and soil health cards will be used.Significance: Farm subsidies worth thousands of crores - including cheap insurance, fertilisers, credit and cash transfers - still suffer from leakages because very little information about individual farmers is centrally available at the federal level. The database will help direct subsidies better.What next: Streamlining of major subsidies, both in cash and in-kind handouts like fertilizer to ensure efficient targeting and last-mile delivery.Ministry of Human Resource DevelopmentBig decision: The go-ahead given by higher education sector regulator University Grants Commission to the concept of on demand examinations is a major step in the direction of evaluation reforms.Significance: For long, examinations in Indian education system evoke images of nervous youngsters memorising stuff by rote for year end tests which will decide their academic progress. A committee set up under eminent educationist M M Salunkhe surveyed all areas related to evaluation and suggested a number of steps to bring the process to match the needs of the present times. The most prominent of these being exams which would be taken as and when the student is ready. The UGC guidelines on evaluation reforms which were based on the Salunkhe report were released by Union Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank earlier this month.What next: The guidelines suggest the setting up of a national board that will conduct these exams. However, considering the scale at which college and university exams are held in India, it’s a long road ahead before the required infrastructure is in place. The guidelines say that initially the board can start conducting exams for popular degree programs especially for open distance mode. Ministry of road transport and highways The big decision: In a move aimed to reduce bottlenecks at national highways, the Centre mandated that all lanes of national highways toll plazas to be declared as “FASTag lanes” by December 15, 2019. The Centre’s earlier deadline mandating FASTags by December 1 had been postponed to December 15 to provide some more time to citizens to buy and put FASTag on their vehicles.Significance: FASTags are aimed at reducing bottlenecks at highways. The move aims to reduce wait time at toll plazas and enhance digital payment through NHAI’s electronic toll collection.What next: The ministry had mandated all lanes but one to remain open for cash collection. In it’s order dated December 14, it relaxed the norms to allow cash payment for at least 25% of the total lanes. Following the initial roll out phase, it will mandate only FASTags across all lanes.Ministry of railwaysThe big decision: In a major move to reform the 150-year-old railway board of the Indian Railways, the union Cabinet on Tuesday approved to restructure the apex body of the Indian Railways by trimming its strength to half, and unifying its eight railways services into a central service called the Indian Railway Management Service.Significance: The reforms are aimed at ending departmentalisation of the mammoth organization that employees nearly 1.3 million people, second only to the strength of the Armed Forces. Unlike railway systems the world over, which have been corporatised, the Indian Railways is managed by the government directly. It is organised into various departments such as traffic, civil, mechanical, electrical, signal & telecom, stores, personnel, and accounts among others. Unification of services is aimed at ending this ‘departmentalism’, promote smooth working of Railways, expedite decision making, create a coherent vision for organisation and promote rational decision making.What next: The India Railways has an ambitious programme to modernise and provide higher safety standards of safety, speed and services to the passengers with a proposed investment of Rs 50 lakh crore over the next 12 years. This requires speed and scale, and a unified, agile organisation to work single-mindedly on this task and capable of responding to challenges. Read the full article

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spicynbachili1 · 6 years ago

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Pakistan and India break ground on visa-free Kartarpur corridor | India News

Islamabad/New Delhi – Nestled within the verdant inexperienced rice fields of Pakistan’s jap Narowal district, the white domes of the Sri Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara make a putting distinction.

Centuries in the past, it’s stated, Guru Nanak, the founding father of Sikhism, spent his ultimate days on this small village, farming the fields and formalising most of the practices of what would grow to be a faith adopted by greater than 25 million around the globe.

When he died, in 1539, the legend goes that he was so revered by each Hindus and Muslims that there was a dispute over how his stays ought to be handled: ought to he be buried, within the Islamic custom, or cremated, as Hindus wished.

At present, on the Sikh gurdwara, or place of worship, constructed over his ultimate resting place, there may be each a Muslim grave, and a Hindu samadh, marking his passing.

A number of kilometres away, Sikhs collect at a podium to view some of the sacred websites of their faith, lining as much as pay tribute to Guru Nanak by viewing the gurdwara by means of a set of binoculars.

They’re unable to entry the positioning, simply 5 kilometres away, as a result of between the 2 gurdwaras lies an impediment that has been virtually insurmountable for many: the worldwide border between India and Pakistan.

All that, nevertheless, is about to vary.

Opening new period

On Wednesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated a brand new visa-free hall between the gurdwara at Kartarpur and the Indian city of Dera Baba Nanak, about six kilometres away.

Sikh pilgrims will be capable of journey freely between the 2 holy websites with out visas for the primary time because the border was established right here in 1947, when India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain.

Khan, inaugurating the mission, which is able to see the development of a brand new highway and bridge that will hyperlink the 2 websites, spoke of eager to open a brand new period of relations between India and Pakistan.

“There have been errors on either side [in the past], however we will be unable to maneuver ahead till we break the chains of the previous,” stated Khan. “The previous is there solely to show us, not for us to stay in.”

Additionally current on the event have been Indian federal ministers Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri, and provincial Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu.

The inauguration in Pakistan follows an analogous occasion on the Indian facet of the border earlier this week, attended by the chief minister of India’s Punjab province and the nation’s vice-president. The hall will formally open subsequent yr, in time for the 550th beginning anniversary celebrations for Guru Nanak.

It marks a uncommon second of positivity in relations between the 2 South Asian nations, who’ve fought three wars since gaining independence and between whom dialogue has been stalled for years.

Indian cricketer-turned-politician Sidhu was current at Wednesday’s inauguration [KM Chaudary/AP]

Earlier this yr, India cancelled deliberate international minister stage talks on the sidelines of the United Nations Normal Meeting, following the killing of Indian safety forces personnel within the disputed area of Kashmir by armed separatists.

India accuses Pakistan of supporting the armed separatist motion in Kashmir, which each nations declare in full however administer separate parts of. Pakistan denies the cost, and alleges that India foments instability by supporting separatists in Balochistan province.

With the opening of the hall – a long-standing demand of the Sikh group and one which Pakistan proposed be adopted by means of earlier this yr – the Pakistani authorities says it’s displaying that it’s ready to take concrete steps to ease tensions.

“The story of Kartarpur is as previous because the historical past of Pakistan and India’s independence itself,” Fawad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s info minister, instructed Al Jazeera.

“We now have teams on either side of the border, some who’re pro-peace, and plenty of who don’t want [talks] to happen. It’s for the federal government to resolve who to help. With this step, we have now proven the place we stand.”

For Sikhs within the space, the opening of the hall is the fruits of a long-held dream.

“We now have been asking for this for years,” stated Ramesh Singh Arora, a Sikh group chief in Narowal who tends to the gurdwara. “It should make it so much simpler for individuals to return from India after which return to their nation.”

With the inaugurations this week, work will now start on a fenced off highway between the gurdwara at Kartarpur and the gurdwaras on the Indian facet of the border, which is able to permit Sikhs to entry each websites and not using a visa.

Beforehand, Arora says, pilgrims have been compelled to cross the border on the Wagah/Attari crossing, a journey of greater than 200km that concerned coping with a restrictive visa regime and travelling by highway for hours.

“It is a sense of homecoming. That is an emotional second for the group,” says Bhabishan Singh Goraya, 67, a Sikh resident of close by Amritsar, in India’s Punjab province. “We now have been demanding this for therefore lengthy.”

Political pressures

Analysts say the Indian authorities, led by right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was pressured into opening the hall on account of home political pressures.

“Politics did play an element, with common elections in India lower than six months away,” Krishan Pratap Singh, a New-Delhi based mostly analyst, instructed Al Jazeera. “The Akali Dal, a coalition associate of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) authorities, is struggling in Punjab with inside strife and the Kartarpur hall is being seen as an try to offer them a a lot wanted fillip.”

It’s a level that has been made in Pakistan, too.

“The response from Delhi [to the Kartarpur proposal] was all the time very detrimental,” stated Pakistani Info Minister Chaudhry. “However now that they’ve elections in Punjab, so the Indian authorities has modified its place due to that. Inner public stress has modified it.”

Indian artist Gurmeet Singh poses with a paper mannequin of the Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan [Narinder Nanu/AFP]

One of many sources of opposition to the hall inside India has been safety issues concerning the free motion of residents between the 2 nations, even within the managed atmosphere of the hall.

“There are apprehensions that some left-over parts of the [Sikh separatist] Khalistan motion nonetheless function from Pakistani territory,” stated Sreeram Chaulia, Dean of New Delhi’s Jindal College of Worldwide Affairs.

“They’re nonetheless able to interesting to susceptible Sikh youth, recruiting and mobilising them. India has no method of monitoring as soon as they’re inside Pakistani soil.”

Sikh separatists in India started agitating for a separate homeland within the 1970s, however the motion petered out twenty years later. India believes there was an try and revive separatist teams within the current previous.

Pakistani analysts, too, warn that whereas the hall could also be a uncommon success story, the prospect of any resumption of dialogue between the nations stays dim.

“This can be a good transfer in a state of affairs the place there may be little hope of any enchancment tin the relations between the 2 nations,” stated Zahid Hussain, an Islamabad-based safety analyst.

“However I do not assume it’ll change the general ambiance that prevails proper now. It is extra for public consumption slightly than a transfer that would change the politics of the area,” he added.

Hussain factors out that the opening of the hall couldn’t have occurred with out backing from Pakistan’s highly effective army, which has dominated the nation for roughly half of its 71-year historical past.

This can be a good transfer in a state of affairs the place there may be little hope of any enchancment tin the relations between the 2 nations

Zahid Hussain, an Islamabad-based safety analyst

Military chief Normal Qamar Bajwa has publicly supported the mission, and first mentioned it with Indian legislator Sidhu at Prime Minister Khan’s inauguration in August. Normal Bajwa was additionally in attendance on the floor breaking on Wednesday.

Pakistan’s authorities is planning additional confidence constructing measures, Info Minister Chaudhry stated, together with the easing of visa restrictions on Indian journalists.

“Pakistan has proven a much bigger coronary heart,” he stated. “We had the assault on the Chinese language consulate [last week] and we nonetheless did not cease this initiative [on Kartarpur] – the Indian help for the Baloch Liberation Military will not be a secret.”

Chaudhry was referring to an assault on the Chinese language diplomatic mission within the southern Pakistani metropolis of Karachi by Baloch separatists on Friday, which killed two policemen.

Whatever the stress within the relationship between the states, the Sikh group stays jubilant in regards to the opening of the hall.

“There are many relations on both facet. When partition occurred, most of our kin went to India from Pakistan,” stated Arora. “We determined to remain. We’re Pakistani, however we’re one individuals.”

Asad Hashim is Al Jazeera’s digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim.

Zeenat Saberin is Al Jazeera’s digital correspondent in India. She tweets at @SaberinZe.

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from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/pakistan-and-india-break-ground-on-visa-free-kartarpur-corridor-india-news/

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metacog · 8 years ago

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Summary of Dealing With An Ambiguous World, by Bilahari Kausikan, Lecture 1

This book is a collection of lectures Kausikan delivered as the SR Nathan fellow for 2016. The background of the lectures is the work of a foreign service officer in Singapore - a tiny, yet exceptional island surrounded by larger, potentially difficult neighbours.

Kausikan was a 2nd generation Singaporean government servant. He served as a junior officer under Lee Kuan Yew and SR Nathan, the first Foreign Minister. Much later in his career he became the Perm Sec of the Foreign Ministry, and is now, in his retirement, an Ambassador-at-Large of Singapore. His stories of the Singaporean foreign service in the early days seem a little like the Wild West, where nobody had much experience and they were all learning as they went along.

The main themes of Kausikan’s lectures here are that of education. Kausikan’s goal is to educate the public on the realities that bind Singapore's foreign policy.

Despite being a civil servant (or perhaps because he is one), Kausikan is staunchly pro PAP. He says that Singapore being parochial isn’t a good thing, yet displays many such behaviours throughout the lectures. He says debate is good, but shoots down opposing viewpoints (by opposition politicians, by academics like P.J. Thum) as ‘stupid’.

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed these lectures. I find Kausikan hugely entertaining and very educational; the q&a segments in particular resembled very much an uncle in a kopitiam holding forth about the world, insulting every other country under the sun. Except this is one of Singapore's Ambassadors at Large, and likely knows what he is talking about.

Lecture 1: An Age Without Definition

Bilahari opens with the premise for this series of lectures: that while in the past Singapore's foreign officers could operate without public scrutiny, this is not desirable in the long run and less tenable in the today's complex world. His lectures are intended to educate Singaporeans on the parameters that many in the foreign service and civil service understand as constraints on Singapore as a small island state. He thinks these constraints aren't well understood within the public.

Before he begins, Kausikan makes 3 general points about foreign policy.

A good foreign policy must take the world as it is. This is easier said than done because information is incomplete, deception is expected, and humans are good at deceiving themselves.

Foreign policy is also hard to comprehend because it deals with human relations. The very effort of attempting to understand foreign relations changes the environment you are trying to understand.

Because this is so complex, humans rely on mental frameworks to simplify this complexity. This means that whatever you use to understand can only ever be partially or contingently true. (Kausikan doesn't want to exaggerate too much, there are accepted norms amongst countries that can be accepted as true. But the risk exists.)

In short, Kausikan thinks the main difficulty of being good at foreign policy is the ability to ensure your mental frameworks map well to reality. The worst kind of error is when you believe absolutely that your beliefs and ideas are completely true, and there are no alternatives. This is the most dangerous error, and the most likely to be committed, because of a higher than usual level of uncertainty in international relations.

This segues into the main topic of this lecture. Why is there a high level of uncertainty and ambiguity? The reason is the end of the Cold War.

The Cold War made international relations simpler because it had a well defined structure. The danger of the Cold War drew the structure in sharp focus. Clarity and danger created order: the superpowers couldn't afford to fight directly with each other. Instead they conducted proxy wars. This meant that as long as you were prudent, and a little lucky, it was clear to a nation state playing at the periphery how to position itself to keep out of the way of the superpowers and to stay out of proxy wars.

That clarity ended after the Cold War ended.

For a brief moment it seemed like one country controlled the levers of the world. The Western side of the Cold War conflict was an American creation, and both sides claimed universality of worldview. With the Soviet side gone, American power, ideas and institutions ruled supreme, and led to a declaration from some quarters of "the end of history". But that didn't last, with the failures of the recent wars in the Middle East and the meltdown on Wall Street.

Without global structure, global leadership is diffused. It becomes difficult to deal with international problems: refugees, nuclear proliferation, climate change.

Some now think, with the G20, that we have a entered a multipolar world. Kausikan rejects this idea. Says that the US is the only truly global power, but now one where its limits are self evident.

Kausikan also rejects Ian Bremmer's idea that we are in a G0 formless world. The US order is fraying, but still exists; and the G20 coexists with many other international institutions like the UN and the World Bank and the IMF. These structures aren't going away.

Kausikan now reviews the various places power lies:

American power still exists. But it cannot lead alone. While the US also did not lead alone during the Cold War, today the lack of similar danger gives no reason for other countries to accept US leadership except on an ad hoc and partial basis. So: lots of ambiguity.

Europe: the end of the Cold War has made clearer the differences between American and European values. The most liberal American is less interventionist (in terms of government) than the most conservative European. Kausikan then attacks the overly idealistic concept of the EU, and says that is doomed to fail. These arguments are not new; LKY is known for saying the same for decades. A supranational organisation is too far ahead of its time, and now Europe is grappling with its internal problems. It will have to come to terms with its failed ideals. Kausikan sees this as the ultimate manifestation of mental model being too far from reality. Therefore, Europe is not a major global geopolitical force any longer.

America's east Asia allies: Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea ... these can only play regional roles, with sporadic responsibilities elsewhere. But even in east Asia their power is threatened by an ascendant china.

What about BRICS? Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa? Kausikan points out the term was crested as a marketing strategy by a fund manager. Not a real geopolitical concept despite having a bank and some meetings.

Russia: dissatisfied power, smouldering with resentment at the loss of its superpower status. Kausikan thinks the US and Europe made a strategic mistake in mistreating Russia at the end of the Cold War. For now, Russia is still powerful, has the political will to protect its core interests (e.g. Syria and Ukraine). But economically and demographically on the downward trend, and without a coherent global vision for itself. Kausikan doesn't think that they have a role to play in Asia, (he mentions elsewhere that without a Pacific fleet they are irrelevant in Asia, and their current trajectory is that they're likely to become junior partner to China)

India unlike Russia is not dissatisfied. It has always had a global vision of itself, but that vision makes it wary of playing a major power's game. India has a long history, and Kausikan thinks they are on the upward trajectory. But because India is so large and so complex to govern, its preoccupations will be mostly inward. Its external preoccupations are mostly with Pakistan. It has ignored China for decades after a disastrous border war with them, and doesn't really know what to do with regard to China now that it cannot afford to ignore them. It has been hyping a relationship with Japan, but Kausikan thinks geographic realities will mean this never amounts to much.

China: ooh, China. Any new global order will likely have US China relation as its main pillar. But we are not yet a G2 world (nor is a G2 world a foregone conclusion). 3 points about this relationship, in service of Kausikan's point that the world is ambiguous:

China US relations are very ambiguous. They are not friends, not enemies, and not neutral partners. Profound interdependence is mixed with profound strategic distrust.

The main beneficiary of the end of the Cold War isn't the west but China. It is free from major international responsibilities and a free rider in plugging into the globalised post Cold War order, with prosperous results.

What will China do with its newfound status and power? Kausikan thinks even its leaders are not sure. It has no incentive to change the current world order, from which it is the main beneficiary, but it also does not have a deep attachment to it, as this same system was responsible for "100 years of humiliation". Xi Jinping has been the most ambitious yet in his pronouncement of a global Chinese vision, but this is not clear, not a plan, and not consistent all the time with its actions.

And so we have the world as it is today: an ambiguous, unclear map of relationships where no major power is necessarily a friend, an enemy or truly neutral with each other. Kausikan thinks this will last for decades.

Why did we end up in this world? Why was the promise of a post Cold War world not fulfilled? Kausikan argues that one key factor was the attitudes of the Americans at the end of the Cold War. They were nakedly triumphant, confident of the universality and superiority of their beliefs, which made it harder for the world to accept American leadership.

Whereas, with time, it became clearer that America mixed up the end of the Cold War with the fall of the Soviet Union. Kausikan thinks history has shown the former to be triggered by events that happened in Germany, and the latter by Gorbachev's failed attempt to reform the Soviet Union. Americans have little part to play in the direct events.

(I think this part of Kausikan's argument is the weakest, but to be fair he was near the end of his lecture. Can't resist quoting this bit, though: in his 1992 State of the Union Address, George HW Bush declared "By the grace of God, America won the Cold War ... A world once divided into two armed camps now recognises one sole and preeminent power, the United States of America. And this they regard with no dread. For the world trusts us with power, and the world is right." Later, in his memoirs, Bush says that it is likely the Cold War would have ended regardless of whatever the Americans might have done.)

Kausikan's point about post Cold War American failure is to illustrate 'the stubborn persistence of mental frameworks, irrespective of appropriateness and in defiance of empirical evidence ... (this) universalist impulse still lingers ... and continues to have real effects on policy." Inappropriate mental frameworks may not matter much when the world order is settled. They matter a great deal in an ambiguous world.

The basic strategic challenge facing all countries in this world, then, is how do we position ourselves to preserve the widest range of options and avoid being forced into invidious choices? There is no longer any clarity in the world order. This is the primary challenge of Singapore's foreign policy.

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xtruss · 3 years ago

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ARGUMENT

Wolf Warriors Killed China’s Grand Strategy, And We’ll All Come To Miss It.

— By Sulmaan Wasif Khan | May 28, 2021 | Foreign Policy

Chinese soldiers carry the flags of the Communist Party, the state, and the People’s Liberation Army during a military parade at the Zhurihe training base in the Inner Mongolia region on July 30, 2017. STR/AFP Via Getty Images

Sometime in 2020, China came unmoored from its grand strategy. Until then, Beijing’s diplomatic, military, and economic efforts were all directed toward national security. Learned observers could quibble about whether Beijing saw security as inseparable from hegemony; they could debate how productive China’s policies were. But the consistency of purpose underpinning China’s behavior was hard to miss.

Of late, however, China has lost that purposefulness—one of the hallmarks of grand strategy. The predominant feature of Chinese conduct today is not grand strategy but a belligerent, defensive nationalism that lashes out without heed of consequences. Just why that breakdown has occurred is uncertain, but it is clear that the change has put both China and the world in jeopardy. China risks undoing all it has gained—at considerable cost—since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power. And the rest of the world, particularly the United States, finds itself confronted not with the hard task of managing a rising, reasonably predictable power but the infinitely harder job of managing a flailing one.

A seller adjusts a portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping next to pictures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong at Dongfanghong Theater in Yan’an, China, on May 10, ahead of the 100th year of the Communist Party’s founding in July. Hector Retamal/AFP Via Getty Images

Grand strategy is the integration of different kinds of power to achieve an overarching objective. How a state defines its objective and how it weaves together diplomacy, military power, and economic policy to pursue it will vary, but certain features are usually clear. First, grand strategies are long-term. The idea is to be safe not just now or tomorrow but a decade or so down the line. Second, they are all-encompassing. Be it Iran or environmental change, the cost of potatoes or military modernization, grand strategies consider these items as they relate to an overarching objective, not in isolation. Third, they have flexibility. The grand strategist is capable of shifting tacks: This particular path isn’t getting me where I want to go; therefore, I must try another way.

In China’s case, a grand strategy has defined the Communist Party’s conduct for most of its time in power. From Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, China has sought to secure the state by weaving together diplomatic, economic, and military power. Diplomatically, the country sought a balance of power that left it, inasmuch as possible, closer to other powers in the world than those powers were to one another. For an insecure country, having friends wherever possible made sense—and that meant continuing to talk even in the face of disagreements. China strove for a productive economy, which served multiple purposes: It allowed for aid to foreign countries that could be friends in times of need, it kept the citizenry on the CCP’s side, and it paid for military modernization.

There were, to be sure, times when the grand strategy led to incomparably foolish policies (the Great Leap Forward) and times when China seemed to forget its purpose (the first two years of the Cultural Revolution or Deng Xiaoping’s war in Vietnam). But for the most part, China did a reasonable job of sticking to a plan. The country’s vision remained forward-looking: A look at Chinese decision-making, whether on the Korean War or the latest military spending, suggested long-term security calculations. There was a sense of connectedness—how one did diplomacy with India affected how one did diplomacy with Pakistan and so on. And finally, there was room to reevaluate when things went awry. The foreign aid of the Mao years was pared back to put China on a more stable fiscal footing under Deng. Xi’s more recent diplomacy with Japan was marked by an extreme escalation of tensions, a realization that things had gone too far, and a subsequent move toward what is now almost cordiality.

A decades-long grand strategy doesn’t die suddenly. Its death is a process, with warning signs along the way. In China’s case, the Xi era has seen the accumulation of somewhat counterproductive policies that catalyzed a breakdown.

Xinjiang was probably the first. Jiang Zemin had championed a policy of living with the religious and ethnic differences that marked that distant territory; it would create the occasional problem, but it was part of what being an empire meant. Xi saw difference as something that could be eradicated, brought under complete control. This meant policies that eventually hardened into genocide. Xinjiang may be under tight control, but the long-term costs, in terms of China’s reputational damage among Muslims abroad and the resentment among China’s faithful at home, however, have yet to be added up.

Then came Hong Kong. Deng seems to have been perfectly sincere about “one country, two systems”; there was no need to bring Hong Kong into synchrony with the rest of China because Hong Kong worked. And Hong Kong working was good for China, a country big enough to contain multiple ways of doing business. For Xi, though, Hong Kong had to look like all of China—and that meant a flurry of attempts to undercut the autonomy that territory had enjoyed. The result was an eminently avoidable surge of anger and protest in Hong Kong, one that shows no sign of abating. It also killed any lingering possibility of convincing Taiwan that union with China was in its long-term interests.

These missteps could still be seen as bad grand strategy. It wasn’t that Xi didn’t want to make Xinjiang as secure as possible or Hong Kong as quiescent so as to keep China secure by weaving in the peripheries more tightly; it was just that he didn’t have the best grasp of how to do so. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to win Taiwan over peacefully; it was just that he thought throwing China’s weight around would terrify those benighted islanders into submission. And in dealing with other matters—relations with Australia or Japan, say, or winning hearts and minds in Africa—his government was doing reasonably well, if not perfectly. His was a more assertive brand of Chinese grand strategy, and the assertiveness had its successes and failures.

But “wolf warrior” diplomacy marks a significant change. The term, viral among those seeking to explain Chinese conduct, is often misused to encompass all forms of Chinese nationalism. But distinctions are important because different types of nationalism are symptoms of different issues in China’s conduct.

Two things set wolf warrior diplomacy apart.

First, there is no obvious point to it. The Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi’s strident performance in Alaska was arguably tin-eared and undeniably excruciating, but there was a purpose. He was trying to save Chinese face after being denounced (however justly); the idea, not exclusive to China, is that one has to demonstrate that one cannot be bullied before getting down to the hard business of resolving—or failing to resolve—differences. Yang was not engaged in wolf warrior diplomacy.

By contrast, it was completely pointless for Foreign Ministry spokespeople Zhao Lijian and Hua Chunying to tweet conspiracy theories about COVID-19 or for China to launch a trade war with Australia simply because the Australians had the gall to call for an investigation of China’s handling of the pandemic. These are knee-jerk reactions, bereft of the cool maneuvering that defines grand strategy.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian packs up his notes after speaking at the daily media briefing in Beijing on April 8, 2020. Greg Baker/AFP Via Getty Images

Second, there is no attempt to rein these fits of temper in. When Jiang encouraged protests against the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, there were careful directives about nationalism not being allowed to run too far. There is no evidence to suggest that such directives have been issued here. Worse, it seems likely that even if they were issued, they would be difficult to enforce, with purposeless nationalism now run amok.

To be sure, China has always had a nationalistic streak, and it (as in the case of many other countries) has sometimes been counterproductive. Some of China’s diplomatic moves have been clumsy: cutting tourism to South Korea when that country insisted on hosting the U.S.-made THAAD missile defense system or telling Indian diplomats that those from Arunachal Pradesh didn’t need a visa to visit China because Arunachal Pradesh was Chinese territory.

But seen as a whole, Beijing’s conduct still appeared, for the most part, that of a calculating, purposeful actor. What changed in 2020 was that nationalism for its own sake became the predominant motif of Chinese conduct. From that year on, what stands about China’s diplomacy is spreading wild rumors about COVID-19, getting in a shouting match with Australia, and threatening dire consequences for anyone who opts to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

China’s President Xi Jinping, left, and Premier Li Keqiang vote in favor of a resolution to overhaul Hong Kong’s electoral system during the closing session of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 11. Kevin Frater/Getty Images

One hypothesis for China’s abandonment of grand strategy is that it is out to dominate the world, sees an America in decline, and figures that this is a good opportunity to amass more power.

But its behavior doesn’t seem geared toward exploiting U.S. decline; if anything, China has squandered all the advantages it could have won in 2020 as the United States went through utter chaos. Another suggestion is that China now feels it can get away with belligerence because it is stronger. This might be part of the explanation, but it does raise the question of why it would want to fritter away strength on folly.

The most persuasive explanation is that China has poisoned itself through its own rhetoric. In the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, nationalism was seen as a way to get citizens on the same page as the party. It was not really meant to inform practical foreign policy. But as the United States discovered in the Donald Trump years, one cannot stoke nationalistic fires without their eventually blazing beyond control. Over the years, rhetoric about how Taiwanese needed to be made grateful, about the protests in Hong Kong being a product of Western influence, about Western aggression, about Japan never apologizing for World War II, about the righteousness of the party and the infallibility of the Chinese government and the hurt feelings of the Chinese people—all this seeped in and took hold. And it made grand strategy hard to keep alive.

Two caveats are worth noting. First, highlighting the strategic questionability of China’s policies doesn’t mean that Beijing’s fears of the outside world are completely unjustified. The Trump administration aired a deep Sinophobia that has continued into the Biden era. The U.S. defense budget is still heavily focused on countering China; the Quad seems to have been reinvented for the same purpose. It would be irresponsible for Chinese leaders not to take these developments seriously. The problem is not China’s threat assessment. It is rather that the wolf warriors seem to be reacting not out of a dispassionate assessment of that threat and how best to address it but simply out of pique.

Second, buried as it may be, grand strategic thinking is not yet entirely snuffed out. There are still voices that hark back to China’s older style of conducting foreign affairs. Vigorous debate about cutting Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects suggests that there is a segment within China’s policymaking circles focused on assessing pros and cons. With Japan, China has managed to improve relations since 2015. Even the skirmishes with India were the product not of mindless nationalism but of a considered policy that is willing to risk force in securing vulnerable borderlands. All this suggests that there are still calculating heads in Beijing and they might yet prevail.

Chinese Communist leader Deng Xiaoping is pictured in Beijing on Sept. 1, 1981. AFP Via Getty Images

Both China and the rest of the world should hope they do. For China, the risks of its current drift are immense. It’s not just that the bombast has managed to generate resentment. It’s not even that alienating much of the rest of the world would turn China into a giant version of North Korea. The real danger is that once toxin has spread through the system, there is no knowing where it will end. In China’s own past, similar blindness led to the bloodletting of the Cultural Revolution. If Zhao or Hua can tweet nonsense about outsiders today, it is but a hop, skip, and jump to smearing any measured policymaker tomorrow. Ultimately, that spells death for sound policymaking.

China can step back, but it would take people within the policymaking apparatus deciding that wolf warrior diplomacy has gone too far. They will have to tamp down on blind nationalism in the name of national security. And they will have to commit to a grand strategy and policies that support it. Those could involve easing up in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, declaring that Taiwan is being granted independence, cutting back on BRI, and recognizing any missteps on COVID-19. A tall order, but it would put China on a more stable footing, cut costs, and win friends. Short of all this, even simply backing off the most strident rhetoric, ceasing disinformation campaigns, and easing up on activity in the Taiwan Strait would save money and make it harder for the rest of the world to sustain a hostile posture toward China.

Course corrections are hard, but there are two examples that Chinese leaders might turn to: the attempt to restore national strength in the mid-1800s that Qing statesmen like Li Hongzhang spearheaded and Deng’s attempt to quash the remains of the Cultural Revolution when he came to power. The Qing restoration—seeking to bring technology, modern armaments and military methods, and scientific learning from the West to China—ultimately didn’t go far enough, and the empire crumbled. Deng’s ruthlessness in weeding out those who sympathized with the Cultural Revolution’s worst excesses, however, managed to create an intellectual climate conducive to his “opening and reform.” (It is one of those cruel ironies of Chinese history that Tiananmen Square and the “patriotic education” that followed it also happened on Deng’s watch.)

For the rest of the world, China’s abandonment of grand strategy poses a problem. It is one thing to deal with a power that has a clear goal; one might be at cross-purposes, but at least one knows where matters stand. A power lashing out like a belligerent drunk, however, is more difficult to address. First, the United States will have to distinguish between vital interests where China has to be resisted and ones where letting China do as it pleases would do no harm. There is, for example, genuine reason to resist a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan. There is less at stake for the United States if China gets bogged down in development projects in places like Pakistan or Kenya. Second, when China does something that is helpful—making vaccines available or doing something constructive on climate change—there is no harm in commending its conduct, instead of vowing to compete (as the United States has taken to doing with the Quad). Finally, when competing, it should be done quietly. Chest-thumping or forceful statements elicit similar responses in Beijing and rarely do much good.

A policy like this will not turn China into a peace-loving democracy. But it would deprive the wolf warriors of attention, which is what they seek in the first place. And it might maximize the chances of reaching a modus vivendi with China while it sorts out its own internal problems.

— Sulmaan Wasif Khan is the Denison chair of international history and diplomacy at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. He is the author of Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy From Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping.

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global-news-station · 5 years ago

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NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party on Friday slammed editorial policies of billionaire Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, even as his e-commerce firm Amazon announced plans to create a million jobs in the country by 2025.

Vijay Chauthaiwale, the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) foreign affairs department, said there was “a lot of problem�� with the newspaper’s coverage of India, without giving any specific examples.

The swipe at the Post came a day after a cabinet minister gave short shrift to Amazon’s (AMZN.O) investment plans for India.

Bezos has praised India during his ongoing visit, saying the 21st century will be the Indian century and that the dynamism and energy in the country was “something special”.

“I am not opposing Amazon as a company, in fact I am a regular customer … Jeff Bezos should go home tell Washington Post what is his impression about India,” Chauthaiwale told Reuters.

“The Washington Post editorial policy is highly biased and agenda driven.”

Washington Post’s India bureau chief, Joanna Slater, referred a Reuters request for comment to the newspaper’s spokespersons in Washington, who did not immediately respond outside regular business hours.

Chauthaiwale has in the past been critical of foreign media’s reporting on political issues, including on the disputed region of Kashmir which is claimed by both India and Pakistan, saying coverage has been biased against Modi.

Amazon did not respond to an email seeking comment on Chauthaiwale’s remarks.

In Amazon’s statement on Friday announcing the job-creation plans, Bezos said “we’re excited about what lies ahead”, but street protests this week by small retailers and adverse comments from politicians have made Bezos’ visit a public relations nightmare for Amazon.

India’s shopkeepers have represented a core constituency for the BJP since the early days of the party. And sources told Reuters that Modi, who has otherwise courted foreign investors, was unlikely to meet Bezos during his visit despite repeated requests by the company in light of traders’ concerns and an ongoing antitrust probe.

The post Modi’s party slams Bezos-owned Washington Post appeared first on ARY NEWS.

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#World News

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jobsearchtips02 · 5 years ago

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After India’s Amazon snub, Modi’s party slams Bezos-owned Washington Post

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party on Friday slammed editorial policies of billionaire Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, even as his e-commerce firm Amazon (AMZN.O) announced plans to create a million jobs in the country by 2025.

FILE PHOTO: Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, attends a company event in New Delhi, India, January 15, 2020. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

Vijay Chauthaiwale, the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) foreign affairs department, said there was “a lot of problem” with the newspaper’s coverage of India, without giving any specific examples.

The swipe at the Post came a day after a cabinet minister gave short shrift to Amazon’s (AMZN.O) investment plans for India.

Bezos has praised India during his ongoing visit, saying the 21st century will be the Indian century and that the dynamism and energy in the country was “something special”.

“I am not opposing Amazon as a company, in fact I am a regular customer … Jeff Bezos should go home tell Washington Post what is his impression about India,” Chauthaiwale told Reuters.

“The Washington Post editorial policy is highly biased and agenda driven.”

Amazon did not respond to an email seeking comment on Chauthaiwale’s remarks.

SOURING SENTIMENT

India last year enforced stringent rules for foreign investment in e-commerce which forced Amazon to rework its business structures and strained ties between New Delhi and Washington.

In recent months, the government has said it is concerned about issues raised by India’s brick-and-mortar retailers who say they’ve been hit by Amazon and Walmart’s (WMT.N) Flipkart which flout regulations and burn billions of dollars to offer steep discounts. The companies deny the allegations.

India’s antitrust body this week launched a probe into both Amazon and Flipkart.

On Thursday, Bezos attended a company event in Mumbai with Bollywood actors such as Shah Rukh Khan and said the company would “double down” its investments on its video streaming service, Prime Video.

But the event was largely overshadowed by comments made by India’s trade minister Piyush Goyal, who raised questions about the company’s business practices while addressing a security conference in New Delhi and said Amazon had done no big favor to India by announcing a new $1 billion investment.

Industry executives and their advisers told Reuters on Friday that Goyal’s remarks were likely to put off foreign investors, denting India’s economic growth which is already projected to fall to a 11-year low this year.

“This clearly is unbecoming, and it will hurt how the world views India as a destination,” said a senior executive of a U.S.-based company operating in India.

Reporting by Sankalp Pharityal and Aditya Kalra; ditional reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani & Simon Cameron-Moore

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/after-indias-amazon-snub-modis-party-slams-bezos-owned-washington-post/

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years ago

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Ignoring Pakistan, displaying deftness in participating with China, Russia: Narendra Modi in good kind at SCO summit

http://tinyurl.com/yxrzzxcu It’s outstanding how a section of the Indian media continues to obsess over whether or not Narendra Modi glanced at Imran Khan, shook his palms, sat on the dinner desk reverse, diagonally, beside or at an acute angle, whether or not there was a pull-aside, whether or not there was a flutter of eyelids, nudge-and-wink and so on., and so on., when the ministry of exterior affairs (MEA) had made it clear with their official assertion that there’s no chance of a formal or informal bilateral meeting between the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers on the ongoing Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek. Indian media’s myopic Pakistan obsession interferes with its capacity to concentrate on developments of far higher import that passed off the day Modi landed within the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The prime minister held two delegation-level talks with China and Russia the place some vital steps have been taken in the direction of stabilising the relation with two key international powers. Modi also made it clear to Chinese President Xi Jinping that “talks” with Pakistan is simply potential inside a bilateral framework — nipping within the bud any risk of Chinese language involvement — and reiterated India’s said place that Islamabad has thus far did not create an environment conducive for dialogue as a result of no concrete steps have been taken in the direction of turning off the fear faucet. Narendra Modi made it clear to Chinese language President Xi Jinping that “talks” with Pakistan is simply potential inside a bilateral framework — nipping within the bud any risk of Chinese language involvement. AFP Based on the transcript provided by the Ministry of External Affairs on media briefing by the international secretary on the bilateral between Modi and Xi, the spokesperson quoted Vijay Gokhale as saying, “There was a really temporary dialogue on Pakistan. Clearly time was a constraint however Prime Minister in reality mentioned that we’ve got a constant place with respect to Pakistan, we focus on all points by way of bilateral mechanism and we search for peaceable settlement by way of negotiations. We’re dedicated to this course of, the prime minister recalled that he has made efforts on this regard and these efforts have been derailed.” The importance of the phrase “derailed” lies in the truth that India’s hardening of place in the direction of Pakistan is just not as a consequence of lack of effort on India’s half in bettering the ties. It’s a results of the disillusionment brought on by Islamabad’s repeated betrayals. The international secretary additionally mentioned that Modi “did inform President Xi that Pakistan must create an environment freed from terrorism and that at this stage we didn’t see this taking place as but. And that due to this fact we count on Pakistan to take concrete motion on the problems that India has proposed within the areas of considerations….” Modi additionally handed an anticipated snub to Pakistan by ignoring Imran’s pleas for “talks” which is anyway a frothy train tried by the Rawalpindi generals to wriggle out of the diplomatic doghouse. India has pushed Pakistan right into a nook and there’s no purpose why this coverage wants to alter, no less than within the brief time period. To the extra severe finish of the enterprise, Modi confirmed that in his second time period he retains the maneuverable deftness to play the nice energy sport into which India has been thrust as a result of altering geopolitical atmosphere. An rising Sino-Russian axis poses some troublesome decisions for India. India’s bilateral dynamic with China and Russia and personal energy constraints restrict New Delhi’s capacity to form the strategic decisions of an rising and a waning superpower. The axis, that has emerged primarily to steadiness the affect of the US, additionally carries implications for India when it comes to constraining its capacity to agency up alliances or challenge energy within the regional periphery. In an article in The Indian Express, “That the Sino-Russian alliance is being framed as a counter to the US makes it that rather more sophisticated for Indian diplomacy. Navigating the rivalry between the nice powers stays the most important problem for India’s international coverage throughout Modi’s second time period.” For all these causes, SCO offered a superb alternative for Modi to navigate the geopolitical realignment and make sure that the trajectory of India’s rise as a number one energy stays unhindered. On China, the problem earlier than Modi is to stay engaged and never let Beijing use the ability differential between the 2 nations as a leverage towards New Delhi. Continued engagement ought to let India purchase a while to concentrate on lessening the ability differential and on the identical time collectively navigate some challenges on commerce posed by a transactional US president. Donald Trump’s sword-wielding on commerce, whereas focused at China, has additionally managed to wound India in some respects and on the identical time current some surprising alternatives in lowering the belief deficit with China. It was fascinating to notice, due to this fact, that Modi-Xi meet confused totally on “elevating mutual expectations” from the connection and taking the “Wuhan spirit ahead”. Based on the international secretary’s media briefing, Modi introduced up the matters of China’s cooperation in letting Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar be listed as a worldwide terrorist on the UN, opening of Financial institution of China department in India and he attributed it to “improved” “strategic communication” between the 2 sides. “PM particularly conveyed to President Jinping and he agreed that each side want to lift our expectations from the connection. PM welcomed him to India for subsequent casual summit, President Xi Jinping confirmed his readiness to go to India this yr,” Gokhale was quoted, as saying. China’s international ministry assertion claims that Xi reportedly congratulated Modi on his re-election, highlighted the necessity to strengthen confidence-building measures, preserve stability in addition to try for a speedy, “truthful, cheap and mutually acceptable” answer to the border dispute by way of the particular consultant mechanism and — fairly considerably — stress on “collectively safeguard(ing) free commerce and multilateralism,” in response to media stories. (See here and here). Whereas the basic strategic and antagonistic nature of the connection shall endure, the engagement ought to present India extra alternatives to keep away from the pitfalls. With Russia, the character of the beast is completely different. Bilateral ties with Russia have eroded considerably from the Soviet-era to now choose a transactional relationship centred round India’s buying of Russian defence tools. On this area, ties have remained sturdy. Greater than 65 per cent of Indian navy {hardware} are sourced from Russia. Moscow nonetheless retains its integral function in partnering with India on R&D and navy coaching and stays the one nation to supply cutting-edge defence expertise — be it nuclear submarines or superior air and missile defence system corresponding to S-400. Nevertheless, people-to-people contact has taken a steadily downward flip, commerce is minimal and each nations have extra variations than agreements on key strategic challenges. The narrow-basing of the connection virtually solely on navy tools and to a sure extent on India’s vitality safety resists diversification in different areas of pursuits. Russia finds higher strategic synergy with China on numerous points together with balancing the US. And Moscow’s ‘seller-customer’ relationship with New Delhi, too, has come beneath US strain. Trump and Putin share a private rapport that was readily evident, however there was nothing to indicate within the bilateral past Putin’s invitation to Modi to be the principle visitor on the Jap Financial Discussion board (EEC) in Vladivostok in September and Modi’s “heat acceptance” of it, to indicate that the connection has moved past “buyer-seller” relationship. Russia’s personal pursuits in retaining a significant chunk of India’s defence-spending pie will stop it from letting the ties go south however equally, Moscow’s journey from being part of an answer to India’s China problem to including to it can check the power of the connection. What Modi confirmed, nevertheless, is a willingness to have interaction with key powers whereas strategic realignments are happening and an consciousness of India’s leverages in navigating the turf. The emergence of a clear-eyed Pakistan coverage, in the end, can be a welcome transfer. Your information to the most recent cricket World Cup tales, evaluation, stories, opinions, reside updates and scores on https://www.firstpost.com/firstcricket/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2019.html. Comply with us on Twitter and Instagram or like our Facebook web page for updates all through the continued occasion in England and Wales. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function() {n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)} ; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '259288058299626'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.9&appId=1117108234997285"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); window.fbAsyncInit = function () { FB.init({appId: '1117108234997285', version: 2.4, xfbml: true}); // *** here is my code *** if (typeof facebookInit == 'function') { facebookInit(); } }; (function () { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); function facebookInit() { console.log('Found FB: Loading comments.'); FB.XFBML.parse(); } Source link

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clusterassets · 6 years ago

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New world news from Time: Cricket Hero Imran Khan Set to Lead Pakistan as Rival Parties Cry Foul

When TIME sat down with Imran Khan last October, the cricketer-turned politician was adamant that he would only seek power through fair means. After all, he said, he’d turned down many offers in the past. In 1988, Military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq offered Khan a cabinet role. As did fellow strongman General Pervez Musharif in the 2000s.

“To get into power there are much easier ways [than winning an election],” Khan told TIME on the balcony of his home in Islamabad, as the Maghrib call to prayer fought through the roar of cicadas and snarl of feral dogs. “But I came into politics specifically because corruption destroys a country.”

It is thus unfortunate that Khan’s July 25 election as Pakistan’s likely next prime minister has been marred by allegations of exactly that, with Pakistan’s powerful military — which has ruled the nuclear-armed South Asian nation for more than half its history — accused of playing nefarious kingmaker. Khan claimed victory Thursday with his PTI party projected to win between 105 and 120 of the 272 contested seats, putting him in a clear lead though likely needing a coalition to reach an outright majority of 137.

In a televised address, Khan, 65, hailed the “cleanest election” in the 208 million-strong nation’s history. However, six other parties running all rejected the result long before the count had finished, citing “serious irregularities” such as the ejection of their observers. Some in the media have decried a “silent coup” by the generals, while one noted activist called it Pakistan’s “dirtiest election.”

That’s quite a statement. If politics anywhere is a dirty game, it’s a putrid sewer in Pakistan. Assassinations are common, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, and, more recently, senior figures of Khan’s PTI. Wednesday’s vote was marred by bombings in the restive city of Quetta that claimed more than 30 lives. As many as 800,000 police and soldiers were deployed across 85,000 polling stations to oversee what promised to be only the second civilian-to-civilian handover of power in the nation’s history.

But alleged interference by the military — which backed Khan and loathed the political machine of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has been jailed for corruption — threatens to append an asterisk to that claim. Even before polling day, pro-Sharif media and activists had complained of strong-arm tactics by the establishment. “It is sheer rigging,” Shahbaz Sharif, who led the incumbent PML-N party on behalf of his brother, told reporters Thursday. “The way the people’s mandate has been insulted, it is intolerable.”

By any measure it was a divisive ballot. For any chance of victory, Khan needed to divide the support-base of Sharif, whose PML-N held a 13-point lead as early as May. Sharif has been sentenced to 10 years for corruption and banned from politics for life after Panama Papers leaks revealed he’d purchased lavish apartments in London through shell companies. Khan led that charge. But the PML-N remains strong in populous Punjab province owing to an entrenched patronage system and lingering feudal networks.

Aamir Qureshi—AFP/Getty Images Supporters of Shahbaz Sharif, the younger brother of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), at a campaign meeting ahead of the election in Rawalpindi on July 23, 2018.

Khan sought to peel off Sharif supporters by courting the Islamist right, painting the U.S.- and India-friendly mogul as inadequately pious or patriotic. This also set the groundwork for a possible parliamentary coalition with radical fringe parties to form a government (though in the end the Islamic right made little headway on polling day.) Sharif went on the counter-offensive, accusing the military of abetting the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack that claimed 166 lives. In an interview with Pakistani newspaper Dawn, he decried the nation’s “parallel governments.”

That isn’t news to Washington. Pakistan is a lynchpin in the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan as a key supply route and intelligence partner in the strategic nexus between Afghanistan, Iran, India, China and the Arabian Sea. But Pakistan’s fearsome intelligence services have long been suspected of protecting radical clerics who serve its strategic goals. And not just any radicals: 9/11 architect Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 at his compound less half a mile from the elite Kakul Military Academy in Abbottabad, considered Pakistan’s West Point, where he had spent nearly six years. “We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan,” then U.S. President Barack Obama told CBS News shortly afterward.

Bilateral relations have grown more fractious since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has withheld $2 billion in security aid to Pakistan, decrying the $33 billion in aid that, he tweeted in January, had been “foolishly” provided in the past in exchange for “nothing but lies & deceit.”

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s ties with rival superpower China have strengthened. The new $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor includes ports, pipelines, railway and power plants snaking through the country. Khan has been courted by China before; prior to the 2013 election, during which he polled in third place, he received a rare invitation to Beijing despite having no government position. “We want to learn from China how they brought 700 million people out of poverty,” Khan said in his victory speech.

Read more: Cricket Hero Imran Khan Led Pakistan’s Team to Victory. As a Politician, He’s Riding a Populist Wave

For Khan, Islamabad’s role in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan has been an unmitigated disaster that has cost 70,000 Pakistani lives, enfeebled the domestic security situation and cost its struggling economy more than $100 billion. He has repeatedly advocated greater trade with Afghanistan, an end to a “one-sided” relationship with the U.S. and negotiations with the Taliban.

“I find it bizarre that anyone would just rely on a one-dimensional military strategy,” he told TIME. “The military should only be part of a political strategy.”

Khan’s own politics have hardened as his still handsome countenance has lined and leathered. His halcyon pomp may have been spent charming supermodels under the paparazzi glare of London’s sybaritic nightspots, but his recent campaign included an “electoral alliance” with radical Islamist Maulana Sami ul Haq, dubbed the “Father of the Taliban.” In January, a top PTI official shared a campaign rally stage with U.S.-sanctioned terrorist Abdul Rehman Makki, according to local media. In November, Khan backed anti-blasphemy riots that erupted across Pakistan in response to a draft new oath for lawmakers that omitted any mention of the Prophet Muhammad. Just this month, he launched a vociferous defense of Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy law.

Most galling has been his steadfast defense of the Pakistani Taliban, whose 2014 massacre at a school in the city of Peshawar — killing 149, including 132 schoolchildren — was a red line even for hardened Islamists. His detractors have propagated the snide nickname, “Taliban Khan.”

“Any party that uses violence should not be allowed,” Khan told TIME carefully. “But if you make an extreme party run it’s not a bad thing because you always move them into the center and towards moderation. It’s much better to assimilate people, integrate them, contest elections, bring them into the mainstream.”

But Khan’s attempts to “moderate” radicals are akin to playing with fire in the world’s ultimate radical tinderbox. In Khan’s eyes, only 5% of Taliban are true extremists, with the overwhelming majority simply reacting to American drone attacks, air strikes, night raids and other collateral damage. Others are just opportunist thugs who exploited the lawlessness of the borderlands to make a quick buck.

It’s a view that garners support. “In my village, the people who had nothing to do became Taliban,” Aamir Rassool, 28, a call center worker from Orakzai Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, by the Afghan border, told TIME late last year. “Seriously, they just grew their hair and beard and went to wealthy homes and demanded money. They were not Taliban, they were gangsters.”

Still, engagement with the group’s leadership legitimizes its message: one of stone age misogyny, ignorance and brutal oppression. And Khan’s contention that terrorist activity in Pakistan has decreased as American operations have wound down is specious. In fact, it’s only since a full Pakistani military offensive into previously Taliban-controlled FATA in mid-2014 that the security situation has truly improved. “And the offensive went against what Imran Khan for many years was calling for, which was peace talks and not the use of force,” says Michael Kugelman, the senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Khan is an unlikely radical apologist. The only boy of five children, he was born Oct. 5, 1952, to an affluent Pashtun family in the former colonial capital of Lahore. After school he studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University, and it was also in the U.K. that he first played cricket for Pakistan, aged 18. He retains superstar status for turning his nation into an international cricketing force, crowned by leading an unfancied team to its only Cricket World Cup victory in 1992.

“Sports teaches you to struggle, above everything, and you learn how to take the knocks,” says Khan. “When you win your feet stay on the ground, but when you lose you don’t get demoralized. You pick yourself up again.”

Athit Perawongmetha—Reuters Supporters of cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan, chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), wait outside his residence, a day after the general election in Islamabad, Pakistan, July 26, 2018.

Khan retired from cricket soon after that triumph. In 1994, he opened the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in Lahore in memory of his mother, who succumbed to the disease. It remains the largest cancer hospital serving Pakistan’s impoverished. Its quality of care and ruddy finances silenced doubters who scoffed such an ambitious project wasn’t feasible, boosting Khan’s administrative credentials. He founded his PTI political party two years later, though found detractors quick to take aim at his private life.

Khan’s first wife was British journalist and society heiress Jemima Khan, née Goldsmith, a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales. She converted to Islam for their wedding, though the pair divorced in 2004 after nine years of marriage, and her family’s Jewish heritage was political dynamite in the world’s largest Islamic state. (The couple’s two sons live in London with their mother.) Khan’s second marriage to British-Pakistani journalist Reham Khan lasted only months in 2015. In February, he married Bushra Maneka, who acted as his “spiritual guide.”

Now Khan guides the nation. He will be keen to turn focus away from allegations of rigging toward fixing governance problems. Some 29.5% of Pakistanis wallow below the poverty line, according to its Ministry of Planning Development and Reforms, with literacy rates at just 58%. Pakistan’s current account gap has soared by almost 50% to $16 billion, while its trade deficit has reached $3.7 billion. The country’s external debt and liabilities stand at a six-year high of 31% of GDP. Khan’s first job will be to ask the IMF for another bailout — less than two years since its last one of $6.6 billion.

How will he take to government? Khan is no stranger to transformation: he’s the debonair playboy who grew devout; the humanist who stands with the bloodthirsty; the anti-graft campaigner who will now lead under a cloud. “Pakistan’s policies won’t be for the few rich people, it will be for the poor, for our women, for our minorities, whose rights are not respected,” Khan told the nation Thursday.

But with legal objections to his win looming, and unrest on the streets all too possible, Khan might be facing the toughest transformation of them all.

July 27, 2018 at 08:47AM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

#Time #world #news #ClusterAssets #ClusterAsset #Cluster Asset Inc.#ClusterAssets Inc.

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investmart007 · 6 years ago

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ISLAMABAD | Khan claims win in Pakistan with vows on poverty, US ties

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/ApWigP

ISLAMABAD | Khan claims win in Pakistan with vows on poverty, US ties

ISLAMABAD — Former cricket star Imran Khan declared victory Thursday in Pakistan’s parliamentary election and vowed to run the country “as it has never before been run” by fighting corruption, seeking regional cooperation and forging a new relationship with the U.S. that was not “one-sided.”

TV stations reported Khan and his Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, maintained a commanding lead from Wednesday’s balloting. But his leading rival, Shahbaz Sharif, rejected the outcome, citing allegations of vote-rigging.

Pakistan’s election commission struggled with technical problems and had to revert to a manual count, delaying the announcement of final results until Friday. That left unclear whether the PTI will have a simple majority in the National Assembly or have to form a coalition government.

But that didn’t stop the 65-year-old Khan from proclaiming his triumph in an address to the nation, in which he pledged to create an Islamic welfare state to provide education and employment for the poor to fulfill a campaign promise to create 10 million jobs.

“Today in front of you, in front of the people of Pakistan, I pledge I will run Pakistan in such a way as it has never before been run,” Khan said, vowing to wipe out corruption, strengthen institutions he called dysfunctional and regain national pride by developing international relationships based on respect and equality.

While Khan’s appeared casual and conciliatory in his speech, his words were laced with passion. He said the United States treats Pakistan like a mercenary, giving it billions of dollars to fight the war on terrorism in a region beset with militant extremists.

“Unfortunately, so far our relations were one-sided. America thinks that it gives Pakistan money to fight for them. Because of this Pakistan suffered a lot,” said Khan, who has been critical of the U.S.-led conflict in neighboring Afghanistan.

He offered nothing to suggest an improvement in Pakistan’s already testy relationship with Washington since President Donald Trump’s tweets in January that accused Islamabad of taking U.S. aid and returning only lies and deceit.

Seeking good relations with his neighbors, Khan addressed Pakistan’s rival, India. The two nuclear powers have had a long-running conflict over the disputed region of Kashmir. “Take one step toward us and we will take two steps toward you,” he said in a peace offering while still decrying widespread human rights abuses in Kashmir.

Khan also advocated an open border policy with Afghanistan, even suggesting the two countries embrace a “European Union” type relationship. The plan seems unlikely, with Pakistan’s military already building hundreds of border outposts and an accompanying fence along its western frontier with Afghanistan despite often-violent opposition from Kabul.

Khan focused on what he wanted to do for the poor in Pakistan and his vision of a country that bowed to no one, where everyone was equal under the law and taxes were paid by the rich to fund services for the less fortunate.

His campaign message of a new Pakistan seemed to resonate with young voters in a country where 64 percent of its 200 million people are under 30.

Khan said the elections were the most transparent and promised to investigate every complaint of irregularity that his opponents presented.

“It is thanks to God (that) we won and we were successful,” he said. More than a dozen TV channels projected the PTI would win as many as 119 seats of the 270 National Assembly seats that were contested, although the broadcasters did not disclose their methodology. The rest of the 342-seat parliament includes seats reserved for women and minorities. Voting for two seats was postponed after one candidate died during the campaign and another was disqualified.

Although rights groups and minorities expressed worries ahead of the voting about radical religious groups taking part, moderate voices seemed to have prevailed: None of the 265 candidates fielded by the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba won. That includes the son of co-founder and U.S.-designated terrorist Hafiz Saeed, who has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

The candidates campaigned under the little known Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek party because Lashkar-e-Taiba is banned. Even if Khan’s party wins a simple majority, he would need to wait until the president convenes the parliament to swear in the new lawmakers — traditionally within a week.

He also faces opposition over the result from Sharif. He heads the Pakistan Muslim League, the party of his older brother, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is in prison on corruption charges. TV projections give his party barely 61 seats.

The younger Sharif tweeted that “our democratic process has been pushed back by decades,” adding that “had the public mandate been delivered in a fair manner, we would have accepted it happily.” Complaints also emerged from the independent Human Rights Commission, which issued a statement saying that women were not allowed to vote in some areas.

In other areas, it said, “polling staff appeared to be biased toward a certain party,” without elaborating. In the days before the election, leading rights activist I.A. Rehman called the campaign “the dirtiest” in Pakistan’s bumpy journey toward sustained democracy. Analysts have expressed concern that disgruntled losers could create instability for the incoming government, which must deal with a crumbling economy, crippling debt and a raging militancy.

The voting was marred by a suicide bombing in the southwestern city of Quetta, the Baluchistan provincial capital, that killed 31 people as they waited to vote. A bombing in the same province earlier this month killed 149 people, including a candidate for office. Baluchistan has been roiled by relentless attacks, both by the province’s secessionists and Sunni militants who have killed hundreds of Shiites there.

The election marked only the second time in Pakistan’s 71-year history that one civilian government has handed power to another. There were widespread concerns during the campaign about manipulation by the military, which has directly or indirectly ruled Pakistan for most of its existence. The military had deployed 350,000 troops at the 85,000 polling stations.

In a tweet, Pakistan’s military spokesman Gen. Asif Ghafoor called allegations of interference “malicious propaganda.” ___

By Associated Press

#Asif Ghafoor #I.A. Rehman #ISLAMABAD news #Khan #pakistan #Pakistan Elections #PTI #Shahbaz Sharif #TodayNews #US ties #vows on poverty

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wionews · 7 years ago

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Pakistani PM says 'committed' to seizing charities run by Hafiz Saeed

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday said his government will push ahead with plans to seize control of charities run by an Islamist designated a terrorist by Washington, and warned the United States not to weaken Pakistan.

Abbasi brushed off US President Donald Trump's recent tweet accusing Pakistan of "lies and deception" in its commitment to fighting terrorism, as he raised the prospect of charging the United States to use Pakistan's airspace to resupply NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Under pressure from the United States and international institutions to crack down on terrorist financing, Pakistan last month drew up secret plans for a "takeover" of charities linked to Islamist leader Hafiz Saeed, who Washington blames for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people.

The United States has labelled the charities Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) as "terrorist fronts" for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), or "Army of the Pure", a group Saeed founded in 1987 and which Washington and India accuse of carrying out the Mumbai attacks.

Saeed has repeatedly denied involvement in the Mumbai attacks and says the charitable organisations he founded and controls have no ties with militants.

But both he and the organisations have been sanctioned by the United Nations and his freedom in Pakistan, where he holds public rallies, has been a thorn in Islamabad's relations with India and the United States.

"Yes, the government will take over the charities which are sanctioned and not allowed to operate," Abbasi, 59, told Reuters in an interview at the prime minister's chamber in Pakistan's Parliament in capital Islamabad.

Answering specific questions about the proposed takeover of JuD and FIF, Abbasi said the civilian government had the backing of the powerful military, which effectively controls Pakistan's security and foreign policy.

"Everybody is on board, everybody is on the same page, everybody is committed to implementation of U.N. sanctions," he said.

He declined to set a deadline.

JuD and FIF did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. The organisations have previously said they would take legal action if the government tried to take them over. Saeed could not be reached for comment.

Selective action

There are concerns in Pakistan that the country may face financial sanctions over accusations of selective action against Islamist militant groups and financing.

Pakistan is a base for myriad Islamist movements, and critics accuse Islamabad of only targeting militants who attack the state while leaving unscathed those who target neighbouring Afghanistan and arch-foe India. Pakistan denies those allegations.

Abbasi said Pakistan had made progress in curbing terrorist financing after meetings with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body that warned Islamabad could be put on a watchlist for not doing enough to stop the practice.

"We've had several meetings on that, and from what I've seen a large part of those actions have been taken," Abbasi said.

A UN Security Council team is due to visit Pakistan this month to review progress against UN-designated "terrorist" groups, which includes LeT and others such as the Afghan Taliban-allied Haqqani network.

Former petroleum minister Abbasi said any sanctions against Pakistan would be counter-productive to the country's own battle against Islamist militants, which he called "the largest war on terror in the world".

"Any constraints put on Pakistan, actually only serve to degrade our capability to fight the war against terror," he said.

Trump meeting

Relations between the United States and its uneasy ally have frayed since January 1, when Trump lashed out against what he called Pakistan's "lies and deceit" over its alleged support of Afghan Taliban militants battling US troops in Afghanistan. Washington has since suspended aid totalling about $2 billion.

Abbasi said Trump's tweet was "unacceptable" in its tone and that Pakistan should not be "scapegoated" for US failures in Afghanistan.

"That is something we cannot accept because nobody's suffered more than Pakistan," Abbasi said, adding that tens of thousands of Pakistani have died from militancy that has inflicted damage worth $120 billion to the economy.

US officials last year warned of tougher measures against Pakistan, including potentially withdrawing its "non-Nato ally" status or even designating it a state sponsor of terrorism.

Abbasi said much of the suspended aid was from the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), a US Defence Department programme to reimburse allies for the costs of supporting counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency operations.

He said the US needed to respect Pakistan's contribution to the fight against Islamist militancy and raised the prospect of charging Washington for air transport flights that have been resupplying US-led troops and Afghan forces in landlocked Afghanistan.

"If somebody wants to start quantifying expenses and aid, I think let's put this on the table also. Let's discuss that," Abbasi said, though he added that such talk was "hypothetical".

Abbasi dismissed media reports that Islamabad has ended intelligence sharing with the US military as false.

And he also spoke fondly about a brief discussion he had with Trump in September at a reception at the U.N General Assembly in New York.

"I found him to be fairly warm," he said. "Somebody that you would like to engage with and talk to."

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allthingsjaneausten · 7 years ago

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Inspired by Jane Austen and set in contemporary Pakistan and England, Austenistan is a collection of seven stories; romantic, uplifting, witty and also, heartbreaking. These seven writers from Pakistan celebrate and pay homage to the queen of British Literature. They prove that Jane Austen is alive and kicking 200 years after her death and not just in English speaking countries but in the four corners of the world.

Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and its Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China in the far northeast, respectively. I selected a few pictures so you can see a bit of Pakistan and also to aid your imagination whenever reading the book.

Lahore: The ‘heart’ of Pakistan is known for its striking cultural heritage, warm Punjabi hospitality, indigenous cuisine, and a thriving arts scene.

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All Things Jane Austen is proud to support this book and all the work of awareness these women are doing in showing us another side of Pakistan. Each one of these writers embodies Elizabeth Bennet, Emma and Jane Austen herself by sharing their stories of life and love and the desire to make the world a better place.

These are the women behind the book who take us on an austenesque trip to Pakistan and show us a little bit of their world to us and bring us together like only Jane Austen can.I asked them what they would like to say to the Jane Austen community to know about themselves or why they were inspired by her. Here is what these amazing women had to say to us:

Gayathri Warnasuriya

“I fell in love with Jane Austen’s heroines as a teenager in Sri Lanka. Their trials and tribulations were closer to my own than those of the teenagers in Sweet Valley High books that surreptitiously circulated at school. I remember nervously waiting to be asked to dance at a party, stomach twisted with fear that I might be left seated alone while all my friends danced. To simply stand up and dance, without a partner, was unthinkable. That was some time ago but many aspects of South Asian society still evoke the world of Jane Austen and therein lies her enduring appeal. Also, just as her heroines delighted in witty conversation and the company of true friends, it gives me great pleasure to be among the remarkable ladies of Austenistan.”

Mahlia S. Lone

”I think the most important aspect of my life I would like to share with the Jane Austen world is that we as Pakistani women are not different from other women anywhere else. We have more similarities than we do differences. When you read our stories in Austenistan, you will see how, though we face many societal constraints, like women in the west at an earlier time, we are changing our circumstances one woman at a time, just as Austen did when she wrote her stories.”

Nida Elley

One of the interesting things about having moved a lot between countries (the U.S. and Pakistan), is that I get to observe Austen-esque behavior in Pakistanis everywhere. Jane Austen’s world is so deeply entrenched in our culture, that we now witness numerous modern day versions of her stories playing out in real life. One of my favourite things about her stories are her characterizations. Whether it be a Mr. Darcy or a Lady Susan, each character is sorely conflicted, displaying a smorgasbord of emotions at a time when being too emotional was considered almost dysfunctional. Now, upon each new reading of a Jane Austen novel, I not only relate to the characters, but in fact, revel in our similarities.’

Saniyya Gauhar

‘I think I fell in love with Darcy before I fell in love with Austen! I was twelve when I first read Pride & Prejudice and it was the first book among the classics that I thoroughly enjoyed largely due to her witty and accessible style of writing, the crisp dialogue and the fabulous characters.’

Mishayl Naek

”The last few years have seen me shed my economist career, embrace single motherhood and redefine my position and desires in a socially constricted society. I find solace through writing and inspiration through reading, and Jane Austen has always provided many a love interest coupled with amazing female bonds. In between the swoon worthy romantic dialogue, there is the thread of strength and endurance. It was cathartic to write my own version of Emma, one that allowed my imagination to paint a desi love story that embraced a flawed female lead. I am honored to be among these stories.”

Sonya Rehman

‘Having grown up in a family of independent women, Jane Austen and her works have always resonated with me. Throughout my life, self-reliance was always stressed upon from the get-go – standing tall on your own two feet is something my grandmother and mother, both, encouraged me do. But in Lahore, being single and ‘left on the shelf’ evokes sympathy and judgment in some – you could be bright, talented and accomplished, but without a ring on your finger, and past the ‘marriageable age,’ you will always lack as a woman. Why? Because a woman who is neither a wife nor a mother is incomplete, less than, grossly deficient. I see so many parallels between Austen’s stories and characters and society at large in Pakistan – it’s quite interesting. As an individual and as an author, Austen was so ahead of her time, no wonder how well-loved her works are even till today. As for me? I’m an independent Pakistani woman who still romances the notion of a wonderful Mr. Darcy to saunter into her life some day.’

At last but not least the woman who started it all:

Laaleen Sukhera

“The idea for Austenistan started on a whim one evening in Islamabad. Many JASP (Jane Austen Society of Pakistan) members are journalists who have toyed with fiction without ever completing anything. The conversation grew into a seed of an idea which I developed into a concept in Karachi in the summer of 2016 and began a call for submissions among JASP members. Things happened very quickly, as you can see! I signed with my lovely agent, Jay Vasudevan at Jacaranda, followed by Bloomsbury India where my editor Faiza S. Khan has been phenomenally supportive. And here we are, a little over a year later, poised to take over the world! She says “Much like Austen’s heroines, Pakistani women are fabulous, fearless, and fascinating. Our stories reflect Austen’s world in bizarre and beautiful ways. We would love for you to journey to Austenistan with us!”

Laaleen Sukhera

Lahore, Pakistan

Laaleen Sukhera is the founder of the Jane Austen Society of Pakistan and is a professional advisor at the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation as well as Chair of JALF’s Pakistan Chapter. She graduated with an MSc in Professional Communications and a BA (High Honours) in Screen Studies and Communication & Culture at Clark University in Massachusetts.

You can follow her on: http://www.laaleen.com, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JaneitesPakistan/, Instagram: @janeausten_pk & @laaleen_official on Twitter.

A bit more of Pakistan…

Islamabad: This scenic city was created in the 1960s and is the political capital of the nation as well as home to hundreds of embassies, news bureaus and international development organisations.Islamabad: This scenic city was created in the 1960s and is the political capital of the nation as well as home to hundreds of embassies, news bureaus and international development organisations.

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Karachi: The financial capital of Pakistan, this fashion forward southern city is in the Sindh province and is the most populous in the country.

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Rita L Watts

Austenistan – Jane Austen’s novels inspires women in Pakistan Inspired by Jane Austen and set in contemporary Pakistan and England, Austenistan is a collection of seven stories; romantic, uplifting, witty and also, heartbreaking.

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newageislam-blog · 7 years ago

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Sultan Shahin responds to Dr Mookhi Amir Ali's comments on the retrieval of Babri land and the clamour “Masjid Wahin banayenge

“By this my humble yardstick, Mr. Sultan Shahin, you seem to be doing excellently. I like your prose. I like your ideas, mostly. The people like you are often accused of speaking the language of the critics of Muslims. Your article “Muslim Penchant for spinning state-sponsored conspiracies.

was an eye-opener. I particularly liked your response to one or two rejoinders. However I can not agree with you very much on the subject of Babri Masjid. There can be no doubt that the resolution of the Babri dispute is in the best interest of the Muslim community. However from a Muslim’s point of view the problem is not as trivial as you make it out to be. They demolished a mosque in the full glare of the television camera. There is no Muslim who won’t be seething with anger at the memory of that sight on the television. You have said that the mosque being demolished was a functioning temple! Pardon me but you have rubbed it in. You have spoken the language of the Hindu Right who have called the Masjid a “dhancha” where for over 40 years no namaz was offered. I am sure, Sultan Shahin Sahab, you know why it had become the functioning temple since 1949 and why no namaz was offered for over 40 years”, wrote Dr Mookhi Amir Ali.

Thanks very much indeed, for your kind words and also for your constructive criticism. This is the spirit we should maintain when expressing one’s views, even those that may be critical of others. I liked your earlier article. Please keep writing on the burning issues of the day.

I respect your views on the Babri issue on which you think you differ with me. But reading your letter closely I found that we may not be that far apart. Your last but one paragraph starts with the following sentences: “It is surprising that Muslim groups are silent over the silence of the BJP and others on whether they will abide by court order. Are they expecting the site to be given to them on a platter if they win?” You are clearly alive to the dangers that lie ahead, though you seem to have greater faith in the so-called Muslim leadership’s foresight than I have.

In all my writings ever since the demolition of Babri Masjid and indeed for much longer before I have been laying particular emphasis on the urgent need for introspection about what we can ourselves do to help ourselves. We have already done a lot of complaining and they have not served any purpose. Not that we should not articulate our legitimate grievances. Of course, we should complain, put our grievances on record and protest, but peacefully and within limits of civilized behaviour that both the Holy Quran and the constitution of India prescribe for us.

Sometimes, though it may not be a good idea to put certain things, our weaknesses, for instance, or certain undesirable facts to be put on record through articulation. This only strengthens that undesirable fact or the fact of our weakness in a certain situation and hampers our efforts to change the situation for the better and to our greater liking. If I can illustrate with an example, suppose someone is in love with someone who doesn’t like him very much and he is trying to win her love and affection. Now it may not be in his interest that the fact of her dislike is articulated by either of them and is put on record. This will only hamper his endeavour and certainly not help his mission.

Now let us take another example. Suppose we feel that while our constitution is a lovely document, gives us all our rights, without any discrimination of any kind, the guardians of that constitution are not capable of implementing it fully either because they are not committed enough or even strong enough, in the face of a total lack of faith, indeed antagonism to that constitution among millions of people in the country who would prefer either an Islamic or a Hindu Raj. The job of the votaries of this constitution would be to try and persuade both the votaries of Islamic Khilafat and Hindu Raj to the virtues of a secular, multi-cultural Indian constitution, the only one that will clearly work in India. While we are engaged in this task, would it suit us that the fact of this constitutional system’s weaknesses – that the implementing authorities are not committed or strong enough – is brought out, put on record and debated. Would that not merely weaken the constitutional system further? If we believe that this constitutional system suits us most and that we desperately need it to be implemented in all sincerity, then does it make sense for us to weaken it further, while we are engaged in the task of persuading our fellow-citizens that this is the best system for our country?

Taking the analogy further, does it suit us to put the Supreme Court, one of the strongest and most vital pillars of our system, to test over the issue? After all Supreme Court is also run by human beings, who may have the same weaknesses and strengths, biases and prejudices as other people in the country, who may also not like passing a judgement that cannot be implemented, who may also harbour some people in their midst who are not fully committed to the secularism and multi-culturalism of our constitution, even while having to perform the task of being a guardian and interpreter of that constitution. Many a time this Supreme Court has shown its strength and come to our rescue. Inevitably, it has also failed us at times. But we are the votaries of an Indian system that needs a strong Supreme Court capable of delivering just and fair judgments and being able to enforce its full implementation. Does it suit us, then, to put it to a test that it may not be able to pass and thus expose its weaknesses?

As for the Babri Masjid, we always had a strong case. It was not because of the weakness of our case that even a stalwart leader like Jawaharlal Nehru, enjoying unquestioned sway over the Indian government was not able to get the status quo ante restored in 1948. If we want to strengthen our secular system, if we do no want to become a Hindu Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or a Taliban-run Afghanistan, then it would be best that we do not put our system to any further strain. We can always negotiate and exchange the Babri land with another plot nearby and build a mosque there.

Personally I feel that that we should gift the controversial plot to the state and leave it to its best judgement to do what it likes without demanding anything in return. There are some people in the country, our neighbours, brothers and sisters, who believe, rightly or wrongly, that it was the birth-place of Hazrat Ramchandra, who should be as venerable to us as any other prophet, for the Quran asks us to treat all prophets equally, even if they are now called avatars or gods or sons of God. If we can find the generosity in our heart to gift the piece of land to these Ram-Bhakts without asking for a piece of land or anything else in return, for we can very well afford to buy a piece of land for our mosque in Ayodhya, we will earn the goodwill of our neighbours and friends among the majority community that is far more valuable than anything else we can get through negotiation or a court of law.

It is this goodwill that will actually help us solve all our problems. No amount of power to this party or that will ever be able to help us in living peacefully and end discrimination against us in various walks of life unless we create goodwill for us in the majority at a community level. Individually, all of us have the best of relations with individual members of the Hindu community. But community-level relationship is getting worse by the day. This is partly due to our unjustified Islam-supremacist attitude and our despicable contempt for other religions and votaries of other religions in violation of the dictates of the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH). This is also partly because of our faith in raucous protest, strident grievance-mongering and fruitless litigation alone for solving our problems. Some well-meaning Hindu friends of ours also encourage us to dot that, at great cost to themselves too, but to our predictable detriment. Young jihadis or Bajrang Dalis do not monopolise bravado.

Inevitably, this is leading some of our youth to the path of violence, something which we are even unable to accept that it could be happening. Sometimes you have to stoop to conquer. I am not saying that the Hindutva leadership is a paragon of all virtues and it is not committing any mistakes or that it does not harbour terrorists and that all fault lies with us alone. No. That would be absurd and contrary to known facts. But I was trained by my Maulvi father, who was imbued with the spirit of Islam, to look within and see what I can myself do to help my own situation as well as that of the society in general rather than fighting with someone else who maybe in the wrong but beyond my reach. My father also instilled in me the idea that tilting at windmills is rather futile and leads nowhere. As a Muslim I try to see what I or my community can do to ameliorate the situation we are in.

Does this mean I am advocating we take no help from the system, from our fellow-citizens, the authorities, the Supreme Court? No, I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is: do not put any more strain on the system that is best for you, don’t weaken it further by demanding that it do the impossible in the present circumstances, and see if there is something you can yourself do to help yourself. I am only saying do what Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) did in similar, though less trying circumstances. For more details Visit here: Moderate Muslims

Source URL: http://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/sultan-shahin-responds-to-dr-mookhi-amir-ali/sultan-shahin-responds-to-dr-mookhi-amir-ali-s-comments-on-the-retrieval-of-babri-land-and-the-clamour-%E2%80%9Cmasjid-wahin-banayenge%E2%80%9D/d/891

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wionews · 7 years ago

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Trump, Xi reach consensus to curb terrorism in South Asia: China

China today said President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump have reached a consensus on fighting terrorism and upholding peace and stability in South Asia, amid America ramping up pressure on Pakistan to dismantle terror safe havens.

During their talks, Xi and Trump discussed Afghanistan and committed to working toward a peaceful future for the terrorist haven.

"This morning, the two presidents talked and held joint press meeting. I am not aware of the details of the talks. What I know is that the two sides also discussed anti- terrorism issues and upholding peace and stability in South Asia," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing.

"They reached consensus in this respect," she said without elaborating or mentioning whether India's concerns over terrorism emanating from Pakistan figured in the talks.

To counter terrorism, China and the US as well as other countries share the common interests and the two countries stand ready to work with other parties for stronger anti- terrorism cooperation, she said.

South Asia and Afghanistan figured prominently in today's talks as both the leaders mentioned it in their briefings.

After the talks, Trump said terrorists are a threat to humanity and that he and Xi will "stop radical Islamic terrorism."

"In order to create more secure future for all and protect our citizens from extremism and terrorism, President Xi and I also committed to working together for a peaceful future for Afghanistan," Trump said.

"Terrorists are a threat to all of humanity and we will stop radical Islamic terrorism," he said.

Trump's remarks assume significance after he unveiled his new South Asia policy under which the US has warned Pakistan against providing safe harbour to terrorist organisations.

Trump's South Asia policy giving importance to India and inviting New Delhi to play a bigger role in reconstruction of Afghanistan has also raised eyebrows in Beijing and Islamabad.

Elaborating on the Trump-Xi talks on Afghanistan, Hua said the two sides believe that maintaining the stable and constructive relations between Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries is of great significance to the peace and reconstruction process in Afghanistan.

"They support an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconstruction process, call on relevant parties in Afghanistan to achieve extensive and inclusive national reconciliation through political negotiation at an early date and stand ready to play a positive role through such mechanisms as the Quadrilateral Coordination Group of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the US," Hua said in a written response to news agency PTI.

Ahead of Trump's visit, China conducted an anti-terrorism trilateral meeting with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hulai conducted the trilateral meeting on November 7 which was attended by top officials of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

China has been trying to bring about peace between Islamabad and Kabul amid scathing criticism from Afghanistan leaders over Pakistan's support to Taliban by sheltering them.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has made separate visits to the two countries recently and met Pakistan and Afghanistan?s officials after the talks.

Pakistan?s Special Secretary Tasnim Aslam and Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai who took part in the talks called on Wang.

In the meeting, Wang thanked Pakistan and Afghanistan for their support for China in fighting the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and their contribution to the fight against international counter terrorism especially in South Asian region, Hua said.

ETIM is active in the Muslim Uygur majority province of Xinjiang which shared borders with Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Afghanistan.

Xinjiang had been restive for several years over increasing settlements of majority Hans from other provinces of China.

"China stands ready to work with two parties to strengthen our counter-terrorism cooperation to uphold the regional peace and stability," she said, adding that Pakistan and Afghanistan stated that they stand ready to strengthen cooperation with China in this regard.

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