Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and its aftermath seem all too familiar.
Bhutto
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Asia & Pacific
Elites vs. Greens in the Global South
Last month’s conference on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, brought the North-South fault line in climate politics into sharp relief. While U.S. intransigence on the question of mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions took center stage, not far behind was the issue of what commitments fast-growing developing countries like China and India should make in a new, post-Kyoto climate change regime.
Looking Presidential on Pakistan
As the race for the White House heats up, presidential candidates are using the turmoil in Pakistan to show off their foreign policy credentials. Unfortunately few of the candidates have demonstrated a clear understanding of the complexities Pakistan presents, including the political situation, nuclear safeguards, al-Qaeda, and terrorism.
Wooing the Islands
Mario Katosang, Palau’s minister of education, is no stranger to foreign travel. His ministry forged close cooperation with Japan. He is also regularly flown to Taipei and his ministry received a total amount of $1 million in 2006 and 2007 for infrastructure improvements to government-run schools. The government of Taiwan gives generous scholarships to the students of Palau and recently it began supplying the small Pacific Island nation’s schools with brand new PCs.
“We were given 100 Windows-based computers by Taiwan,” recalls Katosang. “The education sector uses predominately Apple Macintosh computers, so I mentioned that we may also need software. Taiwan immediately delivered 100 brand new copies of Windows XP, and offered to train our computer technicians.”
Letter to South Korea’s New President
South Korea’s new president underwent his own personal green revolution when he became mayor of Seoul. In charge of major construction projects at Hyundai for three decades, Lee Myung-bak reversed himself in the new millennium. He made rivers spring from concrete and grass grow where there had once been only cars.
The Bhutto Dynasty Must End Now
What becomes ever more clear in the aftermath of the tragic killing of Benazir Bhutto is that there is little if any internal democratic structure left in the Pakistan People’s Party, the one political party in Pakistan which was built on a populist grassroots foundation by Bhutto’s father in the late 60s.
Islam and Pakistan
From its Cold War role as a bulwark against the irreligious, evil empire of the Soviet Union to its status as a major non-NATO ally in the post-9/11 war on terrorism, Pakistan has flaunted its various religious credentials. Vacillating from jihad to enlightened moderation, Pakistan’s ruling civil and military elite has unscrupulously employed religion as a means to gain domestic and international legitimacy.
Pushback to Unilateralism: the China-India-Russia Alliance
As U.S. unilateralism has asserted the role of the United States as the sole global superpower, the rest of the world is exploring a variety of ways of pushing back. One is the creation of several new regional security consortiums which are independent of the U.S. One of the most important is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security alliance led by Russia and China, with several non-voting members including India. Its rising economic, political and military profile this year can serve as a useful lens through which to view this geopolitical pushback. It is based on promoting a multipolar world, distributing power along multiple poles in the international system, such as the United States, Europe, Asia-Eurasia and the Middle East,1 while also promoting the multilateralism of international cooperation.2 In recent years, Russia and China have stepped up their advocacy for a multipolar-multilateral alternative.
The Day After
A day after the dramatic ending of the Bali climate talks, many are wondering if the result was indeed the best outcome possible given the circumstances.
The United States was brought back to the fold, but at the cost of excising from the final document — the so-called Bali Roadmap — any reference to the need for a 25-40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. Such reductions are necessary to keep the mean global temperature increase in the 21st century to 2.0-2.4 degrees Celsius. This lack of mandatory cuts prompted one civil society participant to remark that “The Bali roadmap is a roadmap to anywhere.”
How Not to Handle Nuclear Security
The United States recently admitted that since the attacks of September 11, 2001, it has been helping Pakistan secure its nuclear weapons and the materials used to make them. Pakistan has welcomed this assistance. A former Pakistani general who was involved in the nuclear weapons complex has said that “We want to learn from the West’s best practices.”