M K Bhadrakumar, "Medvedev reaches out to China," Asia Times, May 29, 2008.

Russia realizes that it is only one among many big players seriously engaging China and cannot hope to claim a privileged partnership with it.

Kremlinology is back in vogue. Experts and analysts have come out of the woodwork to run a fine-tooth comb through Kremlin events, searching for clues on the direction of Russian policies under new President Dmitry Medvedev.

Often in the Soviet era, during feverish over-analyses by foreign experts, the obvious would get elbowed out in favor of tantalizing interpretations over men and mice. Could history be repeating itself?

Much has been made of Medvedev's choice of Kazakhstan and China as his first destinations after assuming office from Vladimir Putin on May 7. Was it a deliberate signal to Western capitals? Moscow pooh-poohed the suggestion. A prominent Moscow commentator pointed out, "It would be best to go to the East and West at the same time, but that is impossible."


But the disarming explanation overlooked the fact that Medvedev after all did make a choice in traveling to Beijing via Astana last weekend. Eight years ago, in 2000, when Putin went abroad as Russia's president for the first time, he travelled to London via Belarus. At that time, Moscow let it be known there was rich symbolism in Putin's choice, which was intended to convey that Russia wanted closer ties to the West.

Equally, in May 2003, Chinese President Hu Jintao's first foreign visit took him to Moscow. The government-owned China Daily newspaper aptly commented on the day of Medvedev's arrival in Beijing on Friday: "The first foreign trip of any head of state should be a carefully calculated move. The country he or she visits is supposed to be important to his or her own country's foreign relations. Little wonder that Medvedev's two-day China visit has generated much interest ... Clearly, new leaders of the two countries have put their bilateral relations on top of their foreign policy agenda."


Pragmatic cooperation

The Chinese comment stated the obvious to emphasize the bilateral content of Medvedev's visit. In fact, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui told the media at a briefing that Medvedev's visit would have four "goals": one, to establish a "working relationship and personal friendship" at the leadership level; two, to oversee the fulfillment of bilateral cooperation in practical terms; three, to increase political trust and extend mutual support on "issues concerning sovereignty, security and territorial integrity"; and, four, to deepen "pragmatic cooperation".

The fourth "goal" - pragmatic cooperation - captures the quintessence of the so-called strategic partnership between the two countries. China would have no difficulty to know that Russia has been and will remain essentially Western-centric (as distinct from "pro-West"). Over two-thirds of Russia's population live in its European part and the locus of economic and political power lies there.

But that does not detract from Russia's abiding interest in China, which is natural and historical as a neighboring country, and combines pragmatically in the present day with the imperatives of China's phenomenal rise. At the same time, Russia realizes that it is only one among many big players seriously engaging China and cannot hope to claim a privileged partnership with it.

No sooner had Medvedev concluded his two-day China visit on Saturday, South Korea's newly elected "pro-American" President Lee Myung-bak arrived in Beijing on a four-day trip. China followed the United States and Japan in Lee's itinerary. South Korea's trade volume with China is four times that of Russia's.

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Busy time for Afghanistan, Headlines for the week of April 21-28, 2008.

Not long ago Russia offered help to NATO in Afghanistan. That story broke a couple of weeks ago. It was the week Dick Cheney was in the Middle East preaching the gospel of nonviolence. That's like the Marquis de Sade preaching chastity.

NATO claims control over ¾ of Afghanistan. NATO spokesperson Mark Laity said on Wednesday (AFP Apr 23 08) dismissed the “perception” that violence is spreading in Afghanistan, saying that most of the insurgency's attacks occur in just 25% of the country.

Meanwhile, this weekend in Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai survived an assassination attempt amid a hail of rockets and bullets during the nation's biggest annual military parade. The event was meant to showcase the Afghan army's growing strength. Among the dead were a 10-year-old child and a member of parliament.

Tanker trucks blown up in Pakistan

The Taliban have begun targeting Torkham. Back on March 20, a convoy of 40 oil tankers supplying NATO forces was destroyed in a series of explosions in a parking lot at Torkham.

Danes and Dutch close embassies in Afghanistan

Danish and Dutch Foreign Ministry officials announced on Wednesday [Reuters 23 April 2008] that both countries have moved all the staff from their embassies in Kabul to secret locations because of concern about security.

The Danes have also moved staff out of its embassy in Algeria since Danish newspapers reprinted an old cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad earlier this year as a protest against a plot to murder the cartoonist

The Netherlands has also moved its embassy in the Pakistani capital Islamabad to a hotel because of concern about security following the release of an anti-Koran film, entitled Fitna, by a Dutch anti-immigration lawmaker named Geert Wilders.

Dutch public still divided over Afghanistan

“According to a poll by Maurice de Hond, 49 per cent of respondents oppose the Dutch engagement in Uruzgan, while 46 per cent support it. Afghanistan has been the main battleground in the war on terrorism.” (Angus Reid Apr 23 08)

Musharraf and China

On Monday (Apr 14 08, see Bhadrakumar Apr 19 08), Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf urged Chinese and Russian to help in stabilizing Afghanistan during an address to students at Beijing's Tsinghua University.
Musharraf

“expressed the hope that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could play a role in stabilizing Afghanistan. He added, 'If the SCO can come along, then we would need to ensure that there is no confrontation with NATO.' SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members and Iran and Pakistan as 'observers' “

Bhadrakumar also refers to “the sensational revelation by erstwhile Northern Alliance leaders about their ongoing contacts with the Taliban.” See also =>

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FEATURE"Crisis in democracy," September 25, 2007.

Back in early August, Amos Asa-El, former executive editor of the conservative Jerusalem Post and now a lecturer at the Shalem Center's Institute for Philosophy, Politics and Religion wrote about Bush, Olmert and Abbas that “Paradoxically, the more the three's political flames wane, the more their diplomatic opportunity shines.”

This great wisdom interested me because on the same day and subject I had written that “The key to understanding the widespread scepticism about this so-called new hope for peace lies in the weakness of all three leaders” and concluded

“If all this seems to tarnish the bright new hope for peace, it is best to remember that peace itself is one of the imponderables. In 1973, Richard Nixon negotiated the end of the Vietnam war. That's still hard to believe.”

Asa-El, too, was reminded of Richard Nixon and reasoned, hopefully, that “all this weakness ... creates clout as all three men ... have little left to lose.”

In other words, peace might break out as a last resort when three of the planet's most unpopular and least successful leaders finally reach the end of their rope.

This is hardly exhilarating, but it is hope. In contrast to the limited capacity of the superpower's gigantic military to impose its will without resentment, some developments do run in the other direction.

Chief among these is what appears to be a breakthrough in the six-party talks with North Korea.

After a two-month recess, diplomats from China, the United States, Russia, Japan, South and North Korea--aka the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK--will resume negotiations from Sept 27-30--that's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of this week.

China, which has hosted these meetings since 2003, announced the decision to call this session after consulting with all parties involved.


Casualties in Afghanistan so far this year are somewhat lower than they were last year. The much-anticipated Taliban spring offensive did not occur.

Nicholas Stern's 700-page report calling climate change "the greatest and widest ranging market failure ever seen" (Oct 30 06), concluded that disaster could be avoided by relying on market-based economics.

While the Science magazine study of species loss concluded that at present rate no more viable fish or invertebrate species would be available to commercial fisheries by 2050. The results also showed that these trends are still reversible.


As trends that counter the declining influence of the sole superpower, these are more conditional than those in the opposite direction, awaiting as they do some appropriate and decisive action on the part of political classes that have produced the crisis in the first place. Hardly a cause for celebration.

The Chinese anti-satellite weapon tested in January and the Israel-Lebanon War of 2006 were not simply additions to a long line of events tending to demonstrate a weakened superpower.

The Chinese ASAT is to the struggle for dominance in space what the improvised explosive device is in Iraq and Afghanistan. A simple war with crude explosives could put enough high-speed debris in space that any program dependent on geosynchronous orbit or beyond would cease to be feasible subject to the cleanup of all space junk larger than a peanut.

The war in Lebanon accomplished for Israel what Iraq and Afghanistan did for the United States, the UK, Canada and to some extent the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Germany. Instead of achieving geopolitical objectives abroad, or security at home, these wars aggravated domestic divisions, especially putting the military and its leadership on the defensive at home.

Hezbollah turned out to be an unexpectedly resilient and capable military. With financial help from Iran, after the war ended, this so-called terrorist organization moved immediately to help Lebanese people rebuild their homes—while the Israeli government still cannot protect the people of Sderot from rocket attacks and have not recovered the captured soldiers said to be the reason for the war in the first place.

Homeland Security's continued bungling of the response to Hurricane Katrina provided yet another contrasting image if one were necessary.



Arguably, these security failures come from the same package of values and policies as the market failures in the climate and oceans.

The apparatus of economic freedom was used to create the illusion that science sees climate change induced by human activity as a 'great debate' and not an advancing disaster” (World Report Dec 11 06).

In agriculture, the Doha round of WTO negotiations is failing because the very richest countries refuse to give up fat subsidies to their own farmers who still believe they cannot survive without access to foreign markets.

Economic dominance of institutions like the IMF and the World Bank is beyond challenged, is in well-deserved decline because of failures in Asia, Mexico, Russia, Argentina, and now the rapid subprime debt-driven devaluation of the dollar, which suggests that this much-anticipated discontinuity is ultimately part of the demise of the beast.

China, Venezuela and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have emerged as alternate sources of development funding. Rich countries tax their citizens to insure their companies abroad against currency problems and a host of other economic and political hazards. It's called Export Credit Agencies.

The security crisis is also an economic crisis and a political crisis. It is a crisis in legitimacy—not just the pseudo-governments in Afghanistan and in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Palestine, not just in the United States because of questionable elections and the instantaneous breaches of civil liberties in the wake of 911, but in the IMF, and the other financial institutions of neoliberal globalization. Every meeting of these organizations confirms to their global membership that they are not run democratically and are not prepared to sacrifice anything for the values which they expect the rest of the world to live by.

It is also a crisis in sovereignty. What does sovereignty mean in Afghanistan where even the boundary with Pakistan is not accepted, foreign aid replaces taxes and investment as sources of income? In Canada, sovereignty is a major issue—in the Arctic, at Montebello with the Security and Prosperity Partnership/North American Forum/ North American Union nexus of events, and among separatists in Quebec. The crisis of sovereignty among indigenous peoples has erupted repeatedly in the Grand River area and as a reaction to the Conservative non-budget for First Nations and the abrogation of the Kelowna Accords.

Finally, institutionalized conflict of interest contributes to the crisis in democracy.

Listeners may recall that World Report devoted some nine weeks of the last year to military refusal and institutionalized conflict of interest in both Canada and the USA.

Conflict of interest is often presented to the public as if it were mainly an exotic issue of perceptions and could be fixed by delivering a different spin. But the real crime in conflict of interest is a mixture of betrayal and deceit.

Spin can't fix it.

If the hope for peace and/or survival of the US as the sole superpower depends on three leaders concluding that they have nothing to lose, then it has to be said that some bad moves do remain.

A new set of elections in Palestine is being actively discussed. Hanan Ashrawi supports the idea but assumes that Hamas would participate. Still a vocal group of Palestinians, Israelis and Americans promotes elections from which Hamas would be excluded.

Exterminating Hamas is not on the path of peace and reconciliation. Today, elections without Hamas would only prove that Fatah and its sponsors in the US and Israel are afraid of real democracy and that faith in the democratic process is, as Osama bin Laden apparently said last month, misplaced.

Air raids on madrassas in the Northwest Provinces and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan is another bad idea waiting for sufficiently desperate political busybody to get behind it. Such a tactic would certainly feed that country's democratic crisis--as regards both legitimacy and sovereignty—and raise questions about what the US has against elections.

Of course, attacking Iran is the most desperate folly currently on the public international agenda. Iran is a country with hotly contested elections that noticeably and materially affect government actions.

The US and Iran recently started their first formal bilateral talks in nearly 30 years, but so far they have only discussed the situation in Iraq. The Washington Post describes the talks as an attempt “to flatter Iran and please allies,” a wording that was repeated in the business magazine Forbes and in Canada on the CANOE newsite.

Some in the US call continued negotiation with Iran “appeasement” (Peter Leslie, for instance, at the Vail Trail Sep 12 07).





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FEATURE"A year in context, part 1/2: Is it the end of the world?" September 11, 2007.

Back in 1969, I had a gig as a photographer on a project that produced a preliminary scan of pollution along the Fraser River. We stopped at communities along the way—Abbotsford, Hope, Lytton, Lillooet, Quesnel, Williams Lake. When we got to Prince George, our host took us down to a sandy spot at the side of the river.

We sat down and made ourselves comfortable. It was the end of a long day. He lit up a joint, and as he reached it slowly in my direction, said, “So, is it the end of the world?”

Looking back over the last year, the main theme of World Report has been multipolar realignment, the return of a multinational world order.

Multipolar realignment is a shift, real or anticipated, from a world order dominated by the “sole remaining superpower” to one in which leadership must be shared. It is—or would be--a new balance of power.

Is it really happening? What does it or will it or is it likely to look like? As an end point, a multipolar world order would be one in which no single state was able to achieve (or impose) its will without the cooperation of the other powers.

The defining dynamic of a shift to such an order would be a decline in the effectiveness of the “sole remaining superpower” accompanied by an increase in the power of one or more nations or groups.

We would expect this realignment, if it is happening at all, to proceed in the manner of a hiistorical evolution. It's progress would be ragged and uncertain. For every eight steps taken in one direction, seven will go in the other, with some events too ambiguous to interpret one way or the other.

I have some biases I should be clear about. Two years ago, I said that the term “superpower” is “borderline gibberish.”

I said that in 2003,

“Everyone, including the President, whose public speech is heavily laced with such linguistic junk food, called the US 'the world's only superpower.' People all across the political spectrum asked what country was next on America's hit list, as if nothing could prevail over US military might.

It was a delusion. But it was, in those days, a very common delusion.”

In my opinion, the President's use of language hasn't improved in the last four years. But the number of people who share the delusion that a big, expensive army is invincible seems to be declining.

By 2005, with the mission still not accomplished, the perception was beginning to take root “that Washington could be opposed effectively without incurring unacceptable costs" (Weinstein and Bendersky Realignment Jun 20 05).

This inevitably led to whispers that Uncle Sam's ability to become “the unquestioned political and military arbiter of the globalizing world economy” was less than you might expect from such an amazing collection of military hardware.

Indeed, the status of the US as the world's sole remaining superpower comes from three sources: military, economic and political dominance.

Viewed in this way, one of the most important events of the last twelve months was the Chinese test of an anti-satellite weapon in January. The test brought the possibility of asymmetrical warfare to outer space, a special worry to Americans and Canadians who believe that space has not already been “weaponized.”

According to John Pike, a satellite expert at globalsecurity.org, "Our space assets are the first asset on the scene....

"They are absolutely central to why we are a superpower; a signature component to America's style of warfare" (qtd Brooks Bulletin Jan 18 07).

But the trouble had started before that. By this time last year, the official cessation of hostilities in the Lebanon war (July 12 to August 14) had taken place nearly a month before on August 14, 2006. Here was yet another war that appeared to demonstrate that an army could establish full spectrum dominance, and still lose the more important political war both abroad and at home.

The collapse of domestic support for Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was certainly striking. But much bigger surprises came from Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister.

Siniora is a strong supporter of the western influence in Lebanon and is even described by some as a puppet of America. But as President Bush found out last month when Hamid Karzai described Iran as “a helper and a solution” indeed as “a supporter of Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan" the puppets seem to be acquiring minds of their own.

In a series of press conferences during the war in Lebanon, Siniora repeatedly called attention to the Palestinian refugees' right of return. He also repeated that sooner or later Israel would have to establish friendly relations with its neighbours and one time expressed the view that Lebanon would be the last Arab state to recognize Israel.

In Afghanistan, all three pillars of American dominance—military, economic and political—are on the line. More, the future of NATO is in question. Former Indian diplomat to the region M K Bhadrakumar observes

“it was apparent to anyone that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a divided house and that the United States' old European allies didn't share its apparent intention to turn Afghanistan into a client state under a NATO flag from where US power projection into the Persian Gulf and the Middle East and South Asia and Central Asia would become possible” (ATol May 19 07).

By this time last year, it was clear that the Taliban, which had been driven from the field in 2002, was back in force.

Last year was the worst for Canadian troops, and it seemed that 2007 might be even worse yet. That hasn't turned out to be the case. Canadian casualties for 2007 are slightly lower than for 2006. The Taliban's spring offensive that was talked about all winter didn't materialize.

Even so, we do not appear to feel threatened by the Taliban. For whatever reason, the reconstruction of Afghanistan has not gained traction with Canadians as a great national project.

Nagging NATO didn't put any more troops in the field either.

Bhadrakumar again: quote

“There is an Afghan opinion building up over the imperative of an intra-Afghan dialogue leading to genuine power-sharing. But the US and NATO pretend they aren't seeing the groundswell of opinion.

Their emphasis is on the existential challenge posed by [the] Afghan war to NATO's global role. They look over the Afghan ridge toward the new cold-war horizon. Meanwhile, the US is inexorably losing its monopoly over conflict resolution in Afghanistan. And regional powers include some that are against the open-ended presence of NATO forces.”

Blaming Pakistan has shaken Musharraf's hold on power, but it doesn't appear to have made Pakistanis glad at the prospect of Americans flying missions into their country.

In fact, the whole matter of air support for NATO forces has been identified as the main cause of the increase in civilian casualties inflicted by NATO forces.

The economic source of the US status as the world's sole superpower is scarcely more secure than the military one. In October, former Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank delivered a 700-page report that called climate change "the greatest and widest ranging market failure ever seen" (Oct 30 06).

A few days later, a study published in Science magazine concluded that at the rate species were being lost there would be no more viable fish or invertebrate species available to fisheries by 2050. Another market failure requiring intervention since the results also showed that these trends are still reversible.

Economic dominance of institutions like the IMF and the World Bank are in decline because China and Venezuela have emerged as alternate sources of development funding.

Cold War analysts keen to see the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a new version of the Warsaw Pact have seized on joint military exercizes and the presence of Iran as key features. But it's more complex than that and we're getting short of time. Suffice it to say for the moment that the SCO is another alternate source of funding and energy cooperation for countries of the region.

The WTO negotiations known as the Doha Round are also in trouble. Whether you think all this superpower in decline stuff is bad news or good, there have been some developments that run in the other direction that might make a good starting point for next week.

So is that the end of the world? Maybe not. My Prince George friend and I were not ready to embrace a secular version of the apocalypse, until after we had examined a few other catastrophes of varying scope—say the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Great Depression, and the Fall of the Roman Empire.

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FEATURE"What does China signify with its ASAT test?" January 22, 2007.

Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine this week announced that on January 11 China had shot down one of its aging weather satellites by hitting it with a kinetic kill vehicle launched from a ballistic missile.

Some news organizations like The New Straits Times of Malaysia repeated the line that "China has said that other nations had no reason to feel threatened by its space programme" (Jan 19).

Spokesperson Liu Jianchao said that the authorities had not spoken to him about the details. But he did speak generally to reporters at the Chinese Foreign Ministry's New Year reception.

"It is not only beneficial to enhancing international security and stability but also in the common interests of all states to ensure the peaceful uses of outer space and to prevent the weaponisation of and an arms race in outer space."

The US administration also kept a lid on the event for more than a week before deciding that they would refer to it as a weapons test. While that was probably a step in the right direction, it's far from the whole story.

Communication and reconnaissance satellites in low-Earth orbit - "eyes in the sky" - are essential to how the United States fights wars.

According to John Pike, a satellite expert at globalsecurity.org, "Our space assets are the first asset on the scene....

"They are absolutely central to why we are a superpower; a signature component to America's style of warfare" (qtd Brooks Bulletin Jan 18 07).

So the successful Chinese test of an anti-satellite weapon or ASAT was a threat, not just to specific capabilities but to US status as the "world's sole superpower" and to aspirations of dominance, prestige, wealth and influence that are linked to that status.

The largely American network of satellites is crucial to 21st century military communications and reconnaissance missions, to ballistic missile defence, the delivery of precision-guided munitions through satellite signals, and the depoloyment of unmanned aerial vehicles. (Times of India).

The American system of projecting power around the world in places like Iraq and Afghanistan is organized around a collection of ships known as the Carrier Strike Group. The Carrier Strike Group can launch air strikes, carry out maritime interdiction, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, mine warfare, and oil-platform defense and is heavily dependent on satellite communication. Without satellite communication, carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf would be practically blind and unable to function.

Predictably, the US Government lays claim to privileges for itself that it intends to deny to international competitors. In October 6, 2006, President George W. Bush signed an order claiming an American right to deny adversaries access to space for hostile purposes. The policy also opposed the development of treaties or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit US access to or use of space.

It said, "Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power."

However, at that time, White House spokesman Tony Snow emphasized that "The notion that you would do defence from space is different from that of weaponisation of space. We're comfortable with the policy" (BBC).

The United States has had the ability to knock satellites out of the sky since the mid-1980s, but the weapon is launched from an aircraft.

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the US National Security council, said Thursday (Jan 18) "The United States believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of co-operation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area,"

Defence analyst Robert Ayson from the Australian National University said (Karvelas Australian Jan 20 07) the idea that space could remain free of military activity was naive.

"Like any country with a dominant position, the US has to expect that that will be eventually challenged."

The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Center for Defense Information express the concern that debris from the explosion has produced 40,000 fragments which may stay in orbit for a decade.

Although one of the most detailed and factual reports of the Chinese accomplishment so far has come from Brooks, Alberta, the Brooks Bulletin confesses "Precisely what drove China to act now remains a mystery."

Colonel Sam Gardiner would not be puzzled. On Tuesday, he reported that a second carrier strike group would leave the US west coast that same day. It would be joined by naval mine clearing assets from both the United States and the UK. Patriot missile defense systems have also been ordered to deploy to the Gulf, Gardiner said.

Gardiner is a retired colonel of the US Air Force who has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College.

Gardiner concluded that this new deployment

"has to be called escalation. We have to remind ourselves, just as Iran is supporting groups inside Iraq, the United States is supporting groups inside Iran. Just as Iran has special operations troops operating inside Iraq, we’ve read the United States has special operations troops operating inside Iran.

"Just as Iran is supporting Hamas, two weeks ago we found out the United States is supporting arms for Abbas. Just as Iran and Syria are supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon we’re now learning the White House has approved a finding to allow the CIA to support opposition groups inside Lebanon. Just as Iran is supporting Syria, we’ve learned recently that the United States is going to fund Syrian opposition groups.

"We learned this week the President authorized an attack on the Iranian liaison office in Irbil."

Gardiner offers this additional insider speculation: "if the White House is on a path to strike Iran, we’ll see a few more steps unfold.

"First, we know there is a National Security Council staff-led
group whose mission is to create outrage in the world against Iran. Just like before Gulf II, this media group will begin to release stories to sell a strike against Iran. Watch for the outrage stuff. The Patriot missiles going to the GCC states are only part of the missile defense assets. I would expect to see the deployment of some of the European-based missile defense assets to Israel, just as they were before Gulf II.

"I would expect deployment of additional USAF fighters into the bases in Iraq, maybe some into Afghanistan.

"I think we will read about the deployment of some of the newly arriving Army brigades going into Iraq being deployed to the border with Iran. Their mission will be to guard against any Iranian movements into Iraq.

"As one of the last steps before a strike, we’ll see USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike."

China has just signed a $19 billion dollar natural gas deal with Iran and 2 years ago signed a $100 billion deal for oil. Even by oil industry standards, those are enormous deals. So China has a legitimate interest in the security of Iran's energy supplies.

Of course this is all speculation and circumstantial evidence. In a carefully worded report, the New York Times paraphrases unnamed Senior American officers who "said the increase in naval power should not be viewed as preparations for any offensive strike against Iran. But they acknowledged that the ability to hit Iran would be increased and that Iranian leaders might well call the growing presence provocative."

Or not. On January 17, CNN's Jamie McIntyre reported that the successful test followed three unsuccessful attempts. So the timing of the January 11 test may have been dictated strictly by technical .

We must be careful not to expect multipolarity to come in a single cataclysmic collapse. Although it might seem like that at the time, we can already see that a lot has gone into trying to preserve the order based on the US as the sole superpower, but with intolerable results.

Color revolutions (aka post modern coups) finally ground to a halt with the killing of rioters in Abidjan, Uzbekistan.

After some qualified success in Ukraine, Georgia and Lebanon, Bush's democracy crusade has begun to unravel.

The so-called "Cedar revolution" in Lebanon is the most spectacular example.

Uzbekistan responded to what it interpreted as the US fomenting a color revolution there by evicting the US from its Karshi-Khanabad air base (aka K2). Kyrgyzstan appears to be on the verge of doing the same.

That year, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization formally asked the US to give an idea how much longer it would be in Afghanistan The SCO has also established an SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group and has agreed to join international efforts to create an anti-drug buffer around Afghanistan. PINR and Asia Times have discussed Japan's role in Central Asia as a counterbalance to these developments.

Some people ask why China doesn't just pull the plug on that part of America's debt for which they hold the paper. There are lots of answers to that question. First, they would like to spend it on something better than bringing down the US. Second, they would like to keep the lucrative American market for their manufactured goods. Third, they are not keen to start a war. Fourth, crashing the American economy would damage a lot of other countries whose currencies depend on the dollar.

Finally, in my opinion, China would like to see a soft landing for Uncle Sam.

Meanwhile, CounterPunch reports this month that Iran has dumped the dollar as its reserve currency. Arab nations are shifting reserves into Euros.

Can the international community negotiate a graceful demotion of the US from its unfortunate status as the world's sole superpower? We all have reason to hope so.

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FEATURE"5 most neglected stories for 2006," August 28, 2006.

World Report is back after the annual summer maintenance break here at Kootenay Coop Radio. It's the beginning of a new broadcast season for us, Fall 2006, and in a sense the beginning of our year.

Last year, I decided not to jump on the "year-in-review" bandwagon in December and January. Most of the events I discuss don't deserve to be celebrated, but they do bear watching.

This is a good neutral time of year that comes as regularly as anyone's new year. So today I'll review the year through the eyeball of this 12-minute weekly segment and follow that with what is becoming another regular World Report practice: the list of what I judge to be the year's 5 most neglected international themes.

Last year, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization stood at the top of my list. The SCO member countries are home to nearly 50% of the world's population--China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The meeting of their prime ministers in Astana, Kazakhstan had taken place in the shadow of the Gleneagles meeting of the world's richest countries plus Russia and the Live 8 media frenzy. Observer status at the SCO meeting had been granted to India, Pakistan, and Iran. They meet every year and are still news even in between their summits.

Canadian mining companies in Latin America were the second theme on my list. There are at least three stories under that heading: Barrick's proposal to relocate three glaciers in the Andes for "Pascua Lama," an open-pit mine at the 4600 meter elevation on the border between Chile and Argentina; the threat of cynaide leaching into an aquifer that provides 73 percent of the water for 3 million people around San Luis Potosi in Mexico; and the conflict between some 200 Mayan mayors and Glamis Gold over the shooting death of Alvaro Sanchez in the San Marcos region of Guatemala.

That's three, but the third item on last year's list is a lot more than that. The export credit agencies of developed countries are government bodies that make up the largest source of debt in the developing world.

What CBC calls its "main channel" runs regular advertisements for Canada's ECA called Export Development Canada, but it still doesn't report on the agency's activities.

Reporting would be difficult. As the watchdog group ECA-Watch points out, export credit agencies don't generally disclose the impacts of their projects to the public, and the Canadian ECA is exempt from freedom of information legislation.

"'We are insuring Canadian investors against civil war or nationalization," their spokesman says. To that end, the organization is more concerned with confidentiality than it is with transparency.

In contrast, the fourth theme on last year's list has begun to be a little more visible to the mainstream media. More important for us locally, peak oil and the rise of organic agriculture is one of the themes on Jon Steinman's show that debuted on KCR last season, Deconstructing Dinner.

Most of these themes don't have it so good, and last year's fifth was no exception. UN reform was on everyone's agenda for a few weeks last year, first when Koffi Annan released his report on the subject, "In Larger Freedom," in March 2005 and again in mid-September when the largest summit meeting in history convened in New York city to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, to assess the world's progress toward the Milennium Development Goals, and to discuss reform of the UN.

It was too much. The meetings failed. The UN still has systemic problems badly in need of reform. Just this week, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations reported that since 2004, the UN has investigated allegations of sexual exploitation or abuse against 313 members of peacekeeping missions, resulting in the dismissal of 17 staff and the forced repatriation of 161 others. "Forced repatriation" means they got sent home.

Those committed to UN reform continue to work, and the implications of reform hang in the background of specific efforts like the role of Brazil in the Haiti peacekeeping effort and the impact of the US-India nuclear deal on India's aspiration to win a permanent seat on the Security Council. But the issue has disappeared from the news and from most mainstream analysis of the day's events.

At this time last year, that historic UN summit was about to come to nothing. It was the time of Paul Martin's government and Canadian troops had not yet arrived in Kandahar. The BC teachers strike was still threatening in the wings; Evo Morales had not yet been elected in Bolivia, nor Michele Bachelet in Chile; Hamas had not yet been elected in the Palestinian Territories; nor had Réné Préval been elected in Haiti. The WTO negotiations had not yet ground to a halt in Hong Kong. Museveni was looking for re-election in Uganda.

World Report discussed each of these in full-length reports--sometimes more. It was a big year for World Report. Listeners urged me explore syndication, so I started archiving segments on radio4all as a way of moving in that direction. This week I'm pleased to welcome the Mike Cannon Show at WNRB Wausau in Central Wisconsin and the "News Collage" at Free Radio San Diego 96.9FM, the oldest running, most defiant unlicensed radio station in San Diego, California. I feel like I'm home.

Bill Metcalfe wrote an article, too, about World Report for this season's KCR Newsletter. He says very supportive things like "brimming with information not otherwise available on the radio from a Canadian perspective."

Bill also mentioned the new World Report website at cjly.net/worldreport where you'll find the text of recent programs and links to the archived broadcasts, an extensive list of research links to help you learn more about the world, and an open newsroom blog where you can comment or explore other ways of engaging international issues.

Lots of articles are posted on the blog and if you watch the newsfeed on the home page you'll see that although poverty is not much discussed by our new organizations here in Canada, it is an almost daily subject in media around the world.

So let's get on to this year's untold stories:

1. First, I don't know how the Palestinian non-violence movement and their Israeli peace partners escaped getting onto my list of neglected stories last year. People always say where is the Palestinian Gandhi? But the truth is that non-violence has been an organized movement in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea since the 30's at least.

2. Second, The joint declaration issued at the end of the Astana summit of the SCO rejected US attempts to monopolize or dominate international affairs and insisted on quote "non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states." endquote

Certainly recent events in Lebanon make a person want to know, "Whatever happened to the color revolutions?" After all the hooey about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, the spread of democracy was supposed to be what the war president's wars were all about. This isn't the place to try and tell those stories. But it is where we register that they have yet to be told.

3. Back in 1992, the Auditor General brought the problem of tax havens to public attention for the first time. In recent years, Mr. Yvan Loubier, the finance critic for the BQ has raised this matter (Hansard Mar 2 01) and his colleague Mr. Guy Côté presented a motion in the Martin Parliament to "amend the Income Tax Act regulations so that they do not override certain provisions of the tax agreement between Canada and Barbados allowing Canadian businesses to use their subsidiary in Barbados to avoid paying taxes in Canada" (Oct 6 05).

Then last October, Bev Oda, then the Conservative critic and now the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Status of Women picked up the matter in the House of Commons. But when the time came, Stephen Harper, our tax-reforming Prime Minister made an adjustment to the GST but did nothing to address the issue of tax havens. That's the third item on my list of underreported stories.

4. Fourth, there is a trust-like set of responsibilities (fiduciary) the federal government unilaterally assumed when it imposed its Indian Act and other laws on First Nations. That set of responsibilities means that the federal government must not put itself in a situation where its responsibilities to First Nations conflict with its other interests or even where it stands to profit from its trust-like position without express knowledge and consent. This trust-like set of responsiblities is at the core of the argument that says courts as they are presently constituted cannot serve as impartial arbiters of disputes between First Nations peoples and the Crown.

Again, this is not the place to lay out the details. This is just the place to say that the mainstream media seems to have decided *not* to lay out the details, so the thousands of important stories go untold.

5. Fifth and finally, are soldiers who oppose the war. We know somewhat about the current and past generations of deserters and refuseniks. But there is a growing group of generals and other veterans who have chosen to tell their stories without much interest from the press.

Take Martin Smith, for instance. Smith is a former sergeant in the US Marine Corps. Now he is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. In an article for this month's CounterPunch, he writes

We can neither rely on claims that impeaching Bush will end future war crimes nor that the actions of a few individuals are merely to blame. Rather, the entire military institution and its training are complicit in the project of U.S. imperialism, including the war crimes of the past, and, if not stopped, in the continuance and promotion of further atrocities. Moreover, individual soldiers should never be viewed as cogs in a wheel or as mere simpletons and powerless victims. The elemental truth is that generals and war planners call the shots from air-conditioned building and bunkers far from combat, but wars must be fought on the ground by working-class troops who, when organized, can act on their own political principles rather than on those of their commanding officers. As David Cortright argues, a new generation of activists in solidarity with active-duty personnel and military families "need not be helpless before the power of illegitimate authority . . . by getting together and acting upon their convictions people can change society and, in effect, make their own history".

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FEATUREThe Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the emerging multipolar international order

For weeks ahead of the fifth annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Beijing last Thursday, the rumours in the Western press were that Iran was about to have its status upgraded from observer to full member.

The SCO has its roots in an April 1996 meeting of the presidents from five neighbouring countries: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Their mutual interests included economic cooperation, the control of terrorism, separatism and extremism inside their borders and action against the flow of drugs and arms across their borders.

The presidents of these five countries continued to meet annually. In 1999, they signed an agreement in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, to set up a formal organization for the control of terrorism.

In June 2001, just months before the September 11 attacks, they met again in Shanghai and formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This time a sixth country--Uzbekistan--was also present. (Mackerras Apr 23 04).

The Shanghai Spirit as it was called back in 2001 was seen as a model of regional cooperation, "a partnership, but not an alliance." Economically the goal is to increase trade; geopolitically, to achieve regional stability without political preconditions.

The collapse of the Soviet Union had left a political vacuum in Central Asia. For the first time, the SCO addressed that vacuum without discounting Russia, as Turkey, Iran and the United States had previously tried to do. "Instead, [Sisci wrote] it includes and ultimately limits Moscow's influence in the region"(ATol Jun 23 01).

When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Russia in September 2004, he proposed building up Eurasia as a free-trade zone with Russia, but his Russian counterpart rejected this idea.

In those days, Russia was still reeling from the terrorist attack in Beslan that same month as well as the Rose revolution in Georgia the year before. Copycat revolutions in Ukraine, Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic were yet to come. So Russia's focus for the SCO was on combatting terrorism, separatism and fundamentalism, while China hoped to see the organization primarily as a stimulus to economic cooperation. (See Wang Asia Times Online Long rope Oct 20 04).

In 2005, SCO members whose governments represent nearly 50 percent of the world's population, demonstrated what Adam Wolfe of the Power and Interest News Report calls a desire "to be a serious force in international affairs. [According to Wolfe,] This can be seen in the granting of observer status to India (at Russia's request), Pakistan (at China's insistence) and Iran (to the delight of all members)" (Wolfe Great game Aug 3 05).

In 2005, SCO members whose governments represent nearly 50 percent of the world's population, demonstrated what Adam Wolfe of the Power and Interest News Report calls a desire "to be a serious force in international affairs. This can be seen in the granting of observer status to India (at Russia's request), Pakistan (at China's insistence) and Iran (to the delight of all members)" (Great game Aug 3 05).

The joint declaration issued at the end of the summit rejected attempts at "monopolizing or dominating international affairs" and insisted on "non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states." The members further urged the US-led forces in Afghanistan to declare a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Uzbek and Kyrgyz bases in the region that were established to support the Afghan operations" (Wolfe Great game Aug 3 05).

Eurasia.Net recognized that Uzbekistan's decision around the same time to evict US military personnel from the Karshi-Khanabad airbase "effectively marks the start of the Russian-led counter-revolution in Central Asia" (Eviction notice Eurasia.net Aug 1 05).

In April of this year, SCO Secretary General Zhang Deguang said, "Iran and three other observer nations -- Pakistan, India and Mongolia -- will soon be invited to join as full members" (Goodenough CNSNews.com Apr 19 06).

The New Member Gambit: Just Think About It

The presence of Iran's Ahmadinejad and rumours that Iran might become a member of the organization have generated the most press in the West. But the invitation to full membership and indeed the granting of observer status, in case anyone had missed it, was a direct challenge to US and NATO dominance in the region.

Mongolia

Take Mongolia for instance. Back in November 2005, Bush became the first US president to visit Mongolia. "He met Mongolian President Nambaryn Enkhbayar and thanked him for supporting the US-led war in Iraq, and for sending more than 100 troops" (BBC Nov 21 06).

Pseudo NGOs from the US like the National Endowment for Democracy had "helped draft the country's constitution in 1992 and have since helped in voter education and other pro-democracy projects" (BBC Nov 21 05).

Pakistan

Pakistan is a traditional US ally and a crucial collaborator in the Global War on Terror. However, because of its central location, Pakistan hopes to play a key role in regional commerce by providing a trade corrridor and access to the sea for the SCO countries. (Chen Jun 14 06)

Pervez Musharraf and Hu Jintao met for the second time this year the day after last week's SCO summit. Liu Jiachao, a senior official of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said he hoped Pakistan's application for full membership in the SCO would be accepted soon. (Chen Jun 14 06)

The last time the two met, Pakistan expressed its interest in the construction of oil refineries, gas terminals and oil and gas storage and transit facilities.

The Chinese side welcomed the proposals and agreed to assist in the development of oil and gas sector in Pakistan. They also agreed to enhance cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy" (Chen Jun 14 06).

India

An editorial this May in the Times of India concluded that India's role in Central Asia has been "feeble" and that "India lacks a clear Central Asia policy with a strategic intent." For example, the India-Iran-Turkmenistan railway project was criticized because it has yet to bear fruit.

More to the point, India is counting on every vote in the US Congress to get its nuclear deal with Washington sanctioned. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh couldn't afford to be seen rubbing shoulders with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad at the SCO summit. So he stayed home and sent Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora instead. (Ramachandran Jun 17 06)

India does have a military base in Tajikistan and is interested in the region's vast gas resources. (Ramachandran Jun 17 06)

But

Getting the nuclear deal through is a top priority for India. To this end it has made drastic shifts in its foreign policy, taking a pro-US line in the Iran nuclear controversy for instance. It voted in favor of an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution to report Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council, defying fierce opposition from the left parties in India.

India could have abstained if it did not want to be seen to be challenging the US position. However, in a bid to signal to the US that it was a reliable ally it went a step further and voted against Iran. (Ramachandran Jun 17 06)

Still India lobbied hard to get into the SCO and finally got observer status with Russian backing. India has now applied for full member status in the grouping, as has Iran" (Ramachandran Jun 17 06).

Iran

Both Russia and China have stated that they want the entire Iran nuclear issue to be handed back to the IAEA to handle through negotiation. The USA, however, has stated that after receiving the IAEA report, they will seek a Chapter 7 resolution, which authorises the use of force. Failing this, the USA has a fallback position, which calls for the UN Security Council to invoke economic sanctions against Iran. (Hunt May 2 06)

Gennady Yefstafiyev, a former general in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, has written:

The US's long term goals in Iran are obvious: to engineer the downfall of the current regime; to establish control over Iran's oil and gas; and to use its territory as the shortest route for the transportation of hydrocarbons under US control from the regions of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea bypassing Russia and China. This is not to mention Iran's intrinsic military and strategic significance. (Qtd Bhadrakumar Apr 18 06)

Of Iran's nuclear "program" Yevgeniy Velikhov, president of Kurchatov Institute, Russia's nuclear research center, told Tier-TASS, "Launching experimental equipment of this type is something any university can do" (Qtd Bhadrakumar Apr 18 06)

Former Indian diplomat MK Bhadrakumar sees SCO membership as "a lifeline for Iran in political and economic terms" and as an opportunity to "debunk the US propaganda about Iran being part of an 'axis of evil'".

The SCO added no new members to its list this year. But it has demonstrated through a kind of subtle and indirect diplomacy that we are unaccustomed to in the West just what could be standing in the wings.

The Current Membership is an Economic Powerhouse-in-Waiting

Trade is an important part of the SCO. Even without new members, the group does not lack for strong economies.

China's raging growth is well known, but one of the most surprising items during the last year was the statement by Bhadrakumar who writes regularly for the South Asia Analysis Group that the Russian economy is now in better shape than ever before. "Russia is not only holding vast reserves of energy but is also flush with oil-revenue cash to invest [Bhadrakumar wrote].... the investment climate is improving; it is keen to repay debts ahead of schedule; and, with high oil prices, things could get still better..." (Bhadrakumar Five days Mar 1 05).

Another surprise came at a time when US Senator McCain had introduced a bill to kick Russia out of the G8. Jim O'Neill, the head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs Group in London, said in an interview with the Moscow Times noted growing pressure to enlarge the G7. "If the G7 wants to be regarded as a credible entity, it's living on borrowed time," he said. "At the financial level, it is quite ridiculous not to include China at a minimum, and there is a very good case to consider having Russia, India and Brazil too.'"

Kazakhstan's real GDP grew 9.3 percent in 2003 and 94 percent in 2004 driven largely by the oil sector. Grain production has increased on average by 27 percent per year during the period from 1998 to 2003. (World Bank).

Tajikistan has achieved an average economic growth of 10 percent per year for the past four years and has reduced poverty from 83% of the population in 1999 to 64% in 2003.

Even without new members, the Shanghai Cooperation could be an economic powerhouse-in-waiting.Recommend this Post

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