Protests in Egypt day by day
Violent clashes between anti-government protestors and those loyal to President Hosni Mubarak escalated Thursday, and dozens of foreign journalists and aid workers were arrested.
Cairo's Tahrir Square has been the epicenter of the protests.
Tuesday Jan. 25
Inspired by the fall of Tunisia's longtime dictator, thousands flock to the streets in Cairo and other major Egyptian cities to denounce Mubarak's rule.
Wednesday Jan. 26
Demonstrations continue despite a government ban. Police use tear gas, clubs and rubber bullets against the crowds.
Thursday Jan. 27
Mohamed ElBaradei, an opposition activist and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrives in Cairo.
Friday Jan. 28
Clashes with police intensify, and deaths are reported. Overnight, the police are withdrawn and replaced with the military. The government institutes a curfew and blocks Internet access.
Saturday Jan. 29
Mubarak announces he is removing his cabinet and appoints a vice president. Protesters in Tahrir Square defy the curfew, and prison breaks and looting are reported throughout the weekend.
Sunday Jan. 30
ElBaradei is chosen as the opposition’s negotiator with the government but receives a lukewarm response when he speaks in Tahrir Square. The Obama administration calls for an "orderly transition" to an interim government until new elections are held.
Monday Jan. 31
Vice President Omar Suleiman says he will talk with opposition leaders. A calmer police force returns to the streets, and the army announces that it will not fire against the crowds.
Tuesday Feb. 1
More than 200,000 people peacefully gather in Tahrir Square. They vow to remain until Mubarak steps down and are not appeased by his promise not to run for reelection.
Wednesday Feb. 2
The peace that prevailed in Tahrir Square during Tuesday's massive demonstrations gives way to a standoff between pro-democracy demonstrators and thousands of Mubarak supporters. Internet access is restored.
Thursday Feb. 3
Violent clashes continue, and dozens of foreign journalists and human rights workers are taken into custody. On state television, Vice President Suleiman asks for patience from the people and rejects their plea for Mubarak to step down.
Friday Feb. 4
Hundreds of thousands of anti-Mubarak demonstrators gather in a calmer Tahrir Square on what they have called the "Day of Departure." They are joined by Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa, a possible replacement for ElBaradei as the leader of the opposition.
Pakistan and the Egyptian revolution
From the Early Dynastic Period before 3000 BC through to the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, when Egypt became a province of Rome under Augustus Caesar in 30 BC, Egypt has had many Pharaohs. From Hephaistos to Isiris (who also rose from the dead like Jesus, amazingly after three days) the people of the Nile have suffered in servitude and slavery. Each departure was heralded as a new beginning. From Ka to Khafra most Egyptians have suffered in dilapidating penury. From Kheperkare Nekhtnebef to Ramses, to Tut to Cleopatra to the French colonialism, and people of Al-Qahira have suffered. The departure of one Pharaoh simply brings about another one.
King of Egypt Farouk was born in 1920. In 1938, two years after the death of his father, King Fu’ad, Farouk ousted the Wafd government led by Nashas Pasha. King Farouk who had the largest pornographic collection of books int he world was steeped deep into hedonism. He miserably failed at his feeble attempts at half-hearted reform. His corrupt and ineffectual reign came to an end after he lost the support of the military after Egypt’s poor showing in its 1948 war with Israel. In 1952 King Farouq was forced to abdicate after a military coup led by Gamal Nasser.
The uprising against Farouq led them into the Socialist cul de sac which kept Egypt enslaved under the Nasserties. All of these Demi-Gods opposed the real representatives of the people. Hasn Al Banya and Syed Qutub have been declared bad and evil doers. Mubarak to the very last is depicting himself as the last wall against chaos and an Islamic takeover. It is the same line that Marcos used against the communists, and Allande used against the Marxists.
The death of Nasser and the murder of Sadaat were all heralded as the new dawn.
The French revolution against the monarchy in the ended coroneted another king. As often happens in third world countries, the revolutions bring about other dictators who commit the same mistakes. The beguiled Egyptians revolted against the Ottomans and got straddled with British colonialism and eventually King Farouq.
This current disaster on the Nile was manufactured in Washington–and the world may have to pay a heavy price for it. An overwhelming majority of the Egyptians have repeatedly voted for their representatives (guess who they are??)–to be over-run by one of the most brutal regimes in the Middle East. The Egyptians have endured 30 years of the current tin-pot and 15 years of the previous one—and America has kept them in place–or they would have been put on the wayside a long time ago.
Now we are giving them Mr. Sulaiman–asked him to create a VP slot and put the head of the dreaded Mukhabarat (intelligence Services which would put Savak to shame) as the new president of Egypt. Egypt’s newly appointed Vice President, Omar Suleiman, was the coordinator of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. The nomination of Suleiman – and new Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq – confirms what many analysts and protesters have already known. There is a huge to question about the extent to which regime change will actually come about in Egypt. We have always said that this is Orchestrated change, and nothing will change.
CNN Egypt correspondent Ben Wederman agrees “New VP Omar Suleiman and PM Ahmed Shafiq are as Mubarak as Mubarak. Egyptians in no mood for more of the same.” (Jan25, Egypt). ElBredei got his Nobel Prize because he certified that Iraq had WMDs and Iran is on the way!!! These are the crooks that we are trying to force down the people of Egypt!!
The US has been supporting one of the most brutal regimes in the Middle East for 30 years under Mubarak and 15 years under Sadaat. CNN and the media is acting as if the State Department just woke up to this? Didn’t the world know that we were sitting on top of Mt. Vesuvius! Are we looking at another Algeria (where the legally elected government of the Salvation Front was prevented to take power)?
Don’t we know that the people want Ikhwan Ul Muslimeen –but that does not US and Israeli interests. What else will they do to prevent he real representative of the Egyptians (Muslim Brotherhood)? Everything was tried in Lebanon, but Hizbullah won anyway.
Three personalities have shaped the Middle East. Syed Qutub, and Hasan Al Banna the Pakistani Maududi. Syed Abul A’ala Maududi was born in September 25, 1903 and set up his Jamat e Islami (JI) in Pakistan. Banna was very impressed by the JI and pattered his IM on the JI. While Banna died early, Maududi lived along time and wrote many books which are widely read in Egypt. In fact most Egyptians know Maududi more than they know about any other Pakistani.
Syed Qutb, the doyen of the Ikhwan al-Muslimun, had a very profound impact on the Muslim Arab youth coming out of dark ages of Nasser’s socialism in the late 60s. Western writers in recent years have focused on him as one of the two most influential Muslim thinkers of this century, the other being Syed Maududi. Just like Lenin had revised pure Marxism, Syed Qutb in his jail cell wrote a book in which he revised Hassan al-Banna’s vision of establishing an Islamic state in Egypt after the nation was thoroughly Islamized. Syed Qutb used Maududi’s philosophy about a revolutionary vanguard which would first establish an Islamic state and then, bring about Islamization of Egypt. Qutb like Maududi was against Arab nationalistic ideologies. Qutub’s 11 years in prison walls gave him an opportunity to confirm what Maududi’s writings. In 1965 Qutub published his seminal works “Mallem Fittareek” (Milestones), which led to his re-arrest with the accusation of conspiracy against the Egyptian President, Abdul Nasser. It is amazing that it was almsot the same time when Maududi arrested by Ayub Khan under similar charges. Maududi convicted and sentenced to be hanged was pardoned by Ayub Khan. Syed Qutb however was hanged by Nasser for sedition. His followers looked toward Maududi for intellectual capital. Maududi died on September 22, 1979 but his works are read all over the Arab world.
Hasan al-Banna, the eldest son of watch repairman was born in Al-Mahmudiyya Egypt in October 1906. In 1927 he formed the Muslim Brotherhood (Jama’at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun). In the book “Letter To A Muslim Student” (FOSIS,1995) Banna explained the dynamics of the Ikhwan. His greatest achievement was his ability to create a sophisticated, organizational structure aiming to translate his vision into real life. The Ikhwan was not merely a social, political or religious association or group. It was a movement. By 1934, the Ikhwan had established more than fifty branches in Egypt. The focused on establishing a social network of schools, mosques and factories. At the end of World War II, the Ikhwan Al-Muslimeen had over half a million active workers and about 3 million active supporters. Over two thousand branches were in existence altogether and fifty in Sudan – which at the time was part of Egypt. While the royalty of Egypt was kowtowing to the colonialists, Al-Banna told the Ambassador that Egypt and all its money is the property of the Egyptian people and that Britain’s time in Egypt was coming to an end. Due to his Anti-British activities Al-Banna was exiled to Upper Egypt in 1948.
Nasser and Saddat were not the only ones who baned the Ikhwan—the government of Noqrashi Pasha banned the Ikhwan despite the fact the Ikhwan fought for Egypt in 1948. The Ikhwan was blamed for the murder of the puppet Prime Minister and banned. Shortly afterwards, on the 12th of February 1949, Hassan al-Banna, 43 at the time was assassinated. He was survived by a daughter named “Esteshhaad” – martyrdom. The Muslim Brotherhood has survived all attempts to stifle it and has grown stronger in Egypt. The Islamic resurgence manifest today in the Arab world today owes its origin directly or indirectly to the Muslim Brotherhood Organisation.
CNN props like Fawad Ajami really crack me up. When asked what the people of Egypt want, he said “we don’t know”. When pressed on the subject he balked, and said “It doesn’t matter what the people want, its the ground realities that matter. The Egyptian elite and the Egyptian Army will defend themselves against the opposing forces”. Well let us consider this Ajami statement. Mr Ajami could not get himself to tell the truth–the people of Egypt want the Ikhwan Ul Muslimeen, and the Ajami crowd is pressing the US to oppose the poplar will of the Egyptians. Well what else can we expect from one of the leading players rooting for the US invasion of Iraq. Mr. Ajami did talk about the riots in Iran, but could not utter a grunt against the occupation of Palestine.
Who is Mohamed ElBaradei? He is an opportunist and the fake “leader”. In fact, he is a nobody. His following in Egypt is non-existent, and no one really cares. He is being propped up as someone and getting a lot of unfair media coverage.
Will all this interference push Egypt to an Iranian type of chaos? American attempts to hijack the revolution and putting in another dictator– Strong Man Sulaiman (the newly appointed VP) or ElBaradei (the US point man who had declared that Iraq had WMD and got a Nobel Peace prize for doing it) may or may not succeed.
The world knows that ElBraadei and Sulaiman are being propped up to support the US ally in the Middle East so that the “occupation” does not end.
Prediction: The revolution has been hijacked by ElBerei (who has no following in Egypt) and Sulaimon the butcher of Cairo. They will try to control it, either like Algeria where the Salvation Front was prevented from taking power (by the US backed junta) and endured a decade of civil war–or like Pakistan where a dictator was uprooted by a popular movement but in the middle Mr. Zardari was imposed on the people.
Possibility: If we don’t stop this, and don’t learn from our mistake the Ikhwan Ul Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood) will take over Egypt, one way or the other–abrogate the peace treaty with Israel and help the Palestinians get their state. in affect anohter Lebanon and an Arab version of Iran. An awakened Egypt will cause ripples affects all the way to Indonesia in the East and Morocco in the West.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
How Tehran Sees Tunis
From Iran, it's more about 1979 than 2009.
As Tunisian President-for-Life Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled into ignominious exile two weeks ago, democrats around the world found hope in the notion that Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution would spread to Iran. The images of demonstrations from Sidi Bouzid to Tunis reminded Americans of the massive 2009 protests that gave rise to Iran's opposition Green Movement, and as pro-democracy movements inspired by Tunisia emerged in Egypt and Yemen, many observers saw a chance for Iran to be next. But looking closer, it's clear that Iranians -- from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on down to the Green Movement opposition -- view the Tunisia situation as vastly different from their own, and not one that's likely to spill over into a renewed push for democratic reform in their own country.
More... Despite the examples of Ben Ali and Egypt's beleaguered President Hosni Mubarak, Iran's leaders are far from running scared. In fact, Tehran is taking a distinctly more triumphalist understanding of the roots and effects of the Tunisian protests than American commentators would expect from another authoritarian Middle Eastern government -- particularly from one facing its own challenges from opposition forces.
In the week following Ben Ali's frantic flight to Saudi Arabia, reactions from Iranian officials and state-supported media were, as always, bold and self-assured. But this is no skin-deep grandstanding designed to force a positive spin on an unsettling example of political upheaval. Where Washington sees an anti-authoritarian uprising, Tehran describes a 1979-style rejection of a U.S.-supported secularist: Ahmadinejad referred to the Tunisian uprising as an expression of the people's will for an Islamic order, and the Iranian Majlis voted overwhelmingly to support the "revolution."
Shariatmadari explained, "When the Muslim nations of the region see clearly that not just one arrogant power but all arrogant powers with all their powers and capabilities have been bitterly defeated against the Islamic faith and national perseverance of the Muslim people of Iran, do you not think that they would rise up for the liberation of themselves and their homeland from under the dominance of dictators and foreign colonialism?" While this idea may sound preposterous to American ears, the resonance it holds in the upper echelons of the Iranian leadership only points to a more assertive Tehran.
In their triumphal postmortems of the Tunisian upheaval, Iran's conservatives have also excitedly forecasted similar revolutions in other pro-Western Arab regimes such as Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia -- a rare case where they and many American neoconservatives see eye to eye. These hard-liners are reveling in the notion that their Arab neighbors, particularly those governments that have aligned themselves closely with Washington, have become nervous about protesters emulating their Tunisian counterparts.
As for Ahmadinejad's critics, their point of view is not too different. The most important political fault line in Iran currently lies between hard-liners and more moderate conservatives within the Islamic Republic's establishment -- not between the government and the opposition. Optimistic Western observers might hope to see moderate conservatives take a different view from that of their archconservative rivals. But on the issue of Tunisia, the conservatives seem to be marching in lock step. While they have been more likely to read the events in Tunisia as a revolt against authoritarianism as such, even some of Ahmadinejad's main conservative critics see the uprising as evidence of the reach of the Islamic Revolution. A commentator in the often critical Mardom-Salari daily wrote that it was clear that Iran had shown Tunisia that "Islamism is superior to non-Islamic and secular governments in Islamic countries."
Perhaps the most important sign of Ahmadinejad's and Khamenei's staying power comes from the reaction of Iran''s dispirited and disorganized democratic opposition movement. Many in the Green Movement have embraced comparisons to the Tunisian protesters, but the opposition has largely struggled with how to interpret the Jasmine Revolution. Their reactions are bittersweet, ranging from a wistful sense of inspiration to soul-searching examinations of why Tunisians have succeeded where the Greens failed. Some have made excuses for the Green Movement's failure to remove Ahmadinejad, citing differences in the histories, demographics, and governments of Iran and Tunisia; others have tried hopefully to suggest that the Green Movement's lack of immediate and volatile results is actually a long-term strategic advantage.
One piece written by Jamileh Kadivar, the now-exiled reformist intellectual and parliamentarian, and posted on the opposition Rah-e Sabz website just hours after Ben Ali's departure from power may be the best indicator of the Green Movement's current mood. Marveling at the Tunisian people's amazing feat, she called their actions a model for all oppressed populations worldwide. Without explicitly referencing Iran, she wrote, "This is a dawn that can be very close at hand for many of the peoples who are under the oppression of tyranny, if they only have pride and trust in their own strength."
If American policymakers are looking for what the Green Movement is learning from the events in Tunisia, they may have to settle for Kadivar's vague optimism. What they will not find is an Iranian leadership conveying any sense of fear, disappointment, or insecurity as a result of the Tunisian uprising, or a reinvigorated, inspired reform movement like the one in Egypt. With no major divergence of views among the factions of the conservative establishment, it is impossible to conceive of cracks forming in the oft-uneasy alliance that maintains the Islamic Republic's stability; and the Green Movement is, at this point, simply too battered after a year and a half of severe repression to take advantage of cracks, if they were to open.
It would be easy -- especially in light of the spread of protests to Egypt and other countries -- for Washington to embrace the idea that now is the time to openly and actively support the Iranian opposition. But this would be a grave miscalculation based on a false impression of Iranian weakness, one destined to backfire and brand the Green Movement as American puppets. Barack Obama's administration would be wisest to concede that no domino is likely to fall eastward onto Tehran.
From Iran, it's more about 1979 than 2009.
As Tunisian President-for-Life Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled into ignominious exile two weeks ago, democrats around the world found hope in the notion that Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution would spread to Iran. The images of demonstrations from Sidi Bouzid to Tunis reminded Americans of the massive 2009 protests that gave rise to Iran's opposition Green Movement, and as pro-democracy movements inspired by Tunisia emerged in Egypt and Yemen, many observers saw a chance for Iran to be next. But looking closer, it's clear that Iranians -- from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on down to the Green Movement opposition -- view the Tunisia situation as vastly different from their own, and not one that's likely to spill over into a renewed push for democratic reform in their own country.
More... Despite the examples of Ben Ali and Egypt's beleaguered President Hosni Mubarak, Iran's leaders are far from running scared. In fact, Tehran is taking a distinctly more triumphalist understanding of the roots and effects of the Tunisian protests than American commentators would expect from another authoritarian Middle Eastern government -- particularly from one facing its own challenges from opposition forces.
In the week following Ben Ali's frantic flight to Saudi Arabia, reactions from Iranian officials and state-supported media were, as always, bold and self-assured. But this is no skin-deep grandstanding designed to force a positive spin on an unsettling example of political upheaval. Where Washington sees an anti-authoritarian uprising, Tehran describes a 1979-style rejection of a U.S.-supported secularist: Ahmadinejad referred to the Tunisian uprising as an expression of the people's will for an Islamic order, and the Iranian Majlis voted overwhelmingly to support the "revolution."
Shariatmadari explained, "When the Muslim nations of the region see clearly that not just one arrogant power but all arrogant powers with all their powers and capabilities have been bitterly defeated against the Islamic faith and national perseverance of the Muslim people of Iran, do you not think that they would rise up for the liberation of themselves and their homeland from under the dominance of dictators and foreign colonialism?" While this idea may sound preposterous to American ears, the resonance it holds in the upper echelons of the Iranian leadership only points to a more assertive Tehran.
In their triumphal postmortems of the Tunisian upheaval, Iran's conservatives have also excitedly forecasted similar revolutions in other pro-Western Arab regimes such as Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia -- a rare case where they and many American neoconservatives see eye to eye. These hard-liners are reveling in the notion that their Arab neighbors, particularly those governments that have aligned themselves closely with Washington, have become nervous about protesters emulating their Tunisian counterparts.
As for Ahmadinejad's critics, their point of view is not too different. The most important political fault line in Iran currently lies between hard-liners and more moderate conservatives within the Islamic Republic's establishment -- not between the government and the opposition. Optimistic Western observers might hope to see moderate conservatives take a different view from that of their archconservative rivals. But on the issue of Tunisia, the conservatives seem to be marching in lock step. While they have been more likely to read the events in Tunisia as a revolt against authoritarianism as such, even some of Ahmadinejad's main conservative critics see the uprising as evidence of the reach of the Islamic Revolution. A commentator in the often critical Mardom-Salari daily wrote that it was clear that Iran had shown Tunisia that "Islamism is superior to non-Islamic and secular governments in Islamic countries."
Perhaps the most important sign of Ahmadinejad's and Khamenei's staying power comes from the reaction of Iran''s dispirited and disorganized democratic opposition movement. Many in the Green Movement have embraced comparisons to the Tunisian protesters, but the opposition has largely struggled with how to interpret the Jasmine Revolution. Their reactions are bittersweet, ranging from a wistful sense of inspiration to soul-searching examinations of why Tunisians have succeeded where the Greens failed. Some have made excuses for the Green Movement's failure to remove Ahmadinejad, citing differences in the histories, demographics, and governments of Iran and Tunisia; others have tried hopefully to suggest that the Green Movement's lack of immediate and volatile results is actually a long-term strategic advantage.
One piece written by Jamileh Kadivar, the now-exiled reformist intellectual and parliamentarian, and posted on the opposition Rah-e Sabz website just hours after Ben Ali's departure from power may be the best indicator of the Green Movement's current mood. Marveling at the Tunisian people's amazing feat, she called their actions a model for all oppressed populations worldwide. Without explicitly referencing Iran, she wrote, "This is a dawn that can be very close at hand for many of the peoples who are under the oppression of tyranny, if they only have pride and trust in their own strength."
If American policymakers are looking for what the Green Movement is learning from the events in Tunisia, they may have to settle for Kadivar's vague optimism. What they will not find is an Iranian leadership conveying any sense of fear, disappointment, or insecurity as a result of the Tunisian uprising, or a reinvigorated, inspired reform movement like the one in Egypt. With no major divergence of views among the factions of the conservative establishment, it is impossible to conceive of cracks forming in the oft-uneasy alliance that maintains the Islamic Republic's stability; and the Green Movement is, at this point, simply too battered after a year and a half of severe repression to take advantage of cracks, if they were to open.
It would be easy -- especially in light of the spread of protests to Egypt and other countries -- for Washington to embrace the idea that now is the time to openly and actively support the Iranian opposition. But this would be a grave miscalculation based on a false impression of Iranian weakness, one destined to backfire and brand the Green Movement as American puppets. Barack Obama's administration would be wisest to concede that no domino is likely to fall eastward onto Tehran.
Lessons for Dictators' Club
Dictatorship for Dummies, Tunisia edition
The world cheered as it watched Tunisians, who had long suffered under the stultifying weight of dictatorship, rid themselves of their tormentor. When protestors amassed in the Tunisian capital, something incredible happened: The autocracy that President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali had carefully cultivated for 23 years was no longer safe for its autocrat. Like any criminal, Ben Ali fled the scene of the crime, flying to Saudi Arabia for what he hopes will be a new life in exile. (It was better than the alternative.)
But there is a different audience also glued to its television sets, watching events in Tunisia unfold: the world's other dictators. When a despot falls, the rest of the club takes notice. On Christmas Day in 1989, the Romanian people quickly dispatched President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife hours after the brutal communist regime crumbled. Zaire's strongman, President Mobutu Sese Seko, is said to have been horrified when he saw the image of his Romanian friend's corpse on CNN. And the Chinese leadership beefed up security, lest anyone in Beijing draw inspiration from Bucharest.
In 2005, after the democratic movements in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao huddled on the sidelines of a summit to discuss the danger of "color revolutions." And each year, without a hitch, Arab interior ministers - experts in the dark arts of "domestic security"- meet to compare notes. Ben Ali, a former interior minister himself, regularly played host for the conference. Indeed, the last meeting was in Tunis.
So, what has Tunisia taught the dictators' club?
Be repressive, but don't overdo it.
One of the student leaders who helped topple Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 recently told me, "The best dictators actually compromise all the time." It's true. When Russian pensioners blockade the roads in protest, the Kremlin accommodates. The Egyptian regime tolerates rallies against President Hosni Mubarak. Strikers in China get paid more often then they get prosecuted. In contrast, Ben Ali filled his prisons and had an informant on every corner. The costs outweighed the benefits, as he antagonized the population over issues he could have conceded. Smart dictators don't give up power that might curtail their ability to survive - but everything else is negotiable.
Don't try to be Singapore.
Yes, it would be nice if you could wake up as an Asian Tiger economy. But it's not likely. Ben Ali delivered 5 percent economic growth, great infrastructure, a college education for many and a 74-year life expectancy. Yet how did Tunisians repay him? If the regime's only legitimacy comes from its economic performance, then the moment prosperity slips, the entire system is vulnerable. Tunisia may have posted good numbers for the region, but Asian authoritarians never let their economies become dependent on European vacationers, as Tunisia did. It is far safer to have islands of bureaucratic dysfunction and keep expectations low. Because if you aim to be Singapore and come up short, the costs are high, especially if your only other talent is repression.
Give young people passports.
If you can't get everyone a job, encourage emigration. It is the best way to get rid of educated young people who will only cause you headaches when they realize they can't find work or must live with their parents. Hugo Chavez and Mubarak grasp this point: Venezuelans and Egyptians are leaving their native lands in droves. And the bonus? When your best and brightest make it in the United States, Europe or the Persian Gulf, they'll send hefty remittances to family back home.
Let the opposition exist - just don't let it win.
Ben Ali obliterated the political opposition. In hindsight, that was a mistake. A well-run political opposition is a dictator's best friend. You can create fake parties, you can harass legitimate parties, you can bribe them into fighting each other. The key is that they exist and that the system is sufficiently rigged so they can never stand in your way. Critics will say this is window dressing; they're wrong. Opposition parties, if properly managed, will siphon off some of the public's resentment. In Tunisia, people had no choice but to go to the streets.
Give them newspapers.
In Tunisia, there were two things you could count on: Every day the sun rose, and every day Ben Ali was front-page news. Media censorship is to be expected in such regimes, but there is no value in blanket coverage. Control television news and most radio, but let your critics and a few investigative reporters have some independent newspapers with small circulations. These will be outlets where people can blow off steam, and the regime will have a couple sources of information that it can trust, too.
Never negotiate with an angry mob.
When Ben Ali appeared on television and tried to save his skin by offering last-minute reforms and promising to step down at the end of his term, he inadvertently sealed his fate. Any Tunisian who had been on the fence now knew that the president was finished. In its waning hours, a regime faces a choice - retreat or lash out. Unfortunately, for those hardened regimes bent on survival, the lesson of Ben Ali's final hours is probably to bet on more tanks and less talk.
The people actually matter.
This is a terrifying concept for a dictatorship, but the ouster of Ben Ali cannot be pinned on anyone other than Tunisians themselves. No one is alleging that the United States, France or some other foreign power was behind it. In fact, autocratic Tunisia was a reliable Western ally, and the United States didn't criticize Ben Ali until he was packing his bags. Arab regimes can't blame Islamists; Ben Ali had long since rounded them up or chased them overseas. No political opposition mobilized the people, because it was practically nonexistent. The regime failed on bread-and-butter issues - unemployment, the economy, corruption - and this, paired with the indignities of the regime's repression, was enough to start a revolution.
Tunisia offers lessons for the rest of us, too. Chief among them should be this: We left Tunisians to rid themselves of their dictator. Now that they have, let's not ignore them again. Tunisians must do most of the work, but they shouldn't have to work alone.
Dictatorship for Dummies, Tunisia edition
The world cheered as it watched Tunisians, who had long suffered under the stultifying weight of dictatorship, rid themselves of their tormentor. When protestors amassed in the Tunisian capital, something incredible happened: The autocracy that President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali had carefully cultivated for 23 years was no longer safe for its autocrat. Like any criminal, Ben Ali fled the scene of the crime, flying to Saudi Arabia for what he hopes will be a new life in exile. (It was better than the alternative.)
But there is a different audience also glued to its television sets, watching events in Tunisia unfold: the world's other dictators. When a despot falls, the rest of the club takes notice. On Christmas Day in 1989, the Romanian people quickly dispatched President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife hours after the brutal communist regime crumbled. Zaire's strongman, President Mobutu Sese Seko, is said to have been horrified when he saw the image of his Romanian friend's corpse on CNN. And the Chinese leadership beefed up security, lest anyone in Beijing draw inspiration from Bucharest.
In 2005, after the democratic movements in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao huddled on the sidelines of a summit to discuss the danger of "color revolutions." And each year, without a hitch, Arab interior ministers - experts in the dark arts of "domestic security"- meet to compare notes. Ben Ali, a former interior minister himself, regularly played host for the conference. Indeed, the last meeting was in Tunis.
So, what has Tunisia taught the dictators' club?
Be repressive, but don't overdo it.
One of the student leaders who helped topple Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 recently told me, "The best dictators actually compromise all the time." It's true. When Russian pensioners blockade the roads in protest, the Kremlin accommodates. The Egyptian regime tolerates rallies against President Hosni Mubarak. Strikers in China get paid more often then they get prosecuted. In contrast, Ben Ali filled his prisons and had an informant on every corner. The costs outweighed the benefits, as he antagonized the population over issues he could have conceded. Smart dictators don't give up power that might curtail their ability to survive - but everything else is negotiable.
Don't try to be Singapore.
Yes, it would be nice if you could wake up as an Asian Tiger economy. But it's not likely. Ben Ali delivered 5 percent economic growth, great infrastructure, a college education for many and a 74-year life expectancy. Yet how did Tunisians repay him? If the regime's only legitimacy comes from its economic performance, then the moment prosperity slips, the entire system is vulnerable. Tunisia may have posted good numbers for the region, but Asian authoritarians never let their economies become dependent on European vacationers, as Tunisia did. It is far safer to have islands of bureaucratic dysfunction and keep expectations low. Because if you aim to be Singapore and come up short, the costs are high, especially if your only other talent is repression.
Give young people passports.
If you can't get everyone a job, encourage emigration. It is the best way to get rid of educated young people who will only cause you headaches when they realize they can't find work or must live with their parents. Hugo Chavez and Mubarak grasp this point: Venezuelans and Egyptians are leaving their native lands in droves. And the bonus? When your best and brightest make it in the United States, Europe or the Persian Gulf, they'll send hefty remittances to family back home.
Let the opposition exist - just don't let it win.
Ben Ali obliterated the political opposition. In hindsight, that was a mistake. A well-run political opposition is a dictator's best friend. You can create fake parties, you can harass legitimate parties, you can bribe them into fighting each other. The key is that they exist and that the system is sufficiently rigged so they can never stand in your way. Critics will say this is window dressing; they're wrong. Opposition parties, if properly managed, will siphon off some of the public's resentment. In Tunisia, people had no choice but to go to the streets.
Give them newspapers.
In Tunisia, there were two things you could count on: Every day the sun rose, and every day Ben Ali was front-page news. Media censorship is to be expected in such regimes, but there is no value in blanket coverage. Control television news and most radio, but let your critics and a few investigative reporters have some independent newspapers with small circulations. These will be outlets where people can blow off steam, and the regime will have a couple sources of information that it can trust, too.
Never negotiate with an angry mob.
When Ben Ali appeared on television and tried to save his skin by offering last-minute reforms and promising to step down at the end of his term, he inadvertently sealed his fate. Any Tunisian who had been on the fence now knew that the president was finished. In its waning hours, a regime faces a choice - retreat or lash out. Unfortunately, for those hardened regimes bent on survival, the lesson of Ben Ali's final hours is probably to bet on more tanks and less talk.
The people actually matter.
This is a terrifying concept for a dictatorship, but the ouster of Ben Ali cannot be pinned on anyone other than Tunisians themselves. No one is alleging that the United States, France or some other foreign power was behind it. In fact, autocratic Tunisia was a reliable Western ally, and the United States didn't criticize Ben Ali until he was packing his bags. Arab regimes can't blame Islamists; Ben Ali had long since rounded them up or chased them overseas. No political opposition mobilized the people, because it was practically nonexistent. The regime failed on bread-and-butter issues - unemployment, the economy, corruption - and this, paired with the indignities of the regime's repression, was enough to start a revolution.
Tunisia offers lessons for the rest of us, too. Chief among them should be this: We left Tunisians to rid themselves of their dictator. Now that they have, let's not ignore them again. Tunisians must do most of the work, but they shouldn't have to work alone.
America's Other Most Embarrassing Allies
Maintaining good relations with autocrats is an unfortunate but often necessary component of the delicate balancing act that is U.S. foreign policy. But as Washington learned once again this week, supporting an strongman for the sake of stability can present risks of its own. Here are eight more alliances that could prove embarrassing.
SAUDI ARABIA
Leader: King Abdullah
Record: The king has ruled Saudi Arabia since 2005. As ruler of a country with no elections, parliament, or political parties, Abdullah and his family exercise unchecked power within the kingdom, and -- thanks to their control of one-fifth of the world's oil reserves and Islam's two holiest sites -- quite a bit of influence beyond their borders as well. Abdullah surprised many by undertaking some minor reforms of the country's clerical establishment in 2009, though this may have had more to do with a desire to consolidate his power than any enlightened pluralistic impulses. The 86-year-old king has suffered poor health in recent years, leading to speculation about which of his relatives will succeed him.
The kingdom remains one of the most repressive countries on Earth, particularly so for its 9 million female citizens, who are prevented from holding many jobs or driving and are considered by law to be legally beholden to their husbands. Practicing any religion other than Islam is banned. Torture and detention without trial are commonplace. Around 2,000 people were arrested in 2009 alone on political charges.
U.S. support: Whether they're kissing and holding hands or bowing, American presidents of both parties can be counted on to show their affection for the House of Saud, a tradition dating back to Franklin Roosevelt's administration. As the only country in the world with "spare production capacity" -- enough extra oil that they can affect global energy prices at will -- Saudi cooperation is crucial in order to keep the U.S. economy humming.
Since 9/11, the Saudis have also provided aid and intelligence to the U.S.-led war on terrorism and cracked down on violent extremists in the kingdom and across the border in Yemen. Yet questions remain about the degree to which members of the Saudi royal family still provide financial assistance to Al Qaeda. The U.S. also relies on Saudi Arabia's stabilizing influence in the Middle East as a counterweight to Iran and as a mediator with the Palestinian Authority. In 2010, the relationship was further cemented by a $60 billion weapons deal including fighter jets, helicopters, and missiles.
YEMEN
Leader: Ali Abdullah Saleh
Record: Saleh first took power in Northern Yemen in a military coup in 1978 and has ruled the entire country since unification in 1991. Opposition parties are marginalized, parliamentary elections have been indefinitely postponed, and civilians are frequently caught up in military strikes in the country's lawless south.
Yemen is both one of the world's least stable countries, with an ongoing insurgency by Shiite rebels in the country's south, and one of the most repressive: Arbitrary detention and torture are pervasive and "honor killings" of women by family members frequently go unpunished. Inspired by the events in Tunisia and Egypt, demonstrators have taken to the streets of the capital Sana'a for near-daily protests since mid-January, demanding Saleh's removal as president.
U.S. support: Saleh might seem like an unlikely U.S. ally. In addition to his autocratic style and tolerance of official corruption, he was a close ally of Saddam Hussein and supported Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But counterterrorism makes for strange bedfellows: Extremist groups within Yemen have been the source of numerous anti-American terrorist attacks, from the U.S.S. Cole bombing in 2000 to the 2009 Christmas Day bomb plot to the 2010 printer bomb attempt. It's also reputedly the home of noted terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Given the dangers emanating from Yemen, U.S. policymakers have decided that Saleh's efforts to restore order the country are the best bet for preventing further attacks, and military aid to the country has more than doubled since the Christmas plot. U.S. military aid to Yemen will likely reach $250 million in 2011, in addition to substantial increases in development aid.
JORDAN
Leader: King Abdullah II
Record: When the Western-educated Abdullah took the throne in 1993, hopes were high that political reforms would follow. The government lifted 20 years of martial law in 1989, restoring the country's parliament. But open democracy did not follow: The country's election system remains deeply flawed, gerrymandered to support tribal candidates and government loyalists. The country's largest opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Action Front, has boycotted the last two parliamentary elections citing widespread fraud and vote-buying. The government has cited the electoral success of Hamas in the nearby Palestinian territories to justify the slow pace of political reforms in the country.
Abdullah's economic reforms have produced steady GDP growth, but like Egypt, this hasn't translated into improved quality of life for the country's poorest citizens. Unemployment may be as high as 30 percent in the kingdom, and the poverty rate is around 25 percent. Thousands protested the government's economic policies with a sit-in outside parliament on Jan. 16.
U.S. support: The U.S. relies on Jordan for counterterrorism assistance as well as its often constructive role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Under the Hashemite royal family, Jordan has pursued one of the most consistently pro-American foreign policies in the Middle East. It has been rewarded with more than $6 billion in development aid since 1952; it's the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid on a per-capita basis. In 2010, the U.S. and Jordan signed a development deal worth $360 million. The U.S. has also provided significant aid to the Jordan military, including a new fleet of F-16 fighters in 2007.
ETHIOPIA
Leader: Meles Zenawi
Record: The 2010 election, in which Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's party won a remarkable 99.6 percent of the vote, was the culmination of what Human Rights Watch called "the government's five-year strategy of systematically closing down space for political dissent and independent criticism." This included attacks and arrests of prominent opposition figures, the shutting down of newspapers and assaults on journalists critical of the government, and doling out international food aid as an incentive to get poor Ethiopians to join the ruling party.
In addition to attacks on domestic media and NGOs, the government also jammed broadcasts by Voice of America and Deutsche Welle in the run-up to the elections. The U.S. NGO Freedom House downgraded Ethiopia to "Not Free" for the first time in its annual Freedom in the World survey this year.
U.S. support: Bordered by Sudan and Somalia, Ethiopia benefits from being an at least nominally pro-American government in a very dangerous neighborhood. In 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton described Zenawi as the leader of an "African Renaissance." Washington's strong support for Addis Ababa continued under President George W. Bush, who saw Zenawi's primarily Christian government as a bulwark against Islamic extremism in East Africa, and poured in millions in military aid. Bush opposed legislation linking military aid for Ethiopia to human rights and gave tacit support for the country's 2007 invasion of Somalia.
The rhetoric is somewhat less enthusiastic under the Obama administration -- the State Department strongly criticized the 2010 election, for instance -- but the U.S. will continue to fund Ethiopia to the tune of $583.5 million this year, despite evidence that the government is directly using this aid to suppress dissent.
UGANDA
Leader: Yoweri Museveni
Record: Museveni talks a big game on democracy, economic development, and anti-corruption efforts, and to be fair he did institute a number of promising reforms early in his presidency, encouraging the development of free press and elections following decades of strongman rule. But the president has lately started to resemble his predecessors, abolishing term limits after nearly three decades in office, launching legal attacks on independent journalists, harassing opposition parties and flying a $50 million private jet while more than a third of his people live on less than $1 a day, having previously criticized other African leaders for indulging in similar perks. NGOs have also documented numerous cases of unlawful detention and torture by the country's Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force.
Uganda came under international condemnation in 2010 for a proposed law, still pending, that would punish homosexuality with harsh sentences including the death penalty. Museveni initially supported the law, but later backed off after several countries in Europe threatened to withhold foreign aid. The country's most prominent gay rights activist, David Kato, was beaten to death on Jan. 27, just weeks after a popular tabloid published his photo along with the caption, "Hang Them."
U.S. support: Uganda's stable government, economic growth, and effective response to HIV/AIDS have made it something of a poster child for African development, and it's one of the top recipients of U.S. aid in Africa. Additionally, Museveni has helped out his friends in Washington by contributing nearly 3,000 peacekeepers to the international mission in Somalia and carried out a massive military offensive against the Lord's Resistance Army, one of Africa's most notorious rebel groups.
Obama at first appeared reluctant to cozy up to Museveni, denying several attempts by the Ugandan leader to secure a White House meeting and publicly criticizing the anti-gay bill. But the U.S. administration was nearly silent after Museveni used the 2010 World Cup bombing committed by Somalia's al Shabaab militants in Kampala as a pretext to further restrict media coverage and opposition parties, likely balancing democracy concerns with the need for Uganda's continued support in Somalia. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson even told reporters that Uganda had conducted "free and fair elections, in 2006, contradicting the State Department's own reports, which cited numerous irregularities.
UZBEKISTAN
Leader: Islam Karimov
Record: Karimov, Uzbekistan's first and only post-independence president, has routinely stifled political dissent in Uzbekistan, banning opposition groups -- particularly Islamic ones -- stifling the press and jailing thousands. His country is routinely cited as one of the world's worst torturers, with punishments including beatings, rape, and even boiling meted out in its overcrowded jails. Uzbekistan faced international condemnation in 2005 after hundreds of unarmed protesters demonstrating in support of a group of arrested local businessmen were shot by security forces in the city of Andijan. Karimov has repeatedly extended his own tenure beyond the constitutionally mandated two-term limit and international observers have dismissed the country's elections as shams.
U.S. support: Uzbekistan shut down a U.S. airbase in the country in 2005, after U.S. criticism of the events at Andijan. The base remains closed, but relations are improving. Gen. David Petraeus made a high-profile visit to the country in 2009 to discuss a possible Uzbek role in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. In April of that year, the two countries signed a deal to allow supplies for the NATO effort to travel through Uzbekistan. In November 2010, CENTCOM commander Gen. James Mattis visited Uzbekistan to sign a security cooperation pact, including military training.
The administration has continued to push Uzbekistan to improve its human rights record, but the country's real estate -- and proximity to the war in Afghanistan -- is evidently too valuable for it to be cut off altogether.
KAZAKHSTAN
Leader: Nursultan Nazarbayev
Record: Nazarbayev, former leader of the Kazakh Communist Party, has ruled the country without any serious political challenge since independence in 1991. Restrictive election laws make it nearly impossible to opposition parties to run, anti-government newspapers are routinely harassed and shut down, and corruption -- particularly related to the country's energy sector -- is reportedly pervasive throughout the state.
In January, the compliant Kazakh Parliament asked Nazarbayev to call a referendum that would extend his term to 2020, skipping the planned 2012 and 2017 elections entirely. Police cracked down hard on opposition protests against the move. After international condemnation of the plan, Nazarbayev scrapped it and instead called for snap presidential elections to be held nearly two years ahead of schedule.
U.S. support: Kazakhstan and the United States have cooperated closely since 1996 on a project to secure and dispose of the country's Soviet-era nuclear material. Kazakhstan has also provided transit routes for the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. The country's estimated 85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas also make it a highly attractive regional partner.
To be fair, Kazakhstan isn't nearly as repressive as its central Asian neighbors, has been far more effective at delivering economic growth, and is -- along with Ukraine -- one of the great nonproliferation success stories since the end of the Cold War. But U.S. praise for the regime, which has never held a genuinely contested election, has been ridiculously effusive at times. In a 2006 meeting between Bush and Nazarbayev, the U.S. president described Kazakhstan as a "free nation" with a "commitment to institutions that will enable liberty to flourish."
VIETNAM
Leader: Nguyen Tan Dung
Record: The Communist Party of Vietnam is the only party allowed by law and appoints the country's leaders from within its own ranks -- Nguyen Tan Dung was reappointed for a second term in Jan. 26. According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnam has intensified its repression of human rights over the past year, imprisoning human rights defenders, bloggers, and anti-corruption campaigners. Religious groups, both Christian and Buddhist, have faced repeated harassment. Police brutality and deaths under police custody are commonplace.
Like China, Vietnam filters the Internet within the country, blocking objectionable websites and requiring service providers and Internet cafes to install monitoring software to track users.
U.S. support: Thirty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War and 15 after diplomatic relations were restored, the U.S.-Vietnam relationship has never been closer. The two countries signed a free-trade agreement in 2006, moving Vietnam one step closer to WTO membership. With an eye toward a rising China, the two countries have also deepened defense cooperation, including military drills and a potential civilian nuclear deal. In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that despite "profound differences" over human rights, it was time for the countries to take their relationship to the "next level."
Those two impulses may prove more difficult to reconcile than Clinton had hoped: In January 2011, the United States registered a protest with the Vietnamese government after a U.S. diplomat was wrestled to the ground and then arrested by police while trying to visit the home of a prominent Vietnamese dissident.
Maintaining good relations with autocrats is an unfortunate but often necessary component of the delicate balancing act that is U.S. foreign policy. But as Washington learned once again this week, supporting an strongman for the sake of stability can present risks of its own. Here are eight more alliances that could prove embarrassing.
SAUDI ARABIA
Leader: King Abdullah
Record: The king has ruled Saudi Arabia since 2005. As ruler of a country with no elections, parliament, or political parties, Abdullah and his family exercise unchecked power within the kingdom, and -- thanks to their control of one-fifth of the world's oil reserves and Islam's two holiest sites -- quite a bit of influence beyond their borders as well. Abdullah surprised many by undertaking some minor reforms of the country's clerical establishment in 2009, though this may have had more to do with a desire to consolidate his power than any enlightened pluralistic impulses. The 86-year-old king has suffered poor health in recent years, leading to speculation about which of his relatives will succeed him.
The kingdom remains one of the most repressive countries on Earth, particularly so for its 9 million female citizens, who are prevented from holding many jobs or driving and are considered by law to be legally beholden to their husbands. Practicing any religion other than Islam is banned. Torture and detention without trial are commonplace. Around 2,000 people were arrested in 2009 alone on political charges.
U.S. support: Whether they're kissing and holding hands or bowing, American presidents of both parties can be counted on to show their affection for the House of Saud, a tradition dating back to Franklin Roosevelt's administration. As the only country in the world with "spare production capacity" -- enough extra oil that they can affect global energy prices at will -- Saudi cooperation is crucial in order to keep the U.S. economy humming.
Since 9/11, the Saudis have also provided aid and intelligence to the U.S.-led war on terrorism and cracked down on violent extremists in the kingdom and across the border in Yemen. Yet questions remain about the degree to which members of the Saudi royal family still provide financial assistance to Al Qaeda. The U.S. also relies on Saudi Arabia's stabilizing influence in the Middle East as a counterweight to Iran and as a mediator with the Palestinian Authority. In 2010, the relationship was further cemented by a $60 billion weapons deal including fighter jets, helicopters, and missiles.
YEMEN
Leader: Ali Abdullah Saleh
Record: Saleh first took power in Northern Yemen in a military coup in 1978 and has ruled the entire country since unification in 1991. Opposition parties are marginalized, parliamentary elections have been indefinitely postponed, and civilians are frequently caught up in military strikes in the country's lawless south.
Yemen is both one of the world's least stable countries, with an ongoing insurgency by Shiite rebels in the country's south, and one of the most repressive: Arbitrary detention and torture are pervasive and "honor killings" of women by family members frequently go unpunished. Inspired by the events in Tunisia and Egypt, demonstrators have taken to the streets of the capital Sana'a for near-daily protests since mid-January, demanding Saleh's removal as president.
U.S. support: Saleh might seem like an unlikely U.S. ally. In addition to his autocratic style and tolerance of official corruption, he was a close ally of Saddam Hussein and supported Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But counterterrorism makes for strange bedfellows: Extremist groups within Yemen have been the source of numerous anti-American terrorist attacks, from the U.S.S. Cole bombing in 2000 to the 2009 Christmas Day bomb plot to the 2010 printer bomb attempt. It's also reputedly the home of noted terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Given the dangers emanating from Yemen, U.S. policymakers have decided that Saleh's efforts to restore order the country are the best bet for preventing further attacks, and military aid to the country has more than doubled since the Christmas plot. U.S. military aid to Yemen will likely reach $250 million in 2011, in addition to substantial increases in development aid.
JORDAN
Leader: King Abdullah II
Record: When the Western-educated Abdullah took the throne in 1993, hopes were high that political reforms would follow. The government lifted 20 years of martial law in 1989, restoring the country's parliament. But open democracy did not follow: The country's election system remains deeply flawed, gerrymandered to support tribal candidates and government loyalists. The country's largest opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Action Front, has boycotted the last two parliamentary elections citing widespread fraud and vote-buying. The government has cited the electoral success of Hamas in the nearby Palestinian territories to justify the slow pace of political reforms in the country.
Abdullah's economic reforms have produced steady GDP growth, but like Egypt, this hasn't translated into improved quality of life for the country's poorest citizens. Unemployment may be as high as 30 percent in the kingdom, and the poverty rate is around 25 percent. Thousands protested the government's economic policies with a sit-in outside parliament on Jan. 16.
U.S. support: The U.S. relies on Jordan for counterterrorism assistance as well as its often constructive role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Under the Hashemite royal family, Jordan has pursued one of the most consistently pro-American foreign policies in the Middle East. It has been rewarded with more than $6 billion in development aid since 1952; it's the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid on a per-capita basis. In 2010, the U.S. and Jordan signed a development deal worth $360 million. The U.S. has also provided significant aid to the Jordan military, including a new fleet of F-16 fighters in 2007.
ETHIOPIA
Leader: Meles Zenawi
Record: The 2010 election, in which Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's party won a remarkable 99.6 percent of the vote, was the culmination of what Human Rights Watch called "the government's five-year strategy of systematically closing down space for political dissent and independent criticism." This included attacks and arrests of prominent opposition figures, the shutting down of newspapers and assaults on journalists critical of the government, and doling out international food aid as an incentive to get poor Ethiopians to join the ruling party.
In addition to attacks on domestic media and NGOs, the government also jammed broadcasts by Voice of America and Deutsche Welle in the run-up to the elections. The U.S. NGO Freedom House downgraded Ethiopia to "Not Free" for the first time in its annual Freedom in the World survey this year.
U.S. support: Bordered by Sudan and Somalia, Ethiopia benefits from being an at least nominally pro-American government in a very dangerous neighborhood. In 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton described Zenawi as the leader of an "African Renaissance." Washington's strong support for Addis Ababa continued under President George W. Bush, who saw Zenawi's primarily Christian government as a bulwark against Islamic extremism in East Africa, and poured in millions in military aid. Bush opposed legislation linking military aid for Ethiopia to human rights and gave tacit support for the country's 2007 invasion of Somalia.
The rhetoric is somewhat less enthusiastic under the Obama administration -- the State Department strongly criticized the 2010 election, for instance -- but the U.S. will continue to fund Ethiopia to the tune of $583.5 million this year, despite evidence that the government is directly using this aid to suppress dissent.
UGANDA
Leader: Yoweri Museveni
Record: Museveni talks a big game on democracy, economic development, and anti-corruption efforts, and to be fair he did institute a number of promising reforms early in his presidency, encouraging the development of free press and elections following decades of strongman rule. But the president has lately started to resemble his predecessors, abolishing term limits after nearly three decades in office, launching legal attacks on independent journalists, harassing opposition parties and flying a $50 million private jet while more than a third of his people live on less than $1 a day, having previously criticized other African leaders for indulging in similar perks. NGOs have also documented numerous cases of unlawful detention and torture by the country's Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force.
Uganda came under international condemnation in 2010 for a proposed law, still pending, that would punish homosexuality with harsh sentences including the death penalty. Museveni initially supported the law, but later backed off after several countries in Europe threatened to withhold foreign aid. The country's most prominent gay rights activist, David Kato, was beaten to death on Jan. 27, just weeks after a popular tabloid published his photo along with the caption, "Hang Them."
U.S. support: Uganda's stable government, economic growth, and effective response to HIV/AIDS have made it something of a poster child for African development, and it's one of the top recipients of U.S. aid in Africa. Additionally, Museveni has helped out his friends in Washington by contributing nearly 3,000 peacekeepers to the international mission in Somalia and carried out a massive military offensive against the Lord's Resistance Army, one of Africa's most notorious rebel groups.
Obama at first appeared reluctant to cozy up to Museveni, denying several attempts by the Ugandan leader to secure a White House meeting and publicly criticizing the anti-gay bill. But the U.S. administration was nearly silent after Museveni used the 2010 World Cup bombing committed by Somalia's al Shabaab militants in Kampala as a pretext to further restrict media coverage and opposition parties, likely balancing democracy concerns with the need for Uganda's continued support in Somalia. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson even told reporters that Uganda had conducted "free and fair elections, in 2006, contradicting the State Department's own reports, which cited numerous irregularities.
UZBEKISTAN
Leader: Islam Karimov
Record: Karimov, Uzbekistan's first and only post-independence president, has routinely stifled political dissent in Uzbekistan, banning opposition groups -- particularly Islamic ones -- stifling the press and jailing thousands. His country is routinely cited as one of the world's worst torturers, with punishments including beatings, rape, and even boiling meted out in its overcrowded jails. Uzbekistan faced international condemnation in 2005 after hundreds of unarmed protesters demonstrating in support of a group of arrested local businessmen were shot by security forces in the city of Andijan. Karimov has repeatedly extended his own tenure beyond the constitutionally mandated two-term limit and international observers have dismissed the country's elections as shams.
U.S. support: Uzbekistan shut down a U.S. airbase in the country in 2005, after U.S. criticism of the events at Andijan. The base remains closed, but relations are improving. Gen. David Petraeus made a high-profile visit to the country in 2009 to discuss a possible Uzbek role in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. In April of that year, the two countries signed a deal to allow supplies for the NATO effort to travel through Uzbekistan. In November 2010, CENTCOM commander Gen. James Mattis visited Uzbekistan to sign a security cooperation pact, including military training.
The administration has continued to push Uzbekistan to improve its human rights record, but the country's real estate -- and proximity to the war in Afghanistan -- is evidently too valuable for it to be cut off altogether.
KAZAKHSTAN
Leader: Nursultan Nazarbayev
Record: Nazarbayev, former leader of the Kazakh Communist Party, has ruled the country without any serious political challenge since independence in 1991. Restrictive election laws make it nearly impossible to opposition parties to run, anti-government newspapers are routinely harassed and shut down, and corruption -- particularly related to the country's energy sector -- is reportedly pervasive throughout the state.
In January, the compliant Kazakh Parliament asked Nazarbayev to call a referendum that would extend his term to 2020, skipping the planned 2012 and 2017 elections entirely. Police cracked down hard on opposition protests against the move. After international condemnation of the plan, Nazarbayev scrapped it and instead called for snap presidential elections to be held nearly two years ahead of schedule.
U.S. support: Kazakhstan and the United States have cooperated closely since 1996 on a project to secure and dispose of the country's Soviet-era nuclear material. Kazakhstan has also provided transit routes for the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. The country's estimated 85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas also make it a highly attractive regional partner.
To be fair, Kazakhstan isn't nearly as repressive as its central Asian neighbors, has been far more effective at delivering economic growth, and is -- along with Ukraine -- one of the great nonproliferation success stories since the end of the Cold War. But U.S. praise for the regime, which has never held a genuinely contested election, has been ridiculously effusive at times. In a 2006 meeting between Bush and Nazarbayev, the U.S. president described Kazakhstan as a "free nation" with a "commitment to institutions that will enable liberty to flourish."
VIETNAM
Leader: Nguyen Tan Dung
Record: The Communist Party of Vietnam is the only party allowed by law and appoints the country's leaders from within its own ranks -- Nguyen Tan Dung was reappointed for a second term in Jan. 26. According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnam has intensified its repression of human rights over the past year, imprisoning human rights defenders, bloggers, and anti-corruption campaigners. Religious groups, both Christian and Buddhist, have faced repeated harassment. Police brutality and deaths under police custody are commonplace.
Like China, Vietnam filters the Internet within the country, blocking objectionable websites and requiring service providers and Internet cafes to install monitoring software to track users.
U.S. support: Thirty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War and 15 after diplomatic relations were restored, the U.S.-Vietnam relationship has never been closer. The two countries signed a free-trade agreement in 2006, moving Vietnam one step closer to WTO membership. With an eye toward a rising China, the two countries have also deepened defense cooperation, including military drills and a potential civilian nuclear deal. In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that despite "profound differences" over human rights, it was time for the countries to take their relationship to the "next level."
Those two impulses may prove more difficult to reconcile than Clinton had hoped: In January 2011, the United States registered a protest with the Vietnamese government after a U.S. diplomat was wrestled to the ground and then arrested by police while trying to visit the home of a prominent Vietnamese dissident.
How Tehran Sees Tunis
As Tunisian President-for-Life Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled into ignominious exile two weeks ago, democrats around the world found hope in the notion that Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution would spread to Iran. The images of demonstrations from Sidi Bouzid to Tunis reminded Americans of the massive 2009 protests that gave rise to Iran's opposition Green Movement, and as pro-democracy movements inspired by Tunisia emerged in Egypt and Yemen, many observers saw a chance for Iran to be next. But looking closer, it's clear that Iranians -- from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on down to the Green Movement opposition -- view the Tunisia situation as vastly different from their own, and not one that's likely to spill over into a renewed push for democratic reform in their own country.
Despite the examples of Ben Ali and Egypt's beleaguered President Hosni Mubarak, Iran's leaders are far from running scared. In fact, Tehran is taking a distinctly more triumphalist understanding of the roots and effects of the Tunisian protests than American commentators would expect from another authoritarian Middle Eastern government -- particularly from one facing its own challenges from opposition forces.
In the week following Ben Ali's frantic flight to Saudi Arabia, reactions from Iranian officials and state-supported media were, as always, bold and self-assured. But this is no skin-deep grandstanding designed to force a positive spin on an unsettling example of political upheaval. Where Washington sees an anti-authoritarian uprising, Tehran describes a 1979-style rejection of a U.S.-supported secularist: Ahmadinejad referred to the Tunisian uprising as an expression of the people's will for an Islamic order, and the Iranian Majlis voted overwhelmingly to support the "revolution."
As Tunisian President-for-Life Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled into ignominious exile two weeks ago, democrats around the world found hope in the notion that Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution would spread to Iran. The images of demonstrations from Sidi Bouzid to Tunis reminded Americans of the massive 2009 protests that gave rise to Iran's opposition Green Movement, and as pro-democracy movements inspired by Tunisia emerged in Egypt and Yemen, many observers saw a chance for Iran to be next. But looking closer, it's clear that Iranians -- from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on down to the Green Movement opposition -- view the Tunisia situation as vastly different from their own, and not one that's likely to spill over into a renewed push for democratic reform in their own country.
Despite the examples of Ben Ali and Egypt's beleaguered President Hosni Mubarak, Iran's leaders are far from running scared. In fact, Tehran is taking a distinctly more triumphalist understanding of the roots and effects of the Tunisian protests than American commentators would expect from another authoritarian Middle Eastern government -- particularly from one facing its own challenges from opposition forces.
In the week following Ben Ali's frantic flight to Saudi Arabia, reactions from Iranian officials and state-supported media were, as always, bold and self-assured. But this is no skin-deep grandstanding designed to force a positive spin on an unsettling example of political upheaval. Where Washington sees an anti-authoritarian uprising, Tehran describes a 1979-style rejection of a U.S.-supported secularist: Ahmadinejad referred to the Tunisian uprising as an expression of the people's will for an Islamic order, and the Iranian Majlis voted overwhelmingly to support the "revolution."
Tunisia's president flees the country
After four weeks of steadily escalating riots across Tunisia, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali lost his grip on power Friday January 14th. The country's prime minister announced that he was taking over to organize early elections and usher in a new government.
U.S. officials confirmed that Ben Ali, 74, had fled the North African country, but his whereabouts were not publicly known. Wherever he was hiding, the day's events suggested that his 23 years as Tunisia's ruler were over, submerged by a wave of unrest set off by economic deprivation, official corruption and political frustration in the mostly Sunni Muslim country.
The spectacle of the iron-fisted leader being swept from office was certain to resonate elsewhere in the Arab world. Smaller protests have erupted in Egypt, Jordan and Algeria in recent weeks as the region's many autocratic governments, often in power without the underpinning of democratic elections, have come under increasing pressure from similarly frustrated youths.
Half a century, two leaders
Tunisia has been ruled by two m
en since its independence, and though they both helped to advance progressive policies, political freedom has been restricted. The country had relative stablility under President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, but recent government clashes with protesters drove him out of power.
Despite the pledge of a new political opening, Ben Ali's fall from power opened a possibly dangerous horizon for Tunisia, a sunny nation of 10.5 million people known mainly as a cheerful tourist destination for European vacationers and a haven of tolerance in a region often unsettled by Islamist extremism.
With no obvious successor to Ben Ali in the wings, it was unclear whether Ghannoushi, as a heretofore faithful follower of the president, could muster authority to control the mobs who have been setting the agenda in Tunis over the past several weeks. Streets were reported quiet Friday evening under heavy security.
Leila Trabelsi, Ben Ali's wife, and her family were reputed to have used the influence associated with the presidency to build private fortunes in real estate and other business deals. As protest violence - fueled by social media such as Facebook and Twitter - spread across the country beginning last month, rioters frequently directed their wrath at property associated with the Trabelsi family.
The simmering discontent erupted into the open Dec. 17 in the inland city of Sidi Bouzid after an unlicensed fruit vendor identified as Mohammed Bouazzi set himself afire. Bouazzi acted after a policeman confiscated the wares off his cart and, according to news reports, after he was slapped by a female city hall employee to whom he had turned to complain.
From there violence quickly spread to other cities. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to put down the protests, with a steadily rising casualty count increasing the anger among unemployed youths and long-suppressed political opponents.
By Tuesday, the rioting had spread to Tunis, and protesters were demanding that Ben Ali step down. In actions that would have been unheard of only a few weeks ago, the president's photo was ripped from walls and police stations were ransacked.
In what was seen as a last gesture to save his rule, Ben Ali earlier Friday had declared a state of emergency, fired his entire government and promised to hold early legislative elections within six months. That promise followed by only hours a pledge to leave office by 2014 and to order police to stop firing on protesters, release those arrested in the riots and lift the country's suffocating censorship
After four weeks of steadily escalating riots across Tunisia, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali lost his grip on power Friday January 14th. The country's prime minister announced that he was taking over to organize early elections and usher in a new government.
U.S. officials confirmed that Ben Ali, 74, had fled the North African country, but his whereabouts were not publicly known. Wherever he was hiding, the day's events suggested that his 23 years as Tunisia's ruler were over, submerged by a wave of unrest set off by economic deprivation, official corruption and political frustration in the mostly Sunni Muslim country.
The spectacle of the iron-fisted leader being swept from office was certain to resonate elsewhere in the Arab world. Smaller protests have erupted in Egypt, Jordan and Algeria in recent weeks as the region's many autocratic governments, often in power without the underpinning of democratic elections, have come under increasing pressure from similarly frustrated youths.
Half a century, two leaders
Tunisia has been ruled by two m
en since its independence, and though they both helped to advance progressive policies, political freedom has been restricted. The country had relative stablility under President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, but recent government clashes with protesters drove him out of power.Despite the pledge of a new political opening, Ben Ali's fall from power opened a possibly dangerous horizon for Tunisia, a sunny nation of 10.5 million people known mainly as a cheerful tourist destination for European vacationers and a haven of tolerance in a region often unsettled by Islamist extremism.
With no obvious successor to Ben Ali in the wings, it was unclear whether Ghannoushi, as a heretofore faithful follower of the president, could muster authority to control the mobs who have been setting the agenda in Tunis over the past several weeks. Streets were reported quiet Friday evening under heavy security.
Leila Trabelsi, Ben Ali's wife, and her family were reputed to have used the influence associated with the presidency to build private fortunes in real estate and other business deals. As protest violence - fueled by social media such as Facebook and Twitter - spread across the country beginning last month, rioters frequently directed their wrath at property associated with the Trabelsi family.
The simmering discontent erupted into the open Dec. 17 in the inland city of Sidi Bouzid after an unlicensed fruit vendor identified as Mohammed Bouazzi set himself afire. Bouazzi acted after a policeman confiscated the wares off his cart and, according to news reports, after he was slapped by a female city hall employee to whom he had turned to complain.
From there violence quickly spread to other cities. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to put down the protests, with a steadily rising casualty count increasing the anger among unemployed youths and long-suppressed political opponents.
By Tuesday, the rioting had spread to Tunis, and protesters were demanding that Ben Ali step down. In actions that would have been unheard of only a few weeks ago, the president's photo was ripped from walls and police stations were ransacked.
In what was seen as a last gesture to save his rule, Ben Ali earlier Friday had declared a state of emergency, fired his entire government and promised to hold early legislative elections within six months. That promise followed by only hours a pledge to leave office by 2014 and to order police to stop firing on protesters, release those arrested in the riots and lift the country's suffocating censorship
Monday, January 31, 2011
11 Pakistanis becoming part of cellular community every minute
Every minute roughly 11 Pakistanis become a part of the cellular community and more than 430,000 SMS messages and 160,000 voice minutes are being exchanged in less than one minute.
The telecommunications sector contributes 3% to the country’s GDP whereas the total telecom sector revenue reached at Rs. 357.7 billion in the year 2009-10 compared to Rs. 333 billion in the previous year.
This is despite the fact that the cellular industry in the country is paying the highest taxes in comparison to the entire region.
According to official sources,incomes of 6 out of every 1,000 persons in the country are tied with the telecom sector.
This is not only a moment of joy but also a reaffirmation to the common Pakistani man and woman that access to technology is not a privilege limited to the elite, but a right that is available to them that is accessible and affordable.
Half of Pakistanis including women have access to a cell phone together with rural areas (two-thirds in urban areas) while more than 86 percent of men have their own cell phone, 40 percent of women do.
These figures suggest a much higher access to cell phone (available in the household or within the extended family) than the figures for regular usage.
Talking to APP an official in Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said basic data services such as SMS, are used by 40.2pc cell phone users with higher usage in urban areas (45 percent) than in rural (36-7 percent). SMS usage is also more frequent among men.
He said internet usage remains low and is concentrated in urban areas. Internet and e-mail are more accessed used at home.
Pakistan has now edged ahead of India, its nuclear-armed rival.
New estimates put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal at more than 100
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal now totals more than 100 deployed weapons, a doubling of its stockpile over the past several years in one of the world's most unstable regions, according to estimates by nongovernment analysts.
The Pakistanis have significantly accelerated productionof uranium and plutonium for bombs and developed new weapons to deliver them. After years of approximate weapons parity, experts said, Pakistan has now edged ahead of India, its nuclear-armed rival.
An escalation of the arms race in South Asia poses a dilemmafor the Obama administration, which has worked to improve its economic, political and defense ties with India while seeking to deepen its relationship with Pakistan as a crucial component of its Afghanistan war strategy.
In politically fragile Pakistan, the administration is caught between fears of proliferation or possible terrorist attempts to seize nuclear materials and Pakistani suspicions that the United States aims to control or limit its weapons program and favors India.
Those suspicions were on public display last week at the opening session of U.N. disarmament talks in Geneva, where Pakistani Ambassador Zamir Akram accused the United States and other major powers of "double standards and discrimination" for pushing a global treaty banning all future production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.
Adoption of what is known as the "fissile materials cutoff treaty," a key element of President Obama's worldwide nonproliferation agenda, requires international consensus. Pakistan has long been the lone holdout.
While Pakistan has produced more nuclear-armed weapons, India is believed to have larger existing stockpiles of such fissile material for future weapons. That long-term Indian advantage, Pakistan has charged, was further enhanced by a 2008 U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation agreement. The administration has deflected Pakistan's demands for a similar deal.
Brig. Gen. Nazir Butt, defense attache at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, said the number of Pakistan's weapons and the status of its production facilities were confidential.
"Pakistan lives in a tough neighborhood and will never be oblivious to its security needs," Butt said. "As a nuclear power, we are very confident of our deterrent capabilities."
But the administration's determination to bring the fissile materials ban to completion this year may compel it to confront more directly the issue of proliferation in South Asia. As U.S. arms negotiator Rose Gottemoeller told Bloomberg News at the U.N. conference Thursday: "Patience is running out."
Other nuclear powers have their own interests in the region. China, which sees India as a major regional competitor, has major investments in Pakistan and a commitment to supply it with at least two nuclear-energy reactors.
Russia has increased its cooperation with India and told Pakistan last week that it was "disturbed" about its arms buildup.
"It's a risky path, particularly for a government under pressure," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, fresh from a visit to Islamabad, said in remarks at the Nixon Center on Thursday.
Wary of upsetting Pakistan's always-fragile political balance, the White House rarely mentions the country's arsenal in public except to voice confidence in its strong internal safeguards, with warheads kept separate from delivery vehicles. But the level of U.S. concern was reflected during last month's White House war review, when Pakistan's nuclear security was set as one of two long-term strategy objectives there, along with the defeat of al-Qaeda, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A publicly released summary of the classified review document made no reference to the nuclear issue, and the White House deflected questions on grounds that it was an intelligence matter. This week, a spokesman said the administration would not respond to inquiries about the size of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor referred to Obama's assurance at last spring's Nuclear Security Summit that he felt "confident about Pakistan's security around its nuclear weapons program." Vietor noted that Obama has encouraged "all nations" to support negotiations on the fissile cutoff treaty. "The administration is always trying to keep people from talking about this knowledgeably," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a leading analyst on the world's nuclear forces. "They're always trying to downplay" the numbers and insisting that "it's smaller than you think."
"It's hard to say how much the U.S. knows," said Hans M. Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists and author of the annual global nuclear weapons inventory published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. "Probably a fair amount. But it's a mixed bag - Pakistan is an ally, and they can't undercut it with a statement of concern in public."
Beyond intelligence on the ground, U.S. officials assess Pakistan's nuclear weapons program with the same tools used by the outside experts - satellite photos of nuclear-related installations, estimates of fissile-material production and weapons development, and publicly available statements and facts.
Four years ago, the Pakistani arsenal was estimated at 30 to 60 weapons.
"They have been expanding pretty rapidly," Albright said. Based on recently accelerated production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, "they could have more than doubled in that period," with current estimates of up to 110 weapons. Kristensen said it was "not unreasonable" to say that Pakistan has now produced at least 100 weapons. Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Britain's University of Bradford, put the number at between 100 and 110.
Some Pakistani officials have intimated they have even more. But just as the United States has a vested interest in publicly playing down the total, Pakistan sees advantage in "playing up the number of weapons they've got," Gregory said. "They're at a disadvantage with India with conventional forces," in terms of both weaponry and personnel.
Only three nuclear countries - Pakistan, India and Israel - have never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. India is estimated to have 60 to 100 weapons; numbers are even less precise for Israel's undeclared program, estimated at up to 200. North Korea, which has conducted nuclear tests and is believed to have produced enough fissile material for at least a half-dozen bombs, withdrew from the treaty in 2003.
Those figures make Pakistan the world's fifth-largest nuclear power, ahead of "legal" powers France and Britain. The vast bulk of nuclear stockpiles are held by the United States and Russia, followed by China. While Pakistan has no declared nuclear doctrine, it sees its arsenal as a deterrent to an attack by the Indian forces that are heavily deployed near its border. India has vowed no first use of nuclear weapons, but it depends on its second-strike capability to deter the Pakistanis.
The United States imposed nuclear-related sanctions on Pakistan and India after both countries conducted weapons tests in 1998, but lifted them shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. With U.S. guidance and a $100 million assistance program, Pakistan moved to increase international confidence by overhauling its command and control structures.
evelations in 2004 about an illegal international nuclear procurement network run by Pakistani nuclear official Abdul Qadeer Khan, which supplied nuclear materials to Libya, Iran and North Korea, led to further steps to improve security.
he 2008 agreement that permits India to purchase nuclear fuel for civilian purposes was a spur to Pakistani weapons production, experts said. Pakistan maintains that the treaty allows India to divert more of its own resources for military use.
As Pakistan sees India becoming a great power, "nuclear weapons become a very attractive psychological equalizer," said George Perkovich, vice president for studies and a nonproliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The 1998 test date is a quasi-holiday in Pakistan, and the test site was once declared a national monument, part of the nuclear chest-thumping that, along with political instability, makes U.S. officials as nervous as the actual number of weapons.
In December 2008, Peter Lavoie, the U.S. national intelligence officer for South Asia, told NATO officials that "despite pending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world," according to a classified State Department cable released late last year by the Internet site WikiLeaks.
Publication of the document so angered Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, that he told journalists there that the Pakistani people believe that the "real aim of U.S. [war] strategy is to denuclearize Pakistan," according to local media reports.
In 2009, Congress passed a $7.5 billion aid package for Pakistan with the stipulation that the administration provide regular assessments of whether any of the money "directly or indirectly aided the expansion of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program."
While continuing to produce weapons-grade uranium at two sites, Pakistan has sharply increased its production of plutonium, allowing it to make lighter warheads for more mobile delivery systems. Its newest missile, the Shaheen II, has a range of 1,500 miles and is about to go into operational deployment, Kristensen said. Pakistan also has developed nuclear-capable land- and air-launched cruise missiles.
New estimates put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal at more than 100
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal now totals more than 100 deployed weapons, a doubling of its stockpile over the past several years in one of the world's most unstable regions, according to estimates by nongovernment analysts.
The Pakistanis have significantly accelerated productionof uranium and plutonium for bombs and developed new weapons to deliver them. After years of approximate weapons parity, experts said, Pakistan has now edged ahead of India, its nuclear-armed rival.
An escalation of the arms race in South Asia poses a dilemmafor the Obama administration, which has worked to improve its economic, political and defense ties with India while seeking to deepen its relationship with Pakistan as a crucial component of its Afghanistan war strategy.
In politically fragile Pakistan, the administration is caught between fears of proliferation or possible terrorist attempts to seize nuclear materials and Pakistani suspicions that the United States aims to control or limit its weapons program and favors India.
Those suspicions were on public display last week at the opening session of U.N. disarmament talks in Geneva, where Pakistani Ambassador Zamir Akram accused the United States and other major powers of "double standards and discrimination" for pushing a global treaty banning all future production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.
Adoption of what is known as the "fissile materials cutoff treaty," a key element of President Obama's worldwide nonproliferation agenda, requires international consensus. Pakistan has long been the lone holdout.
While Pakistan has produced more nuclear-armed weapons, India is believed to have larger existing stockpiles of such fissile material for future weapons. That long-term Indian advantage, Pakistan has charged, was further enhanced by a 2008 U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation agreement. The administration has deflected Pakistan's demands for a similar deal.
Brig. Gen. Nazir Butt, defense attache at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, said the number of Pakistan's weapons and the status of its production facilities were confidential.
"Pakistan lives in a tough neighborhood and will never be oblivious to its security needs," Butt said. "As a nuclear power, we are very confident of our deterrent capabilities."
But the administration's determination to bring the fissile materials ban to completion this year may compel it to confront more directly the issue of proliferation in South Asia. As U.S. arms negotiator Rose Gottemoeller told Bloomberg News at the U.N. conference Thursday: "Patience is running out."
Other nuclear powers have their own interests in the region. China, which sees India as a major regional competitor, has major investments in Pakistan and a commitment to supply it with at least two nuclear-energy reactors.
Russia has increased its cooperation with India and told Pakistan last week that it was "disturbed" about its arms buildup.
"It's a risky path, particularly for a government under pressure," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, fresh from a visit to Islamabad, said in remarks at the Nixon Center on Thursday.
Wary of upsetting Pakistan's always-fragile political balance, the White House rarely mentions the country's arsenal in public except to voice confidence in its strong internal safeguards, with warheads kept separate from delivery vehicles. But the level of U.S. concern was reflected during last month's White House war review, when Pakistan's nuclear security was set as one of two long-term strategy objectives there, along with the defeat of al-Qaeda, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A publicly released summary of the classified review document made no reference to the nuclear issue, and the White House deflected questions on grounds that it was an intelligence matter. This week, a spokesman said the administration would not respond to inquiries about the size of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor referred to Obama's assurance at last spring's Nuclear Security Summit that he felt "confident about Pakistan's security around its nuclear weapons program." Vietor noted that Obama has encouraged "all nations" to support negotiations on the fissile cutoff treaty. "The administration is always trying to keep people from talking about this knowledgeably," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a leading analyst on the world's nuclear forces. "They're always trying to downplay" the numbers and insisting that "it's smaller than you think."
"It's hard to say how much the U.S. knows," said Hans M. Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists and author of the annual global nuclear weapons inventory published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. "Probably a fair amount. But it's a mixed bag - Pakistan is an ally, and they can't undercut it with a statement of concern in public."
Beyond intelligence on the ground, U.S. officials assess Pakistan's nuclear weapons program with the same tools used by the outside experts - satellite photos of nuclear-related installations, estimates of fissile-material production and weapons development, and publicly available statements and facts.
Four years ago, the Pakistani arsenal was estimated at 30 to 60 weapons.
"They have been expanding pretty rapidly," Albright said. Based on recently accelerated production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, "they could have more than doubled in that period," with current estimates of up to 110 weapons. Kristensen said it was "not unreasonable" to say that Pakistan has now produced at least 100 weapons. Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Britain's University of Bradford, put the number at between 100 and 110.
Some Pakistani officials have intimated they have even more. But just as the United States has a vested interest in publicly playing down the total, Pakistan sees advantage in "playing up the number of weapons they've got," Gregory said. "They're at a disadvantage with India with conventional forces," in terms of both weaponry and personnel.
Only three nuclear countries - Pakistan, India and Israel - have never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. India is estimated to have 60 to 100 weapons; numbers are even less precise for Israel's undeclared program, estimated at up to 200. North Korea, which has conducted nuclear tests and is believed to have produced enough fissile material for at least a half-dozen bombs, withdrew from the treaty in 2003.
Those figures make Pakistan the world's fifth-largest nuclear power, ahead of "legal" powers France and Britain. The vast bulk of nuclear stockpiles are held by the United States and Russia, followed by China. While Pakistan has no declared nuclear doctrine, it sees its arsenal as a deterrent to an attack by the Indian forces that are heavily deployed near its border. India has vowed no first use of nuclear weapons, but it depends on its second-strike capability to deter the Pakistanis.
The United States imposed nuclear-related sanctions on Pakistan and India after both countries conducted weapons tests in 1998, but lifted them shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. With U.S. guidance and a $100 million assistance program, Pakistan moved to increase international confidence by overhauling its command and control structures.
evelations in 2004 about an illegal international nuclear procurement network run by Pakistani nuclear official Abdul Qadeer Khan, which supplied nuclear materials to Libya, Iran and North Korea, led to further steps to improve security.
he 2008 agreement that permits India to purchase nuclear fuel for civilian purposes was a spur to Pakistani weapons production, experts said. Pakistan maintains that the treaty allows India to divert more of its own resources for military use.
As Pakistan sees India becoming a great power, "nuclear weapons become a very attractive psychological equalizer," said George Perkovich, vice president for studies and a nonproliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The 1998 test date is a quasi-holiday in Pakistan, and the test site was once declared a national monument, part of the nuclear chest-thumping that, along with political instability, makes U.S. officials as nervous as the actual number of weapons.
In December 2008, Peter Lavoie, the U.S. national intelligence officer for South Asia, told NATO officials that "despite pending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world," according to a classified State Department cable released late last year by the Internet site WikiLeaks.
Publication of the document so angered Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, that he told journalists there that the Pakistani people believe that the "real aim of U.S. [war] strategy is to denuclearize Pakistan," according to local media reports.
In 2009, Congress passed a $7.5 billion aid package for Pakistan with the stipulation that the administration provide regular assessments of whether any of the money "directly or indirectly aided the expansion of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program."
While continuing to produce weapons-grade uranium at two sites, Pakistan has sharply increased its production of plutonium, allowing it to make lighter warheads for more mobile delivery systems. Its newest missile, the Shaheen II, has a range of 1,500 miles and is about to go into operational deployment, Kristensen said. Pakistan also has developed nuclear-capable land- and air-launched cruise missiles.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Top Most Searched Items Things on Google Most Searched Things On Google 2010-2011
Here are top 5 keywords which are being searched on web these days:
1) Google: Being the
biggest and fastest search engine which can give you the information about everything besides this Google has gmail (fastest e-mail service), blogger (which made easy for you to create blogs and earn money), AdSense (which has made the earnings easy), AdWords (which has opened the easiest ways for advertisers to advertise in the internet world) and many more things. These things make Google most searched keyword.2) Twitter: Twitter has suddenly become one of the most popular website in the world. Net surfers around the world do open Twitter these days for following the famous personalities and making new friends.
3) Michael Jackson: After his sudden death suddenly Michael Jackson has become the most searched person in search engines. People are searching his biographies, cause of death, new song of Michael Jackson which has just come, Michael Jackson's songs, pics and many more things about him. The sale of Michael Jackson's music albums has also increased.
4) Barack Obama: U.S. President Barack Obama has been ruling the internet since Nov. 4 2008. The day when he became president. He has become one of the most famous personality of the world with in a year. Barack Obama is popular again after being given the Nobel Prize.
5) Paris Hilton: Believe it or not! But Hotel Heiress Paris Hilton is also among the most searched celebrities around the world for her all the strange habits.
Arif Nizami launches his new English daily “Pakistan Today”
Pakistan Today, an English daily headed by Arif Nizami, the former editor of The Nation, has launched in Lahore and is preparing to launch in Karachi. It has joined the growing list of English dailies the public now has to choose from. Amidst rumours about its style and substance, there is genuine curiosity about what a new publication can offer to readers.
Babur Nizami, the chief operating officer of Pakistan Today, had high hopes for the paper and was confident of its success. “The paper was launched to a very good response. We’re targeting the market leader – that is, Dawn-and expect that in six months time we will be in at least the number three slot,” he said. He backed up his ambitious claim with a description of what the newspaper will be offering. Above all, Pakistan Today is aiming to provide a publication which is reader-friendly, with bright graphics, coloured photographs and creatively designed layouts. “Even the Op-Ed pages will have pictures and we are offering coloured comics for the first time,” said Nizami.
Rumours about the newspaper being a tabloid were firmly squashed and attributed to a misunderstanding about type and layout. Pakistan Today was launched in the Berliner format, with different page dimensions compared to other newspapers. “The Berliner is not the tabloid format,” said a former Pakistan Today staff member. “It’s just a flexible and reader-friendly, but I think there is some confusion about the term,” he said. The newspaper ran a piece about the format on page 4 of their October 5 issue.
Journalists from leading English publications are looking forward to seeing where its editor will take his infant paper. “I think the launch of Pakistan Today is good news. Arif Nizami is a seasoned journalist,” said Shamimur Rehman, from Dawn. “We are looking forward to the launch of an independent, neutral newspaper,” he added. Muhammad Ziauddin, the executive editor of The Express Tribune, shared his hopeful attitude. “Arif Nizami is an experienced journalist who has been working very professionally for over three decades. I hope he makes this venture successful,” he said.
All new ventures require good employees and it remains to be seen how successfully Pakistan Today will recruit its team. A recruiting advertisement from Ritemoves.com offers “unique opportunities for recent college and university graduates, as well as for talented professionals who are looking for a more dynamic experience.” According to Babur Nizami, the newspaper has culled “mostly experienced reporters” from publications such as The News, The Nation and The Express Tribune. It has also targeted young graduates from institutions such as LUMS and Beaconhouse National University. Although the consistency and quality of its reporting remains to be seen, those at the helm of Pakistan Today are hoping that the combination of style and content grabs readers.
Several people declined to comment on the launch of the newspaper, saying that there is no way to tell how good it will be until they see it themselves. Part of the scepticism lies with the fact that the paper does not have a serious web-presence yet, beyond a rather-empty looking website. As other newspapers are investing in improving their online appearance, it is likely that Pakistan Today could garner more positive feedback if it was more easily accessible to people outside of Lahore.
Within Lahore, Babur Nizami was very pleased with the marketing of the new project. “We have billboards and streamers and we distributed free copies of the paper before its official launch,” he said, adding that the response to the campaign had been overwhelmingly positive.
As Pakistan’s media continues to expand, competition will arguably force all stakeholders to scrutinise quality and offer better products. The launch of Pakistan Today is good news for journalism at large, if it gives readers more news to choose from. Whether or not it rises to its claim of eventually becoming one of the country’s leading publications can only be seen in due time.
Pakistan Today, an English daily headed by Arif Nizami, the former editor of The Nation, has launched in Lahore and is preparing to launch in Karachi. It has joined the growing list of English dailies the public now has to choose from. Amidst rumours about its style and substance, there is genuine curiosity about what a new publication can offer to readers.
Babur Nizami, the chief operating officer of Pakistan Today, had high hopes for the paper and was confident of its success. “The paper was launched to a very good response. We’re targeting the market leader – that is, Dawn-and expect that in six months time we will be in at least the number three slot,” he said. He backed up his ambitious claim with a description of what the newspaper will be offering. Above all, Pakistan Today is aiming to provide a publication which is reader-friendly, with bright graphics, coloured photographs and creatively designed layouts. “Even the Op-Ed pages will have pictures and we are offering coloured comics for the first time,” said Nizami.
Rumours about the newspaper being a tabloid were firmly squashed and attributed to a misunderstanding about type and layout. Pakistan Today was launched in the Berliner format, with different page dimensions compared to other newspapers. “The Berliner is not the tabloid format,” said a former Pakistan Today staff member. “It’s just a flexible and reader-friendly, but I think there is some confusion about the term,” he said. The newspaper ran a piece about the format on page 4 of their October 5 issue.
Journalists from leading English publications are looking forward to seeing where its editor will take his infant paper. “I think the launch of Pakistan Today is good news. Arif Nizami is a seasoned journalist,” said Shamimur Rehman, from Dawn. “We are looking forward to the launch of an independent, neutral newspaper,” he added. Muhammad Ziauddin, the executive editor of The Express Tribune, shared his hopeful attitude. “Arif Nizami is an experienced journalist who has been working very professionally for over three decades. I hope he makes this venture successful,” he said.
All new ventures require good employees and it remains to be seen how successfully Pakistan Today will recruit its team. A recruiting advertisement from Ritemoves.com offers “unique opportunities for recent college and university graduates, as well as for talented professionals who are looking for a more dynamic experience.” According to Babur Nizami, the newspaper has culled “mostly experienced reporters” from publications such as The News, The Nation and The Express Tribune. It has also targeted young graduates from institutions such as LUMS and Beaconhouse National University. Although the consistency and quality of its reporting remains to be seen, those at the helm of Pakistan Today are hoping that the combination of style and content grabs readers.
Several people declined to comment on the launch of the newspaper, saying that there is no way to tell how good it will be until they see it themselves. Part of the scepticism lies with the fact that the paper does not have a serious web-presence yet, beyond a rather-empty looking website. As other newspapers are investing in improving their online appearance, it is likely that Pakistan Today could garner more positive feedback if it was more easily accessible to people outside of Lahore.
Within Lahore, Babur Nizami was very pleased with the marketing of the new project. “We have billboards and streamers and we distributed free copies of the paper before its official launch,” he said, adding that the response to the campaign had been overwhelmingly positive.
As Pakistan’s media continues to expand, competition will arguably force all stakeholders to scrutinise quality and offer better products. The launch of Pakistan Today is good news for journalism at large, if it gives readers more news to choose from. Whether or not it rises to its claim of eventually becoming one of the country’s leading publications can only be seen in due time.
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