Diplomacy & Crisis News

(Own report) - Around 17 years after NATO's war against Yugoslavia and the beginning of the occupation of Kosovo with German participation, observers note that the de-facto protectorate is in a desolate political, economic and social condition. The first war in which the Federal Republic of Germany played an important role has had catastrophic consequences. De facto under EU control, Priština's ruling elite is accused of having close ties to organized crime and having committed the most serious war crimes. Its rampant corruption is spreading frustrated resignation within the population. Thirty-four percent of the population is living in absolute - and twelve percent in extreme - poverty, healthcare is deplorable, life expectancy is five years less than that of its neighboring countries and ten years below the EU's average. A report commissioned by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), describes the horrifying human rights situation, which includes vendettas "constantly carried out" with firearms. (This is part 1 of a german-foreign-policy.com series, reporting on consequences of German military interventions over the past two decades, in light of the German government's announcement of plans to increase its "global" - including military - interventions.)

The United Nations Security Council today condemned the ballistic missile launches conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday, 5 September.

The top United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) official in Thailand has expressed deep concerns over the continuing violence in the country’s restive southernmost provinces and its impact on children, including an explosion that killed a four-year-old girl and her father today.

Eager to relieve discontent at home and faced with entrenched issues of governability, stretched resources and security threats from regional Islamist insurgencies, President Mahamadou Issoufou’s government signed a controversial labour agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) late last year. The KSA has a dubious record of protecting the rights of migrant workers whilst Niger remains a source, transit, and destination country for men, women and children trafficked into various forms of modern day slavery, including commercial sexual exploitation, forced begging, domestic servitude and forced manual labour in sectors like agriculture or mining.

Much of Niger’s issues with slavery remain firmly domestic, including an estimated 43,000 people held in so-called descent-based slavery. Human rights groups say that this traditional practice is particularly entrenched in Niger’s Tuareg, Berber Arab and Fulani ethnic groups. However cases of forced labour or exploitation can be found across the country and are not just limited to traditional cultural practices or certain parts of Nigerien society. Such a lax domestic atmosphere around labour rights combined with weak government controls and serious issues of governability now help to foster a climate of impunity for people traffickers taking labour overseas.

A traditional and a modern problem

Campaigners have long warned of Niger’s status as a regional source of slaves, such as the practice of ‘Wahaya’ where women or girls of slave descent are sold as so-called ‘fifth wives’ to men from local ethnic groups living in Niger and neighboring Nigeria. These fifth wives are seen by wealthy men as a status symbol, and are used for domestic and agricultural tasks and forced to have sex with their masters, who also keep any children they bear. Niger has also long been used as a transit point for sub-Saharan migrants being trafficked north to Europe or north-east to the Middle East.

However the addressing the domestic problem of slavery in Niger is being complicated by the worrying rise of new forms of exploitation and forced labour driven by demand overseas. Last autumn Niger’s Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security signed an agreement with the Saudi Manpower Solutions Company (SMASCO) after talks in Niger’s capital of Niamey. The agreement covered the recruitment of workers from Niger for jobs in Saudi Arabia, including roles for housekeepers, truck drivers, gardeners, nurses and cattlemen.

This is an issue because of the frequent reports which for years have raised concerns about the mistreatment of migrant workers in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. Following negative publicity a number of countries have banned their nationals from working in the Kingdom. The Saudi record has raised alarm among migrant rights groups that Niger is simply repeating the experience of nearby Mauritania, whose government signed an agreement with the KSA to provide labour, only to be forced by adverse publicity into banning its nationals from working there after reports began to emerge of hundreds of Mauritanian nationals being mistreated or imprisoned by their employers.

Social media warnings

While the conditions of Niger’s agreement with the KSA specified that its migrant workers are to be allowed free movement within Saudi Arabia, to keep their identity cards, and to give the female workers secure dormitories to live in, a warning by the Saudi Labour Ministry in June raises questions of how tightly the Kingdom supervises migrant workers’ employers in practice.

Dr. Mohammed Al-Falih, assistant undersecretary for inspection, warned Saudi citizens against the illegal recruitment of workers through social media, and using it for the provision of labour services or leasing of employment services to third parties. Recruitment of workers is theoretically only supposed to be done after obtaining a license from the Saudi Ministry of Labour and Social Employment. Meanwhile Saudi citizens interested in recruiting a domestic worker are only supposed to use the Ministry’s list of approved companies.

But in practice Saudi employers frequently bypass such official regulations and procedures while the idea that recruitment fees to workers are an investment to be recouped somehow has a strong cultural hold in Saudi minds. Rights groups have documented evidence of Facebook pages and groups being used for cross-border recruitment, of foreign workers transferred between employers in different Gulf countries to evade bans in their home countries on working in the KSA, and of some employers illegally renting out their workers during periods of high demand such as Ramadan.

Social media has become a particularly prominent marketplace for domestic workers over the past four years, and it has been recorded that some Instagram accounts ‘sell’ maids to other employers by arranging to transfer the workers’ visas to the online ‘buyer’. Nor is this the only dubious use of social media recorded in the GCC. In one Kuwaiti example from 2014 an Instagram account was used to post photographs of absconded maids and listed a telephone number for Kuwaiti citizens to share the maids’ pictures with one another over WhatsApp.

The account also listed instructions on how to trap the women in the country through reporting the case to the police rather than the maids’ recruitment agency. According to Kuwait’s employment laws absconding workers caught by the authorities can be forcibly returned to their sponsors or deported.

Conclusion

Recent reports from Mauritanian nationals to both civil society groups and their government’s law enforcement authorities highlighted the vulnerability of other West African nationals to exploitation and abuse in the KSA and indeed the wider GCC area. Yet Niger is even less governable and developed then Mauritania, ranking 188th on the UN Human Development Index, compared with Mauritania’s ranking of 156.

With many embassies reluctant to interfere in employer-employee relations abroad, and the Nigerien government’s record on the issue of slavery at home extremely mixed, Nigerien workers recruited for work in Saudi Arabia are at an especially high risk of abandonment should their employment situation turn against them.

While international attention has so far focused on maintaining Niger’s shaky democratic transition and helping President Mahamadou Issoufou’s regime contain the threat of regional Islamist insurgencies, agencies and donor governments should also investigate the situation of Niger’s workers once they start to return home at the end of their visas. Pressure should also be put on the KSA authorities to police Saudi employers more tightly. The protection of Nigeriens abroad could do a lot to improve the way the country treats its workers at home.

The post Niger Migrant Workers Vulnerable Overseas appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Clay figures in Uzbekistan

Although it hasn’t been definitively established, late nineteenth and early twentieth century British politician and statesman Joseph Chamberlain has recently been credited with coining the phrase, “may you live in interesting times.” It has long been known as the “Chinese curse” despite the fact that no such Chinese saying is known to exist. However, whether meant as a curse or a simple observation, for three former Soviet republics situated just to the west of the Middle Kingdom, the phrase has become quite appropriate over the past few weeks.

Uzbekistan’s leader is still dead

The country with perhaps the most tenuous hold on stability is Uzbekistan. After a Francisco Franco-esque deathwatch, Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov is dead. Although apparently rumored to have shuffled off his mortal coil for several years, Karimov fell into a coma and expired in the evening of September 2 after having been admitted to hospital in an unconscious state almost a week earlier.

As Karimov had no plan for succession in place, Uzbekistan’s quest for future leadership is shaping up to quite Shakespearean in tone. Appointed as the top communist in the then Soviet republic in 1989, Karimov became president of the newly-independent state upon the USSR’s demise in 1991. From then on he kept hold of power via rigging elections and eradicating dissent, which reportedly included boiling dissidents alive. All the while several clans from the country’s seven regions have been attempting to maneuver their way into power. Now that Karimov is no longer in the picture, the struggle is almost certain to kick into high gear.

The three main contenders in Uzbekistan’s Game of Thrones are Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev, National Security Service (SNB) head Rustam Inoyatov, and Deputy PM Rustam Azimov. Inoyatov is the muscle that has helped keep Karimov in power to this point, as his SNB has made liberal use of illegal incarceration, torture, rape, and burning of real property. However, Inoyatov is notoriously reclusive—exactly one confirmed photograph of him in the past decade is known to exist. Mirziyoyev is the longest tenured of the trio, having been in office for thirteen years. His reputation for harshness is well known, but is considered to have more brawn than brains. Azimov is considered to be the less hard-line choice, however there are rumors to the effect that he has been arrested and is therefore out of the picture entirely.

The succession crisis is being played out before the backdrop of a mass exodus of its citizenry. Thanks to Karimov’s decades of brutal religious repression, a particularly virulent brand of Islamic extremism has festered up to the surface. According to reports, hundreds of Uzbeks are believed to be fighting for ISIS in Syria, and an Uzbek citizen is one of several suspects in the attack on an Istanbul airport earlier this summer.

Kyrgyzstan’s Uighurs wreak havoc 

To the east, Kyrgyzstan has found itself at the center of an international incident. A suicide bomber drove a minivan into the Chinese embassy Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek last Tuesday, killing himself and wounding three Kyrgyz nationals on staff at the embassy. Although no group has yet come forward and claimed responsibility for the incident at the time of this writing, state security services are preliminarily fingering Uighur separatists from the adjacent Chinese province of Xinjiang.

The Uighur minority in China has had a longstanding dispute with Beijing over its heavy-handed treatment of their number in Xinjiang. Although one can trace the initial dispute as far back as 60 BCE, the most immediate cause of unrest in the region dates back to 1955, when Xinjiang became an autonomous region of China. Uighurs (and the other ethnic minorities in the region) have long bristled under the rule of Han Chinese, whom they view as interlopers, and Beijing has responded by resoundingly harsh crackdowns of dissent. The conflict intensified after Mao had a falling-out with Khrushchev in 1962, and the Soviets began backing Uighur uprisings.

Kyrgyzstan has a small Uighur population (around 1.1%), but the country has encountered problems with Uighur militants crossing illegally from Xinjiang. The issue came to a head two years ago, when eleven Uighurs alleged to be members of a militant group were killed by border guards.

The bigger problem faced by the country may be that of radical Islam. Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic extremist group with ties to al-Qaeda, is believed to be active in the country despite it being banned a decade ago. And, along with Uzbekistan, a suspect in the late attack at the Istanbul airport is a Kyrgyzstan native, one of possibly hundreds who have joined the fight alongside ISIS in Syria.

Kazakhstan’s overtures

Kyrgyzstan’s big brother to the north is probably the most stable of the three Central Asian countries figuring in the news recently. In Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s government is certainly facing its challenges: earlier this year his government cracked down on widespread demonstrations against plans to privatize large tracts of farmland, and, a scant few weeks later, Islamic militants executed a terrorist attack in a city in the northwest.

Though many experts expect Kazakhstan as the next domino to fall into the chaotic abyss into which Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are teetering, it seems that the worst could be over for Kazakhstan. Astana hosted delegates from over four-dozen countries in a conference aimed at ending nuclear weapons. Kazakhstan seems a strange place for such a conference, until one realizes that its Semipalatinsk region was the Soviet Union’s version of a nuclear weapons firing range.

Between 1949 and 1989, the region was the site of over four hundred separate nuclear weapons tests. An area the size of Germany is contaminated by nuclear fallout, and over 200,000 people living in the region suffered varying degrees of harm to their health. In addition, as one of only four countries to give up its nuclear weapons, Kazakhstan has a degree of credibility on the issue that few other countries have.

Looking ahead there is more reason to expect Kazakhstan to maintain its relative stability. Astana will host next year the Expo 2017, which will turn around “Future Energy” and is expected to attract over five million visits from some 100 countries.

Though Kazakhstan is unlikely to be mistaken for a bastion of freedom any time soon, it is safe to say that, at least at the current juncture, it is charting its own course on the often-roiling waters of Central Asia. And, at least for now, reports of the region’s complete foundering are greatly exaggerated.

The post Living in Interesting Times in Central Asia appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The Chinese government’s paranoia is showing again.

On August 30, China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) issued an official notice ordering all Chinese entertainment news outlets to cease programming that “promotes Western lifestyles” or pokes fun at traditional Chinese values. All programming must promote “positive energy,” according to the notice, and must comply with Chinese Communist Party ideology. Violators may be punished by having their programs suspended or their production licenses revoked (China Digital Times, Global Times, Shanghaiist, South China Morning Post, Xinhua).

This notice from SAPPRFT is only the latest in a series of anti-Western ideological measures by China’s current leadership under president Xi Jinping. Rules announced in June tightened restrictions on “foreign-inspired” TV shows, insisting that programming must promote “socialist core values, as well as patriotism and Chinese traditions.” In 2015, universities were ordered to clamp down on textbooks and other teaching materials that “promote Western values.” Chinese women have even been warned against dating foreign men because they might be spies. Noted as “China’s most authoritarian leader since Mao,” Xi Jinping has also taken China in a decidedly xenophobic direction.

While they engage in such silliness, China’s censors might wish to consider how it would look if the United States or some other Western government were to issue such a warning against the promotion of “foreign lifestyles” on TV. How would it look, for example, if the U.S. government warned against depictions of Chinese martial arts on American TV? How would it look if the British government warned against showing Bollywood films? How would it look if programming in any Western nation were banned for poking fun at itself or its traditions?

It would look ridiculous and weak, of course. No Western government would engage in such silliness, however, because Western governments are mature, legitimate world powers, not tinpot dictatorships in fear of their own extinction.

Nonetheless, China expects to be accorded “great power” status equal to the United States. A government that denounced a video game as a form of American “cultural aggression,” banned TV depictions of time travel, and censored comparisons of former president Jiang Zemin with a toad from Chinese social media wishes to be regarded as a “great power.”

China’s censorship rules have reached a “new level of absurdity,” writes China policy analyst J. Michael Cole. “The [Chinese Communist Party’s] gradual descent into regulatory madness suggests that it is losing its grip on reality and on the people whom it seeks to control.”

Wishing to appear strong and confident, China’s rulers only reveal their own weakness and fear through such absurd ideological campaigns.

The post China Censors Warn against Promotion of “Western Lifestyles” on TV appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

History never repeats; but it rhymes, and it often echoes. Robert Kaplan’s 1990 book Soldiers of God chronicled his experience reporting on the mujahidin (multiple spellings exist; I’ll be using Kaplan’s preferred spelling). These native Afghan militias resisted the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and ultimately repelled it. Kaplan’s book was republished following September 11, 2001 with the subtitle “With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan”. Kaplan’s examination of their brand of Islam, how it motivated their actions and their end goals, remains topical in the current climate of terrorism motivated by a violent brand of Islam. What can Kaplan’s study of the mujahidin teach us about ISIS?

The 9/11 attacks threw a spotlight on Afghanistan and the ruling Taliban regime that provided safe haven to Osama bin Laden. Before 9/11, the Taliban and Afghanistan itself received scant attention; it took terror attacks on the American homeland to bring them fully into America’s strategic sights. Similarly, Kaplan argues, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the carnage it caused was a “forgotten” war. Soviet failures there represented, in Kaplan’s view, “’premonitions” that the Cold War was in its final phase. The mujahidin, therefore—in a manner only clear in retrospect—were a bridge between America’s Cold War-era national security framework and the beginning of the age of global terrorism.

After the Soviet retreat and eventual collapse, however, America forgot Afghanistan again, to its own great loss. Kaplan’s description of the mujahidin includes elements ascribed to ISIS currently—namely an adherence to fundamentalist Islam and an adjacent willingness to fight and die on its behalf. From that point of commonality stem many differences in mujahidin ideology, tactics, and goals that make a comparison with ISIS worthwhile and instructive.

Ideology

Kaplan observed mujahidin who were motivated by a fundamentalist Islam characteristic of ISIS. Where ISIS cultivates a communal religious fervor, the mujahidin were more individualistic. In Iran and much of the Arab world, Kaplan noted, prayer is often a mass activity with the “reciting of the worlds, syllable by heated syllable, begetting a collective hysteria reminiscent of the Nuremburg rallies. The cries of Allahu akbar carried a shrill, medieval, bloodcurdling ring.” These political overtones to prayer did not exist among the mujahidin to the same degree. They were defending their homeland from invaders; they were not at war against a entire foreign culture. “Afghanistan had never been industrialized, let alone colonized or penetrated much by outsiders,” Kaplan writes, and as a result “…the Afghans had never been seduced by the West and so had no reason to violently reject it.” Prayer itself was a solitary activity, not a group one.

Tactics

Kaplan describes the mujahidin responding to Soviet campaigns that were wars of attrition; centered on skirmishes rather than traditional battles, and involving civilians fully. Soviet forces targeted civilians. Kaplan describes the protracted Soviet “carpet bombing” of Kandahar, and writes that Soviet mines killed approximately thirty Afghans per day throughout the conflict. Afghan forces strategized in kind. While previous conflicts from World War II to Vietnam had involved high civilian casualties, ISIS’ ability to capture large swaths of urban territory against state forces is an inversion of the mujahidin’s defensive successes against the Soviets. There are no battlefields in ISIS campaigns, and the Afghan people’s full participation in fighting the Soviets—as mujahidin fighters or as victims—foreshadowed the ISIS campaigns of the past several years.

Goals

Kaplan’s picture of the mujahidin differs from the portrait painted by the recent long-form New York Times story (“Fractured Lands”) of the long-term unemployment and political disaffection among Arab youth that provided fertile conditions for ISIS to thrive. Where ISIS both recruited in urban territory and took that territory militarily, Kaplan describes the mujahidin as “in many respects a bunch of ornery backwoodsmen, whose religious and tribal creed seemed to flow naturally from the austere living conditions of the high desert—unlike the more abstract and ideological brand of Islam of the Taliban”. Unlike ISIS, the mujahidin did aspire to create a new form of government; they were defending a way of life. Their aim was to obstruct a superpower from conquering their country long enough that it gave up trying to do so. Unlike the mujahidin, ISIS not only has to hold territory in the long term, it has to govern.

One of the benefits of looking back to history for historic parallels to current events is seeing the role that factors such as cultural distinctions, geography and demography play in world events. Islam is not a monolith. The groups that would manipulate it for violent ends are not either. Developing a security strategy against terrorism often invites an inappropriate “one-size-fits-all” mentality.

The terms “militant Islam” and “radical Islam” have been rightly criticized for unfairly staining the name of a peaceful religion with the actions of its violent fringe. Both terms could be applied to ISIS and the mujahidin—very different groups that were (in ISIS’ case, that are) not monoliths in themselves. Kaplan produced a qualitative study of the mujahidin that parallels the value of “Fractured Lands” in the depth of its detail. As an antidote to broad-brush, one-size-fits-all thinking, such studies are invaluable.

The post Can the Mujahidin Teach Us About ISIS? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

« J'ai pris parti. » Pour Gérald Bloncourt, ce n'est pas un aveu fait à voix basse, comme on admet un délit. Bien au contraire : une fierté. Un leitmotiv pour une vie de photographe communiste. L'Œil en colère tient autant des Mémoires que du livre sur les luttes sociales au XXe siècle ; il raconte les (...) / Communisme, Histoire, Parti politique, Photographie, Presse - 2016/09

Une vieille question taraude la Russie : celle de son identité. Depuis le XVIe siècle, l'Europe puis l'Occident (quand cette notion s'est mise à inclure les États-Unis) font figure de modèles et de repoussoirs. L'édition augmentée de l'ouvrage de Marie-Pierre Rey revient sur l'histoire de ce tourment (...) / Europe, Russie, Histoire, Société, Relations Est-Ouest - 2016/09

Dans l'imaginaire collectif, un film reste associé au Front populaire : La Belle Équipe, sorti sur les écrans en septembre 1936. Cinq ouvriers au chômage, dont un exilé espagnol en instance d'expulsion, gagnent à la loterie nationale et deviennent leurs propres patrons en créant une guinguette en (...) / France, Cinéma, Communisme, Histoire, Parti politique, Socialisme - 2016/09

Suite au sondage réalisé sur ce blog, nous avons le plaisir de vous offrir l’article du numéro d’automne 2016 de Politique étrangère que vous avez choisi : « Brésil : plus dure sera la chute », par Joao Augusto de Castro Neves et Bruno Reis.

Le Brésil subit actuellement l’une des plus graves crises politique et économique de son histoire moderne – et certainement la plus sévère depuis le retour de la démocratie au milieu des années 1980. Enfant chéri de la mondialisation pendant une bonne partie de la dernière décennie, le pays est brutalement tombé de son piédestal. L’accès de pessimisme tient en partie à la tendance des experts en relations internationales et des commentateurs du marché à voir le monde comme inexorablement pris dans un mouvement – toujours plus rapide – de transfert de puissance d’un grand marché à un autre. Hier encore, les BRICS apparaissaient comme la pierre de touche d’un nouvel ordre mondial et un eldorado de l’investissement ; aujourd’hui, les caprices des vents de la finance veulent accorder à un autre acronyme son quart d’heure de célébrité.

Sur le plan économique, le Brésil connaît sa plus sévère dépression depuis de nombreuses décennies. Son produit intérieur brut (PIB) a baissé de près de 10 % en quatre ans, le taux de chômage a explosé et le déficit budgétaire tend à se creuser. Sur le plan politique, le pays est confronté à une procédure de destitution de la présidente, à un gigantesque scandale de corruption touchant la totalité de la classe politique et, dernièrement, à une vague de contestation dans les rues des grandes villes où des millions de citoyens ont dénoncé le manque de réactivité – et parfois de responsabilité – de la classe politique.

Ces événements ont conduit le système politique à une quasi-paralysie et manifesté l’incapacité des dirigeants à répondre aux nombreux défis auxquels le pays doit faire face.

Il y a encore quelques années, le Brésil connaissait une des périodes les plus « dynamiques » de son histoire, avec un taux de croissance « à la chinoise » (7,5 % en 2007), un développement social considérable permettant à des millions d’habitants de sortir de la pauvreté et de rejoindre le marché de la consommation. Luis Inacio « Lula » da Silva était alors le président le plus populaire qu’ait connu le pays, avec un taux d’approbation de 73 % en 2010.

Alors, qu’est-il arrivé au Brésil ? Comment et pourquoi la situation économique et politique s’est-elle détériorée aussi rapidement ? Où va le pays ? Le Brésil a connu plusieurs cycles d’expansion-récession. Pour savoir s’il est affecté aujourd’hui par un nouveau cycle, un examen précis des récents événements politiques et économiques doit être réalisé. La mise au jour de certains des facteurs qui ont influé sur ces événements nous donnera peut-être une vision plus claire de la trajectoire empruntée par le pays. Pour tenter de répondre à nos interrogations, on situera ce qui arrive au Brésil dans le cadre d’un scénario plus large, qu’on pourrait nommer la « grandeur et décadence du supercycle politico-économique de l’Amérique latine ».

[…]

La situation économique du Brésil est incontestablement moins favorable qu’elle ne l’a été, et la croissance devrait y rester faible dans les prochaines années. Pour un pays doté de ressources militaires limitées, et situé dans une région relativement non stratégique (d’un point de vue américain), le niveau de puissance est principalement fonction de l’activité économique de long terme. S’il faut toujours rester prudent lorsqu’on parle de puissances émergentes, on peut raisonnablement penser que le pessimisme actuel concernant le Brésil est excessif. En dépit de tous ses problèmes, ce pays reste une démocratie vivante. Son avenir est prometteur aussi en ce qui concerne les ressources énergétiques – fossiles ou renouvelables. En outre, si la croissance est poussive pour l’instant, la majorité de la population est mieux lotie qu’elle ne l’était il y a une décennie.

Dans les années à venir, les dirigeants brésiliens devront rendre le système politique plus efficace et plus réactif aux attentes de la société. La mise en œuvre de réformes structurelles pour lever les obstacles aux investissements constituera une étape cruciale pour remettre le pays sur la voie d’une croissance économique soutenable. Pour cela, un leadership robuste et une stratégie à long terme seront nécessaires. Une fois ces ingrédients réunis, le futur du Brésil pourrait être rayonnant.

Lire l’article en intégralité sur Cairn.info.

This article is also available in english. Please click here to read it.

S’abonner à Politique étrangère.

(Own report) - To reinforce its position in the Pacific region, Berlin is initiating a regular dialogue with Australia at foreign and defense ministerial levels. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier are participating in the first "German-Australian 2+2 Dialogue" held today in Berlin. The meeting, which will be repeated at regular intervals, is one of the measures initiated in early 2013 to enhance cooperation between Berlin and Canberra, in light of the shift of global policy priority from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In view of its growing economic and political importance, Washington considers China to be its main rival of the future. Therefore US President George W. Bush (2002) and US Foreign Minister Hillary Clinton (2011) explicitly declared this to be "America's Pacific Century," and Washington has begun redeploying its military forces closer to the People's Republic of China. Explicitly claiming to "help shape the global order," Berlin also feels obliged to reinforce its position in that region.

Le nouveau numéro de Politique étrangère (3/2016) vient de paraître ! Il consacre un dossier complet à l’Amérique latine, s’attachant à décrypter pour le Brésil, l’Argentine, la Colombie, le Mexique et le Panama, les raisons principales de l’échec – provisoire ? – de leurs régimes démocratiques. Parallèlement, le Contrechamps de ce numéro propose à travers les articles de Guy Verfhostadt et de Dominique Moïsi une réflexion ouverte sur la crise globale de l’Europe. Enfin, comme à chaque numéro, de nombreux articles viennent éclairer l’actualité, notamment sur l’Iran et la question du nucléaire ou encore sur le rapprochement stratégique indo-australien.

L’Amérique latine incarnait hier une démocratisation politique irrépressible, une tension des sociétés vers la réduction de violentes inégalités, l’insertion croissante dans une économie mondialisée. Le rêve se défait. Au Brésil, l’expérience du Parti des Travailleurs butte sur des inégalités persistantes, une croissance qui marque le pas, un système politique décrédibilisé. L’Argentine a, elle, fait l’expérience de deux mandats « kirchnéristes », difficiles à analyser, et dont la postérité apparaît incertaine. Quant à la Colombie ou au Mexique, les logiques de sortie des violences des rébellions ou du narcotrafic y apparaissent toujours aussi complexes, voire dangereuses. L’Amérique latine témoigne-t-elle désormais d’autre chose que de sa diversité, de son échec provisoire à consolider ses propres choix démocratiques ?

Crise de l’Europe comme continent, crise du processus de construction européenne, crise des institutions de l’Union européenne : l’espérance européenne lutte pour sa survie. Guy Verhofstadt et Dominique Moïsi réfléchissent dans ce numéro sur les chemins qui restent ouverts : faut-il aux Européens un saut fédéraliste, ou un renforcement des Nations ? Faut-il aller de l’avant au risque d’une rupture entre opinions et institutions ? Faut-il écouter plus les Nations au risque des dérapages nationalistes ? Les mois qui viennent et la négociation sur le Brexit nous en diront plus, mais l’heure est sans nul doute aux débats décisifs.

* * *

Découvrez la présentation vidéo de Dominique David :

Découvrez le sommaire complet ici.

Téléchargez le dossier de presse ici.

Lisez gratuitement l’article de Guy Verhofstadt, « Europe : Back to the Future », ici.

Achetez le numéro 3-2016 de Politique étrangère ici.

Achetez la version ePub ici.

Abonnez-vous à Politique étrangère pour les 4 numéros de l’année 2017  ici ou à cette adresse : revues@armand-colin.com.

Perçu comme un enjeu stratégique majeur, le contrôle des anciennes républiques soviétiques d'Asie a entretenu la rivalité entre grandes puissances. Mais la percée américaine ne semble que passagère, tandis qu'il est encore trop tôt pour dire si l'expansion économique chinoise bousculera les intérêts (...) / Afghanistan, Asie centrale, Chine, États-Unis, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Kirghizstan, Ouzbékistan, Russie, Tadjikistan, Économie, Géopolitique, Pétrole, Transports, Kazakhstan, Turkménistan, Guerre d'Afghanistan 2001 -, Gaz naturel - 2014/12

Les cinq pays d'Asie centrale connaissent des évolutions économiques et politiques fort divergentes depuis leur indépendance en 1991. Ces peuples parlant des langues turques (à l'exception des Tadjiks iranophones) ont pourtant un long passé commun, en particulier depuis leur intégration progressive (...) / Asie centrale, Énergie, Histoire, Droits des minorités - Asie

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Photo: PEAS

Nestled in the beautiful Ugandan hills two-hours west of the capital Kampala, sits Pioneer High School. The rural secondary school, set over 10km away from the next senior school, has a thriving student base of 472 student—54% of which are female. Headteacher Francis Kyanja sits on the steps of the staff dormitory at the highest point of the school grounds, looking back over the classrooms blocks to the rolling hills in the distance and, in the foreground, students reading and playing on the grass following a day of study. The school day here is long: lesson prep often begins at 7.30am and by the time the final bell is called at 4.30pm, teachers and students alike are ready for a hearty meal and some well-earned relaxation time.

Headteacher Francis has not only ushered a regionally cutting-edge and rigorous educational program, including history, science, arts, mathematics and religion, he was able to arrange an off-grid solar electricity system installed within the school grounds, providing electricity to the community for the first time.

In Uganda, as everywhere, it is inarguable the importance of education and the need to advance societies.

To that fact, there are bold global goals for universal education access, namely the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. Too often, however, education ends at primary school and millions of students are unable to continue their studies due to financial, gender or regional limitations. To help bridge that gap, UK social enterprise PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools) has built and manages sustainable secondary schools to allow African children receive further education that otherwise wouldn’t. The organization attempts to ensure that all of their schools are financially self-sufficient enabling them to run, independent of international aid, for the long-term.

Headteacher Francis has situated himself at an elevated position in order to gain mobile phone signal, intermittent at best in this region. He has agreed to speak with me via Skype, the first time he has ever used the platform, to discuss the impact a power supply brings to student learning.

Pioneer High School is situated in a coffee growing community, not directly in a village, and is about 50 km outside of Kampala and about 7 km away from the main road. Its purpose is to hone their students’ skills and knowledge, along with providing boarding for students. The rural area does not lend easy connection to the national grid, thus there has been no access to electricity to date. In fact the closest power line is near the main road. Francis is unaware of any future plans for extension of the transmission and distribution network, thus localized generation has smartly been turned to through a small-scale solar system. Centralized generation with high-voltage, long distance transmission lines have a place, but for small rural communities, off-grid systems are the most effective option to gain access to electricity.

Electricity is, in many ways, an additional lifeblood of an advancing community. Without electricity there are no lights, refrigeration for vaccines, charging for phones, or using computers, among the myriad of other uses in today’s world. Electricity provides a conduit to open doors instead of being trapped in the cycle of poverty. Francis noted that with the electricity, there is now the ability to connect with the outside world, as our Skype call was testament to, and to relay events domestically and globally.

The Students

As well as speaking with the Headteacher, I had the opportunity to spend time talking to two ambitious, friendly and gracious students who were excited to share their new experience. Naudrine, a confident 17 year old boarding student, wants to become either a doctor or an engineer, and her favorite subject is chemistry. She explained, as I noticed her visible happiness displayed by her facial features, how having the access to electricity and lighting provides her time to complete her studies in the evening and to prepare for class the next day. She also stated that the electricity in the school along with the fenced areas surrounding the school provide an extra sense of security.

Peter, a smiley faced 16 year old, told me his favorite subject is mathematics and desires to become a businessman. He too echoed the opening the electricity provides for night time studying, thus being able to advance his studies. He continued that the solar electric system was a living science experiment to learn from.

Both Naudrine and Peter, who have faced various challenged in their youth, were unequivocal that education and electricity have transformed their daily lives.

The System and Its Benefits

The system power house is about 10 meters from the school and near the solar arrays, which houses the batteries, electric box, invertors, and other technical system materials, with the conduit running to the school. The system has been designed to be expanded in the future and to reach the local area to provide new development opportunities, which students—including some members’ children—currently benefit from. The electricity would be sold to provide income to further sustain the school or offset school fees.

Currently, though, a very important additional benefit of the current electricity system is the ability to have better security, which is extremely comforting to the students who attend only day classes. There is 24 hour security for the compound and there are plans to continue the security efforts to build lights down the path from the school.

The system installed consists of advanced technology, thus onsite maintenance was necessary to be learned before the installers departed. New Age Solar Technologies (NAST), located in Kampala, designed, installed and does assist with the system when problems arise. However, NAST educated students on maintenance procedures so they now assist in keeping the system functioning to avoid any system disruptions.

Outside of Pioneer School

Away for the school, the region is poor and households are reliant on firewood for cooking, heating and light, without access to electricity or cookstoves. Unlike other regions, charcoal is not frequently used as well.

Gathering the firewood, almost exclusively by women—young and old, takes away from time that could be used more productively. Much of the economy is agrarian based— specializing in coffee—and the flow of money is sparse and access to markets in not readily available. Moving beyond firewood collection, more time in the day could provide, for example, the ability to start a small business and bring coffee to market. Increased income can help pay school fees and sustain attaining solar lanterns and keeping them charged, enabling openings of other aspects of socio-economic growth.

Amazing Results

As we come to the end of our discussion, Headteacher Francis talks a little about his own experience. He has worked with PEAS for 5 years and his passion for the project is clear. He has acquired various additional skills such as: leadership and administrative skills and feels touched to work with the organization that has such a great mission and vision. He says solar has given them a great opportunity to improve the community’s outlook.

Francis stated the area is thankful for PEAS providing the opportunity, for the students and himself, to have the chance to deliver secondary education and for the school to have an off-grid solar system to provide electricity to bring the associated benefits. He knows the combination will enable great benefits to the region.

After the inspiring chat, I was left with the impression that Francis, Naudrine and Peter will be able to attain their goals thanks to their ability to attend Pioneer School and having new access to electricity.

The post Pioneer School Providing An Amazing Opportunity appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff talks with  President Michel Temer at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, March 2, 2016.

In Canada, a country considered one of the least corrupt in the world, there are several scandals taking place involving government funds going to special interest groups. The offense felt by the general public over a pay-for-play system is very apparent. A system where those with influence and money have excessive power in choosing government policies that benefits them or their organization runs against basic democratic values.

It is unacceptable that the wealthy should have special access to political leaders, when average people end up with the bill and years of burdens from bad policies. In many countries there are similar issues, and the public sentiment likely mirrors that of those in my own community. One of the worst cases of this type of corruption is currently taking place in Brazil, and their President will likely be impeached because of it.

There is not a clear legal case for the impeachment of elected Workers Party (PT) leader and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, as the main charge over breaking budget rules is a meek accusation. The Senate hearing is using the budget rules issue as a catalyst for her impeachment, placing the responsibility of an entire corruption scandal involving mostly her PT party as well as other professional political agents on her Presidency.

With mass protests taking place against her government for the last two years and low approval numbers, the Senate seems to be making a political decision on her personally by way of scandals in her PT party. It has been predicted that her ouster as President will be successful, and the rest of her mandate will be taken up by the leader of an opposition party, Mr Temer.

President Rousseff has been fighting for her political career, claiming that this move by the other branches of government is tantamount to a coup. While the separation of powers in democracies does allow for other branches of government to check the power of the executive branch, a clear legal case might not be present in judging Rousseff’s actions personally. While there is no doubt her party is deeply involved in an atrocious corruption scandal, removing the President by means of a weak legal case may cause more political divisions than are required in this type of political scenario.

Rousseff should be aware that while the case against her is as much partisan politics as it is an unclear constitutional process, the extreme corruption that took place under the Petrobras scandal and damage to average Brazilian citizens has delegitimized her PT party greatly. Protests for Dilma and against her may take place several times before the end of the 2018 presidential term of office, but keeping her in office would be an awkward move considering many in her PT party may be removed promptly due to scandals.

Michel Temer, the current President was not elected himself, and the question of his party’s legitimacy without an election will give rise to more divisiveness in Brazil when a strong and legitimate government is needed to clean up politics and the economy.

An election is needed to confirm the right to lead in Brazil. While Temer may take advantage of his two years in power to put in austerity measures, whether they are needed or not, legitimacy in taking such actions should be confirmed by the people of Brazil. While the PT may opt for an election as opposed to impeachment, the reality is that many of the political leaders under scandal will not be returned to government.

As those of us outside of Brazil would want our pay-for-play political leaders removed from positions of power, Brazilians should be able to not only have those political leaders removed once a crime is discovered, but be able to replace them with legitimate alternatives chosen via a direct democratic method.

The post Impeachment Should be Legitimized by an Election in Brazil appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(Nancy Ohanian / Tribune Media Services)

As the peak of El Niño wanes, it seems to signal the arrival of La Niña, and the impacts are having an extremely serious effect. Average global temperatures for July hit the 15th consecutive record-breaking surge: 0.87 ℃ higher than the average for the 20th century. This trend in global warming has heightened the probability of catastrophic natural disasters, challenging the risk management capability of governments.

In the Southern Hemisphere, one of the worst regional droughts in 35 years swept over southern Africa, leaving 23 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, according to the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The international community, in response, pledged $2 billion worth of contributions to El Niño-affected countries. Yet, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that $4 billion more is needed to make up for the total damage.

Meanwhile, the flood-inducing El Niño in North America bombarded Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with 6.9 trillion gallons of rain in just one week, causing 13 deaths and $20.7 billion worth of damage to more than 110,000 homes. Battling with the worst natural disaster since the superstorm Sandy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) urged affected residents to register for federal disaster relief funds for which more than 95,000 residents had applied as of 19th of August.

Nevertheless, FEMA’s limited resources, epitomized by the maximum grant of $33,000 per household, barely provide a safety net for the applicants. What is making the picture gloomier is the fact that only 42% of the FEMA-designated high-risk flood areas in Louisiana are insured through the National Flood Insurance Program; the number drops down to 12.5% in the neighboring vicinities.

Governments in the regions exposed to natural hazards are on the verge of failing to cope with the recent natural disasters’ enduring impacts on human life. The burdens, however, could be significantly lessened by action from the private insurance companies, namely their active engagement in the climate and natural disaster insurance industry in terms of workable Public-Private Partnership (PPP)-based arrangements.

The benefits of successful PPP in climate and natural disaster insurance are, in theory, synergetic. It ensures that governments at all levels can be certain of formal risk-transfer mechanisms upon the occurrence of contingent events, allowing for effective management of governmental budgets. In the insurance market, private insurance companies’ locally tailored products not only efficiently provide financial liquidity to insured individuals during the ex-post recovery process but also pre-emptively reduce the risks by altering these individuals’ ex-ante behaviors.

With well-functioning market mechanisms, the price (the rate) is gradually set and stabilized in a more transparent way, which incentivizes governments to set up more fairly priced policies. Partnering private insurance companies also benefit from taking advantages of the scale of PPP; it allows them to reduce operational and premium costs and to competitively enhance their capacity to deal with high volumes of client profiles and large-scale data analysis. In the end, insured individuals best-minimize their exposure to risks.  

Despite the assumed benefits, the engagement of private insurance companies with the climate and natural disaster insurance industry has, overall, been unenthusiastic. Whereas the average global weather-related losses rose by ten times from 1974 to1983 ($10 billion per year) compared with 2004 to 2013 ($131 billion per year), the average percentage for the losses that are insured dropped almost half over the last four decades. Attributing the decline to the increasing chance of being exposed to catastrophic natural disasters under intensifying climate change and urbanization, pundits propose that PPPs in climate and natural disaster insurance should be either reformed (in the case of existing PPPs) or updated to reflect the changes.

In the U.S., the debate over FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) reform is becoming heated prior to next year’s reauthorization of the program. In the aftermath of post-Sandy, controversies over fraudulent claims as well as partnering private insurance companies’ moral hazards of exploiting marginal profits, both policymakers and pundits are looking for solutions to reduce the program’s $23 billion deficit and to improve its efficiency.

Some of the suggested reforms are highlighted here: the introduction of risk-based rates, the provision of assistance to socio-economically vulnerable residents in high-risk areas, including the provision of the right to be informed about records held on property, the strengthening of the program’s accountability in monitoring, evaluating, and enforcing the program’s provisions, the modernization of the PPP’s outmoded bureaucratic technology, and, lastly, the sharing (diverting) of the risk through the private insurance market (including reinsurance).

All these options, however, require the market to function effectively. For instance, calibration of current government premium rates in high-risk areas to risk-adequate ones should be well-designed to offer private insurance companies incentives to attenuate their market exit, while encouraging the residents living in high-risk areas to move to safe areas. Also, the ability of the reinsurance market to assume the NFIP’s risks through the purchasing of the primary policy provider’s coverage plans should be carefully assessed.

The successful market-based modernization of some of the world’s mature disaster management PPPs such as the NFIP should bring a positive message about the role of the international insurance market; for example, in helping developing countries to minimize their climate-related risks through the use of innovative financial products like catastrophe bonds.

Although the climate and natural disaster insurance industry is still in the inchoate phase of its development in many developing countries, several pilot programs (involving trials of innovative insurance products) are being administered in areas that are susceptible to natural disasters. Microfinance is one of the products that has been designed to protect people on low incomes in exchange for a premium that is tailored specifically to their needs. Weather index insurance is another that pays out benefits based on a predetermined event index, rather than on loss itself.

The post Time for Public-Private Partnership Innovations in Natural Disaster Insurance? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.