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Moszkva kész a konstruktív együttműködésre Washingtonnal, de csak abban az esetben, ha az egyenlőségen alapul és mentes a nyomásgyakorlástól - hangsúlyozták május 12-én, kedden az orosz külügyminisztériumban azzal kapcsolatosan, hogy John Kerry amerikai külügyminiszter megbeszéléseket folytatott Vlagyimir Putyin orosz elnökkel és Szergej Lavrov külügyminiszterrel.

A Honvédelmi Minisztérium felajánlásával terjedelmes könyvcsomaggal bővült a hátrányos helyzetű térségben működő abaújkéri Wesley János Többcélú Intézmény könyvtára. Az általános és középiskolai osztályokkal is rendelkező iskola már több éve részt vesz a KatonaSuli-programban, így a katonai alapismeretek tantárgy tanulói számára rendkívül hasznos adomány érkezett május 11-én.

Legalább húsz ember meghalt, közöttük gyerekek, amikor a szíriai kormányerők egyik helikoptere kedden buszpályaudvarra dobott hordóbombát az ország északi részén fekvő Aleppó egyik felkelők ellenőrizte negyedében - közölte egy nem kormányzati szervezet.

Nem a 300 volt az első képregény-adaptáció a filmtörténelemben, de kétségtelenül úttörő szerepet vállalt egy olyan látvány kidolgozásában, melynek kapcsán egy pillanatra sem tudunk elvonatkoztatni a képregénytől. És nincs több kérdés azzal kapcsolatban, megöli-e a filmművészetet a digitális technika.

Elutasította a Fehér Ház az Öböl-menti Együttműködési Tanács (GCC) tagállamainak javaslatát az Egyesült Államokkal való közös védelmi megállapodás létrehozásáról - írta a Foreign Policy című amerikai külpolitikai magazin online kiadása Robert Malley, a Fehér Háznak a térségbeli ügyekben illetékes tanácsadója közlésére hivatkozva.

Idén először a Nemzeti Közszolgálati Egyetem szervezésében kerül sor a Ludovika Fesztiválra, amelynek ezúttal is a tisztavatást megelőző, úgynevezett Száznapos Ünnepség az egyik központi programja.

Borisz Nyemcov, a február végén meggyilkolt orosz politikus már tavaly augusztusban arra figyelmeztetett, hogy orosz katonákat küldhetnek harcolni Délkelet-Ukrajnába - derül ki sajtóban Nyemcov-jelentésnek nevezett, május 12-én, kedden közzétett anyagból, amely az orosz katonák ukrajnai jelenlétét bizonyítani hivatott értesüléseket tartalmazza.

A második világháború hatalmas fejlődést hozott a haditechnika területén: a kétfedelű vadászgéptől a sugárhajtású bombázó-gépekig, a páncélautóktól az infravörös reflektorral felszerelt harckocsikig jutottak el a tervezők és a katonák.

Ötnapos tűzszünet sem elég ahhoz, hogy a Jemenben előállt katasztrofális humanitárius helyzetet orvosolni lehessen - mondta május 12-én, kedden az ENSZ Humanitárius Ügyeit Koordináló Hivatalának (OCHA) jemeni irodavezetője.

Egyfajta szolgáltatás-központú és -szemléletű üzemeltetésre van szükség a katonai informatikában – mondta Vass Sándor dandártábornok, a Honvéd Vezérkar Híradó, Informatikai és Információvédelmi Csoportfőnökség csoportfőnöke május 12-én kedden, a fővárosban tartott konferencián.

Kijev szerint egyre fokozódik a feszültség a kelet-ukrajnai harcok övezetében, az oroszbarát szakadárok ismét nehézfegyvereket vetettek be május 12-ére, keddre virradóan, és ezúttal lakott településeket is lőttek.

Május elején a székesfehérvári MH 43. Nagysándor József Híradó és Vezetéstámogató Ezred telephelyén tartott besorolással, és ellenőrzéssel gyakorlati szakaszába lépett az alakulat éves kiképzési tervében is prioritást élvező „Stabil Vezetés 2015” elnevezésű, Vezetéstámogató és Logisztikai Elem (VTLE) komplex harcászati gyakorlat.

A francia hatóságok 306 dzsihadistát keresnek, akiknek egy része Szíriában van, vagy éppen hazafelé tart - közölte Francois Molins párizsi főügyész a Le Figaro című napilapban május 12-én, kedden megjelent interjúban.

A 19. héten, azaz május 4−10. között 80 bejelentés érkezett az MH 1. Honvéd Tűzszerész és Hadihajós Ezred ügyeletére. A szakembereknek ezek közül 18 esetben soron kívül kellett intézkedniük, mivel az előkerült robbanószerkezetek közvetlenül veszélyeztették az emberi életet.

Lezuhant az Európai Unió koszovói jogi és igazságügyi missziójának (EULEX) egy helikoptere a pristinai repülőtéren, a balesetben többen megsérültek - közölte a NATO május 12-én, kedden. A Belügyminisztérium később azt közölte, hogy a helikopteren nem voltak magyarok.

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The trial in Senegal of the former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré, set to begin July 20, 2015, will mark the culmination of a two-decade campaign for justice.

(Dakar) – The trial in Senegal of the former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré, set to begin July 20, 2015, will mark the culmination of a two-decade campaign for justice. 

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The Pentagon has plucked two brainy candidates out of relatively new assignments to lead the Army and Navy for the next four years, tapping Gen. Mark Milley as Army chief of staff and Adm. John Richardson as chief of Naval operations.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the nominations Wednesday, and neither Milley nor Richardson spoke during the Pentagon chief’s brief remarks to reporters. Richardson’s nomination was already widely reported, but Milley’s came as something of a surprise to many in the Army until just hours before the announcement.

Carter called Richardson “a bold thinker, a tremendous leader and the go-to officer for many of the Navy’s tough issues in recent years.” He also said he had to wrestle Richardson “away from the Secretary of Energy” — a nod to the admiral’s relatively short tenure at Naval Reactors, where for the past three years he was focused on nuclear issues in a joint Defense-Energy program.

That job specifically sought to keep Richardson from rotating into a new position for at least eight years. But his work on the Ohio-class nuclear submarine — which is a key component of the service’s modernization plan — likely won over Carter and other top managers searching for a new Navy leader. Carter has made upgrading the U.S. military’s nuclear arsenal a key priority.

Carter also knew Milley from time the two spent together in Afghanistan in 2013, when the Army general was the second-in-command of the war. Carter recounted flying with Milley to Afghanistan’s western Herat province the day after the U.S. Consulate there was targeted in a September 2013 truck bombing, where he “saw Mark take command of the scene, and stand with our people there.”

At the time, Milley was serving under Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, whom the White House recently tapped as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Milley currently heads the Army’s Forces Command at Ft. Bragg, N.C., which tasks and manages missions for soldiers based in the U.S. He has served there for less than a year, and took over for Gen. John Allyn, who is now the Army’s vice chief.

More recently, Milley oversaw the Army’s investigation of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and has since been charged with desertion.

He has been in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and was the commanding general of Ft. Hood, Texas, in March 2014 when a soldier opened fire, killing four — including himself — and wounding 16 others.

As a lieutenant in the early 1980s, Milley spent two years in the 5th Special Forces Group, which now works on special operations in the Mideast, but no information about his time there is publicly available. Earlier versions of his official biography says he commanded special forces units.

The Association of the U.S. Army called for a quick confirmation for Milley, “knowing that the Army faces many challenges, and will benefit from what we know will be his proven skill as a leader,” the group’s president, retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan said in a statement.

With Ivy League degrees from Princeton and Columbia University, Milley was commissioned as an armor officer in 1980 and has served with infantry and Special Forces units, deploying to Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Richardson is rooted in science. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1982 with a degree in physics and earned Master’s degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He also commanded the nuclear submarine USS Honolulu.

 

Photo Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

In 1980, Pakistan reached a demographic milestone; adults constituted 52 percent of the total population. Since then, a demographic transition has taken place. Now 110 million of Pakistan’s 180 million citizens are 29 years old or younger, and 50 million are between the ages of 15 and 29.  This “demographic dividend” is expected to last until 2045, after which the average age will increase rapidly. Before this demographic transition comes to pass, it is critical that Pakistani youth are mobilized in productive ways, gainfully employed, and politically enfranchised. Otherwise, the future of Pakistan may well be defined by political, economic, and social tumult.

Thankfully, the current demographic landscape could portend a brighter future for Pakistan. One recent study stated that a substantial majority of Pakistani youth believe that they will have a role in changing the country for the better. (They are also better educated than their parents; the same study cited statistics that showed the most educated person in 50 percent of all Pakistani households is now below the age of 30.)  In fact, the significant rate of youth participation — 63 percent — in the 2013 national elections demonstrates that young Pakistanis channel their concerns for Pakistan’s future in a democratic way and seek to participate in the country’s political discourse.

However, concerns for the future of Pakistani democracy persist. The country’s largest demographic is disillusioned and pessimistic — 94 percent of Pakistani youth thought the nation was on the wrong path — and only a small proportion of them have confidence in national or local governments, the courts, or the police. A survey of Pakistan’s 18-29 year olds conducted before the May 2013 elections revealed that only 29 percent saw democracy as a model system of governance; 32 percent favored military rule; and 38 percent believed the best option was a system of Islamic Sharia.

This disillusionment could be the result of various elements, such as the government’s inability to ensure universal civil liberties and provide basic services. Pakistan was rated 5 on the Freedom House Civil Liberties Index in 2015, on a scale of 1 to 7, where 7 is considered the worst. Basic services are also lacking; 40 percent of Pakistan’s population suffers from malnutrition, energy shortages prevail throughout the country and violence against minorities has witnessed an alarming increase. The lack of a seasoned democratic political process has added to this disillusionment, since until the 2013 elections, no civilian government had been able to transfer power to another civilian government successfully. However, it is the weakness of the country’s educational system that is the greatest threat to the survival of Pakistani democracy.

For the 71 percent of youth who have obtained some sort of formal education, there has been little reinforcement of democratic ideals. Arshed Bhatti, a noted development practitioner, put it succinctly: “Our educational system is actually anti-democratic and does not promote the democratic system.” In his view, instead of creating class harmony, the educational system reinforces class divisions and biases through Pakistan’s conflicting methods of education (i.e., private, public, and madrassa). Moreover, journalist Zubeida Mustafa believes that “the other very important role of education is to develop the capacity to think on a collective level, which unfortunately is lacking [in Pakistan].”

A 2010 study conducted by educator Muhammad Nazir, explored the potential for democratic changes in Pakistan’s educational practices by surveying public and private school teachers from urban and rural areas of Baluchistan and Sindh provinces. He found that educational practices in Pakistan are authoritarian and bureaucratic in action and that collaboration and reflection do not play a part in the teacher’s decision-making processes across schools. In fact, he noted that teachers across both public and private schools were not comfortable with the idea of educational change through participatory or democratic approaches.

These perspectives demonstrate the lack of forums in schools and universities for the promotion of democratic ideals, values, or frameworks, which are critical if the demographic distribution is to pay a dividend and not incur a deficit.

Many writers have written about what a school with democratic values should look like, and according to international education professor Lynn Davies, “basic political education for students is not enough; democratizing the actual forms and organization of schooling itself is required.” Davies rightly proposed that individual schools should also look within their own environments to ensure that cultural and local factors are incorporated while creating management systems based on democratic principles.

Coupling the current state of the education system with the youth’s pessimism regarding Pakistan’s trajectory, there is a clear need to provide a platform for students to organize and learn about the democratic process within their educational institutions. The establishment of Student Government Associations (SGA) within schools and universities is one way to achieve this.

By providing students with a form of representation and a pluralistic environment for leadership development, SGAs will encourage civic engagement and participation in democratic processes. To ensure that these associations accord with local and cultural factors, as Davies suggested, SGAs can be designed to emulate the structure of the National Central Government, consisting of executive, legislative and judicial branches. Just like the actual electoral process, the SGAs can also have election committees that facilitate fair and legitimate polls, remind students about their civic duties, such as voting, and provide information on student candidates.

The provision of a platform for students to become involved in an apolitical and mock democratic process will not only improve their educational experiences but will also give them an opportunity to learn first-hand about the importance of pluralistic and democratic organizational systems. The creation of SGAs can be the first step in achieving a grassroots solution that mitigates youth disillusionment and supports democratic processes. Over a longer horizon, SGAs will provide leadership development and organizational training, fostering a future generation of selfless leaders — a political class that Pakistan sorely needs, supported by an electorate that the world cannot afford to ignore.

In an historic first, Chinese authorities have designated September 3 a day of nationwide remembrance — and vacation. It will mark the 70th anniversary China’s own V-J day, or what authorities are calling “The 70th Anniversary of Victories in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Against Fascism.” Despite the breathless name, online reaction has evinced scant nationalism. Most are simply complaining the break isn’t longer.

On Weibo, China’s pre-eminent public-facing social media platform, the news came via state-run China Central Television, which posted cheerily, “The entire country will have vacation on September 3!” The time off, the announcement read, will “make it more convenient for citizens to participate in memorial activities.” The break period will span three days, from Thursday, Sept. 3 through Saturday, Sept. 5. It appears some of this will be a diao jia — not a vacation, but a re-adjustment of off days. This means it’s possible workers will be asked to work on the weekends before and after, legerdemain Chinese authorities frequently use to reduce the true number of effective idle days.

Chinese social media often serves as China’s proverbial id, where nationalists congregate to vent their spleen. But the response to the latest announcement is less celebratory than cantankerous. The CCTV announcement has already garnered over 103,000 shares and 16,500 comments; a related hashtag has 130,000 mentions. The most popular posts seemed less interested in excoriating Japan than in pushing for more days off, complaining about make-up days, and kvetching about how the holiday will be useless to students still on summer vacation. The most up-voted reads, perhaps humorously, “One day is not enough to commemorate — because we truly hate Fascism!” Other popular posts made a similar joke, one calling for eight days of vacation, one for each year of war against Japan. Some made more earnest patriotic appeals to “remember history keenly” or “never forget our national humiliation,” but they were, as of this writing, far between.

That does not mean the threat of violence is non-existent. One popular comment asked presciently whether Japanese businesses in China will be given the day off. Another wrote, “I’m guessing our hospitals won’t have a vacation.” Last year’s anniversary passed without major incident, but September 2012 saw widespread anti-Japanese demonstrations after Japanese authorities had nationalized ownership of what they call the Senkakus and Chinese call the Diaoyu, a collection of small, barren islands in the East China Sea. Chinese protesters, some bussed in with government assistance, threw debris at the Chinese embassy in Beijing, vandalized Japanese cars (regardless of the nationality of their owners), and attacked Japanese businesses and even Japanese nationals. Most Chinese did not support the violence, but that did not stop those determined to inflict it.

The upcoming commemoration will mark only the second time that China has treated the anniversary as a national holiday. Last year’s memorial activities included silent tribute by the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, China’s most powerful policy-making body, at a flower-laying ceremony in Beijing’s Museum of the War of the Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression as well as an address by Chinese President Xi Jinping at a Beijing symposium to mark the occasion. According to Hong Kong-based Phoenix media, the upcoming holiday will mark the first time since 1949, the actual victory day, that the entire country has been given that day off. (State media has also announced that the governments of Chinese territories Hong Kong and Macau have also announced a “one-time special holiday” for September 3.)

In the short term, the declaration is unlikely to make the already-frosty relationship between China and Japan any warmer. Chinese resentment over Japanese World War II-era atrocities still lingers; more recently, in November 2013, China thumbed its nose at Japan when it declared de facto control over air space in the East China Sea. Behind the scenes, the two governments lack robust communication, although Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Xi shared an awkward November 2014 handshake, then met bilaterally in April during the Asian African Summit in Jakarta. That last meeting was significant because it happened at all, but it was otherwise uneventful. Many around the world are surely hoping the first Thursday in September unfolds similarly.

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian contributed research. 

Weibo/fair use

I admit freely that I have an unusual way of winding down at night. Often I do so by watching either the first or last 10 minutes of the film Top Gun. As a firm advocate of trade with a keen understanding of how it underpins America’s global standing, Senate Democrats’ defeat of President Barack Obama’s effort to pass Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) was an evening that required serious wind-down time.

Tuesday I chose the last ten minutes of the film. The pilot protagonist, “Maverick,” had experienced serious loss. His radar intercept officer “Goose” had perished in a training mission. As fellow pilot “Iceman” faces six Soviet MiGs and is in serious trouble as he tries to protect a wounded U.S. Navy ship, he calls Maverick in to help. As he sits above of the mad scramble of jets below, Maverick hesitates. The anxiety over the loss of Goose makes him pause. His new partner “Merlin” implores him to maneuver their plane into the fight. He still wavers, but in the end moves past his loss, engages, and does what needs to be done to protect America’s ship.

That is the perfect metaphor for what happened on Tuesday. Many in America are anxious over the economic losses we have experienced as technology has automated many tasks and increased global competition has lowered prices. Both of these trends have put pressure on wages, particularly for those jobs requiring less technical skills. We are indeed in a mad scramble with many other nations to determine who will fulfill the wants and desires of emerging markets’ growing middle classes.

Our economic ship of state is dead in the water in a supposed recovery that few feel, and President Obama called in the U.S. Congress to help.

He understands the potential that free trade has to restart the engine of America’s economic ship. The U.S. Senate hesitated. Many joined Merlin in imploring them to engage, rather than cower in fear-induced protectionism. Yet, rather than engage, the U.S. Senate abandoned the field, leaving Iceman and the struggling ship to perish.

There are many issues that crowd this debate. Most are chimeras camouflaging protectionist intents. From the 20,000 foot level this debate comes down to whether or not America will continue to lead or not.

America’s ultimate soft power is commerce, especially its post-World War II tradition of marshaling global support to reduce trade barriers. As the country with some of the lowest market hurdles, no one benefits more from tearing down barriers than American workers. Obstructing the effort to reduce impediments hurts America’s middle class.

Nothing reduces the likelihood that America will need to use its hard power than the advance of trade. As the French economist and politician Frederic Bastiat once said, “If goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will.” Former senior defense officials on the military and civilian side understand this. That is why they have implored Congress to act on TPA.

There is perhaps nothing more vital to the economic future of America’s children than whether trade in the region is governed by an Asian agreement led by China (that excludes America) or a Pacific agreement led by America.

As I bring a group of students to China to study in the weeks ahead, I dread all the chiding I will hear from the Chinese noting how President Obama’s snub from his own party is proof positive that democracy does not work and how their form of government is superior. I will of course rebut those jibes. What will be harder to refute is the corrosive impact of thinly veiled protectionist efforts on America’s global standing.

Luckily in politics one can push the pause button and prevent the MiGs from annihilating Iceman and the ship.

As we get to the next effort to revitalize America’s economic future and leadership status, I hope that the end of Top Gun will be foretelling. When Top Gun instructor “Charlie” asks Maverick how it is going, his reply was “On the first one, I crashed and burned,” but on the second try, “It’s looking good so far.” For the sake of American workers and those who view American leadership as a positive force of good, let us hope for a happy ending to this story.

Paramount Pictures/Archive Photos