Gold and silver hit fresh record prices on rate-cut hopes, geopolitics
North Korea: Dictator Kim Jong Il died of a massive heart attack at the age of 69, after a 17-year reign that saw him kill, directly or indirectly, millions of his subjects while building up the North’s nuclear and other WMD programs. Incredibly, neither South Korean or U.S. intelligence knew of his death for 51 hours until it was announced on state TV. It’s bad enough Washington didn’t know, but picture being a citizen of Seoul, within artillery range of the North, and trying to have confidence in your nation’s intelligence-gathering capabilities.
Kim was replaced by his son, Kim Jong Un, a pudgy 27-, 28-, or 29-year-old described as being “aggressive,” “erratic,” and a “sadist,” by some. The kid was named “the Great Successor” (and “Supreme Commander,” today, I just saw) and official media this week has been calling him the “outstanding leader.” It’s important to note that thus far all is calm during the period of mourning, which will end Dec. 28-29 with Kim Jong Il’s funeral.
After the funeral, though, the eyes of the world, particularly the United States’ and those of South Korea, Japan, Russia and China, will be on the Great Successor and any signs of a power struggle. The U.S. will also be looking for signs of stepped up activity between Pyongyang and Tehran, the two having cooperated extensively in the past on sharing nuclear and weapons technology. [Syria to a somewhat lesser extent.]
It is anticipated that Kim Jong Un will initially share power with one of his uncles and the military. At least as of today, it appears the military is solidly behind the kid. Some say the younger Kim does already have his own power base after being named the successor 15 months ago, but we’ll all know a lot more in just a few months. For now, yes, those in power with the father have a vested interest in keeping the status quo as much as possible to ensure their own survival. The big question today, though, is, “Who controls the nukes?” [That is if they’ve successfully mated the material with bombs or ballistic missiles, which isn’t known for certain.]
Victor Cha, former director of Asian affairs in the George W. Bush administration and now an advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an op-ed for the Financial Times.
“The moment is dripping with irony. Just last week, the U.S. was engaging in painstaking diplomacy on food aid agreements and on prisoner-of-war remains-recovery with the North Koreans as a prelude to a return to the denuclearization negotiations. These bits of diplomacy constituted small bites at the apple. We are now talking about a whole and new apple.
“Approaching the post-Kim Jong-il leadership is not advisable in part because we do not know who is really in charge. Contacting the young son could do more to alienate him within his own system of anti-American military generals. Establishing contacts with others involved in politics or the military could emasculate the young leader’s authority and set off unknown and destabilizing dynamics.
“We do not know North Korea’s future after Kim Jong-il. But if this decrepit regime were to finally collapse of its own weight, there are a host of factors analysts would be able to point to – including economic decay, food shortages, an unstable leadership transition, and an increasingly restless population – which would make the Dear Leader’s death the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Senator John McCain:
“I can only express satisfaction that the Dear Leader is joining the likes of Gaddafi, bin Laden, Hitler and Stalin in a warm corner of Hell.”
Iraq: The death toll in a highly coordinated series of attacks in Baghdad on Thursday is over 70; the worst carnage in months. The country, just days after the last U.S. troops left the country, is once again on the verge of civil war. Responsibility for the bloodbath, most of which occurred during the morning rush-hour, appears to favor al-Qaeda in Iraq, mainly Sunni, as most of the victims were Shia. Civilians, not security forces, were targeted, including schools and day workers.
Iraq’s power-sharing arrangement of about a year is in tatters after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia, issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on terror charges. Hashemi, who vehemently denies the allegations, which include organizing death squads, is under the protection of the regional government in Kurdistan. Maliki has demanded the Kurds give him up.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal
“Iraq’s fragile political ecosystem was sure to be tested after the Obama administration pulled out all U.S. troops to cash a campaign chip. Only the speed and gravity of the crisis now unfolding comes as a surprise.
“In hosting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki last week at the White House, President Obama hailed Iraq as ‘sovereign, self-reliant and democratic.’ Mr. Maliki returned home and promptly began a putsch against his Sunni coalition partners….
“Former Prime Minister Allawi, a Shiite, on Tuesday offered the following analysis to Reuters: ‘The Americans have pulled out without completing the job they should have finished. We have warned them that we don’t have a political process which is inclusive of all Iraqis and we won’t have a full-blown state in Iraq. We want to resolve issues between Iraqis in a peaceful way and we want to bring stability. Iraqis should fill the vacuum, rather than anyone else.’ Iranians and al-Qaeda may fill the vacuum now….
“The White House, which hoped to take credit for success, seems to understand it has a problem. CIA Director David Petraeus flew to Baghdad on Tuesday to press the case for moderation. Vice President Joe Biden called Mr. Maliki and requested an ‘inclusive partnership agreement.’ Yet the U.S. finds itself with little leverage. On Wednesday, Mr. Maliki ignored Mr. Biden and declared his intention to take Iraq to ‘a new stage’ of Shiite-dominated rule. If Iraq now descends into a sectarian brawl or dictatorship, Mr. Obama’s withdrawal will have been the needless trigger.”
I wrote last week that “during the course of the 2012 campaign, President Obama will increasingly find he cannot tout his Iraq policy as a success.”
A few days later, amidst the violence and Maliki’s moves, Republican Sen. John McCain said, “The president and vice president are taking victory laps while Iraq unravels. It’s a low point in American involvement in national security affairs.”
And regarding my comment over the past year that if you didn’t think we lost the war, all you had to know is that Christians in Iraq can’t celebrate Christmas openly without being targeted, none other than “Doonesbury” highlighted the topic in Garry Trudeau’s Wednesday strip.
The character, a professor, is teaching a class on the Iraq War and says:
“Okay. Let’s discuss the war’s impact on Iraq’s Christian community, one of the oldest in the world…Since 2003, about 600,000 Christians of an estimated pre-war population of one million have been driven from their homes. A majority left Iraq.
“In other words, our invasion of Iraq set in motion one of the worst Christian diasporas in history. So what do we think of that? Ray?
Ray: “Is ‘freakin’ ironic’ an answer, Sir?”
Syria: It was a horrible week here, probably the worst in terms of a death toll that would appear to be in excess of 250, following twin suicide bombings on Friday in the capital of Damascus that took out at least 44. Friday’s attacks targeted an upscale neighborhood and heavily guarded intelligence buildings and came just one day after an advance team of Arab League observers arrived to monitor the Assad regime’s promise to end its crackdown on protesters. The blasts were the first suicide bombings since the uprising began in March and, according to the government, back its claims the turmoil is the work of terrorists.
State TV blamed al-Qaeda and on one hand it does follow the group’s pattern of trying to foment civil war.
I would just observe that the government has an incentive to carry off such attacks itself to help with its message. You won’t see this anywhere else, but I take you back to the days when Vladimir Putin was about to take over for Boris Yeltsin and there was a series of apartment bombings in Russia that Putin directed as a pretense to expanding the war against Chechnya, as was my lone opinion at the time. Putin blamed Chechen terrorists. I thought, and I expressed in this space, the idea that he blew them up. Months later, the late William Safire expressed the very same thoughts in his New York Times column.
Could Assad be taking a page out of Putin’s playbook? [I emphasize, to date, no one in authority has had the guts to take on Putin in this regard.]
Earlier in the week, at least 200 were killed in Syria in a spasm of violence ahead of the Arab League visit.
Iran: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said in an interview with CBS News that when it comes to Iran’s nuclear efforts, “It would probably be about a year before (they could build a bomb). Perhaps a little less.” Panetta warned Washington was ready to take “whatever steps necessary to stop it,” including military action. “That’s a red line for us…If we have to do it, we will deal with it.”
The United States and Israel, though, continue to believe they will be able to gain the intelligence needed to know when Iran tries to ‘break out’ and build the bomb…taking the uranium it has already enriched, for example, to a higher level for use in a bomb; a step that doesn’t take long. The hard work has already been done, though the West believes they only have enough enriched material for one or two bombs currently.
On a different matter, the Jerusalem Post reports that Iran “has embarked on an ambitious plan to boost its offensive and defensive cyber-warfare capabilities and is investing $1 billion in developing new technology and hiring new computer experts.”
Spanish-language TV network Univision aired a documentary recently that reported to show Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats, based in Mexico, being briefed on plans for cyber attacks against U.S. targets, including nuclear power plants.
Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for a deal that paves the way for Hamas to join the PLO, saying, through a spokesman, that if Abbas “embraces Hamas, if he walks toward Hamas, he is walking away from peace.”
So in the agreement reached among the leaders of various Palestinian groups on Thursday, the likes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will join the PLO. Heretofore, Hamas, founded 24 years ago, had refused to recognize the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinians.
Egypt: The death toll in last weekend’s brutal crackdown by the military on protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square reached 10, with more than 300 wounded. Soldiers were filmed assaulting female demonstrators.
Meanwhile, in the second of three rounds of voting for a new parliament, Islamists claimed they once again secured a vast majority of the votes cast, this time up to 3/4s. In this round, the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies said they won 40%, while the ultra-conservative Salafists won 35%. [In the first round it was 37% and 24%, respectively.] From my reading of the situation, the last round of the voting should see results more similar to the second than the first.
Pakistan: The U.S. conceded it bears much of the responsibility for the airstrike last month that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border. The Pentagon said U.S. and Afghan troops were acting in self defense, while admitting there was poor coordination between U.S. and Pakistani forces, which speaks to the level of mistrust that has only grown worse between the two. Unbelievably, U.S. officials admitted they had incorrect mapping information that they then shared with a Pakistani liaison officer, which resulted in an incorrect understanding of where the Pakistani troops were; as in the map coordinates were like nine miles off.
The whole mission went bad from the beginning when NATO didn’t share with their Pakistani counterparts details of the U.S.-Afghan operation in the first place because they feared the Pakistanis would tip off the insurgents. While the Pentagon admitted its errors, the White House has refused to apologize to Pakistan for the deaths, although it has expressed its condolences to the victims’ families.
Meanwhile, President Zardari returned from Dubai, where he was undergoing medical treatment, to a firestorm over a memo accusing the military of plotting a coup against him. Whatever Zardari’s ailment is, he is unable to resume full work, making his position even more tenuous. The memo was reportedly delivered to the Pentagon, asking for help in staving off the coup. Army chief Gen. Kayani, the real power in Pakistan these days, has called for an investigation.
Afghanistan: Senator John McCain called Vice President Biden’s statement in an interview with Newsweek that the Taliban are not our enemy, “bizarre. Tell the men and women fighting them that,” said McCain.
[The Poles, loyal members of the NATO fighting force here, lost five soldiers in a single roadside bomb attack on Wednesday, according to reports. Our thoughts go out to this good nation and ally.]
Russia: Today, Saturday, is to be the big demonstration in Moscow; further protests against the recent fraudulent Duma election, though sanctioned by the Kremlin to allow the disaffected to blow off some steam, even as President Medvedev said the government won’t allow “provocateurs and extremists” to upset Russia’s stability.
[Separately, Medvedev pledged various reforms to the political system in an attempt to appear relevant as he is due to swap seats with Prime Minister Putin next year.]
Earlier, you had the death of an investigative journalist who was writing about corruption, shot eight times by a masked gunman in the province of Dagistan, one of eight journalists on a 2009 “execution list” published anonymously there.
And in the Sea of Okhotsk, off Russia’s eastern coast, an oil rig sank in rough and frigid seas. 53 of 67 men aboard are said to have died. The platform was being towed to an island when a huge wave hit it, broke through the portholes, and the rig capsized. One survivor told NTV television that he swam away and saw it go down. “I was afraid I’d be sucked down into the crater that formed when it sank.” Survivors, as you can imagine, needed treatment for trauma as well as hypothermia.
China: In yet another hack attack, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was infiltrated by a group of Chinese hackers who gained access to everything on the lobbying group’s systems. While this just became public, it was discovered and quietly shut down in May 2010. The hackers, while having access to information on all three million members, appear to have been focusing on four Chamber employees specializing on Asia policy, with weeks of their emails being stolen.
And China’s future president and current vice president, Xi Jinping, focused on improving ties with Vietnam in a three-day visit to Hanoi. A Vietnamese government report said that regarding the two sides’ longstanding disputes over island groups in the South China Sea, “the Vietnamese side agreed to be ready, with China, to solve disputes through peaceful negotiation, respecting and paying attention to each other’s legitimate benefits.” A Chinese mouthpiece echoed similar sentiments. So this is good. Xi will slowly gain more responsibility next year and be fully in charge by 2013.
Finally, on Friday, Chinese writer and dissident Chen Wei was sentenced to nine years in jail for “inciting subversion of state power,” one of the harshest sentences imposed on those seeking to replicate the Arab Spring uprising in China. Mr. Chen’s lawyer told Reuters that after the verdict was announced, Chen told the court: “Dictatorship will fail, democracy will prevail.”
Japan: The military has opted to go with Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet as its next mainstay fighter, choosing it over Boeing’s F/A-18 and the Eurofighter Typhoon. It was a reflection of Japan desiring a tighter security alliance with the United States in the face of China’s growing capabilities and uncertainty over North Korea.
France / Turkey: A nasty diplomatic fight has erupted between these two as one chamber of the French parliament passed a bill criminalizing denial of the 1915-16 Armenian “genocide.” In retaliation, Ankara recalled its ambassador and adopted a number of other measures, including freezing political visits. The French National Assembly approved the bill on Thursday and the Senate will pick it up next year. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has opposed it.
Armenians claim 1.5 million were killed by the Ottoman Turks almost one hundred years ago, while Turkey claims it was closer to 300,000 and was more the result of a civil war. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said, “This will open very grave and irreparable wounds….This is politics based on racism, discrimination and xenophobia.”
This all goes back to French President Sarkozy’s opposition to Turkey joining the EU, and while his foreign minister may disagree with the bill, Sarkozy has given his tacit approval.
[In the latest poll on the French presidential race, it has tightened. Socialist Francois Holland, 27.5%; Sarkozy, 24%; Marine Le Pen, 20%; Francois Bayrou, 11%; Dominique de Villepin, 3.5%. This is getting interesting.]
Philippines: Over 1,000 were killed in flash-flooding spawned by a typhoon. Half a million are impacted by the catastrophe as a United Nations official described the devastation in two cities as looking like they had been by a tsunami. Disease is now a major concern as bodies are still being retrieved from the mud a week later.
Angola: Human Rights Watch said the government must account for $32 billion missing from state coffers. $32 billion! And this is our new, oil-rich buddy. The missing funds were identified by the IMF and believed to be linked to the state oil company Sonangol. The IMF says the money disappeared between 2007 and 2010.
Kim was replaced by his son, Kim Jong Un, a pudgy 27-, 28-, or 29-year-old described as being “aggressive,” “erratic,” and a “sadist,” by some. The kid was named “the Great Successor” (and “Supreme Commander,” today, I just saw) and official media this week has been calling him the “outstanding leader.” It’s important to note that thus far all is calm during the period of mourning, which will end Dec. 28-29 with Kim Jong Il’s funeral.
After the funeral, though, the eyes of the world, particularly the United States’ and those of South Korea, Japan, Russia and China, will be on the Great Successor and any signs of a power struggle. The U.S. will also be looking for signs of stepped up activity between Pyongyang and Tehran, the two having cooperated extensively in the past on sharing nuclear and weapons technology. [Syria to a somewhat lesser extent.]
It is anticipated that Kim Jong Un will initially share power with one of his uncles and the military. At least as of today, it appears the military is solidly behind the kid. Some say the younger Kim does already have his own power base after being named the successor 15 months ago, but we’ll all know a lot more in just a few months. For now, yes, those in power with the father have a vested interest in keeping the status quo as much as possible to ensure their own survival. The big question today, though, is, “Who controls the nukes?” [That is if they’ve successfully mated the material with bombs or ballistic missiles, which isn’t known for certain.]
Victor Cha, former director of Asian affairs in the George W. Bush administration and now an advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an op-ed for the Financial Times.
“The moment is dripping with irony. Just last week, the U.S. was engaging in painstaking diplomacy on food aid agreements and on prisoner-of-war remains-recovery with the North Koreans as a prelude to a return to the denuclearization negotiations. These bits of diplomacy constituted small bites at the apple. We are now talking about a whole and new apple.
“Approaching the post-Kim Jong-il leadership is not advisable in part because we do not know who is really in charge. Contacting the young son could do more to alienate him within his own system of anti-American military generals. Establishing contacts with others involved in politics or the military could emasculate the young leader’s authority and set off unknown and destabilizing dynamics.
“We do not know North Korea’s future after Kim Jong-il. But if this decrepit regime were to finally collapse of its own weight, there are a host of factors analysts would be able to point to – including economic decay, food shortages, an unstable leadership transition, and an increasingly restless population – which would make the Dear Leader’s death the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Senator John McCain:
“I can only express satisfaction that the Dear Leader is joining the likes of Gaddafi, bin Laden, Hitler and Stalin in a warm corner of Hell.”
Iraq: The death toll in a highly coordinated series of attacks in Baghdad on Thursday is over 70; the worst carnage in months. The country, just days after the last U.S. troops left the country, is once again on the verge of civil war. Responsibility for the bloodbath, most of which occurred during the morning rush-hour, appears to favor al-Qaeda in Iraq, mainly Sunni, as most of the victims were Shia. Civilians, not security forces, were targeted, including schools and day workers.
Iraq’s power-sharing arrangement of about a year is in tatters after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia, issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on terror charges. Hashemi, who vehemently denies the allegations, which include organizing death squads, is under the protection of the regional government in Kurdistan. Maliki has demanded the Kurds give him up.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal
“Iraq’s fragile political ecosystem was sure to be tested after the Obama administration pulled out all U.S. troops to cash a campaign chip. Only the speed and gravity of the crisis now unfolding comes as a surprise.
“In hosting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki last week at the White House, President Obama hailed Iraq as ‘sovereign, self-reliant and democratic.’ Mr. Maliki returned home and promptly began a putsch against his Sunni coalition partners….
“Former Prime Minister Allawi, a Shiite, on Tuesday offered the following analysis to Reuters: ‘The Americans have pulled out without completing the job they should have finished. We have warned them that we don’t have a political process which is inclusive of all Iraqis and we won’t have a full-blown state in Iraq. We want to resolve issues between Iraqis in a peaceful way and we want to bring stability. Iraqis should fill the vacuum, rather than anyone else.’ Iranians and al-Qaeda may fill the vacuum now….
“The White House, which hoped to take credit for success, seems to understand it has a problem. CIA Director David Petraeus flew to Baghdad on Tuesday to press the case for moderation. Vice President Joe Biden called Mr. Maliki and requested an ‘inclusive partnership agreement.’ Yet the U.S. finds itself with little leverage. On Wednesday, Mr. Maliki ignored Mr. Biden and declared his intention to take Iraq to ‘a new stage’ of Shiite-dominated rule. If Iraq now descends into a sectarian brawl or dictatorship, Mr. Obama’s withdrawal will have been the needless trigger.”
I wrote last week that “during the course of the 2012 campaign, President Obama will increasingly find he cannot tout his Iraq policy as a success.”
A few days later, amidst the violence and Maliki’s moves, Republican Sen. John McCain said, “The president and vice president are taking victory laps while Iraq unravels. It’s a low point in American involvement in national security affairs.”
And regarding my comment over the past year that if you didn’t think we lost the war, all you had to know is that Christians in Iraq can’t celebrate Christmas openly without being targeted, none other than “Doonesbury” highlighted the topic in Garry Trudeau’s Wednesday strip.
The character, a professor, is teaching a class on the Iraq War and says:
“Okay. Let’s discuss the war’s impact on Iraq’s Christian community, one of the oldest in the world…Since 2003, about 600,000 Christians of an estimated pre-war population of one million have been driven from their homes. A majority left Iraq.
“In other words, our invasion of Iraq set in motion one of the worst Christian diasporas in history. So what do we think of that? Ray?
Ray: “Is ‘freakin’ ironic’ an answer, Sir?”
Syria: It was a horrible week here, probably the worst in terms of a death toll that would appear to be in excess of 250, following twin suicide bombings on Friday in the capital of Damascus that took out at least 44. Friday’s attacks targeted an upscale neighborhood and heavily guarded intelligence buildings and came just one day after an advance team of Arab League observers arrived to monitor the Assad regime’s promise to end its crackdown on protesters. The blasts were the first suicide bombings since the uprising began in March and, according to the government, back its claims the turmoil is the work of terrorists.
State TV blamed al-Qaeda and on one hand it does follow the group’s pattern of trying to foment civil war.
I would just observe that the government has an incentive to carry off such attacks itself to help with its message. You won’t see this anywhere else, but I take you back to the days when Vladimir Putin was about to take over for Boris Yeltsin and there was a series of apartment bombings in Russia that Putin directed as a pretense to expanding the war against Chechnya, as was my lone opinion at the time. Putin blamed Chechen terrorists. I thought, and I expressed in this space, the idea that he blew them up. Months later, the late William Safire expressed the very same thoughts in his New York Times column.
Could Assad be taking a page out of Putin’s playbook? [I emphasize, to date, no one in authority has had the guts to take on Putin in this regard.]
Earlier in the week, at least 200 were killed in Syria in a spasm of violence ahead of the Arab League visit.
Iran: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said in an interview with CBS News that when it comes to Iran’s nuclear efforts, “It would probably be about a year before (they could build a bomb). Perhaps a little less.” Panetta warned Washington was ready to take “whatever steps necessary to stop it,” including military action. “That’s a red line for us…If we have to do it, we will deal with it.”
The United States and Israel, though, continue to believe they will be able to gain the intelligence needed to know when Iran tries to ‘break out’ and build the bomb…taking the uranium it has already enriched, for example, to a higher level for use in a bomb; a step that doesn’t take long. The hard work has already been done, though the West believes they only have enough enriched material for one or two bombs currently.
On a different matter, the Jerusalem Post reports that Iran “has embarked on an ambitious plan to boost its offensive and defensive cyber-warfare capabilities and is investing $1 billion in developing new technology and hiring new computer experts.”
Spanish-language TV network Univision aired a documentary recently that reported to show Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats, based in Mexico, being briefed on plans for cyber attacks against U.S. targets, including nuclear power plants.
Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for a deal that paves the way for Hamas to join the PLO, saying, through a spokesman, that if Abbas “embraces Hamas, if he walks toward Hamas, he is walking away from peace.”
So in the agreement reached among the leaders of various Palestinian groups on Thursday, the likes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will join the PLO. Heretofore, Hamas, founded 24 years ago, had refused to recognize the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinians.
Egypt: The death toll in last weekend’s brutal crackdown by the military on protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square reached 10, with more than 300 wounded. Soldiers were filmed assaulting female demonstrators.
Meanwhile, in the second of three rounds of voting for a new parliament, Islamists claimed they once again secured a vast majority of the votes cast, this time up to 3/4s. In this round, the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies said they won 40%, while the ultra-conservative Salafists won 35%. [In the first round it was 37% and 24%, respectively.] From my reading of the situation, the last round of the voting should see results more similar to the second than the first.
Pakistan: The U.S. conceded it bears much of the responsibility for the airstrike last month that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border. The Pentagon said U.S. and Afghan troops were acting in self defense, while admitting there was poor coordination between U.S. and Pakistani forces, which speaks to the level of mistrust that has only grown worse between the two. Unbelievably, U.S. officials admitted they had incorrect mapping information that they then shared with a Pakistani liaison officer, which resulted in an incorrect understanding of where the Pakistani troops were; as in the map coordinates were like nine miles off.
The whole mission went bad from the beginning when NATO didn’t share with their Pakistani counterparts details of the U.S.-Afghan operation in the first place because they feared the Pakistanis would tip off the insurgents. While the Pentagon admitted its errors, the White House has refused to apologize to Pakistan for the deaths, although it has expressed its condolences to the victims’ families.
Meanwhile, President Zardari returned from Dubai, where he was undergoing medical treatment, to a firestorm over a memo accusing the military of plotting a coup against him. Whatever Zardari’s ailment is, he is unable to resume full work, making his position even more tenuous. The memo was reportedly delivered to the Pentagon, asking for help in staving off the coup. Army chief Gen. Kayani, the real power in Pakistan these days, has called for an investigation.
Afghanistan: Senator John McCain called Vice President Biden’s statement in an interview with Newsweek that the Taliban are not our enemy, “bizarre. Tell the men and women fighting them that,” said McCain.
[The Poles, loyal members of the NATO fighting force here, lost five soldiers in a single roadside bomb attack on Wednesday, according to reports. Our thoughts go out to this good nation and ally.]
Russia: Today, Saturday, is to be the big demonstration in Moscow; further protests against the recent fraudulent Duma election, though sanctioned by the Kremlin to allow the disaffected to blow off some steam, even as President Medvedev said the government won’t allow “provocateurs and extremists” to upset Russia’s stability.
[Separately, Medvedev pledged various reforms to the political system in an attempt to appear relevant as he is due to swap seats with Prime Minister Putin next year.]
Earlier, you had the death of an investigative journalist who was writing about corruption, shot eight times by a masked gunman in the province of Dagistan, one of eight journalists on a 2009 “execution list” published anonymously there.
And in the Sea of Okhotsk, off Russia’s eastern coast, an oil rig sank in rough and frigid seas. 53 of 67 men aboard are said to have died. The platform was being towed to an island when a huge wave hit it, broke through the portholes, and the rig capsized. One survivor told NTV television that he swam away and saw it go down. “I was afraid I’d be sucked down into the crater that formed when it sank.” Survivors, as you can imagine, needed treatment for trauma as well as hypothermia.
China: In yet another hack attack, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was infiltrated by a group of Chinese hackers who gained access to everything on the lobbying group’s systems. While this just became public, it was discovered and quietly shut down in May 2010. The hackers, while having access to information on all three million members, appear to have been focusing on four Chamber employees specializing on Asia policy, with weeks of their emails being stolen.
And China’s future president and current vice president, Xi Jinping, focused on improving ties with Vietnam in a three-day visit to Hanoi. A Vietnamese government report said that regarding the two sides’ longstanding disputes over island groups in the South China Sea, “the Vietnamese side agreed to be ready, with China, to solve disputes through peaceful negotiation, respecting and paying attention to each other’s legitimate benefits.” A Chinese mouthpiece echoed similar sentiments. So this is good. Xi will slowly gain more responsibility next year and be fully in charge by 2013.
Finally, on Friday, Chinese writer and dissident Chen Wei was sentenced to nine years in jail for “inciting subversion of state power,” one of the harshest sentences imposed on those seeking to replicate the Arab Spring uprising in China. Mr. Chen’s lawyer told Reuters that after the verdict was announced, Chen told the court: “Dictatorship will fail, democracy will prevail.”
Japan: The military has opted to go with Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet as its next mainstay fighter, choosing it over Boeing’s F/A-18 and the Eurofighter Typhoon. It was a reflection of Japan desiring a tighter security alliance with the United States in the face of China’s growing capabilities and uncertainty over North Korea.
France / Turkey: A nasty diplomatic fight has erupted between these two as one chamber of the French parliament passed a bill criminalizing denial of the 1915-16 Armenian “genocide.” In retaliation, Ankara recalled its ambassador and adopted a number of other measures, including freezing political visits. The French National Assembly approved the bill on Thursday and the Senate will pick it up next year. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has opposed it.
Armenians claim 1.5 million were killed by the Ottoman Turks almost one hundred years ago, while Turkey claims it was closer to 300,000 and was more the result of a civil war. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said, “This will open very grave and irreparable wounds….This is politics based on racism, discrimination and xenophobia.”
This all goes back to French President Sarkozy’s opposition to Turkey joining the EU, and while his foreign minister may disagree with the bill, Sarkozy has given his tacit approval.
[In the latest poll on the French presidential race, it has tightened. Socialist Francois Holland, 27.5%; Sarkozy, 24%; Marine Le Pen, 20%; Francois Bayrou, 11%; Dominique de Villepin, 3.5%. This is getting interesting.]
Philippines: Over 1,000 were killed in flash-flooding spawned by a typhoon. Half a million are impacted by the catastrophe as a United Nations official described the devastation in two cities as looking like they had been by a tsunami. Disease is now a major concern as bodies are still being retrieved from the mud a week later.
Angola: Human Rights Watch said the government must account for $32 billion missing from state coffers. $32 billion! And this is our new, oil-rich buddy. The missing funds were identified by the IMF and believed to be linked to the state oil company Sonangol. The IMF says the money disappeared between 2007 and 2010.