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  #11  
Old Friday, June 03, 2011
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"If Pakistan decides to strike down every US drone in the future, what would US do? Situation has already gone out of control for US in Afghanistan now and is forced to engage Taliban through negotiations. Any decision by US to attack Pakistan in retaliation would be disastrous not only for US interests. China and Iran would never like US presence in another neighboring country so they won’t sit quietly. Russians would have the best opportunity to avenge obviously. American public would definitely stand against its own government, this time more aggressively due to poor economy.

In above mention situation Pakistan can make life of Americans in Afghanistan a lot difficult to force US administration to reconsider their drone war in Pakistani tribal areas, only reason why it is not happening right now is presence of a weak, inept and pro-US government in Islamabad. Looking at internal politics and ever mounting public pressure against US drone attacks in Pakistan it would be prudent to assume that political situation would not remain the same in near future."

I believe it is unrealistic to think that China,Iran,Russian would support you in a situation when you strike down US drone.Americans will be in difficult situation in Pakistan if Pakistan stop his support but then there is equal opportunity that world will put more pressure on you and you will be called a "State who is protecting terrorists."
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  #12  
Old Wednesday, June 08, 2011
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Default Giving India trade route or crossing red lines?

Giving India trade route or crossing red lines?
By
Farzana Shah


Table of Contents
  • Benefiting India at own cost
  • Undermining Gwadar, Pak-China interests
  • Pakistani industry to suffer
  • Water Disputes
  • Forcing Pakistan Army to police Indian goods
  • Kashmir Issue
  • Economic interest can’t override security interest
  • Final thoughts


In a country affected by low intensity conflicts, economic mismanagement and political corruption at all levels, constituting a foreign policy which can protect its security interests is really a cumbersome job but even then there are some red lines whichnations draw and are not meant to be crossed at any cost. These red lines are drawn at all fronts; be it political, economical or strategic front. It seems that replenish US policies towards establishing Indian hegemony in South Asia are in full swing thanks to another US supported government in Islamabad. Present government just like previous one, is more willing to cross red lines just to protect artificial democracy in Pakistan

On May 6th 2009 Pakistani and Afghan ministers signed an MoU in US to give India a transit facility for trade with Afghanistan through Pakistan.

According to understanding between Afghanistan and Pakistan by end of 2009 Pakistan will surrender its 43 years’ old stance on not allowing India to use its soil for trade with Afghanistan till the resolution of all outstanding issues including Kashmir.

Although foreign office in Islamabad rejected media reports that India will get all benefits from this agreement. But US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was jubilant over signing of this “landmark” memorandum of understanding.

The statement “India will get trade route” coming from a top US official is something to be believed more than what the Pakistani foreign office says.

Under the second clause of the agreement not only Afghanistan could get access to the sea route; it could also find new avenues to India and China for similar purposes.

The clause titled “Objectives of Pak Afghan Transit Agreement” elaborates that the agreement emphasizes easiest routes for international traffic (also including access to a third country).

It also emphasizes the need for establishing a transit corridor connecting Pakistan’s border areas with Afghanistan, and to give the two countries access to each other’s neighbouring countries. Among these countries include India, China (through Pakistan).

This clearly shows that Pakistani government is trying to sell another lie to its public. Why US is eager to have India in Afghanistan through Pakistan? This is something which needs to be understood by high echelons of security managers in Pakistan.

The MoU if materialised would be a bigger favour to India by USA than nuclear deal between Washington and New Dehli. India had been trying its level best in the past to get this transit route through Pakistan which will easily giv e her a license to expand its footprints from Myanmar in East to Afghanistan in West. Pakistan will be depriv ed of all its security and economic interests in the region.

Allowing transit route to India has some grave implications for Pakistan ranging from security issues to economic ones.

Benefiting India at own cost
Pakistan and India both have long and outstanding issues. India never misses any chance when it comes to harming Pakistani interests. Giving India transit route amid concerns about Indian involvement in Balochistan and FATA is going to be disastrous for Pakistan.

The accord will allow India to use Pakistan as a road to benefit Indian economy resultantly contributing towards its military buildup and intelligence network against Pakistan. Once gates are opened it would be difficult for Pakistan to distinguish between traders and Indian intelligence and military personnel. Keeping situation in NWFP in view, this route can turn into a dangerous trap against Pakistan.

Trucks loaded with RAW operatives, Indian military personnel or weapons pretending as trade convoys can prov ed to be new aid route to Indian-backed insurgents in Pakistan. So Islamabad must take all these matters into consideration before signing any agreement specially allowing transit route which is a step forward to ease up Indians more on its Western borders.

Undermining Gwadar, Pak-China interests
Pakistan and China have invested heavily in Gwadar mainly for using it as a trade hub between countries in Central Asia, China, Russia and rest of the world. Allowing India transit through Pakistan may end up in allowing all Central Asian countries and Russia to sign deals with Afghanistan and India for using Indian ports instead of Gwadar for trade with Far East, Australia and Japan as Indian ports are closer to these counties than Gwadar.

China and Pakistan both hav e strategic and economic interests in Gwadar which would be greatly harmed in case India is allowed transit route as road link will enable India to support its assets (BLA) in Baluchistan more aggressively. BLA whose leadership currently is said to be based in Afghanistan, in the past has deliberately tried to harm Pak-China relations. BLA has been involved in kidnapping and killing Chinese engineers working in Pakistan.

The terrorist outfit Baluchistan Liberation Army killed three Chinese engineers in Hub area of Baluchistan in 2006. In May 2004, three Chinese port workers were killed in a similar attack at Gwadar by BLA. The growing influence and support by India would definitely encourage BLA to keep Chinese away from any project in Baluchistan.

We need to understand the geo-political game being played by internal as well as external players to exploit the grievances of our Baluch brothers.

The Chinese investment in Baluchistan along with better governance by Pakistan can turn misled youth of Baluchistan in fav our of a strong united Pakistan. US made many promises for development in Pakistan but never acted on them. Establishing ROZ (Reconstruction Opportunity Zones) can be taken as benchmark in this context. These were promised some 5 years back but still bill of establishing these zones is pending with US congress. On the other hand China began work on Gwadar in 2002 and in 2006 first phase was completed and the port became operational in early 2009.

Pakistani industry to suffer
Although Pakistan has smaller share in trade with Afghanistan but still its traders have their presence in Afghan market. Currently 90 per cent goods ranging from food to construction material are being supplied by Pakistani traders. By allowing Indian supplies to Afghan market through Pakistan will reduce cost of Indian goods in Afghanistan boosting these supplies further. Currently India cannot access Afghanistan through roads so cost of Pakistani goods is somehow competitive to Indian goods but after the transit route opened Pakistan will completely lose Afghan market.

Cost of production in Pakistan is considerably high compared to Indian products primarily due to utter inept behavior of current and previous governments towards producing cheap electricity in the country. Allowing Indian industry to keep its foot on Pakistani market will simply kill our local industry. In quality Pakistani products are still better but Indians in the past have been selling Pakistani products including rice with Indian stamps on bags to international market. There is no guarantee that Indian will not repeat the same in Afghanistan where there is a pro-India government in place.

Water Disputes
Although water dispute seems to be an isolated matter in context of transit trade between India and Afghanistan through Pakistan but it indirectly can turn into a bigger problem as India is persuading Afghanistan to build dams on Kabul River which contribute to Indus River in Pakistan and India itself has plan to build multiple dams in Kashmir on Indus River. So, Pakistan must not allow India to shift its engineers and machinery to Afghanistan through its soil to build dams on Kabul River. It will intensify water crisis in Pakistan.

Water dispute erupted between Pakistan and India recently can be taken as bench mark to foresee all future agreements in region with regards to interests of the both the countries.

Taking maximum advantage of unilateral ceasefire at LoC, India completed and started major dams in held Kashmir on Chenab River. Despite the mediation by World Bank, design of the Baghliar dam was not changed and India did stop flow of river when Pakistani farmers were about to sow crops. With blockage of Kabul River water, Pakistan will become barren sooner than feared.

Forcing Pakistan Army to police Indian goods

This is the biggest reason militarily why Pakistan must not allow Indian trucks rolling through its soil. Any attack on Indian conveys inside Pakistan will provide an excuse to Indians for demanding Pakistan military to police these conveys all the way to Khyber Pass.

More disturbingly is if any such attack happens, which is very likely in presence of Jihadi outfits in Pakistan, international and Indian media will start a new wave of propaganda against Pakistan being a failed state. By this vertex this MoU seems to be a step towards US plans to turn Pakistani military into a mere police force.

Kashmir Issue
Allowing India trade route has always been linked with solution to Kashmir issues by the Pakistani policy makers since last many decades. The sudden U-turn by current government not only surprised Pakistanis but it will send a very disturbing message to Kashmiris as well.

The decision is as damaging to Pakistani interests as was Musharraf’s decision to announce ceasefire at LoC which allowed Indians to fence LoC and declaring it International border between Pakistan and India which sent a wrong signal that Pakistan was surrendering its stance on Kashmir.

Economic interest can’t override security interest
Most vocal argument made in favour of this MoU by some business circles in Pakistan, is that Pakistan will be charging transit fee from India and Afghanistan amounting to some $20 million per year. Currently Pakistan is facing much bigger security challenges than economic ones.

If friends of Pakistan has announced $5.28 billion and US to give Pakistan $7.5 billion in next fiv e years apart from $2.8 billion as military aid then why Pakistan is seeking these $20 million per year so eagerly at this point? In current situation no economic interest can be bigger than Pakistan’s own existence which is at risk.

Final thoughts
The leadership crisis which had emerged during Musharraf regime still continues in Pakistan. Mass corruption and dictatorial attitude of previous government allowed laws like NRO which allowed direct US meddling in Pakistani affairs. Giving unilateral concessions to Indians is something initiated during military dictatorship in the last 8 years and what we are witnessing now is just an extension of decision taken by previous US supported government.

Past track record of India’s reactions to unilateral concessions by Pakistan speaks volumes for possible outcome of another big strategic concession to India. When will Pakistan realise that there is a red line and crossing that line will put the entire nation’s existence at stake. Leadership crisis in Pakistan after US meddling in our politics is increasing by every minute.

Is there a leader who can save national interest with some national zeal? Are we ever going to see an independent foreign policy?

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Old Thursday, June 09, 2011
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Default US assistance: Differing perceptions....

US assistance: Differing perceptions
By
Ishrat Husain


Bilateral official economic assistance from developed to developing countries has always been loaded with political and foreign policy overtones of donors. In Pakistan, US economic aid has become a highly contentious issue due to the widely differing perceptions about its motivation and consequences among the donor and recipient countries. The debate about the future of this assistance has been reignited after Osama bin Laden’s capture by the US.

The popular narrative in the US as articulated by the media, a few think-tanks and congressmen rests on the premise that Pakistan is almost at the brink of bankruptcy and it is the US assistance that is providing the lifeline for sustenance. The penalty for deviant behaviour on the part of Pakistan should be severe and aid should be suspended, curtailed or withdrawn as it is only through these punitive measures that Pakistan would fall in line. Many other Americans believe that helping Pakistan is simply not worth the time ‘or money’ and that by doing so their hard-earned tax money is going down the drain. Given the high domestic unemployment rate and growing fiscal deficit it is better to stop the aid to Pakistan. A more benign variant prevailing among some US politicians and scholars is that Pakistan has been let down too many times by the US in the past and the best way todemonstrate our long term strategic commitment to Pakistan is to help the country in its pursuit of economic development. Both these approaches — stick or carrot — are based on the tacit assumption that the quantum of US assistance is so significant that it would be able to invoke the alteration in Pakistan’s behaviour. The fact of the matter is that — US aid does not help the government’s precarious fiscal situation in any meaningful way as only 12-15 per cent of the total amount is channelled for budgetary support.

In Pakistan also, there are several viewpoints about the efficacy and impact of US aid. A large number of Pakistanis are deeply resentful that the US has been able to obtain a disproportionate leverage on Pakistan’s policy space because of this paltry sum. The sovereign autonomy and dignity has been sacrificed and the country has been relegated to the status of a client state or ‘rent-a-state’. The long-term stability of the country is at risk because of this painful obsequiousness and submissive alliance.

Another group believes that by entangling in the war on terror, Pakistan has suffered enormous losses financially, economically, socially and psychologically and the compensation being paid by the US for this colossal damage amounts to almost nothing. It is estimated that during 2000-10, the US spent Rs2,000 billion in Afghanistan, Iraq and on beefing up domestic security. Pakistan’s share of this amount was Rs20 billion or 0.1 per cent, while the country has lost 35,000 civilians and soldiers, in addition to suffering disruption and dislocation of the economy, displacement of population, a several-fold increase in expenditure on military operations and internal security, almost virtual boycott of Pakistan by external visitors and a state of perpetual fear, etc. Out of the amount received, Rs8 billion under the Coalition Support Fund was simply reimbursement of the expenditures incurred on logistical support and supplies to Nato and US troops. A third group believes thatdespite the late Mr Holbrooke and Secretary Clinton’s best efforts, the divergence between the development priorities of the government of Pakistan and US aid remains wide. This is borne out by the report of the Centre for Global Development — the leading US think-tank on development issues (Note: I must disclose that I was a member of the Study Group that produced this Report). In assessing US assistance to Pakistan, the report notes that “the integration of development, diplomacy and defence has muddled the development mission and left the programme without a clear, focused mandate. The Kerry-Lugar legislation lists no fewer than 11 different objectives of US policy. As a result, the aid decisions are too often politicised and subject to short-term pressures. Overall, the programme ends up trying to do too much, too quickly.”

In light of these widely different perceptions it may sound ironical to suggest that it would be better for both the US and Pakistan that the US bilateral official assistance is terminated sooner than later. The growing ‘trust deficit’ between the two countries will be bridged when the US Congressmen would not have a stick to hurl at Pakistan and the pressure tactics they apply too openly and too frequently would come to an end. Ordinary US citizens would have no qualm that their taxes are being wasted in a country for which they have very little empathy. In Pakistan, the political leadership would have to take some tough decisions to mobilise domestic resources rather than always choosing the soft option of foreign aid as a substitute. The Pakistani intelligentsia would no longer be concerned about the loss of honour, sovereignty and dignity in exchange for a few billions of dollars.

How about the question so common in the vocabulary of both the Americans as well as many Pakistanis: Will Pakistan be economically able to cope with the loss of US assistance? The facts speak for themselves. Although the Congress authorised a tripling of development assistance in 2008 to $1.5 billion per year, the actual disbursements in Fiscal Year 2009 were $275 million and $676 million in Fiscal 2010, including $500 million spent on flood relief. Assuming that the whole $3 billion in economic and military assistance (including $1 billion under the Coalition Support Fund) is disbursed fully, this accounts for less than seven per cent of the total foreign exchange earnings of the country. The increase in export revenues and remittances in the current year was almost twice that amount. Had foreign direct investment flows not been disrupted (Pakistan received Rs5 billion in2006-07) US aid would have become even less significant in the overall capital flows. World Bank data shows that net Official Development Assistance (ODA) from all sources to Pakistan in the last five years has averaged less than 1.5 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI). In 1990, ODA formed 2.7 per cent of GNI. Aid per capita from all sources in 2009 was $14 only. US aid also does not help the government’s precarious fiscal situation in any meaningful way as only 12-15 per cent of the total amount is channeled for budgetary support. These facts do not, by any means, indicate that the Pakistani economy will collapse if the US decides to withdraw its assistance.

When Secretary Clinton visits Pakistan we should thank her for the hard work the US administration did in getting the Kerry-Lugar legislation approved, but indicate that Pakistan would like to unilaterally withdraw from receiving assistance under it. Our strategic dialogue should continue to explore other avenues of cooperation. It is fair to assume that this step would lead towards building a strong and lasting relationship between the two countries based on mutual respect.

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Default The New Geopolitics of Food.....

(PART-I)

The New Geopolitics of Food
By
LESTER R. BROWN


From the Middle East to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs and ousting dictators. Welcome to the 21st-century food wars.

In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. If, however, you live in New Delhi, those skyrocketing costs really matter: A doubling in the world price of wheat actually means that the wheat you carry home from the market to hand-grind into flour for chapatis costs twice as much. And the same is true with rice. If the world price of rice doubles, so does the price of rice in your neighborhood market in Jakarta. And so does the cost of the bowl of boiled rice on an Indonesian family's dinner table.

Welcome to the new food economics of 2011: Prices are climbing, but the impact is not at all being felt equally. For Americans, who spend less than one-tenth of their income in the supermarket, the soaring food prices we've seen so far this year are an annoyance, not a calamity. But for the planet's poorest 2 billion people, who spend 50 to 70 percent of their income on food, these soaring prices may mean going from two meals a day to one. Those who are barely hanging on to the lower rungs of the global economic ladder risk losing their grip entirely. This can contribute -- and it has -- to revolutions and upheaval.

Already in 2011, the U.N. Food Price Index has eclipsed its previous all-time global high; as of March it had climbed for eight consecutive months. With this year's harvest predicted to fall short, with governments in the Middle East and Africa teetering as a result of the price spikes, and with anxious markets sustaining one shock after another, food has quickly become the hidden driver of world politics. And crises like these are going to become increasingly common. The new geopolitics of food looks a whole lot more volatile -- and a whole lot more contentious -- than it used to. Scarcity is the new norm.

Until recently, sudden price surges just didn't matter as much, as they were quickly followed by a return to the relatively low food prices that helped shape the political stability of the late 20th century across much of the globe. But now both the causes and consequences are ominously different.

In many ways, this is a resumption of the 2007-2008 food crisis, which subsided not because the world somehow came together to solve its grain crunch once and for all, but because the Great Recession tempered growth in demand even as favorable weather helped farmers produce the largest grain harvest on record. Historically, price spikes tended to be almost exclusively driven by unusual weather -- a monsoon failure in India, a drought in the former Soviet Union, a heat wave in the U.S. Midwest. Such events were always disruptive, but thankfully infrequent. Unfortunately, today's price hikes are driven by trends that are both elevating demand and making it more difficult to increase production: among them, a rapidly expanding population, crop-withering temperature increases, and irrigation wells running dry. Each night, there are 219,000 additional people to feed at the global dinner table.

More alarming still, the world is losing its ability to soften the effect of shortages. In response to previous price surges, the United States, the world's largest grain producer, was effectively able to steer the world away from potential catastrophe. From the mid-20th century until 1995, the United States had either grain surpluses or idle cropland that could be planted to rescue countries in trouble. When the Indian monsoon failed in 1965, for example, President Lyndon Johnson's administration shipped one-fifth of the U.S. wheat crop to India, successfully staving off famine. We can't do that anymore; the safety cushion is gone.

That's why the food crisis of 2011 is for real, and why it may bring with it yet more bread riots cum political revolutions. What if the upheavals that greeted dictators Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya (a country that imports 90 percent of its grain) are not the end of the story, but the beginning of it? Get ready, farmers and foreign ministers alike, for a new era in which world food scarcity increasingly shapes global politics.

THE DOUBLING OF WORLD grain prices since early 2007 has been driven primarily by two factors: accelerating growth in demand and the increasing difficulty of rapidly expanding production. The result is a world that looks strikingly different from the bountiful global grain economy of the last century. What will the geopolitics of food look like in a new era dominated by scarcity? Even at this early stage, we can see at least the broad outlines of the emerging food economy.

On the demand side, farmers now face clear sources of increasing pressure. The first is population growth. Each year the world's farmers must feed 80 million additional people, nearly all of them in developing countries. The world's population has nearly doubled since 1970 and is headed toward 9 billion by midcentury. Some 3 billion people, meanwhile, are also trying to move up the food chain, consuming more meat, milk, and eggs. As more families in China and elsewhere enter the middle class, they expect to eat better. But as global consumption of grain-intensive livestock products climbs, so does the demand for the extra corn and soybeans needed to feed all that livestock. (Grain consumption per person in the United States, for example, is four times that in India, where little grain is converted into animal protein. For now.

At the same time, the United States, which once was able to act as a global buffer of sorts against poor harvests elsewhere, is now converting massive quantities of grain into fuel for cars, even as world grain consumption, which is already up to roughly 2.2 billion metric tons per year, is growing at an accelerating rate. A decade ago, the growth in consumption was 20 million tons per year. More recently it has risen by 40 million tons every year. But the rate at which the United States is converting grain into ethanol has grown even faster. In 2010, the United States harvested nearly 400 million tons of grain, of which 126 million tons went to ethanol fuel distilleries (up from 16 million tons in 2000). This massive capacity to convert grain into fuel means that the price of grain is now tied to the price of oil. So if oil goes to $150 per barrel or more, the price of grain will follow it upward as it becomes ever more profitable to convert grain into oil substitutes. And it's not just a U.S. phenomenon: Brazil, which distills ethanol from sugar cane, ranks second in production after the United States, while the European Union's goal of getting 10 percent of its transport energy from renewables, mostly biofuels, by 2020 is also diverting land from food crops.

This is not merely a story about the booming demand for food. Everything from falling water tables to eroding soils and the consequences of global warming means that the world's food supply is unlikely to keep up with our collectively growing appetites. Take climate change: The rule of thumb among crop ecologists is that for every 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature above the growing season optimum, farmers can expect a 10 percent decline in grain yields. This relationship was borne out all too dramatically during the 2010 heat wave in Russia, which reduced the country's grain harvest by nearly 40 percent.

While temperatures are rising, water tables are falling as farmers overpump for irrigation. This artificially inflates food production in the short run, creating a food bubble that bursts when aquifers are depleted and pumping is necessarily reduced to the rate of recharge. In arid Saudi Arabia, irrigation had surprisingly enabled the country to be self-sufficient in wheat for more than 20 years; now, wheat production is collapsing because the non-replenishable aquifer the country uses for irrigation is largely depleted. The Saudis soon will be importing all their grain.

Saudi Arabia is only one of some 18 countries with water-based food bubbles. All together, more than half the world's people live in countries where water tables are falling. The politically troubled Arab Middle East is the first geographic region where grain production has peaked and begun to decline because of water shortages, even as populations continue to grow. Grain production is already going down in Syria and Iraq and may soon decline in Yemen. But the largest food bubbles are in India and China. In India, where farmers have drilled some 20 million irrigation wells, water tables are falling and the wells are starting to go dry. The World Bank reports that 175 million Indians are being fed with grain produced by overpumping. In China, overpumping is concentrated in the North China Plain, which produces half of China's wheat and a third of its corn. An estimated 130 million Chinese are currently fed by overpumping. How will these countries make up for the inevitable shortfalls when the aquifers are depleted?

Even as we are running our wells dry, we are also mismanaging our soils, creating new deserts. Soil erosion as a result of overplowing and land mismanagement is undermining the productivity of one-third of the world's cropland. How severe is it? Look at satellite images showing two huge new dust bowls: one stretching across northern and western China and western Mongolia; the other across central Africa. Wang Tao, a leading Chinese desert scholar, reports that each year some 1,400 square miles of land in northern China turn to desert. In Mongolia and Lesotho, grain harvests have shrunk by half or more over the last few decades. North Korea and Haiti are also suffering from heavy soil losses; both countries face famine if they lose international food aid. Civilization can survive the loss of its oil reserves, but it cannot survive the loss of its soil reserves.

Beyond the changes in the environment that make it ever harder to meet human demand, there's an important intangible factor to consider: Over the last half-century or so, we have come to take agricultural progress for granted. Decade after decade, advancing technology underpinned steady gains in raising land productivity. Indeed, world grain yield per acre has tripled since 1950. But now that era is coming to an end in some of the more agriculturally advanced countries, where farmers are already using all available technologies to raise yields. In effect, the farmers have caught up with the scientists. After climbing for a century, rice yield per acre in Japan has not risen at all for 16 years. In China, yields may level off soon. Just those two countries alone account for one-third of the world's rice harvest. Meanwhile, wheat yields have plateaued in Britain, France, and Germany -- Western Europe's three largest wheat producers.............
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The New Geopolitics of Food - By Lester R. Brown | Foreign Policy
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Default The New Geopolitics of Food ....

(PART-II)

The New Geopolitics of Food
By
LESTER R. BROWN


IN THIS ERA OF TIGHTENING world food supplies, the ability to grow food is fast becoming a new form of geopolitical leverage, and countries are scrambling to secure their own parochial interests at the expense of the common good.

The first signs of trouble came in 2007, when farmers began having difficulty keeping up with the growth in global demand for grain. Grain and soybean prices started to climb, tripling by mid-2008. In response, many exporting countries tried to control the rise of domestic food prices by restricting exports. Among them were Russia and Argentina, two leading wheat exporters. Vietnam, the No. 2 rice exporter, banned exports entirely for several months in early 2008. So did several other smaller exporters of grain.

With exporting countries restricting exports in 2007 and 2008, importing countries panicked. No longer able to rely on the market to supply the grain they needed, several countries took the novel step of trying to negotiate long-term grain-supply agreements with exporting countries. The Philippines, for instance, negotiated a three-year agreement with Vietnam for 1.5 million tons of rice per year. A delegation of Yemenis traveled to Australia with a similar goal in mind, but had no luck. In a seller's market, exporters were reluctant to make long-term commitments.

Fearing they might not be able to buy needed grain from the market, some of the more affluent countries, led by Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and China, took the unusual step in 2008 of buying or leasing land in other countries on which to grow grain for themselves. Most of these land acquisitions are in Africa, where some governments lease cropland for less than $1 per acre per year. Among the principal destinations were Ethiopia and Sudan, countries where millions of people are being sustained with food from the U.N. World Food Program. That the governments of these two countries are willing to sell land to foreign interests when their own people are hungry is a sad commentary on their leadership.

By the end of 2009, hundreds of land acquisition deals had been negotiated, some of them exceeding a million acres. A 2010 World Bank analysis of these "land grabs" reported that a total of nearly 140 million acres were involved -- an area that exceeds the cropland devoted to corn and wheat combined in the United States. Such acquisitions also typically involve water rights, meaning that land grabs potentially affect all downstream countries as well. Any water extracted from the upper Nile River basin to irrigate crops in Ethiopia or Sudan, for instance, will now not reach Egypt, upending the delicate water politics of the Nile by adding new countries with which Egypt must negotiate.

The potential for conflict -- and not just over water -- is high. Many of the land deals have been made in secret, and in most cases, the land involved was already in use by villagers when it was sold or leased. Often those already farming the land were neither consulted about nor even informed of the new arrangements. And because there typically are no formal land titles in many developing-country villages, the farmers who lost their land have had little backing to bring their cases to court. Reporter John Vidal, writing in Britain's Observer, quotes Nyikaw Ochalla from Ethiopia's Gambella region: "The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries. There is no consultation with the indigenous population. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands."

Local hostility toward such land grabs is the rule, not the exception. In 2007, as food prices were starting to rise, China signed an agreement with the Philippines to lease 2.5 million acres of land slated for food crops that would be shipped home. Once word leaked, the public outcry -- much of it from Filipino farmers -- forced Manila to suspend the agreement. A similar uproar rocked Madagascar, where a South Korean firm, Daewoo Logistics, had pursued rights to more than 3 million acres of land. Word of the deal helped stoke a political furor that toppled the government and forced cancellation of the agreement. Indeed, few things are more likely to fuel insurgencies than taking land from people. Agricultural equipment is easily sabotaged. If ripe fields of grain are torched, they burn quickly.

Not only are these deals risky, but foreign investors producing food in a country full of hungry people face another political question of how to get the grain out. Will villagers permit trucks laden with grain headed for port cities to proceed when they themselves may be on the verge of starvation? The potential for political instability in countries where villagers have lost their land and their livelihoods is high. Conflicts could easily develop between investor and host countries.

These acquisitions represent a potential investment in agriculture in developing countries of an estimated $50 billion. But it could take many years to realize any substantial production gains. The public infrastructure for modern market-oriented agriculture does not yet exist in most of Africa. In some countries it will take years just to build the roads and ports needed to bring in agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and to export farm products. Beyond that, modern agriculture requires its own infrastructure: machine sheds, grain-drying equipment, silos, fertilizer storage sheds, fuel storage facilities, equipment repair and maintenance services, well-drilling equipment, irrigation pumps, and energy to power the pumps. Overall, development of the land acquired to date appears to be moving very slowly.

So how much will all this expand world food output? We don't know, but the World Bank analysis indicates that only 37 percent of the projects will be devoted to food crops. Most of the land bought up so far will be used to produce biofuels and other industrial crops.

Even if some of these projects do eventually boost land productivity, who will benefit? If virtually all the inputs -- the farm equipment, the fertilizer, the pesticides, the seeds -- are brought in from abroad and if all the output is shipped out of the country, it will contribute little to the host country's economy. At best, locals may find work as farm laborers, but in highly mechanized operations, the jobs will be few. At worst, impoverished countries like Mozambique and Sudan will be left with less land and water with which to feed their already hungry populations. Thus far the land grabs have contributed more to stirring unrest than to expanding food production.

And this rich country-poor country divide could grow even more pronounced -- and soon. This January, a new stage in the scramble among importing countries to secure food began to unfold when South Korea, which imports 70 percent of its grain, announced that it was creating a new public-private entity that will be responsible for acquiring part of this grain. With an initial office in Chicago, the plan is to bypass the large international trading firms by buying grain directly from U.S. farmers. As the Koreans acquire their own grain elevators, they may well sign multiyear delivery contracts with farmers, agreeing to buy specified quantities of wheat, corn, or soybeans at a fixed price.

Other importers will not stand idly by as South Korea tries to tie up a portion of the U.S. grain harvest even before it gets to market. The enterprising Koreans may soon be joined by China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and other leading importers. Although South Korea's initial focus is the United States, far and away the world's largest grain exporter, it may later consider brokering deals with Canada, Australia, Argentina, and other major exporters. This is happening just as China may be on the verge of entering the U.S. market as a potentially massive importer of grain. With China's 1.4 billion increasingly affluent consumers starting to compete with U.S. consumers for the U.S. grain harvest, cheap food, seen by many as an American birthright, may be coming to an end.

No one knows where this intensifying competition for food supplies will go, but the world seems to be moving away from the international cooperation that evolved over several decades following World War II to an every-country-for-itself philosophy. Food nationalism may help secure food supplies for individual affluent countries, but it does little to enhance world food security. Indeed, the low-income countries that host land grabs or import grain will likely see their food situation deteriorate.

AFTER THE CARNAGE of two world wars and the economic missteps that led to the Great Depression, countries joined together in 1945 to create the United Nations, finally realizing that in the modern world we cannot live in isolation, tempting though that might be. The International Monetary Fund was created to help manage the monetary system and promote economic stability and progress. Within the U.N. system, specialized agencies from the World Health Organization to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) play major roles in the world today. All this has fostered international cooperation.

But while the FAO collects and analyzes global agricultural data and provides technical assistance, there is no organized effort to ensure the adequacy of world food supplies. Indeed, most international negotiations on agricultural trade until recently focused on access to markets, with the United States, Canada, Australia, and Argentina persistently pressing Europe and Japan to open their highly protected agricultural markets. But in the first decade of this century, access to supplies has emerged as the overriding issue as the world transitions from an era of food surpluses to a new politics of food scarcity. At the same time, the U.S. food aid program that once worked to fend off famine wherever it threatened has largely been replaced by the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), where the United States is the leading donor. The WFP now has food-assistance operations in some 70 countries and an annual budget of $4 billion. There is little international coordination otherwise. French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- the reigning president of the G-20 -- is proposing to deal with rising food prices by curbing speculation in commodity markets. Useful though this may be, it treats the symptoms of growing food insecurity, not the causes, such as population growth and climate change. The world now needs to focus not only on agricultural policy, but on a structure that integrates it with energy, population, and water policies, each of which directly affects food security.

But that is not happening. Instead, as land and water become scarcer, as the Earth's temperature rises, and as world food security deteriorates, a dangerous geopolitics of food scarcity is emerging. Land grabbing, water grabbing, and buying grain directly from farmers in exporting countries are now integral parts of a global power struggle for food security.

With grain stocks low and climate volatility increasing, the risks are also increasing. We are now so close to the edge that a breakdown in the food system could come at any time. Consider, for example, what would have happened if the 2010 heat wave that was centered in Moscow had instead been centered in Chicago. In round numbers, the 40 percent drop in Russia's hoped-for harvest of roughly 100 million tons cost the world 40 million tons of grain, but a 40 percent drop in the far larger U.S. grain harvest of 400 million tons would have cost 160 million tons. The world's carryover stocks of grain (the amount in the bin when the new harvest begins) would have dropped to just 52 days of consumption. This level would have been not only the lowest on record, but also well below the 62-day carryover that set the stage for the 2007-2008 tripling of world grain prices.

Then what? There would have been chaos in world grain markets. Grain prices would have climbed off the charts. Some grain-exporting countries, trying to hold down domestic food prices, would have restricted or even banned exports, as they did in 2007 and 2008. The TV news would have been dominated not by the hundreds of fires in the Russian countryside, but by footage of food riots in low-income grain-importing countries and reports of governments falling as hunger spread out of control. Oil-exporting countries that import grain would have been trying to barter oil for grain, and low-income grain importers would have lost out. With governments toppling and confidence in the world grain market shattered, the global economy could have started to unravel.

We may not always be so lucky. At issue now is whether the world can go beyond focusing on the symptoms of the deteriorating food situation and instead attack the underlying causes. If we cannot produce higher crop yields with less water and conserve fertile soils, many agricultural areas will cease to be viable. And this goes far beyond farmers. If we cannot move at wartime speed to stabilize the climate, we may not be able to avoid runaway food prices. If we cannot accelerate the shift to smaller families and stabilize the world population sooner rather than later, the ranks of the hungry will almost certainly continue to expand. The time to act is now -- before the food crisis of 2011 becomes the new normal.

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Old Tuesday, June 14, 2011
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Default Pak-saudi relations ( 1 9 9 9 - 2 0 1 1 ).....

PAK-SAUDI RELATIONS ( 1 9 9 9 - 2 0 1 1 )


EDITOR
DR NOOR ULHAQ

ASSISTANT EDITOR
MUHAMMAD N WAZ KHAN


CONTENT

1. Joint Statement of Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz and Nawaz Sharif (May 1999)
2. A Write-up on Pak-Saudi Ties
3. A Write-up on Pak-Saudi Relations
4. Sixth Session of Pakistani – Saudi Joint Commission
5. Zafarullah Khan Jamali Visits Saudi Arabia (January 2003)
6. Pervez Musharraf Visits Saudi Arabia (June 2003)
7. An Important Saudi Visit
8. Press Conference by Islamabad-Based Saudi Ambassador
9. Zafarullah Khan Jamali Visits Saudi Arabia (May 2004)
10. Saudi Ambassador’s Talk on Moderation and Enlightenment (June 2004)
11. Shujaat Hussain Visits Saudi Arabia (July 2004)
12. Pak- Saudi Arabia Trade Volume to Double in Two Years
13. Shaukat Aziz Addresses Jeddah Economic Forum (February 2005)
14. Interview of Shaukat Aziz with Arabic Newspaper Al Eqtisadiyah
15. Middle East Issue and OIC Reforms Discussed
16. Saudi King Holds Talks with Pakistan
17. Accord to Boost Pak-Saudi Cooperation
18. Saudi-Pakistani Joint Communiqué (February 2006)
19. Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Visits Pakistan (April 2006)
20. Musharraf and Crown Prince Sultan Discuss Trade and Terrorism
21. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Strong Allies against Global Terrorism
22. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Approach OIC Over Israeli Aggression
23. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan to Sign New Defence Agreement
24. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia to Strengthen Defence, Strategic Ties
25. Responding to Terrorist Threat: Perspectives of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
26. Pervez Musharraf Addresses 19th Arab League Summit in Riyadh (March 2007)
27. Pakistan – Saudi Arabia Bilateral Economic and Commercial Relations
28. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Enjoy Strong, Close Relations
29. Saudi Arabia: Friend, Benefactor, Rescuer
30. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan to Forge Closer Trade Ties
31. Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Relations
32. Saudi Relief for Flood Victims
33. Grief of Pakistan is our Grief: Saudi King
34. Wikileaks Report on Pak-Saudi Relations Misleading
35. Saudi-Pak Imports and Exports

for detailed notes click here:http://ipripak.org/factfiles/ff132.pdf

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  #19  
Old Thursday, June 16, 2011
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Default War On Terror vs symbols of peace....

War On Terror vs symbols of peace
By
Khalid Saleem


How about devoting this column to symbols of peace and to the quest for peace on the planet? First, let’s allude to the symbol ‘olive branch’. A look back at the recent history of occupied Palestine would show that the destruction of olive groves has been adopted as an instrument of coercion against the hapless Palestinians. For whatever reasons, the wholesale destructions of olive groves in that troubled land became the order of the day. Why vent your frustrations against the olive tree? Call it ironic or symbolic if you will, but an offered olive branch has traditionally been regarded as a peace offering.

Dove on the wing, too, is universally regarded as a symbol of peace much the same as the olive branch. Holding out an olive branch to an erstwhile foe is viewed as a peace offering in more than one civilization. Symbolism apart, it hurts one to learn about the wholesale and wanton destruction of countless olive groves in the occupied lands of Palestine. Over the past several years, news reports emanating from around Jerusalem have conveyed the rather distressing picture of extremist Israeli settlers having chopped down thousands of olive trees on Palestinian farmland in the West Bank.

The residents of the village of Saouia in the northern West Bank, for one, were reported some years back to have lamented the discovery that hundreds of olive trees had been hewed down just as they were about to begin harvesting. This is just one instance of such outrage. A land that was once proud of its luxuriant olive groves appears to have been systematically denuded of this unique gift of nature and that too by a group of people who once prided themselves as being the chosen race. And what about the other symbol of peace – dove on the wing?

The doves – wretched creatures – too have not been faring all that well in several regions of the world. It is perhaps the destiny of creatures – whether flora or fauna – that are in any way symbolically linked to peace to be at the receiving end of the most horrid forms of violence. It may perhaps be man’s propensity for wanton violence that is at fault. Humankind’s claims to be the most exalted of creations notwithstanding, man’s actions often belie his lofty pretensions. Man’s inhumanity to man is the stuff of legends. Suffice it to state that a species that does not have regard for even its own kind can hardly be expected to be benevolent to other species. Doves are trapped in droves and imprisoned in (gilded) cages. Some lucky few are ceremoniously released on special occasions in what is euphemistically given out as a commemoration of peace, amity and freedom. Would one not be justified in asking how – and why – these gentle creatures came to be encaged in the first place?

Moving on to a wider canvas, it may not be out of place to pen a few words about world peace in general. The hullabaloo raised by proponents of international diplomacy notwithstanding, the one thing that continues to elude humankind is world peace. The more the world pampers the World Bodies – the United Nations and the like (Nobel Peace Prize et al) – the less inclination they exhibit to work for just and lasting peace in a world beset regrettably with pestilences of all genres.

Can a single locus in the whole wide world be pinpointed where the much-vaunted Nobel laureate, the United Nations, has been successful in establishing lasting peace? The world is littered with flashpoints like festering sores, where the United Nations has been content with mere papering over of the cracks. The state of the world today is akin to the suffering of a patient, whose sores cleverly camouflaged with surgical tape have been left to fester. Innocent people continue to die cruel and untimely deaths the world over – deaths that could and should be avoidable. It hardly matters what denomination, religion or ethnic group they belong to. Suffice it to state that they are all human beings and each human life is sacred. Whether the human being in question falls victim to a terrorist’s bomb blast, a State Army’s bullets, or indeed, a state of the art ‘smart bomb’ raining down from the sky, the fact remains that his or her life was invaluable and irreplaceable. It is the height of hypocrisy to camouflage such actions with such inane phrases as “collateral damage” and the like.

The question that presents itself begging for an answer is: can anything be done about this sorry state of affairs? The knee-jerk reaction would be to answer in the negative, given the evident flaws inherent in human nature. There is no harm, though, in having a go at devising a workable hypothesis. Let us face it: the strategy in vogue today among the powers that be is based on the ‘philosophy of revenge’. An act of terrorism, for instance, is countered through a comparable act even though it may be camouflaged under the ‘chapeau’ of ‘war on terror’. Experience has shown that this strategy has not produced results. The US declared ‘war on terror’ is simply not working. Far from eliminating ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism’, it has actually added to the sense of insecurity already prevalent in a highly jittery world.

Is there an alternative, then? One would venture to throw up the suggestion that we start tackling the issue in a positive rather than negative fashion. The name of the game is to avoid a knee-jerk reaction and, instead, to work for what – for want of a more appropriate expression – may be termed as the ‘healing touch’. All the cracks that have been assiduously papered over and the forgotten by the world community will need to be examined afresh and in some depth. The festering sores will need to be healed – if need be through use of extensive surgery. Rather than kill a few human beings in the name of a ‘war on terror’, the very roots of terrorism would need to be shriveled. A suggested course of action would be to set up what may be called ‘Council of Elders’ – comprising selected Nobel Laureates – that would be mandated to mull over issues that the world faces. It may be necessary in due course to constitute several such councils. An issue of immediate concern for the council could be the containment of terrorism and extremism.

The council would be mandated to research the root cause of this malaise and to suggest ways and means to effectively tackle it. What is suggested in the foregoing paragraph is no short-term remedy. The wounds will take time to heal, but a beginning will have been made. Nor does one deign to advocate a rollback of history. What has happened has happened; what is done cannot be undone. Nonetheless, it should be possible to avoid further blunders and – with a modicum of luck – things can be then guided to move towards a positive denouement. Or, is that too much to expect?

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Old Monday, June 20, 2011
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Default Corruption & governance crisis in Pak....

Corruption & governance crisis in Pak
By
Shakeel Ahmed

The people of Pakistan legitimately expect that bureaucracy at all levels in the country will be efficient in the performance of their functions, responsive to the needs of the people, perform their functions in accordance with law and without expectation of financial gain.

To the misfortune of the Pakistani people, there was discontinuity of the democratic process. General Tanvir Naqvi recalled from retirement and having little exposure to civil administration of the country set about reforming the system in accordance with what he thought were the aspirations of the people of Pakistan. As Chairman of the now defunct National Reconstruction Bureau he prepared the blue print of his devolution plan. Gen. Naqvi made ineffective attempts to silence the many critics of his plan who were dubbed as relics of the colonial past, agents of imperialist powers. And people with vested interests who wished to maintain status-quo. Although the people of Pakistan had not appointed him as their spokesman he repeatedly claimed that they needed empowerment at the grass root level. His devolution plan aimed at bringing about real democracy rather than sham democracy which was enshrined in the Constitution. This mind set was reminiscent of another Kakul product that Gen. Naqvi may have revered. It was no less a person than Field Marshall Ayub Khan who thought that democracy was not suited to the genius of the people of Pakistan—what they needed was basic democracy. In demolishing the remains of the bureaucratic structure, Gen. Tanvir Naqvi chose not to remember that the basic purpose and role of bureaucracy includes maintenance of effective law and order, promoting the economic and social well being of the people, providing good governance in the form of efficient delivery of services to the common man especially education, health and civic amenities. Bureaucracy was also responsible for collecting sufficient revenue to meet the needs of the federal provincial and local governments. The National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) had little understanding that at least three of the above functions were also the requirements of national as well as internal security. Poor law and order whether caused by terrorism or otherwise is a threat to national security. The demolishing of the Agency administration in the tribal areas has led to disastrous consequences for the country. The system created by the British lasted for over 150 years in case of Pakistan. It is flourishing in India, Bangla Desh and Sri Lanka. The system mid-wifed by Gen. Naqvi did not survive even his life time.

Bureaucracy is perceived as being responsible for many ills that face the country today. They are held to be lethargic, arrogant, inaccessible and corrupt. At the highest administrative levels they have relied on political patronage rather than their abilities, training and experience. They have yielded to wrong doing by themselves and their subordinates. The weakened moral fibre of bureaucracy at all levels no longer assures the people of Pakistan that they would be administered fairly and justly in accordance with law. Although Pakistan lacked a monolithic bureaucratic structure, the Devolution Plan aimed at fracturing the country’s administrative set-up so that it was no longer in a position to assume an effective role in governance. In this, NRB received support from various donor agencies and the World Bank. The latter began casting aspersions on bureaucracy’s ability to promote order and development. Corruption, inefficiency, bloated size, absence of accountability and resistance to change were portrayed as their distinguishing features. Devolution of power was seen as the solution to the ills that afflicted the country. The Asian Development Bank was quick to lend several hundred million dollars to Gen.Naqvi to implement the devolution plan. Pakistan’s debt ridden posterity has to pay back the loan long after the much trumpeted plan has been laid to rest.

Rational thought now concedes that bureaucracy has had a raw deal since Ayub Khan started the purge. As a consequence of the ill-advised steps taken by successive governments, poor governance has now become a threat to the vital interests of Pakistan. It is widely recognized that economic mismanagement stems from poor governance. It is also directly responsible for the failure to combat internal disorder which poses a grave threat to national security. In the context of Pakistan’s federal system, poor governance is a major factor creating estrangement between the provinces on vital national issues such as the Kala Bagh Dam, the sharing of water resources, the movement of food grains specially wheat and the recent gas load shedding program. Growing poverty or even its continuance at the present high levels has a direct negative implication for the country’s security. It leads to internal unrest which manifests itself in a variety of colors be they ethnic, provincial and sectarian. Most of The District Coordination Officers have neither the ability nor the capacity to deliver good governance on issues affecting the citizens of their district. The recent floods highlighted their limitations. In recent times Pakistan has witnessed mega corruption scandals that have rocked the country. It would do well to recognize the fact that bureaucrats are likely to be corrupt if they are provided an opportunity to indulge in corruption and the expected cost of corruption for the bureaucrat is smaller than the expected gain.

Learned men often remark that bureaucracy at lower echelons of the government is not well qualified and therefore unable to perform. They are also not well paid and are therefore tempted to supplement their incomes through various forms of corruption. The bureaucracy at this level is emboldened by the fact that the opportunity cost of losing a job provided by the state is nearly non-existent and chances of detection and punishment are remote. Bureaucracy at the highest level of state machinery may be well trained and qualified. They are also relatively well paid. In their case, indulgence in corruption can only be explained by rampant political clientelism which provides bureaucracy political protection. If Pakistan has to redeem its honour this collusion must end.

The writer is a member of the former Civil Service of Pakistan.


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