May 21st 2009 | DELHI, NANDIGRAM AND WARDHA
From The Economist print edition

The Congress party romps to victory by a surprisingly big margin. Its next government will be expected to do rather more than its current one


EVER unpredictable, Indian voters delivered their pentennial surprise on May 16th, when over 417m ballots were totted up. Reversing decades of decline, the Congress party had won the country’s month-long election, which ended on May 13th, by a bigger margin than its most enthusiastic cheer-leaders had dared dream of. Congress and its electoral allies won 261 of 543 available seats. With support from a few tiny regional parties and independents, they will have a majority in India’s 15th parliament. On May 20th India’s president, Pratibha Patil, therefore reappointed Manmohan Singh prime minister, making him the first prime minister to achieve this distinction at the end of a five-year term since India’s first, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Congress itself won 206 seats. This was the best result by any party since 1991, when the murder of Congress’s leader Rajiv Gandhi half way through the poll gave it a huge sympathy vote. The Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress’s main rival, won 116 seats, its lowest tally for two decades. In a double boon for Sonia Gandhi, Congress’s leader and Rajiv’s widow (shown above with Mr Singh), Sri Lanka’s government on May 18th declared a final military victory against the Tamil Tiger rebels, her husband’s assassins.

Even some who mourn the BJP’s lesser thrashing are encouraged by Congress’s victory. The outgoing government, formed after Congress surprisingly triumphed in the 2004 election, winning 145 seats, was hobbled by the many venal and incompetent regional and Communist allies that it needed to make up its majority. Unencumbered by this rabble, Congress’s next government is expected to be more stable, less corrupt and, at a time of economic crisis, more efficient. Shorn of the Communists, who blocked a clutch of liberal measures before they abandoned the government last year, it could also pass some overdue economic reforms. On May 18th, in two dramatically curtailed sessions of trading, lasting a minute in total, the Bombay Stock Exchange jumped by over 17%. This was close to its biggest daily gain, and roughly the same proportion by which the markets plummeted on May 17th 2004 in response to the current government’s formation.

Completing the symmetry, the Communists, who in 2004 won 62 seats, their best result ever, won 24 seats, their worst since 1952. Their decision to campaign against Congress on an arcane foreign-policy issue, a nuclear co-operation deal with America, which was sealed last year despite their efforts to kill it, backfired utterly. According to the National Election Study, a post-poll survey of 30,000 voters by the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), only 37% had even heard of the deal.

Voters in the Communist stronghold of West Bengal, where Congress made a formidable alliance with the Trinamul Congress party, were more concerned by the Communist state-government’s thuggish efforts to acquire farmland for industrial development. Congress and its ally won 25 of West Bengal’s 42 seats, and are now hoping to wrest control of a state the leftists have ruled for over three decades. In Nandigram, a picturesque rice-growing region, where West Bengal’s rulers tried to acquire land for a petrochemical hub in 2007, sparking battles between peasants and party thugs, crowds gathered to cheer the left’s defeat. Abdul Daiyan Khan, a peasant whose son was shot dead by the police during the land war, said he and his neighbours had voted against the Communists for the first time, because: “The party that gave us land now wants to take it away.”
In Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state, for which 80 seats are reserved, another would-be kingmaker, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), also collapsed. Dedicated to dalits (Hinduism’s former “untouchables”), the BSP had hoped to win most of UP’s seats, replicating its success in the 2007 state assembly election. With 50 seats, its autocratic leader, Mayawati, had planned to bargain with either the BJP or the Congress to become India’s first dalit prime minister. But the BSP won only 21 seats, largely because its sometime non-dalit supporters forsook it. Many of these Muslims and higher-caste Hindus voted for Congress, which came away with 21 seats, more than double its previous tally.

As Miss Mayawati takes revenge for her humiliation—on May 18th she sacked 100 senior civil servants to whom she had given the task of delivering her victory—Congress’s progress in UP has inspired some excited analysis. The rise of regional and caste-based parties, such as the BSP, has been the dominant theme in Indian politics for two decades. Some pundits see an end to this. They argue that Indian voters, showing unsuspected perspicacity, have recognised the need for stable central governments, which only national parties can provide. The survey by CSDS seems to agree with this. Only 20% of respondents did not consider coalition governments harmful, down from 31% in 2004.

Yet the results do not support this theory. The combined vote-share of India’s two national parties has continued to fall, to 47.3%. And the increase in Congress’s share, from 26.5% in 2004 to 28.5%, was quite modest considering that, with fewer allies than in 2004, it contested 23 more seats. Congress’s relative leap in seats bespeaks an increasingly crowded field. This worked to its advantage in many places, including Mumbai, Tamil Nadu and, especially, Andhra Pradesh (AP), where it won 33 seats and retained control of the state government in a concurrent poll.
According to AP’s chief minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who has now delivered Congress’s biggest tranche of seats in consecutive elections: “The credibility of the government of India and of Andhra has been established in the minds of the people.” But without the vote-splitting debut of a small party led by the state’s most revered film-star, known as Chiranjeevi (the “immortal one”), Congress would have suffered.

In fact, many regional parties did fine, including two with well regarded governments in Bihar and Orissa. Perhaps the most that can be said is that Indians are growing impatient with parties that appeal to them only on the basis of caste, region or religion, neglecting their welfare. Congress may have prospered in UP, speculates Yogendra Yadav of CSDS, partly because it was the only main party not to have run a dreadful government there recently. Vinay Tiwari, a Brahmin landowner in the remote village of Harihar Patti, in a region of northern UP swept by Congress, is a speck of evidence for this. He had previously voted for the low-caste Samajwadi party and the BJP. But he was turned off by the record of the former party’s candidate and by the Hinduist party’s habit of inciting violence against Muslims. So Mr Tiwari plumped for Congress—“the party of my forefathers”—and instructed his 12 relatives and 50-odd dalit labourers to do likewise.
Yet he would not have done so if he, like millions of others, had not felt surprisingly sunny towards the Congress-led government. According to CSDS’s survey, 57% of Indians wanted to give the government in Delhi another go, compared with 48% in 2004. Thus, Congress fulfilled, or surpassed, its most optimistic expectations in almost every state.
In Rajasthan, a sometime BJP stronghold, it picked weak candidates, ran a ragged campaign, and won 20 of 25 seats. In Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP retained power in a state election last December, and expected to clean up, Congress won 12 of 29. In Gujarat, India’s most industrialised and Muslim-phobic state, where the BJP has won four successive state elections and has its most talismanic leader, Narendra Modi, Congress got 11 of 26 seats. Clearly, this election was more than the usual aggregate of state-level verdicts.

Two explanations suggest themselves, starting with the obvious one. In the past five years, India’s economy has grown at an average annualised rate of 8.5% a year, including a relative slump to less than 7% in the financial year that ended in March. Driven by services, which contribute over half of GDP but employ only a quarter of the workforce, this boom has benefited too few Indians—yet more than is often supposed. Blessed with four good monsoons and high food prices, agriculture, which contributes around 20% of India’s GDP but supports over 60% of its 1.1 billion people, has grown at a relatively healthy 3.4% a year. Until late last year, most Indians’ main economic worry was inflation, which soared to 13% last August, largely because of high oil prices. But in the slowdown, from which rural India is somewhat immune, inflation has fallen sharply.

A thank-you to Congress

Under Mr Singh, who as finance minister in 1991 unleashed historic economic reforms, Congress can claim to have managed the economy quite well. Despite failing to bring much further reform, it has clearly allayed the market’s dread. It is, CSDS suggests, the most popular party among the richest 20% of Indians, who traditionally vote BJP. This helped Congress get every seat in Mumbai and Delhi.

On the back of some lavish welfare schemes, Congress also strengthened its base among the rural poor. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, a huge public-works project from which the government says 44m families have benefited, was especially popular in Rajasthan and AP. A massive debt write-off for some 43m farmers last year, which cost 1.6% of GDP, was another vote-winner.

In north-eastern Maharashtra, a parched cotton-growing terrain where rates of indebtedness and suicide among farmers are high, Congress and its regional ally, the Nationalist Congress Party, gained four seats. In Keljhar, a village in Wardha district, where one farmer took poison last year and another hanged himself, everyone seems to have voted Congress. Asked why, they cite the loan-waiver scheme, the decent price for cotton set by Maharashtra’s Congress government—and their fear for the future. “This is among the worst years ever. There has been little rain and the canals are dry,” said Ganand Dada Narad, who had been forgiven almost half his 50,000-rupee debt ($1,100), which he had incurred when marrying off his daughters.

Wardha was also where Rahul Gandhi, who is Mrs Gandhi’s 38-year-old son, Mr Singh’s presumed successor and Congress’s most energetic campaigner, opened his campaign. Mr Gandhi, who entered politics in 2004, can seem naive and awkward—and by extension, in India’s filthy politics, sincere and uncorrupted. Credited with Congress’s decision to fight alone in UP and Bihar, where it won a healthy 10% of the vote though only two seats, he suddenly appears more astute.

Reinforcing this impression, he is reported to have declined to join the new cabinet in order to spend time strengthening the party. As a faint echo of his mother’s hugely respected renunciation of prime ministerial office in 2004, in favour of Mr Singh, this strikes some as further proof of Mr Gandhi’s integrity.

Leader wanted for the BJP

The Congress trinity—the two Gandhis and Mr Singh—does not set Indian hearts ablaze. Yet their quiet virtues look uncommonly good against their vagabond peers—including the 72 about to enter the Lok Sabha, India’s parliament, charged with serious crimes.

This may be another reason for Congress’s strong showing. Asked by CSDS
who they wanted to be prime minister, 14% of respondents named the BJP’s chosen man, L.K. Advani. Congress’s three leaders got lower ratings, but together were selected by 38%. By contrast, the next-placed BJP man, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Mr Singh’s now non-functioning predecessor, was named by 3%, and Mr Modi, Mr Advani’s expected successor, by only 2%.
That leadership is a problem for the BJP has long been clear. Mr Vajpayee, a charismatic and conciliatory figure, had been able to appeal to the BJP’s Hinduist ideologues—and also allay the concerns of his secular allies over their crackpot, Hinduised version of history and enthusiasm for inciting religious violence. Mr Advani, an octogenarian Hindu hardman, who led the campaign that propelled the BJP to power in the 1990s, demanding that a Hindu temple be built on the site of a 16th-century mosque in UP, is more divisive.

With Indians showing little appetite for Hindu chauvinism, he has downplayed it, but fitfully. His stuttering failure to take action against a BJP candidate, Varun Gandhi, who in a campaign speech issued vile threats against Muslims, suggested either weakness or approval. Unsurprisingly, Mr Advani has failed to woo back the several important allies who deserted the BJP after its 2004 defeat. He must also have unnerved the party’s main remaining ally, Bihar’s leader, Nitish Kumar, who has many Muslim supporters. Mr Kumar demanded that Varun Gandhi be prosecuted and, until the voting in Bihar was over, avoided appearing alongside Mr Modi.

Meanwhile the BJP failed to convince with its pet secular boasts: that it could manage India’s economy and national security better than Congress. Against the sagacious Mr Singh, Mr Advani is an economic illiterate. Nor, given most Indians’ aversion to liberal reform, can the BJP boast of its relatively pro-reform record. Twisting the dirk, Congress’s manifesto includes a rejection of “the policy of blind privatisation followed by the BJP-led…government”.

Congress’s attack on the BJP’s national-security credentials was more sophisticated. In particular, the government’s response to the devastating attack in Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists last November was impressive. Mixing aggressive statements at home with resourceful diplomacy abroad, it managed to seem tough, but not reckless. By sacking its home minister and forcing out the Congress chief minister of Maharashtra, it assuaged public anger over its lousy first reaction to the crisis. The BJP, by castigating Mumbai’s police and using blood-spattered images of the tragedy for its propaganda, presented itself as opportunistic, if not unpatriotic.

Even without these failures, the Hindu nationalists were always bound to struggle against a resurgent Congress. Given the usual anti-incumbency instincts of Indian voters, they were expected to lose ground in several of their northern strongholds, including Rajasthan where they fared well in 2004. The BJP and Congress were both relatively unbolstered by electoral allies—and Congress has more national appeal. The BJP ran 433 candidates in this election, almost as many as Congress, and 69 more than in 2004. But whereas Congress came in first or second in 350 seats, the BJP achieved this in only 225. Indeed, the difference between the two parties’ reach has widened. In UP, where the BJP surged in the 1990s and had hoped to win 30 seats, it won ten. And more than 30 of its candidates allegedly lost their deposits.

The Hindu nationalists can recover. As Indians become rapidly more urban, consumerist and, perhaps, nationalistic, the BJP’s target-audience is growing. But to take advantage of this, the party will have to ease its ideological strictures and expand geographically. Under Mr Modi, who is currently barred by America because of his alleged complicity in an anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 in which 2,000 people died, it might find this impossible. He is clearly the party’s most charismatic leader. Yet on current form the 182 seats won by the BJP in 1999, after a small war with Pakistan roused nationalist and Hinduist sentiment, look like its peak potential. If so, all it can hope for is to lead the sort of fractious coalition government that many now pray to have seen the back of.

The challenge of rising expectations

It would be unwise to bank on Congress answering that prayer. With a history of arrogance and infighting, it could squander its advantage—a decade ago, after all, it had only 114 seats. But that was after several years without Gandhi leadership. And, remarkable as it would have seemed then, Mrs Gandhi, Italian-born and a reluctant politician, has proved sufficient to restore order to the party’s disparate factions and regional parts. On the strength of this poll, Rahul Gandhi, for all his shortcomings, now has a fine opportunity to rebuild Congress. And if it could do even better in UP in India’s next general election, as seems possible, its government in Delhi could prove awfully hard to dislodge.
Then again, Indian voters are not to be second-guessed. And Congress must now earn their support. In a country with 60m malnourished children, 40% of the world’s total, and an abysmal record in providing its citizens with the basic education and medical care that is supposed to be theirs by right, there is much to be done. And freed of its most troublesome allies, Congress will have no excuse for failure.

Mr Singh, who says the party’s victory “comes with a challenge of rising expectations”, appears to welcome this. On May 19th he challenged his new government to provide “a social and political environment in which new investment can be made.” If that promises some liberal reforms, of the country’s statist financial sector, for example, or its ruinously politicised higher education, Congress’s victory would be welcome indeed.

Few in Congress claim to want such changes, however, and Mr Singh, beholden to Mrs Gandhi, does not command his party. Sadly, not much reform may follow. But for many Indians, and all who wish the country well, this is still a pleasing moment. The divisive BJP and belligerent Communists have been forced to think again. The venal SP, whose manifesto included a pledge to curb the worrying spread of computers and English, is not in the government. And Miss Mayawati, who had hoped to be India’s next prime minister, is stuck in UP, inspecting the many statues of herself that she is building there.

May 21st 2009 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition

Voters reject a ballot they could not comprehend


AT ONE point during his desperate campaign for six ballot measures meant to reduce California’s gaping budget deficit, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor, pleaded with voters not to make California “the poster child for dysfunction”. But on May 19th they did exactly that.

Confused and bored by the wonky and tangled wording on the ballot, most voters ignored the election entirely. Those who did turn out rejected all measures except one that freezes legislators’ pay during budget-deficit years—a ritualised form of venting general anger. Mr Schwarzenegger, already unpopular before this crisis, may well now be remembered as a failure. On election day, he fled the state for the more flattering photo opportunity of joining Barack Obama in the White House Rose Garden to announce tighter national fuel-efficiency standards for cars.

As a result of California’s election, the state now faces a $21.3 billion gap between revenues and spending. Life, which has been no picnic for many in this state since the recession began, is about to get a lot worse. There have already been two rounds of budget cuts since last autumn. A third, savage, round must now follow.

Mr Schwarzenegger has already hinted at the cuts he will propose to the legislature. The easy part is to release prisoners. California’s 33 prisons, with about 168,000 inmates, many of them locked up because of inflexible sentencing laws passed by voters, are scandalously overcrowded. Mr Schwarzenegger is thinking about freeing 38,000 people. Half of them are undocumented immigrants whom he would transfer to federal custody.

But “the real money is where the pain is”, says Jean Ross of the California Budget Project, a research firm in Sacramento. In health care, for instance. Just as Mr Obama is trying to give more people access to medical care, California will be taking it away: by cutting funding for Medi-Cal, the state’s programme for the poor, and changing eligibility rules for another programme so that 225,000 children are likely to lose coverage. And this at a time when many of their parents are losing their jobs and their employer-sponsored insurance.

Other programmes, from help with birth-control and HIV-prevention to counselling against drug abuse and domestic violence, will be made smaller or eliminated altogether. Child-welfare programmes will be cut by 10%. This means fewer investigations into allegations of child abuse and less supervision of foster care, even as more children are likely to be abused in difficult economic times, says Linda Canan at the Napa County Health and Human Services Agency.

Cuts in the education budget will probably shorten the school year by a week, require teachers to be laid off and cause classes to get bigger. The University of California, a network of ten campuses, will face cuts equivalent to 50,000 fewer students and perhaps 5,000 fewer staff.

It doesn’t end there. A plan, previously rejected, to drill for oil off the coast near Santa Barbara will be revived. And a statewide yard sale will be held. State properties, from a big coliseum in Los Angeles to concert halls and fairgrounds, will be auctioned off. Even the San Quentin prison, built during the gold rush and housing the state’s death row, may go. Jeff Denham, a Republican state senator who votes resolutely against any attempt to raise taxes, has for years wanted to move the prison to a cheaper place inland in order to sell its “ocean-front property” in the bay north of San Francisco. He may now get his way.

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~

May 26th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From Economist.com

Barack Obama’s first pick for the Supreme Court infuriates conservatives




EVEN before the announcement of Barack Obama’s choice for the vacant seat on the Supreme Court on Tuesday May 26th attack ads were up and clickable. Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals-court judge from New York, “didn’t give a fair shake in court to firefighters deprived [of] promotion on account of [their] race,” claimed an ad by the Judicial Confirmation Network, a conservative group. “Every American understands the sacrifices firefighters make, but in Sotomayor’s court, the content of your character is not as important as the colour of your skin.”
The ad refers to Ricci v DeStefano, a case involving firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut. The city told firefighters who wanted to be promoted that they had to take a test. But when no black firefighters passed, the city ignored the results and promoted no one. Several white firefighters sued for racial discrimination. Ms Sotomayor ruled against them. The case is now before the Supreme Court, which is expected to overturn Ms Sotomayor’s original decision.

The impending argument about Ms Sotomayor will be riven with this sort of identity politics. Mr Obama’s feminist supporters have been urging him to pick a woman to replace David Souter, a Supreme Court justice who recently announced his retirement. They are unhappy that only one of the incumbents is female. Many Hispanics, meanwhile, are keen to see one of their own on the country’s highest court. Ms Sotomayor ticks both boxes.
Although Mr Obama was at pains to stress her intellect, her long experience on the bench and her respect for the constitution, he made it clear that her background matters a lot to him. Her parents came from Puerto Rico and she rose from humble circumstances to graduate with academic distinction from Princeton. And she appears to believe that her sex and ethnicity will make her a better judge. She once said she hoped that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Conservatives argue that race and sex should be irrelevant when promoting judges—or firefighters. They contend that elected politicians should write laws and judges should apply them, or throw them out if they violate the constitution. They worry that Ms Sotomayor takes a more expansive view of judicial authority: she once said that appeals-court judges make policy.
Yet for all the heat Ms Sotomayor’s nomination is generating, she will almost certainly be confirmed by the Senate. Democrats have an ample majority—at least 59 seats out of 100. And Republicans are traditionally softer on the other party’s judicial nominees than are Democrats. Bill Clinton’s two nominees were confirmed by 96 votes to 3 and 87 to 9 respectively. Some Republicans say their party should copy the tactics of the Democrats who launched aggressive and personal attacks on conservative nominees such as Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork. Cooler heads retort that this would backfire: Ms Sotomayor will be confirmed anyway and yet more Hispanic and female voters will desert the Republican Party.

Some observers think Ms Sotomayor will make little difference to the Court, since she is a liberal replacing another liberal. Not so. At 54, she is 15 years younger than Mr Souter, and Supreme Court appointments are for life. And Mr Souter was no stereotypical liberal. He tended to side with the court’s liberals on social issues such as abortion. But he took a conservative view of frivolous lawsuits against corporations and excessive punitive damages.
How Ms Sotomayor will shape the court is hard to discern. In cases of alleged discrimination because of race, sex or age, she has usually sided with the plaintiffs. But she once ruled that the right to free speech barred New York City from firing an office worker for posting a racist letter. And on one occasion she ruled against an abortion-rights group. Her decisions as an appeals-court judge will be examined minutely in the coming weeks. But up until now, she has been obliged to defer to precedents set by the Supreme Court. Once on the Supreme Court, she will be free to rule as she pleases, for two, three or even four decades to come.

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~

Here we go again

May 25th 2009 | SEOUL
From Economist.com
America's government, and many others, condemn North Korea's latest nuclear test


Reuters
THE news that North Korea has conducted a second nuclear test, three years after its first, caused international consternation on Monday May 25th. America’s president, Barack Obama, issued a statement of concern, although he also noted that it was not too surprising to hear that North Korea is trying to whip up a commotion. On the same day the North Koreans launched a short-range missile. The events on Monday followed previous efforts that seemed designed to get the attention of America’s new-ish president, such as the launch in April of a rocket carrying a satellite.
The immediate international reaction has been relatively robust. The United Nations Security Council is due to discuss North Korea’s latest behaviour on Monday. Japan's government is calling for strong measures. The European Union’s foreign-policy chief, Javier Solana, wants a “firm” response. South Koreans, already mourning the death a former president at the weekend, had been expecting a launch: seismologists in South Korea had spotted evidence on Monday that a small explosion had taken place, apparently under a mountain in the north-east of North Korea. The South has anyway abandoned a “sunshine” policy to the North, in which diplomatic, social and economic engagement was encouraged. The current president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, says that even humanitarian assistance will be withheld until outsiders verify that North Korea has given up its (small) nuclear stockpile and long-range missiles. How China and Russia respond will determine how forceful a Security Council resolution might be.

If North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, hoped to panic southerners, or provoke America and others into rash and aggressive action, he will probably be disappointed. A Russian official on Monday gave warning against any “hysterical” reaction to the latest test by North Korea, but it seems likely that outsiders will not offer Mr Kim the devoted interest that he evidently craves.
In any case, the motivation for the test was probably as much domestic as international. Previous tantrums by North Koreas's leadership, threats to abandon six-party negotiations over its nuclear programme and warnings of further tests to come, are all par for the course for Pyongyang. What appears to be a more pressing concern for the regime is that Mr Kim needs to arrange for a successor. He was taken seriously ill last year, apparently having suffered a stroke, disappearing from public for several months. He is evidently still physically weak: television footage last month showed him to be gaunt and wan. Yet he may be seeking to assert his rule again, before handing power to a chosen successor, perhaps a son.
Hardliners from within the armed forces are thought to be increasingly influential within the regime, with the Dear Leader’s blessing. One of them, Kim Yong-chol, has dropped strong hints that he would like to see even the minimal remaining co-operation between North and South Korea brought to an end. According to the press in South Korea, those officials in the North who have spoken out in favour of moderation and co-operation have been arrested or stripped of their positions and sent to work on farms. One man who helped to lead earlier rapprochement with the South was reportedly executed. A former chief of the general staff of the North Korean People’s Army, Kim Kyok-sik, has been sent to oversee North Korea’s western borders. Some analysts in Seoul expect naval clashes in the Yellow Sea this summer.
North Korea’s bellicose nature is also part of efforts by Kim Jong Il to shore up his rule by appealing to nationalist sentiment. The glorification of North Korea’s nuclear bombs by domestic broadcasters is designed to rally ordinary people to a national cause. By keeping an exaggerated sense of fear among North Korea’s population, Mr Kim may yet hope to prolong his family’s rule. The dictator’s third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, is thought to be the favoured candidate as successor (although another son may be a contender). The younger Kim is said to accompany his father on all his public visits and recently helped to launch an economic revitalisation campaign.
Shutterstock

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~

May 25th 2009 | SEOUL
From Economist.com

America's government, and many others, condemn North Korea's latest nuclear test



THE news that North Korea has conducted a second nuclear test, three years after its first, caused international consternation on Monday May 25th. America’s president, Barack Obama, issued a statement of concern, although he also noted that it was not too surprising to hear that North Korea is trying to whip up a commotion. On the same day the North Koreans launched a short-range missile. The events on Monday followed previous efforts that seemed designed to get the attention of America’s new-ish president, such as the launch in April of a rocket carrying a satellite.

The immediate international reaction has been relatively robust. The United Nations Security Council is due to discuss North Korea’s latest behaviour on Monday. Japan's government is calling for strong measures. The European Union’s foreign-policy chief, Javier Solana, wants a “firm” response. South Koreans, already mourning the death a former president at the weekend, had been expecting a launch: seismologists in South Korea had spotted evidence on Monday that a small explosion had taken place, apparently under a mountain in the north-east of North Korea. The South has anyway abandoned a “sunshine” policy to the North, in which diplomatic, social and economic engagement was encouraged. The current president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, says that even humanitarian assistance will be withheld until outsiders verify that North Korea has given up its (small) nuclear stockpile and long-range missiles. How China and Russia respond will determine how forceful a Security Council resolution might be.

If North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, hoped to panic southerners, or provoke America and others into rash and aggressive action, he will probably be disappointed. A Russian official on Monday gave warning against any “hysterical” reaction to the latest test by North Korea, but it seems likely that outsiders will not offer Mr Kim the devoted interest that he evidently craves.

In any case, the motivation for the test was probably as much domestic as international. Previous tantrums by North Koreas's leadership, threats to abandon six-party negotiations over its nuclear programme and warnings of further tests to come, are all par for the course for Pyongyang. What appears to be a more pressing concern for the regime is that Mr Kim needs to arrange for a successor. He was taken seriously ill last year, apparently having suffered a stroke, disappearing from public for several months. He is evidently still physically weak: television footage last month showed him to be gaunt and wan. Yet he may be seeking to assert his rule again, before handing power to a chosen successor, perhaps a son.

Hardliners from within the armed forces are thought to be increasingly influential within the regime, with the Dear Leader’s blessing. One of them, Kim Yong-chol, has dropped strong hints that he would like to see even the minimal remaining co-operation between North and South Korea brought to an end. According to the press in South Korea, those officials in the North who have spoken out in favour of moderation and co-operation have been arrested or stripped of their positions and sent to work on farms. One man who helped to lead earlier rapprochement with the South was reportedly executed. A former chief of the general staff of the North Korean People’s Army, Kim Kyok-sik, has been sent to oversee North Korea’s western borders. Some analysts in Seoul expect naval clashes in the Yellow Sea this summer.

North Korea’s bellicose nature is also part of efforts by Kim Jong Il to shore up his rule by appealing to nationalist sentiment. The glorification of North Korea’s nuclear bombs by domestic broadcasters is designed to rally ordinary people to a national cause. By keeping an exaggerated sense of fear among North Korea’s population, Mr Kim may yet hope to prolong his family’s rule. The dictator’s third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, is thought to be the favoured candidate as successor (although another son may be a contender). The younger Kim is said to accompany his father on all his public visits and recently helped to launch an economic revitalisation campaign.

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~

May 28th 2009 | BEIJING, SEOUL, TOKYO
From The Economist print edition

Bad behaviour from a repeat offender, but will the world agree to punish him?


THE news that North Korea had carried out a second underground nuclear test, on May 25th, nearly three years after what it claimed was its first, and that it created a bigger bang this time, drew swift international condemnation. The United Nations Security Council speedily condemned the nuclear effrontery. Even China, a supposed friend of the rogue regime, piled in. Unabashed, the forces of Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s oddball dictator, subsequently fired off a handful of short-range missiles for good measure.
These fireworks follow the launch in April of a three-stage rocket over Japan and the Pacific. Until that point, it was still possible to argue that increasingly belligerent rhetoric from Mr Kim’s regime was just his way of catching the attention of President Barack Obama’s new administration. The pariah state had long said it wanted an accommodation with the United States that guaranteed its security. But engagement with the outside world now looks near the bottom of its priorities.

North Korea also says it has torn up the truce that ended the Korean war in 1953. This was provoked, it says, by South Korea’s decision to join the American-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a group that aims to block shipments of weapons of mass destruction and related contraband. South Korea was reacting to Mr Kim’s nuclear test; North Korea accused it of a “declaration of war”. With American and South Korean troops put on a higher alert, some kind of military clash looks possible.

North Korea has also said it is restarting its plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, closed since 2007 as part of a disarmament deal negotiated with America, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. International nuclear inspectors have been kicked out of the country. There is also concern that North Korea will resume selling nuclear technology abroad.

Earlier this month North Korea told South Korean managers at the Kaesong industrial complex, not long ago seen as a symbol of warming ties on the peninsula, that they must sign new, costlier contracts for North Korean workers, or pack up and go. The chief North Korean negotiator of closer relations between North and South, once a confidant of Mr Kim, is rumoured to have been sent to a labour camp and even shot, possibly for taking bribes.

Mr Kim has played high-stakes games before, only to return to the six-party talks aimed at getting North Korea to dismantle his programmes in return for aid and security guarantees. With what looks to have been a successful nuclear test (the previous one fizzled) the stakes have again been raised. But the North’s actions suggest it now wants to kill the six-party process.
Indeed, Mr Kim may have other things in mind. Not since the death of the divine (and now eternally president) Kim Il Sung in 1994, and the accession to power of his son, the current leader, has North Korean behaviour appeared so erratic. One assumption is that Mr Kim is locked in negotiations over the anointing of his successor. He reportedly suffered a stroke last summer and in rare appearances since has looked a shadow of his former paunchy self. The chief surprise is that the 68-year-old Dear Leader had not set the succession in train years before. One explanation may be that his offspring appear an underwhelming lot, with no great lust for power.
In April his brother-in-law, Jang Song Thaek, was appointed to the crucial National Defence Commission. It is thought he could act as regent to Mr Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong Un, still in his 20s. Of two elder sons, Kim Jong Nam was nabbed in Japan in 2001 using a false passport. And Kim Jong Chol has so far shown most interest in that other divinity, Eric Clapton, whose concerts he attended in Germany.

Kim Jong Il, it is claimed in North Korea, was born on the slopes of Korea’s sacred Paekdu mountain, and a double rainbow attended his birth. But for all that, he spent decades laying the groundwork to succeed his father, and even then many months passed before it was clear that Mr Kim was truly in command. The next succession will be trickier. That may explain why the jingoistic volume is now being cranked up, to show that Mr Kim has army support for his plans. In turn, senior commanders will be enjoying nuclear prestige.

All this leaves China in a quandary. The explosion could be felt in its north-eastern Jilin province. But the government in Beijing is more worried about turbulence in North Korea and the impact this could have on stability in its own borderlands. It is therefore likely to resist calls for tough new sanctions on Mr Kim’s regime.

Yet at the same time, it does not want to hear regional demands, especially from Japan, for stronger anti-missile defences or other weaponry that would undermine its military clout. American diplomats will point out to China that by putting a curb on Mr Kim they could help the United States reassure its ally, Japan, and help damp down any alarming talk of its rearming.
But the main diplomatic action has moved for now to the UN Security Council. North Korea’s actions have been met with unanimous condemnation. Japan, within range of the North’s missiles, is pushing hardest for punitive sanctions on top of the existing ones that have failed to bite. Indeed, sanctions agreed after Mr Kim’s 2006 test were never fully implemented, after China managed to coax North Korea back into talks.
That policy has now been shown to have failed, though China still claims that negotiations provide the only solution. It has given no hint that it is prepared to punish its ally with anything more than a scolding. If so, others may take stronger action. America has in the past shown that financial sanctions on banks that deal with North Korea can cause both them and Mr Kim massive inconvenience.

On May 28th the Security Council was due to meet behind closed doors to discuss a possible new resolution on North Korea. It is not certain what more can be done by way of sanctions, nor how firmly these could be implemented, even if they were agreed. Meanwhile, most members of the six-party process will want to make clear to North Korea that the door remains open to it, however much it wants to slam it shut.

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~

May 29th 2009
From Economist.com

Don't get too excited about some recent brighter economic news



IT HAS been a cheerful couple of days for those starved of bright economic news. Hopeful statistics have been trickling in from many parts of the world. On Friday May 29th revised first quarter GDP figures for America showed that the economy there had contracted slightly less than had earlier been reported. In addition durable-goods orders in the country rose by the most in 16 months. In Japan, factory output rose by 5.2% in April, the biggest monthly increase, in percentage terms, in over half a century. And in the first quarter India’s economy grew by a bullish 5.8%, compared with a year before, while South Korea’s industrial production continued to rise in April.

Even in gloomy Europe there are encouraging signs. Poland’s GDP ticked up by 0.8% in the first quarter, as did German private consumption (in the same period) and retail sales also grew, by 0.5%, in April. British consumer confidence remained steady in April, and house prices there rose both in March and May, according to one index.

For optimists, these are all signs that might point towards the beginning of the end of the “Great Recession”. Headline writers, and those who are urging stockmarkets to continue rising, will continue to talk of hopes of recovery. Yet a closer look at the detail of the latest figures suggests that hope springs eternal and will latch on to what it can—even when a more sober analysis would suggest there is a long way to go before recovery sets in.

Optimists make much of statistics that beat analysts’ expectations. But when a particular figure outdoes predictions it may be because those expectations were overly pessimistic, rather than a sign that something fundamental has changed for the better.

What, for instance, is the right reference point on the latest news on India's economy? Doomsters might fret that it has grown at the slowest quarterly pace in several years. Cheerleaders could rejoice that it has expanded slightly faster than most people had expected. Weary of negative news, the latter explanation is a tempting way to make sense of the numbers, but the gloomy view is equally valid.

Consider, too, the figures for consumer confidence in Britain. Although consumer gloom seems to have abated, the reported level of –27 is remarkably low by historical standards. If one takes into account reports that British consumers had been growing a bit more confident in recent months, the latest statistic could suggest a halt to a small rally, which is hardly something to cheer. This example highlights the difficulty of extrapolating from a single month or quarter of data, which can easily be skewed by one-off events such as a national holiday or sudden desperate measures by retailers to offload stock. Discerning whether a more sustained recovery might be under way takes, unsurprisingly, more data.

Thus pessimists, who are unconvinced that the worst is over for the world economy, have much to reinforce their dark mood. One particular concern is that the financial and credit problems at the root of the global recession have not been dealt with satisfactorily. Keiichiro Kobayashi, a Japanese economist, has looked back to Japan’s experience in the late 1990s and argues that unless the banks are fixed, a strong recovery for the world economy is impossible. Some disagree, suggesting that economic output can bounce back even before credit and financial markets are again healthy, if consumers get their wallets open. But even if this argument is compelling in some historical cases, this time it seems that household spending in many economies will remain weak because of high levels of debt.

One man who has made his name in recent years as a doom-monger, Nouriel Roubini, an economist at New York University, recently suggested that recovery from recession was far from imminent, arguing that “it's going to last another six to nine months”. It might not be surprising that he avoids a bullish prediction, but Mr Roubini goes one step further, noting that other economists are still suggesting a “doomsday” scenario, with continuing contraction for a long time to come, and thus even he could be considered as an optimist.

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~

May 31st 2009
From Economist.com

Elections for the European Parliament and other news
• EUROPEANS go to the polls on for elections to the European Parliament that start on Thursday June 4th with Dutch and British voters the first to make their choices. The remainder of the voters among the European Union’s 500m people in 27 countries cast their votes over the next three days. Enthusiasm is generally low for European elections. Moreover, in many countries voters use the election to send a message to national governments rather than concentrating on EU-wide issues.


• BARACK OBAMA will visit the Middle East to discuss with regional leaders the new administration’s efforts to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians and the threat form Iran’s nuclear ambitions. On Thursday June 4th Mr Obama is set to make a speech in Cairo addressing the Muslim world; he hopes to repair the damage to relations inflicted under his predecessor, George Bush.

• THE deadline for General Motors to prove that it can make the necessary restructuring efforts outside of bankruptcy falls on Monday June 1st. The carmaker is almost certain to seek chapter 11 protection to complete a “pre-packaged” bankruptcy procedure that will see it pass into the ownership of America’s government and its union. GM’s creditors have already turned down a deal that would have seen them get a mere 10% stake in the car company in return for their loans of $27 billion. But it is far from clear that they can expect to do any better in a bankruptcy court.


• AMERICA'S treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, goes to China on Monday June 1st to talk to the country’s president, prime minister and other big-wigs about economic relations between the two powers. Mr Geithner caused upset in China during his confirmation hearing by suggesting that the country had manipulated its currency to America’s detriment. Mr Geithner is unlikely to repeat the charges as a graver concern, China’s continued willingness to buy American government debt, is in some question.


• China marks an unpleasant anniversary on Thursday June 4th: it is 20 years since the massacre in Tiananmen Square that brought to an end six weeks of pro-democracy protests in Beijing. China’s army crushed popular protests, killing hundreds. Dissidents claim that China has again launched a crackdown ahead of the sensitive anniversary.


• WORK on the successor to the Kyoto treaty on climate change continues in Bonn on Monday June 1st. The meeting of senior figures from the world's governments is the latest in a long line of talks in the run-up to a UN summit in Copenhagen in December. A row about how to share cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions may be avoided this time, pending the passage of a climate-change bill through America's Congress. Talks may instead focus on how best to channel funds earmarked for fighting climate change to developing countries.

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~

May 30th 2009
From Economist.com

Iran’s presidential election campaign is under way. Expect the return of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad



WITH barely two weeks to go before a presidential election in Iran, on June 12th, four candidates are engaged in their campaigns. The election comes at a relatively bleak time, with the economy battered and amid anxiety about international relations. Yet the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is likely to win.

Some 475 people originally put themselves forward as potential candidates, but only four were permitted to stand by the authorities after a vetting process. It appears that Mr Ahmadinejad, a conservative, and Mir Hosein Mousavi, a moderate rival, are the two leading candidates. Neither of the remaining pair—another moderate, Mehdi Karroubi, and a conservative former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaie—is showing much momentum in his campaign.

No sitting president has ever lost a race for a second term in Iran, but Mr Ahmadinejad may feel a twinge of concern. Urban Iranians, in particular, criticise him for his mishandling of the economy. Others are unhappy about what they see as an unnecessarily belligerent foreign policy which has led to the isolation of Iran over criticism of the country’s nuclear programme.
Voters who are disgruntled with Mr Ahmadinejad are expected, mostly, to turn to Mr Mousavi, a reformist and former prime minister, who may also be able to appeal to some conservatives. Those who are worried about the economic downturn may recall that Mr Mousavi was a reasonably competent manager of the economy during the Iran-Iraq war that lasted from 1980 to 1988. That he served as an adviser to Muhammad Khatami, the moderate predecessor to the current president, should endear him to reformists; the religious-minded may be reassured by the fact that he was a favourite of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s founding father.


But Mr Ahmadinejad has made some efforts, too, to appeal to waverers. In foreign policy his rivals, though not promising to suspend the nuclear programme, have said that they would take a less confrontational stance. In response Mr Ahmadinejad said on Monday May 25th that he would be willing to meet the American president, Barack Obama, at the United Nations to discuss “world issues and the way towards peace”. It is far from clear that such a conciliatory tone from the president would persist after the election.


Mr Ahmadinejad is an adroit campaigner. He has reportedly distributed 400,000 tonnes of potatoes to voters, and has warned his rivals not to criticise him, suggesting that to do so would be a breach of electoral law. As campaigning got under way his government temporarily blocked access to Facebook, perhaps fearing that opponents might organise themselves using the social-networking website. The opposition accused the government of imposing a gag which, in particular, would affect the many young voters who use the service. Access has since been restored.


The outcome will be strongly influenced by how many of the 46m registered voters actually turn out. Mr Ahmadinejad can probably bank on collecting 13m voters at least, whatever the turnout. Thus a poor showing, perhaps around 26m voters, would probably benefit the incumbent. In contrast a high turnout, say above 30m, might well do Mr Mousavi a great service.
There are some indications that the polling stations will be busy. Last time, in 2005, some reformist groups called for a boycott of the election in protest against the way it was run. This time there have been no such calls. Reformists may take issue with the way Iran’s elections are organised, but they have decided this time to take part fully.

One important endorsement remains elusive. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, seems to be hedging his bets. His calls for Iranians to vote for an anti-Western candidate have been interpreted as support for his current president. But in a speech in March he made it clear that his backing for the government should not be seen as support for Mr Ahmadinejad’s candidacy.

The winning candidate will need more than half the votes to avoid a second round. If none achieves this, a run-off vote will be held on June 19th, with many expecting a face-off between Mr Ahmadinejad and Mr Mousavi.

__________________
~Time owns each and everything~
~Useless youth if not useful for Pakistan~

NOBODY, it seems, saw it coming. Fikret Akcura, the United Nations’ senior official in Pakistan, concedes that there is still no clear plan for giving aid to most of those who have fled fighting in the Swat valley between the Pakistani army and Islamist militants. He defends the relief effort, which has seen camps hastily prepared for the displaced. But some 80% of the estimated 2.4m uprooted people have sought refuge elsewhere. The difficulties are only just beginning. As the army asserts control in Swat, it is becoming clear that, as elsewhere in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and adjoining tribal areas, the civilian administration there is rotten.

The military campaign, now in its sixth week, was launched after Taliban fighters flouted a peace deal covering the Malakand division in NWFP, which includes the valley. On May 30th the army said it had recaptured Mingora, Swat’s main town. The army claims to have killed 1,200 militants, at the cost of 90 soldiers’ lives. For once, public opinion is firmly behind the operation. Support, however, could dissipate fast if the displaced are not cared for, and Taliban leaders simply melt away.

On June 3rd Richard Holbrooke, America’s envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, visiting Islamabad, said the administration had asked Congress for $200m in emergency aid for the displaced. The UN had appealed for $543m to help it cope with the humanitarian disaster, but so far raised just $137m. When the fighting started, it was already struggling to help 500,000 refugees from earlier campaigns in Swat and the Bajaur tribal area.

Under Mr Akcura, the UN has only just started to look beyond its established humanitarian programmes in Pakistan to the consequences of the insurgency. A recent internal report argued that it should quickly involve itself in bolstering the government in NWFP and the tribal areas, to avert grave instability. As the head of the NWFP police, Malik Naveed, says: “You name it, we need it.” The boss of a hospital in Peshawar, NWFP’s capital, says the flood of refugees has almost bankrupted it.

America has committed $750m in aid to the tribal areas, but some of the contractors through whom the money is being channelled are indistinguishable from bandits, and the local administration is threadbare and corrupt. Khalid Aziz, formerly a senior official in the area, says there is neither proper oversight nor any overall strategy. A decades-old debate about how to govern the semi-autonomous tribal areas shows no sign of producing an answer.

This week clashes between the security forces and militants in the tribal areas intensified. On June 2nd troops rescued 79 students and staff from a college in North Waziristan, after they were abducted by tribal militants. The army is poised to extend its campaign into South Waziristan, the main base of Baitullah Mehsud, the chieftain of the Pakistani Taliban. The UN estimates this will displace another 500,000 people. In readiness for the expected fighting, the Red Cross has opened a hospital for the war-wounded in Peshawar.

Over the six weeks of the campaign, militants have carried out a dozen bomb attacks across Pakistan, including three on May 24th in the north-west, a day after 24 people were killed by gunfire and a suicide-bomb in Lahore. But, in the eyes of the authorities at least, there are still good and bad jihadists. On June 2nd, to the fury of Indian officials, Lahore’s high court freed from house arrest Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. Now posing as the head of a charity, he founded Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist outfit accused of killing some 170 people in Mumbai last November.