Opposition Rallies in Haiti

Police firing tear gas canisters met a crowd of more than 1,000 people demanding the resignation of Haiti’s President Rene Preval on Tuesday, according to the BBC. Opposition politicians, who are claiming that Preval is using the earthquake last January that killed more than 200,000 people as an excuse to remain in power once his term in office ends next February, led the protest. Haiti’s parliament just extended Preval’s term in office by three more months because, they say, it would be impossible to hold elections as scheduled because many government electoral records were lost and many civil servants were killed in the quake; opposition politicians though counter by saying that Haiti’s constitution makes no provisions for suspending elections due to a national crisis.

In the aftermath of the quake, many Haitians were upset by Preval’s seeming lack of leadership; some also felt that the Haitian government was allowing foreign militaries - particularly the United States’ – too free a hand in operating within their country while providing relief efforts. During Tuesday’s protest, some protestors called for the return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was driven from power and into exile in Africa six years ago. For his part, Aristide claims that he was actually deposed by the United States in a coup d’etat for his refusal to sell off state-owned enterprises; at the time, officials from the Bush Administration countered by saying that the US military actually helped Aristide and his family escape the country ahead of an armed uprising by Haitians opposed to his rule, the US hoped, as a way to avoid a full-blown revolution in Haiti. Aristide was flown into exile first in the Central African Republic and later in South Africa. Preval was later elected to the presidency in 2006.

Tax Evasion As An Olympic Sport

With the Greek economic collapse dominating the foreign news lately, this piece from Sunday’s Guardian is well worth reading. American pundits, particularly those on the Right, have used the Greek collapse to push the argument that public welfare programs are inherently bad for a country. And while Greece has had an almost unbelievably generous public welfare system (like a retirement age of 54), there’s another factor that has helped to push the country to the brink of economic collapse – the way the Greeks treat tax evasion as their national pastime.

The Guardian notes that despite the sprawling suburbs that surround Athens, only 15,000 Greeks claim incomes of over 100,000 Euros. When the Greek government tried to use Google Earth’s public access satellite imagery to locate swimming pools in the yards of Greek houses (a sign, apparently, of affluence), Greek citizens invested in fake grass and asphalt nets to disguise their pools from space. Tax evasion is estimated to cost the country 20 billion Euros per year, while a whopping 30% percent of the Greece’s GDP is believed to be on their black (unofficial and untaxed) economy. Obviously, losing that much tax income is going to cause some severe problems for the national economy.

The Greek attitude towards paying (or more precisely not paying) taxes has left Greece’s last surviving military dictator Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos feeling somewhat vindicated for his anti-democratic rule. “In our time there was no debt. Not one drachma went astray. The Greeks are not disciplined like the Germans or the British. They need authority,” Pattakos was quoted as saying in the Guardian.

Victory Day

Last year President Barack Obama and heads of state from across Europe gathered on the beaches of Normandy to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings that marked one of the turning points of World War II. The reason for the huge memorial service last year was the tacit admission that given the increasing age of WWII veterans, the 65th was likely the last milestone anniversary where actual participants would be able to attend in sizeable numbers. This weekend marks the 65th anniversary of the actual end of the war in Europe, yet this anniversary is passing across Europe and the United States with almost no notice.

Except, that is, for Russia where “Victory Day” (May 9th) is the largest secular holiday in the Russian calendar. The Russians too realize the significance of the 65th anniversary to their surviving vets, so they have made an effort to make this year’s Victory Day commemoration the largest in recent years. Russia Today has spent the past several weeks conducting interviews and gathering first-person accounts from veterans and Russians who were on the homefront during the War; they have compiled all of them on a special website dedicated to Victory Day. And for the first time contingents of troops representing the Soviet Union’s allies during the war are participating in the annual military parade in Moscow, including soldiers from France, the United Kingdom, Poland and the United States.

You would think the site of American troops marching through Red Square for first time ever would be big news, but apparently it’s not, since their participation merited only a passing mention on the cable news channels and news sites on the Web this morning. It’s too bad, since beyond the historic visuals was also an attempt by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to reach out to his fellow heads of state to try to foster a new era of international cooperation. Medvedev said during his official remarks: “Only together can we counter present-day threats. Only as good neighbors can we resolve problems of global security in order that the ideals of justice and good triumph in all of the world.” It’s worth noting that Angela Merkel, head of Russia’s adversary in WWII, stood next to Vladimir Putin during the ceremony, while China’s Hu Jintao sat with Medvedev. Poland’s acting President Bronislaw Komorowski was also in attendance, a sign of the rapidly improving relationship between Russia and Poland, a relationship that ironically seems to have been helped by the recent tragic plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and many high-ranking government officials. Poles have appreciated the sensitive manner in which Russia dealt with the tragedy – Medvedev was one of a handful of world leaders who actually made it to Kaczynski’s state funeral, many others cancelled due to the disruption of international flight patters caused the volcano in Iceland.

For News Editors, It’s Still 1983

In my latest post over at The Mantle, I take a look at the strange way news editors cover International Politics, particularly a tendency among them to continue to view the world like the Cold War was still going on. I talk about how not only does this ignore how today's complex and interdependent world really operates, but it also is bad for their readers since it provides them with a lot of faulty thinking in the area of International Relations. Check out the whole piece over at The Mantle.

Goodluck, Jonathan

You would think that the death of the president of Africa’s most populous nation would rate more than a passing mention on the news. But apparently that’s not the case, as the death of President Umaru Yar'Adua scored only a few short blurbs on the cable news channels today. Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in this morning as president, a role he has been filling since February in the wake of a lingering heart ailment that had effectively removed Yar'Adua from office last November.

The lack of interest over the death of Yar'Adua illustrates the misplaced priorities of both the American press and foreign policy services, which pay too much attention to developments in the Middle East and not nearly enough to what’s happening in Africa. The oft-stated reasons for America’s fixation on the Middle East usually come down to oil and terrorism. But Africa is on pace to surpass the Persian Gulf in terms of oil export to the United States by mid-decade; the Associated Press notes that in January, Nigeria was America’s 4th largest oil supplier, surpassing Saudi Arabia in the process. At the same time, al-Qaeda’s most active franchise operations are increasingly located in Africa, including al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) located in Algeria and operating through northwestern Africa; and Islamic groups like al-Shabab operating in Somalia, but with designs on the whole Horn of Africa region. But despite Africa’s growing relevance to American energy and security interests, attention tends only to fall on the continent when a war breaks out, or a natural disaster (or some other kind of humanitarian crisis) occurs.

President Yar'Adua brought a measure of stability to Nigeria, which had suffered through a number of military coups in the half-century since gaining independence (Yar’Adua’s election was the first peaceful transfer of power in the nation’s history), in part by bridging differences between the Christian south and Muslim north. But he also plunged the country into a constitutional crisis as his inner circle tried to cling to power after Yar'Adua had been taken gravely ill in November. Yar'Adua was taken to Saudi Arabia for treatment; it was only after he had been absent from the country for months before public pressure built enough to allow Goodluck Jonathan to assume title of acting president. According to Phillip van Niekerk in today’s Huffington Post, that the story of Yar'Adua’s illness even became a matter of public record was only due to some intrepid investigative journalism by Next, a Lagos-based newspaper. Next resisted official pressure from Yar'Adua loyalists, and even Nigeria’s State Security Service, to run a story in January claiming that Yar'Adua’s condition had deteriorated to the point where he did not recognize friends and family – despite official claims that he was “recovering.” The story prompted the parliament into action, and finally brought Jonathan into power.

Perhaps the American press corps could take a lesson or two on the need to report important stories…

We’ll Put This In The “Maybe” Column…

Thousands of barrels-worth of oil continue to leak into the Gulf of Mexico from the site of the BP drilling rig collapse, threatening an ecological disaster along the Gulf Coast of almost unimaginable proportions. BP’s latest plan is to drop what’s basically a giant funnel connected to a hose over the leaking pipes on the seabed, hoping to trap the oil and pump it to barges on the surface – BP though has never tried this tactic in water as deep as the current leak site and is not overly optimistic about its chances for success. But according to Russia Today, some former Soviet scientists think they have a solution to stopping the leak – use a nuclear bomb.

Incredibly there is a precident for this bizarre action. In 1963 a natural gas well in Uzbekistan failed catastrophically, resulting in a plume of flame 120 meters tall that consumed 12 million cubic meters of gas per day. For three years, the blowout resisted all attempts to extinguish it. Finally, a group of Soviet nuclear physicists stepped in to help, not surprisingly their idea came in the form of a small nuclear bomb. Since everything else they had failed, Soviet authorities decided to go ahead with the nuclear solution – a shaft was drilled down to the gas well and the bomb set off, effectively sealing the gas vein and finally extinguishing the fire.

Strangely enough, during the Cold War both the United States and Soviet Union both tried to think up ways that nuclear weapons could be used for peaceful purposes. The American version was “Operation Plowshare”, the logic was that one nuclear bomb could remove more material in a moment than a huge crew of men and machines could during weeks, or months, of labor. The ideas proposed under Operation Plowshare included using nuclear bombs to cleave passes through mountain ranges for highways or to carve a new shipping canal across Central America; the idea that came closest to reality was one to use five hydrogen bombs to create an artificial harbor in Alaska, a plan that was only scuttled when officials realized that the proposed harbor would be literally in the middle of nowhere.

The physicists interviewed by Russia Today admit that while a nuclear bomb did successfully seal the Uzbek gas fire, it was also set off in the middle of a desert, and that detonating a nuclear weapon in the Gulf of Mexico might have some adverse effects on the ecology.

Kenya: Newspaper Heaven

Newsprint may be a dying medium, just don't tell that to Kenya. According to the Utne Reader, even in this digital age, Kenyans love their newspapers, so much so that each copy of a Kenyan newspaper is read on average by fourteen people and Kenyans who can't afford to buy their own personal copy of the local paper may "rent" one at a local newsstand - the equivalent of 13 cents will by you a half-hour of newspaper enjoyment in the capital, Nairobi. A study published in the Columbia Journalism Review points to a lack of Internet access across much of the country as a reason for the dominance of newsprint in the country. But newspapers also fill a social niche in Kenyan culture, where people will still gather to discuss the events of the day carried in the local broadsheet. One young Kenyan quoted in Utne said that even though he can access the web via his mobile phone, he expects to still read newspapers in 20 years, adding: "newspapers will not die here, definitely not."

Hezbollah’s Mystery Scuds

It’s the Mid East mystery that won’t die; for the past month accusations have been flying that Hezbollah, the Islamic group that the United States and Israel regard as a terrorist organization, yet which also is a member of Lebanon’s national parliament, has received Scud ballistic missiles from Syria. Israel first made the claim in early April as part of a stark (though off-the-record) warning to Syrian officials that if Hezbollah were to launch Scuds against Israel, then Israel would retaliate against Syria as well as the government of Lebanon, based on the assumption that since Hezbollah is represented in the Lebanese parliament the attack was sanctioned by the Lebanese government. Subsequent reports suggest that the Scuds may have originated in Iran, with Syria acting as a middleman between them and Hezbollah. The United States has even weighed in on the issue warning Syrian diplomats in Washington DC not to rearm Hezbollah (UN Security Council resolution 1701 forbids any weapons shipments to Lebanon not approved by the United Nations), and especially not to provide them with Scuds. The US called Syrian policy towards Hezbollah “ill-conceived.”

Israel has a long history of conflict with Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group based in Lebanon and funded in part by Iran. Most recently, Israel engaged in a 34-day conflict with Hezbollah in 2006 over persistent rocket attacks fired into northern Israel from Hezbollah bases in Lebanon. That conflict resulted in more than 1,200 casualties in Lebanon - many of them civilians, 160 dead in Israel, caused widespread damage across southern Lebanon, but ultimately did not bring about the end of Hezbollah as a force in Lebanese politics and culture, so in that respect the conflict was a tactical defeat for Israel. The rockets used by Hezbollah during the 2006 conflict were mostly Katyushas – a kind of artillery rocket that can trace its history back to the Soviet Union and World War II. Katyushas are about the size of a lamppost, can be carried by a few men, and fired from a simple metal tripod, though a series of tubes mounted on the back of a truck is a more common firing arrangement for Katyushas (during WWII the Germans called these trucks Stalin’s Pipe Organs). The Katyusha has a fairly short range, and fairly small warhead (only about 50 lbs). The Scud can also trace its lineage back to WWII, this time to the German V-2 rocket. A Scud, by comparison, is about 40 feet long, weighs several tons, has a range of several hundred miles and needs its own launch vehicle (about the size of a school bus) to operate.

And that’s what makes the Scud claims sound dubious – considering that US and Israeli satellites monitor the Iranian and Syrian borders, it’s hard to imagine either country being able to slip something the size of a bus past them unnoticed. Egypt’s foreign minister has already expressed his doubts over the Scud claims and on Saturday Syria fired back, (diplomatically, that is) cautioning Washington not to accept Israel’s allegations, before making their own claim that what really destabilizes the security situation in the region is instead the United States’ military support for Israel. So far neither the United States nor Israeli governments have offered concrete proof to back up the Scud allegations.

So why make the claim, especially one that has the region in such an uproar? One possible answer could be found in this article from the March 26th New York Times. It is a report on a war game simulation conducted by the Brookings Institution over what could follow an Israeli air strike against suspected nuclear sites in Iran. The simulation found that rather than strike back at Israel directly, Iran would likely use proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas to launch hit-and-run rocket attacks into Israel in an attempt to destabilize the country. Israel’s Scud accusation – linking Hezbollah, the Lebanese government, Syria and Iran together in the process – could be a warning then that such a retaliation could spark a region-wide war.

More Manliness From Vladimir Putin

The Vladimir Putin, Man of Action calendar is just about complete. The Russian prime minister has made it a habit during his term in office of being photographed engaging in a number of incredibly “manly” situations, including: riding in a jet fighter, participating in a judo match, wading bare-chested through a Siberian river and catching a tiger in Russia’s Far East. He added another one to the album this past week while visiting the Arctic where he helped a crew attach a radio-tracking collar to a wild polar bear. The actual reason for the visit was to highlight Russia’s efforts to study the effects of global warming on local fauna and also to subtly reinforce Russia’s claims to a sizable chunk of the rapidly melting Arctic Ocean. The visual with the polar bear was good, but for me I don’t think it was quite as good at the image to the right of a fur-clad Putin riding a horse this past February through a crisp Siberian winter morning in Khakassia. That image made me think of John Wayne, unfortunately it made me think of John Wayne in one of the worst movies ever made – The Conqueror, where the Duke played Genghis Khan (seriously) and delivered lines like: “rejoice mother, there shall be feasting tonight” (again, seriously). I can only assume that none of the visual directors in the Kremlin has ever even heard of The Conqueror…

On a more serious note, for my take from last year on the cultural implications of Vladimir Putin’s he-man pictorials, click here.

Grover Cleveland, Hawaiian Hero

To most Americans, President Grover Cleveland is known (if he’s known at all) as the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. But to a growing group of Hawaiian home-rule advocates, he’s becoming something of a folk hero; so much so that yesterday a delegation traveled from Hawaii to his birthplace in Caldwell, New Jersey for the first-ever “Presidential Luau” in his honor.

The reason for this love for a largely forgotten 19th century president is Cleveland’s decision immediately after taking office for a second time in 1893 to withdraw a bill before the Senate to annex Hawaii. Earlier in January 1893, a group of wealthy American businessmen and elite native Hawaiians led by Sanford Dole overthrew Hawaii’s last monarch, Queen Liliuokalani and almost immediately petitioned for annexation by the United States, something President Benjamin Harrison was trying to push through Congress when his term ended. Cleveland was skeptical of the “revolution” and sent a delegation to investigate the matter. The delegation’s formal report found that a majority of the Hawaiian population was actually opposed to annexation by the United States. Cleveland said at the time:

“I suppose that right and justice should determine the path to be followed in treating this subject. If national honesty is to be disregarded and a desire for territorial expansion or dissatisfaction with a form of government not our own ought to regulate our conduct, I have entirely misapprehended the mission and character of our government and the behavior which the conscience of the people demands of their public servants.”

While Cleveland prevented the outright annexation of Hawaii, the United States also did not move to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne either; instead the short-lived Republic of Hawaii was established with Sanford Dole (big surprise there) serving as its one-and-only president. Hawaii was ultimately annexed by Cleveland’s successor, William McKinley in 1898. While Cleveland ultimately only delayed the inevitable, his stand on principle that it was an abuse of power for the United States to attempt to annex Hawaii has made him something of a cult hero today – a Grover Cleveland facebook page has more than 1,200 fans and calls him a “hero for Hawaii” (and “way cooler than any furry blue puppet.”).

Currently, there is a bill before Congress, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, which would grant native Hawaiians a "federally recognized government-to-government relationship" with the United States, much like many Native American tribes in the other 49 states enjoy. Grover Cleveland would likely approve.