A-pirating again

The pirates of Somalia had a quiet start to 2009, and the US Navy is taking the credit.

At the end of 2008 the Navy announced the creation of Combined Task Force 151, a unit dedicated to fighting piracy in the Gulf of Aden, joining the navies of more than a dozen other countries from around the world operating off the coast of Somalia. After boom times earlier in the year that at one point saw the pirates holding nearly three dozen ships, successful hijackings fell to just a handful in December. Task Force 151's commander, Rear Admiral Terry McKnight, thinks the US has been a decisive factor in the drop.

But as Wired magazine's ‘Danger Room’ blog points out, the US Navy hasn’t actually ever engaged any pirates - unlike the navies of countries like India, Germany and Russia. And even Rear Adm. McKnight notes that the weather might be as big a factor in the drop in attacks as the presence of the US Navy, noting that the pirates’ boats tend to be small fishing craft, not suited for heavy weather and rough seas. “When the weather picks up, they tend to stay at home, and not out here,” McKnight said in a recent conference call. So much for being a decisive factor.

In fact, hot on the heels of McKnight's press conference, the pirates did land their first major prize of the year - a German tanker the MV Longchamp, which is believed to be carrying a cargo of gasoline. The pirates used a bit of trickery to catch the tanker, first launching an attack on another ship to draw naval vessels in the area away from the Longchamp, which they were then able to quickly board and capture. The German tanker's crew is reported to be okay, and will now likely be held along with their ship for ransom (the Somali pirates are estimated to have made $50 million last year from this cargo ship catch-and-release process).

And another navy is now looking to get in on the action off Somalia. Japan announced that they would be sending one of their destroyers to join in on the international patrols, though Japan will have to amend the law to allow the ship to go. Under the post-war constitution the United States wrote for Japan while we were occupying them after their surrender, Japan's military can only act in self-defense, so, technically, the Japanese ship could only respond if the pirates attacked either a Japanese-owned vessel, or one with a Japanese crew. Prime Minister Taro Aso is planning to introduce an amendment to the law to let their navy engage pirates attacking any ship.

Japan appears to have decided to send their navy to Africa after China sent two warships to the region last month, the first time in modern history that the Chinese Navy has operated away from their home waters.

Russia, Georgia feud over 'defecting' soldier

Russia and Georgia are engaged in another war of words, this time over Alexander Glukhov, a 21-year old Russian Army sergeant.

Glukhov, and Georgia, say that he defected from his unit in South Ossetia because of the deplorable conditions at his army base and abuse from his superior officer; Russia claims that Glukhov was kidnapped by Georgian spies and brainwashed into making his comments about the military – a view of the events back up by Glukhov's mother, who told Russia's RIA-Novosti “what he's saying doesn't resemble him.” Galina Glukhova added, “it doesn't sound like it's coming from him. Someone must be pushing him.”

Glukhov is a draftee from Sarapul, in central Russia. He said on Georgian TV that despite the harsh winter conditions found in the mountains of South Ossetia, his unit was forced to stay in tents heated only by small stoves that didn't work well. He described his commanding officer as a major who “drank all the time” and took a dislike to Glukhov, constantly swearing at him. Glukhov said he couldn't bear it any longer and defected to the Georgian side.

Like many things in the Russia-Georgia conflict, it’s a little hard to figure out what’s going on here. There is a lot about Glukhov's story that makes sense - abuse by superior officers has been a terrible problem in the Russian military, especially since the end of the Soviet Union. In the past few years there have been high-profile cases of conscript soldiers dying as a result of abuse (and one well-publicized story of a soldier who had to have both legs and his genitals amputated because of hazing from his superiors). Soldiers often complain about poor-quality, or totally absent, supplies. As a result, there is a high rate of desertion in the Russian military, with many conscripts (military service is required of all young males) simply not showing up.

But part of Glukhov’s story is a little hard to believe. He claims to now be living among Georgian refugees from South Ossetia now living near the capital, Tbilisi - it is hard to imagine though that Georgian refugees would welcome a Russian soldier to live among them considering that they blame the Russian military for driving them from their homes in the first place.

Speaking of Georgian refugees- the BBC went to visit one of the villages that the Georgian government has built for people displaced from South Ossetia by the conflict, it was a pretty bleak place.

The UN's High Commissioner for Refugees in Georgia criticized the housing built by the Georgian government as sub-standard and not adequately heated in the winter. The government also gave each family a small plot of land, but the UNHCR they could likely not earn a living from them by farming because they were too small. Residents of the village interviewed by the BBC complained about a lack of wood to heat their new homes, a lack of jobs and running water. The Georgian government said that things will improve in the springtime, but many villagers seemed hopeless.

“This is not a life, it is just an existence,” one young man said. “If I continue to live here I will not be living,” adding that he could not get married since he did not want to bring his wife into the sad setting of the refugee village.

Hard to imagine these folks welcoming a Russian soldier…

Fidel wants Gitmo back

After first praising Barack Obama as “intelligent and noble” and hailing his election, Cuba’s Fidel Castro has a new message for the president - he wants the US Navy to leave Guantanamo Bay.

Guantanamo has been in the news recently because of the detention center for suspected terrorists, but the US Navy’s presence there goes back more than a century. After the United States wrestled Cuba from Spain in the Spanish-American war, the new Cuban government signed a treaty with the US, giving them the right to put a naval base in Guantanamo Bay. One provision of the deal was that the treaty would last until the US either abandoned the base, or until both countries agreed to end the deal. Cuba has wanted the US to leave for decades - even going so far as to not cash the annual rent checks (each for a little more than $4,000) the US sends for the land at Guantanamo - but the United States refuses to end the treaty, so the base remains. And while Pres. Obama has ordered the closure of the detention center at Gitmo, he has no intention of closing the naval base itself.

Castro’s request marks a rare foray into international politics for Fidel, who turned control of Cuba over to his brother Raul last year after Fidel’s health took a mysterious turn for the worse. Last week, the New York Times published the first picture of Fidel Castro issued by Cuba in the past two months. Fidel actually looked much better than he has in other photos from last year. Still, he seemed sanguine about his future, Castro, who has outlasted nine US presidents, doesn’t expect to make it ten. “I have had the rare privilege of observing events over such a long period of time,” he wrote. “I don’t expect to have that privilege in four years, when Obama’s first presidential term will have concluded.”

Raul Castro, meanwhile, is busy shoring up relations with one of Cuba’s former allies - Russia. Raul is in Moscow on a state visit and took the occasion to sign a host of agreements including a loan from Russia to sell Russian-built aircraft to Cuba’s state-run airline and a package of emergency food aid from Russia to help Cuba cover shortages caused by the rash of hurricanes that hit the island this summer. The two leaders also signed a statement on “strategic” cooperation between their countries. Last December Cuba hosted a task force of Russian warships that were visiting the Caribbean, Cuba also has discovered reserves of oil located offshore, there have been some discussions about Russian companies coming in to drill deep-water wells offshore and to repair Cuba's ailing oil infrastructure.

Sparks fly at the World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum is usually a sedate gathering of heads of state and the world's top economists all coming together to talk shop at the Alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland.

Usually...But this year's version has already seen its share of fireworks. First there was the speech by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, which Bloomberg financial news branded as ‘absurd.’ The Russian leader took the financial whiz kids of Wall Street to task for causing, in his words, the worst crisis since the Great Depression. Putin laid the blame for the global financial crunch firmly at the feet of American-style capitalism, with a little gloating to boot.

“Just one year ago we heard the words of our American friends from this tribune about the fundamental strength and the cloudless prospects for the US economy,” Putin said, before adding that now “the pride of Wall Street, the investment banks, have virtually ceased to exist.”

Economist and Harvard professor Niall Ferguson scoffed at Putin’s take on how the world got in this economic mess (apparently ignoring the fact that this is an opinion now being voiced in many parts of the globe...), saying “the idea of the Russians lecturing the West about how to run the economy is absurd.” I’ll be really interested then to see how Prof. Ferguson reacts when France's Nikolas Sarkozy and German's Angela Merkel take their whacks at the US financial system this April at the G20 economic summit (my earlier post ‘Make Way for Moral Capitalism’ should give you an idea of where Merkel and Sarkozy are coming from).

But Putin wasn't the only world leader making waves at Davos. Turkey’s PM, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stormed off the stage after a heated exchange with Israel’s Shimon Peres, saying he would never return to Davos. Erdogan said he left after not getting time equal to Peres’ to address the gathered crowd. The two clashed, not surprisingly, over Israel’s recent military campaign in Gaza. Erdogan didn't hold back saying that Peres “killed children on beaches” and scolded the crowd for applauding Peres because he “killed people. And I think that is very wrong.”

According to the BBC, Peres couldn’t understand why Hamas fired rockets into Israel saying, “there was no siege against Gaza. Why did they fight us, what did they want? There was never a day of starvation in Gaza.” But, due respect to Mr. Peres, I think the Gazans might disagree. Israel maintained a blockade of Gaza - even after agreeing to lift it as part of the earlier cease-fire agreement with Hamas. As a result, many families in Gaza relied on food assistance programs sponsored by the UN and, yes, Hamas, to survive. So while technically Peres is right that “no one starved,” it doesn't mean people weren’t going hungry.

Who knew an economic forum could be so interesting?

Zimbabwe finally gives up on its currency

Zimbabwe has thrown in the towel on its currency.

The country's Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced today that all businesses in Zimbabwe could now deal in foreign currencies. The decision came a couple of weeks after the Central Bank of Zimbabwe announced the printing of a $100 trillion bill (yes, that's trillion with a “T”), which at the time was worth about $30 in US currency and now is worth far, far less because of the country’s runaway inflation. A thriving black market has been operating in Zimbabwe for some time now where merchants trade goods for ‘hard’ foreign currencies including US dollars, South African rand and Botswana pula.


Can you spare a $500 billion?

But the decision is still unlikely to ease the crisis in Zimbabwe, where civil society is now grinding to a halt along with the economy. Teachers are refusing to report for the start of the school year since, in US dollars, the daily bus fare to work is double their monthly salary. Doctors and nurses are also refusing to report for work both because of the low salaries and lack of medical supplies. Months ago doctors were warning anyone who thought about coming to the hospital to bring their own medicine, sheets and bandages since they had none there to use of the patients.

Zimbabwe is still in the grips of a cholera outbreak that has killed an estimated 3,000 people so far and that shows no signs of letting up. Meanwhile President Obama has weighed in on the stalled power-sharing talks between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Obama spoke with South Africa’s Kgalema Motlanthe and urged him to “show leadership” in resolving the dispute. Most observers believe that South Africa could put severe pressure on the Mugabe regime with an economic boycott, but South African leaders have repeatedly refused to use this option to force Mugabe to agree to a legitimate power-sharing deal.

Islamists take control of Somali city

The government of Somalia suffered another setback yesterday, losing control of the city of Baidoa to an Islamic insurgent movement known as Shebab (or al-Shabaab), meaning “the youth.” Baidoa was the last city fully under control of the Somali government, though the government’s grip over their own country was so weak that they actually met in the neighboring nation of Djibouti.

Shebab’s takeover of Baidoa wasn't a big surprise. The Somali government was only able to control even a portion of the country because the support of Ethiopian troops who rolled into Somalia in 2006, driving Shebab and another Islamist group, the Union of Islamic Courts, from Baidoa and the capital city Mogadishu. But the Ethiopians grew tired of their military mission and abruptly pulled out at the end of 2008, leaving behind only a small contingent of troops from the African Union who were not prepared to battle the Islamists.

According to a former government minister interviewed by the Voice of America though, the residents of Baidoa may welcome the return of Shebab. Former Education Minister Mohammed Ali Ahmed said that the people in Baidoa were tired of the presence of Ethiopian troops and the ineffective Somali government, and that as long as Shebab respected their elders, the takeover of the city should go peacefully. Shebab, meanwhile, said that they would soon implement sharia law (a code of justice based on a strict reading of the Koran), but so long as the people in Baidoa respected the law, there would not be problems.

And while we are on the topic of Somalia, the Canadian news magazine MacClean's published: “This Cabbie Hunts Pirates” this week, the story of Abdiweli Ali Taar, a Toronto cab driver turned coast guard commander in the Puntland region of northern Somalia.

Mr. Taar heads up the SomCan (for Somali-Canadian) Coast Guard, the country’s only line of homegrown defense against the pirates that prowl the waters off Somalia. His fleet consists of one seaworthy trawler, turned patrol ship and 200-odd, poorly paid militiamen.

It's an interesting story that gives you some insight into the complex nature of the fight off the coast of Somalia - for example, many of today's pirates were former coast guardsmen, lured away by the better pay of piracy. Mr. Taar said that fact gets to the root of the problem in Somalia - people turning to crime because of the lack of any legal jobs paying a decent wage. “I told the UN, look, if you want to help Somalia, the pirates are peanuts compared to the problems we have,” Taar said, adding that if the world’s navies took the money they are spending patrolling off the coast of Somalia and spent it on development projects ashore, it would likely end the piracy problem.

Snow falls in the Persian Gulf

For the first time in recorded history a measurable amount of snow fell in the mountains of the United Arab Emirates.

Nearly 20 centimeters (about seven inches) of snow blanketed Jess Mountain, a 6,200-foot peak in the Ras al Khaimah emirate. Locals say that snow fell on Jess Mountain twice before - in 2004 and 1994 - but this was the first time it ever fell in measurable amounts.


Some of Jess Mountain's desert flora in the snow

Ironically Dubai, one of the other emirates, is home to one of the world's first indoor ski slopes, previously the only place you could see snow in the UAE.

Who runs Palestine anyway?

In the aftermath of the recent Gaza conflict, leaders in Israel, the US and Europe seem puzzled as to why the Palestinians insist on following those mean people of Hamas instead of that nice President Mahmoud Abbas? Mr. Abbas is seen as the far more moderate voice in Palestinian politics and was given the honor of being the first foreign head of state that Barack Obama called after becoming president. That’s all well and good, except that Mahmoud Abbas technically isn't the president of Palestine any longer.

Abbas' term of office technically ended on January 9. Of course Abbas has continued to say that he's the president and governments from Israel to the US are happy to keep calling him president, but according to the Palestinian constitution, it’s simply not the case. Since Abbas’ term expired the job should go to the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (their version of a national parliament) a man named Abdel Aziz Dweik. The only problem there is that Mr. Dweik is currently in an Israeli prison for being a member of Hamas. Next up would be his deputy, Ahmed Bahar, who also happens to be part of Hamas.

So far Hamas hasn’t pushed the issue of their guy taking over for Abbas because of the crisis in Gaza, but that is unlikely to remain the case. Abbas meanwhile, wants to stay as president until election are held for the legislative council. Abbas wants those elections moved up from 2010 to sometime this year, and wants the rules changed so that people only vote based on party, not on an individual-per-seat basis as stated in the Palestinian constitution (hoping that change will make it harder for Hamas to win). The problem for Abbas though is that in a functioning democracy you can’t just make the rules up as you go along.

And all of this mess in Palestine is partly our fault. In 2005 the Bush administration pushed the Palestinians to hold elections for their legislative council, even though many experts in the region said that Hamas was likely to win a majority of the seats. When they held the elections in 2006 - which were lauded as the most fair and open ever held in the Middle East - Hamas won as expected. Our next move was to refuse to talk to Hamas, even though they were now democratically elected, because of their support for terrorism. Now we're asking the Palestinian people to follow a leader who’s now illegally squatting in the president’s office rather than following the laws they laid out in their own constitution and giving the presidency to a member of a party we don’t like (and before we get into the ‘terrorist organization’ argument, keep in mind that Abbas is from Fatah, which started as the political wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) – itself once committed to the destruction of Israel).

Ultimately Abbas’ future is bleak. Whether he holds elections now, later in the year or in 2010, his chances for reelection are pretty low. Even before the Gaza conflict many Palestinians were fed up with Abbas. Years of negotiations with Israel failed to remove the Israeli checkpoints that make movement for the Palestinians within the West Bank an incredible hardship, nor was Abbas ever able to get Israel to stop the growth of their ‘settlements’ that are gobbling up more and more of the land the Palestinians hope will one day be their country. During the Gaza conflict he was unable to even secure a brief cease-fire for humanitarian aid to get into the Gaza Strip and looked incredibly irrelevant.

Abbas may be able to stay on as president for a little while longer by ignoring the constitution, but it’s another blow to the idea of democracy in the Middle East.

South African leaders hold emergency meeting on Zimbabwe

Regional leaders from Southern Africa have gathered in last minute talks to try to salvage a power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe. The heads of South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana are sitting down with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to try to get him to follow through with an agreement to split Zimbabwe's government ministries with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Months ago the two men agreed, in principle, to a power-sharing agreement that divided Zimbabwe's government ministries between their two parties. But Mugabe violated the spirit of the agreement by gobbling up all of the important posts for his ZANU-PF party. Tsvangirai has refused to join the government unless his MDC faction gets control of the Home Affairs Ministry - the department that controls Zimbabwe's national security forces. Without control of Home Affairs, Tsvangirai and the MDC will effectively be powerless.

But don't expect Mugabe to agree, he has refused all other attempts at negotiations these past several months and plans to unilaterally form a government “if” these latest talks fail - so obviously he has no reason to see that they succeed. Meanwhile a group of South Africa's religious leaders are blasting their own government for its role in the Zimbabwe crisis.

Catholic bishops from the region are saying that the South African government is conducting a “passive genocide” by not pressuring Mugabe into accepting a power-sharing deal. Zimbabwe relies on South Africa for access to ports for the shipment of imports/exports from abroad, as well as much of their electricity, so the feeling is that South Africa could put enormous pressure on the Mugabe regime with a boycott. But so far South Africa hasn't, leading critics to say that the government is favoring the Mugabe regime and allowing his disastrous policies to take their toll on Zimbabwe's people - the country's economy has largely collapsed, hunger is now a chronic problem, and a cholera outbreak has so far killed several thousand people.

The bishops said that South Africa “must stop supporting and giving credibility to the illegitimate Mugabe regime,” but so far there is no indication that the government is willing to take more aggressive steps to bring about change in Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, South African police broke up a protest by 1,500 people outside the house in Pretoria, South Africa, where the emergency meeting was being held. The European Union also announced a new round of targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe on Monday.

BBC refuses to show Gaza aid appeal

The BBC is finding itself on the receiving end of more and more criticism over a decision not to show an emergency aid appeal for the people of Gaza.

A group of nearly two dozen British charities, including notable groups like Oxfam and the British Red Cross, came together under the banner of the Disasters Emergency Committee to raise money to provide the people of Gaza for basic supplies like food, medicine and blankets in the wake of the three-week war with Israel. The centerpiece of the appeal is a film about Gaza that will be shown nationwide in Britain. Channel Four, Five and ITV have all agreed to broadcast the DEC's film, the BBC however refused. Their explanation was that the film was similar to images from Gaza they have shown on their newscasts and they feared that if they broadcast the film – which shows the impact of the conflict on the lives of the Gazans - it could be interpreted as the BBC taking sides in the Israel-Gaza conflict. The BBC cited the need to remain impartial in coverage of the conflict as part of their reason not to broadcast the appeal.

But in trying to be non-political, the BBC is now being accused of being just that. And being slammed by critics in the process.

So far more than 10,000 people have sent in complaints to the BBC over their decision and members of a British anti-war group ‘occupied’ the Beeb’s Glasgow office in protest. Religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, weighed in saying that ‘humanity’ should trump impartiality and that the BBC should air the film, meanwhile a group of 50 ministers of parliament are planning to back a motion urging the BBC to reconsider their decision.