Global News Journal

Interview with North Korea border crosser Robert Park

 (Photographs by Lee Jae-won)

North Korea said on Tuesday it had  detained a U.S. citizen who entered its territory, apparently confirming a report that an American activist crossed into the state to raise awareness about Pyongyang’s human rights abuses.   Robert Park, 28, walked over the frozen Tumen river from China and into the North last Friday, other activists said. The Korean-American told Reuters ahead of the crossing that it was his duty as a Christian to make the journey and that he was carrying a letter calling on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to step down.

Park had an exclusive interview with Reuters last week before starting on his journey. The following are excerpts from the conversation. He requested that the comments be held until he was in North Korea.  

Reuters: Why are you planning to go into North Korea?

Robert Park: The North Korean human rights crisis by murder rate is the worst in the world. An estimated 1,000 people a day die by starvation and starvation is a murder case. North Korea has been sent more food aid than any nation in the world but the food has not gone to the people who need it. So this is murder.

But not only that, there are concentration camps in North Korea that are of the same brutality as in Nazi Germany.

Allah, Antarctica and Ancient Inca-The best reads of 2009

When I have time to lavish on reading something other than news, I want to spend it on stories that leave me saying, “Wow!” A great read should tell readers something they don’t already know, enlighten them about the world and its people, inform them about the human condition. Readers should be moved to laughter, tears, anger, action through superb writing and extraordinary reporting.  Here are my picks for the best reads of 2009.

As Spain’s jobless lose homes, tensions mount

A packet of cigarettes is enough to cause a fight among the Spaniards and immigrants shivering in the dark outside an emergency homeless shelter in Madrid, set up for a bitter winter and depression-era unemployment. Police push past jobless Romanian and Hungarian construction workers.  ”One day this place is going to explode,” says unemployed waiter Miguel Roa, a Spaniard.

Pakistani newlyweds live in fear of honour killing

Pervez Chachar and his young wife live in the police headquarters in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Their crime? They fell in love and married without their families’ permission. In traditional rural society in Pakistan, getting married without permission is such a serious slight to the “honor” of a family or a tribe that death is seen as fitting retribution. They share a cramped room with another young couple in the same position.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Failed airline attack raises fresh questions about battle against al Qaeda

In the absence of a coherent narrative about the failed Christmas Day attack on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, the debate about how best to tackle al Qaeda and its Islamist allies has once again been thrown wide open.

Does it support those who want more military pressure to deprive al Qaeda of its sanctuary on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, or suggest a more diffuse threat from sympathisers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa? Should the United States open new fronts in emerging al Qaeda bases such as Yemen and Somalia, or focus instead on the fact that the attempted airline attack did not succeed, suggesting al Qaeda's ability to conduct mass-casualty assaults on U.S. territory has already been severely degraded in the years since 9/11?

The evidence so far about the attempt by 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to set off an explosive device on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit can  pretty much be stacked up in favour of whatever argument you want to make.

Abdulmutallab was from a wealthy family in Nigeria, where al Qaeda and its Islamist allies have been trying to make inroads, by and large unsuccessfully so far. Residents in his family home town said they believed he was radicalised during his studies abroad, which included education at a British boarding school in Togo, followed by a course in engineering at the prestigious University College London.  He would not be the first educated young man to be inspired by Islamist radicalism in London -- among those who came before him was Omar Sheikh, convicted for the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.

Does this mean Britain has been too soft about allowing radicalism to flourish in its universities, as the conservative Daily Telegraph argues?  Or has Britain's own support for U.S. policies, including wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a security crackdown at home, so alienated its Muslim community that a tiny minority will turn to terrorism? (If you ask ordinary Muslims in London what should be done, they are just as likely to give you a lecture about the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and Washington's failure to insist on an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.)

Abdulmutallab's name had been placed on a British watch-list, suggesting security is already very tight in a country which is on alert for any repeat of the London bombings in 2005.  How much tighter can it get, without a further erosion of civil liberties?

The trail from London then leads to Yemen, Osama bin Laden's ancestral home, and a country which U.S. officials say is emerging as an attractive alternative base for al Qaeda, after it was largely pushed out of Afghanistan and has since come under growing military pressure in Pakistan. In U.S. questioning, Abdulmutallab said al Qaeda operatives in Yemen supplied him with an explosive device and trained him on how to detonate it, according to a U.S. official.

from Africa News blog:

Was Nigerian bomber a one-off?

Quite apart from the Nigerian would-be plane bomber’s lack of success, there are other reasons why Africa’s most populous nation cannot be expected to produce a rash of similar cases.

As this Reuters story from Sahabi Yahaya in the bomber’s home town of Funtua points out, it is Umar Abdulmutallab’s foreign education rather than his background in Muslim northern Nigeria that is seen as having radicalised him.

The relatively affluent upbringing is not too dissimilar to that of some of the Sept. 11 attackers or Al Qaeda recruits for other attacks, but makes him a particular exception in Nigeria. Most people live on less than $2 a day and many would give almost anything just to have got aboard the plane he tried to blow up. Every year, tens of thousands of Abdulmutallab’s compatriots brave deserts, oceans and unsympathetic immigration police to try to get to the West for just a taste of the chances he had and to take whatever work they can get to better themselves and their families.

Although only around half of Nigeria’s population is Muslim, that still gives it the sixth biggest Muslim population in the world.

But while outbreaks of religious violence in northern Nigeria have killed thousands of people over the past decade – hundreds died in July in clashes between security forces and the radical Boko Haram sect – bloodshed has often also been just as tied to political and ethnic factors.

Islamic jurisprudence in Nigeria is based on the moderate Maliki school of Sunni Islam and Boko Haram's ideology is dismissed by the country's Muslim leaders and most believers.

Many comments on Nigerian websites bemoaned the fact that the attempted bombing would make it even harder for Nigerians travelling abroad and for their country to improve its image.

from Africa News blog:

Lessons for coup makers?

President Barack Obama’s decision to end trade benefits for Guinea, Madagascar and Niger shows some stiffening of Washington’s resolve to act against those seen to be moving in the opposite direction to demands for greater democracy in Africa.

But the fact that new benefits were simultaneously extended to Mauritania may also give a lesson in how would-be coup makers should best behave if they want to get away with it.

In the first three countries, there is no clear idea as to how they will return to a form of government more acceptable in the eyes of Western countries or those of their neighbours.

Guinea and Madagascar in particular both look in real danger of much greater turmoil.

In Mauritania, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz overthrew an elected president in 2008 - the country’s first freely elected president - but managed to get elections organised and himself voted into office by July, although the ballot was condemned by his opponents.

Perhaps crucially for the Western support, he also swiftly promised to cooperate in fighting al-Qaeda in the Sahara.

Uncertainty over transitions in both Guinea and Madagascar has stoked internal instability as well as costing foreign assistance.

Meeting the Banda Aceh “tsunami family” five years on

Reuters Television producer Masako Iijima, one of the many journalists who covered the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, went back to Banda Aceh in Indonesia to reconnect with a family she had met five years ago. Here’s her story :

When I first met Salawati, she was a speck of bright pink among the pile of gray rubble that used to be her house. She had just returned home an out-of-town trip to find that everything had been washed away by the Indian Ocean tsunami, including her two daughters.

Despite her grief, she let the Reuters Television crew follow her around for days as they filmed how she lived in her tent with a surviving son and husband.

The camera crew filmed her as she went to the “missing persons” board set up at evacuation camps, hopeful of news that her girls had miraculously survived.

She, like many other parents, never found her children nor news of what happened to them.

In the following months, Reuters cameras tracked her progress as she and her family moved out of the tent and into temporary housing and Salawati rebuilt her life, literally, from scratch.

Five years on, the family now lives in a new house built by international aid agencies on the plot of land where their old house used to stand. Salawati even owns a small factory that makes dried,shredded fish, an Indonesian delicacy.

“Earth to Ban Ki-moon” or how a deal was sealed in Copenhagen

Sweden complained that the recent Copenhagen climate change summit was a “disaster.” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown described it as “at best flawed and at worst chaotic.” Sudan’s U.N. ambassador, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, dubbed the outcome confirmation of a “climate apartheid.” For South Africa it was simply “not acceptable.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who for over a year had been urging the 192 members of the United Nations to “seal the deal” in Copenhagen, saw things differently. In a statement issued by his press office, Ban said the two-week meeting had a “successful conclusion with substantive outcomes.” Speaking to reporters, the secretary-general expanded on that: “Finally we sealed the deal. And it is a real deal. Bringing world leaders to the table paid off.” However, he tempered his praise for the participating delegations by noting that the outcome “may not be everything that everyone hoped for.”

In fact, the outcome fell far short of what Ban had been calling for over the last year. He had originally hoped the meeting would produce a legally binding agreement with ambitious targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and funding to help developing nations cope with global warming. Instead it “noted” an accord struck by the United States, China and other emerging powers that was widely criticized as unambitious and unspecific.

That accord set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times — seen as a threshold for dangerous changes such as more floods, droughts and rising seas. But it did not say how this would be achieved. It also held out the prospect of $100 billion in annual aid from 2020 for developing nations, but did not say where the money would come from. Decisions on fundamental issues such as emissions cuts were pushed into the future.

The South Korean U.N. chief was not the only person to praise the summit. U.S. President Barack Obama said the outcome was an “important breakthrough”, but noted that it was only one step on the road towards the emissions cuts needed. The head of China’s delegation, Xie Zhenhua, said the meeting “had a positive result, everyone should be happy.” (Gordon Brown was clearly placing the blame for the underwhelming outcome in Copenhagen on China and a few other states when he said: “Never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries.”)

Back in New York, some delegations were shaking their heads over Ban’s bullish remarks about Copenhagen. “He is talking from Mars,” said the Sudanese envoy, who currently chairs the Group of 77 club of developing nations at the U.N. But Ban is not in outer space, several U.N. officials insisted on condition of anonymity. Ban did not see the summit as a failure, but he, too, felt disappointed and would keep on working to “seal the deal” in 2010.

In fact, the U.N. officials said, Ban’s personal intervention had helped prevent the summit from falling apart. “He’s acutely aware of how much worse it could have been,” one official said. He was making phone calls, organizing bilateral meetings and persuading reluctant delegates to join the consensus. “His final intervention at the 11th hour” helped secure that consensus, the official said.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Pakistan: Through the eye of a needle

For the first time in many months, the future of Pakistan is being determined not in the fight against Islamist militants, but within its institutions -- its judiciary, its political parties, its government and its military.  Last week's decision by the Supreme Court to strike down a 2007 amnesty given to politicians and bureaucrats has provided Pakistan with a rare opportunity to remodel itself as a civilian democracy based on the rule of law.  But the way forward is so fraught with difficulties that assessments of its chances of success are at best sober, at worst ominous.

The court decision to strike down the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) affects some 8,000 politicians and bureaucrats on a list of those who had been covered by the amnesty, including the defence and interior ministers.  President Asif Ali Zardari had also been covered by the amnesty, but remains protected by presidential immunity. Such was the upheaval created by the ruling that foreign exchange markets were briefly shaken last week by unfounded rumours of a military coup. The real impact is likely to be more slow-burning.

THE POWER OF THE MILITARY

The disarray in government ranks will weaken its ability to take on the country's powerful military, which continues to call the shots in Pakistan's security and foreign policy.

"Building faith in the judicial system is vital and calls for accountability of all other state institutions as well to strengthen the perception that the decision on the NRO was in good faith and to strengthen the rule of law," said Ayesha Siddiqa in a column in Dawn newspaper. "But if a question is asked about whether the decision signifies the strengthening of the democratic process and civilian institutions, the answer must be in the negative. Since the perception regarding the decision is that it strengthens the armed forces and their ability to manipulate political stakeholders, it is not possible to see a major shift in the balance of power."

Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has vowed to keep the army out of politics. But the military, which has ruled Pakistan for much of its existence, nonetheless exerts a powerful influence behind the scenes.  Even when out of power it has tended to play the role of an over-protective parent which has never allowed fledgling civilian governments to learn from their mistakes and find their own feet, thereby paving the way for a more mature democracy. The result has been a cycle of military coups -- the most recent of which was when former army chief Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999 -- interspersed with brief periods of civilian rule.

Shortly after taking power, Zardari had not only tried to clip the wings of the military but also pushed for peace talks with India, carving out a radically different position from the army which has long seen India as a threat. He had even gone as far as to suggest Pakistan adopt a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons back in November 2008, breaking two taboos at a stroke -- over the country's stance towards India, and over an understanding that any discussion of  Pakistan's nuclear weapons should remain the exclusive preserve of the military.

Parallel worlds at U.N. climate talks

While UN climate talks involving world leaders descended into chaos and farce in the rooms and corridors of this immediately forgettable Copenhagen exhibition centre, a parallel world flourished in its main conference hall.

Meetings of world leaders and environment ministers through Thursday night and Friday yielded a series of draft climate texts, each more toothless and lacking in ambition than the last. NGOs despaired. The assembled media veered between disbelief and boredom. And outside in the snow the vegans, climate activists and other protest groups kept up a steady drumbeat of protest in the snow.

But inside the main conference hall, bureaucrats continued the deliberations they started two years ago to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Unfazed by the chaos around them they worked their way laboriously and methodically through articles, sub-sections and clauses. All beamed live in to the press room but incomprehensible to the media.

At times of crisis people cling to certainty. Human nature is predictable. Will they still be running through the protocols when the first Pacific island sinks?

from The Great Debate UK:

Sudan: Preparing for a peaceful southern secession

- François Grignon is Director of the Africa Program at the International Crisis Group. the opinions expressed are his own. -

Four years ago, the Sudanese people were promised a brighter future. A peace deal had finally ended the two-decades-long civil war between north and south, which killed more than two million people and devastated the south. But today, that bright future is looking decidedly tarnished, and Sudan is sliding towards violent breakup.

At the core of the current political crisis are delays in implementing key benchmarks laid out in the 2005 deal, known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The referendum on independence for the South, a key pillar of the arrangement, is due in January 2011. Before that referendum takes place, Sudan must hold national elections. These are now set for April 2010.

But President Omar al Bashir’s government has failed to pass key democratic reforms promised by the Agreement, and without these reforms, there is no way the results of the elections will be accepted and offer a milestone for the peace process.

On the contrary, fraudulent elections engineered to strengthen Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP), close the doors to political negotiations in Darfur and undermine the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) both in the South and in national institutions.

A sham poll would most likely lead to a new escalation of violence in Darfur and compromise the holding of the referendum. And if the referendum does not go ahead on schedule, the South will probably declare unilateral independence, plunging. Sudan back into civil war.

Tensions have been rising between the NCP in the north and the SPLM in the South. In October, the southern leader, Salva Kiir, for the first time openly called for the South to secede from Sudan. Both sides are rearming. Needless to say, another civil war would be devastating for the Sudanese people, as well as the entire horn of Africa.