- “Smuggling of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Materials from Pakistan to Afghanistan.” U.S. Government Accountability Office, May 2012.
Improvised
explosive devices (IEDs) have been a significant cause of fatalities among U.S.
troops in Afghanistan. About 80 percent of the IEDs contain homemade
explosives, primarily calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) fertilizer smuggled from
Pakistan. U.S. officials recognize the threat posed by the smuggling of CAN and
other IED precursors from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and the Department of
State (State) and other agencies are assisting Pakistan’s government to counter
this threat. In addition, with the adoption in 2011 of its National Counter-IED
Strategy, Pakistan recognized the importance of addressing the IED threat, both
for its own security and stability goals, as well as for counterterrorism
efforts in the region. Various insurgent groups in Pakistan regularly use IEDs,
which have killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and security force members.
- “Middle East Leads World in Negative Emotions.” Gallup World, June 2012.
WASHINGTON,
D.C. -- People living in Iraq, the Palestinian Territories, Bahrain, and a few
other Middle Eastern countries are among the most likely worldwide to
experience a lot of negative emotions on a daily basis, according to Gallup's
Negative Experience Index. Iraq's score of 59 on the index in 2011 -- which is
based on respondents' reports of experiencing anger, stress, worry, sadness,
and physical pain -- is the highest in the world. The Palestinian Territories
placed a distant second with a score of 43.
- “Parting Gift for Afghans: A Military McMansion.” Wall Street Journal.
ZARGHUN
SHAHR, Afghanistan—In a dusty valley here, construction workers are racing to
finish a fiber-optic-equipped military base for a wood-burning army.
The
$89 million U.S.-funded forward operating base, called Super FOB, is being
built to house the Afghan army brigade that patrols Paktika province, along the
contentious Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
But
Super FOB is being completed, and due to be expanded, after the U.S. and its
allies have decided the Afghan security forces should be about a third smaller
than envisioned when the base was conceived by U.S. and Afghan strategists. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303610504577420232465796466.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
- “Power and patronage in Pakistan.” Stephen M. Lyon, University of Kent.
Asymmetrical
power relationships are found throughout Pakistan’s Punjabi and Pukhtun
communities. This thesis argues that these relationships must be examined as
manifestations of cultural continuity rather than as separate structures. The
various cultures of Pakistan display certain common cultural features which
suggest a reexamination of past analytical divisions of tribe and peasant
societies. This thesis looks at the ways power is expressed, accumulated and
maintained in three social contexts: kinship, caste and political
relationships. These three social contexts are embedded within a collection of
“hybridizing” cultures (i.e. cultures which exhibit strong mechanisms for
cultural accommodation without loss of “identity”). Socialisation within kin
groups provides the building blocks for Pakistani asymmetrical relationships,
which may usefully be understood as a form of patronage. As these social
building blocks are transferred to non-kin contexts
the patron/client aspects are more easily identified and studied; however, this
thesis argues that the core relationship roles exist even in close kinship
contexts. The emphasis on asymmetry in personal relationships leads to
rivalries between individuals who do not agree with each other’s claims to
equality or superiority. There are mechanisms for defusing the tension and
conflict when such disagreements arise. State politics and religion are
examined for the ways in which these patron/client roles are enacted on much
larger scales but remain embedded within, and must respect, the cultural values
underpinning those roles.
- “Kurdish history: Leaders’ greed trumps nationalism.” Michael Rubin.
June
1 marked the 37th anniversary of the founding of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). While Kurdistan Democratic Party
(KDP) leader Masud Barzani graciously congratulated
PUK leader Talabani, bad blood between the two families and their parties is long, deep, and persistent.
The
schism predates the PUK’s birth; historian David McDowall, whose “A Modern History of the Kurds,” remains the
desktop reference for Kurdish history, details the development of factionalism in the KDP in the wake of the
Mahabad Republic’s collapse.
- “For Exiles, Iraq Beckons and Repels.” New York Times.
BAGHDAD — Ali al-Subiahi returned from his family’s self-imposed
exile in the United States to reclaim a sense of himself in a new Iraq.
At 26, he runs a string of private schools in Baghdad, bankrolled
by his earnings as an interpreter for the United States military. He has
adapted, showing what he considers an American entrepreneurial flair,
advertising for his schools on blast walls left from the bloodiest days of the
war.
As an American citizen, and a former military employee, he remains
fearful for his life. But as an Iraqi, and a Muslim, he finds living here
easier than in his family’s new home in Lincoln, Neb., where strip clubs,
liquor stores and churches are part of the nearby suburban landscape.
- Books
on Pakistan:
- “The
Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad,” John R. Schmidt. The author was formerly Political
Counselor at the American Embassy, Islamabad, Pakistan. http://www.amazon.com/The-Unraveling-Pakistan-Age-Jihad/dp/0374280436
- “Pakistan: A Hard Country,” Anatol Lieven. http://www.amazon.com/Pakistan-Hard-Country-Anatol-Lieven/dp/1610391454/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339561845&sr=1-1&keywords=pakistan+hard+country
Both books are good. If you are pressed for time, read “The
Unraveling.”
- 2012 Failed States Index Released, The Fund for Peace.
WASHINGTON,
D.C. - The Fund for Peace today released the eighth edition of its annual
Failed States Index (FSI), highlighting global political, economic and social
pressures experienced by states.
The
2012 FSI ranks Somalia as number one for the fifth consecutive year, citing
widespread lawlessness, ineffective government, terrorism, insurgency, crime,
and well-publicized pirate attacks against foreign vessels.
Meanwhile,
Finland has remained in the best position, with its Scandinavian neighbors
Sweden and Denmark rounding out the best three rankings. All three nations
benefit from strong social and economic indicators, paired with excellent provision
of public services and respect for human rights and the rule of law.
- “Failed Index.” ForeignPolicy.com.
We
at Africa is a Country think Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace should
either radically rethink the Failed States Index, which they publish in
collaboration each year, or abandon it altogether. We just can't take it
seriously: It's a failed index.
This
year, pro forma, almost the entire African continent shows up on the Failed
States map in the guiltiest shade of red. The accusation is that with a handful
of exceptions, African states are failing in 2012. But what does this tell us?
What does it actually mean? Frankly, we have no idea. The index is so flawed in
its conception, so incoherent in its structuring criteria, and so misleading in
its presentation that from the perspective of those who live or work in those
places condemned as failures, it's difficult to receive the ranking as anything
more than a predictable annual canard issued from Washington, D.C. against
non-Western -- and particularly African -- nations.
- “My real ‘crime’:Standing up for U.S.-Pakistan relations.” Husain Haqqani.
I
am saddened but not surprised that a Pakistani judicial inquiry commission has
accused me of being disloyal while serving as my country’s ambassador to the
United States. The tide of anti-Americanism has been rising in Pakistan for
almost a decade. An overwhelming majority of Pakistanis consider the United
States an enemy, notwithstanding the nominal alliance that has existed between
our countries for six decades. Americans, frustrated by what they see as
Pakistani intransigence in fighting terrorism in Afghanistan, are becoming less
willing to accept Pakistani demands even though Pakistan has suffered heavily
at the hands of terrorists.
This
is a difficult time to openly advocate friendly relations between the United
States and Pakistan. I am proud that I did so as ambassador. During my tenure,
the United States agreed to initiate a strategic dialogue with Pakistani civil
and military leaders. The idea was to overcome the episodic nature of bilateral
relations: Our countries had a pattern of working together for a few years and
then falling out amid complaints about each other. The strategic dialogue
sought to reconcile Pakistan’s regional concerns about Afghanistan and India
with U.S. global concerns about nuclear proliferation and terrorism. But the
dialogue stalled last year, and a series of unfortunate incidents, culminating
in Osama bin Laden being found in Pakistan last year, has brought our countries
to the brink of an adversarial relationship.
- “Life After Karzai.” Michael O’Hanlon, ForeignPolicy.com
Where I went: For all the worries about Afghanistan
today, there was something uplifting about many of the conversations I was
privileged to be part of on my most recent trip there, in May, with former U.S.
Ambassador Ronald Neumann as my travel partner and with the NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) as the official sponsor of the trip.
A
spirit of hopefulness, more than fear, characterized most people I spoke with
in Kabul. The recent signing of the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership
Agreement (SPA) to guide cooperation after 2014, when the NATO combat mission
is set to end, reassures many Afghans that they will not be left to their own
darker angels -- or the mercy of their neighbors -- when ISAF's transition is
complete. Although implementing protocols and a status of forces agreement for
the SPA may prove difficult to negotiate, the accord has definitely given a
boost to the strides of many Afghan reformers who continue to work hard for
their country's future.
- “No Country For Armed Men.” Ahmed Rashid, ForeignPolicy.com.
LAHORE– It was a sign of the misguided
times in Pakistan that on June 5 -- a day when the country faced massive
rolling electricity blackouts, a crashing economy, civil war in two out of four
provinces, violence from the Himalayas to the Arabian Gulf, and a cratering
relationship with the United States -- the Pakistani army decided it was the
best moment to test fire a cruise missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
It was the fifth such test since April, supposedly a morale booster for a
wildly depressed public, a signal to India that Pakistan would not put its
guard down despite its problems, and a message to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta, who had arrived in Delhi that morning, that Pakistan could not be
bullied.
- “Sakena Yacoobi’s Courage and the Future of Afghan Women.” Isobel Coleman.
It’s
good to have heroes. One of mine is Sakena Yacoobi, the founder of a terrific
organization called the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) that provides
education and health services to women across Afghanistan. I first met Sakena
nearly a decade ago, and have followed her work closely since then. I’ve
visited several of AIL’s programs in Afghanistan and wrote about her and her
work in my book Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the
Middle East.
Taught
to read as a child by her local mullah in western Afghanistan, Sakena
remarkably (read my book for all the details) went on to earn a master’s degree
in public health in the United States. In the 1990s, she started the Afghan
Institute of Learning, mostly serving Afghan refugees in Pakistan, but also
secretly operating girls’ schools in Kabul during the Taliban years. After the
Taliban were toppled in 2001, AIL quickly expanded its programs, establishing
multiple women’s centers across the country. Its reach today is impressive:
since 1996, AIL-trained teachers have taught 4.6 million people, and more than
a million Afghan women and their children have received its health services. In
2011 alone, the organization treated over 185,000 people (70 percent of them
women). Over nine million Afghans – a third of the population – have been
touched by AIL programs. Sakena manages all of this on a shoe-string budget of
less than $2 million a year, using local resources and local salaries.
http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia/2012/06/13/sakena-yacoobis-courage-and-the-future-of-afghan-women/
- “The Big Picture – Afghanistan: May 2012.” Boston.com
U.S.
and NATO forces continue to train the Afghan troops in advance of the handover
of the country's security in 2014. The US-led war in Afghanistan has cost the
lives of around 3,000 US and allied troops, seen thousands of Afghans killed
and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. We check in on our soldiers for May
(and a little bit of June 2012.) -- Paula Nelson (45 photos total) http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2012/06/afghanistan_may_2012_1.html
- “Afghanistan from 2012-2014: Is A Successful Transition Possible?” Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2012.
The
key issue in evaluating the prospects for a successful Transition in
Afghanistan is not whether
a successful transition in Afghanistan is possible, it is rather whether some
form of
meaningful transition is probable – a very different thing. The answer is a
modest form of
strategic success is still possible, but that it is too soon to know whether it
is probable and
there are many areas where the current level of planning, analysis, and action combined
to sharply reduce the chances for success.
The
Afghan government, the US and its allies, and aid donors have not made enough collective
progress to assign a clear level of probability. Equally important, it is too
soon to
know what level of forces they will maintain in Afghanistan through the end of
2014 and
beyond, what levels of military and civil aid they will provide, and what level
of success
Afghanistan can achieve moving forward.
- “Afghanistan Market Price Bulletin, June 2012 (Reporting May 2012).” World Food Programme, June 2012.
Average
wheat grain retail prices were on decreasing since July-2011 and continued
until the reporting month (May 2012). It is mainly due to decrease of wheat
price on the regional markets (Pakistan and Kazakhstan). On the international market
continues decreasing trend of wheat price started from October 2011 till April
2012. Recent decrease in wheat price is also due to normal trend of export from
main export countries and good precipitation which will hopefully result in
good harvest this year.
- “Mind the Gap? Local Practices and Institutional Reforms for Water Allocation in Afghanistan’s Panj-Amu River Basin.” Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, June 2012.
Since
2004, policymakers and international donor agencies have been trying to
introduce “good” water governance concepts in the reform of Afghanistan’s water
sector. The 2009 Water Law is based around the “holy trinity” of integrated
water resource management (IWRM), river basin management (RBM) and
participation in decentralised decision-making via Multi-Stakeholder Platforms
(MSPs). Since 2005, the Panj-Amu River Basin Program (PARBP) has been piloting
the introduction of these imported concepts in north-eastern Afghanistan.
International
experience shows that institutional change rarely follows models as they are originally
designed, as implementation often faces resistance on the ground. Piloting the implementation
of complex water governance reforms at sub-basin level requires using the lessons
learned from actual practices and outcomes of implemented strategies to
anticipate the opportunities and challenges in the adaptation of policies and
strategies, including for MSPs, in a given river basin.
With
this context in mind, this research attempts to provide a better understanding
of how local
institutions deal with water allocation at the sub-basin level during dry
years, and discuss further policy challenges and opportunities. It begins by
describing the existing institutional arrangements shaping water allocation,
going on to assess their performance, before identifying and analysing the gaps
between existing policies and ground realities. The overall focus is on how decision-making
processes and power relations shape water allocation at sub-basin level.
- “Rebuilding
Pharmaceutical Systems in Afghanistan: Assuring Sustainability by
Developing Human Resources.” International
Pharmacy Journal, June 2012. http://www.fip.nl/files/fip/IPJ/IPJ_Vol27_No1_web_def.pdf#page=25
- “Counternarcotics Policy in Afghanistan: A Good Strategy Poorly Implemented.” Brookings Institution, May 2012.
Narcotics production and
counternarcotics policies in Afghanistan are of critical importance not only
for drug control there and worldwide, but also for the counterinsurgency,
stabilization, economic, and rule-of-law efforts in Afghanistan. Unfortunately,
many of the counternarcotics policies adopted during the 2000s decade had
serious counterproductive effects on these objectives.
In a courageous break with
thirty years of counter-narcotics policies that focused on ineffective forced
eradication of illicit crops as a way to reduce the supply of drugs and
bankrupt belligerents, the Obama administration wisely decided in 2009 to scale
back eradication in Afghanistan. Instead, its counternarcotics strategy
emphasized selective interdiction of high-level and particularly Taliban-linked
traffickers and comprehensive rural development.
But the effectiveness of the
administration’s well-thought-out counternarcotics strategy has been challenged
by major implementation difficulties. Effective implementation is ultimately
dependent on achieving robust progress in improving security and governance in
Afghanistan -- the former very tenuous at best, the latter overwhelmingly
characterized by corruption, abuse, and incompetence. Critical problems have
also arisen as a result of misguided policies in the field. Interdiction has
lost its selective focus on high-level Taliban-linked traffickers and become
indiscriminate in targeting small-level farmers. In most of Afghanistan,
including some of the most strategic areas, alternative livelihoods efforts
have not amounted to comprehensive long-term development. And eradication and
bans on poppy are still going on, once again emiserating farmers and driving
instability and conflict.
- “Polio Global Emergency Action Plan 2012-2013.” World Health Organisation, June 2012.
An
unprecedented intensity of polio eradication activities in 2010-11 resulted in
several landmark successes. India became polio-free and global cases decreased
by 52%; of the four countries with re-established poliovirus transmission,
South Sudan and Angola have not recorded a case since June 2009 and July 2011,
respectively, while cases fell substantially in the second half of 2011 in Chad
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
All importation-associated outbreaks in eight previously polio-free countries
in 2011 were stopped, all but one (in Mali) within six months.
In
the three remaining polio-endemic countries, however, polio cases soared from
2010 to 2011 (in Afghanistan by 220%, in Nigeria by 185% and in Pakistan by 37%),
with the most dramatic rise in the second half of 2011. Polio also spread
internationally from Nigeria and Pakistan, underscoring the risk that endemic
poliovirus transmission continues to pose globally. http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/PDF2.pdf
- “Quarterly Data Report. Q1 2012.” Afghan NGO Safety Office, June 2012.
- “Afghanistan: Time to Move to Sustainable Jobs. Study on the State of Employment in Afghanistan.” International Labour Organisation, May 2012.
The
situation of Afghanistan is today undermined by the convergence of demographic,
social, economic, and of course, political challenges. Recent figures released
by the World Bank and the Afghan Ministry of Finance indicate that the total
amount of aid for 2010/2011 amounted to approximately US$15.7 billion, which is
close to the overall GDP. As such, both the income of the Afghan government and
the precarious economic equilibrium of the country are directly dependent on
donors’ contributions and the country could thus suffer an economic downturn
and severe uncertainties as a consequence of a reduction in development
assistance funds.
In
this context, this study calls for a longer term approach to socio-economic
development in Afghanistan, in which employment and decent work take a central
role. While this is indeed a major challenge given the economic and political uncertainties
facing the country, a balance needs to be found between the urgency of
stabilization and creating more sustainable jobs that lift people and their
families out of poverty.
No comments:
Post a Comment