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Australia Mulls Joint Naval Patrols with Indonesia, To Beijing's Chagrin
Australia is considering an offer of joint naval patrols with Indonesia in the South China Sea. With the balance of power shifting in the region, Beijing will not be pleased. The possibility was raised during meetings between Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (pictured below), Defence Minister Marise Payne and Indonesian officials including Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu in Jakarta last week. Ryacudu was cited by the "Sydney Morning Herald" as saying he had proposed a "peace patrol" with Australia. Australia and Indonesia already conduct joint sea patrols in the Timor Sea to combat people smuggling and illegal fishing. "There are no intentions to disrupt the relationship (with China). It is called a peace patrol, it brings peace. It is about protecting fish in each other's areas," Ryacudu said. Bishop, meanwhile, said such a move would be "consistent with our policies of exercising our right of freedom of navigation." "That's in accordance with international law and our support for peace and stability in the region," Bishop told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio. Australia - a strong ally of the US and with no claims of its own in the area - has been criticized by China for running surveillance flights over disputed islands in the South China Sea - an area where $5 trillion of sea-borne trade transits annually - and supporting US freedom of navigation exercises. A Chinese H-6K bomber patrols the islands and reefs in the South China Sea China - which recently told Australia to "speak and act cautiously" on the South China Sea - claims almost the entire sea as its own. In July, an arbitration court in the Hague said Beijing's claims to the waterway were invalid, after a case was brought by the Philippines. Beijing, which has built a number of artificial islands with landing strips in the sea, has refused to recognize the ruling. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims on parts of the sea, which also has rich deposits of oil...
Australia Mulls Joint Naval Patrols with Indonesia, To Beijing’s Chagrin
Australia is considering an offer of joint naval patrols with Indonesia in the South China Sea. With the balance of power shifting in the region, Beijing will not be pleased. The possibility was raised during meetings between Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (pictured below), Defence Minister Marise Payne and Indonesian officials including Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu in Jakarta last week. Ryacudu was cited by the "Sydney Morning Herald" as saying he had proposed a "peace patrol" with Australia. Australia and Indonesia already conduct joint sea patrols in the Timor Sea to combat people smuggling and illegal fishing. "There are no intentions to disrupt the relationship (with China). It is called a peace patrol, it brings peace. It is about protecting fish in each other's areas," Ryacudu said. Bishop, meanwhile, said such a move would be "consistent with our policies of exercising our right of freedom of navigation." "That's in accordance with international law and our support for peace and stability in the region," Bishop told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio. Australia - a strong ally of the US and with no claims of its own in the area - has been criticized by China for running surveillance flights over disputed islands in the South China Sea - an area where $5 trillion of sea-borne trade transits annually - and supporting US freedom of navigation exercises. A Chinese H-6K bomber patrols the islands and reefs in the South China Sea China - which recently told Australia to "speak and act cautiously" on the South China Sea - claims almost the entire sea as its own. In July, an arbitration court in the Hague said Beijing's claims to the waterway were invalid, after a case was brought by the Philippines. Beijing, which has built a number of artificial islands with landing strips in the sea, has refused to recognize the ruling. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims on parts of the sea, which also has rich deposits of oil...
Upset at Being Sidelined In Talks, Pakistan Warns Taliban
Two senior Taliban figures said that Pakistan issued a stark warning to the militant group, apparently surprised and angered over being excluded from the insurgents' secret talks with the Afghan government. They said the Pakistani government warned the Taliban that unless they consult with Islamabad during the negotiations all top Taliban leaders will be forced to leave Pakistan along with their families. The Islamabad ultimatum was given last week to a three-person Taliban delegation visiting Pakistan from Qatar, where the militant group's political office is located, said the two Taliban figures. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks. Pakistan's government declined to comment on Monday. It denies Afghan accusations that Islamabad is providing a safe haven to the Taliban. "We won't communicate with the Taliban through the media. I have no comment to make," said Sartaj Aziz, a government adviser on foreign affairs. The three members of the Taliban delegation are Mullah Salam Hanifi and Mullah Jan Mohammed, both former ministers in the Taliban government, and Maulvi Shahabuddin Dilawar, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan . They arrived from Qatar two weeks ago, apparently aiming to smooth Pakistan's ruffled feathers after it was revealed that the Taliban held secret talks with the Afghan government in September and October. Under pressure from both Washington and Kabul to get the Taliban to the negotiating table, Islamabad has been frustrated by the refusal of Taliban leaders living in Pakistan to participate in talks. The three Taliban representatives are now in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwest Baluchistan province, to brief other leaders of the group about their discussions with Pakistani officials, said the two Taliban figures. Many of the Taliban leaders living in Pakistan are accompanied by their children, who attend school in the country. Several also own...
Afghanistan’s Ailing Infrastructure is Precipitating a Water Crisis
Decades of conflict have left Afghanistan’s water infrastructure in a mess and as refugees return to the country, the prospect of water-related conflicts rises. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees are starting the long trek back home after the latest donors’ conference to rebuild Afghanistan. As they do so, much of the commentary is about conflict and their immediate safety and while that will dominate concerns, the broken infrastructure they return to is generating concerns for the future. In early October the Afghan Ministry for Energy and Water, in cooperation with the International Water Management Institute, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation and thethirdpole.net held the country’s first journalists’ workshop on the Indus Basin. Afghanistan has the worst statistics in the region when it comes to sanitation facilities. Only 32% of the population has access to improved sanitation facilities – in India the percentage is 40%, in Nepal it is 46% and in Pakistan it is 64%. Decades of civil war have taken a savage toll on the infrastructure of the country. According to a study by the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, 59% of the water in the urban areas of Kabul is contaminated with bacteria, 47% exceeded the safe limit for nitrates set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and 66% of them exceeded WHO prescribed limits for salinity. Maybe more important is that during the conflict the infrastructural development has remained stuck where it was in the 1980s but the Afghan population has expanded tremendously since then. In 1980 the population of Afghanistan was just under 13 million. In 2015 it was 27.1 million, more than twice the number. During this period the development of water resources or access to clean water has remained stagnant. Unsurprisingly Afghanistan is projected to be among the 33 most water-scarce countries in the world (in the region, Pakistan is projected to be even more water stressed). Given the...
Afghanistan’s Age of Transformation
The Afghanistan of today would surprise most outsiders, even those who closely follow developments in the country. We are often wrongly branded as a failing state with a struggling government whose young people are fleeing en masse for Europe and whose military has lost control of the security situation. While anecdotal evidence can always be found to lend isolated support to such claims, this sweeping characterization offers a distorted picture of reality. Afghans have always valued and cherished their freedom and sovereignty, as evidenced by our years of fighting off foreign and domestic enemies who sought to take both. Now we are reaching for new goals: freedom from dependence on foreign aid, freedom from corruption, freedom from outdated thinking that justifies the oppression of half our population, and freedom from sclerotic bureaucracy that prevents everything from citizens’ access to justice to the smooth functioning of a free market. Afghans overwhelmingly want a modern, sustainable, and self-reliant country whose government serves and is accountable to its people. Yes, the past 15 years have seen war, but they have also produced remarkable growth. Afghan society is thriving, which is a testament to the incredible resilience of the Afghan people. You might be familiar with the progress Afghanistan has made in the areas of education and on women’s rights, but there have also been advances in health, infrastructure, in media and telecommunication, and in sports and culture. 2001 to 2016 has been a time of hardship and sacrifice, but also one of innovation and hope. Today, 25 percent of our cabinet ministers are women, and there are scores of female deputy ministers, ambassadors, district governors, members of parliament, and civil servants. Afghan telecommunication companies cover some 90 percent of the population, which has an estimated 20 million cell phone users. Our media sector is thriving and can rightly be called the freest in the region. When...
Afghan Exodus: Can the Afghan government deal with more returnees from Europe?
In the first nine months of this year, over 5,000 Afghans voluntary returned to Afghanistan from Europe. The recent signing of an agreement between Afghanistan and the European Union to allow deportations of those who have not been accepted as asylum seekers means the numbers of Afghans returning from Europe will rise. AAN ’s Jelena Bjelica and Fazal Muzhary have been looking into the fate of recent returnees, who may have gone heavily into debt to fund their trip, and hearing from two young men who have just returned from Norway after trying to bicycle their way to a life in Europe. This dispatch is part of a joint migration series by AAN and the Kabul office of the German foundation Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES). In early October 2016, Afghanistan signed four new readmission agreements, with Germany, Sweden, Finland and the EU. (2) These new agreements are a response to the large influx of Afghan asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016, with over a quarter of a million Afghans arriving in Europe in this period (see AAN earlier reporting on Afghan migration. Germany, one of the main countries pushing for a deal, received the bulk of the influx, with 180,000 asylum applications by Afghans in 2015 and 2016. The agreements were partly in response to the trouble European countries faced in getting the Afghan authorities to cooperate with the deportation of failed Afghan asylum seekers. The agreements have widely been interpreted as a signal that European countries intend to significantly accelerate the rate of forced and voluntary returns. Voluntary and forced returns On 24 February 2016, a group of 125 Afghans arrived in Kabul from Germany This was the first group of voluntary returnees from Germany, after Europe’s ‘migration crisis’ in 2015. Germany hosts the highest number of Afghan refugees after Pakistan and Iran (for the number of Afghan refugees in Germany for the last 13 years. Apart from having their trips back to Afghanistan paid, the German government – in...
Afghanistan Failures Rising, Progress Eroding 15 Years After U.S. Intervention
Opium production is up 43 percent in Afghanistan, the economy is struggling and the government has lost ground to insurgents over the last year, according to an inspector general’s report released Sunday that shows ongoing failures overshadowing the few signs of hope. Afghan army recruits increasingly are coming from the better-educated parts of society, and the army reports a high esprit de corps, but more of them also are being contacted by “anti-government elements” looking so sow dissension, the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction said in its quarterly report to Congress. The country averages 68 security incidents a day — the majority of which are shootouts, followed by explosive devices — and the first six months of 2016 were the deadliest in seven years. Nearly a third of the more than 5,000 killed or injured were children. More people are fleeing as refugees, seeking to escape worsening conditions and adding to the surge of Middle Easterners who are putting pressure on the U.S. and Europe. “Past gains are eroding: poverty, unemployment, underemployment, violence, out-migration, internal displacement, and the education gender gap have all increased, while services and private investment have decreased,” said the inspector general, citing World Bank conclusions. Fifteen years after the U.S. intervened to oust the Taliban government, taxpayers have ponied up some $115.2 billion for relief and reconstruction, yet Afghanistan continues to struggle on many of the key ways to measure that investment. This article originally appeared on www.washingtontimes.com , 30, October, 2016. Original link. Disclaimer: Views expressed in the article are not necessarily supported by CRSS.
Afghan Forces Suffered 15,000 Casualties In First 8 Months Of 2016
Afghanistan’s security forces battling the resurgent Taliban have suffered around 15,000 casualties, including 5,523 fatalities in the first eight months of 2016, says a U.S. government monitoring agency. The agency has also warned of eroding gains the war-shattered country has made with the help of the international community. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in its quarterly report published Sunday noted the Afghan government lost 2.2 percent territorial control during this year’s fighting. “Of Afghanistan's 407 districts, 258 districts were under government control or influence, 33 districts were under insurgent control or influence, and 116 districts were “contested.” There were 101 insider attacks from January 1, 2015 through August 19, 2016 in which Afghan National Defense and Security Force (ANDSF) personnel turned on fellow security forces, killing 257 and wounding 125 others. “The ANDSF lacks a risk-management system and therefore relies heavily on U.S. forces to prevent strategic failure.” The Taliban has intensified battlefield and other attacks since August and came close to recapturing the northern city of Kunduz and the capital of southern Helmand province this month. The insurgents continue to stage assaults on these two key urban centers and several other provincial capitals, inflicting heavy casualties on Afghan forces. The conflict-related incidents have caused more than 8,000 civilian casualties in Afghanistan, including more than 2,500 deaths in the first nine months of 2016, according to the United Nations. SIGAR reported that the United States has committed at least $1 billion for projects intended to improve conditions for Afghan women, but support for woman having equal access to education and equal representation in political leadership has fallen since 2006. “Fifteen years after the United States ousted the Taliban regime, Afghanistan remains one of the worst places in the world to be a woman.” Poverty,...
Analysing The Trade Relationship Between Pakistan and India
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) consists of eight South Asian nations, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Founded in 1985, the major goal of SAARC has been to promote economic and regional integration of the member states. However, political tensions between two of the largest members, Pakistan and India, have plagued SAARC ever since its inception. Recent events on the Pakistan-India border have forced the cancellation of the 19th SAARC Summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November. With recently imposed restrictions on cross-border exchange of artists, exhibition of movies and participation in cultural activities, other economic activities such as import and export of goods between the two countries risk being curtailed as well. Political tensions and uncertainties have economic consequences. The article will investigate what trade relations the two countries have enjoyed thus far to gain an insight into what possible effects derailment of their relations will have. Going back to 2004, when political tensions had receded, Pakistan and India embarked upon initiatives to increase trade and consequently improve regional integration. The following analysis is conducted using data from Trademap.org and COMTRADE. Before 2004, there was minimal movement of goods between Pakistan and India. Although, India had awarded Pakistan the Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) status in 1996, the exports from Pakistan to India remained almost negligible for a number of years. Pakistan’s exports to India were $84 million in 2003 and even at their peak in 2013, managed a modest $403 million, after which they receded to $312 million in 2015. On the other hand, the imports increased rapidly in absolute terms as trade relations moved towards normalisation. It increased from $184 million in 2003 to $2.18 billion in 2013. It was at $1.96 billion in 2015. The trade deficit for Pakistan – the difference between...
CPEC Security Worries China
Misgivings about Pakistan’s ability to provide adequate security to Chinese workers employed in China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects are still weighing heavily on policy makers despite reassurances publicly conveyed by Pakistan. However, the Chinese government remains committed that CPEC projects would be completed to realize the dream of building a China-Pakistan Community of Shared Destiny. Also, Chinese are concerned over the simmering controversy between Pakistan’s Federal and two provincial governments regarding distribution of projects under CPEC. They are displaying extra sensitivity over any valid or flimsy criticism of CPEC by Pakistan’s smaller provinces. Pakistani scholars made it clear that CPEC enjoyed support across all political parties among Pakistanis. Nevertheless, the umbrella project should be seen generating employment, establishing economic zones and not becoming a conduit for trading Chinese goods and commodities alone. It was hoped that the Chinese state companies would use their experiences in Africa, the Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan to recruit Pakistani engineers and technicians in line with their qualifications. Projects should benefit wider sections of population, beyond the political and business elites. Pakistani delegates to the Beijing and Islamabad dialogue pointed out that the strength of bilateral ties comes from mutuality of strategic interests, tested interdependency in moment of despair and needs, mutual willingness to transform relations to meet new and emerging challenges and finally unstinting public support in both countries for each other at regional and international levels. For commonality of interests and mutual respect, any change in government or leadership in either of the two countries, or the demise of the Cold War era and its associated alliances or subsequent readjustments could not affect their relationship. Chinese Concerns Chinese officials and academia are reluctant to assume that CPEC...
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I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.