International and Bilateral Issues

Containing the Pakistan Army

The ‘C’ word has finally appeared in the American discourse on Pakistan.
Bruce Riedel has called on the Obama Administration to adopt a strategy of containment against the Pakistan army.
‘Containment’ is the strategy the United States had adopted towards the Soviet Union after the Second World War. It called for sustained external pressure on Soviet Russia in order to produce internal regime change.
If adopted towards the Pakistan army, a strategy of containment would be a significant departure from the habitual temptation to simply buy Rawalpindi's affections.
Bruce Riedel is a former CIA officer who worked for several American presidents and shaped Washington's policies towards South Asia and the Middle East.
Central to the rethinking is Riedel's recognition that the strategic interests of the United States and Pakistan in Afghanistan are "in conflict, not harmony and will remain that way as long as Pakistan's army controls Pakistan's strategic policies".
He calls for trade concessions and a special outreach to women in order to empower entrepreneurs and women, two groups he believes 'are outside the army's control and who are interested in peace'.
Among his other proposals are deep cuts in military aid and a 'strategic dialogue' with India on Pakistan, which he bets would concentrate minds in Rawalpindi.
Instead of relying on the ISI to stabilise Afghanistan, Riedel calls for stronger support to the Afghan security forces and extended Western support to Kabul even as the U.S. reduces military presence there.

What it means to be poor in Europe

Charles Dickens painted the best-known picture of it in his Oliver Twist and nearly everyone has shed a tear for Oliver, the poor and miserable child who was struck a harsh blow when he asked for more gruel.
a deplorable four million children — one in three — are currently living in poverty in the UK, one of the highest rates in the industrialised world.
The UK has the highest divorce rate and largest share of solitary parents in Europe. And the UK continues to have the highest teenage birth rate in Western Europe.
If we take a look at the EU sans the UK, despite its overall wealth, nearly one in seven people are at ‘risk' of poverty.
In mainland Europe, living in so called ‘poverty' is considered a direct attack on people's fundamental rights — as it limits the opportunities they have to achieve their full potential.
It is often closely associated with social exclusion, where some people are pushed to the edge of society, limiting their access to resources and opportunities, leaving them with a sense of helplessness and vulnerability.
Within the EU, poverty is generally divided into two types — absolute or extreme poverty and relative poverty.
Absolute/ Relative Poverty
This is most common in developing countries — when people lack the basic necessities for survival.
This means they can afford only cheap food, fruits and vegetables and cannot afford to buy meat and fish. They run out of money occasionally, and so cannot afford to buy newspaper or repair their broken TV. Or they cannot eat out next week. It means they cannot invite the friends of their children over to stay with them, because their homes are small. Or that their children cannot participate in school skiing holidays or a language week abroad; so their children become ‘excluded' and lead a hidden life.
Deprivation indicators are an important approach to measuring relative poverty.
Within the EU, poverty is normally measured by using relative income poverty lines.
In the EU, people falling below 60 per cent of median income are said to be at-risk-of poverty.
In most West European countries, there are lower levels of income inequality that indicates that they have lower levels of poverty.
The malaise of high poverty is coupled with low employment in some Mediterranean countries, such as Greece, Italy, and Spain.
Therefore, even if one out of seven Europeans lives under the poverty line, that does not mean he or she goes without food, clothing, healthcare and shelter.
The relative poverty concept implies that poverty can have a different meaning in different societies. For instance, the living conditions of people who are relatively poor in France are probably superior to the poor in Portugal and a little worse than that of the poor in Luxembourg.
Despite the fact that poverty in parts of eastern and southern Europe is on the rise, human development indicators confirm that living conditions in all of the EU countries are among the best in the world.

Liberia tense amid vote standoff

Liberian incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's party vowed on Sunday that she would contest a run-off presidential vote even if the opposition boycotts the polls
Liberia's nine opposition parties declared the results “null and void,” said their agents would withdraw from the National Elections Commission and warned: “If the process continues we will not accept the results.”
Ms. Sirleaf (72) was in the lead with nearly 45 per cent of the vote

World population to hit 7 billion

According to the U.N. Population Fund, there will be 7 billion people sharing Earth's land and resources.
In Western Europe, Japan and Russia, it will be an ironic milestone amid worries about low birthrates and aging populations.
In China and India, the two most populous nations, it's an occasion to reassess policies that have already slowed once-rapid growth.
But in Burundi, Uganda and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the demographic news is mostly sobering as the region staggers under the double burden of the world's highest birthrates and deepest poverty.
most of Africa and other high-growth developing nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan will be hard-pressed to furnish enough food, water and jobs for their people
Extreme poverty and large families tend to reinforce each other
The challenge is to intervene in that cycle and accelerate the shift to smaller families.
The International Water Management Institute shares these concerns, predicting that by 2025 about 1.8 billion people will live in places suffering from severe water scarcity.
According to demographers, the world's population didn't reach 1 billion until 1804, and it took 123 years to hit the 2 billion mark in 1927. Then the pace accelerated 3 billion in 1959, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1998. Looking ahead, the U.N. projects that the world population will reach 8 billion by 2025, 10 billion by 2083