On Dec 12th Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea's tin-pot regime,
caught his own people and the rest of the world off-guard by successfully launching
an Unha-3 rocket into space and possibly putting a rudimentary
satellite into orbit. Experts said the same technology it takes to put a 100kg satellite into orbit could be the first step towards firing anintercontinental ballistic missile with an equivalent payload at America, provided that North Korea could also master re-entry and accuracy.
The timing, just before the first anniversary of
the death of his rocket-loving father, Kim Jong Il, appeared to be aimed
primarily at solidifying the young Mr Kim’s leadership, as well as
bolstering his popularity among his oppressed subjects.
Beforehand, news
of the proposed launch was censored in North Korea, possibly because of
the embarrassment that ensued in April, when a previous Unha-3 rocket flopped in front of the world’s media.
The U.S. described the launch as “a provocative action”, while Japan’s
Foreign Minister said the government had officially
protested the launch to the DPRK and had called for the UNSC to take a
tough stand. Also, while Beijing had earlier expressed concern over the North’s actions, China
“believes the Security Council’s response should be cautious and
moderate, protect the overall peaceful and stable situation on the
Korean peninsula, and avoid an escalation of the situation”.
North Korea’s launch of a rocket has put India’s plans to send an officials and businessmen delegation to Pyongyang (assessed whether talk of economic reforms in the reclusive nation was for real) in March next year in the deep freeze.New Delhi would prefer to stay away from North Korea for the time being
as the rocket launch violates U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874. There have been reports about North Korea undertaking agrarian reforms as well as wanting to attract investments. Some Indian officials witnessed the conditions in the North Korean
country-side when they recently accompanied a U.N. team for the food aid
programme. India contributed $1 million to the cause and was likely to
allocate a similar amount around the time when the delegation was to
visit North Korea.
The Unha or Eunhais a North Koreanexpendablecarrier rocket, which experts say utilises the same delivery system as the Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile. Its earlier attempt of launching Unha1,2,&3 was a big failure.
Ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) are individuals or families who have, by one definition, at least US$30 million in investable assets, or with a disposable income of more than US$20 million. The exact dividing lines depend on how a bank wishes to segment its market; for example, the term "very high net worth individuals" can refer to those with assets between $5 million and $50 million, with ultra high net worth individuals only those with above $50 million.
North Korea is apparently readying her second rocket launch of 2012,
attempting to ping satellites in to orbit using ballistic missiles.
Island neighbour Japan is a trifle nervous about it and is readying
Patriot missiles to islands close to the areas where the three rocket
stages are expected to crash land.
There’s a fair amount of such military posturing and space activity
going on in that part of the world, which goes some way to explaining this, this and this.
In the First InfoGraphic, we look at how the Japanese is installing its second missile defence radar, most likely to counter China’s growing military power.
Then we analyse the new American tiltrotor aircraft, the MV-22 Osprey, which Tokyo has declared safe for deployment.
Though India was ranked at 95th
position last year, the international watchdog said it has started
evaluating the positions through a different formula beginning this year
and hence this cannot be compared to last year's ranking.
However, the last year's rank of 95 would be 96 if it is calculated
using the new methodology which implies there was a "slight improvement"
in the index.
This year, India has a score of 36 out of 100 on a
scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) which is a result of
an average of 10 studies including World Bank's Country Performance and
Institutional Assessment and Global Insight Country Risk Ratings.
India
was ranked 72 among 180 countries for the first time in 2007 and since
then the country's rankings have been showing a decline. While India was
placed at 87 in 2010, the position was 95 in 2011.
This year,
India is ranked below neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka (79) and China (80),
while Afghanistan, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh fared much worse
than India when it came to corruption in public sector undertakings.
Denmark
is placed at the top spot with a score of 90 while Finland and New
Zealand follow very closely. Countries that occupy the bottom ranks in
the index are Myanmar, Sudan Afghanistan, Somalia and North Korea.
Of total 158 countries the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) cover in their inaugural global terrorism index,
only 31 have had no attacks in the ten years to 2011.
Yet although
attacks are distributed widely around the world, the majority are
concentrated in just a handful of countries.
From 2002 to 2011, North America was the region least likely to suffer from terrorism
While more terrorist attacks are being recorded, the number of fatalities has declined by 25% since 2007.
Iraq ranks first based on a
five-year weighted average of the number of incidents, deaths, injuries
and estimated property damage. It has suffered from the most attacks,
including 11 of the world's worst 20. Indeed, Iraqis comprised one third
of deaths from terrorism between 2002 and 2011. But while the number of
incidents there have climbed since 2007, deaths have actually declined.
Other terrorist hotspots include Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
The
worst attack over the period was in Nepal, where 518 people died and 216
were injured. If there is any small cause for comfort, it is that
terrorist incidents have plateaued since their peak in 2008.
For more detail on the 500 biggest incidents see IEP's map here.
Not all new countries are really new. Some are born almost fully formed and others have to start from nothing. South Sudan is the most extreme example of that.
An examination
of more than a dozen key indicators in the 31 nations founded or
reconstituted since 1990 shows just how steep a climb South Sudan faces.
The above graphic shows the progress made by new countries using 6 key
indicators (GDP per capita, life expectancy, under 5 mortality, press
freedom, corruption perception, and debt as percentage of GDP).
