NEWS,30.06.2013

Kazakhstan trade trip test for Cameron

British prime minister David Cameron flew into Kazakhstan on Sunday to help inaugurate the world's costliest oil project and seal new business deals, but faced immediate pressure to denounce the country's poor human rights record.
Cameron's visit, the first by a serving British prime minister, is seen by the Central Asian government as a coup it hopes will cement its status as a rising economic power and confer a degree of legitimacy from the West it has long sought.
It comes just days before the 73rd birthday of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the former Soviet republic with a tight grip for over two decades.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair's consultancy firm already advises Nazarbayev, a former Communist party apparatchik who tolerates no dissent or opposition.
"We are very honoured and privileged to have such attention on the part of two prime ministers - Tony Blair and David Cameron," Kazakh foreign minister Erlan Idrissov told reporters in a phone call before the visit.
"We cherish and enjoy the support of developed countries."
Cameron, who is accompanied by a British business delegation, is expected to oversee the signing of about a dozen contracts involving British firms and to cut the ribbon on infrastructure elements of the Kashagan offshore oilfield.
Royal Dutch Shell has a 16.81% stake in the facility, which is in the Kazakh segment of the Caspian Sea. Nazarbayev said last week consortium members had so far invested $48bn, making it the most expensive oil venture in the world.
It is due to produce its first oil in September.
Cameron is also hoping to persuade Kazakhstan to expand transit rights for British military forces relocating equipment from Afghanistan between now and a planned withdrawal next year. Nazarbayev has already granted overflight rights, but Cameron is looking for land transit rights too.
As Britain's trade with the euro zone suffers because of the currency bloc's debt woes, it is looking further afield to forge business links with countries that have enjoyed rapid economic growth in recent years.
Tempting target
With a $200 billion economy, the largest in Central Asia, and deep oil and gas reserves, Kazakhstan is a tempting target. Britain is already among the top three sources of foreign direct investment, according to Kazakh officials.
Since its 1991 independence, officials said British firms have invested about $20bn in their economy, part of a total $170 billion ploughed into Kazakhstan since then. But more high profile trade links carry political risks.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Cameron had a duty to use his trip to denounce human rights abuses.
"We are very concerned about the serious and deteriorating human rights situation there in recent years, including credible allegations of torture, the imprisonment of government critics, (and) tight controls over the media and freedom of expression and association," it said in a letter on Friday.
Cameron told reporters in Islamabad on Sunday he never shied away from having difficult conversations on such trips.
"In all the relationships we have there's never anything off the table and we raise and discuss all these issues, and that will be the case with Kazakhstan as well," he said.
"It is important to make this visit. It's very much something I chose and wanted to do."
Kazakhstan was a key market for British firms, he added, saying that other European leaders had visited and it was "high time" a British prime minister did too.
In another awkward twist for Cameron, the London-based daughter of a jailed former Kazakh businessman, Mukhtar Dzhakishev, has urged him to raise her father's case when he meets Nazarbayev.
But it is the case of Vladimir Kozlov, a jailed opposition leader, that activists most want Cameron to mention.
An outspoken critic of Nazarbayev, Kozlov was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in October for colluding with a fugitive billionaire in a failed attempt to rally oil workers to bring down the government. Kozlov denied the charges.
Idrissov, the foreign minister, said criticism of his country was overdone.
"We do not claim that we have got everything right," he said. "It was never going to be possible to turn a country with no democratic institutions or culture into a Jeffersonian democracy in two decades."

Europeans demand answers over bugging

The European Union angrily demanded answers from the United States on Sunday over allegations Washington had bugged its offices, the latest spying claim attributed to fugitive leaker Edward Snowden.
The report in German weekly Der Spiegel is likely to further strain relations between the United States and Europe, shortly after they launched formal negotiations to create what would be the world's biggest free trade area.
Der Spiegel said its report, which detailed covert surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on EU diplomatic missions, was based on confidential documents, some of which it had been able to consult via Snowden.
"We have immediately been in contact with the US authorities in Washington DC and in Brussels and have confronted them with the press reports," the European Commission said in a statement.
"They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us."
One document, dated September 2010 and classed as "strictly confidential", describes how the NSA kept tabs on the European Union's mission in Washington, Der Spiegel said.
Microphones were installed in the building and the computer network infiltrated, giving the agency access to emails and internal documents.
The EU delegation at the United Nations was subject to similar surveillance, Der Spiegel said, adding that the spying also extended to the 27-member bloc's Brussels headquarters.
It said the leaked documents referred to the Europeans as "targets", in intelligence activity reminiscent of the Cold War.
US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes refused to be drawn into commenting directly on the allegations in a briefing in Johannesburg on Saturday, but said it was "worth noting" the US was "very close" to EU security services.
In another report on Sunday, Der Spiegel said leaked documents showed that the US secret services targeted Germany more than any other EU country.
Citing figures from NSA documents, the magazine said that half a billion forms of communication phone calls, emails, text messages and Internet chat entries were monitored in Germany every month.
The Spiegel reports are the latest in a series of allegations about US spying activity revealed by Snowden, a former NSA contractor who is holed up in a Moscow airport transit zone after the United States issued a warrant for his arrest and revoked his passport.
Speaking before the latest Spiegel revelations on Sunday, EU powerhouse Germany said the United States must quickly say whether the spying allegations were true or not.
"It's beyond our imagination that our friends in the US consider the Europeans as enemies," Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a statement.
"If the media reports are accurate, it is reminiscent of actions among enemies during the Cold War."
European Parliament president Martin Schulz said he was "deeply worried and shocked" by the claims.
"If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations," he said in a statement, demanding full and speedy clarification from the US authorities.
The US authorities issued an arrest warrant this month for Snowden after he revealed details of NSA's so-called PRISM programme which collects and analyses information from Internet and phone users around the world, with access to data from Google, Yahoo! and other Internet firms.
US officials say the information gathered is vital in the fight against global terrorism but the scale of the programme raised deep concerns around the world.
Der Spiegel also referred to an incident more than five years ago when EU security experts discovered telephone and online bugging devices at the Justus Lipsius building.
In 2003, the EU announced it had found phone taps in the building targeting the offices of several countries, including Britain, France and Germany. It was not immediately clear if Der Spiegel was referring to this case.
Even before the most recent allegations, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding wrote to US Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this month calling for answers about its Internet spy programme, saying: "Fundamentally, this is a question of trust."
Snowden himself remains in political limbo at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after flying in from Hong Kong last week, unable to fly on without legal travel documents or exit the airport without a Russian visa.
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said that US Vice President Joe Biden had asked Quito to reject any asylum request from the 30-year-old who is wanted by the United States on charges including espionage.
But he said Snowden's fate was in Russia's hands as Quito could not process his asylum request until he was on Ecuadoran soil.
"We have not sought out this situation," said Correa, saying it was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who recommended he seek asylum in Ecuador.
Assange, who is wanted for questioning in Sweden on sexual assault allegations, took refuge at the Ecuadoran embassy in London a year ago to avoid Britain putting him on a plane to Stockholm.
French MEP Jean-Luc Melenchon said Sunday that France should grant Snowden asylum and called for a suspension of all trade negotiations with the United States.
Earlier this month, Brussels and Washington formally launched negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement which would add tens of billions of dollars to the EU and US economies.

Kerry in last-minute push on Mideast peace

US Secretary of State John Kerry made a last-minute push on Sunday to revive Middle East peace talks as Israeli media said that days of exhaustive shuttle diplomacy had failed to break the deadlock.

Kerry has spent 13 hours with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since Thursday, with the latest session between the two men and their aides lasting until nearly 04:00 (01:00 GMT) at a hotel suite overlooking Jerusalem's Old City.

A sleep-deprived Kerry was to head to Ramallah in the West Bank on Sunday morning to consult for the third day in a row with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, a US official said. His previous two meetings with Abbas took place in Amman.

Israel's army radio painted a grim picture of Kerry's initiative, saying that he has apparently failed in his goal of restarting direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations after a gap of nearly three years.

The last face-to-face negotiations broke down quickly in September 2010, with Abbas accusing Israel of refusing to talk substance.

Sign on commitment

The Palestinian leader is pushing Israel to free the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners as a sign of commitment to peace, to remove roadblocks in the West Bank and to publicly agree to making the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war the baseline for negotiations.

But army radio said that Netanyahu was willing to consider just the first two conditions - but only after talks were under way, and even then in stages.

So far, Israel has flatly refused to countenance any return to the 1967 borders.

Army radio also said an Israeli committee was likely to push through the construction of another 900 new homes in annexed east Jerusalem, in a meeting scheduled to take place on Monday.

The committee had given final approval to around 70 homes in the same area on Wednesday, on the eve of Kerry's visit.

Palestinian leaders have accused Israel of a lack of sincerity by moving ahead on construction in east Jerusalem - which they want as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

A top priority

Kerry has made the elusive goal of Middle East peace a top priority. He is paying his fifth visit to the region since taking on the role of top US diplomat in February.

But he is running against the clock.

Kerry is scheduled to attend a meeting of southeast Asian leaders in Brunei on Monday, at which he will also hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the Syrian crisis and a row over the presence in Moscow of US leaker Edward Snowden.

Kerry - whose predecessor Hillary Clinton had made Asia a defining focus - also plans to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and to hold three-way talks with Japan and South Korea, US allies whose relations have recently been sour.

US officials said Kerry was dedicated to seeking progress in the Middle East and plans to speak before flying out. He cancelled a dinner on Saturday in Abu Dhabi on the Syria crisis to spend more time shuttling between Netanyahu and Abbas.

"Kerry is willing to put in the legwork necessary to move this process forward in a meaningful way," a US official said on condition of anonymity.

Tight-lipped about meetings

US officials have been tight-lipped about the substance of Kerry's meetings, fearing that any public statements could put at risk his efforts.

On Kerry's all-night meeting with Netanyahu and senior aides, a US official said only that the two men discussed a "wide range of issues related to the peace process" over a dinner of hummus, pita and sea bream.

Netanyahu had a tense relationship with President Barack Obama during the US leader's first term, with the Israeli leader resisting calls to renew a freeze on settlement construction as part of efforts aimed at leading to a Palestinian state.

Israel had observed a 10-month freeze on new West Bank construction which expired shortly after direct negotiations began in September 2010, with the renewal of settlement building causing the talks to collapse.

While some ministers and aides have described Netanyahu as increasingly pragmatic, he emerged from January elections with a coalition of hardliners, many of whom oppose a Palestinian state.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the far-right Jewish Home party, recently described the Palestinian issue as "shrapnel in the buttocks" a problem Israel simply had to keep suffering through but threatened to quit if the government agreed to a Palestinian state.

Abbas also faces internal dissent with the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the impoverished Gaza Strip, strongly criticising him for pursuing talks.

NEWS,04.06.2013

Carbon emissions get nod from airlines

Global airlines have agreed on a proposal for tackling aircraft emissions in a bid to break international deadlock over an issue that has stoked fears of a carbon trade war.
Airlines representing 85% of global traffic urged governments to adopt a single market-based system designed to offset growth in their post-2020 emissions against the funding of projects to cut emissions deemed harmful to the environment.
The decision is designed to offer governments a basis for negotiation after United Nations talks failed to resolve a stand-off between the European Union and a broad flank of other countries over an issue with cross-border implications.
Airlines have been racing to avert a trade war after the European Union suspended an emissions trading scheme for a year to give opponents time to agree on a global system.
So far, little progress has been made in the UN effort to craft an agreement to lower emissions from international air travel, raising doubts that a September target date can be met.
The International Air Transport Association (Iata), a group of 240 originally state-owned airlines set up to help the UN harmonise aviation after World War II, backed the plan after balancing the interests of airlines usually noted for cut-throat competition.
State-owned Chinese and Indian airlines voted against the measure, echoing what analysts see as the reluctance of their governments to set a precedent for wider climate control talks.
Iata's director general earlier said that failure to agree a common position would expose the airline industry to a "patchwork horror story" of different regulations.
Airlines have been trying to use a slim window of opportunity to smooth over their own divisions and seize the initiative before the UN's aviation body meets in September.
One of the most sensitive topics is whether the whole industry should pay for its emissions or whether the airlines growing the most should pay the most.
Airlines in the Gulf and Asia are growing at a much faster pace than those in mature European and North American markets.
The Iata plan includes safeguards to protect the various camps.
"It is a question of finding the right sweet spot," said American Airlines Chief executive Thomas Horton.

Humanity Imperiled

What is the future likely to bring?  A reasonable stance might be to try to look at the human species from the outside.  So imagine that you’re an extraterrestrial observer who is trying to figure out what’s happening here or, for that matter, imagine you’re an historian 100 years from now assuming there are any historians 100 years from now, which is not obvious and you’re looking back at what’s happening today.  You’d see something quite remarkable.
For the first time in the history of the human species, we have clearly developed the capacity to destroy ourselves.  That’s been true since 1945.  It’s now being finally recognized that there are more long-term processes like environmental destruction leading in the same direction, maybe not to total destruction, but at least to the destruction of the capacity for a decent existence.
And there are other dangers like pandemics, which have to do with globalization and interaction.  So there are processes underway and institutions right in place, like nuclear weapons systems, which could lead to a serious blow to, or maybe the termination of, an organized existence.
How to Destroy a Planet Without Really Trying
The question is: What are people doing about it?  None of this is a secret.  It’s all perfectly open.  In fact, you have to make an effort not to see it.
There have been a range of reactions.  There are those who are trying hard to do something about these threats, and others who are acting to escalate them.  If you look at who they are, this future historian or extraterrestrial observer would see something strange indeed.  Trying to mitigate or overcome these threats are the least developed societies, the indigenous populations, or the remnants of them, tribal societies and first nations in Canada.  They’re not talking about nuclear war but environmental disaster, and they’re really trying to do something about it.
In fact, all over the world Australia, India, South America there are battles going on, sometimes wars.  In India, it’s a major war over direct environmental destruction, with tribal societies trying to resist resource extraction operations that are extremely harmful locally, but also in their general consequences.  In societies where indigenous populations have an influence, many are taking a strong stand.  The strongest of any country with regard to global warming is in Bolivia, which has an indigenous majority and constitutional requirements that protect the “rights of nature.” 
Ecuador, which also has a large indigenous population, is the only oil exporter I know of where the government is seeking aid to help keep that oil in the ground, instead of producing and exporting it and the ground is where it ought to be.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died recently and was the object of mockery, insult, and hatred throughout the Western world, attended a session of the U.N. General Assembly a few years ago where he elicited all sorts of ridicule for calling George W. Bush a devil.  He also gave a speech there that was quite interesting.  Of course, Venezuela is a major oil producer.  Oil is practically their whole gross domestic product.  In that speech, he warned of the dangers of the overuse of fossil fuels and urged producer and consumer countries to get together and try to work out ways to reduce fossil fuel use.  That was pretty amazing on the part of an oil producer.  You know, he was part Indian, of indigenous background.  Unlike the funny things he did, this aspect of his actions at the U.N. was never even reported.
So, at one extreme you have indigenous, tribal societies trying to stem the race to disaster.  At the other extreme, the richest, most powerful societies in world history, like the United States and Canada, are racing full-speed ahead to destroy the environment as quickly as possible.  Unlike Ecuador, and indigenous societies throughout the world, they want to extract every drop of hydrocarbons from the ground with all possible speed. 
Both political parties, President Obama, the media, and the international press seem to be looking forward with great enthusiasm to what they call “a century of energy independence” for the United States.  Energy independence is an almost meaningless concept, but put that aside.  What they mean is: we’ll have a century in which to maximize the use of fossil fuels and contribute to destroying the world.
And that’s pretty much the case everywhere.  Admittedly, when it comes to alternative energy development, Europe is doing something.  Meanwhile, the United States, the richest and most powerful country in world history, is the only nation among perhaps 100 relevant ones that doesn’t have a national policy for restricting the use of fossil fuels, that doesn’t even have renewable energy targets.  It’s not because the population doesn’t want it.  Americans are pretty close to the international norm in their concern about global warming.  It’s institutional structures that block change.  Business interests don’t want it and they’re overwhelmingly powerful in determining policy, so you get a big gap between opinion and policy on lots of issues, including this one.
So that’s what the future historian if there is one would see.  He might also read today’s scientific journals.  Just about every one you open has a more dire prediction than the last.
“The Most Dangerous Moment in History”
The other issue is nuclear war.  It’s been known for a long time that if there were to be a first strike by a major power, even with no retaliation, it would probably destroy civilization just because of the nuclear-winter consequences that would follow.  You can read about it in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.  It’s well understood.  So the danger has always been a lot worse than we thought it was.
We’ve just passed the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was called “the most dangerous moment in history” by historian Arthur Schlesinger, President John F. Kennedy’s advisor.  Which it was.  It was a very close call, and not the only time either.  In some ways, however, the worst aspect of these grim events is that the lessons haven’t been learned.
What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded.  The truth is that the whole episode was almost insane.  There was a point, as the missile crisis was reaching its peak, when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy offering to settle it by a public announcement of a withdrawal of Russian missiles from Cuba and U.S. missiles from Turkey.  Actually, Kennedy hadn’t even known that the U.S. had missiles in Turkey at the time.  They were being withdrawn anyway, because they were being replaced by more lethal Polaris nuclear submarines, which were invulnerable.
So that was the offer.  Kennedy and his advisors considered it and rejected it.  At the time, Kennedy himself was estimating the likelihood of nuclear war at a third to a half.  So Kennedy was willing to accept a very high risk of massive destruction in order to establish the principle that we and only we have the right to offensive missiles beyond our borders, in fact anywhere we like, no matter what the risk to others and to ourselves, if matters fall out of control. We have that right, but no one else does.
Kennedy did, however, accept a secret agreement to withdraw the missiles the U.S. was already withdrawing, as long as it was never made public.  Khrushchev, in other words, had to openly withdraw the Russian missiles while the U.S. secretly withdrew its obsolete ones; that is, Khrushchev had to be humiliated and Kennedy had to maintain his macho image.  He’s greatly praised for this: courage and coolness under threat, and so on.  The horror of his decisions is not even mentioned try to find it on the record.
And to add a little more, a couple of months before the crisis blew up the United States had sent missiles with nuclear warheads to Okinawa.  These were aimed at China during a period of great regional tension.
Well, who cares?  We have the right to do anything we want anywhere in the world.  That was one grim lesson from that era, but there were others to come.
Ten years after that, in 1973, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a high-level nuclear alert.  It was his way of warning the Russians not to interfere in the ongoing Israel-Arab war and, in particular, not to interfere after he had informed the Israelis that they could violate a ceasefire the U.S. and Russia had just agreed upon.  Fortunately, nothing happened.
Ten years later, President Ronald Reagan was in office.  Soon after he entered the White House, he and his advisors had the Air Force start penetrating Russian air space to try to elicit information about Russian warning systems, Operation Able Archer.  Essentially, these were mock attacks.  The Russians were uncertain, some high-level officials fearing that this was a step towards a real first strike.  Fortunately, they didn’t react, though it was a close call.  And it goes on like that.
What to Make of the Iranian and North Korean Nuclear Crises
At the moment, the nuclear issue is regularly on front pages in the cases of North Korea and Iran.  There are ways to deal with these ongoing crises.  Maybe they wouldn’t work, but at least you could try.  They are, however, not even being considered, not even reported.
Take the case of Iran, which is considered in the West not in the Arab world, not in Asia  the gravest threat to world peace.  It’s a Western obsession, and it’s interesting to look into the reasons for it, but I’ll put that aside here.  Is there a way to deal with the supposed gravest threat to world peace?  Actually there are quite a few.  One way, a pretty sensible one, was proposed a couple of months ago at a meeting of the non-aligned countries in Tehran.  In fact, they were just reiterating a proposal that’s been around for decades, pressed particularly by Egypt, and has been approved by the U.N. General Assembly.
The proposal is to move toward establishing a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region.  That wouldn’t be the answer to everything, but it would be a pretty significant step forward.  And there were ways to proceed.  Under U.N. auspices, there was to be an international conference in Finland last December to try to implement plans to move toward this.  What happened? 
You won’t read about it in the newspapers because it wasn’t reported only in specialist journals.  In early November, Iran agreed to attend the meeting.  A couple of days later Obama cancelled the meeting, saying the time wasn’t right.  The European Parliament issued a statement calling for it to continue, as did the Arab states.  Nothing resulted.  So we’ll move toward ever-harsher sanctions against the Iranian population it doesn’t hurt the regime and maybe war. Who knows what will happen?
In Northeast Asia, it’s the same sort of thing.  North Korea may be the craziest country in the world.  It’s certainly a good competitor for that title.  But it does make sense to try to figure out what’s in the minds of people when they’re acting in crazy ways.  Why would they behave the way they do?  Just imagine ourselves in their situation.  Imagine what it meant in the Korean War years of the early 1950s for your country to be totally leveled, everything destroyed by a huge superpower, which furthermore was gloating about what it was doing.  Imagine the imprint that would leave behind.
Bear in mind that the North Korean leadership is likely to have read the public military journals of this superpower at that time explaining that, since everything else in North Korea had been destroyed, the air force was sent to destroy North Korea’s dams, huge dams that controlled the water supply a war crime, by the way, for which people were hanged in Nuremberg.   And these official journals were talking excitedly about how wonderful it was to see the water pouring down, digging out the valleys, and the Asians scurrying around trying to survive.  The journals were exulting in what this meant to those “Asians,” horrors beyond our imagination.  It meant the destruction of their rice crop, which in turn meant starvation and death.  How magnificent!  It’s not in our memory, but it’s in their memory.
Let’s turn to the present.  There’s an interesting recent history.  In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sending any missiles or military technology to the Middle East and Israel would recognize that country.  President Clinton intervened and blocked it.  Shortly after that, in retaliation, North Korea carried out a minor missile test.  The U.S. and North Korea did then reach a framework agreement in 1994 that halted its nuclear work and was more or less honored by both sides.  When George W. Bush came into office, North Korea had maybe one nuclear weapon and verifiably wasn’t producing any more. 
Bush immediately launched his aggressive militarism, threatening North Korea “axis of evil” and all that so North Korea got back to work on its nuclear program.  By the time Bush left office, they had eight to 10 nuclear weapons and a missile system, another great neocon achievement.  In between, other things happened.  In 2005, the U.S. and North Korea actually reached an agreement in which North Korea was to end all nuclear weapons and missile development.  In return, the West, but mainly the United States, was to provide a light-water reactor for its medical needs and end aggressive statements.  They would then form a nonaggression pact and move toward accommodation.
It was pretty promising, but almost immediately Bush undermined it.  He withdrew the offer of the light-water reactor and initiated programs to compel banks to stop handling any North Korean transactions, even perfectly legal ones.  The North Koreans reacted by reviving their nuclear weapons program.  And that’s the way it’s been going.
It’s well known.  You can read it in straight, mainstream American scholarship.  What they say is: it’s a pretty crazy regime, but it’s also following a kind of tit-for-tat policy.  You make a hostile gesture and we’ll respond with some crazy gesture of our own.  You make an accommodating gesture and we’ll reciprocate in some way.
Lately, for instance, there have been South Korean-U.S. military exercises on the Korean peninsula which, from the North’s point of view, have got to look threatening.  We’d think they were threatening if they were going on in Canada and aimed at us.  In the course of these, the most advanced bombers in history, Stealth B-2s and B-52s, are carrying out simulated nuclear bombing attacks right on North Korea’s borders. 
This surely sets off alarm bells from the past.  They remember that past, so they’re reacting in a very aggressive, extreme way.  Well, what comes to the West from all this is how crazy and how awful the North Korean leaders are.  Yes, they are.  But that’s hardly the whole story, and this is the way the world is going.
It’s not that there are no alternatives.  The alternatives just aren’t being taken. That’s dangerous.  So if you ask what the world is going to look like, it’s not a pretty picture.  Unless people do something about it.  We always can.

China Tried To Convince North Korea To Stop Conducting Nuclear Tests: Source

China told an envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that Pyongyang should stop conducting nuclear and missile tests, but the North showed little sign of heeding the request, said a source with knowledge of the talks held late last month.
Kim dispatched Choe Ryong-hae, vice chairman of the country's top military body, to explain North Korea's recent actions but he got a lukewarm reception from his Chinese hosts, said the source, who has close ties to Beijing and Pyongyang.
North Korea's 30-year-old leader took power in December 2011 and has carried out two long-range rocket launches and a nuclear weapons test since then. He also embarked on a months-long campaign of threats against South Korea and the United States.
"(North) Korea has not mellowed," said the source, who did not attend the meetings but has since spoken to both sides to which he has regular access.
Choe, nominally a general but with no known military experience, is the Korean People's Army's top ideologue. He showed up in Beijing in full military regalia, in contrast to his suited Chinese counterparts.
Experts have said the three-day visit was an attempt by North Korea to mend fences with its only major diplomatic ally, which has been critical of Pyongyang.
After the meetings, in which Choe eventually held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korea promised to take "positive steps for peace" while China repeated its mantra of wanting "calm and restraint" on the Korean peninsula.
FOCUS ON ECONOMY, NORTH TOLD
Beijing tried to convince Pyongyang to stop its nuclear and missile tests, which "put China in a difficult position and are not conducive to (North) Korea", the source said. China advised North Korea to focus on rebuilding its ruined economy instead, something it has said before.
North Korea's recent actions drew international condemnation and put Beijing under pressure, especially from Washington, to rein in Pyongyang. It also helped reinforce an American strategy of rebalancing its security policies toward the Asia-Pacific.
China is North Korea's biggest trade partner and aid donor. Choe was shown a special enterprise zone during his visit, but he did not raise the issue of aid during his talks, the source added.
Asked if Pyongyang had agreed to halt nuclear tests, the source said that for the North: "It hinges on necessity."
North Korea has repeatedly said it will never abandon its nuclear weapons, calling them its "treasured sword".
The source did not say if Beijing spelt out any consequences should the North conduct further tests.
Choe met officials from the Chinese government, the military and ruling Communist Party.
China has grown increasingly frustrated with Pyongyang. It agreed to new U.N. sanctions after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test in February, and Chinese banks have curbed business with their North Korean counterparts in the wake of U.S. sanctions on the country's main foreign exchange bank.
A former senior U.S. official said Beijing's insistence that North Korea halt testing would be in line with recent signs it was running out of patience with Pyongyang.
"What I've heard from talking to Chinese officials and American officials who are talking to them is that top Chinese officials now emphasize that the principal goal is to terminate the nuclear weapons programme of North Korea," the ex-official said.
"Usually, in the past that's been buried (by the Chinese)."
Choe presented a hand-written letter from Kim to Xi. Chinese media gave no details of its contents at the time, but the source close to Pyongyang and Beijing described it as "terse".
Kim stressed in his letter that "the traditional friendship created by the older generation of revolutionary leaders should not waver at any time", said the source.
China has backed North Korea since Mao Zedong sent Chinese troops to bolster Communist forces under then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung - Kim Jong-un's grandfather - during the 1950-53 Korean war.
The nuclear and rocket tests and verbal threats were partly aimed at forcing the United States and South Korea to sign a permanent peace treaty with North Korea to replace the armistice agreement that ended that conflict, the source said.
HANDSHAKES, NOT HUGS
North Korea felt the reception Choe got was lukewarm, said the source. It was the most important visit to China by a North Korean delegation since the young Kim's uncle, a kingmaker among Pyongyang's ruling elite, visited Beijing in late 2012.
"There was no bear hug between Wang Jiarui and Choe when they met," the source noted, referring to the Chinese Communist Party's International Department minister, who is responsible for dealing with foreign political parties. Such greetings have been a tradition between North Korean and Chinese leaders, who once saw their relationship as "close as lips and teeth".
China has repeatedly urged North Korea to return to the so-called six-party talks, which are aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.
Choe told the Chinese this format did not work. In 2009, Pyongyang said it would never return to the talks, which also included South Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia.
North Korea would instead seek bilateral talks with the various parties first, said the source, without elaborating.
Abandoning its nuclear weapons programme could not be a prerequisite for talks, Choe told his hosts.
That makes talks with Washington a non-starter since U.S. officials say North Korea must take meaningful steps on denuclearisation before there can be dialogue.
KIM FIRMLY IN CHARGE, CHINESE TOLD
Choe told his Chinese hosts that Kim had consolidated his power since the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December 2011, through the weapons tests and war threats that saw Pyongyang put its armed forces on alert this year.
There has been repeated speculation that the North's young leader had been challenged by some elements in the military, although these assessments have been impossible to verify given the closed nature of North Korea.
"Through mobilising troops, Kim Jong-un wanted to see who obeyed and who refused to obey his command," the source said.
Just under a year ago, Kim ousted Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho, North Korea's leading military figure, as army chief of staff. A couple of days later North Korean media named Kim as marshal of the army.
"Many (officers) have been rounded up or sacked. Ri Yong-ho was arrested on counter-revolutionary crimes," the source said. He declined to say if Ri was jailed or executed.
"There had been some opposition to Kim Jong-un when he was named marshal. He has gotten rid of this."

NEWS,01 AND 02.04.2013

World Bank urges end to extreme poverty

World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim on Tuesday called for a global drive to wipe out extreme poverty by 2030, acknowledging that reaching the goal will require extraordinary efforts."A world free of poverty is within our grasp. It is time to help everyone across the globe secure a one-way ticket out of poverty and stay on the path toward prosperity," Kim said in a speech in Washington, according to the prepared text.The World Bank president said that in practical terms, the goal would be to lower the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day from 21% of the world's population in 2010 to just 3% by 2030."Below 3%, the nature of the poverty challenge will change fundamentally in most parts of the world. The focus will shift from broad structural measures to tackling sporadic poverty among specific vulnerable groups," Kim said in a speech at Georgetown University."Though we will continue to reach out to those who suffer from sporadic and occasional poverty, the fight against mass poverty that countries have waged for centuries will be won."In 2000, the international community set eight UN Millennium Development Goals to be reached by 2015. One of them, to halve extreme poverty, was accomplished in 2010, five years ahead of time, Kim noted, after developing countries invested in social safety nets and created buffers to protect against crises."To reach the 2030 goal, we must halve global poverty once, then halve it again, and then nearly halve it a third time all in less than one generation," he said.To do that will require three main factors, he said.Higher economic growth rates will be needed, in particular sustained high growth in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Efforts must be made to curb inequality and ensure that growth reduces poverty, especially through job creation.And potential shocks, such as new food, fuel, or financial crises and climatic disasters, must be averted or cushioned.The World Bank president also set another poverty-reduction target that is less measurable: to increase the incomes of the poorest 40% of the population in each country.Kim, speaking ahead of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington later in the month, said the goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity require coordinated efforts."They are goals which we hope our partners our 188 member countries will achieve, with the support of the World Bank Group and the global development community," he said.

Cyprus finance minister quits

Cypriot Finance Minister Michael Sarris quit on Tuesday after concluding talks with foreign lenders on a bailout that forced the island to slap unprecedented losses on bank depositors in return for aid.The news came after Cyprus announced a partial relaxation of currency controls, raising the ceiling for financial transactions that do not require central bank approval, but keeping most other restrictions in place.Sarris, who was dispatched to Moscow last month but returned empty-handed as Cyprus sought Russian aid after rejecting a European bank levy proposal, said his main goal of agreeing a deal with lenders had been accomplished.He said it was also appropriate to resign since he was among several people under scrutiny by a team of investigators looking into the collapse of the country's banking system. His resignation was accepted by the government."I believe that in order to facilitate the work of (investigators) the right thing would be to place my resignation at the disposal of the president of the republic, which I did," Sarris said.Before quitting, he said it was not clear when the remaining capital controls would be lifted.The island introduced curbs on money movements when banks reopened on March 28 after a two-week shutdown while the government negotiated a €10bn bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.Cyprus's status as a financial hub has crumbled in the space of a fortnight after authorities were forced to wind down one bank and slap heavy losses on wealthier depositors in a second in return for the financial aid.Its capital controls are a first for the eurozone, introduced by Cyprus as it strives to prevent a cash drain.Bailout terms disclosed A finance ministry decree on Tuesday, the third since controls were first introduced, raised the ceiling on transactions which do not require central bank approval to €25 000 from €5 000. It also permits the use of cheques worth up to €9 000 per month.Other restrictions introduced last week, including a €300 per day cash withdrawal limit and a €1 000 limit on the amount travellers can take overseas, remain in place.The decree signed by Sarris and dated April 2 is valid for two days. Cypriot officials have said it could take up to a month for restrictions to be fully removed.Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, who has been in power for just over a month, says he was forced to accept onerous terms imposed by lenders to avert a default and an exit by the island from the eurozone.Under the terms of the deal, Cyprus will have until 2018 to carry out measures to shore up its finances and begin to receive aid starting in May.The island will pay an interest rate of 2.5% on its rescue loans, with repayment starting in 10 years. The loans will repaid over 12 years.On Tuesday, Anastasiades appointed three retired Supreme Court judges to investigate political, civil and criminal responsibilities over the demise of the economy, one of the bloc's smallest.Cyprus last week agreed to break up its No. 2 lender Popular Bank, kept on an ECB liquidity lifeline for months, into a "good" and a "bad" bank. The bank's "good" assets will be transferred to Bank of Cyprus, where depositors have been forced into accepting massive losses on uninsured deposits of more than €100 000.The process, known as a "bail-in" sees 37.5% of deposits exceeding €100 000 converted into equity in the bank, and an additional 22.5% used as a buffer which could also be converted into equity if circumstances warrant it.In a deal brokered early on Tuesday morning, it was also agreed that a small portion of the remaining 40% in uninsured deposits effectively frozen under the arrangement, 10%, be unblocked.The Cypriot government had unsuccessfully argued that the entire 40% be unblocked, a source familiar with the consultations said.

Casinos to kickstart Cypriot economy

Cyprus plans to lift a ban on casinos and offer firms tax exemptions on profits reinvested on the island under a package of reforms to kickstart its ailing economy, its president said on Monday.The country's eurozone partners agreed on a €10bn rescue package last Monday after weeks of tense negotiations that showed the debt crisis racking the 1-nation currency union is far from over.The tough terms of the deal look set to deepen the island's recession, shrink its banking sector and lead to thousands of job losses, while the capital controls imposed to prevent a run on Cypriot banks may test the ties that bind the single-currency bloc as a whole.President Nicos Anastasiades, who briefed ministers on the economy at an informal meeting on Monday, said the 12-point growth plan would be put to the cabinet for approval within the next 15 days.The programme includes measures to attract foreign investment to the island a hub for offshore finance as well as tax exemptions on business profits reinvested there, and the easing of payment terms and interest rates on loans.With about €68bn in its banks, Cyprus has a vastly outsized financial system that attracted deposits from abroad, especially Russia.In a bid to attract more tourists to the south of the island, it also hopes to lift a ban on casinos, which so far only operate legally in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus.Speaking to reporters after a memorial service to commemorate the 1955 armed campaign against British rule, Anastasiades said the government would focus on "growth and incentives for growth".Cyprus's bailout is the first to impose steep losses on depositors with more than €100 000 in their accounts, and is expected to hit business activity especially hard.Asked to make a forecast on the likely depth of recession Cyprus faces, government spokesperson Christos Stylianides said: "It's not possible at this time to put numbers on the recession.""The government, having inherited an atomic bomb, tried to deactivate it and in doing so spared this country from total bankruptcy. It is now dealing with a post-earthquake period with the aim to kickstart the economy," he said.Stylianides said the cabinet discussed pending issues in the country's negotiations with its international lenders relating to the financial sector, fiscal adjustment measures, structural measures in the public sector and energy issues. He said Anastasiades would also chair a meeting of party leaders at 18:00 GMT on Monday to brief them on the matter.Under the bailout deal, major depositors in Cyprus's biggest lender, Bank of Cyprus, will lose around 60% of savings above €100 000.The country's banks reopened on Thursday after a nearly two-week hiatus aimed at averting a bank run, but the ripple effect of their closure is likely to strangle business on the island for a long time to come.There are also concerns that depositors in other struggling eurozone nations could take fright at the conditions imposed on Cyprus, although there have been no signs of bank runs.The capital controls imposed on the country raise questions about the long-term viability of the euro. There is also the risk that euros on the island may be valued differently to those in the rest of the bloc due to them being less liquid as a result of the controls. Anastasiades has defended the rescue deal as painful but essential, saying that without it, Cyprus had faced certain banking collapse and risked becoming the first country to be pushed out of the European single currency.

Cyprus probes causes of bankruptcy

Cyprus authorities on Tuesday launched a judicial probe into how the island was pushed to the verge of bankruptcy before having to agree a crippling eurozone bailout.Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades called on the three-judge commission George Pikkis, Panayiotis Kallis and Yiannakis Constantinides to investigate himself and his family members as a "matter of priority" and with "extra vigour".This is seen as a move to counter unsubstantiated allegations that his family members used privileged information to get money out of the country before deposits were locked down.Accusations have also been made against other leading politicians and business figures that they took advantage of their position to protect their assets from a hit on bank deposits imposed by European Union-led creditors last month.Anastasiades said nobody was immune from the inquiry not even his extended family or the law firm in which he was a partner until recently."The current plight of the economy and our people is without a doubt the result of a synergy of factors both external and internal," Anastasiades said at the swearing-in ceremony."A series of acts or omissions from those authorised to manage the economy or the banking system led the country to the brink of bankruptcy, the dissolution of one its largest banks and the loss of billions from an impairment of deposits," he added.The massive losses suffered by savers in the island's two largest banks in the first eurozone rescue package to punish larger depositors has sparked huge resentment against anybody seen as having taken unfair advantage to shirk their share of the burden.Big depositors in largest lender Bank of Cyprus face losses of up to 60%, while those in second lender Laiki will have to wait years to see any of their money as the bank is wound up with the loss of thousands of jobs.The government is looking to free up the remaining 40% of BoC deposits of more than €100 000 that are not frozen as part of the bailout agreed with the "troika" of the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.Allegations have swirled of big movements of cash out of both banks in the run-up to the bailout agreement as those in the know scrambled to protect their money.The panel, which has three months to report its findings, will also probe a list published by Greek media of Cypriot politicians who allegedly had loans forgiven during the meltdown.Cypriot banks have been operating under stringent capital controls since they reopened on Thursday, after a near two-week lockdown prompted by fears of a run on deposits.Central Bank of Cyprus governor Panicos Demetriades said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Tuesday that the controls would be eased in stages."I can't really tell you if it will be seven or 14 days before capital controls end," Demetriades said. "We have to lift them gradually."He played down fears there would be a run on accounts once the controls were eventually relaxed."Once people realise how well capitalised the banks are there is little reason why there will be deposit flight," he said.The draconian controls limit daily withdrawals to €300 and ban the taking of more than €1 000 in cash out of the country.At the island's main international airport in Larnaca, signs in Greek, English and Russia warn departing travellers of the restrictions.

Eurozone manufacturing slump deepens

The downturn in the 17-nation eurozone's manufacturing sector deepened sharply in March, with even powerhouse economy Germany dragged down, a key survey showed Tuesday.The Markit Eurozone Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index fell to 46.8 points in March, up from an initial estimate of 46.6 but well short of the already weak 47.9 posted in February.The outcome left the closely followed indicator at a three-month low and below the 50-points boom-bust line since August 2011.The average PMI for the three months to March was 47.5 points, which Markit said was the best performance since the first quarter of 2012, but the latest figures showed a clear deterioration across the eurozone.Germany at 49 points slipped to a two-month low while "rates of decline gathered pace in all the other nations ... with the exception of France," Markit said in a statement.France stood at 44 points, a three-month high, while Italy was on 44.5, its lowest for seven months and Spain on 44.2, a five-month low.Markit warned that the data suggested worse could be to come, after recent figures had allowed analysts to hope that the economy might have finally touched bottom.Manufacturing "looks likely to have acted as a drag on the economy in the first quarter, with an acceleration in the rate of decline in March raising the risk that the downturn may also intensify in the second quarter," Markit chief economist Chris Williamson said in a statement."The surveys paint a very disappointing picture across the region, with all countries either seeing sharper rates of decline or in the cases of Germany and Ireland sliding back into contraction," Williamson said.He said the Cyprus bailout appeared not to have had any impact so far but "the concern is that the latest chapter in the (eurozone debt) crisis will have hit demand further in April."

Eurozone unemployment hits record high

Eurozone unemployment ran at a record 12% in February, with more than 19 million people on the dole as the debt crisis continued to sap the economy, official data showed Tuesday.The Eurostat data agency said unemployment in the 17-nation eurozone at 12% was unchanged from January when the figure was initially given as 11.9%.In the full 27-member EU, unemployment in February rose to 10.9% from 10.8%, with 26.34 million out of work, it said.Some 33 000 joined the jobless queues in the eurozone and 76 000 in the EU over the month of February, Eurostat said.Compared with a year earlier, the increase in registered unemployment was 1.78 million in the eurozone and 1.81 million in the EU.The highest unemployment rates in February were found in Spain with 26.3% and neighbour Portugal, on 17.5%. Greece was put at it 26.4% but this figure is for December, the latest available.The lowest rates were 4.8% in Austria and 5.4% in Germany, Europe's biggest economy.With youth unemployment a huge cause of concern, Eurostat said that the jobless rate for under-25s ran at 23.9% in the eurozone and 23.5% in the EU.Among the countries with the highest youth jobless levels, Spain was on 55.7%, followed by Portugal on 38.2% and Italy with 37.8%.Greece was the highest with 58.4% but this figure was for December, the last available.

UK manufacturing contracts in March

Britain's manufacturing sector shrank for a second consecutive month in March, a survey showed on Tuesday, leaving the country's more resilient services sector as the best hope of avoiding a new recession.The Markit/CIPS manufacturing purchasing managers' index came in at 48.3, only slightly above February's shock reading of 47.9, and a touch weaker than the consensus forecast.The output component of the survey fell in March at its fastest pace since October.The survey suggests manufacturing exerted an even bigger drag on growth between January and March than it did in the fourth quarter of 2012, when it accounted for a third of the economy's 0.3% contraction."The onus is now on the far larger service sector to prevent the UK from slipping into a triple-dip recession," said Rob Dobson, senior economist at Markit.Official GDP data for the first quarter won't be released until April 25 but the evidence so far suggests a strong risk that Britain will record a second consecutive quarter of contraction the technical definition of recession.A third recession in less than five years would be an embarrassment for the government which is sticking to tough austerity measures despite faltering growth at home and abroad.Despite the weakness in the economy, the Bank of England is not expected to take new stimulus measures when it meets on Wednesday and Thursday, although more action is widely expected before the end of the year.The Markit report blamed the poor performance of manufacturing in March on tough market conditions, subdued client confidence and ongoing bad weather.New orders from abroad contracted for the 15th month running in March. The survey blamed the fall on weak demand from Europe and strong competition in US and South Asian markets.In further bad news for UK policymakers, there were also signs that inflation pressures were picking up. Output prices rose at the fastest pace in three months while input prices picked up sharply, driven by the weakness of sterling and higher energy and food costs.Manufacturing accounts for around a fifth of British economic output. Surveys of the construction and service sectors for March are due to be released on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. There have been signs that the services sector is faring better than manufacturing. It grew at its fastest pace in five months in February, according to Markit and official data showed it notched up its best performance in January for five months.