Current Affairs: International Relations- Minor Issues 25 Aug to 25 Sept 2010

CAG Weekly
(Current Affairs & GK)
By Om Prakash (Goldy sir)

International Relations (Minor Issues)

Why are Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) flourishing?  Can WTO do something about it?

  • RTAs are a result of the changing international political order after 1991: the emergence of a multipolar order as against the hegemonic US dominance prior to this. While the WTO is a unique mandatory international forum, others are likely to emerge in areas like climate change. The main fault of the WTO lies in the demonstration (especially after the Uruguay round) that distribution of global economic gains is a function of distribution of political power. As US hegemony declines, the growth of RTAs might well be a consequence of emergence of multipolar negotiating blocs. Weaker developing countries, in particular are attempting to be part of every bloc possible. Regional blocs are the most (but not only) obvious choice.
  • The bottom line? As long as global economic gains are perceived as unequally distributed, RTAs will flourish. The WTO must address this issue rather than mere tariff reductions if the proliferation of RTAs is to slow down. The issue is political not economic.

The US budget deficit

  • The US has a significant budget deficit, likely to be $1.3 trillion (10% of GDP) this year.  Do you know how large it is?  It is larger than our country's GDP by 30%!

Google, UN-Habitat join hands for access to water, sanitation

  • If the direr predictions are to be believed, it may soon be a case of “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink,” as the effects of global warming and water use patterns combine to make access to good drinking water an issue, especially in developing countries.
  • As another of the many measures initiated to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of ensuring environmental sustainability through access to drinking water and sanitation, UN-Habitat and Google.org launched the h2.0 initiative (http://www.h20initiative.org) at the recently concluded World Water Week in Stockholm.
  • The initiative provides a common, real-time, online platform for data collected by groups around the world, presenting them in the form of interactive maps (using Google Earth), while providing an opportunity for community participation in data collection.
  • Among the initiatives supported are the use of Citizen Report Cards (CRC), pioneered by the Public Affairs Centre (PAC), a Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation, and data uploading through mobile devices, with spreadsheets and maps created remotely using the data, as is being done in Zanzibar by the University of Twente.
  • A report on the UN-Habitat website named German development organisation GTZ, Majidata, WaterAid, the University of Twente and the Hilton Foundation as among the partner organisations in the initiative.
  • Other organisations, including the World Health Organisation, have expressed interest in contributing to the initiative. Most components in the h2.0 platform are cloud-based and run on Google data centres and “provide the necessary scalability and processing power as more datasets become available, more partners join and integration tools are developed,” according to the h20initiative website.
  • “Offline synchronisation,” including integration with data collection and updating through mobile technology, “overarching search functionality” which finds patterns, holes and overlaps in data and “flexible power user access” to the platform to enable partners to update their data themselves are being looked into as future developments, the website adds.

U.N. meet's focus on poverty

  • The world's conflicts, crises and diplomatic dramas — from stumbling efforts to cut poverty to Iran's nuclear drive and Pakistan's flood disaster — will be debated and disputed by global leaders from Monday at the annual U.N. summit.
  • Presidents Barack Obama of the United States and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and China's Premier Wen Jiabao will be among about 140 Heads of State and Government attending a Millennium Development Goals (MDG) summit and then the U.N. General Assembly.
  • World leaders will have a hard time convincing doubtful aid agencies that they are serious about meeting the eight big development goals that were set at the Millennium summit in 2000 with a target date of 2015.

Pope apologises for abuse scandal

  • The controversy over the child abuse scandal, involving Catholic priests, continued to dog Pope Benedict XVI's visit even as he offered what Vatican observers described as the “most explicit'' apology yet saying it had brought “shame and humiliation'' to the Church.
  • Condemning the abuses as “unspeakable crimes'' and “sins'', the Pope expressed his sorrow at the “immense suffering'' of the vulnerable children exploited by priests who were supposed to care for them.

On Global Partnership for Development or GPD

  • The development of a GPD is what is stated in the Millennium Development Goal 8 adopted in 2000.
  • The GPD is best defined as a multi-stakeholder partnership, involving state as well as non-state actors, to address significant challenges in regard to the attainment of global public goods (GPGs). GPGs, in turn, may be operationally defined as values, facilities or institutions that enhance welfare for populations all over the globe. Thus, security, promotion of democracy, aid (including debt), disaster management, alleviation of climate change, food security, trade and investment have all been referred to as GPGs.

On the G-20

  • We note below an excellent description of the G-20 as given by Pradeep Mehta, the Secretary General of CUTS International:
  • The G-20, a club of nations that has recently attained the status of a principal mover on the world stage, accounts for 65% of the world’s population and more than 85% of the world’s GDP. Thus, the G-20 has been able to achieve the ideal blend of representativeness and economy in numbers, a characteristic needed for quick and timely decision making and achievement of consensus in a fast changing global environment.

India exhorts G-20 nations to coordinate policies

  • India on Friday exhorted the G-20 member countries to work together to support a well-functioning international economy by coordinating their policy actions in a manner that can ensure strong, sustainable and balanced growth.
  • Delivering his keynote address at a conference on ‘International cooperation in times of global crisis: Views from G-20 countries' here, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee pointed out that the financial and economic crisis of 2007-09 had not only exposed the fragility of existing global financial and economic institutions and the limitations of existing macro-economic policy tools but had also provided an opportunity to the world for new thinking in the world of finance and globalisation.

Endangered Iraqi heritage

  • The illegitimate war on Iraq has ravaged the country and severely eroded its capacity to manage not only its future but also the past. Despite timely cautions by archaeologists, the occupying troops irreparably damaged Iraq's heritage, some of which is more than 2,500 years old.
  • Within a few days of the forces entering Baghdad, the looters ransacked the National Museum and stole about 15,000 priceless artefacts.
  • Post-invasion, the United States set up a military base atop the archaeological site of Babylon; the Polish troops dug trenches through an ancient temple; and American personnel damaged historic ruins to make way for a helipad. In the face of mounting criticism, the U.S. government tried to mend the situation by initiating the Iraq Cultural Heritage Project but its $13 million grant to the project is small change considering the loss inflicted. As the troops prepare to withdraw, the surviving parts of heritage stand exposed to further pillage.
  • The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (adopted by UNESCO in 1954) is meant legally to bind the state parties to protect the cultural properties during war and occupation. But it has hardly helped in Iraq.
  • The United Kingdom, one of the two main aggressors, is yet to ratify the convention and the U.S. accepted it only in 2009, long after the invasion. Acceptance of it would have compelled these countries to integrate heritage protection in their invasion plans.
  • This omission, as pointed out to the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry by 13 major heritage organisations, facilitated the extensive looting of priceless cultural heritage and contributed to the alienation of much of the Iraqi population.
  • The reality is that the big powers responsible for damaging the Iraqi heritage will not be penalised — they can be held accountable morally and politically. From the standpoint of heritage protection, the lesson is this: when good sense fails, international and internal pressure is the only way to try and make countries behave decently. Parallel to this, the Hague Convention should be reviewed and the post-withdrawal obligations of occupying state parties expanded. It will be crucial to address the demand side by taking tough action against buyers of stolen antiquities, including museums.

Rehabilitation therapy included in China's medical insurance programmes

  • Nine forms of therapy to help disabled people will be included in China's medical insurance programmes from January 1, 2011, the government announced on September 17.
  • The move is expected to reduce the financial burden on disabled people requiring rehabilitation therapy, according to a statement from the China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF).
  • The circular issued by the ministries of health, human resources and social security, civil affairs and finance as well as the CDPF, says that the therapies will include rehabilitation treatments for paralysed limbs and the body, cognitive disability, acute stroke impairments as well as language and sport training.

Chechen exile leader held

  • Polish police arrested Chechen independence leader Akhmed Zakayev, wanted by Russia on terror charges, paving the way for a legal and diplomatic battle over his possible extradition.
  • Mr. Zakayev had arrived in Poland to attend a two-day congress of some 300 exiles from conflict-torn Chechnya, despite warnings from Polish authorities that he risked being taken into custody. He lives in Britain where he was granted political asylum in 2003.
  • Mr. Zakayev was the European representative of Chechen separatist president Aslan Maskhadov, who died fighting Russian forces in 2005.

U.S. census report shows spike in poverty

  • The United States Census Bureau (USCB) has revealed that poverty in the country jumped significantly in 2009, reflecting the debilitating effects of the recession on those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
  • In news that would add to the worries of President Barack Obama, who is struggling to get various stimulus bills passed by Congress, the Bureau said the official poverty rate in 2009 was 14.3 per cent — up from 13.2 per cent in 2008.
  • The report says this constitutes the second “statistically significant annual increase in the poverty rate since 2004,” with 43.6 million people in poverty in 2009, up from 39.8 million in 2008. In terms of absolute numbers of people in poverty, the 2009 rise was the third consecutive one.

Four Khmer Rouge leaders indicted

  • Four high-ranking leaders of Cambodia's disgraced Khmer Rouge government of the 1970s were on Thursday indicted for “crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide”.
  • The four — Khieu Samphan (79), Nuon Chea (84), Ieng Sary (85) and Ieng Thirith (78) — would continue to be detained, according to the two Co-Investigating Judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
  • ECCC official Reach Sambath later told from Phnom Penh that the trial, now ordered by the judges, was expected to begin in the first half of 2011. The internationally recognised Trial Chamber of the specialised ECCC would decide whether the four accused should be prosecuted together or individually, said Mr. Reach Sambath.

Enable own-language use: Sri Lankan panel

  • The Sri Lankan Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) has suggested to President Mahinda Rajapaksa interim measures to better the lot of resettled Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and people living in former conflict areas.
  • Measures suggested by the eight-member Commission include enabling people to use their own language in official dealings, especially making statements to the police.

Russia, Norway sign Arctic border pact

  • Russia and Norway have signed an Arctic border pact, ending a 40-year dispute over an energy-rich area in the Barents Sea.
  • The Treaty on Maritime Delimitation and Cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean was signed  in the Russian northern seaport of Murmansk by the Russian and Norwegian Foreign Ministers in the presence of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.
  • Under the treaty Russia and Norway will equally divide the long-contested 176,000 sq. km. zone that lies off their Arctic coastlines and is believed to be rich in oil and gas.
  • It is the second most important border pact post-Soviet Russia signed with its neighbours after the border delimitation treaty with China.
  • The establishment of a maritime boundary between Norway and Russia in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean culminated 40 years of border talks between the two countries and ended a 30-year moratorium on tapping oil and gas deposits in the area.

What the U.S. arms deal with Saudia Arabia means

  • Arms purchases from the U.S. are central to the Saudi kingdom's strategy of asserting its military leadership in the Gulf and confronting Iranian influence.
  • This U.S. deal includes significant offensive capabilities — thus the repeated warnings from Tehran about it being “destabilising”.
  • In public the Saudis and their partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council support using diplomatic means to tackle Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions, but express greater concern behind closed doors, diplomats say. Iran insists it seeks only civilian nuclear power, not weapons.
  • Relations between Washington and Riyadh were badly damaged by the 9/11 attacks and the identification of the Saudi origins of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. But common strategic interests and pressures generated by the arms industry and the recession helped smooth differences.
  • It is striking that this deal has met little opposition from the pro-Israeli lobbies, which in the past have worked to prevent the Saudis acquiring advanced equipment. Nowadays Saudi Arabia also supports the Arab peace initiative, which offers to recognise Israel in exchange for a Palestinian state.

Pact on UNMIN

  • The Nepal government and the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) arrived at a four-point agreement late , including on the future of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN). Both sides have agreed to request the Security Council to extend UNMIN's term “for the final time for a period of four months”, under the same mandate.
  • The two sides also agreed to finalise and implement documents prepared by the Special Committee on the management, integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist combatants. This would require the Maoists to sign a code of conduct for the combatants, a plan of action for their management, and directives related to monitoring.
  • The two sides also agreed to finish all remaining tasks of the peace process by January 14, 2011, which is when UNMIN's mandate will finally expire. Informally, the Maoists have also agreed to be “sensitive” to the Nepal Army's operational issues.
  • Earlier, the government and the Maoists sent separate letters to the Security Council. While the government implied there was no longer any need for UNMIN to monitor the Nepal Army and asked for a four-month extension, the Maoists asked for a six-month extension under the same mandate.

Make-believe elections

  • Recent developments in Myanmar indicate that the ruling junta is on a quest for a smokescreen of legitimacy before tightening its grip on the nation in the November 7 election.
  • In the second major reshuffle this year, 70 senior military officers, including the Army's number three, General Thura Shwe Mann, quit their posts and are expected to join the Union Solidarity and Development Party, a proxy political party of the military.
  •  The first shuffle, in April, saw the exit of another group of senior military men, including Prime Minister Thein Sein. The moves are intended to give a civilian face to the new parliament, in which a quarter of the seats are reserved for serving military officers.
  • The retired officers are expected to contest the remaining seats with no fear of defeat. By the August 30 deadline for registering candidates, the USDP had filed over 1,000 nominations while another pro-junta formation, the National Unity Party, is fielding over 900 candidates.
  • On the other side, the two main democratic parties — the National Democratic Force, which split from the election-boycotting Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy, and the Democratic Front — have been able to put up fewer than 500 candidates between them. With the registration fee fixed at $500, they did not have the money to nominate any more.
  • The military, whether in uniform or in civvies, and pro-military politicians will dominate the 224-seat House of Nationalities and the 440-seat House of Representatives.
  • What is less clear is the role “Senior General” Than Shwe, head of the State Peace and Development Council, the official name for the junta, has reserved for himself. It was believed that he too had stepped down from his post to contest the election as a civilian. But that has turned out to be unfounded. He is likely to continue at the helm even after the election and might quit as military chief only when he is assured of a successor he can trust. But even if he became a civilian ruler, and for all his engagement with the international community, including India, the Myanmar strongman cannot hope to acquire real legitimacy after denying Ms Suu Kyi her rightful place in the country's destiny.

Turkey backs constitutional reform

  • Turkish voters have backed a package to reform the Constitution, which so far has favoured the military, the self-proclaimed guardian of Turkish secularism.
  • The results of a referendum showed that 58 per cent of the voters approved the constitutional reform package mooted by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
  •  The amendments include 26 articles, which aim to curtail the powers of the military by making the armed forces more accountable to civil courts. Besides, it lifts the immunity over the plotters of the 1980 military coup, following which Turkey's current Constitution was drafted. The approval of the package will also open the door for key judicial reforms, including the restructuring of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors.

Russia challenges Cheonan cause

  • Russia has challenged the findings of an international probe into the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan.
  • The final report on a multinational investigation into the March sinking of the Cheonan, released by the South Korean Ministry of Defence on Monday, blamed the explosion that tore the warship in half on a North Korean torpedo. Of the 104 crewmembers, 46 lost their lives.
  • However, the report prepared by experts from South Korea, the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Sweden did not include the findings of a separate Russian probe into the incident.
  • Russian experts, who visited South Korea in June, could not draw “definitive conclusions” on the causes of the Cheonan sinking, a senior Russian Navy officer told the Interfax news agency.

Cable opposes curb on immigration

  • In a sign of continuing tensions in the Conservative-led coalition government over its plans to impose an annual cap on immigration from non-European Union countries, Business Secretary and senior Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable has again warned that such a move could affect relations with countries like India.

Medvedev may stand in 2012 election

  • The Kremlin dropped the strongest hint yet that President Dmitry Medvedev may stand for re-election in 2012 saying the modernisation programme he has drawn up will take far longer to accomplish than his first four-year term.

GM rice claim

  • Australian scientists have claimed that they have genetically modified rice to improve its tolerance to salt, leading to an increase in its production in areas affected by salinity.
  • The scientists from the University of Adelaide worked in collaboration with colleagues based in Cairo, Copenhagen and Melbourne. The team used a new technique to trap salt in the root of the rice plant, reducing the amount building up in the shoots and increasing its tolerance.
  • The breakthrough offered the chance to increase global rice production, especially in areas where salinity was an issue,” said Research Associate Darren Plett, adding “rice is often grown on land that is prone to high levels of salinity”.

Human costs of recession

  • Three years after the world suffered its biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), have come out with two significant messages.
  • First, the scars of the 2007-09 recession on the world's labour markets would last long.
  • Secondly, a right mix of fiscal, monetary, and social protection measures needs to be put in place at the national and the international levels to ease the pain of unemployment and ensure job-creating economic growth.
  • Two papers, one by the IMF on the human costs of recession, and the other by the ILO on building an employment-oriented framework for sustainable and balanced growth, take stock of the recent economic turmoil, and offer palliatives for a world that is just emerging out of recession.
  • Unemployment increased by more than 30 million since 2007, taking the global figure to 210 million. The IMF's paper makes it evident that the human costs of the downturn will have a debilitating impact on the succeeding generation as well. Lower lifetime earnings, health impairment of the workforce, and diminished educational attainments of children are three important factors that will have inter-generational consequences. Moreover, youth unemployment and long-term unemployment have increased alarmingly in the advanced economies.

Inhuman crackdown

  • France's controversial crackdown on the Roma, Europe's single largest minority, spotlights a continent-wide concern and a collective failure to honour the imperatives of the European Union's eastward enlargement.
  • Ironically, the countries that imposed stringent conditions — in relation to crime, trafficking, and the observance of human rights — ahead of the EU accession bids of
  • Romania and Bulgaria are themselves now found wanting on some of those criteria. While most of the countries of the former Soviet Union were admitted to the EU in 2004, Bucharest and Sofia were kept in waiting until 2007.
  • Freedom of movement across national borders is one of the founding principles of the EU. Therefore many EU states, including France, have sought refuge in a transitional measure to restrict (until 2014) Romanians and Bulgarians from working in their territories.

Coping with online threats

  • In one of the most shocking and sophisticated cyber attacks to date, hackers reportedly stole at least £675,000 from 3,000 online bank accounts in the United Kingdom recently, using a “Trojan” virus that is to be considered one of the most sophisticated types of malware programs created.
  • In an attack that is reportedly in progress, the computer virus, known as Zeus v.3, swiped the online banking identity of victims as they accessed their accounts, and robbed accounts with a balance of at least £800 while the victims viewed fake statements online.
  • According to the latest Monthly Security Bulletin for June 2010 published by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), the cyber security agency of the Department of Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, 690 Indian websites were defaced during the month, and CERT-IN tracked 39,600 computers that were BOT-infected.
  • Outdated Act- However, despite evidence of increasing cyber crime in India, the Information Technology Act, 2000, even as amended in February 2009, remains an outdated and insufficient tool to effectively protect the nation from a cyber onslaught.
  • The offences introduced in the 2009 amendments involve sending offensive messages through a communication service; dishonestly receiving stolen computer resources; identity theft; impersonation — phishing, and violation of privacy.
  • While, laudably, the amended Act legislates against the growing menace of identity theft, phishing and violation of privacy, it does not even contemplate the tools of modern cyber crime. For example, the 2009 amendments to the Act introduced two provisions concerning offences listed in Section 43.
  • One of these (‘i') concerns destroying, deleting or altering any information residing in a computer resource or diminishing its value or utility or affecting it injuriously by any means. Another (‘j') concerns stealing, concealing, destroying or altering or causing any person to steal, conceal, destroy or alter any computer source code used for a computer resource with an intention to cause damage.
  • However, modern means of cyber warfare such as BOTNETS or key-loggers are not intended to destroy, delete or alter information residing in a computer resource or to steal computer source code. Instead, BOTNETS takes over a computer so that it can be used by an external controller. Modern cyber crime is not focussed on stealing source code or information in a computer but using the computer itself as the instrument to commit a crime.
  • Another major tool of cyber warfare is key-loggers, which is a software program or device designed to monitor and log all keystrokes. The key-logger software/device scans computers and their processes and data the moment a person strikes a key on the keyboard. This information is carried over to an external controller. Key-loggers are intended not to steal source code or information but to record the data input into a computer, to be used for financial fraud.
  • The IT Act defines “computer network” in Section 2(j) as the “interconnection of one or more computers or computer systems or communications device through the use of satellite, microwave, terrestrial line, wire, wireless or other communication media, and terminals or a complex consisting of two or more interconnected computers or communication device whether or not the interconnection is continuously maintained.” The 2009 amendments added the specific reference to “wire and wireless.”

Anti-segregationist Thomas passes away

  • Jefferson Thomas, a key figure in the anti-segregation civil rights movement in the U.S., has died in Columbus, Ohio. He was 67. Mr. Thomas was most known for being a member of the so-called “Little Rock Nine” group of students, who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, back in 1957.
  • Mr. Thomas died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday, said Carlotta Walls LaNier, President of the Little Rock Nine Foundation.
  • The fight of the Little Rock Nine was a litmus test of the government's intentions to implement a 1954 Supreme Court order that banned racial segregation in the public schools. Many schools especially in the south refused to end segregation, entailing not only lawsuits but also violence.
  • In Arkansas, the use of force became the order of the day, with state Governor Orval Faubus sending National Guard troops to block Mr. Thomas and his friends from entering the school in September 1957.
  • The nine students African-American students were caught in the middle, “corralled by a spitting and rock-throwing mob of white protesters,” while soldiers occupied the school halls and controlled student movements within the school.
  • President Barack Obama said, “Michelle and I are saddened by the passing of Jefferson Thomas... He had the courage to risk his own safety, to defy a governor and a mob, and to walk proudly into his school even though it would have been far easier to give up and turn back.”

Nepal fails again

  • Nepal's Parliament failed to elect Prime Minister for the seventh time on Tuesday. Both candidates, Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda' and Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudel, were unable to obtain a simple majority in the house of 601.
  • The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and two constituents of the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) — Tarai Madhes Democratic Party and Sadbhavana — were present but remained neutral. Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum led by Upendra Yadav, which had broken ranks with the broader Madhesi front on Sunday, boycotted the vote. MJF (Democratic) remained absent during the voting procedure.

Quake devastates New Zealand

  • Christchurch (New Zealand): New Zealand's most destructive earthquake in nearly 80 years caused $2 billion worth damage on Saturday, felling buildings, tearing up roads and sending terrified residents fleeing into the streets.
  •  “extremely lucky” no one was killed when the 7.0 magnitude quake shook the island nation's second-largest city of Christchurch just before dawn. Frightened residents fled their homes to find streets covered in rubble and glass, but despite the extent of the damage only two people were seriously injured in the city of 340,000 people.

Africa's first refugee phone network launched in Uganda

  • Africa's first ever refugee social network was launched in Uganda on September 3 on a pilot basis where refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) will be able to trace their family or friends through a mobile phone.
  • According to Refugees United, an international non-governmental organisation that will manage the project supported by Ericsson and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), refugees will use their mobile phones to register themselves, search for loved ones and subsequently reconnect via an anonymous data base using SMS.
  • Kai Nielsen, UNHCR Representative in Uganda, described the pilot project which will run until the end of next year as an important step toward a global partnership in which even the least fortunate people in the world can stay connected through innovative and accessible technology. There are currently about 150,000 refugees in East Africa's Uganda.
  • According to Refugees United, if the pilot project is successful it will be rolled out in other countries on the continent. Africa hosts approximately 2.1 million refugees and over six million IDPs, according to UNHCR statistics.

Fidel Castro back in uniform

  • Cuban leader Fidel Castro appeared in his full military uniform for the first time since stepping down as President four years ago.
  • The 84-year-old revolutionary leader wore the olive-green cap and uniform — minus the star and laurels he held as Commander-in-Chief — at a speech early on Friday to students at the University of Havana.
  • Mr. Castro repeated his warning that the world stands on the brink of a nuclear conflagration due to tension pitting the United States and Israel against Iran. But Friday's 35-minute speech to thousands of students assembled on and in front of the majestic stairway leading to the historic university was by far Mr. Castro's most significant. Previously, Mr. Castro has mostly spoken in closed sessions to small groups, and his appearances were usually not announced ahead of time.
  • Mr. Castro — who began his political career as a student activist at the same university 60 years ago — said it had fallen to his tiny island to warn the world of the looming nuclear threat, and that it was important that it did not fail.
  • “Faced with the sceptics, our duty is to keep up the fight,” said Mr. Castro. “I am convinced that a good number of people are becoming conscious of the reality.” “In this, like in many battles of the past, we can win,” he said of his efforts to warn the world of the nuclear danger.
  • At Friday's speech, he was introduced as Cuba's “historic leader” and “Commander-in-Chief.”

Russia-Syria deal raises Israel's hackles

  • A major row has broken out between Russia and Israel over Russian plans to sell supersonic anti-ship missiles to Syria.
  • Following Moscow's announcement of a forthcoming supply of Yakhont cruise missiles to Syria, Israeli officials threatened to resume sales of advanced weapons to Georgia, which fought a bitter armed conflict with Russia two years ago.
  • Russia plans to supply Syria with at least two mobile coastal defence systems, called Bastion, armed with 36 Yakhont missiles each in a deal valued at $300 million, a source in Russia's arms industry told the Interfax news agency on Sunday. Yakhont is the Russian prototype of the BrahMos missile jointly built by India and Russia.

China suspends contacts with Japan

  • China has suspended senior bilateral contact with Japan over the detention of a Chinese captain accused of ramming his boat against Japanese patrol vessels in disputed waters, said state media on Sunday.
  • “China has already suspended bilateral exchanges at and above the provincial or ministerial levels,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying, without giving more details on the nature of the exchanges.
  • China has also halted contact with Japan on the issues of increasing civil flights and expanding aviation rights, said the report, adding a bilateral meeting on coal had also been postponed.
  • The stringent measures come after a Japanese court authorised prosecutors to extend by 10 days the detention of Zhan Qixiong, arrested earlier this month after the collision with two Japanese coastguard vessels in the East China Sea.
  • Disputed islands-The incident took place near the disputed Diaoyu islands —— called Senkaku in Japan and also claimed by Taiwan — which lie in an area with rich fishing grounds that is also believed to contain oil and gas deposits.

At Shenzhen, Hu focuses on economic success

  • Two weeks after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pleased pro-political reform sections in Beijing with his calls for “political restructuring”, President Hu Jintao stayed clear of the renewed reform debate during a much-anticipated visit to Shenzhen.
  • Mr. Hu, who like Mr. Wen visited the port city on the thirtieth anniversary of China's “reform and opening up” policies, made no mention of political reform in his speech, instead focusing on the success of China's “socialism with Chinese characteristics” — a phrase, scholars say, often used by leaders to underscore the uniqueness of China's system and its incompatibility with Western-style democracy.