Execution row escalates as China dismisses UK criticism.

The Chinese government have been quick to dismiss British criticisms of their decision to go ahead and execute Akmal Shaikh, giving one the distinct impression that relations between the two country's is seriously undermined.

In a "difficult" meeting at the Foreign Office, the UK minister Ivan Lewis told the Chinese ambassador Fu Ying that her government had failed in its basic human rights responsibilities by ignoring representations about Shaikh's mental health. "It's a deeply depressing day for anyone with a modicum of compassion or commitment to justice," Lewis said.

The response from the Chinese government was swift and dismissive. An annual meeting between the two countries, scheduled for January in Beijing to discuss human rights, was cancelled.

Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told a press briefing in Beijing: "No one has the right to comment on China's judicial sovereignty. It is the common wish of people around the world to strike against the crime of drug trafficking. We express our strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British government's unreasonable criticism of the case. We urge the British to correct their mistake in order to avoid harming China-UK relations."

So, the Chinese are now insisting that commenting on their judicial process may harm China-UK relations.

Anyone who protests over the fact that they have killed an innocent man, duped into carrying drugs due to his bipolar condition, is undermining relations between the two country's.

We are beginning to get a taste of how China will behave when she is the most powerful nation in the world.

It doesn't fill one with any degree of confidence.

Lewis went on:

"China cannot expect to receive the respect they yearn [for] from the international community until they abide by minimum standards of human rights. Engagement with China is non-negotiable and any alternative strategy is simply not credible. But by being so clear in our public criticism of China's handling of this case we are demonstrating that it is not business as usual."

Nevertheless, there will be no price for China to pay. No diplomats will be expelled for instance. We will merely have our annoyance noted, although the Chinese appear to consider even the fact that we have expressed an opinion as somehow an interference into their judicial process.

The Chinese are continuing to insist that there has been no miscarriage of justice here.

The Chinese embassy in London said Shaikh, who used to run a minicab firm in Kentish Town, north London, had no previous medical record of mental illness and that his rights and interests had been properly respected.

But campaigners said his mental health was never assessed while he was in prison and that the Chinese authorities repeatedly refused access to a forensic psychologist who offered to conduct a free assessment.

The legal charity Reprieve, which took on Shaikh's case, said today that China ignored evidence from six witnesses who came forward on Monday with tales of his vulnerability. These included a nun and a priest who worked at a centre for asylum seekers in Warsaw, where Shaikh moved five years ago as his mental state declined.

China are insisting that they showed their humanitarian side by allowing two of Shaikh's cousins to visit him and break the news to him that he was about to be executed.

It's hardly what the rest of us would consider an act of humanitarianism.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Shaikh, China, execution, UK, China/UK relations

British man said to be mentally ill executed in China.

I can't be the only person who is appalled by this:

A British man convicted of drug smuggling in China has been executed, the Foreign Office has confirmed. Akmal Shaikh, 53, a father-of-three, of London, had denied any wrongdoing and his family said he was mentally ill. The execution took place despite repeated calls from his family and the British government for clemency.

This has been done despite the fact that Shaikh went to China under the impression that he was about to be made into a Chinese pop star and that the Chinese had been told repeatedly that he was bipolar and had been tricked into carrying the drug package by the very people who had promised him his highly unlikely career in music.

The Chinese have remained utterly unmoved by any appeals for clemency, and have gone ahead with the first execution of an EU citizen in China for over fifty years.

In a statement issued after the execution, the Chinese Embassy said Mr Shaikh's rights "were properly respected and guaranteed" and British concerns were "duly noted and taken into consideration". It said: "As for his possible mental illness which has been much talked about, there apparently has been no previous medical record."

The execution has produced uncharacteristically sharp language from British MP's:

In a statement, Mr Brown said: "I condemn the execution of Akmal Shaikh in the strongest terms, and am appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted.

"I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment was undertaken.

"At this time our thoughts are with Mr Shaikh's family and friends and I send them our sincere condolences."

Foreign Secretary David Miliband also condemned the execution.

He said the UK was opposed to the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, but also "deeply regretted" that his specific concerns in this case, including "mental health issues, and inadequate professional interpretation" had been ignored.

Conservative leader David Cameron echoed the condemnation, saying he "deplored and deeply regretted" the execution.

China's reputation has recently taken a battering over Copenhagen, but it's relations with Britain are now at an all time low with each political party lining up to condemn this disgraceful decision.

It's hard to work out just what the Chinese feel they have accomplished by this action. It strikes me as a situation in which they could have easily given clemency and gone some way to repair their image after Copenhagen, but it is not the path they have chosen.

Instead, they have chosen to execute a bipolar man for a crime which few of us believe he even understood he had committed.

Quite appalling.

Click here for full article.

Tags: China, UK, Akmal Shaikh, execution

Final hours for Briton on China's death row.

First we had the sabotaging of the Copenhagen climate change talks, quickly followed by the sentencing of Liu Xiaobo to 11 years for daring to question state authority, and now we hear that Akmal Shaikh, despite pleas for clemency from the British government, is to face the death penalty.

The Chinese spent fortunes on the Olympics, determined to announce their arrival as major players on the world stage, and one felt as if they were keen to show themselves in a kinder light than they had previously been held.

But all of that appears in recent weeks to have gone out of the window.

Akmal Shaikh, a 53-year-old father of five who has been accused of smuggling four kilos of heroin into China's western Xinjiang province in 2007, could become the first Briton to be executed in China in modern times, and the first EU national to face the death penalty there in 50 years. But he has not been informed that his execution by a bullet to the neck has been scheduled for 10.30 tomorrow morning. The Chinese government says the information is being withheld on "humanitarian grounds".

Mr Shaikh's friends and family say he suffers from bipolar disorder and was too ill to stand trial. His cousins Soohail and Nasir Shaikh have travelled to China to try and deliver pleas for mercy to President Hu Jintao. But so far those pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

The China which spent millions trying to dazzle us at The Bird's Nest, no longer appears to care what the world thinks of it.

They now sound like members of the American Republican party, insisting that "Chinese interests" must come before the good of the planet, even if doing so makes the rest of the world hostile towards them.

"I like to think the Chinese will show compassion but I don't know," Mr Stafford Smith said yesterday. "I think on one level China is aggravated by what happened at Copenhagen, but I hope it won't hold that against him."

China executes more people than all other countries put together but rarely executes Westerners. The Foreign Office says it has pressed hard for his release. Over the last six months, the UK has forcibly raised the case with senior Chinese officials 10 times to no effect. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the actor Stephen Fry are among many who have tried to intercede.

I would hope that the Chinese will now show clemency towards a man who many say is mentally ill, but after Copenhagen and the incarceration of Xiaobo, I have lost faith that China cares what the rest of the world thinks of them at all.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Akmal Shaikh, China, death penalty

Mark Lynas: How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

Mark Lynas has an article in today's Guardian which lays the blame for the lack of success at Copenhagen squarely at the door of China:

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was "the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility", said Christian Aid. "Rich countries have bullied developing nations," fumed Friends of the Earth International.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday's Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying "no", over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as "a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries".

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.

You can read the whole thing by clicking here.

But it's quite clear that China are determined to have no limits placed on them once they become the strongest person in the room.

We have all known for some time that China will, at some point in the future, overtake the US as the most powerful nation on Earth. But I would have thought that they might actually want to inherit a world which was sustainable. Who wants to lead a world that is on the verge of collapse due to global warming? Apparently, China do...

Tags: Copenhagen, China, United States, global warming

China stands accused of wrecking global deal.

China stand accused of having "systematically wrecked" the Copenhagen climate summit because it feared being tied to a legally binding target to cut the country's soaring carbon emissions.

[T]he key element of the agreement, a timetable for making its commitments legally binding by this time next year, was taken out at the last minute at the insistence of the Chinese, who otherwise would have refused to agree to the deal.

Also removed, at Chinese insistence, was a statement of a global goal to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2050, and for the developed world to cut its emissions by 80 per cent by the same date. The latter is regarded as essential if the world is to stay below the danger threshold of a two-degree Centigrade temperature rise.

The "50-50" and "50-80" goals have already been accepted by the G20 group of nations and world leaders who were negotiating the agreement, including Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel of Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Kevin Rudd of Australia. They were said to be amazed at the Chinese demands, especially over the developed nations' goal. The European official said: "China thinks that by 2050 it will be a developed country and they do not want to constrain their growth."

A source present as heads of state and government drafted the final document gave this account to The Independent:

"There were 25 heads of state in the room; this was about six o'clock on Friday night. To my right there was President Obama in the corner, with Gordon Brown on one side, the Ethiopian President on the other, the President of Mexico, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea...

"If China had not been in that room you would have had a deal which would have had everyone popping champagne corks. But this was the first sign that China is emerging as a superpower, which is not interested in global government, is not interested in multilateral governance that affects its own sovereignty or growth. You could tell this lack of engagement through the process; they play a much cleverer game than anyone else. They were running rings around the Americans.

"It's always easier to block than to try and get something. The Americans will probably be given some of the blame because that's the conventional narrative all the pressure groups have – that the rich countries are bad, they didn't give enough money or they would not create enough mitigation targets."

The source went on: "But the truth is, I was in that meeting and the 'Annex 1', rich countries had mitigation targets of 80 per cent by 2050 which everyone supported, and it was taken out by the Chinese. The deal was watered down because the Chinese wouldn't accept any targets of any sort, for anybody. Not themselves or anybody else. Legally binding stuff was taken out by the Chinese as well and there was a lot of anger in the room. It was controlled but it was very, very clear what the feelings were.

"The Chinese were happy as they'd win either way. If the process collapsed they'd win because they don't have to do anything and they know the rich countries will get the blame.

"If the deal doesn't collapse because everyone is so desperate to accommodate them that they water it down to something completely meaningless, they get their way again. Either way they win. I think all the other world leaders knew that by that stage and were just furious that they couldn't do anything about it.

Welcome to what the world might look like once the Chinese overtake the Americans. They sound as intransigent as any Republicans.

I was hoping that what we had seen was a first step, but the news of China's behaviour leads me to believe that they are not going to change their attitude any time soon, which is bad news for the planet.

Click here for full article.

Tags: China, Copenhagen

The demise of the dollar.

Robert Fisk is reporting in this morning's Independent that China, Russia, Japan and France have been having secret meetings to end the world's oil trading in dollars and move towards trading in a basket of currencies, "including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar."

In what would be the greatest shake up of the modern financial system since the Bretton Woods agreement after the Second World War, this is dynamite and an indication that the world might soon have to accept that it is working with a new financial map.

The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.

This is a serious challenge to American control of the Middle East. Indeed, the only thing which makes me think China will have to tread slowly here is that China is so heavily invested in the dollar at the moment, having spent billions over the past decade buying up dollar assets.

But it does look as if serious moves are afoot to move international transactions away from the dollar and towards the Euro and other currencies.

The last person to announce that he wasn't going to trade in the dollar in oil transactions, but would instead move to the Euro, was Saddam. Within months US and UK tanks were rolling into Baghdad.

But Chinese banking officials say that things have gone too far to now be reversed:

"The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

I'm not sure that I agree with the "Chinese financial sources" who think that Obama will be too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on this. I think this will take up rather a lot of his attention.

But, should this come to pass in nine years time, it would be wrong for those on the right to lay the blame for this at the door of Obama. It will have been the credit crunch which occurred on George Bush's watch which laid the financial foundations for this to even be considered a possibility.

UPDATE:

The Independents leading article talks of why it is important to China that this process be carried out carefully and without a rush:

For the past decade Beijing has been recycling the proceeds of its giant national trade surplus into purchases of US government bonds and other dollar-denominated assets. China too stands to make a significant loss if the value of the dollar falls. For China, however, the timing is much more sensitive. Beijing needs to reduce its dollar holdings, but if it does so too quickly it will bring about the very devaluation it fears. This explains why Chinese officials appear to want this transition to take place gradually over the next decade.

They are simply, as I suspected, too heavily invested in the dollar to risk any action which might devalue it.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Obama, United States, Bretton Woods, China, Russia, France, world financial system

Sarah Palin Slams Obama.

The Dixie Chicks had their CD's burned for daring to criticise Bush "on foreign soil", which in the days of the Bush administration was something akin to treason. But you can bet that there will be no criticism from the right for Palin running down Obama whilst in communist China.

It's just the usual hypocrisy from these Republican loons. When they do it, it's bravely speaking out. If a Democrat does it, it's a hanging offence.

And it's interesting that Palin insisted that the press be banned from attending the speech:

Organisers barred the media after Palin indicated that she would speak differently if reporters were present.

As Hari Sevugan of the Democratic National Committee joked:

"Are there other countries that she can see from her window that she doesn't want us to know about?"

Tags: Sarah Palin, China

The 52 minutes of Obama magic that changed the nuclear rules.

As right wing bloggers obsess over whether or not Obama has stopped using the phrase war on terror or are lambasting him for observing customs like bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia, a man Bush never bowed to as he much preferred a good old snog, Obama is getting on with doing something much more radical.

I would have thought his aim of ridding the world of many of it's nuclear weapons would have incensed them, but they appear not to have even noticed what he is proposing, as they are so obsessed with trivia. In two recent speeches, both exactly 26 minutes long, Obama has set out a radical plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons:

The president pledged a drive on nuclear disarmament, possibly bigger than any ever attempted. He spelled out how he would accelerate arms control agreements with Russia, following his first summit meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev last week. The deal to conclude a new arms reduction treaty with Moscow, which would slash stockpiles by about a third was a beginning, setting the stage for further cuts.

Building on the momentum of a new agreement with the Russians, Obama said he wanted to cajole the other nuclear powers into agreeing international arms cuts.

This would include Britain's independent nuclear deterrent as well as France's force de frappe and could run into resistance.

I love the fact that this guy is such an idealist, and that he will take on something like this even though he must know that he will run into considerable resistance. He's doing it, not because it is easy, he is doing it because it is the right thing to do.

And he is signaling such a reversal of the tactics of the Bush years, where Bush actually proposed developing new bunker busting nuclear weapons. The signal Obama is sending simply couldn't be more different than the message sent by the Bush White House.

"It is time for testing of nuclear weapons to be banned," Obama said. He called for a resuscitation of the 1996 comprehensive test ban treaty outlawing all nuclear tests. Obama's Democrat predecessor, Bill Clinton, signed the treaty, but then gave up on it after running into resistance from the Republican-controlled Senate which refused to ratify it a decade ago. George Bush did not pursue the issue.

America is the most important country that has not ratified the treaty, although other nuclear countries such as China, Israel and Pakistan, as well as Iran have also declined to ratify.

Obama said he would pursue US ratification "immediately and aggressively".

This is one of my bugbears when it comes to our argument against nations like Iran. Under the NNPT no non nuclear country is allowed to develop nuclear weapons, but there is also an agreement that the countries which do have nuclear weapons will disarm.

That part of the equation is always ignored in this argument concerning Iran and other countries. We demand that others comply with a treaty that the US, under Bush, was clearly in breach of by developing a new range of nuclear weapons, rather than actively acting to disarm as the treaty demands.

Obama is certainly moving in the right direction. The last US president to attempt this was Ronald Reagan:

In 1986 at the Reykjavik summit, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, both passionate about nuclear disarmament, shocked deterrence experts with an unimaginable proposal – total nuclear disarmament. “It would be fine with me if we eliminated all nuclear weapons,” said Reagan. “We can do that,” replied Gorbachev, “Let’s eliminate them. We can eliminate them.”

However, U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz explained that the proposal was “too much for people to absorb, precisely because it was outside the bounds of conventional wisdom,” and “the world was not ready for Ronald Reagan’s boldness.”

It also failed because Reagan refused to drop his star wars scheme. But Obama could be said to be following in Reagan's footsteps. Perhaps that's why the right wing blogs are leaving this subject alone and obsessing over facile rubbish.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Obama, nuclear weapons, NNPT, Iran, Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, UK

Sun sets on US power: report predicts end of dominance.

The latest global trends review, produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) every four years, is predicting that US power will wane by 2025 and that the advance of western-style democracy is no longer assured with countries like India and China challenging US dominance.

It's a further indication that the country which Barack Obama inherits will no longer "call the shots" and makes him a perfect choice as the kind of person both the world and the US needs to see the US through this dangerous transition period. The era of George Bush and the neo-cons, the era of "we do what we want and there's nothing anyone can do to stop us" is looking as if it is very much nearing it's end.

Looking ahead to 2025, the NIC (which coordinates analysis from all the US intelligence agencies), foresees a fragmented world, where conflict over scarce resources is on the rise, poorly contained by "ramshackle" international institutions, while nuclear proliferation, particularly in the Middle East, and even nuclear conflict grow more likely.

"Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed" warns that the spread of western democratic capitalism cannot be taken for granted, as it was by George Bush and America's neoconservatives.

"No single outcome seems preordained: the Western model of economic liberalism, democracy and secularism, for example, which many assumed to be inevitable, may lose its lustre – at least in the medium term," the report warns.

It adds: "Today wealth is moving not just from West to East but is concentrating more under state control," giving the examples of China and Russia.

"In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the state's role in the economy may be gaining more appeal throughout the world."

At the same time, the US will become "less dominant" in the world – no longer the unrivalled superpower it has been since the end of the Cold War, but a "first among equals" in a more fluid and evenly balanced world, making the unilateralism of the Bush era no longer tenable.

The vanity of the neo-cons and the American right wing in particular was best summed up after the cold war by the title of Francis Fukuyama's book, "The End of History". They really did believe that the they had won the battle for world domination and that they would forge ahead and create A New American Century and that there was nothing anyone could do to stop them.

It was this vanity which led Bush to rip up international law with his invasion of Iraq, as he and other right wing loons believed that the law would be what they stated it to be and that the rest of us would simply have to swallow hard and accept this new reality.

Those of us who had read Emmanuel Todd's "After the Empire" suspected that American power was actually on the wane and the fact that Bush not only failed to win in Iraq, but that he was unable to punish countries which opposed the invasion - France, Germany etc., - only reinforced that impression.

People like Bill Clinton have always argued that international law mattered because the US was in a position to model the world into how it would like it to look for the day when it was no longer on the top of the pile. Bush and the neo-cons, consumed by vanity, argued that international law didn't really exist and that they observed it merely as a courtesy and reserved the right to ignore it as it suited them.

As we move into this difficult transition period, we can be grateful that a steady hand like that of Barack Obama is on the US wheel. Were Bush and Cheney in charge at such a time we could very well sit on the edge of the nuclear abyss.

The time is approaching when the US can no longer tell the rest of the world to fuck off and international law is about to matter more than it ever has before.

The example set by the Obama presidency will matter greatly as America approaches the time when it finally becomes a first amongst equals.

Related Articles:

No more them and us, with a farewell to American supremacy.

The biggest winner in the coming multipolar age will be China, according to the NIC report.

"China is poised to have more impact on the world over the next 20 years than any other country," it predicts. On present trends China will have the world's second largest economy by 2025, and could well be the largest importer of natural resources and the biggest polluter. It will be a leading military power, with a considerable navy to protect the sea lanes that deliver its raw materials, and at the same time wield hi-tech asymmetric tools.

A US congressional panel claimed on Wednesday night that China was already practising its cyber warfare skills.

Click title for full article.

Tags: American power, wanes, China, India, Francis Fukuyama, Emmanuel Todd, Iraq war, international law

The greatest show the world has ever seen

I don't know if anyone has ever seen anything quite like it. I watched with my mouth open as it appears, did James Lawton:

It was all that was promised here in the fabulous chameleon of the stadium known as the Bird's Nest. It then spread like the magic fire of some great forest across the vast and, for so long, hidden land.

This, it was hard if not impossible to dispute, was the greatest show the world had ever seen and it brought joy that became delirium in 1.3 billion people.

The launch of the 29th Olympics was so stunningly choreographed, so meticulous planned – full dress rehearsals were under way more than a year ago – and went so far back into China's ancient history you suspected that Confucius himself might have been pleased.

The father of Chinese philosophy did, after all, like a party, once declaring: "Friends have come from afar and how happy we are."

Not all friends of modern China were in the stadium last night – the worldwide TV audience was estimated at more than 4 billion – but even one of its greatest critics, the watching American President George Bush, was obliged at times to gasp and muster something more than polite applause.

My worry is what happens in four years time when it comes to London. We have Mayor Boris Johnson so we can expect pipe bands and a couple of Morris dancers.

I'm fully expecting a moment of national humiliation, as it will be very hard to top what I watched last night.

Breathtaking stuff.

Click title for full article.

Tags: China, Olympics

Bush chides Beijing over rights

There was something tragically ironic about Bush chiding China for it's record regarding human rights, it's almost as if he has no idea how much damage his administration has done to the US as a champion of human rights everywhere.

"The US believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings," he said in the Thai capital Bangkok.

The man who has indulged in rendition, torture and the suspension of Habeas Corpus; the man who has people secreted in unknown prisons all over the globe is giving the Chinese a speech on how people should be treated.

It's simply surreal. He obviously has no idea that he is the last person on Earth who has any right to tell any other nation how people should be treated. The images of orange track suited prisoners at Guantanamo, the dreadful pictures of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib, are all too fresh in our minds for this man to be able to lecture anyone on this subject.

Previous presidents could get away with this because America was felt to occupy the moral high ground, to be setting an example of how nations should behave.

That this ridiculous little war criminal can possibly imagine that he is in a position to lecture others on human rights shows that he simply has no idea of the damage which he has done to America's reputation.

"We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly and labour rights not to antagonise China's leaders but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential.

"And we press for openness and justice not to impose our beliefs, but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs."

When the New York Times reported on his government's spying on it's own people they were labelled "traitors", freedom of assembly has been reduced to cages in which one might offer one's protest; I could go on and on but I'm sure you get the point.

Bush blatantly doesn't get it. The only way to be taken seriously on this subject is to lead by example. And Bush's example has been a simply dreadful one.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Bush, China, Human Rights, Olympics.

No painkillers, no visitors and no way out: Mugabe's hospital ward for MDC activists

The fact that he has successfully stolen the Zimbabwean election has not halted the violence which Mugabe continues to heap upon those who opposed him.

Indeed, there are stories that badly wounded men are being denied treatment in Zimbabwe and are instead being held prisoner in Ward B3 of Gokwe general hospital.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says that at least 13 of its members are held in the ward. Medical staff say they are mostly kept prisoner in side rooms.

"They have all been heavily assaulted," said one of the staff. "Some are burned beyond recognition. Some have broken limbs. They are in serious agony. They have no drugs. They are not allowed to leave. When doctors from the outside tried to bring the medicines they were turned away. So were ambulances to take them to private hospitals with drugs. It is all on the orders of the army and Central Intelligence Organisation."

This refusal to offer treatment is being carried out against burns victims and people who have suffered injury from axe wounds.

Most of the men held against their will are victims of state-orchestrated violence that has continued against the opposition since the widely derided election that returned Mugabe to power a fortnight ago.

The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, told the Guardian that the treatment of the men on Ward B3 is further evidence that the state-orchestrated campaign of killings, torture and abductions has continued after the election.

"We have been saying that the regime has been waging war on its own people and this is further proof," he said. "This is why it is so urgent that the African Union and UN move so urgently as every day that passes more innocent people are losing their lives in this orgy of violence."

And, it is against this background that China and Russia have vetoed UN action in Zimbabwe, urged on by Mbeki, Mugabe's greatest enabler.

Gordon Brown has been very vocal about ending both the violence in Zimbabwe and Mugabe's rule of that country. However, one can't help but think that if Zimbabwe produced oil, then all of our proposed interventions would be of a much more military nature.

Mugabe is getting away with this brutality because the Zimbabweans have nothing that we want.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Mugabe, Zimbabwe, South Africa, China, Russia, UK, Brown, Mbeki, United Nations

Court bars unloading of Chinese cargo

Well, miracles of miracles, Mugabe is not getting his shipload of Chinese arms after all.

First, the dockers union in South Africa refused to unload the arsenal and then African Litigation Centre went to court to argue that, under South African law, it was illegal to supply arms to "governments that systematically violate, or oppress ... human rights and fundamental freedoms"; an opinion with which the court concurred. So it is now impossible for the weapons to be transferred over land to Zimbabwe.

The director of the centre, Nicole Fritz, said: "It is hard to imagine clearer circumstances in which South African authorities were obliged to refuse to grant any conveyance permit."

Helen Zille, the leader of South Africa's opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, warned that the shipment could result in carnage of "genocidal proportions".

Pointing out that a consignment of Chinese machetes had prefaced the genocide in Rwanda, she said: "The mind boggles when one considers the damage that could be done with the consignment of arms sitting in Durban harbour."

The Congress of South African Trade Unions said the vessel "must return to China with the arms on board, as South Africa cannot be seen to be facilitating the flow of weapons into Zimbabwe at a time where there is a political dispute and a volatile situation".

And so back to China they go. It's a small victory, but it is to be savoured nevertheless.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Zimbabwe, Mugabe, China, arms exports, South Africa, Mbeki

Pelosi urges world to condemn China over crackdown

Nancy Pelosi has called on the world community to condemn China for the way it has crushed protests in Tibet, saying that the issue was a challenge for the "conscience of the world".

Nancy Pelosi, who leads the Democratic party in Congress, was the first foreign politician to meet the Dalai Lama since the bloody unrest spread across the roof of the world. Her appearance alongside the Tibetan spiritual leader at his home in the north Indian town of Dharamshala was condemned by Beijing, which accused her of meddling in China's internal affairs.

Pelosi's visit and strong language are the most serious breach in a western consensus that China's economic and strategic strength renders impossible any protest beyond verbal expressions of unease.

She did not call for an Olympic boycott, which the Dalai Lama has also opposed, but appeared to open the door to one if China maintained its crackdown in Tibet. She said the "world is watching" events there, and called for an international investigation into the violence, and access to the region for journalists and international human rights monitors.

Pelosi said it was incumbent on "freedom-loving people throughout the world" to speak out against China's "oppression". If they did not, "we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world".

With China so keen to have it's Olympics go well, there really has never been a better time to put pressure on the regime regarding Tibet.

George Bush has made it very clear that he intends to attend the opening of the Olympics and that he will not reconsider this. However, John McCain is speaking forcefully about this:

Yesterday, John McCain drew attention to Bush's caution on the subject, saying that Tibet was "one of the first things I would talk about if I were president of the United States today".

"The people there are being subjected to mistreatment that is not acceptable with the conduct of a world power, which China is," McCain said.

McCain does well to speak in this way, and he's certainly being more pro-active than Prime Minster Brown has been. The UK are anxious to maintain good relations with the world's latest emerging super power and have been largely silent on the issue of Tibet. Both McCain and Pelosi are to be applauded for having the courage to speak out when so many of their political counter parts are maintaining a diplomatic silence.

I understand that there is almost no chance of a boycott of the Olympics, or even of the opening ceremony, however at a time when the world's spotlight is on China, and at a time when China is so keen to be perceived in a good light, Pelosi and McCain are doing well to put pressure on the regime, to remind the Chinese that we can all see what they are doing and that - as a banner unfurled in Rome recently stated - "We are all Tibetans now".

Nor is it only western governments which are being slow to condemn the Chinese crackdown in Tibet:

The Chinese versions of the US-based websites MSN and Yahoo! have published a list of names and photographs of 24 Tibetans accused by the Chinese authorities of involvement in protests in Lhasa. The grainy pictures are apparently taken from video footage shot during the unrest. "It beggars belief that Yahoo! is acting as China's right-hand man in its brutal crackdown on Tibetan protesters," said Matt Whitticase, from the Free Tibet Campaign. "Yahoo! knows very well that these protesters will have no access to legal representation and that either execution or long prison sentences and torture awaits any protester arrested in Lhasa."

Pelosi and McCain may only have warm words to offer the Tibetans comfort, but that is a vast improvement on the silent complicity being offered by western governments.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Nancy Pelosi, John McCain, Dalai Lama, China, Tibet, Olympic games, boycott, protest

Bush's bid to punish Iranian banks stalls

It's always astonishing to me how little facts seem to effect the behaviour of the Bush administration. For instance, when the NIE recently reported that Iran were not developing a nuclear weapon, one might have been forgiven for thinking that Bush's desire to impose further sanctions upon Tehran had been dealt some kind of devastating blow. But no, Bush has continued to talk of the Iranian threat as is the NIE report simply did not exist.

What's interesting is how other country's are refusing to play Bush game.

The Bush administration's new policy of penalizing Iranian banks is facing a critical challenge as financial institutions in Russia, China and much of the Middle East decline to cut ties, analysts and diplomats say.

Even Afghanistan and Iraq have so far declined to take action against Bank Melli, Iran's largest public financial institution, which was among the first foreign banks to open branches in Kabul and Baghdad.

"Nothing is happening," Sinan Shabibi, governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, said recently by telephone.

The world reaction to the U.S. sanctions on Bank Melli, which operates as Iran's central bank overseas, will determine whether President George W. Bush's new tool against Iran is a failure or a success, analysts say.

It's very strange to see Bush - the supposed leader of the free world - yet again embark on a course of action that many nations simply refuse to follow. Once again, Bush is insisting that reality is what he says it is rather than what the rest of the planet know it to be.

And they're calling him on it:

Russia and China, two of the Security Council members that can veto the move, have called the U.S. bank sanctions arbitrary and unhelpful. President Vladimir Putin of Russia portrayed the blacklisting of Bank Melli as senseless and dangerous, like "running around like a madman with a blade in one's hand."

Wang Baodong, press counselor for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said China did not support the "arbitrary imposition of sanctions."

Bush will, of course, insist that other nations do his bidding; but Putin's analogy of a madman with a blade in his hand has hit home with many people. There are many of us who wonder what the sanctions are for. Bush could reasonably argue that they were needed whilst Iran refused to suspend uranium enrichment, as long as it was supposed that this uranium enrichment was for the procurement of nuclear weapons. Now that his own NIE report has ruled this out, then Bush is arguing that Tehran should have sanctions imposed simply for enriching uranium, which is her right under the NNPT.

Reality might not matter much to zealots like Bush and Cheney, but the rest of the world still cares for such triflings, and Bush is going to find it very hard to get the rest of the world to agree to sanctions now that the NIE have let the cat out of the bag.

Click title for full article.

China joins UN censure of Burmese regime

Miracles happen...

China turned against the Burmese government last night and supported a UN security council statement rebuking the military regime for its suppression of peaceful protests, and demanding the release of all political prisoners.

The security council statement, which also called for "genuine dialogue" with the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, marked the first time that Beijing had agreed to UN criticism of the junta.

There was no talk of sanctions within the UN statement but the fact that China has joined with the other 15 members of the Security Council will not have been lost on the Burmese regime.

"That represents a very significant shift in global politics from just a few weeks ago," said the foreign secretary, David Miliband. "It is proof that the recent brutal crackdown and ongoing persecution of peaceful protesters has isolated the Burmese regime. They must now respond to these growing global calls for them to work with others in building a better future for the people of Burma."

Britain co-sponsored the statement with the US and France, which also signalled they would maintain the pressure on the junta to respond to UN demands for the release of prisoners, including Ms Suu Kyi.

The US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, said that if the junta failed to respond accordingly, the security council would take the matter up again in as little as two weeks. "We will not relent. We will persist," he told journalists.

"What is important is that the government of Myanmar delivers," France's deputy UN ambassador, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said.

Burma's brutal crackdown on the monks has been disastrous for their image worldwide, where people have been marching in support of their calls for democratic change and for the Burmese government to come to the table to have discussions, without preconditions, with Suu Kyi about how democratic reform might be achieved.

The Chinese have only agreed to the statement as long as it was watered down, removing any insistence for the Burmese government to account for what had happened to detained demonstrators, and a call for a transition to democracy.

So, significant as it is to have the Chinese on board, the statement is still a long way short of what is necessary.

The Burmese government have, like Mugabe in Zimbabwe, blamed the protests on Western interference.

The regime has denied torturing its prisoners and has blamed the protests on western instigation. The state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper denounced the protesters, as "stooges of foreign countries putting on a play written by their foreign masters".

I'm not sure how far the Chinese can be made to go down this road, but at least a good start has been made; China has not given the obligatory veto of anything critical of Burma.

As Miliband has noted, a "very significant shift" has taken place.

The rest of the world should remember that this pressure on Burma can be kept up by threatening to boycott China's Olympics if she gets cold feet about applying too much pressure to the Burmese.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Burma, China, United Nations, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese monks, protest

Only now, the full horror of Burmese junta's repression of monks emerges

The story is slowly emerging of what happened, out of sight, to the monks and the other Burmese citizens who staged demonstrations against the ruling regime.

The hidden crackdown is as methodical as it is brutal. First the monks were targeted, then the thousands of ordinary Burmese who joined the demonstrations, those who even applauded or watched, or those merely suspected of anti-government sympathies.

"There were about 400 of us in one room. No toilets, no buckets, no water for washing. No beds, no blankets, no soap. Nothing," said a 24-year-old monk who was held for 10 days at the Government Technical Institute, a leafy college in northern Rangoon which is now a prison camp for suspected dissidents. The young man, too frightened to be named, was one of 185 monks taken in a raid on a monastery in the Yankin district of Rangoon on 28 September, two days after government soldiers began attacking street protesters.

"The room was too small for everyone to lie down at once. We took it in turns to sleep. Every night at 8 o'clock we were given a small bowl of rice and a cup of water. But after a few days many of us just couldn't eat. The smell was so bad.

"Some of the novice monks were under 10 years old, the youngest was just seven. They were stripped of their robes and given prison sarongs. Some were beaten, leaving open, untreated wounds, but no doctors came."

On his release, the monk spoke to a Western aid worker in Rangoon, who smuggled his testimony and those of other prisoners and witnesses out of Burma on a small memory stick.

Most of the detained monks, the low-level clergy, were eventually freed without charge as were the children among them. But suspected ringleaders of the protests can expect much harsher treatment, secret trials and long prison sentences. One detained opposition leader has been tortured to death, activist groups said yesterday. Win Shwe, 42, a member of the National League for Democracy, the party of the detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has died under interrogation, the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said, adding that the information came from authorities in Kyaukpandawn township. "However, his body was not sent to his family and the interrogators indicated that they had cremated it instead." Win Shwe was arrested on the first day of the crackdown.

I heard on the radio the other day that the Burmese government intended to punish even those who simply watched the march and applauded with two years in jail.

Burmese intelligence agents are scrutinising photographs and video footage to identify demonstrators and bystanders. They have also arrested the owners of computers which they suspect were used to transmit images and testimonies out of the country.

The United States yesterday threatened unspecified new sanctions against Burma and called for an investigation into the death of Win Shwe.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement: "The junta must stop the brutal treatment of its people and peacefully transition to democracy or face new sanctions from the United States."

The sanctions from the United States are welcome but the whole world needs to impose sanctions on Burma through the United Nations.

"When there were demonstrations and soldiers on the streets, the world was watching," said a professional woman who watched the marchers from her office.

"But now the soldiers only come at night. They take anyone they can identify from their videos. People who clapped, who offered water to the monks, who knelt and prayed as they passed. People who happened to turn and watch as they passed by and their faces were caught on film. It is now we are most fearful. It is now we need the world to help us."

The Liberal blogosphere has been generally quiet on this subject with only a few of the smaller blogs, like this one, bothering to comment on what is happening in Burma. I genuinely have no idea why that is.

I know that China will resist any attempts to place sanctions on Burma through the United Nations but, as I have said before, that need not be a problem.

Nor is China's protection enough to make the Burmese regime untouchable. Indeed, the more the Burmese government rely on one trading partner to protect them, the more vulnerable they become.

The Chinese government are setting great hope on the Beijing Olympics enhancing their international reputation. Were Western governments to threaten to boycott those Olympics I don't think the Chinese would continue to support the Burmese government.

China may be the rising international superstar, but she can still be hit where it matters. In this case, her vanity. We should threaten to boycott until China stops protecting this vile regime.

Now more than ever it is imperative that the world acts, as the vile clampdown and punishments start. The excuse that China will use her veto at the UN ignores the fact that the Chinese holding the Olympics gives us an ideal opportunity to make China reconsider her support for this vile regime. Normally the Chinese would be impossible to persuade when it comes to this subject, but the Olympics and the great store that China is setting by them gives us a window of opportunity that should be not be allowed to pass.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Burma, China, General Than Shwe, Suu Kyi, Beijing Olympics, Win Shwe

Opposition rejects Burmese leader's negotiation offer

Sometimes people are funny without meaning to be.

The head of Burma's junta, General Than Shwe, said he would meet Ms Suu Kyi on condition she gives up her call for international sanctions against Burma.

In other words, stop this foolish attempt to have us overthrown and have democracy installed and we will stop labelling you a dangerous radical. Unsurprisingly:

The offer was later rejected by the opposition, describing it as a tactic to force their leader to abandon the campaign for democracy.

Shwe has also insisted that Kyi abandons her "confrontational attitude". Which I suppose means any opposition to the military junta. Well at least he's starting from a reasonable position, eh? Abandon all you believe in, stop labelling us as what we are and we can have a very fruitful dialogue...

However, any hopes of UN action against the Burmese government are slight as China appear certain to issue a veto.

Yesterday, Beijing again stated that the repression of pro-democracy protests in Burma did not demand international action. China's UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, said: "There are problems there but these problems, we still believe, are basically internal. No international-imposed solution can help the situation. We want the government there to handle this issue."

However, around the world a day of protest has begun for the people of Burma.

Thousands of red rose petals will drift down the Thames today and campaigners will take to the streets as part of a worldwide day of protest at the continuing oppression of the Burmese people by the ruling military junta.

The march in London will coincide with similar demonstrations across the nation and the globe, voicing horror at the recent violence and drawing attention to the lack of coordinated action by the international community.

"We are expecting demonstrations in 25 countries. There have never been such a number of events around the world for Burma. This will dwarf any previous demonstrations in the UK," said Mark Farmaner, acting director of the Burma Campaign.

The Buddhist monks who took to the streets have certainly not failed in their intent, as their actions have placed the plight of the Burmese people firmly in the international spotlight.

"The regime wants the world to forget about Burma. That is why they have shut down communication and stopped images coming out of the country. It is important for people around the world to maintain pressure and make sure world leaders keep their focus on trying to bring about change."

As many as 20,000 people are expected to turn up today for the London march. Led by up to 100 monks, many of them Burmese, the protesters, sporting the red headbands of the democracy movement, will assemble at Tate Britain at 11am before crossing Westminster Bridge at midday to drop the petals in the river, each one symbolising the lives threatened in Burma. Some marchers will then tie their headbands to the gates of Downing Street before joining a rally in Trafalgar Square to be addressed by the political exile Myo Thein, who endured imprisonment and torture at the hands of the military regime.

"The events in London are designed to show the people of Burma that we stand with them, and the generals that we are watching their every move," Myo Thein said yesterday. "We also hope the protests will force the UK Government to do more to demand an end to the military crackdown and get the UN Security Council to act."

The protest will coincide with similar events across the country, from Edinburgh to Llandudno, Brighton to Birmingham. Rallies and candlelit vigils will also be held in countries as diverse as Belgium, Mongolia, Chile and Denmark.

As the Chinese veto almost guarantees that there will be no blanket sanctions endorsed by the UN it is for individual nations to put pressure on their own governments to stop trading with Burma.

The US continues to pressure Burma through sanctions and maintaining contact with representatives of the democratic opposition. It's nice to report that there is something on which George Bush and I are in agreement.

Nor is China's protection enough to make the Burmese regime untouchable. Indeed, the more the Burmese government rely on one trading partner to protect them, the more vulnerable they become.

The Chinese government are setting great hope on the Beijing Olympics enhancing their international reputation. Were Western governments to threaten to boycott those Olympics I don't think the Chinese would continue to support the Burmese government.

China may be the rising international superstar, but she can still be hit where it matters. In this case, her vanity. We should threaten to boycott until China stops protecting this vile regime.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Burma, China, General Than Shwe, Suu Kyi, Beijing Olympics

Albright: The Bush years have seen US power diminish

Tags: Albright, Bush, US power

'Star Wars' missile test heralds new arms race in space

The 1997 report of the National Defense Panel concluded, “Unrestricted use of space has become a major strategic interest of the United States” and the NRO recently hinted that the US is looking for full spectrum dominance in outer space and that they plan "to develop a strategy that ensures America's allies, as well as its enemies, never gain access to the same space resources without Washington's permission. Recent proposals that have been circulated at Space Command and NRO briefings suggest that access to "near-earth space" may be refused to other nations."

This full spectrum dominance of outer space is seen as "both the hallmark and the instrumentality of American superpower".

It is therefore something of a shock to find that the Chinese have launched a missile into space which has knocked out a satellite. Nor was this entirely unpredicted or unforeseen as this report from Gabriele Garibaldi bears witness to.

Space, the key to the balance of power in the twenty-first century.

As shown, China has the aim to equip itself with the necessary means to look after its own interests and be able to withstand a conflict with the USA. In spite of the (ephemeral) alliance in fighting the Fundamental Islamic terrorism after 9/11, China considers the USA a hegemonic power that limits its development to its own area of influence. China’s ambition, therefore, is to assert itself as the alternative power to America currently in Asia, and to establish with the United States a relationship on equal terms in a multipolar international system.

It was typical of the arrogance that leads the entire neo-con movement that they would have attempted to claim control over space exclusively for the use of the US and her allies, and it was only a matter of time before someone seriously challenged this ridiculous notion.

Reagan, of course, kicked this off with his ill fated Star Wars project; and Bush has carried on pursuing ways to knock out ballistic weapons before they reach their target. Indeed, Bush last year published his National Space Policy which reserved for the US the right to continue developing such technology, to which the Chinese objected.

The National Space Policy stated:

The United States rejects any claims to sovereignty by any nation over outer space or celestial bodies, or any portion thereof, and rejects any limitations on the fundamental right of the United States to operate in and acquire data from space;

It was fairly controversial stuff and typical of the way the neo-cons have sought to ride roughshod over the rest of the planet. Indeed, the Bush administration was known to be considering putting weapons into space, a tactic that the US has avoided doing for the last forty years.

"I believe that weapons will go into space. It's a question of time. And we need to be at the forefront of that," Pete Teets, Undersecretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, told a March 6 conference in Washington.¹ While Teets, who is now the Pentagon's lead official for procurement of space programmes, was careful to say that no policy decision to put weapons in space has yet been made, his views reflect a consensus among top Air Force leaders - and indeed, among military officials across the board. The prevailing wisdom in all branches of the services is that "conflict in space is inevitable."

This view underlies the policy statements on space so far emerging from the Bush administration. For example, the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), released on October 1, 2001, cites the need to improve space systems as one of six critical goals of military transformation - thus placing top priority on the issue within the Pentagon. The Review states: "A key objective...is not only to ensure US ability to exploit space for military purposes, but also as required to deny an adversary's ability to do so."

The Americans have reacted with alarm and anger at the Chinese action.

“The US believes China’s development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of co-operation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area,” Mr Johndroe said. “We and other countries have expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese.”

This comment is made despite the fact that the US is developing it's own laser technology to do exactly what the Chinese have just done; knock out satellites.

Bush may have his hands full with Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Chinese have just given him a whole new headache. Unless Bush agrees to Chinese demands and enters into negotiations regarding the future use of space by all nations, it is likely that Russia and the EU will also enter into this new arms race.

It is well known that the Bush administration abhors negotiations and that they prefer to act as something akin to the Roman Empire, but in this case their bluff has been well and truly called. They would do well to enter into negotiations immediately if for no other reason than one nation demanding complete control of outer space is, in itself, an outrage.

However, if Bush acts as he has done in the past, we can now expect a full scale arms race to develop. I, for one, do not expect him to change his ways.

Click title for full article.

tag: US, China, Star Wars, outer space, satellites,