Friday, March 7, 2014

America’s 25 Most Awkward Allies

Last December, National Security Adviser Susan Rice offered a remarkably candid insight into Barack Obama’s foreign policy. “Let’s be honest,” she said, “at times … we do business with governments that do not respect the rights we hold most dear.”

American presidents have long wrestled with this dilemma. During the Cold War, whether it was Dwight Eisenhower overthrowing Iran’s duly elected prime minister or Richard Nixon winking at Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, they often made unsavory moral compromises. Even Jimmy Carter, who said America’s “commitment to human rights must be absolute,” cut deals with dictators.

But Obama, an idealist at home, has turned out to be more cold-blooded than most recent presidents about the tough choices to be made in the world, downgrading democracy and human rights accordingly. From Syria to Ukraine, Egypt to Venezuela, this president has shied away from the pay-any-price, bear-any-burden global ambitions of his predecessors, preferring quiet diplomacy to the bully pulpit—when he is engaged at all.

He has his reasons. A decade of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan soured Americans on George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda,” taking invasion off the table as a policy tool. And there are broader global forces at work too: the meteoric rise of China, new tools for repressing dissent, the malign effect of high oil prices. Freedom in the world has declined for eight straight years, according to Freedom House—not just under Obama.

But if the president is troubled by these trends, he shows few signs of it. “We live in a world of imperfect choices,” Obama shrugged last year—and his administration has made many, currying favor with a rogue’s gallery of tyrants and autocrats. Here, Politico Magazine has assembled a list of America’s 25 most awkward friends and allies, from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, Honduras to Uzbekistan—and put together a damning, revelatory collection of reports on the following pages about the “imperfect choices” the United States has made in each. “I will not pretend that some short-term tradeoffs do not exist,” Rice admitted. Neither will we.

1. Pakistan

America’s worst ally—being home to Osama bin Laden will do that to your reputation—Pakistan has gobbled up billions of dollars in U.S. aid and “reimbursements” for services rendered in the war on terror. And while Pakistan’s powerful military and spy services have often collaborated with their American counterparts on drone strikes and militant arrests, they’ve just as often made mischief, hosting the Taliban and other extremist groups, planting false anti-American stories in the press and undermining the civilian government. “The cancer is in Pakistan,” Obama reportedly told his staff in 2009—but he has yet to figure out how to excise it.

2. Saudi Arabia

Ever since 1945, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt huddled with King Abdulaziz for five awkward hours on a U.S. warship, the United States has had uncomfortably intimate relations with Saudi Arabia. Seventy years later, the two countries are trapped in a loveless marriage. No country buys more U.S. weapons than the autocratic, oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchy, and no country—with its obscurantist interpretation of Islam, medieval punishments and harsh treatment of women—makes for a more embarrassing U.S. ally. But the relationship is in increasing need of counseling as the Saudis grow exasperated with U.S. policies in the Middle East, especially in Syria, and threaten to find other partners. As the Saudi foreign minister put it, “It’s a Muslim marriage, not a Catholic marriage.”

3. Afghanistan

Bribery, embezzlement, corruption. And that’s just on the part of America’s partners in Afghanistan. As the United States prepares to wind down its 13-year war on the unforgiving Afghan plains and craggy mountain hideaways, it has given up on almost any pretense of nation-building in a country where President George W. Bush once promised to help build a “free and stable democracy.” The United States is even, it turns out, giving tens of millions of dollars in cash directly from the CIA to Hamid Karzai, the mercurial tribal leader it installed as president in 2001. Sure, there have been lectures about good governance and reams of reports tsk-tsking over the colossal waste, fraud and abuse of the roughly $100 billion in U.S. aid and reconstruction money that has flowed into Afghan coffers, but little has changed, and the United States has basically stopped trying. Standing next to Karzai last year, Obama summed up America’s diminished expectations, asking, “Have we achieved everything that some might have imagined us achieving in the best of scenarios? Probably not.”

4. Iraq

In November 2013, President Obama praised Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for “ensuring a strong, prosperous, inclusive and democratic Iraq.” One has to wonder just which Maliki—and which Iraq—Obama was talking about. Since his selection in 2006, Maliki has consolidated power to the point where many alienated Sunnis call him the “Shiite Saddam,” while the country has exploded anew with sectarian violence that killed more than 8,000 people in 2013. Just weeks after Maliki’s visit to the White House, al Qaeda was taking over large swaths of Fallujah and Ramadi, two cities where American forces had fought pitched battles in the streets. Never mind that the United States has sold Iraq some $14 billion in military hardware since 2005 and quietly left behind dozens of military and CIA advisers since its 2011 pullout—the spillover from Syria’s civil war has proven too much for the Iraqis to handle. And in more ways than one: U.S. officials also accuse Maliki’s government of looking the other way as its close neighbor, Iran, supplies the murderous Syrian regime with cash, weapons and advisers.

5. Egypt

Coup or no coup, the United States still showers the Arab world’s most populous state with $1.3 billion in military aid each year—a tradition owing to Egypt’s strategic position astride the Suez Canal and next door to Israel. Since haranguing Egypt’s longtime dictator, Hosni Mubarak, to step down “now” in February 2011 amid the inspiring protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the Obama administration has largely been reduced to hand-wringing as the men in khaki reclaimed power, killing hundreds of Islamist protesters along the way.

6. Equatorial Guinea

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo—who claims, “There is total freedom of expression, there has never been repression” in his country—is in fact a famously corrupt thug; after toppling his own uncle in 1979 to seize power in Equatorial Guinea, he has amassed a fortune estimated at several hundred million dollars, while more than three-quarters of Equatorial Guineans live in abject squalor and outright repression. Washington has also cashed in on the tiny country’s massive if ill-distributed wealth, with American lobbyists, defense contractors and banks variously taking on Obiang as a client during his more than 34 years of strongman rule. In 1995, the United States shuttered its embassy in Malabo after threats to the life of the U.S. ambassador, an outspoken human rights defender.

A 1999 State Department report found that Obiang’s sadistic security forces had, among other horrors, rubbed prisoners’ bodies with grease to attract stinging ants. But no matter: In 2003, the United States agreed to reopen the embassy, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later warmly welcomed Obiang to Washington as a “good friend.” Even President Obama has posed for a photo op with the dictator, who once won reelection with 103 percent of the vote in some precincts. Why all the love? Equatorial Guinea’s $9 billion oil and gas bonanza, almost all of it produced by U.S. companies, has made it one of the largest destinations for U.S. investment in Africa, and much of that oil, naturally, finds its way across the Atlantic.

7. Uzbekistan

During President Islam Karimov’s 24-year reign of terror in Uzbekistan, his government has imprisoned thousands of political opponents and people who practice their religion outside the state’s strict rules; many of them have been tortured or brutally killed—even, in a case famously documented by Human Rights Watch in 2002, boiled alive. Karimov also refuses to take responsibility for the 2005 massacre of several hundred peaceful demonstrators by Uzbek forces. Nor has the United States held him to account; instead, Washington annually funnels some $500 million in transit fees to Central Asian states that host parts of the Northern Distribution Network, the land route into and out of Afghanistan—including Uzbekistan, through which the majority of NDN-bound U.S. supplies pass. In her 2011 trip to Uzbekistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton struck a friendly tone, welcoming “a great opportunity that we have to try to help develop democracy here in Uzbekistan.” Few others would say that: Even Karimov’s daughter, in the midst of a bizarre family feud, alleged in December that her father’s “scary” security forces had tried to poison her.

8. Bahrain

This tiny Gulf country crushed its local Arab Spring in March 2011, unleashing hundreds of troops and armored vehicles on mostly Shiite protesters, dozens of whom were killed and many more injured, tear-gassed and jailed. Activists—around 2,000 of them still in prison—have even accused the government of torturing them with electric cattle prods. To the Sunni Al Khalifa monarchy, often hailed as Arab moderates by the West, the unrest was but a devious plot unleashed by Shiite Iran. President Obama has spoken out against the abuses—but done little else, while continuing to sell arms to the wealthy Gulf country, some of which were used against demonstrators. Not coincidentally, Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet at an 80-acre base undergoing a $580 million expansion.

9. Myanmar

Once a pariah state most often compared with North Korea, Myanmar over the past few years has made a dramatic transition from decades of junta rule; its new president, Thein Sein, shed his general’s uniform, freed political prisoners, scaled back press censorship and opened the country’s economy—not to mention releasing from house arrest the Nobel Prize-winning dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, who now holds a seat in the country’s parliament. Washington has been Myanmar’s chief cheerleader, with Obama and Thein Sein making a historic exchange of visits but the transition, while laudable, is by no means complete. After rolling back sanctions, the Obama administration is now exploring a closer military partnership with Myanmar, even as the country’s security forces brutalize ethnic and religious minorities—just like the bad old days.

10. Azerbaijan

“Azerbaijan’s investment in the energy sector holds the promise of further integrating Azerbaijan into the world economy and raising living standards for your nation and its citizens,” Obama said in 2011. Indeed, Azerbaijan rakes in some $20 billion in oil revenues each year, but Aliyev’s government has played it fast and loose with all that cash: The details of the state oil company’s partnerships with private companies are not public, making it impossible to track exactly how the oil money is spent. What’s clear is that the capital, Baku, is booming, with the government spending $6 billion a year on extravagant architecture projects. Hundreds of middle-class homes have been razed in recent years to make way for these gleaming structures, many of which bear the name of Aliyev’s strongman father and predecessor, Heydar, including an airport, sports complex and new spaceship-like arts center designed by starchitect Zaha Hadid.

So what if it’s small? Azerbaijan is both awash in oil and gas riches and located in an extremely geopolitically useful spot for the United States—a former Soviet state that’s willing to stand up to the Russians, and a key listening post for neighboring Iran. The man in charge is Ilham Aliyev, a former playboy who inherited his position from his dictator father. Aliyev has aimed to please not only by steering oil contracts to American companies, but also by providing troops for the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq and allowing the U.S. military to move goods through Azerbaijan en route to Kabul. One leaked diplomatic cable compares Aliyev to two sons in The Godfather: Michael, the dutiful favorite, representing Aliyev’s pro-West foreign policy, and Sonny, the impulsive hothead, representing his domestic repression. “[T]his Michael/Sonny dichotomy complicates our approach to Baku and has the unfortunate effect of framing what should be a strategically valuable relationship as a choice between U.S. interests and U.S. values,” the cable reports. While U.S. officials often dutifully call on Aliyev to respect human rights, it’s clear the United States has made its choice. In a 2010 visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lauded Azerbaijan’s “tremendous amount of progress” toward democracy while acknowledging “a lot of room for improvement.” That was charitable: Last year, voting authorities posted the results of Aliyev’s reelection victory a day early (just a “test,” they claimed).

11. Ethiopia

Ethiopia is a democracy at least in name and has had Western (and Chinese) companies salivating at its recent double-digit GDP growth. But longtime strongman Meles Zenawi, who died in 2012, and his successor, Hailemariam Desalegn, have leaned on a sweeping anti-terrorism law to stamp out opposition, imprisoning journalists, activists and politicians who dare speak out against the government. Ethiopia has made itself useful to the United States, though, invading Somalia in 2006 at Washington’s behest and disastrously fueling a rise in terrorism that prompted another intervention in late 2011. Rights groups accused the U.S.-trained and -equipped Ethiopian military of war crimes in stomping out an ethnic rebellion in 2008, but Washington has only hugged Addis Ababa tighter: In 2012, Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest states, was the top sub-Saharan African recipient of U.S. aid—and the seventh country overall—raking in some $707 million.

12. Vietnam

Nearly 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War, that conflict’s most articulate critic—John Kerry—now finds himself spearheading an unlikely reconciliation effort, as the United States seeks to pull Ho Chi Minh’s heirs into the American orbit. The sight of U.S. warships docking in Vietnamese ports has become oddly familiar in recent years, much to China’s consternation. But communist Vietnam remains one of the world’s most repressive states, making this particular Asian pivot point politically tricky. Secretary of State Kerry summed it up best in December, when he described the feeling of revisiting the place where he had once fought: “Weird, and it’s going to get weirder.”

13. Tajikistan

One of the poorest and most backward states in Central Asia, Tajikistan has cashed in on the U.S.-led war in neighboring Afghanistan. And now, with illicit drugs surging to as much as one-third of Tajikistan’s economy, it is perhaps drug traffickers who have benefited most from tens of millions of dollars in U.S. investment in the country’s infrastructure; the very roads that feed America’s war machine allow smugglers to carry heroin out of Afghanistan. The drug lords have formed a mutually beneficial partnership with high-level officials in the Tajik government, which is responsible for widespread detention and torture of political dissidents. President Emomali Rahmon, a colorless ex-Soviet apparatchik, has been in power since 1992. According to a State Department cable published by WikiLeaks, “Rahmon and his family control the country’s major businesses, including the largest bank, and they play hardball to protect their business interests, no matter the cost to the economy writ large.”

15. Cambodia

Led by ex-Khmer Rouge guerrilla Hun Sen since 1985—putting him among the world’s longest-serving rulers—Cambodia is a dictatorship in all but name. The United States, long leery of Sen’s corrupt and sclerotic regime, has begun swallowing its distaste, cautiously upgrading military ties to this Southeast Asian basket case as it confronts a rising China. In 2012, Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Cambodia, and he has balked at congressional attempts to cut off some $70 million in annual aid.

16. Honduras

There are few places you’d rather end up than a Honduran prison, where the conditions are miserable and vicious street gangs call the shots.

Since the United States controversially recognized Porfirio Lobo, the president who came to power after Honduras’s 2009 coup, Lobo and his successor have unleashed a repressive police state—and yet managed to remain the world’s murder capital. Honduran officials, particularly the military-controlled police, have deep ties to organized crime and drug traffickers, and have been accused of a range of human rights abuses, allegedly targeting political opponents for imprisonment or even assassination. But the United States, which used Honduras as a staging ground for the “dirty wars” of the 1980s and still hosts an air base there, remains the country’s largest donor, with tens of millions of dollars in annual aid, including to the military—no small figure in a place where the entire police budget is just $151 million.

17. Uganda

Yoweri Museveni has been Uganda’s president since 1986, and not because of his winning personality: He has brilliantly manipulated the election system to perpetuate his power. Still, Museveni gets a lot of credit in Washington for his anti-poverty work and his fight against HIV/AIDS, not to mention his willingness to back U.S. counterterrorism goals in Somalia. (As for personal probity, not so much: One particularly vivid State Department cable published by WikiLeaks is titled “Uganda’s All-You-Can-Eat Corruption Buffet.”) And just this month Museveni signed a harsh anti-gay law, prompting the White House to undertake a review of its Uganda relations. Museveni is now widely seen as plotting to turn over power to his son, and the United States has kept mum. But hey, at least he’s not Idi Amin.

18. Qatar

Once derided by a Saudi prince as “300 people and a TV station,” this tiny, fantastically wealthy Persian Gulf emirate makes a lot of noise through its Al Jazeera satellite empire. Qatar was a big backer of the Arab uprisings (remember those?) but has had far less to say about democracy and human rights back home. And its dalliances with radical Islamists and warm relations with Iran make it a particularly awkward host for a massive U.S. air base.

19. United Arab Emirates

The glittering towers and megamalls of Abu Dhabi and Dubai tend to overshadow this absolute monarchy’s tight grip on the reins of power: There are no real elections to speak of, and those who speak ill of the royal family soon find themselves in jail. But the UAE, a top oil producer, is one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East and an eager buyer of U.S. goods and weaponry. The UAE also hosts Jebel Ali, the most frequented American naval facility outside the United States, and the Al Dhafra Air Base, a key launching point in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, and presumably, potential air strikes in Iran.

20. Kyrgyzstan

Since 2001, the United States has used Kyrgyzstan’s Manas Air Base for transit to the war in Afghanistan—access it has maintained by bowing to the demands of two Kyrgyz autocrats whose governments were both accused of jailing and killing political opponents and journalists. In 2009, amid a de facto bidding war against the Kremlin in Russia, the Pentagon agreed to a steep rent hike for the base, from $17.4 million to $60 million, in addition to ponying up nearly $37 million to expand Manas, which doubles as the country’s main international airport. When a popular uprising installed a new president in 2010, the United States was seen as so cozy with the government that anti-U.S. sentiment became a rallying cry of the new leadership, which soon instructed the American troops to pack up and get out by this summer.

21. Kenya

When Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s independence leader, was elected president in March 2013, the United States faced an exquisite dilemma: how to deal with a popular figure accused of crimes against humanity for his role in whipping up the ethnic violence that rocked Kenya in 2007 and 2008. Obama chose to split the difference, keeping up counterterrorism cooperation but pointedly skipping his father’s homeland on his trip to Africa later that year. The United States, while maintaining its diplomatic presence in Nairobi, the largest in Africa, and making Kenya one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid, has nonetheless backed the International Criminal Court’s case, despite Kenyatta’s complaint that it’s a “toy of declining imperial powers.”

22. Djibouti

A one-party state that ranks among the world’s poorest countries, Djibouti is essentially a French satrapy with a drone base, leased to the United States. The country has little to offer other than its strategic location on the Horn of Africa, north of war-torn Somalia and west of al Qaeda-infested Yemen. But for a United States more concerned with its security than with Djiboutian freedoms—and there aren’t many to speak of—that turns out to be good enough.

23. Morocco

When uprisings spread across Arab countries in 2011, Morocco worked hard to convince the world that it was a stable exception. To appease protesters in dozens of cities and towns across the country, King Mohammed VI quickly reworked his constitution—winning much praise from a Washington desperate for an Arab Spring success story, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called Morocco “a model” for the region. As it turned out, the king retained much of his power, which he duly exercises through a Potemkin parliament, police abuses against dissidents, press constraints and his own investment holding company, which has stakes in virtually every sector of the country’s economy. The king’s ardor for reform may have cooled, but the United States has upgraded ties anyway, holding a “strategic dialogue” with Morocco in September 2012 and, a little over a year later, rewarding “King Mo” with a prized White House visit for the first time in nine years.

24. Kazakhstan

Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled this Central Asian powerhouse since 1989—that’s two years before the fall of the Soviet Union—is nothing if not a clever autocrat. He’s marketed himself brilliantly as a man the West can do business with, from giving up his post-Soviet nuclear stockpiles two decades ago to splashing money around Washington, D.C., to helping the United States ship supplies in and out of Afghanistan. Much of Kazakhstan’s immense oil wealth, meanwhile, reportedly makes its way into the hands of Nazarbayev’s cronies. At a March 2012 meeting in Seoul, South Korea, President Obama said it was “wonderful” to see Nazarbayev again, tactfully not mentioning that his government has rigged elections and imprisoned political opponents to stay in power, or that his party holds nearly all the seats in both houses of the legislature. U.S. companies have invested heavily in Kazakh oil: Chevron led the way in 1993, and last year ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips started pumping crude in a Kazakh oil field that is the world’s largest outside the Middle East.

25. Turkey

Obama seems to have a soft spot for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the voluble and volatile Islamist leader of this longtime U.S. and NATO ally. As Erdogan has trampled on basic freedoms, fended off dubious “coup attempts” and feuded with Israel, Obama has indulged his Turkish friend while keeping public criticism to a minimum. No longer, at least, do U.S. officials voice their always questionable hope that a Muslim, democratic Turkey could inspire an Arab world in the throes of revolution.

Photos from list via Associated Press unless otherwise noted. Pablo Martinez Monsivais; Ron Edmonds; Charles Dharapak; Pablo Martinez Monsivais; Jim Watson/AFP; Lawrence Jackson/White House; U.S. State Department; Sameh Refaat/U.S. Embassy Egypt; Charles Dharapak; Spencer Platt/Getty Images; U.S. State Department; Charles Dharapak; Lawrence Jackson/White House; Lawrence Jackson/White House; Carolyn Kaster; Charles Dharapak; Lawrence Jackson/White House; Pablo Martinez Monsivais; Pete Souza/White House; Cherie A. Thurlby/U.S. Department of Defense; Sayyid Azim; Pablo Martinez Monsivais; Evan Vucci; Pablo Martinez Monsivais; Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

Source: politico.com

Inspiring Muslim Women

February 17, 2014 a woman was named editor of the Saudi Arabian newspaper the Saudi Gazette. She is the first female journalist to achieve such a public position. The man she replaced, Khaled Almaeena, said he was proud Somayya Jabarti would take over at the helm of the paper.

Stories about women in Saudi Arabia often focus on human rights violations, on their inability to drive. But Saudi women are so much more than their restrictions.

All Muslim women are so much more than their restrictions. All women are. All human beings are. We are not what we lack, whether it be certain freedoms or certain amounts of weight or a spouse or a child or a job or…I get tired of the continual emphasis placed on the missing pieces. It is time to celebrate what is there. Focusing on missing pieces forces a person or a culture into our own box, what we deem missing and important might not matter to the person we are looking at or talking about or taking photos of. Instead, I want to look at what is there, recognize beauty and strength and creativity when I see it, and try to enter into its own context and worldview.

This is my good friend Aisha, an entrepreneur, traveling business woman, and community leader. Aisha didn’t graduate from elementary school, struggles to read and write, and speaks only Somali in this country where French and English are used in businesses and education. But she inspires other women to save money, to consider their skills and learn to turn those into jobs, and to work hard and with integrity.

Click here to read about amazing Muslim women, see how they are filled up and not lacking: Inspirational Muslim Women

February 17, 2014 a woman was named editor of the Saudi Arabian newspaper the Saudi Gazette. She is the first female journalist to achieve such a public position. The man she replaced, Khaled Almaeena, said he was proud Somayya Jabarti would take over at the helm of the paper.

Also just this week in St. Paul, Minnesota Kadra Mohammed became the first Somali woman to graduate from the police academy.

Stories about women in Saudi Arabia often focus on human rights violations, on their inability to drive.

But Saudi women are so much more than their restrictions. Muslim women across the globe are often depicted exclusively by their clothing, sometimes even faceless, as though their clothing was their most important and definitive feature. A simple photo search for ‘Muslim women’ reveals a shocking array of offensive pictures.

I find this infuriating and ignorant. While non-Muslims slam countries like Saudi Arabia for their treatment of women, these same non-Muslims perpetuate this treatment in photographs and journalism by continuing to focus on the oppressed and the veil. There are real, true, and horrible human rights issues in Muslim countries. This is also true of non-Muslim countries.

Women all over the world are accomplishing incredible feats, like breaking through the glass ceiling in Saudi Arabian journalism. Let us celebrate their successes and be inspired by brave, intelligent, creative, everyday Muslim women.

For the purposes of this slideshow, I have used primarily well-known women. However, here are links to articles filled with more links featuring more incredible Muslim women.

Challenging Stereotypes Part 1 and Part 2

Muslims Wearing Things

Click through the slideshow to see athletes, political activists, Harley-lovers, actresses, and normal/everyday Muslim women, and more.

The 2014 Taiwan International Boat Show

Organized by Bureau of Foreign Trade, MOEA and Kaohsiung City Government, implemented by Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and supported by Taiwan Yacht Industry Association (TYIA), the first Taiwan International Boat Show will be held from Thursday, May 8 until Sunday, May 11, 2014, at the newly inaugurated Kaohsiung Exhibition Center.

The history of Taiwan’s yacht manufacturing industry can be traced back to the 1960s. Over the past five decades, the industry at first flourished, then internationalized during the 80s, before experiencing a rapid decline in the 90s. Now, following industrial transformation and the development of proprietary brands in Taiwan, the exquisite craftsmanship, high level of customization and superiority of Taiwan’s yacht industry has once again gained recognition from global buyers. According to ShowBoats International’s 2014 Global Order Book, Taiwan stands firmly as the 6th largest yacht manufacturing country in the world of yachts 80-foot or above, with 5,656 feet in total. As the capital of Taiwan’s yacht industry, Kaohsiung was chosen as the city to organize the 2014 Taiwan International Boat Show.

The 2014 Taiwan International Boat Show is the only professional exhibition of yachts, yacht-related equipment and the marine industry in Taiwan; it is also the only indoor boat exhibition in Asia that showcases a variety of yachts, sailboats, motor boats, equipment, accessories, water sports and recreation, tourism, and maritime services. An estimated 200 firms will take up over 800 booths in the North and South halls of the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center and present the exquisite yacht craftsmanship much sought by international buyers.

Enthusiastic Support from Domestic/Foreign Yacht and Related Equipment Manufacturers Demonstrates Comprehensive Industry Supply Chain

As the first “Taiwan International Boat Show”, TYIA appeals to all its members to participate the event. The most spectacular yachts and vessels of this exhibition will be displayed in the columnless, 27 meter lofted south hall of the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center. The world’s eleventh largest yacht manufacturer, Horizon Yachts, and Kha Shing, Hsing Hang Yachts, Tayana, Corum Yachts, President Yachts, Morningstar Boats, Global Yacht Builders, Johnson Yachts, Grand Harbor Yachts, Shing Sheng Fa Boat Building, Delta, Aisa Harbour Yacht, Novatech, Southcoast, and Tachou, will be displaying their superior techniques and technological achievements in the exhibition hall.

Besides the display of yachts, another popular exhibition area is the equipment and components area. In support of the development of Taiwan’s yacht industry, yacht peripheral industries and supply chains, including raw materials, marine hardware and accessories, wood processing and furniture manufacturing, have been established over the past decade. Consequently, at the first Taiwan International Boat Show, Arite - the largest yacht hardware accessory manufacturer in Asia, will feature a large booth to showcase its marine hardware. Other manufacturers that have signed up for the exhibition include Caterpillar’s only dealer in Taiwan, Capital Machinery, Man Ship Machinery and Hardware, UMC-United Metals, God Power, Raymarine’s official distributor, Marine Centre Asia, 3M, Hung Shen Propeller, among others, all of which will demonstrate a complete supply chain for Taiwan’s yacht industry.

The Taiwan International Boat Show will not only attract the participation of domestic and international yacht/marine industries, but will also catch the attention of overseas manufacturers. With the US and Europe still not exhibiting noticeable improvement in their economies, the development of yacht industries worldwide is being hindered, the Asian yacht market has become the new emerging market. Through Taiwan’s geographical advantage, foreign manufacturers are able to enter the Asian market, in turn attracting manufacturers from America, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and the UK to the exhibition.

Exciting Events Provide All-facet Maritime Experience

Not only will exhibitors’ excellence draw attention, but the variety of events being held during the show will provide lots of fun. Procurement meetings will be held to boost the effectiveness of the show, while industrial forums and seminars will be a perfect platform for further cooperation and idea exchanges. In addition, regatta, yacht design workshops, yacht design competition, maritime knowledge box will also provide visitors exclusive maritime experience.

First International Boat Show Taiwan – An Important Marine Grand Event

Integrating traditional manufacturing, high technology and exquisite craftsmanship, Taiwan’s comprehensive yacht industry will be exhibited at the 2014 Taiwan International Boat Show. The exhibition will be held between May 8-11, 2014, and it is expected to become the most anticipated event in Taiwan!

Taiwan International Boat Show
www.boatshow.tw

The Muslim Democracy

By David Kashi

In early April 2009, President Barack Obama made a high-profile visit to Turkey, where he gave an important, if often overlooked, address to the Turkish parliament. Obama moved the assembly with learned references to Turkey’s glorious Ottoman past and praise for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who, since becoming prime minister in 2003, had overseen an array of constitutional reforms strengthening political parties, banning the death penalty, reinforcing personal freedoms and bringing the country’s coup-prone military to heel. Throughout his speech, Obama alluded both to Turkish democracy and the enduring alliance between Washington and Ankara—a friendship that grew so close Obama eventually named Erdogan a rare foreign leader with whom he had forged “bonds of trust.”

The Bush administration had also hailed Erdogan and his party as a pathbreaking answer to the question very much on Western minds in the post-9/11 era: Is Islam compatible with democracy? But Obama seemed to hold Erdogan in special esteem; he essentially became Washington’s Chief Turkey Desk Officer, in a bromance that has fit with the administration’s strategic plans to make Turkey the centerpiece of its Middle East diplomacy.

Erdogan didn’t make it easy for Obama; Turkey often still acted more like a frenemy than a friend. In May 2010, the country teamed up with Brazil to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran—but without approval from Washington, which scuttled the whole agreement. Weeks later, Turkey voted against a new round of United Nations sanctions against Iran. In between these two events, Israeli naval commandos shot dead nine activists (eight Turks and a Turkish-American) on a ferry bound for the Gaza Strip. Erdogan declared the incident “an act of inhuman state terror” and threatened the Israelis, “Don’t think that we’ll sit by in silence after such events.”

Still, instead of publicly rebuking Ankara, Obama met privately with Erdogan at the Toronto G-20 summit the next month, in a clear-the-air encounter that has taken on almost legendary status as the founding moment of what some Turkish officials have called a “golden age” in U.S.-Turkey relations. After the Arab uprisings in 2011, Turkey came to seem even more like the perfect partner. The Obama team and much of the American foreign policy establishment believed that the Turks, with prestige derived from Erdogan’s tough stand on Israel, fearless investors and soft power, would show the way forward for the Arab world. It was “vital,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, for countries across the region to “learn the lessons that Turkey has learned and is putting into practice every single day.”

How mistaken this reasoning now seems. To begin with, the idea that Turkey had something unique to offer the Middle East was naive, and the narrative meant that Washington was once again cozying up to a heavy-handed Islamist government, forming a partnership that overlooked serious violations of democratic norms. For Erdogan has in fact presided over an illiberal, even authoritarian turn. His ruling Justice and Development Party (known as the AKP) regularly touts tough measures like limiting alcohol sales and lifting the ban on head scarves and veils in civil service jobs. More important, free speech is also now under serious threat: As of last year, there were more journalists in jail in Turkey than in any other country—at least 40. Through intimidation, the purchase of media properties by businessmen close to the AKP and a new law that allows the government to block Internet access easily, Erdogan’s administration presides over a virtual ministry of information, even recently deporting a foreign journalist who criticized the government on Twitter.

The government has also repeatedly pursued punitive measures against business elites who do not share Erdogan’s politics, in addition to limiting citizens’ ability to question or contest politicians. In a thinly veiled effort to silence artists who have become increasingly critical of the AKP, Erdogan in May 2012 threatened to cut off $63 million in funding for the arts, endangering 58 state theaters.

Meanwhile, Turkish anti-terror police have arrested citizens on trumped-up charges of terrorism, allowing some of those targeted to languish in jail during lengthy pre-trial hearings. As of November 2013, there were 11,200 pending complaints against Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights.

But it was last spring’s protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park and Taksim Square that highlighted just how far backward Turkey has slid. The protests were about not just the government’s redevelopment of a park as a shopping mall but also the ruling party’s arrogance, the crony capitalism that fuels the construction sector and provides patronage for Erdogan, police brutality and the AKP’s efforts to pass laws and push constitutional changes that entrench its power.

The tens of thousands of Turks who poured into the streets in Istanbul—and then Ankara and Izmir—expressed mass frustration with what is essentially a one-party state. In addition to using tear gas, water cannons and metal truncheons, Turkish authorities made large-scale arrests, bullied NGOs and cracked down on social media. In December, the AKP-dominated parliament proposed a measure that would make it illegal—with prison sentences of two to five years—to protest against public services, which broadly defined includes projects like Gezi’s redevelopment or a controversial road construction project in Ankara that requires large-scale deforestation.

Through all this, Washington still appears to be enamored of the “Turkish model.” True, Turkey has been criticized in recent State Department human rights reports, Clinton publicly raised the issue of press freedom and the Obama administration has made statements in support of peaceful protests. But the White House has never made democratic change a priority, let alone a condition for strengthening ties. Although Turkey selected a sanctioned Chinese firm to co-produce an anti-missile system over the objections of NATO and the U.S. Congress, the White House has promised to protect Turkey’s interests in any U.S.-European Union free trade agreement—a policy it has not changed, despite warning that the deal could affect U.S.-Turkish defense cooperation. And Washington continues to regard Turkey as a vital strategic partner in the Middle East, notwithstanding Ankara’s deeply strained relations with Egypt, Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia—in other words, every major country in the region.

The most important aspect of Obama’s April 2009 speech in Ankara was not his fulsome praise of Turkey, but his subtle critique of Turkish politics, imploring lawmakers to deepen their commitment to a democratic future. “Democracies,” he exhorted, “cannot be static—

they must move forward.” His address was historic not just because it was the first time he publicly broached the subject of Turkey’s democratic shortcomings—but because it was the last time he seemed to mean it.

Source: politico.com

Somaliland: Genocide Skeletons uncovered in mass graves in Somaliland!!!

In this photo taken Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014, members of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team work to uncover bodies buried in a mass grave in Hargeisa, Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. An American volunteer gently brushes away dirt to reveal the bones of a Somali victim buried in a mass grave some 30 years ago. Tens of thousands of skeletons may lie in mass graves here, on the northern edge of Somalia, where many want to see justice prevail, even if delayed. Last year 38 bodies were uncovered in two graves by the Somaliland War Crimes Investigation Commission, which is overseeing the work on a third site where another dozen bodies are buried. Photo: Jason Straziuso, AP

by JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press

HARGEISA, Somalia (AP) — An American volunteer gently brushes away dirt to reveal the bones of a Somali victim buried in a mass grave some 30 years ago. Tens of thousands of skeletons may lie in mass graves here, on the northern edge of Somalia, where many want to see justice prevail, even if delayed.

Last year 38 bodies were uncovered in two graves by the Somaliland War Crimes Investigation Commission, which is overseeing the work on a third site where another dozen bodies are buried.

More than 200 mass graves with the bodies of 50,000 to 60,000 people may be in the region, according to the commission.

Why dig up the past now?

In this photo taken Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014, volunteer Amber Barton, from the San Francisco area, works with colleagues from the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team to uncover bodies buried in a mass grave in Hargeisa, Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. An American volunteer gently brushes away dirt to reveal the bones of a Somali victim buried in a mass grave some 30 years ago. Tens of thousands of skeletons may lie in mass graves here, on the northern edge of Somalia, where many want to see justice prevail, even if delayed. Last year 38 bodies were uncovered in two graves by the Somaliland War Crimes Investigation Commission, which is overseeing the work on a third site where another dozen bodies are buried. Photo: Jason Straziuso, AP

Many African countries try to forget about atrocities carried out in their recent pasts, saidKadar Ahmed, chairman of the commission, speaking at the gravesite. He wants this northern tip of Somalia — a self-governing region called Somaliland — to confront those ghosts head-on. He said he hopes an outside tribunal will take up the case of the unknown numbers of deaths.

The commission was created in 1997 with the dual aim of offering a proper burial to the victims and taking judicial action against those responsible for the killings. Ahmed, who was not in Somaliland during the 1980s violence, has headed the commission the last four years.

In this photo taken Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014, Chairman of the Somaliland War Crimes Commission Kadar Ahmed, left, oversees members of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team as they work to uncover bodies buried in a mass grave in Hargeisa, Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. An American volunteer gently brushes away dirt to reveal the bones of a Somali victim buried in a mass grave some 30 years ago. Tens of thousands of skeletons may lie in mass graves here, on the northern edge of Somalia, where many want to see justice prevail, even if delayed. Last year 38 bodies were uncovered in two graves by the Somaliland War Crimes Investigation Commission, which is overseeing the work on a third site where another dozen bodies are buried. Photo: Jason Straziuso, AP

If government's aren't held responsible for mass killings, then killings will continue, said Ahmed. Another aim is to "find the individuals and take them to court," he said. Ahmed believes that one general who gave the order to commence a slaughter is dead. The other, he says, is outside the country.

Those killed were civilians and militia members from the Isaq clan who were hunted and slain in the late 1980s by the regime of Siad Barre, Ahmed said. Barre's overthrow in 1991 unleashed 20 years of chaos, making Somalia a failed state.

The victims' families "are all grieving and all sad because of non-recognition of the government. We can't get any recognition from any court or any individual," Ahmed said about the killings.

About a dozen people from the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team are helping Somaliland unbury the past, and also helping to train Ahmed's staff so they can one day take over. Franco Mora leads the team and says the work is about helping friends and family close the mourning process.

"Families are waiting for answers," said Mora, who has worked on similar projects in Congo, Guatemala and Mexico. But the Somali team needs more training: "We are explaining to them you can't go into the field and use heavy machinery. We are teaching them to recover the remains in a way you can use them for prosecution."

Mora noted that the skeletons being uncovered in the latest mass grave were all buried facing toward Mecca, a holy site for Muslims. He suspects that means the victims were buried with care by local residents.

"This country is a big mass grave. There are graves everywhere. People are living with death. It's everywhere," Mora said.

Amber Barton is a 26-year-old volunteer on Mora's team from the San Francisco region in California. On a recent sunny morning she gently brushed dirt away from a skeleton lying in a row of several bodies. She hopes to apply the skills she has studied in archaeology to a forensics context. She says the Somalis here are interested in the group's work.

"The locals are curious about what's happened, with the individuals, how they died," Barton said.

The War Crimes Commission says that Cold War politics helped protect Barre's regime from punishment from the U.S. and others despite the gross human rights violations. Most of those who carried out the killings now live outside Somalia, the commission says.

"They collected whoever they saw. Child, woman, man, taking them and killing them. They were executing them, sometimes torture, then shooting them," said Ahmed, of the commission.

A great deal of work is needed and Ahmed appears determined. After speaking, the 63-year-old Ahmed walked down into the grave, picked up a bucket of dirt from beside a newly uncovered skeleton and carried it away.

Source: seattlepi.com

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Turkish Ambassador to Somalia Visits Garowe, Capital of Puntland

Turkish Ambassador to Somalia, Kani Torun on Thursday visited Puntland capital, Garowe and met the leaders of Somalia’s semi-autonomous state.

A delegation led by the Turkish Ambassador was highly welcomed in the Garowe airport by Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, his Vice and Cabinet ministers as well local residents.

Turkish Ambassador together with the Puntland leaders, visited vairous places in the capital including; a local hospital, Universities, Schools and government departments.

After helding talks at the Presidential state house, Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali told the Press that they discussed on the need for more development projects from Turkey in Puntland.

Ambassador Dr Kani Torun told Journalists also that his government is now ready to start development projects and deliver humanitarian aid in the region.

‘’ Turkey and Puntland have historical links since 16th Century, we will build an extensional hospital, Vocational Schools, provide scholarships and bring investors,’’ said the Ambassador.

Last month, Turkish Red Crescent Society distributed food to the families affected by the last year Cyclone, that hitted Puntland Coastal area.

Recently, Turkey was accused for being partial on the aid and development projects its been distributing in the war-ravaged country since its arrival in 2011, but the ambassador denied the allegations.

”When we first came, there was a really humanitarian need in the South [Mogadishu]… but now we are starting to reach every where.”

Turkey’s involvement in Somalia emerged in 2011 when Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan paid a rare visit to Mogadishu, becoming the first non-African leader to visit the war-torn city for two decades.

Since then Turkey has provided $400 million in aid to the country building hospitals, schools and other structures and educating students in Turkey with scholarships.

OBAMA'S WORLD I A SPECIAL REPORT: The Airstrip With a Subway - DJIBOUTI

By ALY VERJEE

A different world, indeed—especially for Djiboutians outside the walls of Camp Lemonnier, headquarters of the Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa, part of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom) and home to Special Forces operations planning and, recently, U.S. drone flights. Despite the country’s close military relations with the United States—benefiting Djibouti to the tune of $38 million in base lease fees annually, roughly the same amount as the country’s entire defense spending—Djibouti languishes at the bottom of the world league tables for corruption, human rights and political freedom. When the Arab Spring revolutions threatened to spread to the country in February 2011, President Ismail Omar Guelleh squelched dissent and easily won reelection a few months later in a vote boycotted by the main opposition parties.

In the global order, Djibouti wouldn’t matter, except for its strategic location. It is a land neighbor of troubled Somalia, and only a few miles of water separate it from unstable Yemen. Djibouti is the only friendly port in the northern Horn of Africa for navies conducting anti-piracy operations. It is also nestled at the mouth of the Red Sea, one of the world’s most important sea routes for Saudi oil exports. The country of 860,000 is extremely poor—more than 40 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty—and has few natural resources to export and little industry to speak of. Still, Djibouti’s geostrategic value long ensured that France, from which Djibouti became independent in 1977, always retained a military base there.

The United States is a more recent arrival, first using Camp Lemonnier in 2002. Since 2011, the U.S. government has spent more than $200 million in Djibouti to construct the Horn of Africa Joint Operations Center, upgrade airports and build an armory and a fitness center for troops. Africom plans further expansion, exceeding $1 billion in cost, over the next two decades. Approximately 4,000 U.S. personnel, both military and civilian, are now based at Lemonnier, watching over Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen and several Indian Ocean island states. It was from Djibouti that U.S. troops deployed to reinforce American interests in South Sudan during recent fighting in the fledgling country. Various covert missions in Somalia and Yemen are also believed to be launched from the Djibouti base. U.S. military air traffic at Lemonnier has increased so much that the Defense Department recently allocated $7 million to train local air traffic controllers, far more than the entire amount the U.S. spends on development assistance to the country: a mere $4.5 million set for 2014.

Even with all those Americans flying around, Djibouti remains one of the world’s classic electoral autocracies—a state that routinely organizes well-conducted elections that are effectively meaningless, with severe limitations on media freedoms and civil liberties. Real power is centralized in the Guelleh family’s hands, and opponents, if they become too vocal, run the risk of imprisonment, exile or worse.

But Guelleh, in power since 1999 and the nephew of Djibouti’s founding president, has proved himself a useful and clever American ally. As long as the United States pays rent for the base, it is free to do whatever it wishes at Camp Lemonnier. Guelleh, for his part, has not generally resorted to overt and systematic brutality to repress his population. Indeed, despite the quickly crushed 2011 uprising, U.S. policy on Djibouti is largely unchanged: ostensibly committed to reform, but in reality quite happy with the state of affairs; in 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even went out of her way to make that state of affairs

public, praising Djibouti for playing “a stabilizing role in the Horn of Africa.” The message couldn’t have been clearer: Whatever the concerns and desires of Djiboutian citizens, this is a most useful outpost on the African coast.

Source: politico.com

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