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March 20, 2010
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South Africa Moves to Restrict Human Trafficking

Posted By Juliette Terzieff 19 Mar 2010 South African authorities have accelerated plans to enact legislation targeting human trafficking activities ahead of the upcoming FIFA World Cup in June and July, amid warnings from rights advocates that trafficking incidents will rise before and during the competition.

Justice Minister Jeff Radebe submitted the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons bill to parliament this week, according to Reuters. The law would combine various pieces of existing legislation, compelling Internet providers to report suspicious activity and empowering South African courts with extra-territorial jurisdiction to pursue perpetrators. Radebe expects the new law to come into effect within a month.

The move to finally upgrade trafficking legislation, which has been in the works since 2003, comes amid reports of increased human trafficking associated with the 2010 World Cup. Traffickers preying on Ethiopians have been using stories of jobs created in South Africa ahead of the event as one of their lures, according to a recent Ethiopian government report cited by IRIN. In some cases, victims pay "brokers" to get them across the borders for employment.

The number of human trafficking victims at any given time is 2.5 million, with millions more already trafficked, according to the United Nations. Victims are predominantly women and children, mostly from impoverished families, who are lured into modern forms of slavery by traffickers as part of a multibillion-dollar-per-year business.

Leading Indicators: Off-the-Radar News Roundup

Posted By Judah Grunstein 19 Mar 2010 - China said it was sending a deputy commerce minister to the U.S. to discuss ways of easing bilateral tensions over trade imbalances and the yuan's valutation. The move comes in the wake of what was interpreted as increased Chinese confidence in its ability to set its own terms in the bilateral relationship. China also announced the appointment of its new ambassador to the U.S., Zhang Yesui, formerly the Chinese ambassador to the U.N.

- In an effort to curb its growing housing bubble, China ordered more than 70 state-owned firms to unwind their real estate positions once they completed their current development projects.

- Indonesia's foreign minister said it would not press the U.S. for the resumption of military ties, saying the move should "come naturally." The U.S. curtailed military aid and cooperation more than 12 years ago due to the Indonesian military's record of human rights violations, notably in East Timor. The Bush administration allowed limited cooperation, while maintain an embargo on the Indonesian special forces. The issue has been a central point of friction in the bilateral relationship.

- The Australian government rejected a 2008 parliamentary report's recommendations to cancel an agreement to sell uranium to Russia, while at the same time reiterating its position that such sales to India remained a non-starter unless India signs the NPT. Australia had begun negotiations with India under the Howard government, just months before the elections that brought the current Rudd government to power.

- Meanwhile, in India, a bill designed to provide civil liability to U.S. nuclear firms operating in the country has met with stiff resistance in parliament. The government now says it will consult with all parties before bringing the draft legislation to a vote. The bill is necessary to operationalize the U.S.-India nuclear agreement: Because U.S. companies are not state-owned, unlike their French and Russian competitors, they do not benefit from sovereign immunity from liability.

- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran will come online this summer. This is the most definitive statement to date, and from the most reliable source, of Russia's intentions to follow through on the reactor's long-delayed launch. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, currently in Moscow, called the move "premature" in the absence of reassurances from Iran over the nature of its nuclear program.

- South African President Jacob Zuma returned to Pretoria satisfied with progress made during his three-day visit to Zimbabwe, where he apparently banged heads and twisted arms in an effort to move that country's long-stalled power-sharing arrangement forward. He said the principals had directed their negotiators to wrap up outstanding issues later this month and report back to him by March 31.

- The African Union imposed sanctions on Madagascar's coup-installed leader and 108 of his supporters, after no progress was made in forming a power-sharing government including the opposition since the AU issued an ultimatum last month. The EU reportedly is also considering sanctions.

Leading Indicators: Off-the-Radar News Roundup

Posted By Judah Grunstein 18 Mar 2010 - A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry reiterated China's claim to sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands. The remark comes in response to Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada's statement on Tuesday that the islands, currently controlled by Tokyo, belong to Japan. Complicating matters, Taiwan has also claimed sovereignty over the islands.

- A spokesman for China's Taiwan bureau said that cross-Straits talks on military confidence-building measures should continue on a step-by-step basis, "starting from the easy ones," effectively agreeing to one of the two preconditions laid out by Taiwan's premier on Tuesday. No word on the second precondition (i.e., a lasting Taiwanese defense capacity), which would seem to be one of the not-so-easy steps.

- Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told a parliamentary committee that while Japan remains committed to its three non-nuclear principles, it did not rule out the possibility of allowing nuclear weapons into Japanese territory, "[i]n a case in which Japan's security cannot be protected unless we accept temporary port calls by U.S. ships carrying nuclear weapons." The testimony comes in the aftermath of the Hatoyama government's release of  documents that proved the long-rumored existence of "secret treaties" allowing U.S. nuclear-armed ships to visit Japanese ports. Okada's statement essentially limits the exceptions to the non-nuclear rules to necessity as opposed to convenience.

- The U.S. and India signed an agreement strengthening trade ties and facilitating cooperation on clean energy technologies. Trade between the two countries has doubled in the past five years, exceeding $37.6 billion last year.

- India and Russia invested an initial $600 million into a joint venture that will develop and build a medium-lift transport aircraft. The Inidan air force is expected to order at least 35 units, and the Russians as many as 100.

- Talks between India and Bangladesh over water-sharing rights to the Teesta River began today, after a five-year interruption that India claimed was due to technical issues.

- After years of negotiations and delays, Iran and Pakistan signed a deal to begin contruction of the $7.6 billion gas pipeline originally known as the IPI or "peace pipeline," in reference to its Iran-Pakistan-India route. India has more recently pulled out of the deal due to security concerns over Pakistan controlling its energy supplies, although the possibility for India's future participation still exists. The deal illustrates the diffulties facing U.S. efforts to economically isolate Iran, even among countries upon whom Washington exercises considerable leverage.

- The president of Cyprus said that he would not seek re-election in 2013 if current reunification talks with Turkish North Cyprus fail. This seems like a good practice for elected leaders, at least with regard to a core list of priority governing objectives. I'd like to see more of it, although including bilateral issues arguably offers an inordinate amount of leverage over one's political future to the other side.

- Nigeria's acting President Goodluck Jonathan dissolved the cabinet yesterday, a move widely seen as a purge of loyalists to ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua. Interestingly, Jonathan first replaced the country's national security adviser a few weeks ago, suggesting he has stabilized his control of the national security apparatus (although in general, the position to watch in these scenarios is the army chief of staff). The move comes against the backdrop of ongoing sectarian violence in the north and increased insurgent attacks on oil installations in the restive south.

The Pope and the Catholic Church's Sex Abuse Crisis

Posted By Roland Flamini 18 Mar 2010 When the Roman Catholic Church in America faced its wave of pedophilia cases involving priests seven years ago, the Vatican in effect told the U.S. church hierarchy it was a solely American problem, and that the Americans would have to deal with it.

But what the Vatican refers to as the delictum gravius (grave sin) has turned out to be not just an American aberration. The rash of cases of sexual misconduct by priests now coming to light in several European countries -- in particular Germany and, more notoriously, Ireland -- reach right up to the Vatican's doorstep: A couple of the alleged cases have brought suggestions that Pope Benedict XVI himself might be guilty of what looks like either negligence or administrative cover-ups when he was an archbishop in his native Germany.

In reality, Benedict was the first pope to publicly acknowledge the problem, condemning pedophilia by priests, introducing a zero-tolerance policy, and apologizing to the victims. But the latest scandals have, by his own admission on Tuesday, "severely shaken" the church. They have also done nothing to bolster the conservative pontiff's own standing.

One of Benedict's main policy priorities has been the revival of Christianity in Europe. He argues that the rapid spread of the gospel in Brazil and the flourishing state of Catholicism in the United States are seriously diminished if Christianity fades away in Europe, its historic source. The pope has always regretted the European Union's refusal to include a reference to Europe's Christian roots in what eventually became the Lisbon Treaty. In that respect, the scandal over pedophile priests could not have been worse timed: It is certainly not going to lure Europeans back into the continent's nearly empty churches.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the prelate heading the department that handles allegations of sexual misconduct by members of the clergy, tried to put things in perspective this week in a rare interview in L'Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference. Every year, he said, his team in the Vatican's Congregation of Faith and Morals handles about 300 cases of alleged sexual misconduct by members of the clergy. But only 10 percent of these are "pedophilia in the true sense of the term, that is based on sexual attraction towards prepubescent children," Scicluna said. Furthermore, the number of cases, though regrettable, is small compared to the total number of Catholic priests worldwide -- around 400,000.

The argument is disingenuous, however, since one errant priest can do a lot of damage. In the Irish case, literally hundreds of minors were sexually abused by priests and nuns with impunity over a number of years. Because many of the cases were kept under wraps for decades, the scandals have led the church to promise more openness in dealing with what are essentially problems of human weakness. But critics see the church's secrecy as both institutional and obsessive. Or as Monsignor Scicluna put it, "The church doesn't like theatrical justice."

Child Labor Remains a Persistent Problem

Posted By Juliette Terzieff 18 Mar 2010 Child labor remains one of the world's most persistent human rights problems, pitting rights advocates, governments and companies against tradition, the needs of impoverished families and criminal groups. Over the last few decades, rights advocates have pressured governments and private-sector actors to crack down on child labor. Individual companies and industries have responded to the calls with various measures, including enacting codes of conduct and severing ties with suppliers.

Two recent stories demonstrate the strength and weaknesses of the existing strategies.

Apple recently reported that audits of its supplier factories turned up violations of labor laws and the company's internal codes, including the hiring of some workers under the age of 16. Apple's findings reportedly showed that the underage workers were no longer employed by suppliers, or else were still employed but now above the legal working age, according to the Associated Press.

Apple's discoveries made a few international headlines, but there was little outcry from rights advocates because the company has an established code and is actively engaged in tracking supplier compliance.

Meanwhile, Der Spiegel ran an investigative piece this week on soccer-ball manufacturing in Pakistan and the effect that international scrutiny has had on child labor in that industry. Pakistan produces over 60 million hand-stitched footballs in a World Cup year, in a production process that has traditionally employed children. Pressure from rights advocates on international buyers has led manufacturers to prohibit child labor in recent years. But as Der Spiegel points out, this has not addressed the problem, as the children have simply moved on to other employers, predominantly in the area's brick kilns.

As the Pakistan case illustrates, when poverty is the primary driver for putting children to work, families will simply find alternative employers. Unfortunately, these are likely to be even less responsive to outside pressure, and may involve harsher working conditions.

In cases where tradition calls for involving every member of a family in an enterprise -- such as farming and small, family-run businesses -- children have been part of the workforce for centuries. The loss of children as a participant may result in a decreased standard of living and profound hardship for the entire family unit.

At the same time, tens of thousands of children each year are forced to work, often victims of human-trafficking rings. These rings may convince impoverished parents to cede control of their children in exchange for promises of work and money, but often resort to kidnapping as well. Others operate as debt-bonders, entrapping entire families into lifetimes of servitude.

Some rights advocates have questioned the overall efficacy of forcing children out of traditional or mainstream workplaces until the risks of poverty and the threats posed by criminal gangs can be addressed. Providing families with replacement funding to send their children to school -- or for training in the trades for older children -- are examples of strategies that have been tried in a few locales to minimize the risks.

Leading Indicators: Off-the-Radar News Roundup

Posted By Judah Grunstein 17 Mar 2010 - South Korea and the UAE were tied for third place in SIPRI's listing of the world's largest arms importers for the five-year period from 2005-2009. Richard Weitz devoted his WPR column yesterday to the Southeast Asian arms race described by the SIPRI report.

- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari called on the U.S. to assist his country with civilian nuclear technology during a meeting with DNI Dennis Blair. I suppose it was only a matter of time before Pakistan claimed an "India Exception."

- The Pakistan navy successfully test-fired another surface-to-air missile, although the report leaves some question as to whether yesterday's test was also meant as a message to "nefarious" interests. I'm hoping it was.

- Indian and Chinese officials took pains to downplay the significance of recent tensions over their disputed border, with India's foreign secretary calling their relationship a "multi-dimensional" one that is "not just focused on the boundary question." The noteworthy thing about Asian regional integration is that it is taking shape even as a long list of borders remain disputed. That makes the process either post-modern or pre-mature.

- India and Russia reportedly finalized a deal during Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's recent visit whereby India would lease a Russia nuclear-powered submarine for 10 years. Ria Novosti calls the Akula II-class subs the "quietest and deadliest" of Russia's fleet. (See above.)

- A Sri Lankan Tamil party considered a political proxy for the Tamil insurgency formally dropped its demand for Tamil independence. The move can be considered an official political capitulation following the insurgency's military defeat last year. The party continues to demand increased autonomy for Tamil regions, but said it would pursue its goals through a "peaceful, non-violent campaign," to include civil disobedience in the event the Sri Lankan central government ignores its grievances.

- Representatives of seven North African states gathered to discuss plans for a coordinated response to al-Qaida affiliates in the region, as well as the terror threat more generally.

- South African President Jacob Zuma arrived in Zimbabwe to mediate talks meant to finally get the country's power-sharing arrangement into gear. A representative of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party remarked, "We appreciate [Zuma's] vigorous campaign against the illegal [i.e., Western] sanctions while commending him in his efforts to lobby the International Monetary Fund to normalize relations with us." As I've noted previously, I suspect Zuma plans to leave town with more than just verbal recognition for his efforts.

Researched by Kari Lipschutz.

Post-American Identity for a Post-American World?

Posted By Judah Grunstein 17 Mar 2010 Good stuff, as usual, from Yigal Schleifer on Turkey's struggle to find a workable post-Kemalist/post-Ottoman identity, one that balances the past century of Western-oriented secularism with the emerging "central power"/republican Islamist trend represented by the AKP. It made me think of Japan, too, as another country involved in a deep examination of how well its post-War identity fits into the shifting landscape of today's Asia. France is another one that comes to mind, and there are probably a handful of other examples, too.

For me, that raises the obvious question of whether a similar process is taking place today in the United States. I think it's obvious that it's happening among foreign policy thinkers and practitioners -- although the post-American order is not a universally held forecast, and differences in terms of degree and pace exist even among those who subscribe to it. It also seems clear that the Obama administration is trying, at least in terms of its discourse, to engineer such a shift in thinking, if not in practice.

But I wonder to what extent the American public is engaged in such an exercise, or even recognizes that it might be a useful one? It some ways, it might be impossible to know until the next situation that "calls for American action" arises. But unless the conversation is engaged by the political leadership now -- head on and not by nibbling around the edges -- it seems unlikely that the instinctive reactions will be any different the next time they are triggered. And if that's the case, the political incentives for decision-makers won't change either.

I don't really have a strong opinion yet of President Barack Obama's first-year foreign policy record. It seems too short a period to judge by, and he didn't exactly inherit a winning hand. But if there's one thing I will ultimately judge him on, it will be not so much whether he racked up "successes" as opposed to "failures," but rather whether he managed to impact the way in which Americans think about their place and role in the world. That's a tall order, and will take time. I almost wrote that it's unlikely Obama will make the kind of bold move that will earn him a "Nixon in China" credential in his first term, either. But a quick fact-check revealed that Nixon did in fact go to China before seeking re-election. (And although the 1972 election turned out to be a blow-out, Ed Muskie finished ahead of Nixon in an August 1971 Harris poll.)

So if there's something I'll be watching over the next 24 months, it's how big an effort Obama makes to position himself for a bold move that will benefit the United States' long-term prospects in a changing global landscape. There aren't that many "Chinas" left. Iran is the obvious candidate. But rather than changing our relations with some other country, it might be more valuable for us to change the way we see ourselves.

Trade Disputes: U.S.-EU vs. U.S.-China

Posted By Judah Grunstein 17 Mar 2010 The U.S. and EU are bitterly divided over hedge fund regulations that the U.S. calls protectionist. (It turns out the EU is bitterly divided over the regulations, too, but let's set that aside for now, in order to facilitate my argument.) Meanwhile, the EU is bitterly protesting the U.S. Air Force tanker contract debacle, which it says illustrates U.S. hypocrisy on said protectionism. And all this is taking place in the context of longstanding EU complaints that the U.S. has deliberately allowed the dollar to slide, to the detriment of euro-zone exporters. (Again, let's set aside the euro's recent tumble for the same reason as above.)

The parallels aren't perfect, but it does make it clear that the many differences the U.S. has with China in terms of trade practices and monetary policy are hardly unique. What's noteworthy is how much more comfortable the U.S. and EU are at mixing it up about their differences, compared to the brittle nature of U.S.-China relations. For all the coverage of  the emergence of the G-2 (haven't heard about that one recently), and the shift in U.S. priorities to Asia due to the diminishing importance of Europe, sometimes the closeness of a relationship is revealed as much by the comfort level during times of conflict as it is by the level of agreement.

That said, it also seems as if the global economy these days is characterized by a proliferation of finger-pointing and mistrust. That's to be expected, I suppose, given the current economic climate. But a global trade order that only succeeds at self-regulation during boom times seems like it's leaving out a pretty important part of the boom-and-bust cycle. Especially if the boom-time self-regulation amounted to no regulation.

Iran Nuclear Program: Tehran's Latest Fuel Swap Offer

Posted By Judah Grunstein 17 Mar 2010 If the fuel swap proposal designed to end the standoff over Iran's nuclear program were a cat, it would be up to its sixth life by now. But Iran has just floated yet another counteroffer: a swap of all of its low-enriched uranium for the fuel cells -- fabricated from 20 percent enriched uranium -- needed to power its medical reactor. The hitch is that the exchange, as formulated by the head of Iran's nuclear energy agency, would have to be conducted on Iranian territory and simultaneoulsy. That is, Iran would hold onto its LEU, under IAEA seal and oversight, until the fuel cells were completed and delivered.

That doesn't seem to me, at first glance, to be an insurmountable hitch. It increases the risk of the deal for the West, but in a way that distributes that risk more evenly. Under the previous terms, Iran essentially relinquished its bargaining chip, the LEU, with nothing but the West's good-faith guarantee as collateral. In this configuration, the West would be forced to engage in a costly exercise based on Iran's good-faith guarantee, meaning that it, too, is held hostage to the terms of the deal. As a trust-building exercise, that shifts the emphasis dramatically, but not in such a way as to render it useless.

I'm not sure what kind of reception this will receive from the West. It could be too little, too late. It could also be that I'm underestimating what the West requires from Iran at this point, in terms of trust-building. Finally, there's the problem of the credibility of Iranian statements at this point. It's hard to tell who is speaking for the Iranian government, let alone who in the Iranian government is making the decisions on this dossier. And it remains to be seen whether any Iranian counterproposal will be able to rise to the West's threshhold without triggering the Iranian domestic consensus' tripwires.

But this seems like a proposal that merits serious consideration. It also raises a series of questions, likely to be debated at length elsewhere: Where did this offer come from? And why now? Was it the (long-shot) threat of (tepid) sanctions? Was it Russia's (mixed) signals of a shift in position? Did the Chinese send a private message to Tehran? Could it be a clever way to take advantage of the current U.S.-Israel spat, by showing a reasonable side? I don't know, but I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot of speculation in the days to come.

The Global Sports-Industrial Complex

Posted By Judah Grunstein 17 Mar 2010 I've written before about what happens when sporting events and international relations collide. This morning, I ran across two articles that examine what might best be described as the underbelly of the global sports-industrial complex.

One, in Der Spiegel, takes a look at the mixed impact that global demand for soccer balls has on the hand-stitchers of a Pakistani village that produces 40 million of them a year. That number goes up to 60 million during World Cup years.

The other, by IRIN via AllAfrica.com, discusses an Ethiopian government report that found that human traffickers are using promises of a World Cup-driven job boom in this year's host country, South Africa, to entice victims to head south.