NewsHour’s Margaret Warner interviews Rory Stewart, author, activist and former British diplomat who walked across Afghanistan as part of a larger trek across Asia. Stewart projects a time frame of 20 to 30 years before Afghanistan reaches levels of government functionality akin to that of neighboring Pakistan.
NATO defense ministers endorsed General McChrystal’s Afghanistanstrategy, to reinforce interaction between military efforts and civilreconstruction and development, at a Defence Ministers session inBratislava. Robert Raffaele reports for VOA News.
At a Brookings Institution event on Oct. 16, “The Afghanistan Debate: Assessing the President’s Policy Options,” Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel and Georgetown Visiting Professor Paul Pillar disagreed on the merit of military engagement in Afghanistan. Riedel says President Obama’s assessment of the volatile situation in the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan is not only correct, but reason to continue military efforts in the region. Pillar’s approach to military presence in Afghanistan is much more cautionary. He says that regardless of stabilization, terrorism will continue to spread globally.
It is illegal for a religious group to interfere with politics in Turkey, a strictly secular governing system, but religious groups are on the rise and challenging this paradigm. Nilufer Narli, a sociology professor at one of Istanbul’s universities, equates religious movements such as Gulen and Mustazaflar-der (Association for the Oppressed) to the evangelical movement in the United States. Worldfocus’ Gizem Yarbel reports on the rise of religion in Turkey.
Kai Eide, UN Special Representative to Afghanistan, is making it clear that he expects the second round of elections in Afghanistan, which are fast approaching, to be riddled with similar problems as the first. He suggests the silver lining is that this time around, less fraud can be expected. In an interview with Al-Jazeera’s Imran Garda, Eide deflects questions of culpability for the firing of one of Aide’s subordinates, Peter Galbraith, who denounced corruption right after the first round election took place.
President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, accepted an internationally called for runoff election while speaking alongside Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) in Kabul. In the first round vote two months ago, one-third of Karzai’s votes were discarded after being deemed fraudulent by the Independent Election Commission. It is unclear what, if any, involvement Karzai had in the initial election violations, but it is apparent that he is now prepared to go ahead with a second round of voting. “We consider the decision made by the Independent Election Commission as legal and right,” he says. The runoff election, which will pit Karzai against […]
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and PacificAffairs Kurt Campbell testified at a Senate Foreign Relations Committeehearing Oct. 20 on U.S. policy toward Burma, a followup to his Sept. 30 testimony. “Our policy review also was informed by the factthat, for the first time in recent memory, the Burmese leadership hasshown an active interest in engaging with the United States. But, letme be clear: we have decided to engage with Burma because we believe itis in our interest to do so,” Campbell said.
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime released a report detailing the effects of a $15 billion industry – the Afghan opium trade. The report connects instability in Central Asia and global heroin addiction to the Taliban-taxed drug. The UNODC explains that insurgent groups derive anywhere from $90-160 million in revenue from opium taxes and that the trade could be financing insurgents across borders. Paradoxically, as the drug is globally smuggled, leaving a trail of addiction in places such as India and China, wealthier nations are intercepting less of the drug at their borders.
New York Times Columnist Roger Cohen says Israel needs to tone down their rhetoric in dealing with Iran. The seasoned journalist talks to Charlie Rose and says that it would be unlikely for Israel to take military action against Iran while President Obama is in office. He also discusses the contested definition of a war crime with regards to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Zimbabwe’s fragile unity government is facing yet another crisis. The development is all the more unfortunate because, asVoice of America reports, the new government has actually made some progresstoward stabilizing the ailing Zimbabwean economy. The introduction ofthe U.S. dollar and South African rand has been particularlyinstrumental in bringing inflation under control and facilitatingcommerce, though life remains very hard for most Zimbabweans. Voice ofAmerica’s Scott Bobb reports from Harare.
The Asia Society’s Jamie Metzl, a Kabul-based election monitor in the first round of Afghan elections, says a power sharing agreement may be the only way for current President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai to regain any sort of legitimacy to his regime. He explains the expansive ‘systemic’ nature of voter fraud and how that implicates the Karzai government. World Focus’ Daljit Dhaliwal speaks with Metzl.
After briefly discussing Afghanistan’s election woes, President Obama turned his attention to progress in Iraq during a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Obama and Maliki celebrated a new dimension of their relationship – the prospect of doing business. The two emphasized a shift in focus from military cooperation to more financial pursuits as Iraq gears up to hold its first business investors conference.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a new U.S.strategy toward Sudan Monday. The new strategy “is the result of anintensive review across the United States government,” Clinton said. A State Department press release characterized it as the “first comprehensive U.S. policy on Sudan that recognizes the linksbetween the Darfur crisisand implementation of the Comprehensive PeaceAgreement.” Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, and Presidential Special Envoy to SudanGeneral Scott Gration joined Clinton at the announcement. Related from WPR: Lord’s Resistance Army Threatens South SudanPeacekeeping General’s Dangerous Darfur Pronouncement
Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation interviewed Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Damascus. “Hamas has announced that it is ready to cooperate with the law and with any international or regional effort to reach real peace in the region,” said Khaled during the interview.
Bruce Riedel, Author of The Search For Al Qaeda,speaks with NewsHour’s Margaret Warner at the Brookings Institution.The Brookings Senior Fellow chaired the inter agency review that led tothe first Obama Afghanistan strategy. In light of voter fraud, Riedelencourages a runoff. “On the whole, it is a good thing,” he said. But the Afghanistan-Pakistan expert cautions that a runoff will only be effective if it can restore legitimacy to the process.
Diwali is a significant holiday in religious traditions of Hinduism,Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, and U.S. President Obama used theoccasion to continue his personal engagement in U.S. public diplomacy, which hasbeen marked by a number of foreign speeches, as well as several similarvideo messages. Diwali is “a time when members of some of the world’s great faithscelebrate the triumph of good over evil,” Obama said. He also said itis a time “when we remember those who are less fortunate. Those who maynot be eating as heartily or celebrating as festively; those who don’tenjoy the same rights to speak and worship freely, […]
NewsHour’s Margaret Warner interviews former Afghan presidential candidate, Ashraf Ghani. Ghani explains the fears of the average Afghan that without a clear government in place, widespread fractionalized violence will return throughout the country. He says of his fellow countrymen, “They’d rather have a bad government then no government at all.”