Grameen vs Bangladesh - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Grameen vs Bangladesh - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Although often referred to as the founder of microcredit, in fact the concept of microcredit in India predated the creation of the Grameen Bank by 2 years [AP]

The feud in Bangladesh between prime minister Sheikh Hasina and Mohammed Yunus, the founder of the microloan-making Grameen Bank and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is being portrayed as a modern-day replay of the famous battle between the wicked Kauravas and the virtuous Pandavas in the Indian epic, the Mahabharata.

The suggestion is that a vindictive prime minister is playing politics in punishing the saintly Yunus, the man who pioneered microfinance, for having threatened to enter politics.

Sheikh Hasina is even being compared to Russia's Vladimir Putin in his campaign against the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

But the Grameen case is more complicated, and carries a moral contrary to what Yunus's well-managed public-relations campaign suggests.

First, Sheikh Hasina is no ordinary politician. She is the daughter of the first president of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a charismatic leader often described as the Father of the Nation, who was assassinated in August 1975 by the army.

Hasina won office in 2009 after a landslide victory in an election that was free from fraud. She is also one of the few women to have gained the premiership not by inheriting it, but in her own right, long after her parents and some of her siblings were murdered.

Sheikh Hasina escaped the massacre of her family only because she was in Germany at the time. Over many years, she patiently worked her way back into, and to the top of, Bangladeshi politics.

Moreover, Sheikh Hasina has gained political power at the polls in an Islamic country, which is no mean feat for a woman.

By getting the US to side with Yunus against the Bangladeshi prime minister, secretary of state Hillary Clinton seems guilty of arrogantly intervening in the domestic affairs of a friendly, democratic government – in direct contradiction of president Barack Obama's preferred modus operandi.

Second, many of those now discounting Sheikh Hasina's credentials are guilty of inflating those of Yunus. Consider the frequent refrain that Yunus is the "pioneer" of the microfinance movement.

In fact, the true pioneer of microfinance is a remarkable woman from Ahmedabad, India (where Mahatma Gandhi had his ashram), Ela Bhatt, a follower of Gandhi who established SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association) as a bank in April 1974, two years before Yunus founded his Grameen Bank Project in Jobra, Bangladesh.

Throughout its existence, SEWA has been regulated by India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, staying strictly within the law and seeking no special dispensations.

Unlike the Grameen Bank, it has received no foreign money (such as the grant of $100 million from Norway, the handling of which led to the initial charges of malfeasance against Yunus), and it has distributed dividends of 9-12% annually each year since its founding.

Yunus is suspected of covering up losses at Grameen with huge sums of money from abroad, whereas SEWA has demonstrated that poor, self-employed women can own and run a financial body in a self-sustained fashion without external largess.

Third, many Bangladeshis, jealous of the independence they secured in the crucible of the Pakistani army's genocide in East Pakistan 40 years ago, resent the vast influx of foreign money, which has turned Grameen and Yunus almost into a rival to the democratically elected government, a phenomenon that no government would tolerate.

Indeed, Clinton's intervention in the feud between Yunus and the Sheikh Hasina highlights the danger of foreign influence in Bangladesh's internal affairs.

Finally, there is the issue of microfinance itself. Microlending is certainly a useful supplement to tested anti-poverty policy instruments – and one that pays an extra dividend insofar as it aids women.

But the fact is that India's massive economic reforms, which began in earnest in 1991, have had a far greater impact on poverty, and indeed on the incomes of several disadvantaged groups, including women. This has been amply documented by recent empirical studies, which have shown that earlier assertions to the contrary were wrong.

By contrast, Bangladesh has not experienced anything like India's acceleration in economic growth. As Sheikh Hasina has seemed to appreciate since returning to office two years ago, Bangladesh has for decades been handicapped by doctrines that undermine growth.

Unfortunately, Bangladesh's most influential economists, and hence the country's policies, remain mired in the growth-killing socialist economics that they learned at Cambridge and the London School of Economics a half-century ago.

Ela Bhatt's SEWA adds to the huge benefits to the poor and underprivileged that a reformed macroeconomic policy framework has brought to India.

By contrast, Yunus's Grameen Bank puts at best a microeconomic finger in the leaky dyke of Bangladesh's largely unreformed macroeconomic policies.

Can we hope that the Grameen affair will be a prelude to the fight for the liberal reforms that will transform the Bangladeshi economy?

Jagdish Bhagwati is University Professor of Economics and Law at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This article first appeared on Project Syndicate.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Art challenges Tunisian revolutionaries - Features - Al Jazeera English

Art challenges Tunisian revolutionaries - Features - Al Jazeera English

LE KRAM, TUNISIA — A crowd has gathered to ponder the black-and-white photographs which have been pasted across the face of building that was, until recent, the local offices of the former president's much-loathed party.

"I have no idea what these photos mean. Do you know?" Meddeb Nejeb, a high school teacher, asks Al Jazeera.

He might be yet to grasp the meaning of the photographs, but Nejeb wants to know more.

For the artists behind what is one of the most ambitious contemporary street art projects to vibrate the Arab world, the artwork is about replacing the once all-pervasive presidential photography with mosaics of ordinary, anonymous Tunisians who rose up against their government.

The group are using street art to kick-start conversations and to challenge their compatriots to see the familiar in a new, post-revolutionary, light.

In the spirit of people-power, the project, titled "INSIDE OUT: Artocracy in Tunisia", features a hundred ordinary Tunisians, putting their images where only presidents once hung. The portraits were taken by six Tunisian photographers, in collaboration with the renowned French street artist known as JR and other international artists.

Artocracy is part of an ongoing international project by JR and his collaborators, who have previously used such surprising canvases as the favelas of Brazil and the wall separating Palestine and Israel lands.

JR used some of the money he won as recipient of the 2011 TED Prize to seed the Tunisia project. Next stop for the INSIDE OUT team is probably Egypt, with other uprising-affected countries in the region likely to follow.

Photographer Marco Berrebi speaks with Al Jazeera about Artocracy

Marco Berrebi, a Tunisian photographer who has worked closely with JR on several of his previous projects, says that Artocracy is about giving people the freedom to debate the photographs and to come to their own conclusions.

"After 50 years of silence, people are willing to discuss, to talk, to challenge your ideas," says Berrebi, who had long hoped to bring this type of street art to his home country.

"If people want to tear them down, or write something on them, that's part of the project, that's okay."

Indeed, the group's message of tolerance and the celebration of diversity has been met by lively debate wherever they have gone.

In spite of government authorisation, they had to abandon their first attempt to paste the images on a fortress La Goulette, a suburb north of the capital, after a crowd of locals turned angry. Posters the artists pasted during the night on the Porte de France, central Tunis, were torn down by 7am.

Learning from their mistakes, the Artocracy team took a more collaborative approach in Sfax, Sidi Bouzid and Le Kram, where they arrived earlier to explain the project and locals helped to create the collages on politically significant monuments.

Revolutionary fire still burns

Slim Zeghal, a Tunisian businessman who helped bring the project to Tunisia, says that the group did not expect to encounter the kind of opposition they met at La Goulette, and that the experience had reminded them that sensitivities are still raw.

"If you scratch beneath the surface, the fire's still there," Zeghal says. "We didn't want to push things to the limit."

Surprise might work with street art projects elsewhere, but the artists quickly realised dialogue is just as crucial to the artistic scene as it is to the political sphere in post-uprising Tunisia.

Aziz Tnani, one of the Tunisian photographers involved in the project, said that the experiences in La Goulette and Porte de France underlined the importance of consulting with local people.

"We didn't involve people. They woke up and just found the pictures," Tnani says of the first attempts to display the photos.

"Some people told us 'we saw so many pictures for so many years, we don't want anyone to impose their pictures anymore,'" he says.

When they arrived in Le Kram on Monday, the artists were working in collaboration with local community organisations, as they had in Sfax and Sidi Bouzid.

Sami Belhadj, a member of a recently-formed organisation that is focusing on building cultural, economic and social activity in the working-class neighbourhood, says his organisation willingly gave its support to the Artocracy project.

"They got in touch with us, and we said we would support them," Belhadj says on Monday evening, speaking shortly after the images had gone up.

Despite participation from some of the locals, however, many people in Le Kram are opposed to the photos.

Belhadj and other members of the local organisation are standing below the building, trying to protect the images from those who wanted to take them down.

Looted and vandalised with the fall of Zine El Abdine Ben Ali's regime, the building in Le Kram has since remained empty, aside from two homeless families who moved in.

With the RCD party formally dissolved earlier this month, the controversial structure, like many others across the country, has yet to be given a new official role in the new Tunisia.

Now the dozens of locals were debating whether these images have a place in their midst.

Belhadj was particularly worried about a small group of men who say the photos must come down because the portrayal of human beings is a violation of Islam.

"We know they will try to destroy them," he says. "Before the Islamists were clandestine. This is the first confrontation we've had with them."

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Hassen Ben Zaied, another man standing in the crowd on Monday, was opposed to the portraits not for religious reasons, but because he thinks they are a needless provocation.

"We don't need this kind of thing right now. All artistic projects belong in galleries or official spaces, not on the street," Ben Zaied argues.

"You shouldn't pray in the street, have alcohol in the street, or show photos that have no meaning."

During the night, someone broke into the building. Only the outline of the heads was left, their faces scratched out.

Awatef Djebali, a divorced woman living with her daughter Norhane in the former RCD building, says whoever came during the night did so without waking them.

It was Norhane who told her mother that the photos were gone.

"The photos of the grandfathers are gone!" the eight-year-old exclaimed on Tuesday morning, her mother says.

Djebali says it could have been anyone. She suspects the culprit came from the ranks of the many young unemployed men who frequent the cafes with a view of the photos.

"They would have liked to see photos of pretty young women, not sad old men!" she laughs, noting the reaction from those who spend hours taking their coffee and cigarettes opposite the old RCD building.

A day earlier in Sidi Bouzid, the artists confronted similar issues. They were welcomed warmly by the people, many of whom helped to paste the portraits around their central Tunisian town.

One of the artists, Wissal Darguiche, was questioned by some people about why they weren't using the photographs to commemorate those who died during the uprising.

"I responded that my photography was about showing life and the future," she says, an argument many seemed to appreciate.

She suggested to local people that they create their own art to remember the fallen, and some said they would continue the project after the artists left.

While some of the younger men voiced their opposition to the images for religious reasons, many older men were vocally supportive of the art.

Yet many of the portraits were quickly taken down by men who argued they were too close to a mosque.

In the flux of Tunisia's political transition, everything is contested after decades of imposed silence.

As the Artocracy project shows, public art is no exception.

"This discussion is sound and we should have this discussion, because that's how we can prove Tunisia is a free country," Berrebi says.

You can follow Yasmine on twitter @yasmineryan.

The persecution of the Shia in Yemen and the regional Sunni-Shia divide

The persecution of the Shia in Yemen and the regional Sunni-Shia divide

3:35 pm | Posted by Lee Jay Walker

The persecution of the Shia in Yemen and the regional Sunni-Shia divide

Publication Date: 3/31/2011

Shia children killed in Yemen

Currently you have many political and religious convulsions throughout North Africa and the Middle East. However, for the Shia of Yemen it is apparent that the nation state of Yemen is at odds with many Shia Muslims who suffer systematic persecution.

Saudi Arabia is worried about the power base change in Iraq because after the demise of Saddam Hussein the Arab Sunni stranglehold was broken and now the main power brokers are the Shia and Kurds in the north. Therefore, recent political tensions in Bahrain and Yemen are causing alarm in Saudi Arabia because the leaders of this nation desire to preserve a dominant Sunni political power structure throughout the region.

If we focus on Afghanistan then the Sunni Islamic fanatics of the Taliban and Al Qaeda shared the same Sunni Islamic theme of power and control. This policy of victimizing and persecuting the Shia was factual and you had many massacres of the Shia by the forces of the Taliban and Al Qaeda before the invasion of Afghanistan.

Sunni Islamic extremists deem the Shia to be heretics and non-Muslim and the same hatred towards the Shia can be found in Pakistan. Even in so-called moderate Malaysia the government is anti-Shia. However, unlike the massacres of the Shia which have taken place in other nations it is state sanctioned discrimination in Malaysia which holds the Shia at bay and forbids their religious buildings.

The Sunni-Shia issue is very potent and the Shia are second class citizens in Saudi Arabia because they face centralized policies which discriminate against them. Therefore, Saudi Arabia is meddling in many nations and the people who suffer from this policy are the Shia and in Yemen many massacres have taken place in the past but most of these went unreported.

Also, while truces have been agreed upon in Yemen these truces rarely last and often it appears that the centralized state is just making the most of the breathing space in order to unleash more violence against the Shia minority.

James Haider, Middle East correspondent for The Times (UK), stated on November 5, 2009, that the Shia “…accuse Saudi Arabia, a conservative Sunni Muslim country, of backing the Yemeni army, fearing the emergence of a strong Shia militia similar to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

“In turn, the Yemeni Government in Sanaa has accused Iran, a Shia theocracy, of supporting the Huthi rebels as part of a campaign to spread Tehran’s influence across the region. The Government said last week that Yemeni troops had seized five Iranians on a boat loaded with arms in the Red Sea”.

James Haider also comments about the fleeing Shia during a major military assault in late 2009. This military assault led to 150,000 Shia Muslims fleeing their homes in order to escape the military clampdown against their community.

The military bombardments led to the killing of many innocent Shia Muslims who were caught up in the fighting. Therefore, many civilians were killed and the blood flowed.

If we concentrate on the bigger picture it would appear that Sunni Islamic elites do not desire to build bridges with the followers of the Shia faith. Instead the Sunni Islamic elites desire either the status quo or to maintain power by further marginalizing the Shia throughout the region.

Rannie Amiri’s, whose article was published in the weekend edition of Counterpunch, (Feb 19-21, 2010) called The Shia Crescent Revisited, commented that “Should the Arab Shia be prohibited from freely airing their grievances and demanding accountability for past injustices? Stopped from speaking out against the crimes perpetrated against them under Saddam (in which many in the Arab world were complicit)? Prevented from attempting to lift the heavy hand of institutionalized discrimination levied against them in Saudi Arabia? Barred from seeking an end to their disenfranchisement in Bahrain – where they make up at least 70 percent of the population yet constitute no part of the government or security services? Forbidden from asking why the language of sectarianism was used to justify and amplify the carnage in north Yemen?”

It is a fair question and despite the “Iranian card” which is being manipulated and used in Saudi Arabia it is apparent that the global jihadist network is based on the followers of radical Sunni Islam. After all, the terrorist attacks behind September 11, Madrid, Kenya, Bali, Uganda, and other global jihadist attacks, were all done by Sunni Islamic extremists.

Despite the Mahdi Army under Muqtada al-Sadr who attacked American forces in Iraq; it is clear that the Shia in Afghanistan and Iraq have gained from outside military forces taking action against Sunni Islamic zealots in Afghanistan and against the regime of Saddam Hussein which also played the anti-Shia card.

Therefore, will Yemen become the next brutal war which will drag in outside forces and lead to the growth of radical Sunni Islam? After all, it is clear that the al-Shabaab in Somalia desire to turn Somalia into a fundamentalist nation and this extremist Sunni Islamic organization often beheads the followers of Christianity and women also face being stoned to death for adultery.

The Somalia syndrome may happen in Yemen because it is obvious that outside Sunni Islamists have used Somalia in order to spread their version of Islam. However, for the Shia of Yemen then they may face a “dual policy” whereby Sunni Islamic fanatics are allowed to enter the fray from many nations but at the same time the centralized state in Saudi Arabia will boost the nation state of Yemen.

Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, February 11, 2010, stated that “Even as it fights a U.S.-supported war against al-Qaeda militants here, the Yemeni government is engaging Islamist extremists who share an ideology similar to Osama bin Laden’s in its own civil war, adding new complications to efforts to fight terrorism.”

The writer continues by stating that “Yemen’s army is allying with radical Sunnis and former jihadists in the fight against Shiite rebels in the country’s north. The harsh tactics of those forces, such as destroying Shiite mosques and building Sunni ones, are breeding resentment among many residents, analysts said, and given the tangle of evolving allegiances could build support for al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, which plotted the Christmas Day attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner.”

Abdel-Karim al-Iriyani, a former prime minister is clearly alarmed by current events in Yemen. He states that “Using these extremist people, if they are with you today, they are prone to be against you tomorrow.”

Therefore, the Shia inYemen will continue to suffer and Western nations will do little to challenge Saudi Arabia and the same applies to Bahrain because Saudi Arabia will do everything it can in order to prop-up the Sunni elites.

Saudi Arabia will use any means possible in order to preserve Sunni Muslim power and this also applies to state sanctioned policies which will encourage the forces of radical Sunni Islam in Yemen and boosting the military of Yemen. Therefore, the Shia in Yemen will be attacked by Sunni Islamic militant organizations and by the military of Yemen and this dual policy will be used in order to crush the Shia but in the past the Shia have been tenacious and events are unpredictable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuJvqPuU-64&feature=related (military action in Yemen)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G132BS3Lzno (Attacks against the Shia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHiTUbZ7o-k&feature=related (Attacks against the Shia)

Wilders 'anti-Islam' trial to go ahead - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Wilders 'anti-Islam' trial to go ahead - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Judges, prosecutors and defence agreed for the trial against Wilders to resume on April 13 with key testimonies [AFP]

A Dutch court has ruled it would go ahead with the trial of politician Geert Wilders on charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims, rejecting a request to dismiss the case.

The presiding judge on Wednesday rejected most of the defence's objections such as its questioning of the court's authority to hear the case in the first place and of the way that the prosecutors had pursued the trial.

In June 2008 prosecutors initially dismissed dozens of complaints against Wilders but were compelled by the appeals ruling to mount a case against him in 2010. Wilders was charged with insulting Muslims by comparing Islam to Nazism.

The case has attracted considerable attention, not just because of Wilders' controversial comments, but also because of the increasing influence of his Freedom Party, which provides support for the minority government on key issues.

Wilders has argued that he is exercising his freedom of speech when he criticises Islam and had won the right last month to seek a dismissal of the case. But reading out the ruling, judge Marcel van Oosten, said the case would go ahead.

The prosecution case focuses on the short film Fitna, which catapulted Wilders to international notoriety in 2008 and in which he mixes Koranic verses with footage of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York.

In the film he also likened the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Wilders' lawyers claimed that the film was distributed via an American server and was not released in the Netherlands but Van Oosten said that even so it was aimed at a Dutch audience.

"The film is, when you take into account its contents and sub-titles in the Dutch language, destined for a Dutch audience," he told the court.

However, judges did agree with the defence that part of the indictment against Wilders should be dropped.

The judges said that in including the quotes in the indictment prosecutors were going beyond the brief set out by the Amsterdam appeals court.

Following a brief adjournment, judges, prosecutors and the defence agreed for the trial to resume on April 13 with key witness testimony. A ruling could then be handed down in summer.

Wilders faces up to a year in jail or a fine of $10,300 for comments made in his campaign to "stop the Islamisation of the Netherlands".

Turkish PM against arming Libyan rebels - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Turkish PM against arming Libyan rebels - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has said he does not support the idea of arming Libyan rebels fighting to oust Muammar Gaddafi from power.

Speaking at a joint news conference with David Cameron, the British prime minister, in London, Erdogan said: "Doing that would create a different situation in Libya and we do not find it appropriate to do that."

Erdogan also said that that sending weapons to Libya could feed terrorism, saying such weapons shipments "could also create an environment which could be conducive to terrorism".

His comments came as Gaddafi warned the Western powers mounting air strikes on his country that they had unleashed a war between Christians and Muslims that could spiral out of control.

Western states intervened in Libya after the UN authorised them to protect civilians it said were under attack by pro-Gaddafi forces, but Tripoli says the military intervention in an act of unwarranted aggression.

"If they continue, the world will enter into a real crusader war. They have started something dangerous that cannot be controlled and it will become out of their control," said a text from Gaddafi, read out on state television.

"The leaders who decided to launch a crusader war between Christians and Muslims across the Mediterranean and who ... killed... huge numbers of civilians in Libya, they have been made crazy by power and they want to impose the law of strength on the strength of the law.

"They have also destroyed the shared interests of their people and the Libyan people and undermined peace and wiped out civilians and they want to return us to the Middle Ages," Gaddafi was quoted as saying.

Gaddafi gave regular televised speeches in the first days of the conflict but he has not been seen in public for several days.

Officials say he has been forced to change his routine after an air strike hit the heavily-guarded compound in Tripoli where he has his main residence.

NATO said it had "seamlessly" assumed full command of military operations over Libya on Thursday, and warned combatants on the ground against attacking civilians.

The military alliance had agreed on Sunday to take over all operations from a coalition led by the US, France and Britain, the handover officially took place at 0600 GMT on Thursday morning.

The move puts the 28-nation alliance in charge of air strikes that have targeted Gaddafi's military infrastructure, and of policing a no-fly zone and an arms embargo.

"The transition has been seamless, with no gaps. NATO is fully responsible," Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO's Libya operations, told journalists at the military alliance's Southern European headquarters in Naples.

US role

Meanwhile, as the US debates its future role in the Libyan conflict, defence leaders in Washington on Thursday slammed the brakes on any the extent of US help to the rebels.

Top officials said that some country other than the US should perform any future training and equipping of the Libyan opposition groups.

Under withering congressional probing and criticism of what was described as an ill-defined mission to aid a rebel force that officials know little about, Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, sketched out a largely limited role for the US military going forward.

Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of the House Armed Services panel that many other countries have the ability to train and support the rebels.

"My view would be, if there is going to be that kind of assistance to the opposition, there are plenty of sources for it other than the United States," said Gates. "Somebody else should do that."

Gates and Mullen told Congress that future US participation will be limited and will not involve an active role in airstrikes as time goes on.

They were unable, however, to answer key questions from clearly agitated politicians about the length of the operation and how it will play out if Gaddafi does not relinquish power.

The US goals are unclear and officials do not know who the rebels are, said Mike Turner, a Republican representative, adding that if it came to a vote he would not support US involvement in the operation.

Turner and others repeatedly complained that Congress had not been consulted on the Libya operation, and chafed that the legislative branch is not willing to be a backseat driver.

CIA active

Gates and Mullen said that Gaddafi's military has been degraded by as much as 25 per cent, but Mullen noted that regime forces still outnumber the rebels by about 10-to-1.

They said the opposition groups are fractured and operating independently city by city, with just 1,000 of the rebels militarily trained.

Their comments came as Gaddafi's forces struck forcefully back at the rebels this week, recapturing lost ground and triggering pleas for help from the battered opposition forces.

Gates said that he believes political and economic pressures will eventually drive Gaddafi from power, but the military operation will help force him to make those choices by degrading his defense capabilities.

Gates and Mullen were testifying before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in the wake of revelations that small teams of CIA operatives are working in Libya.

Gates declined to comment on the CIA activities in Libya.

US officials have acknowledged that the CIA has sent small teams of operatives into Libya and helped rescue a crew member of a US fighter jet that crashed.

The CIA's precise role in Libya is not clear.

Intelligence experts said the CIA would have sent officials to make contact with the opposition and assess the strength and needs of the rebel forces in the event Barack Obama, the US president, decided to arm them.

To bomb and protect - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

To bomb and protect - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Despite the so-called legality of Western intervention in Libya, it would not have been necessary in the first place if Gaddafi hadn't received a second chance [EPA]

Protection via war is a perfect oxymoron.

Like all wars, the intervention in Libya is questionable. However, the absurdity of war needs no commentary.

The conduct of war for the ''protection of civilians'' provides further proof of how war makes no sense even when executed with the best intentions in mind.

However, the absurdity of ''protection'' calls for questioning the context of the current military intervention in Libya.

Of course, this might be one war where academic intervention gives no comfort to Libyans threatened with death at the hands of Gaddafi's murderous forces and lijan thawriyyah – or revolutionary committees.

Nonetheless, it is still a war with many a paradox. That is, a war that inevitably solidifies the cynicism in many minds that the realist paradigm still prevails in international relations; as ever, might is right, the same logic which Gaddafi has deployed to save his dynasty and oppress his people.

The intervention in Libya confirms not the assumed diplomatic equation that ''legal'' war is ''right''. That is, the motivation behind the war may not be flawed, but the reasoning behind it defies logic.

Between Iraq and Libya

The war in Iraq was conducted in the name of democracy. The Libya war derives its mandate from UN Security Council resolution 1973 of March 17.

The authorisation to use force has a twofold agenda: to enforce a no-fly zone, and to protect civilians. Resolution 1973 thus sidesteps the twin problems of illegality and unilateralism present in the 2003 conflict.

To this end, it talks of taking "all necessary measures". This is obviously intended to defang and deny the Libyan state of its function as a repository of theoretical and practical monopoly over the legitimacy to kill (supposedly ''legally'') its own citizens.

Indirectly, the military-strategic drive to stop Gaddafi's forces from recovering Benghazi and Tobruk might have heightened the urgency for multilateral and UN-mandated intervention.

Gaddafi and his military chiefs no doubt feared the rebels' control of Tobruk, given its importance as a line of supply, communication and a bridge with the world – including Egypt.

But if one is to be guided by the benefit of hindsight of two messy wars – Afghanistan and Iraq – taking over the skies and dumping bombs are not sufficient to close the circle in conflicts aimed at promoting ''democracy'' (Iraq) or sacking ''mullah-ocracy'' (Afghanistan).

Invasion had to follow in both countries. Resolution 1973 gives no such mandate.

Here lies one flaw of the mandate to ''protect civilians''. The operative term here is ''protection'' – how much protection?

Is the mandate to protect civilians coupled with the possible survival of a weakened Gaddafi state in the western half of Libya reconcilable? What are the limits of and terms that must define ''protection''?

Living with the ''threat'' of dictatorship but not with the imminent physical danger to a population by its state may be one illusion that calls for redefining ''protection'' in light of the popular protests sweeping the Arab Middle East.

Protection and the Livingston Group

In an ideal world, protection should be instituted by prevention and principle, not war.

Many Western statesmen are guilty of failing on both counts. The rehabilitation of the Gaddafi regime was schemed in London and Washington.

Mutasim Gaddafi made it to Washington and was granted audience with the key architects of US foreign and security policy machines. The audience with senator Clinton was a quasi-signature of approval, unwittingly giving a murderous regime a second chance to re-enter the international arena.

Here lies one strength of the Gaddafi regime - having faced two rounds of sanctions and a previous bombing campaign under the Reagan administration - it proves to be durable.

That is one of the reasons why Gaddafi qualifies as a Houdini of political survival, and that is one of the reasons why he must not to be underestimated, even if he did commit political harakiri when he bombed his own citizens a few weeks ago. He may be more adept at surviving sanctions and pariah status than lots of other regimes.

Part of being a Houdini is mobilising human and financial resources to secure longer survival. The lobbying undertaken successfully by the US-based Livingston Group (TLG) on behalf of Libya was instrumental in the survival and rehabilitation of Gaddafi.

In particular, TLG's lobbying led to normalisation of US relations with the Gaddafi regime. TLG's work is summarised in a confidential 2009 memo titled "2008-2009 Full Normalisation Action Program: Moving the New Libya-US Bilateral Relationship Forward".

What is puzzling in all of this is not understanding TLG's reasons (business/fees) behind helping mend relations with a murderous and authoritarian regime; rather, it is the question of ''protection''.

Protection should have been through prevention. That is, enactment of principled policies aimed at isolation and boycott of murderous regimes.

Such prevention would have served as the best form of protecting the Libyans by withholding diplomatic recognition, legitimacy and military support.

Under the leadership of its chairman Bob Livingston, former speaker of the House, aided by Bill Zeliff, former congressman, TLG got Gaddafi off the hook – once fiscal arrangements were in place to compensate claimants of the Lockerbie bombing blamed on Libya.

In particular, their lobbying concentrated on what the memo describes as "securing relief from the punitive provisions of Section 1083, the ''Lautenberg Amendment''." Their Herculean task paid off on July 31, 2008, when the US Congress was unanimous in its vote in favour of S.3370, the Libya Claims Resolution Act.

Gaddafi won. His Libya secured "a full and unconditional waiver of Section 1083". He deployed his only resource – and money – and seized the opportunity for opening Libya up for business, using US democratic channels and local ''soft power'' to serve the agenda of a brutal, autocratic, dynastic and unpredictable failed state.

Unanimous vote for Gaddafi?

The confidential memo brags about the feat in winning the vote for the waiver and enlisting Republican and Democratic support for the legislation, one of the last laws signed by George W. Bush before he vacated the White House.

The memo states:

"The content of this legislation exceeded expectations. In planning the legislative strategy, it was most probable that two or more pieces of legislation would have been required to resolve the major issues Libya was concerned with: one dealing with the settlement, and a second establishing the waiver. Instead, S.3370 dealt with both issues in a single legislative vehicle. The possibility of having a waiver with conditions similar to the existing Iraqi waiver was also of concern, but thanks to bipartisan efforts, S.3370 provides a clean waiver without any ongoing conditions or limitations."

According to the confidential memo, a single dissenting vote could have derailed TLG's group, and with it the vote for the waiver. Unanimity was required, and that was TLG's objective.

To this end, Bob Livingston and Bill Zeliff, according to the same memo, actively worked on both Republican and Democratic senators – and above all else – identified five senators whose objections or reservations could have defeated the legislation.

TLG in consortium with the Bush administration and business interests worked actively to "educate, persuade and neutralise the senators with the greatest concerns." Obviously they succeeded.

The intensive, effective lobbying involved contacting every congressman before the vote, and securing endorsement of House leadership from both parties, which included House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

TLG was so dedicated to the waiver that one of its members, former congressman Bob Clement, did not take a break whilst recovering from heart surgery. He was tasked with calling and lobbying members of the House of Representatives.

TLG was made up of well-connected individuals who knew how to navigate their ways through the labyrinth of power in the US.

It went all the way to the top, and its lobbying succeeded thanks to vital Republican support by senator Biden, chairman of the senate Foreign Relations Committee, and senator Levin, chairman of the senate Armed Services Committee. Both were co-sponsors of the waiver.

Who is protecting whom?

Resolution 1973 gives protection a new meaning. Who is actually protecting whom? In an ideal world protection should be attained through prevention: preventive disengagement rather than hollow and interest-driven brands of ''constructive engagement''.

This calls for rigorous standards of ethicism in international relations even if states are not known to run charities.

What is not known is whether the weaponry used by Gaddafi's forces was procured from Western powers, who rushed to normalise relations with Gaddafi. TLG's lobbying effort aimed at upgrading bilateral, defence and security relations.

As a result International Military Education Training funds for Libya were set at $333,000 and $350,000 respectively for financial years 2008 and 2009. So presumably some of that US military know-how provided to Libyan officers was used by Gaddafi in oppressing the Libyan people.

Business opportunity and Libya's top quality oil at least partly accounted for the compromise of the world's oldest democracy. America's democratic machinery was manipulated into giving Gaddafi a second chance.

What is additionally puzzling as far as the mandate of ''protection'' is concerned is that hypocrisy that has now befallen those Arab voices who previously objected to Western intervention in Iraq now support it in Libya – such Yusuf Qaradawi.

There are other Arab citizens in need of protection from the world's financial institutions holding them ransom by having their authoritarian states on the bankroll of the International ''Misery'' Fund (IMF) or World Bank.

The children of Gaza need protection. So do dissident citizens in Bahrain, who have been protesting peacefully. If the new logic of protection persists, the world can expect the unexpected – more intervention in a number of the Arab League member states who supported intervention in Libya.

Nor are members of the Western powers arrayed against Libya paragons of virtue – some maintain racist immigration policies that ignore the new moral agenda of protection.

There is a hidden dirty war which casts doubts about the morality of Western interest and intervention in Libya.

The upgrade of relations even allowed the US to infiltrate the Gaddafi regime succeeding to recruit a few men, including foreign minister Musa Kusa, whose murderous history is known to all.

The Americans may have facilitated his escape to Tunisia two days ago, which would mean he has US support and ''protection''.

In these exciting but equally uncertain times, protection must not demote the agency of Arabs – they must be, so to speak, given the means of how to fish, and not the fish itself.

This must be heeded by democracy promoters and ''protectors'' of the revolutionary moment in the Arab World.

Libyans are valiantly fighting to earn freedom from tyranny and dynasty. But military intervention might have already wiped the shine off what they intended to be a verdict of people power against the legion of Gaddafi.

Dr Larbi Sadiki is a Senior Lecturer in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter, and author of Arab Democratisation: Elections without Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2009) and The Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses (Columbia University Press, 2004), forthcoming Hamas and the Political Process (2011).

The views expressed in this article are the author''s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Invest in 'the world's most violent city' - Features - Al Jazeera English

Invest in 'the world's most violent city' - Features - Al Jazeera English

JUAREZ - Despite frequent beheadings, public shoot-outs between rival drug gangs and widespread police corruption, Jose Armendariz Bailon thinks Juarez is a great place to invest.

As chairman of the Maquiladoras Association (AMAC) in Juarez, Mexico, Bailon is responsible for drawing manufacturing investment to the border city which has been rocked by violence between warring drug cartels battling for trafficking routes to the US.

"There is a certain fear from investors," Bailon says during an interview in a board room at the offices of the maquiladora association. "But they [investors] see the other strengths we have, so investment hasn't been reduced."

Recorded homicides in the city of about 1.5 million surpassed 3,000 in 2010, a level roughly equivalent to that in a war zone. Escalating violence means 2011 is likely to be even worse.

Investment rises with violence

Remarkably, investment has actually increased slightly in Juarez in the last year, even as the body count rises.

There are some 330 factories, or maquiladoras, in Juarez directly employing about 187,000 workers, Bailon says. While the industry was hit hard by the global recession of 2008 and forced to lay off workers, growth rebounded to around five per cent in 2010, despite violence.

Some 24,000 jobs were created in Juarez between June 2009 and July 2010, according to statistcs from the Mexican Social Security Institute. Factories in Juarez produce cars, electronics, chemicals and other labour intensive manufactured goods for the US market. Workers in the factories usually earn less than $100 per week in a city where prices for basic goods are not much lower than the US.

"Right now, we are actually improving in the industrial field , it is easy to export to the US and we have qualified manufacturers," says Adolfo Hernandez Ruiz, president of the National Chamber of Transformation Industries, a business lobby group. "Foreign investors are concerned about violence, it is a topic that always comes up. It is a big problem, I don't hide this fact."

While factory investment increases, small business owners are leaving the city due to violence and demands for extortion payments [Chris Arsenault/Al Jazeera]

A 2009 study from the Mexican non-profit Citizen Council for Public Security and Justice found that Juarez was the most dangerous city in the world, although other studies, including one from Foreign Policy magazine, have come to different conclusions. Critics of the Mexican study say cities including Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and parts of rural Afghanistan and Sudan are more violent, but lack an effective central government to keep statistics on the dead.

"Juarez deserves the title of most dangerous city in the world not only for its homicide rate" but also because it is "suffering very high numbers of other violent crimes," the Citizen Council stated in a January 2009 report.

While investment increases in low wage assembly plants, drug violence is hurting small business. Burned out husks of night-clubs and restaurants, where owners refused to pay "protection money" to gangs, can be seen across Juarez. Other small entrepreneurs simply fled.

''Race to the bottom''

Much of the city’s success as a manufacturing hub is linked to its proximity to the US, the world’s largest market, and low wages paid in the city.

"Most companies who invest here are attracted by NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement]," which allows most goods manufactured in Mexico to enter the US without tariffs, says Ruiz, the business lobbyist. About 80 per cent of Mexico's exports are destined for the US.

Critics say NAFTA created a "race to the bottom", allowing companies to outsource production to Mexico from the US and Canada where wages are higher, benefiting capital at the expense of labour.

"China has been investing here, because we are closer to the US," Ruiz says during an interview at his spacious office. There were no papers on his big wooden desk and the office did not have a computer.

Today, average monthly wages in Mexico are lower than China, which is considered the "world''s factory". Juarez-El Paso Now, a glossy trade magazine showcasing the benefits of investing in the city, says the average monthly salary in Mexico was $372 in 2009, compared with $379 in China, $961 in Turkey and $2,955 in the US.

Factories are hiring in Juarez, but critics say the wages are too low [Chris Arsenault/Al Jazeera]

While wages are low, a decent hotel in Juarez actually cost me more than in El Paso, on the US side of the border. Gasoline is also more expensive in Juarez than in the US, although food is somewhat cheaper on the Mexican side. Still, low wages in Juarez are not balanced with lower prices.

Gustavo Calderon Rodriguez, a professor of economics at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua in Juarez, thinks there is a link between low wages and violence in the city. "There cannot be social stability without financial stability," he says during an interview in a university classroom.

"People making low wages look to the informal economy and illicit activity like drug distribution," he says. "Free trade has led to a major concentration of wealth in the hands of a small group. I wouldn''t question the neoliberal model if it created high salary jobs, but in real terms, these are jobs with very low salaries."

But Bailon, from the factory owners association, defends the low wages paid to workers. "Once workers start in the industry, they start their growth. They can achieve training, education and an increase in salary."

There is no doubt that NAFTA increased trade flows and employment in border cities like Juarez. But between 1940 and 1982, when the state intervened forcefully in the market, Mexico’s economy grew about 6.5 per cent per year, says Rodriguez, the economist.

Critics say this period was defined by protectionism and waste, as local industrialists could manufacture second rate products without outside competition.

Workers' rights?

The vast majority of manufacturing plants in Juarez are not unionised. Plants are often subcontractors for other manufacturers, so if workers were to organise, production contracts would simply be changed to a non-union firm.

"Right now labour rights are not a priority," says Elizabeth Avalos of the Centro de Estudios y Taller Laboral (CETLAC), a workers rights centre in Juarez. "Workers fear that if they complain about anything they will lose their jobs or be thrown to the assassins."

A climate of impunity in the city, where few trust the police or army, allows the rich to abuse the poor, workers rights activists say. More than 800 women, many of whom worked in the factories, have disappeared or been murdered since 1993.

Despite widespread violence and critiques of the economic policies practiced in the city, Ernesto Cordero, Mexico’s finance minister, expects the economy to expand up to five per cent in 2011, following five and a half per cent growth last year.

Bailon and Ruiz, the business leaders, both support the Mexican president's decision to declare all-out war on drug gangs in December 2006.

"I hope the problem will be at least halfway solved in the next five years, if not 100 per cent," Ruiz says, adding that he believes Mexico has been paying for someone else’s crisis. "We are the least guilty of this problem," he says of drug dealing. "We don’t produce drugs, we are just a transit route. We are paying a high price for other countries that have more [drug] consumers."

As our interview at the Maquilladora Association concludes, Jose Armendariz Bailon poses for a photo and invites me out for tequila. "It isn''t really that bad here; I go out without protection," he says with a jovial grin.

"Really," I respond. "In the last three days, I have witnessed three shootings, including the aftermath of a battle with automatic weapons at a shopping mall, where a police officer was killed. At another point, a man was left dead on the sidewalk, with brains pouring from his skull. Another man was beheaded, and his body parts strewn about a suburban field."

"Oh," he says, grimacing, when my experiences are relayed. "That is terrible."

Follow Chris Arsenault On Twitter: @AJEchris

Brazil stares down the US on Libya - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Brazil stares down the US on Libya - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Some commentators believed Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first female president, would be more accommodating to US interests than her predecessor [AFP]

At some point in the run-up to Barack Obama’s just concluded tour of Latin America, which included stops in Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador, the US press decided that coverage of the trip would focus on expected friendly meeting with Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's recently inaugurated president.

The Washington Post, the New York Times, and National Public Radio, along with a host of other newspapers, cable news commentators, and blogs, all predicted that Obama, the US's first African American president, and Rousseff, Brazil's first woman leader, would find common ground, reversing the deterioration of diplomatic relations that had begun under Rousseff's predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The bad blood started, or so the story went, when Lula refused to listen to the administration of George W. Bush and isolate Venezuela's populist leader, Hugo Chávez. Before long, Brasilia was opposing or, worse, offering alternatives to Washington's position on a growing number of issues: climate change, opposition to the 2009 coup in Honduras, Cuba, trade and tariffs.

Lula declined to criticise Iran and opened up a separate negotiating channel, outside of Washington's influence and much to its annoyance, with Tehran to discuss Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Differences on Middle East

The former Brazilian president also welcomed the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas to Brazil, leading the rest of Latin America to recognise the Palestinian state and calling for direct talks with Hamas and Hezbollah.

Various explanations were posited in the US press for Lula's behavior, which, for a Latin American leader, was unprecedented considering the historically subservient role Latin America has long played to Washington. At times it was described as a personality disorder, a striving for attention on the world stage; at other moments it was explained away as Lula's need to play to his party's rank and file, which, apparently, always enjoys a good tweaking of the US's nose.

In any case, Obama's visit just after Dilma's election offered a chance for a reset. Rousseff, it was reported, would be eager to use the trip to distance herself from her political patron, Lula. Though she was a member of a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organisation opposing a US-backed dictatorship during her youth in the 1970s, Brazil's new leader had, according to the Washington Post, a "practical approach to governance and foreign relations after eight years of the flamboyant Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva".

"She's a different person and has a different style," remarked the chairman of Goldman Sachs asset management.

She was "warm" and would welcome Obama cordially (has it really gotten to the point where the US, which for decades presided imperiously over the international community, is today just happy that foreign leaders aren’t rude when its presidents come calling?). Nearly all major news and opinion sources thought that she would be more accommodating to Washington's concerns than her predecessor, in Latin America but especially in the Middle East.

Unfortunately for Washington the reality has departed from the narrative. Brazil, under Rousseff, continues largely to follow its own diplomatic lights.

Libya and the UN

Even before Obama landed in Rio, Brazil, as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, joined with China and Germany to abstain from the vote authorising "all necessary measures" against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

Since then, its opposition to the bombing has hardened. According to the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), Brazil's foreign ministry – still, for the most part, staffed by the diplomats who charted Lula's foreign policy – recently issued a statement condemning the loss of civilian lives and calling for the start of dialogue.

Lula himself has endorsed Dilma's critical position on Libya, going further in his condemnation of the intervention: "These invasions only happen because the United Nations is weak," he said. "If we had twenty-first-century representation [in the Security Council], instead of sending a plane to drop bombs, the UN would send its secretary-general to negotiate."

His remarks were widely interpreted to mean that if Brazil had been a permanent member of the Security Council – a position it has long sought – it would have vetoed the resolution authorising the bombing rather than, as it did, merely abstaining from the vote.

These comments were the first indication that the ex-president, still enormously popular and influential in Brazil, planned to continue to openly weigh in on his successor’s foreign policy.

Argentina and Uruguay likewise have voiced strong disapproval of the intervention. On one level, this censure reflects Latin America's commitment to the ideal of non-intervention and absolute sovereignty. But on another, less elevated and more commonsensical level, it reflects a belief that the diplomatic community needs to return to a standard in which war is the last rather than the first response to crisis.

"This attack [on Libya] implies a setback in the current international order," IPS reports Uruguayan President José Mujica as saying. "The remedy is much worse than the illness. This business of saving lives by bombing is an inexplicable contradiction."

Social inclusion vs IMF demands

On other important issues as well, Brazil continues push back against Washington.

The US-controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF), for example, is demanding that Brazil, one of the world's fastest growing economies, calm bond market concerns about inflation by reining in social spending.

Dilma's economic team has so far balked. It argues instead that inflation can be controlled by government regulation of "hot money," that is, the ability of foreign capital to place speculative bets on, and reap enormous profits off of, Brazil’s currency.

This might sound a bit technocratic, but it is in fact a big obstacle to the IMF's bid to restore its lost role as what economist Mark Weisbrot has described as a "creditor’s cartel" in Latin America, the chief mechanism through which Washington imposes "discipline" on economies, like Brazil's, that shows too much independence.

Likewise, Brazil continues to be the main obstacle to jumpstarting the Doha Round of the world trade talks, demanding that the US and Europe lower tariffs to the products and commodities of the developing world. While graciously hosting the US president, Rousseff nonetheless strongly criticized Washington’s ability to preach free trade while practicing protectionism, demanding that the US open its markets to Brazilian imports such as ethanol, steel, and orange juice.

However "warm," "practical," or "cordial" Dilma, Brazil’s first woman president, may be, she'll be no push over when it comes to matters of war, peace, and economics.

Greg Grandin is a professor of history at New York University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of a number of prize-winning books, including most recently, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan 2009), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, as well as for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

'Assad announced himself a dictator' - Features - Al Jazeera English

'Assad announced himself a dictator' - Features - Al Jazeera English

They laughed when he laughed.

Their hearts raced in anticipation, not over those much heralded reforms which failed to materialise - "Weren't emergency laws abolished last week anyway?' asked one - but over the excitement and grandeur of the occasion: the packed parliament, the crowds of cheering supporters and, of course, President Bashar al-Assad himself.

"He is a very good man, he is very strong," said one of the young women, watching on the TV of a café in the wealthy Shaalan area of Damascus as Syria's president prepared to make his first speech to the nation in the wake of unprecedented protests against the 40-year rule of his family.

It had been a fortnight that had witnessed the previously unthinkable: Images of protestors in the southern city of Daraa hauling down the statue of President Assad's father Hafez, the 'eternal leader' whose 30-year rule over Syria instilled such fear that, even today, Syrians dare not speak his name.

Images, too, of Bashar's smiling portrait being torn and kicked. Blood of citizens staining the streets of a country whose rulers promise stability, above all else, but whose security forces had killed more than 60 protestors in a week.

External forces

But for the ladies who lunch in Shaalan, the call from the streets of Lattakia, Homs, Daraa, Al Tall and even parts of Damascus, for freedom, an end to oppression by Syria's security forces and for multi-party politics, was all, as their president stressed repeatedly, not a part of the country they know.

"Those problems are caused by outsiders, not Syrians. There are groups from Egypt, Iraq and America," said the teacher, a stylish woman in her late twenties, with immaculate make-up, a low cut top and diamonte jewellery. "They want to create sectarian problems, but they will not succeed because we stand together as one in Syria."

Yes, the president had for many years wanted to change the emergency law, the bedrock of the security state, which allows sweeping powers of arrest and years in secret detention on catch-all charges such as "weakening national sentiment" and "opposing the goals of the revolution."

"He wanted to from 2005," said the teacher, "but you must understand that many in Syria are not ready for the changes, we need time. As the president said, 'It's good to be quick, but not good to rush.'"

From the opening remarks of the speech and a further near dozen times, President Assad referred to the "conspiracy", "plots" and "sabotage" targeting Syria from outside, of which the protests for change which have centred in the southern city of Daraa, "a border area", were a part.

"The objective was to fragment Syria, bring down Syria as a nation to enforce an Israeli agenda," said the president, a message that resonates with his supporters.

"Now we are paying the price for supporting the resistance in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq," said Noor, a 22-year-old student at Damascus University. "Syria has many ethnics and sects and we should protect our country form national division. We don't want another Lebanon where they use freedom of speech to fight each other."

But though he spoke much about the need to reform, with no clear timetable and no announcements of change, even government officials were left stunned by Assad's speech.

"Thousands of people contacted me - top officials, deputy ministers, sons of ambassadors – saying, 'You should expect big reform, you will be amazed'," said Ayman Abdel Nour, a former Baath party reformer, now editor-in-chief of the All4Syria news agency. "After the speech they were all shocked. No-one dared write anything back to me."

Abdel Nour said the president's original speech had been scheduled for two days earlier but a decision was made to wait until the army and security forces could pacify Lattakia and Daraa, the scene of the largest anti-regime protests.

"He received a report from the head of intelligence and the army saying 'We have finished, everything is calm and we are the winner.' He then re-wrote the original speech late into the night."

'Some changes, but not reform'

Certainly the message coming to the media from the president's office was to expect the announcement of major reforms, including lifting the state of emergency.

Just as she did in 2005, when she announced at the Baath Party conference the decision had been made to review emergency laws and the formation of political parties, Buthaina Shaaban, the president's senior advisor, told Al Jazeera English last week that the decision to lift emergency laws had been made.

CNN got the same story, from Reem Haddad, a government spokeswoman.

"The regime rules through ambiguity. It is not capable of reform, that's a simple fact of life," said Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who spent eight years working in Syria as a journalist and is the author of an upcoming book on the country.

"Bashar has support among the minority networks surrounding the Assad family which overlap the intelligence services and the military, so this galvanises the regime against what happened in Tunisia and Egypt," said Tabler, but added it was a situation that could not last.

"Bashar does not feel he has to change. He might make some changes, but not reform. Yet the winds of change are blowing through the Arab world. Maybe these protests in Syria will not lead anywhere today but in the long term they are a problem for the regime."

In the wake of the speech, American policy makers would be re-thinking Syria policy, said Tabler, a strategy that had previously sought to break Damascus' 'resistance axis' – its alliance with Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran – through peace talks with Israel.

But with Assad tying his legitimacy as leader to his resistance against Israel through proxies, the US might now follow a path of expanding existing trade sanctions which target specific regime members, such as Rami Makhlouf, the president's cousin and gatekeeper of the Syrian economy.

Pro-regime figures in Damascus framed Syria's choices as "Bashar or chaos" and had duly welcomed the speech on behalf of the nation with "a sigh of relief" as the country once again got back to "business as usual".

'Fuel on the fire of the anti-regime protests'

But for those Syrians, young and old whose numbers are impossible yet to judge, who say they suffocate in the regime's stability, finding neither bread nor freedom, jobs nor liberty, and who have seen their friends and family gunned down for demanding the same rights as Arabs in Cairo and Tunis, the speech was anything but a return to the norm.

"He said nothing and promised nothing. We were waiting for him to end the state of emergency, set free all political prisoners and establish a law for political parties," said a young woman speaking over the phone from Daraa, the city at the centre of the uprising, which has now been sealed off to all media.

"Our people were killed in cold blood by the security forces but he didn't apologise to them or their mothers. Rather it was as if he was speaking to the Arab summit, in language from the 1960's. Next Friday we will call for a 'Friday of Martyrs'. We will keep on demonstrating until we get freedom as in other countries. Today, I am demanding reform of the regime but after next Friday I can expect the people will ask for more."

Wissam Tarif, a founding member of Insan, a human rights, democracy and development agency, who is currently gathering reporting in Syria said Assad had only thrown fuel on the fire of the anti-regime protests.

"Assad announced himself a dictator. He did not address the nation, he addressed the regime," said Tarif. "People are angry and will continue to be angry."

Within hours of Assad's speech, several hundred residents of Lattakia took to the streets to protest for freedom.

Gunfire was heard and by evening activists in Syria had uploaded a video to YouTube datelined to the city showing a man lying flat on the concrete, blood pouring from the wound where a bullet had hit him square between the eyes.

Gaddafi's forces battle rebels for Brega - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Gaddafi's forces battle rebels for Brega - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have continued their advance against pro-democracy fighters as they moved eastwards toward Brega.

Brega is one of several oil towns along the fiercely contested coastal strip. Ras Lanuf and Es Sider, west of Brega, have both been retaken by Gaddafi's forces. Zueitina, east of Brega, is still in rebel hands.

Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reports from Tripoli the Libyan response to recent reported defections

Some rebel forces fell back on Wednesday as far as the town of Ajdabiya, the gateway to the east about 150 kilometres south of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Ajdabiya was still in rebel hands on Thursday.

For several weeks pro-democracy fighters and forces loyal to Gaddafi have been fighting across a strip of land between Ajdabiya and Bin Jawad.

Rebels armed mainly with pick-ups mounted with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and AK-47 assault rifles have been unable to hold on to gains despite almost two weeks of air strikes by coalition forces.

Brega and Misurata reportedly came under heavy attack from Gaddafi's forces on Thursday, with the frontline moving closer to Ajdabiya.

Misurata – the last major rebel stronghold in western Libya – has been encircled by pro-Gaddafi forces for weeks and repeated coalition air strikes aimed at protecting civilians there have not stopped them.

Civilian casualties

A rebel spokesman said pro-Gaddafi forces shelled Misurata on Thursday, leaving dozens of civilians dead in the past few days when their homes were hit.

"Massacres are taking place in Misrata," the rebel spokesman, called Sami, told Reuters by telephone.

"Artillery bombardment resumed this morning and is still going on. The [pro-Gaddafi] brigades could not enter the town but they are surrounding it.

"Twenty civilians were killed yesterday after their houses were hit by bombardments. Many people were wounded."

Residents say that figure added to the dozens who have been killed in fighting over the past 10 days.

Meanwhile, a NATO commander on Thursday said the bloc was taking seriously reports of civilian casualties in coalition air raids over Libya.

A top Vatican official citing reliable sources in close contact with residents told Reuters at least 40 civilians have been killed in air strikes over Tripoli.

"It is a news report and I appreciate the source of this report but it is worth noting that I take every one of those issues seriously," Lieutenant-general Charles Bouchard, the Canadian commander of the coalition's military operations over Libya, said.

"We are very careful in the prosecution of any of the possible targets that we have. We have very strict rules of engagement provided to us and we are operating within the legal mandate of our United Nations mandate."

'Gaddafi is staying'

A government spokesman on Thursday said that Gaddafi will stay in the country "until the end" to lead it to victory against its enemies.

Moussa Ibrahim, who spoke in Tripoli a day after Moussa Koussa, the former Libyan foreign minister, fled to Britain, said coalition air strikes had only united its top leadership against "a clear enemy".

"If this aggression did anything, it only rallied people around the leader and the unity of the nation," he said. "Especially now. They see a clear enemy."

Ibrahim said Gaddafi and his sons were still in the country.

"Rest assured, we are all here. We will remain here until the end. This is our country. We are strong on every front."

"We are not relying on individuals to lead the struggle. This is a struggle of the whole nation. It's not dependent on individuals or officials."

More 'defections from Gaddafi's inner circle' - Africa - Al Jazeera English

More 'defections from Gaddafi's inner circle' - Africa - Al Jazeera English

There are unconfirmed reports that more people have left the inner circle of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, following the high level desertion of Moussa Koussa, Libya's foreign minister, who arrived in the UK on Wednesday.

It is understood a group of top officials who had headed to Tunisia for talks have decided to stay there.

Some Arabic newspapers said Mohammad Abu Al Qassiim Al Zawi, the head of Libya's Popular Committee, the country’s equivalent of a parliament, is among the defectors.

Nazanine Moshiri, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tunis, said that Abu Zayed Dordah, Libya's prime minister from 1990 to 1994, has also been mentioned.

On Thursday, a second top official confirmed that he would not serve in Gaddfai's regime.

Ali Abdessalam Treki, a former foreign minister and UN general assembly president, had been named to represent Libya at the UN after a wave of defections early in the uprising.

Treki, who is currently in Cairo, said in a statement posted on several opposition websites that he was

not going to accept that job or any other.

"We should not let our country fall into an unknown fate," he said. "It is our nation's right to live in freedom, democracy and a good life."

'Crumbling from within'

William Hague, Britain's foreign minister, said that Koussa had not been offered immunity from prosecution and is "voluntarily talking" to authorities.

Koussa was staying in a safe and secure place and engaged in ongoing discussions with British diplomats, including some who worked at the now-shuttered embassy in Libya, Hague said.

"His [Koussa's] resignation shows that [Muammar] Gaddafi's regime ... is fragmented, under pressure and crumbling from within," he said.

Hague said Koussa had been his contact with the regime in recent weeks and that he had spoken with him several times.

"One thing I gathered between the lines of my telephone calls ... was that he was very distressed and dissatisfied" by the regime's response to protests, Hague said.

Hague said the British government encouraged others around Gaddafi to abandon him and "embrace a better future for Libya."

A Libyan government spokesman confirmed on Thursday that Koussa had resigned but said that Gaddafi still enjoyed the support of his people.

Moussa Ibrahim said that Koussa's decision was personal and "other people will step in and do the job".

Ibrahim said Koussa had been given permission to go to Tunisia because he was sick with diabetes and high blood pressure.

He said the goverment did not know he would go to London.

'Tight security'

Many Libyan government figures have resigned since the uprising against Gaddafi began on February 15.

Interior minister Abdel Fattah Younis and justice minister Mustafa Mohamed al-Jalil have both left, as have numerous ambassadors around the world.

Most high-level Libyan officials are trying to defect but are under tight security and having difficulty leaving the country, a top Libyan diplomat now supporting the opposition said on Thursday.

Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya's deputy UN ambassador, said that Libya's UN mission, which now totally supports the opposition, knew two days in advance that Koussa planned to defect on Wednesday.

He said the mission had been waiting for about 10 days for Thursday's defection of Ali Abdessalam Treki, a former foreign minister selected by Gaddafi to be the new UN ambassador.

"We know that most of the high Libyan officials are trying to defect, but most of them are under tight security measures and they cannot leave the country," said Dabbashi.

"But we are sure that many of them will benefit from the first chance to be out of the country and to defect.

"I don't think it is easy. But anyway, who has the will, he will find the way.''

'Status reviewed'

Before Koussa's defection, the Nicaraguan government said he sent a letter appointing Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, a former priest who served as Nicaragua's first foreign minister after the 1979 Sandinista revolution, as Libya's new UN ambassador.

A news conference with D'Escoto, scheduled by Nicaragua's UN mission, was postponed from Thursday to Friday and then postponed again, with no future date announced.

The mission gave no explanation for the delays.

Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman, said the UN had not officially received any letter from Libya regarding a change of credentials involving D'Escoto.

He said the UN did receive a copy of a note from Nicaragua addressed to all UN missions which attached a copy of Koussa's letter to the secretary-general, but he stressed that the UN had never received that letter.

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday that D'Escoto needed a G-1 visa, the US visa required for diplomatic representation, if he wants to represent Libya.

If he tries to do so on the tourist visa he now holds, she warned, "he will soon have his visa status reviewed".

Although D'Escoto was born in Los Angeles, California, and once held dual citizenship, Rice said he has renounced his US citizenship.

Lockerbie questions

Scottish authorities said on Thursday that they wished to interview Koussa over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

"We have notified the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that the Scottish prosecuting and investigating authorities wish to interview Mr Koussa in connection with the Lockerbie bombing," Scotland's crown office said in a statement.

"The investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open and we will pursue all relevant lines of inquiry."

The bombing over the Scottish town in 1988 killed 259 people, mostly Americans, on the plane and 11 on the ground.

Last month, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the former Libyan justice minister and leader of the rebel's interim national council, said that Gaddafi ordered intelligence officers, including the convicted bomber Abdel Baset al Megrahi, to carry out the bombing.

Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among those killed, said Koussa's arrival in Britain was an opportunity to finally shed some light on the bombing.

"Koussa was at the centre of Gaddafi's inner circle. This is a guy who knows everything," he said.

"I think this is a fantastic day for those who seek the truth about Lockerbie. He could tell us everything the Gaddafi regime knows."

South Sudan contemplates new capital - Africa - Al Jazeera English

South Sudan contemplates new capital - Africa - Al Jazeera English

In Southern Sudan, a committee has been formed to investigate whether Juba is suitable to be the capital city.

Many believe a new city should be built from scratch, but there are mixed feelings about a possible move.

Al Jazeera's Haru Mutasa reports from Juba, South Sudan.

2G case: Top lawyers taken, CBI struggles to find ‘best man’

2G case: Top lawyers taken, CBI struggles to find ‘best man’

The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate are having a trying time finding “the best man” to serve as Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the 2G trial.

Given the high profile of the accused, former Union Minister A Raja, a former Secretary, and heavyweight corporates, the Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly, which is hearing the case, repeatedly underlined: “Look out for the best man. We want the most competent person to be appointed as the special public prosecutor and he will deal with no other case.”

But there’s a problem, the best and the biggest are taken, says K K Venugopal, counsel for CBI and ED. “We will get a competent man,” he told The Indian Express. “The name will be placed before the court on Friday (tomorrow).”

The chargesheet is expected to be filed in the special court on April 2.

But Venugopal admits the search has been difficult. “I have conveyed (as much) to the court. All the eminent lawyers and senior advocates have been retained by the telecom companies and other respondents,” he told The Indian Express. Consider this:

Harish Salve, former Solicitor General, appeared for Tata Teleservices and has also accepted briefs for Videocon Teleservices Limited (Datacom Solutions Private Limited), D B Telecom Limited (Etisalat), and Allianz Infratech Private Limited.

Unitech Wireless Group and Loop Telecom Private Limited, named as respondents as alleged beneficiaries, have hired senior advocate C A Sundaram. A veteran at corporate cases, Sundaram is assisted by advocate Meet Malhotra before the apex court Bench.

Former Additional Solicitor General Vikas Singh has been roped in by Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited (Shyam Telelink). He acknowledges there must be “trouble finding the right man” as the special prosecutor. Incidentally, as ASG, Singh was appointed Special Prosecutor in 2006 in the Abu Salem case before the special court. “It would be a difficult choice to make as the person would be required to have an exceptional knowledge of criminal law and must agree to work full-time on this case as suggested by the court,” Singh said. Proceedings before the special designated judge O P Saini are likely to be on a day-to-day basis.

Idea Cellular has got top lawyer C S Vaidyanathan who, in the past, has also taken briefs for telecom cases, like in 2003 when he appeared for Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) before the TDSAT.

Senior advocate Gopal Jain is appearing for Vodafone Essar South Limited and Vodafone Essar Spacetel Limited.

South Korea wireless provider S K Limited has chosen senior advocate Dayan Krishnan, who was part of the legal team of National Investigation Agency (NIA) which went to US to question David Headley.

Another veteran, Mukul Rohatgi, is representing Shahid Balwa, Managing Director of Swan Telecom and the firm too, along with senior advocate Sidharth Luthra.

Even the independent regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, is not taking any chances and has roped in former Attorney General Soli S Sorabjee, senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and P S Narsimhan.

Noted jurist F S Nariman filed an application for making COAI as a party, which was allowed by the bench. Following which, he argued on behalf of the Association.

As for the Department of Telecom, ASG Indira Jaising led by A-G Goolam E Vahanvati, are appearing before the apex court.

PAWAR, PRAFUL USED BALWA PLANE: BJP

Sharad Pawar flew to Dubai in February 2010 in an aircraft owned by Shahid Balwa’s Eon Aviation, the BJP’s Eknath Khadse alleged in the Maharashtra Assembly Thursday. Pawar was accompanied by Balwa, Pawar’s wife Pratibha, and several cricket administrators, Khadse said.

PRAFUL PATEL and Maharashtra minister Jayant Patil, also of the NCP, too had used Balwa’s aircraft last year, Khadse said, and demanded an inquiry into the links of these politicians with the realty tycoon who is now in prison on charges related to the 2G scam.

1.2 billion Indians, sharpest ever decline in growth

1.2 billion Indians, sharpest ever decline in growth

India is fast learning to manage its ‘demographic dividend’ and registering significant success in tackling illiteracy, but remains a country that discriminates against its girl children — this is the short summary of the provisional results of Census 2011 released today.

India’s population is now over 1.21 billion (121 crore), up from 1.02 billion in 2001 — 17.5 per cent of the human race lives in the country. But for the first time since 1921, India has added fewer people in 10 years than in the preceding decade. The percentage decadal growth during 2001-11 has registered the sharpest fall since independence — down 3.9 percentage points from 21.54 per cent to 17.64 per cent.

The full report will be out next year. The figures released today are an aggregate of data reported by enumerators in every state, and are yet to be checked for omissions or duplications.

The six most populous states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have all registered healthy declines in their growth rates for the decade. In fact, as many as 25 states and Union Territories have recorded an average annual population growth rate of 2 per cent or less during this period — with 15 of them growing less than 1.5 per cent annually.

In 2001, only four states and UTs recorded an average annual growth rate of under 1.5 per cent.

There is good news in literacy numbers as well. The literacy rate has risen from 64.83 per cent in 2001 to 74.04 per cent in this Census.

More satisfying is the finding that literacy has spread much faster among women than men — there are now 50 per cent more literate women than in 2001; the corresponding figure for men is 32 per cent.

“The numbers are along expected lines. Growth rate was poised to go down in most parts of the country. In fact, the fall in growth rates is one of the direct consequences of rising female literacy levels,” said Professor K Nagaraj, formerly with the Madras Institute of Development Studies.

The feelgood story is soured, however, by the continuing decline in the numbers of girl children. The latest figures show that in the age group of 0-6, the number of girls per thousand boys has fallen to 914 from 927 in 2001. This number was 976 in 1961, and has since fallen consistently.

“This is a matter of grave concern,” Census Commissioner of India C Chandramauli, who released the provisional figures, said.

The overall sex ratio has shown an improvement, though. The number of women per thousand men is 940, up from 933 in 2001.

8 yrs on, Gujarat has ‘vital details’ on Pandya killing

8 yrs on, Gujarat has ‘vital details’ on Pandya killing

Nearly four years after 12 people were convicted of the March 26, 2003 murder of former Gujarat minister Haren Pandya, the state government says it has vital new details about the case.

These may be presented to a Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court in a sealed cover tomorrow, when the convicts’ appeals come up for hearing.

In a letter written on March 28, Government Pleader Prakash Jani requested the High Court registrar to keep the “vital details” in the Registrar General’s custody, to be placed on record in connection with the proceedings in the court.

“An important development has taken place”, Jani said, “which may be required to be pointed out during the course of hearing or otherwise, if need be... The State of Gujarat, therefore respectfully prays that the vital details concerning the appeals contained in a sealed cover may kindly be permitted to be placed on record...”

Bias against girls, child sex ratio is lowest since 1947

Bias against girls, child sex ratio is lowest since 1947

While the number of women per 1,000 men in India has touched its highest figure, 940, since 1971 when it was just 930, the corresponding number for girls below six is just the opposite — the lowest since Independence.

Provisional Census data show that the child sex ratio, or the number of girls for every 1,000 boys in the age group 0-6 years, stands at a dismal 914, down from 927 in 2001.

The child sex ratio has been in free fall since 1961, when it stood at 976.

The Census figures show that in 27 states/Union Territories, the child sex ratio has shown a decline over Census 2001, a “matter of grave concern”, according to Census Commissioner C Chandramouli who released the data here with Home Secretary G K Pillai.

The only positive here is that Punjab and Haryana, which continue to have among the lowest child sex ratios at 846 and 830 respectively, have improved, up from 798 and 819 during Census 2001. Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and the Andaman and Nicobar islands are the only other states/UTs that have shown an increase in the child sex ratio.

Besides Punjab and Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (899, down from 916), Maharashtra (883, down from 913), Chandigarh (867, down from 845) and J&K (859) have the most worrisome figures.

Though the southern states, Kerala (959), Andhra Pradesh (943), Karnataka (943), and Tamil Nadu (946), all have stronger sex ratios when compared to the national average of 914, they are worse off when compared to 2001.

However, the decadal decline in child sex ratio is less steep from that of the previous decade (1991 to 2001). In 1991, it was 945 and fell to 927 in 2001, a fall of 18 points (1.9%). This time, it has fallen to 914, a fall of 13 points (1.4%).

“Though the fall is a little less steep this time around, it is still a decline. It shows that sex determination continues to be practised robustly and rampantly. As is sex discrimination — girls are given less food, less health care, less education and even less affection. Also, it seems policies for the girl child haven’t done much to improve the situation,” said Ravinder Kaur, professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

That discrimination plays a role in low child sex ratios has been recorded in previous surveys.

For instance, the Sample Registration Survey of the Registrar General of the Census for the year 2003-5 showed that in Punjab, which had a child sex ratio of 798 in the 2001 Census, the infant mortality rate among girls had risen from 52 to 55, whereas it had fallen among boys from 46 to 37.

“This discrimination is obvious. Otherwise, these are not natural sex ratios. There have been studies that show that young girls are not given proper medical care,” said Kirti Singh of AIDWA.

As to the increase in overall sex ratio, 940 in the new Census as compared to 933 a decade ago, Kaur said: “The only reason for that is that life expectancy of women has gone up. This means, that there are more older women in the population that there were 10 years ago but the main concern remains the poor child sex ratio.”