SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea called on Friday for an end to “the hostile relationship” with the United States, issuing a New Year’s message that highlighted the reclusive country’s attempt to readjust the focus of six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

In the meantime, an interesting snippet from of the The Mainichi Daily News earlier today …

This year, the Obama administration will continue to take various actions on the nuclear issue. The U.S. and Russia are heading toward an agreement on strategic arms reduction. Meanwhile, the U.S. is working on renewing the country’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) for the first time in eight years, and is expected to incorporate anti-nuclear terrorism measures. The nuclear security summit this April will aim for an international agreement on enhanced protection of nuclear materials, and in May, a review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — held every five years — will take place in New York.

I may be too hopeful, too optimistic, but I don’t care …
Our world *is* moving to a better place.

While the occasional geopolitical manoeuvres in the dark make for a great Bond movie, we have an obligation to dig a little deeper. First step on our adventure is to zoom in on the Afghan/Pakistan border where that orange band in the middle (see illustration below) is Taliban territory.

Things get more interesting when we throw in details of the ethnic, cultural, family, history, loyalty thing – and in the following map we should be cognisant of the fact that geopolitical boundaries don’t take centre stage (after all – the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was nothing more than an arbitrary 19th century British colonial construct).

Just for reference – that big brown blob in the previous illustration is the Pashtun ethnic population. The following map drills down and identifies the principal regions at ground zero.

But lets zoom out again and factor into this equation that discussion about the relationship (and/or conflict) between Afghanistan and Pakistan that is of direct interest to their neighbour Iran (the big bugger over on the left). After all, Iran has many of the same tribal problems that face the fledgling Afghanistan administration (and an outbreak of secular testosterone in Afghanistan is a potential problem in the making for Iran). Let’s also take into account that big chunks of Afghanistan could be argued to be more properly part and parcel of Pakistan (which would go a long way towards explaining some of the accusations of Pakistan/Taliban loyalty). Equally, when we talk about Pakistan and India (the big bugger over on the right) there is the inevitable engagement of China (the really big bugger over on the far far right) as a player with more than a passing interest. And let’s not even get into the parallel universe of the Kashmir equation.

Thing is, a failed Afghanistan state creates stress for Pakistan and stress for Pakistan creates opportunity for India, an India/Pakistan conflict plays into the hands of China, and at the end of the day a bunch of nation states (US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Australia) just aren’t ready for that reality just yet. But what ties this all together is that none of the players want to see a united secular solution.

And for better or worse – what if this conflict may be our best hope for peace in our time? Why? Simply because an alignment of common interests between the principal players in this equation. That the simple thing of an alignment just may be a greater good than the atrocities that have and will be committed in the sustainment of this transient moment.

Recommended Reading

Agonizing over Afghanistan
David Shribman, 31 October, 2009

Pakistan is swiftly drifting towards an all out civil war
Abdus Sattar Ghazali, 28 October, 2009

STATEMENTS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA, FRENCH PRESIDENT SARKOZY, AND BRITISH PRIME MINISTER BROWN ON IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITY

Pittsburgh Convention Center
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

8:43 A.M. EDT

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good morning. We are here to announce that yesterday in Vienna, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France presented detailed evidence to the IAEA demonstrating that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years.

Earlier this week, the Iranian government presented a letter to the IAEA that made reference to a new enrichment facility, years after they had started its construction. The existence of this facility underscores Iran’s continuing unwillingness to meet its obligations under U.N. Security Council resolutions and IAEA requirements. We expect the IAEA to immediately investigate this disturbing information, and to report to the IAEA Board of Governors.

Now, Iran’s decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the non-proliferation regime. These rules are clear: All nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy; those nations with nuclear weapons must move towards disarmament; those nations without nuclear weapons must forsake them. That compact has largely held for decades, keeping the world far safer and more secure. And that compact depends on all nations living up to their responsibilities.

This site deepens a growing concern that Iran is refusing to live up to those international responsibilities, including specifically revealing all nuclear-related activities. As the international community knows, this is not the first time that Iran has concealed information about its nuclear program. Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear power that meets the energy needs of its people. But the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program. Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow — endangering the global non-proliferation regime, denying its own people access to the opportunity they deserve, and threatening the stability and security of the region and the world

It is time for Iran to act immediately to restore the confidence of the international community by fulfilling its international obligations. We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran to address the nuclear issue through the P5-plus-1 negotiations. Through this dialogue, we are committed to demonstrating that international law is not an empty promise; that obligations must be kept; and that treaties will be enforced.

And that’s why there’s a sense of urgency about the upcoming meeting on October 1st between Iran, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and Germany. At that meeting, Iran must be prepared to cooperate fully and comprehensively with the IAEA to take concrete steps to create confidence and transparency in its nuclear program and to demonstrate that it is committed to establishing its peaceful intentions through meaningful dialogue and concrete actions.

To put it simply: Iran must comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions and make clear it is willing to meet its responsibilities as a member of the community of nations. We have offered Iran a clear path toward greater international integration if it lives up to its obligations, and that offer stands. But the Iranian government must now demonstrate through deeds its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international standards and international law.

I should point out that although the United Kingdom, France, and the United States made the presentation to Vienna, that Germany, a member of the P5-plus-1, and Chancellor Merkel in particular, who could not be here this morning, wished to associate herself with these remarks.

I would now like to turn to President Sarkozy of France for a brief statement.

PRESIDENT SARKOZY: (As translated.) Ladies and gentlemen, we have met yesterday for a meeting — a summit meeting of the Security Council on disarmament and nuclear disarmament. I repeated my conviction that Iran was taking the international community on a dangerous path. I have recalled all the attempts that we have made to offer a negotiated solution to the Iranian leaders without any success, which what has been revealed today is exceptional. Following the enriching plant of Natanz in 2002, it is now the Qom one which is revealed. It was designed and built over the past several years in direct violation of resolutions from the Security Council and from the IAEA. I am expecting from the IAEA an exhaustive, strict, and rigorous investigation, as President Obama just said.

We were already in a very severe confidence crisis. We are now faced with a challenge, a challenge made to the entire international communities. The six will meet with the Iranian representatives in Geneva. Everything — everything must be put on the table now.

We cannot let the Iranian leaders gain time while the motors are running. If by December there is not an in-depth change by the Iranian leaders, sanctions will have to be taken. This is for the peace and stability. Thank you.

PRIME MINISTER BROWN: America, the United Kingdom, and France are at one. Iran’s nuclear program is the most urgent proliferation challenge that the world faces today.

As President Obama and President Sarkozy have just said, the level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the whole international community, and it will harden our resolve.

Confronted by the serial deception of many years, the international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand. On October the 1st, Iran must now engage with the international community and join the international community as a partner. If it does not do so, it will be further isolated.

And I say on behalf of the United Kingdom today, we will not let this matter rest. And we are prepared to implement further and more stringent sanctions.

Let the message that goes out to the world be absolutely clear: that Iran must abandon any military ambitions for its nuclear program. Thank you.

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot,
Drink up, me ‘earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot,
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.

While Johnny Depp brought smiles to our faces though the Pirates of the Caribbean, it’s the Somali Pirates who are writing the script in 2009. On the 7th April this year hijackers off Somalia’s coast seized five ships in 48 hours. The pirates eluded the armada of warships from more than a dozen nations patrolling Somalia’s seas.

According to Wikipedia piracy off the Somali coast has been a threat to international shipping since the beginning of Somalia’s civil war in the early 1990s. Since 2005, many international organisations, including the International Maritime Organization and the World Food Programme, have expressed concern over the rise in acts of piracy. Piracy has contributed to a rise in shipping costs and impeded the delivery of food aid shipments. Ninety percent of the World Food Programme’s shipments arrive by sea, and ships have required a military escort. According to the Kenyan foreign minister, Somali pirates have received over US$150 million during the 12 months prior to November 2008.

Where things get interesting is in the analysis of cause and effect. According to an article over on the New York Times Somali officials said piracy started about 10 to 15 years ago as a response to illegal fishing. The country’s tuna-rich waters were plundered by commercial fishing fleets soon after its government collapsed in 1991. Somali fishermen turned into armed vigilantes, confronting fishing boats and demanding they pay a tax. In 2008, more than 120 pirate attacks occurred in the Gulf of Aden, far more than in any other year in recent memory. Experts said the Somali pirates netted more than $100 million, an astronomical sum for a war-racked country whose economy is in tatters.

UPDATE: 12 April 2009
Rachel Maddow provides a roundup on the evolving story of Somali Pirates and the capture of Captain Richard Philips.

UPDATE: 13 April 2009
Jim Miklaszewski and Major General Tom Wilkerson (Ret.) get into the underlying issue of the failed state on Meet the Press.

UPDATE: 13 April 2009
John J. Kruzel of the American Forces Press Service reports Hostage Captain Was in ‘Imminent Danger’ at Time of Rescue

Leftist candidate Mauricio Funes has claimed victory in El Salvador’s presidential election, in a historic vote that ends the 20-year rule of right-wing party ARENA.

• Leftist declares victory in El Salvador
• EL SALVADOR (casas de carton)
• United Fruit Historical Society – Chronology
• Operation PBSUCCESS

Holy Toledo, Batman! How is Uncle Sammy and his CIA gonna get all those Central and South American snakes back into the box and deal with the rest of the planet simultaneously!? The U.S. economy is singularly inclement with bailouts galore and China holding the purse strings. The Middle Eastern countries are hair-trigger toey and appear unreceptive to “God’s gift of Democracy”. The Ugly American empire is turning to caga before the eyes of the world and it’s not a good look.

Rome on the skids was never like this; hegemonic hiccoughs never so dyspeptic.

Remember, remember the eleventh of September
The CIA’s murderous plot
For families and friends of The Disappeared,
It will never be forgot.

The Good Shepherd Trailer

Footage of the US fighter/bombers destroying the presidential palace in Santiago, September 11, 1973.

• CIA Chile 1973

Democratically elected Salvador Allende and hundreds of his supporters were murdered on that day, thousands who resisted were later tortured and “disappeared”.  Pinochet’s fascist regime could not have maintained power after the coup without the the full co-operation of Holy Mother Church and her Secret Police, Opus Dei. 

Michelle_Bachelet supported Allende in his rise to the Presidency. She is a medical doctor, and a divorced mother of three.

The Kangaroo Connection …

On January 10, 1975, Michelle Bachelet and her mother were detained at their apartment by two DINA agents, who blindfolded them and drove them to Villa Grimaldi, a notorious secret detention center in Santiago, where they were separated and submitted to interrogation and torture. Some days later they were transferred to Cuatro Álamos (”Four Poplars”) detention centre, where they were held until the end of January. Later in 1975, due to sympathetic connections in the military, both were exiled to Australia, where Bachelet’s older brother Alberto had moved in 1969.

Meanwhile, Latin America swerves towards the left …

Latin America is swerving to the left, (former conquistadors Portugal and Spain have already done so) and a distinct backlash is already under way against the predominant trends of the last fifteen years: free market reforms, agreement with the U.S. on a number of issues and the consolidation of representative democracy. (movement of jah people).

• Venezuela (Chavez)
• Bolivia (Morales)
• Cuba (Castro)
• Brazil (Lula)
• Argentina (Kirchner)
• Uruguay (Vasquez)
• Chile (Bachelet)

Abstract

The multinational United Fruit Company has been considered the quintessential representative of American imperialism in Central America. Not only did the company enjoy enormous privileges in that region, but also counted on authoritarian governments in dealing with labor unrest. The literature assumes that United Fruit and the dictators were natural allies due to their opposition to organized unionism. This paper shows that this alliance could only survive as long as the multinational provided the dictators with economic stability for the country. However, when the multinational proved to be incapable of doing that, the dictators allied with the working class to confront the multinational and extract higher rents (or as in El Savador’s case, democratically elect a president, not necessarily a dictator who can tell the corporate exploiters to pay their fair share or vamoose).

http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/eclillbus/06-0115.htm

(thanks for your fire dog lake link at 925, ChrisB, after reading it, this thread self-collated)

Source: Fadi Adwan-Getty, Washington Post.

From Wikipedia is a definition of Retributive Justice …

Retributive justice is a theory of justice that considers that proportionate punishment is a morally acceptable response to crime, with an eye to the satisfaction and psychological benefits it can bestow to the aggrieved party, its intimates and society.

Further reading on the Wikipedia definition of retribution, the following statement appears …

In ethics and law “Let the punishment fit the crime” is the principle that the severity of penalty for a misdeed or wrongdoing should be reasonable and proportional to the severity of the infraction. The concept is common to most cultures throughout the world. Its presence in the ancient Jewish culture is shown by its inclusion in the law of Moses, specifically in Deuteronomy 19:17-21, which includes the punishments of “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Many other documents reflect this value in the world’s cultures. However, the judgement of whether a punishment is appropriately severe can vary greatly between cultures and individuals.