Perhaps the most significant development coming out of last week’s G-20 summit meeting in London is the news that the world’s leading economies will triple the International Monetary Fund’s lending powers to some $750 billion. The massive investment raises an immediate question: How is influence shifting within the workings of the Fund? To tease out the nuances of these developments, WPR columnist Andrew Bast spoke with Simon Johnson, chief economist of the IMF in 2007 and 2008, and currently a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Many consider Johnson’s blog, The Baseline Scenario, a must-read on the global […]

The Red Lama

When the government of South Africa denied the Dalai Lama an entry visa last week, it was not the first time it had snubbed him. In 1999, then-President Mbeki canceled a meeting with the Tibetan leader after the Chinese vehemently protested. Whatever backbone Mbeki may have at one time had when working against apartheid seems to have turned to jello on that occasion. The South African government claimed that last week’s episode was not a snub, but merely an attempt to keep any ensuing diplomatic incident from deflecting attention from next year’s World Cup. But it’s hard to see the […]

NATO’s Last Stand

What stood out most in President Barack Obama’s various press conferences I watched today was the divergence between the political theater in the run-up to the NATO summit, and the political substance that underlies it. On the political theater side, Obama acknowledged the French and German contributions to the war effort, while French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared their full support for Obama’s Afghanistan strategy. On the political substance side, Obama made it clear that France and Germany need to contribute more troops, and Sarkozy and Merkel said, Non, and Nein, respectively. It’s not that there’s no […]

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Not very long ago, one of Malik Naeem’s favorite pastimes was an afternoon jaunt to McDonald’s with his granddaughters for french fries and a tour of the playground. Islamabad, the Pakistani capital where Naeem lives with his family, seemed sheltered from far-off concerns about growing militancy and insecurity along the Afghan border. That changed in an instant last September, when militants attacked the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, just a few seconds’ drive from the Pakistani Parliament and Supreme Court buildings. The high-profile attack on a popular public establishment in a heavily guarded area meant that no place […]

LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown might have been excused for savoring the sweetest moment of his political career yesterday evening. By the time the final slaps on the back had been delivered and the G-20 world leaders had left London, Brown’s stock had never been higher. It had been his crisis summit. And at first glance, it was a success, as summits go. For 24 hours, Brown had enjoyed what for him has become the unusual comfort of high praise, luxuriating in the warm words of fellow leaders. And none were warmer than those of the undoubted superstar […]

The 2012 London Olympics may still be several years away, but yesterday, the city played host to a different type of games altogether — the G-20 summit on the global economic crisis. This time, the competitors were not the world’s premier athletes but rather political leaders representing the world’s most powerful economies. By the end of the conference, though, no single country emerged atop the podium. Instead, the clearest winner appears to be the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which received another boost in its quest to reassert itself as the protector of global economic stability. Still, if the world’s rising […]

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Najib Razak was sworn in as Prime Minister of Malaysia today, replacing Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who resigned yesterday in a move that had been widely anticipated for weeks. Razak promised to re-energize national politics and to end a nagging challenge to his party’s long-standing rule by opposition nemesis, Anwar Ibrahim. However, many fear that the arch-conservative former defense minister, who has served as deputy prime minister for the last six years, will crack down on dissent at a time when opinion polls show that many Malaysians are yearning for change. Central to those fears is the […]

Know When to Fold ‘Em

French President Nicolas Sarkozy got a side meeting in London with Chinese President Hu Jintao after all. France, like Britain before it, reiterated its longstanding Tibet policy — which amounts to public relations stunts to burnish human rights bona fides, while officially giving Tibetan aspirations for independence the shaft. For its part, China agreed to take the diplomatic high road and let bygones be bygones. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev got acquainted in a very lawyerly way during their side meeting. They have agreed to agree on what they agree on (START negotiations), while reserving the […]

Bagram Detention Center as Safe Haven

No sooner do I finish posting about the G-20’s not-so-safe haven in London than I stumble across this AP dispatch: a federal court ruling extended to prisoners in Afghanistan the legal right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Here I think the fascinating parallel is easier to make: The thought immediately occurred to me that over the past eight years, the U.S. has essentially created its own safe havens, with the network of black-site detention centers being the functional equivalent of the Pakistani FATA, i.e., beyond the rule of law and outside of global governance mechanisms. Significantly, the Obama […]

The G-20 Summit as Globalization’s Not-So-Safe Haven

There’s been a thought-provoking discussion of the centrality of Pakistani — or other — safe havens to al-Qaida’s operational capacity. Andrew Exum kicked things off here, Spencer Ackerman added some thoughts here, and Matthew Yglesias has some comments of his own here. The upshot is that safe havens are neither necessary nor sufficient to launch a terrorist attack, that it’s unrealistic to expect we can eliminate them because there will always be unstable corners of the world, and that focusing on physical space risks overlooking the role played by virtual space (i.e. the internet) in terrorist networks. Juxtapose that to […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — A veil of skepticism has descended over Indonesia’s democracy as the country prepares to vote in legislative elections on April 9. But although votes will be cast under the shadow of serious problems and deficiencies, there is also reason for optimism. Admittedly, none of the 38 national parties have impressed with well-conceived political platforms. Their rallies have been more about handing out goodies and presenting dandugt concerts than debating the country’s many ills. Add to that allegations of vote-buying and the blatant ineptitude of the Election Commission, and what emerges is a depressing picture that has led […]

Parliamentary elections in Indonesia, as elsewhere, are usually an ordinary affair as local politicians jockey for position among voters at the grassroots level. Normally voting revolves around homespun issues: a new school library, the local waters works or paved roads. But in the lead-up to legislative elections in Indonesia, campaigning has taken on much broader implications, providing a battleground for separatist forces in the troubled province of Papua, a testing ground for the fragile peace in Aceh and a vibrant backdrop for the presidential poll in July. Keith Loveard, a Jakarta-based security consultant with Concord Security said electoral-related violence in […]

NAIROBI, Kenya — When Kenya welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the first stop of his first tour of sub-Saharan Africa in mid-February, it reflected how Nairobi’s emphasis on bilateral relations with Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries is increasingly overshadowing its ties to traditional Western allies. Beginning in 1963, when Kenya attained independence from Britain, Western countries were routinely accorded a “first amongst equals” status. A military pact signed between Kenya and the United States in 1980, allowing the U.S. Navy use of the local port of Mombasa to monitor the Far East in return for military and economic […]

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