Desikangaroo

Communalism Watch: Pakistan: sex education book angers Muslim Right

2011-01-12T18:49:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: Pakistan: sex education book angers Muslim Right

China Moves from Aid Recipient to Aid Donor

2010-07-16T06:17:00.000-07:00

By Mitch Moxley BEIJING, Jul 9 (IPS) - When Britain announced it would stop giving public money to China as part of a plan to direct financial aid to countries in greater need, it was symbolic of China's shift from aid receiver to aid giver. Following the lead of other Western nations, Britain's Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said in June that the 40 million pounds (60.6 million U.S. dollars) that his government sends annually in China û home to the world's fastest growing, and soon to be second largest, economy û would be better spent elsewhere. ”UK money should be spent helping the poorest people in the poorest countries, with every penny making a real difference by giving families the chance of a better future,” Mitchell said. Indeed, China, whose own poverty rate has plummeted over the last two and a half decades, has in recent years become a formidable aid donor and investor in developing countries. According to a report released in 2009 by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, China's aid to Africa, Latin America and South-east Asia increased from less than one billion dollars in 2002 to an estimated 25 billion dollars in 2007. ”In the past several years, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has bolstered its diplomatic presence and garnered international goodwill through its financing of infrastructure and natural resource development projects, assistance in the carrying out of such projects, and large economic investments in many developing countries,” the report said. The study found that China's foreign aid activities in African and Latin American countries serve its long-term economic interests û via infrastructure and public works projects and natural resource development û whereas those in South-east Asia reflect longer-term diplomatic and strategic objectives. However, the report noted that while China's aid projects ”are a highly visible reminder of China's growing ‘soft power,' other countries and regions, such as the European Union, the United States and Japan, continue to dominate foreign direct investment in Africa, Latin America and South-east Asia.” Still, China's growing aid and foreign direct investment projects do reflect the country's growing acceptance of its role as a leader of the developing world. ”As it becomes richer, it's China's responsibility to help other poor countries,” said Wang Yaohui, director general at the Centre for China & Globalisation (CCG), an independent, non-profit think tank in Beijing that conducts research on a range of social science issues. ”It's a natural transition.” China does not have a central aid agency. Its development assistance is primarily administered by the Ministry of Commerce as well as the Export- Import Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In Cambodia alone, China's foreign direct investment hit a total of eight billion dollars this June, making China the largest investor in the poor South- east Asian nation. China's investments target the agriculture, tourism, infrastructure and hydropower and garment industries, Kong Vibol, secretary of state for the Ministry of Economy and Finance, said recently. African countries have been major beneficiaries of Chinese aid: By the end of September 2009, China's total aid to Africa hit 11.15 billion dollars. More than half of China's 900 ongoing projects in Africa are aimed at improving the livelihood of local citizens, through infrastructure projects like railways and power plants, Wang Wei, a researcher of China Institute of International Studies, wrote recently on China.org.cn. Donating aid to Africa has strategic advantages. China has its eyes on Africa's vast resource and energy riches, and it has made no secret of its desire to be a major influence in the region. China has become Africa's second-largest trading partner. From 2000 to 2009, bilateral trade grew from 10.6 billion to 91.1 billion dollars, an annual increase of 27 percent. Sino-African trade now makes up 10 percent of Africa's total foreign trade. In addition to enhancing aid to Africa, China has started to cancel African debt and has dispatched volunteers to the continent. The Chinese government also recently set up a human resource development fund for African countries, which will offer scholarships to African students, help African countries set up laboratories, fund school construction and dispatch teachers and young volunteers. ”The close relations between China and African countries have exerted a positive effect on African economic development,” Wang wrote. ”Infrastructure construction in transportation, hydropower and telecommunications has enhanced African economic development.” The CCG's Wang said it is likely that the growing superpower is not motivated by altruism alone. ”It's true that China may have a bigger say in front of these countries. I don't think that China's specific purpose is to help these countries alone,” Wang said. But Niu Jun, a professor in the School of International Relations at Peking University, said China also gives aid in situations where it does not expect anything in return, such as disaster relief. ”As China becomes richer and more developed, it will give aid to more and more countries. We will encourage their development,” Niu said.

Clues Suggest Amiri Defection Was an Iranian Plant

2010-07-16T06:13:00.000-07:00

By Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Jul 15  (IPS)  - U.S. officials are explaining Iranian scientist Shahram

Amiri's return to Iran as the result of a defector having a change of heart because of his concern about Iranian government threats to his family. Iran and Amiri himself have insisted that it is a simple case of a victim of abduction escaping his captors. But several features of the story of Amiri's defection suggest that Amiri may have been acting on Iranian government orders to defect temporarily in order to embarrass the U.S. government. Amiri resurfaced only last month after having disappeared from Saudi Arabia during a pilgrimage in June 2009. He made two seemingly contradictory videos which appeared within hours of one another, the first charging that the United States had kidnapped him and brought him to the U.S. against his will, the second saying he was living in the U.S. freely to continue his education. That mystery remained unresolved when Amiri turned up at the Pakistani Embassy Monday evening and said he wanted to return to Iran. One indication that intelligence officials are now considering the real possibility that Amiri's defection was not really genuine is that questions are being raised about how the contact was made with Amiri in the first place. ABC news had reported Mar. 31 that the CIA had approached Amiri through an intermediary and offered resettlement to the United States. But the Washington Post's David Ignatius, who is extraordinarily well connected with CIA officials, suggested in a column Wednesday that Amiri had contacted the agency first and ”may have been a virtual walk-in”. That means Amiri contacted the agency through the Internet û normally a danger signal for a ”defector” who is still a government agent. Ignatius also notes another ”mystery” about the Iranian scientist now apparently now being discussed in intelligence circles: ”why he decided to defect without his young wife and child, leaving them û and himself û vulnerable to Iranian pressure”. The normal practice would be for the agency to arrange for the entire family of a defector to accompany the asset. But Ignatius notes that Amiri chose to leave the family in Tehran, which should have been another danger sign for the CIA. Yet another indicator that U.S. intelligence officials suspected that Amiri's defection was a deception is how far they have gone to portray him as a longtime U.S. intelligence agent. The Washington Post reported Thursday that a U.S. official had claimed Amiri was paid five million dollars for valuable intelligence on Iran's nuclear programme. A Jun. 28 ABC news story went much further, quoting U.S. intelligence officials as claiming that Amiri had been a spy for the CIA on the Iranian nuclear programme for several years. The sources claimed the CIA had urged him to flee Iran last year ”out of fear that his disclosures might expose him to Tehran as a spy”. ABC news repeated that same assertion in its Jul. 13 story on Amiri returning to Iran. In the arcane world of spying, those claims wouldn't have been leaked to the media unless the CIA believed Amiri was working for the other side, according to a former intelligence official. ”This is the pattern of a double agent,” said the former official. ”Nothing else makes any sense.” Other information that has now emerged about Amiri suggests that the story that he was a long-term CIA asset was a falsehood aimed at sowing distrust of Amiri in Tehran. At age 32, Amiri is a very junior scientist who could not have had information about such issues as plans for Qom, even if he were working for the nuclear programme. The Post story acknowledges that the scientist ”is not believed to have had direct access to Iran's most sensitive nuclear sites or leaders involved in decisions on whether to pursue a bomb.” Both the Iranian Foreign Ministry and Amiri's wife have said he was a specialist on radioisotopes for medical purposes, which would mean that he probably had no knowledge of the nuclear programme of any value to U.S. intelligence. Amiri's behaviour this spring appears to reflect an interest in demonstrating to the world that the U.S. government was intent on disseminating falsehoods about an alleged Iranian push for nuclear weapons. In early April, Amiri recorded a video in which claimed to have been kidnapped and held against his will, which was sent to Iran for broadcast. A central point of the video, however, was his claim that the real objective of the United States was to get him to say in a televised interview that he was an important figure in the nuclear programme and had brought ”very important documents on a laptop with classified information on Iran's military nuclear programme”. When that video was broadcast on Iranian state television Jun. 8, it was followed within hours by the posting of another video of Amiri seeming to deny his previous statements. The second video had obviously been produced by the CIA well in advance. That sequence of events indicates that Amiri's CIA handlers had learned weeks before that he was already intending to return to Iran, and insisted that he do a video in which he would admit that he was in the United States of his own volition. Amiri agreed to make such a statement on camera, knowing that the CIA would post it on You Tube if and when a video claiming he was abducted was posted. But he also insisted on including a statement implying that leaks to the press indicating that he had given valuable intelligence to the CIA on Iran's nuclear programme were false. In the CIA-sponsored video, Amiri says, ”I am free here and assure everyone that I am safe.” But he also calls for an end to ”information that distorts the reality about me,” and says, ”I am not involved in weapons research and have no experience and knowledge in this field.” He may been referring to a Washington Post report Apr. 25 that he had provided ”details about sensitive programs, including a long-hidden enrichment plant near the city of Qomà”and an ABC report Mar. 31 that he had ”helped confirm U.S. intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear programme”. Even before Amiri posted yet another video portraying himself as a kidnap victim Jun. 30, U.S. intelligence officials apparently suspected they had been duped by him and retaliated by leaking the story that Amiri had been a long-term CIA intelligence asset in Iran. The CIA's eagerness to claim an intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear programme appears to have set the agency up for the Amiri defection scheme. They viewed his affiliation with Malek-e-Ashtar Industrial University, which has connections to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as evidence that he must be linked to the assumed Iranian plans for a ”nuclear weapons capability”. *Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, ”Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, was published in 2006.