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| October 25, 2008 | Saturday | Shawwal 25, 1429 |
Same old advice
PCB chief’s remarks
Now Europe is looking to Asia
Pointless security checks
OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press
PAKISTAN’S formal entry into the 43-nation Asia-Europe club at the seventh ASEM summit in Beijing this week is good news for a country whose international power and prestige is flagging. But while membership of the Asia-Europe Meeting is certainly not to be scoffed at by a country seeking to expand its network of foreign friends, Pakistan can expect little immediate economic and political gain from joining the forum.
AIRPORT security found a bottle of saline in my luggage at Heathrow Airport last month. It was a 4oz bottle, slightly above the 100 ml limit. Airport security in the United States lets me through with it all the time, but UK security was stricter. The official confiscated it.
THE government should be hanging its head in shame. On the occasion of World Polio Day yesterday it had nothing to show on its progress card. In fact, we seem to be sliding back to the days before 1994, the year that marked the launch of national anti-polio drives. No doubt strides have been made since then in the battle against the crippling disease, and regular administration of the vaccine has prevented countless children from contracting it. In fact in 2005 the number of polio cases was down to 28. However, an upsurge of late has seen the number of cases in 2008 rise to 85 so far. Several reasons are cited for this disturbing trend, including contact with a large influx of refugees from the north where the war against militancy has made regular polio drives difficult. But considering that polio cases have been found in all provinces and in places where contact with the refugee population is a remote possibility, one must look at other, more compelling reasons.
In the NWFP and its often inaccessible environs, there is no doubt that insecurity plays a large part in disrupting anti-polio drives. With greater conservatism in these areas, parents have also been indoctrinated by clerics to believe that vaccination would harm rather than protect their children. But what about those parts of the country which are more peaceful and where there is no concerted effort to brainwash parents into refusing the vaccine? So far this year Punjab has seen 24 polio cases, Sindh 16 and Balochistan seven. Here one must question how well equipped the vaccination teams are to handle the difficult task of ensuring that all children are inoculated. There have been reports of insufficient manpower, of the required number of mandatory doses not being administered and of fears that the vaccine may not have been stored at the correct temperature, thus reducing its potency. We can also ask whether parents are being informed that illnesses such as diarrhoea can reduce the vaccine’s efficacy — there have been cases of children contracting polio despite inoculation — thus requiring the administration of additional doses.
It is incumbent on the health authorities to look into their own shortcomings, in addition to other factors hampering the anti-polio drive. Identifying internal flaws in planning and management and taking measures to overcome these failings will go a long way in implementing a more effective campaign against polio. Otherwise Pakistan will be doomed to continue as a reservoir of the poliovirus in a world that has largely rid itself of this disease.
THOSE asking Pakistan to ‘do more’ have evidently failed to realise that the advice is fast becoming obsolete. In Kabul on Thursday, a US State Department official said Pakistan needed to attack the militants in the country’s “northern areas”. The wire agency report on the press conference by Patrick Moon, deputy assistant secretary for South Asia, did not say which precise territory in the “northern areas” he was referring to. If the American official had Fata and Swat in mind, the advice was redundant. Pakistani security forces have been battling the militants in these mountains for years, and notwithstanding earlier mistakes by the political leadership the military operations have made significant progress. In Bajaur, especially, the Taliban have suffered heavily, while in Swat the insurgents no longer enjoy the freedom they once did. Pakistan has deployed over 100,000 troops, and they have suffered over 1,000 dead. In addition, the civilian casualties run into thousands. Besides, as the consensus resolution passed by parliament on Wednesday shows, there is unanimity in Pakistan over the need to combat extremism and terrorism.
As against this, the coalition forces across the Durand Line have little or nothing to show for the last seven years. If the Taliban cross the border freely, then it is not Pakistan’s responsibility alone. NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani and the prime minister’s adviser Rahman Malik are on record as having said that terrorists cross into Afghanistan from Pakistan freely, and the Afghan authorities and the coalition forces do nothing to check this ingress. In some cases, it is alleged, Afghan terrorists enter Pakistan with the full knowledge and backing of Kabul authorities. While the Pakistani armed forces are taking the battle seriously and suffering casualties, the Nato contingents’ first priority is to avoid casualties. Their hearts are not in the fighting.
More recently, several Nato diplomats and generals have virtually admitted defeat by declaring that there is no military solution to the Afghan insurgency and there must be talks with the Taliban. Even Washington has indicated that it is willing to accommodate the Taliban if they distance themselves from Al Qaeda. It is time those who matter across the Durand Line decided what exactly they want. Do they want to fight the Taliban, or evade battles or beat a retreat? If they are unable to choose between these options, the least they can do is to stop trying to find a scapegoat in Pakistan.
AFTER all that has gone on in the Pakistan Cricket Board in the last few years under people who had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the game, the appointment of a former Test player with extensive exposure to cricket management did give hope to many. This was evident from the number of hailers that found a voice in the media after his name was announced. Three weeks into office, however, the new PCB chief has shown a tendency to follow his predecessors in terms of verbosity and rhetoric, if nothing else. He is the man most quoted in the sporting media these days when he should have been taking extreme care in going public.
Keeping a low profile is often the best policy if concentrating on the job is to be the top priority. But the new chairman has been anything but discrete. So much so that after his recent remarks to the press, the International Cricket Council had to issue a special advisory to the heads of all cricket boards asking them not to disclose details of boardroom discussions that are supposed to be confidential in nature. Coming from someone who has been around the cricketing establishment for over a quarter of a century, the PCB chief’s tactlessness, to put it mildly, was as unexpected as it was disappointing.
Actions speak louder than words. They do. Take, for instance, the act of arriving at the PCB headquarters on the first day of his assignment in the company of an official with whom the board was in litigation at the time and a sports journalist who until then had nothing to do with the PCB set-up. All that this betrayed was the simple fact that the new boss is not without his personal likes and dislikes. On a personal level he is entitled to be as biased as he wants, but in his professional capacity the PCB chief will do well to be seen in public as being not just shrewd but also non-partisan. Though he has denied calling the national coach (now summarily sacked) ‘useless’, it is the propensity to talk about subjects that need more internal deliberation and action than public utterance that is causing unnecessary and easily avoidable ripples. The same applies to his remarks on such sensitive issues as controlling player indiscipline, introducing financial oversight and performance audits, and taking the ICL ‘rebels’ back into the national fold. Thinking aloud is well and good in a boardroom setting. But the temptation to hog the headlines needs to be checked, the earlier the better.
All is not lost, however. ASEM is about public relations, diplomacy and strategic discussions. As such, while he may not receive cash or credit in Beijing, if he plays his cards right Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani can use the meeting — and his planned bilateral contacts with Asian and European leaders — to draw attention to Pakistan’s economic plight and struggle against extremism.
Launched in 1996 in Bangkok at the height of the East Asian economic miracle, ASEM was meant to deepen and widen Europe’s relations with the Asian tigers. Twelve years on, however, ASEM is almost universally viewed as a high-level talk shop which has yet to deliver real change in relations between Asian states and the European Union.
Proponents of ASEM argue that the informal forum was never meant to be more than it is: a platform where Asian and European leaders could meet regularly to discuss regional and international hotspots, build mutual trust and confidence, and discuss ways of improving their economic and trade relations. Critics insist, however, that ASEM has systematically failed to live up to expectations: summits between leaders of the two sides are held only every two years and have turned into ritualistic affairs, with pre-prepared speeches and little real interaction and exchanges. Asia and Europe still disagree on key trade and climate change issues and are often at loggerheads over questions like Iran, Afghanistan and the Middle East.
The reality, as is often the case, is more nuanced than either ASEM supporters or critics would like.
True, ASEM is often only a talkfest but in diplomacy, conversation — especially between leaders — is important. ASEM may be a multilateral forum but most heads of state and government use the occasion to hold a series of bilateral meetings which often make more headlines than the plenary sessions. This time round, the global financial crisis makes the ASEM summit especially significant.
The 40 or so Asian and European leaders in Beijing will not take any concrete decisions. But officials are hopeful that a joint statement issued by ASEM will send a reassuring sign of unity to world markets. This in turn should help prepare for the meeting of the G20, which includes major industrial nations and big emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil, in the US on Nov 15.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, insisted this week that unprecedented levels of global coordination were required to deal with the financial meltdown. “We need a coordinated global response to reform the global financial system. We are living in unprecedented times and we need unprecedented levels of global coordination,” Barroso said, adding: “It’s very simple. We swim together or we sink together.”
Backing calls from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Barroso said a solution needed to be based on principles of transparency, responsibility, cross-border supervision and global governance. The worst global financial crisis in seven decades pointed to the need for a “major reform” of the world’s financial system, he said. “The latest events have made clear that the current model of financial regulation and supervision needs to be revamped at the international level,” Barroso said. “We need Asia to be on board,” he argued.
EU officials say they are encouraged by China’s decision to issue a joint ASEM statement on the financial crisis, viewing this as a sign that the Asian economic giant is determined to behave responsibly in the coming months. There is concern in Europe, however, that although Asian economies have had less direct exposure to the toxic sub-prime mortgages that are wreaking havoc in US and European markets, they will take a major hit from a drop in exports and foreign investment.
Significantly, the vice-president of the Bank of China, the country’s central bank, has said he expects the crisis to start to bite over the next six months. “We shouldn’t think this is going to be over soon. The key issue for Asian countries is to prevent the banking crisis from turning into to a currency crisis,” Zhu Min said in remarks to the Asia-Europe Business Forum in Beijing. “This is going to be a long and cold winter,” he added.
While Pakistan appears to be hardest hit by the financial crisis, South Korea’s stock market has also slumped to a three-year low amid heavy selling by foreign investors. Ironically, the meeting in Beijing comes exactly 10 years after the ASEM summit in London in 1998 which was also dominated by economic difficulties — the financial meltdown in East Asia.In fact, the financial storms in East Asia came very soon after ASEM’s 1996 launch. The region’s economies hit rock bottom, with countries forced to seek International Monetary Fund bailouts to keep their heads above water. European governments were shocked by the enormity of the financial wreckage in East Asia but, much to Asia’s dismay, few offered any immediate assistance, or even words of sympathy.
Many in Asia denounced Europe as little more than a fair-weather friend, a charge that European policymakers fiercely denied. The EU has tried hard over the years to correct that image by negotiating strategic partnership deals and forging closer trade ties with Asian states.
This time, however, it is Europeans who want Asian help in coping with the financial crisis. Fortunately in today’s interdependent world, Asia’s economic powerhouses appear ready to take up the challenge.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.
In a sense, this is a dumb game anyway; it’s an overly specific reaction to tactics instead of threats. We take away guns and bombs, so the terrorists use box cutters. We confiscate box cutters and corkscrews, so they put explosives in their sneakers. We screen footwear, so they use liquids. We take away liquids, and they’re going to do something else.
So why are we even playing? We’re playing because it’s politically impossible not to defend against the particular tactic the terrorists tried last year. But because we know that liquids aren’t really dangerous which makes confiscating them completely ineffective.
There are two classes of contraband at airport security checkpoints: the class that will get you in trouble if you try to bring it on an aeroplane and the class that will cheerily be taken away from you. This difference is important; making security screeners confiscate anything from that second class is a waste of time.
Let me explain. If you’re caught at airport security with a bomb or a gun, the screeners aren’t just going to take them away from you. They’re going to call the police and you’re going to be stuck for a few hours in an isolated room answering a lot of awkward questions. You may be arrested, and you’ll almost certainly miss your flight. At best, you’re going to have a very unpleasant day.
This is why articles about how screeners don’t catch every gun and bomb that goes through the checkpoints don’t bother me. Perfection is impossible. We can’t keep weapons out of prisons, how can we possibly keep them out of airports?
But the screeners don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be good enough. No terrorist is going to base his plot on getting a gun through airport security if there’s a decent chance of getting caught.
Contrast that with a terrorist plot that requires a 12-ounce bottle of liquid. There’s no evidence that the 2006 liquid bombers actually had a workable plot, but assume for the moment that they did. If some copycat terrorists try to bring their liquid bomb through airport security and the screeners catch them — like they caught me with my opaque bottle labelled as “saline” — the terrorists can simply try again. They can keep trying until they succeed. The screeners have to be 100 per cent effective. Even if the screeners slip up only once every hundred times, the plot can succeed.
The same is true for knitting needles, pocket knives, scissors, corkscrews, cigarette lighters, and whatever else the airport screeners are confiscating. If there’s no consequence to getting caught with it, then confiscating it only hurts innocent people. At best, it just mildly annoys the terrorists.
The writer is a security technologist and author.
—The Guardian, London
Shortage of fish
The Bangladesh Today
CLIMATE change, deforestation and desertification are some of the major global problems nowadays. Unfortunately, as a country we are affected by all these and our country is visited by frequent floods and other natural calamities … while the forest areas are shrinking and rivers, canals, ponds, etc are drying up. As a result, the country is running short of adequate water bodies and water resulting in [a] serious shortfall in fish production….
“If we want to preserve our fish, we will have to protect our canals, water bodies … and rivers. Otherwise, we will not see sweet-water fish in [the] future. Simultaneously, we will have to identify the causes behind the destruction of water bodies and canals.
Although, sweet-water fish are found at different markets, the supply is scanty and these are sold at [a] high price,” said a fish expert, adding [that] “many rare species of sweet water fish have already been exhausted. So we will have to conduct research as to how we can protect our sweet-water fish.”
Fish is not only a favourite item for the people of this land, but they cannot just do without it and rice. But it is an irony of their fate that both rice and fish are scarce and dearer for them nowadays. The price of fish is so high that they [sic] have gone beyond the reach of the people belonging to the low and limited income groups, not to speak of the poor and the extreme poor for whom taking fish with rice is not less than [a] luxury. The main reason for this alarming situation is the growing shortage of production and supply of fish…. Worse still, for want of sufficient water bodies, production of fish is falling sharply and various species of fish are on the brink of extinction. In fact, the local demand is partially met with the help of fish imported or smuggled into the country from neighbouring India and Myanmar.
Against this backdrop, the government should take immediate steps for the dredging of rivers and re-excavation of canals and ponds and preservation of other water bodies to ensure proper atmosphere with sufficient reserves of water there for spawning of fish. Special arrangements should also be made and state incentives provided for encouraging fish cultivation in every piece of available water to meet the growing need of fish in the country. — (Oct 24)
