Why the UK is highly unlikely to arm Syrian rebels

June 18, 2013 6:16 pm by Financial Times

A Syrian flag flies over the clock town in Qusair (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

By James Blitz and Elizabeth Rigby

Senior parliamentarians and government officials in Britain believe it is highly unlikely that the UK will transfer arms to moderate Syrian rebels at some future date because they believe David Cameron has lost the political support needed to make such a move.

For many months, Britain’s prime minister has been the most forward-leaning of western leaders in arguing that the moderate rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime may soon need arms from the west, partly to tilt the battlefield in their favour.

Last week, Mr Cameron’s position received strong support from the Obama administration in the US, which finally announced that it would transfer arms to the rebels. However, any attempt by the UK to support such a move is now so firmly opposed by Mr Cameron’s own Conservative MPs that he would be unlikely to win a vote in the House of Commons, leading politicians have told the FT. Read more

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Posted in Foreign affairs, Syria, US foreign policy |

Pragmatism and piety: Iran’s president-elect

June 18, 2013 5:49 pm by Amie Tsang

Hassan Rohani ( ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

Iranian voters rejected the hardline candidates in last weekend’s presidential election in favour of Hassan Rohani, a 65-year-old reformist-backed cleric.

Known as the “diplomat sheikh”, he is a former nuclear negotiator and convinced the regime to suspend uranium enrichment between 2003-2005. He has also served in Iran’s parliament and the security council.

Rohani “believes in the same pragmatic policies as Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who has been in alliance with reformist forces in recent years”, wrote Najmeh Bozorgmeh, the FT’s Tehran correspondent. “Mr Rafsanjani’s backing for his campaign, and that of reformist leaders, was crucial to his victory.”

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Posted in Iran |

John Aglionby In the Picture: Brazil’s ‘bus fare’ protests

June 18, 2013 3:19 pm by John Aglionby

A demonstrator holds a Brazilian flag in front of a burning barricade during a protest in Rio de Janeiro on Monday

The protests sweeping Brazil began in São Paulo, the country’s commerical capital, last week as a demonstration by students against an increase in bus fares from R$3 to R$3.20 ($1.47) per journey. They have swelled into an outpouring of popular discontent over everything from the billions of dollars the 2014 football World Cup will cost the taxpayer to the police’s heavy-handed reaction to last week’s protests. Commentators say they are probably the country’s largest since the end of the 1964-1985 dictatorship.

Here’s a reading list to help assess whether they are likely to escalate further or fizzle. Read more

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Posted in Foreign affairs, Latin America |

Smart Reads June 18, 2013

June 18, 2013 12:33 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ The west’s dominance of the Middle East is coming to an end, says Gideon Rachman.
♦ Protests against student bus fares spread throughout Brazil’s major cities, with hundreds of protesters invading areas of the national Congress complex in Brasília.
♦ Hassan Rohani pledges greater transparency for the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear programme and says he will work to ease international sanctions.
♦ Iran’s hardliners blame each other for their election defeat, forgetting the millions who turned out in the streets for the jailed reformist Mir-Hossein Moussavi in 2009.
♦ America is the world’s number one and Germany is Europe’s, yet both seem content to punch below their weights, says Josef Joffe, editor of Die Zeit.
♦ The new governor of Luxor comes from the political arm of an Islamist group that once carried out terrorist attacks that killed dozens in the same city.
♦ Chen Guangcheng’s charge that he has been asked to leave NYU because of pressure from China will be followed closely by other universities grappling with the potential difficulties of setting up programmes and campuses in China. Read more

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Posted in Smart Reads |
From FT.com June 17, 2013

By Gideon Rachman
Should the west arm the Syrian rebels? That is the issue of the day in Washington, London and at the Group of Eight summit. But behind this debate lies a bigger question. Can western powers continue to shape the future of the Middle East as they have for the past century? Read more

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Posted in Middle East, Syria, US foreign policy |

Smart Reads June 17, 2013

June 17, 2013 1:21 pm by Amie Tsang

G8 summit There have already been rifts over the issue of armaments in Syria.
♦ While leaders have been at loggerheads, Assad’s regime has been able to take advantage of the lack of US leadership, writes Roula Khalaf.
♦ The decision to send unspecified military support to the rebels will be dangerous, but it is more risky to stay out, says David Gardner: “Leaving Syria to its present devices will create an Afghanistan in the eastern Mediterranean”.
♦ Maureen Dowd thinks that Obama is being “schooled” by the Clintons: “After dithering for two years over what to do about the slaughter in Syria, the president was finally shoved into action by the past and perhaps future occupant of his bedroom.”
Tax avoidance will be another G8 hot topic: Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google, thinks corporate tax systems need to be simplified. If you want to read more about the debate so far, take a look through our reporting on the Great Tax Race.

♦ Mayor Bloomberg takes on a new cause: making it mandatory for New Yorkers to separate their food scraps for composting.
♦ Food for thought: is marriage in decline because there is less demand for husbands?
♦ China plans to move 250m rural residents – that’s about five times the population of South Korea – into newly constructed towns and cities over the next 12 years. Elsewhere in the world, cities are turning into vast gated communities for the one per cent.
♦ The BBC speaks to Sonali Deraniyagala, who lost everything in the 2004 tsunami.  Read more

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Posted in Smart Reads |

John Aglionby G8 summit live coverage: Syria dominates as leaders gather

June 17, 2013 9:24 am by John Aglionby
This is a Live Blog transcript. Read more

Differences between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and other leaders of the Group of Eight nations over Syria are likely to dominate the first day of the summit at Lough Erne in Northern Ireland as host David Cameron seeks to keep the focus on trade, tax and transparency.

By John Aglionby, Lina Saigol and Lindsay Whipp. All times are BST

 

David Pilling US hands China cyber propaganda weapon

June 17, 2013 5:52 am by David Pilling

A recent cartoon in the China Daily depicted the Statue of Liberty holding a listening device instead of a torch and a tape-recorder in place of a legal tablet. The Global Times, in both its Chinese and English editions, noted what it said was US “aggressiveness in cyberspace” and its “hypocrisy in saying one thing and doing another” – a reference to Washington’s demands that China stop its nefarious hacking campaign. The Global Times even suggested Beijing keep Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who leaked information about US domestic and international information-gathering activities, and milk him for all the information he’s worth. “This concerns China’s national interest,” it said. Read more

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Posted in Asia, China, cyber warfare, Foreign affairs, US foreign policy, World affairs |

Gideon Rachman Talking to the North Koreans

June 16, 2013 8:49 pm by Gideon Rachman

Just a few days after pulling out of proposed talks with the South Koreans, North Korea has proposed direct talks with the United States. This suggestion reveals a very old North Korean instinct. The North has always maintained that South Korea is a puppet regime – citing the presence of US troops on southern soil. So, Pyongyang insists, it makes much more sense to talk directly to the puppet-master. Read more

Posted in North Korea |

Smart Reads June 14, 2013

June 14, 2013 1:24 pm by Financial Times

By Aranya Jain
♦ Max Fisher speculates on how the US will react to Syria’s use of chemical weapons – large changes in policy are unlikely – while Geoff Dyer examines the reasons behind the uncertainty of the US response.
♦ Genes isolated directly from humans are no longer patentable, as the US supreme court has ruled that only synthetic versions of DNA, known as complementary DNA, can be patented. New access to previously company owned DNA may improve and lessen the cost of treatment, but the loss of patents may also cause a loss of incentive for companies to conduct new research. For those who have more time this weekend, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a novel that grapples with these issues, examining the legacy of a woman whose DNA has become one of the most important tools in medicine, and yet has remained virtually anonymous, never receiving the rights to her own genes.
♦On a lighter note, the US navy will soon stop shouting its communications as messages no longer have to be written in all capital letters.
♦Foreign Policy brings you the fashion highlights from the Iranian election campaigns.
♦And if you have a spare moment, Satan has a few words to say on the Murdoch divorce.
 Read more

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Posted in Smart Reads |
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