In a recent WSJ op-ed two very unlikely bedfellows, Paul Wolfowitz and Al Gore, came together over the issue of the unjust imprisonment of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. Mr. Anwar is being tried on the trumped up charge of sodomy in an effort to derail the opposition movement he spearheads. On a trip last year to the United States, Mr. Anwar stopped in to chat with AAM’s Katherine Gypson about restrictions on media freedom and political opposition in Malaysia. View the interview here.
If there is one word to describe Saigon, it is “scooter.”
While scooters/mopeds/small motorcycles are ubiquitous throughout Asia (East, Southeast, South), I have never seen anything like the swarms of scooters in Saigon.
Analogies are endless: they are like a plague of locusts buzzing through the streets, an endless army of leaf-cutter ants, shimmering schools of minnows, stampedes of cattle. Picture the movie “The Birds” except without the death and gore – the streets throng with that kind of volume of scooter traffic. It’s endless and unrelenting.
The White House is hosting its first formal state visit for India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. India has become a major player in global affairs and this formal state visit indicates how important India is to the US when it comes to issues like climate change, economic growth and countering extremism in South Asia.
India has become a major trading partner with the US, with $61 billion in trade in 2007. The US is India’s second-largest trading partner. India is also one of the biggest donors in Afghanistan, with $1.2 billion in aid, sharing some of the burden of stabilizing Afghanistan and providing civilian support.
Colin Cookman, Special Assistant for National Security and Brian Katulis, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress write:
Prime Minister Singh’s visit comes during a sensitive period for U.S. diplomacy around the world. The luster is wearing off from the Obama administration’s initial honeymoon period of foreign policy, leading to growing questions about what the Obama administration has tangibly achieved with its new style of diplomatic outreach. President Obama’s trip to Asia last week raised some concerns in India that the United States was acceding to China’s growing power without demonstrating India’s important role, and this state visit is aimed at signaling the importance of U.S.-India ties. Gaining India’s cooperation on a range of issues will be an important test of the Obama administration’s ability to achieve results in his foreign policy.
With changing power centers in the world, the US needs to make sure it has the right people in the right places. Alongside the new towers and growing population, the US has opened its first new consulate general in over a decade in Hyderabad, India, reflecting the growing economic and strategic relationship between the US and India.
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Listen to the rest of America Abroad radio producer Matt Ozug’s piece in Diplomacy Under Fire.
A recent article by Maznah Mohamad, a visiting senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, questions the role of religion in Malaysian politics. He claims that its hard to distinguish Islamic radicals from Islamic moderates, saying that Islam and the government have essentially merged.
For two decades, the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) government invested enormous public resources in building up a network of Islamic institutions. The government’s initial intention was to deflect radical demands for an extreme version of Islamic governance. Over time, however, the effort to out-do its critics led the UMNO to over-Islamicise the state.
The UMNO’s programme has put Sharia law, Sharia courts, and an extensive Islamic bureaucracy in place, a collective effort that has taken on a life of its own. The number of Islamic laws instituted has quadrupled in just over 10 years. After Iran or Saudi Arabia, Malaysia’s Sharia court system is probably the most extensive in the Muslim world, and the accompanying bureaucracy is not only big but has more bite than the national parliament.
The struggle to define the role of religion in a democracy is one of the many challenges facing Malaysia. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been at the center of these debates for more than three decades – as a student leader, a finance minister and as deputy prime minister. In 1998, Anwar began six years of solitary confinement on charges of sexual misconduct and corruption that were eventually reversed.
AAM’s Katherine Gypson sat down with Ibrahim to discuss the political landscape in Malaysia, the politics of a new trial he faces in November and how it will affect his plans to run for the position of Prime Minister in 2010. Watch >
This month, as Vietnam assumes the Presidency of the UN Security Council in New York, the AP reports continuing conflicts back home between Vietnamese police and followers of the superstar Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) took the opportunity to highlight what they see as Vietnam’s continued human-rights abuses, particularly in the realm of religious freedom.
The commission writes that:
…religious freedom conditions have not improved since Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) and have deteriorated for some religious groups and the human rights lawyers who try to protect them…
As America Abroad explored in The First Freedom, Vietnam has become something of a Rochard test for how you view the struggle to advance International Religious Freedom. Many point to the end of violent forced renunciations of faith and the release of religious activists from Vietnamese prisons as evidence of monumental progress. Yet there are those, including the folks at USCIRF, who argue that despite these first steps, the Communist government of Vietnam still has many miles to go.
The Commission has called for the Obama Administration to turn up the heat by placing Hanoi back on the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) – that’s among the strongest sticks available to the US government in the decade-old International Religious Freedom legislation. But that move seems unlikely, since Vietnam essentially worked their way off the CPC list three years ago. And the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom champions the case of Vietnam as a prime example of the effectiveness of IRF diplomacy.
To see an interactive map of USCIRF Countries of Concern, go here.
Last Wednesday, Rebiya Kadeer, Uyghur democracy leader, spoke at the US Commission on International Freedom on the recent deadly riots that took place on July 5th in Urumqi, capital of western Xinjiang region.
The rioting began when two Uyghurs died after an incident between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Guangdong province in southern China. Uyghurs marched in their capital to protest the deaths and fighting erupted. In the days that followed, Chinese authorities stated 197 people died in the ethnic clashes between the Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese and that more than 1,600 people were injured. The Chinese government has reacted swiftly and with force. Police have detained hundreds of people under the guise of arresting “religious extremists and separatists” with the majority of those arrested being Uyghur. From The NY Times:
Uighur exile groups and human rights advocates say the government sometimes uses such charges to silence those who press for greater religious and political freedoms. Trials, they say, are often cursory. “Justice is pretty rough in Xinjiang,” said James Seymour, a senior research fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Uyghurs are Turkic-speaking Muslims who make up nearly half of Xinjiang’s 20 million population and one of 13 ethnic groups in the region. The Uyghurs have complained of being marginalized and their autonomy usurped by Chinese government. From USCIRF:
For decades, an estimated 8 million Uighur Muslims faced restrictions that violated China’s own Constitutional protections and its international obligations to protect peaceful religious activity and related human rights. In some cases, religious freedom restrictions are more severe in Xinjiang than in other places of China. China views peaceful religious practice in Xinjiang as a potential breeding ground for terrorism or separatism.
Rebiya Kadeer has emerged as the world’s most prominent Uyghur, speaking out against Chinese persecution, harassment and abuse of that community. She spent 6 years in Chinese jail for her actions and currently lives in the US. Watch excerpts from Kadeer’s speech at USCIRF that address some of her concerns with the events unfolding in western China.
Two hotel bombings in Jakarta, Indonesia killed 9 people and injured dozens more in the first terror attack since 2005. No one has claimed the strikes and although authorities are unsure of the attackers, the believe it could be the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. JI has ties to Al Queda. From CBS:
In a recent WSJ op-ed two very unlikely bedfellows, Paul Wolfowitz and Al Gore, came together over the issue of the unjust imprisonment of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. Mr. Anwar is being tried on the trumped up charge of sodomy in an effort to derail the opposition movement he spearheads. On a trip last year to the United States, Mr. Anwar stopped in to chat with AAM’s Katherine Gypson about restrictions on media freedom and political opposition in Malaysia. View the interview here.
If there is one word to describe Saigon, it is “scooter.”
