Politicus: Issue of Arab Spring Migrants to Cast Shadow on G-8 Talks

LONDON — When the leaders of the Group of 8 meet next week — among them, Barack Obama, David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy — one of their official concerns will be supporting attempts to make democracy emerge in some kind of recognizable form from the Arab revolts in countries like Tunisia and Libya.

Unofficially, and perhaps even without public mention at the summit meeting in the French resort town of Deauville, that helping hand also means providing sufficient economic incentive to hold off a wave of Arab migration toward Europe. The potential human flood gets described by the apocalyptically minded as “biblical.”

Of course, no one in Deauville would talk in those terms. But a European diplomat has acknowledged that there is more than a tacit link between sustaining the process of change in North Africa and avoiding a flow of refugees to the four European Union countries (including Italy) that make up the G-8 alongside the United States, Canada, Japan and Russia.

Sounding irritated, António Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, has spoken of a “grudging ” response from Europe, described as largely interested in “how to keep out” people trying to seek shelter on the other side of the Mediterranean.

But reality doesn’t sit still. What is changing now is that none of the heads of the four big Western countries at Deauville in 2011 can avoid immigration as a domestic/international political issue that carries with it the emotional vote-getting-or-vote-losing volatility of war or taxes.

For example: Mr. Obama last week traveled to near the Mexican border to insist he’s cracking down hard on illegal immigration. The New York Times wrote that this was the president’s fifth immigration-linked event in the last four weeks.

In parallel, signs are emerging of left-of-center politicians’ acknowledgment of the legitimacy of European voters’ concerns about how their lives are affected by the failed integration of many Muslim immigrants.

Here was Ségolène Royal, who ran as the French Socialist Party’s candidate against Mr. Sarkozy in 2007 and seeks its 2012 presidential nomination, saying last week that no one entering France because of the Arab world’s turmoil should think they’re “destined” to remain in the country.

Why? Because Ms. Royal obviously regards that saying “no” on the issue means votes in an eventual party primary. She argues that exceptions must not be made to the principle of rejecting all illegal immigration. This sounds like support for efforts by some European Union member governments to tighten the open border-passage provisions of the community’s internal controls.

To boot, Ms. Royal was reported telling residents of French immigrant neighborhoods, “Stop complaining.”

In Britain, Mr. Cameron’s Conservative Party, which has a hard-edged take on immigration, fared very well in local elections in England a couple of weeks ago in spite of its austerity budgets and undistinguished economic results.

The prime minister had been attacked on immigration from inside his governing coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Vince Cable, one of the party’s cabinet members, chastised Mr. Cameron for his pronouncement of the death of multiculturalism in Britain and his more recent promise to sharply cut non-European immigration.

The cabinet minister accused the prime minister of “inflaming” Islamic extremism in the process. But the voting went badly for the Lib Dems — not the Conservatives.

Mr. Cameron explained he was fighting the idea that “concern about immigration is somehow racist.” Saying nothing, he argued, created room for the real bigots in extremist parties.

He spoke of immigrants who “on occasion” were unwilling to integrate, and who created “discomfort and disjointedness in some neighborhoods.”

That’s a long way from the language of being invaded, swamped or made to feel an alien in your own country. But Mr. Cameron insisted at the same time that it would be “untruthful” and “unfair” not to address a real problem.

A reflexive equation linking concern about immigration with reactionary thinking has been dulled in Europe, but not without embarrassment. In a clumsy attempt to cozy up to its wavering white working-class constituency, the German Social Democratic Party leadership voted last month not to expel Thilo Sarrazin, a party member who wrote a best seller, larded with genetics-based arguments, designating Muslim immigrants as a drag on German society.

Yet for parts of the European left, a serious question exists about a way to move closer to the immigration themes it once rejected as reflecting bigotry.

In France, how could the Socialist Party not consider them in a presidential campaign landscape where both Nicolas Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen, the head of the extreme right National Front, talk tough about immigration’s downsides?

Recent polling by Harris Interactive provides the answer: 76 percent of the French (including 62 percent of left-wing voters) think that immigrants don’t make sufficient effort to integrate into French society. Speaking for the polling group, J.D. Levy told a French reporter that while the events of the Arab Spring were presented positively by the media, “most people were mainly worried” that they would mean “even more potential immigrants.”

A strategy paper on how to win in 2012 drawn up by supporters of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the strongest Socialist Party candidate before his arrest on sexual assault charges in New York, suggests a successful campaign must include a focus on the value of work and the secular character of French society, while emphasizing citizens’ duties — a kind of nudge-nudge message to voters that the party understands their worries about Muslim immigration.

To leap ahead of the nudge and wink stage, Gaullist party sources have told me that Mr. Sarkozy no longer wants to talk of immigrants’ integration but promote their “assimilation.”

That’s always been a loaded word. Currently, it is used by Islamists in Britain to paint Mr. Cameron’s rejection of multiculturalism as an assimilation plan robbing Muslim immigrants of their Islamic identity.

Surely, at Deauville there will be no desire on the part of the summiteers to wade into such a contentious bog.

But there is the real likelihood that the summit meeting plays a role, even unspoken, in accompanying a palpable change in the politics and discussion of immigration and its intensifying impact.

View the original article here

Politicus: Issue of Arab Spring Migrants to Cast Shadow on G-8 Talks

LONDON — When the leaders of the Group of 8 meet next week — among them, Barack Obama, David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy — one of their official concerns will be supporting attempts to make democracy emerge in some kind of recognizable form from the Arab revolts in countries like Tunisia and Libya.

Unofficially, and perhaps even without public mention at the summit meeting in the French resort town of Deauville, that helping hand also means providing sufficient economic incentive to hold off a wave of Arab migration toward Europe. The potential human flood gets described by the apocalyptically minded as “biblical.”

Of course, no one in Deauville would talk in those terms. But a European diplomat has acknowledged that there is more than a tacit link between sustaining the process of change in North Africa and avoiding a flow of refugees to the four European Union countries (including Italy) that make up the G-8 alongside the United States, Canada, Japan and Russia.

Sounding irritated, António Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, has spoken of a “grudging ” response from Europe, described as largely interested in “how to keep out” people trying to seek shelter on the other side of the Mediterranean.

But reality doesn’t sit still. What is changing now is that none of the heads of the four big Western countries at Deauville in 2011 can avoid immigration as a domestic/international political issue that carries with it the emotional vote-getting-or-vote-losing volatility of war or taxes.

For example: Mr. Obama last week traveled to near the Mexican border to insist he’s cracking down hard on illegal immigration. The New York Times wrote that this was the president’s fifth immigration-linked event in the last four weeks.

In parallel, signs are emerging of left-of-center politicians’ acknowledgment of the legitimacy of European voters’ concerns about how their lives are affected by the failed integration of many Muslim immigrants.

Here was Ségolène Royal, who ran as the French Socialist Party’s candidate against Mr. Sarkozy in 2007 and seeks its 2012 presidential nomination, saying last week that no one entering France because of the Arab world’s turmoil should think they’re “destined” to remain in the country.

Why? Because Ms. Royal obviously regards that saying “no” on the issue means votes in an eventual party primary. She argues that exceptions must not be made to the principle of rejecting all illegal immigration. This sounds like support for efforts by some European Union member governments to tighten the open border-passage provisions of the community’s internal controls.

To boot, Ms. Royal was reported telling residents of French immigrant neighborhoods, “Stop complaining.”

In Britain, Mr. Cameron’s Conservative Party, which has a hard-edged take on immigration, fared very well in local elections in England a couple of weeks ago in spite of its austerity budgets and undistinguished economic results.

The prime minister had been attacked on immigration from inside his governing coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Vince Cable, one of the party’s cabinet members, chastised Mr. Cameron for his pronouncement of the death of multiculturalism in Britain and his more recent promise to sharply cut non-European immigration.

The cabinet minister accused the prime minister of “inflaming” Islamic extremism in the process. But the voting went badly for the Lib Dems — not the Conservatives.

Mr. Cameron explained he was fighting the idea that “concern about immigration is somehow racist.” Saying nothing, he argued, created room for the real bigots in extremist parties.

He spoke of immigrants who “on occasion” were unwilling to integrate, and who created “discomfort and disjointedness in some neighborhoods.”

That’s a long way from the language of being invaded, swamped or made to feel an alien in your own country. But Mr. Cameron insisted at the same time that it would be “untruthful” and “unfair” not to address a real problem.

A reflexive equation linking concern about immigration with reactionary thinking has been dulled in Europe, but not without embarrassment. In a clumsy attempt to cozy up to its wavering white working-class constituency, the German Social Democratic Party leadership voted last month not to expel Thilo Sarrazin, a party member who wrote a best seller, larded with genetics-based arguments, designating Muslim immigrants as a drag on German society.

Yet for parts of the European left, a serious question exists about a way to move closer to the immigration themes it once rejected as reflecting bigotry.

In France, how could the Socialist Party not consider them in a presidential campaign landscape where both Nicolas Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen, the head of the extreme right National Front, talk tough about immigration’s downsides?

Recent polling by Harris Interactive provides the answer: 76 percent of the French (including 62 percent of left-wing voters) think that immigrants don’t make sufficient effort to integrate into French society. Speaking for the polling group, J.D. Levy told a French reporter that while the events of the Arab Spring were presented positively by the media, “most people were mainly worried” that they would mean “even more potential immigrants.”

A strategy paper on how to win in 2012 drawn up by supporters of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the strongest Socialist Party candidate before his arrest on sexual assault charges in New York, suggests a successful campaign must include a focus on the value of work and the secular character of French society, while emphasizing citizens’ duties — a kind of nudge-nudge message to voters that the party understands their worries about Muslim immigration.

To leap ahead of the nudge and wink stage, Gaullist party sources have told me that Mr. Sarkozy no longer wants to talk of immigrants’ integration but promote their “assimilation.”

That’s always been a loaded word. Currently, it is used by Islamists in Britain to paint Mr. Cameron’s rejection of multiculturalism as an assimilation plan robbing Muslim immigrants of their Islamic identity.

Surely, at Deauville there will be no desire on the part of the summiteers to wade into such a contentious bog.

But there is the real likelihood that the summit meeting plays a role, even unspoken, in accompanying a palpable change in the politics and discussion of immigration and its intensifying impact.

View the original article here

Huge Protests in Yemen as Talks Drag On

 

Tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Yemen’s capital, Sana, and cities across the country on Friday, keeping alive their efforts to drive President Ali Abdullah Saleh from office, according to activists and news reports from Yemen.

As the protests erupted, a plan that would allow Mr. Saleh to leave office in exchange for immunity from prosecution continued to languish. The plan, brokered by the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, had been approved by the mainstream opposition and Mr. Saleh, but not by the street protesters who are leery of any promises made by the president.

As the two sides bickered over details, one of the council’s members, Qatar, announced on Thursday that it was “compelled” to pull out of the talks “because of procrastination” and continued confrontations, according to a statement published by the official Qatari news agency.

Qatar and Yemen have long had a troubled relationship. In a statement Friday, the Yemeni government said it “warmly welcomed” Qatar’s withdrawal from negotiations. Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s largest international donor, is considered to be the gulf council’s most influential member.

Protesters reported being attacked by government forces in the cities of Ibb and Taiz on Friday.

In Ibb, a small city south of the capital, snipers opened fire on protesters after noon prayers, killing three of them, according to a local doctor who spoke by phone. In Taiz, a hub of opposition to Mr. Saleh, a doctor said by e-mail that government forces had fired on the crowds, wounding two protesters.

At a demonstration in the western port city of Hodeidah, protesters raised a Qatari flag, according to a video posted on YouTube, apparently showing their appreciation that Qatar had pulled out of the talks on the gulf council deal.

In the capital, Mr. Saleh remained defiant, lashing out at his critics in front of a crowd of tens of thousands of supporters in what has turned into a Friday ritual. “What we built in 22 years, you spoiled in three months,” he said.

“The military is obliged to protect its institutions with all its might,” he said, in what appears to have been a warning to protesters in the capital who have been mainly confined to an area outside Sana University but have promised to bring their demonstrations to government buildings.

Earlier this week, at least 10 protesters in Sana were killed when they tried to march on government buildings.

 

JPMorgan in Talks to Settle S.E.C. Inquiry Into Securities

JPMorgan’s securities unit has been cooperating with agency officials and is “in advanced discussions with the staff concerning a potential resolution of that investigation,” the bank said in a quarterly financial report filed with the S.E.C. on Friday.

JPMorgan did not specify which collateralized debt obligations were the subject of the S.E.C. talks and said there was no assurance that the settlement would be completed.

The C.D.O. investigation gathered momentum last year when the Goldman Sachs Group agreed to pay $550 million and admitted making a “mistake” in its disclosures about a subprime-linked C.D.O.

Separately, JPMorgan, one of the lenders criticized over improper foreclosures on military families’ homes, won approval of a $56 million settlement of claims that it overcharged service members on their mortgages.

Judge Margaret B. Seymour of United States District Court in Columbia, S.C., found that the accord, which provides $27 million in cash to military personnel overcharged on mortgages as well as other benefits, was a fair resolution of suits over the problem loans.

Service members who suffered from the overcharges think the settlement “is phenomenal,” said Jonathon Rowles, a Marine fighter pilot who sued JPMorgan over the handling of his loan.

“They recognized they made mistakes and they took the steps to fix them and compensate people for their damages,” Mr. Rowles said in an interview after the hearing. “I’m pleased with the way it turned out.”

JPMorgan officials acknowledged earlier this year that one of the bank’s units made errors in handling mortgages covered by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. That law was enacted in 1942 to shield deployed military personnel from financial stress.

Bank officials “regret the mistakes our firm made on mortgages for members of the military,” Frank J. Bisignano, a JPMorgan executive who leads the home lending unit, said in an e-mailed statement on Friday.

Under the terms of the settlement, Mr. Rowles and an estimated 6,000 other service personnel whose mortgage accounts were mishandled will split the $27 million, according to court filings. That will provide an average payout of $4,500 per soldier, but recoveries will vary based on the service member’s individual damage claims.

The accord also calls for JPMorgan to cut interest rates on all mortgages held by deployed troops to 4 percent for one year, the filing shows.

The lender has agreed to return houses that were improperly foreclosed upon and not yet sold, and to pay fair market value for those already auctioned off, according to the filing. It also will forgive any remaining mortgage debt of military borrowers who were protected by the law and mistakenly foreclosed upon.

View the original article here

JPMorgan in Talks to Settle S.E.C. Inquiry Into Securities

JPMorgan’s securities unit has been cooperating with agency officials and is “in advanced discussions with the staff concerning a potential resolution of that investigation,” the bank said in a quarterly financial report filed with the S.E.C. on Friday.

JPMorgan did not specify which collateralized debt obligations were the subject of the S.E.C. talks and said there was no assurance that the settlement would be completed.

The C.D.O. investigation gathered momentum last year when the Goldman Sachs Group agreed to pay $550 million and admitted making a “mistake” in its disclosures about a subprime-linked C.D.O.

Separately, JPMorgan, one of the lenders criticized over improper foreclosures on military families’ homes, won approval of a $56 million settlement of claims that it overcharged service members on their mortgages.

Judge Margaret B. Seymour of United States District Court in Columbia, S.C., found that the accord, which provides $27 million in cash to military personnel overcharged on mortgages as well as other benefits, was a fair resolution of suits over the problem loans.

Service members who suffered from the overcharges think the settlement “is phenomenal,” said Jonathon Rowles, a Marine fighter pilot who sued JPMorgan over the handling of his loan.

“They recognized they made mistakes and they took the steps to fix them and compensate people for their damages,” Mr. Rowles said in an interview after the hearing. “I’m pleased with the way it turned out.”

JPMorgan officials acknowledged earlier this year that one of the bank’s units made errors in handling mortgages covered by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. That law was enacted in 1942 to shield deployed military personnel from financial stress.

Bank officials “regret the mistakes our firm made on mortgages for members of the military,” Frank J. Bisignano, a JPMorgan executive who leads the home lending unit, said in an e-mailed statement on Friday.

Under the terms of the settlement, Mr. Rowles and an estimated 6,000 other service personnel whose mortgage accounts were mishandled will split the $27 million, according to court filings. That will provide an average payout of $4,500 per soldier, but recoveries will vary based on the service member’s individual damage claims.

The accord also calls for JPMorgan to cut interest rates on all mortgages held by deployed troops to 4 percent for one year, the filing shows.

The lender has agreed to return houses that were improperly foreclosed upon and not yet sold, and to pay fair market value for those already auctioned off, according to the filing. It also will forgive any remaining mortgage debt of military borrowers who were protected by the law and mistakenly foreclosed upon.

View the original article here

Arts | Westchester: In a Former Bank, Money Still Talks

SINCE the opening of “The Bank & Trust Show,” the current multimedia exhibition at ArtsWestchester’s Arts Exchange, puzzled passers-by have been going into the gallery asking if it is closing. Their concern is provoked by a sign in one of the windows facing Mamaroneck Avenue, a hot-pink poster with bold charcoal lettering proclaiming “Selling out to the bare walls.”

ArtsWestchester, of course, is not going anywhere. The poster, “Bare Walls” by Kim Beck, is one of 85 works that fill both floors of the Arts Exchange with responses to the current economic climate. Pieces by 21 artists address a range of related issues, from corporate greed and the pitfalls of consumerism to the fluctuating art market, redefined notions of trust and identity, and the lure of the quick fix.

“The O’ Woof Woof,” for example, Kambui Olujimi’s mixed-media installation, presents a showy raffle booth complete with gold drum and artist-designed tickets for a raffle that never takes place. “The title is Southern black vernacular meaning ‘something you ain’t gonna get,’?” said Dara Meyers-Kingsley, who curated the show.

Visitors can watch the economy literally melting in Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese’s video of their 2008 work “Main Street Meltdown,” a large-scale ice sculpture of the word “Economy” that was placed in Foley Square in Manhattan. And they can answer Jennifer Dalton’s question, “Are Times of Recession Good for Art?,” by selecting a chocolate coin from one of two gumball machines labeled “Yes” and “No.” The comparative levels of candy left in the machines will measure the public’s opinion.

Actual money appears in various incarnations throughout the show. In Ray Beldner’s “Money Bag,” three moneybags are sewn from paper currency and stuffed with sawdust; Mark Wagner created his intricate collages, “Yield” and “Eeny Meeny Miney Moe,” using finely sliced dollar bills. “That’s one of the subthemes,” Ms. Meyers-Kingsley said. “Art as money, money as art.”

Another theme is the changed role of banks, particularly germane given that the exhibition occupies what was once the People’s National Bank & Trust Company. “We wanted to look at repurposed classical bank buildings like the one we’re in now,” Ms. Meyers-Kingsley said. So Michael Vahrenwald was commissioned by ArtsWestchester to photograph former and current banks in White Plains and New York City. The results — 14 photographs — are hanging in the main upstairs gallery. And among the pieces displayed inside the space’s original vault, which was preserved in the building’s renovation, are Diane Tuft’s “Safely Hidden” photographs of ornate bank vaults in Manhattan.

“There’s a lot to think about in this show,” said Janet T. Langsam, ArtsWestchester’s chief executive. “It’s not just, ‘Oh my God, the economy is terrible.’ It’s about who we are, what we value, what’s important in our lives.”

To further the conversation, and in recognition of April’s recent designation as National Financial Literacy Month, ArtsWestchester is hosting a series of free financial education workshops for adults and children. Families visiting the exhibition can also pick up a self-guided “Art Fun Finder” work sheet, which, among other things, challenges them to find particular images in the show (like Queen Elizabeth II’s face) and design their own currency.

While most of the pieces in “The Bank & Trust Show” reflect the current economic situation, several works were made earlier. Tom Otterness’s sculptures “Last Penny” and “Embezzler and Cop” are from 1999. “They’re not about this moment of crisis,” Ms. Meyers-Kingsley said, “but his work has always commented on the capitalist system.”

Perhaps the most optimistic creation is “Chance City,” Jean Shin’s monumental metropolis constructed with thousands of precariously balanced used lottery tickets. “What holds it together is gravity and friction,” Ms. Shin said, “and desire, and care.”

She noted the dichotomy between society’s work ethic and the impetus for playing the lottery. “You spend a few dollars and you think you’re going to win,” she said.

“?‘Chance City,’?” she continued, “is about negotiating risk. It’s about people’s sense of hope. There something wonderful in that.”

ADVICE IS FREE

“The Bank & Trust Show” runs through June 4 at the Arts Exchange, 31 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains. (914) 428-4220; artswestchester.org. Open Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m.; admission is free.

WORKSHOPS Free financial literacy sessions for adults include “Loans and Mortgages: What You Need to Know,” 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on May 5, and “Tips for Creating a Spending Plan and Managing Debt,” 2 to 4 p.m. on May 7. “Funny Money Workshop,” for parents and children, is from 2 to 4 p.m. on May 21.

 

Talks on U.S. Presence in Afghanistan After Pullout Unnerve Region

Afghanistan and the United States are in the midst of negotiating what they are calling a Strategic Partnership Declaration for beyond 2014.

Critics, including many of Afghanistan’s neighbors, call it the Permanent Bases Agreement — or, in a more cynical vein, Great Game 3.0, drawing a comparison with the ill-fated British and Russian rivalry in the region during the 19th and 20th centuries.

It is without doubt a delicate process, and one that comes at a critical time. Afghan officials have expressed concern that the negotiations could scuttle peace talks with the Taliban, now in their early stages, because the insurgents have insisted that foreign forces must leave the country before they will deal. That they are already talking is an indication they are willing to compromise on the timing of a withdrawal — but it is hard to imagine Taliban acceptance of a lasting American presence here.

Formal talks on a long-term agreement began last month under Marc Grossman, the official who has replaced Richard C. Holbrooke, the diplomat who died in December, as the Obama administration’s envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a delegation visited Kabul under the direction of Frank Ruggiero, a State Department official who ran the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team until last year.

The reaction regionally was immediate. The Iranian interior minister made a rushed visit to Kabul, followed shortly by the national security advisers of India and Russia.

The Russians, though generally supportive of NATO’s role in Afghanistan, were alarmed at the prospect of a long-term Western presence.

“The Russian side supports the development of Afghanistan by its own forces in all areas — security, economic, political — only by its own forces, especially after 2014,” said Stepan Anikeev, a political adviser at the Russian Embassy here. “How is transition possible with these bases?”

American officials have hastened to assure Russia and other neighbors about their intentions after 2014. Mr. Grossman made a visit late last month to Moscow to do so. And officials from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on down have insisted that any presence after 2014 would not mean permanent bases.

It is a “long-term framework for our bilateral cooperation,” Mrs. Clinton said in a speech to the Asia Society on Feb. 18.

“In no way should our enduring commitment be misunderstood as a desire by America or our allies to occupy Afghanistan against the will of its people,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding, “We do not seek any permanent American military bases in their country.”

The Russians, however, have complained that any talk of a foreign troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014 violates international understandings, including one made in a joint statement by President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev on June 24 supporting a neutral status for Afghanistan.

Afghan officials have acknowledged, however, that the talks do countenance some sort of long-term bases after 2014, if only for the purpose of continued training of Afghan troops. “What we’re discussing is a long-term strategic framework agreement,” said Ashraf Ghani, an adviser to President Hamid Karzai who is one of the Afghan negotiators. “The U.S. has many 10- to 25-year-long agreements, a wide range of agreements.”

“The important thing now is that the sense of abandonment that was in the air last year is gone now,” he said.

One person’s long-term base is another’s permanent base, however — and in the region many people took Mrs. Clinton’s assurances as proof that the United States was not leaving, whatever the bases are called.

“A 10- or 20-years agreement can be prolonged at any time,” Mr. Anikeev said. “And we have no guarantee they’re not permanent.”

“The Americans have not been honest about this, even among themselves,” said Mullah Attullah Lodin, deputy chairman of the High Peace Council of Afghanistan, which is charged with leading reconciliation efforts with the Taliban. “One says we are not building bases, another says we are building them, and it’s very confusing.”

The big concern, he said, was that if any such agreement were reached, it would make it that much harder to enter into serious peace talks with the Taliban. “That is the first thing the Taliban demand is the withdrawal of foreign troops,” Mullah Lodin said.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the national security adviser to Mr. Karzai, disagreed. “Reconciliation and a strategic relationship, they are not contradictory to one another. We have the same goals, peace and stability in Afghanistan, and elimination of sanctuaries and bases for terrorism, that is for the common good.”

Despite such worries, American and Afghan officials are negotiating on an accelerated timetable, with the Americans hoping to come to an agreement by July, when the first withdrawals of some American troops are to start, diplomats say.

“The Afghans are very worried about after 2014,” said a European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic delicacies. “They’re trying to extract from the West as much as they can now.”

Mr. Ghani said that Afghan officials were hoping to win agreement on the transfer of Provincial Reconstruction Teams, which dispense aid from the United States and NATO countries directly to projects in the Afghan countryside, to Afghan government control. In general, the Afghans want to see more aid money funneled through their government, and they also want to see a reduced presence of the United Nations.

Then there is the issue of how the Afghans will be able to pay for their greatly enlarged police and military, which by some estimates will require $10 billion a year to sustain come 2014 — 10 times the Afghan government’s annual tax revenues.

“The whole mindset is to get as much as possible in the course of the next couple years,” the European diplomat said. “They really understand that they won’t get as much as they used to get, and they’re desperate to get as much as they can.”

One regional diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity for similar reasons, said the Americans were equally concerned to keep a long-term or permanent foothold in Afghanistan for their own interests as well.

“There was a time when the Americans were struggling to find one base in Central Asia,” he said. “Here is a place where they can have all the bases they want, and Afghanistan is a place between two potential nuclear Islamic powers, Iran and Pakistan.”

“There are forces of reaction who are itching to fire the starting gun on Great Game 3.0, and the insurgents will try to exploit this,” said Mark Sedwill, the NATO senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, in a recent speech.

Reaching accord among the diplomats on a Strategic Partnership Declaration will only be a first step. Mr. Karzai has already said any such agreement would have to be put to a nationwide loya jirga, a tribal assembly that acts as referendum on important issues.

“In general, people in Afghanistan are against foreign forces,” Mullah Lodin, the negotiator, said. “I don’t think the loya jirga will ever support foreign forces in the country.”

Mr. Spanta recognized the difficulty. “We have to convince the Afghan people there is something for us in this,” he said.

 

Clinton Visits Seoul to Discuss North Korean Denuclearization Talks

 Jason Strother | Seoul ?April 16, 2011

South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan walks together with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to a meeting room at the Foreign Minister's Residence in Seoul, South Korea, April 16, 2011

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Seoul Saturday for a two-day visit.? Her trip comes as multinational efforts to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program remain deadlocked.? The visit started days after Pyongyang said it is holding a U.S. citizen on unknown charges.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Seoul to discuss efforts to resume six-nations talks on North Korea's nuclear program.

Those talks, which involve the United States, both Koreas, China, Japan and Russia, have been on hold for more than two years.

The United States and South Korea say the discussions cannot resume until North Korea shows it is sincere about honoring past promises to dismantle its nuclear program.

Some analysts say other South Korean preconditions are making it more difficult for the talks to resume.

Moon Chung-in, a politics lecturer at Seoul’s Yonsei University, says Seoul’s insistence that Pyongyang apologize for last year’s sinking of a South Korean warship and shelling of a South Korean island is preventing the negotiations from starting again. ?

"South Korea has been calling for inter-Korean talks first and get an apology from North Korea.? Then it will allow to resuscitate the six party talk process.? But Washington and Beijing appear to have a sense of urgency in resuming the six-party talk processes," said Moon.

North Korea denies it had anything to do with the March 2010 sinking of the South Korean ship, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.? An international investigation said the ship was torpedoed.? Pyongyang also says it was provoked by the South’s military to bomb Yeonpyeong Island, an attack that killed four.

The United States and South Korea also want to bring North Korea’s uranium enrichment program to the United Nations Security Council.? Pyongyang had denied for years that such a program existed, but last year revealed it to a visiting American scientist.

Moon says China, which has so far blocked any discussion of the enrichment program at the U.N., has a better approach.

"The United Nations Security Council has already adopted two sanctions resolutions but they are not working.? The Chinese government has been arguing that it is much wiser to deal with the enriched uranium program in the six party talks process rather then going through another sanctions regime," said Moon.

Clinton’s trip to Seoul comes days after North Korea announced it will try a detained U.S. citizen on unknown charges. ?

Some observers say North Korea could use this as a bargaining chip to win concessions from Washington.

But Moon notes during previous incidents where Americans were arrested in the North, Pyongyang did not gain anything from releasing them.

Last August, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter traveled to Pyongyang to win the release of an imprisoned American human rights activist.? Mr. Carter is expected to return to North Korea later this month with a group of other former world leaders for talks on regional tensions.? It is not clear if he will also try to gain the release of the detained American.

16-04-2011 Khyber Weekly- the best News Paper of Afghanistan (Afghanistan)

Peace is the only way to live togather. USA and N-Korea can decide a good way to find solve this problem. we hope they can.

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