World Political Blog » Ashish

Openbook vis-à-vis Facebook: The privacy issue

Ashish — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:49:38 +0000

You are aware of facebook and I am sure many of you are using it. Yes, I am talking about the social networking website Facebook. But what about Openbook? Any why you should know it? Read on…..
Well, more often than not, users of Facebook post careless updates for their own small group of friends can now be read by anyone with the help of a new internet search engine. This new search engine named Openbook can scan all “public” updates left by members of the social networking site. Ultimately it makes the updates available to anyone through internet. The software has been created to highlight Facebook’s complex privacy settings. The Facebook privacy settings have been blamed for perplexing users into revealing personal information more than they intend while updating Facebook.
The content explored by Openbook is already in the public domain and can be viewed by all. This will certainly land the social networkers in a uncomfortable situation. It was only in last month that Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced simplification of Facebook privacy settings. This was in relation to mounting complaints that users were being duped into sharing private information.
The new website, Openbook is the idea of three website developers from San Francisco: Will Moffat, Peter Burns and James Home. It offers internet users a search engine that allows them to search for updates on public Facebook profiles. Reports are just in that by typing a keyword they can now easily get access to tens of thousands of updates from the last few hours. I tried the infectious word “booze” in the search box of Openbook and got so many posts with Facebook photo of the user. I am sure, most of them have not dreamt of this while posting in the Facebook. Facebook’s has almost 500 million users. Most of are unaware that their profile is not only available to their intended small circle of friends, but to the whole internet community. Openbook has been created to highlight this issue. The Openbook privacy campaigners desire people to think twice before sharing any information. The story (and this may not be unique) of unnecessary status updates with unlucky consequences include: A girl who posted “bored” on her Facebook status while at work was later fired because of revelation of the incident.

Aftermath of BP Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – Impact on other deep water drilling

Ashish — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:41:34 +0000

Now regarding safety measures, let me tell you that BP isn’t the only company ill-prepared for disaster. Lawmakers in US argued at a House energy committee hearing this afternoon. Although executives from Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell tried to refute allegations that their contingency plans were “carbon copies” of BP’s, all the evidence suggested otherwise. Testifying before the panel, executives protested that they would not have behaved like BP in the face of crisis. However, lawmakers pointed out that a single firm named ‘The Response Group’ wrote contingency plans for all the companies. Funny things you may find in serious pages of the plan too. For example, the plan includes details of protecting walruses in the event of a spill hit the Gulf although Walruses don’t live in the Gulf. Such lapses in plan diluted their claim that their working practices differ from those of BP and that the catastrophe would not have happened if the leaking well had been theirs.
The executives were unanimous in maintaining that the six-month ban on offshore drilling could be more economically dangerous in the short-term. Now on this public has rightly questioned about ‘Economically dangerous for who? Themselves? Since when did they become so concerned with anything other than their bottom-line.’
An early BP document put the spill rate at between 1,000 and 14,000 barrels a day. Recently, a panel of US scientists presented a grim picture: “most likely flow rate of oil today” ranges from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day. The range is once more far higher than previously suggested figures. The warning bell is already ringing. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has switched the focus of American about a clean energy future. Said Eileen Clausen, President of America’s foremost climate think-tank, the Washington-based Pew Center on Global Climate Change: American citizens are “horrified” by the pollution in the Gulf of Mexico, and are starting to think more about cleaner energy sources such as wind and wave power.

Britain’s split verdict – the Conservatives have it, but not fully

Ashish — Sun, 09 May 2010 07:24:04 +0000

Tony Blair must be having the last laugh; he was pushed out of the Labour party by a much less flamboyant personality, Gordon Brown; and now Gordon Brown has lost the election for the Labour Party, leading to the Conservatives becoming the leading party in the elections. There have been a number of factors that have contributed to the decline of the Labour Party, with the overall economic recession being one of the biggest contributory factors, as well as the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (although it is a moot point whether the Conservative Government would have not sent armed forces to these 2 countries). Voters have voted with their feet towards the policies of the Labour Government in overcoming the recession, as well as their policies on many other areas such as Immigration (and feelings against immigration harden) when the economy starts dropping, when the impact of immigration on jobs and social security networks becomes more prominent.
However, the fractured mandate from this 2010 election is pushing Britain towards a new era (or rather a pushback to a previous era, since the last time that such a situation happened was in 1974 when a Labour Government finally took office). Britain, with this election, has moved away from the stage of a 2 party Parliament (with a majority leading party and an opposition that is also numerically strong), and moved to coalition politics where the leading party has to depend on a third party for MP’s, and where some policies of the government are dictated by coalition politics rather than being totally driven by the leading party.

The Conservatives have now taken the lead, but the strong electoral support for the Liberal Democrats (which did not get converted into too many seats, but enough for them to seem like a kingmaker) will lead to some time period of jockeying for power. Gordon Brown would not want to go into opposition, since the minute he loses power, he will face huge internal opposition in the party; but is stuck by the fact that currently the Liberal Democrats would not want to support a party that has lost the elections. However, supporting the Conservatives is not so easy since the policies are widely separate, and it will be distressing for both of them if they have to bring their policies to a common ground in a number of areas.
It would seem that the possible options are:
- Conservatives come to power with the support of the Liberal Democrats – People are not really looking upon this as a feasible arrangement because of the internal pressures
- Labour forms a Government with the support of the Liberal Democrats – this will still remain a minority Government
- Conservatives get outside support from the Liberal Democrats – will work for some time, but there will be many compromises that will be required
In all these cases, there will be a fear that a new election will be required soon to resolve these issues and come up with a new Parliament with new numbers.

Talking peace with the Taliban – will it work ?

Ashish — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:04:58 +0000

The United States and some other allied countries (who have forces in Afghanistan) have been battling the Taliban for many years now, and they are not winning the battle. The Taliban get a lot of support among the embittered people of Afghanistan who have seen only years of fighting, who are conservative by themselves, who see a corrupt Government that provides zero development and supports the warlords; and in addition, the Taliban have a base in the neighboring country Pakistan where they can regroup, get the required rest and sanctuary (even though the US has drones forever attacking from the sky and killing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda where they can find them).
For many years now, the US has recognized that there can be negotiation with the Taliban since the Taliban has the aim of wresting control of Afghanistan and then would be back to its tactics of promoting its stringent code of Islam, its promotion of the practice of developing Islamic warriors; however, now that the US is becoming war-weary of the Afghanistan conflict, it seems to be silently supporting defining some sections of the Taliban as people who can be negotiated with and who can be made part of a solution to the problem in Afghanistan.
This is a tough call, since for the sake of ending the war, the US looks to be giving up the war; and this is not a fight against some rational but different ideology, this is a fight for the future. If the US, in any way, seems to be losing the war to the Taliban and gives up, it will show up in a wide-spread resurgence of Islamic fervor throughout countries in the whole region, and demonstrate to them that they are on the winning track.

The Jordanian bomber who destroyed a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan

Ashish — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:30:12 +0000

In any war against terrorism, it is not only the military who takes action. It is the intelligence agencies who play a profound role in this war, whether this be civilian agencies such as the CIA, or military intelligence. These agencies have access to huge amount of funds, have access to the latest of technology, and are also responsible for direct action (which could be action in the form of disinformation campaigns or gathering information, or could be targeted action such as assassination or the use of drones for killing terrorists who otherwise could not be attacked). Imagine a huge wild area where you cannot send your agents, but where you know that terrorists are staying and constantly plotting to do harm. And you can see them through powerful cameras on drone surveillance planes that constantly fly overhead and from which you cannot hide so easily.
A few years back, the US (in the form of the CIA) introduced its unmanned drones that were capable of firing missiles; but it is difficult to know at whom to fire this missiles. Part of getting the information about who and what to fire the missiles comes from the videos that these planes take which are analysed, but a lot more of the information is gathered from informants and other means of getting information; a lot of this information is gathered from CIA forward operating bases such as the one at Base Chapman, near the Afghanistan city of Kost.
This was a huge blow to the CIA, since the people killed were those who were deeply involved in targeting the Al-Qaeda leadership as well as the Haqqani network, and it was known for some time that they were likely to retaliate. And now it seems that they finally succeeded. However, the art of running intelligence operations in dangerous and hostile locations is difficult. You need to ensure that your operatives do not be out of base too much, and hence you need to get your agents back to the base to de-brief; further, in the world of informants and prickly egos, once you trust someone, there is an implicit expectation that you need to show your trust. Putting in place detailed security measures may be necessary for retaining the trust of these people but makes it more difficult to show that you have their trust.

The person who managed to get inside the CIA base and kill these many CIA operatives was a Jordanian doctor who managed to convince both the Jordanian intelligence agency and the CIA that he would bring in valuable information was named Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. From recent comments by his wife and deconstruction of his life, it would seem pretty evident that the doctor has a hatred for the US, and there was no way for the person to become a informant for the CIA. But in the world of intelligence, it is precisely such a person, who has no obvious sympathy for you, who can be turned and who provides the required information. It seems that the doctor even fooled his own family by pretending to go elsewhere (link to article):

The BBC’s Dale Gavlak, in Zarqa, Jordan, spoke to a family member who refused to be identified after being told to remain anonymous by the Jordanian authorities. He said Balawi had fooled them all about his intentions and his beliefs, telling his family he was travelling to Turkey to join his Turkish wife and children and continue his medical studies.
Balawi was reportedly recruited by Jordanian intelligence officials when he attempted to enter Gaza as part of a medical team last year. According to US media reports, he was a CIA double agent whose specific mission was tracking down al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Iranian protesters could get the death penalty

Ashish — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:01:58 +0000

The conflict in Iran between the moderates and the conservatives has been ongoing for some time now. However, it really flared up after the June elections, when there was a dispute and the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was granted a victory over main opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi. The conservatives have used all the weapons at their disposal – they have used the religious power of Supreme Leader Khameini who threatened the protesters with stern action, they used the Revolutionary Guards and the Basiji militia to severely crack down on the protesters, many of those arrested were tortured and many died under torture (the torture grew so much that the Supreme Leader had to order the closing of one particularly reviled detention center), and yet the protests continue.
The surprising thing is that Moussavi is not a reformist in the shape of Khatami; he was part of the Government in the early days of the regimes soon after the revolution, and would have been involved in the repression that happened during those periods. However, Iran is now a state where there is a battle between a Government that has the Revolutionary Guards as one of the major factors of power, where the clergy are struggling to ensure their dominance, and where a younger population is looking to get more openness.
Now, the Government is wielding the threat even more strongly. Even 6 months after the election, there is a huge amount of feelings in the country about the election that gets expressed in huge demonstrations, even though people know that they are facing entrenched forces. On the occasion of Ashura, a Shiite religious holiday on the 27th of December, 2009, there was again a huge demonstration, and this was despite the preparation of the police and para-military forces to stop these demonstrations. In the fight, there were apparently protesters who died at the hands of security forces, and many more were arrested. Now the Iranian Government is claiming that since the protesters were doing their fighting on a holy day, they were effectively committing an act against God, and acts against god deserve the death penalty.
One would laugh, were it not for the fact that the regime faces a huge crisis, and is prepared to go to any levels to repress these protests. As a result, it is not totally rules out that the Government will indeed press for the death penalty and this will be supported by the judiciary. It is also true that the Iranian people are totally alone in this, with no Government pressing their support, no international human rights group fighting for these people.

Having to defend the decision of announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan

Ashish — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:55:41 +0000

Afghanistan is a country which has a long history of not giving an easy time to foreign armies. From the time of the British who spent many battles in there, but could never claim that they had an easy control, to the Soviets who spent a huge military effort over there but finally had to retreat in the face of a harsh and determined, religion-fired insurgency, to the Pakistanis who used proxies (Taliban) to control the country, but could never claim that Pakistan ran Afghanistan. The history of the US in terms of running military campaigns in foreign countries after the Second World War has been bad; they had to retreat from Vietnam, retreated from Beirut after a huge truck bomb killed many marines, the Iraq war had seen a huge amount of internal opposition, a balanced Somalia effort was stopped after a street fight in Mogadishu killed 18 US soldiers, and so on. There is a huge internal debate in the US about evaluating the needs of sending troops to battle overseas, even if there is a need; and the sight of body bags of fallen soldiers causes this debate to get even more heated and emotional.
In Afghanistan, the US has a bad reputation; they were heavily involved till the Soviets left, and then the US abandoned the area, only picking it up after it started sensing terrorism efforts originating from there, and finally after the 9/11 attacks. Now, after President Obama did a balance of the military needs and political needs by announcing more troops, but also announcing a deadline, he has to balance multiple reactions.

Internally, the US President is coming under huge strain; his fellow Democrats don’t support adding more troops to the Afghan war since it is highly unpopular with their base; the Republicans did not support his announcing of a deadline to commence withdrawal of troops. The biggest fear of everyone is that by announcing a date, the Taleban, which has been out of power for 8 years now and fighting the insurgency, can afford to wait 2 more years and then make the effort to overthrow Karzai when the US leaves. Pakistan would no longer be willing to invest in an effort to fight the Taleban if it sees the US disengaging from the area, and needs a friendly Afghanistan to counter India.
So now, you have US officials trying their best to persuade leaders from all over that the US has not announced a disengagement, that the withdrawal would only happen if the Afghan army and security services are in a good enough condition, and that the end date for the withdrawal is not decided. Further, the US would set up bases in the area to ensure that it retains a sizable balance. However, Obama is also being accused of making decisions based on politics by ensuring that a withdrawal is in place when he is fighting for re-election.

Beating Al-Qaeda through religious debate about its tactics

Ashish — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:13:24 +0000

This is a new tactic to reduce the influence of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, and by association, others such as the Taleban. These terror groups thrive on the basis of the terror campaigns they unleash on citizens of their country, such as suicide bombings, attacks by machine-gun wielding terrorists, etc. It is difficult for the security apparatus of countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq to handle the threat of these organizations, especially since the security apparatus is either weak, or where sections share some of the beliefs of these terror organizations. If these groups are not put down, they also pose major threats to countries such as US, UK, India, and many western countries. One way to combat these groups is through direct military and police action, and there is a vigorous effort underway against these groups.
However, there are challenges in fighting such groups when there is a sympathy towards their actions by sections of the population and administration in Pakistan, and this sympathy also extends towards regular donations from wealthy individuals in countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, etc. There is a need to break this sympathy by declaring that the acts of terror carried out by such groups, and the attacking of innocent civilians is totally against the teachings and the tenets of Islam. An attempt is being made in this regard by negotiating with a group such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a much older group that was well regarded by Al-Qaeda, but which repudiated the methods used by Al-Qaeda (link to article):

From within Libya’s most secure jail a new challenge to al Qaeda is emerging. Leaders of one of the world’s most effective jihadist organizations, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), have written a new “code” for jihad. The LIFG says it now views the armed struggle it waged against Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime for two decades as illegal under Islamic law.
The code’s most direct challenge to al Qaeda is this: “Jihad has ethics and morals because it is for God. That means it is forbidden to kill women, children, elderly people, priests, messengers, traders and the like. Betrayal is prohibited and it is vital to keep promises and treat prisoners of war in a good way. Standing by those ethics is what distinguishes Muslims’ jihad from the wars of other nations.” The code has been circulated among some of the most respected religious scholars in the Middle East and has been given widespread backing. It is being debated by politicians in the U.S. and studied by western intelligence agencies.

Any advice by well meaning individuals from the West, as well as attempts by the governments of the Middle East to reduce the support for terrorist organizations is normally ignored. It is when scholars or even Islamic terrorists renounce the tools of terror does the fight against these terrorist organizations get joined.

Run off in Afghanistan polls on 7 November 2009

Ashish — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:18:45 +0000

The Presidential elections in Afghanistan are key to the stability of the country, and in the fight against the Taleban and foreign militants. Afghanistan and border regions of Pakistan hold the key in the fight against global terrorism, and ensuring that there is an effective Government in Afghanistan is an integral part of that battle. However, this is easier said than done, and there have been a series of bad decisions taken in the past that have made things pretty bad right now, to the extent that the Taleban, which seemed defeated in 2001, is now resurgent and is control of an increasing large section of the country.
Hamid Karzai became the President when the country was removed from the grip of the Taleban, and over a period of time, the hopes and promises from Karzai have gradually decreased, to the extent that there is now a distance between the US administration and Karzai. There is less public support for Karzai from Obama and his team, and Karzai also openly condemns the US when there is some bombing or other steps that kill civilians.

In the midst of all this, there were the elections that took place. These elections were fraught with allegations of fraud and malpractices, with the contender, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah claiming that Karzai had taken a number of steps to influence people to vote for him, and during the time of elections, there was voter fraud. These charges have been repeated often enough that the election was seen as disputed, even though Karzai claims that he won the election and there was no need for a runoff.
However, it now seems that Karzai has accepted that the election was not as straight forward as he initially stated, and that he has agreed to a run off (even though the article states that it was not easy to get Karzai to agree to a run off) (link to article):

It had been hard to get President Hamid Karzai to accept a run-off, he said. Earlier, there were indications that Mr Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah were discussing a power-sharing deal. The UN meanwhile announced that 200 top officials who had allegedly been complicit in electoral fraud in August were being replaced.
In an interview with the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, Mr Eide admitted that there had been difficult days of discussion in Kabul to convince President Karzai to accept a second round vote on 7 November.

Afghan election scenario gets murkier

Ashish — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:24:13 +0000

In the run upto to the Afghan elections and soon after the elections, there were wide-spread allegations of election fraud, of corrupt practices, and downright stealing of the election. The Afghan elections were structured that if no candidate got more than 50% of the vote, there would be a run-off to decide the final winner. Soon after the election, the current President, Hamid Karzai, declared that he was the winner by a significant margin, a claim disputed by the supporters of his challenger, the former Afghan foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah. That claim has not been settled till late, and it is of no credit to the Election Commission that it has allowed the process to continue till now. This happens at a time when the credibility of the Government is low, since it does not control an increasing larger section of the country (the resurgent Taliban is fighting in larger sections of the country), with the Government being accused of corruption and of being unable to provide effective governance, with large sections of the population claiming that they do not have basic facilities.
At such a time, the Government, and its supporters among the major powers can ill afford to have this kind of instability in the country, but the fact is that the allegations of voter fraud have served to reduce the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai, and his Government, which is also not fully supported by the United States.

At such a time, the independent election commission is also undergoing turmoil, with the recent firing of the top deputy of the UN (Peter Galbraith) over allegations of voter fraud. An important member of the election commission, and a native Afghan, Judge Mustafa Barakzai, resigned from the commission claiming that his views were ignored (link to article):

Complaints of irregularities have dogged the presidential elections. The top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, admitted Sunday that the vote was marred by “widespread fraud.” Eide’s recently fired deputy Peter Galbraith told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday that Eide earlier refused to share details of voting irregularities with Afghan election officials. Galbraith also said his former boss could have prevented some fraud by closing unsecured polling stations.
With findings of the fraud complaints investigation upcoming, Galbraith said he anticipates the commission will determine that Afghan President Hamid Karzai will not have enough votes to avoid a runoff. “I think there’s a very strong likelihood that the election complaints commission will find that he’s below 50 percent, and then the question is whether Karzai will accept that decision and whether the Independent Election Commission, which is not independent but a pro-Karzai body, will accept that decision,” Galbraith said.