Here are
some recent editorials I wrote for The Gulf Today. (Posted for my records):
London
killings a
barbaric
act
Brutal
terrorists, basically cowards who target innocent civilians, have struck again
in London and mere condolences and condemnations will not do any longer. Time
has come for stronger action against enemies of humanity.
The third
attack in three months implies that Britain's counter-terrorism strategy needs to be swiftly
strengthened and countries around the
world should unify efforts more effectively to tackle the scourge of extremism.
There is also a dire need for international action
to combat extremist content online, a message Prime Minister Theresa May took
to the G7 leaders summit last week.
May’s announcement that the general election will
go ahead as planned on Thursday makes sense because such monstrous violence
should never be allowed to disrupt the democratic process, as it would send a
wrong message.
London’s distress is palpable.
Eyewitnesses have described harrowing scenes as the
attackers' van veered on and off the bridge sidewalk, hitting people along the
way. The three evil attackers later ran into an area packed with restaurants,
stabbing many indiscriminately.
Saturday's attack has come less than two weeks
after a suicide bomber Salman Abedi blew himself up at a concert in Manchester
on May 22, killing at least 22.
Britain raised its terror threat to the highest
level of "critical" and deployed troops on the streets on May 23, a
day after the Manchester suicide attack. The critical level means another
attack could be imminent. It was reduced to "severe," which means an
attack is highly likely.
On March 22, terrorist Khalid Masood ploughed a
rented car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in London and stabbed a
policeman to death before being shot dead. His attack killed five people.
US
President Donald Trump’s accusation against
London's mayor Sadiq Khan, blaming him of downplaying the threat of terrorism,
is in poor taste. This is not the hour for politics. Terrorism is
universal and so are its victims.
Peace-loving
UAE has always maintained that terrorism has no place in a sane world, and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International
Cooperation has rightly stressed that London’s terrorist attacks reaffirm the
urgent need for concerted international efforts to combat terrorism in all
forms and manifestations.
As the ministry noted, innocent civilians pay the
price of these terrorist crimes. There is a need for joint cooperation to
address this serious scourge that threatens the security and stability of
countries all over the world.
Terrorism should never ever be allowed to scuttle
the solidarity of peace-loving people and nations.
Spiralling insecurity
in Afghanistan
The truck bombing in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter
that left a large number of innocent people dead or severely injured is an
abhorrent act of barbarism that exposes the terrorists’ horrific mindset and
highlights the need for the international community to do more to help
Afghanistan.
The
impact of the bomb was so strong that a huge
hole was ripped into the ground at the site of the explosion, which also tore
off the front portion of the German embassy building, shattered windows and
blew doors off in houses hundreds of metres away.
Not a month passes without such incidents in the
country and the distressing fact is that vulnerable civilians are bearing the
brunt of the horrible attacks.
The victims of the latest explosion were mainly
Afghan civilians on their way to work or school, as well as office workers
whose nearby buildings did not have the protection of the blast walls.
The fact that the powerful blast from a truck
stuffed with more than 1,500 kilogrammes of explosives came just days into the
Holy Fasting Month of Ramadan signifies the terrorists’ total disregard for
human lives and values.
The endless suffering of Afghan children raises
questions about the future of an entire generation.
The first
four months of 2017 alone witnessed the highest recorded number of child
civilian casualties resulting from conflict-related incidents in Afghanistan,
including the highest number of children killed, for the same comparable period
since the he UN Assistance Mission (UNAMA) began documenting cases.
Between
Jan.1 and April 30, 2017, Unama preliminarily recorded 283 child deaths, a 21
per cent increase compared with the same period in 2016. Children are killed by
explosive remnants of war in civilian-populated areas and in ground fighting.
US President Donald Trump is due to decide on a
recommendation to send nearly 5,000 more troops to bolster the small NATO
training force and US counter-terrorism mission now totalling over 10,000.
The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General
John Nicholson, told a Congressional hearing that he needed several thousand
more troops to help Afghan forces break a "stalemate" with the
Taliban.
While
Trump brags about his use of an 11-tonne bomb on a Daesh tunnel network in
Afghanistan, there has been no evidence on the ground that the terrorists have
been contained.
The conflict in Afghanistan is dangerously widening
and the international community needs to act. The perpetrators of the
horrendous crime should be forced to face justice at the earliest.
Ensure
safety of
civilians
in Raqa
Even as the US-backed campaign to capture Raqa in
Syria is all set to accelerate, the safety and protection of thousands of civilians there
remains a prime concern.
Civilians
trapped in Raqa face a dire situation — they risk being killed by Daesh snipers
or mines if they try to flee but could also be used by the terrorists as human
shields if they decide to remain.
According
to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), there has been a drop in the
number of people escaping Raqa over the past week, which is an indication that
Daesh may use the 200,000 people still trapped in the city as human shields.
Raqa has
been the scene of some of the Daesh’s worst atrocities, including gruesome
executions, public display of bodies and the trafficking of women.
Compounding
the problems, civilians have been increasingly facing food, water, health care
and electricity shortages in recent months, even as humanitarian programmes
supporting Syrian refugees and their host communities are quickly running out
of resources.
Top UN
officials have rightly called for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained access
to those affected by the fighting in Raqa, and more broadly to the 4.5 million
who are still in hard-to-reach areas across the war-torn country.
More than
160,000 people have been displaced since May 1 with the situation on the ground
remaining fluid.
As per UN
officials, there are some 87,200 in the Ar-Raqa governorate, nearly 37,000 in
Aleppo, over 33,400 in Idlib and smaller numbers in Hama, Deir-ez-Zor and Homs.
More than
320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011
with anti-government protests.
The war
has also extracted the worst toll on the country’s children. Tens of thousands
have been killed and many have been forcibly detained, tortured, subjected to
sexual violence, forcibly recruited and in some cases executed.
Reports
reveal a grim scenario where nearly seven million children are living in
poverty and some 1.75 million are out of schools with another 1.35 million at
the risk of dropping out.
Almost
one in three schools have been damaged, destroyed, or otherwise made
inaccessible.
It should not be forgotten that the Raqa campaign
has already resulted in massive civilian casualties, displacement and serious
infrastructure destruction.
The fears of the UN human rights office about
increasing reports of civilian deaths as air strikes escalate are legitimate
and need to be addressed.
Challenges
lined up
for
bruised May
British Prime Minister Theresa May’s political
gamble has backfired stunningly.
She was cruising along well with a solid majority in
Parliament and several years to run on her party's mandate.
Temptation played a villain.
With opinion polls predicting she would romp home
with as high as a triple-digit majority, May called the election.
Now, she has not only lost her Conservative majority, but
her authority has also been weakened substantially.
The election outcome has pushed Britain again into
a period of uncertainty less than a year after the country's decision to leave
the European Union, which had already led the pound to collapse about 15 per
cent against the dollar between June and October 2016.
The pound hit an eight-week low against the dollar
and its lowest levels in seven months versus the euro before recovering
slightly on news May would form a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)-backed government.
The centre-right, pro-Brexit DUP’s 10 seats are
enough to give May's Conservatives a fragile but workable partnership.
The biggest winner seems to be Labour leader Jeremy
Corbyn. Labour's increase in seats from 229 to almost 261 has confounded expectations
that his intense left-wing views would cost him dear.
Initially written off by many pollsters, Labour
surged in the final weeks of the campaign, drawing huge support from young
people, who appeared to have turned out to vote in bigger-than-expected
numbers, lured by the promise of the elimination of tuition fees, the hope of
better jobs and a chance to own property.
The poll bruising is not for May alone.
In a blow to its hopes for another referendum on
whether Scotland should leave the United Kingdom, the pro-independence Scottish
National Party lost about 21 of its 54 seats.
Its casualties included Alex Salmond, one of the
party's highest-profile lawmakers.
May had initially earned a reputation as a
no-nonsense minister when leading the interior ministry, one of the toughest
jobs in politics, and was viewed as a shrewd political operator.
A lackluster campaigning style and a plan to force
elderly people to pay more for their care, a proposal her opponents dubbed the
"dementia tax," have all been factors that cost May some valuable
seats.
The
election has proved that Britain remains a nation divided.
The present situation will make the already complex
EU negotiations even more complicated. The challenge before May is to tactfully
negotiate Brexit, even while addressing several domestic challenges like
economy and terrorism.
An arduous task, indeed.
Turn
up the heat
on
Pyongyang
The
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has once again ignited fresh
tension in the region by test-firing a Scud-type
missile that fell close to its neighbour, Japan, and the world community
cannot afford to remain silent in the face of such irresponsible and continuing
provocation.
It was
the North’s third ballistic missile test in as many weeks and the 12th this
year, carried out in absolute defiance of United Nations sanctions warnings.
After
almost every such test, the UN Security Council vows to “fully and
comprehensively implement all measures” imposed on the country, but it is
abundantly clear that Pyongyang is just not bothered.
Japan’s
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s anger is justified especially because North Korea has developed a Scud variant, called
Scud-ER (extended range), capable of travelling as far as 1,000km, which means
that Japan is within its range.
Monday’s
test also marked the second time this year that a North Korean missile fell
provocatively close to Japan.
Washington
too has its share of worries, as indications are that the North has been
stepping up efforts towards its ultimate goal of developing an intercontinental
ballistic missile that can deliver a nuclear warhead to the continental US.
President Donald Trump Trump has portrayed the
missile test as an affront to China in a morning post on Twitter. "North
Korea has shown great disrespect for their neighbor, China, by shooting off yet
another ballistic missile...but China is trying hard!" he wrote.
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis’ argument that war
is not an answer makes sense as the consequences could be disastrous for the
world. The North Korean regime has hundreds of artillery cannons and rocket
launchers within range of one of the most densely populated cities on earth,
which is the capital of South Korea.
While Washington has opted for sanctions and
diplomatic pressure, China, the North's closest ally, can do much more by
stepping up economic pressure.
South
Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-In, is a moderate leader who advocates dialogue
with the North in a break from his conservative predecessors. Shockingly, even
his reasonable approach does not seem to have had any positive effect on
Pyongyang.
The DPRK should cooperate with UN officials in
implementing the Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards and resolve any
outstanding issues through dialogue.
It should desist from conducting any further
nuclear/ballistic missile test and return to the path of denuclearisation. A
peaceful, diplomatic and political solution is the only way forward.
