“A vote may take place as soon as tomorrow or February 6,” French Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters at the UN after three hours of negotiations. Ambassadors have begun intense negotiations on Wednesday, after a high-level meeting urging the Security Council to back an Arab plan to end the crisis.

The new draft plan prepared for Syria has dropped the insistence on Assad handing over powers to his deputy, a key part of the Arab League peace plan, also a reference to stopping the flow of arms to Syria, reports BBC. The new text, circulated Wednesday night, scraps the portion about “formation of a national unity government” and “delegation by the president of Syria of his full authority to his deputy”, according to a Bloomberg report.

Diplomats described the talks as positive. The call for Assad to hand over power to his deputy remained “one of the more difficult issues”, said US Ambassador Susan Rice. Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin also admitted to some progress: “I think we have a much better understanding of what we need to do to reach consensus.”

Churkin added that the diplomats are “working very hard” and that the negotiations are “heavy going.” Russia reiterated Wednesday that it would veto any UN resolution on Syria that it finds unacceptable. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had earlier said Council members must decide whether they supported the Syrian people or “a brutal, dictatorial regime”.

Diplomatic sources claim the Western states appear to support the new text – drawn up by Morocco – on condition that it gets a yes vote from Russia, rather than an abstention, according to the BBC’s Barbara Plett at the UN headquarters in New York. Arab and Western states Tuesday urged the UN Security Council to act swiftly on a resolution backing the Arab League plan to defuse the 11-month-old uprising against Assad and his family’s dynastic rule.

Human rights groups and activists say more than 7,000 people have been killed by Syrian security forces since the uprising began in March. Syrian security forces closed public squares and set up checkpoints on Thursday in the flashpoint central city of Hama

It came after protesters splashed red paint in the streets to mark 30 years since an uprising there was crushed by Assad’s father Hafez, resulting in the death of at least 10,000 people. ”They want to kill the memory and they do not want us to remember,” said an activist in the city, where residents said tanks blocked main squares to prevent demonstrations.

“But we will not accept it,” the activist told Reuters news agency. Assad’s forces have been fighting back against rebels – in recent days claiming back suburbs of Damascus and areas north-west of the capital. At least 43 people were killed by security forces on Wednesday, according to one activist group.

The Philippines have been battling the Abu Sayyaf since the 1990s (AFP/File, Therence Koh)

Among the dead includes Abu Sayyaf leader Umbra Jumdail, alias Abu Pula, a Filipino; Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan; and Singaporean Abdullah Ali, who uses the guerrilla name Muawiyah, military spokesman Col. Marcelo Burgos said.

“Our troops on the ground have confirmed the death of 15 Abu Sayyaf and JI members, including Zulkifli bin Abdul Hir, alias Marwan, Mohammad Ali, alias Muawiyah, and Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Pula,” Coballes said.

Marwan, a top leader of the Indonesian-based terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah, carried a $5-million bounty for his killing or arrest – a reward offered by the US government.

The Jemaah Islamiyah is the militant organisation blamed for some of Southeast Asia’s deadliest terrorist attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings in which more than 200 people were killed.

Abu Pula, a Filipino, is a founder and one of the most senior figures of the Abu Sayyaf group, which was established in the southern Philippines in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network.

The Abu Sayyaf is blamed for the worst terrorist attacks in the Philippines, including the bombing of a ferry in Manila that killed more than 100 people.

This trade surplus of $1.71 billion in December 2011 was $366 million higher than the down-ward-ly revised surplus of $1.34 billion in November, with exports up 2 per cent and imports up 1 per cent on the month. Australia recorded its 10th consecutive trade surplus in December, capping a year in which dynamic Asian demand helped drive a record $313 billion in exports.

The annual export figure was 10 per cent higher than the 2010 total, with growth driven by minerals and rural goods. Trade Minister Craig Emerson said the data attested to the strength of the Australian economy and the importance of its engagement with Asia.

“Australia is well-positioned to reap the benefits of strong economic growth in economies as diverse as China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia,” Dr Emerson said. ”Through Prime Minister Gillard’s Asian Century White Paper project, the government is developing policies for even stronger integration of the Australian economy with those of the Asian region.”

Last year was the first calendar year in which exports topped $300 billion. The trade surplus of $19.2 billion was also the largest ever for a calendar year. Demand from fast-growing Asian economies drove the robust performance: total merchandise exports to North Asia rose 18 per cent for the year, with exports to China up 24 per cent.

Merchandise exports to ASEAN, meanwhile, climbed 23 per cent.

After 10 consecutive monthly trade surpluses, economists remain split over whether the strong Australian dollar and falling commodity prices will drag down future export growth.

CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian expects the trade boom to continue making Australians richer, boosting confidence levels and pushing consumers to start spending again.

But ANZ chief Australian economist Katie Dean warned the super strong trade surplus would not last and December’s data was boosted by China stockpiling ahead of the new year.

In recent weeks commodity prices have strengthened as worries about a hard

landing for the Chinese economy have receded, helping Australian exports to outpace imports by $1.7 billion – exceeding market expectations.

ANZ has however warned that Australia will be running a deficit again by late this year as softer commodity prices and a strong rise in imports offset a pick-up in resource export volumes.

“The exports are holding pretty steady amid the slowdown in Asia. The strong rise in exports in December was mainly driven by coal shipments,” said JP Morgan economist Ben Jarman.

“There was a concern about China’s economy slowing down pretty sharply and it would be shown in the Aussie trade numbers, but that hasn’t really happened So we’re getting that income out of Asia despite the moderation in growth,” Jarman stated.

“On the imports side, it is a little patchy and distorted by some things that are happening with automobiles because of some supply-chain issues in Asia.”

HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham was upbeat, saying the recovery of coal exports after last year’s damaging Queensland floods was back in full swing, boosting export levels.

The trade data highlighted the multi-speed economy with overall commodity exports up almost 20 per cent in the past 12 months while services exports slowed.

Resources represented about 62 per cent of total exports in December, well above their long-term’s average.

Last year Japan, China, South Korea and India registered a collective trade surplus of more than $90 billion with Australia.

The birthday of the Prophet will, unfortunately, not be commemorated publicly in Mecca, where he was born, in Medina, or elsewhere in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  The KSA is the only Muslim state that does not recognize Milad An-Nabi.   For the past decade, since a royal order by then-Crown-Prince and now King Abdullah, Saudi Muslims have been permitted to praise the prophet at Milad An-Nabi behind the walls of private homes.   But there will be no open festivals or processions within Saudi Arabia’s borders.

Why is this?  Muslims know that Milad An-Nabi is hated by the Wahhabi fundamentalists who control religious life under Saudi rule.   It is condemned as alleged “shirk” or polytheism, supposedly diluting the Muslim worship of one God.   Milad An-Nabi has further been assailed as an imitation of the Christian Christmas.

In October 2011, Darul Uloom, the headquarters of the Deobandi fundamentalist sect in Uttar Pradesh, issued a fatwa signed by its vice-chancellor, Maulana Abul Qasim Naumani, denouncing all birthday observances, including that of Muhammad.  The Deobandi clerics proclaimed “Muslims should not follow the tradition of western culture of celebrating birthdays as it [is] against the Shariat law.”   Darul Uloom emphasized that its students do not participate in Milad An-Nabi.  In this manner, they revealed themselves to be satellites of Wahhabism.

Students (talibs) from another Deobandi medresa, Darul Uloom Haqqania in Pakistan, formed the nucleus of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after 1996.  They were supported by Pakistani military and intelligence officials, who continue to assist radical Islamists in their own country as well as among their neighbors. Deobandi medresas have spread across the subcontinent.   In line with the general radical trend among Pakistani Muslims in the West, Deobandi medresas have proliferated in Britain, and several now operate in the U.S. and Canada.   The latter include the Institute for Islamic Education in Chicago, Darul Uloom Madania in Buffalo, New York, Darul Uloom New York, in Jamaica, a neighborhood in the metropolitan borough of Queens, and Darul Uloom Canada, in the province of Ontario.  Deobandism is also disseminated among Muslims by the massive revivalist network, Tablighi Jamaat.

Darul Uloom Deoband received global attention most recently when it opposed the participation of the author Salman Rushdie in the Jaipur Literature Festival.  Rushdie stated his fear of a homicidal attack and did not appear.  A crowd of Muslim protestors came to the Festival, bent clearly on disrupting it if Rushdie were to be seen by videolink from London.   William Dalrymple, head of the Festival and a commentator notably sympathetic to Islam, pointed out to the London Guardian that Rushdie had attended the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2007 without incident.

Apparently unwilling to identify directly the purveyors of radical ideology among Indian Muslims, Dalrymple argued that the uproar in Jaipur was caused by local politics.  He mentioned the killing of nine Muslims by Rajasthan police at Gopalgarh in September 2011, and the cycle of elections to be held in Uttar Pradesh, with its prominent Muslim minority, in February and March of this year.   In addition, Dalrymple assigned equal or greater responsibility to Hindu politicians and academics for censorship of works they consider offensive.

Dalrymple blamed the dispute ultimately on the legacy of foreign imperialism, writing, “Outdated colonial laws need to be repealed, violent fringe groups must be stopped from holding the nation to ransom and we need a movement to stop politicians abusing religious sentiment for political gain. Only when freedom of expression can be taken for granted can India really call itself the democracy it claims so proudly to be.”  He concluded by noting that Rushdie appeared on Indian television, interviewed by Barkha Dutt, and spoke defiantly, branding the extremists “the real enemies of Islam.”  Dalrymple added, “Meanwhile, on stage, we had a rousing panel discussion about freedom of expression, which was beamed live around India. There could have been worse outcomes.”

But for moderate and traditional Muslims, domination by extremist ideology and exploitation of religion for political ends are the worst of all outcomes. Violence by Islam-haters takes lives, but radicalism steals the soul of our community, and combatting it must take priority over review of the colonial heritage.  This lesson is being learned in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosova, Macedonia, and other Muslim lands wracked by anti-Muslim hatred in the Balkans.  It was learned in the past in Arabia, Iraq, Muslim Spain, and elsewhere.

The controversy over Rushdie’s Satanic Verses and ensuing fatwa against him by the Iranian clerical regime after the book’s publication in 1988 – 24 years ago – introduced what the Islamologist Daniel Pipes called “Rushdie rules.”   In these conditions fear of offending Muslims induces non-Muslim media and political leaders to refrain from criticizing Muslims or publicizing critical writings about Islam.  But Muslims should not be afraid of criticism.  If rhetorical or pictorial attacks by non-Muslims sting us, we should ask ourselves how we have failed to make Islam better and more worthy of respect.   When radicalism enables terrorism, we must help our non-Muslim neighbors (and political leaders) to extirpate it.

The Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, Igarashi Hitoshi, was murdered in 1991, in presumed fulfillment of the Iranian fatwa against Rushdie, by an unknown assailant.   The Italian publisher of the book, Ettore Caprio, was seriously injured in the same year.   The Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was shot in an incident believed linked to the book in 1993.  Also in 1993, in Sivas, Turkey, a cultural festival sponsored mainly by Alevi Muslims – a heterodox sect composed of Turks and Kurds who have fused Shia, Sufi, and pre-Islamic shamanic practices – was attacked by Islamist fanatics at a local hotel.  The building was burned and 37 people perished.  One who escaped was Aziz Nesin, translator of The Satanic Verses into Turkish, who died two years later.

Revival of agitation against Rushdie and his book demonstrates an increase in radical preaching among Muslims in many countries, reflected additionally in the large vote granted in Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahhabi (so-called “Salafi”) Hizb Ul-Nur or “Party of the Light.”   Muslims are not forced in any part of the world to read Rushdie’s writings or the periodicals that publish anti-Islam cartoons.   Violence by those denouncing them has had no effect aside from taking lives unjustifiably and diminishing the dignity of Islamic believers.  Muslims who were insulted by Rushdie’s book or the various cartoons in Western media have better and more Islamic ways of expressing their disapproval: by ignoring them or by expressing polite and measured disagreement with their content.  Attempts at legal censorship of anti-religious expression will fail in Western countries.   No effort to evade this fact by imposing hate-speech laws or forbidding the “defamation of religion” – as proposed by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – will change this reality.

The same question must be asked of Muslims in the most recent Rushdie contention as was posed by myself and a few others during the first “Muhammad cartoons” affair in 2005.  That is, if we are firm in our faith, how are we harmed by anybody’s writings or drawings against us?   As Muslims, we should follow Qur’an and act with forbearance toward those who denigrate our religion.   Physical attacks on innocent Muslims may require physical self-defense… but in that arena as well as the realm of ideas, radical Muslims do more harm to moderate and traditional Muslims than Islam-haters perpetrate. Violence is an indicator of weakness, not strength, in belief.   Jihadists often admit they have turned to the path of terror because they were deficient in their faith.

At the time of the Danish cartoons controversy, in Libya 11 people were slain in demonstrations against the cartoons.   Rioters attacked European diplomatic facilities in Damascus, Syria.  But how did the alleged damage to Islam by the Muhammad cartoons compare with the killing of 15,000 people in the recent Libyan civil war, many at the hands of the late dictator Mu’ammar Al-Qadhdhafi’s guards and mercenaries, or the 6,000 dead in the current uprising in Syria?   A German journalist, Kristina Bergmann, wrote presciently from Cairo in the weekly Der Spiegel, in 2006, “The governments in Cairo, Damascus, Riyadh and elsewhere can only hope that the pent-up rage of the man in the street doesn’t turn at some point from Denmark onto them.”   Her prediction has come true.  But it is also true that such ructions were and are promoted by despotic governments to divert the attention of their subjects from their difficult plight.

The action of Darul Uloom Deoband to block Rushdie from revisiting India brings up another question.  How do the Deobandi clerics possess the moral right to condemn writings disrespectful of Islam when they have forbidden expressions of love for Muhammad?   After Darul Uloom Deoband issued its fatwa against Milad An-Nabi, a website, “Friends of Deoband,” tried to disclaim the charge that banning the holiday expressed disregard for Muhammad.  Its writer asserted, “we do not denounce the commemoration of his noble birth. Rather, we denounce the abominable acts that are associated with it as you [may] have seen in the mawludi functions which [take place] in India, of narrating weak and forged narrations, the mixing of men and women, and extravagance in lighting candles and decorations.”   This is an absurd attempt to evade responsibility for an action that outrages traditional Muslims and baffles non-Muslims.

Wahhabis, Deobandis, and other fundamentalists usurping the heritage of Sunnism act openly as if they hate the personality of Muhammad, his family, companions, and successors.  They prevent the holding of Milad An-Nabi.   In Mecca and Medina, they have devastated the Islamic monuments dating from the prophet’s time.   Wahhabis want to reduce the prophet to an ordinary man, supposedly to avoid his equation with God.  But a great prophet, and for Muslims, the last prophet, cannot be treated as a banal individual by those who believe in his prophecy.

In writing this column, I recall many personal experiences.  Having become Muslim based on my work as a journalist in the Balkans, I have observed the devotion to Muhammad expressed by Bosnian and Albanian Muslims on his birthday, which is included officially in the Islamic calendar (takvim) by the clerics of Sarajevo.   Approval for mevlud in Bosnia-Hercegovina cannot be avoided even by the religious apparatus influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, because the clerics know the high level of attachment the Muslims express for the practice.

I have told Wahhabi interlopers in the Balkans and elsewhere repeatedly that if they try to force the Balkan Muslims – some 250,000 of whom died in the wars of the 1990s – to abandon mevlud, Sufism, decorated mosques, religious and folk music, and other aspects of local Islamic culture the fundamentalists abhor, they will drive the people away from religion, rather than bonding them to it.  Wahhabis in Bosnia-Hercegovina told me that the destruction of historic Ottoman mosques by Serbian invaders was a matter of indifference to the Islamists, since “the mosques remain in the people’s hearts.”   That attitude is complicit with Serbian aggression.

I remember how, during the first commotion over The Satanic Verses, I witnessed a non-Muslim in a San Francisco bookstore expressing his disappointment that the work was not an erotic novel.   Muslim anger had surrounded the book with a penumbra of scandal and sexuality.  The irritated book buyer, who did not seem very well-educated, had no idea why else the book might have offended Muslims. How is Islam defended when Muslims engage in intolerant and criminal outbursts that distort the encounters many non-Muslims may have had, for the first time, with the religion?

Numerous individuals who came forward to defend Rushdie against “the Muslims” in 1988 would not then support dissidents in then-Communist countries. Opposing Muslim attempts at censorship was easy for them compared with protecting Polish or Cuban dissenters.  How did we Muslims become so degraded as to be considered worse than Communist dictators? Sadly, in the 24 years that have since gone by, the possibilities for reasonable, spiritually-based knowledge of Islam among non-Muslims has been prevented most often by the bigoted interference of Islamist demagogues.

And finally, I am reminded of an occasion after I had become Muslim, when I was still reporting for the San Francisco Chronicle, and proposed to write an article for the paper on Milad An-Nabi.  A large assembly for Muhammad’s birthday, titled a “seerah conference” or rally to praise Muhammad’s life (to avoid the censure of Wahhabi clerics), had been held in the Silicon Valley area, with its large South Asian Muslim population.  But I was informed peremptorily by a representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a purported “civil rights” group and pillar of the “Wahhabi lobby” in the U.S., that praising Muhammad on his birthday was “not part of Islam.”   I was shocked then and remain appalled.

According to The Times of India, elaborate preparations for Milad An-Nabi are underway in Hyderabad.   One procession will be led by a group with an interesting name and acronym: the Sunni United Front of India (SUFI).  After Darul Uloom Deoband issued its fatwa against Milad An-Nabi, Sufis affiliated with the All-India Ulema and Mashaikh Board in U.P. rejected it.  Maulana Syed Mohammad Ashraf Kichowchhwi, their general secretary, cited Islamic authorities including an inspirer of the Deobandi founders, Haaji Imdaadullah Muhajir Maqqi, who performed Milad An-Nabi and affirmed that it conferred blessings upon him and others.

Milad An-Nabi may be memorable in Egypt this year, for the wrong reasons. The occasion is usually important for Egyptian Muslims.   But how will the newly-ascendant Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian Wahhabis of the Nur party, who together gained a majority of 65 percent in the country’s elections, respond to the commencement of Milad An-Nabi in Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities?

A wise Kuwaiti Sufi, Sheikh Yusuf Ibn Al-Sayyid Hashim Al-Rifa’i (b. 1932), wrote in 1999, “Alas, woe and misery for a Sect that hates its Prophet, whether in word or in deed” [Emphasis in original].   Before him, a Saudi sheikh considered the outstanding defender of Sufism against Wahhabi oppression in that country, Sayyid Muhammad Ibn ’Alawi Al-Maliki (1947–2004), refuted the Wahhabi accusation that Milad An-Nabi “imitates the Christians” by showing that in narratives of the Night Journey of Muhammad, it is said that the Prophet of Islam, accompanied by the Archangels Michael and Gabriel (Jibril), passed over the town of Bethlehem, and Muhammad prostrated twice in prayer to mark the birth of Jesus.

Books and cartoons lampooning Islam do much less harm to the faith than absurd strictures on Muslim life, which have given the religion a reputation for extremism in word and daily practice, and terrorism in deed.   Before Muslims in India and elsewhere can effectively defend Islam against those who are prejudiced against it, we must clean up our own house and protect our traditions within our community.  Criticism of Islam must be answered by an effective intellectual defense of Islam.  That means repudiating the Saudi Wahhabis, South Asian Deobandis, Muslim Brotherhood, and all other elements that replace balanced dialogue among believers, and with adherents to other faiths, by flimsy fatwas and menacing manipulations.

We must restore our love of our prophet before we can succeed in answering the criticisms of non-Muslims.   In that spirit, I wish to all of the traditional and moderate Muslims of the world, “Milad An-Nabi Mubarak!”  Light candles, march in processions, and read the poetry of Milad An-Nabi!  Paraphrasing a Jewish salutation, I will add, “Next year in Mecca and Medina!”  May the blessings of Muhammad’s birthday be generously bestowed upon you and upon all humanity.

Columnist, Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, is Director of Center for Islamic Pluralism, Washington DC. 

Analysts were of the view that falling demand in key markets of the US and Europe in the wake of the ongoing economic crisis was to blame for sluggish Chinese exports. ”The economic situation in Europe continues to remain grim. It seems like the eurozone will not be able to avoid a recession in 2012,” Stephen Joske of the Economist Intelligence Unit was quoted as saying by the BBC. ”There is no doubt that China’s exports will have a tough year ahead.”

China main economic power house lie in the manufacturing and export sectors. But as overseas growth slows, China has lately been trying to boost demand for its products at home to rebalance its economy internally, which is a new thing for the Chinese economy.

But encouraging domestic demand has brought some challenges along with it including rising consumer prices. There are also fears about the formation of asset bubbles within the country. As a result, authorities have implemented measures to contain consumer price growth and cool down the nation’s property market. Analysts said these measures have started to take effect and may slow growth in short term.

“Even though demand is slowing we don’t see any major economic crisis building up,” Joske added. ”We are likely to get one or two bad quarters, but growth for the whole year should be robust by global standards.” The data showed that China’s purchasing managers index rose to 50.5 from 50.3 in December, indicating a slight expansion in the manufacturing activity.

US President Barack Obama

Washington (United States) – It appears like United States of America is headed, yet again, for a fourth straight year with a hefty $1 trillion and odd budget deficit. This is according to an economic outlook released by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The forecast depicts that President Barack Obama’s pledge to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term is sure to fall short. The report, therefore, provides Republicans ammunition to hammer Obama’s spending record in November’s elections.

Obama’s deficit-cutting goal has fallen short owing to opposition to his proposal of a tax increase on the wealthiest of Americans. Credit rating agencies are yet to express their reaction to the forecast yet. Standard and Poor’s downgraded the US’ top-tier rating during last year’s fight over raising the debt limit.

Credit rating agencies have urged for at least $4 trillion in U.S. deficit reduction over the next decade. Republicans have called the CBO forecast a “harsh indictment” of Obama’s economic policies. Polls have shown unhappiness of Americans with the president’s economic stewardship since he took office in 2009.

“Today’s report is further confirmation that the president’s record has failed to live up to his rhetoric,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, Republican-Texas. ”We will not solve this problem unless both sides, Democrats and Republicans, are willing to move off their fixed positions and find common ground,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. “Republicans must be willing to put revenue on the table.”

The White House came to Obama’s defense. It blamed the problem on the recession the president inherited, the tax cut and spending policies pursued by George W. Bush and stiff resistance from Republicans to Obama’s deficit reduction proposals.

White House Spokesman Jay Carney said Obama’s policies are working. Obama had proposed a $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan last September but it stalled amid bickering on Capitol Hill. He has plans to revive it when he proposes his 2013 budget on February 6, White House officials have said.

World Trade Center Attack

The latest tiff involving the bungled program of novelist Salman Rushdie’s participation in the just concluded Jaipur Literary Festival highlights a major problem with public life in India today. Issues and policy decisions that need to be discussed in the open are handled surreptitiously with no clue as to how a decision was reached and communicated to the officials. The reason given for the cancellation was intelligence input from Mumbai of possible terrorist threat to Rushdie. But this was immediately denied by the supposed source, the Mumbai police. Why did the home minister P. Chidambaram, at the obvious behest of Sonia Gandhi have to go to Jaipur to convince Chief Minister to cancel Rushdie’s visit and later his video speech? This was too minor, almost trivial an issue to involve such a political heavyweight. What really happened and what was the fear?

Unfortunately, there is a shroud of secrecy surrounding the whole affair which seems to be the norm these days with anything involving the Congress party and its dealings. The no-longer Grand but Old Party is controlled by the occupant of 10 Janpath. Since neither Sonia Gandhi nor her ward Rahul holds press conferences or faces questions even on such vital issues as freedom and security, the motives and intentions of the government they control have to be pieced together from the statements of the party spokesmen like Digvijay Singh and trusted cabinet ministers like Chidambaram. In such a climate lacking both clarity and candor it is natural that conspiracy theories should spring up to fill the vacuum.

Sonia & Rahul Gandhi

This is not an isolated case. The purpose of Mrs. Gandhi’s recent visit to the U.S. for what appears to have been medical treatment was kept hidden from the public and the media. The proper thing would have been to hold a press conference, explain the reason for the visit and reassure the public. The result of the secrecy and silence was an extraordinary rumor to the effect that she was perfectly healthy and the real purpose of the trip was to negotiate transfer of her and her children’s substantial assets from Swiss banks (estimated to be between $2.5 and $5 billion) to safer havens. (If there are any safer havens than Swiss banks, many might want to know.)

This obsessive preoccupation with secrecy by public servants is also not new and has not served the nation well. The result again is conjecture and conspiracy theories ranging from the pointless to the substantial. Some unofficial biographers claim that Mrs. Gandhi was born not in 1946 in Orbassano (near Turin) as she now claims but two years earlier in Luciana on the Swiss border. (Does it really matter?) There is also the story that when Indira Gandhi lost the post-Emergency election in 1977, Sonia Gandhi with her children went and sought refuge in the Italian embassy, only to be brought back on assurance of safety by her sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi. (This may have been influenced in part by the fact that when the Bangladesh war broke out Rajiv Gandhi, then a serving pilot went on ‘leave’ to Italy with his wife and children. He was the only government pilot to be granted leave.)

Some of this could be dismissed as aberrations of little consequence, but for the fact Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul happen to be two of the most influential politicians of India at a critical juncture. India occupies a pivotal position in the world today in its struggle against global terrorism. This has acquired special urgency as Egypt as well as much of the Islamic world has fallen into turmoil. To go with this Pakistan is teetering on the edge of anarchy. In the face of this grim reality, it is disturbing to see Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi embarked on a course of reckless appeasement of militant organizations that pose a threat to national security and world peace.

There are two issues here— secrecy where transparency is the need of the hour and extreme sensitivity and knee-jerk reactions to the feelings or perceived feelings of Islamist organizations including militants. The sorry episode involving Rushdie’s cancelled program under false claims of imminent threat is just one example. As the public was still digesting this episode, Sonia Gandhi’s spokesman Digvijay Singh announced that Tasleema Nasrin’s book release program scheduled for the Kolkotta Book fair had also been cancelled. In effect, the UPA Government is allowing the militants to set the agenda for what the people of India may or may not say, hear and read.

Salman Rushdie

There is in fact no need of conspiracy theories. In spite of the secrecy and silence diligently maintained by the Gandhi family and its spokespersons, there is enough in the public record that reveals a pattern of behavior that accommodates, and even rationalizes intolerant behavior and a ready tendency to yield to obscurantist pressures. Facts given below are matters of record and cannot be attributed to any conspiracy theory, any more than the cancellation of the Rushdie and Tasleema Nasrin programs can. They speak for themselves.

Historical pattern

It is a little known fact that Mrs. Sonia Gandhi’s softness towards Islamic outfits has a history going back at least to 2001, the year in which the 9/11 attacks brought home the threat of Jihadi terrorism to America and the world though Indians have been dealing with it for decades. Soon after the WTC attacks, in November 2001, when the world was still recovering from the shock of 9/11, Mrs. Gandhi was asked to give a lecture at the Bin Laden family founded Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. In her talk titled “Conflict and coexistence in our age,” Mrs. Gandhi spoke vaguely, almost apologetically about extremism and fundamentalism, ‘of all religions’ without once mentioning the word “Jihad” or terrorism. The Telegraph of London called it a ‘strongly pro-Muslim speech.’

Mrs. Gandhi is not an Islamic scholar— she has not completed high school. Her party was not even in power at the time. There was no reason for the Bin Laden family or their Oxford Center to ask Mrs. Gandhi to deliver the lecture unless they felt that she could be used for damage control following the beating that the image of Islam had taken in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 attacks. They must have sensed that she might be vulnerable to pressure from extremist organizations. One may surmise that the authorities of the Oxford Center played on that fear in inviting her. The indisputable fact is that she did deliver the talk without reference to the main concern of the day.

What had been an appeasement policy when Mrs. Sonia Gandhi entered Indian politics as successor to her late husband Rajiv Gandhi morphed into outright defense of militant organizations when she and her party assumed power in 2004.  This has included her government diverting attention from Jihadi forces that launched attacks on Mumbai (and other places) by raising the bogey of ‘Hindu terrorists’ and other Red Herrings. Her government has filed weak cases with no evidence and trumped up charges. As a result, the counterterrorist and investigating agencies have been sent on a wild goose chase of this phantom instead of fighting real terrorists. As explained below, Mr. Rahul Gandhi has gone to the extent of misinforming the U.S. government by underplaying the threat to peace posed by the Jihadi outfit Lashkar e Toiba.

Here is a concrete example: the Student Islamic Movement of India or SIMI is a fundamentalist organization that has been implicated in several terrorist attacks in India. It played a key role in the horrific 26/11 attack in Mumbai, in which hundreds of innocent people were killed.  Yet when the previous government (headed by Mr. Vajpayee) introduced a bill in the Indian parliament to ban the outfit, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi vigorously opposed it claiming that SIMI was not a terrorist organization. (In the special parliament session in 2002, Sonia Gandhi had censured the Vajpayee government for banning SIMI.) Lawyers in her party even had a stay brought, but the Supreme Court reinstated the ban by declaring SIMI a terrorist organization. All this is a matter of record.

Anti-feminist atrocity

Mumbai Train Blast

The same accommodation of extremist obscurantist forces was in evidence in a notorious human rights case that has drawn international attention. When Imrana, a young Muslim woman was raped by her father-in-law, a self-appointed Muslim body calling itself the All India Muslim Personal Law Board issued a fatwa (ruling based on Sharia or Islamic law)  that the rape had made the victim Imrana ‘impure’ (haram) and as a result her marriage to her husband stood annulled. Adding insult to injury, it directed Imrana to leave her husband and live with her rapist father-in-law as one of his wives!

There were protests all over India and the whole world reacted with shock: Salman Rushdie, himself a victim of religious persecution, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times denouncing Sharia (Islamic law) and religious bodies like the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. In the midst of this storm, Mrs. Gandhi refused to come to the aid of the victim, or even condemn the atrocity. Instead, she directed her government’s law minister H.R. Bharadwaj (the current governor of Karnataka) to issue a statement exonerating the Muslim Personal Law Board— on the ground that the government cannot “interfere” in a matter touching on religion!

This cannot be dismissed as just vote bank politics or an election gimmick. It is also a very great insult to Muslims to suggest that they support such monstrous behavior in the name of Islam and would vote for Mrs. Gandhi’s party in gratitude.

Undermining the global war on terror

Wikileaks has revealed that Rahul Gandhi personally told the U.S. Ambassador that extremist Hindu organizations pose a greater threat than Lashkar e Toiba— an ISI trained Jihadi outfit with ties to Al Qaeda. This was said in private and not in a public meeting. In effect Mr. Gandhi was lobbying the U.S. Government on behalf of the terrorist outfit Lashkar e Toiba, and by implication its close relative Al Qaeda. Mr. Gandhi has neither denied nor retracted his statement.

Neither Mrs. Gandhi nor her son Rahul has ever uttered the word Jihad or mentioned Islamic terrorism even though India has been one of the worst victims of Jihadi terrorism. On the other hand, her lieutenants like Digvijay Singh have leveled baseless charges of ‘Hindu’ terrorism against members of nationalist organizations that advocate a strong stand against terrorism. As already noted, Rahul Gandhi has sought to dilute the threat of Jihadi outfits like Lashkar e Toiba by diverting attention to non-existent Hindu terrorist organizations, even privately lobbying the United States ambassador for the purpose, in effect trying to influence U.S. policy on fighting terrorism.

Mrs. Gandhi’s acts of appeasement, amounting at times to accommodation and surrender, is seriously undermining India’s efforts in fighting terrorism by diverting and demoralizing the national security forces. The war on terror is not just India’s war or America’s war but a war for defending the freedom of all of us against the forces of tyranny and religious obscurantism. Whatever her personal fears and prejudices, they cannot be allowed to sabotage the war on terror, which is an existential struggle for the survival of freedom.

History and geography have placed India in a pivotal position in this struggle, and there is no escaping it. Those who aspire for national leadership—like Rahul Gandhi—must show courage of conviction and reassure the public. If unequal to such a challenging task one must heed President Truman’s sage advice: “If you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” But what we seem to be witnessing on the part of the ‘first family’ is the opposite of this— desire for power and position through endless appeasement, secrecy and diversionary tactics. In fact, it goes beyond appeasement as must be clear by now.

The whole thing is fraught with a tragic irony. With the history of violent deaths in her family, Mrs. Gandhi’s concern for her and her family’s safety is understandable. But this does not excuse her or her son’s accommodation and diversionary tactics that only help the obscurantist forces and undermine those risking their lives fighting them. Those whom she and her son Rahul Gandhi are portraying as ‘Hindu terrorists’ are the very ones who have to protect them. Demonizing them by placing them on the same plane as the Jihadis can only demoralize them. How long can this go on? (Surely they don’t think the Taliban or Lashkar e Toiba can protect them or the nation.)

The Muslims of India have overwhelmingly rejected terrorism by participating in the democratic process. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are doing them no favor by appeasing and protecting the Islamic militants and extremists. Far from it. As previously noted in the Imrana episode, it is a very great insult to Muslims to imply that such sordid tactics will please them and make them vote for their party. They must realize that they cannot hunt with the hounds and run with the hare. They must show their leadership qualities for standing up for what is right and not just resort to what they think is the expedient for the moment and run away from the harsh reality. That is not leadership.

At the least such appeasement and accommodation send the wrong message to the enemies of the state. Appeasement never works— that is one of the great lessons of history. Seeing this, Winston Churchill defined an appeaser as one “who keeps feeding a crocodile in the hope it will eat him last.” Is this what India wants?

Myanmar President Thein Sein

Singapore – Myanmar President Thein Sein has assured his commitments to establish a “healthy democracy” and sought international support to meet the objectives of a young democratic country. While on a four-day state visit to Singapore, Thein Sein appealed to the international community towards encouraging Myanmar on its reform path, saying the transition period was fraught with challenges.

Thein Sein has also stated that ”The international community should render its support and encouragement to our effort to meet our objectives because a young democratic nation has emerged on this planet,”

Pledging to establish a “healthy democracy” after nearly half a century of military rule Thein Sein sought Singapore’s help to undertake economic reforms.

“We have turned a new page in our country in order to create better conditions in Myanmar. We want to give a brighter future for our people,” said Thein Sein. “We want our people to take part in the democratic reform process and we want democracy to thrive in Myanmar.”

The ex-general and former member of Myanmar’s feared junta added that “since we are on the right track to democracy we shall overcome these challenges with great care and proceed ahead till we reach our goals”.

Since the junta stepped aside last March to pave the way for a nominally civilian government, Myanmar has been undertaking various reform measures including freeing hundreds of political prisoners, loosening of media controls and reestablishing engagement with Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the fight for democracy, who is now participating in the upcoming by-elections.

The government has also agreed to ceasefire with several ethnic rebel groups in the past three months and is holding talks with others, many of whom have been fighting for autonomy for decades.

“The future of Myanmar lies in peace and stability, while economic development is a secondary priority for the country,” Thein Sein said in an interview with Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper.

“We are already on the chosen path to democracy and we will continue. We are nurturing the system to have a flourishing democracy in the country,” he said.

As the country has opened up to the outside world, ministers have started speaking more to the media. The president indicated interest in developing trade in foreign currencies and stocks as part of economic reforms. ”At the moment we do not have the skills and expertise (in this area) and are seeking technical assistance from international financial institutions,” he said.

Japan’s Daiwa Securities is advising Myanmar on making its the barely functioning stock exchange, set up in the 1990s, more vibrant. South Korean bourse operator Korea Exchange has also held talks with the authorities on setting up a separate bourse.

The International Monetary Fund is meanwhile advising Myanmar on currency reforms.

Singapore Monday offered to help Myanmar train its people in areas such as economic planning and urban development.

The government has launched a number of initiatives to boost the economy, introducing tax breaks for foreign investors and announcing tax exemptions to help exports of commodities such as rice, beans, corn and rubber.

But the secretary-general of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, said Tuesday that more needed to be done in order to enjoy the trade perks the grouping can offer.

“We make it clear that Myanmar will not benefit from dynamism of ASEAN, all the connectivity with ASEAN and the rest of the world until Myanmar makes adjustment inside, make some changes, amendment in the law, in the foreign investment law, in the production system,” Surin Pitsuwan told a news conference in Tokyo.

“We do not just look for resources, we do not just look for manpower, cheap labour… We also would like to share with them our own experiences. They can emulate what is right, they can avoid what we have done wrong. But Myanmar has certainly ASEAN to rely on.”

Of the EU’s 27 member states, 25 agreed to sign an accord to prevent reckless government spending. The treaty will empower the European Court of Justice to monitor compliance and impose fines on rule-breakers. The treaty also gives an enhanced role to the European Commission in scrutinizing national budgets.

The new treaty is proposed to be ready by March. Britain, however, has opted out of signing the accord. It had rejected the proposal when it was first put forward last month. The Czech Republic also did not sign citing constitutional objections. Neither country is among the 17 that use the euro currency.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said: “We will not be ratifying this treaty and it places no obligation on the UK.” Cameron said that further reforms were still needed by eurozone states to end the debt crisis in the region. ”I don’t think this treaty on its own will sort the eurozone’s problems,” he said after the leaders’ meeting in Brussels.

The EU leaders also agreed to implement the European Stability Mechanism, a permanent rescue fund, in July. The euros 500 billion ESM was originally to enter into force next year, when a temporary bailout fund expires. ”The early entry into force of this permanent firewall will prevent contagion in the euro area and further restore confidence,” European Council president Herman Van Rompuy said.

But the leaders did not propose any new measures aimed at resolving the situation in Greece, the nation at the center of the debt crisis in Europe. French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a news conference he expected a final agreement on reducing Greece’s debt to private bondholders “in the next few days” and believed that European institutions – a clear reference to the European Central Bank – would decide independently to help meet a funding gap.

The European Union said they would make special efforts to tackle youth unemployment, which has swelled to alarming levels in countries such as Spain.  They promised to increase apprenticeships, remove impediments to further liberalize trade within the EU and dip into an untapped pot of more than $100 billion in development funds to launch new projects.

“Steadily rising healthcare spending will pull heavily on public purse strings in the coming decades,” Standard and Poor’s analyst Marko Mrsnik wrote in the report.

“If governments do not change their social protection systems, they will likely become unsustainable.”

Policy makers and investors have long been aware that aging populations threaten the sustainability of government finances in many developed nations, as the costs of providing pensions and healthcare rise and the working population shrinks.

A number of governments are taking action to contain the impact of rising pension costs on their budgets, while a few have attempted to reform healthcare provision to achieve the same goal.

Standard and Poor’s said that while pensions will remain the largest single expense in the budgets of developed-country members of the Group of 20 largest economies, healthcare will likely be the expense that grows most rapidly.

It estimated that healthcare costs will be equal to 11.1% of gross domestic product in a “typical” developed economy in 2050, up from 6.3% of GDP in 2010.

“Healthcare spending represents the majority of the total increase in age-related spending in more than half of the G-20 advanced economies,” the report stated.

It cites the example of countries like France, the U.K., the U.S., Japan, Canada and Italy, where healthcare costs will account for more than 60% of the total rise in age-related spending over coming decades.

Standard and Poor’s has warned that if there is no change in the healthcare policy, the healthcare-related credit downgrades would likely start within three years, eventually leading to an increase in the number of junk-rated countries as of 2020, the study showed.

“The more developed countries get, the more complicated their welfare structures become. In order to cover all necessary means in terms of welfare, spending elsewhere will have to shift there,” said Byun Yanggyu, director of macroeconomics at the Korea Economic Research Institute.

Byun warned that developed nation will eventually become the victims of their social safety nets, reports Reuters.

“I believe our country is headed more so in that direction…and it will dull our production in the end,” Byun warned.

Healthcare will likely be the fastest-growing expenditure for developed countries, which already have high social protections and rapidly worsening demographic profiles.

Japan’s population, for instance, is expected to decline by 30 per cent by 2060, with two out of every five people turning 65 or older, according to official data.

Japan’s welfare spending, which includes pensions and health, is expected to reach nearly 108 trillion yen ($1.4 trillion) in the current fiscal year, around 22 per cent of GDP.

By 2025-26, spending is forecast to hit 141 trillion yen.

Falling fertility rates and a rapidly ageing population are problems facing most of Japan’s richer neighbors too. South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have flirted with policies aimed at boosting marriage and childbirth, but with limited success.

Demographics will not be the only factor driving up health-care costs. More expensive new technologies and broader treatment coverage may account for as much as two-thirds of the projected increase in healthcare spending, according to a study by the International Monetary Fund cited by Standard and Poor’s.

Pension system reforms alone would not be enough for G20 countries, Standard and Poor’s said in the report.

If legislation were enacted to contain future increases in age-related spending without also tackling healthcare spending, the results would be only slightly less severe than under a no-policy-change scenario.

“The probable increase in projected healthcare costs alone is so substantial that the impact of these reform efforts would not be enough to meaningfully reverse the resulting credit deterioration,” Standard and Poor’s said.

The ratings agency said it was not too late for G20 countries to tackle the problem, but reforms to contain age-related spending needed be coupled with efforts to balance budgets by 2016, which would be enough to offset rising healthcare costs by 2050.

“The results of this scenario point to overall stabilization of our hypothetical sovereign ratings,” Standard and Poor’s said, noting, however, that the number of ratings in the lower investment-grade categories would still increase.