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GS(3) Intel Brief 6-23-06: "Baltic & Jordan Threatened, Great Game as Tri-Polar Chess, Siberian Permafrost Melting, Economic Espionage in Korea, Cyber Extortion in Japan, Millennium Goals in Paraguay"
Here are highlights from 12 items, including both news stories and op-ed pieces, from diverse news sources (Copenhagen Post, Haaretz, Agence France Press, Korea Times, Tom Dispatch, Inter Press Service, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Toronto Star and ZD Net) which provide insight on important global issues and trends, such as the the global water crisis, growth of mega-slums, extreme poverty, small arms proliferation, global warming, human rights, energy security, the struggle for geopolitical hegemony, and cyber crime.
Excerpts and links follow below this summary. Customized analysis is provided for clients.
Europe, Middle East & Africa
The Baltic is slowly dying, according to Greenpeace. They say marine preserves, including one north-east of the island of Bornholm, can help resuscitate the waters A new report from Greenpeace is calling for the creation of marine reserves as a way to stave off environmental degradation in the Baltic Sea.
Call for Baltic reserves, Copenhagen Post, 6-15-06
Over-use of water from the southern stretch of the Jordan River threatens to dry it up and devastate one of the world's most important religious sites. The warning comes from conservationists, Christian groups and the heads of local authorities in the region - Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians.…Along with the dying Jordan, the Dead Sea has also begun disappearing, its water level going down each year by close to a meter.
Zafrir Rinat, The Jordan river is deep and wide no more, Haaretz, 6-18-06
More than 200 inmates were freed in a raid on a prison in Nigeria's troubled southeastern city of Onitsha, officials and residents said....It was the second time this year that the prison had been attacked and its inmates released. More than 700 Onitsha prison inmates were liberated last February during unrest in the city…..The attack on Onitsha prison came less than 24 hours after troops were deployed and a curfew imposed on the troubled city.
Over 200 prison inmates in Nigeria set free, Agence France Press, 6-19-06
Asia Pacific
About a half of Korea’s top technology firms have suffered from leaks in industrial know-how one way or another over the past three years, although the companies have increased preventive measures, a report showed. According to the report released the Korea Industrial Technology Association on Monday, 11 of 20 Korean firms that had invested the most in research & development have suffered financial damage due to technology leaks in the past three years.
Cho Jin-seo, Half of Top Tech Firms Suffer Leaks, Korea Times, 6-19-06
Last week, 22 of 28 Nobel Peace Prize winners gathered in South Korea for the 2006 Gwangju (Kwangju) Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates….The Dalai Lama, however, couldn’t attend. Not because he wasn't invited, or because he had other plans….the South Korean government has refused to grant him a visa, letting politics trump its own peace initiatives…. Beijing has consistently warned that states permitting even private visits by the Dalai Lama risk Chinese retribution.
Mickey Spiegel, When does a Nobel Prize-winning peace activist become an ``undesirable?’’, Korea Times, 6-19-06
For months, the American press and policy-making elite have portrayed the crisis with Iran as a two-sided struggle between Washington and Tehran, with the European powers as well as Russia and China playing supporting roles….But an informed reading of recent international diplomacy surrounding the Iranian crisis suggests that another equally fierce -- and undoubtedly more important -- struggle is also taking place: a tripolar contest between the United States, Russia, and China for domination of the greater Persian Gulf/Caspian Sea region and its mammoth energy reserves….From this perspective, Iran is just one battlefield -- however significant -- in a far larger, more long-lasting, and momentous contest.
Michael T. Klare, Tripolar Chessboard: Putting Iran in Great Power Context, Tom Dispatch, 6-16-06
Americas
…for once, the part played by local communities in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was highlighted at an international meeting on "Cooperation and Development in Uruguay: the Challenge of Local Development," organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Jun. 12-14 in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital….One of the many people in the front line of the war on poverty is María Elena Curbelo, a medical doctor who works as a volunteer in Las Láminas, a slum neighbourhood outside the northern town of Bella Unión. This shantytown of 180 families is considered by many to be the nadir of poverty in this country of 3.3 million people, whose economy collapsed in 2002 after three years of recession….Raúl Pierri, URUGUAY: Northern Slum on the Front Line of the Millennium Goals, Inter Press Service, 6-19-06
Global
Apparently, no one knows what's happened to the thousands of AK-47s - and millions of rounds of ammunition - transferred from Bosnian wartime stockpiles to Iraq since 2004: Not the Bosnian government, nor NATO officials, nor the Alabama-based military contractor who transported the weapons, nor the Multi-National Command in Iraq, which was the intended recipient….Over the past five years a coalition of nongovernmental organizations has called for a treaty to establish principles and impose uniform standards on the international trade in small arms….
Susan Waltz, Can UN Stem Flow of Small Arms?, Christian Science Monitor, 6-15-06
"Slums in many cities are no longer just marginalized neighbourhoods housing a relatively small proportion of the urban population," the report said. "In many cities, they are the dominant type of human settlement." The global slum population is expected to grow by 27 million every year until 2020, the agency said. Authorities have traditionally viewed slums as temporary settlements that would disappear as cities developed and incomes rose. But the report said slums — lacking durable housing, space and access to safe water or adequate sanitation — are continuing to grow and are becoming a permanent feature of many cities, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia….
UN predicts huge jump in global slums, Toronto Star, 6-17-06
Ancient woolly mammoth bones and grasslands locked in the Siberian permafrost are starting to thaw and could potentially unleash billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming, a team of Russian and American scientists has concluded. The area involved is vast — 400,000 square miles. If the permafrost continues to thaw and releases heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it could dramatically increase the 730 billion metric tons already in the atmosphere, the scientists said in a study published in today's issue of the journal Science.
Janet Wilson, Global Warming Threat Is Seen in Siberian Thaw, Los Angeles Times, 6-16-06
Cyberspace
KDDI Corp, Japan's number two mobile operator, said that private information on nearly four million subscribers to its Internet service had been
leaked.….Police said they arrested two men who attempted extortion in the case, reportedly demanding KDDI pay five million to 10 million yen (43,700 to 87,000 US dollars) for the data….
KDDI reports massive personal data leak, Agence France Press, 6-13-06
Over half of technology, media and telecoms companies have suffered a security breach in the last year, with a third leading to "significant financial losses", according to research by consultancy Deloitte. It claimed many companies are underestimating the need for security. Only 4 percent of the 150 companies in the survey believe they do enough to address security issues, with 54 percent blaming budget constraints and lack of management support as the main challenges…. Less than half (48 percent) said they had an enterprise-wide business continuity program--way below the level of readiness in other industries, with the average in the United States running at 83 percent. Deloitte technology director James Alexander said technology, media and telecoms companies must recognise that they represent an increasingly attractive target.
Steve Ranger, Hackers target poorly secured media companies, ZDNet Asia, 6-22-06
Europe, Middle East & Africa
The Baltic is slowly dying, according to Greenpeace. They say marine preserves, including one north-east of the island of Bornholm, can help resuscitate the waters A new report from Greenpeace is calling for the creation of marine reserves as a way to stave off environmental degradation in the Baltic Sea.
The report, entitled ‘The Baltic Sea - a Roadmap to Recovery’, identifies the area north-east of the Danish island of Bornholm as one of the areas of the Baltic that should be turned into a reserve. In the report, Greenpeace described the Baltic as an old dying man - plagued by toxic substances, pollution and over-fishing, as well as intensive shipping and industrial activities….The Baltic report is part of a larger Greenpeace initiative aimed at turning some 40 percent of the world’s oceans into marine reserves.
Call for Baltic reserves, Copenhagen Post, 6-15-06
Over-use of water from the southern stretch of the Jordan River threatens to dry it up and devastate one of the world's most important religious sites. The warning comes from conservationists, Christian groups and the heads of local authorities in the region - Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians. Israel, Jordan and Syria are preparing to increase use of the tributaries feeding the southern Jordan - a stretch of the river between Lake Kinneret and the Dead Sea - and there is mounting fear of a natural disaster that would have far-reaching consequences. Until the 1950s, more than a billion cubic meters flowed through the southern Jordan annually, helping to maintain the Dead Sea's water level and a healthy river with a diverse ecological system. Construction of a dam that prevented water flow from the Kinneret, channeling part of the Yarmuk River into an irrigation canal in Jordan and later building dams on the Yarmuk's tributaries caused the river to dry up. Now the flow is only 100 million cubic meters a year, except when the Kinneret dam is opened due to flooding…Along with the dying Jordan, the Dead Sea has also begun disappearing, its water level going down each year by close to a meter. Israel and Jordan are studying the possibility of building, with the World Bank's help, a water carrier from the Gulf of Eilat to the Dead Sea to stop the decline.
Zafrir Rinat, The Jordan river is deep and wide no more, Haaretz, 6-18-06
More than 200 inmates were freed in a raid on a prison in Nigeria's troubled southeastern city of Onitsha, officials and residents said….It was the second time this year that the prison had been attacked and its inmates released. More than 700 Onitsha prison inmates were liberated last February during unrest in the city…..The attack on Onitsha prison came less than 24 hours after troops were deployed and a curfew imposed on the troubled city. Onitsha, a major commercial centre in Anambra State, and the southeastern region, has been the scene of violent unrest since Friday. Clashes between MASSOB members and police were reported to have left several people dead at the weekend. The troop deployment and the week-long curfew were measures taken on Sunday to restore peace to the area….MASSOB is an ethnic Igbo group campaigning for the resuscitation of "Biafra", which led a secessionist rebellion against the federal government between 1967 and 1970. The war ended in January 1970 with the surrender of the Biafra warlords. MASSOB says it is also fighting against an alleged marginalisation of Igbos since the war. Its founder and leader, Ralph Uwazuruike, and some of his followers face treason charges in an Abuja court
Over 200 prison inmates in Nigeria set free, Agence France Press, 6-19-06
Asia Pacific
About a half of Korea’s top technology firms have suffered from leaks in industrial know-how one way or another over the past three years, although the companies have increased preventive measures, a report showed. According to the report released the Korea Industrial Technology Association on Monday, 11 of 20 Korean firms that had invested the most in research & development have suffered financial damage due to technology leaks in the past three years.
When taking into account smaller firms, 20.9 percent out of 459 firms said that they suffered from industrial espionage cases during the period. The rate is 6.4 percentage points higher than three years ago, meaning that firms have become more vulnerable to technology theft….As Roh pointed out, about 65 percent of the reported cases were found to involve employees from former companies. Only 18 percent and 16 percent of the cases involved current employees, and subcontractors of the firms, respectively….The survey was done on 459 firms with in-house R&D departments.
Half of Top Tech Firms Suffer Leaks
Cho Jin-seo, Half of Top Tech Firms Suffer Leaks, Korea Times, 6-19-06
Last week, 22 of 28 Nobel Peace Prize winners gathered in South Korea for the 2006 Gwangju (Kwangju) Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. Winners from Kenya, Russia, Guatemala, Iran, East Timor, and the United Kingdom have accepted invitations, as have representatives from Nobel-winning organizations, such as Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, and the American Friends Service Committee. The Dalai Lama, however, couldn’t attend. Not because he wasn't invited, or because he had other plans….the South Korean government has refused to grant him a visa, letting politics trump its own peace initiatives. As a Foreign Ministry official told Human Rights Watch, ``Considering various factors, for now, we decided the Dalai Lama's visit to South Korea is not desirable.’’ The government of South Korea, sensitive to the wishes of China, has consistently refused the Dalai Lama entry to its territory….The Dalai Lama has a long history of promoting core human rights values, among them the unfettered exchange of ideas central to the Kwangju conference agenda. For decades he has attempted to find a ``middle way’’ through the thicket of conflicting Tibetan and Chinese visions for Tibet _ a well-documented example of his search for peaceful solutions to long-standing problems, one of the conference's themes. China, which for years has adamantly opposed criticism of its policies toward Tibet and the Dalai Lama, seeing it as interference in its internal affairs, has not hesitated to interfere in the internal affairs of other states with respect to the Dalai Lama. Beijing has consistently warned that states permitting even private visits by the Dalai Lama risk Chinese retribution.
The threats work….To their credit, several states and multi-lateral organizations have ignored China's warnings. In early June 2006, European Union leaders brushed aside China's objections and met the Dalai Lama in Brussels. He has also recently traveled to Argentina, Chile, and Peru. The U.S. has hosted the Dalai Lama on many occasions, as has Japan. Switzerland went ahead with a visit in 2005; Mexico, Russia, and South Africa received him the previous year. And this list is far from exhaustive.
Mickey Spiegel, When does a Nobel Prize-winning peace activist become an ``undesirable?’’, Korea Times, 6-19-06
For months, the American press and policy-making elite have portrayed the crisis with Iran as a two-sided struggle between Washington and Tehran, with the European powers as well as Russia and China playing supporting roles. It is certainly true that George Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are the leading protagonists in this drama, with each making inflammatory statements about the other in order to whip up public support at home. But an informed reading of recent international diplomacy surrounding the Iranian crisis suggests that another equally fierce -- and undoubtedly more important -- struggle is also taking place: a tripolar contest between the United States, Russia, and China for domination of the greater Persian Gulf/Caspian Sea region and its mammoth energy reserves.
When it comes to grand strategy, top Bush administration officials have long attempted to maintain American dominance of the "global chessboard" (as they see it) by diminishing the influence of the only other significant players, Russia and China. This classic geopolitical contest began with a flourish in early 2001, when the White House signaled the provocative course it planned to follow by unilaterally repudiating the U.S.-Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and announcing new high-tech arms sales to Taiwan, which China still considers a breakaway province. After 9/11, these initial signals of antagonism were toned down in order to secure Russian and Chinese assistance in fighting the war on terror, but in recent months the classic chessboard version of great-power politics has again come to dominate strategic thinking in Washington….There's nothing new about the Bush administration's urge to rollback Russia and "contain" China….When first articulated in the "Carter Doctrine" of 1980, this precept was directed exclusively at the Gulf; now, under President Bush, it has been extended to the Caspian Sea basin as well -- a consequence of rising oil prices, fears of diminishing supplies, and the vast oil and natural gas deposits believed to be housed there….It is in this context that the current struggle over Iran must be viewed. Iran occupies a pivotal position on the tripolar chessboard. Geographically, it is the only nation that abuts both the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea, positioning Tehran to play a significant role in the two areas of greatest energy concern to the United States, Russia, and China. Iran also abuts the strategic Strait of Hormuz -- the narrow waterway from the Gulf to the Indian Ocean through which about one-quarter of the world's oil moves every day. As a result, if Washington ever lifted its trade embargo on Iran, its territory could be used as the most obvious transit route for the delivery of oil and natural gas from the Caspian countries to global markets, especially in Europe and Japan…..As the crisis over Iran unfolds, most of the news commentary will continue to focus on the war of words between Washington and Tehran. Political insiders understand, however, that the most significant struggle is the one that remains just out of sight, pitting Washington against Moscow and Beijing in the battle for global influence and energy domination. From this perspective, Iran is just one battlefield -- however significant -- in a far larger, more long-lasting, and momentous contest.
Michael T. Klare, Tripolar Chessboard: Putting Iran in Great Power Context, Tom Dispatch, 6-16-06
Americas
…for once, the part played by local communities in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was highlighted at an international meeting on "Cooperation and Development in Uruguay: the Challenge of Local Development," organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Jun. 12-14 in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital.
The MDGs, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000, are to halve extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, cut maternal mortality by three-quarters and infant mortality by two-thirds, and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. The specific goals are to be met by 2015, based on 1990 reference levels….One of the many people in the front line of the war on poverty is María Elena Curbelo, a medical doctor who works as a volunteer in Las Láminas, a slum neighbourhood outside the northern town of Bella Unión. This shantytown of 180 families is considered by many to be the nadir of poverty in this country of 3.3 million people, whose economy collapsed in 2002 after three years of recession….Thanks to the efforts of Curbelo and a dozen other people who work with her, a significant reduction in child mortality has been achieved in Las Láminas, independently of any local organisation or official authority….
The second of the eight MDGs is to "ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling," but in many parts of the developing South this is prevented by high levels of poverty. Ninety percent of the children in Las Láminas are or have been undernourished, 99 percent suffer from anaemia and more than 90 percent are failing or have fallen behind in school. "The problem is that children under the age of two who are undernourished suffer irreversible deficiency in growth and brain development, from which they cannot recover. By the time they are three, it is too late. Even if they do go to school, they will fail time and again," Curbelo explained to IPS. Another MDG is to "reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality rate." Last week the people of Las Láminas opened a clinic in coordination with the ministry of Public Health, with funds donated by Uruguayans living abroad. Soon they will have a gynaecologist to care for the large number of teenage mothers in the neighbourhood. A series of talks is also planned, to provide information on preventing unwanted pregnancies. Objective number 11 of the MDGs is to "achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020." In Las Láminas, housing and access to water and electricity are still major problems. "The government offered to relocate the residents, but they want to go on living here," Curbelo said.
Raúl Pierri, URUGUAY: Northern Slum on the Front Line of the Millennium Goals, Inter Press Service, 6-19-06
Global
Apparently, no one knows what's happened to the thousands of AK-47s - and millions of rounds of ammunition - transferred from Bosnian wartime stockpiles to Iraq since 2004: Not the Bosnian government, nor NATO officials, nor the Alabama-based military contractor who transported the weapons, nor the Multi-National Command in Iraq, which was the intended recipient. The international authorities who control arms shipments from Bosnia admit that they have no tracking system to ensure the weapons don't fall into the wrong hands, according to Amnesty International. Like Africa in the past decade, Iraq today is awash in lightweight weapons. An estimated 7 million small arms were "lost" from Saddam Hussein's stockpiles at the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war. Add these to the millions already circulating in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East. These weapons have a remarkably long shelf life, and many are recycled from cold-war conflicts of earlier decades. But new arrivals constantly replenish the supply, as lightweight weapons are now produced in at least 95 countries….Over the past five years a coalition of nongovernmental organizations has called for a treaty to establish principles and impose uniform standards on the international trade in small arms. Last April, Britain launched an appeal for legally binding global standards for acceptable arms exports, and to date some 50 states have formally declared their support for a comprehensive arms-trade treaty. At the UN meeting this summer, states will be asked to endorse global standards for the small-arms trade. It is time for the US to join this effort…. Effectively, a uniform and universal set of principles would extend the application of existing regional agreements that the US helped negotiate and to which it already subscribes, including the Wassenaar Arrangement.
Setting standards for acceptable transfers, of course, is only the beginning - and arguably, it is the easy part. The hard part is enforcement.
Susan Waltz, Can UN Stem Flow of Small Arms?, Christian Science Monitor, 6-15-06
About 1.4 billion people worldwide will be living in slums by 2020, unless action is taken to improve conditions for the urban poor, said a UN report released yesterday. The number of slum-dwellers globally is expected to grow from the current one billion — nearly all in the developing world — as city populations swiftly rise, the UN Human Settlement Program said. "Slums in many cities are no longer just marginalized neighbourhoods housing a relatively small proportion of the urban population," the report said. "In many cities, they are the dominant type of human settlement." The global slum population is expected to grow by 27 million every year until 2020, the agency said. Authorities have traditionally viewed slums as temporary settlements that would disappear as cities developed and incomes rose. But the report said slums — lacking durable housing, space and access to safe water or adequate sanitation — are continuing to grow and are becoming a permanent feature of many cities, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia….Trends indicate the number of urban dwellers will reach 5 billion by 2030, out of a total population of 8.1 billion.
UN predicts huge jump in global slums, Toronto Star, 6-17-06
Ancient woolly mammoth bones and grasslands locked in the Siberian permafrost are starting to thaw and could potentially unleash billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming, a team of Russian and American scientists has concluded. The area involved is vast — 400,000 square miles. If the permafrost continues to thaw and releases heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it could dramatically increase the 730 billion metric tons already in the atmosphere, the scientists said in a study published in today's issue of the journal Science. "It's like taking food out of your freezer … leave it on your counter for a few days, and it rots," University of Florida botany professor Ted Schuur said in a phone interview from Alaska, describing the process by which decaying animal and plant matter in the soil is converted by bacteria into carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases.
The research team concluded that previous studies on global warming had not taken into account the deep carbon reserve trapped in permafrost in the northern plains of Siberia and central Alaska…."It's not hopeless," Schuur said. "We're just at the beginning of this cycle, so we can, through the controlling of emissions, have a hope of slowing down this rate of global warming that would slow the melt of the permafrost."
Janet Wilson, Global Warming Threat Is Seen in Siberian Thaw, Los Angeles Times, 6-16-06
Cyberspace
KDDI Corp, Japan's number two mobile operator, said that private information on nearly four million subscribers to its Internet service had been
leaked. Police said extortionists tried to sell the data which included the names, addresses, contact numbers, sex, birthdate and e-mail addresses of those who applied for KDDI's Dion Internet service by December 18, 2003….Police said they arrested two men who attempted extortion in the case, reportedly demanding KDDI pay five million to 10 million yen (43,700 to 87,000 US dollars) for the data….KDDI learned about the leak through an anonymous phone call on May 30 and the next day a person handed a CD-ROM with data from 400,000 customers to its headquarters' reception desk, he said.
KDDI reports massive personal data leak, Agence France Press, 6-13-06
Over half of technology, media and telecoms companies have suffered a security breach in the last year, with a third leading to "significant financial losses", according to research by consultancy Deloitte. It claimed many companies are underestimating the need for security. Only 4 percent of the 150 companies in the survey believe they do enough to address security issues, with 54 percent blaming budget constraints and lack of management support as the main challenges…. Less than half (48 percent) said they had an enterprise-wide business continuity program--way below the level of readiness in other industries, with the average in the United States running at 83 percent. Deloitte technology director James Alexander said technology, media and telecoms companies must recognise that they represent an increasingly attractive target.
Steve Ranger, Hackers target poorly secured media companies, ZDNet Asia, 6-22-06
Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net
Human Rights, Dalai Lama, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Sustainability, Economic Espionage, Cyber Crime, Cyber Crime, Climate Change, Global Warming, Millennium Goals, United Nations
