The death of Osama bin Laden will raise the inevitable question: What are we still doing in Afghanistan? The answer, of course, is that the mission in Afghanistan is about something bigger and more ambitious than eliminating Al Qaeda’s leaders—most of whom, in any event, are probably living in Pakistan, as bin Laden was when the United States finally tracked him down. No, the mission in Afghanistan isn’t about killing Al Qaeda members. It’s about stabilizing the country so that it can never again serve as the hotbed of extremism that it was until 2001, with all of the attendant national security and human rights problems that resulted.

But that in turn raises other questions: Is it worth prolonging a war that has stretched on for nearly ten years for that broader goal? And perhaps the most difficult question of all: Even if that goal is worth fighting for, is it actually achievable? 

Over the past few years, a consensus has formed in Washington that the answer to that last question is a resounding no. For years, war in Afghanistan has been portrayed as a hopeless failure. The government in Kabul, we have been told, is corrupt and predatory. The Afghan army is a mess. Tribal loyalties trump national loyalties. The Taliban is gaining in strength.

All of this rendered a decision made by President Obama last autumn rather odd—at least on the surface. Obama had long promised that American troops would begin leaving Afghanistan in the summer of 2011. As Vice President Joe Biden had explained: “In July 2011, you’re going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it.” But then, over the course of a week in November, the White House announced a major reversal of course: A large-scale troop presence would remain in Afghanistan for an additional three years, until 2014.

Only a handful of journalists seemed to realize the magnitude of the news. For its part, The New York Times characterized the new approach as “a change in tone,” a curious label for several more years of war.

But while Americans barely seemed to notice, people in Kabul certainly did. In December, a few weeks after Obama’s announcement, I met with Hedayat Amin Arsala, a courtly senior minister in the Afghan government and a confidant of President Hamid Karzai. We were seated in a basketball-court-sized office adorned with a massive chandelier in a nineteenth-century building in central Kabul. Arsala had been dismayed by Obama’s initial plan to begin withdrawing in 2011. “I was not very happy with it,” Arsala recalled, choosing his words carefully. “It gave the impression to the opposition that if they stick to their guns a little longer, they might be able to succeed after that.” Arsala, reflecting the views of many Afghans both inside and outside the government, expressed relief that Obama was now reversing himself. In fact, he hoped the American president would go even further, and hammer out a long-term agreement with Afghanistan so that American troops could remain in the country into 2015 and beyond. “Between now and 2014, we will be working on this together with the United States,” he told me. A range of other American and Afghan officials confirmed that such an agreement is currently being worked on.

Then came this month’s killing of Osama bin Laden—and while Americans rejoiced, many Afghans were, according to the Times, worried that the successful operation would hasten the departure of American troops. “This should not be used as a justification for premature withdrawal,” warned one former Afghan official.

What is going on here? First, Obama had concluded that a war which was widely believed to be failing was in fact still worth prosecuting. Then, Afghans had made it known that they were relieved the United States would be sticking around. Now, in the wake of bin Laden’s death, they were reminding the United States that they expected it not to renege on this promise. Is this a case of a stubborn American president—unwilling to admit defeat, egged on by Afghan allies—doubling down on a completely failed enterprise? Or is it possible that the Afghanistan war is actually succeeding?

Major Jim Gant of the Army Special Forces is a rangy, intense Pashto speaker with tattoos of Chinese characters on his right arm. Like many of his fellow Special Forces officers in the field, Gant sports a shaggy beard and wears an Afghan scarf loosely wrapped around his neck. He has been at the forefront of an unlikely transformation in counterinsurgency tactics, so much so that he’s been nicknamed “Lawrence of Afghanistan.” Gant’s rise to prominence started in late 2009, when he published a paper on the website of Steven Pressfield, a novelist and military veteran. The article was called “One Tribe at a Time,” and it drew on Gant’s experiences as a Special Forces team leader working with a Pashtun tribe—the Taliban’s historical base is among the Pashtuns—in eastern Afghanistan in 2003. Based on his experiences, Gant advocated that small units of autonomous Special Forces embed with Pashtun tribes and train them to fight the Taliban.

While most policy papers languish on desks or hard drives unread, Gant’s paper ricocheted around the upper echelons of the military. It even reached General David Petraeus, who called the paper “very impressive, so impressive, in fact, that I shared it widely.” After that, the Special Forces, known as the Green Berets, stepped back from “door-kicking” missions and instead began to advise and build up local forces. In what the U.S. military has termed “Village Stability Operations,” members of the Special Forces now live among the Pashtun tribesmen in remote areas where insurgents once had unfettered freedom of movement. The goal is to help train community militias, known to the U.S. military as Afghan Local Police (ALP). At present, the government of Afghanistan has authorized 10,000 ALP militiamen; American officers believe that the number will eventually rise to something more like 24,000.

Getting the ALP approved by Kabul required a significant concession from Hamid Karzai, who had feared that arming tribal militias might rejuvenate the warlordism that has plagued Afghanistan since the early 1990s. To address Karzai’s concerns, the ALP is administered by the Afghan Ministry of Interior, and everyone admitted to the program has to submit to biometric scans. On the ground, militia candidates are vetted by local village councils.

This December, at a base near Kabul, I bumped into Gant at a meeting with some senior Special Forces officers. Gant said he was pleased with the progress and noted that in the Pashtun language the community forces are known by the word Arbakai, a traditional term for forces that secure their own area. “The Taliban are very threatened by this,” Gant said. “It’s taking their safe haven away.” Other experts I spoke with affirmed that the community policemen have created “security bubbles” that didn’t exist before.

If Gant’s approach sounds familiar, it should. That’s because it draws on the same principles as the counterinsurgency tactics that worked for Petraeus in Iraq. Ultimately, the effort in Afghanistan will either succeed or fail based on the counterinsurgency practices, like Gant’s, that Petraeus has put in place. I recently got to see Petraeus—who took over the Afghanistan mission last year, and has just been nominated by Obama to head the CIA—in action during a briefing at the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul. When he walked into the briefing room, it was precisely 7:30 a.m., and a bevy of generals and a couple dozen staff officers immediately stood up. He hurriedly motioned for them to sit down and images began to be projected onto screens around the room. Some screens showed the weather in various parts of Afghanistan, others the numbers of American soldiers recently killed, and others maps of insurgent activity. Over secure videoconference lines, commanders from around Afghanistan gave status updates about their sector of the war, with Petraeus alternately quizzing, cajoling, and complimenting them. The only interruption came toward the end of the briefing, when a scuffle broke out over a recalcitrant goat. A group of officers had dragged the hapless animal, a Navy mascot, into the room in honor of the upcoming Army-Navy football game. “Thanks fellows,” said Petraeus, sounding slightly impatient. “That was really cute.”

Counterinsurgency is often misunderstood as being mostly about winning “hearts and minds”; and, as Gant’s program shows, there’s certainly an element of that. But, at the most basic level, it’s really a set of common-sense precepts about how to avoid being hated while simultaneously applying well-calibrated doses of violence—that is, killing people. The importance of killing to counterinsurgency is an unpalatable truth that often gets disguised with Orwellian neologisms such as “kinetic operations,” but Petraeus clearly understands that reaching “hearts and minds” goes only so far on its own.

As a result of stepped-up operations, many of the Taliban’s longtime safe havens in Helmand and Kandahar have been eliminated, according to the U.S. military. Of course, the Pentagon has reason to give optimistic reports; but I was struck to see that the International Council on Security and Development, an organization long critical of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, is also echoing this assessment, based on its own on-the-ground research.

Meanwhile, operations by Delta Force and Navy Seals have decimated the ranks of mid-level Taliban commanders. This March, Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, in a typical three-month period, 360 insurgent leaders were killed or captured. (According to a number of observers, the average age of Taliban commanders has dropped from 35 to 25 in the past year.)

On the administrative front, Petraeus has managed to put a stop to particularly senseless policies. At its worst, the Afghanistan conflict has been sustained partly by a contracting system under which U.S. funds take a perverse path from Afghan contractors to Taliban leaders. That is, a fair portion of the money paid out by Washington for a given project, such as the construction of a road, has made it into the pockets of insurgents in exchange for not attacking that road. Petraeus has put in place new contracting guidelines to try to tame this problem.

Petraeus also appears to be making progress in standing up an effective Afghan National Army. Currently, the army is the most well-regarded institution in the country, with approval ratings over 80 percent. While Tajiks are overrepresented in the officer corps, and Pashtuns from the south of the country are grossly underrepresented among the rank and file, overall, the army is ethnically balanced, retention rates (while hardly stellar) are rising, pay rates went up two years ago to $140 per month for a raw recruit (the average yearly income in Afghanistan is less than $400), and the army is on track to reach its November 2011 end-strength goal of 171,000.

But will all these changes in military strategy actually lead to long-term victory in Afghanistan? Unfortunately, anyone observing the country learns to live with alternating feelings of hope and despair. As heartened as I often felt when seeing the military progress, I found the corruption of key Afghan politicians to be deeply depressing. More significantly, the war is exacting a steep cost in American lives. Since Obama took office, some 890 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan. That’s around 60 percent of the total who have died there since the war began in the fall of 2001.

Most of the eastern provinces remain infested with insurgents, as do provinces near Kabul such as Ghazni. The so-called “reintegration” process, in which Taliban foot soldiers lay down their arms and reenter their communities, is largely moribund. Data from Indicium Consulting shows that incidents involving insurgent IEDs, small arms fire, rocket, mortar, and suicide attacks have more than doubled in recent years, from around 8,000 in 2008 to more than 17,000 in 2010. Efforts at striking deals with the Taliban have led nowhere. The most promising discussions occurred last year between the Karzai government and senior Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour—except that “Mullah Mansour” turned out to be a crafty Quetta shopkeeper who had spun a good yarn about his Taliban credentials in order to make some quick money. Meanwhile, official meetings held between Afghan officials and Taliban representatives in places like the Maldives to discuss “reconciliation” have produced nothing. One sardonic Afghan official offered me a simple reason for why the parties had agreed to meet for negotiations. “Everybody wanted to go to the Maldives,” he said.

When I was in Kabul, I asked a small group of leading American counterinsurgency experts if they could think of a case in which an insurgency was defeated under circumstances like the ones we see today in Afghanistan—where insurgents enjoy a safe haven, the government is corrupt, and a third-party military force is intervening on the side of the corrupt government. The experts could not think of a single example. I found just as little solace in How Insurgencies End, a rigorous RAND study, published last year, of 89 insurgencies fought around the world since World War II. Insurgents who have enjoyed a sanctuary have won almost half the conflicts where there was a clear victor. In countries with less than 40 percent urbanization, insurgents have won about three-quarters of the time. And pseudo-democracies, such as Afghanistan, have a particularly poor record of defeating insurgencies, because they neither have the stomach for total repression nor the capacity to offer accountable government. They lose about 85 percent of the time.

Then there is Pakistan, which has, to put it mildly, not always been a helpful player in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army has long sought a pliant Afghan state on its western border to balance its Indian neighbor to the east—a doctrine known as “strategic depth”—and it believes the Taliban served this purpose fairly well. Today, Pakistan’s economy is in bad shape: Its inflation rate hovers around 15 percent, and annual growth has fallen from 7 percent to 2 percent, which cannot remotely sustain what will be in 2015 the world’s fifth-largest population. Simultaneously, Pakistan is spending an astonishing 17 percent of its budget on defense and only 3 percent on education. All of these indicators are bad news for Pakistanis, but they’re also bad news for Afghans: In the long run, an unstable Pakistan means an unstable Afghanistan, since the border between the countries is basically ungovernable, and extremists can so easily drift back and forth. 

And yet, against this parade of depressing facts, one must balance some other realities. It helps to begin with some historical context. For all of Afghanistan’s problems, the country has come a long way since I first began visiting it almost two decades ago. I first came to Kabul in 1993, when it was a patchwork of vicious ethnic militias fighting block-to-block, Mogadishu-style. Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was routinely unleashing barrages of hundreds of rockets that had an unfortunate habit of landing on the heads of innocent Kabul civilians rather than on his enemies. I saw boys as young as ten fighting alongside the militiamen. Travel at night anywhere at all was out of the question, and brigands of all kinds roamed the countryside kidnapping and thieving at will. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans died, and even more fled the country.

I next visited the country in 1997, a year after the Taliban had seized power. The streets were now quiet, and all women were covered from head to foot. Fierce, black-turbaned Taliban “vice and virtue” enforcers roamed around the cities, enforcing their ordinances in fast-moving pickup trucks, stopping to harass, beat, or arrest men whose beards were of improper length or women whose feet were visible. One day, I saw a man crumpled on the street as a Taliban enforcer beat him with a stick. The man had failed to pray at the appointed hour. Days in Taliban Afghanistan passed unbearably slowly. There was nothing to do, no place to go. There were no sounds of music, no films, no entertainment. The economy was in free fall. Kabul was a ghost town, with only 500,000 inhabitants left. The rest had fled. Streets were nearly devoid of cars. My only glimpses of women were when they flitted through the empty streets like wraiths dressed in blue burkas. When I stayed in Kabul in the winter of 1999, I was the only guest in the only functioning hotel in town, an Intercontinental that had long ceased to have anything to do with the brand. There was no heat or hot water, nor were there any telephones. I was lucky to have one of the few rooms with windows that remained intact from the war. When I visited Taliban cabinet officials, we would sit shivering in unheated rooms in their ministries while they told me what a misunderstood man Osama bin Laden was.

Today, Kabul has three million inhabitants. There are restaurants and bars and social venues—and people are friendly. (Among journalists, the guilty secret is that working in Kabul today is sort of, well, fun.) A decade ago, 9 percent of Afghans had access to basic medical care. Today, 85 percent do. Under the Taliban, about one million kids (almost none of them girls) were in school, whereas now about seven million children are being educated (more than one-third of them girls, with the proportion rising). Before the U.S. occupation, a telephone system barely existed in Afghanistan. Today, one in three Afghans has a cell phone. Afghans once had access to no media outlets apart from the Taliban’s Voice of Sharia radio network. Now there are, in the words of the BBC, “scores of radio stations, dozens of TV stations and some 100 active press titles.” More than five million Afghan refugees have returned home. Kabul has becom so crowded with cars and people that the city’s pollution is statistically more lethal than the war.

Afghanistan’s economy is also booming. Thanks to the improvements in security provided by the United States and NATO, GDP growth between 2009 and 2010 was a strong 22 percent. That’s just the start. According to a thorough study released earlier this year by the Pentagon, an estimated $900 billion worth of mineral deposits is waiting to be unearthed in Afghanistan, including enough lithium to make the country a world leader in raw materials for batteries. The Chinese have already paid $3 billion for the rights to a copper mine near Kabul, and last year JP Morgan put together a $50 million deal for a gold mine in northern Afghanistan. No wonder, then, that 70 percent of Afghans told pollsters for the BBC late last year that their country is now going in the right direction. (By comparison, in a New York Times/CBS News poll released in April, 70 percent of Americans said the United States is going in the wrong direction.) It’s also why Afghans give surprisingly high marks to the U.S. military, even after nearly a decade of often bungled occupation: 68 percent favorable, according to a BBC/ABC poll released in January 2010. (By contrast, a 2007 BBC/ABC poll in Iraq found that only 22 percent of Iraqis supported the U.S. military presence in their country.)

It’s true that overall security has deteriorated recently in Afghanistan, but much of that is due to stepped-up military operations. This is what happened at the start of the surge in Iraq. Afghanistan also remains a safer place than countries such as Russia or Mexico, where political conflict and criminal violence kill proportionately more people. Residents of New Orleans are five times more likely to be murdered today than Afghan civilians are likely to be killed in war.

Even the unhappy RAND study on the success of insurgencies contained some encouraging findings. One of the most important is that when a government has a significant force superiority ratio (9:1 or greater), it “correlated strongly with success” in defeating insurgents. The projected end strength of the Afghan army and police is 375,000, and the Taliban is around one-tenth of this size. That’s not including all of the outside military forces that are also involved on the side of the Afghan government. What’s more, according to the RAND study, “[c]ontrary to conventional wisdom, insurgents do not win by trying to simply outlast the government. In fact, over the long run, governments tend to win more often than not.” While the long run can be all too long—it took more than four decades for the Colombian government to effectively defeat the FARC—the fact remains that time is working against the insurgents, especially with the new lengthening of the U.S. commitment.

Although the White House’s pledge to remain in Afghanistan appears to be firm, calls to pull out have been increasing. One striking example of the new emerging consensus came out earlier this year, when George W. Bush’s ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, wrote in Foreign Affairs that “Washington should accept that the Taliban will inevitably control most of the Pashtun south and east”; he advocated de facto partition of Afghanistan as “the best available alternative to strategic defeat.” The plan was merely the most extreme expression of a now-common sentiment amongst the U.S. foreign policy establishment: Let’s just get it over with.

Partition or withdrawal sound simple and alluring; but Blackwill and others don’t seem to fully grasp the problems with such proposals. For one thing, with whom would we negotiate a partition? The so-called “moderates” in the Taliban reconciled with the Afghan government long ago. The remaining Taliban fighters have splintered into several groups, each more extreme than the next. And why would the Taliban honor their side of the bargain? Deals between the Pakistani government and the Taliban in Waziristan and in Swat were merely preludes to the Taliban establishing brutal “emirates,” regrouping, and then moving into adjoining areas to seize more territory.

The human costs of partition or withdrawal would be horrific. When the Taliban took control of the Pakistani tourist destination of Swat between 2008 and 2009, they imposed a reign of terror, beheading policemen and leaving their bodies to rot in public, burning down schools for girls, and administering public lashings to women accused of adultery.

And, finally, there are the strategic costs. Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead, but Al Qaeda still exists, and there is no reason to believe that a reconstituted Taliban government would be any less hospitable to Al Qaeda than the Taliban rulers of the 1990s. After September 11, Mullah Omar lost everything to protect bin Laden, and since then he has said nothing to distance himself from that fateful decision.

Of course, just because it would be preferable to succeed in Afghanistan does not mean we actually can. But, when I look at the hopeful signs that are starting to emerge from the country, and when I consider these indicators in tandem with the likely consequences of a hasty exit, I do think the wise choice now is for the United States to stay. In war, perceptions tend to lag behind reality by a considerable distance. In Afghanistan, our efforts were widely thought of as successful for several years after things had clearly begun to deteriorate on the ground. Today, it appears that we have the opposite problem: improvements on the ground that are widely dismissed amid a narrative of defeat.

Staying in Afghanistan isn’t the politically obvious decision: The war is going to remain controversial, and it’s going to be criticized from both the left and the right. Arguably, it could even imperil Obama’s reelection. Still, the president has made his choice and he appears to be sticking with it. This, I am convinced, is good for Afghanistan. One day, I hope, we’ll also realize that it was good for the United States.

Peter Bergen is a contributing editor for The New Republic and the author of The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda. This article originally ran in the May 26, 2011, issue of the magazine.

In Afghanistan, living off the grid isn't a tree hugger's dream -- it's reality. but a renewable-power startup called Sustainable Energy Services Afghanistan is lighting up Afghans' lives, with help from the sun and the wind.

ON A PLEASANT AUTUMN DAY, Shakibullah Hedayat Rustaqi and his colleagues began to prepare for their next job. They grew out their beards. They stopped showering a week before their start date. They chose their most raggedy clothes. "We had very dirty shawls that we turned into turbans," he recalls.

Their destination was Paktika, an Afghan province just over the border from Waziristan, the lawless Pakistani region that's said to be home to Taliban and Al Qaeda bases. Their mission: to install four windmills.

Rustaqi and his team could never have gone to the countryside dressed as they typically would for work at a Kabul-based renewable-power firm called Sustainable Energy Services Afghanistan (SESA); to bandits, who are as common on Afghan highways as rest stops are on American ones, engineers look like ATMs. "If anyone asks, 'Who are you?' we tell them we are laborers," says Rustaqi. "If they get engineers, they cut off their heads. You know the Taliban: stupid people."

Get in, get the windmills up and running, get out as quickly as possible -- that's the basic game plan for each job. This mission, in Taliban territory, did not go smoothly. Partway through the afternoon, gunfire exploded in the air, followed by sirens crying out through the hills. Suddenly, a convoy of Afghan National Army vehicles sped by the work site. As the sounds of a firefight grew around them, Rustaqi was tempted to seek shelter. "It was very dangerous!" he says. But he had two engineers 100 feet up a half-finished windmill. "We couldn't leave our friends up there. We just kept working."

Within an hour, the fighting had passed as quickly as it had started. Their job finished, the engineers descended.

"What did you see?" Rustaqi asked them anxiously.

They stared at him blankly. They hadn't heard the gunfire or the sirens or his shouts. A hundred feet above the valley floor, all they'd heard was the sound of the wind whooshing past.

IN THE WEST, LIVING OFF THE GRID MAY BE AN ASPIRATION FOR SOME bleeding-heart eco-warriors. In Afghanistan, it is reality. Eighty percent of the country does not have electricity. In the villages where SESA typically works, the only form of it that some residents regularly encounter is lightning.

Even if someone were to build a new major power plant, it would be largely useless because there is no national electrical grid, and given Afghanistan's devilish terrain, with the jagged skyscraping peaks and the gash-in-the-earth valleys, there never will be. "You just can't string power lines all over the country," says Ahmad Saboor Arya, an engineer at the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

That makes Afghanistan the perfect place for small renewable-power installations with enough capacity to electrify a village. With unique coalitions of consumers and clients -- the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. military, which fund most of the construction; not-for-profits that often help secure local buy-in; tribal elders who welcome SESA teams into their communities and then oversee the completed power projects -- the company is gradually bringing power to one village after another.

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The U.S. and its NATO allies have plowed more than $56 billion into Afghan reconstruction and development. "We have to make sure we leave a sustainable solution," says British Major General Nick Carter, who, until November, commanded allied forces in southern Afghanistan. But a recent report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said that USAID and the Departments of State and Defense together were responsible for $17.7 billion in spending that they could not now account for. In that context, the $4.8 million that the U.S. has spent with SESA seems like a very good deal. That money has bought more than electricity; it has also created a surprising model of local development. "What our clients purchase is not solar power or wind power -- they actually don't give a shit about solar," says Tony Woods, the affable Kiwi-American who is the company's founder, CEO, and majority owner. "It's a means to an end -- to stability, to employment, to growth."

Woods is convinced that with some minor modifications to suit local cultures, his strategy will work across the world, in inhospitable business environments from Asia to South America. By going where most businesses would fear to tread, his company is creating jobs and boosting agricultural output. It is aiding improvements to health and education -- and showing there is money to be made in some of the world's unfriendliest nooks and crannies.

KABUL IS AFGHANISTAN'S BEST-LIT CITY. MOST OF THE CAPITAL'S electricity is imported from Uzbekistan, via a transmission line completed in 2009 with foreign-aid funding. What little power there is in the rest of the Texas-size country comes almost entirely from fume-spewing diesel generators, but Afghanistan has no significant domestic crude-oil supply, refining capability, or affordable diesel fuel.

Before 2001, under Taliban rule, "only Taliban houses and ministries in Kabul had electricity," says an engineer at the Afghan Ministry of Energy and Water, who asked not to be named because he did not have permission to speak. Even in homes that had once had power, "people passed five or six years in darkness." Electricity wasn't the only thing most Afghans lacked. In a 2003 survey by the National Solidarity Program, Afghans were asked what they would want the government to do with the approximately $200 per family in development funds available through foreign aid. Thirty percent said water and sanitation, another 30% said transportation, and 11% made electricity their top choice. "When you bring even small amounts of electricity to a rural area, income, literacy, and health generally advance," says Chris Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C., research group that specializes in energy and the environment. "Understanding this link is key to improving the lives of the rural poor."

Helping the poor was never the primary goal for Woods, who came to the energy business -- and Afghanistan -- circuitously. Born in the U.S. but raised in New Zealand and trained as an engineer, he had noticed nonoperational micro hydropower generators while biking through Pakistan. (He was en route from South Africa to China.) After the trip, he put together a proposal for New Zealand Aid, the national development agency, and got hired as a consultant to return to Pakistan and fix them.

In 1999, he made his first visit to Afghanistan. One blue-sky day, he ran into a platoon of Taliban soldiers enjoying a picnic by a lake near Kabul. They were shooting ducks, and they directed a gun at him -- so that he could have a go at the ducks too. Maybe it was the weather or Woods's disarming Forrest Gump-like charm. "They were quite helpful," he says, recalling that they offered excellent driving directions and local knowledge, including tips on which roads were mined.

On that trip, Woods had an epiphany: Afghanistan seemed perfect for renewable energy. The northeast region has abundant water, the west has steady wind, and the south is blessed with strong sunshine. The only thing it did not have was someone who was willing to take on the challenge of harnessing those natural resources and turning them into locally distributed, grid-free sources of electricity. So in 2007, he moved to Kabul and founded SESA.

Kabul's dusty streets are full of expats -- aid workers, journalists, ex-military. If you didn't know them by their skin color, you'd know them by the hunger in their eyes. The prototypical Kabul foreigner is a former idealist now angling for an ever-bigger piece of the lucrative war-and-aid pie. Woods stands out from that crowd. In one of the world's hairiest countries -- a decade ago, an engineer who now works for Woods spent a week in jail for shaving his beard -- Woods never even sports a five-o'clock shadow. Amid the cynics, he is, even after four years in Afghanistan, endlessly optimistic about doing business in a poor, corruption-plagued land. "We're willing to do this where nobody else wants to go," he says. "We've always been about helping -- we grew out of the development field -- but we are unashamedly commercial."

Woods's company, which turned a profit in the fourth quarter of 2010, draws almost all its revenue from the American taxpayer; USAID and the U.S. military are his biggest clients. But they are not his end consumer -- the Afghan villager is -- and Woods views his operation as being as much about sales and marketing as it is about electrification. "We understand what our clients are actually buying," he says, explaining how he constantly switches between two languages: that of the people who pay for a facility and that of those who will use it. "The funder talks about employment and stability. But the villagers talk about TV and lights and refrigerators. We put as much, or often more, time and effort into nontechnical parts of a project. If the social, environmental, or economic sides fail, then the project will fail even if the engineering is done to a high standard."

The first priority on every job is to prep the territory. Woods and his team are often hired in disputed regions where the government is seeking to wrest influence from the Taliban, so it is important, as Woods puts it, "to call ahead." "The community must be involved at the earliest stage or else they will blame problems later on the lack of consultation," he says. "They must help along the way, providing security and labor. If the village wants us there, then they will protect us." SESA also requires that the village provide land for the installation, a tangible investment in the project.

Woods's team does the installation, which doesn't require much wiring since everything stays local, and the training. Communities must agree to collective ownership and co-op-style management for the installed system. Villagers pay for power -- "Otherwise, there's no revenue for service and support" -- and Woods recommends using prepaid electricity meters. The concept works because nearly all Afghans already know the prepay model from pay-as-you-go mobile-phone cards. It also avoids the dirty work of cutting anyone off for delinquency. In these tightly connected communities, "nobody wants to be the one to disconnect Auntie Maud," Woods says with a smirk.

Woods trains locals to do the maintenance, which creates one or two well-paid jobs. "Someone has to run it and maintain it," he says. The Soviets built hundreds of micro hydropower plants throughout the north of the country, but none of them work now because they weren't maintained. (SESA has $1.5 million in USAID contracts to help resuscitate some of them.) In the background of Taliban training videos, you can see arrays of solar cells. These systems need faithful maintenance of the type that only a committed organization -- say, a close-knit group of insurgents or a village -- can provide.

Woods brings a deft diplomatic touch to his work. Before launching a solar project in 2009 in the Gardez Province village of Sayed Karam, for instance, he rented a van to bring eight tribal elders to a meeting in Kabul. The men tumbled out of the van, all with long beards, black turbans, and scars from previous wars (one was missing an eye, another a finger). Over tea, nuts, and kebabs, they peppered Woods with questions and comments: Why should anyone have to pay for power? Even the mosque? Even the school? How does a meter work? Where does the equipment come from? Please don't send low-quality gear from China!

Woods patiently answered each question. "They're Taliban with a small t," he says later. "They'll tolerate some foreigners if there is something in it for them. They're traditional Pashtuns and mostly want to stay that way, but with satellite TV."

The appeal of his company's product has been helped by an unforeseen agricultural benefit. Because of the delicacy of some turbine components, they must be shipped to the installation site in 40-foot cold-storage containers that should then be shipped back out. Woods wondered, What if I left the container at the delivery site?

One of the Afghan agriculture industry's great limitations is the lack of refrigerated storage. Most produce can't make it to market before rotting. Also, each community tends to grow the same crops and harvest them all at once, pushing prices down and leaving surpluses to spoil. After SESA installs a turbine, it can hook up the leftover container to the new power supply, creating refrigeration that can extend a harvest's shelf life by up to two months. It has done this in two communities so far, and is bidding on a U.S. Marine-funded solar project, for Helmand Province, that would power cold storage for pomegranates.

THE WORK OF ELECTRIFICATION HAS GIVEN DIFFERENT KINDS OF new power to Woods's 25-person staff, including the freedom that a steady, middle-class salary brings. In a nation where there are few jobs outside the home available to women (even hotel housekeeping staffs are typically male), this is particularly true for the four women he employs -- and no other has a story like Samiya Amiri's.

A bubbly 27-year-old with warm, dark eyes and a fleeting smile, Amiri, just over a decade ago, was forced by her parents to marry. Her suitor was rising in the Taliban hierarchy. A top official in the Badakshan Province, he wanted Amiri as his second wife, and he offered her parents an irresistible dowry: their own lives. He pledged to kill them if they didn't let him wed her.

After the birth of her second child, Amiri says, she fled from her husband, taking her two children and living for a time in a women's shelter. She had missed high school because the Taliban eliminated schooling for girls, but the shelter had an adult-education program that included English tutoring. That's when Woods found her. "She showed technical competence but lacked confidence and field experience," he says. "She also has courage and tenacity. We needed both." So he hired her and spent another three years training her. Today, she manages an all-female team of technicians.

The office is an oasis for Amiri. After she left the shelter, she moved in with her parents, but they so despised the circumstances around her marriage that they would not allow the kids, now 7 and 9, to join her. She put them in an orphanage.

At times, Amiri speaks about her job with an air of wonder. "We're the only women installing solar in the field in Afghanistan," she says. "Out of 12 women who passed the exam in my engineering class, just 3 found work. The other 9 are at home." She is paid $450 a month -- more than the average Afghan earns in an entire year -- and now makes enough money to rent a room in a Kabul apartment. A few months ago, she reclaimed her children.

ON PAPER, IT SEEMS THAT SESA HAS THE POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM lives not only across Afghanistan but also around the world. Its small-scale, locally based model works. Its training regimens create skilled labor. Its technology is solid -- so much so that Lockheed Martin approached Woods for advice about a big solar system it's building on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

Yet there's one wild card Woods cannot always account for: human meddling. To understand this, you have to go 90 miles north of Kabul to Panjshir Province, where the flat of the valley floor greets the foothills of the Hindu Kush and the road up-country traces gorges carved by tumbling lime-green rivers fed by snowmelt. During the Cold War, guerrillas would descend from the cliffs to ambush Soviet convoys. Today, old Soviet military vehicles sit rusting on the roadsides. Kids use the upside-down ones as playground equipment, a testament to the ultimate futility of the Russians' Afghan adventures.

SESA has installed 19 systems in the Panjshir: 18 solar and one wind. The solar arrays power 18 health clinics, which previously relied on kerosene lamps and generators that ran only intermittently because of fuel prices. (Diesel costs about 20% more in Afghanistan than in the U.S.) Presently, the clinics have clean water, spirited to the surface by new solar-powered pumps. Several of them even have a steady supply of hot water, thanks to solar heaters installed by Woods's team. This setup has run flawlessly.

Then there is the wind system, paid for by the U.S. military and overseen by Panjshir Province technology director Muhamad Tahir, a former mujahid who seems bent on proving that one of Afghanistan's biggest problems is the tyranny of small-time officials. In his spacious, sunny office in the governor's compound in the provincial capital of Bazarak, you will find no computers, no TVs, no photocopiers -- just expensive plush carpets and seven sofas lining the bare walls.

Two years ago, Tahir says, he asked the U.S. military for turbines along the roaring Panjshir River; hydropower could generate more kilowatts per dollar of investment, he argued. Instead, the Americans plowed $1 million into 10 windmills, he says with irritation. (Some news stories proclaimed this Afghanistan's first wind farm, though one engineer describes it more as a "wind garden.") Tahir grudgingly admits the investment has paid a decent return. Prewindmill, the generator in his compound burned 600 liters of diesel a month. With wind, it burns just 200 -- a savings of nearly $5,000 per year. "It was expensive," he says, fingering his prayer beads. "Now it's wind, and wind is free from God."

Alas, wind power is not free from human interference. In recent months, Tahir has unplugged every building in the compound but his own from the wind-powered mini-grid. "No more AC, no more fridges," he declares. He claims he doesn't want people to be spoiled by the abundance of affordable power, even though so little of it is being used that nearly all the electricity generated by the windmills is being wasted.

The power struggle befuddles the keeper of the windmills. Kefa- yatullah Muhammadi, 22, was trained by SESA to maintain the wind farm, which sits high on a hill above Bazarak. There's usually little to do, so he reads the Qu'ran, as well as books on agriculture and, of course, electricity. From his vantage point, he identifies the army outpost, the finance department, the bureau of refugees, and, on a neighboring crag, the local TV station. His windmills once powered all four. All four went back to burning diesel.

This kind of internecine battle is the one thing that can crack Woods's optimism. "It probably has something to do with money and budgets... . Or maybe the television station said something [Tahir] didn't agree with," he says. "Who knows?"

Whatever the case, Woods wasn't having any of it. In November, he drove up from Kabul. He stopped by the TV station, which broadcasts six hours a day from a one-room converted shipping container. SESA had covered the cost of laying cable from the wind farm to the station. Woods's hope was that, with the reliable energy, it would be able to broadcast around the clock.

"I asked them why they used diesel," he says. "They were not sure why. But they agreed it was better to use wind. I told them to just not be so silly. I looked at the TV-station manager and the wind-power manager together and just said, 'Come on, guys. Jesus. Sort it out.' "

Then he walked over to the unplugged cable that once connected the windmills to the TV station. He picked it up, and he plugged it right back in.

A version of this article appears in the April 2011 issue of Fast Company.

World economy can withstand $100 oil price: Kuwait

(Reuters) - The global economy can withstand an oil price of $100 a barrel, Kuwait's oil minister said on Saturday, as other exporters indicated OPEC may decide against increasing output through 2011 as the market was well supplied.

Analysts have said oil producing countries are likely to raise output after crude rallied more than 30 percent from a low in May because they fear prices could damage economic growth in fuel importing countries.

Arabian Gulf tanker rates are little changed as demand slows

The cost of delivering Middle East crude to Asia, the world’s busiest route for supertankers, was little changed as demand slowed for loadings in January.

Russia adds record 5.5 bln barrels to prospected oil reserves in 2010 - minister

Russia added a record 750 million tons (5.5 billion barrels) of oil to its prospected crude reserves in 2010, Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev said on Saturday, citing preliminary geological prospecting data.

"Now we can say with confidence that we have achieved expanded reproduction of the basic group of natural resources. The increment in oil reserves has registered a record growth of at least 750 million tons. This is 50% more than Russia extracts," Trutnev said at a working meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Central Arkansas growing weary of relentless tremors

Although drilling for natural gas has been ruled out as a cause for the quakes, experts want to continue looking at salt water disposal wells, said Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Geological Survey. Disposal wells occur when drilling waster is injected back into the earth after drilling.

Earlier this month, the Arkansas Oil and Gas commission issued an emergency moratorium on permits for new disposal wells. The commission will ask for a six-month extension for the moratorium at a January regulatory meeting.

The state also will soon become one of a few to require companies to disclose the chemicals used in fracking fluid, the water-and-chemical solution used in high-pressure drilling operations, said Shane Khoury, deputy director and general counsel for the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission.

Schlumberger Warns of Looming Shortage of Petroleum Engineers

Oil companies face a dwindling pool of engineers and other technical staff needed for exploration and production, the head of the world’s largest oilfield services company said.

The number of young recruits hired to replace aging petroleum engineers has declined over the last 10 years, as many college graduates choose managerial positions over engineering jobs and other field assignments, said Andrew Gould, chairman and chief executive officer of Schlumberger Ltd.

Saudi 2011 budget includes $10 billion shortfall

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Saudi Arabia on Monday published a budget for 2011 that includes a $10 billion deficit, but the year might end with a surplus because of high oil prices.

Past budgets have undervalued the sale price of oil, skewing projected income downward. Saudi Arabia is world's largest oil exporter, and most of its income is from oil sales.

Sunoco Dumps Refineries to Chase Pipeline Profits

Sunoco Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lynn Elsenhans has figured out the best strategy for stanching losses from the refining business: get rid of refineries.

China Gas says top executives "escorted away"

(Reuters) - China Gas Holdings Ltd , which has 114 gas projects in China, said two of its top executives had been "escorted away" by people who identified themselves as security officials in the city of Shenzhen and trading in its shares will remain suspended.

Neb. lawmakers: Pipeline route is out of our hands

LINCOLN - The State of Nebraska should explore enacting regulations to protect landowners and taxpayers from problems associated with pipelines, three state senators said Wednesday.

But the state is probably powerless to tell a Canadian company to reroute a proposed 36-inch crude-oil pipeline around the sensitive, groundwater-rich Sand Hills region, they said.

Iraq to activate Kurd foreign oil deals: minister

CAIRO (AFP) – Iraq will recognise contracts the government of its Kurdish north has signed with foreign oil companies, the country's new oil minister, Abdulkarim al-Luaybi, said on Saturday.

"Yes, we will recognise them," Luaybi told Dow Jones Newswires at a meeting in Cairo of the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Female bomber kills 43 at food center in Pakistan

KHAR, Pakistan (AP) — A female suicide bomber detonated her explosives-laden vest killing at least 43 people at an aid distribution center in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, while army helicopter gunships and artillery killed a similar number of Islamic militants in neighboring tribal regions near the Afghan border, officials said.

The bombing appeared to be the first suicide attack staged by a woman in Pakistan, and it underscored the resilience of militant groups in the country's tribal belt despite ongoing military operations against them.

'Father of plug-in hybrids' gets new Volt

SACRAMENTO, Calif. --Andrew Frank's new Chevrolet Volt is literally the car of his dreams.

The University of California, Davis, engineering professor is often considered "the father of plug-in hybrid vehicles," a field that is entering into the mass marketing stage with this month's rollout of the new Volt.

"I've been working on this idea for 30 years," said Frank, as he handled his new car's plug-in cords like a proud father. "This is kind of like a culmination of all my work."

African Huts Far From the Grid Glow With Renewable Power

KIPTUSURI, Kenya — For Sara Ruto, the desperate yearning for electricity began last year with the purchase of her first cellphone, a lifeline for receiving small money transfers, contacting relatives in the city or checking chicken prices at the nearest market.

Charging the phone was no simple matter in this farming village far from Kenya’s electric grid.

Every week, Ms. Ruto walked two miles to hire a motorcycle taxi for the three-hour ride to Mogotio, the nearest town with electricity. There, she dropped off her cellphone at a store that recharges phones for 30 cents. Yet the service was in such demand that she had to leave it behind for three full days before returning.

That wearying routine ended in February when the family sold some animals to buy a small Chinese-made solar power system for about $80. Now balanced precariously atop their tin roof, a lone solar panel provides enough electricity to charge the phone and run four bright overhead lights with switches.

ADB Considering Loans for 580-Megawatt Solar Power Project in India

The Asian Development Bank may provide loans to a 580-megawatt solar power park in India’s Gujarat state as the country aims to increase its solar power capacity to meet growing demand.

METI OKs project for nuclear power plant in Aomori

TOKYO — The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry on Friday approved a plan by Tokyo Electric Power Co to set up a nuclear power plant in Aomori Prefecture following a prolonged safety review in light of a major earthquake in a neighboring region and additional inspections of active faults.

Environmentalists deplore Schwarzenegger's corporate turn

As the governor's tenure draws to an end, activists say, his policies grow less green.

Siberian park gets new population in climate change test

A Russian scientist hopes to prove that bringing back animals will save the permafrost and reduce global warming.

Will Santa's reindeer survive climate change?

Santa may need to start looking for back-ups, since reindeer herds are dwindling across much of the Arctic. How much is climate change to blame? That remains a source of debate.

Happy Holidays

Tuesday, 16 February 2010, 13:41
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 05 DUSHANBE 000173
SIPDIS
STATE DEPARTMENT FOR S/RAP
EO 12958 DECL: 2/16/2020
TAGS PREL, PGOV, PHUM, EAID, ECON, EINV, TI
SUBJECT: CORRECTED COPY - TAJIKISTAN SCENESETTER FOR VISIT OF SRAP
HOLBROOKE
CLASSIFIED BY: NECIA QUAST, CDA, EXEC, DOS. REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 1. (C) Summary: U.S. interests in Tajikistan are a stable state on Afghanistan's northern border, support for our military efforts in Afghanistan, and for Tajikistan to be a stabilizing influence and contributor to economic development in the region. Tajikistan gives unrestricted over flight rights, and quickly agreed to NDN ground transit. In the medium term, it could play a more active role in regional development, because of its huge hydropower potential, relative (to Afghanistan) stability, and religiously moderate population. But to do so Tajikistan must overcome multiple political and economic problems which stymie its own development: poverty, bad relations with Uzbekistan, intense corruption, Soviet-era economic structures and planning, an undemocratic political system, chronic food insecurity, and dependence on migrant labor in Russia.

2. (C) U.S. assistance has shown mixed results in the development sphere. Recent steps to improve the business climate have been offset by the government's campaign to force its citizens to contribute to the construction of the Roghun hydroelectric dam. The government is not willing to reform its political process. Our security cooperation shows some promise. Regardless of our efforts, there is a limit to what Tajikistan can offer: it produces very little, is poor, and its government has minimal capacity. The Tajiks have some unrealistic ideas about what we can offer them -- mainly large infrastructure projects including questionable power plants, tunnels to Pakistan, and bridges to nowhere. There is some truth to the quip that Tajikistan's real contribution to our efforts in Afghanistan is to be stable, and to allow unfettered over flight and transit to our forces - which the Tajiks have done unfailingly. We try to promote Tajik polices which will ensure continued stability. End summary.

A DIFFICULT NEIGHBORHOOD

3. (C) Some of Tajikistan's difficulties are geographic. Chronic problems with Uzbekistan, fueled by personal animosity between the presidents of each country, has stymied Tajikistan's trade, energy self-sufficiency, and economic development. Afghan instability is a malign influence: traffic in drugs undermines rule of law in Tajikistan, Tajiks fear the spread of extremist ideas from Afghanistan, and militants in Afghanistan can threaten Tajik security across the long, porous border. Russian interference looms large in the Tajik consciousness. The Russians control one major hydropower dam in Tajikistan, a source of disagreements between the two countries. The Tajiks seek alternative partners, including the United States, China, and Iran, to balance Russian influence. China is a major infrastructure donor, with over $1 billion in low-interest loans to Tajikistan to build roads and power line projects. Iran funds tunnel and hydropower projects, but displays of Persian solidarity do not mask deep suspicions between the hard-drinking, Soviet-reared, Sunni elite in Dushanbe and religiously conservative Shiites in Tehran.

4. (C) The Tajik government presses us for greater benefits in return for support on Afghanistan. The Tajiks think Uzbekistan is keeping all NDN-related business for itself; they want more traffic to transit Tajikistan, more infrastructure to support that traffic, and the United States to purchase Tajik goods for forces in Afghanistan. We currently purchase small amounts of Tajik bottled water for ISAF. They have indicated they would be happy for the U.S. establish an air base in Tajikistan. They see U.S. involvement in the region as a bulwark against Afghan instability, and as a cash cow they want a piece of.

FEAR OF INTERNAL RIVALS, MILITANTS, AND RUSSIA

5. (C) The Tajik civil war ended in 1997 with a power sharing arrangement between President Rahmon's government and the leaders of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO). Since the end of

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the war, Rahmon gradually has reneged on this deal and forced nearly all oppositionists out of government -- some are in prison, some left the country, and others died mysteriously. In May 2009 an armed group led by a former UTO figure, Mullah Abdullo Rahimov, returned to Tajikistan from Afghanistan, reportedly with several foreign fighters. Tajik security forces neutralized this group without outside assistance. They have told us U.S. training enabled their security forces to win, and they are eager for more training.

6. (C) Russian-Tajik relations have deteriorated. Tajik officials believe the Russians supported Mullah Abdullo's group, to signal Tajikistan that they need Russian protection. The two governments could not agree on the terms of Russian involvement in the Roghun Dam, and they have other differences. In October 2009 the President downgraded the formal status of the Russian language in Tajikistan. His government broached charging Russia rent for its military bases in Tajikistan. In 2009 the Russian-controlled Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric plant cut production when the government of Tajikistan's failed to pay its bills on time.

ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES

7. (C) Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet republics. It is more mountainous than Afghanistan, with earthquakes, floods, droughts, locusts and extreme weather. Parts of the country are often cut off by snow and avalanches. External links pass through obstructive Uzbekistan, unstable Afghanistan, or over the rough, remote Pamir passes to western China. Its only industrial products are aluminum and hydroelectricity. The Tajik Aluminum Company (Talco) accounts for most of Tajikistan's exports. Though it is technically state-owned, most of its revenues end up in a secretive offshore company controlled by the President, and the state budget sees little of the income. Talco consumes up to half of Tajikistan's electricity, contributing to major seasonal shortages and suffering.

8. (C) President Rahmon's response to Tajikistan's chronic energy insecurity was in late 2009 to launch a massive campaign to fund and build the Roghun Hydroelectric Plant. Roghun would be the highest dam in the world, and double Tajikistan's electricity generation capacity. The government's fundraising efforts, however, have drawn serious concern from international donors. Individuals and organizations across all walks of life have been coerced into buying shares in the project. Many people have been told they will lose their jobs unless they contribute an amount equal to many months' salary. While the government claims all share sales are voluntary, there is ample evidence that officials are forcing the population to cough up funds. Apart from the human rights question, donors are concerned that the nearly $200 million in funds raised so far will not be accounted for and spent transparently. Considering Talco's share of electricity consumption, the Roghun campaign looks like a means to ensure Talco's continued profitability.

9. (C) Tajikistan's economy suffers from the global recession through major drops in exports, imports, and remittances from a million Tajiks working in Russia. The money they sent home was equal to over 50% of GDP in 2008, and literally keeps rural communities alive. Remittances dropped 34% in 2009. The greatest obstacle to improving the economy is resistance to reform. From the President down to the policeman on the street, government is characterized by cronyism and corruption. Rahmon and his family control the country's major businesses, including the largest bank, and they play hardball to protect their business interests, no matter the cost to the economy writ large. As one foreign ambassador summed up, President Rahmon prefers to control 90% of a ten-dollar pie rather than 30% of a hundred-dollar pie.

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ELECTIONS ARE COMING, BUT DEMOCRACY ISN'T

10. (C) The government has limited opposition party operations and rejected electoral law reforms for the February 28, 2010 parliamentary elections. The Embassy does not expect the elections to be free and fair. There has been almost no coverage of opposition political parties by state media, and most of the population is unaware of the purpose of the elections. Parliamentary opposition is weak -- only 15 of the 62 members are not in the ruling party, and some of these are independent in name only. The most prominent opposition party, the Islamic Renewal Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), has two seats in the outgoing parliament. IRPT leadership has supported the government on most issues and downplays the importance of Islam in the party's platform. Parliament acts as a rubber stamp.

11. (SBU) In 2009 Parliament passed a restrictive new law on religion, curbing the activities of religious groups, Islamic or otherwise. Our advice that this could radicalize many believers has fallen on deaf ears. Last year, the government arrested dozens of individuals, accusing them of membership in the banned "Salafiya" movement, but it has no evidence that there is an organized Salafiya movement. It also arrested 92 members of the Muslim fundamentalist missionary group, Jamaati Tabligh. Most mainstream Muslim religious leaders view the Tabligh members as harmless missionaries and have called for their release.

12. (SBU) Independent media is reeling after government officials recently filed lawsuits against five newspapers for reporting on public government reports and statements in open court which were critical of judges and government ministries. The newspapers will be forced to close if the lawsuits succeed. We and European partners have protested the lawsuits.

DIFFICULT RELATIONS WITH DONORS

13. (SBU) In 2007 Tajikistan's National Bank admitted it had hidden a billion dollars in loans and guarantees to politically-connected cotton investors (of which $600 million was never repaid), violating its IMF program. The IMF demanded early repayment of some debt, an audit of the National Bank, and other reforms before renewing assistance. In May 2009 the IMF voted to lend a further $116 million to Tajikistan to help it through the next three years; the U.S. was the only IMF member to vote against this, which infuriated the Tajik government. The IMF has so far disbursed $40 million. A team from Washington was recently in Dushanbe to assess government progress, establish new benchmarks for the next tranche of funds, and assess the impact of Roghun fundraising. The team's assessment should be available soon. Donors are concerned that the campaign to finance Roghun is exacerbating severe poverty, and violates the terms of the IMF's assistance. It raises questions about the government's frequent appeals to donors for financial aid and its willingness to enact economic reforms as a condition of that aid. Donors have expressed their concerns formally to the government and await a response. Donors are pushing regional energy market integration and the construction of power lines that will allow Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to sell surplus summer electricity output to Afghanistan and Pakistan. A 220 kW line from Tajikistan to Afghanistan is under construction with Asian Development Bank financing, and will be finished in late 2010. The larger CASA-1000 power line project to link to Afghanistan and Pakistan has been delayed by financing problems.

U.S. ASSISTANCE

14. (U) U.S. assistance to Tajikistan will grow significantly to $45.3 million in FY 2010, from $27.8 million in FY 2009. The

DUSHANBE 00000173 004 OF 005

new money will go to agriculture, trade, and private sector initiatives to compensate for the loss of the much-needed food security programs. Until FY 2008 Tajikistan had a multi-year food aid program that had significant results reducing food insecurity in some of Tajikistan's most at-risk regions, followed by similar single-year programs in FY 2009 and 2010. A new Food Security Initiative is in development, but it remains unclear whether Tajikistan will receive any of those funds. New programs also will address chronic energy shortages by building a regional energy market and helping the Central Asian states address water and power issues. Tajikistan was awarded $9.9 million in FY 2008 1207 funds to address stability issues. The major threats to stability arise from the Tajikistan's poverty -- the World Bank estimates over 60% of the population lives below the poverty line -- and the government's demonstrated inability to respond to emergencies. The 1207 project works in 50 isolated communities in the Rasht and Fergana valleys, and along the Afghan frontier. Health and education deficiencies are so acute they imperil our progress in other areas. Our programs work to improve health policies, systems and services, teacher training, education finance, national curriculum, student assessment, and school governance.

SECURITY COOPERATION

15. (C) Security Cooperation remains a strong point in our relationship with Tajikistan. The Ministry of Defense volunteered last year for the first time to host CENTCOM's Exercise Regional Cooperation, including Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, which concluded August 10. CENTCOM and the Tajik Armed Forces held Consultative Staff Talks in May and established the FY 2010 Security Cooperation Plan, which reflects Tajikistan's increased interest in demining and participation in the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI). The U.S. Army Humanitarian Demining Research and Development Office will provide Tajikistan a mechanical demining machine for field evaluation in FY 2010 with a planned FMF purchase in FY 2011. Tajikistan reconfirmed its commitment to deploy a company-sized peacekeeping unit in 2011. Training begins this month with a National Policy White Paper Workshop that will help shape development in the Ministry of Defense and their Mobile Forces. A General Staff level workshop and actual unit training will take place next year.

16. (C) The Nizhny Pyanj Bridge and Point of Entry facilities have improved the links between Tajikistan and Afghanistan significantly. Though the bridge is not being used to its fullest capacity, traffic is much heavier than the old ferry system, and continues to grow. Counts vary between 40 and 200 containers and transport trucks per day. CENTCOM 2010funding at this facility will improve lighting, fences, and cameras, and parking areas. Tajikistan is eager to see us make greater use of our agreement on transit of non-lethal goods to Afghanistan through the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), and hopes for economic benefits to Tajikistan from this agreement. So far we have low rate truck traffic from Manas through Tajikistan to Bagram. Defense Logistics Agency is arranging to buy bottled water from a Tajik producer for forces in Afghanistan. The Tajiks are looking for any way to circumvent Uzbekistan's stranglehold on their trade.

US SOF ENGAGEMENT

17. (S) The U.S. Embassy plans to continue to build the capacity and capability of select Tajikistan security forces, in support of CENTCOM Joint Interagency Coordination Group for Counter Narcotics (JIACG-CN), and U.S. government strategic themes, goals and objectives for Tajikistan. Once SOCCENT forces have done an assessment and started organizing these groups into special units, the main goal is to sustain an increase in capabilities by U.S. Special Forces Joint Combined Exercise and Training (JCET) and Counter-narcotic training (CNT) missions.

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NARCOTICS

18. (C) Tajikistan is a major transit route for Afghan heroin going to Russia and Europe. According to UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates, 40 tons of Afghan opiates enter Russia each year via Tajikistan. Less than 5% is seized before reaching Russia. Capabilities of Tajik law enforcement agencies are severely limited. Corruption is a major problem. Law enforcement agencies are reluctant to target well-connected traffickers, but are effective against low- and mid-level traffickers. The Drug Control Agency (DCA) is a ten-year-old, 400-officer agency developed through a UNODC project. Many countries are donors, but an INL-funded salary supplement program provides the primary funding. DCA's liaison officers in Taloquan in northern Afghanistan were key to seizures totaling over 100 kilos of heroin in the last four months. U.S Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents work with DCA to deepen operations.

19. (SBU) Until 2005, the Russians guarded the Tajik/Afghan border; after the Russians departed, the outposts were broken down lean-tos, unfit for human habitation. The Tajik Border Guard force is staffed largely by conscripts who are poorly trained, poorly paid, underequipped and often under-fed. INL rebuilt border posts, giving the Border Guards suitable and safe places to live, creating conditions for successful border patrol operations. Each new outpost costs about $500,000 and houses more than 100 guards. The outposts use low-maintenance energy-efficient prefab construction and alternative energy, including solar, wind and micro-hydro power. We are planning a pilot project of joint Tajik/Afghan border guard training in Khorog. If successful, it will be part of the regular training of guards assigned to the Afghan/Tajik border. We are exploring offering a popular Emergency First Responder course to a joint class of Tajik and Afghan border guards. INL has rebuilt the Tajik Border Guard academy. A U.S. Border Patrol team plans to visit to discuss and demonstrate patrolling techniques at the Academy and in the field; this might lead to an exchange of instructors.

20. (C) CENTCOM's Counter Narcotics program is making strong contributions to Tajikistan's security. This year, $16.9 million in funding, recently approved in the Supplemental Bill, will support construction of an interagency National Training Center, infrastructure at the Nizhny Pyanj Point of Entry, and communications equipment. The Training Center will be a multi-use facility for all ministries and serve as a venue for SOCCENT's bi-annual Counter Narco-Terrorism training. A recent end-use monitoring visit demonstrated the Tajiks are using previously provided communications equipment and maintaining the equipment. This year, we will begin establishing an interagency communications architecture at Nizhny Pyanj and the adjoining district. This will allow five government agencies to communicate using a compatible system. QUAST

King's Battle With Clerics Dictates Fate of Saudi's Oil Economy

When Saudi King Abdullah appeared in a newspaper photo with 40 veiled women in April, he broke a taboo by mixing with the opposite sex in public.

Since then, the 86-year-old monarch has crimped the power of conservative Muslim clerics more than any of his five predecessors since the foundation of the kingdom in 1932. He prohibited unauthorized religious edicts, or fatwas, and shut some of the websites where they’re issued. In the past month, he backed supermarkets employing females for the first time.

...The friction between king and clerics underscores a shift in Saudi society away from the dominance of strict Islamic law. The king is spearheading the move by forging a Saudi national identity and bringing women into the workforce as part of an attempt to make the economy less dependent on oil.

Crude Trades Near One-Week Low Because of Outlook for Weaker Fuel Demand

Oil traded near its lowest level in more than a week in New York on a stronger dollar and concern that U.S. fuel consumption is rebounding too slowly.

Crude fell as the Dollar Index climbed for a second day, damping the appeal of commodities as an alternative investment. Work began on 3 percent fewer houses in September in the U.S., the world’s largest oil user, than a month earlier, economists estimated before a Commerce Department report tomorrow.

Hedge Funds Cut Bullish Bets on Natural Gas to 2010 Low

Hedge funds cut their bullish bets on natural gas to the lowest level this year as expanding stockpiles drove prices to a 13-month low.

The funds and other large speculators cut wagers on rising prices by 36 percent in the seven days ended Oct. 12, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly Commitments of Traders report. It was the third week of declines, bringing the reduction since Sept. 21 to 71 percent.

OPEC: A lifeboat in a turbulent sea

So why [is OPEC] a lifeboat? Through its policy on oil production, the organization has succeeded in maintaining oil prices at a reasonable level. It has also succeeded, through production cuts, in credibly and sincerely defending prices, in the wake of their collapse at the start of the global financial crisis (falling to nearly 30 dollars per barrel), all without dealing any blows to the global economy. In addition, the majority of OPEC’s member states have since injected the necessary funds for investments and new projects, particularly in the petroleum sector, in contrast to the deflationary policies of the industrialized nations which, first and foremost, attempted to rescue their crumbling financial institutions, while approving spending cuts in their budgets.

OPEC seems keen to draw Viennese blinds

OPEC appeared uncomfortable in the spotlight of the global media last week in Vienna.

Perhaps members were a little embarrassed that oil revenue this year is on target to be the second highest in the history of the 50-year-old organisation as the world faces the prospect of a double-dip recession.

France seeks to calm fuel fears as strike momentum builds

PARIS (AFP) – France sought Sunday to calm fears of petrol shortages, with the oil industry admitting it cannot hold on forever as strikes against pension reform intensified ahead of another wave of mass protests.

French Truckers Block Roads as State Pledges Fuel Supplies

French truckers blocked highways and officials said they’d use police to prevent strikers from cutting fuel supplies as the standoff hardened over President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to raise the retirement age to 62.

The government said it won’t give in to demands that it suspend parliamentary debate on the change and keep the minimum retirement age at 60. Sarkozy’s ministers sought to guarantee fuel, saying police would be deployed to ensure access to storage sites as refinery strikes entered a second week.

Oil workers defy French demand to open depots

French oil workers on Monday defied the government's demand to get back to work and end scattered fuel shortages, stepping up their fight against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age to 62.

Striking workers piled up tires and set them ablaze in front of a refinery at Grandpuits, east of Paris, after authorities issued a legal order insisting that some strikers reopen the facility. Workers said Monday they would refuse, as curls of heavy black smoke wafted into the air.

Dh5bn power station for Abu Dhabi by 2014

The next major power station for Abu Dhabi will cost Dh5 billion and over time generate the cheapest electricity the emirate’s utility has secured since 1998, according to an official statement today.

Cnooc's Overseas Acquisitions May Increase Its Credit Risk, Moody's Says

Cnooc Ltd.’s debt may rise if China’s biggest offshore oil explorer increases overseas acquisitions following its stake purchase in Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Eagle Ford project, Moody’s Investors Service said.

TNK-BP to acquire BP's Vietnam, Venezuela assets

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian oil company TNK-BP said on Monday it had agreed a deal with its part-owner BP to acquire the troubled British oil giant's assets in Vietnam and Venezuela for 1.8 billion dollars.

TNK-BP, Russia's third-biggest oil company, is owned 50 percent by BP and 50 percent by a group of Russian billionaires including banking magnate Mikhail Fridman known collectively as Alfa Access-Renova (AAR).

Halliburton Net Income Increases as Work Shifts to Onshore

Halliburton Co., the world’s second- largest oilfield-services provider, said profit rose as onshore work in North America more than made up for a slowdown in the Gulf of Mexico following an April oil spill.

In Collins, effects of gas drilling are debated

Since July, Natalie Brant has complained to anyone who will listen that U.S. Energy isn't living up to its promises and isn't drilling safely.

But state environmental regulators say methane gas is found naturally in well water in this part of the area, and there's no proof the drilling is causing the family's health problems.

And U.S. Energy officials said they have tried to help the Brants and their neighbors, but the gas in their water is coming from a nearby septic system.

Analysis: Uncertain Energy Policy Among Key Risk to Upstream O&G;

Uncertain energy policy poses a key risk to upstream oil and gas companies worldwide, according to the Ernst & Young Business Risk Report 2010.

Uncertainty, which was ranked second in Ernst & Young's previous report in 2009, has grown as a risk as direction of energy policy have been prolonged, partly by the vague outcome of the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009 and partly by the inability of the U.S. to adopt a clear energy policy. Policy decisions worldwide have further been complicated by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

India to launch shale gas auction before end-2011

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India will launch bidding for the exploration of shale gas before the end of 2011, Petroleum Secretary S. Sundareshan said on Monday at the opening of a new bidding round for conventional oil and gas blocks. Although India's estimated shale gas reserves are not known, the government is assessing the potential for the energy source and is seeking data and technology from the United States, petroleum ministry officials said.

Iraqi province pushes for more say

Iraq's western Anbar province is demanding more control over its potentially huge energy reserves ahead of this week's auction of gas fields, including the vast desert province's Akkas reservoir.

Blessing or Curse? Exploration of oil discoveries in Afghanistan not without risk

In September 2010 the Afghan government announced the discovery of an oil field containing an estimated 1.8 billion barrels in the northern region between Balkh and Jawzjan provinces. The find was made after a survey conducted by Afghan and international geologists and represents a key opportunity for the country to resume commercially viable industrial activities.

US says Sudan votes must be held on time

(CNN) -- The United States says that January's planned voting in Sudan on the southern region's independence should proceed as scheduled, despite a snag in talks over the status of a key oil-rich region.

Angola's oil-fuelled tragedy

Angola, where British oil companies have substantial interests, does not feature on the UK's list of countries whose human rights records are of concern.

A battle begins

In July, Ukraine’s Government announced coal market reorganisation for 2011 – 2014. The plan assumes the liquidation of unprofitable mines, coal trade liberalisation and privatisation.

Three major players will definitely compete in mine privatisation: System Capital Management (SCM), ArcelorMittal and the Russians. China may also enter the game.

Global Hydro and Nuclear Power in Perspective

The prospects for any future growth from nuclear power are now very dim, at least, if one was hoping to extract a meaningful contribution from that energy source. The reasons are myriad, but, in the developed world because of societal concerns and the pricing of risk it’s not even possible for the nuclear industry to function without government support–from financing to insurance. Meanwhile wind power, with its relatively fast construction times and consequent return on investment at moderately attractive levels, is now more competitive by comparison. Yes, wind is a different kind (and different quality) of energy. But we are already witnessing wind power construction globally pulling way, way ahead of the nuclear industry.

Unfortunately, the entire discussion of Wind, Solar, and Nuclear power is marginal when considering how the world powers itself, in the main. The title of my ASPO conference talk, Return to Coal, addressed the coming crossover point when coal once again becomes the primary energy source of the world. When we consider these energy sources, and their actual use in perspective, we can see that the politics of Climate Change legislation for example is actually just a parlour game played in the developed world: and one that offers no practical solutions.

Severn barrage tidal power plan axed

Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State for Energy, is to give the go-ahead to a string of new nuclear power stations, wind farms and clean coal plants as he sets out how the coalition plans to keep the lights on in the next three decades.

But tomorrow's major statement on energy policy will pull the plug on the vast Severn barrage plan, which it was claimed could generate 5 per cent of Britain's electricity. Wildlife campaigners are delighted at the news, ending fears of the destruction of unique habitats.

Government to announce plan for ocean energy

A new blueprint for a billion euro ocean energy industry is being developed by the government, and energy minister Eamon Ryan is expected to make a major announcement over the next few months.

Financing Dearth Holds Solar Back in U.S.

NEW YORK — The U.S. solar energy industry is having its best year ever, yet financing remains scarce for the billion-dollar projects needed for it to gain ground on global leaders like Germany.

For the U.S. solar sector to move up from rooftop add-on technology to the scale of fossil fuel power plants, the country needs to build large plants covering hundreds of acres. Each can cost as much as $1 billion, a huge sum for the nascent industry to finance, even with U.S. government incentives.

“Because the debt market is so thin right now, it is very difficult to find lenders who are able to lend long-term,” said Scott Frier, chief operating officer of Abengoa Solar, which has two big U.S. plants under development.

NASCAR to use ethanol fuel mix

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- NASCAR says that it will use a 15% ethanol blend in its racing fuel, days after the government approved the mix.

Global Macro Notes: Fed Simply Driving Markets Toward a Brick Wall

And finally, there is simply a lot of crude oil in the world. Crude oil inventories just keep hitting record levels. New production keeps coming online in all sorts of places. The peak oil thesis, if not flat-out defeated, seems at least very much on hold from a medium-term supply and demand perspective.

Apple poised to become largest public company in America

With suggestions that the world is approaching 'peak oil' as supplies begin to dwindle and increasing concern over the role that fossil fuels play in climate change, Exxon looks set to be replaced by perhaps the most potent symbol of the digital age.

Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America

In this intelligent and refreshingly readable--if inevitably depressing--expose, Freudenburg and Gramling, professors of environmental studies and sociology respectively, and longtime collaborators and observers of the oil industry, analyze the origins of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and its aftermath, concluding that we may be facing a "technological Peter Principle": we may have elevated "the societal significance of our technology up to, and perhaps beyond, the point where it can actually do what we expect it to do."

Our Thirst for Oil: A Deeper Dive

This summer's Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico called attention to the world's thirst for oil and the hazards of that dependence. It also heightened concerns about the health of the world's oceans. We asked experts in these areas to recommend books that shed light on these topics. Here's what they say about some of their favorites.

Cable cars: back to the future to help combat peak oil?

A plan to run cable cars along High St could be a "small but significant" start to Dunedin preparing for the effects of peak oil, an Australian transport researcher says.

"Cable cars and trams worked wonderfully 100 years ago when we did not have cheap oil," Associate Prof Philip Laird, of Wollongong University, told the Otago Daily Times last week.

New Zealand: Pipe upgrade urgency signalled

Dunedin's water pipes must be upgraded before oil shocks intensify and worldwide energy prices surge, a draft paper prepared for the city council suggests.

The paper warns potentially expensive improvements could be much harder to afford in the maelstrom of supply crunches and price spikes as the world grapples with peak oil.

Funky cob house is first to meet extreme-green standard

On a hilltop in Victoria, British Columbia, Ann and Gord Baird lived in a trailer with his two children for 20 months while they hand-built their dream home -- out of cob.

Their funky, multi-generational home has curved, two-foot thick cob walls -- a mixture of water, clay (the glue), sand and straw (the strength) as well as pumice (for extra insulation.)

Fossil fuel future

So there is no denying that cheap fossil fuel has been a boon to humankind, and we are not about to foist guilt feelings on anyone for its use, or even on those who made bundles of money in its extraction and trade. But we now know that like any business, the cost analysis is deficient in one area-the cost on the environment. Carbon emission as a consequence of fossil fuel use is like cigarette smoking to cancer. When we started costing the consequences and saw facts our business bottom lines did not like to see, we went into massive denial. Up to now, there are still people who refuse to see that climate warming is a consequence of the accumulated emissions that retain solar heat in the environment, melting the polar caps and putting additional water into our oceans with consequences on the weather we are now just beginning to suspect are not pleasant.

Global warming issue spans two ballot items

Fundraising for a ballot initiative to suspend California's global warming law has flagged, but oil companies and other business interests are pouring millions of dollars into a separate ballot measure that could dry up funds to implement the law.

Global warming will be a problem for youth, NASA climatologist warns

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, visited the University Saturday to talk about the scientific impacts of climate change on the Earth's species and the importance of protecting the planet for future generations.

CG admiral asks for Arctic resources

ABOVE NORTHERN ALASKA — The ice-choked reaches of the northern Arctic Ocean aren't widely perceived as an international shipping route. But global warming is bringing vast change, and Russia, for one, is making an aggressive push to establish top of the world sea lanes.

This year, a Russian ship carrying up to 90,000 metric tons of gas condensate sailed across the Arctic and through the Bering Strait to the Far East. Last year, a Russian ship went the other way, leaving from South Korea with industrial parts. Russia plans up to eight such trips next year, using oil-type tankers with reinforced hulls to break through the ice.

All of which calls for more U.S. Coast Guard facilities and equipment in the far north to secure U.S. claims and prepare for increased human activity, according to Rear Admiral Christopher C. Colvin, who is in charge of all Coast Guard operations in Alaska and surrounding waters.

"We have to have presence up there to protect our claims for the future, sovereignty claims, extended continental shelf claims," Colvin told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview conducted aboard a C-130 on a lumbering flight to the Arctic Ocean.

Pious bromides about tackling corruption in Afghanistan cannot hide the fact that the buck stops in Washington

Afghan intelligence officers beat back Afghan police officers who mobbed the only branch of Kabul Bank open in the capital on Wednesday, in a desperate attempt to draw money before it closed for Eid al-Fitr, the most important festival of the year in Islamic countries. Eid marks the end of a month of Ramadan fasting and most Afghans spend a small fortune on food and presents for the holiday.

Most of the 250,000 government employees in Afghanistan receive their salaries via electronic transfer to Kabul Bank, the country's largest private bank, which is reported to be on the verge of collapse. Blame has been cast on the biggest borrower – a man named Abdul Hasin, who was given $100m for a variety of projects which he has not repaid. Hasin happens to be the half-brother of the vice president of the country, Mohammed Qasim Fahim.

A little less than a year ago, I visited the heavily guarded headquarters of Abdul Hasin's business conglomerate – Zahid Walid – in the wealthy Kabul neighbourhood of Wazir Akbar Khan, not far from the even more heavily fortified US embassy. Neither Hasin nor Fahim were wealthy when the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, but as the de facto leader of the Northern Alliance, Fahim was perfectly placed to profit from the new opportunities created by the collapse of the Taliban.

Ramin Seddiqui, the managing director of the Zahid Walid's diesel import business, filled me in on how the business grew: first, a series of lucrative contracts to pour concrete for a Nato base, as well as portions of the US embassy being rebuilt in Kabul and the city's airport, which was in a state of disrepair.

On a plot of land in downtown Kabul acquired for a pittance by Fahim, Abdul Hasin also financed the construction of a high-rise building dubbed "Goldpoint", which now houses dozens of jewelry shops. Soon, the company was importing Russian gas, and not long after that, Abdul Hasin set up the Gas Group, which markets bottled gas to households and small businesses.

Beginning in the winter of 2006, Zahid Walid won over $90m in contracts from the Afghan ministry of energy and water to supply fuel to the diesel power plants in Kabul. (I was involved in making a video for Channel 4 investigating the overspending on the Tarakhil diesel plant.)

The business deals of Abdul Hasin were legal, but given their apparent failure, major questions can – and should – be raised about nepotism and backroom deals cut by the Bush and the Obama administrations in their drive to combat corruption in Afghanistan. Hasin's epic default hardly makes him the only businessman whose dealings deserve closer scrutiny – his business partner is Mahmoud Karzai, brother of the president, who flipped a house Dubai's Palm Jumeirah with the Kabul Bank's former chairman, Sher Khan Farnood. Karzai was quoted this week saying: "Making a profit on a house is beautiful."

Mohammed Zia Salehi, the chief of administration for the national security council who was recently arrested – then released, at President Karzai's behest – in a corruption investigation, appears to have been on the CIA payroll for many years, according to the New York Times, as is Ahmed Wali Karzai, another brother of the president.

What is to be done about these gentlemen? In a report released this week, Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon official who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Titled "Time to Look in the Mirror", the report correctly notes that low-level corruption is not the problem:

"Unfortunately, the worst aspects of this corruption are largely the product of our mistakes. The fact is that we are at least as much to blame for what has happened as the Afghans, and we have been grindingly slow either to admit our faults or to correct them."

There is absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone in Kabul that corruption is endemic among Afghanistan's ruling elite. But who granted the contracts, put them on the payroll and gave them the money?

So, when are we going to see those CIA and Pentagon officials in Washington DC facing charges?

The age of easy, cheap oil maybe getting over slowly

The Arctic is thought to hold the world’s largest reserves of untapped oil and gas, with as much as a fifth of remaining undiscovered oil located there. It is also one of the most remote and extreme regions on the planet. As per a 2008 US Geological Survey report, the Arctic Circle could hold estimated 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil. It also said the Arctic holds around 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 20 percent of the undiscovered natural gas liquids.

But with the specter of dwindling energy resources haunting some, exploiting these new “frontier” resources is becoming increasingly apparent. Martin Pratt, director of research at IBRU underlined that “for any state, control over hydrocarbons is significant as other resources dwindle.”

Deepwater Horizon fears resurface as rigs probe for oil under Arctic ice

In a few days' time, officials at the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum in Greenland will reveal the winners of a new round of licences to drill for oil and gas in its waters. The announcement promises to be explosive.

Among those waiting are most of the world's leading oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell and Norway's StatOil. Watching with equal attention will be the planet's leading green groups, who they have pledged to block every effort to drill in the Arctic.

Natural Gas Supply on the Rise

Though the ongoing surge in the commodity’s demand (on account of hot weather) has erased a hefty surplus over last year’s inventory level, following a high of 101 Bcf for the week ending April 23, the specter of a continued glut in domestic gas supplies still exists, with storage levels remaining 6.2% above their five-year average. In fact, the latest build, though in line with market expectations, has send natural gas inventories above the 3 Tcf mark for only the second time since January 1, 2010.

Further pressurizing the commodity is the rapid rise in the number of drilling rigs working in the U.S. (the natural gas rig count has climbed 48% from the seven-year low reached last July) that signals a supply glut later this year in the face of consumer worries regarding high unemployment and economic recovery.

Venezuela's Chavez says oil price "stabilized"

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday that oil prices were stabilizing, giving his South American OPEC member nation's crude an average barrel price of nearly $70 this year.

"The price of oil recovered and it's more or less stabilized," he said in comments carried live on TV.

Iraq says it may abide by OPEC quotas in 2-3 years

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's oil minister says Baghdad will consider abiding by OPEC quotas once its crude production increases to at least 4 million barrels a day in two to three years.

Hussain al-Shahristani says there is no rush to discuss quotas with other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries while Iraq's production level remains at the current 2.5 million barrels a day.

Gulf Navigation Seeks to Acquire Oil Tankers as Economy Recovers, CEO Says

oil-tanker owner, is seeking to buy new crude carriers as an improving global economy boosts shipping volumes, the company’s chief executive officer said.

Gulf Navigation may acquire two very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, this year, Per Wistoft said in an interview Aug. 26. Oil output that’s set to rise by 2011 will bring enough added crude supply onto the market to necessitate 45 more VLCCs, Wistoft said in Dubai.

Kuwait posts $22.4 billion budget surplus

KUWAIT CITY — OPEC member Kuwait posted a budget surplus of 22.4 billion dollars in the past fiscal year on the back of strong oil revenues, an economic report said on Sunday, citing official figures.

It is the third largest windfall in the Gulf state’s history and its 11th consecutive year of budget surpluses, which have allowed Kuwait to accumulate 145 billion dollars in public revenues, according to AFP calculations based on official figures.

Qatar July Consumer Prices Decline 2.9% as Housing Costs, Fuel Prices Drop

Qatari consumer prices fell in July for the seventh consecutive month this year on lower housing and fuel costs in the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

Consumer prices declined 2.9 percent in July, compared with a 2.8 percent fall in June, the Qatar Statistics Authority said on its website today. Rent, fuel and energy prices declined 15.3 percent in July, compared with the same month last year, the data showed.

Putin hails China ties at oil pipeline completion

(Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Sunday opened a pipeline branch to carry Siberian oil to China and hailed Russia's energy business in China as an important counterweight to its traditional European clients.

Brazil Needs Billions to Drill Really Deep

Brazil has a sunken-treasure problem. The discovery three years ago of a huge offshore stash of oil unleashed a gusher of nationalist euphoria. At somewhere between 9 billion and 15 billion barrels, it was the largest find in the Western Hemisphere in more than a quarter century. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva hailed the find as a ticket to Brazil’s “second independence,” and called on the country’s legislators to tighten state control over the oil industry.

Iraq says Kurd gas deal with Germany's RWE illegal

(Reuters) - Iraq's Oil Ministry said on Sunday the agreement Germany's RWE (RWEG.DE) signed with the Kurdish Regional Government, which included possible future gas supply for the Nabucco pipeline project, is illegal.

Alaskans sound off on Arctic offshore drilling

ANCHORAGE - Alaska's U.S. senators urged the Obama administration Thursday to get Arctic Ocean offshore petroleum development back on track.

The Alaskans who live closest to the proposed drilling rigs said federal regulators have not done enough to ensure the industry protects the environment and prepares for a catastrophic spill.

If drilling moratorium drags on it could drain Gulf of Mexico activity, expert says

Only a few rigs have left the Gulf of Mexico because of the federal deepwater drilling moratorium, but the directive could dampen long-term activity in the Gulf if it drags on, a senior policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute said last week.

BP Internal Report Said to Find Engineers Misread Gulf Well Test Results

BP Plc’s internal investigation of the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster found company engineers misinterpreted pressure data that indicated a blowout was imminent, according to a person familiar with the report.

BP managers aboard the Transocean Ltd.-owned rig misread a test of the Macondo well’s stability on April 20 and began replacing drilling fluid, which is heavier than oil and natural gas, with seawater, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report’s findings haven’t been publicly released.

On Louisiana coast, residents bemoan a lost summer

(Reuters) - On a typical summer weekend in Grand Isle, Louisiana, Frank Besson's small gift shop would be filled with customers picking up a souvenir as they headed back home from a weekend visit to the beach.

But this summer, business at the Nez Coupe is down about 95 percent, Besson said, as most of this coastal community's beaches remain shut. Motels are filled with workers hired by BP Plc to clean up its oil spill, not tourists.

Energy Holdings of Billionaires

That's Buffett, Icahn, and Paulson — three of the most legendary investors in the game.

But do you know what they all have in common besides being multi-billionaires?

They each added to energy positions in the last quarter.

New Zealand - Greens: Govt ignoring imminent oil crunch

The Government is ignoring international warnings of an imminent oil supply crunch and price spike, the Green Party says.

Co-leader Russel Norman revealed today he had been asking the Government to open a formal inquiry into the impact of these problems but had been rebuffed.

Study: Drinking water polluted by coal-ash dump sites

A new study identifies 39 additional coal-ash dump sites in 21 states that pollute drinking water with arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.

The analysis comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency begins regional hearings on whether to regulate coal ash waste from coal-fired power plants. It will hold the first of seven hearings Monday in Arlington, Va. A public comment period ends Nov. 19.

China coal drive will not end health risks: report

(Reuters) - China's drive to promote clean coal technology is unlikely to reduce significantly the health risks of extracting what remains the dirtiest of fossil fuels, environmental group Greenpeace said.

A hopeless cause without nuclear power

HONG KONG, PACIFIC PERSPECTIVES — Ask the average environmentally concerned person how our power generators will achieve the tough emissions reductions needed to play their part in cutting global warming, and you will probably get a simple, clear answer: wind and solar.

Recent research by the International Energy Agency shows that nearly half of interviewees worldwide think that wind and solar power will be the two main sources of electricity generation by 2040. There is just one problem: That idea is naive, overoptimistic and almost certainly mistaken. Quite literally, it is "hot air."

India Risks Nuclear Isolation With Break From Chernobyl Accord

India’s push to end a three-decade ban on buying nuclear equipment from abroad may founder on laws passed by its own parliament.

Jordan to Sign Nuclear Cooperation Deal With Japan, Jordan Times Reports

Jordan and Japan are due to sign a nuclear cooperation treaty to allow Japanese companies to export atomic technology to the Middle Eastern kingdom, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Jaafar Hassan was cited as saying by the Jordan Times.

Ethanol Futures Soar to Seven-Month High in U.S. on Increased Corn Demand

Ethanol futures soared to a seven- month high in Chicago as corn advanced after a report showed increased demand for U.S. exports.

7 U.S. troops killed in Afghan weekend attacks

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Seven U.S. troops have died in weekend attacks in Afghanistan's embattled southern and eastern regions, while officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign workers for a female candidate in the western province of Herat.

Two servicemen died in bombings Sunday in southern Afghanistan, while two others were killed in a bomb attack in the south on Saturday and three in fighting in the east the same day, NATO said. Their identities and other details were being withheld until relatives could be notified.

Good Companies Guide: easing the planet's growing pains will help business to profit

In the face of a looming environmental and demographic crisis, weak companies will go to the wall. Only those that address the needs of a rapidly changing world will prosper.

Earth’s response to human stresses on the natural landscape

Globally the supply of phosphorus is dwindling. Phosphorus is an intrinsic part of our DNA. We add phosphorus-rich fertilizers to increase world food production, but much washes off into rivers and lakes, where it feeds excessive growth of weeds and algae and removes dissolved oxygen. When animal manure is applied directly to fields, rain also washes off some phosphorus that pollutes streams. Phosphorus is generally not recovered from human waste water treatment, so a “peak phosphorus” crisis is approaching.

Like the peak oil crisis, it is double-edged. We have a growing population dependent on finite resources — phosphorus and food, oil and energy — and growing waste problems affecting the natural environment, including fresh water pollution and atmospheric greenhouse gas pollution. Yet in both cases, we are afraid to invest in non-polluting sustainable solutions, because they are costly and require structural changes in society.

A Sticky Climate Protest

Climate change protest is becoming a sticky business in Britain.

Last Thursday, hundreds of activists with Climate Camp, a grass-roots protest group, descended on the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland to protest the bank’s financing of carbon-intensive energy projects like mining and processing of Canada’s tar sands into oil.

After thousands of years, Canada's 'majestic' ice shelves disintegrating

Canada is home to plenty of ice, but the ancient, undulating ice shelves on the north coast of Ellesmere Island are something special.

For starters, the shelves are "beautiful landscapes," says earth scientist John England, at the University of Alberta, who considers the "majestic" shelves in Canada's Arctic a national treasure.

They are also unique in the Northern Hemisphere and home to the oldest sea ice in the northern half of the planet, says England, noting the shelves are 3,000 to 5,500 years old.

And they are disintegrating. A century ago, they covered almost 10,000 square kilometres, an area one and half times the size of Prince Edward Island.

The shooting yesterday of two American civilians by a suspected Afghan National Army instructor at a shooting range in northern Afghanistan has thrown into sharp relief one of the challenges of trying to quickly build effective Afghan security forces capable of securing the country. In part as a response to the slow growth in size and competence of the Afghan National Army and Police, the past year has seen a growing international effort to create security at the village level in Afghanistan by working directly with villagers. This effort has been through both formal programs such as the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) and less formal ones such as support reportedly given to members of the Shinwari tribe in the Achin district of Nangarhar. Perhaps the most ambitious and controversial of these efforts is the Local Defense Initiative (LDI), a program created and run by Special Forces. In early June I was in Afghanistan to conduct research on LDI, including lengthy conversations with several special operations commanders responsible for these operations. Most importantly, I was able to spend six days embedded with a joint special operations-local defense team in the Khakrez district of Kandahar.[[BREAK]]

The Local Defense Initiative, as originally envisioned by RAND political scientist Seth Jones and Army Lt. Col. Scott Mann, called for the use of special operations teams, principally but not exclusively U.S. Army Special Forces, to create volunteer village level defense forces to fight against insurgents and, as a sort of compensation for resisting insurgents, to bring development to the village. This was a return to the Vietnam era experience of Special Forces, where programs such as the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) placed Special Forces teams in remote villages to perform an almost identical mission. As in Vietnam, this type of program is controversial; some in both the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the Karzai government view it as potentially creating militias that will weaken the central state in the long run. The Afghan government has approved the plan, however, partially based on the condition that the local forces be administered by the Afghan Interior Ministry.

Once in place, a team is to apply a five step methodology, based on acquiring detailed knowledge of the area and its power relationships, securing and developing the area, expanding security across a larger area, and finally transitioning the responsibility for security to the Afghan government. The teams are generally composed of a twelve man U.S. Army Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) with attached enablers such as civil affairs and, ideally, an Afghan partner force. The detachment is thus equipped to defend itself, patrol its area of operations, collect intelligence, and provide development, the latter through civil affairs using Commander's Emergency Respond Fund (CERP)

The plans for expanding the programs are ambitious. According to one commander there were five teams at the end of March; by mid-June there were twelve, and his goal is to have twenty-three by September. In addition to political hurdles, this expansion will present substantial logistical challenges as focus areas tend to be rather inaccessible. Another issue is that of team rotation. This duty is austere and labor intensive yet requires continuity to ensure that relationships are maintained. While eminently sensible, ensuring continuity would require a substantial adjustment by Army Special Forces Command, which is responsible for providing SF ODAs worldwide.

 An outpost of progress in Khakrez

Khakrez district, where I embedded in northern Kandahar, has largely had no conventional coalition force presence, and little Afghan security force presence, with a single company of Afghan National Army (ANA) troops partnered with a U.S. Special Forces ODA, fewer than 100 local police officers, and some Afghan Highway Patrol checkpoints. Unsurprisingly the district has been highly permissive for insurgent movement and activity, which has facilitated activity in the districts Khakrez borders (Ghorak, Maiwand, Shah Wali Kot, Panjwayi, and Arghandab) as well as into Kandahar City itself, which is only a few hours' drive away.

In February 2009 a team was introduced to Khakrez district. It was initially based at an unused clinic in one of the villages in a cultivated area known as "the Green Zone." The clinic was deemed too small and the team moved to an unused school, where they were based when I visited in June. The school is adjacent to one village, with others to the north and south. The embed site (as the small compound is known) is austere and vulnerable in comparison to most Coalition bases, lacking imposing barriers and blast walls. Yet this relative vulnerability makes the site approachable for the villagers, some of whom work fields immediately adjacent to the school.

The team's Afghan partner force, the first Afghan Special Forces ODA to be created in a new program, had arrived a few days before I did. The U.S. team was excited about their new partner force, which would need mentoring but would also greatly enhance the U.S. team's ability to interact with villagers. The Afghan team, which was accompanied by the sergeant major for the nascent Afghan Special Forces, was equally motivated. 

Both teams were highly dedicated to the mission. The U.S. team captain had immersed himself in the Koran and understanding village life. He knew the villagers and their stories, including who had a son or cousin in the Taliban, and had such a rapport with the villagers that he was asked several times when he was going to convert to Islam and settle down with them. The civil affairs team had completed dozens of projects, most having to do with the provision of water through refurbishment of wells or karezes (underground irrigation canals). The team learned a great deal about the area in the process. The Afghan team, mostly non-Pashtuns who were not as familiar with the area due to their recent arrival, was quickly acclimating. During one patrol to the village north of the embed site, the Afghan sergeant major in particular quickly connected to the population, holding one of the village's babies while villagers put a garland around his neck- he subsequently gave the garland to a sick little girl in another village. In short, one could scarcely ask for a better combined team to execute the village stability mission.

Yet despite the combined team's dedication and proficiency, the Green Zone area had not generated a community watch and, while the team's patrolling had certainly made the area less hospitable, insurgents could still move across the area. Indeed, the first night I was at the embed site it was attacked by insurgents firing from the village to the south. The villagers were subsequently unable and/or unwilling to provide much information about the attack. The team was got some intelligence from elsewhere in the Green Zone, but it was still limited.

What explains this relative lack of success despite having a team executing the Village Stability Program mission in textbook fashion? The answer reveals the limits of U.S. ability in counterinsurgency environments. Put simply, the conditions in Khakrez were not propitious for this type of program. For one, much of the wealthier population who actually owned the land around the Green Zone had fled to Kandahar City. Those left behind were mostly share-croppers who were not by tradition and inclination community leaders. The area was tribally fragmented, with both Popalzai and Alikozai populations. The Popalzai (the tribe of Hamid and Ahmed Wali Karzai) dominate the district government (the police chief and district sub-governor are from the same Popalzai family) and are perhaps not as solicitous of the Alikozai as might be hoped, producing resentment the insurgents could exploit. Moreover, this called into question to some degree the development portion of the program's model- if the district government was part of the problem, would connecting the Green Zone to that government actually be positive? The bottom line is that while the population liked the team and its activities, there was not a critical mass of villagers willing, as of mid-June, to stand up to the insurgency and form a community watch.

This was made clear at a shura a few days after the attack on the embed site. One of the villagers, a former Taliban sub-commander, argued that the villagers should meet with the insurgents and work out a solution whereby the embed site and Green Zone would not be attacked. If that failed he proclaimed himself ready to take up arms against them. His statement was publicly echoed by other villagers at the shura, yet he candidly acknowledged to the team after the shura that few in the area besides him would really do so. There was relatively little else the team could do to try to incentivize the Green Zone population, and the team could not change the composition of the district government.

Of course, the program works out differently in different geographical and cultural environments. The team I was embedded with was originally slated to go to Achin district in Nangarhar to work with the Shinwari tribe. Whatever the Shinwari's faults, unwillingness to fight is not one of them -- indeed they are quite willing to fight ISAF, the Taliban, and sometimes each other. Had the team gone to Achin, they likely would have dozens of men in the community watch within a short period of time, even if they would then have had the headache of managing intra-Shinwari rivalries. The open question is whether most Afghan districts are more like Khakrez or Achin. I hope the latter, but fear the former.

Austin Long is an assistant professor at the School of International and Public Affairs and a member of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

Here are my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10 to 2 pm. I welcome your additions and comments below or please send suggestions for Wednesday's Top 10 at 10 via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz

1. The squeaky (old) wheel gets the health grease - Gareth Morgan comments in the NZHerald on the coming competition for public funds in the health sector and how the winners will be those who shout loudest, rather than those who should get it. This will become a debate we hear a lot more about. As competition for scarce public funds become more intense, allocation decisions will get political very fast. And guess who will win? The baby-boomers, who have a lot more clout...for now.

Because of the lack of a coherent and consistent framework for allocating resources - across conditions, patients and regions - we have an ugly situation where the loudest get served first. Put bluntly, it's an obscene abuse of universal health care.

Politicians tried, of course, to implement a rationing system via then-health minister Simon Upton's ill-fated core services committee of 1992, but its approach - to ask the public what it wanted the public health system to provide - was as flawed as asking an infant in a candy shop which sweeties they wanted. They wanted it all and they wanted it now - what a surprise.

Over the subsequent 18 years the problem hasn't gone away; there are still unmet health needs despite the boom in health sector spending. And the official forecasts are for that demand to keep soaring so the health spend rises from 9.6c in every dollar earned (GDP) to 18c.

Morgan then dips his toe into some hot political water and asks the question about rationing which no politician will even ask let alone try to answer. Good on Gareth.

In a world where all needs cannot be met, society has to decide what "greatest need" is. How do you decide between a 92-year-old and a 10-year-old in need of the same knee operation? Personally they both have equal need so that gets you nowhere, and the limited resources mean you have to make the choice. The 92-year-old has paid more taxes, the 10-year-old has more taxes to contribute, so that doesn't help decide either.

But we must make a decision, we must decide who it will be. This is the reality facing society and the reality several generations of politicians have run away from. The answer is very clear but we must have the courage to declare and stick to it. The 10-year-old gets the nod because from this point of time society will benefit more from them being fixed - they have far more quality-adjusted life-years to contribute to society than the 92-year-old has.

From society's perspective it's a no-brainer investment.

At least if it was clear, everyone would know that their entitlements would be diminishing as they age and so they would plan for that in their financial affairs. They would insure or self-insure or accept that being able to do the high jump when you're 92 is unrealistic.

But we're guilt-ridden; as a society we are too gutless to make that decision explicit. So we abdicate that responsibility and leave it to the ad hoc process, outlined above, to make it for us. The squeaky wheels get their heads in the trough and leave it dry for those without those advocates.

There is nothing equitable about that, nor is it anything that society should be proud of. It has to be changed

2. No bank tax - Ian Verrender at the Sydney Morning Herald makes the point that Australian bank lobbyists have won some big gains from the Australian government in recent weeks, including getting the Australians to work with the Canadians to put the kibosh on the idea of a global bank tax at the G20.

It is with some surprise that the federal government, facing an election and desperately keen to shore up a budget deficit, leapt in to the frontline to oppose the tax. Perhaps it figured taking on one powerful opponent was more than enough.

Swan successfully argued that a global policy was not appropriate. Australia's banking system had emerged not just intact from the crisis of 2008-09 but with rude good health. Taxpayer funds hadn't been used to bail them out.

3. 'We trashed a wonderful inheritance' - British baby-boomer Francis Beckett writes at The Guardian's excellent Comment is Free site about how politically powerful Baby Boomers are loading debt onto their children so they can have a nice life now. HT Rob Mackintosh via email.

Beckett makes a wider point about how today's Baby Boomers are actually more restrictive on their children than their own parents.

Not sure I agree with it, but interesting change in the tone of the debate. He also makes a potent point about the Vietnam War vs the Afghan and Iraq wars.

We are the first generation in which pretty well everyone can read and write fairly fluently. We had the freedom that comes from not having to fear starvation if your employer fires you: there were other jobs to go to, and a welfare state to fall back on. These things made possible the freedom of the 60s. And what did we do with this wonderful inheritance? We trashed it.

We created a far harsher world for our children to grow up in. It was as though we decided that the freedom and lack of worry which we had inherited was too good for our children, and we pulled up the ladder we had climbed. Most capital expenditure for education and health no longer comes from the present-day taxpayer, but from the next generation, because the baby boomers have been too stingy to pay for it.

This trick is done by means of the private finance initiative (PFI), a scam for getting the cost of public buildings such as schools and hospitals off the present government's books, and placing them on the books of governments 10 or 20 years hence. Harold Wilson saved the baby boomers from having to fight alongside young Americans in Vietnam.

When the baby boomer generation formed a government, its prime minister, Tony Blair, told lies to the young so that he could send them to fight alongside the Americans in Iraq. Opinion polls show that the now elderly baby boomers will use their increasing voting power to ensure that when the bad times come, the young are hit first, even though it is by a chancellor of the exchequer who was not even born until the 60s were over.

4. Mr Elliott Wave waves us lower - Bob Prechter's prediction yesterday of a massive slump in global stocks in line with his Elliott Wave theory certainly got people talking. Here's more, including a juicy chart. Click on the chart or this link to go to a fuller link to the embedded videos.

5. 'It's who you know in China' - John Garnaut from the Sydney Morning Herald reports that Chinese-Australian citizen Stern Hu is behind bars in China, convicted of taking bribes, while the well connected Chinese businessmen who paid the bribes are out and about buying a golf course north of Beijing. Garnaut's story is well worth a read for those wondering what really goes on behind the scenes in Chinese political/business circles, which are circles we will need to know and love in coming years.

Since admitting to bribing Rio Tinto's Wang Yong to the tune of $US10 million ($11.9 million), mostly via Macau casinos, the billionaire Du Shuanghua has not only avoided prosecution and indulged his passion for golf but also reversed the Shandong government's theft of his Rizhao Steel factory and set up a 3 billion yuan ($525 billion) private-equity construction fund.

At one stage it had looked like Du - worth 35 billion yuan in 2008 and a business partner of the cousin of the President, Hu Jintao, in Hong Kong - had been set up as one of the key targets of this investigation. It is now clear that he paid his bets wisely and has come out in front. In fact there has not been so much as a slap on the wrist for any of the 20 steel makers and traders on the bribe-paying list.

One year on, the Rio Tinto case shows how China can be simultaneously more sinister, more complicated and less effective than imagined.

6. Rising funding costs - The Australian reports Bank of Queensland saying funding costs are rising in Australia, which could force banks there to pass on mortgage rate hikes independent of a rise in the Official Cash Rate over there. We are hearing similar things behind the scenes over here. The European crisis is pushing up funding costs. This is starting to bake in higher margins in a way that means variable mortgage rates stay cheaper than fixed for a long time yet.

I wonder if people really understand what the Global Financial Crisis meant. It meant higher lending margins and lower bank leverage. It meant less debt-funded growth and more de-leveraging-driven slowdown.

The cost of wholesale borrowing for banks has come under renewed scrutiny after Westpac last week issued new five-year debt at a risk premium higher than some expected, highlighting fresh strains in the market on the back of Europe's debt crisis. Having enjoyed some improvement during the first six months of the year, risk aversion has returned to investors and an improvement in funding costs isn't expected in a hurry, said Bank of Queensland chief operating officer Ram Kangatharan

"All of the banks are starting to feel the pinch in terms of deposit margins." The net result of the rising pressures will likely prompt the major banks to raise their own lending rates, irrespective of whether the Reserve Bank of Australia moves the official target.

"As the pressure continues on the majors, they would want to move outside the RBA rates. I think what's holding them back is election year," Mr Kangatharan said.

7. 'It's different this time' - The research done by Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart into episodes of deleveraging after financial crashes is proving to be very influential. It dominates my thinking on the inevitability of deleveraging and its effect on growth. Their book 'This time it's different' is a must read. This New York Times profile is well worth a read as a primer for their work and the book itself, which they started researching in 2003. Their conclusion is that growth slows by 1% per annum once public debt rises over 90%. It essentially says deleveraging is unavoidable.

Rogoff and Reinhart have been lauded for mining data to make their case, rather than just dreaming up a theory. Here is their academic paper.

 Microeconomics — the field that focuses on smaller units like households and workers, as opposed to big-picture questions about how national economies function — has embraced real-world data-mining. (Think “Freakonomics.”)

Macroeconomics has been slower to change, but the popular success of “This Time Is Different” and related work seems to be changing how macro practitioners approach their craft. It has also changed how policy makers think about their own mission.

Mr. Rogoff says a senior official in the Japanese finance ministry was offended at the suggestion in “This Time Is Different” that Japan had once defaulted on its debt and sent him an angry letter demanding a retraction.

Mr. Rogoff sent him a 1942 front-page article in The Times documenting the forgotten default. “Thank you,” the official wrote in apology, “for teaching the Japanese something about our own country.”

8. 'They're gettin' nervous' - Foreign investors and creditors are starting to ask more questions about Australia's housing market and the exposure of the big four banks to that housing market, BusinessDay reports. This may explain the rising funding costs for the Australian (read ours too...) in recent weeks. That and the non-trivial matter of the European financial crisis.

“It’s a constant question,” said Macquarie senior economist Brian Redican of his interactions with European and American investors.

“There are just lingering concerns about household debt levels and whether house prices are going to hold up in Australia.”

Overseas investors held A$645 billion in Australian wholesale debt and deposits in May, on Reserve Bank data, with local banks getting nearly 30 per cent of their funding from global markets. Should global markets for housing debt become stressed – if, for example, there is another leg to the Europe’s sovereign debt crisis - or should Australia’s household debt be singled out by global investors, the ability of banks to lend could be squeezed.

Tighter access to credit could reduce loan sizes, which would weigh on housing prices. Total outstanding mortgage debt in Australia was about $1.1 trillion in April, while other personal debt, including credit cards, stood about $141 billion, according to the RBA.

“Australia’s reliance on wholesale markets and offshore elements needs to be taken into account because you are more exposed to how other markets perceive the relative risks of Australia to other alternatives,” said Standard & Poor’s managing director rating services Fabienne Michaux.

“They’re not looking at Australia individually but in terms of their portfolio,” she said.

Hence, US-based investment fund GMO founder Jeremy Grantham, on a visit to Sydney in June, said interest rate rises will inevitably pop an Australian housing bubble.

9. Even Bloomberg has noticed - Nichola Saminather from Bloomberg has written a big long piece about Australian housing affordability for Bloomberg and BusinessWeek. Some people might work out what the elephant in the room is in this part of the world... Let's hope they don't look too close. She quotes Jeremy Grantham. I think his June 15 comments may be a signpost we look back on as the day the rest of the world woke up.

Grantham, chief investment strategist at Boston-based Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co., says higher rates may pop Australia’s housing bubble. The nation’s home prices need to fall 42 percent to “return to trend,” he said, without giving a timeframe or by how much interest rates would have to rise before that happens.

“It’s like a time bomb, just waiting for the rates to become increasingly impossible to support,” he said at a media briefing in Sydney on June 15. “All bubbles break, they’re the only thing that matter. They break because we live in a mean reverting world. Things go back to normal, even Australian housing prices.”

Christopher Wood, chief equity strategist at Hong Kong- based CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, said the first-home buyer incentives in 2008 and 2009 -- at a time when interest rates were at a half-century low -- may have put Australia on the path to its own version of the subprime mortgage crisis.

“In the long term, that policy will boomerang back on the Australian economy and the government because all they’ll have succeeded in doing is incentivizing people to buy houses who can’t afford them -- very similar to the subprime issue in America,” Wood said.

10. Ambrose is fearful - This is a must-read from Ambrose Evans Pritchard at The Telegraph on the debate facing policy makers oop north. Should they print or not? He says yes and pronto to avoid another depression.

Investors are starting to chew over the awful possibility that America's recovery will stall just as Asia hits the buffers. China's manufacturing index has been falling since January, with a downward lurch in June to 50.4, just above the break-even line of 50. Momentum seems to be flagging everywhere, whether in Australian building permits, Turkish exports, or Japanese industrial output.

On Friday, Jacques Cailloux from RBS put out a "double-dip alert" for Europe. "The risk is rising fast. Absent an effective policy intervention to tackle the debt crisis on the periphery over coming months, the European economy will double dip in 2011," he said.

It is obvious what that policy should be for Europe, America, and Japan. If budgets are to shrink in an orderly fashion over several years – as they must, to avoid sovereign debt spirals – then central banks will have to cushion the blow keeping monetary policy ultra-loose for as long it takes.

The Fed is already eyeing the printing press again. "It's appropriate to think about what we would do under a deflationary scenario," said Dennis Lockhart for the Atlanta Fed. His colleague Kevin Warsh said the pros and cons of purchasing more bonds should be subject to "strict scrutiny", a comment I took as confirmation that the Fed Board is arguing internally about QE2. Perhaps naively, I still think central banks have the tools to head off disaster.

The question is whether they will do so fast enough, or even whether they wish to resist the chorus of 1930s liquidation taking charge of the debate. Last week the Bank for International Settlements called for combined fiscal and monetary tightening, lending its great authority to the forces of debt-deflation and mass unemployment. If even the BIS has lost the plot, God help us.

11. Totally relevant video - I'm happy to cite a Marxist when he/she says something interesting. This video of a cartoon of a speech about the crises of capitalism is well worth a read/listen/watch. "Capitalism never solves its problems. It just moves them around a bit."

The repercussions of the sacking/resignation of two of the president's three top security officials on Sunday are still sinking in, along with the Afghan President Hamid Karzai's decree that the status of Taliban prisoners must be reviewed. These major changes on security follow his proclaimed success in demonstrating ‘national unity' at the peace jirga. Despite the tent being packed by Karzai loyalists, it was a beautifully stage-managed event. Those journalists and diplomats who kept saying it would strengthen Karzai's hand seem to have issued a self-fulfilling prophecy. The president is certainly looking more confident.

The wrongful detention of Afghan citizens is clearly an issue which needs addressing and which the Afghan president should be apologising for, but rather than issuing a mea culpa, the peace jirga has allowed him to present a Taliban prisoner review as a goodwill gesture towards the ‘angry brothers.' The bulk of the final resolution of the jirga was surely drafted beforehand, but it was presented as the result of the deliberations of the 80 odd sub-committees, and its demands as the demands of the jirga to the government and others for action. It was a deftly performed sleight of hand which means that prisoner release now is being sold as part of the "Framework for Talks with the Disaffected."
[[BREAK]]
The Resolution adopted at the Conclusion of the National Consultative Peace Jirga (point 8) puts it in this way: We call upon the government of Afghanistan and the international troops stationed in the country: - as a gesture of a goodwill, to take immediate and solid action in freeing from various prisons those detained based on inaccurate information or unsubstantiated allegations. Karzai's decree calls for the establishment of a review panel which will "free those prisoners whose detention is based on inaccurate information or unsubstantiated allegations." Hundreds of Afghans suspected of links to the Taliban are in detention, about 700 in U.S. hands; the rest -- an unknown number -- are in Afghan custody.

The former head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS, the Afghan intelligence agency), Amrullah Saleh has confirmed to Reuters that the prospect of releasing Taliban prisoners was the ‘tipping point' of conflict between him and the president. And on the peace jirga, he commented that, "negotiating with ... suicide bombers will disgrace this country."

He also said he had resigned, rather than was sacked. Whereas the sacking/resignation of the Minister of Interior, Hanif Atmar, surprised no one -- the president's criticism of Atmar was legendary in Kabul and it was predictable that, sooner or later, Atmar would go. Karzai's removal of Saleh, however, came out of the blue and had not been by the palace. Saleh is one of the longest-serving officials of the Karzai government and, like Atmar, has enjoyed strong foreign backing. Sources at the Palace reported that Karzai's desire to be rid of Saleh and especially Atmar were repeatedly blocked by the U.S. (with U.K. in support); both countries liked and trusted both men. Now, their foreign supporters seem to have been ambushed by a post-jirga confident Karzai.

Atmar and particularly Saleh have been stable elements of Afghanistan's security sector for some time. Incidentally, while Saleh has worked for NDS -- and before that for Shura-ye Nazar intelligence for years, Atmar also worked for the agency -- albeit as an adolescent and young man, when it was still called KhAD, during the last years of the Dr. Najib regime. 

Saleh appears to have become tired of the back-biting and marginalisation by some of those in the Palace, but there were also, reportedly, substantive policy differences. Amrullah Saleh, who shares not only Ahmad Shah Massud's birthplace, but his struggle against the Taliban from 1995 to 2001, is a less than eager advocate of courting the 'angry brothers' away from the war. In a rare interview, from June 2006, he described the Taliban as "proxy forces created by Pakistan." In answer to the question of what would happen if Pakistan shut down its madrassas and stopped its territory being used for sanctuary, his answer was on the robust end of how to deal with the Taliban and their backers:

"This war has two ways to be fought. We have a quick route to solution, and we have a long route to solution. To fight it at the strategic level, we have to hit the leadership, and the leadership is not in Afghanistan. To fight it tactically, we need more time. Currently we are fighting it tactically. Insurgency is like grass. Two ways to destroy it: You cut the upper part, and after four months, you have it back; you poison the soil where that grass is, then you eliminate it forever."

Compare Saleh's attitude with the rather warm, cuddly attitudes towards the Taleban seen at the peace jirga, such as this remark, by the deputy chairman, Mawlawi Qeyyamuddin Kashaf (a Sayyaf man), as filmed by Tolo TV:

"This was not an official or government jirga. The sons of most of the participants are members of the Taliban. So if their fathers were sitting there, were happy and confident and speaking their own words, then I believe that God willing the Taliban will not disobey and the government will make sure the contents of this resolution are implemented."

Atmar and particularly Saleh have been stable elements of Afghanistan's security sector for some time and their removal will not go unfelt. Saleh has worked for the NDS -- and before that for Shura-ye Nazar intelligence for many years. Now, for the first time since 2001, the head of Afghanistan's intelligence agency may not be Shura-ye Nazar. That is important: when the group captured Kabul from the Taleban in 2001, they took control not just of the police and army, but also the NDS, taking back what they lost when they were driven out by the Taleban in 1996 (when Marshal -- then General -- Fahim was still in charge). Insiders have told AAN that the group has remained at the heart of an agency which has enjoyed excellent co-operation with foreign agencies, particularly the CIA. With a new man at the top, that may now change.

Coincidentally, before Atmar went into development, he also worked for Afghan intelligence -- as an adolescent and young man -- when it was called KhAD. That was during the last years of the Dr. Najib regime.

Both Atmar and Saleh will now be looking for new jobs, while speculation over their successors grows. In Kabul, bets are on for a Pashtun, Karzai-loyalist for head of NDS, preferably someone with close family ties, who is ‘on side' in dealing with the Taliban and who, possibly can also deal with Pakistan. Names being bandied around are Engineer Ibrahim, the current deputy chief of the National Security Council and acting head of NDS whom Karzai knows from his Quetta days; Assadullah Khaled, former governor of Ghazni and Kandahar, an Ittihad-e Islami commander during the war and an important client of the president's younger brother; Farook Wardak the current minister for education and close Karzai confident; and Hekmat Karzai, the president's cousin.

It is assumed that, with a Pashtun at the NDS, the new minister of interior would be a Tajik which would make General Helal, a professional police officer during the PDPA and former deputy interior minister (2002-2004) and Ismael Khan, Jamiat strongman from Herat and currently minister for water and power, the frontrunners. However, the name of General Besmellah Khan, the Shura-ye Nazar commander and currently Afghan National Army Chief of Staff is also mentioned, although whether he would want to give up his prime position in the army for the altogether more exposed and rocky waters of the Ministry of Interior seems doubtful.

There is also speculation in the Afghan press about other post-jirga appointments -- the possibility of a Taib being sent as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, for example, or that Ustad Rabbani might be rewarded for flocking to Karzai's side in the jirga -- and abandoning his former Jamiat and ‘opposition' ally, Dr. Abdullah -- by getting some ambassadorships for some of his people, possibly even his son.

All of this is of course still speculation and part of the dynamic process of political negotiation, but it is an indicator of the febrile atmosphere in Kabul since the bombshell of Atmar and Saleh's removal was dropped. It seems likely there will be other changes of direction on security as well. The first is the president's decree that the status of Taliban prisoners be reviewed is merely the first.

Kate Clark is a senior analyst with the Afghanistan Analysts Network, where this was originally published.

After ten hours of negotiations, the UN Security Council called on Israel to liberate immediately the aid-flotilla’s ships and activists, while stressing the need for impartial investigations into the events of 31 May. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is responsible for the killing of at least ten civilians and the injury of dozens on board the Freedom Flotilla during the attack, launched on the aid convoy in international waters 65km off the Gaza shores. The six ships seized by the Israeli army were aiming to deliver 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the blockaded population of Gaza.

The United States were the only Security Council permanent member to avoid demanding explicitly the end of the siege of Gaza, although they suggested measures to ease the blockade needed to be taken; the British ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, affirmed that ‘Israel’s restrictions on access to Gaza must be lifted in line with Security Council Resolution 1860’ and he was supported by France, Russia and China in their calls for an end to the blockade and an independent inquiry into the incident.

On the Israeli side, it has become evident that the storming was decided by a restricted group of senior ministers without consulting the inner cabinet, which is the body designated to approve such military actions. Despite these internal disagreements, the Benyamin Netanyahu government has unanimously advocated the right of the soldiers to self-defence against the assault of the activists. The IDF denounced the wounding of at least seven navy commandos, two seriously. According to Israeli military sources, some individuals onboard the flotilla were armed with knives and batons and they tried to seize the Israeli officers’ weapons. In video footage released by the army, it is possible to see one soldier being thrown from the upper to the lower deck of the boat. The IDF also claimed to have confiscated two live ammunition guns. The Israeli navy aimed to prevent the activists from docking directly in Gaza, and the boarding was reportedly intended to guide the ships towards the Ashdod port, where the cargo would have been inspected. The Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu cancelled his meeting with Obama in Washington to return home on Tuesday, in order to attend the inner cabinet meeting he convened for the same day.

Contrary to Israeli justifications, Al-Jazeera’s Jamal el-Shayyal, who was onboard the lead ship Mavi Marmara, accused troops of opening fire after activists had raised a white flag. The survivors have been taken to Ashdod, where the injured are receiving medical treatment and the rest are facing interrogation in Israeli jails. Israeli government spokesman, Mark Regev, defended the detention of the activists, maintaining that the flotilla crew comprised IHH members, Turkish Islamists known for their links with terrorist organizations. Many of the dead are reported by the Israeli media to be Turkish nationals. Replying to these allegations, Murat Mercan, the head of Turkey’s foreign relations committee, stated that Tel-Aviv is manipulating the truth, and that among the passengers there are Israeli civilians, authorities and parliamentarians. Meanwhile, the flotilla raid has sparked mass demonstrations across Europe, the Arab and the Muslim world. The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, appealed to Arabs and Muslims to manifest worldwide their outrage in front of Israeli embassies. 

The White House has maintained a low-profile so far, although releasing an account of a telephone conversation between Obama and Netanyahu, in which the US president manifested his regret at the death of civilians and stressed the urgent need to shed light on the incident. American officials were also disappointed by the timing of the raid, occurring just after the start of US-mediated indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The former US ambassador to Israel, Martin S. Indyk, underlined the unsustainability of the Gaza blockade, which ‘helps to stop Hamas attacks on Israelis, but seriously damages Israel’s international reputation’. Nevertheless, he stressed the need for the US to help Israel to solve the situation. White House foreign policy experts noted how Gaza has been largely ignored in favour of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank throughout the peace process, regardless of the impossibility of excluding a strip of land home to 1.5 million Palestinians.

The OpenSecurity verdict: Since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 and Israel imposed the blockade, the Palestinians residing in the strip have had to live with supplies at approximately one quarter of December 2005 levels. Numerous fundamental items, such as pipes and fertilisers, have been refused entry on the basis of their potential use for the assemblage of weapons. Even food distribution has been periodically suspended, due to border closures or fuel shortages, with serious consequences for the living standards of a population largely dependent on the UNRWA supplies. According to Oxfam, the amount of cooking gas permitted to enter Gaza has oscillated between a third and half of the minimum requirements. The World Health Organization (WHO) stressed how Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009) worsened the critical availability of water in Gaza, already limited to half of the international minimum requirements before the conflict. The UN deemed the economic damage inflicted by the blockade ‘irreversible’, having dramatically boosted unemployment rates, and it ascribed the impossibility of reconstructing 12,000 Palestinian homes destroyed in the conflict to ongoing restrictions on cement supplies. This is an unbearable burden for Israel: forcing 1.5 million Palestinians to live in these inhuman conditions is not tolerable behaviour for a country considered by some the only democracy in the Middle East

Regardless of whether UN inquiries into the flotilla massacre deliver justice, this episode should serve as a reminder of the forgotten plight of the Gazans. It would be myopic to believe that US-backed indirect talks between Israel and Fatah will solve a conflict that also shapes the lives of the population under Hamas authority. The negotiations also need to comprise a deal between Hamas and Israel, with the end of Palestinian attacks and the handing over of the captured soldier, Gilad Shalit, in exchange for an end to the blockade and the release of some Hamas prisoners. In light of this goal, a firm US commitment to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza will be also crucial to its relations with the Muslim World. On Israel's part, the right to self-defence should stop being unconditionally advocated, as this will not rescue the country from the risks of international isolation. Specifically, the flotilla raid opened a diplomatic crisis with Turkey, which is a pivotal ally of Israel in the Muslim world.

On the Palestinian side, the rift between Hamas and Fatah needs to be healed for the sake of the peace process. Apart from the benefits of a unified Palestinian front throughout negotiations, there is evidence of the division affecting the living standards of Gaza: in 2009 the responsibility for funding electric fuel was transferred from the EU to the PA, but by 2010 the amount of fuel supplied to Gaza has unexpectedly declined. The WHO has also blamed the internal Palestinian fraction for thwarting the supply chain of medicines in the strip. 

Amnesty calls for investigations into Jamaican violence

Amnesty International launched an appeal for international investigations into the bloodshed caused by four days of clashes between armed forces and drug dealers in Kingston, Jamaica. Under the state of emergency declared on 23 May by the Jamaican prime minister, Bruce Golding, the police were given extraordinary powers, including the right to search premises, restrict freedom of movement and detain suspects without a warrant. According to Amnesty reports, the security forces have seized four firearms so far, an unexpectedly small number compared with the death toll of the confrontations. Kerrie Howard, deputy’s director of Amnesty International America’s program, citing the low human rights record of the Jamaican police, argued there is a high chance of unlawful killings of disarmed civilians having taken place. Howard stressed how collection of evidence and the availability of independent forensic and ballistic expertise will be crucial to prosecute those officers who abused their power. Amnesty has also underlined the fact that more than 500 people have been detained in the aftermath of the state of emergency and the incarceration of these civilians has to be reconsidered by independent tribunals.

British role to be reduced under US command in Afghanistan

An American general took control of British troops in Helmand, in what is considered a symbolic reduction of the UK's role in Southern Afghanistan. Most of the 289 British casualties in the war occurred in this province. The British ministry of defence minimized the significance of the shift in its statements; although US Major-General Richard Mills will take charge of the 8,000 soldiers in Helmand, the command is scheduled to rotate between him and a British general. The change will actually affect only 1,100 Royal Marines in Singin and Kajaki (Northern Helmand province), who will be part of the US combat team. This provision does not mean that the US Marines will replace British troops, but they will be given the choice to deploy their forces there, if willing to.

The role bestowed on Major General Mills, who will be responsible for restoring order in the Southern province of Kandahar, will be critical in coming months. The US is aiming at restoring peace among the tribes in the area, while co-opting low-ranking Taleban fighters. Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has scheduled a peace Jirga for this Wednesday to seek a reconciliation with the insurgents, despite US wishes that these negotiations are pushed back after their major offensive against the Taliban this month.

Russian experts visit South Korea to verify the Cheonan findings

A team of Russian experts arrived on Monday in Seoul to analyse the outcome of the international inquiry on the Cheonan sinking. However, diplomatic sources revealed that China is not willing either to accept South Korean offers to provide more data on the supposed attack or to send a team of Chinese experts to put to test Seoul's allegations. Being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China is in a position to veto any resolution to impose sanctions on North Korea.

The four Russian submarine and torpedo experts will visit the Second Naval Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek and the scene of the warship’s remains at Baeknyeong Island in the following days. Seoul is likely hoping that Russian confirmation will put further pressure on China to come into line with the rest of the Security Council. For its part, Moscow gave assurances that it will back the international community on the relevant resolutions, according to the experts’ findings.

An Afghan civilian protesting against a night raid by coalition forces which killed between nine and fifteen civilians was shot dead by national police on Friday. Hundreds of Afghans took to the streets near Jalalabad demanding an explanation for the raid. A NATO spokesperson confirmed that ISAF troops were engaged in operations in the area but claimed they were not aware of any civilian deaths. It is reported that ISAF troops had been flown to the area by helicopter before carrying out the raid, which was targeting Taliban sub-commanders and fighters. Local villagers have stated that those killed had nothing to do with the Taliban.

The openSecurity verdict: ISAF commander General Stanley McChrystal has taken pains to minimise civilian casualties, having issued revised tactical guidelines last year specifying the need to keep night raids to a minimum. Based on the figures this has not worked, with the United Nations stating that last year was the bloodiest for Afghan civilians since the war began in 2001. According to Afghan officials, 170 civilians were killed between March and April this year, a rise of 33 percent compared with last year.

The conduct of night raids, frequently carried out by international and Afghan national forces, has been the subject of sustained controversy in recent months. Unlike the impersonal nature of aerial bombing, the use of ground troops causes more outrage among Afghan civilians; a plane missing its target is one thing, soldiers killing women and children due to incompetence is another. Eyewitness accounts of US special forces preventing family members from taking innocent victims to hospital and then attempting to cover up the deaths have further incensed communities.

This does not bode well for McChrystal’s strategy or for the conduct of the war in general. The Obama administration has resolved on a twin track approach to Afghanistan, emphasising increased aid and efforts to win over the civilian population on the one hand, with a more robust military approach on the other. The next objective for the vaunted Afghan surge is Kandahar, the spiritual heartland of the Taliban movement. With ISAF’s credibility among Afghan grass roots communities in tatters, at least in the region around Jalalabad, it is unlikely that whatever military gains are made in the next few months will be sustainable.

Obama funds Israel missile shield as Russia defends Hamas talks

It was announced on Friday that US President Obama will be requesting $200 million from Congress to fund the Israeli ‘Iron Dome’ short range missile system. The weapon is designed to intercept mortars and missile attacks from Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hizbollah bases in southern Lebanon. A White House spokesman reiterated President Obama’s ‘unshakeable commitment’ to Israel’s security. The announcement comes one week after Secretary of State Hilary Clinton emphasised the US administration’s concern over the ballistic missile threat posed by Hamas and Hizbollah, amid rumours that Iran had supplied the latter with SCUD missiles.

Yesterday, Israel bitterly criticised the decision by Russian President Medvedev to meet with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal. Comparing Hamas with Chechnyan militant groups, an Israeli foreign ministry statement said “Israel always stood behind Russia in its fight against Chechen terrorism, and would have expected similar treatment regarding Hamas terrorism against Israel.” Russia has defended the decision, calling for renewed engagement with the Islamist group, with foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko characterising it as ‘a movement that draws on the trust and sympathy of a large number of Palestinians’. Nesterenko also pointed out that other members of the Middle East Quartet maintained their own contacts with Hamas.

Armed clashes rock Thai capital

Turmoil continued in the Thai capital today as government forces clashed with red shirt protesters, killing at least five of them. The deaths occurred as security personnel attempted to seal off a heavily defended red shirt camp in the heart of the city’s commercial district. The government had previously cut power and water to the camp.

Thousands of soldiers were involved in the operation which came one day after the rogue Thai general who had been organising the protesters was shot in the head. Khattiya Sawasdipol, also known as ‘Commander Red’, a member of the red shirt’s militant faction, is currently in intensive care with a low chance of survival.

The red shirts, many of whom are supporters of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was deposed in a coup in 2006, are calling for the current government to step down and for fresh elections to be held. The chaos began as an orderly rally, held on the 14 March when thousands of protesters descended on the capital. After discussions with the government collapsed on the 30 March, the situation has steadily escalated, with regular clashes between protesters and the government breaking out following incumbent Prime Minister Abhisit’s declaration of a state of emergency on the 7 April.

Russian security forces kill Moscow bombing organisers

On Thursday, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, reported that three people involved in the execution of the Moscow metro terrorist attack in March had been killed while resisting arrest. Alexander Bortnikov, reporting to President Medvedev, said that, following their identification by FSB agents, ‘to our great regret, we did not manage to seize them alive.’ Two of the three were involved in transporting the Moscow metro suicide bombers first to the Russian capital and then to the target itself.

The two women who carried out the attack, which left forty people dead, were natives of Russia’s restive Daghestan republic, which neighbours equally troubled Ingushetia and Chechnya. Islamic groups in the region are fighting for a separate state. The identities of the three people killed today and the location where the attempted arrest took place have not been disclosed.

NATO’s plans for winning over the population in southern Afghanistan suffered a major setback yesterday when US soldiers opened fire on a bus full of civilians. The killing of four passengers, including a woman and a child, and the wounding of more than a dozen others ignited anti-American demonstrations on the streets of Kandahar. Furious Afghan men assembled on a highway to protest, burning tyres and chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Karzai, death to this government”.

The bus had come up at high speed behind a slow-moving convoy that was on a bomb-clearing patrol outside of Kandahar, NATO said in a statement. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stated its troops used a flashlight, three flares, and hand signals in an attempt to “warn off” the driver of the vehicle, which he ignored. They then opened fire on the bus, perceiving it as a threat due to the velocity of its approach. The incident occurred before dawn, making it difficult for the soldiers to identify the vehicle as a passenger bus. “Once engaged, the vehicle then stopped”, NATO added. The coalition has said it “deeply regrets the tragic loss of life”.

Contrary to what NATO says, some witnesses claim the firing erupted without any warning or signals, when the bus was still 80 to 100 metres behind the convoy in the Zhari district. The governor of Kandahar province, Tooryalai Wesa, excoriated American forces and demanded that the troops’ commander be prosecuted under military law. President Karzai called the shooting “unjustifiable”, and said that “firing on a passenger bus is against the NATO commitment to save civilian lives.” Since last summer, over 30 innocent civilians have been killed and more than 80 wounded in convoy and checkpoint shootings by ISAF forces.

The openSecurity verdict: The deadly incident could hardly have come at a worse time for the NATO mission, which is preparing a grand offensive to secure Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban. Operation ‘Omid’ (‘hope’) is widely considered a key test of Obama’s troop surge; however, NATO’s strategy to root out the Taliban by winning over the local population has now been dealt a grave blow. The Times reported that elders in Kandahar believe people have lost all confidence in the foreign troops. “The operation hasn’t even started yet, but every day they kill civilians”, Haji Wali Jan said. “If they are afraid of a bus, how can they continue with an operation in Kandahar?”

General Stanley McChrystal, who assumed the ISAF command in June 2009, has already overhauled NATO’s strategy in order to focus more on protecting the population and winning their ‘hearts and minds’. To limit so called "collateral damage", the killing of civilians during operations against the Taliban, he limited recall to air strikes and home raids. However, risks remain and high-profile incidents have continued to attract negative attention to NATO forces. On 22 February, an airstrike in Uruzgan killed over twenty people mistaken for insurgents; ten days earlier, a night raid by US special forces near Gardez, in the southeast, killed five people including two pregnant women. After the fatal airstrike some ISAF soldiers in Kandahar reported that local residents became markedly more antagonistic towards them, throwing rocks and spitting at the troops.

The incident is another weight on scales set against a NATO victory in Kandahar and the rest of southern Afghanistan. National polls over the last year have indicated that support for NATO has been decreasing and now hangs in the balance, with the Kandahar population outwardly supportive of the Taliban estimated at a quarter or more. Recent civilian casualties are likely to gain the insurgency critical local backing and freedom of movement throughout a city that is only nominally under government control. Only hours after yesterday’s incident, Taliban suicide bombers stormed the Afghan intelligence agency’s office in Kandahar..

Looking at the accidental killings of civilians also sheds some light on President Karzai’s recent scathing attacks on western ISAF forces, their governments, and the UN. It is conceivable that Hamid Karzai is truly enraged and distressed by the civilian killings, as evidenced by his reaction to an Afghan boy who lost his legs in the airstrike in February. Still, emotional outbursts by Karzai notwithstanding, there are likely additional motivations behind his scolding of the western governments.

By distancing himself from the US and NATO, Karzai gains vital support from domestic groups in Afghanistan, enabling him to strengthen his central government. While NATO should be glad at any shift away in power from the insurgents to the government in Kabul, Karzai’s scolding of the ISAF forces is not free from risk: it could further magnify Afghan resentment against foreign troops.

Moreover, US analysts worry about Karzai moving closer to powers like Iran and China, and the expansion of geopolitical rivalry over influence in Afghanistan, where Iran, Pakistan, India, Russia, China, the EU and the US have all made significant investments. Such a development could see the intensification of a multiparty conflict in Afghanistan, such as occured in the prelude to the Taliban's assent to power, and the spread of the conflict beyond the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The deteriorating relations between Karzai and his increasingly reluctant international backers will prove crucial, and mass civilian casualties will be centre-stage in this ongoing row.

Obama presses Hu to collaborate on Iran sanctions

On Tuesday China edged slightly closer to endorsing sanctions on Iran, pledging to work with the US on a UN resolution, after talks between President Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao. In a ninety-minute meeting yesterday, before the opening of a nuclear summit in Washington, Obama brought up both the topic of Iran and concerns about China’s undervalued currency.

American officials said the Chinese president basically agreed to assist in crafting a new UN Security Council resolution on Iran’s nuclear programme. Today the Chinese foreign ministry nuanced these remarks, saying it wanted any Security Council action to work towards a diplomatic way out of the dilemma. A spokesperson mentioned the need “to promote a fitting solution to the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations,” and added that “sanctions and pressure cannot fundamentally resolve the issues.” It is quite likely that Chinese negotiators will seek to water down any UN resolutions proposed by America or Europe, as they have done with the three previous resolutions on Iran, negotiated under president George W. Bush.

Hu Jintao’s attendence at the nuclear summit is in itself viewed as a positive sign for US-China relations, which were frayed after disputes over US arms sales to Taiwan, a visit to Washington by the Dalai Lama, trade imbalances, and suspected Chinese cyber-attacks on US firms including Google. At the nuclear summit Obama is expected to try and isolate Iran on its nuclear programme, which experts fear is designed to produce nuclear weapons.

Kyrgyzstan’s defiant president ordered to yield 

Kyrgyzstan’s interim leaders gave the deposed president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, an ultimatum on Tuesday: return to the capital of Bishkek, or face arrest. The provisional government stripped the president of his immunity and threatened he would be detained by special forces if he failed to surrender before the end of the day.

The ousted president has continued to resist, leading a rally of several thousand people in Jalalabad today, after having fled from the capital for his power base in the south of the country. “Let them try to come and take me,” Bakiyev challenged Kyrgyzstan’s new rulers on Monday after another rally. “Let them try to destroy me. There will be blood,” he warned.

Bakiyev claims the decisions made by the interim government are “not legitimate”. Bloody riots in Bishkek led to him losing control over the government and the capital last week.

Israeli forces kill Palestinian militant near Gaza border

Israeli troops killed one Palestinian gunman and wounded three others during a clash in the Gaza strip, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian medics. The Israelis opened fire as militants of the group Islamic Jihad tried to plant explosives near the Israel-Gaza boundary, an Israeli army spokesman and Palestinians said. The Islamic Jihad group, a radical rival of the ruling Hamas party, confirmed it had sent the attackers to strike at Israeli forces along Gaza’s eastern border, and that the militants came under fire from Israeli tanks and a helicopter.

The Isreali army reported that its troops advanced 200 metres into Palestinian territory near the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza strip. It said that the attempted terrorist attack was foiled, but that troops were still investigating the area for more bombs that could possibly have been planted.

Hamas has generally tried to stick to the cease-fire it reached with Israel after the three-week Gaza war in January 2009. However, smaller militant groups continue to carry out attacks. On Sunday, Hamas briefly detained several Jihadists for attempting to launch rockets into Israel.

Japan is now prepared for anything Pyongyang might want to throw at it and is gaining new confidence in its foreign relations

At Iruma military base in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo, Air Force Major Hiroshi Taniguchi is ready for anything. As commander of the 4th air defence missile unit, Taniguchi is on the front line of Japan's much downplayed but scarily real, ongoing stand-off with North Korea, one of several potential conflicts in a rough neighbourhood.

Japanese politicians and their US military allies tend to soft-pedal problems with Pyongyang, stressing the need to resume the diplomatic process broken off last year. But no one at Iruma has forgotten the moment last April when North Korea lofted a TaepoDong-2 long range ballistic missile over Japan, sending it crashing into the Pacific – or the North's second nuclear test explosion the following month.

"If an enemy dares to attack us, that's lucky for us," an unsmiling Taniguchi said. "Once they are within range, it is our opportunity, not theirs."

Taniguchi's confidence in Japan's ability to defend itself rests on the weapons under his command – an American designed, Japanese built Patriot PAC-3 missile battery, attached to one of the six ballistic missile defence (BMD) groups girdling the country since 2007.

The innocuous-looking, green-painted oblong canisters contain four Patriot missiles each. Mounted on trucks, pointing skywards, and electronically linked to six naval destroyers equipped with Aegis phased array radar, they mark the Japan Self-Defence Force's first foray into BMD. The full deployment will be completed this year.

This is the type of defensive missile system the Obama administration plans to introduce in eastern Europe. It is also similar to the missiles the US has controversially agreed to sell to Taiwan, to help counter the growing threat from China.

Under Article 9 of its postwar constitution, Japan renounced "forever" the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. But the 1960 US-Japan security treaty made clear that Tokyo has a right to self-defence.

Since then, and with accelerating speed since the 9/11 attacks, Japan's defence and security activities have expanded. While still essentially defensive in nature, they include international peacekeeping operations, logistical and financial support in Afghanistan, emphasis on strengthened bilateral and multilateral regional alliances, overseas disaster relief, anti-piracy and coastguard operations, and a pro-active overseas development programme.

Defence ministry officials and analysts in Tokyo suggest three factors are driving this evolution. One is a host of regional threats and potential flashpoints. They include territorial disputes with China, Russia and South Korea; China's rapid military build-up (its defence spending is rising in double digits each year); its aggressive oil exploration activities in the East China Sea; and North Korea's unpredictable behaviour.

"The environment that we face is harsh and difficult and this is making us feel that we may have to be more self-reliant," said a senior defence ministry official. "On the other hand, this makes it all the more important to solidify our alliance with the US."

The second factor fuelling Japanese insecurity, however, is growing doubt about that very alliance. A simmering row over relocating the Futenma US Marine Corps base in Okinawa, US troop drawdowns in east Asia, revived concerns about the dependability of the US "nuclear umbrella" and the general perception that US global predominance is weakening in the new "Chinese century" all suggest Japan must do more to look after itself.

This thinking is reflected, thirdly, in Japan's domestic politics, which remain in flux after last autumn's watershed defeat of the conservative Liberal Democrats, in power almost continuously since the war, by the centre-left Democratic party.

Prime minister Yukio Hatoyama's emphasis on east Asian communal "fraternity" and a "more equal", balanced relationship with the US has put noses out of joint in Washington but appears to have struck a chord with Japanese voters. Upper House elections in July could further embolden the Democrats. Meanwhile, entrenched economic difficulties are also spurring un-Japanese talk of radical solutions.

Such problems are for the politicians to sort out. At Iruma air base, Major Taniguchi sticks to the basics, and he draws an unexpected parallel. When it comes to air defence, the RAF's triumph in the Battle of Britain in 1940 is his inspiration, he says. Japan was devastated in the second world war because it could not defend itself in the air.

By the look on his face, it is clear that if Taniguchi has any say in the matter, it won't happen again.

As their new Patriot missile defence system is deployed, the Japanese are gaining a new confidence in relations with China, North Korea and Russia

At Iruma military base in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo, air force major Hiroshi Taniguchi is ready for anything. As commander of the 4th air defence missile unit, Taniguchi is on the frontline of Japan's much downplayed but scarily real stand-off with North Korea, one of several potential conflicts in a rough neighbourhood.

Japanese politicians and their US military allies tend to soft-pedal problems with Pyongyang, stressing the need to resume the diplomatic process broken off last year. But no one at Iruma has forgotten the moment last April when North Korea lofted a TaepoDong-2 long-range ballistic missile over Japan, sending it crashing into the Pacific – or the North's second nuclear test explosion the following month.

"If an enemy dares to attack us, that's lucky for us," an unsmiling Taniguchi said. "Once they are within range, it is our opportunity, not theirs."

Taniguchi's confidence in Japan's ability to defend itself rests on the weapons under his command – an American-designed, Japanese-built Patriot PAC-3 missile battery, attached to one of the six ballistic missile defence (BMD) groups girdling the country since 2007.

The innocuous-looking, green-painted oblong canisters contain four Patriot missiles each. Mounted on trucks, pointing skywards, and electronically linked to six naval destroyers equipped with Aegis phased array radar, they mark the Japan Self-Defence Force's first foray into BMD. The full deployment will be completed this year.

This is the type of defensive missile system the Obama administration plans to introduce in eastern Europe. It is similar to the missiles the US has controversially agreed to sell to Taiwan, to counter the growing threat from China.

Under its postwar constitution, Japan renounced "for ever" the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. But the 1960 US-Japan security treaty made clear that Tokyo has a right to self-defence.

Since then, and with accelerating speed since the 9/11 attacks, Japan's defence and security activities have expanded. While still essentially defensive in nature, they include international peacekeeping operations, logistical and financial support in Afghanistan, emphasis on strengthened regional alliances, overseas disaster relief, anti-piracy operations and a proactive overseas development programme.

Defence ministry officials and analysts in Tokyo suggest three factors are driving this evolution. One is a host of regional threats and potential flashpoints. They include territorial disputes with China, Russia and South Korea; China's rapid military build-up; its aggressive oil exploration in the East China Sea; and North Korea's unpredictable behaviour. "The environment that we face is harsh and difficult and this is making us feel that we may have to be more self-reliant," said a senior defence ministry official. "On the other hand, this makes it all the more important to solidify our alliance with the US."

The second factor fuelling Japanese insecurity, however, is growing doubt about that very alliance. A simmering row over relocating the Futenma US Marine Corps base in Okinawa, US troop drawdowns in east Asia, revived concerns about the dependability of the US "nuclear umbrella" and the general perception that US global predominance is weakening in the new "Chinese century" all suggest Japan must do more to look after itself.

This thinking is reflected, thirdly, in Japan's domestic politics, still in flux after last autumn's watershed defeat of the conservative Liberal Democrats, in power almost continuously since the war, by the centre-left Democratic party.

Prime minister Yukio Hatoyama's emphasis on east Asian communal "fraternity" and a "more equal", balanced relationship with the US has put noses out of joint in Washington but appears to have struck a chord with Japanese voters. Economic difficulties are spurring un-Japanese talk of radical solutions.

Such problems are for the politicians to sort out. At Iruma air base, Taniguchi sticks to the basics, and he draws an unexpected parallel. When it comes to air defence, the RAF's triumph in the Battle of Britain in 1940 is his inspiration, he says. Japan was devastated in the second world war because it could not defend itself in the air.

By the look on his face, it is clear that if Taniguchi has any say in the matter, it won't happen again.

They are among the most respected, scientific and accurate forecasters in the world. Yet to the British public they are a joke. Tim Adams visits the Met Office's HQ in Exeter to meet the people for whom the outlook is always gloomy

The walls of the hi-tech head-quarters of the Met Office in Exeter are decorated with wisdom about the weather. The words tend to act as a comic counterpoint to the work that goes on in the building. The meteorologists who wander the glassy corridors with one eye on the ever-changing Devon skies outside will tell you that the job of forecasting is becoming incrementally more exact with every new satellite and software update, but the walls invariably tell you something different. In the lobby, a quotation from Hansard of 1854 recalls parliament's reaction to the apparently wild suggestion of Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy that, with the appliance of scientific study, "we might know in this metropolis the condition of the weather 24 hours beforehand": uproarious laughter. As I am being led through some of the rigorous logic of the current mapping systems by the heirs to FitzRoy (the manic-depressive commander of Darwin's Beagle), I can't help glancing over their shoulders to a quotation from Paul Cézanne: "We live in a rainbow of chaos."

Perhaps because it remains a part of the Ministry of Defence (albeit a pretty much self-sufficient part), the Met Office borrows some of the language of the military ("warm fronts" and "cold fronts" were coined during the First World War, when such waves of offence were much on meteorologists' minds). This mindset is useful because, from the outside at least, the Met Office can seem almost permanently embattled. When meteorologists are not engaged with the elements, they are traditionally in conflict with the great British press (or, on occasion, with each other). One of the few things that any British weather forecaster can predict with absolute certainty is the round of headlines that will accompany any forecast that goes awry.

This winter they have seen something of a perfect storm of such coverage. Following on from its "odds on" suggestion that 2009 would be a barbecue summer, the Met Office suggested back in October that we were likely to be due for an unusually mild winter. January's record-breaking Big Freeze, which, as it actually unfolded, the Met Office got pretty much spot on, nevertheless became another opportunity to blame the forecasters for the vagaries of the weather. The Sun, a title that loves a tale of meteorological meltdown, offered its readers a weather dart board in the belief it might do a better job than the Met Office's new supercomputer. Elsewhere the mild-winter forecast and the Great British Blizzard were tenuously linked by sceptics with the failures of the Copenhagen summit and the leaked emails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia (a Met Office partner) to suggest the Met Office was so preoccupied with potential warming in 50 years' time that it had lost sight of next week's wind chill.

This cycle of stories gathered pace and deepened when it was revealed that the BBC, another institution experiencing some ongoing turbulence, had made the decision to put the contract for its weather broadcasting, which the Met Office has held for 90 years, out to tender, with whispers that the New Zealand-based service Metra is being considered to replace the current provider. All in all, it has been the most unsettled couple of months in the institution's history since Michael Fish's hurricane in 1987, and the Bill Giles bullying scandal which followed close behind (after allegations by weather forecasters of a climate of fear that existed beyond the Velcro clouds – allegations that were overturned on appeal).

If Rob Varley, the recently appointed director of forecasting, feels himself to be in the eye of this storm, then he doesn't show it. Varley was born to this job. His father was a forecaster with the Met Office for 34 years, and he has already put in nearly three decades himself. He has overall responsibility for getting the weather right for a range of clients that includes half the world's commercial aviation and the military in Afghanistan, as well as commuters on the M6 and schoolboys hoping their match won't be called off, and he is impressively sanguine about the task. His ultimate responsibility, he suggests, is winning the daily struggle to make perfect sense of a vast global atmosphere of swirling fluid. "If you went up to Dartmoor," he says, "and you dropped a small stick in the River Dart at Dartmeed and you drove to Newbridge, 10 miles down the road, and waited for the stick to arrive, and then had a go at predicting precisely where along the bridge the stick would pass through, bearing in mind all the factors and currents and obstacles that might affect it on the way, that is about what we are trying to do every hour…"

Meteorologists, as every weatherman's favourite joke goes, do it with models. To aid in the understanding of this wantonly fluid system – Edward Lorenz proved chaos theory using infinitesimal modifications to weather systems – the Met Office is now equipped not only with 1,800 staff but a £33m IBM computer that can make 1,000,000,000,000,000 calculations a second, through code that enables it to project weather systems forward in time an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year and a century – and all places in between.

At any one point – though the central problem with the weather is that it does not have a beginning or an end, it is all middle – several dozen potential weather scenarios will be running through this endlessly refined programme, each one based on the incoming minute-by-minute data from thousands of weather stations across the globe, supplemented with observations from aircraft and radar and weather balloons and anchored vessels in the oceans, all set against a framework of patterns from orbiting satellites in the heavens. And even then, as Varley concedes, no one alive can tell you absolutely for certain whether you'll need an umbrella if you go out at lunchtime.

One result of this is that criticism, like that which has come the Met Office's way recently, goes with the territory. "When you get a foot of snow in one place overnight there will inevitably be disruption. That's just life. But of course it's frustrating and we want to blame someone for it. We are an easy target." The long-range forecasts, of barbecue summers and mild winters, were unfortunate, but Varley stresses, "for most people, we try to make it clear there is no usefulness whatsoever in those forecasts. If I'm booking a holiday, I would love to know whether June will be warmer than August, but the seasonal forecast will not tell you."

So why do them?

"If you look over a number of years, roughly two times out of three the thing we say most likely turns out to be right," he says, "so it is better than chance – and in some industries that margin is crucial." He would much rather the forecasts never made it into the press, however, "but the information is out there, so what can you do?"

Varley doesn't believe, though, that negative publicity has contributed to the BBC's decision to consider their relationship. "The BBC reviews its contracts from time to time, and rightly so," he says. "The point is, we don't want to be delivering services out of some obligation, but because people know we are the best at it in the world."

What really annoys Varley is the suggestion that because of the seasonal forecasts there were "some aspersions about the quality of our climate science" – the "If they can't tell what it's going to be like this winter, how do they know what it will be like in 2050?" argument, which ignores the fact that long-term temperature trends and knowledge about the effects of CO₂ in the atmosphere are much more reliable than multifaceted local weather systems. The Hadley Centre, the Climate Change wing of the Met Office which was established by Margaret Thatcher 20 years ago, was recently deemed in an independent study to be the most reliable of 43,500 geoscience institutes around the world. "You don't get to that position by being imprecise," Varley says, precisely. "The fact is, the things we are trying to do are very difficult. Our reputation around the world is second to none, and yet in the UK we are all too often a target for criticism. That is so painful to us."

It is perhaps inevitable that we should require the bringers of our weather news to suffer for their science: we need them to share our pain. There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that all of our behaviour is intimately linked to small shifts in the weather. Recent research suggests the stock market is far more bullish on cold days than on warm ones (a fact that holds true from Taiwan to Sweden). Our moods come and go like scattered showers. I was moving house from one end of the M4 to the other in the week of January's heavy snow, watching the hour-by-hour forecast unfold with the zeal of an entrail-gazing druid, now clicking on snowflake icons, now desperately shovelling grit on to the road as a hopeless offering, now stopping to thrill at the view.

The BBC understands this love-hate obsession like nothing else. It persists in calming us to sleep on our damp island with the Forties Cromarty Rockall lullaby of the shipping forecast; offering the comfort of far-off storm warnings. On the night of the winter's heaviest snow, the corporation's reporters were predictably sent en masse to survey the nation's drifts in their North Face jackets and their Berghaus hats in order to say nothing at all – just so we could see them being snowed on for once in the land of dull drizzle and patchy cloud. The ritual – like the belittling of forecasters – is part of the nation's idea of itself.

The uncertainty of our weather engenders both a need to know what comes next and a deep-seated anxiety that we will never know, not exactly; it is in this gap that the Met Office lives. In recent years our obsessive weather watching has taken on a medieval, apocalyptic tone as each extreme-weather event seems a portent, and all of them at least partly our fault. The weather has become personal. As Martin Amis pointed out in an interview earlier this month: "Don't you sense the incredible potential for violence in the weather, already — the storms, the snow? You can see the nature of what the future will be, and it's all terror and boredom all over again. You will be massively inconvenienced and appalled by the power of the weather…"

Well, maybe, you might say. The institution of the Met Office is a strangely seductive idea precisely because it is a physical dramatisation both of our knowledge of the unpredictability of the future and our stubborn efforts to make it known. It attempts, in a somewhat heroic way (from its earliest incarnation as a lifesaver for seamen), to bureaucratise chaos, to systematise doubt, and it sometimes comes close to doing so. It not only shows us on a weekly basis the limits of science, but also the human need for the ingenuity to overcome these limits.

It is not an exact discipline but it is certainly an exacting one. Anyone who believes that dis-crepancies in climate models are down to some arcane global conspiracy should, for example, meet Stuart Goldstraw, observations manager at the Met Office, and have him explain with diehard enthusiasm the extraordinary lengths he explores in order to eliminate error from global weather statistics.

Goldstraw outlines at length the detail of this endeavour to me, standing on a small hillside behind the looming Met Office building, among measuring instruments old and new. On the one hand, massive dishes stand alert for satellite information from the upper atmosphere; on the other are thermometers and rain gauges in louvred boxes. Collecting weather data, which for more than a century was a resolutely human enterprise, has lately become almost wholly mechanised, and the shift is his biggest headache.

How do you create machines that can exactly replicate the human eye? Which can see fog in a valley or judge visibility? You can't – but the important thing is to know exactly where the limitations lie and to weight the information accordingly. Goldstraw points me toward a "present weather centre" which sends an infra-red beam out between two arms and examines what interrupts that beam. The machine is confident when it comes to snow or drizzle or rain, but sleet is beyond it. "In that case it will say 'precipitation of an unknown type'," he says, "and that's when the forecasters have to guess the uncertain boundaries between snow and rain and the no man's land of sleet."

Temperature, which can be influenced by all sorts of local factors – from urban creep to flaking paint on instrument boxes – is often even harder to ascertain. "Climate with a capital C is our big challenge," Goldstraw concedes. For comparative purposes the climatologist is looking for accuracy to at least 0.1 of a degree, and any error in the way data is collected totally undermines that. "It's only the very best," Goldstraw suggests, somewhat despairingly, "that can meet that challenge over a long period."

That means out of 12,000 global sites producing weather data they "can generally trust only 500, and the subset of those we absolutely rely on is much reduced again, and sites drop out even of that group; it is a continual, daily battle, and then there are gaps – particularly in Africa, where we don't have much reliable data at all".

If Stuart Goldstraw is the pragmatist of this process, then the blue-sky thinker is Brian Golding, head of research, who takes all that data and runs it through the model that describes chaos. Golding takes me down to the basement level of the Met Office building, where the supercomputer, in its grey rows of tombstone cabinets, hums to itself. Golding has been developing this model for 37 years. He is a meteorologist who can do maths, rather than vice versa, he says, so it is a practical model, the only integrated one of its kind, by which he means it can be used to study not only what will happen in half an hour, but also, by asking it very different questions, what will happen in 50 years' time.

Golding is a spirited, focused man, and his work has focused the understanding of what occurs in the swirls of air approaching our island. When he started out, the reference points on the UK's mapping grid were spaced at 100km; in the 1980s Golding led the team to a global first, a grid length of 15km; he has just implemented the third generation of this, which is a 1.5km model for the whole of the country.

The effect of this, he suggests, should eventually be a fineness and accuracy of information about what will almost certainly be the increasing wetness of Britain: "If you look at how we did in the Cumbrian floods [in 2009], the forecasts were brilliant, but they were still at the scale of Cumbria. With the 1.5km scale model we could come down to individual river catchments, which means you could accurately predict the height a river will rise to – which might have meant the bridge the poor policeman [PC Bill Barker] was standing on was closed before it collapsed."

The weather forecast might soon, he says, be able to move from the level of depressions and fronts to very local squalls and thunderstorms, to say whether it is going to rain over this hill or that one, but that is a whole new strata of unpredictability. "Mostly," Golding says, brightly, explaining his life's work, "you have a fairly predictable uncertainty up to some point, and then you get to an unpredictable event, and there is a dividing of possibility and then there are two groups of solutions and then one or both of those will divide into more. And typically, chaos happens with these multiple bifurcations." Generally this first splitting of possibility happens after two or three days. And after that, it will always be trickier to know.

It is somehow gratifying to know that despite all this computer power, the forecasts we hear still come down to a bloke sitting in front of a map and wondering whether on this occasion the model's billions of calculations have really got it exactly right. All of the data collection and exponential number crunching eventually ends up in front of the chief forecaster, who, on this day, is a man called Frank Saunders, who is staring at a screen in the middle of the operations room – from which half the world's weather is forecast, from which aircraft are grounded and gritters dispatched – and looking vaguely alarmed.

When I visit the Met Office in the first week of February, there is some snow around in the north of England, but the temperature is hovering around freezing point, so trying to work out where it is falling is an informed guessing game. Saunders is trying to work out exactly how Manchester is going to receive the "unknown precipitation event" while keeping an eye on storm surges around the coast and the changing information about overnight ice. "My intuition," he says, "suggests it is being slightly overdone in the observations and it will fall as rain." Get that intuition wrong, though, and what falls as a centimetre of rain will work out to 10cm of snow, the difference between drizzle and gridlock.

It is Saunders's job to convey the nuance of this message to all the nation's broadcasters in an hourly conference-call briefing. For all the science, if he gets the emphasis wrong, or a word out of place, sunshine can quickly become showers. The chief forecaster is not for nothing known as God. As Saunders prepares for his briefing he accidentally knocks a cup of water over his desk, and I wonder for a moment how the subliminal stress of that particular precipitation event will play out in the nation's skies.

Einstein once observed: "Before I die, I hope someone will clarify quantum physics for me. After I die, I hope God will explain turbulence to me." An explanation for turbulence is what we have come to expect, though, and we have little patience when our prophets fail us. In an effort to deflect criticism when what falls from the air does not match what we have been told to prepare for, the Met Office is planning to introduce a more "probabilistic" element to forecasting, offering you percentage chances rather than a definitive symbol of cloud or rain. One of the elements of their ongoing contract discussions with the BBC is how this can best be done.

Almost uniformly the people I speak to at the Met Office believe the probabilistic method will finally allow them to convey the subtleties of the systems they are describing, the probabilistic will allow them to be right nearly all the time, the probabilistic will prevent the forecast coming back to bite them. I hesitate to point out that in America, where this style has long been employed, it was recently shown that only 50% of people understood what a 30% chance of rain actually meant and were therefore more likely to take their umbrella on the off-chance than ever before. As the man said, there is never any such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes.

When they got it wrong

August 2004 The Cornish village of Boscastle was deluged with more than a month's rain in seven hours. The medium-term forecast had been a modest 30-50mm of rainfall, but 133mm fell between 11am and 6pm. As villagers paddled down the streets, the Met Office declared: "No one could have forecast 133mm in seven hours. This was a freak event."

May 2009 Bournemouth tourism officials were furious about a bank holiday forecast that predicted pouring rain and thunderstorms for the southeast. Town traders claimed they lost 25,000 would-be visitors – who would have basked in 22C sunshine.

June 2001 In May the Met Office was spreading joy – it was going to be a long hot summer. Three months later Scotland was in the grip of horrendous electrical storms: 9,000 homes without electricity, hailstones the size of golf balls, transport chaos and, horror of horrors, 500,000 viewers left without TV for more than three hours when lightning struck a major television transmitter.

When they got it right

December 2004 A bad winter for the bookies – but a good winter for the Met Office. Scotland enjoyed its first official white Christmas in three years and bookies cried into their porridge. The Met Office had predicted that "much of Scotland, Northern Ireland, northwest England and Wales are likely to see a white Christmas".

June 1997 As Pete Sampras limbered up for his fourth Wimbledon title, Britain was on course for the wettest June in six years. While fans dreaded the inevitable Cliff Richard (right) sing-alongs, the Met Office had a spring in its step: "We forecast showers for 30 days, and we were right for 22 of them."

January 1990 Forty-seven people died in the Burns Day Storm, when 104mph winds uprooted 3m trees, buildings collapsed, and the damage cost insurers £3.37bn. Unlike the infamous hurricane of '87, however, the Met Office had given plenty of warning – four days before the storm hit, severe gale warnings were issued on TV.

Jeff Rubin: When do smart prices get dumb?

As they say in stock brokerage, find a strong enough wind, and even pigs can fly. Pay 19 cents per kilowatt hour for power, and you can let the wind turn on the lights. But at that price, how long will you leave them on?

The larger the contribution wind power makes to tomorrow’s grid, the less power you will be able to afford to draw from it—the same way triple-digit oil prices, which will pull tomorrow’s oil supply out of Alberta’s tar sands, will translate into pump prices that’ll force millions of drivers right off the road.

It’s not how many megawatts of additional power new sources like wind add to the grid that counts. Rather, it’s the amount of power demand that a 19-cent–per-kilowatt-hour price will kill that’ll have a far greater effect.

Utilities' transition to smart grid has promise, but potholes, too

The deployment of smart grids, applying digital technology to the nation's electricity network, is intended to help utilities better manage the flow of electricity, avoid failures and, for the first time, give consumers details on how they consume energy so that they can cut use and perhaps costs.

The existing grid "wastes too much energy; it costs us too much money; and it's too susceptible to outages and blackouts," Obama said last fall in announcing $3.4 billion in smart grid stimulus funds.

But the smart grid rollouts will take years and are likely to evolve in fits and starts, as thousands of utilities nationwide add technologies and regulators weigh the proposed benefits against costs that may be borne by ratepayers.

Crude Oil Surges the Most in Four Months as the Dollar Drops

(Bloomberg) -- Crude oil surged the most in more than four months as the dollar fell against the euro, bolstering the appeal of commodities as an alternative investment.

Oil rose 3.9 percent as the euro rebounded from the lowest level against the dollar in nine months yesterday. Commodities and stocks also gained after manufacturing in the New York region grew at the fastest pace in four months as companies boosted payrolls in anticipation of growing orders.

Energy Company Mergers Are Expected to Rise

Energy companies are on the prowl again.

After a two-year slowdown in mergers and acquisitions in the industry, companies are once again looking for ways to use their checkbooks to expand their reserves, buy new technology or snap up promising oil and gas fields.

Russia moves to strip BP venture of giant gas field

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia stepped up pressure on BP's Russian oil venture TNK-BP with environmental watchdog RosPrirodNadzor recommending on Wednesday to strip the firm of its giant East Siberian Kovykta gas field.

Total Refinery Workers on Strike Over Plant Closure

(Bloomberg) -- Total SA refinery workers began a 48-hour strike to protest the planned permanent closure of crude processing at an idled plant near Dunkirk in northern France.

The disruption is affecting all six of Total’s French refineries with a “massive following” and will lead to lower output and shipments, Christian Votte, a representative at the CGT union, said today by phone from the Gonfreville plant. Meetings will be held to determine whether to extend the action, the union said in a statement.

Iran leader accuses U.S. of "war-mongering"

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran's supreme leader accused the United States on Wednesday of war-mongering and of turning the Gulf into an "arms depot", hitting back at U.S. accusations that the Islamic state was moving toward a military dictatorship.

The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were the latest sign of growing tensions between Tehran and Washington, which are embroiled in a long-running and escalating row over Iranian nuclear work the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.

Govt plays down Argentina's Falklands shipping move

LONDON (AFP) – The government played down Tuesday Argentina's latest move in a row over oil drilling in the Falklands, after Buenos Aires ordered ships headed to the disputed islands through its waters to seek its permission.

"Regulations governing Argentine territorial waters are a matter for the Argentine authorities," said the foreign ministry in a statement.

"This does not affect Falkland Islands territorial waters which are controlled by the island authorities."

Kuwait Oil Signs Technical Service Accord With Shell

(Bloomberg) -- State-run Kuwait Oil Co. signed a service agreement with Royal Dutch Shell Plc to help develop natural-gas fields in the north of the Persian Gulf country.

“Shell will deploy technical experts to Kuwait to support KOC in its management of the ongoing development of the Jurassic gas fields,” Shell said in an e-mailed statement today. “This project is both complicated and challenging, due to unconventional geological formations, difficult reservoir conditions and complex gas compositions.”

Stephen Leeb: Positioning in Gold, Oil for the Months Ahead

This is a curious time to be talking about peak demand for oil. Renewable energies account for a very small fraction of overall energy supply. No one expects oil demand in China and other developing countries to peak anytime soon. Even China’s most ambitious renewable plans will lead to rising oil demand for another generation.

Could the Saudis have really meant peak “production”? Could they really be preparing for a time in which their own production will start to decline? In the same press release, the Saudis also mentioned in passing that they will begin to inject carbon dioxide into their largest source of oil – the giant Ghawar field. Ghawar is not only the main source of Saudi oil but the biggest oil field in the world. Injecting carbon dioxide is something you do to keep production from collapsing after you have tried everything else.

Carbon conundrum

Some will argue that new reserves of oil and minerals will be found, but these reserves are likely to prove much more expensive to access and therefore the costs will be high. Moreover, there is no guarantee that we will be able to develop the technologies to access them.

Is this certain depletion of natural resources not a stronger basis than the uncertain climate change argument for trying to change the structure of our economies and altering the way we live? Whichever way you look at it, eventually we are going to run out of these raw materials upon which our current lifestyles are based. Oil, gas, coal, copper and platinum do not just replenish themselves and once they are gone, they are gone. Let us not talk about mining the moon and the planets – we can’t even afford another manned mission to the moon.

Yet Another Energy and National Security Myth

VetVoice.com (a project of VoteVets.org) recently launched a $2 million television campaign supporting the Clean Energy and American Power Act. In all, there are eight television ads that essentially claim that oil money finances terrorism and that we need to wean ourselves off of foreign oil to be more safe and secure. (The red herring in one of the ads is Iran, which does support terrorist groups, but the groups it supports – Hezbollah and Hamas – are threats to Israel, not the United States.) The ads feature veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and target members of Congress who oppose comprehensive energy legislation and who have taken political contributions from oil companies. Once again, energy and national security have been mistakenly conflated.

Shortage of Rare Earth Elements Could Thwart Innovation

Silicon may represent one of Earth's more common elements, but it transformed Silicon Valley into a high-tech corridor and helped usher the world into the Information Age.

Now rare earth elements with exotic names such as europium and tantalum hold the key to hybrid cars, wind turbines and crystal-clear TV displays - that is, if a looming supply shortage doesn't stop innovation in its tracks.

The city is choking thanks to our idea of transport nirvana

At our behest, successive state governments have been pursuing a magnificent dream, to make Sydney a place fit for cars to be driven on all occasions. Now the Herald-commissioned independent inquiry headed by Ron Christie has exposed that dream for what it is: the wrong tram (forgive me).

It's not just a dream incapable of being realised, it's one that's made our present transport problems worse rather than better and offers no answer to the looming worsening of those problems.

Theolia Investors Said to Warn They May Oppose Plan

(Bloomberg) -- A group of investors in Theolia SA, the French wind-power producer trying to avert bankruptcy, may refuse to back a refinancing plan and seek to replace its board, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Oregon is first U.S. site for a wave-power farm

The search for clean, renewable energy is turning toward the ocean, but not without some waves of skepticism.

Construction has begun off Oregon on what would be the nation's first commercial wave-energy farm, said Sean O'Neill, president of the Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition, a Maryland-based trade association that promotes marine energy. It is planned to supply energy to about 400 homes.

Nuclear Industry Gets Lift, No ‘Renaissance’ From U.S. Loan Aid

(Bloomberg) -- Don’t call it a renaissance yet, says John Rowe, who oversees the biggest fleet of nuclear reactors in the U.S.

President Barack Obama’s announcement yesterday that the government will guarantee loans for the country’s first new nuclear plants in 30 years is a necessary move that won’t in itself spur a revival of the dormant industry, said Rowe, chief executive officer of Chicago-based Exelon Corp.

“We may see more and faster development of new plants now,” said Rowe, whose company operates 17 reactors. “We probably won’t see a full-blown nuclear renaissance in the next five to 10 years.”

Jordan, France to Sign Uranium Mining Accord Feb. 21

(Bloomberg) -- Jordan and France will sign an agreement on Feb. 21 on uranium exploration and mining in the Arab country to help it become more energy efficient, the head of Jordan’s Atomic Energy Commission said.

The accord, to be completed during a visit by French Prime Minister Francois Fillon to the kingdom, will help “introduce nuclear energy as a major part of the energy mix in Jordan for the next three decades,” Khalid Touqan said today by telephone.

New Renewable Fuel Standard A Mixed Blessing For Agriculture

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent final ruling on the national Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was met with mixed responses by farm state politicians and organizational leaders.

“This is a good news/bad news announcement for American agriculture producers,” Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) stated in a recent press release. “While I’m glad to see ethanol and biodiesel will qualify as advanced biofuels under the RFS, I have concerns with the international indirect land use portion of this final rule,” he added.

Pangestu Says Palm Oil May Stabilize Around $700-$750

(Bloomberg) -- Palm oil prices may stabilize between $700 and $750 a metric ton this year as China and India buy more of the commodity, Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said.

“What we’re seeing is a very strong demand from China and India,” Pangestu said in an interview with Bloomberg Television from Jakarta today. “India is now a larger consumer compared with China because of the reduction in production of oilseeds. Prices of palm oil look like stabilizing around $700 and $750 a ton.”

3 big firms quit warming-bills lobbying group

Two of the nation's largest energy companies on Tuesday quit the lobbying alliance that has been the major force shaping anti-global warming legislation in Congress and claimed that the leading climate change bills don't do enough for oil and natural gas.

UN Emission Board Split on Renewable-Energy Projects

(Bloomberg) -- Regulators who oversee the world’s second-biggest emissions market are split on how to approve renewable-energy projects that receive subsidies from developing nations such as China, the board’s chairman said.

Climate skeptics exploiting scandal: US envoy

Todd Stern, the US special envoy on climate issues, downplayed recent revelations about a landmark 2007 study by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that warned of dire consequences from global warming.

"What you do see sometimes is that people who have an agenda that is directed toward undermining action on climate change grab whatever tidbit they can find," Stern told reporters.

"What should not happen is that any individual mistakes, typos, whatever they might be, be taken to undermine the very fundamental record that exists from scientists all over the world and from observed data from all over the world that this is a quite serious and growing problem," he said.

Slow Trip Across Sea Aids Profit and Environment

In a global culture dominated by speed, from overnight package delivery to bullet trains to fast-cash withdrawals, the company has seized on a sales pitch that may startle some hard-driving corporate customers: Slow is better.

By halving its top cruising speed over the last two years, Maersk cut fuel consumption on major routes by as much as 30 percent, greatly reducing costs. But the company also achieved an equal cut in the ships’ emissions of greenhouse gases.

“The previous focus has been on ‘What will it cost?’ and ‘Get it to me as fast as possible,’ ” said Soren Stig Nielsen, Maersk’s director of environmental sustainability, who noted that the practice began in 2008, when oil prices jumped to $145 a barrel.

“But now there is a third dimension,” he said. “What’s the CO2 footprint?”

Local Afghan women package harvested saffron as part of the Kentucky Agribusiness Development Team, Task Force Cyclone, Womens' Empowerment Project in Panjshir Province. The Womens' Empowerment Team of the Kentucky ADT educate women on things they can do at home, such as grow saffron and mushrooms and other things to improve their families lives.
Photo by US Army SGT Jo Lisa Ashley, Kentucky ADT Task Force Cyclone

This specialized unit is made up of service members from different backgrounds throughout the state of Kentucky.

Around 80% of Afghanistan’s populous is connected to the agriculture industry. Since Aug., the ADT has spent their deployment educating the local farmers and government on how to increase productivity, increase their market share and manage natural resources in Parwan, Panjshir, Kapisa and Bamyan provinces.

As a result of their work, the production of potatoes and onion has greatly increased in the Bamyan province.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. William T. Ewing, from Harrisburg, Ky., has a degree in Entomology and has been working with the Agricultural team during his deployment here.

“The Afghan people can grow a lot of crops,” said Ewing. “They are actually producing more than they consume or export, and we are teaching them how to export and store their crops longer.”

With the ADT’s help, pomegranate farmers in the Tagab district of the Kapisa province were able to export their crops to India and Dubai. Because they exported to these countries, they received three times their normal price for the crops.

Educating the people on natural resource management has been a key point of the ADT. Irrigation and reforestation advances should greatly improve agricultural production in Afghanistan.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Ray Norris, from Scottsburg, In., assigned to the 123rd Airlift Wing in Louisville, Ky., grew up on a family farm and volunteered to deploy with the ADT.

Norris spent some time in the Yakalong district of the Bamyan province where there is an eroded canal that provides water to about 800 family farms.

“There are not many organizations in this area helping the people,” said Norris. “We are working to get the materials so the people can make repairs themselves.”

The ADT has been working with the Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL), and the Director of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (DAIL) at the provincial levels in the Parwan, Panjshir, Bamyan and Kapisa provinces.

U.S. Army Col. Mike D. Farley, from Corbin, Ky., is the commander of the ADT and is glad to be a part of this important and unique mission.

“We are here to help the people increase the nutritional value in the country and sustain a better and healthier lifestyle,” said Farley.

We are working directly with the MAIL and the DAIL’s, to give them the knowledge to help their people, said Farley.

The ADT has also been working to teach the women of Afghanistan techniques to improve their home life.

U.S. Army Sgt. Jo Lisa Ashley, of Eubank, Ky. is the ADT’s women’s empowerment coordinator for the team.

“Most women here work at home, they take care of their families and the household duties,” said Ashley. “I am working with them on projects that they can do at home to bring in extra income.”

The Afghan government is working side-by-side with Ministry of Women’s Affairs and they are doing a great job about going out and showing that they support these programs for the women, said Ashley.

Jimmy Johnson was jailed for murder after leaving the army in 1973. After his release he killed again. But is he just one of thousands who didn't receive help for post traumatic stress disorder?

'All I'm trying to do is get the government to acknowledge the truth," says Jimmy Johnson, 63, once a model soldier and now a model prisoner. Johnson, currently in Frankland maximum-security prison in Durham, where for the last 25 years he has been serving his second life sentence for murder, is a man with a mission. "The prison system is awash with ex-servicemen," he says, "and unless the government, and in particular the Ministry of Justice, starts taking this problem seriously, things are going to get much much worse."

Johnson's particular concern is what he feels is the complacent attitude shown by the government not just to veterans who end up in prison, but to the related issue of those suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – many unknowingly. "This is an even bigger problem," he says, "and the way we are going with this war in Afghanistan it is going to get bigger. This needs to be addressed honestly and urgently."

Johnson was first jailed for life in 1974, less than a year after his honourable discharge from the Royal Tank Regiment following 10 years of "exemplary service". But when he left the army, he explains, his life quickly began to fall apart. Struggling to adjust, he began drinking heavily and experiencing mood swings which impacted badly on his relationship with his wife and two children. He managed to find some casual work "here and there", but without any real sense of purpose he drank more, and became more and more depressed. "I drank to dull the pain," he says, "but it never really went away."

One afternoon, four months after Johnson signed his army discharge papers, he reached his lowest point. He had tried to go for a drink in a social club, but it required an identity card to gain access. He did not have one. "They turned me away. 'You're not a soldier now,' they said. Nobody wanted to know me." He walked away.

A short while later, a van pulled up alongside him. It was driven by an acquaintance who worked as a security guard. He asked Johnson if he wanted a lift. "I had nothing planned," he says, "and just got in." As the van made towards the next stop on the driver's round – a factory – it slowed down to pass a group of children playing football. Suddenly there was a loud bang on the side of the van. Johnson thinks it was either the ball being kicked against it or a brick that had been thrown. Whatever it was, the sound triggered a horrific reaction in the former soldier. As soon as they arrived at the factory and alighted from the van, Johnson remembers grabbing hold of his acquaintance by the arm and neck and "running him". What he does not remember is then picking up a scaffold pole and beating the man to death with it.

Arrested the next day, Johnson had no explanation for what he had done. "But I knew that I had killed a man. That's why I pleaded guilty at my trial."

For that offence he spent a little over nine years in prison before being released on licence. While inside he expressed remorse for his actions but still could give no explanation. He received no therapy or counselling or indeed any kind of in-depth analysis to try to ascertain why he had behaved the way he did. His army discipline combined with regulated prison life made it easy for him to present himself as a "model prisoner".

These were the days when, other than perfunctory call-ups by prison staff, there was little focus on the motivations behind so-called offending behaviour. The closest Johnson came to any sense of rationalising what he had done was when, some years into that first life sentence, his father suggested during a visit that he was suffering from what many Americans returning from the Vietnam war had experienced. "My dad said to me, 'You've got what a lot of those yanks had after Vietnam,' meaning nightmares, flashbacks and other weird stuff. He meant PTSD but he didn't know that's what it was called and it was a long time later before I ever heard of it."

Johnson joined the army aged 17, and was first involved in action in Aden in the 1960s, where he demonstrated the leadership qualities that led to his promotion to corporal and tank commander. Later he served two tours of duty in Northern Ireland, during which he was involved in suppressing riots, controlling missile-throwing crowds, and clearing areas where bombs had been laid.

'The woman looked like a large rag doll smashed to pieces'

The incident that affected him most profoundly occurred while he was leading a mobile patrol of two Land Rovers and seven men through the centre of Lurgan in March 1972. A massive explosion a hundred yards in front of Johnson's vehicle brought the patrol to a halt. A bomb had been detonated in an underground toilet. Johnson saw people scattering through swirling clouds of thick black smoke. Within minutes he had cordoned off the area and mounted guards to provide cover against snipers in case it was a set-up.

Raised voices caught his attention. A man was screaming at a policeman and pointing at the toilet. "He was shouting, 'My wife's in there! My wife's in there!'" Johnson raced towards the man. "He was becoming hysterical and the policeman, looking terrified, was adamant the toilet was empty. But I could see by the man's face that he knew. He knew. I grabbed the policeman's torch and took two of my men down the gaping hole in the ground, climbing over rubble, slabs of brick and concrete and gushing water. In the thick smoke the torch was useless. We scrabbled around blindly. Then we heard a loudhailer above calling for us to get out fast as there was a car parked overhead with 500lb of explosives inside.

"I was about to give the order when one of my men found a woman's shoe. We dug frantically with our bare hands. Then I found her. She looked like a large rag doll smashed to pieces. All that was left of her clothing was a piece of rag around her neck; other parts of her had been blown off. Even her toes were missing. I covered her with my combat jacket and carried her out to an ambulance."

Johnson says he remembers shouting at the doctor in the back of the ambulance, "Save her!" Her says her face reminded him of his wife's face. "The doctor turned to me and very quietly said, 'Sorry son, but she's dead.' Outside the ambulance I started to shake and tremble and sweat like I had never sweated before. Someone led me into the back of a Land Rover where I sat and tried to smoke a cigarette. I heard women's voices and laughter, and then a woman leaned into the open back door of the vehicle and said, 'Don't worry, son, she was only a catholic." That night he was injected with a tranquilliser to help him sleep. "I never thought I'd be able to sleep again," he says.

Dealing with disturbances, which often developed into riots, was a routine duty for British soldiers in Northern Ireland during the troubles. They learned their techniques at "tin city" in Sennelager in Germany; a mock-up of streets and walkways, complete with shops and pubs that blared out Irish rebel songs. The facility had been specially built as a close-quarter combat range. There they learned how to fight pitched battles, with colleagues dressed as rioters hurling bricks and petrol bombs. They were conditioned to relish "aggro" and many were geared up and keen for the real thing once out on patrol on Northern Ireland's streets. "We carried personal weapons such as cut-down baseball bats, lead pipes and coshes, most of which had been handed down by troops that had been relieved," explains Johnson. "But towards the end of my time, and especially after the bombing of the woman, I was worn down by it."

The final straw for Johnson was an incident during a riot when he chased and caught a rioter who had attacked one of his men. "I began smashing him with the baton gun. I smashed him over and over regardless of the blood that was gushing from his head and oblivious to his screams. The next thing I remember is one of my men screaming at me, "Jimmy! He's had enough!" – that brought me back to my senses." Later, he says, his officers made light of the damage his out-of-control violence inflicted on the rioter.

For his actions in trying to save the woman's life in the underground toilet, Johnson received a "mentioned in despatches" – an award given in recognition of exceptional heroism or other noteworthy action. It was the highest award earned by somebody in his unit since the Korean war. But procedures to help soldiers deal with the aftermath of traumatic events relating to their service activities then were scant. There were few options available to help the soldiers wind down or de-stress after bombings or riots or incidents such as Johnson's beating of the rioter. Alcohol was the main medication. "We just went to the mess and drank ourselves out of it," says Johnson.

Finally he could face no more conflict and, despite the best efforts of his superior officers to persuade him otherwise, he bought himself out of the army in December 1973.

'Jimmy, you never laugh or smile like you used to'

When his father suggested during that prison visit that it was his traumatic army experiences that were behind his bouts of uncontrolled violence, Johnson was reluctant to make the connection. "I was a soldier. That was my job. It was only much later that I found out about PTSD. That's when it all started to make sense."

That there was something seriously wrong with Johnson is beyond dispute. Despite what she had had to cope with when her husband first came out of the army, and the shock of his arrest and conviction, his wife stood by him throughout his nine years in prison. But when he returned home following his release, it was clear that the problems he had been grappling with before were still there; indeed they had become worse.

"She said to me, 'Jimmy, you've changed. You never laugh or smile like you used to. I feel like I don't know you any more.' When she eventually left me I was lost. I started living like I had before, drinking, doing bits of casual work on building sites. I had a few ex-army mates I knocked around with, but nobody to talk to about my deepening anxieties. Even if I had I probably wouldn't have, as I still just thought it was me not coping for some reason."

Eighteen months after his release on licence, Johnson killed again. A week or so before it happened, he had read a newspaper report about an army friend who had been killed in Northern Ireland and his anxieties were exacerbated. While doing some building work for a man he had worked with before, he began to feel "agitated". He says he found himself staring out of a window, across the roofs and listening to the shrill sounds of children down below. "The next thing I knew I was hiding under a stairwell," Johnson says. "That's pretty much all I remember."

Sometime between staring out of the window and hiding under the stairs, he had picked up a lump hammer and beaten the man he was working for to death. Again he was arrested quickly and again he pleaded guilty at his trial. This time he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation from his judge that he serve a minimum term of 20 years, later raised by the home secretary to 30 years.

Yet again, little was made of Johnson's past military experiences, particularly those relating to his time in Northern Ireland. He knew he had killed another man and accepted his punishment. The only thing he did not know was what had triggered the two motiveless killings.

In 1985 he was transferred to Frankland prison, where he has remained ever since as high-security category A prisoner. It was in his early days at Frankland that he met and became friends with a fellow "cat A" also serving life – a man who had been an eminent medical doctor on the outside. He was interested to hear about Johnson's military experiences. "He said to me that he thought I was suffering from PTSD," Johnson says. "That was the first time I'd heard of it. He also gave me the contact details of a former colleague of his who specialised in it. So I wrote to him. This other doctor wrote back and explained that he had helped many ex-servicemen with various levels of trauma exposure, but I was the first he had heard of in prison. His letter was a godsend to me. Suddenly I had some understanding of what might have been going on."

Aly Renwick, author of Hidden Wounds: the Problems of Northern Ireland Veterans in Civvy Street and himself a veteran of that conflict, spent a number of years researching the history of PTSD-related criminal behaviour among British combat veterans. Renwick's conclusion in relation to Northern Ireland was that, "Probably more deaths and injuries have been inflicted on the civilian population in Britain by our returning soldiers than by IRA bombings."

Dr Claudia Herbert, a renowned PTSD expert who leads a team of specialists as director of the Oxford Stress and Trauma Centre, has worked with many ex-service personnel with experience of conflicts including Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Herbert's explanation of how PTSD affects those who have been traumatised is revelatory. "Military personnel are trained to deal with extreme situations," she says. "They may understand the theory of how to react, but when the action occurs the reality of what they are faced with can make them react very differently. What happens in a situation of extreme trauma is that the higher order processes, the cognitive processes, tend to shut down and the body tends to predominantly operate on autonomic functioning, which is geared solely towards survival."

In a life-or-death situation, explains Herbert, the event experienced gets stored in the memory system of the body, the mind and the brain. "Left unprocessed it remains a 'body memory'." The part of the brain that translates feeling into communicating the experience is often shut down during trauma, so that the trauma is stored but the person cannot say what has happened to them. "They may then experience it, relive it, through 'flashback'," Herbert says, "but can't actually talk about it."

Problems arise when military personnel leave the forces and try to fit back into normal life. "They are running around with a body full of stored memories and, because these have not been processed, they can be triggered by what otherwise seem like normal everyday events. A sudden noise or movement may trigger an extreme reaction over which they have no mental control. It is a survival mechanism. Such people who have been trained to kill are dangerous, perhaps not per se, but their bodies have been trained to be killing machines."

'Many people turn to alcohol or drugs to cope'

Not all who suffer from PTSD experience flashbacks, or become violent. "The symptoms are very uncomfortable," says Herbert. "They can lead to social withdrawal, emotional detachment, depression and difficulties in maintaining relationships. Many people turn to alcohol or drugs as a means of coping. But this can lead to even more problems." Herbert's big concern, like Johnson's, is that there is little official acknowledgment of the potential scale of the problem, given the fierceness of the many conflicts in which British forces have been involved over the last 40 years, and in particular the current conflict in Afghanistan where the close-quarter combat is the most sustained since the second world war. "The numbers actually affected might be far greater then we allow ourselves to believe," she says.

According to the Ministry of Defence, forces personnel now receive training to increase awareness of mental-health issues and stress management throughout their careers, and particularly prior to and after deployment. But is it enough? Increasing use is being made of Trauma Risk Management (TRiM), a model of peer-group mentoring and support in the aftermath of traumatic events, and the MoD's Medical Assessment Programme is also available to all veterans deployed on operations since 1982 who feel their mental health has been affected by their service experience.

Last month, health minister Mike O'Brien announced a joint government initiative with Combat Stress, the highly regarded veterans' mental health charity. The intention is that Combat Stress workers will work within NHS mental health trusts to ensure that veterans receive the treatment that they need in a "culturally acceptable" way.

But for some service personnel, doubts remain about the efficacy of the schemes. The culture in the forces, especially in the army, is to encourage high levels of controlled aggression and fearlessness. The conditioning is so powerful that it makes it almost impossible for anyone who feels troubled to step up and ask for help. One soldier, who does not want to be named, spoke about his experience during a 72-hour "decompression" period in a military base in Cyprus following several months on combat patrol in Afghanistan. "We spent three days getting legless and then they asked us if we had any problems," he said.

The Ministry of Justice claims just 2,500 prisoners were once in the forces. That figure some find hard to believe. Johnson for one is incredulous. "That's scandalous," he says. "I know from being in here for so long that there are thousands more than that."

While the Ministry of Justice admits that its research is incomplete, the discrepancy between its figure and the one produced by the National Association of Probation Officers (Napo) last year is huge. According to Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of Napo, this is because of flawed methodology. "The MoD database lacks many first names or dates of birth and it doesn't include reservists," he says. "And since it only goes back to 1979, anyone over the age of 50, say, would be screened out."

Last year, the probation service carried out probably the most accurate research so far, reaching the conclusion that there were around 20,000 people in the criminal justice system who were ex-forces; 8,500 of whom were in prison – around 10% of the prisoner population. The survey also showed that the number of veterans in prison had risen by 30% in the previous five years.

Johnson decided to appeal against his murder convictions in 1996. He intended to cite his PTSD as a mitigating factor and hoped that the convictions would be reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. A psychologist confirmed that he was being treated for PTSD and he was granted legal aid. Due to a number of factors, not least the struggle to find new evidence, time and money ran out and the appeal was never lodged.

Since then Johnson has spent his years in prison collating as much information as he could on PTSD and its effects on the mind. Since 2003 he has been self-publishing his widely respected Survival Guide for Veterans and Their Families, which is sent free to any ex-service personnel in prison who requests a copy. He is currently preparing a fresh application for appeal.

Johnson's story is a tragedy for his victims and their families, and for him and his family. But once he served his country well, as a leader of men into what were often the most unimaginably difficult situations. His breakdown following his discharge from the army should have been given serious attention a long time ago. As the conflict in Afghanistan moves towards possibly its most intense stage yet, Johnson's experiences should serve as a warning of the potential danger posed by undiagnosed hidden trauma. "After all," says Fletcher, "if these lads are good enough to be brought home in boxes at Wootton Bassett, they are good enough to get proper support and counselling before they end up in the criminal justice system."

The Survival Guide for Veterans and their Families by Jimmy Johnson and Hidden Wounds by Aly Renwick are both available from vetsinprison.org.uk

Image by Toni_Chacheres via Flickr

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The head of the army is right: war today means boots on the ground, not bombs in the air or manoeuvres at sea

The general is right and the admiral wrong. The head of the army, Sir David Richards, has at last locked horns with the head of the navy, Sir Mark Stanhope, in what should be a savage, no-quarter-given Ministry of Defence turf war. Only good can come from it.

Today Stanhope reacted angrily to a speech by Richards , who implicitly dismissed the navy and air force as strategically obsolete. He said they were obsessed with "exotic capability that is rendered irrelevant by advances in technology". To Richards, "we get more bang for our buck from soldiers who can fight one moment and help others the next". Hi-tech weapons platforms were "not a good way to help tottering states" – the chief objective, however warped, of current foreign policy.

The admiral banged his fist on the bridge like John Mills on convoy duty. He then made the cardinal error of sailors in Whitehall and cited the Falklands, a sea war fought only because the navy (and the colonies) existed, and at ridiculous cost. Seeing the Treasury bearing down on his beloved carriers and submarines, Stanhope demanded that Britain maintain a full-blown navy, capable of "high-intensity warfare".

Stanhope wants to wind the clock back to before John Nott's 1981 defence review, the last sane survey of British defence to be free of bombast, prestige and industrial lobbying. It was accepted by Margaret Thatcher but blown out of the water by the Falklands. Stanhope dreams of pre-Falklands glory days, Atlantic convoys, hunter-killer submarines and amphibious invasions anywhere on earth. But while these may be mere dreams, their costs are all too real.

In 1997 Stanhope's navy won its greatest battle since Trafalgar. It browbeat Labour's defence ministers into promising a new fleet, with carriers, destroyers, submarines and nuclear missiles, on pain of being thought leftwing. Also conceded were the air force's demand for more planes to dogfight with Russian MiGs, and the MoD's demented staff roll of 87,000 civilians (to service 175,000 in uniform). The army's General Charles Guthrie had to look on appalled. The price of those decisions is being paid in the killing fields of Helmand.

Real war beats turf war in defining priorities. It makes the virtual real and turns two dimensions into three. Since Tony Blair made Labour the war party in Kosovo in 1999, the army has been on continuous battle duty, undermanned, ill-equipped and subject to the cynical abuse recalled in Geoff Hoon's evidence to Chilcot today of being refused permission to prepare properly for Iraq lest it upset the Labour party.

The army has had enough. Worsted in Iraq and about to be worsted in Afghanistan, last year's boss, Sir Richard Dannatt, broke protocol in protesting at the cabinet's neglect of his troops. He then jumped tank and joined the Tories in a bizarre show of partisanship. His successor, Richards, has broken a different omerta in openly criticising the extravagance of his fellow service chiefs.

He could have cited the navy's carrier programme, now rising through £5bn and with the first keel already laid. There are the £20bn Trident replacements, the £20bn Eurofighters and the £10bn F-35s for the carriers. These programmes are so over-budget as to leave some £15bn hovering over the MoD in unfunded debt. Not a penny of these projects is going on the real war.

Every external student of the MoD, from Bernard Gray and Paul Robinson to Lewis Page and Richard North, describes a department whose spending is out of control and devoid of reason. As Robinson (author of Doing Less With Less: Making Britain More Secure) remarked, the MoD has accepted that there is "no conventional military threat to Europe". The huge spending by EU countries is "primarily to defend us against assymetrical threats such as terrorists". Four million soldiers and $200bn a year are required "to protect us from a few thousand men armed with nothing more sophisticated than Soviet-era RPGs. The excess capacity is staggering."

Whenever I write disagreeably about the Royal Navy, it deploys press officers in battle fleet strength. I accept that the RN is a noble creation steeped in history and romance, the Church of England at sea: conservative, obsessed with ritual, and a little gay. But the game is up. Trident lacks deterrence plausibility. There is no money to give the carriers frigate escorts, and deploying them tempts politicians to unwise intervention.

The same is true of the air force. Jet fighters are toys for boys, a hangover from the Battle of Britain. They scream over Welsh mountains burning more carbon in a minute than the wind ­turbines below could make up for in a decade. As bombers, their inaccuracy makes them counter-productive rather than counter-insurgent, and they are swiftly being replaced by cheaper drones.

Stanhope's language shows how far his reach exceeds his budgetary grasp. He speaks of a navy "intimately tied to Britain's wider position of influence in the world". He wants to "contribute significantly to the overall business of defence across the globe", to respond "at short notice to the unexpected but not unforeseen". It might be Churchill talking, Churchill with billions to burn.

The prestige case for ­defence has always been meretricious. China, Russia, Japan and ­Germany feel no need to invade distant countries to be taken seriously. Richards must be right that present and foreseeable conflicts involve complex relationships, mostly amid civilians. ­Insofar as this requires force, it means boots on the ground, not bombs in the air or manoeuvres at sea.

Any constructive use for air and sea power can only be as an adjunct to land power. It is wrong for the navy to cruise the world on "goodwill" visits or the air force to practise dog fights when a defence secretary has to write letters to service wives assuring them that soldiers have "the appropriate equipment needed to allow them to complete their mission". The statement is untrue.

This offers a virtuous circle. Sane defence means concentrating on the task in hand: disengaging from Afghanistan in good order, and equipping an army capable of making a better fist of things should politicians again be tempted to overseas adventure. Defence does not mean thinking up fantasy justifications for costly kit.

Big savings can be made without risk to national security. In his weekly homily to the dead of Helmand, Gordon Brown always cites their "bravery". Defence needs bravery closer to home.

Yesterday, the Afghan capital of Kabul was struck by a coordinated Taliban assault, constituting one of their most ambitious attacks so far. A group of militants staged several suicide bombings and targeted key government buildings near the presidential palace, killing at least seventeen people.

The audacious attacks took place as president Karzai was swearing in a new cabinet in his heavily fortified palace, while outside Afghan security forces fought off the Taliban militants. Other groups of attackers barricaded themselves in a shopping centre and a cinema, before the police stormed the buildings and took them out. The government claims to have killed seven Taliban fighters. The Taliban stated on their website that twenty of its combatants had taken part in the attack.

The openSecurity verdict: President Karzai had recently outlined a programme of reconciliation with the Taliban, in an attempt to get them to the negotiation table and decrease the violence in the country. The US and its allies now view reconciliation as a vital step for the stabilization of Afghanistan. However, yesterday’s violent assaults represented a clear ‘no’ as the Taliban’s response, and aimed to discredit Karzai’s central government by instilling fear in Kabul’s population. Whether some more moderate elements in the Taliban might be open to future negotiations with the central government is impossible to say, but so long as the insurgents achieve media coverage with bold attacks, the militant hardliners will see their relative positions strengthened.

The security of Kabul is left to Afghanistan’s own police and security forces, in contrast to the rest of the country, where NATO troops are deployed. The capital is an attractive target, both because successful attacks there represent a significant loss of face for the government, and because it is very hard to defend effectively. Afghan forces have numerous checkpoints across Kabul, but security experts have long posed questions about how effective and rigorous these checks really are, and yesterday’s attackers were able to penetrate deep into the city centre with relative ease. The heavy volume of traffic in Kabul also means it is very difficult to provide water-tight security without shutting down the entire economy of the capital.

Afghan government and NATO officials sought to emphasize the positive aspects of the security forces’ quick and effective reaction to the attacks. Indeed, when compared with, for example, the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the botched reaction of Indian security authorities, the outcome of yesterday’s assault could have been much worse. ISAF Brigadier General Eric Tremblay said, “I think that strategically we were expecting some kind of sensational attack. But in the end, it demonstrates, in the way the Afghan national security forces are dealing with the operation, their skills and the level of experience they have now to be able to deal with the event.” Amarullah Saleh, the head of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, claimed that “sixty percent of the attackers were killed before they could blow themselves up”, stressing that the security forces “saved tens of Afghan civilians by sacrificing their lives”.

The attacks took place ten days before an international summit in London where international strategy towards Afghanistan will be discussed. Whether the assault will have an effect on deliberations at the conference remains to be seen, but the Taliban definitely view it as a cost-effective public-relations victory. For them, the costs of such an attack are relatively low, only requiring a small group of some 20 well-armed militants. In return, they benefit from extensive national and international news coverage, and continue to sap confidence in the central government. That is why, until a future reconciliation agreement with the Taliban is reached, they will keep on mounting attacks on the capital.

China stonewalls possible sanctions against Iran

On Tuesday, China moved to block future sanctions on Iran, after a meeting between the powers of the ‘P5+1’ - China, the US, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany. The Chinese delegate at those talks reinforced Beijing’s previous position that it does not support sanctions on Iran at present. The United States and European countries have threatened Iran with sanctions if it continues to refuse a deal on its nuclear programme offered last year.

A Chinese foreign ministry official said, “our consistent proposal has been to resolve the Iran nuclear issue appropriately through dialogue and consultation”, in addition to stressing the need for “a more flexible and pragmatic approach”. China’s reluctance means that a United Nations-approved sanctions package is out of the question, because China holds veto power the in the UN Security Council.

Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, issued a renewed warning of sanctions against Iran. She explained that "of course we would prefer it if these (sanctions) could be agreed within the framework of the United Nations Security Council", but continued by saying that if UN assent could not be achieved, Germany will participate in unilateral sanctions “with other countries that are pursuing the same goal”. Should China and Russia, major trading partners with Iran, not participate however, such steps may have little influence.

Deadly violence erupts in Nigerian sectarian clashes

During the weekend, heavy fighting occurred between Muslim and Christian groups in the Nigerian city of Jos, with dozens of killings so far. On Tuesday violent clashes broke out again, as the police attempted to restore order and impose a curfew in the city.

Casualty numbers so far remain unclear, but the Red Cross stated that over 100 people were seriously injured in the fighting and 3,000 had been displaced. The riots commenced when Christian youths protested against the construction of a mosque in a largely Christian-populated area of the city.

Nigeria’s population consists of roughly equal numbers of Muslims, who live mainly in the north of the country, and Christians, in the south. The city of Jos lies in the centre of Nigeria, on the fault line between the two religious communities, and is a frequent flashpoint for sectarian tensions.

UN seeks additional troops for Haiti

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, called for 3,500 more peacekeepers to supplement the 9,000-strong United Nations force in Haiti. Ban Ki-moon visited Haiti on Sunday, asking the Haitians to be patient, “because the whole world is standing behind them”. However, due to chronic delays, aid workers are still struggling to deliver desperately needed food and emergency supplies to the victims in time.

Ban said the extra 3,500 troops were necessary “to take charge of all this security, to help humanitarian assistance be delivered in a safe way”. On Tuesday, the UN is to hold an urgent vote on sending the additional troops. Safety is becoming more and more of a concern in the broken state of Haiti, as acts of violence and looting are emerging becoming more frequent in the capital of Port-au-Prince and elsewhere.

Kenyan police crack down on Somalis after riots

Kenyan security forces raided a Somali suburb of the capital Nairobi on Sunday night, taking away 300 Somali immigrants and an important Muslim activist. The raid followed violent Muslim protests in the heart of Nairobi on Friday, during which at least one person was killed.

The street battles broke out due to the abortive attempt to deport Abdullah al-Faisal, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric from Jamaica. Some protesters were reported to carry the black flags from Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab, which has been linked to al-Qaeda.

Nominee Jarullah Mansoory 'three years younger' than constitutional age limit for ministers

Hamid Karzai's bid to appoint a cabinet before the international conference on Afghanistan in London later this month hit yet another hurdle when documents emerged suggesting that one of his would-be ministers lied about his age in order to be eligible for the post.

According to three documents seen by the Guardian, Jarullah Mansoory, the nominee for the minister of rural rehabilitation and development (MRRD), is 31 years old – three years short of the constitutional requirement.

One document is a scan of Mansoory's own passport, which says he was born on 1 July 1978 – a date confirmed by a copy of his national identity card. A third document, an application for a course run by the International Atomic Energy Agency signed by Mansoory himself last summer, also has the same date of birth.

The documents have been held at the National Environmental Protection Agency, the body where Mansoory works as deputy director general. Until mid-2009 he was chief of staff of the organisation, which attempts to preserve Afghanistan's environment and natural resources.

Agency staff say the documents are all that remain with them after Mansoory recently removed his personal file from the organisation. Foreign aid experts were shocked when Mansoory, a relatively inexperienced man, was put forward for the position of MRRD, saying the ministry required a more ­seasoned technocrat.

The lower house of parliament is due to vote on Mansoory tomorrow despite several MPs saying they are fully aware that he is too young for the post.

A previous list of 24 nominees saw 17 rejected earlier this month, further extending the political limbo which has afflicted Afghanistan since the summer. Karzai is anxious to have a full cabinet in place before meeting his international supporters in London on 28 January.

Mansoory is himself a second-best choice after Wais Barmak was earlier rejected for the post.

Mohammad Naim Farahi, an MP from Farah province, said it was widely known around parliament that nominees had "faked documents" but that it was impossible to do anything about it.

Some Afghan MPs predicted Mansoory will receive enough votes because of the political patronage he enjoys from Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a powerful warlord and one of Karzai's vice presidents.Once a backwater, in the last year the ministry has been basking in the limelight from international donors increasingly looking for ways to kick start Afghanistan's primarily agricultural economic base.

Yesterday the Guardian tried several times to contact Mansoory but was unable to talk to him.

Event notice: AfPak Channel editor and New America Foundation senior fellow Peter Bergen is appearing on Capitol Hill this morning at 9:30am on a panel entitled "18 months and beyond: implications of U.S. policy in Afghanistan." Details here.

East of Afghanistan

Al Qaeda's chief in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, praised the Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA agents and contractors at a base in Khost in a suicide attack on December 30, calling it "revenge" for those militant leaders killed by U.S.-operated drone strikes (AFP). Details are still leaking out about the blast -- two of those killed were reportedly Blackwater employees and analysts suggest that the Haqqani extremist network was closely involved with the attack, while the bomber's family remains confused (NYT, AFP, Times of London, Telegraph, NYT, ABC).

Also in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, an explosion in his office wounded the acting governor, Tahir Khan Sabri, and several others in a sign of deteriorating security conditions there, while a suicide blast this morning in Gardez left some Afghan security officials dead (Pajhwok, BBC, AJE, AP, Reuters, BBC, Reuters, The News). And thousands of protesters took to the streets of Jalalabad after the blast yesterday of what is believed to be unexploded ordnance in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar that killed five Afghans, including two children, which occurred while U.S. and Afghan soldiers were inspecting a construction project and was blamed on U.S. forces (AP, Pajhwok, NYT).
[[BREAK]]
A retired U.S. general, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, has issued an assessment to CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus and top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal that the U.S. should expect between 300 and 500 soldiers to be wounded or killed in Afghanistan every month in this year, peaking during the summer fighting season (Times of London). And the Pentagon's press secretary said yesterday that the United States would like to see Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan Parliament reach an agreement soon on Karzai's picks for his cabinet ministers, in order to work on improving governance in the country (Reuters).

After Guantanamo

New Pentagon statistics reportedly show that up to 20 percent of former detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay are suspected or confirmed to have engaged in terrorist or militant activity after their releases, according to administration officials, up from around 14 percent last April (Bloomberg, NYT, AFP, ABC). However, an unclassified version of the new information has not yet been released, and the Pentagon's methodology and figures have been criticized before (NAF).

The diplomat watch

Outgoing top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan Kai Eide yesterday told the U.N. Security Council in his final formal address to the body that "we will fail" if the strategy there relies too heavily on military force, and encouraged the reconciliation process between Afghans and members of the Taliban, while warning of "negative trends" in the country (Wash Post, NYT, BBC, AP). Eide, stepping down in March, was harshly criticized for his handling of the fraud-riddled Afghan presidential election in August 2009.

U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Amb. Richard Holbrooke is setting off for the region next week as part of "routine" consultations with members of each government (Reuters, FP). In Afghanistan he is expected to focus on preparations for the January 28, 2010 international conference in London, while in Pakistan he is reported to be meeting with the president, the prime minister, and the chief of the army.

And the U.S. embassy in Pakistan has issued a rare public complaint that its diplomats are being harassed and detained at Pakistani checkpoints as they attempt to travel around the country (AP). U.S. diplomats have also faced delays in recent weeks obtaining visas or visa extensions, reportedly reflecting Pakistani concern at a growing U.S. presence in the country.

Inside Pakistan

Embattled Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari appears to have weathered the recent storm in Pakistani politics, as speculation that he would be forced to step down was rife at the end of last year (McClatchy). The confrontation had fueled concerns that Pakistan's powerful military might intervene and force a new round of elections, although the chief of the army Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has repeatedly said he is not interested in politics.

And longtime South Asia correspondent Pamela Constable has another fascinating look at support for the Taliban -- or lack thereof -- in the cosmopolitan Pakistani city of Karachi (Wash Post).

Fighting fire

The U.S. has recently donated 32 fire trucks to Afghanistan, after a request from the Afghan Defense Ministry (Pajhwok). The vehicles will be spread across 16 fire stations in Afghanistan, and officials will receive ten days of training on how to use them.

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Afghanistan's parliament on Saturday rejected the nominee for the Ministry of Water and Power, Mohammad Ismael Khan, who is former warlord and the incumbent minister.

Tory attack flyers backfire

Conservative MPs have upset many Montrealers with their scurrilous attack ads, mailed to people with Jewish-sounding names in ridings with significant numbers of Jewish voters.

There is much that is abhorrent about the tactic itself and the content. Many of those who received the flyer are furious that the Conservatives assume, falsely, that Canadian Jews base their vote on support for Israel, over and above the community members’ long-standing preoccupation with social justice, health care, the environment and a host of other issues.

While most Montreal Jews do support the federal Liberals, for a variety of historical and policy reasons, they do not vote as a bloc. Even more egregious are the statements in the flyer, which Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler has denounced as “close to hate speech.” The pamphlet accuses the Liberals of “willingly participating in the overly anti-Semitic Durban I – the human rights conference in South Africa that Cotler attended in 2001 along with a Canadian delegations. In fact, Cotler, along with Israeli government encouragement, showed courage and leadership by staying on, along with representatives of major Jewish organizations, in an effort to combat and bear witness to what turned into an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate fest. The flyer also falsely accuses the Liberals of being opposed to “defunding Hamas” and asking that Hezbollah be delisted as a terrorist organization. In fact, the Liberals in 2002 took the lead in branding the two Islamist groups as terrorist organizations, making financial support illegal.

If the Conservatives think they will make inroads with Montreal voters with these untruths and sleazy tactics, they are sadly mistaken.

Spectre of Vietnam looms in Afganistan

US President Barack Obama’s announcement of a 30,000-soldier surge to counter the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, bringing to 100,000 the United States’ military commitment to the region, is bound to fail. The parallels with Vietnam are only too obvious. The only possible positive thing we can foresee at this point is that the boost may take some of the heat off Canada’s 3,000-troop Afghanistan contingent, which is to end its combat role in 2011.

On paper, one can wonder how it is that the Taliban, with an estimated force of about 15,000 poorly armed soldiers, can manage to hold out against a coalition of 43 nations equipped with the most sophisticated weaponry and communications capability. The short answer is that, much as in Vietnam, there is a fierce and ingrained determination among the various Afghan peoples to reject foreign interference in their affairs, going back to the British withdrawal more than a century ago and up to the more recent and disastrous attempt by Russian forces to sustain the unpopular Communist regime. The rugged mountainous terrain is an ideal staging ground and hiding place for insurgents. That is among the reasons why US troops failed to capture Osama bin Laden in the Tora Bora area in December 2001.

In Vietnam, US and allied forces were propping up a hated and corrupt regime. Military expert Anthony Cordesman recently told the Washington Post that the regime of Hamid Karzai is “a grossly over-centralized government that is corrupt, is often a tool of power brokers and narco-­traffickers, and lacks basic capacity in virtually every ministry.”

The ballot stuffing that was a feature of Karzai’s recent re-election is but a shadow of the deeper problem. The Afghan version of what was called the “Vietnamization” in the early 1970s is training more Afghan soldiers and police. That is hardly reassuring to Afghanis who know that a uniform there is carte blanche for extortion and abuse. The arrival of 30,000 more Americans can only mean more riches for the Afghani elite whose assistance and cooperation will be needed to provide the infrastructure necessary for their health, safety and security. Let us not forget how deep is the cultural gap that separates that country from our liberal democratic values. Take women’s rights. The recent compromise on family law, after the international outcry over the initial draft in which married women could not refuse sex with their husbands, is this: A husband may deny food to his spouse, even until death, for refusing to have sex with her husband. A wife is now allowed to work outside the home, but only with her husband’s permission.

Thomas Friedman, the respected New York Times columnist, warns that the idea the US and its allies can transform Afghanistan is problematic at best, and deepening the commitment with limited prospects of anything like a victory is “a prescription for disaster.” We say prepare now for some kind of compromise by encouraging the Afghan regime to reach out to the insurgents. Afghanistan will not in our lifetimes adopt our value system. The best we can hope for is to lay the groundwork for building schools, training teachers, doctors, nurses, and engineers and inculcating the essence of our traditions and the rule of law to a new educated elite. Maybe a decent life will be possible in at least parts of the country, justifying to some degree the sacrifice of more than 132 Canadian soldiers since 2002. Ultimately, and sooner than some may think, it will be up to the Afghans to fashion the framework of their society.

Tremblay, Bergeron step up to the plate

While only 39 per cent of eligible voters turned out for last month’s municipal elections, Montrealers voted wisely in re-electing Mayor Gérald Tremblay, but with a reduced majority.

The alleged scandals in construction and water-meter contracts had a lot to do with it, but voters appeared to agree that the mayor himself was not involved. They seemed to say, however, that he should have been more vigilant. With that in mind, he has added the chair of the executive committee and the role of Ville Marie borough mayor to his responsibilities.

Voters also indicated a desire for change by choosing Richard Bergeron’s Projet Montreal to run Plateau Mont Royal borough, and electing to the central city council former Gazette investigative reporter Alexander Norris. Mayor Tremblay has acknowledged this important breakthrough by giving Bergeron responsibility for urban planning. This is an opportunity for him and his party to show whether they have what it takes to persuade Montrealers in four years that they should be in charge.

By Thomas Ruttig

The following is the translation of an interview given by the late Dr. Bernt Glatzer to a Berlin daily newspaper in 2008. He talks about how he himself became involved in Afghanistan, gives his opinion about current events and covers the ethics of ethnologists in war.More than six years ago, the Taleban regime in Afghanistan was toppled, the war started and is not over still. On the contrary -- despite a massive military build-up and billions of aid money for reconstruction, the country runs the risk of falling back to the Taleban again. Now, ethnologists are hired to advise commanders on ‘culturally appropriate measures’ in the war zone. The Pentagon budgets 400,000 dollar per person for such missions, from weapons training to insurance in the case of an abduction. The German ethnologist Bernt Glatzer works on Afghanistan since decades and explains why he would turn down such an arrangement.

Mr. Glatzer, what makes people of your craft so interesting for the Pentagon?

B.G.: The US military has realised by now that the Afghan society is a barely penetrable jungle – with its more than fifty ethnic groups, thousands of tribes, religious groups, mystical brotherhoods, mafia networks, village communities and nomads’ camps, with the clienteles of political actors, the militias of the warlords, bands of robbers and urban neighbourhoods, plus marriage alliances, professional guilds and internationally networked trade and bazaar structures. In such a jungle, even the most gutsy rambo with his high-tech gear is quickly lost. Drones with cameras, GPS systems or Recce Tornados [German military reconnaissance aircraft] are not of much help there – but perhaps the ethnologist who goes into the field armed with a note pad and a pen and who has developed methods to permeate such social undergrowth.

What does the military hope to achieve through them?

Ethnologists are supposed to tell the military about social structures - to put it casually: How do the Afghans tick? And to help them to win the war. Ultimately, they want a magic formula from the ethnologist with the help of which they finally would be able to get a grip on an insubordinate, inapprehensible and therefore elusive population like the Afghan one.

Have you got this formula?

Surely not, but I think that I and other ethnologists at least have got some clue about how this society functions.

Would you work for the Pentagon?

No. I would consider such a request absurd and ethically objectionable. Most colleagues, also in the US, reject this. After all, we ethnologists get to our findings by winning the trust of those people, by living with them, by them sharing their knowledge and history. It is part of the ethnologists‘ professional ethics to tell his informants openly and honestly who their contractor is and what they plan to do with the findings of their research. If an ethnologist wanted to find out where the limits of the proverbial Afghan hospitality lie, he only needs to tell the people that he works for the US Army.

How did you come to be interested in Afghanistan?

I studied ethnology in Heidelberg in the 1960s, and I wanted to travel into the area I was interested in during the semester break. In the first year, I went to Tunisia, than with the Orient Express to Turkey. A year later, I visited Iran and in 1968 finally Afghanistan.

What was your first impression?

I admit that my perception was influenced by Karl May [an extremely popular German writer who wrote about the American ‘Indians’ and ‘the Orient’ from within his prison cell without ever having travelled there]. But I immediately felt good. I had the feeling to be welcome and fell in love with Herat first, than a well-preserved medieval oriental city. At the beginning of the modern age, it was considered the Florence of the East. It was the centre of trade, scholarliness and arts. This past was very much alive: People were meditating over a book at the tomb of the poet Jami who had lived in Herat in the 15th century. Traders in the bazaar read Ferdawsi’s ‘Book of Kings’ that was written a thousand years ago. I decided to do research on Afghan nomads.

What did you want to find out from them?

Nomads are not governed by any administration. I was interested to see how they organise themselves, who takes decisions where to rove and where their camps would be built. In those days, there was a strong assumption that tribes have got strong centralised institutions. That perception likely had been shaped by the nomad Jengis Khan whose army would start galloping on a simple signs of him. Nomads, however, belong to those groups who, compared to farmers, are organised in the least hierarchical and centrally organized way. The most important decisions in a nomads’ camp are taken in council assemblies. In 1970, I started my field research in Central Afghanistan.

How does one register with nomads? Does one go there, bid a good day and says: I would like to do research about you?

First, I had to explain my plans to the Foreign Ministry in Kabul. I was assigned an Afghan as a translator who belonged to the Pashtun tribe I wanted to do my research on. This Afghan became the mediator between us and the locals until my then wife and I had developed our own relationship with them.

How and where did you live?

We had a camping tent which we erected next to the big black tent of one member of the tribe who practically had adopted us as a neighbour. The word for neighbour in the local language is hamsaya and means: ‘one who lives in the same shadow’. Our neighbour was responsible for us. If we had fallen ill or into danger he would have been obliged to take care of us. One who is not able to protect one’s neighbours incurs shame on himself, loses face in his own society. We went with the nomads on their migration, helped them with their sheep and goats. In my spare time, I asked them questions for my research.

Was this a romantic life?

Yes, but also a hard one. Most likely, my marriage broke as a result of it. You know, the nomadic life is very monotonous and bland. I had my research but my wife wasn’t an ethnologist and the time became very long for her.

You weren’t the only one who was fascinated by Afghanistan. Many hippies and writers were attracted by the country, as well...

Most of the hippies did not want to go to Afghanistan but to India. There were busses from London to Kathmandu in those days - and one of the most fascinating places en route was Kabul. You could find good cheap hashish, people were friendly, open and cosmopolitan. You could live there comfortably and for not much money. But only few were really interested in the country and went on to India.

Friendly? Open? Cosmopolitan? Do we talk about Afghanistan, the country of the Taleban?

Afghanistan always was a trade and transit country. That has formed the people there. Situated between Central Asia and China, it was a cross roads at the Silk Roads. It had attracted many: Alexander the Great, Chengiz Khan, Timur or Marco Polo.

But did they all get out again unharmed?

No one got out unharmed, even Chengiz Khan had to concede heavy losses. The Afghans allow anyone in easily but it is very difficult to get away again. I experienced the same thing: I am still in the country’s grip. Afghans are open towards all strangers. But when they realise that strangers are not honest, that they want to misuse or even occupy their land, they can get extremely hostile – as the British in the 19th century and the later the Russians had to learn. No one has managed yet to exploit, manipulate or to impose an alien ideology on them.

What makes Afghans so unruly?

Perhaps one should ask why it is so easy in other countries to impose something on their citizens. Shouldn’t the Afghans’ unruliness and scepticism be called normal and the behaviour of others questioned? Why, for example, Germans were so easily indoctrinated by nationalism?

Talking about the Afghans: Do we refer to the majority Pashtunen or also to the minority Uzbeks, Hazara, Baluch...?

There are more similarities between the ethnic groups than differences. But there also is a deep gap in Afghanistan, on one hand there is Kabul - and on the other the rest. But certain characteristics or values are typical for the majority of Afghans. This includes the phenomenal hospitality.

How does this hospitality express itself?

One day, we were working in a nomads’ camp south of Herat. The people were erecting their camp next to the Kabul-Herat highway. My concerned question whether anybody whose car broke down or who simply was thirsty would come to the camp met utter disbelief. That’s exactly what we want, they told me. And it happened exactly so: Coaches stopped, fifty people got out, wanted water - and were treated with butter milk or tea and sweets.

I get the impression that you talk about an absolutely different country, about different people. Afghans did not start fighting each other with the Soviet occupation only...

Correct, the breakdown of the old order, the revolutionary and war troubles turned the country into an arena of new political actors, war profiteers, mafia networks, terrorist organisations, parties manipulated from abroad and agents of all kind of countries. During the East-West conflict, Afghanistan was positioned as a buffer. Pakistan from the East and South, Iran from the West and the Soviet Union from the North held it up like a decayed house. The country did not have much which held it together internally. There were few institutions that bound together the conflictive forces.

But Afghanistan had a government, an administration, an army and political parties...

The Afghan state only existed in Kabul and the big cities. The country was centrally organised but the state only acted as a mediator and used the army as a threat of force.

How is that?

One example: There was always conflict about pastures between nomads and settled farmers. Once when I was with the nomads, one such conflict escalated. The parties turned to the governor. But he said that you are more familiar with the circumstances yourselves. Next week, I want to hear from you that you settled the conflict – otherwise, I send the army. The nomads and the farmers indeed quickly solved their conflict through a council assembly. Both sides were afraid of the army.

What would have happened if the army came in?

The army had not decided who is right and who is wrong. The soldiers would have behaved like locusts and eaten up all reserves. It is their old right that the local population has to feed them. As much as hospitality counted – but that would have been too much. The central government only acted through the possibility the army coming in. That also could be a way for bringing about and keeping the peace in certain areas of Afghanistan today. The same principle also is the reason for the Germans‘ success in Kunduz: They are not successful because they are strong and fire around – but because they are present and the people have the impression that the Germans would involve themselves and fire if problems got out of hands. But at some time, the Afghan army has to assume this role at some point. In order to so, however, it first has to become capable again of being respected by conflicting parties.

With President Karzai, there is a central authority. But Karzai seems to lack respect even from his Pashtuns. There are rumours that the Americans are looking for a replacement…

Who will become President of Afghanistan during the elections in a year’s time, should not be decided by the West but by Afghans themselves - and I believe that most Afghans do not see an alternative to Karzai yet, despite their disappointments about him.

Does he do everything that is in his power?

Perhaps, but there isn’t much in his power. He is no ruler but a President, a ‘chairman’. In Afghanistan this means that he chairs amongst people who, according to their egalitarian tradition, do not tolerate someone above themselves permanently but only for a certain purpose and only as long as it serves their interests.

What does ‘egalitarian tradition’ mean?

All thirty to forty million Pashtuns -- to whom Karzai belongs -- go back to a common ancestor. Those who live today see themselves as his grand-grandsons and therefore equal decendants. If they respect anyone as their leader, it is on the basis of his courage, wisdom, rhetorical prowess and ability to mediate. He is leader only because of his merits and has to prove his leadership abilities on a daily basis.

Karzai and his government are accused of corruption and nepotism. Karzai’s brothers are said to profit from the drugs trade and the overexploitation of timber...

That, again, shows the egalitarian dilemma: Karzai can become the president of a state but not of his family. Even as family elder, he cannot act as a despot but has to build consensus.

Afghans criticise less their government but the approach of the Americans and of the international aid workers as well as the volume, use and effect of aid…

Many in Kabul say that the aid workers think about themselves primarily, that their organisations act like commercial enterprises and that they are less interested in Afghans. There might be some truth in it but nevertheless most Afghans do not want that the foreigners leave – neither the civilians nor the military. After the attacks on the German garrison in Kunduz there were large demonstrations – with the demand that the Germans stay!

But even aid groups say that something in development cooperation went wrong, that mistakes were never corrected. What exactly went wrong?

In late 2001, after the Taleban were driven out, quick action was in demand. But it was rushed and done without a plan, as if the whole country was to be rebuilt over night from scratch. At the same time, there were well-planned reconstruction programs earlier, among them by Germans. It also was incorrect that the whole country was destroyed. There were areas that were extremely strongly destroyed but also some where infrastructure was working.

Why that rush?

Projects were prioritised that created quick visible results. That allowed ministers from donor countries to have pictures taken while cutting ribbons -- in order to impress their home audiences. Often it wasn’t important any more whether the projects made sense or not, whether they were sustainably useful.

Do you know examples?

You know, schools can be built everywhere and in a short time. But what happens in them afterwards? Where do the teachers and the teaching material from? Who educates the teachers and who pays their salaries? The Afghan state wasn’t and isn’t able to provide all the new schools with teachers and textbooks. Or: The Germans should guarantee power supply by renewable energies and build micro-power stations like in Nepal. They concentrate on building overhead transmission lines that bring power to Kabul from neighbouring Uzbekistan. This line still doesn’t exist [did not in 2008]. This is the reason why the cement factory and the sugar factory in Baghlan still do not run again.

It is said that 20 billion dollars of aid were waisted. Is this correct?

First of all, no one really would be able to come up with an exact figure. Secondly, that wouldn’t be correct in that absoluteness. There were good developments also. More children than ever – girls in particular – attend school. The health system improved. Women take part in public life in a completely new way.

That positive development might be true in Northern Afghanistan. But how about the South?

Indeed, there are big differences between the regions - and this is also one of the reasons why the Taleban and other opposition forces are on the surge again. Development is fine, and the figures are impressive indeed. But one also has to watch where aid is getting to. Here, one comes to the result that there are developed and underdeveloped areas emerging. This is dynamite for Afghanistan as it is for other developing countries.

And now what?

Lessons need to be learned from those mistakes. Up to the day, there is no comprehensive audit and assessment of the German as well as of the international Afghanistan aid since 2001. Only this would be a basis for a new concept – for Afghanistan‘s development as well as for the way Germany contributes to security. Without a well-founded Afghanistan strategy, our military involvement at the Hindukush is no longer justifiable. Naturally, this strategy needs to be coordinated with the Afghan government and amongst the supporting countries.

How could such a new strategy look like?

Take the drugs problem, for example: Poppy cultivation cannot be limited on a large scale by planting roses or crocuses for producing saffron. These are often considered a general remedy that allows farmers to replace poppy and gives them an adequate income. Legalising poppy cultivation and buying up the harvest by the state is no solution as well. Many experts share my opinion that only comprehensively developing Afghanistan’s economy as a whole would produce the millions of jobs that are required. If Afghans were provided a sensible, regular income, terrorism would be void of any potential personnel. Development band-aids and high-tech weaponry might look cheaper in the short run, but will cost us more than we can afford on the long run.

As a result of terrorist attacks and hostage taking many aid organisations reduce their personnel. What does a well thought-out development strategy help if there are not sufficient foreign aid workers who can implement it?

Afghans need to be given more responsibilities. Why do we need thousands of foreigners in Afghanistan? I know many areas where there are excellent Afghan experts. That does not mean that no foreign aid workers needed at all. For example, they need to check on the ground whether money is spent in accordance with the planned purposes. Foreigners still can work in Afghanistan. Naturally, not in the war zones in the South or in areas where they are not wanted or where the population wants them but isn’t able to protect them. That is the case in parts of Southern Afghanistan, in the Southeast and the East. But their deployment is possible in more areas than usually assumed.

Additionally to a new strategy, is there also more money needed for Afghanistan?

The Afghanistan programme was designed on the cheap right from the start. Per capita much less than in Eastern Timor, Kosovo or Bosnia was budgeted here. The reason given was that the destroyed Afghanistan wasn’t able to absorb more money and aid. I think this is nonsense.

Could you imagine that the foreign military and aid workers withdraw – as a result of the bad security situation and the rejection of the Afghanistan mission at home?

When the troops leave a situation will emerge all over the country that will resemble Kabul in the 1990s when everyone fought against everyone else and where minorities were massacred. This would also draw the North in. The country would implode. We should not allow such a no-man’s land to emerge, neither in Afghanistan nor anywhere else. That would be al-Qaida land.

That means we should stay there even if it costs more casualties – Germans included?

We have been widely spared up to now. The figure of casualties is no higher than that of traffic accidents in the Bundeswehr – although each casualty is one too much. If we act wisely that might remain so.

In case of a permanent Bundeswehr mission: Would ethnological advice do it good?

Naturally, but they already have got good orientalists and social scientists in their own ranks. I also give presentations in the Bundeswehr and they already have tried to hire me.

Really? In that case, we hardly can accuse the Pentagon of hiring ethnologists…

The Pentagon wants to use our knowledge to know the enemy better and to fight him. The Bundeswehr wants to keep up security in the North and to avoid turning the population against itself. That is a fine but decisive difference. After all, I already advise Bundeswehr soldiers, but only here and not in Afghanistan. I stem from a Quaker family and I am a pacifist. Nevertheless, I find the Bundeswehr mission ‚sensible and necessary‘. I had to leap over the shadow of my own family background to say this. But to wear a Bundeswehr uniform would still be too much [for me].

Interview: Martina Doering, Berliner Zeitung magazine, 12 April 2008. Translation: Thomas Ruttig. Ruttig is the co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, where this was originally posted. He speaks Pashtu and Dari.

Chris Hondros/Getty Images

By Maha Atal
Washington has lately become concerned that Pakistan is dragging its feet in the fight against the Taliban because it sees the Islamists as a check on its archrival, India, whose influence in Afghanistan is growing. What alarms Pakistan most is the possibility that India will gain control over the water from two Afghan rivers that flow into the volatile Pakistan border regions, where water shortages could inflame local insurgencies. Indian investment in Afghanistan has doubled since 2006, to $1.2 billion, and up to 35 percent of that is going into canals for local irrigation, as well as hydroelectric dams that will supply power to Iran and Turkmenistan, India's gateways to Central Asia and the Gulf.

Pakistanis insist that India has used water as a weapon against them before. In 1960, after years of squabbling, India and Pakistan agreed to share control over the tributaries of Kashmiri rivers. To this day Pakistan insists India tampers with its supply. The fear now is that India will use the Afghan dams to deny Pakistan's border regions the water they need to sustain their farms and hydropower projects. Criticism of India's actions has united some unlikely allies, including Kashmiri nationalists, development economists, and the Pakistani foreign ministry. This means water could be one more stumbling block on the road to peace in Afghanistan.