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AN ATOL EXCLUSIVE
Pakistan frees Taliban commander
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's commander in Afghanistan who was
arrested in Pakistan in February, has been set free. Asia Times Online has
learned that Baradar has been reunited with his Taliban "family", and that he
has been earmarked to play a key role in backchannel talks through the
Pakistani army with Washington. - Syed Saleem Shahzad
(Oct 15, '10)
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Security
Council seat will test India�s mettle
India having won a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council must now
figure out how to use it. Those hoping for the kind of independent stance that
Turkey and Brazil have taken in recent years will probably be disappointed. New
Delhi is more likely to toe the Washington line on almost everything that
matters. - M K Bhadrakumar (Oct 15, '10)
Syria offers Maliki a life jacket
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's visit to Damascus repairs ties strained
by his accusation that Syria harbored Ba'athists responsible for last year's
massive bombings in Baghdad. Maliki has likely reasoned that Syrian support
lends him the legitimacy he needs among Sunnis and Kurds to stay in power and
end the country's seven-month post-election stalemate. - Sami Moubayed
(Oct 15, '10)
Delhi sweats as China inches toward Nepal
China's latest expansion of its Himalayan transport infrastructure, a rail line
in Tibet from Lhasa to Xigaze, isn't sitting well with India. The railway will
bring Chinese military capability closer to Nepal, and will increase Beijing's
influence over an area seen by India as a strategic buffer. - Sudha Ramachandran
(Oct 15, '10)
Young Kim checks his toy chest
Live-fire military exercises by the United States and South Korea have given
North Korea's young heir apparent, Kim Jong-eun, an early opportunity to
consider what he can get up to with his own new toys, in the form of real or
dud missiles, along with his latest chums, the country's legion of aging
generals. The Group of 20 gathering in the South next month might come to mind.
- Donald Kirk (Oct 15, '10)
 BOOK
REVIEW
Drug myths debunked
Sergeant Smack: The Legendary Lives and Times of Ike Atkinson, Kingpin and His
Band of Brothers
by Ron Chepesiuk
Southeast Asian heroin was never smuggled in coffins alongside dead US soldiers
- but the leg casts of wounded GIs came in handy. Chepesiuk has forged a
gripping account of a US$400 million drug business to which a Bangkok bar's
blues and soul were the throbbing backbeat until law and long jail terms
stopped the music. - Bertil Lintner (Oct 15,
'10)
Myanmar democracy fight polls
apart
Myanmar's junta is in full election mode, with the country's first
parliamentary polls in 20 years less than a month away. The main pro-democracy
party, the National League for Democracy, having decided not to contest the
vote, has its eyes elsewhere. Veteran opposition politician U Tin Oo explains
that despite its lack of representation in the new parliament, the party will
take its actions directly to the people. - Clifford McCoy
(Oct 14, '10)
Going through the motions
The run-up to Myanmar's November 7 election has been characterized by state
censorship and propaganda, draconian rules on who can run and how they can
campaign, and the domination of the electoral process by a junta-backed party.
Small wonder that many Myanmese aren't sure it's worth the bother to vote. - Yan
Paing (Oct 14, '10)
Heroes and villains in Lebanon
The fanfare over Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon raises
fears of a step towards a Hezbollah takeover that would see Lebanon become an
Iranian client state. While the provocative two-day tour could stoke more
political turmoil in Beirut, the power projection on display is likely to boost
Ahmadinejad's popularity at home. - Robert Tait
(Oct 14, '10)
Wen's European jaunt was just business
The recent eight-day visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Turkey and four
European countries does not represent any strategic shift. China is simply
consolidating its existing European ties at a time when a post-financial-crisis
European Union needs China, and an embattled-in-Asia China needs friends. - Jian
Junbo (Oct 14, '10)
BP,
Azerbaijan seal offshore gas contract
Azerbaijan's importance as a center of natural gas production continues to
grow, with supplies to Russia once more doubling and financing for the Nabucco
pipeline project moving ahead. Now the country's output prospects are set to
expand even further, with BP's agreement to develop the Shafag-Asiman offshore
project. - R M Cutler (Oct 14, '10)
Hu adopts quasi-Maoist tactics
Chinese President Hu Jintao's restitution of one of Mao Zedong's most famous
slogans - "On the correct handling of contradictions among the people" - can be
interpreted as a stratagem to win over still-powerful conservative party
members. The lot of disadvantaged sectors, meanwhile, remains unaddressed. - Willy
Lam (Oct 14, '10)
Ahmadinejad bears a message for
Israel
Apart from threatening to throw a stone in Israel's direction, Iranian
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad hopes to achieve a lot during his two-day visit to
Lebanon that started on Wednesday, from reiterating support for Hezbollah to
improving trade and economic ties. Paramount, though, will be a warning of a
frontal attack from south Lebanon should Israel dare to attack Iran. - Kaveh L
Afrasiabi (Oct 13, '10)
 THE
ROVING EYE
Betting and bluffing
in the new Great Game
With natural gas flowing from Turkmenistan and the promise of Iraqi oil
arriving in the next few years, China is methodically building up the energy
supplies its voracious economy will need in the future. And unlike its rival
the United States, Beijing is guaranteeing its future without deploying its
military. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 13, '10)
CHINA SORROW, CHINA EMBARRASSMENT
Dammed, and damned again
The tens of thousands of people who were relocated when the Sanmen Xia Dam on
the Yellow River was constructed were eventually allowed to return to their
farmlands. Yet more than 20 years later, they and their descendants still pay
the price for one of the greatest engineering, environmental and social
debacles in modern history. - Peter Lee (Oct
13, '10)
(This concludes a two-part report.)
PART 1: The
great relocation that failed
 SINOGRAPH
Beijing should let
sleeping Nobel dogs lie
Despite much triumphant rhetoric in the West, the Nobel Peace Prize for
dissident Liu Xiaobo isn't a major threat to China. Liu simply does not have
that much stature in China, and his award will soon be largely forgotten there
- if Beijing can keep its cool. - Francesco Sisci
(Oct 13, '10)
 SPENGLER
What really bugs Iran
The programmers who planted malware in Iran's nuclear facilities needed a high
degree of sophistication. It would require far less effort to bring about a
virtual shutdown of all computing in the country, and the collapse of the
economy. (Oct 12, '10)
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 CHAN
AKYA
The
Incorrigibles
The end game of a second round of quantitative easing is all but done as a deal
between the United States, Europe and Japan. Fans of quantitative easing round
2 (or QE2) should perhaps pay attention to the other QE2 - an aging cruise ship
that ruled the seas in its day and is now a rust bucket parked outside Dubai.
MARKET RAP
Impressive all round
Asia's markets put in an impressive week - impressive in volatility, in
performance, and in just struggling through. Shanghai led the pack, with Hong
Kong strongly gaining in its wake. Short-term indicators generally remain
favorable, albeit weakening as new resistances come into play.
R M Cutler runs his eye over the ups and downs in the week's markets.
Calling Microsoft
Microsoft is far from guaranteed success in the mobile-phone market with its
newly launched Windows Phone 7. But if application developers are given free
rein with little or no censoring, the US giant might find it has a winner as
desktop computing continues to give way to mobility.
Martin J Young surveys the week's developments in computing, science,
gaming and gizmos.
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 One-time
what?
The debate on how the United States should get out of its economic black hole
is throwing up plenty of nonsense, but calls for the Federal Reserve to allow
"a one-time only inflation increase, with a plan to control it when the economy
recovers" show how truly foolish some supposedly educated folk are becoming.
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FROM THE BLOG
Skewing the balance
How can we explain symptoms of deflation (such as falling real estate prices)
and a spike in the price of inflation risk (eg rising commodity prices)? The
answer lies in politics and the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency. - David
Goldman
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