Vietnam Tries 22 Democracy Activists on Subversion

A Vietnamese court has begun the trial of 22 democracy activists on charges of plotting to overthrow the Communist government in one of the biggest such trials in years.

A court official in central Phu Yen province says the defendants appeared in court Monday. The official didn't give his name, citing government policy.

He says the trial could last five days.

State-controlled media have quoted the indictment as saying the group operated under the cover of an ecotourism company. The media say the group allegedly authored documents that distorted Communist Party policies to create distrust.

U.N. to consider validity of China's claim over disputed islands

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations is planning to consider later this year the scientific validity of a claim by China that a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea are part of its territory, although Japan says the world body should not be involved.

Tensions over the uninhabited islands - located near rich fishing grounds and potentially huge oil-and-gas reserves - flared after Japan's government purchased them from a private Japanese owner in September, sparking violent anti-Japanese protests across China and a military standoff.

Taiwan also claims the islands, known as the Diaoyu islands in China, the Senkaku islands in Japan and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan.

In a submission to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, China claims that the continental shelf in the East China Sea is a natural prolongation of China's land territory and that it includes the disputed islands.

Under the U.N. convention, a country can extend its 200-nautical-mile economic zone if it can prove that the continental shelf is a natural extension of its land mass. The U.N. commission assesses the scientific validity of claims, but any disputes have to be resolved between states, not by the commission.

Philippines Aims to Drill in South China Sea

This week, the Philippines announced it will take China to an international arbitration tribunal because of Beijing's claim of nearly the entire South China Sea. The years-old squabble has long deterred most oil and gas prospectors from the region - but not all of them. A Philippine company is hoping to work with a Chinese state-owned entity to drill for natural gas in the disputed waters.

On hold

Forum Energy is stuck in a holding pattern. The British-based company, which is majority-owned by a Philippine entity, had hoped to start drilling for natural gas off Reed Bank in the South China Sea, but it has not gotten government approval.

Forum began preliminary work to assess the area's potential reserves, but in early 2011 workers said they were chased away by Chinese vessels. More than five years ago this area showed a potential 3.4 trillion cubic feet of gas and possibly 10 trillion more.

Manuel Pangilinan, chairman of Philex Petroleum, which has a 65 percent stake in Forum Energy, is eyeing a partnership with the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to drill in Reed Bank.

Turkey Aids Iran Through Gold Trade

Banks in Turkey continue to send gold to Iran despite U.S. pressure to curb a booming gold-for-gas trade, which helps Iran skirt international sanctions.

This month, Turkish customs grounded a Turkish cargo plane en route from Ghana to Iran that was reportedly carrying a ton-and-a-half of gold.

Tehran has been accumulating huge amounts of the precious metal over the past year as a means of circumventing ever-tightening international financial sanctions over its nuclear enrichment program, which some nations fear is being used to develop a nuclear weapons' capability.

Turkey continues to provide the lion’s share of Tehran's demand for gold, said Attila Yesilada, of the Istanbul-based research firm Global Source Partners.

"Gold sales [to Iran] have been diversified through Switzerland and Abu Dhabi, but the annualized total for last year is something like $11 billion, most of it financed through the gold stock of Turkish people," Yesilada said.  "This gold has become Iran’s main currency in terms [of] securing necessities from abroad."

Israeli election campaign enters final hours

Israelis to vote in general elections, widely expected to usher in government which will swing further to the right.

With less than 24 hours until Israelis vote in general elections, party leaders were campaigning down to the wire ahead of a ballot that is expected to return Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to office.

The vote on Tuesday is widely expected to usher in a government which will swing further to the right, whittling away at the chances of a peace deal with the Palestinians and raising the prospect of greater diplomatic isolation for Israel.

Those elected will face key diplomatic and foreign policy questions, including Iran's nuclear programme, which some governments believes is a cover for a weapons drive, and pressure to revive peace talks with the Palestinians.

No less pressing are the domestic challenges, including a major budget crisis and looming austerity cuts which are likely to exacerbate already widespread discontent over spiralling prices and the cost of living.

For weeks, opinion polls have given a clear lead to Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud, which is running on a joint list with the hardline secular nationalist Yisrael Beitenu.

Falling support

But as the day of reckoning neared, polls showed falling support for the joint list, which was seen taking 32 seats - 10 lower than they currently hold - or just over a quarter of the 120-seats in parliament.

With the campaign entering its home stretch, party leaders and activists fought to secure the support of the as-yet undecided 15 percent of the electorate, which press reports said amounted to 17 or 18 seats.

One of the key issues of the vote has been the public anger over the rising cost of living, with Netanyahu coming in for heavy criticism over his economic record.

In an 11th-hour attempt to sway voters, Netanyahu on Sunday night named a former Likud minister known for his success in slashing mobile phone costs to the top post in the Israel Land's Administration in a move he claimed would significantly lower the price of housing.

But his opponents slammed the move as a "fig leaf" and several pundits said it was testimony to the "panic" that Netanyahu was feeling ahead of the vote.

Former Japanese prime minister slammed as 'traitor' at home

The Japanese government has criticized former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's acknowledgment of a "territorial dispute" with China over islands in the East China Sea, with the defense minister going so far as to use the word "traitor."

On his four-day private visit to China, Hatoyama told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday, "The Japanese government says there are no territorial disputes (between the two countries). But if you look at history, there is a dispute."

The remarks contradict his own government's position of indisputable territorial sovereignty over the islands that it calls Senkaku and that China calls Diaoyu.

"If his (Hatoyama's) remarks have been politically used by China, I'm unhappy," Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said on television Thursday. "At that moment, the word of 'traitor' arose in my mind."

Dangerous waters: Behind the islands dispute The day after his controversial remarks, Hatoyama, 66, and his wife visited the Nanjing Memorial, which is for the estimated 300,000 people killed in a 1937 massacre by Japanese forces.

Pakistan to free all Afghan Taliban

Pakistan is prepared to release all Afghan Taliban prisoners currently in Pakistani detention, Pakistani foreign secretary says.

Speaking at a news conference in Abu Dhabi on Friday, Jalil Jilani did not discount the release of Mullah Baradar, the group's one-time second-in-command.

"The remaining detainees, we are coordinating, and they will be released subsequently ... The aim is to release all."

Jilani's statement followed a meeting with David Pearce, US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Jawed Ludin, Afghan deputy foreign minister.

The meeting took place at the embassy of Afghanistan in the UAE capital.

Speaking to reporters, Luddin said the meeting intended to discuss "security and political dimensions of bilateral relationships" between the three countries.

Luddin said the peace process had gained momentum in recent weeks with the release of some Taliban detainees by Pakistan, preparations by the Afghan Taliban movement to open a political office in Doha, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to the US.

Jakarta declares emergency as water levels rise

Five dead and thousands evacuated amid capital's worst flooding in five years

 Indonesia has declared a state of emergency in waterlogged Jakarta after days of rain forced thousands to be evacuated, left five dead and affected nearly 100,000 others in the capital city's worst flooding since 2007.

Weather officials yesterday warned that the worst was not over, with more heavy rain expected in the next few days. Army special forces and firemen have been deployed to rescue the stranded.

Overnight torrential rains caused flash floods yesterday, forcing many people to abandon their homes and rescuers in lorries or dinghies to go to the aid of people stranded in offices or by the road.

Pakistan averts, for now, two new crises

After days of anti-government protests, sectarian violence and political turmoil, Pakistan managed on Thursday to retreat from the brink of the kind of chaos that has often ushered in military rule during the nation’s 65-year history.

Two cliffhanger developments provided a measure of stability in this nuclear-armed country: The Supreme Court delayed the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on corruption allegations, while the government bowed, in part, to the demands of a populist Muslim preacher whose followers had amassed in the capital by the tens of thousands in hopes of dissolving Parliament. The cleric, Tahirul Qadri, a religious moderate who heads a network of Islamic schools and charities here and worldwide, emerged mysteriously last month, returning to his native Pakistan after seven years in Canada to denounce government corruption and promote electoral reform.

On Thursday, after four days of protests that shut down the capital’s commercial core, Qadri came away with government pledges to enact measures that officials said would help weed out political candidates linked to corruption. Principally, the government agreed to dissolve Parliament before March 16, when its five-year term expires, to provide a 90-day period before elections are held.

“Allah granted us a victory and now you can go home,” Qadri told his supporters, according to the Reuters news agency.

Pakistan urges India to cool rhetoric over Kashmir

 Pakistan urged India on Thursday to tone down the "Pakistan bashing" over a spate of military clashes in Kashmir between the nuclear-armed neighbors, and again offered foreign minister-level talks to try to cool tensions.
"I think it is important not to let this cycle escalate into something which becomes even more ugly than it is today," Pakistani High Commissioner to India Salman Bashir said in an interview with Reuters. "Let's try to see if we can cool down and resume normal business."
Three Pakistani and two Indian soldiers have been killed this month in the worst outbreak of tit-for-tat violence in Kashmir since India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire along a de facto border there nearly a decade ago.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since partition in 1947, two of them over the Himalayan region that both claim.
Following public and media outrage after India said one of its soldiers had been decapitated, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said there could be "no business as usual" with Pakistan, and the army chief said his commanders should retaliate if provoked.
Bashir said India could have worked with Pakistan to get to the bottom of what happened instead of "stirring raw emotions and upping the rhetoric", adding that "Pakistan bashing has become fashionable" in India.
He told Reuters that the killing of the soldiers on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir was not carried out by Pakistani troops.
"Such heinous acts ... are of course condemnable irrespective of where they happen and when they happen. But to say that these were done by Pakistan, that the Pakistan army was responsible, is something that we cannot agree to," he said.

Japan's Abe in Thailand to talk economic ties, security

 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Thailand on Thursday, part of a three-country Southeast Asian tour to consolidate business ties in one of the world's fastest-growing regions and counter growing Chinese assertiveness.
Tension remains high over China's claims on parts of the strategically vital and mineral-rich South China Sea that are also claimed by four Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam, which Abe visited on Wednesday.
Abe and his Thai counterpart Yingluck Shinawatra gave no indication at a news conference after talks whether any progress had been made on this issue, making only general comments about security that did not mention the South China Sea.
The Japanese premier leaves for Jakarta on Friday, where he is expected to give a major policy speech.
Relations between Tokyo and Beijing have been frosty since a dispute over islands in the East China Sea, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, flared up last year. Violent anti-Japanese protests have been staged in Chinese cities.
"China has successfully built up its own military power but for what? We celebrate China's economic growth but it's not a good idea to threaten others or urge others by coercion or intimidation," Yutaka Yokoi, a Japanese foreign ministry official, told Reuters in Bangkok.
Having taken on the role of mediator in the multi-layered South China Sea disputes, Thailand has said it would listen to what Japan has to say but would also take into consideration the views of other countries involved.

Russia To privatise or not to privatise

IN THE 1990s privatisation in Russia was meant to be a way to wipe clean the vestiges of the Soviet economy and to create a new class of property owners. It had some success but, by creating a class of very rich oligarchs, it both weakened the state and planted seeds of resentment among ordinary Russians. Yet when he was inaugurated as president again last May, Vladimir Putin signed a decree calling for the sale of all state holdings in firms outside the defence and energy industries by 2016.

The aims may be different from the 1990s: to import foreign know-how, to attract investors and to improve corporate governance, as well as filling state coffers. But a political angle matters too. It goes back to the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev (now Mr Putin’s prime minister), who three years ago announced plans to sell off up to $100 billion of state assets. Talking up privatisation, says Alexander Kliment of Eurasia Group, a consultancy, was part of the “game of using Medvedev as a foil for the more statist Putin.” Now that the Medvedev interregnum is over, the mood has shifted back to a state-capitalist model.

October’s huge $55 billion deal under which the state-owned oil giant Rosneft is buying 100% of TNK-BP does not explicitly affect plans for privatisation. Some officials even tried to portray it as part of them, since BP will end up with a 20% stake in Rosneft. The economy minister, Andrei Belousov, has denied any rethinking of privatisation. But by moving core assets back under state ownership, the signal from Rosneft of a shifting wind is clear. The deal also showed the resurgent power of Igor Sechin, a Putin adviser who is Rosneft’s chairman and a proponent of a strong state role in the economy.Mr Putin also believes in the virtue of state control, especially over strategic industries. And he remains uneasy about renewed economic crisis. As Mr Putin sees it, according to one oligarch, maintaining as much control over the economy as possible “gives you the feeling of security in turbulent times”. This means that, despite the May decree, the privatisation agenda has slipped. Mr Putin speaks with more urgency about improving Russia’s ranking in the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business surveys from 112th now to 20th place by 2018. Moreover, a budget deficit below 1% of GDP and a debt-to-GDP ratio of under 10% means there is little need for asset sales.

Privatisation thus risks becoming an orphan policy. Some of that is explained by Mr Medvedev’s shrinking role. Politically, says one economist who advises the government, Mr Medvedev “doesn’t exist any more”, so there is “no champion for privatisation”. It is becoming clear that the “cabinet does not have a real preference” when it comes to privatisation, says Natalia Orlova of Alfa Bank. That leaves individual company bosses with some latitude.

If a firm’s managers see advantages in selling shares—as did German Gref of Sberbank, which sold a 7.6% stake for $5.2 billion in September—those sales will go ahead. But where they are reluctant or sceptical, they can find plenty of reasons to delay or not to sell at all (Russian Railways is perhaps one example). As a manager in a state-owned financial institution puts it, “most of the work will have to be done by us”. Next up is likely to be the bank VTB, which will sell a 10-25% stake some time this year. Sovkomflot, a shipping group, and Alrosa, a diamond giant, may also sell minority stakes.

The result will be a “parallel process” says Alexander Radygin of the Gaidar Institute, a think-tank, in which privatisation for banks, say, will look different from that for energy. Under Mr Sechin, the holding company Rosneftegaz may even buy other state-owned energy firms to consolidate resources and amass value.

The real question is not what is privatised, but how. The state may consider the exchange of energy holdings between Rosneft and Gazprom to be privatisation; or it could count sales to state companies like Russian Technologies. Assets can be sold in less than transparent processes, such as the purchase by Russia’s Summa Group of 50% of United Grain Company last year. That does nothing to boost its attractions for foreign investors.

Privatisation may be a “signalling mechanism” to investors, as Roland Nash of Verno Capital, says, but it alone cannot solve the other factors that stand in their way. For that, the government has to do the harder work of improving property rights, the courts and the regulatory system. Privatisation, concludes Mr Radygin, should be seen as an “instrument, not a goal in and of itself”

Indonesia’s National Elections: Islamic Parties At The Crossroads

Indonesian Islamic parties have been adopting an inclusive and pragmatic strategy for garnering votes. The formal establishment of Shariah law is no longer a primary objective in their agenda. Nevertheless, these parties still have to settle several issues.

WITH INDONESIA’S national legislative elections approaching in 2014, Islamic parties have signalled a pragmatic shift to the centre to garner popular support by transforming themselves into inclusivist parties. Their party platforms no longer feature the establishment of Shariah law and other Islamic agendas, while turning to more pluralistic political reforms and adopting democracy as their main strategy for winning the political contest.

Still For Shariah Law?

Nevertheless the struggle for the installation of Shariah has not been abandoned, but only relegated to the back burner. The shift in their objective from an Islamist to a pluralist agenda may reflect the declining popularity of Islamic parties in Indonesia.

The popular votes for Islamic parties have declined significantly from their peak in 1999. The United Development Party (PPP) gained about 11% of the seats in 1999 but only got 8% in 2004 and 5% in 2009. Meanwhile the National Awakening Party (PKB) earned around 13% in 1999, but only got 11% in 2004 and less than 5% in 2009. Similarly the National Mandate Party (PAN) which secured about 7% in 1999, declined to 6.4% in 2004 and 6% in 2009. On the other hand the more progressive Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) performed slightly better than its counterparts. As PKS only ran in the election from 2004, the party won about 7.3% in 2004 and 7.8% in 2009.