CFR.org | Pakistan’s Broken Border

The frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan serves as the flash point for tensions between the two countries as Kabul grows increasingly critical of Islamabad's seeming inability to control cross-border raids by Islamic militants. The solution proposed by Pakistan last month to mine and fence the roughly 1,500-mile Durand line (VOA) did little to reassure Afghans, who have long disputed the boundary. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose criticism was echoed by Washington and the United Nations, said Islamabad should instead eliminate terrorist sanctuaries (BBC) within Pakistan rather than separate families who live in the border region. Pashtun tribal leaders on both sides of the boundary warn if Pakistan carries out the plan they will remove any barriers or mines (Pajhwok Afghan News).

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CFR.org | India's Energy Crunch

India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth hit 9.2 percent for the period from July through September of this year—an increase over the already robust rate of 8.4 percent during the same period last year. But along with an ascendant economy comes a mounting hunger for energy, and New Delhi fears it cannot sustain growth in the long term without continually boosting the country’s energy supply. India’s per capita energy consumption rates remain low in comparison to those of countries like the United States and China. But India, the world’s fifth biggest energy consumer, is projected to surpass Japan and Russia to take third place by 2030. Doing so will test India’s ability to create a domestic policy for its semi-privatized energy sector, as well as its capacity to develop relationships with foreign energy exporters.

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CFR.org | Pying-Pyong Diplomacy

The Bush administration’s policy of no direct talks with Pyongyang is no more. Christopher R. Hill, the chief U.S. envoy in North Korean denuclearization talks, made a surprise visit (KTimes) to the isolated country Thursday. With this trip, Hill aimed to breathe life into a February denuclearization deal that gave Pyongyang sixty days to shut down its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and allow inspectors to return to the country. In exchange, Pyongyang would receive desperately needed food and energy supplies from members of the Six-Party Talks. But the April deadline came and went with Pyongyang refusing to hold up its part of the bargain until it received $25 million in funds, which the United States says were connected to North Korean counterfeiting and money laundering, frozen in a Macao bank. After meetings in Pyongyang, Hill said North Korean officials were prepared to move past the funds issue and shut down Yongbyon (BBC).

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CFR.org | Backgrounder: India's Muslim Population

Although home to a Hindu majority, India has a Muslim population of some 150 million, making it the state with the second-largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. While many Indian Muslims achieve celebrity status and high-profile positions abroad and in India’s government—the current president is Muslim—India’s booming economy has left the nation’s largest minority group lagging behind. Muslims experience low literacy and high poverty rates, and Hindu-Muslim violence has claimed a disproportionate number of Muslim lives. Yet Muslims can impact elections, using their power as a voting bloc to gain concessions from the candidates who court them.

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CFR.org/NYTimes.com | China's Slow Road to Democracy

In a February 2007 article, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao predicted China would continue in the “primary stage” of socialism for the next hundred years—considered by many a signal of Communist Party thinking about the slow-motion development of democracy. At the same time, a rise in social protests and nongovernmental organizations demonstrates Chinese popular demand for a more open society. But thanks to a burgeoning economy and clampdowns on press freedoms and dissent, experts say the central government in Beijing has an increasingly firm grip on power.

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CFR.org | Musharraf Tightens Media Grip

Three Pakistani journalists (Reuters) recently left a press meeting in Karachi to find a dark message on their cars: an unaddressed envelope containing a single bullet. A week earlier two of the three journalists, who work for foreign media outlets, were included in a list of a dozen reporters considered “enemies” by a shady group called the Mohajir Rabita Council, which has links to the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement allied with President Pervez Musharraf’s political coalition.

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CFR.org | Park: Private Sector Solution Could Resolve North Korean ‘Radioactive Funds’ Issue

John S. Park, head of the Korea working group at the United States Institute of Peace, discusses the controversy over $25 million in North Korean funds holding up a February 2007 denuclearization deal. Although the U.S. State Department pledged to release the money from Banco Delta Asia (BDA) in Macao, banks around the world consider the funds tainted by a U.S. Treasury Department ruling that connects the $25 million with illicit activities.

“The $25 million is the financial equivalent of radioactive funds,” explains Park, who says the time has come “to start thinking out of the box of having governments approach third party banks.” He suggests a private sector solution to the current stalemate and that Asia’s experience with troubled banks during the 1997 financial crisis provides a model for resolving the issue. Monetary authorities in Macao could declare BDA a distressed bank and put it up for sale, explains Park. He says the BDA banking license in a recapitalized format could result in a “lucrative sale” in which the proceeds “can be used for the clean transfer of $25 million to a bank designated by North Korea.”

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CFR.org | Timeline: Venezuela's Chavez Era

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took office in 1999 on a populist platform. But as he moves to enact his “socialist revolution,” critics say the country increasingly resembles an authoritarian state. This interactive timeline offers a visual account of modern Venezuelan politics and Chavez’s rise to power.

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CFR.org | China Policy: Protectionism in the Wind

The United States reached minor economic agreements with Beijing during talks in Washington this week, yet failed to secure a deal (AP) for significant Chinese currency reform. Delegates from the two countries met for the biannual Strategic Economic Dialogue, which serves as chance for discussion between two of the world’s largest economies. Although envoys reached pacts on energy, the environment, and opening Chinese markets to U.S. financial institutions, the currency issue could trouble U.S.-China economic relations. In advance of the talks, a bipartisan group of forty-two lawmakers urged the Bush administration to investigate whether Beijing manipulates the value of the yuan, keeping it priced low against the dollar to boost Chinese exports. They charge this practice exacerbates (Reuters) the U.S. trade deficit, which hit a record high of roughly $233 billion last year.

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CFR.org | Supreme Problems in Pakistan

Multiple assassination attempts have failed to remove President Pervez Musharraf from power, yet unrest caused by his suspension of the Supreme Court’s chief justice threatens his authority. Protesters say that Iftikhar Chaudhry, handpicked by Musharraf, was removed over concern he would question the president’s hold on the army chief post in fall 2007 presidential elections. The chief justice has refused to go quietly. Highlighting tensions, a court official was murdered in his home (Australian) hours before a pivotal Supreme Court hearing on the matter. A BBC backgrounder examines the judicial crisis.

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CFR.org | Abbas: Musharraf’s Sinking Credibility

Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at Harvard University and author of Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, served as an official in the administrations of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He discusses escalating violence over Musharraf’s decision to suspend Pakistan’s Supreme Court chief justice and says it signifies “the beginning of the end” for the president, who seized power in a 1999 coup. Abbas says deadly clashes over the judicial crisis could not have occurred “without instruction from the top,” and that the government wished to show it would not tolerate dissent. The possibility of an agreement between Musharraf and the exiled Bhutto appears increasingly remote given the Supreme Court controversy, says Abbas.

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CFR.org | Interactive Map: Pakistan's Troubled Tribal Belt

This interactive map explores the turbulent tribal region along Pakistan's Afghan border, including the North West Frontier Province, Balochistan, and the semiautonomous tribal areas.

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CFR.org | The Philippines’ Flawed Elections

Violence and political unrest that simmered in the months leading up to Filipino legislative elections continued unabated as six voters were killed (AFP) heading to the polls on May 14. In a macabre display of might by armed militias, more than one hundred people—over half of them candidates—have died in election-related violence (RTE) since January. 

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CFR.org | America's Human Rights List

The annual release of a report on human rights by the U.S. State Department is mandated by law, and the Bush administration is hardly the first to face uncomfortable questions about its qualifications to judge such issues. As usual, this year's report reviews progress and pitfalls around the world—not including the United States—and highlights major offenders. But senior officials acknowledged the report also comes at a time when Washington's own adherence to human rights principles is under fire.

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CFR.org | Washington's Bangkok Blues

Each spring for the past twenty-six years, the United States and Thailand have held joint military exercises known as Cobra Gold. But this May’s exercises in Thailand come during an unusual shaky patch in the longtime U.S.-Thai alliance. The Thai military overthrew Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September 2006, pledging to hold democratic elections by December this year. Following the coup, Washington suspended $24 million in military aid and halted negotiations on a free trade agreement. 

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CFR.org | Southerland: Chinese Bloggers Bypass Censors to Break Stories

Dan Southerland, executive editor at Radio Free Asia, discusses whether Chinese bloggers can push for more open media in China by getting around censors to break news. He cites a recent story, which made international headlines and was initially covered by bloggers, about a woman in southern China who resisted government siezure of her property. Southerland concedes that most of China's roughly 60 million bloggers write about personal matters and, when covering news, often fail to include essential details about where or when an event took place. However, he says, “If everybody suddenly decided that they would stop censoring themselves I think they could easily overwhelm the government” and could “get a little beyond the superficiality” of state-run media. Southerland also discusses “online muckrakers” who uncover stories about local government corruption and push news past monitors by praising the central government.

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CFR.org | Networking in South Asia

An Indo-Pakistani peace process continues to move forward two months after the deadly bombing on the “Friendship Express” train between New Delhi and Lahore. Shortly after that attack, linked to Kashmiri militant groups (Hindustan Times), India and Pakistan signed an agreement to reduce the risk of accidental nuclear attacks. More recently, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri indicated on April 20 that the two countries are close to reaching agreement (The Nation) on the decades-old dispute over India-controlled Kashmir. Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf says relations between the two countries “have never been better” (Hindu).

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CFR.org | Tending to Japan-U.S. Ties

Ahead of his arrival in Washington, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hailed the U.S.-Japanese alliance as “indispensable” (WashPost). But relations between Tokyo and Washington have shown signs of a chill since Abe came to power in the fall of 2006. Abe lacks the personal connection his charismatic predecessor Junichiro Koizumi had with President Bush, and the two countries appear out of sync in pressuring North Korea to acknowledge responsibility for the kidnapping of Japanese citizens (Reuters) two decades ago. Vice President Dick Cheney said the relationship “has never been stronger” during his February visit to Tokyo. But weeks before Cheney’s arrival, Japanese officials criticized the Bush administration’s Iraq policy (FT), with Taro Aso, the foreign minister, going so far as to call it “naïve.” The alliance was further tested by Abe’s comments denying evidence of Japanese military participation in the sexual enslavement of some 200,000 “comfort women.” 

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