Could the fastest way to Washington's heart lead through its stomach? After a recent cool-down in US-Azerbaijani ties, US Chargé d’Affaires in Azerbaijan Donald Lu announced on May 14 that the US plans to buy food supplies -- along with building materials and other non-military equipment -- for its Afghanistan campaign from Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani news services reported.
"We believe that Azerbaijan has quality products for sale . . . " an upbeat Lu told participants at a US-Azerbaijan security seminar in Baku. "Quality" searches for other products are apparently planned for Georgia and Armenia as well.
The scale of the American purchases in Azerbaijan will depend on the quality of the products, commented one US foreign policy advisor.
RFE/RL held a small press conference in Washington yesterday with Waheed Omer, Hamid Karzai's spokesman, and a representative from Freedom House. The official theme of the event was press freedom, and a discussion of Freedom House's new report that called Afghanistan's press "not free." But of course -- as anyone could have predicted -- the journalists who showed up were more interested in the visit of Karzai to Washington this week than (with all due respect to the fine people at Freedom House) a report on the Afghan media environment.
But when Omer had finished his defense of the state of press freedom in Afghanistan -- he argued that the country should not be judged by global standards, but in terms of how much progress it has made in the last ten years -- and it was the journalists' turn to ask questions, Omer clearly got flustered by the reporters' insistence on asking about Karzai's visit, such as what the Afghans hopes to bring up with the Americans. He protested (pdf):
"[T}hat is when you use freedom of expression in the wrong way because I was not prepared for this question."
The irony was not lost on the assembled reporters, several of whom responded "Freedom of the press! Free speech!" One suspects most reporters left with a distinct impression of the Afghan government's attitude to the press, and it wasn't the one Omer wanted.
Permanent Mission of Russia to NATO official photo
Dmitry Rogozin
In December, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen asked Russia to provide helicopters for the anti-Taliban effort in Afghanistan. This week, Russia's NATO ambassador Dmitry Rogozin said they would do so -- but with a catch: NATO countries would have to "allow" Russia to sell weapons to them:
“We are seeking an opportunity for the Russian defense industry to trade its products within the alliance's member states. We will earn money and they will acquire reliable quality weapons....
Today we are considering a possible Mistral deal with France and saying how wonderful all this is. My question is the following: Why can we buy helicopter carriers from France, but we are not allowed to sell helicopters to countries like France?"
There is nothing legal preventing Russia from selling weapons to NATO countries. I asked Paul Holtom,
director of the Arms Transfers Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), about this and he sent me a list of several Russian sales over the last decade to NATO members, mainly former Warsaw Pact countries like the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, but also Greece, Turkey and even the UK.
So what is preventing Russia from selling to NATO members? There are obviously political reasons, as well as interoperability issues. But another cause might be that even Russian officials criticize the offerings of the Russian defense industry. This is apparently what happened in the case of Greece, according to the Russia Defense Policy blog:
Plenty of food for thought here, from the Washington Post's Spy Talk blog, via Intelligence Online:
[A] top Chinese general recently made an offer to Afghan President Hamid [Karzai] to train his army and security services “after NATO’s withdrawal.”
General Ma Xiaotian, deputy head of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army, “recently met Karzai to convince him that China would help him to form his new army and security services after NATO’s withdrawal...”
The obvious conclusion to draw -- if the report is true -- is that China is thinking longer-term than the U.S., and is circling, like a vulture, waiting for the western effort in Afghanistan to die so that it can swoop in. Usually this is thought to be an economic strategy, as in the huge deal the Chinese signed for the copper mine in Afghanistan. That China might be trying to expand its military influence, as well, will set off all sorts of alarm bells. But one analyst thinks that China may actually be trying to learn as much as teach:
John Lee, author of Will China Fail?, told me he's spoken to senior officers of the People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police about the effort.
"Behind closed doors, both the PLA and PAP are worried about what they perceive to be their lack of ‘field experience’ in combating serious, coordinated insurgencies – they feel that their procedures, operational effectiveness, logistical capacity, etc., are ‘untested’," said Lee, foreign-policy fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.
Jan Agha, a baker in Taloqan, Takhar, Northern Afghanistan
This wonderful image of a young Afghan baker was a recent winner in an ongoing photo contest that being run by Istanbul Eats (you can find a larger version of the photo here).
The photographer, Chris Strickland, is currently working in Afghanistan with The HALO Trust, which is removing mines and unexploded ordinances in the north of the country.
I wrote Chris asking him to provide more details about the baker and the photo. This is what he said:
The Photograph was taken in Taloqan, Takhar, Northern Afghanistan. The baker is called Jan Agha and is a 22 year old Tajik from Taloqan.
In a country where many still rely on subsistence farming to survive, bread is the main part of the Afghan staple diet and is a part of every meal. Afghanistan's agriculture is predominantly rain-fed 'lalmi' land and the main crop is wheat. A good winter and spring rainfall is essential for a good harvest which in turn keeps food prices for essentials such as bread at an affordable level.
I was drawn to the bakery because it was actually a dark uninviting room, but I could smell the bread and hear the activity, and as a curious photographer, I naturally popped my head in. I was then of course presented with an inviting bakers oven and there was a lovely shaft of light coming through from a vent in the roof.
Afghans being Afghans bought me some tea and a chair, and I hung around for half an hour or so, and just before I left I took this image.
The patterns on the bread, the cloak about to be placed to protect the bread, and of course the light bringing it all to life.
