NightWatch
For the Night of 25 November 2007
Australia:
The BBC reported that Kevin Rudd's Labor
Party won 53% of the vote and John Howard's conservative coalition won 46.5%.
Labor is expected to win 80 of the 150 seats up for election, its first majority
since 1996, Reuters reported. Former political journalist, Maxine McKew, is
close to winning John Howard’s seat in Bennelong, which would make him the
first sitting prime minister to lose his seat in 78 years. Vote counting
continues.
Prime Minister-elect Rudd will name his cabinet by Friday,
but said today that Australia
would sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and would pull its 500 troops
out of Iraq,
as first orders of business.
North
Korea: A Japanese newspaper reported yesterday that
Dear leader Kim Chong-il appointed his middle son Kim Chong-chol to be a vice
chief in Organization and Guidance Bureau of the Korean Workers’ Party
organization. North Korea
has not announced the appointment, as is its customary practice. OR-GUIDE is
the most powerful party organization.
The Japanese assessment is that this makes Chong-chol, age
26, the likely successor to Kim Chong-il because this was Kim Chong-il’s first
position of major responsibility. The late Kim Il-sung appointed him to the
post at age 27 to give him experience and to test his leadership skills. Five
years later Kim Chong-il was named publicly as Kim Il-sung’s successor.
Kim Chong-chol is getting the same grooming tests and
experience that his father had. If he progresses on the same schedule and does
not blot his copy book, in five years when the dear leader Kim Chong-il turns
70, Kim Chong-chol should be named the dear leader-designate or the communist
crown prince. It is difficult to find an appropriate title for a communist dynastic
succession. It is also an oxymoron in Marxist theory.
A major difference in the projected sequence is that Kim
Chong-il worked for about ten years doing odd jobs for the Great Leader Kim
Il-sung. Chong-chol has not had that
kind of training and experience and five years is not a long time in which to
gain it. On the other hand, the Kim’s tend to live into their 80s which means
that the Kim Chong-chol probably has a long time to learn as his father’s
understudy.
As always the key to a stable leadership transition will be
the successor’s relationship with the Army leadership, especially the Corps
Commanders.
Kim’s eldest son, Kim Chong-nam, 36, remains in comfortable
exile apparently in China
still. He has served in a variety of civilian party positions and reportedly
has some military experience, unlike his father and brothers. He embarrassed
the regime by getting caught while trying to enter Japan illegally so remains in
disfavor. The youngest son, Kim Chong-un, 23, is too young for leadership grooming,
according to most observers.
Feedback from a
brilliant and vigilant NW reader forwarded a news report about a quiet development
by the US Department of State. For the first time a US diplomat is in permanent
residence in Pyongyang.
Since mid-November, his suite in the Koryo Hotel has served as his
residence and office for administrative liaison purposes. After the three
nuclear facilities are disabled at Yongbyon, a more senior diplomat will be
sent to Pyongyang
for handling political matters, according to the report.
The Koryo is the
hotel at which foreign delegations normally stay. For many years it has been
the only hotel in North
Korea that had satellite internet
connections, international telephone connections and CNN. That has probably changed with the increase
in South Koreans in Kaesong,
for example.
Normally, the establishment of liaison office by the US would mean that a North Korean diplomat had
been given or offered comparable access in Washington. No announcement has been made.
During the Clinton
administration an exchange of diplomatic liaison offices in Pyongyang
and Washington was agreed under a 1994 Geneva accord. Appropriate residential and office buildings
were identified; communications and security requirements were assessed; and preparations
for leasing were far advanced until the results of the 2000 election. The
exchange of permanent liaison offices was understood at that time to signify
the first step in normalization of relations. This has been a good year for the
Kim dynasty.
Malaysia: Police used water cannons and tear gas in clashes
with over 10,000 Hindu protesters demanding equal rights in the Malaysian
capital, Kuala Lumpur.
Public transportation in the city was suspended, making it more difficult for
protesters to reach the capital. The Hindu reported 240 protestors
were arrested.
According to the London Times,
the rally was in support
of a lawsuit filed in London by the Hindu Rights
Action Force, a Malaysian rights group, demanding that Britain should
compensate Malaysian Indians for taking their ancestors to the country as
“indentured labourers” and exploiting them
South Asian Indians make up only 7.1% of the 24.8 million
Malaysians, according to the CIA Fact Book, and they are the poorest of Malaysia’s ethnic
populations. They were imported by the British from India
to work at rubber plantations and in mines during the colonial era, which
explains the class action suit in London.
They are politically third class citizens, after the ethnic Malays and the
ethnic Chinese, another population imported to work the plantations and
mines.
Public protests by Hindus are extremely rare. Malaysia is a
democracy in which racial discrimination in favor of Malays and the
establishment of Islam as the state religion are explicit requirements of the
constitution.
Pakistan:
"I am here to play my role and also make my own efforts to rid the country
of dictatorship," Nawaz Sharif said on arrival in Lahore today.
The government did not prevent his return or arrest him nor did Islamic
militants attack his huge rally. The
Attorney General did say that Sharif was ineligible to run for office because
he was convicted of corruption in 1999 as part of the contrived justification
for Musharraf’s overthrow of elected government the first time.
Bhutto muffed her chance for leadership greatness; now it is
Sharif’s turn to try. A poll prior to martial law light indicated Sharif was by
far the most popular leader in Pakistan.
His popularity has increased since then. On his first day back, he has directly
challenged the general, so that Pakistani newspapers are euphoric. He is a
superior political leader to Bhutto and Musharraf, though Benazir Bhutto
claimed she was instrumental in arranging Sharif’s return.
Musharraf’s former prime minister Shaukat Aziz declined to
run for office because of Sharif’s return. He told the Daily Times that with Sharif in Pakistan as head of the Pakistan
Muslim League-Nawaz, the press should expect large numbers of defections from
Musharraf’s Pakistan Muslim Leaque-Q (Quaid-e-Azam), which was the ruling party prior to martial
law light.
Expect Pakistani intelligence to harass him and his
followers. That is Musharraf’s tool of political sabotage, despite its record
of embarrassing failures. Sharif’s return helps clarify the political situation
by establishing the opposing sides. It
also represents Saudi Arabia’s
vote against Musharraf.
The Attorney General said today that the general will resign
from the army on 29 November and be sworn in by his appointed supreme court
chief justice the same day, according to the Daily Times. The
News reported that Musharraf will notify the Ministry of Defence to
relieve him as Chief of the Army Staff effective upon his taking the oath of
office as president again. A farewell corps commanders’ meeting will be held
this week before Musharraf is relieved.
Security. Pakistani troops have begun a “major” ground
offensive against pro-Taliban militants in Swat District, a former tourist
resort in the North West
Frontier Province.
It is the first time ground troops had been used in the Swat region, said army
spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad. He said the troops had gained control of
mountaintops overlooking three militant-held villages near Mingora, the chief
town in Swat District, in an operation that was launched late on Saturday,
according to the Daily Times. The troops controlled all entry and exit points to
these villages, he added. He said 30 militants were killed and 15 soldiers were
wounded.
The News carried the following summary of the military action: “For the first time, hundreds of ground troops took part in the action
after their deployment in the once peaceful valley about three months ago. The
paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), Frontier Constabulary (FC) and Frontier
police assisted the Pakistan Army soldiers in carrying out the military
operations.” The operation is not massive and the paramilitary forces remain
the first to draw fire. Musharraf and
his corps commanders continue to avoid placing stress on the Pakistan Army.
This is the fifth such announcement since 3 November.
Georgia: Parliament accepted President Mikhail
Saakashvili's resignation today as required under the constitution to enable
him to campaign for re-election. Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze will
serve as acting president until the presidential election on 5 January.
Venezuela: On 24 November Datanalisis released the
results of its poll on the constitutional reform measures proposed by President
Chavez. Forty-nine percent of Venezuela's
likely voters opposed the changes that would expand President Chavez's powers
and enable him to be elected president indefinitely. Those favoring the changes
represented 39% of those polled.
Datanalisis surveyed 1,854 people nationwide between 14 and 20
November. The poll results were based on the answers from the 1,088 voters who
affirmed they would vote. The margin of error was 2.5% according to the The
Associated Press.
Datanalisis polls heretofore have a perfect record in
predicting electoral outcomes for Chavez, according to the International Herald Tribune. These poll results are the first to predict a
loss for Chavez. A state-approved poll found that 56% of the voters favor the
constitutional changes. The referendum is scheduled for 2 December.
Chavez has enjoyed overwhelming support in the nine
elections held during his tenure. His reaction to the Datanalisis poll results
has been to label opponents traitors. "He who says he supports
Chavez but votes 'no' is a traitor, a true traitor," the president said in
one of three campaign appearances Friday. "He's against me, against the
revolution and against the people." Hmm … He did not reconcile how the 49%
against him are not “the people.” The man talks like a dictator, not a
revolutionary, thus the outcome is likely to be what Chavez wants, regardless
of the actual vote.
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