DC DIARY: Up, up and away —Zeeshan Suhail

The facility at Goddard was constructed in 1990 and now houses 8,000 employees. NASA’s annual budget ranges from $ 3.4 — $ 4.0 billion — an amount quite close to Pakistan’s annual defence budget! This stark reality made me ponder how misplaced our priorities are

Today has been one of those days when I cannot help but think how fortunate I am to live in a city like Washington, DC. Not only does the city afford a myriad of opportunities to participate in activities that have an impact on the global state of affairs, it affords a chance to enhance one’s knowledge by doing simple things, like visiting a museum or attending a conference. DC is in many ways a microcosm of what the rest of the world should be like, a place where empowerment through knowledge acquisition is the norm — not the exception.

In the light of the above hopes and dreams, my readers will appreciate my recent excursion to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre just outside DC. NASA is the branch of the US government that deals with both earth and space science and is charged with research and education about these two issues as part of its mandate. The Goddard Centre is a sprawling complex sitting on hundreds of acres of land and truly feels like a campus. Most NASA staff at the complex dressed informally and were concentrating too deeply on their computers to realise they had 40 World Bank staff in their midst, busy taking photos every chance they got. This was, after all, a rare opportunity, especially for the staff visiting from Country Offices.

We were expecting to only be shown the Visitors Centre (where we saw two short films on the melting of global ice and the other on the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter), but an acquaintance was kind enough to allow us access to the actual building where the Hubble telescope is assembled and tested. This telescope was responsible for providing insight into not only the age of the universe but the nature of stars and galaxies millions of light years away. Considering how large this telescope is (nearly 40 feet tall), it is not surprising that the building where the telescope is assembled was also fairly large, replete with its own vibration and acoustics testing halls. Another large, circular room allowed for the telescope machinery to be placed in a centrifuge machine that could spin at such a speed that the gravitational force would be nearly 20 times that of Earth’s!

The facility at Goddard was constructed in 1990 and now houses 8,000 employees. NASA’s annual budget ranges from $ 3.4 — $ 4.0 billion — an amount quite close to Pakistan’s annual defence budget! This stark reality made me ponder how misplaced our priorities are. In the US, an entire branch of the government does research and study on the earth and the galaxy we live in, as well as beyond. In Pakistan, instead, our research and study is barely of a level where a prospective student might want to go on for a doctoral degree. At NASA, on the contrary, the organisation will pay for every year of your graduate studies and then offer you employment upon completion, if the research and scientific interests align. This, my friends, is the difference between an industrialised country and a developing country: one understands the power of knowledge, while the other does not.

I left NASA in awe of what this country has accomplished in a field that Pakistan barely has any knowledge of, let alone expertise in. I was empowered by what I saw and learned, yet my heart ached for the path ahead for Pakistan. Miles to go before I sleep, as Robert Frost would say.

I returned to DC to finish up some work in the office but realised it was 8:30 pm when I was leaving. Aside from this city offering you lots of opportunities for professional development, it also leaves you with the feeling that you must always be productive — and busy! Yet when I was walking towards the bus stop, I noticed a lot of security. My usual walk through Lafayette Park, which is right in front of the White House, was disrupted by a yellow “do not cross” tape, which I immediately recognised due to the event about to begin within a few minutes: Barack Obama’s first State of the Union speech! It all came together now. Everyone was in a hurry to get home. Security was tight. A helicopter flew above the city, surveying the area below. It was like being in New York City during the annual UN General Assembly session! Ah, how I miss the protocol, the motorcades, the pomp and circumstance.

All in all, not a bad day, I would say. While many of NASA’s engineers and astronauts would, at some point, be involved in a vehicle that propels them up, up and away, Pakistanis are in dire need of a vehicle that also pushes them up, up and away: education. Aside from healthcare, it is the one true global ingredient for prosperity. All great civilisations moved forward only due to this core ingredient being mixed in with others to create something that had depth, breadth and volume. The people know what the priorities are. Now it is the politician’s turn to show that they do too.

Zeeshan Suhail is a consultant with the World Bank in Washington, DC and Chairperson of the Board of the New York City-based Muslim Consultative Network and a Board Member of the Washington, DC-based Americans for Informed Democracy. He can be reached at seeshan@aidemocracy.org

Source:dailytimes.com.pk/

U.S., U.K. Close Yemen Embassies; Brown Cites ‘Failing State’

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and U.K. closed their embassies in Yemen, citing threats of attacks, as officials voiced concern over al-Qaeda’s presence in what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a “failing state.”

White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said intelligence indicated that al-Qaeda plans attacks in Sana’a, the capital, “possibly against our embassy, possibly against U.S. personnel.” Shutting the embassy “was the prudent thing to do,” Brennan said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week” program.

The U.K. and U.S. are offering more security aid for Yemen, an impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation which is emerging as a base for al-Qaeda attacks as the terrorist group comes under pressure in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

U.K. Prime Minister Brown, who called Yemen a “failing state” in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. yesterday, will convene a Jan. 28 aid conference on Yemen in London at which the U.K. will seek to enlist support from oil- rich Gulf nations.

The Yemen branch of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Dec. 25 attack, in which Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight with 278 passengers.

The failed attack prompted the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to issue new rules yesterday calling for “enhanced screening” of U.S.-bound air travelers who have passed through “countries of interest,” as well as requiring random checks on other international flights.



Other Attacks Feared



Brennan, President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, said there are “probably several hundred” al-Qaeda members in Yemen and the U.S. worries they may be training other operatives for attacks in the U.S. and elsewhere similar to the one attempted by Abdulmutallab.

“We’re not going to take any chances with the lives of our diplomats and others” at the American embassy, Brennan said on “Fox News Sunday,” one of four Sunday news shows on which he appeared.

Asked if American troops might be sent to Yemen, Brennan said: “We’re not talking about that at this point at all.”

“The Yemeni government has demonstrated their willingness to take the fight to al-Qaeda,” Brennan said. “They’re willing to accept our support. We’re providing them everything that they’ve asked for.”

The embassy closures came a day after the top U.S. general in the region, David Petraeus, paid an unannounced visit to Yemen and pledged more assistance in combating terrorism.



Doubling U.S. Aid



Petraeus, in talks Jan. 2 in Sana’a with President Ali Abdullah Saleh, reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to support anti- terrorism efforts in Yemen, the Yemeni presidency said in a statement on its Web site. Petraeus told reporters in Baghdad on Jan. 1 that the U.S. in fiscal 2010 will almost double last year’s $70 million in security aid for Yemen.

“The Yemeni president and parliament take this threat very seriously,” Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East and Central Asia, said in Baghdad. “And that is of enormous significance, especially in a country facing such challenges.”

The London conference should concentrate on Yemen’s $11 billion development needs as well as anti-terrorism assistance, Deputy Minister for Planning and International Cooperation Hisham Sharaf said by phone from Sana’a yesterday.

A November 2006 donors’ conference in London led to pledges of $5.7 billion in aid for Yemen, almost half from Gulf nations, of which only $415 million has been received, Sharaf said.

“What is needed is a long-term aid strategy,” said Mustafa Alani, a regional security expert from the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. “It would be wrong to focus only on security and counterterrorism.”



Other Challenges



Yemen is also struggling to subdue both an insurgency by northern Shiite Muslim rebels that has drawn in neighboring Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, and a secessionist movement in the south. It is the poorest Arab nation and the government expects oil reserves that fund 70 percent of the budget to run out over the next decade.

Obama and Brown agreed to fund a police unit in Yemen to target terrorism and will support coast guard operations in the Arabian Peninsula nation, according to an e-mailed statement from the two governments yesterday.

Yemen said Dec. 24 it had foiled an al-Qaeda attack on the U.K. embassy a week earlier modeled on a twin suicide car bombing on the U.S. embassy in September 2008 that killed 17 people, including seven security guards and seven attackers.



Al-Qaeda Base



Yemen has become an increasingly important base for al- Qaeda, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said on Dec. 29.

Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old, spent about three months in Yemen before leaving the country in early December. He told U.S. investigators that in Yemen he received training and the bomb- making materials he used in his attempt to blow up the airliner.

Brennan said U.S. intelligence agencies had “snippets” of information that were recognized “in hindsight” to be related to the failed attack. There was a “failure to integrate and piece together those bits of information,” he said.

The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kit Bond of Missouri, said the U.S. national security system failed.

“With all of the leads dangling out there, somebody screwed up by not reporting it,” said Bond. In addition, the airport screening “was a disaster,” he said.

The Intelligence Committee, one of several congressional panels planning investigations of the incident, will hold a hearing Jan. 21. Bond, appearing yesterday on Fox, said there are no grounds at this point to fire Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair or Leon Panetta, head of the Central Intelligence Agency.



Other Criticism



Other Republicans criticized the Democratic Obama administration’s anti-terrorism efforts.

“What we had in this case was a failure to act on a very credible report from the terrorist’s father that should, at the very least, have caused the State Department to revoke his visa,” Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said on “This Week.” Abdulmutallab’s father warned officials at the U.S. embassy in Nigeria that he was worried about his son’s extremist views, U.S. authorities said.

“Why wasn’t this individual’s visa revoked once we had such a credible report that he posed a threat?” Collins said.

She said it is “unacceptable” that there is no screening system in place to detect the explosive used in the Christmas Day incident, even eight years after would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid used “the exact same explosive.”



Enemy Combatant



Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, said the U.S. “probably lost valuable information” by not viewing the attempted airline bombing as an act of war and the suspect as an enemy combatant.

“If we had treated this Christmas Day bomber as a terrorist, he would have immediately been interrogated military- style, rather than given the rights of an American and lawyers,” DeMint said on CNN.

Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, also appearing on CNN, said it is “unfair and, frankly, political to take pot shots at the president as we respond to this failure in our systems that we’ve got to get fixed.”




--With assistance from Khaled Abdullah in Sana’a, Clementine Fletcher and Scott Hamilton in London, and Todd Shields in Washington. Editors: Bill Schmick, Ann Hughey.

Source:businessweek.com/

UK-US working closely on Yemen and Somalia terrorist threat

Downing Street and the White House have agreed to continue working hand-in-glove to tackle the evolving threat of terrorism from Yemen and Somalia in the wake of recent events in the US.

Both the US and UK already provide support and funding to the Yemeni authorities to help in their efforts to combat the terrorist threat. Measures include support for a special counter-terrorist police unit and for the Yemeni coastguard operation.

The Prime Minister has said that UK support to Yemen is expected to exceed £100 million by 2011 - Britain is one of the leading donors to Yemen’s development.

Speaking on the BBC today, Gordon Brown said Britain has been working closely with the Americans to strengthen counter-terrorism cooperation in Yemen.

“Yemen has been recognised, like Somalia, to be one of the areas we have got to not only keep an eye on, but we’ve got to do more. So it’s strengthening counter-terrorism cooperation, it’s working harder on intelligence efforts.”

The UK has also been pushing at the UN Security Council for an effective African peacekeeping force in Somalia, AMISOM.

On Friday, Gordon Brown announced plans to invite key international partners to a high level meeting in London which will coincide with a major conference on Afghanistan.

“There is absolutely no doubt that the conference we will have in London in January, with a Yemen element to it, will be an important means by which we will help the Yemeni authorities who are fighting terrorism to develop the means and the will to do this even more.”

He has also asked that the evolving threat from Yemen and Somalia be placed on the agenda for the EU General Affairs Council in January, and he will discuss with counterparts at the next EU Council meeting. In addition Mr Brown intends to push for stronger action on Yemen from the Financial Action Task Force.

The PM has also called a special meeting of the National Security, International Relations and Development (NSID) Cabinet committee to discuss further the UK’s response to the attempted attack last week. The Committee oversees UK security issues and includes security and military chiefs. This week the PM will hold urgent discussions with Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Defence Secretary and senior advisers on intelligence and security, ahead of the NSID meeting.

This follows the urgent review of airport security ordered by the PM in the immediate aftermath of last week’s events in the US. He expects preliminary findings in days and has pledged to move quickly to improve security wherever necessary.

Source:.number10.gov.uk/

U.S. Intelligence Chief Warns Of More Attacks

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) - The dust on the weekly address from U.S. President Barack Obama had not yet settled down when came the scathing remarks from Michael E. Leiter, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) reminding the Americans "the insidious terrorist threats," faced by them.


Leiter punched his statement with an underlying threat of more attacks after referring to the failed bid of December 25 on the Detroit bound transatlantic flight originating in NIgeria.

The intelligence chief minced no words saying, "While this attempt ended in failure we know with absolute certainty that Al-Qa'ida and those who support its ideology continue to refine their methods to test our defenses and pursue an attack on the Homeland."

Obama in his speech earlier today had used stern criticism of the intelligence services for failing to prevent the December 25 attack, despite warning signs.

President Obama had expressed his disappointment with the intelligence services as he promised, "(to make sure) these communities-and the people in them-are coordinating effectively and are held accountable at every level. And as President, that is what I will do."

"Our most sacred responsibility is to be focused on our mission -- detecting and preventing terrorist attacks from happening on our soil and against U.S. interests," Leiter said. "The American people expect and deserve nothing less."

It is an ironic scenario of history repeating itself as the NCTC was created in 2004 to coordinate efforts between U.S. intelligence agencies, whose failure to share information was lambasted by the commission looking into the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Today, after the Dec 25 attack, again the fingers are pointed at the failure of the U.S. intelligence agencies to coordinate and share information despite the formation of the NCTC.

Source:allheadlinenews.com/

US extends war on terror on Yemen

Washington DC, 2 January – In a bid to give US military intervention in Yemen legitimacy, US President Barack Obama for the first time publicly linked an obscure airline incident on Christmas Day to the world-wide al-Qaeda network against which the US is leading the ongoing war on terror. In his weekly radio and TV address, the US President claimed that the incident involving a young Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was proof that “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” was responsible for attempting to blow up an aircraft of the US Northwest airlines on its flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Barack Obama concluded that the United States was at war with a "far-reaching network of violence and hatred." The impact of the 23-years old student Abdulmatallab rose to enormous proportions by Barack Obama's revelations that "we know that he traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al-Qaeda, and that this group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, trained and equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America."

In this context the US President for the first time acknowledged US military attacks against targets on Yemeni territory saying that alleged al-Qaeda "training camps have been struck; leaders eliminated; plots disrupted," adding that “all those involved in the attempted act of terrorism on Christmas must know – you too will be held accountable." Against the backdrop of an announced boost in US military aid to Yemen's government to the tune of 70 million dollars, yesterday British prime minister Gordon Brown called for an international meeting, to be held on 28 January in London, aimed at coordinating the leading NATO powers' battle to consolidate their position in the Horn of Africa.

The government in Sanaa – endangered by a mounting separatist movement in the south and the contemporaneous war against the al-Houthi movement in the north - welcomed the initiative as“a step in the right direction”. Meanwhile today Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh met again with the head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus to discuss the range and scope of Yemeni security forces' cooperation, with US training, intelligence and equipment provided to them.

This latest development comes after only a few days ago, on Tuesday, a member of parliament from the opposition, Shawqi al-Qadhi, had warned that if the US insisted on sending its troops to Yemen, the whole of the country would turn into al-Qaeda. Al-Qadhi also warned that an enhanced presence of US troops in Yemen would only incite al-Qaeda operatives to increase violence. A taste of what the already instable Yemeni government might be up to came after an air strike in December, carried out by Yemeni forces with the admitted help of “US fire power”, that left dozens dead: an unmasked man, standing amidst protesting tribesman of the camp that had been targeted, warned that “the war in Yemen is between Al-Qaeda and the US and not between Al-Qaeda and the Yemeni army”. Concerns are growing that the same fate as that of Afghanistan and Iraq, where citizens are suffering violence despite years of foreign military presence, might await Yemen's Muslim nation.

Source:arabmonitor.info/