Nicolas Sarkozy - CŽcilia Sarkozy

The award for the most striking metaphor of the week goes to CŽcilia Sarkozy, ex-First Lady of France. Explaining her quickie divorce from President Nicolas Sarkozy, five months after he had reached the pinnacle of his career, she said: “For him it’s like a violinist who has been given a Stradivarius. Suddenly he has the chance to practise his art. It’s not the same for me.“
Mme Sarkozy suggested that she, a shy, retiring woman who loved the shadows, could not abide the glaring lights of politics at the highest level.
In any case, she added rather more plausibly, she no longer loved her ex-husband: “What happened to me has happened to millions of people. Your relationship with your partner is no longer the essential thing in your life. It no longer works.“
As frank confessions go, Mme Sarkozy’s interview with L’Est Republicain left many questions unanswered.
If CŽcilia Sarkozy is a private woman who loves solitude, why did she spend nine of her 11 years as the future President’s wife hustling and bustling to promote his career?
Rumours swirl in France about the alleged real reasons for the break-up.
Friends of the shortest-lasting First Lady in French history suggest that CŽcilia (who has Spanish and Gypsy blood) is a passionate but also a fiercely intelligent and independent woman. She never forgave her husband--or herself--for persuading her to abandon her love affair with another man two years ago.
The higher that Sarkozy climbed, the more she resented being defined by her marriage to a man whom she no longer loved.
CŽcilia Sarkozy as a feminist icon? We will see.
Officially, the people of France are treating the whole business with adult disdain. Don’t believe a word of it--the country is chattering about little else.
The polls say that more than 90 per cent of the French say that the divorce will not affect their opinion of the President. Don’t believe that either. Nicolas Sarkozy has put much effort into crafting an image as a perpetual-motion winner, but a jilted husband, especially in France, is inevitably seen as a bit of a loser.
John Lichfield
independent.co.uk

Officials began grappling with the air pollution problem in 1993, when they established the Air Quality Control Co.

Inhabitants of this metropolis of 12 million people, and perhaps as many cars, buses, trucks and motorbikes, have seen something new in recent months: the city itself, unobscured by the thick smog that normally blankets the capital.
For years, pollution in Tehran seemed to only grow worse, the stench of exhaust more dizzying, the number of patients rushed to hospitals with breathing difficulties ever increasing.
But a number of measures, including rationing gasoline and limiting traffic in the city center, have noticeably changed this bleak landscape and given back to Tehran residents the stunning vistas of the Alborz mountain range that surrounds the city.
“It feels much better than before,“ said Marzieh Jannati, 27, shopping in south Tehran, an experience that used to burn the eyes of those unaccustomed to the pollution. “You can see the difference between these days and years past.“
Like Denver, mile-high Tehran’s thin air and curtain of mountains make it a natural harbor for air pollution.
Industries on the outskirts and a glut of old vehicles add to lower air quality.
Officials began grappling with the air pollution problem in 1993, when they established the Air Quality Control Co. and began publishing daily pollution indexes, with color-coded billboards, in busy public squares.
A team of Japanese experts arrived to give officials three-day courses on how to detect ozone, lead and other poisons.
The biggest problem, they were told, was unfiltered exhaust fumes.
Iranian authorities began requiring pollution-reducing catalytic converters on new cars. Long-delayed plans to build subway lines were launched.
But air quality continued to decline. The World Bank, which in 2003 lent Tehran $20 million to clean up the air, said the pollution in Iran’s major cities exceeded World Health Organization standards by 40% to 340%. Authorities regularly closed schools and asked frail residents to remain indoors on bad days.
The lowest point may have been Nov. 21, 2002, when all Tehran residents were asked to stay indoors because carbon monoxide concentrations had reached emergency levels, according to the World Bank appraisal.
An official Energy-Environment Review Policy Note estimated health damage from air pollution in Iran at over $7 billion in 2001, more than 8% of the nominal gross domestic product that year.
A 2005 report by Tehran University found that rising carbon monoxide levels were contributing to heart failure, the leading cause of death in Iran.
But all agree there has been a turnaround in recent months.
A rationing program for heavily subsidized gasoline that began this summer sparked riots, but may have forced thrifty drivers to stay off the roads.
Strict controls and heavy fines placed on peak-hour traffic to central Tehran encouraged more commuters to use public transport, including a three-line subway system that has won praise for its efficiency.
Tehran introduced a fleet of natural gas-powered buses, ordered old taxis and buses to convert to natural gas engines, and banned decrepit cars.
In the last three years, about 250,000 Iranian cars have been converted to natural gas or hybrid engines, according to the Iranian Fuel Conservation Organization.
Two years ago, production of the Peykan, a beloved but gas-guzzling and pollution-spewing sedan, was stopped.
Statistics from the Air Quality Control Co. show modest decreases in the levels of ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide compared with two years ago, but much of the evidence so far is anecdotal.
The change can be seen in the skyline, which was often hidden in a brown haze, and in the lack of pedestrians wearing surgical masks in an attempt to filter out some of the poisons in the air.
“Until a few months ago, when I went home I felt something heavy was choking my lungs, though I used to wear the mask,“ said Mehdi Papi, a traffic policeman. “Now, I don’t wear a mask and I feel much better.“
Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi
LATIMES.COM

In response to escalating attacks against both civilians and military by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists, who surely aim to thwart further democratization in Turkey and if possible to drag the Turkish armed forces into Iraq, the Turkish Parliament has with broad consensus adopted a resolution that authorizes the government to stage, when it deems necessary, a cross-border military operation to pursue PKK bases in northern Iraq.
Whether this resolution will help resolve the problem of the PKK--which poisons the relations between Ankara on the one hand and the US and the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq on the other--or lead to further deterioration of those relations remains to be seen.
In order to assess the possible consequences of the resolution it is necessary to take into consideration the following facts.
1) The PKK is based mainly in Turkey itself and not abroad (in northern Iraq or Western Europe).
The majority of its fighters are based in Turkey’s own mountains, and a major segment of its support is based inside Turkey.
Ankara has to primarily deal militarily with the PKK at home and continue to introduce socioeconomic and political reforms to further isolate it from Turkey’s Kurds.
There is no doubt, however, that part of the PKK leadership and military personnel is based in northern Iraq.
In order to suppress the PKK, Ankara surely needs to deal also with the PKK in Iraq.
2) The US--who as the occupying power is responsible for all of Iraq--and its close ally, the Kurdish Regional Government, has so far done nothing to hinder the PKK from using its bases in Iraq to attack Turkey.
The US inaction may be explained by a number of factors: fear of destabilizing the only more or less stable part of Iraq; perhaps to put pressure on Ankara to meet certain (undeclared) demands; and perhaps also by way of punishing Turkey for not allowing US troops to be deployed on Turkish soil in the invasion of Iraq.
3) The inaction of the Kurdish leadership, on the other hand, may be explained partly by its insistence on seeing the PKK as an entirely domestic problem of Turkey; partly by its previous experience of 24 cross-border operations (some of which were conducted jointly by the Turkish Armed Forces and the Kurdish peshmerga), which largely failed to defeat the PKK in Iraq; partly by its desire to avoid pitting Kurds against Kurds; and partly as a reaction to Ankara’s refusal to negotiate with the Kurdish leadership and continued threats of invasion with the aim to stop the Kurds from achieving broad autonomy in Iraq or outright independence.
4) A Turkish unilateral military intervention in northern Iraq, especially one which primarily targets the Kurdish Regional Government, is certain to yield results most favorable to the PKK’s intention, which is to provoke a full scale Turkish-Kurdish war that would spread to the entire region.
It would undoubtedly have disastrous economic and political consequences for Turkey and the area as a whole.
5) Turkey may be said to be divided between two camps. What may be roughly called the “liberal“ camp (which may be said to dominate the current Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in Ankara) is convinced that Turkey’s territorial integrity can best be preserved by further consolidating the democratic regime and calls for the establishment of good relations and enhanced economic interdependence with all neighboring countries and peoples.
This camp is supported by the vast majority of Turkey’s Kurds, who do not want to see their country in military conflict with their kin in Iraq.
It is under these circumstances that the Turkish government makes clear that the resolution aims at the PKK and that it is prepared to take action unless the various authorities in Iraq hand over to Turkey the PKK’s leaders and dissolve its camps in northern Iraq.
The crisis may be said to provide a historic opportunity for the Iraqi Kurdish leadership. If it takes Ankara’s demands seriously and finally takes action against the PKK, it may not only open the way for a long-standing Turkish-Kurdish detente, but may also help in the consolidation of democracy in Turkey, which surely is to the vital benefit of both peoples.
Sahin Alpay
TODAYSZAMAN.COM

Author Shuja Nawaz, a former IMF and IAEA official, recently offered some glimpses into his forthcoming book, “Crossed Swords“ on the Pakistan Army in a talk at the Johns Hopkins University.
One of the issues raised by him pertains to defining the nature of the army.
According to Nawaz, Pakistan’s army is more like the Indonesian army rather than the Turkish army.
He further contended that the difference from the Turkish model relates to the different political roles of the two armies. The Pakistani army is not as well-entrenched in politics and is not seen as part of the liberation or state-creation movement as its Turkish counterpart.
Defining the nature of the army is important because therein lie the necessary clues as to how to deal with such a powerful institution.
Nawaz is absolutely right in stating the basic historical difference between the Pakistani and Turkish armies.
While the former is a bureaucratic institution inherited from the colonial past, the latter played an essential role in building the new Turkish Republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Kamal Ataturk played a critical role in building the new Turkey that fundamentally defines the relationship between the Turkish military, state and society.
While the majority of Turkish people might have problems with the ideological bearings of the state, their relations with the military are less tense than in Pakistan or a number of other countries.
Pakistan’s armed forces are a bureaucratic institution and a reminder of the colonial legacy in more than one way.
The military and civil bureaucracies of South Asia are colonial institutions created by the colonists to establish their control on the indigenous people.
These institutions were trained to support a grand national strategy made thousands of miles away in London and this allegiance was transferred to their respective states after the partition of India in 1947.
Then onwards, officers, soldiers and civilian bureaucrats assisted the civilian leadership in solving the teething problems of these newborn states.
In Pakistan’s case, the role expanded due to a number of factors, including the ambition of the state bureaucracy to dominate politics and governance, the authoritarian nature of the ruling elite, and the relative weakness of political forces.
But let’s not get too deep into a historical discussion. It is sufficient to remember that the army’s relationship with state and society is quite different.
This historical relationship is also the basis of the latent resistance of civil society against the military or accepting the organisation as a neutral arbiter.
Nawaz equates the Pakistan army with the Indonesian military. One assumes that this similarity is based on an assessment of the behaviour or style of the two forces rather than their origins.
Looking at the birth of the two institutions, one cannot but notice the difference. The Indonesian armed forces have also grown out from a revolutionary force, which then expanded its role due to the dependence of political forces and the larger civil society on the military to help build the new nation.
The Indonesian military’s role in nation-building is what allowed it to expand its influence into politics, governance, and the economy.
And this is what Nawaz is referring to when he equates the two armies. Despite their different backgrounds, the two armies have expanded their roles, established themselves politically and engaged in economic exploitation as part of the ruling oligarchy. In both cases, the military elite joined hands with other members of the civilian ruling elite to exploit national resources and to strengthen their control of the state.
President Suharto’s rule was extremely predatory during which he shared the spoils with senior members of the officer cadre with some trickle-down to the junior officers as well.
The civil-military divide in these two countries, hence, is both vertical and horizontal. There are occasions when it is about the divide between civil and military and at other times it is about the ruling elite versus the common people.
DAILYTIMES.CO.PK