The New Nation - Internet Edition

Mobile infrastructure guidelines

THE Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has issued a set of guidelines for infrastructure sharing among the cell-phone service providers. The sharing is intended for minimising the cost of network deployment and protecting the environment. Six mobile phone companies operating in the country have reportedly installed more than twenty thousand base stations presumably without co-ordination. At some places, especially in the urban areas, stations are found installed very close to one another. Whether safe height and distance of the towers have been maintained is a matter of concern. Then there are installation costs. But these could be avoided through sharing of the base stations by the service providers. The guidelines say a provider may share at least 75 percent of transmission capacity at each station with others. New stations can be installed with permission from BTRC only where there is no network to share.

This appears to be a decision in the right direction. These measures if implemented would reduce further expansion of physical structures and make the services cost-effective and more competitive. The existing base stations in the rural areas occupy huge agricultural land. With the sharing facilities all-country coverage will be established for all the operators. Moreover, the providers would be able to make services more efficient.

Introduction of mobile phone has revolutionised the telecommunication system of the country. But, at the same time, it poses serious health hazards. Under the impact of electro-magnetic waves and ultraviolet rays emitted by the large number of towers, according to a recent survey, people exposed to those might suffer from fatal diseases like tumour, cancer, Alzheimer. It will also have serious negative impact on bio-diversity. Indiscriminate disposal of mobile batteries containing harmful chemicals is another potential source of environmental and health hazards.

Kidney disease awareness urgent

AS reported recently in the media, the number of kidney patients is increasing at an 'alarming rate' as about two crore people are now suffering from the disease across the country. But 10 years ago, the number of kidney patients was about one crore. If this rate of spread continues, it will reach about 30 per cent of the population which might be affected in the next 10 years, experts fear. One in every six persons has been suffering from kidney diseases and 40,000 people die of kidney failure every year, it was disclosed as 95 per cent kidney patients of our country are unable to bear the cost of treatment and slowly move towards death.

About 64 per cent kidney patients undertake treatment by selling their property, 20 per cent take loan, 15 per cent get assistance while only five per cent can afford treatment costs. At least Taka two lakh is required for a kidney patient a year for dialysis twice a week. The treatment of end stage renal disease is either dialysis or transplantation which are out of reach of a majority of the victims. As a result, 70 per cent of kidney failure patients who start dialysis stop treatment in three months.

Lack of nephrologists also hinders the treatment of kidney patients. There is now one nephrologist for 25 lakh people but the ratio should be one for 2/3 lakh people. Lack of awareness among the people is also responsible for the growth of kidney patients. A Kidney Foundation survey shows, 60 per cent people are not aware of the fact that diabetes and high blood pressure are the main reasons for the kidney disease and that such patients are increasing 'alarmingly' in Bangladesh. Raising awareness about the disease is thus urgent.

Nato needs to change the track

Claude Salhani

If he hasn't already, as President, Barack Obama will realise soon enough that the troops he withdraws from Iraq will in all likelihood end up redeploying to Afghanistan. And, a President McCain, will likewise be faced with the reality that American forces may well end up staying in the region for the next hundred years.

But, it won't be in Iraq. Whether itís President Barack Obama or President John McCain, the next resident of the White House will be faced with two harsh realities: First, the United States needs to withdraw its armed forces from Iraq sooner rather than later. And secondly, the United States and its Nato allies will be required to step up efforts and troop numbers committed to fighting the war in Afghanistan.

In the months and years ahead, Afghanistan will represent a headache to either Obama, who wants to push for a ëresponsibleí withdrawal from Iraq, or McCain who is ready to keep the troops there for 100 years, if necessary.

Indeed, the operations that Nato has been facing ó in taking over this American war - is proving to be its most serious challenge since the end of the Cold War. In fighting this asymmetrical war, Nato is considerably outside its normal theatre of operations in many respects?

The Northern Atlantic Treaty Organisationís concept was of conventional armies in Europe trained to defend against the conventional armies of its Soviet bloc neighbours - it being a US - established alliance utilised to turn European concerns away from post-World War II German aggression, and focus it on the USSR threat. It's likely that in those days, no one ever imagined Nato would be conducting anti-guerrilla warfare in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan in the early twenty-first century.

This has been a challenging period of transformation, said Richard Prosen, from the U.S. State Department's Office of European Security and Political Affairs, speaking last week at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

In military bureaucratese - yet with a certain level of clarity - Prosen indicated that Nato is transforming itself from what was a static reactive alliance focused on territorial defence, to an expeditionary pro-active global security alliance.

Nato today faces multiple challenges: from increasing Taleban activity in Afghanistan, terrorist threats in other parts of the world - including infiltration into Europe - to the horrifying possibilities inherent in the rise of nuclear proliferation. Nato policy wonks have qualified these as the allianceís significant threats.

The future looks very, very grim, said Yonah Alexander, Director of the International Center for Terrorism Studies. Alexander explains that destroying the terrorist threat will be very difficult, given the fact that Nato is fighting an ideology, not just a military force.

Brussels - or really Washington ó is going to have to convince the silent majority within the group of 26 countries that make up the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that failure in Afghanistan represents a real danger to Europe and ultimately to North America.

In that regard, when President George W. Bush spoke of Iraq, and warned that the terrorists had to be stopped in the Middle East before they reach the streets of New York, the analysts say he just got the country wrong. Afghanistan is where the terrorists must be stopped.

More recently Nato has come to realise the need of a metamorphosis of its original mission, as there has been a re-emergence of Russia as a power to be reckoned with ó as the conflict in Georgia has shown.

Russia is attempting to draw a new line across Europe, and the United States is strongly opposed to this, said Ian Lesser, a senior Trans-Atlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

And Lesser cautions, the Nato Alliance is going to have to reconsider the whole business of nuclear forces and nuclear strategy.

That being said, Natoís strategic concentration will be focused in two principles, but very different directions.

First, the alliance will have to deal with fighting an unconventional war in Afghanistan in which victory cannot be achieved purely from a military perspective. Yes, more troops are needed to defeat the threat in Afghanistan, but ëvictoryí can only be achieved when a genuine democracy takes hold; when corruption is curbed; and when, finally, drug-trafficking is curtailed and ruthless tribal warlords are replaced by the rule of law, good governance, and a strong central government. That will take several decades, if not more.

Second, as relations with Russia become much more competitive and strategic, Nato will need to revise post-Cold War era plans, retrieving Cold War analyses that have likely been gathering dust on back shelves somewhere at Nato headquarters and adapt them accordingly. In a little over three months the United States will have a new president and, given the current situation, possibly a new Cold War as well.

All for a new world order

Ramzy Baroud

The series of unfortunate and costly decisions made during the two terms of the Bush Administration, combined with economic decline at home, might devastate the United States' world standing much sooner than most analysts predict.

What was difficult to foresee is that the weakening of the US global dominance, spurred by erratic and unwise foreign policy under the Bush Administration was to re-ignite a degree of Cold War over a largely distant and seemingly ethnic conflict, that of Georgia and Russia. Who could have ever predicted a possible association between Baghdad, Kabul and Tbilisi?

But to date the decline of US global power to the advent of the Bush Administration, or even the horrific events of September 11, 2001, is not exactly accurate. The rapid collapse of the Soviet Union and the unfolding of the Warsaw Pact - especially as former members of the pact hurried to joined Nato in later years - empowered a new breed of US elite who boasted of the economic viability and moral supremacy of US-styled Capitalism and Democracy. But a unipolar world presented the US leadership with an immense, if not an insurmountable task.

While 9/11 and a gung-ho president presented a convenient opportunity to re-assert US global dominance, action was taken the moment the Soviet Union collapsed. Such efforts, however, were not accentuated until 1997, with the establishment of The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a think tank from which many neo-conservative policy advisors operated. Their aim was "to promote American global leadership..(which) is both good for America and good for the world." William Kristol and Robert Kagan, PNAC founders, were inspired by the Reaganite policy of "strength and moral clarity." But the supposedly inspiring model was justified on the basis of the Cold War, which no longer existed.

Fashioning an enemy was a time sensitive and essential task to justify the repositioning of US power to reclaim domains that were left vacant with the disappearance of the bipolar international system, which existed since World War II.

Even PNAC's more recent report, "Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century (2000)," appeared of little relevance and urgency. It expressed the "belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of US military forces." The report would have been another neglected document were it not for the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which turned it into a doctrine, which defined US foreign policies for nearly a decade.

The wars and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq were projected to strengthen the US hand in protecting its interests and managing its international affairs.

Afghanistan's position was strategic in warding off the regional growth of the rising powers of Asia - aside from its military and strategic value, it was hoped to become a major energy supply route - while Iraq was to provide a permanent US military presence to guard its oil interests in the whole region, and to ensure Israeli regional supremacy over its weaker, but rebellious Arab foes.

The plan worked well for a few weeks following the declaration of "Mission Accomplished." Since then, the US has learned that managing world affairs with a decided military approach is a recipe for disaster. Defeated and humiliated, Iraqis fought back, creating a nightmare scenario and promising a never-to-be-won battle in their country. The US original plan to exploit the country's fractious ethnic and religious groupings also backfired, as shifting alliances made it impossible for the US to single out a permanent enemy or rely on a long-term ally. In Afghanistan, the picture is even more bleak as the country's unforgivable geography, the corruption of US local allies, thus resurgence of the Taleban - and the US-led coalition's brutal response to the Taleban's emboldened ascension - has equally rendered Afghanistan a lost cause by any reasonable military standard.

But the trigger-happy mentality that has governed US foreign policy during the Bush years is no longer dominant and has been since challenged by a more sensible, dialogue-based foreign policy approach, as championed, reluctantly, by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. The change of heart, however, is not entirely moralistic, but largely pragmatic.

According to a survey conducted jointly by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for a New American Security (Feb 19, 2008), 88 per cent of present and former US military officers believe that the demands for the Iraq war alone have "stretched the US military dangerously thin." Although not "broken", 80 per cent believe it is "unreasonable to expect the US military to wage another major war successfully at present," as reported by CNN. Such estimation is not too different from similar assessments provided by top US military commanders, most of whom found their way to early retirement for obvious reasons.

The new military limitations faced by the US in the Middle East have also resulted in the weakening of the US political sway and standing. More, its regional allies have also suffered one blow after another - Israel in Lebanon, Georgia in South Ossetia, US allies in Venezuela and other South American countries, etc.

Indeed, it was a matter of time before a challenger to the US global hegemony to rise and to test the US resolve under new circumstances. While the US growing involvement in Eurasia and its missile defence shield was considered part and parcel of the neocons' plan for "rebuilding America's defences", it was considered by Russia a threat to its national security.

The Georgian invasion of South Ossetia represented a golden opportunity for Moscow to send an unmistakable message to Washington. By crushing the US, Israeli-trained Georgian army, Russia declared itself a contender to the unchallenged US global dominance, which lasted for nearly two decades. Countries such as Iran and Syria are quickly warming up to the new Russia, as the latter seeks to rebuild its own alliances and defences.

The nature and the direction of the US-Russia confrontation are yet to be determined with any reasonable preciseness. Internal and external factors for Russia itself - corruption, the oligarchs, and its ability to court a stable alliance - will all prove consequential in the current confrontation. What is clear however, is that the upcoming US president will find himself face-to-face with a drastically new world order, one that is defined by military pandemonium, national and global economic declines, and the rise of new powers, all vying to fill an increasingly widening, chaotic power vacuum, courtesy of the Bush Administration.