US 'must target Pakistan havens'
America is beefing up its troops in Afghanistan
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has called for a new strategy in Afghanistan to deny militants bases across the border in Pakistan.
Speaking on the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Admiral Mike Mullen called for a military strategy that covered both sides of the border.
The US must work closely with Pakistan to "eliminate [the enemy's] safe havens", he told Congress.
But Pakistan insists it will not allow foreign forces onto its territory.
"There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border," Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said.
However, the New York Times newspaper reported on Wednesday that President George Bush had approved orders in July to allow US Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without Pakistani approval.
"The situation in the tribal areas is not tolerable," an unnamed senior US official told the newspaper. "We have to be more assertive. Orders have been given."
A surge of US attacks in Pakistan's border region over the past week has prompted outrage from the government and army.
The Joy of Trump
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Pakistan Havens
US 'must target Pakistan havens'
America is beefing up its troops in Afghanistan
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has called for a new strategy in Afghanistan to deny militants bases across the border in Pakistan.
Speaking on the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Admiral Mike Mullen called for a military strategy that covered both sides of the border.
The US must work closely with Pakistan to "eliminate [the enemy's] safe havens", he told Congress.
But Pakistan insists it will not allow foreign forces onto its territory.
"There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border," Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said.
However, the New York Times newspaper reported on Wednesday that President George Bush had approved.
America is beefing up its troops in Afghanistan
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has called for a new strategy in Afghanistan to deny militants bases across the border in Pakistan.
Speaking on the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Admiral Mike Mullen called for a military strategy that covered both sides of the border.
The US must work closely with Pakistan to "eliminate [the enemy's] safe havens", he told Congress.
But Pakistan insists it will not allow foreign forces onto its territory.
"There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border," Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said.
However, the New York Times newspaper reported on Wednesday that President George Bush had approved.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The Navaho word hozho, translated into English as “beauty,” also means harmony, wholeness, goodness. One story that suggests the dynamic way that beauty comes alive between us concerns a contemporary Navajo weaver. “A man ordered a rug of an especially complex pattern on two separate occasions from the same weaver. Both rugs came out perfectly and the weaver remarked to her brother that there must have been something special about the owner. It was understood that the outcome of the rugs was dependent not on the weaver’s skill and ability but upon the hozho in the owners life. The hozho of his life evoked the beauty in the rugs. In the Navaho world view, beauty exists not simply in the object, or in the artist who made the object; it is expressed in relationships.
- J. Ruth Gendler, Notes on the Need for Beauty
Doublespeak
In the same talk Harper says we're out but not quite. We'll stay on as technical advisors. Maybe he should look at the statistics of how many foreign aid workers are being targeted and killed.
Harper says 2011 'end date' for Afghanistan mission
'The mission, as we've known it, we intend to end,' PM tells reporters
A decade at war is enough, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said on Wednesday. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)
Canada will withdraw the bulk of its military forces in Afghanistan as scheduled in 2011, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper pledged on Wednesday, saying the Afghan government "at some point has to be able to be primarily responsible" for the country's security.
Speaking to reporters at a breakfast briefing in Toronto, Harper said the Canadian public has no appetite to keep soldiers in the war-torn country any longer than the pullout date agreed on by Parliament.
"You have to put an end date on these things," Harper said.
He added that while Canada's military leaders have not acknowledged it publicly, a decade of war is enough.
"By 2011, we will have been in Kandahar, which is probably the toughest province in the country, for six years," Harper said.
"Not only have we done our bit at that point, I think our goal has to be after six years to see the government of Afghanistan able to carry the lion's share of responsibility for its own security.
"At that point, the mission, as we've known it, we intend to end."
Troops would stay 'in some technical capacities'
The Tory government, supported by the Liberals, extended the military mission in Kandahar province to 2011 earlier this year, with a shift to emphasize the mission's priorities to reconstruction and development in the region.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Google chrome
Chrome a serious challenger in browser battle
By David Pogue
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Does the world really need another Web browser? Google thinks so. Chrome, its new browser, was developed in secrecy and released to the world Tuesday. The Windows version is available for download now at google.com/chrome; the Mac and Linux versions will take a little longer.
Google argues that current Web browsers were designed eons ago, before so many of the developments that characterize today's Web: video everywhere, scams and spyware, viruses that lurk even on legitimate sites, Web-based games and ambitious Web-based programs like Google's own Docs word processor.
As Google's blog puts it, "We realized that the Web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser."
What this early version of Chrome accomplishes isn't quite that grand. But it is a first-rate beginning.
With no status bar, no menu bar and only a single toolbar (for bookmarks), Chrome is minimalist in the extreme.
Some might even call it stripped-down. This initial version is labeled "beta," meaning still in testing. True, Google labels almost everything beta - the four-year-old Gmail program is still in beta - but this time it's serious.
At the moment, for example, there's no way to e-mail a Web page to someone, no full-screen mode, no way to magnify the page (rather than just the text), and no screen for organizing bookmarks. Google says that these features are at the top of its to-do list.
Chrome is, nonetheless, full of really smart features that seem to have been inspired by other browsers - or ripped off from them, depending on your level of cynicism.
Take the address bar. As you start to type, a menu of suggestions appears immediately beneath - a list culled not just from pages you have already visited, but also from your bookmarks, search suggestions and popular Web pages that you haven't been to before. That works even the first time you try it, since Chrome auto-imports your bookmarks, history and even stored passwords from your old browser. (See also: the similar address bars in Firefox and Internet Explorer 8, also now in beta testing.)
If you have ever searched Amazon, eBay, or other popular sites, another cool shortcut awaits. You can just type the site's first letter in the address bar and then press Tab. Do that with "A," for example, and the address bar changes to "Search amazon.com," allowing you to search within that site without even going there first. You've saved one big step.
As your start-up page, Chrome displays pictures of nine mini-Web pages, representing your most frequently visited sites. (See also: the Speed Dial feature on the Opera browser.)
This start-up page also lists several of your most recently visited sites and searches, making it a natural, time-saving starting point. (You can designate a more standard Home page if you prefer by clicking on the Options command that hides in one of the two menu icons.)
The "Create application shortcuts" command (also hiding in those menus) generates an icon on your desktop. When you click it, the corresponding site opens without the usual address bar and buttons - in other words, it now works exactly like a regular desktop program. For services like Gmail or blogging software, this feature further blurs the line between online and offline software.
Downloading files is really easy. A status button appears at the bottom of your browser window - there is no Downloads window to get in your way. You click that button to open the downloaded file, without having to worry about what folder it wound up in.
If you believe Google, though, the best stuff is all under the hood. For example, Google chose, as the underlying Web-page processing software, the same existing "rendering engine" inside Apple's Safari browser.
As a result, Chrome is quick - faster than Internet Explorer, although not quite as fast as Firefox or Safari. Since Chrome came out on Tuesday, I haven't had time to test it on all 40 billion Web pages on the Internet (I gave up around dinnertime).
Very few Web sites gave Chrome problems, though. NBCOlympics.com, for example, failed to recognize Chrome and therefore refused to play its videos, but that will change; nobody ignores Google these days.
Also under the hood are what Google considers some of Chrome's most important features - the security enhancements. Google says that each tab runs in its own "sandbox," so that if there's nasty spyware-type software running on one Web site, it has no access to the rest of your computer, or even the other tabs. Google asserts that this is much stronger protection than Internet Explorer 8 gives you, especially in Windows XP. (Internet Explorer 8 supplies its best protection only in Windows Vista.)
Also in the security category, something called Incognito mode, in which no cookies, passwords or cache files are saved, and the browser's History list records no trace of your activity. (See also: Safari, Internet Explorer 8.) Google cheerfully suggests that you can use Incognito mode "to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays," but they're not fooling anyone; the bloggers call it "porn mode."
For more of the technological details about Chrome security, Google has created what may be the most innovative feature of all: an utterly charming comic book - yes, a comic book - that explains the browser and its features.
Already, speculation is running rampant online. Will Chrome catch on? What about Google's business relationships with its competitors?
And above all: What is Google up to?
Is it trying to build a platform for running the software of the future, thereby de-emphasizing Windows and other operating systems?
That's a yes. Google even went to the trouble of rewriting Javascript, the programming language that underlies many such online programs. According to online Javascript speed tests, Google's version is twice as fast as Internet Explorer 7.
Will Google ensure that its own services run better in Chrome than in other browsers? Is this part of Google's great conspiracy?
That's a no and a no. Chrome is based on open-source programming, meaning that its code is available to everyone for inspection or improvement - even to its rivals. That's a huge, promising twist that ought to shut up the conspiracy theorists.
For now, it's best to think of Chrome as exactly what it purports to be: a promising, modern, streamlined, nonbloated, very secure alternative to the browsers currently available. You should do exactly what Microsoft, Apple and the Firefox folks will all be doing: Try it out and keep your eye on it.
Because every now and then, Google's fresh approach ends up dominating its once much bigger competitors (See also: Ask, AltaVista, Lycos...)
Correction:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
By David Pogue
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Does the world really need another Web browser? Google thinks so. Chrome, its new browser, was developed in secrecy and released to the world Tuesday. The Windows version is available for download now at google.com/chrome; the Mac and Linux versions will take a little longer.
Google argues that current Web browsers were designed eons ago, before so many of the developments that characterize today's Web: video everywhere, scams and spyware, viruses that lurk even on legitimate sites, Web-based games and ambitious Web-based programs like Google's own Docs word processor.
As Google's blog puts it, "We realized that the Web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser."
What this early version of Chrome accomplishes isn't quite that grand. But it is a first-rate beginning.
With no status bar, no menu bar and only a single toolbar (for bookmarks), Chrome is minimalist in the extreme.
Some might even call it stripped-down. This initial version is labeled "beta," meaning still in testing. True, Google labels almost everything beta - the four-year-old Gmail program is still in beta - but this time it's serious.
At the moment, for example, there's no way to e-mail a Web page to someone, no full-screen mode, no way to magnify the page (rather than just the text), and no screen for organizing bookmarks. Google says that these features are at the top of its to-do list.
Chrome is, nonetheless, full of really smart features that seem to have been inspired by other browsers - or ripped off from them, depending on your level of cynicism.
Take the address bar. As you start to type, a menu of suggestions appears immediately beneath - a list culled not just from pages you have already visited, but also from your bookmarks, search suggestions and popular Web pages that you haven't been to before. That works even the first time you try it, since Chrome auto-imports your bookmarks, history and even stored passwords from your old browser. (See also: the similar address bars in Firefox and Internet Explorer 8, also now in beta testing.)
If you have ever searched Amazon, eBay, or other popular sites, another cool shortcut awaits. You can just type the site's first letter in the address bar and then press Tab. Do that with "A," for example, and the address bar changes to "Search amazon.com," allowing you to search within that site without even going there first. You've saved one big step.
As your start-up page, Chrome displays pictures of nine mini-Web pages, representing your most frequently visited sites. (See also: the Speed Dial feature on the Opera browser.)
This start-up page also lists several of your most recently visited sites and searches, making it a natural, time-saving starting point. (You can designate a more standard Home page if you prefer by clicking on the Options command that hides in one of the two menu icons.)
The "Create application shortcuts" command (also hiding in those menus) generates an icon on your desktop. When you click it, the corresponding site opens without the usual address bar and buttons - in other words, it now works exactly like a regular desktop program. For services like Gmail or blogging software, this feature further blurs the line between online and offline software.
Downloading files is really easy. A status button appears at the bottom of your browser window - there is no Downloads window to get in your way. You click that button to open the downloaded file, without having to worry about what folder it wound up in.
If you believe Google, though, the best stuff is all under the hood. For example, Google chose, as the underlying Web-page processing software, the same existing "rendering engine" inside Apple's Safari browser.
As a result, Chrome is quick - faster than Internet Explorer, although not quite as fast as Firefox or Safari. Since Chrome came out on Tuesday, I haven't had time to test it on all 40 billion Web pages on the Internet (I gave up around dinnertime).
Very few Web sites gave Chrome problems, though. NBCOlympics.com, for example, failed to recognize Chrome and therefore refused to play its videos, but that will change; nobody ignores Google these days.
Also under the hood are what Google considers some of Chrome's most important features - the security enhancements. Google says that each tab runs in its own "sandbox," so that if there's nasty spyware-type software running on one Web site, it has no access to the rest of your computer, or even the other tabs. Google asserts that this is much stronger protection than Internet Explorer 8 gives you, especially in Windows XP. (Internet Explorer 8 supplies its best protection only in Windows Vista.)
Also in the security category, something called Incognito mode, in which no cookies, passwords or cache files are saved, and the browser's History list records no trace of your activity. (See also: Safari, Internet Explorer 8.) Google cheerfully suggests that you can use Incognito mode "to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays," but they're not fooling anyone; the bloggers call it "porn mode."
For more of the technological details about Chrome security, Google has created what may be the most innovative feature of all: an utterly charming comic book - yes, a comic book - that explains the browser and its features.
Already, speculation is running rampant online. Will Chrome catch on? What about Google's business relationships with its competitors?
And above all: What is Google up to?
Is it trying to build a platform for running the software of the future, thereby de-emphasizing Windows and other operating systems?
That's a yes. Google even went to the trouble of rewriting Javascript, the programming language that underlies many such online programs. According to online Javascript speed tests, Google's version is twice as fast as Internet Explorer 7.
Will Google ensure that its own services run better in Chrome than in other browsers? Is this part of Google's great conspiracy?
That's a no and a no. Chrome is based on open-source programming, meaning that its code is available to everyone for inspection or improvement - even to its rivals. That's a huge, promising twist that ought to shut up the conspiracy theorists.
For now, it's best to think of Chrome as exactly what it purports to be: a promising, modern, streamlined, nonbloated, very secure alternative to the browsers currently available. You should do exactly what Microsoft, Apple and the Firefox folks will all be doing: Try it out and keep your eye on it.
Because every now and then, Google's fresh approach ends up dominating its once much bigger competitors (See also: Ask, AltaVista, Lycos...)
Correction:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Corruption rules in the third world
In destitute kingdom, ruler lives like a king
By Barry Bearak
Saturday, September 6, 2008
LUDZIDZINI, Swaziland: Once upon a time, a young and handsome king ruled over a land of mountainous splendor near the southern tip of Africa. He liked to marry, and as the years passed he took 13 wives, each of them a great beauty.
His countrymen wanted His Majesty to be happy, but some also thought so many spouses were an extravagance for a poor, tiny nation. After all, the king, Mswati III, often provided these wives a retinue, a palace and a new BMW.
A great event was soon forthcoming — on Saturday, in fact. To prepare for the day — the 40-40 Celebration, so-named to honor the king's 40th birthday and the nation's 40th year of independence — a 15,000-seat stadium was built and a fleet of top-of-the-line BMW sedans was ordered for the comfort of visiting dignitaries.
Once again, some people wondered how the kingdom, Swaziland, could afford the expense. Some 1,500 of them grumpily marched in protest through the capital after news reports said that several of the queens and their entourages had gone on an overseas shopping trip aboard a chartered plane.
Indeed, as the big day neared, other protests drew thousands more into the streets of the country's two biggest cities. "The king spends our money and is not answerable to anyone!" complained Mario Masuku, the head of an outlawed political party and a familiar figure of Swazi discontent.
The rowdiest of the demonstrators flung rocks, looted goods from sidewalk vendors and even set off a few small explosions. Others made impromptu placards with torn up cardboard. "Down with 40-40!" read one, while another demanded, "Democracy now!" A few protesters chanted things meant to make rich people feel guilty: "My mother was a kitchen girl. My father was a garden boy. That's why I'm a Socialist."
The angriest of them went so far as to insist that the nation had little to celebrate. Yes, Swazis have enjoyed decades of peace and are proud of their culture. But poverty has entrapped two-thirds of the people, leaving hundreds of thousands malnourished. And these days death casually sweeps away even the strong. The country has one of the worst rates of HIV infection in the world. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 years in 1997 to barely half that now. Nearly a third of all children have lost a parent.
"How can the king live in luxury while his people suffer?" asked Siphiwe Hlophe, a human rights activist. "How much money does he need, anyway?"
That question was as confounding as it was impertinent. In the government's latest budget, about $30 million was set aside for "royal emoluments."
But surely the king's income exceeds that, people said. The royal family also controls a corporate business empire "in trust for the nation," investing in sugar cane, commercial property and a newspaper. Forbes.com recently listed Mswati III as the world's 15th wealthiest monarch, estimating his fortune at $200 million.
But is this not the way of the world? The king, after all, is the king. The poor, after all, are the poor. Percy Simelane, the government's spokesman, was quoted by Agence France-Presse last week as saying: "Poverty has been with us for many years. We cannot then sit by the roadside and weep just because the country is faced with poverty. We have made great strides as a country that gives us pleasure in celebrating 40 years of independence and the king's birthday."
Indeed, most of Swaziland's 1.1 million people love their monarch. God gave the country to the king, many of them say, and the king was given to the people by God. Mswati III's father, Sobhuza II, had been especially revered. He was more frugal than his son, transporting the royal family in buses instead of BMWs. But he, too, liked to marry. It was said that he took 70 wives, though some put the number as high as 110.
Sobhuza II was king when the nation shed the yoke of colonialism, finally free of Britain yet left with a British-style Constitution. The esteemed monarch did not abide by this document for long. In 1973, he dissolved Parliament and rid himself of the annoyance of political parties.
In the years ahead, political reformers, primarily city people, pushed for democracy. Mswati III succeeded his father in 1986, and in 2005, after much give and take, signed a new Constitution. But it was a peculiar document, guaranteeing individual liberties with one hand and preserving the absolute monarchy with the other. The king would continue to appoint the prime minister and members of the governing cabinet and the judiciary.
Under this arrangement, it was hard for an outsider to tell where the monarchy ended and the government began. But most Swazis see things entirely otherwise. As a local saying goes, "A king is a mouth that does not lie." The government is bad, people tend to conclude, but the king is good. "Others in authority abuse their power, not the king," explained Ncoyi Mkhonta, the acting chief of the village of Mahlangatsha.
Corruption is bleeding the treasury, but His Majesty's exalted status has complicated the work of law enforcement. The finance minister has publicly estimated that $5 million — and maybe as much as $8 million — is siphoned off each month. Various anti-graft bureaus have failed to exact justice.
The latest corruption-fighting commission is headed by H. M. Mtegha, a retired judge from Malawi. He is not optimistic: "If we go after someone high up and he says the king told me to do this, what can I do? To be satisfied, I'd have to ask the king himself, and this cannot be done. The king is immune."
Of course, being king is not without its own difficulties. In 2001, faced with the relentlessness of the AIDS pandemic, Mswati III invoked an ancient chastity rite, asking Swazi maidens to refrain from sex for five years. He then violated his own rule by selecting a 17-year-old as his ninth wife. To show the extent of his regret, he paid the customary fine of one cow.
In 2003, an 18-year-old caught the king's eye, and some of the royal aides fetched the young woman from her school. The teenager's mother was unwilling to part with her daughter in this manner and had the audacity to sue the king in a Swazi court. This dispute ended only when the girl convinced her mother that she was happy to become the king's next bride.
With the ways of the royal family so often misunderstood, the king agreed to cooperate with an American filmmaker on a documentary, perhaps presuming a flattering portrayal. Instead, the movie, "Without the King," directed by Michael Skolnik and released last year, juxtaposed the gilded furnishings of a royal palace with scenes of the Swazi destitute eating animal intestines scavenged from a dump site.
In the film, Mswati III acknowledged the poor: "It's always very sad when you see a lot of them sick about their lives, how difficult it is, how difficult they are coping, looking after their families and so on. And then you see sometimes that you wish to help them but the funds are always not enough."
One of Swaziland's greatest traditions is the annual Reed Dance, when colorfully adorned, bare-breasted young women — all proclaiming purity as virgins — parade before the royal family and others. This year's ceremony — last Monday, in fact — took place in the Ludzidzini Arena with the Mdzima Mountains as a jagged backdrop and a record 60,000 dancers performing on the grassy field.
It seemed an inspiring display of Swazi pride, and yet there have been critics of the king who consider such festivities a manipulation of culture for political gain. "As people challenge the monarchy, demands increase to show that the king remains popular," said Musa Hlophe, leader of a coalition of civic groups. "Thousands of girls are transported by the government to the Reed Dance as if it were a referendum on the system itself."
In recent years, the ritual has acquired additional excitement, for Mswati III sometimes selects his next queen from the throng of virgins.
Cinsile Maseko, a 13-year-old from a village 50 miles away, did not suppose the choice would be her, but she fantasized anyway about a marital transformation from poverty to plenty, becoming a queen dressed in stylish clothes and traveling the kingdom in a fancy automobile.
She relished the idea for a few seconds and then added one more joyous thought. "You'd be with the king," she said.
More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on September 6, 2008, on page A1 of the New York edition.
Correction:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
By Barry Bearak
Saturday, September 6, 2008
LUDZIDZINI, Swaziland: Once upon a time, a young and handsome king ruled over a land of mountainous splendor near the southern tip of Africa. He liked to marry, and as the years passed he took 13 wives, each of them a great beauty.
His countrymen wanted His Majesty to be happy, but some also thought so many spouses were an extravagance for a poor, tiny nation. After all, the king, Mswati III, often provided these wives a retinue, a palace and a new BMW.
A great event was soon forthcoming — on Saturday, in fact. To prepare for the day — the 40-40 Celebration, so-named to honor the king's 40th birthday and the nation's 40th year of independence — a 15,000-seat stadium was built and a fleet of top-of-the-line BMW sedans was ordered for the comfort of visiting dignitaries.
Once again, some people wondered how the kingdom, Swaziland, could afford the expense. Some 1,500 of them grumpily marched in protest through the capital after news reports said that several of the queens and their entourages had gone on an overseas shopping trip aboard a chartered plane.
Indeed, as the big day neared, other protests drew thousands more into the streets of the country's two biggest cities. "The king spends our money and is not answerable to anyone!" complained Mario Masuku, the head of an outlawed political party and a familiar figure of Swazi discontent.
The rowdiest of the demonstrators flung rocks, looted goods from sidewalk vendors and even set off a few small explosions. Others made impromptu placards with torn up cardboard. "Down with 40-40!" read one, while another demanded, "Democracy now!" A few protesters chanted things meant to make rich people feel guilty: "My mother was a kitchen girl. My father was a garden boy. That's why I'm a Socialist."
The angriest of them went so far as to insist that the nation had little to celebrate. Yes, Swazis have enjoyed decades of peace and are proud of their culture. But poverty has entrapped two-thirds of the people, leaving hundreds of thousands malnourished. And these days death casually sweeps away even the strong. The country has one of the worst rates of HIV infection in the world. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 years in 1997 to barely half that now. Nearly a third of all children have lost a parent.
"How can the king live in luxury while his people suffer?" asked Siphiwe Hlophe, a human rights activist. "How much money does he need, anyway?"
That question was as confounding as it was impertinent. In the government's latest budget, about $30 million was set aside for "royal emoluments."
But surely the king's income exceeds that, people said. The royal family also controls a corporate business empire "in trust for the nation," investing in sugar cane, commercial property and a newspaper. Forbes.com recently listed Mswati III as the world's 15th wealthiest monarch, estimating his fortune at $200 million.
But is this not the way of the world? The king, after all, is the king. The poor, after all, are the poor. Percy Simelane, the government's spokesman, was quoted by Agence France-Presse last week as saying: "Poverty has been with us for many years. We cannot then sit by the roadside and weep just because the country is faced with poverty. We have made great strides as a country that gives us pleasure in celebrating 40 years of independence and the king's birthday."
Indeed, most of Swaziland's 1.1 million people love their monarch. God gave the country to the king, many of them say, and the king was given to the people by God. Mswati III's father, Sobhuza II, had been especially revered. He was more frugal than his son, transporting the royal family in buses instead of BMWs. But he, too, liked to marry. It was said that he took 70 wives, though some put the number as high as 110.
Sobhuza II was king when the nation shed the yoke of colonialism, finally free of Britain yet left with a British-style Constitution. The esteemed monarch did not abide by this document for long. In 1973, he dissolved Parliament and rid himself of the annoyance of political parties.
In the years ahead, political reformers, primarily city people, pushed for democracy. Mswati III succeeded his father in 1986, and in 2005, after much give and take, signed a new Constitution. But it was a peculiar document, guaranteeing individual liberties with one hand and preserving the absolute monarchy with the other. The king would continue to appoint the prime minister and members of the governing cabinet and the judiciary.
Under this arrangement, it was hard for an outsider to tell where the monarchy ended and the government began. But most Swazis see things entirely otherwise. As a local saying goes, "A king is a mouth that does not lie." The government is bad, people tend to conclude, but the king is good. "Others in authority abuse their power, not the king," explained Ncoyi Mkhonta, the acting chief of the village of Mahlangatsha.
Corruption is bleeding the treasury, but His Majesty's exalted status has complicated the work of law enforcement. The finance minister has publicly estimated that $5 million — and maybe as much as $8 million — is siphoned off each month. Various anti-graft bureaus have failed to exact justice.
The latest corruption-fighting commission is headed by H. M. Mtegha, a retired judge from Malawi. He is not optimistic: "If we go after someone high up and he says the king told me to do this, what can I do? To be satisfied, I'd have to ask the king himself, and this cannot be done. The king is immune."
Of course, being king is not without its own difficulties. In 2001, faced with the relentlessness of the AIDS pandemic, Mswati III invoked an ancient chastity rite, asking Swazi maidens to refrain from sex for five years. He then violated his own rule by selecting a 17-year-old as his ninth wife. To show the extent of his regret, he paid the customary fine of one cow.
In 2003, an 18-year-old caught the king's eye, and some of the royal aides fetched the young woman from her school. The teenager's mother was unwilling to part with her daughter in this manner and had the audacity to sue the king in a Swazi court. This dispute ended only when the girl convinced her mother that she was happy to become the king's next bride.
With the ways of the royal family so often misunderstood, the king agreed to cooperate with an American filmmaker on a documentary, perhaps presuming a flattering portrayal. Instead, the movie, "Without the King," directed by Michael Skolnik and released last year, juxtaposed the gilded furnishings of a royal palace with scenes of the Swazi destitute eating animal intestines scavenged from a dump site.
In the film, Mswati III acknowledged the poor: "It's always very sad when you see a lot of them sick about their lives, how difficult it is, how difficult they are coping, looking after their families and so on. And then you see sometimes that you wish to help them but the funds are always not enough."
One of Swaziland's greatest traditions is the annual Reed Dance, when colorfully adorned, bare-breasted young women — all proclaiming purity as virgins — parade before the royal family and others. This year's ceremony — last Monday, in fact — took place in the Ludzidzini Arena with the Mdzima Mountains as a jagged backdrop and a record 60,000 dancers performing on the grassy field.
It seemed an inspiring display of Swazi pride, and yet there have been critics of the king who consider such festivities a manipulation of culture for political gain. "As people challenge the monarchy, demands increase to show that the king remains popular," said Musa Hlophe, leader of a coalition of civic groups. "Thousands of girls are transported by the government to the Reed Dance as if it were a referendum on the system itself."
In recent years, the ritual has acquired additional excitement, for Mswati III sometimes selects his next queen from the throng of virgins.
Cinsile Maseko, a 13-year-old from a village 50 miles away, did not suppose the choice would be her, but she fantasized anyway about a marital transformation from poverty to plenty, becoming a queen dressed in stylish clothes and traveling the kingdom in a fancy automobile.
She relished the idea for a few seconds and then added one more joyous thought. "You'd be with the king," she said.
More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on September 6, 2008, on page A1 of the New York edition.
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Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Pakistan
Bhutto's widower elected in Pakistan
By Jane Perlez and Salman Masood Pub'd: September 7, 2000
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of the assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who has little experience in governing, was elected president of Pakistan on Saturday by a wide margin.
Zardari, 53, who spent 11 years in jail on corruption charges that remain unproved, succeeds Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last month under the threat of impeachment. He is expected to be sworn in on Monday or Tuesday, Pakistani officials said.
Zardari has the tacit approval of the United States, which views him as an ally in the campaign against terrorism. He has promised a tougher fight against members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda ensconced in the nation's tribal areas, from where they mount assaults on American and NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan.
His election coincides with a stepped-up effort by the United States to root out the Taliban and Al Qaeda from the tribal areas. American commandos attacked militants in a village near the Afghan border on Wednesday, in what American military officials said could be a continuing campaign in Pakistan's tribal region.
Zardari becomes president amid increasing evidence that the Pakistani government and military face almost overwhelming difficulties in battling the militants, who now virtually control the tribal areas. In a reminder of that challenge, a suicide bomber killed at least 30 people and wounded 80 at a police checkpoint near Peshawar on Saturday.
Official results from voting in the two houses of Parliament and four provincial assemblies showed that Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, won 481 of 702 votes. His closest competitor, Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui, of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, won 153 votes, and a third candidate, Mushahid Hussain Syed, received 44 votes.
After Bhutto was killed in December, Zardari became the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, which was founded by Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and is considered to be almost a cult of the Bhutto dynasty.
Zardari led the party to victory in a parliamentary election on Feb. 18 and formed a coalition with Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N.
That coalition collapsed last month amid recriminations over the reinstatement of some 60 judges fired by President Musharraf when he imposed emergency rule in November.
In a sign of conciliation, Sharif telephoned Zardari on Saturday to congratulate him on his victory and pledge his support, according to television accounts of the call.
The White House issued a supportive statement on Saturday. "The United States congratulates Asif Ali Zardari on his election as president," said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman. "President Bush looks forward to working with him, Prime Minister Gilani and the government of Pakistan on issues important to both countries, including counterterrorism and making sure Pakistan has a stable and secure economy."
Zardari's aides have promised that as president, Zardari would agree to the elimination of a constitutional provision that allows the president to dismiss Parliament, long considered a weak institution.
The minister of information, Sherry Rehman, a member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, said the relationship between the presidency and Parliament would be better balanced under Zardari, resulting in a "new era of democratic stability." Rehman added, "Today, every Pakistani can raise his head with pride."
After the vote, Zardari spoke briefly outside the prime minister's residence. Flanked by his two teenage daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, Zardari said he would uphold the democratic philosophy of Bhutto.
"Parliament will be sovereign," he said. "This president shall be subservient to the Parliament."
But there was considerable skepticism among politicians and in the news media that Zardari would agree to a diminution of power. An editorial on Saturday in the daily newspaper Dawn said it hoped that "his commitment to make himself a titular head of state will not waver."
Most Pakistanis looked on the presidential vote with considerable indifference, a sharp contrast to the excitement during the campaign leading to parliamentary elections.
In the Aabpara market in Islamabad, some storekeepers viewed Zardari's victory as a foregone conclusion.
Several said it was good for Pakistan to have a president and a prime minister from the same party, reflecting the official line of the Pakistan Peoples Party. "He can be a good president because the whole party is behind him," said Malik Zahoor, 50.
But some vendors said the corruption charges against Zardari made him unsuitable for the presidency.
"He's a certified thief," said Akhlaq Abbasi, 60, the owner of a fabric and tailoring shop.
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