Afghan govt not yet ready to govern: report

WASHINGTON: A confidential US report, prepared for the State Department, says that the Afghan government was not ready to govern Afghanistan after the US withdrawal.

The report points out that the infrastructure created during 12 years of US presence in Afghanistan is in danger of collapsing if left to its own accord.

The United States plans to withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan by December this year and hopes that the government will be able to fill the gap created by the pullout. Washington also wants to sign a bilateral security agreement with Kabul for keeping a small residual force after the withdrawal. The force will provide security assistance to Afghan forces, particularly in dealing with the militants.

The report, obtained by The Washington Times, says that despite spending billions of dollars, the United States has not been able to create an effective system of governance in Afghanistan.

The report, which is also shared by the US Agency for International Development, says that in some US funds have been diverted to corrupt politicians or extremists looking to destabilise the country.

USAID officials, however, said that the risks of corruption and waste have long been known and urged US taxpayers to be patient before they see further returns on their aid investments.

The documents focus specifically on Afghan ministries of finance, mining, electric utilities, communications, education, health and agriculture.

The report concludes that six of the ministries cannot be trusted to manage aid from US taxpayers without a dangerous risk that the money will fall victim to fraud, waste, abuse or outright theft.

Only in one of the seven cases US auditors conclude that the Afghan ministry of finance had systems “adequate to properly manage and account for” money being channelled in from Washington.

But even with that conclusion, USAID auditors identified 26 risks for fraud and waste at the finance ministry. Three of the risks were deemed to be “high” and the rest were rated “critical,” including the overarching danger of the Finance Ministry simply “not being able to fulfil its mandate and carry out its operation.”

At the centre of that debate sits serious questions about the impact — or lack thereof — of the more than $100 billion that Congress says has been channelled towards reconstruction of Afghanistan. USAID alone has channeled $20 billion towards the effort.

The Obama administration channels “at least 50 per cent” of all US government development aid to Afghanistan directly into the budget of the Afghan government.

The United States also spent about $600 billion on military operations in Afghanistan.

An examination of the country’s main power and electricity generating utility, dated October 2012, also found “significant weaknesses in financial management and accounting system”.

USAID auditors warned that in providing assistance to various Afghan ministries, they run “the risk of paying ghost employees and making improper payments to employees.”

A January 2013 assessment of the Ministry of Education cited a “high” risk of government resources being diverted to “unintended purposes”

Indian transgender stands for office after landmark ruling

CHENNAI: With a tight budget and a humble auto-rickshaw, a pioneering Indian transgender is campaigning in her southern hometown for a seat in parliament, just days after the country’s highest court recognised “third gender” people.

Describing the Supreme Court judge’s ruling as a “milestone”, 53-year-old Bharathi Kannamma hopes to build on the momentum and overturn prejudices against India’s several million transgenders.

Running as an independent candidate in the city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu state, she is thought to be the first transgender accepted as a candidate in a general election.

“Even when people come to see me talk, they have certain set notions,” said the social activist ahead of Madurai’s polling day on Thursday, in the phased general election that winds up in mid-May.

“It is only when they hear what I have to say and see me in person that they can get past the fact that I am a transgender,” she said.

In the Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday, the judge said a person can be legally recognised as gender-neutral, and transgenders should be included in government welfare schemes offered to other minority groups.

Often known as “hijras” in South Asia, transgenders are classified as people who have had sex change operations or who regard themselves as the opposite of their born gender. They often live on the extreme fringes of India’s culturally conservative society, sometimes falling into prostitution and begging.

Enduring neglect and bias Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director for Human Rights Watch, welcomed the court’s ruling but said the lack of previous political intervention “is a reflection of the neglect and bias that the community endures”.

Kannamma, however, is positive the judgement will help transgenders access education and employment opportunities, which in turn would help them contribute to their families’ earnings. “When transgenders make an economic contribution to their families, families will also hesitate to shun them,” she said.

Kannamma herself only came out in 2004 as a transgender. Until then, she lived her life as a man and held the position of area sales manager at a bank in Madurai.

With a master’s degree in sociology, she chose to leave behind the corporate life and devote her time to sensitising society to transgenders, especially in schools and colleges. She currently runs her own Bharathi Kannamma Trust with the aim of helping the transgender community and those who live below the poverty line.

When she first ventured into politics, Kannamma said she found she was excluded from certain events. “I noticed they would extend an invitation to me to participate in smaller gatherings but fail to invite me to larger ones,” she explained. She withdrew her support, but decided to run independently to help end discrimination against transgenders.

Her current campaign team includes two transgenders, four men and a woman, working on a daily budget of 5,000 rupees ($83). Despite the challenges she faces, Kannamma said she found her status as an independent candidate, without family, had won her backing. “I have nothing to fear and I have no vested interest in being corrupt and the people see that,” she said.

She’s also campaigning on a wider ticket than transgender rights. “I would develop the city’s infrastructure and importantly, rid its systems of corruption and bring it on par with the country’s top cities,” she said.

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Register as ‘other’

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Since Kannamma signed up as a candidate, she has been followed by two transgenders fighting for seats in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

It is the first general election in which voters as well as candidates can register as “other” rather than male or female, which Kannamma believes should help motivate the community to take part.

However, only 28,341 have registered with the Election Commission to vote, highlighting the fear and stigma many face. And activists say there is still a long way to go until they reach full equality.

There is also the issue of sexuality — in a shock ruling earlier this year, the Supreme Court re-criminalised “unnatural” sex and made it an offence punishable by up to life imprisonment. The sexual activity of many transgenders could therefore still be deemed criminal under Indian law, said activist Ashok Row Kavi, a leading Indian campaigner for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights.

“It’s like being allowed to be called a lawyer but not being able to practise law,” said Kavi of the court’s third gender ruling. “It’s a sexless creature they are identifying. It’s totally weird.”

Why do so many people die in ferry accidents?

NEARLY 300 people are feared missing after a huge ferry capsized and sank off South Korea’s southwestern coast. Carrying a group of high school students on a field trip from a high school outside Seoul, the ship was en route to Jeju, a Korean resort island known as the country’s “Hawaii”.

Scores of rescue divers have descended on the ship, and it is feared that the death toll will rise sharply in coming days. Survivors say many people remain trapped on the ship’s lower decks; 462 people were on board the ship, 281 of whom remain unaccounted for.

Between 800 and 1,000 people are thought to die in ferry accidents every year, according to Roberta Weisbrod, the executive director of the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association. While ferries in the developed world are by and large very safe, ferry safety is a serious problem in the developing world, Weisbrod said. But the true extent of the problem remains something of a mystery: the actual annual death toll from ferry disasters could be twice the current estimate, she says.

While ferry accidents such as this week’s catastrophe are uncommon in Korea — its last such disaster came two decades ago — they happen more often elsewhere in Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, the Philippines and Indonesia.

The Philippines and Indonesia are composed of extensive archipelagos; Bangladesh is a riverine country. As a result, water transport is a fact of daily life. What has been described as the world’s worst peacetime maritime tragedy occurred in the Philippines in 1987 when the Dona Paz collided with an oil tanker and as many as 4,000 people lost their lives.

Ferries in developing countries are often old vessels, sometimes repurposed to operate in waterways for which they weren’t designed. In Tanzania, for example, ferries from the calm waters of Washington state’s Puget Sound were put to sea in the rough waters of the Indian Ocean, Weisbrod said.

Ferries in the developing world are often overcrowded, which can throw off a boat’s balance or make it top heavy and more prone to capsizing. And when crew members are inadequately trained they are uncertain of how to respond in the event of a disaster, exacerbating these problems. Moreover, government safety regulations are far less stringent — or go unenforced — in developing nations.

While it’s difficult to draw a common thread through different ferry accidents, Weisbrod says extreme or unexpected weather events typically precede a catastrophic ferry accident. Indeed, in this week’s capsizing and sinking of South Korean ferry, local media reported that the ship may have hit rocks in heavy fog. “The boat suddenly stopped after a big thumping sound from the frontal part of the ship,” one passenger told a local TV station.

Weisbrod says there is some reason for optimism in improving ferry safety in the developing world. Together with the International Maritime Organization, Interferry, a group representing the global ferry industry, has launched an initiative to drastically reduce fatalities. So far, they’ve brought together safety officials to share best practices and have launched a competition to design safer vessels.

Of course, many of the factors that make ferry accidents routine in parts of the developing world were not at play in the case of the Sewol. The ship wasn’t overcrowded, and there is, at least at this stage, little reason to doubt the seaworthiness of the vessel.

That only serves to magnify the horror of the disaster. “It’s a betrayal of a wonderful way of travelling —so many helpless people,” Weisbrod said.

Syria presidential vote on June 3: parliament speaker

DAMASCUS: Syria will hold presidential elections that are expected to return President Bashar al-Assad to office on June 3, the country's parliamentary speaker said Monday.

As lawmakers met to hear the election date announced, mortar fire hit near the parliament building, killing at least two people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The deaths underlined the fact that Syria's first presidential election — after constitutional amendments did away with the old referendum system — will be held amid a devastating civil war.

The Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring group relying on sources inside Syria, says more than 150,000 people have been killed since March 2011, and rebels hold vast swathes of territory.

“Elections for the president of the Syrian Arab Republic for Syrians resident in the country will be held on June 3 from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm,” Mohammad al-Lahham said during a special session of parliament.

Voting for Syrians living outside the country will take place on May 28, he added, saying candidates for the presidency could register to run from Tuesday until May 1.

Assad, who became president after his father Hafez passed away in 2000 and whose current term ends on July 17, is widely expected to run and win another seven-year term in office despite the conflict.

New election rules require candidates to have lived in Syria for the last decade, effectively preventing key opposition figures in exile from standing for office.

Syria's conflict began with peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms but soon escalated into a civil war after the government launched a brutal crackdown on dissent.

Nearly half of Syria's population has been displaced, and violence continues to ravage many parts of the country, even reaching into the heart of the capital, which has regularly come under mortar fire from opposition fighters on the outskirts of Damascus.

The government has not laid out how it plans to hold elections under the circumstances.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: An influence ‘all over the planet’

PARIS: Gabriel Garcia Marquez was an enormous influence on a huge number of writers worldwide, in particular through his 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Far beyond South America and the wider Hispanic world, Marquez’s influence was felt by and played out in the work of authors “all over the planet”, Claude Durand, the French translator of the landmark novel, told AFP.

With its mix of myth, fantasy and family saga, critics have also observed the influence of Marquez in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.

Rushdie once told an interviewer that there was “a whole group of writers including himself and Marquez who, broadly speaking, are thought of as a family”, namely a Magical Realism family.

“The thing about Marquez that I admire, that I think is extraordinary, is that his writing is based on a village view of the world,” he added, referring to the imaginary village of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

In China, writer Mo Yan, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2012, was so bowled over by that novel that he “read and reread his Chinese translation”, one of the author’s translators, Chantal Chen Andro, told AFP.

As with Marquez, “magical realism” is a feature of Mo Yan’s work, she said.

“One finds it in particular when they evoke their childhood and their homeland... giving full rein to their imagination,” she added. The Haiti-born Canadian author Dany Laferriere said One Hundred Years of Solitude left its mark.

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'A staggering moment’

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“When I read this book in 1974 in Haiti after it was brought from Canada by a friend it was a revelation, a staggering moment,” he said.

“The rhetorical torrent of Marquez, his vivid metaphors, dazzled the young reader that I was was then and marked the writer that I became,” he said. In 2009, Britain’s Wasafiri magazine for international contemporary writing asked 25 authors to name the book that had most shaped world literature over the previous 25 years.

One Hundred Years of Solitude was the only novel to be picked more than once with three authors citing it.

Chika Unigwe, a Belgium-based Nigerian-born author who won Africa’s biggest literary prize in 2012, said Marquez’s masterpiece completely redefined how people looked at reality.

“Its language is powerful; the manner in which it crosses genres is revealing and I cannot think of a single writer friend I know who has not been influenced by Marquez,” she said.

Nil Parkes, a British performance poet of Ghanian descent, said: “I think One Hundred Years of Solitude taught the West how to read a reality alternative to their own, which in turn opened the gates for other non-Western writers like myself and other writers from Africa and Asia.

“Apart from the fact that it’s an amazing book, it taught Western readers tolerance for other perspectives,” he added.

Sujata Bhatt, an Indian poet who is based in Germany, said the book stood alone.

“I believe that the last book that has had a significant impact on world literature was One Hundred Years of Solitude,” she said.

In France, the writer had many admirers including the late President Francois Mitterrand who invited him to the Elysee Palace.

“Marquez showed me the way to narrative freedom. I am an absolute admirer of his work and I have an immense debt to him as to Gunter Grass,” said French writer Erik Orsenna.

“When I discovered Marquez, it was an enormous shock. We were in France and it was the time of the nouveau roman [new novel] and narrative was banned.

“And then, suddenly, on the other side of the Atlantic, an author was reinventing quixotic stories, with magnificent characters,” he said.

Durand said that Marquez’s agent sent him the manuscript for One Hundred Days of Solitude before it was published in Spanish.

“He was not known then [but] I understood very quickly, with my wife who is from Cuba, that it was a masterpiece,” he said.

And Marquez’s influence even left its mark on Iranian politics.

His 1996 novel News of a Kidnapping sold out in Tehran in 2011 when opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi said its description of Colombian kidnappings had much in common with his life under house arrest.

“If you want to know about my situation in captivity, read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s News of a Kidnapping,” he told his daughters during a meeting, resulting in Iranians flocking to book shops.—AFP

Abdullah ahead in partial Afghan vote results

In this photograph taken on April 5, 2014, Afghan Presidential Candidate Abdullah Abdullah shows his inked finger as he casts his vote at a local polling station in Kabul. – AFP Photo

KABUL: New partial results in Afghanistan's presidential election released Sunday show candidate Abdullah Abdullah is still the front-runner, though a runoff election looks likely.

The winner will replace Hamid Karzai, the only president the country has known since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban, and will oversee a tumultuous period during which the US and Nato forces are expected to withdraw most of their troops from the country.

Both Abdullah, and his closest competitor, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, have promised a fresh start with the West and have vowed to sign a security pact with the US that Karzai refused to sign.

The chairman of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission, Ahmad Yousuf Nouristani, announced the results Sunday.

They represent about half of the estimated 7 million ballots cast in the April 5 poll, though varying levels of votes have been counted in the country's 54 provinces.

Abdullah, Karzai's top rival in the country's last election, has 44 per cent of the vote tallied. Ghani, a former finance minister and World Bank official, received 33.2 per cent of the vote.

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Related: Explore the Afghan Elections 2014

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Abdullah, speaking in an interview with The Associated Press shortly after the results were announced, said he still thinks it's possible for him to avoid a runoff altogether but said he was ready for a second round.

“For us, we will accept the outcome of a fair and transparent process. Anything short of that will be problematic,” he said.

“It's important that the process is a free and fair one. That is important. Then if it goes to the second round in accordance to the rule of law, we are ready for that as well. At this stage, we believe that another round might not be needed.”

The results were a slight improvement for Abdullah from the first results announced on April 13, but so far still not enough for him to avoid a runoff with Ghani. Final results are scheduled to be released on May 14, and officials have cautioned that results could change before then.

Karzai was constitutionally barred from running for a third term. Abdullah was the runner-up to Karzai during the 2009 vote which was marred by widespread allegations of fraud. He has drawn on his strong following among ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan's north but is perceived to be weak among the country's largest ethnic group – the Pashtuns – even though he's half-Pashtun.

This race is a clear improvement for Ghani, who received just under 3 per cent of the vote in 2009.

Zalmai Rassoul, a former foreign minister widely considered as Karzai's pick, has 10.4 per cent of the vote

Ronaldo completes Real Madrid training session - but Bale sits out

The Portugal star and Sergio Ramos were fit enough to practice as normal with the rest of the squad, but the €100 million man is suffering with an illness

Cristiano Ronaldo was fit enough to complete a full training session on Monday for Real Madrid as they prepare for the first leg of their Champions League semi-final with Bayern Munich.

The 29-year-old has been battling to shake off a hamstring problem sustained in the quarter-final win over Borussia Dortmund and was initially a doubt for Wednesday's meeting at Santiago Bernabeu.

However, the attacker was able to train on Sunday before the club confirmed he completed a full routine session on Monday morning, meaning he will likely be fit to feature for Carlo Ancelotti's side against the reigning European champions.

Sergio Ramos, who has also been struggling with a minor injury, also completed the session, but Gareth Bale was forced to sit out due to illness.

Wednesday's encounter in the Spanish capital is set to kick off at 20:45CET.