MORNING NEWS BRIEF: 23 MARCH
PICTURE OF THE DAY
DUBAI, UAE
A specialised team cleans the outside of the 77-metre tall Museum of the Future. The Museum of the Future, it covers 30,000 square meters and is 77 meters high. Its facade, which has a futuristic steel aesthetic with illuminated Arabic calligraphy, is made up of 1,024 robot-made pieces.
Photograph
Simone Bergamaschi/IPA/REX/Shutterstock
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Does Biden really want to end the forever wars?
“A decade of war is now ending,” proclaimed the American president — eight years ago. President Barack Obama would soon expand what he had criticized as “a perpetual war,” the military conflict against Islamist terrorists that began in 2001 in Afghanistan but that sprawled to the war in Iraq and to many new enemies in many countries. Now President Biden, too, is holding out the possibility of “ending the forever wars” by asking Congress to replace the 2001 and 2002 statutes that authorized wars against the 9/11 perpetrators and Iraq with a “narrow and specific framework.” Congress should embrace his worthy aspiration, but no one should be fooled. The president and Congress will need to go well beyond merely narrowing Congress’s old permission slips for war. That would leave the permanent war footing intact and preserve the president’s now almost limitless powers to fight anywhere, indefinitely.
Ethnic armies rescue Myanmar’s democratic forces
Myanmar’s post-coup crisis is teetering towards a breaking point as security forces ramp up brutality against unarmed protesting civilians with over 250 deaths and 2,200 arrests recorded across the nations since the military’s February 1 democracy-suspending coup. As international condemnation of the military crackdown mounts and leaders of the protest movement go into hiding to avoid reprisals, a parallel government is quietly forming in areas controlled by ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), a sanctuary that could give the deposed lawmakers a fighting chance. A growing number of those in the anti-military Civil Disobedience Movement resistance have sought refuge in Myanmar’s eastern borderlands with EAOs who have long battled the military-dominated central state.
Top UAE diplomat brokered secret India-Pakistan peace road map, officials say
About 24 hours after military chiefs from India and Pakistan surprised the world last month with a rare joint commitment to respect a 2003 ceasefire agreement, the top diplomat of the United Arab Emirates popped over to New Delhi for a quick one-day visit. Behind closed doors, the India-Pakistan ceasefire marked a milestone in secret talks brokered by the UAE that began months earlier, according to officials aware of the situation who asked not to be identified. The ceasefire, one said, is only the beginning of a larger road map to forge a lasting peace between the neighbours, both of which have nuclear weapons and spar regularly over a decades-old territory dispute.
In a historic first, India could participate in military exercises in Pakistan later this year
In yet another signal that frosty ties between New Delhi and Islamabad are thawing, India could take part in a multi-nation exercise to be hosted by Pakistan later this year at its premier anti-terrorism centre in Pabbi in Nowshera district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The exercise will be held under the aegis of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). If the plan goes through, it would be a historic event, given that it would be the first time that Indian forces will travel to Pakistan for any military exercise.
Nepal’s ongoing political limbo
In recent weeks, Nepal’s young democracy has been shaken by two landmark Supreme Court decisions. While the first proved the institutional resilience of Nepal’s democracy with restoring the previously dissolved House of Representatives, the second has thrown the country’s politics in disarray by reversing the unity of the ruling party. Since the highly disputed dissolution of the House of Representatives on 20 December 2020 by the country’s President on the recommendation of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, the Supreme Court has moved to the centre stage of Nepalese politics. After several weeks of hearing petitioners, lawyers, and friends of the court, the Bench unanimously decided that the move was unconstitutional, and reinstated the House.
WORLD NEWS
Beijing updates 'Made in China 2025' for leaner, meaner times
The 14th Five Year Plan (14FYP), which covers China's development from 2021 to 2025, as well as longer-term goals till 2035, placed what experts said was an unprecedented emphasis on science, technology and the urgent need for China to innovate. The 142-page document devoted considerable space to the subject, with seven chapters devoted to technology and innovation - three more than the 13th Five Year Plan (13FYP) - and a further four on digital development. In it, Beijing promised to make "technological self-reliance and self-strengthening a strategic pillar of national development". It also identified seven "frontier" technologies that China views as essential to its security and national development, namely: artificial intelligence (AI); quantum computing; semiconductors; neuroscience; genetics and biotechnology; advanced clinical medicine; as well as deep sea, deep space and polar exploration.
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