Wednesday, June 23, 2010

In an annual report by the US-based Fund for Peace published in Foreign Policy magazine, Somalia is this year’s most “failed state” on a list of 177 countries, determined by factors such as its human rights record, security, and economy.

Among the factors contributing to the report’s ranking of Somalia include heavy ongoing violence, no stable government for nearly two decades, and the world’s third-largest refugee community.

In second place was Chad, followed by Sudan, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Seven of the top ten slots are African countries, and the continent also contains about thirty of the sixty most “failed” countries; Asian states also comprise 30% of the top sixty, and the Middle East has about 10%.

American think tank Fund for Peace collaborates annually with Foreign Policy magazine to produce the report. The index was first published in 2005, and countries are judged by twelve metrics, including refugee movement, economic development, history of violence, de-legitimization of the state, and others.

On the other end of the list, the least weak of the 177 countries evaluated was Norway, followed by Finland and Sweden. The US came in at number 158.

Monday, February 2, 2009

An international credit ratings agency has downgraded the creditworthiness of British bank Barclays ^LSE: BARC

The bank’s shares fell on the news that Moody’s had cut long-term debt ratings from “Aa1” to “Aa3” on the back of fears of nationalization, significant losses and write downs of more bad loans as the recession bites. The bank’s financial strength was also downgraded from “C” to “B”. Last week, another agency, Fitch, downgraded the bank one step to “AA-minus”.

Barclays is one of the few major “High Street” banks in the UK not to have taken any government capital support. The support is given in return for shares, giving the government significant – sometimes even controlling – stakes in other banks, such as Lloyds Banking Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

Moody’s said that the downgrades “reflect [our] expectation of potentially significant further losses at Barclays as a result of write-downs on credit market exposures as well as an increase in impairments in the UK, which could weaken profitability and capital ratios… [we consider] the systemic importance of the bank and the likelihood of receiving government support in case of need to be high.”

The bank has forecast a pre-tax profit of £5.3 billion for 2008. It has £36 billion in committed capital equity and expects gross write downs of £8 billion. The bank has recently been referred to the UK’s Serious Fraud Office over allegations of breaching South Africa’s foreign exchange controls, something the bank denies.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

China lifted its three-day block on 16 of the country’s Twitter-like services, including the two largest, which are Sina’s and Tencent’s microblogging sites.

China said it carried out the ban on the sites’ commenting function because microbloggers were using the sites to spread conspiracy theories and rumors about the disappearance of politican Bo Xilai on March 15. Bo was once mayor of Dalia, the party chief of Chongqing, and thought to be a likely candidate for the China’s elite Politburo Standing Committee. Bo vanished a short time after his former chief of police, Wang Lijun, had also been reported missing after he attempted to seek asylum in the United States through a consulate. The government said Wang had left due to stress. Bo’s disappearance came to light when the microbloggers posted the news. China retaliated for what it called illegal chatter about Bo’s disappearances and claims of military operations, weapons fire, and even a purported coup.

Sina and Tencent both referred to the government’s action in statements as a “cleaning up” period. As many as 700 million subscribers were unable to comment on posts during the period of the block, although they were still able to write new messages and forward messages to others. The talk persisted through those two functions, especially the forwarding of messages. The block was not the only fallout from the incident as six people were taken into custody for fabrication and others were brought in for questioning.

Monday, September 30, 2019

On Friday in Pakistan, Mohammed Waseem, brother of social media personality and feminist Qandeel Baloch, was sentenced for her murder to life in prison by a court in Multan. Waseem confessed to killing his sister by strangling her in 2016 in what has widely been called an honor killing. She was 26.

Baloch and Waseem’s mother, Anwar, wept upon hearing her son had been convicted and said she believed he was innocent. In August, the parents tried to have Waseem released by saying they forgave him for the killing. Until recently, Pakistani law allowed the perpetrators of honor killings to go unpunished if forgiven by the victim’s family.

Even though Waseem confessed to acting alone, several alleged accomplices, including Muslim cleric Mufti Abdul Qawi, were tried by the same court. All, including Qawi, were acquitted. Baloch was murdered a few weeks after publicly posting pictures of herself with Qawi on the Internet, and Qawi drew criticism for associating with her. Qawi was later accused of inciting the murder in some way, which he denied. Some of Qawi’s supporters threw flower petals as he was leaving the courthouse.

Waseem appeared in a news conference after his 2016 arrest in which he expressed no regret for his sister’s death and specifically mentioned family honor. He has since said his initial confession was forced.

“As women we must stand up for ourselves. As women we must stand up for each other[,]” Baloch wrote on social media shortly before her death. “I believe I am a modern day feminist.”

Qandeel Baloch made videos and social media posts depicting her dancing, singing, lying in bed or, on one occasion, offering to disrobe if Pakistan defeated India in a then-upcoming cricket match, all of which are considered controversial for women in Pakistan.

When Baloch was born, about 250 miles (400 km) southwest of Lahore, she was Fouzia Azeem, daughter to a poor farming family. At the time of her murder, Qandeel Baloch, nicknamed the “Kim Kardashian of Pakistan,” had about 750,000 followers on Facebook, and wrote about feminism. In an interview with Dawn, she said as a teenager she was forced into an abusive marriage by her family. She also said that her much-older husband attempted to disfigure her with acid. Baloch ran away from the marriage to a shelter with her son but later returned the boy to her husband when she could not support him.

Since Baloch’s death, Pakistan’s laws about honor killings have changed. Though the accused can still avoid the death penalty if forgiven by the victim’s family, the minimum prison sentence for the crime even if forgiven is now 25 years. Waseem is eligible to appeal.