Impromptu 6

7/29/2019 Impromptu 6

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The psychology of scarcityDays late, dollars shortThose with too little have a lot on their mind

Aug 31st 2013 |From the print edition

Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. By

Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir. Times Books;

288 pages; $28. Allen Lane; 20. Buy from

Amazon.com,Amazon.co.uk

THE authors of this book both study people for a

livingoften people who lack money. They may be

vegetable sellers in Chennai, India, who borrow money

at dawn and repay with exorbitant interest at dusk. Or

they may be ill-paid office managers, like Shawn from Cleveland, Ohio, who lives from pay cheque to pay

cheque, always finding that there is more month than money.

Surprisingly the authors see a lot of themselves in their subjects. As successful academics, neither lacks

money (Sendhil Mullainathan, an economist at Harvard, won a $500,000 genius grant from the MacArthur

Foundation before he turned 30). But they do lack time. The way Mr Mullainathan feels about his professional

obligations mirrors the way Shawn felt about his financial liabilities. He has been known to miss deadlines, just

as Shawn missed bill payments. Mr Mullainathan has double-booked meetings, promising time he has alreadycommitted; Shawn similarly bounced checks. Both were too busy putting out fires to prevent them from flaring

up, and both fell prey to fresh temptations. Shawn was seduced by a leather jacket at an unbeatable price; Mr

Mullainathan accepted an unmissable invitation to write about people like Shawn.

There is a distinctive psychology of scarcity, argues Mr Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir, a psychologist at

Princeton University. Peoples minds work differently when they feel they lack something. And it does not

greatly matter what that something is. Anyone who feels strapped for money, friends, time or calories is likely

to succumb to a similar scarcity mindset.

This mindset brings two benefits. It concentrates the mind on pressing needs. It also gives people a keener

sense of the value of a dollar, minute, calorie or smile. The lonely, it turns out, are better at deciphering

expressions of emotion. Likewise, the poor have a better grasp of costs.

This scarcity mindset can also be debilitating. It shortens a persons horizons and narrows his perspective,

creating a dangerous tunnel vision. Anxiety also saps brainpower and willpower, reducing mental bandwidth,

as the authors call it. Indian sugarcane farmers score worse on intelligence tests before the harvest (when they

are short of cash) than after. Feeling poor lowers a persons IQ by as much as a night without sleep. Anxieties
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about friendlessness have a similar effect. In one experiment a random group of people were told that their

results on a personality test suggested a life of loneliness. This random subset subsequently performed worse

on intelligence tests and found it harder to resist the chocolate-chip cookies provided for them.

By making people slower witted and weaker willed, scarcity creates a mindset that perpetuates scarcity, the

authors argue. In developing countries too many of the poor neglect to weed their crops, vaccinate their

children, wash their hands, treat their water, take their pills or eat properly when pregnant. Ingenious schemes

to better the lot of the poor fail because the poor themselves often fail to stick to them. The authors describe

these shortcomings as the elephant in the roomwhich poverty researchers ignore because it is

disrespectful to the people they are trying to help. But if these so-called character flaws are a consequence of

poverty, and not just a cause of it, then perhaps they can be faced and redressed.

The authors discuss a range of solutions to the psychological pratfalls of scarcity. These include pill bottles that

glow when they have been neglected, and savings cards displayed near supermarket tills, like lottery tickets,

but which transfer the money impulsively spent on them into the persons savings account.

Some of these practical antidotes are not new. But the books unified theory of the scarcity mentality is novel in

its scope and ambition. This theory has a lot of moving parts, perhaps too many. (The scarcity mindset yields a

focus dividend, which is offset by a tunnel-vision tax and a bandwidth tax; this can be relieved by slack,

but although slack relieves scarcity, abundance creates a dangerous complacency). It is, however, easy to

enjoy the books many vignettes and insights, leaving it to others with more bandwidth to fit it all together.

From the print edition: Books and arts
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Islamic fundamentalismStories of zealotryFundamentalism is a serious problem, but so is Islamophobia

Aug 31st 2013 |From the print edition

A person, not a problem

Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories From the Fight Against

Muslim Fundamentalism. By Karima Bennoune.W.W. Norton; 402 pages;

$27.95 and 17.99. Buy from Amazon.com,Amazon.co.uk

ISLAMIC fundamentalism is more destructive than most people in the West canpossibly imagine, but so is Western Islamophobia. That essentially is the thesisKarima Bennoune lays out in Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here, which examinesIslamic zeal throughout the Muslim world, from the Horn of Africa to her nativeMaghreb to Russia.

Her reporting is diligent, passionate and convincing. Originally from Algeria but now a law professor at theUniversity of California, Ms Bennounes strongest stories are also her most bitterly personal, about the war thatravaged her homeland throughout the 1990s after the army stopped Islamists taking power. With courage andempathy, she takes readers to hardscrabble streets where Islamist militias unleashed a wave of almostindiscriminate butchery. She meets a woman who lost her husband and then six of her nine children; anewspaper publisher who returned from a funeral to find his offices blown up but still puts out a paper the nextday; a nurse who lies at home helplessly after being paralysed by a rocket attack.

Whether by interviewing exiles (Iranians and Somalis in America) or through touring benighted war zones, MsBennoune presents similarly harrowing tales from across the Muslim world. She shows that most of the victimsof violent fundamentalism are themselves Muslim. Her subjects are people who found dignity and meaning inIslam, often as part of a rich local culture, but who were branded as backsliders or apostates by an invasivespecies of zealotry.

Readers may pine for more analysis and fewer grisly anecdotes. But Ms Bennoune is clear about some things.The West, she argues, generally underestimates the deviousness and destructiveness of Islamist movements,whether they use bullets, ballot boxes or both. She has no time for Westerners who justify the MuslimBrotherhood and its ilk as valid expressions of an aggrieved culture. Nor can she abide people who see allMuslims as global adversaries, as if a ban on sharia law in the American Midwest would make the world asafer place.

She is not alone in noticing that Western responses to Islamic troubles often fall into one of two traps: theyeither blame the religion or blame the West for stunting the Muslim world. But this raises the question of whatan appropriate response to Islamic travails should look like. Ms Bennoune seems to imply that the West would

do well to encourage non-fundamentalist readings of Islam. If the weed of fundamentalism cannot be uprooted,then it is wise to make sure that the other plants in the garden are in good health.

From the print edition: Books and arts
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Striking Syria

Hold onAug 31st 2013, 23:26 by J.P.P. | WASHINGTON, DC

WASHINGTON has emptied for the Labor Day weekend: the

politicos have obeyed the eternal demand that they should see

something of life beyond the Beltway, while those who stayed

behind are mostly concerned with such important matters as

the state of the ligaments holding together the right knee of the

Redskins star quarterback. One thing that had been thought

immune to this general torpor was Americas response to the

use of chemical weapons in Syria, where 1,429 people were

killed in a single attack on August 21st. The aircraft carriers and submarines were in place, the Tomahawk

missiles readied and the president would, rumour suggested, give the order to go before Sunday turned into

Monday. Instead, Barack Obama stood in the Rose Garden on August 31st and explained that he was going

to wait until Congress had its say, which means that Americas response will not come before the recess

ends on September 9th.

Mr Obamas speech was both powerful and characteristically Obama-ish. He began by echoing his secretary

of state, John Kerry, who on August 30th had explained why Americas intelligence agencies were convinced

that the Syrian regime was responsible for the attacks. He argued that the Syrian regimes actions were an

affront to human dignity and, since a plea to launch cruise missiles for humanitarian reasons might sound

discordant, added that striking Syria was in Americas national interest. A decision to do nothing would, heargued, end the countrys credibility when it came to its other interests, such as preventing Iran from getting a

nuclear weapon.

Then came the switchback. In the past few days many members of Congress have demanded a say on what

America should do in Syria, claiming that denying them the chance to do so would be downright

unconstitutional. While in some cases this was just another opportunity to attack the president, there is a real

argument buried within for those who enjoy musing on whether there is a difference between taking military

action (which presidents can do) and declaring war (which is the preserve of Congress). In the Rose Garden

Mr Obama asserted that he had the authority to order the strikes and that he was sure that this is what

America should do. Even so, he was going to ask Congress for its approval first.

Mr Obama has made a habit of such contortions. Thus Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who

leaked details of Americas spying to the Guardiannewspaper, is, in Mr Obamas telling, a traitor who

nevertheless prompted a useful debate (which the president was planning to have anyway), even though the

subject of that debate would not have been public had Mr Snowden not made it so. In the case of Syria the

manoeuvre is politically clever. It also comes with the added merit that it will force congressmen, however
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briefly, to behave like grown-ups. But it risks creating a problem for Mr Obama further down the line. If he is

convinced that America should act and convinced that he has the authority to order that action, what does he

do if Congress votes against him?

That seems unlikely, but it is not impossible. A recent poll for NBC (with a small sample of just 291) suggests

that America leans towards supporting missile strikes to discourage further use of chemical weapons (the split

is 50% for and 44% against, with the rest undecided). If that is inconclusive it does at least suggest that voters

are persuadable. Even so, the vote will pose an interesting test for the two parties. For Democrats, it will be an

examination of the strength of anti-war feeling: after all, firing rockets around the Middle East is the sort of thing

that George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld do. For the GOP it will be the first war vote since the emergence of

the tea-party strand of Republicanism, which contains within it both a thread of Team America

neoconservativism and one whose dearest wish is to be left alone by the world.

Meanwhile in Syria, where over 100,000 people have already been killed, the shelling and the shooting

continue. One part of Mr Obamas speech is impossible to argue with: given that the West has been watching

Syrians kill each other for two years, waiting an extra ten days to intervene is unlikely to make much difference.

(Photo credit: AFP)
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Faith, freedom and the lawTwo judgments, one problem

Jul 17th 2013, 15:38 by B.C.

IN EVERY liberal democracy, there is a hard trade-off

between individual rights and the freedom of religious

bodies to follow their own practices, and exercise what is

sometimes called "religious autonomy". As a huge body ofjurisprudence shows, this is a dilemma which has no final

answer; instead there is a never-ending attempt to find the

right balance. That is what keeps Erasmus busy.

Two important test cases have laid bare the latest judicial thinking, in America and Europe

respectively, about this perpetual problem. The European one, as I mentioned a few days ago,

concerned an attempt by Romanian priests and church workers to set up a trade union. The

European Court of Human Rights concluded that the Romanian state, acting at the church

hierarchy's behest, had been justified in refusing to register the union.

The biggest American case in the recentish past concerned a teacher employed by a Lutheran

church in Michigan to teach religion and other subjects at a school; she took disability leave and

could not regain her old job because it had been filled in her absence. In the church's parlance,

the fact that Cheryl Perich taught scripture and led students in prayer qualified her to be

described as a minister. So a bitter dispute between a teacher who lost her job and her

employers gradually became a test of religious bodies' freedom to hire and fire ministers as they

saw fit. In a ruling last year, the Supreme Court vindicated the Hosanna-Tabor church. It

accepted that given the constitution's guarantee of the "free exercise" of religion, religious bodiesshould be free to select their own ministers.

Both verdicts upheld what conservatives see as religious freedomabove all, the freedom of

ecclesiastical bodies to organise their own affairs and set the rules for people who (presumably of

their own free will) join or serve them. But Grgor Puppinck, director of theEuropean Centre for

Law and Justice, a conservative lobby group based in Strasbourg, told me the American

judgment had sent a more reassuring signal. The Supreme Court's judgment had been

unanimous, whereas the European judges were divided. In fact, a couple of the American judges

had appended "concurring" comments in which they slightly outdid their colleagues in theirsupport for religious bodies' autonomy. Judge Clarence Thomas (pictured) said the court

shouldn't even have bothered deliberating over whether the aggrieved teacher was a "minister"; it

should simply have taken the church's word on that question.

The European judges' position was generally more nuanced; in an assertion which Mr Puppinck

regretted, they accepted that clergy worked "in the context of an employment relationship" which

might entitle them to claim certain rights.
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Marco Ventura, an Italian law-and-religion professorand columnist, offers a different perspective.

As he put it to me, arguments based on respecting "religious autonomy" are easier to make in an

American context, where religious bodies genuinely are independent of the state, than in a

European one where national churches and state structures tend to be deeply intertwined. The

religious playing-field in Europe is never level; it is almost always skewed in favour of certain

churches and certain ranks within those churches. European conservatives who frame their

arguments in terms of "religious autonomy" might soon find they were making a case forsomething they have hitherto resisteda complete separation of church and state.

Ultimately, as Mr Ventura wrote in Corriere della Sera, the Romanian case laid bare an intra-

Christian dispute, between bishops and priests, over the balance of power between the various

levels of the church hierarchy. That was a problem that church members, not the state or secular

courts, would eventually have to solveas Pope Francis seemed to accept a few days ago when

he called fora "renewal of outdated structures" in the church.

For traditionalists, respecting "religious autonomy" often seems to mean respecting the status

quo; for others, it can mean leaving open the possibility of a change in the status quo. That is why

two intelligent and well-informed people can agree on the principle of religious bodies doing

(within reason) their own thing, and disagree completely on what that implies.
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Sense of communityFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sense of community (orpsychological sense of community) is a concept incommunity psychologyandsocial psychology,

as well as in several other research disciplines, such asurban sociology, which focuses on the experience of community rather

than its structure, formation, setting, or other features.Sociologists,social psychologists,anthropologists, and others have

theorized about and carried outempirical researchon community, but thepsychologicalapproach asks questions about the

individual'sperception,understanding,attitudes,feelings, etc. about community and his or her relationship to it and to others'

participationindeed to the complete, multifaceted community experience.

In his seminal 1974 book, psychologistSeymour B. Sarasonproposed that psychological sense of community become the

conceptual center for the psychology ofcommunity, asserting that it "is one of the major bases for self-definition." By 1986 it was

regarded as a central overarching concept for community psychology (Sarason, 1986; Chavis & Pretty, 1999).

Among theories of sense of community proposed bypsychologists, McMillan & Chavis's (1986) is by far the most influential, and

is the starting point for most of the recent research in the field. It is discussed in detail below.

Definitions[edit source|editbeta]

For Sarason, psychological sense of community is "theperceptionof similarity to others, an acknowledgedinterdependencewith

others, a willingness to maintain this interdependence by giving to or doing for others what one expects from them, and the

feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure" (1974, p. 157).

McMillan & Chavis (1986) define sense of community as "a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members

matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through theircommitmentto be

together."

Gusfield (1975) identified two dimensions of community: territorial and relational. The relational dimension of community has to

do with the nature and quality of relationships in that community, and some communities may even have no discernible territoria

demarcation, as in the case of a community of scholars working in a particular specialty, who have some kind of contact and

quality of relationship, but may live and work in disparate locations, perhaps even throughout the world. Other communities may

seem to be defined primarily according to territory, as in the case ofneighborhoods, but even in such cases, proximity or shared

territory cannot by itself constitute a community; the relational dimension is also essential.

Factor analysisof their urban neighborhoodsquestionnaireyielded two distinct factors which Riger and Lavrakas (1981)

characterized as "social bonding" and "physical rootedness", very similar to the two dimensions proposed by Gusfield.
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Why Are So Many Koreans Committing Suicide?In my last post, I suggested that part of the the reason for the high rate of suicides in Korea is because of respect

culture. I mentioned this because I have seen the amount of stress that this causes in Korean people and in me when I

have dealings with many Koreans, including my wife's family.

There are, however, many factors that contribute to Korea's suicide problem that are not talked about very much. They

are often problems shared by other countries but Korea has a toxic mix of ingredients, at quite a high potency, like no

other country.

So here are the reasons, I believe, Koreans are killing themselves in greater numbers than any other country in the

world, barring Lithuania, and in OECD members are comfortably atop the league table by a worryingly clear margin.

1. Respect Culture

I wrote about this in last weeks post but it is worth reiterating the situation here.

I think it is fair to say that unless you spend everyday with your mates, you are going to need to have interactions with

others of different ages and positions. Of course, we all tend to respect authority and age world-wide, but when we

really have issues or grievances that we need to air, we do it. Think of a time when you had a problem with a superior a

work or an older person, it is stressful.

But because of the senior expectation for respect, and the entitlement it is perceived as giving them, these troubles are

not only more stressful when you get into them in Korea, but are by orders of magnitude more frequent in

occurrence. People of higher status use the culture's respect practices to belittle, bully, and promote themselves and

the saddest thing is that this doesn't only happen when people are at work but it also hits them when they come home

to their family as well.

Where is a person's freedom when they have to constantly bend to the will of someone else? Obedience is commanded

at work and at home, saying 'no' to a senior person's requests is simply not acceptable. I have personally done this a

few times both at my job and with my in-laws and the friction and strife it causes is incredible. I usually have three

options; I either lie, play the foreigner-card, or give in to their demands, honesty is not an option. Korean people only

have two options; give in to demands or lie, and I am frequently shocked about just how much of family life in Korea - as

I have experienced it - revolves around lying and denial.

This stuff bugs the hell out of me, yet I have the foreigner-card up my sleeve and play it regularly, heaven knows how

Korean people cope. I do sometimes wonder in a certain amount of awe how patient and compliant they can be

without simply flipping-out and going crazy. (Hang on, what's this post about again?)

2. Pressure

As a high school teacher in Korea, I know all about the pressure heaped on my poor students. It is not only the country'

obsession with education and the role a high-paid job plays in measures of success and status, but the family again has amassive role to play.

When I asked my students the other week, 'What are you scared of?' - in a lesson on fears - by far the most common

answer was, 'My mother!' Fair enough, many of these replies were tongue-in-cheek, but many a true word is said in

jest. At any age, I cannot ever imagine replying to a question about what I was scared of with the answer, 'My mother',

but maybe I just have a nice mum.

I am afraid, though, that this is a small sign of the level of expectancy parents place upon their children, which is felt

right up until their death. Their children must not only provide for them economically when they are older but also

make them proud and give them something to boast about to their friends (no joke this is what happens in my


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experience). I have often wondered - rather distastefully, I admit - whether some Korean people are relieved when thei

parents pass-away, I think I would be in the same situation.

This attitude has fueled the over-bearing education system, competition for jobs, and the already high pressure created

culturally to submit to the employer's will, being the elder and superior. Employer's understand just how important job

are to people for these reasons (over and above the need for money, like everywhere else) and they take advantage of

it. There is a real need to protect employees rights in this country because of this, as currently many employers do as

they please, demanding a level of subjugation from their employees that is totally uncalled for.

3. Working Hours

I used to think this was a major factor in suicides but I am now not so sure, although it certainly can't help.

Korean people work some of the longest hours in the world. However, I don't think it is so much the stress of time spen

at work as the stress of relationships within the working environment that is the real issue. The fact is that the longer

you spend at work, the longer you have to spend in the company of people you have to respect, take abuse from, and b

generally be submissive to, like I mentioned earlier.

Working hours and lack of holiday do, however, contribute to feelings of discontents because of the lack of time to relax

and spend with loved ones. When you spend your whole life grinding away at work and rarely experiencing anythingelse and not seeing those you love, it is easy to see how this could push people over the edge also.

4. Concerns About Status

In my post'Brand Namesand Status Games'I went over just how important it is for people that they are seen as better

than somebody else. It motivates many of us all over the world and it is something that, when we feel it, we often

castigate ourselves for because we know that jealousy is not the path to happiness. It really does amaze me how huge a

part status plays in Korean culture, though, and plays a massive role in personal debt because of the need to show their

wealth and prosperity to others, even if they don't have it. I have been present while my in-laws socialise with friends

they have known since high school and there always seems to be a constant battle for one upmanship, it dominates

most conversations.

If you are constantly feeling like others are more successful or happier than you, this is another guaranteed path to

unhappiness and if you throw in a big credit card bill caused by funding trinkets for your insecurity, things don't get any

better.

5. Traditions

Many religions have a taboo on suicides and as religion has often played a key role in shaping present culture, this might

also have an effect on just how powerful the urge is to contemplate suicide. Korea has many Christians and Buddhists

but traditionally it is Confucian and this is what drives much of what you see around you everyday in Korea regarding

cultural practices. The concept of 'Han' is another part of the equation; a deep feeling of anger, resentment when facindifficult situations that is buried deep in the Korean cultural psyche.

"When a situation is bad and they can't show their cool selves, Koreans tend to get frustrated, give up and take drastic

choices," Hwang Sang-min, a professor of psychology at Yonsei University.

I am by no means an expert on this, but maybe this does play a role in making suicide, culturally, an easier and more

appealing option.

6. Rapid Change and the Erosion of Traditional Values
http://smudgem.blogspot.kr/2012/11/brand-names-and-status-games.htmlhttp://smudgem.blogspot.kr/2012/11/brand-names-and-status-games.htmlhttp://smudgem.blogspot.kr/2012/11/brand-names-and-status-games.htmlhttp://smudgem.blogspot.kr/2012/11/brand-names-and-status-games.html


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This is a commonly stated reason for the high suicide rate in Korea, especially among Korean intellectuals, but also

seems to make a fair bit of sense.

Far from the gradual loss of traditional values in the face of modernity, I strongly believe that it is the refusal to adapt to

the changes in culture and to stubbornly persist with traditional ways that is causing all the problems. Troublesome

traditions are often kept in the name of 'Korean culture', respect culture being the most obvious.

Older people commit suicide for different reasons to the young; they have expectations of their family to adhere to

tradition values and when they don't, it is all too much, especially when they don't see them very often or provide forthem when they are older. Older people rely heavily on their children to make them happy, they really are everything to

them. This is sweet but relying on such a narrow focus for your happiness is trouble in the making if your children don't

follow your wishes or, heaven forbid, perish before you do.

For young people, the modern pressures of longer working hours, big business deals, buying nice things, and imported

Western ideals mean it is harder for them to adhere to the traditional values their parents expect.

Many of the problems can be summed up between the clash of modern Capitalism with ancient Confucianism, especiall

when it comes to business and people's status obsession with buying shiny new things to impress others.

7. Koreans Like To Drown Their Sorrows

Koreans drink a lot, amazingly even more than the British (and that is going some). People all over the world like to

drown their sorrows in a bar after work but Koreans, with all of these issues, take it to a new level. Alcohol, although

appearing to make things better, never actually works and is often a sure-fire way to worsen a situation or help those

with the option of suicide in the back of their minds take the next step to contemplate and carry out the

unthinkable. This is something I have noticed with the Koreans close to me, they tend to drink a lot when they are

stressed and depressed. Not a good option.

8. Freedom

I have had conversations with many people both Koreans and non-Koreans who say that being free to do what you

choose and express yourself is not that important to Korean people. They tolerate the situations that frustrate

Westerners because they just do not feel the same way as us when their elders, bosses, and family members strip away

their personal liberty. I have no study to point to, but in my experience this is total utter hogwash.

Westerners have principles to back up their feelings of inner turmoil when someone tries to take away their freedom

but I am confident that, inside, Korean people's blood boils just the same, they have merely learnt to suppress it -

although not altogether convincingly sometimes. I see the pain on their faces when they are forced to do something

they would rather not, that is unreasonable and that a Westerner wouldn't have to do, they are actually pretty bad

actors when you know what to look for, it is just that their tormentors don't really care that much if they like it or not as

long as they do it.

Many of the previous factors; respect, pressure, working hours, traditional values, and status all work together to

restrict personal freedoms.

Make no mistake, people all around the world feel the same pressures as I have listed above: We all have to show

respect for people we don't like, we all have social pressures, we all go to work for longer than we would like, we all

have concerns about how other people see us, some of us drown our sorrows with a drink or two, and most people

are not as free as they would like to be. But in Korea each of these areas is extreme and beyond anything most of us

would normally experience. It has baffled me personally how Koreans deal with this stuff every day. The history, and

rapid change pile on the likelihood of suicide becoming a viable option for people and it is these factors that are

commonly stated as the major reasons. History is surely a massive influence but the historical effect of 'Han' on the


12/5912 | P a g e

Korean mindset for suicide covers up the fact that people must also be genuinely unhappy, to begin with, to end their

life.

Despite the criticisms I have of Korean culture, I really admire how the Korean people have the ability to soak this all

up. The unfortunate thing is that they lash-out by taking their lives too often. The suicide rate is not just 'one of those

things' it is a crisis shouting out for a change in the way people are living their lives.

In research for this post, I have looked at several articles on online news websites, none have given a convincing set of

reasons for suicides in Korea, many say it is a mystery, especially considering the rise of the economy, or that it is a

complicated and mysterious problem. Well then, somebody best get working on it, shouldn't they? South Korea has

topped the list of OECD countries for suicide for the last 8 years, it is not a new problem, so it needs to be addressed an

I see precious little being done. They only theorise that rapid change has caused some clashes with traditional values,

well obviously, details would be nice.

Reasons 5 and 6 are the ones most favoured by Korean intellectuals, but they are also the ones which either point the

finger at outside influences (6) or mask the problem by inferring it is not because people are less happy than other

countries, it is just they have different ways of dealing with stress (5). These sound like the easiest of reasons to brush

off suicides in Korea as something which cannot be helped.

If you think what I have written above on this sensitive subject is harsh on Korean culture, perhaps you are right andmaybe I am wrong in my observations, but the reason I write this way is because I am outraged and upset. People are

people, no matter where you live. If Britain had a massive problem with suicides I would be asking tough questions too

(indeed I do ask tough questions about my culture regarding general thuggery and drunken behaviour), but why should

only care about people from my own nation? I do care about Koreans (my wife in particular and also my students), I am

frustrated about certain aspects of their culture on their behalf as much as anything else, especially as I can manage a

pass out of some of the more awkward and troublesome situations. I hope this comes across in when I attack certain

aspects about what is happening in Korea.


13/5913 | P a g e

THAI AUTHORITIES IMPLICATED IN MUSLIM SMUGGLING NETWORK

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS - Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban last

year for demanding education for girls, marked her 16th birthday with a passionate speech at the

United Nations on Friday in which she said education could change the world.

"Let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one

pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution," said Yousafzai, speaking out

for the first time since she was attacked.

Wearing a pink head scarf, Yousafzai told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and nearly 1,000

students attending an international Youth Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York that education

was the only way to improve lives.

Yousafzai was shot at close range by gunmen in October as she left school in Pakistan's Swat Valley,

northwest of the country's capital Islamabad. She was targeted for her campaign against the IslamistTaliban efforts to deny women education.

"They shot my friends too. They thought that the bullets would silence us. But they failed and out of

that silence came thousands of voices," she said to cheers from the students gathered at U.N. hall.

"The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in

my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born," a

confident Yousafzai said.

She wore a white shawl draped around her shoulders that had belonged to former Pakistani Prime

Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated during a 2007 election rally weeks after she returned

to Pakistan from years in self-imposed exile.

"I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban

or any other terrorist group. I'm here to speak up for the right of education for every child," she said.

"I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists," she

said. "I do not even hate the talib who shot me. Even if there is a gun in my hand and he stands in

front of me, I would not shoot him."

Yousafzai presented Ban with a petition signed by some 4 million people in support of 57 million

children around the world who are not able to go to school. It demanded that world leaders fund new

teachers, schools and books and end child labor, marriage and trafficking.

Ban said that the United Nations was committed to a target of getting all children in school by the end

of 2015.


14/5914 | P a g e

"No child should have to die for going to school. Nowhere should teachers fear to teach or children

fear to learn. Together, we can change this picture," he said. "Together, let us follow the lead of this

brave young girl, Malala."

TIRED OF WAR

U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said Friday's

event was not just a celebration of Malala's birthday and of her recovery, but of her vision.

He invoked "her dream that nothing, no political indifference, no government inaction, no

intimidation, no threats, no assassin's bullets should ever deny the right of every single child ... to be

able to go to school."

Brown described Yousafzai's recovery from the attack as a miracle. The teenager was treated in

Pakistan before the United Arab Emirates provided an air ambulance to fly her to Britain, where

doctors mended parts of her skull with a titanium plate.

Unable to safely return to Pakistan, Yousafzai enrolled in a school in Birmingham, England in March.Her mother wiped away tears on Friday as she watched her daughter thank all those who helped save

her life.

Pakistan has 5 million children out of school, a number only surpassed by Nigeria, which has more

than 10 million children out of school, according to the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assassination attempt on Yousafzai, calling her efforts pro-

Western. Two of her classmates were also wounded.

The Pakistan Taliban, formally called the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), formed in 2007, is an

umbrella group uniting various militant factions operating in the volatile northwestern tribal areas

along the porous border with Afghanistan.

Under Taliban rule in neighboring Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, women were forced to cover up

and were banned from voting, most work and leaving their homes unless accompanied by a husband

or male relative.

"The extremists were and they are afraid of books and pens, the power of education frightens them.

They are afraid of women," Yousafzai said. "When we were in Swat ... we realized the importance ofpens and books when we saw the guns."

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Vicki Allen and David Storey)


15/5915 | P a g e

Echoes of NasserNearly 60 years ago, Egypt's generals tried to crush the Muslim Brotherhood. It didnt go well.

BY STEVEN A. COOK|JULY 16, 2013

It was October 26, 1954, and Gamal Abdel

Nasser was regaling a crowd gathered in

Alexandria's Manshiya Square. A MuslimBrother named Mahmoud Abdel Latif squeezed

through the crowd and fired eight shots at the

Egyptian leader, all of them missing. Perhaps

Abdel Latif was a poor marksman or perhaps, as

many have since wondered, the assassination

attempt was staged -- whatever the case, Nasser

went on to finish his speech to the thunderous

approval of his audience. The extraordinary

boost in popularity that the failed assassination

attempt gave Nasser and his military comrades provided the regime with wide latitude to crush the

Muslim Brotherhood: In Cairo, activists soon destroyed the Brotherhood's headquarters, while near the

Suez Canal, regime supporters sacked Brotherhood-affiliated businesses.

Nasser used the "Manshiya incident," as it came to be known, to justify repression of the Brotherhood.

Three days after Abdel Latif missed him, Nasser denounced Supreme Guide Hassan al-Hudaybi; the press,

meanwhile, warned darkly that the Brotherhood's paramilitary organization -- al-jihaz al-sirri("the secret

apparatus") -- sought to topple the regime.

For the remainder of the Nasser era, the Brothers were either underground or imprisoned. This rendered

the Islamists a non-factor in Egyptian politics for the next two decades -- but the showdown in 1954

between Egypt's generals and the Muslim Brotherhood would have a profound impact on Egyptian politics

for decades to come.

It's possible to read too much into the comparisons between 1954 and 2013. No one in today's Egypt has

tried to assassinate anyone -- at least not yet, thankfully. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is not Nasser, though he

seems to be coming into his own. But even taking into consideration the vast differences, the political

dynamics of July 2013 are eerily similar to October 1954, which does not bode well for Egypt's stability,

not to mention its democratic development.

After the attempt on Nasser's life, the Muslim Brotherhood's leadership was rounded up and placed before

kangaroo courts. A "people's tribunal" presided over by officers Salah Salim, Hussein Shafei, and future

President Anwar Sadat sentenced the supreme guide and eight others to death, though the verdicts were

all commuted to life sentences. An additional 1,100 Brothers were also jailed, while another 1,000 were

incarcerated without being charged.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/16/echoes_of_nasser_egypt_muslim_brotherhood_historyhttp://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/16/echoes_of_nasser_egypt_muslim_brotherhood_history


16/5916 | P a g e

But while Nasser and the military could repress the Brothers and shatter their political power, they were

unable to erase entirely the principles and ideas that animated the organization. Within Egypt's prisons,

debates raged between the Brotherhood's rank-and-file and leadership about the identity of their enemy,

and from where legitimacy to govern stems.

It was during this time in prison that Sayyid Qutb, the one-time minor Ministry of Education official who had

become the head of the Brotherhood's propaganda section, began laying the groundwork for a more radical and

uncompromising Islamism. During his imprisonment, he revised his eight-volume magnum opusIn the

Shadow of the Quran and excerpted much of it in his 1964Milestones Along the Way, which he wrote

specifically for a Muslim Brotherhood vanguard who sought his guidance during their

imprisonment.Milestoneswould become an inspiration for generations of extremists.

The growing extremism of Brotherhood members of that era carries a grim suggestion of what could be next for

Egypt -- but more relevant is the narrative that developed among the Brotherhood's mainstream as a result of

their experiences in the 1950s and 1960s. After his arrest, Supreme Guide Hudaybi's primary concern was thesurvival of the Brotherhood: He first tolerated Qutb's activism for that reason, though ultimately distancing

himself from the Islamist firebrand and his radicalized followers over a variety of doctrinal and political issues.

What's more, the Islamists's prison experience helped crystallize their view of the Egyptian military elite as a

politically corrupt, irreligious, and fundamentally illegitimate regime.

For Nasser and his fellow Free Officers, bringing down the Brotherhood -- which had been an ally of

sorts -- was critical to consolidating their power and advancing their political agenda. In the process,

however, they helped create a dedicated and widely influential opposition. The ensuing strugglebetween the Muslim Brothers and the Egyptian state -- despite moments of accommodation -- has

been one of the major pathologies both destabilizing Egyptian politics and used to justify the

authoritarian nature of the political system for six decades now.

In the aftermath of the July 3 military intervention and the subsequent crackdown on the Brothers,

the same risks for Egypt's political maturation are evident today. In a sad replay of history, Prosecutor

General Hisham Barakathas issued arrest warrantsfor a who's who of high profile Brothers:

Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie; his predecessor, Mahdi Akef; and such well-known figures in the

West like Essam el-Erian. The charges include spying, killing protesters, inciting violence, possession

of weapons, and breaking out of prison. Meanwhile, former President Mohammed Morsy remains in

military custody -- not so far charged with a crime, but out of the political game nonetheless. There

are also lawsuits seeking the dissolution of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.

The Brotherhood's determination to resist such moves adds a new and potentially dangerous factor to

Egyptian politics. In fact, these efforts to undermine the movement may actually give it new life at a
http://en.aswatmasriya.com/news/view.aspx?id=00ba6602-960f-44a9-af98-51064add0c24http://en.aswatmasriya.com/news/view.aspx?id=00ba6602-960f-44a9-af98-51064add0c24http://en.aswatmasriya.com/news/view.aspx?id=00ba6602-960f-44a9-af98-51064add0c24http://en.aswatmasriya.com/news/view.aspx?id=00ba6602-960f-44a9-af98-51064add0c24


17/5917 | P a g e

moment when it is at its weakest. A narrative of victimhood that runs from October 1954 to July 2013

is a powerful mechanism of mobilization for the Brothers's base: The organization is already talking

about a "culture of oppression," and can add this latest episode to their narrative about the injustice o

contemporary Egyptian politics.

The only hope, according to some supporters of the coup and leading members of the new

government, is "to bring the Muslim Brothers into the political process." Even if these kinds of

declarations were not dripping in hypocrisy -- the same figures just spearheaded an effort to

forciblyremove the Brotherhood from the process -- the Brothers's best strategy is to stay outside the

political game and agitate against what they believe to be the fundamental illegitimacy of it. This will

only add further instability to Egyptian politics, auguring more force, more arrests, and ultimately,

authoritarian measures to establish political control.

There's always the risk that repression may produce splits and radicalized offshoots of the

Brotherhood, but the longer-term consequences of July 3 are likely political. The precedent of pushingan elected president from power -- no matter how contested the election or unpopular the president --

suspending the constitution, and potentially banning political parties sets a dangerous precedent for

Egypt's future. Morsy and his colleagues were intent on creating institutions that enhanced their

power, which makes them no different from political and economic elites the world over. But what

happens the next time a group of people determine they do not like their political chances? The July 3

military intervention could grow into a dangerous precedent for using authoritarian measures to alter

Egyptian politics.

Morsy and the Brotherhood proved to be incompetent in government, but the real problem going

forward may be the ease with which Egyptians believe they can disregard the political rules of the

game. This will ultimately make it easier for authoritarians to rig the political system in their favor, all

in the name of order and stability. As those who follow Egyptian history well know, it's happened

before.

Even as many welcomed Sisi's move against Morsy and the Brotherhood as a way forward for

Egyptian politics, the echoes of the past are ever-present. Egyptians might want to keep in mind that

in October 1954, Egypt's generals rewrote the British-era military regulation as part of their effort to

ensure their power after the confrontation with the Brotherhood. The revision expanded the powers o

the military and became the forerunner of the Emergency Law of 1958 -- a symbol of tyranny that

survived until Hosni Mubarak's era, and which provided a legal veneer for his crackdown on Islamist

and non-Islamist opponents alike.


18/5918 | P a g e

Cum ar arta economia Romniei dac s-ar reunifica

cu Republica Moldova

18 iul 2013Autori:Iulian Anghel ,Andrei Crchelan

Exerciiu de imaginaie: Romnia ar avea un PIB mai mare cu 5,5 mld. euro, exporturi mai mari cu 2,5 mld. euro iaproape 24 mil. locuitori.

Eventuala unire a Romniei cu Republica Moldova ar aduce Romniei un plus de 3,7 mil. locuitori, o cretere aPIB de 5,5 mld. euro (4,2% din PIB-ul Romniei) i un plus de suprafa de aproape 34.000 km ptrai. nacelai timp, PIB-ul per/capita al noii Romnii ar scdea la 5.700 de euro, avnd n vedere c PIB-ul percapita n Romnia a fost n 2012 de aproximativ 6.700 de euro, n vreme ce al Republicii Moldova de doar1.500 de euro.

n aceeai vreme, pe datele din 2012, exporturile Romniei ar fi fost mai mari cu 2,5 mld. euro, la 48 mld. euro

n timp ce datoria public ar fi crescut cu doar 1,7 mld. euro, fa de datoria de 52 mld. euro pe care o aveaRomnia la sfritul anului trecut. Astfel, Romnia este acum fa de Republica Moldova n situaia din 1990 aGermaniei de Vest fa de Germania de Est. Diferena de dezvoltare economic a necesitat investiii de 1.000de miliarde de mrci germane pentru a acoperi nevoile de infrastructur din Est. n plus, Romnia are nevoiede un nou obiectiv strategic dup ce a intrat n Uniunea European i NATO.

Preedintele Traian Bsescu a fost ieri ntr-o vizit la Chiinu, pentru a cincea oar n mandatul su, unde aajuns att de popular nct i s-a oferit cetenia moldoveneasc.

Tot ca un exerciiu de imaginaie, cu aceast cetenie i popularitatea de care dispune peste Prut,preedintele Traian Bsescu ar putea deveni chiar preedintele Republicii Moldova dupa 2015, dup ce i

expir al doilea mandat n Romnia (Constitutia Moldovei prevede ca presedintele trebuie sa aib, la preluareafunciei cetenie de cel puin 10 ani).

Graniele Romniei s-ar extinde cu 490 de kilometri (diferena dintre graniele Republicii Moldova cu Romniai cea cu Ucraina), iar suprafaa agricol i-ar crete cu 1,7 milioane de hectare, adic un plus de 13% fa desuprafaa agricol total a Romniei de 13 mil. ha.

Lungimea cilor ferate ar crete cu 10% (1.190 km are Republica Moldova i 11.300 km Romnia), iar cea adrumurilor cu aproape 11% (la cei 81.000 km de drumuri publice s-ar aduga cei 8.800 km de drumuri publicedin Republica Moldova). ns vorbim despre drumuri i ci ferate la fel de slab dezvoltate ca n Romnia.
http://www.zf.ro/autori/iulian-anghel-2814363/http://www.zf.ro/autori/iulian-anghel-2814363/http://www.zf.ro/autori/andrei-circhelan-6464724/http://www.zf.ro/autori/andrei-circhelan-6464724/http://www.zf.ro/autori/andrei-circhelan-6464724/http://www.zf.ro/zf-24/cum-ar-arata-economia-romaniei-daca-s-ar-reunifica-cu-republica-moldova-11129612/poze/http://www.zf.ro/autori/andrei-circhelan-6464724/http://www.zf.ro/autori/iulian-anghel-2814363/


19/5919 | P a g e

PIB-ul Republicii Moldova a fost anul trecut de 7,25 mld. dolari (5,5mld. euro), ceea ce reprezint doar 4% din PIB-ul Romniei.

PIB-ul rii vecine reprezint doar o treime din PIB-ul uneia dintre celemai srace regiuni ale Romniei, cu care se nvecineaz, RegiuneaNord-Est, cu un PIB n 2012 de 15 mld. euro.

Republica Moldova are un PIB aproape la jumtate fa de cel al

judeelor romneti cu care se nvecineaz - Botoani, Iai, Vaslui iGalai - care au avut n 2012 un PIB cumulat de 9,2 mld. euro (42 mld.lei), dei populaia lor reprezint doar dou treimi (2,1 mil. locuitori)din cea a Republicii Moldova.

n Romnia sunt judee care au, singure, un PIB mai mare dectRepublica Moldova, precum Timi, Prahova, Constana sau Cluj, darasta nu nseamn c Republica Moldova este o zon de neglijat,pentru c nu poi neglija aproape 4 milioane de consumatori i o arcare a fcut progrese importante n ultimii ani. Acest lucru a fost

neles de companiile strine care nti au venit n Romnia i apoi au trecut Prutul n Republica Moldova.

De asemenea, volumul schimburilor comerciale ntre cele dou ri sunt n medie la 1 mld. euro pe an.

Exporturile AdePlast ctre Republica Moldova s-au dublat n 2013 i ne ateptm ca tendina s se meninpn la sfritul anului. Republica Moldova face parte, istoric vorbind, din Romnia Mare, acesta fiind i unuldintre motivele pentru care am vrut s facem exporturi n aceast ar. Moldovenii prefer produsele romnetpe care le consider calitative i foartebune, spune Marcel Brbu, omul de afaceri care controleaza pro-ductorul de materiale de construcii AdePlast, cu afaceri de 41,5 mil. euro anul trecut. Brbu nu a precizatvaloarea exporturilor realizate pn acum n Republica Moldova.

Peedintele Traian Bsescu a fcut ieri o vizit la Chiinu a cincea n calitate de preedinte i, ca n toatemomentele de acest fel, ipoteza strngerii relaiilor i evocarea legturilor istorice au fost aduse n prim-plan.Cu doar cteva zile nainte, premierul Republicii Moldova Iurie Leanc venise la Bucureti unde s-a ntlnit cuomologul su Victor Ponta.

n 2010, Romnia a promis Republicii Moldova un ajutor pentru dezvoltare, pe mai muli ani, de 100 mil. euro,dar nu toi banii au ajuns la Chiinu. De asemenea, nu Romnia este cel mai mare investitor n RepublicaMoldova, dei ara se afl la doi pai, iar afinitile culturale i lingvistice sunt foarte mari.

ntr-un studiu elaborat de Ministerul Economiei i Comerului din Republica Moldova i citat de Centrul Romn

de Politici Europene, la sfritul anului 2007 investitorii din Romnia deineau o cota de 3,7% din totalulinvestiiilor strine directe n Republica Moldova, dar, la finele anului 2010, aceasta cota a ajuns la 7,6%. Ceeace se traduce prin investiii strine directe peste 225 mil. dolari, care situeaz Romnia pe locul cinci n topulinvestitorilor n Republica Moldova, ntr-un clasament condus de Olanda, Cipru, Italia i Germania.

n acelai timp, schimburile comerciale nseamn n jur de 1 mld. euro, anual Romnia a exportat anul trecutn Republica Moldova produse de 610 mil. euro i a importat de 353 mil. euro.


20/5920 | P a g e

Investitorii romni din Republica Moldova sunt, n cea mai mare parte, companiile strine intrate n Romniacare acum se extind -n special bncile - BCR, Raiffeisen Leasing, BT Leasing, dar i Rompetrol i Petrom,Metro, UTI, Romstal Trade European Drinks sau Arabesque.

Tocmai pentru c este o ar care este mai mai sraci are nevoie de investiii unii responsabili de la Chiinuse ateapt Ia o intervenie mai solid a Romniei nRepublica Moldova.

Primarul Chiinului, Dorin Chirtoac, a susinut ieri laRFI, citat de Mediafax, c, dac statul romn ar investimai mult n Republica Moldova, acest lucru ar puteaschimba percepia asupra Romniei, el propunnd caBucuretiul s ofere anual 50 de mil. euro localitilorrurale din ara vecin.

Mi-a dori mult mai mult n relaia dintre RepublicaMoldova i Romnia. Mi-a dori de exemplu ca localitile rurale, satele din Republica Moldova s beneficiezede investiii n infrastructur, aa cum beneficiaz satele din Romnia. Chiar am calculat, dac ar fi s se deafiecrui sat din Republica Moldova, fiecrei primrii, avem circa nou sute de primrii aici, dincoace de Prut,dac s-ar da cte 50 de mii de euro de la bugetul de stat al Romniei pentru aceste localiti rurale, n total arfi nevoie de circa 50 de milioane de euro anual, pentru susinere n acest sens. Din bugetul Romniei asta ar

nsemna 0,01%, nu ar fi o povar att de mare.

Traian Bsescu i omologul su moldovean Nicolae Timofti au discutat ieri la Chiinu despre posibilitateaconstruirii a dou noi poduri peste rul Prut, care ar trebui s fie amplasate n regiunea oraului Ungheni i

ntre localitile Flciu i Leca, subiect abordat i la ntlnirea dintre premierii Ponta i Leanc.

Bsescu a mai spus c proiectul interconectrii energetice Flciu-Goteti cu Republica Moldova va fi finalizat

n luna octombrie, n prezent mai fiind n lucru alte dou proiecte similare - Bli-Suceava i Ungheni-Iai-Reni.

De asemenea, la Bucureti, premierul Ponta a susinut c lucrrile la gazoductul Iai -Ungheni care va legaRomnia de Republica Moldova vor ncepe n augist i sunt finanate de Romnia.

Pentru preedintele moldovean Iai-Ungheni, este crucial pentru securitatea energetic a R. Moldova, vancepe s fie construit la sfritul lunii august, prin accesarea a 9-12 milioane de euro oferite de asemenea deGuvernul romn. Preedintele Bsescu a menionat, citat de Mediafax, posibilitatea ca pentru realizareagazoductului Iai-Ungheni s fie obinut o finanare din fonduri UE.


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MUSLIM SMUGGLING NETWORKNarunisa, a 25-year-old Rohingya woman, is reunited with her children afterreturning to a shelter for Rohingya women and children in Phang Nga June 18,2013. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

By Jason Szep and Stuart Grudgings

PADANG BESAR, Thailand (Reuters) - The beatings were

accompanied by threats: If his family didn't produce the money,Myanmar refugee Abdul Sabur would be sold into slavery on a fishing boat, his captors shouted, lashinghim with bamboo sticks.

It had been more than two months since Sabur and his wife set sail from Myanmar with 118 otherRohingya Muslims to escape violence and persecution. Twelve died on the disastrous voyage. The

survivors were imprisoned in India and then handed over to people smugglers in southern Thailand.

As the smugglers beat Sabur in their jungle hide-out, they kept a phone line open so that his relativescould hear his screams and speed up payment of $1,800 to secure his release.

"Every time there was a delay or problem with the payment they would hurt us again," said Sabur, a tall

fisherman from Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

He was part of the swelling flood of Rohingya who have fled Myanmar by sea this past year, in one of thebiggest movements of boat people since the Vietnam War ended.

Their fast-growing exodus is a sign of Muslim desperation in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, also known asBurma. Ethnic and religious tensions simmered during 49 years of military rule. But under the reformistgovernment that took power in March 2011, Myanmar has endured its worst communal bloodshed in

generations.

A Reuters investigation, based on interviews with people smugglers and more than two dozen survivors of

boat voyages, reveals how some Thai naval security forces work systematically with smugglers to profitfrom the surge in fleeing Rohingya. The lucrative smuggling network transports the Rohingya mainly into

neighboring Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country they view as a haven from persecution.

Once in the smugglers' hands, Rohingya men are often beaten until they come up with the money for theirpassage. Those who can't pay are handed over to traffickers, who sometimes sell the men as indentured

servants on farms or into slavery on Thai fishing boats. There, they become part of the country's $8 billion

seafood-export business, which supplies consumers in the United States, Japan and Europe.

Some Rohingya women are sold as brides, Reuters found. Other Rohingya languish in overcrowded Thai

and Malaysian immigration detention centers.

Reuters reconstructed one deadly journey by 120 Rohingya, tracing their dealings with smugglers through

interviews with the passengers and their families. They included Sabur and his 46-year-old mother-in-lawSabmeraz; Rahim, a 22-year-old rice farmer, and his friend Abdul Hamid, 27; and Abdul Rahim, 27, a

shopkeeper.

While the death toll on their boat was unusually high, the accounts of mistreatment by authorities and

smugglers were similar to those of survivors from other boats interviewed by Reuters.

The Rohingya exodus, and the state measures that fuel it, undermine Myanmar's carefully crafted image

of ethnic reconciliation and stability that helped persuade the United States and Europe to suspend most

sanctions.

At least 800 people, mostly Rohingya, have died at sea after their boats broke down or capsized in thepast year, says the Arakan Project, an advocacy group that has studied Rohingya migration since 2006.


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The escalating death toll prompted the United Nations this year to call that part of the Indian Ocean one of

world's "deadliest stretches of water."

EXTENDED FAMILIES

For more than a decade, Rohingya men have set sail in search of work in neighboring countries. A one-way voyage typically costs about 200,000 kyat, or $205, a small fortune by local standards. The extended

Rohingya families who raise the sum regard it as an investment; many survive off money sent from

relatives overseas.

The number boarding boats from Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh reached 34,626 people from June2012 to May of this year - more than four times the previous year, says the Arakan Project. Almost all areRohingya Muslims from Myanmar. Unprecedented numbers of women and children are making these

dangerous voyages.

A sophisticated smuggling industry is developing around them, drawing in other refugees across South

Asia. Ramshackle fishing boats are being replaced by cargo ships crewed by smugglers and teeming with

passengers. In June alone, six such ships disgorged hundreds of Rohingya and other refugees on remoteThai islands controlled by smugglers, the Arakan Project said.

Sabur and the others who sailed on the doomed 35-foot fishing boat came from Rakhine, a rugged coastalstate where Rohingya claim a centuries-old lineage. The government calls them illegal "Bengali" migrants

from Bangladesh who arrived during British rule in the 19th century. Most of the 1.1 million Rohingya ofRakhine state are denied citizenship and refused passports.

Machete-wielding Rakhine Buddhists destroyed Sabur's village last October, forcing him to abandon his

home south of Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state. Last year's communal unrest in Rakhine made 140,000homeless, most of them Rohingya. Myanmar's government says 192 people died; Rohingya activists putthe toll as high as 748.

Before the violence, the Rohingya were the poorest people in the second-poorest state of Southeast Asia's

poorest country. Today, despite Myanmar's historic reforms, they are worse off.

Tens of thousands live in squalid, disease-ridden displacement camps on the outskirts of Sittwe. Armed

checkpoints prevent them from returning to the paddy fields and markets on which their livelihoods

depend. Rohingya families in some areas have been banned from having more than two children.

Sabur's 33-member extended family spent several months wandering between camps before the familypatriarch, an Islamic teacher in Malaysia named Arif Ali, helped them buy a fishing boat. They planned tosail straight to Malaysia to avoid Thailand's notorious smugglers.

Dozens of other paying passengers signed up for the voyage, along with an inexperienced captain whosteered them to disaster.

"DYING, ONE BY ONE"

The small fishing boat set off from Myengu Island near Sittwe on February 15. The first two days went

smoothly. Passengers huddled in groups, eating rice, dried fish and potatoes cooked in small pots over

firewood. Space was so tight no one could stretch their legs while sleeping, said Rahim, the rice farmer,who like many Rohingya Muslims goes by one name.

Rahim's last few months had been horrific. A Rakhine mob killed his older brother in October and burned

his family's rice farm to the ground. He spent two months in jail and was never told why. "The chargeseemed to be that I was a young man," he said. Rakhine state authorities have acknowledged arrestingRohingya men deemed a threat to security.

High seas and gusting winds nearly swamped the boat on the third day. The captain seemed to panic,survivors said. Fearing the ship would capsize, he dumped five bags of rice and two water tanks overboard

half their supplies.


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It steadied, but it was soon clear they had another problem - the captain admitted he was lost. By

February 24, after more than a week at sea, supplies of water, food and fuel were gone.

"People started dying, one by one," said Sabmeraz, the grandmother.

The Islamic janaza funeral prayer was whispered over the washed and shrouded corpses of four womenand two children who died first. Among them: Sabmeraz's daughter and two young grandchildren.

"We thought we would all die," Sabmeraz recalled.

Many gulped sea water, making them even weaker. Some drank their own urine. The sick relievedthemselves where they lay. Floorboards became slick with vomit and feces. Some people appeared wild-eyed before losing consciousness "like they had gone mad," said Abdul Hamid.

On the morning of the 12th day, the shopkeeper Abdul Rahim wrapped his two-year-old daughter, Mozia,

in cloth, performed funeral rites and slipped her tiny body into the sea. The next morning he did the same

for his wife, Muju.

His father, Furkan, had warned Abdul Rahim not to take the two children - Mozia and her five-year-old

sister, Morja. The family had been better off than most Rohingya. They owned a popular hardware store inSittwe district. After it was reduced to rubble in the June violence, they moved into a camp.

On the night Abdul Rahim was leaving, Furkan recalls pleading with him on the jetty: "If you want to go,you can go. But leave our grandchildren with us."

Abdul Rahim refused. "I've lost everything, my house, my job," he recalls replying. "What else can I do?"

On February 28, hours after Abdul Rahim's wife died, the refugees spotted a Singapore-owned tugboat,the Star Jakarta. It was pulling an empty Indian-owned barge, the Ganpati, en route to Mumbai from

Myanmar. The refugee men shouted but the slow-moving barge didn't stop.

But as the Ganpati moved by, a dozen Rohingya men jumped into the sea with a rope. They swam to thebarge, fixed the rope and towed their boat close behind so people could board. By evening, 108 of them

were on the barge.

Mohammed Salim, a soccer-loving grocery clerk, and a young woman, both in their 20s, were too weak tomove. Close to death, they were cut adrift; the boat took on water and submerged in the rough seas.

"He was our hope," said Salim's father, Mohammad Kassim, 71, who emptied his savings to pay the

500,000 kyat ($515) cost of the journey.

Of the 12 who died on the boat, 11 were women and children.

MISTAKEN FOR PIRATES

What happened next shows how the problems of reform-era Myanmar are rapidly becoming Asia's.

The tugboat captain mistook the Rohingya for pirates and radioed for help, said Bhavna Dayal, a

spokeswoman for Punj Lloyd Group, the Indian company that owns the barge. Within hours, an IndianCoast Guard ship arrived. Officers fired into the air and ordered the Rohingya to the floor.

Rahim, the rice farmer, said he and five others were beaten with a rubber baton. With the help of some

Hindi picked up from Bollywood films, they explained they were fleeing the strife in Rakhine state. After

that, everyone received food, water and first aid, he said.

Another Indian Coast Guard ship, the Aruna Asaf Ali, arrived. It took the women and children to the

Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian archipelago a short voyage to the south, before returning for the

men.


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In Diglipur, the largest town in North Andaman Island, immigration authorities separated the men from

women and children, putting them all in cells. Guards beat them at will, Rahim said, and rummaged

through their belongings for money. He lost 60,000 kyat ($62) and hid his remaining 60,000 kyat in acrack in a wall.

Rupinder Singh, the police superintendent in Diglipur, denied anyone was beaten or robbed.

After about a month, the Rohingya were moved to a bigger detention center near the state capital Port

Blair. They joined about 300 other Muslims, mostly Rohingya from Myanmar, who had been rescued atsea. The men went on a one-day hunger strike, demanding to be sent to Malaysia.

The protest seemed to work. Indian authorities brought all 420 of them into international waters andtransferred them to a double-decker ferry, said the Rohingya passengers.

"They told us this ship would take us straight to Malaysia," said Sabur.

It was run, however, by Thailand-based smugglers, he said.

Commander P.V.S. Satish, speaking for the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard, said there was

"absolutely no truth" to the allegation that the Navy handed the Rohingya to smugglers.

After four days at sea, the Rohingya approached Thailand's southern Satun province around April 18. Theywere split into smaller boats. Some were taken to small islands, others to the mainland. The smugglersexplained they needed to recoup the 10 million kyat ($10,300) they had paid for renting the ferry.

ECONOMICS OF TRAFFICKING

Thailand portrays itself as an accidental destination for Malaysia-bound Rohingya: They wash ashore andthen flee or get detained.

In truth, Thailand is a smuggler's paradise, and the stateless Rohingya are big business. Smugglers seekthem out, aware their relatives will pay to move them on. This can blur the lines between smuggling andtrafficking.

Smuggling, done with the consent of those involved, differs from trafficking, the business of trapping

people by force or deception into labor or prostitution. The distinction is critical.

An annual U.S. State Department report, monitoring global efforts to combat modern slavery, has for thelast four years kept Thailand on a so-called Tier 2 Watch List, a notch above the worst offenders, such as

North Korea. A drop to Tier 3 can trigger sanctions, including the blocking of World Bank aid.

A veteran smuggler in Thailand described the economics of the trade in a rare interview. Each adult

Rohingya is valued at up to $2,000, yielding smugglers a net profit of 10,000 baht ($320) after bribes andother costs, the smuggler said. In addition to the Royal Thai Navy, the seas are patrolled by the Thai

Marine Police and by local militias under the control of military commanders.

"Ten years ago, the money went directly to the brokers. Now it goes to all these officials as well," said thesmuggler, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A broker in Myanmar typically sends a passenger list with a departure date to a counterpart in Thailand,

the smuggler said. Thai navy or militia commanders are then notified to intercept boats and sometimes

guide them to pre-arranged spots, said the smuggler.

The Thai naval forces usually earn about 2,000 baht ($65) per Rohingya for spotting a boat or turning a

blind eye, said the smuggler, who works in the southern Thai region of Phang Nga and deals directly withthe navy and police.

Police receive 5,000 baht ($160) per Rohingya, or about 500,000 baht ($16,100) for a boat of 100, thesmuggler said.


25/5925 | P a g e

Another smuggler, himself a Rohingya based in Kuala Lumpur, said Thai naval forces help guide boatloads

to arranged spots. He said his group maintains close phone contact with local commanders. He estimated

his group has smuggled up to 4,000 people into Malaysia in the past six months.

Relatives in Malaysia must make an initial deposit of 3,000 ringgit ($950) into Malaysian bank accounts,he said, followed by a second payment for the same amount once the refugees reach the country.

Naval ships do not always work with the smugglers. Some follow Thailand's official "help on" policy,

whereby Rohingya boats are supplied with fuel and provisions on condition they sail onward.

The Thai navy and police denied any involvement in Rohingya smuggling. Manasvi Srisodapol, a ThaiForeign Ministry spokesman, said that there has been no evidence of the navy trafficking or abusingRohingya for several years.

CAGES AND THREATS

Anti-trafficking campaigners have produced mounting evidence of the widespread use of slave labor fromcountries such as Myanmar on Thai fishing boats, which face an acute labor shortage.

Fishing companies buy Rohingya men for between 10,000 baht ($320) and 20,000 baht ($640),depending on age and strength, said the smuggler in Phang Nga. He recounted sales of Rohingya in the

past year to Indonesian and Singapore fishing firms.

This has made the industry a major source of U.S. concern over Thailand's record on human trafficking.

About 8 percent of Thai seafood exports go to supermarkets and restaurants in the United States, the

second biggest export market after Japan.

The Thai government has said it is serious about tackling human trafficking, though no government

minister has publicly acknowledged that slavery exists in the fishing industry.

Sabur, his wife Monzurah and more than a dozen Rohingya thought slavery might be their fate. The

smugglers held them on the Thai island for five weeks. The captors said they would be sold to fisheries,pig farms or plantations if money didn't arrive soon.

"We were too scared to sleep at night," said Monzurah, 19 years old.

Arif Ali, the family patriarch in Kuala Lumpur, managed to raise about $21,000 to secure the release of 19of his relatives, including his sister Sabmeraz, Sabur, and Monzurah. They were taken on foot across theborder into Malaysia in May. But 10 of the family, all men, remained imprisoned on the island as he

struggled to raise more funds.

As Ali was interviewed in early June, his cellphone rang and he had a brief, heated conversation. "They

call every day," he said. "They say if we call the police they will kill them."

Some women without money are sold as brides for 50,000 baht ($1,600) each, typically to Rohingya menin Malaysia, the Thai smuggler said. Refugees who are caught and detained by Thai authorities also face

the risk of abuse.

At a detention center in Phang Nga in southern Thailand, 269 Rohingya men and boys lived in cage-likecells that stank of sweat and urine when a Reuters journalist visited recently. Most had been there sixmonths. Some used crutches because their muscles had atrophied.

"Every day we ask when we can leave this place, but we have no idea if that will ever happen," said Faizal

Haq, 14.

They are among about 2,000 Rohingya held in 24 immigration detention centers across Thailand,according to the Thai government.

"To be honest, we really don't know what to do with them," said one immigration official who declined to

be named. Myanmar has rejected a Thai request to repatriate them.


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Dozens of Rohingya have escaped detention centers. The Thai smuggler said some immigration officials will freeRohingya for a price. Thailand's Foreign Ministry denied immigration officials take payments from smugglers.

PROMISED LAND

When Rahim, Abdul Hamid and the other Rohingya finally arrived in Thailand, smugglers met them in Satun province,which borders Malaysia.

They were herded into pickup trucks and driven to a farm, where they say they saw the smugglers negotiate with Thaipolice and immigration officials. The smugglers told them to contact relatives in Malaysia who could pay the roughly6,000 ringgit ($1,800).

"If you run away, the police and immigration will bring you back to us. We paid them to do that," the most seniorsmuggler told them, the two men recalled.

After 22 days at the farm, Rahim and Hamid escaped. It was near midnight when they darted across a field, cleared abarbed-wire fence and ran into the jungle. They wandered for a day, hungry and lost, before meeting a Burmese manwho found them work on a fruit farm in Padang Besar near the Thai-Malaysia border. They still work there today,hoping to save enough money to leave Thailand.

If the smugglers get paid, they usually take the Rohingya across southern Thailand in pickup trucks, 16 at a time,with just enough space to breathe, the smuggler in Thailand said. They are hidden under containers of fish, shrimp orother food, and sent through police checkpoints at 1,000 baht ($32) apiece, the smuggler said. Once close toMalaysia, the final crossing of the border is usually made by foot.

Abdul Rahim, the shopkeeper who lost his wife and toddler, arranged a quick payment to the smugglers from relativesin Kuala Lumpur. He was soon on a boat to Malaysia with his surviving daughter and his sister-in-law, Ruksana. Theywere dropped off around April 20 at a remote spot in Malaysia's northern Penang island.

For Abdul Rahim and many other Rohingya, Malaysia was the promised land. For most, that hope fades quickly.

At best, they can register with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and receive a card that gives themminimal legal protection and a chance for a low-paid job such as construction. While Malaysia has won praise for

accepting Rohingya refugees, it has not signed the U.N. Refugee Convention that would oblige it to give them fullerrights.

Those picked up by Malaysian authorities face weeks or months in packed detention camps, where several witnessessaid beatings and insufficient food were common. The Malaysian government did not comment on conditions in the

camps.

The UNHCR has registered 28,000 Rohingya asylum seekers out of nearly 95,000 Myanmar refugees in Malaysia,many of whom have been in the country for years. An estimated 49,000 unregistered asylum seekers can waitmonths or years for a coveted UNHCR card. The card gives asylum seekers discounted treatment at public hospitals, isrecognized by many employers, and gives protection against repatriation.

The vast majority, like Sabur, Abdul Rahim and their families, don't obtain these minimal protections. They evadedetention in the camps but live in fear of arrest.

By early July, Sabur had found temporary work in an iron foundry on Kuala Lumpur's outskirts earning about $10 aday. He will likely have to save for years to pay back the money that secured his release.

Abdul Rahim's family now lives in a small, windowless room in a city suburb. His late wife's sister, Ruksana, coughedup blood during one interview, but is afraid to seek medical help without documentation.

By early July, Abdul Rahim had married Ruksana. He was picking up occasional odd jobs through friends but wasstruggling to pay the $80 a month rent on their shabby room. Despite that, and the loss of his first wife and daughter,he still believes he made the right decision to flee Myanmar.

"I don't regret coming," he said, "but I regret what happened. I think about my wife and daughter all day."


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Isrescu: Salvarea bncilor "too big to fail" cu bani

publici este un atac la democraie. "De ce

Impromptu 6

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