Photo of the Day: Devastation in Mogadishu

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Globe and Mail: "The shattered ruins of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, look almost like Stalingrad after the famous battle that turned the tide in World War II."

Almost 20 years after Black Hawk Down, Somalia is barely a country. It has been destroyed -- literally, as this photo shows -- by civil war.

There is some hope that the new government of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed can institute lasting reforms and bring much-needed stability, but the Transitional Federal Government controls only a small part of the country and not even all of the capital, Mogadishu, and Al-Shabaab, the Islamist insurgent group that is the government's main opposition, continues to be a major force.

It's hard to see how this gets any better anytime soon.

Canada vs. the pirates

By Michael J.W. Stickings

With so much attention on piracy off the coast of Africa, mainly because of the taking of the Maersk Alabama and its captain, there seems to be a stepped-up international effort underway to address the problem.

And -- Oh Canada! -- this was something:

Canadian sailors apprehended a band of Somali pirates at gunpoint early Sunday morning after a seven-hour pursuit across the Gulf of Aden, much of it under the cover of night.

HMCS Winnipeg, sailing off the Horn of Africa as part of a NATO-led anti-piracy mission, was escorting a United Nations food shipment when it happened on a skiff carrying seven bandits attempting to hijack the MV Front Ardenne, an 80,000-tonne tanker from Norway.

The Somalis ignored warning shots fired by a Canadian naval helicopter and fled the scene. HMCS Winnipeg, led by Commander Craig Baines, left the food shipment to other NATO vessels and gave chase.

An American ship also joined the pursuit. It was the Canadians who got to the pirates first.

The effort, which includes "a patrol of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that includes ships from Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States," is admirable -- and ought to be the start of further engagement. Joint military operations can focus both on rooting out the pirates and on protecting cargo ships in the region.

Prime Minister Harper is right, though, that, as of right now, there are serious limitations on what can be done, and hence on what can be achieved. First, there is the problem of Somalia itself. Until that anarchic country is stabilized, piracy will continue to pose a threat. Second, the Canadian military couldn't arrest the pirates, as it does not have the authority to do so. Until a legal process is in place that allows for the detention, as well as the prosecution of these pirates -- who, in this case, were disarmed and eventually released -- the international effort will lack the bite to go along with a bark that is getting louder.

Still, this incident proves that military engagement in the region, if only in the form of protection, can work. At the very least, cargo ships -- and 42 were captured in 2008, "including a Saudi supertanker called the Sirius Star and the MV Faina, a Ukrainian ship carrying tanks" -- aren't entirely sitting ducks.

Pirates

By Creature

You know, the United States military may end up storming the dingy to free captain Phillips from his Somali captors, but to root for that as the first option and not the last is irresponsible. This knee-jerk, macho, shoot first, ask questions later reaction from the Right (whether it be North Korea, Iran, or pirates) is not very helpful in the real world. Just look at Iraq.

Around the World: China, Zimbabwe, Somalia, the Ukraine, and the Vatican

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The latest in our ongoing series... (for previous entries, see here or here).

1) China: "China's exports have dropped into their biggest decline in a decade. Exports in December were down 2.8% from the same time last year, a bigger decline than November's 2.2% drop, the China Daily said."

Even though "China's economy relies on domestic demand for its goods and services more than any other country in Asia," which is to say, even though the decline in exports is perhaps less of a concern to China than it would be for others, what the numbers show is that "China is no more immune to worldwide trade problems than any other large economy." And it is likely to get worse: "With Japan, the US and Europe now in recession, China's heavily trade-dependent economy is expected to harder hit through the coming year."

Still, a growth rate of 7.5% in 2009 wouldn't be so bad, would it?

2) Zimbabwe: "Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic has killed more than 2,000 people and almost 40,000 have contracted the normally preventable disease, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday."

As if it weren't already bad enough in that wretched place, what with the tyrant Mugabe clinging to power and continuing to oppress the people, now there's this, which "has spread to all of Zimbabwe's 10 provinces because of the collapse of health and sanitation systems." And the situation will only get worse during the January-March rainy season.

3) Somalia: "Ethiopian troops pulled out from crucial bases in Mogadishu on Tuesday, leaving a power vacuum that was quickly filled by Islamist fighters who seized their positions."

And so, with the Ethiopians soon to be out, within a matter of days, Somalia is left to the Somalis... and to "Somalia’s Islamist movement," which "has made a steady comeback, with Islamist factions again controlling much of the country.

One war is over, but another is already underway: "Many Western diplomats and other Somalia analysts have warned that once all the Ethiopians are gone, the various Islamist factions will unleash their considerable firepower on each other in a scramble to take over the country. Some of that fighting has already kicked off, with dozens of people killed in the past week in combat between moderate and radical Islamist factions."

4) Ukraine: "Just hours after Russia resumed delivery of natural gas to the European Union through Ukrainian pipelines, Kiev has admitted to blocking the supplies. Ukraine is claiming that Gazprom has established 'unacceptable' conditions for the transit of the gas to Europe."

It's a complicated situation, obviously, with Gazprom blaming the U.S. for backing the Ukraine (and accusing the Ukraine of stealing gas), but it is essentially a regional dispute between Moscow and Kiev "over gas pricing and the lucrative transit fees paid to Kiev for gas transported across its pipelines." (Though Anne Applebaum notes that it was actually Putin, who still runs the show in Russia, who actually turned off the gas, not Gazprom. So it's political, not just commercial, and, this year, Russia is very much to blame.)

Russian gas is essential to much of Europe, but what is needed is for Europe to disentangle itself from the situation by reducing its dependency on Russian gas in the first place. And that requires, in Applebaum's view (one I share, though I defer to her expertise here), "a true, unified E.U. energy policy," even if, as Clay Risen points out, there are no "easy or obvious answers" and, to put it mildly, "difficulties inherent in any such effort."

5) Vatican: "Decrying the violence that Mexicans are enduring, the Vatican has suggested excommunication as a possible punishment for drug traffickers whose war with the government has led to the deaths of thousands of people in the last year. But the Roman Catholic Church's severest form of rebuke would probably have little effect on traffickers and killers who lack a religious conscience, the Vatican's No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, acknowledged."

You think?