Jul 22

Is a Turkish Peace Deal Possible?

A couple months ago I wrote about violent conflicts on the Turkey-Syria border, as well as the mounting dissatisfaction with the Turkish governments handling of the situation, and since then the situation has, unfortunately, deteriorated further.  There have been numerous outbursts of violence in the intervening months,Border with the most recent clash having occurred over the weekend in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad.  Kurdish fighters, who had already taken over the nearby town of Ras al-Ayn, attacked on Saturday after discovering members of another rebel group, one linked to al-Qaeda, attempting to rig one of their bases with explosives.  Ras al-Ayn is located directly across the border from the Turkish town of Ceylanp?nar, and a militant Kurdish group has reportedly seized control of the border gate between the two cities.  Shots have been fired on both sides, and unfortunately many have been killed or hospitalized as a result.

I don’t want to give a news report of all the various conflicts that have occurred in the border region since my last post, however, but rather discuss the recent demands issued by the Kurdish separatists.  On Friday the 19th Kurdish rebels issued a “final warning” to the Turkish government: take steps to end the 30-year conflict between Kurdish separatists and Turkey, or else.  Interestingly, the rebels, members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) did not state what would happen if the Turkish government did not comply, nor did they state a particular time frame for action.  The warning statement did say, though, that “in the event that concrete steps are not taken at the shortest time, the [peace] process will not advance and the government will be held responsible.”

The Turkish government apparently was expected to initiate some reforms back in the beginning of June but, because it failed to do so, has been accused by the PKK of failing it’s duties.  The PKK, which has been classed as a terrorist organization by Turkey’s Western allies, declared a ceasefire in March and withdrew troops in May as border2part of a peace deal negotiated last year, but they argue that the Turkish government has not followed through on their end of the deal by enacting reforms.  As you may recall from my post a couple months ago, however, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has his hands full already with anti-government protests, and so is hesitant to resume conflict with the PKK. Perhaps this means a peace deal can finally be truly negotiated after 30 years?  Or is his plate too full to deal with Kurdish issues?

The border clashes with Syria also add another layer of complexity to this already horribly complicated issue.  During one of the recent clashes between Kurdish separatists and Syrian fighters on the Syrian side of the border stray bullets hit a nearby Turkish town and wounded several residents, which prompted the Turkish government to retaliate against the Syrian Kurds.  Additionally, the PKK statement on Friday accused the Turkish government of supporting radical Islamists in Syria over Kurdish fighters, though Turkey has denied this allegation.

Kurdish separatists have been fighting for almost 30 years, and though there have been numerous attempts at peace negotiations, all have fallen through.  Will this final warning be the kick the Turkish government needs to begin reforms?  Should the government even begin reforms, or should Erdogan be more concerned with stabilizing the overall political situation after the recent protests?  These protests, and conflicts on both sides of the border, have thrown a wrench into the process, as they have made Erdogan’s position as Prime Minister much more precarious.  If the entire Turkish government were to be overthrown, as has happened in the Arab Spring countries, what would happen to the Kurds?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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Jul 17

Lack of Infrastructure Hampering Growth in Indonesia

Indonesia has been a rising economy since the Asian financial crisis in 1997. It is currently the 16th largest economy in the world in which its economy is driven solely by consumption.  The country is composed by a large young population that is quickly urbanizing while increasing income levels. The standard of living has been increasing and it is projected that by 2030, Indonesia will become the 7th largest economy in the world. However, Indonesia has not yet reached its full potential. There are several challenges that the country must face for indo-MMAP-mdeconomic development.

Although growth has been present in the Indonesian economy, one of the main problems today is the poor quality and quantity of infrastructures. These infrastructures include all aspects from transportation, social security, and health care, but I am going to focus on transportation. Transportation is extremely important for Indonesia as the country itself is an archipelago composed of thousands of islands. There are six main islands that are referred to as economic corridors, which are the six biggest islands. Having that said, transportation, including roads, bridges, and ports are very key due to large amounts of islands that make up the country. Transportation connects all the islands together to form an economy.

Some problems the country is facing due to lack of infrastructure are the increasing logistics costs compared to other countries and the increasing gap between the rural and urban areas. Logistics cost is the cost of transporting a good. A statistic gathered by the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce stated that on average, 17% of a company’s total expenditure goes to logistics costs. In comparison, data collected by Establish reported that the companies in their database spent 7.89% of their expenditure on logistic costs. Due to these high logistic costs, businesses lose their competitiveness in the market and it also pushes back investments into the country. Businesses are losing crucial opportunities and spending extra money just because the infrastructures are lacking. On top of that, the lack of infrastructures has contributed to the widening gap between the rural and urban areas of the country. In areas where infrastructures are considered  “good,” products tend to be cheaper and vice a versa.

indonesia_custom-0bbecaa8f8415275f19926fe87e3aee4385d8a01-s6-c30In cities like Jakarta, the number of cars have increased, but the roads did not keep up. Due to this traveling just 6 kilometers can take up to an hour and a half to drive. I have personally experienced this and it is not pleasant. No one follows the lines on the street so you are only a few centimeters away from the car next to you. It is unbelievably chaotic and something needs to be done.

So what can be done to tackle this issue? Continue reading

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Jul 15

Looking Back on China (7): Defense for One Child Policy

Americans always ask me questions about China to which they have already have answered in their mind. Among them, “do you have siblings” is the most popular one, and maybe the most unnecessary one. Exactly as same as their expectation, my answer is “no.” After that, without any exception, long conversations about China’s One-Child issue_onechildpolicy_imgPolicy further shock them.

In a Westerner’s eyes, the one child policy can be easily related to “forced abortion,” “brutal,” “inhumane,” or “spoiled children.” None of them is the topic that I am going to talk about. Perhaps it is against people’s innate human rights in a way, and there may be a few cases of forced abortion in the rural areas, but China has made enormous contributions to the whole world at the expense of self-restriction.

Undeniably, this policy has prevented 250 million births between 1980 and 2000. With less population, China is capable to centralize its limited social resources and offer its people better social security services. In terms of its international contributions, the tension between the environment and human beings has been greatly eased.

It is reported that the planet’s population is expected to hit the 9 billion mark before 2050. However, the earth’s resources will never increase to match as the total population skyrockets. Considering the difficulty to make a breakthrough in agricultural technology and to find alternative energy in a short term, the best way to avoid the ecological collapse is to enforce family planning.

While the population is constantly dwindling in China, its population quality has been strikingly escalated. The 33 years between 1979 and 2012 have witnessed China’s fertility rate to plummet from 2.74 to 1.55. In the meantime, 20080222-onechildnh12Chinese people’s life expectancy dramatically increased to 75.6 in 2011 from 68.3 in 1979. To get you a better sense of the importance of one child policy, take a look at China’s neighbor and the second most populated country in the world, India. Its fertility rate remains at 2.58 in 2010, while the life expectancy in India is only 65.5, ranking No.133 in the world. Although we cannot attribute China’s development in life expectancy simply to the one child policy, the family planning project in China does play a positive role in healthcare improvements.

Some people wrongfully blame China’s high gender imbalance on the one child policy. Admittedly, China’s 24 million bachelors are a huge social problem. However, the one child policy should not be blamed. Opponents claim that some families abandon girls immediately after their births in hopes of having a boy. I can tell that these opponents have no knowledge of Chinese history at all. The bad habit of abandoning daughters has existed in China for thousands of years, probably as old as this nation, as a result of patriarchy. The culprit of China’s unbalanced sex ratio is not the one child policy, but the rooted prejudice against female in Chinese culture. Nothing in the one child policy has clear and immediate influence on the phenomenon of gender inequity. Objectively speaking, to solve the gender inequity issue, the government should educate the rural people to fundamentally change this backward thought, rather than discontinuing the one child policy.

Generally speaking, the 34-year-old one child policy is a wise move in the long term. It is not flawless in its enforcement, but the spirit of this policy is notable and praiseworthy. The new central government has recognized this problem. In March, National Health and Family Planning Commission was created from the former Ministry of Health and National Population and Family Planning Commission. It means that China will still adhere to and further improve the family planning policy by merging it into the integrated framework of healthcare system.

The history of the human kind will never forget that tens of millions of Chinese people once partly sacrificed their basic reproductive right for the sake of their future generations. Before indiscriminately criticizing China’s one child policy, ask yourself how many resources you have consumed without concerns for your descendants.

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Jul 10

Turf Wars

You’ve probably heard about it. Then again, maybe not. Despite the fact that the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team has won three straight Olympic gold medals, and was runner-up in the 2011 World Cup, women’s soccer is still struggling to receive the attention and respect it deserves in both the mainstream U.S. sports media and international soccer organizations alike.

SUB-CITY-WAMBACH-articleLargeCase in point? For the first time in soccer history (men’s or women’s), a World Cup final will be played on artificial turf. FIFA has made the decision to allow Canada to host all 2015 World Cup games – including the final in B.C. Place Stadium in Vancouver – on artificial surfaces rather than natural grass, which is preferred by both professional players and coaches alike.

Peter Montopoli, CEO of the World Cup organizing committee and general secretary of the Canadian Soccer Association, defends the decision, stating that the use of artificial surfaces (which have much lower maintenance costs than natural grass) was clearly outlined in Canada’s original bid for the 2015 Women’s World Cup, and that international soccer officials were fine with the decision to switch to turf. What he failed to mention – Canada submitted the only bid to host the tournament.

Upon hearing the news earlier this year, many international players were up in arms, offended by FIFA’s decision. They felt pushed aside, slighted by a committee which should be advocating for their interests rather than hindering the growth of their sport. A petition directed at Makudi Worawi, the Chairman of FIFA’s Women’s World Cup Committee states:

We, the undersigned, demand that FIFA change the venues for the women’s 2015 World Cup games to fields with natural grass.

Why is this important? This year, the Women’s Gold Medal soccer match for the London Olympics was the NBC Sports Network’s most watched event in history of the network with 4.35 million viewers. More people around the world livestreamed the women’s final than any other sporting event during the Olympics.

And yet, still, women’s professional soccer players struggle to be given the respect they deserve. The latest afront to professional women’s soccer players comes with the decision by FIFA to hold the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final game on artificial turf.

More than 35 national team players (from at least 10 different countries) have signed this petition so far, including American players Abby Wambach, Carli Lloyd, Ali Krieger, Whitney Engen, and Alex Morgan.

Abby Wambach has been the most vocal of the American players thus far, stating her disapproval of FIFA’s decision on many occasions. Just last month, she was quoted as saying, “We as the highest-level international players have a responsibility to see that we don’t take steps backwards, and I think this would be giant leaps 7132853999_93b690f62e_zbackwards in terms of the way the game is played and in terms of the way the fans watch it. It’s my opinion that grass is the way the game is meant to be played for many different reasons — safety, the beauty of the game, the longevity of players’ careers. We have to put up a fight.”

There are numerous reasons why the upcoming Women’s World Cup shouldn’t be played on an artificial surface. Turf changes the way the game is played – balls bounce higher and roll faster when they are on turf rather than natural grass. The wear and tear of playing on turf (which is a less forgiving surface than natural grass) leaves players with numerous long-term injuries, such as joint aches and general fatigue. Since artificial turf creates more friction than grass, players are at a greater risk for knee injuries and ankle sprains. Concussions and turf burns (think of your most painful rugburn and then multiply that pain by ten) are also common on artificial surfaces.

However, it’s not just about the turf. The change in the style of play, the fear of injury – while important, are simply afterthoughts in a greater discussion on the role of women in sport. It comes down to the the principle of the matter. The Men’s World Cup would not be played on an artificial surface. Coaches wouldn’t stand for it. And players certainly wouldn’t stand for it.

Female soccer players had to petition their way into their first Olympics 17 years ago. Now they have to petition for the right to play on a surface in which they feel is the most safe and comfortable. When will women’s soccer stop being treated like a second-rate sport? When will FIFA finally begin to work with women to progress the sport, rather than always holding them back?

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Jul 08

A Lost Legacy

As many of you know, Nelson Mandela, the Anti-Apartheid leader, Nobel Prize winner, Author, “Father of the Nation” (The New South Africa), former President and one of the 25 most influential people of our time, lies in hospital in a critical condition. Not much has been divulged of his condition and rightly so, as any patient, even one so revered, has the right of Doctor-Patient confidentiality. However the army of journalists, foreign and local, don’t seem to think this applies. They remain camped outside the hospital, reporting on any movement, no matter how irrelevant.

mandela Mr Mandela’s latest admittance to hospital has created a strange and unnerving atmosphere in South Africa. Talk of Mr Mandela’s “imminent death” has created a sense of panic among many South Africans. Some have gone as far as predicting “Mayhem & Chaos.” Some are creating a fear that South Africa will “burn,” and advising citizens to be prepared for attacks, to their properties and families. In my opinion, I find this to be totally unfounded. Merely narrow minded banter from the far right. But is there a genuine fear? I believe so.

In 1994 when Nelson Mandela took office, South Africa and the world witnessed the birth of a new Nation, and it was truly a new Nation. One which had a Constitution that was detailed and solid. The country was non-racial, non sexist and opportunity for all was in clear sight. I don’t think that even Nelson Mandela himself, thought that it would work out so well.

However since Nelson Mandela left office, the general direction of the county has strayed in many ways. Corruption has persisted and continues up to today. Then in 2010, Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu held a party to celebrate his birthday, he had invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The South African government refused to grant His Holiness a visa.  In a press conference after the fiasco, an angered Arch Bishop Tutu lashed out at the government, showing an anger rarely seen, by a usually joyous man. He was angry that the South African government succumbed to China by declining the visa. To SAmy mind, the South African government chose to ignore a leader whose people are being oppressed, just as many were oppressed in South Africa.  In that press conference Arch Bishop Tutu shouted “You (President Zuma) and your government don’t represent me….You and your government represent your own interests.”

I believe that this forms the bases of the fear today. The fear is that when Nelson Mandela is no longer with us, his legacy will diminish and the South Africa that he had envisioned, and suffered for, will not manifest.  President Obama visited South Africa earlier this week, and in one of his speeches stressed the need to rid Africa of tyrants and gangsters who are holding the Continent back. South Africa is far from this stage, but with leaders who are willing to look the other way, when it comes to upholding the Constitution, there is the potential of serious problems.

So what should be done? We need to force our leaders to uphold the principals and the vision of Nelson Mandela.  He did, with the help of many others, create something wonderful, and it has to be defended and upheld. So that Nelson Mandela’s Legacy lives on.

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Jul 05

Transgender Transitions

A loved and respected Methodist minister in North Carolina, a father of two boys, married to his second wife for over thirty years:  This describes the person a small community in North Carolina knew – or thought they knew – when Duane Flynn made a life-saving decision to cease hiding his true self.  Duane, now Dawn, had been concealing gender dysphoria for five decades.  In a series of events that Dawn describes in her recently published memoir God Does Love Me, My Trans Journey to Finding my True Self, she describes how the public revelation that she had been keeping this secret didn’t so much emerge as it did erupt, toppling her carefully constructed facade, yet freeing her to become the woman she has always known she is. For Dawn, pursuing  gender reassignment was not her original goal, but as she transitioned more and more, first in secret and later more boldly in public, the surgery became, for her, the only way she could feel complete.  Dawn has told me that her penis was abhorrent to her, an appendage that had to be removed, and she likens this to having a cancer that needed to be cut out.

When you look in the mirror, what do you see?  What would you change if you could?

I am learning that the decision to transition for people born with gender dysphoria doesn’t always travel the same path and doesn’t always include gender reassignment surgery.  For some, the transition starts in childhood with the support of parents and the medical community. The video Living a Transgender Childhood  follows a young girl from very early childhood until she closes in on puberty.   For others it is a more gradual awareness that they wereTrans 2 born with an unacceptable condition.  Whenever the transition starts, it often isn’t a straightforward process.   Some transgender people will never publicly reveal their gender dysphoria and will confine their gender identity expressions to dressing the part of their true gender in the safety of their homes, never venturing out as their true selves.  Others attempt – and sometimes succeed – in publicly living as the gender they identify with and stop short of surgery, and others will eventually decide that their body is intolerable and a surgical reassignment of genitalia is the only way they can live comfortably.

If your child, brother, sister, or friend told you they are transgender and will begin the transition process, how will you respond?

For many, and no matter which transition choice they make, isolation, and fear of rejection is common.  Suicidal thoughts are also commonly reported, but usually before the transition begins; Dawn relates that she considered suicide, and the topic comes up over and over again on web sites dedicated to transgender stories and support efforts. The  National Geographic “American Transgender”  documentary follows three young adults who have transitioned, and lets them, their friends, and their families describe each of their respective journeys with their transgendered loved one. Throughout this blog series I keep returning to the theme of understanding and acceptance, but one family member in the National Geographic documentary makes another point:  She says that in order to accept her new daughter, she had to first mourn the loss of her son.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health is the recognized source of guidance for medical professionals who treat transgender individuals as they transition from their birth gender to their true gender. The standards of care are available here: (WPATH).   As I read through the guidelines I couldn’t help thinking about how determined a person would have to be to endure a process that, by design, can take years to complete.  In many cases – and in all cases that will lead to any type of surgery or legal change of gender on official documents – the transition process must include professional counseling.  It is during this stage that decisions are made about living publicly as your true gender – called Real Life Experience (RLE) which is  a requirement in the Continue reading

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Jul 03

Singapore: Corrupt or Not?

Singapore is one of the leading economies in the world with finance being the top markets. According to the 2012 corruption perception index by Transparency International, Singapore is the 5th least corrupt country in the world, making it the least corrupt in Asia. Although it is a small country, its GDP is ranked 35th in the world.  It is also the one of most internet wired country in the world; majority of the people living in Singapore are connected through singapore_skylinethe internet. The standard of living is also one of the best out there. Economically and technologically, it seems like Singapore is one of the places to be; maybe even a fantasy land.

However, this perception of this “perfect” society might change. A new regulation just came into effect a couple of months ago that might affect the corruption perception index and the future of Singapore. The government has imposed new regulations on Singaporean news where one needs to obtain a license if the company or an individual reports on Singaporean news at least once a week. Not only do they have to pay for a license, the government is allowed to regulate the content as well. This impedes with one of the essential rights for human beings; freedom of speech and expression. However, the control of media by the government is nothing new in this country. In fact, control by the public sector in most aspects of the country is not new. I believe that with this new enforced regulation on media, the corruption index will worsen. Let me first explain what the corruption index is.

In short, it is a perception by the people on how corrupt the public sector is. When voting fraud occurs, it is considered corrupt. When the leader of the country acts on its own interest and not the people, it is considered corrupt. When everyone is not treated equal, it is considered corrupt. Anything that the public sector does that deprives one from another and does not protect people’s rights, then it is considered corrupt. The more corrupt the public sector is, the lower the index is. Just to give you a little comparison to Singapore, the United States corruption index rank is Continue reading

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Jul 03

Looking Back on China (6): People’s Republic of Copying

I miss home so desperately, every time I cannot download songs or movies free of charge in America.

Infringements on intellectual property rights in China are so common that even no one perceives them as illegal. Of course, as a law student, I know what the law is. But I still enjoyed our “privilege” carelessly, because I also knew the consequence of this illegal act – nothing.

It is truly the People’s Republic of Copying. Almost every imaginable Western product has its copycats in China, toys, movies, cartoons, clothes, buildings, cars, fast food, Apple stores, or even an entire Austrian town. Chinese people do not only copy everything, but also skillfully show their talents and creativity in plagiarizing. Take Adidas abidasfor example, according to my 20-year observation, there are dozens of “siblings” of Adidas in China, including Abidas, Adibas, Adadis and so on. Among these creative copycats, HiPhone is a star, as bright as iPhone. When people were anxiously waiting for the release of the latest version of iPhone, HiPhone 5 had already caused a sensation in the online stores, with four colors to choose. HiPhone is basically an iPhone except for one aspect: the logo of HiPhone is a perfect apple, without any bites.

Historically, Chinese people are proud of their Four Great Inventions,compass, gunpowder, papermaking, printing, that immensely accelerated the developmental process of the civilization of all humankind. Why is China copying everything now?

Essentially, it is the underdevelopment of designing and manufacturing that gives rise to this phenomenon. Although China is the factory of the world, its core competency still remains in the low end of the production chain by virtue of a cheap labor force and sound infrastructure. Designing and marketing, the most profitable sectors in the production chain, are still China’s weakest links. What is more, an unsound legal system of intellectual property rights creates loopholes for copying. Although China has officially been admitted into the WTO, it fails to protect and enforce copyrights on a wide range of goods, which is incompatible with its WTO obligations.

It is worth noting that the knockoff phenomenon is especially popular in the rural areas and among immigrant workers. One of the byproducts of continuously rapid economic growth is the huge inequity between the East and Continue reading

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Jul 01

Focusing on the bigger picture to further girls education

“They take it for granted that if you work for an NGO you are funded by the west, that you are trying to change local traditions and customs, you are doing something that is secular. They no longer expect to get any public support, so no effort is being made to win hearts and minds. That is beyond them. Now all they want is to intimidate and pre-empt an uprising against them.” – Malala Yousafazi

Many of you may already be familiar with Malala Yousafazi. Voted one of Time Magazine’s people of the year in 2013, Malala is a young Pakistani girl who has spoken out about the Taliban. Though there is lots of coverage of Malala and her story, what isn’t covered as much is the attacks on many others that followed and that continue to Pakistan Girls Educationhappen.

In January, just months after the attacks on Malala, extremists in Pakistan attacked a bus full of health professionals who were on their way home from work. Ultimately six people were killed in the attack – most of them being women. Essentially, anyone who is working to help the country in any secular matter has been targeted by extremists, and their attacks have become more and more common as well as ruthless.

The attack on Malala and on the health workers were just two attacks of many to come. The link between them can be seen in how those attacked were all advocating for the rights of citizens, but furthermore, they had ties to the west, or represented western ideas. What’s important to realize is that education for girls is just a small part of the controversy happening in many countries, and sometimes when there are so many controversies, it becomes hard to know where to focus your support.

The way I see it, the the link to girls education is a small, though crucial part of the picture. Continue reading

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Jun 28

Who is Incarcerated? – Prison Industrial Complex

Going to school with different types of people, I have been exposed to different lifestyles and many different opportunities. With race being a descriptive difference between the environments I have grown up in and learned from, I am aware of the different conditions within these environments. There is a complex racial dynamic in our society and it is strengthened and buoyed, on a micro level, by our justice system, but on a macro level, by a need for bodies to fill our prisons. In my personal observations the justice system has completely different roles in white communities than in communities of color. The reason is evident in the answer to the question: Who populates prisonthese prisons? While black people make up only 13.1% of America’s population, they make up a over one-third of our prison population and Latinos make up around 20% of the prison population.

Riding around with friends who are white, I see that they are not fearful of the law. To put it simply, they are able to get away with a lot more. Meanwhile, when with my black male friends in particular, simply passing a police officer on the sidewalk is a stressful ordeal, whether doing good or bad. There is widespread knowledge in black communities of the unjust mass incarceration of people of color.  The motive behind this mass incarceration lies in the desire for profit instead of rehabilitation of criminals ; and the result is the creation of an underrepresented, marginalized and deprived caste of people living in one of  the most modern and liberal Nations in the world,

Although people of color are a minority in America, it is clear that mass incarceration has ominously favored a few races over all the others. The combined demographics of Hispanics and Blacks are 58% of the prison population. And an astounding 1 million African Americans account for the total 2.3 million incarcerated in America today. By 2011 0.5% of white men in America were behind bars to a 3.0% of all black men. 7.5% of black males between the ages of 25 and 39 were incarcerated and  1.2% of Hispanic males were as well. To me, these statistics express a weighted attention on incarcerating people of color. Officers, court rooms, jails target black and hispanic males in this way.

To begin with, a great number of African Americans imprisoned, are there because of drug charges. Nearly half a million people are in jail for drug charges altogether and 38% of them are black. The War on Drugs, some theorists believe, was a well-timed excuse to imprison and put away people of color who were amidst the illegal drug “crisis” in impoverished neighborhoods. Ironically enough, around the same time that Reagan declared the War on Drugs, drug use and abuse was on the decline in all of America.

Past campaigns such as Reagan’s War on Drugs have aimed to make racial profiling logical and socially acceptable. We see right through it. Nowadays it is important to be aware of modern day social issues, human rights abuses that are washed over by morphed ways of thinking. Federal statistics indicate that there is a growing Continue reading

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