West Makes Afghanistan Safe...for Growing Opium

Say what you will about the original premise that the 2002 invasion of Afghanistan was to force Osama bin Laden out of hiding from his Taliban protectors, but the aftermath of all that has not been very positive. Afghanistan remains a very poor nation, and the persistence of the Taliban threat speaks volumes about the West's inability to provide a superior vision of the country's future. That is the political aspect of it.

Meanwhile, the economic aspect is not promising, either: despite untold millions spent on eradicating opium over more than a decade, 2013 will be a bumper crop:

Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan rose 36 per cent in 2013, a record high, according to the 2013 Afghanistan Opium Survey released today in Kabul by the Ministry of Counter Narcotics and UNODC. Meanwhile, opium production amounted to 5,500 tons, up by almost a half since 2012.

Calling the news "sobering", Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of UNODC, stressed that this situation poses a threat to health, stability and development in Afghanistan and beyond:  "What is needed is an integrated, comprehensive response to the drug problem. Counter-narcotics efforts must be an integral part of the security, development and institution-building agenda".

The area under cultivation rose to 209,000 ha from the previous year's total of 154,000 ha, higher than the peak of 193,000 hectares reached in 2007. Also, two provinces, Balkh and Faryab, lost their poppy-free status, leaving 15 provinces poppy-free this year compared with 17 last year.

While respect is due to the UN Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for taking on drugs and crime in such a difficult situation, I honestly believe that the West has largely given up on Afghan security, let alone the country's development. After sinking billions into the place with little to show for, Western publics have signaled their armed forces to head for the exit. UNODC's diagnosis is sound, but how exactly do you reconcile so many rival warlords? Moreover, what livelihoods are possible other than this one at the current time?

The link between insecurity and opium cultivation observed in the country since 2007 was still evident in 2013; almost 90 per cent of opium poppy cultivation in 2013 remained confined to nine provinces in the southern and western regions, which include the most insurgency-ridden provinces in the country. Hilmand, Afghanistan's principal poppy-producer since 2004 and responsible for nearly half of all cultivation, expanded the area under cultivation by 34 per cent, followed by Kandahar, which saw a 16 per cent rise.

Across the country, governor-led eradication decreased by 24 per cent to some 7,300 hectares. Badakhshan, the only poppy-growing province in the north-east, witnessed a 25 per cent increase in cultivation despite the eradication of almost 2,800 ha. During the 2013 eradication campaigns, the number of casualties rose significantly, with 143 people killed this year compared with 102 fatalities in 2012.

It's a sad situation (full report here), but the time is at hand when Afghans themselves will need to deal with the insecurity, fragmentation, and lack of the development on their own. Perhaps only when they realize that no one will be left to blame for their situation can progress really be made. Then again, the Taliban would welcome retaking the reins of power.

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Did US Ask Philippines to Kill KAT.ph?

News site Torrent Freak, "[t]he place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide" believes so, at least. Coming from the Philippines, I've always wondered whether to be proud or ashamed that the world's top torrent sites have had .ph top-level domains [TLDs] at one time or another. I recall the now-defunct private tracker site Demonoid being "located" in the Philippines. Sometime later, the world's second largest torrent site, Kick Ass Torrents also "moved" to the Philippines [KAT.ph].

As someone with--ahem--professional interest in the operation of torrent sites as working examples of the underground economy, the recent disappearance of KAT.ph intrigued me. Despite the Philippine passage of the Data Privacy Act in the middle of last year, it was curious to me how KAT.ph continued to operate with impunity after adopting its Philippine domain in April of 2011. But lo and behold, Philippine music industry figures supposedly argued that they were being hurt by KAT.ph's nefarious activities and the government was compelled to shut down the URL only yesterday...

Yesterday the torrent site ran into trouble with its KAT.ph domain, and there were signs suggesting the domain was no longer in control of the original owners. Over the past few hours more details have emerged, and the Government of the Philippines has now confirmed that the domain name has been seized on copyright grounds.

The seizure is the result of a complaint filed by the Philippine Association of the Recording Industry and several individual music labels. The complaint stated that KickassTorrents was causing “irreparable damages” to the music industry, and a local court agreed to suspend the site’s domain. “The complaint alleges that the registrant of KAT.ph is violating intellectual property rights by making copyrighted music available for download to its users,” the dotPH registry informed TorrentFreak. 

To be clear, the Philippine industry complaint was filed in December 2011, but Philippine authorities were only able to act after a court order was issued to do so...

Early this week the Philippine Intellectual Property Office issued a temporary restraining Order directing the dotPH registry to suspend the KAT.ph domain for 72 hours. The order, signed by the IPO Bureau of Legal Affairs, will become final if the domain owners don’t appeal. According to dotPH, the company that maintains the database of PH domain names, the music industry first complained about KickassTorrents in 2011.

However, the company said at the time that it would only take action following a court order. “dotPH was initially contacted by the complainants’ lawyers in December of 2011 with a demand to take down the domain, and dotPH agreed to cooperate if provided with an order from a court or appropriate authority,” TorrentFreak was informed. “dotPH received the restraining order earlier this week and subsequently suspended kat.ph in compliance with IPO’s directive,” the registry adds. 

As with most of these things where "Internet," "intellectual property" and "enforcement" are mentioned, there is natural suspicion that the United States is involved in pressuring the Philippines via inclusion in the US Trade Representative's watch list. To be clear, the Philippines has long been on this list, but more for the piracy of fake DVDs as opposed to "hosting" a rogue site (KAT.ph). There were earlier hopes that the Philippines would be struck off the 2013 edition after cracking down on physical distribution of pirated media, but officials were disappointed when it was not. See here:

The government expressed surprise and disappointment over the decision of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to retain the Philippines on its watch list of countries that violate intellectual-property rights (IPR) due to concerns over Internet piracy.

[Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHIL) Director General] Blancaflor noted the “changing requirements” of the USTR for removal from the watch list of IPR violators. “The USTR has no intention of removing the Philippines from the watch list. Every year the requirements change and vary. How can we be removed if the requirements keep changing?” he asked. “Two years ago it was massive counterfeits. We addressed that with record-breaking volume of seizures. We were not removed then. Last year the US complained that we did not pass the Internet treaty law. We passed it on March 22,” Blancaflor said.

Anyway, back to TorrentFreak on US pressure for Philippine action against KAT.ph:

While the case is presented as a local action aimed at preventing piracy of original Filipino music, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if U.S. forces have also been applying pressure. In its latest Special 301 Report the U.S. Government listed the Philippines on its copyright “watch list,” demanding further action against so-called rogue sites.

“The United States looks to the Philippines to take important steps to address piracy over the Internet, in particular with respect to notorious online markets,” the Office of the United States Trade Representative wrote in its report.

I suspect the Philippine authorities are still keen on having the country removed from the watch list given the efforts it has undertaken in passing the aforementioned law and continually raiding vendors of pirated DVDs. With legal backing through a court ruling to seize KAT.ph, its fate was pretty much sealed given the changing nature of American IP requests..

In the broader scheme of things, however, does it really matter? KAT is now operating with another TLD, business as usual. So, the US may have successfully bullied Philippine authorities, but the piracy goes on unabated as most users will eventually find the new site. And if that's taken down eventually, well, the game just moves on and on across even more TLDs. Montenegro, perhaps?

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TorrentWorld: How LED TV Makers Co-Opt Piracy

Pssst...is that a 720p or a 1080p? Here's one last story whose implications run in the billions and billions that involves home entertainment as we come to the end of the holiday season. (Oh, the sacrifices I have to endure alike watching a digitally enhanced Mariah Carey moping around in a Santa outfit with Justin Bieber.) Call it fortuitous timing, but our old Sony CRT TV finally conked out prior to start of the holiday season. Gone. Kaput. Off to the see the Great Mother Cathode Ray Tube in the Sky. As its replacement, we bought a brand spanking new LG 42LS5700 for a low, low price. Its feature set blows anything twice the price from three years ago out of the water--resolution enhancement, 120 Hz, Internet TV with Flash player...you name it, Lucky-Goldstar has it.

Much to the chagrin of the software industry, piracy has become more difficult to control with the advent of torrents as invented by Bram Cohen. Back in the day when pirated physical media still played a large role, it was much easier to single out shady fly-by-night types who had machines that spewed copies by the thousands in unmarked warehouses in city centres. With the advent of torrents, it has become much more difficult to prosecute everyday people, AKA normal consumers like you and me. Industry associations are made to look especially bad by injudiciously suing teens in ill health and many others besides.

Fortunately for the almighty consumer, the hardware industry does not have similar objections to pirated TV series and films as I've found out after buying the LG. Why are prices going down rapidly to our benefit? It's because global shipments are already in decline. To no one's surprise, the world's most dominant players in this space are LG nee Lucky-Goldstar and Samsung. The competition is cutthroat, and they're supposedly the only two who make money selling LED TVs. For all their consumer appeal, let's just say LG and Samsung are not exactly the most scrupulous of operators, having bilked consumers via price fixing for years and years and being cited for doing so by various authorities.

With many watchdogs now monitoring their price fixing propensities, we are fortunate in that prices are tumbling and features are increasing as they seek to maintain a competitive advantage. One of the things I've found out--from intellectual curiosity about the workings of smart TVs, of course ;-)--is that the latest generation of units pretty much play whichever format you throw at them--WMA, MPEG, WMV-HD, MKV. Name your (perhaps less-than-legit) source and the TV will play it. While it isn't as foolproof playing these kinds of sources as the incomparable (and free) VLC, let's be realistic here. With three USB ports to mess around with, you can go knock yourself out with a lifetime's worth of high-quality video entertainment sources without paying a single cent for software. H.264 compression is your friend with video quality that outshines DVD (720p outdoes it) or nearly equals Blu Ray (1080p) standard as long as you can sacrifice some audio quality.

As you may have guessed, co-option of video piracy is no accident; LG has been demoing their TVs' abilities to play pirated movies for a number of years now. As I said, they're in the hardware business, not the software business. So, if their customers want to mess around with XviD and DivX, who's to tell them not to? While Korea's entertainment industry is burgeoning, let's just say that the K-Wave has yet to take over the world. Moreover, their software industry and its association have not exactly reached a scale substantial enough to take their piracy concerns to the likes of industrial giants LG and Samsung. (BTW, there is a K-Wave paid channel on my Smart TV which I obviously haven't tried yet.)

Real trouble over conflict of interest is for TV makers with substantial entertainment production holdings. I am of course referring to poor old Sony which long ago lost its TV street cred to the Korean duo. The loss of its brand equity to the likes of Apple in audio and LG/Samsung in video is well-documented, but I think that an underinvestigated consideration is that Sony has software interests in both audio (Sony Music Entertainment was formerly Columbia Records plus Bertelsmann) and video (Sony Pictures Entertainment was formerly Columbia/Tri-Star Pictures) software. Sony's longstanding love of proprietary formats aside, it has been slow to cotton up to playing newer formats favoured by software pirates to their (financial and market share) loss. While Sony has begrudgingly introduced TVs that play file formats Korean makes have no trouble with, let's just say playback issues are still plentiful.

As longtime buyers of LGs and Samsungs, I guess it's just desserts that we now have more features to play with given how long they've been manipulating flat screen prices. Bastards.

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Why (They Say) Somali Piracy is Falling

 ...or so they say. Given my nationality, I have been particularly interested in this issue. Providing between one-fifth to one-fourth of all seafarers depending on your source, the Philippines has been particularly hard-hit by Somali piracy since its seafarers literally have a 1-in-5 to 1-in-4 chance of being on board a vessel hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. However, including even the BushBama years, all bad things must come to and end. Just as maritime piracy has been curbed in the traditional hotspot of the Malacca Straits due to littoral states engaging in more vigilant patrolling of these waters, so too does it seem that piracy has been reduced in the now-notorious Gulf of Aden. Instead of Southeast Asian nations doing the patrolling, however, it's been European ones under the command of EU-Navfor and its Operation Atalanta to keep piracy in check.

EU Navfor Rear Admiral Duncan Potts (seconded from the Royal Navy--history suggests they know a thing or two about piracy) gives a number of reasons for this decrease:

• The deployment of armed private security guards on board ships who have been 100% successful in deterring or defeating attacks;
• Better management practice by shipping companies, such as hardening their vessels or taking evasive action;
• Pre-emptive action by combined navies in the region, helping to ensure that pirates do not get out of their anchorages;
• A change in Somalia at national and local level, with Somalis far less tolerant of pirates.

Me? I am not entirely sure if this phenomenon is done and dusted. While the cost-benefit ratio of piracy has risen significantly as of late, long-term development of Somalia needs to occur to deter this line of livelihood going forward. In accomplish that, you need to accomplish a number of things that will be no small feat such as (1) establishing rule of law in the coastal regions especially and (2) creating viable sources of livelihood aside from fishing and piracy. Interestingly, Filipino seamen have been treated relatively well since they are viewed by the Somali pirates as victims of circumstance--poor people just like themselves as opposed to Europeans or others.

To be sure, Somali fishers-turned-pirates still complain that it was European overfishing in their waters that has made them lose their traditional livelihoods and turn to yo-ho-hoeing. I tried to investigate this evocative environmental notion sometime ago, but there is no data comparing fish stocks off the Somali coast over the years that could provide empirical evidence for such claims. (Please get in touch with me if you do!) So, what we are left with are counterarguments from those encouraging deterrence that other factors play a far larger role.

For instance, see this interview of Patricia OBrien, UN Under Secretary-General for Legal Affairs ont he matter:

Q: Many fisherman impoverished by declining fish stocks turn to piracy. Will the Yeosu Project [see here], which aims to build the capacity of emerging countries to address such issues, contribute to combating piracy?

A: The initiative taken by the Republic of Korea is commendable, and constitutes an important part of the regional and international efforts that must be undertaken by States Parties to UNCLOS and to the 1995 Agreement relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks to promote the conservation of fish stocks, both within and beyond the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ, a nation’s official territorial waters).

However, the root causes of piracy do not only lie in the mismanagement of fish stocks and the depletion of resources from seas and oceans. If the trends regarding piracy off the coast of Somalia are to provide any guidance, whereby pirates have expanded their areas of operation and acquired heavier artillery, allowing them to attack larger ships further out at sea, major shipping routes such as the Strait of Malacca should continue to be monitored closely.

And cue "Rhymin' and Stealin'" for old times sake...

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Honour Among Thieves, Somali Pirate Edition

Coming from one of the countries worse affected by maritime piracy, I tend not to romanticize incidences of ship hijacking in the Gulf of Aden. That said, it strikes me as remarkable how much more "professional" and "businesslike" Somali pirates have become. Just as banks of yesteryear used to have lavish premises replete with gilt and marble to symbolize the idea that they meant business and were here to stay, so too do modern-day pirates (no contemporary references to the state of the financial services industry intended) understand the value of symbolism. 

Accordingly, Reuters has a fascinating article describing how Somali pirates now have a grasp of business essentials such as marketing (i.e., presentation of ransom demands as a worthwhile "purchase"), accounting (ransom valuation of captured crew and vessels), and so forth:

[Pirate captain] Jamal provided the ship owners a breakdown of the value of their tanker, the oil it contained and also the worth of the crew (at least in his opinion), presenting a final demand figure for them to consider. "We will send to you after when we arrange something for the demanding ransom money and after when we finish the meeting among my group and resolve my problem," he wrote in the second page of the kidnap packet.

One expert in ransom negotiation situations said it was little surprise that Jamal and his colleagues were so well organized, their meager circumstances in one of the world's most strife-torn countries notwithstanding. "They want to get the money. If they present themselves and behave as someone who will live up to their commitment to give us the package in good condition, we are much more likely to go ahead and pay the ransom easily and efficiently," said Derek S.T. Baldwin, director of worldwide operations for IBIS International, which operates in 45 countries worldwide.

"If they present themselves as a non-structured group of disorganized loons they stand an awful lot better chance of having an extraction team show up on their front porch and shoot them," said Baldwin, an attorney by training whose firm has been involved in a number of ransom situations over the years.

All they need now are some PowerPoints and they'd be pretty much state-of-the-art. Are they not in some twisted sense SMEs or entrepreneurs? The dividing line is not quite what we think it is in parts of the world where the rule of law is non-existent. They are, after all, in it for the money and do come up with innovations.

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Greece Returns to Antiquity: The Barter Economy

Yikes! I wonder if Brussels' bigwigs figured this into the bargain. In development theory, one of the signs of advancement is moving more economic activity from the informal to the formal sector. Not only is activity in the latter more readily quantified, but it also facilitates both regulation and taxation to, theoretically at least, set standards for commercial conduct and generate state revenue. With regular currency (euros) at a premium for obvious reasons, it appears barter--trading goods and services for each other without the intermediary of regular currency--is back in fashion in Greece. The irony of it all, of course, is that barter was a common mode of exchange during the heyday of Ancient Greece. And so as it was during Greece's golden age, so it is again during its current nadir. From the New York Times:

Mr. Mavridis is a co-founder of a growing network here in Volos that uses a so-called Local Alternative Unit, or TEM in Greek, to exchange goods and services — language classes, baby-sitting, computer support, home-cooked meals — and to receive discounts at some local businesses.

Part alternative currency, part barter system, part open-air market, the Volos network has grown exponentially in the past year, from 50 to 400 members. It is one of several such groups cropping up around the country, as Greeks squeezed by large wage cuts, tax increases and growing fears about whether they will continue to use the euro have looked for creative ways to cope with a radically changing economic landscape.

“Ever since the crisis there’s been a boom in such networks all over Greece,” said George Stathakis, a professor of political economy and vice chancellor of the University of Crete.

Interestingly, the Greek government is now sanctioning these networks. In theory, their existence does undermine efforts to generate both economic activity and its accompanying (formal) revenue. In practice, politicians do know the harshness of conditionalities being imposed on the country by the EU/ECB/IMF troika. There may thus be few better ways to curry favour with the populace other than by condoning the informal economy:

Even the government is taking notice. Last week, Parliament passed a law sponsored by the Labor Ministry to encourage the creation of “alternative forms of entrepreneurship and local development,” including networks based on an exchange of goods and services. The law for the first time fills in a regulatory gray area, giving such groups nonprofit status.

Here in Volos, the group’s founders are adamant that they work in parallel to the regular economy, inspired more by a need for solidarity in rough times than a political push for Greece to leave the euro zone and return to the drachma. “We’re not revolutionaries or tax evaders,” said Maria Houpis, a retired teacher at a technical high school and one of the group’s six co-founders. “We accept things as they are...”

In an e-mail, the mayor of Volos, Panos Skotiniotis, said the city was following the alternative currency network with interest and was generally supportive of local development initiatives. He added that the city was looking at other ways of navigating the economic situation, including by setting aside public land for a municipal urban farm where citizens could grow produce for their own use or to sell.

I know, I know: these things sound very much like the proto-hippie communes anti-globalization types keep talking about. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures. While you do wish these folks well, you do have to wonder what effects popularizing such modes of trade will have on efforts to bring Greece out of its current situation.

Lastly, the BBC also has a video feature on this phenomenon.

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