North Korea fires intercontinental ballistic missile after threatening US
ReutersNorth Korea has fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Japanese officials report.
The long-range missile has been in flight for more than an hour and is expected to land short of Japanese waters on Wednesday morning, Japan’s defence minister said.
Pyongyang’s launch comes after it threatened retaliation against alleged US spy plane incursions over its land.
Earlier this week it threatened to shoot down such planes.
Washington has dismissed the accusations, saying its military actions were in line with international law.
On Wednesday, both Japanese and South Korean military officials reported detecting the missile’s launch around 10:00 local time.
Both countries later reported the missile was believed to be an ICBM, a long-range missile that can traverse continents.
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Stoltenberg backs expansion as NATOâs future clouds
NATO Secretary General Jan Stoltenberg says the security concerns of the Western military alliance and Japan are “closely interconnected.” Accordingly, for the first time both Japan and South Korea are attending the NATO Summit at Vilnius, as is Australia.
Taiwan, of course, was not invited even as an observer. Allowing Taiwan to attend might offend the pro-China players in Europe and many in the Biden administration. But how is it possible to have some kind of NATO coverage for Japan and Korea and not for Taiwan?
Taiwan is a big part of the problem in the Far East, although everyone that matters treats the island nation as a pariah. This is despite the fact that Taiwan is a stunningly vibrant democracy and a technology powerhouse.
Meanwhile, the US secretary of state went to China to be humiliated and Janet Yellen, because China needs her, managed to bow and scrape obsequiously in front of Chinese officials, and probably is giving away the store without getting paid.
The Chinese, however, are keeping up their military harassment of Taiwan every day, probably because nobody in Washington told them to cut it out. In other words, whatever leverage Washington may have had has been forfeited by top US officials.
Thus we have NATO expansion north and east. In the North it means that Sweden will be allowed to join once the Turkish parliament rubber stamps Erdogan’s deal with Stoltenberg and Biden. Turkey previously offered to trade Swedish membership for Turkey’s membership in the European Union, but Al Jazeera reports that the current deal involves different items on Ankara’s wish list “that range from buying US F-16s to visa-free travel to Europe’s Schengen area.“
At Vilnius there has been no agreement to include Ukraine in NATO now. Stoltenberg had proposed a fast track, but Washington, Berlin and others didn’t want to move until the war is over. Late Tuesday there was an offer, for what it’s worth. “NATO says it will invite Ukraine to join when ‘conditions are met’; Zelensky calls lack of timeline ‘absurd,’” says the Washington Post headline.
Truth be told, the main “condition” is: “We don’t want to do it because it would mean war in Europe.”
Meanwhile, Turkey has released from detention high-level members of the Azov Brigade, Ukraine’s notoriously fascist, some say antisemitic, battle group that the Turks had pledged to keep in Turkey until the end of the war.
Turkey also has declared that if Russia does not agree to a renewed grain deal with Ukraine (a deal that has been consistently violated as Ukrainian grain has been delivered to Europe and not to starving Africans and Indians) then Turkey will provide a military escort for Ukraine’s grain ships.
Probably Turkey does not know that there are a number of Russian submarines in the black sea.
Sweden has only a small army, but it has a very good air force. For years Swedish Air Force leaders have understood that their enemy is Russia. Sweden keeps a major airbase on the island of Gotland, not far from Russia. Sweden also knows that the Russians have been running underwater spying and active measure operations on Sweden’s coastline.
But there is a problem for Sweden’s security. Should hostilities break out, Sweden as a NATO member could be attacked by Russia. As a neutral state, that would not happen.
NATO’s weakness
Beyond the failure to invite Taiwan to Vilnius as an observer, NATO is in a significantly weakened state. NATO’s members have not significantly improved the military hardware acquisition needed for their security, and they have robbed their cupboards supplying Ukraine.
Stoltenberg says that at Vilnius NATO members will agree that the 2% of GDP for defense will become a “floor” on the spending needed by NATO countries. But that floor is subject to demands for supply because of the Ukraine war and the recession in Europe, which may soon bring down a number of important governments.
France, Germany and the UK are at the top of the list. There is opposition to the Ukraine war and excessive defense spending on the left, Labor in the UK for example, and on the right, as in the AfD in Germany and Le Rassemblement National in France.
These factors, plus social unrest arising out of immigration from Africa and the Middle East, is a pot that – if stirred, as it was recently in the French riots – endangers stable governance. NATO may have to come to the aid of states that are internally threatened instead of threatened by Russia.
None of this has dampened the enthusiasm of the current crop of European leaders to pose as strong men capable of standing up to Russia. But if you add to that the proposition of standing up to China, then, as far as NATO is concerned, we have entered into the theater of the absurd.
It is not that they are wrong to care about the security of Europe. The NATO alliance was built as a defensive alliance. Bringing in the Eastern European states converted the alliance from one that was purely defensive to one that was expansionist.
This is what, initially, the Russians were angry about, especially as advanced Western weapons showed up in places such as Poland and Romania, not to mention the Baltic States.
Equally problematic were pledges not to expand NATO: these pledges given to the Russians by Western leaders, going back to Bill Clinton, that NATO violated.
The advantage that NATO had in carrying out its ambitious expansionist program was a weak Russia. For more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, probably closer to twenty years, Russia was a mess economically.
As Gorbachev in 1985 opined to French President Francois Mitterrand, Russia was a backward third-world country with nuclear weapons. Russian industry ground to a halt; Russian equipment was neither updated nor well maintained, and Russia for the most part focused on improving its strategic defenses, not its offensive might.
The Ukraine war, oddly, has helped Russia to really invest in its armed forces by building new and better hardware. We are now seeing that on the battlefield as the Russian military has not only withstood a massive counter-offensive along the entire line of contact coming from Ukraine and NATO but is now on the offensive.
The affair has been costly to both sides, but Ukraine has been dealt the harsher blow as its offensive is starting to turn into a rout and as its forces are talking about moving back to defensive positions. If the Ukrainians burn more tanks, armored vehicles, artillery units and troops they will be in deep trouble.
The US, lacking 155mm artillery rounds, a key component of Ukrainian supply, is now sending old cluster bombs to Ukraine. Many Europeans are aghast at Biden’s decision, either because they have signed the ban on cluster bombs, which some NATO members such as Germany have done, or because they are horrified by the risk of killing civilians from unexploded cluster munitions.
Some Americans also are complaining, bringing up some of the painful history of these weapons.
It is difficult to speak of expanding NATO when its number one foreign adventure in Ukraine could, on any day, collapse.
Stoltenberg has been extended in office as head of NATO for another year because Biden vetoed giving NATO leadership to Ben Wallace, the UK’s secretary of state for defense. This blow to British prestige, after the UK backed the US policy on Ukraine unstintingly, leaves NATO with Stoltenberg for the coming year. Should Europe weaken internally, and as NATO has been expanded too much, the organization’s future is more cloudy than ever.
Stephen Bryen is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute. This article was originally published on his Substack, Weapons and Strategy. Asia Times is republishing it with permission.
Commentary: Why is NATO expanding its reach to the Asia-Pacific?
And from a defence standpoint, NATO and the four partners will aim to improve the “interoperability” of their militaries – the ability of different military forces and defence systems to effectively work together and coordinate their actions.
This might entail deepening the knowledge of each other’s military assets, improving the relationships between their soldiers and other military personnel, and expanding joint drills.
DEEPENING RELATIONS BETWEEN NATO AND INDO-PACIFIC PARTNERS
The intensifying and deepening relations between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners can be interpreted in two ways.
First, these partnerships form another important link in the expanding network of diplomatic and security ties between the US, its Western allies and the Indo-Pacific region. They complement partnerships like AUKUS and the Quad.
Beyond this, we can also view these agreements in the context of NATO’s evolving outreach with the rest of the world over the past couple decades.
Previously, NATO’s collaborations with Indo-Pacific countries involved pooling resources for security operations in non-NATO members, such as the Balkans in the 1990s and Afghanistan in the 2000s.
Nowadays, strengthening these partnerships is seen as a vital part of responding to the new challenges and threats posed by Russia and China.
Of course, this does not mean we will see NATO military equipment or troops permanently stationed in the Indo-Pacific. Nor would it be realistic to expect the Indo-Pacific countries’ military contributions to Ukraine to lead to a more permanent set-up in Europe.
Commentary: Male friendships more crucial than ever amid growing mental health challenges
NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL SOLUTION
At this point, it is tempting to prescribe one-size-fits-all solutions on how we can help men to improve their relationships and consequently, improve their support networks.
However, it is near impossible to predict the needs of any particular individual. The best way to approach anyone would be to first understand their world view before collaboratively working with them to design solutions unique to them.
What this means is that more safe spaces for men to be authentically and unabashedly themselves are necessary. For example, male conversations groups can facilitate discussions on sensitive topics such as concepts of masculinity and sexuality. These places need to be ideologically and politically neutral but allow meaningful conversations around sensitive topics.
Furthermore, given that men tend to form friendships through shared goals, initiatives that aim to help men foster better relationships could be less dialogue-focused and more action-oriented.
Besides broader top-down efforts, individual level effort from men is also essential for them to foster higher quality relationships. For example, engaging in activities that do not overtly benefit them – through interest and volunteer groups, for instance – could be a way to meet new people in a more neutral setting.
Furthermore, men need to be kinder and more compassionate with themselves, to recognise when they need support and learn how to be more open to seeking it. Doing so requires an intentional effort to let go of whatever holds them back from reaching out.
For me, it was severe burnout that forced me to rethink my capacity for juggling multiple tasks, something I once was proud of. Since then, I let go of this point of pride for me and deliberately reduced the tasks I would take on, so as to never over-extend myself.
Lastly, any approach needs to meet men where they are while allowing them the time and space to move forward at a pace they feel comfortable with. Forcing or pushing people towards a particular destination without adequate consideration of their readiness for change may be detrimental in the long term.
Trying to shift the nature of men’s social relationships will not occur quickly. Still, every small step we can take while being mindful of prevailing norms, preferences and perspectives, will be one step closer to a world where men can feel more supported by the people around them.
Dr Jonathan Kuek is a mental health researcher and co-founder of Total Wellness Initiative Singapore, a prevention-oriented health and wellness social enterprise that aims to encourage people to be more proactive with their well-being.
Commentary: Inequality fuelling the fire for Thailandâs political change
The changes in income of different classes from 2015 to 2019 reveal that the income of Thailand’s middle- and upper-middle classes has worsened. During this period, the income of the top 5th quintile declined by nearly 19 per cent, while the 4th quintile experienced a smaller decline of 3 per cent.
A comparison based on geographic areas also yields discouraging results. Barring the Bangkok metropolitan area, the Gini index in all regions of Thailand worsened from 2015 to 2019.
This situation is connected to the issue of poverty, which was 7.2 per cent in 2015, 6.8 per cent in 2019, and projected at 6.6 per cent in 2022, indicating a decline in the country’s ability to effectively reduce poverty. Persistent poverty is linked to the rapidly rising population of elderly individuals who are also poor. Most work in agriculture and have limited educational opportunities.
During the years under military influence, Thailand’s inequality has worsened, with the middle classes struggling and a rising number of elderly poor people getting left behind. While government assistance has softened the short-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty, the real damage is likely to occur in the long run.
ONE OF LOWEST GROWTH RATES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Thailand’s level of inequality has long been one of the highest in Southeast Asia. The problem is rooted in policies and institutions that existed before the Prayut government. Yet the recent years have played a big part in fuelling people’s resentment of the military-backed government.
Is Bollywood a manâs world?
Getty ImagesBollywood, India’s hugely popular Hindi film industry, is often described as a man’s world.
It’s something that’s been talked about for a long time, but now a new study shows just how little gender equality there is – both on and off screen.
The $2.1bn (£1.5bn) industry produces hundreds of films every year and has a massive following among Indians globally. The sway the films and the stars have on their fans’ imagination cannot be overstated. But over the years, many Bollywood films have been criticised for being regressive, promoting misogyny and gender biases.
In a first of its kind study, researchers from Tiss (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) in Mumbai attempted to quantify just how severe the stranglehold of patriarchy on Hindi cinema is.
They selected 25 of the biggest box-office hits from 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, and 10 women-centric films between 2012 and 2019 – the period was chosen to see if there were any changes in the narrative following the 2012 gang-rape of a female student on a bus in Delhi, the resulting uproar over the crime and the introduction of tough new laws to deal with crimes against women.
The list of hits included War, Kabir Singh, Mission Mangal, Dabangg3, Housefull4 and Article 15 and the women-centric films included Raazi, Queen, Lipstick Under My Burkha and Margarita with a Straw, among others.
The researchers studied nearly 2,000 on-screen characters to see the types of occupation actors played and analysed the films over several parameters such as sexual stereotyping, consent and intimacy and harassment. They counted the number of LGBTQ+ and disabled characters and how they were portrayed, and studied how many women worked off-screen on these films.
They have concluded that though women-centric films give some reason for optimism, the box-office hits continue to be sexist and regressive and women and queer representation remains abysmal in them.
For instance, 72% of characters in the films that were analysed were played by men, 26% by women and 2% by queer actors.
Prof Lakshmi Lingam, the project lead for the study, says “the big bucks are riding on all big men in Bollywood” and the filmmakers say “a very strong female character won’t work with the audiences”.
“There’s very little attempt to do something different because patriarchal norms colour people’s idea of a story or narrative and they come to believe that this is what can give them money,” she told the BBC.
So, she says, they stick to the “formula”.
“The protagonist has to be male from the upper caste, the female lead has to be thin and beautiful. She has to be coy and demure who expresses consent through gestures rather than words, but wears sexually revealing clothing and has to be somewhat modern to allow for her to be in a pre-marital relationship which is a transgression.”
The jobs on screen are also imagined through a narrow gender lens – Prof Lingam says although “42% female leads were employed in these films – [way higher than India’s real employment figures of 25.1%] – they were in very stereotypical professions”.
“Nine in 10 men were in decision-making roles playing army officers, policemen, politicians and crime lords; women mostly played doctors and nurses, teachers and journalists and only one in 10 were in decision making roles,” she says.
The portrayal of the LGBTQ+ characters, the study shows, remains hugely problematic – they were never in a decision-making role and often a butt of sexist jokes. The disabled fared equally poorly -making up only 0.5% of all characters and most were used as tropes to invoke sympathy or as comic relief.
“Filmmakers say it’s the reality they’re showing. But there is so much other reality that they do not show. They swing between reality and fantasy to justify being like this,” Prof Lingam says.
The depiction of women and queergender in the industry, she adds, must change because “real life is also dictated by what we see in cinema”.
“In India, where families and schools rarely teach about sex education and consent, all our responses are influenced by books and cinema,” she says, adding that it’s a problem when a film like Kabir Singh shows the male lead stalking and harassing the heroine to woo her.
“It normalises toxic masculinity. so when a woman is stalked or harassed on the street, everyone says it happens. And there is rarely any pushback.”
A few films though, she points out, are breaking from the mould – for instance, in Mission Mangal, when a rocket scientist, played by Vidya Balan, is berated by her husband for spending too much time at work and ignoring their children, she turns around and asks him if children aren’t his responsibility too.
Queen and Lipstick Under my Burkha were among a handful of films that were led by women actors and revolved around strong female characters. But the number of such films is still very low.
Visual media, Prof Lingam says, “can bring new narratives into the conversation and change won’t happen overnight, but it will happen over time”.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown, she says, have already shown the way forward. “There’s a lot of churn in society and people are producing different content to reflect that. There’s a lot of interesting content on OTT platforms that is doing well.”
On the other hand, the Bollywood formula is no longer working. “Many male-dominated violent films helmed by some of our biggest stars such as Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar have bombed. The one exception has been Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan.”
So the industry, she says, needs to re-imagine these ideas.
“The typical thinking is that a majority of the audience is male so films are being made for them. We are not saying don’t do those films, but do a spectrum of films so that there is a wide variety.”
One reason, she says, why the Bollywood gaze is so overwhelmingly male is because there are so few women working off-screen in the industry and even fewer in core filmmaking departments – the films Tiss studied had more than 26,300 men and only 4,100 women in the crew.
“If films are made for a diverse audience, by a diverse people behind the screen, the stories will also be diverse,” says Prof Lingam.
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