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Zimbabwe: Anatomy of a Cholera Outbreak

December 18, 2008 12:20 PM

By JIM SCIUTTO, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC News

The head of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Zimbabwe, Marcus Bachman, tells ABC News that cholera cases have now been detected in all of Zimbabwe’s eight provinces and two municipal areas, Harare and Bulawayo.

It is spreading rapidly from the biggest cities to small towns and rural areas along major transit corridors. Every day, he says, a new town reports an outbreak.

International aid groups are having enormous difficulty keeping up with the spread. Two weeks ago, they had been able to get medicine to 92 percent of the victims. Now that number has dropped to 80 percent. The number of cholera cases is growing faster than aid workers can keep up with.

The United Nations reported today that the death toll from has risen to 1,111, with 20,581 people infected. The disease has also spread across the border into Mozambique, which has more than a hundred cases, and South Africa, where nearly 900 people have become infected and 11 people have died.

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December 18, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

European Lessons for American Automakers

December 04, 2008 2:47 PM

By JIM SCUITTO, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC News London

As American automakers make their case for a bailout on Capitol Hill, what might they learn from Europe? While car sales are dropping globally, sales in the tiny, subcompact class dominated by European-made Smart, Mini Cooper and the new Fiat Cinquecento are up. One striking statistic from the WSJ this week: “Citigroup estimates global car sales for January through October fell 3 percent from a year earlier. But global sales of Daimler's subcompact Smart car rose 47 percent to 113,200 vehicles for the period, and sales of the Mini Cooper rose 11 percent to 202,300.” Already, in the United States, there are long waiting lists for Smart cars and high demand for the Mini.

Buyers of the subcompacts are attracted by the combination of fuel-efficiency, reliability, style and even safety. The body of the Smart car is essentially a cage, which performs well in crash tests. Auto analysts say all this could offer clues as to the way forward for American carmakers. Ford’s strategy is indicative. Its proposal includes bringing small cars that have had success overseas, such as the tiny ‘Ka’ and Fiesta, home to the United States. We know not all SUV drivers will switch right down to Minis. But clearly these cars are doing something right to buck the dismal trend worldwide.

Kevin Tynan at Argus research drew my attention to one more "sign of the times": this year (the first that the Smart car was available in the U.S.) sales of the Smart have nearly caught up to sales of the Hummer (models 1, 2, and 3) and, by the end of the year, may surpass them. He says that even as gas prices have fallen, “the memory is burned in and there’s a sense of ‘I’m not going to get caught in that again.’”

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December 4, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (16) | TrackBack (0)

What Do Mumbai Attacks Mean for Region?

December 01, 2008 1:37 PM

By JIM SCIUTTO, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC News London

The Pakistani connection to the attacks in Mumbai, India, brings real concern that the attacks could  further tighten Indian-Pakistani tensions. But there is already one regional war going on, which the Mumbai attacks highlight .

Even if there's no official Pakistani government or agency involvement in the Mumbai assaults, the fact that the attackers were likely based in Pakistan re-emphasizes the regional implications of Pakistan's instability and inability to control extremist groups on its soil.  U.S. officials and commanders were already beginning to view Afghanistan-Pakistan as a wider, cross-border war. With the attacks in India, it  has become truly regional, with militants based in Pakistan carrying out attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. (You can even say the war extends all the way to Europe, considering that the 2006 liquid-bomb plot that targeted trans-Atlantic airliners also had roots in Pakistan.)

Traveling with U.S. troops on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border this summer, commanders told us the mix of militants they're fighting on the border includes Taliban, al Qaeda and Kashmiri combatants  ( i.e., Lashkar e Taiba). In this sense, if L-e-T is behind these attacks, the conflict now has a proven regional reach all on its own, operating in three countries. That would mean one more Pakistani-based militant group with international ambitions. Does that sound familiar?

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December 1, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (15) | TrackBack (0)

Pakistani Hand in Mumbai Attacks?

November 27, 2008 1:07 PM

By JIM SCIUTTO, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC News London

Off the coast of India, authorities have captured Pakistani merchant ships which may be tied to Wednesday's terrorist attacks according to IANS news agency quoting Indian Navy officials. Many Indians had already begun speculating about a Pakistani connection. While India has an Islamist problem of its own, driven in part by huge class differences between Muslims and Hindus in India, Pakistani terror groups have staged attacks in India before and Indian Islamist groups have ties across the border.

For Americans, the Mumbai attacks could be another sign of how Pakistan’s implosion has huge regional implications – for U.S. interests in Afghanistan, for nuclear-armed Pakistan and for India. Some analysts see today’s attack as a wider "call to jihad" for India’s 150 million Muslims, a figure nearly on par with the entire population of Pakistan.

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November 27, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)

Britain's Seven Year Recession?

November 25, 2008 11:03 AM

By JIM SCIUTTO, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC News London

This is one of the most sobering predictions I’ve seen of how long and deep the economic pain will be. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times isn’t the panicky type but with budget deficits soaring in the United Kingdom, he lays out how Britain may be heading for seven lean years.

Could this be a model of where the United States is heading? Britain’s deficit is expected to reach 4.4 percent of gross domestic product next year. The U.S. deficit was 3.2 percent this year but with more bailouts on the way, we may not be far behind.

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November 25, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Just How Strong is Hezbollah?

November 24, 2008 10:03 AM

By Jim Sciutto, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC News London

Debate has raged since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War over whether Hezbollah emerged stronger or weaker. Today, Israeli Defense Minister (and contender for prime minister in February elections) Ehud Barak gave his answer: Hezbollah is not just stronger, it’s three times stronger. How did he do his math? The answer is Hezbollah’s estimated arsenal of 42,000 missiles, supplied by Iran. Here’s the story.

This isn’t the only thing making some in the U.S. security establishment nervous. Today, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman arrived in Tehran, Iran, for his first official visit, amid rumors first reported in the London Arabic language newspaper Al Quds al-Arabi that Iran may offer Lebanon military assistance, including missiles. Lots for President-elect Obama’s security team to chew on.

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November 24, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

Let Them Eat Stocks

November 21, 2008 9:16 AM

By Jim Sciutto, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC News London

In what has to qualify as supreme optimism or just bad timing, the Egyptian government has announced with fanfare a bold plan to offer shares in state companies to all its citizens. Officials chose a day when world markets fell to new lows to make the announcement. One said every family will get "a respectable amount" of shares.

For solace, Egyptians I suppose can look to American taxpayers who are now effectively part owners of several U.S. banks. And granted, the idea is part of a long-term privatization plan here that's had some success. But as a solution to the country's rampant poverty,I haven't found any Egyptians who are particularly excited about their new windfall.

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November 21, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

The Call for Help Obama Hasn't Answered

November 20, 2008 1:18 PM

By JIM SCIUTTO, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC News London

From his prison cell in Cairo, Ayman Nour took a risk two months ago. He wrote a letter to Barack Obama. 

Nour is not a typical prisoner. In 2005, he was a candidate in the first presidential elections here in decades, running against Egypt's longtime ruler, Hosni Mubarak.

Nour had the enthusiastic support of Bush administration officials, who said the elections and Nour's admittedly quixotic run were signs of a democratic wave sweeping the region -- from Iraq, which held elections in January that year, to Lebanon, where pro-democracy protesters pushed out occupying Syrian troops in March. Nour lost, though he made a respectable showing.

But a few weeks after the vote, he was thrown in jail on trumped-up charges of faking signatures on the petition for candidacy. Three years later, he's still there.

His wife, Gameela Ismail, told me today that he wrote to Obama because he feels Obama is part of a new generation of leaders, one Nour hopes will push the Egyptian regime harder than past American presidents, who looked the other way when Egypt cracked down, often brutally, on the opposition.

When Obama won the election, Nour's fellow inmates congratulated him, saying "his man" had made it. Outside the prison, though, he paid a price. On Nov 5, government troops marched on the offices of Nour's opposition party, calling Nour "an American agent" and "Obama's lover."

Though Egypt is an American ally receiving billion of dollars in aid a year, the government frequently tars its opponents with the charge of cozying up to the United States. The troops gutted the office with firebombs.

Nour's wife, Gameela, barely escaped alive. Seeing the burned-out building today, I could see she was lucky.

Since then, Nour has had no response from the Obama camp, nor from U.S. Embassy officials. He's still hoping Obama will be different from Bush. Frustrated by three years of fighting for her hsband's release with no American help, Gameela, however, says she has given up hope.

"There's been so much disappointment," she told me. "We were victims of hope. I won't let that happen again."

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November 20, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Will Obama Talk to Iran?

November 19, 2008 11:24 AM

By JIM SCIUTTO, Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC News London

President-elect Barack Obama earned a surprising new endorsement for direct U.S. talks with Iran.

Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, Israel's military intelligence chief, caught many off guard here, saying that dialogue is not appeasement and that the world economic crisis and Obama's win combined to create potentially favorable conditions for diplomacy with Iran.

This is extremely unusual talk in a country where officials have in recent months vehemently dismissed direct contacts between Tehran and Washington, arguing they would interpreted as weakness. And the comments are particularly whiplash-enducing at a time when the most recent speculation here had been about a possible Israeli attack on Iran before Obama takes office in January.

With oil prices down and President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in danger of losing in next year's presidential elections, some here sense weakness and, as a result, opportunity.

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November 19, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

International Reaction to U.S. Financial Crisis

September 25, 2008 2:08 PM

By Jim Sciutto, ABC News Senior Foreign Correspondent

As lawmakers in Washington work on an agreement on a bailout package, the international reaction to the  U.S. market woes has gone from uneasy to angry to almost apoplectic.

Today, the German finance minister (a combination that you’d think could produce only cool, calculated rhetoric) was sharp and bitter: “The United States, and let me emphasise, the United States is solely to be blamed for the financial crisis   …   this serious banking crisis will leave deep marks and Wall Street will never be the same.” This follows the public beating the  U.S.  has taken at the  U.N.  General Assembly over the financial crisis. Granted, a good deal of this is schadenfreude.

However, it’s also understandable coming from countries that the  United States  has preached market orthodoxy to for years. More important, though, is the very real effect this has had on confidence in the  United States  as the world’s leading financial center. There was already a migration under   way from Wall  Street  to London, Europe and Asia due to the relative growth of those markets. Adding a crisis of confidence will accelerate that migration. What does it mean for average Americans?

Financial stocks had been leading the  U.S. market for several years. Their profitability,  now handicapped, will mean less money in everyone’s pension and 401( ks) . It means New York will lose lots of business to London, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. And, more broadly, it could mean higher lending costs for all sorts of American businesses, as the capital markets eat into the discount the  United States  has long enjoyed. That it comes as other kinds of  U.S. military and diplomatic influence is being challenged adds to the possible impact.

That may sound like even more schadenfreude, but fact is, it’s the way the crisis is seen over here. And it’s something Americans do have an interest in.

Read more about the German Finance Minister's comments here

Photo Credit: Associated Press

September 25, 2008 in Jim Sciutto | Permalink | User Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)