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Jimmy Carter, the earnest Georgia peanut farmer who as U.S. president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, the Carter Center said. He was 100. “My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.” A Democrat, he served as president from January 1977 to January 1981 after defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 U.S. election. Carter was swept from office four years later in an electoral landslide as voters embraced Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, the former actor and California governor. Carter lived longer after his term in office than any other U.S. president. Along the way, he earned a reputation as a better former president than he was a president - a status he readily acknowledged. His one-term presidency was marked by the highs of the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, bringing some stability to the Middle East. But it was dogged by an economy in recession, persistent unpopularity and the embarrassment of the Iran hostage crisis that consumed his final 444 days in office. In recent years, Carter had experienced several health issues including melanoma that spread to his liver and brain. Carter decided to receive hospice care in February 2023 instead of undergoing additional medical intervention. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, died on Nov 19, 2023, at age 96. He looked frail when he attended her memorial service and funeral in a wheelchair. Carter left office profoundly unpopular but worked energetically for decades on humanitarian causes. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 in recognition of his "untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." Carter had been a centrist as governor of Georgia with populist tendencies when he moved into the White House as the 39th U.S. president. He was a Washington outsider at a time when America was still reeling from the Watergate scandal that led Republican Richard Nixon to resign as president in 1974 and elevated Ford from vice president. "I'm Jimmy Carter and I'm running for president. I will never lie to you," Carter promised with an ear-to-ear smile. Asked to assess his presidency, Carter said in a 1991 documentary: "The biggest failure we had was a political failure. I never was able to convince the American people that I was a forceful and strong leader." Despite his difficulties in office, Carter had few rivals for accomplishments as a former president. He gained global acclaim as a tireless human rights advocate, a voice for the disenfranchised and a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty, winning the respect that eluded him in the White House. Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world, from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Bosnia and Haiti. His Carter Center in Atlanta sent international election-monitoring delegations to polls around the world. A Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher since his teens, Carter brought a strong sense of morality to the presidency, speaking openly about his religious faith. He also sought to take some pomp out of an increasingly imperial presidency - walking, rather than riding in a limousine, in his 1977 inauguration parade. The Middle East was the focus of Carter's foreign policy. The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, based on the 1978 Camp David accords, ended a state of war between the two neighbors. Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland for talks. Later, as the accords seemed to be unraveling, Carter saved the day by flying to Cairo and Jerusalem for personal shuttle diplomacy. The treaty provided for Israeli withdrawal from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and establishment of diplomatic relations. Begin and Sadat each won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. By the 1980 election, the overriding issues were double-digit inflation, interest rates that exceeded 20% and soaring gas prices, as well as the Iran hostage crisis that brought humiliation to America. These issues marred Carter's presidency and undermined his chances of winning a second term. HOSTAGE CRISIS On Nov 4, 1979, revolutionaries devoted to Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seized the Americans present and demanded the return of the ousted shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was backed by the United States and was being treated in a U.S. hospital. The American public initially rallied behind Carter. But his support faded in April 1980 when a commando raid failed to rescue the hostages, with eight U.S. soldiers killed in an aircraft accident in the Iranian desert. Carter's final ignominy was that Iran held the 52 hostages until minutes after Reagan took his oath of office on Jan 20, 1981, to replace Carter, then released the planes carrying them to freedom. In another crisis, Carter protested the former Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He also asked the U.S. Senate to defer consideration of a major nuclear arms accord with Moscow. Unswayed, the Soviets remained in Afghanistan for a decade. Carter won narrow Senate approval in 1978 of a treaty to transfer the Panama Canal to the control of Panama despite critics who argued the waterway was vital to American security. He also completed negotiations on full U.S. ties with China. Carter created two new U.S. Cabinet departments - education and energy. Amid high gas prices, he said America's "energy crisis" was "the moral equivalent of war" and urged the country to embrace conservation. "Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth," he told Americans in 1977. In 1979, Carter delivered what became known as his "malaise" speech to the nation, although he never used that word. "After listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America," he said in his televised address. "The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America." As president, the strait-laced Carter was embarrassed by the behavior of his hard-drinking younger brother, Billy Carter, who had boasted: "I got a red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer." 'THERE YOU GO AGAIN' Jimmy Carter withstood a challenge from Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination but was politically diminished heading into his general election battle against a vigorous Republican adversary. Reagan, the conservative who projected an image of strength, kept Carter off balance during their debates before the November 1980 election. Reagan dismissively told Carter, "There you go again," when the Republican challenger felt the president had misrepresented Reagan's views during one debate. Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan, who won 44 of the 50 states and amassed an Electoral College landslide. James Earl Carter Jr. was born on Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, one of four children of a farmer and shopkeeper. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, served in the nuclear submarine program and left to manage the family peanut farming business. He married his wife, Rosalynn, in 1946, a union he called "the most important thing in my life." They had three sons and a daughter. Carter became a millionaire, a Georgia state legislator and Georgia's governor from 1971 to 1975. He mounted an underdog bid for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination, and out-hustled his rivals for the right to face Ford in the general election. With Walter Mondale as his vice presidential running mate, Carter was given a boost by a major Ford gaffe during one of their debates. Ford said that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration," despite decades of just such domination. Carter edged Ford in the election, even though Ford actually won more states - 27 to Carter's 23. Not all of Carter's post-presidential work was appreciated. Former President George W Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, both Republicans, were said to have been displeased by Carter's freelance diplomacy in Iraq and elsewhere. In 2004, Carter called the Iraq war launched in 2003 by the younger Bush one of the most "gross and damaging mistakes our nation ever made." He called George W Bush's administration "the worst in history" and said Vice President Dick Cheney was "a disaster for our country." In 2019, Carter questioned Republican Donald Trump's legitimacy as president, saying "he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf." Trump responded by calling Carter "a terrible president." Carter also made trips to communist North Korea. A 1994 visit defused a nuclear crisis, as President Kim Il Sung agreed to freeze his nuclear program in exchange for resumed dialogue with the United States. That led to a deal in which North Korea, in return for aid, promised not to restart its nuclear reactor or reprocess the plant's spent fuel. But Carter irked Democratic President Bill Clinton's administration by announcing the deal with North Korea's leader without first checking with Washington. In 2010, Carter won the release of an American sentenced to eight years hard labor for illegally entering North Korea. Carter wrote more than two dozen books, ranging from a presidential memoir to a children's book and poetry, as well as works about religious faith and diplomacy. His book "Faith: A Journey for All," was published in 2018.49ers RBs Christian McCaffrey, Jordan Mason placed on IR
( MENAFN - IANS) New Delhi: In today's world success is largely determined by the ability to make knowledge-based decisions -- in both personal and professional spheres. Knowledge helps one realise what should be done and what one should not do. This enables one to be discrete at work, to have smooth interactions not only with seniors but also with colleagues, and to make meaningful contributions to organizational improvement. This is, in fact, a management skill from which it can be inferred that good management also depends on competent handling of information-external or internal-as well as of the people one is dealing with. Even a family is like a small organisational unit and its head has to have the qualities of a good manager while bringing up children as a parent and tackling other family issues. Innocence is bliss no more and one has to be reasonably aware of the environment as it exists in the neighbourhood and also in the wider world, in the interest of one's safety and well-being. One should be able to 'observe' what one sees, 'absorb' what one observes, and 'analyse' what one absorbs for any learning that could be deduced from it. The use of 'intelligence' -- which is a product of 'information' -- contributes to what can be termed as smart living. Being 'smart' by definition is the ability to achieve better results or higher productivity out of the given resources of money, human assistance, and time. Information can be defined as "an intelligible fact or data that tells you what you did not already know". It is clear that being better informed than somebody else can become a matter of competitive advantage in a given situation where that particular information is relevant. Knowledge of what happened in the past or what was happening in the present adds to one's knowledge but an idea of what lay ahead -- often derived from an analysis of this knowledge -- can become the ultimate guarantor of success. Information on a future happening is called intelligence and it can be sourced directly or deduced through a competent analysis of what was already in the public domain. By definition, intelligence is the specially procured information of proven reliability that gives you a peep into the future. Information of intelligence value is important not only in the context of national security but in day-to-day life as well -- for personal security and business advancement -- since it enables you to visualise both opportunities and risks lying ahead. Intelligence today is an important determinant of corporate and managerial success. Major businesses invest in establishing intelligence units to analyse the market environment and study the competitors. Being well-informed means having the right information at the right time and having the information that makes the difference between a decision and a guess. Also, being well-informed is not a one-time event -- one has to remain well-informed continually as new information often keeps coming in. Being information savvy is a basic requirement of one's progress in any field. There are certain characteristics of information-savvy people. Firstly, they tend to read a lot -- an individual who is averse to reading cannot be a well-informed person. They like to keep information in the categorised form as they have an innate ability to analyse the facts in front of them. They have the discipline of a logical progression of thought and quickly go through the What?, Why? and Where? in any situation. Secondly, information-savvy persons have an insatiable curiosity rooted in a spirit of inquiry. Remember, information does not reach you, you have to reach out to the same. Thirdly, such people have a healthy interest in human psychology and behaviour. All business or social interaction is a human activity and one must understand where somebody's response is coming from. Fourth -- and this is very important -- the ability to identify the most useful information from the rest is a 'gift' in today's fast-moving world. Everybody does not have it. The capacity to distinguish essentials from non-essentials corresponds to the famous Pareto's Law that says 'there are a significant few amongst the insignificant many'. Finally, information-savvy people prefer an authoritative opinion to gossip. There is no dearth of credulous people in the world. In this age of misinformation and cyber fraud, the reliability of information being acted upon has to be ensured -- through a double-check system of some sort. A lot of information can be accessed by tapping open sources. Publications and online databases are very important. The government is the biggest publisher of information. Associations give out useful information in specialised fields as illustrated by Harvard Business Review (HBR) and the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA). Stanford Research Institute produces and mails special reports on markets and industries to members for a fee. Libraries -- the traditional centers of knowledge -- remain as useful as before. Media reports of credible investigative journalists can be listed as another source of open information. Today, 'Think Tanks' produces a lot of information but the advice here is that one should accept their facts not necessarily their findings. Meetings and conferences have emerged as another major source of business information and so is the case with industrial fares and exhibitions. There is a caution for those relying heavily on online information. Do not believe that all that is there on the Internet is trustworthy and remember that social media presently has become an instrument of 'influence warfare'. A corporate body is possibly still missing out on tapping the wealth of information that was there within the organisation and outside because the system of interaction with its managers, consultants, and employees was inadequate and the feedback from its suppliers, bankers, and customers was not mopped up and analysed. Business organisations are waking up to this now and realising that no one might know everything but 'everybody knows something'. Information or knowledge is a valuable instrument for success and the leaders of an organisation owe it to themselves to enhance its quantum by whatever means possible. They should be able to garner the 'tacit knowledge' that today's employees carry with them. Sharpening everybody's observation power should be on their agenda. As already mentioned, we see without observing, observe without absorbing, and absorb without discrimination only causing a clogging of the mind. Further, there is a learning for leadership from what Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of all times, famously said -- 'Imagination is more important than knowledge'. To be able to see the big picture behind what was in front and not miss the wood for the tree is one connotation of this profound observation. Imagination strengthens the power of anticipation and adds to the ability to make analytical deductions. Flawless communication also serves the cause of knowledge enhancement -- the person passing on the information must make sure that there is no ambiguity about its interpretation. Those seeking information must work with enthusiasm presuming that what they were looking for was available somewhere. Above all, an understanding of what confidentiality means in an organisational context goes with the function of handling information. In today's competitive world, all members must have an idea of what was to be preserved as the organisation's 'exclusive' information. The importance of information has further increased because of the speed with which businesses are transacted and decisions are required to be taken. Globalisation has set a new bar to competitiveness and the need to monitor competition has grown manifold. Moreover, there has to be a certain 'completeness' about the information one has, for sound decision-making. This is because knowledge comes in integral packages -- for a business owner employing men and women knowledge of laws against harassment of women at the workplace was essential just as a teacher of children ought to have an idea of child psychology and parental stress as this is part of an integral package. Finally, data analytics today has acquired a newfound importance as a knowledge enhancer and this is how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the business world. It helps in evaluating business matters ranging from authentic user reviews and buying patterns of purchasers to the customer's feedback faster than was ever possible before. The larger the data bank better the application of AI for decision-making. AI is producing 'writing assistants' to help the efforts that would add to the company's productivity. With the rise in living standards, 'automation' is more and more in demand and AI is facilitating that. However, while AI is the most advanced use of Internet technology it is subject to the limitation that it would produce correct results only when the data fed into the system was reliable. One has to remember that there are both promises and perils associated with AI. Machine learning helps to increase productivity by improving the 'processing' of information. Nonetheless, AI operations cannot succeed totally without the aid of human intellect that provides the power of logic and imagination not available to the 'machine'. (The writer is a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau. Views are personal) MENAFN30112024000231011071ID1108942388 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.49ers RBs Christian McCaffrey, Jordan Mason placed on IRWASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, turning to a fierce ally to upend America’s premier law enforcement agency and rid the government of perceived “conspirators.” It’s the latest bombshell Trump has thrown at the Washington establishment and a test for how far Senate Republicans will go in confirming his nominees. The selection is in keeping with Trump's view that the government's law enforcement and intelligence agencies require a radical transformation and his stated desire for retribution against supposed adversaries. It shows how Trump, still fuming over years of federal investigations that shadowed his first administration and later led to his indictment, is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department close allies he believes will protect rather than scrutinize him. Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote Saturday night in a social media post. The announcement means current FBI director Christopher Wray must either resign or be fired after Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Wray had previously been named by Trump and began the 10-year term — a length meant to insulate the agency from the political influence of changing administrations — in 2017, after Trump fired his predecessor, James Comey. The decision sets up what’s likely to be an explosive confirmation battle in the Senate not long after Trump’s first pick to lead the Justice Department, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his nomination amid intense scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations. Patel is a lesser-known figure, but his nomination was still expected to cause shockwaves. He's embraced Trump’s rhetoric about a “deep state,” called for a “comprehensive housecleaning” of government workers who are disloyal to Trump and has referred to journalists as traitors, promising to try to prosecute some reporters. Trump’s nominees will have allies in what will be a Republican-controlled Senate next year, but his picks are not certain of confirmation. With a slim majority, Republicans can only lose a few defectors in the face of expected unified Democratic opposition — though as vice president, JD Vance would be able to break any tie votes. But the president-elect had also raised the prospect of pushing his selections through without Senate approval using a congressional loophole that allows him to make appointments when the Senate is not in session. Wray fell out of favor with the president and his allies. His removal isn’t unexpected given Trump’s long-running public criticism of him and the FBI, particularly in the aftermath of federal investigations — and an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents two years ago — that resulted in indictments that have evaporated. In his final months in office, Trump unsuccessfully pushed the idea of installing Patel as the deputy director at either the FBI or CIA in an effort to strengthen the president’s control of the intelligence community. William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, wrote in his memoir that he told then-chief of staff Mark Meadows that an appointment to Patel as deputy FBI director would happen “over my dead body.” “Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency,” Barr wrote. Patel’s past proposals, if carried out, would lead to convulsive change for an agency tasked not only with investigating violations of federal law but also protecting the country from terrorist attacks, foreign espionage and other threats. He's called for dramatically reducing the agency's footprint, a perspective that sets him apart from earlier directors who have sought additional resources for the bureau, and has suggested closing down the bureau's headquarters in Washington and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state” — Trump's pejorative catch-all for the federal bureaucracy. And though the Justice Department in 2021 halted the practice of secretly seizing reporters' phone records during leak investigations, Patel has said he intends to aggressively hunt down government officials who leak information to reporters and change the law to make it easier to sue journalists.
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