Islamic State (Daesh) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has threatened an attack on Israel, in a purported audio recording released on Saturday.

“We haven’t forgotten about Palestine for a second. Soon, with God’s permission, you’ll hear about shaking footsteps of the mujahideen [holy warriors],” al-Baghdadi said in a rare threat against Israel.

He warned in the recording that Israelis must expect strikes by hardline jihadists.

“Palestine will be your graveyard, Jews,” he said in the audio, which was posted on a website linked to the group.

The recording could not be independently verified.

Islamic State, which rules large territory in Syria and Iraq, has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks around the world in recent months, prompting a multinational military campaign against it.

In the purported recording, his first in seven months, al-Baghdadi vowed that nations engaged in the fight against Islamic State will pay a “dear price.”

“America, Russia and Europe have to look forward to this.”

The United States is leading air campaigns against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

In September, Russia launched an aerial campaign against Islamic State and other extremist groups in Syria.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the October crash of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board.

Al-Baghdadi also renewed his call for all Muslims to join his group in battling what he called “nations of infidelity launching a war on Islam.”

Last year, al-Baghdadi declared Islamic State a self-styled caliphate and proclaimed himself its ruler.

Original article

By J Nastranis

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is far from satisfied with a budget of $5.4 billion the 193-member General Assembly adopted on December 23 for the United Nations to carry out its vital work in 2016 and 2017. This two-year budget is less than 7% of the $77.7 billion preliminary budget New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed for 2016 in February 2015.

While admitting that the approved budget “reflects the difficult global financial reality we have faced for a number of years,” he told the General Assembly: “Funding continues to shrink – while demands on the United Nations grow,” he noted.

The General Assembly approved the budget, wrapping up its work for the main part of its historic 70th anniversary session by taking action on a number of texts recommended by the Fifth Committee, which focuses on administrative and budgetary issues.

Initially, the UN chief had presented a budget outline level of $5.74 billion dollars to the General Assembly, which then invited him to prepare the proposed budget on the basis of a preliminary estimate of $5.56 billion.

The UN Chief said: “Through it all, we are doing everything possible to fulfil the mandates you give us. We are guided by two pressing obligations: First, our duty to respond to the needs of the world’s people. And second: our responsibility to make the most of the resources you entrust to us. Through creativity, hard work and diligence, we are rising to the challenge.”

While complaining about the gap between what might be required and what is endorsed by the General Assembly, Ban went on to say that the Assembly had “wisely” decided to add resources to strengthen the very important pillar of development, commending its decision to support the follow-up and review of the world body’s efforts to reach the Sustainable Development Goals and carry out the financing for development agenda.

The Assembly also decided to reduce resources under Public Information and Common Support Services even more than the efficiencies he identified, the Secretary-General pointed out.

“This presents some challenges, especially at this critical juncture. We are carrying out the important initiatives the Assembly has approved, including Umoja (the Swahili word for ‘unity’), mobility and the development of the Global Service Delivery Model,” he said. “Nevertheless, we remain committed to exert our best efforts to deliver on these transformational initiatives and all other mandates you have given us.”

Ban also applauded the consensus decisions taken on the revised scale of assessments for Member States for sharing the costs of the regular budget and peacekeeping operations, which is reviewed every three years, as well as the approval of a mobility framework for UN staff.

“Today’s consensus action is a strong sign of our ability to work together,” he stated. “We need this spirit of global solidarity more than ever.”

The President of the General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft of Denmark, said he was very satisfied that the negotiations on the budget and other administrative items were concluded in such good spirit.

“With the adoption of the UN budget and the conclusion of the work of the Fifth Committee we come to the end of what has been a remarkable year for multilateralism,” he added.

The initial budget level

Introducing his proposed $5.5 billion budget for the work of the United Nations over the next two years, Ban said on October 12, 2015 that it encompasses the Organization’s “vision and commitment to budget discipline and strict financial management”.

“My proposals for the 2016-2017 programme budget are built on our progress,” Ban told delegates in the UN General Assembly’s Fifth Committee. “In formulating the proposal before you, I continued to challenge my senior managers to find new and better ways of delivering mandates more effectively and efficiently. I urged them to rethink our business practices and embrace innovative synergies,” he added.

The UN chief explained that he had presented a budget outline level of $5.74 billion dollars to the General Assembly, which then invited him to prepare the proposed budget on the basis of a preliminary estimate of $5.56 billion.

“I am now proposing a budget level of $5.57 billion, before recosting,” he announced. “This is 1.6 per cent – or $90.8 million – below the appropriation for the current biennium, and is $10.2 million – or 0.2 per cent – above the budget outline figure set by the General Assembly.”

Ban explained that the increase of 0.2 per cent over the budget outline figure is mainly due to adjustments in light of recent General Assembly decisions on a new administrative online platform, called Umoja, which is being rolled out.

He also indicated that the proposal reflects a net decrease of 56 posts [job positions] compared to the current budget, primarily related to the “freezing of posts”.

Ban further underlined that with UN Member States adopting the Addis Ababa Action Agenda last July and the landmark 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September, in addition to commitments made to achieve a universal climate agreement in Paris in December, some costs haven’t been taken into account.

“My budget proposals do not yet reflect any possible financial implications required for the Organization to support Member States in achieving these goals,” Ban explained. “We are working towards the most appropriate implementation framework for the UN system and the Secretariat. As we assess financial implications arising from this framework, I will present any cost estimates to the Assembly.”

He recalled that with the end of his ten-year tenure as Secretary-General, half the executions for the budget period will have to be carried by his successor.

“I have felt a sense of responsibility to make sure that my successor, whoever it may be, will be able to carry out his or her duties smoothly and with sufficient resources,” he said. “That is my commitment, and that spirit is reflected in this programme budget.”

In conclusion, he called for collaboration to ensure that the United Nations “makes the best possible use of our resources in the service of humanity.”

Russian intelligence has spotted up to 12,000 tankers and trucks on the Turkish-Iraqi border, the General Staff of Russia’s armed forces has reported.

“The [aerial] imagery was made in the vicinity of Zakho (a city in Iraqi Kurdistan), there were 11,775 tankers and trucks on both sides of the Turkish-Iraqi border,” Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy told journalists on Friday.

“It must be noted that oil from both Iraq and Syria come through this [Zakho] checkpoint,” General Rudskoy said.

Heavy-duty trucks loaded with oil continue to cross the Turkish-Syrian border as well, Rudskoy said. At the same time, the number of tankers on the northern and western routes used for transporting oil from Syria is declining, the general added.

“According to satellite data, the number of oil tankers moving through the ‘northern route’ towards the refinery in the [Turkish] city of Batman has considerably diminished,” Rudskoy said, adding that the number of tankers using the ‘western route,’ between the Turkish cities of Reyhanli [on the Syrian border] and the city of Iskenderun, has decreased to 265 vehicles.

The Russian Air Force in Syria has destroyed about 2,000 tankers used by the Islamists for oil transportation. In the last week, Russian warplanes eliminated 17 convoys of oil tankers and a number of installations used by terrorists for oil extraction and processing.

The Russian Air Force’s effective strikes in Syria have forced the terrorists to look for new routes for crude oil transportation. Today, tankers loaded with oil in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province, under Islamic State control, are moving towards the Iraqi border in the direction of Zakho and Mosul.

“However, despite a considerable diversion, the finishing point of the trafficking route remains Turkey,” Rudskoy said.

By Amit Dasgupta*

The recent announcement that India and Pakistan would resume substantive engagement on the front of peace dialogue came as a welcome surprise, especially because it was not accompanied by the baggage of fanfare, which has become the hallmark of the ritualistic ‘talk about talks’. The announcement was done quietly and outside the glare of both the media and the public.

The two Foreign Secretaries would meet in January to chalk out a calendar of meetings. Prime Ministers of both the countries are aware that if the talks break down, the damage, in public perception, would be minimal, as India-Pakistan talks are known to regularly fail. In such an eventuality, the official spokespersons would take recourse to the usual blame game.

At the same time, both Prime Ministers are also acutely aware that should the negotiations conclude successfully, they would be guaranteed a place in history. In the eyes of the international community and in their respective domestic constituencies, it would be seen as an extraordinary achievement that could transform the region.

For the beleaguered Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif this would be a feather in his cap at a deeply troubling time in Pakistan. For the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this would reflect statesmanship of exceptional calibre. Both, consequently, face a win-win situation. Given that there is more to win than to lose, a unique opportunity exists to approach the talks with an open mind like never before.

However, for the negotiations to succeed this time around, it is the negotiating strategies that need to be reimagined. First, negotiations assume a conflict. How negotiations are approached determines the positions we take. If we approach negotiations with bad faith, the negotiations would fail even before they are begun. On the other hand, if talks are entered into in good faith, irrespective of the pressures that might have brought the negotiators to the table, the negotiations would assume an entirely different complexion.

Second, the proposed resumption of substantive talks needs to be done behind closed doors and outside the media glare. There are many, on both sides of the border, who oppose this normalizing of bilateral relations. They have fixed mindsets and would clearly aim to disrupt the talks and vitiate the atmosphere. This is the time for quiet diplomacy.

Third, it is reasonable to assume that several rounds of negotiations would take place and could involve multiple players from both sides, including secret emissaries and Track 2 efforts. There are, furthermore, many in both countries, who enjoy considerable respect and leverage within their country and across the border. Networking and hierarchy are part of the South Asian DNA.

It is important, therefore, to reach out to everyone who can contribute to the dialogue process in a positive manner and to co-opt them into the process, while ensuring that the command and control lies unambiguously with the Prime Minister (at least, in the case of India).

The importance of back channel communications cannot be over-emphasized. It bears recalling that even when the British army was fighting the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the MI5 had opened covert communications with the former. This was initially done to get advance information on possible terror strikes so as to mount counter-insurgency operations. Over time, MI5 managed to develop strong communication channels within the IRA rank and file, including with Martin McGuinness, who was the IRA Chief of Staff. This came in handy when talks were formally initiated by the government with the IRA.

Fourth, while both sides are clear in terms of the irritants in the relationship, sequencing the issues would be important. A clutter of issues plagues both nations, including Kashmir, terrorism, water sharing, Afghanistan, safe havens, etc. For the negotiators, the most important decision would not be which issues are on the table, but the sequence in which issues are taken up.

Negotiations are a step-by-step process. You do not order every item on the menu while ordering your meal. The attitude with which one approaches the negotiations would, therefore, determine the sequencing. Taking up the most contentious issue first would run the risk of the talks breaking down. The first step needs to be the establishment of rapport and the gradual erosion of the trust deficit. There needs to be, in other words, visible demonstration of good faith.

At the very outset, therefore, atmospherics need to be put in place by first establishing goodwill and confidence. Considerable mistrust and antagonism would, understandably, hang like thick smog over the negotiating table. As Professor Alison Brooks, who teaches negotiation at Harvard Business School, observes, ‘In negotiations that are less transactional and involve parties in long-term relationships, understanding the role of emotions is even more important than it is in transactional deal making.’

South Asians tend to be emotionally high-strung and this would, most certainly, be on display. The atmosphere would be highly charged and it would appear as if something excessively consuming is in progress. Both sides need to recognize that the ability to assuage emotions without surrendering core interests is what would enable the negotiations to move forward. While voices would be raised and delegation members might even dramatically storm out, the leaders of the two delegations need to be acutely sensitive in ensuring that emotions do not go out of control.

This would need to be a deal-making negotiation. Consequently, direct confrontation cannot be the preferred strategy as it would have damaging consequences and could even result in the talks breaking down. How one communicates lies at the heart of communication because negotiation is essentially interpersonal.

Fifth, the great risk associated with bilateral negotiations relate to stability, both political and economic. The Indian delegation is conscious of the fact that Pakistan faces deep political instability and consequent economic insecurity. There would be temptation on the part of the Indian delegation to hasten the pace of negotiations and wrap-up as much as possible for fear that a change in government would require starting de novo. This would be ill-advised, since a new government in Islamabad could very well renege on commitments made by its predecessor. Seasoned negotiators are patience and vigilant.

Sixth, no one would normally participate in a negotiation with expectations of failure. Neither side expects a zero-sum game outcome or even a win-win because win-win, in a very definitional sense, is a theoretical and unrealistic proposition. Balancing success where both sides have an equal take-away is desirable but rarely achievable. A successful negotiation is one where neither side feels it has lost face or that the deal is unfair. Sustainable outcomes of deal-making negotiations are predicated on the deal being perceived as honourable by both parties.

What both sides would confront is what the price-line is. What, in other words, is the price they would be required to pay in comparison with what they are willing to pay? Price is a matter of comfort zone. Every negotiator recognizes that there is a Lakshman rekha, an Indian metaphor meaning a red line that cannot be crossed. Any pushing beyond that point is counterproductive. Negotiators often come with preconceived notions and end objectives.

They are keen to concede as little as possible, while maximizing their own gains. India-Pakistan talks, however, assume an entirely different complexion. The two Prime Ministers have agreed to enter into dialogue to ascertain whether seven decades of acrimony that has seen considerable grief on both sides could be transcended for the betterment of over 1.5 billion people. This means that both sides would need to reimagine their strategic objectives and negotiating mandates.

Concessions would, most certainly, need to be made by both sides, if the talks are to be meaningful and the negotiated peace sustainable. It is not inconceivable that some of these concessions would be seen as giving more than getting. However, if the end objective is lasting peace and a new chapter in bilateral relations, the Lakshman rekha might even need to be redrawn. Both sides need to be open to this.

Finally, negotiations are only part of the process. What has been negotiated needs to be acceptable to and supported by domestic constituencies. This is not easy and both governments are cognizant of this. Selling peace is as complex an assignment as making peace is.

Everything rests on political will, especially in the face of the many naysayers in both the countries. As Jagat Mehta, a former Indian Foreign Secretary, so eloquently reminded us, ‘We know the past. Do we need to live in it?’ That should possibly be the principle negotiating brief.

*Amit Dasgupta is a former Indian diplomat who currently heads the Mumbai campus of the SP Jain School of Global Management. He can be reached at: editor@spsindia.in

By Reeta Tremblay*

On December 20, Canada’s Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, John McCallum announced Canada’s revised plans to resettle 50,000 Syrians by the end of 2016. This is an extension of the new Liberal government’s pledge to resettle 25,000 government and privately-sponsored Syrian refugees – 10,000 by the end of December and 15,000 by the end of February.

Canada is working closely with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNCHR) to identify the most vulnerable refugees as well with the governments of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey and several international and Canadian partners. It has been suggested that Canada’s refugee plan falls well short of a real solution and appears as a very small step towards alleviating the world’s unprecedented refugee crisis since the Second World War.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports that the number of migrants and refugees, half of these coming from Syria, crossing into Europe by land and sea this year, has passed one million. Countries on the borders of Syria and Iraq, which are themselves fragile, are sharing the major burden of forced displacement with Jordan supporting more than a million, Lebanon 1.8 million, and Turkey hosting almost 1.9 million Syrian refugees. In Europe, Germany has made a commitment to resettle one million refugees arriving in 2015. One might say that the Canadian government’s policy is a drop in the bucket; however, it is the symbolic significance of the Canadian action which is noteworthy.

Canada’s current commitment to Syrian refugees must be appreciated in light of three significant factors: a) under the newly elected liberal government, Canada’s return to its national project of multiculturalism – a nation of diverse people; b) the meagre efforts of the U.S.; and, c) Canada countering the European and North American right-wing anxiety of the ‘other’, particularly of the Muslim population.

Canada’s liberal party, under the leadership of Justin Trudeau, received a solid mandate from the Canadian population against the politics of fear and in favour of an inclusive, diverse and a tolerant society. It was a rejection of the ten- year- old conservative government and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s vision of divisive politics and the politics of fear, emanating from external security threats and the internal challenges to Canadian culture by foreign migrants who engage in ‘barbaric cultural practices’.

The rejection of the Conservatives by the Canadian population was also a rejection of ‘Niqab politics’ (Mr. Harper’s government refusing to allow a Muslim woman to take the citizenship oath wearing a niqab), Bill C-24 (revoking the citizenship of dual citizens if accused and convicted of terrorism activities), and Bill C-51 (anti-terror law expanding the power of Canadian security agencies). Although Mr. Harper expressed great sympathy for Syrian refugees, particularly after the haunting image of a drowned 3-year-old washed up on a Turkish beach which focused the world’s attention on the largest refugee crisis since World War II, he, nevertheless, had rejected calls from the Canadians to take immediate action.

In making refugee decisions, Harper’s government had followed an exclusionary policy, with very specific criteria known as ‘areas of focus’. Included were those people who spoke English or French fluently; those residing outside the refugee camps; women between the ages of 20 and 40 who were victims of violence; and refugees with a family in Canada. It is generally agreed that the conservative policy to welcome 10,000 Syrian refugees included Christians and other minority groups (such as Ismailis) and excluded most of the Muslim refugees.

The widely-supported Liberal government initiative of welcoming 25,000 refugees is more symbolic for Canadians than anything else, who are breathing a sigh of relief that Canada is returning to its core values, the multicultural society which Canada and the Canadians had previously enjoyed as the result of choices developed over the last five decades. The country takes pride in pointing out that Canada is a nation of diverse people who live peacefully together.

Most significantly, Canada has moved beyond its shameful nineteenth and early twentieth century past of discriminating against, among others, the Chinese (imposition of head tax and refusal to allow the settlement of female Asian immigrants) and the Indian immigrants (by not allowing approximately 400 passengers, mostly Punjabis to disembark the Komagata Maru); and the internment of Japanese Canadian internment during the Second world war.

Moreover, Canada has a strong tradition of providing humanitarian leadership on the global stage. In keeping with its duty to protect, Canada’s refugee policy has been robust in the past. More than 1.2 million refugees have arrived in Canada since World War II which included, among others, more than 5000 from Uganda in 1972, roughly 110,000 Vietnamese “boat people” in 1979-80, and about 5000 people from Kosovo in the late 1990s.

Successive waves of immigration since the 1970s have generated both diversity and a culture of recognition/accommodation of difference. But the number of refugees declined since Harper became prime minister in 2006. According to the United Nations, Canada had dropped from the fifth-highest refugee-receiving country in 2000 to 15th in 2014. The new liberal government has once again revived the national project of accommodation of diversity and tolerance of difference.

Canadian gestures towards the Syrian refugees, though modest, are also a welcome departure from the North American and European obsession with security and the anxiety towards the “other’. Echoing the voice of a large segment of the American population, Donald Trump, the leading Republican Presidential candidate, recently advocated banning all Muslim non-citizens from the country for an indeterminate period and, if elected president, promised to send back Syrian refugees taken in by the U.S. because they might be Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants in disguise.

What is worrisome is that more than one-third of Democrats and half of the Republican citizens of the United States appear to support Trump’s views and perceive Islam to be a threat to the US and a dilution of the American identity. In the wake of the Paris attacks, the top Republican lawmaker in the U.S. House of Representatives called for a halt to the nation’s Syrian refugee resettlement program and 26 U.S. state governors, all Republicans, have also threatened to stop accepting Syrian refugees in the wake of the Paris attacks.

This national conversation on bigotry and lack of tolerance for minorities, particularly Muslims, has also its resonance in the right wing parties and groups in Europe who are whipping up hatred against refugees. France and other European countries are facing calls to deny entry to Syrian refugees after it was revealed that that one of the Paris attackers may have slipped into Europe as part of the influx of asylum-seekers.

Under this global context, Canada has done well in welcoming refugees who need safety and protection. However, the Canadian policy of resettling refugees does have some serious limitations. The Syrian refugee plan is limited to women, children and families only and excludes unaccompanied men seeking asylum. This is discriminatory and sends a wrong message that young, single, Muslim men are dangerous and that they’re not welcome in Canada – some suggesting that this is reminiscent of the Harper policy centred on security and discrimination on the basis of religion.

*Reeta Tremblay is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. She can be reached at: editor@spsindia.in

(EurActiv) — Croatia’s president this week designated pharmaceutical executive Tihomir Orešković to become prime minister, nominating a technocrat put forward by conservatives and a reformist party after weeks of talks following an inconclusive election.

The November 8 elections were the country’s first since it joined the European Union in 2013. No party gained the 76 seats needed for a majority, and the result was a hung parliament.

“He convinced me that he has support of 78 parliamentary deputies,” President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said. Parliament has 151 seats.

Orešković, 49, a pharmaceutical expert working as a senior manager in Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals, now has 30 days to win approval for his cabinet in the parliament.

“I’ll invest all my knowledge and energy so that we can start solving the huge number of problems that we have,” Orešković said after his nomination.

The conservative HDZ and the reformist “Most” (Croatian for “bridge”) party struck a deal on Wednesday after six weeks of talks on potential coalitions, which also included the outgoing government’s Social Democrats..

Most insisted on a technocrat prime minister, saying this would bolster the reformist credentials of the new cabinet as one of the weakest European Union economies struggles to boost shaky growth and reduce severe fiscal imbalances.

One of the least substantiated notions behind the modern American doctrine that people should allow insurers or governments to control our health spending is that these third parties can negotiate fees with hospitals and physicians that are better than those which would prevail if patients controlled these dollars ourselves.

Years of evidence show that these third parties have little idea what they are doing when they fix fees paid to providers. Atul Gawande, MD, has made a name for himself by popularizing research from Dartmouth University, which shows large, unexplained, variation in cost and outcomes for Medicare in different areas of the country. President Obama has used this research to impose further controls on how Medicare pays hospitals and doctors, in the hope that this will reduce costs to the lowest-common denominator.

Unfortunately, new research demonstrates we have no real idea why this unexplained variance exists. This research uses a new database of extremely rich data from a consortium of the nation’s largest private insurers. The database includes over one-quarter of people with employer-sponsored benefits. The findings:

• There is huge variance in actual hospital prices paid by insurers – up to twelve times.
• There is little connection between prices for individual procedures in an area and total cost per patient (suggesting there is substitution from high-priced to low-priced procedures within an area).
• There is no correlation between total spending per privately insured patient and Medicare patient.

The last one is the real killer of the idea that the providers are responsible for driving cost up. If high Medicare costs were driven up in areas with especially greedy and cunning hospitals and doctors, we’d expect private insurers to pay more in those areas, too. On the other hand, some have insisted that where Medicare payments are too low, costs are shifted to private insurers to make up the total required revenue. If that were true, there would be a negative correlation between Medicare costs and private insurers’ costs among regions.

Good economic theory and business strategy indicates providers segment their markets and charge the profit-maximizing price in each segment. So, if prices and costs are a crazy quilt across the country, it must be due to idiosyncrasies among the payers, not the providers.

I don’t actually see the point of worrying too much about price or cost variation. If an orange costs much more in Alaska than Florida, we do not seek government intervention to equalize the prices. Similarly, the cost structure of delivering health care differs for many reasons. What worries me is that this line of research will lead to yet more government efforts to harmonize prices and quality across the country, instead of freeing patients to make their own decisions about how much to pay for health care.

* * *

For the pivotal alternative to Obamacare, please see Independent Institute’s book, A Better Choice: Healthcare Solutions for America, by John C. Goodman.

The World Bank this week transferred around US$22 million to the Palestinian Authority from the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan Trust Fund (PRDP-MDTF), a multi-donor budget support mechanism administered by the Bank.

The funds contributed by the governments of France, Norway, and the United Kingdom, will help support the urgent budget needs of the Palestinian Authority (PA), providing inter alia support for ongoing macroeconomic and public financial management reforms.

The World Bank PRDP Trust Fund was established on April 10, 2008, through an agreement signed between the World Bank and the Palestinian Authority. It is a central component of a World Bank’s effort to support the ongoing Palestinian Reform and Development Plan.

Currently, the PRDP-MDTF donors are the governments of Australia, France, Kuwait, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

With the new tranche release, the PRDP-MDTF will have disbursed about US$1.4 billion.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has announced “another achievement in global nuclear non-proliferation efforts”, with the shipment of high enriched uranium (HEU) from Georgia this week. The 1.83 kg of HEU was removed from the Breeder-1 Neutron Source at Tbilisi State University in Georgia to a secure storage facility in Russia.

The Georgian government in June requested assistance from the IAEA for the HEU removal operation. The IAEA subsequently contracted LUCH, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, and the Tbilisi State University’s Andronikashvili Institute of Physics in Georgia for the removal.

Maia Bitadze, Georgia’s deputy minister of environment and natural resources protection, said in the IAEA statement that successful accomplishment of this shipment operation was due to “the effective cooperation of all parties”.

The Breeder-1 Neutron Source facility was used to carry out activities involving neutron activation methods for, among others, substance element composition analysis, geological surveys for exploring minerals, agricultural studies, and criminal investigations. It also generated short-lived isotopes used for research and educational purposes.

The IAEA said that HEU can be a nuclear proliferation and security concern because it can eventually be used for producing material used for nuclear weapons. “The IAEA is supporting its member states in their efforts to replace HEU with low enriched uranium in research reactors and neutron source facilities worldwide. The IAEA also provides technical knowledge, research support, and equipment,” the Vienna-based agency said.

“Removing HEU from the Breeder-1 is one of the recent contributions to international efforts to minimize the civilian use of HEU,” said Christophe Xerri, Director of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology Division at the IAEA. “It is also an example of how the IAEA can help Member States in achieving their non-proliferation and nuclear security objectives.”

Washington will not share intelligence data on Islamic State positions in Syria and will not accept Moscow’s offer to cooperate on rooting out terrorism until Moscow changes its position on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s future, the Pentagon said, according to RT.

Ever since the start of the Russian campaign in Syria in late September, Moscow has been offering to share information with the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), urging Washington to reciprocate. After months of extensive diplomatic efforts by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, and the Kremlin, the Pentagon is still refusing to enter the proposed cooperation.

“We are not going to cooperate with Russia on Syria until they change their strategy of supporting Assad and instead focus on ISIL,” U.S. Defense Department Spokesperson Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza told Sputnik on Friday.

Moscow has persistently insisted throughout the course of the Syrian conflict that it is only up to the Syrian people to decide who governs them. Russia has repeatedly spoken out against foreign intervention in the domestic affairs of any country, including Syria.

Washington and their Middle Eastern allies do not consider the elected president of Syria to be a legitimate authority and want him gone, claiming only his unconditional departure can ignite a political process in the war-torn country.

However, recently Washington has softened its rhetoric, saying that Assad might play a certain role in the “transitional period” while “how and when he goes” is being decided.

By Ann Garrison*

Western press and officials now warn that the Rwandan massacres of 1994 are close to a replay in Rwanda’s neighbor Burundi, which shares its Hutu-Tutsi-Twa demographic. Prominent Western voices blame Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza for seeking and winning a third term in office, but critics of U.S. and E.U. foreign policy say that their real issues are Western firms’ loss to Russian and Chinese firms in the scramble for Burundi’s natural resources, most notably its nickel reserves, and Burundi’s geostrategic border with the resource-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In “Burundi’s dangerous neighbor,” a letter to the Washington Post, former U.N. official Jeff Drumtra argues that the Rwandan government’s conscription of Burundian refugees to fight in a new, so-called “rebel force” is a grave danger that the international community should recognize before it’s too late.

Drumtra returned several weeks ago from five months work in Rwanda’s Mahama Refugee Camp for Burundian refugees near the Rwandan-Burundian border. I spoke to him on Nov. 14, 2015. He stressed that his employment contract with the U.N. had been completed several weeks before and that he was not speaking in any official capacity.

ANN GARRISON: Jeff Drumtra, in your Washington Post letter, “Burundi’s dangerous neighbor,” you said that you worked for five months as a U.N. official in Rwanda’s Mahama Refugee Camp for Burundian refugees. Could you tell us what your responsibilities there were?

JEFF DRUMTRA: Well, Mahama Camp in Rwanda had about 45,000 Burundian refugees. It was created in April. I was part of the U.N. emergency team that went in there to respond to the massive Burundian refugee influx that was coming into Rwanda. And on an emergency team, you do whatever needs to be done in the first weeks and months of an emergency.

So, my primary responsibilities were to deal with journalists coming to the camp, and it was a very high profile camp. Also, facilitating visits by diplomats, representatives of other governments who would come to the camp. Their money is going into paying for the international assistance that the U.N. was providing.

I was also filing daily reports for the U.N. team. These were internal reports, within the U.N. system, things that were going on in the camp every day: progress being made to deal with health issues, nutrition, food distribution, shelter, water, sanitation. All of this has to be set up in the first weeks and months of creating a refugee camp.

But another part of my responsibilities was to do what we call “protection,” which means to try to monitor the physical safety of refugees in the camp and also make sure that their legal rights are not being violated, and doing that kind of protection work really gets you into some of the more subtle issues that go on in a refugee camp.

AG: And how did you experience what you called, in your Washington Post letter, “the intimidating power of the military recruitment effort by the Rwandan government” there?

JD: Well, the military recruitment, much of it would happen at night, when international staff like myself were not in the camp. Under U.N. security restrictions, we’re required to leave the camp before nightfall every evening.

And so a lot of this would happen at night, but we would gradually piece together what was happening, as refugees who were very afraid of being forced into a rebel army, forced to go into combat, would come to talk to us with their fears, their concerns. And we gradually pieced together the story of what was happening and various eyewitness accounts from the refugees themselves of who was involved in this massive recruitment effort, and it gradually became clearer and clearer to us that this was not just a few refugees who were trying to recruit a rebel force, but that there was the hand of the Rwandan government involved – police officers, intelligence officers.

And certainly I felt the effects of that. I had refugees coming to me who were extremely afraid, very much afraid of what might happen to them.

AG: Do you mean what might happen to them if they refused the recruitment?

JD: What might happen to them if they refused to be recruited. They did receive death threats, telling them that “you really have no choice, you must agree to join the force that’s being created.” So they had death threats.

Some of them were afraid to sleep in their tents at night and would spend the night in the latrines, trying to escape because a lot of this would happen at night, and so they would sometimes be afraid to go into their tents at night. And so the ones who were most afraid took the risk of talking to a U.N. team, which itself was a risk, because the U.N. team, including myself, was under constant surveillance in the camp by Rwandan government officials.

And so we certainly felt the effects of that surveillance and it made our work more difficult, but gradually we did piece together what was happening in terms of recruitment – usually refugee young males, middle aged males being moved out of the camp, presumably for military training and then onward for whatever the eventual mission was meant to be.

AG: And these were Burundian refugees being drafted by the Rwandan army for some kind of mission in Burundi, right?

JD: They were Burundian refugees being conscripted by Rwandan officials to form their own rebel force. We saw no evidence that these individuals, these refugees, were integrated into the Rwandan military. That’s not what we think was happening or is happening. Instead, it was the creation of a new rebel force that was being put together under the guiding hand of Rwandan officials.

AG: You also wrote that “U.N. officials and the U.S. government are aware of the Rwandan government’s recruitment campaign.” Could you explain how U.N. officials and the U.S. government know – and how you know that they know?

JD: Well, U.N. officials know because they were receiving the regular reporting that was coming from my team, and we were reporting on a daily and then a weekly and a monthly basis. And we would analyze this and we would report this up the chain, and so we know that U.N. officials at higher levels knew about this because they had access to the internal reporting that we were generating.

U.S. officials and officials of other governments who visited the camp knew about this eventually because they said they did. They would ask about it. They had heard about it.

There was some coverage of this issue as early as late July by some members of the international media. Not the U.S. media, but the international media. And so close observers of the situation in Rwanda and Burundi began to understand what was happening as early as late July. Now those of us working in the camp every day began to understand in early June.

But foreign diplomats would come to the camp because, again, their governments were providing financial support to the humanitarian assistance effort, so they would come to the camp and want to look around and see how their money was being used. And inevitably, during their visit, this issue would come up. They would ask about it. So they knew.

They oftentimes did not know how the recruitment was happening or how pervasive it was, but, by midsummer, some of the more astute governments paying close attention had figured out that some kind of military recruitment was happening in Mahama Refugee Camp.

AG: And why is it significant that the U.N. and the U.S. government are aware of this?

JD: Well, it’s significant that governments are aware of this because, if they are aware of it, then they can exert pressure. They can exert diplomatic pressure either behind the scenes, quietly, on the Rwandan government to cease this activity or, if that doesn’t work, they can go more public.

My impression is that, up to this point in time, the pressure that they exerted has been more behind the scenes. Constructive diplomacy, if you will. And it has not stopped the recruitment.

At times perhaps it slowed down the recruitment, but it most certainly has not brought the military recruitment to a stop. And, ultimately, some of the governments, including the U.S. government could always take a stronger position, going beyond just quiet diplomacy or even public diplomacy but getting to the point of considering sanctions against the Rwandan government.

So those are all tools that the U.S. government has and whether they are ready to use those tools or not, I don’t know. I don’t have access to their internal discussions. But it’s significant that they know it, because they can’t come back – governments can’t come back – months from now when it’s too late and say they didn’t know about this.

They do know about it. We know they know about it. They’ve asked about it. And I think some governments have other methods to monitor the situation and collect information on this kind of activity. So it’s not a secret, and it needs to be talked about more openly to try to impose some accountability.

AG: Did you see any sign that the U.S. is actually encouraging the recruitment?

JD: That the U.S. is encouraging the recruitment?

AG: Yes, the U.S. has a historically very close relationship with the Rwandan military, and there are many people who believe this. But, that doesn’t mean it’s true.

JD: No, I saw no signs of that, and this is the first time that notion has ever even been presented to me. Every indication that I ever had, both when I was in Rwanda as well as since returning from Rwanda a couple weeks ago, is that the U.S. government is extremely concerned about military recruitment in Rwanda and in Mahama Camp. I’ve never had any sense that the U.S. government would support that. But I’m not inside the U.S. government, so I can’t speak authoritatively on that.

AG: Is it possible that easing the tension is best left to Rwandans and Burundians?

JD: I think this is an issue that needs international diplomatic attention, including by the U.S. government, and it is possible that diplomatic pressure by the U.N. and others has already had some beneficial effect. There is not as yet a full blown rebel invasion into Burundi.

There is violence, perhaps there are things going on, but there were periods of time when the recruitment in the camp did slow down. We can only guess about the reasons, but perhaps diplomatic pressure played a role. But there was always the sense that the recruitment network remained in place and that the recruitment network would continue to function, and I think that’s proven to be the case right up to the current time.

AG: Today, Agence France Presse reported that “Burundian insurgents” boasted of firing mortars at the presidential palace in Bujumbura – that is, at President Nkurunziza’s residence. Do you have anything to say about what this could mean?

JD: Well, it’s hard for me to analyze that because that happened inside Burundi – I was on the other side of the border in Rwanda – but I can say, having worked on issues of Rwanda and Burundi on and off for more than 20 years, that we know, historically, that the violence gets worse and the risk of mass atrocities becomes much more serious when both sides feel that they have been victimized.

And so, a mortar attack on the presidential palace – if it were to hit its mark and actually create a large number of deaths, or even the death of a president – would certainly create a situation where the ruling party and everyone who voted for the ruling party in Burundi would feel victimized at a whole new level. And if something like that were to happen, that’s when, historically, violence in Burundi becomes much worse, and that’s what everybody fears here.

Up to this point, the violence in Burundi has largely been political in nature. There’s always an ethnic tinge to it, but it’s largely political. But everyone’s fear is that the violence in Burundi could flip into wholesale ethnic violence.

And if that were to happen, then all bets are off, because we’ve seen back in the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s, Burundi can produce tens of thousands of refugees in a single weekend. It can produce hundreds of thousands of new refugees in a matter of weeks.

It can produce tens of thousands of deaths of innocent people in a short period of time, if the violence escalates to a whole new level. The violence in Burundi now is bad, but it is not as bad as it could get, and if both sides see themselves as victims, then they lash out very strongly at each other.

KPFA: By both sides, you mean Hutu and Tutsi?

JD: If it gets to that, yes.

KPFA: If it gets to that.

JD: If it becomes totally ethnic in character. Right now, as I said, there’s an ethnic undercurrent, but it seems largely politically oriented. There are plenty of Hutu in Burundi who oppose the ruling party and the third term of the president.

But if you were to have a wholesale invasion of Burundi by an army organized by the government of Rwanda and sent into Burundi – Burundian refugees – that would tilt the dynamics of the violence in Burundi instantaneously. And that’s what everybody fears.

AG: OK, is there anything else you’d like to say?

JD: Yes. This is an issue that has not gotten attention in the media. The attention it has gotten has largely been from European media.

It does need more attention here in the United States and I’m encouraged that you’re looking at this, and I hope that it will stimulate more coverage from other American media because there is potential for this to get out of hand very quickly.

It oftentimes felt very lonely and very isolated there at Mahama Camp. It’s a remote area anyway, and you always wonder who’s really paying attention. You file your reports, but sometimes you wonder who’s reading them. But, little by little, I think that, hopefully, pressure’s being put on the government.

AG: Well, it’s courageous of you to speak. It’s courageous of you to have even filed the reports there, because the Rwandan government is known to disappear people. I think you’re pretty safe here in Maryland, but in Mahama Refugee Camp, they could just say, “He’s gone and we don’t know where. We can’t be responsible for everybody.”

JD: It’s something that we thought about and we talked about at critical moments. We were aware. Like I say, you’re weighing risks every single day on things large and small – risk to yourself, risk to the refugees, risk to your co-workers. Every step you take, in a way, has to be thought through in advance.

So it continues here in the states. I feel like I’ve brought Rwanda back with me – for better or worse.

UPDATE: On Monday, Nov. 23, 2015, President Obama issued an executive order imposing sanctions on two Burundian military officers and two former Burundian military officers who have joined the current insurgency. The order did not sanction any Rwandan officers and made no mention of Rwanda’s role in the conflict.

* Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Black Agenda Report, Black Star News, Counterpunch and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News, KPFA Flashpoints and for her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at anniegarrison@gmail.com In March 2014 she was awarded the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for promoting peace in the Great Lakes Region of Africa through her reporting.

When the Titanic began to sink on April 15, 1912, Father Thomas Byles had two opportunities to board a lifeboat.

But he forewent those opportunities, according to passengers aboard the sinking ocean liner, in order to hear confessions and offer consolation and prayers with those who were trapped aboard.

Now, a priest at the former church of Fr. Byles in England is asking that his beatification cause be opened.

Some 1,500 people died when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic Ocean in 1912. Believed at the time to be “unsinkable,” the ship lacked adequate lifeboats for all the passengers on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City.

Fr. Byles was traveling on the Titanic to preside at his brother’s wedding in New York. The 42-year-old British priest had been ordained in Rome 10 years prior and had served as a parish priest at Saint Helen’s Church in Essex since 1905.

Miss Agnes McCoy, a third class passenger and survivor of the Titanic, said Fr. Byles had been on the ship, hearing confessions, praying with passengers and giving his blessing as the vessel sank.

McCoy’s testimony, and that of other passengers onboard, has been collected at www.fatherbyles.com.

Helen Mary Mocklare, another third class passenger, offered more details about the final hours of the priest’s life.

“When the crash came we were thrown from our berths … We saw before us, coming down the passageway, with his hand uplifted, Father Byles,” she recalled. “We knew him because he had visited us several times on board and celebrated Mass for us that very morning.”

“’Be calm, my good people,’ he said, and then he went about the steerage giving absolution and blessings…”

Mocklare continued: “A few around us became very excited and then it was that the priest again raised his hand and instantly they were calm once more. The passengers were immediately impressed by the absolute self-control of the priest.”

She recounted that a sailor “warned the priest of his danger and begged him to board a boat.” Although the sailor was anxious to help him, the priest twice refused to leave.

“Fr. Byles could have been saved, but he would not leave while one (passenger) was left and the sailor’s entreaties were not heeded,” Mocklare recounted. “After I got in the boat, which was the last one to leave, and we were slowly going further away from the ship, I could hear distinctly the voice of the priest and the responses to his prayers.”

More than a century later, Father Graham Smith – the current priest at Fr. Byles’ former parish of Saint Helen’s – is the promoter for opening his cause for beatification.

In a statement to the BBC, Fr. Smith announced the beginning of the process seeking the canonization of his predecessor, whom he considers to be “an extraordinary man who gave his life for others.”

Fr. Smith said that in the local community, “We are hoping and praying that he will be recognized as one of the saints within our canon.”

The canonization process first requires that the person in question be found to have lived the Christian virtues to a heroic degree. A miracle attributed to the intercession of the individual must then be approved, for the title of “Blessed” to be bestowed.

Once beatified, another miracle due to the intercession of Fr. Byles would need to be approved, for him to be declared a saint.

“We hope people around the world will pray to him if they are in need and, if a miracle occurs, then beatification and then canonization can go forward,” Fr. Smith said.

In 2013, Chang’e-3, an unmanned lunar mission, touched down on the northern part of the Imbrium basin, one of the most prominent of the lava-filled impact basins visible from Earth.

It was a beautiful landing site, said Bradley L. Jolliff, PhD, the Scott Rudolph Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, who is a participant in an educational collaboration that helped analyze Chang’e-3 mission data. The lander touched down on a smooth flood basalt plain next to a relatively fresh impact crater (now officially named the Zi Wei crater) that had conveniently excavated bedrock from below the regolith for the Yutu rover to study.

Since the Apollo program ended, American lunar exploration has been conducted mainly from orbit. But orbital sensors primarily detect the regolith (the ground-up surface layer of fragmented rock) that blankets the Moon, and the regolith is typically mixed and difficult to interpret.

Because Chang’e-3 landed on a comparatively young lava flow, the regolith layer was thin and not mixed with debris from elsewhere. Thus it closely resembled the composition of the underlying volcanic bedrock. This characteristic made the landing site an ideal location to compare in situ analysis with compositional information detected by orbiting satellites.

“We now have ‘ground truth’ for our remote sensing, a well-characterized sample in a key location,” Jolliff said. “We see the same signal from orbit in other places, so we now know that those other places probably have similar basalts.”

The basalts at the Chang’e-3 landing site also turned out to be unlike any returned by the Apollo and Luna sample return missions.

“The diversity tells us that the Moon’s upper mantle is much less uniform in composition than Earth’s,” Jolliff said. “And correlating chemistry with age, we can see how the Moon’s volcanism changed over time.”

Two partnerships were involved in the collection and analysis of this data, published in the journal Nature Communications Dec. 22. Scientists from a number of Chinese institutions involved with the Chang’e-3 mission formed one partnership; the other was a long-standing educational partnership between Shandong University in Weihai, China, and Washington University in St. Louis.

A mineralogical mystery

The Moon, thought to have been created by the collision of a Mars-sized body with the Earth, began as a molten or partially molten body that separated as it cooled into a crust, mantle and core. But the buildup of heat from the decay of radioactive elements in the interior then remelted parts of the mantle, which began to erupt onto the surface some 500 million years after the Moon’s formation, pooling in impact craters and basins to form the maria, most of which are on the side of the Moon facing the Earth.

The American Apollo (1969-1972) and Russian Luna (1970-1976) missions sampled basalts from the period of peak volcanism that occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago. But the Imbrium basin, where Chang’e-3 landed, contains some of the younger flows — 3 billion years old or slightly less.

The basalts returned by the Apollo and Luna missions had either a high titanium content or low to very low titanium; intermediate values were missing. But measurements made by an alpha-particle X-ray spectrometer and a near-infrared hyperspectral imager aboard the Yutu rover indicated that the basalts at the Chang’e-3 landing site are intermediate in titanium, as well as rich in iron, said Zongcheng Ling, PhD, associate professor in the School of Space Science and Physics at Shandong University in Weihai, and first author of the paper.

Titanium is especially useful in mapping and understanding volcanism on the Moon because it varies so much in concentration, from less than 1 weight percent TiO2 to over15 percent. This variation reflects significant differences in the mantle source regions that derive from the time when the early magma ocean first solidified.

Minerals crystallize from basaltic magma in a certain order, explained Alian Wang, PhD, research professor in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University. Typically, the first to crystallize are two magnesium- and iron-rich minerals (olivine and pyroxene) that are both a little denser than the magma, and sink down through it, then a mineral (plagioclase feldspar), that is less dense and floats to the surface. This process of separation by crystallization led to the formation of the Moon’s mantle and crust as the magma ocean cooled.

The titanium ended up in a mineral called ilmenite (FeTiO3) that typically doesn’t crystallize until a very late stage, when perhaps only 5 percent of the original melt remains. When it finally crystallized, the ilmenite-rich material, which is also dense, sank into the mantle, forming areas of Ti enrichment.

“The variable titanium distribution on the lunar surface suggests that the Moon’s interior was not homogenized,” Jolliff said. “We’re still trying to figure out exactly how this happened. Possibly there were big impacts during the magma ocean stage that disrupted the mantle’s formation.”

Another clue to the Moon’s past

The story has another twist that also underscores the importance of checking orbital data against ground truth. The remote sensing data for Chang’e-3’s landing site showed that it was rich in olivine as well as titanium.

That doesn’t make sense, Wang said, because olivine usually crystallizes early and the titanium-rich ilmenite crystallizes late. Finding a rock that is rich in both is a bit strange.

But Yutu solved this mystery as well. In olivine, silicon is paired with either magnesium or iron but the ratio of those two elements is quite variable in different forms of the mineral. The early-forming olivine would be magnesium rich, while the olivine detected by Yutu has a composition that ranges from intermediate in iron to iron-rich.

“That makes more sense,” Jolliff said, “because iron-enriched olivine and ilmenite are more likely to occur together.

“You still have to explain how you get to an olivine-rich and ilmenite-rich rock. One way to do that would be to mix, or hybridize, two different sources,” he said.

The scientists infer that late in the magma-ocean crystallization, iron-rich pyroxene and ilmenite, which formed late and at the crust-mantle boundary, might have begun to sink. and early-formed magnesium-rich olivine might have begun to rise. As this occurred, the two minerals might have mixed and hybridized.

“Given these data, that is our interpretation,” Jolliff said.

In any case, it is clear that these newly characterized basalts reveal a more diverse Moon than the one that emerged from studies following the Apollo and Luna missions. Remote sensing suggests that there are even younger and even more diverse basalts on the Moon, waiting for future robotic or human explorers to investigate, Jolliff said.

By Anand Kumar*

The war crime trials in Bangladesh are the unfinished agenda of the Liberation War of the Bangladeshi people who had won their liberation from Pakistan on 16 December 1971. The country is now trying to complete this by bringing some of the worst-grade war criminals to justice. In this endeavour it has already hanged four war criminals while the trials are underway for some others. These war criminals had sided with the raiding Pakistani forces in 1971 and committed extreme atrocities on Bengali people. Unfortunately, even after decades Pakistan appears remorseless for these crimes committed by its army and its cohorts against the Bangladeshi people.

The non-punishment of war criminals for long became a major point of concern within the independent Bangladesh. What was worse is that in the interregnum, the war criminals tried to get political legitimacy and gathered strength because of the suitable political conditions in the country. On 15th August 1975 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was murdered by the anti-liberation forces present within the Bangladeshi army. This was a turning point in the history of Bangladesh. The subsequent military and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) regimes tried to rehabilitate Islamists and anti-Liberation forces predominantly represented by Jamaat-e-Islami.

This changed political situation afforded Pakistan an opportunity to influence Bangladesh politically. Both Jamaat-e-Islami and the BNP adopted a pro-Pakistani attitude. This was an insult to the Mukti-Jodhas or Bangladeshi freedom fighters who had sacrificed their life to win liberation for the country. Though occasional voices were heard in the country to prosecute war criminals, they were not heeded to.

This delay in trial of war criminals allowed them not only to get political legitimacy but also increase their influence in the Bangladeshi society. Organisations like Jamaat-e-Islami later became hand in glove with various terrorist organisations. Jamaat participated in democratic elections but wanted to bring Sharia rule in the country. This endangered democracy in Bangladesh. The people allied with them launched deadly attack on Sheikh Hasina when she was addressing a rally in Dhaka in August 2004. All these developments motivated Hasina to complete the war crime trials which had been pending for a long time.

It is hardly surprising that when Hasina came to power in 2009 the trial of war criminals was on top of her agenda. However, this was not liked by Pakistan. This became clear when Zia Ispahani, the special envoy of then Pakistan president, Asif Ali Zardari, visited Dhaka to request Hasina not to reopen the war criminals’ case. Ispahani conveyed the message that any attempt to reopen these cases would adversely affect relations between the two countries. Ispahani also met Begum Khaleda Zia. Hasina, however, did not accept his warning kind of request.

Pakistan not only disliked Hasina’s idea of prosecuting war criminals, it is widely believed that at the instance of Zia Ispahani and the ISI, a mutiny took place in the border guarding force of the Bangladesh. The mutiny in the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) nearly swept away the Sheikh Hasina government. Hasina could control the situation only by showing great courage.

The BDR mutiny failed in toppling Hasina government but it managed to delay the start of war crime trials. The government of Bangladesh however, now seems determined to complete it. This has caused discomfort to Pakistan, whose army too was involved in war crime. Moreover, it sees people prosecuted by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) as those who could have been used to further its strategic interests in that country.

This has made Pakistan criticise the ICT verdicts. It criticised when Abdul Qader Molla was hanged. It has expressed its “deep concern and anguish” over the capital punishments of Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury. Both convicts were once ministers in the BNP led government in Bangladesh. Chowdhury was also the political advisor of Khaleda. These two individuals collaborated in 1971 with Pakistan in killing hundreds of Hindus and committed other atrocities over the local population.

Pakistan however still denies that its army committed any war crime in Bangladesh. Pakistan is mentioning the 1974 tripartite agreement as the bedrock of relations between the two countries. It says that as part of the agreement, the government of Bangladesh had decided not to proceed with the trials as an act of clemency. On the contrary, the feeling in Bangladesh is that the 195 Pakistani soldiers against whom Bangladesh had collected specific evidences of genocide can still be tried in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It is believed that the country signed the 1974 agreement because Pakistan held 203 Bangladeshi officials hostage for its 195 officers of very high ranks. Moreover, “clemency” has no bearing on the trial of those who committed genocide as per the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report of 2009 titled “International Law and United Nations Policy on Amnesty.”

Interestingly, International organisations like Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and even the UN have taken queer stand on the implementation of war crime verdicts. They say that the trial procedure was flawed. They also criticised the practice of hanging of criminals in general. Strangely, the same organisations have nothing to say in the case of Pakistan where the hanging is happening more frequently of those people whom the Pakistani state especially its military considers dangerous. These people are being tried in military courts and then hanged. Both Pakistan and the US are among the top ranking nations where hangings take place. Unfortunately, these international organisations have chosen to remain quiet in those cases.

The Bangladesh government however finds the Pakistani reaction as unacceptable and nothing less than brazen interference in its internal matters. It has advised Pakistan not to make unfounded comments about the independent judiciary of a sovereign country. The reaction of Pakistan has enraged the government of Bangladesh. It has revived their old wounds. The people in Bangladesh now feel that the Pakistani concern for war criminals once again proves beyond doubt their direct involvement in mass atrocities committed during the war.

The Sheikh Hasina government has shown enormous courage in going ahead with the war crime trials in the face of pressure from the western powers and international human rights groups. India has also assured Bangladesh that it will support the country in case the issue is raised at any global forum. The successful completion of war crime trials would prove to be an important chapter in the history of Bangladesh. It will give justice to millions of people who had suffered at the hands of Pakistan army and their cohorts in Bangladesh known as Razakars. By criticising it, Pakistan has only exposed itself that it remains remorseless and still carries over the bigotry and racism that brought about the cataclysmic events of 1971.

*Anand Kumar is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. He can be reached at: anand_rai@hotmail.com

Following is an interview with Canadian university professor Eric Walberg who says the Palestinian intifadas will continue as long as there are Palestinians alive to fight for their rights.

Interview by Omid Tamrabadi

Q: Do you think that protests against the failure of peace talks are the motivation behind the current Intifada?

A: No one on either side takes the endless talks seriously. Netanyahu has made it clear more than once that he has no intention as prime minister of ceding any more settlements or of stopping their expansion. His goal is to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel, to lead the way to destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque and the building on Temple Mount a Jewish temple dedicated to King Solomon. Palestinians have no ‘negotiating’ position, as they were granted a state in 1947 by the UN, which Israel subsequently denied them. They merely trust that the UN will eventually be able to enact the original agreement or convince Israel to negotiate a solution in line with the agreement that allowed Israel to be created in 1947. So the intifadas will continue as long as there are Palestinians alive to fight for their rights.

Q: Please comment on the hypocrisy of western countries, which loudly bemoan every death of a western and/or Israeli citizen and ignore the daily killing of dozens of Palestinians.

A: Yes, western media is hypocritical, marginally concerned when a westerner dies, but oblivious to the daily torture and murder of Palestinians. But the concern for westerners and those with western passports does have some effect. Just two days ago, a Canadian artist of Palestinian origins, Rehab Nazzal, was shot in Bethlehem unprovoked, merely taking pictures which the Israeli conscripts resented. Resented with good reason, for these members of the Israeli Defense Forces were spraying a Palestinian neighborhood with “skunk,” a smelly, nonlethal liquid used for crowd control. So one of them turned around and shot her to teach her who is boss.

Eitan Weiss, a spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Ottawa, told the Ottawa Citizen that there was no report of the incident, and that in cases of a non-lethal injury to an individual “it’s very difficult to prove that it ever happened, and it’s very difficult to prove that it didn’t happen.”

Weiss was still fuming because of Nazzal’s exhibition “Invisible” in Ottawa in June, before she went to Bethlehem and was cavalierly shot by his defense forces. “Invisible” was held at the Karsh-Masson Gallery in Ottawa’s City Hall. It did precisely what good art should do — attract wide public attention while provoking thought through arresting images.

Held under the glowering gaze of the ‘Harper government’, the show sparked attacks in both the Senate and the House of Commons, prompted by Israeli ambassador Rafael Barak’s complaint to Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson. For good measure, the Jewish Federation of Ottawa issued a statement condemning the exhibition and calling for its removal.

To its credit, the city resisted pressure to shut the show down. The exhibit that incensed the Israeli ambassador was “Target” which evoked the daily atmosphere of violence against anonymous, innocent Palestinians. In her Senate speech decrying the mayor and city councilors of Ottawa as “enablers of hate,” Linda Frum demanded that Nazzal include Israeli victims, basically denied Nazzal’s right to honour the victims of Israeli violence, including her brother and the others, shown in the video as martyrs. Frum claimed to “speak on behalf of all decent and peace-loving Canadians who abhor terror as a means to obtain political ends,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that it is Israel itself that is conducting unending terrorist acts with impunity.

In her reply about “Invisible” in the Ottawa Citizen, Rehab Nazzal responded: “The works in ‘Invisible’ are challenging, but they are part of the tradition of critical art. It is through challenging interventions that suppressed subjects can be brought to light. The extra-judicial assassination of Palestinians, the attacks on peaceful Palestinian demonstrations, and the brutal treatment of Palestinian prisoners, these are the central issues raised by the various works in the exhibit.”

Of course, Palestine will not be liberated by art exhibitions alone, but they help. As do Israeli/Zionist attempts to close them, bringing world attention to both the exhibition and the hypocrisy of the critics. Nazzal’s ‘problem’ in Ottawa was that her exhibition was very public, at the heart of the City Hall, unlike previous exhibits of “Target” in Toronto and San Fransisco, at little-frequented art galleries. “Collective memory resurfaces in the interstices of aesthetic culture. In art and music, in theatre and dance, the story of war’s victims is revived,” wrote Michelle Weinroth, defending Nazzal.

With the election of a new government in Ottawa committed to a “nonpartisan” policy in the Middle East under the Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau, Palestinian supporters can now hope for some pressure on Israel. Our voices have some chance of being heard, and our mainstream media will be forced to be more “nonpartisan”. Thousands of Canadians have already written the prime minister and foreign minister to protest the shooting of Nazzal, part of their ongoing commitment to supporting the Paletinian cause. Israeli crimes will not go unrecognized by the government. Efforts to inform Canadians will continue.

Q: Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia cooperate with Israel, even though their official relations are cool. The latest coalition intended to overthrow Syria’s government is led by the US, with Turkey and Saudi Arabia as key players. What is your opinion about this?

A: This coalition is literally a pact among devils. It can only lead to further unnecessary bloodshed. All three have shown incompetence and duplicity concerning the Arab Spring and its aftermath. The only consolation is that their schemes are bound to fail. The only honorable coalition is that of Iran, Russia, Hizbullah and Syria. What is needed, at the very least, is a ‘coalition of the coalitions’ to deal with ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

Q: We are at the end of year of 2015, how did you see the Palestinian issue in this year and what is your prediction for 2016?

A: Everything depend on the US. Can it swallow its pride and make peace with Iran (and Russia)? That would be the best way to politely back off its deadly embrace of Israel, but domestic political pressure from both the Zionists and the Evangelicals makes that a tall order.

Sunni anti-Shia sectarianism has weakened the Sunni case everywhere. A ‘New World’ in the region requires reconciliation with Iran in particular, and between Sunni and Shia in general, whether it be in Iraq, Yemen, or Bahrain. US-Saudi acts there show that long-term Sunni dominance and persecution of Shia continues to be behind their unresolved crises. Suddenly, Iran is at the centre of resolving the Middle East nightmares. Even the western mass media can no longer deny this.

Let’s not forget Israel, where there is some open criticism from both left and right, moreso than in the West. The incitement campaign against Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, who dared expressing sympathy to Gazans’ suffering, has broken all records of hatred and verbal violence in the Israel mass media. Yes, against the President himself, who is a staunch right-winger and supporter of the settlements. But he finally had enough and decided to speak out.

Another voice of reason is Yair Lapid, the former Israeli finance minister and now a leader of the opposition. Two-stater Lapid, a former television broadcaster, is the head of the Yesh Atidparty (“There is a future”). Lapid argues that Israel must seize the diplomatic initiative with the Palestinians if it is to continue existing as a Jewish-majority democracy. So, in the most optimistic scenario, a shake up in the US, say Donald Trump as president, could be enough to nudge Israel into making peace.

How 2015 changed the world.

Source: http://english.qodsna.com/NewsPage.aspx?newsid=126043

All over the planet, every day, oceans send plumes of sea spray into the atmosphere. Beyond the poetry of crashing ocean waves, this salt- and carbon-rich spray also has a dramatic effect on cloud formation and duration.

In a new paper published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Colorado State University atmospheric scientist Paul DeMott finds that sea spray is a unique, underappreciated source of what are called ice nucleating particles. These microscopic bits make their way into clouds and initiate the formation of ice, affecting the clouds’ composition.

“The presence of these particles is critically important for precipitation and the lifetime of clouds, and consequently, for their radiative properties,” DeMott said.

Added Nick Anderson, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funded the research: “The development of clouds and precipitation is a core issue for understanding weather and climate processes. By studying ice nuclei, which can be considered a building block for clouds, these researchers will help piece together the puzzle of how clouds and precipitation form, especially over remote oceanic regions.”

Clouds cover 60 percent of the Earth’s surface at any given time. With their ability to reflect solar energy and absorb terrestrial radiation, clouds have dramatic effects on climate.

That ability is greatly influenced by the number, size and type of droplets and ice particles they contain. These cloud particles come from aerosols — particles suspended in air — from land and ocean surfaces.

From desert dust to fossil fuels, aerosols that affect clouds are everywhere.

The study has confirmed that ice nucleating particles from oceans are distinct — both in their abundance and ice-making properties — from land-sourced particles. Hence, their influence on the liquid-to-ice phase structure of clouds, and the clouds’ radiative characteristics, can differ over vast swaths of Earth.

The laboratory portion of the study was conducted with other researchers at the NSF-supported Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CAICE), at which DeMott is a senior scientist.

Based at the University of California-San Diego, CAICE has laboratory wave flumes that simulate how ocean waves send sea spray aerosols into the air.

Researchers can study the biological and chemical makeup of these particles, as well as the transformations they undergo, and use special instruments to see how they influence cloud formation. DeMott and colleagues compared these data to other measurements made over oceans.

The study offers one explanation for why global climate models have consistently underestimated reflected, short-wave solar radiation in regions dominated by oceans, particularly in the southern hemisphere.

“Our paper gives a clearer picture of the behavior of major classes of atmospheric aerosols in clouds,” DeMott said.

Russia has done it again. This time it is in Syria. Last Friday Putin’s missiles have killed the leader of the opposition fighting the regime of the mass murderer, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a network with wide contacts inside Syria, said aircraft targeted a meeting of Jaysh al-Islam’s leadership in eastern Ghouta, killing Zahran Alloush, its head, and five other senior commanders.

These latest casualties once again show that contrary to its claims, Russia is more interested in wiping out moderate opposition to Assad than going after Daesh (ISIL).

Alloush founded Liwa al-Islam and Jaysh al-Islam, two significant rebel factions early in the Syrian Civil War.  He was considered by area experts as a credible, charismatic and moderate leader. His rebel forces have maintained control over areas in the suburbs of Damascus despite years of siege by the Assad regime and relentless aerial campaigns on opposition-held areas. Eastern Ghouta was even subjected to chemical attacks when the government launched missiles laced with sarin in the area, killing over a thousand people – including many children.

Alloush was ideologically at odds with Daesh (ISIL) and al Qaeda, espousing a more moderate brand of Islam. He fought against them and drove them out of his territory. “They [Russians] killed a man who was going to play a crucial role in Syria,” said Ahmad Tumah, the designated opposition prime minister. “The death of Zahran could lead to more targeted killings of prominent opposition commanders and politicians.”

In all likelihood Alloush’s assassination will undermine the peace talks with the hated regime by further polarizing various camps involved in the unrest and strengthening the extremist elements.

Putin’s actions remind me of the Russian strategy towards Chechnya.

Remember Dzhokhar Dudayev, the Chechen leader who was the first President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, a breakaway state in the North Caucasus? After a very successful career as an air force general in the Soviet Union, he resigned in 1990. In May 1990, Dudayev returned to Grozny, the Chechen capital, to devote himself to local politics. He was elected head of the Executive Committee of the unofficial opposition All-National Congress of the Chechen People (NCChP), which advocated sovereignty for Chechnya as a separate republic of the Soviet Union (the Chechen-Ingush ASSR had the status of an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).

When the Soviet Union was imploding, NCChP took control of Chechnya. In an October 1991 referendum Dudayev was confirmed as the president of the breakaway republic. He unilaterally declared the republic’s sovereignty and its independence from Soviet Union. In November 1991, the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin dispatched troops to Grozny, but they were withdrawn when Dudayev’s forces prevented them from leaving the airport. Russia refused to recognize the republic’s independence, but hesitated to use further force against the separatists. From this point the Chechen-Ingush Republic had become a de facto independent state. In 1993, Chechnya declared full independence.

On December 1, 1994 the Russians began bombing Grozny, capital of the breakaway republic, savagely killing more than a hundred thousand civilians and displacing another half a million. As the calls for a peaceful settlement of the crisis became intense and louder Dudayev took a more conciliatory position and was willing to negotiate with the Duma. Beginning in June 1995, his Chief of Staff, General Aslan Maskhadov (a former colonel in the Soviet Army), had already begun taking part in peace talks in Grozny to resolve the crisis in Chechnya. However, Kremlin had a different plan for Dudayev and Chechnya. It wanted him eliminated so that the Chechens would be left without of any powerful voice from the breakaway republic.

The fateful day came on 21 April 1996 when two laser-guided missiles killed Dudayev. At the time, he was using a satellite phone, reportedly talking to a liberal deputy of the Duma in Moscow, probably Konstantin Borovoy. His location was detected by a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, which intercepted his phone call. Additional aircrafts were dispatched (a Su-24MR and a Su-25) to locate Dudayev and fire a guided missile. Exact details of this operation were never released by the Russian government. Russian reconnaissance planes in the area had been monitoring satellite communications for quite some time trying to match Dudayev’s voice signature to the existing samples of his speech. It was claimed Dudayev was killed by a combination of a rocket attack and a booby trap. He was 52 years old when he was martyred.

Dudayev’s death was announced on the interrupted television broadcast by Shamil Basayev, the Chechen guerrilla commander, considered mastermind for some of the most violent hostage takings inside Russia.

Dudayev was immediately succeeded by his Vice-President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev (as acting President) and then, after the 1997 popular elections, by his wartime Chief of Staff, General Aslan Maskhadov. Yandarbiyev was a literary scholar, poet and children’s literature writer. As a peace-loving moderate leader, he headed a Chechen delegation in late May 1996 that met Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin for peace talks at the Kremlin that resulted in a ceasefire agreement on May 27, 1996.

With the signing of the Khasav-Yurt Accord on 31 August 1996 between Russian General Alexander Lebed and Chechen General Aslan Maskhadov, a ceasefire agreement was reached, thus, marking the end of the First Chechen War.

On 17 October 1996, General Maskhadov was appointed Prime Minister. He was elected president in free democratic presidential and parliamentary elections held in Chechnya under the aegis of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) in January 1997. The elections were conducted on the basis of the Chechen constitution adopted in March 1992, according to which the Chechen Republic was an independent state. Representatives of more than 20 countries, as well as the United Nations and the OSCE, attended the elections as observers.

On May 12, 1997, the presidents of Russia and Chechnya, Boris Yeltsin and Aslan Maskhadov, met at the Kremlin to sign final version of the treaty.

Chechnya, however, was in the ruins with almost half of its people internally displaced. The economy was severely devastated and the warlords had no intention to disband their militias. Worse yet, the extremist Wahabi/Salafis took the war into the neighboring Republic of Dagestan in August of 1999, which was condemned by Maskhadov.

In the meantime, Vladimir Putin, a retired KGB agent, had entered Russian politics. On 26 March 1997, President Boris Yeltsin appointed him deputy chief of Presidential Staff, which he remained until May 1998. On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed him head of the Federal Security Service (Russian abbreviation: FSB; one of the successor agencies to the KGB), a position Putin occupied until August 1999 from where he was able to dictate covert wars against the Chechens to undermine the treaty that his boss and Maskhadov had signed in 1997. On 16 August 1999, the State Duma approved his appointment as Prime Minister. On 31 December of that year when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation. He was inaugurated president on 7 May 2000.

The rest is history!

On October 1, 1999 Putin declared the authority of President Maskhadov and his parliament illegitimate and Russian forces invaded Chechnya in what is called the Second Chechen War, which was to last until mid-April of 2009. Although the invasion of Dagestan by Chechen fighters in August-September 1999, and the suspected apartment bombings in Moscow in October of that year (believed later to be a false flag attack coordinated by the FSB in order to win public support for a new full-scale war in Chechnya, which boosted Prime Minister and former FSB Director Putin’s popularity) were used as justifications for this war, the decision to invade Chechnya was made in March of 1999. The campaign ended the de facto independence of Chechnya and restored Russian federal control over the territory. Russia established direct rule of Chechnya in May 2000. However, Chechen militant resistance continued throughout the North Caucasus region inflicting heavy Russian casualties and challenging Russian political control over Chechnya for several more years. Some Chechen separatists also carried out attacks against civilians inside Russia.

The exact death toll from the Second Chechen War is unknown. Unofficial estimates range from 25,000 to 50,000 dead or missing, mostly civilians in Chechnya. Out of some 800,000 residents of Chechnya nearly 350,000 took refuge in nearby republics. Russian casualties are estimated to be between 5,200 (official Russian casualty figures) and 11,000 (according to the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers).

Putin’s long arms stretched far beyond Russia. Yandarbiyev was killed by Russian agents when a bomb ripped through his SUV in the Qatari capital, Doha, where he had been living since 1999 promoting the Chechen cause. Yandarbiyev was seriously wounded and died in hospital. His 13-year-old son Daud was seriously injured.

The day after the attack, Qatari authorities arrested three Russians in a Russian embassy villa. One of them, the first secretary of the Russian Embassy in Qatar, Aleksandr Fetisov, was released in March due to his diplomatic immunity. (There were some speculations that Fetisov had been released in exchange for Qatari wrestlers detained in Moscow.) The remaining two, the GRU (secret intelligence) agents Anatoly Yablochkov (also known as Belashkov) and Vasily Pugachyov (sometimes misspelled as Bogachyov), were charged with the assassination of Yandarbiyev, an assassination attempt of his son Daud Yandarbiyev, and smuggling weapons into Qatar.

On June 30, 2004, both Russian agents were sentenced to life imprisonment; passing the sentence, the judge stated that they had acted on orders from the Russian leadership. The verdict caused severe tensions between Qatar and Russia, and on December 23, 2004, Qatar agreed to extradite the prisoners to Russia, where they would serve out their life sentences. The agents however received a heroes’ welcome on returning to Moscow in January 2005 but disappeared from public view shortly afterwards. The Russian prison authorities admitted in February 2005 that they were not in jail, but said that a sentence handed down in Qatar was “irrelevant” in Russia.

Aslan Maskhadov, considered as being instrumental to the Chechen victory over the Russian forces in the first Chechen War (1994-96), too, was killed by the Russians. He was killed in Tolstoy-Yurt, a village in northern Chechnya, on March 8, 2005, less than a month after he had announced the cease-fire with the Russian forces.

Now Alloush is dead. The Russian strategy for Syria seems obvious that it wants to repeat the Chechen experiment of weakening rebel groups by killing their moderate leaders, thereby strengthening Assad’s bargaining power in an effort to present itself as the only palatable alternative on the Syrian battlefield. “Alloush’s martyrdom should be a turning point in the history of the revolution and rebel groups should realize they are facing a war of extermination and uprooting by Putin’s regime,” said Labib al Nahhas, a senior figure in the main Ahrar al-Sham group. Similarly, Tumah is concerned that Russia and Syria “are willing to go after every single powerful person in the opposition to undermine the whole [peace] process”.

In a separate statement, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, an umbrella organization headed by Tumah, condemned Zahran’s killing, describing it as “a clear victory for terrorism and ISIL”. “It weakens the free army factions that confronted terrorism and undermined its foundations,” the statement said on Saturday. “The attack is also an attempt to abort the UN efforts of a political settlement.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Rami Khouri of the American University in Beirut said, “The Russians and the Syrians, together or one of them, killed Alloush, presumably because they don’t want this kind of powerful, credible, leader who is willing to engage diplomatically.” “They don’t want that kind of strong centrist Syrian-based opposition group to gain ground. By killing the leader, they think they can knock out the whole group.”

As history has shown, such tactics can misfire and bring more harm than good broadening the battlefield and victimizing innocent civilians who live far away from the killing fields. Apparently, Putin’s Russia has not learned that bitter lesson well and wants to repeat the mess.

Jaysh al-Islam has named Abu Hammam al-Buwidani as Alloush’s successor. Late on Friday, Buwidani called on the armed opposition to close ranks and unify against Assad. He also condemned what he called the “forces of evil” conspiring against the rights of Syrian civilians.

The U.N. Security Council on December 18 unanimously approved a resolution endorsing an international road map for a Syrian peace process, a rare show of consensus among major powers. The United Nations said it aimed to convene peace talks in Geneva on January 25 to try to end nearly five years of civil war and it appealed to the warring parties not to allow events on the ground to derail the process. The Syrian opposition vowed to participate in the upcoming talks.

The decision of the Russian authorities to take down an interview Russian commentator Viktor Shenderovich gave on Ekho Moskvy on Thursday is already backfiring on the Kremlin, attracting ever more attention to his words than he or his supporters could ever have hoped for.

At a time when officials appear ready to block Andrey Illarionov’s blog (rusjev.net/2015/12/23/rossiya-potrebovala-ot-kanadyi-zablokirovat-sayt-rassledovaniy-rossiyskih-prestupleniy/) and when some Duma deputies have introduced a measure to ban samizdat (echo.msk.ru/programs/razvorot/1373948-echo/ https://slon.ru/posts/61809), it is clear that the Kremlin doesn’t understand the Streisand effect in the age of the Internet.

(In pre-Internet times, many authors in the US hoped to be “banned in Boston” because such actions only helped to boost their sales. Now, in the Internet era, those who seek to ban coverage about themselves, as Barbra Streisand tried to, achieve something even more counterproductive: they attract attention of vastly greater numbers to the situation.)

But the Shenderovich case may provide the Putin regime with an object lesson because it is obvious that the Kremlin took this action because of Shenderovich’s criticism of Putin himself (openrussia.org/post/view/11565/) and because it is obvious that taking down the interview in one place won’t block the spread of the text.

A transcript of the full 4500-word interview is available, among other places, at kashin.guru/2015/12/25/shenderovich_v_ban/. Among Shenderovich’s key arguments are the following:

• “There is already no law” in Russia “and hasn’t been for a long time. “What there is is corruption. One can call it by various names: from the Latin, corruption; from the Spanish, junta. There are people who work to keep themselves in power.” When such people are in power as was the case in Nazi Germany, they have to be removed for law to return.

• Vladimir Putin’s tutors were people from the criminal world, and consequently, it is not surprising that their good student has worked out as he has. One of them is dead, but one is in prison; and because “Putin will not always be in power,” the latter must fear for his life now because there is much he could say about the current Kremlin ruler’s modus operandi.

• “Russia has been ruled by various kinds of people. There have been some who were simply mad; there were others who were maniacs. Political maniacs, eastern tyrants, the nomenklatura. There were even half-dead ones like Chernenko. But for the first time, it appears, it is being ruled by a specific representatives of an organized criminal band.” That means “we live in an absolutely unique time because there was nothing like this before” and because this man has his finger on the nuclear button.

• “The state is splitting apart; it is already doing so,” but not because of the opposition but because of what the regime has done under the cover and in the name of law but in fact for other reasons. And also because many who should be opposing the regime have been bought off or intimidated and thus taken steps that allow Putin to “simulate democracy and political life” and thus “legitimate” his regime.

• “Does it not seem strange to you that [Chechnya head Ramzan] Kadyrov has received from Russia about ten times more than Dudayev and Maskhadov asked for? They asked only for the independence of Ichkeria. But Kadyrov has received the complete independence of Ichkeria … and the complete right to do what he wants inside it, plus billions from the Russian budget and the right to kill on Moscow streets. Isn’t that too much?” And note, Shenderovich says: Moscow killed Dudayev and Maskhadov and now it has Kadyrov.

• Russian officials are increasingly living in a poetic world of their own, he continues. “Economic Development Minister [Aleksey] Ulukayev considers that Russia can give a symmetrical response to the broadening of US sanctions against Russia.” This is truly “poetic.” Ulyukayev “writes poems and he speaks in [Shenderovich’s] opinion as a poet. To answer symmetrically, of coursed would mean to refuse America loans, to undermine the dollar, and to push the American economy into stagnation, leading to lines in New York for people to exchange dollars for rubles.” A truly “poetic” vision.

By Santiago Baruh and Miguel Salazar*

The 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act, passed by the United States Congress on December 18, allows for the funding of multiple domestic and international U.S. programs for the next fiscal year. The approval of these measures is a continued show of support for Washington’s strongest Latin American ally, Colombia, and comes as surprisingly good news for Central America’s Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—as the bill in question will allow the State Department to appropriate 750 million USD to the region. This figure amounts to almost 75 percent of the request made in the ‘U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America’, included in the Foreign Operations Budget for FY2016. This is a triumph for the State Department, as analysts had previously stated that neither the House nor the Senate seemed inclined to fully fund it; the House was said to be planning to allocate no more than 296.5 million USD, whereas Senate proposed to authorize the appropriation of 675.3 million USD. Moreover, while the appropriation of more funds is a victory in and of itself, it is enhanced by beneficial provisions within the bill.

As mentioned in prior COHA articles, the Obama Administration’s 2016 plan differs from previous strategies because it shifts the focus away from security initiatives (such as the Central American Regional Security Initiative) towards measures that target the structural issues that up to now have crippled the Northern Triangle. This change is evident in the bill’s wording, which stipulates that 75 percent of the funds can only be appropriated only after tackling the issues of corruption, transparency, impunity, and criminality, which historically have undermined foreign aid efforts. More importantly, it calls for the Central American governments to “support programs to reduce poverty, create jobs, and promote equitable economic growth in areas contributing to large numbers of migrants.”^[1]

Although the goals and objectives of the bill and the Central American Strategy are worthy and deserve to be praised, caution is warranted. The implementation of these provisions will be challenging and will encounter many obstacles on the ground, such as reticence by current members of the security forces. Regardless, the incorporation of communities and members of civil society in the design of programs mentioned in Section 7045 (a) (3) (B) (iv) of the bill is a step in the right direction, which will push the Central America Strategy towards success. This section of the appropriations bill calls for “[the establishment of] policy that local communities, civil society organizations (including indigenous and other marginalized groups), and local governments are consulted in the design, and participate in the implementation and evaluation of, activities of the Plan that affect such communities, organizations, and governments.”^[2] The incorporation of a policy design approach that goes from the bottom to the top is important, since this is the kind of policy that is most likely to work when fighting criminality, as highlighted by the World Bank in a June 2015 report.

Colombia

Despite focusing the majority of its efforts on the Central American migrant crisis, the U.S. omnibus bill also underscored the country’s commitment to Washington’s most loyal ally in the region—Colombia.

Despite U.S. support for the peace process in Colombia, the nature of Washington’s involvement in the South American country over the years has led some to conclude that the United States would back Colombia on almost any grounds—an intolerable notion for former President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), who implemented the U.S.-funded Plan Colombia, leading to one of the bloodiest periods of Colombian history. Nevertheless, as peace remains a likely option for the country, according to a recent poll by Cifras y Conceptos, 61 percent of Colombians are in favor of a plebiscite to ratify the peace process.^[3]

However, as peace negotiations with the FARC enter a crucial closing stage, the Colombian government has received heavy criticism in light of possible complications with the reintegration of FARC combatants, and more importantly, the development of former FARC-held territories.

The United States’ Economic Support Fund, Foreign Military Financing Program (FMF), and the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement fund compose the overwhelming majority of U.S. foreign assistance to Colombia. For 2016, Congress has provisionally granted these accounts 295.195 million USD, a four percent increase from the 283.326 million USD requested by the State Department.^[4]

Through its appropriations bill, the U.S. government has committed a minimum of 133 million USD to supporting post-conflict social and economic development in Colombia through its Economic Support Fund.^[5] The United States is the single largest contributor of foreign development assistance to Colombia, funds that will prove crucial particularly as the country reaches a turning point in its war-torn history by March 2016, when the final peace agreement is expected to be signed by Santos and the FARC rebels.

Post-conflict measures following Colombia’s peace process will entail enormous bureaucratic reforms, which Global Risk Insights estimates will cost the Colombian state and its private sector partners over 90 billion USD over the next 10 years.^[6]

In anticipation, Colombia’s Congress passed its own appropriations measure in October, allocating 3.4 billion USD for ongoing initiatives such as humanitarian attention for victims, displaced persons, and the repatriation of land.^[7] The bill also provides 15 billion USD (30 percent of the 2016 budget) in funds for the operations of the state-run Plan Nacional de Desarrollo—a novel development plan for social programs that will assume the majority of post-conflict initiatives in Colombia.^[8] Despite seemingly large financial support, however, the Plan Nacional de Desarrollo was reduced by 33 percent from its proposal earlier in June.^[9]

Colombia is also the largest beneficiary of the U.S. “Foreign Military Financing Program” (FMF) in the western hemisphere under the 2016 omnibus bill, receiving a total of 27 million USD.^[10] The funds, however, which support the Colombian military’s main operations against the FARC and ELN guerrilla groups, come with a set of conditions. Only 19 percent of the FMF funds allocated to Colombia will be available if the country continues to: dismantle illegal armed groups; to protect the rights of human rights defenders, journalists, and trade unionists, among others; to hold accountable persons of gross human rights violations; to respect the “rights and territory of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities”; and to ensure that members of the Colombian military who have been “credibly alleged” to have violated human rights are tried in civilian courts, rather than in military ones.^[11]

The last condition put forth by the U.S. House and Senate is in response to the passage by Colombian Congress of the reform of Article 221 in Colombia’s constitution, allowing for members of Colombian military to be tried in special tribunals composed of current and former military officials.^[12] The legislation, which was shot down by Colombia’s Supreme Court on two previous occasions, has been met with widespread contention, especially after the “false positive” scandal, in which 22 generals and over 5,000 members of the country’s armed forces have been accused of murdering scores of civilians and passing off their bodies as that of guerrillas.^[13]

As the United States continues to assume more accountability in the region, the success of this pivot to a more structural approach will ultimately depend on measures taken by the Obama Administration and its successors in tackling one of the most complex, challenging, and unrelenting problems in the Americas—illegal drug trafficking and the U.S. demand fueling it. In spite of what changes are implemented in the U.S. drug policy, it will take years before the countries of the Northern Triangle and Colombia are free of the criminality and violence that have characterized them for so long. However, the U.S. appropriations bill, a promising sign of changes to come, represents an important step by the United States in dealing with the continuing pressing issues in the western hemisphere.

*Santiago Baruh and Miguel Salazar, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Notes:

^[1]   “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016.” U.S. Congress, 1375. December 18, 2015. http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20151214/CPRT-114-HPRT-RU00-SAHR2029-AMNT1final.pdf.

^[2]   Ibid

^[3]   “Un 61 Por Ciento De Los Colombianos, a Favor De Un Plebiscito Para Ratificar La Paz Con Las FARC.” Agencia EFE. 11 Dec. 2015. Web.

^[4]   These figures do not include the International Military Education and Training as well as the Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining and Related Programs funds, which total to a requested 5.4 million USD by the State Department. These accounts were not available in the appropriations bill. To see the requested amounts by the State Department: “Congressional Budget Justification: Foreign Operations (Appendix 3).” U.S. Department of State, 372. February 27, 2015. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/238222.pdf

^[5]   “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016.” U.S. Congress, 1379.

^[6]   Hernández, Andrés, and Daniel Lemaitre. “Economics of Peace: Colombia Lacks Post-conflict Funding.” Global Risk Insights. December 1, 2015. http://globalriskinsights.com/2015/12/economics-of-peace-colombia-lacks-post-conflict-funding/

^[7]   “Colombia Destinará 3.444 Millones De Dólares Al Posconflicto.” Portafolio.co. October 14, 2015. http://www.portafolio.co/economia/recursos-economicos-posconflicto-colombia-2016.

^[8]   Hernández, Andrés, and Daniel Lemaitre. “Economics of Peace: Colombia Lacks Post-conflict Funding.”

^[9]   “Conpes De La Altillanura Aún ‘navega’ Entre Nubarrones.” El Tiempo. December 14, 2015. http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/otras-ciudades/conpes-en-vilo-por-politicas-economicas-y-sociales/16458024.

^[10]  “Division K- Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2016.” U.S. House of Representatives, 34. December 2015. http://docs.house.gov/meetings/RU/RU00/20151216/104298/HMTG-114-RU00-20151216-SD012.pdf

^[11]  “Division K- Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2016.” U.S. House of Representatives, 56-57.

^[12]  “Acto Legislativo No.1.” Presidencia De La República De Colombia. June 25, 2015. http://wp.presidencia.gov.co/sitios/normativa/actoslegislativos/ACTO LEGISLATIVO 01 DE 25 JUNIO DE 2015.pdf

^[13]  “Colombian Generals Investigated for “false Positives”” BBC News. April 13, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-32280039.

In January, President Barack Obama stated that rescheduling marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act’s Schedule 1 is “a job for Congress.” At the time, prominent advocates of liberalization of United States marijuana laws countered that the executive branch has the authority to unilaterally move marijuana to a lower schedule. A letter sent Monday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), along with seven cosigning senators, to the heads of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) suggests that the Obama administration may have since decided to move forward with unilateral executive branch rescheduling of the plant during Obama’s final year in office.

Below is the section of the senators’ letter dealing with marijuana rescheduling:

Assessment of marijuana rescheduling. In our July letter, we asked about the timeline for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to complete its analysis on the rescheduling of marijuana and to make a recommendation to the DEA. We also asked what the DEA timeline was for assessment upon receipt of the FDA recommendation. These questions were not answered in the written response from your agencies, and at the staff briefing you repeatedly informed our staff that you could not provide the requested information. However, after the briefing we learned that in fact the FDA had already made the recommendation. In a September 30, 2015 letter to Congressman Earl Blumenauer, the Department of Justice wrote that the “DEA recently received the HHS scientific and medical evaluations as well as the scheduling recommendation,” which indicates the FDA has completed its evaluation, and that the “DEA is currently reviewing these documents … to make a scheduling determination in accordance with the Controlled Substances Act.” The failure to provide us with the information at the briefing leaves us with continued questions about the process and timeline for a rescheduling determination. We therefore ask that you provide us with the following information:

a) Please confirm whether or not the DEA has received the HHS evaluations and scheduling recommendations.

b) What is the DEA timeline for assessment upon receipt of the FDA recommendation?

c) Has the DEA requested that the FDA complete a scientific analysis for the re-scheduling of cannabadiol (CBD)? If so, please describe how the FDA will conduct this review.

Read the complete letter here.

For advocates of ending the US government’s war on marijuana, it is important to keep in mind the advisement of Drug Policy Alliance Director of National Affairs Bill Piper regarding rescheduling. Piper notes that, while rescheduling “would be a victory for commonsense drug policy,” without various changes to US law being made in addition to rescheduling (or, preferably, de-scheduling), “the problems associated with marijuana prohibition” will persist.

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.