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White House Publishes Obama’s Proposed New Executive Actions To Reduce Gun Violence

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The White House released on Tuesday details of US President Barack Obama’s proposed executive actions with regard to curbing gun related violence.

Among other points, the executive actions would expand mandatory background checks for some private sales, and the sharing of medical reports related to the mental illnesses, as well as tighter controls over trusts and funding for 200 new ATF agents and investigators.

Speaking on Monday, Obama said these actions, “are not only recommendations that are well within my legal authority and the executive branch, but they’re also ones that the overwhelming majority of the American people, including gun owners, support and believe.”

Following is the complete text of the proposed executive actions, as released by the White House.

Fact Sheet: New Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence and Make Our Communities Safer

Gun violence has taken a heartbreaking toll on too many communities across the country.  Over the past decade in America, more than 100,000 people have been killed as a result of gun violence—and millions more have been the victim of assaults, robberies, and other crimes involving a gun.  Many of these crimes were committed by people who never should have been able to purchase a gun in the first place.  Over the same period, hundreds of thousands of other people in our communities committed suicide with a gun and nearly half a million people suffered other gun injuries.  Hundreds of law enforcement officers have been shot to death protecting their communities.  And too many children are killed or injured by firearms every year, often by accident.  The vast majority of Americans—including the vast majority of gun owners—believe we must take sensible steps to address these horrible tragedies.

The President and Vice President are committed to using every tool at the Administration’s disposal to reduce gun violence.  Some of the gaps in our country’s gun laws can only be fixed through legislation, which is why the President continues to call on Congress to pass the kind of commonsense gun safety reforms supported by a majority of the American people.  And while Congress has repeatedly failed to take action and pass laws that would expand background checks and reduce gun violence, today, building on the significant steps that have already been taken over the past several years, the Administration is announcing a series of commonsense executive actions designed to:

1. Keep guns out of the wrong hands through background checks.

  • The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is making clear that it doesn’t matter where you conduct your business—from a store, at gun shows, or over the Internet:  If you’re in the business of selling firearms, you must get a license and conduct background checks.
  • ATF is finalizing a rule to require background checks for people trying to buy some of the most dangerous weapons and other items through a trust, corporation, or other legal entity.
  • Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch has sent a letter to States highlighting the importance of receiving complete criminal history records and criminal dispositions, information on persons disqualified because of a mental illness, and qualifying crimes of domestic violence.
  • The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is overhauling the background check system to make it more effective and efficient.  The envisioned improvements include processing background checks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and improving notification of local authorities when certain prohibited persons unlawfully attempt to buy a gun.  The FBI will hire more than 230 additional examiners and other staff to help process these background checks.

2. Make our communities safer from gun violence.

  • The Attorney General convened a call with U.S. Attorneys around the country to direct federal prosecutors to continue to focus on smart and effective enforcement of our gun laws.
  • The President’s FY2017 budget will include funding for 200 new ATF agents and investigators to help enforce our gun laws.
  • ATF has established an Internet Investigation Center to track illegal online firearms trafficking and is dedicating $4 million and additional personnel to enhance the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.
  • The Attorney General issued a memo encouraging every U.S. Attorney’s Office to renew domestic violence outreach efforts.ATF is finalizing a rule to ensure that dealers who ship firearms notify law enforcement if their guns are lost or stolen in transit.

3.      Increase mental health treatment and reporting to the background check system.

  • The Administration is proposing a new $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care.
  • The Social Security Administration has indicated that it will begin the rulemaking process to include information in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm for mental health reasons.
  • The Department of Health and Human Services is finalizing a rule to remove unnecessary legal barriers preventing States from reporting relevant information about people prohibited from possessing a gun for specific mental health reasons.

4.      Shape the future of gun safety technology.

  • The President has directed the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security to conduct or sponsor research into gun safety technology.
  • The President has also directed the departments to review the availability of smart gun technology on a regular basis, and to explore potential ways to further its use and development to more broadly improve gun safety.

Congress should support the President’s request for resources for 200 new ATF agents and investigators to help enforce our gun laws, as well as a new $500 million investment to address mental health issues.

Because we all must do our part to keep our communities safe, the Administration is also calling on States and local governments to do all they can to keep guns out of the wrong hands and reduce gun violence.  It is also calling on private-sector leaders to follow the lead of other businesses that have taken voluntary steps to make it harder for dangerous individuals to get their hands on a gun.  In the coming weeks, the Administration will engage with manufacturers, retailers, and other private-sector leaders to explore what more they can do.

New Actions by the Federal Government

Keeping Guns Out of the Wrong Hands Through Background Checks

The most important thing we can do to prevent gun violence is to make sure those who would commit violent acts cannot get a firearm in the first place.  The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which was created by Congress to prevent guns from being sold to prohibited individuals, is a critical tool in achieving that goal.  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the background check system has prevented more than 2 million guns from getting into the wrong hands.  We know that making the system more efficient, and ensuring that it has all appropriate records about prohibited purchasers, will help enhance public safety.  Today, the Administration is announcing the following executive actions to ensure that all gun dealers are licensed and run background checks, and to strengthen the background check system itself:

  • Clarify that it doesn’t matter where you conduct your business—from a store, at gun shows, or over the Internet:  If you’re in the business of selling firearms, you must get a license and conduct background checks.  Background checks have been shown to keep guns out of the wrong hands, but too many gun sales—particularly online and at gun shows—occur without basic background checks.  Today, the Administration took action to ensure that anyone who is “engaged in the business” of selling firearms is licensed and conducts background checks on their customers.  Consistent with court rulings on this issue, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has clarified the following principles:
  • A person can be engaged in the business of dealing in firearms regardless of the location in which firearm transactions are conducted.  For example, a person can be engaged in the business of dealing in firearms even if the person only conducts firearm transactions at gun shows or through the Internet.  Those engaged in the business of dealing in firearms who utilize the Internet or other technologies must obtain a license, just as a dealer whose business is run out of a traditional brick-and-mortar store.
  • Quantity and frequency of sales are relevant indicators.  There is no specific threshold number of firearms purchased or sold that triggers the licensure requirement.  But it is important to note that even a few transactions, when combined with other evidence, can be sufficient to establish that a person is “engaged in the business.”  For example, courts have upheld convictions for dealing without a license when as few as two firearms were sold or when only one or two transactions took place, when other factors also were present.
  • There are criminal penalties for failing to comply with these requirements.  A person who willfully engages in the business of dealing in firearms without the required license is subject to criminal prosecution and can be sentenced up to five years in prison and fined up to $250,000.  Dealers are also subject to penalties for failing to conduct background checks before completing a sale.
  • Require background checks for people trying to buy some of the most dangerous weapons and other items through a trust or corporation.  The National Firearms Act imposes restrictions on sales of some of the most dangerous weapons, such as machine guns and sawed-off shotguns.  But because of outdated regulations, individuals have been able to avoid the background check requirement by applying to acquire these firearms and other items through trusts, corporations, and other legal entities.  In fact, the number of these applications has increased significantly over the years—from fewer than 900 applications in the year 2000 to more than 90,000 applications in 2014.  ATF is finalizing a rule that makes clear that people will no longer be able to avoid background checks by buying NFA guns and other items through a trust or corporation.
  • Ensure States are providing records to the background check system, and work cooperatively with jurisdictions to improve reporting.  Congress has prohibited specific categories of people from buying guns—from convicted felons to users of illegal drugs to individuals convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence.  In the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007, Congress also created incentives for States to make as many relevant records as possible accessible to NICS.  Over the past three years, States have increased the number of records they make accessible by nearly 70 percent.  To further encourage this reporting, the Attorney General has written a letter to States highlighting the importance of receiving complete criminal history records and criminal dispositions, information on persons disqualified for mental health reasons, and qualifying crimes of domestic violence.  The Administration will begin a new dialogue with States to ensure the background check system is as robust as possible, which is a public safety imperative.
  • Make the background check system more efficient and effective.  In 2015, NICS received more than 22.2 million background check requests, an average of more than 63,000 per day.  By law, a gun dealer can complete a sale to a customer if the background check comes back clean or has taken more than three days to complete.  But features of the current system, which was built in the 1990s, are outdated.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will take the following steps to ensure NICS operates more efficiently and effectively to keep guns out of the wrong hands:
  • FBI will hire more than 230 additional NICS examiners and other staff members to assist with processing mandatory background checks.  This new hiring will begin immediately and increase the existing workforce by 50 percent.  This will reduce the strain on the NICS system and improve its ability to identify dangerous people who are prohibited from buying a gun before the transfer of a firearm is completed.
  • FBI has partnered with the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) to modernize NICS.   Although NICS has been routinely upgraded since its launch in 1998, the FBI is committed to making the system more efficient and effective, so that as many background checks as possible are fully processed within the three-day period before a dealer can legally sell a gun even if a background check is not complete.  The improvements envisioned by FBI and USDS include processing background checks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to improve overall response time and improving notification of local authorities when certain prohibited persons unlawfully attempt to purchase a firearm.

Making Our Communities Safer from Gun Violence

In order to improve public safety, we need to do more to ensure smart and effective enforcement of our gun laws and make sure that criminals and other prohibited persons cannot get their hands on lost or stolen weapons.  The Administration is therefore taking the following actions:

  •  Ensure smart and effective enforcement of our gun laws.  In a call earlier today, the Attorney General discussed the importance of today’s announcements and directed the Nation’s 93 U.S. Attorneys across the country to continue to focus their resources—as they have for the past several years under the Department’s Smart on Crime initiative—on the most impactful cases, including those targeting violent offenders, illegal firearms traffickers, and dangerous individuals who bypass the background check system to acquire weapons illegally.  During the call, the Attorney General also emphasized ongoing initiatives to assist communities in combating violent crime, including ATF’s efforts to target the “worst of the worst” gun crimes.  These efforts will also complement the following actions announced today:
  • The President’s budget for FY2017 will include funding for 200 new ATF agents and investigators who can help enforce our gun laws, including the measures announced today.  Strategic and impactful enforcement will help take violent criminals off the street, deter other unlawful activity, and prevent guns from getting into the wrong hands.
  •    ATF is dedicating $4 million and additional personnel to enhance the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN).  The NIBIN database includes ballistic evidence that can be used by analysts and investigators to link violent crimes across jurisdictions and to track down shooters who prey on our communities.  In February 2016, ATF is standing up the National NIBIN Correlation and Training Center—which will ultimately provide NIBIN matching services at one national location, rather than requiring local police departments to do that work themselves.  The Center will provide consistent and capable correlation services, making connections between ballistic crime scene evidence and crime guns locally, regionally, and nationally.  These enhancements will support ATF’s crime gun intelligence and enforcement efforts, particularly in communities most affected by violent crime.
  • ATF has established an Internet Investigations Center (IIC) staffed with federal agents, legal counsel, and investigators to track illegal online firearms trafficking and to provide actionable intelligence to agents in the field.  The IIC has already identified a number of significant traffickers operating over the Internet.  This work has led to prosecutions against individuals or groups using the “dark net” to traffic guns to criminals or attempting to buy firearms illegally online.
  •  Ensure that dealers notify law enforcement about the theft or loss of their guns.  Under current law, federal firearms dealers and other licensees must report when a gun from their inventory has been lost or stolen.  The regulations are ambiguous, however, about who has this responsibility when a gun is lost or stolen in transit.  Many lost and stolen guns end up being used in crimes.  Over the past five years, an average of 1,333 guns recovered in criminal investigations each year were traced back to a licensee that claimed it never received the gun even though it was never reported lost or stolen either.  Today, ATF issued a final rule clarifying that the licensee shipping a gun is responsible for notifying law enforcement upon discovery that it was lost or stolen in transit.
  • Issue a memo directing every U.S. Attorney’s Office to renew domestic violence outreach efforts.  In the event of an emergency, victims of domestic violence should call 911 or otherwise contact state or local law enforcement officials, who have a broader range of options for responding to these crimes.  To provide an additional resource for state, local, and tribal law enforcement and community groups focused on domestic violence, the Attorney General is issuing a memo directing U.S. Attorney’s Offices around the country to engage in renewed efforts to coordinate with these groups to help combat domestic violence and to prevent prohibited persons from obtaining firearms.

Increase Mental Health Treatment and Reporting to the Background Check System

The Administration is committed to improving care for Americans experiencing mental health issues.  In the last seven years, our country has made extraordinary progress in expanding mental health coverage for millions of Americans.  This includes the Affordable Care Act’s end to insurance company discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, required coverage of mental health and substance use disorder services in the individual and small group markets, and an expansion of mental health and substance use disorder parity policies, all of which are estimated to help more than 60 million Americans.  About 13.5 million more Americans have gained Medicaid coverage since October 2013, significantly improving access to mental health care.  And thanks to more than $100 million in funding from the Affordable Care Act, community health centers have expanded behavioral health services for nearly 900,000 people nationwide over the past two years.  We must continue to remove the stigma around mental illness and its treatment—and make sure that these individuals and their families know they are not alone.  While individuals with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators, incidents of violence continue to highlight a crisis in America’s mental health system.  In addition to helping people get the treatment they need, we must make sure we keep guns out of the hands of those who are prohibited by law from having them.  Today, the Administration is announcing the following steps to help achieve these goals:

  • Dedicate significant new resources to increase access to mental health care.  Despite our recent significant gains, less than half of children and adults with diagnosable mental health problems receive the treatment they need.  To address this, the Administration is proposing a new $500 million investment to help engage individuals with serious mental illness in care, improve access to care by increasing service capacity and the behavioral health workforce, and ensure that behavioral health care systems work for everyone.  This effort would increase access to mental health services to protect the health of children and communities, prevent suicide, and promote mental health as a top priority.
  • Include information from the Social Security Administration in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm.  Current law prohibits individuals from buying a gun if, because of a mental health issue, they are either a danger to themselves or others or are unable to manage their own affairs.  The Social Security Administration (SSA) has indicated that it will begin the rulemaking process to ensure that appropriate information in its records is reported to NICS.  The reporting that SSA, in consultation with the Department of Justice, is expected to require will cover appropriate records of the approximately 75,000 people each year who have a documented mental health issue, receive disability benefits, and are unable to manage those benefits because of their mental impairment, or who have been found by a state or federal court to be legally incompetent.  The rulemaking will also provide a mechanism for people to seek relief from the federal prohibition on possessing a firearm for reasons related to mental health.
  • Remove unnecessary legal barriers preventing States from reporting relevant information to the background check system.  Although States generally report criminal history information to NICS, many continue to report little information about individuals who are prohibited by Federal law from possessing or receiving a gun for specific mental health reasons.  Some State officials raised concerns about whether such reporting would be precluded by the Privacy Rule issued under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).  Today, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule expressly permitting certain HIPAA covered entities to provide to the NICS limited demographic and other necessary information about these individuals.

Shaping the Future of Gun Safety Technology

Tens of thousands of people are injured or killed by firearms every year—in many cases by guns that were sold legally but then stolen, misused, or discharged accidentally.  Developing and promoting technology that would help prevent these tragedies is an urgent priority.  America has done this in many other areas—from making cars safer to improving the tablets and phones we use every day.  We know that researchers and engineers are already exploring ideas for improving gun safety and the tracing of lost or stolen guns.  Millions of dollars have already been invested to support research into concepts that range from fingerprint scanners to radio-frequency identification to microstamping technology.

As the single largest purchaser of firearms in the country, the Federal Government has a unique opportunity to advance this research and ensure that smart gun technology becomes a reality—and it is possible to do so in a way that makes the public safer and is consistent with the Second Amendment.  Today, the President is taking action to further this work in the following way:

  • Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security to take two important steps to promote smart gun technology.
  • Increase research and development efforts.  The Presidential Memorandum directs the departments to conduct or sponsor research into gun safety technology that would reduce the frequency of accidental discharge or unauthorized use of firearms, and improve the tracing of lost or stolen guns.  Within 90 days, these agencies must prepare a report outlining a research-and-development strategy designed to expedite the real-world deployment of such technology for use in practice.
  • Promote the use and acquisition of new technology.  The Presidential Memorandum also directs the departments to review the availability of smart gun technology on a regular basis, and to explore potential ways to further its use and development to more broadly improve gun safety.  In connection with these efforts, the departments will consult with other agencies that acquire firearms and take appropriate steps to consider whether including such technology in specifications for acquisition of firearms would be consistent with operational needs.

What’s At Stake In Oregon Standoff

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As the federal authorities gear up to confront the armed militia occupying an Oregon nature preserve, the following article examines the simmering conflict between the ranchers and the federal government over public land use, which lies beneath the current crisis.

On Saturday evening, a group of militiamen took over the management building at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, about 30 miles (48 km) south of Burns, Oregon. They are calling themselves “Citizens for Constitutional Freedom,” and argue they are standing up against government abuse of ranchers everywhere. The group is led by Ammon Bundy, whose father Cliven successfully defied the Bureau of Land Management in a 2014 grazing rights dispute.

Feds vs. Ranchers

Location of Oregon in United States. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

Location of Oregon in United States. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

Much of the United States west of the Mississippi river is outright owned by the federal government, and administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Until the 1970s, the land was often open to farmers and especially ranchers, who counted on grazing rights to maintain large herds of cattle. Laws adopted in 1976 led to the government closing off much of the land, prompting a backlash in the states dubbed the “Sagebrush rebellion.” It fizzled after the election of President Ronald Reagan, however, as the new administration failed to revoke the laws but promised the BLM would be more sensitive to local concerns.

Since then, Washington has steadily cracked down on private use of public lands, with environmentalist groups pushing for designating much of the government-owned property as protected wilderness.

This has led to many ranchers abandoning their family business. About half the workforce of Harney County, where Burns is located, is now employed with the government in some capacity. One of the few ranching families that have held on are the Hammonds, whose conflict with the BLM helped spark the latest conflagration.

The Hammond fires

One of the reasons cited by the militia for their occupation of the wildlife refuge was a court order demanding that two members of the Hammond family report to federal prison in California for lengthy jail sentences. Dwight Hammond, 73 and his son Steven, 46, were convicted in 2012 over two fires that affected a combined area of 140 acres of BLM-owned land.

The two fires, in 2001 and 2006 respectively, were deliberately started on the Hammond property in an effort to clear the juniper and sagebrush and prevent the spread of forest fires from government land, the ranchers said. The government charged the Hammonds with arson on federal lands, however, an offense that carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

As part of a plea bargain with the government, the Hammonds admitted to starting the fire and agreed to give the BLM the right of first refusal on their ranch. Judge Michael Hogan rejected the five-year sentence, calling it “grossly disproportionate” to the crime. Dwight served three months in prison while Steven was released after 11 months. Anything more than that would “shock his conscience,” Judge Hogan said.

The government decided to appeal the sentence. Last year, District Chief Judge Ann Aiken of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Hammonds would have to serve the full sentence. With both men required to turn themselves in by January 4, the armed protesters stepped in.

Enter the militia

Armed protesters first assembled in downtown Burns on Saturday afternoon, before setting off for the refuge later in the day. Supporters and militia members sympathetic to the ranchers had come from all over the western US. While Ammon Bundy has attracted the most attention thanks to his family name, several other notable characters are involved in the occupation.

Jon Ritzheimer is a former US Marine from Arizona. Last May, he called for a massive anti-Islam rally outside a Phoenix mosque once attended by the two men who tried to attack a “draw Mohammed” cartoonist competition in Garland, Texas. Event security gunned down the attackers before they could do anything, however. Ritzheimer’s rally drew far fewer than 3,000 people he hoped for.

Blaine Cooper, who can be seen in a video with Ritzheimer asking for more citizens to join the militia and “avoid bloodshed,” was enlisted in the US Marine Corps but never went to boot camp, according to the Washington Post.

Another prominent member of the militia at Malheur is Ryan Payne, an electrician from Montana who had taken part in the 2014 Bundy standoff. According to the Washington Post, Payne had told reporters at the time that he served as an Army Ranger. His records, however, show him serving in military intelligence instead.

Some of the groups critical of the government view Payne with suspicion. Writing at the Oathkeepers website, a novelist by the name of Shorty Dawkins even said that Payne might be a government provocateur, and rejected Bundy’s stand at Malheur as “the wrong action at the wrong time” that “serves no useful purpose.”

Angry Mormons?

Since Bundy and some of his followers are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons, some reporters have been digging into the possible religious background of their actions.

While the Mormon Church has a long history of resistance to government persecution, in a statement released Monday the church condemned the occupation in no uncertain terms.

“While the disagreement occurring in Oregon about the use of federal lands is not a Church matter, Church leaders strongly condemn the armed seizure of the facility and are deeply troubled by the reports that those who have seized the facility suggest that they are doing so based on scriptural principles. This armed occupation can in no way be justified on a scriptural basis. We are privileged to live in a nation where conflicts with government or private groups can — and should — be settled using peaceful means, according to the laws of the land,” the statement reads.

An executive pardon

At a press conference on Monday afternoon, Bundy said that he felt confident the federal authorities would not seek an armed confrontation with the militia. The FBI, which is leading the government response, has declined to comment publicly on what they might do. There are still hopes the standoff may be resolved peacefully.

Meanwhile, Dwight and Steven Hammond have turned themselves in to the authorities in Los Angeles. Their attorney, W. Alan Schroeder, announced he would be asking President Obama for an executive pardon. That would be one way to diffuse the situation.

2016: Year Of Reckoning For Modi Government – Analysis

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By Lt Gen Kamal Davar (Retd.)*

Elected governments for the tall claims they make to their overly aspirational electorates are expected fulfill millions of promises. This natural yearning of the people in any vibrant democracy leads to political churnings, at times so stunning that defies all logic. The unprecedented mandate conferred on the BJP in 2014 carries with it expectations of the Indian people: to take the nation forward at a speed and magnitude worthy of this extraordinary verdict.

Nearly 19 months have elapsed with not much astounding progress as promised being seen on the ground, it is time for the Narendra Modi led Indian government to introspect and carry out course corrections wherever needed. Governing a vast and diverse nation like India is surely not every leader’s cup of tea.

Being masters of political strategizing and perception management- having left the overly fatigued, ten-years-in-power Congress far behind in matters realpolitik- the incumbent Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), unquestionably, had commenced its innings promisingly, at least in its foreign pursuits.

Prime Minister Modi’s surprise and endearing visit to Lahore, en route from Kabul to Delhi, has been the proverbial icing on the cake in the Indian government’s international forays. This visit, of course, has to be followed with concrete results in what have often been vexed bilateral ties between India and Pakistan. Importantly Pakistan has to conform to the red lines which India, as a friendship seeking neighbor, feels are necessary to India’s security and integrity.

Since coming to power, Modi has made much required visits to almost all the neighbouring nations, including those on our coastal peripheries and major powers abroad, with the conclusions being both optimistic and highly optic. However, there are certain ties that need repair before it gets too late, such as those with Nepal and to some extent, Maldives.

Having spent almost 20 months in power, it is highly likely that the Modi government is now well versed with the challenges and nuances of foreign policy pitfalls. Thus, it will be well advised to pursue staunchly the tenet of ‘strategic autonomy’ in keeping with India’s traditional stance in its external policies.

Accordingly, India should in this year, must come out forcefully in condemning terrorism and violence against civilians, unreservedly, anywhere in the world. India must endeavour with the UN and other nations to bring peace to all violence stricken regions in the Islamic State afflicted Middle East expanse especially to hapless Iraq and Syria, as also to unnecessary violence being enacted in Israel, Palestine, parts of Africa and equally in neighbouring fratricide stricken Afghanistan- all of which requires India’s comprehensive support. With a permanent seat in the UNSC being its staunchest ambition, India cannot be seen to be vacillating in its foreign policies, although it must prioritize.

Among the contemporary significant internal security challenges that affect India, combating Left Wing Extremism (LWE) commonly referred to as the Naxal-Maoist challenge; integrating the alienated Kashmiri people into the national mainstream ; reduction of sectarian violence in Assam whilst containing and eliminating insurgencies in our restive North East, will continue to be the government’s domestic concerns.

The seeds of Pakistan inspired Khalistani movement has not been totally eradicated. In addition, Pakistan’s notorious ISI has been, since the last few months, trying to whip up Khalistani radicalism in Punjab. With elections to Punjab’s state assembly, scheduled in early 2017, India’s intelligence and security organs will have to be on full alert in Punjab.

Preventing communal incidents in India’s heartland and nipping extremism in the bud are imperative to ensure that the many sieges within do not stifle India’s growth. For that, the PM will have to truly rise to the occasion to keep at bay all radical elements including the ‘saffron brigade’ which has substantially supported his electoral campaign. Reportedly, nearly 800 low key, mostly local, communal clashes have taken place in the country, especially in UP and a few other parts of the nation, since the last year, and which are both unfortunate and unacceptable.

Notwithstanding the utterly violent approach of the Naxal leadership who derive their inspiration from Maoist ideologies, the Indian state has to adopt an tailor-made remedy to diffuse this alarmingly growing malaise. LWE has afflicted nearly one third of India with nearly 220 districts being affected with the Naxal-Maoist insurgents having established ‘liberated zones’ along the ‘Red Corridor’ running in the densely forested areas in centre of the Indian hinterland where governmental presence is virtually non-existent.

Indifferently conceived and uncoordinated reactive actions by the government, both at the state and national levels, have hardly achieved satisfactory results. Let the Modi government, to start with, confront this problem in a holistic manner adopting an innovative and humanitarian approach. Let it unilaterally announce a cease fire against these Maoist insurgents for three months and invite their leadership for unconditional negotiations. Simultaneously, it must be conveyed to the LWE leadership that the present impasse is not acceptable to the nation and as their genuine grievances will be met, the country will take the most stringent action against Maoist violence or any seditious activities.

The nascent Modi government must earnestly endeavour to integrate Kashmiris into the national mainstream by pursuing a humanitarian and a development oriented approach. Let people of the state be educated that their problems are entirely the creation of Pakistan and its cohorts inside the Valley. A firm message must go out to all, including Pakistan and the world, that the political status of J&K is non-negotiable and all what remains to be discussed with Pakistan is the future of the regions of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (as existing in pre-independence 1947) now in occupation of Pakistan namely Pakistan occupied Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and the Shaksgam Valley (ceded illegally to China in 1963 by Pakistan).

However, prior to such a firm public declaration being made by the Indian PM, necessary groundwork and all precautions, including in the security domain, should be ensured. India must not allow any ambiguity on the Kashmir issue. It must be clearly understood by all that J&K is not merely the symbol of Indian secularism, but its primary guarantee, and India is prepared to pay any price to sustain its core values.

To ensure sustained economic growth, a stable and secure environment is sine qua non. This is only achievable if the combat capabilities of the Indian Armed Forces, sadly depleted since years, are shored up adequately. Critical deficiencies in submarines, multi role fighter jets, artillery howitzers, critical deficiencies in required levels of tank ammunition and air defence voids have to be speedily addressed. In early 2016, let the government announce the establishment of the long awaited Chief of Defence Staff and the inter services Cyber Command to start with.

To tackle internal security, our para military, central police organizations and the state police forces need modernization and strengthening. The government must implement the many useful suggestions for improving these forces lying in the recommendations of many committees on Police Reforms.

The distinctively historic mandate given by the Indian people to PM Narendra Modi needs to be translated into concrete results for the nation’s good. 2016 will thus, be a year of reckoning for the Modi government. Let Indians, of all faiths and political hues, work in synergy for the nation’s resurgence.

*Lt. Gen. Kamal Davar (Retd.) is the first Chief of India’s Defence Intelligence Agency. He can be reached at: editor@spsindia.in

Real Madrid Fires Benitez, As Zidane Takes Over

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Rafael Benítez has been sacked as the manager of Real Madrid, just seven months into a three-year contract at the Bernabéu, with Zinedine Zidane taking over.

Benítez’s Real Madrid future was decided at an emergency board meeting on Monday. His final act was overseeing Sunday’s 2-2 draw against Gary Neville’s Valencia at the Mestalla, in which Real were reduced to 10 men and twice pegged back, leaving them in third place in La Liga, four points behind the leaders Atlético Madrid.

Zidane was the world’s most expensive player when he arrived at the Bernabéu from Juventus in 2001, spending five years at the club and winning La Liga and the Champions League. Since 2014 he has been coaching Real Madrid’s B team.

“Firstly I would like to thank the club and the president for giving me the chance to coach this team,” he said when announced as Benítez successor on Monday. “I’m more emotional now than when I signed as a player.” The Frenchman added: “We have the best club in the world and the best fans in the world.”

The president, Florentino Pérez, said: “He is clearly conscious of how tough this job is. Zidane doesn’t know the word impossible.”

Benítez struggled to find favour among the supporters at Real, not helped by the 4-0 defeat to Barcelona in November’s Clásico or a failure to introduce the kind of style demanded at the Bernabéu. Rumours of unrest in his squad had been frequent and last week he accused the media of a campaign against himself, the club and the president, Florentino Peréz.

After Sunday’s draw with Valencia, he responded to speculation over his future by saying: “I cannot prevent speculation about whether I continue, but I can make the team work as it has today. We were capable of getting the three points.

“With 10 players we had to make an effort, and the team has done. We can only regret that after going 2-1 ahead, we conceded in the next minute. Maybe we were lacking a bit of concentration after we went 2-1 up or maybe the opposition reacted very well.”

The club captain Sergio Ramos also spoke after the Valencia match and gave his public backing to the under-fire manager. He told Movistar: “Benítez has credit in the bank. Whoever the coach is, we’ll always get behind them.”

Spain: Number Of Unemployed Falls By 354,203 In 2015

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The number of unemployed registered with the Public Employment Services fell by 55,790 in the month of December, 1.34% down on the previous month, the Spanish government said on Tuesday, adding that unemployment has now fallen in the month of December in each of the last four years.

Over the last 12 months, recorded unemployment has fallen by 354,203 people, the largest fall in a 12-month period since records began. The year-on-year rate of decline has grown by more than two and a half points over the course of the year and shows a fall in recorded unemployment at a rate of close on 8% (7.96%). A year-on-year rate of decline at this level had not been seen in a month of December since back in 1999.

In seasonally-adjusted terms, recorded unemployment fell yet again in December, by 1,258. Seasonally-adjusted unemployment has fallen in 30 of the last 32 months.

Following this drop, the total figure for unemployment now stands at 4,093,508.

Unemployment among the under-25s fell by a noteworthy 45,773 year-on-year, at a rate of decline of 11.8%, well above the general average of 8%.

By sector of activity, recorded unemployment fell among those who most recently worked in the services sector, with 61,336 fewer unemployed (down 2.22%), and in the agriculture and fisheries sector, with 2,133 fewer unemployed (down 1.09%), while the recorded unemployment figures rose in the industrial sector by 4,845 (up 1.25%), and in the construction sector by 15,470 (up 3.53%). Recorded unemployment among first-time job seekers fell by 12,636 (down 3.52%).

Recorded unemployment fell in 13 autonomous regions, particularly in Andalusia (down 27,066), Madrid (down 9,284) and Catalonia (down 5,992). In contrast, it rose in the remaining four regions, headed up by Galicia (up 3,650) and Navarre (up 1,197).

Full-time permanent employment grows by 13.8%

The rise in the number of contracts over recent months continued to rise in the month of December. Hence, a total of 1,594,915 new contracts were signed, representing a rise of 15.23% on the same month of 2014.

Accumulated contracts for the whole of 2015 reached a total figure of 18,576,280, which represent 1,849,191 more contracts than in 2014 (up 11.06%).

A total of 132,867 permanent contracts were notified in the month of December, an increase of 8.02% on the same month last year. In the year as a whole, the total number of permanent contracts amounts to 1,509,165, or a year-on-year increase of 158,834 (up 11.76%).

Full-time permanent employment contracts grew by 13.77% over the course of 2015, compared with growth of 11.76% for employment contracts as a whole.

Claims That Islamic State’s New Executioner Is British National Siddhartha Dhar

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A man widely reported by British media as the masked gunman in a new Daesh execution video is a Londoner of Hindu origin.

Siddhartha Dhar was arrested multiple times for alleged terrorism offenses, but was able to leave the country in September 2014 while on bail because police failed to seize his passport.

His sister Konika Dhar told the BBC she was in “a state of shock” at the reports, but added she was not definitively sure the man in the video was her brother.

“I believed the audio to resemble, from what I remember, the voice of my brother but having viewed the short clip in detail, I wasn’t entirely convinced which put me at ease,” she said.

The footage showed a masked man waving a handgun as he describes U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron as “the leader of a small island [who] threatens us with a handful of planes” and “an imbecile”.

The five prisoners kneeling in front of him are then shown to be executed.

Cameron described the video as “desperate stuff from an organization that really does the most utterly despicable and ghastly acts and people can see that again today”.

His office refused to comment on media reports naming the masked man as Siddhartha Dhar.

Original article

Iran: Khamenei Rejects Idea Elections Have Been Rigged

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The Iranian Supreme Leader has denied the existence of any form of systematic violation of elections to date and said election organizers should be wary of “infiltrators”.

In a meeting with Friday Mass Imams, Ayatollah Khamenei said on Monday January 4 that elections are of vital importance and he once against warned against “the infiltration of the enemy” in the elections.

Iranians will go to the polls in March to elect members of the Assembly of Experts and Parliament. Conservative factions of the establishment are seriously concerned about reformists and moderate elements gaining a majority in either of the two government bodies.

The 2009 presidential election triggered widespread protests across the country with accusations of vote fraud. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory was challenged by reformists candidates MirHosein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who have been under house arrest since 2011.

The Iranian leader, who at the time denied appeals for a vote recount, stressed today that the vote fraud allegations in 2009 caused “heavy damage” to the country that has been “irreparable”.

The Iranian leader accused the United States of trying to gain influence in the country by infiltrating its elections.

Cindy Sheehan: Creatures Of The Day – OpEd

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Donald Trump is a scary creature who has been making some wildly fascistic statements particularly about Muslims and “illegal” immigrants on the campaign trail. In my opinion, he is a clown who is beneath contempt, but many Americans are flocking to his campaign, not because they love Trump, but because many of our fellow USAians are closed-minded bigots.

On the other side of the easily bamboozled, others are flocking away from his campaign to the creatures on the other side of the aisle because they must believe the hype: hype is what gives some hope. (“There’s a sucker born every minute”). Trump is being called “anti-American” for his statements, but Trump is unfortunately articulating the worst part of what it really means to be “American” in the tradition of the most abusive and violent Empire in human history. Maybe a class on what it REALLY means to be an “American” is in order?

If we lived in a just and compassionate society, Trump would be properly ostracized.

Obama is another a creature who not only walks free (as free as one can with a phalanx of over-armed security). Trump agitates hatred for Arab-Muslims, but Obama is a mass-murderer who has been responsible for murdering tens of thousands of them. Obama has dramatically increased the police state here in the US and no Demo-libs are calling him “fascist.” Where is the tingle of intellectual inconsistency when Trump routinely is attacked for his statements about immigration after the Obama regime’s immigration policy has deported more immigrant workers and separated more families than any other president before him? There is no disconnect with Demo-libs because justification for Obama’s crimes has become an Olympic level training event for them.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is an imperialist warmonger with decades behind her of supporting war and economic terrorism around the world. As US Secretary of State, she out-war mongered the war mongers at the War Department. The only description that can be made of Clinton’s glee over the horrendous murder of Qaddafi in Libya is “euphoric cackling.” Many of Clinton’s supporters are in denial about her being the Head Demo-lib Cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq, but the proof is out there.

All of these creatures are just by-products of Imperialist-Capitalism and the problem with these periodic elections is that most voters here in the USA believe that the real issue is with personalities and not systemic oppression and propaganda.

What do we really believe is more influential in the sham of US elections?

A) Your 1/100 millionth of a vote?

B) Super-PAC money?

C) Propaganda?

D) Democracy delusions?

E) DNC Super-delegates/Electoral College?

F) The Supreme Court?

G) Corruptible voting machines?

If you answered “A” you’re incorrect—-if you answered “Everything but A” you’ are closer to the truth.

It is my opinion, which has been born out by history, that presidential elections, in particular, are major distractions and time/energy vampires of the working class. This is true especially when workers/voters do not organize to support candidates or issues that would actually benefit the working-class; instead rallying around creatures of the prevailing political establishment who are apparently there to demobilize the profound power of workers united.

Why do I call the political personalities of the “Demopublican” Party, “creatures?” Most people say, “Donald,” “Hillary,” “Bernie,” “Jeb,” or “George,” when referring to these creatures like they are our friends. For the most part, these people do not share or care about our values or what we need to not just survive, but thrive—they send our young to kill or be killed and then live their lives in the light of day. They don’t behave like humans with feelings or compassion—they behave like frightening beings, not from “outer-space,” but emerge from the capacity of the masses to believe the lies of the Empire. We are also taught to believe that the masses are not entitled to the peace and prosperity which the creatures enjoy at our expense.

Creatures of the day are shameless and deserve nothing but contempt and prison.


US Africom Outlines Five-Year Plan That Targets Terror Groups

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By Jim Garamone

In the face of growing threats from the African continent, U.S. Africa Command has spelled out its theater campaign plan, officials said yesterday.

The plan is built upon the foundation of the strategy promulgated last year by Africom commander Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez, officials speaking on background told reporters traveling with Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Yesterday, the chairman visited Africom’s headquarters at Kelly Barracks.

Five-Year Plan

Officials said Africom’s campaign blueprint is a five-year plan with five lines of effort.

The first is neutralizing the terror group al-Shabab in Somalia, officials said, and transitioning the effort to the African Union Mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM.

The second line of effort centers around the failed state of Libya, officials said, adding that the effort focuses on containing the instability in the country.

Officials said the third line of effort is to contain Boko Haram in West Africa.

Fourth, officials said, Africom will focus on disrupting illicit activity in the Gulf of Guinea and in Central Africa.

Fifth, the command looks to build African partners’ peacekeeping and disaster assistance capabilities, officials said.

This is a large job for a small command, an Africom official said. “The only permanent location we have is Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti,” he said. “Everything else is a very light footprint.”

The command does have cooperative security and contingency locations across the continent, officials said, noting these are essentially “cold bases” that would only be used in the event of an emergency.

In West Africa, Dakar, Senegal, is one of the cooperative security locations and U.S. forces used it during the Ebola crisis last year, officials said.

Officials said the bases also allow the command to protect American lives and property in the high-risk, high-threat posts. There are 15 of those posts in Africa, officials said.

Assisting Somalia

The theater campaign plan starts with neutralizing al-Shabab, officials said. U.S. forces have helped to train, equip and supply AMISOM forces that have played a central role in bringing stability to Somalia, officials said.

“Al-Shabab has been pushed out of most of the major population centers and is only a power in the Juba River Valley,” an official said. However, the official added, al-Shabab “is not a spent force” and it remains a threat — particularly in terms of targeted attacks against neighboring AMISOM contributors.

Africom continues to monitor the al-Shabab threats to Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda in particular, officials said.

“The emerging issue we’ve seen in al-Shabab over the past six months is the movement at the lower levels of individuals toward [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant],” an official said. “Pro-ISIL sentiment is increasing in Somalia and we’ve seen some efforts by al-Shabab leaders to strike down these efforts. Al-Shabab leaders remain firmly allied to al-Qaida.”

ISIL ‘Brand’ Makes Gains

Officials said this is an indication of the power of the ISIL “brand” in the extremist world. ISIL, especially after its success in Iraq and Syria, is viewed by extremists as a winning team, while al-Qaida is viewed as having waning operational capabilities. Al-Shabab has been manhandled by the AMISOM troops and the mid-level and lower extremists see ISIL as its savior, officials said.

Core-ISIL has not accepted the al-Shabab splinters as members of the caliphate, officials said.

“From our viewpoint, ISIL probably has very strict criteria for what groups they want to let into the fold,” the official said. “[They] want to make sure the groups coming in can sustain themselves, that they have a plan and have an ability to move.”

The Islamic State affiliates in Libya and Boko Haram in Nigeria have been connected with the extremists in Syria and Iraq for a number of years, the officials said. Boko Haram “officially” joined the terror network last year, officials said.

“Since then, what we’ve seen is an enhancement of Boko Haram’s propaganda and messaging efforts,” an official said. “That has been the most apparent result of the ISIL-Boko Haram ties. Their videos are more professional and tighter. They speak like an ISIL affiliate.”

But there has not been a significant shift of resources, people or even tactics, techniques and procedures to Boko Haram, officials said. The Nigerian-based terror group “is a self-sustaining entity,” an official said.

“We would expect that enhanced affiliation in the Horn of Africa would probably follow the same path,” the official said. “We would see improved propaganda and messaging, but not a shift of resources.”

ISIL Gets Battered

Terrorists in East Africa need material and resources from ISIL, but they are not going to get it, officials said. Core ISIL is hurting itself — the Islamic State has lost Beiji and Ramadi in Iraq, it is under assault from the Kurdish peshmerga and the Syrian anti-ISIL coalition is making progress, officials said.

The coalition oil campaign is also having an effect on ISIL’s source of wealth, officials said.

Strengthening the AMISOM force and its capabilities will also serve to strengthen the Somalian government, officials said.

Containing Boko Haram is another factor, officials said, noting that Africom is working with local partners — including Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger — to contain the terror group. French and British officials are also working with local allies and the command, the officials said.

Challenge in Libya

Libya is a challenge, officials said, noting “increasing bifurcation between moderates and hardliners.” The weak central government allows the space for ISIL to build a safe haven that acts as a nexus for terrorist operations in northern Libya, officials said. This has quickly become more than a simple problem within Libya, as the group has launched attacks in neighboring Tunisia, officials said. Africom has also seen some foreign fighters going into ISIL in Libya, officials said.

Africom is looking to contain ISIL in Libya and degrade it, said officials, who estimate there are roughly 3,500 ISIL terrorists in Libya.

Palestine After Abbas: Future Of A People At Stake – OpEd

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Although intended to inspire his Fatah Party followers, a televised speech by Mahmoud Abbas on the 51st Anniversary of the group’s launch highlighted, instead, the unprecedented crisis that continues to wreak havoc on the Palestinian people. Not only did Abbas sound defensive and lacking in any serious or new initiatives, but his ultimate intention appeared as if it was about his political survival, and nothing else.

In his speech on December 31, he tossed in many of the old clichés, chastising Israel at times, although in carefully-worded language, and insisted that any vital decisions concerned with “the future of the land, people and national rights” would be “subject to general elections and (voted on by the Palestine) National Council (PNC), because our people made heavy sacrifices and they are the source of all authorities.”

Ironically, Abbas presides over the Palestinian Authority (PA) with a mandate that expired in January 2009 and his party, Fatah, which refused to accept the results of democratic elections in the Occupied Territories in 2006, continues to behave as the ‘ruling party’ with no mandate, aside from the political validation it receives from Israel, the US and their allies.

As for the PNC, it served as the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) until the PA was established in 1994. Propped up by international funds, the PA was initially formed as a means to an end, that being ‘final status’ negotiations and a Palestinian State. Instead, it became a status quo in itself, and its institutions, which largely reflected the political interests of a specific branch within Fatah, replaced the PLO, the PNC, together with all other institutions that expressed a degree of democracy and inclusiveness.

Whatever PLO structure that symbolically remained in place after the PA soft coup is now arubber stamp that does not merely reflect the wishes of a single party, Fatah (which lost its majority among Palestinians in 2006), but an elitist, wealthy group within the once-leading party. In some way, Abbas’ current role is largely to serve the interest of this group, as opposed to charting a path of liberation for the entire Palestinian collective, at home, in refugee camps or in the Diaspora.

Nothing was as telling about Abbas’ real mission at the helm of the PA than his statement in his speech of December 31, where he completely ruled out the dismantling of the PA – now that it has failed in its mission, and while an elaborate PLO political structure already exists, which is capable of replacing it. Oddly, Abbas described the PA as one of the greatest achievements of the Palestinian people.

I say, ‘oddly’ because the PA was the outcome of the now practically defunct Oslo ‘peace process’, which was negotiated by Abbas and a few others in secret with Israel, at the behest of the late Palestinian Fatah leader, Yasser Arafat. The whole initiative was founded on secrecy and deceit and was signed without taking the Palestinian people into account. Worse, when Palestinians attempted to vote to challenge the status quo wrought by Oslo, the outcome of the elections was dismissed by Fatah, which led to a civil war in 2007 where hundreds of Palestinians were killed.

But aside from the historical lapses of Abbas, who is now 80-years-old, his words – although meant to assure his supporters – are, in fact, a stark reminder that the Palestinian people, who have been undergoing a violent uprising since October, are practically leaderless.

While Abbas explains that the reason behind the ‘habba’ or the ‘rising’ – a reference to the current Intifada – is Israel’s continued violations and illegal settlement, he failed to endorse the current uprising or behave as if he is the leader of that national mobilization. He constantly tries to hold the proverbial stick in the middle so that he does not invite the ire of his people nor that of Israel.

Like a crafty politician, he is also trying to reap multiple benefits, siding with the people at times, as if a revolutionary leader, to remind Israel and the US of his importance as someone who represents the non-violent strand of Palestinian politics, and ride the wave of the intifada until the old order is restored. In fact, signs of that old order – interminable negotiations – are still evident. The PA’s Chief Negotiator, Saeb Erekat, has recently announced that talks between the PA and Israel are still taking place, a terrible omen at a time when Palestinians are in desperate need for a complete overhaul of their failed approach to politics and national liberation.

However, the problem is much bigger than Mahmoud Abbas. Reducing the Palestinian failure to the character of a single person is deeply rooted in most political analyses pertaining to Palestine for many years. (This is actually more pronounced in Western media than in Arabic media). Alas, once aging Abbas is no longer on the political scene, the problem is likely to persist, if not addressed.

While Fatah has made marked contributions to Palestinian Resistance, its greatest contribution was liberating the Palestinian cause, as much as is practically possible, from the confines and manipulation of Arab politics. Thanks to that generation of young Palestinian leaders, which also included leaders of the PFLP and other socialist groups, there was, for once, a relatively unified Palestinian platform that did represent a degree of Palestinian priorities and objectives.

But that relative unity was splintered among Palestinian factionalism: within the PLO itself, and then outside the PLO, where groups and sub-groups grew into a variety of ideological directions, many of whom were funded by Arab regimes which utilized the Palestinian struggle to serve national and regional agendas. A long and tragic episode of national collapse followed. When the Palestinian Resistance was exiled from Lebanon in 1982, following the Israeli invasion of that country, the PLO and all of its institutions were mostly ruled by a single party. Fatah, by then, grew older and more corrupt, operating within geographical spheres that were far away from Palestine. It dominated the PLO which, by then, grew into a body mired in political tribalism and financial corruption.

True, Abbas is an essential character in that sorry episode which led to the Oslo fiasco in 1993; however, the burgeoning political culture that he partly espoused will continue to operate independent from the aspirations of the Palestinian people, with or without Abbas.

It is this class, which is fed with US-Western money and perks and happily tolerated by Israel, which must be confronted by Palestinians themselves, if they are to have a real chance at reclaiming their national objectives once more.

The current wisdom conveyed by some, that today’s Intifada has superseded the PA, is utter nonsense. No popular mobilization has a chance of succeeding if it is impeded by such a powerful group as those invested in the PA, all unified by a great tug of self-interest.

Moreover, waiting for Abbas to articulate a stronger, more convincing message is also a waste of time, since the ailment is not Abbas’ use of vocabulary, but his group’s refusal to cede an inch of their undeserved privilege, in order to open up space for a more democratic environment – so that all Palestinians, secularists, Islamists and socialists take equal part in the struggle for Palestine.

A starting point would be a unified leadership in the Occupied Territories that manages the Intifada outside the confines of factions, combined with a vision for revamping PLO institutions to become more inclusive and to bring all Palestinians, everywhere, together.

Abbas is soon to depart the political scene, either because of an internal Fatah coup, or as a result of old age. Either way, the future of Palestine cannot be left to his followers, to manage as they see fit and to protect their own interests. The future of an entire nation is at stake.

Saudi Arabia Cuts Heads To Make A Point – OpEd

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By Jeremy Salt*

The killing of Shaikh Nimr Bakr al Nimr is not without many contexts. A powerful critic of autocratic rule in Bahrain as well as Saudi Arabia, he had been a thorn in the side of the Saudi regime since the beginning of the so-called ‘Arab spring.’ Jailed five times between 2003-2008, he was shot in the leg four times when picked up by Saudi police in 2012. Criticism of the regime is terrorism in Saudi Arabia and for this, in the name of ‘waging war on God,’ he was sentenced to death along with three other Shia among the 47 condemned men. The name of his nephew, Ali Muhammad al Nimr, 17, when arrested in 2012, and subsequently sentenced to death by crucifixion, did not appear on the list of the executed but the Shia victims did include Ali al Rubh, also a juvenile when he was arrested. The other executed men included Faris al Shuwaili, a member of Al Qaida, arrested in 2004 and connected with a series of terrorist attacks carried out in the kingdom.

The killings were carried out by beheading or firing squad in 12 cities and were the greatest mass execution since 60 men were executed – once again across the kingdom – in 1980 for their alleged involvement in the storming and seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, one of the most embarrassing episodes ever in the history of the Hijaz under Saudi rule. The Shia victims all came from the eastern province, which has most of Saudi Arabia’s oil as well as a large and possibly a majority Shia population. The city of Qatif, about 97 per cent Shia, broke out in riots after the execution and was immediately subjected to a crackdown by the Saudi army.

Qatif has a long (about 3500 years) and often rebellious history. From the late the 9th century it was a center for the Qarmatians, a Shia group which arose in lower Iraq and shook the Abbasid state to its foundations, to the extent of carrying away the black stone (al hajjar al aswad) from Mecca and holding it for 17 years before returning it. The Qarmatians brought Syria under their control as well as much of the gulf and Yemen before their collapse in the 10th century but they have remained one of the most interesting movements to arise in the history of Islam.

In the 20th century the presence of a substantial Shia population (perhaps 10 to 15 per cent of the total) was an affliction without an obvious cure for the Saudis. In the wake of the establishment of the Islamic republic of Iran, the Shia of eastern province rose up against the regime on the grounds that a monarchy was inconsistent with the precepts of Islam. Protests in Saudi Arabia and Shia-majority Bahrain highlighted the autocratic and anti-democratic rule of both dynasties. The Saudis lacked proof but chose to see Shia disturbances as the work of Iran. Discontent with the Saudi regime is not confined to the Shia, however. There is a half-hidden history of Sunni agitation if not active rebellion against Saudi rule going back many decades.

The revolt of Juhaiman in 1979, when he led the band that seized the Grand Mosque, centered on the corruption of the ruling family. Juhaiman and his followers were Islamic zealots akin in many ways to the ikhwan the Saudis used in the 1920s to consolidate their power before crushing them. However, others in Saudi Arabia have sought to bring the kingdom into the modern democratic participatory world and have been imprisoned for their trouble or have fled into exile. Not all Saudis agree with the royal family and indeed, the family itself is divided. This is partly a generational thing, many of the young princes having been educated outside the kingdom (usually in the US) and unable to relate to the hide-bound world view of the gerontocracy.

Many predictions have been made about the impending collapse of the Saudi regime. Said Aburish’s book The Rise, Corruption and Coming Fall of the House of Saud was published in 1994 but while the corruption and the house are still there the ‘coming fall’ is not although again it is being argued that it is closer than ever. The durability of the Saud dynasty can be partly explained through the massive oil wealth which enables the king to keep the princes (and to an extent the people) in line and to purchase the multiple billion dollars worth of weapons which keep powerful friends (notably the US and British governments) onside. The Saudis also purchase loyalty across the region, from the media and from governments. Its investments and financial aid, especially at critical points (i.e. for Egypt following the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government) are other tools of maintaining support.

The kingdom is chronically insecure. Iran under the shah was feared almost as much as Iran under the Islamic government. During the Iraq-Iran war (1980-88), Saudi Arabia backed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq only because it feared and disliked the Islamic republic even more. During the George W. Bush presidency Israel and Saudi Arabia both pushed for a military attack ostensibly aimed just at destroying Iran’s nuclear reactors. The effects of a military strike on nuclear reactors would have been be absolutely fearful and stand as a measure of the callous irresponsibility of the Saudis and Israel that they could even contemplate it. In any case, the nuclear question was a red herring. The real issue was Iran’s continually rising regional prestige.

Threats of military attack and the use of economic sanctions, with the EU tamely doing what the US wanted, did not work. Iran stood its ground and went on to shape what is called the ‘Shia crescent’ by its enemies and the ‘axis of resistance’, the strategic alliance of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, by its friends. In 2000 Hezbollah drove Israel out of southern Lebanon and when it invaded in 2006 it drove it out again. These were tremendous achievements. In 2005 Rafiq Hariri, the former Lebanese president, was assassinated in what was clearly intended to be the means of driving the remaining Syrian forces (not many of them) out of Lebanon. It worked. Syria was blamed and only years later was cleared of any responsibility, at which point the special tribunal swung around and blamed Hezbollah, which subsequently produced compelling circumstantial evidence that the assassination was most likely the work of Israel. The withdrawal of Syrian troops was a propaganda victory for Israel, the US and its gulf allies but Syria and Hezbollah still held their ground.

The inability of the Saudis to make meaningful headway in breaking the ‘Shia crescent’ led them to come up with the alternative of generating Sunni takfiri militancy against the Shia. Seymour Hersh is one of the writers who have written on how this was developed and how the US eventually went along with it. In 2011 Libya was smashed by US, British and French air power. When Russia and China used their veto power at the UN Security Council to block the launching of a second air war – on Syria – the US, Britain and France and their Middle East allies resorted to a war waged through armed gangs. Behind the façade of ‘peaceful’ protests beginning in the southern city of Dar’a these groups embarked on a trail of blood and destruction that has led Syria to where it is now. There is no need to reprise the lies and deceit that poured out of the media in support of the Syrian ‘rebels.’ What is important at this stage is that despite the billions of dollars poured into this sordid enterprise it has failed to achieve its main target.

Saudi Arabia is losing on all fronts. It has again shown that it cannot even run the hajj successfully. The collapse of a crane in the Grand Mosque in Mecca in September, killing more than 100 people, was followed by the hajj stampede which took the lives of somewhere between 2000 and 5000 people, but these domestic disasters are a trifle compared to the multiple failures in Saudi Arabia’s regional policy. The Islamic State’s finances are being cut off at the roots, through the destruction of oil tankers carrying contraband oil from Iraq and Syria to Turkey. In Iraq, thanks to support from Iran and the participation of Shia groups fighting alongside the Iraqi army (Hashid al Sha’abi, Asa’ib al Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Badr brigade), the Islamic State was driven out of Baiji and its oil-fields in October and out of Ramadi just before the end of the year. In Syria the Syrian army is steadily ground in the south, in the north and around Damascus, where the Saudi-backed Zahran Allush and senior commanders in the so-called Army of Islam were recently killed in an air strike. Saudi Arabia’s recent attempt to arrest these developments by forming an alliance of all the Sunni takfiri groups collapsed just before the New Year when one of the biggest ones, Ahrar al Sham, pulled out.

The other battlefield setback is the war in Yemen. No-one has ever defeated the Yemeni Shia before and Saudi Arabia is not likely to be the first. It has caused tremendous death and destruction with its air strikes but its achievements in the field basically have been limited to keeping the Houthis out of Aden. In keeping with its illustrious military traditions, its own ground forces have proven inconsequential. Others have pitched in in return for favors granted or anticipated: Kuwait and the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and Sudan, with a sprinkling of mercenaries from Latin America and various other parts of the world, adding up to a ground force of about 10,000 troops. Naturally Saudi Arabia has the support of the US and the UK, into whose arms industries the Saudis have countless billions of petrodollars over the years.

By December 2015 the war in Yemen was estimated to have cost the kingdom $5.3 billion since it was launched in May. It is presently costing the Saudi government about $200 million a day, at a time oil revenue has dropped and the kingdom faces a 2016 budgetary shortfall of about $87 billion. Austerity measures have been introduced. Subsidies have been reduced, public servants have been told to reduce spending and $1.2 billion of the kingdom’s $9.2 billion stock holdings in Europe has been sold. It might be true that with an estimated $707 billion in foreign assets the Saudis can keep the war going in Yemen a very long time, but at a time of declining revenue, falling oil prices and daily demands on its resources from the sectarian war it is fighting across the region even this wealth will soon start to run down.

The western media commented that the killing of Shaikh Nimr threatened to raise sectarian tensions across the region as if this was an accidental byproduct of the execution when almost certainly it was deliberately intended. The Saudi government set out to get rid of a troublesome cleric and incite Iran at the same time and it succeeded. Infuriated mobs set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran and the consulate in Mashhad. President Rouhani condemned these attacks, whereas Saudi Arabia seized the opportunity to sever diplomatic relations with Iran. The anti-Shia hatred spewing out of Saudi Arabia in recent years has been disgusting and further evidence of who is the prime agent of fitna across the region.

By deliberately provoking Iran Saudi Arabia is reasserting itself as the guardian of Sunni orthodoxy. There is little or no respect for the government of Saudi Arabia and its royal family in the Muslim world but sectarianism has muddled many minds and pushed to make a choice between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the great majority of Sunnis will come in behind the Saudis. So will the US. Having persuaded Iran to sign a nuclear agreement which very much damages Iranian national sovereignty, the Americans have already begun welching on the deal by raising the possibility of new sanctions. It has criticized the execution of Sheikh Nimr but in any new standoff between the Saudis and Iran it also will throw its support behind the Saudi government. Israel – Saudi Arabia’s half covert ally – will naturally welcome the re-ignition of confrontation with the government of the Islamic republic.

Saudi Arabia is in the throes of an acute multifaceted existential crisis. It is losing all the wars it has instigated and is now seeking a way out by inflaming relations with Iran. This will temporarily divert attention from problems at home and abroad, at the cost of deepening sectarianism and gravely worsening relations with Iran, with consequences yet to be seen.

* Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands(University of California Press). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Nuclear India Through A Western Eye – Analysis

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By Rajiv Nayan

In the middle of December 2015, the US-based Center for Public Integrity came out with a series of four articles on different aspects of India’s nuclear programme. Of the four articles, one is on Jaduguda, the second on the Kudankulam nuclear reactor, the third on the thermonuclear device and the fourth on India’s nuclear security. Adrian Levy, the journalist who co-authored The Deception in which he recorded known and unknown facts about Pakistan’s nuclear acquisitions, is either the sole or co-author of these articles.

Some of these articles have been partially or fully reproduced in other publications, including Foreign Policy. The tone or tenor of all the four articles is quite negative in terms of attempting to sensationalise the Indian nuclear science programme. The Center for Public Integrity is supposed to be an investigative news organisation, which has been apparently established to ‘serve democracy’.

Has this series of four articles been written to fulfil the objectives of the Center for Public Integrity? Unfortunately, both the main author and the organisation have failed to really fulfil the objectives. Moreover, there is the question of Levy’s own credibility as an investigative journalist. There is hardly any investigative journalism in the four articles. All are overwhelmingly written with the help of reports which have been published earlier or have been appearing in the news for years.

Most of the facts used in the four articles are available on the internet, and are quite well known. The reports, on the basis of which most of these four articles have been written, were refuted by the official nuclear establishment as well as independent scientists working in universities and research institutes. At one place, Levy accuses the Indian government of suppressing those reports. In actual fact, most of the reports and counterpoints are available in the public domain. Not only have the authors by and large overlooked these counterpoints, but they are also dismissive about them.

For instance, the article on uranium mining, titled “India’s nuclear industry pours its wastes into a river of death and disease”, mentions the Bihar government establishing a committee to inquire about the diseases prevalent in the area. And it claims that the researchers who conducted the study concluded that the people living in the Jaduguda area were ‘affected by radiation.’ The truth, however, is that the report of the committee (established on the order of the Bihar government and whose members included some doctors from the Bihar medical college) concluded: “the cases examined had congenital limb anomalies, diseases due to genetic abnormalities like thalassemia major and retinitis, pigmentosa, moderate to gross splenomegaly due to chronic malarial infection (as this is a hyper endemic area), malnutrition, post encephalitic and post-head injury sequel.” In short, this report by specialists did not find a single person ‘suffering from radiation related diseases.’

Further, the ‘investigative report’ on the Jaduguda mining complex propagates horror stories. And it spreads unscientific tales amounting to encouragement of superstition, which is antithetical to democracy that the Center for Public Integrity is supposed to promote. Further, a number of old reports cited in this article lack sound methodology and scientific basis. For instance, the methodology used by Dr. Ghose (cited in the article on the Jaduguda complex) to calculate gross alpha activity in water has not been endorsed by any of the international accredited agencies.

This article on uranium mining also refers to the ‘country’s secret nuclear mining and fuel fabrication programme’. It is not clear what the author means by ‘secret’ and how it is linked to health and the environment, which appear to be the twin concerns of the article. At the least, the Jaduguda complex is not secret. All the mines and milling stations are listed on the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) website. Similarly, India does not hide the sites of its nuclear fuel fabrication. In Indian Parliament, questions relating to fuel fabrication installations are answered and discussions have been taking place.

It is true that India does not make its uranium ore production public. However, the Indian government reveals the production of fuel assemblies in the Nuclear Fuel Complex. For example, the government has stated that in the financial year 2014-2015, the Hyderabad-based Nuclear Fuel Complex produced 1252 Metric Tonnes of fuel assemblies.

Similarly, the article on the Kudankulam reactor titled “India’s Nuclear Solution to Global Warming is Generating Huge Domestic Protests” maintains that the reactor is vulnerable to a tsunami and lists other safety problems. The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) have stated that the design features of the reactor and the emergency preparedness in the facility have taken all the existing dangers into account. However, activists like Levy are not willing to accept any technical or policy explanation.

Another article, “India’s nuclear explosive materials are vulnerable to theft, US officials and experts say”, maintains, mostly on the basis of anonymous statements made by some Indian and American officials, that India’s nuclear security faces the problem of training and equipment. The article quotes one retired Indian police official asking for more manpower and weapons. If any security organisation were to be asked whether it wants an increase in its manpower and armoury, the answer will always be yes. Sometimes, the agency may really require extra manpower and weapons, but at other additionalities may be required for creating a sound reserve force.

Be that as it may, the security agencies manning key nuclear installations state that they are quite capable of managing the current level of physical security challenges. Of course, training or awareness of emerging threats, review of new technological developments, and manpower for protection of fast increasing nuclear reactors are necessary. This futuristic projection should not mean that current nuclear installations are insecure.

Has the series of articles served democracy? It does not seem so. It appears as if, after writing several revealing reports and a book on Pakistan’s nuclear programme, Adrian Levy was under some pressure to perform a balancing act by tarnishing the Indian nuclear programme.

One of the four articles is on the thermonuclear device, which democratic India developed to strengthen its nuclear deterrence vis-à-vis an overtly authoritarian China and a farcically democratic Pakistan. Like a section of the US non-proliferation community that relishes supporting and sympathising with China and Pakistan, Levy and the Center for Public Integrity have followed the same approach. That India relies on the thermonuclear device for its security is declared policy. India had exercised restraint till 1998, and went nuclear only after it had witnessed no nuclear disarmament, continued accumulation of nuclear weapons by the countries recognised under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and worse, a NPT member country like China acting as the kingpin of nuclear proliferation that had benefited Pakistan. It is conventional wisdom that democratic India did not clandestinely acquire nuclear weapons and continues to feel compelled to develop its arsenal even if slowly or of a smaller size.

The article on the thermonuclear device also mentions several uncertain facts such as the new site for uranium enrichment or hydrogen bomb making and the real success or failure of the thermonuclear device, which have been sufficiently discussed before. Alarmingly titled “India is Building a Top Secret Nuclear City to Produce Thermonuclear Weapons, Experts Say”, this article argues that ‘an extra stockpile of enriched uranium fuel’ used in Indian hydrogen bombs may be considered a ‘provocation’ by China and Pakistan. Only a novice would believe that China or Pakistan will review their nuclear strategies, on the basis of these already known, but unsubstantiated, facts appearing in the media.

Further, the authors of these articles would have done great service by exposing ‘abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of public trust by powerful public and private institutions, using the tools of ‘investigative journalism’—the mandate of the Center of Public Integrity. But other than casually mentioning a couple of unsubstantiated corruption cases, the articles have not really pushed the Center’s mandate.

In one of the articles on the protest against the Kudankulam reactor, Adrian Levy criticises the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), the Indian regulatory body, by relying on what one former chairman has stated. In the process, he ignores or ridicules other versions. Further, he has not objectively examined the shocking misuse of funds by NGOs engaged in the protests. On the contrary, he is critical of the government for cracking down on dubious NGOs. In fact, he should have recommended that the Indian government make public its report on these NGOs. That would have alerted the Indian people and all the funders. Is it ethical to obtain funds for one purpose and use it for something different?

Similarly, an investigative journalist should have more thoroughly examined the role of the church in fanning the movement. Further, there is also the need to explain the sudden prosperity of environmental activists in India. Good scholars or journalists need to provide an objective perspective. Pamphleteering has a very limited role.

The last of the four articles, on India’s nuclear security, too, looks like an extension of old rumours/reports. It either lacks facts or exaggerates some stray incidents. This raises the puzzling question about the objective behind bringing out these misnamed ‘investigative’, and in actual fact extremely negative, stories on Indian nuclear policy and installations. A couple of articles clearly indicate that a section of Western nuclear community wants more information on India’s nuclear science programme, and especially its nuclear weapons programme. For this purpose, it has been using not just government delegations but also NGOs. The media now seems to have become a new partner in this endeavour.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India. Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://idsa.in/idsacomments/nuclear-india-through-a-western-eye_rnayan_040115

FBI To Turn Off Power To Oregon Militia

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The armed militia camped out in a bird sanctuary in Oregon is on day three of their takeover, and they are already pleading with social media to send in snacks. Meanwhile federal authorities are reportedly planning to cut off their power supply amid sub-zero temperatures.

The dozen-or-so militia members have vowed to stay for “months” in protest of the imprisonment of two cattle ranchers, but federal authorities now plan to freeze them out.

“It’s in the middle of nowhere,” an unnamed official told the Guardian regarding the US Park Service’s plan to cut the power. “And it’s flat-ass cold up there.”

The move would certainly escalate the situation, and the right-wing militia have repeatedly claimed that they are willing to die there, and go out shooting if need be.

“After they shut off the power, they’ll kill the phone service,” the official added. “Then they’ll block all the roads so that all those guys have a long, lonely winter to think about what they’ve done.”

On Tuesday, snowstorms were expected to begin and the temperature is expected to plummet to a freezing —8F by evening.

Ammond Bundy, one of the occupying militia members and son of Cliven Bundy, told Raw Story “we’re ready and waiting if the power should be shut down.”

The group has claimed that they are prepared to tough it out “for months,” but during a tour of the site, the Guardian noted that they have enough food for a few weeks — at best.

The newspaper described their inventory as having apples and oranges, a few dozen pots of instant ramen, 24 cans of chicken noodle soup, a similar number of cans of sweetcorn, peas, beans and chili, 20 boxes of macaroni and cheese, three sacks of potatoes, one bag of flour, another of rolled oats, boxes of raisins, a single bag of pretzels and one granola bar.

This likely explains why members of the group have been taking to social media to beg for supporters to send them snacks.

“Things we could use: cold weather socks, snacks, energy drinks, equipment for cold weather, snow camo, gear, anything you think will help. Thank you all for the support,” Blaine Cooper wrote on Facebook on behalf of Jon Ritzheimer.

It sounds like Ammon Bundy’s claim to the Oregonian that they were prepared to stay “for years,” if necessary, may have been a slight exaggeration.

What Does 2016 Hold For Afghanistan? – Analysis

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By Shakti Sinha*

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kabul to inaugurate the Parliament building was followed in quick succession by a long-overdue visit by Pakistan’s army chief Raheel Sharif, who met President Ghani to publicly indicate that the derailed peace talks, would resume. In fact, Ghani was under pressure from the US, but interestingly conveyed through David Cameron, to allow this to happen.

Sharif’s visit was delayed by the Afghans by at least three months in view of the strong public resentment in Afghanistan about Pakistan’s dubious role in foisting the last round of talks with the Taliban allegedly blessed by the deceased Mullah Omar and the simultaneous step up of violence in Afghanistan. Beyond a point, Ghani could not refuse the Americans. It also fits in with his assessment that the road to peace in Afghanistan lies through the Pakistani army GHQ in Rawalpindi; either GHQ cooperates willingly or does it with a gun at its head.

The year ahead looks to be even more challenging than the years gone by, more because of dysfunctional Afghan politics than the security scenario as such.

The National Unity Government of Ghani and his chief executive Abdullah Abdullah has become almost dysfunctional, and not the least because the two leaders do not get along. Ghani’s leadership ability has always been in doubt; the last time he had contested the presidential elections on his own, he polled around 1%.

Since coming to power, he has not been able to work with the Parliament and consequently, has been unable to fill up the key positions in his cabinet, including that of the defence minister. The fall of Kunduz was symptomatic of his government’s dysfunctional performance. For months, Taliban had been gaining grounds in the districts surrounding the provincial capital of Kunduz, which has comparatively been a peaceful province in the north of Afghanistan. Despite having appointed his choice of Governor, the leadership and accountability both to Ghani and within the provincial political circles, were so poor that the police was divided, and the vastly numerically superior army did not coordinate amongst the different battalions (kandaks) so much so that one kandak went off to Mazar and another withdrew to the airport.

For a government named national unity which claims to provide representation to the diverse groups in Afghanistan, its leadership is perhaps the most monochromatic of all the governments that the country has seen in the past one century. Other than token Tajik or Hazara presence here and there, the entire decision-making is Pashtun-only. Abdul Rashid Dostum, nominally the vice president of the country, has been reduced to camping in the north of Afghanistan and trying to push back a resurgent Taliban in his areas. Dr Abdullah’s stock amongst his own followers has fallen because his is seen to be going along with Ghani, and not doing enough to ensure broad representation at the top and middle-leadership of the government.

It would not be unfair to say that despite the impressive numbers, the Afghan army is still short of actually fighting capabilities. Only around 30% of it is in a position to fight, which they are doing heroically. However, tactically they seem to have fallen for the Taliban trap of trying to defend territory and have overstretched themselves by setting by large numbers of under-manned posts that are harder to defend. However, given good artillery and air support, they are quite capable to preventing the Taliban from trying to capture populated areas. But, they do need better leadership to avoid a repeat of the Kunduz and Helmand fiasco.

Going ahead, the term of the national unity government would be up by September 2016, unless the Constitution is amended. This seems a long haul since it would require the convening of a Constitutional Loya Jirga (CLJ), which is meant to be constituted with members from both the houses of parliament and heads of all provincial and district councils.

The term of the lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, is over but the security situation and unresolved problems with the electoral laws has prevented fresh elections; legal ambiguity surrounds the continued functioning the present Election Commission and it clearly lacks credibility to be a party to amending the Constitution, particularly on the issue of presidential versus parliamentary system of government that almost led to a breakdown of the CLJ 2003 that framed the present Constitution. The majority support then arguably was for a parliamentary system but Karzai, with his supporters like Ghani, present National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar and mujahedeen leaders like Abdul Sayyaf and backed by the then US Ambassador Khalilzad was able to use the ‘Pashtun’ card and carry the day.

District Council elections have never been held, so in fact, their quota of seats in the upper house of parliament (Meshrano Jirga) has been filled by presidential nomination. Only the heads of the provincial councils and part of the Meshrano Jirga is really legitimate enough for the task of amendment. This is hugely problematic, arguably more so than the security or economic transition because whatever its weaknesses in terms of its capacity, the Kabul dispensation is widely accepted as politically legitimate, at least internationally. But if its legitimacy is questioned, then in combination with its credibility issues, it is doomed.

Going forward, the key players are Pakistan and the Ghani-Abdullah leadership. Pakistan has stepped up its diplomatic engagement both to counteract the dismal public reputation it enjoys in Afghanistan and to confuse the Afghan political elite enough to prevent a unified Afghan position from emerging. It has tried to mend fences with the political opposition including those nominally part of the government but actually marginalised, and with Hamid Karzai.

Their basic position is that we (Pakistan) have made a mistake in the past, that we did not keep your sensitivities in mind and that you are all important stakeholders so we are limiting ourselves to talking to Ghani. Various opposition delegations have in fact visited Pakistan. This charm offensive includes the vocal civil society and Afghanistan fledging strategic community who have participated in different Track II initiatives.

What would decide matters is the performance of the Ghani-Abdullah team. Can they improve their performance, become more inclusive, more participative, less idiosyncratic and more decisive? Can they make the army perform at its potential? Will parliamentary election be held? Would senior appointments become increasingly merit-based or would it still be about networks, about ‘my’ man versus ‘your’ man? And would they sufficient give confidence to donors to step up their financial support required for the government to deliver services adequately?

If this team cannot shape up, would they have the courage and wisdom to ship itself out? While not likely, it would not be impossible for sections of the security forces, supported by external forces, to carry out a coup d’état. Fascination for leaders seen as strong and no-nonsense extends to many quarters, including those propping up the government.

Absent any positive developments, it is quite likely that the former president, Karzai, a relatively young man with deep networks running across the country, may attempt to force the issue. He may lack the legitimacy to call for a constitutional Loya Jirga, but he can very well call for a Jirga with representatives from across the country and attempt to use it to seize the initiative – legitimacy can always be acquired ex-post.

Predicting the consequences of any such act, speculative at best at this period of time, would be hazardous, but it would be presumptuous to rule it out.

*Shakti Sinha is the head of Policy Research Group at the Bureau of Research in Industry and Economic Fundamentals (BRIEF). He can be reached at: editor@spsindia.in

Soaring Chief Executive Pay Highlights Need For Fundamental Changes

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The increasing gap between chief executive pay and that of the average employee risks undermining the morale and motivation of the workforce.

This is one of the findings of research presented this week, Thursday 7 January 2016, at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology annual conference by Dr Almuth McDowall and colleagues from Birkbeck University of London, Lane4 and PayData.

The research, sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, included in depth scrutiny of publicly available pay data and other evidence, a survey with 52 senior decision makers and a workshop with fourteen Human resource directors, executives and reward specialists.

The results showed the gap between CEO pay and employees continues to widen. The average CEO pay of Britain’s blue chip companies in the FTSE 100 Index is now 187 times higher than that of the average UK full time employee; compared to 47 times higher than average pay in 2001.

Stakeholders in organizations affected by the issue have different perspectives. Replying to an in depth survey, over half of very senior decision makers, believe that CEOs pay is justified by the need for profit. Others believe that it is more important to consider the long term needs of the business, and also to consider the behavior of the CEOs’ themselves.

Scrutiny of existing research revealed that organizations need to pay more attention to who is selected to the top. Individuals with more narcissistic tendencies are most likely to emerge as leaders and are also more adept at negotiating themselves higher rewards – with the most powerful even ‘rigging’ their company’s performance outcome measures to present them in the best possible light and thus demand even higher rewards for themselves.

The research also found there should be less focus on disproportionately rewarding the performance of key individuals given that where CEOs promote shared or distributed leadership there is likely to better team performance.

According to Dr McDowall, “Our work suggests that CEO pay is at crisis point. We can’t retain the status quo if we want to create corporate cultures and structures which are based on trust, fairness and sustainable business performance. Too often high levels of CEO are explained by the power and personality of the individual CEO, the make-up of the remuneration committee and the need to compare favorably to existing market rates rather than clear measures of individual and organizational performance.”


The Pitfalls Of Eduroam

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The idea behind eduroam (short for education roaming) is simple, yet brilliant: students and members of staff who spend a certain period of time at another university are able to use their home university’s login data to log into the Wi-Fi network of the university they are visiting – this saves time and effort, because there’s no need to apply for guest access.

But any new technology will sooner or later attract hackers. This is also the case with eduroam. Here, the attacker uses a laptop and a radio antenna to set up a fake access point; this enables him to find out password and user name.

“If an attacker reads those data, he will gain access to many university services, including the user’s email account,” said Christina Pöpper, who has been heading the work group Information Security since 2013.

Fifty per cent of the tested devices vulnerable

She and her colleagues performed spot checks to identify how many devices at RUB are not sufficiently protected. In 2015 it turned out that almost 50 percent of the 1,275 tested devices were vulnerable to attacks, pretty much like in the previous year.

“The eduroam system is well thought-out,” said the researcher. “However, it is based on the idea that users carry out all relevant installations on their devices. They constitute the best protection from attacks – provided they are performed correctly.”

What kind of installations and how to run them need to explained on the computer center web pages.

Reliably Detecting Dengue Fever

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Tiger mosquitoes are indigenous to Africa and Asia. However, they are increasingly being found around the Mediterranean and are bringing the dengue virus with them. Up to now, there’s been no sure-fire antibody test for detecting this virus. Researchers have now developed such a test, creating a cost-effective and fail-safe way to diagnose dengue.

That mosquitoes keep us awake is bad enough, but infinitely worse is the fact that they can carry serious diseases – among them dengue fever. Some 20,000 people die from this disease every year, with hot areas such as Africa and Asia being the worst hit. And now thanks to climate change and globalization, tiger mosquitoes are also discovering other countries around the Mediterranean. Several cases of people being infected with dengue virus have already been reported in the south of France and in Croatia.

Until now, it’s been rather difficult to say for sure whether someone is suffering from dengue fever or whether they’ve contracted another flavivirus, such as yellow fever, West Nile virus or TBEV (tick-borne encephalitis virus). There are already tests on the market, but none of them can tell the difference between these individual flaviviruses. If a definitive diagnosis is required, a sample of the patient’s blood has to be sent to a high-security laboratory for analysis. Since each country has only a handful of these labs, it’s not practical to test everyone. What’s more, the high cost makes it practically impossible for developing countries, in particular, to conduct tests at all.

Test distinguishes between dengue and other flaviviruses

“We’ve succeeded in developing the first ever antibody test for dengue infections that is capable of distinguishing between dengue and other flaviviruses ,” said Dr. Sebastian Ulbert, Head of the Working Group on Vaccine Technologies at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI. “Since our test is also based on detecting antibodies, it’s just as cheap and easy to run as its conventional counterparts.” In short: The new method can easily be integrated into existing test setups – and at no extra cost to manufacturers.

Conventional antibody tests are performed as follows: First, the doctor draws the patient’s blood. If infected with the dengue virus, the blood will contain specific antibodies produced by the body to attack the intruder. The doctor then applies the blood to a test platform with dengue antigens that systematically bind with these antibodies. If, after a set reaction time, antibodies are found on the platform, the doctor will assume that the patient has been infected with the dengue virus.

The catch is that, although the antigens bind with the antibodies according to the lock and key principle, they almost always do so at the same site as all other flaviviruses. This means that, even when the test is positive, no one can say for sure that it is actually a case of dengue.

“This is why, for our test, we produced special antigens – using certain point mutations, we altered the area of the antigens that is the same for all flaviviruses, effectively shutting it off. Antibodies are then unable to bind at these now non-specific sites, with the exception of the dengue-specific antibodies that would otherwise have been masked by the crowd,” Ulbert explained. So now, if the test comes back positive, we can be 100 percent sure that the patient has been infected with the dengue virus.

Next step: differentiating between the four strains of the virus

Demand for such a system is massive: dengue fever is one of the most commonly occurring diseases in the world, with some two-thirds of all people living in dengue danger zones. The researchers hope that their test will hit the market around one year from now. In a further step, they are working on ways to differentiate between the four strains of the dengue pathogen. This could be an important breakthrough: Anyone who has survived a dengue-related illness has then acquired immunity against that specific pathogen, but when it comes to the other three strains, that person is at even greater risk.

This is because the antibodies they produced to combat the first bout of dengue fever actually help the new virus to spread and make it much harder for that person to recover.

“Our test system has the potential to differentiate between the four viral strains,” said Ulbert. “We now want to put this theory into practice.”

Facts about the tiger mosquito

  • Tiger mosquitoes carry diseases such as dengue fever, West Nile virus and chikungunya fever.
  • In 1990, they were brought from the U.S. state of Georgia to Genoa, Italy in a shipment of used tires. The tiger mosquito went on to take up home across almost all of Italy and also spread to other Mediterranean countries.
  • In August 2014, one was found in the Waldsee area of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Follow-up investigations discovered larva, pupae and eggs. This was the first time all development stages had been found in Germany beyond the flight range of high ways.
  • Up to 600 cases of dengue fever are reported in Germany every year, but all cases have been the result of bites received abroad.

World Wary As US Federal Reserve Declares End To Debt Crisis – Analysis

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The US Federal Reserve lifted interest rates for first time since 2007, aiming for normalization; emerging markets may struggle.

By Chris Miller*

The Fed’s end-of-year decision to raise the interest rate was presented as the “normalization” of monetary policy and the end of the era of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Ending seven years of loose monetary policy will not only shape US financial markets, but will have profound effects on economies and even politics across the world. Emerging markets, increasingly dependent on the flood of investment fleeing the United States, will face challenges as the higher interest rates may make them less attractive for foreign investors.

In the eyes of the US Federal Reserve, the financial crisis is over. After a year marked by great uncertainty about future monetary policy, the Fed hiked its headline interest rate by 0.25 percent in December. That decision put an end to seven years of loose monetary policy, during which the Fed sought to counteract the financial crisis and subsequent recession by traditional means such as interest-rate cuts and untraditional means, such as buying financial assets, a policy known as quantitative easing. Market prices suggest the Fed will increase interest rates by a total of 1 percent during 2016.

Since September 2007, the Federal Reserve deliberately pushed down interest rates in an attempt to boost consumption and investment. The Fed was broadly successful stimulating consumption, though economists still debate the effects of more debt on the broader economy. Mortgage rates after the crisis were one to two percentage points lower than before the Fed’s rate cuts, while corporate bond yields fell by a similar amount.

The most obvious effect of the Fed’s rate hike is to reverse this process. Costs of consumer lending such as mortgages and car loans, for example, have already edged upward, with mortgages above 4 percent for the first time in half a year. More expensive loans will discourage consumption of houses, cars and goods purchased with credit cards – one reason why some economists fear that higher interest rates will damage the economy.

The Fed is wagering that small increases in borrowing costs poses a negligible effect on consumer spending and investment. The possible downside is outweighed by two positives, according to the Fed: First, by underscoring the Fed’s willingness to hike rates, the decision will make an uptick in inflation less likely. Little inflation has been visible so far – indeed, inflation for the United States and other developed economies has generally been well below the 2 percent target. But some fear that as the economy continues to heal, inflation could return. Non-zero interest rates help hedge against that risk. The second perceived benefit of a rate hike is signaling that, despite the tremendous policy experiments of the last several years, the Fed intends to return to its previous policy as the economy recovers. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has repeatedly referred to rate hikes as a process of “normalization.”

Loose monetary policy: In addition to reducing interest rates, the US Federal Reserve applied untraditional means such as purchasing assets and adding mortgage-backed securities to its holdings (Federal Reserve data)

Loose monetary policy: In addition to reducing interest rates, the US Federal Reserve applied untraditional means such as purchasing assets and adding mortgage-backed securities to its holdings (Federal Reserve data)

The effects of the Fed’s decision are much broader than these two factors. Higher borrowing costs will percolate through the US economy, with significant effects on markets for many financial assets. One reason is that the policy of quantitative easing, expanding the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet by purchasing financial assets, has transformed the Fed’s relationship with financial markets. The central bank has long acted as a “lender of last resort,” lending to banks in times of panic. Since 2008, however, the central bank has turned into a buyer of last resort, wading into markets such as mortgage-backed securities to provide liquidity, and the Federal Reserve now owns a significant share of outstanding US mortgage-backed securities.

US subprime home loans triggered the global credit crisis, prompting the International Monetary Fund to launch a Global Housing Fund to monitor credit growth among other housing trends.

Quantitative easing drove up asset prices – true in markets in which the Fed was a direct purchaser, such as US government debt and mortgage-backed securities issued by housing agencies Fannie May and Freddie Mac. The effect was felt even in equity markets, though the Fed did not purchase equities, simply because of the flood of new money was so large.

Because the rate hikes signal the definitive winding down of quantitative easing, they will have a negative effect on the price of many assets. Already, the market for high-yield corporate debt is under pressure as market participants worry how the end of rock-bottom interest rates will curb that sector.

As higher interest rates spread through the US economy, they will affect other countries, too. One main transmission channel is a growing differential between the US and other developed economies. The central banks of the United Kingdom, Japan and the Eurozone also have extremely low interest rates and quantitative easing programs. The UK is anticipated to follow the US lead, but Japan and Europe could resist tightening monetary policy in 2016. If so, higher US interest rates will lead to increased demand for American assets. That will push the value of the dollar higher against these currencies. Indeed, the dollar already rose in 2015 as investors anticipated this interest rate differential.

For Japan, the UK and Europe, a stronger dollar might be welcome, since it should boost their exports by making them relatively more affordable. Less developed countries, however, have more to fear from higher US interest rates. The past decade has seen a record flood of money from developed countries into emerging markets, funding investment and consumption in countries as varied as Turkey, India, Russia and Brazil.

The boom in foreign funding of emerging markets was caused by many factors, including these countries’ high growth rates and the recession in developed markets. Low interest rates in developed countries played a key role, too. On the one hand, it made investment in the United States relatively less attractive, since returns were lower. On the other, quantitative easing expanded liquidity, encouraging investment in riskier emerging market assets.

Many investors fear that this has left emerging markets dependent on loose US monetary policy. In 2013, when the Fed announced plans to “taper” quantitative easing programs, an announcement intended to begin the process of unwinding the unconventional monetary policy, many investors began pulling out of emerging markets that depended on foreign financing. In what became known as the “taper tantrum,” investors dumped assets from countries such as Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa. These countries were running current account deficits; higher rates meant that the cost of financing these deficits by foreign borrowing was about to increase. In the 12 months from March 2013, the currencies of each of these countries lost roughly 20 percent of their value against the dollar.

Plummeting currencies simply compounded these countries’ problems. Many of their firms had borrowed dollars, but made most of their revenue in local currency. Borrowing in dollars was attractive because of the low interest rates, but when the dollar rose against the local currency, this made servicing debt relatively more expensive. The result, many investors feared, was that these countries stood on the brink of a dangerous downward spiral. In 2013, only the prospect of further easing from the Federal Reserve pulled these markets back from the brink.

Gray area: The 2007-2008 debt crisis prompted the US Federal Reserve to try new ways to encourage spending and investment; adding mortgage-backed securities to the balance sheets increased the central bank’s holdings that mature in 10 years or more (Federal Reserve data)

Gray area: The 2007-2008 debt crisis prompted the US Federal Reserve to try new ways to encourage spending and investment; adding mortgage-backed securities to the balance sheets increased the central bank’s holdings that mature in 10 years or more (Federal Reserve data)

As the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy, investors are again keeping a careful eye on the effects of higher rates not only on the US economy, but on far-flung emerging markets. The countries most affected by US monetary policy have no say over its formulation. In the words of former US Treasury Secretary John Connally, the dollar is “our currency, but your problem.”

*Chris Miller is associate director of the Grand Strategy Program at Yale and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is currently finishing a book manuscript on Russian-Chinese relations.

India: Christians Killed In Brutal 2008 Massacre Could Be Named Saints

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By Elise Harris

The green light has officially been given to open the cause for sainthood of the nearly 100 Christians murdered in the Indian state of Odisha in 2008.

The opening of the cause is a source of pride for the relatives of those killed, but also “for the whole Church this is a pride because our men, our women and our children, those who were martyred for the faith, they are not forgotten,” Archbishop John Barwa told CNA Jan. 5.

Although those killed often lost their lives in gruesome ways, “their death has brought newness of life (and) newness of faith, and for this all of them (the victims’ families) feel proud.”

Archbishop Barwa oversees the diocese of Cuttack Bhubaneswar in India’s Odisha province, and was put in charge of organizing the cause by Cardinal Oswald Gracias.

Cardinal Gracias, who is the Archbishop of Bombay, President of both the Catholic Bishops Conference of India and of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, and a member of Pope Francis’ “Council of Nine” cardinals, gave the official OK to begin the process to declare the Christians massacred in 2008 as the “martyrs of Kandhamal.”

Following the August 2008 murder of Swami Lakshmanananda, leader of the right-wing Hindu nationalist organization Vishna Hindu Parishad, Hindu fundamentalists attacked the Christian minority in Kandhamal district of Odisha, whom they blamed for the murder.

In the months that followed, nearly 100 Christians were killed for refusing to convert to Hinduism and 56,000 people were displaced, taking refuge in forests where they were susceptible to starvation and deadly insect bites. Some 6,500 houses and 395 churches were destroyed, and about 10,000 people still haven’t returned due to fear of reprisals.

Some who had converted to Christianity from Hinduism were targeted in the attacks. After the ordeal was over, some of the converts returned to Hinduism out of fear, though they continue to believe in and practice the Christian faith secretly.

The families and friends of those who died have recounted stories of the brutal deaths of their loved ones, many of which include torture, the demand to renounce their faith, dismemberment and worse.

In an interview with Agenzia Fides published Jan. 4, Cardinal Gracias said that he began to actively encourage the Indian Church to take on the Kandhamal martyrs’ cause after meeting with the wife of one of the victims last November.

He said that he has already spoken to the Prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato about the process, and that he is “willing to speak personally about Kandhamal violence and its martyrs to Pope Francis.”

In his comments to CNA/EWTN News, Archbishop Barwa said that the official initiation of the process “has been great” for Christians in India given the various challenges they face as a minority, including fundamentalist threats.

“This will be a strengthening for the revitalizing” of the Christians affected by the 2008 attacks, he said, adding that the cause “will be truly a strength for the Christians, especially in this region.”

The archbishop noted that since he was not in Odisha when the massacres took place, he had to wait to gather more information before he could advance the martyrdom cause.

Now that things are moving forward, the archbishop has met with the council of his episcopal conference as well as some of the leading priests and religious in his diocese to discuss the formation of a team who will work on the cause.

Though the team has yet to be formed, Archbishop Barwa said he is discussing candidates with his collaborators.

In the meantime, he said that plans are moving forward to build a memorial for the martyrs. A location has already been selected for a small museum commemorating those who were killed.

While religious tensions in the area have cooled to the extent that Hindus piled into churches alongside Christians for this year’s Christmas celebrations, the archbishop said that fundamentalists will always exist, but that as Christians, “we will go ahead with building up what’s best.”

One thing the archbishop said has impressed him about the Christians of Odisha after his appointment in 2011 is their commitment to their faith.

He noted that one of the first things he did as bishop was visit all of the parishes, priests and religious in his diocese to speak with them and give them a message of hope.

In response, what Archbishop Barwa heard from his people was that “Yes, they have destroyed all our property, our houses, and have killed our loved ones, but they have not destroyed our faith and we are proud of our faith.”

The advancement of the cause of martyrdom, then, “will be a boosting up (of) the faith and also it will bring a tremendous amount of unity and solidarity to our people.”

Saudi Arabia And Iran: Ideology Or Politics? – OpEd

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By Mohammed Fahad Al-Harthi

Saudi-Iranian relations are now at the lowest level since the Iran-Iraq war. The low level is the result of several accumulated incidents, the most recent of which were the attacks on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and the Saudi Consulate in Mashhad. An attack on an embassy or on diplomatic representatives is nothing less than an attack on the state itself. This is unfortunately not the first time that such incidents have occurred in Iran; the country has a well-known history of such attacks.

Saudi Arabia has done no more than exercising its natural sovereign right, regardless of what others may say regarding the implementation of judicial sentences for terrorists, including Nimr Al-Nimr. Interference in the judicial affairs of another state is a clear interference in a state’s sovereignty. It is completely counter to international laws and relations. Iran itself naturally rejects others’ interference in its judicial system.

Iran is a country with a policy of interference and intervention in the region. It cannot reasonably expect Saudi Arabia to acquiesce in its actions — such as its intervention in Yemen — and accept the false Iranian claim that the action reinforces the security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

An unforeseen development has been the Iraqi reaction, which revealed the sectarian resentment within its policy despite Saudi Arabia’s attempts to improve relations by sending an ambassador to Baghdad. Saudi Arabia was thus very surprised when the Iraqi Parliament called for breaking off relations with Riyadh.

The Iraqi government was expected to display a more rational policy instead of rushing into evident sectarianism. The government of Haider Al-Abadi was not expected to come up with a balanced policy for Iraq and simultaneously overcome external influence.

If Iran’s remarks are looked at carefully, one will not understand the reaction. Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said, “Saudi Arabia will pay for this, and a righteous revenge will linger.” This confusion is odd since it raises questions about Iran’s political ideology; politics infused with sectarianism is dangerous because it can become a plague that could tear the region apart and contribute to a complete halt in development.

It is not fair from a sectarian-based stance to accuse Saudi Arabia of violating Iranian policy which is rooted in a sectarian ideology. The fairness was when former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami proposed a moderate policy based on good neighborliness. Saudi Arabia welcomed this policy which improved bilateral relations and led to both countries signing a treaty in 2001.

The situation in the region is currently fraught with political confusion and conflicting agendas. Every state possesses a natural right to an agenda. At the same time, if a state tries to impose its agenda on others and when, by providing military and financial support, it encourages militias in other countries to overthrow legitimate governments, then the result is pure madness. This will drive the whole region into chaos.

The issue here is not merely an objection to the implementation of a judicial ruling but also an attempt to interfere in internal affairs, and to portray Tehran as the sponsor and supporter of Shiites everywhere in the world. This is a dangerous sectarian project. Shiites are citizens of their own countries, and if their rights are violated, there are clear means for submitting complaints to the relevant authorities.

When Iran intervenes to support a Shiite community, it is actually doing them more harm than good. Many Shiites object to Iran’s intervention because it fosters the idea that their loyalty is to Iran and not to the country where they live and are citizens.

There are clear political disputes and differences between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, particularly the UAE, hold the responsibility for maintaining regional Arab security, and dealing with the fallout from the Arab Spring.

After the nuclear agreement, Iran could have chosen a policy of peace and stability, and focused on its own internal development and building bridges with neighboring countries. Unfortunately, however, it seems that this has not happened. It turned out that the voice of moderation that it was exhibiting was all fake and it was merely a ploy to hoodwink the world. The real Iranian game was to hide its hegemonic and expansionist project.

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