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Azerbaijan Hit By Currency Crash, Low Oil Prices

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By Arzu Geybullayeva and Tony Wesolowsky

(RFE/RL) — Deeply in debt, a man in Azerbaijan sets himself alight — highlighting the human cost of the collapse of the country’s currency.

Alik Navruzov’s self-immolation in front of his workplace on January 7 was said to be his response to the sudden crash of the manat, which has lost about a third of its value since Azerbaijan’s Central Bank announced in December that it would no longer prop up the currency.

According to colleagues at the school in Neftchala where he worked as a maintenance man, Navruzov complained of having bank loans he could no longer make payments on.

The 63-year-old survived, and is now reportedly in stable condition at a hospital in the city, located in the eponymous oil-producing region some 130 kilometers south of the capital. But there appear to be no signs of relief for Navruzov’s dire financial straits — a situation that is all too familiar to a growing number of people in Azerbaijan.

Less than a year after the Caspian Sea state hosted the first-ever European Games, an event President Ilham Aliyev had hoped would showcase his country’s prosperity, it’s evident that from the government to the people on the street, Azerbaijan is struggling financially.

In announcing its decision to stop propping up the currency on December 21, the Central Bank argued that the practice had diminished foreign reserves by more than half.

Falling global energy prices have hit hard in Azerbaijan, where energy exports account for about three-quarters of state revenues. To offset the envisioned budget hit, the Central Bank changed the way it values the manat nearly a year ago. But the move away from the dollar to a dollar-euro basket in February 2015 also caused a drop in the currency.

Feeling The Pinch

Currency devaluation always comes with the double whammy of falling spending power and rising prices, and Azerbaijan is no different.

When news of the Central Bank’s decision reached the streets, people across the country rushed to shops to scoop up whatever they could before prices adjusted to the new reality.

With less money in their pockets, many people in Azerbaijan are forced to forego less essential items, but food is definitely not one of them.

As a result, the cost of many items — such as tomatoes and grapes — has shot up, in some cases by as much as 100 percent.

A shop owner in the capital, Baku, explained to RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service why he had to raise his prices.

“I, too, pay rent. My landlord raised the rent. My suppliers also raised prices,” Shamil Hasanov said. “What can I do? The prices for everything — butter, rice, sugar — all were raised, and I can no longer sell them for less.”

Even small expenditures are being weighed more carefully by average Azerbaijanis.

Valikhan Karimov, a 68-year-old pensioner, explained why buying his grandson a ticket for an attraction on Baku’s busy promenade requires sacrifice.

“I paid two manats for this ride, which lasted two minutes. I made those two manats selling 10 kilos of apples,” he said. “I come here once a year [eds. he lives in Quba] to take my grandchild out, and this is all I can afford.”

Others feeling the pinch are those people who took out bank loans, paid out, of course, in manats, but calculated in dollars.

Abdul Akhundov, who works in the IT field, said he can’t make a dent in paying down his loans from two banks worth some $3,000.

“I took a loan a year ago, before the devaluation. I asked the bank for a loan in manats but the gave it to me in dollars,” Akhundov lamented. “No matter how much I argued with the bank at the time telling them we did not live in America so why make me take a loan in dollars it didn’t make any difference.”

Elnur Bayramov, who lives in Ganca, said he called his bank immediately after the manat plunged to tell them he couldn’t make payments anymore.

“My loan was in the amount of $2,000 and I haven’t even bothered to figure out how much I owe now with the new exchange rate,” Bayramov said. “I called the bank, too, telling them to stop calling me every minute and that I will pay when I have the money and if they are not happy about it they can take me to court.”

Looking For Funds To Help

Aliyev’s government, criticized in the West for its abysmal human rights record, appears ready to help those hardest hit by the increasing prices.

Labor and Social Welfare Minister Salim Muslimov announced on January 6 that his ministry was working on ways to raise welfare payments, and should deliver proposals by the end of the month.

He said his ministry was monitoring prices in six regions of the country — Baku, Sumgait, Mingachevir, Ganca, Lankaran, Tovuz, and Agsu — and, based on those observations, his ministry would calculate how much social-welfare payouts should rise.

However, raising expenditures is something Aliyev’s government is probably less than eager to do. Officials in his government now appear preoccupied with finding where and how to cut costs.

The Foreign Ministry announced on January 5 that Baku was looking to make cuts to staffing and other costs at its foreign embassies, but denied reports in the Azerbaijani press that a number of embassies in South American countries would be closed.

Meanwhile, ordinary Azerbaijanis are left to cope with the hardships amid growing disillusionment with the government.

“I worked in three different places before manat died,” wrote one respondent to a questionnaire by RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service. “I don’t know in how many more places I will have to work now.”

Another respondent expected the manat to continue on its downward spiral.

“Everybody knows the dollar will continue to get more expensive,” the person wrote. “In this situation, you should take out bank credit in manats and then convert it into dollars and wait for the next devaluation. This way we will ‘rob’ the banks that usually ‘rob’ us.”


Challenges Of Tamil Politics In Sri Lanka – Analysis

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By Dr Kumar David

The difference between the political universe in the Sinhalese south, and the Tamil north cum Muslim-Tamil north-east, is that the former is a sharp and acid standoff, the latter is confusion.

Seven years have passed since the LTTE was wiped out but it has not been time enough for Tamils to find their feet. Thirty years of civil war cast a pall; the LTTE conjured up phantasmagorical images of a leader and an imagined Eelam divorced from all reality; war-crimes seared people’s lives. Among Sinhalese those who advocate reason and reconciliation are a minority. To most: “The LTTE has been vanquished, the Tamils ground down to their senses and everything is fine. Devolution to the Tamil areas after they lost the war! What planet do these liberals and leftists inhabit!”

In the context of defeat, Sinhala indifference and ineffective governance, it is understandable that the Tamil political universe is in turmoil. Hence it was unsurprising that when a Tamil diaspora group invited me to speak last week it formulated the topic as follows:

“What on earth is going on in Tamil politics at home; it seems to be a complete mess with everybody fighting everybody? Is the TNA telling the complete truth to the Tamils or is it hiding some things? What are Wigneswaran’s motives and strategies? Will anything come out of this hybrid mechanism? What is the government’s real game plan?”

Preparatory consultations alerted me to how complex the issue was and taught me to appreciate the difficulties Tamils face in coming to terms with their predicament. The right thing to do, for Tamils, is not cut-and-dry as it is in the south. Months ago the south and the Tamils saw that defeating Rajapaksa’s Mafia was crucial. The south still appreciates the importance of keeping a relapse at bay, something less clear to the Tamils because of their difficult predicament.

Are NPC and CM playing politics with the people?

The Northern Provincial Council’s (NPC) performance has been disappointing from the start. Chief Minister (CM) Justice Wigneswaran and his ministers did not organise the NPC to optimise its functions within available constitutional spaces. It could have been armed with subsidiary legislation under existing powers and done a lot. Instead it gave vent more to political opinions and less to delivery of services. A trenchant critique of the NPC and CM has come from Maylvaganam Soorisegaram who long ago was an active Trotskyist. (Available at https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/logic-behind-the-actions-politics-of-the-npc/).

The two key points in his critique are; (a) the CM/NPC is obstructionist, did not implement measures for which the Central Government made resources available, was insensitive to the hardships of the people and more concerned with political mileage than practicalities; (b) CM/NPC and their Thamil Makkal Peravai (TMP) are an ideological throw back to LTT-era Eelamist views tahte can lead the Tamils into another tragedy and should be defeated. Sooriyasegaram says: “Separatist ideology and an attempt to return to the barren politics of the LTTE can be seen in every one of their actions”. Others communicating with me added “CM and NPC have not spent allocated funds and that is their fault. Why is CM not spearheading a massive development plan? Why not demand more and lead the way saying ‘To hell with the military?’ Isn’t this what we want for the development of the North?”

Examples adduced in support of (a) are: The minuscule number of statutes enacted (trustworthy friends have told me how much they assisted CM/NPC with translation of statutes which then languished in a drawer); the Rs 25 billion offered by the Centre for a water supply scheme for Jaffna and Kilinochchi which allegedly was sabotaged by CM/NPC; obstruction of a scheme to sort out oil pollution in the vicinity of Chunnakam power station which was poisoning ground water, and much else. However these allegations were refuted by others. While Sooriyasegaram alleges the NPC refused to use available funds with the intention of obscuring links with and support from the south, others assure me that 80 to 90% of the funds have been expended. Another correspondent made the point “I find it difficult to believe the charges. It is not possible that the four ministers in charge plus the entire TNA-sourced members of the NPC are engaged in a conspiracy without the public being aware”.

A truer picture on alleged obstructionism will emerge in the disputes that are sure to explode in the coming weeks, but I wish to insert a reminder of what I said at the start. Confusion and disarray in Tamil society is not easy to overcome in the context of physical trauma spread over decades, the alleged limping impotence of the new regime on governance and foreboding that the promised new constitution will be a damp squib on Tamil devolution expectations. Racists in toe with the previous regime will stir up communal unrest if the new constitution expected later this year makes concessions to the Tamil-majority north and Muslim-Tamil majority east. Agent provocateurs are also certain to provoke unrest when the so-called “hybrid-mechanism”, agreed with the UNHRC in Geneva to investigate war-crimes by the state/military and the LTTE during the civil-war, gets into stride.

The TNA

The TNA (Tamil National Alliance) is a collection of parties, an electoral alliance. Before the end of the war it included the ITAK (Illangai Thamil Arasu Katchi), Tamil Congress (TC), LTTE supporters, and smaller TELO and EPLRF. The TC led by Gajendran Ponnambalam and the LTTE supporters quit to contest the 2009 elections separately and were trounced; EPLRF leader Suresh Premachandran lost in 2015. So now the TNA consists of the ITAK (the dominant partner), TELO and a small new member PLOTE. The TNA is not an integrated structured organism and has no forum to generate policy. Leader R. Sampanthan sets policy, M. A. Sumanthiran his loyal prodigy shares in decision making and engages with the international community, nominal ITAK leader Mavai Senadhiraja tags along. As there is no policy making forum in the TNA (oddly even the ITAK suffers from the same defect) amorphousness becomes breeding ground for intrigue and jealousy. Though Wigneswaran is the elected CM of the NPC he is excluded from formal decision making. This is one reason he is assembling a group to challenge the way the TNA functions; the other reason is that he is more of a Tamil nationalist.

The TNA pulled Tamil votes for President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in the January presidential and August parliamentary, respectively elections and gave its people hope that the new government would deliver on their concerns. The diaspora Global Tamil Forum (GTF) also mobilised Tamil votes. Now some Tamils regret that the TNA, GTF, Sampanthan and Sumanthiran hitched their stars to this administration because if the regime fails in general, or if it is a flop on Tamil concerns, they will all, politically, face a firing squad. Opponents who lost elections have united in the hope of burying them. If there is failure in governance or economy, the administration will be powerless to combat chauvinism and deliver even crumbs to Tamils, even if it wants to, which some unfairly doubt.

If this government flops Lanka will be pushed back several years while the plight of the Tamils will be nasty. If it falls in the near future Lanka will face chaos and repression on many sides. A Tamil leftist and strong critic of the TNA says: “Despite contradictions we must recognise that for the first time since 1948 senior national leaders, President, PM, reconciliation chief Chandrika and Foreign Minister Mangala are calling in unison for a genuine political solution to the National Question. Significantly, they are in a position to mobilise two-thirds votes in Parliament, and a simple majority at a referendum. War defeated Tamils simply cannot afford to ignore this opportunity”.

The next phase

The TMP mushroomed in response to fear that the Sampanthan-Sumanthiran-Senathiraja leadership may be unable to deliver when a compromise is brokered in 2016, not forgetting US and Indian pressure. Successive betrayals by Sinhala governments (B-C Pact, Dudley-Chelva deal, emasculation of 13A) make this apprehension understandable and justifiable. I associate with numerous non-sectarian Tamil intellectuals and comrades who are keen on a sustainable political solution (not a fake like 13A minus) but for the aforesaid reasons are not prepared to condemn the TMP until the government shows its hand in draft constitutional proposals. (The TMP also calls itself the Tamil People’s Council in English).

For good reason the Tamil struggle needs an independent voice and since the TNA is close to the regime there is a constructive role for the TMP to play. Tamils need an independent force critical yet supportive of the strategy of negotiation; this is where Vigneswaran can be a positive force without becoming a spoiler. Tamil leaders need to be less hostile to each other, appreciate the uncertainties of the current conjuncture and evolve a strategy. There is no alternative to a negotiated settlement that’s the bottom line; they need reliable negotiators and they need monitors to keep an eye on the negotiators; this is a complementary not an antagonistic relationship. The nature of state being drafted into the constitution is a guarded secret. Very likely it will be one unit (I hope they avoid the regressive word unitary) but regional power sharing will be affirmed; the devil will be in the details.

Realists knew all along that Lanka would not be referred to the International Criminal Court once the Rajapaksas were defeated. For the first time a country accepted a UN spearheaded probe with unanimous international support. The hybrid concept is born of the perversity and duplicity of the previous regime. No one trusts Lanka’s judiciary which for a decade stooged the President. It was in this context that Britain and Canada insisted on Commonwealth judges which Ranil accepted – he knows our judiciary well enough from the time his uncle manipulated it! The US opposed Commonwealth judges in Geneva but David Cameron’s insistence got it through. I am not able to fathom the American game plan. A friend remarked “I am worried that the Wigneswaran drama may be a US hatched plot that I don’t yet understand”. I am not alleging a US plot to strip the hybrid process of Commonwealth judges or that the US is in cahoots with the TMP – that is unbelievable – but I won’t cease to be alert.

In private conversations democratic minded government leaders insist they will not allow the investigation to become a charade and will not let the process be stripped of Commonwealth judges. I am satisfied that if the PM could have his way without fear of a racist backlash he would be of like mind; but I am not satisfied the PM is free of this fear. Months ago I advocated that the chauvinists be provoked on to the streets and then soundly thrashed, not by the state, but by mobilisation of political activists and civil society. It can still be done and after his new alignment with the trade unions the PM can appeal to the working class as well. A dangerous recently emergent phenomenon is the rise of Sinha-Le (Sinhala blood) incitement, it is alleged by dark forces aligned to the dreaded former Defence Secretary – President Rajapaksa’s brother – Gotabhaya. A lion holding a sword with Le scrawled in bloody red is appearing on three-wheelers and graffiti both to incite Sinhala racism and frighten Muslims and Tamils.

If the government and people confront chauvinism early and defuse proto-fascism on the streets these dark forces can be beaten back. But confrontation is only a starting point, the long-term depends on an island wide education and consciousness building programme on pluralist democracy starting with schools and the military. Neither state nor civil society in Lanka are taking this, the real long-term solution seriously.

Shakespeare’s 400th Anniversary Year Won’t Only Be Celebration Of Dead White Males

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The death of most performed playwright in the world is to be marked in Stratford-upon-Avon, London and across the globe this year.

Researchers from the Multicultural Shakespeare in Britain Project at the University of Warwick are set to launch a new online Shakespeare performance database on Jan. 15, 2016 that holds three years of research that documents and contextualizes BAME performers’ crucial yet undervalued contribution to the understanding of Shakespeare – one of the greatest cultural symbol of ‘Britishness’.

The Multicultural Shakespeare project was launched in 2012. Since then, issues of diversity, access and representation have become the center of a national debate. As we enter 2016, Lenny Henry, the Act for Change movement, Equity and so many others are campaigning for more diversity on stage and screen and for more power for black and Asian practitioners behind the scenes.

With nearly 1200 productions, The British Black and Asian Shakespeare Performance Database reveals how over 85 years Shakespeare’s plays have become more multicultural. While BAME performer participation has unequivocally increased, casting patterns have meant that opportunities to play the great Shakespearean leads have remained slim.

The database shows:

BAME performers have been cast most often in Macbeth as one of the three witches.

BAME actors have been cast more often as Laertes, Ophelia, Horatio, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz than as Hamlet. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz have 1% and 2% of the total lines in Hamlet.

BAME performers are more often cast as Hero and Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing than as either of the leads – Hero has 5% of the lines; Claudio has 11% of the lines.

The database is being launched at a special event, ‘In Robeson’s Footsteps: British Black and Asian Shakespeare Now’ at the Tricycle Theatre in London on 15 January 2016.

The performance of In Robeson’s Footsteps (16:00- 17:30), a drama documentary devised by Tony Howard, draws on research interviews with BAME actors and directors across the generations, including Adrian Lester, Mona Hammond, Noma Dumezwemi, Iqbal Khan, Rakie Ayola, Paterson Joseph, Lucy Sheen, and Oscar James.

In addition at the event there will be an opportunity to see the exhibition To Tell My Story, which tracks and illustrates the contribution of BAME performers in Shakespearean theatre over the last 85 years.

Dr Jami Rogers, Research Assistant and Honorary Fellow at the University of Warwick, said, “The British Black and Asian Shakespeare Performance Database is a fantastic resource for a wide audience, celebrating inclusive classical productions. Students, teachers and academics will find it a rich resource for this little understood facet of theatre history. The database also tracks casting patterns and will provide a basis for understanding how cultural stereotypes have sometimes inhibited parity in classical theatre for the same performers the Multicultural Shakespeare project celebrates.”

This event is hosted by the Multicultural Shakespeare in Britain Project (University of Warwick) and Global Shakespeare (Queen Mary University of London/University of Warwick).

Painkiller Diclofenac Tapped To Become Future Cancer-Killer

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Diclofenac, a common painkiller, has significant anti-cancer properties, according to researchers from the Repurposing Drugs in Oncology project.

The Repurposing Drugs in Oncology (ReDO) project, an international collaboration between the Anticancer Fund, Belgium, and US based GlobalCures, finds that existing and widely-used non-cancer drugs may represent a relatively untapped source of novel therapies for cancer.

Their investigation into diclofenac has been published in the open-access journal ecancermedicalscience.

Like other drugs examined by the ReDO project, diclofenac is cheap and readily accessible – and as it’s already present in many medicine cabinets, it has been carefully tested.

Diclofenac is a well-known and widely used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat pain in conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, as well as migraine, fever, acute gout and post-operative pain. It is available as a generic medication and is cost-effective.

NSAIDs have shown promise in cancer prevention, but there is now emerging evidence that such drugs may be useful in actually treating cancer. For example, diclofenac taken in combination with other treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, may improve their effectiveness.

The ReDO researchers examined the literature and believe that there is enough evidence to start clinical trials on the use of diclofenac in cancer treatment.

“It’s still somewhat surprising that there is still so much we don’t understand about how many of the standard drugs we use every day, like diclofenac, work,” said study author Pan Pantziarka, PhD, member of the ReDO project and the Anticancer Fund. “But the more we learn, the more we can see that these drugs are multi-targeted agents with interesting and useful effects on multiple pathways of interest in oncology.”

Given the multiple mechanisms of action of diclofenac, particularly with relation to angiogenesis and the immune system, it may well be that this is a drug with huge potential to treat cancer, especially when given in the perioperative period.

Cutting down on the risk of post-surgical distant metastases through the use of drugs like diclofenac may represent a huge win in the fight against cancer, the authors say.

“After all, it’s metastatic disease that most often kills patients, not the original primary disease,” Pantziarka explained.

“It may also be that diclofenac may have actions which synergise with the latest generation of checkpoint inhibitors – the combination of the latest drugs in the anticancer armoury with some of the oldest is especially exciting.”

2000 Km Of History: Battles Over Central Asia’s Longest River

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At 2,200 km, the Syr Darya is Central Asia’s longest river. It flows through Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and feeds the disappearing Aral Sea. The river provides water to millions of people, generates power and supplies agriculture. This makes it a source of conflict. Since the end of the Soviet Union, disagreements have been arising over the use and distribution of water from the Syr Darya.

The VW Foundation is backing an international project into the deeper cultural and social significance of the Naryn – Syr Darya River.

The Volkswagen Foundation is sponsoring a Tübingen-led international research project on water resources in central Asia. The project, entitled “The Social Life of a River: Environmental histories, social worlds and conflict resolution along the Naryn-Syr Darya,” brings together cultural anthropologists, political scientists and historians from Germany, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to investigate the social and environmental history of the Syr Darya river. The Volkswagen Foundation is contributing €450,000. The project began last September and will run until September 2018.

The five researchers aim to explore people’s attitudes toward the river and the influence of these attitudes on coexistence in the region. Ultimately, the goal is to find new perspectives for regional water management. The researchers will draw on a wide range of information, including archives, interviews, and observations on location. They will document how the river is perceived and used by different parties, as well as how it influences social and political conditions along its banks.

Dr. Jeanne Féaux de la Croix of Tübingen University’s Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies is conducting an ethnological study into the effects of new dams along the upper reaches of the Syr Darya, where it is called the Naryn river.

Dr. Mokhira Suyarkulova of the international University of Central Asia is investigating how knowledge about the river is generated by water scientists at universities, in government agencies and international organizations – and how that discourse influences the way the Syr Darya is used in the Tajik region of Khojand.

Dr. Adham Ashirov of Uzbekistan’s Historical Institute at the Academy of Sciences in Tashkent looks at the relationship the rural population in the country’s Ferghana Valley has with the river, incorporating both practical exploitation of the river as well as art and folklore surrounding it.

Doctoral student Gulzat Baialieva of the Bishkek Humanities University in Kyrgyzstan will examine how local residents experienced the Soviet-era construction of hydroelectric power stations and industrial towns; and the collapse of industry dependent on hydroelectricity, as well as the role played by the river now in economic and everyday life.

Another Kyrgyz PhD student, Aibek Samakov, is researching the river’s Kazakh delta to find out how people there deal with a water source which constantly alternates between flooding and drying out – not least because of agricultural and hydropower decisions upriver.

The overall aim is to conduct a comprehensive socio-economic study on the role of the Naryn/ Syr Darya river in central Asia.

“We hope to open up new perspectives on this deeply historical river,” said Féaux de la Croix. “We aim to open up a one-sided, purely economic view of it as a water source, moving to an understanding of the river as a key place of interaction, which has helped to shape life in the region.” It is often reported that Central Asia does not have enough water, but the real problem is not a lack of water but an uneven distribution of it. “A new focus will open up possibilities, new ways of developing water management in the region.”

Féaux de la Croix, a cultural anthropologist, is a co-founder of the Central Eurasian Scholars and Media Initiative (CESMI).

The social scientists involved in the current project are seeking dialogue with water management and scientific experts in Central Asia. In collaboration with partners such as the University of Central Asia in Bischkek and the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, they aim to strengthen research and teaching on political ecology, environmental anthropology and environmental history in the region. This will include international conferences, a multimedia website, a database (the Syr Darya Knowledge Hub), and a travelling exhibition at points along the river.

Catholic Cemetery Desecrated In Israel

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A Salesian cemetery in Israel has been desecrated, the Latin Patriarchate in the Holy Land said on Jan. 9.

Vandals broke into the cemetery, located 500 meters from the Salesian Convent of Beit Gemal,  smashing and overturning several wooden and concrete crosses. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, the patriarchate’s media office said.

According to a statement issued by the Salesians, a similar act of vandalism occurred in 1981, where strangers smashed 30 wooden crosses.

In March 2014, vandals targeted the monastery of Deir Rafat, where the sanctuary of Our Lady of Palestine is found, near Beit Shemesh. Anti-Christian and anti-American graffiti were discovered on the walls of the monastery.

China’s Anti-Graft Drive Supports Resilient Growth – OpEd

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As China’s anti-corruption drive is expanding from the public and corporate sector to financial institutions, some argue that it is hurting economic growth. In reality, it is the rule of law that can ensure China’s resilient growth.

On taking office, top leader Xi Jinping vowed to crack down on “tigers and flies”, corrupt senior and lower-level officials. Over the past three years the anti- corruption campaign has been executed under the direction of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and its chief Wang Qishan. In the first 11 months of last year alone, more than 43,200 Party members were scrutinized, while over 29,000 were given Party or administrative disciplinary punishment.

But in early December, global financial giant BNP Paribas said the anti-corruption campaign has knocked 1-1.5 percent off the country’s GDP annually over the past two years and continues to hit the economy. According to the bank, the anti- corruption drive has harmed investment and gift-giving, local governments’ investment projects and foreign multinationals.

So, is the campaign against corruption really bad for economic growth?

The impact of corruption

In China, investment as a source of growth is declining while the share of consumption is increasing in relative terms. And that has little to do with the anti- corruption drive. Rather, it is the result of rebalancing away from investment and net exports toward consumption and innovation.

The idea that the anti-corruption campaign is curbing local governments’ investment impetus is flawed. Instead, local governments are constrained by debt, which soared after the global financial crisis when excessive liquidity led to speculation in property markets. At the end of 2014, local debt amounted to $2.3 trillion. And yet, critics seem to blame the anti-corruption campaign for local governments’ risky and opaque liabilities at a time when the CCDI is targeting corrupt local government officials.

Also, gift-giving has never fueled China’s aggregate economy. In the past, it benefited those who received the gifts and those that gave the gifts in return for favors. The consequent “sweetheart” deals and exclusive relationships reduced government revenues and people’s livelihoods.

China is no exception to the rule of growth deceleration. But the challenge is of an entirely different magnitude because of its more than 1.3 billion people.

The CCDI began its campaigns in 2013 with the sacking of several regional leaders. Then came the fall of several “big tigers”. Concurrently, investigations expanded to ministries, media, state-owned enterprises and telecom giants.

The claim that China’s growth deceleration is a result of the anti-corruption campaign is absurd. Amid industrialization, most advanced economies — including the United States, Western European countries and Japan — enjoyed higher growth, which decelerated with the transition to post-industrial society.

Unsurprisingly, then, as anti-corruption investigations were stepped up in financial institutions after last summer’s market meltdown, financial criticism against anti-corruption measures escalated.

Nevertheless, the CCDI’s targets include a dozen executives of China’s biggest brokerage Citic Securities, hedge fund executive Xu Xiang and the chief of a Hong Kong arm of giant brokerage Guotai Junan Securities. Even regulators, including the vice-chair of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, have been investigated and removed.

The role of speculation

Interestingly, financial institutions’ concern about the anti-corruption drive increased at a time when the People’s Bank of China issued notices to several foreign banks — reportedly, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Standard
Chartered and BNP Paribas — asking them to suspend certain foreign exchange activities until March 2016.

The PBoC worries about currency speculation, which has contributed to increased capital outflows from China and does pose a threat to the country’s growth.

In China, corruption, left unpunished, would doom the state, society and growth.

In the short term, the anti-corruption drive may contribute to uncertainty and occasionally volatility. In the long term, however, it is critical to resilient growth.

This article was published at DifferenceGroup.net

Cross-Strait ‘Status Quo’ In The Balance As Taiwan Heads To Polls – Elections

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By Zachary Fillingham

This week’s polls are a coming out party for Taiwan’s hard-earned democratic system. Just 20 years removed from its first presidential elections, the island is anticipating another peaceful political transition, though this time without the dramatic electoral splits, cross-Strait coercion, or last-minute attempted murders that helped steer past results. You might even say that everything is normal.

A sense of normalcy is a victory unto itself given the long and winding path that led to these elections. The island was controlled by the Empire of Japan from 1895-1945, and then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) after it lost the Chinese civil war in 1949 and established a sojourning Republic of China (ROC) government in Taiwan. Thirty-eight years of Martial Law later, the aging remnants of the ROC shelved their dream of taking back the mainland and the process of democratization was initiated in earnest.

As we approach Saturday’s polls, the old struggles of freedom vs. tyranny and Taiwanese vs. Mainlander have faded away, replaced with far more prosaic concerns like economic growth and foreign ownership. China of course looms large in both matters. China is Taiwan’s largest trading partner and – by viewing the island as a ‘renegade province’ to be conquered if necessary – its biggest threat.

Democratic Progressive Party on the Rise

This election is the opposition Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) to lose. A final pre-election poll conducted by the Cross-Strait Policy Association put DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen at 45.2% support, far ahead of the KMT’s Eric Chu who was backed by just 16.3% of respondents. A different poll sponsored by the KMT reflected a much smaller gap, with 39.2% and 31.2% support respectively.

The presidency isn’t the only prize up for grabs this week. The composition of Taiwan’s parliament, or Legislative Yuan, will also be determined at the ballot box. It’s a near certainty that the Legislative Yuan will pass from KMT control for the first time in Taiwan’s history, and whether or not the DPP ends up with a majority is down to the performance of smaller parties, which themselves have emerged as a growing force in these elections.

The DPP’s charmed position is largely the result of voter blowback from outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou’s unpopular second-term policies.  President Ma’s two terms saw peace and stability return to cross-Strait relations, but his opaque style of governance – the ‘black box’ – bred concerns over whether Taiwan was sacrificing too much of its own sovereignty in pursuit of a closer economic relationship with China. These concerns boiled over in the spring of 2014, when students occupied the parliament building after a cross-Strait services trade agreement was pushed through without a promised clause-by-clause review. The occupation triggered a wave of student activism, which came to be known as the Sunflower Movement. It has since evolved into the political realm, with several prominent Sunflower organizers joining together to form the New Power Party (NPP).

Further damaging the KMT’s cause is the fact that President Ma’s push for cross-Strait economic liberalization has yet to produce many tangible benefits in the lives of working-class Taiwanese. The economy grew at a sluggish 1% in 2015 and Taiwan’s already low wages have remained stagnant. Through 2015, the economic dividend expected from a closer relationship to China has yet to materialize.

The collapse of the KMT’s support base has allowed Tsai Ing-wen to advance a vague policy platform with regards to cross-Strait relations. The vagueness is likely by design in an attempt to appease the DPP’s nativist base and harvest centrist voters who are disenchanted with the KMT but not necessarily anti-China. For example, though Tsai has been a vocal supporter of maintaining the status quo of cross-Strait relations, she has avoided endorsing the 1992 consensus of ‘one China, two interpretations’ – arguably the symbolic bedrock that the status quo is built on.

The Geopolitical Impact of a DPP Victory

Any election in Taiwan will inevitably affect cross-Strait relations and, by extension, US-China relations as well. How China responds to the result is a key factor. And though it’s difficult to accurately forecast the behavior of a government controlled by a handful of individuals, there are a few key aspects to note about this election.

For one, although Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party is far from Beijing’s preferred negotiating partner, it’s not a foregone conclusion that a DPP victory will bring about an automatic return to open hostilities. The DPP has gravitated towards the center of the political spectrum over the past decade, and former president Chen Shui-bian’s old diplomatic fire-starters of UN membership and a referendum on Taiwan’s status are notably absent from Tsai’s platform. For its part, the DPP under Tsai seems to be attempting to assure Beijing that it won’t be rocking the boat if it comes to power.

Beijing has also adopted a cautious approach in the lead-up to elections, one that contrasts starkly with the missile tests of 1996 and Zhu Rongji’s pledge to ‘shed blood’ in 2000. The circumspection is calculated. Past moves to bully the Taiwanese electorate into voting for a pro-China candidate have generally produced the opposite effect. This helps explain the gentle, almost poetic New Year entreaty to the Taiwanese public that came from the Taiwan Affairs Office’s Zhang Zhijun to, “not wait until the road light has been extinguished before we feel its brightness.”

Both sides will adopt a wait-and-see approach to their post-election interactions.  Tsai’s already moderate position will be further moderated once her party has been safely elected, and Beijing will have a partner that’s willing to operate within the symbolic and substantive limits of the status quo.

That’s the prevailing theory, at least. Yet even if the status quo is safe at the highest levels, it faces a grassroots challenge from the generational power shift currently unfolding in Taiwan.

The cultural and political legacy of the Republic of China was transplanted onto Taiwan by a generation that is now fading from political prominence. Their children grew up in Taiwan, only hearing of civil war and ancestral homelands second-hand; their grandchildren are even further removed. These cultural links between Taiwan and China were supposed to be refreshed and reinforced by the cultural, tourist, and economic linkages promoted by the Ma administration. In fact the opposite turned out to be true – the more that Taiwanese people were exposed to the mainland, the more different they felt.

There’s a gap slowly widening in the Taiwanese electorate, between an older generation that still culturally identifies with China and a younger generation that has only ever known a free and independent Taiwan. And like in all things – time favors the young.

This all begs an uncomfortable question for the Chinese authorities: Is there a hard limit on the peaceful evolution of cross-Strait relations? Beijing has been playing the long game, slowly deepening cultural and economic links. The assumption all along has been that this will bring about peaceful reunification eventually, if anything because the Taiwanese people will be left with no other tenable economic choice. But the way that Ma Ying-jeou’s second term played out will undoubtedly give rise to doubts over whether the Taiwanese government will ever decide it’s the ‘right time’ to start political negotiations. This unfavorable race against time is mirrored by an inverse phenomenon on the military level: the longer China waits, the less of a qualitative advantage is enjoyed by the US Navy, Taiwan’s presumed defender in the event of an armed conflict.

Taken together these considerations could induce a policy shift in Beijing. In fact, one might already be underway in the apparent doom of the ‘each with their own interpretation’ qualifier in the 1992 consensus.

Conclusion

Outside observers are sometimes struck by how little high politics plays into Taiwanese elections, which is surprising to them given the peril one presumes from thousands of short-range missiles aimed at your home. This election is no different. On the surface it’s less about Taiwan’s international status or its relationship with the superpowers, and more about jobs, housing, the environment, and whether a male parliamentarian ought to have hair that’s ‘longer than a woman’s.

How much more normal could a democracy possibly be?

This article was published at Geopolitical Monitor.com


Lebanon Should Stop Forcible Returns To Syria, Says HRW

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Lebanese authorities, in violation of their international obligations, sent hundreds of Syrians traveling through the Beirut airport back to Syria without first assessing their risk of harm upon return there. Authorities should halt the forcible return of Syrians attempting to flee the deadly conflict in their country.

On January 8, 2016, Lebanese security forces returned at least 200 – and perhaps more than 400 – Syrians to Syria without first properly assessing whether they are at risk there of persecution, inhuman treatment, or other serious harm. Four hundred Syrians who were planning to fly to Turkey were unable to complete their onward journey because of new Turkish entry visa requirements for Syrians arriving by air or sea. Human Rights Watch learned through actors present at the airport on January 8 that some passengers expressed a fear of return to Syria but that Lebanese authorities returned them anyway.

“Sending someone back to Syria without assessing whether they’re at risk as they claim shows a total disregard for their rights and safety and violates international law,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director. “Lebanese authorities need to ensure they examine the claims of anyone who says they’re afraid of persecution at home before sending them back.”

Hundreds of Syrians arrived at Beirut International Airport on January 7 in hopes of traveling to Turkey but did not meet the new Turkish requirements. The next day, Lebanese General Security, the agency that regulates the entry and exit of foreigners, forced hundreds of passengers onto three flights back to Damascus.

Despite not ratifying the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, Lebanon is bound by customary international law not to forcibly return refugees to places where their lives or freedom would be threatened. In the absence of domestic refugee law and asylum procedures, Lebanese authorities should provide unrestricted access to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, so that it can exercise its mandate for determining refugee status for any Syrian who expresses a fear of persecution if returned to Syria – even if the person is not registered with UNHCR at the time of detention. There is a functioning UNHCR office and programs in Lebanon.

Lebanon has ratified the UN Convention against Torture (CAT), which prohibits the forced return of anyone who would face a real risk of torture. The Convention against Torture requires that “competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the state concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.” The reports of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria make clear that such violations are rampant in Syria today.

Despite the fact that Lebanese authorities have repeatedly affirmed their commitment not to forcibly return persons to Syria, this has not always been the case in practice. Human Rights Watch previously documented the forcible return of four Syrian nationals to Syria on August 1, 2012, and of about three dozen Palestinians to Syria on May 4, 2014. Human Rights Watch also documented the forcible return of a Syrian national to Syria in 2014 and the suspected return of two others that year.

“Lebanon’s allies and supporters of refugees there should continue to press the government to abide by its international legal obligations,” Houry said.

India And The BRICS Are Giving The US Dollar The Boot – Analysis

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By Rakesh Krishnan Simha*

The last time a country decided to dump the dollar in the oil business, the US destroyed it. Now India, the world’s third largest economy, and Iran have agreed to settle their outstanding oil dues in rupees. What’s more, the two countries may conduct all future trade in their national currencies.

This follows an agreement between Iran and India in mid-2011 in which both sides decided to settle 45 per cent of India’s oil import bill in rupees and the remaining 55 per cent in euros. In March 2012 the two countries inked the Rupee Payment Mechanism that allowed India to buy crude oil in its national currency. Iran then used the funds to buy products from Indian manufacturers.

Ironically, it is the US itself which is responsible for the dollar’s elimination from India-Iran trade. The Rupee Payment Mechanism was set up to skirt American economic sanctions on Tehran. Iranian oil forms a significant portion of India’s energy requirements. Similarly, the Iranians rely upon India for steel, medicines, food and chemicals.

Replacing the dollar

India and the US may have come closer in recent years, but that hasn’t blinded New Delhi to the toxic nature of America’s currency as well as manipulation by Britain.

The US is literally writing its own cheque with its unrestrained printing of the dollar, the bedrock of America’s post-war hegemony. It is the reserve currency status of the dollar that allows the US to fund its endless wars and topple governments with impunity.

Across the Atlantic, the Bank of England is involved in interest rate fixing of an order of magnitude that makes corruption in developing countries look puny by comparison.

Such financial manipulations and currency debasements are negatively and cyclically impacting the global economy. In fact, it suits the West to have periodic booms and busts because it keeps the emergent economies in turmoil. It keeps poor countries poor and the emergent ones stuck in what’s known as the “middle income trap”.

India’s central bank has invested a significant proportion of its approximately $500 billion reserves in dollar denominated assets. Any sharp depreciation in the value of the dollar entails significant losses to this massive holding. In this backdrop, the idea of de-dollarisation has resonated with the country’s leadership in recent times.

In 2010, the Reserve Bank of India proposed floating the rupee as an alternative global currency. In a study titled ‘Internationalisation of Currency: The Case of the Indian Rupee and the Chinese Renminbi’, the bank said the dollar was likely to lose its predominance as the global reserve currency in the foreseeable future.

“The Indian rupee is rarely being used for invoicing of international trade,” the study pointed out. It argued that India needs to proactively take steps to increase the role of the rupee in the region. Also, the strength of the growing Indian economy has raised the issue of greater internationalisation of the Indian rupee.

Group remedy

Indian negotiators have actively pushed dollar-free trade at the annual meetings of the BRICS group. This group of five major economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is actively engaged in speeding up the process of increasing mutual trade in national currencies.

The $100 billion BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 billion are both aimed at weakening the western chokehold on global financial flows.

According to India’s K.V. Kamath, the first president of NDB, exchange rate differences increased the cost of hard-currency loans to emerging and developing countries by 15-20 per cent. In his view, using local currencies would eliminate that risk and ease the burden.

The BRICS have already launched a Contingency Reserve Arrangement to enable the five member states to swap currencies. Another key advantage of using national currencies in trade and investment is that businesses do not have to hedge against two different currencies. Transition to trade in national currencies will also protect countries from the volatility of a particular currency.

China’s action plan

Meanwhile, the Chinese have surprised everyone with the speed with which the renminbi has acquired global acceptance. In a paper titled ‘The Renminbi Bloc is Here’, Arvind Subramanian and Martin Kessler of the US-based Peterson Institute for International Economics provide a dramatic picture of how the renminbi is growing in strength while the US dollar weakens.

Firstly, they say the renminbi is already the dominant reference currency in India and South Africa. Secondly, since mid-2010 the renminbi has made dramatic strides as a reference currency compared with the dollar and euro.

“The renminbi has now become the dominant reference currency in East Asia, eclipsing the dollar and the euro….The currencies of South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand now more closely track the RMB than the dollar. The dollar’s dominance as reference currency in East Asia is now limited to Hong Kong (by virtue of the peg), Vietnam and Mongolia.”

And they provide this chilling assessment: “The dollar and the euro still play a greater role beyond their natural spheres of influence than does the renminbi but that is changing in favour of the renminbi.”

Why chilling? The India-Iran rupee trade, Russia-Iran rouble trade and the worldwide acceptance of the renminbi will slowly erode the prestige of the US dollar, which will have dire consequences for American prosperity.

As a country that greatly benefits from – and exploits – the dollar’s reserve currency status, the end of dollar dominance will mean a sharp decline in American incomes and the ability to project power overseas.

About the author:
*Rakesh Krishnan Simha
, New Zealand-based journalist and foreign affairs analyst. According to him, he writes on stuff the media distorts, misses or ignores.

Rakesh started his career in 1995 with New Delhi-based Business World magazine, and later worked in a string of positions at other leading media houses such as India Today, Hindustan Times, Business Standard and the Financial Express, where he was the news editor.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

Is Rubio’s Message Turning Nativist? – OpEd

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By Mitchell Blatt*

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. quoted yours truly in his column on January 10. His argument was that while Marco Rubio started the campaign off with an optimistic, forward-looking tone, he has shifted towards a gloomier message recently.

The conservative writer Mitchell Blatt sensed this when he called Rubio “the Republican Barack Obama.” He meant it as a compliment. “A Republican Obama,” Blatt wrote last fall, “is just what the Grand Old Party needs to face a changing electorate.”

But since the beginning of the year, a new Rubio has appeared, a man given to funereal orations about the passing of the old America.

“Something’s happening,” Rubio declared, and the something, voters have been telling him, isn’t good: “This doesn’t look like my country anymore. I don’t recognize America. What’s happening to my country? I feel left behind. I feel out of place.”


Dionne didn’t use the word “nativist.” NBC host Joe Scarborough did when referring to an ad that had very much the same message as that of the speech Dionne quoted. “This election is about … all of us who feel out of place in our own country,” Rubio said in the ad:

I can see Scarborough’s point–this kind of language is grating and out of step with Rubio’s young, pro-immigrant message–but the WaPo headline writer is more on the mark in calling it a “gloomy detour.”

Either way, Rubio’s language in those particular addresses is less distinctive and more in line with Republican/Tea Party cliches.

“What’s happening to my country?” is a World Net Daily headline. “Time to forget the United States as we know it”–part of a Glenn Beck rant. And who can forget “Take back America!”, the long-standing chant of Tea Partiers ever since Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008.

The liberal response would be, “From whom?”, with the implied answer being that they thought conservatives wanted to take it back from the increasing numbers of Americans of non-white races. Rational conservatives would argue (in so many words) they wanted to take it back from liberals. But events over the years and especially last year with Trump have shown that a good number of people indeed were and are scared or uncomfortable about America’s increasing diversity. Read my article on how racism is driving much of the anti-immigrant sentiment here.

At best, such language is stupid, overused, and rendered without meaning after being reheated so many times. “Take back America” is the title of a Rick Santorum theme song, a Heritage presidential summit, and countless Tea Party events and memes.

Thankfully Rubio didn’t opt for those exact words, but “I don’t recognize America,” and “What’s happening to my country? I feel left behind,” express the same meaning.

With Iowa coming up and Rubio still lagging in third with 11% of the vote, he felt he needed to do something to appeal to the kinds of conservatives who like to hear such combative, angry language. But he must not turn off his base or the independents who an optimistic Rubio could attract in the general.

I am not sure how well he can appeal to Trump or Cruz voters just with that language–the only common thing about them besides anti-immigration views is harsh language, and they are much harsher than Rubio on that front. However, neither does he risk much losing his current base, which, for the most part, is already used to hearing such language from Republican politicians. There is an outside chance some might switch to Bush or Kasich in the near term, but they would flock back to Rubio in a three person race.

As for the general election, Rubio has a lot of time to modify his language as necessary if he pulls ahead in the primaries and wins the nomination. It is hard to believe many independents who pay less attention to politics would hold against him what he said in January.

I am kind of disappointed in his use of such boilerplate, arguably racially-tinged phraseology. But he still infuses his speeches with positive, poetic language. He started out his speech in Dallas on January 6 (after being interrupted by an anti-Semitic heckler) by saying, “This is the greatest country in the history of the world. … People can say outrageous things and not go to jail because we are a free people. … Free enterprise [is] an extraordinary economic system where you can go as far as your talent and your work will take you.”

It is after the brilliantly red, white, and blue opening that he says he is traveling the country, meeting with people who are frustrated. “They say things to me like, ‘I don’t recognize my own country anymore.’”

So even when he uses “take my country back” kind of language, he is smart enough (in the speech version) to attribute it to apocryphal people he meets on the trail. He’s not making the charge so much as he is responding to the people’s concerns. And then he goes on and blames it on Obama and says he’ll fix it all. Iowa votes on February 1, then New Hampshire on February 9, and South Carolina on February 20, so we will see if he gets the chance.

About the author:
*Mitchell Blatt
moved to China in 2012, and since then he has traveled and written about politics and culture throughout Asia. A writer and journalist, based in China, he is the lead author of Panda Guides Hong Kong guidebook and a contributor to outlets including The Federalist, China.org.cn, The Daily Caller, and Vagabond Journey. Fluent in Chinese, he has lived and traveled in Asia for three years, blogging about his travels at ChinaTravelWriter.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @MitchBlatt.

Source:
This article was published at Bombs and Dollars

Jokowi And Najib: Can They Bring Indonesia And Malaysia Closer?

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Despite cordial relations between Indonesia and Malaysia, unresolved border issues and the plight of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia continue to complicate ties between the two close neighbours. Can personal relations between President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and Prime Minister Najib Razak bring the two countries even closer?

By Emirza Adi Syailendra, Oh Ei Sun and Santi H. Paramitha*

Contradictory attitudes that were at times cooperative and at times cavalier dominate Indonesia- Malaysia relations in recent years. After Joko Widodo (Jokowi) assumed office, however, Jakarta displayed an urgency in building closer relations with Kuala Lumpur. Jokowi had already visited Malaysia four times this year: an inaugural state visit in February, two ASEAN Summits in April and November, as well as the wedding of Najib’s daughter in May. In October, Najib also made a two-day working visit to Indonesia. Other than increasing cooperation so as to prevent a relapse of the haze epidemic last year, the two leaders sought to bring bilateral economic cooperation to new heights.

One of the most prolific projects between the two close neighbours currently is the establishment of the Council of Palm Oil Producers. Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur both understand that their total global contribution as palm-oil producing countries had reached a significant 85 percent. Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur signed an agreement on 21 November 2015 to establish the Council of Palm Oil Producers. Membership within this council has since expanded to other palm-oil producing countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, the Philippines and Thailand. Although the scheme is still work-in-progress, Indonesia and Malaysia have already declared the principles that encapsulate the Framework of Principles for Sustainable Palm Oil, called e+POP. It is set to formulate a common eco-friendly standard in order to comply with global benchmarks for the palm oil industry. Nonetheless, doubts have arisen as to whether the economy-driven cooperation is sustainable amidst occasional tensions between the two countries.

Troubled Borders

After the International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarded the Sipadan and Ligitan islands to Malaysia in 2002, Indonesia has taken a more cautious approach towards its borders. Reflecting the nationalistic mood, Jokowi has sought to increase Indonesia’s military presence along the border with Malaysia. Indonesia currently views its northern Kalimantan border as the most important source of threat and conflict. Some border disputes remain unresolved, including the one over the Ambalat area in East Kalimantan.

Indonesia is also concerned about the overlapping identities amongst its inhabitants along the common border. Following the creation of Indonesia and Malaysia, displaced identities had increasingly become a contentious issue amongst traditional communities residing near the borders. These communities are highly mobile. For example, the Iban and Kenyah ethnic tribes residing in the mountainuous regions of Kalimantan often cross into Malaysia to sell their commodities or labour in the forestry industry in Sarawak. With better economic opportunities in Sarawak, there is a concern that the national identity of these people will be compromised.

Responding to the abovementioned issues, Indonesia increased its military presence at the borders. On 27 April 2015, the Ministry of Development and Public Housing as well as the military embarked on a project to build infrastructure along the border area with Sarawak. In addition, the Indonesian military is also spearheading the development of a 1,580 kilometre road in the west, east, and north of Kalimantan between 2015 and 2019. This project is accompanied by increased civic education to promote nationalism within the border communities as well as improving local economic opportunity – part of Indonesia’s bid to encourage its people to earn a living within its territory.

Lingering Frictions

Some lingering negative mutual perceptions between Malaysians and Indonesians, partly a consequence of a freer but more prickly Indonesian media, have also become important challenges confronting bilateral relations. The issue of pride, especially in relation to the treatment of Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysia, contribute to the deterioration of Indonesians’ opinions. Its after-effects can be felt. In February 2015, the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur issued a protest to the Malaysian Government over an advertisement for a vacuum cleaner (Robovac) that allegedly contained derogatory references to Indonesian domestic workers. Although this was clearly a private sector matter for which the Malaysian government could not be held responsible, the embassy protest reflected the growing Indonesian sensitivity.

People-to-people frictions between Malaysians and Indonesians have also been on the rise. This will become an increasingly ‘hot-button’ issue for Indonesia as Malaysia is one of the top destinations for Indonesian workers working abroad. From January to September 2015 alone, the number of Indonesian workers sent to Malaysia has reached a whopping 75,000 people, adding to the already huge numbers of Indonesian workers in Malaysia.

Thus far, Jokowi has framed the issues surrounding the plight of Indonesian migrant workers as a matter of dignity instead of the protection of workers’ rights. He intends to gradually decrease the number of Indonesian workers in the informal sector sent abroad in the next three to four years. To compensate for this, Jokowi has promised to create a multi-sector employment field, facilitating the workers to earn a living within Indonesia for which the Ministry of Manpower of Indonesia has developed a roadmap.

Windows of Opportunity

Indonesia recently had struggled to extinguish forest fires emanating from Sumatra and Kalimantan. Malaysia reportedly chipped in with more than US$400 million and deployed three aircraft to assist in combating the haze. Despite the seemingly cautious attitude of the Indonesian government towards accepting foreign aid in curbing forest fires, the proactive stance that Najib had shown towards Jokowi did contribute to the betterment of Indonesia-Malaysia relations.

The personal affinity between Jokowi and Najib has indeed provided windows of opportunity for the two countries to contain their occasional frictions and deepen their relations. However, the sustainability of close ties needs to be supported by ameliorating the negative perceptions between citizens of the two close neighbours. So far, the elites of the two countries have taken their cultural and linguistic affinity as a unifying factor for granted, while allowing grievances amongst the people to fester. This needs to be changed.

*Emirza Adi Syailendra is a Research Analyst with the Indonesia Programme of the S. Rajaratnam of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Oh Ei Sun is a Senior Fellow with the Malaysia Programme. Santi H. Paramitha is a Research Associate with the Indonesia Programme.

Top 5 Priorities For US Homeland Security In 2016 – Analysis

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By David Inserra*

Policymakers, office-seekers, and the American people have numerous issues to consider in 2016. The following are the top five homeland security issues that Congress and the Administration need to consider this year.[1]

1. Immigration Enforcement. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy, most notably President Obama’s executive action on immigration in 2014, has increasingly pushed immigration officers to focus their enforcement efforts on so-called priorities, while ignoring or even rewarding the vast majority of illegal immigrants who do not fit such priorities. DHS statistics indicate that the U.S. conducted only 462,463 deportations[2] in fiscal year (FY) 2015, plummeting to their lowest level since 1971.[3] Deportations from the interior of the U.S. have dropped from around 230,000 in FY 2010 to approximately 70,000 in FY 2015, a decline of 70 percent in just five years.[4] Even though removing criminal aliens is an Administration “priority,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported just over 63,000 criminal aliens from the U.S. interior in 2015, a decline of almost 60 percent from approximately 150,000 in FY 2011.[5]

Moving forward in 2016, Congress and the next Administration should:

  • Defund or rescind the President’s executive actions on immigration enforcement.
  • Strengthen the 287(g) program. Congress should expand 287(g), a program which trains and deputizes state and local police to help enforce immigration law, by increasing funding for the program and requiring DHS to enter into a 287(g) agreement with any state and local government that requests entry.[6]
  • Increase rapid-removal authority. The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 should be clarified to ensure that children who are not victims of human trafficking should also be removed in an expedited manner to discourage future surges. Such expedited removal authority should be made explicit in section 235 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.[7]
  • Provide more immigration prosecutors, judges, and agents to more effectively adjudicate cases and remove illegal immigrants.
  • Ensure immigrants appear at their court hearings through detention and expanded use of effective “Alternatives to Detention,” such as GPS tracking anklets.

2. Coast Guard. The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is a unique part of DHS, being the only military branch located outside the Department of Defense. The USCG has a variety of missions ranging from Artic operations, port security, drug interdiction, search and rescue, and other maritime safety and compliance responsibilities. Yet the government has funded the USCG inconsistently and insufficiently in recent years, leading to a number of capacity and capability challenges. The passage in late 2015 of an omnibus appropriations bill provided some relief to the USCG by increasing its acquisition budget and funding an unrequested (but necessary) ninth National Security Cutter (NSC). However, the sea service is far behind in two other key programs: the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) and a replacement polar icebreaker. Congress should strive to find a path forward for both programs that best uses taxpayer dollars.[8]

Congress and the next Administration should:

  • Recapitalize the Coast Guard. Funding for acquiring new Coast Guard vessels has been regularly short of what is necessary to complete USCG’s mission and often results in additional acquisition inefficiencies and costs. Congress should commit to providing consistent acquisitions funding. This includes continuing to fund the Coast Guard acquisition budget at a minimum of $1.5 billion, accelerating the contract award and building of the offshore patrol cutter fleet, investing in more unmanned systems, and pursuing alternative options for fulfilling polar icebreaking requirements, such as purchasing foreign-built icebreakers.

3. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). After the passage of the Stafford Act in 1988, the number of declared federal disasters dramatically changed, steadily rising from an average of 28 per year under President Ronald Reagan, to an average of 130 per year under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The Stafford Act shifted most of the costs of a federalized disaster away from states and local governments to the federal government and made it relatively easy to qualify as a federal disaster. This combination has put FEMA in high demand, leaving it unprepared—both in terms of readiness and money—for truly catastrophic disasters in which its services are most needed.[9]

To move from this unsustainable and harmful path, Congress should:

  • Increase the Stafford Act threshold. The increase should require $3 per capita in damages with a $5 million minimum threshold (under which a federal disaster is never declared) and a $50 million maximum threshold (over which a disaster declaration is always issued).
  • Reduce the FEMA cost share from between 75 percent and 100 percent to 25 percent, with a greater cost share for large catastrophes.[10] This system will return responsibility to states for more localized disasters, letting FEMA save funds for catastrophic disasters.

4. Refugee and Visa Vetting. Multiple events in 2015 raised real concerns over how individuals are vetted before coming to the U.S., whether they be refugees, permanent immigrants, temporary workers, or visitors.

The refugee process is likely the most difficult method for entering the U.S., taking 12–18 months on average to complete. Multiple background checks will query the State Department, DHS, FBI, National Counterterrorism Center, Interpol, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Department of Defense databases. In addition, the refugee process requires a Security Advisory Opinion be completed by the intelligence community on many high-risk refugee applicants. Interagency checks are constantly being done in connection with a wide range of U.S. agencies.[11] Interviews by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cover everything from immigration matters to security and country-specific questions. The Syrian Enhanced Review is already applying additional scrutiny to Syrian applicants, giving additional security and intelligence resources to adjudicators.[12]

For other, shorter term visas, similar but quicker vetting is required, although security officials may put any visa application through additional scrutiny. Similarly, the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) includes vetting but does not require the in-person interview before allowing travel to the U.S. In exchange, VWP countries provide the U.S. with intelligence on known and suspected terrorists, serious criminals, and lost and stolen passports, as well as improving airport security and counter-terrorism measures. While there is always room for program improvement as threats evolve, the VWP is a crucial tool for U.S. security.[13]

The U.S. has taken significant strides in improving the vetting process since 9/11 by breaking down walls between systems and agencies to ensure that the necessary intelligence connections are made. Also critical to vetting, however, is having enough useable intelligence in U.S. systems and agencies. While the U.S. can and should continually look to improve the ways in which information is shared[14] and connections are made, recent budget cuts to the U.S. intelligence community, the retrenchment of capabilities following revelations by Edward Snowden, and growing threats around the world point to the U.S. not having the intelligence resources it needs.

5. DHS Oversight Reform. Labyrinthine layers of congressional oversight of DHS is sucking up its time and resources. There is bipartisan agreement amongst former and current DHS officials, think tanks, and the 9/11 Commission that the current byzantine system of congressional oversight of DHS is harming security. The only reason for jurisdiction over DHS to be split across about 100 committees and caucuses is the inability of congressional Members to give up a small slice of their power in exchange for improved security and efficiency.

Congress should:

  • Streamline congressional oversight of DHS. Oversight of DHS should resemble that of the Departments of Justice and Defense, comprising one primary homeland security committee in the House and the Senate with some additional oversight by the Intelligence Committees and a Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee in both chambers.[15]

Congress and the next President need to address these issues in order to make the U.S. more secure and more prosperous in 2016 and beyond.

About the author:
*David Inserra
is Policy Analyst for Homeland Security and Cyber Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation

Notes:
[1] Cybersecurity issues will be listed in a separate report.

[2] In this report, deportations refers to removals plus returns. Removals are more serious deportations that impose a ban on re-entry into the U.S. with the threat of jail time. Returns merely send the person back to their home country without further repercussions.

[3] Press Release, Department of Homeland Security, “DHS Releases End of Fiscal Year 2015 Statistics,” December 22, 2015, http://www.dhs.gov/news/2015/12/22/dhs-releases-end-fiscal-year-2015-statistics (accessed January 6, 2016).

[4] Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “FY 2015 ICE Immigration Removals,” https://www.ice.gov/removal-statistics#wcm-survey-target-id (accessed January 6, 2016).

[5] “Interior Enforcement Disintegrates Further in 2015,” Center for Immigration Studies, December 2015, http://cis.org/Interior-Enforcement-2015-Deportations (accessed January 6, 2016).

[6] David Inserra, “Ten-Step Checklist for Revitalizing America’s Immigration System: How the Administration Can Fulfill Its Responsibilities,” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 160, November 3, 2014, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/11/ten-step-checklist-for-revitalizing-americas-immigration-system-how-the-administration-can-fulfill-its-responsibilities.

[7] David Inserra, “Children Illegally Crossing the U.S. Border: Responding Requires Policy Changes,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4248, July 15, 2014, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/07/children-illegally-crossing-the-us-border-responding-requires-policy-changes.

[8] Brian Slattery, “Congress Should Continue Momentum on Coast Guard Cutter Fleet,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4389, April 17, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/04/congress-should-continue-momentum-on-coast-guard-cutter-fleet.

[9] David Inserra, “FEMA Reform Needed: Congress Must Act,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4342, February 4, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/02/fema-reform-needed-congress-must-act.

[10] For disasters that top $5 billion, the cost-share provision should gradually increase as the cost of the disaster increases. This gradual increase in cost sharing should be capped at 75 percent once a disaster tops $20 billion.

[11] David Inserra, “How Our Refugee Vetting Process Works,” The Daily Signal, December 17, 2015, http://dailysignal.com/2015/12/17/how-our-refugee-vetting-process-works/.

[12] “Refugee Processing and Security Screening,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, December 3, 2015, http://www.uscis.gov/refugeescreening#Enhanced Review (accessed January 6, 2016).

[13] David Inserra, “The Visa Waiver Program: Congress Should Strengthen a Crucial Security Tool,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4492, December 2, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/12/the-visa-waiver-program-congress-should-strengthen-a-crucial-security-tool.

[14] FBI sharing with state and local law enforcement is an example of an area that could be improved. Michael P. Downing and Matt A. Mayer, “Preventing the Next ‘Lone Wolf’ Terrorist Attack Requires Stronger Federal–State–Local Capabilities,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2818, June 18, 2013, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/06/preventing-the-next-lone-wolf-terrorist-attack-requires-stronger-federalstatelocal-capabilities.

[15] Jessica Zuckerman, “Politics Over Security: Homeland Security Congressional Oversight in Dire Need of Reform,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 3722, September 10, 2012, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/09/homeland-security-congressional-oversight-in-dire-need-of-reform.

Implementation Of Iran Deal And International Consequences – OpEd

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By Behzad Khoshandam*

Despite all efforts made by anti-Iran lobbies, as well as hostile steps taken by US Congress and a group of Iran’s regional rivals, implementation of the Iran deal from the second half of January 2016 will have resounding consequences at international level.

Diplomacy, containment of terrorism and extremism, stability, regional order and convergence, balance of power, future outlook of the nonproliferation regime and the concept of deterrence, renewed increase in power, legitimacy as well as strategic and tactical actions and intentions of international actors are major variables that will be affected by the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The most important international developments from the time that Iran’s nuclear deal was concluded up to the time of its implementation included intensification of proxy wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya; spread of extremism; practical realization of Daesh activities in the area of international terrorism through terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015; and the hostile measures taken by US Congress against Iran through adoption of such bills as the new Visa Waiver Program that has affected 38 countries, whose nationals can travel to the United States without obtaining a visa.

The most important short-term effect of the implementation of JCPOA will be the warm welcome that international community has given to normalization of interactions between international actors and Iran, and the impact that reversibility of international sanctions against Iran will have for preventing ethnic tensions and secessionist tendencies as well as containing extremism, the refugee crisis and Iranophobia at international level, especially in Syria crisis. As for the most important challenger and effective actor with regard to Iran’s nuclear issue, that is, the United States, especially when it comes to cooperation between Iran and America for the implementation of JCPOA, this issue must be analyzed from the viewpoint of more serious US interventions in Iran’s peripheral regions and the outcome of US presidential elections in 2016.

It seems that in a bid to manage the Iran issue, Americans are trying to take advantage of internal conditions in Iran in order to set direction of future relations between Iran and the United States. Frequent interviews by US President Barack Obama with various magazines and newspapers, analysis of remarks made by American officials at Congress sessions, and also past history of misbehavior of Americans in the management of the Arab Spring and the experience of efforts made to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, Yemen, and Syria, have all prompted Americans to adopt this behavior toward Iran as well. The behavior adopted by Americans in the management of Iran has led to reclaiming the position of such international bodies as the UN, the European Union, NATO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council [(P)GCC], the Arab League, and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Under these conditions, there will be more interaction among Iran, Russia and China within framework of these organizations and bilateral relations will expand with focus on boosting Iran’s defense capabilities through mutual cooperation.

The most important medium-term international outcome of the implementation of JCPOA could be strengthening of cooperation among all actors to destroy the Daesh threat and prevent the rise and activities of similar terrorist groups as well as collapse of nation-states. In this regard, emotional reactions shown by some actors in the Middle East, including Arab states, Israel, Turkey, and Egypt will cause the general atmosphere to move toward regional balance, and despite continuation of temporary tensions, potentials for understanding and more powerful diplomacy will be taken advantage of in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and led to new international moves to overcome the threat of Daesh, instability, terrorism and organized crime. In this way, the conditions in the periphery of Iran (including its neighbors, regional allies of Iran like the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Badr Brigade, and the Islamic Jihad as well as the governments of Syria and Iraq in addition to Turkey and Israel) will inevitably require Iran to take steps to systematically manage challenges and conflicts in its peripheral environment including Western – Arab, Iranian – Arab, Iranian – Western, Iranian – Israeli, Iranian – Russian, Arab – Israeli, Turkish – Arab, Arab – Western, Chinese –Russian, Western – Russian, and Turkish – Russian rivalries.

The most important long-term outcome of the Iran deal will be taking effective advantage of the capacity and participation of the resistance axis to effectively form international strategic stability by making effective use of pacifist assets to create an international order. Under such circumstances, Israel will be mostly affected by the implementation of JCPOA in the long run. Of course, West has pinned its hopes on the management of domestic chessboard in Iran and wants to change Iran’s behavior through bolstering one political faction against other political factions in the course of the implementation of JCPOA. However, the implementation of JCPOA in relation to the role of big powers (including veto right holders at the Security Council, that is, the United States, Russia, the UK, France, and China plus Germany) and Iran’s separate interaction with Asian actors, non-state actors, as well as academic and non-academic figures, personalities and intellectual and executive elites, and synergistic interaction with regional and international trends, currents and developments, will finally thwart the United States’ game with regard to Iran.

Iran in 2016 finds itself at a juncture of time that in the light of the diplomatic ingenuity and strategic patience resulting from the implementation of JCPOA, it is on the verge of a major strategic development. Playing the cards of China, Russia, the European Union and other power blocs in an excessive manner is neither on the agenda of Iran’s foreign policy for the implementation of JCPOA, nor in line with the country’s expediency and national interests. Through its intricate historical transition, Iran has understood that it must put on its agenda the “balance in cooperation with Iran’s partners in JCPOA” for the time being and then, pursue further implementation of JCPOA in next decades through the “negative balance model.” The Iran deal and the Security Council Resolution 2231 in 2015 were steps toward “saving the United Nations Charter” and the “United Nations,” and were aimed to put international emphasis on the need to maintain a collective security system,” and the use of the “forceful measures” bogeyman according to Chapter VII of the UN Charter with respect to the next cases of disarmament and nonproliferation. Just in the same way, controlling international consequences of the implementation of the Iran deal beyond 2016 will give birth to major practical guarantees for the safeguard of the emerging international order, pace and security on the basis of Iran’s action.

*Behzad Khoshandam
Ph.D. in International Relations & Expert on International Issues

Ralph Nader: Donald Trump Should Disclose His Tax Returns – OpEd

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Everybody has heard or seen Donald Trump exude great pride over his business prowess, his business empire and that he estimates his net worth to be about $10 billion. He exalts his ability to negotiate complex deals with a wide range of business and financial interests. He has submitted his Federal Election Commission (FEC) forms. He has no legal obligation to release his very voluminous income tax reports – reportedly thousands of intriguing pages.

But if a presidential candidate is running, in significant part, on his business skills and accomplishments, credibility among voters invites public disclosure of his tax returns to allow assessment of his claims.

Mr. Trump is no ordinary taxpaying presidential candidate. The gap between his FEC reporting and his income tax reports is probably as vast as any presidential candidate in history. Mr. Trump is making the information in those tax filings over the years the basis for his claim that he, above all other candidates, has the business and negotiating skills to “make America great again.”

So in today’s Republican presidential debate, will any reporter or a competing candidate urge Mr. Trump to do what most voters would like to see done? Will he put his tax returns for the last several years on the Internet and let everyone interested see how grounded are his pretensions for leadership?


Sen. McCain Furious Iran Treated US Sailors Well – OpEd

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The two US Navy riverine command boats intercepted in Iranian territorial waters this week were sent on their way along with the crew of 10 US sailors after brief detention on Iranian soil. According to news reports, the well-armed warships either suffered mechanical or navigational difficulties which caused them to enter Iranian territory (although it may well have been a game of cat-and-mouse to test the Iranian response). The US sailors were apparently treated well, enjoyed what appeared a decent meal in relaxed surroundings, and in the end apologized for the mistake and praised their treatment by the Iranians.

Thanks to President Obama’s policy shift on Iran toward engagement and away from isolationism, Secretary of State John Kerry was able to telephone his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Zarif and quickly defuse what just months ago would have been a far more serious situation.

This should be a good-news story about the value of diplomacy and reducing tensions with adversaries, but Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was having none of it. That Kerry expressed his appreciation to the Iranians for swiftly releasing the American sailors only showed the Obama Administration’s “craven desire to preserve the dangerous Iranian nuclear deal at all costs evidently knows no limit,” said McCain in a press release.

McCain was furious that, “Obama administration officials seem to be falling over themselves to offer praise for Iran’s graciousness” and was outraged that the Iranians dared interfere with the actions of US military vessels operating in Iranian waters.

In the world of John McCain, only the United States has the right to national sovereignty. The US military has the right to act anywhere and everywhere and the rest of the world dare not raise a question.

According to McCain, “sovereign immune naval vessels are exempt from detention, boarding, or search. Their crews are not subject to detention or arrest.” Imagine the tune McCain would have been singing if a well-armed Iranian naval vessel had been spotted in US territorial waters off the coast of New York. Would he have so rigorously condemned any US interference in the actions of Iran’s sovereign naval vessels?

Leave it to some clever Twitterers to post an example of the difference between US and Iranian detention.

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

Poets Reportedly Flee Iran Over Harsh Sentences

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Media linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) allege that Fatemeh Ekhtesari and Mehdi Mousavi, two Iranian poets who are facing long jail terms and flogging, have fled the country.

The Fars News Agency reports that the two poets, who were out on bail awaiting the decision of the appeals court, have fled Iran. The report also contains a photo of the two appearing on a TV program on the Kavosh Network in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Azad University News Agency has also confirmed the news and adds that the two are currently in Soleymanieh and have applied for asylum in Sweden. The news, however, has not been confirmed by independent media or their supporters on social media.

The two poets were sentenced to 198 lashes and 20 years in jail for “blasphemy, publishing pornographic images on the Internet and kissing and shaking hands with strangers”.

Mehdi Mousavi had challenged the decision as “unfair”, saying it was issued without affording him a chance to present his defence.

Thousands Of Landslides In Nepal Earthquake Raise Parallels For US Pacific Northwest

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Research teams have evaluated the major 7.8 magnitude subduction zone earthquake in Gorkha, Nepal, in April 2015, and identified some characteristics that may be of special relevance to the future of the Pacific Northwest.

Most striking was the enormous number and severity of landslides.

Many people understand the damage that can be caused to structures, roads, bridges and utilities by ground shaking in these long-lasting types of earthquakes, such as the one that’s anticipated on the Cascadia Subduction Zone between northern California and British Columbia.

But following the Nepal earthquake – even during the dry season when soils were the most stable – there were also tens of thousands of landslides in the region, according to reconnaissance team estimates. In their recent report published in Seismological Research Letters, experts said that these landslides caused pervasive damage as they buried towns and people, blocked rivers and closed roads.

Other estimates, based on the broader relationship between landslides and earthquake magnitude, suggest the Nepal earthquake might have caused between 25,000 and 60,000 landslides.

The subduction zone earthquake expected in the future of the Pacific Northwest is expected to be larger than the event in Nepal.

Ben Mason, a geotechnical engineer and assistant professor in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University, was a member of the Geotechnical Extreme Event Reconnaissance team that explored the Nepal terrain. He said that event made clear that structural damage is only one of the serious threats raised by subduction zone earthquakes.

“In the Coast Range and other hilly areas of Oregon and Washington, we should expect a huge number of landslides associated with the earthquake we face,” Mason said. “And in this region our soils are wet almost all year long, sometimes more than others. Each situation is different, but soils that are heavily saturated can have their strength cut in half.”

Wet soils will also increase the risk of soil liquefaction, Mason said, which could be pervasive in the Willamette Valley and many areas of Puget Sound, Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland, especially along the Columbia River.

Scientists have discovered that the last subduction zone earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest was in January 1700, when – like now – soils probably would have been soggy from winter rains and most vulnerable to landslides.

The scientific study of slope stability is still a work in progress, Mason said, and often easier to explain after a landslide event has occurred than before it happens. But continued research on earthquake events such as those in Nepal may help improve the ability to identify areas most vulnerable to landslides, he said. Models can be improved and projections made more accurate.

“If you look just at the terrain in some parts of Nepal and remove the buildings and people, you could think you were looking at the Willamette Valley,” Mason said. “There’s a lot we can learn there.”

In Nepal, the damage was devastating.

Landslides triggered by ground shaking were the dominant geotechnical effect of the April earthquake, the researchers wrote in their report, as slopes weakened and finally gave way. Landslides caused by the main shock or aftershocks blocked roads, dammed rivers, damaged or destroyed villages, and caused hundreds of fatalities.

The largest and most destructive event, the Langtang debris avalanche, began as a snow and ice avalanche and gathered debris that became an airborne landslide surging off a 500-meter-tall cliff. An air blast from the event flattened the forest in the valley below, moved 2 million cubic meters of material and killed about 200 people.

Surveying the damages after the event, Mason said one of his most compelling impressions was the way people helped each other.

“Nepal is one of the poorest places, in terms of gross domestic product, that I’ve ever visited,” he said. “People are used to adversity, but they are culturally rich. After this event it was amazing how their communities bounced back, people helped treat each other’s injuries and saved lives. As we make our disaster plans in the Pacific Northwest, there are things we could learn from them, both about the needs for individual initiative and community response.”

Aside from landslides, many lives were lost in collapsing structures in Nepal, often in homes constructed of rock, brick or concrete, and frequently built without adequate enforcement of building codes, the report suggested. Overall, thousands of structures were destroyed. There are estimates that about 9,000 people died, and more than 23,000 were injured. The earthquake even triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest that killed at least 19 people.

The reconnaissance effort in Nepal was made possible by support from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the OSU College of Engineering, and other agencies and universities around the world.

Cashing In On Death: The David Bowie Commemorative Extra – OpEd

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“Look up here, I’m in Heaven! I’ve got scars that can’t be seen…”
David Bowie, “Lazarus” (2015)

Each age values its own species of celebrity. But each age also brings with it the phenomenon of reflected adulation. Cashing in on death, in other words, remains the business of business itself, the celebrity machine that draws out its replicas, its snivelling types, and its more rapacious breeds. David Bowie’s passing presented a glowing opportunity, not to be missed.

The first use of the Bowie aura, and a fitting one at that, was by the man himself. Gordon Rayner and Hannah Furness of The Telegraph decided to see him as a cunning being, one who managed to redefine his own death artistically, and by keeping his impending demise at the hands of ravaging cancer under wraps. “David Bowie,” opened the article, “spent his entire career defining the art of popular music and on Sunday he pulled off perhaps his greatest ever coup when he turned his own death into one last spellbinding performance.”

The release of his final album, Blackstar, was a performance “bordering on the supernatural”. It constituted a requiem of sorts, with various “pointers to his demise,” prophetically fulfilled two days later. There is much talk about morbidity and x-rays. The video of one of the first tracks, Lazarus, features the singer in a hospital bed, concluding with him vanishing into a wardrobe. Tony Visconti, Bowie’s long-time producer, added some fuel to the mix. “His death was no different from his life – a work of art.”

Bowie, however, was not to be left alone to his own bit of selling. Once dead, the adulation brigade would come out grabbing at every grain of the Bowie phenomenon with rampant enthusiasm. Such antics at times verged on the grotesque. They revealed the comingling of celebrity worship, political tribute, “reality” television and the desperation on the part of the entertainment complex to get the quick, financial fix. Such matters are all fair game.

Arguably the most notable political narcissist in the modern era, Britain’s former prime minister, Tony Blair, certainly thought so. Having turned No. 10 into a celebrity processing factory during his stewardship seeded by spin, Blair could not help expressing his views in The Times on Bowie, of which he was “a huge fan.”

Just as he did in office, Blair found skewing the account hard to avoid, continuing that ever disingenuous tendency he made famous with New Labour’s “Cool Britannia” project. “From the time I saw his Ziggy Stardust concert as a student I thought he was a brilliant artist and an exciting and interesting human being.”

The Mail Online was more sceptical about Blair’s university-Ziggy Stardust experience, though it did concede that Blair probably saw a Bowie concert at some point. “Blair was 19 when the Ziggy Stardust tour first visited Oxford for concerts in May and June 1972 – although Blair would not have been at the university yet.” He only matriculated at St. John’s College in October that year.

Bowie’s own views of “Cool Britannia” – Blair’s vain effort to gather popularity from the pop and entertainment fraternity – dripped with scorn. In 1999, he would tell Jeremy Paxman that such a project was “so clichéd and silly and ineffective”. His response was to meet Blair in high heels and a vicar’s dog collar, neither of which the then fawning prime minister noticed.

In Britain, UK Celebrity Big Brother also found the Bowie cash cow irresistible, making hay by cornering the singer’s ex-wife, Angie, on national television with news that the star had snuffed it. This, in turn, created a domino effect of Bowie publicity, stormily condemning Big Brother for its purportedly insensitive policies.

The entire revelation was broadcast from the habitually obscene “diary room camera”. Initially, Angie says that she had not seen Bowie “in so many years” and could not “make a big drama about it, but… feel an era has ended”. The frontal calm dissipates, leaving those Big Brother irritants known as “house guests” to comfort the distraught Angie. “The stardust has gone.” A true spectacle!

Irrespective of the authentic emotional state of Bowie’s former partner, the entire grotesquery was part and parcel of an industrial entertainment complex, one of collusion and collaboration. Those at Channel Five, which received a dozen complaints after the airing, would have felt it worth it. The Bowie name was too good to avoid streaming through the popular unconsciousness of the program, and reality television was there to make a killing. After all, Angie was largely there as a link to Bowie’s name, a vicarious “celebrity” herself. And she was not, to the consternation of some Big Brother watchers, going anywhere.

Besides, suggested Angie’s manager, Ray Santilli, the former model “had plenty of time to consider her position off-camera to process the news.” The ambush, in other words, hardly counted as such. Big Brother had already readied her for a simulated emotional collapse. “She made the decision to go back into the house, she made the decision to be interviewed afterwards.”

It was time for Angie to take advantage of the Bowie name for another round. Television, even in its reality format, is ever an enemy of reality, a stimulant for dissimulation. Bowie would have understood that.

Tropical Depression Pali Headed Toward Equator

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NASA’s Aqua satellite imagery showed just a small area of strong thunderstorms remained in the now weaker Tropical Depression Pali as it moved closer to the Equator. NASA’s RapidScat instrument measured surface winds in the storm as it was weakening to a depression.

When Pali was still a tropical storm on Jan. 13 at 1200 UTC (7 a.m. EST), NASA’s RapidScat instrument measured strongest sustained winds near 27 meters per second (60.4 mph/97.2 kph) both east and west of center. Within a day, increased vertical wind shear weakened the storm to a depression.

Maximum sustained winds are not always equally distributed in a hurricane or tropical storm, and the RapidScat instrument helps forecasters find the strongest quadrants of a storm. RapidScat is an instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station.

Thunderstorms development appeared to be limited to a small area north or northeast of Pali’s center. That’s what a false-colored infrared image showed on Jan. 14 at 1335 UTC (8:35 a.m. EST) that was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. The MODIS data showed the small area of thunderstorms had cloud top temperatures near minus 80 Fahrenheit (minus 62.2 Celsius). NASA research has shown that thunderstorms with cloud top temperatures that high have the ability to generate heavy rain.

On Thursday, January 14, 2016 at 10 a.m. EST (5 a.m. HST/1500 UTC) the center Of Tropical Depression Pali was located near latitude 2.5 north and longitude 173.0 west. That’s about 1,650 miles (2,650 km) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii and about 1,010 miles (1,625 km) south-southwest of Johnston Island.

Maximum sustained winds were near 35 mph (55 kph) and continued weakening is expected. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1003 millibars. The depression was moving toward the southwest near 6 mph (9 kph) and that general motion is expected to continue until Pali dissipates sometime on Jan. 15.

It is south to southwesterly vertical shear between 20 and 25 knots and Pali’s proximity to the equator are expected to lead to the demise of the storm. In addition, forecaster Brichard of NOAA’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center said “strong westerly winds along the equator which aided in the development of Pali a week ago are no longer present…with the flow now headed toward an expansive area of deep convection in the southern hemisphere.”

Pali is expected to dissipate sometime on Friday, January 15, 2016.

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