In an interfaith gesture, Christian-Hindu-Buddhist-Jewish-Baha’i-Native American leaders have urged Village of Whitesboro in Oneida County of upstate central New York to think of changing its controversial official seal as many considered it inappropriate and offensive.

The logo appears to represent a white man throttling a Native American man. Despite an online petition, residents recently voted to retain the image.

Senior Greek Orthodox Christian Priest Stephen R. Karcher, distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, Buddhist Priest Matthew T. Fisher, well-known California-Nevada Jewish Rabbi ElizaBeth Webb Beyer, Baha’i Teacher Bradley S. Corbin and American Indian Spirituality Scholar Brian E. Melendez; in a statement in Nevada today, said that although the Village emblem might be a reminder of a historic moment, but many now considered it not fit to represent a community in the 21st century.

Karcher-Zed-Fisher-Beyer-Corbin-Melendez further said that we should be more sensitive to the feelings of others and urged Whitesboro Mayor Patrick OConnor and Village trustees to come up with a more acceptable Village seal depicting harmony.

Rajan Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted that we all needed to work towards creating goodwill among all the sections of the society.

Just like the famous US-Russia Cold War, once threatening to end the world by a casual nuclear press button, two top Muslim nations — Saudi Arabia and Iran — also continue their own cold war, threatening to uproot both Iran and Arab nations. They risk a deadly war.

Bilateral relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have been strained over different geo-political issues such as the interpretations of Islam, aspirations for leadership of the Islamic world, oil export policy, relations with the US and the West. Although Saudi Arabia and Iran are both Muslim-majority nations and follow and rule through Islamic Scripture, their relations are fraught with hostility, tension and confrontation, due to differences in political agendas that are strengthened for their differences in faith.

Both countries are major oil and gas exporters and have clashed over energy policy. Saudi Arabia, with its large oil reserves and smaller population, has a greater interest in taking a long-term view of the global oil market and incentive to moderate prices. In contrast, Iran is compelled to focus on high prices in the short term due to its low standard of living given recent sanctions after its decade old war with Saddam’s Iraq.

Saudi-Iranian tensions took a new turn after the Saudi embassy in Tehran was ransacked by Iranian protesters; Saudi Arabia broke off diplomatic relations with Iran on January 4, 2016. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran continue to escalate. In fact, the current row erupted earlier this month after Saudi Arabia executed the Shia religious leader Nimr al-Nimr and the Saudi embassy in Tehran was burnt.

So is the Middle East cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran about to turn hot? And who is to blame for the current tension?

Pakistani diplomatic resources

Having close ties to the extent of being considered as an ally of both, Pakistan is fast emerging as a mediator between Islamic rivals and economically strong Saudi Arabia and Iran. Pakistan thinks it can play proactive role in bring both together for honest talks to save Islamic world and serve Islam purposefully.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met Iranian President Hassan Rohani in Tehran on January 19, a day after meeting Saudi Arabia’s King Salman in Riyadh, and offered to host talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia aimed at resolving disputes between the Middle Eastern rivals.

After his meeting with Rohani, Sharif told reporters that Iran had expressed an interest in improving relations with Saudi Arabia and would appoint a focal person for future talks. Sharif said he would speak to Saudi Arabia to encourage the appointment of a focal person, and described reconciling the two major Islamic countries as Pakistan’s prime duty and sacred mission.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry says that Islamabad is deeply concerned at the recent escalation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Sunni and Shiite powerhouses have been rivals for years but the current tensions worsened after Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric who was an outspoken opposition figure on 2 January.

In his first press conference as Iran’s president-elect in June 2013, Hassan Rohani spoke of his desire to reengage with the Saudis, calling them neighbors and brothers and saying Iran was “fully ready” to end decades of rivalry. But Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has accused Saudi Arabia of refusing Iran’s overtures, and instead openly stoking sectarian Sunni-Shiite tension and opposing Iran’s landmark nuclear deal reached last July with the US and five other world powers. “For the past 2-1/2 years,

Saudi Arabia has opposed Iran’s diplomacy,” Zarif said at a press conference with his Iraqi counterpart. Iran says Saudi Arabia has been recklessly aggressive in the past year, with a 9-month bombing campaign in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthis, and by supporting anti-Assad rebels in Syria, among them jihadists.

A roadmap agreed in Vienna – and codified in a unanimous UN Security Council resolution on Dec. 18 – spells out the establishment of a transitional Syrian government and seeks a cease-fire in six months, and elections within 18 months. But it makes no mention of the fate of President Assad, perhaps the thorniest point of disagreement. However, Iran hasn’t indicated that it would pull out of the Geneva talks.

Saudi assertive diplomacy

Ever since King Salman came to power in early 2015 has been pursuing a more vigorous foreign policy than the one followed by the previous regime of King Abdullah. Protection from fallout of troubles in the region has been one objective and containing Iran’s influence on the regional powers and US led west is another. King Salman has focused on ensuring regional hegemony at any cost.

The war in Yemen that was initiated in March 2015 is an example of the Saudi strategy to block or at least reduce the Iranian influence in that country. The Arab coalition conducting the war against the Houthis blame Iran of supporting the rebel forces in Yemen and believe that a defeat would be a setback for Iran.

Riyadh presents both Iran and Shiites not just an issue in the region not just as a problem for Sunni Arab nations but also as a problem for Islam. The execution of the Shiite cleric Nimr Baqir al-Nimr on 2 January along with another 46 convicts was to showcase its determination to oppose Shiites which is illogical. Al-Nimr opposed the marginalization of the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province and suggested an alternative structure for the religious governance of the kingdom. This move was perhaps viewed as a war on Saudi kingdom.

The battle lines between the two regional powers are being drawn.

Many pillars of stability have already collapsed in the Middle-East and the region has for the past few years been a powder keg with a burning fuse.

With the Saudi Arabia-Iran stand-off the fuse has just become that much shorter. The Iranian state’s disrespect for diplomatic protocol was the reason for the recent escalation of tension with Saudi Arabia and its allies…,” states an editorial, the Gulf states may have the right to be irritated saying despite previous tensions, Iran continues to meddle in the affairs of the region and violate established international rules that protect the sovereignty of states.

At times of broader regional instability, in which Iran and Saudi Arabia support opposing sides in Syria and Yemen, it is wise to show restraint and avoid direct conflict that will only further destabilize the region. International leaders are right to call on both sides to repair ties and work together to resolve regional issues.

Saudi Arabia’s execution of a dissident Shiite cleric on Jan. 2 prompted Iranian protesters to ransack and burn the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. Angry crowds in Iran stormed the Saudi embassy, and Riyadh severed diplomatic relations with Tehran in protest.

Syrian and Iraqi links

Diplomatic efforts to preserve the staggering Syrian peace process have gone into overdrive amid a surge in fresh Iran-Saudi tensions in the Middle East.

The stakes could not be higher, with a quarter million dead in Syria and more than half of its pre-war population of some 22 million internally displaced or in exile as refugees. Since the war began in 2011, Syria has become, with Iraq, a base of operations for the self-declared Islamic State.

Two rounds of talks in Vienna last fall brought the international players around the same table for the first time. Among them are Iran and Russia, key backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; Saudi Arabia, the US, and others are supporting a cast of anti-Assad rebel groups. Analysts point out that Washington had to pressure the Saudis to sit at the table with Iranians at those talks, underscoring the risk of further polarization.

A meeting in Riyadh in December of key anti-Assad political and armed factions – minus the Islamic State, and the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra – led to formation of a unified committee to negotiate. Syria’s regime has dismissed the opposition’s effort to form a united front. Meanwhile, opposition groups are insisting on pre-conditions that could scupper a resumption of talks. Opposition leaders in Riyadh told de Mistura that they would not resume talks unless the regime committed to a prisoner release, stopping attacks on civilian areas, and ending the use of barrel bombs dropped from helicopters – perhaps the single most lethal type of attack used in Syria. In Riyadh, de Mistura said he found a “clear determination” not to let current tensions “have any negative impact on the Vienna momentum” toward the upcoming Geneva talks.

US role

The White House has come under fire for its light public condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s execution of Nimr – the consequences of which Washington says it warned Saudi officials in advance – and also of the embassy sacking in Tehran. In an end-of-year opinion piece, Kerry said easing the Syria conflict would “remain a foremost challenge to us all.” He cited the diplomatic initiative and “timetable for negotiations” between the “responsible opposition” and Syria’s government. The more progress made toward peace, wrote Kerry, “the easier it will be to mount a truly sustained and united effort against [Islamic State] – the foremost embodiment of evil our generation has known, as a foe we are absolutely determined to defeat.”

President Barack Obama, in defending his anti-IS strategy, has long called for alliance partners in the region to supply the “boots on the ground” necessary to augment American air power. But Saudi Arabia and many of its Arabian Gulf allies such as Qatar and the UAE are bogged down in Yemen, where they are trying to oust Shiite Houthi rebels and reinstate a friendly regime. The priority right now in Saudi Arabia is Yemen US Secretary of State John Kerry has called officials in Riyadh and Tehran to deescalate tensions, noting that on top of risking the Syria talks, such division may hurt the US-led battle against Islamic State, which US officials say today poses a greater threat to the West than Al Qaeda.

Coalition of Muslim nations

Saudi Arabian government is making an attempt to assure Islamic world of security from threats to Islam. Observers say Saudi Arabia’s attempt to form an umbrella coalition of Muslim nations to combat terrorism is reviving its decades-old (but failed) aspirations to lead the Muslim world while also risking wider Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife. Announcing the new 34-member coalition, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir said that the alliance would take a two-track approach in battling terrorism – both militarily and ideologically.

The second track – the ideological fight at the pulpit – may be the tallest task. Some observers question whether Saudi Arabia can lead a wider ideological and tactical war against a form of extremism that its own policies have allowed to expand. Since there is a hidden hand in all terrorisms of Washington and its western allies and probably Israel, Saudi also could be doubtful about the success of its wars.

Analysts say more than 2,500 Saudis have joined the self-described Islamic State (IS), making the Saudi led war difficult. Under the umbrella of the new coalition, Saudi Arabia is looking for Muslim states to speak in one voice and counter terrorist narratives on a grand scale. Observers say such measures will likely include gathering influential imams from across the Muslim world to issue joint statements and fatwas (religious orders) condemning groups such as IS; using returning fighters as cautionary tales.

In Saudi Arabia, counter-terrorism has never been just a security operation, it has always been a public awareness campaign where they attempt to discredit terrorist narrative, their ideology. Saudi is looking to replicate its efforts in countries which may not otherwise have the means or funds to do so. However, officials in Riyadh are seizing on the coalition as a chance to turn around what some see as decades of sowing hardline Salafist movements.
Saudi Arabia has attempted to organize Muslim states in the past. In 1969, then-King Faisal bin Abdulaziz founded the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an over-arching committee of 57 Muslim states dedicated to further Muslim causes and speak as the collective voice of the Muslim world.

The OIC has noticeably failed in the past to rein in sectarian tensions or present a counter-narrative to jihadis such as IS. It is this very lack of an authoritative voice, free of politics that has created the ideological vacuum allowing groups like ISIS to emerge. In practical terms, there remains the question of the members’ appetite for sending the ground troops needed to uproot IS strongholds. Saudi palace officials say their coalition will implicitly provide the option of ground troops – Sunni Muslim ground-troops – to fight IS in its strongholds in Libya, Iraq, and elsewhere.

With a vague mission statement and lack of Shiite members in the new coalition, attention has turned to its potential impact on Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife. In a press conference in Paris, Jubeir stressed that despite excluding Shiite-majority states such as Iran or Iraq, the new coalition is “neither Shiite nor Sunni.” The sectarian overtones of the coalition have already given pause to supposed members, including Lebanon. Lebanon’s pro-Saudi prime minister, Tammam Salam, welcomed the initiative.

Pakistan, itself host to a sizeable Shiite minority, also distanced itself from the alliance: Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry expressed “surprise” at its inclusion in the coalition. “If the Saudis are going to try to make this coalition a Sunni force, an anti-Iran force, this will only cause more instability and violence in the region,” says Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer and director of projects at security firm Soufan Group. “It is just not clear yet what their intentions are.”

The UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is visiting Saudi Arabia and Iran this week to try to ease tensions between the two sides. “We cannot afford to lose this momentum, despite what is going on in the region,” he said in Riyadh. He travels next to Tehran. Will de Mistura be able to seek to salvage the diplomatic process which is in jeopardy?

Now there are concerns that the two regional rivals – who support opposing sides in Syria’s civil war and proxy forces elsewhere in the region – could jeopardize UN-sponsored peace talks due to resume in Geneva Jan. 25.

Obviously, Islamabad is best placed to play constructive role to bring these top Muslim nations, claiming leadership of Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam respectively, together to work together for the cause of Islam.

Li Yuanchao, Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China, sought to reassure participants at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos that the world’s second-largest economy will remain an important driving force for global economic growth.

Li declared that China has entered a “new normal” of steady rather than speedy growth. “Despite the volatility in the world economy, China still achieved a GDP increase of over $500 billion [in 2015], which is estimated to be the largest in the world,” he said. China’s GDP grew only 6.9%, but Li said the “medium-high growth rate” is to be expected given the country’s drive to diversify its economic growth drivers.

Consumption, which accounted for 66.4% of the growth, expanded faster than investment, the main growth driver of the past, by 16.7 percentage points. The services sector is now the biggest component of GDP, rising by 2.4 percentage points to 50.5%.

Li said China will continue economic reforms and encourage innovation and entrepreneurship to preserve the momentum. There is encouraging news in the 2.2% growth of the high-tech sector, 30% increase in online retail sales and 42% growth in industrial robots.

“For every single day last year, over 12,000 newly registered companies emerged across China,” said Li, an indication of invigorated entrepreneurship along with the surge in the number of technology and business incubators aimed at young entrepreneurs.

“In the future, the Chinese government will try to make the most of the new round of the scientific, technological and industrial revolution, in other words, the opportunity brought by the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” he added.

China is the chair of the G20 group of developed and emerging countries this year, a grouping that accounts for 80% of the world economy. The G20 summit will be held in Hangzhou under the theme “Towards an Innovative, Invigorated, Interconnected and Inclusive World Economy.”

“The Hangzhou summit will focus its discussions on innovating growth models, improving global economic and financial governance, boosting international trade and investment, and promoting inclusive and interconnected development in an effort to provide new drivers for the development of the world economy,” said Li.

Simonomics: A regular look at the global economy from a former staff columnist at The Wall Street Journal.

Imagine a scene of industrial lathes spinning, sparks flying from a welding torch and flames shooting up from workbenches. It’s a classic industrial workshop, just like the one where I studied for five years during high school in northern England. In a sense, it was like a trade school. We were learning the skills for the workplace, but the relevant jobs had mostly disappeared before we even finished. Now, it’s relevant again, because of increasing calls to encourage more studying at trade school rather than college.

The problem is that trade school is seen as a dumbed-down version of what the more prestigious academic route offers. It doesn’t have to be — what I learned casting molten aluminum, or lathing steel, at age 16 was no less rigorous than the degrees I later earned. The essential element of trade school is that it prepares students for the workplace in ways that traditional universities increasingly don’t. Take, for instance, Johns Hopkins University, where professor Steve Hanke has long offered a course with one sole aim: to prepare students, with training directly related to workplace needs, for a job on Wall Street. “They all get their first choice of job,” he says, pointing to the latest batch of 20 students, who are still at JHU but are headed to Wall Street. Eight are set to go to JPMorgan, while four have landed jobs at Morgan Stanley; some have gotten gigs at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, among others.

This approach isn’t limited to finance, where starting salaries can easily top six figures. Other fields can, and do, embrace it.

How does that happen? The students all work in an open-plan office, designed to facilitate communication. Hanke likens it to the method that Raphael used to teach apprentices: “I teach them how to sweep the floor, mix the paint, etcetera” — or, more precisely, the modern equivalents. What actually gets taught is the esoteric methods Wall Street uses to value companies, like the Hanke-Guttridge discounted cash flow model with Monte Carlo simulations. Students tackle different valuation exercises again and again and again. Another edge: mixing a few graduate students, such as a 17-year-old studying for a math Ph.D., in with undergrads.

This approach isn’t limited to finance, where starting salaries can easily top six figures. Other fields can, and do, embrace it. I had the good fortune to take a rather small and specialized program in business and economics journalism at New York University. The course, which was created by former Fortune writer Steve Solomon and included story critiques by media veterans, involved learning all the techniques of writing and reporting that are relevant to the way editors really work. Plus, there was information on the law and how to conduct investigations. As with the Johns Hopkins group, there was a mix of students — recent college grads, others with years of general reporting experience and a few, like me, with deep business backgrounds. Many of us got jobs at publications like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Bloomberg, with substantially better salaries than we would have otherwise.

And then there’s the trickle-down effect. Like Hanke’s program, Solomon’s was the first of its type. But eventually on her schools including the City University of New York, set up similar courses. The courses are vastly less expensive, especially for local residents. Could trade school meets rigorous academic work more broadly? Hanke thinks so, and he’s probably correct.

Source: http://www.ozy.com/pov/simonomics-on-when-trade-school-meets-wall-street/67111

Spain’s Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy expressed satisfaction regarding the report by the International Monetary Fund showing improved economic forecasts for Spain and underlined the importance of maintaining the policies put in place for continued growth and job creation.

Rajoy said he believes that the figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are “very positive and very important for the Spanish economy”. He stressed that “it is the only country in the world to have an improved forecast”, 3.2% growth in 2015 and 2.7% in 2016.

Rajoy said this is the result of the effort made by the people of Spain in recent years and shows that “the policies put in place were the right ones”.

In Rajoy’s opinion, “if we do things well, Spain can keep on growing at a good pace over the next four years and continue creating jobs, which is the great national objective”. This requires forming a government that can provide “stability, security and certainty, and having a large majority that will enable it to govern.”

To achieve this, “let us reach an agreement and build together” because, if not, “we are going to create a problem for the people of Spain, who have no reason to accept that all the effort they made in recent years is wiped out at a single stroke,” said Rajoy.

Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly, say astrobiologists from The Australian National University (ANU).

In research aiming to understand how life might develop, the scientists realised new life would commonly die out due to runaway heating or cooling on their fledgling planets.

“The universe is probably filled with habitable planets, so many scientists think it should be teeming with aliens,” said Dr Aditya Chopra from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences and lead author on the paper, which is published in Astrobiology.

“Early life is fragile, so we believe it rarely evolves quickly enough to survive.”

“Most early planetary environments are unstable. To produce a habitable planet, life forms need to regulate greenhouse gases such as water and carbon dioxide to keep surface temperatures stable.”

About four billion years ago Earth, Venus and Mars may have all been habitable. However, a billion years or so after formation, Venus turned into a hothouse and Mars froze into an icebox.

Early microbial life on Venus and Mars, if there was any, failed to stabilise the rapidly changing environment, said co-author Associate Professor Charley Lineweaver from the ANU Planetary Science Institute.

“Life on Earth probably played a leading role in stabilising the planet’s climate,” he said.

Dr Chopra said their theory solved a puzzle.

“The mystery of why we haven’t yet found signs of aliens may have less to do with the likelihood of the origin of life or intelligence and have more to do with the rarity of the rapid emergence of biological regulation of feedback cycles on planetary surfaces,” he said.

Wet, rocky planets, with the ingredients and energy sources required for life seem to be ubiquitous, however, as physicist Enrico Fermi pointed out in 1950, no signs of surviving extra-terrestrial life have been found.

A plausible solution to Fermi’s paradox, say the researchers, is near universal early extinction, which they have named the Gaian Bottleneck.

“One intriguing prediction of the Gaian Bottleneck model is that the vast majority of fossils in the universe will be from extinct microbial life, not from multicellular species such as dinosaurs or humanoids that take billions of years to evolve,” said Associate Professor Lineweaver.

United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday reiterated his determination to secure the future of the UK in a reformed European Union. This would be “the best outcome for Britain and the best outcome for Europe,” Cameron said.

Cameron outlined four key areas where he needs to see progress in Brussels in order to deliver on the concerns of the British people. The first area concerns Europe’s economic competitiveness. Although he confessed that he found the single market of 500 million people “an absolutely thrilling prospect”, the EU is lagging behind the US in technology and productivity. “I want to hardwire competitiveness into the European Union,” said Cameron.

That will need clear measures to cut bureaucracy, to complete the single market in digital, services and energy, and to sign trade deals with the fastest-growing parts of the world. These measures will benefit not just the UK, but all countries in Europe, Cameron said.

Second, Cameron called for fair rules for countries that are not part of the Eurozone. This will require an organization flexible enough to allow countries to succeed whether or not they are part of the Eurozone. He referred to the situation last summer, when Eurozone countries wanted to help bail out Greece using a fund to which the United Kingdom contributes.

“That’s completely unacceptable, to use the money of a non-Eurozone state to solve a Eurozone crisis.” However, Cameron added, “I want the Eurozone to succeed – the Eurozone is our biggest trading partner.”

Third is the sovereignty issue: “Britain has never been happy with the idea that we’re part of an ever-closer political union – we’re a proud and independent country.” That said, the UK is not a “reluctant European” and, for example, led the charge on sanctions against Russia because of its actions in Ukraine. “But if Europe is about ever-deepening political union … then it’s not the organization for us,” said the prime minister.

Fourth are the twin issues of migration and welfare. Although the United Kingdom is – in Cameron’s view – one of the most successful multi-racial, multi-faith democracies on Earth, the pressures from migration into UK, which topped 330,000 people last year, have become too great. It’s the British people’s “number-one concern” – in particular, the strain migration puts on public services and the welfare budget. Cameron needs progress on his proposal that migrants must live or work in the United Kingdom for four years before accessing in-work benefits.

Cameron said he hoped to secure agreement as soon as February, but added, “If there isn’t the right deal, I’m not in a hurry. I can hold my referendum at any time up to the end of 2017. It’s much more important to get this right than to rush it.”

The Sarawak Report a couple of days ago released a damming report on the 1MDB scandal, murder of Kevin Morais, and stated that Malaysia’s premier Najib is planning to retreat from office.

According to the Sarawak Report, several sources have indicated that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) report on the 1MDB scandal to Attorney General Mohamad Apandi Ali recommend no less than 37 charges against Premier Najib. Something the MACC has denied.

The Sarawak Report also inferred that Kevin Morais was kidnapped and brutally murdered because he was involved in the original investigation of the 1MDB and ‘political donation’ scandals, and responsible for drawing up charges against Premier Najib on behalf of sacked Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail.

The Sarawak Report went on to say that Premier Najib received much more than RM2.6 Billion into his personal bank accounts. The account by Sarawak Report also stated that most of these funds were not used to fight the last election but rather used for personal affairs, such as shopping trips and credit card payments. According to the Sarawak Report most of these funds were transferred into Najib’s personal accounts in Singapore.

Sarawak Report goes on to say that there were a number of meetings between members of the top echelons of UMNO over the new year break in New York, Tokyo, and Dubai, where the departure of Najib from the Prime Minister’s position was discussed.

The report continued on saying that there were three issues preventing Najib’s immediate departure.

Firstly, there is the issue of succession to Najib. According to the report the current deputy Prime Minister Zahid wants the position, but former deputy Muhuddin Yassin is still deputy president of UMNO and the natural successor.
Secondly, Najib and his wide Rosnah want immunity from prosecution and a ‘royal goodbye’ on departure from office. Many UMNO stalwarts now want to see both of them in jail the report comments.

Thirdly, with international investigations underway about the financial scandals it is very difficult to find a ‘safe haven’ for Najib. According to the Sarawak Report, Turkey has rejected possible asylum, as has most of the Middle East. Kazakhstan is also off the list due to the poor reputation of their in-laws.

The Sarawak Report article goes into some detail about how the upper echelons of UMNO were very dissatisfied with being lied to and are seeking Najib’s removal. This issue has been taken up by both the Asia Sentinel and Malaysian Chronicle which posted a number of articles about how Najib is facing his final days in office.

Enter Malaysia Today, the blog run by Raja Petra kamarudin. Many have claimed that he has changed sides and under the influence of Rosnah, wife of premier Najib. Malaysia Today was once the bastion of news for the opposition in Malaysia until as many claim, the slant changed to defending Najib against his Memphis Tun Dr Mahathir.

However Raja Petra made a number of valid points about Claire Rewcastle Brown and the agenda of Sarawak Report, maybe enough to discredit the ‘bombshell’ released a few days before.

To seek clarity in this propaganda war one must look on the ground.

Yes Malaysia’s Premier Najib has been under siege with the 1MDB and ‘political donation; scandals. His biggest critic has been former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed. However until today, he has not been able to make any dints into the Najib armour.

To date Najib has withstood by various methods and manoeuvres government investigations, the UMNO Annual general meeting, and backlashes from within his own party. He is surrounded by a cadre of loyal ministers. From this perspective, Najib can see things out and maybe even win the next election due in 2018. Other BN components are relatively quiet.

However, the arms of international law are drawing closer, the Malaysian economy is quickly slipping, the people are beginning to suffer in everyday life with rapid increases in the cost of living as the Ringgit is falling drastically. Najib has also needed to repress freedom of speech to maintain his position which is beginning to stretch the system into a position where order could break down. A backlash within the grassroots of UMNO cannot be kept down forever.

So what should we believe today?

If Najib is about to flee from office and be brought down by his own party apparatus, then why is Mukhriz Mahathir, son so former Prime Minister Mahathir under threat by his own party today?

According to reports in the Malaysian Insider, 14 out of 36 UMNO divisions want him replaced as Chief Minister immediately.

Firstly, UMNO is not united against Najib as Sarawak Report, Asia Sentinel and Malaysia Chronicle all suggest.

Secondly, there are perhaps great divisions within UMNO, but even so, Najib still exercises great power within the party organization. Thirdly, Najib’s departure from the Malaysian political scene may not be as fast as is being predicted by some quarters of the media.

What happens within the Malaysian political scene over the next few months will be very interesting.

Ahmet Davutoğlu, Prime Minister of Turkey, called for world leaders gathered in Davos for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting to adopt a more humanitarian foreign policy, especially towards Syrian and other refugees. “Before being political figures, we are human beings. If I don’t feel the pain of Syrian children, my political decision won’t be human,” Davutoğlu said.

Turkey already hosts more than 3 million refugees and has spent over $10 billion to meet their needs. As more and more Syrian refugees lose hope of ever going home, the world needs to focus on a political solution in Syria that includes the government and the moderate opposition, but excludes terrorists. But until a solution is reached, world governments must show solidarity that is more than just financial. Turkey is working to educate the more than 700,000 school-age refugees within its borders and has granted working papers to Syrian refugees. “To help refugees is our humanitarian duty,” Davutoğlu said.

Turkey is located in a volatile part of the world, but this geography also puts it at a crossroads of trade. As an island of stability in this economically crucial region, Turkey sees opportunities to grow. “We want energy pipelines to run through Turkey. We want a modern Silk Road that runs from China to London,” Davutoğlu said. The country’s political maturity, as shown by its recent elections, and its economic reform agenda are attracting investment.

Turkey’s GDP is growing 4%, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and the government is working to make Istanbul an international financial centre. Already, Istanbul has Europe’s third-busiest airport, with more passengers than Frankfurt.

“We are very confident that in 10 or 20 years Turkey will be a hub of the energy market, a corridor of trade and the headquarters of international investors, and Istanbul will be one of the financial and economic global capitals,” said Davutoğlu.

This article examines the insertion in the globalisation process of Australia and South Africa in terms of global presence in order to determine whether they match the model outlined in their strategic foreign policy documents.

By Carola García-Calvo*

Are national foreign-policy strategies effectively defining the national interest in countries far from their own borders? Do the objectives sketched out in national strategic documents evolve in accordance with these foreign-policy profiles? To answer these and other questions, we shall analyse the external projection (as it relates to documents of strategic reference) of two countries confronting globalization in different ways: Australia, a middle power, and the Republic of South Africa, an emerging country. The analysis of the Australian case exposes an external insertion based on the economic dimension, with primary and energy goods prominent, which follows the path marked by its strategic documents. South Africa, meanwhile, considers the exercise of regional leadership as the foundation of its influence in the international order but, in terms of global presence, it might seem that Nigeria would have taken the leading position due to the growth experienced in recent years.

Analysis

Across the four corners of the world, many are the nations that have had to reflect on their current role in the complex international scenario defined by globalisation, identifying both risks and opportunities while addressing their own national interests. Some countries have risen to this challenge by collecting into strategic documents or white papers a series of actions and goals to be achieved, in order to optimise their position on the global stage. Such exercises in planning can help not only to better understand the continuous transformations at play in the international arena, but can also contribute to a more transparent, inclusive and predictable foreign-policy.¹

The Elcano Global Presence Index is not merely a useful tool for decoding the globalisation process, its evolution and its tendencies; the index is also an effective, significant foreign-policy instrument. By determining the global presence of the 80 countries examined in the index –using the three broad dimensions and the multiple variables on which they are based– we can verify how a country (or group of countries) is managing to conform its external projection, whether via soft dimension variables (science, development cooperation, tourism) or via hard dimensions (economic or military, including energy, investments, military equipment, etc). The profiles for global presence are like X-ray photos, allowing us to capture the nature of a nation’s external projection, its strengths and weaknesses, detailing the different ways that countries regard globalisation and their potential role in it, their methods of maximising the opportunities it represents in order to gain international influence or to fulfil their own national agendas.

Towards a prosperous Australia: the ‘competitive liberalisation’ of the markets

The philosophical and practical principles guiding the strategy for Australian Foreign Policy and Trade were collected for the first time in 1997, in a document titled ‘In the National Interest’.² The document was revised once in 2003 and re-published under the title ‘Advancing the National Interest: Australia’s Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper’, and though a great number of strategic documents have been published since then they deal mostly in sectoral terms and provide a much less panoramic view.

In the White Paper the country defines itself as a medium-sized power operating within globalisation, a phenomenon that Australia regards in unquestioningly optimistic terms as an opportunity in ‘times of uncertainty’ which can yield substantial profits to all countries. The document goes on to define Australia as a ‘liberal democracy proud of its commitment to the values of political and economic liberty’ –values that have strengthened the nation’s international position–. As a country with a multicultural society, whose origin and history have been based on immigration, Australia is accustomed to looking beyond its own borders. At the same time, being located in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia is an insular and Western state with strong social, economic and cultural links to the US and Europe. The country’s national interest is summarised as ‘the security and prosperity of Australia and Australians’.

The strategic goals of Australia’s international insertion are essentially conducted through economic integration. Hence the document proposes an ambitious commercial agenda of ‘competitive liberalisation’ of the markets, using ‘bilateral and multilateral channels’ to face the competitiveness embodied by expanding markets and emerging economies, and dealing not only in terms of agricultural products and textiles but also the increasing availability of manufactured goods. Consequently, Australia has planned for genuine economic integration via exports of primary goods (agricultural, mining, wine), manufactures and services (for example, related to its nascent automobile sector), and energy, along with financial investments.³

Within the soft dimension, the vast potential of the country’s multicultural society is emphasized for encouraging “the interpersonal relationships contributing to our international status”⁴, another principal strategic goal. In this sense, in addition to Australian citizens living within the country, one considers also those born or living abroad, as well as the considerable number of foreign students living in Australia plus, of course, tourism. The intention here is to project an image of a successful and sophisticated country grounded on scientific and technological knowledge and sports achievements. Australian development aid is also part of the soft agenda given the ‘moral duty to eradicate poverty’, although such aid primarily focuses on good governance in the region.

Concerning security, Australia presents in its Strategic Plan a solid commitment to the war against terrorism encouraged by the US following the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington DC.⁵

Has the nature of Australian external projection progressed according to these strategic positions?

In 2005, two years after the approval of its White Paper, Australia was ranked 12th among the 80 countries now included in the Elcano Global Presence Index. Its profile was at that time built upon the soft dimension (representing 55.4% of its total global presence), followed by its economic (43.9%) and military presences (2%). Five years later, in 2010, Australia maintained the same position, although the economic variable increased its weight by 3.7 percentage points at the expense of the soft variables and the military, which fell by 3.2 and 0.5 points, respectively. In the latest index (2014), the country dropped one position to 13th, reinforcing an observed tendency towards an economy-based external projection profile (Graph 1). For the first time, Australia’s economic dimension exceeded its soft dimension, rising to account for more than half of all the nation’s global presence (at 56.3%, to be precise). The contributions related to the military presence continued to decrease, indicating that Australian involvement in the war against global terrorism is not reflected in terms of its global presence.This turn towards the economic is also evident when analysing the index value (Graph 2). Departing from similar values in 2005 (economic and soft presence indexed at 93.8 and 97.0 points, respectively), the progress in the economic area is remarkable throughout the next 10 years, and by 2014 it had risen to over 228, gaining 134.4 points while the soft variable gained only 48.2). The largest expansion of economic variables occurred during the five-year period from 2010 to 2014, when it outpaced the soft variables set by 68.5 points.Finally, in terms of Australia’s presence within the global scenario, which is to say in direct competition with the other 79 countries included in this index, the share of its economic presence increased from 1.8% to 2.2% between 2005 and 2010. This in a context of general expansion of globalisation, chiefly economic, where emerging economies managed to seize positions previously occupied by the traditional, post-industrial powers (the model here being the case of China).

Regarding the variables that most define the Australian profile beyond its borders, in 2005 they were basically four: education (with a 17.5% contribution), primary goods (17.3%), sports (15.3%) and energy (11.9%). All of these factors became increasingly important between 2005 and 2014, although their individual evolutions were distinct. In 2010, the soft dimension variables experienced a slight increase (education to 17.7%) or decrease (sports to 12.6%), while both economic dimensions rose: primary goods to 18.8% and energy to 13.85%. The trend continued into 2014, when primary goods became consolidated as the leading variable with a relative weight of 27% (Graph 3). Immediately behind this were energy resource exports (at 15%) and, with a drop of 4.5 percentage points since 2005, education (at 13%). Among the variables included in the ‘other’ category, the most outstanding were portions of the service sector, practically constant through the 10-year period, and aid cooperation, increasing by a total of 1.6 points.In summary, in-depth variable analysis shows an external insertion based on primary goods exports (essentially agricultural products, a strategic sector for this continent/country) and energy resources (also key to Australia’s relationships within the Asia-Pacific region, its primary area of influence). Attracting more international students to Australia, as a way of establishing bonds with foreign countries, also counts among the country’s greatest strengths. In this regard, although Australia’s weight in global presence terms of education has lately declined, one must bear in mind its exceptional ‘starting point’ in 2005, along with the outstanding rise of other economic variables supporting the national strategic goals identified by the White Paper.

Thus our analysis of the index variables on Australian global presence and their evolution since 2005 leads us to conclude that the country has indeed continued on the path laid out by its own strategic foreign-policy document of 2003, combining the dual aspirations of strong international projection and a more prosperous and secure nation.

The South African case: can regional leadership lead to a stronger global influence?

The year 2005 was a turning point for the Republic of South Africa, marking ‘the beginning of a second decade under democracy, coinciding with the 50th Anniversary of the proclamation of the Freedom Charter by the People’s Congress’, as stated in the country’s strategic foreign-policy plan for 2005-08⁶ addressing the national vision and goals for the medium term. Revealing a strong inclination to place South Africa in a regional leadership position, with a commitment to the African continent, the country’s foreign-policy strategy was assembled around the ‘building of a new Africa in which peace and security will endure, moving deeper into democracy and prosperity so the quality of life for African people will keep continuously improving’.⁷

When in 2009 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs changed its name to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRC), this was a strategic move, largely intended to connect the country’s national project with what was currently happening in the region around South Africa. A period of reconsideration began, culminating with the composition of a reference document regarding external action: a White Paper under the title of ‘Building a Better World: The Diplomacy of Ubuntu’,⁸ approved by the cabinet and now under parliamentary consideration.

The document reaffirms the basic principles guiding the South African spirit that was expressed in 2005, focusing on respect for other nations, people and cultures (‘the Diplomacy of Ubuntu’) and on South-South cooperation, in contrast to colonialism. South Africa’s ultimate goal was none other than to prepare the country ‘to become a winning nation in the coming decades of the 21st century’.⁹ Consequently, the national interest was closely related to the ‘stability, unity and prosperity of Africa’, specifying that ‘South Africa’s future global and continental standing will be determined by how South Africa remains true to its enduring values, economic success, and the continued leadership role on the continent’.¹⁰ Clearly, such regional leadership is defined as a major strategic goal from which to achieve stronger influence within the global order.

South Africa’s self-image in 2005 was that of an influential country within the African continental context, but with an international scope, supported broadly by its principles and values and a competitive, sustainable global economy.¹¹ Therefore, the country’s economic diplomacy should lead the government and other agents for external action to try and bring down trade barriers for South African products, to identify and open new markets and to attract investments and tourism. All this, of course, further implies improvements in the competitiveness of national goods and services, while at the same time South Africa’s reputation as a responsible and stable supplier was to remain as before. In order to accomplish these targets, some strategic movements have been established which could be roughly summarised as integration (and diversification) in global markets, supporting the country’s exports of natural resources, the creation of a more productive business setting, innovation for new market opportunities and the implementation of measures to attract tourism.¹²

South African regional leadership in terms of global presence?

South Africa considers its own regional leadership as a solid base for becoming a global influence. However, in considering global presence rankings, the better-positioned country within the Sub-Saharan African region (including Angola and Sudan) is not South Africa but Nigeria, which has climbed 13 positions to number 36 (since the first index, estimated for 1990). For its part, South Africa is now ranked two positions below Nigeria, in 38th place (Table 1), while its improvement within the index has been well below Nigeria’s, having risen only four positions since 1990. Angola and Sudan appear much further down the list, in the second half of the table, positioned at numbers 54 and 77, respectively.

Considering the presence by dimensions of these two regional leaders in the context of the index, South Africa tops the soft presence ranking, but is surpassed by Nigeria in both the economic and military dimensions. Still, regardless of whether Nigeria has changed its position in the economic rank, South Africa has fallen 14 positions in this area since 1990. Meanwhile, the opposite has occurred in terms of the soft dimension: South Africa has climbed 11 positions, while Nigeria has dropped 10 in the ranking. As for military presence, both African countries have shown an improvement in their positions since the early 1990s.On the basis of these global presence rankings, Nigeria and not South Africa is currently in the regional leadership position. However, through in-depth analysis of the nature of the countries’ external projection –of the global presence variables and dimensions and how they interrelate– a slightly different interpretation can be made.

The external projection of the four countries of the Sub-Saharan area included in this index rest mainly upon the economic dimension (Table 2): Angola (with an economic weight of 95.6% over its total global presence), Nigeria (at 84.1%) and Sudan (at 60.3%) are all well ahead of South Africa (51%) in this regard. In terms of the soft and military dimensions, South Africa’s percentages are 47.1% and 1.9%, respectively, compared with Nigeria’s 13.3% (soft dimension) and 2.6% (military). Thus, Nigeria’s global presence is very largely based on the economic dimension.Furthermore, concerning the variables, the ranking shows that Nigeria’s global presence (Graph 4) relies overwhelmingly on energy resources (at 79% of its total global presence), with the next most important variable being culture (at only 5%). On the other hand, in the case of South Africa the variables supporting the nation’s international projection are much more dispersed, being chiefly primary goods, education and tourism but with another 13 variables together representing a significant total of 28%. Thus, the country’s profile is much more diversified than Nigeria’s, making South Africa not only less dependent on fluctuations in international energy prices but also recalling its stated national project vis-à-vis the global order. The country is placing emphasis on developing the different strategic sectors identified in its White Paper, from exports of primary goods to its ability to attract tourism, as the bases for regional and, ultimately, global projection.Nigeria stands out from the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa due to its improved global presence results. But a detailed analysis of the nature of the international projection of both Nigeria and South Africa, the two regional leaders, shows how South African influence, being based on diversity, constitutes a more solid and sustainable projection. Indeed, this is an international projection and a strategic incorporation firmly connected to the globalisation process, not only through the economic dimension but also through other factors including the attraction of international students, tourism and sports. All of these are soft variables, indicating a sophisticated pattern more suitable to the ever-growing complexity of the international relations scenario in effect since the end of the Cold War.

Conclusions

As we have seen, the Elcano Global Presence Index is a useful tool to analyse the foreign policy of countries for which it is calculated. Are a country’s current foreign policies coping with weaknesses in that nation’s external projection? Are countries fully exploiting their potential? In the case of Australia, the connection is evident: the shift towards an international economic profile with a liberal bent, in a region –Asia-Pacific– that has become the epicentre of global economic activity, explains to some degree the fact that the economic dimension has become the dominant aspect of the country’s project in order to gain the maximum benefit from globalisation. As for South Africa, its main strength and basis for exerting regional (or even global) influence has been the relative diversification of its global presence around different economic and soft variables, which projects the country in a more complex and sophisticated way in the regional challenge with Nigeria, which bases its global presence on energy exports.

About the author:
*Carola García-Calvo, Analyst, Elcano Royal Institute | @carolagc13

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

Original version in Spanish: Política exterior y presencia global: las estrategias de Australia y Sudáfrica

Notes:
¹ Ignacio Molina (coord.) (2014), Hacia una renovación estratégica de la política exterior española, Informe Elcano, nº 15, Real Instituto Elcano, Madrid. Both Executive Summary and Conclusions are available in English.

Earth’s temperature has increased by 1°C over the past century, and most of this warming has been caused by carbon dioxide emissions. But what does that mean locally?

A new study published in Nature Climate Change pinpoints the temperature increases caused by CO¬2 emissions in different regions around the world.

Using simulation results from 12 global climate models, Damon Matthews, a professor in Concordia’s Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, along with post-doctoral researcher Martin Leduc, produced a map that shows how the climate changes in response to cumulative carbon emissions around the world.

They found that temperature increases in most parts of the world respond linearly to cumulative emissions.

“This provides a simple and powerful link between total global emissions of carbon dioxide and local climate warming,” said Matthews. “This approach can be used to show how much human emissions are to blame for local changes.”

Leduc and Matthews, along with co-author Ramon de Elia from Ouranos, a Montreal-based consortium on regional climatology, analyzed the results of simulations in which CO2 emissions caused the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to increase by 1 percent each year until it reached four times the levels recorded prior to the Industrial Revolution.

Globally, the researchers saw an average temperature increase of 1.7 ±0.4°C per trillion tonnes of carbon in CO2 emissions (TtC), which is consistent with reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But the scientists went beyond these globally averaged temperature rises, to calculate climate change at a local scale.

At a glance, here are the average increases per trillion tonnes of carbon that we emit, separated geographically:

Western North America 2.4 ± 0.6°C
Central North America 2.3 ± 0.4°C
Eastern North America 2.4 ± 0.5°C
Alaska 3.6 ± 1.4°C
Greenland and Northern Canada 3.1 ± 0.9°C
North Asia 3.1 ± 0.9°C
Southeast Asia 1.5 ± 0.3°C
Central America 1.8 ± 0.4°C
Eastern Africa 1.9 ± 0.4°C

“As these numbers show, equatorial regions warm the slowest, while the Arctic warms the fastest. Of course, this is what we’ve already seen happen — rapid changes in the Arctic are outpacing the rest of the planet,” said Matthews.

There are also marked differences between land and ocean, with the temperature increase for the oceans averaging 1.4 ± 0.3°C TtC, compared to 2.2 ± 0.5°C for land areas.

“To date, humans have emitted almost 600 billion tonnes of carbon,” said Matthews. “This means that land areas on average have already warmed by 1.3°C because of these emissions. At current emission rates, we will have emitted enough CO¬2 to warm land areas by 2°C within 3 decades.”

Invisible structures shaped like noodles, lasagne sheets or hazelnuts could be floating around in our Galaxy radically challenging our understanding of gas conditions in the Milky Way.

CSIRO astronomer and first author of a paper released in Science Dr Keith Bannister said the structures appear to be ‘lumps’ in the thin gas that lies between the stars in our Galaxy.

“They could radically change ideas about this interstellar gas, which is the Galaxy’s star recycling depot, housing material from old stars that will be refashioned into new ones,” Dr Bannister said.

Dr Bannister and his colleagues described breakthrough observations of one of these ‘lumps’ that have allowed them to make the first estimate of its shape.

The observations were made possible by an innovative new technique the scientists employed using CSIRO’s Compact Array telescope in eastern Australia.

Astronomers got the first hints of the mysterious objects 30 years ago when they saw radio waves from a bright, distant galaxy called a quasar varying wildly in strength.

They figured out this behaviour was the work of our Galaxy’s invisible ‘atmosphere’, a thin gas of electrically charged particles which fills the space between the stars.

“Lumps in this gas work like lenses, focusing and defocusing the radio waves, making them appear to strengthen and weaken over a period of days, weeks or months,” Dr Bannister said.

These episodes were so hard to find that researchers had given up looking for them.

But Dr Bannister and his colleagues realised they could do it with CSIRO’s Compact Array.

Pointing the telescope at a quasar called PKS 1939-315 in the constellation of Sagittarius, they saw a lensing event that went on for a year.

Astronomers think the lenses are about the size of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and lie approximately 3000 light-years away – 1000 times further than the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.

Until now they knew nothing about their shape, however, the team has shown this lens could not be a solid lump or shaped like a bent sheet.

“We could be looking at a flat sheet, edge on,” CSIRO team member Dr Cormac Reynolds said.

“Or we might be looking down the barrel of a hollow cylinder like a noodle, or at a spherical shell like a hazelnut.”

Getting more observations will “definitely sort out the geometry,” he said.

While the lensing event went on, Dr Bannister’s team observed it with other radio and optical telescopes.

The optical light from the quasar didn’t vary while the radio lensing was taking place. This is important, Dr Bannister said, because it means earlier optical surveys that looked for dark lumps in space couldn’t have found the one his team has detected.

So what can these lenses be? One suggestion is cold clouds of gas that stay pulled together by the force of their own gravity. That model, worked through in detail, implies the clouds must make up a substantial fraction of the mass of our Galaxy.

Nobody knows how the invisible lenses could form. “But these structures are real, and our observations are a big step forward in determining their size and shape,” Dr Bannister said.

In Part I, Erdogan’s mounting dilemmas—ISIS terrorism, Kurdish resistance, Assad’s Syria alive and well—showed how his bid for regional hegemony has gone awry. His pact with the ISIS devil, as long as they target Kurds, just made things worse.

Davutoglu’s dream of a “common history and a common future” for the Middle East under Turkish guidance is now in history’s dustbin. The Turkish plan for a “global, political, economic and cultural new order” in the Middle East remains in the hands of the US and, of course, Israel.

Israeli rationale

Israel has been noncommittal about Syria since the uprising in 2011, not joining the western chorus for Assad’s head. Israeli indifference to the outcome can be explained easily enough. First, Israeli public support for anyone would be a kiss of death for the beloved. On the other hand, the Assads have been the biggest thorn in Israel’s side since 1971 when Hafiz Assad consolidated power, and Israel would be delighted to see the last of Bashar. But Israel was worried about what might emerge from a post-Assad Islamic state.

With Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s bold call for an independent Kurdish state, a radical new claim for regional hegemony is unfolding, not by a neo-Ottoman Turkey, but by the Jewish state. “We must openly call for the establishment of a Kurdish state that separates Iran from Turkey, one which will be friendly towards Israel,” Shaked told the Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv. This sounds novel, but it really only reflects age-old plans for a Jewish state to control the Middle East which have been on the drawing board since Lord Shaftesbury first made it a British imperial objective in 1839. 1948 got the project off to a savage start, 1967 added the entire Holy Land to the map, and let the settler state move into high gear.

The Yinon Doctrine of 1980 set out how to consolidate Israel’s theft, by playing various ethnic and religious forces among its Arab neighbors against each other—Maronite and Orthodox Christian, Sunni and Shia Muslim, Druze, etc—in order to undermine Arab nationalism, and keep the Middle East weak and unstable. In Syria, that even meant quietly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood during its ill-fated uprising in 1981, not because Israel wanted an Islamist Syria, but to keep the Syrian government off-balance.

Syria and Egypt fought a war with Israel in 1967. These secular nationalist governments were the big threat, and it was only natural to try and cripple them, even if that meant working with Islamists. After Egypt made peace with Israel in 1978, it had only Iraq, Syria and Iran as its main enemies—the Arab nationalism of the first two and the Persian nationalism in Iran had proved immune to Israeli intrigues.

Israeli ‘friendship’ with the Kurds is merely the ethnic variable in the Yinon formula. There have always been contacts with Iraqi Kurds, which went into high gear in 1991 when northern Iraq was made a ‘no-fly’ zone, allowing Israeli agents relative freedom. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 fit the bill, though bungled by the dismantling of the Iraqi army, creating a bit too much Yinon for comfort.

US-Israeli Plan B

When Israeli fears about what a post-Assad Syria might look like were proven justified, it was ready with plan B: a new, improved Yinon Doctrine, featuring the creation of a pro-Israeli Kurdish state, keeping Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and—what the hell—Iran off-base?

This has been plan B for US-Israel since at least 2006, when a plan for restructuring the Middle East published in the Armed Forces Journal in 2006 stated, “Iraq should have been divided into three smaller states immediately” creating a “Free Kurdistan” carved out of Turkey, Iran and Iraq, which “would be the most pro-western state between Bulgaria and Japan.” The Saban Center for Middle East Policy issued a similar policy recommendation in 2007, and in 2008, Joseph Biden, Obama’s future vice president, also called for the partition of Iraq into three autonomous regions.

Israel gets it right (for the wrong reasons)

ISIS and Turkey came to the rescue with their own wild schemes, leaving the Kurds as “the only ones fighting ISIS as their highest priority,” as Yadlin told the Israeli security conference. “We Kurds and Jews have a long history. The 20 million Kurds who didn’t get a state [at the Treaty of Versailles], and nobody takes care about them. They are the only ones fighting ISIS as their highest priority.”

Every one of Erdogan’s moves has backfired. He flip-flopped on Libya and Syria. He turned a blind eye on ISIS. He stubbornly continues a policy of oppression against the Kurds. He abruptly broke relations with Israel in 2011 over Israel’s killing of nine Turkish peace activists. But it’s better to at least speak with your enemy. Israel wouldn’t have been quite so bold about advocating a Kurdish state if it realized that it would forfeit a working relationship with Turkey. But there is nothing to lose now.

Like Turkey these days, Israel is also running out of friends, and this call for an independent Kurdistan is really a rather far-fetched plan to establish at least one Muslim ally for the Jews. The travail of Turkish Kurds (20 million, 20% of the population) is well known. They are not allowed to speak Kurdish or have Kurdish names, let alone Kurdish language education.

In comparison, Iraqi Kurds (7 million, 20%) live a privileged life, with the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the autonomous government tilting towards Saudi Arabia, and its key rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), supporting the Iranian-led camp.

Kurds are culturally and linguistically so closely related to the Iranians, they are sometimes classified as an Iranian people. Of the more than 6 million Iranian Kurds (9% of the population), a significant portion are Shia. There are tensions in Iran, as the majority of Kurds are Sunni, but the strong Iranian roots of Kurds culturally and linguistically, and the lack of the suppression of their culture, language and political rights, mean there is no strong movement for independence.

There is a silver lining in the Israeli chutzpah in reviving Plan B. No major Kurdish faction calls for the Yinon plan for independence, even among Iraqi Kurds. Why bother when you already have virtual independence now? Syrian Kurds also have de facto autonomy as a result of western bungling. They won’t be stuffed back into a one-size-fits-all Syria. Iranian Kurds are just getting on with life. Turkish Kurds would love to just have basic human rights in their Turkish state. Erdogan could undercut Israel’s latest wild plan easily by using his still robust political power to push for a genuine peace deal with his Kurds.

AHTribune

By Miguel Otero-Iglesias*

The recent inclusion of the renminbi (RMB) in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) is a major victory for the People’s Bank of China, which for years has claimed that the Chinese currency deserves to be in the club of top reserve currencies.

It is also a victory for the Europeans, who after the global financial crisis departed from the tough line advocated by the US, arguing that the RMB should be included in the SDR even though China applies controls on its capital account and intervenes massively in the exchange rate. The view in Berlin, Paris and London is that China has implemented a number of liberalising reforms over the past years, which should be rewarded and further encouraged.

Although the internationalisation of the RMB has developed rapidly since 2009, the fact is that there are a number of institutional factors – the market turmoil at the beginning of 2016 is a symptom of this – that hinder its ascendancy. This is reflected in its limited usage compared to the weight of the Chinese economy, the second largest in the world, and the first in purchasing power parity terms.

While around 70 central banks have started to hold RMBs in their balance sheets, the RMB represents only 1 per cent of global reserve assets. This makes it the seventh reserve currency, behind the Canadian and Australian dollars. Furthermore, the RMB ranks eighth in terms of international bond issuance and ninth in global currency trading. This means that on the financial track the use of the RMB is still very limited.

The numbers on the trade track are more encouraging. According to Swift, the RMB has overtaken the yen as the fourth most used currency in international payments. This leads Standard Chartered Bank to believe that roughly 25 per cent of China’s trade is settled in RMB. But even here one should treat the figures with caution. Near 80 per cent of China’s trade settled in RMB is done with Hong Kong and, perhaps more importantly, in most international trade contracts the RMB is the medium of exchange and not the unit of account. In other words, the Chinese currency is the means of payment, while the dollar remains the invoice currency, which is much more important because that is where the exchange rate risk lies.

What explains this limited use of the RMB? There are three factors that determine the successful internationalisation of a currency: 1) confidence in the economic and political system; 2) well-developed and open financial markets; and 3) broad transactional networks.

There is no doubt that China excels in the third one. It has eclipsed the US as the world’s largest trading nation. Its immense gravitational pull is especially to be seen in East Asia. As a consequence, the Chinese currency has replaced the US dollar as the main anchor currency for a number of central banks in the region.

However, in the other two factors, China underperforms. Because of its state-led capitalism, based on financial repression, in which state-owned banks provide mainly credit to state-owned enterprises (SOEs), its financial markets are still underdeveloped. Bank credit to the private sector is equal to 128 per cent of GDP. In the US it is only 48 per cent. The Chinese bond market, by contrast, is the equivalent of 41 per cent of GDP, while in the US it is 243 per cent. The same can be said about the stock market, which in the US represents 118 per cent of GDP, and only 44 per cent in China.

The immaturity of the Chinese stock market can be observed in its volatility, which reached unprecedented levels in the first trading sessions of 2016. The average annual turnover of share ownership is 293 per cent, compared with 188 per cent in the US; if we exclude the non-tradable shares of many SOEs the turnover reaches 341 per cent. The general perception is that the Chinese stock market is a huge casino, where insider trading is rampant.

This leads to the first and perhaps most important factor: confidence. For a currency to be highly internationalised, the issuing country must not only have a credible central bank and deep, broad and liquid financial markets, in which securities can be bought and sold with low transaction costs, which necessarily implies an open capital account and full convertibility. It must also have a stable and transparent political and legal framework.

China does not fulfil these requirements (rule by law is not the same as rule of law) and as long as this is the case, the use of the RMB as a reserve currency will be limited. Over the past 200 years the main reserve currencies have been issued by economies that have liberal features. This is valid for the United Kingdom, the US and the eurozone, which currently issues the second most used currency.

While the global financial crisis has undermined confidence in unfettered financial markets, most international investors remain liberal-minded and this means that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will need to institutionally transform the role of the state from the main actor to the main regulator of the financial system if its wants to internationalize further the RMB.

As Robert Mundell once said, “great countries have great currencies”. China definitely deserves to have a great currency. But this comes at a price. The CCP would need to give up control of the credit system and, so far, western hopes notwithstanding, there is no indication that this will happen any time soon.

About the author:
*Miguel Otero Iglesias, Senior analyst in International Political Economy at Elcano Royal Institute | @miotei

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute, and published on 15/1/2016 in Beyondbrics, FT Blog.

By Nick Cunningham

Oilprice.com recently spoke with Carl Larry, Director of Oil and Gas at Frost & Sullivan, a consultancy that conducts research on oil and gas markets, to get his thoughts on the state of oil in 2016.

Oilprice.com: I saw that you were on Bloomberg in December, and you said that you thought oil would go to the low $30s per barrel, which was a good call at the time, before OPEC would sort of relent. Do you see any chance that OPEC can actually coordinate any production cuts?

Carl Larry: No, you know, at this point I think that there is something to consider…that OPEC up until now most people had thought that the Saudis and the rest of OPEC were really pushing hard to slowdown or stop altogether shale production in the U.S. But what it seems now is that they are really fracturing OPEC, and in some ways almost undermining their own members.

So with oil prices down here and with production staying so high, it becomes a point where it’s unsustainable for countries like a Nigeria or a Venezuela to continue on. I mean, other countries within OPEC are still struggling with these oil prices, including Saudi Arabia. But you can see that going forward that the more that the pressure stays on those countries that are outside of the Middle East, it’s possible that they are the ones that are going to have to blink first. They are the ones that are going to have to cut back production.

OP: So countries like Venezuela or Nigeria…do you actually see them shutting in production?

CL: Yeah, I think so. I think that it’s possible. It’s a theory, but it’s possible that when Shell pulled out of the U.S. Arctic a few months ago, they said that they wanted to cut costs. But I think that they were just shifting some of the budget that was there to uphold and maintain production in areas like West Africa, like Nigeria.

So, you know, it’s going to come to a point where there is just going to be no real economical benefit to any kind of production staying at any kind of level in those countries. And once they come off, that’s going to obviously support oil prices, but it might have a lingering effect as oil production will take longer to get back online again.

OP: Countries like Venezuela and Nigeria…their budget situations are much more precarious, as you said, than the Saudi Arabia’s of the world. What would you see as sort of a worst-case scenario? What would real trouble look like in Venezuela? Is that like a debt default, or what?

CL: A debt default would definitely be something that comes up and it’s not that something that’s too far out of reach. There are a lot of oil companies that have said recently that they are cutting back their credit with Venezuela. They are not shipping as much gasoline or blending products to Venezuela in fear that they won’t get paid and actually not getting paid up to date. So as you see those problems build up, you can tell that this is going to happen. This could happen sooner than later.

It is not unlike situations we have seen around 2009 when banks that were dealing in commodities were second guessed because of their credit situations. So when look at a country like Venezuela and compare it to Morgan Stanley in 2009 when people were pulling credit quickly, you can see that Venezuela is definitely at risk here, possibly within months.

OP: OK. So recently the narrative around oil prices has sort of shifted a little bit and the emphasis now has been more on the strength of the U.S. dollar. How do you see this affecting oil prices in 2016? Is there more room for the dollar to strengthen? And do you see the Fed sticking to its plan of incrementally raising rates?

CL: I think the dollar continues to be stronger. I think the Fed does have enough to say that they can continue to raise rates. There is not a lot of downside there. I don’t know if they will be able to keep to their schedule for this year, but even with two or three [rate increases], that will make a difference in the U.S. dollar.

And again, it’s going to hurt other countries that are producing oil, especially countries that are trying to maintain…you know, trying to buy new equipment, trying to maintain old equipment that mostly comes from the U.S. That’s going to hurt their purchasing power for those materials, those commodities, and that equipment.

OP: The IEA just came out with their monthly report this morning. The headline-grabbing sentence that they had in there was that oil markets might “drown” in over-supply due to rising inventories. Do you see storage levels, rising storage levels, being a big problem in 2016?

CL: I do. I think that there is definitely concern about storage outside of the U.S. as storage outside of the U.S. is limited. Most countries that do have storage are using it mainly for reserves outside of the [Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp] area in Europe. So there is a lack of storage and it is something that a lot of companies are looking to build out, and even countries are looking to build out, but that’s not going to be solvable until 2017 anyways. But that could be an issue. Even though that oil has value, it has no value unless it can go somewhere, whether that’s to a consumer or storage. Neither is looking good right now.

OP: Does that open up the possibility of floating storage?

CL: It does open up the possibility of floating storage. We have seen Iran do it. Now that Iran is going to lighten those loads and hopefully dismiss those tankers, there are going to be a few extra tankers on the market, rather than just thinking of it as a lot more crude on the market. So that’s definitely a possibility. I think the U.S., though, is still in a position where if they wanted to increase their storage we could see a lot of that open up by decreasing our imports, which is still a possibility.

OP: The IEA sounded pretty downbeat about the global economy in its report and the IMF just downgraded its growth target for the global economy. Do you see big downside risk to oil prices from a faltering economy? You see turmoil in China’s stock market…is that a big threat?

CL: You know, it is. And it’s really important to look at it that way. But we have to look at it in a Donald Trump-sort of way: There’s us, and there’s them. The U.S. is not even at 2 percent [GDP growth]. It is running record levels of crude oil the last two years consecutively…new records made each year. So our demand here is still good. It is going to grow, it’s going to continue to as long as we stay at that 2 percent growth.

When you talk about global growth, that is detrimental. That is shaky, at best. That is where there is a real oil glut. If the China’s, the Europe’s, the Latin America’s, and the Asia’s cannot keep up, and they see declines, you are going to have much bigger oversupply through 2016, and that will be a big problem.

OP: The dramatic cutback in spending plans on behalf of the oil industry worldwide…Do you see that setting us up for a price spike? Or are we still just so oversupplied that that won’t matter for quite a while?

CL: I think that if there’s a cutback in oil industry spending, if there’s a cutback in oil production in countries like the Venezuela’s or Nigeria’s, we will definitely have a supportive push in 2016 for oil prices.

But yes, I do think that down the curve, 2017 and 2018, if demand continues to pick up, there’s going to be a bigger chance of a spike. So we can hold a range for a year, maybe a little bit longer than that. But past that, there’s definitely a threat of spiking back up if demand stays on pace.

OP: In a similar vein, not a lot of people are talking about the incredibly small level of spare capacity that OPEC has sitting on the sidelines. Saudi Arabia is producing pretty much flat out and only has a little over 1 million barrels per day sitting in spare capacity. So, do you see that as an issue? Could a supply outage in Venezuela or Nigeria or anywhere else actually force up oil prices because we have limited capacity to address that outage?

CL: Normally, yes. Three, four years ago, absolutely. We could see a spike because of that lack of ability to get more oil online outside of Saudi Arabia. But the game has changed in the last few months even. The U.S. is producing 9 million barrels per day. We are importing 3 million from Canada alone.

So if prices were to go higher, I think that production in the U.S. could increase and even in Canada. And the difference now is that the U.S. can export crude oil. So if there is a lack of supply out there, the U.S. does have the ability to kind of make up some of that ground if necessary. So that’s the game changer here. The U.S. lifted the export ban and the high U.S. production, including Canadian production and possibly even Mexico…we could probably make up for that a lot faster than we could have in past years.

OP: Interesting. So, lifting the export ban…how do you see that affecting the oil markets? It sounds like you are saying you think it opens up the possibility of a sort of a second spare capacity coming from U.S. shale. How will lifting the export ban affect oil markets in 2016?

CL: It definitely puts another competitor into the market. Even though it is oversupplied there’s a lot more value in being a consumer and an importer and exporter to the U.S. So a country that is trying to build up trade might want to buy crude from the U.S. with more interest than they would from another country, whatever country that may be.

So there is that to think about, building relationships and trade back and forth between countries, is a big deal. Now that the U.S. is able to do so, that might put us in a favorable spot with a lot more consumers. So I think that this year we are not going to see too much of that pushed forward, but it’s something to keep an eye on. I think that our exports could definitely grow this year, now that the export ban isn’t there. To places that are already being supplied by other countries, we might be able to step in and step up.

OP: Do you see any risk to the oil markets from the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia?

CL: You know, that is definitely an issue. I think that the biggest difference now, again, only in the past few years we are seeing the U.S. and other western countries that are staying out of the fray. As long as that happens, there is a chance that anything could happen, and that is not good for anybody. But when you think about the risk-reward…North Sea in Europe, or Russia at 10 million barrels a day, or the U.S. with the ability to climb up and down and export crude, conflict in the Middle East would definitely raise prices but it would definitely be an advantage to countries that are now starting to pick up the pace.

OP: And finally, the answer to the question that everyone wants to know: where do you see oil prices going this year?

CL: Well, I think the funny thing is that in past years we have all had a price target, where we all forecasted. Now I think it is about a range. It’s about where are oil prices going to stay in the next year and probably the next couple of years, at least with this pace of economic growth and oil production.

So, I’d say between $35 and $55 right now. And I think to narrow that down I’d probably say that $45 to $48 is going to be an average price for the year. And I do think that there is definitely more risk to the upside than there is to the downside at this point.

OP: And do you see that persisting through 2017, or going up dramatically, or is it just too hard to tell?

CL: I think it goes up. I think that definitely the tensions in the Middle East are not going to go away. That is something that is historically not going to go away. It is never going to go away. I think that if there are more economies that slowdown or break off from production, we could definitely see that issues like growth in the U.S. pick up the pace of WTI price more than Brent. So I definitely think that is something that could continue over the next couple of years.

OP: Carl, Thank you very much.

CL: Alright, thanks so much.

Article Source: http://oilprice.com/Interviews/Will-Oil-Prices-Rebound-in-2016-Interview-With-Carl-Larry.html

The influx of fresh water from the Greenland ice sheet is “freshening” the North Atlantic Ocean and could disrupt the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), an important component of global ocean circulation that could have a global effect, according to Scientists from the University of South Florida, along with colleagues in Canada and the Netherlands.

Researchers say it could impact the future climate in places such as portions of Europe and North America.

Their study on the influence of freshwater influx on Labrador Sea convection and Atlantic circulation is published in a new issue of the journal Nature Communications.

“We derived a new estimate of recent freshwater flux from Greenland using updated GRACE satellite data,” said USF professor Tim Dixon. “The data suggest that the influx of freshwater from Greenland is accelerating, and has changed the Labrador Sea in ways that could lead to a weakening of the AMOC.”

Freshwater flux from Greenland is composed of melt runoff from ice and tundra runoff as well as ice discharge (“calving” of icebergs). The amount of freshwater flux from Greenland was relatively stable from the late 1970’s to the mid 1990’s, and then began to increase. Increased freshwater flux could weaken the AMOC, resulting in a number of consequences, both local and global, said the researchers.

“Focused freshwater flux into the Labrador Sea has the potential to increase the buoyancy of surface waters and reduce formation of dense, deep water that helps drive the overturning circulation,” said co-author Don Chambers , USF College of Marine Science associate professor.

How much of the enhanced freshwater flux actually winds up in the Labrador Sea?

Because of the clockwise nature of ocean circulation around Greenland, most of the freshwater increase, up to 70 percent, is being driven toward the Labrador Sea, magnifying its impact and increasing the possibility of significant effects on the AMOC, said Qian Yang, the paper’s first author and a PhD student at USF whose dissertation, in part, includes this research.

According to the researchers, not only are changes in the AMOC difficult to measure, it’s also difficult to separate natural climatic variation from climate changes induced by human activity.

The potential consequences of a weakened AMOC include changes in climate.

“The AMOC transports a large amount of heat into the North Atlantic where it is given up to the atmosphere and helps regulate the climate in Europe and North America. The major effect of a slowing AMOC is expected to be cooler winters and summers around the North Atlantic, and small regional increases in sea level on the North American coast,” explained Chambers.

According to Dixon, the global impacts are less certain, but potentially more consequential.

“The AMOC and Gulf Stream are part of a complex global ocean circulation system that is still not completely understood,” said Dixon. “If human activities are starting to impact this system, it is a worrying sign that the scale of human impacts on the climate system may be reaching a critical point.”

Continued long-term observation is required to understand the impact of the freshwater influx.

“This shows the need to continue to look at different components of the climate system, including the ice sheets and oceans, in an integrated sense,” concluded Paul Myers, study co-author and Professor of Oceanography at the University of Alberta.

St. Elijah’s Monastery in Mosul dated back to the sixth century, making it the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq. Muslims and Christians alike have made pilgrimages to the Chaldean Catholic monastery, invoking both poets and historians to write about its religious impact within the Middle East.

The Associated Press obtained satellite images this month showing that St. Elijah’s, also known as Dair Mar Elia, was demolished by militants of the Islamic State, a militant Sunni Islamist organization, between Aug. 27 and Sept. 28, 2014. The AP published the images Jan. 20.

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, was overrun by the Islamic State in June 2014. In August, it further extended its reach in the regions surrounding the city. The militants have displaced hundreds of thousands of Christians, Yazidis, and Shia Muslims from their homes while slaughtering or enslaving thousands of others.

“We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land,” Fr. Paul Thabit Habib, a Catholic priest from Mosul who now lives in Erbil, told The Associated Press. He added that the monastery was “a very important place for the history of the Church in Iraq.”

St. Elijah’s was located about four miles south of Mosul. It was built in the late sixth century and renovated or rebuilt several times. It was used by monastics until 1743, when a Persian shah martyred the 150 monks who lived there and refused to convert to Islam. The monastery then became a pilgrimage site.

James Foley, a journalist who was to be beheaded by the Islamic State in August 2014, recorded efforts by the United States military to help renovate the monastery in 2008 during the Iraq War.

The Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, Louis Raphael I Sako, told Vatican Radio Jan. 21 that the destruction of St. Elijah’s is disastrous and that the Islamic State are trying to “cancel the memory” of Christianity’s ancient heritage in Iraq.

Fr. Federico Lombardi, Holy See press offier, told the AP that “unfortunately, there is this systemic destruction of precious sites, not only cultural, but also religious and spiritual. It’s very sad and dramatic.”

St. Elijah’s Monastery is not the first ancient site to be destroyed by the Islamic State since they declared a caliphate in June 2014. It destroys any non-Sunni religious sites, which it regards as pagan.

By the end of July, the caliphate had seized Mosul’s some 30 churches and monasteries, removing their crosses, and looting or burning most of them. The Syriac Orthodox cathedral of Mar Ephraim was turned into a mosque. In November 2014 al-Nasir convent and St. George’s parish in Mosul were blown up.

In February 2015 an Iraqi priest told CNA that his former monastery in Mosul is now “a prison for women – most of them are from the Yazidi religion – who were captured and taken as slaves.” And in August 2015, the group bulldozed Mar Elian Monastery, a Syrian structure that was founded before the year 500.

Shia mosques and shrines in Mosul have been similarly demolished.

The group have destroyed several pre-Christian sites as well, including at Nimrud, Hatra, Nineveh, and Palmyra. The tomb of the prophet Jonah, on which a mosque had been built, was destroyed with explosives in July 2014.

It is feared that since the Islamic State does not always publicize its destruction, and information does not flow freely from the caliphate, more demolition has occurred than is known.

Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil told CNA in June 2015 that the Islamic State “have destroyed walls and historical sites, but they were unable to destroy the faith of the community. And that’s the good news. That our people our people are strong enough to leave everything behind and just stay Christians.”

A three-day world Buddhist peace conference convened in Myanmar on Jan. 22 with the aim of building harmony among religions.

“The world is full of chaos so it is a great challenge for religious leaders but we need to work together to have a peaceful coexistence and harmony among the religions,” Ashin Nyanissara said during opening ceremonies on Jan 22 at the Sitagu International Buddhist Academy in Sagaing.

Myanmar has seen religious violence by hard-line Buddhist groups aimed Muslims in recent years. In 2012, anti-Muslim violence in Rakhine state left more than 100 dead and displaced 140,000 mostly Rohingya Muslims.

The anti-Muslim campaign has been led by monks from the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion, commonly known as Ma Ba Tha, who have successfully pushed for restrictive laws governing religion.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a multi-national trade agreement now being considered by 12 countries. In an insightful commentary in Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy (RSAP), the ramifications of major components of the agreement are discussed, especially those potentially impacting the worldwide pharmaceutical industry.

According to author Robert A. Freeman, PhD, of the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Administration at The University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, Maryland, USA, there are three main areas of controversy. First, pharmaceutical prices will be driven up, with especially negative effects on low-income countries. Second, there is potential for litigation for individual countries whose policies might affect the financial health of large, multi-national pharmaceutical companies. Finally, the multi-national pharmaceutical industry has an undue, protectionist influence in the negotiations, and its negotiation positions are at odds with public health.

Editor-in-Chief of RSAP, Shane P. Desselle, PhD, of Touro University California College of Pharmacy, and Applied Pharmacy Solutions, said, “The effect on drug prices, particularly generic drugs, will diminish access to essential medications among underserved populations in developing nations.”

With regard to the pricing issue, Professor Freeman discusses the industry-wide form of price discrimination, known as Ramsey pricing, in which prices are set on the basis of a market segment’s or country’s wiliness and ability to pay. The concern is that if the agreement forces a single price for all countries party to the agreement, this price may well be lower than is economically viable for pharmaceutical companies to maintain.

The litigation question, governed by the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) proposal in the TPP, is formulated differently than the World Trade Organization’s normal procedures for anti-competitive practices resolution. In the TPP, legal disputes would be tried before a court of private attorneys appointed by the World Bank or United Nations. It is feared that the suits could challenge national laws that violate free market principles outlined in the agreement.

The author claims that “The concern is very real; however, it may be overstated in that it is rare for a pharmaceutical company to litigate under current WTO provisions.”

Further, Professor Freeman believes that the ISDS proposal may not survive as part of the TPP due to pressure from countries like Australia and New Zealand, which maintain low drug prices as a matter of national health policy.

The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is responsible for the U.S. position on the TPP, and the third concern is that the pharmaceutical industry has been able to exert undue influence in past trade negotiations. The author relates his personal experience as an industry trade association consultant during WTO negotiations, and suggests that the priorities of the USTR are constantly changing, and different industries find themselves in- and out-of-favor at different times.

Although trade policies are often ignored when studying pricing, national financing schemes and comparative health systems, the author suggests that the TPP could affect drug counterfeiting activities, could imperil Australia’s and New Zealand’s national drug policies, and might significantly affect the profitability of the biologic drug industry.

Professor Freeman concluded with a caution. “While impact of the TPP on public health status in the member states is a valid public policy concern, it should be noted that trade agreements such as the TPP are not concerned with these outcomes, and that it is unrealistic to expect they will be an overriding consideration in the final agreement.”

With international sanctions lifted against Iran last week, New Delhi would be wise to step up its efforts to secure the contract for developing the Chabahar port in Iran. Time is no longer on its side as the writer observed during a field trip to Chabahar.

By Sumitha Kutty*

With the lifting of international sanctions against Iran following the P5+1 nuclear deal, Asian powers such as India and China are stepping up their competition for big infrastructure projects in the Islamic republic. However India, which had signed an agreement (MOU) to develop the Chabahar port on the Indian Ocean, nine months ago, finds itself mired in technical talks and other difficulties related to the commercial contract. China, meanwhile, is set to boost its bid with President Xi Jinping’s current visit to Iran and the Middle East.

India has already missed its first deadline for concluding the commercial contract (originally November 5, 2015). The project’s first phase was slated to be completed by May this year –a second deadline that will certainly be missed. Up until now, India dithered over the Chabahar port project with good reason – the sanctions scuttled all plans of doing business with the regime.

Notwithstanding Iran’s agreement with India, Beijing has repeatedly expressed interest in developing the Chabahar port, Iran’s free port situated in the Gulf of Oman. A Chinese delegation led by the ambassador visited the city in November to reiterate this offer.

Iran’s dithering over India

The Iranians are emphatic that “India is our first choice”. But prodding further, this writer observed that China comes a very close second. In discussions in Tehran and Chabahar, officials were quick to stress Chinese efficiency and their ability to ‘quickly deliver’ on promises – huge positives in comparison to the Indians, as they see it. (Although many confess distaste for certain Chinese business practices).

New Delhi is painfully aware of this fact and is now picking up the pace to ensure Chabahar does not slip away. It does not help India’s case that Iran, on its part, never misses a chance to vociferously convey its frustrations. By October 2015, the head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization told the media that the ‘grace period’ for India’s involvement in the project had passed. Indian embassy officials were however quick to dismiss such declarations as merely a pressure tactic – all part and parcel of doing business in Iran.

China playing the long game

On visiting Chabahar, it becomes crystal clear that Beijing is thinking in the long term here. The primary factor fuelling Chinese investment strategy across coastal Iran seems to be the setbacks it has faced in developing the Gwadar port in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province. Chinese investments in Iran go well beyond the country’s stakes in Iran’s energy sector.

The country is already an active partner in Chabahar’s free trade zone. There is even a ‘Chinese bazaar’ located inside one of the city’s many ‘malls’ – an entire floor where businessmen from China sell their wares. The Chinese have also set their sights on an upcoming petrochemical plant near Chabahar – the Negin Mokran petrochemical complex – and local officials claim they have acquired land adjacent to it.

Elsewhere in the country, the Chinese are already working with the Iranians to set up an industrial town in the port of Jask in the southern Hormozgan province. Jask is also home to an Iranian naval base since 2008.

India’s to-do list

There are a number of investment opportunities in Chabahar apart from the port. The city’s free trade zone as well as the newly commissioned Negin Mokran petrochemical complex in the outskirts of the city are ripe for investment.

New Delhi will need to, first, expeditiously iron out the differences with Tehran on the terms of the port’s commercial contract. The free trade zone comes as a valuable add-on once the port project is set in motion. The zone is already up and running and stands to only benefit further from Indian businesses. This would require lesser diplomatic capital once the port project is a go.

Second, the government needs to figure out ways to fund a number of project contracts that are already in place. These include supplying steel rails, rolling stock, signalling and steel pellets by Indian companies. Within this category, India would also need to take a final call on its participation in a railway line connecting Chahbahar to Zahedan in Iran.

New Delhi wants to also build a port-based urea plant to cut down transport costs and eventually halve local subsidies. This plant fits perfectly with Iran’s aim to make Chabahar a major petrochemical hub. The urea plant could perhaps be located within the Negin Mokran petrochemical complex that will shortly be ready for investment.

As discussions drag out in New Delhi and the Chinese president Xi Jinping wraps up his first state visit to Iran this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be wise to remember that time is running short. Decisions need to be made – and fast!

*Sumitha Kutty is Associate Research Fellow, South Asia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.