Tick tock, tick tock. The clock is ticking on the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for illegal handling of United States government secrets. It is three weeks until the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire presidential primary on February 9. That is around the date that Fox New Senior Judicial Analyst and former New Jersey Judge Andrew Napolitano has predicted the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may announce it has collected sufficient evidence to support criminal charges against Clinton.

In a Wednesday morning interview with Bill Hemmer at Fox News, Napolitano says the outlook for Clinton in the coming days is grim. “It’s hard to believe that the FBI will not recommend indictment of Mrs. Clinton” who is “a prime candidate for prosecution” concludes Napolitano.

Weighing in favor of prosecution, Napolitano explains, is that the government would only need to show that Clinton negligently failed to properly safeguard classified information. Clinton, Napolitano notes, signed a nondisclosure form and received instruction from FBI agents in proper handling of classified information and legal consequences for improper actions early on as secretary of state.

Napolitano elaborates on the government’s minimal burden in a case against Clinton:

The government does not have to show that she intended to treat [national security secrets] negligently. The government does not have to show harm. It only has to show negligent treatment.

Napolitano, a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, also discusses in the interview the new disclosure that the information Clinton mishandled includes information classified at the very high Top Secret/Special Access Program level.

Watch Napolitano’s complete interview here:

Read former State Department employee and 24-year Top Secret clearance holder Peter Van Buren’s enlightening article “Understanding Why the Clinton Emails Matter” for a description of how classification of information is handled in the State Department and how Clinton’s handling of information as secretary of state appears to run afoul of both the system set up to protect US government secrets and the law.

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute

After a long break, now Turkey and the EU have opened another avenue of negotiations regarding Turkey’s accession into the bloc. Turkey’s long-stalled EU ambitions have been boosted by Europe’s desperation on issues like refugees. For the 1st time, Turkey became the largest refugee-hosting country w/ 1.6 million and EU displays sympathy towards Turkey in solving the deadly humanitarian crisis.

The European Union (EU) revived Turkey’s membership bid and launched accession talks with Serbia on 14 December, in a sign that the migration crisis due to terror wars in Middle East has prompted the bloc to seek closer relations with its neighbours despite a pause on accepting new members.

Two weeks after Turkey and the EU signed a deal on working together to stem the flow of migrants and refugees pouring into Europe and to revive membership talks, the bloc opened chapter 17 of the EU acquis on European rules of finance, banking and investment.

Recently the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) called on Turkey to return to a peace process amid the escalation of fighting between security forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in urban areas across the country’s southeast.

Turkey first sought EU membership in 1987 but its bid has made poor progress, with issues such as fundamental freedoms and the future of Cyprus proving to be major obstacles. Turkey’s EU membership talks started in 2005. Since then, the process has all but stopped; only one of 35 chapters (Science & Research) has been successfully closed – eight are frozen indefinitely.

Since 2005 the EU has opened 15 chapters out of a total of 35 required to join, with only one being provisionally closed in a decade. Crisis in Kurdish towns in southeastern region of Turkey as well as human rights violations by Turkish government is an issue EU talks with Turkey as a part accession process.

Disagreements over Turkey’s rights’ record, its democratic credentials, and especially its troubled ties with EU-member Cyprus are among the major impediments to EU accession. Ankara has not opened its ports and airports to Cyprus, which is divided between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Only Ankara recognizes Turkish northern Cyprus internationally.

Owing to Cyprus, the EU decided in 2006 to suspend negotiations with Ankara on eight of the 35 chapters, including key themes like the free movement of goods, freedom to provide services, customs and external relations.
All the time, EU was critical of Turkish atrocities in Kurdistan region but now it seems to have changed its position now by criticizing for the first time the “terrorists” as well in Turkey, thereby strengthening Turkey’s bid EU membership. –

Although the military atrocities and human rights violations in Arab nations by European and US militaries have never been remain deadly concern, EU talks about human rights and press freedom issues in Turkey, bringing the accession process to a near-complete halt.

Turkey will not become an EU member any time soon, and its full membership still faces resistance from France, Germany, and, especially, divided Cyprus, where Turkey controls the north.

In fact, Europe’s need for help slowing down the wave of people seeking refuge in the EU revived the appetite for accession talks with Muslim-majority Turkey. The EU promised €3 billion for the more than 2 million refugees living in Turkey and to end the visa requirement for Turkish visitors to the passport-free Schengen zone.

During a debate in the European Parliament on the situation in the southeastern region of Turkey — where state authorities have imposed round-the-clock curfews in many Kurdish towns several times — the Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D) group and other officials have urged Turkish authorities to restart the stalled peace process.

While the MEPs stressed that Turkey has a right to defend itself against “terrorist” attacks, they argued that curfews serve as a form of collective punishment. “Turkey’s right to fight against terrorism is not questioned,” Kati Piri, S&D MEP and the parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, said, and the so-called ‘retaliation actions’ from the PKK last week — killing police officers and their family members — can in no way be justified.

The general feeling, however, is that the curfew and operations by Turkish forces are about collective punishment rather than being aimed at restoring public order.” Kati Piri also said she is concerned about the prosecution of more than 1,000 academics who signed a petition calling for peace last week. “How can reasonable people calling for the violence to stop be labeled traitors and promoters of terrorism?” she asked. “In all our interactions with Turkey, we continue to urge all parties to guarantee the rule of law in the country and to call for an immediate cease-fire and an urgent return of the Kurdish peace process,” Johannes Hahn, member of the European Commission in charge of European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, said in an address to members of the parliament.

The high level political dialogue between Turkish and EU officials on Jan. 25 will be another opportunity to raise these issues. “The peace force remains the best opportunity in a generation to solve a conflict that has claimed far too many lives,” he said, after stressing that the progress made in the past two years should not be thrown away.

In echoing Piti’s remarks, S&D vice president for foreign affairs, neighborhood policy and enlargement Knut Fleckenstein also called for a return to the peace process. “We strongly urge the government to return to the path of dialogue and not to sacrifice the country’s long-term stability. Equally, we call on Kurdish political and community leaders to act with restraint and responsibility,” he said. “And finally, we urge the European Commission to state clearly that we disagree with the Turkish authorities’ current policy in the Southeast of the country and that there needs to be a change,” he added.

A group of MEPs from S&D will travel to southeastern Turkey in February to observe the situation there.

Turkey has agreed in principle to an EU refugee action plan, which is expected to be finalized. In return for its help, Turkey has demanded the EU provide three billion Euros ($3.3 billion) a year in funding and visa-free travel for Turkish nationals as well as a resumption of negotiations on its long-stalled application to join the bloc.

Turkey, however, resents EUs constant interference in Turkey’s internal affairs in order to block its entry into EU.

Meanwhile, the EU also launched accession talks with another country on the migration route into Europe – Serbia.

Serbia does not recognize the sovereignty of its former southern province Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, after a bloody war in 1998. Only a year ago EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU needed a pause in admitting new members, and will not accept new countries for five years. But the EU’s accession policy – aiming to align neighbouring countries with the world’s largest trading bloc and political union – is proving useful amid the refugee crisis and a more assertive Russian foreign policy.

EU leaders are facing the biggest refugee crisis since World War II and are urgently seeking to secure the help of Ankara in curbing the flow of migrants into the European Union from Turkey — which is giving sanctuary to 2.2 million Syrian refugees. “The refugee crisis and terrorism shows us that we are on the same continent, we are facing the same challenges and the more we develop common policies, the better off we will be,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told press.

The EU’s 28 leaders hosted Turkey for an extraordinary summit to improve ties and help tackle the unrelenting migrant crisis. In November 2015 EU and Turkish officials have met in Brussels for a summit aimed to tackle record influx of migrants into Europe. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and EU representatives signed a special agreement at a summit to discuss the refugees fleeing for Europe. The EU bloc is offering Ankara an aid package and closer ties in return for help in curbing the flow of new arrivals. European countries pledged to provide Ankara with three billion Euros ($3.2 billion), reduced visa restrictions for Turkish visitors to the EU, and other benefits – in exchange for help coping with nearly two million Syrian refugees on its soil. EU has also pledged to renew talks on Turkey’s EU membership.

In return, Turkey said it would crack down on human smugglers and prevent economic migrants from crossing over into Europe. The talks focus on the role of oil exports in financing the self-styled “Islamic State” (ISIS), after Russia accused Ankara of enabling the ISIS to smuggle oil.

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said opening the first new section for two years is “quite symbolic.” “We hope other chapters will be opened soon and the negotiation process returns to its natural course. We shouldn’t wait another two years to open another chapter,” Cavusoglu told press. Cavusoglu said Turkey was making progress on its end of the deal to make it easier for refugees to settle in Turkey. “We are preparing a draft law to issue working permits for Syrians living in Turkey,” he said, adding that they are building new school classrooms and easing access to healthcare.

On November 26, 2015 Turkey’s minister of European Union affairs said that Brussels had agreed to open a new chapter in stalled membership talks with Turkey by mid-December, following an EU-Turkey summit. Out of 35 “policy chapters” which all EU candidate countries must successfully negotiate prior to membership only 13 have been opened and only one has been successfully closed so far.

The opening of Chapter 17 is part of the re-energizing of Turkey’s accession process as agreed at the EU-Turkey summit in November. Luxembourg currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency. Chapter 17 focuses on economic and monetary policy, with bolstering the independence of Turkey’s central bank a pre-condition to the move. The EU and Turkey would start working together to open five to six more chapters in 2016.

Although the process of resumption of accession talks between EU and Turkey is certainly a positive move, whether or not it is a mere tactical move by EU to solve the European refugee crisis alone by using Turkey or indeed it is a genuinely accession move as well, remains to be seen.

Two activists in Kazakhstan were convicted and sentenced to prison on January 22, 2016, on the vague and overbroad charge of “inciting national discord” over writing they posted on Facebook, Human Rights Watch said Friday.

Kazakh authorities should immediately secure the release of the activists, Serikzhan Mambetalin and Ermek Narymbaev, and have their convictions, which violate their rights to free expression, set aside. In a separate case, authorities should also lift restrictions on the rights to freedom of movement and association imposed on Bolatbek Blyalov, another activist found guilty of the same vague offense, and have his conviction quashed.

“Two activists have been jailed in Kazakhstan for peacefully expressing their views,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia division director at Human Rights Watch. “Kazakh authorities should stop targeting critical voices with this overbroad ‘incitement’ charge, remove it from the books, and start respecting basic rights to freedom of expression and opinion.”

Over and over again in recent years the Kazakh authorities have misused this vague and overbroad charge, which criminalizes speech and activities protected under international law, to try to silence government critics, Human Rights Watch said.

The Almalinskii District Court in Almaty sentenced Narymbaev to three years in prison and Mambetalin to two years and barred both from civic activities for five years.

Authorities arrested the men in October 2015 in connection with Facebook posts about a text, attributed to another activist, which describes the Kazakh nation in provocative terms. Authorities claimed that the posts contained signs of ‘inciting national discord’ and offended the honor and dignity of the Kazakh nation.

Their trial began on December 9. In initial hearings, the men petitioned the court to dismiss the case on grounds they committed no crime. Mambetalin’s lawyer also filed a motion asking the court to seek an opinion from the Constitutional Council, a body that reviews whether legislation complies with Kazakhstan’s constitution, on the charge of “inciting social, national, clan, race, class, or religious discord” under article 174 of the criminal code. The judge rejected these motions.

Narymbaev, who has health problems, began a hunger strike on January 18, 2016. On the final day of the trial, he was so weak he had to be brought to the courtroom on a stretcher. The men have been in detention since their arrest.

Narymbaev’s lawyer told Human Rights Watch that the men plan to appeal.

Blyalov was arrested in November 2015 for video clips and media interviews on YouTube in which he commented on a range of topics, including Kazakh nationalism and the Kazakh language. Authorities claimed the clips amounted to a “serious crime against peace and security of humankind.”

Blyalov was convicted in a separate trial in the Saryarkinskii District Court in Astana on January 21. He admitted guilt and said he repented and was released. But the court imposed restrictions on his freedom for three years, including prohibiting him from changing his place of residence or work, or from spending time in public areas during his time off.

Article 174 refers to “deliberate actions aimed at inciting social, national, clan, racial, class, or religious discord, at insulting the national honor and dignity or religious feelings of citizens, as well as the propaganda of exclusivity, superiority, or inferiority of citizens based on their attitude to religion, class, ethnic, tribal, or racial origin.” The offense carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Human Rights Watch, local human rights defenders, and authoritative international bodies such as the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, have called on Kazakhstan to narrow the “incitement” charge or repeal it, as the vaguely defined offense constitutes interference with basic rights protected by international law.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Kazakhstan is a party, permits a government to restrict the right to freedom of expression only if the restriction conforms to strict tests of necessity and proportionality, and is nondiscriminatory.

But no government may impose criminal sanctions for expressing thoughts or opinions merely because others, including government officials, deem them offensive, Human Rights Watch said.

Laws that target speech that incites violence, discrimination, and hostility must also respect the core right of free speech, and are considered compatible with human rights law only when such violence, discrimination, or hostility is imminent, and the measures restricting speech are absolutely necessary to prevent such conduct.

“These three new ‘incitement’ convictions fit a clear pattern of abuse by the authorities,” Williamson said. “Not another government critic should have to go through an arrest and trial – or be jailed – merely for expressing an opinion.”

Frugality and risk-taking in Chinese culture make for heady mix – and gyrations for global markets.

By Farok J. Contractor*

The drop in Chinese stock threatens to produce a bearish environment around the globe. A long-term view suggests that fears of spillover effects and recession may not be justified. Instead, the world economy may actually benefit from China’s successful transition from an economy emphasizing capital investment, exports and savings to one based on innovation, services and greater consumption.

Still, a combination of frugality and risk-taking in Chinese culture, along with negative real interest rates in bank deposits, has created huge bubbles in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets for 2007 and 2015. These were bound to deflate – a process made worse by amateurism on the part of novice investors and regulators.

Investors should take the long view. The Shanghai stock market has yielded among the best returns in the world despite bubbles or wild run-ups in 2007 and 2015. On January 1, 1991, the Shanghai Composite Index was at 130 and, despite a brutal drop after May 2015, was above 2900 in mid-January 2016 – representing a compounded average growth rate of 13.3 percent, compared to 7.1 in the United States or 3.6 in Europe over a comparable 25-year period. This should be the envy of the world, not cause for fears and sell-offs elsewhere.

Long-term investing: The Dow Jones, Shanghai Composite and FTSE 100 indexes are compared over 25 years (Finance.yahoo.com)

Chinese markets exhibit distressingly wild swings in short time periods. Consider the index’s run up from 1659 in August 2006 to 5955 in October 2007 and the subsequent plunge to 1821 in December 2008 after the US-induced global recession. More recently, the index was 2117 in August 2014, madly propelling to 4612 by May 2015, followed by a crash to 2950 on January 13.

Until a generation ago, most Chinese were poor, and ancient proverbs made saving a virtue. For Mainland China, sudden affluence has not yet erased frugal habits of the past. Hundreds of millions in China grew up on noodles or rice, with tiny portions of meat. The parsimony of the past lingers in the nation’s unusually high savings rate. The average American household, depending on the US economy, saves zero to 4 percent of its income. By contrast, typical Chinese households sock away about 30 percent of disposable income. According to the World Bank, China has by far the world’s highest gross savings rate. The government is trying to encourage consumption, but changing millennia-old habits takes time.

The huge savings surplus must go somewhere, and families have limited choices for investing. Traditionally, gold or valuables were secreted underground. China has banks, but local currency deposit rates yield between 1.75 and 2.5 percent. This sounds marginally better than US rates less than 1 percent. But actually Chinese banks offer depositors a negative return, after factoring in that country’s 6 percent annual inflation rate. In short, banks are not attractive. Real estate prices have either doubled or quadrupled in the past decade, and anticipation runs high that the bubble, too, may deflate. Ordinary Chinese cannot easily convert their local currency and invest outside China because of government capital controls.

Chinese turned to the stock market. In early 2015, hairdressers in Shanghai or Shenzhen told customers how they had doubled their investment in just two months between February and May. By contrast, in the first half of 2015, the S&P 500 barely budged. The mania for a “quick buck” affected all levels of society.

Wild run: The Shanghai Index soared against the S&P 500 (Source: Sophia Yan and CNN)

The average American may be richer than the average Chinese citizen, but there are four times as many Chinese. With 1.32 billion people, the savings add up. The total value of investments in China’s stock markets can be as high as $10 trillion at peak levels and $6 trillion or less during downturns, according to CNN’s Sophia Yan. By comparison, the New York Stock Exchange market capitalization was around $19 trillion in 2015.

China chases limited options for a lot of hoarded money. Most Chinese investors are novices, willing to take more risks than western investors. Such factors explain the wild swings in Chinese markets.

The gyrations have little to do with the economy’s actual fundamentals.  A study by scholars at the Wharton School and Shanghai Jiaotong University concludes that, unlike other nations where stock market indices do correlate with future GDP growth, “The correlation between market returns and future GDP growth for China… is much lower and statistically insignificant.”

Progress to make the world safer is taking place despite the reality of atrocities, John F. Kerry, US Secretary of State, told world leaders gathered in Davos for the 46th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

“We are staring at extraordinary opportunities wherever we look in the world,” Kerry said.

Kerry cited the recent nuclear agreement with an Iran as an example of progress. Two years ago, Iran had the capability to build a nuclear weapon within two months, and many world leaders were urging the US to take military action.

“We were on the cusp of confrontation, believe me,” Kerry said. “In all likelihood, without diplomacy, it would have ended in war,” he said.

Today, thanks to the diplomatic agreement with aggressive on-the-ground monitoring, “every single one of Iran’s pathways to a bomb has been blocked,” the Secretary said. “The region is safer. The world is safer.”

Kerry reaffirmed that the fight against violent extremism is “the challenge of our generation” and said it would be a long struggle, but he promised that “we are heading in the right direction.”

The Secretary noted that a coalition of countries has come together to fight Da’esh (ISIS) and praised the military successes achieved by the joint action of coalition air power and local ground forces.

“In the end, mark my words, Da’esh will be defeated, and the progress we have made towards that goal has been remarkable,” Kerry said. Da’esh has already lost over 30% of the territory it once held and much of its financing, he underlined.

Key steps have been taken to resolve the conflict in Syria. All of the involved countries have agreed on a list of principles for a post-war Syria. Direct negotiations between the government and the opposition are now planned and will hopefully start soon in Geneva. “Nothing would do more to end the threat of Da’esh than to negotiate an end to the war in Syria,” Kerry said.

Kerry also praised the many efforts of citizens around the world to increase interfaith and inter-sectarian understanding. He cited examples of Sunnis helping Shi’ites rebuild after terror attacks in the Middle East, Muslims shielding Christians from terrorists in Africa, and Jews protecting Muslims in the United Kingdom.

“The world is not witnessing global gridlock. We are not frozen in an nightmare we cannot wake up from,” Kerry said. “If we stay serious and work in good faith, then we can make progress.”

By Brian Blake*

A new, peer-reviewed article in the New England Journal of Medicine contradicts the White House claim that the huge increase in heroin overdose deaths—440 percent in the past seven years—is directly related to prescription pain killers and changes in prescribing policies aimed at making them harder to obtain and abuse.

The article, authored by some of the federal government’s leading addiction researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, surveys dozens of recent, peer-reviewed studies on heroin use, initiation patterns, overdose deaths, and the effects of policy changes in prescribing opioids. Ultimately, they find “there is no consistent evidence of an association between the implementation of policies related to prescription opioids and increases in the rates of heroin use or deaths.” Instead, the authors conclude that “heroin market forces, including increased accessibility, reduced price, and high purity of heroin appear to be major drivers of the recent increases in rates of heroin use.”

This conclusion, which is in line with a separate analysis done by my colleagues, challenges the White House narrative forwarded in recent years that increases in heroin use and overdoses are primarily due to the effect of prescription opioids and the regulatory changes—such as prescription monitoring programs and abuse-deterrent dosages—that have made them harder to divert and abuse, driving people to heroin instead. President Obama himself recently remarked at an October event in West Virginia that,

“In fact, four in five heroin users — new heroin users — started out by misusing prescription drugs; then they switched to heroin.  So this really is a gateway drug — that prescription drugs become a gateway to heroin.  As a consequence, between 2002 and 2013, the number of heroin-related deaths in America nearly quadrupled.”*

The NIH researchers, taking into account the study the President cites and many others, found that instead of prescription drugs being the gateway to heroin, the reality is “heroin use among people who use prescription opioids for nonmedical reasons is rare, and the transition to heroin use appears to occur at a low rate.”

The reason that some studies get results like the “four in five” figure the president cites is because the “transition from nonmedical use of prescription opioids to heroin use appears to be part of the progression of addiction in a subgroup of nonmedical users of prescription opioids.” In other words, these new heroin users often never had an Oxycontin or similar prescription in the first place and are abusing multiple drugs, including diverted prescription painkillers, before moving on to heroin—a pattern of gradual progression from less dangerous drugs to heroin that has long existed among new heroin initiates. It is well understood that, as a rule, people who use heroin do not start out with heroin as their first foray into illicit drug use.

The findings of this report are important, and come at a critical time when the heroin crisis is affecting more and more Americans. As such, it is being discussed everywhere from the kitchen table to the presidential debate stage, and an effective policy response requires a proper understanding of all the factors contributing to the problem.

Currently, public health and safety officials at all levels of government are receiving a misguided diagnosis of the problem from the Obama Administration, who prefers to place the majority of the blame for heroin’s rise on doctors and pharmaceutical companies that they can regulate, instead of the cartels, gangs and drug dealers who are supplying it and need to be arrested and prosecuted. As a result, the Administration’s efforts and policy directives aimed at prescription abuse, while needed, will not be sufficient to stem the rising tide of heroin deaths, as they are ultimately separate problems and require separate policy responses.

Heroin use in America is exploding because heroin availability in America is exploding. As Wilson Compton, M.D. and his co-authors others note, cheap and available heroin is driving the increased use and attendant overdose deaths. This increased heroin supply has a known source and was not unforeseen.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, over the past few years—not coincidentally during the same period we have seen the rash of overdose deaths and increased heroin use—the Mexican cartels have been actively flooding the U.S. market with cheaper, more pure heroin to capture new users and expand their illicit profits. Their successful efforts have resulted in an estimated 42 metric tons of pure heroin being produced in Mexico and targeted at the U.S. in 2014, a 62-percent increase over the 26 metric tons Mexico is estimated to have produced in 2013 – with even more likely on the way.

More drugs mean cheaper, purer drugs, which lure more people into using them. The authors cite a recent study in the journal Addiction showing “that each $100 decrease in the price per pure gram of heroin resulted in a 2.9% increase in the number of hospitalizations for heroin overdose.” And with heroin purity reaching levels that allow it to be snorted in powdered form instead of injected, a whole new market of users is being reached who would normally fear intravenous use. (Of course, once hooked, many quickly overcome the stigma of needles.)

Treatment, prevention and other public health measures are critical components of a successful anti-drug strategy, but they will not succeed if the third leg of the anti-drug stool is missing: reducing drug availability. In the same way candy vending machines at the local school would undermine a childhood obesity campaign, cheap, available drugs undercut critical efforts at drug prevention.

The Obama Administration should to listen to these experts and adjust their strategy to more effectively address the heroin threat, starting with increased efforts to acknowledge and address the exploding supply coming from Mexico.

Years of hard-won, bipartisan experience have shown that a well-balanced anti-drug strategy—one that includes prevention, treatment, and international and domestic efforts to restrict the supply of drugs—can have a measurable impact on reducing drug use and its harms. Armed with the proper diagnosis of the problem, we can fight this disease and save lives.

* It should be noted that the latest data showing 10,547 overdose deaths in 2014 (released in December 2015, after the President’s remarks) actually represent a quintupling of deaths since 2002, with the vast majority of the increase coming since 2007. While still too high, heroin deaths had been quite stable at around 2000 per year from 2001-2007, with a slight increase from 2008-2010, and then a steep increase from 2011-2014

About the author:
*Brian Blake, Senior Fellow

Source:
This article was published by the Hudson Institute.

(Civil.Ge) — The Georgian central bank sold USD 20 million as the national currency, lari, hit a record low against U.S. dollar on January 22.

GEL fell 1% over the previous day to 2.4694 per U.S. dollar.

The Georgian national currency has lost 3% of its value against dollar since the beginning of this year and 26.4% since January, 2015.

GEL started depreciation in November, 2014 falling by about 40% against dollar since then.

Depreciation of lari is increasing debt burden of borrowers with U.S. dollar loans. About 64% of total loans in Georgia are denominated in foreign currency, mostly in U.S. dollar.

GEL’s previous all-time low of 2.451 per U.S. dollar was recorded in February, 1999.

Central bank’s January 22 intervention was the second one this year and the third one in almost a month with USD 20 million sold each time aimed at dampening excess exchange rate volatility.

Central bank made total of nine interventions last year with total sales reaching USD 286.96 million.

Gross international reserves stood at USD 2.52 billion as of end-December 2015, up from USD 2.479 billion a month earlier and down from USD 2.699 billion a year earlier.

PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili told Georgian journalists in Davos on January 22 that devaluation of currencies in Georgia’s main training partners, among them in Azerbaijan, has negative repercussions on lari.

“There is nothing alarming and we have all the reasons to be optimistic as Georgia will have quite a good economic growth this year,” he said.

Wind energy and other renewables can now supply electricity at highly cost effective levels — and it’s happened so rapidly that public perception is yet to catch up

All too often, conversations on renewable energy meander toward the same end: green technology is a nice thing, though it has to become economically viable before widespread adoption becomes the norm.

According to analyst Michael Taylor, this may have been the case 30 years ago, however today wind energy and other renewable technologies are producing electricity at costs that are comparable to their nonrenewable counterparts.

“Renewable power generation technologies can now provide electricity at very competitive levels,” said Taylor, a senior analyst at the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) Renewable Energy Cost Status and Outlook division.

“Yet despite these facts, many of the world’s decision-makers have yet to grasp how competitive renewables have become. Often, vested interests lead to propagation of the myth of ‘costly’ renewable energy. In other cases, the change has simply come so fast, and so unexpectedly, that public information has yet to catch up.”

According to IRENA’s estimates, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE)of onshore wind in Europe fell by as much as 65% between 1988 and 2014. LCOE is a metric used to measure the cost of a generator’s energy, calculated by taking the system’s expected lifetime cost and dividing it by the system’s predicted power output.

LCOE generated from wind is now below €0.05/KWh in high resource areas, on a par with the average cost of coal-fired power (€0.049/KWh), while gas-fired power is slightly lower at €0.041/KWh.

Benefits of renewable power such as the absence of exposure to fuel price volatility are not accounted for in such calculations, nor are environmental factors.

“If the environmental and health costs of fossil fuels were properly priced at realistic levels, the situation would be even more favourable for wind,” said Taylor.

Taylor said the main drivers for improvements in the levelized cost of wind power have been the growth in the scale of the wind marketfrom a cottage industry to a major industrial sector with a number of global players. This has allowed economies of scale to be exploited, resulted in more efficient and competitive supply chains, and encouraged competition to drive down costs. At the same time, technology improvements have also had a large impact.

Future cost reductions in wind energy will largely hinge on driving downoperation and maintenance (O&M) costs, which currently account for between 20-25% of the LCOE of an onshore wind project.

“Reducing the need to replace components and to extend the periods between scheduled maintenance reduces operating costs and thus the cost per MWh,” said Fernando García Ayerra, chief engineer of technological development at Gamesa.

“The European wind energy sector and, more specifically, the turbine manufacturers, must continue to optimize wind turbine technology and O&M services in order to deliver the most competitive products and technologies and services, both for onshore and for offshore.”

The wind turbine company is partner on the project WINDTRUST, which aims to improve the reliability and longevity of wind turbine components. They are developing a specific use of carbon fiber in the blades, which increases blade lifetime and reduce blade weight.

The use of a blade protective coating will lower maintenance requirements, ensure a longer lifetime and less down time, while optimized power electronics reduce the probability of breakdown and reduce repair times through a lower number of components and interfaces.

According to Taylor, future cost reduction opportunities will increasingly come from a balance of project costs, O&M and financing costs.

“The European wind sector needs to continue to invest in R&D, look increasingly to efficiency opportunities in the supply chain, as well as looking to O&M cost reductions. It is also critical that policy settings provide long-term stability for industry to plan and operate in,” he said.

Most of your Facebook friends don’t care about you and probably wouldn’t even sympathise with your problems, according to a new study.

Many people have hundreds of Facebook friends. But people can only really depend on four of them, on average, according to new research.

Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University, undertook a study to find out the connection between whether people have lots of Facebook friends and real friends.

He found that there was very little correlation between having friends on social networks and actually being able to depend on them, or even talking to them regularly.

The average person studied had around 150 Facebook friends. But only about 14 of them would express sympathy in the event of anything going wrong.

The average person said that only about 27 per cent of their Facebook friends were genuine.

Those numbers are mostly similar to how friendships work in real life, the research said. But the huge number of supposed friends on a friend list means that people can be tricked into thinking that they might have more close friends.

“There is a cognitive constraint on the size of social networks that even the communication advantages of online media are unable to overcome,” Professor Dunbar wrote wrote. “In practical terms, it may reflect the fact that real (as opposed to casual) relationships require at least occasional face-to-face interaction to maintain them.”

Facebook friends tend to organise in different layers, the research claims. About five people will be in the first and closest one, then 15, 50 and 150 different friends will be in each of the groups as they move further out.

“Low oil prices will not prevent, will not limit, will not stop energy reform,” Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto told participants at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. The oil and gas sector, previously dominated by state-owned Pemex, will continue to be opened to domestic and foreign investors.

In December 2015, 51 companies qualified to bid for 25 onshore fields, “over and beyond the expectations we had,” said Peña Nieto. The bidding process for deepwater assets is on track to start towards the second semester of 2016. “The data room is already open to interested companies,” he said.

The structural reform of telecom and financial services will also continue as part of the country’s “armouring” against the volatile global economy, said Peña Nieto. The effort is showing results. The domestic credit to GDP ratio has increased to 32% from 25%. By the time his term as president ends in 2018, Peña Nieto hopes the ratio will be closer to 40%.

Asked whether Mexico will extradite the notorious drug lord “El Chapo” Guzman, who had escaped twice from a high-security prison but was recently recaptured, Peña Nieto said that Mexico is “working on extradition.” The Mexican Attorney General is speeding up the process so “we can extradite this criminal as soon as possible,” said Peña Nieto. Guzman is wanted in the United States and other countries.

The very mention of Libya by Democrats only serves to remind many Americans about a chapter in recent history that doesn’t advance the progressives’ plan for America’s future. The U.S.-led overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the ensuing chaos, violence and destruction by Islamists, and the tragic terrorist attack at a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, has created a political firestorm for both President Barack Obama and presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton, Obama’s handpicked Secretary of State.

Unfortunately, despite his rhetoric to the contrary, after toppling yet another dictator, President Obama allowed the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS’s) international jihad to spread into Afghanistan, North Africa and now Libya. This coincided with Obama’s toppling of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak which led to thousands dying at the hands of Islamic terrorists and the Muslim Brotherhood rising to power.

According to intelligence analysts at the Israeli non-profit, think-tank Meir Amit Information Center, “In 2015 ISIS established two strongholds beyond the borders of its power base in Iraq and Syria: the first in the Sinai Peninsula, where it wages determined fighting against the Egyptian security forces. The second is situated in the north- central Libyan city of Sirte and its surroundings, where it has established territorial control and from where it seeks to take over the entire country.”

The analysts claim ISIS plan to make Libya its base-of-operations for terrorist and anti-government operations in North Africa and southern Europe countries. ISIS could establish itself in Libya because of the chaos prevalent after the execution of Muammar Gaddafi. The U.S. government under Obama and Clinton failed to offer help for fear of appearing to be “occupiers.”

As in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, the overthrow of the central government almost instantly advantaged several nationalist and Islamist organizations as well as tribal militias. The Libyan branch of ISIS is filling the vacuum left by the absence of a functioning government and the absence of the U.S. and European nations. ISIS has established itself in the region around Sirte and plans to spread throughout Libya.

After its takeover of Sirte, ISIS invaded and occupied a series of villages and towns in the surrounding area and created a base of operations similar to what it did in Iraq and Syria. Today

ISIS controls about 160 miles of Libya’s coastal region, successfully cutting Tripoli off from the major cities of Tobruk and Benghazi. Once the ISIS terrorists take those cities they are expected to view the oil fields in the south as their next conquest..

The ISIS fighters in Libya also collaborate with jihadist operatives and organizations in northern Africa and sub-Saharan regions. Especially notable are the connections between ISIS in Libya and ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula. It’s similar in nature between “core” al-Qaida and al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula. Also, Boko Haram in Nigeria has sworn allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

According to the Meir Amit report on ISIS: “Like Iraq and Syria, Libya is a country that has disintegrated and is involved in an ongoing civil war that is likely to continue for a long time. That is the result of the deep divisions between the various centers of power and the access of the rival sides to military and economic assets like oil fields, the refugee-smuggling industry and large stockpiles of weapons and ammunition from the Gaddafi era (some of which are of high quality and are smuggled from Libya to its Arab and African neighbors). It is still difficult to assess ISIS’s ability to realize its far-reaching aspirations in Libya, but it has clearly established a stronghold it will not easily give up, in view of Libya’s perceived importance.”

Unfortunately, because of the sensitivity of Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi scandal, many observers aren’t holding their collective breath for the Obama administration to do anything substantial to save Libya or stop ISIS.

“When solving the problems of the people, the responsibility of the politicians is to be committed to national goals without concentrating on the votes,” said Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena.

Sirisena requested the Members of Parliament to be dedicated to fulfill their responsibilities for the public properly in time, without thinking of the forthcoming Provincial Council Election and the Parliamentary Election to be held in five years.

Sirisena was speaking at the opening ceremony of the newly built Technical Laboratory of the Adarsha Maha Vidyalaya in Saliyaveva, Putlam on Friday.

Sirisena cautioned them not to postpone the decisions needed to be taken for the betterment of the people, due to the feeling that they will lose their votes. “Nobody should be afraid of taking correct decisions for the development”, he said.

Commenting on the shortage of the teachers island wide, the President said steps should be taken to place additional teachers in the schools where there are vacancies.

“I transferred the Vayamba Provincial Ministry of Education, which had been limited to Kurunegala District, to Putlam District this time as there are important issues pertaining to education in the Putlam District. Everybody should get together to increase the educational level of the district,” the President said.

Sirisena further stated that he has only one agenda for the entire country. “I don’t have a personal agenda. What is important to me is not the place I will be in five years, but the place our motherland will be as a great nation.

President Sirisena later vested the newly built Technical Laboratory of Thabbowa central college to the students.

The president was warmly welcomed by the students and he also made an inspection tour of the new Laboratory. At the School, the President also inquired into the education of the students and their educational requirements.

President presented awards to three students who showed excellent results in the GCE A/L Examination.

State Ministers Palitha Range Bandara, Piyankara Jayaratne and others participated in this event.

Meanwhile, the President declared open the newly built Theatre at Karuwalagaswewa in Puttalam. The Theatre was built at a cost of Rs.1.5 million.

The Chief Minister of North Western Province- Dharmasiri Dassanayake and others participated in this event.

By Dr. S.Chandrasekharan*

The Madhesi Agitation started on August 17, 2015 and so far 57 lives have been lost and hundreds were injured. Some of those injured were the main bread winners of their families.

While the main panties continued to be rigid, particularly the UML, the Madhesi groups were willing to be flexible and it was thought that the talks that have been going on between the representatives of the three main parties and the Madhesi group (task forces) would come to some understanding. This was not to be. The final round of talks on 18th of this month failed totally.

Back to Square One!

When the talks on 18th ended in a stalemate, Laxman Lal Karna of the Madhesi group said -“We could not make any progress as the members of the task force representing the three big parties did not come up with any solution. On each issue they say that they have to consult the top leaders.”

The three leaders of the task force representing the three parties- Mahesh Acharya of the Nepali Congress, Bhim Bahadur Rawal of the UML and K.B. Mahara of the CPN (M) were all heavy weights in their parties and could have taken some bold decisions without referring to the leaders back and forth on every trivial issue.

To the credit of the three representatives, it is said that they did agree to accommodate the views of the Madhesi groups but were shot down by the top leaders. Even among the top leaders while the Nepali Congress and the Maoists were willing to be flexible, the UML was said to be dead against any accommodation with the Madhesi groups on the question of redrawing the provincial boundaries.

The Madhesi leaders have a problem. They feel that without a legal and perhaps a constitutional guarantee, they will be betrayed agin on the question of redrawing the boundaries. In their view, the political mechanism should be legitimised legally and introduced as a schedule in the constitution. This, the top leaders of the three main parties are unwilling to do.

The Madhesi leaders are justified in seeking firm constitutional guarantees on the decisions of the High level committees. It may be recalled that Prime Minister Oli in one of his public meetings declared that the three disputed districts in the east- Jhapa, Morang and Sunsari will remain in tact. Incidentally, The hill people are in a majority in Jhapa, while in Sunsari the reverse is the case. In Morang both the communities are almost equally represented.

Gachaadar, one of the many Deputy prime ministers as recently as 11th January, in a public meeting pledged that he would do everything possible to keep the districts of Jhapa, Morang and Sunsari in tact.

The Madhesi leaders are therefore justified in seeking iron clad guarantees on the decisions of the High level Mechanism (committee) which they fear will not be honoured otherwise. As one of the leaders told me- “If the Madhesi groups do not get what they want now, they will never get it in future. In the past the government had backtracked on every agreement they had with Madhesi groups and they will continue to do so unless some firm legal guarantees are given”

Six Point Demand:

It is said that what upset the three major parties was that at the last minute, the Madhesi Groups presented an unofficial paper consisting of six points which in one sense was a summary of the 11 point demand made earlier. There were two important issues in that paper. Those were

• In the agreement, mention should be made of two provinces in the Terai or at least an unequivocal pledge that the Tharu and Madhesi clusters should be kept in tact while drawing up the boundaries.
• Representation in the National Assembly’s (upper house) should be on the basis of population and five seats for each province women and marginally excluded communities.

This places a constraint on the High level Mechanism and may not be acceptable.

The representatives of the three parties were understandably furious on the last minute additions.

The Tharus are watching though for now, are not seriously participating in the talks. But it is a question of time before the issue gets critical and they may start a similar agitation in the future. According to them, if Karnali could be given a separate province, there is no reason why the Tharus who form the majority in the western plains should not be given a province of their own.

Agitation Resumed:

Protests have been resumed in the Terai districts particularly in Sarlahi, Saptari, Bara and Bardiya. Protests have picked in a big way in Birgunj and tyres were burnt in the road causing obstruction. Free flow of goods to Kathmandu through Raxaul may again be affected.

There is a trust deficit on both sides and this needs to be attended to immediately.

The recent Ebola epidemic challenged leaders of all nations and sectors and brought to light the need for resiliency and infrastructure to prevent and mitigate risks of future outbreaks.

“Dealing with epidemics presents growth, economic and stability issues,” said Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva. “The world is ill prepared. We need national and local capacity,” she added.

Strengthening surveillance and primary care are critical to building resiliency, said William H. Gates III, Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USA. He pointed to the insights that technology can provide: “If we are serious about dealing with future epidemics, we must do simulations. Primary healthcare will be digitized in the next 10 years. This will be a huge benefit.”

There is shared recognition that slow action will not be an option moving forward. “The Ebola epidemic was difficult and complicated, but it was slow moving,” said Jim Yong Kim, President of The World Bank, Washington DC. “It is much more difficult to deal with fast-moving epidemics.”

“The motivation of fear that brought us together should not be our motivation in the future,” said Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Rome.

Addressing these issues will stretch beyond these discussions at the Annual Meeting 2016. The World Economic Forum is launching a two-year initiative to manage the risk and impact of future epidemics through optimized public-private cooperation under its newly formed Global Challenge Initiative on the Future of Health.

The initiative’s efforts will harness the capabilities of the healthcare, mining, telecommunications and mobility industries, among others, to work with national governments, international organizations and civil society to create solid, preventative action plans for emerging outbreaks.

“The Forum’s new Global Challenge Initiative on the Future of Health seeks to drive forward a critical transformation, putting health at the centre before healthcare is needed, with two pillars focused on health promotion and disease prevention. It’s imperative that across all sectors, stakeholders and nations, we find ways to allow healthy lives and health security for all,” said Arnaud Bernaert, Head of Global Health and Healthcare Industries at the World Economic Forum.

Ensuring healthy populations, and specifically addressing the challenge of epidemics, is a key topic explored at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting as part of a practical but ambitious agenda on health, growth and development for business leaders and policy-makers in 2016.

“As the international institution for public-private cooperation, the World Economic Forum is well positioned to mobilize change in resiliency planning for pandemics. Traditional preparedness and response measures have proven to be insufficient; mitigating the risk of outbreaks requires novel approaches and cross-sectoral solutions,” said Dominic Waughray, Head of Public-Private Partnership at the Forum.

By Jamshed Baruah*

The nomination process for the appointment of Ban Ki-moon’s successor this year is assuming historical dimensions. Since 1946, when Trygve Lie of Norway became the first UN Secretary-General, all seven heads of the world body have been nominated by the Security Council and rubber stamped by the General Assembly.

Now for the first time the nomination process will be open to all member states of the UN, as indicated in a ground-breaking joint letter by the Presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council on December 15, asking UN member states “to consider presenting women, as well as men, as candidates for the position of Secretary-General”.

“The change has come about thanks to pressure from UN General Assembly members and the 1 for 7 Billion campaign,” says UNFOLD ZERO, a new platform for UN-focused initiatives and actions for the achievement of a nuclear weapons free world.

1 for 7 Billion campaign comprises individuals from across the world as well as organisations including Amnesty International, Avaaz, Forum Asia and more than 750 others already on board with a combined reach of more than 170 million people worldwide. “Eminent personalities like Kofi Annan and increasing numbers of governments support our aims,” says the campaign.

Senior UN officials and other experts have meanwhile spoken out in favour of further reforms to the process by which the UN leader is selected.

Convening at the Youth and Leaders Summit at Sciences Po, Paris, on January 18 to debate the priorities of the next Secretary-General, a number of UN experts, politicians and NGO representatives expressed support for 1 for 7 Billion campaign’s proposal that the UN’s next leader serve a single, non-renewable term of office – possibly of seven years.

This was the first panel discussion on the priorities of the next UN Secretary-General since the Presidents of the General Assembly and of the Security Council jointly called on candidates to come forward.

Reporting on the discussion, 1 for 7 Billion campaign said: Amre Moussa, former Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, pleaded for a single non-renewable term because it would “liberate the Secretary-General from the pressures of the big powers”.

Lakhdar Brahimi, former Algerian Foreign Minister and Special Representative of the Secretary-General, also expressed support for a single term, and for the 1 for 7 Billion campaign more generally.

Other UN experts calling for a single, extended term of office included: Martti Ahtisaari, former President of Finland and UN mediator and member of The Elders; Jean-Marie Guéhenno, President of the International Crisis Group and former Head of UN Peacekeeping Operations; Vuk Jeremić, former President of the General Assembly and former Foreign Minister of Serbia (said to be a candidate for the position of UN Secretary-General); and Shaukat Aziz, former Prime Minister of Pakistan.

In response to a question by 1 for 7 Billion on which qualities should be essential in the next UN leader, several panellists said that the successful candidate should have the courage to stand up to powerful nations – a characteristic that is currently the front-runner on 1 for 7 Billion’s public poll on the issue.

According to a Jean-Marie Guéhenno “a key quality of the next Secretary-General is being prepared to take some risks”. Bruno Stagno Ugarte from Human Rights Watch agreed: “we need somebody who has the courage to tell the truth… To tell the UN Security Council what it needs to hear, not what it wants to hear”.

1 for 7 Billion campaign reported Brahimi saying that the next leader should be prepared to say, “I am willing to leave tomorrow” adding: “the UN belongs to the small countries that need it, not the big countries that run it”.

Angela Kane, former UN Under-Secretary-General, reportedly suggested that the next UN Secretary-General take better advantage of Article 99 of the UN Charter, which would empower him or her to bring humanitarian crises to the immediate attention of the Security Council.

Panellists also argued that the next UN leader should be a catalyst for positive change at the UN; be inspiring, visionary and a good facilitator; be willing to engage all relevant actors in a conflict and identify conflicts before they erupt; be willing to speak out for those who lack power and be ‘politically-savvy’ and able to navigate conflicting interests in the Security Council.

A representative of 1 for 7 Billion campaign also asked the panel about their position on ‘regional rotation’ in the selection of the Secretary-General’s selection, namely, the claim that the post should rotate among the various geographical regions, rather than primarily be based on merit.

In line with 1 for 7 Billion’s position that appointment should be merit-based, Vuk Jeremić said that the selection should not be limited to the Eastern European group, which seeks an appointment from that region: “I am personally in favour of opening up the process to the whole world… everyone should get a chance, and appointment should be based on merit.”

Angela Kane stated that regional groupings should be “merged or disregarded” during the selection process and UN member states should instead focus on getting “the best candidate possible” for the job. She observed that as the African region has technically had 15 years at the helm of the UN, “we already have a precedent of disregarding regional rotation”.

According to 1 for 7 Billion campaign, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) President Mogens Lykketoft has announced three official candidates for the post of the Secretary-General:

Srgjan Kerim from Macedonia, a former Foreign Minister and President of the General Assembly. The UNGA President announced his candidacy on December 15, 2015.

Igor Lukšić from Montenegro, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. The UNGA President announced his candidacy on January 15.

Vesna Pusić from Croatia, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. The UNGA President announced his candidacy on January 14.

In addition, 1 for 7 Billion campaign has spotted 24 candidates on the basis of online news articles. But they have not been officially acknowledged by the UNGA President and therefore they “should not be considered as potential candidates beyond the realms of speculation and hearsay”, says 1 for 7 Billion campaign.

Venezuela’s opposition-led congress on Friday rejected President Nicolas Maduro’s request for emergency powers amid a plunging national economy, the depths of which were dramatized by an IMF estimate that inflation this year will top 700 percent.

Ruling party and opposition lawmakers accused each other of trying to run the country into the ground in the first major congressional debate Venezuela has seen in more than a decade. Critics of the socialist revolution kicked off by late President Hugo Chavez took control of congress last month for the first time in 17 years.

Maduro had proposed an economic emergency decree that would give him expanded authority for 60 days. In the past, when it was dominated by first Chavez’s and then Maduro’s allies, congress made a habit of approving these kinds of exceptional powers.

The opposition argues that Maduro is responsible for raging inflation and chronic shortages dogging daily life here, and is promising to oust him within six months.

The debate took place against the backdrop of more grim economic news as the International Monetary Fund predicted that inflation in Venezuela would more than double in 2016, reaching 720 percent.

The South American nation already suffers from the world’s highest inflation and a crushing recession. The IMF estimates that prices rose 275 percent last year in Venezuela, while the economy contracted by 10 percent.

Ahead of the final vote on his decree, Maduro announced he had approved a change that will allow the country’s small export sector to use a more favorable currency exchange rate. He scolded opposition activists for “turning their back on the country.”

“They’re bent on the politics of sterile confrontation,” he said as state television began promoting the slogan “irresponsible opposition.”

Opposition leaders rejected the decree as a trap intended to make them look intransigent and unwilling to fix the economy.

“We’re not closing any doors. On the contrary, today we opened the door to a serious discussion,” majority leader Julio Borges said. “We’re not looking to double down on the same policies that got us into this crisis. What we need is real change.”

By Gwynne Dyer

Ending Colombia’s 51-year-old civil war has taken a very long time. The first cease-fire and peace talks began in 1984, and collapsed two years later. There was another unsuccessful attempt in 1991, and yet another, involving four years of negotiations, in 1998.

But more than three years after the current round of peace talks got underway, the government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are almost there. On Tuesday, they asked the United Nations Security Council to provide a one-year unarmed mission to supervise a cease-fire and the disarmament of FARC’s forces.

It’s still a tricky process. Take, for example, the case of the “false positives.” In medical research, a false positive is a test that says a disease or condition is present when it actually isn’t. In the Colombian civil war, “false positives” were civilians killed by the army even though they were not members of FARC. There were at least 3,000 “false positives” between 2004 and 2008.

Moreover, the Colombian soldiers doing the killing knew the victims were not FARC members. When the scandal broke, several hundred of these murderers got long prison sentences — but these convictions could be overturned under the new “Special Peace Jurisdiction” that was agreed last December.

The key task now is to make it worthwhile for FARC members to disarm. The Special Peace Jurisdiction, agreed in December, will hear confessions from guerilla fighters who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and determine the reparations they must make to victims. But except in the most extreme cases, they will not be sent to jail.

So how can you keep the former soldiers who are serving long sentences for their own crimes in jail? It’s thorny questions like this that have made the negotiations so long and complicated, but they are finally coming to a conclusion. The negotiators in Havana (Cuba has been hosting the talks) are working to a March deadline for a final cease-fire, and it looks like they may actually make it this time.

It will be a great relief for the 48 million Colombians, most of whom have lived with this nightmare for their entire lives. Over the years 220,000 people have been killed and about 7 million driven from their homes. The proportion of the country’s people living in poverty has dropped from 48 percent in 2003 to 33 percent in 2012, but in rebel-held areas, where there have not been government services for decades, it is up around 60-65 percent.

Colombia has paid a very high price for this war. The country’s economic growth rate, although a respectable four percent annually in the past decade, would probably have been twice as high without the war. In fact, the whole thing has really been a bloody and pointless distraction from the real task of development.

When FARC, then the armed wing of the Colombian Communist Party, first took up arms in 1964, Colombia was a country desperately in need of change. Almost 40 percent of the population were peasants who did not own any land, and barely half the population was literate. But all the long FARC insurrection did was slow things down — and it didn’t slow them much.

Today only 23 percent of Colombia’s people still live on the land; the rest are in the cities. Literacy among 15 to 24-year-olds is over 98 percent. Land-ownership is still largely unreformed, but that matters a lot less than it used to. In the midst of the endless war, Colombia has become a modern society anyway, and a democratic one at that.

So it’s high time to end the war, and even FARC has recognized that. The peace deal includes amnesties for all but a few of its members and a guarantee that they will have full political rights. The government has promised that it will tackle land reform in a serious way (which will be quite expensive). And FARC has promised to end its involvement in the drug trade, which was probably its biggest source of funds.

There are all sorts of landmines hiding under this deal, like the fact that the cocaine trade (Colombia is the world’s biggest producer) may just fall into the hands of criminal gangs instead. Indeed, it probably will. But there is no doubt that the peace deal will be enormously beneficial to Colombia as a whole.

In the 1970s almost every country in Latin America had either a rural insurgency or an “urban guerrilla” movement (or both). They meant well, of course, but they didn’t do much good. In fact, they did more harm than good, but this is really the last of them. An era is ending. Good riddance.

By Georgi Gotev

(EurActiv) — Fearing that Western countries will close their borders, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia are only letting refugees whose registration papers say that they will apply for asylum in Austria and Germany pass through.

Some 2,000 asylum seekers began crossing into Macedonia yesterday (21 January) in freezing temperatures as the country conditionally reopened its border with Greece after closing it temporarily.

“The border crossing for migrants near (Macedonian border town) Gevgelija opened early this morning, but only those migrants whose Greek registration papers show their final destination as Germany or Austria can enter,” a senior police official in Skopje told AFP.

The EU has set up ‘hotspots’ in Greece and Italy with the aim of registering refugees who sometimes travel without any kind of documents. Greece has one ‘hotspot’ and must set up a total of five on the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Leros, Kos and Chios.

Macedonia had temporarily closed its border on Wednesday (20 January), blocking the path of hundreds trying to reach northern Europe. The same day, the Austrian government announced that it would cap the number of people allowed to claim asylum this year, and that it would send excess refugees back, or deport them to the neighbouring countries through which they came.

Austria last week also signalled that it would follow neighbouring Germany’s lead, and begin turning back any new arrivals seeking to claim asylum in Scandinavia, after Sweden and Denmark tightened their borders.

Most of the asylum seekers – mainly conflict refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan – had slept in heated tents operated by aid groups.

Among them are families with hundreds of children.

A humanitarian disaster in the making

After Macedonia temporarily closed down the border this week, aid groups had warned that their resources had been stretched to capacity.

“If this flow continues there is no possibility for accommodation,” Antonis Rigas, head of the local Doctors Without Borders mission to the Greek side of the frontier, told AFP earlier.

“It gets very cold at night. Early this morning the temperature was minus seven Celsius,” he said.

Some 600 refugees had already spent the night on buses parked a few kilometres from the border.

Macedonia on Wednesday said it had closed the border with Greece owing to problems with Slovenian trains that had disrupted the flow of migrants moving further north.

Greek police countered that the frontier had actually shut a day earlier.

And the Slovenian rail company Slovenske Zeleznice insisted they were running services as normal.

Leading children’s charities have warned that young refugees were at serious risk from the bitterly cold Balkan weather, as figures showed 31,000 migrants had arrived in Greece already this year.

Macedonia’s plans to allow through only those who seek refuge in Austria and Germany follows similar decisions by countries further along the main migration route – Serbia and Croatia announced they would do the same on Wednesday.

Slovenia made a similar announcement yesterday. The country’s Vesna Gyorkos Znidar said Slovenia will keep out all migrants apart from those planning to seek asylum in Austria and Germany, adding the country would also strengthen border controls.

“We will act in all directions so as to prevent Slovenia becoming a pocket for stranded migrants,” Gyorkos Znidar said after a regular government meeting.

Slovenia is the smallest country on the Balkan route. About 409,000 refugees have entered since October, when Hungary closed its borders and pushed the migrant route west through Slovenia.

So far, almost all refugeeshave continued on their way to Austria and further on to northern Europe.

Slovenia has said it will have to follow Austria’s example and introduce a cap on asylum seekers because the small Alpine state of 2 million people does not have the capacity to accommodate a large number of migrants.

Gyorkos Znidar urged the EU to reach agreement on stopping refugees on the border between Macedonia and Greece to prevent them continuing north through the Balkans.

Countries along the Balkan route earlier restricted entry only to migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

An inconclusive summit

Last October Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called a mini-summit in Brussels to tackle the refugee crisis along the Western Balkans route. Those invited were the leaders of EU countries Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia and their colleagues from non-EU states Macedonia, Serbia and Albania.

The summit ended with a plan to increase to 30,000 by the end of 2015 the number of places to host refugees in Greece, and to make available another 50,000 places in countries further north, without any other detail.

It became obvious at the mini-summit that the countries on the Balkan route have no plans whatsoever to become a buffer zone for migrants, who anyway have no intention to stay there and seek to reach the wealthy countries further north.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has made it plain that the countries on the Balkan route won’t allow to be transformed into refugee camps.

“If Germany, Austria and other countries close their borders, we will not let our peoples become a buffer zone. We will be ready in the same way to close our borders,” Borissov said last October.

It looks like the only result from the October mini-summit is that the countries on the Balkan route are holding weekly teleconferences and exchange data.

More than one million refugees crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in 2015, nearly half of them Syrians, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

The International Organisation for Migration said this week that 31,000 had arrived in Greece already this year.

Corporatized and commercialized elections reach a point where they stand outside and erode our democracy. Every four years the presidential and Congressional elections become more of a marketplace where the wealthy paymasters turn a civic process into a spectacle of vacuous rhetorical contests, distraction and stupefaction.

The civic minds of the people are sidelined by the monetized minds of a corrupted commercial media, political consultants, pundits and the purveyors of an ever-more dictatorial corporate state.

The dominance of influence money by the plutocracy and now big business PACs, such as that of the super-rich Koch brothers is just the beginning. The monetized minds don’t just rely on their “quid pro quo” checkbooks. They foster gerrymandering electoral districts so that politicians indentured to them pick the voters instead of a legitimate congressional district’s voters picking a candidate. And the debates now are more ratings inventory for Big Media than a discussion of major issues which remain off the table.

Presidential debates are controlled by a Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) – a private corporation – created by the Republican and Democratic parties and funded by beer, auto, telephone and other corporations whose patronage includes lavish hospitality suites. Thus, through the cover of CPD, the two big parties control the number of debates, who is invited to participate and which reporters ask the questions before an approved audience.

This year, the monetized minds went further. Now a commercial cable or network television company decides the formats and who is in tier one, tier two or not included at all. The Big Media sponsors(Fox, CNN, NBC and others) decided that Mark Everson, who dropped out in November, was the first candidate to go to all of Iowa’s 99 counties, should be excluded from the competition because he does not have a PAC sponsor and hasn’t raised enough money. Yet he is the only Republican presidential candidate with executive branch experience. Under George W. Bush, he was head of the IRS and Deputy Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Monetizing elections has predictable consequences. The ditto-head reporters, obsessed with tactics and gaffes, never ask about corporate crime, corporate welfare, the American Empire with its un-auditable Defense Department, the over $300 billion a year in computerized billing fraud in the health care industry, or why corporations are given free exploitation of our public property – such as gold and silver mines on public land , the public airwaves and the trillions of dollars of federal research given away to big business in such industries as the drug, aerospace, computer, biotech and information companies.

Commercializing elections leads to an astonishing similarity among reporters traveling with candidates or those asking questions during so-called debates.

For example, Donald Trump always brags about his business prowess as an asset for his presidential run to “make America great again” but is not pressed by reporters to voluntarily release his thousands of pages of annual tax returns to see whether his boasts are justified.

The pretentious Marco Rubio, fresh from the Florida legislature and now an absentee U.S.  Senator still getting his pay, repeatedly flaunts his difficult previous experience with student loans and living paycheck to paycheck. No reporter asks why then he is opposed to raising the inflation-gutted minimum wage and has no proposal to deal with the massive yoke of $1.3 trillion in student loans, with very high interest rates.

The brazen PAC-created Senator Ted Cruz now tells his audiences that the time for rhetoric is over, and that the focus should be on a candidate’s record. Meanwhile, he gets away without having to explain one of the zaniest, hateful, corporatist, empty presences in the U.S. Senate.

The monetized minds running our elections also make sure that our civic culture and its many intelligent civic advocacy groups are sidelined when it comes to informing the voters about important issues. This is just about the most amazing exclusion of them all. Non-partisan civic leaders and specialists, people who know the most about energy, the environment, the health industry, about militarism abroad and public budget abuses at home, about taxation and electoral reforms, about law enforcement regarding corporate crime and the prison industrial complex are rarely given voice by the media, including PBS and NPR.

Look at the Sunday morning network news shows. Pundits and politicians fill the stages. The real experts don’t get interviewed; they have trouble getting into the op-ed pages of the print media and are rarely drawn on by the candidates who are too busy dialing for commercial dollars that conflict with seeking out those who work with facts, for truth and justice.

Consequently, shorn of any participating civic culture, the political culture is ready for hijacking by the commercial interests and the corporate state.

The politicians ride merrily on a torrent of words and opinions without having to explain their record, so often different or at odds with what they are bloviating. Hillary Clinton gets away with her illegal war on Libya (against the advice of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates) and the resultant chaotic bloodshed spilling over into other African countries.

None of the candidates are asked whom they would consider as their White House advisors and cabinet secretaries. This information would give voters an idea of the likelihood of broken promises.

In 2008 Barack Obama campaigned repeatedly for “hope and change.” Then after his election, he gathered for a surprise photo opportunity with Clinton retreads like the bailout, self-enrichment banker, Robert Rubin, and others known for anything but “hope and change.”

Voters, you can change all this rancid defilement of our Republic and its democratic dreams. Do your homework on the parties and the candidates, form informal groups to demand debates and agendas that you preside over, push for more choices on the ballot, make votes count over money. The internet can help speed up such efforts.

You outnumber the politicos and their entourages everywhere.  You are the ones who keep paying the price for letting politics remain a deadly form of distracting entertainment with a mainstream media obsessed with the horse race rather than the human race.

By Rahul Raj*

In September 2015, in her speech at the 70th UN General Assembly, South Korean President Park Guen-hye cited the 25th anniversary of the Germany reunification and again made a strong pitch for the unification of the Korean peninsula. Previously in 2014, in her speech in Dresden, Germany, she had spoken about unification, and had cited the German model as a possible path for Korean unification.

The German experience has often been looked at as a model for any unification of North and South Koreas. Many believe that the Korean unification is not a question of whether or not it will happen, but of how and when it will happen.

However, the fact is that while there certainly are similarities that can be made between the divisions of Germany and Korea, these countries represent very different cases, and what worked in Germany is not likely to work for the Koreas. The primary difference is that Korea’s division was the result of a civil war along ideological lines – a war that is technically still ongoing given how the 1953 armistice that stopped the shooting did not declare peace. East and West Germany, though also divided on ideological lines, were never involved in a war as enemies.

In the early years after the establishment of its first government in 1948, South Korea launched an aggressive ‘pukch’in t’ongil’ (march north for unification) policy of unification under the leadership of the then President, Rhee Syngman, who supported the use of force and was vehemently against the existence of North Korea as a state. However, after the 1953 armistice, Seoul changed trajectories and pursued the principle of unification via peaceful reconciliation. In 1972, when West Germany launched its Ostopolitik policy of engagement with East Germany, abandoning its previous Hallstein policy, a similar process was observed in South Korea that saw it begin to engage North Korea via the Red Cross.

However, unlike West Germany, South Korea’s change of heart was less than sincere, and more likely a knee-jerk reaction to the then US President Richard Nixon’s overtures to China. Nonetheless, because of deep mistrust between the two countries – in addition to provocative actions by Pyongyang such as the 1974 attempted assassination of President Park Chung-hee that killed his wife – nothing really came of this engagement.

Furthermore, the then West German President Willy Brandt’s Ostopolitik policy led the reconciliation process that led West Germany to recognise East Germany as a state. Additionally, the 1971 agreement between the Allied powers led to the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between both German states.

Conversely, Seoul did not make any direct contact with Pyongyang’s major allies, Moscow and Beijing, until near the end of the Cold War. North Korea and South Korea still do not have official diplomatic relations. Seoul, in fact, does not recognise North Korea as a sovereign state despite Pyongyang’s membership at the UN and its recognition by over 150 countries.

Although South Korean President Roh Tae-woo finally launched his Nordpolitik, constructed along the lines of West Germany’s Ostopolitik policy, in the 1980s, Seoul’s warming relationship with Beijing and Moscow in the 1990s left Pyongyang feeling isolated. Additionally, a number of major calamities, including floods and famine, as well as fear of its own collapse, created a sense of fear in the North Korean regime. In order to assuage Pyongyang’s growing discomfort, Roh signed several agreements with Pyongyang, but the growing insecurity felt by North Korea dampened all progress on that front and the process essentially remains a stalemate. Moreover, vulnerability and shifting geopolitical realities pushed North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, which it perceived as a tool for protection as well as a bargaining chip.

Pyongyang’s recent testing of a hydrogen bomb suggests that it has become more dangerous and reckless in its nuclear ambitions, making reconciliation talks all the more urgent.

Till date, the 1997 Sunshine policy has been the most remarkable engagement process. Launched under the leadership of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, it emphasised the unification of the Korean peninsula through engagement, including providing economic aid to bolster the North Korean economy. However, the Sunshine policy subsequently collapsed due to the lack of reciprocity on North Korea’s part, as well as due to former US President George W Bush’s hard-line policy towards Pyongyang in the 2000s. Although President Park has emphasised the need for unification several times, there has hardly been any real movement towards that end for years.

South Korea has not taken steps West Germany had done in order to establish a conducive environment for the rapprochement that finally led to the reunification of Germany in 1990. Furthermore, Moscow played an important role in moving the two Germanys towards reunification. Beijing, on the other hand, is barely able to control North Korea, which has often been an unpredictable ally.

Seoul has to formulate its own policy for reunification. It has to go outside conventional norms of diplomacy and agree to negotiate without any preconditions. Vexing matters such as de-nuclearisation and human rights issues should be set aside for the sake of creating a conducive atmosphere for talks.

These are issues that can and should be addressed at the appropriate time; but for the moment, they represent huge stumbling blocks to negotiation. Unification will happen only if reconciliation takes place, and in an environment of mutual respect.

* Rahul Raj
Assistant Professor, Department of Tourism Management, Sejong University, Seoul, South Korea