The Soviet Union disintegrated when Moscow attempted to hold the periphery and in the first instance the illegally occupied Baltic countries by force alone, Vadiim Shtepa says. And if the Russian Federation is foolish enough to invade the Baltic countries now, it will share the Soviet Union’s fate.

Indeed, the Russian regionalist who now lives in Tallinn says, “in this way, the Baltic countries which at one time began the disintegration of the USSR will in a paradoxical way play a similar historical role also for its ‘legal successor’” (spektr.press/rossiya-i-baltiya-kto-kogo-perepugaet/).

In an article yesterday entitled “Russia and the Baltics: Who is Scaring Whom?” Shtepa writes that this month is the 25^th anniversary of Moscow’s efforts to hold the USSR together by using force in Lithuania and Latvia, actions that had the unintended effect of accelerating the demise of that country because few wanted to live in a state held together by force alone.

As the world knows, “Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia played a leading role in the liquidation of the Soviet empire,” above all by insisting on the denunciation of the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by which Stalin and Hitler divided up Eastern Europe, Shtepa says.

“The democratic Russia of 1991 willingly recognized the independence of the Baltic countries,” he continues. “But present-day Putin Russia has rapidly evolved in the direction of the former Soviet imperial worldview. Now the president of the Russian Federation declares that the disintegration of the USSR was ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20^th century.’”

Tragically, that has become “mainstream” thinking in Moscow, with Putin and his supporters viewing “all the rest of the post-Soviet countries not as really independent state but as some kind of political misunderstanding which by accident” appeared on the map. “And if they insist on their independence, Russia will begin to treat them in a hostile way up to and including using military force against them” as in Georgia and Ukraine.

The Baltic countries, however, by joining NATO in 2004 “have turned out to be beyond reach” and “possibly therefore they generate particular hostility among the restorers of empire” who know that they cannot act against the three the way they have elsewhere lest Russia find itself in a conflict with “the most important military alliance on the planet.”

But that hasn’t stopped Russian commentators from talking about using force against Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Shtepa says. An MGIMO military expert, for example, has suggested that Moscow should do just that if NATO backs its member Turkey against Russia, something he says it could do easily and quickly (svpressa.ru/war21/article/138968/).

It hasn’t prevented Vladimir Putin from promulgating a new security doctrine which identifies NATO and of course NATO countries like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as “potential enemies” of the Russian Federation (rus.delfi.lv/news/daily/abroad/rossiya-oficialno-vklyuchila-nato-i-ssha-v-spisok-ugroz-bezopasnosti.d?id=46901963).

And it has not stopped the Russian defense ministry from announcing the formation of new divisions in the west, divisions that could be deployed at the Baltic countries, an action that Russian commentators have suggested is simply a reasonable Moscow response to NATO’s efforts to support its members (rbc.ru/politics/22/01/2016/56a1e4999a794761d2b7f9f5).

A few people in the West have been intimidated by Moscow’s statements and actions, but they forget the facts of history, the Russian regionalist says. “The Baltic countries sought to join NATO precisely in order to secure themselves forever from possible repetition of aggression by their eastern neighbor.”

Shtepa adds: “it is instructive that today, 48 percent of the citizens of Ukraine support joining NATO, when only a year ago the figure was 34 percent.” Thus, in Ukraine as in the Baltic countries, Russian aggression has led to a result opposite to what Moscow intends, to growing interest in the Western alliance.

Unfortunately, Moscow does not appear to have learned this lesson or to be constrained from doing the unthinkable. Two years ago, a Russian war against Ukraine “seemed improbably absurd but then it became a tragic reality.” Consequently, one should not dismiss Russia rhetoric as “a simple bluff” or as playing to a domestic audience.”

Moreover, Shtepa writes, “Russia in the course of the [Ukrainian] war has used a plethora of technologies which it is now customary to call ‘hybrid.’” And it is quite likely that any Russin aggression against the Baltics would not at least at the beginning have the form of “a direct military invasion.”

“For a Kremlin filled with nostalgia for the USSR,” he concludes, “opposition to ‘the hostile West’ has been transformed already into an end in itself,” and “in this artificially pumped up atmosphere, it is impossible to exclude that some kind of tragic accident could trigger” a real military clash between Russia and NATO in the Baltic countries.

But given what such an action would lead to for Russia itself in the first instance, it is thus worth asking who should be more afraid of such a move, those in Moscow possibly considering it or those Moscow thinks would be its only victims?

By Susan Abad

“It’s harder to turn back than to reach the end of the conflict” was the phrase used in an interview a few months ago by Humberto de La Calle, chief government negotiator, to express optimism about that the signing of a peace agreement between Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) this year.

Last September, in a move that took the country by surprise, President Juan Manuel Santos traveled to Havana, where peace negotiations have been held since 2012. There he met with the leader of the FARC, Rodrigo Londoño, also known as Timoleón Jiménez or Timochenko, and announced the basis for transitional justice.

Santos emphasized in his speech that the penalties to be imposed on the guerrillas, civilians and government agents who were involved in the armed conflict were chosen to maximize compensation to victims and meet the standards of international justice.

Under the agreement, there would be a restriction of liberty for between 5 and 8 years for those who accept responsibility for crimes during the war and up to 20 years in prison for those who deny responsibility but are later found to have been involved.

There is a component of restorative justice that could be translated into work of former guerrilla members such as humanitarian demining and illicit crop substitution.

The agreement also creates a Special Jurisdiction for Peace, composed of Colombian judges and with the possibility a small involvement of foreigners, who would be responsible for investigating, prosecuting and imposing sanctions on perpetrators of serious crimes. This court would also have jurisdiction over state agents and others with direct or indirect responsibility in the armed conflict, such as funders and collaborators of illegal armed groups.

Military members who have committed offenses during the conflict — even violations of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) — “will receive special, simultaneous, balanced and equitable treatment based on the IHL,” states the agreement. This is consistent with President Santos’s promise that “any benefits given to the FARC regarding justice will also be given to members of our armed forces” and that it “would be different treatment, but no more severe.”

Truth, reparation and non-repetition

The text of the agreement states that all parties in the conflict must provide the full truth, compensate the victims and guarantee non-repetition of the events.

Reactions to the agreement were swift. Retired General Jaime Ruiz, President of the Retired Officers Association of the Armed Forces (ACORE), expressed to Latinamerica Press his satisfaction of the fact that military members would be judged differently, but warned about “the doubt on how the judges will be chosen” and the existence of “somewhat confusing mechanisms for such appointments.”

For other experts, the agreement is satisfactory. Nelson Camilo Sánchez, from Dejusticia, said in a column published in the information website Razón Pública that “if you look at the guerrilla’s initial position on justice, their opinion was that it should not be approached from the perspective of human rights and transitional justice, but it should be reduced to the collective responsibilities and therefore the capitalist order bears the most responsibility for the conflict. If you compare the agreement with the initial position of a renegade guerrilla who wants to bring down the State and does not believe in international law, who agrees to be tried by a court of law where it recognizes the legitimacy of the State to impose penalties and limits of international law when granting amnesty, it is unquestionable that we have come a long way.”

Last December, after conducting a “legal review” of the agreement, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called it “an impunity agreement”. For HRW, the only sanction for those who confess their crimes and cooperate with justice would be restorative and not an effective restriction of liberty as stipulated in international standards and asked for the intervention of the Organization of American States and the International Criminal Court.

After the meeting between Santos and Londoño, there was also an announcement that six months from that day — on Mar. 23, 2016 — the long-awaited agreement that would end half a century of war and leave at least 300,000 dead would be signed.

More technical than political differences

Several analysts expressed pessimism about the deadline, considering that in less than three years there have only been partial agreements on issues concerning rural reform, political participation and illicit drugs. Even the FARC, through their spokesman Carlos Antonio Lozada, hinted that the talks would last much longer. Lozada said that in “a debate that has to be performed on the negotiating table (…) will be seen starting from what day begins to run the six months.” Even Londoño asked in a statement published in November: “And what will happen if on Mar. 23 there is no Final Agreement? Would we throw overboard what we have achieved and worked on for so long? That would not be appropriate or fair. Or is the present delay aimed to corner us at the last minute to force us to accept obligations?”

However, experts such as Jorge Restrepo, Director of the Resource Center for Conflicts Analysis (CERAC), are confident that the agreement will be a reality at time announced. “The differences between the government and the FARC are more technical than political. The remaining points of discussion don’t have to do with the reasons why the conflict continues, such as land ownership, income from drug trafficking, access to political participation of the guerrilla and the issue of justice”, he told Latinamerica Press.

For the United Nations Representative in Colombia, Fabrizio Hochschild, “the issue of victims and justice is the most complex and has sparked the most difference in viewpoints in Colombia and generated polarization,” so close it is a “decisive signal that we have reached the final stage of the talks.”

While there is speculation about the final signing, President Santos announced on Jan. 8 that Congress will convene for special sessions in February to amend Public Order Law 418, that will enable it “to initiate the proceedings for the concentration of the FARC members in sites that were agreed on [at the negotiating table] and define the mechanism of disarmament.”

By Rodolfo Toe and Dusica Tomovic

The US Justice Department on Thursday announced it had sent two released prisoners from the Guantanamo camp to Bosnia and Montenegro as they had nowhere to go. One had Bosnian citizenship, having fought there in the 1990s.

Tariq Al-Sawah and Abd al-Aziz Abduh Abdallah Ali Al-Suwaydi have been sent to Bosnia and Montenegro, US authorities said, given that neither could return safely to his country of origin – Egypt and Yemen.

Al Sawah was transferred to Bosnia.

“US authorities don’t consider it necessary to prolong the detention of Al Sawah in order to protect the security of the US,” a statement by the Pentagon reads.

Al Sawah was imprisoned in Guantanamo in May 2002, where he was transferred after having been captured in Afghanistan.

The US authorities suspected him of committing war crimes while he was a member of Al Qaeda.

As Al Sawah possesses Egyptian citizenship, Egypt has repeatedly sought his release. He also won Bosnian citizenship having fought for the Bosniak [Muslim] cause there in the Nineties.

“US authorities are thankful to the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina for their humanitarian gesture and their readiness to help the effort to close the Guantanamo prison. US authorities have coordinated with the Bosnian government to ensure a safe journey and the human treatment [of Al Swah]”, the Pentagon said.

The other former Guantanamo inmate, Abd al-Aziz Abduh Abdallah Ali Al-Suwaydi, was released to Montenegro.

According to the New York Times, Suwaydi is a 41-year-old Yemeni citizen who has been held in the prison for 13 years and eight months.

He was an al Qaeda member who was identified as an explosives trainer. After fleeing Afghanistan, he was captured trying to return to Yemen. He arrived at Guantanamo in May 2002.

The government in Podgorica on Thursday said that within the humanitarian program of providing assistance in solving the issue of closing the base in Guantanamo, Montenegro had agreed to take on the responsibilities of resocialisation of a Yemeni citizen.

It added that most European and neighbouring countries are taking part in the program, including Germany, Italy, Russia, Hungary and Slovakia.

The US coordinated with Montenegro to ensure the transfer took place and said it was grateful to Montenegro for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay facility.

According to US authorities, 91 persons are still imprisoned in Guantanamo.

CEOs have to turn away from short-term thinking and narrow concern for shareholders and instead take bold steps to improve workers’ conditions, promote diversity and take a wider stakeholder perspective.

That was the consensus among business, labour and academic leaders in a session on the last day of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2016 that focused on the challenges posed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the wave of rapid advances across technologies that are changing all aspects of life and work.

“The central question is whether technology can be harnessed for systems change,” said Annual Meeting Co-Chair Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in Brussels. “Can we get to a zero-carbon, zero-poverty world?” Not with current business models and approaches to public and private governance, Burrow reckoned. “We have a huge divide and our governments are struggling. The orthodoxy that demand will come back if we graft on technology, I just don’t believe it,” she said. Technology is not shared on an equitable basis, she pointed out. And in today’s world, “greed is outstripping opportunity.”

The problem is a lack of leaders willing to recognize the challenges and make the necessary changes, Marc R. Benioff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Salesforce in the US, argued. “We are in a leadership crisis. We are seeing technological shifts and changes on a scale we have never seen on this planet. These require severe and extreme leadership. Countries that are having a problem are those with the weakest leadership. There is a leadership void in this world,” he said.

Surveys confirm that people lack trust in their leaders, said Maurice Lévy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Publicis Groupe in France. The business sector should not be held back if government is unwilling to take the necessary steps to push through the right policies, regulations and reforms, he stressed. “As CEOs, we have a lot of responsibility. We cannot sit and wait for the decisions by politicians. We have to insist that they make the right decisions. Otherwise, we will have more situations like Greece. We will see all this transformation but without the right effect on workers and society.”

It would be a mistake to blame technology for such problems as the rise of inequality or unemployment, said Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the Initiative on the Digital Economy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management in the US. “The biggest misconception is the idea that technology will come for our jobs. The bigger opportunity is to use technology to enhance performance and augment human activity.” He explained: “Technology can be used to destroy and create jobs. There is no economic law that everyone is going to benefit equally. You have to put the policies in place.”

Major changes from mindsets to management principles have to happen, the panellists agreed. “Education has to be fundamentally reinvented” so that young people are given the critical 21st-century skills to cope with the rapidly changing world, Brynjolfsson remarked. Said Benioff: “Everyone has to work together in a new way. Leadership can’t be defined anymore by who the head of the country is. We have to have multistakeholder dialogues.” CEOs, he added, have to wake up to the need not just to focus on creating value for shareholders, but also to consider the interests of the broader community of stakeholders.

Also important is the use of data to understand issues accurately and fully and help find valid and sustainable solutions. But this will require collaboration and settlement of issues regarding the ownership and use of information. Company chiefs have to discard short-term thinking, Lévy stressed. A CEO can impose gender parity immediately if he really wants to do so and take a long-term view, unfettered by immediate concerns about profits and the stock price. Governments too have to be far-sighted, Benioff said. “Every country needs a minister of the future – someone who can look at what is to come and what we are going to do.”

Babies born after epidural analgesia show a small decline in Apgar index values, a quick test applied to newborn babies to assess their general health, according to researchers from the University of Granada.

They carried out this work by analyzing a total population of 2609 children born between 2010 and 2013 at San Juan de la Cruz hospital in Úbeda, province of Jaén, Spain

Their research, published in Midwifery magazine, indicates that resuscitation was significantly more frequent in babies born after epidural analgesia, early breast feeding onset was less frequent in them, and they needed to be admitted, to a greater extent, to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Babies born after epidural analgesia show a small decline in Apgar index values (a quick test applied to newborn babies in order to assess their general health), both one and five minutes after birth.

Moreover, resuscitation was significantly more frequent in babies born after epidural analgesia, early breast feeding onset was less frequent in them, and they needed to be admitted, to a greater extent, to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

Those are some of the conclusions of an article published in Midwifery magazine by researchers from the University of Granada (UGR), who carried out a retrospective investigation on the existing relation between the use of epidural analgesia and certain parameters assessed in newborns.

The researchers carried out their investigation by analyzing a total population of 2609 children born between 2010 and 2013 at San Juan de la Cruz hospital in Úbeda, province of Jaén, Spain.

Adverse effects of epidural analgesia

As Concepción Ruiz Rodríguez, professor at the Department of Nursing of the University of Granada and lead author of this work, explains: “epidural analgesia is one of many ways of easing the pain suffered during labor. Nowadays, it’s the most valuable strategy due to its efficacy, so its use has greatly spread in developed countries.”

However, beside the numerous advantages associated with epidural analgesia, “a series of adverse effects have been observed both on the mother and on the baby. Adverse effects observed on the baby are attributed to a direct pharmacological effect, due to a placental transmission of the drug administered to the mother, or due to an indirect secondary effect as a consequence to the physiological changes the drug causes in the mother, such as hormonal changes,” the UGR expert explained.

Nevertheless, data are contradictory and are discussed by health professionals. Because of that, the authors of this research thought about the convenience of studying the effect of epidural analgesia on a series of parameters in newborns.

The results obtained by the researchers “prove that epidural analgesia has some adverse effects, which we have to study more deeply, on the newborn baby,” said Ruiz Rodríguez.

“For that, we consider that it’s important that both mothers and health professionals (obstetricians and midwives) know and have in mind those risks when the time for taking a decision comes,” the UGR researcher said.

By Stella Papadopoulou

The current system by which we produce, use and dispose of plastics has important drawbacks: plastic packaging material with a value of $80 billion-$120 billion is lost each year. Aside from the financial cost, by 2050, on the current track, oceans are expected to contain more plastics than fish (by weight), according to a new report released today by the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with McKinsey & Company as a knowledge partner, as part of Project MainStream.

The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics provides for the first time a vision of a global economy in which plastics never become waste and outlines concrete steps towards achieving the systemic shift needed.

The report is underpinned by the principles of the circular economy – an economy that aims to keep materials at their highest value at all times. Assessing global plastic packaging flows comprehensively for the first time, the report finds that most plastic packaging is used only once; 95% of the value of plastic packaging material, worth $80 billion-$120 billion annually, is lost to the economy after a short first use. The New Plastics Economy, outlined in this report, envisages a fundamental rethink for plastic packaging and plastics in general – a new model based on creating effective after-use pathways for plastics; drastically reducing leakage of plastics into natural systems, in particular oceans; and finding alternatives to crude oil and natural gas as the raw material of plastic production.

“This report demonstrates the importance of triggering a revolution in the plastics industrial ecosystem and is a first step to showing how to transform the way plastics move through our economy. To move from insight to large-scale action, it is clear that no one actor can work on this alone. The public, private sector and civil society all need to mobilize to capture the opportunity of the new circular plastics economy,” said Dominic Waughray, Head or Public-Private Partnership, World Economic Forum

The report, produced as part of Project MainStream, a collaboration between the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the World Economic Forum, with analytical support from McKinsey & Company, finds that the use of plastics has increased twentyfold in the past half-century and is expected to double again in the next 20 years. While plastics and plastic packaging are an integral part of the global economy and deliver many benefits, the report shows that their value chains currently entail significant drawbacks.

“Linear models of production and consumption are increasingly challenged by the context within which they operate – and this is particularly true for high-volume, low-value materials such as plastic packaging. By demonstrating how circular economy principles can be applied to global plastic flows, this report provides a model for achieving the systemic shift our economy needs to make in order to work in the long term,” said Dame Ellen MacArthur, Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Achieving the systemic change needed to shift the global plastic value chain will require major collaboration efforts between all stakeholders across the global plastics value chain – consumer goods companies, plastic packaging producers and plastics manufacturers, businesses involved in collection, sorting and reprocessing, cities, policy-makers and NGOs. The report proposes the creation of an independent coordinating vehicle to set direction, establish common standards and systems, overcome fragmentation, and foster innovation opportunities at scale. In line with the report’s recommendations, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will establish an initiative to act as a cross-value-chain global dialogue mechanism and drive the shift towards a New Plastics Economy.

“Plastics are the workhorse material of the modern economy – with unbeaten properties. However, they are also the ultimate single-use material. Growing volumes of end-of-use plastics are generating costs and destroying value to the industry. After-use plastics could – with circular economy thinking – be turned into valuable feedstock. Our research confirms that applying those circular principles could spark a major wave of innovation with benefits for the entire supply chain,” said Martin R. Stuchtey, McKinsey Center for Business and Environment.

The report’s findings are timely: knowledge and understanding of the circular economy among business leaders and policy-makers is growing, as demonstrated by the European Commission’s recent circular economy package and associated funding announcements; new technologies are unlocking opportunities in material design, reprocessing and renewable sourcing; developing countries are investing in after-use infrastructure; and governments are increasingly considering – and implementing – policies around plastic packaging.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a Swiss nonprofit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva. As a state recognized international institution for public-private cooperation, its mission is cited as “committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas”.

The Forum is best known for its annual winter meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 2,500 top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals, and journalists to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world. The organization also convenes some six to eight regional meetings. Beside meetings, the foundation produces a series of research reports and engages its members in sector specific initiatives.

The theme for this year’s WEF, held January 20-23 at its usual home in Davos, Switzerland, was “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” If you are unfamiliar with the term the 4th industrial revolution includes developments in previously disjointed fields such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and genetics and biotechnology.

A Forum report, The Future of Jobs, released at the start of the meeting predicted that this 4th industrial revolution will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labor markets over the next five years, with enormous change predicted in the skill sets needed to thrive in the new landscape.
As usual, the world’s rulers from Prime ministers to high government officials to top business men were in attendance at this biggest bash of the year.

From published reports, even from the WEF website, it seems that the mood of the participants were somber. “There has never been a time of greater promise, or greater peril,” Professor Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of WEF, said. “As a society, we are entering uncharted territory,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told participants on the last day of the meeting.

Less clear, however, is the impact this revolution will have on entire industries, regions and societies around the world. Will it be a force for good or evil? Will it provide new opportunities for all, or will it exacerbate inequalities?

Social media, for all the benefits it brings, makes it easier than ever before for terrorist organizations to spread their hateful messages, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook told participants. We have already seen how the hateful and highly provocative messages in the Internet discussion groups and blogs could lead to the death of hateful preachers, founders and writers.

Perhaps, more frightening than a terrorist organization or a hateful website that spreads hatred around the globe with a global reach is the idea that the technology could one day lead to humanity’s demise. Already world-known experts are warning about the artificial intelligence (AI). Consider, e.g., Professor Stephen Hawking who warned last year that artificially intelligent machines could kill us because they are too clever. Such computers could become so competent that they kill us by accident, Hawking has warned. According to Angela Kane, Sr. Fellow of Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, “The monopoly of the conduct of war could soon be taken out of the hands of humans.”

On the employment front, although the WFE has predicted that some 5 million jobs may be lost other experts paint a gloomier picture that there would be a global loss of 7.1 million jobs between 2015 and 2020.

How much is a contributing factor like economic inequality for such loss of jobs? You may recall my article – A Second Look at Pareto Principle – that was based on Oxfam report of last year. In that I shared the fact that in 2010, it took 388 billionaires to match the wealth of the bottom half of the earth’s population; by 2013, the figure had fallen to just 92 billionaires. It fell to 80 in 2014.

The latest report from Oxfam, “An Economy for the 1%”, now says that the richest 62 people have as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of humanity — 3.6 billion people. The world’s wealthiest 62 people added US$542 billion to their net worth to raise it to $1.76 trillion from 2010 to 2015, an increase in their composite wealth of 44 percent. Meanwhile, the bottom half of humanity in terms of wealth lost $1 trillion from 2010 to 2015, a drop of 41 percent. The share of the global wealth increase since 2000 that has gone to the top 1% is 50 percent. The richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest (99%) of the world combined.

So, what was 80 last year has now shrunk to 62! Nothing probably illustrates the world’s incredible inequality better than this latest Oxfam report.

Are you aware that the CEO pay averaged 303 times that of the average worker in 2014? CEOs at the top US firms have seen their salaries increase by more than half (by 54.3%) since 2009, while ordinary wages have barely moved. The CEO of India’s top information technology firm makes 416 times the salary of a typical employee there. Women hold just 24 of the CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies. Although down from the 376-to-1 ratio of the peak stock-market bubble year of 2000 the current ratio is far bigger than earlier decades. Another way of putting all this in perspective is that CEO pay has risen 1,000 percent since 1979, while typical employee pay has risen 11 percent.

The average annual income of the poorest 10% of people in the world has risen by less than $3 each year in almost a quarter of a century. Their daily income has risen by less than a single cent every year. “Growing economic inequality is bad for us all – it undermines growth and social cohesion. Yet the consequences for the world’s poorest people are particularly severe,” the Oxfam report says. The fight against poverty will not be won until the inequality crisis is tackled.

Power and privilege is being used to skew the economic system to increase the gap between the richest and the rest. A global network of tax havens further enables the richest individuals to hide $7.6 trillion, which is more than the combined GDP of the UK and Germany. Another estimate is $8.9 trillion. And this not limited to the global North — Oxfam calculates that Africa’s wealthiest have stashed $500 billion in tax havens: “Almost a third (30%) of rich Africans’ wealth … is held offshore in tax havens. It is estimated that this costs African countries $14bn a year in lost tax revenues. This is enough money to pay for healthcare that could save the lives of 4 million children and employ enough teachers to get every African child into school.”

Oxfam analyzed 200 companies, including the world’s biggest and the World Economic Forum’s strategic partners, and has found that 9 out of 10 companies analyzed have a presence in at least one tax haven. In 2014, corporate investment in these tax havens was almost four times bigger than it was in 2001.

The banking sector remains at the heart of the tax haven system; the majority of offshore wealth is managed by just 50 big banks.

Tax avoidance has rightly been described as ‘an abuse of human rights’ and ‘a form of corruption that hurts the poor’. “There will be no end to the inequality crisis until world leaders end the era of tax havens once and for all,” Oxfam recommends.

As taxes go unpaid due to widespread avoidance, government budgets feel the pinch, which in turn leads to cuts in vital public services. It also means governments increasingly rely on indirect taxation, like VAT, which falls disproportionately on the poorest people. Tax avoidance is a problem that is rapidly getting worse.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently found that countries with higher income inequality also tend to have larger gaps between women and men in terms of health, education, labor market participation, and representation in institutions like parliaments. The gender pay gap was also found to be higher in more unequal societies. It is worth noting that 53 of the world’s richest 62 people are men.

Inequality is also compounded by the power of companies to use monopoly and intellectual property to skew the market in their favor, forcing out competitors and driving up prices for ordinary people. Pharmaceutical companies spent more than $228 million in 2014 on lobbying in Washington.

The report further states that the financial sector has grown most rapidly in recent decades, and now accounts for one in five billionaires. In this sector, the gap between salaries and rewards, and actual value added to the economy is larger than in any other.

In the garment sector, firms are consistently using their dominant position to insist on poverty wages. Between 2001 and 2011, wages for garment workers in most of the world’s 15 leading apparel-exporting countries, including Bangladesh, fell in real terms.

Here are some other important findings. Oxfam has recently demonstrated that while the poorest people live in areas most vulnerable to climate change, the poorest half of the global population are responsible for only around 10% of total global emissions. The average footprint of the richest 1% globally could be as much as 175 times that of the poorest 10%.

Bottom line: our current economic system – the economy for the 1% – is broken, says the Oxfam report. “The current system did not come about by accident; it is the result of deliberate policy choices, of our leaders listening to the 1% and their supporters rather than acting in the interests of the majority. It is time to reject this broken economic model.”

How to fix this broken system? Oxfam suggests that our world leaders come to the side of the majority and not the super rich, and bring a halt to the inequality crisis. Its recommendations are:

• Pay workers a living wage and close the gap with executive rewards;
• Promote women’s economic equality and women’s rights;
• Keep the influence of powerful elites in check;
• Change the global system for R&D and the pricing of medicines so that everyone has access to appropriate and affordable medicines;
• Share the tax burden fairly to level the playing field;
• Use progressive public spending to tackle inequality;

As a priority, Oxfam is calling on all world leaders to agree a global approach to end the era of tax havens.

How serious are our world leaders to fix our broken economic system that is widening the inequality and creating global problems in all sectors from migration to climate? Or, more importantly, are they prepared for the job? After all, what we will require is a “holistic” style of leadership, which views today’s global challenges as inherently connected, as rightly pointed out by Professor Klaus Schwab.

Leadership in the fourth industrial revolution needs to be bold, brave and based on real action and not empty slogans. So long we fail on that account the annual WEF meetings in Davos will only be viewed as a forum for the rich and not the silent majority.

Over last weekend, Iran took a step toward increased oil and other liquid fuels production and exports as the international community lifted many of the nuclear-related sanctions that severely constrained Iran’s ability to operate in the global market.

As EIA has already reported, the sanctions were lifted on January 16, which was implementation day for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement among the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany), the European Union (EU), and Iran. On that day, the International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran had completed the key physical steps required to trigger sanctions relief. With this milestone, the United States, the EU, and the United Nations have lifted nuclear-related sanctions against Iran, which include oil-related sanctions that have limited Iran’s ability to sell its oil on the global market since late 2011. With nuclear-related sanctions being lifted:

• Some Iranian banks can get back on the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system to conduct financial transactions electronically on the world market.
• Iran can access its foreign reserves held in banks worldwide. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, Iran’s Central Bank has $100 billion to $125 billion in foreign exchange assets globally, but Treasury estimates Iran’s usable liquid assets to be just slightly more than $50 billion.
• Non-U.S. companies can invest in Iran’s oil and natural gas industry, including the sale, supply, and transfer of equipment and technology.
• Countries within the EU and elsewhere that had ceased imports of energy from Iran can again import Iranian oil, natural gas, and petrochemical products. Countries that are already importing from Iran can increase their purchases.
• European protection and indemnity (P&I) clubs can provide Iranian oil tankers with insurance and reinsurance.

Nonetheless, U.S. sanctions related to human rights abuses and terrorism are still in place, and some Iranian individuals and entities that were delisted under nuclear sanctions are still covered under existing sanctions. As a result, non-U.S. companies may be slow to rush back into Iran as they figure out how to resume business with Iran without violating the non-nuclear sanctions that remain in effect.

Ultimately, nuclear-related sanctions relief will lead to an increase in Iran’s oil production and exports (Figure 1). Iran’s crude oil production has been relatively flat over the past three years while sanctions were in place, averaging 2.8 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2015, representing 9% of total crude oil production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). In EIA’s January Short-Term Energy Outlook STEO, which assumed implementation day to occur this quarter, Iran’s annual average crude oil production is forecast at 3.1 million b/d in 2016 (10% of projected total OPEC production), and almost 3.6 million b/d in 2017.

Consistent with these forecasts for average annual production, Iran’s crude oil production is expected to reach 3.3 million b/d at the end of 2016 and 3.7 million b/d at the end of 2017. EIA estimates an uncertainty range of +/- 250,000 b/d surrounding these year-end projections, with actual outcomes dependent on Iran’s ability to mitigate production decline rates, deal with technical challenges, and bring new oil fields into production.

Most of Iran’s forecast production growth comes from its preexisting crude oil production capacity that is currently shut in, while the remainder comes from newly developed fields. Iran has a number of new oil fields that Iranian and Chinese companies have been developing over the past several years, which have the potential to add 100,000 b/d to 200,000 b/d of crude oil production capacity by 2017. The STEO forecast also accounts for production declines at Iran’s mature oil fields (Figure 2).

Beyond crude oil, Iran’s condensate and natural gas plant liquids (NGPL) production is currently almost 750,000 b/d, of which 75% is condensate and the remainder NGPL. Iran’s noncrude liquids production has grown over the past few years. The main buyers of Iran’s noncrude liquids have been in countries in Asia, mainly China, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Iran’s noncrude liquids production is expected to grow by 150,000 b/d by the end of 2016 and by an additional 100,000 b/d by the end of 2017, as more project phases at the South Pars natural gas field come online. More than 80% of Iran’s condensate production comes from the South Pars field located offshore in the Persian Gulf, which is Iran’s largest nonassociated gas field. Lack of foreign investment and insufficient financing, stemming from international sanctions, have slowed the development of South Pars. However, some progress has been made in recent years, and sanctions relief is expected to quicken the pace of development of its remaining phases over the next decade.

With Iran’s petroleum and other liquid fuels consumption expected to remain flat over the next two years, crude oil and other liquid fuels from the production increase is likely to be sold in export markets. The pace at which Iran will ramp up its exports now that sanctions are lifted is uncertain. Iran has a considerable amount of oil stored offshore in tankers (between 30 million and 50 million barrels), most of which is condensate, and crude oil stored at onshore facilities. Initial post-sanction increases in Iranian exports will most likely come from storage, while meaningful production increases will occur after some of the storage is cleared.

Iran is targeting its traditional customers in an attempt to reestablish trade links and regain market share. The anticipated global inventory builds in 2016 will present challenges to Iran in regaining market share quickly. Iran lost a significant amount of its market share in Asia, Europe, Turkey, and South Africa after the last round of sanctions hit, causing a more than 1.0 million b/d drop in Iran’s crude oil and condensate exports after 2011. Iran lost an average of 3% of its market share in Asia, which was mostly purchasing Iranian heavy crude oil. Iran lost 5% of its market share in Europe, which mostly purchased Iranian light crude oil. Iran lost 22% and 20% of its market share in Turkey and South Africa, respectively, where Iran previously was the top oil supplier.

Displaced Iranian oil was substituted by multiple countries, including Nigeria, Iraq, Russia, Angola, UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Nigerian barrels were the top substitute in Europe and South Africa, Russian barrels in Asia, and Iraqi barrels in Turkey (Table 1 and Figure 3).

In 2017, EIA expects the global oil market to become more balanced as global consumption catches up to production. Also, with the exception of Iraq and to a lesser extent Angola, production from the countries that substituted for lost Iranian barrels is forecast to remain flat or decline in 2016 and 2017. As a result, Iran has the potential to regain a significant portion of market share lost since 2011 during the two-year forecast period.

U.S. average retail regular gasoline and diesel fuel prices decrease

The U.S. average retail regular gasoline price fell eight cents from last week to $1.91 on January 18, down 15 cents per gallon from the same time last year. The West Coast and Midwest prices were each down 11 cents to $2.52 per gallon and $1.71 per gallon, respectively. The East Coast price decreased seven cents to $1.91 per gallon. The Gulf Coast price decreased six cents to $1.67 per gallon, followed by the Rocky Mountain price, down four cents to $1.91 per gallon.

The U.S. average diesel fuel price decreased seven cents from the previous week to $2.11 per gallon, down 82 cents from the same time last year. The Midwest, Gulf Coast, and West Coast prices each fell seven cents to $2.02 per gallon, $2.01 per gallon, and $2.36 per gallon, respectively. The Rocky Mountain and East Coast prices decreased six cents to $2.08 per gallon and $2.17 per gallon, respectively.

Propane inventories fall

U.S. propane stocks decreased by 1.9 million barrels last week to 89.9 million barrels as of January 15, 2016, 18.7 million barrels (26.2%) higher than a year ago. Midwest, East Coast, and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories decreased by 2.2 million barrels, 0.3 million barrels, and 0.1 million barrels, respectively. The Gulf Coast registered the only regional increase, with inventories up by 0.7 million barrels. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 3.6% of total propane inventories.

Residential heating oil price decreases while propane price increases

As of January 18, 2016, residential heating oil prices averaged $2.11 per gallon, 5 cents per gallon lower than last week and 72 cents lower than one year ago. The wholesale heating oil price this week averaged just under $1.00 per gallon, almost 10 cents lower than last week and 76 cents per gallon lower than a year ago.

Residential propane prices averaged almost $2.02 per gallon, less than 1 cent per gallon higher than last week’s price and nearly 37 cents lower than one year ago. Wholesale propane prices averaged 41 cents per gallon, nearly 3 cents per gallon lower than last week and 21 cents lower than last year’s price for the same week

By Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty*

The House of Al-Saud has ruled the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a personal fiefdom for over a century. But over the last one year, the durability of the House has come under strain.

The Kingdom’s reputation as an ultra-conservative Islamic country has suffered further with the recent mass beheadings, provoking outrage worldwide among Shia communities.

In India, the Saudi state’s image, which was anyway nothing to write home about, has fallen even further. One of its diplomats was accused of serial rape, while a Saudi employer of an Indian woman cut off her arm following a dispute.

The slide in the Kingdom’s geopolitical fortunes began with the demise of King Abdullah in January last year. King Abdullah was the first Saudi monarch to be the Chief Guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations in 2006, and the first in 51 years to visit India.

His successor, King Salman, a half-brother, was, for decades, the Governor of Riyadh. The new team that he has put together at the pinnacle of the Saudi ruling structure includes his favourite son, Muhammad bin Salman, who at the tender age of 30, has vaulted into the powerful position of the deputy crown prince, second deputy prime minister and the youngest minister of defence in the world.

The first major event in his tenure as defence minister was Operation Decisive Storm, part of the Saudi Arabia-led intervention in Yemen to counter the Houthis rebels, who have driven the Saudi-supported Yemeni government into exile.

The mass execution of 47 convicts, including the widely respected Iranian-educated Saudi Shia cleric Nimr Al-Nimr, has provoked Iran and the Shia community worldwide, leading to a new round of recriminations and rising tensions in the region.

Historically low oil prices have caused Saudi oil revenues to tumble. This is why opening so many fronts, which suck out money from the Saudi treasury, seems an odd policy choice.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that at the current rate of depletion of the Saudi reserves, the Kingdom could run into financial difficulties in 5-6 years.

Can the Saudi monarchy and the Al-Saud family sustain its hold on power? That’s a question that is increasingly agitating many observers, who are blaming young Muhammad bin Salman for the aggressive muscle-flexing, quite unusual for the Saudis.

The ruling family is principally composed of the descendants of Abdulaziz ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi state, who traces his origins to 18th century tribal chief Muhammad bin Saud.

After much internecine conflict, Abdulaziz managed to consolidate his sway over much of the Arabian Peninsula. In 1932, Abdulaziz declared himself King of Saudi Arabia, and like his predecessors, aligned himself with Imperial Britain after defeat of the Ottomans in the First World War.

Abdulaziz consolidated his Kingdom by marrying daughters from various important tribes and clans, siring a large family. His sons continued this practice and soon they adopted royal titles and became a ‘Royal Family’. The Saudi family agreement with the ultra-conservative Wahhabi clergy was part of the consolidation effort. Acceptance of the political dominance of the family was the quid pro quo for the clergy being permitted to establish its judicial dominance and application of Sharia laws.

After the discovery of oil in 1937 by American oil companies in the eastern province of Dammam, the fate of this obscure family changed dramatically.

With the onset of the Second World War, the USA’s burgeoning demand for oil made Saudi Arabia a strategic partner and ally, since the famous meeting between King Abdulaziz and American President Franklin D Roosevelt on board the USS Quincy, an American warship, on 14 February 1945. The rest is history.

The Saudi royal family has faced numerous challenges to its power, staving off and surviving internal family struggles, a Wahhabi Ikhwan (Brotherhood) uprising in 1979 and Al-Qaida inspired terrorist attacks.

The recent mass executions triggered speculation that the Saudi regime has been spooked by growing internal anger over economic problems and the failure of regional policies towards Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Iran. The Saudi regime has survived all these years, not by the consent of the people, but by sharing a portion of the enormous wealth generated by oil revenues.

Oil adds to troubles

This year’s budget has cut back subsidies and other freebies enjoyed by the people, and the unhappiness index is on the rise. Oil revenues have shrunk by 23% in 2015, as per the figures put out by the Saudi ministry of finance.

The worst defeat for the regime’s foreign policy was the failure to block the Iran nuclear deal, despite intense lobbying by the Saudis in the USA.

The mass executions served to divert attention and deflect domestic anger, and rally Sunni support by playing the sectarian Shia card against Iran. The anxiety of the ruling regime has led it to announce a 34-nation Sunni bloc to fight terrorism, and repeated appeals to Pakistan for help.

On both counts the Saudis have not succeeded. Clearly, the regime’s stature has fallen.

A report by the German Intelligence Agency, BND, leaked in December last year, created a sensation. It blamed Muhammad bin Salman as a political gambler bent on destabilising the region by proxy wars, at a time when King Salman is increasingly afflicted by progressive dementia.

The net result of such erratic policies has led to a heightened probability of a family coup. Rumours are circulating that King Salman may be replaced by another younger brother, Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, the youngest of the seven brothers from Hassa bint Ahmed Al Sudairy, one of dynasty founder Abdulaziz’s wives.

American-educated Prince Ahmed enjoys a clean reputation, and is regarded as open-minded and moderate.

There are 13 surviving sons of Abdulaziz in a family which has seen succession passing from brother to brother since the death of the founder.

It is entirely possible that the Saudi ruling family will ride out this crisis by a family-led consensus for change, because if that does not happen, then internal dissent and flawed external policies may spell instability.

The meltdown of the Saudi regime will reverberate throughout the region and cause considerable chaos. No one knows the kind of change that could descend on Saudi Arabia.

Will the USA, with its intimate connections with the Saudi ruling family, sit idly by? That’s a moot point. As economic sanctions are lifted on Iran, the Saudi regime has to adjust to the reality of changing regional geopolitics. The alternative is far worse even to contemplate.

*Pinak Chakravarty is a Distinguished Fellow with ORF’s Regional Studies Initiative, where he oversees the West Asia Initiative, Bangladesh and selected ASEAN-related issues. He joined the ORF in October 2014.

This article originally appeared in Catch News.

In the Republican and Democratic presidential debates, President Barack Obama’s ultimate rejection of using force against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against his own people, keeps being raised as an issue. In all cases, the debate moderators have been pushing the candidates to call out the president for being “weak.” In the Democratic debate, the candidates avoided this characterization, but of course the Republicans bring up the episode second only to the equally overstated and unimportant episode of the Obama administration’s response to the attack on diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya–principally because current candidate Hillary had a bigger role in Benghazi simply because she had left her post as Secretary of State eight months before Obama made the decision not to use force against Assad.

But what of Obama’s of “weakness” and “appeasement” of Assad? Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Germany in the late 1800s and a master of international Machiavellian diplomacy, would have been appalled at these characterizations. So likely would have Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the greatest military commanders of all time. Obama’s threat eventually led to Russia’s pressure on Assad, its ally, to get rid of his chemical weapons entirely. Happy ending, right? Not according to the Republican candidates. In 2016, the Republican candidates, and occasionally Hillary—to show how tough they are—would have the United States behave like a dim-witted body builder at the beach who goes around punching people for no reason. Apparently, according to Republican thinking on the Assad matter, the world thought Obama was a wimp for not following through on his threat to use force, no matter how good the outcome attained without it. Obviously, the Russians took Obama’s threat to use force seriously, because they pushed their ally Assad to get rid of his chemical weapons. So the choice was between punitive, purely symbolic, and likely ineffectual U.S. military “retaliation” and an even better outcome—an Assad stripped of his chemical weapons.

Bismarck probably would have thought the latter outcome to be very satisfactory. In fact, back in the old days when Bismarck was tromping around, “appeasing” enemies by paying them off instead of fighting them—as General David Petraeus adroitly did in Iraq, disguised as a macho American troop “surge”—was considered smart. Similarly, to get better press, maybe Obama should have made a deal with Russia to bomb a few empty buildings in the Syrian desert to make the whole thing look macho. Bismarck might have even gone further and advised that when a nation’s enemies are fighting—as U.S. adversaries are in Syria—it should stay out of a bloody war and conserve resources, while the adversaries expend theirs beating each other to a pulp. Then-President Ronald Reagan was largely able to carry out such a restrained strategy during the long and bloody Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. George H. W. Bush, Reagan’s successor, was then able to handily defeat a weakened Iraq in the subsequent and brief Desert Storm campaign in 1991.

Napoleon also probably would have been perplexed at the criticism of Obama over the Syrian episode. Napoleon, certainly no wimp, thought that the ultimate achievement for any military commander was to get an adversary to capitulate without ever having to use force. In other words, why waste lives, ammunition, and other resources fighting when smart maneuvering could achieve the same result.

Americans, raised on action movies, seem to think the nation will be seen as weak internationally if it is not constantly bombing someone, leading presidential candidates, in a democracy, to give the public what it demands—macho hot air. Of course, this disease among the people leads the nation to an exhausting state of perpetual war for no good reason. Many other empires have gone into the graveyard of history because of such exhaustion—both financial and psychological—all the while believing that they were special and that it could never happen to them. Unfortunately, with a nearly $19 trillion national debt, promises to defend many nations all over the world, a costly far-flung worldwide military apparatus, and ubiquitous armed interventions in unimportant places such as Syria, the American Empire, without a major retraction and renewal, will likely travel down the same road to ruin.

This article was published at The Huffington Post and reprinted with permission.

By Lisa Ferdinando

The United States potentially will make recommendations to position U.S. troops with Iraqi security forces in northern Iraq to support the next phase of isolating the key city of Mosul, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who metwith his French counterpart for talks focusing on the multinational effort against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, told reporters traveling with him that the U.S. troops would be placed where they can best support the Iraqi forces in the fight.

“We’re about winning. … We want to have the Iraqis win,” he said.

The details are still being worked out, noted Dunford, who said he will make the recommendations to President Barack Obama based on what U.S. commanders and Iraqi security forces identify as the type of support the United States can provide in a plan to retake Mosul.

“It is fair to say we will have positions – we already do [in Erbil] – up in the north that will facilitate supporting Iraqi security forces as they isolate Mosul,” Dunford said.

Mosul is the largest city captured by the ISIL terrorists.

Consultations on Best Way Forward

Discussions with Iraqi officials will determine what support they need, whether in an advise-and-assist role at the operations center level, the division level, or the brigade level, Dunford said.

“I’m prepared to recommend a level of accompaniment that will allow us to be successful,” he said. “But I want to wait for the Iraqis to tell us, based on the lessons learned in Ramadi, what they believe is right for them.”

Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, is working with the Iraqi security forces to develop the concept of operations, Dunford said.

The Iraqis will identify what support they need and what Iraq’s Kurdish peshmerga forces need, looking at capability gaps and where the United States can be most effective in integrating its effort, he said.

Because the details are still being worked out, Dunford said, he did not have specifics on what capabilities will be needed or how many U.S. troops would be required.

But, he said, “We’re going to set ourselves up for success.”

The U.S. forces, he said, would be in addition to U.S. troops already in an advise-and-assist mission at Taqaddum Air Base.

Dunford said he discussed the topic with Iraqi officials earlier this month during a visit to Iraq.

Work Remains in Anbar Province

In the meantime, the chairman said, the focus is consolidating in and around Ramadi, and then moving out to Anbar province. “There is a lot of work that remains to be done in Anbar, not only in and around Ramadi and the immediate surrounds, but the entire Anbar province,” he said.

The U.S. presence may change “in terms of what our weight of effort is,” he said, adding the United States likely will “be in and around those locations for some time to come, because there is still work to be done.”

The United States will still support the Iraqi security forces, with no immediate changes there, with “the exception of probably a reorientation of main effort,” he said.

People of the Neolithic age around 6,000 years ago were closely connected both in life and death. This became evident in a detailed archaeological and anthropological of a collective grave containing 50 bodies near Burgos, northern Spain. In the pioneering study, researchers used a whole array of modern methods to examine the way of life in the region at that time.

Published in the academic journal PLOS ONE, the research was conducted by anthropologists at the University of Basel and archaeologists from the University of Valladolid.

The collective graves of the Neolithic period were made mostly of stone and were large enough to hold many bodies in a communal space. The megalithic tomb in Alto de Reinoso, Burgos differs from this in only one respect: the burial chamber had originally been made from wood over which a stone mound was erected afterwards. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the tomb was used by a community living between 3700 and 3600 AD and spanning about three to four generations. At least 47 bodies have been found.

“While the lower layer has been relatively well preserved, numerous disturbances have been observed in the upper layers such as missing skulls, which could be due to a certain kind of ancestral worship,” said Prof. Manuel Rojo Guerra, from the University of Valladolid, Spain.

Way of life revealed

In order to examine the Neolithic community’s way of life, researchers used modern methods to collect individual data such as age, sex, body height, disease, stress markers and signs of violence. This data was also supplemented by information about diet, area of origin, mobility and familial relationships.

“This is the first study that presents a detailed picture of how Neolithic people were connected in life and death,” said lead author Prof. Kurt W. Alt, visiting professor at the University of Basel.

Almost half of the deceased were adults; the other half were children and adolescents. The average body height was 159 cm ± 2 cm for men and 150 cm ± 2 cm for women. The adults showed skeletal stress markers and various stages of degenerative diseases of the spine and joints, healed fractures, head injuries and dental diseases such as caries.

Uniform community

Molecular genetic studies also revealed the relationships between individuals in the group, especially on the maternal side. Furthermore, there is evidence that bodies buried close to each other were in some cases also closely related genetically. Apart from three individuals, all of the deceased grew up in the area around the collective grave.

A reconstruction of the diet further demonstrates the homogeneous structure of the farming community: the staple food for everyone was cereals (wheat and barley) and animal proteins (sheep, goat and pig in particular).

By N Sathiya Moorthy*

While the Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena received him at his official residence en route to UK, and the US Secretary of State John Kerry dubbed it as ‘release’, the jailed former President of Maldives, Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed, flew out of the country for a spinal surgery after his brother had cleared last-minute hitches by signing in as his guarantor. Earlier, Nasheed had refused to travel out if the government insisted on an existing provision for a surety to sign in on his return, which the former President said amounted to holding the guarantor ‘hostage’.

The ‘release’ of Nasheed was a step in the right direction, Kerry said in an early reaction. He had tweeted, “urge more engagement from government of Maldives on democracy, shared challenges.” If anything, Kerry’s tweet seemed to underline the position taken by Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) on his imprisonment and attendant issues on the domestic front. The Yameen Government has opposed such positions, reiterating time and again that Nasheed’s imprisonment flowed from a pending criminal case that they had inherited from the predecessor Waheed regime.

It is another matter that the MDP does not recognise the predecessor regime of President Mohamad Waheed Hassan Manik, who was Vice-President under Nasheed, despite a Commonwealth Inquiry holding the constitutional validity of the power-transfer of 7 February 2012. It however should be a matter of concern as to how the Yameen leadership chose to convert what was essentially a pending criminal case over the arbitrary detention of Criminal Court Chief Judge, Mohamad Abdulla, into a terrorism case, and that too mid-way through the pendency of the criminal case.

For his part, Nasheed too had defied the trial court summons during the Waheed era more than once, including a 10-day unilateral stay-in at the Indian High Commission, Male, causing a further strain in bilateral relations impacted by the ‘GMR row’. If for the time, the trial got delayed, facilitating Nasheed contesting the 2013 presidential polls, which he lost in the second round, but with a high voter-support, post-poll, the new government revived the case after a gap, but ‘upgrading’ it into an ‘anti-terror’ case.

International pressure

Local and other media reports claimed that the Government’s decision to permit Nasheed to travel overseas was a result of international pressure, especially from India, Sri Lanka and the UK being mounted on it. Senior officials from these countries had visited Male and met with President Yameen and Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon, among others, during the preceding days.Since then several western diplomats in Colombo have also called on Nasheed The Government had earlier claimed that the surgical facility was locally available, but changed its mind after Attorney-General Mohamad Anil cited the precedents set in the case of jailed former Defence Minister, Colonel Mohamad Nazim, among others.

The Government’s decision faced a hitch at implementation after Nasheed refused to make any relative of his guarantor and confining them to Male even within the country, until he returned from the UK after his 30-day medical leave. It was again an existing provision, like the court summons for his appearance on earlier occasions, that he was challenging – and in the name of more democracy and within what is otherwise a moderate Islamic nation.

However, the Government seemed to have had its way and ex-President Nasheed’s elder brother, Dr Ibrahim Nashid, signed the relevant papers. Local media, Haveeru Online, reported Home Minister Umar Naseer’s tweet that Nasheed had signed all the legal documents. “… His brother Ibrahim Nashid has signed as a guarantor,” the tweet claimed, reproducing with it a copy of the declaration.”

The declaration signed by Nashid requires him to inform to the correctional service at the earliest if Nasheed goes missing or flees. In cases of negligence, the guarantor is required to take the responsibility. Indications are that better counsel prevailed over the Nasheed camp as the State’s requirement in the matter was a pre-requisite in similar cases in other democracies, both for internal and external travel, by prisoners. There was also a growing feeling in friendly circles that Nasheed and the MDP were making things difficult for themselves and their friends more than already, by their unilateral, unconventional and at times unacceptable positions and decisions.

Over-enthusiasm

Be as it may, the last-minute hitch placed in the way of his clean departure for the UK and also the over-enthusiasm of friends in countries like Sri Lanka and the US may have now discouraged the Yameen leadership from going forward with any reconciliation measures that it might have had in mind, once Nasheed returned from medical care in the UK, to serve the remaining part of his 13-year prison term.

It is also unclear if the ‘leave’ conditions permit prisoner Nasheed to meet with leaders like Sri Lanka’s President Sirisena while overseas. It could tantamount to political activity, generally banned for prisoners on ‘medical leave’. It could also strain bilateral relations of the kind as no Government in Yameen regime’s place is likely to take kindly to such ‘unusual gestures’, which do not find mention in the protocol of different nations, or in any bilateral charter.

One way out, and possibly the only way out, for the commencement of political negotiations just now is for the Maldives Supreme Court to uphold Nasheed’s delayed appeal, and throw out the trial court conviction in toto. In the absence of a thorough exoneration, Nasheed may not be able to contest the 2018 presidential polls, either. Without total freedom for Nasheed, the MDP is not going to return to the negotiations table for any serious reconciliation talks. With it, the Yameen Government may not have much else to offer, where it would be heard with any seriousness.

Though centred now on Nasheed, his freedom and eligibility to contest the presidential polls, democracy reforms and political reconciliation have other elements to it, too. Without the participation of Nasheed’s MDP, any negotiations now would not make sense. However, it remains to be seen if ‘victory’ of the kind that they want in the ‘Nasheed case’, if achieved, would enthuse the MDP to talk of ‘political reforms’ or go back to their unjustified demand for Yameen’s ouster, as was in end-2014 – which alone might have triggered the revival of the pending case against him and all that have followed since.

For his part, much as Yameen may be seen as the centre of the government’s decision-making apparatus, he too would be facing various pulls and pressures from the traditional Gayoom loyalists, whose perception of the MDP and Nasheed cannot be swept entirely under the carpet, in the name of their traditional support for brothers Gayoom-Yameen. A stage may have already come within the ruling PPM polity, wherein the decision-making apparatus is a two-way street, where the grassroots-level mood could not be entirely overlooked by the leadership, as is often presumed.

It has been so even in the case of the MDP. There are other players, smaller in comparison, like tycoon Gaim Ibrahim’s Jumhooree Party (JP), and jailed religion-centric Adhaalath Party (AP) leader, Imran Abdulla, Their parties too are as much grassroots-driven as they are perceived as personality-centric. It is more so in the case of AP, where religious traditionalists still hold sway, to a greater or lesser extent. It does not however mean that the leaderships in any or all the political parties in the country could be brought around by their respective leaderships.

It would also imply that media speculation/conclusion on the kind of influence that the Nasheed ‘leave’ could have, for instance on India, for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to make his promised visit to Yameen’s Maldives early on. There could be many imponderables before that stage could be reached. That would include the yo-yo-like Yameen approach to Nasheed’s freedom, political negotiations, et al, and Nasheed-MDP’s own approach to any evolving situation or a concession that has been purchased for their benefit, by the international community and/or others.

*N. Sathiya Moorthy is the Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation. He can be reached at: sathiyam54@gmail.com

College students who are addicted to the Internet report positive and negative effects on their family relationships, according to new research from Georgia State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The study is the first to show how college students in the United States diagnosed with Problematic Internet Use (PIU) perceive its role in their families.

A research team that included child welfare expert Susan Snyder of Georgia State’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies conducted a qualitative study of 27 U.S. university students who self-identified as problematic Internet users.

“We wanted to better understand students with Problematic Internet Use,” Snyder said, “those who reported spending more than 25 hours a week on the Internet on non-school or non-work-related activities, and who experienced Internet-associated health or psychosocial problems. Specifically, we wanted to understand how the Internet affects students’ family relationships positively and negatively.”

On the plus side, these students reported their time on the Internet often improved family connectedness when they and their family were apart. However, their excessive Internet use led to increased family conflict and disconnectedness when family members were all together. And most students with PIU felt their families also overused the Internet, with parents not setting enough limits for either parent or sibling Internet use.

Young adults are at an especially high risk for behavioral addictions, Snyder and her co-authors said, and Problematic Internet Use is considered a behavioral addiction with characteristics similar to substance abuse disorders. PIU has been linked with negative mental health consequences such as depression, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, hostility, social phobia, alcohol abuse, self-injuries and sleep difficulties.

College students may be especially vulnerable to developing PIU for reasons that include free Internet access, large blocks of free time, courses that require its use and the sudden freedom from parental control and monitoring. Estimates of PIU across the U.S. population are run as high as 15 percent.

“Our study furthers the understanding of Problematic Internet Use,” Snyder said. “We believe it offers a first step toward the design of effective interventions to address PIU among the college-age population, and hope it will serve to inform clinical practice and health policy in this area.”

By Janet Weil*

Saturday, January 17, marked 25 years — a full generation — since the 1991 launch of a U.S.-led air war, “Operation Desert Storm,” that devastated Iraq, causing extensive damage to the country’s electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure, with terrible public health consequences.

A quarter-century later, the U.S. is still bombing, and over 3,400 U.S. troops are in the country. It’s part of a larger war raging in northern Iraq and Syria, with a ferocious, merciless entity driving the destruction: the Islamic State.

The countries of the region, and to a lesser extent European countries, have been overwhelmed by the largest refugee crisis since World War II. One tragedy in particular has awakened our minds and hearts to the catastrophe: the little body of Alan Kurdi, who washed up on the shore of Turkey as he and his family tried to find refuge. His brother and mother also drowned. They are among the thousands of refugees who died seeking freedom and a new home in 2015.

Continuing warfare, including U.S. bombing; increased jihadist terror attacks around the world; the Middle East awash with weapons; a refugee crisis; murdered and traumatized civilians: All these make for a grim legacy stemming from the U.S. war of aggression in 1991. A new United Nations report on Iraq reveals that 19,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in the past 21 months, and that 3,500 women and children, mostly Yazidis, have been enslaved by the Islamic State, with immense suffering and actual slave markets reported.

As American citizens and taxpayers, and as people with hearts, we have two serious responsibilities in response to the blood-soaked chaos in Iraq and its neighbor, Syria. We need to start acknowledging the real human costs of war, including death tolls in Iraq and Syria, the trillions of our tax dollars wasted, and the damage to U.S. troops deployed to the region.

CODEPINK has been one of the few raised voices on Capitol Hill and elsewhere denouncing bombing as a “solution” and calling for responses that will actually help people. Look here for news about our protests and many links to more information.

The U.S. government — from President Obama on down, including presidential candidates of both parties — must stop exaggerating potential threats to the United States or to Americans abroad as an excuse for more military “solutions,” which only enrich weapons makers and other war profiteers.

There are two actions the United States can take without delay or negotiations:

1. Stop bombing and arms transfers in the region.
2. Offer dramatically increased assistance to the victims, including refugees and women victims of the Islamic State’s terror. CODEPINK has partnered with MADRE to open two shelters in Iraq for Yazidi women who’ve bravely escaped sexual enslavement. You can contribute to this much-needed work here.

Stop the blather and the bombing. Start increasing humanitarian assistance. Many lives depend on the decisions that the United States takes at this turbulent time.

Originally published in CodePink.

*Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, longtime CODEPINK member and staffer Janet Weil is also a co-founder of the SF 99% Coalition. She tweets from @sf99percent.

By Admiral Arun Prakash (retd)*

India’s Republic Day on Tuesday (January 26) will be celebrated with traditional pageantry and the citizen gets a panoramic view of the country’s military capability. Intelligence inputs warn that it will be yet another test for the national security apparatus. However, it provides an opportune occasion to objectively review how India has dealt with its complex security challenges. Regrettably in India’s National Security ‘Hall of Shame’ we can now add, ‘Pathankot 2016’ after ‘Kandahar 1999’, ‘Parakram 2002’ and ‘Mumbai 2008.’

Given that India is a nuclear weapon state, which fields one of the world’s largest armed forces and spends upwards of $40 billion annually on defence, one cringes at accounts of our seemingly inept handling of yet another terrorist attack. Equally disheartening is the fact that, eight years after 26/11, we lack the ability to deter the architects of this attack, and the will to punish its perpetrators.

It is a matter of sheer good fortune that the cross-border terrorists who managed to enter the Pathankot air base failed to target aircraft, helicopters and missiles as well as the huge bomb-dump and fuel-storage facilities. We overlook the fact that some of our air bases, adjuncts to the nuclear deterrent, may also house nuclear warhead components. So, while cautioning the world about the dangers of Pakistani warheads falling into jihadist hands, we need to ensure that a similar fate does not befall our own.

The calibre of a nation’s leadership is tested by a crisis. Whether it is floods, an aircraft hijacking or a terror strike, India’s response to any crisis has followed a depressingly familiar sequence. Regardless of intelligence inputs, the onset of a crisis finds multiple agencies pulling in different directions, lacking unitary leadership, coordination and, above all, a cohesive strategy. Ad-hoc and sequential damage-control measures eventually bring the situation under control, with loss of life and national self-esteem. After a free-wheeling blame-game, the state apparatus relapses into its comatose state – till the next disaster.

From the media discourse, it appears that this template was faithfully followed in the Pathankot episode. While the military has due processes for learning from its mistakes and dealing with incompetence, one is not sure about the rest of our security system.

Whether or not India-Pakistan peace talks are resumed, the Pakistani ‘deep state’ has many more ‘Pathankots’ in store for India. For Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), cross-border terrorism is an inexpensive method of keeping India off-balance. The strategy of plausible deniability and threat of nuclear ‘first-use’ assures them of impunity from retribution. Such situations call for all components of India’s national security, military, intelligence, bureaucracy, central and state police forces to work in the closest synergy and coordination. Regrettably, civil-military relations have, of late, been deeply vitiated and the resultant dissonance could have adverse consequences for the nation’s security.

What is worse; civil-military recriminations, so far, confined within the walls of South Block, seem to be proliferating. Post-Pathankot, the constabulary has jumped into the fray and, if an intemperately-worded newspaper article (Indian Express, January 13) by a serving Indian Police Service (IPS) officer is an indicator, civil-military relations may be entering a downward spiral. This outburst should compel the political leadership to undertake a re-appraisal of the prevailing civil-military equation which contains many anomalies; one of them being the role of the police forces.

Worldwide, an unmistakable distinction is maintained between the appearance and functions of the military and civilian police, the latter being charged with the maintenance of law and order, crime prevention/investigation and traffic regulation et al. India’s unique security compulsions have seen the Indian Police Service (IPS) not only retaining the colonial legacy of sporting army rank badges and star plates but also garnering unusual influence in national security matters over the years.

Many of our Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) have blurred the distinction between police and military; terming themselves ‘para-militaries’, with constables wearing military style combat fatigues and being addressed as ‘jawans’. There are only three, duly constituted, para-military forces in India: the Coast Guard, Assam Rifles and the Special Frontier Force; all headed by armed forces officers. The five CAPFs, namely BSF, CRPF, ITBP, CISF and SSB – cumulatively over a million strong – are headed by IPS officers.

The deployment of CAPFs in border-guarding as well as counter-insurgency roles calls for military (read infantry) skills; for which neither the police constables nor officers receive adequate training. This lack of training and motivation as well as a leadership deficit has manifested itself in: (a) these forces repeatedly suffering heavy casualties (confined only to constables) in Maoist ambushes; and (b) recurring instances of infiltration taking place across borders guarded by CAPFs.

In the case of the anti-terrorist National Security Guard (NSG), its combat capability comes from the army; yet, by government mandate, it is headed by a police officer. The fact that this elite force has seen 28 directors general in 31 years makes one wonder if round holes are being filled by square pegs.

A second anomaly in the civil-military matrix pertains to the fact that the Government of India Rules of Business have designated the civilian secretary heading the defence ministry as the functionary responsible “for the defence of India and for the armed forces”. Since no military officer, including the three chiefs, finds mention in the Business Rules, the Service HQs are subaltern to a 100 percent civilian ministry. Every major decision – whether it pertains to finance, acquisition, manpower or organization – requires a ministry nod which can take decades.

A false and dangerous belief prevails on Raisina Hill that civil-military relations constitute a zero-sum game in which ‘civilian control’ is best retained by boosting the bureaucracy and police at the expense of the military. Post-independence, the civil-military balance has been steadily skewed by pushing the military officer well below his civilian counterparts with the same years of service. This has caused deep resentment in the military, and the resultant hierarchical distortion could lead to a civil-military logjam – the last thing the nation needs at this juncture.

It is high time the Indian politician shed his traditional indifference to national security issues and took tangible measures to ensure a stable and equitable civil-military paradigm – one which ensures a say for the military in matters impinging on the nation’s safety and security. Until that happens, the Republic Day parade will remain a vainglorious display of hardware and pageantry – and the nation’s security in parlous straits.

*Admiral Prakash is a former Indian Navy chief and Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee. He can be contacted at arunp2810@yahoo.com

By John Zaw

In the courtyard of Myanmar’s Islamic University in Thetkaypyin village, half a dozen teachers sit around the courtyard while classes change.

It’s the worst of times for the Buddhist-majority country’s leading madrassa, now surrounded by refugee camps and villages that have been under prison-like conditions for three years.

At present 400 students are attending the university, the largest school in Rakhine State. Founded in 1951, some of the college’s graduates go on to serve as imams or go abroad for further studies, says Kyaw Zaw La, university professor.

Observers suggest that the abysmal living conditions in the refugee camps and the abject poverty of its residents are ripe for radicalization. Rohingyas, who lack basic rights in Myanmar, are denied citizenship, stripped of voting rights and denied access to adequate health care and education.

The Jan. 14 attacks on the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, have amplified fears of recruitment by radicalized elements.

Aung Win, a Rohingya community leader in the district raised concerns that Myanmar could be a target of the so-called Islamic State by recruiting young, unemployed Muslims.

“I can’t guarantee that all Rohingyas are moderate and some might be radicals and get contact with terrorist groups such as the IS. This is a serious concern and the plight of the Rohingya must be addressed by the government,” Aung Win told ucanews.com.

Yet Kyaw Zaw La, like his university colleagues, bearded and dressed in Myanmar’s traditional longyi, says Rakhine’s Muslims reject the violent acts of the Islamic State and al-Qaida terrorist groups and he had no concerns of recruitment among the state’s Rohingyas.

“We, Rohingya Muslims, have faced discrimination and have been targeted by the majority Rakhine Buddhists, but we have no interest in going against the government,” Kyaw Zaw told ucanews.com.

Hatred and bigotry toward the minority Rohingya have been deeply rooted in Rakhine state. Since 2012, hard-line Buddhist groups, like Ma Ba Tha, have led an anti-Muslim campaign that culminated in violent riots, harassment and discrimination.

Ma Ba Tha also has pushed for a restrictive religion law that targets minority Muslims, who comprise about 4 percent of the 51 Myanmar’s million population.

U Parmaukkha, a Yangon-based monk and member of Ma Ba Tha, defended the group, saying their actions were meant to protect Myanmar’s Buddhist culture.

He said the group feared a prevailing belief that Islam seeks to dominate the world. “So it is a threat to our country and we have many concerns in Rakhine state so we are closely observing (Muslims) with suspicion,” U Parmaukkha, told ucanews.com.

Al Haj Aye Lwin, chief convener of the Islamic Center of Myanmar, said he had no concerns with Muslims in Myanmar becoming radicalized, but noted that historically, the oppression of minority communities is a root cause of radicalization.

Extremist messages

Pe Than, a lower house lawmaker from the hard-line Buddhist Arakan National Party, said that he believed there were some extremist messages being preached at mosques.

“We can’t guarantee 100 percent that an IS attack can’t happen in Myanmar so we need to take precautions,” Pe Than told ucanews.com.

In a June 2015 report in the Economist, Abu Bakr al-baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq, referred to the “1 million of the weak Muslims who are all without exception being exterminated in Burma,” and asked what the Muslim world would do about it.

But Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian expert on Islam, said that Rakhine has not turned into another Chechnya or Kashmir — a big draw for angry, young jihadists — for three reasons.

“First, foreign fighters these days are drawn mainly to join the IS in Syria and Iraq, which offers them a more glamorous cause: fighting for a caliph rather than defending poor farmers and fishermen. Second, Myanmar secures its borders well, making it hard for foreign jihadists to reach the would-be battlefield. Third, militants don’t go to where Muslims suffer; they go to where Muslims fight,” Hegghammer told the Economist.

Khin Mg Myint, a displaced Rohingya in Sittwe, told ucanews.com that no one he knows is talking about joing a terrorist group despite so many being unemployed and impoverished.

“I have high expectations that new government of Myanmar will improve our situation in Rakhine,” he said.

By Michael Hart*

Boko Haram’s brutal war against the Nigerian state is now in its sixth year. On the surface, the militant group appears to be losing the battle and significantly weakened after numerous setbacks throughout 2015. The long-running Islamist insurgency, which began in 2009 in the northeast of the country, looks to finally be on the wane: militants have recently retreated into their rural heartlands after being pushed back from the urban areas they once controlled by a regional coalition of troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

However, whilst it is clear that the group has been temporarily weakened, the threat from Boko Haram lives on due to one particularly worrying development: its pledge of allegiance to Islamic State (ISIS). The alliance with Islamic State means that an organization which previously confined its activities to the northeast region of Nigeria will now adopt a dangerous new outlook that extends across borders and into the wider region.

Over the past six years, Boko Haram has gained a reputation as a particularly brutal terrorist group, forcefully pressing its objectives via a wave of killings, bombings, and abductions across Nigeria. It gained widespread international media coverage in April 2014, after the kidnapping of more than 200 girls from their boarding school in the town of Chibok. This thrust the situation into the international public consciousness, prompting widespread outrage and strong condemnation from Western governments. Key developments and events such as this have been widely reported, however the background context to the insurgency has often been left under-explored. Whilst the conflict in Nigeria is often simplified and presented within the overall narrative of global Islamic terrorism, in reality the background to the militancy is complex and multi-faceted, with many inter-related factors being responsible for the rise of Boko Haram and its sustained campaign against the Nigerian state.

The Evolution of Boko Haram

To better understand the insurgency, it is essential to go back to the beginning. Boko Haram was formed in 2002 by Muslim Cleric Mohammed Yusuf. Yusuf set up a religious complex consisting of a mosque and Islamic school with the initial aim of opposing Western-style education – which has been prevalent in Nigeria since the historical Sokoto Caliphate fell under British imperial control in 1903. The group set up its headquarters in the northeast city of Maiduguri, and became known by the local population as Boko Haram (loosely translated from the local Hausa language: ‘Western education is forbidden’). Officially, the group is called ‘Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad’, meaning ‘People committed to the Prophet’s teachings and Jihad.’

Based on its radical interpretation of Islam, Boko Haram’s aims quickly moved beyond just education and morphed into a wider political project. Its goal was to overthrow the Nigerian government and create an Islamic Caliphate, which would forbid Muslims from taking part in any political or social activity associated with Western society, such as voting in elections, wearing Western-style clothing, or receiving a secular education.

In July 2009, Boko Haram shifted its focus to full-scale militant insurgency, launching a campaign of violence in Borno state, killing hundreds of people in attacks on police stations and government buildings. The response from the Nigerian military was immediate and overwhelming: security forces launched a sustained assault, seizing the group’s headquarters, killing its leader and capturing or killing many of its fighters. At this point Boko Haram appeared to be decimated. However, its fighters soon re-grouped under a new leader, Abubakar Shekau.

Under the leadership of Shekau, recruitment soared and Boko Haram gained a notorious reputation for committing acts of horrific brutality, launching ever more ambitious attacks throughout Nigeria. In August 2011, Boko Haram extended its reach to the capital, killing 23 people in a suicide bombing at the UN headquarters in Abuja. The wave of violence continued on a daily basis – in January 2012, more than 100 civilians were killed in a single day of co-ordinated bombings and shootings in the town of Kano.

As violence escalated the government struggled to maintain control, resulting in President Goodluck Jonathan declaring a state of emergency in May 2013 in the three northern provinces of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa. Troops were deployed to the region to combat the growing militant threat, leading to Boko Haram fighters being pushed out of their urban base Maiduguri and retreating to the dense Sambisa forest to the South, and the remote Mandara Mountains close to the border with Cameroon.

However, the insurgency proved difficult to put-down, and attacks have continued in recent years at an alarming rate. Militants have emerged from their rural hideouts to launch mass attacks on towns and villages – looting property, carrying out mass killings, abducting women and girls, and conscripting men and boys into their army. In April 2014, the group launched its most notorious attack, kidnapping more than 200 girls from a boarding school in Chibok. Despite a huge international outcry and extensive search by the Nigerian military, their whereabouts remains unknown and it is assumed that many have been kept as slaves or sold-off as wives to jihadist fighters.

In August 2014, Boko Haram announced the creation of a Caliphate in the areas under its control, establishing the town of Gwoza as its new center of power. This was followed just months later with a declaration from Boko Haram’s leader Abukakar Shekau that the group had pledged its allegiance to ISIS, and should henceforth be known as Islamic State’s ‘West Africa Province.’ Despite this development, the Nigerian military has continued to push-back the militants throughout 2015. Many Boko Haram fighters have been killed, a large quantity of weapons has been seized and hundreds of captives have been freed. However despite its apparent retreat, Boko Haram has so-far proven itself to be lethal and resilient – it still has an estimated 9,000 fighters, and has gained control of vast amounts of money and weapons. This all suggests that the insurgency is far from over.

Deconstructing Boko Haram

This timeline of events portrays a picture of a militant organization resourceful enough to overcome repeated attempts to destroy it. Considering this, a key question is posed: How was Boko Haram able to emerge as a powerful militant group with the ability to wage the sustained insurgency that has wreaked havoc in Nigeria for over six-years?

Firstly, its historical roots lie in its resistance to the West: sentiments which can be traced back to the colonial period during which Western ideas were first introduced to Nigeria. Many Muslim families in the northeast of the country have long refused to send their children to government-run ‘Western-style’ schools, suggesting that the current jihad is not simply a new phenomenon, but the latest manifestation of a history of religious rebellion in the northeast of the country. Many analysts have suggested that Boko Haram emerged from remnants of the Maitatsine movement of the 1970s-80s, which was led by radical preacher Mohammed Marwa, who denounced Western education and disregarded mainstream Muslim scholars. The group engaged in frequent violence and armed clashes which led to the deaths of thousands of people. It can be argued that Boko Haram has continued this tradition of violent rebellion in the name of opposing Western influences.

Secondly, the concept of a ‘war against the state’ is a key ideological factor behind the rise of Boko Haram. The militants have continually stated their desire to overthrow the Nigerian government and replace it with an Islamic Caliphate governed under Sharia Law. Boko Haram’s strategy to undermine the government’s authority has been clear through their choice of targets; for example the June 2011 bombing of Abuja’s Police headquarters and the August 2011 bombing of the UN building. This desire stems from a dissatisfaction with the state’s structures of governance, which the militants view as corrupt, Western-oriented and un-Islamic in nature.

Thirdly, there is a clear religious element behind the group’s aims: they have stated their ambition to establish a Caliphate, and have implemented their version of Sharia Law in areas under their control. However, there is evidence to suggest that the majority of Nigeria’s Muslim population does not support the activities of Boko Haram. Prominent Muslim figures have spoken out against the group, whilst the Nigerian Coalition of Muslim Clerics has publicly denounced it as well. So rather than being inspired by a purely faith-based version of Islam, Boko Haram can be said to have manipulated the religion, using faith as a vehicle through which to pursue its political agenda, mainly the overthrow of the state to establish control of its territory.

Fourth, as with the emergence of almost all militant groups throughout history, there are strong economic factors which have played a key role in creating the conditions for Boko Haram to emerge and thrive. It can be viewed as an uprising not just located within religion and geography, but also within the wider context of poverty and economic underdevelopment. Similar with many other countries in Africa, particularly those with natural resources such as oil, economic growth has been accompanied by growing inequality. In this sense, Nigeria can be understood to be suffering from the ‘Resource Curse’ – a situation in which oil wealth creates corrupt governance, resulting in vast inequalities between regions and social groups, increasing the risk of poverty-induced conflict. Nigeria is now Africa’s largest economy, yet it’s also one of the continent’s most unequal societies. In the north, 72% of the population live in poverty, compared to just 27% in the south and 35% in the Niger Delta.

Some may contend that this combination of poverty, joblessness, and despair at the perceived corruption of the central government have created fertile ground for the northeast’s generation of disenchanted young men to turn to militancy. This, along with the use of religion by Boko Haram as a vehicle for mobilization, is a key reason behind the insurgency.

Lastly, the role of climate change can’t be ignored. It is an increasingly important factor in conflicts around the world, and has been leading to a growing instability in Nigeria for decades. A 2009 study by the UK Department for International Development warned that climate change could result in desertification in the region, causing water shortages and crop failures. A more recent study by the US Institute for Peace found a ‘basic causal mechanism’ linking climate change to violence in Nigeria. Poor adaptive responses to climate change can result in severe secondary effects such as hunger, unemployment, and the loss of livelihoods, creating an atmosphere of social dislocation from which violent conflict can emerge. A report by Africa Review suggested that many of Boko Haram’s fighters are people displaced from neighboring Chad and Niger as a result of severe drought and food shortages, some of who fled across the the border only to be lured in by Boko Haram’s alternative ideology.

The Lingering Threat of Boko Haram

In light of the factors behind Boko Haram’s rise and continuing appeal, does the group present an existential threat to Nigeria? Some may argue that it does, suggesting that it remains an attractive proposition to young marginalized people, offering an alternative political order. However, in reality the group has so far been largely contained in the far northeast of the country, as the Nigerian military has been increasingly effective in pushing back the militants, whilst the vast majority of Nigerian citizens reject Boko Haram’s extremist ideology.

New Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, elected in May 2015, recognizes that the current threat has not gone away, telling the UN General Assembly in September 2015 that terrorism is the ‘’immediate problem’’ which the country must face.

Overall, the toll of the conflict has been devastating: almost 43,000 people are estimated to have been killed since May 2011, whilst 1.2 million people have been internally displaced. Despite recent setbacks, Boko Haram has continued to pose a huge threat to civilians. According to Amnesty International, at least 3,500 civilians were killed by the group in the first 10 months of 2015, with over 2,000 massacred in the town of Baga alone.

Boko Haram’s recent pledge of allegiance to Islamic State is a cause for severe concern, not just for the Nigerian Government, but also for the wider region. It could yet prove to be a significant recruiting tool for Boko Haram’s leaders to revive the organization once more – this time with a new ideology and an extended mandate, to look beyond Nigeria’s borders and into the neighboring countries of Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. This previously localized conflict is already showing worrying signs of change, as Boko Haram has shifted its tactics and staged numerous attacks in Chad and Cameroon, claiming at least 520 lives.

Given the complex factors which lie behind the emergence of Boko Haram, it is unlikely to be defeated through a military solution alone. If the underlying conditions remain unchanged, then the militancy is likely to lie dormant under the surface, only to re-emerge in another form. Therefore a multi-faceted long-term strategy is needed, one which also addresses the ideological, environmental, and economic causes of the insurgency.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir has denied the existence of any Pakistani mediation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, reported BNA on Sunday.

He said many countries have come forward with mediation offers, which have been dismissed by Riyadh. He was speaking on the sidelines of the First Ministerial Meeting of the Arab-India Co-operation Forum on Saturday.

Reports last week said that Pakistan had offered to mediate between the two countries and end a tense situation sparked by the attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad.

“A lot of countries have offered mediation and delivered ideas between Saudi and Iran, but there is no need for this because the Kingdom is aware of its rights and Iran knows what has to be done.”

Al-Jubeir added: “There won’t be any mediation because, for 35 years, Iran has adopted a hostile approach toward Arab countries by meddling in their internal affairs, sowing sectarian strife and backing terrorism as confirmed by numerous strong evidences.”

Iran is among the terrorism-supportive countries listed by the UN and several states other than Saudi Arabia, he pointed out.

“There are governmental agencies in Iran listed as terrorist organizations. There are also officials in Iran’s security agencies wanted for their involvement in terrorism. Iran should change its policy and method of dealing with its neighbors on the principle of good neighborliness and refrain from interference in the internal affairs of other countries so that the path will be open to building better relations with its neighbors,” he explained.

“The message is clear – Iran has to change its policies and have a better relationship with its neighboring countries.”
Saudi Arabia severed all diplomatic relations with Iran on Jan. 3, a move that was followed by several other Arab countries, including Bahrain.

New estimates project Obamacare will leave behind far more uninsured people than originally estimated. The Congressional Budget Office’s March 2010 estimate figured 26 million uninsured in 2015, while the March 2015 estimate figured 35 million uninsured in 2015.

So, Andy Slavitt, the Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, recently announced steps to increase enrollment in Obamacare’s exchanges. One solution is counter-intuitive. He will tighten up the open season for enrollment. Because of the administration’s eagerness to enroll as many people as possible, deadlines for the first three open seasons have been moving targets. No more, according to Mr. Slavitt, who suggested that corruption among brokers was a motive:

Last month, we announced the elimination of the tax season special enrollment period; and this week, we will be announcing that we will be eliminating certain other select SEPs and making the language on others clearer to prevent bad actors from signing people up for insurance inappropriately.

The tax season special enrollment period was conjured up because people would do their tax returns in the spring and only to learn they were subject to Obamacare’s penalty for the previous year. So, the administration gave them a break to sign up late for the current year. “Bad actors” likely refers to applicants misrepresenting an event such as divorce or job loss so they could sign up for Obamacare outside open season, if they are diagnosed with expensive illnesses.

A strictly defined and enforced open season is required in Obamacare for the same reason it is required in employer-based group plans: When health insurance is guaranteed issue without underwriting for health status it is an important way to limit people’s ability to wait until they get sick to buy coverage.
Because this has been poorly enforced, potential enrollees have been waiting to get sick. If they do not get sick, they never enroll.

Further, a broker acquaintance of mine reports that at least one insurer has stopped paying commissions for signing people up outside open season. This must be because insurers are aware that agents are acting badly, stretching the truth about applicants’ eligibility for special enrollment.

Why have insurers been unable to enforce enrollment criteria appropriately? Because in order to get Obamacare tax credits, insurers can only sell to applicants who use Obamacare’s exchanges. And the exchanges are government-run operations. They are concerned only with signing up as many people as possible. They do not care whether insurers are unwittingly getting people already diagnosed with expensive illnesses.

Getting rid of Obamacare’s exchanges would greatly reduce this problem.

This article was published by The Beacon.