The UN-sponsored Syrian peace talks, which began on Friday in Geneva, will be boycotted by the main Syrian opposition group which has insisted that Russia stop bombing its positions while negotiations are conducted. To appreciate how ridiculous these demands are, one would have to imagine a similar scenario taking place in the United States. Let’s say, for example, that Ammon Bundy, the crackpot leader of the armed militia that seized the federal wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon, demanded that the FBI and all other federal agents vamoose while the UN convened negotiations between his representatives and the Obama administration for the establishment of a transitional government that would remove Obama from power after 18 months while rewriting the constitution so it better reflected the far-right political and religious convictions of Bundy and his gaggle of ne’er-do-well followers.

Does that seem like a reasonable proposition to you?

This is the context in which the current “talks” are being held. Is it any wonder why Moscow doesn’t take this charade seriously? It’s a joke.

In what other country are armed militias allowed to occupy cities, kill civilians, destroy critical infrastructure, create total mayhem and threaten to overthrow the elected government?

None. And yet, the Obama team thinks this is a perfectly acceptable way for citizens and even non citizens (most of the ‘rebels’ are foreign nationals or jihadis) to act, provided their political objectives coincide with those of Washington. Which they do. From the very beginning, Washington’s sole aim has been to topple Syrian President Bashar al Assad so the oil fields and pipeline corridors could be secured by the western oil giants and protected by new US military bases sprinkled across the country. This has been the basic gameplan since Day 1, and this is why Obama and Co are so eager to slow the Russian-led offensive by any means possible even if it means engaging in meaningless negotiations that have no other purpose than to implement a ceasefire so these same US-backed terrorists can regroup and fight at some future date when they are better prepared.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sees through this ruse but–all the same–he’s dispatched diplomats to Geneva to play along and go-through-the-motions. But will he cave in and agree to a ceasefire so Obama’s “rebels” can live to fight another day? Don’t bet on it.

What Americans are not reading in the western media is that, after months of slow but steady progress, the Russian-led coalition (Syrian Arab Army, Iranian Quds Forces, and Hezbollah) has broken through the sluicegate and is advancing on all fronts while enemy positions are crumbling. Key cities and towns in Latakia province along the Turkish border that used to be jihadi strongholds have buckled under Russia’s relentless bombing raids and been liberated by the Syrian Army. Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city to the north, has been surrounded by loyalist forces that have cut off supplylines to Turkey leaving fighters from Salafi groups like Ahrar al Sham, Jabhat al Nusra, Jaish al Islam, ISIS and the other al Qaida-linked groups to either surrender or hunker down while they await the final desperate confrontation. The momentum has shifted in favor of Assad’s forces which now clearly have the upper hand. What the western media characterizes as a “quagmire” has all the makings of a stunning victory for the Russian-led coalition that is gradually reestablishing security across Syria while sending the invaders running for cover. This is from Reuters:

“Three months into his military intervention in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved his central goal of stabilizing the Assad government and, with the costs relatively low, could sustain military operations at this level for years, U.S. officials and military analysts say.

That assessment comes despite public assertions by President Barack Obama and top aides that Putin has embarked on an ill-conceived mission in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that it will struggle to afford and that will likely fail…

since its campaign began on Sept. 30, Russia has suffered minimal casualties and, despite domestic fiscal woes, is handily covering the operation’s cost, which analysts estimate at $1-2 billion a year. The war is being funded from Russia’s regular annual defense budget of about $54 billion, a U.S. intelligence official said…

QUAGMIRE?

“An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire and it won’t work,” (President) Obama said on Oct. 2. On Dec. 1, he raised the prospect of Russia becoming “bogged down in an inconclusive and paralyzing civil conflict.”

The senior administration official denied any contradiction between Obama’s statements and private assessments that Russia’s campaign has been relatively effective so far.

“I think the president’s point has been…it’s not going to succeed in the long run,” the official said. The Russians “have become bound up in a civil war in a way that’s going to be extremely difficult to extricate themselves from.”….

Vasily Kashin, a Moscow-based analyst, said the war is not financially stressing Russia.

“All the available data shows us that the current level of military effort is completely insignificant for the Russian economy and Russian budget,” said Kashin, of the Center for Analyses of Strategies and Technologies. “It can be carried on at the same level year after year after year,” he said.”
(U.S. sees bearable costs, key goals met for Russia in Syria so far, Reuters)

Americans are so conditioned to believe that every military intervention ends in a quagmire that they are surprised when the outcome is different. That’s understandable given the fact that the so called “best military on earth” has been unable to defeat a ragtag collection of goat-herding fundamentalists for more than 15 years. (Afghanistan) No wonder Americans expect failure. The fact is, however, that Putin has no intention of getting “bogged down” in Syria for a decade or two.. What he plans to do is to defeat the enemy and move on. Recent reports from the frontlines suggest that that is precisely what he is doing. This is from a post at Sic Semper Tyrannis:

“The Fall of Salma”

Things had started to move early last week, when the SAA (Syrian Arab Army), NDF (National Defense Force) and local militias moved into Salma, the rebel stronghold that was key to defensive positions South of the M4 highway linking Latakia to Idlib. After weeks of preparations and softening up defences, R+6 finally moved in and there was not much the various rebel groups could have done at that point to stop or reverse this trend…

… Once the strategic breaking point is reached though, the side having gained the upper hand usually pushes through, which results in the opponent’s posture crumbling under the pressure. This is what happened with Salma, a former mountain resort North-East of Latakia… When R+6 went for their final assault, Salma had already become untenable. Its loss meant that the whole defensive line South of the M4 highway was compromised and both SAA advances and “tactical” retreat by the rebels made for a very quick correction of the frontline in the area…

The inroads made by the SAA… again proved decisive against a rebel frontline that had already been destabilized by the loss of Salma and the prospect of being cut off from their LOCs with Jisr al-Shughur.” (Rebel Defences Crumbling In Latakia Province, Sic Semper Tyrannis)

Get the picture? The jihadi misfits are getting the holy hell beat out of them by a superior army that is recapturing critical cities and strategic territory along the Turkish border and across the southern and eastern parts of the country. As a result, Assad will not be removed from office nor will the country become a “Salafi-jihadi principality” governed by Islamic freaks who rule through terror.

That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of potential pitfalls ahead. There are, in fact there’s a situation developing right now that could explode into a regional conflict involving Turkey, NATO, the US and Russia. You see, Russia plans to use its Kurdish allies in the YPG to seize a stretch of land along the Syrian side of the Turkish border to reestablish Syria’s territorial sovereignty and to stop the flow of terrorists from Turkey into Syria. Turkish President Erdogan has promised that if the YPG pursues that course, Turkey will invade, in which case, Putin will come to the defense of the Kurds. There’s no telling how this powderkeg situation will play out, but there’s no doubt that the next few weeks are going to be extremely tense as the main players rattle sabers and jockey for position while edging closer to a full-blown conflagration. Will cooler heads prevail?

I can’t answer that, but I can tell you that Washington has already backed off its “Assad must go” campaign and moved on to Plan B, which is seizing territory and establishing bases in Northeastern Syria that the US plans to occupy for as long as they can. Check it out from South Front website:

“As SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence predicted month ago the NATO allies are urgently trying to implement a new plan to hold control at least of the northern oil corridor from Iraq and try to take advantage of this opportunity to involve Russia in a long expensive war. This plan includes an occupation of the crucial infrastructure including oilfields by the NATO contingent and establishing of anti-government, meaning anti-Russian and anti-Iranian, forces in parts of divided Syria.

Implementing of this plan could easily lead to a global war launched by military escalation over the Syrian crisis. The stakes of the global geopolitical standoff have been raised again.” (Escalation in Syria, South Front)

So even though Washington has scrapped its plan to topple Assad (temporarily), it has deepened its commitment to creating Sunnistan, a new state comprised of eastern Syria and western Iraq controlled by US-clients who will allow western oil giants to connect the pipeline grid from Qatar to Turkey in order to replace Russia as the EU’s primary supplier of natural gas. It’s all part of the imperial strategy to “pivot” to Asia by controlling vital resources and making sure they remain denominated in US dollars. It’s an ambitious plan for global rule that is now being openly challenged by Russia, the emerging power that threatens to derail the lethal US juggernaut and put an end to the malign unipolar world order.

Before announcing for President in the Democratic Primaries, Bernie Sanders told the people he would not run as an Independent and be like Nader—invoking the politically-bigoted words “being a spoiler.” Well, the spoiled corporate Democrats in Congress and their consultants are mounting a “stop Bernie campaign.” They believe he’ll “spoil” their election prospects.

Sorry Bernie, because anybody who challenges the positions of the corporatist, militaristic, Wall Street-funded Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton, in the House and Senate—is by their twisted definition, a “spoiler.” It doesn’t matter how many of Bernie’s positions are representative of what a majority of the American people want for their country.

What comes around goes around. Despite running a clean campaign, funded by small donors averaging $27, with no scandals in his past and with consistency throughout his decades of standing up for the working and unemployed people of this country, Sanders is about to be Hillaried. Her Capitol Hill cronies  have dispatched Congressional teams to Iowa.

The shunning of Bernie Sanders is underway. Did you see him standing alone during the crowded State of the Union gathering?

Many of the large unions, that Bernie has championed for decades, have endorsed Hillary, known for her job-destroying support for NAFTA and the World Trade Organization and her very late involvement in working toward a  minimum wage increase.

National Nurses United, one of the few unions endorsing Bernie, is not fooled by Hillary’s sudden anti-Wall Street rhetoric in Iowa. They view Hillary Clinton, the Wall Street servant (and speechifier at $5000 a minute) with disgust.

Candidate Clinton’s latest preposterous pledge is to “crack down” on the
“greed” of corporations and declare that Wall Street bosses are opposing her because they realize she will “come right after them.”

Because Sanders is not prone to self-congratulation, few people know that he receives the highest Senatorial approval rating and the lowest disapproval rating from his Vermonters than any Senator receives from his or her constituents. This peak support for a self-avowed “democratic socialist,” comes from a state once known for its rock-ribbed conservative Republican traditions.

Minority House Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi has unleashed her supine followers to start wounding and depreciating Sanders. Pelosi acolyte Adam Schiff (D. California) tells the media he doubts Sanders’s electability and he could have “very significant downstream consequences in House and Senate races.”

Mr. Schiff somehow ignores that the House and Senate Democratic leadership repeatedly could not defend the country from the worst Republican Party in history, whose dozens of anti-human, pro-big business votes should have toppled many GOP candidates. Instead, Nancy Pelosi has led the House Democrats to three straight calamitous losses (2010, 2012, 2014) to the Republicans, for whom public cruelties toward the powerless is a matter of principle.

Pelosi threw her own poisoned darts at Sanders, debunking his far more life-saving, efficient, and comprehensive, full Medicare-for-all plan with free choice of doctor and hospital with the knowingly misleading comment “We’re not running on any platform of raising taxes.” Presumably that includes continuing the Democratic Party’s practice of letting Wall Street, the global companies and the super-wealthy continue to get away with their profitable tax escapes.

Pelosi doesn’t expect the Democrats to make gains in the House of Representatives in 2016. But she has managed to hold on to her post long enough to help elect Hillary Clinton—no matter what Clinton’s record as a committed corporatist toady and a disastrous militarist (e.g., Iraq and the War on Libya) has been over the years.

For Pelosi it’s bring on the ‘old girls club,’ it’s our turn. The plutocracy and the oligarchy running this country into the ground have no worries. The genders of the actors are different, but the monied interests maintain their corporate state and hand out their campaign cash—business as usual.

Bernie Sanders, however, does present a moral risk for the corrupt Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee, which are already turning on one of their own leading candidates. His years in politics so cleanly contrasts with the sordid, scandalized, cashing-in behavior of the Clintons.

Pick up a copy of Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash, previewed early in 2015 by the New York Times. Again and again Schweizer documents the conflicted interest maneuvering of donors to the Clinton Foundation, shady deals involving global corporations and dictators, and huge speaking fees, with the Clinton Foundation and the State department as inventories to benefit the Clintons. The Clintons embody what is sleazy and harmful about corporate political intrigues.

If and when Bernie Sanders is brought down by the very party he is championing, the millions of Bernie supporters, especially young voters, will have to consider breaking off into a new political party that will make American history. That means dissolving the dictatorial two-party duopoly and its ruinous, unpatriotic, democracy-destroying corporate paymasters.

Hamelin, a small town in Germany (not so far from where I was born), was infested with rats. In their despair, the burghers called upon a rat-catcher and promised him a thousand guilders for liberating them from this plague.

The rat-catcher took his pipe and played such a sweet melody that all the rats came out of their holes and joined him. He marched them to the Weser river, where they all drowned.

Once freed from this plague, the burghers saw no reason to pay. So the piper took out his pipe again and produced an even sweeter melody. The enchanted children of the town gathered around him and he marched them straight down to the river, where they all drowned.

Binyamin Netanyahu is our pied piper. Enchanted by his melodies, the people of Israel are marching behind him towards the river.

Those burghers who are aware of what is happening are looking on. They don’t know what to do. How to save the children?

The Israeli Peace Camp is in despair. No savior is in sight. Many just sit in front of their TV set and wring their hands.

Among the rest a debate is going on. Will redemption come from within Israel or from outside?

The latest contributor to this debate is Amos Schocken, the owner of the “Ha’aretz” newspaper. He has written one of his rare articles, arguing that only outside forces can save us now.

Let me first say that I admire Schocken. “Haaretz” (“The Land”) is one of the last bastions of Israeli democracy. Cursed and detested by the entire rightist majority, it leads the intellectual battle for democracy and peace, All this while the written media are in dire financial straits, in Israel and around the world. From my own experience as a magazine owner and editor – who lost this battle – I know just how heroic and heartbreaking this job is.

In his article Schocken says that the battle to save Israel from within is hopeless, and that we must therefore support the pressures coming from outside: the growing worldwide movement for boycotting Israel politically, economically and academically.

Another prominent Israeli who supports this view is Alon Liel, a former ambassador to South Africa and current university lecturer. Based on his own experience, Liel asserts that it was the worldwide boycott that brought the apartheid regime to its knees.

Far be it from me to contest the testimony of such a towering expert. I never went to South Africa to see for myself. But I have talked to many participants, black and white, and my impression is a bit different.

It is very tempting to compare present-day Israel with apartheid South Africa. Indeed, the comparison is almost unavoidable. But what does it tell us?

The accepted view in the West is that it was the international boycott of the atrocious Apartheid regime that broke its spine. This is a comforting view. The conscience of the world woke up and crushed the villains.

But this is a view from the outside. The view from the inside seems to be quite different. The inside view appreciates the help of the international community, but it attributes the victory to the fight of the black population itself, its readiness to suffer, its heroism, its tenacity. Using many different methods, including terrorism and strikes, it finally made Apartheid impossible.

The international pressure helped by making the whites increasingly aware of their isolation. Some measures, such as the international boycott on South African sports teams, were especially painful. But without the fight of the black population itself, international pressure would have been ineffective.

The highest respect is due to the white South Africans who actively supported the black struggle, including terrorism, at great personal risk. Many of them were Jews. Some escaped to Israel. One was my friend and neighbor, Arthur Goldreich. Strange as it seemed to some, the Israeli government supported the apartheid regime.

Even a superficial comparison between the two cases shows that the Israeli apartheid regime enjoys major assets that did not exist in South Africa.

The South African white rulers were universally detested because they quite openly supported the Nazis in World War II. The Jews were the victims of the Nazis. The Holocaust is a huge asset of Israeli propaganda. So is the labeling of all critics of Israel as anti-Semites – a very effective weapon these days.

(My latest contribution: “Who is an anti-Semite? Someone who tells the truth about the occupation.”)

The uncritical support of the powerful Jewish communities throughout the world for the Israeli government is something the South African whites could not even have dreamed of.

And, of course, there is no Nelson Mandela in sight. Not after Arafat’s isolation and murder, at least.

Paradoxically, there is a little bit of racism in the view that it was the whites in the Western world that delivered the blacks in South Africa, and not the black South Africans themselves.

There is another big difference between the two situations. Hardened by centuries of persecution in the Christian world, Jewish Israelis can react to outside pressure differently than expected. Outside pressure can turn out to be counterproductive. It may re-confirm the old Jewish belief that Jews are persecuted not for what they do, but for who they are. That is one of Netanyahu’s main selling points.

Years ago, an army entertainment group sang and danced to the joyful tune of a song that started with the words: “The whole world is against us /But we don’t give a damn…”

This also concerns the BDS campaign. 18 years ago, my friends and I were the first to declare a boycott on the products of the settlements. We wanted to drive a wedge between Israelis and settlers. Therefore we did not declare a boycott of Israel proper, which would drive ordinary Israelis into the arms of the settlers. Only direct support of the settlements should be rejected.

That is still my opinion. But everyone abroad should make up his/her own mind. Always remembering that the main objective is to influence public opinion in Israel proper.

The “inside-outside” debate may sound purely theoretical, but it is not. It has very practical implications.

The Israeli peace camp is in a state of despair. The size and power of the right wing is growing. Almost daily, obnoxious new laws are proposed and enacted, some of them with an unmistakable fascist flavor. The Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has surrounded himself with a bunch of male and female rowdies mainly from his Likud party, compared to whom he is a liberal. The main opposition party, the “Zionist Camp” (alias Labor), could be called Likud B.

Apart from some dozens of fringe groups who brave this wave and do admirable work, each in its chosen niche, the peace camp is paralyzed by its own despair. Its slogan could well be “Nothing can be done anymore. No point doing anything”. (Jewish-Arab cooperation in the common fight inside Israel – now sadly lacking – is also essential.)

In this climate, the idea that only outside pressure can save Israel from itself is comforting. Somebody out there will do the job for us. So let’s enjoy the pleasures of democracy while it lasts.

I know that nothing is further from the thoughts of Schocken, Liel and all the others, who fight the daily fight. But I am afraid that this may be the consequence of their views.

So who is right: those who believe that only the fight inside Israel can save us, or those who put their trust entirely in outside pressure?

My answer is: neither.

Or, rather, both.

Those who fight inside need all the outside help they can get. All the moral people in all the countries of the world should see it as their duty to help those groups and persons inside Israel who continue to fight for democracy, justice and equality.

If Israel is dear to them, they should come to the aid of these brave groups, morally, politically and materially.

But for outside pressure to be effective, they must be able to connect with the fight inside, publicize it and gain support for it. They can give new hope to those who are despairing. Nothing is more vital.

The government realizes this. Therefore it is enacting all kinds of laws to cut Israeli peace groups off from foreign help.

So let the good fight go on – inside, outside, everywhere.

By Namrata Hasija*

After the Chinese civil war and Jiang Jieshi’s flight to Taiwan, this tiny island nation located to the East of China was under one-party rule till 1996. In 1996, Taiwan formally became a democracy and elected its first President. Taiwan has two major parties, Kuomintang (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The stance of the two parties towards Mainland China is radically different — the KMT claims that there is only one China, but the DPP claims that Taiwan is an independent country.

What complicates Taiwanese politics and bilateral diplomatic relations with China is the latter’s claim on Taiwan. This has resulted in Taiwan being derecognized as a country by major powers, which had initially recognized the Republic of China (Taiwan) instead of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In 2000 before DPP first came to power, the PRC had openly threatened Taiwan and in 2008 when KMT again came to power much progress was made in bilateral relations between PRC and Taiwan. Almost 800-900 flights are flying across the Taiwan Strait every month highlighting healthy cross strait relations. Many believe that if this continues Taiwan will have peace. Tourists from Mainland China stand at 5 million, which KMT claims is good for the economy as well as bilateral relations.

However, even before the 2016 elections, the KMT was down in its popularity, as opposed to the DPP whose Presidential candidate who was high on popularity. During her election campaign this year, Tsai Ing-wen did not openly say that there is no 1992 consensus but left it ambiguous. There were reports through informal channels that the DPP tried to communicate to China that they could not use the same words due to their political ideology as China was putting pressure on DPP to clear its stance.

She leant towards a more centrist policy, while the KMT’s previous candidate Hung Hsiu-chu was more towards the rightist policy. Following a series of poor ratings in opinion polls, the party’s chairman, Eric Chu, replaced her. Even this replacement could not bring up the ratings as the DPP had put independence on the backburner, but focused on the poor state of the economy, which is standing at less than 2 per cent as far as GDP is concerned. However, it has promised to maintain the status quo between PRC and Taiwan.

Riding high on popularity and rising Taiwanese identity, the DPP won 68 out of the 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan, leaving 35 for the KMT, 5 for the New Power Party, and 3 for the People First Party. There are many challenges in front of the DPP when it assumes power after four months; the first being thorny relations with China, second, the rather awkward silence of the U.S after and even before the Taiwan elections as the U.S. was worried about DPP coming to power fearing confrontation between Taiwan and China.

After the DPP wins Chinese have used social media to show anger on her win and saying that “use force to unify Taiwan”. Even after the announcement of U.S. pivot to Asia sought to deter Chinese aggression but Taiwan was ignored. The reason is not clear but the U.S. has failed to include Taiwan in its reorientation to Asia and third being the dynamic nature of the political and societal basis of Taiwanese society. Many are marrying the mainlanders now, which have created a new class of people in China, called the ‘Mainland spouses’. They too have created a new party to protect their rights and they definitely have a direct line with China. This could be used as a bargaining chip with China in the future.

Analysts are looking at the possible implications and changes in Taiwan’s bilateral relations with PRC and the U.S. however, this article would map out the implications for India keeping DPP’s ‘New Southbound Policy’ and India’s ‘Act East Policy’.

Implications for India

During her election campaign, Tsai Ing-wen, very clearly mapped out her government’s foreign policy. She paid visits to Japan and the U.S. to discuss Taiwan’s future in the international arena. In her speech on DPP’s 29th anniversary celebrations on September 22nd 2015 at the Far Eastern Hotel in Taipei, she said, “another one of our international priorities is to build up our relations with our neighbors in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. I am pleased to announce that a future DPP administration will pursue a ‘New Southbound Policy’ in the years ahead”.

ASEAN and India are poised to become two of the world’s largest economic bodies. Strengthening overall relations with India is a natural choice for Taiwan especially as the Indian nation diversifies its economic and trade ties. The special emphasis that DPP has given to India is quite evident in the speech and the ‘New Southward policy’ which has become the mainstay of Taiwan’s foreign policy. This is not the first time the DPP has approached India to establish strong ties between the two countries. Taiwan had offered to establish military and strategic cooperation to counter China in the region, especially during the previous Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rule, but India did not show much keenness.

However, economic and cultural ties between the two countries have made some progress over the years. Taiwan is increasingly becoming a destination for Indians, especially students. Most recently, there has been a surge in the number of Indians coming to Taiwan for research and academic pursuits, including under graduate, graduate, doctoral and post doctorate positions, as well as teaching in higher level institutions. Starting from 2005, a large number of Indian software engineers began being hired for short, medium or long term assignments with various IT clients around Taiwan. Taiwan’s bilateral trade with India has shown consistent growth since 2001 (US$ 1.123 billion), increasing about six-fold in nine years to reach US$ 6.47 billion in 2010.

In 2011, bilateral trade reached US$7.569 billion an increase of 17 percent over 2010 with India’s exports growing by 10 per cent to reach US$3.142 billion and imports by 22 percent to US$4.427 billion. Bilateral trade between India and Taiwan stood at $6 billion in 2014 and over 70 Taiwanese companies have invested in India since 2013. India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), an industry lobby, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (Teema) to promote cooperation and investment between Indian and Taiwanese companies in the electronic system design & manufacturing (ESDM) industry on March 22 2015.

The progress already made in India-Taiwan relations will grow, given the keenness of the DPP government for taking the ties even further. However, much would depend on India’s initiative to come forward this time. The advantages here are many. For one, this would further India’s ‘Act East Policy’ as India has already raised the bilateral relationship with South Korea to a ‘special strategic partnership’ level, with the provision of annual summit meets between respective leaders and annual 2-2 meetings between the foreign and defense ministers.

On strategic and security issues too, India has started ‘Act East’ with agreements signed with South Korea and also with the United States and Japan, especially multiple agreements with the U.S., including one that requires Indian support for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, issues of maritime security, and interests in maintaining regional stability in the Asia-Pacific. Taiwan has control over of Itu Aba, the largest island in the Spratly chain, along with Pratas Island, which controls the South China Sea’s northeast exit. This makes Taiwan an important ally for not only furthering India’s interest in East Asia but also for controlling China’s might in East Asia. If India could add Taiwan in its strategic ambit along with South Korea, Japan and the U.S., it would benefit equally India and Taiwan as DPP is already approaching Japan and South Korea for strategic partnership.

*Namrata Hasija is the Co-Director of the BRICS Institute, New Delhi. She can be reached at: editor@spsindia.in

Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) have claimed that there is a ninth planet in our Solar System, orbiting far beyond even the dwarf planet of Pluto.

Although there have not been any direct observations to confirm the presence of such a world, the CALTECH astronomers have based their claims on how 13 far-flung objects in the Solar System are seen to move.

The 13 icy objects, found in the outlying Kuiper belt (in the same region of space where Pluto lies) shared some unusual orbital features that could be explained by the presence of a small planet.

In particular, the researchers found that six of the 13 Kuiper belt objects moved on orbits that headed in the same direction, particularly two of the larger ones, known as Sedna and 2012 VP113.

Compared with the orbital plane of Earth and the other planets, all of these objects’ orbits were tilted downward, and at about the same angle. Also, their orbits – including their perihelia, the points at which each object came closest to the Sun – were clustered fairly close together, rather than being randomly distributed.

The research team subsequently carried out simulations to see whether the Kuiper belt may hold enough rocky debris from the birth of the Solar System to put the objects into the same orbit.

Instead, they showed that for this to occur, the belt would need to be 100 times larger that it actually is. Armed with this finding, the scientists calculated that there was only a 0.007 % possibility that these tightly clustered orbits arose by chance.

The more that they crunched the numbers, the more convinced the research team became that a massive planet was not just possible but highly likely.

The new icy world, nicknamed ‘Planet Nine,’ is 10 times larger than Earth, but still miniscule compared to the Solar System’s gas giants. It moves on an extremely elongated orbit, and takes a staggering 10, 000 to 20, 000 years to orbit once around the sun.

The reason why we have been unable to see it is simply because it is so far away. The closest it comes to the Sun is 15 times the distance to Pluto and then it heads into uncharted territory, 75 times further out than Pluto (or 93 billion miles from the Sun). A ray of light from the Sun would take one full week to reach Planet Nine.

However this doesn’t mean that we are unable to find Planet Nine. “There are many telescopes on the Earth that actually have a chance of being able to find it,” said Dr Mike Brown, one of the research leads at CALTECH. “I’m really hoping that as we announce this, people will start a worldwide search to go find this Ninth Planet.”

Regardless of the CALTECH simulations, many astronomers and experts remain skeptical, including NASA’s Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan, who insists that there has to be telescopic evidence before a definitive ruling on Planet Nine’s existence can be made.

Though arguably the most ironic aspect of this entire discovery is that Dr Brown is the astronomer who became infamous in 2005 when many held him and his work responsible for Pluto’s demotion from being the officially recognised ninth planet in the Solar System. Pluto is now classed as just a dwarf planet.

Source: CORDIS

Researchers from the EU-funded Media in Context (MICO) project have published highly promising results. These will help independent news organizations in extending their publishing workflows with cross-media analysis and linked data querying tools.

The project primarily worked with two partners, Greenpeace Italy and Shoof (a start-up developing an Android app for user generated content). It focused on organizing the news desk of small and medium editorial teams by creating a flexible network of metadata around both text and media.

The MICO researchers learned that placing news online without providing adequate context and analysis simply did not work, as the focus for digital news has shifted towards interactive engagement and fostering a sense of community.

By developing their semantic editor, called WordLift (a plugin for WordPress), and then having it utilised by Greenpeace Italy on their magazine website, the project team saw that structuring content with a classification scheme would provide the needed context to news stories. News content is now indeed being republished in many different forms and on many different platforms and devices.

This in turn allowed the team to realize that by structuring content and creating multiple access points (in the form of web pages), overall content discoverability over social networks and search engines increased dramatically.

By using semantic tagging – in essence tagging information with a specific term or resource – every content publisher begins curating a set of concepts that emerge from the content being produced and analyzed. In WordLift these concepts are gathered by applying an internal vocabulary.

During validation tests with Greenpeace Italy, it was shown that this internal vocabulary brought a new level of self-awareness to the organization. The editorial team began studying more carefully the relationship between the organization, the concepts they used for tagging and their target audience.

Seamless technology

Overall, this process has helped them to make strategic editorial decisions by considering what connects to what and why.

The project team is still gathering the full data, but it is clear that classifying news content with a clear scheme is increasing both engagement and traffic.

Overall, MICO researchers have learned through this stage of the project that journalists need technology to assist their work but this technology should not require too much of their attention.

The primary aim for journalists is to concentrate on writing engaging stories and creating meaningful relationships with their target audiences.

However, tools such as WordLift have proven their ability to help provide them with the all-important content structure and context that is increasingly essential in the digital age to engage, capture and retain target audiences.

By Kalinga Seneviratne*

On January 8, 2015 when President Mahinda Rajapakse’s former Cabinet colleague Maithripala Sirisena defeated his old boss in a shock election result campaigning on heralding a non-corruptible ‘yahapalana’ (good governance) regime, people of Sri Lanka took a deep breath, some with euphoric expectations and others with fears of war and terrorism re-visiting the now peaceful island.

Mixed reviews of the anniversary in local newspapers agree that there is a better climate of freedom especially in the media. But it is another question whether democracy and media freedom could eradicate corruption from the political system.

The very corruption Sirisena and his allies in the UNP (United National Party) and the NGO sector claimed were endemic in the Rajapakse regime is now gradually creeping into the new government, with corruption tainted Cabinet ministers from the Rajapakse regime now drafted in to the new regime’s Cabinet.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka’s new allies, the U.S. and the UK leaders, are singing the praises of the new government for heralding a new era of democracy and freedom. After all the failures in Libya, Iraq, Egypt and Syria, the Obama administration in particular seems to be desperate to demonstrate a “success story” in its regime change democracy crusades – and Sri Lanka is thus becoming the latest geo-political battle ground with its strategic location in the Indian Ocean.

In March last year on the eve of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka, Rajapakse said in an interview with an Indian newspaper, that the U.S., Europeans and India’s intelligence services known as RAW had a role in the overthrow of his regime but he absolved Modi from this alleged conspiracy.

Rajapakse regime was detested by the West because it ignored western pressure and went ahead and finished off the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009 becoming the only country to eliminate terrorism in the modern era.

Just two weeks before the LTTE leadership was killed in action, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner flew to Sri Lanka to make a personal demand on President Rajapakse and his brother Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse to declare a ceasefire. The latter was reported to have told the visiting foreign ministers that Sri Lanka was no more a colony of the Europeans.

This rebuff not only bruised European egos, to make matters worse, Sri Lanka accomplished its aim to eliminate terrorism because of diplomatic and military assistance from China, Russia and Pakistan, and financial assistance from Libya and Iran. This is a scenario that the West is loath to want other countries, especially in Asia and Africa to look up to as a template to solve their internal problems.

In return, the West trained and funded local NGOs to make allegations of human rights violations and corruption against the Rajapakse regime, while mobilizing the UN system to mount inquiries on alleged war crimes committed by Sri Lankan armed forces on the final days of the war with LTTE.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon took the unprecedented step of setting up a committee headed by former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman to inquire into possible war crimes in Sri Lanka.

The report, which was supposed to be an advisory report to Ban, and widely criticized Sri Lanka for lacking credibility, became the basis of a number of resolutions moved by the U.S. and its allies at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) against the Rajapakse regime’s alleged human rights violations.

The Rajapakse administration and most Sri Lankans saw this campaign as a classic example of western double standards and hypocrisy, as neither the UNHRC nor the UN Secretary-General have raised any issues with regards to war crimes perpetuated by the West in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and lately in Libya and Syria.

Pushed into a corner, the Rajapakse regime became paranoid of domestic dissent and cracked down heavily on human rights activists (mainly funded by the West) and tightened controls on the media.

The Rajapakse government came closer to China, which invested heavily in Sri Lanka building ports and airports. In November 2014, President Xi Jingping visited Sri Lanka and declared the country a “strategic partner” of China.

Washington rejoices

Thus, when the Rajapakse regime fell in the shock election result there was much elation in Washington and London. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal has visited Sri Lanka twice in 2015, first in February and later in August just after the general elections.

During her visit in February she said: “It is a privilege to visit Colombo to witness for myself the sense of excitement and optimism that the Sri Lankan people have ushered in through the historic January 8 election.” During both visits, she met not only with government leaders but also opposition Tamil politicians and civil society (NGOs), which would amount to a direct interference in domestic affairs of a country.

The U.S. has also hinted that they may dump the Tamils, whom they have used in the war crimes campaign against the Rajapakse regime. The visiting Tamil Chief Minister of the Northern Province C .V Wigneswaran was told by Biswal in July 2015 to soften his “genocide” rhetoric and work with the Sirisena government for reconciliation and development of the province.

In May 2015 her boss, Secretary of State John Kerry, visited Sri Lanka and paid glowing tributes to the new government’s commitment to democracy and human rights. Knowing that the U.S. needed to have the support of the island’s Buddhist majority who are mainly distrustful of the West, he made a highly publicized visit to a leading Buddhist temple near Colombo making traditional Buddhist offerings to monks and getting their blessings in return.

A string of U.S. military leaders have also visited Sri Lanka in the past year hinting at closer cooperation between the two countries in this sphere. In November, State Department Counsellor Thomas Shannon during a visit to Colombo said: “Sri Lanka’s contributions to the development of a regional consciousness – one that promotes the values of democratic governance and respect for human rights, freedom of navigation, sustainable development, and environmental stewardship are noteworthy.”

It is the comment on freedom of navigation pushed into the middle of the statement that should be of concern to China that regards the Chinese-built Hambantota harbour as a crucial lynchpin in their Maritime Silk Route project.

The U.S. is also trying to conscript the Sri Lankan armed forces into their disaster relief schemes very likely via the UN. The U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for South and Southeast Asia, Dr Amy Searight, during a three-day visit to Sri Lanka December 17-19, “examined the future role of Sri Lankan security forces in humanitarian assistance, responding to natural disasters, and increased participation in overseas peacekeeping operations”, according to a U.S. Embassy statement issued in Colombo.

Dismay

Many in the Sri Lankan Defence establishment are known to be unhappy with a commitment given in September 2015 to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by the government when Sri Lanka co-sponsored a resolution with the U.S. to establish a domestic mechanism that may include foreign judges trying war crimes cases in Sri Lanka.

Senior army offices have held discussions with President Sirisena recently on the issue and it is very unpopular with the Sinhalese electorate, who see it as an infringement of the country’s sovereignty. Many Sinhala politicians have criticised the Sri Lankan government’s refusal to table a report prepared by a commission headed by a respected former Judge Maxwell Paranagama at the UNHRC sessions and instead co-sponsoring a resolution on Sri Lanka with the U.S. This resolution is seen as a capitulation to western pressure.

The Paranagama Commission was set up in August 2013 by President Rajapakse to inquire into the issue of missing persons in Sri Lanka, where international human rights organisations, the UN, international media and even the Darussman report have quoted a figure of 40,000. But no one has even named 400 such missing persons.

The Paranagama Commission report questioned the credibility of such allegations made in the Darussman report, while acknowledging that both the armed forces and LTTE may have been involved in what amounts to war crimes. Couched in the usual UN jargon, this report makes comparisons with western behaviour in the war against terror.

Instead of capitulation, the Sri Lankan government should have tabled this report at the UNHRC and called on its membership to set up a South African style lessons learnt commission to look at the war on terror worldwide in order to learn from each other and develop strategies to fight terrorism, where terrorists are increasingly using civilians as shields.

In the first months in office, the Sirisena government demonized Chinese investments in Sri Lanka accusing the Chinese of building infrastructure projects at enormously inflated costs and giving billions of rupees as kickbacks to the Rajapaksas. All such infrastructure projects including the multi-billion dollar Colombo Port City project inaugurated by President Xi in November 2014 were suspended. Many believed that this was succumbing to pressure from India.

Even beginning of this year a deal to purchase JF-17 fighter jets from Pakistan was cancelled when India raised strong objection to it. The deal would have involved the Chinese along with the Pakistanis, setting up an aircraft-servicing base on the island. India has questioned Sri Lanka’s need for fighter jets.

Both Pakistan and China played a major role in Sri Lanka’s war with LTTE. It is no secret that Pakistani air force pilots helped to train their Sri Lankan counterparts in precision bombing, while China provided hi-tech radar and other military hardware. India did not object to these at that time.

China has been a friend of Sri Lanka for a long time. The relationship goes back to the 1952 rubber-rice pact where China sold rice to Sri Lanka at under the market price while buying rubber at above the market price. In the 1970s China was a close ally of the Srimavo Bandranaike government, which also had a close relationship with India.

A U-turn in dealing with China

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government seems to be making a remarkable U-turn in its dealings with China. It became quite evident after a high-level Chinese delegation led by Yang Weiqun, director of the department of Asian affairs at the Chinese Commerce Ministry, visited Colombo early January.

Addressing an investment promotion seminar early January, the Minister of Megapolis and Western Development Champika Ranawaka indicated that the Colombo Port City project will be given pride of place in Sri Lanka’s grand strategy to become a developed nation. Ranawaka was a member of the Rajapakse Cabinet and after defecting to the Sirisena camp, he was one of the most vociferous critics of Chinese kickbacks to the Rajapakses during the elections campaign.

“The new city will tap the intrinsic values of the region and environment to create a new ideal modern community for business, living and leisure. This will help attract companies and investors, to ensure it will become a beacon of excellence for Sri Lanka,” he said.

The State Minister for Trade Sujeewa Senasinghe told reporters on January 12 that the Port City project will go ahead with slight changes to the agreement where the 50 acres to be given to a private company will be changed to a government deal. He also said that Sri Lanka would be getting a large loan from the Chinese at 2 percent interest to pay off loans the previous regime has taken at 6.9 percent.

The overtones to China have perhaps been influenced by an IMF report in November 2015 on the Sri Lankan economy that is believed to have adverse comments on government economic policy.

The government has not given its consent to publish the report and on top of it, financial gurus George Soros and Joseph Stiglitz, who attended a special economic forum organized by Prime Minister Wickremasinghe in Colombo on January 7-8, gave some gloomy forecasts of Sri Lanka’s ability to attract foreign investments in the current economic climate. While they were in Colombo, the stock market collapsed with indices showing lowest level since the government came to power.

“All Chinese funded projects were halted the moment the new government took office until ‘investigations’ into them were over. This was an extraordinary insult to a powerful nation which has never had anything but goodwill towards Sri Lanka,” noted the ‘Island’ newspaper in a special commentary to mark the first anniversary of the Sirisena government.

“It was only when a whole procession of American dignitaries came to Sri Lanka and brought not a cent with them, that reality deems to have dawned on the government that if the Americans were going to give Sri Lanka any money, they would have to borrow it from the Chinese! As this reality dawned on them and the economic crisis began to bite, the government started making overtures to the Chinese once again.”

Sri Lanka is thus at the crossroads having to battle geo-political crosscurrents in the Indian Ocean. But, there are opportunities to be grabbed, which needs imaginative diplomacy. The loan deal mentioned above could give an indication.

During President Sirisena’s visit to China in March 2015, President Xi is reported to have told him that Sri Lanka, China and India together could play an important role in the development of Asian trade routes.

With Prime Minister Modi promoting the Indic-Buddhist Civilizational movement to help link China’s Silk Routes projects with a cultural focus, to which President Xi has responded positively, Sri Lanka is well placed to play a pivotal role in it. After all, it was the Sri Lankans that preserved the Indian Buddhist tradition and spread it to Southeast Asia after the writing of the Buddhist cannon Tripitaka in Sri Lanka in the 1^st century BC.

If the Sri Lankan government grabs this opportunity to work together with India and China in the cultural sphere, it will also contribute enormously towards reconciliation between the Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, which no divisive constitutional reforms could achieve.

*The author is a Sri Lanka born journalist and academic who teach regional communication issues at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

In Paris and together with another 30 States, the Government of Spain signed this week the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Country-by-Country Information Exchange, sponsored by the OECD. The agreement, signed at the OECD headquarters by the Spanish State Secretary for the Treasury and President of the Spanish Tax Agency (Spanish acronym: AEAT), Miguel Ferre, as the competent authority in Spain, represents an important step forward in international tax information transparency, according to the Spanish government.

The country-by-country exchange of information is included in the so-called OECD BEPS Action Plan (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) aimed at combating tax base erosion, aggressive fiscal planning and the artificial transfer of company profits. It means that multinational companies are required to present a country-by-country report containing a breakdown of the taxes they pay in all the States where they operate.

According to the OECD, the country-by-country reports must be presented annually in the jurisdiction of the multinational group’s parent company and will be automatically shared with the other signatory States via an inter-governmental information exchange process. The European Commission (EC) is working along the same lines and plans to present regulations in this regard soon.

In the case of Spain, the government has already anticipated the OECD recommendations and EC forecasts to recently include this provision in its internal regulations; specifically the new Corporate Income Tax Regulations, approved in July 2015, on the tax reform. These regulations state that multinational companies resident in Spain with a turnover in excess of 750 million euros and with the status of a group’s main company will be required to provide country-by-country information to the Spanish Tax Agency as from 2016 on the tax payments they make in each country.

Although the country-by-country information already refers to tax periods as from 2016, the information exchange will become effective as from 2017 in order to coincide with the OECD.

The subsidiaries of companies residing in a territory with which no automatic information exchange agreement exists will also be required to provide country-by-country information. The information to be provided includes revenue, gross turnover, taxes accrued and settled, equity, the net accounting value of material assets and workforce (number of employees), for each company.

The multilateral agreement signed in Paris strengthens the effects of Spanish regulations already in force. Spain will be able to obtain detailed information on the taxes paid by multinational companies whose parent company resides in the signatory States to the agreement without needing to sign bilateral agreements with each one. For example, the Spanish Tax Agency will be able to have information on the taxes paid by a subsidiary located in Switzerland, France or Germany (countries that have signed the multilateral agreement) and vice-versa.

The goal is to increase knowledge as far as possible with a view to avoiding aggressive fiscal planning practices that enable companies to drastically reduce tax payments to a minimum or nil by taking advantage of international taxation differences.

The information obtained will be exclusively used by the tax authorities, thereby guaranteeing the principle of tax data confidentiality. According to the OECD, this information will also help increase knowledge about the formulation of transfer pricing (the prices used for the exchange of goods and services between the parent company and the subsidiaries of a single multinational group), which will be used to streamline tax inspection resources. The development of rules on transfer pricing documentation is one of the actions included in the BEPS project.

Spain is also involved in other international initiatives (OECD, G-20 and European Commission), such as the agreement to establish “automatic” and “standardized” tax information exchange as from 2017.

(EurActiv) -Greece’s Migration Minister, Yiannis Mouzalas, said on Thursday (28 January) that Belgium had asked him to go against the law, and “push migrants back in the sea”.

In an informal meeting in Amsterdam (25 January), EU interior and justice ministers exchanged views on the current state of play of the refugee crisis.

The European Commission published a report on 27 January, according to which Greece was threatened with a potential suspension from Schengen zone in the event it didn’t take immediate action to protect the external borders of the EU.

However, Athens hit back and slammed the Commission over that the report saying it was highly “politicized”.

Grexit is visible

Speaking to the BBC, the Greek minister stressed: “Belgians told us: Go against the law! We are afraid! We don’t care if they are drowned.”

Mouzalas added that the rest of ministers strongly disagreed with their Belgian counterpart, Theo Francken.

According to reports, Katrien Jansseune, the minister’s spokesperson, said that it was an informal meeting, and what Fracken said was not the official position of the government.

The leftist minister went further on Friday (29 January), saying that he feared a Grexit from the Schengen area was close.

“Such a possibility is getting visible; under the table one can hear such things …. Doesn’t that make us feel a bit worried?” Mouzalas wondered. “Europe is faced with a split that surpasses the political parties […] I am really worried about the threats of Europeans,” he added.

In an effort to secure unity on the issue, next week, Mouzalas will meet the leaders of the opposition parties.

“We should all thank Greece for continuing to save thousands of refugees on an everyday basis, despite its difficult economic outlook […]selfish national rhetoric means that member states continue to look at the finger rather than the moon. Greece is not the problem”, Gianni Pittella, the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) chief in the European Parliament, told EurActiv.

U.S. law enforcement officials have confirmed that a powerful .50-caliber rifle had been discovered in the Mexican hideout of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s that is linked to the controversial Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) clandestine gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, news sources confirmed this week to Conservative Base.

The .50-caliber rifle is known for its effectiveness during military combat against helicopters such as Apaches and Black Hawks.

Following early January’s raid in the Mexican city of Los Mochis, police and military officials discovered several weapons inside El Chapo’s residence, including the Fast and Furious-linked .50 caliber rifle, said former U.S. drug enforcement agent Kevin McGinty.

“U.S. ATF agents processed the eight firearms found in El Chapo’s residence and were surprised to find that one of the two .50-caliber weapons was part of the ATF gun smuggling program,” said McGinty, an expert in Mexican organized crime. “Just when the Obama administration believed the Fast and Furious scandal was behind them, this case opens up the same can of worms that embarrassed law enforcement. Even more embarrassing was the fact no one — not one person — was charged and prosecuted for the politically-motivated snafu,” he added.

Of the roughly 2,000 weapons smuggled into Mexico by the ATF and then sold through Fast and Furious to Mexican crime figures, 34 of them were .50-caliber rifles that can take stop a truck or bring down a police of military helicopter, according to officials.

“I think what needs to be done is for prosecutors to make a deal with El Chapo to pursue the allegation that Fast and Furious was planned and initiated by the ATF to give more credence to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s assertion that Mexico’s violence and extreme homicide rate are fault of Americans as a result of U.S. weapons being easily purchased and carried into Mexico for use by that nation’s organized crime gangs,” said Peter MacNeil, a police firearms instructor. “Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, probably came up with the actual plan, would be my guess,” added MacNeil.

One of the most tragic consequences of the Fast and Furious fiasco was the killing of a U.S. law enforcement agent, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry by a shooter using one of the undercover operation’s firearms. There were also reports that a brother of a Mexican attorney general was also killed with one of the weapons as were a number of El Chapo rivals and innocent civilians.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, issued the following statement after U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled the Obama administration cannot use executive privilege to keep Operation Fast and Furious records from Congress:

“Today’s decision will help us advance the Fast & Furious investigation into this administration’s gun running operation. After allowing guns to walk, the administration’s attempt to hide behind executive privilege only adds insult to injury. While the decision doesn’t give us access to all the documents, it is an important step forward. We will continue investigating until we get to the truth.”

The January 2, mass execution of a group of 47 people by Saudi Arabia has sparked bitter tensions in the Middle East and brought the kingdom’s human rights record under the spotlight.

According to the Saudi officials, the people who were beheaded in the execution frenzy were Al-Qaeda affiliates and terrorists either plotting to carry out attacks within the Saudi borders and outside or already convicted of violent crimes; however, there were reportedly a number of juveniles and political activists among the people on the death row, most notably the dissident cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

The Saudi authorities deny the accusation that they hold political prisoners, but according to the unofficial accounts of advocacy organizations, there are as many as 30,000 political prisoners in the Saudi jails. The repression of journalists and activists persists, and a noted blogger named Raif Badawi has been recently condemned to 10 years behind the bars plus 1,000 lashes over his writings. Human Rights Watch noted in early 2015 that lengthy sentences are imposed on prisoners on such vague charges as “setting up an unlicensed organization” and “disobeying the ruler.” At least 90 people were executed in Saudi Arabia in 2014 through beheading and stoning, and the number rose to 158 in 2015, as detailed by the Human Rights Watch and Reprieve.

An Australian university professor and author says Saudi Arabia has been able to “get away with a good deal of bad behavior especially to its dissidents” and the world countries prefer not to risk their profitable trade with the monarchy by criticizing its human rights transgressions.

“The foreign ministry and house of al-Saud remain committed to a clandestine, authoritarian form of control that suspects human rights as a mechanism that undermines, rather than furthers governance,” said Prof. Binoy Kampmark in an interview with Truth NGO.

The Australian academic however censures what he deems to be the inconsistent attitude of the major powers towards the notion of human rights, saying that the “Sunni states have Western backing, however atrocious their own human rights records might be, and Iran, the deemed enemy, does not.”

Prof. Binoy Kampmark is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at the RMIT University in Melbourne. He writes on international politics, human rights and the Middle East current affairs. He has been a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge and regularly contributes to such publications as CounterPunch and International Policy Digest.

I talked to Prof. Binoy Kampmark on the recent regional turmoil provoked by the Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent Shiite cleric and anti-government critic Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and international reactions to the worrying developments in the Arabian Peninsula.

Q: The Saudi government has affirmed that the majority of those who were executed on January 2 were Al-Qaeda affiliates and terrorists. This is while several observers claimed many of the people put to death row were Shiite activists and young people under 25. Has the Saudi government really made a decision to fight Al-Qaeda through its recent mass executions, or was it a cover-up to extinguish political dissent?

A: There is little doubt that the executions were staged as a response to diminishing gains for the kingdom, rather than a concerted change in policy against Al-Qaeda. Iran has been making headway with the P5+1 nuclear deal, while the Saudis are not necessarily making the gains they wish for in such areas as Yemen and Syria. The execution was a clear statement against the Shiite camp.

Q: What do you specifically think of the whole episode of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr’s trial and execution? He is said to have been a non-violent preacher and democracy advocate. Amnesty International called his court hearing in October 2014 a “deeply flawed” trial marked by numerous irregularities. Weren’t the international organizations and the close partners of Saudi Arabia in Washington and the EU able to block this “flawed” trial and stop the Saudi kingdom from carrying out the death sentence?

A: The relationship between the West and Saudi Arabia, fuelled – literally – by oil interests has made a curious spectacle of the kingdom’s behavior vis-à-vis partners, allies and enemies. Riyadh knows that it can get away with a good deal of bad behavior especially to its dissidents. It also massages, mediates, and manages disagreement and opposition through a sophisticated global system of media cultivation, a fact revealed by the WikiLeaks Saudi cables. The result is that the Sunni states have Western backing, however atrocious their own human rights records might be, and Iran, the deemed enemy, does not. The default position here is that the Shiite Islamic world is frowned upon, while the Sunni world gets credit. This manifests itself in such cases as the trial of the cleric al-Nimr.

Q: The attack by an angry mob on the Saudi embassy in Tehran relatively diverted public attention from the execution of Sheikh Nimr and 46 other convicts by the Saudi government, and shifted the focus to the Iran-Saudi rivalry and the presumed Sunni-Shiite divide. Do you agree with the premise that the embassy rampage eventually worked well for the Saudis and relieved them of accountability and public pressure over the mass executions?

A: Such protests always give the impression of mob response and fanatical counter-attack. The realities were far more complex, and suggested how precarious Saudi policy can be. It did have the effect of jolting various Saudi-backers who have traditionally been more supportive. It is notable, for instance, that dissent regarding the cleric’s execution was noted in a traditional backer of Riyadh – Pakistan. What much media attention has tended to do, however, is return the focus back to sectarianism, which avoids, sadly, the human rights dimension in the entire case.

Q: Saudi Arabia, described by the Washington Post as one of the world’s worst human rights offenders, was selected in June 2015 as the chair a key UN Human Rights Council overseeing the appointment of experts in the countries where the UN has a mandate on rights issues. The decision infuriated many nations and irked the Amnesty International officials who lamented Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. Why has Saudi Arabia been assigned such a major role? Won’t the decision discredit the United Nations and its integrity on human rights?

A: The position of the UN Human Rights Council has been traditionally laughed at by critics, notably in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. It has been seen as a position where jockeying takes place on the issue of how best to portray a state and its human rights record, while also being involved in drafting conventions and mechanisms to protect human rights. Getting on it has been deemed important to that end, a sort of public relations fiesta. It is not surprising then, that a position on the UNHRC is seen so cynically and separate from the actual human rights realities that afflict the state in question. This can be gathered by the British role behind backing Riyadh in getting a position.

Q: According to the United Nations, around 5,800 Yemenis have been killed so far in the Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen. Is the Saudi military expedition in Yemen simply driven by a panic to quell the rise of Shiites in the impoverished neighboring country? Has the Saudi offensive against Yemen been consistent with the principles of international law?

A: The Saudi-backed mission in Yemen violates international law – its attacks on medical centers, for instance, and has further reduced the country to a state of desperation. There is little doubt that this is part of Riyadh’s efforts to prevent a “Shiite crescent” from gaining influence in the region. Should the Houthi rebels succeed, this will count as a blow against the Sunni regimes keeping a close watch on developments. Saudi Arabia, as the main Sunni backer and state, stands to lose most.

Q: Are the Saudi officials going to relax the restrictions they’ve put on the women’s rights, free speech, social media, Shiite minority and unorthodox political activists under international pressure? Will the major world powers and the principal Saudi allies in the West resolutely demand Riyadh to give more leeway to the Shiites and refrain from persecuting the social media and women activists?

A: The short answer to all these inquiries is no. Certainly not in the immediate future. There is little doubt that progress is being made in some circles on the human rights front, but these are domestically driven rather than externally mandates. The foreign ministry and house of al-Saud remain committed to a clandestine, authoritarian form of control that suspects human rights as a mechanism that undermines, rather than furthers governance. While assignations by the West will, and have been made in part, this is much for show. Actual change will only happen within, and slowly.

This interview was originally published on Truth NGO website.

Subtle changes in the way Qatar projects itself on the international stage symbolized by a recent government reshuffle, economic reform as a result of reduced energy income, and cutbacks at global television network Al Jazeera, could accelerate Qatari compliance with demands for migrant labour reform, and prompt an even greater emphasis on sports. That is if Qatar can shake dogged allegations of wrongdoing in its various bids to host major sporting events.

The notion of progress towards labour reform after five years of promises is fuelled by suggestions from western diplomats and some academics that the reshuffle and the streamlining of Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s cabinet is a first step towards political liberalization and transition from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy.

They argue that Sheikh Tamim, who took office after his father, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, stepped down in 2013, has begun with the reshuffle to move the old guard aside and pave the road for change.

Alongside the need to cut costs because of reduced energy income, “this is also about Sheikh Tamim’s slow consolidation of power after 2-1/2 years in the job. He’s still pushing out the old timers loyal to the former emir who were not necessarily that effective but couldn’t be sacked all in one go,” a Doha-based western diplomat told Reuters.

While members of the old guard were indeed removed, the reshuffle at first glance involves mergers of ministries and signals an emphasis on defense at a time of conflict and growing uncertainty in the Gulf.

In the reshuffle, Sheikh Tamim took over the defense portfolio and appointed outgoing foreign minister Khalid Al Attiyah, whose father was the founder of Qatar’s armed forces, minister of state for defence. Mr. Al Attiyah replaces Major General Hamad Bin Ali Al-Attiyah, who was appointed defense advisor to Sheikh Tamim with a rank equivalent to that of prime minister.

With up to 1,000 troops in Yemen as part of the Saudi-led invasion of that country, Qatar is involved in one of the largest military engagements in its history.

The notion of political and economic reform could prove to be a double-edged sword for labour reform, a demand by trade unions and human rights, which Qatar has had to take serious with its winning of the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup.

A greater Qatari say in the affairs of their country could highlight widespread public fear that labour reform could undermine Qatari control of their society and culture in a country in which the citizenry accounts for a mere 12 percent of the population.

The economic reforms and cost-cutting that involve the closure of Al Jazeera America, a $2 billion failed investment, the shelving or suspension of up to a quarter of Qatar’s ambitious construction and infrastructure projects, expatriate job cuts, the slashing of ministerial budgets and the possible roll-back of subsidies amount to a rewriting of Qatar’s social contract. That contract involved cradle-to-grave security for Qatari nationals in exchange for the surrender of their political rights.

Political liberalization as part of the forging of a new social contract would be the first fallout in terms of political change of tumbling world energy prices that is forcing Gulf states to revisit the concept of a rentier state.

In explaining the government reshuffle, Sheikh Tamim stressed that his new Cabinet needs to gain the trust of Qatar’s citizens. “Your responsibility in light of the falling oil prices is bigger, but serving the citizens and their lifestyle should not be affected by this situation,” Sheikh Tamim said. Sheikh Tamim warned his subjects in November that the state no longer could “provide for everything.”

While Mr. Al Attiyah as foreign minister was one of the few Qatari officials to engage with the media, his successor, 35-year old Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani is likely to be more sensitive to international demands given his former job as the ministry’s official in charge of international cooperation.

Sports will remain a pillar of Qatar’s soft power strategy that is designed to compensate for a lack of sustainable hard power despite the country’s greater military assertiveness. To make what has so far been at best a troubled soft power strategy bordering on failure, Qatar has its work cut out for it.

In addition to the Swiss judicial investigation into the propriety of Qatar’s World Cup bid, it needs to reckon with the possibility, if not likelihood that the US investigation of world soccer body FIFA will expand to include Qatar.

Qatar’s bids for the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships are moreover under investigation by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) as a result of allegations of bribery.

This month’s announcement of Qatari sponsorship of German club Bayern Muenchen FC has sparked protests from fans and trade unions because of the Gulf state’s kafala or labour sponsorship system that puts employees at the mercy of their employers. Qatar has so far introduced only minimal changes to the system.

In its 2016 annual report, Human Rights Watch criticized Qatar for not following through with promises of reform and leaving migrant workers “acutely vulnerable”.

The group’s Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson, charged that “Qatar’s inadequate labour law reforms undermined its progressive ambitions. The Qatari government should understand that protecting the rights of migrant construction workers is a necessary part of hosting a 21st century football tournament.”

In an effort to demonstrate sincerity, Qatar has recently prosecuted companies for the separate deaths of five construction workers. The court convicted the companies on charges of manslaughter and negligence and imposed fines and compensation payments.

A key litmus test of the notion that Sheikh Tamim may be contemplating political change will be whether he releases from prison Qataris who opposed government policies, including poet Muhammad al-Ajami, who is serving a 15-year sentence for “criticizing the emir” in a poem that praised the 2011 Arab popular revolts.

“We do not want to topple the royal family. But we are calling for a constitutional monarchy where the legislation resides with an elected Parliament, not the emir,” Khalid al Halil, a reform-minded, London-based businessman, recently told The New York Times.

On Thursday, January 28 at 12:30 PM, representatives of Indigenous organizations from the Southwest, Northern Great Plains, and supporters called for “no nukes” in a protest addressing radioactive pollution caused by 15,000 abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) posing a toxic threat in the US. The demonstration was held at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters to call for immediate clean up of these hazardous sites, protection of Indigenous sacred areas from uranium mining, and for intervention in communities where drinking water is poisoned with radioactive contamination. The groups charged that the EPA has been negligent in addressing these toxic threats that severely threaten public health, lands, and waterways.

“Native American nations of North America are the miners’ canaries for the United States trying to awaken the people of the world to the dangers of radioactive pollution”, said Charmaine White Face from the South Dakota based organization Defenders of the Black Hills.

South Dakota has 272 AUMs which are contaminating waterways such as the Cheyenne River and desecrating sacred and ceremonial sites. An estimated 169 AUMs are located within 50 miles of Mt. Rushmore where millions of tourists risk exposure to radioactive pollution each year.

Indigenous communities have been disproportionately impacted as approximately 75% of AUMs are located on federal and Tribal lands. A majority of AUMs are located in 15 western states with the potential to impact more than 50 million people.

Out of 272 AUMs in South Dakota only one, the Riley Pass Mine located on US Forest Service held lands, has been cleaned up but the process has been called inadequate and concerns were raised about the reclamation budget. “My concern is how with the balance remaining from a $179 million mine reclamation settlement, the USFS says that local affected communities will be able to use the remainder on community projects and training to replace uses of the Grand River, which flows into Missouri River. The river is destroyed through this act of radioactive genocide.” stated Harold One Feather, a member of Defenders of the Black Hills, “After discussing the $179M Tronox settlement for the Riley Pass Uranium Mine Reclamation, the US Forest Service said the affected communities can submit budgets to use up any remaining balance after mine reclamation.”

Outside of the EPA headquarters the groups chanted, “Radioactive Pollution Kills!”, “No More Churchrock Spill, No More Fukushima!”, and “Clean Nuclear is a deadly lie!” in response to the EPA’s Clean Power Plan which they state promotes nuclear energy.

From January 25-28, Clean Up The Mines, Defenders of the Black Hills, Diné No Nukes, Laguna and Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment & Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, and Indigenous World Alliance, met members of congress, Department of Interior, Department of Agriculture, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, DC.

The Clean Up The Mines! campaign is focused on passing the Uranium Exploration and Mining Accountability Act that would ensure clean up of all AUMs. The act was submitted as a draft to Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D–AZ) two years ago but has yet to be introduced to Congress.

Currently, no comprehensive law, regardless of mining era, requires clean-up of all these dangerous abandoned uranium mines allowing corporations and the federal government to walk away without taking responsibility for the continuing harms they have caused.

“This is an invisible national crisis. Millions of people in the United States are being exposed as Nuclear Radiation Victims on a daily basis.” said Mrs. White Face, “Exposure to radioactive pollution has been linked to cancer, genetic defects, Navajo Neuropathy, and increases in mortality. We are protesting the EPA today because we believe that as more Americans become aware of this homegrown radioactive pollution, then something can be done to protect all peoples and the environment. In the meetings we had in DC, not only were AUMs discussed, but we also talked about radioactive pollution from coal dust, coal smoke, and in water.

These show a need for amendments to the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act,” said Mrs. White Face.

The groups addressed extreme water contamination, surface strip coal mining and power plants burning coal-laced with radioactive particles, radioactive waste from oil well drilling in the Bakken Oil Range, mill tailings, waste storage, and renewed mining threats to sacred places such as Mt. Taylor in New Mexico.

“The U.S. is violating its own Executive Orders and laws intended to protect areas sacred to Native American people on public lands by applying the General Mining Act of 1872.” Petuuche Gilbert of the Laguna Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment & President of the Indigenous World Association, “The U.S is discriminating against Indigenous peoples when it permits mining on these lands. Specifically, the U.S. is violating: Executive Order 13007, Executive 13175, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

“With adherence to out-dated, racist policies promoting colonialism, such as the 1872 mining law,Indigenous peoples across the country will continue to be oppressed, and we will continue to demand that our land be returned and restored to its original condition, to that of before the colonization by the United States,” stated Leona Morgan of Diné No Nukes. “The United Nuclear Corporation mill tailings spill of 1979, north of Churchrock, New Mexico left an immense amount of radioactive contamination that down-streamers, today, are currently receiving in their drinking water. A mostly-Navajo community in Sanders, Arizona has been exposed to twice the legal limit allowable for uranium through their tap–this is criminal!” said Morgan. Diné No Nukes is a collective focused on educating the general Navajo population about the issues created by US Atomic Energy Commission, as well as ongoing and new threats from the nuclear industry.

Tommy Rock, a member of Diné No Nukes and graduate student from the state of Arizona stated that the water crisis in Flint, Michigan was extremely similar to a crisis near the Navajo Nation in Sanders, AZ. “The regulatory agencies are responding by sending the Army National Guard to provide bottle water for the community of Flint. However, the small community of Sanders which is also predominantly an Indigenous community that is off the reservation are not receiving the same response from the state regulatory agency or the state legislatures and the media,” stated Rock who worked on a recent study that uncovered levels of uranium in the drinking water system of residents and an elementary school in Sanders that violated the drinking water standard for uranium. Rock continues, “The same can be said about two Lakota reservations. They are Pine Ridge and Rock Creek, Standing Rock Reservation that have not received any assistance from regulatory agencies. This exemplifies the inconsistency among the US EPA regions about responding to Indigenous communities compared to non-Indigenous populations which are facing the same issue regarding access to safe drinking water.”

Mr. Rock called for the community of Sanders to be included in the second Navajo Nation 5-Year Clean-Up Plan and an amendment to the Clean Water Act. “Another issue around water is the mining industry is contaminating the rivers. They are disregarding the Clean Water Act because the act does not address radionuclides. This needs to be amended so the policy can enforce that companies be accountable for their degradation to the watershed areas. This can also be beneficial to US EPA because they do not have the funds to clean every contaminated river by the mining industry and other commercial industry,” stated Mr. Rock.

“These uranium mines cause radioactive contamination, and as a result all the residents in their vicinity are becoming nuclear radiation victims,” states Petuuche Gilbert, a member of the Acoma Nation, LACSE, MASE, and IWA. “New Mexico and the federal government have provided little funding for widespread clean up and only occasionally are old mines remediated. The governments of New Mexico and the United States have a duty to clean up these radioactive mines and mills and, furthermore, to perform health studies to determine the effects of radioactive poisoning. The MASE and LACSE organizations oppose new uranium mining and demand legacy uranium mines to be cleaned up,” said Mr. Gilbert.

“In 2015 the Gold King Mine spill was a wake-up call to address dangers of abandoned mines, but there are currently more than 15,000 toxic uranium mines that remain abandoned throughout the US”, said Ms. White Face. “For more than 50 years, many of these hazardous sites have been contaminating the land, air, water, and national monuments such as Mt. Rushmore and the Grand Canyon. Each one of these thousands of abandoned uranium mines is a potential Gold King mine disaster with the greater added threat of radioactive pollution. For the sake of our health, air, land, & water, we can’t let that happen.”

The delegation was supported by Piscataway Nation and DC area organizations such as Nipponzan Myohoji Temple, Popular Resistance, Movement Media, La Casa, NIRS, & the Peace House.

*Klee Benally of Clean Up the Mines

Over the past few months the Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, has been embroiled in a scandal over allegedly diverting funds from the state development fund 1MBD, to his personal account. But on January 26th, Najib was cleared of these allegations, as news emerged that the bank transfer actually came from the Saudi royal family.

Amidst an international backdrop of fear based upon the ever-growing threat of fundamentalist terrorism, Malaysia has had its own fair share of security threats. Indeed, according to a source close to the royal family, the money transferred to Najib’s account by the Saudis was a donation meant to help him combat the rising threat of the Muslim Brotherhood, which made up a part of the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition, in the 2013 election.

Throughout 2015, the corruption scandal has weighed heavy on Malaysia’s outlook, bringing down investor confidence and leading to significant losses in the value of the ringgit. However, with charges out of the way, economic pundits hope that the country will quickly rebound. The investigation came to a close not a moment too soon, as a series of political, economic and security factors makes 2016 a challenging year.

Even if the Brotherhood was defeated in 2013, this has not stopped similar organizations from crawling out of the woodwork. Most formidable of these is ISIS, which has recently issued threats against the Malaysian government and extended the call to jihad to the country’s Muslim populace. There have been whispers and rumors, in the press especially, that Malaysia is midway through a process of Islamization, but much of that suspicion is directly a result of Malaysia’s pre-emptive approach to dealing with terrorism. In light of growing threats, a controversial security law championed by Najib was successfully put to use and seven arrests of suspected ISIS terrorists were carried out in the week before the threats were even made.

Security issues aside, Najib’s greatest concerns over the coming year most probably relate to the domestic economy. Although a plan, dubbed the “Vision 2020”, is in place to help Malaysia achieve high-income status by the year 2020, the outlook for 2016 remains uncertain for the region as a whole, chiefly due to slowing economic growth in China.

For Malaysia in particular, being the second-largest oil and natural gas producer in Southeast Asia, the recent slump in global oil prices will certainly have its impact. Indeed, when the original 2016 budget was released in October last year, crude oil stood at US$48 per barrel as opposed to the current trough of US$30, a cruel blow for an oil producing state that has already, largely due to political scandals and a loud opposition, found itself struggling with a loss of investor confidence. A revised budget has just been released which aims to accommodate this short term change of fortunes, attempting to optimize operational expenditure to maintain both long term strategy as well as the welfare of the nation’s populace. Indeed, under Najib’s leadership, Malaysia has achieved one of the lowest poverty rates in the world, a remarkable feat. Hence, despite the fiscal restraints, part of the revised budget is focused upon providing skills training for the unemployed and a free rice scheme for the seriously impoverished.

If domestic economics are an on-going concern, then equally so is the impact of developments on the global economic arena. It is, after all, by being party to organizations such as ASEAN and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), that Najib’s government will be able to to achieve its Vision 2020 aims. For instance, it is predicted that the TPP alone will increase Malaysia’s GDP by 8%. Similarly, Malaysia’s role as a leading actor in the formation of the recently established ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be likely to reap significant rewards. All of this has only been possible, however, due to the course that Najib’s government has steered in order to allow it to cast the net a little wider than China and other traditional markets. In the upcoming summit in the US, where Malaysia will stand alongside the host as a twin lighthouse of leadership on both the TPP and AEC, Najib will be perfectly placed to steer his nation to safer waters and provide the kind of security he has so doggedly aimed for.

Currently, Malaysia commands a unique position of importance in the political make up of Southeast Asia. A year or so ago, it became one of a number of nations that was vying for regional dominance, one of a number that seemed to have left the respective ball-and-chains of nationalism and regionalism firmly in the past. In that time, however, the competition has steadily dropped out of the running. Thailand, for instance, was turned from a famously progressive economy into a police state almost overnight under the auspices of its military old guard, and Vietnam’s communist equivalent performed effortlessly during the recent national congress in removing progressive PM, Nguyen Tan Dung, from power. Coups do not always occur at the end of a barrel, as in the latter example and as in Malaysia’s case. The difference is, that against all the historical odds, Najib has managed to weather the political storm, and is now well placed to see his country taking the initiative in ASEAN.

*Alicia Conway is currently undertaking a Master’s in Economics and Management in London

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran have been increasing recently. Although the narrative developed to describe the execution of a Saudi Shiite cleric, Nimr Al-Nimr, as a sectarian dimension of the Kingdom’s policies towards Iran, Saudi Arabia’s goals are not principally fuelling the Shiite-Sunni divide. The Saudi executions were partially an attempt by Saudi Arabia to severe ties with Iran and push the tensions forward. Lifting sanctions against Iran, coupled with oil prices plummeting to around $32 per barrel remains a frightening nightmare for the Saudis.

Following the execution of Al-Nimr, diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran trembled. Iran promised Saudi Arabia that it would pay a high price over the execution of Al-Nimr, whereas the latter described the Iranian criticism of its judicial system as “blatant interference” in its internal affairs.

Escalating very quickly, Iranian demonstrators broke into the Saudi embassy in Tehran and started fires, souring the already troubled relations between the two regional rivals. Crossing the line, Iran compared Saudi Arabia to ISIS following the executions. A website associated with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published a picture of a Saudi executioner (dressed in white) next to an Islamic State executioner (dressed in black) with the caption “Any differences?”, drawing attention to the fact both carry out beheadings.

War of Words

Slamming the Saudi monarchy, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an op-ed in The New York Times on 10 January that “Today, some in Riyadh not only continue to impede normalization but are determined to drag the entire region into confrontation.” Zarif accused Saudi Arabia of “active sponsorship of violent extremism” and “barbarism”, referring to the recent executions.

The Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir responded with an op-ed in the New York Times on 19 January accusing Iran of supporting terrorism in the region and in the world. Al-Jubeir said that Iran “opts to obscure its dangerous sectarian and expansionist policies, as well as its support for terrorism, by leveling unsubstantiated charges against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Al-Jubeir continued to list the atrocities attributed to Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979, charging Iran of being “the single-most-belligerent-actor in the region”. Jubeir’s comments appeared after Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry had published a “sheet of facts” listing all the nefarious practices of the Islamic Republic.

Khalid al-Dakhil, a Saudi political commentator based in Riyadh told Al Jazeera that: “Iran executes far more people a year than Saudi Arabia, but it does not get the negative publicity Saudi Arabia has. This is something that must be addressed.”

Sectarian Divide?

When considering sectarianism in Islam, we should emphasize that most Muslims are not from Saudi Arabia or from Iran. Indeed most Muslims in the world don’t live in the Middle East. According to 2015 Intercensal Population Survey, the population of Indonesia is around 250 million, which is more than the population of all Middle Eastern countries (around 200 million) combined. If we are to believe that the number of Muslims in the world is around 1.5 billion, this leaves the land of the two holy mosques – Saudi Arabia – and the Islamic Republic of Iran significantly outnumbered. According to the Central Department of Statistics and Information in Saudi Arabia, the annual number of pilgrims (those who take on a journey to the sacred places of Mecca and Medina) over the past ten years was between 1.5 and three million. On average, the number of pilgrims to Mecca over the past ten years is around 24 million, which is insignificant compared to the number of Muslims worldwide. The number of visitor for religious purposes is even less than the population of Yemen.

At a first glance, the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia can be marked as sectarian but looking more profoundly, it becomes clear that it is a power struggle.

The prominence of religious norms in political contexts between Saudi Arabia and Iran doesn’t owe to a sectarian divide per se, but rather to the usefulness of religion in persuasion, legitimization, mobilization, elimination, contestation, pacification and justification In other words, it is a struggle for regional dominance. According to Language Fractionalization Index, Iran, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are the most linguistically fractionalised countries in the region, whereas Lebanon, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, and Syria are the most religiously fractionalised. Religious divisions contribute to creating political and social structures that enforce the status quo in the Middle East. In other words, fractionalisation guarantees the ruling elites to remain exactly where they are – in power.

In addition to the sectarian dimensions mentioned above, a pattern of alliance in the Middle East, in which states, monarchies and forces define their allies and enemies based on sectarian dimensions, can be traced. On one hand, such a pattern results in minorities oppressing majorities such as in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen. On the other hand, it results in majorities oppressing minorities such as in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Such a pattern of alliance is also exacerbated by the two regional rivals backing opposing sides in civil wars in Syria and in Yemen. In Syria, Saudi Arabia supports Sunni but hard-line elements in Syria, while Qatar and Turkey support Sunni elements allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, whereas Iran backs the Syrian regime and Hezbollah.

In Yemen, a coalition includes Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan and “Pakistan” has been launching airstrikes, called “The Storm of Resolve”, against Houthi rebels claiming to defend the “legitimate Yemeni government” of Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi. Houthi rebels are a Yemeni Shiite minority in northern Yemen accused of being backed by Iran. Many Yemeni civilians including children were killed by the airstrikes similar to what we see in Syria.

Religion remains an identifying factor (not identity). A Shiite person is more likely to support Houthi rebels in Yemen, for instance, while a Sunni is more likely to support Syrian rebels.

Noam Chomsky described the latest airstrikes against Yemen as an “extreme form of terrorism”. “Yemen has been the main target of the global assassination campaign–the most extraordinary global terrorism campaign in history – it is officially aimed at, as in this last strike, people who are suspected of potentially being a danger to the United States,” said Chomsky on Russia Today commenting on Saudi Arabia’s involvement in Yemen.

Majority-Minority Binary

Discrimination is commonplace in the Middle East. In both, Iran and Saudi Arabia, political activists are not only taken to prison for criticizing repression, but also tortured or flogged. In case of changing power structures in Saudi Arabia or Iran, in which minorities rule the majority, there is little or no evidence that the majority will enjoy the same rights and security as the victorious minorities.

In Saudi Arabia, the majority Sunni population oppresses Shiite minority rhetorically and constitutionally, while the Sunni royal family in Bahrain, backed by their Gulf allies, oppresses the Shiite majority. On the one hand, Shiites, who explicitly or implicitly show their faith, might face imprisonment in Saudi Arabia, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). “Official discrimination against Shia encompasses religious practices, education, and the justice system. Government officials exclude Shia from certain public jobs and policy questions and publicly disparage their faith,” according to 2011 Report on Saudi Arabia. The oppression against Sunnis minority in Iran is even more staggering. Further examples can be found in Syria, in which a minority is oppressing the majority.

Saudi Arabia and Iran share, among others, two common factors: Authoritarian form of governance and concentration of power in the hands of few individuals in each country. Therefore, in an ethno-linguistically and religiously fractionalised region such as the Middle East, religion is an effective means to mobilise the masses, preserve power for the ruling elites, keep the public in check etc.

Waging wars of words, invoking sectarianism and oppressing those who don’t share political power are never about helping the victim in the Middle East, but rather about who is the aggressor.

The US economy grew 0.7 percent in the 4th quarter, bringing its rate for the full year (4th quarter to 4th quarter) to 1.8 percent. That is a substantial slowing from the 2.5 percent rates of the prior two years.

By far the major component boosting growth was consumption, which grew at a 2.2 percent annual rate, driven largely by continued strong growth in durable goods consumption, which grew at a 4.3 percent annual rate. Consumption of services grew at 2.0 percent annual rate and non-durables grew at just a 1.5 percent rate.

Housing was also a big contributor to growth, expanding at an 8.1 percent annual rate and adding 0.27 percentage points to growth. Housing growth has averaged 8.5 percent over the last seven quarters. While this component is likely to continue to grow in 2016, the pace will probably be somewhat slower.

Investment and trade were both big negatives in the quarter. The trade deficit, measured in constant dollars, increased by $20.4 billion in the quarter, subtracting 0.47 percentage points from growth. The trade deficit is likely to continue to grow in 2016 as the dollar has risen further and we probably have still not felt the full effects of the prior increase.

Spending on equipment and non-residential structures both fell in the quarter, subtracting 0.3 percentage points from growth. Equipment spending has been hard hit both due to the impact of the trade deficit on manufacturing and also due to the collapse of investment in energy related sectors. There has been some overbuilding in office buildings and retail space which could be a drag on non-residential construction in 2016.

Another factor depressing growth in the quarter was the slowing of inventory investment, which subtracted 0.45 percentage points from growth. The growth in final demand in the fourth quarter was 1.2 percent.

The government sector added modestly to growth, with a 2.7 percent increase in federal spending slightly offsetting a 0.6 percent fall in state and local spending. Both figures are slightly anomalous (federal spending is growing more slowly and state and local spending is growing), but the net impact on growth of 0.12 percentage points is roughly what we can expect in future quarters.

Health care spending continues to be very much under control. Spending on health care services, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of total health care spending, rose at a 5.2 percent nominal rate in the fourth quarter. This brings the increase over the last year to 4.8 percent.

Change in Personal Health Care Expenditures, 2000 to 2015 Year-Over-Year Percent Change

Inflation continues to be nowhere in sight. The core PCE grew at just a 1.2 percent annual rate in the quarter, bringing the increase for the year to 1.4 percent, well below the Fed’s 2.0 percent target.

Non-farm business value-added grew at just a 0.1 percent annual rate. Given the strong growth in employment over the last three months of 2015, this implies that productivity growth will be negative for the quarter and barely positive for the year as a whole.

One of the striking aspects of the recovery had been the sharp and completely unpredicted collapse of productivity growth. This has been a positive in that employment growth would have been near zero if productivity growth had remained in a range of 1.5–2.0 percent over the last five years. On the other hand, if productivity growth remains stuck at the slow pace of the last five years, it will impose a serious limit on the ability to raise living standards.

A possible explanation is that the weak labor market itself is acting as a drag on productivity as workers are forced to take low-paying, low-productivity jobs. We will only know if this is true if the labor market tightens enough to give workers more bargaining power and the ability to move to higher paying jobs.

The overall picture of the economy going into 2016 is one of weak growth, albeit with little risk of recession. Consumption growth is likely to remain moderate, especially if energy prices stay low. Investment is likely to be a small negative in 2016 as is trade. However, residential construction and government spending will both be modest positives. The biggest risk is that a set of bad events elsewhere in the world could cause the trade deficit to deteriorate further.

The diplomatic tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran and the ratcheting of their rivalry in the Middle East reflect the long-standing schism between Shia and Sunni Saudis. Could this internal Saudi conflict lead to war with Iran?

By Ahmed Salah Hashim*

The heightened diplomatic tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran following the execution of Saudi dissident Shia cleric Nimr al Nimr raises the prospect of conflict between the two rivals in the Middle East which are already at loggerheads over their respective Sunni and Shia affiliations. The roots of this conflict trace back to before the founding of the Saudi kingdom.

For many years the Middle East has been a battleground for inter-communal warfare between Sunni Salafi militants and the Shia communities outside Iran, who are located in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen and Oman as well as Iraq.

Saudi Shias of the Eastern Province

The Shias constitute 15 percent of the Saudi population of 29 million. Most of them live in the oil-rich Eastern Province but are politically marginalised and have not benefited from the country’s oil wealth in any significant way, even though a number of Shias have risen to prominence in the economic and commercial sectors. The Sauds discriminated against Shias because the Wahhabi religious scholars who cofounded the kingdom, viewed them as deviants from Islam. In the 18th and 19th centuries Saudi Shias were subject to raids and mini-pogroms.

The grievances of the Shias are long-standing as is the sensitivity of the Saudis. The Shias began to mobilise and engage in political activism in the 1950s and 1960s. Initially, radical Arab nationalism and Communist ideas made headway among the marginalised Shia youth in the Eastern Province, southern Iraq, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Secular radicalism alarmed the governments and the Shia clerics in those countries. The clerics sought to wean the youth back from secular ideologies.

The Shia-Sunni divide deepened in the 1970s when Saudi Shias studying in Najaf followed the teachings of Iraqi Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and those of the Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Both men called for the clerics to exercise direct political power and not simply act as advisors to the powers that be. While Al Sadr was executed by Saddam Hussein for ‘sedition’ in April 1980, Khomeini succeeded in accomplishing the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Many Saudi Shia clerics departed for Qom, where they formed Tajamu Ulama al-Hijaz and then later Hezbollah al-Hijaz, which emerged with a military wing.

Almost concurrently with the occupation of the Grand Mosque of Mecca by Sunni millenarian rebels led by Juhayman al-Utaybi in 1979, thousands of Shias in the Eastern Province clashed with the Saudi National Guard. The rebels adopted the name Islamic Revolution Organization in the Arabian Peninsula. The rebels who survived sought refuge in Iran.

In 1987, over 400 people, most of them Iranian pilgrims were killed in a stampede outside the Grand Mosque in Mecca during the Hajj. Saudi-Iranian relations worsened and subversive actions were launched against Saudi personnel and interests by Hezbollah al-Hijaz, the Soldiers of Justice and the Holy War Organisation in the Hijaz.

The Emergence of Nimr al-Nimr

In 2009, clashes occurred between Shia and Sunni pilgrims at the al Baqui cemetery in Medina and the little known Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, emerged as the Shia voice of protest. Nimr delivered sermons calling for Shia-majority areas to secede from the kingdom and establish a state based on the Iranian system of governance. The sermons were regarded as seditious and Nimr went into hiding.

In 2011 Riyadh’s relief at having been spared the violence of the Arab Spring, which broke out in several countries, was somewhat tempered by violence in the Eastern Province by disgruntled Shias excited by the changes occurring in the Arab world. Al-Awamiyah, the second largest town in the province, was the epicentre of the violence.

Nimr, who came from Awamiyah, attained a political following and Riyadh feared his transformation into a revolutionary leader. Nimr’s revolutionary potential proved appealing to young men who disdained the pragmatic conservatism of the traditional community leaders. Nimr was eventually discovered and arrested.

In 2015, the state implemented laws to punish anyone who promotes sectarian hatred and authorities detained Sunnis for posting video clips expressing hostility toward the Shia. Along with the carrot came the stick. On 2 January 2016, Nimr was executed, together with 44 other Saudis, both Sunni and Shia, all indicted and convicted on charges of promoting terrorism. The fallout from this execution continues to reverberate, but will it lead to war?

Proxy Wars and Subversion

Much of the inter-communal conflict between Sunni Salafi militants and the Shia communities has taken the shape of a proxy war between two of the most powerful countries in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia and Iran. Would Iran up the ante by direct subversion in Eastern Province? Or would Saudi Arabia expand its war against Yemeni Houthis to Iran’s economic interests in the Gulf? While Iran has the capabilities to do so it is not clear that it intends such action at the moment.

Iran is coming out from the cold with the P5+1 nuclear agreement and is determined not to allow the Saudis to derail that by polemics about Iranian state-sponsored terrorism. Iran would only instigate problems in Eastern Province if the bilateral situation between the two countries worsens.

Should bilateral relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran deteriorate further, one scenario would be for Iran to revive Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia (AQAP), which would give it far more reach to cause mayhem for the Saudi dynasty than just relying on agitating the Shia minority in the Eastern Province.

A deliberately calculated ‘hot war’ between Saudi Arabia and Iran is not likely. Firstly, there will be constraints imposed by the bigger powers. They would most likely move quickly to put an end to it. Secondly, both the kingdom and the Islamic republic recognise that there are uncertainties associated with war; these uncertainties will negatively impact the tenuous conditions within both countries.

Saudi Arabia is mired in a quagmire of its own making in Yemen. Iran solidly hews to Ayatollah Khomeini’s dictum expressed in 1987: that maslahat-e-dawla – the interests of the state — supersede everything else including religion and promotion of revolutionary ideology.

*Ahmed Salah Hashim is Associate Professor of Strategic Studies in the Military Studies Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

For his first overseas tour of 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited 3 key nations in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran. This was his first visit to the Middle East as Chinese President, and this visit signaled China’s increased interest in the region, especially in view of the rising prominence of the Middle East as a key regional partner of China’s “Belt and Road” global development initiative. In addition, President Xi’s Middle Eastern visit manifested what he described last year as a “new type” of international relations, which is based on win-win practical cooperation rather than the zero-sum calculations of American-style diplomacy.1 Columbia University Professor Hamid Dabashi highlights the difference:

“As the thing that calls itself ‘the West’ tries to conquer the world politically to rule it economically, the Chinese are doing exactly the opposite: Mapping the world in economic detail from which may emerge a bona fide political order.”2

Indeed, in his address to the Arab League in Cairo, President Xi recommended that the Middle Eastern nations pursue development and dialogue to resolve their regional problems. In particular, consensus-building through dialogue and a long-term program of social and economic development will offer the Middle East an independent path to peace and prosperity beyond the geostrategic games of the Western powers. China has hence encouraged the Israelis and the Palestinians, as well as the key participants in the Syrian civil war, to pursue settlements of their conflicts through peaceful dialogue.3

At the Arab League, President Xi also announced China’s offer of 280 million RMB in humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, Syrians, Yemenis, and other groups in need of such aid. In addition, President Xi announced substantial financing packages for economic projects, including 20 billion USD in joint investment funds and 35 billion USD in commercial and concessional loan programs. President Xi also invited the Arab nations to participate in the infrastructure megaprojects under China’s “Belt and Road” global development framework, which will allow them to accelerate their economic development though the modernization of their infrastructure as well as the upgrading of their industrial production capacity. To further accelerate the region’s economic growth through human resource development, President Xi announced that the Chinese government will offer 10,000 scholarships and 10,000 training opportunities to the students and workers of the Middle East.4

“Belt and Road”

President Xi’s tour saw China deepen its cooperation with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran under the “Belt and Road” development framework with the signing of 52 agreements in a range of sectors including infrastructure construction and energy. China’s bilateral relationships with Saudi Arabia and Iran were upgraded to comprehensive strategic partnerships, while China and Egypt agreed to deepen their bilateral cooperation under their existing comprehensive strategic partnership. In the multilateral arena, China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreed to work towards completing a comprehensive free trade deal this year.5

President Xi and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud agreed that their countries should cooperate under the “Belt and Road” development framework, especially in key sectors like energy. Saudi Arabia is currently China’s largest supplier of oil, and during President Xi’s visit the Saudi and Chinese major oil firms Saudi Aramco and Sinopec signed a strategic cooperation agreement worth almost 1.5 billion USD. President Xi also attended the launch of the Yasref oil refinery, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Sinopec worth almost 10 billion USD.

Yasref is Sinopec’s first overseas oil refinery and China’s largest investment in the kingdom. President Xi’s visit also saw the signing of an agreement for China Nuclear Engineering Group Corporation (CNEC) to conduct research on high-temperature gas-cooled (HTGR) nuclear reactor technology with the Saudi government, which has plans to construct 16 nuclear power plants by 2032. This R&D agreement is expected to lead to CNEC’s export of HTGR nuclear technology to the kingdom. This would not be the first instance of the export of Chinese technology to Saudi Arabia. The Mecca light rail, which allows Muslim pilgrims easy access to the holy sites within the city, is a good example of a major Chinese infrastructural project in the kingdom. Having completed this rail project in time for the Hajj of 2010 after a construction period of just 16 months, China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) has since operated the line for the past 5 years without incident.6

President Xi’s visit to Egypt coincided with the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Egyptian diplomatic relations. China and Egypt had upgraded their bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2014. That same year, Sino-Egyptian bilateral trade reached 11.62 billion USD. During his visit, President Xi suggested to his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi that their countries work towards transforming Egypt into a “pivot” of the “Belt and Road” by focusing on the development of infrastructure as well as industrial capacity. President Xi also offered his government’s support for Egyptian megaprojects like the Suez Canal Corridor and the proposed new capital, and confirmed that his government also encourages the Chinese business community to invest in major Egyptian projects. An example of such Chinese involvement in a megaproject in Egypt is China Electric Power Equipment and Technology Corporation’s participation in the construction of a 1,210 km electrical transmission line in the Nile Delta, the largest such project in Egypt. Egyptian President al-Sisi confirmed that Egypt would be interested in connecting its development projects with the “Belt and Road,” and that it would also be interested in exploring financing opportunities from China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). President Xi’s visit saw China and Egypt sign 21 agreements for projects worth a combined value of 15 billion USD. Sino-Egyptian practical cooperation can also be seen in the China-Egypt Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, whose success has prompted a 230 million USD expansion into a 6 square km area focused on export-oriented manufacturing and logistics.7

President Xi was the first foreign leader to visit Iran after the recent lifting of international sanctions, a fact which was highlighted by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Indeed, China helped mediate the 2015 nuclear deal that allowed these sanctions to be lifted. Some observers interpret President Xi’s visit as an effort to maintain China’s pre-eminent position in the post-sanctions Iranian market, a position that China achieved through the much-needed economic cooperation it offered Iran during its years of international isolation. China has been Iran’s largest trading partner over the past 6 years, with their bilateral trade exceeding 50 billion USD in 2014. Both governments plan to increase Sino-Iranian bilateral trade to 600 billion USD over the next decade. President Rouhani agreed that his government would work towards greater cooperation with China under the “Belt and Road” development framework, especially in key sectors like energy and infrastructure, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describing Iran as a key nation along the “Belt and Road,” confirmed that the Iranian government would be willing to cooperate with China on the “Belt and Road” megaprojects. Indeed, President Xi’s visit saw China and Iran sign 17 agreements. In the area of infrastructure development, President Xi announced that China will help Iran finance and construct a 900 km high-speed rail line between Tehran and Mashhad. This infrastructure project, which comes under the “Belt and Road” framework, may eventually become part of the proposed transcontinental Silk Road high-speed railway between Tehran and the Chinese city of Urumqi. In the security arena, China agreed to support Iran’s application to raise its status from observer to full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The strengthening of the SCO with the increased participation of regional powers like Iran will be important for the long-term preservation of security for China and its “Belt and Road” partners against regional threats like the Islamic State.8

In the energy sector, this “new era” of Sino-Iranian practical cooperation includes a 10 billion USD deal for Chinese participation in the construction of two 1 GW nuclear power plants near the Iranian port city of Chabahar; the construction of several 100 MW power plants; the modernization of the Arak heavy water reactor; as well as nuclear energy research. Also in the energy sector, a separate project that will come under the “Belt and Road” framework is the long-delayed Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline which will connect with the Pakistani port of Gwadar, the Arabian Sea hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). When complete, the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline will offer an important route for oil and gas to be transported from Iran to China through the CPEC pipelines, thereby avoiding the increasingly risky Straits of Malacca and South China Sea. However, while the construction of the Iranian section of the pipeline is almost complete, Pakistan, under pressure from the US, has delayed constructing its section of the pipeline, prompting the Iranian government to threaten legal action for the breach of contract. The timely resolution of this dispute and the completion of the pipeline could offer significant economic benefits to both Iran and Pakistan.9

References:
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“Chinese technology contributes to Saudi Arabia’s modernization.” Xinhua, January 27, 2016. Accessed January 27, 2016. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/27/c_135049857.htm.

“Chinese wisdom for Middle East problems.” Xinhua, January 24, 2016. Accessed January 27, 2016. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/24/c_135040924.htm.

Dabashi, Hamid. “The Chinese are beating the West at its own game.” Al Jazeera, January 26, 2016. Accessed January 27, 2016. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/chinese-beating-west-game-160125111934523.html.

Erdbrink, Thomas. “China Deepens Its Footprint in Iran After Lifting of Sanctions.” New York Times, January 24, 2016. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/25/world/middleeast/china-deepens-its-footprint-in-iran-after-lifting-of-sanctions.html.

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Lim, Alvin Cheng-Hin. “‘Iron Brothers’: Sino-Pakistani Relations And The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.” Eurasia Review, May 7, 2015. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://www.eurasiareview.com/07052015-iron-brothers-sino-pakistani-relations-and-the-china-pakistan-economic-corridor-analysis/.

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Rogers, David. “China, Iran agree two nuclear power stations and trade worth $600bn.” Global Construction Review, January 27, 2016. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/china-iran-agree-two-nu7clear-po7wer-stat7ions/.

Takeshi Kumon. “China to finance high-speed railway in Iran.” Nikkei Asian Review, January 24, 2016. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/China-to-finance-high-speed-railway-in-Iran.

“Xi: China encourages companies to participate in large-scale Egyptian projects.” Xinhua, January 21, 2016. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135029327.htm.

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“Xi proposes to build Egypt into pivot of Belt and Road.” Xinhua, January 21, 2016. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135032693.htm.

“Xi visits historic palace, inaugurates refinery in Saudi Arabia.” Xinhua, January 20, 2016. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135029206.htm.

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“Xi wraps up historic visit to Saudi Arabia, steps up energy cooperation.” Xinhua, January 20, 2015. Accessed January 28, 2015. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135029295.htm.

“Xi’s fruitful Middle East tour highlights China’s commitment to building new type of int’l relations.” Xinhua, January 24, 2016. Accessed January 27, 2016. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/24/c_135040319.htm.

“Xi’s speech at Arab League charts course for China-Arab cooperation.” Xinhua, January 28, 2016. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/28/c_135052464.htm.

Zheng Yanpeng. “New rail route proposed from Urumqi to Iran.” China Daily, November 21, 2015. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-11/21/content_22506412.htm.

Zhuang Pinghui. “Key facts behind China’s warming ties with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt as Xi Jinping signs mega oil deals during his Middle East tour.” South China Morning Post, January 20, 2016. Accessed January 27, 2016. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/1903393/key-facts-behind-chinas-warming-ties-saudi-arabia-iran.

Notes:
1 “A bright, clear dawn for China’s Middle East policy,” Xinhua, January 25, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/25/c_135044110.htm. Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “A New Type of International Relations: Xi Jinping’s 2015 State Visits to UK, Vietnam and Singapore,” Eurasia Review, November 9, 2015, accessed January 27, 2016, http://www.eurasiareview.com/09112015-a-new-type-of-international-relations-xi-jinpings-2015-state-visits-to-uk-vietnam-and-singapore-analysis/.

2 Hamid Dabashi, “The Chinese are beating the West at its own game,” Al Jazeera, January 26, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/chinese-beating-west-game-160125111934523.html.

3 “Chinese wisdom for Middle East problems,” Xinhua, January 24, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/24/c_135040924.htm. “China never absent in contribution to peace, development in Middle East,” Xinhua, January 25, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/25/c_135042621.htm.

4 “China’s industrial proposal for Middle East unprecedented: expert,” Xinhua, January 22, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/23/c_135037189.htm. “Xi concludes Middle East trip with promoted ties, cooperation,” Xinhua, January 24, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/24/c_135039203.htm. “Xi’s speech at Arab League charts course for China-Arab cooperation,” Xinhua, January 28, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/28/c_135052464.htm. “China to provide tens of thousands of scholarships, training opportunities for Arab nations: Xi,” Xinhua, January 21, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135033115.htm.

5 “China never absent.” “Xi’s fruitful Middle East tour highlights China’s commitment to building new type of int’l relations,” Xinhua, January 24, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/24/c_135040319.htm.

6 “Xi concludes.” Zhuang Pinghui, “Key facts behind China’s warming ties with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt as Xi Jinping signs mega oil deals during his Middle East tour,” South China Morning Post, January 20, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/1903393/key-facts-behind-chinas-warming-ties-saudi-arabia-iran. “Chinese technology contributes to Saudi Arabia’s modernization,” Xinhua, January 27, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/27/c_135049857.htm. “King Salman: We Strive to Consolidate Peace in the World With China,” Asharq Al-Awsat, January 20, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://english.aawsat.com/2016/01/article55346737/king-salman-we-strive-to-promote-peace-in-the-world-with-china. Lyu Chang and Hu Meidong, “China Nuclear to bring nuclear power to Saudi Arabia,” China Daily, January 21, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2016-01/21/content_23175711.htm. “Xi wraps up historic visit to Saudi Arabia, steps up energy cooperation,” Xinhua, January 20, 2015, accessed January 28, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135029295.htm. “Xi visits historic palace, inaugurates refinery in Saudi Arabia,” Xinhua, January 20, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135029206.htm.

7 Zhuang, “Key facts.” “Xi concludes.” “Xi proposes to build Egypt into pivot of Belt and Road,” Xinhua, January 21, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135032693.htm. “Xi: China encourages companies to participate in large-scale Egyptian projects,” Xinhua, January 21, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135029327.htm. “Chinese president starts Egypt visit to synergize development plans,” Xinhua, January 21, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/21/c_135031471.htm. “51 major deals signed to boost ties and cooperation during Xi’s visit,” CNTV, January 25, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2016-01/25/c_135042222.htm. “Xi wraps up Egypt visit as China’s Middle East policy applauded,” Xinhua, January 22, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/23/c_135037110.htm. “Expansion of Sino-Egyptian economic zone to start soon,” Xinhua, January 20, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/20/c_135028852.htm.

8 Zhuang, “Key facts.” “51 major deals.” “Xi concludes.” “China, Iran upgrade ties to carry forward millennia-old friendship,” Xinhua, January 23, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2016-01/24/c_135039635.htm. “China supports Iran’s application for full membership of SCO,” Xinhua, January 23, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/23/c_135038723.htm. “Chinese president meets Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei,” Xinhua, January 23, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/24/c_135039034.htm. Rachel Brown, “China Is On A Collision Course with ISIS,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 13, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/01/china-collision-course-isis/125097/. Thomas Erdbrink, “China Deepens Its Footprint in Iran After Lifting of Sanctions,” New York Times, January 24, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/25/world/middleeast/china-deepens-its-footprint-in-iran-after-lifting-of-sanctions.html. Zheng Yanpeng, “New rail route proposed from Urumqi to Iran,” China Daily, November 21, 2015, accessed January 28, 2016, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-11/21/content_22506412.htm. Takeshi Kumon, “China to finance high-speed railway in Iran,” Nikkei Asian Review, January 24, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/China-to-finance-high-speed-railway-in-Iran.

9 David Rogers, “China, Iran agree two nuclear power stations and trade worth $600bn,” Global Construction Review, January 27, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/china-iran-agree-two-nu7clear-po7wer-stat7ions/. Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “‘Iron Brothers’: Sino-Pakistani Relations And The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,” Eurasia Review, May 7, 2015, accessed January 28, 2016, http://www.eurasiareview.com/07052015-iron-brothers-sino-pakistani-relations-and-the-china-pakistan-economic-corridor-analysis/. “Iran hints at legal action against Pakistan over delayed gas pipeline,” PressTV, January 9, 2016, accessed January 28, 2016, http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/01/09/445098/Iran-Pakistan-Kameli-NIGEC-/.

The Davos 2016 World economic forum was concluded, with its usual pomp and grandiloquent rhetoric. While it started as a genuine intention to bring power brokers, including the most powerful men and women, including its critics from the right and left, to decide on the fate of the world, it is increasingly proving to be lofty emptiness, and broken multi stake holder initiatives. The model of elites gathering and deciding the fate of the world is showing to be a failure with every passing day and every meaningless quotes and false outrages and pseudo vows.

Here’s what I gathered from following the Davos 2016.

I had no intention to, but when you’re in Europe, and the entire news cycle is blaring constantly, and your work is related to foreign policy and international relations, you don’t have a choice. Here’s the thing, no one has a clue as to the state of the World, or how to fix it, and they are not even faking it anymore. Davos summit is committed apparently to improve the state of the world, well, going by that logic, they did a pretty shoddy job, as the world is not improving, infact is getting worse with every passing day.

The summit started with Leonardo Di Caprio barking and raging against “elites”, who are neglecting climate change and global warming, in a speech possibly written by his publicist, funded by his agents, and his performance guaranteed by his flying to Davos in his own private jet with more carbon emission than any random village in sub Saharan Africa. Interestingly enough, he was barked back by none other than Justin Trudeau of Canada, the darling of the left liberals who said, it is not prudent to have “inflammatory rhetoric” as it might hurt people, who lost their oil industry job in the recession. What does this highlight, as a start to a summit on improving the condition of us poor mortals? It highlights that Trudeau is learning that governing and managing economy is much, much more difficult that campaigning. It also highlights the growing rift between Western left, between traditional pro-science pro-technology, pro industrialization left and the migrant and gay rights and climate concerned postmodern left. If this was not a symbol of things to come, I don’t know what is.

Brexit was another issue that riled almost everyone. With Europe’s economy in comatose stage, and no one having a clue on how to improve growth, or fix oil prices and stocks, everyone from socialist Valls to Conservative Merkel was unanimous that Britain leaving EU, will destroy Europe and its economy as we know today. Strangely even Cameron seemed to understand the gravity of that situation. However it is not clear he knows how to deal with it, or if it has already gone too far. In International Relations there comes a time, when the movement controls the mass, UK is facing such a crossroad. The constant narrative of Britannia being different from Europa, has taken its toll, and no matter of how much fiscal sense is pumped by business and political leaders, the crowd is hell bent, and the conditions of Europe is not making them any more optimistic.

Meanwhile in Europe, Draghi warned that Migrant crisis will change EU as we know. I might add that this observation comes a tad late, as migrant crisis has already changed EU, and the demise of a liberal institution in a conservative and traditional continent, is in order. With news of Swedish women being chain whipped by drunken migrants from Middle East and refugees defecating in a swimming pool and trying to storm women’s changing room, the mindset of native Europe is getting harder every passing day. Football hooligans in Poland are raising banners in matches against Germany asking them to protect their women and not EU. Europe, which has been traditionally the most brutal, clanistic and conservative of continents for the greater part of the last two thousand years, is turning back to its terrible roots; the elites are powerless to change it. Ideology upon ideology has neglected the basic human nature as Hans Morgenthau once wrote, the Animus Dominae, and people are finding out that the neo-liberal institutionalism which tried to mold and impose the continent, is to the shock and horror of everyone involved in this doomed experiment, failing.

Nothing was fixed in this summit. The world is not getting better anytime soon, and it is naïve to expect that. Middle East is going to be in flames, with a newly bolstered Iran and paranoid Saudis ramping up their involvement and proxy war. The priorities of different countries differ. America is perfectly happy to get out of Middle East, and it doesn’t care how. Russia is happy to have a stake in the great power game. Iran and Saudis and Turks and Kurds are all happy to increase or retain their sphere of influence. The fourth technological revolution is a hyped failure. Gay rights in continental Africa and Eastern Europe and South Asia is not improving anytime. Wars and conflicts not just in Africa and Middle East, but in Europe will only spread. Ironically enough, looking at Davos talks, East Asia seems like an oasis of calmness. Perhaps when we look back at the inevitable ashes, we will look back to these summits as the symptomatic complacent chaos that reflected the real world.

This article appeared at Bombs and Dollars.

By Luis Durani*

Reports have surfaced indicating that long time regional adversaries Russia and the Taliban are exchanging intelligence on the presence of ISIS in Afghanistan . Even though the Taliban deny sharing intelligence on ISIS, they have been in communication with Russia.

The presence of ISIS in Afghanistan has changed the political dynamics that govern the region. Ironically, ISIS has helped legitimize the Taliban insurgency to many in the region.

ISIS in Afghanistan

After the announcement of the death of the Taliban founder and spiritual leader Mullah Omar, an internal struggle over succession was fought. In the wake of the leadership struggle, some Taliban members became disaffected and joined ranks with foreign fighters, mainly from Central Asia, to pledge their allegiance to ISIS. The bulk concentration of the Afghan or Khorasan (as referred to the region by ISIS) branch of ISIS is concentrated in the eastern part of Afghanistan, mainly around the province of Nangarhar. The Pashtun tribesmen of this region are more wont to switch allegiance depending on the opportunities available as recent and ancient history of Afghanistan has shown. The appeal of ISIS is more the availability of weapons and finance rather than ideological.

But more disturbing than the Afghan members of ISIS are the Central Asian fighters who comprise the Khorasan branch. They tend to be more ideologically zealous than their Afghan counterparts. Their apocalyptic vision is not only limited to Afghanistan but view Central Asia, India and Pakistan as the eventual ISIS province of Khorasan. Similar to the brutality exhibited in Syria and Iraq, the ISIS branch in Afghanistan has carried out abhorrent actions against local civilians. Ironically, the emergence of ISIS in Afghanistan has made the Taliban more palatable not only for Afghans but the international community to an extent.

Taliban vs. ISIS vs. Afghan Government – The lesser of evils

Shortly after the Taliban were toppled from power in early 2002, Afghans were optimistic and hoped for a bright future in their country free from extremism and oppression. This dream was short-lived unfortunately due to the international community’s compliance in allowing the former warlords to partake in the newly inaugurated Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai. The warlords in turn created their own fiefdom throughout the country and corruption ran rampant. As a result, the Taliban are becoming more popular once again throughout the country.

Yet, people are still fearful of their misogynistic and repressive past. When ISIS entered the scene, everything changed. In one of their callous act, ISIS stopped a bus carrying workers and singled out those who were Hazaras, a minority in Afghanistan who tend to be Shiites, which ISIS views as heretics . The initial reaction was that the kidnapping was an act of the Taliban, who promptly denied any association. It turned out to be Uzbek members of ISIS, who wanted to use the hostages as leverage to free their families imprisoned by the Afghan government. As described by the hostages, torture was a daily occurrence and some were beheaded. In an interesting twist of events, the Taliban mounted a rescue mission and freed the captives. The Afghan government despite their extensive training failed to do anything to retrieve those kidnapped. Acts like this have made the Taliban more popular than the authorities in Kabul.

Recent military gains by the Taliban have displayed that they are a cohesive insurgency that can provide government functions in areas under their control while the Afghan government has failed to provide the most basic functions as a government.

All this has made the Russians keener in negotiating with the Taliban. While the two have been at odds due to their different intentions for Afghanistan, Russia is fully aware that ISIS will pose a longer term threat to Russia itself than the Taliban. While ISIS’s vision is transnational, the Taliban remain a native insurgency with designs for Afghanistan. The presence of ISIS has actually helped the Taliban gain more legitimacy in the international community as a partner to fight this extreme group that threatens the international community as a whole. Surprisingly, the Taliban may be the only force in the region to do so. The Afghan government has proven its inability on many occasions to stand up to ISIS. As the US and NATO withdraw, they may see some benefit in negotiating with the Taliban and using them as a counter force to prevent ISIS establishing any kind of foothold in the region. This type of recognition by the international community has granted the Taliban a type of legitimacy it has been seeking.

Unfortunately for the people of Afghanistan the future is bleak. On one end of the spectrum is a newly emerge group with loyalties that transcends the nation-state concept and whose atrocities pale in comparison to the Taliban. On the other end is a government that is filled with corrupt warlords whose allegiances are more with regional fiefdoms and ethnic groups rather than the central government. In the middle of these two choices exists a group with an abhorrent history while in power but yet somehow less extreme than ISIS and yet more functional to the needs of the people than the dilapidated coalition of warlords known as the Afghan government. The people of Afghanistan will regrettably have to suffer the pain of being under the authority of any of these three groups.

About the author:
*Luis Durani is currently employed in the oil and gas industry. He previously worked in the nuclear energy industry. He has a M.A. in international affairs with a focus on Chinese Foreign Policy and the South China Sea, MBA, M.S. in nuclear engineering, B.S. in mechanical engineer and B.A. in political science. He is also author of “Afghanistan: It’s No Nebraska – How to do Deal with a Tribal State.” Follow him for other articles on Instagram: @Luis_Durani

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy.