By D. S. Rajan*

On the basis of latest indicators, particularly taking into account the chances of Xi Jinping emerging as the “Core” fifth generation leader, the ongoing consolidation of political power in China by the leader can be termed as one which is almost nearing completion. At the same time, it cannot be denied that there are problems for Xi; in the main, there is a growing requirement for him to address the apparent disunity among the cadres; the repeated calls to all party, government and military personnel to display loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), albeit in real terms to Xi, give rise to suspicions that there could be divisions in the party over the Xi leadership.

Also, the leader may have to reckon with potential challengers in future; his latest public denouncement of Bo Xilai’s political ambition can be considered as a subtle warning to such challengers. In consolidating power, Xi seems to have come under compulsions arising from another challenge, i.e. in the economic realm; China’s economic growth has slowed to a 25-year low of 6.9 per cent in 2015. Coming to the military side, the position of the leader may also not be comfortable; his launch of massive military reforms could be met with some resistance from vested interests in the army, which are to lose out of the reforms. Xi may also have to deal with opinions in the country in favor of bringing the military under the State control, instead of being under the party command. Overall, as the present domestic climate centering round over-concentration of power in the hands of Xi Jinping further develops, there could be repercussions for the intra-party power equations ahead of the next CCP Congress in 2017; one thing is however clear : Xi seems to be well on his way to get reelected as the party chief in that congress.

Three developments of high political significance have been noticed in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the month of January 2016.

Firstly, the heads of several provincial/city party units ( for e.g the party chiefs in Sichuan, Hubei, Anhui, Guangxi and in the cities of Tianjin and Xian ) have begun to describe[1] Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China, as the “Core” of the CCP leadership. The exact remarks made by these units in their party gatherings held to sensitize the cadres under them on a Politburo speech[2] delivered by Xi in December 2015, have been that party members should “resolutely support General Secretary Xi Jinping, this core” (坚决维护习近平总书记这个核心).

Secondly, a new book[3] captioned “Edited Excerpts From Discussions by Xi Jinping on Tightening Party Discipline and Rules,” compiled by the CCP’s Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC) and the Party Literature Research Center, containing extracts of the leader’s 200 pieces of hitherto undisclosed remarks, selected out of his 40 speeches and articles, pertaining to the period November 16, 2012 to October 29, 2015, has been published. In the remarks, the party organizations at all levels have been asked to organize CCP members to study Xi’s sayings during the period.

Thirdly, Li Zhanshu, a CCP Politburo member, has stressed[4] at a meeting on the work of authorities affiliated to the CCP Central Committee that “all party organizations and members should take absolute loyalty to the Party as their fundamental political requirement and foremost political discipline, achieve a high degree of conformity with the central committee and strengthen awareness of the party theories and policies”.

A closer look at the three developments mentioned above may be necessary in order to find out what they really convey. Most important politically is the first which signals that very soon the status of Xi Jinping could be formally elevated to that of “Core” of the fifth generation leadership. As the CCP sees, Mao had occupied the “Core” position with respect to first generation leadership, Deng Xiaoping to the second, and Jiang Zemin to the third; the party though placed Hu Jintao in the category of fourth generation leaders, did not accord him the position of the leadership “Core”. The same type of visualization has so far continued in the case of Xi Jinping who heads the CCP since 2012; in the party hierarchy, he is still being addressed only as the party General Secretary not as the ‘Core’ of the leadership, implying thereby that he as a leader is only primus inter pares and that a collective leadership is working in the country.

In such circumstances, trends towards Xi Jinping assuming the “Core” leadership position are emerging. If they become factual, the arising implications for the current collective leadership system in China will be profound. The system is already being impacted by the over-concentration of power in the hands of Xi. He holds so many high posts; he is the General Secretary of the ruling CCP, President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Chairman of the CCP and State Central Military Commissions and the head of the newly created National Security Council. He leads the CCP’s many ‘leading small groups’, dealing with important areas such as foreign affairs, financial and economic work, cyber security and information technology, and military reforms. Altogether, Xi occupies a total of 11 top posts in the country’s most powerful leadership bodies. This would mean that all institutions of the party, state council and military are now directly reporting to Xi. As the authoritative journal “Caixin” puts it[5] , Xi Jinping has become the de facto CCP Chairman. This is being so, according of a “Core “ status for Xi at this juncture, would go to strengthen his hands in the next 2017 CCP Congress, especially in the matter of his election as the party chief for another five years till 2022 under the existing 10-year-tenure rule ; speculations are rife that the leader desires to rule for longer than a decade till 2027 ,which is best evidenced[6] by his hesitation so far to publicly promote his potential successors . In any case, worth noting is that Xi might continue longer as the supreme leader in China, dominating the entire political, economic and military spectrum in that country.

The second development i.e. publication of a book containing Xi’s so far undisclosed remarks needs paying attention from the point of view of answering the question as to how the leader has been viewing the political opposition to him. Xi had identified [7] such opposition without naming anybody as those “forming factions, cabals and mountain strongholds within the party”; “having vacillations regarding matters of principle and issues of right and wrong;” “openly expressing views that are opposed to major political questions regarding the party’s theory, guidelines and policies;” and “feigning compliance with but actually going against the party’s goals and policies.” To be seen in the same light is a signed commentary in the People’s Daily (Chinese language edition, August 10, 2015) alleging that “some retired leading cadres , while they were in office, put their cronies in key positions, so that they can interfere in the work of their original organizations and wield influence in the future. This is making new leaders feel that unnecessary concerns affect their work as their hands and feet are being fettered”. Analysts abroad thought that Xi in this way is targeting former party supremo Jiang Zemin.

A point of surprise is Xi’s choice now to name and attack his political opponents openly through the book. Such treatment has a political meaning in the current context. The book puts the following observations [8] of Xi, in public domain for first time, with regard to the following purged senior officials – Zhou Yongkang, former security chief, Bo Xilai, former Chongqing party boss, Xu Caihou, former Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), Ling Jihua, former advisor to Hu Jintao and Su Rong , former Party Secretary of Qinghai, Gansu, and Jiangxi provinces. Xi says in the book, “From cases investigated over the past few years that involved serious violations of party discipline and the law by senior cadres, especially those of Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, Xu Caihou, Ling Jihua and Su Rong, it can be seen that the problem of damaging party political discipline and rules was very serious and merited serious attention. The greater these people’s power, the more important their position, the less seriously they took party discipline and political rules, to the point of recklessness and audaciousness. Some had inflated political ambitions and for their personal gain or the gain of their clique carried out political plot activities behind the party’s back, carried out politically shady business to wreck and split the party”.

The “political plots” charges against “some”, made by Xi are indeed very serious. Who are the “some”? Judging by official accusations already seen, they include Zhou and Bo. It was acknowledged during the court trials, that the two in addition to being corrupt, indulged in “Non-organizational political activities.”[9] Experts[10] have interpreted such activities as attempts to set up a power base in China, alternate to that of Xi Jinping. It was also reported that Zhou and Bo once held a secret meeting in Chongqing during which they advocated “adjusting” the reform and opening-up policy initiated in the late 1970s by former leader Deng Xiaoping, bringing it back in line with Maoist ideas.[11] In any case, such open revelations by Xi could be indicative of his confidence now that he considers political challenges to him are over; they could also be seen as a warning by Xi to his potential rivals in the coming years.

The third development, i.e. the demands coming from a senior leader on the need for cadres to display “absolute loyalty” to the CCP and show “conformity” with the party central committee, is not new, but their repetition without interruption at different levels makes one suspicious of existence of disunity in the party. Xi said at the Fifth CDIC Plenary Session (Beijing, January 13, 2015) that “party members should follow the constitution as well as political discipline and rules. The campaign against corruption will be arduous and complicated. The cadres should align with the authority of the CCP Central Committee in deed and thought, at all times and in any situation and ensure unity in the party”.[12] The CDIC chief Wang Qishan in his lead article (People’s Daily, October 23, 2015) [13] asked all party organizations and members to follow the regulations which “embody the spirit of” key Party meetings and comments of the CCP General Secretary and are crucial in ensuring Party strength. Subsequently, the CCP chief told at a politburo meeting (November 23, 2015) that “absolute loyalty is the most important to the party’s political discipline and most fundamental to its political responsibility”. [14] Then came publication of two articles- a signed one in the Liberation Army Daily on November 30, 2015 and the other contributed by the PLA General Political Department (GPD) on December 7, 2015, which sharply focused on the need for the military to follow the “CMC Chairman Responsibility” system, in other words to obey Xi’s orders.

As the year 2015 was ending, the CCP chief chose again to reiterate the theme of “loyalty to the party”; he asked[15] the politburo members at what is called “Democratic Life meeting” (Beijing, December 30, 2015), for the first time at this level, that they “should stick to the correct political direction, be “in accord with the party central” and “consciously and actively follow the party leaders’ instructions”. Xi wanted the party men to exercise caution when speaking about key policies and warned them against creating factions. He complained that “some have been keen to poke around and … ask the things they should not ask … and run after the so-called internal information and spread it in private. Such actions had been rotting and decaying the party”. Loyalty to the Party is also Xi’s urge to the army. During a meeting with the new heads of the reorganized organs of the CMC (Beijing, January 11, 2016) , he laid emphasis on the armed forces “unswervingly following the CCP’s absolute leadership, adhering to the Party spirit, obeying political discipline, and being politically intelligent, with firm political faith and right political stance”. [16] Xi’s speech can be said as reflecting his effort to secure the political loyalty of top level leaders, both in the Politburo and its Standing Committee.

In a rare measure, Xinhua carried a formal statement[17] (January 7, 2016) on Xi’s December 30, 2015 politburo speech. It stipulated that “the leaders should be aligned with the central leadership of the party led by Xi in actions and thoughts. For the party, the government, the army, the people, academics, east, west, south, north, centre, the CCP leads everything”.

What do the indicators above convey? In the main, the message is that the ongoing consolidation of political power by Xi Jinping seems almost nearing completion. At the same time, there are challenges to Xi. There is a growing requirement for the leader to successfully tackle the problem of apparent disunity within the CCP; the repeated calls to all party, government and military personnel to display loyalty to the party, albeit in real terms to Xi, give rise to suspicions that there could be divisions in the party over the Xi leadership. The leader may perhaps feel that there could be rivals who have the potentials to challenge him in future; his publicly charging Bo Xilai of late for the latter’s political ambition, can be considered as a subtle warning such people. Xi may also have to look into the CCP’s standing among the public; for the first time, Wang Qishan, the powerful leader in charge of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, has touched upon the need for the CCP to acquire legitimacy through winning trust of the people “in the present complex situation”. Another big challenge to Xi is in the economic realm; China’s economic growth has slowed to a 25-year low of 6.9 per cent in 2015. Also, the position of the leader with respect to the military may not be comfortable; his launch of massive military reforms could be met with some resistance from vested interests in the army, which are to lose out of the reforms. Xi may also have to deal with opinions in the country in favor of bringing the military under the State control, instead of being under the party command.

The dangers confronting Xi are being identified by influential people within China. Meriting attention in this connection are the remarks of a Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan; he has said that “a regime of highly concentrated power has been formed, but the danger is, once wrong decisions are made, there could be thorny consequences. Liberal economist Mao Yushi has said that “Xi controls all, he takes all the power for himself – so there is no check and balance in the political system, and his wrong policy will go further and further”.

To sum up, it looks very much possible that further development of the present political climate centering round over-concentration of power in the hands of Xi Jinping, would impact on the intra-party power equations likely to emerge ahead of the CCP Congress next year. In the months to come, it would therefore be necessary for Xi to ensure that his loyalists get elected to key positions in the Congress. The leader may also have to pay attention to complete the ongoing military reforms and tackle the economic downturn prior to the Congress. In any case, one thing is clear: there is nothing so far to stop Xi from getting reelected as the party chief in that landmark party conclave.

*The writer, D.S.Rajan, is Distinguished Fellow, Chennai Centre for China Studies, Chennai, India. Contributing date – February 2, 2016. Email: dsrajan@gmail.com

[1]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1_zP8fxYjsIJ:m.guan… 349857.shtml+&cd= This gives provinces or cities / the dates of meetings/ reporting dailies as follows: Sichuan – January 11,2016- Sichuan daily of January 12,2016; Tianjin-January 12,2016- Tianjin daily of January 12,2016; Anhui-January 13,2016- Anhui daily of January 14,2016; Guangxi-January 13,2016- Guangxi daily of January 14,2016; Hubei- January 15,2016- Hubei daily of January 17,2016; Inner Mongolia- January 29,2016- Inner Mongolia daily of January 30,2016 and Xi An city- January 14,2016- Xi An daily of January 15,2016. It should be noted that the original URL of guancha.cn is no longer available; only Google web cache is available.

[2] Xi in his politburo speech warned Communist Party leaders against not toeing the party line and asked them to ensure their family members steer clear of ­corruption, “China’s President Xi Jinping calls on Politburo to follow his lead”, South China Morning Post, December, 30, 2015; http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1896668/chinas-president-xi-jinping-calls-politburo-follow-his

[3] Book of Xi Jinping’s remarks on Party discipline published, Xinhua, January 1, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/01/c_134970519.htm

[4] Senior CPC official demands Party loyalty, Xinhua, January 27, 2016; http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/27/c_135050732.htm

[5]Xi Has Vision to Guide Party to 2049, Yang Guangbin, March 16, 2015 hoenix TV, July 25; People’s Daily, January 11

[6] Willy Lam , Xi Jinping forever , http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/01/xi-jinping-forever-china-president-t…
[7] Willy Lam, President Xi Lays Down His Own “Political Rules”, China Brief Volume: 15 Issue: 16 , http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=…
[8] DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW, In Book, Xi Jinping Taints Ousted Rivals With Talk of Plots , ttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-plot.html?_r=0

[9] 2014 Annual Report of the Supreme Court, “China’s Supreme Court uses novel rhetoric in new corruption allegations”, China Daily, USA, quoting Xinhua, 19.3.2015

[10] Liu Dawen, former editor of Hongkong-based political magazine Outpost, Radio Free Asia, 19.3.2015).

[11]Phoenix Weekly, as reported in http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-15/chinese-politicians-formed-banned-clique-state-media/6019638

[12] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2015-01/13/c_133916942.htm

[13] http://en.people.cn/n/2015/1023/c90000-8966343.html http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/23/us-china-corruption- idUSKCN0SH08I20151023

[14] http://www.hubgold.com/2015/11/23/politburo-meeting-heard-55-visits-key-…

[15] Xinhua Insight: How a time-honored tradition helps CPC make self-improvement, December 30, 2015http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015- 12/30/c_134965642.htm

[16] China reshuffles military headquarters jan 11 2016 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/11/c_134999061.htm
[17] All the President’s Men: Xi Jinping tells Communist Party’s top echelon to unite behind him in thought and action, January 9, 2016; http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1899546/all-fal…

A Hezbollah field commander has been killed in clashes in a flashpoint Shiite town in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, media reports said on Friday.

“The commander Haidar Fariz Merhi and the fighter Hussein Hassan Jawad, who both hail from the western Bekaa town of Mashghara, were killed fighting in the Nubol and Zahraa area north of Aleppo,” Al-Arabiya television reported.

The pro-Hezbollah South Lebanon news portal confirmed Merhi’s death, also describing him as a Hezbollah commander.

According to Al-Arabiya, a third Hezbollah fighter was killed in Syria in recent days.

It identified him as Ali Moussa Nassour, saying he hailed from the southern Beirut suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh.

Hezbollah, the Syrian army and allied militiamen on Wednesday broke a long running rebel siege of on the Shiite villages of Nubol and Zahraa.

The two villages, located in the middle of opposition territory, had been blockaded by rebel groups for around three years. The development marked a major victory for the regime forces and its allies, which have made significant advances in the province in the past few days – backed by massive Russian airstrikes.

Regime troops, Hezbollah fighters and allied militiamen arrived in the two towns on Thursday morning to cheering crowds who threw rice and ululated, according to footage shown on state television.

Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Syria since the party’s decision to intervene militarily in the conflict.

Original article

Major Pakistan airports remained crippled by industrial action Friday as a strike by employees of the national flag carrier against plans to privatize the airline entered its fourth day.

All of Pakistan International Airlines’ foreign and domestic flights were suspended Friday with thousands of passengers, including Pakistani expat workers trying to fly to the Middle East, stranded at Karachi’s international airport and other key hubs.

“My visa is about to expire in the next three days and I have to reach Dubai before that but here I am stuck at the airport,” Sualma Jia, who works at a hotel in Dubai, told AFP in Karachi.

She said she was not even able to retrieve her luggage from the airline. “My future is at stake here, I tried a few private airlines but they have raised their fares by almost three times,” she said.

PIA spokesman Danial Hassan Gillani said agreements had been reached with rival airlines to fly all domestic and international passengers, including dozens of pilgrims heading for Saudi Arabia who held a protest after their flight was canceled.

However, passengers must pay any price increase and the backlog is expected to take days to clear, with no end in sight to the industrial action.

According to Dawn daily, the PIA management has arranged four Boeing jets to bring back hundreds of Pakistani pilgrims stranded in Jeddah.

PIA reached an agreement with Saudi Airlines, following which two Saudia flights on Friday took 700 pilgrims to different cities, reported local channels. They said the remaining 1,300 Pakistani pilgrims would also be flown home by Saudia flights.

On their way back to Saudi Arabia, the planes are carrying the same number of people to Jeddah for Umrah.

The airline is providing hotel accommodation to fliers in Jeddah as well as in various cities of Pakistan, said a PIA spokesman.

As a backup plan, the spokesman said, PIA was also in final stages of negotiations with Etihad Airways and Turkish Airlines to facilitate passengers going to and coming from Europe, America and Canada.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s civil aviation authority has advised the travellers to buy tickets from the offices concerned of airlines to avoid extra payment and rely on the fare mentioned on their websites.

Recently, two protesting airline employees were shot dead and several more wounded at Karachi’s international airport when clashes broke out between security forces and staff, though authorities denied opening fire.

The strike continues despite Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s warning that the demonstration was illegal and those taking part could face up to a year in prison under a law that restricts union activity in state-administered sectors.

The Guinean government should ensure telecommunications companies are not required to hand over in bulk the personal data of mobile phone users, Human Rights Watch said yesterday in a letter to Prime Minister Mamady Youla. The government should enact measures to ensure that any intrusion of phone users’ privacy is necessary, proportionate, and clearly defined in law.

On January 6, 2016, Guinea’s telecommunications regulator, the Authority for Regulation of Mail and Telecommunications (Autorité de Régulation des Postes et Télécommunications, ARPT), sent a letter to Guinea’s four major mobile phone companies saying that the ARPT planned to “put in place a center for control and oversight of traffic (voice and data)” to verify revenues of service providers for tax assessment purposes, but that could also allow access to personal data.

“While governments should be able to enforce tax regulations, they shouldn’t do that in a way that impinges on the right to privacy,” said Cynthia Wong, senior Internet researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The ARPT shouldn’t put in place any system that gives them access to customers’ sensitive personal information.”

In a January 19 letter, three telecom operators stated that they would not comply without greater clarity about the objectives and legal basis for the request. ARPT representatives told Human Rights Watch that the information was sought for tax purposes only and that they would meet with phone company operators to try to resolve the issue. Human Rights Watch received information that two of those companies had agreed to comply with the government’s request.

The proposed system, if connected directly to the telecommunications company’s networks and billing systems, could allow the regulator to monitor all data and voice traffic and, if misused, would give the operator, the regulator, and potentially other government departments’ back-door access to customers’ call records.

As part of the implementation of the new system, the ARPT had also requested access to parts of the companies’ phone records – known as “CDRs” – for the month of December 2015, as well as the necessary technical information to decode the CDRs.

Although CDRs do not reveal the contents of a phone call, they can include the phone numbers of both parties on the call, the time and date, the call duration, and even the approximate location of the people making the call. Such data can reveal sensitive information about a person’s contacts and movements, especially when aggregated. Indeed, this information often can reveal more about a person’s private life than the actual content of conversations.

While governments should have the ability to enforce telecommunications and tax regulations, requests for documentation should not disproportionately burden the right to privacy and other related rights. If phone data is being sought for other reasons, such as national security or law enforcement, then any government request should require judicial supervision and specific justification, and should be targeted only at individuals suspected of wrongdoing.

The Guinean government should clarify whether, in requesting records from phone operators, the ARPT, or any other government agency, has obtained or will obtain sensitive customer information. Any sensitive customer information acquired in response to the January 6, 2016 request should be deleted.

Before moving forward with future requests for call data or with a central control system, the government should ensure the necessity and proportionality of any method used to verify tax revenue and prevent fraud that involves intrusions on privacy. The government should also ensure that any effort to gain access to data held by telecommunications companies respects privacy and other rights.

“While Guinea’s phone companies have an obligation to accurately report on their revenue and tax obligations, they should resist any attempt by the government to obtain access to sensitive personal information from their customers,” Wong said. “Phone companies should also be transparent about the government’s demands and the information they share with it.”

In light of the recent North Korean nuclear detonation and the recent nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration and Iran, questions regarding proliferation are as urgent as ever.  As we clearly are entering a “Golden Age of Proliferation,” the right response may prove politically unsatisfying and unpopular.  It is time to get serious about nuclear deterrence strategy again while jettisoning an obsessive focus on non-proliferation.

By Greg Lawson

North Korea, and to a lesser extent Iran, give tremendous evidence that we are entering a new, uncharted time; a dawning of a true “Golden Age of Proliferation.” This concept is clearly not lost in the security field. Paul Bracken has been describing how to confront the “Second Nuclear Age” for some time. Other works have raised this alarm in recent years too, including the well received RAND monograph from the late French thinker Therese Delpech.  Despite this legitimate interest, there is far too little attention being devoted to deterrence.  Rather, there is an obsessive focus on non-proliferation and even pie in the sky notions such as “Global Zero.”  It’s as if with the end of the Cold War, deterrence theory has gone into a near hibernation and what policy does exist runs too often on autopilot.

However, before embarking too far down the path on deterrence, it is imperative to understand why this “Golden Age of Proliferation” is emerging.

In one sense, it is remarkable that proliferation has been as limited over the past decades as it has been.  President Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara once anticipated eight nuclear power states within a decade.  Clearly that did not happen.  In fact, the pace of proliferation has consistently been slower than most pessimistic analysts forecasted.  However, with nine clear nuclear weapon states today (US, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea) and one that could move in that direction quickly (Iran), proliferation, despite its slow pace, has nonetheless been real.  It has also shifted from super and major powers like the U.S. and the Soviet Union to include much weaker states, with Pakistan and North Korea being prime examples.

As the world continues to confront fears of global warming, nuclear power will continue to be important. Though it is clearly possible to limit proliferation of material required for weaponization, it is not clear that sufficient precautions will be universally followed.  Thus, the concerns of “breakout” as a nation may, under the guise of a purely civilian nuclear program, step to the threshold of possible weaponization are valid.

Second, one must consider the status that nuclear arms convey on the world stage. While most experts would no doubt argue that the key to nonproliferation is the need to delegitimize the acquisition of nuclear weapons, this is evidently not happening in the case of North Korea.  It is also debatable how this will impact Iran over the medium to longer term.

Third, we know there has been a willing market in trafficking for nuclear materials.  The notorious Pakistan-based Khan network is unlikely to be the last to operate.

Finally, as U.S. power declines in a relative sense on the global stage, one of the keys to limiting proliferation, namely U.S. security guarantees, is also eroding.  This could easily prompt actors facing security dilemmas in their region to re-evaluate the need for a nuclear deterrence.  Though both India and Pakistan are already nuclear weapons states, there is a robust debate about increasing tactical nuclear weapons in Pakistan.  Given this is where the Khan network originated, no one can be sanguine about the implications.

The tipping point has already been reached.

With respect to the most recent North Korean provocation, what sane policymaker really expects regime change to work?  While the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal may call for this, prudent leaders know there are no good solutions.  Backing Kim Jong-un into a corner is more, not less likely, to lead the regime into making radical decisions.  Similar “regime change” rhetoric may well have led to some of Bashar al-Assad’s greater brutalities is Syria.  It is probably not wise to tempt a regime like that in the Hermit Kingdom with which we have even less insight.

The Iran nuclear deal also looms large.  Despite the deal and the recent turnover of uranium to Russia, covert breakout remains a legitimate option for Iran.  Once sanctions are relieved, the difficulties of them being “snapped” back are significant.  Additionally, Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests show they are not giving up on the development of delivery mechanisms.

A military response by either the U.S., or more likely Israel, will do little more than “mow the grass” and delay, rather than eliminate, the fundamental problem. Iran now has the knowledge base it needs to step up to the nuclear threshold.  It should also be recalled that that Iran was seeking nuclear technology long before the 1979 revolution as the Shah of Iran had a desire for them.  Further, as with the North Korean example, a policy of actual regime change is likely to further drive Iran along the path at even more rapid pace.  With both Russian-Western tensions as well as those between the Sunni Arab world and Iran, the amount of damage that could be wreaked is serious.

In two key regions, East Asia and the Middle East, we are entering a time of shifting stability. If the U.S. weakens its position in East Asia in the face of these challenges, the potential for at least Japan, despite being the only nation ever to thus far suffer a nuclear attack, to reverse its present courts and embrace a deterrent capability cannot be discounted.  Further, cascading proliferation in the Middle East is a distinct possibility.  The chances that especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt will sit back in the new strategic environment is hard to fathom, especially as the U.S. shifts its regional security role to more of an offshore balancer.

Nuclear weapons are here to stay. The genie is out and will not go back into the bottle.

Thomas Schelling wrote something that should startle anyone calling for a world of so-called Global Zero:

In summary, a ‘world without nuclear weapons’ would be a world in which the United States, Russia, Israel, China, and half a dozen or a dozen other countries would have hair-trigger mobilization plans to rebuild nuclear weapons and mobilize or commandeer delivery systems, and would have prepared targets to preempt other nations’ nuclear facilities, all in a high-alert status, with practice drills and secure emergency communications. Every crisis would be a nuclear crisis, any war could become a nuclear war. The urge to preempt would dominate; whoever gets the first few weapons will coerce or preempt. It would be a nervous world.

Limiting the flow of nuclear technology to dangerous international actors should continue.  But this is not enough.

As alluded to earlier, Global Zero is a fantasy, despite having high profile Cold Warriors like Kissinger, Shultz, and Sam Nunn supporting it. Pre-emptive warfare of the kind embraced in 2003 with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is ludicrous.  It is expensive and unrealistic.  Consequently, we are stuck with deterrence; however, imperfect such a solution might seem for both hawks and doves.

So while deterrence must be wholeheartedly re-embraced at the highest strategic levels, it will not look like the Cold War version.  Then, the calculus, though difficult, was at least more understandable inasmuch as it was a bipolar game wherein the players were largely rational.  Of course, even then, deterrence was far from simple.  Imagine how much more difficult it will be to now be forced to embrace a new, flexible model that recognizes the new multipolarity of the nuclear order.  First and foremost, American strategists need to get serious about deterrence and think through answers to this question.

Next, the U.S. will need a significant upgrading of its arsenal.  Part of this will be to determine the relative weight of each leg of the strategic triad.  Additionally, it will entail going through and making clear determinations as to what real red lines should be drawn and under what circumstances and in which strategic theaters of operation.

Few will be excited to consider these steps. They are not politically attractive.  They will call forth more defense spending at a time when many Americans want to stop spending so much on guns and start focusing more on butter.  They are too hot for doves that live in a world where no nuclear weapons seems to be an attainable goal.  They are probably too cold for hawks that support constant intervention anywhere a rogue element might obtain these weapons.

Unfortunately, good policy is frequently not good politics.  Yet that does not mean that the U.S. can afford to be caught flatfooted.  As North Korea’s actions this week show, there time for creating a 21^st century deterrence model to confront the new, “Golden Age of Proliferation” is now, irrespective of the politics.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

Steve Leone, editor of the Concord Monitor—the second largest newspaper in New Hampshire—makes me long for the good old days of old-fashioned communications. He actually, personally, answers his own phone.

I know this because when I called him I actually got right through, despite the media’s frenetic immersion in the week before the state’s presidential primary.

“You answer your own phone?” I asked him incredulously, saying to myself, no voicemail, no screening secretary? “Yes,” he said calmly, “I pick up my phone right away.” The result: from our conversation, he suggested that I write an op-ed. In 24 hours it was in the newspaper and online.

My larger point is that with the most advanced, communications systems in history at our disposal, it keeps getting harder to get through to people for a contemporaneous two-way exchange. I know people in the media, in the civic/academic communities and even many among my own circle of friends, who do not answer their phones, irregularly check their voice mail, and barricade their emails with filters and spam-detection software. Some now advise text-messaging, which hardly can compare with the two-way telephone conversations of past decades.

Over fifteen years ago, the Wall Street Journal noted a survey that concluded it took an average of six calls for people at work to reach their party. I’ve experienced calling reporters and going through three tiers of press one, press two, press three. One wonders how they get fast scoops these days.

And don’t talk about the airlines, the banks and almost any major business these days. Even Southwest Airlines has gone to voicemail, which for so long sustained the old ‘three rings and a human answers’ practice.

Sure, everybody is overloaded with messages, but is the volume slowing the process of getting things moving or done? Also, so cheap is high-velocity, massive communication these days (no fretting about long-distance calls), that people are wont to make far more calls for far less purpose—i.e., lots of low-level trivia and gossip.

After a while one has a mental list of people so hard to reach personally that attempts to contact them are not even made. We are all callers and callees; guess who’s got the power these days, other than venomous bill collectors who can damage your credit score if you don’t accede to their incessant demands?

I sometimes try sending a message by postal letter. “Letters,” people tell me when I finally get through to them, “who looks at the mail anymore?”

There are people in public life who are so committed to running away from the tsunami of calls and messages that when you do finally get their very-personal cell number, and they manage to answer, retort—“how’d you get my number?!”

All this is to point out that as there emerge more communications technologies, more apps, more defenses by callees against callers, the irritation level, and the time and productivity losses will continue to mount. I’ve yet to see any estimates about how much time is lost in the business world by people, including consumers, trying and trying again to get through to other people they’re trying to do business with, but it’s got to be billions of hours a year.

We all know many people who experience and complain about the difficulty of getting through. But no one seems to know any way out from the present overloads. However, also being a callee every day, there is that consolation of knowing how many ways you can keep “them” from getting through to you.

At info@csrl.org, we’ll look at any of your suggestions.

By Salma Malik*

The tragic overhang of the army school massacre was the inheritance 2015 carried from the previous year. However, the silver lining to this dark macabre cloud was not only the collective resolve of the Pakistani nation to not bow to the terrorists and extremist mindsets but also the unanimity of decisions by key stakeholders with regard to a concerted counter-terrorism strategy. The efforts brought forth a 22-point National Action Plan (NAP) that comprehensively covered all areas through which terrorism and anti-state activities could be reduced and ended, such as private militias; financial regulations; border security; legislations; activities of banned outfits; intelligence sharing; border management; communication and media responses; networks and their activities; banning of hate speech as well as rehabilitation and post-conflict resettlement of displaced people. Consequently, the moratorium on death penalty was lifted and since then, several executions have taken place in both terrorism related and other cases.

Owing to the NAP as well as the military’s counter-terrorism operation, Zarb-e-Azb, 2015 was a relatively secure and calm year in comparison to the preceding years. Yet, the dozen plus major incidents that took place were a reminder that terrorists not only continue to possess the potential to defy the security forces but also to inflict heavy physical losses. Every strike was significant, be it an attack on paramilitary and law enforcement agents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan; attacking religious institutions such as mosques or churches in the heart of Punjab; or the cold blooded murder of daily commuters and pilgrims in Karachi or Balochistan. The non-state actors chose soft targets to deter and terrorise. Each of these incidents drew public debate and criticism over what more needed to be done, the faith in the military’s ability to eradicate terrorism remained very strong.

More so, this unflinching faith and confidence is in the person of the army chief, who according to common people and media, solely holds the answers to all our problems.

However, counter-terrorism strategies can never be successful without significant support from allies and neighboring states. The upswing in Pak-Afghan relations, especially after December 2014 incident, unsurprisingly plummeted, when like a rabbit out of a hat, the news of the Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar’s death was “intelligently” reported and ended up predictably collapsing the dialogue facilitated by Pakistan between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban.

Notwithstanding the tall claims that the road to peace in Kabul passes through Islamabad, this development left few concerned neighbors and allies deeply relieved, as increasing cozy and congenial Islamabad-Kabul ties were not in anyone’s interests. The second and most concerning issue for keen observers, has been the setting up and progress on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which resulted in a lot of debate, speculations, foreign tours by a neighboring Chief Executive to all possible economic partners, and ironically, once again a resumption of terrorist activities.

Diplomacy

As regards significant diplomatic visits, firstly US President Barack Obama’s ‘only-to-Delhi’ trip, which was indeed a fascinating study in its own right, not to be rivaled by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “surprise” 25 December stopover in Lahore to enjoy the double celebration of his counterpart’s birthday and granddaughter’s wedding. One must not underwrite this visit as trivial, given that it was the first in over a decade by an Indian prime minister, the previous being Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s, in 2004; and more importantly, Modi’s highly strategic official visits to Russia and Afghanistan, before visiting Lahore. The presence of top Indian steel magnet Sajjan Jindal in the highly exclusive meeting becomes logical, given India’s heavy investment in copper and iron mines in Afghanistan, of which several of Jindal’s companies hold significant shares. One must note that Jindal played a significant role in bringing about a rapprochement between the two leaders. By no means a small task, as, until mid-2015, it seemed that New Delhi had totally decided to ex-communicate Pakistan.

At the onset of 2016, two major setbacks were witnessed: first, very predictably, a terrorist strike at the Indian air force base in Pathankot, India, shortly followed by the attacks at the Bacha Khan University in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Once again, accusations were hurled, cross-border complicity immediately voiced and proven, with readily available evidence comprising telephone calls, receipts etc. The immediate casualty was the postponement of the scheduled foreign secretary level talks. Have these two events prophetically set the agenda for the rest of 2016? Can we optimistically forecast positive developments vis-à-vis key areas? Or a return to the older pattern of moving one step forward, two steps back.

As regards terrorism, many who held faith in the efforts by the government, now appear skeptical, criticising the establishment for being caught napping. The military has also deliberately kept the media’s access to Zarb-e-Azb fairly limited, which has again had people curious about how successful the military has been in weeding out terrorists. However, the adoration and love for General Raheel Sharif remain steadfast, with his popularity enhancing manifold, after the recent announcement of his not seeking extension in military service – a decision, which demonstrates that all the admiration did not turn his head, and is reflective of military professionalism. Where on one hand the message that it is the institution and not an individual who matters, it also puts the military on a timeline somewhat parallel to Obama’s withdrawal announcement from Afghanistan. Would this signify a wait and watch approach by the terrorists, who would, from time to time, carry out signature strikes and keep the situation turbulent?

Although countering terrorism can never be time-lined, 2016 has to be a year where all the stakeholders pool their genuine efforts to realise the goals of the NAP and exterminate terrorism and militancy for good.

Regional Issues

Indeed, a very clichéd and naïve wish list, given the umpteen domestic as well as external spoilers, ranging from legitimate political actors to interest groups, friendly, allied, as well as adversarial states, who stand to benefit from a strife-ridden Pakistan, which is never strong and stable enough to actualize and enjoy the benefits of promising projects such as the CPEC hold. Where on one hand the thrust and continuity of the military’s counter-terrorism strategy will be affected by the next army chief, on the other, the civilian establishment has to take the ownership of, and work hard to realise the NAP’s objectives. Otherwise, Pakistan would continue to remain domestically insecure – a scenario that could be exacerbated by the prospect of new terrorist threats emerging within and beyond the region such as the Daesh or its affiliates.

Afghanistan, Pakistan and India

To that end, Afghanistan is extremely critical to achieve domestic stability in Pakistan. The improved institutional linkages with regards cooperation on terrorism, intelligence sharing, and other related aspects are welcoming. Yet, more is always better. Would Washington and New Delhi feel comfortable with a stronger Kabul-Islamabad bondage? Logically not. Yet, with India realising that Pakistan (and more specifically the Nawaz Sharif family enterprise) is critical to its successful access and speedy extraction of iron and copper from Afghanistan, there might actually be an economic route to stability and betterment in relations. Should we expect monumental breakthroughs? Not in the India-Pakistan case. Could there be more Pathankots? Unfortunately, the probability is high. The more these two countries or their leadership move towards rapprochement, more would be such stage managed episodes, or interventions by spoilers. Furthermore, the chances of the bilateral dialogue remaining a nonstarter and conditional, are high.

How would the US-Pakistan relationship progress in the coming months? Islamabad must keenly observe the trends shaping the US’ November 2016 presidential elections. Who the next commander-in-chief would be is important vis-a-vis Islamabad’s Kabul policy as also to the approach the new president and his team will take towards Saudi Arabia, Iran and Daesh. Pakistan is already in an extremely precariously balanced situation, where owing to a multitude of issues, it is committed to support the Washington-backed Riyadh alliance. Yet, it can neither afford to antagonise Iran, neither as a neighbor, nor as the custodian of Shia ideology, especially at a time when after decades, the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions have opened chances for economic exchange and energy sale.

The second important factor in the Washington-Islamabad bilateral would be the nuclear energy cooperation. Would Pakistan settle for a strategic partnership agreement? Most unlikely; but Pakistan would like to be judged for the positive measures undertaken in safety and security matters, as opposed to constantly be reminded of history.

Obama, in his last State of the Union address mentioned Afghanistan and Pakistan as likely to remain unstable in the coming decades. Should this be taken as an introduction of new factors of instability ensuring increased American military presence and turmoil for Afghanistan? With Pakistan remaining equally affected?

Overview

Despite opportunities such as the CPEC that has the potential for stabilising and enhancing Pakistan’s economic potential, for being highly instrumental in employment generation, to help increase support infrastructure that will strengthen energy potentials and minimise the grounds for extremism, 2016 can either steer Pakistan towards stability and progress or keep it deeply preoccupied with internal as well as external challenges.

With certain aspects such as a further drift in Saudi-Iranian relations, which are beyond its control, Islamabad has and can play a good mediator role. The need is to think prudently, strategise, and implement policies that defeat terrorism, instability and adversarial interests, and move towards the path to progress.

*Salma Malik
Assistant professor, Defence and Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University
E-mail: salmamalik@gmail.com

The US Labor Department reported the economy added 151,000 jobs in January, in line with some economists’ expectations. There were largely offsetting revisions to the prior two months data leaving the average change over the last three months at 231,000. The household survey showed a jump in employment that both lowered the unemployment rate to 4.9 percent and also raised the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) to 59.6 percent. This is the highest EPOP of the recovery, but it is still more than 3 percentage points below the pre-recession level.

The slowing of job growth was sharpest in construction and the temp sector. The former added 18,000 jobs after adding an average of 56,500 jobs in the prior two months. The temp sector lost a little over 25,000 jobs in January after a reported gain of the same size in December. The big job gainers were retail with a gain of 57,700; restaurants, which added 46,700 jobs; and health care with a gain of 36,800. Both restaurants and retail were likely helped by unusually good weather. (The storms hit after the survey period.)

Manufacturing added 29,000 jobs after adding 13,000 in December. This growth is surprising since other data, such as the Fed’s industrial production measure, show growth in the sector to be weak. Government employment fell by 7,000, with drops of 8,000 at the federal level and 10,000 at the state level, partially offset by a rise of 11,000 at the local level. One anomaly depressing job growth in January was a reported drop of 14,400 in couriers. This followed a rise of 10,600 in December.

There was a large 12 cent jump in the average hourly wage in January, but this followed a month in which there was no reported rise at all. Over the last three months the wage has risen at a 2.5 percent annual rate compared to the prior three months, the same as its pace over the last year. There is little basis for the belief that wage growth is accelerating. The Employment Cost Index for the fourth quarter showed no uptick at all in the pace of compensation growth, with wage growth in the private sector actually slowing slightly.

On the household side, there was another large increase in labor force participation, with 284,000 entering the labor force, after adjusting for changes in population controls. Employment rose by 409,000 after the adjustment.

Other news in the household survey was mixed. The number of involuntary part-time workers fell again and is now down by almost 800,000 over the last year. The number of people who choose to work part-time rose slightly. It is now up by almost 500,000 from its year-ago level. This is a predictable effect of the ACA as people no longer need to work full-time to get health care insurance through their jobs. Over the last three years, involuntary part-time employment has fallen by 2,040,000, while voluntary part-time has increased by 1,930,000.

On the negative side, the unemployment rate for African Americans rose by 0.5 percentage points and for African American teens by 1.5 percentage points. This indicates the drops reported in December were a blip. The percentage of unemployment due to voluntary job leavers also dropped in January, falling to 9.9 percent. This is a level more consistent with a recession than a strong labor market. One clearly negative item is that the duration of unemployment measures all increased in January with the median length of unemployment spells rising by 0.4 weeks and the average by 1.3 weeks. The share of long-term unemployed also rose.

Employment by education level is not following the standard script with the employment rate for college grads falling by 0.3 percentage points in January. It is down by 0.4 percentage points over the last year. The only group with a rise in employment rate over the year is workers without high school degrees.

The overall picture in this report is mixed. The sharp slowing in job growth was to be expected, given the slow growth reported in the economy. The labor market is still not tight enough to produce healthy wage growth. With many downside risks to growth, 2016 may not be a good year for workers.

US President Obama visited the mosque in Baltimore, Maryland a few days back. Of course, this made many Americans wonder as to why Obama would visit the mosque at the end of his Presidential term and just before the Presidential election, instead of doing so earlier in his two terms of eight years.

Obama should only hope that even his admirers would not think that he made this visit to mosque as part of his efforts to win votes for Democratic party in next elections or find a career for himself after ceasing to be the US President. Maybe such visit to mosque would help him build an image of himself as universal man, that could pave way in so many ways in shaping his future career. After all, Obama has already won a Nobel Prize for Peace, almost immediately after becoming President.

Anyway, the remarks of Obama on Muslims appear to be fair and will win lot of friends for him not only among Muslims but also among people who are fair in judgements and bear no ill will towards any religion or any community.

Obama has gone one step further to say that Sikh Americans are often the targets of threats and harassment as they are “perceived to be Muslims”. It is a fact that Obama has not been able to prevent such perceptions when he has been the President for as long as eight years.

The ground reality is that millions of Muslims in the world do not approve the violent methods adopted by some extremist groups. In spite of vast number of Muslims being peace minded, an unfortunate impression is gaining ground that Muslims tend to indulge in violent terrorist activities.

This scenario should be seen as helplessness of the majority of the population who are not responsible for any wrong dealings but who are facing the music for wrong doing indulged by microscopic minority of others belonging to same religion. It is unfair to expect that peace loving people should protest and fight against the minority of those who believe in violent acts, as it is just not possible for private citizens or groups. Only the governments have to do it.

Obama has put the issue in proper perspective by clearly stating that while criticizing any terrorist group, the religion to which the terrorists belong should not be criticized.

While reading such appropriate statements of Obama, many Indians who do not have a short memory cannot but recollect that Obama, during his last visit to India, made some adverse comments about the so called religious intolerance in India, though only very microscopic minority of people in India indulge in hate talks. Perhaps, after completing the visit to India and the present time, President Obama has learned some lessons.

Obama should be grateful to millions of Indians who tolerated his statement when he talked about religious intolerance in India, as Indians know that religious intolerance in India is more a media creation and very isolated affair.

Obviously, the tolerant Indians have a lesson or two to give it to Obama.

By Mustafa Kutlay*

After a long period of silence and apathy, Turkey-EU relations have entered a new phase following the bilateral summit on November 29. For Europe, Turkey’s importance has made a strong come back as an outcome of unprecedented number of refugees flocked into the European countries. The EU is now trying to take new measures to stem flow of migrants and Turkey has a particular place in this regard. On the other side of the coin, Europe’s importance for Turkey is on the rise for economic and geopolitical reasons as well.

From an economic perspective, the significance of European markets is likely to become more central than the last decade. Turkish government declared the revised Medium-Term Program (MTP) a few months ago. The MTP presents a macro framework for economic reforms and policies that would be carried out during 2016-2018. Yet this comes as the Turkish economy is expected to face considerable challenges in the post-2015 term. The economy has grown by just 3.2 percent between 2008 and 2014, whereas it had once grown by 6.8 percent between 2002 and 2007.

In the post-2015, Turkey needs to grow more rapidly; however, regional and global conditions are not likely to play a facilitating role. As a result of the spectacular collapse of state structures in the Middle East and North Africa after 2011, market opportunities in the region are rapidly shrinking. Turkey’s trade with the region, for instance, fell to $55.8 billion in 2014 from $64 billion in 2012. According to the figures from January-November 2015, Turkey’s imports from the region declined by 34 percent while its exports declined by 10 percent. The crisis erupted with Russia after the downing of Russian jet due to its violation of Turkish airspace is also likely to deteriorate regional economic balances.

The disappearance of Turkey’s markets in its nearby has led it to seek alternatives. In this context, western markets have once again come to prominence, and the Prime Minister’s recent meetings in both Great Britain and Davos were conducted with this changing geo-economics in mind. Similarly, Europe is also important for attracting investors. Foreign direct investment in Turkey, which amounted to around $20 billion before the global financial crisis, fell below $15 billion per annum in the post-crisis period. Moreover, within the first eleven months of 2015, portfolio investments decreased by $15 billion year-on-year. Considering that emerging economies are losing their attractiveness as the Fed raises interest rates, it shall become more critical than the past for Turkey to attract foreign investors.

The return of geopolitics

From a geopolitical perspective as well, Europe’s importance is on the rise for Turkey. In fact, we have recently witnessed the return of geopolitics in Turkey-EU relations: the wave of migration stemming from the Syrian civil war, and Europe’s failure to cope therewith, has pushed bilateral cooperation to center stage. Thus, the geopolitics of Turkey has once again become a key variable to be considered by European politicians. However, there are significant problems that stand in the way of full cooperation between the parties in resolving the refugee issue.

First, Europe does not have a coherent policy mix to tackle the acute crisis. Merkel, who is pursuing a milder approach and insisting on close cooperation with Turkey, is facing growing pressure and isolation both in Germany and all across Europe. Several EU countries that have opposed the fair distribution of refuges by means of compulsory quotas have brought the reinstatement of border controls back onto the European agenda.

Second, the design of the Turkey-EU Joint Action Plan requires the careful maintenance of a delicate balance. According to the plan, it is expected that Turkey would pursue a tighter border control to stem the influx of refugees to Europe while also exerting a more concerted effort to better integrate Syrian refugees in to Turkish labor market. It is also expected that Turkey would fulfill the provisions of the readmission agreement, and therewith gain access to ‘visa-free Europe’ as of November 2016.

The risk of a new vicious cycle

The devil is in the detail, however: before Turkey is offered ‘visa-free Europe,’ it must fulfill the detailed requirements and conditions of the readmission agreement, which should later be confirmed by the EU members. For obvious reasons, it will not be politically easy for many European countries to make the decision to grant Turkish citizens visa-free travel within the Schengen zone. Thus, the two parties will need to exert a great amount of effort to actualize both the readmission agreement and the target of ‘visa-free Europe.’ If this process is not carried out with the utmost sensitivity, relations might risk falling into a new vicious cycle. In such a case, as a product of the action plan’s dysfunctionality, the EU could come to criticize Turkey for not fulfilling the conditions of the readmission agreement. Turkish side could then counter that the EU is not willing to fulfill its commitment to allow Turkey access to ‘visa-free Europe’ and is therefore failing to heed the principle of pacta sunt servanda.

The parties therefore must work hard to restitute the mutual trust and promote an institutional framework that ensures their adherence to the roadmap. In this sense, the continuation of Turkey’s EU accession process and the opening of new negotiation chapters and the activation of the EU anchor by accelerating the reform process of Turkey are crucial. Making progress on the political problems that have hampered the negotiations up until now, especially the Cyprus problem, stands out as a fundamental prerequisite for the establishment of a new equilibrium in this direction.

In conclusion, Europe has once again come to prominence on Turkey’s political and economic agenda. As the global economic balances shift against developing countries and the economic consequences of the state failures in Turkey’s surrounding geography is now the new normal, western markets have become all the more attractive for Turkey. Meanwhile, regional instability, the refugee crisis, and an increasing wave of terrorism also necessitate deepened cooperation between Turkey and the EU. It obviously depends on the political elites on both sides whether to invest in bilateral relations or not.

Asst. Prof. Mustafa Kutlay is the Director of Centre for European Studies at the International Strategic Research Organization (USAK). He is also a faculty member at the TOBB University of Economics and Technology.

Following on from last week’s gains, the PSE-100 Index closed on February 4, 2016 at 32,479 points, up 3.77%WoW. This can be attributed to the central bank maintaining status quo on monetary policy vibrant interest of investors due to the results season. Overall, activity at the Exchange exhibited some recovery, average daily traded volume for the week rising to 144 million shares from an average of 117 million shares a week ago.

Key news flows guiding the market included: 1) the country’s annual inflation inched up to 3.32%YoY (slightly above market expectations) in January’16 as compared to 3.19%YoY in December’15 due to increase in the prices of food items, 2) Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and COAS Raheel Sharif inaugurated the Gwadar-Turbat Highway on Wednesday, an infrastructure develop project included in China Pakistan Economic Corridor , 3) outstanding loans to private-sector businesses amounted to Rs3.2 trillion (up 8.8%YoY), while consumer loans climbed to Rs292.9 billion at the end of CY15 (up 11.6%YoY) as a result of the current cycle of monetary easing, 4) talks with the IMF under the 10th review of the EFF program for releasing US$500 million, marred by a delay in privation of PIA and power generation assets and 5) GoP approved a reduction in prices of petroleum products by Rs5/ltr as the FBR levied fixed sales tax per liter on all petroleum products, replacing the existing mechanism of charging sales tax on percentage basis.

Scrips that led the bourse included HCAR, HBL, BAFL, SHEL and UBL, while laggards were MTL, SSGC, DGKC, NML and FFC. Interest of foreign investors’ slightly improved with the decline in outflows to US$2.1 million as against US$7.0 million outflows in the prior week. Devoid of key events, earnings season entering full swing should re‐invigorate investors’ interest. EFERT, Attock group companies (ATRL, APL, POL, ACPL), Banks (MCB, ABL) and PTC are scheduled to announce earnings. Data points pertaining to US oil inventories and the possibility of an OPEC meeting may keep oil prices in check, flowing through to the domestic Oil & Gas sector.

During the week ending 29th January 2016 liquid foreign exchange reserves held by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) decreased by US$212 million to US$15,435 million as compared to US$15,647 million a week ago. Total reserves held by the country were reported at US$20,275.8 million. The break-up of the foreign reserves was: reserves held by SBP US$15,435.4 million and net reserves held by commercial banks US$4,840.4 million.

In line with expectations SBP opted to keep interest rates unchanged in its January’16 Monetary Policy Statement. While uptick in private sector credit and Large Scale Manufacturing growth were highlighted as key positives, risks from lower crop production hampering GDP growth trajectory and M2 growth acceleration warranted status quo.

Going forward, CPI inflation is likely to see a noted uptick from March’16 onwards on higher food inflation and seasonal impacts, which along with NFNE core inflation moving up, keeps prospects for further easing muted. With Pak Rupee also likely to remain volatile on regional pressures and lower exports, analysts see room for a reversal in rates from September’16 onwards. With few quarters of the market anticipating a rate cut, the bourse can see some retraction in select sectors, though market performance should remain largely guided by the ongoing results season.

Two years ago, Ellen Martinsen, was collecting mosquitoes at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, looking for malaria that might infect birds–when she discovered something strange: a DNA profile, from parasites in the mosquitoes, that she couldn’t identify.

By chance, she had discovered a malaria parasite, Plasmodium odocoilei–that infects white-tailed deer. It’s the first-ever malaria parasite known to live in a deer species and the only native malaria parasite found in any mammal in North or South America. Though white-tailed deer diseases have been heavily studied–scientist hadn’t noticed that many have malaria parasites.

Martinsen and her colleagues estimate that the parasite infects up to twenty-five percent of white-tailed deer along the East Coast of the United States. Their results were published February 5 in Science Advances.

IN HIDING

“You never know what you’re going to find when you’re out in nature–and you look,” said Martinsen, a research associate at the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute and adjunct faculty in the University of Vermont’s biology department. “It’s a parasite that has been hidden in the most iconic game animal in the United States. I just stumbled across it.”

The new study, led by Martinsen, was a collaboration with scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, the American Museum of Natural History, the National Park Service, the University of Georgia, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee–and UVM biologist and malaria expert Joseph Schall.

Though Martinsen and Schall are quick to note that they anticipate little danger to people from this newly discovered deer malaria, it does underline the fact that many human health concerns are connected to wider ecological systems–and that understanding the biology of other species is a foundation to both conservation and public health management. Zika virus is recently making worrisome headlines and “there’s a sudden surge in interest in mosquito biology across the United States,” said Schall. “This is a reminder of the importance of parasite surveys and basic natural history.”

In 1967, a renowned malaria researcher reported he’d discovered malaria in a single deer in Texas. But the received understanding was that “malaria wasn’t supposed to be in mammals in the New World,” said Schall, who has studied malaria for decades. “It was like the guy was reporting he saw Big Foot,” and no other discoveries were made after that.

But now Martinsen and her colleagues have discovered that the deer malaria is widespread–though it’s “cryptic” she says, because the parasites occur in very low levels in many of the infected deer. “Ellen spent days and days looking through a microscope at slides that were mostly empty,” Schall said, but eventually found the parasites. Combined with sensitive molecular PCR techniques to understand the genetics, the team confirmed a high prevalence of the disease–between eighteen and twenty-five percent–in sites ranging from New York to West Virginia to Louisiana.

NATIVE SPECIES

The new discovery fundamentally changes our understanding of the distribution and evolutionary history of malaria parasites in mammals, Martinsen said. Some scientists wondered if the deer malaria could have jumped from people or zoo animals in the recent past. But the new study suggests otherwise. The team’s data shows that the deer actually carry two genetic lineages of the malaria parasites–“probably different species,” she said — and that the two lineages are substantially different from each other.

This divergence between the two forms of malaria was used by the scientists as a kind of molecular clock. “We can date the evolutionary split between those two lineages,” Martinsen said — to 2.3 to 6 million years ago. Which probably means that when the ancient evolutionary ancestors to white-tailed deer traveled from Eurasia across the Bering Land Bridge to North America in the Miocene, some 4.2 to 5.7 million years ago–malaria came along for the ride. “We think malaria is native to the Americas,” Martinsen said, “that it’s been here for millions of years.”

Malaria is a major problem for people in many parts of the world–and for many species of wildlife too. It has been devastating bird species in Hawaii and Bermuda, among many epidemics. Whether it is hurting white-tailed deer in America is an open question. Martinsen suspects not, because she’d expect to see more obviously sick animals. But Schall wonders if, like some human malaria infections, the disease causes a low-level burden that hurts deer populations. They both agree that it is an area that calls for more research–and that the new study raises many other questions, including whether the parasite might infect dairy cows or other hoofed species.

Ellen Martinsen completed her undergraduate and doctoral training at UVM in Joe Schall’s lab and went on to do her postdoctoral research at the Smithonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genetics. The new discovery drew on a team of scientists and veterinarians at the Smithsonian and other institutions, who studied samples from both live and necropsied deer as well as mosquitoes. Additionally, Martinsen returned to Schall’s lab for some of the new research.

“Malaria is a top parasitic disease in humans and wildlife,” Ellen Martinsen said. “It’s important that we gain a better understanding of its diversity and distribution not just across humans but across other species too.”

At the end of December 2015, a huge storm named “Goliath” dumped 9-10 inches of rain in a belt across the central United States, centered just southwest of St. Louis, most of it in a three-day downpour.

The rain blanketed the Meramec Basin, an area of 4,000 square miles drained by the Meramec River, which enters the Mississippi River south of St. Louis.

The Meramec’s response was dramatic. Gauging stations recorded a pulse of water that grew as it traveled down the main stem of the Meramec River, setting all-time record highs in the lower basin in the Missouri cities of Eureka, Valley Park and Arnold.

While extraordinary rain drenched the entire Meramec Basin, only 5 percent of the Mississippi River’s giant watershed above St. Louis was so affected. Yet only a day after the flood on the lower Meramec peaked, water levels on the Mississippi at St. Louis were the third-highest ever recorded. A few days later, record flood stages were recorded downstream at Cape Girardeau, Mo., and Thebes, Ill.

Why was the flooding so bad? Most news reports blamed it on the heavy rain, but Robert Criss, PhD, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, said there was more to the flood than the rain.

“I think there was significant magnification of the flood levels on the Meramec by recent developments near the river,” he said. “Sure it rained a lot, but what happened here cannot be explained by the rainfall alone.”

The flood on the middle Mississippi River, in turn, was remarkable for its short duration and the time of year. “It was essentially a winter flash flood on a continental-scale river,” Criss said. “The Mississippi has been so channelized and leveed close to St. Louis that it now responds like a much smaller river.”

In the February issue of the Journal of Earth Science, Criss and visiting scholar Mingming Luo of the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, China, take a close look at data for the New Year’s flood, treating it as a giant natural experiment that allowed them to test their understanding of changing river dynamics.

“Flooding is becoming more chaotic and unpredictable, more frequent and more severe,” Criss said. “Additional changes to this overbuilt river system will only aggravate flooding.

“In the meantime,” he said, “inaccurate Federal Emergency Management Agency flood frequencies based on the assumption that today’s river will behave as it has in the past greatly underestimate our real flood risk and lead to inappropriate development in floodways and floodplains.”

What happened at Valley Park and why?

The prior flood of record in most of the lower Meramec Basin occurred on Dec. 6, 1982, Criss said. Given that the 1982 flood, like the 2015 flood, was a winter flood during an El Niño event, they should have been similar. Criss thought it would be revealing to compare them.

When he did this, he discovered that the peak flood stage at Valley Park in 2015 was three-feet higher than it would have been had the river responded as it had in 1982, and more than a foot higher upstream from Valley Park at Eureka in 2015 than in 1982.

What had happened at Valley Park between 1982 and 2015? A three-mile-long levee had been built next to the river; a landfill partly in the river’s floodway (as defined in 1995) had expanded; parts of the floodplain had been built up with construction fill; and development along three small tributaries of the Meramec had destroyed riparian borders, so that they became torrents after a rain but no longer flowed continuously.

The record high water levels on the Meramec were associated with these developments, Criss said. “The biggest jump in the flood stage was next to the landfill in the floodway and to the new levee, which restricted the effective width of the floodway and ‘100-year’ floodplain by as much as 65 percent.”

He drives home the point by breaking the flood data into two chunks and looking at the earlier half separately from the later half. When he does this, it becomes apparent the river is becoming more chaotic and unpredictable and that floods are more frequent, higher and more damaging than they once were.

As the New Year’s flood demonstrates, when we assume an unchanging river, we greatly underestimate our flood risk, he said. “The St. Louis levees protected us from the 1993 flood, considered a 330-year event,” he said. “But if a real ‘200-year’ flood occurred on today’s river, the structures protecting St. Louis would be overtopped.

“The heavy rainfall was probably related to El Niño, and possibly intensified by global warming. But new records were set only in areas that have undergone intense development, which is known to magnify floods and shorten their timescales.

“People want to blame the rain, but this is mostly us,” Criss said. “It’s a manmade disaster.”

During the New Year’s flood, roughly 7,000 buildings near St. Louis were damaged, two interstate highways were closed for several days, the community of Valley Park was evacuated, and two Metropolitan Sewer District plants were swamped so that sewage was dumped directly into the water. The flood killed more than 20 people in Missouri and Illinois, caused several hundred million dollars of damage, and left millions of tons of debris in its wake.

By Stephen Zunes*

Former senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton is the only candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination who supported the invasion of Iraq.

That war not only resulted in 4,500 American soldiers being killed and thousands more permanently disabled, but also hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, the destabilization of the region with the rise of the Islamic State and other extremists, and a dramatic increase in the federal deficit, resulting in major cutbacks to important social programs. Moreover, the primary reasons Clinton gave for supporting President George W. Bush’s request for authorizing that illegal and unnecessary war have long been proven false.

As a result, many Democratic voters are questioning — despite her years of foreign policy experience — whether Clinton has the judgment and integrity to lead the United States on the world stage. It was just such concerns that resulted in her losing the 2008 nomination to then-Senator Barack Obama, an outspoken Iraq War opponent.

This time around, Clinton supporters have been hoping that enough Democratic voters — the overwhelming majority of whom opposed the war — will forget about her strong endorsement of the Bush administration’s most disastrous foreign policy. Failing that, they’ve come up with a number of excuses to justify her October 2002 vote for the authorization of military force.

Here they are, in no particular order.

 “Hillary Clinton’s vote wasn’t for war, but simply to pressure Saddam Hussein to allow UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq.”

At the time of vote, Saddam Hussein had already agreed in principle to a return of the weapons inspectors. His government was negotiating with the United Nations Monitoring and Verification Commission on the details, which were formally institutionalized a few weeks later. (Indeed, it would have been resolved earlier had the United States not repeatedly postponed a UN Security Council resolution in the hopes of inserting language that would have allowed Washington to unilaterally interpret the level of compliance.)

Furthermore, if then-Senator Clinton’s desire was simply to push Saddam into complying with the inspection process, she wouldn’t have voted against the substitute Levin amendment, which would have also granted President Bush authority to use force, but only if Iraq defied subsequent UN demands regarding the inspections process. Instead, Clinton voted for a Republican-sponsored resolution to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq at the time and circumstances of his own choosing.

In fact, unfettered large-scale weapons inspections had been going on in Iraq for nearly four months at the time the Bush administration launched the March 2003 invasion. Despite the UN weapons inspectors having not found any evidence of WMDs or active WMD programs after months of searching, Clinton made clear that the United States should invade Iraq anyway. Indeed, she asserted that even though Saddam was in full compliance with the UN Security Council, he nevertheless needed to resign as president, leave the country, and allow U.S. troops to occupy the country. “The president gave Saddam Hussein one last chance to avoid war,” Clinton said in a statement, “and the world hopes that Saddam Hussein will finally hear this ultimatum, understand the severity of those words, and act accordingly.”

When Saddam refused to resign and the Bush administration launched the invasion, Clinton went on record calling for “unequivocal support” for Bush’s “firm leadership and decisive action” as “part of the ongoing Global War on Terrorism.” She insisted that Iraq was somehow still “in material breach of the relevant United Nations resolutions” and, despite the fact that weapons inspectors had produced evidence to the contrary, claimed the invasion was necessary to “neutralize Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.”

“Nearly everyone in Congress supported the invasion of Iraq, including most Democrats.”

While all but one congressional Democrat — Representative Barbara Lee of California — supported the authorization of force to fight al-Qaeda in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, a sizable majority of Democrats in Congress voted against the authorization to invade Iraq the following year.

There were 21 Senate Democrats — along with one Republican, Lincoln Chafee, and one independent, Jim Jeffords — who voted against the war resolution, while 126 of 209 House Democrats also voted against it. Bernie Sanders, then an independent House member who caucused with the Democrats, voted with the opposition. At the time, Sanders gave a floor speech disputing the administration’s claims about Saddam’s arsenal. He not only cautioned that both American and Iraqi casualties could rise unacceptably high, but also warned “about the precedent that a unilateral invasion of Iraq could establish in terms of international law and the role of the United Nations.”

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, stood among the right-wing minority of Democrats in Washington.

The Democrats controlled the Senate at the time of the war authorization. Had they closed ranks and voted in opposition, the Bush administration would have been unable to launch the tragic invasion — at least not legally. Instead, Clinton and other pro-war Democrats chose to cross the aisle to side with the Republicans.

“Her vote was simply a mistake.”

While few Clinton supporters are still willing to argue her support for the war was a good thing, many try to minimize its significance by referring to it as simply a “mistake.” But while it may have been a terrible decision, it was neither an accident nor an aberration from Clinton’s generally hawkish worldview.

It would have been a “mistake” if Hillary Clinton had pushed the “aye” button when she meant to push the “nay” button. In fact, her decision — by her own admission — was quite conscious.

The October 2002 war resolution on Iraq wasn’t like the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing military force in Vietnam, which was quickly passed as an emergency request by President Lyndon Johnson when there was no time for reflection and debate. By contrast, at the time of the Iraq War authorization, there had been months of public debate on the matter. Clinton had plenty of time to investigate the administration’s claims that Iraq was a threat, as well as to consider the likely consequences of a U.S. invasion.

Also unlike the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which was disingenuously presented as an authorization to retaliate for an alleged attack on U.S. ships, members of Congress recognized that the Iraq resolution authorized a full-scale invasion of a sovereign nation and a subsequent military occupation. Clinton had met with scores of constituents, arms control analysts, and Middle East scholars who informed her that the war was unnecessary, illegal, and would likely end in disaster.

But she decided to support going to war anyway. She even rejected the advice of fellow Democratic senator Bob Graham that she read the full National Intelligence Estimate, which would have further challenged some of the Bush administration’s claims justifying the war.

It was not, therefore, simply a “mistake,” or a momentary lapse of judgment. Indeed, in her own words, she cast her vote “with conviction.”

As late as February 2007, Clinton herself refused to admit that her vote for the war resolution was a mistake. “If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake,” she said while campaigning for president, “then there are others to choose from.” She only began to acknowledge her regrets when she saw the polling numbers showing that a sizable majority of Democrats opposed the decision to go to war.

“She voted for the war because she felt it was politically necessary.”

First of all, voting for a devastating war in order to advance one’s political career isn’t a particularly strong rationale for why one shouldn’t share responsibility for the consequences — especially when that calculation proved disastrously wrong. Clinton’s vote to authorize the invasion was the single most important factor in convincing former supporters to back Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary, thereby costing her the nomination.

Nevertheless, it still raises questions regarding Hillary Clinton’s competence to become president.

To have believed that supporting the invasion would somehow be seen as a good thing would have meant that Clinton believed that the broad consensus of Middle East scholars who warned of a costly counterinsurgency war were wrong — and that the Bush administration’s insistence that U.S. occupation forces would be “treated as liberators” was credible.

After all, for the war to have been popular, there would have had to be few American casualties, and the administration’s claims about WMDs and Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda would have had to be vindicated. Moreover, some sort of stable pro-Western democracy would have emerged in Iraq, and the invasion would have contributed to greater stability and democracy in the region.

If Clinton believed any of those things were possible, she wasn’t paying attention. Among the scores of reputable Middle East scholars with whom I discussed the prospects of a U.S. invasion in the months leading up to the vote, none of them believed that any of these things would come to pass. They were right.

Nor was pressure likely coming from Clinton’s own constituents. Only a minority of Democrats nationwide supported the invasion, and given that New York Democrats are more liberal than the national average, opposition was possibly even stronger in the state she purported to represent. Additionally, a majority of Americans polled said they would oppose going to war if Saddam allowed for “full and complete” weapons inspectors, which he in fact did.

Finally, the idea that Clinton felt obliged to support the war as a woman in order not to appear “weak” also appears groundless. Indeed, every female senator who voted against the war authorization was easily re-elected.

“She thought Iraq had ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and was supporting Al-Qaeda.”

This is excuse is problematic on a number levels.

Before the vote, UN inspectors, independent strategic analysts, and reputable arms control journals all challenged the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq had somehow rebuilt its chemical and biological weapons programs, had a nuclear weapons program, or was supporting al-Qaeda terrorists.

Virtually all of Iraq’s known stockpiles of chemical and biological agents had been accounted for, and the shelf life of the small amount of materiel that hadn’t been accounted for had long since expired. (Some discarded canisters from the 1980s were eventually found, but these weren’t operational.) There was no evidence that Iraq had any delivery systems for such weapons either, or could build them without being detected. In addition, a strict embargo against imports of any additional materials needed for the manufacture of WMDs — which had been in effect since 1990 — made any claims that Iraq had offensive capability transparently false to anyone who cared to investigate the matter at that time.

Most of the alleged intelligence data made available to Congress prior to the war authorization vote has since been declassified. Most strategic analysts have found it transparently weak, based primarily on hearsay by Iraqi exiles of dubious credibility and conjecture by ideologically driven Bush administration officials.

Similarly, a detailed 1998 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated that Iraq’s nuclear program appeared to have been completely dismantled by the mid-1990s, and a 2002 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate made no mention of any reconstituted nuclear development effort. So it’s doubtful Clinton actually had reason to believe her own claims that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.

Additionally, there was no credible evidence whatsoever that the secular Baathist Iraqi regime had any ties to the hardline Islamist group al-Qaeda, yet Clinton distinguished herself as the only Senate Democrat to make such a claim. Indeed, a definitive report by the Department of Defense noted that not only did no such link exist, but that none could have even been reasonably suggested based on the evidence available at that time.

Moreover, even if Iraq really did have “weapons of mass destruction,” the war would have still been illegal, unnecessary, and catastrophic.

Roughly 30 countries (including the United States) have chemical, biological, or nuclear programs with weapons potential. The mere possession of these programs is not legitimate grounds for invasion, unless one is authorized by the United Nations Security Council — which the invasion of Iraq, pointedly, was not. If Clinton really thought Iraq’s alleged possession of those weapons justified her support for invading the country, then she was effectively saying the United States somehow has the right to invade dozens of other countries as well.

Similarly, even if Iraq had been one of those 30 countries — and remember, it was not — the threat of massive retaliation by Iraq’s neighbors and U.S. forces permanently stationed in the region provided a more than sufficient deterrent to Iraq using the weapons beyond its borders. A costly invasion and extended occupation were completely unnecessary.

Finally, the subsequent war and the rise of sectarianism, terrorism, Islamist extremism, and the other negative consequences of the invasion would have been just as bad even if the rationale weren’t bogus. American casualties could have actually been much higher, since WMDs would have likely been used against invading U.S. forces.

But here’s the kicker: Clinton stood by the war even after these claims were definitively debunked.

Even many months after the Bush administration itself acknowledged that Iraq had neither WMDs nor ties to Al-Qaeda, Clinton declared in a speech at George Washington University that her support for the authorization was still “the right vote” and one that “I stand by.” Similarly, in an interview on Larry King Live in April 2004, when asked about her vote despite the absence of WMDs or al-Qaeda ties, she acknowledged, “I don’t regret giving the president authority.”

No Excuses

The 2016 Democratic presidential campaign is coming down to a race between Hillary Clinton, who supported the Bush Doctrine and its call for invading countries that are no threat to us regardless of the consequences, and Bernie Sanders, who supported the broad consensus of Middle East scholars and others familiar with the region who recognized that such an invasion would be disastrous.

There’s no question that the United States is long overdue to elect a woman head of state. But electing Hillary Clinton — or anyone else who supported the invasion of Iraq — would be sending a dangerous message that reckless global militarism needn’t prevent someone from becoming president, even as the nominee of the more liberal of the two major parties.

It also raises this ominous scenario: If Clinton were elected president despite having voted to give President Bush the authority, based on false pretenses, to launch a war of aggression — in violation of the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles, and common sense — what would stop her from demanding that Congress give her the same authority?

*Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco.

As Sri Lanka celebrated its Feb. 4 independence day, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo exhorted citizens to look to the future after overcoming the traumas of decades of war.

“It is well known that we could have reached independence by defeating the British colonialism thanks to the efforts of people, united by a single goal. We did not manage to achieve it because our country was divided on the basis of ethnicity and political views,” he said, reported Fides, information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies.

“The priority needed right now is that all political and religious leaders work together to develop the country and to protect the rights, national culture, freedoms, to build justice, equality, the truth and coexistence. It is everyone’s duty, politicians and ordinary citizens, to carry out their responsibilities and their duties with maximum commitment to achieve that noble goal,” he said.

By Anusha Meyer

The Timbuktu mausoleums, destroyed by radical Islamists four years ago, are back on their feet now, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Irina Bokova told the people of Mali on February 4.

The UNESCO chief’s message coincided with a consecration ceremony of the Timbuktu mausoleums, last held in the 11th century, celebrated at the initiative of the local community. It marked the final phase of the United Nations-backed cultural rebirth of the age-old Sahara city after the destruction wrought by radical Islamists in 2012.

The ceremony, held at the Mosque of Djingareyber, began in the early morning hours with the sacrifice of animals and reading of Quranic verses. It was intended to invoke the divine mercy to provide the basis for peace, cohesion and tranquility.

The ceremony concluded with a Fatiha (prayers) pronounced by the imam of the Djingareyber Mosque. These religious rites also represent the rejection of intolerance, violent extremism and religious fundamentalism, which, in 2012, contributed to the destruction of much of the city’s rich cultural heritage.

In a message addressed to the people of Mali, Bokova stressed that this ceremony was the third and final stage in the cultural renaissance of Timbuktu. “We gathered here on 18 July 2015, for the inauguration of these mausoleums. This is our promise, and we held it together. In this effort we have rebuilt more than just monuments, we have forged bonds of friendship and nothing can undo them,” she said.

“These mausoleums are now once again standing. This is irrefutable proof that unity is possible and peace is even stronger than before. We did it and we can do it again,” she added.

European Union Ambassador Alain Holleville paid tribute to the community of Timbuktu in his remarks. “For the European Union, contributing to the safeguarding of the Malian heritage is a form of promoting culture as a factor of reconciliation and lasting peace, and is part of our reconstruction and development priorities in Mali.”

Beatrice Meyer, Resident Director of Cooperation at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation was equally complimentary of the efforts of all involved. “I am very pleased that this heritage has been preserved and protected thanks to the enormous commitment of local communities, with the support of international cooperation,” she said.

The head of families, Sekou Baba, meanwhile thanked the international community for its support. “We were fed on hope and rebuilt our mausoleums. It is done. We look forward to this ceremony that connects us back to our saints.”

Speaking on behalf of the Minister of Culture, Handicrafts and Tourism of Mali, Almamy Koureissi thanked the people of Timbuktu, and expressed gratitude to UNESCO and the technical and financial partners.

“Culture is at the heart of government action because we have found our bearings, our cultural values. We need to embrace our moral center, to remain standing, open to the world, welcoming and hospitable in accordance with our legendary traditions.”

Lazare Eloundou, UNESCO representative in Mali and Loubna Benhayoune, UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), representative, as well as several religious leaders also attended the ceremony.

The mausoleums of Timbuktu have long been places of pilgrimage for the people of Mali and neighboring West African countries. They were widely believed to protect the city from danger. Sixteen of these mausoleums are inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List and 14 were destroyed in 2012, representing a tragic loss for local communities.

Due to this, the government of Mali, starting in May 2013, turned to outside partners, including UNESCO, for assistance. The reconstruction has been financed with contributions from Andorra, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Croatia and Mauritius, as well as logistical support from the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).

By Duc-Quang Nguyen

The issue of immigration regularly features at the ballot box in Switzerland. On February 28 voters will decide whether to back a rightwing initiative to enforce the deportation of convicted foreigners. Who are the foreign residents living in the small alpine nation?

Switzerland has one of the highest percentages of foreign residents in the world (24.3% in 2014). Only a few countries like Luxembourg or the Gulf States have more.

Over 80% of foreigners living in Switzerland come from Europe. The citizens of Germany, Italy, Portugal and France together make up almost half of all foreign residents.

Switzerland is a popular destination for immigrants. In 2013, there were 20 new arrivals per 1,000 inhabitants, putting Switzerland far ahead of France (5.1 new foreign arrivals), Germany (8.4), Britain (8.2) or Spain (6).

As Swiss nationality is not gained automatically, many children born to foreigners living in Switzerland keep their parents’ nationality. According to the Federal Statistical Office, as of 2014, a total of 388,700 foreign nationals were resident in Switzerland who were been born here. They make up one fifth of the so-called foreigners.

WHO has declared the Zika outbreak as a global public health emergency. While uncertainty on the linkage between Zika and microcephaly remains, it is time to understand the potential formation of future epidemics under climate change and how governance plays an important role.

By Jonatan A Lassa*

Zika has been declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The global community seems to be caught off-guard. Are we ready to roll back this new challenge to humankind that stems from the changing global climate?

The WHO declaration is justified, amid knowledge and data uncertainty on Zika, with the goal being to bring worldwide attention to the problem and quickly establish organised responses and resources to contain the epidemic from spreading.

What is Zika?

Zika is derived from the Zika forest of Uganda, first found in 1947. Experts suspect that the Aedes mosquitos became the host after sucking the blood of monkeys in Zika forest. Such model of disease transmission has invited greater attention in zoonitic studies due to the significant increase in human–animal interaction today.

This increased human-animal interaction may have led to the emergence of zoonitic diseases – those can be passed between animals and humans – including Ebola that struck Africa in 2014. The dynamic of such interaction is also mediated by vector-related phenomenon such as mosquitos. Aedes mosquitoes transmit known viruses such as dengue, chikungunya and now Zika.

Zika can cause symptoms such as mild fever, headaches, joint pain. The coincidence of the Zika virus outbreak and the sudden rise in cases of microcephaly – abnormal smallness of the heads – in recent months have led to the possible link between Zika and microcephaly. There was a 2000 per cent increase in birth defects with babies born with smaller heads compared to last year.

The United States’ Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) make it clear that until more is known, extra precautionary measures should be taken to protect the most vulnerable groups especially pregnant women.

Mosquitos and Climate

Online, social and visual media are flooded with information that link Zika with Climate Change. However, even without climate change, mosquitos and vectors in general are sensitive to climatic variation. Escalation of the transmission of dengue often occurs during the wettest months (wet season in the tropics) of the year. The population density of such mosquitos can increase up to nine times higher than the normal months according to some reports.

Scientists in China have recently shown that the dengue incidences in Guangzhou have been positively correlated with temperature, humidity and rainfall. After stormy days with extreme rainfall, high humidity and water inundation often generate mosquito breeding sites in Taiwan. In Indonesia, it is well known that disease and hospitalisation incidents are likely to increase with dramatic changes in temperature, relative humidity and precipitation. Warming and wetter conditions may increase waterborne and vector-borne diseases.

Therefore, it is well known that climate variation and change may bring indirect impacts on health by modifying both natural and built environment that favour disease carrying mosquitoes. Climate change may trigger drier drought and wetter rainy seasons. The former often can trigger poorer families in developing countries to stock water inside their house, thus inviting mosquitos to breed. While the later can lead to create favourable conditions for mosquito breeding as well.

Composite Strategies Needed

The good news is that Aedes mosquitos are not new to Asia and the Pacific. Statistics suggest that there are about 390 million dengue cases every year in the planet. Roughly 25 per cent of dengue often manifests with symptoms and 75 per cent of the cases occurs in the Asia-Pacific region.

In fact, globally, there are more than 120 countries known to be dengue endemic. Since Aedes mosquitos are also the host of Zika, Asia and the Pacific are not immune to Zika. In fact these regions have been recently attacked and re-attacked by Zika. However, such an epidemic barely make international news as we have seen in Brazil today.

Adaptation to the risk of Aedes relies on a control programme to reduce the mosquito population before the onset of the wet seasons. Existing innovation and success in malaria and dengue control and prevention in Asia can be capitalised to help governments and communities deal with Zika prevention.

Vector control strategies will need to be planned and managed astutely to systematically reduce mosquito populations. It is quite clear already that elevated dengue and malaria incidence are associated with changing temperature, rainfall and relative humidity. But blaming climate variation and change is not enough. There are other important factors in the distribution of the waterborne and vector-borne diseases associated with Aedes mosquitos and other mosquitos.

Dr Ermi Ndoen, an Indonesian epidimeologist based in UNICEF Indonesia, with his colleagues at Griffith University in Australia, recently showed an interesting result in Malaria Journal that malaria incidents in Indonesia tend to be distributed in boundary regions than non-boundary regions. One reason could be that the boundaries of regions/districts are the places that are too far away from the mental span of the local rulers and administrators.

Furthermore, Didier Musso, a molecular biologist and virologist from the Institut Louis Malardé, Papeete in French Polynesia have recently noted that the Zika virus in Brazil may be linked to the recent pattern of mobility. At least two events were mentioned in his paper Zika Virus Transmission from French Polynesia to Brazil published in the Emerging Infection Diseases in October 2015.

The first is the potential transmission either via vector (mosquito) during the 2014 Football World Cup in Brazil. The second is a similar transmission during Va’a World Sprint Championship canoe race held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Recent Zika transmission via sexual connection in the United States may allow some to speculate that such a mechanism is possible.

Human global mobility and epidemics are not new. As the risk of Zika knows no boundary, what is now needed is greater cooperation to minimise the spread of the risk and be prepared for the next global epidemic. Malaria experts have often said that mosquitos are the true vampires as they live by sucking blood. Such claim is partially true because the lives of the vampire also depends very much on how much serious policy makers are willing to anticipate and contain the spread of virus and the vectors.

*Jonatan A Lassa is a Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He specialises in climate change adaptation, food and environmental security issues including disaster risk reduction.

There exist a number of speculations regarding the lifting of sanctions and re-engagement of many western corporations investing in Iran that is creating a significant impacting Iran’s relations with Russia.

Different perspectives suggest that a resurgent Iran would contend with Russia as a significant exporter of oil and gas, which compels Moscow to thwart Iran building up its oil and gas potential. Be that as it may be, any projection of Tehran-Moscow relations should be considered in a larger canvas, particularly the role Iran is playing in Moscow’s foreign strategy to concentrate all the more strongly on Asia. Moreover, taking into account that Russia has been one of the dynamic actors from the six other world powers’ debating the nuclear terms with Tehran, it is therefore logical to accept that Moscow has been ensuring its interests in Iran and the Middle Eastern region.

It is a fact that Moscow has been occupied with a multifaceted strategic approach toward Iran’s nuclear deal. Proceeding to the rise of President Hassan Rohani’s arrangement of engagement, Moscow utilized the Iranian card to secure special considerations from the US and its allies. Subsequently, Tehran’s more appeasing approach on many events has remarkably altered the strategic statement. The ensuing changes can likewise also clarify the remarkable state-to-state meetings between Tehran and Moscow during the past decade.

Russia’s military presence in Syria has surprised many experts asit denotes another breakthrough in Russia’s geopolitical aspirations. Interestingly, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow for many years chose to participate militarily outside of its alleged Near Abroad.

In any case, Russia;s air strikes were conceived since the time that Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Quds Force — and who is in direct contact with Ayatollah Khamenei — visited Moscow in July 2015. According to some reports, Soleimani’s visits to Moscow and his meeting with President Vladimir Putin was the initial step that prompted the vast Russian military presence in Syria

It has been argued by some that Russia purposely ignored UN sanctions by organizing such a questionable visit. It may be a case that Tehran demanded that only Soleimani visit and meet Putin in person to talk about the Russian outlay in the Syria battle, but what constrained the Russian president from acknowledging these dangerous terms from Iran?

Russia unmistakably has a great deal to lose if Iran recovers its political and financial clout in Eurasia. The Russian-Iranian marriage of comfort is liable to end once the two begin to oppose each other in European and Asian energy markets. Iran is prepared to invest a huge number of extra barrels of oil into the business sector, which is likely to apply a much more prominent descending pressure on the cost of oil.

Many Russian corporations that have signed  various arrangements with Iranian firms from aviation to farming over the previous year are liable to be sidelined by European and American organizations with more modern technology.

During various gatherings between Russian and Iranian authorities, including the ones happening along the sidelines of the nuclear debate, Tehran was noticeably negotiating from a relatively higher position. Iranians likely understood the apprehension of losing a geopolitical accomplice that was inching over that of the Russian authorities and exploited it.

According to some sources in Russia, Soleimani’s visit to Moscow was the final nail in the progression of a number of previous meetings where Tehran proposed an arrangement that Moscow could not risk to refuse. The Iranian administration may have requested Moscow to participate in Syria in return for the progression of the Russia-Iran union in the event that the sanctions were to be removed. As it was, Putin who required assurances from Iran at a critical time for the Russian economy, essentially couldn’t refuse such a proposition. While authorities present Russia’s airstrikes in Syria as a cautious computation, it could be only an exchange to secure the nation’s political and financial interest in the Middle East. Tehran’s impact over Moscow, whether to deliver its presence in the Syria crusade likewise clarifies why Iran rushed to give flyover rights to Russian Syria-bound payload planes when European nations closed their air space to the Russians.

But the questions still remains as to why Russia took more than two months to dispatch its air campaign in Syria. The answer is the domestic political element in the United States. Russia was keeping its existence in Syria on a low level as the Iran nuclear deal was under rigorous scrutiny from the Republicans in the US Senate.

Russia and Iran have an intense history loaded with clashes that are established in both nations’ aspirations of being a regional force. Once both states are not entwined by a common adversary, Iran without a doubt will begin its inclination toward the West, which could include collaborating with the United States against Russia. The belief in Moscow is that, if this happens, Russia could begin to lose its impact not only in the Middle East, but also in the world.

*Sidra Khan is currently employed in SVI and completed her MPhil in International Relations

Vietnam’s cautious, conservative leader may be authoritarian, but cannot ignore public opinion on US or China.

By Dien Luong*

As the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam prepared for its five-year national congress, suspense built over who would take over the party’s helm. When the curtain was finally lifted on January 25 supporters of populist Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung were disappointed that he lost the coveted post to conservative incumbent chief Nguyen Phu Trong, who was given a second term. The sidelining of Dung, who has been accused of nepotism, cronyism and economic mismanagement, is unlikely to change the middle course traditionally preferred by the party. Reforms will continue, albeit at a slower pace, as would increasingly closer ties with the United States.

The reason for the pro-Dung public sentiment is not hard to fathom. In a country where the masses have not ceased railing against China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, leaders who exhibit explicit gestures to confront Beijing are likely to win the public heart. When China dragged its oil rig into an area that Vietnam considers part of its exclusive economic zone in May 2014, Dung was outspoken in publicly lashing out at China’s territorial ambitions. He is also a visible champion of economic reforms and strategic alliances with other regional powers, particularly the United States, moves apparently aimed at countering China’s economic clout.

Economically, Vietnam is on the upswing and remains a darling of the international business community. Economic growth notched a five-year high of 6.7 percent last year with foreign investment peaking US$14.5 billion. Despite talk of wooing investment, Indonesia remains a difficult place for investors. Thailand saw foreign investment fell by 78 percent in 2015. In Malaysia, too, the economy is contracting because of political instability amidst corruption allegations involving Prime Minister Najib Razak.

This is the context for Vietnam in grasping an incredible window of opportunity should it deepen its commitment to reforms. For many, if Dung could cling to power, perhaps reforms would move at a faster pace and other policies would be more pragmatic. Those in the pro-Dung camp also claim that Vietnam under the leadership of Trong, not only ideologically conservative but also cautious, is less poised to capitalize on of such opportunities.

In a country that has taken the leadership-by-consensus approach to bread-and-butter issues, though Vietnam’s economic and foreign policies will not fundamentally change. Dung being sidelined does not mean the new leadership will either shun reforms or kowtow to China. Dung’s critics have dismissed his anti-China rhetoric as political maneuvering aimed at currying public favor, and they blame him for compounding Vietnam’s entrenched economic dependence on China. On the contrary, Trong’s sympathizers say he is not as soft on China as he may appear to be.

The bottom line is the U-turn in public support for Dung to become the top leader epitomizes the burning desire of the masses to see Vietnam escape the Chinese orbit, paving the way for rapprochement with the United States.

More than a thousand years of occupation and three deadly wars in the 1970s and 1980s provide the historic context for the anti-China sentiment that runs deep in Vietnam. Given the longer periods of French colonialism and Chinese aggression against Vietnam, and given US strategic importance in the world after 1975, it should come as no surprise that the Vietnamese people are ready to put the past behind them more quickly with the United States.

Regardless of who is in power, Vietnamese leaders must take stock of increased political, economic and military ties with the United States, possibly at the expense of relations with China – which would beg consideration of major questions:

• From a Vietnamese perspective, can the US be trusted to stick with Vietnam if China persists with aggressive behavior?  Or are the Americans too bogged down in the Middle East and disenchanted with foreign adventures? Could the US cut a deal with China that sells out Vietnam’s interests?
• From an American perspective, does the US really want to get in a fight with China? And does Vietnam warrant US friendship and support? Is it a country striving to be more like the US, or is it going to remain a country where Communist dictators abuse their own citizens?

Despite 20 years since normalization, bilateral ties have been hampered by lingering mistrust, disputes over human rights, and the US wartime legacy. But when President Barack Obama met Vietnam’s Communist Party Chief Nguyen Phu Trong last July, he spoke of moving beyond the “difficult history” of the Vietnam War and joining forces to deter China, which is increasingly flexing its political and economic muscles in the region.

A week before the Communist Party Congress opened, Ted Osius, US ambassador to Vietnam, said at a conference in Ho Chi Minh City that two events in 2015 demonstrated the relationship’s transformation – the landmark visit of Nguyen Phu Trong to Washington and the conclusion of negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership, an ambitious US-led regional free trade agreement.

Vietnam has been gung-ho to join the TPP, and when the nation expressed interest several years ago, few thought they were serious or capable of making the necessary reforms or facing major challenges including protection of intellectual property rights and hence the profits of pharmaceutical corporations at the expense of public health or the investor state dispute-settlement mechanism granting corporations the right to sue a foreign government. But on top of that, labor rights in the TPP are emblematic of the Vietnamese compromise, and the trade agreement crystalizes how far the country’s leaders are willing to go to secure a deeper economic relationship with the United States. No country had to do more to enter the TPP than Vietnam. Like the United States, Vietnam sees the TPP as a strategic political instrument, not just a trade agreement.

A few in Vietnam still hold a grudge against the United States and some feel that the United States at least has an obligation to make war-reparations. But the proportion of the people in that camp pales in comparison with those who believe that Vietnam will benefit from improved relations, in particular US trade and investment. This sentiment is amplified by the relative youth of the population with most born after the war.

The leadership, while authoritarian, no longer can ignore such public sentiment. The one-party state is increasingly accountable to the public and through monitoring of social media, very aware of public sentiment.

Despite the jockeying for power that may have happened behind closed door, Vietnam’s new leadership eventually appeared as a united front to the public. As the country’s reigning top leader, it would be unwise for Nguyen Phu Trong to dwell on savoring his ability to dispose of Nguyen Tan Dung. Instead, he should ponder on how his once archrival made a U-turn in winning the public heart – Dung’s explicit gesture to stand up to China in favor of improved US relations.

At the end of the day, no matter how authoritarian a regime may be, public support is the sine qua non to its very survival. Without such support, the leadership of the Vietnam Communist Party will be on edge.

*Dien Luong is Vietnamese journalist who is completing a master’s degree at Columbia Journalism School in New York on a Fulbright scholarship. His work has appeared in the Guardian, Al Jazeera, Asia Sentinel and other publications.