Over the past two decades, Russia’s efforts to regain its Soviet-era influence in Africa have achieved little success because “times have changed significantly, for example, a new economic and political environment, new emerging challenges, new competitive conditions and new bases for cooperation,” according to Nataliya Zaiser, a Public Policy Advisor at Squire Patton Boggs Moscow office covering Russia, the Eurasian Union and Africa, and also the Chair (Head) of the Africa Business Initiative.

Since March 2016, Zaiser has been the Chair (Head) of Africa Business Initiative (ABI), created with the support of Russian businesses as a platform for the humanitarian, economic and legal expertise, aimed at strengthening relations between Russia and Africa. The main goal of this organization – to unite the efforts in promoting and supporting the interests of Russian businesses within the framework of broader international cooperation on the territory of the African continent.

In this exclusive interview, Nataliya Zaiser explains some of the aspects of the current Russia-African relations, problems and challenges, and its future perspectives with Kester Kenn Klomegah in Moscow.

Interview excerpts

Kester Kenn Klomegah: As one of the participants at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) held from June 16 to 18, what were some of the significant questions raised during the Roundtable discussions on Russia and Africa?

Nataliya Zaiser:The round table was very interesting. Both sides (Russian and African) demonstrated a strong desire for cooperation. We talked about some specifics: about the main economic sectors that various African countries are interested in most; about business diversification away from a focus on mining and oil and gas towards infrastructure projects, telecommunications and biotechnologies.

We spoke on the need to encourage the participation of small and medium size businesses in Africa; on bilateral cooperation; on the importance of the legal aspects of all these and on improving the system of legal regulation of projects, from customs and tax matters to the export licenses. The panelists also touched on enhancing cooperation with Africa in the global fight against drugs and epidemiological diseases, and combating terrorism. We listened to the companies that are active and successful on the continent; they shared some of their experiences, particularly good practice in building business relationships.

Q: Why Russia’s efforts to regain its economic influence have achieved little success, why soft power is softer than Soviet days?

Nataliya Zaiser: We should not say whether the power is “softer” or “harder” than in the days of the Soviet Union. It’s just different. Times have changed significantly. New economic and political environment, new challenges, new competitive conditions, new bases for cooperation. People are different, minds are different, technologies are different. In all that, we have to find absolutely different approaches and strategies to building business relationships. What remains the same is a will, a very loyal mutual attitude between Russia and African countries and strong desire to push forward these mutual efforts.

Q: In your expert view, looking at Russia’s economic power, its global status and as a staunch member of BRICS bloc, how would you assess its current investment and business engagement with Africa?

Nataliya Zaiser: Many organizations are trying to solve local problems and find ways for business cooperation with the African continent. The issue of investment looms, perhaps, particularly large. I think that in cooperating with African states, organizations can be guided by an approach of shared responsibility, including the financial aspects. Russia is clearly showing that open partnership with and support of Africa remains a priority. In the current conditions, it will seek ways of co-financing, co-investment and co-partnership. There may also be opportunities too for international partnerships, whether BRICS or any other groupings, formal or otherwise, on African projects.

Q: Some policy experts have attributed Russia’s economic policy setbacks to the lack of a system of projects and business financing. For instance, China has set up China Africa Development Fund as one major source of support and implementing its projects in Africa. What are your views about this?

Nataliya Zaiser: Russia has developed a number of business councils for cooperation both with individual African countries as well as with its own regions and neighbours. For Africa in particular, the Africa Business Initiative (ABI) offers the chance of a consolidated approach, and an independent organization that can work with the business community in Russia and at the same time combine the interests of the diplomatic community, the state, academic views and so forth.

Q: At this stage when Russia is feverishly struggling to raise its economic profile through dialogues and consultations at the state level, do you suggest that Russia’s financial institutions, especially the banks, get involved in financing corporate projects on the continent?

Nataliya Zaiser: Investors and lenders today understand the potential benefits of investing in emerging markets like African countries. They also understand the critical importance of addressing the political and economic risks that may accompany an investment in such markets. This is the work, which needs to be carried out. MIGA (Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency) is one of the biggest international organizations, for example, that helps investors and lenders to deal with such risks by insuring eligible projects against losses.

In Russia, there is EXIAR (The Russian Agency for Export Credit and Investment Insurance) which was established in late 2011 as Russia’s first ever export credit agency. I am sure it has big potential and expect that they will look closely at African projects to support Russian business and guarantee the insurance and safety of their investments. In any case, for a start, it is important that Russia becomes a member or starts cooperation with key major African organizations, such as the African Development Bank, the African Union, the NEPAD, etc. That will significantly extend the boundaries for Russian-African business opportunities.

Q: We have been talking about economic diplomacy between Russia and Africa. And it’s also important to look at the relations as a two-way road. Could you please explain the possible reasons why Africa business is extremely low or completely absent, compared to Asian countries, in the Russian Federation?

Nataliya Zaiser: This is a good question that I want to address to you as the representative of the African diaspora (smiles). Of course, this is a bilateral cooperation. Russia is open. Africa has much to offer Russia, which is a large country and has excellent prospects in the regions, many of which are developing very rapidly and are ready to accept new partnerships, and discuss forms of cooperation. Moreover, Russian regions are facing similar problems with several African countries: the development of the agricultural sector, technological investment and progress which will support a rise in the standard of living of the population. There is a good case for creating a specific program (a roadmap if you will) for cooperation between African countries and the Russian regions.

Q: As an expert with the reputable U.S. law firm, what would you say about the prospects of Eurasian Economic Community (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan). Explain further what African countries can make out of this economic bloc.

Nataliya Zaiser: There’s often a compelling case for neighbouring countries to get together and engage in some kind of union because it can facilitate and stimulate trade relations, reducing barriers without overloading them with tax and customs issues, bureaucratic procedures and other things that may mitigate mutual economic progress. I am sure Africa will take an active part in working with the Eurasian Union as with other international or supra-national organizations and alliances because this kind of cooperation opens the gates to wider initiatives.

Of course, as a global firm our trade practice in particular is a leading advisor on international economic and commercial initiatives – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and Trans-Pacific Partnership are two obvious ones that spring to mind. Squire Patton Boggs works globally, with a powerful geographic reach of 46 offices in 21 countries. We advise clients on a wide range of legal and public policy matters.

As for Africa, by the way, we have a dedicated Africa Practice inside the firm which involves numerous specialist teams and industry groups and individual lawyers and public policy advisors who actively work with clients across the continent. With an understanding of key legal, economic and political issues that surround doing business in Africa we have established ourselves as a premier firm for Africa-based transactions offering in-depth market knowledge, extensive experience and unique transactional and public policy combination that helps companies to achieve their African business strategies.

Q: Finally, tell us more about the newly created Africa Business Initiative (ABI), why it has become necessary at this time, its primary roles or tasks and its overall future plans?

Nataliya Zaiser: The Africa Business Initiative (ABI) was launched and initiated primarily by businesses in Russia. The concept behind this is to develop a focal point for the promotion of business interests which would consolidate the efforts of existing structures: the diplomats, scientists, academics, consultants and so on. The key participation of Russia’s Institute for African Studies, as a serious platform for research, analysis and database, means that we can add significant insight to the actual experience of corporations that are successfully working on the ground.

The main goal is to create a pool of economic expertise aimed at revitalizing the “chemistry” in African-Russian business relationships. It has been widely acknowledged many times that Africa is on the path towards economic prosperity. The economies of many African states are becoming more balanced and there have been a lot of institutional transformations. We need to fundamentally accelerate the approach, backed by a program of long-term trade, geo-economic relations and strategy that would keep pace with the ambitions of individual states. What African continent needs now is the broad development of infrastructure, agriculture, consumer goods, health care and information technology.

The Africa Business Initiative (ABI) can help outline an approach for Russian companies to come to the African market as a whole, as reliable business partners. Through this framework, it will be able to consolidate the interests of companies in different sectors; to address and promote the development of a common position on a whole range of issues; to establish joint strategic initiatives and to expand its presence in the investment field. The task is not to duplicate or simulate the activity of state bodies.

The participation of and partnership with the Institute for African Studies is very important. Historically, the Institute has been and remains the alma mater for many Africans. It has the most powerful research base in Russia, a deep knowledge about developments on the continent. Education and increasing awareness among Russian businesses is key. To understand the features of successful business in Africa, people should be well-versed in the social and political organization of all African countries, especially in their internal relationships, geographical peculiarities, and culture, in legislation, public administration, and so on.

The role of the Institute, as a partner to Africa Business Initiative (ABI), is to provide maximum assistance. Good knowledge of the legal field, regulation, competent interaction with decision-makers and government structures of African states – all these constitute the key to a mutually beneficial and balanced cooperation. The international experience and global presence of the Squire Patton Boggs, which is also one of the members of the Africa Business Initiative (ABI), allows us to assist businesses in the broader international cooperation, involving foreign colleagues and contacts that are interested in doing business in Africa.

*Kester Kenn Klomegah is an independent researcher and writer on African affairs in the EurAsian region and former Soviet republics. He wrote previously for African Press Agency, African Executive and Inter Press Service. Earlier, he had worked for The Moscow Times, a reputable English newspaper. Klomegah taught part-time at the Moscow Institute of Modern Journalism. He studied international journalism and mass communication, and later spent a year at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He co-authored a book “AIDS/HIV and Men: Taking Risk or Taking Responsibility” published by the London-based Panos Institute. In 2004 and again in 2009, he won the Golden Word Prize for a series of analytical articles on Russia’s economic cooperation with African countries.

EIA recently released the What Drives Petroleum Product Prices website that identifies and tracks several fundamental and financial market factors that influence petroleum product spot and futures prices. This tool offers charts that highlight changes in consumption, production, inventories, and trade, mostly related to the U.S. domestic market along with some charts that include global indicators. The charts, a complement to the existing What Drives Crude Oil Prices website, will be updated monthly in conjunction with the release of EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO).

One aspect of the market that the tool tracks is the U.S. gasoline front-month futures crack spread, which declined recently because of increased U.S. gasoline production and inventories. In June, the reformulated blendstock for oxygenate blending (RBOB)-Brent crack spread was 37 cents per gallon (gal), 18 cents/gal below June 2015 and slightly lower than the five-year average.

The recent trend of declining gasoline crack spreads extends beyond the United States. Unlike last year when gasoline crack spreads in some regions worldwide rose to match or set new recent record highs, this year, spreads are now significantly below last year’s levels and are generally closer to their respective five-year averages. In order to compare U.S. and international gasoline crack spreads, different spot prices for gasoline and crude oil are used, depending on the regional market. In the European gasoline market, the Northwest Europe gasoline-Brent spot crack spread averaged 26 cents/gal in June, the lowest June spread since 2014. In Asia, the Singapore gasoline-Dubai/Oman spot crack spread averaged 22 cents/gal in June, the lowest June spread since 2012 (Figure 1).

Although gasoline consumption has been robust in countries such as the United States, China, and India, gasoline crack spreads also reflect supply conditions. Growth in gasoline supply has exceeded the increase in gasoline consumption since last summer. Refineries in the United States, Europe, and Asia all increased production of gasoline compared with distillate to take advantage of the high gasoline crack spreads in 2015 and early 2016. Refineries have some ability to gradually adjust petroleum product yields in response to changes in product prices by adding additional equipment or modifying processes and feedstocks.

The gasoline-to-distillate production ratio differs widely across global regions, reflecting differences in their input slates and refinery configurations, which are often selected with an eye toward the mix of petroleum products used within each region (Figure 2). In the United States, the six-month moving average gasoline-to-distillate production ratio in April is at its highest level since 2011. Using data from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI), the aggregate, six-month average gasoline-to-distillate production ratio for 14 European countries, which was relatively stable from the start of 2013 through mid-2015, has risen nearly 6% since June 2015. In the Asian market, the aggregate, six-month average gasoline-to-distillate production ratio of China, Japan, and South Korea reached its highest level ever recorded by JODI in April, primarily driven by the Chinese refining sector, which produces the most petroleum products in Asia.

The shift toward increased gasoline production has resulted in high gasoline inventory levels globally that have remained consistently above five-year averages. In the United States, gasoline inventories in Petroleum Administration for Defense District (PADD) 1, the location of the New York Harbor trading hub, were 14.3 million barrels higher than the five-year average level as of July 22. The difference in PADD 1 inventory levels from the five-year average has been generally growing since January. In the Northwest Europe trading hub, gasoline inventories were 4.6 million barrels above the five-year average as of July 21, the largest difference in at least two years. In the Singapore trading hub, light distillate inventories, which include gasoline, were 2.8 million barrels above the five-year average as of July 20 (Figure 3). The increase in gasoline inventories in three major storage hubs has been a major driver of declining spreads between gasoline and crude oil prices throughout the world.

Based on projections for U.S. gasoline and distillate production in the July STEO, the U.S. gasoline-to-distillate production ratio is expected to remain elevated through the summer, which could keep inventory levels high and put further downward pressure on domestic gasoline crack spreads for next few months. Trade press reports suggest that some Asian refineries will not increase refinery runs through the summer, running counter to that region’s seasonal trend, because of high inventories and low cracks spreads. How gasoline crack spreads evolve through the second half of 2016 will depend on if and how refineries respond to lower gasoline crack spreads, whether by changing their output mix or reducing refinery runs.

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

The U.S. average regular gasoline retail price dropped five cents from the previous week to $2.18 per gallon on July 25, down 56 cents from the same time last year. The Midwest price fell seven cents to $2.08 per gallon, the West Coast price dropped five cents to $2.67 per gallon, the East Coast price fell four cents to $2.12 per gallon, the Gulf Coast price fell three cents to $1.98 per gallon, and the Rocky Mountain price dropped one cent to $2.26 per gallon.

The U.S. average diesel fuel price fell by two cents from a week ago to $2.38 per gallon, down 34 cents from the same time last year. The Midwest price fell three cents to $2.34 per gallon, while the West Coast, East Coast, and Gulf Coast prices each fell two cents to $2.66 per gallon, $2.39 per gallon, and $2.24 per gallon, respectively. The Rocky Mountain price remained virtually unchanged at $2.43 per gallon.

Propane inventories gain

U.S. propane stocks increased by 2.2 million barrels last week to 89.6 million barrels as of July 22, 2016, 0.2 million barrels (0.2%) higher than a year ago. East Coast and Midwest inventories each increased by 0.8 million barrels, while Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories increased by 0.4 million barrels and 0.2 million barrels, respectively. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 3.2% of total propane inventories.

A team of researchers in Italy has used the location of confirmed debris from MH370 to determine where the airliner might have crashed, and where further debris could be found. The study was published Wednesday in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

“Our result is the first to calculate the movement of the debris that best agrees with all five of the currently confirmed discoveries. This should make it the most accurate prediction,” said Eric Jansen, a researcher at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Italy and lead-author of the study.

Malaysia’s MH370 in 2011 photo by Laurent ERRERA, Wikipedia Commons.

In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished with 239 passengers and crew on board. Extensive search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean, where the aircraft is thought to have crashed, have yet to locate the main wreckage, though debris have washed up on the African east coast and Indian-ocean islands.

The northern half of the area where authorities are currently searching for the plane, off the coast of Australia, overlaps with the area the new simulation indicates as the most likely origin of the debris found so far. “However, our simulation shows that the debris could also have originated up to around 500 km further to the north,” said Jansen. “If nothing is found in the current search area, it may be worth extending the search in this direction.”

To find out how MH370 debris drifted since the crash, the researchers ran a computer model that used oceanographic data from the EU Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service, including data of global surface currents and winds over the past two years. To improve their simulation, they used the locations of the five confirmed debris found to date: two in Mozambique and one each in Réunion, South Africa and Rodrigues Island (Mauritius).

They started their computer simulation by placing a large number of virtual particles in the ocean, and then examined where they would go based on the ocean currents and winds after the crash. Since the exact crash location and how much of an effect wind has on the debris are unknown, researchers simulate different scenarios. From this, they could construct a so-called superensemble: a combination of simulations that best describes the debris found so far.

“Imagine that you want to know what the weather is going to be tomorrow, but you have several websites that give contradictory information. Which one do you trust? You check what weather they predicted for today and you put more faith in the websites that were correct and less in those that were wrong,” Jansen explained. “This is more or less what we do for MH370: we perform many simulations that are all plausible given the information that we know about the flight. When we combine the results of all these simulations, we give more importance to those that predicted the debris that was found correctly.”

“If new debris is discovered, we can update the result in a matter of minutes,” said Jansen. In the first stage of the simulation, the computer model calculates the various ways in which debris could have drifted, which takes some time on their supercomputer. But the locations of the discovered debris are only used in the final stage, when combining the possible drift paths to find the most likely ones. Once the first stage of the computer model is run, it is quick and easy to incorporate new debris data.

The results indicate that the most probable locations to discover additional washed up debris are Tanzania and Mozambique, as well as the islands of Madagascar, Réunion, Mauritius and the Comoros. The main wreckage is likely to be in the wide search area between 28°S and 35°S (see figure). This overlaps with the current underwater search area between 32°S and 35°S, but indicates the airliner could also be further north than where authorities are currently searching.

“The disappearance of flight MH370 is probably one of the most bizarre events in modern history. It is important to understand what happened, not only for all the people directly involved, but also for the safety of aviation in general. We hope that we can contribute to this, even if our study is just a small piece of a very complicated puzzle.”

A new study suggests that improvements in air quality over the Potomac watershed, including the Washington, D.C., metro area, may be responsible for recent progress on water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. Scientists from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science have linked improving water quality in streams and rivers of the Upper Potomac River Basin to reductions in nitrogen pollution onto the land and streams due to enforcement of the Clean Air Act.

“The recent water quality successes in the Chesapeake Bay restoration are apparently driven more by air quality regulation rather than by water quality control efforts,” said study author Keith Eshleman, professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Appalachian Laboratory. “These air quality regulations were intended to address human health issues and acid sensitive streams. No one thought you would have this positive impact on water quality. It was totally unanticipated.”

The Chesapeake Bay–the nation’s largest estuary–has suffered from excessive nutrient pollution and widespread hypoxic (low oxygen) conditions for decades. While land-based best management practices and improvements to wastewater treatment plants have been credited with beginning to turn the tide against nutrient pollution, researchers have found that improvement in air quality–specifically reductions in atmospheric nitrogen deposition–have been the primary driver of improvements in water quality in the Upper Potomac River Basin, which covers nearly 12,000 square miles in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. These unanticipated region-wide water quality benefits were brought about by reductions in harmful emissions of nitrogen dioxides following implementation of the Clean Air Act of 1990.

“Most best management practices–like a riparian buffer or retention pond–only impact a relatively small area,” said Eshleman. “You can think about the Clean Air Act as a best management practice that affects every square meter of the watershed.”

Nitrogen deposition occurs when nitrogen in the atmosphere–emitted mostly by fossil fuel combustion–falls to the ground or water surface. When the amount of nitrogen falling exceeds what trees and plants need to grow, nitrogen saturation may result. When excess nitrogen enters streams and waterways, including the Chesapeake Bay, it can cause algae blooms that significantly impact marine life.

Researchers examined water quality trends in streams and major tributaries of the Upper Potomac River Basin from 1986 to the present. Their analysis revealed nearly “universal improvement” in water quality. In particular, researchers found that atmospheric nitrogen deposition began to decline in 1996–the same year that emission limits on coal-fired boilers were first put into effect. Decreasing nitrate concentrations in the Upper Potomac River began declining shortly thereafter and continued to decline through 2012, rapidly reversing nitrogen saturation in the basin. The paper also suggests that future additional water quality improvements in the Potomac are likely as coal-fired plants are replaced by cleaner-burning natural gas and renewable energy sources.

“As the Chesapeake Bay Program takes stock of our progress in reducing nitrogen pollution mid-way to the 2025 deadline, it is important that it takes full account of real-world results from scientific studies such as this one,” said Don Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “They are likely reveal that some things, such as air pollution controls, are more effective than computer models estimate, while other practices are less effective and require improvement.”

The study, “Declining nitrate-N yields in the Upper Potomac River Basin: What is really driving progress under the Chesapeake Bay restoration?” by Keith Eshleman and Robert Sabo was published online July 2 in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

In recent decades, the plight of Atlantic cod off the coast of New England has been front-page news. Since the 1980s in particular, the once-seemingly inexhaustible stocks of Gadus morhua — one of the most important fisheries in North America — have declined dramatically.

In 2008, a formal assessment forecasted that stocks would rebound, but by 2012, they were once again on the verge of collapse. Two years later, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration instituted an unprecedented six-month closure of the entire Gulf of Maine cod fishery to allow stocks to recover.

While overfishing is one known culprit, a new study co-authored by researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Columbia University finds that the climatological phenomenon known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is also a factor. And it contributes in a predictable way that may enable fishery managers to protect cod stocks from future collapse. The group’s findings appear in the journal PLOS ONE.

“In the 1980s, the North Atlantic was stuck in a positive phase of NAO,” said lead author Kyle Meng, an economist at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. “We show not only that positive NAO conditions diminish a few consecutive cohorts of cod larvae but also that this effect follows a cohort as it matures.”

The NAO is a periodic climatic phenomenon that, like El Niño, causes changes in water temperatures, although the mechanism is different and the NAO affects the North Atlantic rather than the Pacific. Also like El Niño, the NAO may be affected in terms of both strength and frequency by climate change. The researchers found that, since 1980, NAO conditions have accounted for up to 17 percent of the decline in New England cod stocks.

“The Atlantic cod fishery has been the poster child of fishery science and challenges in the field,” said co-author Kimberly Oremus of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “This study does something new in that we followed the effect of climate variability on cod throughout their life cycle. We also find evidence suggesting how — through fishing — human actions might be exacerbating the effect.”

As co-author Steve Gaines, a fish ecologist and the dean of UCSB’s Bren School, explained: “Fishery managers face big challenges in predicting how many new fish will come into the fishery each year. They use models to predict the average, but actual values vary wildly. Climate variation is one of the big challenges, especially if the recruitment forecasts turn out to be repeatedly too high, as we saw following NAO events. Then the mistakes compound and yields can be compromised for a long time.”

Because the cod stock is well defined over a large but specific area and has been studied extensively for more than a century, the researchers had access to abundant data. This enabled them to determine that warmer NAO conditions reduced cod larval recruitment by 17 percent, resulting in fewer young fish. They also found that while the NAO-induced population decrease persisted until the fish were 6 years old, it affected cod catch for up to two decades. That empirical link means that NAO can be used to predict the future size of the stock, which would allow for improved management.

“It would provide us with an early warning before the declines appear,” Meng said. “So we now know to expect that 17 percent drop in adult fish during a positive phase of NAO, which gives management enough time to adjust practices.”

“We’re not just saying that the climate is part of the problem; we’re showing how it can be used to forecast and respond in an appropriate and cheap way,” Gaines said. “Many papers show that cod are in bad shape and identify climate as part of the problem, but what they don’t do is give us a management solution.”

Gaines noted that fishery closures like the one in 2014 are controversial and hugely disruptive to fishing communities and local economies. “If we know the state of the NAO, managers can respond by reducing catch appropriately in the short term to avoid long-term closures,” he added.

“People haven’t applied these kinds of approaches to this problem previously,” Gaines continued. “Climate change may have costs for fisheries, but you don’t have to make bad choices that accentuate it for decades.”

George Will speculates that the reason Donald Trump has so far been unwilling to make public his tax returns is because they would expose his ties to Russia.

But Julia Ioffe makes an interesting observation:

The fact that Trump, after so many attempts and with such warm intentions toward the country, was not able to build anything in Russia – when Ritz Carlton and Kempinski and Radisson and Hilton and any number of Western hotel chains were able to — speaks to his abysmal lack of connections to influential Russians. Since his first foray into Russia in 1987, the head of state changed four times — Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, Medvedev, Putin — but one thing stayed constant: In such a deeply personalized system of patronage, nothing could’ve been built without the right people inside the Kremlin helping you maneuver in the complicated web of whose palm to grease. The fact that pretty much every major hotel chain in the world was able to build something in Moscow but Trump wasn’t speaks to his inability to navigate this shadowy world, and to his weakness as a businessman. If Trump truly was in bed with Putin, there would be a Trump Tower in Moscow by now, if not several.

Still, Trump doesn’t have to be in bed with Putin for Putin to have an interest in Trump becoming president.

But perhaps Trump’s reluctance to have his financial condition more widely understood is primarily because this would expose his financial instability.

And this raises a question that would be worth posing in a presidential debate:

Mr Trump, do you anticipate any risk that you might face bankruptcy in the next four years, and in that event, would you be able to prevent this from interfering in your ability to fulfill your responsibilities as the president?

By Shamshad A Khan*

Post-war Japan has been mostly ruled by the polity that believes that the current Constitution was drafted during the Allied Powers’ occupation and is therefore an imposition. They have argued to change the Constitution, especially the clauses that ban it from keeping a full-fledged army to make the country at par with other sovereign nations. However, they could not gain the required numbers in the National Diet (Japanese Legislature) to initiate an amendment. Article 96 of Japan’s post-war Constitution stipulates stringent measures for constitutional revision: a concurrent vote by two-thirds majority in both the houses and a majority approval by Japanese voters in a public referendum.

For the first time in Japan’s post-war history, pro-revision parties have gained two-thirds majority in both the houses of the Diet. Japan’s upper house elections, held on 10 July 2016, have given two-thirds majority to the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The ruling coalition already had two-thirds majority in the lower house since the December 2014 snap elections. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), headed by Abe considers Japan’s Constitution – especially the war-renouncing charter – a relic of the post-war period and result of the US-led occupation after Japan’s defeat in World War II. Abe has remained passionate about amending the Constitution and has made various attempts in the past to specifically amend the peace clause to allow more power to the country’s defence forces. Abe had argued for the tweaking of Article 9 when he became Prime Minister for the second time in December 2012, but he gave up this plan upon facing a multi-corner attack from domestic constituencies that blamed him for gutting the Constitution. On gaining super majority in both the houses of the Diet with the help of other pro-revision parties, the ruling coalition has now crossed the threshold to undertake a Constitutional revision.

The “ultra revisionists,” both inside and outside the Diet have been urging the Abe administration to seize this opportunity to fulfill one of the founding goals of the LDP. When the LDP was formed in 1955 with the merger of two conservative parties, one of the objectives was to change the Constitution by gaining the required strength in both the houses. If the numbers of other pro-revision smaller parties; Kokoro and Initiatives from Osaka are counted, undoubtedly, the ruling LDP has the number to initiate a Constitutional revision. But convincing the New Komeito, its own coalition partner supported by the Buddhist organisation the Soka Gakkai, would be the biggest hurdle for Abe. Soka Gakkai members did not like the party’s decision when it supported the Abe government last year in passing key legislations allowing Japanese defence forces to undertake “collective self-defence.” The Japanese media had reported that many members were deserting the party because of Komeito’s decision, which had weakened Japan’s pacifist security policy. Apparently, this was the reason that the New Komeito did not mention constitutional revision in its campaign pledge.

Convincing the public about the goals and objectives of constitutional revision is the second biggest hurdle for Abe. The constitutional revision passed by the Diet has to be approved by a referendum with a majority vote. Various opinion polls, both by pro and anti-revision media groups suggest that the Japanese people favour a constitutional revision. But when it comes to revising Article 9 that opposes war and use of force overseas, a majority remains opposed. Apparently, the Japanese want constitutional revision to include provisions such as human rights, privacy and environmental protection, which they believe have not been adequately mentioned in the present Constitution. The thrust of the LDP, however, has been to amend Article 9. Before the upper house elections Abe had said, on several platforms, that debates should be deepened to realise constitutional revision and that he wants to achieve this goal during his prime ministership. However it seems unlikely that he would be able to achieve it. The anti-amendment groups are reminding the Abe administration that it should not push for constitutional amendment as it was not among its key poll planks; rather it should focus on the revival of the economy on which it sought a mandate from the people.

Abe faces many daunting tasks: reviving the economy, getting the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement approved from the Diet, acquiring the repatriation of its citizens believed to be abducted by North Korea, and a resolution of the Northern Territory dispute with Russia. These issues have also been highlighted by Abe as he wants to finalise them before passing on the leadership baton in the LDP. By September 2018, a few months before the term of the current lower house expires, Abe’s third consecutive term of LDP’s presidency will also end. As per the LDP’s constitution, an incumbent president cannot assume more than three consecutive terms and as per Japan’s existing norm, the president of the party with a majority in the Diet assumes the Prime Minister’s office. The LDP has not indicated that it is willing to change its own Constitution to pave the way for Abe’s extension in office. It is likely that during the few years left, Abe will prioritise issues that are more important than constitutional revision and Article 9; and it seems that the pacifist clause of the Japanese Constitution will live to see another day.

* Shamshad A Khan
Senior Researcher and Japan Foundation Fellow, Keio Research Institute, Keio University, Japan

Due to the physical deterioration that the human body experiences when reaching old age, Mexican scientists designed a walker, which is a machine that works through a computer and allows elders who have cognitive or physical impairments, to complete their daily routines by helping them to walk. Additionally, it can send through the internet an alert that notifies the help system in case of any emergency.

The benefit of the walker is to eliminate the risk of falling in the elderly, as well as avoiding dangers for those who suffer from Alzheimer’s.

This walker is characterized by its artificial intelligence, which is defined as the set of disciplines that try to understand the mechanisms that allow a machine to think. It is with its assistance that robots are built, and through programming they generate a reasoning similar to that of the human brain, said Ulises Cortes, professor of the Universidad Politecnica de Cataluña (UPC).

The improvement is built on a normal walker for the third age, but in each one of the rear wheels, a movement is generated by an engine with a power similar to that of two electric bikes. To measure the strength used by the person to lead his walk and know if he is in contact with the walker, the normal handles were omitted and substituted by a micro system sensor.

Everything is connected to a little computer and to a bicycle battery that allows the system to have internet connection, through which the information of the handle sensors and wheels is controlled. Hence, the walker analyzes the gait pattern of the elder and knows if it is his normal one, and in case of an anomaly, it tries to help him.

If the gait of the person is bad, that is to say, it slows down, the machine sends an alert signal so the medical emergency system, according to its country, can come to the location of the user.

Besides, the walker allows to have a daily profile of the activities of the person; it can know the physical activity of the user according to the register of the number of his steps, the size of these, its frequency and the strength applied in the moment of walking. This serves to program the help in the moment when it is required.

“With the walker, elders can enjoy more of their free time outside their homes, because it is a robot with a certain intelligence that was created to bring help to these people”, said Ulises Cortés, teacher of the master’s degree in artificial intelligence in the UPC.

The project started to develop since 2004. It is a prototype that could be sold, but it needs funding by some company; nevertheless, professor Ulises Cortés asserted that it is possible that it comes to the market soon in an affordable price.

The Mexican researcher mentioned that they are working to add more functions to this project, which includes communicating all the walkers among them so it is possible to have information about the whereabouts of the other persons; this would allow someone with a similar machine to inform if there is a problem or a novelty on the environment. Currently they are working in the creation of a walker for children.

Source: Agencia ID

A film festival celebrating the life of Blessed Mother Teresa will begin in her adopted hometown of Kolkata just weeks before she is canonized in September.

Predominantly featuring documentaries, the three-day long Mother Teresa International Film Festival begins Aug. 26 at Kolkata’s Nandan multiplex.

“No saint or blessed in the Catholic Church’s history has had an international festival of films dedicated to him or her,” said Father C.M. Paul who helped organize the event, reported Business Standard.

After Kolkata, the festival will travel to numerous locations around India and then go overseas including to other Asian nations such as Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and China.

Blessed Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work with the poor in Calcutta, now named Kolkata, and will be canonized a saint by Pope Francis on Sept. 4.

Eric Clapton’s personally owned and played Masterbuilt 2014 Fender Stratocaster Sunburst Solid Body Electric Guitar — auctioned solely to benefit friend and musician Johnny Nicholas of the group Asleep at the Wheel — sold for $45,000 (more than twice its pre-auction estimate) at a public sale of Vintage Guitars and Musical Instruments held by Heritage Auctions in Dallas, ArtDaily reported Wednesday, July 26.

The proceeds were intended to help Nicholas’ wife Brenda, who died recently after a long battle with leukemia just weeks before the auction. Nicholas will now use part of the money to pay remaining medical bills and make a sizable donation to Leukemia treatment research charities.

Built by Fender Custom Shop Master Builder Todd Krause, the 2014 Fender Stratocaster was designed to Clapton’s specifications. It was one of two played by Clapton at his “Slowhand at 70 Birthday Concert at Royal Albert Hall” in London, England, in May 2015. Prior to the auction, Clapton autographed the guitar’s pickguard specifically to increase its value to fans and guitar collectors. It was originally expected to sell for $20,000.

“Heritage Auctions and the Nicholas family greatly appreciate the thoughtful consideration of Mr. Clapton,” said Isaiah Evans, Consignment Director, Vintage Guitars at Heritage Auctions.

Nicholas, a member of the Grammy Award-winning American blues group Asleep at the Wheel, took a 10-year hiatus from music to raise his family with Brenda. The two owned and managed the Hill Top Café, a well-known roadside restaurant and attraction west of Austin, Texas.

The Russian Ministry for the Development of the Far East says that it is preparing to announce before the end of 2016 a new demographic policy for that region over the next 15 years, one designed to boost the current population of that Chinese border area from six million to eight million.

Igor Romanov, the editor of the Beregrus portal, says that “it is obvious” on the basis of the documents that have been released so far that the ministry intends to meet this target primarily by bringing in immigrants from Central Asia, a development that he and others in the region very much oppose (beregrus.ru/?p=7470).

He says that experts have subjected such ideas to “the harshest criticism” but that the government continues to believe that moving cheap labor resources to the region, which will supposedly “solve” the needs of the raw materials extraction industry there is the best way to proceed.

What Moscow should be worried about but isn’t, Romanov says, is the quality of life of the people who live in the Russian Far East rather than their number. Life in the region has been rapidly “degrading in all relations but above all moral, educational and cultural,” and the introduction of Central Asian gastarbeiters will only make the situation worse.

By inviting them to come to the Russian Far East, he continues, “we will not in any way compensate for our democratic losses but simply ensure the replacement of the current population with another. Instead of the Russians who remain here will come other people, bearers of an alien culture, the so-called ‘new Russians’ [‘rossiyane’].

“The Far East is a strategic region. Here are resources; here is the outlet to the Pacific. And here are needed not alien migrants but powerful, state-thinking leaders, people capable of reviving a deteriorating society and reviving truly Russian statehood.” That doesn’t take a lot of people but rather the right kind, Romanov says.

“The life of Russia itself depends on the fate of the Far East,” he continues, and “here normal [ethnic] Russian people must life, to strengthen Russia and its access to the Pacific by their presence.” And the Beregrus editor then concludes with words that may worry some in the Russian capital.

“Two years ago,” he writes, “many volunteers went to the Donbass. Today, it is necessary for them to move to the Far East.” What is at stake, Romanov argues, is nothing less than “the preservation of Russia and its territorial integrity.”

By Julian Palmer*

In December 2013, Uruguay became the first country to legalize cannabis for recreational use.[1] This movement was supported by former President José Pepe Mujica in an effort to regularize “a clandestine market.”[2] Mujica argued that legalization “is a measure against…drug [dealers].” “We are trying to snatch the market away from them,” he stated in a 2014 interview with CNN.[3] By working to take the marijuana market out of the hands of illegal dealers and placing it in the hands of private companies and individual growers—who are selected and monitored by the government—Uruguay has set a truly progressive plan into motion. In 2014, COHA published an article detailing the implications of Uruguay’s marijuana legalization and its effect on the War on Drugs. Two years later, Uruguay and its pioneering cannabis legislation are in the news again as pharmacists voice their opposition to selling marijuana.

Under Law 19.172, Uruguayans aged 18 and above can acquire cannabis in three different ways.[4] Once registered with the Uruguayan Institute for Regulation and Control of Cannabis (IRCCA), individuals can grow up to six plants at home and harvest up to 40 grams a month, totaling 480 grams a year. Alternatively, Uruguayan citizens can join registered cannabis clubs, which have a minimum of 15 members and a maximum of 45. Cannabis clubs can grow a total of 99 plants at specific registered locations, but can only supply each member with a maximum of 480 grams per year.[5]

Cannabis will soon be available in pharmacies as well. Under the details of Law 19.172, marijuana can be sold in pharmacies that have been issued a permit by the Uruguayan government.[6] Pharmacies will source their cannabis from private companies that have been approved by the government to grow the plant. According to a survey conducted by Americas Barometer in 2014, cannabis retail in pharmacies is expected to be the most popular method for obtaining marijuana among consumers who plan on registering.[7] However, though nearly three years have passed since its legalization, cannabis is still not available in pharmacies, shedding light on the challenges of implementing an effective and legal system of marijuana distribution.

Challenges of Normalizing the Cannabis Market

In February, two private companies sowed the seeds of the first cannabis plants to be sold to Uruguay’s community pharmacies. With luck, Uruguayans will be able to purchase marijuana at their local pharmacies by late 2016.[8] However, mass distribution of pharmaceutical cannabis is still a distant prospect. Part of the reason for this is the extreme caution the government is exercising in implementing its “marijuana experiment.”[9] Of the 20 private companies that have applied for growing permits, only two have been granted permission. Even basic details—price controls and administration about whether pharmacies will be required to sell marijuana or merely encouraged to do so—have yet to be finalized. As Foreign Policy journalist Ladan Cher reports, “Uruguay has become a cautionary tale about the difficulties of creating a marijuana market.”[10]

Pharmacists Object to Selling Cannabis

The biggest challenge facing the normalization of the cannabis market is resistance from Uruguay’s pharmacists. In fact, only 50 out of 1,200 community pharmacies have registered to sell cannabis. Those who have not registered reject the government’s decision to sell marijuana in pharmacies for several reasons.[11] One of their primary concerns is security, both for themselves and their customers. “I don’t see the need to get into a conflict with people who are already selling [cannabis] in the neighborhoods,” said pharmacy owner Marcelo Trujillo in an interview with The Cannabist, an online publication that deals with marijuana-related news.[12]

The illicit marijuana market continues to grow in Uruguay in spite of legalization. According to the General Directorate for the Repression of Illicit Drug Trafficking, 5,558 pounds of illegal cannabis were seized in 2015, nearly double the amount confiscated in 2014.[13] However, as pharmaceutical cannabis distribution expands, drug dealers operating in the black market will no longer enjoy a monopoly, leading to a fall in their profits. This could potentially motivate dealers to rob pharmacies, endangering storeowners and customers. According to Interior Industry Communications Officer Fernando Gil, no threats have been reported to the authorities.[14] Even so, pharmacists fear that if they start selling cannabis, their stores will become targets for drug dealers or burglars. “I don’t have the security conditions to sell marijuana,” said pharmacist Mariana Etchessarry.[15]

Other pharmacists refuse to sell cannabis because they see it as recreational, gateway drug with addictive properties. They argue that selling marijuana would violate their “professional code of ethics.”[16] A negative perception of cannabis is widespread in Uruguay, likely due to its association with drug cartels and prevailing violence. Cannabis users are still largely seen as anti-social “junkies”, despite marijuana legalization and regulation.[17] “I oppose [selling it] as a matter of principles,” said pharmacist Julio Gadea in an interview with The Cannabist. “Pharmacies were created to sell medicines, not drugs.”[18]

The Association of Chemistry and Pharmacy of Uruguay (AQFU) voices the popular opposition to pharmaceutical marijuana distribution. Most members of the AQFU resist the retail of cannabis for “non-medicinal use” on the grounds “that it is unethical, that it will mislead the public, and that it will damage the image of pharmacies as places for health.”[19] AQFU spokesperson Dr. Eduardo Savio explains how

“pharmacists have studied to be health professionals, to help people to have a better life, [and to] improve their health and welfare. To participate in drug distribution for recreational use goes against this philosophy. Moreover, supply from pharmacies is not right because it diminishes the perception of risk [of using cannabis] for the population.”[20]

Pharmacists have also complained about the vague language used in the legalization act. An article of Law 19.172 requires pharmacists to acquire documentation for cannabis as they would for any other psychoactive drug.[21] However, since customers can purchase marijuana for recreational purposes, they will not need a prescription. “This is not congruent,” states Dr. Savio. Other psychoactive drugs such as morphine can only be purchased with a prescription, and morphine is “dispensed…[in] a dosage form produced by a laboratory.”[22] Uruguayan cannabis lacks prescription and dosage specifics that established psychoactive medicinal drugs already have. Without these details, some fear that customers will abuse marijuana and potentially become addicted. Dr. Savio explains how the AQFU wishes to help the government fight addiction to all drugs, so it feels that distributing recreational marijuana in pharmacies goes against this sentiment.[23]

Addressing Pharmacists’ Concerns

Pharmacists have a point in worrying about the increased risk they might incur by selling marijuana in their stores. The Uruguayan government should consider taking responsibility and formulate an effective plan to ensure the security of pharmacies in order to protect owners and customers. Inspections of pharmacies sponsored by the government would be a good place to start. By taking an itinerary of the security measures pharmacies may already have in place (cameras, guards, restricted entry, etc.), authorities will have an idea of what is effective in preventing robberies and what needs to be improved.

On the other hand, the government may want to look into a potential alternative distributive institution to pharmacies. In an interview with The Cannabist, Montevideo pharmacist Mariana Etchessarry explained how her store lacks the security to sell marijuana. She then went on to say, “I don’t understand why they can’t sell [cannabis] at police stations. They’re located in every neighborhood and have 24-hour security.”[24] This is certainly an ironic idea, but perhaps it should not be discarded; although both pharmacies and police stations have computer networks that could be used to track marijuana customers, police stations have superior security capabilities. However, this notion is unlikely to gain traction anytime soon simply because most government officials will probably dismiss it as ridiculous and hypocritical. Furthermore, it would eliminate the private sector’s ability to participate in the growing marijuana market. Regardless, if the government truly wishes to take control of the cannabis economy and ensure its legislation is obeyed, keeping it completely within the hands of the state is reasonable.

Uruguayan pharmacists’ additional reasons for resistance will likely be harder to address because they are based in personal ideology. In November 2013, the South American Pharmaceutical Federation (FEFAS) wrote a letter to Uruguayan Public Health Minister Susana Muñiz expressing its concern in regards to the legalization proposal. The letter stated, “[This law] may…lead to the disappearance of pharmacies as healthcare facilities and turn them into places where business principles take priority over the common good and public health.”[25] Though perhaps a tad dramatic, this sentiment appears to reflect pharmacists’ commitment to their mission of providing medicine to the community and should be respected and addressed by the Uruguayan government. As of now, pharmacists can choose to sell marijuana in their shops, but because only a small number of pharmacies have registered for cannabis retail, government officials may resort to obligation rather than encouragement. In the words of International Pharmaceutical Federation President Michael Buchmann, “substances, which are not [utilized] for therapeutic, palliative or diagnostic purposes but instead are used (or abused) for recreational ends, should not be provided to their users through community pharmacies.”[26]

This is a tricky issue for government officials to address. Legislators who worked on Law 19.172 chose community pharmacies as the ideal locations to sell cannabis “because they already have the computer systems needed to create a national database of marijuana users—a record that the government wants to establish as part of the framework for the new law.”[27] What initially seemed like a brilliant idea has been undermined by the simple fact that the majority of pharmacists do not want to sell marijuana. This is a big hole in what otherwise seems to be a good plan. Considering that only a tiny fraction of pharmacies have registered to sell cannabis (50 out of 1,200), the government must quell the concerns of pharmacists by smoothing out legislative inconsistencies and providing appropriate security.[28]

However, it is highly unlikely that Uruguayans will change their perception of cannabis in the near future. According to AmericasBarometer 2014, 42 percent of Uruguayans believed “the general situation of the country would worsen as a result of [marijuana] regulation,” and 70 percent said, “public safety and public health conditions would either worsen or remain the same.”[29] In Uruguay, cannabis is still viewed by most as a harmful drug, and it will probably take a generation or two before it is perceived in a more positive light. Only then will the legal marijuana market become truly institutionalized and accepted as an effective means of combatting drug-related violence, the way former President Mujica envisioned it.

*Julian Palmer, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Notes:
[1] Ammerman, Seth, Ryan, Sheryl, and Adelman, William P., THE COMMITTEE ON SUBSTANCE ABUSE, THE COMMITTEE ON ADOLESCENCE, “The Impact of Marijuana Policies on Youth: Clinical, Research, and Legal Update”, Pediatrics, 135 (3), accessed July 25, 2016.

[2] “Uruguay’s Pioneering Pot Law”, CNN, accessed July 15, 2016.

[3] “Uruguay’s Pioneering Pot Law”.

[4] Ley No. 19.172.

[5] Boidi, Maria Fernanda, Cruz, José Miguel, Queirolo, Rosario, and Bello-Pardo, Emily, “Marijuana Legalization in Uruguay and Beyond”, FIU Latin American and Caribbean Center, accessed July 15, 2016.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ramsey, Geoff, “With Seeds Planted, Cannabis Sales in Uruguay Could Start in Late 2016”, WOLA, accessed July 15, 2016.

[9] Cher, Ladan, “Uruguay’s Half-Baked Marijuana Experiment”, Foreign Policy, accessed July 15, 2016.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Haberkorn, Leonard, “A majority of pharmacists in Uruguay don’t want to sell pot, here’s why”, The Cannabist, accessed July 15, 2016.

[12] Ibid.

[13] “Uruguay’s Half-Baked Marijuana Experiment”.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Andalo, Debbie, “Uruguay pharmacist group opposes plan to sell marijuana in pharmacies”, The Pharmaceutical Journal, accessed July 18, 2016.

[17] Castro, Guzmán, “From punishment to markets: Social movements, the state, and legal marijuana in Uruguay,” in APSA conference, 2014, accessed July 25, 2016.

[18] “A majority of pharmacists in Uruguay don’t want to sell pot, here’s why”.

[19] Wang, Lin-Nam, “Marijuana: The Haze that Threatens to Cloud Perceptions of Pharmacy”, International Pharmacy Journal, accessed July 15, 2016.

[20] Ibid.

[21] “Uruguay pharmacist group opposes plan to sell marijuana in pharmacies”.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] “A majority of pharmacists in Uruguay don’t want to sell pot, here’s why”.

[25] “Marijuana: The Haze that Threatens to Cloud Perceptions of Pharmacy”.

[26] Ibid.

[27] “Uruguay pharmacist group opposes plan to sell marijuana in pharmacies”.

[28] “A majority of pharmacists in Uruguay don’t want to sell pot, here’s why”.

[29] “Marijuana Legalization in Uruguay and Beyond”.

By K. Yhome*

Meeting for the first time since the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling on the South China Sea, the foreign ministers of the 10-member ASEAN adopted a joint communiqué on July 25. Despite countries like the Philippines and Vietnam being members of the grouping, the communique had no mention of the verdict. This has once again raised the question of the utility of consensus diplomacy often referred to as the “ASEAN way” — one of the grouping’s guiding principles since its formation.

Ever since The Hague-based, UN-backed tribunal’s July 12 verdict invalidating China’s claims in the South China Sea, much of the focus has been on the reactions of China and other major powers, including the United States, India and Japan. It is only now that ASEAN’s reaction or the lack of it on the verdict is getting some attention in the context of the 49th ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting (AMM) that was held in the Laotian capital of Vientiane on July 24 and 25.

The AMM meeting was an opportunity for the regional bloc to use the verdict to further boost its standing as a forum that upholds and respects international law. But the joint communiqué, described as a “compromise” document, was more to save the bloc’s “unity” — a feature that it prides itself — and also with the hope that the “watered-down” statement would lower tensions in the region.

Though these factors are important, the joint statement has yet again exposed ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) that it is today a deeply divided regional body and is unable to take strong position on critical issues affecting long-term regional peace and stability. More importantly, the failure of ASEAN to mention the ruling in the joint statement will affect the implementation of the verdict. China has already rejected the ruling.

Instead of using the verdict to challenge China, using the “ASEAN way”, China’s closest ally Cambodia used its veto to block the grouping from mentioning the recent tribunal verdict in the joint statement. It merely states that ASEAN remains “seriously concerned” over recent developments in the South China Sea “which have eroded trust and confidence” and there was no direct mention of China. The statement is nothing new as ASEAN had issued similar statements before.

Two ASEAN members (the Philippines and Vietnam) — the most vocal on maritime disputes in the South China Sea in recent years — wanted the joint statement to refer to the July 12 ruling and the need to respect international law. However, Phnom Penh’s objection meant that the regional bloc had to be contended with avoiding any mention of the verdict. Cambodia’s move is seen as a diplomatic victory of China as it has again succeeded in preventing ASEAN from taking a united position of a critical regional issue.

Filling the vacuum left by ASEAN, the foreign ministers of the US, Japan and Australia met in Vientiane on July 25, on the sidelines of meetings, including the East Asian Summit (EAS) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), organised by the ASEAN, and issued a joint statement urging “China and the Philippines to abide by the Arbitral Tribunal’s Award of July 12 in the Philippines-China arbitration, which is final and legally binding on both parties.” The statement also expressed “serious concerns over maritime disputes in the South China Sea” and voiced “strong opposition to any coercive unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions.”

The Chinese Foreign Minister attended these meetings and issued a joint statement with ASEAN foreign ministers, which also had no mention of the ruling.

ASEAN member-states have long been divided over the South China Sea disputes — with four of its members (Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam) are claimants. Just a month ago, ASEAN foreign ministers struggled to agree on the wording on the issue. After a special meeting between ASEAN foreign ministers with their Chinese counterpart on June 14 in China’s Kunming, the ASEAN foreign ministers agreed to release a joint statement expressing “serious concerns” over developments in South China Sea and specifically mentioned China by name.

ASEAN foreign ministers consented that the joint statement would be issued separately to the media. Malaysia went ahead and did what was agreed upon by releasing the joint statement. But it was forced to retract the statement as Cambodia and Laos backed away from their earlier support of the joint statement under Chinese pressure. Earlier in 2012, when Cambodia was chair of the ASEAN, the regional bloc had failed to issue a joint statement for the first time in its history over disagreement on the South China Sea. Clearly, Chinese pressure on some of the ASEAN member-states has been growing over the years.

What is at stake is ASEAN’s credibility. The regional body is increasingly showing its inability to assert real diplomatic clout on regional security issues. This is doing little to counter its critics who often describe the regional grouping as a “talking shop”. In fact, as ASEAN foreign ministers struggled to find a consensus at the recent AMM in Laos, Hanoi issued a statement warning that the South China Sea had become “a test case for unity and the central role of ASEAN.” Clearly, ASEAN has favoured unity at the cost of its credibility.

One of the key objectives of ASEAN since its inception has been to promote peace and stability in the region. ASEAN had its time of success on regional issues in the 1980s when it brought an end to the Cambodian civil war or its ability to turn the region into an economic powerhouse. Furthermore, the regional bloc has successfully created several mechanisms with ASEAN in the driver’s seat. However, in recent years, ASEAN is losing the dynamism that has defined the forum in the past.

The South China Sea disputes have been increasingly dividing the regional bloc and this will continue to weaken ASEAN’s standing regionally and globally with adverse implications on the idea of “ASEAN’s centrality” on regional economic and security matters. As the ASEAN’s credibility comes under scrutiny, it may be a good time for the regional body to reflect on some of its cardinal principles, particularly its consensus approach. How well ASEAN re-imagines itself as a regional body will determine its role and standing in future.

Ironic as it may seem, the Japan-US-Australia foreign ministers’ joint statement during the ASEAN meetings in Laos stated that it “welcomed the central role of ASEAN in the development of regional architecture and its contribution to the region’s stability and prosperity” (emphasis added). One wonders if this statement was meant to tease the bloc’s weakness or to cheer up a deeply divided house.

About the author:
*K. Yhome is a Research Fellow with ORF’s Neigbhourhood Regional Studies Initiative. His research interests include India’s regional diplomacy, regional and sub-regionalism in South and Southeast Asia, the Bay of Bengal region and China’s southwest provinces. Of late his research has focused on developments in Myanmar and the evolving geopolitics in the Bay of Bengal. Before joining ORF he worked as an Editorial Assistant for Indian Foreign Affairs Journal.

On the third day of the Democratic National Convention, when President Barack Obama and vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine were scheduled to speak, Wikileaks has released hacked voicemails from top Democratic officials.

The new material from the pro-transparency publisher includes 29 phone calls, totaling about 14 minutes. Many of them are complaints directed at the Democratic National Committee.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange warned CNN there would be “a lot more material” to come, following the publishing of hacked Democratic National Committee internal emails this past Friday.

“I’m furious about what you are doing for Bernie Sanders,” a caller from the 480 area code, which covers Phoenix, Arizona, said in one voicemail message, listed as file #16014. “He is getting way too much influence. I am on fixed income and I spent over $300 donated to Hillary, and what I see is the DNC bending over backwards for Bernie. And Bernie is the worst person in the world even to be running in a Democratic party because he is not a Democratic. Please don’t give into him. I don’t care about Sanders supporters, most of them are going to vote for Hillary anyway. Quit acquiescing to this person who likes to play the victim card, and who also has been attacking Hillary which gives Trump all his talking points. I will leave the Democratic Party if the Democratic Party continues to coddle Bernie Sanders. Get rid of the a**hole.”

Two calls from the 480 area code complained about the Democratic National Committee’s catering to Sanders, wondering why the DNC allowed Cornell West to join the committee when he was “such trash.”

Most of the voicemail messages were simply leaving names and numbers for a call back, or leaving reminders about conference calls.

One person, calling from the 267 area code of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was looking for how to reach the First Lady, Michele Obama. It is file #16663 in the Wikileaks list.

“Someone from the Free Library wanted to know what is the best way to reach contact Michelle Obama with an invitation inviting her to participate in some wonderful event and development relating to the library, and the hospital for children, and some other facilities coming together.

They think it will be right up her alley. How is best to communicate with her? Does she have a secretary? What is the best channel to go through? Thanks so much. Bye.”

Wilikeaks released nearly 20,000 emails this past Friday, showing collusion at the top levels of the governing body of the Democratic Party, which forced the resignation of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

By Lisa Ferdinando

The early morning call came through the command center here near Peterson Air Force Base today: a simulated illicit flight was heading out of the United States to Mexico.

“We have at least two individuals on a watch list, with cash and weapons destined for Merida, Mexico,” the Transportation Security Administration representative at NORAD and U.S. Northern Command said on the call. “Aircraft is currently south of Corpus Christi, 10 miles heading south.”

The U.S. government monitored the flight over the skies of Texas, before handing off the tracking to Mexico as the flight entered Mexican airspace.

The live-fly event was part of Amalgam Eagle 16, a tactical exercise between the United States and Mexico, aimed at strengthening information sharing and response cooperation for real-life scenarios, North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northcom officials said.

US, Mexico Strengthen Cooperation, Partnership

In the command center, communications in English and Spanish wafted through the air, as U.S. officials and members of the Mexican air force tracked the movement of the illicit flight.

“Two minutes until interception,” according to the information coming in from Mexico in real time. And then a message later from the command center here: “Merida confirms [target of interest] landed at 1521Z.”

In the afternoon, the same plane headed back from Mexico to the United States, this time with Mexico monitoring the flight and then handing off the tracking to the United States.

Cooperation Critical in Complex Exercise

Participants were in federal agency locations in the United States and in command centers here and in Mexico City. U.S. agency participants included U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The simulated real-world scenario was complex and involved many moving parts, explained Joseph Bonnet, the director of joint training and exercises for NORAD and Northcom.

“Amalgam Eagle is important because it is a mechanism to build trust and mutual confidence for the United States and Mexico,” he said at the conclusion of today’s events.

“It also has served to improve our partner’s capacity and capabilities and broaden their participation across their interagency and whole of government,” Bonnet said, adding “that makes us all stronger.”

The exercise highlighted the importance of interagency cooperation, and intelligence sharing and coordination with partners in the defense of the homeland, Bonnet said. Mexico is an important partner in that mission, as is Canada, he noted.

Bonnet noted the Amalgam Eagle exercise, now in its third year, has grown each year, with Mexico taking responsibility for about half of the exercise this year.

A NORAD and Northcom official pointed out how interoperability of communications systems was key in the exercise, allowing the United States and Mexico to communicate in two languages.

Those systems are vital in exercises like this and in real-world scenarios, as those programs can be applied in a number of languages to allow for communications with other international partners, the official pointed out.

Protecting the Homeland

The exercise proved valuable experience in working with partners both in the United States and in Mexico, said Air Force Lt. Col. Chris Power, the deputy division chief of NORAD operations support.

“Mexico shares a border with the U.S., a very critical border, so it is important to us to keep up good relations with our partners to the south,” Power said.

He pointed out that during this exercise, Mexico used some new communication tools for the first time. It was a great opportunity to practice information sharing, he said.

“Personally, it is good to see that our Mexican partners are just as passionate about defending the homelands as we are, as well as our partner to the north in Canada,” he said.

An unprecedented flow of weapons from Central and Eastern Europe is flooding the battlefields of the Middle East.

By Lawrence Marzouk, Ivan Angelovski and Miranda Patrucic*

As Belgrade slept on the night of November 28, 2015, the giant turbofan engines of a Belarusian Ruby Star Ilyushin II-76 cargo plane roared into life, its hull laden with arms destined for faraway conflicts.

Rising from the tarmac of Nikola Tesla airport, the hulking aircraft pierced the Serbian mist to head towards Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

It was one of at least 68 flights that in just 13 months transported weapons and ammunition to Middle Eastern states and Turkey which, in turn, funnelled arms into brutal civil wars in Syria and Yemen, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP, has found. The flights form just a small part of €1.2 billion in arms deals between the countries since 2012, when parts of the Arab Spring turned into an armed conflict.

Meanwhile, over the past two years, as thousands of tonnes of weapons fly south, hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled north from the conflicts that have killed more than 400,000 people. But while Balkan and European countries have shut down the refugee route, the billion-euro pipeline sending arms by plane and ship to the Middle East remains open – and very lucrative.

It is a trade that is almost certainly illegal, according to arms and human rights experts.

“The evidence points towards systematic diversion of weapons to armed groups accused of committing serious human rights violations. If this is the case, the transfers are illegal under the ATT (United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty) and other international law and should cease immediately,” said Patrick Wilcken, an arms-control researcher at Amnesty International who reviewed the evidence collected by reporters.

But with hundreds of millions of euros at stake and weapons factories working overtime, countries have a strong incentive to let the business flourish. Arms export licences, which are supposed to guarantee the final destination of the goods, have been granted despite ample evidence that weapons are being diverted to Syrian and other armed groups accused of widespread human rights abuses and atrocities.

Robert Stephen Ford, US ambassador to Syria between 2011 and 2014, told BIRN and the OCCRP that the trade is coordinated by the US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Turkey and Gulf states through centres in Jordan and Turkey, although in practice weapon supplies often bypass this process.

BIRN and the OCCRP examined arms export data, UN reports, flight records, and weapons contracts during a year-long investigation that reveals how thousands of assault rifles, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons, and heavy machine guns are pouring into the troubled region, originating from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Romania,  Serbia and Slovakia.

Since the escalation of the Syrian conflict in 2012, these eight countries have approved the shipment of weapons and ammunition worth at least 1.2 billion euros to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and Turkey.

The figure is likely much higher. Data on arms export licences for four out of eight countries were not available for 2015 and seven out of eight countries for 2016. The four recipient countries are key arms suppliers to Syria and Yemen with little or no history of buying from Central and Eastern Europe prior to 2012. And the pace of the transfers is not slowing, with some of the biggest deals approved in 2015.

Eastern and Central European weapons and ammunition, identified in more than 50 videos and photos posted on social media, are now in use by Western-backed Free Syrian Army units, but also in the hands of fighters of Islamist groups such as Ansar al-Sham, Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIS, in Syria, factions fighting for Syrian President Bashar-al Assad and Sunni forces in Yemen.

Markings on some of the weapons identifying the origin and date of production reveal significant quantities have come off production lines as recently as 2015.

Out of the 1.2 billion euros in weapons and ammunition approved for export, about 500 million euros have been delivered, according to UN trade information and national arms export reports.

The frequency and number of cargo flights – BIRN and the OCCRP identified at least 68 in just over one year – reveal a steady flow of weapons from Central and Eastern Europe airports to military bases in Middle East.

The most commonly used aircraft – the Ilyushin II-76 – can carry up to 50 tonnes of cargo or approximately 16,000 AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles or three million bullets. Others, including the Boeing 747, are capable of hauling at least twice that amount.

But arms and ammunitions are not only coming by air. Reporters also have identified at least three shipments made by the US military from Black Sea ports carrying an estimated 4,700 tonnes of weapons and ammunition to the Red Sea and Turkey since December 2015.

One Swedish member of the EU parliament calls the trade shameful.

“Maybe they –[Bulgaria, Slovakia and Croatia] – do not feel ashamed at all but I think they should,” said Bodil Valero, who also served as the rapporteur for the EU’s last arms report.“Countries selling arms to Saudi Arabia or the Middle East-North Africa region are not carrying out good risk assessments and, as a result, are in breach of EU and national law.”.

OCCRP and BIRN talked to government representatives in Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovakia who all responded similarly saying that they are meeting their international obligations. Some cited that Saudi Arabia is not on any international weapons black lists and other said their countries are not responsible if weapons have been diverted.

Saudi Arabia – The weapons king

The Central and Eastern European weapons supply line can be traced to the winter of 2012, when dozens of cargo planes, loaded with Saudi-purchased Yugoslav-era weapons and ammunition, began leaving Zagreb bound for Jordan. Soon after, the first footage of Croatian weapons in use emerged from the battleground of Syria.

According to a New York Times report from February 2013, a senior Croatian official offered the country’s stockpiles of old weapons for Syria during a visit to Washington in the summer of 2012. Zagreb was later put in touch with the Saudis, who bankrolled the purchases, while the CIA helped with logistics for an airlift that began late that year.

While Croatia’s government has consistently denied any role in shipping weapons to Syria, former US ambassador to Syria Ford confirmed to BIRN and the OCCRP the New York Times account from an anonymous source of how the deal was hatched. He said he was not at liberty to discuss it further.

This was just the beginning of an unprecedented flow of weapons from Central and Eastern Europe into the Middle East, as the pipeline expanded to include stocks from seven other countries. Local arms dealers sourced arms and ammunition from their home countries and brokered the sale of ammunition from Ukraine and Belarus, and even attempted to secure Soviet-made anti-tank systems bought from the UK, as a Europe-wide arms bazaar ensued.

Prior to the Arab Spring in 2011, the arms trade between Eastern Europe and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, UAE, and Turkey – four key supporters of Syria’s fractured opposition – was negligible to non-existent, according to analysis of export data.

But that changed in 2012. Between that year and 2016, eight Eastern European countries approved at least 806 million euros worth of weapons and ammunition exports to Saudi Arabia, according to national and EU arms export reports as well as government sources.

Jordan secured export licences worth 155 million euros starting in 2012, while the UAE netted 135 million euros and Turkey 87 million euros, bringing the total to 1.2 billion euros.

Qatar, another key supplier of equipment to the Syrian opposition, does not show up in export licences from Central and Eastern Europe.

Jeremy Binnie, Middle East arms expert for Jane’s Defence Weekly, a publication widely regarded as the most trusted source of defence and security information, said the bulk of the weapon exports from Eastern Europe would likely be destined for Syria and, to a lesser extent, Yemen and Libya.

“With a few exceptions, the militaries of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and Turkey use Western infantry weapons and ammunition, rather than Soviet-designed counterparts,” said Binnie. “It consequently seems likely that large shipments of such materiel being acquired by – or sent to – those countries are destined for their allies in Syria, Yemen, and Libya.”

BIRN and the OCCRP obtained confidential documents from Serbia’s Ministry of Defence and minutes from a series of inter-ministerial meetings in 2013. The documents show the ministry raised concerns that deliveries to Saudi Arabia would be diverted to Syria, pointing out that the Saudis do not use Central and Eastern European stock and have a history of supplying the Syrian opposition. The Ministry turned down the Saudi request only to reverse course more than one year later and approve new arms shipments citing national interest. Saudi security forces, while mostly armed by Western producers, are known to use limited amounts of Central and Eastern European equipment. This includes Czech-produced military trucks and some Romanian-made assault rifles. But even arms exports destined for use by Saudi forces are proving controversial, given their involvement in the conflict in Yemen.

The Netherlands became the first EU country to halt arms exports to Saudi Arabia as a result of civilian deaths in Yemen’s civil war, and the European Parliament has called for an EU-wide arms embargo.

Supply Logistics: Cargo flights and airdrops

Weapons from Central and Eastern Europe are delivered to the Middle East by cargo flights and ships. By identifying the planes and ships delivering weapons, reporters were able to track the flow of arms in real time.

Detailed analysis of airport timetables, cargo carrier history, flight tracking data, and air traffic control sources helped pinpoint 68 flights that carried weapons to Middle Eastern conflicts in the past 13 months.  Belgrade, Sofia and Bratislava emerged as the main hubs for the airlift.

Most frequent were flights operated from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The flights were either confirmed as carrying weapons, were headed to military bases in Saudi Arabia or the UAE or were carried out by regular arms shippers.

Many of these flights made an additional stop in Central and Eastern Europe – meaning they were likely picking up more weapons and ammunition – before flying to their final destination.

EU flight statistics provide further evidence of the scale of the operation. They reveal that planes flying from Bulgaria and Slovakia have delivered 2,268 tons of cargo – equal to 44 flights with the most commonly used aircraft – the Ilyushin II-76 – since the summer of 2014 to the same military bases in Saudi Arabia and UAE pinpointed by BIRN and OCCRP.

A full list of flight information may be found at https://www.occrp.org/en/makingakilling/table

Distributing the weapons

Arms bought for Syria by the Saudis, Turks, Jordanians and the UAE are then routed through two secret command facilities – called Military Operation Centers (MOC) – in Jordan and Turkey, according to Ford, the former US ambassador to Syria.

These units – staffed by security and military officials from the Gulf, Turkey, Jordan and the US – coordinate the distribution of weapons to vetted Syrian opposition groups, according to information from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, a think tank that has a unit monitoring the conflict.

“Each of the countries involved in helping the armed opposition retained final decision-making authority about which groups in Syria received assistance,” Ford said.

A cache of leaked cargo carrier documents provides further clues to how the Saudi military supplies Syrian rebels.

According to the documents obtained by BIRN and the OCCRP, the Moldovan company AeroTransCargo made six flights in the summer of 2015 carrying at least 250 tonnes of ammunition between military bases in Saudi Arabia and Esenboga International Airport in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, reportedly an arrival point for weapons and ammunition for Syrian rebels.

Pieter Wezeman, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a leading organisation in tracking arms exports, said he suspects the flights are part of the logistical operation to supply ammunition to Syrian rebels.

From the MOCs, weapons are then transported by road to the Syrian border or airdropped by military planes.

A Free Syrian Army commander from Aleppo, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his safety, told BIRN and OCCRP that weapons from Central and Eastern Europe were distributed from centrally controlled headquarters in Syria. “We don’t care about the county of origin, we just know it is from Eastern Europe,” he said.

The Saudis and Turks also provided weapons directly to Islamist groups not supported by the US and who have sometimes ended up fighting MOC-backed factions, Ford added.

The Saudis are also known to have airdropped arms and equipment, including what appeared to be Serbian-made assault rifles to its allies in Yemen.

Ford said that while he was not personally involved in negotiations with Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania over the supply of weapons to Syria, he believes that the CIA is likely to have played a role.

“For operations of this type it would be difficult for me to imagine that there wasn’t some coordination between the intelligence services, but it may have been confined strictly to intelligence channels,” he said.

The US may not have just played a role in the logistics behind delivering Gulf-sponsored weapons from Eastern Europe to the Syrian rebels. Through its Department of Defense’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM), it has also bought and delivered vast quantities of military materiel from Eastern Europe for the Syrian opposition as part of a US$500 million train and equip programme.

Since December 2015, SOCOM has commissioned three cargo ships to transport 4,700 tons of arms and ammunition from ports of Constanta in Romania and Burgas in Bulgaria to the Middle East likely as part of the covert supply of weapons to Syria.

The shipments included heavy machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-tank weapons – as well as bullets, mortars, grenades, rockets and explosives, according to US procurement documents.

The origin of arms shipped by SOCOM is unknown and the material listed in transport documents is available from stockpiles across Central and Eastern Europe.

Not long after one of the deliveries, SOCOM supported Kurdish groups published an image on Twitter and Facebook showing a warehouse piled with US-brokered ammunition boxes in northern Syria SOCOM would not confirm or deny that the shipments were bound for Syria.

US procurement records also reveal that SOCOM secured from 2014 to 2016 at least 25 million euros (27 million dollars) worth of Bulgarian and 11 million euros (12 million dollars) in Serbian weapons and ammunition for covert operations and Syrian rebels..

A Booming Business

Arms control researcher Wilcken said Central and Eastern Europe had been well positioned to cash in on the huge surge in demand for weapons following the Arab Spring.

“Geographical proximity and lax export controls have put some Balkan states in pole position to profit from this trade, in some instances with covert US assistance,” he added. “Eastern Europe is rehabilitating Cold War arms industries which are expanding and becoming profitable again.”

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic boasted recently that his country could produce five times the amount of arms it currently makes and still not meet the demand.

“Unfortunately in some parts of the world they are at war more than ever and everything you produce, on any side of the world you can sell it,” he said.

Arms manufacturers from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are running at full capacity with some adding extra shifts and others not taking new orders.

Saudi Arabia’s top officials – more used to negotiating multi-billion-dollar fighter-jet deals with Western defence giants – have been forced to deal with a handful of small-time arms brokers operating in Eastern Europe who have access to weapons such as AK-47s and rocket launchers

Middlemen such as Serbia’s CPR Impex and Slovakia’s Eldon have played a critical role in supplying weapons and ammunition to the Middle East

The inventory of each delivery is usually unknown due to the secrecy surrounding arms deals but two end-user certificates and one export licence, obtained by BIRN and the OCCRP, reveal the extraordinary scope of the buy-up for Syrian beneficiaries.

For example, the Saudi Ministry of Defence expressed its interest in buying from Serbian arms dealer CPR Impex a number of weapons including hundreds of aging T-55 and T-72 tanks, millions of rounds of ammunition, multi-launch missile systems and rocket launchers. Weapons and ammunition listed were produced in the former Yugoslavia, Belarus, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic.

An export licence issued to a little-known Slovakian company called Eldon in January 2015 granted the firm the right to transport thousands of Eastern European rocket-propelled grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and almost a million bullets worth nearly 32 million euros to Saudi Arabia.

BIRN and OCCRP’s analysis of social media shows weapons that originated from the former states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria are now present on the battlefields of Syria and Yemen.

While experts believe the countries continue to shirk their responsibility, the weapons pipeline adds more and more fuel to a white hot conflict that leads to more and more misery.

“Proliferation of arms to the region has caused untold human suffering; huge numbers of people have been displaced and parties to the conflict have committed serious human rights violations including   abductions, executions, enforced disappearances, torture and rape,” said Amnesty’s Wilcken.

Additional reporting by Atanas Tchobanov, Dusica Tomovic, Jelena Cosic, Jelena Svircic, Lindita Cela, RISE Moldova and Pavla Holcova.

This investigation is produced by BIRN as a part of Paper Trail to Better Governance project.

By Josh Hoxie

It was easy to get caught up in the circus that was the Republican National Convention. Rousing speeches (plagiarized and original) and raucous floor votes make for great television and funny internet memes.

Unfortunately, as we’ve come to expect from events organized by Donald Trump, the convention was decidedly light on substance. For an inkling of what a Trump administration might actually do, we have to look elsewhere.

Let’s start with Mike Pence, the newcomer to the ticket and a relative unknown to most voters.

The self-described Tea Partier served six terms in the House of Representatives and one term as governor of Indiana. He’s best known for his staunchly conservative stances on social issues, notably on reproductive health and LGBT rights.

But Pence also stands way outside the mainstream on economic issues, with a clear track record of coddling the wealthy. He’s an ardent supporter of trickle-down economics, the debunked idea that giving more money to the wealthy will somehow help the rest of us.

As a congressman in 2010, for instance, Pence made the bizarre claim that raising income taxes would decrease federal revenue. Unsurprisingly, Politifact — the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking group — rated that false.

More recently, Pence put his ideas into action in Indiana, enacting a major tax cut that helped give his state one of the most regressive tax structures in the country.

Indeed, on taxes, Pence is largely in line with Trump, who’s shown significant support for massive tax cuts for wealthy people like himself.

During the primary, Trump released a tax plan that would cost a whopping $24 trillion over the next two decades, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center calculates — most of it in cuts for high earners. Now in the general election, reports indicate he may be promoting a more modest package of cuts, but an unmistakably regressive one nonetheless.

Under the soaring subtitle “Restoring the American Dream,” page one of this year’s Republican Party platform dives straight into ideas around tax reform. The tax code, it claims, “has the greatest impact on our economy’s performance.”

“Getting our tax system right,” it goes on, “will be the most important factor in driving the entire economy back to prosperity.” What Trump and Pence consider “getting it right” is massive tax cuts for the ultra wealthy.

How do the American people feel about this?

I’m sure many see cutting their tax bill as a great thing — the adult equivalent of an elementary school class president promising to end homework or double the length of recess. But most see past this.

Cutting taxes means major cuts to programs that millions of families depend on. It means slashing budgets or perhaps completely eliminating child nutrition programs, senior prescription health plans, and early childhood education programs. And the list goes on.

Perhaps that’s why for the third year in a row, an annual Gallup poll shows most Americans agree with the statement, “Our government should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich.”

Further, a recent poll from Pew Research showed 78 percent are either “very bothered” or “somewhat bothered” by the “feeling that some wealthy people don’t pay their fair share.”

Trump’s candidacy has been anything but predictable, and there’s a long way to go before Election Day in November. But with Pence on the ticket and the GOP platform in place, it’s clear tax cuts for the wealthy are part of the plan.

*Josh Hoxie directs the Project on Opportunity and Taxation at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Even the holiest of all places is not spared by the Pokémon Go craze. The mobile game has taken the fight between its characters to the Holy Kaaba, and points of collection are being found on the gates of the Grand Mosque.

Opinions are rife about the game saying it is a violation of the sanctity of the Grand Mosque in particular and all other mosques, because some of its characters are inside mosques and the game spies on users.

Sheikh Abdullah Al-Munea, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, said the game is a national security hazard as it aims to uncover secret locations, which is considered treason.

When the website team visited Makkah, it found that one of the fighting grounds of Pokémon was actually atop Kaaba. Around the new mataf, five players were found playing, and the number is growing. The points of gifts and the game’s characters were in front of gates of the mosque.

Appeals Court Judge and member of the Shoura Council Sheikh Issa Al-Ghaith said with regard to finding Pokémon characters on the Kaaba, hacking it and playing it without moving, “in general, I do not think there is anything ‘haram’ (forbidden) in it as it is.”

Nawaf Shaheen, a gaming expert, said: “Pokémon Go has also used a data bank from another game called Ingress. It wants the players to determine important locations in their cities. Among these places are hospitals, mosques and markets.”

He said that some people do not even know the content of the game and its subject.

Some people believe that it was targeting Muslims and Islam. Pokémon Go is a normal entertainment game; in each update, it changes its security settings and adds guidelines for players. For example, if a player is driving his car above 20 km per hour, the Pokémon characters do not appear.

Suhaib Khairallah, a technology expert and partner member in Microsoft Saudia, said Pokémon Go is not available in Saudi or other Arab countries. How can it target Muslims? He said the characters are largely found in mosques, markets and restaurants because the game covers areas where lots of people are found. The users join each other through Google maps.

Mashable website says that the designer of Pokémon Go, the executive president and founder of Niantic, was one of the workers of Google and has used data from an old game called Ingress which demands players to point out major features of their cities. The players presented 15 million such locations, of which 5 million are being used by Pokémon Go. Among these locations are holy sites.

Days after a truck ploughed its way into throngs of people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, the Los Angeles Times reported that “[Daesh or the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] later claimed indirect responsibility for the attack”. The clearly deliberate act killed 84 people, many of whom were children, and a third of whom were Muslims.

But knowing what we know about Daesh and its appetite to promote global violence, ‘indirect responsibility’ likely means that they had no direct involvement in the attacks or links to the attacker, Mohammad Lahouaiej Bouhlel.

In fact, Bouhlel’s profile doesn’t exactly fit the typical profile of ruthless ‘jihadists’, as is so often repeated in the media and by ‘terrorism experts’.

The 31-year-old Nice resident of Tunisian origin was already known to the local police, if only for petty street crimes. However, he was not even on the French intelligence’s terror watch list. In fact, till now there is no evidence to link the July 14 attacker to Daesh or to any other militant group.

Since that is the case, what is one to make of French Prime Minister Francois Hollande’s remarks that he will “strengthen [his country’s] actions” in Syria and Iraq?

If the deadly Nice attack is clearly an outcome of internal French societal dynamics, why should Iraqis and Syrians pay the price of France’s vengeance? Clearly, the correlation lacks evidence or even logic.

Hollande’s statement that “all of France is under threat from Islamist terrorism,” is as hate-mongering as it is ambiguous. It is eerily similar to statements uttered by former US president, George W. Bush, and other US officials who also declared their “war on terror” 15 years ago — a war that engendered yet more terrorism and chaos, and destabilised the entire Middle East region, and which continues to bear the remnants of this destabilisation to this day.

There is still much we do not know about the deadly events in Nice. But what we do know is that Hollande, whose popularity is at an all-time low, is following in the same mis-steps that the American administration took after the attacks of September 11, 2001. We know all too well the negative effects of those actions, and witnessed military strategy which backfired.

Alas, reports already speak of France’s misplaced retribution.

News media speak of a massacre resulting from French air strikes on July 19 on an area near the Turkish Syria borders. Estimates vary, but all speak of dozens of civilians dead. This cannot possibly solve Hollande’s home-grown violence, which is clearly positioned within social inequality and political alienation felt by millions of French citizens from North African descent.

What good did France’s military adventurism achieve in recent years anyway? Libya has turned into an oasis of chaos — where Daesh now controls entire towns. Iraq and Syria remain places rampant with unmitigated violence. The fate of Mali is certainly no different.

Writing for Al Jazeera, Pape Samba Kane described the terrible reality that Mali has become following the French intervention in January, 2013. Their so-called Operation Serval turned into Operation Barkhane and Mali did not become peaceful neither did French forces leave the country. The French, according to Kane, are now occupiers, not liberators.

“The question,” Kane wrote, “that Malians have to ask themselves is: Do they prefer having to fight against [extremists] for a long time, or having their sovereignty challenged and their territory occupied or partitioned by an ancient colonialist state in order to satisfy a group allied with the colonial power?”

Yet the French, like the Americans, continue to evade this obvious reality at their own peril. By refusing to accept the fact that Daesh is only a component of a much larger and particularly disturbing course of violence that is rooted in foreign intervention, is to allow violence everywhere to perpetuate.

I visited Iraq in 1999. At the time, there were no so-called ‘jihadists’ espousing the principles of jihadism, whatever the interpretation of that may be.

Iraq was hardly peaceful then. But most of the bombs that exploded in that country were American. In fact, when Iraqis spoke of terrorism, they mostly referred to Al Irhab Al Amriki — American terrorism.

Suicide bombings were hardly a daily occurrence; in fact, never an occurrence at all, anywhere in Iraq. As soon as the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 followed by Iraq in 2003, all hell broke loose.

The 25 years prior to 2008 witnessed 1,840 suicide attacks, according to data compiled by US government experts and cited in the Washington Post. Of all these attacks, 86 per cent occurred after the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, between 2001 and the publishing of the data in 2008, 920 suicide bombings took place in Iraq and 260 in Afghanistan.

A fuller picture emerged in 2010, with the publishing of more commanding and detailed research conducted by the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Terrorism. “More than 95 per cent of all suicide attacks are in response to foreign occupation,” it emerged.

“As the United States has occupied Afghanistan and Iraq… total suicide attacks worldwide have risen dramatically — from about 300 from 1980 to 2003, to 1,800 from 2004 to 2009,” wrote Robert Pape in Foreign Policy.

It is easy — perhaps, convenient — to forget all of this. Connecting the proverbial dots can be costly for some, for it will unravel a trajectory of violence that is rooted in foreign intervention. For many Western commentators and politicians it is much easier — let alone safer — to discuss Daesh within impractical contexts, for example that of “Islamist terrorism’, rather than take moral responsibility.

Daesh is but a name that can be rebranded without notice into something entirely different. Their tactics, too, can change, based on time and circumstances. Their followers can mete out violence using a suicide belt, a car laden with explosives, a knife or a truck moving at high speed.

What truly matters is that Daesh has grown into a phenomenon, an idea that is not even confined to a single group and which requires no official membership, transfer of funds or weapons.

Defeating Daesh requires that we also confront and defeat the thinking that led to its inception, that is, defeating the logic of the George W. Bushes, Tony Blairs and John Howards of this world.

No matter how violent Daesh members or supporters are, it is ultimately a group of angry, alienated, misguided and radicalised young men seeking to alter their desperate situation by carrying out despicable acts of vengeance, even if it means ending their lives in the process.

Bombing Daesh camps may destroy some of their military facilities but it will not eradicate the very idea that has allowed them to recruit thousands of young men all over the world.

They are the product of violent thinking that was spawned, not only in the Middle East, but initially, in various Western capitals.

The war option has, thus far, proved the least affective. Daesh will remain and metamorphose, if necessary, as long as war remains on the agenda. To end Daesh, we must end war and foreign occupations.

The French need to keep this in mind before thrusting more into this great war gamble, one that not only the Americans and the French, but in fact, the whole world, have already lost.

On Wednesday, officers from the Intelligence Headquarters of Spain’s Guardia Civil, together with units from the Gerona and Almeria command centres and the regional headquarters in Catalonia and Andalusia, under the instruction of Central Investigation Court number 1 and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the National High Court, arrested two brothers, aged 33 and 22, of Moroccan nationality and residents in Gerona.

The brothers are accused of financing terrorism, collaboration with a terrorist group and self-indoctrination.

The two individuals detained, together with a third brother who died in Syria, were involved in helping funding to reach the financial administrators of DAESH through the intermediation of false identities attributed to these administrators of DAESH. These false identities would form part of the centre for economic collection by DAESH at an international level, as was made clear in the international contacts detected during the course of the investigation.

The death of the brother in Syria, who had travelled to the conflict zone together with his wife and two children to join up to the ranks of the terrorist group DAESH, did not deter them from continuing their activities of sending funds from Spain. The investigators verified that this activity was of an ongoing nature and aimed at providing financial support to the terrorist group.

The application of the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism was key in the detection and investigation of the international financial transfers used by the terrorist cell.

This operation, which included the collaboration of the National Intelligence Centre (Spanish acronym: CNI), is the first such operation in Spain in which specific evidence was uncovered of the final destination of the remittance of these funds, which shows that they were made available to DAESH to be used by the group to facilitate the movements of personnel to join up to the ranks of the terrorist group.

Following their arrest, the officers proceeded to search their homes in order to obtain further evidence to enable them to better ascertain the ties that the detainees had with the financial administrators of DAESH and their false identities, with a view to fully clarifying the extent of their activities.

Since the Counter-Terrorism Alert level was raised to Level 4 on 26 June 2015, the Guardia Civil have stepped up all their investigations related to both the operational and logistics structures of a cross-border nature. The importance should be stressed of interrupting the mechanisms for the recruitment and travel of Jihadi fighters, as well as the financial flows that allow these structures to be maintained and operations to be carried on in Europe.