A new report launched by the World Economic Forum calls for international financial institutions to develop new tools and products to close the infrastructure gap in emerging and developing economies. The report, Risk Mitigation Instruments in Infrastructure: Gap Assessment, offers a framework for institutions to assess gaps in the provision of risk-mitigation instruments and to mobilize much-needed long-term infrastructure investment in emerging and developing economies.

According to G20 estimates, the operational commitments of major regional multilateral development banks and the World Bank Group total an estimated $80-90 billion. Despite the substantial balance sheet potential, the banks’ operations cover less than 10% of the infrastructure financing gap for emerging markets, which is estimated at $1‑1.5 trillion a year.

“International financial institutions are important in bridging the tremendous infrastructure investment gap in developing and emerging countries,” said Michael Drexler, Head of Investors Industries at the World Economic Forum. “The report finds that those instruments are not being used broadly enough and we believe there remains great potential for further development. The views of sophisticated investors controlling over $2 trillion in assets give good direction on how to create the necessary conditions for increased investment in infrastructure.”

The report outlines input from more than 40 institutional and private investors with total assets under management exceeding $2 trillion, as well as feedback from project developers and construction companies, global banking institutions, insurance and reinsurance companies, international financial institutions and professional services firms.

Specifically, the report identifies four key areas of action – addressed to international financial institutions and the broader infrastructure investment market – to allow for a significant scale-up of risk mitigation instruments: International financial institutions should review their existing instruments with the goal of arriving at a limited number of common, standardized products that are available globally through the relevant local/regional partner; The creation of a tradable infrastructure debt asset class is recommended by increasing standardization in the underlying debt instruments and related disclosure requirements;  A harmonized dispute resolution mechanism should be established; A global/regional risk mitigation facility is needed.

“Given their importance to global infrastructure investment and the mitigation of several risks for investors, international financial institutions could move towards processes that allow a sizeable scale-up of risk mitigation instruments that the market wants to use,” said Thomas Maier, Managing Director for Infrastructure at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Guido Fürer, Swiss Re’s Group Chief Investment Officer and contributor to the report, added, “To address the infrastructure gap of the developing world by channelling institutional investors’ capital, it is necessary to move towards more standardized financial market instruments. Establishing a tradable infrastructure asset class would provide a major risk mitigation strategy for long-term investors.”

Thailand’s junta should stop bringing sedition charges against critics of the draft constitution, Human Rights Watch said. A referendum on the proposed constitution is slated for August 7, 2016.

Critics of the ruling National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) held in military detention on politically motivated charges of sedition or other offenses should be immediately released and the charges dropped.

“The junta’s use of its draconian sedition law against critics of the draft constitution creates a climate of fear ahead of the referendum,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Military repression has become a daily reality in Thailand, and it’s intensifying as the August 7 vote approaches.”

On July 27 in Bangkok, military authorities arrested Tassanee Buranupakorn, the vice president of the Chiang Mai provincial administrative organization and former member of parliament from the deposed Pheu Thai Party. She was accused of involvement in the distribution of letters that the NCPO claimed presented distorted information about the proposed constitution – the so-called draft constitution letters. The day before, soldiers arrested Tassanee’s sister, Thanthip Buranupakorn, at her house in Chiang Mai on the same allegation. Tassanee and her sister are among 11 people that the junta has accused of committing sedition in relation to the draft constitution letters. If found guilty in a military tribunal, they could face imprisonment of up to seven years.

Article 116 of Thailand’s Criminal Code defines sedition as public statements or writing intended to “bring about a change in the laws or the government by the use of coercion or violence;… raise confusion or disaffection amongst the people to the point of causing unrest in the kingdom; or have people violate the law.”

Also accused in this case are Boonlert Buranupakorn, Tassanee’s uncle and the president of the Chiang Mai provincial administrative organization; Khachen Jiakkhajorn, the mayor of Chiang Mai province’s Chang Phuak municipality; Wisarut Khananitisarn, Atipong Khammoon, and Kritkorn Paitaya, Chang Phuak municipality officials; as well as Aim-orn Tabsok, Supawadee Ngarm-muang, Tevarat Inta, and Kobkarn Sukita.

The junta has ignored concerted calls from the United Nations and foreign governments for Thai authorities to respect people’s rights to freely express their views on the draft constitution. The NCPO, chaired by Prime Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-ocha, has imposed conditions for the constitutional referendum that have increasingly hindered open public discussion. In addition to the sedition law, article 61 of the 2016 Referendum Act criminalizes “anyone who disseminates text, pictures or sounds that are inconsistent with the truth or in a violent, aggressive, rude, inciting or threatening manner aimed at preventing a voter from casting a ballot or vote in any direction or to not vote.” Violators face imprisonment of up to 10 years and fines up to 200,000 baht (US$5,600).

The junta has deemed criticisms and dissenting opinions about the draft constitution to be “false information” and a threat to national security. As a result, the only sources of information for many voters about the draft constitution now come from government agencies – all of which have taken the position that the proposed constitution would benefit the Thai people.

“The combination of sedition charges and military detentions suggests that the junta wants to stifle information and turn up the heat on Thai voters so they accept a constitution that would prolong military control,” Adams said.

Using the NCPO orders 3/2558 and 13/2559 issued by Gen. Prayut, the junta continues to flout international legal protections by detaining and interrogating dissenters in military camps without access to lawyers or other effective safeguards against abuse for up to seven days. On June 27, the military authorities put Tassanee, Thanthip, Khachen, Supawadee, Kobkarn, Atipong, and Aim-orn in detention at the 11th Army Circle Camp in Bangkok.

Under article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Thailand is a party, no one may be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. Furthermore, governments are prohibited from using military courts to try civilians when civilian courts can still function. The UN Human Rights Committee has stated in its General Comment on the right to a fair trial that “the trial of civilians in military or special courts may raise serious problems as far as the equitable, impartial and independent administration of justice is concerned.”

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on the Thai junta to immediately transfer all civilians detained at the 11th Army Circle military base to an officially recognized civilian place of detention that complies with international standards, and to ensure no further non-military prisoners are detained at this facility or any other similar facility. Human Rights Watch submitted a letter to the Thai government on November 24, 2015, raising serious concerns regarding conditions at the 11th Army Circle Camp after the deaths of fortuneteller Suriyan Sucharitpolwong and Police Maj. Prakrom Warunprapa during their detention there. On May 17, 2016, Bilal Mohammad (also known as Adem Karadag) complained that he was tortured at the 11th Army Circle Camp into confessing to the August 2015 bomb attack at Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine.

“The world is witness to the junta’s broken promises to return Thailand to rights-respecting, democratic rule,” Adams said. “A free and fair constitutional referendum can’t be held when the rights of people to speak and exchange their views are suppressed.”

Turkey wants Germany to hand over alleged supporters of Fethullah Gulen, the man they accuse of being the mastermind behind the failed coup. Strained relations between Berlin and Ankara look set to get a little more so, Deutsche Welle reported Thursday, July 28.

Relations between Ankara and Berlin have been under pressure in recent months, with a series of diplomatic blows being exchanged, ranging from Germany’s acknowledgement of Turkish culpability in the Armenian Genocide, to Ankara’s attempts to obtain EU membership. Berlin has also expressed its concern over the series of purges in Turkey following the recent coup attempt.

Turkey blames prosecutors linked to the U.S.-based cleric for masterminding the failed military coup earlier this month. Turkey’s foreign minister alleged on Wednesday that some prosecutors and judges who are part of Gulen’s movement are currently in Germany.

“The Berlin government should extradite them,” Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu told Broadcaster CNN Turk on Thursday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in response to Cavusoglu’s demand that Germany was “bound by the rule of law.”

The minister said recently that Ankara’s ties with Washington will be hurt if the US does not extradite the cleric, adding he would meet with US officials on the topic during a coming visit, Deutsche Welle says.

Cavasoglu also told CNN Turk that over 300 personnel in the foreign ministry have been linked to the cleric, adding that Turkey may also remove some ambassadors linked to the coup attempt. “The EU can’t threaten Turkey,” he said.

Washington is demanding a formal request with proof to warrant deportation. Amnesty International has charged that there is widespread torture in Turkish jails where alleged coup plotters are being held. Turkey rejects the claims.

By Yves Engler *

Despite a backlash evocative of those who defended the Jim Crow US South, Green Party members recently voted in favor of a resolution calling on Ottawa to stop subsidizing racist land covenants. Next weekend the Greens will make a final decision on whether they support the principles underlying a half-century old Supreme Court of Canada decision outlawing discriminatory land-use policies.

Two months ago Green Party member Corey Levine put forward a resolution calling on the Party to pressure the Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the Jewish National Fund’s charitable status. The Independence Jewish Voices activist crafted a motion criticizing the JNF’s “discrimination against non-Jews in Israel through its bylaws which prohibit the lease or sale of its lands to non-Jews.”

In response to this exercise in party democracy, B’nai B’rith and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs asked their supporters to email Party leader Elizabeth May to condemn “anti-Semitism”. After thousands denounced the Green Party, the Jewish Defence League, a far right group banned in the US and Israel for a series of killings, said it would protest at the Party’s August convention in Ottawa.

Backlash aside, the Green’s JNF resolution affirms a principle enunciated by the Supreme Court 60 years ago. Into the 1950s restrictive land covenants in many exclusive neighborhoods and communities across Canada made it impossible for Jews, Blacks, Chinese, Aboriginals and other non-‘whites’ to buy property.

In 1948 Annie Noble decided to sell a cottage in the exclusive Beach O’ Pines subdivision on Lake Huron to Bernie Wolf, who was Jewish. During the sale Wolf’s lawyer realized that the original deed for the property contained the following clause: “The lands and premises herein described shall never be sold, assigned, transferred, leased, rented or in any manner whatsoever alienated to, and shall never be occupied or used in any manner whatsoever by any person of the Jewish, Negro or colored race or blood, it being the intention and purpose of the Grantor, to restrict the ownership, use, occupation and enjoyment of the said recreational development, including the lands and premises herein described, to persons of the white or Caucasian race.”

Noble and Wolf tried to get the court to declare the restriction invalid but they were opposed by the Beach O’ Pines Protective Association and both a Toronto court and the Ontario Court of Appeal refused to invalidate the racist covenant. But, Noble pursued the case – with assistance from the Canadian Jewish Congress – to the Supreme Court of Canada. In a 6-to-1 decision the highest court reversed the lower courts’ ruling and allowed Noble to purchase the property.

The publicity surrounding the case prompted Ontario to pass a law voiding racist land covenants and in 2009 the federal government defined the Noble and Wolf v. Alley Supreme Court case “an event of national historic significance” in the battle “for human rights and  against discrimination on racial and religious grounds in Canada.”

Six decades after the Supreme Court delivered a blow to racist property covenants, 62% of Green members have voted for a resolution calling on Ottawa to end its support for a charity that discriminates in land use abroad. An owner of 13 percent of Israel’s land, JNF bylaws and lease documents contain a restrictive covenant stating its property will not be leased to non-Jews. A 1998 United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights found it systematically discriminated against Palestinian citizens of Israel (Arab Israelis) who make up a fifth of the population. According to the UN report, JNF lands are “chartered to benefit Jews exclusively,” which has led to an “institutionalized form of discrimination.” Echoing the UN, a 2015 US State Department report detailing “institutional and societal discrimination” in Israel says JNF “statutes prohibit sale or lease of land to non-Jews.”

Yet JNF Canada, which raised $29 million in 2014, is a registered charity. As such, it can provide tax credits for donations, meaning that up to 40% of their budget effectively comes from public coffers.

The Green Party should ignore the right wing backlash and uphold the principle that discriminatory land-use policies are wrong.

*Yves Engler’s latest book is Canada in Africa: 300 years of Aid and Exploitation. He’s also the author of Canada and Israel: building apartheid. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

By Reza Nasri*

One of the terms, which have been added to the United States’ political literature quite recently, is the “nuclear snapback.” This term points at a new capability, with which some American strategists and think tanks believe Iran has been endowed following the conclusion of its nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of countries, also known has the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In fact, the Iranophobic current in Washington is complaining that as a result of the JCPOA and in return for few “technical” concessions that Iran has given the opposite side, the country has been endowed with the capability to threaten the United States with the “nuclear snapback,” (which is actually the ability to regain all its past nuclear capability), and in doing this, has practically rendered useless any US Congress laws pertaining to Iran, even with regard to non-nuclear issues.

In other words, Iranophobic groups complain that following the implementation of the JCPOA, due to the psychological and political atmosphere created as a result of the threat of the “nuclear snapback” and also due to legal limitations created at international level, the American legislature is no more able to use all of its legislative powers against Iran as it did in past years. In simpler terms, just in the same way that “Mark Dubowitz,” the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and one of the most prominent anti-Iran figures in Washington, said in a congressional hearing session, although American lawmakers keep up their threats about passing new laws against Iran, in practice, no anti-Iran law has been finalized since the adoption of the JCPOA. In fact, if we wanted to mention one single important achievement of the JCPOA on its anniversary, perhaps it would be the structural and heavy blow, which it has dealt to anti-Iran legislative mechanisms in the United States legal system.

During past years and in the United States, any senator or member of the House of Representatives could mobilize all legal and political mechanisms of this country anytime they wanted and in the shortest period of time both within the federal government and at the levels of Congress and state administrations. As a result, they could have their security and economic bills passed in the form of binding decisions against Iran without facing the least amount of resistance and in coordination and cooperation with all relevant actors. However, at the present time, both the Iranian government and member states of the European Union and those groups in the United States, which seek to reduce tensions with Iran, are holding in their hands a political and legal document in the form of the JCPOA – with all its internal capacities, such as the “nuclear snapback” – and a binding United Nations Security Council resolution known as Resolution 2231, by the means of which they can prevent adoption of more anti-Iran bills at the Congress and defuse provocative measures by hostile groups.

Examples of hostile bills, which have been left in limbo following the implementation of the JCPOA, are not few. Examples to the point include legal bills drawn up at U.S. Congress under the pretext of Iran helping the government in Syria; bills, which were passed under the pretext that Iran supports terrorism; bills, which were drawn up to prevent cooperation between foreign banks and their Iranian counterparts; bills, which aimed to impose further restrictions on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its affiliated institutions; bills, which were meant to stop Iran’s missile program; bills, which have been set in motion under the pretext of enforcing supervision over the implementation of the JCPOA; bills passed on grounds of the “human rights” situation in Iran; and even bills, which aimed to extend the Iran Sanctions Act, which expires in December 2016. All of them were bills, which failed following the US president’s threat to veto them or through stonewalling by proponents of the JCPOA inside US Congress, or even as a result of overt and covert diplomatic pressures using the leverage of the JCPOA. In a similar turn of events, Jan Schakowsky, a US congresswoman from the state of Illinois, made reassuring remarks by saying that the bill drafted to prevent sale of Boeing airplanes to Iran, would fail to be finalized like other similar bills, which have been at odds with the JCPOA.

In fact, anti-Iran groups and pro-Israeli lobbies in Washington, who were previously in charge of lawmaking against Iran as a result of about two decades of efforts and investing billions of dollars at the Capitol Hill, now admit to the fact that their power has been reduced to the level of “show lawmaking” or pretense of lawmaking aimed at launching psychological war against Iran. Acknowledgement of this new reality can be greatly reassuring for foreign investors, who are willing to bring their money to the Iranian market. As a result, Iranian officials should put three measures on their agenda in order to make the most of this new capacity. Firstly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other state bodies in charge of attracting foreign investment must clearly show and repeatedly remind foreign investors of this new situation or this “reduced power” of US Congress by holding open and closed-door meetings with them.

In fact, any legal bill, which is drafted at the Congress with a lot of hype and subsequently fails in the face of the “JCPOA,” is like a positive point, which must be registered for Iran on the scoreboard of foreign investors, so that, the inability of US Congress will be revealed to enthusiastic investors. It is also not difficult to prove this new situation in the United States. It would suffice to compare behavioral model and lawmaking method of US Congress before the implementation of the JCPOA with the status quo. Secondly, as said before, following the JCPOA, US Congress has been reduced form a real capability and a real capacity to do harm through lawmaking to a virtual capability and only a “psychological” capacity to do harm and this has been admitted by its most influential figures as well.

In other words, anti-Iran American lawmakers are no more capable of taking advantage of their past weapon of passing “binding laws” and extraterritorial laws against the Islamic Republic. Therefore, in order to do harm to the implementation of the JCPOA and prevent foreign investment in Iran, they have no choice, but to resort to “publicity stunt.” Naturally, in order to fight them back and thwart their plans, officials in Iran must take advantage of the same “publicity stunt” tool to pave the way for foreign investment. In doing this, any measure or remark made by Iran’s officials, which could be a sign of “instability inside the country,” “temporary nature of the JCPOA,” or the “failure of the JCPOA,” would only shore up the remaining capabilities of hostile American lawmakers.

Thirdly, it is necessary for Iran’s domestic media, especially the state-run television and radio, to tell the truth to the country’s public opinion that thwarting complicated and multilayered sanctions of the past would need complicated and multilayered actions the ground for which has been fortunately provided by the JCPOA. Iran’s public opinion must know that today, as a result of the JCPOA, anti-Iran groups and countries have been stripped of many of their past leverages, including the lawmaking leverage on national, regional, and international levels, and are by no means able to do the same harm that they did to Iran in the past. However, full implementation of the JCPOA and taking advantage of its economic benefits requires shattering all secondary layers of sanctions, including the “psychological atmosphere” layer, whose maintenance and intensification is now a priority target for anti-Iran groups in Washington. As a result, people in Iran must be informed that the more they believe in the benefits of the JCPOA, the more they will be benefited by it.

*Reza Nasri
Law Expert from Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (HEI)
Source: Shargh Daily
http://www.sharghdaily.ir/
Translated By: Iran Review.Org

By Ambassador KP Fabian*

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Iran from 22-23 May 2016 is easily one of the best visits in terms of impact, made by this globe-trotting head of government who went to 26 countries in 2015. This visit has to be viewed in context. Iran is a superpower in energy with 10 and 18 per cent of global oil and gas reserves respectively. Treated as a pariah state by Washington since the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis and later put under more sanctions by others too for the absurd charge of enriching uranium, Iran demonstrated singular skill in playing diplomatic chess by concluding the nuclear agreement in July 2015, leading to the lifting of most of the sanctions by January 2016. China’s President Xi Jinping was the first to reach Tehran after the lifting of sanctions.

Any criticism of Modi for not rushing earlier to Iran is misplaced. He correctly chose the sequencing, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, and soon, Qatar. If Modi had gone to Iran first and then to Saudi Arabia, he would have risked a cold reception in Riyadh, of which US President Barack Obama got a taste with the Saudi media not highlighting his visit.

Modi’s meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is significant as such a meeting is rarely accorded to a visiting chief of government or state. The Ayatollah had come to India in the early 1980s when he was deputy minister of defence. Twelve agreements on matters ranging from Iran’s Chabahar Port to foreign office-level consultations were signed. The most important themes covered by the agreements are connectivity, trade, and investment. Pakistan permits Afghanistan to send goods to India via the Wagah border but it does not permit Afghanistan to import from India via the same route. Chabahar Port will give India access to Afghanistan and Central Asia. The word ‘Chabahar’ means four springs in Persian, meaning that it is always spring there. There is a road from Chabahar in Iran to Zaranj in Afghanistan, and from there to Delaram (built by India in 2009) which is on the Garden Highway linking the four major Afghan provinces of Herat, Balkh, Ghazni, Kabul, Farah and Kandahar. India will be constructing a railway line in Iran connecting Chabahar to Zahedan.

The immediate takeaway is that apart from India’s gain in improved access to Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, both Afghanistan and Iran stand to gain considerably. A glance at the map will show that Oman and UAE too will gain.

After connectivity comes energy. Some of India’s refineries are designed to take in the crude from Iran, which was a major supplier till the US began ‘dissuading’ importers of crude from Iran. Apart from buying crude and gas, India wants to invest in production. Iran’s Farzad B is a gas field under discussion and the agreement could not be finalised this time. There was a credit of USD 6.5 billion payable to Iran for crude already imported; but the US’ control over the international banking system, amounting to unipolarity, made it difficult for India to pay the sum. However, a part payment of USD 750 million was made before Modi landed in Tehran.

India will invest in the Chabahar Free Trade Zone. It is advantageous for India to produce aluminium and fertiliser given the low priced gas available there.

An agreement to deepen cultural cooperation too was signed. Modi presented a Persian version of Panchatantra and the Jataka tales and quoted Ghalib, “Once we make up our mind, the distance between Kaashi and Kaashan is only half a step.” Kashi, India is an Indian pilgrimage site and Kaashan, Iran, is famous for carpets. What was missing was an announcement about establishing an Indian cultural centre in Tehran. An Iranian cultural centre has been functional in New Delhi for years.

How will Pakistan respond to this coming together of Iran, India, and Afghanistan? Incidentally, the Dawn carried a photo of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani sitting together. One did not find it in some of the mainstream Indian dailies. Pakistan might ask China to move faster with the USD 46 billion worth 2442 kilometre-long China Pakistan Economic Corridor to Gwadar, Balochistan. Still, Pakistan will have to recognise that its policy of not normalising relations with India and arranging for terrorist attacks against Indian targets in Afghanistan from time to time might not pay the expected dividends.

It will be useful to recall that former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami came to Delhi in 2003 as the chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations and signed the Delhi Declaration. Iran was already in the “axis of evil” in the eyes of the then US President George Bush. The Delhi Declaration issued during the visit spoke of a strategic partnership and added that the two sides “will explore opportunities for cooperation in defence in agreed areas.” The Wilson Centre, a US-based think tank, got rather worked up and said, “According to some press accounts, New Delhi will have the right to use Iranian military bases for combat operations against Pakistan should another Indo-Pakistani war break out.” The point to note is that Iran is prepared to get closer to India.

Modi’s worst foreign visit was the hurried and unprepared one to Lahore in December 2015. In contrast, the one to Tehran was well prepared, diligently designed and smartly executed.

The challenge before India can be summed up in two words: timely delivery. There is scope for improvement.

* Ambassador KP Fabian
Former Indian diplomat, & Professor, Indian Society of International Law

By Sam Wang*

Every day since 2015, thousands of Ecuadorians have crossed the bridge from Tulcán, Ecuador to the border town of Ipiales, Colombia to go shopping. Goods they purchase in Colombia include food, cars, television, and even bulldogs. On a holiday weekend between May 27 and 29, more than 50,000 Ecuadorians crossed the border to Ipiales.[1] Some shoppers come from as far as Quito, a five-hour drive south of the border. Ecuadorians purchase goods in Colombia en masse due to a simple fact: prices in Colombia have become significantly cheaper. For example, a 50-inch TV costs $1,300 USD in Ecuador, but less than $800 USD in Colombia.[2] The situation has become of such concern to the Ecuadorian government that last year, President Rafael Correa issued a “call of conscience” to Ecuadorians, asking his compatriots to “offer support to the national production” by buying Ecuadorian products.[3]

In addition to Panama and El Salvador, Ecuador is one of the Latin American countries that uses the U.S. dollar as the only official currency. Ecuador does not print its own bank notes. In recent years, the U.S. dollar has continuously appreciated against other currencies in Latin America, making the price of goods in Ecuador higher than that in neighboring Colombia and Peru. Ecuador abandoned its old currency, the sucre, during a severe economic crisis in 2000 and has been using U.S. dollars ever since. With the appreciation of the U.S. dollar, doubts have emerged regarding the fate of dollarization. A recent Wall Street Journal article stated that Ecuador “has the misfortune to be an oil producer with a ‘dollarized’ economy that uses the U.S. currency as legal tender.”[4] The appreciation of the U.S. dollar against other currencies has decreased the net exports of non-oil commodities from Ecuador, which, coupled with the fall in oil prices, has constrained the country’s potential for economic growth.

The government of Ecuador has also cast doubt on the success of dollarization; as early as 2014, Correa said that “dollarization was a bad idea.”[5] In the same year, he established a parallel electronic currency for domestic use, which some believe is the first step of de-dollarizing the economy. However, proponents of dollarization believe that it has generated considerable macroeconomic benefits to Ecuador in the past 16 years. Through an examination of the impacts of dollarization in the 21st century and the economic principles behind it, this article argues that both the positive and negative impacts of dollarization are perhaps being overstated, and that a de-dollarization process would provide more negative effects than positive outcomes for Ecuador.

Why Dollarize?

Before delving into a discussion of the pros and cons of using dollars, one should first examine the history of dollarization in Ecuador. In the late 1990s, Ecuador experienced a severe economic crisis due to a combination of low oil prices, the low tax base of the non-oil sector, and big public sector wage increases.[6] The value of the sucre fell drastically, and the inflation rate galloped to 96.1 percent in 2000.[7] Ecuadorians first started adopting dollars informally in an effort to avoid losing their purchasing power, and massive capital flowed out of the country due to the exchange rate crisis.[8] In the same year, in order to halt capital outflow and hyperinflation, Ecuador decided to substitute its currency with the U.S. dollar. [9] The decision to dollarize the economy slowed hyperinflation, stopped the free fall of sucre, and stabilized the financial market, all of which significantly helped resolve the economic crisis. Although the exact impact of dollarization on Ecuador’s economic growth is beyond the scope of this study, after dollarization, Ecuador has enjoyed an average annual economic growth of 4.4 percent, higher than many Latin American countries.[10]

Benefits of Dollarization

There are several benefits of dollarization that should be noted. Most evidently, it decreases transaction costs in international trade, which normally occur whenever people exchange one currency for another. Dollarization eliminates this cost in the trade with the United States, Ecuador’s largest trading partner, since businesses do not need to change from one currency to another. It also promotes long-term investment and trade since businesses tend to be reassured by the stability of the exchange rate.[11] In fact, Ecuador’s export to the United States has increased since dollarization, while the exports of neighboring Colombia and Peru, whose economies are both larger than Ecuador’s, have stagnated, although dollarization may not be the only factor of such an increase.

Source: Author’s elaboration with data from UN Comtrade

The second benefit of dollarization is a lower risk of inflation.[12] By using a foreign currency, an officially dollarized country assures itself of a rate of inflation close to that of the issuing country because confidence exists that inflation in the dollar will continue to be low.[13] However, it should be noted that the adjustment to lower rates took several years after the abandonment of the sucre. The inflation rate stayed at double digits in 2001 and 2002, and did not go below five percent until 2004.[14] Some economists predicted that inflation rates in Ecuador in the medium- and long-term would be relatively consistent with U.S. inflation rates, but in 2011 and 2012, it climbed up again to around five percent.[15] In comparison, the U.S. inflation rate since 2000 has never exceeded four percent.[16] Dollarization is not enough for a country to have a stable inflation rate. In the case of Ecuador, a developing country, the associated risk premium is still higher than that of the United States, a developed country with relatively high economic stability.

Proponents of dollarization also refer to another advantage: currency substitution prevents the Central Bank from having its own monetary policy. This seems very counterintuitive, since monetary policy is one of the two instruments that a government can use to influence a state’s economy. Proponents of dollarization argue that the elimination of a national currency means that government deficits must be financed through fiscal policies, which include the fairly transparent methods of raising taxes or accumulating debt, rather than through printing money.[17] Unlike the U.S. Federal Reserve, but similar to many central banks in Latin America, the Central Bank of Ecuador is not an independent institution but an agency of the executive branch. This is explicitly stated in Article 303 of the Constitution of Ecuador.[18] In the United States, the independent Fed is able to institute sound monetary policies that are not subject to the political whims of the administration, but when a central bank is in complete control of the executive branch, there is a possibility that the government would implement expansionary monetary policies intended to provide an economic stimulus before elections or finance a growing government budget deficit. In both situations, an overly aggressive expansionary monetary policy would lead to a rising inflation rate and a falling exchange rate, which would contribute to destabilizing the economy. Such cases have occurred in the past in Argentina and Venezuela.[19] Proponents of dollarization argue that it gets rid of the moral hazard, by which politicians can infinitely finance public spending by increasing the money supply, and instead leads to budgetary discipline and more responsible government spending.

Putting aside the questions regarding whether Latin American governments are capable of developing sensible monetary policies and whether an independent central bank is preferable, dollarization does not fully address its proponents’ concern of growing public spending, since it does not curb expansionary fiscal policies. The government expenditure of Ecuador has increased from 20 percent of the GDP in 2000 to a high 44 percent in 2014.[20] In comparison, the government expenditure of Colombia, Peru, and Mexico has never exceeded 30 percent of their respective GDPs since 2000.[21] Consequently, since the Ecuadorian government cannot print money, it financed spending through debt. In the past decade, the debt-to-GDP ratio has also increased from a low of 16.4 percent to 33.1 percent in 2015.[22] The increasing government debt has not reached an alarming level, but the considerable increase in government spending necessitates caution. The government of Ecuador has taken steps to address the issue; in April, President Correa announced a two percentage point increase in sales tax, a new wealth tax for millionaires, and the possible sale of government assets.[23] These measures will help finance an increasing budget and maintain fiscal sustainability. Nevertheless, dollarization does not impact fiscal policies, and has virtually no effect on the rising budget.

Disadvantages of Dollarization

The biggest advantage of dollarization in the eyes of its supporters is precisely the reason why others are critical of it—the central bank is unable to have its own monetary policy. The use of the U.S. dollar as legal tender means that one of the two instruments for influencing the economy is unavailable to the government. The absence of monetary policy, besides making it harder for the government to intervene during times of recession, has an adverse effect on exports. A weak domestic currency stimulates exports, and a strong domestic currency makes the country’s exports less competitive in the international market compared to goods from other countries.[24] In the past two years, the U.S. dollar has appreciated considerably; the dollar index, which measures the relative value of the U.S. dollar against a basket of foreign currencies, has risen about 25 percent since 2014.[25] This makes Ecuador’s exports less competitive in the international market. In fact, in 2015, Ecuador’s non-oil export value dropped by 5.9 percent from the previous year.[26] In comparison, products from countries such as Colombia and Peru, both of which saw their currency depreciate against the dollar, became relatively cheaper and more competitive.

Even during times when the dollar is not rising, the instrument of monetary policy would give Ecuador an option to stimulate the economy through “competitive devaluation,” which refers to the strategic and large-scale depreciation of a domestic currency to boost export volumes.[27] For example, starting in 2013, the Japanese government deliberately depreciated its currency in order to make Japanese exports more competitive.[28] Without the option of implementing such policy, Ecuador’s exporters are dependent on the fluctuations of the market. Especially in times of economic crisis, countries without monetary policy have to go through internal devaluation, which restores competitiveness by reducing labor costs. and is often a much longer and more painful process.

Despite the benefits of having control on monetary policy, a de-dollarization in Ecuador would not do much to help its export sector, given that the underlying problem is that Ecuador’s economy is dependent on oil. The dependence has been a structural problem ever since Ecuador discovered its oil resources. In 2014, 52 percent of Ecuador’s export value came from petroleum.[29] Since then, oil prices have fallen significantly; the Brent Crude decreased from $100 USD per barrel to less than $50 USD today, which dealt a heavy blow to the economy of Ecuador.[30] The dominance of the oil sector makes it extremely hard to rely upon monetary policies to boost export for two reasons. First, a currency depreciation does not help oil export because oil is priced and traded in a world price denominated in U.S. dollars. A country’s capacity to produce oil is also limited; Ecuador cannot immediately increase oil production even if there is a sudden increase in demand. Second, the revenue brought in by oil exports is in U.S. dollars. If Ecuador de-dollarizes, a large and constant inflow of U.S. dollars would lead the national currency to appreciate because there will be a constant demand for changing the petrodollars to the national currency, whereas export sectors, such as manufacturing gain an advantage when the national currency depreciates. This means that the positive, effect of a currency depreciation on exports would be largely offset by the effect of petrodollars. In order to overcome the petrodollar effect, oil-producing countries have to depreciate their currencies much more than non-oil-producing countries to increase export value. However, a country cannot permanently conduct expansionary monetary policies, since doing so would both lead to a high inflation rate and encourage irresponsible government spending.

Moreover, placing the responsibility of boosting exports solely on currency depreciation would potentially neglect other ways to promote exports. In 2011, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador’s only neighbors, joined the Pacific Alliance with Mexico and Chile. The regional trade block has eliminated tariffs on over 92 percent of goods, eased intra-Alliance visa restrictions, and integrated stock markets of their members.[31] The elimination of tariffs makes goods from those four countries more competitive in other countries of the Alliance. Especially relevant is the advantage afforded to Colombia, whose banana and flower industries are as significant and competitive as Ecuador’s. Ecuadorian exporters will face increasing competition with their Colombian counterparts when they sell goods to Mexico, Peru, and Chile. Instead of fixating on the issue of dollarization, the government of Ecuador and international economists should be more inclined to promote regional economic integration and abolish tariffs between Ecuador and other Latin American countries.

Concluding Remarks

Both supporters and opponents of dollarization have overstated the policy’s effects on the Ecuadorian economy. Dollarization is not a sole remedy for all economic problems, but neither is having a national currency. De-dollarizing the economy today would trigger market uncertainty and lead to economic instability, which would inevitably hurt Ecuador. Furthermore, the fact that Ecuador’s economy is heavily dependent on oil is a sad but unavoidable truth that cannot be changed in the short term. This is not to say that the government should significantly shrink the oil sector—oil revenue is a crucial source of funding for social projects that benefit the lower class. Nevertheless, to offset the negative effects of using U.S. dollars, Ecuador should enact policies that maintain macroeconomic stability, such as setting up a rainy day fund for economic downturns, and promote regional trade and integration to boost its exports within the region.

*Sam Wang, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Notes:
[1] “Ipiales, La Despensa Colombiana De Ecuador.” EL PAÍS. 2016. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2016/06/20/america/1466376543_846138.html.

[2] “¿Por Qué Correa No Quiere Que Ecuatorianos Compren En Colombia? – Latinoamérica – El Tiempo.” El Tiempo. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/por-que-correa-no-quiere-que-ecuatorianos-compren-en-colombia/16343555.

[3] “Ecuador Les Pide a Sus Ciudadanos No Comprar En Colombia.” CNNEspañol.com. 2015. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2015/09/02/ecuador-le-pide-a-sus-ciudadanos-no-comprar-en-colombia/.

[4] Cui, Carolyn. “Cheap Oil and Strong Dollar: Ecuador’s Twin Troubles.” WSJ. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.wsj.com/articles/cheap-oil-and-strong-dollar-ecuadors-twin-troubles-1448320496.

[5] “Correa Says ‘dollarization Was a Bad Idea’; Says That Ecuador’s Reliance on the Dollar Puts Country in a Financial ‘straight Jacket’ | CuencaHighLife.” CuencaHighLife. 2014. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.cuencahighlife.com/correa-says-again-that-dollarization-was-a-bad-idea-says-that-ecuadors-reliance-on-the-dollar-puts-country-in-a-financial-straight-jacket/.

[6] “Ecuador and the IMF.” IMF. Accessed July 13, 2016. https://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2000/051900.htm.

[7] “Ecuador Inflation Rate (consumer Prices).” Index Mundi. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.indexmundi.com/ecuador/inflation_rate_(consumer_prices).html.

[8] “Ideas Have Consequences: The Case of Dollarization in Ecuador.” Atlas Network. Accessed July 14, 2016. https://www.atlasnetwork.org/news/article/ideas-have-consequences-the-case-of-dollarization-in-ecuador.

[9] Ibid.

[10] “Dollarisation in Ecuador.” Adam Smith Institute. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/dollarisation-in-ecuador.

[11] “Basics of Dollarization.” Global Policy Forum. Accessed July 13, 2016. https://www.globalpolicy.org/pmscs/30435.html.

[12] “Dollarization Explained | Investopedia.” Investopedia. 2004. Accessed July 15, 2016. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/082504.asp.

[13] Ibid.

[14] “Official Dollarization and the Banking System in Ecuador and El Salvador.” Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Accessed July 13, 2016.

[15] “Ecuador Inflation Rate | 1970-2016 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast.” Trading Economics. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ecuador/inflation-cpi.

[16] “United States Inflation Rate (consumer Prices).” Index Mundi. Accessed July 15, 2016. http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/inflation_rate_(consumer_prices).htm

[17] “Basics of Dollarization.” Global Policy Forum. Accessed July 13, 2016. https://www.globalpolicy.org/pmscs/30435.html.

[18] “República Del Ecuador Republic of Ecuador Constitution of 2008 Constitucion De 2008.” Ecuador: 2008 Constitution in English. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Ecuador/english08.html.

[19] “10000 Years of Economy.” Cité De L’Économie Et De La Monnaie. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.citeco.fr/10000-years-history-economics/contemporary-world/hyperinflation-in-argentina.

[20] “Ecuador – Gasto Público 2016.” Datosmacro.com. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.datosmacro.com/estado/gasto/ecuador.

[21] Ibid.

[22] “Ecuador Government Debt to GDP | 1990-2016 | Data | Chart | Calendar.” Trading Economics. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ecuador/government-debt-to-gdp.

[23] Casey, Nicholas. “Earthquake Jolts Ecuador Into Enacting Long-Avoided Fiscal Changes.” The New York Times. 2016. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/world/americas/earthquake-jolts-ecuador-into-enacting-long-avoided-fiscal-changes.html?_r=1.

[24] “Interesting Facts About Imports And Exports | Investopedia.” Investopedia. 2013. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100813/interesting-facts-about-imports-and-exports.asp.

[25] “U.S. Dollar Index (DXY).” Market Watch. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy.

[26] “Download Trade Data.” UN Comtrade. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://comtrade.un.org/data/.

[27] “Interesting Facts About Imports And Exports | Investopedia.” Investopedia. 2013. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100813/interesting-facts-about-imports-and-exports.asp.

[28] “Japan’s Devaluation Warning for Europe.” WSJ. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.wsj.com/articles/japans-devaluation-warning-for-europe-1426548519.

[29] “What Did Ecuador Export in 2014? @Atlas_facts.” What Did Ecuador Export in 2014? Accessed July 13, 2016. http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore/tree_map/export/ecu/all/show/2014/.

[30] “Brent Crude (Sep’16) (@LCO.1 :).” CNBC. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/@LCO.1.

[31] “B|Brief: The Pacific Alliance 2.0 – Next Level Integration.” Bertelsmann Foundation. Accessed July 13, 2016. http://www.bfna.org/publication/bbrief-the-pacific-alliance-2-0-next-level-integration.

In reading this excellent article in Hurriyet by Ezgi Başaran on Fethullah Gülen’s false image as a moderate, peace-loving visionary, I couldn’t help but sympathize with the experience described in her introduction:

“Approximately two months ago, I was sitting across a table from two British academics who pin themselves as Turkey experts. The conversation became heated when I tried to point out the machinations of the Gülen movement in the high profile Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases and its attempts to sabotage the latest Kurdish peace process. (…) Not only did they reckon too little about the incidents that had shaken Turkey in the last five-six years, they were not willing to listen either.”

Ever since we began our global investigation into the criminal activities of the Gülen organization we’ve been consistently and continually running up into exactly this same kind of attitude … people who had already bought in to the fiction, and who were simply unable to even consider (a vast array) of contradictory facts. Anyone who has seen a few of my television appearances following the attempted coup could see just what an uphill struggle it is to inform people of the criminal activities of the Gülenists – they often simply don’t want to hear it.  Başaran points out that it isn’t because all media is corrupt or unintelligent, but rather that they had already been converted by an intense, years-long media campaign on behalf of the Gülenists to shape the narrative on Turkey and their own exalted leader.

But for those willing to listen to the facts, Başaran goes on to outline a list of the TOP 11 things you should know about the real Fethullah Gülen. I hope more reporters will consider the full story about this dangerous individual:

1. The Gülen movement, led by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, is embraced by the Western media and politicians as a promoter of peace and interfaith dialogue. However, this was hardly ever the case. He actually left Turkey subsequent to a trial that charged him with toppling the secular state in 1999. However, in the post 9/11 era he found support in the West, where he was seen as an antidote to rising radical Islamism. His first application to the U.S. for “a preference visa as an alien of extraordinary ability in the field of education” was denied due to the fact that he was “is not an educator, and is certainly not one of a small percentage of experts in the field of education who have risen to the very top of that field. Further, the record contains overwhelming evidence that [the] plaintiff [Gülen] is primarily the leader of a large and influential religious and political movement with immense commercial holdings.” But then Gülen was nevertheless granted a green card with reference letters including ones from three U.S. officials: Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Morton Abromovotiz and former CIA officials George Fidas and Graham Fuller.

2. The Gülen movement has two layers. The first one consists of Fethullah Gülen’s many disciples who more or less believe that he is the Mahdi, the Islamic version of a messiah. The second layer is the top echelon known to operate as a secret network, nested mainly in the security apparatus and the judiciary, to achieve their goals through Machiavellian methods, especially in Turkey. His followers in the state civil service, judiciary, police and – as we have understood recently – in the army are more loyal to Gülen than the institutions they work for. They take orders from the “brothers” of the movement rather than acting in the lawful chain of command of the state.

3. Fethullah Gülen believes in secretive and incremental take-over from within and that the change should come from the bottom up. One of his early sermons which was included in the indictment of 1999 epitomizes this belief: “You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this… You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it… You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey… Until that time, any step taken would be too early – like breaking an egg without waiting the full 40 days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside.”

4. The Gülen movement had been working with the best PR agents in America and built a strong lobbying machine in the U.S., the U.K. and Turkey. According to the U.S. government, this movement’s financial capacity was estimated to be between $25 billion and $50 billion with schools and charities in more than 150 countries.

5. The Gülen movement’s infiltration into the Turkish state dates back to late 1980s. His disciples’ presence were tacitly condoned by the Bülent Ecevit, Süleyman Demirel and Tansu Çiller administrations, even though he has always been considered as a threat by the Kemalist establishment and the army, which considers itself the guardian of the secular state. It appears that those who suspected their actions were very much right.

6. The Gülen movement lived its golden years during the first decade of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. The AKP initially formed an alliance with the group to eliminate the power of the army in politics. This alliance was most apparent in 2007, in the aftermath of the e-memorandum of the military opposing the presidency of Abdullah Gül. 46 days later a high profile case called Ergenekon started. Another case called Sledgehammer followed in 2010. In these cases, military officials, opposition MPs and journalists were accused of plotting a violent coup to oust the AKP government. It later turned out that these cases were based on fabricated evidence and that most such fabrications were done by the Gülenists in the police. All the defendants were acquitted of those crimes in 2015. President Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan later admitted that he was misled by Gülen’s followers in the state. July 15 showed that it was actually the followers of Gülen who had violent coup plans.

7. Daily Hürriyet Editor-in-Chief Sedat Ergin recently published an article affirming that the perpetrators of the coup were the military officers who had risen to critical positions which were vacated by the sham Sledgehammer trial. It is obvious that these cases served the purpose of undermining the power of Kemalists in the armed forces and replacing them with the Gülenists.

8. Journalists who had written about the Gülen machinations in these trials endured slander campaigns and threats of arrests. Fellow journalists Barış Terkoğlu, Barış Pehlivan, Soner Yalçın, Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık served time because of their work that showed Gülen’s infiltration into the state. Şık was writing a book on Gülen’s presence in the police force while Şener was investigating the links of Gülen’s disciples with the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Now Gülen-linked officers stand trial on the Dink murder case.

9. Fethullah Gülen in his recent op-ed for the New York Times makes a reference to the AKP’s crackdown on Kurds. However, this sounds rather hypocritical. Many of us, including myself, criticized the AKP’s handling of the peace process. However, the Gülen movement was one of the main forces that worked actively to undermine the process. Their first strike was a mass arresting campaign against almost 8000 Kurdish activists, elected mayors, academics and journalists after 2009 known as the KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) arrests. Prominent Kurdish politician Hatip Dicle acknowledged that “the mind that started the KCK operations was the Gülen movement’s elements in the police and judiciary… After we had won 100 mayorships from the 2009 local elections, they came up with the idea of these operations just to terrorize us.” The idea of the Gülen movement being the mastermind behind the KCK operations not only belongs to Kurds, as it was also confirmed by the AKP government. “It was the Gülen movement who had staged the KCK trials,” said Undersecretary of Public Security and Order Muhammed Dervisoğlu. The second strike was the leaking of the records of the Oslo talks, where the chief of National Intelligence Agency (MİT), Hakan Fidan, was negotiating with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Only the Gülenists within the security apparatus had the means to reach such confidential material and they were the ones who promoted them the most. The third strike was an attempt to detain Fidan and former directors of the organization on Feb. 7, 2012, because of those negotiations. This attempt was also backed by known Gülenists within the judiciary.

10. The accusation that the coup attempt was led by Gülenist generals is not based on simple force of assertion. It is rather based on hard evidence that had unfortunately been dismissed for years. Ahmet Zeki Üçok, a military prosecutor, carried out a comprehensive investigation into the Gülenists in the armed forces in 2009. He discovered a large secret network within the army. He identified many members of this unlawful organization by their names. However, he could not complete his investigation as he was detained on the grounds that he tortured certain witnesses by “hypnotizing” them and also as part of the Sledgehammer case. He spent almost five years in prison. When he gave an interview to Ahmet Hakan last April he stated that he knew the Gülenists in the army name-by-name. Immediately after the botched coup attempt, he declared that the leaders of the coup matched perfectly the list that he had. Referring to the F-16s that bombed the Turkish parliament he recalled the words of now-retired Col. Selçuk Başyiğit in the court records: “We are now very strong. We have F-16s, F-4s that will take off with a single order of Fethullah Gülen.” Üçok’s findings were corroborated by many soldiers who fought against the coup attempt or by those soldiers who were the victims of the Sledgehammer case.

11. Finally, all political parties in the parliament, the AKP, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) are in consensus in an unprecedented way that the coup attempt of July 15 was orchestrated by Gülenist soldiers. The testimonies of the perpetrators of the coup further prove this point. Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar’s aide-de-camp confessed to links to Gülen and described how he had wiretapped former Chief of Armed Forces Necdet Ozel.

Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was a list of aspirations, without any explanation of the policies he had in mind to meet those goals. That’s not surprising, because that is the nature of political campaign rhetoric. Politicians rarely say what they plan to do. Rather, they talk about perceived problems that exist now, and say they will make things better. This isn’t a criticism of Trump. All politicians do that, and I fully expect Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech to be much the same.

Trump said he would make America safe again. He didn’t say how. He said he’d hire the best people to get the job done, but he didn’t say who they are, or how he would find them.

Trump said we had bad trade deals, and he’d renegotiate them to get better deals. He didn’t say what was wrong with the deals we have, and he didn’t say what terms he’d include in any renegotiated deals.

Trump said he’d cut taxes. He didn’t say what taxes he would cut, or give any outline of tax reductions he had in mind.

Trump said he’d cut regulations that reduce productivity. He didn’t say what those regulations were, or what regulations would be eliminated.

Trump said he’d return manufacturing jobs to the United States. He didn’t say how he would do this, leaving me with the suspicion that he’s inclined to place regulations on businesses–the very kind he said he’d repeal in another part of his talk.

This is the nature of campaign rhetoric. Rather than advocate specific policies, point out how things could be better than they are. Everyone agrees they could be. And then say if you are elected, you will make things better. So, while I don’t fault Trump for following a long-standing formula in his campaign speech, I can’t give him too much credit for bold thinking either.

My overall evaluation of his talk was negative. Why? Because well before it was over, I was asking myself how much longer he was going to talk. When that happens, I figure the speaker has gone on too long.

This article was published at The Beacon.

Beijing bitterly opposes the deployment of US missile defence systems in South Korea, but unless it is prepared to implement sanctions which would seriously punish Pyongyang’s missile aggrandisement, such deployments are inevitable.

By Nah Liang Tuang*

The progress of the North Korean ballistic missile programme seems inexorable. If recent history is any guide, it shows that Pyongyang will order its rocket scientists and technicians to doggedly pursue their life’s work until success is achieved and can be trumpeted to the international community.

Looking at the DPRK’s long range missile programme, the Pyongyang regime’s determination to exhibit rocketry progress is shown by failed Paektusan and Taepodong model tests on 31 August 1998 and 5 July 2006 respectively, followed by failed Unha model rocket launches in 2009 and 2012. Eventually, North Korea determination was rewarded with a successful Unha launch in December 2012. Such tenacity to showcase missile development was also displayed in the shorter ranged Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) category.

North Korean SLBMs: Same Stubborn Resolve?

In his quest to build a credible ability to threaten US Pacific territories like Guam with a nuclear strike, current DPRK leader Kim Jong-un has pushed his missile programme through five unsuccessful tests of the Hwasong-10 IRBM between 15 April and 22 June 2016, before a successful sixth test on the same day as the fifth failure.

On 9 July 2016, Kim’s missile programme attempted to test a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), a KN-11 or Bukguekseong-1 SLBM. This missile exploded after reaching an altitude of about 10km and a lateral range of only a few kilometres. However, if history is any guide, this failure should not be dismissed as the North Koreans are known to disregard surrender as an option, striving for a successful test over the long run. Excluding the most recent launch, the KN-11 has already been tested nine times since October 2014 from both land and marine platforms and from submarines with varying levels of success.

While South Korea’s national intelligence agency has predicted that Pyongyang could deploy an operational SLBM by 2019, it would not be surprising if this goal is reached much earlier than expected, if the rushed and eventual successful testing of the Hwasong-10 this year is anything to go by.

Pyongyang’s Missiles and China’s Concerns

If the deployment of effective North Korean IRBMs and SLBMs is treated as inevitable, it would only make sense for the US-ROK alliance to deploy the US made Theatre High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile system on South Korean soil in order to intercept any missiles that the DPRK might launch in any future crisis.

However, the range of the THAAD radars and interceptor missiles also enable this system to intercept missiles fired from China, thereby eroding the efficacy of Beijing’s strategic nuclear deterrence vis-à-vis the US. Hence, Beijing bitterly opposes Washington’s and Seoul’s joint decision, to deploy THAAD in the ROK.

However, it must be said that Beijing cannot have its cake and eat it too. In all previous nuclear or missile crises instigated by Pyongyang, China has always insisted that North Korea be reasoned and negotiated with, while concurrently persuading the US and ROK from implementing militarily punitive measures, and refusing to apply any economic sanctions that would seriously pressure the DPRK.

Cynics could argue that the Chinese leadership wants both Washington and Seoul to maintain a policy of perpetual strategic patience, and treat North Korea with “kid gloves” whilst respecting Chinese deterrence sensitivities.

Reality that Beijing Should Recognise

From past experience, it can be seen that the Pyongyang regime is all too willing to use nuclear and missile aggrandisement as part of a coercive negotiating strategy to obtain aid from the US and/or South Korea. Hence, since carrots do not work to bring about any lasting positive change in North Korea’s behaviour, it is reasonable to resort to the stick.

Additionally, acknowledging that the DPRK can, given sufficient time, develop successful IRBM, SLBM and possibly Intercontinental Ballistic Missile technology demonstrators that perform well in tests, action can be taken to limit Pyongyang’s strategic missile arsenal which can threaten targets beyond Japan to the low dozens or less.

Considering that previous United Nations Security Council Resolutions have already prohibited all North Korean ballistic missile tests, China as the DPRK’s only significant conduit to the world, must strictly prohibit all rocket fuel or fuel production chemicals exports, along with any materials components shipments that might be useful for missile production, to the latter.

Lastly, it would be hypocritical of Beijing to object to THAAD deployment while refusing to apply coercive economic leverage in order to influence the Pyongyang regime’s choices. If Kim Jong-un chooses to thumb his nose at Beijing using nuclear and missile shenanigans, perhaps a two-week closure of all land crossings and sea ports to North Korean commercial traffic would remind young Marshall Kim that just as his grandfather and father could not ignore the strategic interests and dictates of China, neither can he.

*Nah Liang Tuang, PhD is a Fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Africa and China must accelerate efforts to find innovative and creative mechanisms to unblock any domestic regulatory and financial challenges to cooperation.

However, Africa also has the obligation to ensure the relevant levels of institutional readiness, capacities for delivery and feasibility of projects in order to meet the requirements and maximize on the potential.

This was the message by Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane who is co-chairing the Coordinators Meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), in Beijing.

South Africa and China are the co-chairs of the FOCAC until 2018.

The FOCAC Coordinators Meeting is assessing the progress in terms of implementation after the commitments made at the Johannesburg Summit of the FOCAC in December 2015.

The FOCAC meetings are aimed at reinforcing the historical solidarity of friendship through win-win cooperation that exists between the governments and people of Africa and China.

This refers, in particular to large infrastructure programs that complement those identified within the African Union’s vision for the next 50 years, Agenda 2063, as well as the 10 New Measures announced by President Xi Jinping to address the three main bottlenecks in African development.

Win-win collaboration

For the plans to work, Minister Nkoana-Mashabane said the industrialization should be a centrepiece of this win-win collaboration and friendship by using comparative advantages.

Linked to this, the Minister said, is the need for both countries to beneficiate their natural and mineral resources.

“This has been identified as a significant driver of economic growth, not least because it will create jobs for our growing young population; contribute to feeder industries; and develop Africa’s capacity to generate higher value exports by allowing us to use the minerals in the belly of African soil to nourish the belly of the African child.”

The second step Minister Nkoana-Mashabane said must include increasing people-to-people exchanges and cooperating on training and skills development focusing in science, technology, engineering and mathematics as these are critical to supporting the implementation of our medium- to long- term FOCAC development goals.

“Thirdly, we must accelerate our work to ensure that Africa becomes self-sufficient in food production and supply by modernising agriculture, increasing productivity, engaging our communities and farmers, in a full value chain, including agro-processing and agro-business,” Minister Nkoana-Mashabane said.

She was also of the view that there can be no industrialisation without enhanced and clean and cost effective energy generation.

As such the Minister said the two sides need to use newer technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro.

The last step, she said, is advancing efforts for common development through smoother and faster integration and connectedness.

Equally important is the need for China to open her market for Africa’s products and services, Minister Nkoana-Mashabane said.

A sharp slowing of the rate of inventory accumulation led to a lower than expected 1.2 percent GDP growth rate in the second quarter. The weakness of inventories subtracted 1.16 percentage points from the quarter’s growth. Final demand grew at a moderate 2.4 percent annual rate. The first quarter’s data were also revised down from 1.1 to 0.8 percent, meaning that the economy grew at just a 1.0 percent annual rate in the first half of the year.

Consumption is by far the main factor driving growth in the quarter, growing at a 4.2 percent annual rate. Most of this growth was on the goods side, which grew at a 6.8 percent annual rate, while consumption of services grew at a more modest 3.0 percent rate. There were some anomalies driving this growth. Food grew at a 8.6 percent rate adding 0.41 percentage points to the quarter’s growth, while housing and utilities grew at a 4.2 percent rate, adding 0.52 percentage points to the quarter’s growth. The jump in both areas is likely to be at least partially reversed in future quarters, slowing growth. This is especially likely in the housing category where utility use is driven to a large extent by the weather.

Nominal spending on health care grew at a 5.4 percent annual rate, exceeding the 3.5 percent growth rate of nominal GDP. While health care spending has been growing modestly as a share of GDP in recent quarters, its growth rate remains well below the pace of the first half of the last decade.

Most categories of investment were negative, with non-residential structures falling at a 7.9 percent rate and equipment investment falling at a 3.5 percent rate. The decline in structure investment is due to serious overbuilding in many categories. The drop may not continue, but we are unlikely to see a substantial turnaround. Equipment investment has been weak both due to the plunge in energy prices and also the rising trade deficit reducing demand in the U.S. manufacturing sector. Investment in intellectual property products grew at a modest 3.5 percent rate.

Residential construction fell at a 6.1 percent rate, after six consecutive quarters of strong growth. This drop will almost certainly be reversed in the next two quarters, as the sector remains a modest positive for the economy.

Trade was a small positive, adding 0.23 percentage points to growth in the quarter. Exports grew at a 1.4 percent annual rate while imports declined at a 0.4 percent rate. The weakness of imports is likely associated with the drop in inventories, as a large portion of inventories are imported. Interestingly, the rise in exports was all on the goods side as exports of services fell at a 0.9 percent annual rate, its fourth drop in the last five quarters. Imports of services rose at a 1.5 percent annual rate, its fifth consecutive increase.

Government spending fell at a 0.9 percent annual rate, subtracting 0.16 percentage points from this quarter’s growth. Federal, state, and local spending declined in the quarter, but most of the drop was due to a 1.3 percentage drop in state and local spending.

The core personal consumption expenditure deflator increased at a 1.7 percent annual rate in the quarter, and is still under the Fed’s targeted 2.0 percent average rate. The inflation rate by this measure has averaged just 1.6 percent over the last five years.

The savings rate was 5.5 percent in the second quarter, the lowest rate since the first quarter of 2015. This may call into question all the compelling explanations as to why households were not spending their dividend from falling energy prices, since it seems they were.

The revisions released with this quarter’s data had a modest positive effect on the growth picture of the last three years, with both the growth numbers for 2013 and 2015 being revised up by 0.2 percentage points. The average growth for these three years now stands at 2.2 percent.

While the second quarter’s drop in inventories will be reversed in future quarters, leading to a positive contribution to growth, it is questionable whether growth will even cross 2.0 percent for the year. Concerns at the Fed and elsewhere about overly rapid growth seem to be seriously misplaced.

The acting Prime Minister of the Government, Mariano Rajoy, responded to the monarch that although he does not have sufficient parliamentary support to do so, he will look for the necessary support within a reasonable period.

Rajoy gave a press briefing at Moncloa Palace after closing off the round of consultations held by King Felipe VI at Zarzuela Palace with the representatives of the parliamentary groups, to propose a candidate for the Presidency of the Government under the 12th Legislature.

Rajoy informed the monarch of the public and private talks he had held with the leaders of the main political forces with the aim of forming a “stable and solid government as swiftly as possible”.

“It is necessary to have a government that, with the broadest consensus possible, can tackle the very serious challenges we face and which will not permit any form of introspection,” Rajoy said.

In this regard, Rajoy recalled that he had sent out a working document, containing his proposals, to the parliamentary groups, while reiterating that this was open for discussion. “We have never considered this as a contract of accession, but rather as a general script open to negotiation. This was and is a proposal open to debate and an agreement that sets out the major targets for Spain on which we can reach agreement, but which requires proposals to make this consensus a reality”.

Rajoy stated that the King commissioned him to stand for a vote of investiture for the Presidency of the Government. “I explained to him that, to date, I do not have sufficient support to do so, but that I would accept the commission. I will look for this support, which I have been doing to date, and I will now do so in my role under a commission from the Head of State”.

“My intention is to negotiate a potential program to govern. To do this, I will address my actions on a preferential basis to the pro-Constitution parties, those with which I feel it would be most reasonable to reach an agreement, now more than ever. The vast majority of Spaniards share these same values: the defence of unity and national sovereignty, our rights and liberties, our commitment to the European project and the fight against terrorism. I believe that these common values are a good starting point to make progress on dialogue,” Rajoy said.

Rajoy added that it is his intention to seek support to form a government that is “moderate, stable, with a clear parliamentary support, a well-defined action plan and a calendar in which to carry that out”, but that if this option is not available, he is open to “exploring the possibility of a minority government” with only the support of his own party.

Rajoy acknowledged that “this formula is only possible if the rest of the groups guarantee minimum loyalty so as not to block urgent and important issues”, such as the budget stability targets and the sustainability of the public debt, the transposition of EU directives, the drafting of the budget, counter-terrorism measures and the broad strokes of foreign policy.

In this regard, Rajoy maintained that he has taken on the maximum responsibility as the president of the most voted-for party, but the other leaders, according to the support they have received, must also collaborate. “We must avoid holding a third round of elections, find a channel for the will of the Spanish people as expressed through the ballot box, be respectful with how they have voted and offer a swift solution that allows the thrust of our economic recovery to be maintained.”

Rajoy stressed that, as from Friday, he will step up negotiations and open up a round of contacts, this time under a Royal Commission. “In a reasonable time I will report on the actions I have carried out, on the results therefrom, on the support I have achieved for a potential vote of confidence and, consequently, on whether or not I am in a position to form a government.”

July 28 is World Hepatitis Day (WHD), one of eight official global public health campaigns marked by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHD aims to raise global awareness of hepatitis and encourage prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Viral hepatitis – a group of infectious diseases known as hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E – affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, causing acute and chronic disease and killing close to 1.4 million people every year.

The year 2016 is particularly important in the global fight to eliminate hepatitis. Earlier this year, on 28 May, 194 WHO Member States made a historic commitment to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030. During the 69th World Health Assembly, governments unanimously voted to adopt the first ever Global Viral Hepatitis Strategy, signalling the greatest global commitment in viral hepatitis to date. The strategy sets a goal of eliminating hepatitis B and C by 2030 and includes a set of prevention and treatment targets which, if reached, will reduce annual deaths by 65% and increase treatment to 80%, saving 7.1 million lives globally by 2030. Furthermore, as part of the commitments made during at the 69th World Health Assembly, Nohep, a global movement to eliminate viral hepatitis, is being launched on 28 July to bring people together and provide a platform for people to speak out, be engaged, and take action to ensure global commitments are met and viral hepatitis is eliminated by 2030.

Hepatitis, which is an inflammation of the liver, can be self-limiting or can progress to fibrosis (scarring), cirrhosis or liver cancer. Although hepatitis viruses are the most common cause of hepatitis, other infections, toxic substances (such as alcohol and certain drugs), and autoimmune diseases can also cause hepatitis. Globally, viral hepatitis affects approximately 400 million people, with 6-10 million newly infected annually.

While hepatitis is a global problem, sub-Saharan Africa is particularly burdened. For example, hepatitis B prevalence is highest in sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, where between 5-10% of the adult population is chronically infected, while with a prevalence of between 5-8% and an estimated 32 million people infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), sub-Saharan Africa has the highest burden of the disease in the world (Karoney and Siika 2013; Schweitzer et al. 2015). Moreover, sub-Saharan Africa has a high prevalence for the other viruses as well due to generally poor sanitary conditions and hygienic practices, lack of access to safe water, and poor awareness and education.

Eritrea’s efforts to combat hepatitis have involved a multidimensional, cost-effective, pragmatic approach and broad participation. A range of general public health and development initiatives that have been undertaken have helped to combat the prevalence and spread of hepatitis in the country. These include: sexual health education; widespread advocacy and awareness campaigns; the provision of condoms, the expansion of access to basic sanitation and safe, clean water, particularly in rural areas; improved disposal of sewage within communities; and harm reduction programs.

Another vital step has been immunization and vaccination which, according to the WHO, is, “the most effective and cost-saving means of prevention.” For many years in Eritrea, immunization and vaccination programs have been conducted through an array of cooperative agreements with various international organizations and partners, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UNICEF, the WHO, and the GAVI Alliance. These partnerships have increased important supplies such as vaccines, syringes, and other materials, while strengthening support for the development, production, and dissemination of social mobilization materials, regional plans, and logistics.

In 2002, Eritrea introduced childhood immunization against hepatitis B as part of the Ministry of Health’s Expanded Program on Immunization, which also delivers immunization for children against seven other vaccine preventable diseases (i.e. Tuberculosis, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough, Tetanus, Polio, Measles and Homophiles influenza type B). According to recently updated data from the WHO and UNICEF, national HepB3 coverage (measuring the number of third doses of Hep-B vaccine administered to infants) in Eritrea is approximately 95%. By comparison, the global average national coverage rate is 87%, while the average for Africa is 81%. In terms of Eritrea’s neighbours, national coverage rates are as follows: Djibouti 84%; Ethiopia 86%; Kenya 89%; Somalia 42%; South Sudan 31%; Sudan 93%, and Uganda 78%.

Table 1: East Africa National HepB3 Coverage Rates 2015 (WHO 2015)

Hepatitis B vaccination programs are particularly important because they gradually result in the reduction of HBV-related chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular cancer. Ultimately, Eritrea’s vaccination programs have played an important role in reducing the prevalence and spread of hepatitis, and recent research studies estimate that the country’s prevalence of hepatitis B is approximately 2.49%, the lowest in Africa (Schweitzer et al. 2015).

Table 2: East Africa Estimated Hepatitis B Virus Prevalence (Percentage)

Overall, Eritrea’s multifaceted efforts have had a positive impact in combating and controlling hepatitis. With renewed commitment, effective immunization, vaccination, and prevention programs, an expansion of treatment and health services, as well as continued support from international partners, Eritrea can move towards eliminating viral hepatitis and continue to protect and improve the health and development of its greatest asset – its men, women, and children.

The arcane and abstruse world of the Military and Media landscape in India is under political and public scanner yet again following reports of reckless handling of the Kashmir violence that erupted after the killing of a Hizb-ul-Mujahidden youth leader, Burhan Wani. In an open letter to the dead militant, Major Gaurav Arya of the Indian Armed Forces heavily attacked the dubious intentions of the youth leader, stating any action by the army was totally called for. A young boy associated with the militant outfit was hunted down by the forces. This is a routine course of action and therefore there is no scope for the forces having gone haywire in their quest to establish peace and security in the valley putting an end to all apprehensions about the ever-increasing monstrous role of the Army in the Valley.

The controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act ( AFSPA) and the Public Safety Act ( PSA) have created a new form of resentment against the forces in the eyes of the common people of the valley. These acts are under scanner for being draconian in nature. However, given the backdrop of the perpetual war like situation in Kashmir, it becomes necessary to analyse the currents and undercurrents in the changing dynamics of the media military relations in India especially in the context of peace keeping and conflict resolution in Kashmir.

Kashmir, since 1947 has been the cynosure of all eyes focussing on South Asia both nationally and internationally. The news worthiness of the ‘K’ question in all deliberations, dialogues with Pakistan cannot ever be underestimated. Certain sections of the media, branded as the Pro Pakistan Lobby and the Pseudo-Liberals are currently being heavily trolled on social networking sites for questioning the intentions of the armed forces in the valley. The Supreme Court of India too has slammed the Indian Media for misinformation and false reporting, for revealing more than is necessary for the sake of sensationalism, jeopardising national security on numerous occasions. Refer to the deliberate revealing of operations and the logistical positioning of the forces by a private news channel when they were involved in the encounter with terrorists at the Pathankot Air Base earlier this year. In the Indian context, the relationship between the media, dissident forces and the military reveals a very disturbing history.

Television Ratings and saleability of news is what drives the media today. There is little regard for what the people want to know and what they should know. Responsibility and Accountability are being sacrificed at the altar of viewership rating points. The business of news is preying upon disturbances , whether social, economic , political or psychological and with advancements in technology and digitisation of the world wide web, the race to become number one news service provider by private companies is getting even murkier.

The media no longer just reports an event. It acts as the judge, jury and executioner, investigating ever aspect of disturbance through the superficial prism of law creating more nuisance for the forces which are known to maintain strict professionalism in dealing with the media. The Directorate of Public Relations, Ministry of Defence, Public Relations Office deals with the media keeping military ethical standards on the forefront at all times. Army Rule 21, Defence Service Regulations has been in place to control any misinformation flowing in the country . The impatient and intrusive reporters in their quest for exclusives often cross the lines of ethics and invariably put the military in the witness box for no rhyme or reason.
Conventionally , the role of the Media was primarily to inform, educate and entertain the masses. Recent trends engulfing the entire spectrum of mass media reveal how the fourth estate is now becoming a parallel government in itself, reporting on issues which sometimes have both political and social ramifications. How the media projects the image of the military is hilarious in itself. The media claims to be this larger than life entity that simply has the godly right to spin stories in the name of public accountability. This hunger for news has often created both monsters and gods and the common people are yet to discover the true side of any story given the short shelf life of yellow journalism today.

The Freedom of speech and expression as guaranteed by the constitution of India, has often been misused to suit business interests. The oxygen of publicity being supplied to dissident forces, in the quintessential Kashmir valley for example calls for some serious introspection on the part of our media. Is all this necessary? It is not the media’s job to tell the military how they should function. The army through its Public Relations Office is working to project itself as a positive force, a force for the people of India, a force of the people of India, a force by the people of India. The media must not digress from its primary role, to inform.

*Vishakha Amitabh Hoskote, MPHI, MA (International Relations, Political Science, Development Communications)

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, in August 2011, to April 2013, Islamic State and al-Nusra Front were a single organization that chose the banner of “Jabhat al Nusra.” Although, the current al-Nusra Front is led by Abu Mohammad al Jolani, he was appointed as the Emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State, in January 2012. The current Al-Nusra Front is only a splinter group of Islamic State which split away from its parent organization in April 2013 over a dispute between the leaders of two organizations.

In March 2011, protests began in Syria against the government of Bashar al-Assad. In the following months violence between demonstrators and security forces led to a gradual militarization of the conflict. In August 2011, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi began sending Syrian and Iraqi jihadists, experienced in guerilla warfare, across the border into Syria to establish an organization inside the country.

Led by a Syrian known as Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, the group began to recruit fighters and establish cells throughout the country. On 23 January 2012, the group announced its formation as Jabhat al-Nusra. Al-Nusra rapidly expanded into a capable fighting force with a level of popular support among opposition supporters in Syria.

In April 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio statement in which he announced that Al-Nusra Front had been established, financed and supported by the Islamic State of Iraq. Al-Baghdadi declared that the two groups were merging under the name “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.” The leader of al-Nusra Front, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, issued a statement denying the merger and complaining that neither he nor anyone else in al-Nusra’s leadership had been consulted about it.

Al Qaeda Central’s leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, tried to mediate the dispute between al-Baghdadi and al-Jolani but eventually, in October 2013, he endorsed al-Nusra Front as the official franchise of al Qaeda Central in Syria. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, however, defied the nominal authority of al Qaeda Central and declared himself as the Caliph of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Keeping this background in mind, it becomes amply clear that a single organization operated in Syria and Iraq under the leadership of al-Baghdadi until April 2013, which chose the banner of al-Nusra Front. For the sake of clarity, let’s call this pre-April 2013 organization al-Nusra-I; and the subsequent breakaway faction of al-Nusra-I under the leadership of al-Jolani, post-April 2013, as al-Nusra-II. Also bear in mind that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria operated in the Syrian theater since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, in August 2011, but it chose the banner of al-Nusra-I. And it rebranded itself as “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” only in April 2013.

Many biased political commentators of the mainstream media deliberately try to muddle the reality in order to link the emergence of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the Bush Administration. Their motive behind this chicanery is to absolve the Obama Administration’s policy of supporting the Syrian opposition against the Syrian regime since the beginning of the Syrian civil war until June 2014 when Islamic State overran Mosul and Obama Administration made an about-face on its previous policy of indiscriminate support to the Syrian opposition and declared a war against a faction of Syrian opposition: that is, the Islamic State.

Moreover, such spin-doctors also try to find the roots of Islamic State in al-Qaeda in Iraq; however, the insurgency in Iraq died down after “the Iraq surge” of 2007. Al-Qaeda in Iraq became an impotent organization after the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and the subsequent surge of troops in Iraq. The re-eruption of insurgency in Iraq has been the spillover effect of nurturing militants in Syria against the Assad regime, when Islamic State overran Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in January 2014 and subsequently captured Mosul in June 2014.

The borders between Syria and Iraq are quite porous and it’s impossible to contain the flow of militants and arms between the two countries. The Obama Administration’s policy of providing money, arms and training to the Syrian militants in the training camps located at the border regions of Turkey and Jordan was bound to backfire sooner or later.

As I have mentioned before that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria had operated in Syria since August 2011 under the label of al-Nusra-I and it subsequently changed its name to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in April 2013; after which it overran al-Raqqa in the summer of 2013, then it captured parts of Deir el-Zor and fought battles against the alliance of Kurds and Syrian regime in Qamishli. And in January 2014 it overran Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in Iraq and reached the zenith of its power when it captured Mosul in June 2014.

Regarding the recent rebranding of al-Jolani’s Nusra Front to “Jabhat Fateh al Sham” and the supposed severing of ties with al-Qaeda Central, it’s only a nominal difference because al-Nusra Front never had any organizational and operational link with al-Qaeda Central and even their ideologies are poles apart.

Al-Qaeda Central is basically a transnational terrorist organization which targets the Western countries; while al-Nusra Front, Islamic State and many other Syrian militant organizations only have regional ambitions and their ideology is anti-Shi’a and sectarian, rather than anti-West or anti-Zionist, as such. In fact, al-Nusra Front has not only received medical aid and material support from Israel, but some of its operations against the Shi’a Assad regime in southern Syria were fully coordinated with Israel’s Air Force.

The purpose behind this rebranding of al-Nusra Front seems to be to legitimize itself and make it easier for its patrons to send money and arms. The US blacklisted al-Nusra Front in December 2012 and pressurized Saudi Arabia and Turkey to ban it too. Though, al-Nusra Front’s name has been in the list of proscribed organizations of Saudi Arabia and Turkey since 2014, but it kept receiving money and arms from Saudi Arabia.

After this rebranding, the reaction from the US has been: “We’re gonna have to wait and see,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “We judge a group by what they do, not by what they call themselves.” In any case, Saudi Arabia and Turkey might not be willing to add the name of a militant organization, which only has local ambitions of fighting the Syrian regime and which has severed its nominal ties with al Qaeda Central.

It should be remembered that in a May 2015 interview with al-Jazeera, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani took a public pledge on the behest of his Gulf-based patrons that his organization only has local ambitions limited to Syria and that it does not intends to strike targets in the Western countries. Thus, this rebranding exercise has been going on for almost an year and al-Jolani finally announced the split from al-Qaeda in a video statement yesterday. Instead of al-Qaeda Central, the real affiliation of al-Jolani’s Nusra Front has always been to Saudi Arabia, which controls the flow of money and arms to al-Jolani’s organization.

In order to simplify the Syrian quagmire for the sake of readers, I would divide it into three separate and distinct zones of influence. Firstly, the northern and northwestern zone, in and around Aleppo, which is under the influence of Turkey and Qatar. Both of these countries share the ideology of Muslim Brotherhood and they provide money, training and arms to the militant organizations like al-Tawhid Brigade and Ahrar al-Sham at the training camps located in the border regions of Turkey.

Secondly, the southern zone of influence, in Daraa and Quneitra and as far away as Homs and Damascus. It is controlled by the Saudi-Jordanian camp and they provide money, weapons and training to the militant groups such as al-Nusra Front and the Southern Front of the so-called “moderate” Free Syria Army in Daraa and Quneitra, and Jaysh al-Islam in the suburbs of Damascus. Their military strategy is directed by a Military Operations Center (MOC) and training camps located in the border regions of Jordan. Here let me clarify that this distinction is quite overlapping and heuristic at best, because al-Nusra’s militants have taken part in battles as far away as Idlib and Aleppo.

And finally, the eastern and central zone of influence, in al-Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, which have been controlled by a relatively maverick Iraq-based outfit, Islamic State, and its Baathist military apparatus. According to credible reports, hundreds of ex-Baathists constitute the top and mid-tier command structure of Islamic State who plan all the operations and direct its military strategy.

Moreover, it should be remembered that Saudi Arabia was staunchly against the invasion of Iraq back in 2003, because it regarded Saddam as a bulwark against the Iranian influence in the Arab World. After the invasion, when Iraq formed a Shi’a dominated government, the Gulf Arab states have consistently supported the Sunnis of Iraq against the Shi’a government. Therefore, the possibility that Islamic State has also received Gulf’s money and arms in the past in their battles against the Syrian regime cannot be ruled out.

Gerald Posner’s op-ed in the New York Times breaks no new ground, and offers a dishonest assessment on the Vatican Holocaust archives. Moreover, he has been accused of serial plagiarism, and his work on this subject has already been discredited. Now he is back accusing the Vatican of refusing to release its “secret wartime files.”

There is nothing “secret” about the Holocaust archives: much has been disclosed, with more to come. More important, from what has been learned, the evidence overwhelmingly puts critics such as Posner on the defensive. If anything, the evidence supports the position that Pope Pius XII did more to save Jews than any other world leade r, secular or religious, meriting the honor, “Righteous Gentile.”

Professor Ronald J. Rychlak is one of the world’s most noted scholars in this area, and it is his judgment that the archival evidence we have so far, “supplemented with eyewitness accounts and documents from other sources, provide a consistent portrait of the wartime pope as a champion of the victims, opponent of the villains, and inspiration to the rescuers.”

Posner needs to stop skirting the evidence. For example, in 2009 some important archival documents proved that Hitler had planned to kidnap or kill Pope Pius XII. The recent book by Mark Riebling details four plots to kill Hitler, and that the pope was involved in three of them. Why doesn’t Posner mention any of this?

Why doesn’t Posner direct readers to the website of the Pave the Way Foundation? It has a wealth of documents from the wartime years. The founder of this initiative, Gary Krupp, was once a Jewish critic of Pope Pius XII, but the more evidence he uncovered, the more convinced he was that the critics were wrong. He now concludes that the pope “was a true hero of WWII.”

I can’t wait until there is a more complete disclosure of the Vatican Holocaust archives. If I were Posner, I would want to keep them “secret.”

In May 2016, I met in the city of Nakhchivan with Prof. Veli Bahşaliyev, from the Nakhchivan Academy of Sciences, with whom I discussed the importance of archeological discoveries in the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan (Republic of Azerbaijan) and their impressive cultural influence within the context of South Caucasian archeological cultures. Prof. Bahşaliyev shared some of his research that was focused on the Middle and Late Bronze Age Painted Pottery in the region of Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan.

The following is the first part of my interview with Prof. Veli Bahşaliyev.

Peter Tase (PT): Based on your research, what are some of the features on Nakhchivan’s Painted Pottery?

Veli Bahşaliyev (VB): The painted pottery that is typical for the Nakhchivan region in the Middle Bronze Age appears in southern Azerbaijan (in the Urmiye basin), Mil Steppes of northern Azerbaijan, northeastern regions of Anatolia, Georgia and modern Armenia. If we are to make a general evaluation of the painted samples, despite of the local differences in form and decoration, we can assert that there is a common cultural atmosphere in the region located in the Lake Urmiye Basin, in the southern parts of the Caucasian mountains, north-eastern Anatolia and the Mil Muǧan Steppes. As a result of research executed in the region and also in consideration to topographical features, the region has been divided into six parts, namely the “Trialeti Culture”, “Tazekent Culture”, “Sevan-Üzerliktepe Culture”, “Kizilvank Culture”, “Nakhchivan Culture”, and the “Van-Urmiye Culture”. Although there are six different culture categories, we thought that it to be more convenient to divide these cultures into four categories, all of which will be examined thoroughly with their distinctive features and border lines.

PT: Can you further elaborate on the Sevan – Üzerliktepe Culture?

VB: K. H. Kuşnaryeva’s proposal for naming the painted pottery style in the Lake Sevan (Gökçe) Basin, Mil Steppes and the Nakhchivan region as “Sevan – Üzerliktepe Culture” and her suggestion of the Ararat valley as the origin of this particular culture is far from convincing. The centers characterized in K. H. Kuşnaryeva’s grouping are settlements and their necropolis is in high mountainous regions. The Üzerliktepe Hüyük located in the Mil Steppes of northern Azerbaijan is exemplified in this group, with its characteristics of Middle Bronze Age Culture. However, among the typical black burnished and stamped wares unearthed in this first, lowest stratum of the Üzerliktepe Hüyük, there cannot be observed any painted pottery.

Monochrome painted pottery found in the second stratum of this settlement shows us that these came out at a later stage of the Middle Bronze Age. The settlements included in this group, located on the slopes of high mountain regions and characterized by their black burnished pottery, definitely cannot be considered as the distribution centers of painted pottery. In our opinion the decoration style typical of Üzerliktepe in northern Azerbaijan, in the Lake Sevan Basin and the other settlements and necropolis of Armenia has originated from the Nakhchivan region and especially from the Kültepe II Hüyük. This unique decoration style has been widely used in the Nakhchivan region, especially in settlements like Kültepe II and Kültepe I.

The painted pottery founded at the Șahtahti, Șortepe and Nehecir Settlements and their Necropolis areas prove that this style was not limited to Kültepe II and Kultepe I settlements. On the other hand, starting from the Middle Bronze Age, unearthed pottery at the settlements in the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan reflects different stages of development and continues to flourish uninterruptedly into the Iron Age.

PT: Tazekent (Karmir-berd) Culture expanded through the Aras Valley, what are some of its features?

VB: “Tazekent Culture” is another group of painted pottery that embody the local features in the Middle Bronze Age. This culture extends from the Aras Valley to the slopes of the high mountainous areas and into modern Armenia. It takes its name from the painted pottery found at the necropolis of Tazekent (Karmir-berd).

It is quite surprising and remarkable that excavations have not brought to light a settlement that belongs to this culture until today. Successive spirals, wired, triangular and rectangular forms widely used in this culture can also be seen at Göytepe, Haftavantepe, Nakhchivan and in Northeastern Anatolia. On the other hand, the culture layers of the Middle Bronze Age have not been studied properly in the settlements such as Ariç, Garni, Muhannettepe and Metsamor in Armenia. For this reason it is not possible to derive comprehensive and precise results from these settlements which do not have well-defined culture layers.

It is obvious that the painted pottery of the “Tazekent Culture” is under the influence of the painted pottery culture typical for Kültepe II Hüyük rather than being a local formation. The Kültepe II Hüyük, with a very rich and highly powerful Middle Bronze Age Culture, had become the center point of other settlements in the region. It is understood that very powerful culture centers like the Kültepe II and Kültepe I have established close relations with their surroundings and influenced them. I do not wish to state that these Hüyüks were the centers of origin for the Middle Bronze culture, but it is obvious that the painted pottery cultures of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages were much densely represented in the valley of the Aras River.

PT: What is the influence of Trialeti Culture within the Archeological sites of Nakhchivan?

VB: Having originated from the Çalkin Region of Georgia and spreading to various parts of southern Caucasus, the Trialeti Culture is characterized by its black burnished ware with incised decoration. The first stage of the Trialeti Culture was represented only in the necropolis areas with no pottery finds. Appearing only after the second stage of this culture, the painted pottery examples were found solely in the tombs of the rich, noble and ruling people.

On the contrary in Nakhchivan, Armenia and Northeastern Anatolia, painted pottery appears not only in the tombs of the abovementioned classes, but also in the graves of the common people. Doubtlessly, the region where this kind of pottery abounds in tombs is the Northeast Anatolian Plateau. For now it is not known whether the painted pottery unearthed in illegal digs by the locals of the region were found in the Hüyüks or not. The painted pottery, which is not dense in the Trialeti Culture, appears only in the southern part of this region.

Relying on this limited number of painted pottery finds, some researchers suggest that the Trialeti Culture has spread to Van, Nakhchivan and the Lake Urmiye region. In view of the case, such a proposal is far from being realistic. Unlike the monochrome painted ware of the Trialeti culture, the painted pottery unearthed in the Lake Urmiye Basin, Nakhchivan and Northeastern Anatolia shows variety in both form and decoration and has a wide area of distribution, proving the contrary of K. H. Kuşnaryeva’s proposal. The painted pottery of the Trialeti Culture obviously reflects the culture of the neighboring community.

In addition, the imported material found at the Trialeti kurgans shows the influence of Anatolia and Van-Urmiye regions. The small amount of painted pottery excavated at the Trialeti kurgans differs from the others in terms of decoration, indicating once again the great influence of Anatolia. Unfortunately some scholars accept the idea of synthesis in painted pottery, in a certain part of southern Caucasus, between the old Kura-Aras tradition of the Middle Bronze Age and the late comers to the same region. In the Trialeti Culture samples of painted pottery were found only in the tombs of the tribal leaders, thus indicating that the material was probably imported. Therefore it is quite clear that Trialeti, forming the northern border of the usage of this pottery, has not served as the production and distribution center of this material.

Source: “Middle and Late Bronze Age Painted Pottery Culture in the Nakhichevan Region” published in Istanbul (2001). Authors: Oktay Belli and Veli Bahşaliyev.

A Turkish prosecutor has stated that the CIA and FBI provided training for the followers of powerful US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for the coup attempt earlier this month.

The indictment, prepared by the Edirne Public Prosecutor’s office and accepted by the local Second Heavy Penal Court, seeks the harshest possible punishment for 43 suspects that have allegedly been linked to the failed coup attempt on July 15, including the coup’s supposed mastermind, Fethullah Gulen, the arch-nemesis of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The prosecutor said on Thursday that members of what it describes as “the Fethullah Terrorist Organization” were trained by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“The CIA and FBI provided training in several subjects to the cadre raised in the culture centers belonging to the Gulen movement. The operations carried out by prosecutors and security officials during the Dec. 17 process can be taken as a good example of this,” the document says, referring to a high profile corruption probe that targeted senior government officials between December 17 and December 25 of 2013, as reported by the Turkish Hurriyet daily.

The investigation affected many officials linked to the Turkish Cabinet, which was headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan at that time. Erdogan, who is now Turkey’s president, called it “a judicial coup” attempt, while accusing Gulen and his movement of orchestrating it with the help of some “foreign forces.”

The indictment states that Gulen loyalists received US training and infiltrated judicial and security institutions.

“This [failed coup] attempt aimed to weaken the state with all its institutions by getting rid of the government completely. Those in the Gulen movement who work in the judicial and security institutions and who received the aforementioned training, took on this task and moved into action,” the document says, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency.

It adds that some other foreign secret services were also involved in training the coup plotters, according to the Turkish Yeni Safak newspaper.

Relations between Washington and Ankara soured following the foiled coup attempt on July 15. Some Turkish media and even government officials, including the labor minister, have claimed that the US was somehow involved, despite an outright denial from the US.

Immediately after the failed coup attempt, the Turkish government criticized the US for providing safe haven for Gulen, saying that a country that harbors “the coup planner” is “no friend” to Turkey. Ankara has also repeatedly demanded that the US extradite Gulen to Turkey, while Washington has maintained that Turkey must first file a formal extradition request and provide solid proof of his involvement in the coup.

On July 25, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said that Turkey-US ties could suffer unless Washington extradites Gulen.

On Friday, Erdogan once again slammed the US for harboring Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, and demanded his extradition. He also lashed out at the head of US Central Command, General Joseph Votel, who has criticized the detention of thousands of Turkish military personnel in the aftermath of the coup attempt and said that some of the military figures that the US had been working with are now in jail.

“It is not up to you to make that decision. Who are you? Know your place…” Erdogan said, as quoted by AP.

“Instead of thanking this nation that quashed the coup in the name of democracy, on the contrary you are taking sides with the coup-plotters,” he added, stressing that “the coup plotter is in your country anyway” and “you [the US] can never convince my people otherwise.”

On July 25, Yeni Safak claimed that retired US Army General John F. Campbell, the former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, was behind the foiled coup attempt. Campbell reportedly sent more than $ 2 billion in transactions to Turkey via Nigeria in order to distribute it among the pro-coup military. He has also been accused of managing the soldiers involved in the rebellion, the daily said, citing sources close to the investigation.

Washington later dismissed the allegations against the general, with White House press secretary Josh Earnest calling them unsubstantiated.

By Jahangir Karami*

The implementation of Iran’s nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of countries, which is known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and removal of sanctions imposed on Iran is an issue, which will affect Iran’s relations with many states. As a result, economic relations between Iran and the Russian Federation have been offered with many new opportunities in post-JCPOA era and the deal will be an end to an eight-year period in which trade exchanges between the two countries were in decline. The following article focuses on this issue and argues how these new opportunities can be taken advantage of to meet the national interests of the country under conditions that have come about following the implementation of the JCPOA.

Following the implosion of the former Soviet Union, economic relations between Iran and Russia soared from about USD 400 million in 1991 to about USD 4-4.5 billion in the 2000s and this figure continued until 2007. However, following adoption of sanctions against Iran by the United Nations Security Council, the aforesaid figure started to fall and reached about USD one billion between 2008 and 2013. This situation was mostly a result of the policy adopted by the government of the former Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev between 2007 and 2010. According to that policy, Moscow turned toward the West and cooperated with the West in adoption of six sanctions revolutions against Iran. Russians also followed suit with all kinds of sanctions against Iran from withholding delivery of S-300 missile defense system to implementing monetary and banking sanctions against Iran as a result of which Tehran had problems even for paying monthly salary of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s embassy staff in Moscow through Russian banks.

After the beginning of the new term of Vladimir Putin as Russian president in 2012, relations between Russia and the West became tense over a host of issues, including NATO’s policy to expand toward the East and a plan for establishment of NATO’s missile defense shield in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Turkey. That tension reached its acme due to the crisis in Ukraine in which the European Union and the United States imposed sanctions on Russia. However, due to the legal structure of those sanctions, they did not affect the improving trend of economic relations between Iran and Russia and the volume of trade exchanges between Tehran and Moscow stood at USD one billion.

Cooperation between Iran and Russia during the Syria crisis from 2012 and adoption of a new policy by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s new President Hassan Rouhani were followed by adoption of an active diplomacy toward Russia. As a result, there have been frequent meetings between the two countries’ officials as Tehran and Moscow have been trying to boost their interactions through exchange of new ambassadors. However, all efforts made between 2013 and 2014 simply stopped the declining trend of bilateral trade and increased its volume by about USD 0.5 billion in past year, thus raising hopes for further increase in the two countries’ trade exchanges.

In fact, the main reason behind limited growth of economic relations between Iran and Russia and absence of effective increase in those relations despite vast diplomatic activities on the part of Iran is restrictive nature of banking sanctions imposed on Tehran. As a result, it has not been easy for big Russian banks to circumvent those sanctions and many major Russian companies still stick to considerations that restrict their relations with Iran.

Due to their vast exchanges with the Western banks, Russian banks are not willing to forgo the huge benefits of working with them. It must be noted that the volume of Russia’s annual trade exchanges adds up to about USD 800 billion, half of which pertains to the Western countries, and this figure is by no means comparable to Russia’s trade volume with Iran which stands at about USD one billion.

Therefore, the issue of banking sanctions has had a major impact on Moscow’s trade relations with Tehran and once they are removed, interactions between Tehran and Moscow in economic and trade fields are sure to see a great spurt. Many infrastructural steps to achieve this goal have been taken in the past two years and the two countries have signed a comprehensive agreement for ten-year cooperation to total amount of USD 70 billion. They have also designed a roadmap to increase economic exchanges to USD 40 billion in medium term and activate joint commissions between the two sides.

Other fields of relations between the two countries have also witnessed preliminary steps toward expansion since the beginning of the nuclear negotiations and early agreements reached on that issue. Examples to the point include cooperation in technology and forming a technology committee to discuss the issue of technology transfer; cooperation in such sectors as communications, construction of railroads, as well as air and rail transport; agreement on building new thermal and nuclear power plants in Iran; cooperation in oil and gas, mines and metals, aerospace industries, and especially in recent months, in the fields of agriculture, dairy products, as well as meat production and aquatics culture. However, the most important area of economy, which will be affected by removal of sanctions and the post-JCPOA conditions, is related to banking and monetary issues, which have created a major obstacle to further expansion of relations between Tehran and Moscow in the past six years. It seems that expansion of economic relations between Tehran and Moscow is awaiting final lifting of relevant sanctions in order to achieve the high growth that would suit the reality of the two governments’ relations.

The diplomatic approach adopted by Iran’s new government has been able to take important steps such as expanding communications between the two countries and launching new flights by the country’s flag carrier, Iran Air, and Mahan Airline, while at the same time, reducing customs tariffs for agricultural, livestock, dairy, meat, and aquatic products for Iranian exporters. Efforts made to facilitate travel and waiver visa for the two countries’ nationals; negotiations for the establishment of a joint investment bank; agreement for investment by Russia in Iran up to USD 40 billion; as well as opening of two lines of credit worth USD five billion and USD two billion by Russian banks have been other measure taken as the hope rises in final removal of sanctions in post-JCPOA period. If sanctions are totally removed, Iranian producers, especially in foodstuff and agricultural sectors, can take advantage of a 140-million-strong food market in Russia.

One of the latest measures taken by Iranian officials was to establish a green customs corridor in order to facilitate exchange of goods through electronic means. Finally, it must be noted that negotiations are underway for Iran’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Community in order to allow Iranian exporters avail themselves of preferential trade facilities. Iran is also planning a free trade zone with member states of the Eurasian Economic Community, which will greatly boost the country’s non-oil exports in the future.

It seems that when sanctions are removed, as the main factor reducing Tehran’s economic relations with Moscow, and when grounds are provided for monetary and banking cooperation and exchanges, and also after other measures, which can rid both countries of the curse of sanctions are taken, we could hope that the volume of trade between the two countries would even go higher than USD four billion, which was achieved between 2001 and 2007. This time, trade relations between Tehran and Moscow will continue to increase at a time that Russia is under heavy pressures from the West and its economic exchanges with Turkey have also contracted.

There are also some measures, which can boost economic relations between Tehran and Moscow and, as a result, increase the two countries’ economic interdependence as a basis for expanded political and security relations. Making the North-South Corridor operational; creating an air corridor for rapid transfer of foodstuff and agricultural products; providing software, legal and regulatory foundations for trade cooperation; and activation of such free zones as Aras Free Trade Zone and Bandar Anzali Free Trade Zone are among those steps, which can be very effective in this regard.

*Jahangir Karami
Associate Professor of International Relation at the University of Tehran

Source: Iran Newspaper
http://iran-newspaper.com/
Translated By: Iran Review.Org