The European Council on Monday added 17 ministers and the Governor of the Central Bank of Syria to the list of those targeted by EU restrictive measures against the Syrian regime for being responsible for the violent repression against the civilian population in Syria, benefiting from or supporting the regime, and/or being associated with such persons.

This decision follows the Council conclusions of October 17, 2016 and the European Council conclusions of October 20-21, 2016. This decision brings to 234 the total number of persons subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze for the violent repression against the civilian population in Syria.

In addition, 69 entities are targeted by an asset freeze. More broadly, sanctions currently in place against Syria include an oil embargo, restrictions on certain investments, a freeze of the assets of the Syrian central bank within the EU, export restrictions on equipment and technology that might be used for internal repression as well as on equipment and technology for the monitoring or interception of internet or telephone communications. These measures were last extended on May 27, 2016 and are in place until June 1, 2017.

The EU Council said it remains committed to finding a lasting solution to the conflict in Syria, as there is no military solution to the Syrian civil war, adding “the EU is determined to save lives and continues its intense humanitarian diplomatic effort to deliver aid to Aleppo and wherever needed, and to evacuate the wounded.”

Early on Monday morning, officers of the Spanish Guardia Civil arrested eight people for their alleged involvement in the attack on two Spanish Guardia Civil officers and their partners on October 15 in the town of Alsasua in Navarre. The arrests took place in the municipalities of Pamplona and Alsasua (Navarre), Salvatierra and Vitoria (Alava), and in Madrid.

Operation ‘Ausiki’ was carried out in various towns of the Autonomous Region of Navarre, the Basque Country and Madrid. The arrested individuals are being taken to Spanish Guardia Civil facilities in Madrid, the Spanish government said.

In the early morning of October 15, two Spanish Guardia Civil officers and their respective partners were the subject of an attack carried out by a group of some 40-50 individuals near the Koxka bar in Alsasua (Navarre), an establishment where threats and insults had previously been made against the officers.

Due to their involvement in the aggression, two people were initially arrested on charges of attacking and causing injury to figures of authority.

Subsequently, the Association of Victims of Terrorism (Spanish acronym: COVITE) reported a possible terrorist offence to the Spanish National High Court, ordering the Central Criminal Investigation Court Number 3 of the Spanish National High Court to launch a number of proceedings, which included instructing the Spanish Guardia Civil to urgently draft a report based on the events.

The investigations carried out by the Spanish Guardia Civil led to the identification of various individuals who took part in the aggressions on October 15 in Alsasua against the two Spanish Guardia Civil officers and their partners. Those individuals were arrested on Monday morning.

The arrested individuals are being taken to Spanish Guardia Civil facilities in Madrid.

The aggressions formed part of the so-called ‘Alde Hemendik’ (‘Get out’) movement created by the terrorist group ETA and the outlawed KAS-EKIN to demand the withdrawal of State Law Enforcement Agencies and the Army from the Basque Country and Navarre. In the case of Alsasua (Navarre), the ‘Alde Hemendik’ movement acts under the name of ‘Ospa Mugimendua’ (‘Ospa movement’). This movement was launched on September 3, 2011 with an act called the ‘King’s Speech’, changing its name the following year to ‘Ospa Eguna’ (‘Day of the Flight’), an event that has been celebrated in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 with acts mainly involving representations and parodies against the Spanish Guardia Civil, although also against symbols of the State.

According to the Spanish government, the operation carried out on Monday is a demonstration of the firm commitment by the Spanish Guardia Civil to maintain the principles of the rule of law and a clear example that those responsible for any criminal action will be investigated by the Spanish Guardia Civil until such time that they are brought to justice.

The operation remains active and further arrests have not been ruled out.

Against all the predictions of the pundits, pollsters and polling groups, Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Well except one, that is from my alma mater – University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

For much of the year, the 2016 USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Presidential Election Poll—designed to track changes in voter opinions throughout the campaign, using what experts called a unique and more complex weighting model—behaved as a quirky outlier. It pointed all along to a Trump victory on the magnitude that came to pass last Tuesday night. The poll was set up differently than other major polls.

Roughly 3,000 respondents were recruited into a panel that used an unusual method of “micro-weighting” to reflect the overall voter population. The poll was conducted by dipping back into this same pool of people each time. This may have created a more stable baseline from which to detect shifts in voter preference. The USC poll design allowed respondents to assign themselves a probability, from zero to 100, of their voting for either candidate. This approach, rather than simply asking for a concrete voting preference, may have allowed the poll to be more precise in detecting shifts in sentiment. The USC poll’s results also were weighted based on how people said they voted in 2012—an approach that experts criticized on the basis that many people misstate or misremember how they voted in the past. USC’s Arie Kapteyn believes it is critical for pollsters to cover every part of the population, which most online polls are unable to do, and, importantly, to have a good model of who is actually going to vote—something sorely missing ahead of Tuesday night.

Kudos to the University of Southern California for a good job showing once again the power of good sampling in such polling studies! (My father who lives in Bangladesh was also right in his prediction. His logic was very simple: Americans would prefer a change after two terms of Obama.)

The media played a critical role in creating President-elect Donald Trump. The Tyndall Report, which tracks how much airtime different issues and candidates receive on the major news networks, summarized media coverage of the candidates in 2015. Donald Trump received 327 minutes, or close to one-third of all the campaign coverage, at a time when he had 16 Republican challengers. “ABC World News Tonight” aired 81 minutes of reports on Donald Trump, compared with just 20 seconds for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, according to Tyndall. On March 15, 2016, after the primary day dubbed “Super Tuesday 3,” the networks played all the candidates’ speeches, except for the speech by Sanders. The networks actually spent more time showing Trump’s empty podium, filling the time until he spoke, than playing any words of Sanders’, who addressed the largest crowd that night.

Earlier this year, CBS CEO Les Moonves told a Morgan Stanley-hosted media-industry conference, speaking about the volume of political advertising that the “circus” of Trump’s campaign was attracting: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS. … The money’s rolling in.” Professor Noam Chomsky says, “The media manufacture consent.”

The media analysts, prognosticators and pollsters are now at a loss to explain why they were wrong to predict the election outcome. They are offering “mea culpas” to explain the failure of their ‘scientific’ methods. They imagined that Obama’s high approval rating (above 50%) in his last year of presidency plus good news about job creation (approx. 10 million in the last 8 years), let alone Trump’s obscenity would gravitate most voters towards Mrs. Clinton, who happened to be more qualified than anyone in history who ran for the job. That simply did not happen!

Looking back, it should be obvious that the Democratic Party’s Achilles Heel was its near-complete failure to prioritize the issues of economic inequality, jobs, and the aiding of America’s working class, middle class, and poor. Based on the New York Times’ exit polling data, (1) 79 percent of voters who agreed that the condition of the nation’s economy is “poor” voted for Trump, while 55 percent of those feeling it was merely “fair” did the same; (2) 78 percent of those saying their “family financial situation” is “worse today” than in the past voted for Trump; (3) 65 percent of those who said the “effects of trade with other countries” has been to “take away jobs” voted for Trump.

How could the Democrats failed to hear those voices of dissatisfaction with job and trade? For decades, most trade unions supported the Dems, but not this time. Trump was able to exploit those anxieties of ordinary White American workers to his advantage. He presented himself as a successful businessman who knew how to solve all those problems, esp., how to keep jobs in the USA for ordinary American workers – and not some illegals coming from the south who have been ‘stealing’ jobs. To his mesmerized believers, Trump’s deception of many contractors and workers who worked for his real estate was only a matter of distant past!

According to the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore (director of the new film, Michael Moore in Trump Land) when Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of the Ford Motor executives and said, “If you close these factories, as you’re planning to do in Detroit, and build them in Mexico, I’m going to put a 35 percent tariff on those cars when you send them back, and nobody is going to buy them,” it was an amazing thing to see. “No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like that to these executives,” Michael Moore said. “And it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—the Brexit states. If you live here in Ohio, you know what I’m talking about. Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant, because he’s saying the things to people who are hurting. And it’s why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump. He is the human Molotov cocktail that they’ve been waiting for, the human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them.”

Furthermore, the billionaire Trump was able to portray Clinton not only as a ‘corrupt’ career politician who failed to better the lives of ordinary White Americans but also as the ultimate symbol of Wall Street power and greed — the ‘crooked’, ‘nasty’ lady who would even ‘sell’ the White House to the highest bidder. The leaked emails and FBI Director James Comey ultimately sealed the fate of Hillary Clinton. [On Friday, Comey sent a letter to congressional Republicans suggesting more emails had been discovered “that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” of Hillary Clinton’s private email server. This was 11 days before the election. Nine days later, he stated publicly that the emails offered nothing new. Early voting was happening during those nine days, with Hillary Clinton under the cloud of potential renewed FBI investigation. According to Business Insider, 24 million votes were cast during this period. We may never know how many votes Clinton might have lost as a result of that FBI intervention.]

Clinton could neither regain the election momentum nor the people’s trust. She was not exciting enough for her supporters to vote for.

In hindsight, Senator Sanders would have been a better candidate to field against Trump. He did not have the ‘baggage’ carried by Clinton.

According to Lehigh University’s Anthony Dimaggio, “Trump’s victory was just as much about the Democratic Party’s implosion as it was about the triumph of Trump’s “outsider” political campaign.” Because of the poor (i.e., less than 50%) approval rating of the presidential candidates, many voters chose not to cast their vote, and some voters voted for other (e.g., Green or Libertarian) candidates. Less than half the eligible voters casted their votes in 2016, once again showing that democracy is losing its charm in the USA.

For Clinton to win, the Democratic Party needed massive turnout of its supporters. But that did not happen. Despite significant U.S. population growth from 293 million in 2004 to 325 million by 2016, total voter turnout for both the parties was lower than previous years. The Democratic Party’s total votes received for presidential candidates fell from a high of 69.5 million in 2008, to 65.9 million in 2012, down to 59.8 million in 2016. This represents a 14 percent decline in Democratic voting over just 8 years. The votes for the Republican presidential candidates in this period is as follows: 2016: 59.6 million votes; 2012: 60.9 million votes; 2008: 59.9 million votes; and 2004: 62 million votes. This translates into a net loss of 2.4 million votes (or a decline of four percent) over 12 years, despite 11 percent U.S. population growth during this same period. As bad as that looks for Republicans, Democrats have been hurt even more as the overall percent of Americans voting fell dramatically.

Trump comes into the White House cloaked in a smog of controversy. Although he won the presidential election, he lost the popular vote. Much of Trump’s support originates from a noxious blend of sexist, racist, and xenophobic beliefs. He opened his campaign calling Mexicans “rapists,” and promised to build a wall along the border with Mexico (and to make Mexico pay for it). He vowed to ban Muslims from entering the country, insulted people with disabilities, bragged about committing sexual assault, denied climate change and said he would jail his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Will he carry out such promises once in office? Many residents are nervous and many protesters have come out on the streets showing their displeasure with his win.

His self-indulgent personality profile, detailed in the pages of the New Yorker magazine, paints a picture of an audaciously narcissistic, egocentric maniac who only cares about basking in the public eye. According to Dimaggio, “He doesn’t care if the attention he receives is positive or negative. So long as it’s attention, that’s all that matters. Every media interaction is driven by a lust for public attention, while avoiding or downplaying real political proposals that challenge Washington establishment politics. Each press conference represents a chance to self-aggrandize, at the expense of substance, politics, and the nation itself.”

Trump promised to repeal NAFTA, abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership, designate China a “currency manipulator,” and implement tariffs on foreign goods to pressure U.S. companies from relocating abroad. However, the opposition on those agenda may actually come from the Republican majorities in Congress who are sold to corporate interests and profits.

Michael Moore believes that people’s honeymoon with Trump will be short-lived. “And it will feel good—for a day, yeah, maybe a week, possibly a month. And then, like the Brits, who wanted to send a message … They want another election. It ain’t gonna happen, because you used the ballot as an anger management tool… So, when the rightfully angry people of Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin find out after a few months in office that President Trump wasn’t going to do a damn thing for them, it will be too late to do anything about it. But I get it. You wanted to send a message. You had righteous anger and justifiable anger. Well, message sent. Good night, America. You’ve just elected the last president of the United States.”

Nearly 14 centuries ago, Muhammad (S), the Prophet of Islam, famously said, “As you are, so will be your leaders.”

Trump’s win tells volumes about where America is heading. And it is not pleasant! There is no denying that from Barack Obama, the first African-American president, the pendulum has worryingly swung to the KKK’s choice, Donald Trump.

On election night 2012, Trump tweeted, “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” Ironically, it is that ‘disastrous’ system (not the popular vote), which is sending him to the White House come January.

With the House of Representatives and the Senate remaining in Republican control, and a newly appointed conservative Supreme Court Judge, Trump’s executive power could be almost entirely unchecked. He has the potential to become either the most successful president in recent history, if he is willing to amend his ways for greater good of everyone, or the worst president, if he fails to reform himself and carries out his dangerous and divisive agenda. The choice is surely his.

The European Commission’s latest annual report on Turkey’s progress in meeting the conditions to become a full EU member shows that the rule of law, media freedom and human rights have deteriorated to such an extent since last July’s military coup attempt that it would be appropriate to wonder whether the two sides should consider abandoning the accession process.

By William Chislett*

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is using the coup, which he says was masterminded by the exiled US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, to purge Turkey massively of his opponents and reshape the country to his liking. The EU accession process is going nowhere. Turkey-EU relations are at a low if not breaking point.

The European Commission’s latest annual report on Turkey’s progress in meeting the conditions to become a full EU member (negotiations were started in October 2005, 18 years after formally applying) is so critical that it would be appropriate to wonder whether the two sides should consider abandoning the accession process.

Analysis¹

Background to the report

The 19th report on Turkey’s accession process comes four months after the failed coup on 15 July that sought to topple the democratically elected government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with the loss of 265 lives. Erdoğan blamed the coup on the exiled US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen –a former ally turned arch enemy in a power struggle, whose extradition has been requested– and his followers. Since then very extensive suspensions, dismissals, arrests and detentions have taken place over alleged links to the Gülen movement and involvement in the coup. More than 100,000 people, a staggering number, have been swept up in the purge, depleting the ranks of the armed forces, judiciary, schools, universities and ministries and going well beyond anything that could be justified by the coup. Gülenists were infiltrating institutions and creating what the government calls a ‘parallel state’. Some 300 people, for instance, lost their jobs in the Foreign Ministry including several ambassadors.

Many institutions and private companies have also been shut down and their assets seized or transferred to public institutions. Powers activated under a state of emergency declared on 20 July for three months and extended for another three months on 3 October have stifled the media and other forms of opposition to an even greater extent than before the coup.

In the predominantly Kurdish south-east of the country, the renewed war between the state and the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK, which remains on the EU list of terrorist organisations) following the collapse of the settlement process in July 2015 has led to heavy casualties. In the latest batch of arrests, 53 of the 59 pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) members of parliament, including the two Co-Chairs, were detained this month.

The EU and Turkey struck a deal last March to stem the flow of refugees who use Turkey as a staging post to get to the EU. In return for taking back those who land in Greece, Ankara was promised €6 billion to help care for the estimated 2.7 million refugees from Syria and Iraq stuck in Turkey, along with visa-free travel. The European Commission says more work is needed and as a result it discarded Ankara’s end of October deadline for the visa liberalisation. The deal is looking shaky.

Only 15 of the 33 chapters of the acquis that require negotiations have been opened in 11 years (the last one in December 2015) and just one provisionally closed. Turkey’s failure to implement the 2005 Additional Protocol to the Ankara Agreement and extend its customs union with the EU by opening its ports and airports to Greek-Cypriot traffic led the EU to suspend at the end of 2006 the opening of eight chapters related to the Customs Union and announce that no more chapters would be provisionally closed until Turkey had fulfilled its commitment. France and Cyprus have unilaterally blocked other chapters.

The state of play

The rule of law is a paramount feature of a full democracy, and it is this area –particularly given the scale and collective nature of the measures taken since the coup attempt–  that is woefully inadequate and causing the EU concern. This year’s report makes no bones about Turkey’s ‘backsliding’ in this area. ‘Individual criminal liability can only be established with full respect for the separation of powers, the full independence of the judiciary and the right of every individual to a fair trial, including through effective access to a lawyer’, the report states. ‘Turkey should ensure that any measure is taken only to the extent strictly required to the exigencies of the situation and in all cases stand the test of necessity and proportionality’.

Turkey has slipped 27 places since 2014 to 99th place out of 113 countries in the global ranking of the WJP Rule of Law index (see Figure 1).

Before the coup, parliament was beginning to implement reforms and the legislative requirements of the visa liberalisation roadmap, but progress since then has not been sufficient. Several key pieces of legislation that were adopted regarding the rule of law and fundamental rights were not in line with European standards. Of particular concern was the adoption of a law allowing the immunity of HDP members of parliament to be lifted.

The renewed fighting between the PKK and security forces has –as it did during the 1990s– led to serious allegations of human rights violations and the disproportionate use of force. Many elected representatives in the south-east have been suspended or arrested under terrorism-related charges, some of them on the basis of decrees under the ongoing state of emergency. ‘The settlement of the Kurdish issue through a political process is the only way forward; reconciliation and reconstruction are also becoming key issues for the authorities to address’.

The judicial system comes in for a lot of criticism. The report says the extensive changes to the structures and composition of the high courts are not in line with European standards. Judges and prosecutors continued to be removed and in some cases were arrested for allegedly conspiring with the Gülenists. One fifth of the judges and prosecutors have been dismissed since July and their assets frozen. Under the state of emergency, Ankara further extended for certain offences the pre-trial detention to 30 days without access to a judge, contravening European Court of Human Rights case law. Moreover, a significant part of the judiciary is subject to these measures.

As regards respect for human rights, many allegations of serious violations of the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment and of procedural rights were reported in the immediate aftermath of the coup.

Freedom of expression has been very seriously eroded by what the report calls ‘selective and arbitrary application of the law, especially of the provisions on national security and the fight against terrorism’. In the latest crackdown on the press, the editor and 12 senior staff of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, one of Turkey’s oldest, were detained, some following raids at their homes. They are suspected of ‘committing crimes’ on behalf of the Gülen movement. More than 170 media outlets have been closed since the attempted coup and 105 journalists arrested, according to Sibel Günes, the General Secretary of the Turkish Journalists’ Association. The Authorities have also revoked the press credentials of more than 700 journalists. Among those arrested at Cumhuriyet was the cartoonist Musa Kart. Long before the coup, Erdoğan (Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014) became infamous for mercilessly pursuing those who criticised his creeping authoritarianism.

Corruption remains rife in many areas, despite the adoption of a plan to combat it. Turkey has dropped from 53rd place out of 177 countries in 2013 with a score of 50 (the closer to 100 the cleaner the country) to 66th out of 168 in 2015 with a score of 42.

On the issue of Cyprus, the report yet again urged Turkey to implement the provisions of the Ankara Protocol and thus recognise the Republic of Cyprus, which joined the EU in 2004. Reunification of the island, the northern part of which was invaded by Turkey in 1974 and occupied since then, is not per se a condition for EU membership but would undoubtedly improve the tense relations with Brussels. The landslide victory of the pragmatic Mustafa Akıncı, the leader of the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the April 2015 presidential election over the more inflexible Derviş Eroğlu raised hopes of progress finally being achieved in reunifying the island. Both Akıncı and Nikos Anastasiades voted in favour of reuniting Cyprus in the 2004 referendum and are at a delicate stage of negotiations to end one of the world’s longest conflicts.

Conclusion

Where do we go from here?

Turkey-EU relations are at a low if not breaking point. Whether Erdoğan throws in the towel or the European Commission suspends the accession process remains to be seen. Neither side wants to make the first move, as it would be an admission of defeat and carry with it strategic consequences. For the EU keeping Turkey on board has been the name of the game for many years now, but this has its limits.

Ending Turkey’s accession process would be a blow to the EU’s soft power. All countries that have started the process have seen it through and become EU members. But Erdoğan has repeatedly ignored the EU’s criticisms if not mocked them and got away with crossing EU red lines, often in the name of fighting terrorism. Earlier this month he said it was time to ‘cut our own umbilical cord’ as the EU has ‘kept Turkey at its gates for 53 years’. Brussels long ago ceased to have any leverage over Ankara.

What would automatically trigger the suspension of the accession process would be if Erdoğan presses ahead with his threat to reintroduce the death penalty (abolished in 2004). That would then run the risk of imperilling the migration deal and plunge relations with Turkey into a deep crisis at a crucial point in the West’s fight against the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, countries that border Turkey.

One way to move the EU accession along and put Erdoğan’s democratic credentials to a final test would be to open the chapters on judicial and fundamental rights and on justice, security and freedoms, core values of the EU. But these chapters are blocked by Cyprus.

Key dates

September 1959: Turkey applies for associate membership of the European Economic Community (EEC).

September 1963: Signature of the Association Agreement, aiming at enhancing economic cooperation and achieving a Customs Union between Turkey and the EEC.

April 1987: Turkey presents its formal application for membership of the European Economic Community.

January 1995: Turkey-EU Agreement creating a customs union.

December 1999: The European Council recognises Turkey as a candidate country.

December 2004: The European Council agrees to start accession negotiations with Turkey.

October 2005: Start of accession negotiations.

December 2006: The Council decides that eight negotiating chapters cannot be opened and no chapter can be closed until Turkey meets its obligation of full, non-discriminatory implementation of the additional protocol to the Association Agreement.

May 2012: European Commission and Turkey start the implementation of the Positive agenda for Turkey.

November 2013: Chapter 22 on Regional Policy and coordination of structural instruments becomes the 14th chapter on which negotiations are opened.

December 2013: The EU-Turkey readmission agreement is signed in parallel with the launching of the visa liberalisation dialogue.

October 2014: The EU-Turkey readmission agreement enters into force.

March 2015: The European Commission and Turkey launch a high level energy dialogue.

May 2015: The European Commission and Turkey agree to modernise the 20-year-old Customs Union Agreement and to enhance EU-Turkey bilateral trade relations.

November 2015: On the occasion of the EU-Turkey Leaders Meeting, both sides agree on the activation of a Joint Action Plan aiming at ending the irregular migration from Turkey to the EU, in full compliance with EU and international standards.

December 2015: Chapter 17 on economic and monetary policy becomes the 15th chapter on which negotiations are opened.

January 2016: The EU-Turkey high level energy dialogue takes place.

March 2016: The EU and Turkey agree on a joint statement on the basis of the Joint Action Plan of November 2015.

April 2016: The first EU-Turkey high level economic dialogue takes place.

May 2016: The third Report on progress by Turkey in fulfilling the requirements of its visa liberalisation roadmap is published.

June 2016: Chapter 33 on financial and budgetary provisions becomes the 16th chapter on which negotiations are opened.

September 2016: The third Report on the implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement of 18 March 2016 is published.

About the author:
*William Chislett, Associate Analyst, Elcano Royal Institute | @WilliamChislet3

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

Notes:
¹ William Chislett is author of two books on Turkey (Euromoney), seven working papers for the Elcano Royal Institute and a study for the Open Society Foundation (Istanbul) comparing Spain’s and Turkey’s EU trajectories. He has twice been a Visiting Scholar at Bilkent University, Ankara.

By Siwei Liu*

Close on the heels of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Hangzhou, China for the G20 meeting last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping made his second India visit to participate at the Brazil Russia India China and South Africa (BRICS) Summit on 15-16 October 2016 in New Delhi. There is no doubt that the frequent interactions between the top leaders of both countries are helpful for the current Sino-Indian relations that have experienced setbacks in the past years. At the same time, differences on some key issues have disrupted the smooth development of bilateral ties. It is time for China and India to adopt an inclusive approach for managing their differences, with them being the two biggest powers in Asia. This also means that the two sides should show greater mutual respect and pursue a win-win cooperation to avoid the Thucydides Trap.

Athough evidently there is no reason for making an over-pessimistic assessment on current China-India ties, there still remain major differences and disagreements between the two countries. Indian policy-makers and strategic analysts repeatedly state that China does not take care of India’s interests on some issues, including India’s entry into the NSG and India’s efforts to get the United Nations to impose sanctions on anti-India terror groups based in Pakistan. India has also been opposed to the Chinese-initiated China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) arguing that the corridor passes though the disputed region of Kashmir. The extension of India’s strategic frontier to the western Pacific Ocean along the lines of its Act East policy, and its security relationships with Japan and the US, cause concerns to the Chinese strategic community. China has also been closely watching the Indian stance on the South China Sea issue; upto now India has had an unclear policy on this issue.

Thankfully, the two sides have channels of communication and opportunities for interaction both at the multilateral level and at the bilateral level. In recent years, the two sides have recognised the importance of using some of the multilateral mechanisms to enhance bilateral dialogues and negotiations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the G20 and the BRICS summit. In addition to these, a number of new bilateral mechanisms have also been established, including a ministerial-level mechanism to tackle terror, a working mechanism for consultation and coordination on border affairs, and so on. The two sides also held the first round of dialogue on maritime cooperation this year. There is no denying that these mechanisms provide a good platform for the two nations to discuss each other’s positions, expectations and interests.

Exploring and creating channels of communication is only the first step for achieving positive ties. The next and the more important step should involve the two sides thinking deeply on how to manage their differences and address the divergence of interests between the two countries. China and India should avoid a zero-sum approach to manage their differences; adopting a comprehensive approach is the best choice.

How can the two sides push the bilateral ties forward? First, fostering an inclusive environment and restoring some positive energy for the current bilateral ties is very important. This understanding will have to be reflected in the national discourse and national institutions; for instance, bilateral ties are not only impacted by realistic national interests, but also by the behaviour and speeches of national leaders, diplomats, public intellectuals, etc. China and India should encourage related people, institutions and media to use a positive discourse to describe the developments in bilateral ties and make the relationship appear valuable and friendly.

Second, an all-encompassing approach requires taking some effective steps to respect the other’s core interests and values. If possible, the two sides should have more frank exchanges and a express each others interests and concerns more clearly, particularly on its national security stance. In addition, the two sides should believe that any side’s friendly behaviour in bilateral ties possibly could motivate the other side to think actively about their own behaviour. For instance, India could avoid exerting pressure on China on the South China Sea issue – an area of Chinese core national and strategic interest – and if possible India could even try to ease the tension in the region. Similarly, China could cooperate with India on counterterrorism, nuclear safety and maritime security governance, among other areas.

Third, a broader vision is required in both countries to manage the China and India relations. Besides their bilateral issues, China and India should also think about the effective management of regional and global affairs. As the overall national strength of both nations rises and as their strategic frontiers expand, there is greater scope for clash of interests and disagreements, especially at the regional level. Therefore, both sides need to recognize their responsibility to pursue an inclusive economic development and security cooperation for a stable and prosperous Asia. One of the ways to do this is by joining hands to provide public goods at the global and regional platform.

* Siwei Liu
Assistant Researcher, ISAS (Institution of South Asia Studies), Sichuan University, China

By Nargiz Hajiyeva*

“Safety and certainty in oil lie in variety and variety alone” — Winston Churchill

There is a doctrine in classical geopolitics: “Who controls Eurasia, (Heartland) eventually, he will be able to run the world. In subsequent times, historical development resulted in the pivotal changes in the foreign policies, in particular, political interests of states. Hence, the doctrine was changed into a new dogma in terms of the historical and geopolitical changes in the contemporary world order. “Who possesses energy resources sooner or later he can put the world under his control.

In today’s globalized world, maintenance of energy security stands on the agenda of states. Ostensibly, states clearly comprehend the pivotal impact of energy on both national security and foreign policy. Therefore, they can be considered as an indispensable “triangle” within the policy of states. In order to realize the importance of energy security, it could be better to trace back to the historical period.

On the threshold of the World War I, First Lord of Admiralty, Winston Churchill made a historical move that he transferred the main power source of British Navy from Welsh coal to oil; because of the fact that he had in mind to make the Royal armada much faster than its German counterpart. This historical switch from coal to oil meant that not only did Royal navy not depend on Welsh coal, but also he clearly expressed the diversification of supply as a fundamental principle of energy security. This pivotal decision had formed the course of the war against counterparts. As a consequence of this historically important footstep, today national security, in particular, homeland security lies in the hands of energy factor. Afterward, since Churchill’s crucial answer, energy security has been the number one issue on the agenda of states that nowadays, they strive to answer these questions regarding what are the key principles of energy security and how they can preserve the energy resources within national security?! It is undeniable fact that the fervent interests of states over energy enhanced amid the World War II. As a result, the major powers and allies lacking meaningful resources strived to gain access to wealthy energy resources in particular areas; Middle East, Caspian Sea and Romania. Indeed, the main concerns on energy consisted of gaining broad access to energy-rich areas in order to not only did ensure their energy demands and preserve energy resources within their national security. Basically, if energy security puts the question on national strategy, first and foremost, national security and then foreign policy have to be taken into account in order to realize the key principles of energy security. Between the threshold of the two wars, energy was used as an effective response to military power.

The immense concerns over energy security began with the 1973-1974 Arab-Israel War and the foundation of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) and Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Throughout that period, OPEC using the energy factor as a strategic weapon imposed oil boycott against major energy-importing countries and suspended the export of oil to the West, mainly European countries and the U.S. Afterward, to a large extent, the West, in particular, the U.S realized the crucial power of energy and kicked off the maintenance and rational usage of energy supplies. In truth, the boycott was really arduously strategic lesson for the West and caused “energy syndrome” that they realized the major impact of energy factor and tried to adequately secure the energy supplies within their internal and external policy. The dependence on energy resources put the energy security as a major issue of national security on states and societies. Hence, to provide energy security means the preservation of national security and to ensure the security of both of them defines the rational implementation of foreign policy. In today’s world, large-scale access to energy resources at affordable costs, to ensure the upholding of energy security is one of the vital national interests of states (as a key example the U.S, Russia, China and etc).

Energy and national security have always been closely linked. As a key example, after the 1990s the homeland security of the U.S based on the providing energy security and diversification of energy supplies. During the presidency of Bill Clinton, he considered the energy security as a main issue of the U.S foreign policy. Today, the energy issue does not have to be restricted to oil, because of the fact that the diversification of energy supplies and large-scale access to alternative energy resources can lessen or prevent the future distortion of energy supplies. Nowadays, in order to prevent some social and economic turmoil over energy supplies, first and foremost, the world’s states has proved the gas as important energy resources as oil, and have to gain broad access to flexible liquefied natural gas resources (LNG), and clean coal technology at the same time, for the future development, states need to build the transparent global market to export their both oil and flexible gas resources across the energy-importing countries. Today, states should have to achieve the flexibility of natural gas, because it is undeniable fact that the positive development of LNG market will boost their security. States immensely realize the future development of LNG business, because the rational exporting of flexible natural gas resources can contribute to further diversification of energy supplies as well as resources. Hence, within the umbrella of energy security states can preserve not only their national security but also gain access to the renewable or alternative energy sources as well. For instance, for upcoming years, up to 2020, LNG could constitute 25 to 30 % of total gas spending of the US, compared to 3 % in the previous year, 2004.

Energy security is utterly important for each state in terms of ensuring its national security. In this way, states strive to take strategic steps and involve far more investments in their countries in order to provide their national security necessities. Fundamentally, in order to provide energy security and self-sufficiency in terms of national security and foreign policy, each state should take crucially strategic prospects such as setting up new alliances, fortifying collective energy security, stating its interests with energy-exported countries, in particular, the rise of state power in energy.

It is ostensible fact that nation states should have to take into account the future threats to their national security that comes from the concentration of energy resources. Currently, we are observing different kinds of challenges to national security that prevent countries from taking major steps regarding energy resources. These challenges are not limited to terrorism, social and economic turmoil, political crisis, armed disputes, and piracy. For instance, natural disasters also engender huge damages and disruptions in the flows of energy resources as well. Hurricane namely Katrina and Rita caused far more damages and disruption of the flows of energy resources; oil, gas and electric power in 2005.

What does the energy security mean for the major states?! – To date, energy means “security of demand” for the energy-exporting countries and they try to maintain the sufficient demand within their policy. Energy security means varied interests and intentions among different countries, but on a whole, it has to be acclimatized to national security and foreign policy.

For the U.S, energy security means the ensuring of diversification of energy supplies and adequate access to a new global market in order to maintain homeland security. According to Russia, the main aim is to implement state control over energy resources, attain the prime role over the main energy pipelines and demonstrate its strategic role in the global market environment. China tries to controls access to what is basically the largest possible market for its energy products in terms of reaching the sufficient stage of economic development. From the standpoint of Japan, the prevention of scarcity of domestic resources through investment, trade and diversification of supply is the pivotal policy. The main aim of the Europe is how to reduce the reliance on gas resources and how to convert the gas resources into new coal technology as in previous times. Nowadays, the conception of energy security has to be extended to involve the defense of energy supply chain and energy infrastructure on the agenda of states. Because of the fact that the growing balance of energy interdependence and the energy trade put important duties in front of both energy-exporting and importing countries in order to secure the energy supply chain and global energy marketplace as well.

According to Jan H. Kalicki and David L. Goldwyn’s standpoint, the energy security consists of key principles. The first principle subjects to the diversification of energy supplies that can be achieved by broad access to alternative energy sources and then the establishment of new-fangled energy platforms and infrastructures in order to develop them sufficiently. Therefore, diversification of energy resources is paramount both for energy security as well as for competitiveness The second crucial point premises on the creation of far more stable and well-functioning energy market in order to sell energy products at affordable prices. Hence, to provide the stability of global market can enhance the accessibility and affordability of energy products among consumers and exporters. In fact, for all consumers security dwells in the flexible and stable market. The third code rests on the “security margin”. That can create “a buffer zone” in order to prevent damages and disruption of flows of energy supplies and secure the energy infrastructures. The fourth principle mainly concerns on the essential role of high-quality information. The good-quality information can strengthen the well-functioning and flexible energy markets. For example, International Energy Agency (IEA) leads the way of delivering the well-organized flow of information between consumers and exporters within the international energy market. This information can provide the consumers as well as exporters regarding for instance, the flexibility of liquid natural gas (LNG) resources and the rational export and import of these resources in energy market satisfactorily. The fifth principle refers to the implementation of research-development (R&D) and innovative breakthroughs within energy spectrum in terms of the preserving of energy security. The next ones focus on the creation of supportive and transparent relations between energy-exported and imported countries, technologically-driven energy industry producing new generation of energy resources as a means of ensuring energy security and etc. These focal principles of energy security can be considered the main provider of national security and foreign policy. For this reason, according to some scholars, energy security, national security and foreign policy can be called the successful “triangle” in international political economy.

Briefly, in the contemporary world order, energy security is considered as a focal engine of national security and foreign policy. The immense demand for energy, basically, access to stable and flexible market with affordable prices creates a more competitive environment between energy importers and exporters. In a world of growing interdependence, energy security depends largely on the level of bilateral and multilateral relations among states at energy spectrum. Indeed, energy is defined as the lifeblood of states for not only their survival and well-being but also their national, regional and global security.

About the author
*Nargiz Hajiyeva is a master student from Vytautas Magnus University. Her main research fields are international public and private law, and foreign policy issues. She got a bachelor degree on International Relations from Baku State University between 2010 and 2014.

Source:
This article was published at Modern Diplomacy

By J Nastranis

Three days after having congratulated Donald Trump on his election as forty-fifth President of the United States in a statement he read out to the press at the UN Headquarters in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has in a phone call on November 12 commended the President-elect’s calls for unity – and this with apparent satisfaction.

On November 9, Ban said in a statement to the press: “In the aftermath of a hard-fought and often-divisive campaign, it is worth recalling and reaffirming that the unity in diversity of the United States is one of the country’s greatest strengths. I encourage all Americans to stay true to that spirit.”

Ban remarked that today’s global challenges demand concerted global action and joint solutions, and added: “As a founding member of the United Nations and permanent member of the Security Council, the United States is an essential actor across the international agenda. People everywhere look to the United States to use its remarkable power to help lift humanity up and to work for the common good.”

The Secretary-General whose term ends on December 31, twenty days before Trump’s inauguration as President on January 20 in Washington D.C. said: “The United Nations will count on the new Administration to strengthen the bonds of international cooperation as we strive together to uphold shared ideals, combat climate change, advance human rights, promote mutual understanding and implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve lives of peace, prosperity and dignity for all.”

Ban stressed the need to mobilize around the principles and common values of the UN Charter more than ever.

These remarks reflected grave concern at the United Nations about the disdain Trump expressed for the world body on the whole during the election campaign. “After eight years with an extremely engaged multilateralist Obama administration, many diplomats fear the U.S. will return to the darker days of George W. Bush, who pursued his foreign policy outside the United Nations,” according to the Voice of America (VOA).

As the Voice of America recalled, in March, at a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Trump spoke of “the utter weakness and incompetence of the United Nations,” suggesting he had no love for the organization.

“The United Nations is not a friend of democracy, it’s not a friend to freedom, it’s not a friend even to the United States of America where, as you know, it has its home,” VOA quoted the then-candidate saying.

Trump also said the concept of global warming “was created by and for the Chinese” to hurt U.S. manufacturing.

According to the readout issued by his office on November 12, Ban expressed “confidence that the United States and the United Nations would maintain their traditional strong ties of cooperation to advance peace and security, sustainable development and human rights throughout the world”. The readout said, the UN Secretary-General and President-elect Trump “agreed to stay in continued contact”.

This has given rise to the hope that the President-elect might be willing to receive before the end of the year outgoing UN Chief and his successor António Guterres, who assumes office on January 1.

Despite persistent concern, the UK newspaper Independent reported that Ban “has spoken of his confidence that Donald Trump will distance himself from his campaign rhetoric and address global issues such as climate change during his presidency”.

The newspaper quoted Ban saying about Trump: “He has made a lot of worrying statements, but I am sure that he will understand the whole importance and seriousness and urgency. The presidency may be important, but humanity and all our lives and our planet Earth are eternal.”

However Dev-Ex, “the media platform for the global development community” said on November 9: “Overall financial support to the UN by the U.S. could have ripple effects across different agencies.”

The U.S. contributed 22 percent to the UN’s 2016-2017 core budget and more than 28 percent to the 2016-2017 peacekeeping budget, marking the maximum contribution any country is allowed to give, according to General Assembly rules, wrote Amy Lieberman. Japan and then Germany follow as the next largest donors.

Lieberman added: The U.S. is also a top donor to major U.N. organizations, including the UN Refugee Agency — giving about $1.5 billion there this year — as well as the World Food Programme and the United Nations Development Programme. These two organizations have consistently looked to the U.S. as their prime government supporters, with $1.48 billion in funding and $83 million, respectively, this past year.

Other agencies, such as U.N. Women and the United Nations Environment Programme, are somewhat less dependent on the U.S. for their core contributions, but still count the U.S. as a top 10 donor.

While UN diplomats are keeping their fingers crossed, President-elect Trump’s disdain for the United Nations is not an exceptional occurrence in American politics. In fact complaints about the UN surface regularly in the U.S. mainstream media too.

Conflict between the U.S. and the UN predates the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1971, the UN adopted Resolution 2758 – which affected the admission of the People’s Republic of China and the removal of the Republic of China (Taiwan) – despite objections by the U.S. government. The U.S. government changed its own China policy shortly afterward, however, so the conflict between the UN and U.S. foreign policy was short-lived.

Under the Reagan administration, the U.S. withdrew from UNESCO, and withheld its dues to encourage the UN to repeal Resolution 3379, which it did in 1991. When the UN repealed Resolution 3379, the U.S. resumed dues payments, but not before the U.S. had accumulated significant and controversial arrears. Between 1995 and 2005, the U.S. had accumulated a total of $1.246 billion debt to the UN.

The state of challenged Russia-West (especially US-Russia) relations is something questioned by Western realists and some alternative others. Donald Trump made it to the US presidency, despite saying some things that run counter to the biases against Russia, evident in the American political establishment.

Among these elites, Trump faces noticeable Democratic and Republican opposition towards his realist stated views on Russia. He has exhibited a will to do things his way. A US president has the power to keep a lid on aggressive tendencies. Two examples come to mind. During the Cuban missile crisis, John F. Kennedy opposed some of those under him, who favored a more confrontational approach. Barack Obama nixed some of the aggressive positions sought by individuals in his administration.

It remains to be seen whether Trump will continue to second guess the negative establishment views on Russia, or change course as he has done on some other issues. Trump’s inner circle of political elites includes some individuals who’ve expressed negatively inaccurate comments about Russia. On the flip side, during his presidential campaign, he (in at least one instance) favorably spoke of involving folks with fresh foreign policy ideas, who the establishment has shunned. US public opinion might assist in influencing him to maintain a more upbeat impression of Russia. With good reasoning, Americans at large feel they’ve more pressing issues away from the subject of that country.

It’s also true that many Americans have a negative view of Russia, on account of their not spending the time to study the fault lines, regarding the US mass media coverage which has influenced them. Trump seems to understand that dynamic – thus enabling him to successfully counterpunch. There’s a part of him that can relate to the concerns of others. This aspect has been downplayed because of some of his provocatively stated views on other issues. (Human nature can include periodic contradictions.)

As it became clear that Hillary Clinton was on the verge of losing the election, the Democratic connected MSNBC host Chris Matthews negatively spoke of her going along with the neocon foreign policy line – a matter relating to where Trump has offered a valid alternative. The adventurist neocon foreign policy desire isn’t easily applied in today’s geopolitical reality of some powers (notably China and Russia) having considerable clout in their respective near abroad. The faulty neolib humanitarian intervention approach (supported by neocons) is much too hypocritically flawed to be taken seriously, when assessed with some realm of objectivity.

In adversarial relationships, the ice can be broken with situations that don’t typically get much of the headline coverage – along the lines of taking baby steps that (if successful) lead to giant steps.

Since the Soviet breakup, the disputed former Soviet territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and Pridnestrovie (also known as Transnistria and closely related spellings) have been in a frozen status, short of achieving a mutually agreed settlement. In addition, following the 2008 war in the Caucasus (as well as beforehand), the disputed former Georgian SSR territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, remain far from being fully settled.

There’s a definite practical basis for a Russia-West agreement in resolving these disputes and their respective peripheral issues.

In the former Moldavian SSR, the disputed territory of Pridnestrovie is (in majority terms) geared towards a pro-Russian direction. Fortunately, this multiethnic enclave (roughly even with ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Moldovans), is relatively free of very bad ethnic relations. In the rest of the former Moldavian SSR, there’s clear division on what’s the best geopolitical route. Of late, the pro-Russian grouping in Moldova has the upper hand, but (perhaps) not enough dominance to easily pursue their preference.

Moldova is regarded as poor and challenged, with a presence of post-Soviet corruption – inclusive of some of those professing a pro-West course. It’s frankly a waste of time to be harping on a Russia-West confrontation over the former Moldavian SSR. Of all the disputed former Soviet territories, Pridnestrovie looks to be the easiest to resolve.

My January 10, 2012 Eurasia Review article “Pridnestrovie’s Present and Future“, presents the basis for the option of a however termed confederation/federation of the former Moldavian SSR. A fully settled former Moldavian SSR can then serve to possibly pave the way to settle the more difficult territorial disputes.

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, involving Armenia and Azerbaijan has (over the years) experienced noticeable violence. At the same time, these two former Soviet republics have reasons to be on good terms with Russia and the West. There’s a pragmatic thinking out of the box way to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Refer to my April 15, 2016 Strategic Culture Foundation article “Settling Nagorno-Karabakh and Reviewing the Peripheral Talking Points” and its slightly expanded Eurasia Review version.

Georgia shows signs of seeking an improved relationship with Russia, while desiring closer ties with the West. In this spirit, is the possibility of a prolonged agree to disagree status quo, as well as some kind of an eventual settlement, concerning the statuses of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Not to be overlooked are the differences of opinion concerning Kosovo and Crimea, with northern Cyprus as a reference. Practically speaking, Kosovo has been (like it or not) separated from Serbia. The same holds true of Crimea relative to Ukraine. It has been decades since Turkey enforced the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”. The neocon/neolib support for Kosovo’s independence and lack of protest over Turkey’s position in northern Cyprus underscores the gross hypocrisy in staunchly opposing Crimea’s reunification with Russia. (A substantively prolonged debate on this matter will substantiate that observation.)

It’s possible for Russia and the West to improve their relations, while not necessarily reaching complete agreement on all or any of the aforementioned disputed territories.

*Michael Averko is a New York based independent foreign policy analyst and media critic. This article initially appeared at the Strategic Culture Foundation on November 14.

According to election records, most of the 112 people arrested last week in Portland, Oregon protesting the election of Donald Trump as US president did not vote in Oregon, reports local television station KGW.

KGW reported that of those arrested around 79 people either did not vote or were not registered to vote in Oregon, noted that 35 of the arrested protesters weren’t registered to vote in Oregon.

KGW said it compiled its list from the arrest logs of the Portland Police Bureau and then compared that list to state voter logs provided by Multnomah County Elections officials.

It has been reported that demonstrations turned into a riot on November 10, causing over an estimated $1 million in property damages.

By Lisa Ferdinando

Iraqi forces and Kurdish peshmerga are making gains in the approach to Mosul, but fierce fighting is expected in the dense terrain inside the northern Iraqi city, the Pentagon’s press operations director said Tuesday.

The effort to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a tough fight that is only going to get tougher, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters at the Pentagon.

Progress is being made on the northern, eastern and southern sides of the city, he said. In fact, Iraqi counterterrorism forces are inside the city in the east, he added.

“They’re clearing those eastern neighborhoods of Mosul city, doing this in a deliberate and incremental manner so as to safeguard the civilian population as much as possible,” Davis said.

However, he noted there is no direct relation between how much area of eastern Mosul has been cleared and how much of the battle remains.

“It may be one-third cleared in terms of acreage, but it’s not one-third clear in terms of challenge and task ahead,” he said, “because as they get closer to the center of the city, it’s going to get more dense and more fierce in the fighting.”

Over the last 24 hours, the U.S.-led coalition conducted seven strikes in support of this operation, including six near Mosul and one near Qayyarah, according to Davis.

The strikes included 53 munitions, bringing to 3,988 the number of munitions the coalition has used in the effort for Mosul since Oct. 17, when the battle for the city began, he said.

Progress in Syria

Syrian Democratic Forces continue to make gains in efforts to isolate the key Syrian city of Raqqa, Davis said. The SDF are closing in on two axes in northern Syria and are within two kilometers of each other to cut off a pocket of ISIL control, Davis said.

“Yesterday, over 30 square kilometers were cleared in this effort,” he said.

Davis said the coalition delivered nine munitions from aircraft against ISIL targets in support of the SDF operations yesterday.

The latest munitions used bring to 241 the total number of munitions delivered in support of the SDF since the offensive for Raqqa began Nov. 5, Davis said.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel Malek Al-Mekhlafi said on Tuesday his government was not interested in a cease-fire and unity government announcement by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Speaking after talks in Oman, which is close to the Houthis, and in the UAE, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition, Kerry said he had presented Houthi delegates with a document outlining a cease-fire and peace deal.

He said the Houthis, whom he met in Oman on Monday night, had agreed to a truce from Thursday, provided the other side implemented it.

“And thus far the Emiratis and the Saudis … they have both agreed to try to move forward with this,” he said.

The cease-fire would be on the same terms as an earlier one that ran from April until the end of August, when UN-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait ended in disagreement.

The Yemeni government quickly rejected the move, complaining of being bypassed.

“The government of Yemen is not aware of the statements made by Mr. Kerry and does not consider itself committed to them,” said Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel Malek Al-Mekhlafi.

Remarks attributed to Kerry “are a bid to derail peace efforts and a bid to reach an agreement with the Houthis without the government,” he said. “I believe the current US administration is incapable of providing any guarantees to any party and what Kerry has said is no more than a media bubble at our people’s expense,” Al-Mekhlafi told Al-Jazeera television.

Kerry, in what could be his last trip to the Gulf before Obama’s term ends in January, is seeking a breakthrough to end the fighting between the Houthis, backed by Iran, and the internationally recognized government of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

“The key is now to get everybody on board,” he said, adding that it was now essential to implement a UN peace road map drawn up by special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.

“We have to have the final pieces, but I’m very hopeful that this can really come together, and has the potential to be a real turning point in this conflict, providing that everybody does their part,” Kerry added.

Saudis intercept missile

Saudi air defense forces on Tuesday intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile fired from Yemen toward the Kingdom.

The missile was fired toward Najran but was shot down, said a coalition statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Coalition forces responded by targeting the source of the fire inside Yemen, it added.

During the so-called Arab Spring in the midst of the Egyptian transition from a dictatorship to a democracy, the radical Islamic group known as the Muslim Brotherhood was being sold to the American people by President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and others as being “moderate” Muslims.

However, the Egyptian military didn’t see it that way and the Muslim Brotherhood president and the groups legislators were removed and eventually arrested as terrorists.

In a hopeful departure from the Obama-Clinton Egyptian Policy, Americans are urging President Donald J. Trump to push legislation that designates the Muslim Brotherhood — and it’s affiliate Muslim Sisterhood — as a terrorist organization, Walid Phares, a foreign policy advisor for the president-elect told the officials at Clarion Project.

Phares told the Middle Eastern news media and the Clarion Project, a U.S. think-tank that the legislation, has already received the approval of the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year. But when it was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee it was stonewalled by Senators because the Obama administration supports the radical Muslim group despite it being listed as a terrorist organization by a number of other nations including Middle Eastern countries.

According to officials at the Clarion Project, they have been campaigning to educate legislators and the group and to move the bill forward. The think-tank noted that the bill garnered bipartisan support.

Exactly one year ago, Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced the bill, which identifies three Brotherhood entities in the U.S. including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

“We have to stop pretending that the Brotherhood are not responsible for the terrorism they advocate and finance … We have to see it for what it is: a key international organization dedicated to waging violent jihad,” Cruz is quoted as saying by the Washington Free Beacon..

The bill provides a review of the Brotherhood’s terrorist history and how it is banned by the governments of Egypt, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Syria. Egypt released videos showing the Brotherhood’s involvement in terrorism and the Egyptian government’s website warns about the Brotherhood lobby in the United States.

Cruz’s bill also accuses the Muslim Brotherhood being connected to CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT).

The U.S. designated the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing—Hamas— in 1997, but the group as a whole is allowed to operate in the U.S.

Although President-elect Trump is inexperienced and lacks the nuanced knowledge of the complex crises America is confronted with, he must now navigate his own way and develop new strategies, particularly in the areas where Obama fell short, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Sunni-Shiite war, and the civil war in Syria

By Dr. Alon Ben-Meir*

If nothing else, the 2016 elections have once again reaffirmed America’s solid democratic system. Without any major incidents, tens of millions of Americans went to polling stations across the land, voted for the candidate of their choice, and readied themselves, as always, for the peaceful transfer of power. I believe that even those who were deeply disappointed with the results of the election will sooner than later rise above the fray, put the nation’s interests first, and work to build a more wholesome union.

Notwithstanding the post-election trauma that many Americans are experiencing and the time the Trump administration will need to sort out a host of domestic and foreign policy issues, the US faces numerous foreign crises and it does not have the luxury of time to pause in dealing with them. America’s leadership role and responsibility remain pivotal to mitigate, if not end, many of these violent conflicts sweeping the Middle East in particular. Although President-elect Trump is inexperienced and lacks the nuanced knowledge of the complex crises America is confronted with, he must now navigate his own way and develop new strategies, particularly in the areas where Obama fell short, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Sunni-Shiite war, and the civil war in Syria.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: There is no doubt that President Obama has made supreme efforts to solve the seven-decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However admirable his efforts were, the president and his chief mediator Secretary of State John Kerry failed to take into account the psychological dimension of the conflict, which has been and remains the core impediment to resolving the conflict, especially from religious, historic, and ideological perspectives.

Throughout the two sets of intensive negotiations in 2009-2010 and 2013-2014, and in spite of the progress made on various conflicting issues such as the Palestinian refugees, the future of Jerusalem, and borders, the failure to mitigate the psychological aspect connected to these issues made it impossible for either side to deliver what they have agreed upon.

At this juncture, the gulf between the two sides has become even deeper and wider, and no amount of mediation, compensation, or coercion can persuade either side to make the significant concessions needed to make peace possible.

The Trump administration must first focus on a process of reconciliation (people-to-people activity) that would mitigate the profound mutual distrust, instill a sense of mutual security, and disabuse the strong constituencies on both sides that they can have it all.

During this process of reconciliation between the two sides, which should last for about two years, the US with the support of the EU (led by France) should promote the Arab Peace Initiative (API) to provide the overall framework for peace based on a two-state solution.

Although many Israelis celebrated the election of Trump, believing that he would not pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution, the Trump administration will make a mistake of historical proportions if it leaves Israelis and Palestinians to their own devices.

The current relative calm should not be taken for granted as the simmering tension can explode any time if the Palestinians see no prospect of ending the occupation in the foreseeable future.

Only by creating the social, political, and psychological atmosphere conducive to peace, and with the support of the Arab states, the EU, and other major powers, can the negotiations be resumed with a far better prospect of success. If Trump is concerned about Israel’s future security and political integrity, he must not hesitate to pressure Israel now to seek a solution and save it from its own destructive path.

The Sunni-Shiite war: ISIS came to being in the wake of the Iraq war, which instigated a renewed violent conflict between the Sunnis and Shiites. Although the eventual defeat of ISIS is inevitable, it will not bring an end to the Sunni-Shiite conflict as long as Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia are fighting for regional hegemony; they will continue to wage a proxy war in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen to secure their goal.

The key to settling this conflict is to revisit the Iraq war and its repercussions on the Sunnis in Iraq. After 81 years of their continuous rule, the Iraqi Sunnis now find themselves at the mercy of the Shiite governing majority, which has systematically discriminated against and marginalized them from the first day the Maliki-led Shiite government came to power.

The Trump administration must now understand that maintaining the unity of Iraq as a single country is no longer a viable option. Though the Sunni Iraqis loath ISIS, they despise and detest the Shiite government in Bagdad even more. To help bring a swifter end to the civil war in Iraq, the Sunnis need to be granted autonomy along the line of the Iraqi Kurds.

The US must now begin the dialogue between the Sunni and Shiite leadership in Iraq to reach an amicable agreement with which both can live. The three Sunni provinces that include the city of Mosul should constitute the contours of such an entity, but given the lack of natural resources (i.e. oil) in these areas, an equitable distribution of oil revenue should be established between them and the central government.

In the final analysis, only a long period of peaceful coexistence between the two sides will allow them over time to develop a closer, more trusting, and friendlier relationship. This will greatly satisfy the Saudis as the Sunnis will maintain a strong foothold in Iraq while Iran will still be in a position to exert some influence on the Shiite government.

This would also bring an end to the bloodshed between Sunnis and Shiites that will otherwise further escalate in the wake of ISIS’ inevitable defeat.

The civil war in Syria: The civil war in Syria will not end unless the US changes its approach to the war by putting both Putin and Assad on notice that the slaughter of Syrian civilians must immediately come to an end.

The US cannot assert its commanding regional role and at the same time save the Syrian people from near-complete destruction by leading from behind and merely providing military equipment and material to the rebels.

That said, the US must recognize that Russia has been for decades and will remain a permanent fixture in Syria, and Iran will not relinquish its longstanding interest and influence in Damascus as Tehran views Syria as the linchpin to the Shiite-dominated crescent of land between the Mediterranean and the Gulf. However unorthodox this may seem, the US has little choice but to work with these two powers to find a solution.

While recognizing the importance of Russia’s role and its willingness to cooperate with Putin to find a permanent solution, the Trump administration must also convey in unequivocal terms to Putin and Assad that they must stop the indiscriminate bombing and killing of tens of thousands of innocent Syrians while erasing one neighborhood after another.

Given Putin’s desire to work closely with Trump, he is likely to be more receptive in finding a solution to the conflict. But if he does not, the US must assert itself and be prepared to bomb and destroy all of Assad’s air force fields, hangars, and munitions depots.

The cessation of hostilities in Syria will not, in and of itself, bring an end to the civil war, but it remains a prerequisite to open up diplomatic channels in the search for a permanent peaceful solution.

In any future solution, the US should not object to Assad remaining president throughout an agreed-upon transitional period if his participation keeps intact the bureaucracy, military, and internal security apparatus to prevent a replay of what happened in Iraq following the US invasion.

The US cannot escape its responsibility, and it must now confront head-on the three most urgent and intractable conflicts before they further escalate out of control.

Given that Trump is all about ‘America First’ – and that America has significant geopolitical interests in the region – it is imperative that a Trump administration addresses these conflicts in a serious and consistent manner. Trump’s first test will be his choices of advisors, who can assist him to navigate through the thicket of these conflicts.

Whom he chooses and how soon he will act after the inauguration will send a clear message to America’s foes and friends alike where this nation is heading and its resolve to assert its global leadership role.

*Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of TransConflict.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley (D) joined Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), and Ed Markey (D-MA), as well as Senator-elect Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), to denounce on Tuesday what they say are acts of hatred seen across the United States since the election of Donald Trump.

In a Tuesday conference, the Senators and Senator-elect called on President-elect Trump to forcefully renounce these acts of hatred and immediately fire Steve Bannon, who they claim is a white nationalist selected by Trump as his Chief Strategist.

“First Donald Trump runs a campaign founded on racism, bigotry and sexism. Now he doubles down on division by bringing aboard as his Chief Strategist white nationalist Steve Bannon, who specializes in hate attacks. This is wrong. Totally, completely, absolutely wrong,” said Merkley. “We call on Trump to change course, reject hate strategies, and fire Steve Bannon. Bannon shouldn’t be allowed within 100 miles of the Oval Office.”

“At a time when our country is so divided, putting someone like Steve Bannon just steps away from the Oval Office is a serious mistake,” said Stabenow. “It is Donald Trump’s responsibility, as President-Elect, to help bring our country together. His appointment of Steve Bannon is the absolute wrong message to send to Americans today.”

“Quite frankly, it’s sad that we are having a debate about whether a white supremacist should serve as a senior counselor to the President-elect,” said Hirono.

“President-elect Donald Trump will forever poison the well with Congress and the American people by appointing figures like Steve Bannon to his administration whose stock and trade is hate and violence against the American people,” said Markey. “The most powerful message Donald Trump can send to the American people right now is to stand firmly on the side of our time-honored values of equality and tolerance and rescind Steve Bannon’s appointment as White House senior advisor and commit to an appointment process that celebrates the best of America, not the worst.”

“The President-elect is calling on Americans to come together. But when he hires someone like Steve Bannon, who has a history of ugliness, division, bigotry, and association with the alt-right, Donald Trump’s words of unity ring hollow,” said Van Hollen. “It’s easy to look into a TV camera and call for an end to the hate, but Americans are watching his actions. If Donald Trump wants to be a President for all Americans, he can start by taking action and firing Steve Bannon. His history of hate has no place in the White House.”

The Senators and Senator-elect called on the President-elect to renounce the attacks made on women and minorities throughout the course of his campaign, and demand that his followers cease their acts of hatred.

Russia on Tuesday announced the start of what it said was a major offensive targeting extremist militant groups in Syria’s north-western province of Idlib and central province of Homs.

“Today we began a large operation to inflict massive fire damage on positions of Islamic State and al-Nusra in the provinces of Idlib and Homs,” Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said in comments carried by the Interfax news agency.

A Russian aircraft carrier off Syria’s Mediterranean coast, the Admiral Kuznetsov, has been involved in the offensive, Shoigu told a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Idlib province is mostly held by a rebel coalition that includes Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly called the al-Nusra Front, a powerful extremist group with ties to al-Qaeda.

Four towns in the province were hit by strikes, an official with the Nour al-Din al-Zenki rebel group said.

In the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, about 20 kilometres from Idlib province, activists reported that Russian-designed planes were bombing rebel-held held eastern parts of the city.

“At least 14 strikes have hit eastern Aleppo so far, killing four people, among them two children,” Ibrahim al-Haj of the Syrian aid group White Helmets told dpa.

An independent monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed that several airstrikes hit eastern parts of the city on Tuesday.

Russia has been conducting a bombing campaign against militant groups in Syria for more than a year in support of the Syrian government, a longtime ally. The Syrian government also uses Russian-designed warplanes to conduct bombing runs.

The observatory said it could not immediately determine whether the strikes in Aleppo province had been carried out by Russian or Syrian planes.

Russia said over the past two weeks that it had been observing a unilateral ceasefire in Aleppo to enable civilians and moderate opposition groups to leave eastern parts of the city controlled by the UN-designated terrorist organization Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.

An estimated 250,000 to 300,000 people are under siege in eastern Aleppo, where residents report declining or damaged supplies of necessities including food, water, electricity and medicine.

Syrian government forces stepped up attacks in Aleppo last week, recapturing rebel-held areas on the western outskirts and attempting to move towards eastern areas.

Pro-Syrian regime media have been reporting over the past few days that a large-scale aerial and ground offensive was to be launched on eastern Aleppo, calling on civilians and fighters to leave the city.

The observatory said three hospitals have been hit in airstrikes in the past 24 hours in rebel-held areas on Aleppo’s western outskirts.

One hospital was struck overnight in the village of Awijel, while two hospitals were hit in the nearby villages of Kfar Naha and Atarib earlier Monday.

Original article

By Emanuel L. Paparella*

Various political science scholars have identified a striking resemblance between the Germany of the years before the rise of the Nazi Party (the years of the Weimar Republic) and the United States of today. The question has arisen: could what happened in Germany some 84 years ago happen now in the US?

That is to say, could America, with its democracy, checks and balances of government branches, liberalism, acceptance of diversity, championing of human rights, ever turn into a fascist state? An answer to that question was already hazarded by Lewis Sinclair in his 1935 satirical book titled It Can’t Happen Here. It is a sort of prophetic book where Sinclair makes the point that, given the right circumstances, authoritarian dictatorships and genocide can happen anywhere.

What are some of the parallels between the Weimar Republic and the US of 2016? The Weimar’s society was a culturally and socially progressive one with liberal attitudes prevalent everywhere, especially in Berlin. And it was democratic. But it was also a period of political gridlock, fragmentation and economic hardship. A vast majority of Germans, after the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles felt disenchanted with capitalism and the so called “international order,” a preview of what would eventually arrive later: global capitalistic economics. So, from 1919 till 1933 the tensions between left and right erupted not only in parliamentary debates but quite often in violence in the streets.

The popular alternative to liberal capitalism, which was perceived as elitist and doing the interests of the rich and powerful took the form of communism and anarchism. It became the extreme left. This was bound to provoke a reaction and it did in the form of another alternative, and extreme fascist movement on the right, the National Socialist Party of Nazi Party so called. Those two factions went at each with enthusiasm and in short order, by the early 1930, had managed to turn democracy into an up-side-down dysfunctional system with a flawed electoral system which included the misguided logic that democracy was designed to destroy itself.

In such an atmosphere compromise and working coalitions, vital components of any democracy, became dirty words, a sign of weakness to be avoided at all cost. Intolerance and intimidation were the prevalent mood. The great bullies and intimidators proved to be the Nazis who working via the democratic system managed with only 33% of the votes of the 1932 election to reach a plurality in the German Reichstag. Hitler was voted in as Chancellor by the Bundestag (he won by one vote) and a few months later the Reichstag passed the Enabling Law, abolished democracy and ushered in the Third Reich. Hitler had the army swear allegiance to him and declared himself dictator for life. All done “democratically.” By the time the German people realized that in effect they had lost their freedom, it was too late.

It is uncanny, indeed, frightening, how parallel are the events in the US in 2016. The causes may be different but the symptoms are quite similar. As in Germany we have just come out of an economic recession. People at the lower scale of the economic pyramid are still angry that those who caused the economic crisis, the economic barons on Wall Street got away with it while the political establishment looked the other way. One of the candidates went around offering lectures to them at $300,000 each.

It does not take a genius to realize that the political system is dysfunctional and polarized and nothing gets done. Here again, this is quite similar to what happened in the Weimar republic.

In Weimar Germany one reason for the political fragmentation was because the electoral system allowed parties with minute percentages of the vote to win seats in the Reichstag. In the US, political parties controlling the state legislatures have gerrymandered districts so much that now there are only a handful of marginal districts.

A serious consequence of the gerrymander is that Republican candidates for Congress often appeal to the hard-right fringe to win elections. Democrats are just as guilty at gerrymandering, except they have not been nearly as effective in most states, meaning that Republican control of the House of Representatives seems all but assured for the foreseeable future.

Trump is the culmination of over 30 years of Republicans convincing many Americans that government is the enemy. Republicans have dismantled government programs and regulations in a self-fulfilling prophecy that reinforces the perception of government’s ineffectiveness. Now, to the horror of the Republican establishment, Donald Trump has seized their message and is channeling it with gusto, but with his own warped, authoritarian tinge. He openly talks about implementing torture, undermining freedom of speech and the press and behaving belligerently with other nation-states.

What is most disturbing is the search for scapegoats going on as we speak, and demonization of Muslims and Latinos which is ominously redolent of the Hitler’s rhetoric about Jews. This may not be Republican conservatism and clearly not all Republicans are racists and bigots or misogynists, but it surely points to a fascist mind-set.

Will a Trump presidency turn America into a fascist state? That remains to be seen, but one has the uneasy feeling that we have seen this movie before and it does not end well. I’d like to believe with Sinclair that it cannon happen here, but I remain skeptical like him. I’d like to think that the constitutional system does indeed have enough check and balances not to let that happen; that Congress would never allow an enabling legislation to force Muslims to wear badges or force the deportation of millions of Latinos; that the Supreme Court would exercise judicial review and the executive branch would respect any rulings from the court. But I don’t know. I do know, however, that America after 2016 will never be the same. I also know that not all change is for the better; sometimes it is for the worse, as with the Weimar Republic, and that quite often in history the best way to fool people is to change everything so that nothing changes as expressed by Tancredi in the famous novel of Giuseppe di Lampedusa The Leopard.

In conclusion, the silver lining here the statement by the founder of the Republican party Abraham Lincoln who proverbially said that “one can fool all the people some of the times, and some of the people all the times, but one cannot fool all the people all the times.”

About the author:
*Emanuel L. Paparella, Ph.D.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation strongly condemns the mass killing and torture murder, rape, plundering and wholesome destruction of Rohingya people and their properties, homes and villages in Northern Arakan since 9 October.

From November 12, the Myanmar armed forces have intensified combined military and police crackdown on the ordinary Rohingya villagers using helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery. There are instances that all members of some families were shot dead. Those who were fleeing, on being terrified, were blocked and killed by machine gun firing in paddy fields, dales and creeks particularly in and around the Rohingya villages of Myaw Taung, Dargyizar, Yekhechaung Kwasone, Pwinpyu Chaung, Thu Oo La, Longdun, Kyin Chaung (Bawli Bazar) and Wabaek in Northern Maungdaw.

The army reportedly started crackdown on the Rohingya villagers on November 12, immediately after an armed clash with an alleged Rohingya armed group in the jungles. On November 12 and 13, about 150 civilians were killed, 200 injured, many people arrested and tortured, and 1500 houses, including religious buildings, were burned down, in addition to crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated in the month of October.

The total causalities from October 9, to November 13, are estimated to be 350 killed, 300 injured, many dozens of women raped, hundreds of people arrested on concocted charges, and 3,500 houses, including four villages, were burned down or destroyed. At least 30,000 people have been internally displaced. The injured people have no access to medical care. Many women, old men, children and infants were among those who were killed. The crackdown is still continuing while severely restricting humanitarian aids and barring international journalists and observers to the areas.

All these crimes against humanity and war crimes are committed with manifest intention to destroy the Rohingya minority community. But the Nobel Prize owner State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has persistently denied any violations against Rohingyas while lying that the Rohingya villagers themselves were torching their own houses. It is a rascally shameful conduct of the government and its armed forces.

Despite sky-piercing hues and cries of the Rohingya women, children and elderly, the NLD-led Government of Myanmar is manifestly failing to protect their life, property, honour and dignity, whereas the entire Rohingya population is living, round the clock, in extreme danger of killing, rape and destruction. In the event of no domestic protection, the responsibility to protect these helpless people weighs on the United Nations with the international community.

In view of the above facts, we:

1. Demand Myanmar Government to stop forthwith the ongoing military and police crackdown on Rohingya civilian population, to allow international journalists and observers to the affected areas as well as unhindered humanitarian aids to the needy, and to end all human rights violations and abuses against them.

2. Request the U.N. to conduct an independent and transparent international inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against the Rohingya people and bring the perpetrators to justice.

3. Request the Government of neighboring Bangladesh to speak out for the suffering Rohingya people on humanitarian grounds.

4. Request the United Nations and the international community to intervene in the current extremely dangerous situation being faced by the helpless Rohingya population in order to provide them with ‘full security and protection’ on the principle of humanitarian intervention and in the interest of international peace and security.

By Aline Robert

(EurActiv) — The EU claims to be promoting an ambitious agenda at the Marrakesh climate conference, but its latest piece of energy legislation could subsidise new coal capacity and undermine market access for renewables.

On 30 November, the European Commission will unveil its Winter Package, a series of legislative proposals supposedly aimed at providing “clean energy for all”, of which EurActiv.fr has obtained a copy.

These eight texts, which include revisions to directives and new regulations, are designed to put consumers at the heart of the energy market, allowing them to become electricity producers themselves. But other deep reforms to the energy market are also being considered.

Disguised subsidies for coal?

One contentious issue is the introduction of capacity mechanisms across the EU. These systems, which are already in use in several European countries such as the United Kingdom and France, allow electricity producers to earn money from their idle generation capacity.

But for environmental NGOs, capacity mechanisms are little more than veiled subsidies for fossil fuels. Indeed, the absence of a CO2 emissions cap for new electrical capacity in article 23 of the new electricity market regulation means it has potential to be used to subsidise new coal-fired power stations.

“I do not understand why we are opening the door to capacity mechanisms, because we are already at overcapacity in Europe. The German solution of making “strategic reserves” is better: with market interconnection there is no need to keep unused capacity running throughout Europe,” said Claude Turmes, a Luxrmbourgish Green MEP.

The Polish government is preparing its own capacity mechanism, which should be very similar to that currently in use in the United Kingdom. Copying and pasting the British system will allow Warsaw to bypass the bottleneck of European regulations on state aid, as the UK model has already been validated by Brussels. But unlike the UK, Poland is likely to use the system to strengthen the position of coal in its energy mix.

“If Poland builds new coal capacity, the credibility of the Commission is at stake. Why does the Climate Commissioner allow this?” Turmes asked in Marrakesh.

Renewables no longer a priority

And another problem: the regulation calls into question the priority market access enjoyed by renewable energies.

Priority access currently serves as a guarantee of profitability for investors in renewable energy. But under article 11 of the regulation, this could change.

For the big energy providers, the recent surge in renewable energy capacity has left a bitter aftertaste. The appearance of large-scale wind generation capacity, coupled with a slump in demand, saw the price per megawatt hour fall to below €50; less than the cost of production for most power stations.

Prices have climbed since, thanks to more sustained demand and reduced supply, with a number of French nuclear reactors not running at full capacity.

“No government has asked us to destroy the security of investments in renewable energies. If we want to reach the 1.5°C target, we don’t have a choice: we have to boost renewables,” said Turmes.

The EU executive also proposed the creation of a European energy regulation authority to supervise the national authorities.

The text says that governments “may” offer their citizens the right to produce electricity. But with no compulsory element and no guarantee of market access, the right to produce and sell renewable electricity is meaningless.

“This energy package is a gift to Poland. Pro-renewables governments like Germany are losing out, it makes no sense,” Turmes added.

Unambitious renewables objectives for 2030

And there is more bad news for environmentalists: the Commission has proposed a renewable energy target of 27% for 2030, but with no binding national targets and no effort sharing plan.

Jean-François Fauconnier, from the NGO Climate Action Network, said, “The European Commission has not understood the message of the Paris Agreement. These proposals are kilometres from what is needed to change the Paris objectives in reality.”

For 2020, the European Commission targeted 20% of renewables in the EU’s energy mix.

Paris climate agreement that was adopted at the Climate Change Conference in December 2015 to replace the Kyoto Protocol, came into force November 4.

Within the framework of this document, representatives of 195 countries agreed, in particular, to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Meanwhile, Paris agreement is subject to serious criticism as some experts insist on stricter control measures and express doubts about successful implementation of the document’s aims.

According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report, the countries must reduce the emissions by some 25 percent more than those pledged in the agreement to fulfill their obligations.

2030 emission levels are set to reach the equivalent of 54–56 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, which is well above the 42 gigatonne maximum if warming is to be kept below 2°C, the UNEP says.

Even if pledges outlined in the Paris Agreement are implemented and emission forecasts for 2030 are confirmed, the world is on track for a global temperature rise of 2.9°C to 3.4°C by the end of this century, which, according the scientists, can lead to irreversible climate change and catastrophic consequences, such as hunger, poverty, climate refugees and diseases, the UNEP warns.

At the same time, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), today the carbon dioxide levels have already exceeded the pre-industrial level by almost 1.5 times and reached a symbolic red line of 400 parts per million (ppm).

Commenting on the situation, Martin Beniston, Director of the Institute for Environmental Sciences (ISE), University of Geneva, said that further carbon dioxide levels increase will lead to even more climate warming, as a result of an amplification of the greenhouse effect.

“Carbon dioxide crossed a symbolic threshold of 400 ppm in 2015 already, and is continuing to rise at between 1–2% per year. The main cause of carbon dioxide increase is from fossil-fuel combustion: coal, oil, to a lesser extent natural gas, and also from forest fires in the tropical regions. The consequences of rapid warming can be dangerous for certain parts of the world: sea-level rise, disruption of agricultural production, changes to water availability and quality,” the climate researcher told PenzaNews.

In his opinion, this issue deserves much more attention of the international community.

“Some efforts have been made through improved energy-efficiency technologies, carbon trading, switch to renewable energy technologies; also carbon taxes and other financial mechanisms to make fossil fuels less attractive economically. However, the progress remains relatively slow and much more effort would be needed in political and economic terms, if we are to reach the ‘+1.5°C’ target negotiated at Paris Climate Change Conference,” the expert said.

People need to change their consumer behavior, in particular in the energy sector, he said.

“This is principally through energy efficiency in the building and transportation sector. For this last sector, consumers should try to use public transportation rather than individual vehicles; but for the moment, many large cities have inadequate mass transportation systems,” Martin Beniston explained.

According to him, the main obstacle to achieving the target of the Paris Agreement will be the inertia of many economic sectors.

“I rather see some positive developments by industry and technology, with possibly a limit of 2.5°C–3.0°C to future climate warming by 2100. This is better than +4°C or +6°C, but there will be numerous negative impacts that will disrupt socio-economic activities and lifestyles in many parts of the world,” he said.

In turn, Bradley Opdyke, Research Scientist at Research School of Earth Sciences, the Australian National University, disagreed with the statement that the 400 ppm barrier was breached.

“Equilibrium sea level at this carbon dioxide concentration is more than 20m above present. The good news is it will probably take several thousand years to reach that level,” the scientist said.

According to him, progress is rapidly being made to switch away from fossil fuel power sources to the tune of several hundred billion US dollars per year. Though if we were really taking this seriously that number would be in the trillions, he added.

“The Paris agreement is a good one on the political front, but it is just a first step. In order to really confront the problem, we need to keep being proactive, set up more wind mills, photovoltaics, and switch to electric cars,” Bradley Opdyke said.

From his point of view, positive change will continue to accelerate.

“In ten years, electric cars may be the dominant vehicle on the road and coal fired power stations extinct,” the expert suggested.

In turn Piers Forster, Director of Priestley International Centre for Climate, University of Leeds, UK, said that carbon dioxide levels are rising at about 2 ppm per year simply because we are burning coal, oil, gas and wood that emit carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

“In fact our emissions are making levels rise at 4 ppm per year, but the trees and oceans are being kind to us and absorbing an extra 2 ppm each year, meaning the rate of change in lower than it should be,” the British scientist stressed.

According to him, the impacts of climate change are damaging crops and communities now and it will steadily get worse.

“Carbon dioxide and other emissions such as methane have caused a temperature rise of 1°C for the globe, much higher temperature changes in the Arctic, with loss of ice and more rainfall at high latitudes and droughts and heatwaves at lower latitudes,” Piers Forster explained.

However, we can change things, he stressed.

“For the next 10 years or so we are more-or-less locked into further rises in carbon dioxide but beyond then – it is in our power to change. The Paris agreement was a huge success. I’m confident things will change going forward. The last weeks have seen international agreements on aviation and HFC gases. Coal fired power stations are being replaced. Renewables are taking over around the world,” he said.

According to him, further steps to improve the climate situation are largely dependent on the location of the state and its circumstances.

“For example, the main thing Russia could do would be to decarbonise its energy supply, moving from coal to gas and ideally renewables, but also look at using carbon capture technology with coal. The other important thing is probably residential heating, looking at ways to reduce heating bills and make heating greener, such as communal biomass heating schemes,” Piers Forster said.

Meanwhile, Duncan Marsh, Climate Policy expert at The Nature Conservancy, called 2016 both a very encouraging and a very sobering year for the world’s response to climate change.

“The adoption of the Paris Agreement was a tremendous breakthrough for international cooperation, establishing a framework in which all countries will be acting to address the risks from climate change. On the other hand, the UN Environment Program released an assessment highlighting the gap between international commitments made by governments and the actual emissions reductions required to stay below dangerous global temperature rise. And this year the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere became about 45% above the level prior to industrialization in the 1800s,” Nature Conservancy expert reminded.

The need to take smart and urgent action to reduce emissions and develop economies sustainably remains as high as ever, he stressed.

“Recent progress on climate change has been quite remarkable. The Paris Agreement is not only groundbreaking: it is significant that enough countries rapidly moved to ratify it so that the Agreement entered into legal force in almost unprecedentedly rapid timeline. […] And the last month has seen two other very important agreements: first, governments meeting in Montreal agreed to a strong plan to reduce emissions from airplanes under the International Civil Aviation Organization. This was closely followed by a separate agreement on October 16 to phase out the potent greenhouse gases, known as hydrofluorocarbons, used in refrigerators and air conditioning. Such cooperation and political commitment will be essential to the world’s efforts to rein in emission and protect our planet,” Duncan Marsh said.

According to him, the focus rightly turns now to implementing the goals that have been set forth in these agreements.

“In order to achieve objectives, countries must exert leadership and adopt smart investment strategies that aim to grow economics while reducing emissions. We are seeing very promising developments already: the costs of renewable energies like solar and wind power has reduced dramatically in recent years, and in many places these renewable sources are already cheaper than oil, gas and coal,” the expert said.

In his opinion, natural systems, like forests, wetlands and agricultural practices also can work to reduce global emissions.

“Addressing climate change presents opportunities for innovation in all facets of human life – in how we produce and use energy, design buildings and cities, and conserve and use land. New thinking and science in these areas can address climate threats while contributing to healthy lands and waters, safer communities and strong economies,” Duncan Marsh concluded.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/63126-2016

Columbia University’s wrestling team has been accused of making offensive comments about blacks, women, and gays. Harvard’s men’s soccer team has been accused of making offensive comments about women. In response, both universities have cancelled the rest of the season. But why?

Why were these schools upset with offensive remarks made by their male athletes? After all, both have a record of tolerating offensive events targeting Catholics. Moreover, both celebrate sexual deviance.

In 2002, Fordham and Columbia faced off against each other in a football game held on the Ivy campus. During half-time, the Columbia game announcer shouted, “Fordham’s tuition is going down like an altar boy.” The crowd loved it. The offending student, Andy Hao, did not fly off the handle: his bigoted remarks were approved by an administrator, Catherine Webster.

I later met with Columbia president Lee Bollinger, who apologized. Did it do any good? The next year, the Columbia band performed during a half-time game against Dartmouth; it invited the crowd to join them in their “celebration of partial-birth abortion.”

In 2010, “XMAS!” was performed at Columbia. The play depicted the Virgin Mary begging for sex.

In 2012, Harvard hosted a “Black Mass,” the work of the Satanic Temple. The express purpose of this event was to denigrate the Mass by inviting students to participate in Satanic worship. The initial response of Harvard was to distance itself from the attack on Catholics; it stressed the independent status of the student group that made the invitation. Under pressure by the Catholic League and others, President Drew Faust condemned the stunt and led a protest against it. I commended the president for her response.

Christmas on the campus of Harvard has been neutered for years. “Holiday trees” are allowed, but not without resistance: Students at Leverett House have compared the tree to a “Trojan horse.” Jewish religious symbols are permitted, but not Christian ones. In fact, some students say that allowing a nativity scene might occasion the display of swastikas.

If this isn’t perverse enough, consider that both Columbia and Harvard—now horrified by sexist language—have been encouraging sexual depravity for decades.

On the website of Columbia, prominently featured under “Sex Week,” is an article titled, “A Woman’s Right to be Spanked.” The author describes a movie that features a secretary who is interrogated by her boss about her sex life. She is told to “bend over the boss’s desk to receive a spanking for making repeated spelling errors.” That’s just for starters.

“At one point,” the female writer says, “she is seen delivering the mail to her boss while crawling on her hands and knees, with the letters clutched in her mouth. In another instance she is gussied up as a horse on his desk complete with a bridle and a saddle.” And so on.

The author’s conclusion is telling. “While this may sound like a definitive extreme case of sexual harassment, in fact it is the plot to a love story.” Romeo and Juliet, move over.

Harvard’s idea of “Sex Week” is just as fascinating. Two years ago, it featured a workshop, “Anal Sex 101.” It offered instruction on “anal anatomy and the potential pleasure for all genders, how to talk about it with a partner, basic preparation and hygiene, lubes, anal toys, and safer sex; anal penetration for beginners, and much more!” Unfortunately for the students, none were told of the dangers to this abnormal sex practice.

If Columbia and Harvard want civility on campus, they need to treat everyone equally—beginning with Catholics—and stop exercises that foster incivility. And if they are really serious about stopping sexually exploitative language, they may want to ask themselves what lessons young men are likely to draw from their “Sex Week” events on campus.