By Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty

No American President has ever walked away from the two-State solution in Palestine, ever since the fateful decision of the United Nations to partition Palestine and create two states – Israel and Palestine. President Trump may have gone back on this longstanding American policy, in a few amazing bytes of obfuscation recently, at the joint press conference with the visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.

Trump said that he is “looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like……I can live with either one”. Netanyahu could not have got a better gift from an American Administration even in his dreams.

By David J Trimbach*

(FPRI) — Estonia’s citizenship policy complicates the country’s relationship with its large Russian-speaking minority and Russian neighbor. Estonia’s policy approach is an “achilles’ heel” for the Baltic region. However, recent political shifts provide an opportunity for change.

With the 2016 election of Estonia’s first female head of state, President Kersti Kaljulaid and the formation of a new coalition government that includes the Russian-leaning Center Party, with new Prime Minister Jüri Ratas as its leader, the Estonian government has a rare opportunity to revisit its citizenship policy. The emergence of a new governing coalition headed by the Center Party leader PM Ratas and the Social Democratic Party leader led by Jevgeni Ossinovski, both of whom favor more inclusive policies, offers an opening to reconsider Estonian citizenship. Although the coalition has stated that the policy will not change, there may be room for alterations.

Understanding Estonian Citizenship Policy

Estonia’s citizenship policy evolved in tandem with the restoration of the independent Estonian state. Estonian statehood is founded on the legal principle of restorationism, which interprets the Soviet era as a period of illegal occupation. Restorationist independence guaranteed citizenship only to those citizens of restored pre-Soviet Estonia (and their descendants), not all Soviet citizens living on Estonian territory. The country’s citizenship policy also prioritized the legal principle of jus sanguinis (citizenship based on blood, ancestry, or birthright) over jus soli (citizenship based on soil or place of birth), while also denying dual citizenship. Estonian citizenship policy produced a large Russian-speaking stateless population, which today remains the tenth largest in the world by state. Although naturalization is an option, international organizations remain skeptical, and the Migrant Integration Policy Index considers it one of the most restrictive in Europe. While the Estonian state emphasizes ethnic heritage, it has amended and altered its policy, often because of international pressure. The recent political shifts in Estonia provide an opportunity to revisit Estonia’s citizenship policy and how it engages its Russian speakers.

Policy’s Impacts on Russian-speaking Population

Estonia’s citizenship policy is contentious. As of 2011, Russian speakers in Estonia roughly include 188,959 Estonian citizens, 90,510 Russian citizens, and 85,961 stateless residents. Approximate numbers of citizenship status vary. For example, the Estonian-based International Centre for Defense and Security suggested that Russian citizens may number over 100,000. Moreover, Russian speakers have experienced a decline in naturalization since 2007 and comprise the majority of Estonia’s stateless population. In order to acquire citizenship, Russian speakers obtain citizenship primarily through the legal principle of jus sanguinis, naturalization, or other means. While there is no general legal provision for jus soli, it is applied to abandoned children and as of 2015, to children of two stateless parents (starting in 2016). The 2015 policy is a progressive step; however, this policy does not alleviate the statelessness of other children in Estonia. Additionally, Russian speakers are underrepresented in elected and unelected positions, have lower levels of civic engagement, and have lower levels of electoral participation than ethnic Estonians. While the relationship between citizenship policy and Russian speakers’ political and civic affairs is quite clear, citizenship policy indirectly may be associated with Russian speakers’ health, mortality, and poverty.​

How do Russian speakers themselves understand and experience this policy? Based on research in the City of Narva (Ida-Viru County) and Tallinn (Harju County), I identified several effects of the citizenship policy on the Russian-speaking population.

Russian speakers want to see policy change and view citizenship acquisition as challenging in practice. The majority want Estonian citizenship to be based on the principle of place of birth, rather than heritage or blood. Russian speakers also tend to hold mixed understandings of citizenship’s worth. When asked to assess the value of citizenship in Estonia, around half of Russian speakers responded that citizenship is important, while the other half responded that it is not important. While Estonian language proficiency tends to be a major issue for Russian speakers, the majority of Russian speakers in this study see language proficiency as an important element of naturalization. However, these same Russian speakers want language proficiency requirements relaxed or more resources offered to assist with language learning. Although Russian speakers view naturalization as challenging and citizenship policy as frustrating, the majority suggested that they are still more interested in Estonian citizenship than remaining stateless or becoming a citizen of another state.

Additionally, while Russian speakers are fragmented into Estonian citizens, Russian citizens, stateless residents, or citizens of other states (ex: Ukraine, Belarus, etc.), these statuses do not equal an identity. My research found that Russian speakers in general tend to emphasize locality (Tallinn, Narva, or other locality) and country (Estonia) as important for identity. Estonian citizens and stateless residents have slightly stronger Estonian identities than do Russian citizens. However, Russian citizens living in Estonia identify more with their local communities, Estonia, the European Union, and the world more than they do with the Russian Federation. This finding highlights the disconnections between how Russian speakers in Estonia are portrayed by Estonian, Russian, or international media and realities on the ground, particularly in the City of Narva. For example, Estonian and international media or policy experts often portray Estonian Russian speakers as potential “fifth columnists” and Russian “pawns” threatening Estonian security. Conversely, the Russian state promotes policies and narratives that portray Estonian Russian speakers as passive victims of a nationalist game perpetrated by the Estonian state and as co-nationals longing for Russian protections.

This finding also illustrates the ongoing frustration that many Russian speakers have with how Estonia approaches citizenship and national identity. This frustration was echoed by one Russian speaker from Tallinn, who stated that:

In Estonia, it [citizenship] is a big issue – [because] nationality is ethnicity. But this conception is common…that all Estonian people who have Estonian citizenship are Estonians…If people like Russian speakers from Estonia go to Russia they are [considered] Estonians. They can explain like yeah I live in Estonia and have Estonian citizenship but for ethnic Estonians I am Russian and a Russian-speaker, (author’s interview). 

Conclusions & Implications

What can be gleaned from these local insights?

First, Russian speakers—citizens and non-citizens alike—identify more with their local communities and Estonia than with Russia. Second, Russian speakers are not a monolithic community with a singular citizenship status. Third, Russian speakers are frustrated with Estonian citizenship policy, which has triggered a mixed understanding of citizenship’s worth, and would like to see policy change. Finally, Russian speakers’ citizenship status should not be equated with national identity.

Estonia’s citizenship policy is outdated. Recent political shifts in the country signify a potential turning point to reform it. While this policy is linked with Estonia’s independence, ethnonational identity, and statehood, its impacts on Russian speakers’ civic involvement, political enfranchisement, integration, identities, and quality of life remain immense.

Russian speakers should not be portrayed solely as security threats to the country or region. Most Russian speakers consider Estonia their home and its political and civic life their own. Citizenship policy changes that reflect Estonia’s Russian speakers’ fealty for their country and political community will have a major impact. Estonia should allow birthright citizenship and dual citizenship; relax naturalization requirements, particularly for long-term residents; increase opportunities for citizenship and Estonian language education; and emphasize citizenship’s value and connection to Estonian identity and democracy. Such changes would trigger more political and civic inclusivity, wider societal equity and integration, and hinder Russia’s attempts to influence this population.

About the author:
*Dr. David J. Trimbach is a researcher at the Center for Public Partnerships & Research at the University of Kansas.

Source:
This article was published at FPRI

By Ali Omidi*

Perhaps there are people among you, who would remember that when they were put on trial and exposed to a small danger, they started crying and shed tears in front of the judge and even brought their children into the court to buy sympathy from the judge. However, I (Socrates) will not do that though I am exposed to the greatest of dangers. I have relatives of my own, because as Homer says, I was not born out of an oak tree and did not spring out of a rock, but I have arisen from among humans and even have three boys, one of whom is a grown-up and the two others are still children. However, I will never bring them to this court in order to have your sympathy.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, March 10, 2017, at the Kremlin. During the meeting, he claimed that Iran was promoting “Shia Islamic terrorism” and warned that as long as Iran is present in Syria, there would be no peace in the Arab country.

According to media reports, during the meeting, Putin congratulated Netanyahu on the occasion of the Jewish holiday of Purim. The Israel prime minister, for his part, said, Jews celebrate Purim because Persia (present-day Iran), “did not succeed in destroying Jews.” He also alleged that even today, “Iran – the heir of the Persians – has similar designs: to wipe out the state of the Jews.[1]”.

In response, the Russian president said those developments belonged to 2,500 years ago and “we live in a different world.[2]” He then asked Netanyahu to talk about the existing problems in the region. It must be noted that the narrative that Jews have of the myth of Haman, who was a top advisor to the Iranian monarch Xerxes I, and Esther, the Jewish wife of the king, is that Haman was behind a conspiracy to make the king order the killing of all Jews in ancient Persia. However, Mordecai, a Jewish advisor to the king, was helped by Queen Esther and while preventing the king’s order from being implemented, caused the king to order the massacre of Haman and his whole family.

In these remarks and also previously in an address to US Congress, Netanyahu has used, at least, five fallacies in his historical narrative. Fallacy is an outwardly creditable argument, which is used to prove a wrong claim or refute a right one. In fact, fallacy is some form of manipulating primary and secondary parts of an argument to reach one’s own desired conclusion. Logic experts have recognized scores of fallacies in human oral and body languages, which cannot be discussed here. However, five discernible fallacies can be detected in Netanyahu’s anti-Iran allegations and the way he narrates the myth of Haman and Esther.

The first fallacy is anachronism. In this fallacy, a person analyzes developments of the past on the basis of criteria and values of the modern times. Even if the original story is right, Netanyahu analyzes it on the basis of current criteria and discourses. There was no such concept as anti-Semitism in ancient Iran. However, he is trying to analyze developments of that time, including the myth of Haman and Esther, on the basis of today’s discourses and values, which condemn anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism, however, is a phenomenon, which mostly belongs to the history of Christianity rather than Iran, Islam and so forth.

His second fallacy is historical resembling. In historical resembling, current developments and personalities are simulated on the basis of historical developments and personalities. Even if the myth of Haman and Esther were true, it would be totally incorrect to draw an analogy between Iran’s current leaders and Haman. Iran and its people have undergone thousands of developments in the course of history, which render such a comparison basically wrong.

Straw man fallacy is the third fallacy, which can be detected in Netanyahu’s remarks. In this fallacy, the person in question does not provide an argument against real allegations of the opposite side, but he rather attributes easily refutable claims to the opponent and then refutes them. Netanyahu does not pay attention to Iran’s official positions through which the Islamic Republic stresses the self-determination right for Palestinians via their freedom-seeking movement and calls for a referendum on the fate of Palestine as well as an end to occupation of Palestinian territories.

Instead, he accuses Iran of anti-Semitism as well as planning a possible Holocaust and nuclear destruction of Israel and tries to show that positions, which have been attributed to Iran, are all negative. Although some Iranian officials may go to great length on the issue of Palestine, the official position of the country, which has been emphasized mostly by the country’s presidents and foreign ministers as the highest-ranking officials in Iran’s foreign policy apparatus, is by no means at odds with international law.

The fourth fallacy is mythologization. A myth is basically distortion of realities and although it may not be a fallacy, it may turn into a fallacy if politicians want to exploit it. Humans are usually very inclined toward mythologizing historical personalities and developments and it is through this way that their group identity takes shape and becomes meaningful. In the Western and Jewish cultures, the myth of Esther and Haman is being publicized with strong vigor and it has a large audience base. People like Netanyahu take advantage of these myths to achieve their own political goals.

The fifth fallacy is appeal to emotions. This fallacy is used when one side has no clear argument to reject or prove a proposition and instead, tries to take advantage of other people’s emotions and sentiments in order to make them take sides with his fallacy. As has been indicated in the first paragraph of this paper, Plato believes that what Socrates has said in his own defense is a good example of this fallacy. Socrates had emphasized that he did not want to take advantage of sympathy and pity of his audience. Such fallacy is not always necessarily expressed in words. Socrates brings an example about taking children to court. Crying, using high tone when speaking in order to gain influence over the audience, and malingering in a soccer match in order to deceive the referee are all examples of fallacious behavior.

Here, in the myth of Esther and Haman, and also with regard to the issue of Holocaust, Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians play the victim card in order to attract the attention of the audience and finally make them confirm their fallacy. In this case, Netanyahu has also used historical resemblance fallacy and has tried to draw an analogy between the present-day Iran and the Nazi Germany.

About the author:
*Ali Omidi, Associate Professor of International Relations & Professor of International Law; University of Isfahan, Iran

Notes:
[1] http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Netanyahu-in-Moscow-leverages-Putin-Purim-greeting-to-slam-Iran-483736

[2] https://www.rt.com/news/380061-putin-netanyahu-iran-israel-syria/

The mere possibility of new contender for world leadership in the form of China, maybe in the distant future, has exacerbated geopolitical realignments in the international system. These alignments are primarily from regional to international. International politics has never been and will never be on linear progression at any given time. There always have been and will be countries dissatisfied with the dominant order. During the Cold War, the opposing world orders were structured on an ideological basis. These ideological divisions held sway on relations among the states in the last decade of the 20th century. The ideology that will primarily drive relations among states in the 21st century is none other but that related to economics.

Pakistan and the Russian Federation started rapprochement in the 21st century towars establishing meaningful bilateral relations after decades of troubled relations. Pakistan and the former Soviet Union — to that of Russia as a successor state — were poles apart with respect to international and regional politics during the Cold War. Factors like 9/11, the economic rise of China, the American presence in Afghanistan and terrorism resulted in bringing both states together and narrowing the gaps about regional outlooks that both states followed. Though Russia initially welcomed the American-led attack on Afghanistan, but over period grew wary about prolonged presence of Western forces.

Pakistan and Russia after conducting naval exercises for the curbing of drug trafficking moved to joint counterterrorism exercises between ground forces. Both these exercises sent strong political tremors, rather than just marking the dawn of an era for military collaboration. The reaction from India about Pakistan-Russia counterterrorism exercises showed the hypocrisy that India attaches to regional counterterrorism collaboration. Instead of welcoming such cooperation, India showed reservations.

Pakistan-USA relations remained a strong base when Pakistan and Russia were on opposing sides and now that same bilateral relation has been bringing both countries together. Regional instability will enhance the areas of convergence between the two countries along with presence of China as a positive enabler. Pakistan and Russia now seem to be having a convergence of interest when it comes to peace in Afghanistan. For Pakistan, the Afghan-led reconciliation process for enduring peace and political stability by bringing all political forces, including Afghan Taliban, on term with each other is a primary objective. Russia is concerned about possibility of ISIS having ranks and safe havens in Afghanistan. The fear of fighters who have gone from Central Asian states to fight under the banner of the terrorist organization ISIS gaining an advantage to destabilize Afghanistan has made Russia to show an increased interest in South Asia.

The dynamics of the onslaught of irregular warfare by terrorist organizations tests the limits of power that state actors wield. Often despite amassing massive power, states have been unable to convert power into influence when it comes to influencing negative non-state actors. America has been inhibited despite being the sole super power in the international system to influence the Afghan Taliban fora  political reconciliation and accepting the US established political structure by becoming part of the system on its terms.

The US military establishment believes that the drawdown implemented during Barack Obama’s tenure in White House hamstrung the US and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan for effectively manufacturing the strategic objective of forcing Taliban for political reconciliation by effectively defeating them in the battlefield. Donald Trump’s position on fighting ‘Islamic Militancy’ and the Republican Party-led US Congress mean that budgetary constraints that forced the draw down and a relative disengagement through force restructuring in Afghanistan will be reversed and potentially break the stalemate. Though no general is ever satisfied with the availability of resources at his disposal, the grievance of a shortage of men and money will be addressed for US counter terrorism efforts in the Afghanistan theatre.

For Pakistan, Russia could be an alternative to China, in meeting its security needs through the procurement of advanced weapons systems. Both Pakistan and Russia can play productive roles for regional security, especially with reference to terrorism and fighting drug trafficking via the Shanghai Cooperation Organization platform. Any regional connectivity initiative linking South Asia with Central Asia cannot be successful without strong Russian support.

The effective utilization of the geographic advantage of Pakistan for providing sea access to Central Asian Republics will become a reality after taking Russia on board. The possibility of Russia eventually joining the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) cannot be ruled out as growth in Russia is linked with that of the Chinese economy. With the rise of China as strong economic power, and regional connectivity initiatives, foreign policy realignments will be the obvious consequence.

Pakistan is facing an energy shortage and Russia has abundant energy resources, but substantial ground work has not been done for structuring relations on a sound economic basis. Expecting a highest level political visit from Russian leadership without doing the necessary ground work for commercial projects — including the proposed North-South pipeline for pumping Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from Karachi to Lahore — will not be realistic. Pakistan should explore and seek Russian assistance for investment in constructing electricity lines and gas supply pipelines from Central Asian countries to Pakistan. The policy makers in Pakistan have a tendency to put all their eggs in one basket. Pakistan needs to play a balancing act when it comes to establishing strong long-term relations with Russia without estranging America.

*The author is Research Associate with Strategic Vision Institute, a think tank based in Islamabad.

An interesting research article at the Health Affairs blog last week asserts there is no relationship between high U.S. prescription drug prices and drug companies’ research and development budgets. The point of the article is to debunk the argument that research-based drug companies must earn high profits if they are going to reinvest in R&D. While the data are correct, the article misunderstands the nature of capital markets.

As the authors point out, U.S. prices for patented prescription drugs are significantly higher, in real dollars, than prices in other developed countries. (Most observers claim this is because foreign governments impose price controls. I think it is more attributable to price differentiation due to variation in national income per capita.)

The analysis examines the 15 companies that sell the top 20 drugs (by worldwide sales) and estimates the amount of revenues attributable to U.S. “premium” pricing. It finds that those revenues exceed the firms’ R&D budgets—$166 billion versus $66 billion, in 2015. It also lists the amounts by company. For example, Merck earns about $11 billion from U.S. “premium” pricing, which is 159 percent of its R&D budget.

The article is interesting, but it misunderstands capital markets. These “premium” prices derive from patents, which prevent other drug-makers from copying medicines invented by innovators, for a limited time. In a static sense, that means an innovator earns high profits if doctors prescribe its medicines.

However, that innovator does not get to keep its profits, and the capital market does not expect it to. Instead, investors decide every day whether they trust that management to invent more new drugs. If other management teams promise better opportunities, the firms in this analysis must distribute capital back to their investors via dividends or share buybacks.

Indeed, there is a lot of fretting among the large research-based drug-makers that they are too large and bureaucratic to be innovative. The purpose of patents is not to keep profits recycling through the same 15 largest drug-makers. It is to give investors confidence that when the profits are returned to them they can reinvest them in the next generation of lifesaving medicines, wherever their inventors can be found.

This article was published at The Beacon

By C.Jay Engel*

The Wall Street Journal writes on Thursday’s FOMC rate announcement that “[a] long era of ultralow interest rates and bond-buying programs may be drawing to a close.”

This is remarkable.

The miniscule uptick from the .5-.75% range to a .75-1% range is hardly leaving behind ultralow interest rates.

As can be seen in the chart below, a quarter percent rise in the Fed Funds rate will barely show up, when looking at rates from a longer-term perspective.

With the latest GDPNow forecasts coming in at a paltry 1.2%, the idea that the Fed is simply going to continue any sustained effort to bring rates up to historically normal levels seems quite the exaggeration at the moment. The entire model relied upon by the Fed’s economists assumes that raising rates into a slow growth environment is precisely the opposite of what must be done. Of course, their models rest on indefensible foundations and they therefore can’t even explain where either real economic growth or artificial booms originate (nor can they distinguish between them).

Our era of suppressed interest rates is here to stay (at least while the Fed still has the delusion of control). That’s what the whole “lower for longer” theme is about. Aside from the fact that the Professionals who run our monetary policy subscribe to variations of the Keynesian vision and therefore “advise” low interest rates, there also remains the cozy relationship between the Treasury (government) and the Fed. Explained by David Howden:

For the US Treasury, Fed remittances are something of a free lunch. When someone buys a Treasury bond, the government must pay them interest. This applies to the Fed as well, but then at year-end the Fed remits the interest back to the Treasury.

The federal government paid out $223 billion in interest payments last year. The Fed remitted almost $100 billion back, leaving the net interest expense at around $125 billion. It’s not just historically low interest rates that are making it easier for the Treasury to borrow in a way that, if it were done by anyone else, would classify them as subprime. The Fed is also chipping in and helping out where it can. […]

Consider that since Treasury debt is almost never repaid in net terms (old issues are retired but replaced with new debt issuances), the true cost of financing the US government’s borrowing is not the gross amount of debt outstanding but the annual interest expense it faces. Viewed this way, nearly half of the Treasury’s borrowing was financed by the Fed last year. Absent these Fed remittances, Congress would need to look at either an alternative funding source (though I am not sure how many takers there are for the Fed’s $2.5 trillion Treasury holdings) or make some serious cuts.

Regardless of what happens Thursday (and it looks like there’s going to be a hike), the idea that this signals the close of the Fed-induced low interest rate era is quite the exaggeration.

About the author:
*C.Jay Engel is an investment advisor at The Sullivan Group, an independent, Austrian-School oriented, wealth management firm in northern California. He is especially interested in wealth preservation in our era of rogue Central Banking. He is an avid reader of the Austro-libertarian literature and a dedicated proponent of private property and sound money. Visit his economic blog, TheAustrianView.com.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

Core Inflation Appears to Be Stabilizing at 2.2 Percent

By Nick Buffie*

Earlier this morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices have risen 2.7 percent over the past year, the largest price increase since 2012. However, much of this relatively high inflation rate is just the result of rising energy prices: fuel oil has gone up 28.0 percent in price, and gas prices have gone up 30.7 percent.

The core inflation rate was just 2.2 percent over the past year. More importantly, this is consistent with data from the recent past, indicating that there is no upward trend in inflation:

Core Inflation Rates, 2016–2017

January 2015 to January 2016: 2.21 percent

February 2015 to February 2016: 2.33 percent

March 2015 to March 2016: 2.19 percent

April 2015 to April 2016: 2.15 percent

May 2015 to May 2016: 2.24 percent

June 2015 to June 2016: 2.24 percent

July 2015 to July 2016: 2.19 percent

August 2015 to August 2016: 2.32 percent

September 2015 to September 2016: 2.21 percent

October 2015 to October 2016: 2.14 percent

November 2015 to November 2016: 2.11 percent

December 2015 to December 2016: 2.20 percent

January 2016 to January 2017: 2.27 percent

February 2016 to February 2017: 2.22 percent

A large number of products actually had their prices drop over the past year. Prices for household furnishings and supplies fell 1.7 percent over the past year, thanks largely to lower furniture prices. Furniture and bedding prices are down 1.4 percent relative to February of 2016; price drops were reported for bedroom furniture, living room, kitchen, and dining room furniture, and other furniture.

Another area where prices fell was in recreation goods. Video and audio products are down 12.6 percent in price over the past year, thanks largely to a 20.1 percent drop in the price of televisions. Prices for audio equipment are down 6.9 percent, while prices for audio discs, tapes, and other media are down 4.1 percent. Recreational books fell 5.5 percent in price, while toys fell 7.8 percent in price. The prices of sports equipment went down 3.1 percent, and the costs of owning a pet also decreased (though pet food went up 0.2 percent in price).

Various transportation costs decreased as well. Notwithstanding the large increase in fuel prices, airline fares are down 1.1 percent over the last twelve months. The prices of leased cars and trucks fell 0.6 percent; the prices of car and truck rentals fell 1.7 percent; and the prices of used cars and trucks fell 4.3 percent. (This 4.3 percent decrease in the prices of used cars and trucks contrasts with a 0.5 percent increase in the prices of new cars and trucks.)

Finally, following an already-established trend, prices fell for information technology commodities. Personal computers and peripheral equipment fell 4.2 percent in price; computer prices and accessories fell 8.2 percent in price; and internet services fell 1.2 percent in price.

Much of the 2.2 percent increase in the core index can be attributed to two factors: shelter and medical care prices. Shelter costs are up 3.5 percent over the past year, while medical care services are up 3.4 percent in price. The core index excluding shelter rose just 1.3 percent over the last year.

The Import and Export indices showed relatively high rates of headline inflation, but again, these were mostly driven by rising fuel prices. Import prices rose 4.6 percent between February 2016 and 2017, but they rose just 0.5 percent if we exclude fuel prices. Core import prices rose just 0.3 percent over the last year. Export prices show a similar result — they are up 3.1 percent over the past twelve months, but core export inflation comes to just 0.8 percent. (The prices of fuel and lubricant imports went up 68.9 percent, while the prices of fuel and lubricant exports went up 40.5 percent during this time period.)

The Producer Price Index (PPI) reported an annual inflation rate of 2.2 percent, but also indicated far less inflation among core prices. The PPI indicates that energy prices rose 19.2 percent over the last twelve months but that core prices rose just 1.5 percent.

In summation, much of the reported spike in inflation is just due to rising fuel prices. Core inflation, rather than accelerating, appears to be stabilizing at a rate of about 2.2 percent.

*Nick Buffie is a Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C.

Nearly two months into the Trump presidency and it is slowly but surely becoming apparent that foreign policy continuity rather than change and discontinuity, let alone any re-orientation, has the definite upper hands in the new US administration, irrespective of candidate Trump’s blistering criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy prior to the elections. Indeed, some of the White House rhetoric might have changed, but the substantive foreign policy decisions, particularly with respect to the Middle East, have so far shown little signs of change, which in turn leads one to expect ‘more of the same’ from Washington.

Concerning Syria, where over the past two years or so the US has carved out a small military niche for itself, albeit under the guise of fighting ISIS/Da’esh terrorism, the recent Washington announcement of dispatching more US soldiers into Syria without prior consultation and or approval of the Syrian government has, as expected, raised Damascus’ ire, in light of President Bashar al-Assad’s depiction of the US move as an act of “invasion.”

Simultaneously, the Trump administration, true to its superpower habit of exerting global leadership, hastily organized an anti-ISIS summit in Washington, inviting dozens of countries minus two key stakeholders, namely, Russia and Iran. This comes after Trump’s request for a new anti-ISIS strategy from his commanders within 30 days, partly reflected in his State of Union address, where he echoed Obama’s rhetoric of banding with Muslim nations against the menace of terrorism. While the details of the new recommendations on ISIS are not publicly known, it is a safe bet that the US military planners are linking this to broader US strategy in the Middle East, which has witnessed a new infusion of Russian power and the reassertion of the “axis of resistance” including Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.

Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the US would lend its clout and military prowess in the region to the simple cause of defeating ISIS terrorism, since it views its adversaries, i.e. Russia and Iran, gaining the most from a successful anti-ISIS strategy. Rather, it is more likely that the US would prefer to use the excuse of ISIS to penetrate deeper in Syria, expanding its zone of influence by, among other things, seeking a safe haven for the Syrian refugees and, simultaneously, drawing on the support of both the Turkish government and the Kurdish centrifugal forces inside Syria. Of course, Ankara is averse toward the latter, which is why Turkey today oscillates between opposing camps, without a firm ground to stand on. Much depends on Trump administration’s ability to lure the Turks to its side, which is not an easy task, given the gaps between the Turkish security interests and US’s objectives in Syria and the broader Middle East, focused on the double containment of Russia and Iran first and foremost. In other words, counter-terrorism comes second and, henceforth, one must not realistically expect a new level of US commitment against ISIS that would reflect a changed course compared to the past, that is, Obama administration’s ‘politics of ambivalence’ that resulted in a pretty lame approach lacking serious commitment. This was a ‘failure by design’ intended to cause trouble for the Russia-Iran-Syria axis, which spells trouble for the US’s vested interests in the Middle East. Put in other words, Syria should not be viewed in isolation from a plethora of other, regional and extra-regional, considerations, which is why the US’s new strategy toward Syria can be summarized simply as “creeping interventionism.”

A clue to the complexity of the issue at hand, this does not preclude tactical cooperation between US and Russia and Iran, but such tactical maneuvers are tied in with the US perception of growing Russia-Iran threat, leading to ambiguous and even contradictory US policies on Syria. A ‘mixed motives game of simultaneous cooperation and competition nowadays dominate the US’s thinking on Syria, which might lean more in the direction of competition and even tension with the above-mentioned axis of powers in the future, in light of the negative influence of both Israel and Saudi Arabia on the White House, trying to steer it against Iran. Over time, then, US’s creeping interventionism may translate into open clashes between the US and Syrian forces opposed to the uninvited US forces, ostensibly sent to eradicate the ISIS. Chances are that the US is even averse toward a total elimination of ISIS in Syria, given the US’s priority of checking the Russian and Iranian “power.”

Another aspect of the US strategy, vividly reflected in the Trump administration’s new order banning the citizens of several Muslim countries except for Iraq, is to drive a wedge between Iraq, which was included in the initial ban blocked by US courts, and Iran. There is clearly a direct connection between US’s strategies in Syria and Iraq, often wrapped in anti-terrorism rhetoric, which veils the underlying causes of an inherent US ambivalence toward using the “Islamic radicals” against its adversaries, including both Russia and, to a lesser extent, China.

From an Iranian standpoint, taking into consideration the US’s containment priorities mentioned above alerts us to the importance of avoiding simplistic analyses that reduce the complexities of US’s mixed motives to a straightforward anti-terrorism objective. That objective is tampered with, compromised, and even altered by the geostrategic considerations that are also pushed by the countries such as Israel, which has its own agenda. The only problem, however, is that Trump’s ‘game changer’ in Syria is difficult to achieve and rather late, given the recent impressive victories of the opposing bloc led by Russia and Iran. A more prudent US move would be to streamline its interests and focus on joining the formidable opposing bloc that today boasts of impressive gains in Syria. But the expectation of a more realistic US policy in Syria is simply a tall order, perhaps a hope against hope. To reach that point, Washington has to realize that its Manichean ‘zero-sum’ approach is to blame and a more nuanced and sophisticated multi-layered approach is absolutely called for and, sadly, hitherto missing.

This article appeared at Iranian Diplomacy.

Even when people in South Korea rejoice in ousting Park Geun-hye from the Blue House on account of scandal and celebrating the victory of democracy, there are concerns in some quarters inside South Korea on how this internal political turn and swift upending of the status quo is going to shape South Korea’s ties with its neighbour Japan. Both suffer from historical irritants which do not easily go away. More recently, the installation of a Comfort Woman statue in front of the Japan consulate in Busan and earlier in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul flared up bilateral tensions. Revision of textbooks and visits to Yasukuni shrine by political leaders in Japan also inflame feelings. Both at the same time face serious threats from North Korea.

Being allies of the US, both Japan and South Korea seek compelling reason to look for a common approach to deal with the North Korean threat. The on-going US-South Korea joint military drills and the decision to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), a state-of-the-art missile defense system, are seen as provocations by Pyongyang. The firing of four missiles by Pyongyang, three of which landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone was a reactionary measure that rattled Japan. China’s proposal – suspension-for-suspension proposal – joint military drills and Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs – have no buyer and mere will-o-the-wisp. In the midst of all these fast changing events, the political turbulence in South Korea injects further uncertainties.

The question that arises: how South Korean politics is going to impact its ties with Japan and how both countries can coordinate to arrive at a common stance to cope with the North Korean challenge? This is because, South Korea shall be in election mode now for the next 60 days because according to its constitution a new President has to be elected and move to the Blue House before 9 May.

Having lost all privileges, Park now could face criminal charges and possibly a term in prison. Democracy having triumphed, the new president has to put the house in order and restore the primacy associated with the Blue House. A conciliatory move towards North Korea, a la Sunshine policy, could be envisioned. But one thing stands out from all these turbulent waves, the swift unbending of the status quo has shaken the country’s foundations, leaving the people stunned.

But the difficult part that remains to be answered how far such turbulent times be converted into lasting progress for the country, the primacy of which ought to rest in good-neighbourliness with Japan and China. With ties with China turning sour over the THAAD deployment issue, exposing its economic relations into uncertain future, the question that arises is, can South Korea afford to derail ties with Japan, a common ally with the US?. The new president is expected to urgently address such sensitive issue as it impinges on national security because of real common North Korean threat.

Korea has a bitter historical relation with Japan and carries the baggage of history. The exploitation during the 35 years of colonial rule by Japan from 1910 to 1945 has left a scar that remains to be healed. Yet, the country passed through repressive rules after the Korean War until 1987 during which it experienced economic miracle, which eventually was a precursor to uprisings clamouring for democracy, and eventually leapfrogging to be a vibrant economic and middle power. This could not have been possible without Japan’s cooperation. The new president ought to persevere not to derail this previous experience.

Domestically, having reaped the fruits of peaceful protests against a corrupt President, an energised citizenry ought to maintain united to prevent the reoccurrence of similar incidents. For South Korea, this is another critical moment. It has withered similar storm in the past and is likely to cope with another if occurs. The corruption scandal was the reason to unify the populace. The new challenge is how to sustain the energy which can be used for constructive purposes. A restive population could run risk of denting the efforts of the new president to bring in corporate reforms if expectations remain high than the delivery time.

Dealing with North Korea’s nuclear and weapon development programme would be the biggest foreign policy challenge for the new president. Cooperating with Japan needs to get primacy. The liberal party’s presidential favourite Moon Jae-in who had lost to Park in 2012 election and was an aide in the 2000s to late liberal President Roh Moo Hyun is expected to revive the Sunshine Policy introduced by president Roh, if elected as the new president. His elevation to the Blue House could be a turnaround in the geopolitics of the region.

Then liberal President Roh Moo Hyun’s Sunshine Policy pursued a policy of rapprochement towards North Korea which included boosting trade and cultural exchanges. Opinions inside the country were divided, with some criticising while others extending support. When the conservatives returned to power, this peacenik approach was scrapped because North Korea continued to expand its nuclear weapons and missiles programs while reaping benefits of cooperation with South Korea. If Moon becomes the next president, one can expect return to Roh’s engagement strategy with the North, including reopening the Kaesong industrial park in the North, close to the 38th parallel De-militarised Zone (DMZ) in Panmunjom that divided the two, which was jointly run by both before Park closed in 2016 following a nuclear test and long-range launch by Pyongyang.

Such a decision can be delicate as some section within the South Korean political establishment would argue as violation of international sanctions against the North to which the South is a party. It remains unknown how the US and Japan would react if the Moon government adopts such an approach. It would also remain unclear if the distrust that Pyongyang attracts from most countries will be diminished if Moon pursues a policy of accommodation and not punishment. Given the extreme volatility in South Korean politics, the new president needs a strong mandate to deal with the North which will be in South Korea’s long-tern national interest. Persuading the US and Japan to support would be another tricky issue. What happens to the future of the US-South Korea joint military drills shall have no ready answer.

Given that Moon as the likely next President and adopts a conciliatory approach towards the North, would Pyongyang respond positively with open arms without surrendering or compromising any of its state policy? Will carrot work if stick has thus far failed? That too remains unknown. There could be several possibilities. But at the moment, the answer is both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’.

Irrespective of what the policy of the new president of South Korea would be, Park’s impeachment has added a new dimension to the alarming situation given the rising military threat emanating from Pyongyang remains unstoppable. It would be unfortunate if such a situation is allowed to impact on relations between Japan and South Korea, given that both have a host of mutual interests to protect and defend.

With the much touted “Second Miracle of Han River” claim by Park being consigned to dustbin of history with her ousting, the new president would also find tough if he decided to revisit the THAAD deployment decision in the country’s soil. Being vehemently opposed to this, China has already resorted to retaliatory economic measures against South Korean companies, prominently the Lotte group for land swap deal, and attacking the tourism economy. Thus far, the South Korean economy is heavily dependent on exports to China, led by conglomerates. The slowdown in the Chinese economy, resulting in a sluggish growth rate, had already hit a snag. Now the retaliatory measures by China against Korean products would hurt, and hurt both. It would leave its impact on the employment situation, affecting the youth, thereby breeding cause for discontentment.

Park had chosen to develop closer relations with China with the hope that Beijing would exercise its influence to deter Pyongyang from pursuing its nuclear and missile programs. She even chose to travel to Beijing in September 2015 to participate in the military parade marking the 70th anniversary of China’s “victory” in the War of Resistance against Japan. Not only she miscalculated as Beijing either was unable to rein Pyongyang or was unwilling to put pressure, the THAAD deployment decision that angered Beijing followed by retaliatory economic measures is a new situation that the new president has to deal with. So the challenges are huge for the Moon (hopefully) presidency.

Given the past experience, the North Korea is unlikely to change. That would mean cooperation, consultation and coordination of policies between the US, Japan and South Korea, even during the period of political transition in Seoul must continue. That would mean no revisiting on THAAD deployment despite pressure from Beijing.

Park not only misread Beijing, she unnecessarily annoyed Tokyo by adopting a rigid stance on the comfort women issue. For over two and half years, she was not even on talking terms with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, until then President Barack Obama brought both to a common table. That too lacked warmth, with Park avoiding Abe and looking another way. Japan was so dismayed that it was compelled to temporarily pull out its ambassador in Seoul and Consulate General in Busan. Both are yet to return. The new president would see compelling reason to restore normalcy and facilitate return of the two diplomats to resume their duties. Starting with Chun Doo Hwan, Park was the only South Korean president who never visited Japan while in office. The new president ought to change the present course of ties in the larger interest of region’s security. The challenges are no longer bilateral but regional and in that perspective leaders should craft their nations’ foreign policies. Japan shall be happy to respond positively if South Korea makes any peace overtures by taking the first step.

*Dr. Rajaram Panda is ICCR India Chair Visiting Professor at Reitaku University, JAPAN. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect either of the ICCR or the Government of India.

Pakistan is emerging as an important military player in the Gulf as its struggles to balance complex relations with regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran and diverging approaches by different branches of its government.

Pakistan’s military engagement with the Gulf goes far beyond increased involvement in a Saudi-led, 41-nation military alliance that officially was established to counter terrorism, but is widely suspected to also be a bid to garner support for the kingdom’s troubled intervention in Yemen and create an anti-Iranian Sunni Muslim grouping.

As it discusses the deployment of troops to the Saudi-Yemeni border and a senior, recently retired Pakistani military commander appears poised to take command of the Riyadh-based alliance, Pakistan alongside Turkey and China is also emerging as a more cost-effective supplier of military hardware to a region that is home to the world’s largest arms importers.

“You can’t afford having these very expensive contracts with western companies and contractors, so what (the Gulf) will do is go toward cheaper contractors, so that’s why they are looking towards China, towards Pakistan, towards Turkey – it’s just the natural move.,” Andreas Krieg, a professor at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom’s Joint Command and Staff College, told The National.

Pakistani engagement in terms of troops may be most advanced with Saudi Arabia, while Qatar appears focused on cooperation in development and production of hardware. “Over the last two years the Qataris have really turned their backs towards the West and looked toward the East, as all the Gulf countries are doing right now,” Mr. Krieg said.

Qatar is discussing with Turkey and Pakistan joint production of new defence systems, including Turkey’s T-129 attack and reconnaissance helicopter. Qatar has also expressed interest in the fifth generation JF-17 fighter jet which Pakistan developed with China. Pakistani pilots of the JF-17 last year demonstrated their skills in a display in Qatar. The Pakistan Ordnance Factory, moreover, recently opened a marketing and sales office in Dubai.

Qatar is further discussing the possibility of Pakistani forces providing security during the 2022 World Cup.

Similarly, Turkey last year deployed 3,000 ground troops as well as air and naval units, military trainers and special operations forces to a newly created base in Qatar.

Pakistani engagement in the Middle East has a long and storied history. It dispatched pilots in 1969 to fly Saudi air force Lightning jets that repulsed a South Yemeni incursion into the kingdom’s southern border. In the preceding years, Pakistan had helped the kingdom attempt to build its first war warplanes and trained Saudi pilots. Pakistani pilots again flew missions during the 1973 Middle East War in defense of Saudi Arabia’s borders.

Pakistan bolstered its position over the following years with military missions in 22 countries, training facilities for the region and by becoming the world’s largest exporter of military personnel. Pakistanis currently provide training to armed forces in various Gulf countries and thousands serve in Gulf uniforms in many of the region’s militaries, including entire battalions of Pakistanis in the Saudi military.

Historically, Pakistan’s largest contingent of 20,000 soldier was initially based in the 1970s in the triangle where the borders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel bump up against each other. Pakistani combat troops were also dispatched to the kingdom after a group of religious Saudi militants attacked the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979.

By the mid-1980s, most Pakistani units had shifted to the predominantly Shiite Eastern Province, home to the kingdom’s oil fields. Pakistani Air Force units were stationed on the northern Gulf coast to shield the fields from a fallout from the Iran-Iraq war.

More Pakistani troops were dispatched in 1990 to ostensibly protect the Muslim holy cities in the kingdom as part of the Pakistani military’s circumvention of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s inclination to include a Pakistani contingent in the US-led coalition assembled to roll back the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

Ironically it is Mr. Sharif who 25 years later appears to be circumventing. This time it would be to circumvent a refusal by parliament in 2015 to contribute troops to the Saudi war in Yemen despite Pakistan being the world’s foremost beneficiary of Saudi largesse and its dependency on remittances from Pakistani workers in the kingdom.

Ironically, Mr. Sharif’s willingness in 2015 to comply with the Saudi request was opposed by Pakistani corps commanders, including Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa. That was before General Bajwa succeeded General Raheel Sharif (no relative of the prime minister) as commander-in-chief. In contrast to General Bajwa, General Sharif is believed to have favoured deploying troops in support of Saudi Arabia.

“Yemen was hotly debated within the military. Ultimately the military feared that there would be a sectarian backlash within the military itself if it got involved in the Saudi-Iranian proxy war in Yemen,” said Abdullah Gul, the son of former Islamist ISI chief, Hamid Gul, who maintains close ties to the command of Pakistan’s armed forces.

Those concerns appear to have been abandoned with the likelihood of a Pakistani combat brigade being sent to areas of the Saudi-Yemeni border vulnerable to attack by the anti-Saudi Houthis as well as jihadi groups. The deployment would not violate the Pakistani parliament resolution as long as Pakistani troops remain on the Saudi side of the border.

General Sharif may be rewarded for his support of the Saudis by taking over the command of the Riyadh-based military alliance, dubbed the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism.

General Raheel’s appointment would give the alliance credibility it needs: a non-Arab commander from one of the world’s most populous Muslim countries who commanded not only one of the Muslim world’s largest militaries, but also one that possesses nuclear weapons.

Yet, accepting the command risks putting Pakistan more firmly than ever in the camp of Saudi-led confrontation with Iran that Saudi political and religious leaders as well as their militant Pakistani allies often frame not only in geopolitical but also sectarian terms.

Pakistani Shiite leaders as well as some Sunni politicians have warned that General Raheel’s appointment would put an end to Pakistan’s ability to walk a fine line between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Pakistan borders on Iran and is home to the world’s largest Shiite minority.

General Raheel has reportedly told his Saudi counterparts that he would seek to involve Iran in the alliance. Similarly, General Bajwa appeared to be hedging his bets by declaring that “enhanced Pakistan-Iran military-to-military cooperation will have a positive impact on regional peace and stability.”

Saudi conditions for a reconciliation with Iran appear to all but rule out any effort by General Raheel and complicate General Bajwa’s balancing act.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, in a speech last month’s Munich Security Conference, charged that “Iran remains the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Iran has as part of its constitution the principle of exporting the revolution. Iran does not believe in the principle of citizenship. It believes that the Shiite, the ‘dispossessed’, as Iran calls them, all belong to Iran and not to their countries of origin. And this is unacceptable for us in the kingdom, for our allies in the Gulf and for any country in the world.”

Mr. Al-Jubeir stipulated that “until and unless Iran changes its behaviour, and changes its outlook, and changes the principles upon which the Iranian state is based, it will be very difficult to deal with a country like this.”

The possible deployment of troops and General Raheel’s appointment comes as the Pakistani parliament is forging closer relations with its Iranian counterpart in an effort to nurture economic and political cooperation.

It also comes in the wake of the deportation by Saudi Arabia of 39,000 Pakistanis as part of a crackdown on militants and the arrest and alleged torture of Pakistani transgenders in the kingdom.

Transgenders may not garner significant public empathy in conservative Pakistan but workers’ rights do, particularly at a time of reduced remittances. “The government and the military are walking a tightrope that is dangerously balanced both in terms of domestic as well as in terms of geopolitics,” said one Pakistani political analyst.

As of March 14, the rooms housing the Museo Picasso Málaga’s permanent collection are refreshed, and more visitor-friendly and informative about Pablo Picasso’s work. The new design is predominantly chronological, showing how the artist’s work stretched over a period of time. It also points out its intrinsic versatility and the cyclical nature of his artistic investigations, drawing attention to his constant vocation for exploring the expressive possibilities of any medium, Art Daily reports.

By allowing for a more contemporary reading of Picasso’s work and examining his various creative facets, Museo Picasso Málaga is adapting to meet the needs and expectations of visitors today.

The exhibition narrative is the result of the close collaboration between Museo Picasso Málaga and Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte (FABA), which for the next three years will be contributing with a selection of 166 works from their holdings.

More Picasso The museum’s new exhibition concept presents more artworks – some of which have rarely or never been shown in public – and a greater diversity of styles and techniques. From March 14, the eleven newly-refurbished exhibition rooms at the Palacio de Buenavista will be home to 120 works by Pablo Picasso, dating from 1895 to 1972. They comprise 48 paintings, 19 sculptures, 26 pieces of ceramic, 13 drawings and 13 graphic works, as well as one sketchbook.

Among the works that are being incorporated into the new layout are Restaurant (1914), an exceptional oil painting that has been cut out and stuck onto glass, and which is shown here for the very first time; The Three Graces (1923), a large canvas that shows a more classical and monumental Picasso; The Siesta (1932), with the rounded forms and soft colours that were so typical of the 1930s; and the iconic bronze, Head of a Bull (1942), made from the seat and handlebars of a bicycle. Along with the rest of the works on display, they give shape to an exhibition narrative that starts with the artist’s formative years, continues with the great stylistic and thematic moments of his career – cubism, the Mediterranean, portraiture – and ends with his reinterpretation of the great masters, all of them with that combination of talent, technique and expression that made Picasso the great artist of the 20th-century.

The new exhibition concept will include all the supports and media the artist employed and will enable visitors to discover different works by Picasso every three months, thanks to a three-monthly rota system. Canvases, sculptures and ceramics will be on permanent display, whereas, in compliance with conservation terms and conditions, drawings and graphic works will rotate four times a year to become part of the exhibition narrative.

Finally, Room XII of the Palacio de Buenavista will shortly be rounding off the visit with a contextualization of the artist, using information on Picasso’s life, his artistic achievements, the locations that were relevant to his work, and the people with whom he associated. Who was Picasso? Why did he change the history of art? These are just some of the questions that will be answered in this space.

This is the fifth time since it opened that Museo Picasso Málaga has renewed the layout of the collection. This time, the main purpose is to explain Picasso’s aesthetic concept more specifically, and to highlight the magnitude, transcendence, and diversity of his legacy.

The opening of Pablo Picasso. New Collection coincides with the 33 Picassos exhibition, which can be seen at MPM until 26th March. It is therefore a unique chance to visit the Palacio de Buenavista and see all 153 works by Picasso that will be on display during this time.

New lighting To appreciate the work of Pablo Picasso in detail, the renovation work involved alterations being made to improve the lighting in the exhibition rooms, by converting from halogen to LEDs. Museo Picasso Málaga found an ally in Fundación Endesa and, thanks to a sponsorship agreement presented in January 2017, improvements have been made to the lighting in the exhibition rooms. A total of 230 spotlights and 60 reflector lamps have been installed, all with LED technology.

These alterations to the lighting also made considerable improvements to the performance of the lighting system, with low heat emissions ensuring the conservation of the artworks and enabling them to be viewed in conditions similar to natural daylight. The new lighting will also reduce energy consumption and thus lead to a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. The project serves to reinforce MPM’s commitment to the environment, which began in 2015 when it registered its carbon footprint with the Spanish Ministry for Agriculture, Fishing, Food, and the Environment.

The academic programme, publications and educational programme. The new exhibition layout will be partnered over the next three years by an academic programme organized in collaboration with universities in Spain and abroad. A number of experts will be asked to examine issues that have not yet been fully researched, with the aim of contributing to the study of Pablo Picasso’s work, and offering their results to the university community and other Picasso-related institutions, such as the Picasso museums in Paris, Barcelona and Antibes.

For the occasion, Museo Picasso Málaga will soon be presenting a lavishly illustrated book, with articles by Trevor Stark, PhD in Modern Art at Harvard University; Cécile Godefroy, PhD in History of Contemporary Art; Francisco Calvo Serraller, historian and art critic; and José Lebrero Stals, artistic director of Museo Picasso Málaga. The new catalogue will be published separately in Spanish and English, and will also contain an “album” of photographs of key places, people and events in Picasso’s life and career.

Educational activities will be organized based on the new exhibition concept, with the purpose of enhancing the perception of Picasso’s creative process and renewing public interest in revisiting the museum. Over the next few weeks, Museo Picasso Málaga has arranged several visits for Malaga-based artistic, educational, and social groups. In May, training sessions for tourist guides will be held, using a methodology aimed at providing numerous tools to help them in their profession.

As well as being able to use an audio guide service in ten languages, which comes free with the price of admission, all visitors to Museo Picasso Málaga will be offered guided tours given by a member of the museum’s educational staff, every Saturday at 1.00pm in Spanish, and on Wednesdays at noon in English.

For schools and universities, visits and workshops will introduce different educational levels to Picasso’s work. These visits are free of charge for public secondary schools in Andalusia. Bilingual visits and tours for teaching staff complete the educational programme, and are always adapted to suit the characteristics of the participants.

In 1993, Yasser Arafat agreed to a compromise that would set aside the full demands of the Palestinian people, and recognize Israel in exchange for Israel recognizing Palestine.

At the time of the agreement, and during a high-profile media flurry, Arafat shook hands with Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s prime minister at the time, to seal the deal.

Little did anyone know that Israel’s word is weak and deceitful and that while it cries for “peace,” it really wants to destroy the Palestinians and anyone who gets in its way.

We know that it was an Israeli follower of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who assassinated Rabin in 1995, sending the Arafat-Rabin peace deal into a spiral from which it could never recover.

Worse is that Israelis, angry that they had to give up on their dream of a “Greater Israel” that encompasses most of the Middle East including Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, voted overwhelmingly to elect hard-line extremists to reject peace and pursue a tough military policy against Palestinian civilians.

What is amazing to me is that Israel has been rejecting peace openly and without shame for the past 20 years and no one in the Arab world has done anything about it.

Netanyahu, who professes support for the widely disparaged two-state solution, recently stepped in to prevent non-Jewish citizens of Israel from naming a street after Arafat, who received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Rabin and former Israeli President Shimon Peres for their efforts to end the violence.

Residents of the Israeli city of Jatt, which consists of Christian and Muslim Palestinians who remained in the so-called “democratic state” of Israel after its UN-forced creation in 1948, had erected signs honoring Arafat for seeking to make peace with the militaristic Israel.

Netanyahu immediately issued an order to take the signs down, and his more extremist government members have demanded an investigation to determine if any of the non-Jewish Israeli citizens can be prosecuted for placing the signs in honor of Arafat on their small village streets.

The Israeli-Arab citizens also wanted to name streets in honor of Haj Amin Al-Husseini — who led the Palestinian defenses against the pre-Israel terrorist groups the Irgun, Stern Gang and Haganah during the 1940s — and also Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam, who led Palestinian resistance against growing Jewish violence in the 1920s and 1930s.

Media plays down violence

The Israeli media has largely justified Netanyahu’s rejection of the Arafat street signs, and played down the rising violence that has targeted non-Jews in Israel. The day after Netanyahu announced he would not permit Arafat’s name to be placed on any “Israeli” street, Jewish terrorists began attacking non-Jewish people in the tiny hamlet.

Bloggers in Israel reported that a stun grenade was thrown into the home of Mohammed Kauwash, the chairman of the street-naming commission that recommended the Arafat street name.

It is funny how hypocritical this is. Chicago, for example, has named a major street in honor of Israel terrorist David Ben-Gurion, who ordered the destruction of more than 400 Palestinian villages located inside the new Jewish state and the killing of thousands of Christian and Muslim civilians who opposed dividing the country on religious grounds.

Chicago’s Jewish Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been accused of eliminating the Arab presence in the city government established by his predecessors Harold Washington and Richard M. Daley, and for pulling the rug out from under the Arabesque Festival, which had only started a few years before he came to office. Emanuel, acting in response to protests from Chicago Jewish leaders, has refused and ignored interview requests to discuss his anti-Arab actions.

Israel’s historic racism and apartheid is enabled by the rising extremism among American politicians like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others who do everything to protect Israel not only against violence but also against accusations that Israel is in fact the cause of most of the violence in the Middle East.

Growing racism

Jews in Israel and America often forget the violence their founders embraced, and often act in a hypocritical manner when it comes to principle, ethics and truth.

Netanyahu’s actions and the historic rejection of Palestinian rights reflect the growing racism inside Israel that is being fueled by the government. But the racism is more a form of religious discrimination targeting Christians and Muslims who are Arab. The Christian victims of Israeli atrocities are often ignored and marginalized by the Israeli media and few reports ever make it to the West, where one would assume Christians would be concerned about the Israeli persecution.

Many people view this rising tide of Israeli racism and bigotry as a bad sign, and it is. But there is a silver lining as Israel’s racism becomes bolder. The more Israel discriminates, the more difficult it is for Israelis to pretend they do not. The racism is becoming more and more obvious to the rest of the world.

It is clear that Palestinians are not the cause of the violence in Israel. The cause of the violence is from Israelis themselves who have rejected peace, rejected compromise and who are seeking to completely erase Christian and Muslim Palestinians not just from Israel but from the occupied West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.

The Arab world should respond to Israel’s rising extremism by embracing that which Israel rejects. For example, when Israelis travel to the Arab world, they should be greeted at “Yasser Arafat” terminals. And immigration stamps honoring Arafat should be stamped in their passports.

The more Israel says it does not want the Arafat name, the more it should be forced on them. Arafat was a hero not only to the Palestinians but to civil rights champions throughout the world.

The Arab world should not just sit back silently while Israel builds its movement to not only destroy Palestine but the entire region.

*Ray Hanania is an award-winning Palestinian-American former journalist and political columnist. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com.

This article appeared at Arab News.

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) decided Wednesday to maintain the current harmonized classification of glyphosate weed-killer as a substance causing serious eye damage and being toxic to aquatic life with long-lasting effects, however it concluded that the available scientific evidence did not meet the criteria to classify glyphosate as a carcinogen, as a mutagen or as toxic for reproduction.

The ECHA concluded that the scientific evidence available at the moment warrants the following classifications for glyphosate according to the CLP Regulation:

• Eye Damage 1; H318 (Causes serious eye damage)
• Aquatic Chronic 2; H411 (Toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects)

In addition, ECHA concluded that the available scientific evidence did not meet the criteria in the CLP Regulation to classify glyphosate for specific target organ toxicity, or as a carcinogen, as a mutagen or for reproductive toxicity.

The hazard classes for which classification was proposed by the German competent authority were specific target organ toxicity (repeated exposure) (category 2), eye damage/irritation (category 1), and toxicity to the aquatic environment (Aquatic Chronic 2). ECHA also assessed other hazard classes including carcinogenicity, germ cell mutagenicity and reproductive toxicity.

The adopted opinion will go through a normal editorial check before it is sent to the European Commission.

Apart from the published studies on glyphosate, ECHA also had full access to the original reports of studies conducted by industry. ECHA said it has assessed all the scientific data, including any scientifically relevant information received during the public consultation in summer 2016.

(EurActiv) — Croatia and Romania share a similar vision on most European issues, including enlargement and the eastern partnership, according to the countries’ foreign ministers, who met in Bucharest on Tuesday.

Croatian minister Davor Ivo Stier and his Romanian counterpart, Teodor Meleșcanu, spoke about further EU enlargement, the future of the bloc and the situation in Ukraine in a meeting in the Romanian capital on Tuesday.

The two foreign affairs chiefs also discussed bilateral cooperation within the framework of the European Union and NATO, as well as their forthcoming stints at the helm of the EU’s rotating presidency.

Romania and Croatia will both hold the presidency for the first time in 2019 and 2020, respectively, as part of the same “trio”, sandwiching Finland, which will hold the presidency for the first time since 2006.

Meleșcanu said there is a common interest in “anchoring the region irrevocably and irreversibly on the European path”.

He added that “there is huge potential for further cooperation. Romania and Croatia have similar views on most European issues, especially under the current conditions, as well as the future of the European project itself”.

Moldova and the Ukraine crisis were also on the agenda and Romania’s foreign minister, in agreement with his Croatian colleague, insisted that “the importance and need is for the full implementation of the Minsk agreement”.

Both ministers said they share “views about the eastern partnership and how to bring these countries (closer) to” Europe.

Stier revealed that his visit is the first of a number of trips that will seek to strengthen bilateral ties and he said that the country’s president, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, “will visit”.

He added that the two countries’ period holding the rotating presidency will be “challenging” and that “we must support the EU’s enlargement policy”.

Stier also spoke about a number of bilateral agreements including a cooperation agreement and a memorandum of understanding on NATO defence. He also said that there are plans to work together in the Danube port of Constanta.

(RFE/RL) — U.S. President Donald Trump blasted a U.S. District Court judge who suspended his revised travel order, accusing him of “unprecedented judicial overreach.”

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson issued a decision blocking the order late March 15, hours before it was due to take effect, saying he found a strong likelihood the order would be ruled unconstitutional and would cause “irreparable injury” to the state of Hawaii and its citizens.

The executive order aimed to temporarily bar refugees as well as travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. It was due to go into effect on March 16.

“This is in the opinion of many an unprecedented judicial overreach,” Trump said after the judge acted, telling a rally in Nashville, Tennessee, that suspending a “watered down” order designed to keep terrorists out of the country “makes us look weak.”

Trump vowed to fight the decision and take it all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. “We’re going to win” the legal battle, he told supporters.

“The constitution gave the president the power to suspend immigration when he deems it to be in the national interest of our country,” he said.

The suspended order, signed on March 6, was a revision of Trump’s original January 27 order, which would have barred visitors from Iraq as well as legal U.S. residents from six predominantly Muslim countries who hold “green cards.”

The targeted countries in the revised order are Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. Both the original order and the revised one also temporarily barred all refugees from the United States.

The Hawaii judge, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, was highly critical of even the more narrowly written order, saying it relied on “questionable evidence supporting the government’s national security motivation.”

He said Hawaii’s argument that the ban violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against religious discrimination is likely to succeed in the courts.

An objective observer “would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion,” Watson wrote, adding that targeting the six Middle Eastern and African countries “likewise targets Islam” because their Muslim populations range from 90.7 percent to 99.8 percent.

The judge noted that Trump explicitly frames his proposed actions on immigration in religious language and cited a March 2016 interview in which Trump said, “I think Islam hates us.”

Hawaii was not the only state trying to stop the travel order. More than half a dozen states have filed court challenges.

U.S. courts in Maryland, Washington state, and Hawaii all heard arguments on March 15, and are also expected to rule soon on whether the order should be allowed to stand.

The Department of Justice called Watson’s ruling “flawed both in reasoning and in scope,” and insisted that the court did not give sufficient weight to the president’s broad legal authority in national security matters.

“The Department will continue to defend this Executive Order in the courts,” it said.

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said the ban was needed to improve vetting of people entering the United States and prevent terrorist attacks. He said he had no doubt that it would be upheld eventually by higher courts.

Watson’s order is only temporary until the broader arguments in the case can be heard under an expedited hearing schedule before his court.

By Matt Hadro

As the Syrian Civil War begins its seventh year, Syrian doctors told members of Congress of the “unspeakable horrors” they have witnessed while serving patients in Aleppo.

“In the month leading up to our displacement, I can only describe the events as hell,” said Dr. Farida, an OB/GYN who formerly worked in Aleppo.

Speaking to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, she explained that her hospital “treated many women with severe injuries.” One pregnant woman survived, with the medical efforts of the staff, but shrapnel in her body from an explosion cut her unborn baby in half.

Many other women died because they were not able to make the trip to the hospital due to “the lack of ambulances and fuel,” she continued, and they “bled to death in their home, along with their unborn children.”

Three doctors from the Syrian American Medical Society testified before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday about the human toll of Syria’s Civil War which began on March 15, 2011. Two of them wore breathing masks and withheld their full names to avoid any hostile detection.

In six years, 400,000 have died in the conflict between government forces and rebel groups, and over 11 million have been displaced from their homes, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Five million registered refugees have fled the country and 6.6 million displaced are still residing within Syria.

Also, “at least 13.5 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance,” USCIRF noted.

“The al-Assad regime continues to indiscriminately target and forcibly displace Sunni Muslims. In 2016 alone, the Syrian government forcibly displaced 125,000 Sunni Arab civilians from the Damascus suburbs, as well as another 250,000 from Eastern Aleppo,” they stated, adding that the regime was reportedly “repopulating” those areas with Shi’a Muslims “and government sympathizers.”

“In addition, the regime since 2011 has detained or killed prominent Christian civil rights activists, humanitarian workers, and religious leaders,” USCIRF added.

Meanwhile, forces of the Islamic State in the country have waged war against almost all religious minorities, and the U.S. declared last March that ISIS was committing genocide in Syria and Iraq against Christians, Yazidis, and Shi’a Muslims.

Many rebel groups, some affiliates of terror groups, have entered the conflict, as well as regional powers waging a proxy war within the country.

The doctors told of how, despite their efforts to move hospitals underground to avoid destruction, pro-government forces waged a total war on health care in Aleppo, from dropping bunker-busting bombs to using chemical attacks to force patients and medical staff to flee. Two doctors alleged that the scale of the attacks on hospitals escalated when Russia involved itself in the conflict.

“Throughout the last six years, I have witnessed unspeakable horrors,” Dr. Farida said. The “hospital was the most dangerous place in Aleppo.” With the danger continuing to rise, she left Aleppo, with her husband and eight year-old daughter, in December.

Other doctors echoed her testimony of the lack of medical supplies and transport due to the conflict. Besieged cities like Aleppo and Homs have not been able to receive the humanitarian aid patients so desperately need, and airstrikes on hospitals destroy the only access they may have to life-saving health care.

Dr. Abdulkhalek, another doctor who testified at the hearing, pleaded with the senators. “Do not let these acts continue,” he implored. “Do not let more innocent civilians suffer. Do not forgot the human toll of this war, the refugees, the education gap.”

“The UN system is clearly broken, as it has no means to enforce its mandates and hold perpetrators accountable for these crimes,” Dr. Abdulkhalek said in his testimony. He told of how he had to negotiate an evacuation plan for hospital patients with the UN and the World Health Organization, but “as the regime and its allies began to take more territory, the cooperation disappeared” and the “evacuation never occurred.”

“We need sustained humanitarian access,” he insisted.

In the Syrian city of Homs, he said, medical supplies including blood and serum bags and antibiotics couldn’t reach the people from the outside amidst the three year-long siege, and in the last six months there has been a “complete lack of movement for all materials and medications.”

In another city besieged by pro-government forces, Dr. Abdulkhalek said, over 30 patients needed kidney dialysis medication. After the supply evaporated, “we pleaded with the UN to deliver the life-saving medication,” he said. It came – but not by a UN convoy – only after three patients died.

Hospitals were bombed with no regard to the vulnerable civilians that lay within. There have been three hospitals bombed in the last two weeks, Dr. Farida said.

While she worked at the hospital in Aleppo, she was in the middle of performing a caesarian section when a bombing collapsed the ceiling. She had to stay in the dangerous situation to clean debris from the collapse “out of the patient’s abdominal cavity,” she said.

Amidst all the violence, her eight year-old daughter once fled into the room where she was performing an operation, crying and unable to breathe.

“How I’m supposed to explain all of this to an eight year old who has known nothing about violence, killing, and destruction? How am I supposed to protect her?” she asked. “This broke my heart. That feeling of powerlessness to protect my child has broken me to this day.”

Dr. Abdulkhalek described how the hospital he was working in was the target of a chlorine bomb “after repeated attempts” by regime forces and their allies to drop barrel bombs on it.

Staff were able to save the lives of three men suffocating from gas where they were hiding, but many others died in the attack, he said.

After that, “many hospital staff had to leave, fearing for their lives,” he said. A second chlorine bomb hit the hospital later, claiming many child victims. There was “only one unit of oxygen” available, he said, and the oxygen mask had to be passed around to the children present one at a time.

When asked if there was “more frequent targeting of your hospitals when Russia got involved” in the Syrian conflict, Dr. Abdulkhalek replied “Yes.”

“They are locating the hospital position,” he said, and they “start targeting it many times” until civilians flee.

There were reportedly 600,000 people in Syria living under siege last year, and in February the UN warned of a “looming humanitarian catastrophe” in four besieged towns that had not been reached by a UN convoy since November.

The perpetrators of these atrocities must be held accountable, the doctors and human rights advocates insisted.

USCIRF on Thursday called for the U.S. to push for the International Criminal Court to investigate the crimes committed by the Assad regime and by ISIS in Syria.

“An entire generation has been lost. The world failed Aleppo,” Dr. Abdulkhalek concluded his testimony, begging the international community not to leave other Syrians to the same fate.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered all necessary measures be taken to remove social media content insulting Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and other holy figures.

“All necessary measures should be undertaken in accordance with the judicial guidelines to take down blasphemous pages from social media,” a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s office said March 14.

Separately, lawmakers in the National Assembly called for authorities to take strict and prompt action against those responsible for blasphemous pages and resolved to create a 10-member special committee to investigate.

“This House … demands the government identify the culprits and stop the uploading of such material on social media,” said the resolutions.

Parliamentarians reiterated their pledge to protect and safeguard the dignity and respect of the Prophet Mohammed at any cost and take on disgruntled elements who use social media to spread their views.

Father Morris Jalal, the founder and program director of Catholic TV in Lahore, supported the removal of Facebook pages targeting any religion, but opposed a complete ban on social media.

“It is time to implement the cyber crime laws aimed at curbing hate speech and religious hatred. Strict control, not complete closure, is the only solution,” he told ucanews.com.

The sweeping victory of PM Narendra Modi’s ruling party in Uttar Pradesh enhances its position in several states and the Upper House while auguring a stronger showing in the next general election. It also consolidates Modi’s dominant position in the BJP.

By Sinderpal Singh*

Results of four state elections in India announced this week gave Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party a massive victory in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 312 out of the total 403 seats in the state, a monumental win considering it garnered only 47 seats in the last state elections in 2012.

In the wide-ranging debate over the factors which led to the BJP electoral romp, many attribute it to Modi’s personal charisma and his single-handed ability to swing votes for his party. They called it the Modi ‘wave’, like in the 2014 general election, although the BJP suffered setbacks in some other states.

Three Implications of Modi Sweep

There are three broad possible implications – short term, medium term and long term – of this BJP sweep in Uttar Pradesh.

In the short term, the scale of BJP’s victory will have significant institutional and legislative implications. Most immediately, this election result confers a popular mandate for Modi’s decision to demonetise 86 percent of all cash by circulation value in India. This move, represented as Modi’s personal decision to uproot rampant corruption within India, was met with much criticism and scepticism within both academic and political circles.

Some commentators also speculated that Modi’s political capital would be significantly dented by the hardship experienced by large sections of India’s less economically advantaged population as a result of this policy. The scale of the BJP’s election victory in UP will silence much of this criticism.

Modi’s reputation as a leader willing to take difficult and unpopular decisions will be further consolidated. There will thus be less resistance to future policies which Modi will undertake, especially from within his party and the wider range of parties and organisations affiliated with the BJP. In 2018, when 56 members of India’s legislative upper house, the Rajya Sabha, are set to retire, the BJP’s victory in UP will allow it to wrest at least about half of these seats. This is significant given that important pieces of legislation being undertaken by the BJP are currently being held up in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP is in a minority.

Lastly, as the term of India’s current president comes to end in July, the BJP, together with its allies, as a result of the victory in Uttar Pradesh, will be in a very strong position to form the majority of the electoral college which will elect the next president of India.

Implications for Next General Election

In the medium term, this stunning victory in Uttar Pradesh provides a huge momentum for the BJP’s hopes of winning the next general election in India in 2019. It also cements even further Modi’s position within his party and largely rules out any chance of a leadership challenge to him from within the party. This will translate into the BJP staying in power in India till 2024.

Together with a majority in India’s upper house and having a president of the party’s choice, the Uttar Pradesh victory will also be seen as a sign of the BJP’s ability to wrest control of state governments not run by the BJP. It will also further cement the BJP’s control of states it more recently has tasted victory in.

The states of Jammu and Kashmir and Assam will be two states in which the BJP will attempt to consolidate further control post-2019. In these recent state elections, the BJP increased its share of seats in the north-east state of Manipur and is on the verge of forming a government there for the first time together with the support of a few smaller regional parties.

There is, however, a need to appreciate some recent setbacks to the BJP in these state elections. In Goa, where the BJP was an incumbent, it came in second to the Congress Party, although even there it seems to be on the verge of forming the government with the support of smaller regional parties. In Punjab, the BJP and its ally, the Akali Dal, suffered a bruising defeat to the Congress Party. Post-2019, the BJP will hope to use its momentum in this election and the upcoming general election to wrest back some seats in these states.

Long Term Hegemony

In the longer term, the Uttar Pradesh victory could signal a period of sustained hegemony for the BJP in Indian politics. The disenchantment and disarray within the Congress Party and the inability of emerging parties like the Aam Aadmi Party to mount a serious all-India challenge to the BJP could possibly translate into a period of BJP dominance, very much like that of the Congress Party’s for much of the three decades since India’s independence.

Within the BJP and within the larger ‘family’ or ‘parivar’ of ideologically-minded parties and organisations, there would possibly be pressures to pursue a hegemonic BJP agenda at the national level. There seems to be a contradiction between the pro-development, modernising efforts on the part of Modi and sections of the BJP and the ‘Hindutva’ agenda driven by identity politics on the part of several organisations like the RSS and some university student bodies allied to the BJP.

The fact that the BJP did not field a single Muslim candidate during the Uttar Pradesh elections has given rise to concerns about the party’s view of the place of Muslims in India. The fact that the BJP won in 31 out of the 42 seats where Muslims were at least a third of the electorate, may however, guide the BJP’s future electoral calculations and plans.

The BJP might probably evolve to push more of the pro-development modernising agenda and shed elements of the narrow identity politics strategy as it strives to cement its hegemonic position in Indian politics into the medium and long term.

*Sinderpal Singh is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

By Joshua Meservey*

Al Shabab, the al Qaeda affiliate that has bedeviled the East African country of Somalia for a decade, is currently enjoying its most successful run of attacks in years against the Somali government. Since mid-August alone, the group has killed a number of high-ranking officials, including a senior intelligence officer, a district commissioner, and a general in the national army. Its intensified assault on the government comes in the middle of an electoral process that inaugurated a new parliament in December and is scheduled to bring a new president this month.

Disrupting the electoral process is consistent with an old al Shabab strategy of discrediting any competing sources of authority and legitimacy. However, something new is afoot as well: al Shabab has escalated its attacks in the north of Somalia this year, outside its preferred southern area of operations. The group’s history and ideology suggest the campaign is likely to accelerate once the electoral process finishes. There are a number of worrisome consequences of a northward lunge by al Shabab, the worst of which would be a renewal of ties with the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), historically the al Qaeda affiliate most focused on attacking the United States.

The change in al Shabab’s previously desultory approach to the north became clear in March 2016, when it landed as many as 600 fighters on the shores of the semiautonomous northern region of Puntland. The ultimately ill-fated campaign was an unprecedented investment of manpower outside al Shabab’s southern stronghold, where it once had dominion over nearly a third of the country. Its presence in the north had previously been mostly confined to a small militia based in the Galgala Mountains region.

The Puntland attack was just the start. In March and April, Puntland security services broke up an al Shabab cell in Garowe, and al Shabab attacked the towns of Beledweyne, Bosaso, Galkayo, and Garad—even briefly capturing the latter—all of which are outside the area in which the group usually operates. In late November, the group killed four pro-government soldiers with a roadside bomb near Bosaso, and in August it launched the deadliest terror attack ever in Puntland, when two suicide car bombs ripped into local government buildings in Galkayo, killing nearly 30 and wounding almost 90 people.

Al Shabab’s northward play makes sense for several reasons. It is being squeezed in the south by the various forces arrayed against it, and could be looking for an escape valve. Al Shabab is in no danger of being militarily defeated in the south anytime soon, but it is natural for such a canny group to hedge its bets.

There is also the matter of Abdiqadir Mumin, the senior al Shabab religious leader based in Puntland, who declared allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) along with a small number of fighters in October 2015. Despite repeated overtures from ISIS, the rest of al Shabab has remained fiercely loyal to al Qaeda, hunting down anyone within its ranks suspected of ISIS sympathies. Mumin’s band emerged from hiding in October to seize Qandala, a port town in Puntland, for over a month. Al Shabab wants him dead, a task that will require a stronger presence in the area.

STAVE OFF A REUNION

The most concerning consequence of al Shabab moving north, however, would be any renewal of its friendship with AQAP. Although the details are unclear, Al Shabab’s links with its associates across the Gulf of Aden extend back to at least 2010. In 2011, the United States captured a high-ranking al Shabab operative named Ahmed Warsame as he was leaving Yemen in a skiff. Warsame had close links with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American terrorist who was AQAP’s most senior and effective propagandist. In 2012, al Shabab reportedly sent 300 fighters to receive training and to fight with AQAP in its war against the Yemeni government. The increasing sophistication over the years of al Shabab’s explosives may be the fruit of that collaboration.

The relationship between al Shabab and AQAP appears to have weakened after both groups suffered significant military setbacks in their respective countries. However, the civil war between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led military coalition that has gripped Yemen since 2015 has been a boon for AQAP. It took advantage of the chaos to rapidly expand, at one point controlling nearly 400 miles of Yemeni coastline and the country’s third-largest port, Makalla, from which it derived as much as $2 million per day in taxes. At that time, it also freed more than 100 of its jailed members—including senior leader Khaled Batarfi—and seized huge amounts of weaponry from a government depot.

The Saudi-led coalition eventually drove AQAP from Makalla, and it has lost ground in other parts of the country as well. Yet it still controls significant chunks of Yemen, and the group’s long-term prospects are good as the stalemated civil war ensures the sort of violent instability off of which AQAP feeds. The Yemeni group is likely to remain an attractive partner for al Shabab for the foreseeable future.

A renewed relationship between al Shabab and AQAP would make it easier to move materiel and men back and forth and for each group to share its expertise with the other. This is the sort of cooperation that has strengthened terror organizations throughout the world. Boko Haram in West Africa (now an ISIS affiliate), for example, began as an unremarkable militia. Yet the training that some of its fighters received from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al Shabab helped it transform into one of the world’s deadliest terrorist organizations that routinely humiliated the Nigerian army and conquered chunks of Northeast Nigeria.

A longer-term possibility is that a stronger friendship between AQAP and al Shabab could influence the latter to invest some of its energies into global jihad. Al Shabab has historically shown little interest in attacking what al Qaeda dubbed the Far Enemy, apart from occasionally and unsuccessfully calling for lone-wolf attacks in the United States. It is for now preoccupied with fighting a regional war, and there is no indication it is rethinking its strategy.

Yet elements of al Shabab’s leadership have always been sympathetic to internationalist terrorist goals, and many of its founders fought in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Al Shabab’s steadfast loyalty to al Qaeda signals at least tacit acceptance of the latter’s internationally focused brand of terrorism. Attacking Western targets, specifically the United States, has been a pillar of al Qaeda’s strategy since the early 1990s.

Al Qaeda generally struggles to get its affiliates to look beyond their local wars, yet AQAP has adopted al Qaeda’s internationalism with gusto. In 2009, the group just missed killing the deputy interior minister of Saudi Arabia in Jeddah using a man with explosives hidden in his body. AQAP was behind failed attacks on airlines bound for the United States in 2009 and 2010, as well as the January 2015 attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

It is likely no coincidence that in 2011 when al Shabab was closer to AQAP than it is now, at least several al Shabab leaders were plotting attacks against Europe. The group has extensive networks throughout East Africa, and there are many inviting Western targets there should al Shabab decide to prioritize a broader jihad. Al Shabab also once attracted the support of scores of Europeans and Americans. The longer the feckless Somali government disappoints its citizens and the longer foreign troops fighting al Shabab remain in Somalia, the more the level of appeal al Shabab holds for foreign fighters is likely to rebound. That would open up opportunities for al Shabab to directly strike Western countries, something beyond its current capacity.

AQAP and al Shabab do not appear to have yet rebuilt ties, and al Shabab is preoccupied with disrupting Somalia’s electoral process. Expect al Shabab’s northern activities to continue, however, once the distraction of the electoral process has faded, and particularly if AQAP continues to revive. Now is the best time to nip a reunion in the bud, which will require vigilance and determination in both Somalia and Yemen.

About the author:
*Joshua Meservey is a Policy Analyst, Africa and the Middle East at the Heritage Foundation.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation.

Hillary Clinton was at a small gathering recently with some politically connected people in NYC, and it seems she’s noodling the idea of running for mayor.

A source who was at the gathering last month says Hillary brought up the topic of running and made it clear she was honestly considering it.

We’re told she was talking to people in her close circle to gauge the level of interest and support in a Clinton candidacy.

Our source made it clear … judging from the meeting, so far it’s just talk.

Meanwhile, Chelsea Clinton is considering running for Congress, possibly replacing 79-year-old congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.)