By John R. Haines*

(FPRI) — The Hungarian proverb Madarat tolláról, embert barátjáról translates roughly as “You can tell a bird by its feathers, and a person by his friends.” If so, it says much about Hungarian President Viktor Orbán.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked during a 12 April interview with Russia’s MIR television and radio network whether “relations deteriorated with Trump in office from what they were under his predecessor?” He answered, “We could say that at the working level, the degree of trust has dropped, especially in the military area. It has not improved and has probably worsened.”[1] Mr. Putin premised this appraisal with an extended dissemble about “several versions” about “the chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib province, which led to the US air strike on a Syrian air base:”

There are several version, two of which I consider as priorities. The first is that the Syrian bombs hit a secret chemical weapons facility. This is quite possible, considering that the terrorists have used chemical weapons many times, and nobody has contested this fact . . . According to the second version, it was a staged provocation, a deliberate incident designed to create a pretext for increasing pressure on the legitimate Syrian authorities. That is all.[2]

Mr. Orbán has been, to say the least, restrained in his condemnation of Russian support for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. That being said, the suggestion that any NATO ally’s leadership circle would parrot such a risibly false Russian narrative as this one would invite quick and forceful pushback. Except, comes the inevitable rejoinder, within the odd constellation around Mr. Orbán.

One “star” in that constellation is István Lovas. He is a Magyar Idők[3] foreign policy commentator and tireless re-poster of articles (on his personal blog), many of which are drawn from the Russian government-controlled media portals Russia Today and Sputnik. He wrote recently in another Fidesz-favoring newspaper, Magyar Hírlap:

Don’t accuse yourself of being naïve for thinking Trump would do what he promised during the campaign. . . . Everyone knows the value of campaign promises, but there are limits. . . . Naiveté is not an accusation one can level at Russian intelligence services, which obviously were very thorough in gathering information about Trump, like every other self-respecting intelligence agency or diplomatic mission. This information relieved and reassured Russia about a Trump presidency, in the hopeful expectation that he would alleviate tensions between the countries.[4]

Mr. Trump “is not Putin’s lapdog,” he avers, even though “the mainstream news media hourly hammers into its rather gullible viewers that the US president is the Kremlin’s servant.”[5] However, Mr. Trump “unlike Ronald Reagan”

has shown himself unable to resist a Washington ‘establishment’ comprised of the military industrial complex, the mainstream media, former government officials, neo-conservative opinion leaders, the pro-Israel lobby, and special interest campaign contributors.[6]

The demonstration of this “came on Thursday night [April 6], when Trump ordered an attack with 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airbase near Homs, having accused President Assad of carrying out a poison gas attack against his own people.” Declaring, “the US attacks had civilian victims as well,” Mr. Lovas asked whether the “evidence about a poison gas attack . . . consisted of the same intelligence that made up stories of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the Baghdad dictator’s alleged links to terrorists, resulting in the country’s ruination and the unnecessary death of nearly a million Iraqis.”[7] Mr. Lovas accused President Trump of “violating international law” and “breaching the US Constitution by failing to give Congress advance notice of the operation.” He goes further:

Some US media have had the courage to report on the one hand that there is no sign that President [Trump] has sold his shares in the huge US defense contractor Raytheon, which manufactures the Tomahawk missile; and on the other, that the missiles fired the other day will create hundreds of millions of dollars in new orders for Raytheon, whose stock price soared on Friday.[8]

Thus “a new star, Donald Trump, is born.”

A single massive missile strike, and the President who once ‘terrified’ the establishment and its dupes becomes the hope of the world. The man once said to embody ‘the darkest period of our history’ is now suddenly lost to us.[9]

On the same day, Mr. Lovas offered a less full-throated defense of Russian collusion with the murderous Assad regime in Magyar Idők, stating (strictly correct but lacking any context), “Russia called for a UN investigation of what happened.”[10] Responding to United States Ambassador Nikki Haley’s comment[11] during an interview with CNN correspondent Jamie Gangel, Mr. Lovas wrote snarkily, “Well, we can add, that’s more evidence than what American intelligence falsified before the Iraq invasion,” adding about the American Tomahawk strike, “And unexpectedly now may be lost to us.”[12]

Mr. Lovas is an equal opportunity apologist when it comes to Syria. Praising Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s “generous and reasonable offer for the West, which could significantly reduce the flood of migrants to Europe,” he asked (presumably rhetorically) in mid 2016:

Why would continuing Assad’s rule be a great tragedy for the West? Because the West cannot tolerate a situation in which a Middle Eastern country is not governed democratically? Like Iraq, which was destroyed by spreading false intelligence, killing more than a million (and not 160 thousand) people, and making millions more homeless?[13]

Perhaps the best appraisal of Mr. Lovas came in a short, pithy commentary written by László Szily in September 2014:

István Lovas lost his job as a Magyar Nemzet Brussels correspondent, and his job search has chosen an unorthodox path. . . . He just asked Putin in an open letter to start broadcasting in Hungarian on the Russian propaganda mouthpiece called Russia Today. . . . Who can say what he’ll do when he learns there’s a vacancy on Syrian government television?[14]

Where does this leave Mr. Orbán? Mr. Lovas and others say things about Hungary’s allies that Mr. Orbán (no stranger to inflammatory rhetoric) chooses not to say directly. This is part of a general pattern, as Florian Eder suggests, that involves Mr. Orbán “test[ing] the boundaries of what is tolerable” for his political partners and “looking for a test of power with Brussels,” one which European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker seems increasingly inclined to give him.[15]

That being said, Mr. Orbán’s affinity for Mr. Putin remains puzzling. Dalibor Rohac avers in a recent commentary that “Hungary is turning into Russia” and that “Orbán mimics Putin.”[16] The latter seems fairer than the former. A more nuanced view comes from the political commentator György Farkas. “Orbán is the greatest national security threat,” (Orbán a legnagyobb nemzetbiztonsági kockázat), not because Mr. Putin can be said in any fair sense to “control” Mr. Orbán, but rather because “autocrats do each other favors.”[17] Gergely Brückner puts it this way:

Orbán certainly respects Putin for having achieved what he himself seeks: the power to act autonomously. I don’t think Orbán is Putin’s puppet, since Orbán is no one’s lapdog. Orbán likely thinks himself a brilliant geopolitical strategist, one who created space to maneuver between Moscow and Brussels, and who will implant around Europe what he’s developed in his little Hungarian laboratory.[18]

Perhaps the most sobering assessment comes from Attila Ara-Kovács, who directs foreign policy for Hungary’s center-left opposition party Demokratikus Koalíció (“Democratic Coalition” aka “DK”). He writes, “Orbán is not just a black sheep in the EU but also a man who brings shame to Hungary.”[19] One suspects President Trump welcomes all expressions of disappointment coming out of Mr. Orbán’s constellation of black sheep, to mix a metaphor.

About the author:
*John R. Haines is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Executive Director of FPRI’s Princeton Committee. He is also a Trustee of FPRI.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] President of Russia (2017). “Interview to Mir broadcasting company.” [published in English 12 April 2017]. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54271. Last accessed 12 April 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Magyar Idők (“Hungarian Times”) is a daily newspaper, the editorial posture of which favors the Fidesz government of President Viktor Orbán.

[4] István Lovas (2017). “Trump nem Putyinpincsi.” Magyar Hírlap [published online in Hungarian 12 April 2017]. http://magyarhirlap.hu/cikk/84906/Trump_nem_Putyinpincsi. Last accessed 12 April 2017.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid..

[7] István Lovas (2017). “Trump nem Putyinpincsi.” Magyar Hírlap [published online in Hungarian 12 April 2017]. http://magyarhirlap.hu/cikk/84906/Trump_nem_Putyinpincsi. Last accessed 12 April 2017.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid..

[10] István Lovas (2017). “A Fehér Ház Oroszországot a Szíriai Vegyi Támadás Elpalástolásával Vádolja.” Magyar Idők, [published online in Hungarian 12 April 2017]. http://magyaridok.hu/kulfold/feher-haz-oroszorszagot-sziriai-vegyi-tamadas-elpalastolasaval-vadolja-1577293/. Last accessed 12 April 2017.

[11] Ambassador Haley said “I think that if you look at the fact that when this information came out, they were so quick to defend,” Haley said. “They didn’t look shocked, they didn’t look surprised. They were so quick to defend. And then the evidence comes out and we see exactly what it is.” Theodore Schliefer (2017). “Haley says Russia is ‘nervous’ and an ‘island’ after Assad attach.” CNN [published online 12 April 2017]. http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/11/politics/nikki-haley-syria-interview/index.html. Last accessed 12 April 2017.

[12] Lovas (2017), Magyar Idők, op cit.

[13] István Lovas (2016). “Assad elnök rendkívüli ajánlata Európa megmentésére.” Orientalista.hu [published online in Hungarian 13 June 2016]. https://orientalista.hu/lovas-istvan-assad-elnok-rendkivuli-ajanlata-europa-megmentes. Last accessed 12 April 2017.

[14] László Szily (2014). “​Nyílt levélben kért állást Putyintól Lovas István.” Cink.hu [published online in Hungarian 22 September 2014].http://cink.hu/nyilt-levelben-kert-allast-putyintol-lovas-istvan-1637543436. Last accessed 12 April 2017.

[15] Florian Eder (2017). “Juncker gegen Orbán.” Politico.eu [published online in German 13 April 2017]. http://www.politico.eu/newsletter/morgen-europa/politico-morgen-europa-juncker-gegen-orban-lagarde-gegen-trump-kein-gutes-ende/. Last accessed 13 April 2017.

[16] Dalibor Rohac (2017). “Hungary is turning into Russia.” Foreign Affairs [published online 12 April 2017]. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/hungary/2017-04-12/hungary-turning-russia. Last accessed 13 April 2017.

[17] György Farkas (2017). “Orbán a legnagyobb nemzetbiztonsági kockázat.” 24.hu [published online in Hungarian 12 April 2017]. http://24.hu/kozelet/2017/04/12/orban-a-legnagyobb-nemzetbiztonsagi-kockazat/. Last accessed 13 April 2017.

[18] Gergely Brückner (2014). “Orbán fejében a CEU testesít meg mindent, ami ellen harcolni kell.” Index.hu [published in Hungarian 9 April 2017]. http://index.hu/belfold/2017/04/09/orban_fejeben_a_ceu_testesit_meg_mindent_ami_ellen_harcolni_kell/. Last accessed 13 April 2017.

[19] “Putyint nem érdekli, hogy mi történt Szíriában – Orbán elvtársa tömeges gyerekgyilkossságot menteget.” Politikaivelemenyek.eu [published online in Hungarian 13 April 2017]. https://politikaivelemenyek.eu/putyint-nem-erdekli-hogy-mi-tortent-sziriaban-orban-elvtarsa-tomeges-gyerekgyilkosssagot-menteget/. Last accessed 13 April 2017.

hile maintaining ethical standards in every profession is fundamental to its efficient functioning and ultimate success, I am writing this commentary with a deep sense of anguish and pain. Although developing on modern lines and infrastructure in terms of machinery and technology is imperative, however I regret to maintain that we have not achieved optimum levels of success and customer satisfaction still in our country.

While use of new machinery and technology is not bad but the fading human face and highly personalized treatment of customers as its consequence, is the real worry. Somewhere along the line, we are missing the very vital human element, that too very brutally. Banking staff throughout the country needs to be sensitized enough to deal with illiterates, semi-literates and especially women and elderly, to sustain a judicious balance of the human face of banking as a business and socio-economic institution in a country that is still struggling with poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, helplessness, lack of technological know-how, lack of access to internet, etc. Though I understand that the somewhat harried banking staff may have multiple issues like heavy workload (that got further added due to demonetization) lack of sufficient staff to cope with in addition to discharging their daily duties in an efficient and speedy manner, and that these factors may contribute to the constantly irritated behavior they display on a somewhat routine basis but for how long can they expect customers to keep taking it, is a matter of conjecture and concern! Also getting modernized does not mean just meaning business and a formal communication with every customer irrespective of his/her age, background, context, etc. As a customer, many a times, I have felt embarrassment because of the banking staff who hardly have the time to listen to you or your queries reflecting their lack of professionalism and human sensitivity. I have also witnessed enough incidents where even the elderly and women are not spare such brusque handling, are mistreated and their queries avoided. It remains a fact that whenever I went to our country’s prestigious bank- the State Bank of India, I felt deeply sad by the kind of irritated behavior of the employees there (even before the demonetization move).

Recently I went to a bank for a passbook update. The official pasted the bar code on it and I went to update the same. The machine though couldn’t update all my entries in full due to some fault which made me return to the same official. Very reluctantly and after much pleading, he updated it on his system and while I was there, one elderly lady came for the similar updating of her passbook. The official reacted rudely and said, “When the bar code is already pasted, why are you here still bothering me?” The elderly lady’s gaze was a picture of affronted dignity and she left helplessly, not knowing what to think and with the confusion clearly mirrored on her face! I was shocked at this incident and asked the official very respectfully, “how can she update when she does not know anything about the uses of the new machine?” I further asked, “is there anybody that can help her or guide her or does your bank have any guidelines for such people who don’t know how to deposit cheques, cash or update their passbooks through machines and need to be assisted?” With a frown, he stared at me and replied that ‘she should request the security guard outside.” I was dumbfounded by such a bizarre reply.

In yet another recent incident I went to a branch of State Bank of India for a Demand Draft that I was in urgent need of for an application of employment in a university. The bank official out rightly rejected my request citing that we are a big bank and do not issue DD of just Rs.300/- that I was asked for by the employer institution. Not only this, the official added that he can make the DD for me only if I had a cheque ready for the same amount and for that I needed to be the account and cheque-book holder of the same bank. I was shocked and dismayed to the core to see such a system which has no place for a student or for a customer who is not their account holder. The big banking leaders of India have to think about it and make banking inclusive in a country where exclusion still prevails and people feel discriminated and humiliated by such unfriendly policies. That day I wanted to write a letter to PM and RBI governor and ask that just Jan Dhan is not sufficient in our country, banking system as a whole needs to be streamlined.

I think that society has dichotomous views about banking, based on their personal experiences, expectations and the medley of problems that they have encountered at various levels and in different situations, in their dealing with several bank personnel. The level of society you belong to, your literacy and levels of technological familiarity are a significant factor in determining how much of challenge or pleasure the entire banking process is bound to be. For those more savvy with bank procedures and their intricacies and adept at coping with routine procedures and quickly assimilating slightly more complex and complicated procedures and processes of banking, banking is a pleasure and a swift means to realizing your aims and goals in achieving the necessary target. However for those who hail from the rural areas, are illiterate and uneducated in terms of even basic banking formalities, even routine bank transactions can assume the monumental proportions of your worst nightmare and prove to be a stumbling block in moving forwards.

Banks have a varied approach as regards dealing with the demands and banking needs of society. It is, I think, largely influenced by the personality factor and your individual sense of humaneness and readiness to help another human being, with patience and perseverance, without losing your innate ability to relate with that person on a humane level and a potential customer. They are definitely over-burdened and short-staffed many times and frustrated by the unimaginative policies and decisions of the higher level banking authorities, who do not release the requisite number of suitably qualified personnel to assist customers and thus attend to their problems in a kind and courteous manner. Sometimes, though, the banking officials tend to be somewhat high-handed in their basic approach towards clients and this is what needs to be guarded against in the long run, as it tends to create arguments, irritation and bad feeling.

The old ideas of banking do matter to some extent but it is impossible in this highly techno-savvy age, when both man and machine are so much more equitably equipped to deal efficiently and speedily with situations where earlier they would have plodded through procedures in a painstaking manner, plodding along slowly and explaining the matter to the customer at every step, thereby sacrificing efficiency palpably, to maintain the same level of the human touch as before. There has to be an understanding of this very vital factor and the changing equation of banker versus client, by both sides so that both sides can make a concerted effort to acquire more knowledge of the other’s domain and coalesce at a harmonious level. Only then will meaningful banking come of age and the erstwhile faith of the community be restored in the banking personnel, not only as the facilitators of their financial needs and dispensations, but also as the true caretakers of their essential needs and interests.

On self operating/knowing the bank Apps and mechanized procedures, we must realize that even literate people in this country do not necessarily know all banking procedures, not to talk of elderly people and many others and therefore the bank authorities have to take into consideration a much broader need-based approach and the much needed human face of banking that is fast vanishing. There must be strong assistance guidelines especially for those who don’t know how to use these new machines like cash deposit machine, self pass-book updating, etc. Also to adopt a line of behavior that is both professional and humane with the customers, banks need ample sensitization, gender sensitization and greater sensitization towards the elderly and all those who don’t know the use of new machines and, therefore, are more prone to needing help. There must be distinct and clearly defined guidelines in this respect and branch help committees must be set up in every big and small bank in the country. After all banks are there because of the customers whether illiterate or literate. If such an indifference and lack of ethical banking persists unabated and unchallenged it may tantamount to yet another form of structural violence that is still the hallmark of many of our public institutions.

On asking how society today perceives banking, my feminist friend Aparna Dixit said, “As a part of society I would say that we are totally connected with banks in our day to day life that is much in a technology led phase. We can do most of the things on phone, laptop or e-banking kiosk today. Apart from this there are bank executives who are supposed to assist a client for their queries and problems and they shouldn’t forget it that they are behind the counter for their customers .One more thing is that to respect every human being is a humanity and after all they are a service provider so they shouldn’t neglect any customer. Though they have their work deadlines but that should be internally managed from their end”.

While asking how banks perceive the society, well known Banking Executive and a friend Ankita replies from a banking perspective. She says, “From a bank perspective and as a service provider the motive is business. Therefore, banks give more attention to the elite class customers that they feel are more relevant to them. There are lots of enhanced facilities and services for customers and nowadays, most people are doing banking so logically it is true that their work pressure is increasing but customers shouldn’t be affected by this. However I would say an ethical banking is a two way process and therefore both the bank staff and the customers should display utmost professionalism and humanity. How many times we entered in a bank and wished the staff with a good morning or hi or hello? We as customers are also in hurry and sometimes neglect the human from the other side.”She further adds, “As per my observation, there is a difference to attend or serve a customer in Government and Private Banks. I’ve been visiting both the public and Private banks and I find the difference that private banks are more public friendly so I think the government bank staff should be educated and trained in the same manner as private banks orient their staff and this can change the current scenario of government banks while dealing with the people especially those who are not acquainted with modern technology.”

In my opinion, in banking, every new idea has originated from the older one and all these are just to serve people more and more and not to trouble them. Banking is upgrading or advancing day by day just to serve the customers efficiently which could not be possible with older ideas or patterns. But while we change the pattern, we have to be friendly towards those who are not so tech-savvy. We can see and feel the revolution in banking sector only taking the innocent masses along be that the recent demonetizing decision, Jan Dhan or maintaining high ethical standards.

By Bhaso Ndzendze

On October 6th 2016, the Parliament of Catalonia designated the 17th of September 2017 as the date in which the population of that region are to vote in a referendum to determine whether to remain as part of the Kingdom of Spain or formally assume the status of a sovereign country.

Catalonia’s Regional President Carles Puigdemont made it clear that though he would ideally hold the referendum with the central government’s approval, he would hold it “with or without Spain’s blessing.” For its part, the central Spanish government which is based in Madrid has voiced its opposition to the prospect of Catalan independence as apart from the undermining of territorial integrity, it would mean losing a sixth of its population, and a key economic contributor to the stagnant Spanish economy, in which some approximate 22 percent of the population are unemployed. But what would Catalan independence really mean? In the context of financial flows between Catalonia and Spain, as well as international trade, globalisation, the EU, NATO, and cultural confluences between the two entities, would Catalan independence be a mere formality? In other words, has the Catalan Question been relegated to the symbolic by these twenty-first century forces?

The question of Catalan independence is as old as Spain itself. Having been originally independent as the County of Barcelona, it was merged with Aragon in the 11th century, (and – ironically – served as an important launch-pad seaport that allowed Aragon to become an important seagoing nation, and an important naval power in the Mediterranean and eventually subdue other nations such as Valencia, which is still a part of Spain) which itself in turn was merged with Castile in 1469 in the personal union that arose from the marriage between King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile that birthed the Kingdom of Spain. In the following five centuries, perhaps the most tumultuous and unstable in Spain’s history (enduring a war of succession, occupation by Napoleonic France, civil war, no less than two coup d’états and restorations), the Catalan province enjoyed unpredictable relations with the Crown of Spain. To begin with, in the early 18th century, with the death of the childless King Charles II, Spain had a new King whom Catalonia had opposed in the 12-year war of succession (1702-14) in Louis XIV’s grandson, Philip V, the ancestor of the Spanish branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which retains the crown of that country to this day. In the ensuing years of his reign, King Philip energetically enacted “Spanification” attempts that saw him clamp the relative regional autonomy that the various medieval kingdoms such as Catalonia had enjoyed – with the exception of Basque, which had supported him in the war – and began a process of centralisation along the lines of what Cardinal Richelieu and later Louis XIV had done in France. He also established a Royal Academy that perhaps in retrospect came to be the agitating cause of the desire for independence among the Catalans as its implicit foundational mandate was the replacement of various regional languages, including Catalan, as languages of government and of literature in their respective territories.

Between 1931 and 1939, with the fall of the monarchy and the rise of the (second) Spanish Republic, Catalonia once again enjoyed regional autonomy and was even self-confident enough to declare independence under the charismatic Francesc Macià i Llussà in 1931, only to later renegotiate its relationship with Spain and become a greatly independent Generalitat de Catalunya within Spain a year later. With the victory of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) came many reversals to the autonomy of Catalonia once again. The conservative, fascist government, which had won the war partly as a result of assistance from Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, enacted measures that once more rolled back regional autonomy, and went as far as to ban regional languages from public use.

With the death of Franco and the restoration of the monarchy, Spain entered had a surprising democratic transition and a period of economic growth that economists rendered almost miraculous. And importantly, regional autonomy was put back on the table, with Catalonia walking away with a greater deal of it than most of Spain’s other regions. Increasingly, however, Catalans wanted more of it. Today, as a result of the seismic 2015 election in that region, the 135-seat Parliament of Catalonia is under a 72-seat majority held by the pro-independence Together for Yes (Junts pel Si) coalition of secessionist parties which won the highest number of seats at 62 as well as the pro-independence, anti-Euro, anti-NATO, Eurosceptic CUP (Candidatura d’Unitat Popular) which came third place (a position it shares with many pro-union parties), winning 10 seats. Both parties ran on manifestos promising a referendum on independence, and did so against the backdrop of a 2014 non-binding (and, some say, illegal) referendum in which 80% of those who answered voted “Yes” (hence the name of the coalition). The French-born leader of the coalition Muriel Casals i Couturier, who died in early 2016 from motor injuries, described the motivation behind separatism in these terms: “the dream of traditional Catalanism has been shown to be unworkable, and that if we want to live as Catalans we mustn’t seek to transform Spain – just our relationship with it.”

However, the transformation of that relationship may prove somewhat vacuous.

The Spanish-speaking community outside of Spain, mainly concentrated in Latin America, maintains close relations with the former mother land, to the extent that the now-defunct government-in-exile of the second Spanish Republic during the Franco years chose Mexico City as its headquarters. According to Sam Wang, researcher at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, “Spain, although having lost its continental possessions in the Americas two centuries ago, still regards relations with Latin America as a top foreign policy priority, and maintains strong political, business, and cultural links with Latin America. Although Spain’s economy and political influence is dwarfed by those of the United States, Britain, and China, Spain commits proportionally more resources to Latin America than any major power in diplomacy, foreign aid, investment, and cultural activities. In Spain, many people, including government officials, believe that Madrid’s relation[s] with Spanish-speaking Latin America is a “special” one: characterized by a common language and a shared cultural history and identity.”

What is interesting is the economic side of the story. For a considerable number of Latin American countries, Spain is their second-largest trading partner outside of the more economically and politically potent and geographically closer US: Spain enjoys particularly strong economic ties with Mexico (18 percent), Colombia (13 percent), and the Central American economies, and in 2014, a total of 19.6 percent of Spanish FDI flowed to Latin America. To put it in context, about 40% of Spain’s FDI for the same period was towards the EU with whom Spain has much more formalised ties thanks to the common tariff.

Being “heavily reliant on Spain’s Treasury credit lines,” according to CNBC’s Caroline Roth, Catalonia, much as the secessionist elements would have it otherwise, is unlikely to be rid of that dependency for a long time; and should political independence be won, the economic one will merely take a different form. Indeed, former colonies (as no doubt many pro-independence politicians would characterise Catalonia’s status in Spain) tend to have notoriously resilient trade pathways with their former colonisers. Spain as a market is a very important one for Catalonia. In 2012, for example, Catalonia exported goods worth €58,282 million to foreign countries; a figure well in excess of sales to the Spanish market, which amounted to €49,026 million, but one which, at 45.7%, signifies Spain’s importance to Catalonia. “A key aspect to consider in our analysis is the presence in Catalonia of numerous Spanish companies, for whom the Catalan market represents between 15% and 25% of the Spanish market as a whole. The ten Spanish firms with the largest turnover are: Telefónica, Repsol, Santander Bank, Endesa,Iberdrola,ACS Group,CEPSA, BBVA, Mercadona and El Corte Inglés.Most of them are present on a large scale in Catalonia,” stated Francesc Raventós who served as Chief Executive Officer and Director at Catalana d’Iniciatives S.C.R., S.A., in a report published by Association of Economists of Catalonia on September 11, 2014 (Catalonia’s national day).

And so, a hypothetical break with Spain need not mean a severing of ties. And far from it; the existence of the EU could effectively render Catalan independence only symbolic. With the existence of a common tariff (should it ascend to the EU), the Schengen Area, and the CSDP, cooperation and confluence with Spain would be quite concentrated as common issues such as the economy, terrorism, and migration make insulation an improbability in today’s Europe. And should it desire to, an independent Catalan Republic would most likely gain entrance in the EU (unless of course Spain vetoes the ascension, which is a possibility). It has a strong economy (having been the least affected by the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession, unlike the rest of Spain), a vibrant democracy and stable institutions. And so, ironically, Catalonia is an ideal EU member for the same reasons that it wants out of Spain. As the Catalan economist, David Ross Serra has put it, “juridically,…an independent Catalonia would fit into EU legislation and International law.”

On the cultural front, apart from Catholicism (which represents a religious uniformity not even England can boast regarding Ireland and Scotland), the key commonality between Catalans and Spaniards is the social currency of football; their two respective flagship teams being among the best in the world: FC Barcelona and Real Madrid FC, respectively (Barcelona currently being 2nd and Madrid 1st). FC Barcelona has a presidency and a substantial number of players who wish for Catalonian independence, a fact which triggered the president of the Spanish Sports Council, Miguel Cardenal, to come out and state that Barcelona would lose a lot of income from the loss of La Liga broadcasting rights. And for their part, the pro-independence elements in the soccer team would like to continue to be able to play in La Liga. “[On this issue] perhaps a compromise is possible,” said Jan Marot of Politico.

Should independence be won, it is highly probable that the Together for Yes coalition, which was born out of a desire to deliver independence would lose its mandate (as has UKIP in the UK, some argue, after Brexit) and become divided on the nuts and bolts of what independence should mean, not in the least as it pertains to the relationship with Madrid, as well as with Brussels. As it stands, the party with the highest number of seats within the coalition is the pro-EU Catalan European Democratic Party, with its junior partners having no particularly consequential Eurosceptic views. On the other hand, apart from the Eurosceptic CUP, most of the other parties who compose the rest of the Catalan Parliament, including the 32-seat Citizens Party, are pro-EU. And so, in the event of independence, it is likely that Catalonia would not completely rule out membership in the EU, and therefore concentrated economic, political, and even human exchange with Spain.

Come September 17th, I am not sure what the Catalan people will choose, and there is evidence that they are not yet either (the 80% who voted for independence in the 2014 referendum were less than 50% of Catalonia’s population; and despite their parliamentary majority, Catalonia’s separatist parties garnered only 48% of the popular vote), and what Spain will make of it; though there is clear evidence that the pro-independence camp has the edge and Madrid will have few choices outside of recognising the outcome. Essentially, it would appear that what Catalonia wants from Spain has already been granted to it in that the region enjoys formal autonomy from Madrid and has a distinct culture for which its people are not persecuted (though pledging loyalty to the Bourbon King continues to be a sore subject). From the football pitch, to questions of human settlement (think India and Pakistan in 1947, though perhaps with far less bloodshed and urgency), security issues, as well as the economy, should independence be won, the existence of the deep ties between the two entities will – as they are being unravelled – become more and more visible (if not retightened anew, as was the case in the early 1930s). It is quite clear therefore that, for better or for worse, there will always be Spanish Catalonia, and for that matter Catalan Spain.

Source: Modern Diplomacy

Warring toddlers, fanatical children, one-eyed adolescents who confuse noise with constructive contribution – this is the state of the world, with the recent, and ongoing spat chapter of Washington and Pyongyang.

However you wish to describe the stout, proud and foolishly dangerous Kim Jong-un, murderous leader of North Korea, comparisons must diminish somewhat before the trigger happy CEO of United States Inc, known as The Donald. Both are in a tussle of theatre and force, and the audience is hoping that this remains such. Between the two countries, after all, only one has ever used the atomic weapon on civilian populations.

The face off between the two resembles a popgun holder against an overly endowed tank, though the popgun holder has threatened to up the quality of his ordnance through ceremonial self-praise and image. There are promised missile launches, promised nuclear tests.

From Washington’s side, the response was quirkily mad ahead of the weapons test scheduled by the regime in Pyongyang to commemorate the “Day of the Sun” – the 105th anniversary of the birth of the DPRK’s founder, Kim Il-sung. Last Thursday, Trump insisted that Pyongyang was a problem that “will be taken care of”, dumping China’s President Xi Jinping in the mess of working “very hard” to clean up the mess.

As the US flotilla, led by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, powered towards the peninsula, the North’s KCNA agency made the emphatic point that the US had introduced “into the Korean peninsula, the world’s biggest hotspot, huge nuclear strategic assets, seriously threatening peace and security of the peninsula and pushing the situation there to the brink of war.”[1]

Even before a single shot had been fired, Trump had suggested the possibility of a strike against targets in the north. Misbehave, Pyongyang, at your peril. The NBC news report outlining the claims of such a pre-emptive conventional weapons strike on North Korean targets were subsequently dismissed as “flat wrong” by an unnamed “senior Trump administration”.[2]

Not to be outdone, US Vice President Mike Pence has insisted during a visit to the Demilitarised Zone at Camp Bonifas that all policy options, like a vast and limitless smorgasbord, should be on the table. Yes, the US and its allies would seek to attain objectives through “peaceable means” though he was clear that “ultimately by whatever means are necessary” should also figure.

The “era of strategic patience,” Pence insisted, was over. “We want to see North Korea abandon its reckless path of the development of nuclear weapons, and also its continual use and testing of ballistic missiles is unacceptable.” Such a view was actually expressed at a failed missile test, keeping the world in suspense as to what would happen if the next round of North Korean tests prove to be hunky dory.

As with everything with the Trump administration, qualified voices can also be found amidst the loudness. National Security advisor, HR McMaster, insisted, despite noting the “tough decisions” Trump had made on the use of force against Syria, that it was “time for us to undertake all actions we can, short of a military option, to try to resolve this peacefully.” Less in terms of choice, it would seem, on that smorgasbord.

Where there is muscle, there is credibility, though where that muscle is applied remains the true test of statesmanship. In the not so wise context of Trumpist behaviour, muscle is detached from sentience and cognition, to be applied only in the context of making a deal, ploughing in and hoping for the best. Unfortunately for Trump and much of his ilk, it is hard to imagine receivership and bankruptcy in a nuclear obliterated landscape.

For Kim Jong-un, credibility, like a mythical figure of enormous sexual prowess, has to be faked. He must claim to have weapons he does not have, means he can never possess. The ability to give an orgasm is paraded as being stupendous. Much of this theatrical posturing has to be put down to an emperor who has long ago feared that the clothes have fallen off, if, indeed, they were ever there in even slightly tattered form. This is an impoverished state made more, rather than less dangerous, in the rhetorical sniping that is now taking place.

Little thought is openly given to the very fact that the US remains the greatest enemy, and alibi, of North Korean conduct. In a peninsula still technically at war, there never having been a formal peace treaty signed, the conduct of Washington post-September 11, 2001 remains an object lesson for the state.

The invasion of Iraq for not having weapons of mass destruction, or the destruction of Qaddafi’s Libya in 2011, provide the colourful background to Pyongyang’s wishes to have a functioning nuclear capability.

Whether it is a totalitarian entity redolent with images of false achievement and actual desperation, or a Republic which has decided to abandon any pretext for orthodox diplomacy, both are perversely well matched in the word stakes, but dangerously poised to take it to a logical conclusion.

It is such behaviour that has made such veterans as former Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson dribble with fear that something exceptional will take place. “I’ve been through the Cuban missile crisis, I’ve been through the Bay of Pigs before that, Vietnam War, the two Iraq wars and so forth. And I’ve got to tell you, though, I’ve never been so concerned, as I am now, for the state of this country and world relations.”[3] (The previous imperial bashes were evidently tolerable for US Inc.)

It is with some relief that the little tub of misguided emotions managed to see his project explode in mid-experiment, possibly with US cyber intervention, but it would have also given much dark amusement to have seen the US military misfire in its imperial presumption. The cult of war continues to enchant those who know little of it.

Notes:
[1] http://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Senior-Trump-Official-Reports-of-preemptive-North-Korea-strike-flat-wrong-487000

[2] http://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Senior-Trump-Official-Reports-of-preemptive-North-Korea-strike-flat-wrong-487000

[3] http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/328973-former-army-colonel-ive-never-been-so-concerned-about-us-world

By Yuval Weber*

(FPRI) — The importance of the Black Sea region to Russian security has risen over the past decade from an area of general concern to a central theater of national defense and power projection. Russia’s security needs and stated intentions reflect local rivalries over regional dominance and international aspirations to “great power status” that harken back to earlier eras of expansionism.

In between the Middle East, the south Caucasus, the eastern Balkans, and southeastern Europe, Russia’s Black Sea aims are twofold. The first aim is the pursuit of national security, which has expanded in recent years following conflicts with Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova, additional tension with Turkey over Russia’s support for Syria, and the growing influence of NATO’s presence and capabilities, as all littoral states are either NATO members or have expressed serious desire to join the alliance. The second aim is to use increased influence over Black Sea states to aid its war efforts in Syria that buttress claims of being a “great power” able to revise the international and regional security order through projecting power abroad, conducting out-of-area military operations, and making itself indispensable to the international politics of a region not its own. Russia’s actions in the Black Sea region are guided by these two overarching aims.

Where Does Russia’s Grand Strategy Come From?

For more than a decade, President Vladimir Putin has been very clear in expressing dissatisfaction with the world order. In his landmark 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference, the Russian president laid out his case that the unipolar world with the United States at its head was unfair and dangerous. He rhetorically asked, “What is a unipolar world? No matter how we beautify this term, it means one single center of power, one single center of force and one single master.”

Americans and Europeans generally praise the expansion and deepening of European political and economic structures, but the Russian perspective is quite different. In the common Russian view, during the 1990s and early 2000s, the Kremlin was forced to accept bad deals repeatedly when it was unable to resist. Dissatisfaction with unipolarity and American leadership led Russia to redefine its global aims as curtailing the United States’ leading role and promoting a new global security architecture based on decentralization of power. By limiting the reach of any one state, the outcome would acknowledge spheres of influence.

Russia’s general strategic aim worldwide is multipolarity and the end of NATO’s security monopoly in continental Europe. Its policies in the Black Sea region fulfill this strategy in two ways. First, by refusing participation in regional organizations (detailed below), Russia inhibits the effectiveness of these organizations and thus maintains emphasis on bilateral relationships in which it possesses a power advantage. Second, by supporting separatists in frozen conflicts such as in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine, Russia deters further regional expansion of NATO by raising the political costs of military cooperation with states hosting active conflicts on their legal territory.

Following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dissolution of Soviet power and influence created two complications for Russian leaders. The first was the loss of informal control over Romania and Bulgaria as those countries transitioned away from communism and the collapse of formal control over now-independent states such as Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. The second was the reduced extent of Russian borders that left both ethnic Russians and groups of people seeking Russian protection beyond the formal reach of Russian authorities.

The complications of loss of formal control and informal influence saw regional states seeking admission into Euro-Atlantic political, economic, and security organizations, and Russia seeking to maintain links and to provide armed support to ethnic compatriots or allied groups wherever possible. Over the past 25 years, this policy has resulted in Russia resisting European Union entreaties in the region, including inter alia, the Black Sea Strategy, Black Sea Synergy, Black Sea Forum for Partnership and Dialogue, and the Eastern Partnership, preferring to keep European bodies out and its own relations with regional states on a bilateral basis where its own power could dominate in.

Second, to maintain power differentials and inhibit the process of Europeanization in the region, Russia’s relations with post-Soviet states have been a mix of supporting separatists to weaken territorial integrity and state capacity and the using military force directly. A survey of the region tells a grim tale beyond Romania and Bulgaria, both of which moved quickly to integrate with the European Union and NATO.

Regional Issues in the Black Sea

In Moldova, ethnic Russians were moved into the region from 1940 onwards following Bessarabia’s annexation from Romania during World War II as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to colonize the area and neutralize the local population. In March 1992, hostilities between Moldavans and Russians erupted over the direction of the new state, with the latter predominating in Transnistria and showing concern over language policy, potential reunification with Romania, permanent minority status, and loss of economic links as an exclave far beyond Russia’s borders. The fighting ceased when the Soviet 14^th Army, ostensibly supposed to hand over its equipment to the newly-created Moldovan Defense Ministry, instead intervened in the fighting on the Transnistrian side and severed Moldovan control over that territory.

The territorial status quo of this frozen conflict has remained to this day. Attempts to resolve the conflict failed in the early-2000s because the West expressed concerns that a federal arrangement between Moldova and Transnistria would prove unworkable as Russian military presence would be guaranteed for another 20 years alongside constitutional veto held by Transnistria. The net result has been a frozen conflict with no reasonable expectation of resolution, which has hampered Moldova’s desires to join the EU and NATO.

In Georgia, post-Soviet withdrawal of Russian power was met by an ethnic nationalist Georgian government under Zviad Gamsakhurdia. This government sought to deny Abkhazia and South Ossetia—two autonomous regions in the Soviet period—continued political rights and civil protections to its citizens, precipitating conflicts with both. The Abkhaz and Ossetians were able to draw upon their populations fighting for existential survival as well as indigenous “Mountain People” and Islamist resistance from the North Caucasus, that is, different groups seeking to create new polities based on ethnic or religious solidarity. They also received support from Russian state and non-state military actors to defend themselves, forcing the Georgians to sue for peace.

This state of affairs lasted until a change in government in 2004 brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power in Georgia, who set the country on a much more ambitious course to join NATO and the EU, which, unsurprisingly, conflicted with Russia’s aims to prevent that particular outcome. In August 2008, war erupted over Georgian attempts to assert sovereignty over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which was decisively resolved by Russia’s intervention on behalf of the residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia—who had been receiving Russian passports en masse to allow Russia to intervene on behalf of its threatened citizenry. The net result has been a frozen conflict with no reasonable expectation of resolution, which has hampered Georgia’s desires to join the EU and NATO.

In Ukraine, the political events of the past three years have dominated Russian external affairs. Prior to the Maidan protests that saw President Viktor Yanukovych chased first from Kiev and then from Ukraine altogether, Ukraine had been the juiciest fruit left on the vine in terms of eastward European expansion and westward Eurasian expansion and was the recipient of two very different integration offers. The EU offered an association agreement and a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement that would put it on the path towards membership in the EU. The Eurasian Economic Union, Russia’s own attempt to create a multilateral political and economic organization from which Russia could stake its claim as the head of a regional organization, offered a customs union that would maintain and deepen the status quo relations between Ukraine and its eastern neighbors.

Yanukovych initially supported the European deal, but then abandoned his pledge, leading to the civil unrest that led to his ouster. Once it was clear that any post-Maidan government would be pro-European at best and anti-Russian at worst, Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea to protect military assets on the peninsula and military support to separatists on the Ukrainian mainland. In the years of war since, Russia has sought to keep the violence at a high enough level to prevent peace in Ukraine, but low enough to deter outside intervention or penalties tougher than the economic sanctions initially imposed. The net result has been a “hybrid” conflict with little expectation of resolution until either Kiev or Moscow collapses.

In Turkey, the tense relations over the past several years have centered around the conflict in Syria. Russia supports its client Bashar al-Assad for several reasons: to fight international terrorism (and justify its claim of great power status through provision of this critical public good even if it defines all opponents of Assad as terrorists), to support its client as a demonstration of its steadfastness, to contrast the lack of American support to allies such as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and to become indispensable in Middle East politics. The support for Assad has caused difficulties between Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the leader of Turkey, who opposes Assad for his anti-Islamist positions. Erdoğan opposes the Assad regime for many reasons: failing to control his state and allowing violence to dominate the region and produce refugee flows that strain the Turkish state; causing terrorism to flourish, leading to Turkey being a continual victim of terrorist attacks; and inviting yet more instability to the region.

Over the past three years, as Russia has pivoted from Ukraine to Syria as its main theater of interest, Russo-Turkish relations have vacillated due to Turkish air defense shooting down a Russian fighter jet that led to Russian travel and food sanctions against Turkey; Putin offering moral support to Erdoğan when the latter was under threat from a coup attempt; and a Turkish Islamist policeman assassinating the Russian Ambassador to draw attention to Russian destruction of Aleppo. The net result is that Putin and Erdoğan now need each other to maintain the status quo: Erdoğan needs a foreign source of support given his diplomatic isolation and domestic opposition following the coup attempt and the resulting crackdown, while Putin can use Erdoğan’s relative weakness to reduce Turkish opposition to Syria, thus allowing Russia a freer hand to continue its support.

Where Will Russia’s Black Sea Foreign Policies Go?

In its larger aim to revise the regional and international security order, Russia needs to demonstrate the ability to set the rules of political, military, and economic interaction, or to carve out exceptions for itself. Around the Black Sea region, Russia pursues foreign policy on a bilateral basis to do just that, involving itself as the sponsor of frozen conflicts, the sponsor of military forces both fighting and defending central governments, and deterring NATO whenever its adversary goes on patrol in the sea and airspace of the Black Sea.

The challenge for Russia will be to maintain the status quo, which is far more expansive given the push into Ukraine and Syria, until such time as other states take open Russian power projection as a basic fact of international affairs. For such a thing to occur, Russia needs to be able to maintain separatist forces in Ukraine long enough to catalyze the collapse of the central government in Kiev and have the next government accept a peaceful resolution on Russian terms, most likely involving the acceptance of a federal structure that, like in Moldova before, accepts the regularization of Russian troops and a constitutional veto held by the regions. Moreover, Russia needs to be able to maintain the central government in Damascus to demonstrate its great power bona fides, not least of which is its rhetorical position as the leader of the anti-Islamic State coalition for which it has been seeking U.S. support.

The main challenge to the status quo is that international expansion has occurred simultaneously to domestic economic contraction. While President Putin looks to be personally very popular, social satisfaction across Russia has declined in terms of wages, purchasing power, regional debt leading to service cuts, and other economic indicators. The annexation of Crimea was very popular in Russia, but if Putin cannot generate economic growth through domestic reforms or the resurgence of energy prices, then his next term—assuming he is reelected in 2018—will be defined by the need to increase foreign victories to compensate for domestic dissatisfaction. Much to his dismay, he may find that the low-hanging fruit is gone.

About the author:
*Yuval Weber is a Visiting Assistant Professor on Government at Harvard University.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

By Darlene V. Estrada*

Philippines-China relations have gone through dramatic changes in recent months. Following the Duterte Administration’s pronouncements signaling a change in the approach towards China, an impact on the bilateral relations was immediately felt –13 bilateral cooperation agreements were signed and USD 24 billion worth of Chinese funding and investment was pledged.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhien Min affirmed and welcomed the Philippines’ participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in a recent statement. Correspondingly, the Philippines took action to become a full member of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – a move indicative of Philippine interest in China’s massive infrastructure project. While the Duterte administration has yet to outlay its plans on how to approach BRI, its actions point towards Philippine participation in the project. News from Beijing confirms that President Duterte will be attending the BRI Summit in May.

However, the country’s participation in the BRI must have a practical consideration – implementing BRI’s future infrastructure investment plans must be consistent with the Philippines’ infrastructure and other development plans. Specifically, what scenarios at the domestic level should the Philippines anticipate in order to implement the plans effectively and harness the benefits of BRI?

Understanding BRI

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR), collectively known as the BRI project, to enhance connectivity between Asia, Europe, and Africa, facilitate smoother trade flows, and, if successfully implemented, ultimately improve regional economic growth and development.

BRI instantly caught the world’s attention because it was both ambitious and risky. When it was initially announced, details were unclear, stirring public wariness. Questions about the initiative include: Which countries can participate? How will they participate? How will the projects be funded?

In 2015, the Chinese government published the “Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road” to give a general idea of its plans. The document stated that the initiative covers, but is not limited to, the countries along the route and funding will be obtained through investments, syndicated loans, and bank credits. No specific answers, however, were given regarding the mechanics for participation. It was only when a number of SREB and MSR projects materialized that participation technicalities became apparent.

The onset of BRI witnessed a great number of bilateral agreements signed by China and participating countries. These bilateral agreements mark the starting point for a country in engaging in BRI. In effect, BRI becomes a web of bilateral ties, with China functioning at the center.

The 21st century Maritime Silk Road

Of the two BRI projects, MSR bears more impact on the Philippines, as it deals with port network development that will connect Chinese coastal ports to Europe through the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, and to the southern Pacific Ocean through the South China Sea.

A principal factor driving China to play an active role in the international maritime domain is trade. China is the world’s largest trading nation, responsible for 10 percent of the global trade in goods, which are mostly transported through ships. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Review of Maritime Transport 2016 reported that China ranked first in the leading ship owners in developing countries in Asia and ranked third globally, next to developed countries Greece and Japan. Moreover, 14 of the top 20 ports by volume in 2013-2015 were reported as belonging to China.

Chinese scholars view MSR as one of China’s many initiatives to achieve its dream of “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” and should be understood as a project complementing the SRB in the context of the BRI, and against the broader background of realizing the Chinese Dream, which, according to President Xi, represents the desire for “prosperity for the country, renewal of the nation, and happiness for citizens.” Projections indicate that MSR-enhanced sea lanes will complement the railways that will be built through the SREB. Both will pave the way for new trade links among regions within Eurasia, Africa, North and Latin America.

Is the Philippines prepared to engage in MSR?

Without a doubt, a well implemented port development project would be beneficial for the Philippines. However, addressing concerns in a more practical level is also important. Are Philippine institutions prepared to implement massive joint infrastructure projects with China?

Declaring Philippine involvement in China’s MSR appears to be the easier part of the engagement, but actually implementing the port infrastructure plan in the country as efficiently and corruption-free as possible is not only difficult, but also the most important part. Engaging in MSR requires overcoming logistical, political, and financial challenges. A number of port development projects in other countries are already undergoing difficulties because of domestic factors; thus underscoring the need for both China and the Philippines to do a comprehensive check of implementing institutions and technicalities before commencing projects.

The inclusion of plans anchored on achieving sound macroeconomic policies and accelerated infrastructure development in the recently approved Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 proves to be of strategic timing and importance. The Philippines is off to a good start in envisioning the enabling environment needed for the success of forthcoming infrastructure projects in the country. Implementation, however, will require these visions and plans to be translated into actual policies, programs and actions.

In the end, the success of MSR implementation depends not only on how good relations are between China and the Philippines, but also on the efficient and clean undertaking of infrastructure plans by the Philippine government.

Avoiding the pitfalls of the past offers lessons on how to better implement infrastructure plans alongside China, and hopefully it will not go off the track.

About the author:
*Darlene V. Estrada is a Foreign Affairs Research Specialist with the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies of the Foreign Service Institute. Ms. Estrada can be reached at dvestrada@fsi.gov.ph.

Source:
This article was published by FSI. CIRSS Commentaries is a regular short publication of the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies (CIRSS) of the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) focusing on the latest regional and global developments and issues. The views expressed in this publication are of the authors alone and do not reflect the official position of the Foreign Service Institute, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Government of the Philippines.

Endnotes:
1 Pia Ranada, “PH, China sign coast guard cooperation pact, 12 other deals.” October 21, 2016. http://ww.rappler.com/nation/149774-ph-china-sign-coast-guard-cooperation-pact (accessed 12 November 2016).

2 Frans-Paul van der Putten & Minke Meijnders, “China, Europe and the Maritime Silk Road.” Clingendael Report. https://www.clingendael.nl/sites/default/files/China%20Europe%20and%20the%20Maritime%20Silk%20Road.pdf (accessed 12 November 2016).

The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday cast doubt on videos by the White Helmets showing the chemical attack in Syria.

The White Helmets, or the Syria Civil Defense, is a volunteer organization that operates in parts of rebel-controlled Syria. The White Helmets receive funding from the United States, the United Kingdom and other western governments.

In a statement on Facebook, the Russian Defense Ministry said that two weeks have passed after “the alleged use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun. However, two videos made by the White Helmets are the only ‘evidence’ of the chemical weapon use.”

Within 63 hours of reports about a chemical weapons attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in the Syrian province of Idlib which killed approximately 80 people including children, on April 4, US ships in the eastern Mediterranean sent 59 Tomahawk missiles aimed at the Shayrat air base from which, the US claims, the aircraft that carried out the attack took off.

However, the Russian Defense Ministry insists that evidence of the chemical attack is still lacking.

In its Tuesday statement Russian Defense Ministry said that, “the American, Britain, or European TV channels showed no ‘hero’ savior or injured person except for these two videos.”

The chemical weapon impact zone, where civilians were to be evacuated from, has not been determined yet, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said he personally reviewed the intelligence on the Syrian regime’s chemical attack and that there is no doubt the regime is responsible for the decision to attack and for the attack itself.

But the Russian Defense Ministry said that there are questions regarding the veracity of those White Helmet videos as, “Life in the town runs on its way. There are no requests for special medicaments, antidotes, decontaminants made by civilians or pseudo rescuers.

Additionally, the Russian Defense Ministry said, “Meanwhile, the number of unbiased experts, especially from western countries, asking these obvious questions increases every day.”

The Russian Defense Ministry said that specialists cannot explain how representatives of the White Helmets managed to work for such a long period of time and remain alive without gas-masks and special protection equipment.

“All doubts of professionals prove that the storm of accusations made by western politicians, who had ‘assigned the guilty’ without elementary inspection and objective investigation, is unsubstantiated,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.

“Now it is clear that the ‘schemers’ have no plan for qualified investigation in Khan Sheikhoun as well as they had no one in Iran and Libya,” the statement concluded.

By Sam Morgan

(EurActiv) — UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced Tuesday she will call a snap general election for 8 June.

Speaking outside of her 10 Downing Street residence, May said “we need an election and we need one now. I’ve come to this conclusion recently”. Before the Easter break, her office had announced that an early election was not on the table.

The prime minister reiterated her Easter message claim that “the country is coming together” but warned that “Westminster is not”. May added that “we’ve delivered on the mandate of the referendum and the government has the right plan”.

There will be a vote in the lower house of the UK parliament, the Commons, on the proposed election date tomorrow (19 April). An election isn’t actually due until 2020 but, if approved, the vote will be held just a week before France’s legislative elections, scheduled to begin on 11 June.

The latest YouGov opinion poll puts the Conservatives at a healthy 44%, compared with nearest rival Labour’s 23%. The first half of April saw May’s party enjoy a 2% bump.

The current prime minister, who took over the position when David Cameron resigned following the Brexit vote, blamed the Labour Party for voting against the Brexit bill.

She also warned that the EU-exit negotiations could “run up until the next general election” if one is not held sooner. May insisted that the UK needs strong leadership to endure the Brexit process and to “remove uncertainty and instability”.

The Conservative’s current popularity means the party stands a good chance of increasing its parliamentary majority over Labour. May only inherited a slim majority when Cameron resigned and more seats will mean more chances of passing Brexit legislation when the time comes.

May unexpectedly announced she would make a statement earlier this morning, which sent the pound into a mini spiral. The currency rallied when she outlined her election plan.

A Black Hawk helicopter belonging to the Saudi Arabian military has crashed in Yemen, killing at least 13 personnel, according to Saudi news agency SPA.

SPA reported that the crash happened while armed forces were carrying out operational duties in the province of Marib in Yemen.

Four officers and eight noncommissioned officers from the Saudi armed forces were reportedly killed when the helicopter went down.

The cause of the crash is not known and is being investigated, the agency added.

According to preliminary information from Yemen, civilian defense forces are responsible for shooting down the Saudi helicopter.

A component of the skin mucus secreted by South Indian frogs can kill the H1 variety of influenza viruses, researchers from Emory Vaccine Center and the Rajiv Gandhi Center for Biotechnology in India have discovered.

Frogs’ skins were known to secrete “host defense peptides” that defend them against bacteria. The finding, scheduled for publication in Immunity, suggests that the peptides represent a resource for antiviral drug discovery as well.

Anti-flu peptides could become handy when vaccines are unavailable, in the case of a new pandemic strain, or when circulating strains become resistant to current drugs, says senior author Joshy Jacob, PhD, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory Vaccine Center and Emory University School of Medicine.

The first author of the paper is graduate student David Holthausen, and the research grew out of collaboration with M.R. Pillai, PhD and Sanil George, PhD from the Rajiv Gandhi Center for Biotechnology.

Jacob and his colleagues named one of the antiviral peptides they identified urumin, after a whip-like sword called “urumi” used in southern India centuries ago. Urumin was found in skin secretions from the Indian frog Hydrophylax bahuvistara, which were collected after mild electrical stimulation.

Peptides are short chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Some anti-bacterial peptides work by punching holes in cell membranes, and are thus toxic to mammalian cells, but urumin was not.

Instead, urumin appears to only disrupt the integrity of flu virus, as seen through electron microscopy. It binds the stalk of hemagglutinin, a less variable region of the flu virus that is also the target of proposed universal vaccines. This specificity could be valuable because current anti-influenza drugs target other parts of the virus, Jacob says.

Because flu viruses from humans cannot infect frogs, producing urumin probably confers on frogs an advantage in fighting some other pathogen, he says.

Delivered intranasally, urumin protected unvaccinated mice against a lethal dose of some flu viruses. Urumin was specific for H1 strains of flu, such as the 2009 pandemic strain, and was not effective against other current strains such as H3N2.

Developing antimicrobial peptides into effective drugs has been a challenge in the past, partly because enzymes in the body can break them down. Jacob’s lab is now exploring ways to stabilize antiviral peptides such as urumin, as well as looking for frog-derived peptides that are active against other viruses like dengue and Zika.

Climate change is causing thick ice deposits that form along Arctic rivers to melt nearly a month earlier than they did 15 years ago, a new study finds.

River icings form when Arctic groundwater reaches the surface and solidifies on top of frozen rivers. They grow throughout the winter until river valleys are choked with ice. Some river icings have grown to more than 10 square kilometers (4 square miles) in area – roughly three times the size of New York’s Central Park – and can be more than 10 meters (33 feet) thick.

In the past, river icings have melted out around mid-July, on average. But a new study measuring the extent of river icings in the U.S. and Canadian Arctic shows most river icings disappeared 26 days earlier, on average, in 2015 than they did in 2000, melting around mid-June. In addition, the study found most icings that don’t completely melt every summer were significantly smaller in 2015 than they were in 2000. Watch a video of river icings here.

“This is the first clear evidence that this important component of Arctic river systems – which we didn’t know was changing – is changing and it’s changing rapidly,” said Tamlin Pavelsky, a hydrologist at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and lead author of the new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Scientists have studied the effects of climate change on other types of Arctic ice like glaciers and sea ice, but until now no study has systematically looked at whether river icings are changing in response to a warming climate, according to the authors.

Although the decline in river icings is likely a result of climate change, the authors are unsure whether the decline in river icings is a direct result of rising temperatures or if climate change is altering how rivers and groundwater interact.

“While glaciers tell us about climate in the mountains and sea ice tells us about sea-atmosphere interactions, the processes that control river icing may offer great insight into how groundwater and surface waters are connected in the Arctic and how our headwaters will be connected to the ocean in the future,” said Jay Zarnetske, a hydrologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, and co-author of the study.

The decline in river icings is remarkably rapid and if it continues, it could have huge impacts on Arctic river ecosystems, Pavelsky said.

River icings are found all over the Arctic and create wide channels that are important habitats for animals and fish. So much water is tied up in river icings that when they melt in summer, usually in July and August, they keep rivers flowing that might otherwise dry up, providing important freshwater habitat for fish and other animals, he said.

Disappearing ice

The idea to study river icings came to Pavelsky in 2013 during a flight to northern Alaska for a recreational canoe trip. The pilot of the small plane, who had flown in the area for more than 30 years, said he noticed river icings were melting earlier in the season and the timing was becoming more unpredictable. River icings pack down the gravel on riverbeds and pilots use them as makeshift runways.

“My scientist antenna went right up,” Pavelsky said. “I said ‘Hey, I think I know how to look at that.”

When Pavelsky returned from the trip, he downloaded data from the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the NASA Terra satellite, which takes daily images of Earth. Pavelsky and Zarnetske then analyzed daily MODIS images of the U.S. and Canadian Arctic from 2000 to 2015, wondering if they could see evidence of changes to the ice that Pavelsky’s pilot had described.

They could. Pavelsky and Zarnetske detected 147 river icings using the MODIS data and found that of those, 84 are either becoming smaller or disappearing earlier in the season. The rest were unchanged. None of the river icings they analyzed grew or persisted later in the season.

The minimum area of ice they measured also shrank considerably over the study period. In 2000, Pavelsky and Zarnetske measured a minimum ice area of 80 square kilometers (30 square miles) – roughly half the area of Washington, D.C. By 2010, that number had dwindled to just 4 square kilometers (2 square miles) – smaller than San Diego’s Balboa Park. By 2015, the ice had rebounded slightly, with a minimum area of about 7 square kilometers (3 square miles).

“I think it’s a really important study, as another example of the types of changes we’re seeing in the Arctic landscape,” said Ken Tape, an ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who was not connected to the study. “This is not a prediction about something that will change, it’s demonstrating something that has changed, likely in response to warming.”

Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) have discovered a new mechanism of action of metoprolol, a drug that can reduce the damage produced during a heart attack if administered early.

The team led by Dr. Borja Ibáñez, Clinical Research Director at the CNIC and cardiologist at the Fundación Jiménez Díaz University Hospital Health Research Institute (IIS-FJD), has identified the mechanism that explains why this drug is so beneficial: rapid administration of metoprolol during a heart attack directly inhibits the inflammatory action of neutrophils, a type of blood cell. The reduced inflammation translates into a smaller area of damaged tissue in the post-infarcted heart. The finding, published in Nature Communications, opens the way to new applications for this cheap, safe, and simple drug.

Acute myocardial infarction is a serious disease that affects more than 50 000 people a year in Spain. Treatment has advanced a great deal in recent years, especially in the extensive use of coronary angioplasty, in which a catheter is used to re-establish blood flow through the blocked coronary artery. Nevertheless, many heart attack survivors have seriously impaired heart function that limits their long-term health and generates major costs to the health system. The search for treatments to limit the irreversible damage caused by a heart attack is an extremely important research area in terms of both patient care and health policy.

Neutrophils

Neutrophils are white blood cells that target and fight infections. In noninfectious diseases, neutrophils mount an excessive response, and after a myocardial infarction these cells attack the heart, contributing to the long-term injury and impaired function. “In an infarction,” explained Dr. Ibañez “the most important thing is to re-establish blood flow as soon as possible. But unfortunately the incoming blood sets off an inflammatory process, started by neutrophils, that causes additional, permanent damage to the heart.” This additional damage due to blood flow restoration is known as reperfusion injury, and has been regarded as a necessary evil because it is essential to unblock the coronary artery as rapidly as possible.

Metoprolol is a beta-blocker that has been in clinical use for more than 30 years and is a cheap drug (costing less than €2 per dose) of little commercial interest. In 2013, the METOCARD-CNIC clinical trial, led and coordinated by the same CNIC research team, showed that administration of metoprolol very early after an infarction reduces the size of the cardiac injury and improves long-term health. It has taken the team 7 years to determine why this simple and cheap pharmacological strategy is so effective.

The study published today in Nature Communications shows that early administration of metoprolol protects the heart by acting directly on neutrophils. “Metoprolol stuns the blood neutrophils, altering their behavior and limiting their injurious inflammatory action on cardiac muscle,” explained first author Jaime García-Prieto.

When coronary blood flow is re-established, neutrophils launch a complex and organized inflammatory reaction, with negative consequences. According to García-Prieto, “when neutrophils enter the infarcted heart tissue after the restoration of blood flow, they act disproportionately, inducing the death of cells that, while weakened, have survived the infarction.” As Andrés Hidalgo, CNIC scientist and expert on neutrophils, explained, “neutrophil tissue invasion is intimately related to their interactions with platelets. Metoprolol blocks these interactions, drastically limiting the number of neutrophils arriving in the infarcted tissue.” Moreover, impeding neutrophil invasion also prevents the formation of blood-cell aggregates that block the microcirculation in the post-infarction heart.

Dr. Antonio Fernández-Ortiz, study co-author and a cardiologist at the Hospital Clínico San Carlos, clarified that “we knew that platelets were an important factor in the clotting that causes an infarct, but until now we could not be certain that they also act together with neutrophils to magnify injury after blood flow restoration.” Dr. Ibañez concluded that “the priority after a heart attack remains the restoration of blood flow as soon as possible, but we need to prepare the heart for this by administering metoprolol.”

Also an author on the study is Dr. Valentín Fuster, CNIC General Director and Physician in Chief at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Commenting on the study, he emphasized that “the imaging technology at the CNIC has allowed us to rapidly determine the status of a patient’s heart after a heart attack, and this has enabled us to discover a new mechanism of action of this drug that we have been using for decades.”

Mourning family members of a Cleveland man whose murder on Easter Sunday was posted online in a Facebook video said that despite their grief, they forgive their father’s killer.

“Each one of us forgives the killer. The murderer. We want to wrap our arms around him,” said Tonya Godwin Baines in a CNN interview.

She said that it was her slain father who taught her, through the example of his life, how to forgive.

“The thing that I would take away the most from my father is he taught us about God. How to fear God. How to love God. And how to forgive.”

On Sunday afternoon, 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr. was shot and killed in Cleveland while walking home from Easter dinner with his family. Police said that the suspect, 37-year-old Steve Stephens, apparently chose his victim at random, and then uploaded a video of the murder to Facebook. The social media network later removed the video.

Following a nationwide manhunt, authorities were notified that Stephens’ car had been seen in a McDonald’s parking lot near Erie, Pennsylvania on Tuesday morning. Stephens shot and killed himself after a brief pursuit, police said.

On Monday night, Anderson Cooper spoke with Godwin Sr.’s children in a CNN interview, asking them if there was anything they would like to tell the suspect, who at the time was still at-large.

In addition to encouraging Stephens to turn himself in, Debbie Godwin voiced her forgiveness, saying, “(Y)ou know what, I believe that God would give me the grace to even embrace this man. And hug him.”

“It’s just the way my heart is, it’s the right thing to do. And so, I just would want him to know that even in his worst state, he’s loved…that God loves him, even in the bad stuff that he did to my dad…even though he’s going to have to go through many things to get better, there’s worth in him. And as long as there’s life in him, there is hope for him too.”

Though shocked and deeply pained by their father’s brutal murder, the children said they felt sorry for his killer.

“I honestly can say right now that I hold no animosity in my heart against this man. Because I know that he’s a sick individual,” Debbie said.

She added that she is able to forgive him because of her faith in God.

“I could not do that if I did not know God, if I didn’t know him as my God and my savior, I could not forgive that man,” she said.

By Kamran Chaudhry

Church officials have thanked Pakistan security and intelligence agencies for a foiling major terrorist attack in Lahore planned for Easter.

Security forces killed a terrorist and arrested a female suspect in a special operation near Punjab Housing Societies in Lahore, according to a press release from Inter Services Public Relations.

The military’s media wing added that four soldiers were injured. Suicide jackets and explosive material was recovered from the suspects.

Archbishop Sebastian Francis Shah of Lahore exchanged bouquets with police officials amid applause at the concluding Easter vigil Mass on April 16. Senior Superintendent of Police Ali Raza shared Easter greetings with the congregation at Sacred Heart Cathedral, Lahore.

“Kindly cooperate with security personals on duty, they are for your own protection. Keep a watchful eye on your surroundings even when worshiping. Report any suspicious item or person,” he said.

“We thank our police and army for the protection. They remained vigilant day and night during our services. But the real security is from above,” said Father Jahanzeb Iqbal, rector of the cathedral.

Security remained tight on all churches of the city where 72 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a recreational park in Lahore on Easter 2016. More than 25 police officials remained on guard during five Easter Masses at the Catholic cathedral. They were aided by more than 30 youth volunteers.

Ten years after Steve Jobs held up the original iPhone to a gushing San Francisco crowd, Apple Inc. is planning its most extensive iPhone lineup to date, Bloomberg reports.

Apple is preparing three iPhones for launch as soon as this fall, including upgraded versions of the current two iPhone models and a new top-of-the-line handset with an overhauled look, according to people familiar with the matter. For the redesigned phone, Apple is testing a new type of screen, curved glass and stainless steel materials, and more advanced cameras, the people said. Those anxiously awaiting the redesigned iPhone, however, may have to wait because supply constraints could mean the device isn’t readily available until one or two months after the typical fall introduction.

The iPhone is Apple’s most important product, representing about two-thirds of sales. It also leads customers to buy other Apple devices like the iPad and Apple Watch, and serves as a home for lucrative services like the App Store. This year’s new iPhone lineup comes at a critical time. Last year, Apple broke its typical upgrade cycle by retaining the same iPhone shape for a third year in a row and endured a rare sales slide. Samsung Electronics Co.’s new S8 lineup has also been thus far well received after last year’s Note 7 battery debacle.

For the premium model, Apple is testing a screen that covers almost the entire front of the device, according to people familiar with the matter. That results in a display slightly larger than that of the iPhone 7 Plus but an overall size closer to the iPhone 7, the people said. Apple is also aiming to reduce the overall size of the handset by integrating the home button into the screen itself via software in a similar manner to Samsung’s S8, the people said.

The overhauled iPhone will use an organic light-emitting diode display that more accurately shows colors, while the other two phones will continue to use liquid crystal display technology and come in the same 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch screen sizes as last year’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple’s iPhone feature and design plans are still in flux and can change, they added. The people asked not to be identified discussing Apple’s private testing and design plans.

For its redesigned phone, Apple has tested multiple prototypes with manufacturing partners in Asia, including some versions that use curved glass and stainless steel, according to one of the people.

One of the latest prototype designs includes symmetrical, slightly curved glass on the front and the back. The curves are similar in shape to those on the front of the iPhone 7. The new OLED screen itself is flat, while the cover glass curves into a steel frame. The design is similar conceptually to the iPhone 4 from 2010. An earlier prototype design had a thinner steel band, leaving more noticeable curved glass on the sides.

Apple also tested a more ambitious prototype with the same slightly curved front and steel frame, but a glass back with more dramatic curves on the top and bottom like the original iPhone design from 2007, one of the people said.

Ahmed Al-Humaidan, deputy minister of labor and social development, said the labor market is going through a pivotal stage and has structural problems that have accumulated over the past 40 years.

Saudi Arabia has a large number of students graduating from university and they must have the stamina to go through the line of professional work, he said, according to Okaz newspaper while speaking at the International Higher Education Conference in Riyadh on Thursday.

He said the ministry is working through mechanisms that are agreed upon within the national transformation program including the balance between education graduates and the labor market.

The ministry said earlier that it aimed to reduce the unemployment rate from 12.1 percent to 9 percent, and boost the percentage of women in the workforce to 29 percent by 2020 through its Nitaqat nationalization program.

The program seeks to increase the number of Saudis in the labor market through changing the Saudization percentage, which companies are required to maintain.

High percentage of Saudization in a given entity in turn qualifies that entity to obtain a range of incentives by the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF or HADAF).

Establishments that offer good packages to Saudis are eligible for HRDF support programs based on their accomplishment of the required points which are calculated under the “guided support program.”

These include nationalization rate, average wage of Saudis, percentage of Saudi female staff, job stability and percentage of Saudis with high salaries.

A recent report by the General Authority for Statistics showed women represented 80.6 percent of registered job seekers, indicating a problem in accommodating a qualified female workforce in both public and private sectors.

The report showed that women continue to search for jobs up to the age of retirement; given that 3,488 women ages 57 to 66 were still registered as job seekers. There were only 167 male job seekers in the same age group.

“Vested interests deflect from the facts that WikiLeaks publishes by demonizing its brave staff and me.” — Julian Assange, The Washington Post, Apr 11, 2017.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s current director, Mike Pompeo, has a view of history much like that of any bureaucrat as understood by the great sociologist Max Weber. The essential, fundamental purpose of bureaucracy is a rationale to manufacture and keep secrets. Transparency and accountability are its enemies. Those who challenge that particular order are, by definition, defilers and dangerous contrarians.

On Thursday, April 13, Pompeo was entertained by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an opportunity of sorts to sound off on a range of points.[1] Pompeo’s theme is unmistakeable, opening up with a discussion about Philip Agee’s “advocacy” as a founding member of CounterSpy, which called in 1973 for the outing of CIA undercover operatives.

Richard Welch, a CIA station chief working in Athens and identified in a September 1974 issue of CounterSpy, was duly deemed a victim of Agee’s stance. “When he got out of his car to open the gate in front of his house, Richard Welch was assassinated by a Greek terrorist cell.”

Agee is then the mint and mould for the current WikiLeaks agenda, deemed by Pompeo to be compromised in “the harm they inflict on the US institutions and personnel”. What bothers Pompeo is their zeal, their determination, even romance, those self-touted “heroes above the law, saviours of our free and open society.”

Pompeo’s methods are blunt, and shower generous disdain on the notion that free speech protections should extend to such an organisation as WikiLeaks. “It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia.”

This is the language of fear about the fifth columnist, that WikiLeaks is mimicking the CIA, even surpassing it. (Such flattery!) The organisation “encouraged its followers to find jobs at the CIA in order to obtain intelligence.” Gravely, claims the CIA director, “It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information.” Never mind what that information actually revealed.

For the director’s myopic appraisal of the world, only the select should be in a position to steal. “We steal secrets from our foreign adversaries, hostile entities and terrorist organizations. And we’re damn proud of it.”

These words are hardly going to fluster Assange, though they have provided the main front man of WikiLeaks food for thought about what individuals like Pompeo really think about democratic virtue, given the continuous insistence by US officials that they keep the sacred flame of liberty alive the world over. The very defender of the US Republic is willing to ignore a fundamental feature of that Republic’s existence: the need for public debate about the limits of power.

Assange is aware of this, noting how the “American idea”, or the United States as “idea” throbs within his mind and body.[2] It is precisely that idea that needs conservation, even purification. What Pompeo is really bothered about is how similar the intelligence goal is for an organisation charged with the task of dealing in secrets, be it their theft and exposure, or their protection.

What matters in such information environments, and notably the one so currently crowded by a noisy battle between digital rabblerousers and orthodox followers of the closed society, is where they fit in holding the powerful accountable. All positions ultimately turn on matters of power and how information is best wielded.

Assange uses his piece in the Washington Post not merely to rubuff the CIA’s position, but to reference the words of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address: “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military of defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

The motives, then, are “identical to that claimed by the New York Times and The Post – to publish newsworthy content. Consistent with the US Constitution, we publish material that we can confirm to be true irrespective of whether sources came by that truth legally or have the right to release it to the media.”[3]

Assange also reminds readers of an old, proposed taxonomy on the issue of how the fourth estate might function in terms of accuracy and content with President Thomas Jefferson’s own proposal. An editor might wish to “divide his paper into 4 chapters, heading the 1st, ‘Truths.’ 2nd, ‘Probabilities.’ 3rd, ‘Possibilities.’ 4th, ‘Lies.’ The first chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers, and information.”

The modus operandi is significant here: the exposure of truths deemed inconvenient, complicating, disrupting. Reduced to that dimension, Pompeo’s supposedly patriotic bile seems one of simple objection, an age old struggle between those who wish to know, and those who prefer to keep ignorance central to the argument. The ever tantalisingly relevant point remains: Who is so entitled?

Notes:
[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/discussion-national-security-cia-director-mike-pompeo

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/julian-assange-wikileaks-has-the-same-mission-as-the-post-and-the-times/2017/04/11/23f03dd8-1d4d-11e7-a0a7-8b2a45e3dc84_story.html?utm_term=.179da836a4b9

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/julian-assange-wikileaks-has-the-same-mission-as-the-post-and-the-times/2017/04/11/23f03dd8-1d4d-11e7-a0a7-8b2a45e3dc84_story.html?utm_term=.179da836a4b9

By Yasar Yakis*

Mutual recriminations are still being traded between the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran on one side, and the rest of the international community on the other, over the regime attack on Khan Sheikhun on April 4. The first victim of war is usually the truth, and this crisis is no exception. There are several unclear points in the incident, but most of them are verifiable. A transparent investigation will end speculation, and both sides have already suggested this.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on April 13, during a joint press conference with his US counterpart Rex Tillerson, that they plan to seek a thorough investigation by the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani proposed the formation of an international independent committee to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhun. The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces called for an immediate investigation by the UN Security Council. So there is hope that a clearer picture will emerge soon if action is taken.

Certain controversies must be looked into. First, the international community claims the bombs dropped by the regime were carrying poison gas. Russia claims the attack was carried out with conventional bombs against a facility believed to contain weapons belonging to opposition fighters, and there was poison gas stored there, so when containers were damaged the gas spread and caused casualties.

Jerry Smith, who led the UN-backed operation to remove Syria’s chemical weapons in 2013-14, said: “The Russian version of events could not be discounted. If it is sarin that was stored there and conventional munitions were used, there is every possibility that some of those (chemical) munitions were not consumed and that the sarin liquid was ejected and could well have affected the population.”

There must be evidence at the site of the incident, such as damaged and undamaged sarin gas containers. If they were not hastily removed, they must still be there. If they were removed, traces could be detected by experts.

The second controversy is about the time of the bombing. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said it was carried out at 6.30 a.m., while Russia’s Defense Ministry said it took place between 11.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m.

Clarifying this is important because it will determine if there were two attacks or one, and if there were two attacks, whether the poison gas spread after the second. This could be verified by examining the radar records of various air bases in the region and by interviewing locals.

Third, the pro-regime Al-Masdar news agency claims the bombs carried by the Sukhoi Su-22 jet fighters cannot be filled with chemical substances. The SOHR acknowledges that the attack was carried out by Sukhoi Su-22s. Experts would know whether they can carry chemical substances.

There are three potential scenarios. One is that the regime carried out the attack with poison gas that it did not declare to the OPCW when it joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013. After it joined, vast stores of poison gas were removed and destroyed. In June 2014, the OPCW certified, after nine months of hard work, that “all of Syria’s declared weapons had been removed.” If Syria did not declare part of its stocks, it will be violating the convention.

The second scenario is that the regime destroyed all its stocks but produced more later since it still had the know-how. This would also violate the convention, which says: “Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons.”

The third scenario is that the regime did not use chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhun. In this case, the US will have to justify its attack on Shayrat air base, which it said was a response to the Khan Sheikhun attack.

*Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkey and founding member of the ruling AK Party.

By H. H. S. Viswanathan*

The expectations from the summit at Mar-a-Lago on 7 April where President Donald Trump laid the red carpet for the Chinese President Xi Jinping were high. Only a few weeks ago, the relations between the two countries had deteriorated to unprecedented levels. To many, the fact that the two leaders were meeting was itself very significant. Under such circumstances, what could one realistically hope for?

For all the pre-summit hype, the event does not seem to have achieved anything of significance. Yes, the personal chemistry between the leaders was reported to be excellent which, by itself, is a positive factor. It is possible that neither side wanted to push any particular issue too strongly for fear of loss of face in this first face-to-face meeting where they may have been just assessing each other.

The issues that would come up from the US side for discussions were very clear before the summit — North Korea, East Asia Maritime Security, South China Sea, bilateral trade deficit and investments and the direction of the global economy. On all these issues, Trump had taken a hard anti-China stand in his campaign rhetoric and even after being elected. He had a telephonic conversation with the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, an action no previous American President had taken in the last four decades. He later even questioned the sanctity of the “One China” policy. He called China as the worst currency manipulator and threatened to impose 45% tariffs on Chinese products. He did soften the rhetoric in the subsequent period. In his first telephonic conversation with Xi, he assured him that he would respect the “One China” policy. With all these flip-flops, everyone was wondering what he would say at Mar-a-Lago.

According to Chinese analysts, Xi’s main goal was to get Trump to agree to a broad framework for China-US relations that respects China’s core interests, read Taiwan, Tibet and South China Sea. The other goal was to try and avoid a trade war with the US.

Domestic angles

Both Trump and Xi Jinping had to take care of their respective domestic angles. After all the tough talk, Trump couldn’t afford to appear being soft on China for fear of losing popularity among his supporters. On Xi Jinping’s side, the domestic angle was even more pronounced. Later this year, the Communist Party of China (CPC) will have its 19^th Congress where the leadership and the direction of the Party for the next decade will be decided. There is widespread speculation that with the extreme centralization of power under him, Xi is planning to remain in power after his 10 year tenure ends in 2022. This would be an unprecedented step. If his views are to be pushed through the Party Congress, he had to appear to be standing up to the global power of the US. Having whipped up ultra-nationalistic sentiments over the last five years, Xi could not be seen as weak, particularly after all the earlier anti-China rhetoric of Trump.

It does not appear to be so. On Trump’s side, he did raise the question of North Korea. But Xi did not go beyond the usual position. That is why Trump had to announce after the visit that if Beijing could not deal with North Korea, the US would act unilaterally. As far as trade is concerned, a deficit of over $300 billion cannot be realistically resolved in the short or medium terms. It was, however, announced after the visit that “a 100 day action plan” to tackle trade issues was agreed upon. It was also decided to create four dialogue mechanisms for the Presidents to discuss bilateral issues. How effective these initiatives will be is to be seen in the coming months. For the time being, each side is interpreting them in its own way.

On Xi’s side, he could not push his idea of a new type of great power relations (Xin Xing de da guo guanxi) which did not have much traction with President Obama. The Chinese, over the past few months, repackaged it into four elements — no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win partnership. This is exactly the previous formulation but for the deletion of the words “core interests.” It is significant that during the visit of the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Beijing in March, he had parroted the four elements as being the guiding principles of the relations between the two countries. This may have raised Xi’s hope of getting such an endorsement from Trump. But it was not to be. This has also led to some speculation about a difference of views between the State Department and the White House on the issue.

The bland post-summit assessments of the two sides bring out the lack of concrete results. The most important outcome, of course, is the good personal chemistry that the two leaders seem to have developed. Trump remarked that “the two countries had made tremendous progress in our relationship.” Xi told Xinhua that he gained a better understanding of the US President and that the two had cemented their “mutual trust and reached many major consensuses.” The Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the talks as “constructive and they would set the pace for future Sino-American relations.” The subsequent media coverage on both sides gave enough favorable spin on the summit. The Chinese official media was much more positive probably due to domestic reasons.

The US missile attack on Syria precisely when the ceremonial banquet was going on was certainly a dampener. The Chinese reaction to the attack came only after Xi had left the US when the Chinese PR to the UN Liu Jieyi issued a rather mild statement saying, “the military action of the US will only worsen the suffering of the Syrian people and make the situation in Syria and the region more complicated and turbulent.”

What will be the impact of the summit on Sino-US relations? There may be no immediate progress on any of the major issues. However, both the leaders have built a working relationship which could help in a better understanding of each other. It could also help them with their domestic constituencies.

Briefing the Security Council, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today stressed the importance of unity in the 15-member body to effectively address human rights violations as well as to prevent mass atrocities.

“Article 24 of the UN Charter is clear: the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security rests with this Council ‘in order to ensure prompt and effective action’,” said Mr. Guterres, speaking on the theme of Human Rights and the Prevention of Armed Conflict.

“We must collectively draw strength from the letter and spirit of the Charter to better prevent armed conflict and sustain peace through development [by] ensuring effective protection of all human rights – civil, political, economic, social and cultural,” he added.

Noting that peace, security, sustainable development and human rights are mutually reinforcing, the UN chief underscored that peace must be “relentlessly pursued” along the gamut of prevention, conflict resolution and peacekeeping to peacebuilding and long-term development.

He further stressed that close cooperation between the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and all relevant UN bodies, including the Security Council, is vital given that human rights concerns are fundamental to maintaining peace and security as well as essential to informing Security Council deliberations and decision-making.

Mr. Guterres also underscored the importance of unity within the Security Council and called on its members to “spare no effort to put an end to the intolerable suffering of the Syrian people”. “The failure to do so is a tragedy that shames us all,” he stressed.

Speaking on initiatives already taken by the Security Council, such as incorporating a human rights component in the mandate of UN peace missions, the UN chief noted that the systematic monitoring and reporting of human rights violations not only gave “a voice” to victims but also helped the fight against impunity.

That work also contributed to the protection of civilians under threat, helped build capacities and, in some circumstances, preserved democratic space.

“[However] despite all these efforts, millions of people still need to be protected from crises and far more time and resources continue to be spent responding to crises rather than preventing them,” noted the Secretary-General, underscoring that preventative efforts needed to be prioritized and root causes of conflict had to be addressed.

“That is the lesson of so many conflicts.”

He also stressed that ensuring improved and less politicised action on human rights is also vital for progressing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Concluding his briefing, the UN chief informed the Security Council that he has set in motion various reforms of the Secretariat which will enable it to play its role better and in keeping with the mandates and trust the UN Member States have place in it.

“The resolutions on sustaining peace and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are cause for hope,” he said, noting: “Progress on human rights aspects would further complement these advances.”