By Global Information Network

Neatly-bound bundles of fresh U.S. dollars, Nigerian naira and British pounds totalling over $50 million were recovered by an anti-graft “swat team” in a raid at the Osborne Towers, a luxury building in an upscale section of Lagos.

The raid was orchestrated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) acting on a new policy targeting corruption and ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari. The policy provides an incentive for whistle-blowers who stand to receive between 2.5 and 5 percent of the recovered amount when ill-gotten gains are found.

Since the policy was put in place, several raids, based on whistle-blower tips, have resulted in large cash hauls. According to their website, the EFCC recovered unreported funds of $817,000 in a Lagos Market and $41.5 million at a shopping plaza for a total of over $180 million since the beginning of the year.

Now, a referee will be required to decide who owns the massive trove as at least two Nigerian officials have claimed rights to it – Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rovers State or the director-general of the National Intelligence Agency, Ayodele Oke, who claims the cash was currency for “covert operations.”

Osborne Towers is one of the posh new high-rises built for Nigeria’s pampered elite. Residents include a former governor, a recently retired officer the national oil company, and a TV personality, among others.

Activist lawyer Femi Falana in an open editorial expressed disbelief: “Are Nigerians to believe than an agency of the federal government kept about $50 million in an apartment without adequate security personnel to guard the money? Why was the fund not kept in a safe in the Office of the National Security Adviser?

But this week Nigerians weren’t the only ones having to explain the provenance of large sums of cash. High-level executives at Royal Dutch Shell and the Rome-based oil and gas company Eni, according to an investigation by the watchdog groups Global Witness and Finance Uncovered, knowingly took part in a “vast bribery scheme that robbed the Nigerian people of over a billion dollars.”

Titled “Shell Knew”, the report includes newly-unearthed internal emails showing that the oil companies were aware that a $1 billion payment for “one of Africa’s most valuable oil blocks” would end up in the hands of convicted money launderer and ex-Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete, and from there “would flow onward for bribes.”

“This is one of the worst corruption scandals the oil industry has ever seen, and this is the biggest development so far,” said Simon Taylor, co-founder of Global Witness, which has been investigating the scandal for six years. The oil giants have long-denied that they were aware of any foul playing, saying that they only made payments to the Nigerian government.

“Today’s new evidence shows senior executives at the world’s fifth biggest company knowingly entered into a corrupt deal that deprived the Nigerian people of $1.1 billion,” Taylor continued. “That is more than the country’s entire health budget for 2016.”

Shell is currently facing trial for charges of international corruption; an Italian court will begin hearings on April 20 to determine whether the trial will proceed.

Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis is spilling across its borders, Human Rights Watch said today. Latin American governments need to apply strong pressure on the Maduro administration to address severe shortages of medicine and food in Venezuela that are causing Venezuelans to leave the country.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have fled a humanitarian crisis that their government denies exists and is not addressing adequately. Thousands have gone to Brazil, many entering via the border that Venezuela shares with the Brazilian state of Roraima. Some seek protection there as refugees, others seek temporary work, while others make visits seeking desperately needed medical care.

The unprecedented influx of Venezuelans is straining Roraima’s already overburdened public health care system and clogging Brazil’s system for processing asylum applications.

“Brazil is struggling to meet the urgent needs of Venezuelans who are victims of a humanitarian crisis for which the Maduro administration is largely to blame,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Brazil and other regional governments will ultimately have to press the Venezuelan government to stop denying the crisis and to take adequate steps to fix the problem.”

More than 12,000 Venezuelans have entered and stayed in Brazil since 2014, according to official sources. The number of Venezuelans moving to Brazil has increased more than five-fold from 2014, reaching 7,150 during the first 11 months of 2016. Many Venezuelans are living in precarious conditions on the streets and in a shelter in Boa Vista, Roraima’s capital. Despite the difficult conditions, all of the more than 60 Venezuelans Human Rights Watch interviewed in February said they were better off in Brazil than in Venezuela.

The demand for health care by Venezuelans is making it increasingly difficult for the state’s public health system to meet the needs of all its patients, both Brazilian and Venezuelan.

The General Hospital of Roraima, which serves 80 percent of adults in the state, provided care to 1,815 Venezuelans in 2016, up more than three-fold from 2015. In February 2017, the hospital’s director told Human Rights Watch that the facility was treating an average of 300 Venezuelan patients a month. The number of Venezuelan women seeking care at Roraima’s maternity hospital almost doubled in 2016, to 807. At the hospital in the border town of Pacaraima, about 80 percent of patients are Venezuelans, and Venezuelan women made more than half of prenatal care visits between January and August 2016.

Even in the hospitals where Venezuelans make up a small proportion of total patients, several health care professionals and officials said the increase in the patient load is aggravating existing strains on the state’s public health care system.

Brazilian health care providers said that Venezuelans tend to arrive at the hospital sicker than Brazilians, having failed to receive adequate treatment at home. Many are treated for complications because conditions such as HIV/AIDS, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and malaria have been left untreated due to shortages of medicines in Venezuela. As a result, doctors said, Venezuelan patients more frequently require hospitalization than local patients. Health care professionals said that even before the influx of Venezuelan patients, hospital capacity was insufficient to meet demand.

In one example Human Rights Watch found, Barbara Rosales, 21, went to the hospital in the Venezuelan city of Santa Elena de Uairén with complications in her six-month pregnancy in January. The hospital lacked the medicine she needed and ended up sending her to Brazil in a car accompanied by a nurse but without any medicines. Rosales was immediately hospitalized in Brazil. Five days later, her baby was born, weighing one kilogram. When Human Rights Watch visited the hospital a month later, the baby remained in intensive care.

When I saw footage of the alleged sarin gas attack in Syria, I felt ill.

The whole episode, which killed up to 100 civilians in Syria’s Idlib province, was ghastly. But worst of all was the kids — glassy-eyed, discolored, and limp as their little bodies were carried away.

Donald Trump apparently felt the same way.

“That attack on children had a big impact on me,” he told reporters, condemning the Syrian regime’s “heinous” targeting of “innocent people” and “even beautiful little babies.” Then he fired 59 cruise missiles at the Syrian air base supposedly used to launch the chemical attack.

Even some of Trump’s critics applauded that move. But it was a huge flip-flop.

The Obama administration faced a similar crisis in 2013, following a much deadlier chemical attack on a Damascus suburb. Back then, Trump was unambiguously against intervening. “DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA,” the billionaire tweeted in all caps. “VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN!”

An informed change of perspective is a good thing — but only if it’s informed. Though it might’ve felt good to see the Syrian regime pay a price for its crimes, there’s no way a strike like this can ease civilian suffering.

For one thing, it was a pinprick. Within days, Syrian planes were taking off from the same base and bombing the very same town. But escalating the war risks provoking a devastating conflict with Russia or Iran, Syrian allies who could step up their support in response.

Even if that war succeeded in ousting the regime, the country would only plunge deeper into chaos — just as Iraq and Libya did after we ran their similarly horrible governments out. Islamist extremists would be well positioned to fill the void in Syria, too: Al Qaeda-linked forces currently hold Idlib, while ISIS controls much of the east.

Either way, it’s innocent people who pay the price. Just ask the families of the 1,700 civilians reportedly killed by U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria last month alone. Many of those were children, too.

Airstrikes, in short, are a recipe for humanitarian catastrophe. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing the U.S. can do to help suffering Syrians. It’s just going to require another big flip-flop.

For starters, Trump should give up on his “Muslim ban.” Both versions of that order, now held up in the courts, would have indefinitely banned all migration from Syria — and suspended refugee resettlement from everywhere.

Trump’s said that’s necessary because Syrian refugees are “pouring in” and we don’t know “who they are.” But the U.S. admitted just 18,000 Syrians from 2011 to 2016, all after years of vetting. (Syria’s tiny neighbor Lebanon, with a population less than metro DC, has taken over 1 million.)

During the campaign, it never bothered Trump that children might be affected by his anti-refugee policies. “I can look at their face and say you can’t come here,” he said about Syrian kids in February 2016. “They may be ISIS.”

That’s chilling. I hope Trump now understands there’s a direct line from that policy to the “beautiful little babies” murdered in Idlib.

Another welcome about-face would be to ramp up relief for those Syrians who remain. Trump’s “skinny budget” proposal nearly zeroes out humanitarian aid, but food and medicine are much cheaper than Tomahawk missiles, which run $1.4 million apiece. And they’ll save a lot more suffering Syrian kids.

Getting more deeply involved in Syria’s war is a grievous mistake. The silver lining is that it proves Trump can change his mind. Now that he cares about the fate of Syrian children, I hope he’ll open up our country — not bomb theirs.

This article was published at Other Words

By Edmund Haislmaier*

Americans are understandably concerned that they have access to health insurance and not be turned away because of a pre-existing medical condition. However, to sustain a health insurance market that can meet the needs of all Americans, including those with pre-existing conditions, health insurance rules must be crafted in a way that encourages individuals not only to get, but also to maintain coverage.

Unfortunately, the drafters of Obamacare took the wrong approach by writing their ban on exclusions for pre-existing conditions in a way that removed an important incentive for people to keep health insurance coverage during periods when they do not need medical care. Yet insurance cannot function if people can buy it only when they expect to file claims. Under such circumstances, premium revenues will be insufficient to offset claims costs—exactly what has happened under Obamacare.

Thus, a key element in stabilizing the individual health insurance market and repairing the damage caused by Obamacare is for Congress to set better rules around the prohibition on plans imposing pre-existing condition exclusions. The rules that Congress set for employer group coverage under a 1996 law, the bipartisan Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), provide the model for how Congress can correct Obamacare’s mistake.

The Importance of Continuous Coverage

Health insurance is commonly understood as pooling risks across a group of people—that is, the premiums paid by the healthy offset the claims incurred by the sick. Another, though often unrecognized essential component of health insurance is that it also spreads risks over time. In other words, if an individual regularly pays premiums year after year, in the long run, most (or possibly all) of his claims costs will be covered by the premiums that he himself has paid.

All forms of insurance spread risks both over groups and over time to varying degrees, depending on the risk being insured. Life insurance offers the clearest example of how time can be an important factor in insurance calculations. Because all life insurance policyholders will eventually die, life insurance relies more on spreading risk over time than do other forms of insurance.

In the case of health insurance, it is important to have incentives for individuals to maintain continuous coverage, because the more claims costs that insurers can spread over time, the smaller the share that they will need to spread across enrollees. The result is a more stable market with more stable premiums.

The implication for policymakers is that they need to focus less on getting people to obtain coverage and more on getting them to keep paying for coverage when they do not immediately need medical care. If people have incentives to keep paying premiums when they are healthy, those same incentives will also encourage them to buy coverage in the first place.

How Obamacare Detracted from Continuous Coverage

Understanding the importance of the concept of continuous coverage is key to recognizing one of Obamacare’s biggest mistakes and how Congress can now correct it.

Obamacare failed to link the prohibition on health plans applying pre-existing condition exclusions directly to a requirement that individuals maintain continuous coverage. Thus, it destabilized the market by enabling (and even encouraging) individuals to pay for coverage only when they expected to incur claims. The resulting imbalance between premiums and claims costs is one of the two biggest causes of escalating premiums under Obamacare.1

The architects of Obamacare thought that they could avoid those adverse effects by instead offering subsidies to lower-income individuals and imposing a mandate on all Americans to buy coverage. However, as is now clear from the experience with Obamacare, that approach failed in practice.

How Congress Can Address Pre-existing Conditions and Encourage Continuous Coverage

Not only can Congress correct those Obamacare mistakes, but it already has the template for how to do so: the earlier HIPAA rules that limited the application of pre-existing condition exclusions in employer group coverage.2 Established 15 years before Obamacare, those rules applied to the 90 percent of Americans with private health insurance covered by employer group plans.

The HIPAA rules specified that pre-existing condition exclusions could not be applied to an individual enrolling in an employer plan if the individual had at least 12 months of prior coverage with no gap in coverage longer than 63 days.3

Furthermore, the HIPAA group market rules set reasonable and fair parameters for individuals who lacked sufficient prior coverage. They specified that a pre-existing condition exclusion could not be applied for more than 12 months and that if the individual had periods of coverage during the prior 12 months, the length of the pre-existing condition exclusion period had to be further reduced to give the individual credit for that partial coverage.

Thus, under the HIPAA group market rules, pre-existing-condition exclusions could be applied—and only on a limited basis—only to those who were without prior coverage or who waited until they needed medical care to enroll in their employer’s plan.

The HIPAA rules offered a fair approach and struck a reasonable balance between the individual’s need to get or change coverage and the insurer’s need to have enrollees consistently paying premiums over time. Under those rules, individuals who get and maintain coverage are rewarded, while individuals who wait until they are sick to get coverage risk having to pay for their own care for a limited time.

The problem with HIPAA was that it did not apply the same kind of rules to the individual (non-group) market. Thus, an individual could have purchased non-group health insurance for many years but still face pre-existing condition exclusions when he needed or wanted to enroll in another plan. Therefore, responsible people with individual market coverage were effectively not being given credit for having done the right thing in buying and maintaining coverage. This structure was not only unfair, but also contrary to the objectives of encouraging people to buy coverage before they need it and keep paying premiums when they are healthy.

The obvious, modest, and sensible reform is for Congress to restore the HIPAA rules that governed the employer group market before the enactment of Obamacare and in the process also apply a similar set of rules to the individual health insurance market.

Continuous Coverage Provisions of the American Health Care Act

Rather than restoring the HIPAA group market rules and expanding them to the individual market, the American Health Care Act (AHCA) under consideration in the House of Representatives leaves in place the Obamacare rules but adds a provision for insurers to impose a one-year, 30 percent premium surcharge on applicants with fewer than 12 months of prior coverage.

That particular remedy is likely to be inadequate. The concern shared by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation,4 as well as by insurance industry experts, is that the premium surcharge approach in the AHCA might prove to be an insufficient inducement for healthier individuals to maintain coverage. The most effective solution would be for Congress instead to reinstate and extend the HIPAA rules that explicitly link the prohibition on applying pre-existing condition exclusions to a requirement that individuals maintain continuous coverage.

Conclusion

Americans are concerned about individuals with pre-existing conditions being denied health insurance—and understandably so. To ensure that individuals with pre-existing conditions are able to get coverage and at the same time maintain the stability in the market needed to make that coverage accessible, policymakers should link the ban on exclusions for pre-existing conditions to a requirement of continuous coverage. Having the right parameters in place is essential both to ensuring that insurance markets can function and to avoiding the premium escalation experienced under Obamacare. This approach is compassionate, is fair, and encourages people to do the right thing.

As Members of Congress debate repealing and replacing Obamacare, they should learn from the failures of that law in crafting a better set of health care policies. One important step in that crafting is the establishment of a fairer and more reasonable set of rules for limiting health plans’ application of pre-existing condition exclusions. Setting the right rules around the prohibition on plans applying pre-existing condition exclusions will not only stabilize insurance markets, but also provide a firmer foundation for future reforms of other aspects of health care policy.

About the author:
*Edmund F. Haislmaier is a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Health Policy Studies, of the Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity, at The Heritage Foundation.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation.

Notes:
[1] The other big driver of higher premiums is the law’s benefit mandates. See Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski, “Responding to King v. Burwell: Congress’s First Step Should Be to Remove Costly Mandates Driving Up Premiums,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4400, May 4, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/responding-king-v-burwell-congresss-first-step-should-be-remove-costly.

[2] Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, P.L. 104-191.

[3] The HIPAA rules also specified that pre-existing condition exclusions could not be applied to newborn or adopted dependents; that a pre-existing condition exclusion could be applied only with respect to a condition for which the individual was treated within the prior 12 months; and that only actual treatment—not a diagnosis or genetic test—could be the basis for a pre-existing condition exclusion. For a more comprehensive discussion of these and other insurance market provisions of HIPAA, see Edmund F. Haislmaier, “Saving the American Dream: The U.S. Needs Commonsense Health Insurance Reforms,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2703, June 22, 2012, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/06/saving-the-american-dream-the-us-needs-commonsense-health-insurance-reforms.

[4]Congressional Budget Office, “American Health Care Act: Budget Reconciliation Recommendations of the House Committees on Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce, March 9, 2017,” Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate, March 13, 2017, p. 12, https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/costestimate/americanhealthcareact.pdf (accessed April 12, 2017).

A Pakistani committee has recommended to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that Gilgit-Baltistan should be declared the country’s fifth province. For 70 years Pakistan has avoided integrating its occupied parts of Kashmir for fear of damaging its legal position. That calculation may now have changed.

By Tim Willasey-Wilsey*

Ever since the Indo-Pakistan war of 1947-8, Gilgit-Baltistan has been de facto administered by Pakistan. Known as the “Northern Areas” from 1970 to 2009, it was once part of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir although much of its territory had been administered by the British under a lease as the Gilgit Agency from 1889 until 1947. The British regarded the area as being of vital strategic importance because it was where the British Empire bordered both China and Russian Central Asia. In 1947 the British cancelled the lease and handed the territory back to the Maharaja, but Gilgit troops under a British officer intervened to ensure that the area acceded to Pakistan.

Hitherto Pakistan has been careful not to integrate the territory and its neighbour ‘Azad Kashmir’ into Pakistan for fear of undermining its legal position on Kashmir before the United Nations. In India, Gilgit-Baltistan (at 73,000 sq km) and the much smaller Azad Kashmir (13,000 sq km) are collectively known as Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).

No reasons for the committee’s decision have been made public, but there has been a recent push in Pakistan to tidy up some of its colonial era boundaries. On March 2, Pakistan announced that it was merging the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the Afghanistan border with the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP, formerly known as North West Frontier Province). Like the FATA, Gilgit-Baltistan has also suffered from a democratic deficit. For the 70 years of Pakistan’s existence the inhabitants have not enjoyed full representation and, with a majority Shia and Ismaili population, they have not always felt adequately represented in predominantly Sunni Pakistan. There is no clear evidence for a third possible reason: that China might have pressured Pakistan because of security concerns about the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which traverses the full length of Gilgit-Baltistan.

However, if the recommendation of the committee is adopted, it will signify a new calculation in Islamabad about the Kashmir dispute. Although both sides would formally deny it, the fact is that India has never seriously expected to ‘recover’ Gilgit-Baltistan from any Kashmir settlement. No more has Pakistan had any expectation of being awarded Jammu or Ladakh. In fact the whole Kashmir dispute can be (and has been) boiled down to three limited geographical areas: the Kashmir Valley, the Siachen Glacier and Sir Creek on the Arabian Sea. The outlines of agreements on Siachen and Sir Creek have been reached in the past and neither issue is a serious impediment to a wider agreement. The really thorny issue is the Kashmir Valley.

As early as 1950 the Australian High Court Judge, Sir Owen Dixon, the UN Representative for India and Pakistan appointed to mediate the Kashmir dispute, came to exactly the same conclusion. He proposed a plebiscite in the Kashmir Valley whilst awarding most other elements of the former princely state to the country in de facto control of territory. Under his “Dixon Plan” which came close to success, Gilgit-Baltistan would have become part of Pakistan, except that Nehru did not accept the conditions of the plebiscite.

More recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s long negotiation with President Musharraf from 2004 to 2008 resolved Siachen and Sir Creek and then focussed on the Kashmir Valley and the Line of Control (LoC). This negotiation also came close to agreement and only foundered due to Musharraf’s unconnected dispute with his Chief Justice. Whether either leader could have sold the solution to their more hawkish compatriots is a moot question. One of Musharraf’s generals later told this author that the Corps Commanders had been largely kept in the dark about the details. In his book, The Accidental Prime Minister, Singh’s media advisor Sanjaya Baru makes clear that some of the PM’s advisors were disconcerted by the scope of the discussions.

Nonetheless Manmohan Singh’s idea of treating the LoC as a ‘soft border’ with free movement and consultative mechanisms across both sides of it remains on the table–to be revisited when both India and Pakistan simultaneously have leaders strong enough to take the political risks innate in any such process.

What must be clear to Nawaz Sharif is that Kashmir will not be solved through a United Nations process, but through bilateral agreement.

Meanwhile, he and his new Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa have to decide whether they can integrate Gilgit-Baltistan into Pakistan without setting off a major diplomatic storm. So far there have been protests from the UK Parliament and from Indian politicians, but otherwise, international reactions have been low-key. They may calculate, therefore, that now is the time to take a step which their predecessors have avoided for 70 years.

About the author:
*Tim Willasey-Wilsey is Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London, a former British diplomat and a member of the Chatham House Council.

Source:
This feature was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. 

Bibliography
Durand, Algernon, The Making of a Frontier: Five Years’ Experience and Adventures in Gilgit, Hunza Nagar, Chitral, and the Eastern Hindu-Kush, Thomas Nelson & Sons, London, 1899, pp. 119.

“Discord in Pakistan’s Northern Areas”, International Crisis Group, no. 131, 2007.

Noorani, A. G., ‘The Dixon Plan’, Frontline, 19:21, October 2002, <http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1921/stories/20021025002508200.htm>

Lamb, Alastair, ‘Kashmir: A disputed legacy’, Oxford University Press, 1992.

James, Morrice, Pakistan Chronicle, Oxford University Press, London, 1993, pp. 83-104.

National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, Dixon, Sir Owen (1886-1972) by Grant Anderson & Daryl Dawson, Vol 14, Canberra, 1996.

Baru, Sanjaya, ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, Penguin India, April 2014, pp. 178-197 & Kasuri, Khurshid Mahmud, ‘Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove: An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Relations’, Oxford University Press, December 2015.

‘Pakistan has to vacate PoK, Gilgit-Baltistan: India’, The Times of India, 23 March 2017, <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/pakistan-has-to-vacate-pok-gilgit-baltistan-india/articleshow/57794098.cms>

The Rohingya problem is an old one. After nearly 70 years, the problem has been greatly aggravated by rising sectarian violence by radical Buddhist groups against Muslims and the involvement of transnational terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

By Jasminder Singh*

The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar has a long history. Following Burma’s independence in January 1948, a Rohingya-based insurgency broke out in northern Arakan, now known as Rakhine State, with the aim of integrating with East Pakistan, present-day Bangladesh. By the late 1950s, the mujahidin-oriented insurgency was crushed by the Burmese Army. Since the 1970s, various Islamist groups have surfaced to take up the cudgels of liberation, either to gain greater autonomy or outright independence.

The key groups championing the Rohingya struggle include the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation, the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front and Arakan National Liberation Organisation. Following the success of the Afghan Mujahidin in defeating the Soviets, since the 1980s, extremist jihadi-oriented groups have espoused violent struggle against Myanmar, often with the support of Af-Pak based radical groups and by the late 1990s onwards, groups affiliated with Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Al Qaeda Support for the Rohingya

Even though Al Qaeda had existed since the late 1990s, it only began to show interest in the plight of the Rohingya since 2013. Hence, at the 12th anniversary of the 911 Incident, Ayman al-Zawahiri referred to the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar. In August 2014, Zawahiri launched the Al Qaeda of the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) which included Myanmar as its area of operations.

In 2014, Al Qaeda’s affiliates also began expressing support for the need for jihad in Myanmar in support of the Rohingya. In 2015, a key Al Qaeda affiliate in Africa and South Asia, the al-Shabaab and the Pakistan Taliban, respectively, expressed support for the Rohingya, calling for jihad against the Buddhists in Myanmar for supposedly persecuting Muslims.

Abu Zar Burmi, an ethnic Rohingya who emerged as a leading jihadist in Pakistan, also called for revenge against the persecution of the Rohingya. Equally important was the support of Al Qaeda’s affiliates in Bangladesh for a jihad in Myanmar, with one of them believed to be training Rohingya for combat operations.

Islamic State’s Support for Rohingya

At the launch of Islamic State (IS) in July 2014, the self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi called for the need of a jihad in Myanmar. The 14th edition of Dabiq quoted Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, the amir of the Islamic fighters in Bengal, talking of a jihad in Bangladesh as a stepping stone to Myanmar. There were numerous occasions when pro-Islamic State groups in Bangladesh called for a jihad in Myanmar to support the Rohingya, including the Jama’tul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), the key IS affiliate.

Pro-IS Southeast Asian groups, especially in Indonesia have also joined the call to punish Myanmar for persecuting the Rohingya. In November 2016, an Indonesian pro-IS group planned to bomb the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta, just as the Malaysian police detained an Indonesian en route to Myanmar to support the Rohingya.

Pro-IS groups in Pakistan and India, such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Indian Mujahidin, have also supported the call for jihad in Myanmar. The Rohingya are also reported to be operating with Southeast Asian jihadist groups, as in Poso, Indonesia to support pro-IS groups and in South Mindanao as part of the Wilayah Philippines under Emir Isnilon Hapilon.

Factors Driving Al Qaeda and IS Support

Several factors explain the decision of Al Qaeda and IS to support the Rohingya. First, both groups can no longer ignore the plight of the Rohingya as this has been spotlighted in the mainstream and new media in a big way since 2012. To ignore a cause celebre of Muslim persecution would be self-defeating.

Second, as both IS and Al Qaeda are under pressure from coalition forces, both have decided to attack their ‘Far’ and ‘Near’ enemies rather than simply focus on the former as it did in the past.

Third, it is driven by the rising competition between Al Qaeda and IS for influence, especially in areas where there are conflicts afflicting Sunni Muslims. It is not just to become the preeminent global jihadi group but more important, due to the rising importance of South and Southeast Asia as safe havens, sources of finance and even targets for operations, especially as the Middle East recedes in importance.

Finally, and in particular for Al Qaeda, it is a golden opportunity to recover from its decline globally and being displaced by IS since 2014. By championing the Rohingya cause, it hopes to reverse its fortunes, which it has succeeded somewhat in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In this regard, both Al Qaeda and IS are not merely looking for supporters for their ideological and jihadi cause but also believe that they have a legitimate excuse to support persecuted Muslims in Myanmar.

Consequences of Al Qaeda and IS Support

It looks as though a front for prolonged jihad somewhat akin to southern Philippines and southern Thailand is taking shape in northwest Myanmar. Al Qaeda and IS have capitalised on the image of a persecuted Rohingya community ripe for recruitment and their support for the Rohingya has upped the ante of jihadi violence in Myanmar. Through direct and indirect support for the Rohingya, the seeds of jihadi doctrine and ideology are being planted and that may put the community on an irreversible trajectory of violence.

Both transnational terrorist groups have succeeded in seeding radicalism and terrorism in Myanmar and the surrounding region. The planting of a Muslim insurgency in Myanmar through the Rohingya crisis will take decades to overcome, especially since a haven for Rohingya has emerged at the Bangladeshi border.

As the October 2016 jihadi attack in north western Rakhine State by an Al Qaeda cum IS-supported group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army previously known as Haraqa al-Yaqin, demonstrated, jihadi violence can no longer be handled by Myanmar alone. Myanmar would need to solve its Rohingya problem through political accommodation while at the same time enhancing counter-terrorism cooperation with South and Southeast Asian states.

Jasminder Singh is a Senior Analyst with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

After Syria, Afghanistan is emerging as a new theatre of Russian-American power struggle, with growing Russian involvement in the war-torn country. The Western drawdown from Afghanistan in 2014 has allowed Moscow to flex its muscle in its backyard. This will lead to new geopolitical rivalries in South Asia.

By Abdul Basit*

The United States under President Donald Trump has snubbed a Russian invitation to attend its initiative on Afghanistan on 14 April 2017. This development has taken place as Afghanistan is emerging as a new theatre of Russian-American power rivalry with Moscow’s return to the conflict-ridden country after an aloofness of almost three decades. Buoyed by its strategic incursion in Crimea and the success of its military diplomacy in Syria, Russia is now overtly asserting itself in Afghanistan.

Taking advantage of the geopolitical opening created by an uncertain US foreign policy and the drawdown of Western forces from Afghanistan in 2014, Moscow is trying to outflank Washington in Afghanistan. This marks a significant shift in Moscow’s traditional Afghan policy of neutrality.

Russia’s Afghan Initiative

Russia held the third meeting of its Afghan initiative in Moscow on 14 April 2017. The stage for these talks was set in December 2016 when Moscow hosted a trilateral dialogue with Islamabad and Beijing. Another round of consultations, comprising six nations — Russia, China, Pakistan, India, Iran and Afghanistan — was held in Moscow on 15 February 2017. In both meetings, the NATO and United States were not invited. When Russia invited the US for the April talks, Washington refused.

The US refusal to participate in the 14 April meeting indicates its growing discomfort with Russia’s Afghan overtures. The Trump administration considers it as direct interference in Afghanistan.

This will potentially give birth to new geopolitical rivalries while further complicating the existing ones. Broadly, this will split the region into two rival political blocs of local and global powers: Russia-China-Iran-Pakistan-Central Asian States versus the US-India-NATO-Afghanistan.

US-Russian Divergences on Afghanistan

Russia and the US have divergent outlooks about the situation in Afghanistan. Moscow views the Islamic state of Khurasan (ISK), a regional affiliate of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) in the Af-Pak region—as the major regional security threat. On the contrary, America and its NATO allies view the Afghan Taliban as the major source of instability in Afghanistan.

Moscow maintains that its ties with the Taliban are limited to peace negotiations and countering ISK’s influence. On the contrary, Washington believes Russia-Taliban contacts are to undermine the US and NATO mission in Afghanistan. The former advocates a flexible approach towards the Taliban, while the latter considers renunciation of violence, delinking of Taliban’s ties with Al-Qaeda and the recognition of the Afghan constitution and government as pre-conditions for peace talks.

Moreover, Russia views the American proposal of moderate troop surge and increased military spending in Afghanistan as a recipe for more war and destabilisation. On the other hand, the US considers support of the Afghan Taliban by Russia, Iran and Pakistan as the major source of instability in the country.

In addition, Russia alleges that the US forces have not done enough to check the rise and expansion of ISK in Afghanistan. Moscow views the growing presence of ISK fighters in Afghanistan’s northern provinces near the Central Asian states with suspicion. It alleges that the US is using ISK as a proxy in Afghanistan.

However, the US rejects such allegations, pointing out that 15 top commanders of ISK, including its emir Hafiz Saeed Khan Orakzai, have been killed in US drone strikes and the territorial footprint of the terror group has been reduced from nine to three districts in Afghanistan.

New and Old Geopolitical Rivalries

Such divergent and opposing outlooks of the Afghan conflict, even before the start of a formal dialogue process, is ominous. It will complicate the regional geopolitics turning Afghanistan into a battleground for proxy wars. The inclusion of Russian competition with the US and NATO, in addition to ongoing power games between India and Pakistan, as well as between Iran and Saudi Arabia, will work to the advantage of the militant groups in Afghanistan.

US and NATO’s financial assistance bankroll the Afghan economy while their military presence in Afghanistan has ensured the survival of the Afghan National Unity Government (NUG). Without the US inclusion, a durable and realistic solution of the Afghan conflict looks difficult.

At the same time, continued US military presence without exploring a realistic and flexible political solution will further destabilise Afghanistan. Arguably, when 150,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan could not break the deadlock of the Afghan conflict, a meagre increase of 3,000 to 4,000 troops will not make any difference.

The failure of the US and Russia to reconcile their differences on Afghanistan can potentially turn Afghanistan into another Syria which will negatively affect the regional and global peace. The Russian and American concerns respectively over ISK’s presence and Al-Qaeda and Taliban links are best addressed if the two sides cooperate instead of compete for regional influence.

Old Peace Initiatives and Way Forward

If history is any guide, all major initiatives so far to broker a ceasefire agreement between Kabul and the Taliban have failed. The fate of the Russian peace initiative does not seem to be an exception to this rule. In 2013, the US-led initiatives known as the “Qatar process” crashed after the Taliban hoisted their official flag and plaque ahead of the talks in Doha. The then US administration and the former Afghan President Hamid Karzai rejected the move and pulled out of negotiations.

After a gap of two years, another effort was made to revive the peace talks in 2015, under the Quadrilateral Coordination Group comprising the US, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The QCG talks came to a halt in mid-2015 with the disclosure of the death of Taliban’s founding leader Mullah Umar. In early 2016, another effort was underway to rekindle the QCG dialogue, when the US killed the new Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor in a drone attack in Pakistan’s Balochistan province and dashed hopes of restarting the peace talks.

Notwithstanding the divergent US and Russian perspectives of the Afghan war, the core dispute remains the discord between the Taliban and the NUG. The US presence in Afghanistan, regional states’ interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs and the rise of opportunistic groups like ISK are irritants and by-products of the lingering conflict. If a political compromise between Kabul and the Taliban is reached, it will be easy to tackle the irritants.

Pakistan, which has suffered the most because of the unrest in Afghanistan, along with China, should play a bridging role instead of taking sides in this emerging geopolitical situation. The regional and global powers need to take a bipartisan view of the situation in Afghanistan. Reviving the QCG process and expanding it to include Russia and India offers the most viable diplomatic framework to end the war in Afghanistan.

*Abdul Basit is an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. An earlier version appeared in The News.

By Rowell G. Casaclang and Karla Mae G. Pabeliña*

The economic relations of the Philippines with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) could have brighter days. While distance has always been a major impediment, stagnation and a myriad of social uncertainties faced by LAC further threaten an already fragile economic link with the Philippines. How can the Philippines overcome this new hurdle?

LAC in troubled times

LAC so far has seen a significant slump in investment in natural resource industries and deceleration of export due to low demand for exports and low commodity prices. For instance, lower crude oil prices have reduced export earnings and fiscal revenues of regional oil exporters such as Belize, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela and low prices of copper, iron ore, gold, and soy beans have worsened the terms-of-trade for commodity exporters such as Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Peru.

The region is expected to bear the brunt of economic headwinds this year and in 2018. Developed countries such as Brazil and Mexico are facing the highest risks brought about by secular stagnation, a period when economies tend to save more to buffer the ill effects of low inflation and low interest rates. Increased savings leads to decreased investments, which results in reduced growth. LAC has been showing signs that could reinforce long-term growth stagnation: low inflation, low interest rates, rising life expectancy, and falling birth rates.

There is also a high degree of uncertainty due to the growing sociopolitical instability in Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina. Mexico is likewise facing an increased risk of a difficult recovery with the US’ inward-looking policies, rising interest rates, and appreciation of the US dollar. Mexico’s economy will be overshadowed by significant changes to US policy on trade and migration under Pres. Donald Trump. Although abandonment of the North American Free Trade Agreement remains unlikely, softening demand for exports and increased political uncertainty will affect the cost of capital and weigh on consumption and investment in the coming years.

Despite uncertainties, the sociopolitical reforms being instituted by LAC governments are seen to improve the business environment in the region. The shift to pragmatic economic policies – as seen in Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil – from unsustainable social welfare models can potentially shift the economic climate to one that is more conducive for business.

Same old problems, new prospects

LAC is home to about 622 million people.1 Its GDP totals 5.3 trillion (in 2015 current USD), which accounts for 7 percent of total world GDP. Asia’s share of LAC’s trade has risen in the past several years, amounting to 21 percent in 2010. In contrast, LAC’s share to total Asia’s trade has been stagnant for almost a century (peaking to merely 4.4 percent by 2010).

In the case of the Philippines, trade with LAC has not shown a positive trajectory in the past decade. In the period from 2005 to 2014, the average annual growth rate of Philippines’ trade with LAC was only 8.4 percent. LAC’s share of Philippines’ imports and exports was just 1.1 percent in 2014.2 In addition, there is no particular policy guiding Philippines’ economic relations with LAC. Various consultative meetings have been held to improve trade and investment and to examine possible cooperation in mining, energy, education, logistics, and consumer retails, most of which, however, remain in the pipeline.

Among the LAC group3, the Philippines’ most important trading partners (based on share of PH-LAC bilateral trade vis-à-vis total PH trade) during said period were Brazil (33 percent), Argentina (32.6 percent), and Mexico (26.4 percent). While no trade facilitation measures (e.g., free trade agreements, among others) were in place, the enormous markets of Brazil and Mexico, where populations reached 207 million and 127 million in 2015, respectively, are deemed to be the primary reason why terms of trade with these countries were high. Bilateral trade with Brazil comprised mainly of imports (68 percent), especially of metallic ores. In the same period, Mexico was the top export destination in the LAC region (55.2 percent of total exports to LAC) while Argentina was the lead importer (46.7 percent of total imports from LAC).

The modest performance of PH-LAC trade can be attributed to several factors, among them, geographical distance, which generates high transport costs, and trade barriers including tariff and nontariff types. Argentina, for instance, imposed strict import controls starting February 2012 as a response to falling trade surplus and as a way to protect its international reserves and local industries. This import policy has proven difficult for Argentina’s trading partners, including the Philippines, to expand entry of their products. Balance of trade between the Philippines and Argentina heavily favors the latter (about 89 percent were imports from Argentina).

The fragmented nature of integration in LAC with the market-led Pacific Alliance (Peru, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico) and the MERCOSUR or Common Market of the South (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay) poses another challenge to strengthening collaboration. The differences between these two blocs reflect the deep-rooted divide in economic policy and orientation among the LAC countries. Pacific Alliance is committed to open trade and free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor while MERCOSUR imposes significantly higher tariff and non-tariff barriers. Both groupings are nonetheless taking steps to bridge the hemispheric divide towards a convergence of their policies.

Better prospects in the horizon

There is substantial opportunity to strengthen trade and investment with LAC through existing economic frameworks (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Alliance, and Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation) and forthcoming bilateral economic arrangements which include the Bilateral Investment Treaty with Mexico, Joint Economic Cooperation with Peru, and a free trade agreement with Chile. The Philippines occupies a unique position as LAC’s gateway to Southeast Asia, with its common Hispanic heritage as an advantage over neighboring states.

Current limitations and challenges of trading with LAC notwithstanding, LAC remains a huge market that offers a wealth of opportunities for the Philippines. Complementary industries may create basis for further cooperation: LAC provides agricultural, resource-based products, and services while the Philippines exports electronic components/supplies, machinery, and equipment. As it revs up its manufacturing industries, the Philippines would benefit from LAC primary resources, which include hydrocarbon and metals.

However, the period of stagnant growth in LAC creates a gamut of possible policy shifts among LAC countries. In the midst of a declining export demand and plunging commodity prices, LAC countries are predisposed to consider diversifying their economies in an effort to improve productivity and broaden export base. As this move is seen as beneficial to LAC economies, it can generate competition with trading partners and in effect hurt prospects of expanding trade complementarities. Otherwise, LAC countries could revert to protectionist policies to induce growth. As Argentina is currently doing, encouraging exports while keeping imports at bay will only exacerbate the difficulties arising from the present challenges faced by LAC’s trading partners.

Thus, the looming secular stagnation felt in some LAC countries is a risk that the Philippines must keep an eye on. Further in-depth studies must be made on a per country basis to ascertain the implications of long-term growth stagnation and how it will affect the conduct of future bilateral economic relations.

In addition, despite the highly volatile sociopolitical climate in Latin America, pragmatic reforms being instituted by its governments may shift the business climate. It is therefore important for the Philippines to continue efforts in securing bilateral economic arrangements that will promote and sustain long-term and viable trade and investment flows. Promotion of trade and investment through existing multilateral and regional arrangements should also be augmented.

Amidst the gloomy picture that LAC paints, the region offers numerous opportunities for the Philippines. It remains an ironic reality that the shared Hispanic heritage and deep cultural ties are not harnessed to further economic engagements.

*About the authors:
Rowell G. Casaclang is a Foreign Affairs Research Specialist with the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies of the Foreign Service Institute. Mr. Casaclang can be reached at rowell.casaclang@gmail.com.

Karla Mae G. Pabeliña is a Foreign Affairs Research Specialist with the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies of the Foreign Service Institute. Ms. Pabeliña can be reached at kgpabelina@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 Populations in 2015 for the 20 sovereign states in LAC region: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. World Bank estimate: 633 million.

2 Based on Philippine Statistics Authority’s Foreign Trade Statistics 2005-2014. LAC’s share to Philippines’s total trade averaged only 1.0 percent in the ten-year period.

3 Percentages represent share to total trade between the Philippines and LAC region in the period 2005-2014. Due to data unavailability, the LAC group comprised only Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.

One of the frontrunners in the French presidential election, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, says she would suspend all legal immigration to France, BBC News reports.

The National Front (FN) leader told a rally that she wanted to stop “a mad, uncontrolled situation”.

Polls suggest she is neck and neck with centrist Emmanuel Macron, ahead of Sunday’s first round of voting.

Macron warned voters that choosing far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon would be like Cuba without the sun.

Opinion polls predict that Macron and Ms Le Pen will reach the second round on 7 May. But it looks like a very tight race.

According to an Elabe poll for news channel BFMTV, Macron is on course to get 24% of the vote in the first round, Marine Le Pen 23%, conservative Francois Fillon 19.5% and Mélenchon 18%.

Polls suggest that Macron would be favourite to win in the run-off.

At a rally in Paris, Ms Le Pen said “I would decide on a moratorium on all legal immigration to stop this frenzy, this uncontrolled situation that is dragging us down”.

After that, she said, France would introduce “much more drastic, more reasonable, more humane, more manageable rules” on immigration.

Left-wing daily Liberation called it “one of the most hardline speeches of her campaign”, aimed at satisfying grassroots supporters.

The Jakarta gubernatorial election tomorrow will be a test of pluralism and political Islam. It is also a litmus test of Indonesia’s moderate multiculturalism versus a hardline Islamism.

By Leonard C Sebastian*

The second round of the gubernatorial election this week on 19 April 2017 is slated to be a tight race between the incumbent governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama or Ahok and former Education Minister Anies Baswedan. The latest polling by a research outfit indicated that Anies had a slight edge at 47.9 percent over Ahok at 46.9 percent with 5.2 percent of voters undecided.

This election will be a litmus test of the strength of Indonesian pluralism. If Ahok prevails he will become the first elected Chinese Christian governor of Jakarta, demonstrating that the capital’s voters have chosen pluralism over racial and religious affiliation. In the first round contest among three pairs of candidates, Ahok had garnered some 43 percent of the vote despite an ongoing blasphemy case against him and huge protest rallies by hardline Islamists who attacked him on both racial and religious grounds. His rival, Anies Baswedan received 40% of the vote while the third candidate Agus Haryamurti Yudhoyono, secured only 17%.

Choice between Pluralism and Political Islam

This has been a polarising election, which was not just about choosing the Jakarta governor but had become a larger choice between pluralism and the possibility of hardline political Islam deepening its roots in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Both Ahok’s rivals, Anies and Agus, had wooed the support of hardline Islamist groups like the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), which were against non-Muslims holding high office in Indonesia.

Some observers say whether pluralism or Islamic radicalism wins will be captured in the results of the Jakarta election. Whoever wins, the capitulation of the largest moderate Islamic organisations in Indonesia to the Islamist wave is a trend that worries those who advocate democratic pluralism.

Should Ahok be returned as Jakarta governor it will bode well for President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) should he run for re-election in 2019 (possibly with Ahok as running mate). Should Anies win with the support of Muslim groups in Greater Jakarta, it will signify the entrenched position of Islamist groups with their hardline political Islam inclinations.

Religion as Fundamental Issue

The fundamental issue in the Jakarta election was religion. The emergence of hardline Islamic movements in recent years, whether through promulgation of shariah laws or realisation of more conservative attitudes constitutes a new phase of the relationship between state, democracy and Islam.

Hardline political Islam has long had a following in Indonesia, bubbling beneath the surface. Followers of more radical groups such as Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and Front Hisbullah Bulan Bintang have gradually grown in strength. But extremist Islam tends to rear its head sporadically with tragic results, and the occurrence of terror attacks and bombings increasing in recent years.

In a way the seven-million strong protest against Ahok over end-2016 was a reminder of the sway that hardline Islam has over segments in Indonesia. The FPI leader Habib Rizieq Shihab’s prominent direction of the events in November and December was deemed a victory for the Islamists over the moderate leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, the two largest Islamic organisations in Indonesia.

Carry Over To Presidential Elections 2019?

The brief outrage over Ahok’s comments belies a deeper-seated influence political Islam has over Indonesian politics and its persistent pursuit or promotion of Sharia over the years. Such perspectives are gaining wider acceptance.

If Ahok is found guilty of blasphemy the ruling has the potential of galvanising radical Islam and deal a setback for moderate Islam, which has traditionally characterised Islamic practice in Indonesia. NU and Muhammadiyah, with their long tradition of Islamic moderation and propagation of Islamic principles and values in line with lndonesian culture and local wisdom, would be cast as passive onlookers.

Their public agenda of the compatibility of democratic values with Islamic doctrines will be further strained. Their role in promoting plural and moderate Islamic values in domestic and foreign policy will be conscribed. And this trend may be carried into the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections.

*Associate Professor Leonard C Sebastian is Coordinator, Indonesia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and Adjunct Associate Professor, Australian Defence Force Academy, University of New South Wales.

By Karen Parrish

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis spoke to reporters after meetings today in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, touching on the kingdom’s leading role in regional security as well as on countering Iranian influence and negotiating peace in Yemen.

The secretary met with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud and Mohammed bin Salman, the deputy crown prince and defense minister. Mattis told reporters the meetings “could not have gone better.”

Saudis ‘Helping Across the Region’

The discussions were candid and highly productive, he said, calling Saudi Arabia “one of our best counterterrorism partners.”

“What was really obvious to me today was the regional leadership role of the Saudis, and how they’re helping across the region,” Mattis said, including supporting Jordan in caring for refugees who have fled the fighting in Syria, and also providing energy supplies and other support to Egypt “as they work through some really tough financial times.”

“It’s very clear that Saudi Arabia is stepping up to its regional leadership role … at a key time in terms of trying to restore stability in this key region in the world,” he said.

Iran’s Influence Stretches to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen

In response to a reporter’s question the secretary said that the United States remains watchful in assessing Iran’s regional influence, including its support to Hezbollah in Lebanon and its “thousands of fighters” in Syria helping to keep President Bashar Assad in power.

“Everywhere you look, if there’s trouble in the region, you find Iran,” Mattis said. “ … The nations in the region and others elsewhere are trying to checkmate Iran and the amount of disruption, the amount of instability they can cause.”

Turning to Yemen, the secretary said the goal is to push the conflict there into United Nations-brokered negotiations “to ensure that it ends as soon as possible.”

In January 2015, Houthi militiamen representing the Yemen’s Zaidi sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, took over the capital of Sanaa.

In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition began launching airstrikes against the Houthis. According to published reports, Jihadist militants from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and other affiliates of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria have meanwhile seized territory in the south of Yemen and mounted attacks in Aden, still under government control. The U.S. military has conducted a reported 70 airstrikes targeting the organization as of April 3.

Iran has backed the Houthi rebels with weapons, Mattis said, adding that some shipments have been intercepted by the French, Australian and U.S. navies.

“We will make progress on this, the international community will make progress on it,” Mattis said. “We will have to overcome Iran’s efforts to destabilize yet another country and create another militia in their image of Lebanese Hezbollah.”

The secretary said “the right path” for Yemen is to “get this in front of a negotiated peace [process] by the United Nations.”

By Ronald J. Granieri*

(FPRI) — As Europe digests the results of last Sunday’s referendum in Turkey and prepares for this weekend’s first round of presidential elections in France, Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom has added a further electoral entrée to the Continental smorgasbord. This morning, the PM announced her decision to call for an early parliamentary election, proposing that parliament dissolve on 3 May and that new elections take place on 8 June.

This announcement is not the first time that a British Prime Minister has called for a “snap” election before Parliament’s formal term expires, but it is the first time since the Fixed Term Parliaments Act tightened the regulations of such a decision. According to that law, parliamentary terms are set for five years (meaning the next scheduled general election would have been in 2020), unless a 2/3 supermajority in the House of Commons votes in favor of early dissolution. With PM May’s Conservatives and the main opposition Labour party each signaling support for the decision, that vote appears to be a foregone conclusion.

Why did May choose this course of action? In some ways, her motivations are the same as for other prime ministers who have called snap elections in the past. After winning the 2015 general election, the Conservatives have held a narrow majority in the house of Commons (330 of 650 seats), but since then, the Labour Party appears to be in such disarray that polls suggest an early election offers a real opportunity to widen their lead. Furthermore, Prime Minister May gained office not through that general election victory, but through intra-party maneuvering after her predecessor David Cameron’s decision to resign last year in the wake of the Brexit referendum. So, she has an interest in claiming an independent mandate as she attempts to guide the UK through the process of turning the vote for Brexit into reality.

Brexit is the issue which gives her decision a significantly different cast from previous snap elections. The May government formally triggered the two-year process of leaving the European Union on March 29, which means that by the end of March 2019, the UK will no longer be a member of the EU. The concrete shape of a post-EU United Kingdom—its relations with its former partners, and with the rest of the world, not to mention whether the UK, facing secessionist rumblings in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, will be united at all—will depend on the deals that Her Majesty’s Government is able to negotiate. Initially, hoping to avoid instability, May had declared her intention to work out those deals with her current majority, and then frame her 2020 re-election campaign as a referendum on her handling of Brexit. After several months of turbulent debates in both Houses of Parliament over the strategy of Brexit, however, May has apparently decided that she needs a clearer mandate from the British electorate to weaken opposition forces in all parties and perhaps even to send a message to frustrated “Remain” voters that she has the country behind her and that they should give up hopes of reversing the relatively narrow result of last years’ Brexit vote.

Political cynics would also mention that an electoral mandate would also make it easier for Prime Minister May to reshuffle her government. Mounting criticism of Foreign Minister Boris Johnson in particular has become a problem, especially because of the Foreign Office’s central role in Brexit talks. May put Johnson in Whitehall in the name of party unity during the maneuvers that brought her into No. 10 Downing Street. Firing the bumptious Brexiteer would thus be politically awkward. A strengthened, post-election May, however, could announce a Cabinet reorganization, putting people more loyal to her personally into key positions and clarifying the lines of responsibility.

So it is not difficult to see why calling an early election makes sense for the prime minister, even if critics such as Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon accuse her of “one of the most extraordinary U-turns in recent political history” and  “once again putting the interests of her party ahead of those of the country.”

There is the risk that a poor performance by the Tories could mean that May comes out weaker rather than stronger, but she has several factors in her favor. Most importantly, the Labour Party remains a disaster. Jeremy Corbyn’s weak and ambivalent role in last year’s Brexit referendum exposed deep divisions. Although he won re-election as party leader thanks to his popularity with the left-wing rank and file, many traditional Labour constituencies (working class voters in small towns as well as educated professionals in the big cities) are disillusioned. Polls indicate Labour is facing a debacle on the scale of Thatcher-era drubbings of 1983 and 1987.

Pro-EU voters may dream of using this election to re-run the Brexit referendum, but the British electoral system offers them little opportunity to do so. Conservative Remainers are likely to be wooed back into the fold by the desire to secure their party’s majority. Labour, worried about losing working class voters to the hard core Euroskeptics of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), are unlikely to make remaining in the EU part of their campaign. With the two major parties apparently focused on negotiating the terms of Brexit rather than rethinking it, the only party likely to stand up for remaining in the EU are the Liberal Democrats, who claim a surge in members over the past year but who are still smarting from their disappointing showing in 2015 and the criticism they earned for their coalition with Cameron and the Tories from 2010-2015. It will be worth watching to see if the LibDems rise in enough cosmopolitan boroughs to challenge May’s majority, but that is a long shot.

One party whose fate may depend on this election is the aforementioned UKIP. As the most enthusiastic Brexiteers, UKIP claimed victory in last year’s referendum, but since then, the party has been struggling to decide what it stands for. Should it simply count their winnings in shillings and pence and head off to the pub for a few pints (NOT half-liters) and a couple of appropriately curved bananas, assuming its work is done? Or should it attempt to position itself as a permanent fixture on the British political spectrum, a populist alternative to both major parties? Current poll numbers indicate the party’s future is unclear. The results of this election will tell us more about its future.

The last wild card in this discussion is the question of Scottish or Northern Irish secession, which deserves its own essay. Both of those regions voted to Remain in the EU, and in both, one hears a rising chorus speculating about exiting the UK. Nicola Sturgeon and her Scottish Nationalist Party have announced plans to push for a new independence referendum, but the result there is far from certain. If this general election follows the pattern set in 2015—Tory victories south of Hadrian’s Wall, SNP dominance in Scotland, and Labour gravely weakened—divisions between Westminster and Holyrood will only get deeper, no matter how big Theresa May’s majority in the House of Commons may be.

All of these moving parts remind us that these elections will not happen in a vacuum. If the past year has taught us anything, it is that electoral results can always surprise the most confident analysts, and results in one place can influence what happens in the next. The mere fact that the British will vote after the French have selected a new president, for example, may seal the fate of the EU even before the Germans go to the polls this fall. Or maybe not. We are still working through a substantial period of uncertainty, as weakened political establishments struggle to respond to populist challenges. Now that British voters will add their voices to the cacophony, harmony continues to recede into the distance.

About the author:
*Ron Granieri is the Executive Director of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West, Editor of the Center’s E-publication The American Review of Books, Blogs, and Bull, and Host of Geopolitics with Granieri, a monthly series of events for FPRI Members.  He is a specialist in Contemporary German and International History with degrees from both Harvard and the University of Chicago. He is the recipient of a Federal Chancellor Scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and is a member in the American Council on Germany’s Young Leader Program.

Source:
This article was published at FPRI

European election observers should not interfere in domestic politics, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday, reacting to a report by two missions which voiced concerns about this week’s referendum on presidential powers.

Cavusoglu was referring to comments by the OSCE and the Council of Europe, which warned about an unlevel playing field and a media landscape dominated by the government. He said the reports were incorrect and revealed “ignorance.”

Moreover, there are concerns raised by the opposition after the election commission allowed unsealed ballots to be counted. Observers said this decision, made in the afternoon of election day, removed an important safeguard against fraud.

“You cannot come to Turkey and interfere in its politics,” Cavusoglu said, calling the observer missions’ findings “biased.” He accused the OSCE of arriving with preconceived opinions.

Meanwhile, Turkish police detained 38 people in Istanbul over peaceful street protests that took place after Sunday’s referendum on expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers, opposition newspaper Birgun and activists reported.

Mesut Gecgel, one of the people detained in early morning raids, said on Twitter that he had been targeted by police for inciting people to protest and saying that the results were illegitimate.

Original source

A major international loan exhibition featuring more than 160 ancient Chinese works of art—including renowned terracotta army warriors—is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Synthesizing new in-depth research and archaeological discoveries of the last 50 years, the landmark exhibition Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.– A.D. 220) explores the unprecedented role of art in creating a new and lasting Chinese cultural identity. The works in the exhibition—extremely rare ceramics, metalwork, textiles, sculpture, painting, calligraphy, and architectural models—are drawn exclusively from 32 museums and archaeological institutions in the People’s Republic of China, and a majority of the works have never before been seen in the West. The exhibition also examines ancient China’s relationship with the outside world, Art Daily said.

Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, stated: “It is a great pleasure for us to present this magnificent assemblage of treasures from China. A project of such scale and scope could not be realized without the strong support and cooperation of lending organizations and their staffs. As the largest and most important display of Chinese art to be held in the United States in 2017, the exhibition establishes a new milestone in U.S.-China cultural exchange.”

“This exhibition is the culmination of our long history of collaboration with China that began in 1980,” said Maxwell, K. Hearn, Douglas Dillon Chairman of The Met’s Department of Asian Art. “We thank especially China’s State Council, Ministry of Culture and State Administration of Cultural Heritage, as well as both the U. S. Department of State and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for their steadfast support and guidance.”

Jason Sun, Brooke Russell Astor Curator of Chinese Art in The Met’s Department of Asian Art, stated: “The Han Empire represents the ‘classical’ era of Chinese civilization, coinciding in importance and in time with Greco-Roman civilization in the West. Like the Roman Empire, the Han state brought together people of diverse backgrounds under a centralized government that fostered a new ‘Chinese’ identity. Even today, most Chinese refer to themselves as the ‘Han people’—the single largest ethnic group in the world. Thanks to new scholarship as well as the extraordinary artifacts unearthed by archaeologists in the past 50 years, this exhibition offers many new art-historical, cultural, and political insights. I’m delighted that Age of Empires can introduce this largely unknown era of Chinese civilization to our global audience.”

The newly discovered super-Earth LHS 1140b orbits in the habitable zone around a faint red dwarf star named LHS 1140, in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster)[1].

Red dwarfs are much smaller and cooler than the Sun and, although LHS 1140b is ten times closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun, it only receives about half as much sunlight from its star as the Earth and lies in the middle of the habitable zone. The orbit is seen almost edge-on from Earth and as the exoplanet passes in front of the star once per orbit it blocks a little of its light every 25 days.

“This is the most exciting exoplanet I’ve seen in the past decade,” said lead author Jason Dittmann of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (Cambridge, USA). “We could hardly hope for a better target to perform one of the biggest quests in science — searching for evidence of life beyond Earth.”

“The present conditions of the red dwarf are particularly favourable — LHS 1140 spins more slowly and emits less high-energy radiation than other similar low-mass stars,” explains team member Nicola Astudillo-Defru from Geneva Observatory, Switzerland [2].

For life as we know it to exist, a planet must have liquid surface water and retain an atmosphere. When red dwarf stars are young, they are known to emit radiation that can be damaging for the atmospheres of the planets that orbit them. In this case, the planet’s large size means that a magma ocean could have existed on its surface for millions of years. This seething ocean of lava could feed steam into the atmosphere long after the star has calmed to its current, steady glow, replenishing the planet with water.

The discovery was initially made with the MEarth facility, which detected the first telltale, characteristic dips in light as the exoplanet passed in front of the star. ESO’s HARPS instrument, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher, then made crucial follow-up observations which confirmed the presence of the super-Earth. HARPS also helped pin down the orbital period and allowed the exoplanet’s mass and density to be deduced [3].

The astronomers estimate the age of the planet to be at least five billion years. They also deduced that it has a diameter 1.4 times larger than the Earth — almost 18 000 kilometres. But with a mass around seven times greater than the Earth, and hence a much higher density, it implies that the exoplanet is probably made of rock with a dense iron core.

This super-Earth may be the best candidate yet for future observations to study and characterise its atmosphere, if one exists. Two of the European members of the team, Xavier Delfosse and Xavier Bonfils both at the CNRS and IPAG in Grenoble, France, conclude: “The LHS 1140 system might prove to be an even more important target for the future characterisation of planets in the habitable zone than Proxima b or TRAPPIST-1. This has been a remarkable year for exoplanet discoveries!” [4,5].

In particular, observations coming up soon with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope will be able to assess exactly how much high-energy radiation is showered upon LHS 1140b, so that its capacity to support life can be further constrained.

Further into the future — when new telescopes like ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope are operating — it is likely that we will be able to make detailed observations of the atmospheres of exoplanets, and LHS 1140b is an exceptional candidate for such studies.

Notes:
[1] The habitable zone is defined by the range of orbits around a star, for which a planet possesses the appropriate temperature needed for liquid water to exist on the planet’s surface.

[2] Although the planet is located in the zone in which life as we know it could potentially exist, it probably did not enter this region until approximately forty million years after the formation of the red dwarf star. During this phase, the exoplanet would have been subjected to the active and volatile past of its host star. A young red dwarf can easily strip away the water from the atmosphere of a planet forming within its vicinity, leading to a runaway similar to that on Venus.

[3] This effort enabled other transit events to be detected by MEarth so that the astronomers could nail down the detection of the exoplanet once and for all.

[4] The planet around Proxima Centauri (eso1629 – http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1629/ ) is much closer to Earth, but it probably does not transit its star, making it very difficult to determine whether it holds an atmosphere.

[5] Unlike the TRAPPIST-1 system (eso1706 – http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1706/ ), no other exoplanets around LHS 1140 have been found. Multi-planet systems are thought to be common around red dwarfs, so it is possible that additional exoplanets have gone undetected so far because they are too small.

More than 30,000 fish species exist. But it’s always been a guessing game on where they originate. A new technique developed by researchers at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science is paving the way in discovering where a wide-range of species spawn. It’s a difficult task as 95% of fish in the world release their eggs into the water and drift away.

Marine biologists are gathering samples of hundreds of free-floating fish eggs in the Gulf of Mexico. They then extract DNA from each one and amplify and sequence a specific barcoding gene. That gene is then compared to a database, revealing the fish’s identity. Previous studies have looked for eggs belonging to a specific fish species. This work is groundbreaking as it determines the complete composition of fish egg communities, which could contain more than a dozen species.

“This is pioneering work. They can be underneath everyone’s noses for decades and no one would know it, they just get called fish eggs they have no idea what species they are,” said co-lead investigator Ernst Peebles.

Since the fish eggs are only a few hours old, this technique allows researchers to assign spawning locations with certainty, as opposed to methods of looking for older larvae which could have been floating in the ocean for weeks or even months. Identifying spawning sites will enable better management and protection of critical habitats for economically and ecologically important fish species in the Gulf of Mexico.

This innovative research is a positive outcome from the tragic Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It’s funded by the RESTORE Act, an acronym for Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States. In addition to the 2-year pilot study, USF researchers are competing to win funds for an additional 15 years of monitoring and special studies.

The results could provide an essential baseline of fish spawning habitats in the Gulf of Mexico, which is critical knowledge should another disaster occur.

In the first such continent-wide survey, scientists have found extensive drainages of meltwater flowing over parts of Antarctica’s ice during the brief summer. Researchers already knew such features existed, but assumed they were confined mainly to Antarctica’s fastest-warming, most northerly reaches.

Many of the newly mapped drainages are not new, but the fact they exist at all is significant; they appear to proliferate with small upswings in temperature, so warming projected for this century could quickly magnify their influence on sea level. An accompanying study looks at how such systems might influence the great ice shelves ringing the continent, which some researchers fear could collapse, bringing catastrophic sea-level rises. Both studies appear this week in the leading scientific journal Nature.

Explorers and scientists have documented a few Antarctic melt streams starting in the early 20th century, but no one knew how extensive they were. The authors found out by systematically cataloging images of surface water in photos taken from military aircraft from 1947 onward, and satellite imagery from 1973 on. They found nearly 700 seasonal systems of interconnected ponds, channels and braided streams fringing the continent on all sides. Some run as far as 75 miles, with ponds up to several miles wide. They start as close as 375 miles from the South Pole, and at 4,300 feet above sea level, where liquid water was generally thought to be rare to impossible.

“This is not in the future–this is widespread now, and has been for decades,” said lead author Jonathan Kingslake, a glaciologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “I think most polar scientists have considered water moving across the surface of Antarctica to be extremely rare. But we found a lot of it, over very large areas.”

The data are too sparse in many locations for the researchers to tell whether the extent or number of drainages have increased over the seven decades covered by the study.

“We have no reason to think they have,” said Kingslake. “But without further work, we can’t tell. Now, looking forward, it will be really important to work out how these systems will change in response to warming, and how this will affect the ice sheets.”

Many of the newly mapped drainages start near mountains poking through glaciers, or in areas where powerful winds have scoured snow off underlying bluish ice. These features are darker than the mostly snow-covered ice sheet, and so absorb more solar energy. This causes melting, and on a slope, liquid water then melts a path downhill through overlying snow. If the continent warms this century as projected, this process will occur on a much larger scale, say the authors.

“This study tells us there’s already a lot more melting going on than we thought,” said coauthor Robin Bell, a Lamont-Doherty polar scientist. “When you turn up the temperature, it’s only going to increase.”

Antarctica is already losing ice, but the direct effects of meltwater, which generally refreezes in winter, are probably negligible for now. The concern among glaciologists is that this could change in the future. Most loss right now is taking place near the edges, where giant, floating shelves of ice attached to the land are being eroded from underneath by warming ocean currents. The shelves, which ring three-quarters of Antarctica, help hold back the land-bound glaciers behind them, and as they lose mass, glaciers appear to be accelerating their march to the sea.

The most dramatic example is the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts far north from the main ice sheet, and where average temperatures have soared 7 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years. In 1995 and 2002, large chunks of the peninsula’s Larsen Ice Shelf suddenly disintegrated into the ocean within days. Scientists now suspect that pooling water was at work; liquid tends to burrow down, fracturing the ice with heat or pressure, or both, until a shattering point is reached. Today, another giant piece of the Larsen is cracking, and could come apart at any time.

Further south, temperatures have remained more or less stable, but many of the newly spotted streams there already make their way from the interior out onto ice shelves, or originate on the shelves themselves. That raises the specter that such collapses could happen across much vaster reaches of Antarctica this century, should warming proceed as expected, said Kingslake.

On the other hand, an accompanying study led by Bell found that a longtime drainage on West Antarctica’s Nansen Ice Shelf may actually be helping keep the shelf together. The elaborate river-like system on the 30-mile-long shelf was first observed in 1909, by a team from the expedition led by British explorer Ernest Shackleton. Aerial imagery and remote sensing since then shows it has remained remarkably stable, efficiently draining excess meltwater during summer through a series of deep sinkholes and a roaring 400-foot-wide waterfall into the ocean.

“It could develop this way in other places, or things could just devolve into giant slush puddles,” said Bell. “Ice is dynamic and complex, and we don’t have the data yet.”

Near the other pole, seasonal melt streams and ponds are far more common on the fast-warming Greenland ice sheet, and their growing influence may hold lessons. In recent years as much as 90 percent of Greenland’s ice surface has undergone some degree of seasonal melting. Much of the water probably stays at or near the surface and refreezes in winter. But in some areas, it is plunging through deep holes to underlying rock, lubricating glaciers’ slide to the sea.

In others, water may be refreezing near the surface into solid sheets that can more easily channel surface melt to the sea in succeeding seasons. Until recently, icebergs discharged from glaciers were Greenland’s main contributor to sea-level rise. But between 2011 and 2014, 70 percent of the 269 million tons of Greenland’s ice and snow lost to the ocean came directly from meltwater, not icebergs.

Antarctica’s visible drainages may be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Another study by a separate team published in January revealed that East Antarctica’s Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf harbors a largely invisible liquid drainage just under the snow. The team, led by Utrecht University polar scientist Jan Lenaerts, detected it using radar images and drilling. They suspect that such features lurk in many places. And unlike surface streams, these ones are insulated, so may stay liquid year-round.

Helen Fricker, a glaciologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography who was not involved the new studies, said of the continent-wide survey, “We knew there were other [melt] zones, but we didn’t know exactly how extensive they are. This is a really nice study, as it does just that.” Douglas MacAyeal, a glaciologist at the University of Chicago also not involved in the studies, said that until recently, “nobody’s been that interested in melting,” because most scientists thought it was relatively rare.

Now, he said, “We’re working hard to figure out if this stuff is relevant to sea-level predictions.”

Increasing crude oil production in the Permian basin of western Texas and eastern New Mexico is filling available pipeline capacity, putting modest downward pressure on West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil priced at Midland, Texas compared with WTI at Cushing, Oklahoma.

However, the Midland versus Cushing discount, which recently widened to more than $1 per barrel (b), is unlikely to be either as large or as persistent in 2017 as it was following the rapid increase in Permian production over 2010-14. Pipeline capacity expansions and other market changes now underway appear poised to facilitate the efficient disposition of higher volumes of Permian crude oil.

Compared with other oil producing regions, the Permian has a large number of productive geological formations stacked in the same area, including the Wolfcamp, Bonespring, Spraberry, and Yeso-Glorieta formations. The Permian’s other favorable characteristics are in-region refining capacity, close proximity to large refining centers on the Gulf Coast, and existing pipeline infrastructure.

Crude oil production in the Permian grew by 593,000 barrels per day (b/d) between January 2010 and January 2014, more than could be accommodated by in-region refinery capacity and pipeline capacity. This situation resulted in large price discounts at the crude gathering and transportation hub in Midland, Texas compared with Cushing, Oklahoma, indicating that the marginal barrel of crude oil was moving out of the region via a mode of transport more expensive than by pipeline. In 2014, WTI-Midland averaged a $6.94/b discount to WTI-Cushing, compared with a $1.68/b average discount the prior year. However, as new and expanded pipeline capacity was added in 2014 and 2015, WTI-Midland’s discount to WTI-Cushing narrowed, falling to an average of only $0.07/b in 2016 (Figure 1).

In contrast to trends in the Bakken and Eagle Ford plays, where production generally declined throughout 2015 and 2016 as oil prices fell significantly below their 2011 through mid-2014 level, production in the Permian Basin continued to grow over these years. With the rise in oil prices from their low point in early 2016, EIA’s April Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) expects crude oil production growth in the Permian to accelerate. EIA’s April Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) indicates a total of 310 oil-directed rigs active in the Permian, 158 more than the same time last year. The DPR also estimates crude oil production in the Permian at 2.2 million b/d, already 232,000 b/d higher than the same time last year (Figure 2).

Pipeline infrastructure in the Permian is now better equipped to handle new production than it was in 2014. Several of the pipelines that came online to accommodate rising Permian production in 2014 (Magellan’s BridgeTex pipeline, Sunoco Logistics’ Permian Express pipeline, and Plains All American’s Cactus pipeline) are undergoing expansions set to come online later this year, adding approximately 340,000 b/d of capacity.

In addition to expansions of existing pipelines, Enterprise Product Partners is building a new Midland-to-Houston pipeline with a capacity of 450,000 b/d that is also expected to come online later this year. Other pipeline expansions are planned for gathering systems and intra-Permian pipeline infrastructure to bring increasing production to the larger pipeline origin points like Midland. After 2017, several more new pipelines and expansions are planned or are in the planning stages that could carry potential further increases in Permian production.

Other developments in the Gulf Coast have also opened up new markets for Permian crude oil. New and expanded pipelines along the Gulf Coast completed in the past several years resulted in Gulf Coast markets becoming more interconnected. These developments allow Permian crude oil production to make its way to refining centers in Corpus Christi and Houston in Texas, St. James in Louisiana, and points in between.

The increased interconnectedness of Gulf Coast crude oil markets also increases access to crude oil export infrastructure, which has become a more relevant advantage with the lifting of export restrictions on domestically produced crude oil in December 2015. Access to international markets provides an additional outlet for increased Permian production.

With expanded pipeline takeaway capacity and access to more domestic and international buyers, increased volumes of Permian crude oil production would likely be disposed of without the significant price discounting that occurred in 2014.

U.S. average regular gasoline and diesel retail prices climb

The U.S. average regular gasoline retail price rose over one cent from the previous week to $2.44 per gallon on April 17, up 30 cents from the same time last year. The Gulf Coast price increased five cents to $2.24 per gallon, the Rocky Mountain price increased over four cents to $2.38 per gallon, the East Coast price increased over two cents to $2.40 per gallon, and the West Coast price increased one cent to $2.88 per gallon. The Midwest price fell two cents to $2.34 per gallon.

The U.S. average diesel fuel price rose two cents to $2.60 per gallon on April 17, 43 cents higher than a year ago. The West Coast and Midwest prices each increased two cents to $2.88 per gallon and $2.54 per gallon, respectively, while the Rocky Mountain, East Coast, and Gulf Coast prices each rose one cent to $2.65 per gallon, $2.63 per gallon, and $2.46 per gallon, respectively.

Propane inventories fall

U.S. propane stocks decreased by 0.7 million barrels last week to 39.6 million barrels as of April 14, 2017, 29.3 million barrels (42.5%) lower than a year ago. Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories decreased by 0.6 million barrels and 0.2 million barrels, respectively, while East Coast inventories fell slightly, remaining essentially unchanged. Midwest inventories increased by 0.1 million barrels. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 6.4% of total propane inventories.

Bangladesh has launched a unique war on home grown militants with clear ideological linkages with the Islamic State, even while dismissing speculations regarding the IS presence in the country. Raids on militant dens, killings and arrests of militants have followed bigger and smaller terror attacks on Bangladeshi soil. Much of these terror neutralisation strategy, however, has remained mired in controversy and laced with allegations that the Awami League government could be attempting to protect its own interests while killing terrorists. This strategy of eliminating terrorism by eliminating terrorists may not be entirely effective, as Dhaka’spast endeavours demonstrate.

Overview

On 28 February 2017, 25-year old Amijul Islam was picked up by the Bangladesh police from Rajshahi district. A follow up official statement proclaimed Amijul to be the military chief (northern region) of the neo-Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a militant group Dhaka describes as responsible for a number of terror attacks in the country in the past couple of years. Amijul’s family members, however, said that the young man was a petty electrician who struggled to make  a living by doing odd jobs. In the wee hours of 1 March, Amijul was killed in Bogra district. Police explained that Amijul who had been taken to the district to recover weapons and arrest his accomplices was shot by extremists who attacked the police van.

Similarly, 30-year old Khaled Hasan alias Badar Mama, the previous chief of neo-JMB’s north Bengal division too was killed in a mysterious pre-dawn shootout in Sherpur district on 29 August 2016.Badar Mama was allegedly involved in an attack on a temple and a bid to kill an Italian priest in 2015. In another incident, Hanif Mridha, arrested after the 17 March 2017 suicide attack on the barracks of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB),the country’s elite anti-crime and counter-terrorism force, died in custody the next day. While RAB claimed that Hanif, a neo-JMB cadre, was picked up while hiding in a bush, Mridha’s family members, however, claimed that he had been picked up by the police personnel on 27 February, three weeks before his death along with another friend Md Sohel Hossain Mantu. They also claimed that RAB personnel forced them to pay Tk 670,000 (US$ 8300) promising Hanif’s release. Hanif had a thriving transport business before his arrest. Sohel Hossain Mantu remains untraceable.

Kinetic operations plus

As Dhaka continues its counter-terrorism efforts against Islamist radicalism, especially after the 1 July 2016 terror attack on the popular Holey Artisan restaurant in Dhaka’ upmarket Gulshan area that killed 22 people, stories of such raids, encounters, and arrests appear on the front pages of newspapers, narrating the country’s progress in dealing with terror with an iron fist. Successive kinetic counter-terror operations- ‘Hit back’, ‘Maximus’, ‘Twilight’, ‘Storm 26′-have all been declared successes and have apparently ended up diminishing the strength of the Islamists. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, since the Holey Artisan restaurant attack, 78 Islamist terrorists have been killed and another 907 arrested across Bangladesh.

Arrested militants dying during incidents of crossfire or failed escape attempts, an euphemism for staged encounters, has at least a decade-long history in Bangladesh. The country broke the back of the ragtag left-wing extremism by relying on a similar tactic killing hundreds of so called extremists. Since 2005, the same tactic has been employed to subdue a new crop of militants. And Bangladesh earnestly believes that it can eliminate terrorism by eliminating terrorists. On September 3, 2016, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan had said: “If you do not give yourself up to the law enforcement agencies, you will face what your accomplices have experienced in the immediate past operations.”

Killings of Amijul, Badar Mama, Hanif Mridha and others, thus, need to be seen in the wider context of the impunity that anti-terror forces such as the RAB, the police and the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) may have been provided with, to clean up Bangladesh. It is possible that majority of those eliminated were indeed terrorists. Even then, were they neutralised under a regime that promotes excesses and extra judicial killings and what would be the long and medium-term impact of such a strategy remain moot questions. That the ‘national’ desire to have a stable and trouble free Bangladesh may have eclipsed the principles of law was brought out by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in its 28 March 2017 report which criticised the country for high rates of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, muzzling of dissent and free speech. In addition, Bangladesh based human rights organisations like Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) and Odhikar have documented the unceasing extrajudicial killings despite a 2008 promise by the Awami League in its election manifesto. According to the ASK, between 2010 and 14 March 2017, 793 such killings have taken place. The ASK says that killings have particularly increased since the formation of the RAB in 2004. “The incidence of ‘crossfires’ and ‘gunfights’ has increased in the name of ‘anti-militant drives’, it notes in a number of its documents. In 2017 (between 1 January and 14 March), at least 51 people were killed in gunfights or crossfires. Of them, 38 people were killed by police, six by RAB, five by Detective Branch (DB) police, one by joint forces and one by the army, according to an ASK report.

On 4 April 2017, Sveriges Radio, Sweden’s national publicly-funded broadcaster, aired parts of a conversation with a high-ranking RAB official.  The official, who himself has been involved in a number of extra judicial killings, confirmed that not all killing of militants are clean. “If you find him – shoot and kill him, wherever he is. And then plant a weapon beside him. This is often the order.” The official also said that such weapons are bought out of the money RAB collects from the criminals as bribes. He went on to explain the raison de etre: victims of extrajudicial killings are usually “people who they suspect of serious crimes, but who they consider too difficult to convict in a trial, or impossible to rehabilitate”. The RAB dismissed the report as “vague” and “unclear” and affirmed that it operates “in line with law”.

A Unique Effort

Notwithstanding the contradictory claims of the human rights groups and the security force establishment, massive operations against the Islamists in Bangladesh remains part of its unique counter terrorism policy. Firstly, as it continues to witness large as well as small terror attacks since past few years, the Awami League government continues to reject the claims and assumptions that the Islamic State could have been responsible for a majority of these attacks. Rejecting the claims made by the IS and evidences of inspirational linkages between the IS and the home grown radicals, Dhaka insists that the home grown neo-JMB is responsible for these terror attacks. Peculiarly, however, official estimates concede that the neo-JMB which surfaced in 2014, “is far more radicalized and fearsome” and is “influenced by the IS ideology”. Secondly, the country’s leadership  genuinely believes that reliance on a kinetic approach alone is sufficient to deal with such brand of terrorism. The official approach is best summed up in the 8 October 2016 statement of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who said, “Our government has always taken stern action against terrorism and militancy and would continue to curb the twin demons with an iron hand”.

IS and Home-grown terror: Evidence of Linkages

Notwithstanding its denial, several pointers prove the ideological, logistical as well as inspirational  linkages between the IS and the Islamist radicals within Bangladesh.

Firstly, with regard to an end state, there is little that separates the JMB and the IS-inspired terrorists. Through the pamphlets left at the sites of the explosions in 2005, the JMB proclaimed itself to be the “soldiers of Allah” who have “taken up arms for the implementation of Allah’s law the way Prophet, Sahabis and heroic Mujahideen have done for centuries”. The Islamic State’s proposed caliphate works towards a similar objective, rejecting modernism and embracing anti-secular jihad against the apostates.

Secondly, Bangladeshi nationals have periodically featured in IS-sponsored videos calling for taking forward the group’s agenda of making Bangladesh a part of the proposed Islamic caliphate. Attacks have typically followed major IS announcements. The 17 March 2017 attack on the RAB barracks in Dhaka took place two days after the IS’ call for suicide attacks within Bangladesh.

Thirdly, amid IS claims owning responsibilities for a bulk of the attacks, investigations have established that funds, at least on one occasion, was donated to the neo-JMB terrorists by a doctor who fled to Syria. Rokonuddin Khondoker, a paediatrician of Dhaka Shishu Hospital who fled to Syria with his family in 2016 had asked several of his relatives and others who owed him around Taka 8 million (US$ 100,000) to give the money to the radical group instead of paying him back.Only a part of this money, however, reached the outfit. In addition, there have been instances when funds were moved from middle eastern countries into Bangladesh for carrying out terror attacks.

Fourthly, the pattern of attacks, since the attack on the Holey Artisan Cafe, too point at the consolidation of the IS in Bangladesh. Most recent attacks by the neo-JMB have targeted the security forces. This is a common occurring in countries where local outfits have graduated to become IS sympathisers. In Indonesia and Philippines, for instance,the recent IS-inspired attacks have mostly targeted the state structure.

Fifthly, the fact that suicide terrorism, arguably representing the highest state of radicalisation among the recruited, has been regularly employed in Bangladesh further point at a stark likelihood of IS influence over the trend of Islamist radicalism. In a country of moderate Islam, where culture is assigned prominence over religion, the terror formations have been able to recruit a sizeable number of people who are prepared to kill themselves in the name of religion. The neo-JMB carried out its first ever suicide attack on 26 December 2015 on an Ahmadiyya mosque in Rajshahi’s Baghmara. Since then a number of such attacks using suicide bombers have been carried out.

Contestations over Name

Even though similar attempts in the past to kill terrorists have not entirely succeeded in eliminating terrorism (the neo-JMB bounced back within few years of the marginalisation of its predecessor), Dhaka’s action reflects its concern regarding the rise of radicalism in the country. In this regard, the denial appears strange, although not completely out of place.

Firstly, Dhaka’s posture is a legacy of the past. There is an official history to this tactic of denying what is obvious. Even while the JMB carried out over 450 serial explosions in 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts in August 2005, then Home Minister of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) flatly refused to acknowledge the existence of the outfit. BNP’s senior policy makers described the bombings as the result of a “conspiracy”. Then Industries minister Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), BNP’s coalition partner, blamed India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Israeli Mossad for playing “an important role” in the attacks. It took eight days for the BNP government to admit that the JMB was behind the attack.

Secondly, Dhaka fears that admitting the intrusion of the IS into may affect the investment environment, especially in the country’s thriving garment industry, whichhas withstood world economic meltdowns and competitions from rival countries. Garment industry in Bangladesh is worth US$26 billion, represents 80 percent of Bangladesh’s exports, and employs four million people.Demonstrating that the terror is perpetrated by local actors who can be curbed effectively by state, the government hopes to prevent steps of the foreign brands who pulled out their staff following the 1 July Holey Artisan restaurant attack.

And thirdly, Dhaka also feels that admitting the IS presence may weaken its ongoing action against the Pakistan collaborators in the 1971 war of liberation. For a good measure the neo-JMB is linked to outfits like the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chattra Shibir many of whose leaders have either already been hanged or are currently facing judicial action. There is some level of pressure from the Americans and the British on Dhaka to go slow on this processes which have been described as hasty and not entirely legal.

Conclusion

There is no denying that Islamist militancy poses a grave danger to Bangladesh’s security antid stability. However, the ability of kinetic operations alone to deal with the threat which has deep roots in the country’s polarised politics and unhindered mobilisation of radical Islam is limited. Since such efforts in the past against the JMB have only been temporarily successful, there are ample reasons to believe that present efforts, no more than replicas of the past, will only produce limited results. Moreover, with a licence to kill and arrest people, many of whom would probably be innocents, without legal oversight, such operations may actually contribute to the recruitment and mobilisation capacities of the Islamists.

References:

Ahmed Zayeef, “Died in RAB custody, Hanif picked up 20 days ago: Family”, Prothom Alo, 20March 2017, http://en.prothom-alo.com/bangladesh/news/142775/Died-in-RAB-custody-Hanif-picked-up-20-days-ago

“Bangladesh police kills JMB commander behind temple attack”, The Hindu, 29 August 2016, http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/Bangladesh-police-kills-JMB-commander-behind-temple-attack/article14596390.ece

Ben Chapman, “Bangladesh clothing industry hit by terror attack fears as fashion brands pull staff out”, Independent, 5 July 2016, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bangladesh-terror-attack-travel-warning-fashion-clothing-companies-marks-and-spencer-uniqlo-h-and-m-a7121066.html

Bibhu Prasad Routray, “The JMB survives”, Outlook, 8 February 2007, http://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/the-jmb-survives/233825

Haroon Habib, “Warning blasts”, Frontline, vol. 22, no. 19, 10-23 September 2005, http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2219/stories/20050923001106200.htm

Kamrul Hasan and Tarek Mahmud, “Suicide bomber attacks RAB barracks”, Dhaka Tribune, 17 March 2017, http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2017/03/17/one-killed-blast-near-rab-camp-ashkona/

Mahadi al Hasnat, “Extrajudicial killings: 51 die in three months”, Dhaka Tribune, 19 March 2017, http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2017/03/19/extrajudicial-killings-51-die-three-months/

“Terror Financing: Rokon gave Neo JMB Tk 80 lakh”, Daily Star, 19 October 2016, http://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/terror-financing-rokon-gave-neo-jmb-tk-80-lakh-1300675

“Swedish radio report on extrajudicial killings vague: RAB”, BD News, 5 April 2017, http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2017/04/05/swedish-radio-report-on-extrajudicial-killings-vague-rab

“Terror financing in Bangladesh: Dhaka doctor gave Neo JMB $100,000″, Asia News network, 19 October 2016, http://asianews.network/content/terror-financing-bangladesh-dhaka-doctor-gave-neo-jmb-100000-30783

“UN criticizes Bangladesh over dismal human rights record”, UCA News, 4 April 2017, http://www.ucanews.com/news/un-criticizes-bangladesh-over-dismal-human-rights-record/78845

The strong response by the United States (US) to Syria’s use of chemical weapons has added uncertainty to an already volatile situation in that region. This also marked a stark departure from a policy of avoiding military intervention in Syria. Why did the US change course? Would it be a ‘game-changer’ for the Syrian situation and cast a long shadow on US-Russia relationship, hitherto described as ‘cosy’ since Mr Donald Trump became the US President?

By Maj. Gen. Neeraj Bali (Retd.) *

Launched from the Mediterranean Sea at 2.40 AM local time on Friday, 7 April 2017, the 59 subsonic Tomahawk cruise missile strike on the remote and relatively nondescript Syrian airbase at Al Shayrat is unlikely to significantly alter the complex and bloody game underway in Syria. The extent of damage at the base – assessed by different quarters as extensive, including six soldiers (a British based human rights organization claimed that a General was among the killed), nine civilians, 20-25 aircraft (US sources), six MiG 23 aircraft (spokesman for Russian military) and nine aircraft (Russian journalist present on the base) – is not even the point. It was a demonstration of force, no less and no more. The question to be answered is – what did it seek to achieve? And hidden in that answer are clues to what might happen next.

Most experts would agree that the US was hustled into this action. Having routinely criticised Obama’s policy as feckless and timid, President Trump had already boxed himself into a corner. The irony that Trump had all along been vocally opposed to armed action against Syria is, of course, now buried beneath a mountain of forgotten tweets. Embattled at home and unwilling to appear indecisive to his base, the President had to act.

Even if compulsions of domestic politics are discounted and the US action viewed purely as a signal of its principled opposition to the use of banned chemical agents against hapless civilian population, clearly the goals are limited. No one is under any illusion that this would loosen Bashar al-Assad’s grip over large parts of Syria, much less catalyze a regime change. Nor can it significantly prop up the flagging morale and fortunes of the rebel forces. If it has introduced a new element into the narrative, it is this: there could be a slowing down of the train that Assad and his allies were driving with impunity and shrinking the opposition held swaths of territory in an increasingly one-sided war; as it is known, after Aleppo was captured by Assad’s forces in December 2016, he had complete control over every major urban centre. But this is based on the premise that, unprecedentedly, Assad – and Putin – would blink.

The attack certainly hasn’t prompted any visible equivocation in Russia vis a vis its solidly unwavering support of the Assad regime. That expectation is a far cry, because Russia does not even accept – or at least postures not to believe – that Syria is in possession of chemical weapons. It was Russian assurances after the agreement it brokered with Syria in 2013 for complete elimination of chemical weapons that restrained Obama’s hand. And yet, if the US version that chemical attacks using the deadly Sarin nerve agent on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province killing 84 civilians and injuring another 546 originated from Al Sharyat is accurate, it presents a telling commentary on the Russian sincerity to enforce that agreement years after it was signed because Russians were present at that base in significant numbers.

Following the attack, the Russian criticism of the US has been unequivocal. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called it “an act of aggression” “under a far-fetched pretext”, reminiscent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq without the consent of the UN. Speaking to Pravada, the Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defence and Security Viktor Ozerov remarked that, ‘everything that Donald Trump has said before about Syria has lost its meaning…..but we will respond to this.’ This, however, appeared to be routine rhetoric and there have been no other indications that Russia will retaliate beyond the token measures it has already adopted; even as Putin’s office characterized it as a ‘significant blow’ to US-Russia relations and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev pontificated that bilateral relationship had been ‘completely ruined’, the response on ground barely rose above tokenism.

The Russian military rescinded an agreement of sharing information relating to Syrian airspace to obviate accidents and pulled the plug on a hot-line. Russian news agency TASS also reported that a frigate would visit the logistics base at the Syrian port of Tartus. Beyond such symbolism, there has been no other response. While the the editor-in-chief of the Moscow-based National Defence magazine Igor Korotchenko told TASS that arguably the Syrians had no air defence mechanism at that base, others appear to dispute this assertion. Indeed, the Director of the Centre of Strategic Conjuncture Ivan Konovalov was at pains to explain the reason for Syrian inability to use its advanced S-400 Air Defence systems to thwart incoming Tomahawks because its employment required clearance from Moscow. The conclusion is unmistakable – Russia did not sanction the activation of the retaliatory mechanism, even though it had 60 to 90-minute advance notice of the attack from the US so that its 100-odd experts were not caught in the harm’s way.

Could it be then that Russia is not averse to pressurizing Assad to some extent? There have been a few speculations in the recent past that the Russians were beginning to tire of the recalcitrant Assad, who has been singularly unwilling to make any concessions or join peace talks.

By all accounts, the attack is a one-off demonstration and apparently bereft of the benefit of a thought-through strategic follow up. What are the next political and military steps? Brookings quoted Daniel Byman of the Center for Middle East Policy that this did not appear to be part of a coherent strategy but was “more as an attempt at therapy to salve our anguished conscience”. It has certainly inserted the US into conflagration without any clarity on the trajectory it might assume, particularly if there are future actions by Syria or Russia that militate against US ‘ideals’ and goals. Would Putin use this as an opportunity to escalate the conflict with enough calibration to establish his dominance and render the US action as an empty gesture, unviable to follow up?  It is hard to see that Russia would simply ignore this attack and lose ground in Syria and the Middle East.

The first pointers to the future were to emerge from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Moscow on 11 April. Prior to the visit, Maria Zhakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry was reported by TASS as pointedly saying that Tillerson will be asked to comment on ‘the strange things they did’ and will be educated on ‘everything we think about it.’ That sounds frosty. But the signals that have emanated from the visit are mixed and confusing. After keeping Tillerson in suspense, Putin finally met him but no insight was offered on the content of the parleys. Foreign Minister Lavrov, however, publicly disagreed with Tillerson and went as far as to offer a lengthy tutorial for Mr. Tillerson about all the examples of American-led regime change in the world — from Slobodan Milosevic to Saddam Hussein to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi — that went bad, suggesting it made no sense to add President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to the list.

There had been some indications in the recent past that the Russians were getting weary of Assad and by implication could, therefore,  welcome some pressure to force him to parleys. But that prognosis appears to have come to nothing; Russia stood by Syria and vetoed a Security Council draft resolution for investigation of the chemical attack in Syria.

Russia might also await the response from Beijing before taking its next step; even though President Xi Jinping who was dining at Mar-a-Lago when the decision was shared with him, hasn’t offered a public comment, China is unlikely to stay silent over unilateral use of force by the US. China held its cards close to chest and abstained during the 12 April UN vote to condemn the gas attack.

It is impossible to read tea-leaves with any certainty but it appears that the US action is fated either to go down as a tactical blip or an unintended invitation to Putin to stamp his authority on the region or as a catalyst for unintended US entry into a conflict that is pregnant with possibilities, all violent and bloody.

Only Mr Putin knows the answer. And, alas, he does not tweet.

*Maj Gen Neeraj Bali (Retd) is an Infantry Veteran who served the Indian Army for over 37 years. A MSc and MPhil in Defence Studies, he is an alumni of the Asia Pacific Centre of Security Studies, Hawaii, US. He served as Security Advisor in Lesotho, Southern Africa. Views expressed in this article are the author’s and not of Mantraya.