The United States, Japan, and South Korea held a trilateral secure video-teleconference yesterday to share and coordinate policy response toward North Korea, according to a Defense Department statement.

Chris Johnstone, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia; Koji Kano, Japan director for defense policy; and Brig. Gen. Park Cheol Kyun, South Korean deputy director general for international policy, led their respective interagency delegations, according to the statement.

The three leaders strongly condemned any North Korean action that poses a threat to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, the statement said.

The United States reaffirmed its ironclad security commitments to South Korea and Japan, according to the statement.

The three parties also resolved to bolster trilateral cooperation and coordination to enhance regional security, the statement said.

The European Commission said Tuesday that it won’t require visas for Canadian and American nationals. The Commission said that the European Parliament resolution calling on the Commission to suspend the visa waiver for Canadian and American nationals would be counterproductive.

The Commission said, “in view of the significant progress achieved during the last year and the positive momentum of ongoing work, the temporary suspension of visa waivers for nationals of Canada and the United States would be counterproductive at this moment and would not serve the objective of achieving visa-free travel for all EU citizens”

The Commission argued that its diplomatic approach meanwhile has already started to bring tangible results: Canada lifted the visa requirements for some categories of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens on May 1, 2017 and is set to achieve full reciprocity as of December 1, 2017 and contacts have been re-launched with the new US administration to push for full visa reciprocity for the five EU Member States concerned.

According to Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs, and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos, “Our goal is and remains to obtain full visa reciprocity with both Canada and the U.S. Our continued engagement and patient diplomatic contacts over the past year have brought tangible results already with Canada, and we are committed to proceeding in the same way with the U.S. Dialogue with our strategic partners is the right way forward and we are on the right track.”

The Commission reported on visa reciprocity in April, July and December, welcoming the clear timeline provided by Canada for achieving full visa reciprocity for all EU citizens and committing to re-launching efforts with the new U.S. administration with the aim of agreeing on a way forward for the five EU Member States concerned in the first half of 2017.

Canada

On October 30, 2016, Canada provided a clear timeline for achieving visa reciprocity for all EU citizens and has so far delivered on this commitment by lifting visa requirements on some categories of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens as of May 1, 2017. The Commission welcomes Canada’s continued engagement and will remain in close contact with Bulgaria, Romania and Canada, both at technical and political level, to ensure that full visa reciprocity is achieved by 1 December 2017.

The United States

During the last months, contacts with U.S. interlocutors at the political and technical level were intensified, leading to the launch of a result-oriented process to bring the five EU Member States (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania) into the Visa Waiver Program.

The U.S. reconfirmed its commitment to admit the five EU Member States into the Program once they meet all the requirements set out by U.S. legislation. To this end, the need to accelerate the necessary work on the outstanding requirements was stressed. The Commission, in close cooperation with the five Member States concerned, said it will work with the U.S. on a way forward to be endorsed in a Joint Statement by the EU-U.S. Justice and Home Affairs Ministerial Meeting in June 2017.

(EurActiv) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on a rare visit to Russia, said that Berlin and Moscow had to keep talking despite their disagreements, but those same differences overshadowed her talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

At a news conference following a meeting in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, diverging positions were aired over Syria, Ukraine, Russian respect for civil rights, and allegations Moscow is interfering in other countries’ elections.

Their body language suggested tensions: their facial expressions as they spoke to reporters were stern, and the two leaders barely looked at each other.

“I am always of the view that even if there are serious differences of opinion in some areas, talks must continue,” Merkel said. “You must carry on, because otherwise you fall into silence and there is less and less understanding.”

Merkel was making her first bilateral visit to Russia since Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014, a move that set off the worst confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

Since Germany is holder of the rotating presidency of the G20 group of leading nations this year, Merkel has been meeting key members in preparation for a summit.

Asked by a reporter if she feared Germany could be subject to Russian attempts to interfere in its forthcoming parliamentary election by disseminating fake news, Merkel took a firm line.

“I am not an anxious person, I will fight the election on the basis of my convictions,” she said, adding Germans would deal decisively with any cases of false information.

But Putin, standing alongside her, bristled at the suggestion Russia had meddled in the US presidential election and that it was planning more of the same in Europe.

Allegations about Russia trying to get Donald Trump elected as US president were “rumors”, Putin said, generated as part of internal political battles in the United States.

“We never interfere in the political life and the political processes of other countries and we don’t want anybody interfering in our political life and foreign policy processes,” said Putin.

Ukraine’s shaky peace

On the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists are fighting Kiev’s rule, Putin and Merkel said they agreed on the need for the full implementation of the Minsk agreement, an internationally-brokered peace deal that is now effectively stalled.

Putin however launched into an attack on the pro-Western administration in Kyiv, saying it — and not Russia or its allies — was forcing the separatist region away from Ukraine. That contradicts Berlin’s position.

“The events in eastern Ukraine are the result of a coup d’état, an unconstitutional change of power in Kiev,” Putin said, referring to street protests that forced out Ukraine’s previous, Moscow-leaning leader.

Asked by a reporter about a deadly poison gas contamination in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, which Western governments said was a chemical weapons attack by Syrian government forces, Putin said that was unproven.

Touching on a sensitive point for the Russian authorities, Merkel said she had raised concerns with Putin about police breaking up anti-Kremlin protests, as well as other issues that human rights organizations say are a cause for alarm.

Those include reports, denied by the local authorities, that homosexuals are being detained and tortured in the Russian region of Chechnya, and a Supreme Court ruling last month banning the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious group as extremist.

“I have in my talks with the Russian president indicated how important the right to demonstrate is in a civil society and how important the role of NGOs is,” Merkel said.

“We have heard some very negative reports about the treatment of homosexuals in Chechnya and I asked President Vladimir Putin to use his influence to guarantee minority rights here as well as with Jehovah’s witnesses.”

Putin denied that Russian police had violated protesters’ rights by arresting them, and fired a barb back at his European counterparts.

“Russia’s law-enforcement bodies behave in a far more restrained manner than their colleagues in other European countries,” Putin said, without specifying which countries he had in mind.

On Tuesday, 46 US Senators, led by Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), re-introduced federal legislation to ban discrimination against LGBT Americans.

The legislation was filed simultaneously in the U.S. House of Representatives by 194 Representatives, led by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI).

“For far too long, the door of discrimination has been slammed shut on LGBTQ Americans. It’s been slammed shut on equality, it’s been slammed shut on opportunity, and this must end,” said Senator Merkley. “It’s time to have the Equality Act on the floor of the House and the floor of the Senate for a full debate.”

“Fairness and equality are core American values. But millions of LGBT Americans are still viewed as less than equal in the eyes of the law today,” said Representative Cicilline. “I’m proud to introduce the Equality Act of 2017 with Senator Jeff Merkley. This bill ensures that every LGBT person can live their lives free from the fear of discrimination. Above all, it’s about honoring the values that have guided our nation since its founding. It’s critical that Congress pass the Equality Act into law.”

“Every American deserves the freedom and opportunity to dream the same dreams, chase the same ambitions, and have the same shot at success,” said Senator Baldwin. “A growing number of Americans recognize that their LGBT family members, friends, and neighbors deserve to be treated like everyone else in the United States. Yet today in America, in the majority of states, LGBT Americans live without the protection of fully-inclusive non-discrimination laws. I believe America is ready to take the next steps forward in the march for fairness, equality, and opportunity for every American. It is time to take bold legislative action. The Equality Act will help us ensure that we are passing on to the next generation a country that is more equal, not less.”

“The Equality Act builds on the work of those who have struggled and fought for LGBT rights by extending basic civil rights protections that must be guaranteed to every American,” Senator Booker said. “We must never stop fighting to achieve justice for those who endure discrimination because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.”

“In just the first 100 days, the Trump Administration has tested the limits of executive power, violated sacred American values, and shaken the very foundation of our constitutional order. Now, more than ever, we need to shine a light on the existing injustice in our laws that allows discrimination to flourish, and commit to eliminating it with the same fervor that has brought LGBTQ rights to this point. The Equality Act will do just that – and we are going to keep fighting to prevent the backsliding of any hard-won rights under this new administration. Because, in the end – when you fight for it – equality always prevails in America,” said U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer. “I want to thank my Senate and House colleagues – Senator Merkley, Leader Pelosi, Senator Baldwin, Senator Booker, and Congressman Cicilline in particular – who have been leading the fight to achieve and protect equal rights for all LGBTQ Americans.”

“More than ever, we must send a clear message to the LGBTQ community—President Trump does not represent who we are as a nation and we stand ready to reject all forms of discrimination,” said Senator Patty Murray. “I am committed to building on the unpreceded momentum we’ve seen since the election to move forward the Equality Act and lay out a vision for the kind of country we all know we can be—one where respect is valued and hate is pushed back.”

Despite major advances in equality for LGBT Americans, including nationwide marriage equality, the majority of states still do not have explicit LGBT non-discrimination protection laws.

The Equality Act of 2017 would ensure full federal non-discrimination equality by adding sexual orientation and gender identity to other protected classes, such as race or religion, in existing federal laws.

The bill would explicitly ban discrimination in a host of areas, including employment, housing, public accommodations, jury service, access to credit, and federal funding.

The bill would also add protections against sex discrimination in parts of anti-discrimination laws where these protections had not been included previously, including in public accommodations and federal funding.

By Jon LeSage

Speaking this week at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in New York, Total SA’s chief energy economist, Joel Couse, forecasted that EVs will make up 15 to 30 percent of global new vehicle sales by 2030.

Oil demand for transportation fuel see its “demand will flatten out,” after 2030, Couse said. “Maybe even decline.”

Colin McKerracher, head of advanced transport analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, sees Couse’s forecast as the highest EV sales margin yet to be forecasted by a major company in the oil sector.

“That’s big,” McKerracher said. “That’s by far the most aggressive we’ve seen by any of the majors.”

Royal Dutch Shell Plc sees a similar trend with oil demand in transportation flattening out in the near future. Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said in March that oil demand may peak in the late 2020s. In November during an interview, Shell CFO Simon Henry said that demand is expected to peak in about five years.

Shell and Total SA have been looking to diversify their energy assets through hydrogen as a transport fuel. In January, both companies joined a global hydrogen council that included Toyota, Liquide SA, and Linde AG. The companies will be investing about $10.7 billion in hydrogen products over the next five years.

Like hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, electric vehicles have major walls to climb to find mass adoption in vehicle sales and infrastructure. One barrier is the cost of owning an electric vehicle versus a cheaper, comparable gasoline-engine vehicle. The battery pack in an EV can be quite expensive, making up half the cost of the car, according to BNEF.

Backers of EVs point to two trends fast approaching the market; with one being the longer range, 200-plus-miles per charge EVs coming to market like the Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3. The higher-priced versions of the Tesla Model S and Model X are thought to be a sign of it, with consumers willing to finance or lease one of these EVs to gain access to more power and longer range.

Automaker are feeling pressed by strict emissions reduction rules in Europe and China, with other markets like the U.S., Japan, and South Korea having similar standards.

Auto Shanghai has been a showcase for existing and startup automakers launching several EVs to the China market, with some of them ending up overseas.

It’s helping that lithium ion battery prices are dropping about 20 percent year, as automakers spend billions on electrifying their vehicle lineups. Volkswagen wants to see at least 25 percent of its vehicles sold in 2025 to be EVs. Toyota is moving toward selling zero fossil-fuel powered vehicles by 2050.

Another sign that the Total SA report carries some weight is the diverse and broad portfolio of EVs that automakers till be rolling out on the market soon.

“By 2020 there will be over 120 different models of EV across the spectrum,” said Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “These are great cars. They will make the internal combustion equivalent look old fashioned.”

Electric cars only make up about 1 percent of global vehicle sales, so making it to 30 percent in the short-term future would be a huge leap. Analysts point to a few market forces that need to be addressed before that technology takes off in sales. Among those issues are pre-incentive prices coming down, distance per charge going up beyond 300 miles, and the fast charging infrastructure becoming pervasive and cost competitive to gas pumps.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Big-Oil-Betting-On-Electric-Vehicles.html

Neonicotinoid pesticides hinder wild queen bumblebee’s reproductive success, according to a new University of Guelph study.

The study is the first to link exposure to thiamethoxam — one of the most commonly used neonicotinoid pesticides — to fewer fully developed eggs in queens from four wild bumblebee species that forage in farmland.

“Queen bees will only lay eggs when the eggs are fully developed,” said Prof. Nigel Raine, holder of the Rebanks Family Chair in Pollinator Conservation.

If queens need to use energy to clear pesticides from their system instead of investing in eggs, then fewer fully developed eggs will result, he said.

“This will likely translate into slower egg-laying rates, which will then impede colony development and growth.”

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the study was conducted by Raine, along with Mark Brown and Gemma Baron from Royal Holloway University of London.

Neonicotinoids are one of a number of factors contributing to the decline of bees and are currently being phased out or restricted in several countries including Canada.

The researchers examined the impacts of exposing queen bumblebees to thiamethoxam during the spring when they emerge from hibernation and are preparing to lay their first eggs and establish a colony.

“Given the vital role spring queens have in maintaining bumblebee populations, we decided to focus on assessing the impacts at this stage in the life cycle,” said Raine, a professor in the School of Environmental Sciences. “These spring queens represent the next generation of bumblebee colonies.”

Worker bees from those first eggs are needed to clean and guard the nest, find food and tend to the next batch of eggs. Without those workers, the colony will likely fail, said Raine.

In this study, about 500 queen bees from four species were caught in early spring and for two weeks were fed syrup treated with pesticide doses similar to levels found in pollen and nectar in the wild. They were then observed for another two weeks before they were frozen, dissected and examined.

The researchers found that across all four species the queen bees that were given higher doses of thiamethoxam had smaller, less-developed eggs than the queens not exposed to the pesticide.

Raine suspects the metabolic costs associated with the detoxification required from pesticide exposure results in a reduced amount of nutrients available for other biological processes such as egg development.

The researchers also found queen bees from two of the four species ate less nectar after being exposed to thiamethoxam.

“If their feeding rates drop off, the queens go into a dormant state,” said Raine. “They won’t have enough energy to fly or to collect pollen to feed their larvae. They may not even have enough resources to lay eggs.”

The fact that queen feeding behavior was impacted by exposure to thiamethoxam in only two of the four bee species highlights the reality that sensitivity to pesticides differs among bee species, added Raine.

“Most of the work to determine levels of toxic exposure to pesticide has used honeybees as a model pollinator. But our findings show that bee species vary in their level of sensitivity to pesticides, which is important information that should be factored into regulatory decisions on these chemicals.”

By Matt Hadro

Civic and religious leaders this week addressed a disturbing rise in religious hate crimes in recent years, especially harassment and violence perpetrated against Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs.

“While it is clear that Sikh Americans are not alone in experiencing a rise in hate crimes, the experience of our community is important to understand how dangerous this current era of inflammatory rhetoric promises to be if action is not taken,” Dr. Prabhjot Singh, a Sikh physician, said in his May 2 written testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, a Sikh doctor, and the civil rights division at the Justice Department on “responses to the increase in religious hate crimes” in the U.S.

“Crimes against Jews are the most common religious hate crimes and they have increased,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the committee, noted, but Islamophobic incidents rose the sharpest amongst all religious groups with a 67 percent spike from 2014 to 2015 according to FBI statistics.

Although overall hate crimes, including crimes based on race, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity, went down in number from 2000 to 2015, religion-based hate crimes went up 23 percent from 2014 to 2015, Eric Treene, special counsel for religious discrimination at the Justice Department’s civil rights division, pointed to FBI statistics.

Dr. Singh, in his written testimony, told of how Sikhs are only one of many religious groups in the U.S., yet violence against them is representative of a worsening in religious bigotry.

Singh was violently beaten by a mob on the streets of New York City in 2013. As he lay awaiting treatment for his injuries in the hospital, he learned that the Muslim woman lying next to him in the emergency room wearing a hijab, or a religious headscarf, was attacked by the same group of young men.

“They threw a bottle of urine at her face, cutting her nose,” he said. Yet reporters who documented Singh’s attack in a story did not mention the assault on the Muslim woman because, in Singh’s words, “they said it would complicate the story, which was about a professor and doctor who was ‘mistakenly’ attacked in his own neighborhood.”

“We cannot accept this premise,” he insisted in his Tuesday testimony. “There is no such thing as a ‘mistaken’ hate crime. No one should ever be targeted. The only mistake is thinking otherwise.”

The attack, he continued, was only the latest incident in a rash of harassment and violence against Sikhs in the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

“Some of our fellow Americans,” Singh said, “call us ‘ragheads and towelheads,’ or ‘ISIS and Al Qaeda.’”

“Ominously, the Sikh Coalition has consistently found that a majority of Sikh students in our nation’s public schools experience bias-based bullying and harassment,” he added. “Some of our children are accused of being ‘terrorists.’ Others have had their turbans ripped off.”

Sadly, these attacks are part of a larger landscape of “threats, arson, assault, and murder” against Muslims, Jews, Hindus, African-Americans, and LGBTQ persons, he said.

“We seem to be backsliding into a new nativist era. This endangers us all,” he said.

Anti-Semitic and Islamophobic acts rose in 2016 in the presidential election and have continued in 2017, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, explained in his testimony.

Anti-Semitic incidents rose by over one-third in 2016 with “1,266 acts targeting Jews and Jewish institutions,” according to the ADL 2016 audit of incidents.

The campaign only intensified tensions that had already been aggravated, he added.

“And anti-Semitic abuse has soared on social media,” he noted, as “hateful, anti-Semitic invective” flourished on the mediums during the election season as well as harassment of Jewish journalists by white supremacists including the use of “triple parentheses, to publicly ‘tag’ Jews online.”

The election “featured harshly anti-Muslim rhetoric and anti-Semitic dog whistles,” he said, “and fostered an atmosphere in which white supremacists and other anti-Semites and bigots feel emboldened and believe that their views are becoming more broadly acceptable.”

President Trump’s “initial reluctance to address rising anti-Semitism” has helped normalize this bigotry, Greenblatt said, and some of his supporters played a direct role in it.

“Much of the vandalism and harassment used slogans sourced from the Trump campaign such as ‘Make America Great Again,’” he said. Incidents during and after the election – anti-Semitic graffiti and assault – were perpetrated with expressed support for Trump.

In addition, in the election there were “stereotyping of many groups, including women and immigrants, threats to ban Muslims from entering or living in the country, pronouncements that Islam ‘hates’ America, mocking of disabled people, and political candidates attacking one another based on their physical appearance,” he said.

Dr. Singh said he “was horrified to hear our President last weekend telling thousands of people at a rally that immigrants are snakes waiting to bite America,” he referred to Trump’s words at a recent rally in Harrisburg, Pa.

“Words matter, and when political leaders divide and dehumanize us, this lays the groundwork for hate to infect our society,” he stated.

All this has not only continued in 2017, but the number of incidents has spiked sharply, Greenblatt said.

He noted 161 bomb threats against Jewish synagogues or buildings so far and three reported desecrations of Jewish cemeteries.

“The bomb threats against JCCs, schools, ADL offices, and other community institutions in dozens of states across the country attracted very considerable attention,” he said, “causing evacuations, significant service disruptions, program cancellations, and deep community anxiety.”

Some of the threats were graphic in nature, warning of a “bloodbath” or the decapitations of Jews in explosions.

Action must be taken to stem these incidents, witnesses insisted. Preventative measures could include mandatory reporting laws for hate crimes, a federal inter-agency task force on hate crimes, and public officials speaking out against bigotry.

Dr. Singh shared how his son will soon enter Kindergarten, yet according to statistics, will probably be the victim of bigotry.

“These young years are formative, and how children are treated tells us so much about who we are as a nation, and who we aspire to be,” he said.

By Eriks Selga*

(FPRI) — The recently exposed “Russian Laundromat” scandal alerted the world to a $20 billion money laundering scheme that bankrupted three of Moldova’s largest banks, forcing the country to apply for—and eventually receive—an IMF bailout. Half of the laundered money travelled through a Latvian bank. This piece of news is not the first time Latvia’s financial system has been used to launder money. Though Latvia has recently worked towards fixing this problem, money laundering has negatively affected Latvia’s relations with other countries as well as its ability to participate in certain international organizations.

Globally, each year, people and organizations launder funds equivalent to an estimated 2% to 5% of the world’s GDP. Recent efforts to re-capture the resources and prevent further laundering have shifted attention towards implementing better anti-money laundering systems. For Latvia, the issue has become particularly salient given the country’s accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in June 2016. Weaknesses in anti-money laundering prevention systems were among the primary obstacles delaying OECD accession, especially with regard to monitoring bank deposits of non-residents.

Latvia’s Money Laundering Problem

Latvia faces money laundering risks for several reasons. Once its economy stabilized after the 2008 financial crisis, Latvia gained the reputation as a safe place to store money, attractive to investors from less stable Eurasian countries such as Russia and its neighbors. Together with low taxes and Russian-speaking financial professionals, Latvian banks are convenient for residents of the former USSR member countries. They are particularly appealing to elites and business owners seeking sanctuary from capricious governments. By moving their capital into more reputable Latvian banks, residents of less stable former Soviet nations ensure these funds are beyond the reach of their own states. Their money is guarded from financial and political instability and can access the broader Western market, circumventing stricter regulation in other countries.

Most of Latvia’s 16 banks cater almost solely to foreign clients. At the end of 2016, the share of foreign deposits in the Latvian banking system was 43%. About 70% of these deposits are held for on-demand corporate transaction purposes. In other words, about a third of Latvian bank deposits is unmoored money that can be relocated instantly.

Foreign deposits have a higher risk of money laundering. The majority of the banks implicated by the Financial and Capital Markets Commission, the Latvian financial supervisory authority, for failing to satisfy money laundering prevention requirements cater to non-residents. This situation creates risks for Latvia. Higher rates of money laundering dampen foreign direct investment. It also heightens the risk of volatility of international capital flows, because laundered money typically comes from very short-term investments. A reputation for tolerating money laundering can erode the stable foundation a country needs for healthy economic and financial development. The risks are particularly relevant to Latvia, which houses one percent of all global U.S. dollar transactions. Instability in its financial system caused by money laundering could have region-wide effects.

While the influx of capital may be positive in the short term, the mobility of non-resident funds in Latvia renders it undependable. In theory, Latvia is well equipped to handle the risk of rapid withdrawal of foreign deposits. Liquidity stress tests in 2015 indicated that several of Latvia’s banks would become illiquid only at the removal of 90% of the non-resident deposits—an event that is not very likely. However, if such an outflow occurred, the mass exodus would shave several percentage points off of Latvia’s GDP from the multiplier effect alone.

There is no clear measure for how much money is laundered through Latvian banks. However, several key instances demonstrate that the problem is significant. In 2013, the Financial and Capital Markets Commission levied a fine against a Latvian bank in the Sergei Magnitsky whistle-blower case, concerning the laundering of $230 million that was stolen from the Russian treasury allegedly by Russian tax officials and police officers. At least $63 million of the stolen capital was moved through six Latvian banks to get to offshore companies.

Further claims include a single Latvian bank which was alleged to be responsible for transferring $13 billion derived from fake debt created in several countries. Latvian banks have been alleged to hold several million dollars from a Ponzi scheme run by the U.S.-based Rockford Funding Group, LLC. A leaked document from the Panama Papers asserts that the Iranian government attempted to use Latvian banks to circumvent sanctions. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) alleges that various Latvian banks are not just “disinterested parties,” but at the very least, “directly involved” in money laundering activity. Several banks have used offshore shell companies based in tax havens such as Panama or Belize. Most recently, the FBI has alleged that two Latvian banks are holding at least $28 million of illegally obtained money from the company behind Kickass Torrents, the world’s most popular file sharing site.

Cleaning the Dirty Laundry

While the above cases may be isolated incidents, the OECD also investigated the systematic strength of Latvia’s money laundering prevention structures. On the outset, the Financial and Capital Markets Commission and other financial institutions are required to file unusual and suspicious transaction reports to the Latvian Financial Intelligence Unit, supervised by the Prosecution Office. In turn, the unit forwards filtered information to law enforcement. However, only 222 of the 28,000 suspicious transaction reports sent to law enforcement went to Latvia’s Corruption Combating and Prevention Bureau for corruption-related investigations. OECD and the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and Financing of Terrorism have posed that this number as “extremely low” in light of Latvia’s corruption risks.

The connection between money laundering and corruption is easy to trace. Pressure for oversight of the banking sector on a national level should come from parliament, though the executive branch is responsible for implementing rules. Either branch can inhibit development of expertise among public officials, or turn a blind eye. In turn, any missing link in the prevention chain can be critical to the success of a money laundering operation. While corruption is the hardest crime to filter out, it is also among the most important factors to countering money laundering. If senior public officials and politically exposed persons are not monitored for the abuse of their office for private gain, then high profile money laundering is more likely.

To that end, the Corruption Combating and Prevention Bureau—the primary authority responsible for investigating corruption—is undergoing systematic organizational issues stemming from mismanagement and institutional politics. It is in a state of organizational flux. With “internal warfare” and “political whirlpools” creating public scandals, and over 15 senior civil servants having left, the institution suffers in its capacity to carry out daily tasks. As noted by the OECD, research into domestic corruption and the number of public officials tried for corruption is “steadily decreasing” with fewer and fewer serious cases being pursued. To make a bad situation worse, only one director of the Bureau has finished a full term in office, and was not considered fit for a second term due to participation in the aforementioned scandals. The position of director has been empty since mid-November 2016. The continued instability of the Corruption Combating Bureau severely detracts from Latvian oversight capacity and directly increases corruption risk within public institutions.

These factors paint a dark picture of Latvian anti-money laundering enforcement capacity. Yet, a broader frame of reference provides a different view. Latvia has bolstered its banking system framework since regaining independence in 1991. For example, major bank reforms were passed in 2005 after two Latvian banks were labeled “rogue actors” and were forbidden access to the U.S. market. From 1991 to the present, Latvia reduced its number of banks from 62 to just 16.

Banking Policy Changes

The year of OECD accession climaxed in tighter anti-money laundering regulations. By implementing OECD recommendations and taking into consideration Financial Action Task Force guidelines, Latvia strengthened its anti-money laundering measures via major legislative changes. This new legislation was reflected in practice as the government levied sanctions against 11 Latvian banks between 2014 and 2016. Almost all of the sanctions concerned failure to implement properly money laundering prevention systems. While most banks received minor penalties, one bank had its license removed, and another was prohibited from offering financial services to clients in Latvia. These enactments indicate a change from a “laissez-faire attitude” towards money laundering in the country.

The main concern now is whether Latvia will continue to increase anti-money laundering enforcement. Though Latvia proved capable of tough measures against negligent banks, most punitive measures have been more symbolic in nature. It is evident that the Financial and Capital Markets Commission does not want to reduce the competitive market advantage Latvia has in comparison to neighbors even though new external deposits fell by almost 30% in 2016 compared to 2015. It remains to be seen whether foreign deposits will continue to decrease at a similar rate in the upcoming years, indicative of an effective warning against money-launderers. The momentum from the Commission is a stark juxtaposition to the Corruption Combating Bureau or the Latvian Financial Intelligence Unit—the trends in combatting the underlying issue of corruption have been negative.

For Latvia, this may mark a challenging period. Balancing heightened anti-money laundering obligations with a highly competitive international banking market will require constant effort. First, enforcement of money laundering legislation must not be allowed to weaken. Second, more resources must be allotted to combatting the corruption which fosters a sense of security for high-profile money launderers. Third, in doing so, the nation should not be too eager to sacrifice its economic advantage solely for international rapport. Latvia has taken great strides against money laundering, and accession to the OECD is evidence of this fact. While further steps are needed to address the underlying issues of financial oversight capacity, Latvia must also ensure it retains its reputation as a stable financial center.

About the author:
*Eriks K. Selga is an Associate Scholar at FPRI’s Eurasia Program and a lawyer at PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal Latvia.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

For the past decade, the number of Russians infected with HIV has increased ten percent every year and now exceeds 1.5 million – slightly more than one percent of the population and a figure that exceeds the ability of the Russian health care system to cope, according to Federal Press’s Aleksandr Sadovnikov.

The situation is compounded, the journalist reports, by the presence in Russia of “more than 100,000” people in Russia on a temporary basis – mostly gastarbeiters – as well as by a shortage of money for medicines. As a result, 20 percent of those infected still die each year either from AIDS, other illnesses or suicides (fedpress.ru/article/1782143).

The epidemic is not equally spread across Russia, Sadovnikov continues. Half of all the new cases of HIV infection are from only 22 of the country’s subjects, with six regions – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Moscow oblast, Krasnoyarsk kray, and the Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous District being the leaders.

A major reason for the continuing worsening of the situation in Russia, the journalist says, is that HIV infections have now passed from traditional risk groups – drug users, prostitutes and their clients, and those with “non-traditional sexual orientation” – to the population at large, with homeless children, pregnant women, medical workers and migrants especially at risk.

Nonetheless, “more than 90 percent” of infections come from just two activities – drug use and unprotected sex – with just under half of these from sexual contacts.

A few days ago, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered an expanded effort to prevent the spread of HIV and treat those with AIDS, but experts say that while the government’s expanded focus is welcome, the success of this effort will depend on whether Moscow funds the effort and follows up, something it has not done in the past.

Gaza is the world’s largest open air prison. The West Bank is a prison, too, segmented into various wards, known as areas A, B and C.  In fact, all Palestinians are subjected to varied degrees of military restrictions. At some level, they are all prisoners.

East Jerusalem is cut off from the West Bank, and those in the West Bank are separated from one another.

Palestinians in Israel are treated slightly better than their brethren in the Occupied Territories, but subsist in degrading conditions compared to the first-class status given to Israeli Jews, as per the virtue of their ethnicity alone.

Palestinians ‘lucky’ enough to escape the handcuffs and shackles are still trapped in different ways.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon’s Ein el-Hilweh, like millions of Palestinian refugees in ‘shattat’ (Diaspora), are prisoners in refugee camps, carrying precarious, meaningless identification, cannot travel and are denied access to work.  They languish in refugee camps, waiting for life to move forward, however slightly – as their fathers and grandfathers have done before them for nearly seventy years.

This is why the issue of prisoners is a very sensitive one for Palestinians. It is a real and metaphorical representation of all that Palestinians have in common.

The protests igniting across the Occupied Territories to support 1,500 hunger strikers are not merely an act of ‘solidarity’ with the incarcerated and abused men and women who are demanding improvements to their conditions.

Sadly, prison is the most obvious fact of Palestinian life; it is the status quo; the everyday reality.

The prisoners held captive in Israeli jails are a depiction of the life of every Palestinian, trapped behind walls, checkpoints, in refugee camps, in Gaza, in cantons in the West Bank, segregated Jerusalem, waiting to be let in, waiting to be let out. Simply waiting.

There are 6,500 prisoners in Israeli jails. This number includes hundreds of children, women, elected officials, journalists and administrative detainees, who are held with no charges, no due process. But these numbers hardly convey the reality that has transpired under Israeli occupation since 1967.

According to prisoners’ rights group, ‘Addameer’, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned under military rule since Israel commenced its occupation of Palestinian territories in June 1967.

That is 40 percent of the entire male population of the Occupied Territories.

Israeli jails are prisons within larger prisons. In times of protests and upheaval, especially during the uprisings of 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were subjected to prolonged military curfews, sometimes lasting weeks, even months.

Under military curfews, people are not allowed to leave their homes, with little or no breaks to even purchase food.

Not a single Palestinian who has lived (or is still living) through such conditions is alien to the experience of imprisonment.

But some Palestinians in that large prison have been granted VIP cards. They are deemed the ‘moderate Palestinians’, thus granted special permits from the Israeli military to leave the Palestinian prison and return as they please.

While former Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat was holed up in his office in Ramallah for years, until his death in November 2004, current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is free to travel.

While Israel can, at times, be critical of Abbas, he rarely deviates far from the acceptable limits set by the Israeli government.

This is why Abbas is free and Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, (along with thousands of others) is jailed.

The current prisoners’ hunger strike began on April 17, in commemoration of ‘Prisoner Day’ in Palestine.

On the eighth day of the strike, as the health of Marwan Barghouti deteriorated, Abbas was in Kuwait meeting a group of lavishly dressed Arab singers.

The reports, published in ‘Safa News Agency’ and elsewhere, generated much attention on social media. The tragedy of the dual Palestinian reality is an inescapable fact.

Barghouti is far more popular among supporters of Fatah, one of the two largest Palestinian political movements. In fact, he is the most popular leader amongst Palestinians, regardless of their ideological or political stances.

If the PA truly cared about prisoners and the well-being of Fatah’s most popular leader, Abbas would have busied himself forging a strategy to galvanize the energy of the hungry prisoners, and millions of his people who rallied in their support.

But mass mobilization has always scared Abbas and his Authority. It is too dangerous for him, because popular action often challenges the established status quo, and could hinder his Israeli-sanctioned rule over occupied Palestinians.

While Palestinian media is ignoring the rift within Fatah, Israeli media is exploiting it, placing it within the larger political context.

Abbas is scheduled to meet US President Donald Trump on May 3.

He wants to leave a good impression on the impulsive president, especially as Trump is decreasing foreign aid worldwide, but increasing US assistance to the PA. That alone should be enough to understand the US administration’s view of Abbas and its appreciation of the role of his Authority in ensuring Israel’s security and in preserving the status quo.

But not all Fatah supporters are happy with Abbas’ subservience. The youth of the Movement want to reassert a strong Palestinian position through mobilizing the people; Abbas wants to keep things quiet.

Amos Harel argued in ‘Haaretz’ that the hunger strike, called for by Barghouti himself, was the latter’s attempt at challenging Abbas and “rain(ing) on Trump’s peace plan.”

However, Trump has no plan. He is giving Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, carte blanche to do as he pleases. His solution is: one state, two states, whichever ‘both parties like.’  But both sides are far from being equal powers. Israel has nuclear capabilities and a massive army, while Abbas needs permission to leave the Occupied West Bank.

In this unequal reality, only Israel decides the fate of Palestinians.

On his recent visit to the US, Netanyahu articulated his future vision.

“Israel must retain the overriding security control over the entire area west of the Jordan River,” he said.

Writing in the ‘Nation’, Professor Rashid Khalidi expounded the true meaning of Netanyahu’s statement.

By uttering these words, “Netanyahu proclaimed a permanent regime of occupation and colonization, ruling out a sovereign independent Palestinian state, whatever fiction of ‘statehood’ or ‘autonomy’ are dreamed up to conceal this brutal reality,” he wrote.

“Trump’s subsequent silence amounts to the blessing of the US government for this grotesque vision of enduring subjugation and dispossession for the Palestinians.”

Why then, should Palestinians be quiet?

Their silence can only contribute to this gross reality, the painful present circumstances, where Palestinians are perpetually imprisoned under an enduring Occupation, while their ‘leadership’ receives both a nod of approval from Israel and accolades and more funds from Washington.

It is under this backdrop that the hunger strike becomes far more urgent than the need to improve the conditions of incarcerated Palestinians.

It is a revolt within Fatah against their disengaged leadership, and a frantic attempt by all Palestinians to demonstrate their ability to destabilize the Israeli-American-PA matrix of control that has extended for many years.

“Rights are not bestowed by an oppressor,” wrote Marwan Barghouti from his jail on the first day of the hunger strike.

In truth, his message was directed at Abbas and his cronies, as much as it was directed at Israel.

By Jonathan Cook*

The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas met with Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday to discuss reviving the long-cold corpse of the peace process.

Back home, things are heating up. There is anger in the West Bank, both on the streets and within the ranks of Abbas’s Fatah movement. The trigger is a two-week-old hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners.

Last Thursday, Palestinians shuttered their businesses in a show of solidarity, and the next day youths clashed with the Israeli army in a “day of rage”.

About a quarter of the 6,500 political prisoners held by Israel – almost all of them in Israeli territory, in violation of international law – are refusing food in protest at their degrading treatment. They want reforms to Israel’s industrial system of incarceration. Some 800,000 Palestinians – 40 per cent of males – have passed through Israel’s cells since 1967.

Israel hopes to break the prisoners’ spirits. It has locked up the leaders in solitary confinement, denied striking inmates access to a lawyer, taken away radios, and last week began confiscating salt rations – the only sustenance along with water the prisoners are taking.

The strike is led by Marwan Barghouti, the most senior Palestinian leader in jail – and the most popular, according to polls.

Abbas is publicly supportive of the strikers, but in private he is said to want the protest over as quickly as possible. Reports at the weekend revealed that he had urged Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to intercede with America and Israel to help.

In part, Abbas fears the influence of Barghouti, a man often described as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela and seen as Abbas’s likely successor. Notably, the Palestinian president has repeatedly sidelined him within Fatah.

But Abbas is also concerned that the hunger strike will provoke violent clashes in the West Bank with Israeli security forces, damaging his efforts to persuade Trump to back his diplomatic campaign for Palestinian statehood.

Instead, he wants to prove he can snuff out any signs of what Trump might see as “terrorism”. That requires tight security cooperation with Israel.

The visit to Washington and the hunger strike have brought into sharp relief the biggest fault line in the Palestinian national movement.

Abbas’s strategy is strictly top-down. Its starting point is that western states – those that have consistently betrayed the Palestinian people over many decades – can now be trusted to help them attain a state.

From this dubious assumption, Abbas has sought to suppress anything that plays badly in western capitals. Pressure has only intensified under Trump.

By contrast, the “battle of empty stomachs” is evidence of a burgeoning bottom-up strategy, one of mass non-violent resistance. On this occasion, the demands are limited to prison reform, but the strike’s impact could spread.

Not least, the model of protest, should it succeed, might suggest its relevance to a Palestinian public disillusioned with Abbas’s approach. They too are living in cells of Israel’s devising, even if larger, open-air ones.

The starkly different logic of these two strategies is harder than ever to ignore.

To stand a hope of winning over the Trump administration, Abbas must persuade it that he is the sole voice of the Palestinians.

That means he must keep a lid on the hunger strike, encouraging it to fizzle out before prisoners start dying and Palestinian fury erupts across the occupied territories. His approach is reported to be creating severe tensions within Fatah.

Wishing only to add to those difficulties, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded last week that Abbas halt financial aid to the prisoners’ families, calling it compensation for terrorism.

Abbas also feels compelled to assert himself against his Hamas rivals in Gaza. That is why last week he stopped funding the fuel needed to generate electricity there, having recently cut medical services and salaries to Gaza’s civil servants.

His hope is that, as he turns the screws, Hamas will be toppled or forced to submit to his rule.

But more probably, the fissure with Hamas will deepen, forcing the cornered Islamist movement into another bloody confrontation to break free of Israel’s decade-old blockade. These divisions, most Palestinians increasingly understand, weaken rather than strengthen their cause. Mass non-violent resistance such as the hunger strike, by contrast, has the potential to reunite Fatah and Hamas in struggle, and re-empower a weary Palestinian populace.

Reports have suggested that Barghouti has reached a deal with jailed Hamas leaders committing to just such a struggle in the occupied territories once Abbas has departed.

A popular struggle of non-violence – blocking settlement roads, marching to Jerusalem, tearing down walls – would be hard to characterize as terrorism, even for Trump. It is the Israeli army’s nightmare scenario, because it is the only confrontation for which it has no suitable response.

Such a campaign of civil disobedience, however, stands no chance of success so long as Abbas is there to undermine it – and insists on obediently chasing after illusions in Washington.

(A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.)

*Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit his website: www.jonathan-cook.net.

Malaysia’s Islamist party PAS held its 63rd congress amid huge publicity of a full and complete break from the opposition alliance. The bigger significance, however, is what this all means and what future direction PAS will take.

By Yang Razali Kassim*

On April 29, 2017, soon after the evening call to prayer, a freak storm broke out where the 63rd PAS Muktamar or party congress and elections were being held in Alor Star, Kedah. Many tents collapsed, injuring several people, though none too seriously. The PAS breakaway party, Amanah, was swift to issue a statement of sympathy. PAS president Hadi Awang later described the strong wind as a divine test for PAS – “as well as our opponents”.

The storm, an unprecedented event during a muktamar, however, did not derail the PAS congress, nor distract it from its main agenda: to chart a new course through the much bigger tempest in Malaysian politics. Indeed the big question on everyone’s mind was what kind of PAS would emerge from the gathering.

No Ordinary Congress

This year’s PAS muktamar was significant. Firstly, it was a party election year – and just before the country’s 14th general election which has to be called by mid-2018, but widely expected sometime this year. Secondly, PAS was to decide whether to make the final breakaway from the opposition coalition which it helped form two elections ago. All eyes were on a formal termination of its political cooperation pact – tahaluf siyasi – with the last of its opposition links, the People’s Justice Party (PKR) led by the wife of Anwar Ibrahim.

Thirdly, this complete break, if ultimately endorsed by PAS’ Majlis Shura Ulama (Council of Ulama), would be as good as launching PAS on its own trajectory, while possibly sinking any lingering chances of dethroning the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (BN) led by Prime Minister Najib Razak’s UMNO. Indeed, ahead of the PAS congress, there was much talk that Najib would exploit PAS’ final break with the opposition alliance Pakatan Harapan (PH) by calling the widely-expected GE14 before the Ramadan fasting month starts in the last week of May.

Going forward, the muktamar threw up a clearer picture of what the Islamist party could look like after the 2015 purge of its core of politically-savvy reformists and professionals. All signs seemed to point to a “new” or repositioned PAS emerging, striking out on its own leading a third bloc, and playing the role of a kingmaker – two key words quite frequently heard during the congress week.

Indeed, the Alor Star muktamar also threw up some early signs of PAS forging a new vision and strategy of going alone in an increasingly unpredictable, and uncertain, political landscape. This explains why PAS seems conflicted as to whether it should cut off completely ties with the opposition alliance, or forge a united front with the ruling UMNO based on the grand idea of Malay-Muslim unity.

New PAS, leading a New Opposition Coalition?

There are three core elements in PAS’ new posture. The first is the rise of what it calls Blok Ketiga or the Third Bloc, positioned as a new coalition called Gagasan Sejahtera (Group of Harmony). This new political alliance will presumably be led by PAS but comprising public personalities, community leaders, former senior officials and NGOs. In his congress speech on 29 April, party leader Hadi Awang described this as “the foundation to face the increasingly tense political atmosphere”.

The second element is the push for a Gelombang Tsunami Hijau (Green Tsunami Wave) for harmonious and peaceful change, an approach that will “unite various races” who will at the same time “understand the aspirations of the Muslim community”.

The third element is a vision to be launched ahead of the coming general election called Wawasan Induk Negara Sejahtera (WINS) or Harmonious Nation Vision. Guided by this vision, Gagasan Sejahtera will strive for harmony, justice, transparency and effective governance with Islam as the guide, “consistent with the position of Islam as a religion of the Federation”.

Electoral politics and political change will be pursued without conflict while avoiding “the politics of hate, community enmity and chauvinism”. At a press conference later, Hadi said PAS was opposed to the Democratic Action Party (DAP) because it was “chauvinistic” and “against the role of Islam in the country although Islam is the religion of the Federation”.

In terms of electoral strategy, PAS projected a target of winning 40 parliamentary seats and capturing five states, presumably through the third bloc. Although no official statement has been made, the five states are said to be Trengganu, Kedah, Pahang and Selangor in addition to Kelantan. These targets were first raised at the muktamar by the outgoing PAS Youth leader Nik Abduh Nik Aziz, son of the late PAS spiritual leader Nik Aziz, endorsed by party president Hadi, and backed up by the head of the PAS research arm Zuhdi Marzuki. Dr Zuhdi said PAS’ targets were “not empty talk” but based on research and a scan of “a hundred scenarios”.

Bold Vision or High Ambition?

The vision, mission and strategy unveiled by the repositioning PAS following the 2015 split that led to the birth of Amanah is unprecedented for its clarity of thought and strategic design. It is also uncharacteristic of Hadi when making his regular speeches at the party’s congresses. This suggests the background role of a more sophisticated speech writer or strategic thinking team.

While the plan looks good on paper, questions are, however, being asked whether the post-2015 PAS is being driven by too high an ambition that is as unrealistic as it is bold. To begin with, winning over 40 parliamentary seats as well as five states is a huge jump from PAS’ current hold of 14 parliamentary seats and the control of one state, Kelantan. Secondly, PAS is a party that has just gone through a major split. This is bound to show cracks down the rank-and-file. Indeed, Hadi and other leaders still harbour suspicion about fence-sitters or sleeper supporters of Amanah they branded as harumanis – after the local mango, green on the outside, orange inside (also the colour of Amanah).

Thirdly, the new PAS strategy assumes some kind of peace pact with UMNO. But the possibility of the PAS rank-and-file revolting against Hadi cannot be ruled out if he goes all out to forge peace with UMNO. The PAS grassroots have been too conditioned to be anti-UMNO. A peace pact with UMNO may backfire and lead to a further split in PAS. This will certainly undermine the targets of winning 40 parliamentary seats and five states.

But while PAS is aiming high, the party’s secret ambition really seems to be the new kingmaker in the Malaysian political landscape. If it succeeds in building up the third bloc that is neither with the current opposition Pakatan Harapan (PH) nor the ruling UMNO, this will be the swing factor that will be decide which of the other two coalitions gets to form the next government.

This is a shrewd move because neither the BN nor the opposition PH will be strong enough to rule on their own. They will need the numbers to win the simple majority. Those numbers will come from the third bloc, or specifically from PAS. The five states that PAS hopes to win will in the end likely be a negotiated partnership government – PAS with UMNO, or PAS with PKR, or PAS with the Mahathir-led Bersatu – than a state led solely by PAS, as in Kelantan now.

*Yang Razali Kassim is a Senior Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

By Col. Robert E. Hamilton*

(FPRI) — The recent U.S. cruise missile attack in Syria disrupted—at least for the near term—any prospect of a “reset” in the U.S.-Russia relationship and brought into sharp focus the incompatibility of Washington’s interests in Syria with those of Moscow. For Russia, Syria represents one of two pillars of its strategy in the Middle East, the other being Iran. Moscow has staked its regional strategy on an alliance with these two states as counterweights to the U.S.-aligned Sunni regimes that dominate most of the region. Syria is of particular importance in this strategy because it hosts naval and air bases that enable a Russian military presence in the Levant and the Mediterranean. This presence is important to Russia for military reasons and because it demonstrates Moscow’s revival as an important player on the global stage.

Additionally, Russia’s bitter experience with the Sunni insurgency in Chechnya leads it to view the Sunni-led uprising against the Alawite Shia—but largely secular—Assad regime as another case of Sunni terrorism that directly threatens Russian interests. To Russians, the U.S. insistence that some of the Sunni groups fighting the Syrian regime are moderate opposition—and therefore deserve to be differentiated from the terrorist groups ISIS and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham[1]—rings hollow. Despite the fact that these groups are signatories to the February 2016 cessation of hostilities in Syria, Russian official statements rarely refer to them as moderate opposition, instead often labelling them terrorists or “so-called moderate opposition.”[2]

Syria also figures prominently in Russia’s geopolitical calculus for what it represents: a chance for Russia to take a stand against what it sees as a U.S.-engineered series of regime changes that target the stability of Russia itself. From the “Color Revolutions” in the former Soviet Union to the Arab Spring uprisings, many Russians believe the U.S. is carrying out a deliberate and comprehensive program of enforced democratization, with Russia as its ultimate target. Reflecting this belief, Russian representatives to the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) in Geneva remarked to their U.S. counterparts on multiple occasions in 2016 that Russians are not fond of the “Iraq model.”

References to the “Iraq model” convey two Russian concerns about the potential outcome in Syria, both of which revolve around the UN plan for political transition there. In the Russian view, this plan, which calls for “fresh elections” 14-18 months after the achievement of a durable cease-fire, is a recipe for chaos and renewed civil war. This fear is not unreasonable. After all, voters in a country that has experienced a six-year conflict that morphed into a bitter ethnic and sectarian civil war with considerable interference by outside powers can hardly be expected to have sufficient trust in the democratic process to refrain from casting their votes along those same ethnic and sectarian lines.[3] And the political institutions of a country riven by such ethnic and sectarian violence can hardly be expected to contain the grievances this violence has stoked, especially if those institutions themselves are divided along ethnic and sectarian lines. So the first Russian concern with the “Iraq model”—that is, democratization imposed from without, in a country with deep divisions in identities—is its potential to plunge the country into renewed civil war.

A second Russian concern, not expressed openly but deeply held, is that if a democratically elected government in Syria does manage to hold itself and the country together, it will turn Syria from a strategic partner of Russia into an adversary. This is because any democratically elected government in Syria, a country with a 74% Sunni majority, is likely to align itself with the other Sunni regimes in the region and against Russia. In this case, Russia stands to lose one of the two pillars of its regional strategy, along with its air base at Latakia (Hmeymim) and its naval base at Tartus. Since it sees renewed civil war or an adversarial regime as the two most likely outcomes of the UN transition plan for Syria, Russia routinely works to undermine this plan while supporting it officially.

So Russian objectives in Syria can be summarized as preserving a Russia-friendly regime, striking a blow against what it sees as Sunni terrorism, and ending the string of what it believes are U.S.-inspired regime changes in states friendly to Russia. Prior to the chemical attack at Khan Shaykhun on April 4, these objectives were not fundamentally incompatible with those of the U.S. under the Trump administration. Even the Obama administration, which had earlier taken a much harder line on the Assad regime, had near the end of its tenure signaled a willingness to consider an extended transition period that preserved a privileged position for the Alawites, if not Assad himself. Since taking office, the Trump administration had prioritized the defeat of ISIS over all other goals in Syria, including that of free elections in accordance with the UN transition plan. So there appeared to be room for an agreement in Syria that met the minimum acceptable outcome for both the U.S. and Russia.

The murder of some 85 people in Khan Shaykhun changed the U.S. position almost overnight and removed the possibility of any agreement over Syria in the near term. We may never know whether Russia was complicit in the Syrian regime’s chemical attack. But we do know that Russian diplomatic and military support for the regime emboldened it and may have encouraged it to take drastic action in an effort to accelerate the military victory it is pursuing. One thing that has become clear since the beginning of the Russian intervention in Syria in 2015 is that, whereas the U.S. and the UN are trying to end the war in Syria, Russia and the Syrian regime are trying to win the war there. Even before Khan Shaykhun, in the pursuit of a military victory over the insurgency, Russia and the regime had withheld humanitarian aid to opposition-held areas and bombed civilian infrastructure, including hospitals. But Khan Shaykhun was an even more obvious violation of international law and left the new U.S. administration, which had come into office explicitly rejecting many traditional U.S. foreign policy ideals based in international law and the liberal world order, repulsed by the carnage and driven to military action in response.

It remains to be seen whether the U.S. strike will deter further use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. It also remains to be seen whether the strike signals a change in the level of U.S. involvement in Syria. What is clear is that although U.S. and Russian objectives in Syria were not fundamentally incompatible before April 4, any space for a deal over Syria has vanished for the time being, and many more people will die before the prospect of another deal re-emerges, if it ever does.

About the author:
*U.S. Army Colonel Robert E. Hamilton is a Black Sea Fellow at FPRI. His current assignment is as a professor in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College. He has served as a strategic war planner and country desk officer at U.S. Central Command, as the Chief of Regional Engagement for Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, and as the Chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy in Georgia and as the Deputy Chief of the Security Assistance Office at the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan. Colonel Hamilton was a U.S. Army War College fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, where he authored several articles on the war between Russia and Georgia and the security situation in the former Soviet Union. Colonel Hamilton holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Virginia.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

Notes:
[1] This group was formerly named Jabhat al-Nusra and was the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. In the summer of 2016, it changed its name and allegedly cut ties with Al Qaeda, but remains classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the UN.

[2] The Russian Ministry of Defense website’s Syria page (http://syria.mil.ru/en/index/syria.htm) has numerous examples of this tendency. In direct conversations with U.S. officials, the tendency for Russians to refer to these groups as “terrorists” is even more pronounced.

[3] Elections in these conditions contain many of the aspects of a “Prisoner’s Dilemma.” In other words, if one ethnic or sectarian group refrains from casting its votes along ethnic or sectarian lines, but the others do not, the group that refrained from ethnic or sectarian voting will be deprived of representation, while its competitor groups will not. The incentive for every group in this type of environment is therefore to vote along ethnic or sectarian lines, which ensures the election of a divided government.

One of the last dinosaurs living in Africa before their extinction 66 million years ago has been discovered in a phosphate mine in northern Morocco. A study of the fossil, led by the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, suggests that following the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana in the middle of the Cretaceous period, a distinct dinosaur fauna evolved in Africa.

The new species, Chenanisaurus barbaricus, was of one of the last dinosaurs on Earth and among those species wiped out when an asteroid hit 66 million years ago. It is the smaller African contemporary of the North American T. rex. The fossil is evidence of distinct fauna in southern hemisphere at this time.

Almost nothing is known about the dinosaurs that lived in Africa at the end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, just before they were wiped out by the impact of a giant asteroid. At this time sea levels were high, and so most of the fossils come from marine rocks.

Among these are the phosphate deposits of Morocco — remains of an ancient seabed, laid down 66 million years ago. The phosphate is harvested from vast strip mines and is used in everything from fertilizer to cola drinks.

Last year, Dr Nick Longrich, from the Milner Centre for Evolution and the Department of Biology & Biochemistry at the University of Bath, studied a rare fragment of a jaw bone that was discovered in the mines at Sidi Chennane in the Oulad Abdoun Basin, Morocco. In collaboration with colleagues based in Morocco, France, and Spain, Longrich identified it as belonging to an abelisaur.

Abelisaurs were two-legged predators like T. rex and other tyrannosaurs, but with a shorter, blunter snout, and even tinier arms. While the tyrannosaurs dominated in North America and Asia, the abelisaurs were the top predators at the end of the Cretaceous in Africa, South America, India, and Europe.

Dr Longrich explained: “This find was unusual because it’s a dinosaur from marine rocks — it’s a bit like hunting for fossil whales, and finding a fossil lion. It’s an incredibly rare find — almost like winning the lottery. But the phosphate mines are so rich, it’s like buying a million lottery tickets, so we actually have a chance to find rare dinosaurs like this one.”

“We have virtually no dinosaur fossils from this time period in Morocco – it may even be the first dinosaur named from the end-Cretaceous in Africa. It’s also one of the last dinosaurs in Africa before the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.

“It’s an exciting find because it shows just how different the fauna was in the Southern hemisphere at this time.”

Named Chenanisaurus barbaricus, the newly discovered dinosaur stood on two legs and had stumpy arms. Dr Longrich added: “Abelisaurs had very short arms. The upper arm bone is short, the lower arm is shorter, and they have tiny little hands.”

The teeth from the fossil were worn as if from biting into bone, suggesting that like T. rex, Chenanisaurus was a predator. However, unlike the partially feathered T. rex, Chenanisaurus had only scales, its brain was smaller, and its face was shorter and deeper.

The research project was carried out as part of an international scientific collaboration that is helping create and study paleontology collections in Morocco with the aim of conserving the country’s rich fossil heritage. The specimens used for this study are conserved in the Office Chérifien de Phosphates paleontological collection in Morocco.

And here we go again as the Led Zeppelin rumour mill rouses from its slumber to once again claim that the long- defunct rockers are to reunite once again, Gigwise said.

This time, a mysterious posting on singer Robert Plant’s website has led to speculation that the one-time planet-shagging rock behemoth is to walk the earth once more.

A message on Plant’s website simply reads: “Any time now…”

Which of course could mean anything. Like, a new album from Plant, for example. After all, it’s been two-and-a-half years since he released the acclaimed Lullaby And… The Ceaseless Roar and Plant has never been one to hang around for too long. On top of that, it’s pretty well known that he’s been recording with his band, The Sensational Space Shifters, Gigwise said.

However, speculation is mounting that the surviving members of Led Zeppelin – Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones – could reunite with late drummer John Bonham’s son, Jason, for one more concert, possibly the Desert Trip in Indio, California in October.

Website Feel Numb claims: “I have some well placed sources in the industry telling me that Robert Plant has agreed to reunite Led Zeppelin for Desert Trip 2017. Rumour has it they turned down a reported $14 million dollar pay day to play at last year’s festival and that this year there are millions & millions’ of more reasons why they should do it.

“Sources tell me he has finally agreed to do it because of the impending 50 year anniversary of Led Zeppelin.”

The last time the surviving members of Led Zeppelin played together with Jason Bonham was in December 2007 at the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert at the O2 Arena in London. The live album and DVD was released as Celebration Day in 2012.

By Garikai Chengu*

The Moors invaded Spain in 711 AD and African Muslims literally civilized the wild, white tribes. Recent scholarship now sheds new light on how Moorish advances in mathematics, astronomy, art, and philosophy helped propel Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance.

Four hundred and eight years ago today King Phillip III of Spain signed an order, which was one of the earliest examples of ethnic cleansing. At the height of the Spanish inquisition, King Phillip III ordered the expulsion of 300,000 Muslim Moriscos, which initiated one of the most brutal and tragic episodes in the history of Spain.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was ancient Africans that brought civilization to Spain and large parts of Europe and not the other way around.

The first civilization of Europe was established on the Greek island of Crete in 1700 BC and the Greeks were primarily civilized by the Black Africans of the Nile Valley. The Greeks then passed on this acquired culture to the Romans who ultimately lost it; thus, initiating the Dark Ages that lasted for five centuries. Civilization was once again reintroduced to Europe when another group of Black Africans, The Moors, brought the Dark Ages to an end.

When history is taught in the West, the period called the “Middle Ages” is generally referred to as the “Dark Ages,” and depicted as the period during which civilization in general, including the arts and sciences, laid somewhat idle. This was certainly true for Europeans, but not for Africans.

Renowned historian, Cheikh Anta Diop, explains how during the Middle Ages, the great empires of the world were Black empires, and the educational and cultural centers of the world were predominately African. Moreover, during that period, it was the Europeans who were the lawless barbarians.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire multitudes of white warring tribes from the Caucasus were pushed into Western Europe by the invading Huns. The Moors invaded Spanish shores in 711 AD and African Muslims literally civilized the wild, white tribes from the Caucus. The Moors eventually ruled over Spain, Portugal, North Africa and southern France for over seven hundred years.

Although generations of Spanish rulers have tried to expunge this era from the historical record, recent archaeology and scholarship now sheds new light on how Moorish advances in mathematics, astronomy, art, and philosophy helped propel Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance.

One the most famous British historians, Basil Davidson, noted that during the eighth century there was no land “more admired by its neighbours, or more comfortable to live in, than a rich African civilization which took shape in Spain”.

The Moors were unquestionably Black and the 16th century English playwright William Shakespeare used the word Moor as a synonym for African.

Education was universal in Muslim Spain, while in Christian Europe, 99 percent of the population was illiterate, and even kings could neither read nor write. The Moors boasted a remarkably high literacy rate for a pre-modern society. During an era when Europe had only two universities, the Moors had seventeen. The founders of Oxford University were inspired to form the institution after visiting universities in Spain. According to the United Nations’ Education body, the oldest university operating in the world today is the University of Al-Karaouine of Morocco founded during the height of the Moorish Empire in 859 A.D. by a Black woman named Fatima al-Fihri.

In the realm of mathematics, the number zero (0), the Arabic numerals, and the decimal system were all introduced to Europe by Muslims, assisting them to solve problems far more quickly and accurately and laying the foundation for the Scientific Revolution.

The Moors’ scientific curiosity extended to flight and polymath. Ibn Firnas made the world’s first scientific attempt to fly in a controlled manner in 875 A.D. Historical archives suggest that his attempt worked, but his landing was somewhat less successful. Africans took to the skies some six centuries before the Italian Leonardo Da Vinci developed a hang glider.

Clearly, the Moors helped to lift the general European populace out of the Dark Ages, and paved the way for the Renaissance period. In fact, a large number of the traits on which modern Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain, namely, free trade, diplomacy, open borders, etiquette, advanced seafaring, research methods, and key advances in chemistry.

At a time when the Moors built 600 public baths and the rulers lived in sumptuous palaces, the monarchs of Germany, France, and England convinced their subjects that cleanliness was a sin and European kings dwelt in big barns, with no windows and no chimneys, often with only a hole in the roof for the exit of smoke.

In the 10th century, Cordoba was not just the capital of Moorish Spain but also the most important  and modern city in Europe. Cordoba boasted a population of half a million and had street lighting, fifty hospitals with running water, five hundred mosques and seventy libraries, one of which held over 500,000 books.

All of these achievements occurred at a time when London had a predominantly illiterate population of around 20,000 and had largely forgotten the technical advances of the Romans some six hundred years before. Street lamps and paved streets did not appear in London or Paris until hundreds of years later.

The Catholic Church forbade money lending which severely hampered any efforts at economic progress. Medieval Christian Europe was a miserable lot, which was rife with squalor, barbarism, illiteracy, and mysticism.

In Europe’s great Age of Exploration, Spain and Portugal were the leaders in global seafaring. It was the Moorish advances in navigational technology such as the astrolabe and sextant, as well as their improvements in cartography and shipbuilding, that paved the way for the Age of Exploration. Thus, the era of Western global dominance of the past half-millennium originated from the African Moorish sailors of the Iberian Peninsula during the 1300s.

Long before Spanish Monarchs commissioned Columbus’ search for land to the West, African Muslims, amongst others, had long since established significant contact with the Americas and left a lasting impression on Native culture.

One can only wonder how Columbus could have ‘discovered’ America when a highly civilised and sophisticated people were watching him arrive from America’s shores?

An overwhelming body of new evidence is emerging which proves that Africans had frequently sailed across the Atlantic to the Americas, many years before Columbus and indeed before Christ. Dr. Barry Fell of Harvard University highlights an array of evidence of Muslims in America before Columbus from sculptures, oral traditions, coins, eye-witness reports, ancient artifacts, Arabic documents and inscriptions.

The strongest evidence of African presence in America before Columbus comes from the pen of Columbus himself. In 1920, a renowned American historian and linguist, Leo Weiner of Harvard University, in his book, Africa and the Discovery of America, explained how Columbus noted in his journal that Native Americans had confirmed that,

“black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears.”

Muslim Spain not only collected and perpetuated the intellectual advances of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Roman civilisation, it also expanded on that civilisation and made its own vital contributions in fields ranging from astronomy, pharmacology, maritime navigation, architecture and law.

The centuries old impression given by some Western scholars that the African continent made little or no contributions to civilization, and that its people are naturally primitive has, unfortunately, became the basis of racial prejudice, slavery, colonialism and the ongoing economic oppression of Africa. If Africans re-write their true history, they will reveal a glory that they will inevitably seek to recapture. After all, the greatest threat towards Africa having a glorious future is her people’s ignorance of Africa’s glorious past.

* Garikai Chengu is a scholar at Harvard University. Contact him on garikai.chengu@gmail.com. This article previously appeared in Global Research.

German officials say the Middle East Bank of Iran has received a license to open a branch in the country’s state of Bavaria which hosts a wide range of big industrial names.

The announcement was made by Markus Wittmann, a top official with an economic delegation from Bavaria that was in Tehran over the weekend for talks on ways to promote mutual trade.

Iran’s Persian-language newspaper Ete’laat quoted Wittmann as saying that the Middle East Bank would be authorized to open its branch in summer.

He added that another bank – Sina Bank – was also on the way of obtaining a similar license, stressing that it had the required conditions to operate in Bavaria.

The official was talking to reporters after a meeting between merchants and industrialists from Bavaria and their Iranian counterparts.

He emphasized that companies from Bavaria were conducting around 50 new projects in Tehran, stressing that the projects were being carried out in a variety of areas including auto production, energy and technology.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Wittman said Iran’s banking sector still faced difficulties over reintegrating with the international banking system in what he said was a result of years of sanctions against the country.

He said the reintegration of Iran’s banks with the global banking system would take time, but emphasized that German banks – specifically those in Bavaria – would struggle to expedite this.

On a separate front, Bahman Eshqi, the head of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA), who was heading the Bavarian delegation told reporters that trade between Iran the German state had increased by 33 percent after the removal of sanctions against Iran last year.

Eshqi further emphasized that the TCCIMA was ready to expand trade ties with Bavaria – a move that he said needed the support of the European Union.

Bavaria is the largest German state and is home to a series of industrial giants such as BWM, Audi, Adidas, Puma, Siemens and others.

By Mehdi Sepahvand

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Washington will continue to waive its anti-Iran sanctions.

“Judging from the JCPOA implementation record so far, I think the US will extend a suspension of the sanctions,” Zarif told ISNA news agency May 2.

He noted that during a recent Joint Commission meeting with the JCPOA parties, Iran and the group 5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany), stressed their will to continue implementing the JCPOA, Iran’s nuclear deal, under which the sanctions were removed.

However, the minister pointed out that Washington is doing much to taper down the benefits of the deal for Iran, but maintained that Washington takes care not to violate the deal in word.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson certified on April 18 that Iran is complying with the terms of former President Barack Obama’s historic deal to roll back its nuclear program. The certification, made to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), extended sanctions relief to Iran.

In an April 2016 campaign speech, US President Donald Trump claimed that Iran had already violated the deal, immediately after Obama had made it. Trump had vowed he would tear the deal.

In a recent article, I said that President Trump’s tax reform proposal is a move in the right direction. But I find part of it very troubling: He wants to keep the mortgage interest deduction and the deduction for charitable contributions for individual taxpayers.

Both of these deductions have reasonable justifications, but so do a host of other deductions; both those in the current tax code and some that various interest groups would like to see added. Arguing that these two should be kept rather than eliminating all deductions speaks to the power of the interest groups that support them. That tells us right away that any tax reform that does occur will be shaped by special interests, and that additional interests are likely to enter the tax reform conversation to modify the tax code for their own benefit. Indeed, President Trump’s bargaining position begins by acknowledging that these interests can’t be beat, so should be accommodated.

On the surface, the deduction for charitable contributions makes some sense, in that the help many charities give to those in need reduces the demand for government services. However, many charitable contributions find their way to amenities favored by the rich, like art museums and symphony orchestras, or to public policy organizations that push the agendas of their donors. I’m all in favor of private charity, but don’t see why the tax code should treat it differently from any other expenditure.

The home mortgage interest deduction is harder to defend. Richer people tend to be homeowners while poorer people tend to be renters, so it’s more of a benefit to the rich than the poor. And why should some people be able to deduct their home mortgage interest when others, who may be renters with auto loans, can’t deduct the interest on their car payments?

Prior to 1986 all interest payments were deductible, and President Reagan wanted to eliminate that deduction to help cover the cost of lower rates for everyone. He almost did it, but the real estate industry was too powerful a lobby, so while all other interest deductions were eliminated, the home mortgage interest deduction remains. By keeping it in his proposal, President Trump is acknowledging that in 2017 the real estate industry is too powerful a lobby to defeat, just as they were in 1986.

In addition to standing out as a glaring nod to the power of these entrenched special interests, President Trump’s endorsement of those deductions opens the door for other special interests to plead their cases as the debate on tax reform begins. Why should the tax code accommodate some interest groups but not others? The tax code is the mess it is today because of the ability of interest groups to have it modified for their benefit. President Trump should not have started the tax reform debate by acknowledging that some interest groups are too powerful to be beat.

Both of these deductions are claimed mostly by upper-income people. A better proposal would have eliminated all deductions, and incorporated lower rates for everybody. It’s a bad idea to acknowledge the influence of special interests over the tax code before negotiations for tax reform have even begun. My objection is not so much with these specific deductions, but with the implied recognition that when it comes to tax reform, some interests are too politically well-connected to oppose.

“Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said that his country has information that Jordan is planning to send its troops into southern Syria in cooperation with the United States….’Jordan is not an independent country. Whatever the United States wants, it will happen,’ said Assad.” – — Middle East Monitor

“In the event of a de-facto partition of Syria, the US and its allies will get a strategically important region. It is through Deir Ezzor that the proposed gas pipeline from Qatar is supposed to run….The Deir Ezzor province is also home to Syria’s largest oil deposit, the Al-Omar. …the city and the province are of particular value since the deposits there contain the highly valuable light sweet crude usable in the production of gasoline and diesel fuel.”

— South Front, “The Stronghold of Deir Ezzor; What You Need to Know”

The United States is not going to launch a preemptive attack on North Korea.  The risks far outweigh the rewards and, besides, the US has no intention of getting bogged down in a conflict that doesn’t advance its geopolitical objectives. The saber-rattling is just an attempt to divert attention from the Syria-Jordan border where the US and Jordan are massing troops and equipment for an invasion of Syria. That’s what’s really going on. The Korean fiasco is a smokescreen.

True, the Trump administration is milking the situation for all its worth, but that doesn’t mean that they want a war with the North. That’s not it at all.  Washington wants to deploy its controversial THAAD anti-missile system to South Korea, but it needs a pretext to do so. Hence, the ominous threat of an “unstable, nuclear-armed North Korea”, that’s all the justification Washington needed to get its new weapons system deployed. Mission Accomplished.

But the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) isn’t aimed at North Korea, it’s aimed at China, and China knows it which is why it has protested its deployment repeatedly. The US wants to surround China and Russia with military bases and missile systems that are integrated into its broader nuclear weapons system. These lethal systems are a crucial part of Washington’s plan to pivot to Asia and rule the world into the next century. Here’s the rundown from Tass:

“Anti-missile elements that are being deployed around the world are part of a very dangerous global project aimed at securing US’ overall overwhelming superiority to the prejudice of security interests of other states….The US missile defense architecture is tilting the strategic balance of forces in the area of offensive weapons and creates more and more serious risks of global instability.” (“US anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe violate INF Treaty”)

And here’s how Russian President Vladimir Putin summed it up:

“The US is developing an anti-missile defense system which”….when it is operational… “there will be a moment in time when our entire nuclear capability will be neutralized, which means that the entire global balance of power will be overturned.. This means one of the powers will have absolute security and be able to do whatever it likes in regional conflicts. We’re talking about unrivaled power in global conflicts. ..This system forces us to create weapons that can nullify the system asymmetrically.” (Tass)

Is missile defense something the American people should want?

Heck no. Just think of the number of people that Uncle Sam has slaughtered in the last 16 years. Now try to imagine if all the constraints on Washington’s rampaging were removed allowing the US to conduct its bloody war on the world with complete impunity?

No one in their right mind would ever give the Washington crazies that kind of power. It’s a prescription for global annihilation.  Besides, absolute security for one country means no security for everyone else.

But deploying the THAAD anti-missile system is just one part of Washington’s North Korea swindle. The fear-mongering is also being used to grease the wheels of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Here’s the scoop from The Hill:

“Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) push for a $7.5 billion fund to bulk up the U.S. military’s capabilities in the Asia-Pacific is gaining momentum as tensions with North Korea mount. The commander of U.S. forces in the region threw his support behind the idea this week,  “This kind of money can help us bring together our allies and partners,” said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. …The … proposal has gained more visibility amid the intensifying concerns over North Korea and its nuclear program.” (“McCain plan gains momentum amid North Korea threats”, The Hill)

So the MIC lackeys in Congress had already been pushing this latest boondoggle, but they needed a trumped up crisis in North Korea to put them over the finish line.  Typically, the process is called “creative advertising”, which means scaring the shit out of the public so you can rip them off. Here’s more from the same article:
“I’d like to thank Chairman McCain and this committee for proposing and supporting the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative,” Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said at Thursday’s hearing. “This effort will reassure our regional partners and send a strong signal to potential adversaries of our persistent commitment to the region.”

The weapons manufacturers love sugar-daddy McCain who’s always on-hand with gobs of moolah.

Here’s more: “We can thank North Korea for one thing in this,” said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest”.  “They’re amplifying the imbalance in the Asia-Pacific.” (The Hill)

Good idea, let’s thank North Korea for this latest windfall for the weapons makers. Why not?  Let’s send Kim a nice big valentine from the American taxpayer with John McCain’s name writ large at the bottom.

In any event,  Washington’s policy towards North Korea hasn’t changed. All the chest thumping and fireworks are just part of a circus sideshow designed to justify additional defense splurging and missile deployment. At the same time, the media is trying to divert attention from critical developments in the Middle East, particularly the Syria-Jordan border where Washington has rallied its proxy-fighters into a makeshift army that will (likely) invade southern Syria, charge northward to Deir Ezzor,  establish a no-fly zone over the occupied territory, and partition the area east of the Euphrates preventing loyalist forces from reestablishing Syria’s sovereign borders. That appears to be the basic game-plan. Check this out from the Middle East Monitor:

“The Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad said that his country has information that Jordan is planning to send its troops into southern Syria in cooperation with the United States…

“We have this information, not only from mass media, but from different sources”…
Speaking to The Washington Post, King Abdullah of Jordan  reiterated that a planned joint operation could take place against terrorists. “It is a challenge, but we are ready to face it in cooperation with the US and Britain.” (“Assad accuses Jordan of planning Syria invasion”,  Middle East Monitor)

The pretext for the invasion will be to fight ISIS, but the real goal is to seize the eastern part of the country consistent with a plan that was concocted by the Brookings Institute two years ago. After 6 years of covert support for CIA-backed militants on the ground, the Trump administration appears to be leaning towards a more traditional military approach. Here’s more from the LA Times:

“Reports have also emerged of Jordanian and U.S. troops on the section of the Jordanian border opposite southwest Syria, a possible prelude to a campaign in which rebels, supported by Jordanian and coalition forces on the ground, would overrun Islamic State’s pocket in the Yarmouk basin, near southwestern Syria’s borders with Israel and Jordan.”  (“How long can Jordan keep walking the Middle East tightrope?”,  LA Times)

Naturally, Moscow is concerned about the developments on the Jordanian border. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued a statement saying, “We will pay special attention to the issues most important for us which concern the situation on the Jordan-Syria border.”

Also worrisome, is the fact that US Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis has been traveling across the Middle East rallying Washington’s allies in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel.  Mattis sees the fighting in Syria as a proxy-war between the US and Iran for influence in the region. This same erroneous view is shared by all of the main powerbrokers in the Trump administration.

“Everywhere there’s trouble in the region, you find Iran,” Mr. Mattis said on a stop in Riyadh, adding that nations in the region are working to “checkmate Iran and the amount of disruption, the amount of instability they cause.”

These latest developments take place just days before the resumption of negotiations in Astana, Kazakhstan (May 3 and 4). Russia, Turkey, Iran and a number of the leaders from the rebel groups will gather to see if they can agree on the terms of a ceasefire and an eventual settlement to the 6 year-long war. The Trump administration’s cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase in early April has boosted the morale of many of the jihadists militias and is keeping them away from the bargaining table.   In other words,  Trump’s unexpected escalation has sabotaged Putin’s efforts to resolve the crisis and end the hostilities. The last thing Washington wants in Syria is peace.

A number of reports have confirmed that Trump has handed control of his foreign policy to his Generals, Mattis and McMaster. And while Mattis has shown little interest in getting more deeply involved in the Syrian conflict, McMaster sees Russia as a “hostile revisionist power” that “intimidates our allies, develops nuclear weapons, and uses proxies under the cover of modernized conventional militaries.”

McMaster is a hard-boiled militarist with a driving animus towards Russia.  In a speech he delivered at The Center for Strategic and International Studies, McMaster offered this remedy for so called ‘Russian aggression’. He said:  “what is required to deter a strong nation that is waging limited war for limited objectives… is forward deterrence,  …(is) convincing your enemy that (he) is unable to accomplish his objectives at a reasonable cost.”

McMaster can be expected to use his  “forward deterrence” theory in Syria by trying to lure Putin into a confrontation with US forces east of the Euphrates.   But there’s no reason to think that Putin will fall into the trap, in fact, it seems highly unlikely given the potential for a catastrophic face-off between the two nuclear-armed superpowers. Instead, Putin will probably take the high-road, present his case to the UN Security Council, and denounce  the US intervention as another example of Washington’s destabilizing and expansionistic foreign policy.

Putin’s worst mistake would be to base his strategy entirely on the situation on the battlefield. He doesn’t need to liberate every inch of Syrian soil to win the war. Let the US and its proxies seize the territory, establish their military bases and no-fly zones,  throw up a DMZ along the Euphrates, and wade deeper into the Syrian morass.  Putin has other fish to fry. He needs to focus on winning hearts and minds, strengthening alliances and building a broader coalition. He needs to look like the only adult in the room, the rational leader whose sole ambition is to end the dispute and restore security. He needs to establish a contrast between his behavior and that of his recklessly-violent and mentally-unstable rival, Washington, whose flagrant  disregard for international law and civilian lives has plunged the Middle East and Central Asia into chaos and carnage.

If Putin’s ultimate goal is to rebuild the system of global security based on the bedrock principles of national sovereignty and greater representation for all the countries in the world, he must lead by example. Restraint and maturity in Syria will move him closer to that goal.