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Deceit, Betrayal And The Left: The ‘Traitor Of The Year Award’ – OpEd

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While the Right faithfully supports the policies and interests of its ruling class supporters, the Left has systematically betrayed their political platform promises and deceived its working class, salaried employees, small business and regional supporters.

Historic reversals have happened in rapid succession by Leftist leaders, including greater oligarch control over the economy, more dictatorial political domination by imperial powers (US,EU), increasing inequalities and poverty, and ‘Leftist’ support for imperial wars.

In some cases leftist leaders have gone beyond their rightist opponents by passing even more extreme reactionary policies upon assuming power.

In this essay, we will identify some of the turncoat leftists: The ‘Champions of Betrayal’.

Secondly we will review their policy reversals and the consequences for their working class and rural supporters.

Thirdly, we will present a case study of the world’s worst ‘Left’ traitor today: Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Greece.

In the final section, we will discuss some of the possible explanations for the trend of political reversals by left leaders.

Turncoat ‘Leftists’ of the Early 21st Century

There are numerous examples of former guerrilla movements, leftist regimes and political leaders who gained mass popular support on the promise of radical structural transformations and who turn around to embrace the interests of their oligarchical and imperial adversaries.

An entire generation of radicals from the 1960’s and ’70’s started on the left and, by the ’80’s and 90’s ended up in ‘centrist’ and rightwing regimes – even becoming collaborators with the extreme right and the CIA.

Former guerrilla fighters, who turned centrist and rightwing, became Cabinet Ministers or Presidents in Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Chile.

El Salvadoran guerrilla commander, Joaquin Villalobos, later collaborated with the CIA and provided ‘advice’ to the ‘death squad’ President of Colombia.

The list of late 20th century traitors is long and dismal. Their policy betrayals have caused great hardship for their mass supporters who suffered socio-economic losses, political repression, arrests, torture, death and a profound distrust toward ‘left’ intellectuals, political leaders and their ‘promises’.

The 21st Century: Starting on the Left and Ending on the Right

The first decade of the 21st century witnessed a revival of left regimes and political parties in Europe and Latin America.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), led by the great peasant leader Manual Marulanda, had 20,000 fighters and millions of supporters. In 1999, it had advanced to the outskirts of the Capital, Bogota. The reality today is a dramatic reversal.

In France, the Socialist Party adopted a left program and elected Francois Hollande as President in 2012. He promised to raise taxes on the rich to 75% in order to finance a massive jobs program. He promised to extend progressive labor legislation and to defend national industries. Today his credibility is near zero.

Throughout Latin America, Leftists were elected to head governments, including Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and El Salvador. With the possible exception of Bolivia and Ecuador, they have been ousted by their rightwing partners or opponents.

In Spain, Portugal and Greece, new radical leftist parties emerged with promises to end the brutal European Union-imposed austerity programs, and launch profound, class-based, structural transformations. Here history is repeating itself with another series of betrayals.

The Revolutionary Armed of Forces of Colombia (FARC): From Revolution to Surrender

By June 2017, the FARC leadership had disarmed its fighters, abandoning millions of peasant supporters in regions formerly under their control. The FARC’s signing of the Peace Pact with the Santos regime led to neither peace nor a real pact. Dozens of activists are already being murdered and hundreds of leftists and peasants are fleeing for their lives from death squads connected to the Santos regime. Assassinations occurred throughout the negotiation process and afterwards. Guerrilla fighters, who turned in their arms, now face kangaroo trials, while peasants who apply for agrarian reform are driven from their farms. Rank and file FARC fighters and militants are abandoned with their families in the jungle without homes, jobs and security from the death squads. US military bases and advisers remain. The entire socio-economic system is unchanged. Only the Cuba-based guerrilla ‘leaders’ are guaranteed security, two comfortable seats in Parliament– which has been denied– and the praise of the US government!

FARC leaders and chief negotiators, Ivan Marquez and Timoleon Jimenez, are clear contenders for the ‘Traitor of the Year Award’.

France’s President Hollande: An Imperial Collaborator Flushed down the Toilet

France's François Hollande. Photo by Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons.
France’s François Hollande. Photo by Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons.

President Francois Hollande’s tenure was not far behind the FARC’s betrayal. Elected President of France in 2012 under the Socialist Party, he promised to ‘tax the rich’ by 75%, extend and deepen workers’ rights, reduce unemployment, revive bankrupt industries, prevent capitalist flight and end France’s military intervention in Third World countries.

After a brief flirtation with his campaign rhetoric, President Hollande went on a pro-business and militarist rampage against his voters:

First, he deregulated business relations with labor, making it easier and quicker to fire workers.

Second, he reduced business taxes by $40 billion Euros.

Third, he imposed and then extended a draconian state of emergency following a terrorist incident. This included the banning of strikes by workers protesting his anti-labor legislation and the double-digit unemployment rate.

Fourth, Hollande launched or promoted a series of imperial wars in the Middle East and North and Central Africa.

France under Francois Hollande initiated the NATO bombing of Libya, the murder of President Gadhafi, the total destruction of that nation and the uprooting of millions of Libyans and sub-Saharan African workers. This led to a massive flood of terrified refugees across the Mediterranean and into Europe with tens of thousands drowning in the process.

President Holland’s neo-colonial project oversaw the expansion of French troops into Mali (destabilized by the destruction of Libya) and the Central African Republic.

A clear promoter of genocide, Hollande sold arms and sent ‘advisers’ to support Saudi Arabia’s grotesque war against impoverished Yemen.

President Hollande joined the US mercenary invasion of Syria, allowing some of France’s finest nascent jihadis to join in the slaughter. His colonial ambitions have resulted in the flight of millions of refugees into Europe and other regions.

By the end of his term of office in 2017, Holland’s popularity had declined to 4%, the lowest level of electoral approval of any President in French history! The only rational move he undertook in his entire regime was to not seek re-election.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras: ‘Traitor of the Year’

Despite the stiff competition from other infamous leftist traitors around the world, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras wins the ‘Global Traitor of the Year’ award.

Tsipras deserves the label of ‘Global Traitor’ because:

1) He made the quickest and most brutal turn from left to right than any of his venal competitors.

2) He supported Greece’s subjugation to the dictates of the Brussels oligarchs privatization demands, agreeing to sell its entire national patrimony, including its infrastructure, islands, mines, beaches, museums, ports and transports etc.

3) He decreed the sharpest reduction of pensions, salaries and minimum wages in European history, while drastically increasing the cost of health care, hospitalization and drugs. He increased VAT, (consumer taxes) and tax on island imports and farm income while ‘looking the other way’ with rich tax evaders.

4) Tsipras is the only elected leader to convoke a referendum on harsh EU conditions, receive a massive mandate to reject the EU plan and then turn around and betray the Greek voters in less than a week. He even accepted more severe conditions than the original EU demands!

5) Tsipras reversed his promises to oppose EU sanctions against Russia and withdrew Greece’s historic support for the Palestinians. He signed a billion-dollar oil and gas deal with Israel which grabbed oil fields off the Gaza and Lebanon coast. Tsipras refused to oppose the US -EU bombing of Syria, and Libya – both former allies of Greece.

Tsipras, as the leader of the supposedly ‘radical left’ SYRIZA Party, leaped from left to right in the wink of an eye.

The first and most revealing indication of his turn to the right was Tsipras’ support for Greece’s continued membership in the European Union (EU) and NATO during the formation of SYRIZA (2004).

SYRIZA’s ‘left’ mouthed the usual platitudes accompanying EU membership, raising vacuous ‘questions’ and ‘challenges’ while talking of ’struggles’. None of these ‘half pregnant’ phrases made sense to any observer who understood the power of the German-led oligarchs in Brussels and their strict adherence to ruling-class imposed austerity.

Secondly, SYRIZA had played a minor role, a best, in the numerous trade union general strikes and worker and student led direct action in the run-up to its electoral victory in 2015.

SYRIZA is an electoral party of the lower middle and middle class, led by upwardly mobile politicos who had few if any ties to shop-floor factory and agrarian struggles. Their biggest struggles seemed to revolve around internal factional wars over seats in Parliament!

SYRIZA was a loose collection of squabbling groups and factions, including, ‘ecology movements’, Marxist sects and traditional politicos who had floated over from the moribund, and corrupt PanHellenic Socialist Party (PASOK). SYRIZA expanded as a party at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis when the Greek economy collapsed. From 2004 to 2007 SYRIZA increased its presence in Parliament from 3.5% to only 5%. Its lack of participation in the mass struggles and its internal squabbles led to a decline in the 2009 legislative elections to 4.6% of seats.

Tsipras ensured that SYRIZA would remain in the EU, even as its self-styled ‘left wing’, the Left Platform, led by ‘Marxist academic’ Panagiotis Lafazanis, promised to “keep an open door to leaving the EU”. Alexis Tsipras was first elected to the Athens city council, where he publicly attacked corrupt and demagogic rightwing colleagues while taking private lessons in power from the oligarchy.

In 2010, the rightwing PASOK and far right New Democracy agreed to an EU dictated debt bail-out leading to massive job losses and the slashing of wages and pensions. SYRIZA, while outside of power, denounced the austerity program and gave lip-service to the massive protests. This posturing allowed SYRIZA to quadruple its representation in parliament to 16% in the 2012 election.

Tsipras welcomed corrupt ex-PASOK members and financial advisers into SYRIZA, including Yanis Varoufakis, who spent more time motorcycling to upscale bars then supporting the unemployed workers in the streets.

EU ‘memorandums’ dictated the privatization of the economy, as well as deeper cuts in education and health. These measures were implemented in shock waves from 2010 through 2013. As an opposition party, SYRIZA increased its seats 27% in 2013 … a scant 3% behind the ruling rightwing New Democracy. In September 2014, SYRIZA approved the Thessalonika Program promising to reverse austerity, rebuild and extend the welfare state, restart the economy, defend public enterprises, promote tax justice, uphold democracy (direct democracy no less!) and implement a ‘national plan’ to increase employment.

The entire debate and all the resolutions turned out to be a theatrical farce! Once in power, Tsipras never implemented a single reform promised in the Program. To consolidate his power as head of SYRIZA, Tsipras dissolved all factions and tendencies in the name of a ‘unified party’ – hardly a step toward greater democracy!

Under ‘Dear Uncle Alexis’ control, SYRIZA became an authoritarian electoral machine despite its left posturing. Tsipras insisted that Greece would remain within the EU and approved a ‘balanced budget’ contradicting all his phony campaign promises of public investments to ‘extend the welfare state’!

A new EU bailout was followed by a jump in unemployment to over 50% among youth and 30% of the entire labor force. SYRIZA won the January 25, 2015 parliamentary elections with 36.3% of the electorate. Lacking a single vote to secure a majority in parliament, SYRIZA formed an alliance with the far-right ANEL party, to which Tsipras gave the Defense Ministry.

Immediately upon taking office, Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras announced his plans to renegotiate Greece’s bailout and ‘austerity program’ with the EU oligarchy and the IMF. This phony posturing could not hide his impotence: Since SYRIZA was committed to staying in the EU, austerity would continue and another onerous ‘bailout’ would follow. During ‘internal meetings’, members of SYRIZA’s ‘Left Platform’ in the Cabinet called for leaving the EU, reneging the debt and forging closer ties with Russia. Despite being totally ignored and isolated, they stayed on as impotent ‘token leftist’ Cabinet Ministers.

With Tsipras now free to impose neo-liberal market policies, billions of Euros flowed out of Greece and its own banks and businesses remained in crisis. Both Tsipras and the ‘Left Platform’ refused to mobilize SYRIZA’s mass base, which had voted for action and demanded an end to austerity. The media’s gadfly, Finance Minister Varoufakis, put on a sideshow with grand theatrical gestures of disapproval. These were openly dismissed by the EU-IMF oligarchy as the antics of an impotent Mediterranean clown.

Superficial as ever, the Canadian, US, European left-wing academics were largely unaware of SYRIZA’s political history, its opportunist composition, electoral demagogy and total absence from real class struggle. They continued to blather about SYRIZA as Greece’s ‘radical left’ government and attended its PR functions. When SYRIZA flagrantly embraced the EU’s most savage cutbacks against Greek workers and their living standards affecting everyday life, the highly paid, distinguished professors finally spoke of SYRIZA’s ‘mistakes’ and ladled the ‘radical left’ from this stew of opportunists! Their grand speaking tours to Greece were over and they flitted off to support other ’struggles’.

As the summer of 2015 approached, Prime Minister Tsipras moved ever closer to the entire EU austerity agenda. ‘Dear Alexis’ dumped Finance Minister Varoufakis, whose histrionics had irked Germany’s Finance Minister. Euclid Tsakalotos , another ‘radical’ leftist, took over as Finance Minister, but turned out to be a malleable lieutenant for Tsipras, willing to implement any and all EU-imposed austerity measures without the antics.

By July 2015, Tsipras and SYRIZA accepted a harsh austerity program dictated by the EU. This rejected SYRIZA’s entire Thessalonika Program proclaimed a year earlier. The entire population, and SYRIZA’s rank and file members grew angrier, demanding an end to austerity. While approving a ‘belt tightening’ austerity program for his electoral mass base throughout the summer of 2015, Tsipras and his family lived in luxury in a villa generously loaned by a Greek plutocrat, far from the soup lines and hovels of the unemployed and destitute.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras implemented policies earning him the ‘Traitor of the Year Award’. His was a duplicitous strategy: On July 5, 2015, he convoked a referendum on whether to accept the EU’s bailout conditions. Thinking his ‘pro-EU’ supporters would vote ‘Yes’, he intended to use the referendum as a mandate to impose new austerity measures. Tsipras misjudged the people: Their vote was an overwhelming repudiation of the harsh austerity program dictated by the oligarchs in Brussels.

Over 61% of the Greek people voted ‘no’ while merely 38%voted in favor of the bailout conditions. This was not limited to Athens: A majority in every region of the country rejected the EU dictates – an unprecedented outcome! Over 3.56 million Greeks demanded an end to austerity. Tsipras was ‘admittedly surprised’ . . . and disappointed! He secretly and stupidly thought the referendum would give him a free hand to impose austerity. He put on his usual grin as the voting results were announced.

Less than a week later, on July 13, Tsipras renounced the results of his own referendum and announced his government’s support for the EU bailout. Perhaps to punish the Greek voters, Tsipras backed an even harsher austerity scheme than the one rejected in his referendum! He drastically slashed public pensions, imposed massive regressive tax hikes and cut public services by $12 billion euros. Tsipras agreed to the infamous ‘Judas memorandum’ of July 2015, which increased the regressive general consumer tax (VAT) to 23%, a 13% food tax, a sharp increase in medical and pharmaceutical costs and tuition fees, and postponed the retirement age by five years to 67.

Tsipras continued on his ‘historic’ rampage over the suffering Greek people throughout 2016 and 2017. His regime privatized over 71,500 public properties, including the historic patrimony. Only the Acropolis was spared the auction block…. for now! The resulting unemployment drove over 300,000 skilled and educated Greeks to migrate. Pensions slashed to 400 Euros led to malnutrition and a three-fold rise in suicides.

Despite these grotesque social consequences the German bankers and the regime of Angela Merkel refused to reduce the debt payments. Prime Minister Tsipras’ groveling had no effect.

Sharp tax hikes on farm fuels and transport to tourist islands led to constant marches and strikes in cities, factories, fields and highways.

By January 2017 Tsipras had lost half of his electorate. He responded with repression: gassing and beating elderly Greeks protesting their poverty pensions. Three-dozen trade unionists, already acquitted by the courts, were re-tried by Tsipras’ prosecutors in a vicious ’show trial’. Tsipras supported the US-NATO attacks on Syria, the sanctions against Russia and the billion-dollar energy and military agreements with Israel.

Short of the Nazi occupation (1941-44) and Anglo-Greek civil war of (1945-49), the Greek people had not experienced such a precipitous decline of their living standards since the Ottomans. This catastrophe occurred under the Tsipras regime, vassal to the Brussels oligarchy.

European, Canadian and US leftist academic tourists had ‘advised’ SYRIZA to remain in the EU. When the disastrous consequences of their ‘policy advice’ became clear… they merely turned to advising other ’struggles’ with their phony ’socialist forums’.

Conclusions

The betrayals by ‘Leftist’ and ‘radical leftist’ leaders are partly due to their common practices as politicians making pragmatic deals in parliament. In other cases, former extra-parliamentary and guerrilla leaders were faced with isolation and pressure from neighboring ‘left’ regimes to submit to imperial ‘peace accords’, as in the case of the FARC. Confronting the massive build-up of the US supplied and advised armies of the oligarchs, they folded and betrayed their mass supporters.

The electoral framework within the EU encouraged leftist collaboration with class enemies – especially German bankers, NATO powers, the US military and the IMF.

From its origins SYRIZA refused to break with the EU and its authoritarian structure. From its first day of government, it accepted even the most demonstrably illegal private and public debts accumulated by the corrupt right-wing PASOK and New Democracy regimes. As a result SYRIZA was reduced to begging.

Early on SYRIZA could have declared its independence, saved its public resources, rejected its predecessors’ illegal debts, invested its savings in new jobs programs, redefined its trade relations, established a national currency and devalued the drachma to make Greece more flexible and competitive. In order to break the chains of vassalage and foreign oligarch imposed austerity, Greece would need to exit the EU, renounce its debt and launch a productive socialist economy based on self-managed co-operatives.

Despite his electoral mandate, the Greek Prime Minister Tsipras followed the destructive path of Soviet leader Michel Gorbachev, betraying his people in order to continue down the blind ally of submission and decay.

While several leaders offer stiff competition for the ‘Traitor of the Year Award’, Alexis Tsipras’ betrayal has been longer, more profound and continues to this day. He broke more promises and reversed more popular mandates (elections and referendums) more quickly than any other traitor. Moreover nothing short of a generation will allow the Greeks to recover left politics. The left has been devastated by the monstrous lies and complicity of Tsipras’ former ‘left critics’.

Greece’s accumulated debt obligations will require at least a century to play out – if the country can even survive. Without question, Alexis Tsipras is the ‘Traitor of the Year’ by unanimous vote!


Saudi Arabia: Women No Longer Need Guardians’ Consent To Receive Services

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By Lulwa Shalhoub

Women are not required to obtain consent from their guardians for services provided to them, “unless there is a legal basis for this request in accordance with the provisions of the Islamic Shariah,” according to a royal degree issued by King Salman and reported by Okaz local daily on Thursday.

“This came in a royal directive to all concerned government agencies, after approval of proposals raised by the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers to resolve issues related to human rights,” according to the royal decree.

In a statement on their website confirming Okaz report, Human Rights Commission President Bandar bin Mohammed Al-Aiban said he welcomed the gesture saying that it reflects King Salman’s care of his people and embodies his concern to simplify procedures for women who constitute half of Saudi society and who are a major partner in the development of the society.

Many advocates of the empowerment of Saudi women hailed the announcement, as needing a male guardian’s consent can pose significant obstacle for women.

“This (male guardianship) has always been an obstacle to women and demeaning because unfortunately some guardians abused their authority over women and took advantage,” Maha Akeel, director of the public information and communication for the Jeddah-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), told Arab News.

It finally recognizes the right of a woman “to be her own guardian and take care of her official matters… without the need for the approval of the guardian,” she added.

According to the Human Rights Commission, the Supreme Court has demanded concerned agencies to review procedures in force, Okaz reported.

It also demanded to list all procedures that require the approval of the woman’s guardian to complete a service and to provide an explanation of their statutory basis for the service within three months of the order’s issuance date.

“This means male guardianship has been lifted,” Suhaila Zain Al-Abideen, senior member at the Saudi-based National Society for Human Rights told Arab News.

She added it means “the legislations that demand a male guardian have been amended.”

She added that she believes the services would include women’s ability to independently represent themselves in court as well as to issue and renew passports and to travel abroad without needing a guardian’s permit.

“Shariah law does not necessitate male guardianship of women because we are perfectly competent,” Al-Abideen said.

The new order is not clear yet and does not state under what circumstances a woman should or should not obtain the consent of her guardian for services provided to her, said Saudi writer and women rights advocate Abdullah Al-Alami.

Al-Alami told Arab News that he believes the law was introduced “to satisfy the Human Rights Commission, in relation to the international conventions to which the Kingdom has acceded.”

On April 19, United Nations (UN) member states elected Saudi Arabia to serve on the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which is dedicated to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women.

“We’ve come a long way,” said Lina Almaeena, Shoura Council member. She said the move is in line with Saudi Vision 2030 to increase the number of women in the workforce and reduce unemployment.

“I think it’s a fantastic step,” Almaeena said. “Everyday we hear of an improvement. A lot of things are changing. Not only at a women’s level but at so many levels.”

Almaeena told Arab News she is sure this will include “work permit,” pointing to the present law that requires women to get a consent from their guardians to work.

The right to drive has not yet been granted to women in Saudi Arabia, although Al-Abideen said she believes it is “coming up next.”

Yet, as Al-Alami noted, the order demanded the Ministry of Labor and Social Development to provide means of transportation for women workers in accordance with the provisions of the labor law.

“In other words, no news yet on women driving, although I think it would be approved soon,” Al-Alami said, adding that there is still a need to resolve problems with respect to women’s rights.

The Shoura Council is scheduled May 9 to discuss and consider a recommendation that demands the Interior Ministry support women driving.

The OIC’s Akeel said she looks forward to more decisions for empowering women.

She commended that “the decision included educating and raising women’s awareness of their rights.”

In the past five years, Saudi Arabia has been appointing more women in decision-making positions. In 2011, the late King Abdullah gave women the right to join the Shoura Council and the right to run and vote in the municipal elections, which came a reality in 2015.

In 2013, women were appointed to the Shoura Council for the first time and 30 had become members. Today, the representation of Saudi women on the Shoura Council stands at 20 percent.

Three months ago, three women — Sarah Al-Suhaimi, Rania Nashar and Latifa Al-Shabhan — were appointed in the male-dominant financial sector to the positions of the chair of the Saudi stock exchange, Tadawul, CEO of Samba Financial Group and chief financial officer of Arab National Bank (ANB), respectively.

Increasing the participation of women in the workforce from 22 percent to 30 percent is one of the main goals in Saudi Vision 2030.

The North Korean Nuclear Conundrum – Analysis

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By K. P. Fabian

The world is watching with much fear and anxiety, admixed with some curiosity, the unfolding confrontation between President Trump and Kim Jong-un the supreme leader of North Korea. We still do not know whether the confrontation will lead to hostilities with predictably unpredictable and disastrous consequences or the two sides along with other interested parties will sit down and talk. Trump, with no previous political experience, has been in office for over 100 days. He has not yet put together a full team in the State and Defence departments and hence does not get competent professional advice essential to deal maturely with such a crisis.

Kim Jong-un is the grandson of the founder of North Korea who started the Korean War (1950-53) by invading South Korea, costing five million human lives including 40,000 US soldiers. The world does not have credible information on the schooling and other details of Kim Jong-un who assumed office in 2012. There are reports that he studied in Switzerland and Germany. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is considered a pariah state by the United States and the rest of the West and as such does not have normal contacts with the outside world. The state controls the flow of information inside and with the outside world.

Historical Background

It is necessary to see the current confrontation in a sound historical perspective. The 1953 Armistice ending the Korean War should have been followed up with a peace treaty. DPRK, China, and USSR wanted it. But, for reasons to do with the Cold War, Washington did not want a peace treaty as such a treaty would have required the termination of the US military presence in the Korean peninsula. In fact, Washington unilaterally violated clause 13 (d) of the Armistice Agreement by placing tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea in 1956 and followed it up the next year with Matador missiles that had the range to hit China and USSR.

In 1962/63, both Moscow and Beijing rejected DPRK’s request for assistance to start a nuclear programme. Following the collapse of the Cold War, the US removed nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1992 and the two Koreas reached a Basic Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, Exchange, and Cooperation. Shortly thereafter, the two Koreas issued a Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, pledging not to possess, produce, or use nuclear weapons and prohibiting uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing.

However, Washington did not want to support reconciliation in Korea and resumed joint military exercises with South Korea. DPRK threatened to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), talks followed with Jimmy Carter’s mediation, and in 1994 it agreed to adhere to the NPT and freeze its project against the promise of two light water reactors and humanitarian assistance from the US. Clinton was US President then and given time the agreement might have worked out. Clinton even thought of making a state visit to Pyongyang to seal the deal. His Secretary of State Madeleine Albright did go to Pyongyang to meet Kim Jong il.

But Clinton’s successor George Bush condemned DPRK as part of an ‘axis of evil’ and the latter withdrew from the NPT and resumed its nuclear programme. China and Russia took the initiative for the Six Party talks (DPRK, Republic of Korea, Japan, US, Russia, and China) and once again there was progress in narrowing the differences. The Six Party talks resumed even after the 2006 nuclear weapon test by DPRK. At the last round held in 2007, DPRK agreed to freeze its programme and give a full inventory to IAEA; the US agreed to remove DPRK from the list of states sponsoring terrorism; and DPRK and Japan agreed to hold ‘intensive’ discussions’ to resolve their differences.

The US did not, however, accept the validity of the inventory given by DPRK to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and, when the latter launched a satellite in April 2009 despite opposition from Washington, the Six Party talks ended without delivering the intended results.

We may note here that DPRK’s nuclear programme is not the only issue. It wants an end to the war, normal relations with the US and Japan, and financial assistance from them. Another point to note is that the annual South Korea-US joint military exercises unnerve DPRK and it makes a point of testing missiles and making aggressive statements to unnerve South Korea and Japan.

Current Confrontation

The current confrontation arose because DPRK, celebrating the 105th birth anniversary of its founder Kim II Sung, wanted to carry out nuclear and missile tests. When such tests are expected, Seoul and Tokyo get nervous. Nervousness does not generate sound policy options.

Washington needs to realize that intimidation will not work for the simple reason that, though DPRK might be destroyed in toto, before that happens Pyongyang is in a position to inflict thousands of casualties on South Korea where there are 28,000 US troops and 60,000 Japanese.

Above all, it is necessary to understand the psychology of Kim Jong-un. A dictator, without the benefit of advice from counsellors who can speak fearlessly and frankly with him, is running a grave risk of taking the wrong decisions.

Trump’s Handling of the Crisis

President Trump has been giving mixed signals, perhaps deliberately, or more likely reflecting the inherent incoherence of his administration. He has said that “all options are on the table”; that Kim Jong-un is a ‘smart cookie’ who got power at a young age and has successfully held on to it; and that he (Trump) would be honoured to meet him “if the circumstances are right”. True to his style, Trump added, “If he came here, I’d accept him, but I wouldn’t give him a state dinner like we do for China and all these other people that rip us off when we give them these big state dinners.” He went on to suggest he would serve Kim – and other visiting leaders – “a hamburger on a conference table”. Wittingly or unwittingly, Trump made sure that his public invitation will be seen as an insult in Pyongyang.

Trump’s Expectations from China

President Trump sought President Xi Jinping’s help in resolving the crisis when the two met at Mar a Lago in Florida in the first week of April 2017. Xi agreed to do what he can, but made it clear that there were limits to what he can do. A grateful Trump declared that in his eyes China was no longer a ‘currency manipulator’. The two have been speaking on the phone. Trump seems to have understood the complexity of the issue or is at least understanding it slowly.

The thought that China will successfully compel DPRK to climb down just to please Trump and hand over to him a major foreign policy victory is rather naïve. First, it is in China’s interest to let the issue remain unresolved so that the US, Japan, and South Korea will be compelled to seek its assistance from time to time. Secondly, if the regime in DPRK collapses, there will be an exodus to China with all the attendant problems. Third, if the regime in Pyongyang falls and the two Koreas get united and yet US troops remain there that will not be in China’s interest. Therefore, we may assume that China will try to defuse the crisis but will not like a permanent solution that denuclearizes DPRK.

Abe’s Moves

For years, Prime Minister Abe has been trying to remove the restrictions imposed on Japan’s military by the Constitution. The relevant article reads:

ARTICLE 9. (1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

(2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

Instead of getting the article amended which might not be politically feasible, Abe got the article ‘reinterpreted’ to permit ‘collective defense’ and got the Diet to endorse that interpretation. Abe said that DPRK might send chemical weapons through missiles to Japan. Whether it is a correct professional assessment or not, Abe’s intention was to gain support for his policy for a military without restrictions. Abe has sent Izumo, a helicopter carrier to escort US warships as a way of implementing his new defence policy.

Situation in South Korea

A presidential election is due on May 9, 2017, following the removal of President Park Guen-hye, daughter of Park Chung-hee, who ruled the country from 1961 to 1979. The front runner is Moon Jae-in, a human rights lawyer who wants to open a dialogue with DPRK. Moon Jae-in is opposed to the deployment of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) missiles that are already under way. Trump publicly asked South Korea to pay the cost of USD 1 billion and Seoul has publicly refused. Trump’s National Security Adviser General McMaster has told his Korean counterpart that Seoul would not have to pay. Trump has threatened to re-open the 2012 Free Trade Agreement with Seoul. One may conclude that Trump’s relations with Moon Jae-in, if he were to be elected, will be rocky.

A Lesson from History

US policy makers might recall the Korean War. The invasion took place on June 24, 1950; US troops were rushed to South Korea under a UN umbrella; as General McArthur was planning to cross the 38th parallel, which was the border between the two Koreas, China through Nehru warned Washington that it would enter the war if that parallel was crossed; Truman did not heed Nehru’s advice to seek an end to the war through negotiations and Nehru was ridiculed for his ‘moral posturing’. Three years and five million deaths later, the cease fire took effect roughly on the 38th parallel.

What is, therefore, required is a dialogue treating DPRK with respect. A summit level meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un should be preceded by meetings at the diplomatic level, preferably in a third country. In 1994, there was Jimmy Carter to mediate and de-escalate the first nuclear crisis. Carter’s mission was publicly announced, but this time a more discreet contact might be preferable. A rational decision maker in the White House does not have all options on the table and cannot start a war without South Korea’s consent. Diplomacy is the only option and this is as obvious as obvious can be.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India. Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://idsa.in/idsacomments/the-north-korean-nuclear-conundrum_kpfabian_030517

UN Study Accuses Israel Of ‘Distorting’ Palestinian Economy

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By Jaya Ramachandran

Undeterred by Israel’s sensitivity to all perceived criticism, a new study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has expressed disapproval of the country’s policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“The security, military, political and economic measures implemented by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory – the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem – since the onset of occupation in 1967 have significantly distorted and disoriented the Palestinian economy,” says the study, The Occupied Palestinian Territory: Twin-Deficits or an Imposed Resource Gap?

Published on May 4, it comes a day after Israel said it will cut back $1 million in aid for UNESCO in response to a recent resolution which is critical of Israeli policy in Jerusalem.

The results of Israel’s policies, explains the study, are reflected in a huge resource gap, whereby domestic consumption and public and private investment exceeds domestic production by a substantial amount. This gap manifests itself in three macroeconomic imbalances: a trade deficit, a government budget deficit and a national investment-saving deficit.

During the period 2010–2014, the average budget deficit in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a ratio of gross domestic product was 8 per cent, compared to a 40 per cent trade deficit and 33 per cent investment-saving deficit.

Yet the budget deficit, the smallest of the three, received far more policy attention from the donor community and international financial and development institutions.

The new UNCTAD study argues that the budget and trade deficits, now permanent features of the Palestinian economy, are both symptoms of a deeper problem rooted in a damaged economic structure imposed by occupation.

According to the study, there are many constraints imposed by the occupation on the capacity of Palestinian firms to pursue viable employment-intensive investment in the domestic manufacturing and agriculture sectors. These constraints result in a resource gap that cultivates dependence on aid and forces Palestinian workers to seek employment in Israel.

There have been many previous reports and academic studies on the subject. Often, however, they emphasize fiscal deficit as the main challenge facing the Palestinian economy. This approach focuses on the “twin deficits” hypothesis, which argues that a budget deficit usually drives the trade (current account) deficit, argues the study.

What is new about the UNCTAD study, however, is that it casts doubts on the twin deficits hypothesis in the Palestinian case, and demonstrates that at no time during the period 1968–2014 did the Palestinian trade deficit respond to, nor was it caused by, changes in the budget deficit.

The study concludes that the extremely restrictive measures imposed by the Israeli occupation, misdiagnosis of the macroeconomic disequilibria and pursuit of policies that seek a reduction in the budget deficit as a key target can only result in higher unemployment, without necessarily making a dent in the trade deficit of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The study therefore proposes a new approach to alleviating this challenge and suggests that a two-pronged strategy of reform and growth will help to bridge the resource gap by reviving the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. This revival requires a removal of the deep-seated barriers to development hindering all activities of production and trade as well as stemming the leakage of Palestinian fiscal resources to Israel.

The study also proposes a rebuilding of Palestinian productive sectors as well as institutional and physical infrastructure in key areas such as land, water, human capital, legal frameworks and trade in agricultural inputs and outputs.

For the transformation of the manufacturing sector, the UNCTAD study suggests a sequential strategy whereby an initial stage of import-substitution industrialization can be followed by export promotion.

To foster independent technological learning capacity, the study proposes a national strategy of technological development. The establishment of domestic scientific capabilities will increase the understanding, processing, adopting and adapting of imported technology and technological knowledge.

“However, as long as occupation continues to prevent the Palestinian people’s pursuit of meaningful development strategies, closure of the resource gap may not be expected,” warns the study.

“Therefore,” it adds, “the international community should assume its responsibility and obligations towards the Palestinian people by exerting political pressure on the occupying Power to allow the Palestinian people to acquire enough policy space to achieve the above strategy and by extending sufficient financial aid to fund the Palestinian resource gap.”

The Palestinian National Authority should also maximize the use of the available resources and policy space to pursue national development objectives and build a dynamic economy to underpin the sovereign, independent and contiguous Palestinian State of the future as called for by numerous United Nations resolutions, adds the study.

World Domestic Politics – OpEd

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By Johan Galtung*

Weltinnenpolitik, was the brilliant formula minted in 1963 by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker; nuclear physicist with a dubious career in the Nazi period, philosopher, peace activist, and believing Christian. The world seen as one polity, one political unit.  Not in terms of two levels, the world and the states–canonized as members of the UN–with domestic policies, and “foreign” policies.  “World domestic politics” calls for a world with neither states nor regions but the world as the polity. With LAs, local authorities, but basically with 7 billion+ humans, endowed with human rights and democracy.

A single shiny word, making many think and speak differently. Akin to all formulas giving rise to a number of problematic questions; one more proof of how fruitful this formula was and is.  Thus, how can that one world polity organize political, cultural, military and economic power?  Brief, preliminary answers:

  • Political power: by the people, through direct world elections and referenda, to a world parliament, and on issues;
  • Cultural power: as a world dialogue of civilizations, meaning mutual learning for a possible world civilization, inside that world polity;
  • Military power-force: general-complete disarmament of state armies, world police operating at world and local levels like domestic police;
  • Economic power: by a welfare world lifting up suffering individuals.

We can sense that all four, direct world elections and referenda, world dialogue of civilizations (not only West-Islam), world police and welfare world are waiting back stage to be enacted, and to act. But on stage are states and super-states; singing their swan songs?

Let us try to dig more deeply into this.  We have about 200 domestic state polities–193 are UN members–can anyone be a model? Or, do we have to think anew for the whole world population to feel at home, domus, for anything to become world domestic politics?

The best candidates as possible models would have only LAs (local authorities) between the state and individual humans.  There may be something else for administrative reasons, but the local level would count more.

Norway was once such a country (“Formannskapsloven“, 1837), but the present conservative government, supported by the equally or more conservative, Labor Party, is busily building “regions”, like in France and Spain and other countries.  The reason is rather obvious: regions can be steered from above by the state, LAs from below by the people. The justification is economistic, in terms of big scale advantages; leaving out the human significance of closeness to other people and to things like our little library, and our bookstore. LAs can make circles of cooperation, also to make books publicly and privately available.  But closeness matters, a sense of ownership.

Spain has many of the same features, with more than 8,000 LAs, ayuntamientos; but with 50 provinces in 17 “autonomías” in-between. Like in Norway, the state with legislative-executive-judicial powers has the final word.  Or maybe EU.  Or maybe UN. Or the US Embassy?

Switzerland?  In-between the federal government and people are 2,300 LAs, but also 26 cantons and four language regions.  However, frequent referenda based on LA level debates have the final word; if carried by more than half in more than half of the cantons.

Would a world based on, say, 2 million LA voting units for world elections-referenda be feasible?  Technically, yes; politically yes, but would it work?  Imagine a referendum on vegetarianism, banning consumption of meat from animals, maybe also from fish and fowl, actually following the Christian Bible (Genesis 1:29-30). Carried by a majority in the Orient part of the world influenced by Buddhism/Hinduism but rejected in the Occident part?  Would parts have veto?  In that case, there would be parts, in fact, in-between polities?  Or, could each LA decide for itself, with world policy decided by the world majority?

That would still be a world whose majority can override a whole civilization with deeply rooted beliefs about true or false, good or bad-evil, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, sacred or profane.  If there are 7-8 of them, how about giving civilizations a veto, including over which issues to be decided by direct world elections-referenda, lest we should risk The End of Civilizations, by voting?

Personally I do not think we are ready for Weltinnenpolitik.  We may still need much time for a world dialogue of civilizations to produce something closer to a world civilization.  The West has seen its own civilization as the answer; but that is no longer an option. The world as “United Regions” rather than as “United (old-fashioned) Nations” may make sense, the regions being civilizational.  No doubt, that world could serve as a stage in-between toward Weltinnenpolitik.

How about the five old “continents”, could they play a role? America both North and South, Europe both West and East, Africa, Asia and Australia-Oceania?  They are all civilizationally mixed, maybe Europe less so.  Being five in number, could the Swiss formula of more than half in more than half of the continents be meaningful?

Conversely, could we simply continue the present line for the World Court; decisions are “advisory”, not binding?

Humanity will navigate these troubled waters for quite some time.  But there is a positive approach: focus less on political, military and cultural power and more on the economics of a welfare world. Lift up the most miserable local communities all over the world, empowering them to do so themselves, not by development assistance or trade, but by basic needs oriented cooperatives.  China, a huge portion of humanity, does that; if still a far way to go.  Others can join.

A world focus on the world’s most miserable communities, to lift up the bottom of humanity, is a welfare world we need.  Doing that would already be Weltinnenpolitik.  Today, not waiting 50+ more years.

About the author:
*Johan Galtung
, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment and rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. Prof. Galtung has published 1670 articles and book chapters, over 470 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service, and 167 books on peace and related issues, of which 41 have been translated into 35 languages, for a total of 135 book translations, including ‘50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,’ published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.

Source:
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS)

‘Schindler List’ For Southeast Europe: Pakistanisation As Final Solution For Balkans? – OpEd

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A few days ago the Observer published a column under the title Putin-Proofing the Balkans: A How-To Guide, written by John Schindler. In this article the author advocates some new geopolitical redesigns of the Balkans which are actually far from being a novelty. As a matter of fact, these ideas represent a pale copy of the ideas recently published by Foreign Affairs in the article under the title Dysfunction in the Balkans, written by Timothy Less, a former British diplomat who served as the head of the British diplomatic office in Banja Luka, the capital of the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the political secretary of the British Embassy in Macedonia.

Less advocates a total redesign of the existing state boundaries in the Balkans: the imagined Greater Serbia should embrace the existing Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but also the entire internationally recognized Republic of Montenegro; the Greater Croatia should embrace a future Croatian entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina; the Greater Albania should embrace both Kosovo and the western part of Macedonia.

All these territorial redesigns, says Less and Schindler agrees, would eventually bring about a lasting peace and stability in the region.

Of course, it is easy to claim that both Schindler and Less are now only freelancers whose articles have nothing to do with their former employers’ policies. However, the problem is that certain circles within the foreign policy establishment in both Great Britain and the United States, in their numerous initiatives from 1990s onwards, have repeatedly advocated the very same ideas that can be found in these two articles, such as the creation of the imagined monoethnic greater states – Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia and Greater Albania – as an alleged path towards lasting stability in the Balkans, with Bosnia’s and Macedonia’s disappearance as a collateral damage.

Of course, these ideas have always been spread below the surface of official policy, but they have never been abandoned, as the ‘coincidence’ of almost simultaneous appearance of Schindler’s and Less’s articles in the renowned mainstream magazines demonstrates.

Ostensibly, the ideas advocated by Schindler and Less are rooted in the plausible presupposition that, as long as the existing nationalist greater-state projects remain unaccomplished, the nationalist resentment will always generate ever-increasing instability.

However, the history has clearly demonstrated, both in the Balkans and other parts of the world, that such a presupposition is nothing but a simple fallacy. For, the very concept of completed ethnonational states is a concept that has always led towards perpetual instability wherever applied, because such ethnonational territories cannot be created without projection of extreme coercion and violence over particular ‘inappropriate’ populations, including the techniques which have become known as ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The logic of ‘solving national issues’ through creation of ethnically cleansed greater states has always led towards permanent instability, never towards long-term stability. Let us only remember the consequences of the German ruling oligarchy’s attempt to create such a state in the World War II. And let us only try to imagine what the world would be like if their geopolitical project was recognized and accepted in the name of ‘stability’, as now Schindler and Less propose in the case of some other geopolitical projects based on ethnic cleansing and genocide.

What is particularly interesting when it comes to ‘solving national issues’ in the Balkans is the flexibility (i.e. arbitrariness) of the proposed and realized ‘solutions’. First, the winners in the World War I, among whom the British and American officials occupied the most prominent positions, advocated the creation of the common national state of the Southern Slavs at the Peace Conference in Versailles. Then, more than seventy years later, Lord Carrington, the longest serving member of the British foreign policy establishment, chaired another international conference in The Hague where he oversaw the partition of that very state in the name of ‘solving national issues’ between ethnonational states which constituted it.

Together with the Portugese diplomat, Jose Cutileiro, Lord Carrington then also introduced the first, pre-war plan for ethnic partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina (the Carrington-Cutileiro Plan), again in the name of ‘solving national issues’ between the ethnic groups living in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was eventually sealed, with some minor changes, at the international conference in Dayton.

And now, here is yet another plan for fragmentation of the Balkan states, again in order to ‘solve national issues’. What is needed in addition is yet another international conference to implement and verify such a plan, and thus turn the Balkans upside-down one more time. Therefore it comes as no surprise that such a conference on the Western Balkans has already been scheduled for 2018 in London.

Yet, how the proposed dismemberment of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, as well as the absorption of Montenegro into Greater Serbia, can be made politically acceptable to the population of the Balkans and the entire international community?

What is required to accomplish such a task is a scenario that would make an alternative to dismemberment and absorption of sovereign states even less acceptable. It is not difficult to imagine that only a war, or a threat of war, would be such an alternative. However, its feasibility is limited by the fact that no state in the Balkans has the capacities and resources – military, financial, or demographic – to wage a full-scale war, and their leaders are too aware of this to even try to actually launch it.

In such a context, the available option is to create an atmosphere that would simulate an immediate threat of war, by constantly raising nationalist tensions between, and within, the states in the region. Of course, such tensions do exist since 1990, but it would be necessary to accumulate them in a long-term campaign so as to create an illusion of imminence of regional war.

Significantly, following the appearance of Less’s article, and simultaneously with Schindler’s, the tensions within Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia have begun to rise. This growth of tensions can hardly be disregarded as accidental, given the fact that the Balkan leaders can easily be played one against another whenever they receive signals, no matter whether fake or true, that a new geopolitical reshuffle of the region is being reconsidered by major global players. Since they are already well-accustomed to raising inter-state and intra-state tensions as a means of their own political survival, it is very likely that they will be able to accumulate such tensions to such a level as to gradually generate a mirage of imminent regional war. Also, a part of the same campaign is the systematic spread of rumors, already performed all over Europe, that a war in the Balkans is inevitable and will certainly take place during 2017.

In the simulated atmosphere of inevitable war, a radical geopolitical reconfiguration of the entire Balkans, including dismemberment of the existing states proclaimed as dysfunctional and their eventual absorption into the imagined greater states, may well become politically acceptable.  All that is needed is to juxtapose this ‘peaceful’ option and the fabricated projection of imminent war as the only available alternatives, and offer to implement the former at a particular international conference, such as the one scheduled for 2018 in London.

What is required for implementation of the proposed geopolitical rearrangement of the Balkans is to spread the perception that the permanent rise of political conflicts in the region inevitably leads to a renewed armed conflict. In that context, all the proposed fallacies about usefulness of geopolitical redesigns in the Balkans may easily acquire a degree of legitimacy, so as to be finally implemented and verified at the 2018 London conference on the Western Balkans.

Of course, if that happens, it can only lead to further resentment and lasting instability in the region and Eastern Europe, and that can only lead to growing instability in the entire Europe. One can only wonder, is that a desired ultimate outcome for those who promote greater state projects in the Balkans as an alleged path towards its stability?

About the author:
*Zlatko Hadžidedić is Assistant Professor at the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, Bosnia-Herzegovina. He received his PhD from the University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Political Science, his MPhil from the London School of Economics and Political Science and MA from the Central European University, Budapest. He served as political adviser to several Bosnian ministers and political leaders. His book Forced to be Free. The Paradoxes of Liberalism and Nationalism was published in 2012 by Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag (DWV).

Education For All: Viable Means For Empowerment And Poverty Alleviation – Analysis

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Illiteracy is a worldwide impediment to development. Illiteracy among Muslims is still the most dangerous scourge and challenge that impede any optimum investment of human resources in the implementation of the national development plans in the countries of the Muslim world, writes the author, Dr. Mohamed Chtatou.

UNESCO and other UN agencies along with international organizations supported the international initiatives on Education for All, especially those that came under the framework of the Jomtien Declaration of 1990:i

“The Jomtien Conference was clearly a major milestone in the international dialogue on the place of education in human development policy, and the consensus reached there has given renewed impetus to the worldwide drive to provide universal primary education and eliminate adult illiteracy. It has also inspired efforts to improve the quality of basic education and to find more cost-effective ways to meet the basic learning needs of various disadvantaged population groups.”

and the Dakar Forum,ii

“The Dakar Framework for Action is a re-affirmation of the vision set out in the World Declaration on Education for All in Jomtien a decade ago. It expresses the international community’s collective commitment to pursue a broad-based strategy for ensuring that the basic learning needs of every child, youth and adult are met within a generation and sustained thereafter.”

Both focused on the need to combat illiteracy in all its forms, including alphabetical illiteracy, functional illiteracy, legal illiteracy, and computer illiteracy, considering that illiteracy constitutes a handicap that paralyses capacities and locks energies in a time where society needs the active involvement of its individuals and their full potentials to face up to the challenges, the requirements of competitiveness, the logic of globalization, as well as the rapid pace of scientific progress, technological breakthroughs and information revolution.

Illiteracy among Muslims is still the most dangerous scourge and challenge that impede any optimum investment of human resources in the implementation of the national development plans in the countries of the Muslim world. Due to many complex factors related to the political, cultural, economic, social and demographic conditions, the efforts led so far in several Muslim States to combat and eradicate this scourge still prove inadequate.

In this respect Farrukh Saleem argues:iii

“Fact: Of the 1.4 billion Muslims 800 million are illiterate (6 out of 10 Muslims cannot read). In Christendom, adult literacy rate stands at 78 percent.

Consider, for instance, that Muslims constitute 22 percent of world population with a 1 percent share of Nobel Prizes. Jews constitute 0.23 percent of world population with a 22 percent share of Nobel Prizes.

What really went wrong? Muslims are poor, illiterate and weak. What went wrong? Arriving at the right diagnosis is extremely critical because the prescription depends on it. Consider this:

Diagnosis 1: Muslims are poor, illiterate and weak because they have ‘abandoned the divine heritage of Islam’. Prescription: We must return to our real or imagined past.

Diagnosis 2: Muslims are poor, illiterate and weak because we have refused to change with time.”

Illiteracy in Morocco

Illiteracy is undoubtedly one of the most terrible curses that can plague any given society because of its dire and unpredictable consequences. Ignorance leads to loss of hope in the future, which in turn can lead to radicalization and extreme solutions. A case in point is the terrorist attacks of Casablanca in 2003 that were initiated by youth coming from Sidi Moumen shanty town in the periphery of Casablanca, who were unemployed, hardly educated and with no prospects in life. This youth was easily recuperated by maleficent individuals who brainwashed them into taking a violent action causing their death and that of innocent people, in the name of Islam.

Morocco has to rely on a comprehensive approach that tackles the subject of illiteracy in its general and global framework, i.e. the framework of Education For All.iv Previous experiences as well as the outcome of evaluation and prospective studies on the situation of education in the world have shown that the plans for combating illiteracy cannot bear the intended results if they are conducted separately from the plans for providing education to all social categories, particularly the vulnerable categories prone to marginalization in education such as the early childhood, women and young girls in rural and remote areas, the elderly, the handicapped, the refugees, and people of no fixed abode. With that in mind, Morocco will have to seek to schedule an array of activities concerning the education of these categories, adult education, combating alphabetical, legal, functional and computer illiteracy, while focusing on areas and categories where the need is most felt, such as the category of women, knowing that the concept of illiteracy is ever-evolving and extending.

Port of Casablanca, Morocco. Photo by Brio-En, Wikipedia Commons.
Port of Casablanca, Morocco. Photo by Brio-En, Wikipedia Commons.

The city of Casablanca is surrounded by a belt of poverty made of several shanty towns where ignorance reigns supreme and, as such, are eligible to become hotbeds of extremism in the future if unchecked and assisted. Poverty is not a fatality; it can be reversed if officials show a minimum of goodwill and responsibility. Like the Chinese say, you do not render a service to an individual by giving him fish but rather by teaching him to fish and transfer to him the know-how. Personal development and emancipation can only be achieved through empowerment which can be effected through literacy and adult education.

Social mediation is needed more today that any other time before. It can best be articulated through community-based functional literacy which is about:

  1. Providing the three “R”s in specific communities to both males and females and those with specific needs;
  2. Providing courses on health, hygiene, religious responsibilities and political awareness;
  3. Providing vocational education; and
  4. Helping set up coops for these programs’ beneficiaries on conclusion of instruction.

Primary Focus: Women and people with special needs

muslim schoolchildren school islam educationThe path to Education for All starts long before primary school. A number of scientific studies in psycho pedagogy have shown that the first steps of life, during early childhood, are vital for later success in life. That is why, family literacy and inter-generational literacy programs are of paramount importance for the cognitive, health and nutrition needs since they contribute to building literate and learning societies.

Indeed, inter-generational linguistic transfer and the link between the literacy of parents and children provide firm ground for children’s enrolment at school. Therefore, it is vital to invest in early childhood education and care both at the formal and non-formal levels.

In addition, the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2009v states that the gender dimension is one of the important parameters of the current disparities affecting access to literacy. Indeed, out of the 776 million persons who are deprived of the basic skills in literacy, women account for the two thirds. Therefore, it is imperative to step up efforts to develop literacy strategies for women. That is why; it has been noted by the major recommendations issued by CONFINTEA VIvi regional preparatory conferences that the States should promote integration through training programs which accommodate the specific expectations of minorities, vulnerable and marginalized groups and categories with special needs.

Apart from the social fracture relating to the gender dimension in literacy, one of the major challenges of the World Literacy Decadevii is the marginalization affecting some social categories such as the handicapped, the homeless and the persons of no fixed abode. In this regard, one of the main challenges for Education for All consists in the elaboration of inclusive literacy strategies for the benefit of these social groups.

Use of ICT

The preparatory conferences for the Sixth International Conference on Adult Educationviii recommended the necessity to enhance the possibilities provided by information and communication technology in literacy and adult education. Being useful instruments for enhancing the quality and efficiency of literacy and adult education programs, these technologies provide access to mobile and remote populations via distance learning.

Indeed, ICTs prove effective in creating educational environments more adapted to the needs and concerns of the social categories which are excluded from the educational system. Therefore, it is imperative to highlight the importance of these technologies as a training tool.

In order to enhance the capabilities provided by ICTs in literacy, as recommended by the participants in the African Regional Conference on Literacy in the World,ix innovation should be stimulated in science and technology, through expanding the use of scientific terms in literacy languages and benefiting by audiovisual teaching materials to expound scientific concepts, building on the analysis of local practices.

Against this backdrop, this program will aim at enhancing traditional technologies such as radio, television and the press and channeling them into literacy and adult education.

Funding

During the Arab States regional preparatory conference for the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education,x the recommendations called for mobilizing diversified additional funding sources, internal and external, to implement literacy and adult education programs. In this connection, models of Islamic solidarity such as zakat, social charity actions and endowments (Waqfs) have been highlighted as possible off-budget funding resources. Accordingly, this program will seek to activate these funding sources, wherever possible.

Philosophy

Morocco is, alas, a country that has natural resources but not high cash-earning ones such as oil or natural gas, its economy traditionally relied on cash-crop agriculture which in turn relies on rain fall that extremely irregular in the North Africa region. As such a good portion of the population is endemically poor and also illiterate.

Generally, these people to make a living are street vendors, peddlers, pick-pockets, petty crime agents, etc in cities. In the countryside the poor rely on tribal solidarity, fortunately still active, or opt for migration to cities with hope for better living prospects.

Morocco, in spite of high-profile programs such literacy programs provided by specialized institutions, civil society, mosques, etc. and poverty-alleviation schemes initiated by the Initiative Nationale pour le Développement Humainxi (National Human Development Initiative)xii have not been able to get rid of neither illiteracy nor poverty. So, Morocco remains a fractured country with two classes: the elite and the poor,xiii bearing in mind that the middle class that acts as a shock absorber between the afore-mentioned ones has been obliterated by the economic crisis of 1982.

Courtyard, Al-Qarawiyyin University, Fes. Morocco, the oldest in the world. Photo by Khonsali, Wikipedia Commons.
Courtyard, Al-Qarawiyyin University, Fes. Morocco, the oldest in the world. Photo by Khonsali, Wikipedia Commons.

Literacy efforts of Morocco are time-old and ineffectual whether undertaken by government or civil society and consequently the end results are not as beneficial as expected so illiteracy remains very high especially in Amazigh-speaking areas and it s coupled with poverty and resulting discontent.

Community-based literacy solves both the problem of literacy and poverty and anchors the population in its community, thus, barring any temptation for migration or displacement for economic reasons. What is more it helps create local wealth that spawns regional development.

This literacy approach is mainly slated as functional literacy because it is a triple-pronged approach unlike traditional literacy that is mono-pronged. This program aims to achieve the following:

  • Basic literacy: teaching of the three Rs, basically reading, writing and arithmetic in the local language Arabic or Amazigh);
  • Practical literacy: teaching political rights and obligations, hygiene, reproductive health, human rights, etc.
  • Vocational literacy: teach learners skills that will help them become local entrepreneurs, artisans or technicians.

Approach and pedagogy

The community-based literacy program is conducted by local instructors, local literacy specialists and supervised by local people who are well-known in the community for their knowledge, integrity and community dedication. These people during the lifetime of the program have to conduct town meetings and one on one encounter to measure the advance of the program and evaluate its academic and technical progress. Specialists and instructors will be encouraged to communicate non-stop with learners and push them to talk about their progress, possible problems and their perception of program’s progress.

The instructors, specialists and directors will receive in-service training now and then in the up-to-date techniques and approaches and their evaluations and continuous feedback will be taken into consideration. They will have to be made to feel like the learners, all the time, that the program is theirs and its success is their success and that any external help is merely facilitation.

The course content will be crafted and created by local educational actors who know both the learning needs of the target people and their vocational aspirations. The program has to be hundred per cent community-based and fully responding to local needs and this throughout its duration. The word “community-based” is not a vain word it is a philosophy that highlights the concept of ownership.

In a word, the program is part and parcel of the community and it is totally owned by its recipients. External facilitators can only bring expertise and funds, no more.

On-going evaluation process

Evaluation is one of the pillars of this literacy program. Its indicators will help guide the program towards success. The evaluation process will focus on the following tracks:

Learning:

  • Learning needs;
  • Relevance of the curriculum;
  • Pedagogical issues; and
  • Achievement status.

Teaching:

  • Teaching approach;
  • Teaching relevance; and
  • Teachers’ achievement.

Program:

  • Program’s relevance;
  • Program’s direction;
  • Program’s achievements ; and
  • Program’s mishaps and failures.

Duration and content

The community-based literacy is a program designed to suit the needs of the learners and meet their aspirations in results but also speed of realization, frequency of learning and content, in their own local environment rural or urban. In this regard the program has two tracks:

Fast track: the program lasts two years (eleven months a year with August off) of four days a week (Monday to Thursday), seven hours a day from 9 am to 5pm with an hour for lunch and rest at 1pm.

First year:

  • Basic literacy: 5 hours a day; and
  • Practical literacy: 2 hours a day.

Second Year:

  • Vocational literacy: 5 hours a day; and
  • Basic literacy;: 2 hours a day

Slow track: the program lasts three years (eleven months a year with August off) of four days a week (Monday to Thursday), four hours a day from 1 to 5pm.

First year:

  • Basic literacy: 3 hours a day; and
  • Practical literacy: 1 hour a day

Second year:

  • Basic literacy: 2 hours a day;
  • Practical literacy: 1 hour; and
  • Vocational literacy: 1 hour.

Third year:

  • Basic literacy: 1 hour; and
  • Vocational literacy: 3 hours.

Aim

To combat illiteracy in the 21st century in all its dimensions which include expression, communication, cultural identity and socio-economic development, a number of factors are to be taken into account in training methods and the content of relevant programs.

Concerning the training methodology, it is obvious that the use of information technologies plays a pivotal role in training. Indeed, the computer has become an educational tool since it provides an oriented education that enables learners to acquire basic skills. It, also, facilitates access to learning materials through Internet or compact discs. Besides, the computer provides the opportunity for individuals to learn according to their own capacities and preferences without being discouraged by the evaluation results.

Therefore, to provide education for all, the various traditional and contemporary forms of literacy have to be taken into consideration. Every time the learners’ needs, specificities and working conditions are taken into consideration in literacy systems, the learners become more engaged in the literacy process since some groups of learners prefer traditional systems whereas others opt for modern systems of literacy and distance training.

However, in order to stimulate adult learners’ interest, training should address their needs in terms of economic development while taking into consideration their cultural specificities. In this connection, training should develop the learners’ skills and enhance the technical and professional qualification process in society through adopting multidisciplinary approaches on the one hand, and should be part of a set of policies and programs that address the learners in their mother tongue and in other languages, if necessary, and using the script that suits their preferences on the other.

The analysis of educational innovations in literacy programs shows that quality programs focus on the learners rather than on standard programs or norms. Therefore, quality literacy programs ought to accommodate the diversity of ages and learning patterns as they are deeply entrenched in the socio-economic context of the learners and have been designed in accordance with the interests of individuals and communities. At the educational level, priority is given to an interactive learning instead of a teacher-centered pedagogy.

The fourth objective of the Dakar Framework for Action provided for achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially among women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults. This requires conducting prospective studies to understand all non-formal education patterns which can be employed in our societies. This in turn calls for devising a more flexible system to evaluate the acquired attainments as part of a sustainable perspective on literacy, in accordance with the recommendations emanating from the French-speaking countries preparatory meeting for the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI).

Training

The competencies required in literacy staff vary according to the field of their intervention and the category to which they belong. Literacy staff include those entrusted with policy elaboration and are tasked with planning and management; they also include technicians who are assigned educational functions and training. Seeking to provide constructive training, the program will carry out training programs for staff as per the needs of each category.

As part of this approach, it will organize for the benefit of leaderships, officials and administrative staff, national and regional seminars in the field of planning literacy and post-literacy programs, provision of the necessary financial resources for them as well as their management, follow-up and evaluation, in addition to mobilizing the society towards addressing literacy issues in order to further communication between political and administrative staff and the neo-literate social groups using the national language.

Avoiding shortfall

One of the shortfalls in the literacy efforts led in a number of countries is relapse into illiteracy. After having acquired the basic knowledge and skills, the neo-literates relapse into the scourge of illiteracy because of the lack of conducive environment for learning, especially in the absence of post-literacy materials. In this connection, the French-speaking countries preparatory conference for the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education discussed the methods for the prevention and eradication of illiteracy.

To counter this possible development, this program will create reading centers that will dedicate activities for neo-literate adults with the aim of preventing relapse into illiteracy. In the light of the evaluation results and needs, new reading centers will be created for neo-literate adults.

Within the framework of this program, support will extended to community libraries through providing various post-literacy teaching materials, as well as collecting a number of texts pertaining to laws, economic development activities, health, religion and cultural traditions to be made available to neo-literates.

Expected results

The community-based literacy program aims to arrive at the following results:

  • To consolidate links between literacy and economic development;
  • To create conducive environments for learning;
  • To promote family literacy and inter-generational literacy strategies;
  • To enhance the capacities of literacy staff in charge of early childhood;
  • To develop early childhood literacy programs;
  • To assist the government in implementing educational programs for young girls and women;
  • To integrate rural women in comprehensive development;
  • To promote literacy inclusive strategies;
  • To increase the opportunities of access to Education For All (EFA);
  • To work towards combating the illiteracy of categories with special needs in literacy and adult education centers and institutions;
  • To improve the internal output of literacy among categories with special needs;
  • To promote the diversification of literacy methods using media;
  • To strengthen the capacities of literacy staff in the use of media;
  • To enable marginalized categories to gain access to literacy programs;
  • To reinforce education activities and sensitization programs devoted to literacy and adult education. And health and hygiene awareness;
  • To enhance the reading skills of the neo-literates;
  • To improve the external output of literacy and adult education programs.
  • To diversify literacy methods using informatics; and
  • To propose innovative programs to teach the basics of informatics.

Endnotes:
i http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/JOMTIE_E.PDF
ii. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001211/121147e.pdf
iii. http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muslim_Statistics_-_Education_and_Employment
quoting: Dr Farrukh Saleem – What went wrong? – The News International, November 8, 2005
iv. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002324/232463e.pdf
v. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0017/001776/177609e.pdf
vi. http://www.unesco.org/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/INSTITUTES/UIL/confintea/pdf/News/confinteavi_final_report_engl_online.pdf
vii. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001354/135400e.pdf
The United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) is an initiative adopted by the global community through a unanimous resolution of the United Nations General Assembly. The Decade was launched in New York at the U.N. in February 2003 to mobilize the resources and political will required to meet the learning needs of the hundreds of millions of illiterate people living around the world. Given the powerful impact of literacy on the full range of human endeavours, the UN has decided to identify certain themes for special attention during the Decade.
2003-04 Literacy and Gender
2005-06 Literacy and Sustainable Development
2007-08 Literacy and Health
2009-10 Literacy and Empowerment
2011-12 Literacy and Peace
viii. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001877/187790e.pdf
ix. https://www.dvv-international.de/adult-education-and-development/editions/aed-692007/cooperation-and-conferences/african-regional-conference-in-support-of-literacy/
x. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001829/182958e.pdf
xi. http://www.indh.gov.ma/index.php/fr/
This Moroccan poverty-alleviation and reduction initiative is introduced in the above web-sited in the following terms:
« L’Initiative Nationale pour le Développement Humain, lancée par Sa Majesté le Roi Mohammed VI, que Dieu L’Assiste, le 18 mai 2005, vise la lutte contre la pauvreté, la précarité et l’exclusion sociale à travers la réalisation de projets d’appui aux infrastructures de base, projets de formation et de renforcement de capacités, d’animation sociale, culturelle et sportive ainsi que la promotion d’activités génératrices de revenus et d’emplois.De par son originalité et son aspect novateur, l’INDH se fonde sur une nouvelle philosophie et un nouveau style de management. Dans ce cadre, le Discours Royal constitue la feuille de route et la référence se focalisant sur un socle de valeurs à savoir, la dignité humaine, la confiance des marocains en soi et en l’avenir de leur pays et la participation de la population concernée à travers le diagnostic participatif et la déclinaison des besoins exprimés en projets. De plus, la bonne gouvernance et la pérennité s’ajoutent à ces valeurs qui confortent une gouvernance intelligente, démocratique, et qui donne la possibilité à tous les acteurs du développement de s’impliquer fortement dans le processus de prise de décision de la chose publique. »
xii. “The National Human Development Initiative is a program launched in 2005 by King Mohammed VI of Morocco with the objective of “ensuring a better distribution of the fruits of growth and to improve the living conditions of citizens”. The program has a budget of 10 billion Dirham (about Euro 900 million) over five years (2006-2010). It is distributed equally between two country-wide programs (one called a “transversal program” and a “program against precarious living conditions”) and two geographically targeted programs (an urban and a rural program). 60% of the program is financed by the national government, 20% by local governments and 20% is to be financed by external donors. For the urban program, committees at the local level identified 264 urban neighborhoods with the greatest needs in 30 cities that would benefit from the initiative. The neighborhoods have a population of 2.5m or 16% of the country’s urban population. The rural program targets the 348 rural municipalities where the poverty level is higher than 30%.
The World Bank supports the initiative through a US$100 million loan  and a US$7 million grant to increase access to water supply and sanitation in three cities.”
Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Human_Development_Initiative
xiii. https://www.africanexponent.com/blogs/braveafrica/4456-moroccos-reality-is-still-in-the-middle-age

Houthis Selling Iranian Weapons To Al-Qaeda, Says Saudi Diplomat

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By Joyce Karam

As Yemen’s war enters its third year, a two-day workshop addressing the military, political and humanitarian challenges of the conflict warned of Houthi ties to Iran and their impact on legitimate institutions in Yemen.

Saudi and Yemeni diplomats both echoed the urgency for a political solution, and invited the Houthis to the table as a political party and not an armed militia.

The conference in Washington, organized by the Gulf Research Center, featured Saudi and Yemeni officials, as well as US defense experts and former US ambassadors to Sanaa. The meetings took place on Thursday and Friday at the National Council for US-Arab relations, and at the Army Navy Club respectively.

Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Yemen Mohammed Al-Jaber stressed the need for a fair political solution to the conflict. “We invite the Houthis to the negotiating table, and we are more than open to a political solution,” he said.

His invitation, however, was paralleled with heavy criticism of the Houthis as an armed militia, accusing them of “selling Iran’s provided weapons to Al-Qaeda in Yemen.”

Al-Jaber also lambasted Iran’s “clear position… to destroy and undermine Yemen,” accusing Tehran of “supporting Houthis’ terrorism.”

The Saudi diplomat defined Riyadh’s role as “non-discriminatory and non-sectarian,” stating that its aid “goes to all the legitimate parties in Yemen.”

He stressed that the Hodeidah port “needs to be under the control of the international community so that aid can be distributed to the Yemeni people.”

Yemen’s Ambassador to Washington Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak defined the goal of a “political solution that preserves the Yemeni state and institutions” in ending the conflict.

Mubarak maintained that the Saudi-led coalition forces “are pushing for a political solution” to the war.

The Yemeni diplomat however sounded the alarm over the Houthis’ armament, saying that “for Yemen’s future, we can allow the Houthis as a political party but not as armed militia.” Mubarak offered heavy criticism of the Houthis, saying that “their leaders promote just as much extremism and violence as Al-Qaeda.”

In that capacity, Mubarak said Saudi Arabia’s decision to intervene was “the only option to prevent non-state actor from taking over Yemen.”

Former US Ambassador Gerald Feierstein stressed three goals for Saudi Arabia in Yemen. First is the “need to preserve legitimate Yemeni government,” and second is to “prevent further Houthi and Iranian expansion,” while the third goal is to protect the Saudi-Yemen border.

These goals were reiterated by the head of the Gulf Research Center (GRC) Abdulaziz Sager, who warned about letting Yemen “turn into another Lebanon with (a) violent non-state actor (Houthis) dominating the country’s security forces.” Sager said that the “coalition is trying to end the war but Iran is preventing it by financing violent non-state actors.”

In that context, Mustafa Alani, a defense analyst at GRC drew a red line for Saudi Arabia in Yemen, contending that the Kingdom cannot accept Houthi control over Yemen. “It would be a major strategic threat blocking all access to the sea,” he said. “The Houthi siege was a reality check for Riyadh (in 2015) after allowing the armed Houthi movement to grow in early 2000s.”

Alani pointed out the difficulties and the complexities of the war, and that “there is no magic solution.” He said that any Hodeidah operation “is a high cost with less benefits. We aren’t prepared.”

The two-day conference framed Saudi Arabia’s military role in Yemen as “one of necessity and not choice,” and noted increased US-Saudi defense cooperation following US Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ visit. It highlighted the challenging humanitarian and economic terrains in the conflict, without, however, providing a clear exit strategy.


State Dept Ordered To Release Clinton’s Benghazi Emails

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A Washington DC federal court judge has ordered the State Department to turn over Hillary Clinton’s emails that immediately followed the terrorist attack in Benghazi to the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch.

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson reviewed the documents and rejected the government’s contention that the records had been properly withheld under FOIA exemption.

The “Defendant contends that it properly withheld eight identical paragraphs in two different emails, which were summaries of calls between the President of the United States and the Presidents of Libya and Egypt in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack,” wrote Judge Jackson in her memorandum opinion on March 20.

The State Department argued the summaries were meant to provide information to senior officials to be used in their decision making on how to respond to a national security crisis.

Plaintiffs argued the subject line of the email “Quick Summary of POTUS Calls to Presidents of Libya and Egypt,” and the FYSA annotation, a common acronym for ‘For Your Situational Awareness’ “refute any suggestion of careful analysis, deliberation or judgment.

“The Court finds that the two records, even if just barely pre-decisional, are not deliberative,” and “the Court finds that the misconduct exception cannot be evoked in this FOIA action…and defendant’s motion for summary judgment be granted in part and denied in part… Defendant is instructed to produce documents C05739592 and CO5739595 to plaintiff,” wrote Judge Jackson.

Judicial Watch hopes the emails will reveal what Obama and Clinton knew following the attack.

“Does President Trump know his State and Justice Departments are still trying to provide cover for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.

“An extraordinary court ruling that could result in key answers about the Benghazi outrage is being opposed by the Trump administration. This may well be an example of the ‘deep state’ trying to get away with a cover up – if so then the Trump administration must put a stop to it.”

On September 11, 2012, a group of heavily armed Islamist militia fighters attacked the United States’ diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the assault – marking the first time since 1979 that a US ambassador was killed in the line of duty.

In the aftermath, President Obama and senior administration officials identified an inflammatory YouTube video as the catalyst for the attack. Emails revealed that Clinton emailed her daughter Chelsea saying the attack was carried out by an “al Qaeda-like group.”

In response, Judicial Watch filed an FOIA request with the Department of State for records related to government talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack given to former US National Security Advisor, Susan Rice.

The State Department failed to produce documentation, which led Judicial Watch to file an FOIA lawsuit on October 26, 2012.

In a press release dated April 18, 2014, Judicial Watch announced it had obtained documents related to the talking points memo used by Rice, and other Obama administration officials in the days after the attack.

It was their FOIA lawsuit, filed in December 2012, which compelled the release of some 14,000 records from Clinton’s private email server from the time she served as Secretary of State. The court had previously blocked the release of 30 records redacted by the State Department, saying they don’t show evidence of government misconduct, alleged by the conservative watchdog group.

Within months of the start of the Libyan revolution in February 2011, the CIA began building a covert presence in Benghazi. During the war, elite counter-terrorist operators from U.S. Delta Force were deployed to Libya as analysts, instructing the rebels on specifics about weapons and tactics. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was named the first liaison with the Libyan opposition in March 2011.

The Two-Fold Ministry Of Jesus – OpEd

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By Abraham Kuyper*

Jesus not only sought to bring a spiritual salvation, but also countered human misery and did so up until the very end. He fed the thousands and healed the sick; the blind could see, the mute could speak, and the dead were raised. This was in no way just a peripheral matter for him, as is proved in that, when John the Baptist investigated his messiahship, Jesus did not tell his messengers to report that “I preach the gospel, and heal many sick as well,” but that, first, “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up,” and then, in the second place, that “the poor have good news preached to them” [Matt 11:5].

Our King is Christus Consolator – Christ the Comforter — in the spiritual as well as the physical sphere. Sin did not come alone, but was necessarily accompanied by human misery. This is why Christ, in order to break the work of Satan, had to address the situation resulting from sin on two sides at once. It was necessary for him to stem the tides not only of sin, but also of misery. We may of course not conclude from this sequence that the gospel was initially a matter of secondary importance for Jesus. There is no doubt that the spiritual is and remains the starting point, but by placing his opposition to our human misery in the foreground, Jesus does demonstrate that we would be doing his honor a disfavor if we were only to honor him as the one who announces the gospel, and that we only give him the honor he deserves once we venerate him for saving us from both sin and physical misery. The one may not be disparaged in favor of the other. The two go together. It is only by paying attention to both of them that you will understand the Christus Consolator in all his fullness. And what his work in saving people from their physical misery always has going for it is this: that the Lord’s great majesty is displayed much more powerfully in these works that the Father has given him to do than it does in the preaching of the gospel. Also John the Baptist preached the gospel, but he did not perform any saving miracles. Whenever Jesus appealed to his Father’s testimony, he consistently pointed to the works—the miracles—he performed. And almost all these works were philanthropic in character in the sense in which we commonly use the term philanthropy today.

These works of miraculous healing have not continued in the same way as in the time of Christ and the apostles. But this does not mean that the church’s activities have therefore been cut in half, and that it ought to withdraw to the domain of the spiritual alone. Its lofty calling continues to be the fight against both sin and misery. The church must continue to display the image of Christ. As Jesus himself always acted in his twofold capacity as the Savior from sin as well as the Savior from misery, the nature of the case demands from his church that it demonstrate this twofold character as well. If the normal suppression of human misery consists in the hungry receiving bread and the sick being healed by their doctor, it follows that, as soon as the church entered upon the normal course of its existence, it had to preach the gospel first of all, then had to see to the needs of the poor, and thirdly had to offer aid to those who were sick.

We already see in the New Testament how the apostles not only appointed overseers to whom they gave the task to preach the gospel and exercise spiritual discipline over the church’s members, but also established the diaconate to demonstrate that the offices of the church must see to the spiritual as well as the physical needs of the congregation. Especially in churches where the apostles themselves could no longer be active but had entrusted the care of the congregation to others did this diaconate assume a more fixed form.

We are no more than stewards

Churches, which have focused almost exclusively on spiritual matters, are beginning to realize that their honor is being damaged, and, via their honor, the honor of their King, and, over against this usurpation of the government, are preparing to retain the domain that Christ has appointed to it. However, also in this protest the proper distinctions are often lacking. For one cannot and may not say that the care for the poor and sick in the entire population is the duty of the church. To insist on this would be to impose an altogether impossible task upon it; the chimera of the national church alone feeds this erroneous understanding. Indeed, if the entire nation were to belong to Christ’s church, the church would assume the care of the sick and poor for the entire nation and bear it all on its own. Yet it is impossible to do the following two things at one and the same time: on the one hand, to declare the notion of a national church to be an untenable and false chimera, while declaring, on the other hand, that the churches must look after the entire nation.

The kingly honor of Christ in his capacity as King in his church demands only that all those who belong to his church as subjects be sufficiently helped by the church in their needs. As our King, Christ has bought only his subjects for his possession. Therefore, all that a church member possesses belongs to Jesus; those who deny this are not Jesus’ possession. We are no more than stewards of our King over what we have and receive. And what honors our King is this: that all those in his church who experience need or suffering be supported by the other, well-to-do members. A member of the church should never have to seek help outside the church. The church’s members form a single holy family, and it would dishonor the church and its King if one of Jesus’ subjects were forced to seek aid from a person or power outside the church.

The sharing of possessions that began in Jerusalem after the day of Pentecost was unrestrained in its exaggeration, and yet it did express the awareness that all the members of one church together receive from their King the income from which all must live. No church can therefore simply distribute; it must supply where there is need, and do so in such a way that the need itself disappears. And, just like the church may never refer its poor to the civil government, so no church member may ever seek the aid of the state. It is the very honor of Christ as our King that forbids this.

If funds are left over and more can be done, then it is altogether recommended for munificence to be extended beyond the borders of the church and to be used to help others as well—yet this may not happen until the needs of all fellow members in the church have been met. There must be food, clothing, lodging, and heating for all, even in times of unemployment and illness.

For that reason, the church must also take the lot of its sick members to heart. And this work is not exhausted by the distribution of funds. The poor demand a very special kind of care, and the needs of the families that suffer due to the illness of their breadwinner must be met. For this reason it is good to see that this need is currently beginning to be looked after through community nursing, although for now this is just a start and only that. The honor of our King demands that more happen.

Everyone should know that, if he submits to Christ as King, then Christ demands that every need be supplied. From this it follows that the diaconate faces the serious question as to how that care must be arranged so as to ensure that the poverty is not fueled and that the congregation will eventually be delivered from the emergency situation. Even discipline must be applied where need arose or continues through a person’s own fault. Diaconal care must have a socially and morally elevating character.

About the author:
*Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) is a significant figure in the history of the Netherlands and modern Protestant theology. A prolific intellectual, he founded a political party and a university, and served as the prime minister of the Netherlands (1901-1905).

Source:
This article was published by the Acton Institute. This commentary is adapted from a chapter in Abraham Kuyper, Pro Rege: Living under Christ’s Kingship: The Kingship of Christ in Its Operation, vol. 2 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), part of the twelve volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series sponsored by the Acton Institute.

Jakarta’s Election And Indonesia’s Democracy: Ascent Of Javanese King And President Jokowi’s Leadership Style – Analysis

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With endless political tussles confronting him, particularly during the 2017 Jakarta Gubernatorial Election, President Joko Widodo has drawn inspiration from Javanese philosophy for his political compass when dealing with his political opponents.

By Emirza Adi Syailendra*

Javanese culture has permeated Indonesian politics throughout Indonesia’s short political history. Sukarno’s quest for national unity drew inspiration heavily from the Javanese figure Gadjah Mada who was determined to unite the archipelago under the control of the Majapahit Kingdom. Benedict Anderson, writing in 1998 about Sukarno’s successor, described him thus: “[W]hen speaking off the cuff, Suharto sees himself not as a modern president but as a Javanese king.”

Former President Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono were also drawn to the practice of mysticism in search of wangsit or inspiration before taking important political decisions. President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is similarly influenced by Javanese political culture though in his own ways.

Jokowi’s Javanese Leadership Style

Coming from a non-aristocratic Javanese background, President Jokowi is known to utilise the Javanese calendar in ceremonial matters. An example is when he decided to announce his second cabinet reshuffle on 27 July 2016, which, when calculated using the Wetonan cycle – a system often used by Javanese to determine dates for an important event – fell on an auspicious day for a new beginning.

The philosophy of sugih tanpa bandha or being humble has become inseparable from his daily political image. His frequent impromptu visits blusukan to places such as slums and wet markets skyrocketed his popularity when approaching the 2014 presidential election as it projected the persona of a people’s man.

As the election for governor in Jakarta grew heated, various issues including mobilisation of voters on religious and ethnic grounds were used to undermine the establishment particularly the non-Muslim Indonesian-Chinese incumbent, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok). When dealing with such forces, Jokowi resorted to the use of proxy. This can be associated with nglurug tanpa bala which can be interpreted as the use of the soft approach, which also implies not getting your hands dirty.

To neutralise the demand by an agitated Muslim community to charge Ahok for blasphemy, Jokowi visited 17 Islamic organisations including Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah. This resulted in a more restraint posture from NU against Ahok after the NU chairman Kyai Said Aqil Siradj, declared that NU followers should not be participating in anti-Ahok rallies. Jokowi also mobilised the security apparatus to neutralise the movement confronting Ahok.

Dealing with Rivals

Jokowi also struck a bargain with his rival Prabowo Subianto, patron of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), to handle the opposition. This move was seen as an attempt to alienate another challenger, former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. This argument was strengthened after an indirect reference by Jokowi in the aftermath of the 4 November 2016 anti-Ahok rally. He said there were political actors mobilising Muslims against Ahok, a remark deemed by many as targeting his rivals, including Yudhoyono.

Another of Jokowi’s ways in dealing with Yudhoyono was through Antasari Azhar, a former chairman of Corruption Eradication Commission, who had publicly claimed that he was made a scapegoat in the high-profile murder case in 2010 during the administration of Yudhoyono.

Antasari previously asked for clemency after Jokowi became president on 20 February 2015, but this was rejected. His request was finally granted just before the Jakarta election a year later on 16 January 2017, which raised questions about Jokowi’s political motive. A series of statements by Antasari about Yudhoyono, after the former president’s meeting with Jokowi at the Presidential Palace on 26 January, contributed to the weakening of the appeal of Yudhoyono’s son against Ahok during the first round of the governor election.

Keeping the Aura Alive

Another interesting decision made by Jokowi was when he abruptly decided to join the 2 December 2016 rally to pray alongside the protesters to show that he was digdaya tanpa aji or strong without being forceful. For him it was important to be at the high-risk event to show that he was in charge. Public confidence in him had been weakened after he was nowhere to be seen during the earlier rally on 14 November.

Preservation of image during volatile political situations is important in the Javanese concept of power. It is pivotal in preserving the belief that the king still enjoys the “divine light” as a symbol of authority. As explained by Anderson, “once the people believed the [Javanese] king’s divine light had moved on, it will be difficult to restore”. Jokowi reportedly pushed aside many important meetings to take the spotlight at the rally.

To keep this popular psychology positive towards him, Jokowi relied much on his social media team, primarily to counter fake news and statements attacking Ahok. The President’s twitter account had in fact been busy making clarification after clarification.

Accommodating after Winning

After the first round of the Jakarta election, Jokowi hosted Yudhoyono on 9 March at the Palace as a sign of reconciliation. This showed that although Jokowi was on the winning side, he was ready to accommodate the losing side as understood in the phrase menang tanpa ngasorake.

His meeting with Yudhoyono was intended to cool the rift between the two leaders who had been engaged in a public feud in the run-up to the Jakarta election. As the two adversaries reconciled, Yudhoyono took a more neutral approach towards Jokowi and did not directly declare support for Anies Baswedan from Prabowo’s camp after his son, Agus, was defeated.

This also illustrated Jokowi’s political tact in preserving his presidency, by showcasing his ability in engaging in political transactions, and working with fellow rivals against other rivals.

*Emirza Adi Syailendra is a Research Analyst at the Indonesia Programme of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This is part of a series on the 2017 Jakarta Election.

Getting NATO Members To Spend More On Defense – Analysis

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By Luke Coffey and Daniel Kochis*

The May meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of Heads of State and/or Government in Brussels (commonly referred to as a NATO mini-summit) offers President Donald Trump a chance to reaffirm America’s commit to transatlantic security and European NATO members an opportunity to answer the calls for increased defense spending. While progress has been made with European defense spending, much more has to be done. The U.S. needs to use the Brussels gathering to press allies on defense spending in a responsible and realistic way.

Raising Awareness

President Trump did a notable job of raising the issue of European defense spending during the presidential campaign. In the Oval Office, he has continued to do so, and his message has been echoed by Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

However, the new and welcome interest in convincing Europeans to spend more on defense has led to a flood of incorrect reporting, uninformed statements, and misconceptions. In this very important debate, it is essential to separate fact from fiction. Specifically:

  • The U.S. does not provide “approximately 73 percent of the cost of NATO”1 as is often clamed. NATO uses a unanimously agreed formula based on a country’s gross national income to determine how much each member contributes to NATO’s common defense spending. In 2016, America’s share was 22.15, followed by Germany (14.65 percent), France (10.63 percent), and Britain (9.84 percent). All members have met their common funding obligation requirement.
  • U.S. forces are not based in Europe to allow Europeans to create an elaborate welfare state on the back of American taxpayers. Instead, U.S. troops are in Europe first and foremost to protect U.S. national interests. U.S. bases in Europe provide American leaders with flexibility, resilience, and options in a dangerous world. The huge garrisons of American service personnel in Europe are no longer the fortresses of the Cold War, but the forward operating bases of the 21st century. Of course, the presence of U.S. forces in Europe contributes to the collective defense of U.S. allies on the continent, but this is a consequence of, not the reason for, maintaining a robust troop presence.
  • It is true that defense spending in Europe is not where it needs to be, but America’s allies do not “owe vast sums of money”2 to the U.S. as a consequence. There is no central pool of defense funding controlled by the U.S. that member states pay into annually. While it is true that Europeans need to spend more on defense, nothing is “owed” to the United States.

A Treaty Obligation

Although most followers of NATO are familiar with Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty—an attack on one is an attack on all—Article 3 is the most important when it comes to the overall health of the Alliance. Article 3 states that member states, at a minimum, will “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.” Only a handful of NATO members can say that they are living up to their Article 3 commitment.

Since the end of the Cold War, many European nations (until very recently) have consistently cut defense spending. The result, inevitably, has been a significant loss of capability. In 2006, in an effort to encourage defense investment, NATO set a target for member states to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. At the 2014 Wales Summit, member states recommitted to spending 2 percent of GDP on defense and also committed to spending 20 percent of their defense budgets on “major equipment” purchases by 2024.

In 2016, only five member states (Estonia, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.) hit the 2 percent benchmark, and only 10 member states spent the required 20 percent of their defense budgets on major equipment.3

Since the Wales Summit in 2014, on the other hand, the annual real-terms change in NATO total defense expenditures has moved in the right direction.

In 2015, 15 NATO members increased defense spending in real terms; in 2016, 16 NATO allies raised defense spending as a share of GDP. Put another way, in 2016, NATO members collectively increased spending by 3.8 percent, or $10 billion (not including the U.S.).4

The number of members meeting the 2 percent benchmark is expected to increase to eight by 2018 with Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania—all frontline states in Eastern Europe—finally meeting the benchmark.However, even with this improvement, European countries have a long way to go. As an intergovernmental security alliance, NATO is only as strong as its member states. Weak defense spending on the continent has led to a significant loss of capabilities in the Alliance.

Actions for the Brussels Mini-Summit

Reaching the 2 percent benchmark and meeting the Article 3 obligation requires a political, economic, and societal will to invest in defense. While some NATO members have increased defense spending, many nations in the Alliance continue to lag behind. In order to encourage NATO members to further increase defense spending in a realistic and timely way, the U.S. needs to:

  • Continue to press allies on defense spending. President Trump should address this directly with his European counterparts both leading up to and during the mini-summit. European leaders should not take public support for NATO membership for granted. Instead, governments should strongly and consistently make the case for NATO and the importance of robust defense spending.
  • Get finance ministers involved. There should be a special session for finance ministers (or their equivalent) at the meeting in May. In many parliamentary democracies, the finance minister controls public spending. Educating the finance ministers on the importance of military investment might help to secure more defense spending in the long term.
  • Give members 12 months to develop a plan and commit to achieving NATO spending benchmarks. Due to the way most parliamentary systems work in Europe, it is not realistic to expect governments to develop and agree to a plan to increase defense spending overnight—or even within a matter of weeks. Doing so is asking for failure. The U.S. should work with its European partners to establish a realistic and achievable timeline.
  • Encourage European partners to make increased defense spending the law of the land. Some European countries have passed legislation requiring that a certain amount be spent on international aid but have failed to do the same with regard to defense spending. The U.S. should encourage NATO members to enshrine defense spending commitments and timelines in legislation. This would help to increase transparency and political accountability.
  • Make a clear and public commitment to transatlantic security. All of the members of President Trump’s Cabinet have said the right things about NATO. However, nothing can replace hearing it directly from the Commander in Chief himself. He should state clearly and unequivocally that it is in America’s best interests to remain actively engaged in NATO. A peaceful, stable Europe has led to economic, cultural, and military dividends that are far greater than the amounts the U.S. spends on military personnel and basing on the continent. American leaders must make a clear case that the U.S. remains in Europe and a leader in the Alliance because it is in America’s national interest to do so.

A Great Opportunity

NATO has provided peace and stability for its member states since its inception in 1949. This was achieved because the countries of the security alliance had real military capabilities that they could leverage in defense of other member states. Weak defense spending by European NATO members threatens to undermine the collective security guarantee and play into Vladimir Putin’s hands. The Brussels mini-summit is therefore a great opportunity for NATO members to recommit themselves to their treaty obligations under the North Atlantic Treaty.

*About the authors:
Luke Coffey
is Director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation. Daniel Kochis is a Policy Analyst in European Affairs in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, of the Davis Institute at The Heritage Foundation.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation.

Notes:
[1] Benjamin Oreskes, “Trump Is Way Off on How Much of NATO’s Budget Is Paid by the U.S.,” Politico, September 26, 2016, http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-presidential-debate-fact-check/2016/09/trump-is-way-off-on-how-much-of-natos-budget-is-paid-by-the-us-228738 (accessed April 20, 2017).
[2] Danielle Silva and Carlo Angerer, “Germany Rejects Donald Trump’s Claim That It ‘Owes Vast Sums of Money’ to NATO, U.S.,” NBC News, March 19, 2017, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/germany-rejects-donald-trump-s-claim-it-owes-vast-sums-n735496 (accessed April 20, 2017).
[3] News release, “Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2009–2016),” North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 13, 2017, http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2017_03/20170313_170313-pr2017-045.pdf (accessed April 20, 2017).
[4] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, The Secretary General’s Annual Report: 2016, pp. 29–31, http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2017_03/20170313_SG_AnnualReport_2016_en.pdf (accessed April 24, 2017).

Kazakhstan Energy Profile: Second-Largest Oil Reserves Among Former Soviet Republics – Analysis

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Kazakhstan is a major oil producer. The country’s estimated total petroleum and other liquids production was 1.70 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2014. The key to its continued growth in liquids production from this level will be the development of its giant Tengiz, Karachaganak, and Kashagan fields. Development of additional export capacity will also be necessary for production growth.

Although Kazakhstan became an oil producer in 1911, its production did not increase to a meaningful level until the 1960s and 1970s, when production plateaued at nearly 500,000 bbl/d, a pre-Soviet independence record production level. Since the mid-1990s and with the help of major international oil companies, Kazakhstan’s production first exceeded 1 million bbl/d in 2003.

Rising natural gas production over the past decade has boosted oil recovery (as a significant volume of natural gas is reinjected into oil reservoirs) and decreased Kazakhstan’s reliance on natural gas imports. Natural gas consumption, however, has been stagnant as the infrastructure and expense required to connect Kazakhstan’s widely dispersed population to production centers in the country’s northwest has impeded development.

Kazakhstan is landlocked and is far from international oil markets. The lack of access to the open ocean makes the country dependent mainly on pipelines to transport its hydrocarbons to world markets. Kazakhstan is also a transit country for natural gas pipeline exports from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Kazakhstan consumed a total of 2.8 quadrillion Btu of energy in 2012, with coal accounting for the largest share of energy consumed at 63%, followed by oil and natural gas at 18% and 16%, respectively.

Kazakhstan is a Caspian Sea littoral state. The legal status of the Caspian area remains unresolved, mainly driven by a lack of agreement on whether the Caspian is a sea or a lake. Until all states agree on a definition, legal status of the area will remain unresolved.

Oil

According to the Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ), Kazakhstan had proved crude oil reserves of 30 billion barrels as of January 2014—the second largest endowment in Eurasia after Russia, and the twelfth largest in the world, just behind the United States.1 Kazakhstan’s current oil production is dominated by two giant onshore fields in the northwest of the country: Tengiz and Karachaganak, which produce about half of Kazakhstan’s total petroleum liquids output. The offshore Kashagan field, in Kazakhstan’s part of the Caspian Sea, will also play a major role in Kazakhstan’s liquids production in the coming years.

Sector organization

KazMunaiGas, Kazakhstan’s national oil company, has played an increasingly important role in the country’s oil and natural gas sector.

The Ministry of Energy oversees the oil and gas industry in Kazakhstan. In August 2014, Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, announced an extensive government reorganization with the intention of creating a more compact and effective government. The number of ministries in the government was reduced from 17 to 12, and the Ministry of Energy was created to absorb the functions of the Ministry of Oil and Gas and parts of the functions of the Ministry for Industry and New Technologies and the Ministry for Environment and Water Resources.2

The national oil and natural gas company, KazMunaiGaz (KMG), represents the state’s interests in Kazakhstan’s oil and gas industry. KMG was created in 2002 and holds equity interests in Karachaganak (10%), Kashagan (16.8%), and Tengiz (20%), as well as interests ranging between 33% and 100% in many other production projects.3

Kazakhstan’s Law on Subsoil and Subsoil Use (Subsoil Use Law) governs investments in the oil and natural gas industries. The Subsoil Use Law has been amended several times, most notably in 2005, 2007, and 2010. Among other provisions, the Subsoil Use Law along with the December 2009 Local Content Law establish strict local content requirements for oil and gas contracts. Contracts that fail to meet specified requirements for local materials and labor can be unilaterally terminated by the government, although, no such terminations are known to have occurred. The Subsoil Use Law also establishes the government’s right to preempt any sale of oil and gas assets. In 2013 Kazakhstan preempted ConocoPhillips sale of its 8.4% stake in the Kashagan project to India’s ONGC. The preemption did not affect Conoco’s proceeds from the sale, but rather than going to ONGC, the stake was purchased by KMG before being resold to China’s CNPC.4

The government announced the re-introduction of oil export duties in August 2010 and increased them in January 2011. Export duties were first introduced in 2008 and then were suspended in January 2009. Export duties affect all oil exporters operating in Kazakhstan, with the exceptions of those that include a tax stabilization clause in their contracts.

Production

Kashagan offshore facilities. Source: North Caspian Operating Company
Kashagan offshore facilities. Source: North Caspian Operating Company

Kazakhstan’s two largest projects, Tengiz and Karachaganak, accounted for around half of the country’s 1.70 million bbl/d total petroleum liquids production in 2014.

In the 1970s, several large discoveries were made in presalt reservoirs including Karachaganak and Tengiz. However, the development of these fields was not possible at the time because of the technical challenges of developing the deep, high-pressure reservoirs. Since international oil companies began to participate in Kazakhstan’s petroleum sector and as presalt deposits became technically and commercially viable, these fields have become the foundation of the country’s petroleum liquids production.

Although it is the second-largest liquid fuels producer among Former Soviet Union republics, Kazakhstan’s future as a producer of petroleum liquids depends on the development and expansion of its three largest projects: Karachaganak, Kashagan, and Tengiz. Kazakhstan’s two largest projects, Tengiz and Karachaganak, accounted for 48% of the country’s production in the first nine months of 2014, according to data published by Energy Intelligence.5 A third large project, Kashagan, is due to start production in 2016 or 2017, with the combined output of all three projects likely to account for more than half of Kazakhstan’s total production going forward. Additionally, both Tengiz and Karachaganak consortia have discussed expansion plans that could result in increased production from these two fields within the next few years.

The Tengiz partners were due to make a final investment decision by the end of 2014 on the Future Growth Project, but by early January, no decision had been announced. The Karachagank Expansion Project is at a less-advanced stage of planning. Both expansion projects will focus on increasing handling and reinjection of natural gas to increase production and ultimate recovery levels of petroleum liquids. However, continued negotiations with the government on terms and lower global crude oil prices could delay decisions on these projects.

The Kashagan field, the largest known oil field outside the Middle East and the fifth largest in the world in terms of reserves, is located off the northern shore of the Caspian Sea near the city of Atyrau, Kazakhstan. Kashagan’s recoverable reserves are estimated at 7 to 13 billion barrels of crude oil.6 On September 11, 2013, production from the super-giant field commenced, eight years after the original scheduled startup date. In October 2013, just a few weeks after production began, production had to be halted because of leaks in the pipeline that transports natural gas from the field to shore. Production is not expected to resume until the second half of 2016 at the earliest.

Much of the repeated delays at Kashagan were the result of the field’s adverse operating environment and complexity, resulting in significant cost overruns. The Kashagan reservoir is located more than 13,000 feet below the seabed and is under very high pressure (770 pounds per square inch). The reservoir contains high levels of hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide is both highly toxic and highly corrosive and has been blamed for the pipeline leaks. In addition, conventional drilling and production technologies such as fixed or floating platforms cannot be used because of the shallow water and cold climate. Instead, offshore facilities are installed on artificial islands (drilling and hub islands) that house drilling and processing equipment. The processing facilities separate recovered liquid from the gas, then reinject a portion of the gas, sending the liquids and the remainder of the gas to shore for further processing. Before production can restart, these pipelines connecting the field with the onshore processing facilities will have to be replaced using higher grade materials that are more resistant to corrosion.

Kazakhstan’s major oil and gas fields
Field name Companies Start year Liquids production Natural gas production
Tengiz (& Korolev) Chevron, ExxonMobil, KazMunaiGaz, LukArco (Lukoil and BP) 1991 581 thousand bbl/d total liquids production in 2013
Over 800 thousand bbl/d potential total liquids production with further development
252 Bcf dry marketed gas production in 2013
Karachaganak BG, Eni, Chevron, Lukoil, KazMunaiGaz 1984 222 thousand bbl/d total liquids production in 2013
An expansion project is under consideration, but potential production volumes are uncertain
289 Bcf raw marketed and
3 Bcf dry marketed gas production in 2013
Kashagan KazMunaiGaz, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, China National Petroleum Corporation, Inpex 2016/2017 (expected) 370 thousand bbl/d liquids processing capacity with current development
1,500 thousand bbl/d potential liquids production with further development
Over 100 Bcf gas production capacity (most gas to be used internally at Kashagan)
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration based on data from TengizChevroil, Chevron, Karachaganak Petroleum Operating (KPO), ExxonMobil, and Eni

Exports

Kazakhstan is an exporter of light, sweet crude oil. In 2013, Kazakhstan exported nearly 1.4 million bbl/d of crude oil and condensate, according to the Global Trade Information Service.7 More than three-quarters of Kazakhstan’s crude exports travel around or across the Caspian Sea headed to European markets. An additional 16% of Kazakhstan’s crude exports head east via a pipeline to China. Kazakhstan’s exports will likely increase in the coming years, as production begins at Kashagan and expands at Tengiz and Karachaganak. However, the rapid growth of oil production and exports will require an expansion of export capacity.

Export oil gradesKazakhstan currently has four main export oil grades: the CPC Blend, Tengiz, Karachaganak condensate, and Kumkol. With the start of production at the Kashagan field, the Kashagan grade will become part of the export mix.

CPC Blend is a very light (45.3° API), sweet crude (0.56% sulfur), and it is valued for its high yield of gasoline and light distillates. Tengiz grade accounts for about 45% of the CPC blend.8 Other components include some Russian grades such as Siberian Light, as well as Kumkol and Karachaganak condensate, along with a variety of other Russian and Kazakh grades.

Tengiz grade is a blend of crudes from the Tengiz and Korolev fields, and, with an API gravity of 46.42° and 0.51% sulfur content, it is very similar in quality to Saudi Arabia’s Arab Light. Tengiz has been available as a distinct grade since 2007, when the production at Tengiz field expanded beyond the capabilities of the CPC pipeline. Most Tengiz grade crude travels via rail car, at least for the first leg of its journey.9

Karachaganak condensate, originating from the Karachaganak natural gas and condensate field near the Russian border, is mainly exported as part of the CPC Blend. Remaining quantities are exported via the Uzen-Atyrau-Samara pipeline, or sold as condensate in local markets in Kazakhstan and Russia.10 Karachaganak liquids range from 36° to 44° API and are very sour with a sulfur content of 0.9%.11

Kumkol grade (41.2° API, 0.11% sulfur) originates from a variety of fields in central Kazakhstan. This grade is a waxy crude prized by many European refiners. It is exported both as a blend (through the Kazakhstan-China pipeline) and as a distinct grade (via the Black Sea port of Batumi in Georgia), although much of it is refined domestically, providing oil products to southern Kazakhstan.

Oil export routes

Kazakhstan’s pipeline system is operated by the state-run KazTransOil, a subsidiary of KazMunaiGas, which runs approximately 3,400 miles of pipelines. Because of Kazakhstan’s landlocked location and the continued use of Soviet-era infrastructure, much of Kazakhstan’s oil and gas export infrastructure is integrated with major Caspian oil and natural gas export routes that interlink the region. Since independence, Kazakhstan has successfully expanded and diversified its export capabilities. Major crude oil export pipelines currently include the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, the Kazakhstan-China pipeline, and the Uzen-Atyrau-Samara pipeline to Russia.

Kazakhstan also exports crude oil via the Caspian Sea and via rail. Oil is loaded onto tankers or barges at Kazakhstan’s port of Aktau or the smaller Atyrau port and then shipped across the Caspian Sea, where it is loaded onto the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline or the Northern Route pipeline (Baku-Novorossiysk) for onward transport, mainly to Europe. Additionally, Kazakhstan has an extensive rail network, which it increasingly uses to transport liquid fuels both for domestic consumption and for exports. Tengizchevroil is the largest petroleum user of the rail network. It loaded approximately 70,000 bbl/d of petroleum liquids onto rail cars for transport in 2013.12 Continued expansion and diversification of Kazakhstan’s petroleum liquids transport capacity, particularly export capacity, is key to its future ability to increase production.

Another potential export route for Caspian crude oil is via swaps with Iran. For years, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries delivered their crude to Iran’s Caspian Sea port of Neka. From there the crude was delivered to refineries in Tehran and Tabriz, with the refined products distributed and consumed in northern Iran. In exchange, Iran exported equal volumes of crude out of its Persian Gulf ports on behalf of Kazakhstan. Swap volumes have varied over the years, with little to no crude swapped over the past two or three years. Sanctions against Iran reportedly complicated swap arrangements, especially the marketing of the crude exported in the Persian Gulf, which had been done by the Iranians. Also complicating the swap arrangements was Iran’s desire to raise the fee it charged Kazakhstan for each barrel of crude swapped. Since at least late 2013, Iran and Kazakhstan have been discussing resumption of the swap arrangement and have periodically announced their intentions to resume swaps, but no swaps have occurred as of the end of 2014.

Downstream and refining

Kazakhstan had crude oil distillation capacity of 345,093 bbl/d, as of January 1, 2014, according to OGJ.13 There are three oil refineries in Kazakhstan: Pavlodar, Atyrau, and Shymkent. The Pavlodar refinery is in north-central Kazakhstan and is supplied mainly by a crude oil pipeline from western Siberia, because Russian supplies are well-placed geographically to serve that refinery. The Atyrau refinery uses only domestic crude from northwest Kazakhstan, and the Shymkent refinery currently uses crude from the oil fields at Kumkol and the nearby area in central Kazakhstan.

In 2013, the three refineries met approximately 70% of Kazakhstan’s gasoline and diesel demand, with most of the remaining demand met by imports from Russia. Upgrading projects were underway in 2014 at all three refineries. The upgrades will allow the three plants to produce fewer heavy products and more high-quality transportation fuels. In October 2014, the government of Kazakhstan officially backed a plan to expand the Shymkent refinery instead of building a fourth refinery in the country. With these upgrades and expansions, Kazakhstan aims to meet all domestic demand for gasoline and diesel production by 2017.

Kazakhstan’s oil refineries and capacities
Refinery name Capacity
(‘000 bbl/d)
Pavlodar 163
Atyrau 104
Shymkent 78
Total 345
Source: Oil & Gas Journal, January 1, 2014

Natural gas

Kazakhstan’s largest petroleum liquids fields also contain substantial volumes of natural gas, most of which is reinjected into oil wells to improve oil recovery rates.

OGJ estimated Kazakhstan’s proven natural gas reserves at 85 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) as of January 1, 2014.14 The majority of Kazakhstan’s gas reserves are in crude or condensate-rich fields. The two largest petroleum liquids fields, Karachaganak and Tengiz, are also the two largest natural gas fields.

Production

Over the past decade, annual gross natural gas production almost tripled, from 0.6 Tcf in 2003 to 1.6 Tcf in 2012. Reinjected natural gas has accounted for most of the increase in gross production, while dry natural gas production has remained relatively stable. In 2012, reinjected natural gas production was more than double dry natural gas production.

In 2013, the Karachaganak and Tengiz fields combined accounted for more than 90% of Kazakhstan’s raw marketed natural gas production. The Tengiz project includes a gas processing plant, which according to Chevron produced 251 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of dry marketed natural gas in 2013 that was sold to local consumers. The Karachaganak project has insufficient gas processing capacity. Most of the raw marketed production from the Karachaganak field has to be exported to Russia to be processed at a gas processing plant in Orenberg. In 2013, about 30% of this processed gas was sold in Russia, with the remainder of the dry gas returned to Kazakhstan to help meet local demand. The next phase of development at Karachaganak originally included plans for facilities to process its own gas and boost dry natural gas supplies to consumers within Kazakhstan. However, the project developers have since changed their plans, and gas produced under Karachaganak’s next expansion will largely be reinjected into the field to boost liquids recovery.

When it comes online, the first phase of the Kashagan project is expected to marginally boost supplies of dry gas to consumers in Kazakhstan. However, like the Karachaganak and Tengiz projects, much of the gas produced from Kashagan will be either reinjected into the well to boost liquids recovery or used at the project site to produce electricity.

Consumption, imports, and exports

Kazakhstan has two major export pipelines for natural gas. The Central Asia Centre pipeline (CAC), which traverses the western edge of Kazakhstan on its way to Russia and points further west, and the Turkmenistan-China pipeline, which traverses the southern edge of the country on its way to China. Both pipelines are part of the regional Caspian export infrastructure and mainly carry natural gas exports from Turkmenistan, along with smaller but still significant volumes of exports from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The CAC pipeline also serves local natural gas demand in western Kazakhstan, including northwestern Kazakhstan where most of the country’s production is located. A third major pipeline, the Bukhara-Tashkent-Bishkek-Almaty pipeline serves local demand in southern Kazakhstan with imported gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Two of Kazakhstan’s three underground gas storage facilities are located along this pipeline.

The domestic pipeline system in Kazakhstan is underdeveloped. Natural gas production in the country is concentrated in the northwest and is not connected to population centers in the south, north, center, and east. A government objective is to develop a domestic natural gas system that would connect the country’s producing and consuming areas. Kazakhstan is already on its way to meeting the first part of this challenge, connecting the existing gas pipeline infrastructure in the West to the existing infrastructure in the densely-populated South. The Beineu-Bozoi-Shymkent pipeline is under construction and is expected to be completed by the end of 2015 with a capacity of approximately 350 Bcf per year.15 This pipeline will allow Kazakhstan to gasify communities along the route of the pipeline that previously had no access to gas. It will also connect to the existing pipeline serving southern Kazakhstan, replacing imported natural gas in those markets. Finally, it will connect to the pipeline to China, allowing production from northwestern Kazakhstan to be exported to China.

Plans for gasifying other parts of the country and connecting them to the existing infrastructure in the West and South are more uncertain. The vast distances and relatively low population density in the north, center, and east make the economics challenging for any potential gas pipeline projects to serve the region.

Coal

In 2012, coal accounted for 63% of Kazakhstan’s total energy consumption.

Kazakhstan had 37,038 million short tons (MMst) of total recoverable coal reserves in 2011. It is in the top ten countries in the world in terms of coal reserves, coal production, and coal exports. It is also 12th in the world in terms of coal consumption. Despite being among the top coal countries, Kazakhstan is a relatively small contributor to global coal volumes. The top three countries globally account for disproportionate shares of total global coal reserves, production, consumption, and exports (between 60% and 70% combined), while Kazakhstan accounts for between 1% and 4%.

About a quarter of Kazakhstan’s coal production is exported, with most of that going to Russia.16 All of Kazakhstan’s coal exports and most of its production consist of steam coal, suitable for burning in electric power plants or in other applications to generate steam and heat. Kazakhstan also produces smaller quantities of metallurgical coal that are consumed domestically. Kazakhstan is rich in a variety of minerals, with mineral and coal deposits concentrated in the north and center of the country. Coal is a major energy source for the mining and smelting industries and for the electricity sector in Kazakhstan.

Electricity

Most of Kazakhstan’s power generation comes from coal-fired power plants, concentrated in the north of the country near the coal-producing regions.

Kazakhstan’s total installed generating capacity was approximately 17.8 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2012, 87% of which was fossil fuel-fired, 13% was hydropower, and less than 1% was other renewables. Kazakhstan’s total net generation in 2012 was approximately 86.1 billion kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity.

Kazakhstan’s only nuclear power plant, a BN-350 nuclear reactor at Mangyshlak, was decommissioned in 2001. Kazakhstan has some of the largest uranium deposits in the world and is the world’s largest uranium producer.17 Although plans have long existed to build additional nuclear power plants, there has been little progress on constructing these units.

Kazakhstan’s national grid is operated by the Kazakhstan’s Electricity Grid Operating Company, a state-owned company. It is responsible for electric transmission and network management. There are 15 regional electricity distribution companies, a number of which are privately owned. The electricity transmission and distribution sectors are considered to be natural monopolies and are regulated by the government, however, wholesale generation of power is considered to be a competitive market with most generation assets owned by private enterprises.

Notes:

  • Data presented in the text are the most recent available as of January 14, 2015.
  • Data are EIA estimates unless otherwise noted.

Endnotes

1Oil & Gas Journal, “Worldwide look at reserves and production,” (January 1, 2014).
2Tengrinews, “Nazarbayev rearranges Kazakh government,” (August 6, 2014).
3KazMunaiGas Exploration Production, Annual Report 2013, About the Company, Ownership Structure, accessed December 17, 2014.
4U.S. Department of State, 2014 Investment Climate Statement – Kazakhstan, accessed December 18, 2014 and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, 2014 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, Kazakhstan, accessed December 18, 2014.
5Energy Intelligence, Nefte Compass, “Kazakh Crude Oil and Gas Condensate Production, September 2014” (October 23, 2014) p. 9.
6Eni, Innovation & Technology: Kashagan, accessed December 15, 2014.
7Global Trade Information Services, Customs data from destination countries, accessed December 10, 2014 (subscription).
8Chevron Crude Oil Marketing, CPC Blend and Tengiz, accessed December 9, 2014.
9Chevron Crude Oil Marketing, CPC Blend and Tengiz, accessed December 9, 2014.
10Chevron, Kazakhstan Fact Sheet, accessed December 9, 2014.
11Lukoil, Fact Book – 2013, International projects – Kazakhstan, p. 38.
12Chevron, Kazakhstan Fact Sheet, accessed December 9, 2014.
13Oil & Gas Journal, “Worldwide Refining,” (December 2, 2013).
14Oil & Gas Journal, “Worldwide look at reserves and production,” (January 1, 2014).
15KazTransGaz, MG “Beyneu – Shymkent” building, accessed December 10, 2014.
16Tengrinews, “Kazakhstan wants to export coal to Ukraine, China and Europe,” (June 2, 2014).
17World Nuclear Association, World Uranium Mining Production, accessed December 15, 2014.

Antarctic’s Ice Sheet Has Been Stable Even During Milder Times

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Central parts of Antarctica’s ice sheet have been stable for millions of years, from a time when conditions were considerably warmer than now, research suggests.

The study of mountains in West Antarctica will help scientists improve their predictions of how the region might respond to continuing climate change. Its findings could also show how ice loss might contribute to sea level rise.

Although the discovery demonstrates the long-term stability of some parts of Antarctica’s ice sheet, scientists remain concerned that ice at its coastline is vulnerable to rising temperatures.

Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Northumbria studied rocks on slopes of the Ellsworth Mountains, whose peaks protrude through the ice sheet.

By mapping and analysing surface rocks — including measuring their exposure to cosmic rays – researchers calculated that the mountains have been shaped by an ice sheet over a million-year period, beginning in a climate some 20C warmer than at present.

The last time such climates existed in the mountains of Antarctica was 14 million years ago when vegetation grew in the mountains and beetles thrived. Antarctica’s climate at the time would be similar to that of modern day Patagonia or Greenland.

This time marked the start of a period of cooling and the growth of a large ice sheet that extended offshore around the Antarctic continent. Glaciers have subsequently cut deep into the landscape, leaving a high-tide mark – known as a trimline — in the exposed peaks of the Ellsworth range.

The extended ice sheet cooled the oceans and atmosphere, helping form the world of today, researchers say. Their study is among the first to find evidence for this period in West Antarctica.

The research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, was done in collaboration with the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre. It was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and supported by British Antarctic Survey.

Professor David Sugden, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, said: “These findings help us understand how the Antarctic Ice Sheet has evolved, and to fine-tune our models and predict its future. The preservation of old rock surfaces is testimony to the stability of at least the central parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet — but we are still very concerned over other parts of Antarctica amid climate change.”

Discovery Of Zika Antibody Offers Hope For Vaccine

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A research team based at The Rockefeller University has identified a potent new weapon against the Zika virus in the blood of people who have been infected by it. This discovery could lead to new ways of fighting the disease, including a vaccine.

In blood samples taken from subjects in Mexico and Brazil, the scientists found antibodies–proteins produced by the immune system–that block the virus from initiating an infection. These antibodies appeared to have been initially generated in response to an earlier infection by a related virus that causes dengue. One such antibody, which they call Z004, was particularly effective at neutralizing Zika.

“These antibodies could be very useful in the near future. One could envision, for example, administering Z004 to safely prevent Zika among pregnant women or others at risk of contracting the disease,” says Davide F. Robbiani, a research associate professor in Michel Nussenzweig’s lab. He and Leonia Bozzacco, a research affiliate in Charles M. Rice’s lab, led the study, which appears in Cell on May 4.

The team’s detailed examination of the interaction between this antibody and the virus also revealed a new potential strategy for developing a vaccine.

A precise target

A mosquito-borne virus, Zika usually causes mild symptoms in those who contract it. However, dramatic effects can appear in the next generation. Babies born to women infected during pregnancy are at risk of devastating neurodevelopmental abnormalities. The only way to prevent Zika is to avoid mosquito bites; there are currently no vaccines or other medical measures to do so.

An infection begins when the virus, traveling in a spherical particle studded with the viral envelope protein, latches onto a host cell and forces its way in. Faced with a viral threat, the human immune system generates antibodies that recognize the virus and stop it from invading cells. The team set out to find antibodies tuned to a particular target: a part of Zika’s envelope protein, which the virus needs to launch an attack.

Five out of six

Through collaborators working in Pau da Lima, Brazil, and Santa Maria Mixtequilla, Mexico, they obtained blood samples from more than 400 people, collected shortly after Zika was circulating.

Individual responses to the same pathogen can vary greatly. Yet a deeper analysis of samples from six of the volunteers with the most promising antibodies revealed a surprise: Five of them contained the same species of nearly identical antibodies. This similarity suggested these molecules were particularly good at fighting the virus.

When the team examined these closely related antibodies’ performance against Zika, one stood out: Z004, an antibody from a Mexican volunteer’s blood. When given to mice rendered vulnerable to Zika, the antibody protected them from developing serious infections.

A shared ridge

To get a closer look at the interaction between the antibody and a fragment of the virus’ envelope protein, scientists in Pamela J. Bjorkman’s lab at Caltech determined the molecular structure formed as the two units interacted. Their detailed maps revealed how the antibody pinches a ridge on the virus when it binds to it.

While some efforts to develop a vaccine use all or most of the virus to stimulate the immune system, the researchers believe it could be safer to employ only a tiny fragment containing this ridge.

Zika isn’t the only virus to sport the ridge, as it is also present in envelopes of other viruses in the same family. The dengue 1 virus, a close relative of Zika and one of four types of dengue, has a ridge that is remarkably similar to Zika’s. When pitted against dengue 1, Z004 neutralized it as well.

A look back at samples from the Brazilians, collected six months before Zika arrived by a team led by Albert Ko of Yale University, revealed evidence of prior dengue 1 infections in some–and a potential explanation as to why certain people’s immune systems fared better against Zika.

“Even before Zika, their blood samples likely had antibodies that could interact with this same spot on the envelope protein,” said Margaret R. MacDonald, a research associate professor in Rice’s lab. “It appears that, much like a vaccine, dengue 1 can prime the immune system to respond to Zika.”


Ink Drawing Signed By Van Gogh Sells For $12,000

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A dark brown ink drawing on heavy wove paper attributed to the famous Dutch Master artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), titled Garden View of the Church at Auvers (1890), signed by van Gogh, sold for $12,000 in the premiere online-only fine art auction titled Prestige Signature Collection: Master Artworks, held on April 26th by Woodshed Art Auctions, Art Daily said.

“The location in the drawing was positively identified as Garden View of the Church of Auvers, and the artwork dates from the last year of van Gogh’s life,” said conservator/auctioneer Bruce Wood of Woodshed Art Auctions (formerly The Woodshed Gallery), based in Franklin, Mass. “Without better paperwork, we had to call it an attribution, but there’s little doubt it is authentic and probably should have gaveled for $100,000 or more.”

Van Gogh lived just three months in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small village north of Paris. He moved there in 1890, after having spent a year at an asylum in Saint-Remy. The sketch in the auction has been identified as a view of the church in Auvers, the only gable-roof bell tower among the locations van Gogh lived in France. Tragically, van Gogh committed suicide that year, at age 37.

The Prestige Signature Collection: Master Artworks sale was something new for Woodshed Art Auctions – the confluence of a group of excellent pieces arriving at once in the gallery, and all having one thing in common: they were limited to artworks by internationally recognized artists. This, the debut auction, featured just 26 artworks, by names that are known to nearly everyone.

These included Andy Warhol (Am., 1928-1987), Pablo Picasso (Sp./Fr., 1881-1973), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Fr., 1864-1901), Fernand Leger (Fr., 1881-1955), and van Gogh. The next Prestige Signature Collection sale will be held on May 24th with market-fresh works by Wilfredo Lam, Mario Careno, Victor Brauner, Maurice Sendak, Roy Lichtenstein and Jean Cocteau.

“Moving forward, we’re dividing our sales into two categories,” Wood said. “These are Studio Art Sales, which are larger catalogs of fine and decorative art, and Prestige Signature Collection Sales, which will feature a smaller, refined selection of artworks by more recognized artists.” He added, “The April 26th Prestige Collection sale and its focused attention paid off for consignors.”

Internet bidding was facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.com and Invaluable.com, as well as the Woodshed Art Auctions website. Following are additional highlights from the auction. All prices include a 20 or 25 percent buyer’s premium, applied depending on how the bid was submitted.

The runner-up top lot was a mixed media on paper by Fernand Leger (Fr., 1881-1955), titled Composition with Three Women, artist signed and comes with a certificate of authenticity. The 18 inch by 13 ¼ inch work gaveled for $10,312. Leger was a painter, sculptor and filmmaker. His boldly simplified treatment of modern subject matter made him a forerunner of pop art.

Several drawings attributed to the pop art icon Andy Warhol were in the auction. These included a drawing in color markers on manila folder-weight paper titled Two Campbells Soup Cans that realized $3,125; and a drawing in ink on lightweight parchment paper titled Tap Shoe that went for $7,812. Both were signed by Warhol and were formerly the property of New York collector.

Several Picassos also came under the gavel. These included a pair of signed attributions that rose to identical selling prices of $2,500 each: an ink drawing on paper titled Reclining Woman and a pencil drawing on paper titled Woman Chased by Man and Dog. Both were unframed. Also, an autograph and drawing on a book page by Picasso, not an attribution, changed hands for $875.

A lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec from the painter’s Café Concert series titled Madame Abdala en Bebe (1893), unsigned (but identified with the artist’s monogram), finished at $500. Abdala, the subject, was a singer at the Ambassadeurs in Paris. The only state lithograph, made as one in an edition of 500, measured 10 ½ inches by 7 ¾ inches and was in very good condition.

An artwork in pencil and gouache on paper, attributed to the early American modernist painter Stuart Davis (1892-1964), titled Abstract, measuring about 20 inches by 25 inches, topped out at $3,750. Davis was known for his jazz-influenced, bold, brash and colorful proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and ‘50s, as well his Ashcan School pictures in the early years of the 20th century.

A signed, dated (1912) and numbered (7/7) bronze sculpture on a marble base by the French sculptor, painter and printmaker Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (1861-1944), titled Femme nue assise (“Seated Female Nude”), brought $676. The work was eight inches tall on a one-inch base, and was in good condition, except for some minor handling marks and a chip on the base.

Woodshed Art Auctions is a family-owned art gallery specializing in oil painting restoration and live and online art auctions. The company is celebrating its 49th anniversary.

Africans Rising: The Time For Action Is Now

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The fundamental imperative for Africa is to pursue inclusive growth, which will transform it from the continent of potential to the continent of prosperity, said Cyril M. Ramaphosa, Deputy President of South Africa, in the closing address to the 2017 World Economic Forum on Africa on Friday.

Ramaphosa called on the continent’s leaders to think hard about “the type of Africa we are going to leave for future generations.” Will it be a place of ashes or of half-baked solutions, or will it be a product of leaders’ best efforts to be responsive and responsible to their citizens?

“We must lead with respect and dignity,” he continued, “We are trustees and guardians of the continent for future generations.” The scourges of wastage, mismanagement.

A comprehensive reform of the approach to education is one of the first calls to action, said Ramaphosa. Promotion of science and innovation must be central to learning, as must broadening access for all, but especially for girls and young women. And education cannot be the preserve of an emerging middle class, thus perpetuating inequality.

“There is a real sense of urgency in Africa,” noted Siyabonga Gama, Group Chief Executive Officer, Transnet, South Africa. He suggested that governments should be run as if they are large corporates – with constant monitoring of performance in hitting targets, bold decision-making and the removal of impediments that slow down growth.

For Gama, the priorities are to integrate Africa’s five economic zones into one giant economic marketplace. Integral to this is a major drive to build infrastructure and power-generation capacity.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director, Oxfam International, United Kingdom, said she is “optimistic and hopeful” about Africa. She has seen people’s capacity to work together to improve their lives and, if they are given the right space to do so on a continental scale, they will seize the opportunity.

Byanyima called for the cliché phrase “African Rising” to be changed to “Africans Rising”.

Frédéric Lemoine, Chairman of the Executive Board, Wendel, France, referred to the infamous headline “Hopeless continent” and said it is no longer applicable to Africa. He said the continent’s massive challenges mean it is never going to be “a blue-sky scenario” but there is abundant cause for hope. He pointed out that Africa has been economically outperforming many parts of the world in recent times.

The energy and the strength of young people in Africa are a compelling cause for optimism, said Rich Lesser, Global Chief Executive Officer and President, The Boston Consulting Group, USA. He said accelerated reform agendas in all areas of society and a growing emphasis on “human-centricity” are clearly evident.

Ulrich Spiesshofer, President and Chief Executive Officer, ABB, Switzerland, summed up the mood at the end of the meeting: “The time for action is now.”

Outcomes of the meeting included:

  • Leaders of four African countries – Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Senegal – joined with private-sector executives and other stakeholders to recommit to mobilizing investment in agriculture through the Grow Africa partnership platform, which to date has mobilized $10.5 billion, of which $2.3 billion has been realized, reaching over 10 million smallholder farmers.
  • The Forum’s Global Shapers community hosted a morning of Community Conversations, bringing Davos-style discussions to an audience drawn from the people of KwaZulu-Natal.
  • The Solutions Summit brought together 200 members of the Forum’s Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Young Global Leaders and Global Shaper communities to discuss ways of scaling their impact.
  • The South African government partnered with the World Economic Forum Internet for All project to accelerate the connection to the internet of 23 million additional South Africans by 2020.
  • The Africa Skills Initiative agreed to make business commitments in six vital areas: large-scale internships and apprenticeships at all skill levels; developing future-ready curricula; foundational education delivery; retraining for unemployed youth; research and development collaboration with universities; and expanding basic IT fluency to reach 1 million people by January 2018.
  • Business leaders from the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) and a number of African governments have agreed to create a pan-African network to carve out a strategic response to address corruption.
  • Siemens, a Strategic Partner of the World Economic Forum, entered into a partnership with Uganda, Ghana and Sudan to assist in the areas in power supply, transport and healthcare.

China: Mounting Pressure To Free Human Rights Lawyer Xie Yang

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An international group of lawyers and judges on May 2 called on Beijing to release human rights lawyer Xie Yang, who was detained during a nationwide crackdown on the legal profession beginning in July 2015, and whose trial at a court in the central province of Hunan was called off last month.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) called on the Chinese government to release Xie, who has reported torture during his incarceration, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.

“Xie Yang’s arrest and prosecution seem to be in connection with his performing legitimate professional functions as a human rights lawyer,” ICJ secretary-general Sam Zarifi said in a statement.

“Lawyers in China like Xie Yang are indispensable in ensuring human rights protection and upholding the rule of law in China,” he said.

“The government should release Xie Yang immediately and conduct a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation on the allegations that he has been subjected to torture,” he said.

The ICJ said Xie has been unable to communicate with his lawyers since he gave them his account of his torture at the hands of police, and is now represented by a government-appointed lawyer.

Xie’s wife Chen Guiqiu, who is currently in the United States, said the government lawyer is colluding with police.

She also accused the authorities of breaking a promise to release Xie.

“They told me before that he would be released around the end of April, and that he’d probably have some restrictions on his freedom for a few days after that,” Chen told RFA.

“I think that they were just playing for time and fobbing me off,” she said.

US Defense Chief Mattis Orders Ballistic Missile Defense Review

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US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday directed the start of the department’s Ballistic Missile Defense Review, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White said in a statement.

The review is conducted to identify ways to strengthen missile-defense capabilities, rebalance homeland and theater defense priorities and provide the necessary policy and strategy framework for the nation’s missile defense systems, White said.

Defending the nation and U.S. interests abroad from ballistic missiles is one of the department’s highest priorities, she added.

The review, running concurrent to the Nuclear Posture Review, will be led by the deputy secretary of defense and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and include interagency partners, White said.

The process will culminate in a final report and will be delivered to the president by the end of the year, she said.

USA’s Brilliant Afghan Exit Strategy: Never Exit – OpEd

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The Pentagon knows it can not exit Afghanistan on its own terms, so it would rather just keep it forever…

The surge worked! That was the buzzphrase of 2008. Supposedly the 20,000 extra troops Bush ordered into Iraq for a year had calmed the situation so much the US could now proclaim victory and gradually withdraw from the country.

In reality the extra troops had done nothing. What had really happened was that the US – as it had done in so many of its wars – finally accepted a deal it could have had all along. US accepted local insurgent control of Sunni areas, and these in turn booted out foreign fighters and al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Nonetheless the surge myth was born. All the US now needed to do, to likewise win in Afghanistan, was to “surge” there as well. Obama thus allowed the Pentagon to arrange a similar escalation in Afghanistan – under the understanding that there would be real progress and that, like Bush, after a year he could gradually withdraw.

Of course that was never going to happen, because the troop build up was never the magic ingredient in the Iraq “success” in the first place. Pentagon always resented the fact that Obama in return for okaying an escalation demanded to see some actual progress. For Trump they have an entirely new scheme: they want a massive new investment without having to show anything for it:

Most important, the strategy would jettison President Barack Obama’s approach of setting arbitrary deadlines for the withdrawal of U.S. forces and instead would link the participation of U.S. troops inside the country to meeting clear conditions on the battlefield, such as winning back territory from the Taliban and denying safe haven to al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other bad actors, according to these officials.

Pentagon wants a new surge into Afghanistan, but this time they don’t even want to promise there will be any visible progress any time soon. Of course, the generals are right that a time-limited surge was never going to work. (Though they claimed just the opposite in 2008.) With occupiers fighting so they can leave on their own terms all the local resistance has to do to win is wait them out.

But what is the alternative? Keeping the place forever?

According to the Pentagon and McMaster, yes that’s a valid alternative. By jettisoning any “arbitrary” deadlines the Pentagon is saying just that – they’re willing to stay forever “if necessary”. That however just means they have no clue as to how to “win” the war in any reasonable or unreasonable timeframe, at which point why continue fighting it at all? Besides, the CIA has all the poppy fields they need.

At this point the US is on course to suffer an even bigger fiasco in Afghanistan than did the Soviet Union. The Soviet project to have a friendly and stable government in Kabul crumbled into dust in 1992 but at that point the USSR was no longer around to see it.

Unlike the Americans, the Soviets were actually able to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 and leave behind a somewhat sturdy pro-Soviet government. One that it turned out was sturdier than the Communist government in Moscow and went to outlive it by a full year, crumbling only after it had been left to fend completely for itself even as Pakistan and the US ramped up aid to its enemies.

At this point even such meager “accomplishment” as the Soviets had in Afghanistan looks beyond the scope of the Americans.

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