One of the greatest challenges facing artificial intelligence development is understanding the human brain and figuring out how to mimic it. Now, one group reports in ACS Nano that they have developed an artificial synapse capable of simulating a fundamental function of our nervous system — the release of inhibitory and stimulatory signals from the same “pre-synaptic” terminal.
The human nervous system is made up of over 100 trillion synapses, structures that allow neurons to pass electrical and chemical signals to one another. In mammals, these synapses can initiate and inhibit biological messages. Many synapses just relay one type of signal, whereas others can convey both types simultaneously or can switch between the two.
To develop artificial intelligence systems that better mimic human learning, cognition and image recognition, researchers are imitating synapses in the lab with electronic components. Most current artificial synapses, however, are only capable of delivering one type of signal. So, Han Wang, Jing Guo and colleagues sought to create an artificial synapse that can reconfigurably send stimulatory and inhibitory signals.
The researchers developed a synaptic device that can reconfigure itself based on voltages applied at the input terminal of the device. A junction made of black phosphorus and tin selenide enables switching between the excitatory and inhibitory signals.
This new device is flexible and versatile, which is highly desirable in artificial neural networks. In addition, the artificial synapses may simplify the design and functions of nervous system simulations.
Tel Aviv University archaeologists have revealed that cloth samples found in the Israeli desert present the earliest evidence of plant-based textile dyeing in the region. They were found at a large-scale copper smelting site and a nearby temple in the copper ore district of Timna in Israel’s Arava desert and are estimated to date from the 13th-10th centuries BCE.
The wool and linen pieces shed light on a sophisticated textile industry and reveal details about a deeply hierarchical society dependent on long-distance trade to support its infrastructure in the unforgiving desert.
The study was published in PLOS ONE. It was led by Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef of TAU’s Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures and Dr. Naama Sukenik of the Israel Antiquities Authority; and conducted in collaboration with Vanessa Workman of TAU’s Department of Archaeology, Dr. Orit Shamir of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Dr. Zohar Amar, Dr. Alexander Varvak and Dr. David Iluz of Bar-Ilan University.
Textiles suggest significant social stratification
“This was clearly a formative period, with local kingdoms emerging and replacing Egyptian hegemony in Canaan,” Dr. Ben-Yosef said. “These beautiful masterpieces of weaving and dyeing — the first evidence of industrial dyeing at the time, of wash-resistant color on textile — support the idea of a strong, hierarchical Edomite Kingdom in Timna at the time.
“It is apparent that there was a dominant elite in this society that took pains to dress according to their ‘class,’ and had the means to engage in long-distance trade to transport these textiles — and other materials and resources — to the desert.”
The research suggests a sophisticated dyeing process involving cooking colorful plants in water, then adding fleece fixed with alum to create a chemical bond between fabrics and dye. The result is a wash-resistant colorful fabric.
The researchers radiocarbon-dated the textile pieces and harnessed gas chromatography to identify the cloth’s organic molecules. They found “red” molecules produced from the madder plant and “blue” molecules from the woad plant.
“Both plants were known in antiquity as sources of organic dyes,” said Dr. Ben-Yosef. “We know that these plants were used to create elaborate costumes during the Roman period, more than a thousand years later. Now we have evidence in the region of an Edomite society wearing textiles produced the same way, versus an earlier ‘primitive’ smearing of color on fabric.”
“We can make many inferences according to this discovery,” Dr. Ben-Yosef continued. “To force a large group of people to work in dangerous mines in the desert, you need a strong ruling party — an elite that probably wore exquisite clothes to further distinguish themselves. The smelters, working in furnaces, were considered ‘magicians’ or even priests, and they probably wore fine clothing too. They represented the highest level of society, managing a sensitive and complex process to produce copper from rock.”
Evidence of long-distance trade
The textile dye presents evidence of long-distance trade, Dr. Ben-Yosef noted. “Clearly this is not local. These plants require a lot of water and probably hail from the Mediterranean regions. The dyeing required special craftspeople, an entire industry that could not have subsisted in the desert. If Jerusalem was indeed opulent in the time of King Solomon, and the Temple covered in copper, we can assume a link to that kingdom.”
The textiles are currently being stored in special facilities at the Israel Antiquities Authority and will one day be presented in museums in Israel and elsewhere.
Projected levelling yields and a growing population forewarn a need for another Green Revolution 2.0. Mobile-enabled agri-technology in the developing world can be key enablers. It should be a priority that rural areas are not left behind.
By Stella Liu*
A second Green Revolution is sorely needed. Evidence shows that the productivity gains from the first Green Revolution will begin to plateau amid accumulated environmental problems, as the effects of climate change and the expansion into marginal lands take their toll. For instance, a well cited study done by the International Rice Research Institute found that heat stress can cause significant reductions in rice production quantity in South and Southeast Asia.
Warmer night temperatures have a negative effect on rice yield. A +1°C increase above the critical temperature (more than 24°C) may lead to a 10 per cent reduction in both grain yield and biomass. To counter this trend new technologies, credit and sustainable agricultural practices must be effectively disseminated among farmers for productivity gains to occur.
Agricultural Extension Services and Financial Inclusion
The first Green Revolution enabled developing countries to experience large increases in crop production through the use of fertilisers, pesticides and high-yield crop varieties. Between 1960 and 2000, yields for all developing countries rose 208% for wheat, 109% for rice, 157% for maize, 78% for potatoes and 36% for cassava. This success was most felt with rice growers in Asia and lifted many out of poverty. In Asia, it has been estimated that every 1% increase in crop productivity reduced the number of poor people by 0.48%.
In Asia, a focus on development through industrialisation has led an overall decline in investments and public interest with the agricultural sector. Capital investments and agricultural extension services are key for farmers to properly adopt new technologies and raise their farms’ productivity.
Mobile banking and informal mobile-enabled information networks case studies are proving that mobile networks can meet these needs. For instance, mobile banking can allow smallholders to access microfinance, digital payments and financial markets. Sygenta and Mercy Corps have collaborated in Indonesia to provide microfinance for corn farmers. Mercy Corps used an Android Application and SMS services to collect data and develop farmer credit profiles for local banks.
Increasing the availability of individual farmer information enabled the banks to extend loans at more favourable interest rates. In the second phase, the project reached 640 smallholder farmers. Mobile networks have also been used to circulate farming advisory services and market information. For example, Reuters Market Light services over 200,000 smallholder subscribers in 10 different states in India for a cost of US$1.50 per month.
The farmers receive four SMS messages per day on prices, commodities, and advisory services from a database with information on 150 crops and more than 1,000 markets. Preliminary evidence suggests that the service may have generated $2–3 billion in income for farmers and over half of them have reduced their spending on agriculture inputs.
Mobile Networks and Early Warning Systems
During the first Green Revolution, farmers experienced a period of high productivity followed by plummeting yields due to water shortages and unprecedented pest and disease outbreaks. Sustaining crop production was a serious challenge as they lacked the knowledge to adequately prepare for these risks.
But with today’s technologies, weather conditions can be predicted and mobile networks can help send early warnings to farmers so they can prepare for pest and disease outbreaks. For instance, in Colombia, smallholder farmers faced periods of drought that resulted in a decrease in rice yields from six to five tons per hectare over the past five years. This allowed them to predict that farmers in some regions could save themselves from crop failures by not planting at all.
The 170 rice growers who followed the recommendation to not plant ended up saving $3.6 million. Yet another is FarmerLink in the Philippines, an early warning system for pest and disease outbreaks. It combines both satellite and farm data to predict and detect potential outbreaks. When threats are identified, farmers receive warnings over their mobile phones. A year after the first pilot launch, nearly 7,500 farmers have joined this network.
Green Revolution 2.0. through Connectivity Revolution
Mobile-enabled agri-technologies are proving to be key enablers for a Green Revolution 2.0 by overcoming many of the challenges associated with the remote locations of many smallholder farmers and the exclusion of these smallholders from financial and agricultural extension services.
But many of these rural areas are still not connected, despite regional efforts to expand mobile and fixed broadband infrastructure. In the Asia and the Pacific region, 42% of the total population, have mobile broadband subscriptions and the majority of them live in the cities.
As countries in the region implement master plans for fixed and mobile broadband infrastructure, the rural areas must not be left behind. Alongside overall economic and social benefits of such connectivity, the tangential impact such changes can have on food security cannot be overlooked.
During the first Green Revolution, farmers needed capital investments to acquire new technologies, agricultural extension services to learn how to use them correctly, and early warning systems to prepare for pest and disease outbreaks. Because smallholders tend to live in remote areas, it was challenging to spread information and deliver these services in a timely manner.
Early case studies of mobile-enabled agricultural technologies demonstrate their potential to help farmers overcome these challenges. The next Green Revolution can be launched by a Connectivity Revolution that helps fix market inefficiencies and manage farming risks. However, as countries in the region create and implement fixed and mobile infrastructure master plans, rural areas are beginning to lag behind urban areas in connectivity.
Getting the ASEAN region connected has been primarily lauded for its innovation, social and economic benefits, but ensuring that progress is equally achieved in both rural and urban areas can have food security implications by spurring a much needed Green Revolution 2.0.
The World Agricultural Forum 2017, co-hosted by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies that will take place in Singapore on 6-7 July 2017, discusses these issues and the impacts of technologies on agriculture and food security in the region.
*Stella Liu is a visiting US Fulbright Research Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. This is part of a series on the World Agricultural Forum 2017.
In Ottawa, on May 1st, 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke on the phone with Peruvian President Pedro Pablo
Kuczynski, affirming a commitment to encourage dialogue between the government of Venezuela and the opposition, Mesa Unidad Democrática (MUD). Trudeau offered his support for a democratic resolution on the political and economic crisis in Venezuela.[i] The rumors of an initiative for Trudeau to lead an Organization of American States (OAS) Venezuela mediation effort came from Peru’s Foreign Minister, Ricardo Luna, after stating that the liberal-minded Trudeau holds a “global power role.”[ii] However, on May 16, 2017, Trudeau met with Lilian Tintori in Ottawa. Tintori is the wife of the leader of the right wing opposition party Voluntad Popular, Leopoldo López, who was imprisoned in 2015 for inciting violence in the “guarimbas.” At the meeting with Tintori, Trudeau committed to restoring dialogue “as enshrined in the OAS’s Inter-American Democratic charter.”[iii] Though the Canadian government continues to push for talks on the Venezuelan crisis through the OAS, a fair and impartial Latin American mediation process ought to exclude the involvement of Canada and United States. Canada and the United States should be excluded because they have been outspoken partisans in this conflict and form part of a bloc of countries lead by a strong supporter of the Venezuelan opposition, who is the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro.
There is little prospect for talks coming out of the partisan efforts of the Almagro bloc, that seeks to halt the constituent assembly election process in Venezuela, in comparison to the more open-ended call for dialogue advanced by the CARICOM and ALBA countries. This is apparent as the OAS was unable to reach a resolution on the Venezuelan crisis at the meeting in Cancún, Mexico on June 19th.[iv] The push for an international commission on Venezuela,[v] initially proposed by Peruvian President Kuczynski, backed by the United States, and headed by Canadian negotiators, shows that Trudeau is only being used to do Washington’s “dirty work” on Venezuela. Certainly, for a Canadian Prime Minister who won the 2015 election on a platform of “Real Change,” Canada’s one-sided pro-U.S. role in the Venezuelan negotiations reflects anything but “Real Change.”
At the OAS meeting in Cancún, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, put forward a co-sponsored proposal with the United States, Peru, Mexico, and Panama condemning Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, and demanding to halt the formation of a National Constituent Assembly.[vi] In response to the resolutions put forward, the outgoing Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez stated, “We do not recognize this meeting, nor do we recognise the resolutions that come from it.”[vii] The resolution backed by the United States received twenty votes, which is short of the twenty-three votes needed to pass the resolution.[viii] Similarly, a rival resolution proposed by the Caribbean community (CARICOM) failed to pass,[ix] despite CARICOM’s unified stance against the OAS resolution at the May 31st meeting.[x] It is apparent that the OAS meetings are more divisive than reconciliatory, as Guatemala’s foreign minister stated, “I do not want our hemisphere to continue breaking apart.”[xi] Increasingly the OAS meetings on Venezuela is dividing diplomatic alliances across the hemisphere.
In May 2017, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Chrystia Freeland, sided with the U.S resolution stating “[that] Canada is very troubled by the announcement by Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro that he will establish a constituent assembly.”[xii] Trudeau’s steadfast alignment with Washington’s foreign policy in Latin America could further damage Canada’s healthy diplomatic ties with other progressive countries in the region, such as Cuba.[xiii] However, even apart from the Venezuelan debate, Canada’s involvement within Latin America has not been “sunny ways,” nor representative of Canada’s inclusive international reputation. Canada’s reputation with mining conglomerates, who own approximately 50 to 70 percent of Latin America’s mining industry, shows that Canada’s influence in the region goes far beyond mere diplomacy.[xiv] In October 2016, York’s University Justice and Corporate Accountability Project found that twenty-eight Canadian mining conglomerates have repeatedly been involved in human rights violations and environmental degradation in over a dozen countries in Latin America.[xv] Canada’s shameful history of the skewed use of resources, and extractive industries within Latin America, paints a dark picture of Canada’s involvement throughout the hemisphere. Therefore, it is not in the best interest of the OAS to entrust Canada as the lead negotiator in talks with Venezuela, given Canada’s less than saintly involvement in Central and South America. Despite the OAS attempt to put a more “neutral face” on the Venezuelan talks, Canada has been anything but neutral.
Raul Burbano, the program director of the Ontario based Common Frontiers labour organization stated “the government of Canada should make clear its support for the constitutional government, electoral democracy and rule of law in Venezuela, and support mediation by organizations that are neutral, for example, the Union of South American States.”[xvi] Burbano also commented that “hypocrisy is the most important component of Canada’s [Foreign] policy in Latin America.”[xvii] Now, more evident than ever before is Canada’s double standard towards Latin America. When Washington is in an uproar over Venezuela, Global Affairs Canada condemns the Venezuelan government; when the United States is silent, Canada remains silent on the degradation Canadian extractive industries have upon Latin Americans. On the surface, Justin Trudeau is good for publicity, but not for negotiations over an endemic crisis in a foreign country from which Canada is geographically isolated. Given the U.S. vested interests within the OAS, Canada’s isolation from Venezuela, and the divisiveness of the OAS on this issue, it would be preferential for Venezuela to proceed with negotiations solely through a Latin American regional bloc, but not through the bureaucrats in Ottawa. Reconciliatory negotiations should take place through the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), or the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) initiative supported by Pope Francis,[xviii] which excludes Canada and the United States partisan involvement of any mischievous handling of Venezuelan matters.
*Sheldon Birkett, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs
[i] “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with President of Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, May 1, 2017, http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2017/05/01/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-speaks-president-peru-pedro-pablo-kuczynski .
[ii] Karina Martín, “Could Canada’s Justin Trudeau Serve as the Next Mediator in Venezuela’s Crisis?” PanamPost, June 13, 2017, https://panampost.com/karina-martin/2017/06/13/could-canadas-justin-trudeau-serve-as-the-next-mediator-in-venezuelas-crisis/.
[iii] “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with Venezuelan Human Rights Activist Lilian Tintori,” Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, May 16, 2017, http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2017/05/16/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-meets-venezuelan-human-rights-activist-lilian-tintori .
[iv] “The OAS flops again on Venezuela,” Latin News, June 20, 2017.
[v] “Almagro says Venezuelan state ‘at war’ with unarmed civilians,” Latin News, June 13, 2017.
[vi] “Interventionist Moves Against Venezuela Fail Again at OAS Meeting,” TeleSur, June 19, 2017, http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Interventionist-Moves-Against-Venezuela-Fail-Again-at-OAS-Meeting-20170618-0019.html.
[vii] “The OAS flops again on Venezuela,” Latin News, June 20, 2017.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] “Rare CARICOM unity defeats anti-Venezuela declaration at OAS,” Caribbean News Now!, June 2, 2017, http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Rare-CARICOM-unity-defeats-anti-Venezuela-declaration-at-OAS-34616.html.
[xi] “The OAS flops again on Venezuela,” Latin News, June 20, 2017.
[xii] Chrystia Freeland, “Statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs on Venezuela,” Global Affairs Canada, May 4, 2017, https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2017/05/statement_by_ministerofforeignaffairsonvenezuela.html.
[xiii]“Canada-Cuba Relations,” Embassy of Canada to Cuba, September 24, 2015, http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/cuba/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/canada_cuba.aspx?lang=eng.
[xiv] “Canadian Mining in Latin America: Exploitation, Inconsistency, and Neglect,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, June 11, 2014, http://www.coha.org/canadian-mining-in-latin-america-exploitation-inconsistency-and-neglect/.
[xv] “Canada Mining Companies in Latin America Have Blood on Hands,” TeleSur, October 24, 2016, http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Canada-Mining-Companies-in-Latin-America-Have-Blood-on-Hands–20161024-0007.html.
[xvi] “Canada Leftists Slam Ottawa’s Complicity in Attacking Venezuela,” TeleSur, May 21, 2017, http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Canada-Leftists-Slam-Ottawas-Complicity-in-Attacking-Venezuela-20170521-0021.html.
[xvii] “Canada Leads Attacks on Venezuela to Push ‘Political Agenda’,” TeleSur, June 20, 2017, http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Canada-Leads-Attacks-on-Venezuela-to-Push-Political-Agenda-20170620-0013.html .
[xviii] Lucas Koerner, “Venezuelan Opposition Fractures Over Pope-Sponsored Dialogue Initiative,” venezuelanalysis.com, October 25, 2016, https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/12746.
Recently the Uyghur organizations abroad are increasing pressures to convey the image of China as a “State of torture”. We do no certainly want to deny that the Muslim population in Xinjiang, which at the time of Mao’s Long March was simply called “the Western Region”, does not tolerate some restrictions, but it is anyway true that the Islamist and jihadist networks are largely present in the region and that, as always happens in these cases, they have visible structures covering the invisible ones.
And not necessarily the visible ones are bigger than the invisible ones. The amount of “invisible agents” in the case of a terrorist and jihadist organization is far greater than you can think of.
Finally, while recently Greece vetoed the EU’s condemnation of China for its “repression of human rights”, it is equally true that the congerie of human rights is a cornucopia where you can put everything and the opposite of everything. Moreover, it is hard to establish a subjective and natural “law” without an equally universal and shared order placing it into a framework of binding rules.
Unfortunately the strict nature of Roman Law – the perennial sphere of every sound legal reasoning – is not so widespread as it would be currently needed.
Instead of the Latin Ratio, there is a new “right of feelings” or even of “impulses and drives”, which now characterizes the EU position – a law heir to the one represented by the drunken leaders of the Germanic tribes under their oak.
A commercial, devised by the now endless private agencies safeguarding said “human rights”, has even created an artificial link between mass migration from Africa to the EU (but above all to Italy ruled by foolish leaders) and torture.
Not to mention the implementation of the human rights ideology to the LGBT minorities in the West, as well as the use of this theory of human rights for the now huge masses of immigrants from Africa to Europe, or even to minorities that although existing for centuries, are used against Asia’s development projects, such as the Baloch people in Pakistan against the “Sino-Pakistani Corridor” and the Sindh and Punjabi ethnic groups between Pakistan and India, as well as the Kachin people between China and Myanmar, a region where China is also investing massively.
In short, the non-State areas among the largest nations are used as clockwork mechanisms to destabilize or regionalize major economies in a phase of economic growth.
And this is already a clue.
Location of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. Source: Wikipedia Commons.
Obviously this applies also to the Uyghur issue.
It is also worth recalling that, according to the Turkish police, the bomber of New Year’s Eve attack in Istanbul was an Uyghur – and Daesh-Isis mostly uses Uyghurs for its actions in Turkey.
Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Western China are all areas belonging to the region that has been identified as “Khorasan” by the Caliphate.
In fact, the terrorist of the “Reina” nightclub attack in Istanbul was identified as an Uyghur, but with the significant name of Abu Mohammed Khorasani.
An Uyghur who had been trained in Syria, then returned to Xinjiang and later moved to Kyrgyzstan with his family. From there he had arrived in Istanbul approximately one month before the attack.
According to the Chinese and Turkish security forces, at least 300 Uyghurs have become members of the Syrian-Iraqi Caliphate.
If we consider that, apart from training, every jihadist needs a protection and cover network of at least 40-50 people, we can calculate that there is a not negligible number of jihadists in Xinjiang.
Moreover, criminal gangs also regularly sell fake Kyrgyz passports to the Uyghurs fleeing Xinjiang to join the jihad.
There is already collaboration between Taiwanese and Uyghurs for actions against China, including non-military ones, while Rabija Kader, the founder of the World Uyghur Congress, would already like to proclaim the “East Turkestan Republic” against which, last March, Xi Jinping called for the construction of a “big steel wall” to control and isolate Xinjiang.
So far China’s policy towards the Uyghurs has been designed to integrate Xinjiang into the phase of fast economic expansion that has taken place throughout the country, as well as establishing shared security and economic relations with the neighbouring countries of the Uyghur region.
In the “New Silk Road” project, Xinjiang is seen as the primary corridor for energy and trade between mainland China, Central Asia and the Middle East.
Furthermore, we must also consider that one of the reasons that led to the war in Syria was the proposal made in 2009 by Qatar – an Emirate which is currently de facto at war with Saudi Arabia and many of its allies – for a gas pipeline from its North Field, at the border with the Iranian field, crossing Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria up to Turkey, to finally supply the European market.
The following year, however, Bashar al-Assad decided to support the Iran-Iraq-Syria line, the so-called “Islamic pipeline” which, however, would have been an alternative to Gazprom.
Therefore, while this happened in Syria, with a careful management of internal chaos, of destabilization and of Gene Sharp’s technique of “nonviolent action”, that would be nothing compared to what may occur in Xinjiang to slow down, block and destroy China’s energy and economic project with the “New Silk Road”.
This is the second clue.
China will shortly invest 25 billion US dollars in the streets of the region characterized by the old Turkmen ethnic group.
The Sino-Pakistani Corridor, another key Chinese project, starts with a 900 billion US dollar infrastructure investment for the Tashkurgan-Gwadar line – and once again the starting basis for the line, as well as most of its immediate borders, are at risk of jihadist terrorist infiltration which, however, will always have its natural platform in Xinjiang.
Let us not consider the do-gooding rhetoric of the European Parliament, which on June 22 last, with its EU-China Human Rights Dialogue, called for greater attention by the Chinese government to “civil society” (a concept fully alien to China’s old and modern political culture), as well as to the protection of “activists”, who are often agents of the enemy soft power, with a view to drafting or revising useless treaties.
Europe is a continent which cannot distinguish between friends and foes, neither its own nor its allies’.
A continent that will not last.
Moreover, the Uyghur region also has as many as 122 minerals, often with the largest reserves throughout China.
Even rare metal reserves, which are currently decisive for developing new information technologies.
Not to mention precious stones, gold, jade and salty materials which are needed for the production of glass and paints.
The same holds true for the 25 billion cubic meters of water, which are essential in the rest of China, with glaciers having a surface of 24,000 square kilometres, which could provide 2,580 million cubic meters of additional water.
It would be the solution to China’s huge water problem.
The Xinjiang coal reserves account for 38% of Chinese total reserves.
Currently oil and natural gas in the Uyghur region account for 25% of the Chinese total reserves.
And it is hard to believe that this region, which serves as a base and primary land corridor for the great Chinese Road and Belt project, cannot become the starting point triggering off a new “chaos strategy” in the near future.
This is the third clue.
Initially, the Uyghur terrorists of the Bishkek bombing and of the Urumqi revolt were largely trained in Pakistan.
Moreover, Al Qaeda trained Uyghurs in Afghanistan so as to send them back to their areas of origin to carry out terrorist attacks.
Furthermore, with a view to differentiating their energy sources from the increasingly dangerous Middle East, both China and Japan look to Central Asia’s oil and gas with great interest. China, in particular, needs a safe corridor for the Azeri, Kazakh, Uzbek and Kyrgyz oil and gas.
Blocking the Xinjiang line or making it unsafe is the best way to force China to the prices, political tensions and military crisis of the Middle East countries.
Hence, incidentally, this is the reason underlying the farsighted Chinese policy towards Israel.
At geopolitical level, for the new Central Asia’s “big game”, the United States can rely on the only projection force of the Armed Forces, while the Russian Federation has the strategic advantage of its position and its long relations with many countries in the region. China has the chance of being the most capitalized country in Asia and also having Armed Forces capable of controlling the territory and projecting its power onto the Pacific and the South China Sea, as well as onto the South.
But it has a weak point, namely the great ethnic differences which, unfortunately, materialize above all on its borders.
At this juncture, we could consider for China a Horatii and Curiatii- style policy.
Separating the ethnic groups, making some of them friendly, while hitting the target minority with the necessary harshness.
Certainly, the participation of ethnic minorities in current China’s rapid economic development – as is currently already happening – is a further good strategy.
However, this creates a class of new wealthy people linked to the government, while the new impoverishment will inevitably create new insurgency areas.
Instead of believing in some “human rights” militants, paid by who knows who, it would be useful for Europe to tackle the geostrategic problem of supporting Central Asia’ stabilization, by cooperating with the Sino-Russian axis to avoid the jihadist contagion and, above all, the contagion of the powers that support or use it.
About the author:
*Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “La Centrale Finanziaria Generale Spa”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group and member of the Ayan-Holding Board. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title of “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France.
Though small, the Maldives is India’s important neighbour. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the Maldives “a valued partner in the Indian Ocean neighbourhood” and said India-Maldives “ties are built on a very strong foundation” the contours of which “are defined by shared strategic, security, economic and developmental goals.” However, the bilateral ties are not without irritants, which can be seen in two broad areas: political and strategic.
Politically, India has consciously avoided interfering in the Maldives’ internal affairs despite invitation from the actors in the atoll state. However, New Delhi’s major concern has been the impact of political instability in the neighbourhood on its security and development. The February 2015 arrest of opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed on terrorism charges and the consequent political crisis has posed a real diplomatic test for Modi’s neighbourhood policy. Expressing concern over “the arrest and manhandling of former President Nasheed,” India urged “all concerned to calm the situation and resolve their differences within the constitutional and legal framework of Maldives.” As a result of the incumbent Abdulla Yameen government’s intransigence in heeding to India’s appeal on Nasheed, Modi had to drop the Maldives from his four-nation Indian Ocean tour in March 2015. The move did send a conspicuous signal to Maldives that India was disappointed with the developments that would undermine the political stability of the Maldives. However, the message from Malé was very clear: “India will adhere to the principle of Panchsheel and will not intervene in domestic politics of Maldives.” In diplomatic parlance, “Panchsheel” is generally used in Sino-Indian context. And, it was also to indicate China’s stand on the issue to New Delhi: “We are committed to non-interference in others internal affairs.” Despite this, Yameen went on to visit India three times since assuming power in 2013. In fact, during his latest visit in April 2016, Yameen reiterated “India first policy” and signed six agreements ranging from defence to taxation.
On the security front, there are at least two issues that impinged on India-Maldives bilateral ties that continued during the Modi government: Islamic radicalisation and the role of China. In the past decade or so, the number of Maldivians drawn towards terrorist groups like the Islamic State (IS) and Pakistan-based madrasas and other jihadist groups has been increasing. Protests bearing IS flags are not uncommon in the island. Approximately 200 Maldivian nationals have reportedly been fighting along with the IS. In terms of proportion to population, this number is quite high compared to other South Asian countries, irrespective of whether or not they are Muslim-majority countries. Political instability and socio-economic uncertainty are the main drivers of rise of Islamic radicalism in the island nation.
The fault lines are being used by Pakistan-based jihadists groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The LeT, through its front organisation, Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq, has established a foothold especially in the southern parts of the Maldives in the garb of the post-2004 tsunami relief operations. Events in West Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan have also influenced Maldivians towards radicalisation. The youth, who return from their religious studies in certain Pakistani madaris controlled by various jihadist groups and from Saudi Arabian madaris, come back not only with radical ideas, but also with jihadi networks. The madrasa-educated youth are brainwashed to wage jihad in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya. The returnees help in the recruitment of Maldivian youth for Islamic militant groups.
India has two worries in this regard: one, the ex-filtration of members of Indian terror groups like the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Indian Mujahideen (IM) to the Maldives after their crackdown in India; and two, the possibility of LeT using remote Maldivian islands as a launch pad for terror attacks against India and Indian interests. Overall, India’s concern is regarding how radical Islamic forces have been gaining political influence in the neighbourhood.
In the recent past, China’s strategic footprints in India’s neighbourhood have increased. The Maldives has emerged as an important “pearl” in China’s “String of Pearls” construct in South Asia. Given the Maldives’s strategic location in the Indian Ocean, Beijing has been vying for a maritime base in the atoll with the primary motive of ensuring the security of its sea lanes, especially the unhindered flow of critically-needed energy supplies from Africa and West Asia through the Indian Ocean.
Lately, the Chinese have remained among the top visitors to the Maldives. Beijing has evinced a keen interest in developing infrastructure in the Ihavandhoo, Marao and Maarandhoo Islands of the Maldives. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit in 2014, the Maldives agreed to become a partner in China’s Maritime Silk Route. China has provided grant and loan assistance to the Maldives to build a bridge between the capital and the airport (called the “China-Maldives friendship bridge”). Chinese companies are involved in airport development and have now been handed islands for resort development.
Therefore, it is not without reasons that the current dispensation in Malé holds the view that “it will be to the detriment of the Maldives to not engage with China.” Amendments to the Maldivian Constitution in July 2015 allowed foreigners to own land, including investments of over 1 billion dollars for projects where 70 per cent of the land has been reclaimed. Looking at the parameters, China will be the obvious beneficiary. Chinese nationals now account for the largest tourist arrivals in the islands.
India views the growing Chinese footprint in the Maldives with concern. India’s concern stems from the increasing Chinese strategic presence in the Indian Ocean region. Though the Maldivian government under Yameen has reassured India that the Chinese presence in its atolls is purely economic, the concern of “places turning into bases” is genuine. From the Indian point of view, because of Chinese largesse to Maldives, economic leverages have not been working properly. It has become easy for the Maldives to play the China card against India.
Being a small country, the Maldives may tend to use China card. However, it is well aware of India’s importance in every sphere of its state-of-affairs. This has been proved time and again including in the recent water crisis. For its part, the main challenge to India’s diplomacy is balancing out all the contradictions into harmonious relations.
* N Manoharan
Associate Professor, Department of International Studies and History, Christ University, Bengaluru
“America First” policies and budget cuts threaten the US role as a global leader in combating infectious diseases.
By Daniela Braun*
As a major innovator, donor and active implementer of health programs worldwide, the United States is among the major pillars in global health. The US government has led in targeting many pressing global health challenges including tuberculosis, HIV, reproductive health and the fight against epidemics.
Swift attention and action from providers and researchers in developed nations prevent local events from becoming global epidemics. Such preparedness is among the most urgent challenges facing the international community in an interconnected world.
Budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration, as well as criticism directed toward foreign aid and multilateral engagement, could reduce the US leadership role in global health. Early budget blueprints from the administration proposed big reductions to the underlying US health infrastructure that responds to disease outbreaks: 25 percent for US State Department programs targeting health issues; 17 percent for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including a 10 percent cut for the agency’s office of public health preparedness and response; and 18 percent for the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s medical research agency. Institutions like the Fogarty International Center, which builds partnerships with countries abroad and trains health researchers from around the world, would be eliminated.
The entire world, populations in low-income countries and the American people, will suffer. In an increasingly interconnected world, epidemics are more routine than unusual – including SARS in Asia and Canada, cholera in Zimbabwe and Haiti, various flu pandemics, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and Ebola and Zika in recent years.
A strong frontline of skilled medical researchers and providers pinpoint outbreaks and communicate updates to monitor and stem the spread of diseases that can disrupt the lives and well-being of thousands of people in a matter of weeks. Most political leaders understand that viruses and other diseases do not stop at national borders and that global health is a humanitarian duty, one with strategic implications. International cooperation, responding to disease outbreaks at the source as soon as they emerge, is necessary to protect citizens around the globe.
Optimism ran high in the 1970s that infectious diseases would no longer threaten humanity due to progress in medicine and hygiene. But rapid increase of travel and international commerce, ongoing environmental degradation as well as population growth and urbanization as global megatrends are ensuring that diseases spread far and more quickly than ever before.
Consider the most recent major health crises:
Massive in scope and fast-spreading, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa killed more than 11,300 people within 18 months. It weakened health systems and took a dreadful toll on the countries’ economies and social systems.
The Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease causing brain malformations in newborns, spread rapidly in the Americas and other parts of the world.
Currently, public health experts are highly worried about one of the deadliest strains of avian flu spreading in China and causing a surge in human infections.
These are only some of the most prominent examples of disease outbreaks that have alarmed and put the global health community on high alert.
Researchers have recognized and addressed the threat of fast-moving infectious diseases since the early 2000s. Governments, international organizations, NGOs and private actors have created numerous policies and instruments to prepare for epidemics. Constant vigilance and investments are required to monitor threats that can emerge anywhere, and the current level of preparedness remains inadequate.
The US government has played a major role in first raising and emphasizing the issue of epidemic preparedness. Washington was among the first countries that emphasized the challenge by listing infectious diseases as a high-ranking national security threat, for example, in the 2000 report of the National Intelligence Council. The United States also crafted policies and a health infrastructure aiming at epidemic response both at home and, to a lesser extent, abroad. As a major supporter for reforming and strengthening the International Health Regulations in 2005, Washington pushed for improved capabilities to detect, assess and respond to health crisis. The US announced the Health Security Agenda in 2014 to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, and US health institutions responsible for domestic health surveillance like the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health are renowned for providing technical assistance and training for health professionals from all over the world.
Team effort: A mix of private foundations and nations around the globe fund the many programs of the World Health Organization (Source: WHO)
But “America first” principles, embodied in Donald Trump’s vow in the budget blueprint to “keep […] more of America’s hard-earned tax dollars here at home,” stand in sharp contrast to this approach. His critical view toward foreign aid, largely viewed as charity, ignores key lessons learned by the international community in responding to recent infectious disease outbreaks: Epidemics can be best contained at their source, and prevention is better than reaction.
Caregivers everywhere must be trained and ready to report unusual events, and investments in the health systems of low- and middle-income countries are the first line of defense when it comes to the prevention of outbreaks. Proposed budget cuts would contribute to less vigilance, preparation, training and a slower response.
International diplomacy, multilateral coordination, and concise public communications are critical during large-scale disease outbreaks in order to control the situation. News reports suggest that the Trump administration is sidelining career professionals in the US State Department. Impulsivity, irritable reactions, delayed or confusing communications, and impatience with multilateral approaches could complicate the public response for the next epidemic. Relaying accurate communications about the nature of the disease and prevention in an era of “fake news” and “alternative facts” could be the greater challenge.
In addition, US preparedness is in question with key positions of critical public health agencies, pivotal for researching and respoding to infectious diseases, still vacant four months into the administration. The Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention currently has no permanent director, and many positions are yet unfilled at the Department for Health and Human Services along with sub-cabinet positions.
The Trump administration does propose a Federal Emergency Response Fund for disease outbreaks, but details about the fund’s size and source are unclear.
We are living in one of the most dangerous times in terms of the spread of diseases, and the world relies on cooperation with fast and accurate reporting along with research on prevention, treatment and vaccines. An “America First” philosophy does not bode well for global health, and the outlook for the US leading role in strengthening epidemic preparedness is rather dire.
Still, dangerous disease outbreaks have increasingly gained attention with the start of this century from many actors and organizations apart from the US government. The topic is high on the agenda of Germany’s G20 presidency and the World Economic Forum – and disease prevention is prominently embraced by wealthy donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as international conferences like the Munich Security Conference.
Recent health crises have alerted and enabled a large force for strengthening capabilities to detect and respond to epidemics worldwide. But make no mistake, the US government’s restraint in outbreak preparedness is a major setback for global health policy.
*Daniela Braun is a 2016-2017 Fox Fellow at Yale University and a PhD candidate with the Free University Berlin whose research centers on the intersection of health and security. Her dissertation investigates the role of military assistance in a health crisis response. Her experience working on topics related to German security and defense policy as a program officer at the German Council on Foreign Relations, and she is also a member of the extended board of the German chapter of Women in International Security.
(FPRI) — On June 3, 2017, nine Latvian cities and 110 municipalities elected local councils, which are tasked with creating and maintaining municipal regulations, implementing social services, and overseeing local schools. The key question of these elections was whether Harmony, a political party geared towards Latvia’s Russian-speakers, would hold onto power in Riga, the capital city, which it has ruled since 2009.
The alliance between two parties, Harmony and Honor to Serve Riga! (Gods Kalot Rīgai! or GKR), indeed won the majority of votes. But their performance was less impressive than their victory in the 2013 municipal election. In comparison to 2013, the alliance of these two parties lost 7,018 votes and 7 seats in the 60-seat City Council. The alliance’s victory was also much thinner: 58.54% of voters supported the list in 2013, but only 50.82% supported it in 2017.
Two newcomers, the New Conservative Party and the joint list of the Regional Party and For Latvia’sDevelopment, won 9 seats each, while National Alliance and Unity, the two parties that currently form the governing coalition in Latvia at the national level, won 6 and 4 seats, respectively.
These election results illustrate larger trends in Latvian politics in advance of the 2018 legislative elections. Some politicians, no matter what level of government they serve in, do not hesitate to use national identity as a tool in their quest for political support. Harmony is still strong among the Russian-speaking population, but has lost the potential to become an important player among ethnic Latvian voters for a number of reasons. And the ruling coalition parties are challenged by new conservative as well as liberal parties. Unlike in other European countries, there are no major extremist or populist groups or parties on the rise. The situation is stable for now, but using ethnicity for political purposes while failing to address corruption and governance will be destabilizing in the long term.
Ethnic in Form, Corruption in Content
Municipal councils in Latvia are elected in equal, direct, and proportional elections. Before the elections, registered political parties and electoral coalitions of two or more parties propose lists of candidates for the elections. On the Election Day, voters choose one of the proposed party lists. In addition, they have the option of promoting or demoting candidates on their party’s list by adding a plus sign next to candidates they support most strongly. If a party wins ten seats, the top ten candidates on its list will enter parliament.
There are two potential interpretations of the Riga municipal election results. The simplistic version focuses on a purely ethnic narrative: ethnic Latvians and Russian-speakers competed for power in Riga, and the Latvians lost. The other more nuanced—and more accurate—narrative is that eleven lists competed for power in Riga. Some, not all, of them used the question of ethnic-Latvian and ethnic-Russian relations in their bid for power, and Harmony/GKR won. According to the first narrative, the elections were about ethnic divide, while in the other, they were about corruption and good governance.
The Harmony/GKR alliance is more than just a Russian-speakers list. GKR is mainly a party of ethnic Latvians, and Harmony itself has Latvians in its ranks. This detail is often ignored. Both those who celebrate that Latvia’s largest city’s mayor is of Russian descent and those who criticize his policies tend to forget that he retains power thanks to support from ethnic Latvians. In a country where nationality and citizenship are perceived as two separate things, where ethnic identities are strong and the painful events of the 20th century still divide society, these details are important.
In the months before the elections, the national question was constantly and explicitly articulated by the center-right National Alliance. While other parties focused more on alleged corruption in Riga’s City Council and the mismanagement of the city’s renovation projects, National Alliance made the Russian versus Latvian divide a central element of its campaign. Ironically, a live TV debate between Nils Ušakovs, Riga’s incumbent mayor, and National Alliance candidate Baiba Broka turned out to be more of a pleasant chat rather than a heated debate. Known to be friends in real life, both politicians spent more time arguing with journalist than fighting each other. They visibly avoided critiquing each other’s policies and ideas.
Harmony/GKR and other parties were less explicit in their attempts to play the ethnic divide than the National Alliance, but they did not completely abstain from it, implying that these elections were somehow about “us versus them.” Ušakovs called his voters to mobilize because if he was not re-elected, then the “nationalists will win.” Voters for the other parties were asked to vote for “any of them,” in order to the “overthrow” the current mayor of Riga.
These results show that there were voters who systematically crossed out candidates with a different nationality than their own. The number of these ethnically oriented voters is not high, but there is also a second problem: Latvians on the Harmony/GKR list and non-Latvians on the lists of other parties tend to get fewer pluses than the other candidates. They often are less known to the voters of the given party and lack personal connections that help other candidates get as many pluses as possible.
The only party that has addressed this issue is the new liberal-oriented For Latvia’s Development. The party chairman has apologized to candidates of Russian descent and promised to promote their work. For Latvia’s Development is one of the rare parties in Latvia’s political landscape that has publicly stated its ambition to overcome the ethnic divide and “[become] a party of Latvia, not a party of Latvians.” The party claims that its joint list with the Regional Party in Riga was supported by Russian-speakers’ votes.
Over the last few years, Harmony in general and Nils Ušakovs personally have tried to rebrand the party from a Russian-speakers’ party to a social-democratic party that both Russian-speakers and Latvians could vote for. In the 2011 parliamentary elections, it won 31 seats out of 100 total seats. That is a strong result, but other parties have traditionally been able to form a majority that excludes Harmony. At that time, it was claimed that a certain number of ethnic Latvians had voted for the party. Furthermore, the possibility of including Harmony in the government coalition was seriously discussed. However, in the subsequent elections (fall 2014), Harmony lost seven seats, and its inclusion in the government was no longer considered. In the time between the two elections, the party and its leader had alienated Latvian voters by trying to please the most pro-Putin and nationalist part of the Russian-speaking electorate.
In 2012, Ušakovs and other members of his party voted to establish Russian as Latvia’s second official language in a referendum initiated by other Russian-speakers’ groups. The idea was rejected by 74.8% of voters with a participation rate of 70.73%. The second factor that diminished Harmony’s chances to become a cross-ethnic party was Ušakovs’ failure to rally behind Latvia’s official position on the Russian aggression in Ukraine. He harshly criticized the sanctions imposed by the government, visited Moscow just after the annexation of Crimea, and attacked the foreign minister for banning several Russian citizens from visiting Latvia. To this day, Harmony has a cooperation treaty with Putin’s United Russia. It remains torn between a desire to retain ethnic Russian voters and a need for ethnic Latvian voters if it is to ever win a majority.
Instead of constructively addressing these criticisms, Ušakovs often avoided questions or chose an aggressive style of communication. As the city’s neighborhoods become more and more mixed, and young urban well-educated people from Russian-speaking families become more and more fluent in Latvian, Harmony will have to reconsider both its vision for the city and its stance on what good governance means. If it fails to do so, then it might not keep power in Riga after the next election. On the national level, by supporting two official languages and failing to support the official government’s line on Ukraine, Harmony lost its chance to cross ethnic lines.
The Future of Other Parties
The Riga elections showed that important changes in the Latvian political landscape might take place in the near future. The results for the three government coalition parties, Farmers and Greens, Unity, and National Alliance in Riga’s City Council elections were disappointing. Unity lost five seats (obtaining only four), and National Alliance lost six seats (obtaining six). Farmers and Greens, whose stronghold has always been the western part of Latvia, did not win any seats in Riga’s City Council in the 2013 and 2017 elections.
Unity’s story is one of the strangest in Latvia’s political history. The center-right party emerged in 2010 as an electoral alliance of smaller center-right parties, with a clear anti-corruption agenda. It led the country through the recovery from the 2009 crisis by applying strong austerity measures and obtained very strong results in both the 2011 early elections and the 2014 elections. In 2014, it seemed like the party was bound to stay a major and stable force in Latvian politics—it had high ratings, a very popular Prime Minister, and a high number of seats in parliament. However, in 2017, it is not clear if the party will survive another election cycle. In hindsight, it is clear that Unity’s decline started when popular Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis resigned in 2013, after a supermarket collapsed in Riga killing 54 people. In 2014, he left for Brussels to become Vice President of the European Commission, and his party gradually destroyed itself in an internal power struggle. In 2016, they were superseded by former enemy the Farmers and Greens. The split between Unity’s liberal and conservative wings has become so deep, and the party’s old leadership so unpopular that the party can only survive by going through a generational change. It is highly likely that they two sides will split.
The Farmers and Greens, a party which despite its name has nothing to do with European green politics, is a center-right party with strong links to the mayor of Ventspils, Aivars Lembergs, who is often described as an oligarch. Despite this controversy, Farmers and Greens has been the most stable force in Latvian politics since independence. Farmers and Greens has been part of every government collation between 2002 and 2011, and again from 2014 to the present. In 2015, member Raimonds Vējonis was elected president, while member Māris Kučisnkis became prime minister in 2016 after Unity failed to nominate a candidate.
Since then, the government, led by Farmers and Greens, seems to be mainly concerned with maintaining the status quo. Doing so is, of course, important in the context of political upheavals in transatlantic relations. Despite Lemberg’s anti-NATO rhetoric, Farmers and Greens’ ministers, prime minister, and president have been fully committed to Latvia’s pro-Western orientation, signaling a decrease in Lemberg’s influence. At the same time, the government has not been able to address key issues such as the badly needed reforms in healthcare and education systems. Nevertheless, the party will do well in the 2018 elections given its strong base in the Western parts of Latvia that remain loyal no matter what the party does.
The third coalition party, the center-right National Alliance, faces troubling times. It emerged in 2010 as an electoral alliance between the national conservative For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK and All For Latvia!, which was once seen as a far-right group in Latvia. Not only did it lose 6 seats in Riga’s City Council, but it also saw the rise of a potential rival for the right-wing votes in the New Conservative Party. The New Conservative Party was founded in 2014 by Jānis Bordāns, a former member of the National Alliance, but only this year did it become a serious rival to the existing parties. More moderate than the National Alliance and more focused on corruption than any other force in these elections, this party competes for right-wing conservative voters.
The other newcomer in these elections was the strange electoral alliance between the conservative Regional Party and liberal For Latvia’s Development. This alliance—which would seem impossible in any Western European country—shows how little Latvian politics actually are about ideology and how much they are about power and personal networks. The future of these parties is unclear. For Latvia’s Development could become the liberal force that Latvia has been missing—but this of course cannot be done by allying with conservatives. The Regional Party has nothing new to offer in Latvian politics, except a few outspoken personalities who successfully play the system’s challenger card.
Latvian Politics Moving Forward
Given this dynamic, the municipal elections in Riga in particular and in Latvia in general show that the political situation is stable. Unlike in other European countries, there are no major extremist or populist forces on the rise. The most nationalist party in the Latvian political spectrum, the National Alliance, lost seats in Riga. So, too, did Harmony which, despite attempts to brand itself as a social-democratic party, still takes advantage of the ethnic divide. A week after the elections, political tensions and ethnic differences were suddenly forgotten when Aļona Ostapenko, a Latvian tennis player of Russian descent, won the French Open. The celebration of her achievement united the country across ethnic boundaries.
Politicians who use identity differences for political purposes not only weaken society, they also make it vulnerable to Russia’s propaganda efforts. To diminish the potential for ethnic tensions, Harmony should renounce its agreement with United Russia and unequivocally condemn the Russian aggression in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the other parties should learn to reach out to the Russian-speaking part of population.
While to most nations, nuclear proliferation is an impediment to international security, to the North Korean leadership, it is a necessary means for ensuring survival. Since its first nuclear test in 2006, North Korea has increasingly relied on the crutch of atomic weapons in the face of ever more hostile neighbors and world powers. The autocratic regime has done little to mask its nuclear ambitions, with missiles, claimed to be capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, tested with increasing frequency. With economic pressures likely to rise as the regime continues to alienate even its traditional allies, the regime has insisted on continuing with these missile tests. Although North Korea has both the largest standing military and reserve forces in the world, any advantage in numbers is negated by its reliance on outdated, early Soviet-era weapons and equipment. This is a primary reason for the shift toward nuclear weapons as a deterrent against international intervention. Although North Korea has yet to test an intercontinental ballistic missile or show that its atomic weapons are adequately miniaturized for warhead use, it’s only a matter of time until the necessary technological developments occur.
Certainly, the world would benefit from a more open, stable, and disarmed North Korea. In an effort to achieve this goal, a number of failed approaches have been pursued. It seems that any lack of compromise on behalf of the international community is taken as justification to increase North Korean alienation, while any concession essentially helps to subsidize the North’s nuclear program. This was seen in the Sunshine Policy between 1998—2008, where South Korea provided no-strings-attached aid to the North, allowing for the unhindered development of its increasingly threatening nuclear program. The Sunshine Policy may have allowed for improved relations, but it clearly failed to make progress toward a disarmed and less hostile North Korea. By providing aid without conditions, the regime was permitted to pursue its nuclear agenda. In order to achieve the long-term goal of opening up North Korea and rolling back its nuclear program, a new strategy is necessary.
One prominent feature of previous efforts to reign in North Korea has been the disjointed nature of the international response. Traditionally, North Korea has relied on China as a major economic partner and ally. If disarmament were to occur at any point in the foreseeable future, this close partnership would need to be severed before any meaningful effort can be made towards pacifying the regime. Thankfully, between Kim Jong-Un’s erratic and inflammatory actions and China’s ascension into the role of a global authority, the relationship between the neighboring nations is already strained. The deterioration of this relationship shows that North Korea has lost even its closest of friends, and for the first time, an opportunity for a united international front against North Korean aggression presents itself.
While the possibility of the regional and global stakeholders — the United States, China, Japan, and South Korea — forming a united front to ensure the de-escalation of tensions and nuclear disarmament would be the first of its kind, it also presents a massive risk in comparison to the relatively stable geopolitical status quo in East Asia. Since the conclusion of the Korean War, the region has been clearly divided in to two camps with regards to North Korea: China has been a close ally, and the U.S., South Korea, and Japan have been staunch enemies. But with China quickly becoming the economic power of first East Asia, and soon the world, North Korea has transitioned from a useful ally to a liability. While it is clearly in the Chinese national interest to have a friendly country on its border, a conflict prompted by the regime’s aggressive behavior would likely force China into the conflict as well. In recent years, China has drastically reduced aid to North Korea, particularly in terms of cheap Chinese coal, showing their waning support. Without the backing of their much more potent ally, and before the development of functional strategic nuclear weapons, North Korea may be positioned to soften its hardline rejection of compromise with the South and the U.S.
To the regime, the question of acquiring nuclear weapons is an existential one. Perhaps Kim Jong-Un is reminded of Gaddafi, who in the 70s openly sought to build or buy a bomb. Although Libya ultimately abandoned the idea, it was only after punishing sanctions were lifted, and there was a significant economic incentive to do so. While in the short term, Libya and its leader benefitted, Gaddafi eventually lost his grip on power. Without a nuclear deterrent, and with the aid of a unified NATO coalition and rebel forces, Gaddafi was dragged into the streets and summarily executed by the same angry Libyans he once ruled with a firm hand. Nuclear weapons are simply the best available deterrent to outside aggression. A nuclear weapon is a bargaining chip like no other — when North Korea’s nuclear arsenal inevitably becomes a functional global threat, any slim possibility of encouraging disarmament will have disappeared for good.
While it is clear that a strategy of total complacency is ineffective, the alternative of just giving up on the possibility of improved relations is equally unsuccessful in disarming North Korea. Though the Sunshine Policy’s first incarnation was overwhelmingly seen as a disaster, new South Korean President Moon Jae-in seems to be interested in reinstating a policy of improved relations. Given North Korea’s increasing vulnerability and isolation, offers to ease economic sanctions or provide food aid may prove effective in encouraging nuclear disarmament. In many ways, North Korea finds itself more vulnerable today than ever before, as the nation’s last ally shores up support as a response to deteriorating relations. As the North Korean populace suffers under tough international sanctions and massive amounts of military spending, international aid would likely be welcomed. Aid and eased sanctions strictly stipulating procedures toward disarmament may, for the first time, find some success. As the Chinese and U.S. governments find a common interest in a less aggressive and militarily capable North Korea, the road to deescalated tensions seems for the first time a real possibility. This nuclear disarmament could be foreseeably achieved by incentivizing the de-escalation of tensions. With decreased international support, the North Korean regime is increasingly vulnerable to internal pressures, and is all too aware that food production is well below minimum consumption levels. If the North Korean government was offered sanction relief and aid in return for limiting the rapid development of its nuclear program, for the first time, the regime may see the value in international cooperation.
Of course, strained relations between China and North Korea may simply reinforce Kim Jong-Un’s narrative, wholly justifying the development of nuclear weapons in the first place. With the remnants of its international relations deteriorating, it is becoming increasingly clear that North Korea’s threatening and aggressive stance toward its neighbors may actually be the reason why the international community has taken no decisive actions toward regime change. The North Korean leadership is in an unprecedented position of vulnerability that could lead to either escalated hostilities or the easing of tensions. Giving the North Korean government the possibility of concessions in exchange for disarmament may, for the first time, not fall on deaf ears. With renewed efforts to bring Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table, the possibility for improved relations seems increasingly realistic.
The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com, where this article was first published.
Vulnerable Asian states are bracing for possible pressure to back a Saudi-UAE boycott of Qatar as efforts to mediate an end to the almost month-old Gulf crisis seemingly stall and Saudi Arabia and the UAE struggle to rally credible Muslim and international support for their campaign against the recalcitrant Gulf state.
Countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan, two of the most populous Muslim states, as well as India, home to the world’s fourth largest Muslim population, fear that Saudi Arabia could threaten to expel millions of migrant workers and expatriates in a bid to force them to join the boycott of Qatar.
Saudi Arabia has a history of using as leverage migrant workers, whose remittances constitute the backbone of foreign currency liquidity of many supplier countries and whose Gulf jobs reduce pressure on domestic labour markets. In the most dramatic instance, Saudi Arabia expelled some 700,000 Yemenis in 1990 in retaliation for Yemen’s refusal to wholeheartedly back the US-Saudi led rollback of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
A similar number from a host of countries were forced to leave the kingdom in 2013 after Saudi Arabia tightened its labour law to ban foreign workers from running their own businesses and make them more dependent on the Saudi employer who initially facilitated their employment.
Speaking to the BBC, former Bangladesh ambassador to Saudi Arabia Abdul Momen Chowdhury warned that “nothing is impossible” in how the kingdom might seek to build support for its campaign against Qatar. “If anyone obstructs what they want or does not agree with their opinions, they are never hesitant to act.” Mr. Chowdhury said.
Concern about possible pressure was fuelled by recent Saudi and Emirati statements that suggested that there was unlikely to be a quick resolution to the Gulf crisis. The statements suggested that the crisis was about much more than alleged Qatari support for militants and Islamists.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, in Washington to lobby for US support, ruled out a compromise or face-saving solution when he told journalists that demands tabled by a Saudi-UAE led block of economically dependent nations were “non-negotiable.”
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have given Qatar ten days to comply with demands that include halting support for militants and Islamists, closing a Turkish military base in the Gulf state, reducing relations with Iran, and shuttering Qatar-sponsored media, including the controversial Al Jazeera television network. Qatar’s detractors have threatened further sanctions if it fails to comply with the demands.
UAE ambassador to Russia Omar Ghobash, in a clear and unabashedly frank indication that the boycott is about imposing policies and values rather than primarily about fighting political violence, defended the Saudi-UAE demand that Qatar shut down media like Al Jazeera by saying: “We do not claim to have press freedom. We do not promote the idea of press freedom. What we talk about is responsibility in speech.”
The UAE has long sought to muzzle Al Jazeera, which revolutionized the Arab media landscape since its inception in 1996 by breaking the mould of staid, heavily censored, government-controlled Arab broadcasting with more hard-hitting, freewheeling reporting, and giving air time to critical voices, Al Jazeera has over the years attracted criticism from multiple Arab autocrats as well as others, including the Bush administration, which accused it of being an outlet for Al Qaeda.
A US diplomatic cable, released by Wikileaks, quoted UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed as urging the United States in the walk up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq to force Qatar to reign in Al Jazeera. Prince Mohammed allegedly went as far as asking a US general to bomb Al Jazeera. It wasn’t clear if the UAE official was referring to the tv network’s headquarters in Doha or its offices in Baghdad.
A US missile subsequently hit an electricity generator at Al Jazeera’s office in Baghdad, killing two members of its staff. The US military said at the time that Al Jazeera “was not and never had been a target.”
Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a prominent Saudi journalist with close ties to the government, echoed Mr. Ghorbash’s theme. Mr. Al-Rashed argued that the core of the conflict was Qatari support for opposition groups in the kingdom and other Arab countries and the fact that they were granted air time on Al Jazeera.
In an ominous warning, Mr. Al-Rashed suggested that Doha could experience its own Raba’a al-Adawiya Square, a reference to a Cairo square on which hundreds of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were killed in August 2013 by Egyptian security forces. The demonstrators were holding a weeks-long sit in on the square to protest a Saudi and UAE-backed military coup that toppled Mohammed Morsi, a Brother and Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president, and brought General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to power.
The coup was preceded by a mass demonstrations against Mr. Morsi that, feeding on widespread criticism of his presidency, had been co-engineered by security forces with the backing of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Saudi and UAE media have in recent weeks run interviews with little known dissident members of Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family as well as former military officers opposed to the policies of Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani., suggesting that the Gulf states may support regime change in Qatar. A Saudi lobbyist, Salman al-Ansari, head of the Washington-based Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), said Sheikh Tamim could meet with the same fate as Mr. Morsi.
The risk of increased pressure on Muslim nations as well as other trading partners of Saudi Arabia and the UAE stems in part from the fact that the campaign against Qatar has failed to generate a groundswell of support from Muslim nations and the international community. Most Muslim countries remain on the side lines while the United States and members of the international community have called for a negotiated solution.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s failure to garner widespread support raised questions about the return on investment of Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s long-standing checkbook diplomacy and the kingdom’s massive financial support for Sunni-Muslim ultra-conservative educational, religious and cultural institutions and political groups across the globe that was designed to enhance soft power. Except for Egypt, no major Arab or Muslim state has joined the boycott.
UAE officials repeatedly warned in recent days that Qatar’s distractors would take additional punitive steps against the Gulf state if it failed to cave in to their demands. Those steps could include not only pressure on states dependent on export of labour but also measures against businesses countries that fail to grant support.
“One possibility would be to impose conditions on our own trading partners and say you want to work with us then you have got to make a commercial choice,” Mr. Ghobash said. It was not clear if the ambassador was also referring to the commercial interests of Muslim as well as non-Muslim powers that could include the United States, Europe, and China.
Some industries are already feeling the heat without Saudi Arabia and the UAE increasing pressure. Although not yet confronted with a demand to halt all business with Qatar, shipping companies no longer can load vessels with goods destined for the Gulf state as well as its detractors that dock at ports on both sides of the Gulf’s political divide. Instead, raising costs, goods destined for Qatar have to be shipped on separate vessels that only head for the Gulf state.
In another bid to tighten the noose around Qatar’s neck, Saudi Arabia appeared to be attempting to persuade world soccer body FIFA to deprive the Gulf state of its 2022 World Cup hosting rights. SAPRAC, the Saudi lobby group, this week accused Qatar of simultaneously supporting sports and terrorism.
In a paper, SAPRAC reiterated the long-standing controversy about the Qatari World Cup, including questions about the integrity of its bid and criticism of its controversial labour regime. In doing so, the kingdom seemed to be ignoring at its own peril the principle that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Legitimate criticism of Qatar’s controversial labour regime is equally valid for that of Saudi Arabia.
(FPRI) — Indo-U.S. relations, despite some inevitable vicissitudes, had been mostly on an upswing since the second Clinton administration. After dramatic progress on multiple fronts during the two terms of George W. Bush, it had briefly appeared to be in the doldrums during the first Obama administration. Two issues in particular had vexed New Delhi. The administration had been overly solicitous of India’s long-standing and long-term adversary, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and had sought to link the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan with the U.S. role in Afghanistan. India had responded coolly toward the first overture and had expressed outright hostility toward the second. The administration, after its initial flirtation with the PRC did not play out well, changed tack. Also, faced with a blunt and unyielding stance from India on the other matter, it backtracked from linking the two issues.
Indeed following Obama’s visit to India in October 2010, the relationship had undergone a significant course correction. Among other matters, Obama was the first U.S. president to publicly, if in a qualified fashion, endorse India’s quest to join the United Nations as a Permanent Member. This gesture, though hedged with suitable qualifications, was of extraordinary significance to the Indian foreign policy elite, for whom the goal is of talismanic dimensions.
President Trump’s assumption of office came as a surprise to India’s policymakers. To compound matters, Trump had railed against the India’s use of the H-1B visas during the campaign—an issue of no trivial significance to India’s multi-billion dollar information technology industry. Apart from this populist rant, he had expressed scant interest in India and shortly after getting elected had lauded the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, in a phone call. Subsequently, earlier this year, Trump had publicly accused India of seeking billions of dollars from advanced industrial countries in exchange for its support for the Paris climate change accords.
All these statements had been of cold comfort to India’s foreign policy establishment. Nor had the administration sought to reassure India that it would pursue policy continuity in other areas such as defense cooperation or regional security through high-level diplomatic contacts. In fact, the only official of any consequence who visited India was the National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster. Based upon press reports, much of his time in New Delhi had been devoted to discussions about the future of Afghanistan.
Consequently, as Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Washington, D.C. loomed, many within India’s foreign policy circles fretted about how Modi’s first state visit to the United States following Trump’s election would play out. Fortunately, for the most part, press reports and the detailed joint communiqué suggest that the Indo-U.S. relationship is in no imminent danger of being derailed. What are the indicators that the visit was at least a modest success and that it presages continuity in American policy toward India? Also, might there be any possible pitfalls that still lurk over the horizon? Are there issues that were left unaddressed that could come back to disturb the seeming bonhomie that the two leaders have established?
At the outset, it might be desirable to highlight what most Indian foreign policy commentators deem to be the achievements of the trip. Virtually all of them have taken note of the decision of the Trump administration to declare well-known terrorist, Syed Salauddin, the leader of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” Under the terms of this label, any of his financial assets in the United States will be subject to seizure, and no U.S. citizen can have contact with the individual. The practical consequences of this listing may be limited as Salauddin is unlikely to possess significant financial resources in the United States, and few Americans would be desirous of establishing contact with him anyway. That said, the designation is nevertheless important as it helps India put pressure on Pakistan, his base of operations.
Barring this decision, even a casual glance at the joint communiqué reveals that a number of subjects that had been under consideration under the Obama administration will still be pursued. In the defense arena, the previous administration had granted India the status of a Major Defense Partner. Under its aegis, India was granted access to a range of dual-use technologies. The joint statement affirmed India’s status and revealed that the U.S. has now offered India new drone technology. It has also emphasized the significance of on-going bilateral naval cooperation and an interest in its deepening and expansion.
Also, in a striking departure from past precedent, India affirmed American efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile pursuits. Previous Indian regimes had shied away from taking such bold and unequivocal stances on matters that did not directly impinge on India’s national security concerns. Similarly, without explicitly alluding to the PRC, the statement underscored the importance of the freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific. In many ways, these are important signs that India now envisages a wider role for itself on matters of regional security across Asia.
Some potentially contentious issues, however, seem to have been set aside. There is no mention of the nettlesome issue of H-1B visas; the matter of divergent views on climate change seem to have been mostly papered over; and there is no reference to Iran’s role in the Gulf. The final issue deserves a bit of discussion. India, for a variety of compelling reasons seeks to preserve a cordial relationship with Iran. Among other matters, it has a very substantial Shia population in northern India and values their political quiescence. It is also dependent on Iran for access to natural gas. Finally, it has invested much in the development of a port facility at Chabahar in Iran to counter the PRC’s growing presence in Pakistan and to obtain land access to Afghanistan. Consequently, it would be loath to dilute this critical relationship.
The Trump administration with its fixation on Iran is no doubt aware of India’s ties to Iran. The fact that this issue in a concluding public statement has been neatly sidestepped suggests that it is not an area where there is mutual understanding. Nevertheless, it is not a matter that can be swept under a rug. At some point, the two sides will be compelled to grasp this particular nettle and not allow it to damage the overall fabric of the relationship.
A few analysts in India have suggested that the visit did not yield significant new achievements barring the U.S. decision to isolate Syed Salauddin and to nudge forward the process of defense cooperation. Such a characterization, though seemingly accurate, misses a critical point. Modi’s visit and Trump’s affirmation of a range of past policies suggests that there is no rupture in the relationship. With the significant ballast that it has acquired over the past decade and a half, the absence of any dramatic turns under the Trump administration demonstrates that it can withstand a significant shift in the overarching orientation of U.S. foreign policy.
About the author:
*Sumit Ganguly is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington.
(RFE/RL) — Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has declared an end to Islamic State’s (IS) self-declared “caliphate” — three years to the day after it was proclaimed by the militants at a landmark mosque in Mosul that the extremist group has since destroyed.
Abadi’s comments on June 29 come as his U.S.-backed Iraqi special forces captured the compound around the ruins of the centuries old Grand Al-Nuri Mosque, which was blown up by IS extremists on June 21.
It was at the Grand Al-Nuri Mosque on June 29, 2014, that IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance, declaring an Islamic “caliphate” over territories then held by his extremist militants in Iraq and Syria.
As for Baghdadi himself, a senior Russian diplomat on June 22 said he had likely been killed in a recent Russian air strike, although the claim has not been confirmed.
On June 29, Iran’s state news agency quoted Ali Shirazi, a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying Baghdadi was “definitely dead.”
Iraqi and coalition officials said the end is near for the estimated 300 IS militants who are making their last stand in the crowded, narrow streets of Mosul’s Old City.
“We are seeing the end of the fake [IS] state. The liberation of Mosul proves that,” Abadi said in a Twitter posting. “We will not relent. Our brave forces will bring victory.”
Coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon concurred, saying, “I can’t put a timeline on that for them, but I see it closer to days than a week or weeks,”
Nevertheless, a BBC reporter who was traveling with Iraqi troops said the mosque compound was still exposed to sniper and mortar fire, and the Associated Press reported heavy clashes taking place in other parts of the Old City.
As Iraqi forces clear the city of IS extremists, the death and destruction that the area has suffered has become visible.
“There are hundreds of bodies under the rubble,” Iraqi special forces Major Dhia Thamir said.
Special forces Major General Sami al-Aridi acknowledged that some civilians had been killed by air strikes and artillery in the Old City.
“Of course, there is collateral damage — it is always this way in war,” he said.
The United Nations says some 50,000 civilians are thought to be trapped behind IS lines.
IS captured large swathes of territory from Iraqi and Syrian government forces in 2014 but have been pushed back since then in both countries by U.S.-backed forces.
IS has been blamed for atrocities in both countries, along with terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere.
As Hassan Rouhani commences his second term as president, the West must realize that he is not and has never been an agent of change in Iran. In the run-up to his election, Rouhani routinely invoked “violence and extremism” in his campaign rhetoric to bolster opposition to his leading opponent, Ebrahim Raisi, in the ongoing roleplay where the incumbent represents a more moderate approach than his acknowledged hard-line alternative. This is despite the fact that Rouhani had already demonstrated during his first term that he had no intention of challenging the violence and extremism of the clerical regime.
Many Iranians boycotted the presidential election to draw international attention to the fundamental lack of choice in a system where even self-described moderates like Rouhani are vetted by unelected clerics and judiciary officials based on their loyalty to the supreme leader and the ruling theocracy.
The Iranian people have always recognized Rouhani as a veteran regime insider, as a senior security official during the systematic execution of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988, many of whom were supporters of the main opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
In 2015, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany brokered a deal with the Iranian regime, imposing restrictions on the Iranian regime’s nuclear program in exchange for tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief. The agreement has rightly been criticized for offering too many concessions to Iran’s ruling theocracy, while effectively abandoning the original goal of definitively halting permanently the mullahs’ march to nuclear weapons.
This approach by the previous administration was prompted in large part by the expectation that Iranian behavior and US-Iran relations would improve under Rouhani’s presidency. Wrong! Gross miscalculation! It did not, and they did not.
Tehran’s anti-Western rhetoric has intensified, backed up by illicit ballistic missile tests and public declarations of readiness for war by officers of the Iranian military and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
IRGC military and financial support for the murderous Assad regime has continued, as has its arming and funding of the terrorist Hezbollah in Lebanon. And in Iraq, the regime in Tehran wields more influence than the US, despite all the blood and treasure we have invested in that country since 2003.
At home, dual nationals have been nabbed and put behind bars for use as bargaining chips. They join thousands of Iranians incarcerated on political charges and subjected to torture during interrogation. Executions take place en masse and with little warning, while other prisoners risk death from abuse and the absence of basic medical care and sanitation.
Not only did the Rouhani administration implement these abuses, it also oversaw a spike in death sentences. More than 3,000 people were executed during his first term in office, including political prisoners, women and juveniles.
Less than a week before the election, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a statement practically begging Iranians to vote regardless of their political views. But by phrasing his call in terms of “maintaining the regime’s authority,” he effectively added to the incentive for a boycott by all those rejecting that authority.
Contrary to the usual regime propaganda about large voter turnout, Iranians stayed away, rejecting choice between the white and the black turban. In doing so, they expressed more than just general frustration with a political system in which both factions act against the interests of the people. They also exhibited support for the alternatives to those factions – alternatives that have enough social capital and public support to organize a boycott, yet are barred from participating in elections or, in many cases, from even speaking publicly about their secular, democratic platforms.
Support for opposition organizations like the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the MEK seems to be on the rise. For example, I and many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are planning to attend an international convention in Paris, which is expected to draw upward of 100,000 Iranian expatriates from around the world, and will be broadcast live to millions of Iranians. Even though support for the MEK can be punished with a death sentence inside Iran (as was the case in the brutal massacre of 1988), the willingness to take such a risk should tell us something about how limited the options are for regime-sanctioned political expression.
And it should also tell us how fragile that regime is, and how effectively the international community can encourage the democratic transformation of Iran by supporting the democratic alternatives to the current regime. Time and again, the US and its allies have bought into the moderate versus hard-liner narrative, despite proof to the contrary. This time, let us get it right.
• Tom Ridge is a former US secretary of homeland security and governor of Pennsylvania. Prior to that, he served six terms as a member of the US House of Representatives.
Thirteen patients are being treated for the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus (MERS-CoV) in government hospitals. Two days ago, a Saudi female, 30, died of the virus, indirectly infected by a camel.
Since June 2012, there have been 1,667 MERS-CoV cases, which included 680 deaths, in various parts of the Kingdom.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), MERS is a viral respiratory disease that was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Approximately 80 percent of human cases have been reported by the Kingdom.
The world body said the clinical spectrum of MERS-CoV infection ranges from no symptoms or mild respiratory symptoms to severe acute respiratory disease and death.
A typical presentation of MERS-CoV is fever, cough and shortness of breath. Pneumonia is a common finding, but not always present. Gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhea, have also been reported. The virus appears to cause more severe disease in older people, those with chronic conditions such as renal disease, cancer, chronic lung disease and diabetes.
No vaccine or specific treatment is currently available. Treatment is supportive and based on the patient’s clinical condition.
In its report, WHO said: “We know people are infected through contact with infected dromedary camels or infected people. Cases identified outside the Middle East are usually travelers who were infected in the Middle East and then traveled to areas outside the Middle East. On rare occasions, outbreaks have occurred in areas outside the Middle East.”
As a general precaution, anyone visiting farms, markets, barns or other places where dromedary camels and other animals are present should practice general hygiene measures, including regular hand washing before and after touching animals, and should avoid contact with sick animals.
Camel meat and camel milk are nutritious products that can continue to be consumed after pasteurization, cooking or other heat treatments. Animal products that are appropriately processed through cooking or pasteurization are safe for consumption, but should also be handled with care to avoid cross-contamination with uncooked foods.
While Syria is the disaster of a generation, Libya isn’t far behind. Currently, Libya is upending global oil markets through increased oil production for export. This latest occurrence is overturning the OPEC production limit deal that exempts Libya, Nigeria, and Iraq.
While Nigeria and Iraq have their own domestic and geopolitical issues, it’s Libya and the various factions that should be of grave concern to the world community. Once NATOoverthrew the Gaddafi regime without a nation-building plan in place, Libya became an attractive safe haven for ISIS and various other tribal factions warring over Libya’s fossil fuel resources, which represent billions a year in potential income.
The various armed factions (government-sponsored, Islamic, and military) are all vying for the opportunity and riches that comes with boosting Libya’s crude oil production to one million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of July. Recently, some of these factions signed an agreement with German Wintershall (GW) to get oil fields back online, adding another 160,000 bpd of output which would otherwise have been idle in the chaos following the invasion by Western powers.
Geopolitical forces were in play, but the various factions in question put their differences aside to put this deal in place; the result is that world oil markets are seeing more supply. The National Oil Corporation (NOC) and GW had formerly been locked in negotiations over disputed past payments for oil field services rendered. With these negotiations finally resolved, oil production has surged ahead crashing the OPEC deal, and the internal focus has shifted toward fighting ISIS instead of each other.
Reconciliations between rival factions have caused production to grow from 178,000 to over 902,000 bpd. Since oil accounts for an overwhelming majority of Libyan economic activity, this reconciliation has major geopolitical implications in the MENA region. New oil revenue allows the fledgling government to wage war against extremists, and set up a somewhat functional state in the midst of a troubled region.
Yet nothing is certain in Libya anymore, and the political system continues to be fractured as ever. If oil exports collapse over internal or external struggles, or Libyan militant groups decide to exert their own pressure on oil facilities, tensions will spike, output will drop, and government revenue will dry up. What Libya is then reduced to is an oil-producing state whose terminals, fields, and pipelines are at the frontlines of combating Islamic extremism and stopping the flow of immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia that are overwhelming European policymakers.
Moreover, the Qatar crisis has exacerbated tensions in Libya between the various militias and groups vying for oil and political power. The eastern government in Libya joined with its financial backers in Egypt and the UAE by denouncing Qatar’s actions, and wanted oil companies operating in Qatar to cease and desist operations immediately.
These factions wanted Qatar Holding to stop doing business with a Swiss commodity trading giant, Glencore. However, Glencore has an oil export contract with the NOC as the only official and legal business allowed to export crude from Libya. Politics and business mixed together earlier this year when the eastern government and NOC chairman praised the Libyan National Army (LNA) in assisting the NOC to restore control over four key oil export terminals in the Libyan oil crescent.
The LNA is affiliated with the government in Benghazi, but given Libya’s internal political struggles, the situation on the ground can change quickly with regards to oil production and the fight against ISIS. Political and macroeconomic certainty is ever elusive in Libya since Gaddafi’s ouster.
In terms of Libya, the allegiances underpinning the Qatar crisis can be broken down into the following: Qatar supports Islamic militias in Misrata and other units loyal to Sadiq al-Ghariani, the Mufti of Qatar, but the UAE and Egypt support General Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the LNA who’s aligned with the government based in Tobruk.
Ever since the LNA took over oil terminals and relinquished control to the NOC, production disruptions have been less frequent. The NOC target of one million bpd seems achievable this summer unless ISIS is able to expand operations or another large-scale civil war erupts.
With Libyan oil production transforming back to higher, disruptive levels, the energy industry could be in for lower prices for the remainder of this year and next. As this Libyan revolution unfolds, energy investors can expect the unexpected, and changes in political leadership, economics, and various factions looking to destabilize the fragile government will have policymakers and business leaders treading lightly with regards to Libya.
The paradox is that, for starters, the resulting lower energy prices weaken both the Libyan economy and the economies of Arab states that rely on oil markets for geopolitical influence. With cheap and abundant oil resources since the 2014 crash, new policy responses are coming from nations like Saudi Arabia, which launched Vision 2030 and recently empowered the young son of King Salman as the next Saudi monarch. Other oil-reliant nations will have to respond as well if oil continues its downward trend.
Understanding Libya is a difficult assignment, but one thing is clear. As the country nears one million bpd in exports, any hope of stabilizing oil prices – and by extension politics in the MENA region – will remain elusive for years to come.
The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com, where this article was published.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the number of earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains has increased dramatically since 2009. More earthquakes in these areas have coincided with the increase in oil and natural gas production from shale formations.
Seismic events caused by human activity—also known as induced seismicity—are most often caused by the underground injection of wastewater produced during the oil and natural gas extraction process.
Most induced earthquakes are small, measuring in the three- to four- magnitude range on the moment magnitude scale. These earthquakes are large enough to be felt by most people, but they do not often cause damage to structures.
In Oklahoma, where production is in areas with high water-to-hydrocarbon ratios (meaning there is more produced wastewater that must be disposed), the number of earthquakes has increased significantly since 2009.
Before 2009, Oklahoma might have experienced one to two low-magnitude earthquakes per year. Since 2014, Oklahoma has experienced one to two low-magnitude earthquakes per day, with a few instances of higher magnitude (between magnitude 5 and 6) earthquakes that caused some damage.
In addition to the increased use of wastewater injection related to oil and natural gas production in the region, the geologic conditions in central Oklahoma are conducive to triggering seismic activity.
The rock underlying the formations where disposal water is being injected in the region has existing faults that are susceptible to the changing stresses caused by fluid injection.
Without these geologic conditions, induced seismicity would be much less common. For example, induced seismicity in the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana is relatively rare.
The USGS in 2017 issued an updated seismic hazard forecast for the central and eastern United States. This forecast attempts to estimate the chance of damage caused by earthquakes in the region of interest. The 2017 forecasted seismic rates are still significantly elevated compared with pre-2009 levels but lower than their peak in 2015. Forecast for Earthquake damage. Source: U.S. Geological Survey, EIA
The USGS report indicates that the recent decline may be related to decreased wastewater injection, because production in the region has decreased since the 2014 drop in oil prices. Actions by authorities in various states to regulate wastewater injection practices and restrict injection into the most sensitive areas may also be helping to reduce both the number and intensity of small earthquakes.
For China, an economic backlash against South Korea is unlikely to provide any solution to the protracted crisis between the two Koreas.
By Avantika Deb
The already tangled security dynamics of the Korean peninsula is heading for further complication owing to the latest developments in the region. With North Korea conducting successive missile tests on one hand, and South Korea electing a new government after considerable domestic instability on the other, the regional situation is indeed in a state of flux. The United States, a long-term ally of South Korea, recently installed a powerful anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in Seongju county of South Korea in reaction to North Korea’s repeated provocations. This has generated a great amount of regional anxiety with China, which views THAAD as a threat to its own military operations, especially in the South China Sea. In a move devised to signal its vociferous protests, China has shut down several South Korean companies operating within its territory and test-fired a missile in the Bohai Sea in the aftermath of the THAAD installation. However, the root of the problem can be traced to North Korea’s rogue nature and disregard for international norms and agreements. China must realise that defensive mechanisms like the deployment of THAAD are due to North Korea’s aggressive nuclear posture. It would benefit all parties if China could re-strategise its policy vis-à-vis the Korean peninsula, and attempt to utilise its leverage over North Korea instead of lashing out against South Korea.
The THAAD system is designed to detect and destroy short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. It carries no warhead, but utilises the kinetic energy of the impact to destroy an incoming missile. THAAD was deployed hurriedly in the Republic of Korea (RoK) just weeks before the May 2017 Presidential elections, which saw the victory of Democratic Party candidate Mr. Moon Jae-in. Mr. Moon’s predecessor, conservative leader Park Guen-hye, had agreed upon the deployment. The United States has claimed that THAAD would protect South Korea from the erratic missile tests and any potential attack orchestrated by North Korea.
Missiles have been test-fired by DPRK multiple times this year with most of them falling into the Sea of Japan. In February, a land-based KN-15 missile was launched and it travelled up to 310 miles. This was a significant achievement for North Korea since it was the first solid-fueled missile fired from a mobile launcher. In early March, they launched five medium-range Scud-type missiles, three of which landed in the waters of the Japanese economic exclusion zone. This was followed by a few tests that failed. One of North Korea’s most successful tests was the May test of an intermediate range ballistic missile. It covered a horizontal distance of more than 700 km and detected by the THAAD deployment in South Korea. This test-launch signals the North’s remarkable advancement in developing an intercontinental ballistic missile, such as capable re-entry technology and better engine performance, which experts claim can target the United States.
The transformed domestic political reality of RoK needs an assessment before analysing the overall regional situation. The victory of liberal candidate Moon Jae-in marks the end of almost a decade of conservative rule in the country. Liberal governments enjoyed power between 1998 and 2008 during which inter-Korean relations were quite stable. South Korea’s “Sunshine Policy“ towards the North had enabled greater diplomatic and economic cooperation between the two countries and earned the then-President Kim Dae-jung a Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Moon Jae-in had in fact served as the chief of staff to Kim’s successor President Roh Moo-hyun who carried the policy forward. President Moon’s willingness to restart negotiations, dubbed “Sunshine Policy 2.0” with North Korea is a two-track engagement with the DPRK — seeking dialogue on one hand, and maintaining pressure and sanctions on the other. His stance has led the critics, especially the older generation, to label him as an apologist for the North. As opposed to the conservative government, this administration also seeks to realign South Korea’s relationship with the United States. Mr. Moon has called for less dependency on the US when it comes to deciding on issues related to regional and national security.
Immediately after the installation of THAAD in South Korea, the Chinese government, expectedly, raised a brouhaha. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang called for an immediate halt to the deployment while warning that China is “ready to take necessary measures” to protect its interests. Beijing fears that Chinese territory will also fall under the surveillance of the THAAD thus enabling the US to spy on China’ss military activities including those on the South China Sea. Most of all, Beijing is anxious that the THAAD system would neutralise its strategic advantage in the region and provide a major advantage to the United States in case of a future conflict. Quick to contradict China, US officials have pointed out that THAAD is not an offensive, but rather a defensive weapon, and will not affect China’s or Russia’s strategic deterrent. Nevertheless, to reaffirm its stand as the regional hegemon, China tested a new type of missile aimed at the waters surrounding the Korean peninsula, seen as a retaliatory reaction to the deployment. In a rare high profile announcement, the defense ministry claimed that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket (Missile) Force has successfully tested a guided missile in the Bohai Sea in order to increase their operational capability and “effectively respond to threats.” In addition to this, China has lashed out by shutting down South Korean conglomerate Lotte’s retail facilities in China. The implicit reason behind this reaction is the fact that Lotte has provided land for facilitating the installation of THAAD. China has also retaliated against South Korean firms in entertainment and travel, and blocked online trade in South Korean goods. Chinese tourists have reduced in alarming numbers on the South Korean resort island Jeju. Bank of Korea’s director general of the research department, Mr. Chang Min, has predicted that South Korea’s economic growth will suffer due to China’s boycott.
U.S. Forces Korea install a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, on the Korean Peninsula as the first elements of the THAAD system arrived in South Korea, March 6, 2017. Army photo
However, an economic backlash against South Korea is unlikely to provide any solution to the protracted crisis between the two Koreas. There are some factors, China needs to consider while formulating its Korea policy. Instead of fretting against the United States and sanctioning South Korea, China could use its influence over North Korea and bring them to the negotiating table. China, being one of the dominant actors in the Asia Pacific, needs to ensure regional stability and prevent a military escalation for its own benefit, if not for the overall economic and developmental progress of the region.
China controls eighty percent of all foreign trade with North Korea, and is arguably its most important ally. Beijing has played a very cautious game vis-à-vis Pyongyang. It has opposed harsh international sanctions against the DPRK and backed the Kim Jong-un regime on one hand, but also supported some of the United Nation Security Council sanctions to show that it is keeping in line with international consensus and regulations.
However, China would never push the sanctions far enough as it apprehends that a collapse of the regime may lead to a unification of the peninsula under the US-backed South Korean government. Thus, China has refrained from exerting too much pressure on the North, and is instead upping the ante against the South by cutting down on trade and indulging in muscle flexing. However, curbing the North Korean nuclear threat should be a priority for all players, including the Chinese. It might be argued that Beijing stands to gain from a belligerent DPRK, as it would ensure a counter to the US presence in the region. However, this is an unsustainable balancing act as North Korea is extremely unpredictable and unreliable.
China has shown signs of weariness regarding North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. It had initiated the Six Party Talks in 2003, which ultimately lost its way after the DPRK walked out in 2009. The talks had commenced with the aim of dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program through negotiations involving China, the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan and Russia. The talks suffered frequent disruption over the years by North Korea’s provocations and unwarranted missile tests. North Korea even refused to abide by its own statements. In 2012, the DPRK announced that it would suspend nuclear tests in exchange for food aid from the US, but test-fired a long-range missile soon after. However, China has not done enough in terms of controlling North Korea’s conduct. It needs to avoid and address the vicious cycle and deal with Pyongyang in a systematic manner. As long as North Korea keeps testing its missiles and escalating nuclear tensions, the US and its allies will continue to undertake deterrent actions like installing the THAAD. Thus, it would be in China’s best interest to enable a dialogue between the relevant parties, and impose, when necessary, substantial diplomatic and economic sanctions on Pyongyang to induce a change in behaviour. With President Moon at the helm in South Korea, the time is ideal to initiate a dialogue. Whether North Korea will respond to Chinese pressure remains uncertain. China has recently blocked coal imports from North Korea to protest against its missile tests. It obliges Beijing to sustain these sanctions, if it desires a stable Korean Peninsula.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is on the run in Syria and Iraq and the terrorist group can’t stop the progress that coalition-partnered Iraqi and Syrian forces have made over the past two years, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Army Col. Ryan Dillon told Pentagon reporters Thursday during a video conference from Baghdad.
ISIS’s so-called caliphate is crumbling inside and out, and the coalition will not allow the terrorist organization to regroup, Dillon said.
ISIS’s morale is plummeting as the terrorist group continues to lose territory in Syria and Iraq, the colonel said.
“We have reflections of serious internal conflicts within ISIS’s ranks,” he said.
ISIS leaders “have abandoned fighters to die, local fighters are being left to rot where they fall, while foreign fighters receive proper burials,” the colonel added, “and the remaining inexperienced fighters are making rookie mistakes — blowing themselves and fellow fighters up accidentally in preparation for combat.”
Coalition efforts to defeat ISIS in Syria are focused on Raqqa, Dillon said, but the coalition will strike ISIS wherever it goes.
Coalition and partner forces in Iraq and Syria will not allow the terrorist organization the time, resources or sanctuary to plan, plot, organize or inspire attacks, he added, noting that the war is far from over, but progress made to date is promising.
Syria Operations
The Syrian Democratic Forces are in the third week of offensive operations in Raqqa to defeat ISIS in its self-proclaimed capital. This week, Dillon said, the SDF have cleared about 7.5 square miles from ISIS in and around Raqqa.
The SDF are pressuring fighters abandoned by the ISIS leadership from multiple axes around the city, he added. On the northeast side of the city the SDF continue to work through a significant defensive homemade-bomb belt outside a sugar factory.
On the southeast side the SDF have reached the northernmost part of the ancient Rafiqah Wall, and they have continued to advance eastward, south of the Euphrates River, moving to completely encircle ISIS in Raqqa, Dillon said.
“The SDF now control all high-speed avenues of approach into Raqqa from the south,” he said, “and the east-west deconfliction line south of the Euphrates is holding as regime forces remain south and SDF forces remain north of that agreed-upon line.”
In southern Syria, the colonel said, regime forces have weapons trained on ISIS and the coalition continues to train partner forces in and around At Tanf.
Iraq Operations
In Iraq, Dillon said, this morning in a dawn assault Iraqi counterterrorism service forces pushed further into the Mosul old city, liberating the al-Nuri mosque area. Last week ISIS militants blew up the mosque and the famous al-Hadba minaret when CTS forces moved to within 100 meters.
Iraqi security forces continued to advance on the two ISIS holdouts — the old city and the al-Jamhuri hospital complex.
The hospital, north of the old city, sits on high ground, the colonel said, and has been the terrorist group’s 11-story killing tower.
“They’ve used this tower to murder hundreds of civilians, women and children, who have attempted to flee the city,” he added.
The old city is a difficult, dense, suffocating fight, Dillon said.
“Tight alleyways with booby traps, civilians and ISIS fighters around every corner make the Iraqi security force’s advance extremely challenging. But Iraqi grit, determination and support from the coalition will lead to the imminent liberation,” he said.
Dillon said it’s inevitable that ISIS soon will lose its capital in Iraq and its largest population center, but ISIS maintains strongholds elsewhere in Iraq.
A Common Enemy
“What comes next and where to defeat ISIS is a decision that will be made by the government of Iraq,” the colonel said. “Whether the next fight against ISIS is Tal Afar, al-Hawija or al-Qaim, the coalition will continue to support our Iraqi partners to defeat our common enemy.”
The colonel noted that ISIS oil revenue production has plummeted because of coalition pressure.
And the coalition continues to conduct planned precision strikes against ISIS throughout Iraq and Syria, he said.
More than 84,000 square kilometers of territory once held by ISIS have been cleared; more than 4 million people have been freed of ISIS control; nearly 2 million displaced have returned to their homes in Iraq; and foreign fighters who once flowed into Iraq and Syria at hundreds per week now have slowed to a handful per month, Dillon added.
“These are all concrete examples of a steady trend in the direction we are headed to completely take away ISIS’s physical caliphate in Iraq and Syria,” he said. “The coalition is on a fixed course with a sound and proven strategy, committed to the military defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed on Thursday that NATO will increase its support for the Afghan security forces.
NATO’s Resolute Support Mission helps train, assist and advise the Afghans to make their country more secure, and ensure it never again becomes a safe haven for international terrorists. The Secretary General said NATO was reconfirming its “enduring commitment to Afghanistan.”
Stoltenberg said several NATO Allies and partners had committed to increase their troop levels, and he underlined how the Alliance would continue to strengthen its political partnership and practical cooperation with Afghanistan. He praised the Afghan security forces, saying: “every day they demonstrate bravery and resilience, leading the fight to defeat terrorists and protect their people.”
The Secretary General made his remarks after the final working session of a meeting of Allied defence ministers at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. Ministers discussed the significant progress being made on burden sharing in the Alliance, with the third consecutive year of accelerating defence investment across European Allies and Canada, amounting to almost US $46 billion.
Ministers also had talks on increased NATO presence in eastern and south-eastern Europe; NATO-EU cooperation; cyber defence and the fight against terrorism.
(EurActiv) — Traditionally G20 summits are meticulously prepared in advance by a group of senior officials known as Sherpas. The final communique is often drafted and largely agreed on a couple of weeks before the leaders meet. Not this time.
As world leaders prepare to descend on Hamburg on 7-8 July the German hosts have not even circulated a draft statement, such is the gulf between Merkel’s wishes and Trump’s refusal to go along with what had previously been mainstream G 20 positions on trade and climate change.
The Europeans already had a taste of the Trump medicine at the G7 summit in Sicily in May. Trump refused to endorse either the Paris climate change agreements or the benefits of free trade.
Right after the G7 meeting, Merkel embarked on a round of meetings with fellow G20 leaders in an effort to shore up support for the Paris agreements and globalisation. She can rely not only on fellow Europeans but China and even India to back her views. She thus hopes to gain sufficient support to isolate Trump in Hamburg. But it is doubtful if isolation will lead to a change of heart by the US president.
Trump is likely to be further annoyed by the European Commission’s decision to fine Google two billion euros, quite a tidy sum even by Trump’s standards. In turn, the US Senate has angered Merkel by threatening German companies involved in the Nordstream project bringing gas from Russia to Germany. They added insult to injury by stating that Germany should instead buy liquid gas from the United States.
The president has caused further consternation by hinting that he will ban steel imports from Europe and elsewhere under the guise of protecting national security.
Trump has also shown little interest in Merkel’s other priorities which include measures to increase living standards in Africa, curb tax avoidance and reduce migration.
We can expect lots of ‘putting America first’ rhetoric from Trump, playing to his core constituency at home. But Merkel equally cannot afford to back down from her established positions. She faces elections in a couple of months and German public opinion is extremely hostile to Trump. The summit is thus shaping up to be a mighty dogfight between Merkel and Trump.
Apart from the Merkel versus Trump show, media attention will inevitably focus on the first meeting between Trump and Putin. With allegations of Russian interference in the US elections continuing to plague his administration, the world will be watching every movement of the two leaders as they pose for the cameras. Will the karate fan Putin try to pull a Macron and crush Trump’s hand? Will Trump do a Xi Xinping and call Putin ‘a great guy’?
Summits are traditionally used for bilateral meetings. President Macron will be attending his first G20 and will be sought out by other leaders. The Chinese have made clear their interest in a Xi-Macron meeting on the sidelines. As the previous G20 hosts, China has been helpful in ensuring some continuity with decisions taken in Hangzhou.
If Macron and Trump are the new kids on the block spare a thought for Theresa May. Her fellow leaders know that she is mortally wounded and unlikely to be with them for much longer. Why bother, therefore, to waste time on a bilateral with the beleaguered British prime minister?
Presidents Tusk and Juncker, in contrast, will be much in demand. The day before the summit they will have a bilateral with PM Abe in the expectation that will agree on an EU-Japan FTA. They will also have bilaterals with Russia, Brazil and Argentina.
The renewed self-confidence of the EU contrasts with its situation twelve months ago when it was facing a wave of populism, the refugee crisis, a sluggish economy and Brexit. Now the populists are in retreat, the refugee crisis under control, the economy growing again and Brexit looking more and more like a huge mistake.
Europe can thus stand full-square behind Merkel and give her full support in the showdown with Trump on the Elbe. It has all the makings of a fascinating fight.
*Fraser Cameron is director of the EU-Asia Centre and a senior advisor with Cambre Associates, a Brussels-based consultancy.
