Nearly 100 Saudi and U.S. troops gathered for the closing ceremony of the Earnest Leader 17 exercise, held at the Northwest Area Command’s Tactical Training Center near Tabuk, August 1 through 10. Earnest Leader is an annual military to military exercise, conducted with Royal Saudi Land Forces and U.S. Army personnel to promote military cooperation, peacekeeping and participation in regional security programs.
Maj. Gen. Dhafer bin Ali Al-Shehri, the Royal Saudi Land Force northwest area commander and Maj. Gen. Terrence J. McKenrick, U.S. Army Central deputy commanding general were both in attendance at the closing ceremony held on August 10.

“We are very pleased with what we have seen between the interaction of our personnel and the U.S. personnel, enhancing their relationships,” said Dhafer during his closing statements. “We are also very happy to see the spirit of cooperation between all participants and the lessons learned that were gained from this exercise.”

“The successful execution of this exercise is a testament to the Royal Saudi Land forces, the United States Army, planners, Soldiers, as well as the gracious hospitality that has been extend to us,” said McKenrick.

This year’s Earnest Leader exercise focused Saudi and U.S. troops on border security and the logistical challenges faced in today’s irregular warfare environment.

“Our goal was to improve the interoperability between ourselves and the RSLF,” said Col. John Woodward, 3rd Armored Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division commander. “More importantly our aim was to increase the efficiency in the sustainment war fighting function, and I think our teams achieved that.”

A small contingent of Soldiers from U.S. Army Central, 1st Theater Sustainment Command, the 149th Military Engagement Team, and the 3rd Armored Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division worked with their RSLF counterparts in order to successfully plan and maneuver through various logistics and sustainment-based, computer simulated scenarios.

“Our Soldiers have had a great time, not just in the training, but also learning from the RSLF and how they do things,” said Woodward. “We’ve both been able to benefit through this partnership.”

Earnest Leader, now in its 13th iteration, is a reoccurring Saudi and U.S. exercise that sets to demonstrate both nations’ commitment and shared obligation for promoting stability and security to the region.

“As this exercise comes to a close, our planners look forward to working on our next exercise,” said McKenrick. “We’ll continue the hybrid warfare focus and apply the lessons we have learned here at this exercise to further integrate our forces and improve future exercises.”

Article by Master Sgt. Mark Hanson, Centcom

By Daoud Kuttab

Now that the situation in East Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa has calmed down somewhat, the Trump administration is planning to restart Arab-Israeli peace talks, even though there is little interest in the US-led effort at the present time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is embroiled in a struggle to survive politically amid a likely corruption indictment, while the Palestinian leadership is focused more on who will succeed Mahmoud Abbas as president and on the upcoming meeting of the Palestinian National Council (PNC).

US President Donald Trump is sending a high-level delegation to Israel, Palestine and Arab states in a new peace push. The delegation will be headed by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and is expected to visit Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt.

Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell is expected to be part of the delegation. If she is, it will be the first time that a US delegation to the region will include an Arab American.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Abbas, welcomed the impending visit. “We are committed to peace based on the two-state solution,” he said. “We informed the American administration that we are ready for peace on this basis. And we are waiting now for the American delegation to work together toward peace.”

The statement from the White House announcing the upcoming visit repeated the traditional US position, stating that the “US president reaffirms that peace between Israelis and Palestinians can only be negotiated directly between the two parties and that the United States will continue working closely with the parties to make progress towards that goal.”

It also said that Trump “believes that the restoration of calm and the stabilized situation in Jerusalem after the recent crisis … has created an opportunity to continue discussions and the pursuit of peace that began early in his administration.”

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi told Arab News that the Palestinian leadership is much more concerned with the decision by the Fatah central committee to call for a meeting of the PNC. “We are not that hopeful for such visits, but right now our focus is on the upcoming meeting,” she said.

The last time that the Palestinian Parliament in exile met was in 1996, when a session attended by then-US President Bill Clinton in Gaza amended all clauses that contradict the Oslo Accords.
Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister, was equally ambivalent. “I don’t know anything about the visit, but if it is related to the peace process, I don’t expect anything,” he told Arab News.

Aaron David Miller, who was a member of the Clinton and Obama peace delegations to the region, posted a pessimistic remark on his Twitter account. “Hope goal of Kushner’s August peace mission isn’t reviving negotiations. Gaps on core issues are Grand Canyon like,” he wrote.

While there are obvious grounds for pessimism, the probable inclusion of Dina Powell does offer some hope of progress.

The daughter of an Egyptian Army captain, Powell was born in Cairo and moved to the US when she was 4 years old.

Powell is one of the few that actually has government experience, having served as assistant to the chief of White House personnel during George W. Bush’s presidency. She was later appointed assistant secretary of state for education and culture affairs, and traveled to the Middle East with Condoleezza Rice, the former US secretary of state, who has nothing but praise for Powell.

“Dina is one of the most capable people I know. She is creative and committed,” Rice told Politico in January. “She did crucial work for me at the State Department where we were trying to be more effective in outreach to the Muslim world and to empower women. Because of her own background as a woman of Egyptian descent she was a cultural ambassador — absolutely an essential member of my team.”

North Koreans, including students, workers and retired soldiers, have requested to join or reenlist in the military in light of the government’s earlier vows to retaliate against the United States, after the UN Security Council approved new sanctions against Pyongyang, the North Korea’s Workers’ Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported, as quoted by Yonhap news agency.

This comes a day after China confirmed they would defend North Korea in the event of a US invasion, in order to prevent regime change, but it would also remain neutral if North Korea were to initiate an attack.

Last week, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2371, which further tightens sanctions against North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s recent ballistic missiles tests.

According to Yonhap, quoting the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North Korean’s Workers’ Party, “All the people are rising up across the country to retaliate against the U.S. thousands of times. In North Hwanghae Province, 89,000 young men pleaded to enlist or reenlist on Aug. 9 alone. In Daedong County of South Pyongan Province, more than 20,000 students, party members and laborers filed enlistment or reenlistment requests.”

On Wednesday, about 100,000 citizens gathered in Pyongyang to support the government’s pledge of retaliation against the U.S., with smaller rallies held in provincial cities later, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

A separate KCNA report said that rallies of youth, workers and trade union members took place at the Youth Park Open-Air Theater and the compound of the Monument to Party Founding on Friday to express their “absolute” support for their government’s statement, which categorically rejected the recent UNSC sanctions resolution.

North Korea’s military said Wednesday it was considering a missile attack near the US island territory of Guam, which hosts several US military bases, after President Donald Trump threatened Pyongyang with “fire and fury.”

North Korea and its missile arsenals may look intimidating to the general public around the world, but SpaceX CEO and avid entrepreneur Elon Musk believes there’s a much more dangerous specter looming over the world: artificial intelligence.

People should be more worried about dangers brought by artificial intelligence (AI) rather than North Korea, Musk said in a series of alarming tweets on Friday.

“If you’re not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea,” he tweeted.

“Nobody likes being regulated, but everything (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc.) that’s a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too,” Musk cautioned in another tweet.

His stark warning came at a time when the US and North Korea remain on heightened alert amid spiraling tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Earlier this week, both sides degenerated to open threats, demonstrating readiness to use coercive force if provoked to do so.

Whereas the US said it may rely on strategic bombers to hit North Korean targets, the Asian nation’s military announced that a plan of striking the American airbase in Guam will be ready soon. Adding fuel to the crisis, President Donald Trump said the US military assets are “locked and loaded” in case if Pyongyang misbehaves.

The heated exchange – coupled by saber-rattling – has revived the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula, with many speculating on its impact on global affairs.

But Musk appeared to be more frightened by artificial intelligence, a rising phenomenon he is willing to put under control.

On Friday night the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted that OpenAI – a company he started to research machines’ ability to think – was “first ever to defeat world’s best players in competitive eSports.”

Earlier on Friday, an OpenAI bot had beaten the world’s best players in the video game Dota 2 during a $24-million tournament. The bot easily defeated professional gamer Danil ‘Dendi’ Ishutin in a previously-unannounced one-on-one exhibition matchup, Business Insider reported.

An avid AI crusader, Musk has long warned about perils it might bring to humankind. He maintains there is a great probability that the AI, free of any regulation and oversight, is able to go rogue and turn on humans in the end.

“AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization in a way that car accidents, airplane crashes, faulty drugs or bad food were not. They were harmful to a set of individuals in society of course, but they were not harmful to society as a whole,” Musk said in mid-July during a public event.

He said it is time to put forward a set of rules regulating the very nature of AI.

“By the time we are reactive, it’s too late. Normally the way regulation works out is that a whole bunch of bad things happen, there’s public outcry and after many years a regulatory agency is setup to regulate the industry,” he argued.

AI is a rapidly-developing technology, but it is still far away from self-evolving, almighty software. Facebook uses AI for targeted advertising, whereas Microsoft and Apple use it to power their digital assistants, Cortana and Siri. Google search engine has also been dependent on AI since its inception.

India finally got her first World Heritage City and how. On July 8, 2017, the city of Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat was declared a World Heritage City — making history of sorts. In its hurtle to the top, it beat heritage heavyweights Mumbai and Delhi. But it took one hell of a journey over four years before it got to earn its rightful place.

In 2013, after months of speculation, the World Heritage Expert Committee established by the Culture Ministry gave a clean chit to the final dossiers of Delhi and Mumbai for UNESCO’s World Heritage Status. The dossiers were dispatched to UNESCO headquarters for a completion check. Once they got the clearance, the ministry would decide which should be India’s official nomination in cultural category to be submitted by January 2014.

Both the cities went into a PR overdrive to push for the coveted status. Mumbai’s nomination — the Victorian and Art Deco ensemble along with the Oval Maidan precinct — comprises buildings belonging to two centuries and architectural styles — the 19th century Victorian Neo Gothic architecture and 20th century’s Art Deco. Delhi’s nomination — Shahjanabad and Lutyens Building zone — on the other hand, brought to fore the sharply-contrasting lifestyles of the two distinct regimes.

Apparently, the expert committee recommended few changes to Delhi’s dossier through a detailed appraisal note given to INTACH for revisions. The proposed precinct, according to Mumbai’s dossier, extended from the Bombay gothic buildings lining one side of the ground to the other side that stretched till Marine Drive, in between which lay “the largest conglomeration of Art Deco buildings in the world after Miami”.

Delhi’s ‘imperial cities’ dossier revealed stark differences in architecture, lifestyle and nature of two contradictory time periods; while one was under the Mughal empire, the second was under British colonial rule.

Meanwhile, a plain Ahmedabad, also in the ‘race’ so to speak, hit a predictable roadblock. The expert committee simply did not consider Ahmedabad’s dossier, as it was incomplete in some sections though the documentation work was termed excellent, said sources. The expert committee said Ahmedabad’s proposal “could be submitted to UNESCO after finishing the incomplete sections as a third priority, if a third dossier is accepted.” The ministry would take a final call by January 31, 2014 based on recommendations by the expert committee.

In 2016, in a surprise move, the government decided to nominate Ahmedabad for the UNESCO world heritage city tag. January 30 was the last date for countries to send their nominations to UNESCO for the title, of which results were to be announced in June 2017, and the government confirmed that Ahmedabad, and not Delhi or Mumbai as was felt earlier, was its pick.

“While Delhi’s proposal has been stuck with the Urban Development Ministry since last year, Mumbai’s proposal was not very strong. So we have decided to nominate Ahmedabad, which has a clear-cut proposal,” said Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma.

The Delhi government had, incidentally, written to the Culture Ministry to “resend Delhi’s nomination,” which was abruptly “put on hold” in 2015. And, although Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and actor Amitabh Bachchan wrote to Sharma and PM Narendra Modi, respectively, to push for Mumbai, the proposal fell through at the Culture Ministry because, reportedly, the Brihanmumbai Mahanagar Corporation (BMC) asked them to exclude Victoria Terminus from the dossier. The move, felt Culture Ministry officials, would have spoiled Mumbai’s chances as the said building is an iconic landmark in Mumbai’s consciousness. It was roundly argued among Mumbai quarters there was anyway no reason to exclude Victoria Terminus as the dossier hadn’t included it in the first place.

Now, once the heritage tag is granted to a city, it puts certain restrictions on redevelopment and Mumbai simply can’t risk having any hurdles in the area of redevelopment which singularly holds the key to the city’s burgeoning housing issues. While there are over 250 world heritage cities across the globe, India — despite her rich history and heritage — didn’t have a single UNESCO-recognised world heritage city.

History changed for India and, in particular, the historic city of Ahmedabad, on July 8, 2017 when it was declared a World Heritage City at the 41st session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee meet in Krakow, in Poland. For the first time, an Indian city was declared a world heritage property.

Close to 20 countries that included Turkey, Lebanon, Tunisia, Portugal, Peru, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Finland, Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, South Korea, Croatia, Angola, Cuba and, the host country of the UNESCO session, Poland supported Ahmedabad’s nomination.

An ancient center of trade, bearing architectural testimonies to the Hindu-Muslim cultural fusion, the walled city of Ahmedabad has held a prominent position in the pages of history. The criteria for bagging the slot being: “bearing testimony to a cultural tradition or civilisation which is living or has disappeared…” and “representing a masterpiece of human creative genius.” India’s permanent representative at UNESCO, Ruchire Kamboj said the city has stood for ‘peace’ and ‘unity’ for over 600 years while being one of the ‘finest examples of Indo-Islamic architecture and Hindu-Muslim art’.

The city is a breathing example of the blend of Hindu and Islamic heritage. Ahmedabad bears testimony to the prowess of Hindu, Muslim and Jain craftsmen. It houses the 15th century Bhadra Fort, the Jhulta Minar or swaying minaret and The Sidi Saiyyed Mosque, one of the finest specimens of Indo-Saracenic style.

Possessing a landscape where the present blends seamlessly with history while boldly paving the way for the future, Ahmedabad’s mien stands unique owing poor little to European domination. Established in the year 1411 AD by Sultan Ahmad Shah of Gujarat, Ahmedabad was a product of the Sultan’s ambitions to form a trading rival to the Hindu trade centre of Asaval. Later, Ahmedabad was taken over by the Mughals, the Marathas and the British.

Most Indian cities are, as a rule, compared to Western prototypes, but Ahmedabad is, to a huge extent, an exception: And a proud one at that. From being one of the oldest trading points in India to becoming the focal point of the Indian Freedom Struggle under Mahatma Gandhi and then becoming a model for sustainable development in modern India, Ahmedabad has now become the nation’s first World Heritage City.

By Nargiz Hajiyeva*

Over the historical course, the relations between Latin America and the United States has undergone different perplexing situations and still constantly evolving in some way. In order to deeply comprehend their relations, first and foremost, historical background and perspectives of their relations have to be taken into account. Amid the 1960s, due to some politically arduous situations, social movements, the U.S has opted for the way of militaristic intervention on behalf of its national or homeland security in the backyards.

At that time, the U.S commenced the implementation of its hard power toward Latin American countries due to some complex situations; from one side the moral trepidation on dispersion of Communism, from another side the sparking issue of homeland security beyond borders and in its backyards. However, even in today’s U.S foreign policy, nothing has changed except the Obama’s revitalization of the diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015. Basically, there is a clear fact that if the U.S mainly is eager to improve its relations with Latin American countries, before all else, it should draw conclusions from its historical mistakes which it did in past towards Latin America, especially amid the Cold War Era. The chosen antagonistic foreign policy toward Latin America during the Cold War Period should not be implemented or not be repeated again in the current time. Otherwise, the implementation of this kind of U.S-centric foreign policy towards the region at the present time have not gained anything at all, except arduous costs.

The big mistake itself arises from the U.S-centric approach toward Latin American countries. As the Secretary of the United States, John Kerry mentioned: Latin America is the backyard of the United States. The biggest flaw comes from this word which still keeps its so called U.S-centric hegemony and patronization over Latin American countries. Still, at that time, the U.S 35th President John F. Kennedy once said that Latin America is completely different issue and will be a critical one for a long time. Therefore, it could be said that if the U.S is really inclined to improve its relations with Latin America, first of all, it should take far more effective stances in its relations with Latin America. It is ostensibly that there are some overarching matters of the U.S foreign policy with respect to Latin America that could be improved. Even on this day, the processes and occasions happened in the 1960s, have the same morality over the U.S approach respecting to the region. But in general, are there any alternative approaches toward the region which have to be undertaken by the U.S? Will the successful implementation of these stances do benefit both the United States and Latin America? In any case, there are some proposals and recommendations for the U.S that it could change its so called U.S centric or unilateralist foreign policy in a much more flexible way with regard to the region. In the following part, the pivotal proposals that should have to be taken by the U.S were listed.

1. Latin America as a real partner instead of backyard. Once Bill Clinton said “ People are more impressed by the power of our example rather than the example of our power. This word is the apparent proof of how the US could improve its foreign policy towards Latin America. Today’s international relations do not support the imperialistic and any other hegemonistic stances toward other countries. Instead, the effective operation of soft power not only could gain benefits for each sides (both for the U.S and Latin America) but also help the U.S to create the idea of a real partner instead of a backyard toward the region. What the U.S and Latin America will get from this real partnership is the moral reconciliation in any fields, including culture, economy, politics and others.

2. Bilateral or mutual interests than U.S centric interests and unilateralism. For the sake of reliable partnership, first and foremost, the U.S should stop to see the Latin America as a recipient of its dictated policy, instead, should evaluate the potential power and capacity of the region by considering it as both an economic and political counterpart. It is completely false of the U.S foreign policy, that even today it is far more prone to keep its hegemonistic spirit over the region. However, while mentioned above that it will not gain any benefits for the U.S with the exception of heavy costs. Therefore, the relations between them have to based on common interests and bilateral actions rather than unilateral ones (the practice of China has to be implemented).

3. Promoting less militaristic approaches to the security issues (less U.S-centric interests) instead to be involved more in the development of domestic diplomacy of the region. This proposal, in my opinion is the most effective one for the further development and revitalization process of the relations between the U.S and Latin America. To a large extent, the U.S should invest in and support the international and regional networks like NGO’s IGO’s and other civic associations. Because of the fact that via the transparent actions of these kind of networks within the Latin American society, the morally mutual perception and behaviors could be reached over the future development of the U.S and Latin American relations. It is undeniable fact that under the condition of the effective accomplishment of a public policy or to be exact, the domestic diplomacy (the practice of domestic diplomacy in the example of small states, namely Norway, Denmark and etc.) both the U.S and Latin America would be able to achieve the development of civil society in the region in order to fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime, environmental degradation, natural resource and food scarcity at a bilateral level than unilateral level. Thus, by the effective apparatus system of domestic diplomacy, the both parties (the U.S and Latin America) could get the mutual understanding and accountability in their future relations.

4. More engagement rather than confrontation. (Positive sum strategy vs zero sum strategy). Before delving into the deep analysis of the U.S and Latin American relations from this conception, firstly, it is needed to underline the key elements of the engagement theory versus confrontation in order to identify what does the theory offers to us with respect to the U.S and Latin American relations. In any cases, the engagement is much more beneficial than the competition. Collaboration stands on the “win-win” proposition and is inclined to the mutual perceptions of the parties. However, the competition mainly focuses on the success of only one party and does not give a chance to another one. Therefore, the relationship between the U.S and Latin America should have to be characterized by the prism of the collaboration rather than competition, because both of them have a huge potential in order to participate in and get “win-win” position within the international system.

5. Mutual actions than unilateral ones on democracy, human rights, sciences, and energy security issues. (the concept of multidimensional partnership) This proposal offers the completely different way in the development of the U.S and Latin American relations. A multidimensional partnership can be considered as a further action in the U.S-Latin American relations after the effective management system of public policy, meaning that it will be able to encompass science, energy field, democracy, and human rights. The concept at the same time will be able to take new prospects within the region by evolving fight against new threats including terrorism, drug trafficking, uncontrolled population growth, and migration. Hence, this concept could create an opportunity for both sides to reevaluate their relations, but this time on a multidimensional basis.

In conclusion, the U.S should avoid considering Latin America as a region for its antagonistic, patriotic and hegemonistic ideas, rather it should revise its angle of view and stances towards the region, and see it as a real partner for other countries which the U.S still do. During the sparking period of moral imperialism (mainly Cold War Era), what did the U.S win from its attitudes toward Latin America, to be honest, nothing, just loss of time? Although in some way they have been good economic counterpart toward each other. However heavy costs emanating from their relationship is much more than any good mutual benefits. What is truly required is the whole revision of the U.S foreign policy apparatus toward the region. Frankly speaking, if the U.S is eager to close its ties with Latin America, it is highly needed to review its foreign policy priorities toward the region. Otherwise, over high U.S-centric interests will remain for U.S itself, and will not achieve any gains from this relationship. Thus, the United States has yet to learn from its past. Only via non-interventionist, anti-confrontational, more equitable and flexible diplomacy, Latin America being considered as an American’s backyard will turn into to be a reliable partner and a neighbor region for the United States.

About the author:
*Nargiz Uzeir Hajiyeva is a policy analyst and independent researcher from Azerbaijan. She holds master degree from Vytautas Magnus University and Institute de Politique de Paris (Science Po). She got bachelor degree with distinction diploma at Baku State University from International Relations and Diplomacy. Her main research fields concern on international security and foreign policy issues, energy security, cultural and political history, global political economy and international public law. She worked as an independent researcher at Corvinus University of Budapest, Cold War History Research Center. She was also a successful participator of International Student Essay Contest, Stimson Institute, on how to prevent the proliferation of the world’s most dangerous weapons, by Harvard University, Harvard Kennedy School. She is also an independent researcher and a policy analyst at Observer.ge and Politicon.net platform, and Wikistrat.Between 2014 and 2015, she worked as a Chief Adviser and First Responsible Chairman In International and Legal Affairs at the Executive Power of Ganja. At that time she was defined to the position of Chief Economist at the Heydar Aliyev Center.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

By Emma Pachon*

Colombia’s presidency is held by Bogota-native, Juan Manuel Santos. He is a member of the liberal-conservative Partido Social de Unidad Nacional (Social Party of National Unity). Santos’s seven years as the leader of the South American country has been riddled with successes, disappointments, turmoil, conflict, and the long and unstable road to peace. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016, “for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end.”[i] This brought great prestige and honor to him and Colombia. However, despite being at the head of the administration that chartered and navigated, with great difficulty, historic negotiations and a peace deal with the oldest Marxist guerilla organization on the continent and the resulting Nobel honor, his popularity remains very low, holding just a 24 percent approval rating.[ii] This number is in stark contrast from his original approval rating of 60 percent, despite his re-election in 2014.[iii] So one must wonder, why the low approval rating? What is it about Santos, a president whose accomplishments look so remarkable on paper, that the Colombian people do not like?

If one were to solely hear that the Colombian president strategically and effectively brought about a peace deal to a decades old war with one of the most brutal and controlling guerilla groups in the country while winning a Nobel Peace prize, it would be understandable for one to assume Santos to be a great leader. However, it is necessary to understand the background and history of Santos’s rise to power and fame in order to contextualize current perceptions of him. He was born into a powerful family. His great uncle, Eduardo, was president in the early 20th century and his cousin was vice president in the Uribe administration (2002-2010).[iv] Santos’s father was an editor for one of Colombia’s most prominent newspapers, El Tiempo,[v] and Santos himself was able to go abroad for an extensive and most coveted education. He served as defense minister under former right-wing President Uribe, during which time the two were close allies. When he made his first bid for the presidency in 2010, Santos was endorsed by Uribe and won in a landslide victory, taking 69 percent of the votes.[vi] Due to the former president’s endorsement, many people believe that Santos’s presidency was handed to him and that he did not have to work very hard for it. Quite understandably, as a political leader and man born into wealth, he never had to experience the true effects that the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) had on the majority of the Colombian people.

As defense minister, Santos still had his fierce critics and fans alike. Colombians, who held onto the belief that a militaristic response was needed to fight the FARC, approved of Santos’s military objectives and strong policies towards the guerilla group. However, those who were less radical in their beliefs thought that Santos was too forceful and offensive. When many voted for Santos, they did so with the hope that he would bring a different approach to dealing with the FARC as well as handling his presidential administration. Yet, despite his move to a more diplomatic approach as president, many Colombians have come to dislike his methods. Santos has been dedicated to ending the FARC’s reign of terror in Colombia and many argue whether he has accomplished this successfully during his term in office. Santos describes his own low popularity with the explanation:

“…making war is very easy and not popular. I was minister of defence and was very effective…Making peace means you sit down with your enemies and you start making transactions in order to achieve that peace…seeing the person who was militarily effective against them sitting down and making concessions, this is something that is not very popular or accepted.”[vii]

It is true that Santos’s negotiations and agreements with the FARC have been one reason for his people’s disapproval. Many believe that his concessions were much too lenient for this contentious group, such as allowing the FARC to avoid prison time.[viii] Those right-wing Colombians see his approach as a threat to democracy while some left-wing citizens believe he is not delivering on the promises he made while campaigning. Resentment also emerged due to the condition that ex-FARC members would be recipients of a monthly government stipend that is “nearly equal to Colombia’s minimum wage for a two-year period after the accords,” as well as be eligible for a one-time payment of $2,500 USD to be used for economic pursuits, such as starting a business.[ix]

Other Colombians, including former President Uribe and his followers, remained highly skeptical that the FARC could possibly be reintegrated into society through the political process: how would it be possible that people who had committed atrocities, kidnapped and murdered men, women, and children, as well as increased the severity of the drug problem in Colombia could be given a role in government or a voice on such a public stage? These differences in opinion on how to approach the FARC leading up to the referendum were such a point of tension between Santos and Uribe that it led to a clear splitting of allegiances. Santos was seen as implementing an agenda with different policies from what Uribe had believed he would embody as president – namely, engaging in talks with the FARC rather than continuing with a militaristic approach.[x] As a result, Uribe strongly and publicly disagreed with both terms of the peace deal and with Santos’s management of the FARC’s demilitarization. Consequently, Uribe urged Colombians to vote ‘No’ to the peace deal in the referendum. The results, which were extremely close but ended up with a win for the “No” votes, clearly demonstrated that those who were against the deal were a larger force than the Santos administration and his supporters originally believed. Despite the referendum, the peace deal was revised and ratified by Congress several months later, thus creating more discontent among Colombians.

However, this is not the only reason for Santos’s low popularity rating. Many disapprove of his agenda overall; they believe his central focus on peace with the FARC has caused him to overlook the rest of the country’s issues, such as the limping economy and the impaired welfare of its people. Only 5 percent of Colombians believe that the FARC and ELN are the most important topics in the country, while 63 percent of Colombians believe unemployment, healthcare, and corruption should be the priority, with issues such as poverty and petty crime following closely behind.[xi] Therefore, many Colombians disagree with the direction that Santos is leading the country by deprioritizing these concerns.

Leaders will always have their fans as well as critics; this is inevitable for any political leader. Santos certainly has, against great odds, been a constructive president, and his consistency with the peace agreement is indeed commendable. He has not backed down despite knowing his popularity has flagged, and his actions have been rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. However, this is not to say that his actions have been entirely without error. The Colombian people’s displeasure and disapproval of their leader and government demonstrate that Santos has, in some way, disappointed his people. He has done his best to bring peace to his country but at what cost? This is a question that will remain unanswered until Colombia’s post-peace deal society develops further and its successes – or failures – are revealed in the future.

*Emma Pachon, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Additional editorial support provided by Michelle Switzer, Senior Research Fellow, Emma Tyrou Research Fellow, and Madeline Asta and Felipe Galvis-Delgado, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

[i] “The Nobel Peace Prize for 2016,” Nobel Prize, October 7, 2016, https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2016/press.html.

[ii]Adriaan Alsema, “Peace or no peace, Colombia disapproves of its president, a lot,” Colombia Reports, February 14, 2017, https://colombiareports.com/peace-no-peace-colombia-disapproves-president-lot/.

[iii] Kate Samuelson, “5 Things to Know About Nobel Peace Prize Winner Juan Manuel Santos,” Time, October 7, 2016, http://time.com/4522564/nobel-peace-prize-juan-manuel-santos/.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] “President Santos of Colombia: you have to draw a line between peace and justice,” EuroNews, June 27, 2017, http://www.euronews.com/2017/06/27/president-santos-of-colombia-you-have-to-draw-a-line-between-peace-and-justice.

[viii]Nick Miroff, “The paradox of Colombia’s peace deal for FARC,” Washington Post, August 25, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/08/25/the-paradox-of-colombias-peace-deal-for-farc/?utm_term=.f538ad6f7bc0.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] “Santos v Uribe,” The Economist, April 7, 2012, http://www.economist.com/node/21552204.

[xi] Holly Sonneland, “Explainer: Colombia’s 2018 Elections,” AS-COA, June 28, 2017, http://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-colombias-2018-elections.

There is indeed no room for complacency while dealing with China, but as a big market for Chinese goods, that should not prevent India from using China to its advantage.

By Oommen C. Kurian

Ever since China undermined India’s Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) bid, regular calls to boycott Chinese goods are made in India. That many such appeals are made on social media using Chinese made phones is a good example of the interlinked nature of a globalised world. India may be the “pharmacy of the world”, but a substantial part of the bulk drugs that are used to manufacture the medicines that India is famous for, come from China. As Graph 1 shows, from about 23 per cent in 2000, Chinese imports peaked in 2007 at 59 per cent and are currently at 52 per cent. Among certain types of bulk drugs, the proportion of imports from China is even higher. Given the strained relationship between the countries, this exceptional dependence has received policy attention in the past, and trimming bulk drug imports from China is a focus of policy discussions within the government and the media.

However, this familiar narrative often ignores the strengths of the Indian pharmaceutical sector. More importantly, it fails to mention that India is a major exporter of bulk drugs as well. Graph 2 shows that between 2000 and 2016, exports of bulk drugs have expanded many times over. Rather than being a hapless manufacturer of medicines who depends on China for all its raw material requirements, India actually is a big exporter of bulk drugs itself. In fact, the latest data shows that in bulk drugs, India has a favourable balance of payments — in other words, India exported more bulk drugs than it imported, by a margin of USD 247,647, 000 in 2016. Nine out of the 17 years between 2000 and 2016, India exported more bulk drugs than it imported, driven primarily by outsourcing of bulk drug production by MNCs.

India’s pharmaceutical industry

Over the last three decades, India has achieved remarkable improvements in health outcomes, although the absolute levels remain low. Comparatively low medicine prices is a major reason why India was able to improve the health status of its population even at an incredibly low level of public spending in health. Research shows that at the time of independence, the Indian pharmaceutical industry had a low production base, heavy dependence on imports, domination by foreign firms and high prices of drugs. Today, India has one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in the world. It is the third largest producer of medicines in terms of volume, and 14^th in terms of value. The growth of the Indian pharmaceutical industry reflected in the growth of exports as shown in Graph 3 has been carefully driven by policy interventions at different levels. The current value of India’s exports of pharmaceutical products alone is about six times that of bulk drug imports. In all, at present, formulations make up the majority of exports and bulk drugs comprise of most of imports.

In terms of exports of formulations to the United States of America, a leading pharmaceutical market, India is the top trade partner in terms of volume and fourth in terms of value. China, on the other hand, was seventh in terms of volume and 18^th in terms of value. India is host to the most number of USFDA approved plants outside the USA. In the year 2016, India accounted for 22 per cent of overall USFDA approved plants across the globe. China, on the other hand, has only half the number of USFDA approved plants.

Given the high number of USFDA approved plants, International companies outsource their production to India to contain their costs. India is responsible for 60 per cent of the global vaccine production, 30 per cent of UNICEF’s annual supplies, 60 per cent of global supply of ARV drugs, and upto 80 per cent of annual UN purchases of vaccines. Medicines are fourth among India’s top 10 export commodities in terms of value between 2014 and 2016, according to the International Trade Statistics Yearbook 2016.

China in India’s pharmaceutical policy

It is not often discussed that the prices of medicines were brought under statutory control for the first time in India because of Chinese aggression. It was done in the wake of India’s war with China in 1962. When it comes to bulk drugs, looming war alone is not seen as the risk factor: many things could go wrong. Experts say that during the Beijing Olympics in 2008, China closed down many bulk drug production units to manage environmental pollution, a price rise of around 20% followed in India.

Those Indian firms dependent on a single country for much of their import requirements should not take away from the fact that there is a thriving bulk drug manufacturing industry in India. Cipla manufactured the first Indian bulk drug way back in 1960. As Graph 4 shows, Indian companies are also among the most cost competitive, internationally. Chinese plants have unit conversion costs of 60 per cent higher than Indian plants.

However, in the case of some commoditised bulk drugs, riding on economies of scale and strong government support, Chinese firms established price leadership. In the aftermath of India’s trade liberalisation, which abolished industrial licensing, removed restrictions on imports and took away the mandatory requirement of local production of bulk drugs, companies in India naturally moved away from producing bulk drugs, which required little innovation and offered only thin profit margins. Due to lower electricity costs and cheaper labour costs, complemented with subsidies (tax holidays and low interest loans) from the government and better technology, Chinese firms were a natural choice for their low cost product. Instead of a hapless producer dependent disproportionally on a giant for its supply of bulk drugs, perhaps Indian firms need to be seen as an agile industrial force, trying to maximise the low costs available for the time being.

Availability of low cost Chinese bulk drugs worked for Indian firms, which were exploring opportunities of shifting to the ‘low volume — high priced’, regulated markets, while retaining their traditional ‘low volume — high priced’ markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Moving away from manufacturing low-margin bulk drugs was the most sensible thing to do, when a strong government was backing the competitors with monetary incentives and subsidies.

India’s reply to China’s extensive subsidy regime within the bulk drugs sector cannot be replicating the same in India. Moreover, blanket rejection of substantially low cost inputs available to the pharmaceutical industry and opting for costly alternatives such as mandatory local production can affect India’s global competitiveness, put pressure on domestic drug prices and have impact on access. In other words, any such policy affecting current levels of competitiveness will have strong opportunity costs.

Current situation: Crisis or evolution?

Diversifying risks is an important policy objective. However, a part of the transformation within the pharmaceutical sector needs to be seen as a natural evolution of the Indian industry itself. A considerable amount of pharmaceutical production in India is due to outsourcing of bulk drug production by MNCs based out of developed countries because it was a low margin business requiring substantial investments in environmental controls. It can be argued that Indian pharmaceutical industry, in a similar fashion, is emulating these developed countries and shifting the low-value bulk drugs production to China, to focus more on high-value ‘specialty’ bulk drugs and formulations.

Industry acknowledges that the dependence is driven by cost alone — Chinese bulk drugs are almost 50 to 60 per cent lower than Indian products. It does not make economic sense to produce them domestically if such a wide margin exists. Industry reports indicate that while difficult-to-manufacture bulk drugs give bargaining power to suppliers, producers of commoditised, low margin bulk drugs do not have that power. An export-oriented industry embracing its comparative advantage to produce formulations is a desireable outcome, instead of wasting resources on producing the same product at a higher net cost.

Indian pharmaceuticals are an outward looking, export oriented industry, which should face the challenges of the globalised marketplace. As cost is the primary advantage that China has, developing a bulk drugs manufacturing base in India or elsewhere at relatively short notice need not be a major challenge for India as it is often made out to be, should such a need arise where cost is not a concern. Notably, major Indian generic companies still produce bulk drugs in-house for their key products, and have only out-sourced commodified bulk drugs to China. In addition, just as China is a major seller of bulk drugs to India, India is a major market of Chinese products too. Thus, any unilateral action will involve substantial costs on both trade partners.

According to UN’s International Trade Statistics Yearbook (2017), for the year 2016, China was India’s top partner for merchandise imports, accounting for 14.9 per cent of India’s total imports. The next biggest partner was Saudi Arabia with just 6 per cent. Getting back to the telephone example at the beginning of this article, in about just two decades, China’s share of mobile phone imports — at the heart of India’s ongoing information revolution and digital inclusion initiatives — rocketed from 8 per cent to a very high 71 per cent. Is anyone complaining?

There is indeed no room for complacency while dealing with China, but as a big market for Chinese goods, that should not prevent us from using China to our advantage.

The way forward

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations in Hyderabad put the focus on access to medicines. Hyderabad, a major centre for bulk drug manufacturing in India, was in the news also for the wrong reasons linked to pharmaceutical pollution and the emergence of superbugs. Apart from industry seeking comparative advantage in production of formulations, Indian bulk drug manufacturing decline was also a direct result of environmental law enforcement as well as the government’s efforts after 2005 at ensuring better compliance with good manufacturing practices (GMP), affecting many small and medium sized firms.

The Katoch Committee Report on Bulk drugs in 2015 admitted that bulk drugs manufacturing is one of the most polluting industries. In addition, studies have shown that in India, making small and medium enterprises (SME) GMP compatible will cost at least ₹2 million per SME firm, a binding constraint to most such firms. In a bid to promote the Make in India initiative, 2015 was declared the year of bulk drugs; and the Katoch committee suggested in the same year mega bulk drug parks as an alternative to tap into economies of scale. However, lack of financial assistance has prevented the initiative from taking off.

The response from the Indian bulk drug manufacturers to such challenges remained predictable — requests to increase import duty on Chinese goods, and to be more lenient towards pollution, which cannot offer a sustainable solution. Possibly what can be done is to work optimally within the global trade regime and harmonise import duties in such a way that Indian manufacturers take advantage of the highly subsidised Chinese product, while at the same time, government revenue from imports support long-term risk diversification tactics including domestic manufacturing.

Any unthinking reaction is unwarranted, and a wait-and-watch approach has merits. Interestingly, bulk drug manufacturing industry in China is going through a similar churning as its Indian counterpart, with a shift away from commoditised bulk drugs with low profit margins. A recent WHO study states that confronted with new environmental and regulatory restrictions, many Chinese bulk drug manufacturers are themselves considering moving production activities outside China.

Given this complex situation, other options should be actively explored by India as well, along with encouragement of domestic manufacturing. Given India’s role as a regional leader, the thriving pharmaceutical trade and friendly relations with Africa, a possibility is to diversify the “China risk” by expanding the geography of bulk drug suppliers; including by assisting other countries in Asia and Africa develop production capacity. Till then, letting the Chinese subsidise drug access in India and the world may not be a bad idea at all.

An upset US-based Hindu group is seeking resignation and apology of multinational food company Kellogg’s CEO John A. Bryant for non-disclosure of beef in some of its cereals and other products, and immediate recall of all such items from the market.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada, said that it was shocking for Hindus to learn that some of the cereals, etc., they had been eating for years contained beef while there was no mention of beef under the ingredients mentioned on the boxes/packages.

Consumption of beef is highly conflicting to Hindu beliefs. Cow, the seat of many deities, is sacred and has long been venerated in Hinduism, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, points out.

A response from Kellogg Consumer Affairs for an inquiry received on August 12 via email, however, admitted—Gelatin derived from beef is found in the following: All varieties of Kellogg’s® Frosted Pop-Tarts®, All varieties of Kellogg’s® Frosted Mini-Wheats® cereal, All varieties of Kellogg’s® Rice Krispies Treats™ cereal. Some of our foods contain gelatin that is derived from either beef or pork; which include: All Kellogg’s® fruit flavored snacks, All Kellogg’s® Krave Treat Bars.

It was a very serious issue for the devotees and would severely hurt their feelings when they would come to know that they were unknowingly eating beef-laced popular cereals and other Kellogg’s products, Rajan Zed noted.

What happened to the “integrity” and “accountability” of Kellogg’s, which boasted these as the company’s “Values” on its website? Zed asked, and added that it was hard to comprehend that why Kellogg’s did not mention beef clearly under the ingredients on the box/package when it was part of the product inside. Is this the way Kellogg’s wanted to advance its “Vision” to “enrich and delight the world”? Zed wondered.

Now was the time for Kellogg’s to demonstrate its “commitment to integrity and ethics” by admitting their error of not being transparent enough to mention in clear and simple terms what was inside the box/package so that an ordinary consumer could make right and appropriate choices, Rajan Zed indicated.

A two-month old crisis pitting Qatar against an alliance led by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia is proving to be a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it has revived momentum for unprecedented, albeit snail-paced social reforms, initially sparked by Qatar’s winning bid for the 2022 soccer World Cup. Those reforms break with policies among the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain – that until now where wholly designed to protect the region’s autocratic rulers rather than enhance rights.

Ironically, the revived reform momentum constitutes an unintended consequence and an indication of ways in which the UAE-Saudi led diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar has backfired. It suggests that Qatar’s refusal to comply with the alliance’s demands that effectively would have put Qatar under Saudi and UAE custodianship is likely to impact long-standing social, economic and political relationships in the Gulf in ways that the Gulf states had not envisioned.

On the other hand, the crisis threatens to escalate a Middle Eastern arms race that tiptoes around developing nuclear capabilities and has laid bare military ties between North Korea and a key Qatar detractor, the UAE. Ironically, the social change aspect permeates even the military dimension of the crisis.

It also positions Saudi Arabia as well as the UAE as both bigger brothers of smaller Gulf states and potential threats. “Smaller Gulf rulers now have increasing reason…to fear the Kingdom’s growing assertiveness under its new young Saudi king-to-be,” said former CIA official and Middle East expert Graham E. Fuller, referring to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The boycott of Qatar, Mr. Fuller added, constitutes a “new display of Saudi aggressiveness and vengefulness against Qatar (from which) we gain flashes of insight into what the shape of things to come in Peninsula geopolitics might be.”

The crisis and the wave of nationalism and support for Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, it has sparked, has convinced the Gulf state that its past strategy of emphasizing soft as opposed to hard power is insufficient to guarantee security.

As a result, Qatar has radically increased its arms purchases with a recent $12 billion deal to buy US F-15 fighter jets and a $7 billion naval vessel acquisition from Italy. Britain’s Department for International Trade reported that Qatar since 2015 had moved from the world’s sixth largest to the third largest buyer of military equipment. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said Qatari arms purchases had increased a whopping 282 percent since 2012.

Qatar signalled changes in its defense and security policy in 2014, the year the UAE and Saudi Arabia first unsuccessfully tried to subject Qatar to their will by withdrawing their ambassadors from Doha, with $24 billion worth of arms purchases.

The flurry of deals contrasts starkly with Qatar’s earlier reputation as a state that eyed major defense acquisitions, but to the frustration of the US defense industry, often did not follow through. They put a spotlight on an arms race that potentially could have far-reaching consequences as well as the willingness of Gulf states to keep a door open to the development of missile and nuclear options.

A leaked US State Department memo attached to an email from the hacked email account of the UAE ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, expressed concern about a $100 million Emirati purchase of North Korean small and light arms in 2015, facilitated by an Emirati company allegedly owned by a close associate of UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. The memo warned that North Korea “relies on overseas arms sales like this to sustain and advance its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs.”

Given that the UAE would have had no problem acquiring the weapons elsewhere, the purchase appears to have been a bid to ensure access to missile and nuclear technology and persuade North Korea to restrict any dealings with Iran as well as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Moreover, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) warned earlier this year that “there is little reason to doubt that Saudi Arabia will more actively seek nuclear weapons capabilities, motivated by its concerns about the ending of (Iran’s) major nuclear limitations starting after year 10 of the (nuclear) deal or sooner if the deal fails… “The current situation suggests that Saudi Arabia now has both a high disincentive to pursue nuclear weapons in the short term and a high motivation to pursue them over the long term.”

Signalling changing attitudes and policies in the Gulf, Qatar, one of the first Gulf states to introduce compulsory military service, is focussing its national service program on strengthening its security forces in a bid to not only to enhance homeland defense but also national cohesion. The program is partnering with Qatar Foundation’s Education City to include research that would support the military effort.

Critics dismiss Qatar’s recent social policy changes as too little and primarily intended to garner international support in its dispute with the UAE-Saudi-led alliance. Indeed, reforms such as the recent introduction of permanent residency for a top layer of expatriates don’t benefit unskilled or semi-skilled workers.

Similarly, the lifting of visa requirements for nationals of 80 countries, that interestingly did not include Iran, fails to address the issue of exit visas, a major bone of contention in efforts by human rights groups and trade unions to get Qatar to radically reform, if not abolish, its contentious kafala or labour sponsorship system.

To be sure, Qatar has been slow to respond to both international calls for a change of its labour system and domestic complaints about issues about economic and educational benefits as well as social issues such as the refusal to grant citizenship to children born in marriages of Qatari women to foreign men and restrictions on marrying a partner of one’s choice. Children of Qatari women were included among those eligible, but were not given the right to citizenship.

Nonetheless, they make Qatar the first Gulf state to accord to foreigners any sort of rights granted until now only to citizens beyond those associated with residency permits linked to a period of employment.

The changes also fit a pattern of carefully shattering taboos about public discussion of issues like gay rights, norms for women’s dress in public, and the right to marry a person of one’s choice, that emerged as a result of Qatar’s heavy investment in sports as a soft policy tool and the leveraging of Qatar’s successful World Cup by human rights groups and trade union to pressure Qatar.

A litmus test of how far Qatar is willing to push change is a crucial hearing in November by the International Labour Organization (ILO) that will evaluate whether the Gulf state has complied with promises to improve the living and working conditions of migrant workers.

The ILO warned that it would establish a Commission of Inquiry if Qatar had failed to act by November. Such commissions are among the ILO’s most powerful tools to ensure compliance with international treaties. The UN body has only established 13 such commissions in its century-long history. The last such commission was created in 2010 to force Zimbabwe to live up to its obligations.

“The eyes of the world are on Qatar. The opportunity for the government is obvious, if it wants to prove its critics wrong… If the government takes the other path, of continuing to promote hollow reforms, then migrant labour abuse will be the gift that keeps on giving for Qatar’s political opponents,” said James Lynch of Amnesty International.

By Paolo Moiola

Each year thousands of Central American migrants try to cross into Mexico to reach the northern border and enter illegally into the United States. This is a tiring and very dangerous trek because of drug traffickers and local authorities. Very few of them reach that point. Most of them turn back or settle on the way, withstanding violence and abuse, and putting their own lives at risk.

Within this context enters the work of Father Alejandro Solalinde, a 72 year-old Mexican priest, founder of the Migrants´ Shelter “Hermanos en el Camino” (Brothers in the Road), which takes in migrants in Ixtepec, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Paolo Moiola, Latinamerica Press collaborator, talked with Father Solalinde, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2017, who is living for years with armed security due to the death sentence ordered against him by drug traffickers, who make huge profits at the expense of the migrants.

Father Solalinde, how would you define yourself?

First of all, I would say that I am a Catholic missionary. I work in Ixtepec, in the state of Oaxaca, in the shelter-refuge for migrants. I started all this in 2005, when I asked the bishop to let me be the one to deal with them. It was not easy because it seemed as a waste that a priest would dedicate his time to the people in the street, the migrants. But in the end, I got the approval.

How many people does the shelter take in?

At the moment, the Migrants´ Shelter receives one-hundred people a day. These migrants stay for a couple of days or three at the most, and then continue on their way.

They mostly come from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. But also from Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela, even from Belize. Most of the time, they arrive only to try to make it across the border into the United States. According to statistics, 50 percent remain in Mexico, while 25 percent of them go back home; they give up.

And how many of them reach the end of the line, the American paradise?

According to the numbers, 25 percent of migrants achieve this goal and enter, even now with [President] Donald Trump. Those who control the border are not Mexico or the United States, but organized crime. If you pay or carry drugs, they manage to get you cross. There is no wall that can stop them, regardless of how sophisticated it could be.

In Europe most migrants are young men. What about here?

Here the majority are also young men. I estimate that they are about 80 percent of the total. But there are also children and women. I have seen very few older people; they have probably resigned themselves to stay in their homelands. The sick also stay back home. The young and healthy are those who travel.

What is a typical day like in the Ixtepec shelter?

No two days are the same, but one thing is always the same: each day is always very intense. Early in the morning — close to 5:30 am — I pray and read the Gospel of the day; I exercise; I wash and iron my clothes, if I want to be clean; no one has to do it for me.

Then I go down to the floor where the migrants are. In occasion I have breakfast with them after they have completed the cleaning of the place. I visit the different areas of the shelter to check on things: the carpentry area, the bakery, the farm, and the kitchen (an area that is always in need of a lot of work).

We also have a library and a computer room where the people can get in touch with their loved ones. There is an infirmary staffed by two doctors and two nurses. There are also five persons in charge of a psychological area. In short, we are like a small city.

When the migrants arrive at the shelter, how are they welcomed?

I cannot talk to all of them individually, so I call them all together, normally in the chapel. I call them after they have eaten, washed up and changed clothes.

The first thing I ask them is: “How was your trip here?” and then: “Raise your hand those who come from Honduras; those from Guatemala; those from El Salvador”; and so on. This helps me understand what kind of group it is. Then: “Raise your hand those who are Evangelical Christians”. To those who raise their hand I ask them to introduce their church by name, and we applaud for each church. This is a way to acknowledge that they are in the right path, and that we are brothers in faith.

I then do the same for Catholics. In the end I say: “Raise your hand those who claim no church or religion”. And also many of them raise their hand.

I then ask them if anything happened on the way. I ask them to tell me if they have already presented a complaint or not.

What complaints are you referring to?

The law says that if a migrant has been a victim of a crime, must have a humanitarian visa. The same is true for victims of persecution in their own countries, or if violence reigns in their countries.

Our registry office evaluates the legal status of each person who arrives. Even before the office evaluates their psychological and physical condition: if the person is in need of medical attention, is sent to the infirmary. If the person presents emotional problems because of what has gone through, is sent to see the group of psychologists.

Besides you, how many more people run the shelter?

We have a team of eight permanent staff. But we do receive help from numerous volunteers who come from all over the world. Even from China and Australia. And there are many people who come from Europe.

When and why did the drug cartels started to show interest in the migrants?

It all started with [ex-President] Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) who waged a senseless war — a lost war — against drug trafficking [that left 60,000 deaths and 26,000 disappeared during his term, according to official and independent figures]. This war provoked the crumbling of some drug cartels and the pillaging from others, among them the Zetas cartel.

These last ones were left without liquidity to pay for the drugs. The drugs cannot be paid on credit: they are paid immediately. So, the Zetas thought in obtaining money from the migrants. They knew that the migrants do not have anything on them, but they have friends and relatives living in the United States. So, they started to kidnap them and to ask for ransom. In a few short months they were able to extract millions of dollars.

Besides the ransom, they also realized that they could get more from the migrants: from prostitution, labor exploitation, and organ trafficking.

How many cartels are involved?

Mainly the Zetas and in a smaller scale the Golfo cartel; we do not know about the rest, but they certainly do not traffic with migrants in a systematic manner.

And what are the Mexican authorities doing about it?

They are part of the business, of course! Immigration agents, the police, politicians at all levels are accomplices, especially in the case of the migrants. They know that they are an easy and large source of money.

I usually define my government as a “narcokleptocracy”. The drug traffickers have infiltrated all the Mexican institutions. It is unusual to find — and I have never met one — a politician or government official that does not steal.

In the Mediterranean we find the junk ships or inflatable rafts; in Mexico we have La Bestia (The Beast).

They started calling it The Beast because it is a cargo train and it was not designed to transport people. So the migrants travel on top of it or in the tight space between the cars for 12, 13 or 14 hours.

Many accidents can happen, especially if the people fall asleep, or when organized crime members come on board who throw them off the train if they do not pay.

The train departs from the South, from Chiapas, one hour from Guatemala. It branches in different ways and it can reach Mexicali or Ciudad Juárez, at the border with the United States.

Do you also visit the (supposedly) American paradise?

Yes, I travel to the United States four or five times a year to meet with groups of migrants, to see how they are faring or what it is that we can do for their rights. There are over 34 million Mexicans living there legally. And there are 6 million Mexicans who are undocumented (of a total of 11 million undocumented people, this according to the Pew Research Center).

They all send money to Mexico. The latest figure [2016] mentions some US$27 billion a year. This is why I say that, after drug trafficking, remittances are the main source of money for the country.

Europe is debating on whether migrants should be welcomed or rejected. Do you consider that there is a right to emigrate?

I believe that there is a right not to migrate when all the fair living conditions are in place in their countries of origin. However, the capitalist system has destroyed the living conditions in the native countries of the migrants: due to the violence, the lack of jobs, and the nonexistence of development opportunities for young people.

The migratory movements have always existed. But this is the first time in the history of humanity that migration takes place from South to North. It has historically been the opposite: North to South.

All over the world, migration and migrants are the problem of the century. What can be done?

We agree in that this is a structural problem, I mean, it stems from the liberal-capitalist system, so the only solution is to change the model. It is evident that we cannot continue like this.

We cannot have 99 percent of the world population living from the crumbs dropped by 1 percent of the population.

By Jim Hightower*

You know what’s wrong with American politics? It’s that there just aren’t enough ways for giant corporations and mega-rich political donors to funnel their big bucks into our elections and buy our government.

At least that’s what Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and a devious group of right-wing political pastors are saying. And, of course, they’ve got a diabolical fix for this “problem.”

Their scheme is to turn tax-exempt, far-right churches into gushing sewers of political money, secretly channeling unlimited amounts of cash from corporations and right-wing extremists through the churches and into the campaigns of politicians who’ll do their bidding.

They don’t admit this, of course. Instead, they wrap their scheme in the pious rhetoric of religious freedom.

Their point of attack is the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law passed by LBJ that prohibits tax-exempt charities, including churches, from endorsing candidates, funding campaigns, and directly engaging in politics.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, an extremist Christian operation pushing for repeal of the Johnson amendment, asserts that banning churches from overt political campaigning lets the IRS “tell pastors what they can and cannot preach.”

Clever, but totally dishonest.

First, the issue isn’t whether the government can tell church groups what to say — it can’t. The question is whether taxpayers should subsidize a church group’s electioneering views and activities.

Second, and more diabolically, repealing the Johnson ban would turn these churches into holy temples of dark money. Special-interest funders would rush to these political “charities,” turning churches into super-secret super PACs. And since churches are tax exempt, the donors would also be blessed with a tax deduction for their corrupting campaign contributions!

Taxpayers would be underwriting the corruption of American politics. How ungodly is that?

*OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. Distributed by OtherWords.org.

Pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement or the Trans-Pacific Partnership international treaties by President Donald Trump was no big deal, relatively, because no one was in any real or immediate danger of dying because of it, regardless of what the alarmist climate progressives or international globalist corporations may have screamed about.

If anything, pulling out of those agreements could merely be seen as a “regrouping” effort by the United States, in order to once again find its “sea legs” and “reboot” before going back full blown into the world of international commerce, trade, governance, or relationships.

But pulling out of, or otherwise violating, the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (otherwise known as the “JCPOA” or “Iran Nuclear Deal”) would be a monumentally huge and stupid thing to do, considering what is on the line in doing so.

Right now the only result of outright international warfare, resulting in the drawing in of massive continents and sub-continents, as well as technologically sophisticated nations, would inevitably lead directly to nuclear war, in other words, the end of humanity.

In that case, people would die, billions of people exactly, if not the entire global population now approaching 9 billion souls internationally.

This is not a risk anyone should take, and the JCPOA, negotiated by the P5+1 nations (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Germany) with the U.S. being represented under the President Barack Obama administration by Secretary of State John Kerry,  represented one of the greatest diplomatic achievements in human history in order to avoid World War III, and restore balance and peace to the “Force.”

Respecting the JCPOA deal should be of paramount importance to all of the world’s leaders, not just the ones being restricted.

To that end, if North Korea’s Kim Jong-un ever decided to approach the negotiating table at the multiple requests of South Korea’s President Moon-Jae-in, and countless other world leaders, including President Donald Trumps’ cabinet members and staff such as Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, then the U.S.A. needs to be able to stand straight up, look at the North Korean leader and his Staff straight in the eye, and say with total confidence that “you can trust us.”

Otherwise the U.S.’ word is as good as a pile of dog refuse, and no one would ever enter into an international treaty or agreement voluntarily, giving up their nuclear/biological/chemical stockpiles, ever again, and they would have every reason not to.

There is no wiggle room on this one – the Iran Nuclear Deal managed to single-handedly disarm the nuclear ambitions and progress of the Iranian government without firing a shot, and if smarter cooler heads prevail, perhaps the U.S. can now follow suit and eventually do trillions of dollars of business with them, just like the Europeans are starting and trying to currently do.

At the end of the day, the U.S.A. needs to remember the wise words of one of its greatest Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, when he declared, “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”

Because the only thing that really protects and safeguards different nations from attacking or being attacked by other nations, is when their mutual business relationships and monetary/financial/economic health are hopelessly bound together, just like the air that we breath, and the planet that we share.

By Tsvetana Paraskova

The rise of electric vehicles and the quest to find solutions to energy storage for the renewables industry have created a breeding ground for tech experts to develop battery technologies.

Last week, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy and the company he currently backs, Ionic Materials, unveiled a solid-state alkaline battery design that they claim would be cheaper and safer than the lithium-ion battery.

“What people didn’t really realize is that alkaline batteries could be made rechargeable,” Joy told Bloomberg in a phone interview last week. “I think people had given up,” Joy noted.

The three main possible applications of the new alkaline battery technology would be consumer electronics, electric cars, and energy storage for the power grid, according to the developers.

However, also according to Joy, the company just has the material, and the technology is not ready to go commercial right away. The rechargeable alkaline battery technology could be ready for commercial use within five years, Joy told Bloomberg, adding that Ionic Materials didn’t have a factory to manufacture the tech.

The prototype designs have demonstrated up to 400 recharge cycles for the alkaline battery, and Ionic Materials believes that the number of recharge cycles could be tripled, the New York Times reports.

On the downside, apart from uncertain commercial future, is the fact that Ionic’s first alkaline batteries would be heavier than the lithium-ion batteries today.

Alkaline batteries mostly use zinc and manganese.

Ionic Materials has made progress toward developing a design for an alkaline battery that would use cheaper aluminum instead of zinc, Joy told the NYT. Aluminum-based alkaline designs could potentially weigh less than lithium-ion designs and could be cheaper than the alkaline designs today, according to the NYT.

“They use an unusual electrolyte to come up with a battery that uses common cheap materials and is benign,” Amory Lovins, the founder of non-profit sustainable energy research group Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) — at whose summit Ionic unveiled its technology — told the NYT, referring to the company.

However, Lovins is cautious about forecasts whether the alkaline design would be such as to hit the mass market.

“Batteries are very difficult and I want to see what they have and what can be measured and proven and whether it will get to market,” Lovins told the NYT.

Meanwhile, lithium-ion battery prices have dropped a lot over the past few years. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), the lithium-ion battery pack prices dropped from US$1,000/kWh in 2010 to US$273/ kWh last year.

Large demand for lithium-ion batteries is predicted ahead, with BNEF expecting EVs sales to accelerate and make up 54 percent of new car sales by 2040. One of the main drivers of EV growth, according to BNEF, will be tumbling battery prices.

“The real take-off for EVs will happen in the second half of the 2020s due to plunging lithium-ion battery prices, which are set to fall by more than 70% by 2030,” according to BNEF’s Electric Vehicle Outlook 2017.

EVs adoption and the need to find energy storage solutions will charge the battery race in the years and decades to come. The key question here is, will the battery design breakthroughs turn from lab tests into viable mass market energy options?

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Tech-Guru-Unveils-New-Battery-To-Challenge-Lithium-Ion.html

Economic & Political Weekly (EPW) Editor Paranjoy Guha Thakurta’s resignation, following a legal notice by the lawyers for Adani Power Limited (APL) to the owners – the trustees of Sameeksha Trust, which owns and runs the Journal, Editor and authors of an article later withdrawn for “failing to meet editorial standards,” has sparked a debate on the media succumbing to corporate pressure.

Allegations Based on Single Source

The headline of the article in question based on a single statement from Mr Guha Thakurta’s source and the circumstantial evidence used to support it simply didn’t seem to justify it. The article is broadly based on two arguments: Changes to customs duties over the years and APL’s false submissions before the Gujarat High Court, both of which seem based on errors.

There were, in fact, a couple of articles written in 2016 and two articles co-authored in 2017 by Mr Guha Thakurta. The one in contention was published on 17 June 2017 titled ‘Modi Government’s Rs 500 Crore Bonanza to the Adani Group.’ Through a notice dated 5 July 2017 served through APL’s Ahmedabad-based advocates Thaker & Co, the corporate alleged several statements in the article were ‘defamatory’. In the first, in the article, it was suggested that the “quietly tweaked rules relating to Special Economic Zones – and the new rules specifically favour the Adani Group.”

It was only due to the 2016 amendment to the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Rules, 2006, they wrote, that the customs and excise authorities could process applications for refunds of customs duties. This amendment was inserted, a confidential source told Mr Guha Thakurta, to make it easier for APL to claim a refund of Rs 506 crore relating to their Mundra Power Plant. Now, suggesting that Gautam Adani is understood to be close to the Prime Minister, and then asking, at the end of the article, “Were these rules tweaked to help one company headed by a well-connected individual?” impute collusion between the government and APL. By law, a statement is defamatory if it harms the reputation of a person, whether explicitly or by imputation. That it would be interpreted by APL as defamatory is a given.

Secondly, the article reads APL is claiming refunds on duties it never paid in the first place. Here, the authors are more direct in their allegations as they claim APL’s refund claim is based on sheer deception. They allege the refund is being claimed on customs duties paid by APL on raw materials and consumables used as inputs at the Mundra Power Plant which, according to their confidential source, APL never paid and that amounts to Rs 1,000 crore (as of March 2015). According to their confidential source, APL’s claims to have paid duties on raw materials despite having paid no such duties “misled” the Gujarat High Court in 2015.

APL was challenging the validity of a 2010 customs notification that imposed duties on the supply of electricity outside an SEZ on the basis, among other things, that it would amount to double taxation. The “fact of payment of duty on coal has been submitted by APL to the Gujarat High Court,” read the article. The authors then raised concerns about the Gujarat High Court judgment, which ruled in APL’s favour and did not cite any evidence that duties were paid by APL. Further doubts were raised on how the Additional Solicitor General, representing the Union of India, did not object to any of this.

Article Alleges Fraud and Perjury

Now, for APL to have made such a refund application and to have made such a claim in court, without having paid any duty at all in the first place, indicates fraud and perjury on behalf of APL, both of which obviously negatively affect its reputation, hence underlining a serious case for defamation.
The authors suggest the Amendment to the SEZ Rules, 2006 was brought in to make a special case for the Adanis. With regard to the SEZ Rules, 2006 (herein after referred to as the principal rules) in rule 47, after sub-rule (4), the sub-rule inserted, read:

(5) Refund, Demand, Adjudication, Review and Appeal with regard to matters relating to authorised operations under Special Economic Zones Act, 2005, transactions, and goods and services related thereto, shall be made by the Jurisdictional Customs and Central Excise Authorities in accordance with the relevant provisions contained in the Customs Act, 1962, the Central Excise Act, 1944, and the Finance Act, 1994 and the rules made there under or the notifications issued there under.
It surely doesn’t appear that this amendment only applies to the Adanis or is detrimental to the government or the public in any way. This amendment benefits anyone operating in an SEZ wishing to claim a refund of duties paid.

The Rules had earlier not specified any forum for appeals, refunds or any sort of disagreement with assessments of customs duties relating to SEZs. Refunds on excess Duty or wrongly-paid Duty were always open to claim under Sec. 27 of the Customs Act 1962, regardless of whether the entity claiming the refund was based in an SEZ or not. A clarification on the appropriate forum to do so, which the amendment provides for, does not – in any manner – create an entitlement to refunds, or any special rights for the Adanis.

The authors claim they have documents leaked to EPW, clearly indicating, “APL had not, in fact, paid the duty on raw materials and consumables.” The article says there has been no tax paid on raw materials and other consumables, which is mandatory as per the SEZ law. That such taxes are mandatory in law is only partially correct.

Under Rule 47(3) of the SEZ Rules 2006, “Surplus power generated in a Special Economic Zone’s Developer’s Power Plant in the SEZ or Unit’s captive power plant or diesel generating set may be transferred to Domestic Tariff Area on payment of duty on consumables and raw materials used for generation of power subject to the following conditions, namely:

(a) proposal for sale of surplus power received by the Development Commissioner shall be examined in consultation with the State Electricity Board, wherever considered necessary: Provided that consultation with State Electricity Board shall not be required for sale of power within the same Special Economic Zone;

(b) norms for production of a unit of power shall be approved by the Approval Committee;
(c) sale of surplus power to other Unit or Developer in the same or other Special Economic Zone or to Export Oriented Unit or to Electronic Hardware Technology Park Unit or to Software Technology Park Unit or Bio-technology Park Unit, shall be without payment of duty;

(d) for sale of surplus power in Domestic Tariff Area, the Unit shall obtain permission from the Specified Officer and the State Government authority concerned;

(e) duty on sale of surplus power to the Domestic Tariff Area shall be as provided for in this rule.”
This means a power plant, like APL’s, would not pay any duties on substances like coal when they were brought into the SEZ, claiming a duty exemption under the SEZ Rules. The entity would have to pay duty on inputs like coal but only to the extent that such coal was used to generate electricity going out of the SEZ. APL had, according to the article, availed duty exemptions to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore.

The crux of it being: Even if APL claimed duty exemptions on inputs of up to Rs 1,000 crore, they wouldn’t necessarily have to pay all of that when transferring electricity out of the SEZ. They would only be liable to pay duty on the inputs to the extent used to produce the amount of electricity, transferred outside the SEZ.

The article says the Gujarat High Court wrongly decided the 2015 case based on a false claim. The issue before the Gujarat High Court was whether it was possible for the government to ‘retrospectively’ charge any company customs duty on its supply of electricity out of an SEZ, that is, duties on outputs.

The contention based on double taxation was pivoted on the fact the company was already liable to pay customs duties on inputs under Rule 47(3) of the SEZ Rules. It didn’t matter whether APL had actually paid those duties or not – under Rule 47(3) they were still supposed to pay them. APL just had to establish that Rule 47(3) applied to them.

If APL had claimed in court that they had paid the duties and if it were proved they hadn’t, it would amount to perjury. Even this would not bear any relevance to the issue in contention and not affect the Gujarat High Court judgement.

Also, there is no record that APL actually made such a claim. The High Court judgment, while discussing APL’s arguments, maintains they say they were liable to pay tax, not that they actually paid it.

The article, quite generously, quotes a confidential source while making some serious allegations, an act that doesn’t quite immunise the authors in entirety. The substance of the allegations pins the onus on the author who can’t get away under the pretext of protecting the confidentiality of source. Neither is the author immune from legal processes nor is his source.

In 1986, the Delhi High Court, in the Jai Prakash Agarwal Vs Bishamder Dutt Sharma case directed Jan Satta and Punjab Kesari reporters to disclose their sources for a story alleging a judicial verdict in an election petition had been fixed. Three years later, in a case against The Hindustan Times, the Patna High Court ruled it was well within its rights to command a journalist to disclose his source.

Public Good Needs To Be Proved

Also, that APL may consider the statements to be defamatory, doesn’t suggest they stand to win a defamation case before the law. The legal notice sent to Sameeksha Trust and its authors is strongly worded as is usually the case with defamation notices sent to publications. It runs into 34 paragraphs that do raise some valid concerns about the article.

Now, where defamation is concerned, it must be noted that there are broadly two kinds of defamation. One, being a civil defamation where truth is a defence and, if proved, can lead to the defamation suit being dismissed. The other, as is in question here, being a criminal defamation suit as laid down in Sections 499 and Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code, where just the truth isn’t a defence.

Here, even if a person has spoken the truth, he can be prosecuted for defamation. Under the first exception to Section 499, truth will only be a defence if the statement was made ‘for the public good.’ And that, is a question of fact to be assessed by the judiciary.

While these sections have been debated for years now, particularly during the more recent Subramaniam Swamy Vs Union of India case where the ‘arbitrary and over-broad rule,’ becomes a huge deterrent to those making statements, regarding politicians or political events, even which they know to be true. The risk of a court failing to find the statement for the public good is too high for comfort. Here, instead of making the plaintiff prove the accused made a false statement, Section 499 gives the accused the burden of proving the statement was not only true but also made for the public good.

Also, a person can be prosecuted under Section 499 even if he or she has not made any verbal or written statement at all. In a particular case, a magistrate issued criminal process solely on the allegation the defendant conspired with the person who made the allegedly defamatory written statements. There is nothing in Section 499 that protects a person who has not made any statement at all from being charged with criminal defamation case purely on the allegation of having conspired with someone who made the allegedly defamatory statement.

Why, even an ironical statement can amount to defamation. “An imputation in the form of an alternative or expressed ironically,” may amount to defamation. Also, Section 499 applies to any imputation concerning any person. This means anyone can file a criminal defamation suit under Sections 499 and Section 500 even if that person is a public official holding high office. Section 499 expressly states that “making an imputation concerning a company or an association or collection of persons may amount to defamation. Therefore, public institutions too can file suit for defamation,” according to the explanations provided under Section 499 of Indian Penal Code.

So, if following the notice, the article was not withdrawn unconditionally and APL moved court for Criminal Defamation, Sameeksha Trust (as the owners of EPW) and the authors of the article would not just have to prove the allegations in the article were substantiated but also, that these allegations were made ‘in the public interest’. Now, that would be a tall task!

Unilateral Response Binds Trust Legally

The Trust justifiably held the Editor Mr Guha Thakurta may have committed a grave impropriety by unilaterally responding to APL’s defamation notice regarding the article. On talk of buckling under corporate pressures, in a letter, they said, “There is no question of the Sameeksha Trust, an independent non-partisan institution, bowing to external pressures of any kind. It never has. It is guided solely by the objectives of maintaining the ethos, quality and standards of EPW, while ensuring spotless propriety and ethics in the working of its staff.”

On the basis of this statement and additional corroboration, it appears the Trust decided to withdraw the article because it did not meet EPW’s editorial standards. In wanting to respond to the defamation notice from APL, Mr Guha Thakurta was entirely justified but since the notice had been addressed first and foremost to the Sameeksha Trust, and to the other authors as well, Mr Guha Thakurta claimed to be acting on the Trust’s behalf, without informing them let alone getting their approval, seemed out of place.

With Mr Guha Thakurta claiming to be acting on behalf of the other authors, without consulting them at all, there could arise a ground for claim by the Trust and the other authors, if they felt they suffered some harm as a result. Mr Guha Thakurta’s letter binds the Trust to certain positions regarding the veracity of the claims in his articles, which the Trust is predictably unhappy about particularly since they don’t have faith in the article.

Freedom of Press isn’t an absolute right and does not immunise you from the processes of law particularly if your Freedom borders on either Defamation or isn’t for Public Good.

(RFE/RL) — Former world chess champion and Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov is briefly coming out of retirement after 12 years.

Kasparov, who dominated professional chess from 1985 to 2000, will compete in the Rapid and Blitz competition at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, Missouri, after receiving a wild card entry.

The tournament will run from August 14-19 and include some of the biggest names in chess, including Russian Sergei Karjakin.

Kasparov, 54, was born in Baku when it was part of the Soviet Union. He retired from chess in 2005 to start a political movement called The Other Russia in opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

Kasparov eventually left Russia, saying in 2013 he would never return to the country, and he received Croatian citizenship in 2014. He spends much of his time in New York.

He made clear in an August 13 statement that this will be a onetime event, saying in a Facebook posting that his entry into the tournament is “not an end to my retirement from chess, only a five-day hiatus.”

“I have no plans to play after this event,” he said. “At the age of 54, I would have as much hope of returning to my chess form of age 40 as to my hairline of age 20!”

Nevertheless, his appearance is creating a stir within the chess world.

“Everyone is talking about it,” U.S. chess grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez told the AFP news agency. “People are flying from India and China to see this dude play.”

“Garry Kasparov has always had a fighting spirit second to none, and he is extremely competitive,” Ramirez said. “But he is still going to be facing very stiff competition,” including “some of the best of the best of the world.”

The winner’s prize for the tournament will be $150,000. Kasparov said he would donate any winnings to promote chess in Africa.

The Mooch has emerged from the ashes of his short-lived White House career to claim there is an establishment effort to eject Trump from the White House, and that the president should have been “much harsher” on white supremacists in Charlottesville.

“I think there are elements inside of Washington, also inclusive of the White House, that are not necessarily abetting the president’s interests or his agenda,” Anthony Scaramucci told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in his first appearance since he was fired from his role after only 10 days.

“For whatever reason, people have made the decision that they want to eject him. It’s almost like he has opened up the door for America’s CEOs and America’s billionaires to enter Washington’s political system,” the former Wall Street executive explained. “The members of that political class do not like that.”

Scaramucci also referred to a “Bannon-bart” influence within the White House that is “nonsensical” and impeding the president’s progress, referring to strategist and former Breitbart head Steve Bannon.

He predicted there will be further staff changes within the administration, explaining he thinks Trump is “getting his arms around the fact that if he wants to prosecute his agenda he’s got to bring in loyalists to him, and he’s got to bring in, I think, a different strategy.”

“He’s done a tremendous amount I think he’s done way better in terms of progress as president that’s been prominently displayed.” he added.

Scaramucci said he wouldn’t have recommended the statement Trump gave on the attack in Charlottesville on Saturday, saying that it should have been “much harder” on the white supremacists involved. He commended national security advisor General HR McMaster for calling out the car-ramming that killed one and injured 19 terrorism.

Trump has been criticized for condemning the violence on “many sides,” instead of referencing the white supremacist violence.

“With the moral authority of the president, you have to call that out,” Scaramucci said.

Scaramucci made his feelings for Bannon clear during his short-lived communications chief role, when he told a New Yorker reporter he wasn’t “trying to suck my own c*ck,” like Bannon. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the f**king strength of the president..”

He told Stephanopoulos, “I think the president knows what he’s going to do with Steve Bannon,” adding Trump has “a very good idea of who the leakers are” in the White House, as well as those who are “undermining his agenda.”

Bannon has been accused of using the right-wing Breitbart to attack McMaster through negative leaks. The national security advisor has appeared in an array of negative stories on the website.

By Filip Rudic

President Aleksandar Vucic’s comment this week that Serbia does not have the courage to change its constitution has revived speculation about alleged unofficial requests from EU states for Belgrade to drop its constitutional preamble which defines Kosovo as part of Serbia.

Vladimir Medjak from the European Movement in Serbia told BIRN that the only current initiative to change the constitution is related to the reform of the judiciary – a change which is necessary as part of Serbia’s EU accession process.

“I am not sure what lack of strength are we talking about here, since there is a majority in the government [supporting Vucic] that would propose changes in the constitution. If the proposition was good, I believe a good part of the opposition would vote for it too,” Medjak said.

Medjak explained that constitutional changes over judicial reform are due to be passed by the end of the current year, which means Serbia is already behind schedule.

But if changes are being planned regarding Kosovo, the judicial reform might be delayed even further, since a public debate on Kosovo which was recently announced by Vucic would not be finished in time, Medjak said.

He added that the constitutional preamble could also be changed, if necessary, towards the end of Serbia’s negotiations with the EU, at the same time as Belgrade adopts the so-called integration clause which enables EU institutions to pass regulations that will be applied in Serbia.

“Right now we have the obligation of judicial reform, and the integration clause at the end [of the accession process],” he said.

Unconfirmed rumours have circulated since Serbia began its EU accession process that some European countries are putting pressure on Belgrade to give up its constitutional commitment to control over Kosovo.

Aleksandar Popov from the Centre for Regionalism told BIRN that he believes that Vucic’s recent call for ‘public dialogue’ on Kosovo means that he cannot deliver such a controversial change in policy.

“If parliament was to vote on the amendments, Vucic might be able to reach a majority with the liberal opposition, but [constitutional changes] are also subject to a referendum,” he said.

Popov is certain that any constitutional amendments that include dropping the preamble’s commitment on Kosovo would be rejected by the majority of Serbian voters.

“He [Vucic] is at a crossroads. If he is going after constitutional change [on Kosovo], right now there is no chance he can accomplish that,” Popov said.

Amendments to the constitution are proposed by the government, after which they have to be approved by a two-thirds majority in parliament, or 167 MPs. The ruling coalition controlled by Vucic has 160 seats.

After that, there must be a referendum in which 50 per cent plus one voter must cast ballots in favour of the changes in order for them to be approved.

By Kathleen Azali*

In May and June 2017, a 40-year-old Muslim woman working as a state hospital physician in West Sumatra had her workplace and home stormed by dozens of alleged members of the FPI (Front Pembela Islam/Islam Defender Front). She was threatened and intimidated— accused as an ulama (religious leader)-slandering pelacur (whore) and a Communist—for posting a status on Facebook that criticised Habib Rizieq Shihab, leader of the FPI. For safety reasons, legal aid moved her to Jakarta. A 15-year-old boy of Chinese descent in Jakarta had his house stormed at midnight, was dragged outside and beaten for making comments insulting Rizieq and the FPI, and then forced to sign a statement of apology by a group of people claiming to be members of the FPI. The family’s legal press release stated that there were more than 100 people involved, and that the family had been ejected by their landlord for fear of his house being stormed again. The boy’s mother, a widow, lost her job because her workplace had similar fears.

The physician had written on her Facebook: why, despite Rizieq’s statement that he had the support of more than 700 lawyers and millions of Muslims, does he continue hiding in Saudi Arabia, avoiding a police summons regarding pornography allegations? She was referring to the alleged exchanges of sexually explicit chats and nude photos between Rizieq Shihab and his non-marital partner, Firza Husein, which went viral on the internet early this year.1 After an official report was filed with the police, on 30 May 2017, the Jakarta Police declared that they had gathered enough evidence to classify Rizieq as a suspect under Indonesia’s notorious anti-pornography law and Information and Electronic Transaction (ITE) law.

Happening all over Indonesia, the boy and physician were only two of at least 59 people who have been reported undergoing persekusi (persecution)2 since January 2017. These persecutions have been reported as an “Ahok effect” since they have visibly increased in May, i.e. the month when the former governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok), was convicted. 3 Ahok’s high-profile case has led many to caution against rising sectarianism and Islamist and anti-Chinese identity politics.4 Analysts have warned that too much emphasis on identity politics provokes alarmism in the media and the public, and can obscure and perpetuate rising socio-economic divides.5

Indeed, Indonesia has had a long history of complex interplay between class and ethno-religious identities, with real and dire consequences to both ethnic-religious minorities and precarious class-groups. The recent high-profile blasphemy case against Ahok, along with these persekusi cases, should thus be seen as part of a long historical build-up that has allowed the concepts of “diversity” and “pluralism” to be manipulated, exacerbated by the lack of robust legal, security, and education reforms.6 Analysing recent “fake news” and persecution cases, I sketch out the legal and historical contexts that have afforded their inroads: the notorious so-called “rubber laws” and long-neglected legal-security reforms; the rapid but highly uneven spread of technology; and the expansion in quantity but not quality of formal education.

RUBBERY LAWS AND ENFORCEMENT

Indonesian laws and institutions are infamous for being fragmented and outdated; many fundamental laws remained unaltered from the colonial or war period, and are considered antiquated and unsuitable for contemporary conditions.7 The country has only one law governing cyberspace: Law no. 11/2008 on the Information and Electronic Transaction (ITE), recently revised in Law no. 19/2016.8

This piece of legislation is notorious for being used by political and business leaders to silence critics (including journalists, researchers, civilians), with many prosecutions taking place in the context of defamation suits and pornography.9 Indonesia also has its own “anti-pornography” Law no. 44/2008. Both laws are controversial for their “pasal karet (rubber articles)”—simply put, they contain many extendable and ambiguous terms such as “pornography” and “defamation” that can be stretched and deployed by anyone against anyone.

Those worn out by FPI’s serial racketeering may delight in what seemed like “tit for tat” karma: that Rizieq could be charged with the controversial law that he and the FPI had agitated for. Yet considering Indonesia’s notoriously rubbery laws and enforcement, these charges might backfire. After all, Rizieq had already been imprisoned twice for inciting hatred, and according to Wilson, “If the political goal is to nullify the FPI, then it’s a serious miscalculation . . . Each time he’s spent time in jail, the organization has grown, the martyrdom complex has grown, as has the perception that he is someone who is willing to sacrifice for the cause.”10 Considering Indonesia’s long-stalled legal and security reforms, along with its proven track record of being easily swayed by public pressure and/or political maneuvers, there is a fair chance that the FPI could win11—giving them even more legitimacy and one more public relations victory.

Additionally, and underneath this high-profile drama, aggressive efforts to hunt down and persecute social media users who criticize Rizieq and the FPI—such as the ones described in the introduction—have also increased. These hunting efforts typically proceed in four systematic steps: (1) tracing and listing social media accounts; (2) publishing instructions to hunt listed targets along with their personal data (including photographs and home or workplace addresses); (3) storming the target’s workplace or home; (4) taking and reporting the target to the police using the very same ITE Law.

Grey Protection Rackets

On top of these rubbery laws and enforcement, throughout Indonesia’s modern history the distinction between state and non-state actors carrying out legitimate violence and coercion has not been clear cut.12 Extortion and harassment by street-level thugs, gangs, and militias—often lumped together as preman—are a ubiquitous part of everyday life. Often caricatured as violent hardliner thugs without any redeeming qualities, preman (literally, “free man”) have a complex history.13 During the New Order, they had a symbiotic, sometimes violent, relationship with Suharto’s regime. They were subcontracted as quasi- official gangsters to stimulate fear and run protection rackets, and operated with near-legal impunity on the condition that a proportion of their bounty was shared with the state.14

After the fall of the New Order in 1998, and without any significant security and military reform,15 competition for resources and influence in the grey areas protection rackets has continued unabated. There has even been “a discernible increase in premanisme” ,16 allowing a new breed of preman to organise along ethnic and religious lines, with relatively more autonomy than its New Order predecessor. The involvement of various individuals and organisations (with different banners: ethnic, religious, student, etc.) also makes investigating and tracing preman lines of command much harder.

The FPI—long known for their street-level thuggery in the name of religious piety and anti-vice morality—is only one group among many.17

The persekusi cases mentioned above also indicate that the FPI members and sympathisers have grown savvy in using digital media to systematically identify and harass those they disagree with, both online and offline. Though emboldened by the recent opening that has allowed them to mobilise significant masses in the November and December 2016 rallies, the FPI are not newcomers to this kind of racketeering politics and thuggery. They have directed malicious threats and violence against vulnerable minority groups, such as the Ahmadiyah sects, Batak Christians, and the LGBTQ community, while anything approaching criticism against them (or their allies) is maligned as communist, atheist, “anti- Pancasila”, and even “liberal”.

To understand these ideological issues, one should remember that labeling anything or anyone as “communist” has for decades been the go-to method of attack in Indonesia, a place where communism is still illegal. More recently, it has been hurled against wide- ranging individuals, from a hijab-wearing Muslim physician, to a Chinese woman mayoral candidate,18 to Ahok and Jokowi.19 There were some signs that this political taboo was gradually eroding in late 2015 and early 2016,20 and that other disparate but more contemporary taboos such as “LGBTQ” and “liberal” had become more salient.

While the attempt to deploy these taboos created a lot of media headlines, their capacity to mobilize the public was nevertheless limited. However, Ahok’s fatal quoting of the Koran, widely spread in various doctored versions through social and mass media in mid-2016, gave a vital opening for a high-profile attack strategy utilizing a “defend Islam” bulwark.21

Media manipulation amidst highly unequal material-technological development

To fend off the spread of fake news, early this year the national press council implemented barcode verification for online media, and an “anti-hoax” society was launched, while calls for “digital media literacy” programs have increased.22 Yet like many “young democracy” countries in Southeast Asia, press institutions in Indonesia are often young and weak without strong institutional rails or an established tradition of fact-checking. 23 Indonesia also has a dizzyingly diverse population with hundreds of languages and ethnic groups, which inhabits thousands of islands.

While hosting one of the world’s largest numbers of Facebook and Twitter users,24 Indonesia still has very uneven internet coverage, with only 20-30% internet penetration. Among those with access to broadband, 3G or higher connections can get as high as 30-100 Mbps, while there are millions whose Internet is limited to 2G technology and Facebook (and increasingly, WhatsApp). 25 Within such a landscape, effective fact-checking can be very difficult and costly.

Forcing “anti-hoax” and fact-checking strategies without addressing foregoing issues risks silencing critics and entrenching an established media26 that are already dominated by a few wealthy, powerful moguls related to political figures or parties.27 These strategies might also cause further polarisation: non-believers of “hoaxes” or “experts” blame “stupid”, “backward” others for not understanding what “real” news is. Believers meanwhile would likely ignore and distrust the label, feeling further marginalised and thus more justified in their rage.

Education failures and the depoliticised “floating mass”

Below the media landscape, the roots of rising polarisation run deep. There is a complex interplay between class and socio-cultural identity politics, and it is important to unpack the concept of class and socio-economic divides beyond ethnic and/or religious stereotypes. For a long time, stereotypes about “rich Chinese” vs “poor Islam pribumi” served as a convenient basis for faction fights, despite the divergence of allegiances within different ethnic groups and classes.28 Yet, the persekusi cases also demonstrate that both hijab-wearing Muslim physicians and ethnic Chinese boys are equally vulnerable to these attacks, signifying that they are not necessarily driven by sectarian or religious conservatism, but point more to old tricks of intimidation and protection rackets to deter critical voices.

Here I raise one area where class and identity politics may overlap which is worthy of further research: the rapid expansion of formal education in quantity, but not in quality.29 Due to widespread corruption and teacher absenteeism, alongside poor performance in reading comprehension, math, and science, Indonesia’s education system has been frequently lambasted. Equally serious, however, is the country’s refusal to soberly address its depoliticised “floating mass”.30 The number of schools and colleges has grown drastically with various options catering to specific classes or ethnic/religious groups, particularly with the presence of many private organisations running the vast majority of higher education institutions boasting promises of international standards and good career prospects.

Often integrated with the rapid development of gated estates or satellite cities complete with apartments, shopping malls, private security and transportation, these institutions also perpetuate segregation by spatially separating and reducing meaningful interactions among different socio-economic groups. Nevertheless, both private and public education curricula continue to skirt away from teaching the nation’s history and political ideologies. These expanding educational institutions also bring no proof of better career options, with un(der)employment numbers highest among those with higher education, leading to a constant expansion of the country’s expendable surplus population.31

How does this un(der)employment, along with the expansion of a young, educated population in Indonesia, contribute to creating a disenfranchised, factionalised mass vulnerable to the spread of fake news and sectarian sentiment? There are growing signs that the networked media industry’s unprecedented expansion has created new image-branding professions that are particularly attractive to youth, and have become regarded as key elements in business marketing and political campaigning, e.g. “cyber armies” and social media “buzzers”.32

This is an area worth further study, especially since information and communication technology (ICT) has actually been removed as a compulsory school subject in 2013. Efforts to improve digital skills and information literacy in a country that boastfully aims to be the largest digital economy in Southeast Asia by 2020 are dependent upon scattered initiatives driven by disparate departments, private companies, media, and various non-governmental organisations.33

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Fake news and issues of persecution have existed for a long time. But today’s networked media landscape, with its dependence on viewers’ clicks, has created a hotbed for the rapid spread of “post-truth” sensational headlines and sectarian racketeering. Indonesia is not unique in this case, nor are its various (state and non-state) scrambled attempts to halt the rapid dissemination of (mis)information online by restricting access or persecuting users.

The Ministry of Communication and Information has recently blocked a popular encrypted messaging app, Telegram, on the grounds that it poses a threat to Indonesian national security. The Ministry also stated that in anticipation of the surge of fake news ahead of and during the 2019 presidential election, a special team will be formed in collaboration with Facebook to block ‘negative content’ such as hoaxes and pornography.34 However, neither of these short-term solutions nor calls for “tougher” measures—like re-instilling Pancasila or clamping down on intolerance, already prone to be manipulated by various camps—will work without addressing the historical build-up sketched above. The lack of any significant legal and security reforms has facilitated the unabated growth of preman groups, with a significant ability to mobilise a militant mass. The lack of legal and security reforms has also allowed these groups to gain more bargaining power with political elites and generate intimidating protection rackets through violence and coercion under sectarian banners.

Additionally, a highly manipulable media landscape alongside poorly-reformed education systems have structurally deprived Indonesians of the basic equipment required to deal with the historical and technological complexities that shape contemporary life, both offline and online.

Efforts to minimize hoaxes and persekusi will not succeed without understanding the history and policies that molded contemporary mindsets.

About the author:
* Kathleen Azali is Research Officer at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. She thanks Ulla Fionna, Andrew Carruthers, Cassey Lee, Budi Rahardjo, and researchers at the Gender & Technology Institute for their feedback.

Source:
This article was published by ISEAS as ISEAS Perspective 2017 No. 61 (PDF)

Notes:
1 For an English-language discussion of the charges, see “Morality versus the law: Rizieq Shihab on the defensive,” Indonesia at Melbourne 1 June 2017 http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/morality-versus-the-law-rizieq-shihab-on-the- defensive/ (accessed 1 June 2017).
2 The Indonesianised English words “hoaks” (hoax) and “persekusi” (persecution) have become frequently used only within the past year.
3 As reported by the Southeast Asia Freedom Network (SAFEnet) coordinator, Damar Juniarto. See “The Ahok Effect, Warga Agresif Buru ‘Penista Agama’” CNN Indonesia 27 May 2017 https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170527151727-20-217678/the-ahok-effect-warga- agresif-buru-penista-agama/ (accessed 5 June 2017).
4 For an overview, see Charlotte Setijadi, “Ahok’s Downfall and the Rise of Islamist Populism in Indonesia,” ISEAS Perspective no. 38, 8 June 2017.
5 Ian Wilson, “Jakarta: inequality and the poverty of elite pluralism,” New Mandala 19 April 2017 http://www.newmandala.org/jakarta-inequality-poverty-elite-pluralism/ (accessed 3 June 2017);see also Rita Padawangi, “The Invisibility of the Urban Poor in Jakarta,” Asian Urbanism 20 June 2017 http://blog.nus.edu.sg/ariurban/2017/06/20/the-invisibility-of-the-poor/ (accessed 23 June 2017).
6 Ulla Fionna, “Manipulating “Diversity”: Campaign against Ahok Threatens Democracy,” ISEAS Perspective no. 6, 2 February 2017.
7 For a thorough discussion, see Naoyuki Sakumoto & Hikmahanto Juwana, Reforming Laws and Institutions in Indonesia: An Assessment, Jakarta: University of Indonesia & IDE-JETRO, 2007.
8 The revised Law no. 19/2016 has the sentence reduced, and an article on “the right to be forgotten” added, but it retains many of its problems. See also Usman Hamid, “Laws, crackdowns and control mechanisms: digital platforms and the state,” Digital Indonesia: Connectivity and Divergence, Singapore: ISEAS 2017.
9 Some examples are the homemade sex videos of three Indonesian celebrities in 2010. More recently, a female high school teacher was subjected to frequent lewd phone calls from the headmaster. The records were copied and spread to her colleagues by her friend who borrowed her mobile phone, and soon became widespread. The ashamed headmaster fired and reported her to the police using the ITE Law, and she has been detained since. Her husband also lost her job. See “Terjerat UU ITE, Ibu Tiga Anak Mendekam di Penjara,” Kompas.com 9 May 2017 http://regional.kompas.com/read/2017/05/09/19513361/terjerat.uu.ite.ibu.tiga.anak.mendekam.di.p enjara (accessed 23 June 2017).
10 “Hard-Line Moralist in Indonesia Faces Pornography Charges,” The New York Times, 30 May 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/world/asia/rizieq-shihab-pornography.html (accessed 31 May 2017).
11 Rizieq and his legal authorities have continued denying the charges, questioning the legal procedures, the authenticity of the evidence, and the breach to their “right to privacy”. The Interpol has also rejected the request to issue its red notice (similar to international arrest warrant) by the Jakarta police. “Police Put Investigation Into Rizieq Shihab’s Pornography Case on Hold,” Jakarta Globe 21 June 2017, http://countmein.thejakartaglobe.com/news/police-put-investigation-rizieq- shihabs-pornography-case-hold/ (accessed 21 June 2017)
12 For a discussion on violence and its relation to state and non-state actors, see Benedict Anderson (ed.), Violence and the State in Suharto’s Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.
13 Derived from the Dutch vrijman, these days, preman is increasingly used to specifically refer to individuals who use violent and coercive strategies to achieve material reward, an “entrepreneur of violence”. Yet up until the 1980s, preman referred specifically to military officers out of uniform (Ryter 1998). See Ian Wilson’s comprehensive study, The Politics of Protection Rackets in Post- New Order Indonesia: Coercive Capital, Authority and Street Politics, London & New York: Routledge, 2015.
14 These relationships were unstable, and could change overtime. During the New Order they were more dependent on networks of political patronage, more under a metaphorical “leash”, and there have been times where preman as the hunter became the hunted when they crossed their patron. This was infamously demonstrated in the case of Petrus (literally an abbreviation of “mysterious shooters”) affair in the 1980s, where at least 7,000 of those suspected as preman were extra- judicially murdered—for “shock therapy,” as Suharto icily wrote on his memoir. See Benedict R. Anderson, ‘Impunity and Reenactment: Reflections on the 1965 Massacre in Indonesia and Its Legacy’, The Asia-Pacific Journal, 11.15 No. 4 (2013); Robert Cribb, “From Petrus to Ninja: Death Squads in Indonesia”, Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder with Deniability, ed. by Arthur D. Brenner and Bruce B. Campbell (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000).
15 Particularly since it continued to allow the grey illicit area of competition for resources and influence among the police (directly positioned under the president without any ministry), the military (withdrawn from formal politics, but still deeply entrenched within the territorial command networks), and non-state specialists of violence. See The Expanding Role of the Indonesian Military, IPAC Report (Jakarta: Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, 2015) and its Update (2016); Mietzner, Marcus, and Lisa Misol, ‘Military Businesses in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Decline, Reform and Persistence’, in The Politics of Military Reform: Experiences from Indonesia and Nigeria, ed. by Jurgen Ruland, Maria-Gabriela Manea, and Hans Born (Berlin: Springer- Verlag, 2012), pp. 101–20.
16 See Ian Wilson, ‘“As Long as It’s Halal’: Islamic Preman in Jakarta’, in Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008), pp. 192–210.
17 Other examples include Front Betawi Rempug, also discussed in depth by Wilson (2015), or Front Umat Islam.
18 Hui Yew-Foong, “Decentralization and Chinese Indonesian Politics: The Case of Singkawang, West Kalimantan,” ISEAS Perspective no. 19, 27 March 2017.
19 Jokowi has been repeatedly framed as a Communist; as a member of the PKI, which was completely annihilated in 1965—when Jokowi was barely four years old; that his biological parents were members of the PKI and that he is an illegitimate child. “Jokowi, Antara Hantu Komunisme dan Vonis si ‘Nemo’ Ahok,” CNN Indonesia 10 May 2017 http://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170430150901-20-211255/jokowi-antara-hantu- komunisme-dan-vonis-si-nemo-ahok/ (accessed 27 June 2017).
20 Max Lane, “50 Years since 30 September, 1965: The Gradual Erosion of a Political Taboo,” ISEAS Perspective no. 66, 26 November 2015.
21 As Vedi Hadiz said, “It is instructive, first of all, that when New Order elites were faced with their most serious crisis ever, they partly staved-off society-based demands for wide-ranging political reforms by utilising an Islamic bulwark.” (in “Indonesian Political Islam: Capitalist Development and the Legacies of the Cold War”, Southeast Asian Affairs, 30 (2011), 32). That, along with the reheating of the “latent danger of communism” bogeyman and the need for “constant vigilance” against foreign infiltration and ideologies are well-used tricks, codified even in military training materials (see Honna 2013). Pancasila has also been used as a “Pancasila Front” and the notorious “Pemuda Pancasila” paramilitary of the New Order (see Ryter 1998). More recently, Pancasila was used as a rallying call, e.g. the symposium organised by a group of high-ranking generals and the FPI to counter the 1965-66 symposium by the government using the title “Defending Pancasila from the threats of Communist revival and other ideologies”. In other words, it can be put against “other ideologies” that attempt to bring any critical voices. This malleability is also a reason why we need to watch the recent reinforcement, including the establishment of the presidential working unit, for the implementation of Pancasila as the state ideology. See “Jokowi inaugurates chief, advisors of Pancasila working unit,” The Jakarta Post 7 June 2017 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/06/07/jokowi-inaugurates-chief-advisors-of- pancasila-working-unit.html (accessed 27 June 2017).
22 “Dewan Pers Terapkan Barcode untuk Media Terverifikasi,” CNN Indonesia 9 January 2017 http://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170109084724-20-184890/dewan-pers-terapkan- barcode-untuk-media-terverifikasi/ (accessed 5 June 2017); “Perlawanan “Netizen” Lahirkan Masyarakat Anti-“hoax”” Kompas.com 8 January 2017; http://tekno.kompas.com/read/2017/01/08/10495047/perlawanan.netizen.lahirkan.masyarakat.anti- .hoax (accessed 5 June 2017); “Digital media literacy important to counter fake news: Researcher,” Antara News, 3 May 2017 http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/110744/digital- media-literacy-important-to-counter-fake-news-researcher (accessed 5 June 2017).
23 Southeast Asian countries rank uniformly low, with Indonesia at the highest place at 124th out of 180 countries, in “2017 World Press Freedom Index,” Reporters without Borders https://rsf.org/en/ranking (accessed 27 June 2017).
24 The ranking was published by Semiocast in 2012, but soon spread to other mainstream media such as Forbes and CNN. Other than Jakarta, Bandung was the only Indonesian city included in the list. Singapore ranked 11th. http://semiocast.com/en/publications/2012_07_30_Twitter_reaches_half_a_billion_accounts_140 m_in_the_US (accessed 27 June 2017).
25 The “average” Internet speed in Indonesia is 6.7 Mbps, but coverage is very uneven. Broadband subscriptions are expensive, and up to 95% users access the Internet only through mobile phones, with only 13% using personal computers. The national average of Internet penetration rate is only around 22%. Some reports mentioned 30%, because almost 8%—literally millions—of Indonesians when surveyed said that they did not use the Internet, but stated that they are on Facebook.
26 “LBH Pers: Barcode Media Tak Efektif Tangkal Hoax,” CNN Indonesia 9 February 2017 http://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170209163332-20-192399/lbh-pers-barcode-media-tak- efektif-tangkal-hoax/ (accessed 5 June 2017).
27 Ross Tapsell, “The Political Economy of Digital Media,” Digital Indonesia: Connectivity and Divergence. Singapore: ISEAS, 2017. See also Tapsell, Ross, ‘Indonesia’s Media Oligarchy and the “Jokowi Phenomenon”’, Indonesia, 99 (2015), 29–50.
28 Hew Wai Weng, “Diversity not Uniformity: Chinese Muslim Preachers and Politicians in Indonesia,” ISEAS Perspective no. 45, 30 June 2017. See also Greg Fealy, “Bigger than Ahok: explaining the 2 December mass rally,” Indonesia at Melbourne 7 December 2017
http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/bigger-than-ahok-explaining-jakartas-2-december- mass-rally/ (accessed 27 June 2017)
29 Education in Indonesia, ed. by Daniel Suryadarma and Gavin W. Jones (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2013).
30 The “floating mass” policy was an unofficial manifesto created during the New Order to “protect” Indonesians from learning “foreign ideologies”, participating in practical politics and joining political parties. The policy was designed by Ali Moertopo, a key figure in masterminding networks of preman as quasi-official, expendable enforcers. See Indonesian Politics and Society: A Reader, ed. David Bourchier and Vedi R. Hadiz (London & New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 45–48.
31 Indonesia has one of the largest gaps in youth unemployment and inactivity in the Asia Pacific at around 20-22%, compared to the overall unemployment at around 5-6%. See Michele Ford, “Youth Unemployment Haunts Indonesia,” China Daily, October 31, 2014; Truman G. Packard and Trang Van Nguyen, East Asia Pacific at Work: Employment, Enterprise, and Well-Being (Washington: The World Bank, 2014).
32 See for example, “In Indonesia, buzzers are not heard, but tweet for money,” Reuters 22 August 2013 http://www.reuters.com/article/net-us-indonesia-twitter-idUSBRE97L14T20130822 (accessed 27 June 2017). The MUI even released a fatwa banning the use of buzzers for economic and non-economic gains as haram. “MUI Terbitkan Fatwa Pemakaian Media Sosial, Ada 5 Hal yang Diharamkan,” Kompas, 5 June 2017 http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2017/06/05/20001581/mui.terbitkan.fatwa.pemakaian.media.sosi al.ada.5.hal.yang.diharamkan (accessed 27 June 2017).
33 Ross Tapsell & Edwin Jurriens (eds.), Digital Indonesia: Connectivity and Divergence. Singapore: ISEAS, 2017.
34 Telegram is said to be the most popular messaging application among jihadists, since it had from its very beginning implemented end-to-end encryption, although other messaging apps like WhatsApp have also adopted it. The app has been unblocked after Telegram agreed to open a special communication line for the Indonesian government. “Indonesia ready to unblock Telegram,” The Jakarta Post 1 August 2017 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/08/01/indonesia-ready-to-unblock-telegram.html; “Facebook forms team to tackle hoaxes in Indonesia,” The Jakarta Post 2 August 2017 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/08/02/facebook-forms-team-to-tackle-hoaxes-in- indonesia.html (accessed 2 August 2017).

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vasantha Senanayake had a bilateral meeting with Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada recently on the sidelines of the 24th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Manila and exchanged views on measures to strengthen relations and enhance cooperation between the two countries.

The Canadian Foreign Minister said it was the first high level interaction she had with Sri Lanka since her appointment in January 2017 and look forward to further constructive engagement on all aspects of the bilateral relationship.

State Minister Senanayake briefed the Canadian Minister on the political developments and progress on all aspects of the reconciliation process underway in Sri Lanka. He mentioned Sri Lanka’s ongoing consideration of acceding to several international instruments.

Talks also delved into areas that could benefit from Canadian development assistance, training, capacity building and support livelihood generation, humanitarian assistance and in this regard, the State Minister requested Canada’s continued support.

He also said Sri Lanka is keen on enhancing contribution to the UN Peacekeeping operations and looks forward to the Ministerial Meeting on Peacekeeping to be hosted by Canada in November 2017.