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Resetting The Reset: Looking Back At Cycle Of US-Russia Relations – Analysis

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By Cassandra Dula*

(FPRI) — Since the early 1990s, the U.S.-Russia relationship has faced a series of ebbs and flows amid numerous attempts to build a better rapport. The reasons behind the failure to create a positive relationship have been the subject of much debate.

Starting from Clinton administration, the idea of rebuilding the U.S. relationship with Russia has been a leading U.S. foreign policy objective. President Clinton’s decision to support Boris Yeltsin as president of the Russian Federation and his offer of economic aid to the former Soviet Union are two such examples. The U.S. applauded Russia’s movement towards democratization and celebrated the fact that Clinton would be the first U.S. president in decades who did not need a Cold War plan. Yet, by 1995, concerns over Eastern European security in the post-Cold War era threatened the agreements that had marked Clinton’s early years. Russia’s military intervention in Chechnya and the U.S. military intervention in Bosnia became points of contention, and the accession of some former Soviet states to NATO did not ease the rising tensions.

This theme continued into the administration of George W. Bush, which focused primarily on nuclear arms treaties. In an attempt to reconcile differences over missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, Bush and Putin signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), in which both countries promised to decrease their nuclear arsenals by two-thirds over the following ten years. However, Bush’s push to see Ukraine and Georgia join NATO and U.S. intervention in Iraq distanced the two leaders.

The first Obama term ushered in the now infamous “reset” period. The purpose of the reset was to get the leaders of both nations back at the negotiating table in order to discuss issues such as nuclear arsenals and trade deals, among other things. The initial phase of the reset focused specifically on building a relationship between recently elected U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. President Obama hoped to start his presidency off by mending what was perhaps America’s most important relationship, and Medvedev would prove to the Russian population and the Kremlin that he was capable of advancing Russia’s global interests.

A Russia with more ties to the U.S. was also intended to be a freer Russia in the long term, and during visits to the country, President Obama continued the tradition of meeting with opposition leaders, civil society groups, and business leaders. The Obama administration wanted to leave the image of America as a global policeman behind, and this aspiration matched well with Russia’s desire for a more equal relationship between the two superpowers. Initial meetings between the two seemed to suggest that their relationship was productive and amicable. The early period during President Obama’s first term was marked by a flurry of treaties and agreements, ranging from bilateral arms reduction through New START, the treaty which superseded the Bush-era SORT, to the accession of Russia into the World Trade Organization.

While these meetings and deliverables of the early years looked promising, to use them as the sole marker for relationship success would be misleading. The period was duly marked by continued concessions to Russia, and by, perhaps more importantly, the continued tension between Russia and NATO. It was during this time that Ukraine’s 2008 application for NATO membership continued to sit in limbo despite continued U.S. support.

This “reset” period resulted in a grand collapse with the return of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency in 2012. The Obama administration had focused so much on building a relationship with then-President Medvedev that it was not prepared for Putin’s return to power. Additionally, increasing tensions over Libya and U.S. missile defense systems in Eastern Europe did nothing to help mend the rapidly weakening relationship. The desire for an amicable relationship during this time was completely destroyed in 2014 with the aftermath of Ukraine’s Euromaidan protests.

While the protests were successful in ousting Viktor Yanukovych as president, the resulting Russian aggression in Ukraine wreaked havoc on Putin’s already tenuous relationship with the West. The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its continued military support of separatists in Eastern Ukraine left the country fractured, and Russia’s ties to the West nearly severed. Countering Putin’s efforts in Ukraine, the U.S. offered political support and financial aid to Ukraine, and the U.S. and its European allies imposed sanctions on Russia. The sanctions exacerbated the already negative effects that the drop in oil prices had on the Russian economy, forcing it into a temporary recession.

Prior to President Trump taking office, the latest round of Russia sanctions were imposed by the Obama administration in response to Russia’s cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee in 2016. Now, the issue of further Russian election interference has pressured Congress into “curtailing” the White House’s ability to lift Russian sanctions. This move by Congress, and Trump’s subsequent act of signing the legislation into law, illustrates the clear intent to punish Russia for its actions during the election, and it reaffirms the importance and complexity of Russian election interference. Congress’ passage of this bill also prompted a response from Putin, who announced that 755 U.S. diplomatic employees must leave the country by September 1, in addition to seizing two U.S. diplomatic properties.

Today, the U.S. is faced with several questions about its relationship with Russia. Are U.S.-Russia relations doomed to follow this cycle of attempted resets and unmet expectations? Should improving its relationship with Russia be a foreign policy priority for the U.S. right now? And perhaps most importantly, how should the two countries make sustainable repairs to this seemingly irreparable relationship?

Possible Solutions

The Ukrainian crisis sparked a renewed interest in how to mend the tarnished U.S.-Russia relationship. Russian experts, foreign policy analysts, and former diplomats all have suggestions on how to handle the issue of Russia. Most are split between two options: isolation or engagement.

Individuals wanting to isolate Russia argue that the international community should come together and treat Russia as a rogue nation. Isolation has, in recent years, come in the form of economic sanctions, and the sanctions have consistently been in place since in 2014. On the other hand, engagement—whether it be positive engagement after diplomatic discussions or negative engagement as a reaction to Russian aggression—has been far more sporadic and multidirectional. Diplomatic engagement, meant to form some kind of agreement on issues like nuclear proliferation, crises in the Middle East, and frozen conflicts in Eurasia, has had varied levels of success. However, more aggressive forms of engagement with countries within Russia’s “sphere of influence,” such as training Ukrainian troops in the midst of the Ukraine crisis, have had exclusively negative effects on the relationship.

The debate on how to engage with Russia still continues to this day across a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, a hardline policy against Russia is suggested in order to improve Russia’s behavior—and in turn, its relationship with the U.S.—in the long term. Increasing military support in Ukraine, continuing missile defense efforts in Europe, maintaining ties with NATO, and cracking down on Russia’s human rights violations all fall under the hardline umbrella. While these actions will certainly send a clear message to Putin and the Russian government, there is no evidence that they would also encourage Putin to reverse his aggressive actions and rhetoric. In fact, there is a distinct possibility that aggressive, hardline policies against Russia may actually encourage more aggression and anti-American sentiment in Russian political dialogue.

The opposing argument favors diplomatic compromise and a return to “normalcy” as hallmarks of a new U.S.-Russia relationship. After Obama’s rejection of Putin and his actions in Ukraine at the end of his second term, some argue that simply letting the Russians back in the door and agreeing to meet with officials could do a lot to start mending the relationship. However, Obama’s attempts to treat Russia as a cooperative partner from the beginning was ineffective and, as some would argue, gave the Kremlin the opportunity to pursue destructive policies while Washington waited to intervene until the line had been crossed.

Seeing as neither of these approaches has been successful, what approach should the Trump administration take in the coming months? As prominent Russia scholar James Goldgeier argues, any chance at a successful U.S.-Russia reset must begin with identifying where the U.S. and Russia have a common interest. Perhaps, the place to begin is in developing nuclear agreements, combatting terrorism efforts, or tamping down the North Korean nuclear threat. The U.S.-Russia relationship ultimately has a long way to go before reaching anything close to friendly, and it will take a heavy dose of patience, cooperation, and compromise on both sides to mend it.

About the author:
*Cassandra Dula is a summer intern with FPRI’s Eurasia Program. She is a senior at The Ohio State University with majors in Political Science and Psychology, and minors in Russian and Security & Intelligence.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.


High Use Of Electronic Cigarettes Seen In 8th-9th Graders In Oregon

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A study at Oregon Research Institute (ORI) shows that rates of electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use among Oregon 8th and 9th graders is higher than seen in national samples, and that e-cigarette use is closely linked with use of marijuana and other tobacco products.

Led by ORI scientist Erika Westling, Ph.D., study investigators examined e-cigarette prevalence rates in 8th graders and tracked early usage patterns from 8th grade through 9th grade, the first year of high school. Westling and her team also examined gender, ethnicity, and the use of other substances. Study results were recently published in the June 2017 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.

The study showed that adolescents are using e-cigarettes at high rates, and many are using e-cigarettes before trying regular cigarettes or chewing tobacco. In addition, e-cigarette users were more likely to have used and be using other substances, with marijuana being the most common. At the beginning of the study, 27.7% of 8th grade students reported some use of e-cigarettes and 16.8% were current users. By the spring of 9th grade, 31.4% of students had used e-cigarettes and 17.4% were current users.

“We found that e-cigarettes were being used at much higher rates than conventional cigarettes,” noted Westling, “and about 5% of students were using e-cigarettes daily in the 9th grade, which suggests addiction to nicotine via e-cigarettes in these young adolescents.”

The research team surveyed 1100 Oregon students from seven school districts once at the end of 8th grade and three times across 9th grade. Results indicated there were no significant gender or ethnicity differences in prevalence of use in 8th grade or in accelerated usage rates through 9th grade. Males, females, Hispanics, and non-Hispanics were at equal risk for trying and escalating use of e-cigarettes over time. This reveals the broad appeal, access, and popularity of e-cigarettes to this population, and indicates that anti-e-cigarette marketing strategies should target all of these groups.

“Our data was collected prior to regulation of e-cigarettes by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There are currently no limits on advertising, flavorings, or e-liquid content, and e-cigarettes are being heavily marketed to youth,” said Westling. “Given the high rates of use and previous marketing efforts, youth access to and willingness to use c-cigarettes may not be easily changed.”

The FDA finalized the “deeming” rule effective August 8, 2016 to regulate new tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, which will likely result in product standards and prevent misleading claims about the relative risk of tobacco products in the future. However, these regulations will not be in effect for several more years. Currently, the majority of adolescents perceive e-cigarettes as having minimal risks to health or addiction. Only a quarter of high school students know that e-cigarettes typically contain nicotine. Young adolescents are especially vulnerable to nicotine addiction, and symptoms of addiction in adolescence predict regular smoking in emerging adulthood. A recent Surgeon General’s report on e-cigarettes and youth notes that there are significant known deleterious health effects resulting from nicotine exposure in adolescence, including changes to the developing brain.

Why Expensive Wine Appears To Taste Better

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Price labels influence our liking of wine: The same wine tastes better to participants when it is labeled with a higher price tag.

Scientists from the INSEAD Business School and the University of Bonn have discovered that the decision-making and motivation center in the brain plays a pivotal role in such price biases to occur. The medial pre-frontal cortex and the ventral striatum are particularly involved in this. The results have now been published in the journal “Scientific Reports”.

Previous work from INSEAD Associate Professor of Marketing Hilke Plassmann’s research group did show that a higher price, for instance for chocolate or wine, increased the expectation that the product will also taste better and in turn affects taste processing regions in the brain.

“However, it has so far been unclear how the price information ultimately causes more expensive wine to also be perceived as having a better taste in the brain,” said Prof. Bernd Weber, Acting Director of the Center for Economics and Neuroscience (CENs) at the University of Bonn. The phenomenon that identical products are perceived differently due to differences in price is called the “marketing placebo effect”. As with placebo medications, it has an effect solely due to ascribed properties: “Quality has its price!”

The researchers assessed how different prices are translated into corresponding taste experiences in the brain, even if the wine tasted does not differ. 30 participants took part in the study, of which 15 were women and 15 were men, with an average age of around 30 years.

Wine tasting while lying down

The wine tasting took place lying down in an MRI scanner, allowing brain activity to be recorded “online” while participants were tasting the wines. Each time, the price of the wine was shown first. Only then around a milliliter of the respective wine was administrated to the test person via a tube in their mouths. The participants were then asked to rate via a button on a nine-point scale how good the wine tasted to them. Their mouths were then rinsed with a neutral liquid and the next identical wine sample was given for tasting. All of the experiments were performed in the brain scanner at the Life & Brain Center at the University of Bonn.

“The marketing placebo effect has its limits: If, for example, a very low-quality wine is offered for 100 euros, the effect would predictably be absent,” sayid Prof. Weber.

This is why the researchers conducted the tests using an average to good quality red wine with a retail bottle prize of 12 €. In the MRI scanner, the price of this wine was shown randomly as 3, 6 and 18 €. In order to make the study as realistic as possible, the participants were given 45 euros of initial credit. For some of the tastings, the displayed sum was deducted from this account in some of the trials.

“As expected, the subjects stated that the wine with the higher price tasted better than an apparently cheaper one,” reported Professor Hilke Plassmann from the INSEAD Business School, with campuses in Fontainebleau (France), Singapore and Abu Dhabi. “However, it was not important whether the participants also had to pay for the wine or whether they were given it for free.” Identical wine leads to a better taste experience when a greater quality expectation is associated with the wine due to its price.

The measurements of brain activity in the MRI scanner confirmed this. The research team discovered that above all parts of the medial pre-frontal cortex and also the ventral striatum were activated more when prices were higher. While the medial pre-frontal cortex particularly appears to be involved in integrating the price comparison and thus the expectation into the evaluation of the wine, the ventral striatum forms part of the brain’s reward and motivation system. “The reward and motivation system is activated more significantly with higher prices and apparently increases the taste experience in this way,” said Prof. Weber.

How can placebo effects be inhibited?

“Ultimately, the reward and motivation system plays a trick on us,” explained INSEAD post-doctoral fellow Liane Schmidt. When prices are higher, it leads us to believe that a taste is present that is not only driven by the wine itself, because the products were objectively identical in all of the tastings.

“The exciting question is now whether it is possible to train the reward system to make it less receptive to such placebo marketing effects,” said Prof. Weber. This may be possible by training one’s own physical perception – such as taste – to a greater extent.

Benetton In Patagonia: The Oppression Of Mapuche In Argentine South – Analysis

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By Jack Pannell*

On January 10, 2017, two hundred Argentine gendarmes (a federal security force) attacked the Pu Lof (community) of the Mapuches. The group has been occupying land owned by Benetton in the province of Chubut as part of the Mapuche Ancestral Resistance (RAM).[i] A report by Amnesty International states that the security forces committed, “acts of violence and repression […] including beatings, use of batons, women having their hair pulled, and harassment of children in the community.”[ii] Later that day the local police raided the native community for allegedly stealing animals.

The following day, police conducted a second attack on another nearby Mapuche community, firing lead and rubber bullets, which resulted in ten injuries, including a member of the community having his jawbone shattered.[iii] [iv] On August 1, the gendarmerie raided the Pu Lof again, with a member of the community, Fernando Jones Huala stating, “They locked up the women, together with the children, in a security box, beat them and burned all their things: mattresses, blankets, toys, they burned everything.”[v] Santiago Maldonado, who was supporting the Pu Lof, disappeared on the same day when he and other protesters clashed with police.[vi] As of publication he remains missing.

Benetton, the global Italian fashion brand, currently owns 2.2 million acres of land in Argentina, an area the size of Puerto Rico. This makes the company the largest private landowner in the country.[vii] It uses the land for livestock, farming, prospecting, fossil fuel extraction, and logging.[viii] The events of January were not the first incident between the state and Mapuche on Benetton land. Despite this, Benetton, which acquired the lands in the late 1990s, claimed on its website in 2010 that the company has, “found itself unwittingly involved” in an issue dating back over 100 years, implying no complicity on the part of the corporation.[ix] Regardless of Benetton’s purported innocence on the issue, it repeatedly has demonstrated a disregard for the rights of the indigenous people when it asserts its right to private ownership is paramount to the Mapuche’s antecedent claims. The Argentine state is also highly complicit in the rejection of indigenous rights, ignoring established legal precedents and actively demonising these groups as criminals to justify their violent oppression. All of these factors have resulted in a situation in which the Mapuche are denied their rights to their ancestral lands, which are enshrined in the Argentine Constitution.

The Origins of Benetton’s Ownership – A History of Genocide and Neoliberalism

To understand the current situation it is important to examine the origins of Benetton’s vast landholdings. The Conquest of the Desert is the most blatant example of the Argentine State’s long-term oppression of the Mapuche. Many historians believe that the Mapuche have lived in Patagonia since 11,000 BCE .[x] The Argentine State seized those lands from the Mapuche in the late nineteenth century.

From 1878 to 1885, Argentine forces, led by the notoriously anti-indigenous future president Julio Argentino Roca, conducted “The Conquest of the Desert,” an ironic name, given that the land in question was both fertile and populated. The primary objective was to claim the territory for Argentine agriculture. Racial and social Darwinist ideas were used in order to justify the expulsion of up to 15,000 indigenous people from their lands.[xi] The attacks marked the first true assertion of state power over the Mapuche in Patagonia. The conquest was largely underwritten by British funds, and the Argentine troops were armed with British-made rifles.[xii] As a result, much of the conquered land was awarded to the Argentine Southern Land Company Ltd, based in London, in 1889.[xiii] The company was nationalized in 1982 and renamed Compañía de Tierras del Sud Argentino S. A. (CTSA).[xiv]

During the 1990s President Carlos Menem undertook a neoliberal overhaul of the Argentine economy. One of the defining characteristics of neoliberalism is the privatisation of government services and properties. This manifested itself in the mass privatization of state-owned land.[xv] Menem encouraged rich Europeans and Americans to buy cheap Patagonian land. Among those who purchased land were notable international figures including Sylvester Stallone, Ted Turner, Jerry Lewis and George Soros.[xvi] In 1991 the government sold the CTSA, and all the land it owned, to Edizone Holding International, a company owned by Benetton.[xvii] The company purchased the land for $80 million USD, a fraction of its current value.[xviii] This sale is important to chronicle the oppression of the Mapuche in Patagonia as it established that it was not only the state that held more power than the Mapuche, but also private corporate interests.

Benetton: not simply, “unwittingly involved”

Although Benetton cannot be entirely blamed for purchasing land at such a favourable price from the state, its complicity in the oppression of the Mapuche is evident. The company has demonstrated its valuation of its rights to the private property over the ancestral rights of the indigenous people, even when the land in question was not being put to use. In 2002, two Mapuche, Atilio Curiñaco and Rosa Naheulquir, married and lodged a request with the Chubut agency, the Autonomous Rural Institute of Rural Colonization and Development (IAC), to occupy 951 acres of undeveloped Benetton land.[xix]

The family received positive, but unofficial, feedback on their application for the land in August 2002, and as a result occupied it with their four children.[xx] The following month Benetton denounced the family for usurping its land leading to the family’s eviction by judicial order.[xxi] Shortly after, the police were able to oust the family from the land and seized their plough and oxen.[xxii]

A 2010 statement released by Benetton states that the family had, “claimed possession of the land in Patagonia from an ancestral and historical (i.e. not legal) viewpoint”.[xxiii] This argument is a fundamental misrepresentation of the law in Argentina; as article 75, section 17 of the constitution guarantees indigenous groups the right to, “communal ownership of the lands that they traditionally occupy.”[xxiv] Benetton attempted to prosecute the indigenous family for their occupation of the unused land, although it later offered to drop charges in November 2002 on the condition that the family would relinquish their ancestral claims to the land.[xxv]

The case received international coverage as well as the support of Argentine Nobel Peace Prize Winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel.[xxvi] In 2004, the Curiñanco-Nahuelquir family was acquitted in Argentina and travelled to Rome, accompanied by Esquivel, to petition Luciano Benetton to allow them to reclaim their ancestral lands.[xxvii] Benetton refused, but in 2005 offered the province of Chubut around 18,500 acres of territory to be given to the Mapuche community to appease international outcry.[xxviii]

This gesture was certainly not driven by a desire to provide the community with a viable parcel of land to inhabit, as a survey by the National Institute of Agricultural Technology recommended that the government reject the offer, due to the ‘disproportionate investment’ required to make the land useful to be worked.[xxix] As a result the governor of the province of Chubut, Mario das Neves, turned down the offer in 2006.[xxx]

Benetton also owns the museum in the nearest town of Leleque which, according to The New Internationalist, presents the Mapuche as invaders from Chile, thus delegitimizing their claims to the land.[xxxi] Benetton has prioritized the company’s right to private ownership of the land while attempting to legally sanction the Mapuche for attempting to assert their ancestral claims.

Legal Protections: Theory vs. Practice

The state of Argentina, despite its history of oppression of its indigenous population, provides indigenous groups with clearly stated legal rights in regards to issues of land. Unfortunately, these rights are rarely respected. The Argentine constitution emphatically states the rights of Mapuche to their ancestral lands, as well as an imperative, “to recognize the ethnic and cultural pre-existence of the Argentine indigenous peoples.”[xxxii] Law 26160, passed in November 2006, prevents the eviction of registered indigenous groups, and law 26894 extended that decree until November 23, 2017.[xxxiii][xxxiv]

A representative of the community told the Argentine newspaper Pagina 12 in January that there are historical documents that had established that the Mapuche inhabited the land before the Argentine State even existed.[xxxv] Despite these theoretical rights, many of the indigenous people did not actually hold legal titles to the land they live on, so it was considered to be public property.[xxxvi]

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, concluded in 2012 that “a significant gap remains between the established regulatory framework on indigenous issues and its actual implementation” and that “the multiple cases of evictions of members of indigenous peoples from land claimed by them on the basis of their traditional or ancestral occupation of it are of great concern to indigenous peoples throughout the country.”[xxxvii] Human Rights Watch also reported in 2015 that “indigenous people in Argentina face obstacles in accessing justice.”[xxxviii]

The rights of indigenous people, enshrined by the constitution and protected by laws, are not applied by the state, leaving these groups vulnerable to oppression.

The Government and the Mapuche – Demonization and Violence

Benetton, despite its opposition to the ancestral claims of the Mapuche, is powerless to resist their occupations without the collaboration of the Argentine State. Both the Judicial Branch, and the Executive Office in Chubut have repeatedly demonstrated their opposition to the Mapuche and hostile treatment of their attempts to assert their rights to the land. Jaquelin Marin, a member of the Pu Lof reported to the Argentine newspaper Pagina 12 that since the start of their occupation, in March 2015, the local police have constantly harassed the indigenous community by insulting members and firing shots into the air.[xxxix]

The first attack on January 10 came after the local judge Guido Otranto ordered the removal of blockades placed on the Old Patagonian Expressway known as ‘La Trochita’.[xl] Amnesty International reported that “there was no correlation between the order issued and the scale of the operation, and there was no effective judicial control over the deployment of the security forces, which led to the abuses and violence committed by these forces.”[xli] Otranto himself clarified that the order was solely for the removal of blockages on the train tracks.[xlii]

The second raid was ordered by Judge Jose Colabelli, a local judicator for the town of Esquel, and a man who has repeatedly put private interests over the rights of indigenous communities. Colabelli was the judge who ordered the eviction of the Curiñanco-Nahuelquir family in 2002 and had been dismissed from his position in 2004 for his role in the eviction of another community in Vuelta del Rio.[xliii] He was reinstated in 2010 and Gustavo Macayo, the lawyer who had represented the Vuelta del Rio community ominously warned that his reappointment would have consequences, “especially for the indigenous people and the most vulnerable populations, who have been the most affected by the actions of former Judge Colabelli.”[xliv] His order on the 10th of January was issued on the basis of alleged cattle rustling by the Pu Lof.

According to reports from community members, the police forces took all of the animals in the surrounding area, including several horses used by the inhabitants for ceremonial purposes.[xlv] One reason for his pro-Benetton stance could be the fact that his wife, Gladys Carla Rossi, runs the Italian consulate in Esquel.[xlvi] This certainly presents a potentially contentious issue with regards to the impartiality of Colabelli when it comes to dealing with matters pertaining to the Italian conglomerate’s desire to remove settlers from the lands they claim.

Governor Mario Das Neves of the Judicialist Party (PJ), has also played a significant role in facilitating the violence against the Mapuche by characterising the groups as, “delinquents” and accusing them of attempting to provoke riots in order to justify later police action.[xlvii] Das Neves governs the province that receives more taxes from Benetton than any other Argentine province, and undoubtedly has been incentivized to side with the corporation.[xlviii]

The month before the attack, Das Neves drew comparisons between the RAM and the FARC in Colombia, accusing the former of attacking private property.[xlix] This sentiment has been echoed in local newspapers who have drawn the FARC comparison as well as suggesting similarities with ETA in Spain.[l] This could be considered a concerted effort by the government to delegitimize attempts by the Mapuche to reclaim their ancestral lands. The Das Neves government has also attempted to link the RAM to the website paismapuche.org, which has been linked to acts of sabotage, despite the fact that the website only pertains to actions in Chile.[li]

This effort to delegitimize these groups also extends to the federal government. A report issued by the Argentine Ministry of National Security in August, 2016 asserted that the ancestral claims of the Mapuche are not constitutionally protected, but instead described their occupations as federal crimes.[lii] On August 1 the Chief of the Cabinet of the Ministry of Security, Pablo Nocetti, stated that, by the order of the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, and with the consent of President Macri, he went to Esquel to agree a system of coordination between Rio Negro and Chubut provincial forces against the RAM.[liii]

That same day, the police conducted their raid against the Pu Lof. On January 12, The Association of Lawyers for Indigenous Law, the Provincial Commission for Memory, the National Aboriginal Pastoral Team, and the Center of Legal and Social Studies submitted a petition to Bullrich. It noted their belief that there was a direct correlation between the actions of the federal and state governments to mischaracterize these indigenous groups and the violence that they face at the hands of the police and Gendarmerie.[liv]

Indeed the Gendarmerie is a force that exists to serve domestic security and national defence, and officially reports only to the federal government.[lv] Their use in the suppression of a small Mapuche resistance group would certainly not be justifiable unless there was evidence that the group presented a genuine threat to national security. The blocking of train tracks may not constitute this, but perhaps their presentation, by both the Federal and Chubut governments, as a violent, criminal group certainly would.

The U.N has issued a request for urgent action in the disappearance of the activist, Santiago Maldonado, but Bullrich denies that the gendarmerie are responsible for his disappearance.[lvi] She has described the gendarmerie under her leadership as “human rights defenders” and asserted that there is no evidence, “that the Gendarmerie has had any kind of participation” in the disappearance of Maldonado.[lvii] Indeed Bullrich continued the systematic demonization of the Mapuche when she went on to say that the current administration, “Are not going to allow an autonomous Mapuche Republic in the middle of the Argentine State” characterising a small settlement on private land as a conspiracy to secede from the nation and as “anarchist logic”.[lviii]

Conclusion

Both Hebe de Bonafini, one of the founders of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo), as well as the Front for Victory bloc of the PJ have condemned the violence against the Pu Lof.[lix][lx] The Mapuche face both racism and economic isolation when living in Patagonian towns, so their desire to settle on their ancestral lands, away from the people and government which do not respect their fundamental rights, is entirely understandable.[lxi]

In the opinion of those occupying the land in Chubut, the apparently disproportionate crackdown of 200 Gendarmes against a community of less than twenty people is understandable.[lxii] To them, their occupation serves as a symbol to indigenous people across the region. One member of the community said “this kind of occupation always generates replicas over time in other communities. We are slowly planting the idea of regaining territorial control.”[lxiii]

The Mapuche’s desire to regain control of their ancestral lands is unlikely to come to fruition anytime soon. As of now, they face opposition from both the State and Benetton, driven by long standing state oppression of the Mapuche as well as the continued injurious ideological impacts of neoliberalism. It was a series of such policies that resulted in Benetton’s ownership of such vast areas of land in Argentina. It is the same ideology that is driving the prioritization of Benetton’s private interests over the stated rights and desires of the indigenous people of Argentina. Until the government decides to respect its own laws and constitution, the Mapuche will continue to be oppressed and Benetton will continue to be able use their ancestral lands for their own private purposes.

*Jack Pannell, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Additional editorial support provided by Jim Baer, Senior Research Fellow, Katheryn Teran, Extramural Contributor, and Liam Timmons, Felipe Galvis-Delgado and Martina Gugliemone, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Notes:
[i] “Balas de goma contra una comunidad mapuche”, Pagina 12, January 10 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/13493-balas-de-goma-contra-una-comunidad-mapuche

[ii] “Urgent Action: Violent Repression of Mapuche peoples”, Amnesty International, January 13 2017, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr13/5477/2017/en/

[iii] https://www.pagina12.com.ar/13965-los-persiguieron-a-tiros-fue-una-caceria

[iv] “Urgent Action: Violent Repression of Mapuche peoples”, Amnesty International, January 13 2017, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr13/5477/2017/en/

[v] “Que Sepan Que Los Vamos a Detener”, Pagina 12, August 2 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/54029-que-sepan-que-los-vamos-a-detener

[vi] Uki Goñi, “Argentina activist missing after indigenous people evicted from Benetton land”, The Guardian, August 8 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/08/argentina-santiago-maldonado-benetton-missing-activist

[vii] “Las Madres de Plaza los abrazan”, Pagina 12, January 13 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/14051-las-madres-de-plaza-los-abrazan

[viii] “Informe FARN: Caso Benetton – Mapuche”, Fundacion Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, August 2006, http://farn.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/inf_mapuche_benetton_farn_es.pdf

[ix] “Position Statement – Claims by the native Argentinian population (Mapuche)”, Benneton Group, December 20 2017, http://www.benettongroup.com/media-press/press-releases-and-statements/position-statement-claims-by-the-native-argentinean-population-mapuche/

[x] Peter Popham, “A united world? Benetton and native Indians of Patagonia clash over land”, The Independent, July 5 2004, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/a-united-world-benetton-and-native-indians-of-patagonia-clash-over-land-552212.html

[xi] Orlando Jenkinson, “Conquista Del Desierto Part 1: Why It Happened”, The Bubble, May 11 2016, http://www.thebubble.com/conquista-del-desierto-part-1-why-it-happened/

[xii] Tomas Mascarenhas, “The privatization of Patagonia”, The New Internationalist, August 1 2006, https://newint.org/columns/essays/2006/08/01/patagonia/

[xiii]“Informe FARN: Caso Benetton – Mapuche”, Fundacion Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, August 2006, http://farn.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/inf_mapuche_benetton_farn_es.pdf

[xiv] Ibid.

[xv] Tomas Mascarenhas, “The privatization of Patagonia”, The New Internationalist, August 1 2006, https://newint.org/columns/essays/2006/08/01/patagonia/

[xvi] Peter Popham, “A united world? Benetton and native Indians of Patagonia clash over land”, The Independent, July 5 2004, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/a-united-world-benetton-and-native-indians-of-patagonia-clash-over-land-552212.html

[xvii] “Informe FARN: Caso Benetton – Mapuche”, Fundacion Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, August 2006, http://farn.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/inf_mapuche_benetton_farn_es.pdf

[xviii] Marta Music, “United colors of Persecution: The Struggle of Patagonia’s Indigenous People against Benetton”, Global Voices, January 28 2017, https://globalvoices.org/2017/01/28/united-colors-of-persecution-the-struggle-of-patagonias-indigenous-people-against-benetton/

[xix] “Informe FARN: Caso Benetton – Mapuche”, Fundacion Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, August 2006, http://farn.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/inf_mapuche_benetton_farn_es.pdf

[xx] Ibid.

[xxi] Ana Tronfi, “El juicio por la restitución de tierras en Chubut” La Nacion, May 27 2004, http://www.lanacion.com.ar/604775-el-juicio-por-la-restitucion-de-tierras-en-chubut

[xxii] John Hooper and Hannah Baldock, “Benetton agrees to hand land to Indians”, the Guardian, November 10 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/10/argentina.italy

[xxiii] “Informe FARN: Caso Benetton – Mapuche”, Fundacion Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, August 2006, http://farn.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/inf_mapuche_benetton_farn_es.pdf

[xxiv]“Constitucion De La Nacion Argentina”, http://coleccion.educ.ar/coleccion/CD18/contenidos/informacion/leyes/constituciones/constitucion_nacional.pdf

[xxv] Peter Popham, “A united world? Benetton and native Indians of Patagonia clash over land”, The Independent, July 5 2004, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/a-united-world-benetton-and-native-indians-of-patagonia-clash-over-land-552212.html

[xxvi] Tomas Mascarenhas, “The privatization of Patagonia”, The New Internationalist, August 1 2006, https://newint.org/columns/essays/2006/08/01/patagonia/

[xxvii] Ibid.

[xxviii] Ana Tronfi, “Chubut rechazo una donacion de Benetton para los mapuches”, La Nacion, July 3 2006, http://www.lanacion.com.ar/820198-chubut-rechazo-una-donacion-de-benetton-para-los-mapuches

[xxix] Ibid.

[xxx] Ibid.

[xxxi] Tomas Mascarenhas, “The privatization of Patagonia”, The New Internationalist, August 1 2006, https://newint.org/columns/essays/2006/08/01/patagonia/

[xxxii]“Constitucion De La Nacion Argentina”, http://coleccion.educ.ar/coleccion/CD18/contenidos/informacion/leyes/constituciones/constitucion_nacional.pdf

[xxxiii]“Ley 26.160” Infoleg.gob.ar, November 23 2006, http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/120000-124999/122499/norma.htm

[xxxiv]“Ley 26.894” Infoleg.gob.ar, October 16 2013, http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/220000-224999/221176/norma.htm

[xxxv]“Balas de goma contra una comunidad mapuche”, Pagina 12, January 10 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/13493-balas-de-goma-contra-una-comunidad-mapuche

[xxxvi] Marcela Valente, “Argentina: Patagonia to the Highest Bidder” FPS News, February 12 2007 http://www.ipsnews.net/2007/02/argentina-patagonia-to-the-highest-foreign-bidder/

[xxxvii] James Anaya, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples” United Nations, July 4 2012, http://unsr.jamesanaya.org/index.php?view=article&catid=1%3Acountryr&id=360%3Aargentina-2012&tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=&option=com_content&Itemid=12

[xxxviii] “World Report 2015: Argentina”, Human Rights Watch, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/argentina#2c9b66

[xxxix] “Los persiguieron a tiros, fue una cacería”, Pagina 12, January 13 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/13965-los-persiguieron-a-tiros-fue-una-caceria

[xl] Agencia DyN, “Tension en Chubut por un desalojo de mapuches que reclamaban tierras en poder de la familia Benetton” La Nacion, January 10 2017, http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1974710-tension-en-chubut-por-un-desalojo-de-mapuches-que-reclamaban-tierras-en-poder-de-la-familia-benetton

[xli] “Urgent Action: Violent Repression of Mapuche peoples”, Amnesty International, January 13 2017, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr13/5477/2017/en/

[xlii] Agencia DyN, “Tension en Chubut por un desalojo de mapuches que reclamaban tierras en poder de la familia Benetton” La Nacion, January 10 2017, http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1974710-tension-en-chubut-por-un-desalojo-de-mapuches-que-reclamaban-tierras-en-poder-de-la-familia-benetton

[xliii] “Reprimen a una comunidad Mapuche que reclama tierras a la familia Benetton” Nodal, January 11 2017, http://www.nodal.am/2017/01/reprimen-a-una-comunidad-mapuche-en-chubut-que-reclama-tierras-a-la-familia-benetton/

[xliv] “A seis años de su destitución, Colabelli reasumió como juez”, El Patagonico, December 29 2010, http://www.elpatagonico.com/a-seis-anos-su-destitucion-colabelli-reasumio-como-juez-n1387783

[xlv] “Los Colores Unidos de la Gendameria Nacional”, Pagina 12, January 11 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/13598-los-colores-unidos-de-la-gendameria-nacional

[xlvi] “La communidad Mapuche recuso al juez y ete se aparto de la causa por ‘enemistad anifiesta’”, Infonews, January 12 2011, http://www.infonews.com/nota/305144/la-comunidad-mapuche-recuso-al-juez-y-este

[xlvii] “Balas de goma contra una comunidad mapuche”, Pagina 12, January 10 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/13493-balas-de-goma-contra-una-comunidad-mapuche

[xlviii] Marcela Valente, “Argentina: Patagonia to the Highest Bidder” FPS News, February 12 2007 http://www.ipsnews.net/2007/02/argentina-patagonia-to-the-highest-foreign-bidder/

[xlix]Ana Tronfi, “Chubut: El gobierno provincial a cusa a referentes de pueblos originarios de ‘comisión de delitos de acción pública”, La Nacion, December 9 2016, http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1965655-chubut-el-gobierno-provincial-acusa-a-referentes-de-pueblos-originarios-de-guerrilleros-y-los-vincula-con-las-farc

[l] Ivam Marin, “La ‘patria’ de Mario Das Neves y Luciano Bentton”, La Izquierda Diario, January 13 2017, http://www.laizquierdadiario.com/La-patria-de-Mario-Das-Neves-y-Luciano-Benetton

[li] Franco Spinetta, “Para el gobierno de Chubut, los mapuches reprimidos son ‘terroristas’”, Pagina 12, January 12 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/13842-para-el-gobierno-de-chubut-los-mapuches-reprimidos-son-terro

[lii] “Los Organismos denuciaron el ‘abordaje represivo’ del Gobierno”, Pagina 12, January 12 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/13853-los-organismos-denunciaron-el-abordaje-represivo-del-gobiern

[liii] “Que Sepan Que Los Vamos a Detener”, Pagina 12, August 2 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/54029-que-sepan-que-los-vamos-a-detener

[liv] Ibid.

[lv] “Urgent Action: Violent Repression of Mapuche peoples”, Amnesty International, January 13 2017, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr13/5477/2017/en/

[lvi] “La criminalización de los Mapuches”, Pagina 12, August 8 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/55245-la-criminalizacion-de-los-mapuches

[lvii] Ibid.

[lviii] “Bullrich contra el Estado mapuche”, Pagina 12, August 9 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/55389-bullrich-contra-el-estado-mapuche

[lix] “Las Madres de Plaza los abrazan”, Pagina 12, January 13 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/14051-las-madres-de-plaza-los-abrazan

[lx] “Repudio del FpV” Pagina 12, January 11 2017, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/13599-repudio-del-fp-v

[lxi] Marta Music, “United colors of Persecution: The Struggle of Patagonia’s Indigenous People against Benetton”, Global Voices, January 28 2017, https://globalvoices.org/2017/01/28/united-colors-of-persecution-the-struggle-of-patagonias-indigenous-people-against-benetton/

[lxii] “Reprimen a una comunidad Mapuche que reclama tierras a la familia Benetton” Nodal, January 11 2017, http://www.nodal.am/2017/01/reprimen-a-una-comunidad-mapuche-en-chubut-que-reclama-tierras-a-la-familia-benetton/

[lxiii]https://globalvoices.org/2017/01/28/united-colors-of-persecution-the-struggle-of-patagonias-indigenous-people-against-benetton/

Turkey: Gandhi Kemal’s March For Justice – OpEd

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Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s March for Justice is not a first in Turkish political history, but the broad support it received from all sectors of society – from Kurds to the secular middle class – suggests emerging public opposition to Erdogan’s autocratic regime. If the public opposition could translate its democratic demands to effective political action, then we could  expect a positive turn in Turkey’s otherwise depressing politics.

By Dr. Ulas Doga Eralp*

Turkey’s main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is sixty-nine ears old. Kemal, a soft-spoken mild mannered man, has worked for decades as a Public Accountant at the State Social Security Fund, before becoming the center left Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) leader in 2010.

Gandhi Kemal has been known for two things in public life; his soft mannerism that often times culminated in inaction and frustrated the pro-democracy front, and his Gandhi looks. This time it was his long March for Justice from Ankara to Istanbul, a 420 kilometre journey following the arrest of Enis Berberoglu, a prominent opposition MP by the authoritarian Erdogan regime. What has started as one man’s seemingly desperate and lonely call for a march for justice ended with a giant political rally of two million people at its final destination.

Why did Kemal walk?

In the aftermath of the failed coup attempt in July 2016, the Erdogan government declared a state of emergency. During this time, 165 journalists, human rights defenders, twelve MPs, tens of elected mayors from the Kurdish South East have been imprisoned, whilst thousands of government workers have been purged on allegations of being part of the Gulen network. There are widespread allegations of systematic torture from the high security prisons; the newspapers are filled with accounts of political prisoners “committing suicide”.

The main opposition party remained largely inactive throughout, aside from occasional press statements protesting growing authoritarianism. The April 16th referendum further consolidated Erdogan’s one-man rule. Many cast doubt on the fairness of the results as Erdogan lost all big three cities, plus the youth vote, and yet still somehow won the general vote; a first in Turkish electoral history. Even then Kilicdaroglu refused to call his supporters to the street when the State High Electoral Commission violated its own rules by recognizing faulty ballots as legitimate in order to avoid possible armed clashes with Erdogan’s underground paramilitary forces.

However, in mid-June, Enis Berberoglu, a former journalist and current MP, was arrested on charges of espionage after he shared photos of Turkish Secret Service (MIT) delivering arms to Jihadists in Syria. This for some reason became the last straw for Gandhi Kemal; at the night of the arrest, Gandhi Kemal announced that he would walk the 420 kilometres to Istanbul to demand justice for all suffering at the hands of the State of Emergency rule.

Demand for justice

Authoritarian regimes lack the rule of law; as a result, three basic pillars of sustainable peace, truth, justice and peace suffer from distortions of power. Erdogan’s Turkey is no exception to the rule. In the aftermath of his first electoral defeat in June 2015, President Erdogan ended the peace process with the Kurdish militants, and in the aftermath of what many call a controlled coup attempt in July 2016 the Turkish government started cracking down all dissidents reminiscent of the Hitler’s playbook after the Reichstag fire in 1933.

Truth has long been lost as Erdogan controls 80% of mainstream media and engaged in the systematic arrest of investigative journalists who looked into allegations of his family corruptions and clandestine armed support to Islamist Jihadist groups in Syria and elsewhere. Civil disobedience has long been a tool against oppressive political systems among the marginalized. Gandhi’s salt march in 1930 against the British, later Martin Luther King’s march to Selma, Alabama in 1965 during the civil right era remain the most memorable examples of peace and justice marches.

In 2017, Gandhi Kemal walked 420 kilometres. Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s March for Justice is not a first in Turkish political history, but the broad support it received from all sectors of society – from Kurds to the secular middle class – suggests emerging public opposition to Erdogan’s autocratic regime. If the public opposition could translate its democratic demands to effective political action, then we could  expect a positive turn in Turkey’s otherwise depressing politics.

*Dr. Ulas Doga Eralp is a scholar and practitioner of international conflict, human rights, development and democratization. He has a PhD from the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University, and currently works as a Professorial Lecturer at the International Peace and Conflict Resolution Program of the School of International Service (SIS) at American University in Washington, DC.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of TransConflict.

Russians Persecuting Ethnic Ukrainians And Other Ethnic Groups – OpEd

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Russia’s leading human rights groups say that ethnic Russians are now actively discriminating against ethnic Ukrainians even though Vladimir Putin invariably insists that Russians and Ukrainians are one people and also persecuting Crimean Tatars, Roma, North Caucasians and numerically small peoples of the North.

Earlier this month, Yekaterina Trifonova of Nezavisimaya gazeta writes today, the Russian government gave an upbeat report about the state of ethnic and racial discrimination in Russia to a United Nations commission examining the state of ethnic relations and human rights in Russia in the wake of the Ukrainian events (ng.ru/politics/2017-08-14/3_7050_oon.html).

Now, a group of leading Russian human rights groups, including Memorial, Crimea SOS, the SOVA center, and the Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has presented an alternative report which says the official report “minimizes” the number of violations of human rights in the Russian Federation and in the occupied territories.

In a joint statement, the rights groups pointed to “forced disappearances, illegal deprivation of freedom … limits on the use and study of native languages and on religious and cultural practices,” as well as “the application of torture even to children.” And they noted Russian officials have repeatedly failed to keep promises to the groups and to international bodies like the UN.

Among the most persecuted groups are the Roma, people from the North Caucasus and Central Asia. Even when they have Russian citizenship, such people can’t rent apartments, get decent work, gain access to education and health care, or serve in the ranks of the Russian army on the basis of ethnicity alone.

The independent report also noted that “often NGOs which defend the rights of the indigenous peoples of the North and the Far East suffer as well: Many of them have been declared ‘foreign agents’ or ‘extremist organizations.’” Moreover, Moscow’s struggle against extremism has become a cover for suppression of all dissent.

Perhaps most ominously of all, the authors of the report say, is that “quite often officials allow themselves to make public calls for racial discrimination.” They called for the Russian government to make such calls illegal and impose criminal penalties on anyone who violates such laws.

Three Degree Rise In Temperature Will ‘Cancel Out’ European Emission Reduction Efforts

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As a debilitating heatwave, nicknamed ‘Lucifer’ by the press, hit southern Europe, a new study part-supported by two EU-funded projects has warned that a rise in global temperatures of three degrees would reverse Europe’s dedicated efforts to reduce ozone pollution.

Despite the COP21 international agreement to reduce global warming to below two degrees, the research team behind the study published in ‘Nature Communications’ has warned that a global temperature rise of about three degrees is not only possible but highly likely when considering the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions submitted for the COP21.

Specifically, the study argues that if states reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as promised at COP 21 in 2015, the planet could warm by three degrees in 2050 compared to the pre-industrial era. For several decades, European regulations to limit the emissions of ozone have improved air quality and could theoretically continue to bear fruit by 2050. But climate change and, in parallel, continued ozone pollution through emissions being generated in other regions of the world would tip the balance against such stringent European efforts. Indeed, for the three degrees increase scenario, climatologists predict that there would be an overall doubling by 2100 of the global concentration of methane.

Through numerical simulations using a cascade of models of atmospheric chemistry and climate, developed within the EU-funded ECLIPSE project (that ended in 2015), the researchers have warned that in this scenario European efforts to reduce ozone emissions be effectively cancelled out. They also argue that the greatest impact would be on industrial regions, big cities and southern Europe. With a rise in temperatures by three degrees instead of two, air quality would clearly degrade, especially in southeastern Europe, where the health of the population could be severely exposed to an average of 100 ozone exceedance days a year. The researchers warn that considering the adverse effects of even short-term exposure to daily ozone concentrations, this would strongly impact both human health, as well as vegetation.

To overcome these obstacles, the research team argues that if European air quality is to be improved, then there must be concerted global regulation on global methane emissions, which would provide positive effects on regional air quality but also benefit the fight against climate change. Moreover, it is important to note that these projections relate to a specific region and climate scenario, and the authors explain that different emission or temperature trajectories may alter the predicted ozone increases.

As well as being supported by the ECLIPSE project, the authors also acknowledge support from the EU-funded IMPACT2C project, also officially ended in 2015, which comprehensively mapped the effects of climate change on Europe from a two degree rise in global temperatures. Together, both projects received nearly EUR 9 million of EU funding.

With southern Europe continuing to bake in the ‘Lucifer’ heatwave and the recent release of another article that warns up to 150 000 people could be killed per year in Europe as a result of climate change, it is evermore obvious that to effectively fight growing air pollution, Europe must continue to cooperate and encourage its global partners to also take effective and decisive action against climate change as outlined in the COP21 agreement.

Cordis source: Based on media reports

Israeli Arms Manufacturer Alleged To Have Attacked Armenia From Azerbaijan

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By Joshua Kucera

Officials from an Israeli arms manufacturer fired two drone missiles from Azerbaijan into Armenian-held territory, according to a complaint under investigation by the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

According to the allegations — which have been denied by the company, Aeronautics Defense Systems — the episode occured a little more than a month ago. Company officials were in Azerbaijan to promote their “suicide drone,” the Orbiter-1K, and Azerbaijani officials asked for a sort of live demonstration, to launch the drone into Armenian territory.

The drone operators refused, but then company officials armed and launched the drones themselves, according to the complaint.  Both are said to have missed their targets and caused no damage. The company has said that it is against their policy to demonstrate their arms using live fire.

The complaint was first reported by an Israeli newspaper, Maariv, then picked up by a number of other Israeli media. It’s not clear who filed the complaint.

Israel is one of Azerbaijan’s key foreign partners, and has provided Baku with some of its most sophisticated weaponry, including a reconnaissance version of the Orbiter. That drone is produced in Azerbaijan by an Azerbaijani-Israeli joint venture, Azad. Azerbaijan’s Israeli weapons, in particular drones, were used to significant effect in last year’s heavy fighting with Armenia.

Azad also has already been producing a suicide drone called Zerbe, apparently modeled on the Orbiter 1K. At an arms expo in Baku last year, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Defense Industry Yavar Jamalov said the Zerbes “have become a nightmare for the Armenian army.”

So it’s not clear why Israeli officials were on an apparent sales mission to Azerbaijan to show off the Oribiter 1K.

On July 7, the de facto military of Nagorno Karabakh reported that an Azerbaijani suicide drone hit close to an Armenian position near the line of contact between the two sides, injuring two Armenian soldiers. That attack would fit the timeline alleged in the Israeli complaint.

Later in July, a senior Israeli official made a rare visit to Armenia, and there have been signs that the Israeli government’s strong support of Azerbaijan may be wavering.

One Azerbaijani military analyst, Ramil Mamadli, said the new report was false. “This kind of disinformation aims to damage Azerbaijan-Israel military-technical relations. Behind this disinformation is either the competition between companies or the activity of the Armenian diaspora in Israel,” he told the website big.az. Azerbaijan’s government has yet to officially comment on the report.


Automated Fingerprint Analysis One Step Closer To Reality

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The first big case involving fingerprint evidence in the United States was the murder trial of Thomas Jennings in Chicago in 1911. Jennings had broken into a home in the middle of the night and, when discovered by the homeowner, shot the man dead. He was convicted based on fingerprints left at the crime scene, and for most of the next century, fingerprints were considered, both in the courts and in the public imagination, to be all but infallible as a method of identification.

More recently, however, research has shown that fingerprint examination can produce erroneous results. For instance, a 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences found that results, “are not necessarily repeatable from examiner to examiner,” and that even experienced examiners might disagree with their own past conclusions when they re-examine the same prints at a later date. These situations can lead to innocent people being wrongly accused and criminals remaining free to commit more crimes.

But scientists have been working to reduce the opportunities for human error. This week, scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Michigan State University report that they have developed an algorithm that automates a key step in the fingerprint analysis process. Their research has been published in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security.

“We know that when humans analyze a crime scene fingerprint, the process is inherently subjective,” said Elham Tabassi, a computer engineer at NIST and a co-author of the study. “By reducing the human subjectivity, we can make fingerprint analysis more reliable and more efficient.”

A Key Decision Point

If all fingerprints were high-quality, matching them would be a breeze. For instance, computers can easily match two sets of rolled prints–those that are collected under controlled conditions, as when you roll all 10 fingers onto a fingerprint card or scanner.

“But at a crime scene, there’s no one directing the perpetrator on how to leave good prints,” said Anil Jain, a computer scientist at Michigan State University and a co-author of the study. As a result, fingerprints left at a crime scene–so-called latent prints–are often partial, distorted and smudged. Also, if the print is left on something with a confusing background pattern such as a twenty-dollar bill, it may be difficult to separate the print from the background.

That’s why, when an examiner receives latent prints from a crime scene, their first step is to judge how much useful information they contain.

“This first step is standard practice in the forensic community,” said Jain. “This is the step we automated.”

Following that step, if the print contains sufficient usable information, it can be submitted to an Automated Fingerprint Identification System. The AFIS (pronounced AY-fiss) then searches its database and returns a list of potential matches, which the examiner evaluates to look for a conclusive match.

But the initial decision on fingerprint quality is critical.

“If you submit a print to AFIS that does not have sufficient information, you’re more likely to get erroneous matches,” Tabassi said. On the other hand, “If you don’t submit a print that actually does have sufficient information, the perpetrator gets off the hook.”

Currently, the process of judging print quality is subjective, and different examiners come to different conclusions. Automating that step makes the results consistent. “That means we will be able to study the errors and find ways to fix them over time,” Tabassi said.

Automating this step also will allow fingerprint examiners to process evidence more efficiently. That will allow them to reduce backlogs, solve crimes more quickly, and spend more time on challenging prints that require more work.

Training the Algorithm

The researchers used machine learning to build their algorithm. Unlike traditional programming in which you write out explicit instructions for a computer to follow, in machine learning, you train the computer to recognize patterns by showing it examples.

To get training examples, the researchers had 31 fingerprint experts analyze 100 latent prints each, scoring the quality of each on a scale of 1 to 5. Those prints and their scores were used to train the algorithm to determine how much information a latent print contains.

After training was complete, researchers tested the performance of the algorithm by having it score a new series of latent prints. They then submitted those scored prints to AFIS software connected to a database of over 250,000 rolled prints. All the latent prints had a match in that database, and they asked AFIS to find it.

This testing scenario was different from real casework, because in this test, the researchers knew the correct match for each latent print. If the scoring algorithm worked correctly, then the ability of AFIS to find that correct match should correlate with the quality score. In other words, prints scored as low-quality should be more likely to produce erroneous results–that’s why it’s so important to not inadvertently submit low- quality prints to AFIS in real casework–and prints scored as high-quality should be more likely to produce the correct match.

Based on this metric, the scoring algorithm performed slightly better than the average of the human examiners involved in the study.

What made this breakthrough possible, beside recent advances in machine learning and computer vision, was the availability of a large dataset of latent prints. Machine learning algorithms need large datasets for training and testing, and until now, large datasets of latent fingerprints have not been available to researchers, largely due to privacy concerns. In this case, the Michigan State Police provided the researchers with the testing dataset, after having first stripped the data of all identifying information.

The next step for the researchers is to use an even larger dataset. This will allow them to improve the algorithm’s performance and more accurately measure its error rate.

“We’ve run our algorithm against a database of 250,000 prints, but we need to run it against millions,” Tabassi said. “An algorithm like this has to be extremely reliable, because lives and liberty are at stake.”

Tiny Fraction Of Oceans Could Satisfy World’s Fish Demand

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From sashimi to smoked salmon, ceviche to mussels Provençal, seafood dishes are among the world’s best-loved culinary delights and dietary staples.

But the billions of people on the planet may love them too much. According to United Nations estimates, about 57 percent of fish stocks are exploited — meaning they can bear no more fishing without population decline — and 30 percent are over-exploited, depleted or recovering.

A solution may be on the horizon. According to a study published today and co-authored by Peter Kareiva, director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, ocean-farmed fish and seafood — or aquaculture — has the potential to satisfy global demand by using a tiny fraction of oceans. Freshwater fish farms have been around for a long time, but off-shore operations are a more recent development.

Drawing on the findings of the paper, which maps the global potential of aquaculture, a mere 0.025 percent of the world’s oceans could satisfy global demand for fish, which is at an all-time high. An area of prime locations the size of Lake Michigan could theoretically provide as much as all of the world’s wild-caught fisheries combined.

Kareiva said the findings offer hope for both the environment and people.

“We need to find more protein for our growing population, and we have pretty much tapped out wild fish as protein sources,” Kareiva said. “This study shows that farming fish in the ocean could play a huge role in feeding people without degrading our ocean or overfishing wild species.”

Previous research has mostly focused on specific aquaculture topics like where to best farm specific species, said Rebecca Gentry, the study’s lead author and a marine ecologist who got her doctorate from UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. When settling on the broad subject of the study, the research group — which includes non-governmental organizations, universities and industry experts — quickly discovered that there were many questions to answer.

“We realized that there is a lack of broad-scale science looking at how aquaculture can be done sustainably,” Gentry said. “We really didn’t know where it can be done, how much it can be done.”

First, they had to rule out areas that can’t be farmed — places like shipping lanes, marine protected areas and offshore drilling sites. They looked at the physiology of 180 species being farmed and what environments are most conducive to them, combining data like ocean depth, temperature and the biological needs of species. They also ruled out places that would be impractical given current technology — the middle of the ocean might be farmable in the future, but the industry can’t do it effectively now.

With warmer waters that support more life, “tropical countries tend to have the highest production potential,” Gentry said. “These are also the places where there’s a lot of need for economic development, with food security issues looming.”

Ocean aquaculture is already the fastest-growing food sector, but a lot of work remains to reach its vast potential. There are a few difficult barriers to overcome. In some countries, including the United States, a network of regulations makes it challenging to establish even a single farming operation, the researchers said. In other places, lack of regulation leads to environmental destruction — concentrated waste from poorly managed or designed operations can severely pollute waters and coastal areas.

Also, ocean aquaculture needs to compete in the marketplace and turn a profit, and farming in the open ocean is trickier than doing so close to shore, requiring extra investment. “It takes some engineering to be able to withstand waves and currents,” Gentry said. “The offshore environment can be a pretty brutal place. Having strong infrastructure is taking some time to get going.”

Aquaculture is a tradition that stretches back to at least the fifth century B.C., when East Asian farmers raised fish in their flooded rice fields. Doing it in the ocean is a more recent development — and has mostly taken place in sheltered bays and estuaries near land. Farming close to shore is often less sustainable because it lacks deep waters to disperse the byproducts of the process and interferes with other uses like recreation.

Poorly planned farms have led to negative press, much of it well-deserved, Gentry said. Farmed fish operations have often come with environmental degradation and problems with diseases and parasites. In recent years, however, the science and industry best practices have been refined. Now it’s a matter of putting it into action in a thoughtful way that takes into account the needs of various communities.

“We need to think and be smart and put it where it should go from a production, environmental and social perspective,” Gentry said.

Still, the growing industry has massive promise. Coastal countries like Argentina, Indonesia and India have fertile seas that could feed huge populations while providing local economic benefits. Doing it sustainably will not only keep fish on the menu, it will help wild populations bounce back, improving the health of all marine life.

Unique Imaging Of Dinosaur’s Skull Tells Evolutionary Tale

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Researchers using Los Alamos’ unique neutron-imaging and high-energy X-ray capabilities have exposed the inner structures of the fossil skull of a 74-million-year-old tyrannosauroid dinosaur nicknamed the Bisti Beast in the highest-resolution scan of tyrannosaur skull ever done. The results add a new piece to the puzzle of how these bone-crushing top predators evolved over millions of years.

“Normally, we look at a variety of thick, dense objects at Los Alamos for defense programs, but the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science was interested in imaging a very large fossil to learn about what’s inside,” said Ron Nelson, of the Laboratory’s Physics Division.

Nelson was part of a team that included staff from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the museum, the University of New Mexico and the University of Edinburgh. “It turns out that high energy neutrons are an interesting and unique way to image something of this size.”

The results helped the team determine the skull’s sinus and cranial structure. Initial viewing of the computed tomography (CT) slices showed preservation of un-erupted teeth, the brain cavity, internal structure in some bones, sinus cavities, pathways of some nerves and blood vessels, and other anatomical structures. These imaging techniques have revolutionized the study of paleontology over the past decade, allowing paleontologists to gain essential insights into the anatomy, development and preservation of important specimens. Team members will present their findings on the fossil, Bistahieversor sealeyi, August 23 at the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Calgary, Alberta.

To peer inside the 40-inch skull, which was found in 1996 in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area near Farmington, N.M. the Los Alamos team combined neutron and X-ray CT to extract anatomical information not accessible otherwise and without the risk of damaging the irreplaceable fossil. Los Alamos is one of a few places in the world that can perform both methods on samples ranging from the very small to the very large scale.

The thickness of the skull required higher energy X-rays than those typically available to adequately penetrate the fossil. The Lab’s microtron electron accelerator produced sufficiently high-energy X-rays.

To provide an alternate view inside the skull, the team also used a newly developed, high-energy neutron imaging technique with neutrons produced by the proton accelerator at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). The neutrons interact with the nuclei rather than the electrons in the skull, as X-rays do, and thus have different elemental sensitivity. This provides complementary information to that obtained with X-rays.

The team’s study illuminates the Bisti Beast’s place in the evolutionary tree that culminated in Tyrannosaurus rex.

“The CT scans help us figure out how the different species within the T. rex family related to each other and how they evolved,” said Thomas Williamson, Curator of Paleontology at the New Mexico museum. “The Bistahieversor represents the most basal tyrannosaur to have the big-headed, bone-crushing adaptations and almost certainly the small forelimbs. It was living alongside species more closely related to T. rex, the biggest and most derived tyrannosaur of all, which lived about 66 million years ago. Bistahieversor lived almost 10 million years before T. rex, but it also was a surviving member of a lineage that retained many of the primitive features from even farther back closer to when tyrannosaurs underwent their transition to bone-crushing.”

The Bisti Beast skull is the largest object to date for which full, high-resolution neutron and X-ray CT scans have been performed at the Laboratory and required innovations both to image the entire skull and to handle the image reconstruction from the resulting large data sets.

This work advances the state of the art in imaging capabilities at the Laboratory and is already proving useful in imaging larger programmatic items related to the Laboratory’s national security mission.

China Contributes To Doubts About Pakistani Crackdown On Militants – Analysis

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China, at the behest of Pakistan, has for the second time this year prevented the United Nations from listing a prominent Pakistani militant as a globally designated terrorist. China’s protection of Masood Azhar, who is believed to have close ties to Pakistani intelligence and the military, comes days after another militant group, whose leader is under house arrest in Pakistan, announced the formation of a political party.

The two developments cast doubt on the sincerity of Pakistan’s crackdown on militants a day after a suicide bomber killed 15 people when he rammed a motorcycle into a military truck in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan. Balochistan, a troubled province in which the military has supported religious militants an anti-dote to nationalist insurgents, has suffered a series of devastating attacks in the last year.

Taken together, the developments are unlikely to help Pakistan as the Trump administration weighs a tougher approach towards the South Asian country as part of deliberations about how to proceed in Afghanistan where US troops are fighting the Pakistani-backed Taliban.

US National Security Adviser Gen H.R. McMaster warned a week before the Chinese veto and the announcement of the new party, Milli Muslim League (MML), by Jamaat ud-Dawa (JuD), a charity that is widely viewed as a front for Lashkar-e-Taibe (LeT), a group designated as terrorist by the UN, that President Donald Trump wanted Pakistan to change its ‘paradoxical’ policy of supporting the militants.

“The president has also made clear that we need to see a change in behaviour of those in the region, which includes those who are providing safe haven and support bases for the Taliban, Haqqani Network and others,” Mr McMaster said.

Mr. McMaster said that the US wanted “to really see a change in and a reduction of their support for these groups…. They have fought very hard against these groups, but they’ve done so really only selectively,” he added.

Pakistan’s military and intelligence have used militant groups to maintain influence in Afghanistan and to support protests as well as an insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir. China’s repeated veto of a UN designation of Mr. Azhar, whose group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, has been proscribed by the international body as well as Pakistan, is not only bowing to Pakistani wishes but also a way of keeping India on its toes at a time of heightened Chinese-Indian tension.

Mr. Azhar, a fighter in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan and an Islamic scholar who graduated from a Deobandi madrassah, Darul Uloom Islamia Binori Town in Karachi, the alma mater of numerous Pakistani militants, is believed to have been responsible for an attack last year on India’s Pathankot Air Force Station. The militants, dressed in Indian military uniforms fought a 14-hour battle against Indian security forces that only ended when the last attacker was killed.

Mr. Azhar, a portly bespectacled son of a Bahawalpur religious studies teacher and author of a four-volume treatise on jihad as well as books with titles like Forty Diseases of the Jews, was briefly detained after the attack and has since gone underground.

Freed from Indian prison in 1999 in exchange for the release of passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines flight, Mr. Azhar is also believed to be responsible for an attack in 2001 on the Indian parliament in New Delhi that brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war. JeM despite being banned continues to publicly raise funds and recruit fighters in mosques.

JuD sources said the charity’s transition to a political party was in part designed to stop cadres from joining the Islamic State (IS). They said some 500 JuD activists had left the group to join more militant organizations, including IS. They said the defections often occurred after the Pakistani military launched operations against militants in areas like South Waziristan.

Pakistan listed LeT as a terrorist organization in 2002, but has only put JuD “under observation.” Pakistan’s media regulator in 2015 banned all coverage of the group’s humanitarian activities by the country’s news media.

JuD’s head, Muhammad Hafez Saeed, a UN and US-designated terrorist and one of the world’s most wanted men, has been under house arrest in Pakistan since early this year. Mr. Saeed is believed to be among others responsible for the 2008 attacks on 12 targets in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal Hotel, a train station, a café and a Jewish centre. Some 164 people were killed and more than 300 wounded. The US government has a bounty of $10 million on Mr. Saeed who was once a LeT leader. He has since disassociated himself from the group and denied any link between JuD and LeT.

“What role (Saeed) will play in the Milli Muslim League or in Pakistan’s ongoing politics will be seen after Allah ensures his release. (Once he is released) we will meet him and ask him what role he would like to play. He is the leader of Pakistan,” MML leader Saifullah Khalid told a news conference. Mr. Khalid added that Mr. Saeed’s release was high on the MML’s agenda.

Mr. Saeed was not present at the conference, which was attended by Yahya Mujahid, a close aide of his, who is also subject to UN terrorism sanctions.

Treating men like Mr. Azhar and Mr. Saeed with kid gloves is unlikely to earn Pakistan any goodwill in Mr. Trump’s Washington. China’s protection of Mr. Azhar, moreover, undermines its sincerity in claiming that it is cracking down on militancy despite its harsh policy in the restive province of Xinjiang. If anything, it could put Beijing in Mr. Trump’s crosshairs too.

Disinformation: Slow Burn Menace – Analysis

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Should state-sponsored disinformation campaigns be ranked as a national security threat on par with terror or cyber threats? How can the Singapore polity secure itself against such threats, and who should do what in the effort to shore up national resilience against this threat?

By Shashi Jayakumar*

Recent developments should cause us to rethink what should lie within the scope of core national security issues. While terror and cyber threats are capable of causing great damage, it is increasingly evident that we should not neglect slow-burn issues that can be equally, if not more pernicious. A case in point is sophisticated disinformation campaigns and influence operations aimed at subverting the resilience of societies.

Some researchers think they have found fake Facebook groups almost entirely populated by bots. These fake groups, convincingly operated and orchestrated, leverage on existing filter bubbles and echo chambers, eventually attracting real fans. It is possible, as some researchers have posited, that many supporters of Donald Trump in 2016 on the presidential campaign trail were emboldened to declare their support for the candidate by the artificially-created perception of a swell in support for him. In this way, some of these originally-fake pages or groups swelled with real people, with the “fake” aspects of these groups withering away.

State Actors

The actual extent of Russian involvement in social media manipulation described above, or in influence operations aimed at affecting the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election will be debated for years to come. What needs to be understood, however, is that these operations are simply one component of a suite that state actors employ to influence domestic affairs in other countries.

RSIS’ interactions with experts in this field suggest that these tools can work synergistically or independently. They include conventional intelligence operations, cyber attacks, disinformation operations, leveraging on political allies, agents of influence and NGOs in the targeted country, support for local extremists and fringe groups, disenfranchised ethnic minorities, and economic operations with political goals.

Whether or not an influence campaign is state-sponsored, the nature of the disinformation is not static. Consider Germany, which has faced a spate of fake news on a range of issues from asylum seekers to information in support of anti-Islamist agenda. Just as it has clamped down on fake news through legislation, fact-checking websites and NGOs that put out correctives, the actors behind fake news appear to have evolved their methods somewhat.

There are indications that those behind fake news are beginning to evolve their methods in ingenious ways – telling fewer lies and more truths, with the same objectives and possibly even more success, using slant, interpretation, or weasel words. This has implications for how we should think about legal regimes – any legislation introduced in Singapore would have to be future proofed.

Antidotes and Conversations?

The countering violent extremism (CVE) experience had also taught us that the source of the countermessaging matters. Sometimes official sources are needed – trusted facts. But equally, this sometimes leads to the “backfire” effect – where one, confronted by a rational and fact-based rebuttal, is reinforced even further in his or her original beliefs. So too more generally with the whole fake news phenomenon.

What might work better in some cases – both with CVE and with fake news – is not official messaging. In both cases, the extremist or subversive messaging can out-evolve official counternarrative. What is needed just as much, if not more, are credible voices. Face-to-face contact also matters.

Extrapolating from this, it would be useful to consider the extent to which any initiative to combat fake news or disinformation can be successful if only the media and online platforms are used in the rebuttal. It could instead be argued that critical discourse in the real-world will be required in order to extract individuals from cognitive bubbles.

RSIS’ contacts – particularly those who face the subversion threat with larger powers at their doorstep – have pointed out the importance of the need for governments to have open, frank discussions with the people about subversion. People thereby become attuned, but not paranoid.

Singapore saw the Our Singapore Conversation (OSC) initiative (2012-2013). Individuals involved in OSC dialogue sessions found it a useful thought exercise to come up against the sometimes very different views of their fellow citizens, helping all concerned realise that their own worldview, however rational it seemed to them, was not the only one.

A Singapore Security Conversation?

Two suggestions come to mind. One would be using SgSecure, which has at its core national resilience, to talk openly about disinformation and subversion, and not simply terrorism. The second would be identifying grassroots actors and trusted authorities, and involving them heavily in the process.

Government need not and should not completely evacuate this space, but one wonders if taking some of the agency and putting it in the hands of people seen to be impartial arbiters (NGOs, could even be private sector – because they have to have a role) may have some additional inoculative effect.

Researchers from the Baltic states – which have become used to disinformation – point to the importance of investing behind the scenes in groups of people and to tackle disinformation within the community. In Europe, some of the key advocacy has been done by think-tanks. Some of their activities include publicly challenging supporters of Russian-sponsored disinformation, throwing light on the disinformation campaign vehicles, and systematically building social resilience.

In February this year, the Russian defence minister acknowledged the existence of a corps of Russian information troops, declaring at the same time that propaganda needs to be “clever, smart and efficient”. It can safely be assumed that many states are watching the Russian playbook with great interest.

SMART Nations as Tempting Targets

It is not just the big powers that have the means. Unlike traditional weapons, the technological and psychological tools to carry out these operations are available to nations of all sizes with the requisite technological capability and imagination.

More study is needed too on the particular effect that organised disinformation campaigns can have on states that are polyglot and multiracial, and which are also data rich – states that aim to be SMART Nations. These would be tempting targets.

Some of the best disinformation campaigns proceed long before they are noticed, and long before any kinetic action or visible damage occurs. Likewise the counteraction has to start in the same vein. We have to make a start.

*Shashi Jayakumar is Head, Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), and Head of Future Issues and Technology (FIT) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. A version of this appeared in The Straits Times.

Freedom To Speak, Yes, But Not To Hate – OpEd

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By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed*

The late Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, the Saudi poet and novelist, was one of the most prominent figures to confront the hate movement in the early 1990s. His book “Until There Is No More Strife” is a significant historical and intellectual reference to an era plagued by the extremist “Sahwa,” or “Awakening” movement.

Public declarations of hatred and social incitement in media outlets are still common, but they take different forms. Before, hostile rhetoric against different ideologies was based on religious principles taken out of context. Today, some justify hate speech by claiming freedom of expression. But collective incitement is a crime: It is not the same as freedom of expression and discussion that can be tolerated even if it includes apparently racist ideas.

In the 1990s, hate speech emerged in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf along with regional and political disturbances and the development of technology. It also coincided with the imported ideas of the Awakening movement, which exploited religion, copied the culture of the Muslim Brotherhood and brought foreign political agendas into the Kingdom.

Each country’s standards of freedom differ according to their cultural experience. The concept of the Arab nation state is still relatively new, and requires a lot of time to mature. This can happen through the fusion of society into a harmonized civilized system — but it is no easy task.

This is evident today in Syria, Libya and Yemen. Wars erupted in those countries to promote notions such as nationalism, to demand reform and to reject the dictatorships of Bashar Assad, Muammar Qaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh. However, they ended up being narrow-interest partisan projects.

Hate speech may seem spontaneous to some, often a simple expression of inherited identity, but in reality it is the most basic threat to the cohesion of the state. Allowing groups to call for antagonizing other groups in the same society endangers the whole country and paves the way for tribal and regional discrimination.

Examples in two different places at the same time indicate that the disease can take hold anywhere.

The first incident was in this part of the world, where racist bigots incited hatred of those mourning the death of the great Kuwaiti actor Abdulhussain Abdulredha. The second was in the US, where violent white nationalists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, to proclaim their superiority over other races. Incidentally, anyone who supports these people’s freedom of speech should note that no responsible US media supported or defended the racists: Their hate speech was rejected even though freedom of expression is protected by the US constitution.

In the US as well as here, social media is a challenge for the state because it is out of control and used by racists to promote their ideas and mobilize public opinion. Surely, if racist rhetoric became a phenomenon that threatened the stability of society, US legislators would intervene to set limits and sanctions on using social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. But matters have not reached that stage yet.

Racism might seem prevalent in the US and people are allowed to express it, but in reality they are banned from practicing it. The law prohibits discrimination, such as refusing to hire someone or educating someone for racist reasons.

We know that sectarian bigots who criticize tributes to Abdulredha are not targeting him personally or insulting and rejecting him, but rather exploiting the occasion to impose their opinions in order to create conflict.

Like war, racism is a disease present in all societies and will always exist. Civilized countries aim to fight it with the law, and with education.

Expressing hatred of another citizen can undermine a whole country. So, when we reject hate promoters, it is not only out of respect for the late Abdulredha, or to defend him, but also to protect the cohesion of the nation.

Racism is an expression of hatred aimed at anyone who is not of the same region, town, sect, color, race or opinion. Such behavior leads to division and conflict in society.

• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a veteran columnist. He is the former general manager of Al Arabiya News Channel, and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published.

Cold Welcome For Venezuelans In Trinidad

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By Milena Hidalgo

When 19-year-old Christian Espinel left Venezuela for Trinidad and Tobago, he thought he was heading for a better life. But the only work he could find was as a bricklayer.

One day at work, a nail pierced his leg and he was taken to hospital. After undergoing tests, Espinel was diagnosed with leukaemia. He had no money and was in the country illegally, so was told to leave the hospital without treatment.

A few friends managed to gather the funds to pay for his trip back to Venezuela, but Espinel never made it to the plane. The teenager had a stroke at the airport and died shortly after, back at the hospital. He returned home, but in a coffin.

Espinel was among thousands of Venezuelans who have traveled to Trinidad and Tobago in recent years, and numbers are rising dramatically. In 2015, over 25,000 Venezuelans entered the country as “tourists”, compared to the 6,000 registered in 2013 and 2014. Citizens do not need a visa for Trinidad but can only remain on the island for 90 days.

A 22-year-old Venezuelan woman, Marisol (not her real name), heard about Espinel’s story through mutual acquaintances.

“I was stunned that Christian had no guaranteed rights just because he had remained in the country illegally.” she said. “Trinidad and Tobago is no country for migrants,” said Marisol.

Marisol has also experienced prejudice. After she narrowly escaped assault by a taxi driver who threatened to kill her if she didn’t give him oral sex, she turned to the police for help.

They refused to register the assault and instead asked her, “What were you wearing?”

But despite these problems, Marisol says she prefers to live on the island rather than in Venezuela. The food shortages, the world’s highest rates of inflation, the violence and the political persecution in her homeland have convinced her to stay.

Over two million Venezuelans have left the country since 1999, when former president Hugo Chávez rose to power.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, according to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). But it now has the highest inflation on the planet, according to the World Bank, with forecasts indicating that this will rise above 680 per cent by the end of 2017.

Violence is also widespread. The murder rate was 58 per 100,000 people in 2016, according to the UN. Over 100 protesters have died since demonstrations against the current government headed by president Nicolás Maduro began in April.

“Venezuela presents one of the worst crossroads in recent history” for “serious violations” of constitutionally guaranteed civil and political rights, said Érika Guevara-Rosas, director of Amnesty International’s Americas division, when she visited the country in June to meet opposition members.

Venezuelan migrants head mainly for Colombia, the United States and Spain, according to oficial data. But Trinidad and Tobago has become another convenient refuge due to its proximity, as it lies only 100 kilometres off Venezuela’s northeast coast. The journey takes about three hours, and small vessels carrying between 12 and 16 passengers arrive at the main entry point of Los Cedros at least twice a week.

“Those who come here have no other choice,” said Rochelle Nakhid from the Living Water Community, an organisation that helps migrants in Trinidad and Tobago.

She added that it was impossible to truly know how many Venezuelans were entering the country.

“No one has that number,” she concluded.

The newcomers have few protections in Trinidad and Tobago. With a population of 1.3 million, the government says the country is too small to receive migrants. They also have crucial economic ties with Venezeula.

“Venezuelans face a difficult situation when they arrive in Trinidad,” said Farid Scoon, a Trinidadian lawyer who specialises in migration issues. “Our government and Venezuela’s government have many financial deals so, their rights are not exactly a priority.”

The two countries have signed a number of bilateral agreements on energy, including a March deal to build a gas pipeline.

And Trinidad and Tobago abstained from voting at a special assembly of the Organisation of American States (OAS), called in June specifically to analyze the situation in Venezuela. Neither of the two proposed declarations on Venezuela got the necessary votes to be approved.

“The situation is out of control and the authorities prefer to look the other way,” Scoon continued.

For Venezuelans to obtain legal status, they have to marry a Trinidadian citizen or obtain a student permit. If caught with no papers, they risk fines of up to 2,000 US dollars and can be imprisoned for an indefinite period in harsh conditions. Eventually, they face deportation.

One Living Water volunteer, a Venezuelan lawyer, arrived in the country with her Trinidadian husband. She said she was among the lucky ones, adding, “It’s quite likely that most of the people here may never get legal status.”

For homesick Venezuelans scattered across the island, Facebook is a crucial way to keep in touch.

Demand seems high among the migrants for a familiar taste of home. On one Facebook page, someone offered a can of Pirulín, a Venezuelan brand of chocolate wafers, for the high price of 50 Trinidadian dollars, or 7.4 dollars.

“I want a can, where can I get it?” asked another Venezuelan.

“I already sold them all,” the seller replied.


This article was published by IWPR


Understanding Alternative Reasons For Denying Climate Change Could Help Bridge Divide

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Mainstream criticism of people who deny climate change essentially portrays climate skeptics as being out of touch, ignorant or somehow incapable of understanding the facts about climate change.

However, an early look at ongoing work by a University of Kansas researcher examines alternative reasons for climate change denial, specifically economic, social or cultural influences on why individuals or entire communities remain skeptical of climate change.

“The most obvious example of this is the instance of an individual who works for an industry, such as in oil and gas production, that may be negatively impacted by regulatory policy,” said Jacob Lipsman, a KU doctoral student in Sociology. “This also functions on the community level; for instance, in southeast Louisiana, oil and gas represents a disproportionate source of revenue for coastal parishes.”

His project focuses on two Louisiana parishes adjacent to the mouth of the Mississippi River — Plaquemines and St. Bernard. Lipsman assessed perceptions of environmental risk among a vulnerable population in the region and the links between attitudes about climate change and local discursive and political processes surrounding coastal restoration issues in the region.

It is crucial to study these issues in Louisiana right now because the state has already lost over 1,800 square miles of land–an area the size of the state of Delaware– to coastal erosion.

“This land loss has major impacts on communities both directly in terms of increased flood vulnerability and indirectly through potentially decreased economic productivity,” he said.

He will present findings of pilot research in the project on Tuesday, Aug. 15, at the American Sociological Association’s 2017 annual meeting in Montreal. The project was funded on a grant from the National Science Foundation, and the KU Institute for Policy & Social Research provided assistance with the award submission and will help to manage the award.

So far in his research, Lipsman has found despite the higher than average rates of climate change denial in southeast Louisiana, parish residents have shown an environmental awareness that, on the surface, seems inconsistent with climate attitudes.

“Local residents are aware of coastal erosion and are focused on addressing this issue, whether or not they attribute this land loss to climate change,” he said.

A major centerpiece of coastal policy is the Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, a 50-year, $50 billion series of proposals designed to restore Louisiana’s coast. The master plan includes a range of project types including sediment diversions, shoreline protection, hydrologic restoration, structural protection, non-structural protection, and others.

While residents may not be entirely focused climate change itself, the coastal master plan is a major focus in local politics, particularly since the legal settlement from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill has made major funding avenues available for the execution of the master plan.

The region is a prime place to study alternative reasons for climate change denial because southeast Louisiana communities rely so heavily on oil and gas, commercial fishing and maritime industry — all of which would be affected by environmental regulations — for revenue.

“We investigate whether this rather than an inability to understand basic science, is a contributor to climate skepticism in the region,” Lipsman said.

This work could help those who advocate for climate change policies in how they engage with those who deny climate change based on economic or cultural factors, he said.

“If an individual or a community is resistant to the idea of climate change for economic or social reasons, climate advocates will not be able to effectively communicate with these individuals about climate change simply by presenting more data,” Lipsman said. “By better understanding the processes of climate change denial, climate advocates will be better equipped to have an effective dialogue with individuals and communities that are skeptical of these ideas.”

Sri Lanka: Sirisena Says All Must Unite To Bring Peace, Eliminating Disharmony

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Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena said the solution to all the economic, social and ethnic issues of the country lies in ensuring that everybody has the right to live in society without any division or mistrust.

Sirisenat further said that all must unite to build a society in this Buddhist country, where all the communities live with trust and act in mutual understanding while eliminating disharmony.

Sirisena made these remarks participating in a religious ceremony at the Weherahena Purwarama Rajamaha Viharaya in Matara on August 11 to present the Scroll to the Chief Incumbent of the Buddhist Cultural Centre of Nedimala, Dehiwala and Executive Committee Member of the Weherahena Siri Revata Maha Pirivena most Ven. Kirama Wimalajothi Nayaka Thero, who was appointed as the Chief Sanganayake of Southern Sri Lanka.

President Sirisena appreciated the great service rendered by the Most Ven. Kirama Wimalajothi Nayaka Thero for the development of the Buddhist community at the national as well as international level and further said that he is an exemplary Buddhist monk.

Sirisena pointed out the importance of the young Bhikkhus act in a manner which protects the dignity and recognition of the noble Bhikkhu society and said that it is the desire of the Buddhist society to see a disciplined bhikkhu generation and he further said that the manner in which certain young Bhikkhus act in protests and rallies, when being telecast by the media around the world, creates a misconception of the Bhikkhu society.

Iraq-Saudi Arabia Border To Open For First Time In 27 Years

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Reuters reports that Saudi Arabia and Iraq plan to open the Arar border crossing since its closure in 1990 and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

For the past 27 years the border has been closed aside from once annually for the Hajj pilgrimage.

This move is the latest indication of developing alliances between the gulf and Iraq, and follows the decision on Monday by the Saudi government to establish a joint trade deal with Iraq.

Influential Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also made a tour of Saudi Arabia and the UAE earlier this month, resulting in a $10 million deal with Sadr to open a consulate in Najaf and support investments in Shia areas of southern Iraq.

The True Meaning Of Patriotism – OpEd

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When I was a child I once asked my father that what was patriotism. “Humanity,” he said.

The next day I got a big red cross in my notebook beside my definition of patriotism and humanity. My teacher told me that I had written a totally different and opposite meaning. It was unexpected. I believed that my father couldn’t be wrong, after all he was an educated and intellectual person. My teacher told me that patriotism is vigorous support for one’s country, it’s an attachment to a homeland that is closely related to nationalism.

With the passage of time I realized that my teacher was right, so I could no longer doubt her knowledge anymore. On many occasions, I felt a devotion for my country, such as when our national team won a match and we celebrated it together. On Independence Day we waved flags, sang the national anthem, national songs and celebrated national parties. When we went abroad we abruptly become emotional and felt homesick. When we notice that our country is in some kind of political crisis, at war or suffering from natural disasters we support our country in a very positive way.

However, as I grew older my theory of patriotism changed again, but this time I was pretty sure my dad was right, even though I couldn’t understand his logic at that time. Personally we all live in a nutshell; our individuality is more sacred and respectful than unity. Additionally, we prefer to live in that shell though we all strongly believe in unity too. Some of us are so possessive that we can do anything for ourselves, we can cross any limit, without thinking about national interests and patriotism.

Elaborating a bit more, I have noticed many times for example that demonstrators often ruin public and private properties, and they don’t care if their actions cause a big loss to innocent people and affect the country’s image. Institutions and markets  are closed due to road-blocks, hospitalized patients and their attendants suffer, daily wagers become jobless and the casual worker can’t reach their offices on time, the economy is affected, security issues go high alert, but who cares, as the protestors keep acting for their own personal purposes and interests.

During student life, we all claim that we will serve our country, but for beneficial issues, for example we will go on strike to demand higher wages. And yet, whenever we get a chance we resign our jobs and go abroad to earn a higher income with hopes of a better future without even thinking that such actions could cause a brain drain and the country cannot bear the loss of qualified people.

Furthermore, not letting the adequate people to do their job, as a result of egos and jealousy, is not just immoral, but it badly affects the overall attitude of a nation. If we don’t let eligible people reach the top just because we are not capable of getting there, this leads to the deterioration of the country.

Corruption is another tribulation; unfortunately the corruption ratio is high in poor and developing countries. Bribes kill merits and break the rule. In addition, family violence, adultery, child marriage, child labor, adulteration, sexual abuse, murder and other criminal acts are mostly the result of corruption that not only defames the country, but also ruins our personal lives. A country is not defined by its geography, atmosphere, environment and boundaries, rather it is defined by its nation. We make our country’s status, and our every single move can make or demolish our country’s image even though we keep claiming that we are patriotic, devoted to our nation and homeland and will die for her. Indeed it’s the height of hypocrisy.

As charity begins at home we have to clean ourselves first, and prefer our country’s image over personal and political benefits. As the world is like a global village and the media is playing vital role, I often couldn’t understand the meaning of freedom of speech that our media outlets were using.

Unfortunately my father is no longer alive, if he were I would ask him what actually is freedom of speech? Most electronic and print media outlets appear to be spreading rumors, rather than facts and reality. Criticism is good, but propaganda is not accepted. Once my mum narrated a story: “After the war in France, a man was walking on a road waving a stick and yelling ‘I am free, I am free.’ Suddenly the stick hit a person who was passing by, and hurt him. The passerby stopped the man and said to him, ‘Look your freedom ends when my nose starts to bleed, so please watch out.'”

Freedom doesn’t mean that we cross every limit. Don’t let your immorality offend your patriotism. “Our flag doesn’t fly because the wind moves it; it flies with the last breath of every solider sacrificing his life protecting it.”

Our country needs unity not rumors, propaganda and narcissism. In conclusion, humanity, caring and loving your people is patriotism.

*Ms. Sarwat Najib is an Afghan writer, columnist, researcher, critic and a poet.

The Betrayal Of India – Review

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Perhaps the FBI needs guys like Elias Davidsson to solve the circumstances of the 9/11 attacks. Could he have been successful within such an organization? Usually, the FBI investigators can only go so far as their superiors want them to go. That’s why a highly qualified researcher such as Davidsson would have gone nowhere within the FBI.

In the 9/11 community, Davidsson is no blank sheet. He has published books on 9/11 and the follow-up terrorist attacks that set the world on fire. “Hijacking America’s Mind on 9/11″1, followed by “Psychological Warfare and Social Denial: The Legend of 9/11 and the Fiction of Terrorism” (Psychologische Kriegsführung und Gesellschaftliche Leugnung: Die Legende des 9/11 und die Fiktion der Terrorbedrohung)2 presented a different narrative. An English translation of a condensed version would be very informative and highly useful for the English speaking public.

The Betrayal of India, Pharos, New Delhi 2017, 905 pp.
The Betrayal of India, Pharos, New Delhi 2017, 905 pp.

The elucidation of a terrorist offense suffers from the fact that governments clean up only as much as it benefits them politically. Such an approach also holds true for the Mumbai attacks. The impression given by the Indian government that all facts were on the table, is, according to Davidsson, false. As with the “9/11 Commission Report”, which pretends to present the real events and the backgrounds, the same holds true for the processing of this heinous crime of 26/11, 2008. In both cases, statements of witnesses, which didn’t support the official narrative were glossed over or brushed aside.

That’s why Davidsson’s book is so important. In 25 chapters he unravels not only the motivations and the cover-up of the Indian government but also the multifaceted interests of international actors such as Pakistan, the U.S., and possibly Great Britain, Germany, Israel, Iran, Russia, China, and even Australia.

“The book is about the betrayal of the Indian nation by a corrupt, greedy and ruthless elite for whom the lives of ordinary Indians are expendable when power and profit are at stake,” writes the author. From day one, a particular part of the official account was questioned, namely, the circumstances surrounding the deaths of three senior police officials and their assistants. Many Indians voiced their suspicion that the authorities were covering-up facts and called for an independent and impartial investigation of the events.

To understand 26/11, the reader must not work one’s way through the whole book sequentially because the author has attempted to render individual chapters independent of each other. All chapters close with a summary or conclusions. Davidsson’s book is always very well documented by many footnotes. Additionally, all sources used are accessible using the following URL; http://aldeilis.net/mumbai/
The author presents three definite conclusions; firstly, India’s major institutions are suppressing the truth on 26/11; secondly, India’s judiciary has failed its duty to seek truth and render justice; thirdly, Business, political and military circles profited from 26/11. Furthermore, entities in the U. S. and Israel also gained from the attack. The author could not find any benefits for the Pakistani government, military or businesses. The main profiteer seems the Hindu nationalist constituencies by the “elimination” of Hemant Karkare, “who was on the verge of exposing Hindutva terrorist networks.
Davidsson calls on the Indian Civil society to ask for the establishment of a National Truth Commission on 26/11 mandated to establish the facts on the attacks of 26 November 2008. The Civil society itself should demand the creation of an International Commission of Inquiry on the previous terrorist attacks under the authority of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, including those committed in the U. S. on 11 September 2001.
With this study, the Indian Civil society has a document at its disposal to challenge the official narrative. The overall objective of the author, however, is the exposure of all the key terror attacks, especially 9/11, which lacks to this day any evidence that 19 Muslims were the perpetrators.

This very compact but exciting book should contribute to the solving of the 26/11 crime. A must read for everybody interested in the truth.

Notes:
1. http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/2013/08/hijacking-americas-mind-on-911.html
2. http://betweenthelines-ludwigwatzal.com/2017/01/24/psychologische-kriegsfuehrung-und-gesellschaftliche-leugnung-die-legende-ueber-911/

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