By Mladen Lakic

The Bosnian Serb police arrested a man in the town of Pale after they searched his apartment and found an original copy of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the Bosnian war.

Officers from the Republika Srpska interior ministry’s Directorate for Organised and Serious Crimes arrested the suspect in Pale on Tuesday in possession of one of the four original copies of the peace agreement that ended the war.

The copy had been missing since at least 2008.

“I can confirm that today there was an arrest, that we found [the document] and that the person was handed over to the Banja Luka prosecutor’s office,” Republika Srpska’s police director, Darko Culum, told N1 TV.

The suspect is believed to be Zeljko Kuntos, an ex-security guard and close associate of Dragan Kalinic, a former president of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska who is now an adviser to Republika Srpska’s President Milorad Dodik, BN TV reported.

In 2008, it was noticed that the copy of the agreement was missing from the archive of the Bosnian presidency, but an investigation showed that the document was never there at all.

Earlier this year, Serbia also said that its original copy of the Dayton Agreement was missing.

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said in August that no state institution is now in possession of the document.

A few days earlier, Serbian tabloid Srpski Telegraf reported that police in the country had launched an investigation into the missing document.

The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina was reached at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in the US after a series of difficult negotiations.

It was signed in Paris on December 14, 1995 by Slobodan Milosevic for Serbia, Alija Izetbegovic for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Franjo Tudjman for Croatia, Bill Clinton for the US, Jacques Chirac for France, John Major for Britain, Helmut Kohl for Germany and Viktor Chernomyrdin for Russia.

By Jamie Dettmer

The Islamic State terror group is trying to sell a transnational image, but its future doesn’t lie West of the Middle East, according to analysts.

The group’s claims do not match its actual operational capacity, according to researchers, but the focus by Western media and politicians of IS-inspired or directed attacks on civilians in America and Europe is obscuring the limits of the terror group’s reach.

According to the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium, the future of the jihadist terror group lies mostly east of the Levant and not in Western cities as the center of the gravity of its operations shifts to the Philippines and Asia.

In an exhaustive study of attacks claimed outside Iraq and Syria from May to September for the past three years, TRAC found a disparity between IS’s worldwide propaganda campaign and actual attacks.

“IS’s highlighting of terror attacks against civilians in Western Europe, and the mainstream media’s obsession with those attacks, serves to obscure important aspects of Islamic State strategy,” said Veryan Khan, TRAC’s editorial director. The consortium’s assessment “reveals as much about Islamic State’s limitations as its aspirations,” she said.

More than half of all IS claimed attacks outside the Levant are focused on just three countries: the Philippines, Afghanistan and Egypt.

“TRAC contends that these places, which receive scant Western attention, represent the narrative of IS future territory,” the research consortium says in its report “Islamic State – Outside the Caliphate by the Numbers.”

At first glance, IS’s global reach for attacks would appear to be expanding. IS propagandists claimed 21 attacks in seven countries from May 20 to September 22, 2015. The following year for the corresponding four-month period they claimed 80 attacks in 21 countries.

The number of attack claims nearly tripled in 2017 with 222 in 21 countries, but 175 of them, account for 80 percent, occurred in just three countries, the Philippines (99 claims), Afghanistan (43 claims), and Egypt (33 claims). In the case of those three countries, just three areas in them accounted for 115 of the 222 claimed attacks, Marawi city in Philippines’ Autonomous Region of Muslim Majority, Nangahar province in Afghanistan and Egypt’s upper Sinai.

IS also appears to be unable to maintain attacks in several countries. During 2017 the group could not claim repeat attacks, either directed or inspired in 10 countries that had seen attack claims in 2015, Bangladesh went from six claims in 2016 to none in 2017; Saudi Arabia had three in 2015 but none since.

“The inability to repeat attacks in the same location summer after summer highlights the Islamic State’s lack of sustainability,” the TRAC argues.

The number-crunching by TRAC provides an alternative picture about IS’s likely future. Western media coverage focuses on claimed attacks in Europe and America, understandably as those attacks are occurring in their own backyard, but it boosts the IS threat and often fails to provide context.

In 2017, Britain topped the newcomer’s list with three high-profile claimed attacks, which received more attention in the Western media than the siege of Marawi in the Philippines, and the nearly 70 claimed attacks in the country.

Western intelligence agencies say there will be more IS-linked attacks in the West for the foreseeable future, despite the shrinking of the territory the jihadist group controls in the Levant, where it has lost all its urban strongholds and is now confined to the sparsely-inhabited border territories between Iraq and Syria.

Analysts say the so-called Caliphate was useful in the marketing of IS and attracting foreign recruits, as well as allowing the group to differentiate itself from rival al-Qaida, which opposed the setting up of an Islamic state and ridiculed the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s self-appointment as caliph.

Now one of the only ways for the terror group to remain relevant and to try to continue to outshine its jihadist competitor al-Qaida, say French and Belgian intelligence officials, is to strike the West as frequently as it can. But officials are taking some consolation in the fact that most attacks claimed by the group in the West have been inspired, rather than directed or organized by IS.

“We may look back at the coordinated November 2015 Paris attacks and identify them as the high point in the IS threat in the West,” a senior British intelligence official told VOA.

He added, “What we have seen since are mainly low-tech, opportunistic incidents by lone wolves. That may not be any comfort to the public, but in an odd way it should be. My longer-term concern is what we can expect from al-Qaida, which is re-grouping and has the patience and depth of operatives to pull off spectacular strategic attacks.”

A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised members of Russia’s human rights council by informing them that some shadowy entity – possibly with ties to the United States – had been collecting biological tissues from Russians from different ethnic groups, the group responsible for harvesting the tissue has revealed itself.

While some initially discounted Putin’s remarks as another loony conspiracy theory, as it turns out, he was right: The group responsible for the tissue collection was none other than the US Air Force, proving that yet another conspiracy theory has become a conspiracy fact.

A representative for the US Air Force Education and Training Command explained to Russia Today that the choice of the Russian population was not intentional, and is related to “research” the Air Force is conducting on the human musculoskeletal system. Yep, the US Airforce now does “bio-research”.

Eyebrows were first raised in July when the AETC issued a tender seeking to acquire samples of ribonucleic acid and synovial fluid from Russians, adding that all samples (12 RNA and 27 synovial fluid) “shall be collected from Russia and must be Caucasian.” The Air Force said it wouldn’t collect samples from Ukrainians, but didn’t specify why.

According to AETC spokesman Capt. Beau Downey, the 59th medical group’s molecular research center is currently conducting “locomotor studies to identify various biomarkers associated with trauma.”

Downey told Russian media that the study required two sets of samples: disease and control samples of RNA and synovial membrane. The first set was provided by a “US-based company.”

Since the first set of tissue, provided by a US company, was sourced from Russia, the Air Force opted to collect the second set of data from Russians, too, to eliminate any confounding variables that could skew the results of the study. He did not say which set – the control or the diseased set – was collected first, and neglected to provide any further details about the study.

However, some suspect that this explanation is merely a ruse, and that the Pentagon is collecting the tissue for a much more sinister purpose, according to RT.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Russian genetic material is being harvested all over the country. “Do you know that biological material is being collected all over the country, from different ethnic groups and people living in different geographical regions of the Russian Federation? The question is – why is it being done? It’s being done purposefully and professionally. We are a kind of object of great interest,” Putin told Russia’s Human Rights Council, without specifying who might be behind the activities involving Russians’ biological samples. “Let them do what they want, and we must do what we must,” he said.

The fact that Russian tissue samples specifically are on the wanted list made some wonder whether the Pentagon is working on a biological weapon to target Russians. “I’m not saying that it is about preparing a biological war against Russia. But its scenarios, are, no doubt, being worked on. That is to say, in case the need suddenly arises,” Franz Klintsevich, the first deputy chairman of the Federation Council’s Committee for Defense and Security, wrote on Facebook. “It is also no secret that different ethnic groups react differently to biological weapons. Hence the collection of the biological material from Russians living in different geographical locations. In the west, everything is done extremely scrupulously and is verified up to the tiniest detail.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Tuesday that Russian special services are in possession of intelligence suggesting that US funded “NGOs” are collecting the genetic material – intelligence that presumably prompted Putin’s initial speculation about who might be behind the collections.

“Some emissaries are really carrying out such activities, representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and other bodies. Such cases were registered, and security services, the president naturally have this information,” he said.

This is not the first attempt to collect samples of Russian genetic material by foreign agencies in Russia, Igor Nikulin, a former member of the UN biological weapons commission, told RT.

“Such attempts were made back in the 90s, when there was a Human Genome program, then there were various programs in the 2000s too… under different pretexts, including the most noble, but for some reason all this happens in the interests of the US military department, and this raises suspicion,” Nikulin said.

He noted that, as a rule, “samples of Europeans of the Slavic group, mostly Russians” are sought-after. “Blood samples are taken for analysis, and if an organization is foreign, what they are doing with the results is always unknown,” he said.

Despite or, in some cases, because of the support it receives from the government and the new “anti-extremism” laws deployed against others, the Russian Orthodox Church is increasingly isolated from Russians in the North Caucasus and is losing many of them to Protestant groups who are also attracting some Muslims as well.

This continues a trend that experts pointed to five years ago at about the time when the Moscow Patriarchate set up a new bishopric in Daghestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya in the hope of stemming its losses and recovering its dominance among the remaining ethnic Russians in these republics (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/218670/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/217888/).

Ruslan Gereyev, the director of the Center for Islamic Research on the North Caucasus, says that the major reason for Orthodoxy’s failure and Protestantism’s success is that “unlike Protestant and Muslim preachers, representatives of the Russian Orthodox church do not reach out to the population” (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/Protestants_orthodoxe_islam_500_years/).

Because they are more active in proselytizing, Protestants have been able to gain new adherents more quickly despite the Orthodox Church’s reliance on the state’s declaration of some as “foreign agents” or extremists.” Indeed, Gereyev says, the focus on Islamist extremism means that most of the time Protestants can function without attracting official attention.

Gereyev adds that because most of its priests are old and keep themselves hidden from society, Orthodoxy is no longer “fashionable” among the young, and so “Muslims and Orthodox Christians are adopting the faith of the Baptists, Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists, and other Protestant denominations.”

As a result, the Protestants have made some significant gains. In Makhachkala, the capital of Daghestan, there are now about 30,000 Orthodox Christians, about the same number as five years ago, but there are 7,000 Protestants, far more than before. For the North Caucasus as a whole, there are more than 150 congregations registered and far more unregistered.

In North Ossetia, Protestantism is especially strong because of neighboring Georgia, local experts say. Protestant churches are well-organized, use modern communications techniques, and “are always ready to help people in difficulty,” something that cannot be said of the Russian Orthodox.

In that republic, there are cases “when Muslims convert to Protestantism and the reverse,” Gereyev says. And in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, there are now more registered communities of Protestants than there are Orthodox parishes. Only Muslims have more, local officials say.

By Conn Hallinan*

As the clock ticks down on Britain’s exit from the European Union, one could not go far wrong casting British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as the hopeful Miranda in Shakespeare’s Tempest: “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in’t.”

And Conservative Party Prime Minister Theresa May as Lady Macbeth: “Out damned spot, out, I say!”

With the French sharpening their knives, the Tories in disarray, the Irish demanding answers, and a scant 17 months to go before Brexit kicks in, the whole matter is making for some pretty good theater. The difficulty is distinguishing between tragedy and farce.

The Conservative’s Party’s Oct. 1-4 conference in Manchester was certainly low comedy.

The meeting hall was half empty, May’s signature address was torpedoed by a coughing fit, and a prankster who handed her a layoff notice. Then the Tories’ vapid slogan “Building a country that works for everyone” fell on to the stage. And several of May’s cabinet members were openly jockeying to replace her.

In contrast, the Labor Party’s conference at Brighton a week earlier was jam-packed with young activists busily writing position papers, and Corbyn gave a rousing speech that called for rolling back austerity measures, raising taxes on the wealthy, and investing in education, health care, and technology.

Looming over all of this is March 2019, the date by which the complex issues involving Britain’s divorce from the EU need to be resolved. The actual timeline is even shorter, since it will take at least six months for the European parliament and the EU’s 28 members to ratify any agreement.

Keeping all those ducks in a row is going to take considerable skill, something May and the Conservatives have shown not a whit of.

A Messy Divorce

The key questions to be resolved revolve around people and money, of which the first is the stickiest.

Members of the EU have the right to travel and work anywhere within the countries that make up the trade alliance. They also have access to health and welfare benefits, although there are some restrictions on these. Millions of non-British EU citizens currently reside in the United Kingdom. What happens to those people when Brexit kicks in? And what about the 2 million British that live in other EU countries?

Controlling immigration was a major argument for those supporting an exit from the EU, though its role has been over-estimated. Many Brexit voters simply wanted to register their outrage with the mainstream parties — Labor and Tories alike — that had, to one extent or another, backed policies which favored the wealthy and increased economic inequality. In part, the EU was designed to lower labor costs in order to increase exports.

Indeed, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (1982 to 1998) pressed the EU to admit Central and Eastern Europe countries precisely because they would provide a pool of cheap labor that could be used to weaken unions throughout the trade bloc. In this he was strongly supported by the British. Union membership in Britain has declined from over 13 million in 1979 to just over 6 million today.

The Conservatives want to impede immigration while also having full access to the trade bloc, what has been termed the “have your cake and eat it too” strategy. So far that approach has been a non-starter with the rest of the EU. Polls show that only 30 percent of EU members think that that Britain should be offered a favorable deal. This drops to 19 percent in France.

The Conservatives themselves are split on what they want. One faction is pressing for a “hard Brexit” that rigidly controls immigration, abandons the single market and customs union, and rejects any role for the European Court of Justice.

A rival “soft Brexit” faction would accept EU regulations and the Court of Justice, because they are afraid that bailing out of the single market will damage the British economy. Given that countries like Japan, China, and the U.S. seem reluctant to cut independent trade deals with the UK, that is probably an accurate assessment.

While the Tories are beating up on one another, the Labor Party has distanced itself from the issue, quietly supporting a “soft” exit, but mainly talking about the issues that motivated many of the Brexit voters in the first place: the housing crisis, health care, the rising cost of education, and growing inequality. That platform worked in the June 2017 snap election that saw the Conservatives lose their parliamentary majority and Labor pick up 32 seats.

Divorces are not only messy, they’re expensive.

This past September, May offered to pay the EU 20 billion euros to disentangle Britain from the bloc, but EU members are demanding at least 60 billion — some want up to 100 billion — and refuse to talk about Britain’s access to the trade bloc until that issue is resolved. All talk of “cake” has vanished.

Troubles on the Border

And then there is Ireland.

The island is hardly a major player in the EU — the Republic’s GDP is 15^th in the big bloc. But it shares a border with Northern Ireland. Even though the North voted to remain in the EU, as part of the UK it will have to leave when Britain does. What happens with its border is no small matter, in part because it is not a natural one.

Those counties that were a majority Protestant in 1921 became part of Ulster, while Catholic majority counties remained in the southern Republic. During the “Troubles” from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, the border was heavily militarized and guarded by thousands of British troops. No one — north or south — wants walls and watch towers again.

But trade between the Republic and Ulster will have to be monitored to ensure that taxes are paid, environmental laws are followed, and all of the myriad of EU rules are adhered to.

Other than trade, there is the matter of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended the fighting between Catholics and Protestants. While laying out a way to settle the differences between the two communities through power sharing, it also re-defined the nature of sovereignty. Essentially the Irish Republic and Britain agreed that neither country had a claim on Ulster, and that Northern Irish residents be accepted as “Irish, or British or both, as they may so choose”

Such fluid definition of sovereignty is threatened by the Brexit, and most of all by the fact that May and the Conservatives — at the price of a 2 billion euro bribe — have aligned themselves with the extremely right wing and sectarian Protestant party, the Democratic Unionist Party, in order to pass legislation. While the pact between the two is not a formal alliance, it nonetheless undermines the notion that the British government is a “neutral and honest broker” in Northern Ireland.

May didn’t even mention the Irish border issue in her September talk, although the EU has made it clear that the subject must be resolved.

“That Day Is Finally Upon Us”

Talks between Britain and the EU are barely inching along, partly because the Conservatives are deeply divided, partly because the EU isn’t sure May can deliver or that the current government will last to the next general elections in 2022. With Labor on the ascendency, May reliant on an extremist party to stay in power, and countries like France licking their chops at the prospect of poaching the financial institutions that currently work out of London, EU members are in no rush to settle things. May is playing a weak hand and Brussels knows it.

Eventually, the Labor Party will have to engage with Brexit more than it has, but Corbyn is probably correct in his estimate that the major specter haunting Europe today isn’t Britain’s exit, but anger at growing inequality, increasing job insecurity, a housing crisis, and EU strictures that have turned economic strategy over to unelected bureaucrats and banks.

“The neoliberal agenda of the last four decades may have been good for the 1 percent,” says Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, “but not for the rest.” Those policies were bound to have “political consequences,” he says, and “that day is finally upon us.”

Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com.

A decade of slow but steady progress on improving parity between the sexes came to a halt in 2017, with the global gender gap widening for the first time since the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report was first published in 2006.

The findings in this year’s report show that, overall, 68% of the global gender gap has been closed. This is a slight deterioration on 2016 and 2015, when the gap was 68.3% and 68.1%, respectively. Behind the decline is a widening of the gender gap across all four of the report’s pillars: Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, Economic Opportunity and Political Empowerment. These latter two areas are of particular concern because they already carry the largest gaps and, until this year, were registering the fastest progress.

At the current rate of progress, the global gender gap will take 100 years to close, compared to 83 last year. The workplace gender gap will now not be closed for 217 years, the report estimates. But with various studies linking gender parity to better economic performance, a number of countries are bucking the dismal global trend: over one-half of all 144 countries measured this year have seen their score improve in the past 12 months.

“We are moving from the era of capitalism into the era of talentism. Competitiveness on a national and on a business level will be decided more than ever before by the innovative capacity of a country or a company. Those will succeed best, who understand to integrate women as an important force into their talent pool,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum.

The Global Gender Gap Index 2017

At the top of the Global Gender Gap Index is Iceland. Having closed nearly 88% of its gap, it has been the world’s most gender-equal country for nine years. The gap between Iceland and the second-placed country, Norway, actually widens as both Norway and third-placed Finland saw their gaps widen this year. The top five is completed by Rwanda (4) and Sweden (5). The next two countries in the Index, Nicaragua (6) and Slovenia (7), also achieve symbolic milestones this year closing 80% of their gaps for the first time. Ireland (8), New Zealand (9) and Philippines (10) make up the top 10.

Among the G20 group of countries, France (11) is ranked highest on gender parity, followed by Germany (12), the United Kingdom (15), Canada (16), South Africa (19) and Argentina (34). The US drops four places to 49 while, at the lower end of the group, no fewer than six countries rank at or above 100. These are China (100), India (108), Japan (114), Republic of Korea (118), Turkey (131) and Saudi Arabia (138).

Looking at the individual pillars of the Index, the report finds that in 2017 that 27 countries have now closed the gender gap in Educational Attainment; three more countries than last year. A total of 34 countries – four less than last year – have closed their Health and Survival gender gaps. Only six countries have closed the gap in both of these pillars. In Economic Participation and Opportunity, no country has fully closed the gender gap but 13 countries (two more than last year) have closed more than 80% of their gap. Political Empowerment has the widest gender gap with only Iceland having closed more than 70% of the gap. Four countries have crossed the 50% threshold and 34 countries have closed less than 10% of the gap (five less than last year). Weighted by population, 95 countries rank below the Political Empowerment sub-index world average (0.227) this year.

“In 2017 we should not be seeing progress towards gender parity shift into reverse. Gender equality is both a moral and economic imperative. Some countries understand this and they are now seeing dividends from the proactive measures they have taken to address their gender gaps,” said Saadia Zahidi, Head of Education, Gender and Work, World Economic Forum.

Regional Analysis

Western Europe remains the highest-performing region in the Index with an average remaining gender gap of 25%. The region is home to four of the global top five countries in the Index – Iceland (1), Norway (2), Finland (3) and Sweden (5) – highlighting the continued progress of the Nordic countries in closing their overall gender gaps. At the bottom ranks of the region are Greece (78), Italy (82), Cyprus (92) and Malta (93). Out of the 20 countries in the region covered by the Index this year, nine have improved their overall score since last year, while 11 have seen it decrease.

North America has a remaining gender gap of 28%, the smallest after Western Europe. Both Canada (16) and the United States (49) have closed more than 70% of their overall gender gap.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia has closed on average 71% of its gender gap. Three countries from the region rank in the global top 20: Slovenia (7), Bulgaria (18) and Latvia (20). The bottom ranks are made up of Armenia (97), Azerbaijan (98) and Hungary (103). Out of the 26 countries from the region covered by the Index this year, 18 countries have increased their overall score compared to last year, while eight have decreased their overall scores.

The Latin America and Caribbean region has an average remaining gender gap of 30%. The region is home to two of the top 10 fastest-improving countries in the world since 2006: Nicaragua (6) and Bolivia (17). Brazil is one of five countries to have fully closed their educational attainment gender gap, despite ranking 90 overall. The lowest-performing countries in the region are Paraguay (96) and Guatemala (110). Of the 24 countries covered by the Index in the region this year, 18 have improved their overall score compared to last year, while six have regressed.

The East Asia and Pacific region has closed on average 68% of its gender gap. With New Zealand (9) and the Philippines (10), the region is home to two of the global top 10 performers. However the region’s larger economies perform less well: with China ranking 100 and Japan and the Republic of Korea ranking 114 and 118, respectively, it is clear that their remains much economic upside from making a more pronounced effort towards gender parity.

Sub-Saharan Africa displays a wider range of gender gap outcomes than any other region, with three countries; Rwanda (4), Namibia (13) and South Africa (19) in the global top 20, as well as many of the lowest-ranked countries in the Index, such as Mali (139) and Chad (141). Of the 30 countries from the region covered by the Index this year, 13 countries have increased their overall score compared to last year, while 17 have seen it decrease.

South Asia has an average remaining gender gap of 34%. Bangladesh (47) is the only country in the region to feature in the top 100, with India ranking 108 and Pakistan 143. Of the seven countries from the region included in the Index this year, three countries have increased their overall score compared to last year, while four have seen it decrease.

The Middle East and North Africa is the lowest-ranked region in the Index with an average remaining gender gap of 40%. In addition to Israel (44), the region’s best-performing countries are Tunisia (117), the United Arab Emirates (120) and Bahrain (126). The region is home to four of the world’s five lowest-ranking countries on Political Empowerment – Kuwait (129), Lebanon (137), Qatar (130) and Yemen (144). However out of the 17 countries covered by the Index in the region this year, 11 countries have improved their overall score compared to last year.

Time to Parity

At this rate of progress, it will take another century to close the overall global gender gap, compared to 83 years last year. The most challenging gender gaps remain in the economic and health spheres. At the current rate of change, it will take another 217 years to close the economic gender gap. This represents a reversal of progress and is the lowest-value measured by the Index since 2008. The Forum’s Closing the Gender Gap project aims to accelerate the pace of change on gender parity through global dialogue and a national public-private collaboration model currently active in three countries with further expansion planned for 2018.

Progress across the health gender gap remains undefined. Formally the smallest gap, progress has oscillated with a general downward trend. Today, the gap is larger than it stood in 2006, in part due to specific issues in select countries, in particular China and India. Although it exhibits the most progress, the political gender gap is the widest and could take another 99 years to close. On the other hand, with current trends, the education gender gap could be closed within the next 13 years.

All regions record a narrower gender gap than they did 11 years ago, despite stalled progress at the global level. At today’s rates of progress, the overall global gender gap can be closed in 61 years in Western Europe, 62 years in South Asia, 79 years in Latin America and the Caribbean, 102 years in Sub-Saharan Africa, 128 years in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 157 years in the Middle East and North Africa, 161 years in East Asia and the Pacific, and 168 years in North America.

The Economic Case for Parity

Various studies have suggested that improving gender parity may result in significant economic dividends, which vary depending on the situation of different economies and the specific challenges they are facing. Notable recent estimates suggest that economic gender parity could add an additional $250 billion to the GDP of the United Kingdom, $1,750 billion to that of the United States, $550 billion to Japan’s, $320 billion to France’s and $310 billion to the GDP of Germany.

Other recent estimates suggest that China could see a $2.5 trillion GDP increase from gender parity and that the world as a whole could increase global GDP by $5.3 trillion by 2025 if it closed the gender gap in economic participation by 25% over the same period. Given associated government revenue shares in GDP, the latter achievement would also unlock an additional $1.4 trillion in global tax revenue, most of it ($940 billion) in emerging economies, suggesting the potential self-financing effects of additional public investment into closing global gender gaps.

The economic case for parity also exists at the industry and enterprise-level and a key avenue for further progress entails addressing the current imbalances by sector. In research with LinkedIn, the report finds that men are under-represented in education, and health and welfare, while women are under-represented in engineering, manufacturing and construction, and information, communication and technology. Such segmentation by gender means that each sector loses out on the potential benefits of greater gender diversity: greater innovation, creativity and returns. However these gaps are not only a pipeline problem, i.e. regardless of the levels of women going into professions, across the board men hold more leadership positions. Consequently, it will not be enough to focus on correcting imbalances in education and training; change is also needed within companies.

Methodology

The Global Gender Gap Index ranks 144 countries on the gap between women and men on health, education, economic and political indicators. It aims to understand whether countries are distributing their resources and opportunities equitably between women and men, irrespective of their overall income levels. The report measures the size of the gender inequality gap in four areas:

1. Economic participation and opportunity – salaries, participation and leadership
2. Education – access to basic and higher levels of education
3. Political empowerment – representation in decision-making structures
4. Health and survival – life expectancy and sex ratio

Index scores can be interpreted as the percentage of the gap that has been closed between women and men, and allow countries to compare their current performance relative to their past performance. In addition, the rankings allow for comparisons between countries. A total of 13 out of the 14 variables used to create the Index are from publicly available hard data indicators from international organizations, such as the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organization, and one comes from a perception survey conducted by the World Economic Forum. Last year’s edition introduced an updated threshold for estimating gender parity in earned income. This year’s edition removes this income level cap completely and also updates its primary reference source for the sex ratio at birth indicator.

System Initiative on Education, Gender and Work

The World Economic Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Education, Gender and Work aims to enable people to fulfil their full potential by developing and deploying their talent, thereby contributing to more prosperous economies and societies.

Across its three modules the System Initiative offers: knowledge tools such as the Global Gender Gap Report, the Global Human Capital Report, the Future of Jobs Report; dialogue series such as Creating the Care Economy and Reskilling the Adult Workforce and; public-private collaboration such as Closing the Skills Gap, Preparing for the Future of Work and Closing the Gender Gap. The System Initiative is led by a globally renowned Stewards group composed of the most relevant individuals and organizations from around the world, including chief executive officers, ministers, academics and heads of international organizations.

By Saurabh Malkar*

The 2016 US presidential election took an interesting, and what seems to be a protracted, turn in July last year when the DNC server was hacked and nearly 20,000 leaked emails were published by Wikileaks. The emails indicated infighting, unsavory feelings, quid-pro-quo deals, rigged town-hall events, and flip-flopping on policy positions.

The DNC blamed the Russians, despite their being very little evidence to support the claim. On the other hand, the Russian government denied any interference and a very furtive, self-styled hacker called Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be Romanian, took responsibility for the email dump. Guccifer 2.0 hung around for some time, before vanishing off the radar, leaking more sensitive information and exchanging correspondence with media outlets.

A few days after the email dump, US intelligence sources confidently established Russia to be the miscreant. Presidential nominee Donald Trump, initially, dismissed and made light of the Russia connection, but eventually capitulated and came round to accepting the Russia story.

What followed in the subsequent months was a series of dismissals from Trump team, wild mud-slinging, twitter outbursts, publication of defamatory material, and a long list of legislative and investigative procedures. A detailed timeline can be reviewed here.

Over the past few months, much of the progress on this story was bland and enjoyed an average news cycle life expectancy.

That seems to have changed in the past week and some rather unexpected turns seem to have occurred.

1. A conservative website ‘Washington Free Beacon’ first commissioned Fusion GPS, the political research firm, between fall of 2015 and spring of 2016, to do homework on multiple Republican candidates, including Trump, and Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton.

2. Past this point, Fusion GPS was hired for opposition-research by Mark Elias, whose firm Perkins Coie worked with DNC and Hillary Clinton. $9 million were apportioned towards this undertaking. This move led to the hiring of Christopher Steele, a British spy, and the publication of the unverified and unsubstantiated set of memos, famously known as the ‘golden showers’ dossier.

(The dossier contained not only unverified sordid stories, but also allegations of cozy relations between Trump and Russia in an effort to boost his chances of winning. The latter became the fodder that the FBI relied upon to open a full-scale investigation into the Trump-Russia collusion hypothesis.)

3. Hillary Clinton has mostly stayed mum over these new revelations.

4. Breitbart News broke a story about the supposed ties between CNN and Fusion GPS.
5. Bob Mueller’s impartiality and credibility in the Trump-Russia investigation has been called into question on account of a conflict of interest owing to his previous work as head of the bureau in the Obama era.

6. Former president Barrack Obama’s official campaign platform gave close to $800,000 to the Perkins Coie, which funneled the money to Fusion GPS to compile the infamous dossier.

6. In the light of these revelations, Trump happily quadrupled down on stomping Mrs. Clinton and the Democrats as he thumbed away tweet after tweet late Sunday. He invoked all of Hillary’s past sins and possibly laid the groundwork for an excuse were the tax reforms fail to clear the House and the Senate in time.

7. Monday morning saw former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his business associate, Rick Gates, indicted by Mueller’s grand jury on charges of money laundering, tax evasion, and foreign lobbying that occurred a long time ago.

8. At the time of drafting this article, this showed up on my Twitter feed.

In summary, despite Trump team’s unsavory and clearly objectionable exchanges with people connected with the Russian government, including Putin, no substantial evidence incriminating Trump or his campaign of collusion has yet surfaced.

That doesn’t go to say that there is no chance of meddling and undermining of the American electoral process by Russia. There are sufficient indicators to service this claim.

So far, we understand that the opposition dispensed generous amounts of money and effort to dig up falsifiable information against Donald Trump to undermine his integrity and chances of winning the election.

A sitting president was also involved in the effort to defame a presidential candidate through underhanded measures.

The political Left and mainstream media, despite their best efforts, weren’t able to shake people’s confidence in Trump and his platform. As Rush Limbaugh has said on several occasions, and I paraphrase, Trump alone is responsible for building his reputation and public trust, and only Trump can cut the rug from under his feet.

Mrs. Clinton, with her sharp business skills, went on to author and promote her third memoir ‘What Happened,’ which is an effort to redistribute the responsibility of her loss from herself to everyone else. Sometimes, leftist principles, like redistribution, come handy.

Nearly a year of frenzied investigation at the hands of the FBI and the legislative body only yielded a couple of money-laundering tax crooks. Not amusing or productive at all!

The investigation, so far, is merely confirming the blowhard-in-chief’s remarks over Twitter and if it keeps going at this rate, he might self-acquit himself over social media.

America needs to overhaul its crumbling web security infrastructure ASAP.

(The story is developing and some summary points may need to be amended, if evidence to the contrary develops.)

About the author:
*Saurabh Malkar, an ex-dentist and a business graduate who is greatly influenced by American conservatism and western values. Having born and brought up in a non-western, third world country, he provides an ‘outside-in’ view on western values. As a budding writer and analyst, he is very much stoked about western culture and looks forward to expound and learn more. Mr. Malkar receives correspondence at saurabh.malkar[at]gmail.com. To read his 140-character commentary on Twitter, follow him at @saurabh_malkar

Source:
This article was published at Modern Diplomacy

Communist Party leader Xi sets out to orchestrate China’s path to global prominence, but controlocracy may lack international appeal.

By Börje Ljunggren*

Xi pulled it off. His crowning could not have been grander. “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” is now written into Communist Party of China’s constitution on par with Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory. As “thoughts” rank higher than “theory,” Xi is recognized as the party-state’s core, ranked higher than Deng, a status that will remain even after he leaves his current positions.

Mao founded the People’s Republic, and Deng created the conditions for China’s exceptional era of reforms that opened the country to the world. Xi is taking China into its third era, one in which China intends to be second to none.

Gone is the era guided by Deng’s tao guang yang hui, meaning that China should “keep a low profile and bide its time.”

Instead, Xi proposes that, before the People’s Republic 100^th anniversary in 2049, China will have developed into a “modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful.” China already stood tall in the East and “now is time for the nation “to take center stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind.” China, going its own proud way, has a model to offer. The Chinese model of growth under communist rule is “flourishing,” giving “a new choice” to other developing countries. These two statements mark a decisive departure from previous party declarations.

The Party Constitution also recognizes Xi as military thinker with the Chinese Communist Party to “uphold its absolute leadership over the People’s Liberation Army” and “implement Xi Jinping’s thinking on strengthening the military.” By 2035 China will have a “world class” military, one “built to fight.”

Interestingly, the document recognizes a dilemma that, in fact, potentially challenging the party-state: The constitution no longer describes the main contradiction facing Chinese society as one between “the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people and backward social production” but “between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing need for a better life” – that is, a better life within the party-state.

Such is the party’s task in the new era: 99 percent loyalty to the party is not enough. The party intends to consolidate power, categorically rejecting western ideas of liberal democracy.

A new era requires a bold approach. World developments since the 2008 global financial crisis,  Donald Trump’s degrading of the United States and Europe’s drifting search for identity, have created irresistible strategic opportunities. Hubris is growing in Beijing, as leaders envision a future belonging to China as defined by the party.

But triumphant visions are hardly enough. The PRC’s achievements since Mao are undeniable. China has the world’s largest economy by growing margins, in terms of purchasing power, and generates more than one-fourth of global growth. Globalization did not create today’s China, but the country is, ironically enough, globalization’s great winner. In ushering China into the World Trade Organization, former US President Bill Clinton declared that such membership would be in US interest, and not simply for integrating China into the global economy: “The emerging knowledge economy, economic innovation and political empowerment, whether anyone likes it or not, will inevitably go hand in hand.”

The internet, a new frontier, was a huge challenge. Clinton noted that “there’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet,” but that would be “like trying to nail Jello to the wall.” The Chinese economy developed faster than anyone could then imagine, and its leaders did manage to nail the Jello. China remains a party-state, consolidated during Xi’s first term, after a crisis-ridden spell prior to the 18^th Congress in 2012.

Xi sees himself as having a mission. Nothing matters more than maintaining stability through firm party rule, ruthless if necessary, repressive by nature. A vibrant, increasingly pluralistic society must cope within the party-state’s mounting constraints. A “better life” offers much, but individual freedom, as enshrined in the UN Covenant on Civil and Political right – never ratified by China and no longer on the agenda of international dialogues with the country – is one of “seven evils” proclaimed in 2013, a threat to be managed.

Underlying Xi’s concerns, to quote political sociologist Larry Diamond, is the “70-year itch” stemming from the Soviet Union’s abrupt collapse. The party’s foremost task is to prevent collapse and hence never “nationalize” the People’s Liberation Army the way the Soviet Union did. The Chinese Dream as a controlocracy is bound to suffer from lack of true international appeal.

Still, China is indeed in a position “to make greater contributions to the world.” It’s natural that China undertakes initiatives like the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and grander geopolitical schemes like the One Belt One Road initiative.

Remember also that China has not gone to war since attacking Vietnam in February of 1979, determined to teach its recalcitrant neighbor a lesson. Despite a number of serious unresolved conflicts, East Asia has enjoyed what has been referred to as “the long peace.” This peace, though, has not been institutionalized and appears increasingly fragile, not least because of China’s growing assertiveness in a number of areas and reticence in other areas.

Despite its growing power, China cannot dictate a viable solution to territorial disputes in the South China Sea, its claims in the East China Sea or complex territorial disputes with India. At the Party Congress, Xi described China’s “resolve” and “ability to defeat separatist attempts for Taiwan independence in any form,” but annexing Taiwan by force is not an option. China views North Korea’s nuclear development as primarily a problem for the United States, but today it is as much China’s own. China’s two priorities, foremost stability and only then a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, have contributed to the drift towards the current impasse. China needs to build trust. With growing power follows greater responsibilities both regionally and globally.

By far the most serious challenge facing China is how to handle Sino-US relations, the most important relationship of our time, bound to suffer from strategic distrust. North Korea is the most urgent issue for Sino-US diplomacy, but immediately behind lies growing economic tensions in a sad era of US protectionism. China is no longer a developing country. To preserve the liberal economic order on which growth depends, the country’s leaders must show an increased willingness to accept reciprocity as a fundamental principle or face mounting difficulties in the international market. The Party Congress gave no clear answer regarding economic reforms. Tension is evident between the increased emphasis on the party’s role and the role of the market – boiling down to Xi versus Xi.

The new Standing Committee of the Politburo includes reform-minded pragmatists such as Wang Yang and Han Zheng. They may not matter much, though, with Xi as supreme leader, promoted by a cult of personality that should have remained a tragic feature of the past.

Finally, the Standing Committee consists only of men, none young enough to take over in five years. Chen Min’er, Xi’s favorite, and Hu Chunhua, elevated to the Politburo at the 18^th Congress, did not make the cut. Unlike Xi before he took over as the party secretary general there is no one training to take over. Xi is keeping his options open, thereby deinstitutionalizing the succession process. As a consequence, the midnight hour of authoritarian systems will cast its shadow over his third era. Xi’s historic ambitions to achieve peerless personal power are clever by half.

*Börje Ljunggren is senior associate of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, former Swedish ambassador to China and author of Den kinesiska drömmen – Xi, makten och utmaningarna (The Chinese Dream – Xi, Power and Challenges),2017.

Increasing organic runoff as a result of climate change may be reducing the penetration of pathogen-killing ultraviolet (UV) sunlight in inland lakes, rivers, and coastal waters, according to a new study in the journal Scientific Reports. The findings, from a team including researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, points to the potential for an increase in waterborne pathogens.

Scientists have already measured an increase in “browning” of the world’s waters, a phenomenon caused by more organic matter washing in from the surrounding land. The new study, led by Miami University in Ohio, analyzed water samples and used a model based at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to quantify, for the first time, the impact of dissolved organic matter on the potential for UV radiation from the sun to kill pathogens in the water.

Not only does an increase in dissolved organic matter make it more difficult for sunlight to disinfect bodies of water, it also makes it more difficult for water treatment plants to work effectively, said lead author Craig Williamson, a Miami University ecologist. In the United States, 12 to 19 million people already become ill from waterborne pathogens annually.

Kevin Rose, the Frederic R. Kolleck ’52 Career Development Chair in Freshwater Ecology at Rensselaer, gathered much of the data on dissolved organic matter in water samples to assess the potential of UV radiation to kill pathogens.

“Water clarity is dropping in many regions due to factors such as browning, and this research demonstrates that this change is likely decreasing natural disinfection of potentially harmful pathogens,” said Rose.

The team used samples of water from lakes around the world, from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, to Chile and New Zealand. Tests determined the amount of dissolved organic matter contained in each sample, and the wavelengths of light — including ultraviolet wavelengths — absorbed by that organic matter.

Using the Tropospheric Ultraviolet-Visible model — which simulates how UV light is scattered and absorbed as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere — researchers determined how much UV light hits the surface of the lakes throughout the year. Researchers also analyzed reflection and refraction off each lake’s surface to calculate how much light penetrates the lakes and then, finally, how deeply it reaches.

The Tropospheric Ultraviolet-Visible model also calculates the expected disinfecting power of UV light in a particular body of water based on its dissolved organic matter and other characteristics, a measurement known as “solar inactivation potential (SIP).” In some cases, researchers calculated the SIP across different parts of, or for different time periods in, the same lake.

The results allowed scientists to quantify the impacts of dissolved organic matter. For example, the summertime SIP for one lake in northeastern Pennsylvania — which, along with other regional lakes has undergone significant browning in recent decades — dropped by about half between 1994 and 2015.

In California’s Lake Tahoe, the SIP in the relatively pristine center of the lake can be as much as 10 times greater than at Tahoe Meeks Bay, an area at lake’s edge that is heavily used by humans and has a much higher level of dissolved organic matter.

The scientists also showed how SIP can dramatically decrease after a heavy rainfall event using water samples collected from the region where the Manitowoc River flows into Lake Michigan, which supplies drinking water to more than 10 million people. Modeling based on samples taken before and after a strong storm moved through on June 21, 2011, showed that the SIP may have dropped by as much as 22 percent due to the extra dissolved organic matter that washed into the area in this single storm event.

The revolution in generic drugs means that a 12-week course of drugs to cure hepatitis C can be manufactured for just US$50 – as low as the cost of a plane ticket on many low-cost airlines. Furthermore, new data shows that these generic copies are just as effective as the branded medicines. Yet restrictions and patent issues around the world mean that hardly any patients can access the drugs at these low costs, say experts speaking at the World Hepatitis Summit in Sao Paulo, Brazil (1-3 November).

“As there are around 70 million people infected with hepatitis C worldwide, the basic cost of the drugs to treat everyone infected globally, at $50 each, would be around US $3.5 billion,” explained Dr Andrew Hill, a pharmacology expert from the University of Liverpool, UK. This represents less than a fraction of 1% of the global health budget of some US$ 8 trillion. “Much more must be done to enable all countries — but especially developing countries — to produce or buy drugs for these lower prices. Without significant changes to pricing structures, the battle against the global hepatitis C epidemic simply can’t be won.”

In his presentation, Dr Hill will present data on the hugely varying cost of a 12-week course of sofosbuvir and daclatasvir, a common combination of the new directly acting antiviral drugs (DAAs) that have revolutionised hepatitis C treatment by providing rapid cure with few or no side effects. The list price for this combination of drugs ranges from close to cost price in India ($78) and Egypt ($174) to $6,000 in Australia, $77,000 in the UK, and a staggering $96,404 the USA. Yet the basic cost of the active ingredients, including formulation and packaging costs and even allowing a small profit margin for the generic companies brings the basic cost down to under $50 per course.

In high-income countries, most of which have treatment restrictions allowing only those with advanced disease to be treated first, some infected patients have resorted to buying generic drugs from international buyers’ clubs (who buy in bulk from developing countries) or directly from countries where they are manufactured. For example, in the UK, those not wanting to wait for advanced disease to be treated have been able to legally purchase a 12-week generic course for prices ranging from US $1000 to $1200. Research studies on these patients show that cure rates are as high as for the branded medicines, ranging from 90% to 95%.

An analysis presented at the summit on the efficacy of generic DAAs looked at 1160 patients who have imported DAAs for personal use into 88 countries on 5 continents. Data from these patients show that cure rates are well over 90%, the same as for the branded products, but at a fraction of the cost.

“In 2016, for every person cured of hepatitis C globally (1.76 million), another person was newly infected (1.5 million). We simply cannot eliminate this epidemic unless we treat more people. And we can only do this if the prices of the drugs come down,” explained Dr Hill.

He added that the manufacturers of DAAs must do more to provide voluntary licences in countries that do not currently have them for generic companies to produce cheaper (but just as effective) generic DAAs. This is what has happened in Egypt, which had nearly 7 million people to treat, but now have fewer than 5 million. However, more than half of those people infected globally live in countries with no voluntary licence to allow generic production. “For example, China and Russia, two countries with very large hepatitis C epidemics, have no voluntary licence in place to produce cheap generic drugs,” explained Dr Hill.

However, Dr Hill makes clear that any efforts to reduce drug prices and enable mass generic DAA production worldwide will be futile unless countries also step up their efforts to find and diagnose their infected populations. “We cannot treat people if we do not know who they are,” explained Dr Hill. “Countries must massively step up their screening efforts, or they will simply run out of people to treat – a diagnostic ‘burn-out’. The proportion of patients with hepatitis C who know they have it ranges from 44% in high-income countries to just 9% in low-income countries.”

He concludes that lessons can and should be learned from the HIV epidemic to successfully end the hepatitis C epidemic worldwide. “It has taken the world 15 years to get 19 million people globally on antiretroviral treatments for HIV,” he said. “We already have the drugs necessary to eliminate hepatitis C. Let’s learn from the past, and repeat the medical success story of global HIV treatment.”

What are the domestic constraints (from the Revolutionary Guard to economic restrictions) and the external challenges (from the new tightening of US-Saudi relations to the crisis in the Gulf Cooperation Council) that re-elected President Hassan Rohani will face over the next four years?

By Luciano Zaccara*

The renewed mandate of Hassan Rohani, begun on 3 August, represents continuity on the road to moderation both at home and abroad. However, despite a more reformist government than the last, no significant change is expected in foreign policy beyond the maintenance of previously acquired commitments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and more engagement with Europe. On the contrary, the new anti-Iranian rhetoric of Saudi Arabia and the US, and the deep diplomatic crisis at the heart of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) could produce a hardening of Rohani’s discourse about traditional adversaries and new challenges. The President will need to face not just foreign but also domestic policy challenges, including the Revolutionary Guard and its growing political and economic power, as well as the terrorism that broke out in June in the Iranian capital.

Analysis

The beginning of a second term and a new government

Once the scattered doubts of the followers of Ibrahim Raisi, the defeated candidate in the 19 May elections, had been put to rest, Hassan Rohani was proclaimed the 12th President in the republican political history of Iran.¹ The seventh person to occupy the position since its creation in 1979, Rohani is the fifth President after Ali Khamenei, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Jatamí and Mahmud Ahmadineyad to enjoy the maximum two consecutive terms permitted by the constitution.

The inauguration on 3 August was a demonstration of both domestic and international institutional support. Nine Heads of State and Government, 26 Presidents of legislative bodies, 38 high-level state and governmental officials and seven representatives of international organisations attended the ceremonies. Among the most notable present were: Pío García Escudero, President of the Spanish Senate; Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar; Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, Minister of Culture of Oman; along with a special envoy of the Emir of Kuwait. The last three draw some attention given the existing tensions between Iran and the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the wake of the attack on the Saudi embassy in Teheran, which forced the recall for consultations of the ambassadors of six countries. Their presence reveals the discrepancy at the heart of the GCC over the best way to deal with the Iranian neighbour, especially after the conflict that emerged in June 2017 between Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Qatar. After 20 months with its ambassador to Teheran recalled because of the attack on the Saudi embassy in January 2016, the Qatari government recently announced its ambassador’s return to Iran.²

In his inaugural address, Rohani once again emphasised the need to deepen the nuclear negotiation process but he warned against the policies of the US that could endanger the agreement. For his part, in his address Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei focused on the need to prioritise the living conditions of the Iranian population, a clear warning to Rohani about the lack of visible results since the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015.³

After the inauguration, Rohani presented for parliamentary approval the names of the ministers who are to serve in his second cabinet, and these included a few notable differences with respect to his first government. With a larger popular vote margin than he obtained in 2013,⁴ a more reformist-inclined legislative assembly after the elections of 2016⁵ and facing the disappointment of only timid defence from certain ministers of his record during the election campaign, Rohani let go certain more conservative ministers, putting in their place others that can be considered more reformist.

As a result, 17 of the 18 ministerial candidates were approved by the 290-strong legislative body (only the candidate for Minister of Energy was rejected). With an average vote of 220 in favour and an average of only 47 against, these numbers are notably better for Rohani than during the parliamentary approval process of his ministerial candidates in 2013, when the average vote was 203 to 65, with three of his candidates rejected in the first round of voting. This time around, however, the assembly seems to have given a clear approval to Rohani’s previous term and overwhelming support to his current government plans. The eight ministers who are continuing on the job include the long-serving Bijan Namdar Zanganeh (with 20 years of experience at the head of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy) and Mohammad Javad Zarif (who, while leading the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made possible the nuclear agreement, the major achievement of Rohani’s last administration). Among the nine new faces, the appointment of General Amir Hatami as Minister of Defence stands out. Traditionally this post had been assigned to a member of the Revolutionary Guard (Sepah-e Pasdaran). Despite the controversy surrounding this nomination, however, it received the strongest backing of any within the Assembly, with 261 votes in favour, only 10 against and 13 abstentions. This implies that even the very conservative deputies and those ideologically close to the Revolutionary Guard have also given their support to the appointment.⁶ Once again the lack of women has been one of the central criticisms of Rohani’s cabinet line-up, something that has only ever occurred previously in Iran under President Ahmadineyad in 2009. Nevertheless, Rohani compensated for this by appointing three women vice-presidents, positions for which he requires no parliamentary approval. The three are: (1) Masumeh Ebtekar (the veteran reformist who was also Vice-President for Women and Family Affairs under Mohammad Khatami, the same post occupied in the last administration by Molaverdi); (2) Shahindokht Molaverdi (who will now head the Presidential Office for Citizens’ Rights); and (3) Laya Joneidi (appointed Vice-President for Legal Affairs).⁷

Other important posts were also filled as a result of the presidential and municipal election last May. These include the Mayor of Teheran and the head of the Municipal Council. Because Teheran is a megalopolis with enormous political power –expressed in the number of votes it wields– the absolute-majority victory of the reformist list allowed for the replacement of the conservative Mayor, Baqer Qalibaf, with the reformist Ali Najafí, and for the appointment of Mohsen Hashemi, the youngest son of the late Rafsanjani, as the head of the Municipal Council –no doubt in support of the figure that he represents for the revolutionary political establishment, to the detriment of the ultra-conservative sectors, which have attempted to seduce him ever since his support for the protest of 2009–.⁸

As something of a counterweight to Rohani, the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, also announced the new membership of the Discernment Council, along with the identity of its new chief, a post that Rafsanjani had occupied from 1997 until his death. The new appointment to lead this powerful executive (and, at times, legislative) institution is Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi, a conservative cleric who served as the head of the judicial branch for 10 years and as President of the Assembly of Experts. Some see him as a serious candidate to eventually replace Ali Khamenei as leader of the republic.⁹ This is a clear sign that despite the election results and the reformist pivot of Rohani’s new government, the same is not occurring in the other institutions of power.

Domestic constraints facing President Rohani

In his campaign, Rohani proposed to continue along the path of reducing tensions with the international community that he initiated four years ago. He also vigorously re-committed himself to the nuclear negotiations and the JCPOA; but he warmed that Iran’s patience had limits in the face of US provocations. He also promised that the economic situation would improve because the agreement would lead to more foreign investment, technology transfer and job creation. He also pledged to expand the civil rights and freedoms of Iranians, including ethnic minorities.

But what can Rohani really change over the next four years? It is clear that the presidency is not the most powerful institution in the Iranian political system, but whoever is elected president does have influence both domestically and internationally. Rohani’s first term will be remembered for the successful negotiations which produced the JCPOA, the diplomacy that led to the lifting of sanctions without the need to resort to a new military conflict and the breaking of the traditional taboo of negotiating directly with the US. Despite the harsh criticism Rohani received after the signing of the agreement, none of the conservative candidates proposed withdrawing from the nuclear pact, demonstrating that there is a general consensus on the benefits of the agreement. As a result. Rohani wielded his iron commitment to the accord as the symbol of his campaign. This will not change with four more years of Rohani as President, given that the parliament, led by Ali Lariyani (the moderate conservative who strongly supported Rohani during the campaign), and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei both support the nuclear deal; and none of this is expected to change over the short-to-medium term. On 31 May Lariyani was re-elected for his 10th consecutive term as the President of the legislative assembly (with 204 of 268 possible votes), while Ali Motahari (a conservative critic) and Masud Pezeshkian (a reformist) were ratified as his Vice-Presidents, despite rumours that an alliance among conservatives would push the reformists aside.¹⁰

With this institutional support, confirmed by his 24 million votes in the popular election tally and then again by the ratification of his cabinet nominees, Rohani should have sufficient strength to push forward reforms to invigorate the economy and reform the banking and tax systems, and to move legislation that will improve investor confidence, especially in the petroleum sector, which is in need of advanced technology. Such a mandate should also allow Rohani to implement the proposed ‘Bill of Civil Rights’, to relax restrictions on the press and Internet, and to free the leaders of the Green Movement, Mir-Hussein Musavi and Mehdi Karrubi, both of whom have remained under house arrest since February 2011 without being formally charged or sentenced for any crime. Karrubi began a hunger strike on 17 August, demanding the removal of security agents from his dwelling and a trial to clarify his situation. Although the agents did withdraw, with Karrubi returning home after a stint in the hospital, no other changes to this scenario are foreseen even despite the pressures of the reformist sector on Rohani to intervene directly in the situation of these and other political prisoners.

During his first term, Rohani had a tense relationship with the Pasdaran and any attempt to revitalise the Iranian economy will run straight against its interests. Necessary reforms to the banking system would affect certain financial institutions controlled by the Pasdaran, which were established to channel money that could not be transferred abroad as a result of the sanctions blocking Iran from the international SWIFT system. The imposition of a generalised tax system, to include the large religious foundations (bonyads) and other semi-public and private companies controlled by the Pasdaran, which to date have been exempt from taxes, will also become a point of friction with the President. Conscious of this challenge, in his first press conference after re-election, Rohani said that ‘our people love the armed forces from the bottom of their hearts. Our people also love the other branches of power and the media, but they cannot accept that a single national organisation becomes, in effect, a political party’.¹¹ With this, he made clear his intention of limiting the powers of the Pasdaran in the future. The appointment of a regular-army General instead of the traditional choice of a Revolutionary Guard as Minister of Defence has been seen in this light.

In addition to those mentioned above, a new domestic challenge that might complicate Rohani’s second term has emerged for the first time in Iran: terrorist attacks claimed by Daesh/ISIS in the Iranian capital itself, in symbolic places such as the parliament and Khomeini’s tomb. The domestic critics of the conservative factions have not hesitated to launch attacks, mainly in media such as Kayhan, Raja News and Tasnim News, blaming the terrorist attacks on the President for his weakening of the Revolutionary Guard and the defence of national territory with his signing of the JCPOA.¹² The recent launching of surface-to-surface missiles in the province of Kermanshah against territories controlled by Daesh/ISIS in Deir Exxor could be seen as a demonstration of the strength of the Pasdaran in response to the attacks that, according to Iranian sources, have been coordinated with the governments of Iraq, Syria and Russia.¹³

Rohaní’s external challenges

How much influence does the Iranian President have over foreign policy? Even more relevant to the search for solutions to regional conflicts, can Rohani convince the countries of the GCC, along with other regional powers, that Iran truly desires to reduce existing bilateral tensions and not to re-establish the Persian Empire, as many on the southern shores of the Gulf believe?

First, during the election campaign last May, foreign policy –with the exception of the JCPOA– barely appeared on the debate agenda. There seems to be a tacit agreement to avoid discussing issues, such as the role of Iran in Iraq and Syria, which could provoke more discontent within the military establishment. Although there is a general consensus, both in the political elite and among common Iranians, that it is necessary to defend the government of Assad in Syria in order to protect Iran’s own borders –given that a Daesh victory could clearly challenge Iran’s territorial integrity– there are now also voices arguing the need to end a war which has lasted too long. Without many visible gains in the Iranian economy as of yet stemming from the nuclear deal –aside from a fall in the inflation rate to only single digits– some feel that the high financial burdens and the cost in human life that the Syrian conflict implies is too high for Iran to bear. Still, this domestic debate is still too weak to cause a change in government direction, to say nothing of questioning the role of the Pasdaran in the wars of Syria and Iraq.

Rohani for his part does not appear to be very interested in changing any particular aspect of current Iranian foreign policy. This is especially the case with respect to Syria and Iraq, given that Rohani’s priority has not been regional, but rather international, politics in an attempt to improve political and economic relations with Europe, Asia and the international organisations so as to achieve an effective lifting of sanctions and attract foreign investment. In this respect, the very different reactions in the US and Europe to Rohani’s victory have been clear. While Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, along with other European heads of state, sent messages of congratulations to the re-elected President, Donald Trump began a tour of Saudi Arabia during which he signed arms deals worth US$110 billion, sending a message that the real threat to the stability and security of the region is Iran, and that such arms were meant to curb Iranian threats.

In addition to these differences between the US and the EU, another striking feature has been the divisions within the Trump Administration itself over the terrorist attacks in Teheran. While the Secretary of State issued a skeletal but diplomatically correct communication of condemnation of the perpetrators and condolence to the victims, the White House declared that ‘we underline that the States which sponsor terrorism run the risk of the evil they provoke’. For Iran, therefore, to reinforce ties with Europe is key for compensating the negative effect of four years of a Trump presidency in the US. A closer engagement with Europe, particularly along economic and commercial lines, and with a deepening political dialogue, would help avoid the kind of international isolation that Iran endured during the 1980s and again during the Ahmadineyad period.

On the other hand, current security and defence policies seem to be more than ever aligned with the basic policy lines defined by the Supreme Leader Khamenei (which are not very different than those established by the founder of the republic, Ayatollah Khomeini) and implemented by the Revolutionary Guard, irrespective of the decrees of the President and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This idea, which is perceived at the heart of the GCC as a major impediment to establishing direct conversations with a government that will not wield total control over its foreign policy, is also subscribed to within certain sectors of Iranian society, verified by a series of interviews undertaken in Teheran between January and May. Many Iranians also feared that the Pasdaran would try to take over control of political institutions by way of the elections, although this did not finally happen on 19 May. Nevertheless, this does not mean that Rohani will shirk from challenging the influence of the Guard over foreign policy; however, he will do so only in areas in which there is no disagreement within the political class, and on the key issue that has been his principal accomplishment –the nuclear deal– and on which he can count on broad public support.

There is another worrying concern for the re-elected President: the challenge stemming from recent events and declarations on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf. In an interview at the beginning of May, the Saudi Minister of Defence, Mohamed bin Salman, said that it would be impossible to establish a dialogue with Iran because of the Shiite belief in the return of the Mahdi¹⁴ –an unprecedented escalation in the sectarian war of discourses–. Nevertheless, mention of ‘mahdism’ has been used before to criticise Ahmadineyad by claiming that due to this belief the idea of ‘nuclear holocaust’ clearly justified Iran’s interest in possessing and using nuclear weapons to accelerate the arrival of the hidden Mahdi.

On the other hand, the Arab-Islamic-American Summit in Riyadh the day after the Iranian elections, together with the statements of President Trump and King Salman, made it clear that the ‘anti-terrorism alliance’ is focused primarily on Iran as the sponsor of terrorism in the region.¹⁵ At this meeting, to which the only member-state of the Islamic Conference that was not invited was Iran, the only issues discussed were terrorism, arms deals and Iran. In his speech, Trump mentioned Iran or Iranians 11 times, and only once with a positive connotation. ‘Democracy’, ‘elections’ and ‘human rights’ were not mentioned at all. The messages coming forth from the summit and from the US Senate (which on the same day initiated debate on the imposition of new sanctions against Iran for its missile programme) rapidly reached Iran. Following the same logic, the recent appointment of Michael D’Andrea, a ‘hawk’ once charged with drone warfare and the hunt for Bin Laden, to head Iranian operations at the CIA, has been interpreted as a new escalation in Trump’s Iran policy, and it was quickly criticised in the more conservative Iranian news media like Fars News.

After the Summit –during which Trump remarked that ‘lots of beautiful military equipment’ had recently been sold to Qatar–, the Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Javan Zarif, responded that ‘beautiful military equipment can’t buy Middle East peace’ in an article published in the New York Times on 26 May. Zarif reaffirmed the Iranian efforts and commitment to de-escalate the conflict in Syria (by providing the foundation of Resolution 2254 of the United Nations Security Council), and to secure a long-term agreement with Turkey and Russia. Even more, he confirmed Iran’s interest in bringing to an end the war in Yemen from the very beginning by offering a four-point plan that presumably would have been rejected by Saudi Arabia.¹⁶ In a similar tone, Rohani emphasised in his post-election press conference that ‘the terrorism question cannot be resolved by giving money to the superpowers’, in an allusion to the arms purchases of Iran’s GCC neighbours. He labelled the summit a ‘ceremonial event’ that was void of political value and incapable of producing tangible results. Rohani concluded his comments by saying that ‘the Iranian nation has decided to be powerful; our missiles are for peace and defence… the US should know that when we need to test a missile for technical reasons, we will do so, and we will not wait for its permission’.¹⁷ Weeks later, on 15 August, Rohani warned that Iran would denounce the nuclear deal in a matter of ‘hours’ if sanctions were re-imposed. The Director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, insisted that Iran could ‘reinitiate uranium enrichment within five days’.¹⁸

Such statements should be understood as signs of strength which the Iranian authorities wish to underline not only in response to the declarations and military decisions of Riyadh and Washington, but also with respect to Rohani’s domestic adversaries who believe his administration has weakened Iran’s position in the region by buckling to US impositions with the signing of the JCPOA.

Another indication of just how sensitive the Iranian issue is within the GCC has been the outbreak of the crisis provoked by the supposed hacking of the Qatar News Agency website with declarations attributed to the Emir Tamim al-Thani and directed at Iran, Israel and the US.¹⁹ Nor is it an accident that the crisis broke out after the Riyadh Summit on 24 May and after Trump’s explicit support, via Twitter, was followed by a demand from the Emirates and Saudi Arabia that Qatar break off its diplomatic relations with Iran. It has not done so, despite the fact that both countries, together with Bahrain and Egypt, decided to unilaterally impose a blockade and tough sanctions against Qatar for supposedly supporting terrorism and other states that destabilize the region. Iran remains Qatar’s sole maritime and air corridor for getting around the blockade and securing exit from the Gulf. Accordingly, Qatar recently announced that it was sending its ambassador back to Tehran, from where he had earlier been recalled for consultations in January 2016. For its part, Iran, which also accuses Qatar of sponsoring terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, has chosen the pragmatic policy, offering all types of aid to its southern neighbour, if it undermines the success and credibility of the Saudi cause.²⁰ In this respect, a tightening of relations between Iran and Qatar is not expected to be anything more than a tactical convenience, beyond which neither state has any interest in moving. Despite the conflict situation generated with Saudi Arabia, Qatar continues to view Iran as a long-term regional threat. The recent signing of a contract with the US to purchase F-15 fighter jets for US$12 billion²¹ should not be interpreted only from the perspective of the current crisis, but also with respect to Qatar’s northern neighbour.

Conclusions

Within the framework of the domestic constraints and external challenges described above, it appears unlikely that President Rohani will be able to exercise a more moderate foreign policy than that which characterised his first term. If Rohani has made clear his intention of continuing on the path of moderation and dialogue, certain domestic and foreign challenges will continue to place constraints on his administration over the next four years. On the domestic front, the economic weight and political influence of the Revolutionary Guard will limit the President’s capacity to implement the reforms needed to reactivate the economy, to make the banking system more transparent and to implement a tax system which could lessen the state’s dependence on the fluctuating price of oil. The consensus politics which Rohani continually sought during his previous administration will also likely be shed for a more assertive policy and a more reformist cabinet.

The influence of the Pasdaran over the implementation of foreign policy will also constrain Rohani’s chances of achieving any change in the Iranian stance in Syria and Iraq. Nor is there any pressure domestically for such a stance to shift, given that the rhetoric from Saudi Arabia and the US raises the tone of sectarian and strategic confrontation in the Persian Gulf, particularly in the wake of the Teheran terrorist attacks and the ongoing crisis in the GCC, which reveals increasing tensions between all the states in the region.

About the author:
*Luciano Zaccara, Research Assistant Professor in Gulf Politics, Qatar University, Visiting Assistant Professor, Georgetown University in Qatar, and Director of Observatorio Político y Electoral del Mundo Árabe y Musulmán (OPEMAM)

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

Notes:
¹ The director of the Raisi campaign, Ali Nikzad, claimed that there had been irregularities affecting close to three million votes, and the Secretary of the Guardian Council demanded that the Ministry of the Interior recount the votes. In any case, the Council confirmed the results on 30 May. See: Guardian Council checking complaints by defeated Raeisi y Iran’s Vetting Body Approves Presidential Elections Results.

By Behzad Ahmadi

The recent general elections held in Germany sent strong shockwaves through the entire Europe. Although victory of the Christian Democratic Union led by Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was predictable and the leftist parties were also expected to suffer a major defeat, the rise of far-right candidates, who won about 13 percent of the vote, was an alarm bell not only for Germany, but also for the entire Europe. The far-right parties had recently suffered a major debacle in French presidential elections and had become isolated, but they came back to life following German general elections and the unexpected success of their German peers. Germany’s general elections were not very exciting as Merkel and her party were already expected to win the highest number of votes. Therefore, it seems that Merkel will be able to form the new government without facing any major problem.

The result of these elections, however, was remarkable from a number of viewpoints. Merkel won these elections, but her party’s votes fell by about 8.3 percent compared to previous general elections in 2013 and this has been a drastic fall for election votes of the CDU/CSU coalition. The number of votes won by the Christian Social Union (CSU) in the state of Bayern also showed a decline of about 10 percent. On the other hand, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which had formed a major coalition with Merkel’s CDU, also experienced a major fall in votes. Overall decline in the votes won by the two main parties of Germany in these elections was about 35 percent, and their votes, subsequently, went to far-right and liberal parties. This comes in clear contrast to the fact that the two main German parties accounted for about 80 to 90 percent of election votes not very long ago.

The results of recent German elections show that major parties are somehow losing their sway in Germany and continuation of this trend can face the country with a major problem for forming powerful governments. Germans had passed laws in the past, which aimed to prevent formation of weak governments like the Weimar Republic. However, following recent elections, the German parliament will be made up of six parties and this issue will face Merkel with certain problems. To see why Germany’s recent general elections led to such results, one has to first explore the performance of major parties in important member states of the European Union. The far-right party, known as the Alternative for Germany, has won a clear victory the main reason for which was shortcomings on the part of major political currents and parties both in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Merkel is at the lead of a rightist party, but has always tried to look like a moderate personality. On the opposite, the Social Democratic Party, which is basically a leftist party, is trying to follow suit with the Christian Democratic Union by adopting a moderate approach. This is why those parties, which are basically known to be rightwing or leftwing, have changed their original policies and given up their rightist or leftist slogans in order to be present in the big political coalition of the country for eight more years. As a traditional rightwing politician, Merkel has taken a decision, which is quite the opposite of the traditional policy of her party and has allowed asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa to enter Germany. This measure has stirred serious opposition within the Christian Democratic Union and its sister party, the Christian Social Party, because they believe that the chancellor’s measures are against their dominant rightist discourse.

On the other hand, as the leader of the most important and most influential member of the European Union, which is considered as the main engine of convergence for the bloc, Merkel has played a major part in the resolution of the eurozone crisis. This measure by Merkel, like her immigration policy, has been also totally against the rightwing policies of her party. Germany enjoys a trade surplus, which means that its revenues outweigh its costs. Therefore, part of these revenues has been spent on prevention of the eurozone crisis. From the viewpoint of many German citizens, including the supporters of the country’s main rightist party, this measure by Merkel is not understandable. Germans are thrifty people and are not willing for their tax money to be spent on Greek people, whom they consider to be spendthrift. As a result of these conditions, there has been some sort of discourse-based void in Germany’s politics, which has been the result of big rightist and leftist parties giving up their original slogans and policies. Therefore, this void has been rapidly filled by the Alternative for Germany and the party has been able to take some votes from other parties’ baskets into its own. On the whole, political parties opposing Merkel believe that the original identity of Germany is being lost due to her immigration policy and excessive admittance of asylum seekers. Of course, the rise of far-right parties in Europe during the past two decades has shown that emergence of these parties as powerful currents does not usually take long and when citizens’ concerns are assuaged, these parties restart their downhill trend.

However, there are differences between the rise of the far-right in Germany and other European countries, including France and Italy. Germany has the past experience of the rule of Adolf Hitler and is much more sensitive about the rise of far-right parties both in political and social terms. The Alternative for Germany has won most of its votes in the eastern part of Germany, where due to economic problems the dynamism of those political currents that oppose multiculturalism is much more powerful than other parts of Germany. Interestingly enough, the eastern part of Germany was previously a hotbed for leftist parties, which generally enjoyed wide welcome of the general public there. However, the coalition formed by the moderate left and right, or even between far-left and other major political parties in Germany, has provided conditions under which far-right parties have been able to thrive.

Once in parliament, the Alternative for Germany is sure to oppose further entry of asylum seekers to the country and pursue more austere laws in this regard. Now, the question is can the far-right politicians be able to put this policy in practice? There is no doubt that practical realization of election slogans of the Alternative for Germany will be very difficult for the country. At the present time, a major campaign has been launched against this party both inside and outside Germany and the country’s rightist parties, in particular, will try to take back those votes, which have been shifted into the basket of the Alternative for Germany.

What has happened in Germany is a political earthquake and its aftershocks will continue to affect the country’s foreign policy as a result of the election win of the Alternative for Germany. At the present time, the most important question is “in what direction will these elections and their results take Germany?” The Alternative for Germany has a series of clear-cut preferences for the country. First of all, it is Eurosceptic, which means that it does not believe in the European convergence and will try to obstruct this path. This party may even try to turn the European Union into a purely economic union. They have never tried to hide their interest in the fall of euro and return of the German mark. When it comes to defense sector, leaders of this party believe in independence of Germany in the field of defense and this view can negatively affect Germany’s relations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as well as the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) of the European Union.

On the other hand, far-right parties have usually a positive stance on Russia. Therefore, one can expect reduction of tensions between Germany and Russia. On the other hand, they have a negative attitude toward Turkey and strongly oppose Turkey’s membership in the European Union. Expelling Turkey from NATO has been another point of interest for the leaders of the Alternative for Germany. If these developments take place in reality, then we will not be faced with a federal Germany anymore and will see a fundamental change in the pillars of Germany’s foreign policy, though the possibility for these changes to take place does not seem to be high.

There are a few points, which must be taken into account with regard to the effect that Merkel’s election win will have on Germany’s foreign policy orientations. First of all, these elections cannot bring about a major change in Germany’s foreign policy. A closer look at election debates will show that almost all political groups have been somehow unanimous about the framework of Germany’s foreign policy and its priorities and no hot debate took place in this regard. Basically speaking, the country’s foreign policy has never been a hot topic for election debates.

Secondly, Merkel, as the person who stands at the helm of Germany’s foreign policy, will not allow a major turnabout in Berlin’s foreign policy orientations. Ministries of foreign affairs and defense as well as security institutions are among the most important government bodies about which Merkel is particularly sensitive. Therefore, regardless of what coalition Merkel is a member of, she will not allow any change of policy against her will. During recent years and despite many challenges with which Germany has been faced, Merkel has been able to take the country through those challenges unscathed. She is a logical leader and has shown time and again that she is capable of making rational decisions at difficult times. The migration crisis, the crisis in relations with Syria and Russia, the situation in Ukraine, relations with Turkey as well as the eurozone crisis were major examples of those challenges through which Markel has been able to take Germany without much damage. Of course, after the Alternative for Germany enters the parliament, it is sure to insist on changing the foreign policy priorities of Berlin. However, due to the consensus that already exists among major political parties in Germany on the country’s foreign policy principles and orientations, it is not probable that this party would achieve any gains in this regard.

Therefore, one can predict that the new coalition government of Germany, which will take form through participation of the Christian Democrat Union, the Christian Social Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany and probably the Green party, will continue to pursue the policies of the former German government. However, Germany’s officials have made certain policy changes toward the United States in recent months. They have decided to reduce the status of the United States from a reliable partner to a trustworthy friend under the administration of US President Donald Trump. However, the United States and trans-Atlantic relations will continue to remain as one of the main pillars of Germany’s foreign policy. Or with regard to Russia, the two countries will continue to have challenging relations over the crisis in Ukraine, especially now that management of this crisis has been largely left to Germany. If the new foreign minister comes out of the Christian Democratic Union or the Green party, relations with Moscow can be expected to become tenser. The Liberal Democratic Party of Germany has found its way into the parliament after four years and most of its members follow the logic of mercantilism. Therefore, under their leadership, relations between Germany and Russia will not undergo much of a change. With regard to such issues as relations with West Asia and North Africa, the foreign policy of Germany is not expected to change much and will continue within framework of the European Union. As for the European convergence, if Germany wants to remain the leader of the European Union, it must get along with Spain, France and Italy more than before.

One of the main questions raised following the parliamentary elections in Germany is about the country’s policies toward Iran. Under the former government, the Social Democratic Party had adopted a more balanced approach to Iran and this is why the country’s former foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, visited Iran several times. The German government will continue to defend the nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), because it believes that the JCPOA is the greatest achievement of the European Union’s foreign policy. This means that if the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and the bloc’s foreign policy apparatus had any achievements in foreign policy area, the JCPOA is without a doubt one of their greatest, and basically speaking, the European Union’s foreign policy apparatus has had no other major achievement following the conclusion of the JCPOA with Iran. The European Union failed to prevent the flood of asylum seekers and has not been able to play a successful role with regard to the Middle East peace process. The bloc has also played no part in the Syria crisis. Therefore, the JCPOA is one of the greatest achievements of its member states in the field of foreign policy. In the meantime, Germany’s foreign policy with regard to Iran is, to a large extent, under the control of Merkel and her office and the chancellor herself is not an Iranophile personality and does not have a positive attitude or political preference toward Iran. Merkel is a supporter of the Zionist regime of Israel and considerations that she has with regard to Israel in Germany’s relations with Iran have practically barred her from having any meetings with Iranian officials. Perhaps the Israeli regime is a good excuse for the German chancellor to justify her lack of interest in improving political relations with Iran at the same pace that the two countries’ economic and trade relations have been picking up. Therefore, while some European countries have so far extended invitations to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani or have held meetings with senior Iranian diplomats, Merkel has never held a meeting even with Iran’s foreign minister.

If the new German foreign minister comes from the Liberal Democratic Party, which has just found its way into the German parliament, they will be more willing to maintain trade and economic relations with Iran. Of course, on the other hand, they will try to mount pressures on Tehran over human rights and environmental issues. This means that with them in power, Iran must be ready to hear louder criticism from Germany over human rights matters. In the meantime, the important development is that under the new coalition government, Merkel is possible to choose the foreign minister from within her own party. If this happens, we would see a person with a harsher tone on Iran at the helm at Germany’s foreign ministry. It is also possible that the Green party would take control of the foreign ministry in which case, in addition to supporting the JCPOA, they will take a more critical approach to bilateral relations, especially when it come to human rights issues.

On the whole, the pace at which Berlin’s approach to Tehran becomes harsher and more critical will be proportionate to increased regional role of the Islamic Republic and the influence that it sways across the region. Generally speaking, Germans are expected to continue expanding relations with Iran, especially in the fields of economy and trade, on the basis of their own specific conservatism and cool manner. However, they have allies in this region, whose list is topped by Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime of Israel and Iran must expect the new government in Berlin to take more positions in line with the interests of those regional allies than any time before. On the same basis, Iran should not expect Germany to turn into a trustworthy partner for the Islamic Republic. This comes despite the fact that in view of many historical, economic, political, normative, geopolitical and other reasons, Germany cannot have a better friend and partner in this region than Iran and must not lose the opportunity that has been offered to it to define its relations with Iran at a new level and for a longer period of time.

The Pirate Party are buccaneering their way into European politics, having found a foothold in the testy soil of Central Europe after colonising, in small measure, various hamlets in Sweden, Germany and Iceland.  The Czech Pirates (PPCZ), a term certainly exotic by current political pedigrees, managed to obtain over 10 percent of the vote, a result that gave them a rich harvest of 22 members in the parliamentary elections.

It took nine efforts, but the Czech Pirates had been edging their way onto conspicuous terrain in various local elections, including netting 5.3 percent of the total vote in Prague in 2015. The city of Mariánské Lázně also found itself having a Pirate Mayor after garnering 21 percent of the vote.

Retaining their oppositional colours, the Czech Pirates are insisting on avoiding the muddying nature of coalition talks with the overall winners. (The dangers of compromising collaboration!) Their agenda is one that has become fairly known across its other incarnations: the abolition of internet censorship, the favouring of institutional transparency, and the revision of, amongst other things, punitive copyright laws. But other agenda items form their twenty point program, including improving the lot of teacher salaries and tax reform.

The latter point is particularly appropriate, given the party’s experimentation with testing EU laws on the subject of pirate sites through its “Linking is not a Crime” stance. This was sparked, in large part, by attempts by the Czech Anti-Piracy Union to target a 16-year-old for that great terror of the regulator: linking to content designated as infringing of copyright law.

Launching several of their own contrarian sites, including Tipnafilm.cz and Piratskefilmy.cz, the latter carrying some 20,000 links to 5,800 movies, the Czech Pirate Party was overjoyed by the prospect of prosecution. “Our goal is to change the copyright monopoly law so that people are not fined millions for sharing culture with their friends.”

As Czech Pirate Party chairman Lukáš Černohorský said at the time, belligerent and defiant, “Instead of teenagers, copyright industry lobbyists are now dealing with a political party which didn’t run the website for money but because of our conviction that linking is not and should not be a crime.”

The gains of the party showed a certain mood at work and, as has been the case in much of Europe, proved boisterously, and at stages angrily, anti-establishment.

Check the Polish, Polish the Czech

“Europe’s redemption lies in the re-affirmation of the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 (and of Göteborg 2001), a ten-year development plan that focused on innovation, mobility and education, social, economic and environmental renewal. Otherwise a generational warfare will join class and ethnic conflicts as a major dividing line of the EU society in decline.” – prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic warned years ago in his seminal work ‘Future of Europe: Of Lisbon and Generational Interval.’ But as with other intellectual farsighted voices, it was largely ignored. Well so, until the recent alarming elections results in central Europe.

Thus, across its own political spectrum the Czechs were clearly showing they can add fuel to a brewing EU political fire, setting matters to rights on the continent while tearing down assumptions. As with any fire, however, the consequences can be searing.
While the Pirates did well, the Freedom and Direct Democracy party (SPD), a strident right wing outfit, nabbed similar numbers from the other side of the spectrum, sporting its own anti-EU, anti-immigrant brand. As its leader, Tomio Okamura, insists, “We want to leave just like Britain and we want a referendum on EU membership.”

Billionaire fertilizer tycoon Andrej Babiš, the sort of oligarchic figure who should always trouble democratic sensibilities, weighed in the elections with some 30 percent of the vote with his ANO party. His version of politics, another confection of anti-politics dressed for disgruntled consumption, reprises that of the businessman turned party leader. The claim made here is common: that the machinery of governance is somehow analogous to running a business.

Traditional parties, foremost amongst them the long performing Social Democrats, with whom Babiš had been in coalition with after gains made in 2013, found themselves pegged back to sixth position in the tally.

The swill stick of politics did not tar Babiš all that much, a figure who has managed to develop a certain Teflon coating in a manner similar to other billionaire leaders (think Silvio Berlusconi and a certain Donald Trump in the White House). He had become the focus of suspected tax crimes, and lost his job as finance minister. European subsidies, it was claimed, had found their mysterious way into his pocket.

Such suggestions merely touched the tip of a considerable iceberg, one which also consists of allegations of previous employment with the Czechoslovak secret state security service Stb. According to Slovakia’s Institute of National Memory, his code name for collaboration during his espionage stint was Bureš.

The billionaire seemed distinctly unperturbed, and his party’s showing suggested that some water will slide off a duck’s back. “I am happy that Czech citizens did not believe the disinformation campaign against us and expressed their trust in us.” He roundly insisted that his was “a democratic movement” positively pro-European and pro-NATO “and I do not understand why somebody labels us as a threat to democracy.”

These elections, however, will be savoured by a party that promises a fresh airing of a stale political scene, and one not nursing those prejudices that provide all too attractive gristle. Legislation, should it be implemented, may well remove the cobwebbed fears long associated with the Internet. But facing these newly elected figures will be ANO and an invigorated, indignant right-wing of politics, a far from easy proposition.

By Jack Memolo*

In the early hours of October 10, 2017, inmates at a prison located in the municipality of Cadestya began protesting the terrible conditions of the penitentiary. A few hours later, the situation had spiralled out of control. According to Aldo Fasci, a spokesman for the prison, “At five in the afternoon, the decision was made to allow the use of deadly force to prevent the murder of the guards and stop the murder of other inmates.” By the end of the day, at least 13 inmates lay dead, with many more wounded. As the riot raged, nervous relatives gathered outside the prison, awaiting word of their friends and loved ones. Since then, four more inmates have died of their wounds.[i]

This was the third violent riot which has rocked the Cadestya prison this year. While this certainly reflects a lack of control by authorities inside the penitentiary, the problem is hardly exclusive to the state of Nuevo Leon, in which Cadestya is located. In February of 2016, a riot in Topo Chico prison in the northern part of Mexico left 49 inmates dead, while 28 prisoners were murdered in a fight at a prison in Acapulco last July.[ii] Indeed, the frequency and scale of violence within the Mexican prison system is alarming, and raises fundamental questions about Mexico’s judicial process. Although the violent riots plaguing Mexican penitentiaries have been attributed to many factors, overpopulation is largely regarded the principal root of the problem.

Although the government’s official occupancy level in 2016 was 97.3 percent, Mexico’s penitentiary system was already holding 40,000 more inmates than the 200,000 it was constructed for.[iii] That same year, the Inter-American commission on Human Rights (IACHR) reported that 200 of the 288 prisons in Mexico had exceeded their population limits.[iv] Additionally, in April of 2016 the government’s independent National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) found that overcrowding was one of the primary factors behind the violence, as well as one of the greatest roadblocks to social rehabilitation for inmates.[v] More recently, the BBC has estimated that the prison system was at 133.9 percent of its intended occupancy rate.[vi] Perhaps most shockingly, another report by the Human Rights Commission in 2014 reported that, given the skewed ratios between inmates and guards, nearly 60 percent of the state’s prisons were operated and overseen by the prisoners themselves.[vii]

While there is a clear connection between the overpopulation of Mexican prisons and the ongoing war on drugs, there is another, lesser known but still related dimension of this issue which has contributed greatly to the overpopulation of Mexico’s penitentiary system: preventative detention.

Preventive detention is defined as an imprisonment of an individual, or group of individuals, for non-punitive purposes. According to authorities, preventative detention is utilized when individuals are waiting to be sentenced in order to prevent them from escaping the country or committing more crimes.[viii] Moreover, and more significantly for this article, Mexican authorities often use preventative detention when the release of the accused individual is viewed as adverse to the authorities’ ability to carry out a proper investigation.

According to Elena Azaola, a researcher at the Center of the Investigation and Higher Education of Social Anthropology, the jailing of these “pre-trial detainees” is one of the leading causes behind the overcrowding of Mexican prisons. This assertion is corroborated by National Security Commission, which found in 2015 that over forty percent of the 230,000 prisoners currently held in Mexico were incarcerated for reasons of preventative detention.[ix] Even though many of these detainees have not been formally accused or convicted of committing a crime, they are often mixed in with the general prison population. Even though these individuals are presumably, as the saying goes, “innocent until proven guilty,” they must still wait months, or in some cases years, to see their day in court.

While the use of preventative detention has been a primary contributor to the current problem of prison overpopulation, one specific category of preventative detention, known as arraigo, has been especially controversial. In English, “arraigo” roughly translates into “court order,” or “root,” yet this seemingly benign translation conceals the sinister nature of the program. Arraigo has its roots in the “war on organized crime” initiative launched by the federal government in 2006.[x] Under the guidance of President Felipe Calderón, Mexican authorities escalated and expanded their use of violent tactics against organized crime. In 2008, arraigo was formally incorporated into the Mexican Constitution as “a federal preventative measure to detain people suspected of belonging to organized crime for up to 80 days,” according to the Mexican Commission of Defense and the Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH).[xi] Although the measure was seen as a key preventative tactic at the time, there were also clear human rights problems. For one thing, authorities were given the right to arbitrarily detain individuals without evidence or a clear motive. These individuals often have limited access to medical care, legal counsel, and open channels of communication to relatives and loved ones. Police consistently claim that preventative detention allows them to properly investigate suspects without risking their escape. In practice however, arraigo, and more importantly preventative detention on a much broader scale, has led to a steady increase in Mexico’s prison population– which has risen from 193,889 in 2004 to a peak of 255,638 in 2014. While the total population has decreased to 217,868 as of 2016, this still marks a significant increase over the past ten years.[xii] Yet regardless of the clear relationship between cases of arraigo, preventative detention and prison overpopulation, there still remains an even more sinister dimension: torture.

Despite the government’s insistence that arraigo is a key tool in fighting organized crime, it has also led to the torture of hundreds of individuals who had not been formally accused of breaking the law. The lack of traditional judicial protections, such as habeas corpus and a defense counsel, has left vulnerable civilians held under arraigo susceptible to torture. This assertion is corroborated by the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (SPT) during a monitoring visit to Mexico in 2009.[xiii] After gathering testimonies from individuals held under arraigo, SPT found a constant trend of torture. In one federal prison for example, over half of detainees had suffered from repeated beating by authorities, “with an average of 17 lesions distributed over eight different parts of their bodies.”[xiv] Worse still, reports of rape also circulated around the prison. During an interview with SPT, one noticeably shaken woman held under arraigo told the subcommittee that she was raped shortly after being detained. Her medical records later confirmed this testimony. In another more high profile instance, 23 Mexican police officers were arrested under arraigo and taken to a military barracks by the army. Later, the officers testified that they “were bound with tape around their head, hands, knees and feet for days, denied food for three days, beaten repeatedly, asphyxiated with plastic bags over their heads, and given electric shocks to their feet and genitalia”– all of which was done without a formal charge or criminal conviction.[xv]

In 2014, under pressure from various human rights groups, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that states could no longer use arraigo for cases which involve organized crime. However, the Courts did not prohibit arraigo at the federal level– a situation that still has not changed. Additionally, while the Mexican government reduced the amount of time an individual can be detained from 80 days to 40, prosecutors still have the ability to extend this time limit to the original 80 days if approved by a judge.[xvi]

With all of the misery associated with the practice of arraigo, Mexican authorities have little to show for it. Given the often clandestine nature of arraigo arrests, it is difficult to gauge just how many individuals detained by police actually ended up being convicted. Yet, according to the aforementioned report by CMDPDH, “Between 2011 and 2012, statements from the government indicate that only around 3.2% of all arraigo related cases resulted in convictions.”[xvii] Even more damning is the lack of sufficient evidence from authorities justifying their use of arraigo. If the program is effective in detaining individuals dangerous to themselves or society at large, then why is there such a dearth of evidence supporting its utility? This is especially pertinent given the relative ease with which the Mexican court system approves arraigo detainers. Between 2006 and 2012, only 8 percent of total arraigo requests submitted by prosecutors were denied. Unless police and military officials have been correct 92 percent of the time, there is a clear lack of proper oversight by the Mexican court system over the use of arraigo related pre-detentions.[xviii]

Indeed, one of the fundamental factors contributing to the problem of preventative detention seems to be a weakness of the court system when compared to the authority delegated to prosecutors. Mexican courts already suffer from severe resource limitations, and this lack of proper funding hamstrings their ability to adequately vet prosecutorial arraigo detainer requests, as well as other detainers for alleged crimes committed on a smaller scale, such as petty theft.[xix] A Wilson Center report found that only 1 in 5 cases are properly investigated, with an even smaller number of investigations leading to criminal convictions. With a weak and inefficient court system, criminal cases both large and small are hampered by endless backlogs. As a result, pre-trial detainees that make up roughly 40 percent of Mexico’s prison population are forced to wait months, or in some cases years for a proper judicial hearing.[xx]

Mexico’s inefficient courts, and the broader defects of its justice system, partially reflect the trouble of transitioning from the one-party rule of the PRI to an inclusive, multi-party democracy. While PRI unilateral political hegemony ended decades ago, the necessary development of a strong, independent judiciary– something critical to any democratic and free system of government– has still yet to crystallize. Power, for all intents and purposes, still lies in hands of the prosecutors, whose degree of autonomy in dealing with evidence, witness testimony, and general control over the judicial process is far greater than that of other elements within the underfunded court system.[xxi] Although the reforms implemented by the Mexican Congress in 2008 were meant to make the courts more “adversarial”– putting increased emphasis on due-process and the natural rights of the suspect accused of a crime– the courts still lack the authority and institutional strength to carry out this transition. [xxii]

On April 25th, 2013, the nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch called on Mexico to abolish arraigo from the constitution.[xxiii] They have been joined by a chorus of voices, from the United Nations Human Rights Commission to Amnesty International, which have come out against the use of this dangerous program. Yet nearly four years later, federal police and military officials are still using the program. The utilization of preventative detention, along with the more extreme form of arraigo, have been a cancer on Mexico’s judicial process, and its democracy as a whole. While the government claims that these methods are effective in taking dangerous individuals off the streets, prison riots, overpopulation and torture are all they have to show for it. No healthy democracy can coexist while individuals are being held without due-process or habeas corpus. By abolishing the use of arraigo, as well as limiting the utilization of preventative detention more generally, the Mexican government will force itself to rethink and revitalize its judicial process. Reform should only stop when the justice system has shifted from arrest, detention, and the overall presumption of guilt, to a system where the accused are given fair, unbiased treatment, until sufficient evidence can be brought to bear to properly convict.

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

Additional editorial support provided by James Baer, Senior Research Fellow, Bjorn T. Kjlestad, Tomas Bayas and Gavin Allman, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Notes:
[i] Becerril, Daniel, and Sharay Angulo. “At least 13 killed during prison fight in northern Mexico.” Reuters. October 11, 2017. Accessed October 15, 2017. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-violence/at-least-13-killed-during-prison-fight-in-northern-mexico-idUSKBN1CG061?il=0

[ii] “MEXICO: New fatal prison riot raises old questions.” Latin News Daily. October 12, 2017. Accessed October 12, 2017. https://www.latinnews.com/component/k2/item/73905.html?period=%20&archive=33&search=Prison%20Riot&Itemid=6&cat_id=809430:mexico-new-fatal-prison-riot-raises-old-questions.

[iii] “Mexico.” Mexico | World Prison Brief. December 01, 2016. Accessed October 12, 2017. http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/mexico.

[iv] “MEXICO 2016 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT.” Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2016, July 04, 2017.Accessed October 13, 2017.United States Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

[v] “Overpopulation root of Mexico’s prison problems, says report.” Mexico News Daily. March 21, 2017. Accessed October 9, 2017. http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/overpopulation-at-root-of-prison-problems/.

[vi] “In Depth.” BBC News. June 20, 2005. Accessed October 14, 2017. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm.

[vii] Campoy, Ana. “In more than half of Mexico’s prisons, inmates have taken control.” Quartz. February 24, 2016. Accessed October 13, 2017. https://qz.com/622303/in-more-than-half-of-mexicos-prisons-inmates-have-taken-control/.

[viii] “MEXICO 2016 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT.” Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2016, July 04, 2017.Accessed October 13, 2017.United States Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

[ix] Campoy, Ana. “In more than half of Mexico’s prisons, inmates have taken control.” Quartz. February 24, 2016. Accessed October 13, 2017. https://qz.com/622303/in-more-than-half-of-mexicos-prisons-inmates-have-taken-control/.

[x] Deaton, Janice , and Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira. “Detention Without Charge: The Use of Arraigo for Criminal Investigations in Mexico.” Justice in Mexico-, January 2015 . Accessed October 15, 2017. Department of Political Science & International Relations

[xi] “Arraigo made in Mexico: A violation to human rights.” Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, A.C. Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura, October 2012, 2-16. Accessed October 14, 2017. doi:10.18411/d-2016-154

[xii] “Mexico.” Mexico | World Prison Brief. December 01, 2016. Accessed October 12, 2017. http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/mexico.

[xiii] “Mexico 2009 Report .” United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, December 2009, Paragraph 225. Accessed October 14, 2017. United Nations.

[xiv] “Mexico 2009 Report .” United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, December 2009, Paragraph 225. Accessed October 14, 2017. United Nations.

[xv] “Arraigo made in Mexico: A violation to human rights.” Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, A.C. Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura, October 2012, 2-16. Accessed October 14, 2017. doi:10.18411/d-2016-154

[xvi] Shirk, David A. “JUSTICE REFORM IN MEXICO: CHANGE & CHALLENGES IN THE JUDICIAL SECTOR*.” Mexico Institute- Wilson Center, January 13, 2011, 217 . Accessed October 23, 2017. The Wilson Center. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Chapter%207-%20Justice%20Reform%20in%20Mexico,%20Change%20and%20Challenges%20in%20the%20Judicial%20Sector.pdf

[xvii] “Arraigo made in Mexico: A violation to human rights.” Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, A.C. Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura, October 2012, 2-16. Accessed October 14, 2017. doi:10.18411/d-2016-154

[xviii] “Arraigo made in Mexico: A violation to human rights.” Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, A.C. Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura, October 2012, 2-16. Accessed October 14, 2017. doi:10.18411/d-2016-154

[xix] Kroc, Joan B. “Judicial Reform in Mexico-Change & Challenges in the Justice Sector .” Trans – Border Institute, May 7, 2010, 12-20 . Accessed October 17, 2017. https://justiceinmexico.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2010_Shirk-Judicial-Reform-in-Mexico.pdf.

[xx] Shirk, David A. “JUSTICE REFORM IN MEXICO: CHANGE & CHALLENGES IN THE JUDICIAL SECTOR*.” Mexico Institute- Wilson Center, January 13, 2011, 217 . Accessed October 23, 2017. The Wilson Center. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Chapter%207-%20Justice%20Reform%20in%20Mexico,%20Change%20and%20Challenges%20in%20the%20Judicial%20Sector.pdf

[xxi] Shirk, David A. “JUSTICE REFORM IN MEXICO: CHANGE & CHALLENGES IN THE JUDICIAL SECTOR*.” Mexico Institute- Wilson Center, January 13, 2011, 217 . Accessed October 23, 2017. The Wilson Center. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Chapter%207-%20Justice%20Reform%20in%20Mexico,%20Change%20and%20Challenges%20in%20the%20Judicial%20Sector.pdf

[xxii] Kroc, Joan B. “Judicial Reform in Mexico-Change & Challenges in the Justice Sector .” Trans – Border Institute, May 7, 2010, 12-20 . Accessed October 17, 2017. https://justiceinmexico.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2010_Shirk-Judicial-Reform-in-Mexico.pdf.

[xxiii] “Mexico: Abolish “Arraigo” Detention from Constitution:Proposals to Curtail the Practice Inadequate; Detainees at Risk of Torture.” Human Rights Watch. April 25, 2013. Accessed October 15, 2017. https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/25/mexico-abolish-arraigo-detention-constitution.

By J C Suresh

A new study throws limelight on the skyrocketing costs of the current plan to sustain and upgrade U.S. nuclear forces and outlines several pragmatic options to maintain a credible, formidable deterrent at less cost.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study published on October 31 estimates that sustaining and upgrading U.S. nuclear forces will cost taxpayers $1.24 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars between fiscal years 2017 and 2046. When the effects of inflation are included, the CBO expects the 30-year cost to exceed $1.5 trillion. These figures are significantly higher than the previously reported estimates of roughly $1 trillion.

“The stark reality underlined by CBO is that unless the U.S. government finds a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the nuclear weapons spending plan inherited by the Trump administration will pose a crushing affordability problem,” said Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association.

The CBO study comes amid reports that the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, which is scheduled for completion by the end of the year, could propose new types of nuclear weapons and increase their role in U.S. policy.

“If the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review by the administration does not scale-back current nuclear weapons spending plans – or worse, accelerates or expands upon them – expenditures on nuclear weapons will endanger other high priority national security programs,” Reif noted.

The CBO report evaluates roughly a dozen alternatives to the current plans to manage and reduce the mammoth price tag. For example, according to CBO, roughly 15 percent, or nearly $200 billion, of the projected cost of nuclear forces over the next three decades could be saved by trimming back the existing program of record while still maintaining a triad of delivery systems. Additional savings could be found by shifting from a triad to a nuclear dyad.

“The report blows apart the false choice repeatedly posited by Pentagon officials between the costly ‘all of the above’ plan to maintain and upgrade the nuclear force and doing nothing. There are cost-cutting alternatives that would still maintain a U.S. nuclear force capable of obliterating any potential nuclear adversary,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

“The trillion and a half dollar triad is not just unaffordable, it is unnecessary. The United States continues to retain more nuclear weapons, delivery systems, and supporting infrastructure than it needs to deter or respond to a nuclear attack,” Kimball added.

Over the past several years, the Arms Control Association has repeatedly raised concerns about the need and affordability of the current spending plans, argued that these plans pose a threat to other military priorities, and suggested more cost-effective alternatives.

In an issue brief titled ‘The Trillion (and a Half) Dollar Triad?’, posted on August 18, Reif referred to a tweet on August 9 by Donald Trump in which he said that his “first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before.” He reiterated this claim in a press briefing August 11.

“Like many of the president’s utterances, these assertions don’t come close to resembling the truth,” noted Reif. In fact the U.S. nuclear arsenal is no more, or less, powerful than when Trump took office January 20, 2017. The president did order the Pentagon to conduct a Nuclear Posture Review to examine and provide recommendations on U.S. nuclear weapons policy and posture, but that review, which officially began in April, is still ongoing and won’t be completed until the end of this year at the earliest, he added.

“In fact, it was President Barack Obama that set in motion plans to undertake a massive and costly rebuild of the arsenal. Much of this effort is still in its infancy, and will take decades to complete,” Reif stated. “Trump inherited this program, and his first budget request, which has yet to be acted on by Congress, proposes to move full steam ahead with the Obama approach. This is not surprising, given that the administration has yet to put its own stamp on U.S. nuclear policy.”

Reif added: What has been lost in much of the important fact checking of Trump’s erroneous (and dangerous) nuclear saber-rattling is that while the capability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal hasn’t changed over the past seven months, the projected annual costs of the current all-of-the-above upgrade plans are rising significantly – and not because of anything Trump has done.

The Arms Control Association’s director for disarmament referred to Congressional Budget Office report in February, which estimates that the United States will spend $400 billion on nuclear weapons from fiscal year 2017-2026. That is an increase of $52 billion, or 15 percent, from the CBO’s previous 10-year estimate of $348 billion, which was published in January 2015.

“The 10-year estimate captures the beginning of the major planned ramp-up in spending to recapitalize all three legs of the existing nuclear ‘triad’ of submarines, missiles, and bombers and their associated warheads and supporting infrastructure, but even larger bills are still to come,” noted Reif.

The Arms Control Association is an independent, membership-based organization dedicated to providing authoritative information and practical policy solutions to address the threats posed by the world’s most dangerous weapons.

By Malik Ibrahim

The militant ambush that killed four US servicemen and five Nigerien troops in Niger on October 4 has thrust US actions and policy in Africa’s Sahel into the spotlight for perhaps the first time. This was inevitable: America’s regional operations have been ongoing from the earliest days of the “War on Terror” and now go back 15 years. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, has made clear in her ongoing visit to the continent that Washington sees Africa’s political and humanitarian struggles as a future threat to American security interests.

Those concerns predate Donald Trump by at least two administrations. Since 2002, thousands of American military personnel have been deployed to the Sahel to counter militant activity in one of the world’s most ungoverned areas. Governments and security forces in Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Mauritania and Niger have received training, equipment, funding, and advice from their American counterparts. These partnerships began under the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) and then the Trans-Saharan Counter Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) before the Pentagon finally launched AFRICOM in 2007 as a separate command structure. There are an estimated 800 US military personnel in Niger and at least 1,500 in the wider region.

This US support is meant to help the region’s governments counteract well-established criminal networks, including trafficking routes that carry guns, drugs and people across the Sahara, but most especially to fight the militants of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and now Islamic State (IS). Those challenges have intensified since the civil war in Libya: since the collapse of Muammar Gadhafi’s regime, the region has been awash with weapons.

And yet, the American public’s reaction to hearing four US soldiers had been killed has been above all confusion. What, they asked, were the troops doing in Niger? This blissful unawareness of an entire theater of operations extended to the highest levels of government. Even Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Congress’ most outspoken and aggressive foreign policy voices, seemingly did not know that US military personnel are deployed to the country. It took President Donald Trump 12 days to respond to the news, and only then to spark outrage and ridicule with his botched condolences to the pregnant widow of one of the servicemen, Sgt. La David Johnson.

While the controversies surrounding Senator Graham and President Trump may be embarrassing for the US government, this incident has raised questions that were long overdue. Unlike interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, America’s counterterror operations in the Sahel have been carried out without public scrutiny or debate. As a result, US policies in the region (and indeed throughout West Africa) have been squarely focused on security and military force. Meanwhile, issues surrounding development, economic stability, and other indispensable components of a comprehensive regional strategy have fallen by the wayside.

Part of this may be because the United States is content to take a back seat in the Sahel. While American forces work behind the scenes, France largely takes the lead across West Africa. It was the French military that intervened in 2013 to repel jihadist militants and Tuareg rebels threatening to conquer the whole of Mali. Operation Serval ended with declarations of victory, but the 5,000-strong Operation Barkhane remains ongoing in Mali. It was also France that ultimately reinforced and extracted the US/Nigerien patrol on October 4.

That is not to imply that the United States and France always act in concert. The two sides only recently resolved a dispute at the UN over French plans to form a regional “G5 Sahel” African security force. According to French sources, Washington’s objections to the new peacekeeping force mostly came down to not wanting to fund it.

Despite France’s claims, there are valid reasons for skepticism when it comes to the region’s own forces. American planners are well aware that their local partners oftentimes fuel the very forces that foster violent extremism and instability through their authoritarian governing styles.

Mauritania (a key member of the G5) offers one of the most recent examples. President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has ruled as a strongman and stamped out dissent since coming to power in a coup in 2008, but he pushed his monopolization of political power still further by abolishing the country’s Senate in the name of “decentralization” this past August. Both his opponents and outside experts see Abdel Aziz’s actions as laying the groundwork to change the constitution and run for a third presidential term.

While Abdel Aziz dismantles checks on his political power, Mauritania remains one of the world’s worst offenders in perpetuating modern slavery. The Global Slavery Index estimates that 43,000 Mauritanians are enslaved. American diplomats publicly support Abdel Aziz as an important partner in the fight against terrorism, but leaked diplomatic cables going to back to 2009 show they are perfectly aware of his undemocratic governance and lack of concern for human rights.

Critically, Mauritania has gotten poorer over the past few years. Economic and social development should be a key part of US strategy in West Africa, but American relationships with Abdel Aziz and other regional partners have long been dominated by security. This dynamic will only be exacerbated by the Trump administration’s moves to boost military spending at the expense of foreign aid. While American officials like Nikki Haley proclaim their dedication to addressing the root causes of instability and radicalization, they seemingly view the $8 billion in US funding for education, economic advancement, public health, and other critical development challenges on the continent as fat to be trimmed.

Putting on militaristic blinders is a surefire way to make sure the Sahel countries remain poor and their populations disaffected – a recipe for successful recruitment by militant groups. As long as this state of affairs persists, the US forces in the Sahel may as well be running through quicksand.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com, where this article was published.

By Mark Edel V. Diaz*

Regionalism has figured quite prominently in the discourse of international relations since the middle of the 20^th century. The establishment of regional blocs such as the European Union (EU) in 1993 (earlier as the European Community in 1957), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967, and the African Union (AU) in 2001 exemplified the growing significance of regional groups in advancing the individual interests of member states that are unable to do so. These interests range from economic and politico-security to sociocultural, and from general areas of cooperation to more specific such as disaster response, among others.

As the younger regional organizations, ASEAN and AU have seldom been mentioned in the same breath despite their irrefutable similarities. Both ASEAN and AU share a troubled colonial past, unbalanced economic development, and to some extent they both uphold the principle of non-interference in internal affairs. Additionally, these organizations face similar security challenges in their regions and have to deal with the presence and influence of major powers (i.e., China and the United States). Despite these, the interaction between these organizations have been limited and often off the radar. It is, therefore, worth exploring the strategies that ASEAN can take in order to strengthen its interregional cooperation with the AU.

In an increasingly interdependent world order, it is practical to have diversified relationships with polities from all around the world.  In the case of ASEAN and the AU, this may be made possible by reviving existing mechanisms, and identifying the barriers in forging a potentially beneficial partnership. More importantly, there is a need to locate the missing link in their relationship.

The beginnings of ASEAN-AU relations

The 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia marked the beginning of Asia-Africa cooperation. There were strong non-aligned and anti-colonial sentiments at the time because of the onset of the Cold War, and a strong independence movement that swept across Asia and Africa. The 29 participating states signed a communique that pledged their commitments to economic, cultural and political cooperation. The document, however, was full of blanket statements founded on values of human rights, non-discrimination, and self-determination, which constituted The Spirit of Bandung. The solidarity formed in Bandung began to wane in the 1980s due to leadership changes and lack of engagement among the founding countries. Today, one may argue that the partnership has yet to reach its full potential in the political and economic realms, as efforts to enhance relations have been, for the most part, intermittent.

In 2003, the first Asian-African Sub-Regional Organizations Conferences (AASROC) was held in Bandung, Indonesia followed by another conference in Durban, South Africa a year later. The governments of Indonesia and South Africa, the de facto leaders of their respective regions, agreed to work together in determining ways and means to improve economic, cultural, social, and political cooperation on a multilateral level. On the 50^th anniversary of the Bandung Conference in 2005, they also spearheaded the New Asia Africa Strategic Partnership (NAASP) to revive The Spirit of Bandung by increasing contact between the two regions, emphasizing on social and economic cooperation, and responding to non-traditional threats such as earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. This declaration proposed to hold a Leaders’ Summit every four years, and a Ministers’ Meeting every two years, among others. So far, only a couple of meetings under the AASROC framework took place, which were mostly initiated by AU countries.

The year 2017 marks an exciting year for ASEAN and AU, as they engage in more functional cooperation. In May 2017, a World Bank South-South Exchange Visit involving ASEAN and four African sub-regional organizations enabled representatives from the two regions to engage in dialogues on climate change, food security, and disaster risk reduction. The meeting signifies the growing awareness about the non-traditional security challenges faced by the two regional blocs. Later this year, the first ever Africa-ASEAN Business Expo 2017 in Johannesburg, South Africa will provide a platform to link business opportunities in the two regions, which is an excellent prospect to forge and strengthen trade partnerships. The expo builds on the trade momentum between Africa and ASEAN as it increased from USD 2.8 billion in 1990 to USD 42.5 billion in 2012 with an annual growth rate of 14 percent, making Africa the second largest regional trade partner of ASEAN, after Asia.

The need for stronger ASEAN initiatives – the role of think tanks

The Philippines can take the lead in revitalizing ASEAN-AU relations, specifically, under the sixth thematic priority of the Philippine chairmanship of ASEAN: promoting ASEAN as a model of regionalism and as a global player. In consideration of ASEAN’s open, inclusive and outward-looking nature, Manila can help revive the NAASP and strengthen its capacity as ASEAN’s dialogue platform with the AU.  Other than investing on informal platforms to support the cause, ASEAN must first overcome the road blocks in the development of its relations with African countries. All efforts must be backed by strong political will and engagement before anything can move forward with the relations.

More importantly, knowledge and appreciation about Africa needs a shot in the arm as this sets the preconditions for policy development. Information is arguably the missing link in the blossoming of ASEAN-AU interregional cooperation. This is exactly where think tanks play an important role. In the age of post-truths and fake news, think tanks and the epistemic community need to develop facts-based accounts about Africa, and provide balanced narratives against the negative stereotypes perpetuated by the mainstream media. Africa is still seen by many Westerners as a country instead of a continent. Southeast Asians should not fall for the same thinking, as this tends to hamper Africa’s development even more. Specifically, comprehensive studies about the opportunities presented by Africa need to reach the tables of Asian leaders. They, more than anyone at this time, should be well-informed about the long term benefits of political and economic cooperation with Africa, the same way that China, Japan, and India were made aware about it years ago.

The opportunities for cooperation between Southeast Asians and Africans are copious, and this can only be maximized if the knowledge bridge between their regions is built with strong resolve. In an era of rapidly changing global politics, it is nothing short of good for ASEAN and the AU to look beyond the horizon of traditional partners. These two regional organizations need not wait for another 50 years to revive the spirit of Bandung. They should start now. The countries in Africa are bright destinations for new and varying opportunities, and ASEAN must harness them while proactively espousing its anniversary theme of being a true partner for change by engaging the world.

About the author:
*Mark Edel V. Diaz is a Foreign Affairs Research Specialist with the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies of the Foreign Service Institute. Mr. Diaz can be reached at mvdiaz@fsi.gov.ph.

Source:
This article was published by FSI. CIRSS Commentaries is a regular short publication of the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies (CIRSS) of the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) focusing on the latest regional and global developments and issues.

The views expressed in this publication are of the authors alone and do not reflect the official position of the Foreign Service Institute, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Government of the Philippines.

By Michael Lelyveld

A trade conflict with the United States may be looming around the corner as China pursues its goals for developing electric cars.

China’s government has bet heavily on manufacturing “new energy vehicles” (NEVs) for both the environmental benefits and the technological advancement expected to come with development.

The country is already the world’s leading auto market, with sales of 23.9 million cars, sports utility and multi- purpose vehicles in 2016, according to the China Passenger Car Association and Bloomberg News.

Sales of NEVs, including plug-in hybrids, pure battery electric and fuel-cell electric models, soared to 507,000 units last year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said.

While accounting for only about 2 percent of the total, sales of NEVs jumped 53 percent in 2016.

Through September of this year, China sales of 20.23 million vehicles are up 4.5 percent from a year earlier, while NEV sales have climbed 37.7 percent, CAAM said.

The growth spurt has been a product of demand shaped by government policies, including subsidies for both buyers and manufacturers, local licensing breaks for non-polluting vehicles in major cities and rules that mandate NEV market share.

Most recently, the government shook up the market on Sept. 28 as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced a new policy that requires car companies to make 10 percent of their sales in the NEV category in 2019, rising to 12 percent in 2020.

Under a cap-and-trade provision, automakers that fall short of the targets will have to buy credits from competitors that exceed them or pay fines, state media reported.

Phase-out planned

The new rules were announced shortly after MIIT Vice- Minister Xin Guobin disclosed on Sept. 10 that the government is considering a timetable for phasing out production of fossil fueled cars.

“Those measures will certainly bring profound changes for our car industry’s development,” Xin told the official Xinhua news agency.

The series of moves have spurred foreign car companies to make their own plans for speeding development of NEVs.

Within days, General Motors chief executive Mary Barra said the U.S.-based automaker plans to offer 10 new NEV models for sale in China by 2020 and 20 models by 2023. Other foreign automakers are following suit.

With the shift toward zero-emission transport, China would join Britain and France, which have pledged to ban new internal combustion vehicles by 2040.

But China’s plans pose special challenges for foreign automakers and risks of trade conflict, due in part to its history of demanding technology transfer and erecting barriers to competition from abroad.

China’s passenger car production has rocketed from 604,000 in 2000 to 24.4 million last year, according to the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers.

Experts say the spectacular growth would not have been possible without the transfer of technology under rules that have required foreign automakers to establish joint ventures with Chinese partners as a condition of market access since the 1980s.

Risk of conflict

In an analysis for the Seattle-based National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), China analyst Marika Heller of the Crumpton Group consulting firm argued that many of the same conditions are at work in the push for NEV development, raising the risk of a trade conflict with the United States.

“In the past few months, the Trump administration has grown wary of the Chinese government-led effort to make China a leader in electric cars,” Heller wrote.

“Yet, if the administration targets China’s electric vehicle policies, Beijing is likely to take reciprocal actions to protect what it deems a strategically important industry,” she said.

The groundwork for a confrontation has already been laid on both sides, Heller argued.

On the U.S. side, President Donald J. Trump directed the U.S. trade representative in August to determine whether to investigate China’s trade practices that “may be harming American intellectual property rights (IPR)” under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

On the Chinese side, a series of plans make it likely that harm to American IPR will be found.

The government’s “Made in China 2025” initiative to support home-grown technology has specifically targeted indigenous NEV manufacturing for dominance, directing “locally branded NEVs to capture 70 percent of the Chinese market by 2020,” the Economist Intelligence Unit said.

Under a law introduced in January, joint ventures must show that they have “mastered” all elements of NEV technology before they can produce in China. Both U.S. and European chambers of commerce have voiced concerns that the requirement will force foreign partners to transfer all of their technologies, Heller said.

In March, MIIT Minister Miao Wei reassured investors that it was “not mandatory for foreign-funded enterprises to transfer technology to China,” the Financial Times reported. But foreign business interests were not convinced.

Subject to tariffs

Under a draft proposal shown to industry executives last month, foreign automakers would be allowed to produce electric cars in free-trade zones without Chinese partners. But the vehicles would be subject to import tariffs if sold in China, Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal said.

On Oct. 22, the Journal reported that U.S. electric car maker Tesla has reached an agreement to build a wholly-owned factory in Shanghai’s free-trade zone. But the paper said it was unlikely that the cars produced there would be exempted from China’s 25-percent import tariff.

Heller cited concerns that China will raise market barriers to foreign-made NEVs once it builds up its own industry and gets the technology that it wants.

Washington would respond with its own barriers to Chinese auto imports. And then, “China would likely respond with direct and indirect retaliatory measures involving countervailing duties against auto and auto parts,” and so on, escalating into a full-blown trade crisis.

The risk appears to depend on a series of tit-for-tat reactions that have not happened yet.

Heller did not respond to a request for comment. But Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said the risk of a trade conflict with China over NEVs is real.

In an interview, Hufbauer said U.S. automakers have been tolerating China’s demands for technology transfer for decades.

“For U.S. automakers, it’s been the price of admission to the Chinese market,” he said. “China has had this practice and companies have gone along with it.”

No other country has been able to use the attraction of its market to gain so much technology, Hufbauer said.

High cost of transfers

The pressures over NEV production are likely to be seen as a continuation of past problems, despite the high costs of forced technology transfers.

In a commentary this month for East Asia Forum, Hufbauer and Peterson research analyst Zhiyao Lu cited NBR estimates that the loss of trade secrets has cost America’s economy between U.S. $180 billion and U.S. $540 billion (1.2 trillion to 3.6 trillion yuan) annually.

But there may be few good options for dealing with the NEV issue and forced technology transfers, raising the risk of conflict.

The United States could bring a case before the World Trade Organization, but the outcome would be uncertain.

“The WTO was never set up to deal with this type of problem. It’s really outside the framework of the WTO,” Hufbauer said.

With the ponderous pace of the WTO process, any decision would be likely to take two to three years.

A WTO case is also unlikely to be a strong one without industry support.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult to find companies that complain … because that would put a big cloud over their future participation in what promises to be the biggest auto market in the next decade or two decades, or maybe even longer,” Hufbauer said.

The path forward

The U.S. government could unilaterally impose restrictions on technology transfer, but the result could put the interests of automakers at risk.

“They’d be unhappy, but it’s a potential tool that could be used,” said Hufbauer. Other possible measures including quotas and duties could invite retaliation, bringing the countries closer to a trade war.

“The path forward is not at all clear,” he said.

In their posted commentary, Hufbauer and Lu suggested the alternative of accelerating talks on a bilateral investment treaty (BIT), with the possibility of negotiating IPR protection terms similar to those in U.S. free trade agreements with Singapore and South Korea.

But the pace of negotiations is likely to be much slower than China’s headlong rush into NEV development with its consequences for U.S. automakers and bilateral trade.

By Prabha Rao*

The enfant terrible of international politics, North Korean President Kim Jong-un, has a talent for generating war clouds and intercontinental nightmares. The Kim dynasty, which has tenaciously held on to power in the face of international condemnation, has two major foreign policy narratives — ‘Juche’ (self-reliance), and secure independence. These narratives have led the country into aggressive nuclear and missile sabre-rattling. Such sabre-rattling has intensified since Kim Jong-un assumed power in 2011. While North Korea carried out 15 missile tests under Kim Il-sung and 16 under Kim Jong-Il, it has, as of mid-September 2017, conducted 85 tests under Kim Jong-un.1

But the most significant development has been North Korea’s development of thermonuclear capability. On January 3, 2016, it carried out a hydrogen bomb test, its fourth nuclear test overall. It has been alleged that Pakistan had assisted North Korea in the development of this capability, which can be discerned from the similarities between the instrumentation bunkers at Punggye-ri and Pakistan’s RasKoh nuclear testing complex.2 This was followed by Kim Jong-un’s claim in March 2016 that his country has miniaturised nuclear warheads for fitting onto ballistic missiles. On September 10, 2016, North Korea detonated a nuclear warhead, which the South Korean Meteorological Administration estimated had a yield of 10 kilotons.

While alternately accusing the United States of driving the Korean peninsula towards a nuclear war and threatening a nuclear strike on the ‘heart of the US’, North Korea detonated an advanced, two-stage, hydrogen bomb on September 3, 2017 (the sixth nuclear test since 2006) with an yield of over 120 kilotons at a test site in Sungjibaegam, close to the previous testing site at Punggye-ri. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) warned that the test was of a multi-functional thermonuclear weapon which could be detonated at high altitudes to generate a potent Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) that would wipe out electrical grids from Japan to the US.3 The latest test has renewed fears about North Korea’s claimed cache of around 60 nuclear weapons and the considerable progress that it has made towards their miniaturization.

According to a database maintained by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, North Korea tested 26 missiles in 2016; 16 of those tests were successful and 10 were failures. There have been 19 tests in 2017 so far, with 13 successes.4 The 68 per cent success rate would be commendable in any country. The frequency of the tests suggests that North Korea is confident of its supply of missiles and has the necessary resources and capabilities to make them at will. Such an achievement is not just improbable, but impossible without sustained outside help, indicating thereby that UN sanctions and embargoes against Pyongyang have been violated in fact, spirit and intent.

Missile Programme on a Very Fast Track

North Korea’s missile programme has made unprecedented advances since Kim Jong-un’s ascendance to power. It has progressed from short-range missiles like the Nu-Dong (some of which were bought with hard cash by Pakistan according to former President Pervez Musharraf and were rechristened as the Ghauri missiles), to the intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) Musudan (which repeatedly failed flight tests) and the Hwasong-12, and ultimately, the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Hwasong-14. The latter two missiles use a powerful liquid-propellant engine (LPE).5

On May 14, 2017, North Korea launched the Hwasong-12, which flew on a steep trajectory, reaching a peak altitude of over 2,000 kilometres. If the Hwasong-12 had used a normal flight path, it would have travelled between 4,000 and 4,500 kilometres, thus placing Guam (3,400 kilometres away) within range. On July 4, to coincide with the US Independence Day, the two-stage Hwasong-14 was launched, reaching an apogee of 2,700 kilometres. A second Hwasong-14 was tested on July 28 reaching an apogee of about 3,800 kilometres.6 Had these missiles been flown on trajectories, which privileged distance rather than height, they would have reached about 7,000 kilometres and 9,000 kilometres, respectively, well above the 5,500 kilometres minimum distance for a system to be categorised as an ICBM. At these distances, major US cities fall within range of these missiles.

On August 28, 2017, North Korea launched a second Hwasong 12 from close to the Sunan Airport in Pyongyang. The missile overflew Cape Erimo in Hokkaido, Japan, before impacting in the Pacific Ocean. Significantly, three different objects splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.7 A Hwasong 14 missile was test-fired on September 14, 2017, which again traversed Japanese airspace and caused multiple splashes in the Pacific. It was clear from the multiple splashes during these tests that the Hwasongs are capable of carrying multiple payloads, that is, they could carry multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).

The Smuggling Network

How did Pyongyang get a LPE? There is no evidence to suggest indigenous production. A study of the missile’s structure, which has two stages with a lift-off mass of about 75 tonnes and special fuel — Kerosene and AK 27 (a mixture of Red Fuming Nitric Acid and Nitrogen Tetroxide)8 — has led to the conclusion that the Hwasong engines are a variant of the RD-250 turbo pump, which is manufactured at Russia’s Energomashconcern and Ukraine’s KB Yuzhnoye. The original RD-250 has a dual combustion chamber, which has been modified into a single chamber in the Hwasong. The needle of suspicion points towards KB Yuzhnoye as, according to witnesses, a single chamber RD-50 model was on display at KB Yuzhnoye in 2016.9

How was the RD 250 proto-type engines transported from Ukraine, when stringent international sanctions were in place? The answer lies with smuggling networks in China and Pakistan, which have with impunity violated non-proliferation rules and regimes. A total of 5233 Chinese companies have traded (including in dual-use technology) with North Korea between 2013 and 2016. One example of an actual smuggling initiative is the case of the Chinese company Dandong Dongyuan Industrial Co. Ltd., which exported US $28.5 million worth of material to North Korea during 2013-2016, including a shipment of $790,000 worth of ‘radio navigational aid apparatus’ in June 2016. According to experts at the James Martin Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, the goods probably included guidance devices for ballistic missiles. The Hong Kong business registry states that the firm’s owner is Sun Sidong, a Chinese national. A ship that was owned by Sun Sidong — Jie Shun — was seized last year by Egyptian authorities. It was carrying 30,000 North Korean-made rocket propelled grenades concealed under a cargo of iron ore.10 It was found that the ownership of the vessel had recently changed and the present registered owner was one Sun Sihong, who listed her residential address as an apartment in the same complex as Sun Sidong!

China has also supplied six transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) trucks, which are designed to move and fire ballistic missiles. Such a mobile system makes satellite surveillance difficult. The trucks were made by China’s Hubei Sanjiang Space Wanshan Special Vehicle Company, which is a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, a state-owned company that makes the Shenzhou rocket as well as missiles.11 When questioned about the sale, China mendaciously gave a written submission to the UN with a copy of the end-user certificate provided by North Korea that the vehicles had been imported for the purpose of transporting timber! This year, North Korea has used another Chinese truck model, made by Sinotruk, to tow a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).12

North Korea-Pakistan Nexus

A cause for serious disquiet is that the bi-conic warhead design of the Hwasong missiles appears similar to the warhead on Pakistan’s Ababeel missile, which has MIRV compatibility. The warhead has reportedly been made with Chinese help, and designs or the warhead itself has been supplied to Pyongyang from Pakistan.13 Cooperation between Pakistan and North Korea is long standing, and there is evidence that Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, visited Pyongyang in 1993 and procured several computer disks containing blueprints for the No-Dong missile, which she delivered to A.Q. Khan.14 This missile, which was smuggled to Iran, re-appeared as Shabab-3 and in Pakistan as Hatf-V. North Korean design features are also visible in the Hatf-IX missiles, which are being used by Pakistan as tactical weapons to be deployed along the Indian border (especially in Gujranwala).

Missile-related developments in Pakistan are especially worrying but not as worrying as the illicit nuclear network between Pyongyang and Islamabad, with Beijing serving as the pivot. Galaxy Corporation Pvt Ltd, a Pakistani front company affiliated with the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC), has supplied to North Korea two specialised nickel-alloy metals — Inconel and Monel – which are corrosion-resistant and have applications in uranium enrichment and chemical weapons production. Another questionable export is that of vacuum induction melting (VIM) furnaces used in forging uranium or plutonium metal into hemispheres for the fissile pit and is hence controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) due to their utility for nuclear weapons manufacturing.

These had been procured from Suntech Technologies, a Beijing-based company, which is a primary producer of these items. A complaint lodged by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was officially received (June 2016) by the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) on this matter. Galaxy Corporation’s imports from other Chinese companies include thyratrons (used as triggering devices in nuclear weapons) and radiation monitors with the end-user certificate being shown as PAEC. These items are an integral part of the hydrogen bomb test conducted by Pyongyang on September 3, 2017.15

Further, two North Korean diplomats, Kim Yong Choi and Jang Yong Son, posted in the North Korean Embassy in Tehran till 2016, and affiliated to Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) — a UN Security Council-designated North Korean weapons trading firm – were frequent visitors to Pakistan between 2012 and 2015. They met with Pakistani officers involved in the country’s nuclear programme.16

According to international observers, the North Korea-Pakistan nexus is being sustained by transportation networks, using cargo ships in the ports of Dalian in China, Wonsan in North Korea and Qasim in Pakistan. Indian intelligence also has satellite imagery to show that the Karakoram Highway has been used to supply illicit nuclear material and dual-use items for missiles.

This brings us to India’s threat perceptions regarding Pakistan’s nuclear capability. Recently, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi claimed that his country has short-range nuclear weapons to counter the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine ‘adopted’ by the Indian Army. This would indicate that Rawalpindi has successfully miniaturized nuclear warheads. This needs to be assessed in tandem with Kim Jong–Un’s claims that North Korea has miniaturized nuclear warheads, and also has adequate knowledge of programming and controlling thermonuclear/hydrogen fission bombs. This is a matter for serious disquiet, given Pakistan’s long-standing nuclear and missile-related trade with North Korea.

Should Pyongyang be Worried?

North Korea has learnt to weather multilateral UNSC as well as unilateral US sanctions. President Trump has come out with a new set of sanctions with the objective of denying access to the US financial system to any country that trades with or finances trade with North Korea. China has promised both at the UN Security Council and General Assembly to give effect to the sanctions against North Korea. Beijing claims to have stopped the import of textiles and condensate hydrocarbons — measures which can pinch but certainly not cause the collapse of the Kim regime. Beijing has not as yet made any significant attempts to rein in Pyongyang, which would necessitate a clampdown on several Chinese nationals and entities engendering illicit trade.

China’s links with North Korea go beyond the standard parameters of global commerce. The most apposite illustration in this regard is the case of Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co (DHID), which became a front for the Korea Kwangson Banking Corp, a North Korean financial institution sanctioned in 2009 for its role in financing North Korea’s weapons proliferation. DHID used layers of obfuscation with a complex network of front companies based in the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles, England, Wales and Hong Kong, apart from mainland China, to establish an intricate shipping network involving over 147 ships, 167 individuals, and 248 corporate entities.17

To give an example, the ship, MV Light (IMO: 8415433) was formerly owned by a DHID subsidiary, Korea Buyon Shipping, a North Korea-based entity which had been designated under Executive Order 13722 by the US Department of the Treasury on March 16, 2016. The ship changed its name to Victory 3 after UNSC sanctions, though its IMO number remains the same. The USS McCampbell intercepted MV Light, moving from North Korea to Myanmar carrying missile components for alleged re-export to Pakistan. A Chinese company, Dalian Sea Glory Shipping, owned the above ship and, according to the UN Panel of Experts’ report of March 2016, the company’s directors were Chinese nationals Lu Tiehe, Fan Mintian and Dong Changqing. These individuals owned several shipping companies, including V Star Company based in Hong Kong. This company owned another ship ‘Chong Chon Gang’, which was seized in 2015 for smuggling weapons for a North Korean company, Ocean Maritime Management (OMM). Lu Tiehe is the sole shareholder and director of the Hong Kong-based company Sea Star Ship Co Ltd, which owns the ship Baoshan Rich (IMO: 9128843), which has been involved in smuggling weapons, and had come to adverse notice for sailing from Dalian (PRC) to DPRK to Iraq and UAE18 with weapons for Syria and Iraq.

The DHID came under the purview of US sanctions in October 2016, but its role has been seamlessly taken over by its subsidiary, the Liaoning Hongxiang trading conglomerate, which is headed by Chinese national Ma Xiaohong. This conglomerate is North Korea’s largest trading partner and claims to be a bridge between North Korea and the world. The conglomerate works out of Dandong, a small city in the north eastern province of Liaoning, and has a number of verticals, including trading houses, shipping lines, currency exchanges, etc.19 It is, however, yet to come under US sanctions. Unsurprisingly, the Liaoning Hongxiang Group inaugurated the newest China-North Korea shipping route, from Longkou to Nampo, in late September 2015. This route has seen significant traffic despite existing international sanctions against North Korea.

The Liaoning Haongxiang Group also has significant connections with Myanmar. The conglomerate’s vice president is a Myanmarese business tycoon TayZa, who has been designated by the US Treasury Department as “an arms and narcotics dealer”.20 He has extensive interests around Myanmar, especially in the areas of aviation, military equipment, and fuel. He also owns a football club, one of Myanmar’s largest banks, and a company responsible for cargo clearing in the country’s international airports. He is reported to have been instrumental in organizing nuclear contracts with Russia and North Korea.

Given the above backdrop, North Korea is expected to be able to withstand the sanctions, as help from China and Chinese conglomerates is unlikely to be shut down. North Korea has been and will be a strategic asset for China. The Chinese leadership has traditionally felt that a unified Korea with American troops in the Korean peninsula, close to the Chinese border, is a major security concern. The US, on its part, cannot afford to take an excessively belligerent stance with China, which could affect its US $ 650 billion trade with the country, notwithstanding Trump’s claim that “all options are on the table”.21

During a recent trip to China, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claimed that Washington had “direct channels of communication” with North Korea, and was exploring the possibilities of a dialogue with Pyongyang. Despite Tillerson’s differences with Trump over dialogue with North Korea, it is likely that back channels have been activated.22 This would not be a surprising development as North Korea has demonstrated that it has in its arsenal nuclear-capable ICBMs. Hence, Washington, despite sending B-1B long range bombers and F-15 jets close to North Korea’s east coast, is unlikely to up the ante by initiating actual hostilities, given Pyongyang’s demonstrated nuclear prowess.

On his part, Ring Yo-ho, North Korea’s Foreign Minister, sounded suitably bellicose about US threats. Although he warned that US jets could be shot down, no action was taken when they actually overflew North Korean airspace.23 There is an uneasy equilibrium, which indicates that negotiations with Beijing over myriad issues are underway, including possibly the issue of the presence of theatre high altitude area defence (THAAD) missiles in South Korea. The burgeoning US-China rivalry will ensure that the current standoff in the Korean peninsula will not be resolved anytime soon. Kim Jong-Un will continue to exploit the current situation in the region to consolidate his regime’s political power.

While India is a bystander on this issue, it needs to be on the alert. Pakistan’s links with North Korea are evident, and nuclear shadow boxing by Islamabad is only to be expected. The potential and overwhelming danger it presents cannot be underestimated. Continued caution to prevent any adventurist attempt by the Pakistan military needs to be at the top of India’s agenda.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.

About the author:
*Prabha Rao is Senior Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

Source:
This article was published by IDSA.

Notes:

• 1. Debra Killalea, “North Korea: How many missiles has Kim Jong-un launched?,” September 19, 2017, http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/north-korea-how-many-missil…
• 2. “North Korea claims to have tested hydrogen bomb,” The Hindu, January 6, 2016, http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/North-Korea-claims-to-have-te…
• 3. “North Korea Threatens To Blackout Mainland US w/Nuclear Electro-Magnetic Pulse Weapon,”
  September 6, 2017, https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/north-korea-threat…
• 4. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “North Korea,” (last updated September 2017), http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/north-korea/
• 5. Michael Elleman, “The secret to North Korea’s ICBM success,” IISS Voices, August 14, 2017, http://www.iiss.org/en/iiss%20voices/blogsections/iiss-voices-2017-adeb/…
• 6. Ibid.
• 7. “North Korea: ballistic missile launched over Japan – as it happened,” The Guardian, September 16, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/sep/15/north-korea-launches-…
• 8. S. Chandrashekar, Rajaram Nagappa, N. Ramani, “The Hwasong 12– A MIRV Missile to Counter US BMD Systems,” September 2017, http://isssp.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/The-Hwasong-12%E2%80%93-A-MIR…
• 9. Ibid, n. 5.
• 10. Reuters, “North Korea’s Complex Sanctions-Evading Network Could Be Defeated by ‘Targeting a Few Chinese Firms’,” Fortune, June 13, 2017, http://fortune.com/2017/06/13/north-korea-sanctions-evasion-china-trade/
• 11. Anders Corr, “Chinese Involvement In North Korea’s Nuclear Missile Program: From Trucks To Warheads,” Forbes, July 5, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/anderscorr/2017/07/05/chinese-involvement-i…
• 12. Ibid.
• 13. Bill Gertz, “North Korea’s ICBM warhead,” Washington Times, July 5, 2017, http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/5/inside-the-ring-north-korea…
• 14. Douglas Frantz, Catherine Collins, “A tale of two Bhuttos,” Foreign Policy, November 19, 2007, http://foreignpolicy.com/2007/11/19/a-tale-of-two-bhuttos/
• 15. Stephen Blancke, “Examining allegations that Pakistan diverted Chinese-origin goods to the DPRK,” Proliferation Case Study Series, August 2, 2016, http://projectalpha.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2016/11/20160803_-_DP…
• 16. United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Panel of Experts established pursuant to resolution 1874 (2009),” February 24, 2016, http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-C…
• 17. Bill Powell, “Will Trump Stop the 10 Chinese Companies Supplying North Korea’s Nuclear Program?,” Newsweek, July 13, 2017, http://www.newsweek.com/2017/07/21/trump-stop-chinese-companies-supplyin…
• 18. In China’s Shadow: Exposing North Korean Overseas Networks (The Asian Institute of Policy Studies, C4ADS, August 2016), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/566ef8b4d8af107232d5358a/t/57dfe7…
• 19. David Thompson, “Risky Business: A System-Level Analysis of the North Korean Proliferation Financing System,” https://c4ads.org/risky-business/
• 20. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesasia/2014/07/23/burmese-tycoon-tay-za…
• 21. http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2017/04/what-are-americas-options-nort…
• 22. “Jim Mattis plays down split between Trump, Tillerson on North Korea,” Japan Times, October 4, 2017, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/10/04/asia-pacific/mattis-plays-s…
• 23. Jared Ferrie, “Burmese Tycoon Tay Za Under Scrutiny,” Forbes, July 23, 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesasia/2014/07/23/burmese-tycoon-tay-za…

By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan

The Grand Leftist Alliance forged on October 3 by the two major Communist Parties and the newly formed Naya Shakti of Baburam Bhattarai took the political circles by surprise.

In the just concluded local body elections, the two parties- UML and the Maoist Centre fought bitterly with no holds barred in most of the constituencies and yet soon after the conclusion of the last group of elections in province number 2, the two joined together to form the alliance and thus pushing the democratic forces into a “panic mode.”

Soon after the announcement of the alliance, the analysts were quick to point out, a possible emergence of a two party system, a communist government for the next decade, expectation of continued political stability etc. But the ground realities could be different and may not translate mathematically at the higher level elections as the local bodies elections were fought in many areas on local issues only.

The conclusions made by the analysts were based on the number of votes obtained by each party in the local body elections and with the forthcoming alliances, the figures were extrapolated to the provincial and national levels. Though this method may be the only available tool to project for national elections, it looks to be very imperfect as so many other parameters will come into play- like the popularity of the candidates, the issues involved at the national and provincial levels as well as economic development etc.

First the Left Alliance: The Left Alliance is likely to be dominated by the UML that had secured over 14097 seats- a creditable achievement indeed and the Maoist Centre cannot but play a secondary role- a role that may not be liked by many Maoist cadres who fought the bitter civil war to occupy the leftist space in the country. Already the third group – the smaller Naya Shakthi has withdrawn from the alliance over the selection of a candidate for Gorkha 2 which Baburam Bhattarai had been claiming. He said that the alliance had barred him from contesting from that constituency though he belongs to that place.

Gorkha constituency is a typical case where the results of the local body elections cannot be mathematically transposed to the national level. Here both the UML and the Maoist centre scored well and candidates of Bhattarai group came a poor third. But if Bhattarai is to stand for elections in the same constituency, it will not be the same and he would have a fair chance of winning. Bhattarai, now within a few days of the alliance sees a break up of the alliance soon after the elections.

The Nepali Congress is also finding it hard to forge a “democratic alliance” with other minor parties. As one analyst had said that if the Nepali Congress is to give in to the demands of other parties in seat sharing, it will be left hardly with any seat. The FSF-N and the RJP of the Madhesi groups are demanding 35 percent of the parliamentary seats and 40 percent of the provincial seats in the first past the post system. 35 percent comes to 58 out of a total of 165 seats and 40 percent comes to 132 of the 330 provincial seats. This is certainly too big a demand unworthy of any consideration.

The Madhesi groups are demanding such a high proportion on two counts- one on the basis of the population and two on the basis of the votes obtained in the recent local body elections. Here again the arithmetic does not work in the same orderly way!

The Madhesi groups never remained together except during agitation times. Look at the way both Hridayesh Tripathi of Bhairava and Brijesh Kumar Gupta ditched the Madhesi cause and joined party that has consistently worked against the interest of the Madhesis. Gachhadhar who continued to become the Dy. Prime Minister in any dispensation merged his party (not joined) with the Nepali Congress only to keep his hopes alive of another shot at the post of a Deputy Prime Minister!

There is a feeling amongst the Madhesi circles is that while Madhesi parties can go it alone the Nepali Congress cannot do without it. This is not a proper assessment of their chances. They should know that the Nepali Congress was the most successful party in the just concluded local body elections in Province No. 2. If their aim is to get the democratic forces together and prevent a landslide victory of the leftists, they will have no choice but to forge an alliance with the Nepali Congress. I have said before and would reiterate that there is a lot of goodwill for the Nepali Congress even in Terai. The Madhesi groups will be better off in an alliance with the Nepali Congress than with any other party.

To conclude, the fears that Nepal is hurtling towards a quasi one party system or a polarised two party system in the near future is not well founded and it is too early to make such assessments. There is still time for the Madhesi groups to make amends and join the main democratic forces for the purpose of the provincial and national level elections thus providing stability to the country.