By Siraj Wahab

The US accused Iran on Tuesday of breaking international law by supplying ballistic missiles fired at Saudi Arabia, and said the US would “not turn a blind eye to these serious violations.”

“By providing these types of weapons to the Houthi militias in Yemen, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is violating two UN resolutions simultaneously,” said Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN.

“We encourage the UN and international partners to take the necessary action to hold the Iranian regime accountable.”

Iran supplied missiles fired at Makkah in July, and most recently at Riyadh last Saturday. Both were launched from Yemen. The Houthis boasted on Tuesday that they had ballistic missiles with a range of 1,500km and threatened to attack more cities in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Col. Aziz Rashed, an army spokesman with a Houthi-allied unit, warned travelers to stay away from Saudi and UAE airports. “All airports, ports, border crossings and areas of any importance to Saudi Arabia and the UAE will be a direct target of our weapons,” a Houthi spokesman told reporters in Sanaa, according to The Associated Press.

Haley has accused Iran in the past of illegal arms deals and military support in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria, and has repeatedly called on the UN Security Council to take a tougher stance.

Under the UN Security Council resolution that enshrines the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Tehran is prohibited from supplying, selling or transferring weapons outside the country unless approved in advance by the Security Council.

A separate UN resolution on Yemen bans the supply of weapons to militia chief Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, two Houthi commanders, Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, his son, and “those acting on their behalf or at their direction.”

Washington’s options now are to ask the Security Council’s 15-member Yemen sanctions committee to blacklist individuals or groups, or to seek a new Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Iran. The latter is likely to be vetoed by Russia, according to a Reuters report.

In a phone conversation on Monday night, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that the involvement of the Iranian regime in supplying Houthi militias with missiles “is considered a direct military aggression by the Iranian regime and may be considered an act of war against the Kingdom.”

Johnson condemned the missile launch against Riyadh last Saturday and the deliberate targeting of civilians, and said Britain stood with Saudi Arabia in confronting security threats.

The missile launch was “most likely a war crime,” Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, and was carried out by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said. “It was an Iranian missile launched by Hezbollah from territory occupied by the Houthis in Yemen,” Al-Jubeir said in an interview with CNN on Monday.

In the US, Pentagon spokesman Marine Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway said Saudi Arabia had exposed Iran’s “malign role in Yemen” and its provision of dangerous missile systems to Houthi militants. “We continue to maintain strong defense ties with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and work together on common security priorities to include combat operations against violent extremist organizations, and neutralizing Iran’s destabilizing influence in the Middle East region,” he said.

In Riyadh, Canadian Ambassador Dennis Horak condemned the missile attack on the city. “This attack constitutes a serious escalation in the conflict and poses a growing risk to regional stability and security,” he said in a written statement to Arab News.

“The intentional targeting of civilians cannot be tolerated and Canada calls on the Houthi rebels and their supporters to refrain from such indiscriminate attacks against civilians in both Yemen and Saudi Arabia,” he said.

Oubai Shahbandar, a Syrian-American analyst and fellow at the New America Foundation’s International Security Program, said: “It is clear that the leadership in Tehran is shipping more advanced missiles to Houthi militias with the specific aim of targeting major Saudi cities, such as Riyadh.

“Iran is already banned from proliferating advanced missiles to regional terrorist organizations like Lebanese Hezbollah, but they continue to move these deadly weapon systems which are ultimately used as a terror weapon to target civilians. The Houthi militias are copying Hezbollah’s playbook. The only real solution is to neutralize the problem at its source — the missile shipping and manufacturing centers in Iran.”

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani “care little about UN Security Council Resolutions where they can count on the Russian veto,” Shahbandar said.

“The only language they truly understand is that of power and deterrence. They must be made to believe that they have crossed a red line and that any further strategic missile strikes will be met with a crippling response.”

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has said he would not seek a third term as president in elections slated for 2022, according to an interview conducted this week with U.S. television network CNBC.

In the interview, Sisi says he respects Egypt’s constitution, which limits the president’s number of terms in office to two — an assertion that suggests his intention to run for a second term in polls planned for next year.

He also said he has no desire to amend the constitution in this regard.

“It doesn’t suit me as a president to stay on one more day against the will of the Egyptian people,” he said in the interview.

“This isn’t just talk for the television cameras; these are principles that I hold dear,” Sisi told CNBC.

In recent months, Egypt has seen several calls in parliament for constitutional changes that would bolster the powers of the president, who has the legal right to amend constitutional articles.

Sisi went on to say the next presidential election would likely take place in March or April of next year, although he did not explicitly say whether or not he planned to run for a second term.

According to Egypt’s national charter, fresh presidential polls must be held at least 120 days before the end of the current presidential term, which typically falls in January or February.

Official poll results must be announced at least 30 days before the end of the president’s term.

In another interview published Tuesday by Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Sisi answered a question regarding his possible candidacy in the upcoming election, saying: “The [Egyptian] people will decide on this matter.”

Recent weeks have seen the launch of a signature campaign — supported by both state-run and private media outlets — to urge Sisi to run for a second term.

A former army general, Sisi came to power in a presidential election held in 2014.

He played a leading role in Egypt’s 2013 military coup, which saw the ouster and imprisonment of the country’s first freely elected leader, Mohamed Morsi.

Original source

The dismissal of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by advocate K.L.N.V. Veeranjaneyulu, who took exception to a particular chapter in a book written by Writer and Social Scientist Kancha Illaiah, came as a breather. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition to uphold the fundamental Right of Free Speech, “keeping in view the sanctity of the said right and also bearing in mind that the same has been put on the highest pedestal by this court”. The judiciary’s stand on the issue couldn’t be clearer. It will not permit an individual or group to curbing a fundamental right through a motivated PIL.

“Any request for banning a book of the present nature has to be strictly scrutinised because every author or writer has a fundamental right to speak out ideas freely and express thoughts adequately. Curtailment of an individual writer/author’s right to freedom of speech and expression should never be lightly viewed,” a Bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud recorded in the order.

Under the guise of representing the Public, politically charged or personally motivated individuals have been misusing the PIL tool for their skewed ends. Now, however, the judiciary has been calling their bluff with heart-warming alacrity.

In a nation, where masses are hugely illiterate and have poor little access to legal aid otherwise easily accessible to the middle class and the moneyed few, Article 32 of the Indian Constitution provides a tool to a member of the public to file a suit through judicial activism. That member can be a non- governmental organisation, an institution or an individual acting on behalf of the aggrieved parties.

It started in the late seventies, when Senior Advocate Pushpa Kapila Hingorani produced two pages to the Apex Court, detailing the deplorable condition of undertrial prisoners – men, women, children, lepers and mental patients – languishing in jails in Bihar ignored by the state and asked the court to intervene and give orders to release them on bail. The-then appalled Supreme Court bench headed by the-then Justice Prafullachandra Natwarlal Bhagwati went on to release 40,000 prisoners from various jails across India! The case, better known as Hussainara Khatoon Vs Home Secretary, Bihar, was India’s first PIL.

Over the three decades that followed, PILs grew from being a far-reaching tool of justice for a vibrant judiciary and a socially- inclined activist media to getting reduced to a juicy byte ensuring a moment of fame by the media and legal professionals alike. It’s only now that the judiciary has, in a strategic display of judicial activism, identified and isolated the scourges at play.

Look at the stand the Apex Court took even against the surge in populism: Despite tempers running high across India with regard to the Varnika Kundu case, wherein the ‘politically powerful’ were accused of stalking and attempted abduction, a Public Interest Litigation filed by human rights lawyer Ranjan Lakhanpal, seeking judicial supervision of the probe into the incident, was promptly dismissed by a division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Citing a 1991 apex court judgment, the division bench of Acting Chief Justice S.S. Saron and Justice Avneesh Jhingan maintained that court would have no difficulty taking up the case if Varnika herself approached the High Court. They ruled, “In a criminal case, only the aggrieved persons have a right to file the PIL,” citing the landmark 1991 judgment on maintainability of a PIL in which the Supreme Court had ruled that “even if there are million questions of law to be deeply gone into and examined in a criminal case… it is for them [aggrieved parties] and them alone to raise all such questions and challenge the proceedings initiated against them at the appropriate time before the proper forum and not for third parties under the garb of public interest litigants”.

This ruling examined the issue of locus standi and underlined the tendency for private individuals under the garb of public interest to file PILs and thereby load the already-buckling legal system. It was an incisive ruling that put to rest everybody’s interest in an issue that was primarily a private one. This, now, becomes a precedent for similar private motivated motions being masqueraded as litigations of public interest.
Soon after, came the Delhi High Court dismissing BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy’s plea seeking court-monitored SIT probe into the death of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar through a PIL.

Terming his PIL as a “textbook example of a political interest litigation,” the Delhi High Court bench of Justices S. Muralidhar and I.S. Mehta said the petition by Swamy cannot be entertained as a PIL. It said that from what was placed before the court, it was unable to be persuaded that the probe, being carried out by the SIT, is botched up or under the influence of any party. “Although Subramanian Swamy claimed he has not concealed any data or information, when asked specifically about the basis of his allegations in the petition, his response was to seek time to file affidavit thereby clearly showing that what was to be disclosed at the first instance was not done,” the court said.

The bench maintained that “Courts need to be careful that judicial process is not used by political persons for their own purposes”.

“This is not to say that political persons cannot file PILs, but courts have to be extra cautious when allegations are made against other political persons,” the bench added.

This ruling examined, once again, the issue of locus standi and underlined the tendency for politicians, under the garb of public interest, to file PILs and thereby use the legal system to level grudges. It was a strategic ruling that publicly identified political parties’ interest in PILs and will serve as a precedent for stopping similar future misadventures.

It is indeed heartening to see the PIL tool being used in the manner it was originally intended to.

The secular left is more terrified of religion than it is STDs, and indeed it treats people of faith as if they harbored some deadly infectious disease. Witness the hyperventilating over Rep. Paul Ryan’s statement of faith following the Texas killings.

When asked by Laura Ingraham to comment on what happened at the Texas church on Sunday, Ryan said, “The right thing to do is pray in moments like this because you know what? Prayer works!” He also said the “secular left” doesn’t get it. “People who don’t have faith, don’t understand faith.”

Everything Ryan said is true and none of it is controversial, unless, of course, it is interpreted through the lens of the secular left.

Huffington Post got so excited that it condemned Ryan for doing nothing, “especially after reportedly receiving more than $170,000 in contributions from gun rights groups in 2016.” (Its emphasis.)

Atheist blogger Hemant Mehta made another one of his middle-school observations, saying, “That’s what Paul Ryan has to offer the nation. A giant, steaming bowl of jack s***. And he wants credit for that meal because he says grace before gulping it down.”

Think Progress showed how theologically astute it is by exclaiming, “Ryan’s sentiment is also at odds with the teachings of Jesus.”

Ryan, of course, was simply noting the necessity of prayer “in moments like this.” He never said, or implied, that it was a necessary and sufficient response to this tragedy.

One quibble with Ryan. He is too generous in his comment that “People who don’t have faith, don’t understand faith.” There are lots of people who don’t have faith, and don’t understand the faithful, but they are respectful of us nonetheless. The ones condemning him are haters, pure and simple.

Eating during the night is associated with higher risk of heart disease and diabetes, and the body’s 24-hour cycle is to blame, according to research published today in Experimental Physiology.

The researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico looked at levels of fat, called triglycerides, in the rats’ blood. They found that after feeding the rats fat at the beginning of their rest period, their blood fat levels spiked more drastically than when fed during the beginning of their active phase. When they removed the part of the rat’s brain that controls the 24-hour cycle, there was no longer a change in fat levels.

High blood fat levels are associated with heart disease and diabetes. These diseases are associated with a lifestyle where humans ignore the signals of the biological clock, and eat in the evening and night. This study demonstrates why such a lifestyle out of sync with our 24-hour cycle may result in high blood fat levels and thus in a higher risk for heart problems.

Commenting on the study, author Ruud Buijs said: ‘The fact that we can ignore our biological clock is important for survival; we can decide to sleep during the day when we are extremely tired or we run away from danger at night. However, doing this frequently – with shift work, jet lag, or staying up late at night – will harm our health in the long-term especially when we eat at times when we should sleep.’

Researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) have published the first large-scale study of a low-tech, high-harm form of online harassment known as doxing.

Coined as an abbreviation of the word “documents,” doxing involves collecting and publishing sensitive personal information online to exact revenge, seek justice, or intimidate victims.

The researchers created a custom text classifier that allowed them to identify and analyze dox files, which often include highly identifying personal information, including links to social media accounts. The study revealed that doxing exacts a significant toll on victims, who are far likelier than others to close or increase the privacy settings of social media accounts following an attack. However, new abuse filters deployed on Facebook and Instagram appear to be effective in making victims feel safer. The primary motivations for doxing are revenge and justice, with competition and politics far behind, at just over 1 percent each of the reasons discerned by the study.

“This study adds significantly to our understanding of this deeply damaging form of online abuse,” said Damon McCoy, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at NYU Tandon. “The ability to detect doxing and identify the primary motivations for these attacks is key to helping Internet service providers, law enforcement, and social media networks better protect users from harassment.”

The research team also includes Peter Snyder, a doctoral student in computer science and an Electronic Security and Privacy IGERT fellow, and Chris Kanich, an assistant professor of computer science, both from UIC,;and Periwinkle Doerfler, a doctoral candidate at NYU Tandon. The paper, “Fifteen Minutes of Unwanted Fame: Detecting and Characterizing Doxing,” was presented at the Internet Measurement Conference in London last week.

The team focused on several websites well known for hosting doxed files and captured more than 1.7 million text files shared on those sites over two 6- to 7-week periods. Using their custom text classifier, the researchers identified and analyzed more than 5,500 files associated with doxing.

According to the study, 32 percent of doxing victims closed or changed the privacy settings on their Instagram account, and 25 percent adjusted the settings on a Facebook account after an attack. But Facebook and Instagram serendipitously debuted new abuse filters to curb online harassment during the study’s data collection period, and they were apparently effective. Just 10 percent of doxing victims altered their Instagram account once anti-abuse measures were in place, and 3 percent changed their settings on Facebook.

“This is an indicator that these filters can help mitigate some of the harmful impacts of doxing,” Snyder said. However, he noted that much of the doxing occurs on field-specific sites that cater to the hacker or gaming communities, where reputations can be damaged among valued peers.

More than 90 percent of the doxed files included the victim’s address, 61 percent included a phone number, and 53 percent included an email address. Forty percent of victims’ online user names were made public, and the same percentage revealed a victim’s IP address. While less common, sensitive information such as credit card numbers (4.3 percent), Social Security numbers (2.6 percent), or other financial information (8.8 percent) was also revealed.

“Most of what we know about doxing thus far has been anecdotal and based on a small number of high-profile cases,” said Snyder. “It’s our hope that by bringing a quantitative approach to this phenomenon, we can provide a fuller understanding of doxing and inform efforts to reduce the damage.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Facebook to act responsibly by abandoning the change to its news feed that it is currently testing in six countries. It would be disastrous for the survival of many media outlets if Facebook adopted the change worldwide.

“Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on November 1, but increasing earnings seems to be the rationale behind the disturbing change that Facebook has been testing in six countries (Slovakia, Serbia, Bolivia, Guatemala, Sri Lanka and Cambodia) since mid-October.

Under this change, news media stories no longer appear in the main “News Feed” unless they pay to appear there. The “News Feed” now only shows content from the user’s “friends” and paid content including advertisements. News media content is relegated to a less prominent “Explore” feed.

“In our view, this arrangement reinforces a discriminatory, pay-based distribution of media content that threatens journalism’s ability to survive,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “Given social media’s role in providing access to the news media, it would be dangerous for journalism to be relegated to Facebook’s cellars.”

In response to the outcry about the experiment, Facebook has said it is just a test and that, for the time being, there is no question of extending it to other countries. If extended, it would further undermine the news media, whose content it already rendered less visible by ads and other forms of non-journalistic content, including PR content and rumors, which Facebook displays prominently.

“We call on Facebook to behave more responsibly,” said Elodie Vialle, the head of RSF’s Journalism and Technology Desk. “We are extremely worried about the way this test is being conducted, the lack of transparency and the potential consequences for the media. Facebook’s goal is clear. It wants to keep its users on its site for as long as possible. But this must not threaten journalistic freedom and independence by undermining their practitioners.”

Preserving the media’s watchdog role

Facebook has given no explanation for the six countries chosen for the trial and, although it has established many partnerships with news media, especially via its Facebook Journalism Project, it gave the media in these six countries no warning.

The California-based giant’s actions have an impact on democracy and media freedom. Some news websites, whose readership has plummeted since the start of the test, play an essential watchdog role in countries with authoritarian regimes, where journalists not working for media oligarchs often migrate to Facebook.

In Serbia, for example, independent media have been gagged by President Aleksandar Vučić and the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) since last May’s presidential election.

In Slovakia, the media have had four times fewer interactions (likes, comments, shares) since Facebook launched the Explore Feed, according to Filip Struhárik of the Dennik N news website.

“A company that big also has an enormous responsibility and cannot just do as it pleases,” he wrote on Medium. “What managers [at Facebook] consider a small test can cause serious problems in some countries.”

With much less access to their readers, some media outlets will be condemned to die. Dina Fernández of the Guatemalan news site Soy502 told the Guardian newspaper: “The Facebook explore tab killed 66% of our traffic. Just destroyed it … years of really hard work were just swept away.”

Guillaume Ledit of the French magazine Usbek & Rica points out that Facebook replaced Google several years ago as the main channel by which Internet users get access to the news.

This is also the case in Cambodia, one of the six countries, where Facebook has overtaken television as one of the main sources of news, according to Jenni Reid, the Phnom Penh Post website editor.

Forced into digital servitude, under growing pressure to swear loyalty to Facebook in order to survive, the media are finding it increasingly impossible to turn back.

By Sandip Kumar Mishra*

US President Donald Trump’s 12-day visit to five of the East Asian countries is quite ‘unprecedented’. But so are his style, posturing, statements and policies. Trump will meet not only the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, but also Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This ‘grand trip’ to the region both in terms of time span and the leaders Trump plans to meet is posited in an environment in which the leaders of these countries are almost at the peak of their domestic political popularity, which the US president does not enjoy in his own country. Although such factors do not necessarily make a big difference to the content of deliberations, they will definitely cast a shadow over it.

Another important factor is strong East Asian leaders taking aggressive positions on regional issues, except South Korea. Similarities in leadership personality may be helpful to the US in forging a common strategy on issues of mutual agreement. However, these similarities may also be an obstacle in making deals and driving bargains if these leaders disagree with Trump.

According to the US Department of State, Trump visit will focus on “North Korea, promoting a free and open region, and fair and reciprocal trade.” The US-China equation will underpin all discussions, particularly the security and economic domains. Thus, to achieve anything substantial, it would be important to watch Trump’s visit to China. Trump is going to visit Tokyo and Seoul before Beijing for important regional backing before approaching China’s ‘strongman’ Xi Jinping. The content of his talks with Vietnam and the Philippines will be shaped by the gains and misses of the previous visits.

In Tokyo, Trump will seek to underline the long and trusted alliance with Japan and the commonality of their intent in the three pronounced focus areas. There is almost complete consensus between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over regional issues and nothing new is expected to emerge from the visit. Talks with Seoul will be more nuanced because South Korean President Moon Jae-in does not agree with the US approach towards the North Korean issue, installation of missile defence, and revision of the US-South Korea free trade agreement (FTA). Trump will likely push South Korea for more open support of US’ policy on North Korea and the installation of missile defence systems. In return, he may be willing to make concessions in the FTA revision process. However, experts are not certain that this will in fact be the bargain, and that Trump, as a former businessman, may make it the other way round.

Trump’s brand of diplomacy will be put to its real test in Beijing, and it will be interesting to observe how he bargains on security and economic issues. Equally interesting will be the nature of his messaging to China – strong or soft – in terms of bringing Beijing on board to achieve US’ foreign policy goals in the region. The prospect of any substantial outcome is weak, which is quite common for most of summit meets. In this light, any attempt to accommodate each other’s interest will be significant.

Trump’s visit to Vietnam will impinge on the expectation of injecting more content and trust in bilateral relations. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc was the first Southeast Asian leader to visit Washington in May 2017 to meet Trump. Vietnam is unhappy with the US because of its abrogation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and is reluctant to have deep military ties because of the memories of the Vietnam War. Washington is definitely interested in placating Hanoi in its efforts to deal with China. Trump will also attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economic leaders’ meet in Vietnam.

Trump will be in Manila, meeting President Rodrigo Duterte for the second time this year. Their first meeting in April 2017 went well – both leaders were ‘appreciative’ of each other. Unlike the Obama administration which raised concerns about the extra-judicial killing of drug dealers in the Philippines, Donald Trump has been able to bring about mutual acceptance between the two countries. The US has, to a large extent, neutralised China’s attempt to improve relations with the Philippines. There is a high probability of positive outcomes from Trump’s Manila visit. Trump is scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit in Manila where he might have a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Overall, Donald Trump’s visits to the region appear to be extensive and with a substantial agenda – the issue is whether they will be able to achieve anything significant from the point of the three expressed objectives. The probability of any such outcome is negligible, and this is so because success is generally achieved through consistent and continuous diplomatic effort, along with an interest in accommodating others’ positions. It is hard to do so by being inconsistent, episodic, and attempting to cover so much ground in one single visit. The visit might be ‘unprecedented,’ but the outcomes are most likely not going to be so.

* Sandip Kumar Mishra
Associate Professor, Centre for East Asian Studies, JNU, & Visiting Fellow, IPCS

By Lisa Vives

Two well-known charities are responding to serious claims of misappropriation of money and sexual harassment during their work in Africa.

In one investigation by the Associated Press, the Red Cross was cited for faulty oversight of workers who may have stolen millions of dollars meant to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The deadly Ebola virus that spread throughout West Africa from 2014 to 2016 killed more than 11,000 people and drew numerous aid workers and medical professionals to the continent. Some of those responders, according to a Red Cross internal investigation covered by AP, fraudulently used funds earmarked for aid. Total losses due to fraud topped $6 million, AP claimed.

“I feel disappointed and concerned by the reaction of a few individuals, that their actions detract from the amazing work of the Red Cross staff and volunteers during the Ebola outbreak,” said Paul Jenkins, the head of the delegation for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Earlier this year, however, the organization was again criticized for its relief efforts and handling of funds in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, prompting a Houston city councilman to call donating to the organization a “waste of money”.

Elsewhere in Africa, the director of Oxfam International, Winnie Byanyima, acknowledged that sexual harassment and other claims had been made against seven male Oxfam managers.

The charity’s own figures show that it handled 87 allegations of sexual exploitation by staff in 2016 and 2017, up from 26 cases in 2014.

“We have a very strong safeguarding policy, and in fact the number of reported cases has increased as a result of stronger policy and stronger enforcement,” said Byanyima, “so we see that this is in part a result of moving in the right direction.”

Byanyima said she welcomes the fact “that more women feel safe enough to refuse to accept (sexual abuse), and that is a sign that across the society, it is becoming less acceptable to abuse women, and I think that’s positive.”

But she added: “We are not where we should be, and we are working harder on training our people, setting the system to work, [and] making it safe for people to report.”

Oxfam describes itself as a global anti-poverty organization with headquarters in the UK and U.S.

By Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty

There is infighting in the House of Saud, the royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman has struck again by dismissing ‘several senior ministers and detaining over 11 princes’.

The House of Saud is a very large family which has ruled the desert kingdom since the founding of the state in 1932. Its founder, Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al-Saud for short, united the different regions of the Arabian peninsula, after a series of conquests. The current King Salman bin Abdul Aziz is one of the many sons of the founder. Mohammad is the king’s favourite son.

In a series of upheavals within the royal family, the 32-year-old Mohammad bin Salman had earlier manoeuvred himself into the powerful position of Crown Prince which makes him the likely successor to the aging king.

In doing so, Mohammad had elbowed out more senior and experienced princes’ which has led to squabbling within the royal family, though details of major infighting and conspiracies are usually kept a secret in this oil-rich and wealthy kingdom. The public announcement about the current round of dismissals and detentions came via the kingdom’s state-owned news agency, the SPA and the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya satellite TV channel.

This puts the stamp of finality on these moves and indicates successful conclusion of these sackings and detentions. Mohammad has sought to neutralise opposition to his power grab and the current moves indicate a further consolidation of his position.

The king has also created a new anti-corruption committee, headed by Mohammad, by issuing a royal decree, akin to a ‘firman’ issued by Muslim kings of yore in India. The committee’s powers include the right to investigate, arrest, ban from travel and freeze assets of anyone deemed to be corrupt.

A long list of exclusions

Two of the most important ministers who have been sacked are the head of the National Guard and the economy minister. The National Guard is a separate armed force, distinct from the defence forces and functions as the Praetorian Guard for the royal family. The Crown Prince has often been the head of the National Guard which is a force drawn from members of loyal tribes. State benefits and funds keep these tribes beholden to the royal family.

The Navy chief has also been replaced.

Reasons for these drastic moves have not been made public but it is not difficult to extrapolate that corruption and struggle for power lie at the root of these dramatic events.

The ministers and princes have been detained in an anti-corruption investigation. The royal family and ministers are known for their lavish and decadent lifestyles fuelled by oil wealth and deeply embedded corruption in the system of governance. Governance is completely opaque and controlled by decisions of the few ruling princes’ in positions of power.

Due process of an opaque governance

The Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh, which is normally used as a royal guest house, has been evacuated presumably to incarcerate the detained princes. Even in detention, the royal family members will live in style till they are brought to heel and accept the domination of the Crown Prince.

The detention of Prince Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz, a cousin half-brother of Mohammad and billionaire businessman has been received with some alarm in the financial world. Waleed is reportedly worth around $18 billion, with investments in global news corporations, IT companies, and many other famous corporations. Waleed has been visceral in his criticism of President Trump calling him a disgrace to America in a Twitter message.

Crown Prince Mohammad has developed a reputation of being a mover and shaker. He has become the dominant voice in decision making in all important domains like defence, economy and society. Several positive moves like the easing of restrictions on women going out in public and women being allowed to drive have been implemented under his watch. He has also stated publicly that Saudi Arabia will revert to a moderate form of Islam, thereby acknowledging that the more conservative and extreme Wahhabi streak had caused problems.

A new economic vision has been mooted for the country till 2030. There are plans to sell off a part of the state-owned oil company ARAMCO in a public offering of shares and monetise the equity. China, now a major importer of oil, has evinced interest in buying shares in ARAMCO. Mohammad has recently announced a major project for building four mega greenfield smart cities to accommodated the growing population.

War on the border

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has conducted a brutal war against the Houthis in Yemen, a country with which its shares a long border. The scale of civilian casualties and humanitarian abuses inflicted by the Saudi military in Yemen has received scant attention from the mainstream media.

Saudi Arabia remains a staunch ally of the USA and the war in Yemen has been portrayed as a proxy war of influence between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the latter’s allies, UAE and Qatar.

The Houthis control most of northern Yemen and are doughty fighters. The Saudi military, not known for its fighting prowess, has been receiving a bloody nose from the Houthis and the war has remained inconclusive. Meanwhile, the Houthis are mounting more and more daring attacks within Saudi Arabia, the latest being an aborted missile attack on Riyadh airport.

What lies ahead

These developments in Saudi Arabia raise fundamental issues of change and modernisation driven by top-down decisions. The corruption angle goes back to a rare and massive flood in Jeddah, the Kingdom’s main port city in 2009 which killed 120 people and the torrential rains in 2011. Protests had broken out then over management of public funds and infrastructural deficiencies, pointing towards massive corruption.

In foreign policy issues, the continuing feud with Qatar, a fellow member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the inconclusive war in Yemen and the failed attempt at regime change in Syria have added to the woes of Saudi Arabia. Falling oil prices have squeezed revenues and perforce led to the reduction of doles and subsidies with which the ordinary Saudi had been inoculated for long to avoid dissent.

The earlier consensus in the royal family has clearly broken down and backroom deals are no longer the norm. Dissent within the royal family has emerged into the open and the current crackdown is a manifestation of this trend.

King Salman wants to brush aside all pretenders to the throne to ease the path for Mohammad. The latest events are part of this plan to quell dissent.

Saudi Arabia’s political stability is an important factor in the region and for the global energy market. Turbulence in the kingdom makes the region and markets uneasy. Mohammad may be trying to build a more modern and diversified economy and a freer social order but any change in Saudi Arabia’s deeply conservative and regressive society will be resisted.

Incremental change is possible but the question is: How long can a society remain stable without dissent, especially at a time when educated Saudis remain jobless and subject to the authoritarian governance of a coterie?

This article originally appeared in Catch News.

By Kashish Parpiani

In the post-Cold War world, successive US administrations have jostled with the inclination to adopt military means to achieve policy goals. Reflecting the regularity of such an inclination are the findings of a recent US Congressional Research Service report, which states that the United States has deployed its armed forces in over 190 rotational and active conflict missions abroad between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and October 10, 2017.

Monetarily, it has had an average (post-Cold War) budget of about $553 billion – with its spending accounting for over one-third of the world’s total military expenditure (source: SIPRI). Also, the American defence architecture has an unparalleled power projection capability of “nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad”. Thus, spurring the implication – unarguably honing the best hammer renders every problem to appear as a nail.

The militarisation of US foreign policy was most famously evidenced in 1993 in the then-US Ambassador to the UN Madeline Albright’s advocacy for American military intervention in Bosnia. In a meeting with national security officials who were reluctant for military engagement in Eastern Europe, barely a couple of years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ambassador Albright complained, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” In an interview with The Atlantic in 2016, President Barack Obama referred to this trigger itch – if you will, as the “Washington Playbook”, which prescribes “responses to different events” that mostly “tend to be militarised responses.”

With nine months in, it is still ambiguous on what sense of grand strategy or worldview lends structure to President Trump’s foreign policy. However, greater militarisation of US foreign policy under his leadership is increasingly apparent, beyond his erratic tweets declaring that US forces are “locked and loaded”, bluster-filled comments like vowing to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea, and undermining the efficacy of diplomatic solutions by repeatedly undercutting his chief diplomat Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Moreover, President Trump has exacerbated the risks of an all too militarised US foreign policy in the following ways:

• According greater latitude to US military theatre commanders

• Failing to articulate clearly-defined political end-states to render military tactical and operational level considerations to double as strategies

• Setting an untoward civil-military relations precedent by encouraging the politicalisation of the military.

Soon after assuming office, President Trump – in an unprecedented move as the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. forces – delegated the Pentagon to determine troop levels in active conflict zones in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. In June, as the Trump administration grappled with outlining its new strategy towards Afghanistan and the South Asian region at-large, it was reported that President Trump was yet to meet or speak with theatre commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. In comparison, President George W. Bush spoke to his military commanders in Iraq nearly every week. In addition, in response to media reports that the recent Niger mission that left four US soldiers dead did not have adequate civilian supervision or permission, President Trump set the confines of military authority in ambiguously expansive parameters. He said, “I gave them authority to do what’s right so that we win. That’s the authority they have”.

For instance, following a botched military raid in Yemen that left one US Navy Seal dead, President Trump conveniently blamed the military. In an interview with Fox News, he said, “This was something that was, you know, just – they wanted to do”.

This abdication of civilian oversight has also encouraged the military to act with increased nonchalance. In the last nine months, the US has dropped the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb – the “largest non–nuclear bomb ever used in combat” – in Afghanistan without the military needing President Trump’s approval; the Pentagon has raised the total number of US military personnel in Syria to nearly 1,000; and it has decreased transparency by classifying key figures like troop levels and casualties with respect to its mission in Afghanistan. As per foreignpolicy.com, under President Trump, America has “dropped about 20,650 bombs through July 31, or 80 percent of the number dropped under [President] Obama for the entirety of 2016”. This greater militarism has also had ramifications in terms of civilian casualties. The UK-based non-profit monitor Airwars recently reported that the Trump administration’s fight against the ISIS in its first seven months has “already resulted in more civilian deaths than under the entirety of the Obama administration”. Whereas in Afghanistan, the UN recently reported a 67 percent increase in civilian deaths from US airstrikes in the first half of 2017 compared to that of 2016.

Compounding the President’s decision to accord theatre commanders greater latitude by decreased civilian oversight, stands the Trump administration’s unwillingness to articulate clearly-defined strategies. In the absence of well-defined strategies i.e. clearly defined political end-states, tactical and operational considerations, which are strict domains of the military under the United States’ tradition of objective civilian control of the military, double as strategies. For instance, the Chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain, recently lamented the lack of a strategy in Afghanistan. Addressing Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford, Senator McCain said,  “… we know that the military has been given more flexible authorities to target our enemies. But we still do not know how these military gains will be translated into progress toward a political solution.”

Whereas, speaking in Afghanistan alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, the former four-star marine general-turned-Secretary of Defense said, “our coalition is committed to doing everything humanly possible to protect the innocent caught up in this war where our enemy purposely targets the innocent”. The Secretary’s statement reflects an ambitious shift to an overarching population-centric mission in contrast to President Trump’s limited interests’ mission of “We are not nation-building. We are killing terrorists”. This failure to outline a coherent strategy with clear political end-states has rendered military operational and tactical aims to serve as slippery slopes to an ever-expansive war.

The inefficacy of employing military means without outlining a desired political end-state was also apparent in the decision to order airstrikes on Syrian Air Force facilities in response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons in early 2017. The same was not coupled or followed by a diplomatic endeavour to oversee the systematic dismantlement of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, until months later when Syria agreed to join the U.N. Chemical Weapons Convention with its staunch ally Russia’s coaxing.

Such an implication coupled with the fact that the Pentagon is “the most admired” of all US institutions including democratic institutions like the Congress, has evidently militarised America’s foreign policy further. In a televised interview in September 2017 on the issue of North Korea’s continued nuclear brinksmanship, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told CNN’s Dana Bash: “We have pretty much exhausted all the things that we could do at the [U.N.] Security Council at this point. Now, I said yesterday I am perfectly happy kicking this over to General Mattis, because he has plenty of military options.”

Not only was the Ambassador’s frivolous demeanour to opt for a military solution alarming, but also a testament to the administration’s overt affinity for a route that could endanger the lives of nearly 25 million in the region. In addition, the Ambassador’s use of the term ‘General’ whilst referring to a retired Marine General now serving in the second most powerful civilian role in the military chain of command – as the Secretary of Defense – denotes the administration’s attempt to – in Dr. Schake’s words – hide “behind the military’s institutional credibility.”

Another example of the Trump administration hiding behind the brass includes, National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster – who remains on active duty as a Lieutenant General of the United States Army – addressing the press to defend the President’s decision to share sensitive intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Retired four-star marine general and now the White House Chief of Staff John Kelly recently addressing the press to defend President Trump reportedly telling a grieving widow of a slain soldier that her husband “knew what he was getting into” also suggests similar conduct.

In late 1961, armed with the benefit of hindsight in the aftermath of the botched military invasion of the Bay of Pigs under the advisement of bellicose Joint Chiefs, President John F. Kennedy observed, “The first thing I’m going to tell my successor is to watch the generals, and to avoid feeling that just because they were military men, their opinions on military matters were worth a damn.” As various foreign policy challenges – from North Korea’s nuclear brinksmanship to Venezuela being on the brink of a sociopolitical fallout – surface, the prospects of greater American military adventurism under the Trump administration are all too real with Kennedy’s advice continuing to escape the present Commander-in-Chief.

*Kashish Parpiani is a Research Fellow at ORF Mumbai

The United States, Japan, India, Australia – may emerge as guarantors of free trade and defense cooperation to check China.

By Harsh V Pant*

The juxtaposition of two speeches could not have been starker. Even as Chinese President Xi Jinping was laying down his vision of a rising China in a marathon address to the 19^th Communist Party Congress, the US secretary of state underlined a still evolving American response to the changing global balance of power.

Xi offers an ambitious roadmap for China to become a leading global power by 2050. “Chinese people will enjoy greater happiness and well-being, and the Chinese nation will stand taller and firmer in the world,” Xi promised, suggesting that the time has come for China to transform itself into “a mighty force” to lead the world on political, economic, military and environmental issues.

Since the 2016 election of Donald Trump, Xi has projected himself as a responsible global statesman committed to maintaining global norms and leading on tackling challenges such as climate change and trade. Though he maintains that China does “not pose a threat to any other country,” the speech’s undertone asserts China’s global might, a trend accentuated since he came to China’s helm in 2013. He did not flinch from citing Beijing’s controversial island-building campaign as among his first term accomplishments, reporting that “construction on islands and reefs in the South China Sea has seen steady progress.” For China’s detractors, the message was unambiguous: While China is not interested in seeking global hegemony, “no one should expect China to swallow anything that undermines its interests.” The emphasis on transforming the People’s Liberation Army into one the world’s top militaries by 2050 was for China’s global audience. Lest anyone miss the point, Xi noted, “A military is built to fight.”

Barack Obama had described US-Chinese ties as the most important bilateral relationship of our time, but the Trump administration lays down its own markers. Ahead of his visit to South Asia, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced American intentions for Asia with India firmly at the center. His comments followed those of US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during a September trip to New Delhi, suggesting that security among the “key strategic pillars” of the US-India partnership. Tillerson gave this a wider canvas, pointedly critiquing China’s rise and comparing it with India’s: “China, while rising alongside India, has done so less responsibly, at times undermining the international, rules-based order – even as countries like India operate within a framework that protects other nations’ sovereignty.”

Tillerson underscored China’s actions in the South China Sea as a direct challenge to “the international law and norms that the United States and India both stand for,” suggesting provocatively that the United States will “never have the same relationship with China, a nondemocratic society, that we can have with India.” While the US “seeks constructive relations with China,” Tillerson pointed out that Washington “won’t shrink from China’s challenges to the rules-based order or where China subverts the sovereignty of neighboring countries and disadvantages the US and our friends.”

Much like its predecessor, the Trump administration had come to office seeking an accommodation with Beijing, but Washington expresses growing frustration about China’s unwillingness to put pressure on North Korea despite its considerable influence over the Kim regime. In contrast, the Trump administration has been bold in its overtures to India, building upon the Obama administration’s strong legacy. The Narendra Modi government has invested significant diplomatic capital in building ties with Washington, with Modi visiting the United States five times during the last three years. Many Indians had expressed consternation that Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy might be to India’s disadvantage. But those concerns have been put to rest with the success of Modi’s September visit to Washington and the Trump administration’s Afghanistan policy.

If Modi could argue that India and the United States have overcome “the hesitations of history” under the Obama administration, he effortlessly wooed the Trump administration during his July 2017 visit when he suggested that “the convergence of my vision for ‘New India’ and President Trump’s vision for making America great again will add new dimensions to our cooperation.” He managed to steer Trump towards the larger structural realities that have driven the India-US relationship since George W. Bush declared that America would help India emerge as a global power. Regional balance of power in Asia was the focus when Modi and Trump declared their two nations “as responsible stewards in the Indo-Pacific region,” agreeing that a close partnership between the United States and India is central to the region’s peace and stability.

Modi has time and again noted that he recognizes the importance of the United States in meeting India’s developmental and strategic interests. This time too, he underlined that India “considers the US its primary partner for [its] social and economic transformation.” While critics in India may see this as a repudiation of India’s traditional nonaligned foreign policy posture, Modi has had no hesitation in proclaiming the obvious without the diffidence of past governments.

The Trump administration’s new South Asia policy announced in August gives India center stage in South Asia. A “critical part” of this policy, while being tough on Pakistan, is to further develop the strategic US-Indian partnership. “We appreciate India’s important contributions to stability in Afghanistan, but India makes billions of dollars in trade with the US, and we want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development,” Trump said. New Delhi has welcomed the approach that gives India greater space to expand its profile in Afghanistan. Trump’s policy is a remarkable turnaround for Washington, which had wanted to keep India out of its “Af-Pak” policy for fear of offending Islamabad. India went from being viewed as part of the problem to being part of a solution to the Afghan imbroglio.

Acknowledging India’s growing regional profile in the wider Indo-Pacific region, Washington suggests that the starting point should be greater engagement and cooperation with Indo-Pacific democracies. As Tillerson suggested, “We are already capturing the benefits of our important trilateral engagement between the US, India and Japan. As we look ahead, there is room to invite others, including Australia, to build on the shared objectives and initiatives.”

The October landslide victory of Shinzō Abe in Japan accentuates this trend towards an Indo-Pacific democratic quad – the United States, Japan, India and Australia. The United States is keen on expanding India-Japan-US Malabar naval exercises to include Australia, and a meeting of the India-Japan-US-Australia quadrilateral is expected to in Manila on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit. These four regional democracies would ideally like to emerge as guarantors of free trade and defense cooperation across a stretch of ocean from the South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean to Africa.

This new chessboard in the Indo-Pacific is being organized as the US president visits the region. While the wider region expresses concern about the Trump administration’s security commitments, even as China’s rise seems to go unchallenged, there are signs that new strategic equations are fast emerging in a theatre now the center of gravity of global politics and economics. Trump started his Asia tour by declaring that “No one, no dictator, no regime… should underestimate American resolve.” But regional states will watch what happens after the US president departs the continent. Washington is finding that working with Xi’s China to manage regional problems while standing up to Beijing to reassure allies is a tough balancing act indeed.

*Harsh V Pant is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, and professor of international relations, King’s College London.

“Un político pobre es un pobre político” is a well-known Mexican aphorism attributed to Carlos Hank González. My translation: a politician who is poor is a poor politician.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton certainly took that maxim to heart, as have nearly all other politicians who ever got their filthy mitts into the Treasury and their slimy vote into the dispensation of privileges, favors, and subsides for their cronies and key supporters. Corruption should be understood as intrinsic to “American democracy”—a feature, not a bug.

Yet the leftists constantly cry out for more government, ostensibly to eliminate the corruption that invariably comes packaged with whatever the government purports to do in the public interest. (Not that the rightists don’t have their own ways of carrying out the same kind of shenanigans, of course.)

In truth, the only way to curb political corruption is to drastically reduce the scope of government. Only when the politicians have nothing with which to be corrupt will they stop being corrupt.

This article was published at The Beacon.

Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 30 that the Trump administration has all the legal authority it needs to kill people anywhere in the world. But just in case Congress wishes to update its old Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), Mattis and Tillerson told them how to do it: Write a blank check to the president.

The October 4 killings of four US soldiers on a “routine training mission” in Niger brought the committee’s hearing into sharper focus. It turns out the presence of these troops in Niger was unlawful.

Mattis claimed the four dead US soldiers were just there on a train-and-advise mission. “I think it was reasonable to think they could go out there and train these [Niger] troops without the idea they’re going into direct combat; but” he admitted, “that’s not a complete answer. I need to wait until I get the investigation to fully appraise it.”

Derek Gannon, a former Green Beret, said, “[US military involvement in Africa] is called Low Intensity Irregular Warfare, yet technically, it’s not considered war by the Pentagon. But,” he added, “warfare is warfare to me.”

Mattis insisted that Title 10 of the US Code grants authority for train-and-advise missions anywhere in the world. But the War Powers Resolution (WPR), passed by Congress in the wake of the Vietnam War, specifies that the president’s authority to order US troops into hostilities cannot be inferred from any provision of law that does not specifically authorize the use of US forces in hostilities. And Title 10 does not.

The WPR allows the president to introduce US Armed Forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities in only three situations:

First, after Congress has declared war, which has not happened since World War II. Second, in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces,” which had not occurred prior to the killings of the US troops in Niger. And third, when there is “specific statutory authorization,” such as an Authorization for the Use of Military Force.

In the 2001 AUMF, Congress authorized the president to use military force against individuals, groups and countries that had supported the 9/11 attacks.  Congress rejected the George W. Bush administration’s request for open-ended military authority “to deter and preempt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States.” That AUMF does not authorize US military action in Niger against ISIS, which didn’t even exist in 2001 when Congress issued it.

The WPR requires the president to report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing US forces into hostilities. That report must explain the circumstances necessitating the introduction of US Armed Forces, the constitutional and statutory authority for the deployment, and the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement.

Many in Congress, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), were not aware there are currently 800 US troops stationed in Niger. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) told the New York Times, “I don’t think Congress has been completely kept up to date.”

The president must withdraw the troops within 60 days of initiating the use of military force unless Congress declares war or provides a “specific authorization.” Congress has not specifically authorized US troops to fight ISIS in Niger.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated at the hearing that Congress has been notified of troop deployments around the world, including the buildup in Niger, and has responded by funding the Department of Defense.

According to the Congressional Research Service, “Congress has shaped US engagement with Niger and the US military footprint in the country through its authorization and appropriation of funding for US security cooperation and assistance programs, and through its authorization of funding for US military construction.”

Corker cited Trump’s June 27 notice to Congress identifying 19 countries in which US military personnel are deployed and equipped for combat. They include Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Cuba, Kosovo and Niger.

“As Niger proved,” Corker noted, “those forces can find themselves in combat at any moment.”

However, appropriating funds to support a particular operation does not constitute “specific authorization” under the WPR.

The practice of using questionable legal logic to justify military operations is not unique to the Trump administration. In fact, our last president engaged in similar maneuvers.

Barack Obama rationalized his use of military force in several countries with reference to the 2001 AUMF, as well as to a second AUMF issued in 2002.

The 2002 AUMF was granted to Bush by Congress specifically to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq. That license ended once that purpose was accomplished. So, the 2002 AUMF does not provide a legal basis for US combat troops in Niger either.

Ranking committee member Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) stated at the committee hearing that the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs have now become “mere authorities of convenience for presidents to conduct military activities anywhere in the world,” adding, “They should not be used as the legal justification for military activities around the world.”

Cardin said he voted for the 2001 AUMF, and he “and all of us never intended it would still be used to justify the use of military force against ISIS.”

By Ana Maria Touma

American producer Harvey Weinstein hired the same Israeli intelligence company that spied on Romania’s anti-graft chief prosecutor to bury allegations of sexual harassment in 2016, the New Yorker reports.

Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who stands accused of sexual harassment and rape by scores of women, hired private investigators from an Israeli firm, whose agents were jailed in Romania for spying on the country’s chief anti-graft prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi, New Yorker magazine reported Tuesday.

New Yorker said that in autumn 2016, Weinstein set out to suppress allegations of sexual harassment, hiring the private security agencies to collect information on the women and journalists involved in trying to expose the allegations.

Reporters say that dozens of pages of documents show that Weinstein hired Kroll – one of the world’s largest corporate intelligence companies – and Black Cube, an enterprise run by former Mossad agents.

Black Cube declined to comment on any work it did for Weinstein.

In Romania, two Israeli citizens contracted by Black Cube were sentenced in 2017 for cyber-identity theft after they tried to spy on anti-graft chief prosecutor Laura Condruta Kovesi. A third one, Yossi Barkshtein, is still unaccounted for.

Weiner and Geclowicz both pleaded guilty and made deals with the organized crime prosecutors to receive reduced sentences. Geclowitz received a two year and eight months suspended sentence in November 2016 and Weiner received the same sentence in January 2017.

According to organised crime prosecutors, Weiner was an IT expert hired to handle phishing attacks and obtain Kovesi’s email credentials. Geclowitz had previously called family members and friends to obtain email addresses belonging to the anti-graft chief prosecutor.

A former Romanian intelligence officer indicted for corruption in a different case was also arrested and prosecuted for allegedly turning a blind eye to the whole operation.

Billionaire Benny Steinmetz, political consultant Tal Silberstein and Romanian IT tycoon Sebastian Ghita were also investigated by Romanian organised crime prosecutors in connection with cyber-identity theft.

Romania saw its largest protests since the fall of communism at the beginning of 2017. The social movement was triggered by Social Democrat moves to change justice laws, seen as an attempt to intimidate and curb the independence of anti-graft prosecutors. Renewed protests took place last Sunday in various cities across Romania.

US-based Kroll was hired by the Bank of Moldova to conduct an investigation into fraud which saw a billion dollars disappear from three Moldovan banks in 2014.

North Atlantic right whales – a highly endangered species making modest population gains in the past decade – may be imperiled by warming waters and insufficient international protection, according to a new Cornell University analysis published in Global Change Biology.

North Atlantic right whales’ preferred cuisine is copepods that thrive in cool waters, such as the Gulf of Maine, said author Erin Meyer-Gutbrod, who conducted the work as a doctoral student and postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Charles Greene, professor of oceanography and co-author on the paper.

Scientists once relied on continuous plankton sampling to track the copepods, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations’ National Marine Fisheries Service discontinued the program, preventing researchers from observing ecosystem changes as they occur.

In the past several years, a smaller portion of the right whale population has been seen in the Gulf of Maine as it has warmed, and the whales have been spotted farther north than usual, in the Canadian Gulf of St. Lawrence, likely in search of the small crustaceans, she said.

Because whales used to be rare in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, northern waterways lack whale protection policies. Without adequate policies the whales are at greater risk from ship traffic and commercial fishing gear.

“Right whales are a highly endangered species with approximately 500 animals remaining,” said Meyer-Gutbrod, who now works at the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “This crisis signals a major shift in the whale population’s recovery, corresponding to a loss of 3 percent of the right whale population.”

“There is a very important interaction between climate change and anthropogenic mortality factors,” said Greene. “We must extend whale protections to prevent a major decline in the population.”

By Christina Goldbaum*

When Ali Osman Diblawe arrived in Bariire he was barefoot and winded. He had sprinted the 2.5 kilometres from his farm to the southern Somali town after hearing a barrage of gunfire tear through his small village soon after the early morning prayer.

That was on 25 August. In the days prior, he and at least two others on the farm had seen what they thought was an odd-looking black bird in the sky.

“There was something small and dark that was flying high over the town in the morning when we went to our farms and in the evening when we came home,” Diblawe told IRIN over a phone. “It was far away, but I thought that’s a drone, that looks like a drone.”

Anxious, he approached the local Somali National Army commander to voice his concerns over what he suspected was US surveillance of the village.

He explained that although the farmers had small arms – as many do in rural Somalia, where there are ongoing clan conflicts – they were not members of the jihadist group al-Shabab. He returned to his village on 24 August hoping he had been listened to.

The next morning the shooting started and Diblawe ran. When he plucked up the courage to return home he saw the bodies of 10 of his neighbours sprawled on the ground. Standing over them were the SNA soldiers who had killed them, and the handful of US Special Operators who had orchestrated the operation. Diblawe’s warning had fallen on deaf ears.

Local media first misreported the incident as a US drone strike. They later clarified that the 10 people had been killed in a joint US-Somali ground operation – confirmed in a statement issued by the US Africa Command, known as AFRICOM.

The raid came six months after President Donald Trump had loosened regulations restricting operations in Somalia, and five months after the first US soldier was killed in the country since the infamous Black Hawk Down incident in 1993.

The Bariire raid exemplifies what has been a gradual ramping-up of US military activity in Somalia over the last three years, one in which drones – both armed and for surveillance – have played a central role.

This includes the first air strike against so-called Islamic State in Somalia on 3 November. According to an AFRICOM statement, the drone attack killed “several terrorists” near Qandala, a small port town in northeastern Puntland that IS briefly occupied late last year.

“In 2011 there were four or five maybe six [air] strikes and US ground operations, and that trend continued up until 2015,” said Jack Serle, a specialist investigator with the Bureau for Investigative Journalism’s drone warfare team.

“But in 2015 the pace of strikes really accelerated and we’re now tracking at least 20 airstrikes and ground operations this year, which is the highest we’ve ever recorded.”

Relaxed rules of engagement

In March, the Trump administration designated parts of southern Somalia an “area of active hostilities”, a move which gives commanders in the field greater autonomy over the use of force.

Prior to the policy change, US forces in Somalia had been operating under the more restrictive Barrack Obama-era guidelines known as the Presidential Policy Guidance.

Implemented in May 2013 in an effort to reduce the number of civilian casualties in counter-terrorism operations, the guidelines require high-level deliberations among cabinet officials to confirm that targets outside of traditional war zones pose a threat to Americans, and that there is near certainty no civilians will be killed.

The undoing of these regulations came after significant lobbying from the Pentagon and General Thomas Waldhauser, the AFRICOM commander.

Yet in the initial three months after the new policy was implemented, there was no change in the number of strikes: there was one strike in April, one in May, and one in June.

But then in July something changed: there were five strikes that month, four in August, and three in September, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

“This pales in comparison to other countries where the US operates drones,” said Serle, noting that in Yemen there have been 115 confirmed air strikes this year alone. But, he added, in comparison to the last three years in Somalia, “this is unprecedented.”

Who’s a terrorist?

The marked increase in strikes and operations in recent years, combined with the Trump administration’s new operating regulations, and the incident in August, has caused concern in human rights circles.

Researchers have repeatedly warned about the challenges of foreign militaries operating in a country where clan conflicts and small arms are prolific among civilian populations, like in Bariire.

In these areas, where various clans have long feuded over land and water, farmers often carry guns to protect their farms against attacks from rival clan militias.

A prolonged drought has also caused mass displacement, forcing these armed farmers and pastoralists to move into new areas when the land can no longer support them. Without accurate intelligence, this can look like a group of al-Shabab militants on the move.

Though many claim that farmers who carry guns in al-Shabab controlled areas are in some form of alliance with the jihadists in order to keep their weapons, it’s incredibly difficult to discern whether this is true.

It’s particularly hard when translators and intelligence officers providing foreign militaries with this information are themselves often involved – even peripherally – in these clan disputes.

“We have already started to see in certain circumstances a real risk that expanded operations are leading to increased civilian harm,” said Laetitia Bader, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch.

“It could also be used or seen as an opportunity from a whole variety of actors to sow [dis]information and feed into increasingly tense localised conflicts,” she added.

Such it seems was the case in Bariire, where it appears the US operated on misleading intelligence that Diblawe – and many others – suspect came from a rival clan in active conflict with the people in the village.

In a press release after the operation, AFRICOM said it was aware of “civilian casualty allegations” and that it was “conducting an assessment into the situation to determine the facts on the ground.”

More accidental deaths

But Bariire isn’t the first US investigation into accidental casualties in Somalia. In September last year, a drone strike killed 22 soldiers from a regional militia the US had worked alongside near Galkayo, in Galmadug State, central Somalia.

At the time, the Galmadug security minister told reporters that he suspected security personnel in a rival clan in neigbouring Puntland had deliberately misinformed US forces – telling them Galmadug’s soldiers were actually al-Shabab.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, AFRICOM claimed US forces had carried out a “self-defence strike”, which resulted in the death of nine al-Shabab militants. But as furious residents of Galkayo burned American flags in protest, AFRICOM said it would open an investigation into the allegations.

“It’s essential that if operations that the US are unilaterally carrying out, or supporting the Somali armed forces to carry out, that when they go wrong, the US is promptly investigating civilian casualty allegations and publicly publishing the outcomes of these investigations,” said Bader.

“When there are incidents of criminal wrongdoing and when these operations are found to be illegal, it’s key that individuals are being brought to justice.”

In Bariire, Diblawe is still waiting to hear the results of the Pentagon’s latest investigation, which he hopes will bring justice over the deaths of his neighbours and friends.

“We don’t believe the Americans have any agenda to kill us, they don’t have an agenda to support one clan against another,” he said. “But there are people who systematically brand us with the name ‘al-Shabab’ in order to get support in this clan conflict.”

But before Diblawe gets answers, Somalis can expect more drone strikes. President Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmaajo” and Somalia’s international partners are preparing for a much-anticipated large-scale offensive against al-Shabab in which the US, which has emerged as one of the government’s strongest allies, will most likely play a key role.

About the author:
*Christina Goldbaum, An independent journalist based in Mogadishu

Source:
This article was published by IRIN

Notwithstanding the deplorable Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade over Gaza, blaming Israel solely for the Palestinians’ misfortunes while refusing to look at their own shortcomings did nothing but undermine their legitimate cause. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas must now put their act together, abandon their old and tired narrative, stop their incitements and violent extremism against Israel, and present a plausible scenario for peace based on the Arab Peace Initiative.

By Dr. Alon Ben-Meir*

The current efforts to reconcile between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas will be doomed to fail just like several previous attempts, unless both sides agree to resolve three major obstacles—a united strategy to find a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the fate of Hamas’ cache of weapons, and the Palestinians’ future government—that have haunted them since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007. Given their mutual animosity and deadly rivalry, the question is, will the Palestinians be able this time around to play their cards right?

First, agreeing on a peaceful solution to their conflict with Israel remains the central issue over which they must reach a consensus. Whereas the PA has long-since recognized Israel on the basis of the June 4, 1967 borders, Hamas—even though it has stated its willingness to negotiate with Israel on a two-state solution—continues to call for Israel’s ultimate destruction.

If Hamas were to join the PA and the latter assumes the responsibility to negotiate with Israel, neither the current right-wing nor even a future centrist/leftist Israeli government would negotiate with the PA unless Hamas first recognizes Israel and renounces violence, which it is unlikely to do.

Since it is widely assumed, however, that without Hamas no Israeli-Palestinian peace can endure, the question is how to persuade Hamas to accept the two preconditions without losing face. The answer lies with the Arab Peace Initiative (API). Acting as the mediator between Hamas and the PA, Egypt’s President Sisi should insist that Hamas embrace the API and join the ranks of the rest of the Arab world. The US and the EU should lend public support to this effort, which will open the door to legitimize Hamas as a partner in negotiations with Israel.

In the main, the API stipulates that recognition of Israel is conditional upon returning territories captured in 1967, a ‘just solution’ for the Palestinian refugees, and East Jerusalem becoming the capital of a newly-established Palestinian state. By Hamas embracing the API, it will strengthen the hands of Israel’s center and left parties who will then be in a strong position to present to the Israeli public a credible framework for peace. I maintain that short of achieving that, the PA and Hamas will continue to shuffle the cards, yet neither will score a winning hand.

The second major obstacle is Hamas’ possession of thousands of rockets and the determination of its military wing to retain them under any circumstances. PA President Abbas is correct to demand that Hamas must surrender such weapons, insisting that he will not allow Gaza to mirror the situation in Lebanon, where Hezbollah maintains a de facto state within a state with a huge arsenal at its disposal, free to operate as it deems fit.

Moreover, any Israeli government, regardless of its political leaning, will insist that a future Palestinian state be demilitarized and will not negotiate with the Palestinians under any threat. Given the unlikelihood that Hamas will surrender its stockpile of rockets to the PA and its desire to mend its differences with Egypt, President Sisi is in a position to insist that Hamas store its arsenal with Egypt.

In return, Egypt will open the border to Gaza and be in a strong position to coax Israel to gradually lift the blockade to ease the humanitarian crisis of the Palestinians, which Hamas desperately wants to alleviate. This was indeed one of the main motivators behind Hamas’ willingness to end its discord with the PA.

Egypt’s role as a go-between is indispensable, without which the prospect of a sustained unity agreement between the PA and Hamas is next to impossible. Moreover, the fact that Egypt is at peace with Israel puts it in a perfect position to also help shape the unity agreement between Hamas and the PA and make it ultimately conducive to peace with Israel.

In this regard, it should be noted that Sisi also wants a demilitarized Gaza and Hamas’ full cooperation to combat terrorism in northern Sinai. Thus, if Hamas wants to reconcile with the PA, it must work with Egypt to resolve the weapons problem, without which there will be neither a unity agreement with the PA nor a solution to the conflict with Israel. In this connection, the PA must also deploy its security forces into Gaza to take charge of the crossings into Israel to ease Israeli concerns and restrictions.

The third obdurate issue is the political nature of a future Palestinian government. Although both sides must remain committed to a democratic form of government, the Palestinians should agree on deferring general elections for at least five years, which the US and EU ought to support. In the interim, the PA and Hamas will establish a proportionate representative unity government based on the current demographic composition of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Both sides would select representatives to fill all major government posts, with decisions made by consensus rather than a simple majority vote.

Due to the current political environment between the two sides, and given that it has already been established that the unity government will be led by Abbas, the prime minister should be selected from Hamas. General elections will be held once the transitional period passes, allowing new leadership to emerge. Both sides will have to fully abide by the results of the elections; otherwise, they will end up again as bitter rivals.

It should be emphasized that all cabinet members and other top officials must be apolitical figures—skilled, professional bureaucrats who will focus mainly on social programs, reconstruction, healthcare, education, and economic development both in the West Bank and Gaza.

The transitional period is particularly important not only for the Palestinians to reconcile many of their differences, but also for advancing the peace process with Israel. Indeed, if peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians resume now, they will simply fail like all previous attempts since the 1993-1994 Oslo Accords. Israel and the Palestinians must first engage in a process of reconciliation to build trust, which is totally lacking, and mitigate major security concerns before they can resume negotiations in earnest.

This can be achieved only by initiating government-to-government economic projects and people-to-people social activities to build trust. Thus, a transitional period is central to mitigate both the intra-Palestinian political discord as well as relations with Israel.

Under any circumstances, the current right-wing Israeli government led by Netanyahu will not seek nor commit to a two-state solution. Therefore, what is critical here is that by engaging Israel in a process of reconciliation, the Palestinians can strengthen the hands of the Israeli opposition parties who will then be in a stronger position to make the case to the Israeli public in favor of peace based on a two-state solution.

Notwithstanding the deplorable Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade over Gaza, blaming Israel solely for the Palestinians’ misfortunes while refusing to look at their own shortcomings did nothing but undermine their legitimate cause. The PA and Hamas must now put their act together, abandon their old and tired narrative, stop their incitements and violent extremism against Israel, and present a plausible scenario for peace based on the API.

It is true that this is a tall order. Given the stark ideological differences between the PA and Hamas, their contrasting approaches to resolving the conflict with Israel, and their rivalry for power, the chance of success is not promising unless they tackle the three major conflicting issues head on.

Otherwise, the PA-Hamas reconciliation efforts will amount to no more than a poker game where each side tries to outsmart or outright cheat the other. It is time for the PA and Hamas’ leadership to play their cards right.

*Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

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

By José Niño*

Not too long ago, US President Donald Trump made headlines by suggesting a potential military option in Venezuela in the face of the country’s rapidly decaying political situation.

It’s undeniable that Venezuela is suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis of unprecedented proportions all thanks to the socialist policies that the country has experimented with over the past two decades. But a military intervention in Venezuela is likely to be costly and damaging to Americans, while disastrous for Venezuelans.

The Problems with Intervention

The harsh reality is that an intervention in Venezuela is no cure-all for its present dilemma. In fact, it has the potential to make matters worse.

The U.S. has already bungled its interventionist nation-building schemes in Iraq and Afghanistan, spending billions intervening in these countries and concocting every scheme possible to continue its failed nation-building fantasies.

The only situation in which a US military intervention in Venezuela would be justified is if Venezuela committed military aggression against the United States. But the chances of that scenario occurring are very low. The country is in such dire straits that it can barely even feed its own military, let alone coordinate a military invasion of a foreign country.

Even if an intervention consisted of removing Maduro from power, Maduro’s exit does not guarantee a stable atmosphere for future governments. In fact, the current crisis could devolve into a chaotic civil war, where U.S. troops could get caught in the crossfire between various factions taking advantage of the chaos.

And one must also ask why should U.S. taxpayers be on the hook for “fixing” problems caused by a regime endorsed by the voting majority of Venezuela?

They not only blundered in electing socialist leaders like Hugo Chávez, but also elected preceding governments that created the adverse conditions for his eventual rise to power.

That’s not to say that American citizens should not attempt to provide private humanitarian aid to Venezuelans. But the American state is not going to be the solution in Venezuela’s current crisis.

Potential Destabilization Factors

The potential for disaster is emphasized by the fact that Venezuela’s collapse has spread well beyond the economic sphere. It has infected the very social fabric of the country itself.

One example of how state institutions have spread disorder to the larger society is the group of prison chieftains known as “pranes.” These pranes effectively control Venezuelan prisons through massive drug and weapon trafficking schemes. But their reach goes beyond the prison, these criminal strongmen act as de facto warlords that run protection rackets and provide black market jobs to those in desperate need of work. These criminal elements have been the main drivers of Venezuela’s notoriously high crime rates and have morphed into a parallel state in times where traditional Venezuelan institutions have all but collapsed.

Any type of destabilizing intervention in Venezuela would likely allow the pranes to use the situation to further consolidate their power.

A Modest Proposal

If the US were to have any diplomatic role in how Venezuela transitions out of its current tyrannical regime, It should pledge to recognize and engage in unilateral free trade with any breakaway regions of Venezeuala that seek to escape the current regime.

The state of Zulia, for example, in northwest Venezuela, is already known for its fiercely independent and regionalist culture that bucks popular social and political trends in Caracas. Indeed, Delcy Rodriguez, the president of Venezuela’s national assembly, recently felt it necessary to reiterate opposition to secessionist movements in the country:

Rodríguez warned that they will not allow any secessionist movement known as ‘the crescent moon’, a denomination that confers to the figure that form the states of Zulia, Táchira and Mérida, won by the opposition in the elections of the October 15th.

With coastline, a border with Colombia, and with the largest oil and gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere, Zulia has the potential to transform into a regional powerhouse with the right institutional underpinnings and serve as a competing political entity to the traditionally top-down Venezuelan state.

Under such circumstances, at least some Venezuelans would no longer have to be shackled by Caracas’s orbit; and the new independent region could also offer safety to many Venezuelan dissidents.

Instead of promoting a heavy-handed intervention, the U.S should look at diplomatic recognition and trade with movements that seek to break up the tyrannical grip of the current Venezuelan political order. Lending support to a Venezuelan version of Taiwan would certainly be a wiser choice rather than yet another costly and potentially disastrous military intervention.

About the author:
*Jose Nino is a Venezuelan-American graduate student based in Fort Collins, Colorado. He has lived in Chile, Venezuela, and the United States. He is currently an analyst with the Acton Circle of Chile. Contact: twitter or email him here.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

By Dr. Arshad M. Khan*

Tales of exaggeration and outright lies by this president are not new. In 1974, the New York Times did a profile on the young Trump. He claimed he was worth $200 million when his taxable income then was $2,200 a week; that he was of Swedish heritage; that he had graduated at the top of his class at Wharton! Claims of high intelligence are repeated often, and an assurance of how he would get better deals abroad.

Which brings us to his foreign policy. His campaign promoted America First, a doctrine earning its name before WW2 when proponents wanted the US to stay out of another European war. Roosevelt thought otherwise and the Japanese ended the issue.

Since the election, however, the only isolation Mr. Trump has initiated is in the unintended alienation of allies. Against foes, he has been quite belligerent. He has threatened to annihilate North Korea; he ordered missile strikes against Syria when the evidence of its culpability was vague; the stepping back from the Iran nuclear deal and his clear backing of the Saudis place him in the Sunni camp against the Shias.

While closely aligned with Netanyahu, he claims to be pushing for a peace deal. He certainly has of a different source. Beset by the new Trump-Netanyahu-Saudi alliance, the Palestinian factions Hamas and PLO have agreed to peace (at least a truce) and power sharing.

Trump’s pugilistic approach to trade has offended friends and rivals prompting Angela Merkel’s caustic remark that if Americans want to sell cars here, why don’t they make cars Germans would want to buy. Meanwhile, China and Russia are drawing closer, swooping up Iran, possibly Turkey and other peripherals while Trump threatens Pakistan, now less dependent than ever on America.

He has sent an additional 6,000 troops to Afghanistan, a drop compared to Obama’s efforts which failed. They have made no difference and the Taliban control half the country.

If all of this constitutes foreign policy, its strategy remains a mystery while it has all the makings of a mishmash response to events in ways ill-informed even thoughtless.

Meanwhile the specter of his Russian problem looms larger turning partly real with the indictment of Paul Manafort Jr., who managed the Trump campaign briefly, and the guilty plea of campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos for lying to the FBI about his connection with the Russian government’s efforts to influence the 2016 election. The latter could conceivably lead to the White House particularly when Papadopoulos is busy negotiating a lenient sentence in exchange for information and could involve others.

Of course, the Clinton campaign spent $12 million trying to get dirt dug up on Trump including the notorious dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British Intelligence operative turned consultant, who founded Orbis Business Intelligence the firm hired.

Six of one and half a dozen of the other as each campaign tried to acquire ammunition to smear the other. So, what else is new?

About the author:
*Dr. Arshad M. Khan is a former Professor based in the US. Educated at King’s College London, OSU and The University of Chicago, he has a multidisciplinary background that has frequently informed his research. Thus he headed the analysis of an innovation survey of Norway, and his work on SMEs published in major journals has been widely cited. He has for several decades also written for the press: These articles and occasional comments have appeared in print media such as The Dallas Morning News, Dawn (Pakistan), The Fort Worth Star Telegram, The Monitor, The Wall Street Journal and others. On the internet, he has written for Antiwar.com, Asia Times, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Countercurrents, Dissident Voice, Eurasia Review and Modern Diplomacy among many. His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in its Congressional Record.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy