By Dr Subhash Kapila

Pakistan Army having ruled over Pakistan for nearly half its existence since 1947 has no credits to distinguish itself in terms of Pakistan’s nation-building; the contrary is true in that despite its pretentions of being the “Glue that Holds Pakistan Together”, Pakistan as a nation in 2017 is unstuck and dysfunctional.

Pakistan as the minor inheritor of British India along with much larger India with much larger challenges in nation-building could have emerged as an equally democratic, progressive and economically vibrant nation like India. But what picture does Pakistan project as the second decade of the 21st Century draws to a close?

Pakistan today projects a picture of a dysfunctional nation steeped and slipping into an abyss of medieval Islamic obscurantism—-sadly into the very opposite conception of Pakistan which its founder Jinnah had visualised. Pakistan’s liberalist sections and the educated middle class stands drowned by the Pakistan Army-Mullah nexus, both intent on keeping Pakistan as a nation state embracing 21st Century modernity.

Pakistan today presents sordid picture where the Pakistan Army as the main dominant force presiding over Pakistan’s political directions and so also its foreign policies has strongly and disruptively impeded Pakistan’s emergence as a moderate, democratic .and progressive Islamic State. A progressive and democratic Pakistan would be expected to clamp down on the Pakistan Army-Islamic Theocracy combine and also bring the Pakistan Army under firm civilian control.

The Pakistan Army has done so not due to any external or domestic pressures but by its own volition and its own compulsions to remain and sustain its privileged monopoly of State power and governance. The Pakistan Army could have achieved the same end as many other Armies of the world in similar situations have done without resorting to enlisting the support of Islamic Mullahs (clerics), Islamic Jihadi terrorist outfits and Islamic fundamentalists of the most medieval type as its mainstays to rule and stay in power in Pakistan.

The Pakistan Army misappropriates the lion’s share of Pakistan’s National Budget for empowering itself with nuclear weapons, nuclear-tipped long range ballistic missiles and advanced military hardware. All of this at great cost and at the expense of impoverished Pakistani masses. Good education and health services in Pakistan suffer on this account.

The Pakistan Army also spends large amounts of money other than that allotted in its lion’s share of the defence budget for subsidising Pakistan Army sponsored proxy war against India and Afghanistan by use of the various Islamic Jihadi terrorist groups affiliated and subsidised by it. Reports suggest that such money also is derived from illicit drugs money trade resorted to by Pakistan Army’s intelligence agency—the ISI.

Contextually therefore, in light of the above overview profile on the Pakistan Army, some pertinent questions that this Paper attempts to examine are as follows: (1) Is Pakistan Army really the glue which holds Pakistan together? (2) What are the salient dimensions of Pakistan Army’s politically disruptive activities that impede Pakistan’s nation-building? (3) How has the Pakistan Army been able to get away for decades without adverse domestic accountability costs in as a politically disruptive force in Pakistan’s national affairs? (4) How has the Pakistan Army been able to get away from its external accountability for ethnic genocides/ second Partition of Pakistan in 1971/nuclear weapons proliferation/and officially sponsored Islamic Jihadi terrorism not only against its immediate neighbours but also against the United States, namely the horrific 9/11bombings in New York and in Washington?

Pakistan Army has failed in promoting or adding to cohesion of the Pakistani State going by its demonstrated performance record. On the contrary, the Pakistan Army emerges as the main instrument of Pakistan’s breakup into two separate nations of the rump state of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Pakistan Army may soon repeat the same blunder in Balochistan and Gilgit regions. Pakistan Army continues to support its Sunni-predominant Islamist theocratic allies against the legitimate existence of Pakistan’s sectarian minorities—- the Shias and the Ahmediyas. Pakistan as a nation has selected a “strange type of glue” to hold Pakistan together. But then will the Pakistan Army ever allow the Pakistan citizenry to select the appropriate glue to hold Pakistan together?

Salient dimensions of Pakistan Army’s politically disruptive activities to impede Pakistan’s nation building and emergence as a progressive nation incorporate (1) Genuine democracy being prevented to strike roots by frequent military rule interventions whenever the Pakistan Army perceived that the balance of political power was getting shifted in favour of civilian governments (2) Towards this end, the Pakistan Army contrived critical law& order situations projecting imminent state-collapse due to civilian government mis governance. (3) Dividing Pakistan’s political parties through use of political surrogates and elections financed and manipulated by the ISI. (4) Not permitting civilian governments to complete their full five years tenure.

Pakistan Army has managed to get away from domestic accountability for its politically disruptive activities on the strength of its suppressive and coercive capacities of the ISI against any vocal opposition surfacing against it. Pakistan Army has never been held accountable for its loss of East Pakistan, its defeat in the 1965 and 1971 Wars that it launched against India, the Kargil military misadventure against India in 1999 and the complicity of the Pakistan Army hierarchy in facilitating United States Special Operations to strike deep in Pakistan’s heartland and in its major garrison town to liquidate Osama bin Laden.

Pakistan’s above referred military misadventures are quoted as politically disruptive activities as these impeded and interrupted Pakistan’s economic progress and also enabled Pakistan Army to divert domestic attention from its mis governance and corruption during long spells of military rule.

Pakistan Army has been adept at getting away from any external accountability for its ethnic genocides, proxy war sponsorship and use of Islamic Jihadi terrorism because of the permissiveness of its strategic patrons who exploited the rental Army instincts of the Pakistan Army military hierarchy for their own politically expedient strategic ends. Earlier the United States and now China have used the Pakistan Army as a willing accomplice for furthering their geopolitical ends in the region.

Both the United States and China preferred long spells of military rule in Pakistan so as to achieve their strategic objectives for which the Pakistan Army traded its strategic utility for silence of its external patrons on Pakistan’ Army’s hold on Pakistan’s political directions, foreign policy and to say the least Pakistan Army’s nuclear weapons technology proliferation. During the Cold War, the United Sates used the Pakistan Army to balance India’s non-alignment and now China uses Pakistan Army as its frontline state against India and the United States.

However, the Pakistan Army cannot endlessly get away with its perpetuation of controlling the destiny of Pakistan to suit neither its narrow vested corporate interests nor the vested interests of its new strategic patron China. With social media as a rising global phenomenon and its potential to open Pakistani masses windows to a wider globalised world of opportunities, especially economic, Pakistani masses cannot remain as mute spectators to the virtually colonial yoke of the Pakistan Army on Pakistan’s future and destiny. Winds of opposition to the Pakistan Army are visible in Pakistan’s civil society.

Observations made by me in the Paper above stand validated by the comments which I happened to come across as I was racing towards the Concluding Comments. Pakistan’s noted former distinguished diplomat Ashraf Jahangir Qazi in an article in DAWN today had some very scathing comments to make on the sordid state that Pakistan finds itself today.

The more notable excerpts from this scathing piece are appended below:

• “Given the triumph of religious obscurantism, the politically motivated security establishment, and the utterly corrupt and cowardly governance, what can another election do?”
• “Learned analyses of Pakistan’s political, security, economic, social and external challenges, and discussions about roadmaps and timelines for their possible resolution are all rendered irrelevant by the tragic state it has been reduced to by its rulers and guardians(read Pakistan Army)”
• “Moreover, the country’s elites, who rule without conscience or pity, readily plead their inability to address the situation while doing everything to ensure that it remains unaddressed. They deliberately rob the people of faith in themselves.”

The Pakistan Army to perpetuate its role as arbiter of Pakistan’s destiny, security and holding Pakistan together has obsessively quoted the ‘India Threat within Pakistan to the Pakistani masses. The Pakistan Army has played this canard for far too long. This myth also stands shattered by Ambassador Qazi in his scathing piece quoted above with the remarks: “Why should India try to destroy Pakistan when the country’s rulers are destroying themselves.”

Concluding, I would like to assert that though the Pakistan Army and its Islamic Jihadi cohorts who perpetuate the existing unfortunate state of affairs as a politically disruptive force in Pakistan’s nation-building, must remember that while their faith may temporarily be numbed, they need to recall their resilient mass surge of 2007-09 when the Pakistan Army and its military ruler then, General Musharraf was forced to relent and leave office by Pakistani peoples power manifested on the streets of Islamabad and the march from Lahore to Islamabad. The people of Pakistan need to say “Yes, we can” and end the politically disruptive role of the Pakistan Army and propel 21sst Century Pakistan to a modern, moderate, democratic and economically vibrant future.

By Priyanka Singh*

Former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah recently raised a furore by stating: “I tell them in plain terms– not only the people of India, but also to the world – that the part (of Jammu and Kashmir) which is with Pakistan (PoK), belongs to Pakistan and this side to India. This won’t change.”1 This statement on Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in general, and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in particular, was made even as Dineshwar Sharma, the newly appointed interlocutor on J&K mandated to engage with a broad spectrum of stakeholders, made his maiden visit to the Valley. Within days, Farooq Abdullah supplemented his statement by noting: “How long shall we keep saying that (PoK) is our part? It (PoK) is not their father’s share.”2 He further cautioned that “they (Pakistan) are not weak and are not wearing bangles. They too have atom bomb”, which, in his view, must prevent India from thinking of retaking PoK.3

Abdullah’s views elicited sharp criticism from certain quarters and endorsement from others. Some even resorted to legal action against Abdullah as the issue stirred heated debate in television channels. While a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) was filed in Delhi High Court against Abdullah,4 a court in Bihar ordered the registering of an FIR (First Information Report) against him.5 National Conference leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah questioned the intent of past Congress-led governments on “taking back” PoK and challenged the present government to do so and prove his father wrong.6 Omar Abdullah also evoked former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s resolve to preserve the sanctity of the Line of Control (LoC) during the Kargil conflict in 1999.7

This is not the first time that such an unrestrained reference undermining India’s position on PoK has been made by senior political leaders. Nor have the reactions and responses to such assertions taken into account the fundamental link between PoK and J&K. Repeatedly, these back and forth statements have translated into high-decibel and divisive for and against debates without being sensitive to the potential fallout. Further, instead of harmonising the domestic discourse on PoK, these polarising debates lead to disjointed analyses and understanding on an issue so critical to India.

Umbilical link

Its low-key standing claim on PoK notwithstanding, the territory does embody India’s broader position on J&K; namely, the entire territory of the erstwhile princely state is an integral part of India. A part of the state’s territory, PoK, comprising the so-called Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (G-B), has remained under Pakistan’s control since the tribal raid and India-Pakistan war of 1947-48. Although the territory is largely forgotten by the people of India, and some have even forgone the claim, its salience to India’s overall claim on J&K is undeniable. This is because there is an umbilical link between India’s control over J&K and its standing claim on PoK. Via the Instrument of Accession, the entire territory of what then comprised the princely state of J&K, including what is since being referred to as PoK, acceded to India. The accession was signed in India’s favour by the then ruler of the princely state, Maharaja Hari Singh, on October 26, 1947. It is this Instrument of Accession that warrants India’s territorial control over the entire J&K. India’s extant claim on PoK and its control on J&K are, therefore, inextricably linked. Besides, the Constitution of J&K contains a provision of 24 seats for the representatives of PoK “until the area of the State under the occupation of Pakistan ceases to be so.”8 Therefore, unless India’s official stand on PoK is duly revised at some point, hopefully blueprinting a definitive settlement on J&K, it is premature and self-defeating to subtract PoK from its overall claim.

Determinants of Domestic Complacency

The sustained neglect of India’s claim on PoK in the domestic discourse on Kashmir and the indifference shown by successive political dispensations are responsible for building a cynical perception of the territory’s insignificance in the broader scheme of things. Rash public statements smacking of political opportunism that contradict the official position on PoK have done considerable damage over time.

Uninformed public discourse

Public conversation on PoK within India is uninformed and pessimistic. It is a stark reality that there is inadequate academic focus on PoK in India. This is probably because PoK is considered academically irrelevant and less rewarding in comparison to a purely Valley-centric discourse. Consequently, PoK has remained under-represented in the conventional discourse on Kashmir. Instead, the near exclusive focus during the last nearly three decades has been on alleged human rights violations perpetrated by the security forces. In this view, only criticisms of India’s ‘hard’ approach towards the people of the Valley are considered genuine. Even as Valley-centric issues elicit concern and spawn serious discussions at elite platforms, the issues of political apathy and disenchantment prevalent in PoK are grossly neglected and even avoided. What exists, as a result, is a blinkered view of Kashmir – one that also fails to acknowledge that such a premature signalling on PoK would tantamount to disclaiming PoK with grave repercussions during future negotiations if and when they take place. While is it valid to argue that PoK’s inclusion in the domestic debate may not necessarily resolve the Kashmir issue in India’s favour, it is at the same time self-defeating to project the view that the Kashmir issue can be solved only by insulating it from India’s standing claim on PoK.

India’s subdued stance, a virtual abandonment of its claim on PoK, has ensured that the focus of Pakistan, of the international community and of the people of India remains confined to developments on the Indian side of the LoC. As a result, India’s PoK policy has been deprived of suitable periodic adjustments to match evolving strategic objectives. Successive governments are responsible for engendering a trend that hugely disserves India’s position. That the cartographic representation of PoK as part of India has not translated into mass perceptions of PoK as an integral part of India and the overall failure to mainstream PoK in the public discourse could partly be attributed to inept handling of the issue by the policy-makers.

An agenda of the Right?

Even though India’s position on PoK has never been categorically contested by any mainstream political group, ratcheting up the territorial claim is more than often discredited as mere rants by right-leaning constituencies within the country. Indeed, in the wider vacuum that exists, the right- leaning groups have frequently raked up the issue calling for integration of PoK with India.9 Therefore, on most occasions, discussions on PoK elicit responses to the effect that it is unnecessary raking up a claim that has already been more or less dispensed with. 10 Added to this is the recent tendency to ascribe the raising of the PoK issue as a political agenda of particular constituencies. Together, such responses prevent a meaningful and coherent policy-oriented discussion on PoK.

Cues from the past

In contrast to the situation obtaining at present, PoK was vital to India’s defence of its position on Kashmir in the initial years after independence. Former Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon’s elaborate defence during his marathon UN speech in 1957 made repeated references to Pakistan’s deceitful occupation of this portion of territory.11 It is generally perceived that following this impassioned plea, India’s approach on PoK revolved around accepting the ceasefire line and later, LoC as a de facto border and perpetuating the territorial status quo. From “practical” considerations of ceding more territory to Pakistan during the 1960s engagement (Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto-Swaran Singh talks),12 to an alleged informal understanding on maintaining the territorial status quo during the Simla Talks, there was a virtual shift in the debate on Kashmir within India. The territorial aspects of the issue gradually assumed less significance in discussions as terror and violence abetted by Pakistan during late 1980s assumed centre-stage.

Though never pronounced officially, it is believed that successive governments have veered towards the position of retaining the status quo as the permanent solution to the festering issue of Kashmir by simply converting the present LoC into a permanent border. As indicated above, this particular trend in India’s policy posture began around the Simla Conference in 1972, which also laid out the roadmap to bilateralism on Kashmir and the conversion of the cease fire line into LoC. The Simla agreement is widely considered part of India’s quest to formalise the LoC as a permanent border. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s oft-quoted articulation on making borders irrelevant rather than changing them, and heightened anticipation around Musharraf’s four-point formula (constructed around the status quo), were construed as India’s best options while seeking a permanent solution to the Kashmir issue.

Rethink Soft Pedalling

Prudent as it may have appeared to reconcile to the territorial status quo in the past, policy makers must ask themselves whether such an approach has really worked in India’s favour. While India may have been pursuing the option of formalising the LoC into a border, internal security indicators in J&K, dismal bilateral equations with Pakistan, and the persisting tug of war on Kashmir negate the previous approach. Pakistan’s unrelenting perpetration of violence and instability in J&K persists and its hand is more visible than ever in the events that have unfolded after the killing of Burhan Wani. Pakistan’s diplomats have not spared a single opportunity to raise the Kashmir issue internationally. It is abundantly clear that India has not gained anything by seeking to perpetuate the status quo. It is time to look at alternate options. Ceding territory as part of a “LoC plus” solution is not an option anymore.13

India cannot afford to appear to be disowning its extant claim on PoK unless a steadfast guarantee, this time on paper, is extracted on retaining the territorial status quo. Until such a formulation appears on the horizon, it makes no difference to Pakistan whether India abandons its claim on PoK or not. On the contrary, even peripheral overtures indicating India’s disinterestedness in PoK will potentially weaken its position on the broader issue of Kashmir. It is wishful thinking to assume that Pakistan would welcome the territorial status quo as propounded by some sections in India. The Kashmir issue substantially governs the undercurrents of Pakistan’s domestic polity. It is important to understand that Pakistan has long refused to accept the status quo by proclaiming support for secessionist groups in J&K. Its revisionist designs are even more obvious from the way Pakistan commissions militancy in the Valley and continues to house militant camps in PoK.

Due care is required to ensure that stray references by India’s previous leaders suggesting maintenance of the status quo are not interpreted as a climb down/divergence from the stated official position. Instead they must be understood as individual quests to explore pragmatic ways to resolve a protracted issue. It is equally important to articulate that India will not cede territory it controls and see whether Pakistan is willing to conduct a dialogue within this framework. Till the time India approaches a conclusive negotiation stage, it is important that loose references contradicting India’s claim on PoK are avoided at all cost.

Way Forward: Shed Rhetoric, Shore up Claim

Of late, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has given India’s claim on PoK a new lease of life. India has skilfully spun its reservations on the CPEC around the principle of territorial sovereignty and integrity. Therefore, apart from the bilateral imperatives vis-a-vis Pakistan as discussed above, presently, there are pressing geopolitical imperatives that must be heeded while formulating India’s policy position on PoK. In this regard, disregarding the territorial claim on PoK will only weaken India’s position on CPEC.

With CPEC placed under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), asserting claims to PoK has become a strategic necessity rather than an afterthought. It was perhaps owing to such compulsions that India’s inert and understated position on PoK was rescinded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reference to the territory during his Independence Day address in August 2016. There will always be those who argue that there is nothing substantial that India would lose by dis-claiming PoK. In the present geopolitical scene, however, India is likely to lose more than it gains by ignoring its claim on PoK. There is an urgent need to build a broad consensus on PoK in order to fix the credibility deficit caused by sustained neglect across generations. Unless India sheds its nonchalant approach towards its claim on PoK, it cannot expect the rest of the world to take its position on J&K seriously. For the time being, India has few options other than continue to be relentless in pursuing its claim on PoK.

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

About the author:
*Priyanka Singh is Associate Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

Source:
This article was published by IDSA.

Notes:

• 1. ‘Pak-Occupied Kashmir Belongs To Pakistan, Says Farooq Abdullah’, NDTV, 11 November 2017, at https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/pak-occupied-kashmir-belongs-to-pakistan….
• 2. ‘Pakistan not weak to allow India to take PoK: Farooq Abdullah’, The Economic Times, November 15, 2017, at https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/pakistan-n….
• 3. Ibid.
• 4. ‘PIL in HC against Ex-CM Farooq Abdullah for Remarks on PoK,’ Daily Pioneer, November 17, 2017, at http://www.dailypioneer.com/trending-news/pil-in-hc-against-ex-cm-farooq….
• 5. ‘Bihar court orders FIR against Farooq Abdullah for comment on PoK,’ The Indian Express, November 15, 2017, at http://indianexpress.com/article/india/bihar-court-orders-fir-against-farooq-abdullah-for-comment-on-pok-4939076/.
• 6. ‘Centre Should Prove My Father Wrong With ‘Actions’: Omar Abdullah’, NDTV, November 17, 2017, at https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/centre-should-prove-my-father-wrong-with-actions-omar-abdullah-1776499.
• 7. Ibid.
• 8. The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, available at http://jklegislativeassembly.nic.in/Costitution_of_J&K.pdf, pp.16-17.
• 9. ‘RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat wants Modi govt to reclaim parts of Kashmir from Pakistan, China: Report’, Business Standard, August 22, 2016, at http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-wants-modi-govt-to-reclaim-parts-of-kashmir-from-pakistan-china-report-116082200144_1.html.
• 10. Based on author’s experience during interactions at meetings and conferences.
• 11. E. S. Reddy & A. K. Damodaran, Krishna Menon on Kashmir: Selected Speeches at the United Nations – II, Sanchar Publishing House, New Delhi, in association with Krishna Menon National Memorial Committee 1992, at http://www.geocities.ws/enugareddy/krishnamenon/Krishna_Menon_on_Kashmir….
• 12. Y D Gundevia, Outside the Archives, Sangam Books, Orient Blackswan, Reprint 2008, p. 241.
• 13. Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran, and Siddharth Varadarajan, Non Alignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty First Century, 29 February 2012, New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research, 2012, p. 19.

By Felix K. Chang*

(FPRI) — Throughout his tour of Asia in November 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly referred to the region through which he travelled not as the “Asia-Pacific,” but rather as the “Indo-Pacific.”  While other American presidents have spoken of the “Indo Pacific” before, they did so infrequently. Trump’s continuous use of the term prompted some to speculate whether it offered a clue to the future of American strategy in the region.

Only a week later, Australia released a new white paper that embedded the term “Indo-Pacific” into its broad foreign policy objectives. The white paper made mention of the “Indo-Pacific” 74 times and the “Asia-Pacific” only four times. In contrast, Australia’s prior foreign-policy white paper, published in 2003, mentioned the “Asia-Pacific” 26 times and the “Indo-Pacific” not at all. Clearly, policymakers have intended the term to hold some deeper meaning.[1]

You Say “Asia-Pacific,” I Say “Indo-Pacific”

What does the term “Indo-Pacific” convey that the term “Asia-Pacific” does not? It conveys a wider view of the region to include the Indian subcontinent and, specifically, India. Why include India? Most likely it is because incorporating a country of India’s size and significance into the traditional conception of the Asia-Pacific region would help to balance the growing economic and military heft of China in it.

That makes sense, given that Australia, Japan, and the United States have already brought India into their Asian security discussions. Back in 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe first suggested formalizing such a multilateral collaboration through what he called the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. He hoped to bring together Asia’s four liberal democracies to promote their shared security goals. At the time, the concept fizzled for fear of alienating China. But that apparently is less of a concern today. With the rise of Chinese assertiveness, the four countries have begun to participate in joint military exercises all along Asia’s periphery. Since 2014, India, Japan, and the United States have conducted annual naval exercises from the Bay of Bengal to the Western Pacific. And, since 2015, Japan has joined the biennial Australia-U.S. military exercise called Talisman Saber.

Indo-Pacific Security Relationships

Still, for the moment the Indo-Pacific region’s only formal security alliances are the bilateral ones that link the United States with Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea in what some have described as a “hub-and-spokes” arrangement. The United States also has long-standing security relationships with Singapore, Taiwan, and until recently, Thailand. All other regional security ties are fairly nascent, including the one between Australia and Japan. Though both countries seem drawn to one another, their bond is not yet strong. Seen in that light, Australia’s recent decision to abandon a Japanese design for its future submarine fleet was probably a missed opportunity to reinforce that bond.

Meanwhile, India, which leaned towards the Soviet Union for much of the Cold War, has a relatively new security relationship with the United States. It was not until President George W. Bush orchestrated a civil nuclear deal with India, which implicitly recognized its nuclear weapons status in 2005, did that relationship really start. And even then, it did not grow quickly. Many Indians, including former National Security Council military advisor Prakash Menon and the former foreign secretary Shyam Saran, had reservations. In 2012, they, along with some notable Indian security experts, penned a strategy paper entitled Nonalignment 2.0 that downplayed the importance of stronger ties with the United States.[2]

Since then, however, China’s growing pressure on India’s borders and influence among India’s neighbors have made Indian leaders less concerned about India’s distance from the United States and more interested in finding common cause. As a reflection of that, India—once an exclusive Russian arms importer—has begun to acquire American military equipment and to consider Japanese ones, too. Australia specifically cited its interest in “much closer” ties with India in its recent foreign policy white paper.[3]

Indo-Pacific Encirclement of China?

For years, Chinese strategists have chafed at what they regarded as the geopolitical encirclement of China. But the number of such commentaries seems to have fallen over the last year or so. Perhaps that is because China has strengthened its relationship with Russia and made diplomatic headway in Southeast Asia. Or perhaps that is simply because China feels more powerful than it was. Ironically, China would have more reason to feel encircled today, if the other major Indo-Pacific powers choose to revive something akin to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

What’s in the name “Indo-Pacific?” The answer, in this case, might be a strategy for balancing Chinese power in the region.

About the author:
*Felix K. Chang is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also the Chief Strategy Officer of DecisionQ, a predictive analytics company in the national security and healthcare industries. He has worked with a number of digital, consumer services, and renewable energy entrepreneurs for years. He was previously a consultant in Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization practice; among his clients were the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and other agencies.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, The Commonwealth of Australia’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, Nov. 2017; and Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia’s Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper, 2003.

[2] Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran, and Siddharth Varadarajan, Nonalignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty First Century (New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research, 2012).

[3] Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, The Commonwealth of Australia’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, Nov. 2017, p. 42.

By Jaya Ramachandran

As Kazakhstan prepares to chair the UN Security Council for the month of January 2018, the Central Asian country’s contribution in the process of de-escalation of the nearly seven-year old conflict in Syria has been commended during Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov’s recent visits to London and Vienna.

The applause has come in the run-up to the eighth round of the Astana Process on Syrian peace meant to supplement UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva, in Kazakhstan’s capital city, on December 21-22. The first round of talks was launched in January 2017, nearly one month after the foreign ministers of Iran, Turkey, and Russia agreed to do so pursuant to the UN Resolution 2336 adopted December 31, 2016.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson noted in a meeting in London with Abdrakhmanov on November 20 the great importance of Kazakhstan in the Astana Process on the settlement of the situation in Syria, the situation in Afghanistan, the implementation of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine, countering terrorism, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and regional cooperation in Central Asia. He said: “Kazakhstan will be the first Central Asian nation to chair the UN Security Council. I look forward to further cooperation on global security.”

Austrian President Alexander Vander Bellen lauded in a meeting with the top Kazakh diplomat on December 6 in Vienna the significant contribution of Kazakhstan in the process of de-escalation of the conflict in Syria and other peace keeping efforts of the country, especially the role of President Nazarbayev in strengthening the movement for the nuclear-weapons-free world.

During the seventh International Meeting on Syria in Astana on October 30-31, 2017, President Nazarbayev told the heads of Russian, Turkish, Iranian delegations as well as a delegation of observers from the U.S., Jordan and the UN that the Astana Process enhances the efficiency of the Geneva talks.

Emphasizing the positive results of the previous rounds, he noted: “You have solved the problem of de-escalation of military actions in several regions. You have determined further mechanisms. The humanitarian situation is improved. It is important to preserve the ceasefire regime.”

President Nazarbayev added: “Any kind of negotiations and dialogue is a path to the future. We all want a peaceful solution to this issue. It is impossible to fight terrorism if the efforts of all countries are not united and if there is no single coalition. We are making every effort to create the necessary conditions to continue negotiations.”

The forthcoming round of two-day talks in Astana will focus on freeing prisoners, the delivery of humanitarian aid, the functioning of de-escalation zones and other issues, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said in a statement on December 11.

According to the ministry, the talks are expected to yield a regulation on a working group on the release of prisoners, exchange of bodies of those killed and search for those missing. “Participants are also expected to discuss issues of the operation of de-escalation zones and adopt a joint statement on humanitarian demining in Syria, including at UNESCO sites,” the ministry said.

These are important issues because the October 30-31 round discussed adherence to de-escalation zones agreed-upon in previous Astana Process talks as well as humanitarian issues, primarily the issues of exchange of detainees, prisoners of war and missing persons.

Representatives of the Syrian government and the Syrian armed opposition, delegations from Iran, Russia and Turkey attended closed-door negotiations. U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield and a delegation from Jordan and the United Nations also attended.

The UN delegation was led by Milos Strugar, an associate of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who attended a couple of previous rounds.

During the talks, head of the Syrian government delegation Bashar al-Jaafari called upon the guarantor states to abide by previous agreements, including de-escalation zone agreement.

In the joint statement, Iran, Russia and Turkey asserted there was no military solution to the Syrian conflict, rather the commitment to the political process guided by the UN Security Council resolution 2254 (2015) should prevail.

Concluding the two-day talks, the three guarantor states praised the contribution of the four de-escalation zones agreed-upon during the sixth round of Astana process in September 2017.

“We emphasise the significant reduction of violence on the ground in Syria as a result of measures taken to strengthen and maintain the ceasefire regime, including launching the de-escalation areas and creating the security zones,” said Kazakh Minister for Foreign Affairs Abdrakhmanov as he read out the document.

“We hope that all the agreements reached today are fully implemented. All the items on the agenda, including the issues related to hostages, detainees, missing persons, humanitarian demining and other issues discussed during the seventh round in Astana, are of great importance for all parties,” Abdrakhmanov added.

During the negotiations, the guarantor states – Iran, Russia and Turkey – stressed the need to take confidence-building measures referring to such humanitarian issues as the release of detainees, handover of bodies and finding missing persons. According to reports, the parties involved in the negotiations, however, have yet to come to an agreement.

The Syrian opposition drew special attention to the issue of detainees during the talks. “Another thing we are here for are detainees, forcibly detained people, and we have around quarter of a million people. We do not know how many of them are still alive. So this is a very important issue for every Syrian,” noted advisor to the Syrian opposition Yahya al-Aridi. Certain people impede the progress in achieving the objective, he added.

During a press conference wrapping up the talks, the Syrian opposition criticised Iran and the Syrian government for hampering the process of adopting the document on detainees.

“We signed documents [on the release of detainees] and there was agreement approved by Russia and Turkey. We had discussions in the presence of the UN, which supported it [the document]. Who is against – Iran and regime,” said al-Aridi, stressing the opposition’s firm commitment to push the issue forward and raise it during the upcoming Geneva talks.

“All the present parties supported it. The regime does not want to resolve the issue and we do not want to put that issue aside,” he added.

Not surprisingly, the joint statement from the guarantor states emphasised “the need for the conflicting parties to take confidence‑building measures, including the release of detainees/abductees and the handover of the bodies as well as identification of missing persons, to create better conditions for political process and lasting ceasefire.”

In the talks, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Special Representative for Syrian settlement Alexander Lavrentiev reaffirmed his country’s initiative to organise a congress for Syrian national dialogue and reconciliation. The forum is expected to be held in Sochi due to security reasons, he added.

“We have been discussing the place for a while. We reviewed different options. We would certainly like to organise such important intra-Syrian forum in Syria itself, but with the current situation that does not allow for ensuring security, so we decided to hold it in Russia,” said Lavrentiev at a press conference.

It is not yet clear whether the congress will be held, however, as the Syrian opposition already questioned the motives behind it. The Syrian government delegation, however, supported the initiative and expressed its firm commitment to that.

“As for national dialogue forum, it is the result of coordinated activities which continue between Russia and Iran. Given the situation at the front and decreasing activity of terrorists, it is time to hold such kind of conference and we are ready to participate. The forum will be held in Russia and we think we can trust Russia as a friendly state,” said al-Jaafari.

In their joint statement, Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed “to discuss in consistence with the UN-led Geneva process the Russian Federation’s proposal to convene a Congress of the national dialogue about which the Russian side shared information with the guarantors.”

By Sally Helfont and Samuel Helfont*

(FPRI) — Whether you get your news online, on the radio, on television, or in print, there is no way to escape the recent spate of revelations of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault that have taken place in every industry and at every echelon. Powerful politician, billionaire media mogul, tenured professor, it makes no difference; the Harvey Weinstein scandal (rather than the countless sexual disgraces associated with our Commander-in-Chief) provided the watershed moment that now has our country engaged, at least for the time being, in this important, albeit uncomfortable, conversation.

One can easily feel saturated by the flood of news and opinions on this topic. And one might ask why two foreign policy scholars at a think tank dedicated to international affairs feel the need to write this blog post. There are two answers to that question: First, everyone has a responsibility to speak up about this issue. Second, the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) approach toward global affairs is actually quite useful when discussing this issue as well. The FPRI outlook, as we understand it, tends to take a realistic (some might say pessimistic) view of the world and human nature. We are not afraid to expose our own or anyone else’s warts. But we believe that only after taking in the world as it is can we begin to ask what is to be done. This approach is as necessary as it is lacking in foreign policy analysis… as well as in much of the current dialog on sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Sexual assault was, and still is in many cases, synonymous with war—both as a tool wielded by the strong against the weak and as a spoil of war. There is a reason that the terms “rape and pillage” are habitually used in tandem. One can find instances of rape in almost every war in human history. The handful of examples provided by Anna Louie Sussman in her piece “Is Rape Inevitable in War?” from the Rape of Nanking to the rape camps of Bosnia and Herzegovina illustrate this gruesome reality.

Similarly, forced marriages and concubinage have existed from antiquity (including in the Bible) up through the modern era. The shocking tales of sex slavery practiced by ISIS are but the most recent manifestation of this age-old practice. The sad truth is that women have found themselves at the mercy of male sexual aggression for most of human history. Often, that situation was considered normal and accepted.

Workplace sexual assault and sexual harassment cannot be divorced from this history. Nevertheless, much of the discussion of sexual assault portrays it as an aberration, while at the same time portraying women’s rights as inherent in the state of nature. This is simply not true. Humanity has its darker sides. There is no tabula rasa. The idea that we have to be taught to hate, to discriminate, and to be violent has long been debunked. Human minds work to separate themselves from the other at an impossibly young age, as so much research has shown.[1] If anyone is looking for examples, Chapter Three of Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s book NurtureShock, titled “Why White Parents Don’t Talk About Race,” contains a number that are particularly poignant. Conversely, acceptance, tolerance, and equality for the other must be taught. And because we have failed to acknowledge the prominent place of sexual assault in human history, that simply hasn’t happened. So here we are.

Sexual innuendo and coercion in the modern workplace (be it Hollywood, the government, or think tanks) has its roots in this ugly past. Although the power dynamic inherent in the war context is much more extreme than in the workplace, the two are not unrelated. Those in power, and let’s be honest, there is overwhelming evidence that we are primarily talking about men here, have used sexual harassment and sexual assault to assert themselves over their subordinates. Psychotherapist Lyn Yonack explains, “Although the touch may be sexual, the words seductive or intimidating, and the violation physical, when someone rapes, assaults, or harasses, the motivation stems from the perpetrator’s need for dominance and control. In heterosexual and same-sex encounters, sex is the tool used to gain power over another person.”  Being in a position that determines the professional fate of others, where “no” is not an acceptable response, where growth and reward come from being close to those who possess power, is a heady position to be in and is often abused. And people seem to know that it is going on.

A new NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll shows that while “more than four of every five Americans believe that sexual harassment is taking place in the workplace,” “just 9 percent of those employed — believe that sexual harassment is a problem in their own office.” Well how can that be? One reason is that sexual harassment is largely under-reported. As Jane Coaston recounts, “though up to 75 percent of women surveyed in one study had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, just 29 percent reported it.” Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev link low reporting levels to fear of retribution. They report that “among people who file harassment complaints with the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission], at least one-third say that after complaining to the company they were demoted, moved to lousy jobs or shifts, fired, raped, or further harassed.” Dobbin and Kalev point to several large-scale surveys that show, “people who file harassment complaints are much more likely to lose their jobs than those who experience similar levels of harassment and say nothing.”

There is a toll that these experiences exact on women’s careers as more and more of them simply opt out or change lanes. As Rosa Brooks wrote, in this case about the national security landscape, “at every point along that spectrum from merely offensive to actually criminal, crappy male behavior is part of what pushes women out of the national security workplace.” Brooks invoked what Dan Drezner’s called the hidden “tax” on women, which amounts to “an extra burden that makes it that much tougher for women to advance or even stay in the workplace at all.” Male-dominated industries like national security and foreign policy are rife with sexual harassment not only because of their sheer numbers or boy’s club culture, but also because of hierarchy and authority. Dobbin and Kalev point to a host of studies that show harassment “flourishes in workplaces where men dominate in management and women have little power,” and “in organizations where few women hold the ‘core’ jobs.” Similarly, Lyn Yonack notes that sexual assaults and sexual violence “typically arise within asymmetrical power dynamics, where the perpetrator occupies a more powerful or dominant position in relation to the victim.” This dearth of women at the top, more than sensitivity training or any of the other myriad of Band-Aids that have come into vogue over the years, is where the work needs to start.

If we accept that sexual assault and harassment are endemic in human history, and probably in human nature, we must also accept that they cannot be treated passively. Providing a sugar-coated rendition of human interactions that treat perpetrators of sexual assault as deviant misses the point. From a historical perspective, those of us who wish to ban sexual assault from human interactions are the outliers. If we truly wish to address this issue, we need to be proactive.

Fortunately, there are a number of things we can do, beginning with ensuring that more women are in leadership positions and occupying “core jobs.” This also has a strong bearing on the need to first acknowledge and then resolve gender wage inequality in the workplace—a touchy issue that is intimately tied to promotion. Another takeaway is that this is not something that should come only from women. Men need to step up. It’s time for a change—a meaningful cultural shift that begins at infancy and is reinforced until retirement by men and women alike, but particularly by men. That change can start now, while this issue still has our attention. It needs to happen on a national level, but it also needs to happen in every one of our workplaces by anyone and everyone who has the ability, the clout, or the platform to do so.

*About the author:
Tally Helfont is the Director of FPRI’s Program on the Middle East. Her research focuses on regional balance of power, the Levant and the GCC, and U.S. policy therein. She is also a Contributing Analyst for Wikistrat’s Middle East Desk, a crowd-sourcing consultancy.

Samuel Helfont is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Program on the Middle East, and holds a post-doctoral lectureship in the University of Pennsylvania’s interdisciplinary International Relations Program. In May 2015, he completed a PhD in Princeton University’s Near Eastern Studies Department, where he wrote his dissertation on Saddam Hussein’s instrumentalization of religion as well as its legacy beyond 2003.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children (New York: Twelve, 2009), Chapter 3: Why White Parents don’t Talk about Race, pp. 45-70.

In the late nineteenth century, many Americans took pride in living in a country that boasted so much freedom. In describing their society and polity, they often contrasted them with what they called paternalism, which they believed was the rule in certain European countries, such as Germany, where a proto-welfare state began to be developed as early as the 1880s and became a beacon for Americans who disliked the high degree of personal freedom in the USA and wished to replace it with various forms of government dictation and direct participation.

So, in the late nineteenth century, despite the prevailing embrace of freedom, a growing group Americans set out, slowly and haltingly at first, to put their own forms of paternalism in place, beginning with campaigns against alcohol and tobacco, proceeding to mandatory-school-attendance, anti-child-labor, and women’s working-hours laws, and continuing until today, when governments seek to prohibit even forms of speech that some people dislike and perceive as harmful and to punish parents for letting children get out of their sight even in safe circumstances. Compared to the German paternalism of a century or more ago, the American paternalism of today extends much more broadly and deeply into social and political life, and its march shows no sign of losing momentum.

It seems to me, however, that this broad, multifaceted development ought to be called not paternalism, but maternalism. It seeks in many ways to give the state powers to do what for the most part mothers traditionally did: supervise, instruct, restrain, correct and, if need be, punish their children in order to turn them into decent, responsible adults. The difference, however—and it is a vitally important difference—is that today’s U.S. governments at every level impose their maternalism not only on children, but on everyone, as the saying goes, from the cradle to the grave. In short, contemporary maternalistic government in the USA treats the entire population as children. Small wonder that so many adults resent such treatment and bridle against it. After all, the whole point of becoming an adult is to leave the protective confines of the family, including one’s constantly monitoring mother, and enter a world in which one is free to act as one thinks best without oversight and instant correction by one’s mother, not to mention unrelated, distant strangers.

Moreover, the state that undertakes to replace mothers in guiding, monitoring, and punishing people has taken on a task that it cannot possibly accomplish successfully. The reason is not far to seek: whereas mothers generally do their mothering out of love and concern, the bureaucrats who take on this job simply check boxes in the paperwork and impose rules mindlessly without discretion and compassion, and certainly without the love required to do the job properly. It’s like replacing real mothers with enforcement machines, only worse, because a machine cannot be blamed for doing what it is designed and programmed to do, but a bureaucrat, being a human being, surely can and ought to be blamed for acting rigidly and mercilessly regardless of the consequences.

Governments cannot successfully replace mothers, and the century and a half of moving in this direction must be seen by dispassionate observers as among the greatest political and social blunders of the past five or six generations of Americans. It is long past time for a reversal of this misbegotten development. Government, if it is to exist at all, should be confined to its role as an enforcer of just rules of conduct along the lines of the natural law. Mothering must be returned to the mothers—and to the fathers who ought to assist and play an important role of their own in rearing children.

This article was published by The Beacon

By Ilana Mercer*

In a fit of pique in 2016, then-President Barack Obama expelled Russian diplomats from the United States. K. T. McFarland, Michael Flynn‘s deputy in the Trump transition team, worried that Obama’s expulsion of the diplomats was aimed at “boxing Trump in diplomatically,” making it impossible for the president to “improve relations with Russia,” a promise he ran on. (For her perspicacity, McFarland has since been forced to lawyer-up in fear for her freedom.)

To defuse President Obama’s spiteful maneuver, Flynn spoke to Ambassador Kislyak, the upshot of which was that Russia “retaliated” by inviting US diplomats and their families to the Kremlin for a New Year’s bash.

Was a crime committed by Flynn in this exchange and subsequent meeting? Not according to the FBI. Laying the cornerstone for the president-elect’s promised foreign policy —diplomacy with Russia — is not illegal.

Perversely, however, lying to the US Federal Government’s version of the KGB (the FBI) — which apparently does its own share of lying —  is illegal.

An easy way for the government to create criminality where there is none is to make it a crime to lie to its agents, in this case the FBI, which is Deep State Central. The object of creating bogus categories of crime, naturally, is to leverage power over adversaries; to scare them.

Likewise was Martha Stewart imprisoned — not for the offense of insider trading, but for lying to her inquisitors. During interrogation, the poor woman had been so intimidated, so scared of conviction— wouldn’t you? — that she fibbed. The lead federal prosecutor in her case was the now-notorious James B. Comey. (See “Convicted For Fearing Conviction”)

This kind of entrapment — the criminalization of the act of lying to the government, in Flynn’s case about a non-crime — is facilitated under the unconstitutional Section 1001 of Title 18, in the United States Code. It makes it an offense to make “a materially false” statement to a federal official — even when one is not under oath.

It’s perfectly fine, however, for said official to bait and bully a private citizen into fibbing. By such tactics, The State has created a category of crime from which a select few are exempt.

Is this equality under the law or inequality under the law?

Section 1001 neatly accommodates a plethora of due-process violations.

Yet another tool in the Deep State toolbox is to lean on family members in order to extract a confession. To get Flynn senior to confess, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is purported to have threatened Mike Flynn junior with a legal kneecapping.

Ultimately, The State has overwhelming power when compared to the limited resources and power of an accused. The power differential between The State and an accused means he or she, as the compromised party, will cop a plea.

The Flynn guilty plea bargain, if you will, is nothing more than a negotiated deal which subverts the very goal of justice: the search for truth.

In the process of hammering out an agreement that pacified a bloodthirsty prosecutor, Flynn’s punishment for doing nothing wrong has been reduced.  President Trump’s former national security adviser will still have to sell his home to defray the costs of a federal onslaught.

About the author:
*Ilana Mercer has been writing a widely published weekly column since 1999. She is the author of The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed (June, 2016) & Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011). Contact Ilana Mercer

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

In an effort to further tighten the screws on North Korea in what is likely to be another failed U.S. attempt to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear program, President Trump put that country back on its list of countries sponsoring terrorism. North Korea will join Iran, Sudan and Syria on the list. In response, North Korea has conducted another ballistic missile test.

Originally, some justification existed for putting North Korea on this list in 1988. In 1987, according to a North Korean agent, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s father and predecessor as North Korean leader, directed that a bomb be placed on a South Korean passenger jet, which resulted in the deaths of 115 civilians. Although for years after that incident, North Korea remained a quirky, despotic country trying to get nuclear weapons, it did not commit any acts that objectively could be called terrorism, if that term is used to describe deliberate attacks on civilians to attempt to scare them into pressuring their government for changes in policy. Showing that the U.S. terrorism list has a large political element to it, North Korea was only removed about 20 years later when President George W. Bush was trying to save a deal with North Korea that would have stopped its nuclear program—something that had nothing to do with whether North Korea was committing or sponsoring acts of terrorism.

Of course, President Trump’s re-imposing the moniker of “state sponsor of terrorism” on North Korea is also political. The move is designed to increase only symbolic pressure against a regime that is unlikely to give up its nuclear program, which among other things, is designed to deter the United States from ousting Kim Jong-un from power—just as the U.S. has done with the leaders of non-nuclear nations, such as Haiti, Panama, Serbia, Iraq, and Libya. Although North Korea certainly gets into mischief—shelling a South Korean island, sinking a South Korean Navy vessel, conducting a cyber attack on Sony Pictures, and assassinating a member of the North Korean “royal family” who could someday have taken Kim Jong-un’s job—none of these includes the mass slaughter of civilians for political purposes.

Castros’ Cuba also remained on the list of state sponsors of terrorism long after it stopped sponsoring such acts, simply because the United States did not like the Cuban government and wanted to keep maximum pressure on it. Laudably, President Obama, as part of his warming of relations with Cuba, finally took that country off the list in 2015. In addition, the other countries remaining—Iran, Syria, and Sudan—and many groups on the terrorism list don’t really focus their attacks on the United States. However, continuing its expensive role as the world’s policeman, despite having a national debt north of $20 trillion, the United States insists on making new enemies worldwide by calling out groups and nations that don’t focus their attacks on the United States—that is, fighting other countries’ battles for them.

And the expanding war on terrorism is not just to be found on paper. For example, to show he is tougher than Barack Obama, President Trump has unilaterally approved new authorities to attack miscreants across the globe. Obama had enlarged George W. Bush’s illegal and unending wars on terror in the developing world, and Trump is now trying to one-up Obama by further expanding these unconstitutional authorities. For example, in Somalia, the United States is escalating the attacks on the Islamist Shabab group.

Even in Afghanistan, in which the Congress passed a post-9/11 authority for the use of military force (AUMF), the Trump administration has expanded the authorities to attack opium labs that fund the militant Taliban insurgency. Let’s hope this war on narcotics goes better than the colossal waste of taxpayer dollars that the war on drugs in Latin America has become. And all of this escalation despite terrorism experts’ constant refrain that it difficult to kill your way out of an insurgency.

The war on terror failed long ago during the George W. Bush administration; expanding it both on paper and in the field may look tough, but it’s just doubling down on a dubiously counterproductive policy.

This article was published at Huffington Post  and reprinted with permission.

Chinese authorities in Xinjiang are collecting DNA samples, fingerprints, iris scans, and blood types of all residents in the region between the age of 12 and 65, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. This campaign significantly expands authorities’ collection of biodata beyond previous government efforts in the region, which only required all passport applicants in Xinjiang to supply biometrics.

For all “focus personnel” – those authorities consider threatening to regime stability – and their family members, their biometrics must be taken regardless of age. Authorities are gathering the biodata in different ways. DNA and blood types are being collected through a free annual physical exams program called Physicals for All. It is unclear if the participants of the physicals are informed of the authorities’ intention to collect, store, or use sensitive DNA data.

“Xinjiang authorities should rename their physical exams project ‘Privacy Violations for All,’ as informed consent and real choice does not seem to be part of these programs,” said Sophie Richardson, China director. “The mandatory databanking of a whole population’s biodata, including DNA, is a gross violation of international human rights norms, and it’s even more disturbing if it is done surreptitiously, under the guise of a free health care program.”

The biometric collection scheme is detailed in an official document called “The [Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous] Region Working Guidelines on the Accurate Registration and Verification of Population” (全区人口精准登记核实工作指南, “The Population Registration Program”), available in full on the government website of Aksu city in Xinjiang (an unofficial translation is available below).

The guidelines are undated, but the Aksu government’s notice distributing it to lower-level offices was dated July 2, 2017. According to state media reports, the Xinjiang government authorized the Population Registration Program in February 2017, and specified that it would be carried out “in stages.” A county government in Tacheng prefecture, for example, has a timetable that states it began collecting biodata around mid-June and completed it by end of November 2017. The Xinjiang-wide Physicals for All program started around July and was completed October 2017.

The guidelines were issued by the region’s Office of Population Service and Management and Real Name Registration Work Leadership Committee (自治区人口服务管理和实名制工作领导小组办公室). It is unclear precisely which government department this office reports to, though “population management” is usually under the supervision of the police.

Authorities state that the Population Registration Program is meant for “scientific decision-making” that promotes poverty alleviation, better management, and “social stability.” Authorities have offered the annual Physicals for All program since 2016, characterizing it as a benefit for the relatively economically poor region. The program’s stated goals are to improve the service delivery of health authorities, to screen and detect for major diseases, and to establish digital health records for all residents. Press reports about Physicals for All include testimonies from participants describing how they received treatments for previously undiagnosed illnesses, and in some cases saving their lives.

According to the guidelines, different authorities are responsible for different types of biometric collection. Party cadres and police officers are responsible for collecting pictures, fingerprints and iris scans, and “household registration” (or hukou) information using mobile apps designed for such purpose either during home visits, or by setting up central collection points. Local health authorities are responsible for collecting DNA and blood type information “as part of” the Physicals for All program, according to the guidelines. The collected blood type information is directly sent to the police, while the “blood cards for DNA collection will be sent to the county police bureaus for profiling.” All of this information is stored and linked to an individual’s national identification number.

The guidelines say the biometric collection will be comprehensive: officials have “to ensure that [information from] every household in every village, every person in every household, every item for every person” will be collected. There is no indication that people can opt out of the collection, or any requirement of informed consent.

While media reports and official implementing documents about Physicals for All outline a range of medical tests involved, including ultrasounds, electrocardiograms, and “routine blood works,” they give no indication that DNA will be collected as part of the tests. It also does not appear that the government has disclosed to the public or to participants the full range of how collected medical information will be used and disseminated or how long it will be stored. While official media reports stress that participation in the Physicals for All program should be voluntary, it appears that in practice people are expected – and sometimes pressured – to participate.

One Uyghur who participated in the 2016 Physicals for All program in Kashgar in western Xinjiang told Human Rights Watch that his neighborhood committee “had demanded that they [people in his neighborhood] must participate in the physicals.” He did not think he had a choice in the matter, as “not participating would surely be seen as a sign of ‘thought problem,’” a shorthand for “political disloyalty,” a dangerous label in the repressive region. He said the health authorities had not told him afterward the results of his physical.

“China has few meaningful privacy protections and Uyghurs are already subjected to extensive degrees of control and surveillance, including heavy security presence, numerous checkpoints, and routine inspection of smartphones for ‘subversive’ content,” Richardson said. “In this context, compulsory biodata collection has particularly abusive potential, and hardly seems justifiable as a security measure.”

An October 2017 report by the Ili health authorities says the government “has to ensure that those who should participate in the physicals do participate.” While a June 2017 report by the Ili Evening Post says “for those unwilling to participate in the physicals…cadres have to…work hard to convince them to participate,” suggesting that officials may put pressure on residents who refuse to take part. This practice is not consistent with international human rights norms which require that medical interventions, including medical tests, be conducted only with the free and informed consent of the individual.

A Xinhua article dated November 1, 2017, states that 18.8 million people participated in the Physicals for All program in 2017.

The guidelines suggest that biometric collection is a permanent measure. Police are now required to ensure that all such information is collected from anyone in Xinjiang before they conduct any “hukou-related business,” such as enrolling in public schools and applying for passports. Even people who have Xinjiang hukou but live outside the region are required to submit such information to “the Xinjiang Population Services and Management Committee(s) in the Mainland.”

A number of local governments in different parts of Xinjiang – Yining county, Tacheng prefecture, Tiemenguan city (which is part of the Xinjiang Military Corps), Korla city, and Jinghe county – have issued local versions of the directives instructing the collection of biometrics. The directives in Ili and Tacheng largely reproduce the provincial-level guidelines verbatim. In Tiemenguan, though, the collection of DNA is limited to those aged 14 to 65. The Tiemenguan directive also instructs the propaganda authorities to be responsible for “monitoring public sentiments on the internet” about the biometric collection and to “guide and handle negative information.”

Human Rights Watch has previously documented that the Xinjiang police had issued calls for tender in September 2016 for DNA sequencers that indicate its intention to build large-scale infrastructure to process DNA samples of and profile a large number of individuals.

Follow-up research by Human Rights Watch uncovered that a US-based company, Thermo Fisher Scientific, has supplied the Xinjiang police with some of these DNA sequencers. Human Rights Watch wrote to the company in June and August 2017, informing them that Chinese authorities are collecting DNA from individuals not suspected of crimes in Xinjiang as well as across China, and asking them to comment on a range of issues including their human rights policies and discussions they may have had with Chinese authorities about the intended use of DNA sequencing equipment. In Thermo Fisher Scientific’s response to the first letter, the company stated that it does not “share information about our customers or their purchases” and that “given the global nature of our operations, it is not possible for us to monitor the use or application of all products we manufactured.” The firm stated that they “expect all of our customers to act in accordance with appropriate regulations and industry-standard best practices.” Thermo Fisher Scientific did not reply to Human Rights Watch’s second, follow-up letter.

Companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific that supply DNA sequencing and related equipment have a human rights responsibility to avoid contributing to governmental human rights violations. Thermo Fisher Scientific should immediately investigate misuse of their products and suspend future sales or service in China pending such investigation.

Human Rights Watch has also documented the Chinese police’s searchable, nationwide DNA database with 40 million entries from people, including dissidents and migrants. A DNA database allows police not only to search for an exact match, but also for those who are related family members and could lead to discriminatory profiling.

Coercing people to give blood samples, or taking blood samples without informed consent or justification can violate an individual’s privacy, dignity, and right to bodily integrity; it can also in some circumstances constitute degrading treatment. Compelled DNA sampling of an entire region or population for purposes of security maintenance is a serious human rights violation in that it cannot be justified as necessary or proportionate.

The right to respect for confidentiality of medical information is also a core principle of the right to health. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has advised states that “[a]ll health facilities, goods and services must be … designed to respect confidentiality.” While the right to privacy does not establish an absolute rule of confidentiality of medical information, interference or breach of confidentiality must be strictly justified, which is not the case when such collection is intended to routinely be shared with the police and any other agency with access to the database.

DNA information is highly sensitive and can facilitate a wide array of abuses if it is collected or shared non-consensually. Any compelled collection or use by the government is a serious intrusion on the right to privacy. While the government’s collection of DNA is sometimes justified as a permissible investigative tool, this type of interference with the right to privacy must be comprehensively regulated, narrow in scope, and proportionate to meeting a legitimate security goal. Yet the program described collects DNA information from all individuals, regardless of whether they are in any way linked to a criminal investigation, and does not appear to require informed consent or explanation of why DNA samples are sought. Mandatory and disproportionate collection of other sensitive biometrics, like iris scans, also raises serious human rights concerns about how such data will be secured and used for undisclosed and potentially rights-violating purposes, including surveillance of persons because of ethnicity, religion, opinion or other protected exercise of rights like free speech.

Xinjiang, in northwestern China, is home to 10 million Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities. The Chinese government has imposed pervasive restrictions on their fundamental human rights, including freedom of religion. Since the appointment of Party Secretary Chen Quanguo in August 2016, the Xinjiang regional government has enacted further repressive policies, including restricting foreign travel and forcing those studying abroad to return, detaining thousands in political education facilities, and hiring thousands more as security personnel to monitor the population. Authorities have also ramped up surveillance measures, including by integrating other biometric technology like facial recognition with surveillance systems. Across China, Human Rights Watch has also documented the authorities’ efforts in implementing new technological systems for mass surveillance, including the use of big data, cloud computing, and biometrics.

“Chinese authorities seem to think they can achieve ‘social stability’ by placing people under a microscope, but these abusive programs are more likely to deepen hostility towards the government,” said Richardson. “Beijing should immediately stop these programs, and destroy all data gathered without full, informed consent.”

Newly released figures show that only about ten percent of the roughly 200,000 non-governmental organizations registered with the state are in fact actually functioning but also that three percent of the total number get foreign funding (regnum.ru/news/society/2356192.html and iq.hse.ru/news/212286708.html).

Combining those figures which were compiled respectively by the Social Chamber and the Higher School of Economics and which because of the vagaries of registration must be treated with caution suggests that approximately 30 percent of the Russian NGOs that are actually in operation are receiving support from abroad.

These numbers highlight not only the weakness of Russian civil society in this regard but also and especially the dangers inherent in Vladimir Putin’s ongoing campaign to label all groups receiving funding from abroad “foreign agents,” an effort that because there are so many in this category further chills public life in the Russian Federation.

At a time when we are fated to realise that the world is moving towards another ‘clash of civilizations’, the pressing need of the time is to recall and refresh the thought resources of the global peacemakers for the complete cessation of the imminent conflicts among countries, cultures and religions. It requires a holistic exploration of the worldviews of the global peace actors.  The key is not the blurring of religious distinctions or categories, but the great resources of peacemaking deeply inherent in their thoughts and practices.

While the extremist fringes of violence and conflict are weakening the social fabric of our communities, the sane voices of peace, pluralism and nonviolence still reverberate across the globe.

There is no dearth of peaceful references and spiritual commonalities among our faith traditions, as diverse as even Islam and Buddhism. But we often overlook them in an unconscious bid to further the nefarious ends of the religious bigots.

Though we entertain acute differences in numerous theological, doctrinal and jurisprudential matters of faith, we cannot reject the mystical “common grounds” deeply seated in the sacred texts of Islam and Buddhism. They exhort the two communities not only to tolerate, but rather accept and honour each other, not merely as human beings in general, but also as adherents of the two distinct faith traditions—Islam and Buddhism.

Just as eternal salvation (Nijat-e-Abadi) in Islam is well-embedded in the “Five Pillars of Faith”, the spiritual enlightenment in Buddhism is summed up in the “Four Noble Truths” Much like the earlier were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) starting from the cave of Hira until his demise in Madina, the latter were delivered by Gautam Buddha to five monks at Isipatana in Banaras.

The Buddha’s first two noble teachings identify the root-causes of suffering, sadism and their consequences, while his second and the third teachings lay down the spiritual panacea for these ills. Inevitably, the four noble truths lead to a completely compassionate, peaceful and humane living style which ultimately ushers in peacemaking and conflict resolution. Ultimately, the way leading to the end of sufferings, in the Buddhist tradition, is the noble eight-fold path, that is, to purify one’s view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.

Remarkably, these are repeatedly enunciated in the Quran as well. The broader notion of salvation in Islam, as stated in several Quranic verses, is pertinent to the “cessation of suffering”. Quran calls for the right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort and right mental concentration to save oneself from the sufferings of this world and the hereafter. (2:62)

The principle of karma, which is central in the Buddha’s teachings, is very similar to Islamic ethics (Akhlaqiyat). Similarly, there are candid commonalities between the noble eight-fold path of the Buddhist dharma and the ethical Islamic Shariah.

The great Gautam Buddha is primarily known for his spiritual enlightenment, also known as Nirvan or the eternal salvation in the Buddhist thought. It is summed up in the ‘Four Noble Truths’ (Catur-Aryasatya) as delivered by Gautam Buddha, to five monks in the Deer Park at Isipatana, Banaras, popularly known today as Varanasi:

First, life inevitably involves suffering/dissatisfaction (Duhkha-Satya).

Second, suffering/dissatisfaction originates in desires (Samudaya-Satya).

Third, suffering/dissatisfaction will cease if all desires cease (Nirodha-Satya)

Fourth, this state can be realized by engaging in the Noble Eightfold Path (Marga-Satya).

In his exhortation of the four noble truths, Gautam Buddha asks and then convincingly answers this question: ‘What is suffering?’

He elucidates: Birth is suffering; ageing is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are sufferings; not to obtain what one wants is suffering; in short, the five aggregates affected by clinging are sufferings.

Buddha, then, asks as to what is the origin of suffering? The answer given in his teachings is: It is craving, accompanied by delight and lust, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for being, and craving for non-being.

And what is the cessation of suffering? It is ceasing, giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of the same cravings. This is called the cessation of suffering.

Ultimately, the way leading to the cessation of sufferings, conflict and violence, in the Buddhist thought, is the Noble Eightfold Path. That is: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

Gautam Buddha further explains his enlightenment in terms of the ‘Dhamma’ meaning: ‘law’, ‘way’ or ‘norm’ and implying an ‘ultimate truth’ resulting into the spiritual salvation.

Remarkably, the broader notion of salvation in Islam, as clearly stated in several Qur’anic verses, is also pertinent to the ‘cessation of suffering’. The Qur’an repeatedly calls for the right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort and right mental concentration as the desired ways to salvation from the sufferings of hell. The Holy Qur’an says:

Indeed, those who believed and those who were Jews or Christians or Sabeans [before Prophet Muhammad] – those [among them] who believed in God and the Last Day and did righteousness – will have their reward with their Lord, and no fear or grief will befall them, nor will they grieve. (2:62)

Thus, the moral values in the Buddhist thought have close resemblance to the ethical teachings of Islam. There are candid commonalities between the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhist Dharma and the Ethical in the Islamic Shariah. This spiritual symbiosis is patently clear in this famous Hadith tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh):

‘O My servants’, Allah tells us in his divine decree (Hadith Qudsi): ‘it is nothing but your actions (karma) that I reckon up for you and then recompense you for.’ (Reported by Imam Muslim, Imam Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah)

The Buddha also relays the Dhamma as ‘profound, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise’. This draws close resemblance to the basic tenet of Islamic spirituality, known as Ihsan or Rabbaniyah in the Qur’an.

Noted Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gulen has elucidated the concept of Ihsan (Perfect Goodness) in his book on Sufism: “Emerald Hills of the Heart” (Key concepts in the practice of Sufism):

“Ihsan has two literal meanings, doing something well and perfectly and doing someone a favour; it is sometimes used in the Qur’an and the Sunna with either meaning. At other times, as pointed out in the reflections on Heart – 2 while describing Prophet Joseph’s consciousness of Ihsan, it is used to encompass both meanings”.

Gulen further writes: “According to truth-seeking scholars, perfect goodness is an action of the heart that involves thinking according to the standards of truth; forming the intention to do good, useful things and then doing them; then performing acts of worship in the consciousness that God sees them. To attain perfect goodness, an initiate must establish his or her thoughts, feelings, and concepts on a firm belief, and then deepen that belief by practicing the essentials of Islam and training his or her heart to receive Divine gifts and be illuminated by the light of His manifestations. Only one who has attained such a degree of perfect goodness can really do good to others just for the sake of God, without expecting anything in return”.

In order to explain the most comprehensive and precise meaning of Ihsan (perfect goodness), we should focus on these two famous Prophetic traditions (Hadiths):

1)       According to a Prophetic saying, “Ihsan (perfect goodness) is that you worship God as if you were seeing Him; for even if you do not see Him, He certainly sees you”. [Al-Bukhari, “Iman,” 37; Muslim, “Imaan,” 7; Abu Dawud, Sunan, 16]

2)       Ihsan, in the sense of doing good to others, is summed up in the Prophet’s principle of desiring for one’s fellow Muslim whatever one desires for oneself.  [Al-Bukhari, “Iman,” 7; Muslim, Imaan, 71]

The goal of mysticism within all faith traditions is not simply to destroy the materialism. Rather, it is the dialogue of sprit and mind which is well-embedded in all religions. Given the spiritual symbiosis between the peace narratives of Islam and Buddhism, the two can be brought on the same philosophical plane in the global peace policies today. Therefore, we need to highlight the common ethical and moral approach that underlies philosophical discourses of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and Gautam Buddha, who offer great hope for peacemaking exercises in the increasingly violence-prone globe. Their thought resources for peacemaking can be blended together to produce a discourse of positive action. In fact, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) has envisaged his teachings of right conduct, unconditional love and tolerance in full synergy with the Buddha’s Noble Eight-fold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

*Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is a scholar of classical Islamic studies, cultural analyst and researcher in media and communication studies and regular columnist with www.NewAgeIslam.com, where this article was published.

By Khalaf Ahmad Al-Habtoor*

Through its own actions, the US has diminished its status as leader of the free world and eliminated itself as an honest broker. America’s allies and adversaries are appalled by the recent decision to throw a grenade into the Middle East by unilaterally declaring Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish state.

The special relationship between the UK and America is in jeopardy. Furious parliamentarians are calling for the US President Donald Trump to be banned from visiting Britain.

In an unprecedented move, the UK, France and Italy joined with five other countries to demand an emergency session of the UN Security Council to air their condemnations. However, there will be no UN resolution due to America’s power of veto.

Germany’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel dispensed with diplomatic norms, saying: “The US no longer sees the world as a global community, but as a fighting arena where everyone has to seek their own advantage. Even after Trump leaves the White House, relations with the US will never be the same.”

This reckless act has killed all hopes of peace. The motivation behind this decision was either to pacify the right-wing pro-Israel base in the US or to provoke violent reactions within our region to justify US anti-Muslim policies.

Hamas has called for a third Palestinian uprising. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to meet with Vice President Mike Pence, who will shortly be dispatched to the region to undertake damage control.

Worse, this declaration has fed into the narrative of extremist groups. Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, the Taliban and others have made calls to arms.

It has made the world a far more dangerous place for Israeli and American travelers by putting targets on their heads. This gross provocation is a gift to terrorist recruiters and could spark lone wolf attacks in Western and Arab cities.

Trump is aware of the potential repercussions, which is why he has ordered US Marines to guard embassies and the US Department of State has advised Americans in the Middle East to keep a low profile.

Disappointed in former US President Barack Obama’s pro-Iran stance and his affiliation with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, I had high hopes that a businessman could invigorate America’s economy and bring a fresh perspective to US Middle East policy.

Unlike the US media that savaged Trump from the get-go, and still goes for his jugular, I nevertheless chose to give the new US administration a chance, primarily because the US is up there with the countries I most admire and many of my dearest friends are American.

I wanted Trump to succeed for the sake of the American people and hoped he would strengthen the relationship between the US and the Arab world.

It soon became evident that he had surrounded himself with disreputable characters, not least his short-lived chief strategist, the Machiavellian bully Steve Bannon, known for his incendiary anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

His even shorter-lived National Security Advisor Mike Flynn admitted lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about his conversations with the Russian ambassador and is now cooperating with Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling with the US election to save his own skin.

In just over a year, 14 top-level officials within his administration have either been fired or have quit. At least nine Trump associates are being probed for collaboration with Moscow. The rogues’ gallery is expanding fast.

True to his word, he binned liberal democratic free trade principles by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) and threatening to cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Almost the entire international community was shocked and dismayed by his ditching of the Paris climate accord and since, his executive orders have illustrated his disregard for maintaining a healthy environment and preserving wildlife.

Within pro-western Arab nations, the strikes against him were mounting until his wildly successful visit to Saudi Arabia where he discussed ways of combating terrorism with King Salman and other Arab leaders in a warm celebratory atmosphere.

Trump’s criticism of Qatar’s funding of terrorists and his support for the Saudi-led quartet’s political and economic distancing — contingent upon the emir’s acceptance of 13 demands — persuaded me that for all his faults we could count on him as a staunch ally.

That was until his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson heaped praise on Qatar for its fight against terrorism while criticizing Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt for what he termed their “blockade.”

From my own perspective, the US administration has three major strikes against it:
Strike one: On Iran, it is yet to deliver the campaign pledge to pull America out of the woeful Iran deal, merely opting not to certify Tehran’s compliance. He is still to halt Iran’s aggressive actions toward its neighbors.

Strike two: Following a US military assault to clear Raqqa of Daesh, Washington has seemingly handed Syria back to the Iranian-backed Bashar Assad regime and its Russian protector.

Strike three: Washington has betrayed the Palestinian people, reneged on America’s commitments under the Oslo Accords and trampled upon UN Security Council Resolutions endorsed by his predecessors to the effect that only a final status agreement can determine Jerusalem’s status.

In another mishap, Tillerson seems to have ignored that America has been a fully-fledged partner in the Saudi coalition’s efforts to beat back Iranian-supported Houthis to restore the legitimate government in Yemen.

Now it appears the US State Department is “taking a tougher stance” against the efforts to reinstall a legitimate government in Yemen. That must be music to the ears of the Iranian mullahs and the primitive Houthi rag-tags, who slaughtered former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

I must, therefore, appeal to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan to adopt new policies to cope with these realities.

We must be united to project power in order to protect our part of the world that has suffered so terribly from foreign interference and we should show our displeasure by collaborating with other world powers while diversifying our suppliers of aircraft, weapons, technological items etc.

We Emiratis should work closely with our trusted friends to repair the damage done by the latest US Jerusalem announcement to ensure Jerusalem will always be the capital of Palestine in our hearts — and, if God wills, in reality.

• Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor is a prominent UAE businessman and public figure. He is renowned for his views on international political affairs, his philanthropic activity, and his efforts to promote peace. He has long acted as an unofficial ambassador for his country abroad. Twitter: @KhalafAlHabtoor

Saudi Arabia’s Shoura Council on Monday approved the draft bankruptcy law which consists of 231 articles distributed over 17 chapters, including general provisions.

The draft law aims to regulate bankruptcy procedures for preventive settlement, financial reorganization, liquidation, preventive settlement for small debtors, financial reorganization for small debtors, liquidation for small debtors and administrative liquidation.

The provisions of this law will apply to any person who carries on business or profit-making activities in the Kingdom.

Such provisions shall also apply to commercial and professional companies, entities, organizations and non-Saudi investors.

In another resolution, the council also approved the draft law of transfer and Saudization of technology, submitted by council member Dr. Fahad Al-Anzi, based on Article 23 of the Council’s Law.

The draft law, which consists of 35 articles, aims to keep abreast of the advanced scientific and technical developments in various economic fields, enhancing Saudi Arabia’s own capabilities and enhancing the efficiency of its technical base as well.

It also aims to build the national capabilities and resources necessary to manage, use and develop the transferred technology, in addition to diversifying sources of income and encouraging innovation and development.

A top North Korean diplomat has reportedly said dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington “is possible,” given the right conditions.

Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that the North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations Ja Song Nam arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, where he told reporters that talks with the United States could be in the cards.

When asked what kind of conditions would check the boxes, Ja said they would have to be “conditions the North requires.”

Experts say the reclusive regime is seeking Washington’s acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear state, which could be a precondition for talks.

“The North wishes to hold a one-on-one negotiation with Washington. President Trump is all about doing business so the regime appears to be aiming to maximize its bargaining capacity to secure the stability of the regime and various other demands through negotiations,” Kim Hyung Jun, professor of Politics at Myongji University told YTN.

On Thursday, Russian media reported that Pyongyang expressed its desire to talk to the United States in order to guarantee the regime’s security.

Moscow’s foreign minister is said to have conveyed this message to Washington during his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the Guardian reported.

Meanwhile, Washington said it will never accept North Korea as a nuclear power. It has also rejected a freeze-for-freeze deal proposed by Beijing and Moscow, in which the North would halt its nuclear program in return for freezing joint military drills between the United States and South Korea.

On the possibility of talks, Washington’s senior representative for North Korea policy Joseph Yun said Thursday that Pyongyang would have to prove its sincerity.

A 60-day halt of provocations could be a good starting point, he said.

Original source

(RFE/RL) — Iran’s southeastern province of Kerman was hit by at least two strong quakes on December 12 and 13, injuring at least 18 people and damaging around 20 buildings, state media reported.

The first quake of magnitude 5.9 struck on early on December 12 about 56 kilometers north of Kerman, a city with a population of more than 820,000.

The tremor, initially reported as a magnitude 6.2 by the U.S. Geological Survey before it was revised downward, was followed by dozens of smaller aftershocks.

During the night, early on December 13, a stronger quake of magnitude 6.0 struck the same area, the survey said. It was more shallow – only 10 kilometer deep, a factor which amplifies the shaking, the survey said.

The latest quake was centered 64 kilometers north of Kerman, it said.

“Overall, the population in this region resides in structures that are extremely vulnerable to earthquake shaking, though some resistant structures exist,” the service said.

There were no immediate reports of damage, injuries, or fatalities.

State media reported earlier that no deaths were caused by the first earthquake, but at least 18 people were injured.

Pictures posted on state media showed people standing in streets in the quake zone to avoid being trapped by collapsing buildings. The 20 buildings reported damaged were mostly older structures, state media reported. The pictures showed collapsed mud brick walls.

On December 11, another quake, which Iranian state media reported at 6.0 and the USGS reported at 5.4, hit western Iran, in the same region where a magnitude 7.3 earthquake killed at least 530 people last month. There have been no reports of deaths or injuries from that quake.

The European Commission on Tuesday proposed to close information gaps by upgrading EU information systems for security, border and migration management and making them work together in a smarter and more efficient way.

The measures will enable information exchange and data sharing between the different systems and ensure that border guards and police officers have access to the right information exactly when and where they need it to perform their duties, whilst ensuring the highest data protection standards and full respect of fundamental rights. In the context of recent security and migratory challenges, the proposal will ensure greater safety of EU citizens by facilitating the management of the EU’s external borders and increasing internal security.

First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said: “Speed counts when it comes to protecting our citizens against terrorism and saving lives. At this moment our EU information systems for security and border management are working separately which slows down law enforcement. With our proposal they will become fully interoperable. That means that law enforcement anywhere in the EU will be able to work directly and instantly with all the available information.”

Commissioner for Migration, Citizenship and Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos said: “Today we are delivering the final and most important element of our work to close gaps and remove blind spots in our information systems for security, borders and migration. From now onwards, border guards, immigration and police officers should have the right information at the right time to do their job. This is a flagship initiative for this Commission, and I urge the co-legislators to also make it their priority and complete their work within 2018.”

Commissioner for the Security Union Julian King said: “Terrorists and serious criminals should not be able to slip through the net or under the radar. This is an ambitious new approach to managing and using existing information: more intelligent and targeted; clamping down on multiple identities and reinforcing effective police checks; connecting the dots to protect EU citizens while also protecting data by design and by default.”

Currently, EU information systems do not talk to each other – information is stored separately in unconnected systems, making them fragmented, complex and difficult to operate. This risks pieces of information slipping through the net and terrorists and criminals escaping detection by using multiple or fraudulent identities, endangering the EU’s internal security and making border and migration management more challenging. The measures proposed today will plug those gaps and make sure that information provided to border guards and police is complete, accurate and reliable. The new tools will help better detect people who pose a threat not only when crossing EU borders, but also when travelling within Schengen. By simultaneously cross-checking information in different databases and streamlining access by law enforcement, the new tools will quickly alert border guards or police if a person is using multiple or fraudulent identities. It will also help to better identify vulnerable people such as unaccompanied minors, while making sure that fundamental rights and data protection are fully respected.

Connecting the dots and removing blind spots

The proposal introduces new elements to make a more intelligent and targeted use of the information available in the existing and future systems. This will allow national authorities:

• to make best use of existing data. A European search portal will provide a “one-stop shop” on a computer screen when border guards or police officers are verifying identify documents. Rather than having to decide which database to check in a particular situation, officers will be able to simultaneously search multiple EU information systems. This will put an end to information gaps and ensure that officers have a complete picture of a person without delay.
• to detect multiple identities and counter identity fraud. A shared biometric matching service will use biometric data, such as fingerprints or facial images, to scan existing databases and enable detection of information in different EU information systems. A common identity repository will provide basic
• biographical and biometric information, such as names and dates of birth of non-EU citizens, so that they can be reliably identified. Building on these, a multiple-identity detector will immediately flag to border guards and police cases of fraudulent or multiple identities.
• to carry out rapid and effective checks. When carrying out checks within a country, police officers will be able to query the identity data of third-country nationals and confirm who they are, including for the purpose of detecting multiple identities.

The Commission is also proposing a two-step approach for those law enforcement officers preventing, investigating, detecting or prosecuting serious crime or terrorism to access the information they needon third-country nationals in non-law enforcement systems. In full respect of data protection, the approach clarifies that as a first step searches will be carried out on a “hit/no hit” basis. As a second step, if a “hit” is generated, law enforcement officers can request access to the information needed in line with the respective rules and safeguards. To ensure that border guards and police officers have complete and accurate information at hand, data quality control mechanisms will also be created.

A comprehensive assessment of cheetah populations in southern Africa supported by the National Geographic Society reveals the dire state of one of the planet’s most iconic big cats. In a study published today in the open-access journal PeerJ, researchers present evidence that low cheetah population estimates in southern Africa and population decline support a call to list the cheetah as “Endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

With partial support from the National Geographic Society’s Big Cats Initiative, an international team of 17 researchers, led by Florian Weise of the Claws Conservancy and Varsha Vijay of Duke University, analyzed more than two million collared cheetah observations from a long-term study by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and another 20,000 cheetah observations from the research community and the general public. Their findings show that free-ranging cheetahs were present across approximately 789,700 square kilometers in Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe between 2010 and 2016.

“This collaborative, multiyear effort sounds the alarm about the state of cheetah populations in southern Africa, shining a light on the imperative need to protect these majestic predators,” said Gary E. Knell, President and CEO, National Geographic Society. “The National Geographic Society is proud to support such a comprehensive assessment and similar efforts aimed at safeguarding our most precious species, their habitats and the planet we call home.”

The study estimates only 3,577 adult cheetahs exist in this extensive area, which is larger than France, and a majority (55 percent) of individuals are found within only two habitats. This estimate is 19 percent lower than the IUCN’s current assessment, supporting the call for the uplisting of cheetahs from “Vulnerable” to “Endangered.”

A novel aspect of the research was the use of observations from the general public. “For a highly photogenic species like the cheetah, using crowd-sourced photographs and videos taken by tourists is an innovative and cost-effective approach, especially in well-visited protected areas,” said Weise.

“This is the area with the largest population of free-ranging cheetahs left on Earth. Knowing how many cheetahs there are and where they occur is crucial for developing suitable conservation management plans for the species,” added Vijay.

The study not only estimated the number of cheetahs in areas with confirmed sightings, but also identified places where it is possible for cheetahs to live but where they have not been recently observed. The authors used information about cheetah habitat and human and livestock densities to identify an area of possible cheetah presence almost as large as the confirmed cheetah range.

“To better understand this rare and elusive species, we need to complement the monitoring of confirmed populations with the investigation of possible cheetah habitat,” said Vijay.

This study also confirmed that the status of cheetahs on privately owned land is a pressing conservation issue. The researchers found that only 18.4 percent of cheetah range is within internationally recognized protected areas. Namibia exemplifies this, with much of cheetah distribution overlapping with areas of livestock and game production.

Interviews with some farmers who share their land with cheetahs showed that nearly half of those surveyed consider cheetahs a source of conflict (49.7 percent), while only a minority of farmers (26.5 percent) actively persecute (e.g., kill or trap) the species. Using population models informed by persecution data, the study found that even a few farmers persecuting animals can cause population declines, especially when reproductive conditions are not optimal.

“The future of the cheetah relies heavily on working with farmers who host these big cats on their lands, bearing the heaviest cost of coexistence,” said Weise.

The authors conclude that the results of this study strongly support the recent call, led by the Range Wide Conservation Program for Cheetah and African Wild Dogs’ team at the Zoological Society of London, for the IUCN to uplist the cheetah from Vulnerable status to Endangered. This step would create awareness about the cheetah’s precarious situation and open more avenues to fund conservation and population monitoring efforts. Besides giving direction to further research, the authors provided an example of effective collaboration and transparent information sharing.

“By working together and reaching out to the public for assistance, conservationists can chart the way forward to help secure the future of the cheetah,” said Dr. Stuart L. Pimm, Doris Duke Chair of Conservation Ecology at Duke University and senior author of the study.

A study published in Pediatrics examined interdisciplinary provider perspectives on legal medical marijuana use in children with cancer. It found that 92 percent of providers were willing to help children with cancer access medical marijuana.

However, providers who are legally eligible to certify for medical marijuana were less open to endorsing its use.

While nearly a third of providers received one or more requests for medical marijuana, the lack of standards on formulations, dosing and potency was identified as the greatest barrier to recommending it. These findings reflect survey responses from 288 providers in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington.

“It is not surprising that providers who are eligible to certify for medical marijuana were more cautious about recommending it, given that their licensure could be jeopardized due to federal prohibition,” said co-author Kelly Michelson, MD, Critical Care physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Institutional policies also may have influenced their attitudes. Lurie Children’s, for example, prohibits pediatric providers from facilitating medical marijuana access in accordance with the federal law, even though it is legal in Illinois.”

Pediatric oncology providers received frequent requests for medical marijuana for relief of nausea and vomiting, lack of appetite, pain, depression and anxiety. Most providers considered medical marijuana more permissible for use in children with advanced cancer or near the end of life than in earlier stages of cancer treatment. This is consistent with the current American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) position that sanctions medical marijuana use for “children with life-limiting or seriously debilitating conditions.” Only 2 percent of providers reported that medical marijuana was never appropriate for a child with cancer.

The majority of providers (63 percent) were not concerned about substance abuse in children who receive medical marijuana. Their greatest concern was absence of standards around prescribing medical marijuana to children with cancer.

“In addition to unclear dosage guidelines, the lack of high quality scientific data that medical marijuana benefits outweigh possible harm is a huge concern for providers accustomed to evidence-based practice,” said Michelson. “We need rigorously designed clinical trials on the use of medical marijuana in children with cancer.”

In a major step toward making a quantum computer using everyday materials, a team led by researchers at Princeton University has constructed a key piece of silicon hardware capable of controlling quantum behavior between two electrons with extremely high precision. The study was published Dec. 7 in the journal Science.

The team constructed a gate that controls interactions between the electrons in a way that allows them to act as the quantum bits of information, or qubits, necessary for quantum computing. The demonstration of this nearly error-free, two-qubit gate is an important early step in building a more complex quantum computing device from silicon, the same material used in conventional computers and smartphones.

“We knew we needed to get this experiment to work if silicon-based technology was going to have a future in terms of scaling up and building a quantum computer,” said Jason Petta, a professor of physics at Princeton University. “The creation of this high-fidelity two-qubit gate opens the door to larger scale experiments.”

Silicon-based devices are likely to be less expensive and easier to manufacture than other technologies for achieving a quantum computer. Although other research groups and companies have announced quantum devices containing 50 or more qubits, those systems require exotic materials such as superconductors or charged atoms held in place by lasers.

Quantum computers can solve problems that are inaccessible with conventional computers. The devices may be able to factor extremely large numbers or find the optimal solutions for complex problems. They could also help researchers understand the physical properties of extremely small particles such as atoms and molecules, leading to advances in areas such as materials science and drug discovery.

Building a quantum computer requires researchers to create qubits and couple them to each other with high fidelity. Silicon-based quantum devices use a quantum property of electrons called “spin” to encode information. The spin can point either up or down in a manner analogous to the north and south poles of a magnet. In contrast, conventional computers work by manipulating the electron’s negative charge.

Achieving a high-performance, spin-based quantum device has been hampered by the fragility of spin states — they readily flip from up to down or vice versa unless they can be isolated in a very pure environment. By building the silicon quantum devices in Princeton’s Quantum Device Nanofabrication Laboratory, the researchers were able to keep the spins coherent — that is, in their quantum states — for relatively long periods of time.

To construct the two-qubit gate, the researchers layered tiny aluminum wires onto a highly ordered silicon crystal. The wires deliver voltages that trap two single electrons, separated by an energy barrier, in a well-like structure called a double quantum dot.

By temporarily lowering the energy barrier, the researchers allow the electrons to share quantum information, creating a special quantum state called entanglement. These trapped and entangled electrons are now ready for use as qubits, which are like conventional computer bits but with superpowers: while a conventional bit can represent a zero or a 1, each qubit can be simultaneously a zero and a 1, greatly expanding the number of possible permutations that can be compared instantaneously.

“The challenge is that it’s very difficult to build artificial structures small enough to trap and control single electrons without destroying their long storage times,” said David Zajac, a graduate student in physics at Princeton and first-author on the study. “This is the first demonstration of entanglement between two electron spins in silicon, a material known for providing one of the cleanest environments for electron spin states.”

The researchers demonstrated that they can use the first qubit to control the second qubit, signifying that the structure functioned as a controlled NOT (CNOT) gate, which is the quantum version of a commonly used computer circuit component. The researchers control the behavior of the first qubit by applying a magnetic field. The gate produces a result based on the state of the first qubit: If the first spin is pointed up, then the second qubit’s spin will flip, but if the first spin is down, the second one will not flip.

“The gate is basically saying it is only going to do something to one particle if the other particle is in a certain configuration,” Petta said. “What happens to one particle depends on the other particle.”

The researchers showed that they can maintain the electron spins in their quantum states with a fidelity exceeding 99 percent and that the gate works reliably to flip the spin of the second qubit about 75 percent of the time. The technology has the potential to scale to more qubits with even lower error rates, according to the researchers.

“This work stands out in a worldwide race to demonstrate the CNOT gate, a fundamental building block for quantum computation, in silicon-based qubits,” said HongWen Jiang, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California-Los Angeles. “The error rate for the two-qubit operation is unambiguously benchmarked. It is particularly impressive that this extraordinarily difficult experiment, which requires a sophisticated device fabrication and an exquisite control of quantum states, is done in a university lab consisting of only a few researchers.”

Democrat Doug Jones won the special election to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat representing the southern state of Alabama, delivering what many see as a stunning setback to the Republican Party and a stinging rebuke to President Donald Trump, who urgently endorsed embattled Republican candidate Roy Moore despite a chorus of sexual misconduct allegations.

After a contentious campaign, voters backed Jones over Moore by a margin of 49.9 percent to 48.4 percent.

The result means that in January when Jones is sworn in, the Republican majority in the 100-seat Senate will shrink to 51-49 and make it tougher for President Trump to enact his agenda.

“We have shown not just around the state of Alabama, but we have shown the country the way, that we can be unified,” Jones told cheering supporters in a victory speech Tuesday night. He said the Senate has a lot of work to do on important issues facing the country, including health care, jobs and the economy.

Moore, at his own rally, did not concede the election to Jones.

“It’s not over. It’s going to take some time,” he said.

His campaign pointed to Alabama laws concerning recounts, including a provision that calls for an automatic recount of votes if the margin of victory is less than one-half of one percent.

​Speaking to CNN, Alabama’s Secretary of State John Merrill said he would find it “highly unlikely” that Jones will not be declared the winner when the vote tally is certified in the coming week. He said there are “not a whole lot of mistakes that are made” during the initial vote-counting process.

Moore had the backing of Trump, but faced opposition from other Republican leaders. He has been accused of sexual misconduct in the 1970s when his female accusers were teenagers and he was in his 30s.

Moore has consistently denied the allegations, but he initially admitted dating young women when he was an attorney general, before denying ever knowing any of his accusers.

Some Republicans, including Alabama’s other senator, Richard Shelby, opted to use write-in votes rather than support Moore. The number of total write-ins was about the same as the margin of victory for Jones.

Trump used Twitter to congratulate Jones while looking ahead to the next election for the Senate seat in 2020.