By Jesmin Papri

Khaleda Zia, chairwoman of the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP), is to return to a courtroom on Feb. 8 to hear the verdict in a corruption trial that could keep her from contesting the 2019 general election.

Zia, a former three-time prime minister, could be disqualified from seeking to lead her country again, if convicted. Her son, Tarique Rahman, who is BNP’s second in command but lives in exile abroad, is a codefendant in the case.

Political tensions are high in Bangladesh, with BNP leaders complaining that the ruling Awami League, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is using charges against Zia to intimidate the opposition. Zia and her son, her presumed successor, have been charged in more than 100 combined criminal cases ranging from money-laundering to arson.

In the case that will be decided on Feb. 8, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed charges against Zia, her son and four others for allegedly misappropriating 21.71 million taka (U.S. $260,800) from the Zia Orphanage Trust.

Judge Md Akhtaruzzaman announced the verdict date on Thursday after the prosecution and defense completed their arguments. Zia could face five years in prison, if found guilty.

The verdict would be the first one facing Zia.

“People will respond if injustice is done to Khaleda Zia,” BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told BenarNews.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said authorities would be prepared to maintain peace and order when the verdict was announced.

“Police will respond if anyone tries to riot after the verdict,” he told journalists on Friday.

Meanwhile, BNP and Awami League leaders were arguing over the decision weeks ahead of the verdict.

“The government has already written the judgment. The verdict will reflect the desire of the prime minister,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told a press conference at the party’s central office in Dhaka on Thursday.

In response, Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader asked, “Who told Mirza Fakhrul about sentencing Zia in the case?”

Polls in 2019

Political analyst Al Masud Hasanuzzaman, a professor of government and journalism department at Jahangirnagar University, said the courtroom decision will affect the next general election.

“The verdict will determine the course of Bangladesh politics. Political programs will be different if the verdict goes in favor of BNP or it goes against BNP,” he told BenarNews.

Voting must occur within 90 days of Jan. 28, 2019, according to Bangladesh’s Election Commission.

“The government wants to keep BNP away from the upcoming election by any means,” BNP’s Rizvi said, adding “BNP will not participate in the next general election if the government arranges it under a blueprint to ensure exclusion of BNP Chairwoman Zia from it.”

Meanwhile, Awami League leaders have been working with activists to field a strong slate of candidates.

Hasina will start her campaign on Jan. 30 after offering prayers at the Hazrat Shahjalal shrine in northeastern Sylhet, which political leaders traditionally visit to kick off their efforts.

“We have been working relentlessly to contest the upcoming parliamentary election,” Awami League General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif said.

Outstanding charges

Zia faces charges in 34 criminal cases while her son, who lives in London, faces charges in 76 cases. He fled to the Britain in 2008 following his conviction and sentencing to seven years in prison in a money-laundering case.

On New Year’s Day, prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty against Tarique Rahman in two cases related to a grenade attack that targeted Hasina in August 2004.

A day later, authorities in Comilla district issued a warrant for the arrest of Zia and 48 other opposition leaders over an arson charge stemming from a deadly fire-bombing of a bus during anti-government protests in early 2015.

On Jan. 5, 2015, her party led protests and strikes to mark the first anniversary of the 2014 election, leading to the deaths of nearly 200 people over the following weeks. The BNP boycotted the 2014 general election in protest of the refusal by Hasina’s government to allow a neutral caretaker government to run the country during the electoral season.

A constitutional clause had stipulated such an arrangement, but the ruling party abolished it ahead of the polls four years ago.

President of the Supreme National Defense University of Iran General Ahmad Vahidi raised the alarm about Washington’s continued support for the Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group and said the US is seeking to move the extremists to Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Friday, General Vahidi, the former defense minister, pointed to the collapse of Daesh Takfiri group in the Middle East region and said Western powers had backed the terrorists and tried to prevent the defeat of Daesh in Iraq and Syria.

Since the terror group collapsed in the countries, the US has sought to move the Daesh elements to the Central Asia and Afghanistan, he noted.

The commander further called for vigilance against the spread of terrorist currents in the region.

On November 19, Daesh terrorists were flushed out of their last stronghold in Syria’s Al-Bukamal. The city’s liberation marked an end to the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate it had declared in 2014.

Daesh militants made swift advances in northern and western Iraq over the summer of 2014, after capturing large areas of Syria.

But the timely support by Iran helped Syria and Iraq fight off Daesh. In addition, formation of military units by volunteers in Iraq, known as Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Units, blunted the edge of Daesh offensive and later made the terror group withdraw from much of the territories it had occupied.

Back in August, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned against re-emergence of Daesh in other regions, particularly Central Asia.

“After suffering a complete defeat in Iraq and Syria, terrorists are likely to try to permeate across the region. Thus, all of us should be wary of such a threat (in the region), as in the Caucasus and Central Asia,” Rouhani said in a meeting with his Armenian counterpart.

Reports on Anti-Semitism are booming. Most of these stories are produced by Zionist organizations, the Israeli government or close affiliates to both of them pretending, however, non-partisanship. Just recently the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs released the 2017 Anti-Semitism Report that showed an increase in racist incidents against Jews, especially in Western Europe such as France, the UK, and Germany.1 The full report is not yet available.

There are Anti-Semitic incidents in many countries. Most of them have to do with the policy of the State of Israel and not with Jews because they are Jews. The only meaningful definition of Anti-Semitism is the hatred or prejudice against Jews because they are Jews. And here starts the problem. In many countries, the so-called Anti-Semitism is a just mere critic of Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinian People. To call such a critic “anti-Semitic” distorts the truth and tries to distract from Israel’s immoral behavior and its human rights violations. The whole staged discussion about the “new” anti-Semitism serves only one purpose to criminalize criticism of Israel’s political behavior.

For example, the BDS movement is a case in point. The protest of this civil rights movement and its call for a boycott of Israeli goods produced in illegal settlements is stigmatized as “Anti-Semitism.” Such an accusation is preposterous, but some governments have already passed anti-BDS laws stifling free speech. The Israeli government and the Zionist Lobby around the world exert huge pressure on governments to outlaw any critic of Israel by labeling it “anti-Semitic.” In fact, BDS just wants to liberate Palestine from Zionist occupation.

This anti-Semitic witch hunt produces strange effects. Apparently, the US hit hardest due to the all-powerful Zionist Israel lobby. They exert not only enormous pressure on Congress but also on universities by threatening to withdraw funds. In Germany, for example, the Zionist lobby has a firm hold on the German political class. Their subservient behavior results from the Holocaust and Chancellor Merkel’s decision to define Israel’s security as part of Germany’s Raison d’état.

A big success of the Zionist Hasbara (propaganda) was the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Asked by the Israeli journalist Amos Elon, what his most significant progress during his tenure as Israeli ambassador in Washington was, he replied; “I managed to convince the American administration that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. ”
In Germany, almost every week the political and Zionist elite make a big fuss about alleged anti-Semitic incidents. The last uproar caused by a demonstration in Berlin against Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In fact, the whole of Jerusalem is still considered occupied territory according to international law. But the Trump and the Netanyahu regime give a damn about international law and the United Nations. Both governments despise them.2 To burn a self-made Israeli flag was considered “anti-Semitic”! But that’s not the height of folly.

The incident was framed as anti-Semitic for lack of actual anti-Semitism. Voices were heard in the media and the political class, not to speak of the Zionist functionaries from the German Council of Jews in Germany calling for an “Anti-Semitism agent”. The first, who suggested this figure was no less a figure than Heribert Prantl from the daily “Sueddeutsche Zeitung,” responsible for the paper’s op-ed. This paper is also called “Prantl-Pravda”, referring to the former Soviet newspaper “Pravda”.

Josef Schuster who heads the German Council of Jews also called for such a person. Beyond that, he proposed in the national public radio “Deutschlandfunk” on 18 January 2018 to consider the expulsion of migrants because of “anti-Semitic attitudes.” He wants all Muslim youth to be forced to visit Auschwitz concentration camp. Charlotte Knobloch, the eternal president of the Jewish religious community in Munich, she is 85, and since 1985 the president of this club also called for an “anti-Semitism agent.”

After these massive demands by the Zionist officials, leading politicians immediately took up their orders. Nobody should surprise this obedience. Immediately the German political class jumped on the Zionist bandwagon. The Minister of Domestic Affairs, Thomas de Maizière, advocated that the new German government should install such an agent. Chancellor Merkel’s stalwart in the German Bundestag, Volker Kauder, announced that Merkel’s party would propose a motion to establish such a figure.

I spare the readers of comments of nonentities such as Volker Beck, former MP of the Green Party in the German Bundestag, who turned out to be one of the most wicked and crawling Philo-Semites in Germany. Perhaps one should remind them of the sentence of the former Israeli ambassador to Germany, Avi Primor, saying in 2015 “It is not anti-Semitism that is on the rise, but sympathy for Israel is declining.”

The installation of an “Anti-Semitism agent” will at the end lead to a huge denunciation industry and a Zionist inquisition such as the Jewish publisher and author Abraham Melzer predicts. He and other Jews intellectuals in German such as Professor Rolf Verleger are smeared by the Zionist and their Philo-Semitic agents. Abi Melzer closed his article saying that Germany will sink into darkness. “An Orwellian wind will blow, and spies and informers will crawl out the most hidden rat holes to sniff and stigmatize the latest anti-Semites. It begins the era of the new Inquisition.”3

Under the Merkel government, which is under the heel of the Zionist Israel lobby, Germany won’t be heading for a glorious future. As long as the German Council of Jews supports the Netanyahu regime absolutely, things can only get worse for Jews and non-Jews in Germany. In their unwavering support for Israel, the German Jews have no moral qualms about the immorality of the Israeli government. On the contrary, the US Zionist organizations are deeply troubled by young American Jews who “increasingly turning away from Israel,” as the Israeli daily “Haaretz” reported on 22. January, because Israel’s anti-ethical behavior is fundamentally at odds with their liberal values. Whether such a message could impress the German Jewish functionaries remains to be seen. I’m, however, skeptical.

Notes:
1. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5074067,00.html
2. https://ahtribune.com/world/europe/2056-germany-anti-israel-protest-anti-semitism.html
3. http://der-semit.de/das-zeitalter-der-neuen-inquisition/#more-1964

The World Economic Forum this week announced that it has  launched the IT Industry Skills Initiative to meet the global skills gap challenge and address job displacement arising from automation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The initiative is committed to reaching 1 million people with resources and training opportunities on the SkillSET portal by January 2021.

The initiative was conceived by the Forum’s IT Governors community under the chairmanship of Chuck Robbins, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cisco. The founding partners are Accenture, CA Technologies, Cisco, Cognizant, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Infosys, Pegasystems, PwC, Salesforce, SAP and Tata Consultancy Services.

“We need responsive solutions and coordination from all parts of society – governments, citizens and private industry alike – to re-envision an educational system based on lifelong learning that can fully prepare workers for the jobs of the future,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum. “This initiative is a clear example of industry leaders taking concerted, collective action to address a major social challenge at scale.”

According to a World Economic Forum report on workforce reskilling, one in four adults reported a mismatch between the skills they have and the skills they need for their current job. Therefore, enabling and empowering workers to transform and update their skills is a key concern for businesses and societies across the globe.

“In our dynamic world, technology has opened up many avenues for growth. However, we are also seeing how innovations such as artificial intelligence and automation can impact the workforce. It is important for all of us to recognize that without the talent we need, none of us would be successful,” said Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO, Cisco. “This initiative brings together the capabilities and strengths of all of our companies to help educate the high-skilled workers needed for jobs now and into the future. It is our obligation to make sure that people with jobs across every industry are given the means to learn new skills and remain competitive.”

The coalition has created a free platform of online tools to streamline the process of reskilling adults. The initial iteration of the portal will be available in April 2018.

To empower people to address fast-changing skill requirements, initiative partner companies are opening up key elements of their individual training libraries into one centralized portal. Users will have access, free of charge, to the most up-to-date, self-paced training materials from leading global IT companies, ranging from general business skills to introductory digital literacy to more advanced topics such as cybersecurity, big data or internet of things. The portal will offer a tailored Skills Assessment, developed by PwC, and based on the Fourth Industrial Revolution skills research, to help users determine which coursework and/or learning pathways best fit their current skillset and learning goals.

In creating this platform, the coalition hopes to recast continued education to a more engaging, ongoing and educationally reaffirming experience. They also hope to motivate adults of all backgrounds to use the platform, especially those from low-resource communities or under-represented groups who have historically had less access to the IT industry. SkillSET is hosted on the award-winning EdCast AI-powered Knowledge Cloud platform, accessible to anyone using desktop or mobile versions.

The coalition, which continues to add members, will be working over the next few months to develop tools and processes intended to address many of the barriers that prevent adults from reskilling or successfully completing trainings. The initiative will initially target the US market, with plans to scale to other geographies and build industry and public-sector partnerships in 2018 and beyond. Under the chairmanship of Mike Gregoire, Chief Executive Officer, CA Technologies, the coalition will report on progress at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2019.

The World Economic Forum’s 48th Annual Meeting will take place on 23-26 January 2018 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. Three thousand leaders from around the world will gather in a collaborative effort to shape the global, regional and industry agendas, with a commitment to improve the state of the world.

Economic growth around the world, particularly in terms of increasing income growth, investments and international trade, suggests reasons for optimism about the future of global financial markets.

“The current global economy, where it stands, is in a very sweet spot,” said Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Washington DC. But Lagarde warned about global markets and policy-makers becoming too complacent. Indeed, there are both economic and political challenges that could introduce volatility in the medium to long term.

Regarding the dollar as the global reserve currency, some US policy-makers have suggested a weak dollar could be beneficial for the US economy. “In the short term, there are obviously benefits and issues with a lower dollar. It is beneficial for our trade imbalances, but there are issues with those holding dollars,” said Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. “I fundamentally believe in the dollar. I believe it will remain as the reserve currency given the strength in the US markets.”

Whether the dollar continues to play the role of reserve currency depends, in part, on whether the rest of the world shares an optimistic view of US markets. “I think over the long run, we do have to focus on [the fact] that we are a user of other people’s balance sheets to fund our economy,” said Laurence D. Fink, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, BlackRock, USA.

Because of the interlinkages between global economies, geopolitical tensions and trade wars could have a ripple effect. Brexit, for example, raises questions about London’s status as a global financial capital and the economic relationship between Europe and the United Kingdom and, thus far, policy-makers have offered little clarity on that relationship.

“The uncertainty that we currently have … is just poison” for financial markets, said Paul Achleitner, Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Deutsche Bank.

One way of reducing uncertainty is to establish a transition period during which financial institutions can continue to operate according to a clear set of regulations. “The UK economy has performed a lot better than most people thought it would after the referendum” on Brexit, said Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom. Hammond encouraged a three-year transition period to ensure a smooth Brexit. He predicted that the economic growth forecast for the United Kingdom would be upgraded once policy-makers resolve questions about the Europe-UK relationship.

The central role of China in the global economy is not a new story, but the possibility of opening Chinese capital markets could dramatically alter the global financial system. “We want [China] to open up, it has a massive amount of savings,” said Jin Keyu, Professor of Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom. “And yet, it’s going to introduce so much volatility.”

The runaway success of crypto-currency in recent years has many established financial institutions playing catch-up on financial technology. It also has regulators concerned about how to prevent money laundering and the financing of other illegal activities. The positive side of crypto-currency is that new financial technologies could bring banking to the 2 billion people who currently lack access to services such as savings accounts. Greater inclusion in financial markets is essential to reducing inequality as well as promoting long-term economic stability.

Peace seems to have returned, albeit temporarily, in the Korean Peninsula following the first inter-Korean talks held on 9 January after two years at the truce village of Panmunjom. This further led to North Korea’s decision to participate in the Winter Olympics at PyeongChang hosted by South Korea from 9-25 February.

In a further gesture of reconciliation, North and South Korea reached an agreement after three rounds of talks on January 17 for their athletes to march together under one flag at the opening ceremony of the Games. All these happened quickly after Kim Jong-un in a New Year speech said that he was willing to send a delegation to the Games.

While this is a welcome move between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un without any outside mediation, this further complicates President Donald Trump’s strategy for dealing with the nuclear-armed regime of Kim.

While this is definitely a positive sign for peace in the Peninsula, it would be credulous to expect that Kim would give up his nuclear ambitions. Though Moon’s peace drive is welcome, his move has angered the conservatives at home. When athletes of the rival Koreas walked together behind a single flag, called as the Unification Flag, for the first time since their 1945 division at the start of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, it was a highly emotional event since it came on the wave of reconciliation mood following their leaders’ first-ever summit talks. Eighteen years later, a similar act is going to be played on February 9 when the Games’ opening ceremony is held. But this decision has certainly not generated as much enthusiastic supports as they had in 2000 both at home and abroad because of North Korea’s relentless surge in nuclear ambitions.

Moon is facing serious criticism at home. Conservatives questions why their athletes cannot carry their own national flag during the Games on their own soil. Calling Kim’s move as “disguised peace offensive”, Conservative leader Hong Joon-pyo charged Moon of converting PyeongChang Olympics to Pyongyang Olympics. Being critical of Kim’s abrupt overture, critics say Kim may be trying to use the Olympics to weaken US-led international pressure and sanctions after Kim conducted the sixth nuclear test and launched a series of missiles in 2017.

While public survey shows most South Koreans support North’s participation as a gateway to peace in the long-strained relations, another poll released on January 18 suggests that half of South Koreans oppose a joint flag. This shows that the general mood in South Korea this time is different than it was in 2000 Sydney Olympics during the era of détente and this is because of North Korea’s expanding nuclear and missile programs. According to the survey by the private polling survey group RealMeter, 49.4 percent of 500 people aged over 19 voted against athletes from the two Koreas marching under the flag symbolising a unified Korea or the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games.

In 2000, athletes from both the Koreas entered the stadium behind a “unification flag” to the tune of the Korean traditional folk song “Arirang” instead of their individual national anthems. Although both South and North competed separately for medals, the name displayed during the marches was “Korea”. This time the situation is quite different. Mutual distrusts have deepened.

The International Olympic Committee headquartered in Switzerland endorsed the deal reached between the two Koreas on January 17 and approved the participation of 22 North Korean athletes. Both Koreas are now making their mutual arrangements for the event. The ever optimistic Moon is upbeat that the occasion will provide the Koreas with a chance to improve their frosty relations. If both parties can agree to field their athletes as a single team, that could be a step further to mend relations.

By using this opportunity, President Moon hopes to deepen diplomatic efforts and draw both Kim and Trump into a “dialogue process” and eventually lead to negotiations to discuss the denuclearisation issue. Moon’s intentions might be laudable but looks impracticable as Trump is unlikely to loosen his hard-line stance on North Korea. Those who support Trump’s hard-line position say that Kim may be exploiting the opportunity by using the Olympics to weaken the US-led international pressure and sanctions and Moon too naïve to falling into Kim’s trap. However, Moon hopes that since leaders of many countries shall visit South Korea during the sporting event, he can use this as a platform for diplomacy, including summit talks on key issues, and North Korea. South Korea hopes that leaders from more than 20 countries are expected to arrive. It is unclear at the moment how many summits will actually take place. For Moon, North’s participation is an “investment for a peaceful future”.

As per the present agreement, North Korea will send a 230-member cheering squad and a 30-member taekwondo demonstration team to the Games.

President Trump is not too happy at this turn of event. The process of détente initiated by Moon threatens to nullify Trump’s strategy of pressuring the North, with sanctions and threats of military action, to give up its acquisition of nuclear arsenal. The US is fearful that this gesture of unity between the two Koreas shall provide more time to Kim to make further advance in its nuclear programs. Trump suspects that the ultimate goal of Kim is to evict US troops from the Korean Peninsula and to reunify the two Koreas under a single flag. If the US could not deter the Soviet Union peacefully during the heydays of the Cold War, similar looks to be the case with North Korea. The symbolic value of a “unified flag” being hoisted in the opening and closing ceremonies will be in sharp contrast to the threats of war espoused by Trump.

Trump seems to be further perturbed that the two Koreas have agreed to field a joint women’s ice hockey team facing Japan on February 14 at the Games. This will be the first time the two countries would have a combined unified women team at the Olympics since 1991 when they had put together a single team for a table tennis championship in Chiba, Japan, and a youth soccer tournament. The unified table tennis team had won the gold medal defeating China. For Moon, the joint participation of athletes from both the countries would be a historic moment and a step towards reconciliation. But one need to remember that the bonhomie displayed in Sydney Olympics in 2000 and table tennis championship in 1991 in China were outside the Korean Peninsula. But the Winter Olympics Games are being held inside South Korea and there are elements in South Korea critical of North’s participation. So, the present situation is different than the past.

Though no noticeable headway on halting North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs can be expected from Moon’s sports diplomacy, people in South Korea living under tensions and talks of war at least for now can see a welcome reprieve in Moon’s strategy of engaging North Korea. Trump’s talks of “fire and fury” and threats to “totally destroy” North Korea had met with matching response from Kim who called Trump a “lunatic”.

Following Moon’s outreach to Kim, Trump too toned down by expressing willingness to talk with Kim, while questioning at the same time the value of such a meeting. It is to be seen from here on how a progressive government in Seoul and a hawkish government in Washington continue to conduct diplomacy vis-à-vis North Korea.

Another dimension of both Koreas coming together at the Olympics could be the Korean spirit displayed upfront by cheerleaders, spawning nationalism against Japan. All the three countries – both Koreas and Japan – continue to suffer from the shadow of history. While the abduction issue remains unresolved between Japan and North Korea, the comfort women issue remains a constant irritant in Japan-South Korea relations. Therefore, both Koreas coming together may not be good news for Japan.

The US, Japan and South Korea seem to have the basic understanding that resumption of communications by North Korea could be mere diversions with little impact on its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yet, Moon believes in pursuing with the engagement strategy. While for the US and its allies getting rid of North Korea’s nuclear weapons remains the ultimate goal of any negotiations, for North Korea and China possession of weapons by the North is the only credible deterrent against a possible US attack. With such rigid stances by either side, any expectation of real peace returning to the Korean Peninsula stemming from North’s participation in the PyeongChang Olympics could be mere will-o-the-wisp.

Assuming that the Winter Games concludes successfully, the issue of conflicted unified identity shall keep both Koreas troubled and preoccupied for some time, thereby injecting another dimension to the troubled Peninsula. Given the division of domestic opinion on Moon going an extra mile to get North Korean athletes to participate, Moon’s engagement strategy shall remain under scrutiny for quite some time. It would be interesting to see in what direction inter-Korean relationship shall move if and when a transition in political leadership takes place from the liberals to conservatives.

For the present, the thaw in North Korea’s missile launches might not last long. True, the US and South Korea agreed to postpone the joint military drill until April, but once it restarts, one can expect Pyongyang to resume its trademark missile launches. Kim is not expected to be bothered whichever political party is in power in South Korea. So long as survival of the regime remains his primary consideration, one can expect resumption of the missile launches and nuclear tests. Besides North Korea’s participation, there is less clarity on matters outside the realm of the Olympics. No one knows if there is a broader agenda beyond the Olympics as no such thing is defined. The structure of confrontation is expected to remain the same even after the Games. Moon would be credulous to believe any opening on the denuclearisation talk post-Olympics as Kim is unlikely to renounce his nuclear ambitions. Given the fate Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein faced before, the deterrence value of possessing weapons of mass destruction shall remain Kim’s topmost consideration and therefore unlikely to be abandoned.

*Dr. Rajaram Panda is ICCR India Chair Visiting Professor at Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Reitaku University, JAPAN. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect either that of the ICCR or the Government of India. E-mail: rajaram.panda@gmail.com

The Syrian and Russian air forces launched several airstrikes over the southern countryside of the Idlib Governorate on Friday, January 26, targeting militant hideouts and trenches located near the Idlib-Hama Highway. Al-Masdar News reports.

Led by Russian fighter jets, both air forces repeatedly hammered Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham’s positions near the strategic town of Ma’arat Al-Nu’man, destroying a number militant sites in the process.

In addition to their airstrikes over southern Idlib, the Syrian and Russian air forces carried out many strikes above the northern Hama towns of Al-Lataminah and Kafr Zita.

The two air forces are still conducting airstrikes over southern Idlib and northern Hama, as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) attempts to advance their positions against the militant rebels.

The savings rate is at the lowest level since the peak of the housing bubble.

The Commerce Department reported that GDP grew at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the fourth-quarter, somewhat less than most economists had predicted. The weaker-than-expected growth was the result primarily of weak inventory accumulation and a sharp rise in the trade deficit. However, even with the weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter figure, the 2.5 percent fourth-quarter to fourth-quarter growth rate for 2017 was the best since 2014 when the economy grew by 2.7 percent (the same as its 2013 rate).

Inventories subtracted 0.67 percentage points from the quarter’s growth rate, as final sales grew at a 3.2 percent rate. The $9.2 billion rate of accumulation in the quarter is extremely slow. It is virtually certain that inventories will be adding to growth in the next two quarters.

A sharp rise in the trade deficit subtracted 1.13 percentage points from growth. Exports grew at 6.9 percent annual rate, while imports rose 13.9 percent. Part of the jump in imports was due to an anomalous 0.7 percent drop reported for the third quarter, but it is clear that the trade deficit is again on an upward course.

Consumption was by far the biggest contributor to growth, increasing at a 3.8 percent annual rate and accounting for 2.58 percentage points of the quarter’s growth. Durable goods, and cars in particular, accounted for the largest portion of this increase. Car sales grew at a 16.7 percent annual rate and added 0.4 percentage points to growth. It is likely that this was due in large part to the effect of the hurricanes, which destroyed hundreds of thousands of cars that were later replaced.The growth in spending in most other areas was more modest. Health care costs continue to be well-contained. After being flat, or even declining as a share of GDP between 2010 and 2015, personal health care services (which account for the overwhelming majority of health care spending) rose in 2016 as a share of GDP, but appear to have leveled off again this year. The nominal growth rate in the fourth-quarter was 5.1 percent, only slightly faster than 5.0 percent rate of GDP growth.

The personal savings rate for the quarter was just 2.6 percent. This is the lowest since the 2.2 percent rate hit in the third-quarter of 2005, near the peak of the housing bubble. Consumption is clearly being driven in part by the wealth created by the run-ups in the stock market and the housing market. The low savings rate should be cause for concern since it will rise if these markets lose some of their recent gains. However, the low number for the fourth-quarter is partly the result of unusually high car sales. Since sales are likely to be weaker in future quarters, that will mean some rise in the savings rate.

Nonresidential investment grew at a modest 6.8 percent annual rate. Growth of 11.4 percent in equipment spending was offset by growth of 4.5 percent in expenditures on intellectual products and just 1.4 percent on structures. If the tax cut has its promised effect, we should be seeing considerably more rapid growth in investment in future quarters.

Residential investment grew at an 11.6 percent annual rate, but this follows two quarters of declines. This sector is not likely to move in step with GDP in future quarters.

The government sector added 0.5 percentage points to GDP for the quarter, with the gains split roughly evenly between the federal, state, and local sectors. The growth at the federal level was almost all in defense, which grew at a 6.0 percent annual rate in the quarter.

Overall this should be seen as a solidly positive report. The slower pace of inventory accumulation, which was a big drag on growth, will be reversed in future quarters and therefore should be discounted. The trade deficit is a bigger concern, as it could continue to be a drag if it increases further in 2018.

The weaker reported growth for the fourth-quarter will make it harder to sort out trends in productivity. After a big jump in the third-quarter, fourth-quarter growth is likely to be weak due to inventories, as well as a jump in hours due to an unusually large number of reported self-employed. We should get a clear picture in the first-quarter data.

Since the global financial crisis, central banks have added trillions to balance sheets, and many markets have recovered. Now a major question lingers for central bankers, policy-makers and investors about balancing the effects of higher interest rates and tighter monetary policy.

“We are in pretty unchartered territory. Exiting from QE [quantitative easing] will be a difficult exercise,” said Axel A. Weber, Chairman of the Board of Directors, UBS, Switzerland.

“QE has been a resounding success in the US, EU, Sweden, everywhere. It’s the strongest recovery for past 20 years,” said Benoît Coeuré, Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank, Frankfurt. But the recovery has raised a key question for some central bankers: “How can it be that we’ve injected so much money into the system, and inflation is still weak?” Coeuré asked.

Central bankers focus heavily on inflation rates; however, some economists believe that the meaning of inflation is changing due to fundamental shifts in the markets. Namely, technology has changed the way people live, work and consume.

“Do we really understand what inflation means today?” asked Min Zhu, Chairman, National Institute of Financial Research, People’s Republic of China. Zhu cited e-commerce, artificial intelligence and automation as some of the factors that raise questions about the relationship between inflation and growth.

Low inflation rates are also linked to the low-wage growth that much of the developed world is experiencing. Despite billions of dollars created by central banks in quantitative easing, average wages for most workers have not increased significantly.

“As an employee, you will ask for a higher salary when you have the opportunity to do it,” said Cecilia Skingsley, Deputy Governor, Swedish Central Bank (Sveriges Riksbank). Skingsley noted that changing models of employment – such as the “gig economy”, which offers flexible work options but little income certainty – have left many employees without job security and thus poorly equipped to advocate for higher wages.

While the era of easy money has powered increases in GDP and equity markets, some experts see signs of a future downturn. On the one-year horizon, tax cuts in the United States are likely to stimulate growth, and low interest rates and high government spending in both the US and the EuroZone suggest that markets will continue to prosper. However, some suggest the trajectory is unsustainable.

“We’re at a limited amount of capacity and a lot of stimulation,” said Ray Dalio, Founder, Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer, Bridgewater Associates, USA, citing the recent US tax cuts. “There needs to be some kind of tightening.”

With that tightening, some experts see the possibility of downturn on the two- to three-year horizon. For central bankers, investors and policy-makers, a question could be how to soften the landing and find alternative ways to boost wages and find new forms of growth.

Another question on the horizon for monetary policy-makers is the future of the dollar as the global reserve currency. This week, markets experienced confusion about the US commitment to maintaining a strong dollar, and this confusion has generated a conversation about whether the dollar’s role will shift in the future. Some investors see diversification into non-dollar assets as more likely, while others suggest the recent confusion was an aberration and that, in an era of uncertainty, the dollar will continue to play its traditional role given its stability and liquidity.

By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

The UN mediator in Macedonia’s ‘name’ dispute flies next week to Athens and Skopje to take the pulse of both governments over his latest ideas for a solution to the long-standing issue.

Amid growing optimism about a possible breakthrough in the dispute over Macedonia’s name, which has hampered its plans to join NATO and start accession talks with the EU, the UN mediator, Matthew Nimetz, is due to arrive in the region next week for talks with Greek and Macedonian leaders.

The Macedonian government on Friday confirmed Nimetz’s arrival in Skopje sometime in the next week and said the exact agenda of his visit is still being determined.

Media reports suggested Nimetz would first visit Athens, presumably during Monday and Tuesday, before heading to Skopje on Wednesday and Thursday.

During his stay, he is expected to meet the prime ministers of both countries, Greece’s Alexis Tsipras and Macedonia’s Zoran Zaev, as well as the foreign ministers, who are expected to directly engage in the name talks that both sides said were progressing well.

At the last round of bilateral name talks in New York in January 18, Nimetz handed both sides a new set of ideas for overcoming the dispute.

However, he did not reveal the contents, saying only that his proposals for a settlement were not completely new, but were being proposed in a new context, meaning different political circumstances and amid increased optimism on both sides.

Media in both countries have reported that the package contains five alternatives for a new name for Macedonia for international use.

The adjectives New, Upper, Northern or Vardarska – stemming from Macedonia’s biggest river, the Vardar – in front of the word Macedonia have been mentioned, plus the possible name “Republic of Macedonia” with the name of the capital, Skopje, added in brackets.

On Wednesday, the Macedonian and Greek Prime Ministers met in a positive atmosphere at the outskirts of the World Economic Forum in Davos. They said they would intensify the UN-sponsored talks and raise their level by appointing their foreign ministers to directly engage in them, instead of the name negotiators.

“The process is undoubtedly moving in a positive direction”, Macedonian journalist and political analyst Saso Ordanoski wrote in a column on Friday.

However, he added, “We are still in a phase where only the frame of the solution is being agreed, while the negotiations regarding its substance, at least for the public, remain unknown. Until we hear the main elements regarding the content of this ‘package’, it is hard to forecast whether the entire endeavor will be successful”.

The dispute centres on Greece’s insistence that use of the word Macedonia implies a territorial claim to the northern Greek province of the same name.

Athens insists that a new name must be found that makes a clear distinction between the Greek province and the country.

As a result of the unresolved dispute, in 2008, Greece blocked Macedonia’s NATO entry. It has also blocked the start of Macedonia’s EU accession talks, despite several positive annual reports from the European Commission on the country’s progress.

Ahead of Nimetz’s visit, Macedonia’s political leaders are set to meet on Saturday in Skopje in an effort to forge a common stance on the latest set of ideas.

By Daniela Vincenti

(EurActiv) — US President Donald Trump told a room packed with corporate and political leaders in Davos on Friday (24 January) he was there to deliver a simple message: America is open for business and we are competitive once again.

India’s Narendra Modi opened this year’s World Economic Forum, launching a charm offensive to lure investors to his country, Trump ended the meeting in the Alpine resort with an equally down-to-business speech.

“There has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest and to grow in the United States,” he said, stressing that growth is back and his government had enacted the necessary reforms such as cutting the corporate tax from 35 to 21% to boost the country’s attractiveness to foreign investors.

“America is the place to do business – so come to America where you can innovate, create and build,” he added.

Arriving in Davos on Thursday evening, the US president convened a dinner with 15 major European CEOs to urge them to invest in the US. On Friday, he related the meeting, saying the business titans were ready to pour money into the country.

Trying to balance his sales pitch with a more leader-like discourse he said: “As president of the United States, I will always put America First. Just like the leaders of other countries should put their countries first. But America First does not mean America alone.”

Crazy vs Boring

Timothy Snyder, an American historian and Yale University professor, told EURACTIV after the speech that there are two Trumps. “There is the crazy Trump and there is the boring Trump. This was the boring Trump,” he said.

Snyder explained that the speech contained the basics of America First, which means “the US wants all trading partners to play by our rules but then you don’t say what those rules are.”

The US president made the case for free and open trade, but “it needs to be fair and reciprocal.”

“The United States will no longer turn a blind eye to unfair economic practices, including massive intellectual property theft, industrial subsidies, and pervasive state-led economic planning,” he slammed, blasting “predatory behaviours” that distort global markets and harming businesses and workers around the world.

In a veiled criticism that seemed aimed at China, the US leader said he would enforce trade laws and restore integrity to the trading system.

TTIP and TPP

He ostentatiously avoided talking about two major multilateral trade deals negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The Trump administration is also working on changing the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) agreement, which covers the US, Mexico and Canada, and is threatening to tear it up if not satisfied.

“The United States is prepared to negotiate mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreements with all countries. This includes the countries in TPP 11, which are very important. We have agreements with several of them already. We would consider negotiating with the rest, either individually, or perhaps as a group, if it is in all of our interests,” he said, opening up to the idea of multilateral agreements, to which he was totally opposed up to now.

That was the only sentence of the speech which was maybe positive, said Snyder, who confessed he was glad Trump came to Davos to get in contact with the outside world.

NATO and the EU

Trump reminded his Europeans allies once again that the US will no longer subsidise NATO.

“To make the world safer from rogue regimes, terrorism, and revisionist powers, we are asking our friends and allies to invest in their own defences and to meet their financial obligations. Our common security requires everyone to contribute their fair share,” he underlined.

Without reserve, he attacked the US immigration system as “stuck in the past.”

“We must replace our current system of extended-family chain migration with a merit-based system of admissions that selects new arrivals based on their ability to contribute to our economy, to support themselves financially, and to strengthen our country,” he said.

The crazy Trump resurfaced when he attacked the press, which prompted boos from the crowd.

“Where he is comfortable is praising other businessmen providing that he is number one. The one clearly authoritarian thing was attacking the press. He himself lies all the time and then he says the press lies,” Snyder told EURACTIV.

The Russian Federation has pledged to support the political dialogue and co-operate on various economic and investment projects in efforts to strengthen relations with the Republic of Ghana. The Foreign Affairs Ministry said on its official website that both countries, through collective and persistent ways, would make noticeable contributions in raising their current relations to an appreciable level.

These were contained in an official press release on the exchange of congratulatory messages between Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, on the 60th anniversary of Russia-Ghana diplomatic relations.

The two diplomats emphasized the traditionally friendly nature of Russia-Ghana relations, spoke in favor of an active political dialogue on key international and African affairs, as well as agreed to improve mutually beneficial cooperation in the economy, trade and culture as well as other areas, according to the release.

In an earlier interview with Ghana News Agency (GNA), Ms. Ayorkor Botchwey explained that “Ghana and Russia have an excellent diplomatic relations, which has been developed over the years, precisely 60 years. Although, for a relationship lasting this long, one would have expected it to move past where it is now, but there is still room for improvement.”

She further pointed out that Ghana is open to all the support that it could get from its friends and development partners in the nation-building drive, particularly in the nation-wide industrialization program of “One-District, One-Factory” of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration. Ghana could benefit a lot from the rich experiences of Russia, which has advanced knowledge, in the area of industrialization.

“The message to Russian investors is that Ghana is the gateway to West Africa and, therefore, the right place to invest in West Africa and Africa as a whole,” Ms. Ayorkor Botchwey said in the interview.

With solid political stability and security, together with the very attractive investment package and easy accessibility to the entire West Africa market, not to mention the legendary Ghanaian hospitality, investing in Ghana is worthwhile and extremely profitable to all foreign investors. Thus, Russian investors should seize the opportunity to invest in Ghana for it is the right time and the right place to be in Africa.

Ms. Ayorkor Botchwey said that “Ghana has one of the most attractive investment packages for foreign investors in Africa. Opportunities abound in nearly all the sectors of the Ghanaian economy, for instance in transportation, construction, real estate, banking, health, education, manufacturing, energy, agriculture and commerce, for every kind of foreign investor and on any scale, being large, medium or small.”

From his academic research, Professor Leonid Fituni, Deputy Director of the Institute for African Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted that Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to achieve independence, on 6th March, 1957. And it was the first sub-Saharan African country, liberated from the colonial yoke. The Soviet Union supported liberation of many countries of the continent from colonial rule and provided practical assistance in establishing their statehood.

It was in those times that prerequisites were created for developing Russia-Ghana diplomatic relations based on friendship, trust, mutual respect and taking account of each other’s interests. During the previous decades, Soviet authorities managed to achieve important results in various fields in those African countries including Ghana.

Thus, Russia and Ghana support the traditionally friendly bilateral relations, cooperate in the foreign policy arena, conduct regular consultations between the foreign ministries of the two countries, their positions on many international issues are close, according to Professor Fituni.

Sixty years ago on 6th March, 1957, Ghana attained its independence from Great Britain, and one year later, established a formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. In theory, Russia has since then and largely considered Ghana as one of its important partners in Africa, south of Sahara.

By Irina Slav

If anyone thought the latest oil market outlooks of the EIA and the IEA are upbeat, here’s an even more upbeat one from Energy Aspects: The consultancy expects crude demand this year to grow by 1.7 million bpd, and says Brent could touch above $100 a barrel in 2019.

According to Energy Aspects, the reason for the further jump in prices will be a drop in new production outside the U.S. shale patch. It’s a little hard to buy that, however, if one remembers that there is 1.8 million bpd in production capacity ready to be tapped again once OEPC and Russia taper their production cuts. That alone should take care of the demand growth that the consultancy predicts for this year. That is, unless it booms by 2 million bpd, which is the top of the range forecast by Energy Aspects. But even then, the U.S. and Russia alone could take care of it: The Russian state majors are itching to expand production in eastern Siberia.

Of course, the likelihood of OPEC and Russia bringing all that production online is highly debatable, as the partners in the cut deal seem still determined to continue with the original plan. Nevertheless, the barrels are there, so there’s no urgent need for actual new production yet. However, if global demand grows so much so quickly, does anyone have any doubts that the new, expanded oil cartel will be flexible enough to make the best of the situation? Hardly.

So how likely is this demand growth? According to Energy Aspects, there is currently “no real drag on demand growth.” The global economy is in growth mode, which lends strong support to the price momentum, and the short-term forecasts for the top consumers of crude oil are all bullish. Yet, there’s one potential drag: prices.

Here’s what Bloomberg Gadfly’s Julian Lee says: “Rising prices can have a chilling effect on demand growth, and benchmark crude prices have risen more than 55 percent since their rally started in June. End-user retail prices are feeling this.”

But that’s not all. While Lee acknowledges that higher prices at the pump will affect demand in Europe and North America, the effect of more expensive fuels will be much more palpable in developing nations, which are the main drivers of global growth, after all. There, Lee notes, governments used the oil price slump to reduce fuel subsidies, and now that prices have started climbing up again, the end-user price jump will be much higher. This will inevitably interfere with economic activity, potentially undermining that growth everyone is talking about.

And then there’s gas — the bridge fuel, the alternative. Both countries and oil majors are investing a large percentage of total capex in natural gas production and infrastructure, with China as the best example. Gas is cheap, the market is oversupplied and unlikely to swing into a deficit anytime soon, given the number of large-scale LNG projects in Australia coming online. True gas-fueled cars are few, and car fuels account for the biggest portion of oil demand. But higher prices are higher prices. Too high, and people start using public transport if it’s available.

But let’s forget about prices at the pump and the switch from oil to gas. Let’s talk about that economic growth that the IMF forecast in its latest World Economic Outlook and that so many consultancies are also predicting. There are voices being heard — including from the IMF itself — that the next recession is not far away.

In fact, according to some, such as Forbes’ Michael Lynch, a recession is pretty close by. Lynch uses an indicator he calls “more money than brains” to anticipate recessions. Describing it as “conspicuously ridiculous consumption”, he exemplifies it with the current fad of raw water. He also notes that the U.S. stock market is at historic highs. It is time for a correction, Lynch says, and he is not the only one. With a correction in stock markets and a slowdown in the economy of the world’s largest consumer, what are the chances of Brent hitting $100 a barrel? Slim.

Source: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/What-Could-Push-Oil-To-100.html

On January 19, 2018, the United States (US) released the summary of the classified National Defense Strategy (NDS). Speaking at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Defense Secretary James Mattis noted that the NDS was framed within National Security Strategy (NSS) issued by President Donald Trump in December 2017. As stressed by Secretary Mattis, the document is designed to “protect America’s vital national interests” as well promoting “peace through strength.” Noting that the US military has entered into an “era of strategic purpose,” the Pentagon chief further argued that Washington is “alert to the realities of a changing world and attentive to protect [American] values and the countries that stand with us.”

But what does the summary NDS (SNDS) mean for one of America’s oldest ally, the Philippines?

Strategic Convergence

In his seminal work, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John Mearsheimer argued that in an anarchical and self-help international system, the key to survival is the maximization of power. Indeed, Mearsheimer argued that “states quickly understand that the best way to ensure their survival is to be the most powerful state in the system. The stronger a state is relative to its potential rivals, the less likely it is that any of those rivals will attack it and threaten its survival.” Once a great power achieves regional preeminence, however, it will seek to prevent other states from achieving the same status in their respective regions because “a rival power that dominates its own region will be an especially powerful foe that is essentially free to cause trouble in the fearful great power’s backyard”—or, as Mearsheimer later called it, the “freedom to roam.”

Such dynamics are evident in today’s regional security environment and in the threat perceptions of both the US and the Philippines. After World War II, the US led the creation of an international order through which it exercised its preeminence, specifically in the areas of economic, diplomatic, and military affairs. However, the US-led international system is currently under strain spawned largely by shifts in the geopolitical balance. Hence, in the SNDS, Washington declared that America’s primary national security concern is not terrorism but rather inter-state strategic competition.

Taking its cue from Trump’s NSS, the SNDS identified China as one of the “revisionist powers.” Beijing, according to the SNDS, is pursuing modernization of its armed forces, “predatory economics,” as well as the militarization of the South China Sea (SCS), among others, to “reorder the Indo-Pacific region to [its] advantage.” The long-term objective is the “displacement of the [US] to achieve global preeminence in the future.” Indeed, China’s strategy to dominate First and Second Chains largely through Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) are manifestations of its strategic intentions. As such, the SNDS’s objective is to “ensure [that] the balance of power remain in [America’s] favor.”

America’s Southeast Asian ally appears to have similar perception of the regional security environment. Notwithstanding Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s rather unconventional foreign policy rhetoric, Manila’s National Security Policy (NSP) likewise also identified “geopolitical rivalries among the great powers” as one of the major issues facing the region. Given the growing complexity of regional security challenges, Duterte’s NSP described US presence in the Indo-Asia-Pacific as a “stabilizing force.”

Moreover, the NSP underscored that the “rise of China [has generated] policy concerns” across the region because of its growing economic clout as well as its claims in the SCS. Despite Duterte’s diplomatic initiatives to repair relations with China, the NSP emphasized that the SCS “remains to be the foremost security challenge to the Philippines’ sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Reaffirming Manila’s victory in the Philippines v China case, the NSP further declared that “China’s ‘nine-dash-line’ claim is invalid.”

Opportunities

The SNDS provides an opportunity to improve overall Philippines-US bilateral relations. Ties between the allies experienced some challenges early in Duterte’s tenure, largely over the issue of human rights and Philippine leader’s campaign against illegal drugs. However, circumstances changed following the inauguration of the new US administration. Reaffirming President Trump’s pronouncement in his inaugural address, the SNDS declared that America “will not seek to impose [its] way of life by force.” Signs of improvement were evident during the Duterte-Trump bilateral meeting at the sidelines of the ASEAN summits in November 2017 where the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to their treaty alliance.

Strengthening alliances and expanding partnerships are among the key pillars of Washington’s strategic approach in achieving the objectives outlined in the SNDS. Specifically, the SNDS calls for “accelerating foreign partner modernization”—a pronouncement which may give further diplomatic boost to the implementation of the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the objectives of which include “addressing short-term capability gaps” and “promoting long-term modernization” of the Armed Forces of Philippines (AFP).

Mindful of the importance of US-led network of alliances and strategic partnerships in power projection, the SNDS may also provide an opportunity in complementing what one scholar called as Manila’s “policy of linking spokes together,” i.e. forging security agreements with other Washington treaty allies in the region. The US has earlier welcomed such cooperation in order to enhance Washington’s hub-and-spokes network of alliances. Cognizant of the Trump administration’s call for burden sharing, similar initiatives would also complement the US and its allies’ strategic objective of maintaining a favorable balance of power.

Challenges

While the SNDS presents opportunities, it may also pose challenges for Manila. Although situated in a strategic geographic location, the Philippines is arguably the weakest country in the US-led network of alliances and partnerships. Beset with various political and socio-economic challenges, successive Philippine administrations have grappled with internal security challenges from communist insurgency to a secessionist movement in Mindanao. The recent 2017 incident in Marawi, which prompted the Duterte government to declare martial law in the entire Mindanao, manifests the country’s security vulnerabilities. Although there have been efforts to shift the AFP’s focus to external defense, internal security problems have largely constrained such initiatives. Clearly, promoting interoperability—as noted in the SNDS—between the Philippines, with a relatively weak armed forces, and the US is challenging, especially against the backdrop of China’s growing naval and air power capabilities. This problem is also relevant in the context of Beijing’s utilization of gray zone coercion in the SCS, which the SNDS alludes to as “challenges below the level of armed conflict.”

The SNDS identified multilateral organizations as platforms for defense and security “collaboration and partnership.” In the Indo-Asia-Pacific region such organizations include the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in particular the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus). However, as I have argued elsewhere, the efforts of ASEAN-led mechanisms in addressing traditional security are often constrained by varying interests of ten members-states and their relations with the great powers.

Conclusion

It is apparent that the strategic interests of Manila and Washington have similarities in the context of the changing dynamics of great power politics. The impact of the strategic competition is evident in various areas, such as the SCS. Indeed, the allies reaffirmed their commitment to uphold freedom of navigation and over-flight in SCS in their December 2017 Bilateral Strategic Dialogue. In this regard, the SNDS, while posing some challenges, provides an opportunity for Manila in enhancing Philippines-US security relations, since the strategy document envisioned Washington’s alliances and partnerships “into an extended network capable of deterring or decisively acting to meet the shared challenges” of the region.

*Mico A. Galang is a researcher at the National Defense College of the Philippines (NDCP). The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the official position of NDCP.

Allegedly kidnapped, forty-three-year old Malaysian activist Amri Che Mat, a foreign exchange trader and mountain climber, has not been heard of since he went missing in November 2016.

An inquiry into his disappearance coupled with an assertion by Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, the mufti of the state of Perlis, that Malaysia’s miniscule Shiite Muslim community constitutes a national security threat are but the latest incidents that have raised concerns about the impact of Saudi-inspired ultra-conservative strands of Islam.

Shiites in Malaysia, a country of 31 million, are believed to number 40,000. Shiism was banned in 1996, but Shiites are allowed to worship privately.

Mr. Amri’s black four-wheel-drive was found the night of his disappearance near a construction site with its windows smashed, a 55-minute drive from his home in Kangar, Perlis’ capital. Witnesses said his car was blocked by five vehicles when he was snatched close to his house.

Accused of adhering to Shiism, Perlis’ Islamic Religious Department, advised the state’s schools two months prior to Mr. Amri’s disappearance not to participate in programs managed by Perlis Hope, the charity co-founded by the activist. Perlis Hope was donating school bags and uniforms.

The charity, in testimony this month to Malaysia’s Human Rights Commission that is investigating the vanishing of Mr. Amri and three other activists, denied that it was associated with any one religious grouping.

Mr. Asri, the mufti, fuelled debate about creeping influence in Malaysia of ultra-conservatism with assertions earlier this week that Mr. Amri was a Shia, who practised mut’ah, a temporary marriage contract under Shiite religious law.

The mufti accompanied police who came to their house in 2015, according to Mr. Amri’s wife, Norhayati Ariffin, to question the activist about his Shiism, a strand of Islam that Mr. Asri denounces as deviant.

Speaking this week, Mr. Asri said Mr. Amri’s home was decorated with pictures of Shia imams. “The surroundings were similar to a Shia mosque in Iran,” he said.

The mufti denied assertions by Ms. Ariffin in testimony to the commission that his department may have been involved in Mr. Amri’s disappearance. “Maybe her husband has gone off somewhere. Maybe he has gone to Iran. Maybe he has gone to practise mut’ah in Thailand. How should I know?” Mr. Asri said.

The mufti asserted that the spread of Shiism in Perlis and neighbouring Thailand “could threaten national security.” He asserted that Perlis Hope was possibly seeking to establish a theocracy.

The disappearance and Mr. Asri’s remarks follow a string of events and government measures that have sparked renewed debate about what critics have dubbed the country’s Arabization. Malaysia has long been a target of a long-standing, well-funded Saudi public diplomacy campaign that propagates Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism as an anti-dote to Iranian revolutionary zeal and Shiite ideology.

Saudi influence was further spotlighted by a scandal surrounding Malaysia’s state development fund 1MDB sparked by revelations that $700 million had wound up in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s bank account in 2013. Mr. Najib said it was a donation from the Saudi ruling family, rebutting allegations it was money siphoned from the fund he had founded and overseen. Malaysia’s attorney-general cleared him of any wrongdoing.

On a visit to Malaysia a year ago, Saudi King Salman inked agreements involving $10 billion of investment in Malaysia and the building of a King Salman Centre for International Peace to bring together Islamic scholars and intelligence agencies in an effort to counter extremist interpretations of Islam.

The centre would work as resource partners with the Saudi-financed Islamic Science University of Malaysia, and the Muslim World League, a Saudi-funded non-governmental organization that for decades served as a vehicle for global propagation of ultra-conservatism.

Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Malaysia has also been thrust into the limelight by Mr. Najib’s increased emphasis on Islam and close ties to the kingdom.

Malaysian defense minister Hishammuddin Hussein said this week that Malaysian forces would remain in Saudi Arabia ” for the sole purpose of providing humanitarian assistance and possibly contribute to rebuilding efforts in Yemen if required.” Malaysia had earlier refused to send troops to fight in the kingdom’s ill-fated military effort to counter Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The government recently backed a parliamentary bill that would allow the shariah courts wider criminal jurisdiction over Muslims in the state of Kelantan. Malaysian authorities last year banned two beer festivals against a backdrop of mounting hostility towards Shiites, atheist and gays.

Malaysia has also given refuge to Zakir Naik, a militant Indian Islamic scholar who has been banned from entering Singapore and Britain because of his advocacy of the death penalty for homosexuals and those who abandon Islam.

Malaysia’s sultans, in a rare warning cautioned last October that Malaysia’s stability was at risk from political Islam after attempts by two laundromats to service Muslims only were blocked by local authorities.

Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, the sovereign of the Malaysian state of Johor, in perhaps Malaysia’s starkest confrontation of Saudi-inspired ultra-conservatism last year denounced practices of Wahhabism and Salafism by calling on Malaysians to uphold their country’s culture and not imitate Arabs. The sultan decried what he described as creeping Arabization of the Malay language by insisting on using Malay language references to religious practices and Muslim holidays rather than Arabic ones.

“If there are some of you who wish to be an Arab and practise Arab culture, and do not wish to follow our Malay customs and traditions, that is up to you. I also welcome you to live in Saudi Arabia. That is your right, but I believe there are Malays who are proud of the Malay culture. At least I am real and not a hypocrite and the people of Johor know who their ruler is,” the sultan said.

An ambitious new global partnership to save life in the ocean – the Friends of Ocean Action – was announced at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. The United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, Peter Thomson, invited the Forum to work with his office to create the partnership.

This multistakeholder partnership will comprise leaders from science, technology, business and non-governmental groups. It will draw together about 40 of the world’s most committed and influential ocean activists and thought leaders to help shape global action to deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 (to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources).

Similar to the action agenda on climate change, which emerged in the run-up to the Paris Climate Conference, the Friends of Ocean Action will design and deliver a multistakeholder “Ocean Action Track” to complement the official intergovernmental processes for meeting SDG 14, which are also overseen by Thomson.

“The Friends of Ocean Action will represent a unique combination of innovation, resources, motivation and solutions from actors across different sectors, building on the mobilization that was achieved at the Ocean Conference. They will use their combined networks to scale and accelerate existing partnerships and initiatives and – where necessary – trigger new ones to help meet the ocean goal,” said Thomson.

Building on the spirit of the Ocean Conference held at the United Nations in New York in June 2017 under a Sweden-Fiji co-presidency, the Friends of Ocean Action will be co-chaired by Thomson and Isabella Lövin, Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden.

“Urgent action is required to save life in the ocean. We face a generational challenge on our watch and we must rise to the task. Governments, United Nations agencies and international organizations cannot meet this challenge alone. The energy, innovation and resources from all sectors of public life and civil society and from all parts of our business, finance, technology and scientific communities must be drawn upon, from all regions of the world. This is why we are forming the Friends of Ocean Action,” Lövin said.

Salesforce Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne Benioff also announced a $4.5 million gift through the Benioff Ocean Initiative to support the new partnership. “Now is the time to take action to save our oceans and deal with major issues such as ocean plastics, over-fishing and acidification ” said Marc Benioff. “There will soon be more plastic in the ocean than fish. If we all act now, we can turn this tragedy into triumph.”

The World Economic Forum System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Environment and Natural Resource Security will support this influential group, helping them build an informal platform for action on SDG 14 to complement official multi-government efforts.

“The Friends of Ocean Action is a unique three-year, time-bound, public-private initiative that will set itself specific goals and foster a portfolio of high-level, impactful initiatives for the proposed UN Ocean Conference to be held in 2020. We are delighted to help advance this important initiative,” said Dominic Waughray, Head of Public-Private Partnership at the World Economic Forum.

Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway, also launched the High-level Panel on Building a Sustainable Ocean Economy. It will consist of heads of government from coastal states coming together to raise global awareness and mobilize political action for responsible ocean management.

The Government of Canada will collaborate with the World Economic Forum and partners to test emerging digital technologies and their application to air travel.

Following the launch of a Known Traveller Digital Identity prototype, the Government of Canada will design a proof of concept pilot project between two countries, demonstrating the potential of emerging biometrics and distributed ledger technologies and their impact on facilitating secure and seamless air travel. The Government of Canada is  working with the Kingdom of the Netherlands to explore opportunities for demonstrating the potential of digital identity systems to engender trust and cooperation between international partners.

The launch of the Known Traveller Digital Identity prototype is the first step in an ambitious roadmap for public and private sector leaders to start small and scale fast to radically transform the border-crossing experience for the majority of legitimate travellers. By 2030, international air arrivals are expected to reach 1.8 billion passengers, a 50% increase from the 1.2 billion arrivals recorded in 2016. According to a new report by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Accenture, to accommodate this growth the public and private sectors will need to address infrastructure, human resource, and procedural constraints, while at the same time maintaining national and international security standards. This requires an integrated and trusted approach between governments and the private sector underpinned by emerging technologies and innovations.

“Innovation is key to enhancing global competitiveness, mobility and productivity. Leveraging new technological advancements can support risk-based approaches to public safety and security, making air travel more efficient while improving the travel experience” says Canada’s Minister of Transport Marc Garneau.

The Known Traveller concept is founded on the principle that an individual traveller has control over the use of their own identity and its components. Due to this decentralization of control over the components of their identity, a traveller can push proof of their identity information – secured by distributed ledger technology and cryptography – to governmental and private-sector entities throughout their journey.

“With travellers providing access to verified personal biometric, biographic and historical travel data at their discretion, they can assist authorities to undertake risk assessments and pre-screening in advance: essentially verifying their identities and providing secure and seamless movement throughout their journey using biometric recognition technology” says John Moavenzadeh, Head of Mobility System Initiative at the World Economic Forum. “Not only does this provide for greater personalisation and passenger-centricity in the design of services, but the passenger becomes a central actor in ensuring public safety”.

“The use of distributed ledger technology can foster an unprecedented level of trust between governments, businesses and travel providers that becomes stronger over time as more interactions take place across the travel ecosystem,” said Liselotte de Maar, Managing Director in Accenture’s Travel practice. “The KTDI concept removes friction from travelling while ensuring greater security at each touchpoint, from hotel check-in to border control. By enabling travellers to share their validated identity information through the KTDI, it allows receiving organizations the advantage of knowing in advance with whom they will interact”.

The prototype and pilot result from two years of thorough cooperation between public and private sector partners in the World Economic Forum’s Security in Travel Project. The Known Traveller: Unlocking the potential of digital identity for secure and seamless travel was published in consultation with Accenture, AccorHotels, Amadeus IT Group, AirAsia, Airports Council International (ACI), the Government of Canada, Google, Hilton Worldwide, International Air Transport Association (IATA), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Marriott International, NEC Corporation, SAP SE, Sedicii, UK National Crime Agency, US Department of Commerce, US Department of Homeland Security, Visa and World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).

By Dr. Arshad M. Khan*

A few days ago Oxfam reported on wealth inequality: The richest one percent wrapped their hands around 82 percent of the wealth created last year. Worse the 3.7 billion people comprising the poor half of humanity gained nothing.

If anyone in the U.S. thinks those poor are remote, take a walk along with Leilani Farha, a Canadian lawyer and UN special rapporteur on adequate housing. Her job is to assess compliance with international human rights law. Yes, housing is a right according to Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Ms. Farha has visited slums and shanty towns in poorer countries like Mexico, Philippines and Indonesia. But now she is in central San Francisco at the invitation of activists. It is a town where the median home value exceeds a million dollars but the reason for the invitation lies with the homeless under bridges, in alleyways and nooks, around 7,500 last year. She is headed to Los Angeles next and is concerned because everyone has told her the situation there is much worse.

The area west of the two main railroad stations in Chicago looked dilapidated thirty years ago but you would seldom see a homeless person or a panhandler. Now sleek new buildings fill the adjacent streets; there are new shops, businesses and food places but so are panhandlers lining the street.

Minimum wage is no longer enough to afford shelter, and the country is short about 7.5 million units of affordable housing according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That the problem is structural is evident: Tax policy has since the Reagan years favored the rich, both individuals and corporations, upon the backs of the defenseless poor. It has been true under Republicans and under Democrats. After all, it was Bill Clinton who ‘reformed’ welfare by cutting payments to the bone, and the so-called liberal Obama who tried aiming at social security pensions.

According to the Center for American Progress, the new tax bill’s benefits are aimed at the top one percent while the cuts will ultimately cost middle Americans. They will add by most estimates at least $1.4 trillion to the budget deficit threatening programs for the middle class and the poor such as Medicare and Medicaid, and who knows perhaps even Social Security. This was a bill requiring 60 votes (out of 100) in the senate and with only 51 Republicans, it needed Democratic votes.

Yes, inequality in the U.S. gets worse by the year and is the worst among developed nations but it doesn’t stop there — world inequality is a problem. Every year before Davos, Oxfam issues a report and then brings the subject up at the forum. Each year the attendees listen, each year Oxfam is invited back, and each year the situation deteriorates. It was rare to find a beggar in Britain (as indeed in the U.S.) in the 1950s and 1960s; it is commonplace now.

No one can be sure what tips the balance, but everyone knows extreme inequality is dangerous. It has and will lead to extreme events.

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

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

Afghanistan as a landlocked country is crippled by a lack of easy access to regional and global markets. At the same time, the country is centrally located at the heart of Asia, which can potentially connect the whole region for increased transport, transit, and trade, so long as the countries of the region prioritize win-win economic cooperation over confrontation. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan has made notable progress in building soft and hard infrastructure, continually improving internal and external trade and transit connectivity. However, worsening security across the country has hindered efforts by the Afghan government, in cooperation with the international community, to help Afghanistan realize its connectivity potential for easy and secure transit and trade at home and across the region. Despite the security challenge, however, many opportunities and mechanisms of regional cooperation exist, which the Afghan government is promoting to help enhance connectivity in and through Afghanistan.

Landlocked but Roundabout

Landlocked countries like Afghanistan are at a great disadvantage over their littoral neighbors with access to sea for regional and global trade. Naturally, the peace, security, and prosperity of landlocked countries depend on those of their surrounding neighbors. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the Afghan government has repeatedly communicated this fact to Afghanistan’s six neighbors, reaffirming its commitment to non-interference in the affairs of others, as well as allowing no country to use Afghanistan’s soil against its neighbors.

On this basis, on December 22, 2002, Afghanistan and its six neighbors signed the Kabul Declaration on Good Neighborly Relations. The signatories included China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—each of which “determined that the people of Afghanistan should enjoy security, stability, prosperity, territorial integrity, democracy and human rights after so many years of conflict, suffering, and deprivation.” Afghans warmly welcomed the declaration of support from their neighbors, some of which had been directly or indirectly supporting one or more proxy armed groups to fuel war and violence in Afghanistan throughout much of the 1990s, following the fall of the communist regime in 1992.

Even so, however, interstate tensions among Afghanistan’s coastal neighbors or some of these countries’ hostility with countries outside of the region have undermined efforts at stabilizing Afghanistan and giving its people a break from decades of non-stop conflict, displacement, and continued impoverishment. Despite these obstacles, Afghanistan has lost no opportunity to draw the attention of its neighbors and major global powers to the centrality of Afghanistan’s location at the heart of Asia and thus its immense geo-economic importance to regional economic cooperation and integration.

Speaking recently to an audience in Delhi, India, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani remarked, “We have been at the heart of networks: a roundabout, a place of meetings, civilizations, religions, cultures and, of course, armies and traders and pilgrims.” Centuries on, Afghanistan enjoys the same status as the principal connector of the North and South and the East and West. Indeed, Iqbal, the poet laureate of Pakistan, best captured this when he noted:

Asia is a body of water and earth, of which the Afghan nation is the heart
From its discord, the discord of Asia; and from its accord, the accord of Asia.

Cooperation over Confrontation

Afghanistan is concerned about the lingering tensions and hostility between India and Pakistan, and have often encouraged both sides to set aside their differences and focus on win-win cooperation. Their shared experience has demonstrated that confrontation has only bred more violence and deepened hostility, preventing the two resourceful nations from unlocking and harnessing their shared potentials for bilateral and multilateral trade and investment. Academic studies abound on how much India and Pakistan have lost in economic and financial terms each year for many decades.

This counter-productive relationship has rendered ineffective the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). SAARC drives its inspiration from the European Union (EU) and similar entities, which—following decades of pursuit by their future member-states of lose-lose policies against one another—were formed. Indeed, the harsh experiences of European states in the 19th and 20th centuries before the two World Wars are quite instructive for South Asia: Europe learned the hard way the benefits of win-win cooperation against the perils of zero-sum designs and power politics that underpinned interstate relations in pre-war Europe.

In the 18th SAARC Summit in Nepal, member-states debated the many common challenges that confront the nations of South Asia. Extreme poverty, weak governance, a lack of connectivity, a lack of energy, and security threats continue to cause widespread human suffering throughout the SAARC region, a region otherwise richly endowed in nature and civilization. To address the root-causes of these problems and to exploit the region’s vast natural and human potential for the collective security and prosperity of all their nations, President Ghani called on his fellow SAARC leaders to “change the rules of the game and the playing field among the nations from confrontation to cooperation.”

While continuing to advocate for cooperation against confrontation among its neighbors, Afghanistan has consistently pursued a foreign policy, which promotes regional economic cooperation against zero-sum hedging strategies pursued by some of its neighbors. It strongly believes that the replacement of confrontational policies at the regional level with those of cooperative, win-win partnerships would gradually minimize Indo-Pakistan tensions. This is premised on the fact that South Asia is an extremely young region where the youth demand jobs and a secure future. And this wouldn’t come by, unless South Asian governments make tough choices against the status quo to help ensure shared prosperity and security throughout the region.

Connectivity Achievements

Even before the advent of destructive conflicts, Afghanistan as a landlocked and mountainous country had been one of the poorest in the region. It hardly ever had a productive economy since the formation of the Afghan nation-state. Its rentier economy mostly depended on foreign aid and subsidies, which helped maintain the country’s quasi independence. Hence, a lack of sustainable economic growth and development left the country least connected internally and with its surrounding region.

Although Afghanistan’s transport infrastructure underwent some building and maintenance during the 1980s, thanks to the former Soviet Union, it was completely undone in the 1990s. Shortly after the fall of the communist regime, former resistance factions began jockeying over control of power in Kabul and were effectively exploited by regional states as proxies to battle their conflicts on the Afghan soil. In the process, much of what Afghanistan had minimally developed over decades was destroyed.

By contrast, however, since the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan’s basic transport infrastructure in urban and rural areas has seen a makeover, which needs to be maintained and improved upon. Most notably, the Afghan National Ring Road, which connects the center with periphery and the periphery with Afghanistan’s neighbors, has been completed. A number of countries, including India, contributed resources and financial assistance to build the National Ring Road. This has enabled Afghanistan to take initial steps towards achieving economic self-reliance through increased trade and investment internally and throughout its wider region.

On the soft side, the Afghan government has made monumental gains in building the military and civilian institutions of the state, based on one of the most progressive constitutions in the region, which provides for a private sector-led economy. The World Bank’s 2013 Doing Business Index ranked Afghanistan 28 out of 185 countries when it comes to establishing a business in the country. This was made possible by the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA), which has now integrated with the Ministry of Commerce, and serves as a one-stop-shop for investors, foreign and domestic, enabling them to register and establish a business in Afghanistan within a couple of weeks.

And over the past 16 years, the Afghan government has enacted a number of commercial and investment laws, including a company law, consumer protection law, competition law, partnership law, and arbitration law, among others. This legislation has streamlined many of the problems associated with Afghanistan’s former centrally planned economy. However, while these laws meet international business and investment standards, there are times when a lack of institutional capacity prevents implementation and enforcement. In an effort to attract, facilitate, and retain long-term investment, the reforms agenda of the new National Unity Government of Afghanistan has prioritized the resolution of existing bottlenecks to ensure a business-friendly environment across Afghanistan.

Challenges to Connectivity

The principal challenge to building in and utilizing connectivity through Afghanistan is manufactured insecurity in the form of a well-resourced terror campaign imposed on Afghanistan. Soon after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the then Bush Administration shifted its focus from addressing Afghanistan’s long-term sustainable state-building and development needs.

While former President Bush promised to implement a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan as early as 2003, he had already been short-changing the country, as his Administration was preparing to invade and occupy Iraq. But the promised Marhsall Plan never materialized, as Afghanistan became “a war of what we can do” versus Iraq, “a war of what we must do,” in the words of former United States Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen.

Hence, as the United States was increasingly bogged down in Iraq, certain state and non-state actors noticed that Afghanistan remained vulnerable to their exploitation. Pakistan effectively reconstituted the Taliban on its soil and deployed them to prosecute a terror campaign that still continues but with increased intensity and brutality in killing and maiming innocent Afghans, as well as destroying the physical infrastructure—including schools, bridges, roads, and power grids—which the country has built with aid from the international community, including India.

At the same time, The Taliban-led terror campaign has provided an enabling operational space for over a dozen other terrorist networks, including ISIS. Fighting this scourge of regional and transnational terrorism has not only undermined the security needed for the implementation of many ongoing and proposed connectivity projects but also sapped Afghanistan’s few precious resources to finance its planned connectivity projects.

Opportunities for Connectivity

Despite the imposed challenges to connectivity, opportunities for building connectivity through Afghanistan and across its wider region abound. Indeed, the best way to fight poverty that feeds terrorism is to foster political and security confidence-building through regional economic cooperation. The latter can serve as an important enabler in deepening connectivity, enhancing competitiveness and productivity, lowering transaction costs, and expanding markets in any region.

Afghanistan has put forth a strategic solution for adoption and implementation by its near and far neighbors: The Heart of Asia–Istanbul Process (HOA-IP) and the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA). These Afghanistan-led processes were established to help secure regional cooperation for the country’s stabilization and sustainable development, thereby ensuring stability and prosperity throughout its surrounding regions.

Even though they remain underutilized so far, it is in the best short- and long-term interests of the countries—including India and Pakistan—that participate in the two processes to double and triple their efforts to achieve the shared goals of the two platforms. Of course, every tangible step they take to utilize these interconnected processes will help minimize these and other nations’ security and socioeconomic vulnerabilities against the terrorist-extremist predators and their state-sponsors. That is why time is of essence and they must reaffirm their often-pledged commitments to the implementation of the projects and programs, proposed under the two processes.

On November 14-15, the 7th Meeting of RECCA took place in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. The meeting focused on “Deepening Connectivity and Expanding Trade through Investment Infrastructure and Improving Synergy.” This was a timely opportunity for Afghanistan’s near and far neighbors to take stock of the progress made since RECCA VI in Kabul. The meeting, with many side events, allowed the country-participants to discuss the challenges and bottlenecks, as well as financing and investment needs with respect to the priority projects in the key areas of energy; transport networks; trade and transit facilitation; communications; and business to business and labor support.

More specifically, of the 18 regional cooperation and investment projects discussed at the RECCA-VII, the following stand out as major opportunities for further strengthening connectivity across South Asia, Central Asia, and South West Asia: TAPI Pipeline; CASA-1000; TAP-500; Belt-and-Road Initiative; Lapis Lazuli Transit, Trade and Transport Route; Chabahar International Transport and Transit Corridor; Five-Nation Railway Corridor; Afghanistan Rail Network; Trans-Hindukush Road Connectivity Project; and Digital Silk Road.

Moreover, this past December, the 7th Ministerial Conference of HOA-IP with its political, security, and economic confidence building measures (CBMs) implementation mechanism took place in Baku, Azerbaijan. Afghanistan has aimed at deepening synergies and complementarities among the interconnected projects of the RECCA and HOA-IP, maximizing their impact on sustainable development not only in Afghanistan but also throughout its surrounding regions. This should encourage the country-participants, including India and Pakistan, to assess their shared security and development needs and to bolster their engagement with Afghanistan accordingly, in order to initiate the implementation of the proposed projects with win-win benefits.

Conclusion

Considering the aforementioned opportunities for increased regional connectivity across the Heart of Asia region, the center of which is Afghanistan, the Afghan government has welcomed the new South Asia strategy of the United States. The strategy promises to remove the principal obstacle that sits in the way of building the necessary connectivity infrastructure in energy, transport, and communications, which South Asia, Central Asia, and South West Asia need, in order to integrate for trade, investment and tourism, the benefits of which should help Afghanistan and its neighbors prosper together in peace and harmony.

In this light, the Afghan government renews its firm commitment to addressing the state-to-state tensions that exist between Afghanistan and Pakistan. An end to this undeclared hostility should lead to closure by Pakistan of all safe sanctuaries and related support infrastructure, which the Taliban and their affiliated networks have enjoyed using to terrorize Afghanistan, thereby undermining regional stability and international peace. Indeed, it is in the best long-term interest of Pakistan to disengage from state-sponsorship of terrorism at the cost its sustainable security and development in a region of much potential and promise.

*M. Ashraf Haidari is the Director-General of Policy & Strategy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, and formerly served as the country’s Deputy Chief of Mission to India. Prior to this, he was Afghanistan’s Deputy Assistant National Security Advisor, as well as Afghan Chargé d’Affaires to the United States. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and a Research Fellow at the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS). He tweets @MAshrafHaidari.

As Daesh (Islamic State) dissipates from the geopolitical theatre in Syria, the focus has shifted to other parts of the country. The Syrian Arab Army, backed by Iran and Russia, have confined the rebel militias to pockets all over Syria. The most significant rebel concentration is near the city of Idlib, where Turkish backed militias and Islamist groups are held up. The war has continued by these parameters, but it has taken a different form. Nearly all of the opposition figures who started the anti-government movement are no longer around, and goals for regime change have vanished as well.

This new phase in the war has little to do with al-Assad, ideology, international law, or even the jihadist groups. Instead, all the actors involved in Syria want geopolitical influence in Syria, which effectively means the dismemberment of the state.

Over the past year, relations between Washington, Ankara, Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus have improved, but the involved nations are divided into a number of camps. On one side is a coalition of Iran, Russia, and the al-Assad government.

On the other is Turkey and the Syrian National Army, which is a coalition of former Free Syrian Army militias and Islamist groups. Meanwhile, Washington has used the Kurdish militias as leverage to bolster its separate voice in the conflict. Considering these lines of division, it is safe to say that the only relation the conflict has to Syria is that it happens to be taking place there. This notion was reinforced by the Pentagon on January 13, when it was revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seeks to recreate a thirty-thousand border security force in the Kurdish controlled territories in Northern Syria. The official mission is to make sure that DAESH does not gain a physical presence in the region, but in truth, Washington hopes to retain a significant voice in the conflict.

The fact of the matter is that Kurdish militias occupy Syria’s finest agricultural land, and the Kurdish controlled Tabqa Dam along the Euphrates provides half of the country’s energy output. Since the Syrian based Kurdish militias are dependent on the United States, Washington could dispossess Syria of capital and energy resources.

In this context, the plan to strengthen the Kurdish militias ultimately serves the Americans. Once more is that the U.S embedded around two thousand military personnel in the Kurdish-YPG units near Manbij and the Kurdish controlled territories east of the Euphrates River. The purpose behind this was to deter a Turkish, Russian, or Iranian attack on the Syrian Kurds. None of the other external powers wanted to accidentally attack American military personnel which would have given Washington political leverage. By this practice, Washington essentially uses its embedded military personnel as provocative pawns in a game of chess. However, such tactics and the policy concerning a new Kurdish army have created a wedge between Ankara and Washington.

Immediately following the Pentagon announcement, Turkish President Erdogan pledged to strangle such designs. For Turkey, the primary focus is to contain the influence of Kurdish militias as opposed to regime change in Damascus. In this framework, the American border security program is a threat to Turkey’s sovereignty since the ranks of the new border security force would consist of YPG units, which has indisputable ties to the PKK, a widely designated terrorist group that has carried out attacks on Turkey for decades. Turkish policymakers fear that a strengthened YPG presence in Northern Syria could harbor PKK members who seek to launch attacks on Turkish soil.

These concerns are valid in their own right. For instance, the YPG controlled Afrin enclave in Northwest Syria is in close proximity to Turkey’s densely populated regions of Gaziantep and Hatay. Considering the realities on the ground, the government in Ankara does not want the PKK and YPG to gain more ground, which is why the Turks launched Operation Olive Branch on Afrin.

The situation in Afrin is further complicated by the involvement of Moscow. Just as Washington has placed military personnel in the YPG contingents east of the Euphrates, Russia has embedded its units west of the river. While the Kurdish areas east of the Euphrates are under an American influence, the Afrin enclave was a part of the Russian influence. What has changed as of January 2018, is that the Russian military forces have either left Afrin or could have conceded the enclave to Turkey.

Either way, the exit of the Russians has decreased probabilities of existential skirmishes between Turkish and Russian forces, which illustrates that Putin gave Erdogan the ‘green light’ to attack the YPG in Afrin. What incited Moscow to accommodate Ankara to carry this out is unknown, but what is certain is that for the past year, Erdogan and Putin have conducted several talks concerning a political settlement to the conflict in Syria.

As fighting in Syria continues, a number of Russian analysts believe that a military victory in Syria will require years of additional interventions. This is something Putin cannot afford nor does he want to do. The Russians know full well that they do not want to make the same mistakes the Americans made in Iraq and Afghanistan through endless occupations. Over the past two years, Russia has been searching for an exit from Syria without losing its gains on the ground, and it tried to come to an understanding with Washington, but its endeavor failed.

In September 2017, Russia has sought to disengage itself from Syria by negotiating a political settlement to the conflict. These negotiations laid the bedrock for the Astana process where Russia, Turkey, and Iran reached an understanding last year in the capital of Kazakhstan. The parameters of the four de-escalation zones in Syria ceased hostilities for a period of six months, and for a moment, a political settlement looked possible.

As a result of the ongoing talks, the Astana talks shifted the Syrian crisis from military to diplomatic grounds. In anticipation of this, President Putin visited Khmeimim Airbase in Latakia where he proclaimed the imminent retreat of Russian forces. However, as is the case with all coalitions, the more members are involved, the more tedious the political proceedings become.

First, there was an agreement over Turkish forces staying in the Idlib region, and whether the Turkish backed Islamist militias counted as terrorist groups that will continue to be targeted by other powers. Second, the government of Tehran did not agree with the size of the Idlib de-escalation zone.

More to the point, Iran was not really interested in a negotiated stalemate because it sees Syria as an essential part of its geopolitical policy. The Iranians have committed more resources to the Syrian war effort than both the Turks and Russians. For instance, while Moscow showed support in the form of airpower and diplomacy, Iran has mobilized militia fighters to enhance the forces of the Syrian Arab Army. Tehran has also contributed to keeping the Syrian economy afloat through financial means.

Unlike Russian policymakers, Iranian policymakers want a total military victory in Syria regardless of the costs. This divergence in interests is similar to the American-Turkish policies in Syria, and just as Washington and Ankara undermine one another, Tehran has also undermined Moscow’s peace efforts.

More specifically, in early January while the Russians and the Turks were structuring the finer details of the Astana ceasefire, Iranian backed proxies and Assad’s elite forces derailed the peace talks by striking the agreed upon de-escalation zone in Idlib.

At the same time, Turkish backed rebel forces also breached the Astana ceasefire. For instance, Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, which is the most dominant Islamist group in Idlib whose core elements are part of Al-Qaeda, refused to abide by the ceasefire and launched offensive operations on Assad forces near the city of Hama. In the same period, a swarm of unidentified satellite-guided drones attacked a Russian airbase in Syria, which was another breach of the ceasefire. Initially, blame was cast on Turkey, but Putin clarified that the Turks were not the perpetrators. To this day, it is still unclear who was behind the drone attack.

For all of its shortcomings, the Astana ceasefire was the biggest diplomatic breakthrough in the Syrian war since 2011, but the combination of Iran’s recent breach of the ceasefire, the drone attack on the Russian airbase, the American setup of a border force in Northern Syria, and the Turkish operation into Afrin have all reignited the conflict into a new phase of the Syrian war.

The irony of it all was that defeating DAESH was the least difficult part and all the external powers agreed that it was a common enemy, but now that DAESH has dissipated as a conventional fighting force, all the external powers have major geopolitical objectives in Syria. Russia is more concerned about its own reputation in the Middle East, and would prefer the Damascus government to remain independent.

Iran however, wants Assad and the local proxies to remain dependent on Tehran economically and politically. Meanwhile, Turkey wants to keep the Kurdish militias distant from its densely populated areas, and at the same time, Washington wants to use the Kurdish groups as leverage to prevent a single faction from dominating Syria.

The ultimate result is the gradual institutionalization of the defective situation on the ground, which is effectively tearing Syria apart, and as the lines of division are reinforced by the involved powers, a political settlement seems to be an even more distant memory for the Syrian people.