A draft of the final statement of an upcoming congress in Sochi on the settlement of the Syria crisis calls for an end to the war in Syria and lifting of the unilateral sanctions on the Damascus government without any political preconditions.

The resolution, obtained by media on Sunday, calls for efforts to start the reconstruction of Syria and allow the refugees to return home, without linking those initiatives to any political issues.

The Syrian National Dialogue Congress, expected to kick off on January 29 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, is going to be attended by some 1,600 participants.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will also send his Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura to the event.

The Sochi meeting is part of a push by Moscow, Tehran and Ankara to end the crisis in Syria.

Diplomatic efforts to end fighting in Syria gained momentum in 2017 with the announcement of a ceasefire in the Arab country in early January.

According to a report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

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

By Ryan Dagur

Most Indonesian lawmakers wants to criminalize homosexuality, according to a leading member of the country’s parliament.

There is widespread support among legislators to make all same-sex sexual acts illegal, Bambang Sesatyo, the speaker of Indonesia’s Lower House recently told ucanews.com.

Currently, homosexuality is only outlawed in Aceh province, which follows Sharia law.

“All same-sex sexual relationships must be punished,” Sesatyo said.

“A majority of those in political parties in the House and the government agree with this. It’s only a matter of time when a law will be passed,” he said, adding that legislators would want to make homosexual relations punishable by up to nine years in prison.

His comments follow a Constitutional Court ruling in December rejecting a petition by hard-line groups seeking to outlaw homosexuality.

The court said outlawing gay sex was a matter for lawmakers to decide.

LGBT groups and human rights activists condemned Sesatyo’s comments.

“How [can you] prosecute gay adults who engage in intimate acts on the basis of loving each other?” said Hartoyo head of a LGBT advocacy group called Suara Kita.

“There is no reasonable basis for refusing such relationships,” said Hartoyo, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name.

Franciscan Father Peter C Aman, a moral theology professor at the Driyarkara School of Philosophy in Jakarta said although same-sex intercourse is forbidden by religion, it cannot be a reason for the state to impose legal sanctions against it.

“Sexuality exists in the private sphere associated with morality and will. [Same-sex intercourse] is a sin, but it is not for the state to look after people’s sins,” he told ucanews.com.

“The state should only step in if there are adverse effects on others, such as coercion, rape and other crimes,” he added.

According to Andreas Harsono, Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said lawmakers are bending to the will of religious extremists.

“Whenever Indonesian LGBTs need protection and public support, the government shows its fears in the face of militant Islamists,” he said.

The government and political parties must dare to say that sexuality is a private matter, he said.

Occasionally, the liturgical calendar has a curious intersection with secular holidays.

This year, Ash Wednesday—which begins the penitential season of Lent with a day of fasting, abstinence, and prayer—falls on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day celebrates a third-century Christian martyr, but it has also become a celebration of romantic love, replete with with chocolates, fancy prix fixe menus, roses, and an overload of candy hearts.

The Archdiocese of Chicago has clarified that Lent is more important than candy hearts, and suggested that Catholics pick some other day for paper hearts and Cupid’s arrows.

A statement released by the Archdiocese explained that Catholics will not be dispensed from the laws of fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday, and suggested that Catholics planning to celebrate Valentine’s Day could do so on Feb. 13th, which is also Mardi Gras.

“The obligation of fast and abstinence must naturally be the priority in the Catholic community,” said the statement.

“Valentine’s Day can appropriately be celebrated the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday which also happens to be Mardi Gras, a traditionally festive time before beginning our Lenten observance.”

Mardi Gras is traditionally celebrated each year on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Customary Mardi Gras celebrations include parades, elaborate costumes, and the consumption of pancakes. In the Archdiocese of Chicago, it might also serve as a substitute Valentine’s Day.

Catholics 18-59 are required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Catholics 14 and older are also required to abstain from meat on those days, and on Lenten Fridays. According to the US bishops’ conference, a person fasting “is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal.”

New research published in Nature Geoscience has found that climate engineering that modifies the properties of the land surface in highly populated areas and agricultural areas over North American, Europe and Asia could reduce extreme temperatures there by up to 2-3°C.

The modifications could include lightening buildings, roads and other infrastructure in high population areas and changing crops and engaging in no-till agricultural practices.

Unlike many other climate-engineering methods proposed to tackle climate change, many of these regional modifications have already been tested and proven to work. Critically, this method has fewer risks compared with injecting aerosols into the atmosphere.

“Extreme temperatures are where human and natural systems are most vulnerable. Changing the radiative properties of land helps address this issue with fewer side effects,” said Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Prof Andy Pitman.

“This research suggests that by taking a regional approach, at least in temperate zones, policy and investment decisions can be pragmatically and affordably focused on areas of greatest need.”

By contrast other proposed forms of large-scale climate engineering, such as spraying sulphate aerosols into the atmosphere, fertilising the ocean with iron and even building giant mirrors in space, have questionable effectiveness and are likely to alter climate systems in unexpected ways.  They could make situations worse for some countries.

The researchers gained their results by modelling how changing only the radiative properties of agricultural land and high population areas across North America, Europe and Asia would impact average temperatures, extreme temperatures and precipitation.

The results showed small impacts on average temperatures, little change in precipitation – except in Asia – but significant reductions in extreme temperatures.

“Regional land-based climate engineering can be effective but we need to consider competing demands for land use, for instance for food production, biodiversity, carbon uptake, recreational areas and much more before putting it into effect,” said lead author Prof Sonia Seneviratne of ETH Zurich.

“We must remember land-based climate engineering is not a silver bullet, it is just one part of a possible climate solution, and it would have no effects on global mean warming or ocean acidification. There are still important moral, economic and practical imperatives to consider that mean mitigation and adaption should still remain at the forefront of our approach to dealing with global warming.”

Qatar plans to add 200 more housing units to the Al-Udeid Air Base, crucial to the US-led counter-terrorist campaign, so that US troops deployed there on a permanent basis can feel “at home,” Qatar’s defense minister said.

Among far-reaching plans outlined by Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah, Minister of State for Defense and Deputy Minister of Qatar, the Gulf kingdom is renovating its naval ports so that the US Navy can be deployed to the country in addition to some 10,000 US servicemen stationed at Al-Udeid air base near Doha.

To ensure the US troops lack nothing during their long-term deployment, Qatar “have decided immediately to build 200 units for the officers and officers’ families,” as well as a new school within the compound.

“It will very soon become a family-oriented place for our American friends there. We want more of the families to be stable and feel more comfortable in their stay,” Attiyah said, speaking at the discussion hosted by the US-think tank the Heritage Foundation on Sunday.

Calling Al-Udeid a “full city” in itself, the minister reiterated the Americans are always “welcome” in the country “regardless of what the region thinks.”

He also for the first time revealed a “big plan” by Qatar to “make Al-Udeid permanent.”

“Colleagues in the US Department of Defense are reluctant to mention the word permanent, but we are working from our side to make it permanent,” he stressed.

The minister estimated that “80 percent of aerial refueling in the region is from Udeid,” meaning that the bulk of the US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria would be impossible if not for Qatar’s cooperation.

“We’re the ones that keep your birds flying,” he noted.

The base has been home to the US Combined Air Operations Center for the Middle East since 2003 and has gained on importance for the US military since the launch of the US-led coalition campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

The ongoing strife between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Yemen, which cut diplomatic ties with Qatar in June last year, accusing it of supporting terrorism, sparked concerns that the base could be caught in the diplomatic crosshairs. Despite US President Donald Trump escalating the row by, in turn, branding Qatar a “high-level sponsor of terrorism” at the onset of the crisis, the US and Qatari military did not cease cooperation and even called a joint exercise.

“Our missions out of Al Udeid Air Base are continuing and have not been impacted,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said at the time.

The Saudi-led block imposed a travel and economic blockade on Qatar and set a 13-point ultimatum with which Doha refused to comply, denouncing the allegations against it as “lies” and launching complaints to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the boycott. The resulting stalemate forced Washington to halt some military exercises with Gulf countries in October.

According to Attiyah, it’s up to Trump to end the lingering conflict for which he needs only to pick up a phone and make a number of calls.

“At the moment, I think the only person who can solve the GCC crisis is President Trump. And I think he can solve it in a phone call,” the minister said, adding that although Qatar “can discuss anything,” it will not tolerate pre-conditions and will not give up its sovereignty.

“We’re tough people. We don’t accept pre-conditions. But at the same time, we’re very open to discuss issues that worry them,” he stressed, noting that the only beneficiaries of the crisis are actual terrorists.

In agricultural regions such as the U.S. Midwest, excess nitrate from crop fertilizer makes its way into rivers and streams through subsurface drainage channels and agricultural ditches.

High nitrate concentrations in waterways can be harmful to ecosystems and human health, contaminating drinking water and eventually flowing downstream far enough to increase the size of the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone.”

A study published today in the journal Nature Geoscience by National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded researchers offers new insights into this problem: Multiple wetlands, or “wetland complexes” in a watershed, are extremely effective at reducing nitrate levels in rivers and streams.

Wetland complexes can be five times better at reducing nitrate than the best land-based nitrogen mitigation strategies, the scientists say.

“Agricultural productivity benefits the economy, but is often accompanied by environmental costs,” says Tom Torgersen, director of NSF’s Water, Sustainability and Climate program, which funded the research. “This study demonstrates that retaining or restoring wetlands in intensively managed agricultural watersheds would reduce nitrate in rivers and improve local water quality, while also reducing nitrate exports to the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic [dead] zone.”

Using water samples collected over a four-year period from more than 200 waterways in the 17,000-square-mile Minnesota River Basin (MRB), along with geospatial information on land use in the MRB watershed, researchers isolated the effects of wetlands on stream and river nitrate concentrations.

The research produced a number of significant findings:

• When stream flows are high, wetlands are five times more efficient at reducing nitrate than the best land-based conservation practices.
• The arrangement of wetlands in a watershed is a predictor of the magnitude of nitrate reduction. When wetlands filter runoff from 100 percent of a drainage area, they are three times more effective at nitrate removal than when they filter runoff from 50 percent of a drainage area.
• Nitrate reduction in temporary wetlands and in geographically isolated wetlands (those not connected to a river), such as wetlands that form in agricultural ditches, is largest during high stream flows.

“These are important steps toward recognizing that as we lose wetlands, we also lose the significant benefits they provide in pollution control,” says Amy Hansen, a researcher at the University of Minnesota’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory and first author of the journal paper.

The contributions of small wetlands are especially important for the future, Hansen says. Climate forecasts predict increases in precipitation frequency and magnitude — conditions under which wetlands play a significant role in reducing river nitrate.

“Our work shows that wetland restoration could be one of the most effective methods for improving water quality in the face of climate change and the increasing global demand for food,” says paper co-author Jacques Finlay, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota.

Other co-authors of the paper are Christine Dolph of the University of Minnesota and Efi Foufoula-Georgiou of the University of California, Irvine.

The results of the research are advancing scientists’ understanding of wetlands and their role in pollution control, according to the researchers, and providing guidance on wetland restoration siting and benefits.

South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced that it had discovered a highly pathogenic strain of the H5N6 avian influenza near a chicken farm in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, about 25 miles south of Seoul. Another pathogenic strain of the same virus was also recently detected in another chicken farm in Pyeongtaek, a city about 44 miles south of Seoul.

To stem the outbreak, the government culled about 190,000 chickens in Hwaseong and about 144,000 chickens at Pyeongtaek. In a recent press release, the Gyeonggi government announced the slaughter of an estimated 430,000 chickens on farms in a 547-yard radius of the Pyeongtaek farm as a precaution. The government has also destroyed 467,000 eggs and are planning on eradicating about 500,000 more eggs at the Hwaseong farm.

In addition, officials have declared that poultry farms across Gyeonggi be placed on special watch beginning this weekend. Guard posts were established at the entrances of any farm with over 50,000 birds. These birds will be subjected to enhanced inspection and disinfection. Poultry farms in neighboring areas including Cheonan and Boryeong in South Chungcheong, and Eumseong in North Chungcheong, will also be on special watch, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported.

All people who worked at poultry farms in Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek are under quarantine for a week. A ban was also imposed on the distribution of poultry in the cities.

“The avian influenza virus we discovered at Hwaseong is highly pathogenic and spreads very fast,” said a spokesperson with the Agricultural Ministry. “It reproduces continuously before symptoms appear in the hosts or before they die.”

Since November 2017, there have been 15 highly pathogenic bird-flu outbreaks in South Korea, resulting in the slaughter of almost two million birds.

By Michael Lelyveld

Citizens in many parts of China are paying a high price in terms of air pollution for reported improvements in Beijing, a recent environmental study suggests.

In a study released this month, the environmental group Greenpeace East Asia said that significant gains in reducing smog in the capital and the surrounding region were unmatched elsewhere in China last year.

While Beijing recorded a 53.8-percent drop in smog-forming particles known as PM2.5 in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, concentrations actually rose in some provinces of the northeast and southern regions in 2017, Greenpeace said.

Among the provinces reporting results across the country, average PM2.5 concentrations fell 4.5 percent, the lowest rate since China declared its “war on pollution” in 2013, said Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Huang Wei.

The particulate readings rose last year in provinces including Heilongjiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Guangdong by rates ranging from 4 percent to 10.4 percent, the group said.

The analysis of provincial emissions paints a different picture from reports by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) on PM2.5 levels in 338 monitored cities across China.

On Jan. 18, the MEP said that average PM2.5 density in the cities fell 6.5 percent last year to 43 micrograms per cubic meter.

The Greenpeace study blamed the higher provincial figures on increased coal burning from 2016 to late 2017 as a result of economic stimulus policies and excessive real estate investment that spurred polluting industries, such as steel and cement.

The findings support the conclusions of China analysts who argued that the government encouraged credit-fueled economic growth in the months before last October’s critical 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which consolidated President Xi Jinping’s political control.

After giving free rein to gross domestic product growth, the government acted belatedly to meet the targets of its five-year air pollution action plan issued in 2013 in hopes of avoiding another smog crisis like the one that choked Beijing in the winter of 2016-2017.

The late shift in priorities became apparent in August when the MEP set rules to ban coal-fired heating in 28 northern cities for the approaching winter season starting Nov. 15.

The push to convert nearly 4 million homes to natural gas or electricity left thousands without heat due to unfinished projects. On Dec. 4, the MEP relented and allowed coal use to resume in the affected areas surrounding Beijing.

‘Emission spillover’ effect

The emissions data compiled by Greenpeace appears to reflect the changes in the government’s agenda before and after the party congress.

In the first three quarters of 2017, average PM2.5 concentrations rose 6 percent in the 28 northern cities as emissions in more distant industrialized provinces increased, helping to boost GDP.

Then in the fourth quarter, PM2.5 levels dropped by nearly one-third as regulators stepped up the fuel-switching campaign. Favorable weather conditions also contributed to the improvement, Greenpeace said.

The study found signs of an “emission spillover” effect from winter shutdowns of factories and steel mills in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, aimed at averting another cold-weather smog crisis. Plants in Hebei province compensated for the seasonal cuts with higher production over the summer, contributing to record ozone levels, it said.

The scheduling shift and the impact on emissions were predicted last April shortly after the government’s plan to reduce wintertime operations was announced.

The emissions data also provides evidence that provinces outside the restricted zone affecting Beijing made up for the regional shortfall in output with big increases in steel, coal-fired power and metals production.

Crude steel production rose 31 percent in southern Guangdong province, for example, while PM2.5 increased 5.3 percent last year. But in Hebei province, adjacent to Beijing, steel was down 1 percent while PM2.5 fell 6.7 percent.

The findings raise questions about whether the government’s environmental policies are being applied evenly across China, and whether they are effective in controlling pollution if they are not.

Tougher environmental controls in the capital region may do little to limit China’s emissions of particulates or greenhouse gases if coal-fired industries simply move to other parts of the country.

A further question is whether the controls on Beijing and nearby cities are a response to political pressure and attempts to turn the capital into a showcase. Or are they part of a typical pilot program leading toward country-wide reforms?

The answers may depend on the government’s priorities for economic growth and environmental improvement, which have shifted back and forth over the course of the past year.

Philip Andrews-Speed, a China energy expert at National University of Singapore, said the data demonstrates the priority to clean up the capital in response to the government’s agenda and complaints from residents.

“The Beijing-Tianjin region was always one of the focal areas for the 2013 clean air targets, and I am sure that this was for political as well as other technical reasons,” he said.

But the higher priority may be to deliver the economic growth rates that the CPC has promised, creating pressure to boost production elsewhere in China.

“All these trends are closely tied to economic growth, economic structure and industrial output, factors that seem just as important as or more important than ‘clean production,'” Andrews-Speed said.

Transforming Beijing’s environment

The push for smog reduction in Beijing is also part of the government’s larger plan to transform the capital’s environment with heavy-handed measures.

In 2015, Beijing announced plans to build a “subsidiary administrative center” in the southeast district of Tongzhou to ease “urban diseases” in the central city area. Since then, the authorities have closed down wholesale markets and other public facilities to drive activity out.

Last year, the government said it would build a second center in Hebei province’s Xiongan New Area, 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of the city, to house “non-capital functions.”

Last week, municipal authorities signaled a series of new steps, including plans that will cost many migrant workers their homes.

Beijing’s acting mayor, Chen Jining, said the city would demolish 40 square kilometers (15 square miles) of “illegal” structures that had housed migrant workers, the BBC reported.

The city will “ensure zero increase of such structures,” Chen said.

Beijing will also close 500 manufacturing companies and move more than 40 state-owned enterprises out of major urban districts, Chen told a session of the Municipal People’s Congress, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The Greenpeace report comes two months after international climate scientists of the Global Carbon Project blamed a projected three-percent increase in China’s coal consumption last year for the first big rise in greenhouse gas emissions since 2013.

The estimate of a two-percent jump in the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions highlighted the consequences of China’s policy changes.

“The temporary hiatus appears to have ended in 2017,” said Stanford University scientist Rob Jackson last November, citing flat emissions growth over the previous three years.

Coal production and import figures for 2017 support the consumption estimates.

Last year, coal production rose 3.2 percent to 3.45 billion metric tons, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. Imports increased 6.1 percent to 270.9 million tons, the highest level since 2014, Reuters reported, citing customs data.

In sync with lending practices

The environmental trends tracked by Greenpeace roughly correspond to the lending practices of China’s state-controlled banks, which pumped up the economy with fresh loans during the pre-congress period while regulators paid lip service to controlling financial risks.

In the latest report for December, the banks appeared to show more restraint after strong GDP growth of 6.9 percent for the year had been assured.

For the month, new yuan-denominated loans fell 44 percent from a year earlier to 584.4 billion yuan (U.S. $92.4 billion), the lowest since April 2016 and far below forecasts, Xinhua said.

New lending of 13.53 trillion yuan (U.S. $2.1 trillion) for the full year rose nearly 7 percent from a year before, according to People’s Bank of China (PBOC) data. Total social financing, comprising credit and liquidity in the economy, climbed 10.2 percent.

While the central government pursues its policies, critical decisions on production and the environment are often made at the local or provincial level.

The priorities are reflected in data for the northern industrialized province of Heilongjiang, for example, where steel output soared 29 percent last year and PM2.5 concentrations rose 10.4 percent.

Andrews-Speed said further study is needed to evaluate the forces behind the emissions results from 2017.

“What we need is a decomposition analysis … to identify the relative roles of GDP growth rate, economic structure, industrial output and technological improvement,” he said.

Greenpeace has urged the MEP to release guidelines for the next phase of its air pollution action plan “as soon as possible.”

By Karl Romano

The Philippines filed murder charges Monday against three police officers who allegedly killed a 17-year-old boy last year, leading to massive street protests and forcing President Rodrigo Duterte to strip police temporarily of a frontline role in anti-drug operations.

There was substantial evidence that officers Arnel Oares, Jerwin Cruz and Jeremias Pereda had murdered Kian Loyd delos Santos in August, the Department of Justice said in court papers.

“Forensic results from the PNP [Philippine National Police] and the PAO [Public Attorney’s Office] prove an indisputable conclusion that Kian was shot while in a somewhat kneeling/fetal position,” the justice department said in its filing at a lower court in the northern Manila suburb of Caloocan.

The department cited testimony by several witnesses, including a minor, who said they saw the officers drag the boy away before they shot him at point-blank range. It described their testimonies as “extremely significant” considering that delos Santos did not appear to show any signs of being aggressive while being taken away.

Witnesses also directly contradicted claims by police that the boy was shot and killed because he fought back during his arrest.

Duterte repeatedly said that he would back police accused of murder if they fired back in self-defense, and he would also pardon those officers who were convicted.

Public anger

The killing of delos Santos unleashed widespread anger in the Philippines, with the politically influential Catholic Church leading a massive street protest during the teen’s funeral march.

Two other teenagers were killed in later police operations, causing sustained street protests that eventually forced Duterte to suspend the national police as the lead agency in his government’s crackdown on narcotics.

But four months later, in December, he reinstated the police in a prominent role in the drug war, ignoring ongoing calls by both local and international rights groups who demanded accountability.

The crackdown since Duterte took office in June 2016 has left nearly 4,000 alleged pushers and addicts dead, according to official statistics by the police. But rights groups, led by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have put the death toll at about 12,000.

Cristina Palabay, leader of the Filipino rights group Karapatan, stressed that the killings must stop.

“The filing of murder charges against police involved in the murder of Kian delos Santos is a welcome development,” she told BenarNews. “However, Duterte’s war on drugs has ravaged many Kians and other poor youths and communities.”

She said the case should be a reminder “that justice is something that is not given, most often it is denied.”

“It is imperative that the killings vis-a-vis the war on drugs should stop,” she said.

Tindig Pilipinas, a broad coalition of groups opposed to the government’s war on drugs, also called on Manila to stop the bloodletting.

“It is a murderous failed policy,” the group said. “Without respect for human rights, without regard for the rule of law, it will continue to be bloody and anti-poor.”

Felipe Villamor in Manila and Mark Navales in Cotabato City, Philippines, contributed to this report.

The Vietnamese government should immediately drop all charges and release rights activists Vu Quang Thuan, Nguyen Van Dien, and Tran Hoang Phuc, Human Rights Watch said. The first two were arrested in March and the latter in June 2017 for publishing material on the internet critical of the government, and each was charged with conducting propaganda against the state.

The People’s Court of Hanoi is scheduled to hear their case on January 31, 2018.

“Tran Hoang Phuc, Vu Quang Thuan, and Nguyen Van Dien are among a growing group of bloggers and activists who use the internet to advance human rights and democracy in Vietnam,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Arrest and imprisonment of dissenting voices will not stop the increasing number of Vietnamese from speaking up.”

Tran Hoang Phuc, 23, is a student from the Law University in Ho Chi Minh City and a member of the Youth Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI). He began participating in social activities in recent years, including by helping flood victims in central Vietnam and participating in pro-human rights activities organized by the Redemptorist Church in Ho Chi Minh City. In May 2016, he publicly boycotted the national election in protest of its pre-determined outcome in a one-party state.

Also in May 2016, Tran was invited to a meeting of former US President Barack Obama with members of YSEALI during his visit to Vietnam. Tran brought documents related to the environmental disaster in April 2016 off the central coast of Vietnam caused by Formosa, a Taiwanese steel company. As he was waiting in line to enter the meeting room, public security officers arrived and took him to a police station for interrogation. According to Tran, the police questioned him about his communications with the United States consulate in Ho Chi Minh City.

In October 2016, Tran participated in a meeting in Vung Tau called “Youth and Civil Society,” organized by rights activists. Within minutes, the police broke in, dispersed the meeting, and detained several activists for about 10 hours. Tran reported that he was beaten and his cellphone confiscated.

In April 2017, Tran and fellow activist Huynh Thanh Phat were abducted in Ba Don, Quang Binh province, by a group of men in civilian clothes wearing surgical masks. The anonymous men used shirts to cover the activists’ faces, pushed them into a small van, and drove them away. During the ride, the men continuously beat the two activists. Tran wrote on his Facebook page that the men slapped and punched him. The two were taken to a deserted area in the forest where, according to Tran, the men “used bamboo sticks and belts to whip them.” The men took their wallets and cellphones and abandoned them.

On June 29, 2017, the police arrested Tran in Hanoi for storing and posting documents they said “propagandize against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” and charged him under article 88 of the penal code. Shortly after his arrest, a group called “Vietnamese Students for Human Rights Association” announced its formation. According to the group, Tran is a founding member. The goal of the association is to promote reforms in universities and establish academic freedom in Vietnam.

Vu Quang Thuan, also known as Vo Phu Dong, 51, began his pro-democracy activism in 2007 when he and fellow activist Le Thang Long founded “Vietnam Restoration Movement” (Phong trao Chan hung nuoc Viet), which advocated for a multi-party and democratic political system. According to Le, the goal of the movement is to advance “Corporate reform, non-violence, dialogue, and listening for the mutual and long-term interest of the country.” Le was arrested in June 2009 and charged with subversion. He served three years in prison. Vu fled to Malaysia where he applied for asylum. While waiting for his case to be heard, Vu recruited members for his movement and advocated for the rights of Vietnamese laborers working in Malaysia. He told a reporter at Radio Free Asia that he read almost 1,000 labor contracts in which [Vietnamese workers] are not allowed to “join any party or organization, participate in any protest, love and marry any foreigner.” According to the Vietnamese police newspaper An ninh The gioi (World Security), in February 2010, Vu helped organize three public protests in Kuala Lumpur outside the Vietnamese embassy in Malaysia and the office of the Malaysian prime minister to urge Vietnam to release political detainees and respect freedom of speech, press, media, and association.

In April 2010, Vu attempted to self-immolate at the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur to protest Malaysia’s deportation of two members of the Vietnam Restoration Movement. He was arrested by Malaysian police and deported to Vietnam in February 2011. Vu claimed that he had been issued with a document identifying him as a refugee but this was confiscated by the Malaysian police. Upon arrival at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City, he was arrested and charged with “conducting propaganda against the state” under penal code section 88. He was released in 2015, after which he immediately went back to activism by using Facebook and YouTube to advocate for democracy and a multiparty political system.

Little is known about Nguyen Van Dien, also known as “Dien who loves the country,” 34. According to Radio Free Asia, he worked with Vu to promote rights for Vietnamese workers in Malaysia. He was arrested in 2010 in Kuala Lumpur and deported to Vietnam in 2011. Nguyen helped film Vu’s livestreams on Facebook on many different topics, including instructions about how to carry out a public protest in accordance with the law. Both Vu and Nguyen participated in pro-environment protests and went to the court to show solidarity with political prisoner Nguyen Huu Vinh, also known as Anh Ba Sam, and fellow activist Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy during their trial in 2016.

The police arrested Vu and Nguyen in Hanoi on March 2, 2017, for “making many clips with bad content and distributing them on the Internet” and charged them with conducting propaganda against the state.

“The Vietnamese government controls all domestic newspapers and media, which promote its agenda and function as a propaganda machine,” said Adams. “Why is it so afraid of critics who have much smaller platforms on the internet and merely call for the people of Vietnam to be able to choose their leaders in free and fair elections?”

The examination of the uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) of Syrian terrorists showed that their creation requires special scientific knowledge available to the developers of modern drones. This was announced by Major General Alexander Novikov, Head of the Russian General Staff’s Office for UAV Development, at the meeting with journalists after a detailed analysis of the drone attack on Russian bases in Syria, which was successfully reflected on the night of January 6.

“Handicraft production of these drones is possible if one has got assembly schemes and necessary components, which had been tested properly. In order to produce these drones, such components as engine, servo units, and electrical batteries could be purchased separately on the open market. However, assembly of these components in the joint system is a complicated engineer task which demands special training, scientific knowledge, and practical experience of producing these aircrafts,” Alexander Novikov said.

According to him, the pre-programmed coordinates used in the UAVs were more accurate than public data that could be obtained, for example, on the Internet.

“Examination shows that radio-electronic equipment installed on the drones, provided for their automated pre-programmed flight and the discharge of ammunition. It also blocked any interference to their control systems,” Alexander Novikov stressed.

He also added that the basic explosive used in the UAVs’ munitions was pentaerythrite tetranitrate (PETN), which is more powerful than hexogen.

“This explosive is produced in several locations, including the Shostka Chemical Reagents Plant in Ukraine,” he said and added that it “cannot be manufactured in an improvised manner nor extracted from other munitions.”

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, it was the first time when terrorists carried out a massed drone attack using modern GPS guidance system — it indicates the emergence of real threat associated with such attacks in any country in the world, which requires appropriate measures to neutralize this possibility.

Commenting on the incident in Syria, Codepink coordinator Nick Mottern said that it was “a test of how effectively Russian anti-drone defenses would respond to a swarm of drones.”

“It seems almost certain that the technology for the drone swarm in question was provided by a nation or nations working on developing drone swarming. This incident confronts us with the reality of an extraordinarily dangerous situation in which relatively low-tech drone attacks with devastating impact, because of swarming, will be launched anonymously by more and more people,” he told PenzaNews.

Obviously as the swarming technology is combat-tested it will be able to guide larger and larger drones and smaller and smaller, he added.

“The UN must meet immediately and call for disarmament of all drones, air, land and sea, and sanctions against any nations found to be transferring any technology that enables the use of lethal drones, including drone swarming technology,” Nick Mottern said.

In his opinion, people must prevent any further motion into an era of remote control killing that will not only take countless lives but accelerate the dissolution of civil societies, as in Yemen and Afghanistan.

“Scientists and engineers developing lethal drone technology must decide whether they will continue this work,” the human rights activist said.

Meanwhile, Anatoly Tsyganok, Director for the Center of Military Forecasting at the Moscow Institute of Political and Military Analysis, Professor of the Academy of Military Sciences, stated that the terrorists had reached a new level.

“Previously, they adhered to the tactics of explosions, then there were terrorist attacks with vehicles: such attacks were committed in Berlin, Nice, London and other cities. Now a new stage has come – drone attacks,” the analyst explained.

He also shared the opinion that the drone swarming technology was tested during the attack in Syria.

“It remains to be seen who has done it, but the likelihood of such attacks in other parts of the world exists. Drones will certainly be used not only in the Middle East, but also in Europe,” Anatoly Tsyganok said.

In addition, he reminded that the Air Code of Russia has already been amended, requiring registration of drones weighing more than 250 grams.

“The issue should also be discussed at the international level. A relevant resolution on the use of drones should be adopted in the UN Security Council,”Anatoly Tsyganok stressed, adding however that many of such international agreements are not respected.

In turn, Wendell Minnick, Senior Asia Correspondent, Shephard Media – Military, suggested that the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles is unstoppable because “these systems are now literally everywhere, including children’s toy stores.”

“The number of companies unveiling new UAVs at airshows like Singapore Airshow and Zhuhai Airshow number in the hundreds. Many are cheap and reliable, capable of carrying bombs into an enemy’s base under stealth and low altitude. Many of the UAVs appear to be flocks of birds on radar, further complicating the ability to shoot them down,” the expert said.

The use of UAVs by terrorists only to increase internationally as the technology continues to be simplified and cheaper to manufacturer, he said.

“Many countries are beginning to sale anti-radiation – anti-drone – weapons that are manpad, i.e. man-portable air-defense systems, or larger tripod mounted systems that are easy to use. However, these systems can often be disappointing in terms of range and the radiation emitted can be dangerous to the user after long term use,” Wendell Minnick explained.

Meanwhile, Anthony Glees, Director, Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS), the University of Buckingham, shared the opinion that drones that can be bought freely may undermine the security situation.

“Even if they are not military grade, these drones are capable of doing serious damage to national well-being,” the analyst said.

The sale of drones should be very strictly regulated and indeed licensed, he said.

“Rather like laser pens, they can cause a major risk to air travel, for example, to conveying clandestinely explosives and drugs and for unlawful surveillance of military installations, nuclear power plants and other key pieces of the critical national infrastructure. We license guns. We should licence drones,” Anthony Glees noted.

He also added that it is necessary to approve regulatory measures at the international level.

“It is vital to have a UN Convention prohibiting the sale of drones without a licence, as along the lines of the one on Landmines, adopted by 150 nations in 1997. Enforcement is another matter, of course, but anything that can be done to limit the damage that illegally obtained drones can wreak, should be done,” the expert concluded.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/65015-2018

A Saudi draft law could constitute a first indication that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s vow to return the kingdom to a moderate form of Islam will some reshaping of the kingdom’s global funding for Sunni Muslim ultra-conservative educational and cultural facilities as well as militants.

The law, if adopted, would at the very least tighten rules governing the raising of funds in the kingdom that often flowed to militants in campaigns of which it was not always clear whether the government had tacitly approved them. Tighter rules would make it more difficult for the government to put a distance between itself and militant fundraising.

To be sure, analysts have long assumed that fundraising, particularly with the help of members of Saudi Arabia’s government-aligned, ultra-conservative religious establishment, could not occur without the knowledge of a regime that maintains tight political control.

It remains unclear how tighter fundraising rules would affect Saudi Arabia’s ideological war with Iran. The kingdom has for decades invested billions of dollars in globally propagating Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism as an anti-dote to the Islamic republic’s revolutionary zeal.

The bulk of the funds flowed to non-violent groups, but in some cases also to ones that attacked Shiites and/or Iranian targets. That has largely not changed since the rise in 2015 of King Salman and his powerful son, Prince Mohammed.

Saudi Arabia, in the latest suggestion that tightened fundraising may target militancy rather than supremacist, sectarian and intolerant strands of ultra-conservatism, plans to open a Salafi missionary centre in the Yemeni province of Al Mahrah on the border with Oman and the kingdom.

The plan harks back to the creation of an anti-Shiite Salafi mission near the Houthi stronghold of Saada that sparked a military confrontation in 2011 with the Yemeni government, one of several wars in the region. The centre was closed in 2014 as part of an agreement to end the fighting.

Prince Mohammed’s use of ultra-conservative Sunni Islam in his controversial war with the Houthis was also evident in the appointment as governor of Saada of Hadi Tirshan al-Wa’ili, a member of a tribe hostile to the Shiite sect, and a follower of Saudi-backed Islamic scholar Uthman Mujalli. Mr. Mujalli reportedly serves as an advisor to Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the exiled, kingdom-backed Yemeni president.

Writing in Al-Monitor, Brookings fellow and former CIA official Bruce Riedel argued that continued government support of ultra-conservatism served not only Saudi Arabia’s regional ambitions but also as a pacifier for a religious establishment that, despite public endorsement of Prince Mohammed’s social reforms, is deeply uncomfortable with changes like a loosening of restrictions on women and greater entertainment opportunities.

“After three years on the throne, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are pursuing the most aggressively sectarian and anti-Iran policy in modern Saudi history. The Wahhabi clerical establishment is an enthusiastic partner, which is good internal politics for the royals… t’s a way to keep the mainstream Wahhabi establishment and the Al Sheikhs content that their core interests are safe,” Mr. Riedel said, referring to the descendants of 18^th century preacher Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab, who constitute the ruling Al Sauds’ religious counterpart.

If adopted, fundraisers would have to be authorized before launching a campaign. Failure to obtain authorization would result in a jail sentence of up to two years and, in the case of foreigners, deportation. Fundraisers would only be allowed to accept donations from Saudi nationals and institutions.

The stipulation that the fundraisers themselves too would have to be Saudi nationals would effectively block foreign individuals and groups from Pakistan and elsewhere that have been supported for decades by Saudi Arabia from independently seeking financial support in the kingdom.

A litmus test of the impact of the law, once adopted, will be how Saudi Arabia deals with people like Pakistani cleric Maulana Ali Muhammad Abu Turab. Mr. Abu Turab was identified last May as a specially designated terrorist by the US Treasury at the very moment that he was in the kingdom to raise funds for his militant madrassas or religious seminaries that dot the border between the Pakistani province of Balochistan and Afghanistan.

A member of Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology that oversees whether legislation is in line with Islamic law, Mr. Abu Turab is a leader of Ahl-i-Hadith, a Pakistani Wahhabi group supported by the kingdom for decades, and a board member of Pakistan’s Saudi-backed Paigham TV.

He also heads the Saudi-funded Movement for the Protection of the Two Holy Cities (Tehrike Tahafaz Haramain Sharifain) whose secretary general Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil has also been designated by the Treasury.

Similarly, Pakistani militants reported over the last 18 months that funds from Saudi Arabia were pouring into militant madrassas in Balochistan against the backdrop of indications that the kingdom may want to try to destabilize Iran by stirring unrest among the Islamic republic’s ethnic minorities, including the Baloch.

Saudi efforts to more tightly control fundraising may also serve Prince Mohammed’s unconventional effort to fill depleted government coffers at a time of economic recession. Prince Mohammed launched in November what amounted to a power and asset grab packaged as an anti-corruption campaign after the kingdom’s elite had failed to respond to a request to make patriotic contributions to help shore up government finances.

Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said last week that authorities had received a total of roughly $100 billion in out-of-court settlements from around 350 people accused in the purge.

As a result, tougher fundraising rules could potentially mean that donations would increasingly favour domestic rather than foreign causes.

It is, however, with no indication that Saudi Arabia is willing to reduce tension with Iran, unlikely that the kingdom would halt funding of its ideological war with the Islamic republic. Nor is there an apparent Islamically-packaged alternative to the propagation of ultra-conservatism as its primary soft power tool.

In short, tighter fundraising rules are certain to enhance control of the causes for which money is solicited and who will be allowed to raise funds. It may well also result in support for advocacy of interfaith dialogue and greater tolerance as recently propagated by the World Muslim League, a government-controlled non-governmental vehicle that for decades funded the global spread of ultra-conservatism. The rules, however, are unlikely to mean an end to funding of ultra-conservatism and sectarianism that serves Saudi Arabia’s existential battle with Iran.

Turkey, quickly shifting positions based on immediate geopolitical and economic interests, now enjoys close ties with Russia and Iran.

By Dilip Hiro*

Turkey, a functioning democracy and NATO’s only Muslim-majority member, was often presented as a model for the autocratic Arab Middle East by the United States. When the Arab Spring buffeted the Middle East, Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan saw an opportunity to actively promote this idea among the protestors in Arab autocracies. But the Arab Spring soon turned into winter, and Erdoğan’s relationship with NATO underwent a remarkable change. While retaining its NATO membership, Turkey has become part of the Russia-led triad engaged in peacemaking in the Syrian civil war outside the purview of the United Nations. To the alarm of its NATO partners, Turkey decided to purchase Russian S-400 missiles. In addition, it is central to the TurkStream pipeline project that will carry Russian gas through Turkey to southern European destinations.

The key to understanding this phenomenon is to examine the Turkish Republic’s geopolitics and economics, singly or jointly.

Domestically, the aborted military coup in Turkey in July 2016 was a defining moment in the republic’s foreign policy. As the first foreign leader to congratulate Erdoğan for crushing the coup, Russian President Vladimir Putin won the Turkish leader’s heartfelt gratitude. Iran’s Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif had tweeted a message even earlier, during the initial moves by the rebellious general: “Stability and democracy in Turkey are paramount.” In a follow-up telephone conversation with Erdoğan, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani told him that the coup attempt was “a test to identify your domestic and foreign friends and enemies.”

With a population of nearly 80 million with steadily rising living conditions, Turkey has urgent need of a dependable supply of natural gas. Aside from lignite coal, Turkey has no hydrocarbon deposits. Its main sources of gas are Russia and Iran, contributing respectively 60 and 30 percent of the total, with the rest coming from Azerbaijan.

Russia’s state-owned Gazprom had become a supplier to several European nations pumped through a pipeline laid across Ukraine. To reduce its almost total dependence on Ukraine for its gas exports, Moscow came up with a plan – South Stream – to transport gas to other parts of Europe. This project advanced until the Kremlin’s capture of the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine in February 2014, when the European Union imposed economic sanctions on Russia. This turn of event opened the door to Russo-Turkish economic cooperation. In December, Putin cancelled the South Stream project, replacing it with the $13.74 billion TurkStream gas pipeline that by 2020 will carry Russian gas to southern Europe via Bulgaria. This involved laying a pipeline under the Black Sea to emerge in Western Turkey 900 kilometers southwest to carry 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe annually. A twin pipeline was planned to deliver gas sold to Turkey.

A spat between Moscow and Ankara – when Turkey shot down a Russian jet fighter in its airspace near the Syrian border in November 2015 – did not disrupt the massive project. Russia limited its response to curtailing trade with Turkey. The following June, Turkey apologized for downing a Russian warplane which had inadvertently strayed into its airspace. Soon after receiving a congratulatory call from Putin after the abortive July coup, Erdoğan flew to St. Petersburg and publicly thanked his Russian counterpart. In response, Putin relaxed trade restrictions.

Erdoğan who had earlier joined efforts to depose Assad also moderated his opposition to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Instead, he focused on blocking the creation of a Kurdish enclave, planned by the Washington-backed Kurdish militia operating as the Syrian Democratic Forces along the Turkish border. That gave Putin an opening to co-opt Turkey with the aim of ending the Syrian civil war.

After hosting a meeting with Erdoğan and Rouhani in Sochi on 22 November, Putin said, “The militants in Syria have sustained a decisive blow and now there is a realistic chance to end the multi-year civil war.” He had conferred with Assad two days earlier. Notably on 12 November, Turkey announced signing a contract for the purchase of Russian S-400 missiles, ignoring the disapproval of other NATO members, particularly the United States.

In mid-December Putin and Erdoğan suggested the Kazakh capital of Astana as a venue for conducting peace talks for Syria. On 20 December, Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif joined them at Astana. Reversing past policies, Iran and Turkey found themselves on the same side in the Syrian crisis.

Turkey had been among the first countries to recognize Islamic Republic of Iran. Still its “Neither East nor West” foreign policy in the 1980s led to cool relations between the two neighbors. In the wake of the Soviet Union’s disintegration in 1991, five Muslim-majority Soviet republics – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – tried to find a new identity. Washington urged them to emulate the Turkish model of secular democracy with a multi-party system and shun Iran’s Islamist model. This advice held until June 1996 when Necmettin Erbakan, leader of the Islamic Welfare Party, became Turkish prime minister. Two months later he defied Washington’s 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act by signing a $23 billion gas deal during his visit to Tehran. Turkey was to start importing Iranian gas by 1999 and continue doing so for the next 20 years in increased volumes. Though the Turkish military forced Erbakan to resign in 1997, this deal remained intact.

With the electoral victory of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party – Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP, a moderate successor of the Welfare Party – in November 2002, diplomatic relations between the two neighbors improved. In 2009, Ankara invested up to $4 billion in phases 6 and 7 of Iran’s South Pars gas field with reserves of 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or 8 percent of the global total.

There have been periodic disagreements. When Turkey hosted the establishment of a NATO missile shield in September 2011, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that the shield was an American plot to protect Israel from counterattack should Israel target Iran’s nuclear facilities. Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz retorted that the system’s aim was to secure Europe as well as Turkey. In the Syrian civil war that began in 2012, Turkey and Iran backed opposite camps. When Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in Yemen’s civil war in March 2015,  Erdoğan said in an interview with France 24 TV: “We support Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen,” adding that “Iran and the terrorist groups must withdraw” from the nation.

Yet he undertook a pre-planned visit on 1 April to Tehran where he signed eight economic cooperation agreements with Iran. He lamented the fact that the target of $30 billion two-way trade had become stuck at $14 billion and hoped for a pickup with the lifting of sanctions on Iran. But mutual trade in 2016 fell to $9.67 billion. He met Rouhani and, during a joint press conference, he addressed his host as “my brother,” emphasizing that Turkey and Iran should join hands to bring a peaceful outcome to the Yemeni crisis. Accompanied by Rouhani, Erdoğan met with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and proposed joint mediation efforts by Iran and Turkey in the region. Since then the Turkey-Iran entente has strengthened. In June 2017, in the crisis created by Riyadh to isolate Qatar diplomatically and economically, Iran and Turkey allied actively to help Qatar.

In all three cases, economic interests were paramount. Iran shares the gigantic Pars gas field with Qatar, and Turkey’s large construction companies help build stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup tournaments.

*Dilip Hiro is the author of A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East (Interlink Publishing Group, Northampton, MA). Read an excerpt. His latest and 36th book is The Age of Aspiration: Power, Wealth, and Conflict in Globalizing India (The New Press, New York). Read an excerpt.

By Shahriar Sheikhlar*

Iraq is the third-largest oil producer in OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) after Saudi Arabia and Iran, also holds the World’s fifth-largest proved oil reserves in the world. Iraq’s oil production rate has been fluctuated frequently, mainly affected by the imposed wars against Iran (from 1980) and Kuwait in 1990-91 (named Persian Gulf War), Iraq war in 2003 and recently, war against ISIS (Islamic States in Iraq and Syria) since 2014.

According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy (June 2017), Iraq held 153 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves at the end of 2016, 9% of global reserves. Iraq’s oil production was doubled comparing to 2003 when it reached to 4,800,000 b/d in 2016 December, however some production issues beside stopping Kirkuk production after internal challenges reduced it to about 4,400,000 in 2017 December. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s average share in Iraq’s total oil production was about 10% during second half of 2017 whereas the rest (90%) was produced in the fields overseen by Iraqi federal government.

While Iraq’s economy is strongly depended on oil export revenues (by more than 90%), about 20% of Iraqi’s oil production are used for supplying internal energy demands. In the absence of Nuclear or Renewable energy sources, more than 95% of Iraq’s primary energy sources are supplied from crude oil or it’s products; more expensive solution which deprive public treasury from their export revenues.

The county’s oil refining capacity, including Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRI), was more than 900,000 b/d in 2014 before ISIS attacked the Baiji; the biggest oil refinery in all the Iraq. Current refining capacity of Iraq is estimated to less than 700,000 b/d against demands which are above 1,000,000 b/d, the rest is supplied from Import. Also, the level of fuel oil produced in current refineries are Impressively high which could causes wasting crude oil in refining processes. Moreover, some power plants burn crude oil nearly 100,000 b/d or more while they could be fed by cheaper energy sources such as natural gas or oil products, couldn’t be achieved so far because of lack of refining technologies and gas processing capacities.

Iraq was the fourth-largest natural gas-flaring country in the world in 2014, it flared about 545 Bcf out of 771 Bcf natural gas production [1], the estimated value of of gas flared in Iraq is about $2.5 billion annually, huge economic losseswhichcould be sufficient for funding gas-based power generations.

Prior to 1990-91 Kuwait war, Iraq exported natural gas to Kuwait whereas the most of infrastructures and pipelines was damaged due to wars or inadequate maintenances. Meanwhile current Iraq’s gas production couldn’t back the plans for switching power generators’ feed to natural gas in short term. This could have postponed some some projects or supply some other projects from importing solutions.

As Iraq’s oil and gas sector has not been well-proportioned grown, achieving the ambitious targets of producing crude oil in the peak of world production rate will be risky wile infrastructures in upstream and midstream have not been expanded altogether. Further, undeveloped downstream sector raises government costs for processing and supplying the internal market.

Developing Iraq’s oil and gas sector requirers certain time, effective management, Comprehensive plans and significant investment to achieve:

Developing or re-developing oil fields to increase the production’s capacity

Installing gas processing plants to enhance gas production

Increasing recovery rates to boost the oil production by injecting water or associated natural gases to the current wells

Expanding pumping and storage infrastructures in the south of country to boost the export capacity

Renovation of northern oil pipeline to enable exporting through Turkey’s facilities

Reconstructing damaged refineries, especially the Baiji plant

Modernization of power stations to switch to natural gas and decrease their demand for oil and oil products

Indeed revising type of contracts with IOCs from TSC (Technical Service Contract) to PSA (Production-Sharing Agreement) could decrease initial investments for developing new fields or redeveloping current fields as well as installation of gas processing plants, however it’s a critical decision that doesn’t seem to be made soon.

Would Iraqi government attempt the goals by defineng the clear strategies and conducting fast improvements or stay in the same status to observe more fall in its oil production rate, as did in 2017? Next months will identify the future of this sector, at least for mid-term.

About the author:
*Shahriar Sheikhlar, Independent Energy Economy Analyst

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

Notes:
[1] OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin, 2015

By Richard Gowan*

Executive Summary

In February 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made calls for United Nations (U.N.) peacekeepers in Eastern Ukraine as a means to facilitate a resolution to the conflict. Almost two years later, the war lingers on with almost daily casualties and no end in sight.

In September 2017, President Vladimir Putin of Russia floated the idea of a light United Nations force which would have a limited mandate to protect existing international monitors in eastern Ukraine. In its original form, the proposal was seen as a non-starter by Kyiv and its western partners, who saw it as an attempt to cement and legitimize Moscow’s de-facto control over a significant part of the Donets Basin (Donbas) region.

In response, American and European officials proposed far more ambitious ideas for a peacekeeping force that would have a broad mandate to protect civilians and return the breakaway region to Kyiv’s control as per the Minsk agreements.

American-Russian talks on the issue have made little progress to date. U.N. officials are skeptical about the project, while few countries seem keen to offer peacekeepers. This paper assesses the potential for an international peace operation in eastern Ukraine, drawing on precedents from missions in the Balkans, Lebanon and elsewhere. While the present stage of diplomatic talks justifies skepticism about the current prospects for such a mission, the paper sketches out what a potential deployment would entail in practice.

A North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or European Union (EU) mission is currently politically inconceivable, given Russian sensitivities. More credible alternative options include: an operation under U.N. command involving military, police and civilian components; a mission involving an independent military Multinational Force (MNF); and U.N.-led police and civilian elements. Whatever its precise structure, such a mission would need to fulfill three basic tasks:

• Ensuring a stable and secure environment throughout the Donbas, including reassuring Kyiv that Russia will desist from direct military interference;
• Enabling elections for representatives to the Ukrainian Rada in eastern Ukraine to unlock progress on the Minsk Agreements, which link these polls to the reassertion of Kyiv’s sovereignty in the region;
• Supervising public order and the civilian dimensions of reintegration in the wake of elections, maximizing the local population’s trust in the process.

Military Factors

The primary challenge to any international force would be the immediate security situation in eastern Ukraine. Moscow would need to withdraw its own regular forces from the region and pressure the leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) to accept the peacekeepers and wind up their own military operations.

Even if this is possible, peacekeepers could face violent and non-violent resistance, and Russia could stir up a fresh insurgency or send its own forces if it wished to disrupt the process of regional reintegration.

International forces, whether under full U.N. command or an MNF under a U.N. political umbrella, could not realistically fight to control eastern Ukraine against sustained Russian-backed military challenges.

However, a force could contribute to stability in more permissive (though still dangerous) conditions by:

• Reassuring Kyiv through a constant presence at the Russian border, keeping watch for any potential incursions by regular Russian forces and acting as a tripwire to deter such actions;
• Cantoning separatist weaponry and personnel, concentrating DNR and LNR personnel, arms and armor in secure bases, as a first step towards demobilization or retraining in non-military roles;
• Using limited force to protect civilians and the peace process, taking action to deter and if necessary confront spoiler groups from all sides ready to cause disruptive violence.

This paper argues that either a well-equipped U.N. force or an MNF could undertake such roles, but the force’s credibility would depend on raising 20,000 or more high-quality forces. Large-scale deployments by NATO countries are unlikely. Credible alternatives include units from non-NATO European countries; former Soviet states acceptable to both Moscow and Kyiv like Kazakhstan; and experienced peacekeepers such as Latin American states. Nonetheless, a coherent and viable force may only be possible with some NATO nations’ involvement, and Western negotiators would need to persuade Russia of this.

Police Factors

Experiences in cases such as Kosovo show that international military forces cannot maintain public order alone, and require police support. A peacekeeping mission in eastern Ukraine would need police to:

• Monitor DNR and LNR security officials in the first phase of deployment;
• Deploy Formed Police Units (FPU’s, or riot squads) to respond directly to public disorder;
• Vet and retrain DNR and LNR personnel for law enforcement under eventual Ukrainian control.

The U.N. has significant policing experience, and both the EU and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have worked on police training and reform since the 1990s. The three organizations could cooperate in this field in Ukraine under overall U.N. authority. But police officers and gendarmerie from NATO members such as Italy, Portugal and Romania would probably be necessary to enable this, again requiring sensitive conversations with Russia.

Political, Civilian, and Economic Factors

The civilian role of a mission could be as sensitive as its security role. A full-scale international administration of DNR and LNR on the Kosovo model is unlikely to win Kyiv’s support. Nonetheless, Ukraine would need to accept a high level of international oversight of elections to the Ukrainian parliament stipulated by the Minsk Protocols and longer-term socioeconomic reintegration efforts.

A dynamic international political leader – probably a Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General – would be necessary to broker compromises between Kyiv and the DNR and LNR leaderships.

To enable the Minsk-mandated elections, the peacekeepers would need to:

• Create a secure environment for candidates of all valid parties to campaign before elections;
• Deter intimidation and electoral abuses on polling day itself;
• Ensure that the final results are credible and fair.

While a fully internationally-run electoral process might be unacceptable to Kyiv, the U.N. and OSCE could take operational responsibility for the polls under the aegis of an electoral commission involving representatives of all parties. The EU could deploy an independent observer mission to review the polls.

To address socioeconomic issues, a mission would need to deploy:

• Humanitarian agencies to deal with the inevitable flows of people out of and into DNR and LNR in the first phase of the deployment, when many civilians would feel highly insecure;
• Lawyers, economic experts and civilian outreach experts to work with communities in DNR and LNR on medium-term recovery after the conflict and reintegrating into Ukrainian state structures;
• Public administration experts and mediators to sit in joint committees involving Ukrainian and DNR/LNR representatives on returning specific sectors (health, schools, etc.) to Kyiv’s control.

Mission Impossible?

The chances of a peacekeeping force successfully deploying to eastern Ukraine are currently low. But if broader political circumstances created an opening with Moscow for this option, there is sufficient evidence to suggest an international force could manage the basic security, policing and political dimensions of reintegrating the Donbas under Kyiv’s control. It would be a risky and stop-start process, but it may be the best way to end what is Europe’s deadliest ongoing conflict, and remove one of the main obstacles to normal relations between the West and Moscow.

About the author:
*Richard Gowan, Non-Resident Fellow, Center on International Cooperation (CIC)

Source:
This article was published by the Hudson Institute

By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty*

On January 16, 2018, three fidayeen (suicide attackers) carried out an attack targeting the convoy of Rao Anwar, the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Malir Town, in the Malir Cantonment area of Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh.

One of the attackers blew himself up near the convoy while two other attackers were killed in retaliatory fire by Policemen. SSP Anwar remained unhurt in the attack, but at least four Policemen travelling in the convoy sustained bullet wounds. SSP Anwar had survived an attack earlier on May 1, 2015, during which assailants had hurled grenades and opened fire on his convoy while he was returning home from the residence of slain Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Fateh Muhammad Sangi.

On January 13, 2018, four Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists were killed by the Police in an encounter near Shah Latif Town in Karachi.

On January 2, 2018, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs), including Sindh Rangers’ Anti-Terrorist Wing and the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), killed three TTP terrorists in the Kaimkhani Colony area of Baldia Town in Karachi.

An unspecified number of terrorists managed to escape the encounter while two Rangers and one CTD trooper received bullet injuries. Two suicide jackets, two improvised explosive devices (IED), a 9mm pistol, and two Sub-Machine Guns (SMGs) were recovered from the terrorist hideout.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), Sindh has recorded 12 fatalities – 10 terrorists, one civilian, and one Security Force (SF) trooper – in the current year so far (data till January 28, 2018). During the corresponding period of 2017, Sindh had registered 10 fatalities (eight civilians and two SF personnel).

Through 2017, Sindh recorded 243 fatalities, including 114 civilians, 23 SF personnel, and 106 terrorists, in comparison to 217 such fatalities in 2016, including 76 civilians, 24 SF personnel, and 171 terrorists. Thus, the declining trend of overall-terrorism related fatalities established since 2014 continued through 2017.

 Terrorism related fatalities in Sindh: 2010-2018

Worryingly, however, fatalities among civilians, one of the most prominent indicators of security in a region, increased by 50 per cent in 2017, over the 2016 toll. Significantly, fatalities in this category had been declining since 2014.

On February 16, 2017, a suicide bomber blew himself up at Sufi shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan Sharif town of Jamshoro District in Sindh, killing at least 88 people and injuring another 343. The blast took place inside the premises of the shrine as a dhamaal (Sufi ritual of devotional dance) was taking place, with a large number of women and children said to be among the casualties. The Islamic State (IS, also Daesh) claimed responsibility for the attack through Amaq, the group-affiliated news agency.

Though fatalities among SFs remained almost the same (a nominal decline from 24 in 2016 to 23 in 2017), fatalities among terrorists saw a steep decline: from 171 in 2016 to 106 in 2017, a reduction of 38 per cent. SFs thus obtained a kill ratio of 1:4.6 in 2017, much below the 2016 ratio of 1:7.12.

Other parameters of violence showed some respite from terror. The number of sectarian attacks declined from 19 in 2016 to just three in 2017, though the resultant fatalities increased from 25 in 2016 to 93 in 2017 (primarily due to February 16, 2017, incident in which 88 people were killed).

There was also a considerable decrease in the number of explosion-related incidents in 2017. In comparison to 19 blasts resulting in three fatalities and 64 injured in 2016, year 2017 recorded eight blasts resulting in five fatalities and 50 injured.

Sindh accounted for 20 major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities) of violence, resulting in a total of 199 deaths in 2017, as against 34 such incidents, accounting for 134 fatalities in 2016.

As in earlier years, Karachi remains the most volatile among all districts of Sindh, though the number of terrorism related incidents decreased. While 310 such incidents were reported in Karachi in 2016, resulting in 254 fatalities and more than 102 injured, the number decreased to 76 in 2017 with 129 fatalities and more than 35 injured.

Targeted killing of Policemen continued in Karachi through 2017. 19 Policemen were killed in such attacks in 2017, in addition to 29 killed in 2016. According to official statistics published on February 9, 2017, almost 1,538 Policemen had been killed in the Karachi Range between 1995 and 2016. The maximum number of killings, 261, was registered in 1995. Thereafter, the killings crossed three digits in 2012, 2013 and 2014, across a span of 22 years, making these the three worst years for the Karachi Police in recent times, with 123 dead in 2012; 165 in 2013 and 136 in 2014.

Although terrorist groups such as TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) have long targeted SF personnel all over Pakistan, the emergence of Ansarul Sharia Pakistan (ASP) in Karachi, specifically targeting security personnel, has created a new headache for the enforcement agencies. Since the name of this outfit first emerged on April 5, 2017, when it claimed responsibility for the targeted killing of Army Colonel (Retd.) Tahir Zia Nagi at the Baloch Colony, Karachi, ASP has claimed involvement in four attacks on SFs. According to the SATP database, ASP has been found involved in at least five terror attacks, resulting in nine deaths (seven SF personnel and two civilians) and three injured (two civilians and one SF trooper) since its formation in 2015. SFs have neutralized 18 ASP terrorists since 2015..

Moreover, Daesh continued to make its presence felt in 2017, claiming the February 16, 2017, suicide attack on the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine, the year’s deadliest terrorist operation. Notably, it was the worst attack of the year recorded in the Province.

Daesh continues to thrive in Sindh and has been successful in spreading its network in educational institutions across the Province. There have been several reports of students getting affiliated with Daesh. Recently, Noreen Leghari (19), a second-year Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) student of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) in Jamshoro District of Sindh, was implicated for her ties with the Daesh. Leghari was arrested on April 14, 2017, during a raid on an IS hideout in the Punjab Housing Society in the Factory Area of Lahore, in which one terrorist, Ali Tariq (32), was killed while four soldiers, including two officers, were wounded in the exchange of gunfire. The Daesh terrorists were planning an attack on the Christian religious festival of Easter on April 16. Leghari claimed on May 8, 2017, that she was being held captive by Ali Tariq to be used as suicide bomber.

Noreen Leghari is the daughter of Dr. Abdul Jabbar Leghari, Professor at the Dr. M.A. Kazi Institute of Chemistry in Jamshoro. Noreen Leghari had reportedly run away from Hyderabad (Sindh) to Lahore on February 10, 2017, hoping to join Daesh in Syria. She came to Lahore to meet Ali Tariq, a resident of Baidian Road, Lahore, whom she had contacted through social media. On reaching Lahore they got married and started living in rented a house in the Punjab Society.

There have been instances of student’s involvement in IS activities in the past also. Saad Aziz, affiliated to IS, who was involved in the Safoora Goth bus massacre in Karachi, was a student of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi. Aziz was arrested on May 20, 2015, from the SITE area of Karachi and was tried by a military court; he is now on death row for his involvement in the bus massacre on May 13, 2015, in which 47 Ismaili Shias were killed and another 13 were injured. He was also convicted on the charge of murder of the prominent Pakistani women’s rights activist Sabeen Mahmud on April 24, 2015. Two others who were arrested along with Aziz on May 20, 2015, were Mohammad Azfar Ishrat aka Maajid and Haafiz Nasir aka Yasir. Ishrat is an engineer who had passed out from the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology and had acquired expertise in bomb-making. He had been involved in terrorist activities since 2011. Haafiz Nasir, who completed Master of Arts (MA) in Islamic Studies from University of Karachi, had been involved in terrorist activities since 2013.

On July 25, 2017, CTD Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Raja Omar Khattab said, “We have found clear evidence that these terror groups are now targeting university campuses where they are trying to recruit students from well-off families to join their extremist mission”.

Alarmed over the growing involvement of university students’ in terrorist activities in Karachi, the Sindh Police’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) summoned the Vice-Chancellors of 11 universities in Karachi on July 9, 2017, in a bid to counter extremism and terrorism. Later, on July 12, 2017, CTD organised a seminar titled ‘Growing radicalisation in educational institutions’ at the Central Police Office in Karachi, which was attended by Vice Chancellors and other officials of around 40 varsities, both private and public. Speaking at the seminar, CTD chief Additional Inspector General (IG) Dr. Sanaullah Abbasi noted,

Radicalisation [is] growing at academic institutes with the CTD assessing that the next generation of terrorists [is] more likely to have university education rather than a madrassa background. The recent cases of Noreen Leghari and Saad Aziz gave credence to this theory.

A security report by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) released on January 7, 2018, stated that Daesh’s footprint was continuously on the rise in Pakistan, and the group was especially active in northern Sindh and Balochistan.

Keeping this rising terror threat in view, the Sindh Government is trying to revamp the Karachi Police to deal more effectively with the security situation. On June 5, 2017, the Sindh Government announced a 10 per cent increase in the budget for security with a plan to recruit an additional 10,000 Policemen in financial year 2017-18 to “improve police-to-citizens ratio, especially in Karachi”. Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said the budgetary allocation for security in the financial year 2017-18 was proposed at PKR 92.91 billion, as against PKR 84.26 billion during financial year 2016-2017.

While, the Government is trying to give the Police department a boost, the involvement of Police officials in illegal and criminal activities continues to undermine efforts. A report submitted by the Inspector-General of Sindh, Allah Dino Khawaja, to the Supreme Court of Pakistan on December 12, 2017, contained details of 12,000 Police officers involved in illegal and criminal activities. The report stated that as many as 184 officials of Sindh Police of Grade 16 and lower had been punished. The report also recommended taking action against 66 senior officers of Sindh Police. It also recommended action against 31 officers from Grade 17 and 35 officers in Grade 18-21. On January 20, 2018, the Sindh Police suspended Malir Town SSP, Rao Anwar for his alleged involvement in the ‘extrajudicial’ killing of Naseemullah aka Naqeebullah Mehsud. Mehsud was among four suspected terrorists killed in an ‘exchange of fire’ with a Police team headed by SSP Anwar on January 13 in Shah Latif Town. Additional Inspector General CTD, Dr. Sanaullah Abbasi, announced on January 23 that Naqeebullah was innocent, and was killed in a fake encounter.

Moreover, reports indicate that under-trial terrorists kept in prisons continue with their activities from within the prisons with the help of the authorities. After the June 13, 2017, prison-break incident in which two high-profile terrorists of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LeJ) – Shaikh Muhammad Mumtaz aka Firaun aka Sher Khan aka Shahzad aka Bhai and Muhammad Ahmed Khan aka Munna – managed to escape, the CTD submitted an inquiry report which pointed out that banned outfits were virtually running the affairs of the Central Prison Karachi, imposing their will on prison staff who follow their instructions due to fear or incompetence. As a part of security measures, Sindh Government on September 19, 2017, shifted some 90 “high-profile” inmates from the Central Prison Karachi to prisons in other Districts of the Province and Rawalpindi (Punjab).

While terrorism related incidents in the Province have declined over the past years, the menace of terrorism will persist as long as a corrupt Policing system and the Government’s double standards in dealing with terrorism continue.

*Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate; Institute for Conflict Management

The Trump administration has drawn Turkey deeper into the Syrian conflict by announcing a policy that threatens Turkey’s national security. Washington’s gaffe has pitted one NATO ally against the other while undermining hopes for a speedy end to the seven year-long war.

Here’s what’s going on: On January 18, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced the creation of a 30,000-man Border Security Force (BSF) to occupy East Syria. Two days later, January 20, the Turkish Army launched a ground and air offensive against Kurdish troops in the Afrin canton in Northwest Syria.

The media has tried to downplay the connection between the two events, but the cause-and-effect relationship is pretty clear.  Tillerson’s  provocation triggered the Turkish invasion and another bloody phase to the needlessly-protracted conflict.  Washington’s screwup has made a bad situation even worse.

A five-year-old child could have figured out that Turkey wasn’t going to sit-back and let the US establish a Kurdish state on its border without putting up a fight. Keep in mind, the US plans to defend this new protectorate with  a 30,000-man proxy-army comprised of mostly Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units or YPG.  The Turks, however, believe the YPG is connected to the terror-listed PKK which  has prosecuted a scorched earth campaign against the Turkish state for decades. That’s why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not allow these groups to dig in along Turkey’s southern border, they constitute a serious threat to Turkey’s security. Just imagine if Hezbollah decided to set up military encampments along the Mexican border. How long do you think it would take before Trump blew those camps to kingdom come? Not long, I’d wager.

So why did Tillerson think Erdogan would respond differently?

There’s only one explanation: Tillerson must be so blinded by hubris that he couldn’t figure out what Erdogan’s reaction would be.  He must have thought that,  “Whatever Uncle Sam says, goes.” Only it doesn’t work like that anymore. The US has lost its ability to shape events in the Middle East, particularly in Syria where its jihadist proxies have been rolled back on nearly every front. The US simply doesn’t have sufficient forces on the ground to determine the outcome, nor is it respected as an honest broker, a dependable ally or a reliable steward of regional security.  The US is just one of many armed-factions struggling to gain the upper hand in an increasingly fractious and combustible battlespace.  Simply put,  Washington is losing the war quite dramatically due in large part to the emergence of a new coalition  (Russia-Syria-Iran-Hezbollah) that has made great strides in Syria and that is committed to preserve the Old World Order, a system that is built on the principles of national sovereignty, self determination and non intervention. Washington opposes this system and is doing everything in its power dismantle it by redrawing borders, toppling elected leaders, and installing its own stooges to execute its diktats. Tillerson’s blunder will only make Washington’s task all the more difficult by drawing Turkey into the fray in an effort to quash Uncle Sam’s Kurdish proxies.

In an effort to add insult to injury,  Tillerson didn’t even have the decency to discuss the matter with Erdogan– his NATO ally– before making the announcement! Can you imagine how furious Erdogan must have been?   Shouldn’t the president of Turkey expect better treatment from his so-called friends in Washington who use Turkish air fields to  supply their ground troops and to carry out their bombing raids in Syria? But instead of gratitude, he gets a big kick in the teeth with the announcement that the US is hopping into bed with his mortal enemies, the Kurds. Check out this excerpt from Wednesday’s Turkish daily, The Hurriyet ,which  provides a bit of background on the story:

“It is beyond any doubt that the U.S. military and administration knew that the People’s Protection Units (YPG)…had organic ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Washington officially recognizes as a terrorist group….The YPG is the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the political wing of the PKK in Syria. They share the same leadership…the same budget, the same arsenal, the same chain of command from the Kandil Mountains in Iraq, and the same pool of militants. So the PYD/YPG is actually not a “PKK-affiliated” group, it is a sub-geographical unit of the same organization….

Knowing that the YPG and the PKK are effectively equal, and legally not wanting to appear to be giving arms to a terrorist organization, the U.S. military already asked the YPG to “change the brand” back in 2015. U.S.

Special Forces Commander General Raymond Thomas said during an Aspen Security Forum presentation on July 22, 2017 that he had personally proposed the name change to the YPG.

“With about a day’s notice [the YPG] declared that it was now the Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF],” Thomas said to laughter from the audience. “I thought it was a stroke of brilliance to put ‘democracy’ in there somewhere. It gave them a little bit of credibility.” (Hurriyet)

Ha, ha, ha. Isn’t that funny? One day you’re a terrorist, and the next day you’re not depending on whether Washington can use you or not. Is it any wonder why Erdogan is so pissed off?

So now a messy situation gets even messier. Now the US has to choose between its own proxy army (The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces) and a NATO ally that occupies the critical crossroads between Asia and Europe. Washington’s plan to pivot to Asia by controlling vital resources and capital flowing between the continents depends largely on its ability to keep regional leaders within its orbit. That means Washington needs Erdogan in their camp which, for the time being, he is not.

Apparently, there have been phone calls between Presidents Trump and Erdogan, but early accounts saying that Trump scolded Erdogan have already been disproven. In fact, Trump and his fellows have been bending-over-backwards to make amends for Tillerson’s foolish slip-up. According to the Hurriyet:

“The readout issued by the White House does not accurately reflect the content of President [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan’s phone call with President [Donald] Trump,”…“President Trump did not share any ‘concerns [about] escalating violence’ with regard to the ongoing military operation in Afrin.”…The Turkish sources also stressed that Trump did not use the words “destructive and false rhetoric coming from Turkey.”…

Erdoğan reiterated that the People’s Protection Units (YPG) must withdraw to the East of the Euphrates River and pledged the protection of Manbij by the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA)…

“In response to President Erdoğan’s call on the United States to end the delivery of weapons to the [Democratic Union Party] PYD-YPG, President Trump said that his country no longer supplied the group with weapons and pledged not to resume the weapons delivery in the future,” the sources added.” (Hurriyet)

If this report can be trusted, (Turkish media is no more reliable than US media) then it is Erdogan who is issuing the demands not Trump.  Erdogan insists that all YPG units be redeployed east of the Euphrates and that all US weapons shipments to Washington’s Kurdish proxies stop immediately. We should know soon enough whether Washington is following Erdogan’s orders or not.

So far, the only clear winner in this latest conflagration has been Vladimir Putin, the levelheaded pragmatist who hews to Napoleon’s directive to “Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.”

Putin gave Erdogan the green light to conduct “Operation Olive Branch” in order to pave the way for an eventual Syrian takeover of the Northwestern portion of the country up to the Turkish border.  Moscow removed its troops from the Afrin quarter (where the current fighting is taking place) but not before it presented the Kurds with the option of conceding control of the area to the central government in Damascus. The Kurds rejected that offer and elected to fight instead. Here’s an account of what happened:

Nearly a week ago, [a] meeting between Russian officials and Kurdish leaders took place. Moscow suggested Syrian State becomes only entity in charge of the northern border. The Kurds refused. It was immediately after that that the Turkish Generals were invited to Moscow. Having the Syrian State in control of its Northern Border wasn’t the only Russian demand. The other was that the Kurds hand back the oil fields in Deir al Zor. The Kurds refused suggesting that the US won’t allow that anyway.

Putin has repeatedly expressed concern about US supplies of advanced weapons that had been given to the Kurdish SDF. According to the military website South Front:

“Uncontrolled deliveries of modern weapons, including reportedly the deliveries of the man-portable air defense systems, by the Pentagon to the pro-US forces in northern Syria, have contributed to the rapid escalation of tensions in the region and resulted in the launch of a special operation by the Turkish troops.” (SouthFront)

Erdogan’s demand that Trump stop the flow of weapons to the SDF will benefit Russia and its allies on the ground even more than they will benefit Turkey. It’s another win-win situation for Putin.

The split between the NATO allies seems to work in Putin’s favor as well, although, to his credit, he has not tried to exploit the situation. Putin ascribes to the notion that relations between nations are not that different than relations between people, they must be built on a solid foundation of trust which gradually grows as each party proves they are steady, reliable partners who can be counted on to honor their commitments and keep their word. Putin’s honesty, even-handedness and reliability have greatly enhanced Russia’s power in the region and his influence in settling global disputes.  That is particularly evident in Syria where Moscow is at the center of all decision-making.

As we noted earlier, Washington has made every effort to patch up relations with Turkey and put the current foofaraw behind them. The White House has issued a number of servile statements acknowledging Turkey’s “legitimate security concerns” and their “commitment to work with Turkey as a NATO ally.” And there’s no doubt that the administration’s charm offensive will probably succeed in bringing the narcissistic and mercurial Erdogan back into the fold. But for how long?

At present, Erdogan is still entertains illusions of cobbling together a second Ottoman empire overseen by the Grand Sultan Tayyip himself, but when he finally comes to his senses and realizes the threat that Washington poses to Turkish independence and sovereignty,  he may reconsider and throw his lot with Putin.

In any event, Washington has clearly tipped its hand revealing its amended strategy for Syria, a plan that abandons the pretext of a “war on terror” and focuses almost-exclusively on military remedies to the “great power” confrontation outlined in Trump’s new National Defense Strategy. Washington is fully committed to building an opposition proxy-army in its east Syria enclave that can fend off loyalist troops, launch destabilizing attacks on the regime, and eventually, effect the political changes that help to achieve its imperial ambitions.

Tillerson’s announcement may have prompted some unexpected apologies and back-tracking, but the policy remains the same. Washington will persist in its effort to divide the country and remove Assad until an opposing force prevents it from doing so.  And, that day could be sooner than many people imagine.

Pollution has become an everyday affair; a murderous way of life which, according to a report published in The Lancet, is responsible for the deaths of at least nine million people every year. The air we breathe is poisoned, the streams, rivers, lakes and oceans are filthy, — some more, some less — the land littered with waste, the soil toxic. Neglect, complacency and exploitation characterize the attitude of governments, corporations and far too many individuals towards the life of the planet, and its rich interwoven ecological systems.

The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, which is yet another cry for urgent collective action, found that pollution is responsible for a range of diseases that “kill one in every six people around the world”. This figure, while shocking, is probably a good deal higher because “the impact of many pollutants is poorly understood.” The landmark study establishes that we have reached the point when “deaths attributed to pollution are triple those from Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined.”

Our selfish materialistic way of life is having a devastating impact on all forms of life; unless there is a major shift in attitudes the numbers of people dying of pollution will increase; contamination of the oceans will increase, deforestation and desertification will continue, and the steady destruction of all that is beautiful and naturally given will intensify. Until one day it will be too late.

Plastic oceans, poisoned air

Even climate change deniers cannot blame the natural environment for the plastic islands that litter the oceans, or the poisoned water and contaminated air. Pollution results from human activity, it “endangers the stability of the Earth’s support systems and threatens the continuing survival of human societies.” A sense of intense, life-threatening urgency needs to be engendered, particularly amongst the governments and populations of those countries that are, and have historically been, the major polluters — the industrialized nations of the World.

Although China has now overtaken the USA in producing the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions, as the New York Times reports, America (which has 5% of the world’s population but produces 30% of the world’s waste), “with its love of big cars, big houses and blasting air-conditioners, has contributed more than any other country to the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is scorching the planet….In cumulative terms, we [the US] certainly own this problem more than anybody else does,” said David G. Victor, a longtime scholar of climate politics at the University of California.

Russia and India follow the USA as emitters of the most greenhouse gases; then comes Japan, Germany, Iran and Saudi Arabia, which the World Economic Forum relates, has “on a per-country average, the most toxic air in the world.” Australia, Canada and Brazil should also be included amongst the principle polluters; as Brazil’s economy has grown so have the quantities of poisonous gas emissions, their effect made worse by deforestation of vast areas of the Amazon rain forests.

Indonesia, too, warrants our attention. This small country (3% of the global population) in the middle of the South Seas is a major polluter: It has the third largest expanse of tropical forest after the Amazon and Congo, and is cutting down trees at the highest rate on the planet; it produces approximately 5% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, is the second-largest contributor to marine plastic pollution after China and has some of the dirtiest water in south east Asia, – only a third of the population having access to clean drinking water.

China also has a problem with polluted water; IBT report that “Government analysis found that more than 80% of the water from its wells was not safe to drink…while about 60% of its groundwater overall was of poor or extremely poor quality.” Water pollution has reached serious levels in America as well: according to the Water Quality Project 32% of bays, 40% of the country’s rivers and 46% of its lakes are “too polluted for fishing, swimming or aquatic life.” The Mississippi River, which is amongst the most polluted rivers in the world, “carries an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen pollution into the Gulf of Mexico every year. The resulting pollution is the cause of a coastal dead zone the size of Massachusetts every summer.”

Polluted rivers result in contaminated oceans; chemical fertilizers, detergents, oil, sewage, pesticides and plastic waste flow into the sea from inland waterways. Some pollutants sit on the surface of the ocean, many collect on the seabed where they are ingested by small marine organisms and introduced into the global food chain. The shocking condition of the seas was highlighted recently in the BBC production Blue Planet II. In a sequence that moved many to tears, an Albatross, having been at sea for weeks looking for food, was filmed feeding its chicks with bits of plastic collected from the surface of the ocean.

Recent research has identified 10 rivers as the source of 90% of the plastics in the oceans. Deutsche Welle reports that all of them run through densely populated areas where waste collection or recycling infrastructure is inadequate. Three of these filthy tributaries are in China, four more run through China, two — the Nile and the Niger (regularly the scene of oil spills) — are in Africa. The list is completed by the Holy Ganges in India, which serves as rubbish dump (almost 80% of urban waste is thrown into the river), utility room, bathroom, burial chamber and sacred temple.

Plastic waste is produced everywhere, but five Asian countries produce 60% of the global total, currently 300 million tons (only 10% is recycled): China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. If nothing changes it’s predicted that by 2025, plastic consumption in Asia alone could increase by 80 percent to over 200 million tons, and global consumption could reach 400 million tons. Greenpeace estimates that roughly 10% of all plastic ends up in the Oceans where it is thought to kill over a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals.

The statistics around pollution are numerous, shocking and all too depressing. Here’s a taste:

• 5,000 people die every day through drinking unclean water.
• About 80% of landfill items could be recycled.
• 65% of deaths in Asia and 25% of deaths in India are due to air pollution.
• Chronic obstructive respiratory disease (caused by burning fossil fuels indoors) is responsible for the death of more than 1 million people annually.
• Over 3 million children under five die annually from environmental factors.
• Worldwide, 13,000-15,000 pieces of plastic are dumped into the ocean every day.
• At least two-thirds of the world’s fish stocks suffer from plastic ingestion
• For every 1 million tons of oil shipped, approximately 1 ton is wasted through spillage.
• A million plastic bottles are sold worldwide every minute; forecast to increase by 20% by 2021.
• Around 1,000 children die in India annually due to diseases caused by polluted water.
• There are more than 500 million cars in the world; there could be 1 billion by 2030.
• Shoppers worldwide use approximately 500 billion single-use plastic bags annually. This translates to about a million bags every minute and the number is rising.

Criminal neglect

Pollution and the environmental catastrophe more broadly is the result of insatiable consumerism, selfishness and individual and collective irresponsibility. It flows from a materialistic approach to living, rooted in desire and an unjust economic system that demands unbridled consumerism for its survival. Ideologically rooted Corporate Governments imprisoned in nationalism, and obsessed with short-term economic growth feed the system and the most important issue of the time is relegated to an afterthought, rarely spoken about by politicians who seem to believe that limitless development and mass consumerism is of greater importance than the health of the planet.

Designing policies that will clean up the air, the seas and rivers, and will preserve forests and farmland, should be the priority for all governments around the world, particularly the industrialized nations, who have been responsible for producing the majority of the filth and for cultivating the consumer culture that is perpetuating the crisis. But whilst governments need to take a leading role to stop pollution, individuals, all of us, need to change the way we think and how we live. It is imperative we consume less and that decisions regarding purchases should be made firstly with environmental considerations in mind. Sufficiency and simplicity of living need to replace abundance, complacency and indulgence.

This demands a major shift in attitudes, not in 25 years, not in a year, but now. As Pope Francis rightly states in his groundbreaking papal letter ‘Care for Our Common Home’, “Our efforts at [environmental] education will be inadequate and ineffectual unless we strive to promote a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society and our relationship with nature. Otherwise, the paradigm of consumerism will continue to advance, with the help of the media and the highly effective workings of the market.”

The ‘market’ aided by the media, is not concerned by such liberal considerations as the welfare of the planet and the health of human beings; it is a blind monster with a compulsion for profit, and if the ecological networks within which we live are to be purified and healing is to take place it needs to be rejected totally. A new way of thinking is required that moves away from divisive selfish ways to inclusive, socially/environmentally responsible behavior based on a recognition that the environment we live in is not separate from us and that we all have a duty to care for it. This requires a fundamental change of attitudes.

“If we want to bring about deep change, we need to realize that certain mindsets really do influence our behaviour.” And, whilst there are many exceptions to this, the prevailing, carefully cultivated ‘mindset’ is a materialistic, self-centered one in which responsibility is passed to someone else, usually a government. It is a mindset that has been conditioned virtually from birth by the motivating mechanism of reward and punishment. This crude tool encourages deceit, undermines humanity’s essential goodness and relies on the stimulation of materialistic, hedonistic desire – the very thing that is fueling the environmental crisis – for its success. It is a method that may well work with corporations and to a limited degree with individuals, but a more potent and cleaner way to change the behavior of the population at large is the Way of Awareness: Awareness that we are brothers and sisters of one humanity, that cooperation, not competition is an inherent aspect of our nature and that that we are all responsible for the world in which we live. Its up to us, each and every one of us to consciously live in an environmentally responsible manner – no matter the cost or inconvenience, and to begin to repair the terrible damage we have done and continue to do to the natural world.

By M.A. Athul*

On January 11, 2018, Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) ‘deputy commander in chief’ Matchallang M. Sangma aka Vietnam was killed in an encounter with Meghalaya Police at Bawe Duragre village in East Garo Hills District. No other insurgency-linked killing has been reported from the State in 2018 so far (data till January 28, 2018).

The State recorded eight fatalities, including six militants and two civilians, in 2017; as against 26 fatalities, including 10 civilians and 16 militants in 2016, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP). Year 2015 had recorded a total of 61 fatalities, including 34 militants, 19 civilians, and eight SF personnel; while there were 76 such fatalities (47 militants, 23 civilians, and six SF personnel) in 2014. Thus, the declining trend of overall fatalities established in 2015 continued through 2017. Overall fatalities in the State increased between 2010 and 2014. Significantly, 2017 witnessed lowest of fatalities (eight) recorded in a year since 2009, when such fatalities stood at five (four militants and one civilian).

More prominently, 2017 accounted for the lowest civilian fatalities in the State since 2009, when fatalities in this category stood at one. Civilian fatalities in Meghalaya had increased between 2010 and 2013, but have since been declining, with 23 in 2014 and 19 in 2015.

The security environment for civilians was further strengthened as SFs continued to consolidate their position on the ground through 2017. As in 2016, there were no fatalities among SF personnel. On the other hand, adding to the 16 militants killed in 2016, the SFs eliminated another six in 2017. In 2015, eight SF personnel had died in the State. The primary reason behind the SFs strengthened ground position was the successes achieved during the Counter Insurgency (CI) Operation Hill Storm, which continued from July 11, 2014, to September 2016, in which at least 75 militants were killed.

According to SATP, 31 militants were arrested in 2017 of which the affiliations of 27 are available. These included 10 GNLA cadres; five of the Saoraigwra faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB-S); three Achick Songa An’pachakgipa Kotok (ASAK) cadres; two each of the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), Tiwa Liberation Army (TLA), and Achik Revolutionary Army (ARA); and one ULFA-I militant. Two militants of the lesser known Ki Khlur U Hynniewtrep, were also arrested in 2017, according to the SATP database, while SFs arrested 71 in 2016. However, according to a January 4, 2018, report, 77 militants were arrested in 2017, in addition to 229 arrested in the State in 2016.

Mounting SF pressure led to the surrender of another 41 militants (21 GNLA, nine ASAK, five NDFB-S, four HNLC, one AME, and one ULFA-I). In 2016, at least 197 militants had surrendered. In a significant incident of surrender, on June 22, 2017, five militants of NDFB-S and one ULFA-I militant had surrendered in West Garo Hills District.

These developments have had a cumulative positive impact on the security situation in the State. Apart from fall registered in overall fatalities, other parameters of violence also indicated significant improvement. On January 17, 2018, State Director General of Police (DGP) Swaraj Bir Singh stated that only 21 militancy-related incidents were reported in 2017, while there were 310 such incidents in 2013, 341 in 2014, 310 in 2015, and 118 in 2016.

According to the SATP database, in 2017 fatalities (eight fatalities) were reported from three Districts in the State: South Garo Hills (four fatalities), West Khasi Hills (three fatalities), and North Garo Hills (one fatality). In 2016, 31 fatalities were reported from 10 Districts: East Garo Hills (10 fatalities), West Khasi Hills (five fatality), West Garo Hills (five fatalities), South Garo Hills (four fatalities), North Garo Hills (two fatalities), West Jaintia (one fatality), Southwest Garo Hills (one fatality), Ri-Bhoi (one fatality), East Khasi Hills (one fatality) and Jaintia Hills (one fatality).

Nevertheless, some security concerns persist. Though incidents of abduction for ransom declined through 2017, they continued to cause fear among the people. Meghalaya recorded 10 such incidents in 2017 in which 31 people were abducted. Of the 31 people abducted in 2017, at least eight were released (no information about ransom paid or not) while fate of rest of the victims remain unknown. In 2016, the figures stood at 28 incidents in which 58 people were abducted. In the first 24 days of 2018, one incident of abduction has already been reported. The numbers of abductions are likely to be higher than those reflected in this data, as many incidents are not reported.

Moreover, the most violent and active group , the GNLA despite facing reverses, continues to operate, though at significantly diminished strength. GNLA was responsible for both the civilian killings (in two separate incidents) in 2017. Of the six militants killed in the State in 2017, five belonged to GNLA, while one was the ‘commander in chief’ of then recently disbanded United Achik Liberation Army (UALA), identified as Singbirth N. Marak alias Norok X. Momin. [UALA was disbanded on June 9, 2016.] on January 17, 2018, Meghalaya DGP Dr. S.B. Singh also disclosed that Sohan D. Shira, ‘commander in chief’ of GNLA, was active and was shuffling between West Khasi Hills and South Garo Hills District of Meghalaya. The DGP stated that there were only nine or 10 trained GNLA cadres and four or five untrained cadres following Shira. Earlier, on December 19, 2017, the DGP had observed that although HNLC was a spent force; GNLA was still a matter of concern.

Indeed, according to an August 7, 2017, Shira had fled to Bangladesh in June 2017, but had returned to the Garo Hills. A October 8, 2017, report indicated that GNLA was ‘tying up’ with ULFA-I, which is a member of United National Liberation Front of Western South East Asia (UNLFWESA)’. ULFA-Is ‘deputy commander-in-chief’ Dristi Rajkhowa was reportedly trying to import ULFA-I cadres from neighboring Assam and even Bangladesh and put them up in GNLA camps.

Civil unrest persisted in the State through 2017. In May-June 2017 the Khasi Students Union (KSU), a civil societal organization of the Khasi tribe, was involved in widespread violence while protesting a railway project at Byrnihat in the State’s Ri-Bhoi District on the premise that the railways will bring unwanted immigrants to the State. Between May 29 and June 1, 2017, seven incidents of arson by the protesters were recorded, four in the East Khasi Hills District and three in Ri-Bhoi District. No fatality was recorded in these incidents. On May 27, 2017, KSU activists attacked a railway construction site at Ronghona village in Ri-Bhoi District.

Meanwhile, the State Government continued to strengthen security apparatus. The second batch of SF-10, a Special Force of the Meghalaya Police, with 152 commandos and a Unit of 50 recruits in Law and Order Riot Control were formally inducted on August 4, 2017. The first batch was inducted after completing six months of basic training and a three-and-a-half month special commando counter-insurgency course on October 5, 2016.

Further, fencing of the border continued through 2017. India in total shares a 4,096.7 kilometers long boundary with Bangladesh, of which 443 kilometers fall within Meghalaya. Out of the total India-Bangladesh border, fencing has been completed along a 3,000 kilometer stretch. Of the remaining unfenced 1,096.7 kilometers, about 90 kilometers remain in Meghalaya. The average annual progress of fencing along the Indo-Bangladesh border has been 26 kilometers over the past eight years.

Separately, on December 21, 2017, the State Government decided to extend the rehabilitation package to 28 surrendered militants of the Breakaway factions of Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC-B) and 10 UALA. The rehabilitation package had earlier been extended to 363 ANVC cadres, 135 ANVC-B cadres, and 50 UALA cadres.

Despite the dip in insurgent violence, Meghalaya continues to struggle to find lasting solutions for its security and societal issues. The hurdles faced by the State on the infrastructure and security fronts remain unresolved, and the absence of a sustainable solution to various insurgent movements continues to haunt the state. Additional security steps such as finishing the fencing along the Indo-Bangladesh Border and better border management are some of the pre-requisites to mitigate the residual threat of insurgency in the State. The civil unrest regarding immigration is also likely to continue, with the Government unlikely to meet the demands of the agitators. Significant developmental deficits aggravate ethnic tensions and have long been a source of potential violence. In this light the remnants of insurgent formations, coupled with the possibility of civil unrest, continue to keep Meghalaya in a state of disquiet.

* M.A. Athul
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

By Chris Calton*

I have a general distrust of police, but while distrust may be healthy, I try to keep my antipathy aimed at the institution of the police, rather than the individuals themselves. After all, not all police officers are guilty of accidentally killing six-year-olds, playing sadistic games with unarmed civilians prior to executing them, or killing family pets. Even if they may be misguided, there are actually people who join the police with the noble goal of protecting their communities, and they do their jobs without brutalizing and executing innocent civilians.

But the institution of the police – being the government-run monopoly on the law enforcement industry – means that even these well-intentioned police officers have to face the dilemma of carrying out morally-questionable aspects of their job. What constitutes “morally questionable” varies from person to person, but as government grows, it seems that more people are identifying certain law enforcement obligations as, to them, morally questionable, if not outright immoral.

The most prominent example of such a reaction has grown out of law enforcement officers themselves. I’m referring to the group Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), which was originally Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. The name change reflects the growing awareness of morally questionable laws police officers are expected to enforce. LEAP was originally founded in 2002 by five police officers who had come to realize that the War on Drugs was not only a failure, but waging it was immoral and harmful.

In January of 2017, LEAP changed the last two letters of the acronym to stand for “Action Partnership” as an indication that drug laws were no longer the only unjust laws that police were obligated to enforce. The problems of the criminal justice system, such as mass incarceration, are not solely the product of drug prohibition. These officers recognize that at least some of what they are expected to do is the opposite of what we are told police do; they were not “protecting and serving,” they were destroying innocent lives. Many police officers who have come to such realizations have quit the force.

But the institution of the police remains, and the result of conscionable officers quitting is that cops who are less likely to be violent and abusive leave, while those who are attracted to a job that allows them to commit violence with near impunity replace them. The result is that while there may still be good cops – which I’m generously defining here as cops who sincerely want to protect their communities, even if they mistakenly believe that includes enforcing bad laws –the natural tendency of this system is for “bad cops” to stay and “good cops” to scram.

Recognition of this is hardly a “war on cops,” as some conservative commentators argue. If anything, it’s a war on bad cops, but it should be a war on a bad institution – an institution that has built-in incentives to attract dangerous personalities and weed out the level-headed and responsible. Narratives repeating the “war on cops” mantra only serve to support a system that fails to hold guilty cops accountable, maintaining this negative incentive. “Law and order” conservatives should be the greatest opponent to such a system, but few seem to have come to this conclusion.

But the institution isn’t the only reason people are increasingly realizing that cops can’t be trusted. The other reason is the laws. Local laws, state laws, and federal laws. As government grows, so do statutes and criminal codes. The police don’t have to agree with the law, they just have to enforce it. At least, this is what we are reminded any time cops are criticized for “just doing their job.”

But there is truth in that statement. Many cops are “just doing their jobs” when they make an arrest that seems difficult to justify. Most police officers have no desire to shut down a child’s illegal lemonade stand. It’s just their job. Likewise, I would at least hope most police officers don’t want to arrest the elderly for illegally smuggling flowers (though the cops in this story did seem to enjoy it). But whether they enjoy it or not, it’s their job.

When I see people criticizing stories such as these, it often seems like they are criticizing the cops, rather than the laws. I understand the criticism of the police officers – nobody forces them to put on a badge – but the laws are the real problem, and the police are often just the symptom.

The problems we find in the institution of the police, then, stem from two different areas. The first is the one that typically gets acknowledged, and that’s the government policies in running the police. The negative incentives that attract dangerous people, the lack of consequences for mistakes and abuses of authority, and the low criteria for earning a badge. Many libertarians argue for the privatization of the police as a way of reversing these incentives so that they have a positive effect. The recent string of sexual harassment allegations demonstrates the different levels of accountability between private individuals and those in government positions.

But when libertarians advocate privatizing the police – a position I’ll admit that I share – they are usually advocating the privatization of security. The motto of the police is “To Protect and Serve.” This is the motto of a security industry. But despite continuing to fly this banner, the police today hardly constitute a “security” service. In fact, the security industry is already privatized, and there are more private security guards employed in the United States and other countries than there are police officers.

The synonymous term for “police” is “law enforcement,” and this is a distinction worth remembering. The role of police is not, and has never been, to keep people safe; it has always only been to enforce the law.

When a public police force was first created, the idea of “law enforcement” and “public safety” almost went hand-in-hand. Most laws were actually designed to protect the person and property of private citizens (with exceptions, of course). So even if a public police force was less efficient than a private alternative, its job was still, for the most part, to keep people safe by enforcing the laws designed to protect them from violent criminals.

But as government has grown into the leviathan we know today, the law has expanded well beyond a small criminal code designed to protect life, liberty, and property. But the police, true to their role as law enforcement officers, are just as obligated to enforce these laws – the ones prohibiting marijuana use, lemonade stands, and collecting rainwater, to name only a few oft-cited legal absurdities – as they are to enforce laws protecting people from violent criminals. In fact, if we factor in the negative incentives police departments have guiding the allocation of their resources, it’s reasonable to conclude that an officer is more obligated to enforce the laws against non-violent criminals than the laws against violent ones.

If we really want to solve the problems that people are increasingly associating with police, privatizing the police is certainly a good start. But the real solution is to privatize the law.

About the author:
*Chris Calton is a Mises University alumnus and an economic historian. He is writer and host of the Historical Controversies podcast. See also his YouTube channel here.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute