By Alexandra Gale*

The disparate nature of the State Department’s reaction to the election in Honduras and the call for an election in Venezuela reveals that U.S. policy-makers have prioritized political concerns over the preservation of so-called democratic norms in the region. The result is that the State Department is currently lacking a consistent foreign policy in regards to Latin America and is not up to carrying out what could be an important mandate, but is now little better than a propaganda-based pretense of a policy.

The United States’ reaction to Honduras’ voting process demonstrates a willingness to ignore blatant undemocratic procedures. In the Honduran presidential election held on November 26, 2017, incumbent president and conservative strongman Juan Orlando Hernandez eked out a dubious and narrow victory over challenger Salvador Nasralla, who ran as the candidate of Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, a coalition which includes the Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE). Electoral irregularities were noted by the Organization of American States and the United Nations, and included an embarrassingly delayed vote count that smelled, if anything, of ballot fixing. Nasralla held an early lead but, after a delay in the vote count, the electoral returns dramatically and inevitably swung in favor of Hernandez. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal attributed this shift to the processing of ballots from parts of Honduras with strong support for Hernandez.

Since the election, thousands of Hondurans have taken to the streets to demonstrate their chagrin at what is happening to their country. The protests have been aggressively suppressed by baton-swinging police, who have used tear gas and even live ammunition against their fellow citizens. A Honduran human rights group stated that at least 30 civilians have been killed up to now, with 232 wounded, and 1,085 detained by the security forces throughout the course of the anti-Hernandez melee.

Beyond election irregularities, many Hondurans protested against Hernandez due to the fact that the then-incumbent president was seeking to prime himself for his own reelection, which is technically not allowed by the Honduran constitution. Hernandez’s predecessor Manuel Zelaya was ousted by a military coup in 2009 which was partly due to tensions that arose after Zelaya attempted to lift presidential term limits. This hurdle posed no problem for Hernandez since he had controversially obtained permission to run for a second term from the Supreme Court in 2015, which he had managed to stack with his own judicial allies during his stay in office.

On December 18, 2017, the State Department, in a blatant act of co-conspiracy with the Honduran anti-constitutionalists, recognized Hernandez as the winner of the November 26 Honduran presidential election. In the same statement that declared Hernandez the victor, the State Department called on the Honduran people to restrain themselves from violent protests and seek to resolve differences diplomatically. Washington’s response was sardonic in the extreme since it endorsed the Honduran federal election as legitimate despite all the evidence to the contrary. The Honduran government made no effort to address the spate of human rights abuses enacted by security forces in the course of the street protests.

The United States was not alone in its unjustified recognition of Hernandez’s victory, with Mexico, Canada, and the E.U. all falling in line, rewarding him the electoral win despite the evidence pointing to the contrary. There was some dissent on the U.S. side, as evidenced by the 20 Democratic legislators who sought the signature of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on a petition calling for a new set of elections in Honduras and repudiated what it considered to be the tainted electoral process. However, this minority opinion was overridden by the U.S. policy goal of continuing the status quo in the Central American country. Regardless of how many independent countries validated the election, American support for Hernandez countered the verdict of almost all external monitors, such as the pro-Washington Organization for American States (OAS), and threatens to further undermine the rectitude of elections in the region. If the U.S. countenances massive electoral fraud in Honduras, what message does that send to the hotly contested race in Mexico? It appears that the United States is supported by some allies in the international community in rendering presidential elections a mockery when political necessity wins the day.

State Department Response to Venezuela

On the other hand, on Jan. 24, the State Department resoundingly condemned the Venezuelan government’s call for snap elections to be held by end of April, stating that such an election would be “neither free nor fair”, nor would it “reflect the will of the Venezuelan people.” The State Department memo called for a restoration of “democratic constitutional order” in Venezuela and called upon President Nicolas Maduro to respect the human rights of his people. Concerns were equally raised by individuals who felt that opposition candidates will not be prepared in time for the early election date. It should be noted that 72% of Venezuelans, a percentage which in the U.S. would be considered a landslide majority, actually support moving up the presidential elections. Therefore, the State Department’s claim that an early election does not reflect the will of the people is completely self-serving and utterly false. It is ironic that the State Department memo referenced the will of the people in the Venezuelan case (although it was presented in a grossly inaccurate manner) but neglected it in the Honduran case. It appears that the State Department sees the “will of the people” as a malleable concept that it can choose to focus on when convenient to its interests of the day.

There are some promising developments that reveal attempts to increase the transparency of the of the upcoming Venezuelan election, including the preparations of opposition candidates who are planning to run against Maduro and the commitment of the government to have international observers, including officials from the United Nations, serve as official observers of the election. Despite these efforts towards transparency, both the State Department and some elements of the opposition question the fundamental legitimacy of these upcoming elections.

Potential Explanations for the Differing Responses

One important variable to consider is Washington’s past diplomatic relationships with both Honduras and Venezuela, which can help give context to the large discrepancy that is found in the recent string of State Department responses. Ever since the early 1980’s, the United States has seen Honduras as an indispensable regional ally in Central America, and Hernandez has been entirely cooperative with the U.S. regarding efforts to reduce emigration flows from Honduras to the U.S. border. The U.S. military also has around 500 troops stationed at Honduran military installations, which makes it in Washington’s supreme interest to have a completely stable and cooperative Honduran regime in power, even if this regime is inherently unconstitutional.

In contrast, Nasralla offered a potential interruption of leadership since he had garnered support from a broad coalition of pro-democracy forces in Honduras and anti-imperialist administrations in Bolivia and Venezuela, which could be viewed by the U.S. as contrary to their interests. The prospect of cooperation with Hernandez can explain why the State Department would be prepared to endorse Hernandez’s electoral victory despite claims of a profound lack of constitutionality in the upper regions of government. Washington has endorsed quite a few problematic Central American regimes before, including a range of military dictatorships in Panama, Honduras, and Guatemala, when they were seen as strategic geopolitical allies. In these cases, it was always the Central American nations that paid the high price of misguided and brutal U.S. policy, and it appears that Washington has not yet learned its lesson.

On the other hand, recent Venezuelan administrations have been hostile to the United States, an attitude famously personified in the later life of Hugo Chavez, who served as president from 1999 to 2013. Chavez infuriated the U.S. by forming alliances with Cuba and Iran, which the U.S. saw as threatening to its regional hegemony. Despite occasional efforts at improving diplomatic relations between the two countries, these differences have led to an increasingly adversarial relationship that is now at a boiling point

In President Trump’s State of the Union address, he referred to the Venezuelan government as “socialist dictatorship” and touted the sanctions imposed on some Venezuelan officials by U.S. authorities as a diplomatic success. Trump stated in August that the United States has a “military option” in Venezuela. Although only 20% of Venezuelans support Maduro, the prospect of a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela is vehemently opposed by other Latin American governments. The Trump administration’s narrow-minded focus on preventing emmigration has blinded it to other regional priorities. Trump is willing to tolerate undemocratic figures, such as Hernandez in exchange for support in containing a flow of migrants to the United States. This myopic tunnel vision and deep-seated hostility towards Central American immigrants has led the U.S. to neglect democratic principles by backing corrupt leaders like Hernandez. If the U.S. is not careful, it will bring to birth a new generation of Latin Americans who refuse to stand for U.S. intrusion into and manipulation of the region.

Opposition presidential candidate Nasralla continues to fight Hernandez’s re-election. His supporters have taken to the streets condemning Hernandez’s victory as fraudulent and illegal and decrying interventionism from the country’s semi-autocratic sectors. Nasralla appears determined to provide some opposition to Hernandez’s second term, stating “we remain in the struggle to rescue the country from dictatorship”. It seems that Nasralla does not have support from policy-makers in Washington, and it may be too late to salvage the Honduran democracy.

*Alexandra Gale, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Additional editorial support provided by Frederick Mills, Senior Research Fellow Ben Tannenbaum, Extramural Contributor, and Keith Carr and Katherine Lenahan, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

By Kalinga Seneviratne

When people talk about sustainable development there is rarely any mention of the many street vendors who make a living on streets in Thailand, as across the rest of Asia.

Even attempts to stop them doing business – like the unsuccessful year-long attempt by the governor of Bangkok to clean the city’s streets of street vendors – passes unnoticed in the media.

“Street vending tends to attract tourists to Bangkok, it is part of Thai lifestyle and tourists want to experience that,” says Pattama Vilailert, a tourism consultant. “Some tourists come to Thailand (especially) to taste reasonable street food.”

Vilailert notes that after visiting Bangkok, many Chinese tourists, for example, post photos of a street food stall on social media that go viral and others will then come to eat, take a photo and post it on the same social media. “It is part of their travel accomplishment,” she argues. Last year, a staggering 10 million Chinese visited Thailand.

In April last year, a month after Bangkok was named as the finest street food destination in the world by CNN, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) announced that it was going to rid Bangkok’s pavements of street vendors in the interest of cleanliness, safety and order.

Wanlop Suwandee, chief adviser to Bangkok’s governor, said then that “street vendors have seized the pavement space for too long and we already provide them with space to sell food and other products legally in the market, so there will be no let-up in this operation.”

In June last year, representatives of street vendors from Bangkok’s 50 districts submitted a letter to Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha asking that they be allowed to continue trading on the streets because it was their livelihood. It was reported by the Nation news group that the vendors described the measures by the government and the BMA to confine Bangkok’s street vendors to designated areas and markets as too harsh.

One of the areas that was exempt from the ban was the backpacker tourist haven of Khaosan, a historic area bordering the Chayo Prayo river. For decades this area has been a magnet for budget travellers with its cheap hostels and guesthouses … and street vendors.

Today, not only Westerners but also thousands of Asian travellers are attracted to its street vending culture, creating a carnival-like atmosphere after sunset, with streets lined by the folding tables and chairs of food stalls, virtually closing thoroughfare to traffic. Besides the many neighbourhood hotels and pubs that also set out their own folding tables and chairs on the street, numerous ‘tent’ stalls are put up on the pavements selling objects like clothes, shoes, bags and souvenirs, among others.

Over the years, studies have shown that street vending is a major livelihood for many Thais with a low level of education and it has thus become a major source of income for urban poor families, some of which have migrated from the villages.

Here in Khaosan, vendors are said to pay monthly fees to someone, be it rent to the land or shop owner where they sell their food, bribes to police or fees to informal neighbourhood organisations.

However, Nut, a food vendor in her 40s who has been selling noodles from her mobile cart here for many years, told IDN that mobile stalls do not pay the police. “If I have a stationary shop I have to pay” she told IDN, adding, “I have a family in Bangkok to feed from what I earn from this.” But, a juice seller who gave his name as Tot complained, “I have to pay money every day to do business. No money, police arrest me. They come every day to take money.”

One of the street food vendors, whom one of his Burmese employees told IDN is a Cambodian, said that he runs his stall 24 hours a day. “I supervise at night. My sister comes in the morning,” he explained, refusing to give his name. He was not willing to say if he has to pay the police but he did indicate that he has to pay “someone” to operate here.

He employs about eight young workers – men and women – from Myanmar. He has his kitchen and the tables and chairs for his customers under five tents. All of these are taken out and stored in the back of a pick-up truck on Monday morning and brought back out on Tuesday evening, because street stalls are not allowed to operate on Mondays.

Casually talking to street vendors, IDN noted that most of the vendors who sell non-food items like clothes, shoes and bags are from Myanmar, some of Nepali origin. Most seem to be in their 20s and 30s. They were unwilling to give their names. A Burmese woman in her 30s selling bags said that her “boss” pays her 350 Bhat (about 10 dollars) a day plus a two percent commission on every 1,000 Bhat of sales.

A 28-year-old man who gave his name as Kumar said that he is of Nepali origin but a Myanmar citizen from Mandalay. “We come getting the passport chopped (at the border) and work here. We’re legally here,” he insisted. “No jobs in Mandalay. We cannot starve there. I get about 15,000 Bhat (about 425 dollars) a month from boss. This is not my shop. Boss pay the police for me to have shop here … not me.”

In January it was reported that the Thai authorities had arrested over 1,600 illegal migrants, mainly from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos who were working as street vendors or in restaurants. Under a new law, they could be sentenced to five years in prison or fined up to 100,000 Bhat (about 2,800 dollars), and employers of illegal migrants also face hefty fines.

A Thai social worker, who has worked with Myanmar refugees for over two decades, but did not want to be named, told IDN that there are about four million Myanmar people working in Thailand and only about 200,000 have legal status to work here. “They pay agents in border areas to get work permits … Thai brokers makes thousands of Bhat from each of them,” she explained.

“As long as they can speak Thai they are tolerated and Thais don’t care” she added. “These migrants come from a culture where almost everything is done illegally so they don’t see anything wrong in getting things done by paying someone.”

She did not see a problem for the Thai street vendors (who usually operate food stalls) in terms of sustainable incomes for themselves from street trading.

In fact, she noted, these migrant workers may contribute towards making street vending more profitable and sustainable for the locals because “undocumented migrants can’t go for higher paid jobs … so they would work for bosses to run their street shops or work as kitchen hands.”

CBI Governor Valiollah Seif told IRNA that by issuing foreign currency bonds, CBI aims to lure investors keen on dabbling in the foreign exchange market.

The forex bond plan will be unveiled within two weeks.

Seif made the statement as part of the banks’ efforts to dissuade investors away from the forex market that is experiencing volatile days with rial weakening to record lows, according to Financial Tribune.

“Currently, there are a variety of choices for investors, including the monetary market, the stock market, the bond market and the housing sector,” he said.

Seif noted that the National Iranian Oil Company is also planning to issue foreign currency bonds of its own, which will take place when the permits are granted.

The official added that CBI’s menu of currency investment includes measures that would provide safe investment options combined with reasonable yields for the public.

After repeatedly warning investors speculating about the fall of the rial that they were heading for losses because his bank could control the foreign exchange market, the CBI chief has resorted to forex bonds to curb the heated demand for hard currency.

The rial dropped to 46,500 against the dollar in the open market late January from 37,700 in mid-2017. Stopping short of touching the prohibitively psychological threshold of 48,000 on Monday, it finally bowed to CBI’s heavy intervention and was quoted at 46,680 against the greenback on Tuesday.

However, the rollercoaster of exchange rates in the past couple of weeks seems to have undermined the markets’ faith in officials promising more stable days for the forex market.

Analysts have advised the government to address the root causes of high inflation and launch foreign exchange reforms instead of alleviating the symptoms through hard currency injection.

On Tuesday, Economy Minister Masoud Karbasian also commented on the situation in the forex market. He cautioned investors expecting high and quick gains to keep away from the currency market or face losses when the market stabilizes.

Even President Hassan Rouhani echoed similar remarks in his news conference on Tuesday. The president urged investors to shun the forex market, saying it will not yield profits for them.

“Our foreign exchange position is even better than before since we have negotiated $30 billion of foreign finance and $12-13 of which have been finalized,” Rouhani said.

In a rush of foreign finance after the lifting of sanctions, Iran signed a $5 billion deal with Italy in January, which marked the biggest finance package received by the country from a European country.

The agreement was signed in Rome between the Iranian state-owned Bank of Industry and Mine and the private-run Middle East Bank, with the investment arm of Italian state-owned holding Invitalia.

Also In late September, Austria’s Oberbank signed a major finance deal with over a dozen Iranian banks, based on which it would provide €1 billion in credits to Italian companies that invest in the Iranian economy.

In an interview with ISNA, Seif attributed the forex market volatility to attempts by US President Donald Trump to target the Iranian economy.

“The reality is that the US, especially after the election of its new president, has used its position in the global economy to target the stability of Iranian economy through artificial volatility and spreading anxiety among investors,” he said.

Seif also referred to banking restrictions hindering Iran’s economic relations with the world due to US sanctions as another sign of Washington’s detrimental efforts in this regard.

After the nuclear deal, Washington has maintained financial restrictions, making international private banks wary of financing deals with Iran.

The Southern Gas Corridor is a project of cooperation in energy sector and it demonstrates how the cooperation should be, said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

President Aliyev made the remarks as he was addressing the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council in Baku Feb. 15.

President Aliyev stressed that the Southern Gas Corridor is an energy security project.

Indeed, when we are dealing with national security, energy security is one of the most important elements now. The Southern Gas Corridor is the energy diversification project, and we have diversified routes and sources.This is a true diversification. Because, diversification of the routes is somewhat different from ours. The Southern Gas Corridor is a project of energy cooperation and shows how the cooperation should be.Cooperation is possible only when all parties benefit from it. For this reason, at the beginning our main goal is to find a good balance between producers, transit countries and consumers. We can succeed only in this case and the successful implementation of the project shows that we are on the right way,” he said.

President Aliyev emphasized that the interests of producers or producer, there is only one producer- Azerbaijan for the time being, transit countries and consumers are fully taken into account and the Southern Gas Corridor opens way to a few billion investments in all countries involved.

“This means thousands of new jobs. It means not only energy, but also transport infrastructure, investment in transport infrastructure. The Southern Gas Corridor will lead to the gasification of many parts of countries, located along the route and the participant countries. All of these mean development, stability, the possibility of forecasting and opens way for cooperation. Because, today, participant countries of the Southern Gas Corridor are very close partners of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has already signed declarations on strategic partnership with the vast majority of these countries. Presently, we are negotiating with the European Union and the new partnership agreement will create a new format for cooperation between Azerbaijan and the European Union. “

By Ben Parker*

The man at the centre of a sexual exploitation scandal at aid agency Oxfam was dismissed by another British NGO seven years earlier for similar misconduct, IRIN has found.

A former colleague reveals that Roland van Hauwermeiren was sent home from his job in Liberia in 2004 after her complaints prompted an investigation into sex parties there with young local women. Despite this, van Hauwermeiren was recruited by Oxfam in Chad less than two years later and went on to work for them in Haiti, and then in Bangladesh for Action contre la Faim.

The Swedish government’s aid department, alerted in 2008, also missed an opportunity to bring his behaviour to light and even went ahead that year to fund Oxfam’s Chad project, under his management, to the tune of almost $750,000.

Last week, The Times reported that van Hauwermeiren was ousted from Oxfam for sexual exploitation and abuse when he worked in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Oxfam’s deputy CEO, Penny Lawrence, has since resigned, and the charity has faced a deluge of criticism, both for the abuse itself and its handling of the staff member. It now faces an enquiry by the charity regulator.

Agencies in the humanitarian sector face serious challenges in tackling sexual exploitation and abuse, and some argue, at least today, that Oxfam’s safeguarding procedures are stronger than those of many other aid agencies.

Repeat offender

Seeing the Times article about van Hauwermeiren, Swedish civil servant and former aid worker Amira Malik Miller was shaken to read about the Haiti case, which pertained to alleged parties and orgies in 2011, seven years after her own experiences of him in Liberia. She couldn’t believe he was still active in the aid world, especially after she had blown the whistle on him and his colleagues, not once but twice.

“Oh my God, he’s been doing this for 14 years,” she remembers thinking. “He just goes around the system… from Liberia to Chad, to Haiti, to Bangladesh. Someone should have checked properly,” she told IRIN.

On two previous occasions, she thought she had done enough to stop his predatory behaviour.

Malik Miller told IRIN how her initial complaints way back in 2004 led to van Hauwermeiren being pushed out of his job as Liberia country director of UK charity Merlin, a medical group now merged with Save the Children. An internal investigation into sexual exploitation and misconduct led to his departure, several Merlin staff members confirmed.

Formal complaint

In 2004, Malik Miller was being briefed in London for a new job: assistant to the Liberia country director and reporting officer there for the medical group Merlin. She had been warned by a colleague that there might be some “dodgy” things going on; she says it was clear they were related to sexual behaviour.

Soon on the plane to the West African country, she was picked up at the airport personally by her new boss: van Hauwermeiren. Initially grateful for his hospitable gesture, her confidence quickly evaporated after he took a call during the drive and said to the person on the other end: “It’s a green light”. She told IRIN it was “really uncomfortable” as she “definitely felt that it was about me”.

Positioned in van Hauwermeiren’s Monrovia office as the most junior expatriate staff member, Malik Miller couldn’t help but notice unusual patterns in his workday. “He was away a lot,” she explained, often returning to work with fresh clothes or wet hair.

Assigned to stay in one of two guest houses rented by Merlin, she shared one nicknamed “London” with several colleagues, while van Hauwermeiren and a medical manager were in another called “Brussels”.

One weekend morning, two or three weeks into her assignment, Malik Miller found one of her housemates, the financial manager, joking with and fondling a young Liberian woman in the kitchen. The woman appeared young, she said. Immediately, she took him aside and explained she wasn’t going to tolerate sex work in the house.

“It can’t go on where I’m living,” she told him. On the Monday morning, she emailed a formal complaint to the Merlin head office in London.

From that point on, Malik Miller said it was “quite intimidating” – the four senior managers “constantly had their eye on me”. When Merlin’s human resources officer called to check up on her (which they did frequently), she pretended it was her mother or sister on the line and stepped away so she wouldn’t be overheard.

Insufficient proof

Within a fortnight, Merlin had sent a senior two-person team to Monrovia. In the course of their investigation, they spoke to other aid groups, Liberian employees of Merlin, and the expatriate staff and management.

One of Merlin’s investigating team, a former senior manager, confirmed Malik Miller’s account. He told IRIN he and his colleague rapidly reached their conclusion: the management team (“four middle-aged men”) were all engaged in paying for sex. They had been using Merlin cars to ferry women to and from the NGO’s two guest houses for paid sex and parties involving sex workers.

“It was obvious,” he explained. “So many people had seen them with a succession of young local girls.” He said it was impossible to say if some of the women were under 18. On being told the findings of the probe, van Hauwermeiren “denied everything” but nevertheless agreed  to an immediate resignation.

The investigating manager said Merlin lacked sufficient proof to pursue a prosecution, and that the report from Malik Miller was the first he’d heard of the Monrovia misconduct. However, a third source, an aid worker familiar with the episode, countered this, saying the London head office had already been aware of the allegations.

Van Hauwermeiren and the rest of the Liberia management team were “shameless”, she told IRIN. “They acted like it was the most normal thing in the world.”

In the wake of the civil war, “the behaviour at that time in Monrovia was insane,” she recalled. “I think Merlin were a bit worse, but plenty of UN types [were] doing the same. Lots of sleazy bars, girls on the beach…”

“Tip of the iceberg”

Such behaviour may have been rife then in Liberia, but the former Merlin manager who conducted the 2004 investigation told IRIN that sexual exploitation in the aid sector remains an enormous problem to this day.

The latest revelations were just the “tip of the iceberg”, he said, calling for more to be done to professionalise the sector. He argued that the lack of a professional certification body means there is no central monitoring of individuals, while aid agencies are compromised by trying to protect their reputations.

He said it was “staggering” that van Hauwermeiren was able to find re-employment with Oxfam and that he felt “real regret” that his actions didn’t prevent Oxfam recruiting the Belgian. He claimed he couldn’t recall the names and further careers of the other three managers but said they had all been replaced and left Merlin.

Malik Miller, meanwhile, told IRIN she was partly satisfied with the response of the head office and believed her original complaint had at least been taken seriously. “I felt supported,” she said.

However, she was left thinking that the disciplinary action taken had been a bit weak. Van Hauwermeiren had been allowed to resign, while the housemate who had brought a sex worker to the guest house was told to apologise and allowed to stay on.

She started to doubt her own resolve, thinking: “Maybe it is OK… if we can’t prove that they’re under 18, hey ho…. maybe it’s me overreacting.”

She recalled her deeper concern at the time being about this apparent “culture of complacency” that allowed men, ostensibly working for charitable causes, to conduct this behaviour more or less in the open.

In the sector, it’s “a system failure” and a “lack of responsibility to protect children and vulnerable women,” she said. The transactional sex was widely known by colleagues, male and female, who seemed to have accepted it as normal.

Second attempt

Four years later, Malik Miller was at her desk in the Swedish government’s aid department. A file landed on her desk: an application for funding from Oxfam in Chad. She opened it and was appalled to find van Hauwermeiren’s name listed as the country director.

Per Byman, then humanitarian director of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), confirmed to IRIN that he had been alerted in 2008 by Malik Miller to van Hauwermeiren’s previous record at Merlin.

He told IRIN he had taken advice from SIDA’s legal department on what to do about it, but couldn’t recall the outcome. He said he was “disgusted” at reading the recent news of van Hauwermeiren’s behaviour.

SIDA’s website reports a grant of $748,537 to Oxfam for Chad in late 2008. Documents related to the grant include the following: “Oxfam will work with women in their communities to enable them to have recognised value in the family due to increased financial and social capital.”

Asked by IRIN whether it knew of the Liberia case, Oxfam did not answer the question and provided a link to a previous statement. The Charity Commission of England and Wales told IRIN it had no records for Merlin in 2004, so it couldn’t comment on whether it was alerted to the case. Last year, the regulator asked charities to report any previously withheld cases of abuse.

Save the Children’s press office was unable to comment in detail before publication, but pointed out its takeover of Merlin was in 2013. IRIN was unable immediately to reach Geoff Prescott, who was chief executive of Merlin at the time of the 2004 allegations.

Looking back, Malik Miller said: “My experience of whistle-blowing has not been negative. I felt like I was listened to, and supported by colleagues, including senior managers. At least that side of the system worked. It’s the follow-through that was lacking, and allows people like Roland [van Hauwermeiren] to continue to work in the sector.”

Liberian former aid worker Jeanine Cooper told IRIN she was “shocked” to hear of the case and outraged to see how “these predators are recycled in a cozy system”.

“[Back in 2004], the NGO scene was absolutely horrible; the UN too – impunity all around,” said Cooper, who worked with the UN in several countries.

The aid worker familiar with the Merlin case, who asked to remain anonymous, told IRIN her perception of what is normal in the sector needed readjustment after the experience of working with van Hauwermeiren.

“My next field posting after Liberia was post- (2004 Indian Ocean) tsunami,” she said. “And I remember thinking, ‘oh, there are some old unattractive white men NOT having sex with prostitutes – weird’.”

About the author:
*Ben Parker, Senior Editor for IRIN

Source:
This article was published by IRIN.

By Sergio Duarte*

As if by coincidence, almost simultaneously the world learned of the Doomsday Clock moving closer to midnight and of the release of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) by the government of the United States.

Although based on very different world views, both actions respond to security concerns: the former is a dramatic reminder of the imminent dangers posed by nuclear weapons and of the need for their elimination; the latter stresses the role of nuclear armament as capable of dealing with international tensions and of avoiding such dangers through the expansion of the flexibility and diversity of existing nuclear capabilities.

The Doomsday Clock is a serious and timely warning demanding urgent national and international measures to control and finally ban nuclear weapons as the best guarantee against their actual use in conflict.

For many observers, the NPR would increase the likelihood of the use of nuclear weapons and could serve as justification for other nuclear armed States to improve the destructive potential of their own arsenals as a way to counter what they might see as an aggressive posture, thus triggering a new round of the nuclear arms race.

The central argument of the Nuclear Posture Review is that nuclear weapons have and will continue to play a critical role in deterring nuclear and non-nuclear attack and are essential to prevent aggression now and for the foreseeable future. Complementary and interrelated roles of these weapons are listed as: assurance to allies and partners, achievement of national objectives in case of failure of deterrence and maintenance of the capacity to hedge against an uncertain future.

According to the NPR, the deterrent role of the American nuclear arsenals would be extended through the enhancement of the flexibility and range of nuclear options, including low yield weapons, which would prevent potential adversaries from seeking advantages in a limited nuclear escalation.

Critics of the new nuclear posture have warned that smaller, low-yield atomic devices would in fact blur the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons and lower the nuclear threshold. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the cycle of escalation would be limited once nuclear weapons of any size are introduced in the theater of war.

In addition, the NPR contemplates the use of nuclear weapons to respond to non-nuclear attacks on the United States and does not rule out first use. It is also possible to argue that some current non-nuclear nations might be tempted to acquire these weapons themselves if they become convinced that such a move would make them similarly able to achieve their national objectives and to prevent attack from possessors.

Since the advent of the United Nations, the international community has made painstaking progress in its effort to deal with the terrifying prospect of nuclear conflict. That was the objective of the very first General Assembly resolution in 1946, which unfortunately did not achieve concrete results.

During the following decades a few States developed nuclear capabilities while the wide majority accepted a number of legally binding commitments not to acquire atomic weapons and placed their trust instead in increased confidence building measures and cooperative security undertakings as a hedge against the inherent uncertainties and unpredictability of international relations.

In spite of mutual accusations of violations, bilateral measures negotiated between the United States and the Russian Federation resulted in significant reductions of the staggering amount of weapons of mass destruction amassed during the Cold War.

UN Secretary-General António Gueterres recently congratulated both countries on the successful reduction of their strategic nuclear forces to the levels established by the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and stressed that “efforts in nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control are more vital than ever”.

[The Treaty was signed April 8, 2010 in Prague by Russia and the United States and entered into force on February 5, 2011. New START replaced the 1991 START I treaty, which expired December 2009, and superseded the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), which terminated when New START entered into force.]

The total nuclear warhead count in the United States and Russia now stands at the lowest levels ever. This is truly a commendable effort that should be taken forward to achieve the long-sought goal of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

Guterres went on to call on both States “to engage in the necessary dialogue that will lead to further arsenal reductions and to continue to display the historic leadership across the multilateral disarmament agenda.” Strong leadership by the two most heavily armed nations on Earth is crucial to further disarmament efforts and to the collective security of the world as a whole.

Current instruments in the field of disarmament recognize the possession of nuclear weapons only until they are completely eliminated and call for action to achieve this objective. However, this basic premise has been increasingly misinterpreted by the pervading notion that those instruments somehow legitimize the exclusive and indefinite retention of such awesome means of destruction and condone the continued postponement of specific measures to abolish them.

In the absence of strong, legally binding commitments to nuclear disarmament with clear timelines, possessor States seem to feel entitled to keep their arsenals at least well into future decades at the same time that they deny any others the same means to ensure their own security.

There is no doubt that an increase in the number of nuclear weapon States would endanger international peace and security. The wide majority of the international community has repeatedly asserted, however, that the very existence of nuclear weapons is the real threat to peace and security, regardless of their possessors. Unequal standards cannot endure forever.

This became clear after the entry into force of the NPT, which limited the number of nuclear weapon States to the five that had acquired such weapons by an arbitrary date. Subsequently, four other countries managed to develop their own nuclear arsenals and a small number have been dissuaded by a variety of means from embarking on the same course.

In some others, sections of public opinion openly advocate the acquisition of independent nuclear forces in order to free themselves from the uncertainties of defensive arrangements. Indeed, the emphasis on nuclear deterrence provides encouragement for such sentiments. Most non-nuclear States, however, firmly believe that their security is better served by not acquiring nuclear weapons.

Over the decades since 1945 [the end of World War II] a number of multilateral agreements sought quite successfully to prevent the unbridled proliferation of weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, chemical and bacteriological. Despite their importance, however, two of those treaties are not yet in force.

The 1996 Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is one of them. Eight key States still hesitate either to sign and/or ratify it, a necessary condition for the entry into force of the instrument. Alone among those eight countries, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has carried out nuclear test explosions into the 21st century, in defiance of the UN Security Council and in spite of repeated and increased sanctions imposed by it. All others are observing voluntary moratoria on such tests.

According to the Nuclear Posture Review, the United States will not seek ratification of the CTBT but will continue to support its Preparatory Committee as well as the International Monitoring System and the International Data Center. Other outlying States are not as straightforward in the statement of their intentions. In any case, the leadership of the major nuclear powers is obviously needed to bring all recalcitrant countries into the fold.

The other important instrument not yet in force is Treaty on The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons leading to their complete elimination. It was adopted on July 17, 2017 by a large majority of States, but the pace of signatures and ratifications has been slower than expected, in part due to the active and fierce opposition of the possessors of nuclear weapons and their allies.

These countries have dismissed the treaty and attempt to portray it as a naïve and futile gesture that may even exacerbate tensions within the existing non-proliferation regime and ultimately undermine efforts to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons.

The supporters of the instrument, for their part, stress that it is not meant to contradict the NPT but rather to provide a path for the fulfilment of the commitment contained in its Article VI. Even if it does not reach the widest adherence possible, – as neither have several existing multilateral instruments in this field, including the NPT itself – the Prohibition Treaty remains a powerful expression of the support of a large number of members of the international community to concrete measures of nuclear disarmament.

Mainstream media in countries with the most powerful military forces, as well as in those that have predicated their security on weapons not under their own control continually publish stories and commentary about the need to counter external threats through the strengthening of their armed forces, but very rarely publicize peace initiatives. A culture of war seems to have taken precedence over a culture of peace. Nuclear-armed States are currently engaged in increasing and modernizing their arsenals, and insist that the current security conditions in the real world do not allow for nuclear disarmament, at least for the foreseeable future. Observers, for their part, point out that their very postures and deeds have the effect of increasing tensions and perpetuating the climate of mistrust and insecurity.

Nevertheless, the growing international awareness of the humanitarian, environmental and social consequences of any use of nuclear weapons may provide opportunities for progress on nuclear-risk-reduction measures in order to prevent disasters caused by nuclear detonations by design or accident.

Experts and prominent former high-level officials from nuclear armed States have revealed multiple near-misses that brought the world to the brink of full-scale nuclear war that were averted by single individuals in the chain of command who took on their own shoulders the responsibility not to press the fatal button.

Civil society organizations and a number of States have been trying to change the status quo by promoting actions aimed at reducing the danger of a nuclear confrontation that could have catastrophic consequences for humanity as a whole.

One opportunity is provided by the current review cycle of the NPT. Another is the forthcoming United Nations High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, scheduled to take place in May in New York.

World leaders attending this conference are expected to take, or announce, a number of concrete actions, many of which suggested by those organizations, that would help facilitate further efforts toward nuclear disarmament, such as taking all nuclear weapons off launch-on-warning and high alert; adopting policies never to initiate nuclear war; agreeing not to develop new nuclear weapons systems; removing all forward-based nuclear weapons; commencing negotiations on the phased reduction and elimination of nuclear stockpiles; and reducing nuclear weapons budgets in order to release resources for climate protection and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

The president of Kazakhstan – a country that relinquished the nuclear weapons it once possessed – recently proposed at the UN Security Council the goal to achieve global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2045, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations.

On the same occasion UN Secretary-General Guterres warned that “global anxieties about nuclear weapons are the highest since the Cold War” and announced the intention to explore opportunities to generate a new direction and impetus for the global disarmament agenda. He is expected to launch a major initiative on disarmament encompassing several categories of weapons, including new technologies such as cyber warfare.

The translation of proposals made from several quarters into practical arrangements presupposes a considerable amount of political will. Enlightened world leaders know that the supreme interests of their countries involve also the interests of humankind as a whole. No nation, particularly those with large resources and wealth, can devote itself to the satisfaction of its national objectives without taking into account the legitimate needs and aspirations of humanity, of which their own populations are an indissoluble part.

The understanding of this simple, yet undeniable truth is essential for the success of efforts to achieve security for all through the complete elimination of the enormous risk posed by the existence of nuclear weapons.

*The writer is President of the 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and a former Ambassador of Brazil who served in key posts. He was President of the 2005 Seventh Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs with UNODA, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (2007-2012). – The Editor

By Ross Harvey*

Hot on the heels of Davos, the Investing in Africa Mining Indaba provides an opportunity for the new ANC president, Cyril Ramaphosa, to send the right signals to the local mining industry and civil society to renew confidence in the sector. South Africa’s mining industry remains a critical component of the economy; a potential flywheel for upstream manufacturing, downstream beneficiation, and horizontal spillovers. If we are to address the problems of youth unemployment, poverty and inequality, due attention must be paid to reviving the mining industry. Doing so will also have positive latent effects on the health of South Africa’s political economy.

If forced to choose an exemplar for policy instability over the last decade, the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) would have to top the list. Formulated in 2002 and enacted in 2004, it has traversed a rocky road. It was amended in 2008, but that set of amendments was only enacted in mid-2013, a month after amendments to itself arrived in the National Assembly. The 2013 amendments were returned by the Presidency in early 2015 due to concern that they would not pass constitutional muster and may violate World Trade Organisation rules. Where exactly they are now in the passage of legislative finalisation is still unclear. The last indication was that they were due to be promulgated by December 2017; the deadline was missed. To make matters worse, the latest iteration of the Mining Charter – the blueprint for transformation of the industry – led to a fundamental breakdown of trust between the industry and the ministry. This has been suboptimal for restoring investor confidence in an industry that has been battling the headwinds of higher production costs and lower global commodity prices.

The 2016 Fraser Institute Survey of global mining companies placed South Africa 74th out of 104 surveyed jurisdictions for ‘mining investment attractiveness’, down from 57th of 112 in 2013. While criticism has been levelled at the survey because of a low response rate among mining company executives, it remains an important indicator of the health of the industry. The reality of reduced investment attractiveness is located within the broader challenge of recent credit rating downgrades to the South African economy.

With the fresh wind of optimism following the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC president, and as President of the country, the window of opportunity to reverse the negative trends is here, and it may be narrow. There are at least two important issues for him to consider.

First, early signals towards policy stability are crucial to sustain the short-term pain of a stronger Rand. Ironically, the Rand’s appreciation on the back of Ramaphosa’s December victory and strong performance at Davos means lower export revenues for struggling miners. Gold and platinum are particularly afflicted, as the high marginal costs of production in South Africa make the sectors dependent on a weak Rand for their viability. Flat global prices for these two commodities – the two most important exports for South African mining – combined with a stronger Rand will cause much consternation among gold and platinum shareholders. However, a stronger currency also provides an opportunity for purchasing globally-sourced inputs at lower relative prices. This is important for future growth. Current commodity prices should not be the primary variable in the investor’s decision equation. Smart investors would do well to hold assets with solid fundamentals that underpin future demand and are located in stable jurisdictions. Stability therefore has to be established in South Africa.

Mr Ramaphosa has an opportunity to signal that the MPRDA quagmire will be swiftly addressed and that the Mining Charter will be inclusively re-negotiated in public, with industry concerns genuinely appropriated into the pact. In the process, he needs to communicate a fundamental commitment to re-establishing trust and the rule of law by doing away with excessive ministerial discretion in policymaking. Licence allocation processes need to be clearly embedded in law, for instance, to ensure fairness and recourse in the case of disputes.

Second, a clear strategy for building horizontal and vertical linkages from mining must be developed and embedded into formal policy. In the longer term, this is crucial for generating broad-based welfare. Mining can play a central role in supporting other industries that thrive beyond the life of the country’s resource endowment. Until now, talk of ‘strategic minerals’ has been too vague, and exactly what is to be done with them to foster industrialisation has been unclear. For instance, insisting that some proportion of ‘strategic minerals’ that would otherwise have been exported must be made available for local beneficiation seems to lack clear vision. Which minerals are ‘strategic’ has not been defined according to any useful criteria, and the extent to which these could feasibly be locally processed has also not been articulated.

The overarching strategy here must consider the nation’s future in a rapidly changing world. Two major components of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are the energy and transport revolutions. Renewable energy systems will require vast quantities of minerals and metals, as will electric vehicles. The latest World Bank report on the subject estimates that while coal and other fossil fuel demand will dissipate relatively soon, commodities such as copper, lithium, chrome and manganese will be in high demand. This is because they are key ingredients for renewable energy machinery and electric vehicles. As new technology costs plummet, fossil fuels are likely to become obsolete.

South Africa happens to be endowed with vast chrome and manganese reserves, among the largest in the world. We also have three quarters of the world’s platinum supply. While platinum prices are currently flat, above-ground supply for recycling will run out, creating a large supply deficit if demand for fuel cells takes off.

Therefore, South Africa’s strategy for industrialisation – to reverse the trend of premature de-industrialisation that is gripping much of the continent – has to be orientated around the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It can also harness advances in that same revolution to move towards non-invasive mining that improves worker health and safety, and reduces mining’s typically large environmental footprint.

Upstream, this means that there are opportunities to manufacture technology-laden drones and robots specifically towards more efficient mining. Geothermal imagery from drones, for instance, is increasingly replacing the need for extensive geological drilling and sampling. Jobs that are lost to robots can be re-created upstream, though this will require dedicated re-skilling efforts.

Downstream, South Africa could exploit some dimensions of the energy and transport value chains. For instance, building crucial components of fuel cells locally, along with inputs for solar panels and wind turbines could increase the ‘value to weight’ ratio of many of our current exports.

Horizontal linkage opportunities exist in the technology sphere. Technological advances can feed into the upstream and downstream opportunities to create an upward spiral. This cannot happen, though, without a green industrialisation policy that is geared in this direction and supported by policy stability in the mining sphere. A fine-tuning of the country’s tariff regime to support a new ‘mining for industrialisation’ policy is also necessary, and will have to steer clear of the political temptations to support embedded players that are politically powerful but economically uncompetitive.

A significant window of opportunity is on our doorstep. Fresh and visionary leadership is a prerequisite for unlocking the current impasse. If investors are convinced that South Africa is on the path back towards respecting the rule of law, and dedicated to policies that work together to ensure the long-term welfare of its citizens, they will be only too glad to reflect that through investing here.

*Ross Harvey (@harvross) leads the extractive industries governance work under the Governance of Africa’s Resources Programme at SAIIA. This article was first published with the Business Day.

This article was published by SAIIA.

By Ryan McMaken*

Whenever there is a mass shooting in the media, commentators rush to figure out on what to blame the latest violence. Predictably, those who want gun control blame gun control. Others blame mental illness — and perhaps a lack of government programs related to it. Some others blame racism or ideology, as was the case with the Aurora theater shooting when one ABC talking head concluded the shooter must a “Tea Party” member within hours of the shooting. And then there’s the Republican politician who blamed the same shooting on “the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.”

The odds of dying in a mass shooting remain amazingly small, as Healthline notes “The lifetime risk of dying in a mass shooting is around 1 in 110,154 — about the same chance of dying from a dog attack or legal execution.”

Nevertheless, the need to create a theory showing exactly what causes these shootings remains strong in many observers. Often, these theories are followed up with some demand for a change in public policy, whether it be gun control, more health care spending, or changes in education and social policy.

What all of the strategies have in common, however, is that they depend on very indirect solutions related to social engineering while ignoring the most proximate cause of the tragedies in question.

Those who think they can abolish school shootings with gun control, for example, must also then ensure that weapons cannot be attained by illegal means, and that potential murderers will not accomplish the same ends by using other improvised weapons.

Similarly, those who think that addressing mental illness must also assume that all potential perpetrators will receive treatment.

Even more fanciful is the idea that the FBI and other police agencies can be counted on to competently profile, and observe every potential shooter. The FBI’s record in this regard is rather sub-par, to say the least.

Moreover, these policies can take years to be implemented, and also require extremely broad, hard-to-enforce changes in policy. These policies also bring with them considerable downsides to the public at large in terms of financial costs and in civil liberties. Expanding FBI power to impose surveillance on every weirdo in America comes at a cost. Banning weapons — and then enforcing that ban — comes at immense cost as well.

In practice, the most practical strategy is preventing homicidal people from entering schools with weapons is to take a direct approach to preventing this sort of activity.

We already see this logic at work in airline safety, for example.

Yes, the logic is lost on some people, as in the people the spread around this meme:

The implication is that a nationwide gun ban works like a box-cutter ban. But the error here should be obvious. Box cutters and liquids were banned from commercial airplanes. Nearly 100% of adult Americans still own bottles of liquids and knife-like objects such as box cutters. And, virtually no one calls for a nationwide ban on box cutters or even on all substances that might be used to make bombs.

This is because many people recognize such broad solutions place significant burdens on society overall.

Just as the key to keeping hijackers off planes is to keep hijackers off planes, the key to keeping killers out of schools is to keep them out of schools.

For some odd reason, however, there continues to be resistance to the idea of developing serious, meaningful security strategies that directly address the situations that lead to deaths in areas such as schools, nightclubs, and hotels.

Mostly, this is due to nostalgia and fears of hurt feelings.

We’ve heard it all many times, of course. We can’t have greater security in schools, hotels, and shopping centers because “they will feel like prisons” or “kids will be hurt psychologically” or “it’s too expensive.”

When the rare tragedy of this nature does occur, though, these lines of thinking all lead to the same scenario: explaining to a child with a gunshot wound: “sorry kid, we could have had armed security personnel at your school, but we didn’t want you to feel bad.”

The “too expensive” excuse is especially galling since public schools are absolutely laden with non-teaching, administrative personnel unrelated to classroom instruction. As this study shows, since 1970, the student population has increased 8 percent while the non-teacher staff population has increased 130 percent. Gee, where could we ever find the resources for more security personnel?

Leave it up the people at The Nation, however, to call for less security at schools, because that money is being “diverted” from education.

To be fair to the authors, they do make two good points. The first is that the number of people who are murdered at schools nationwide is extremely low. Secondly, the article correctly notes that a lot of the money being spent on security is really just for show.

For example, while spending on “security” at schools has increased considerably in recent years, most of that money is spend on cheap quick-fixes like security cameras. Some spending is done on controlling access, but little is spent on competent on-site personnel and other strategies. The conclusion to draw from these fact, though, is not that money spent on security is necessarily wasted. It’s just being spent badly.

Even worse is the dismissal of security measures because they conflict with someone’s (usually incorrect) notions of what things were like in the good old days. “My grandpa never had security at his school” is a common thought. Well, maybe grandpa should have had some security, since data suggests homicide rates in the 1920s and early 30s were considerably higher than they are today.(1) Among those murders, for example, was the Bath School Disaster of 1927 in which Andrew Kehoe murdered 38 elementary schoolchildren. Those children never had grandchildren who would one day pine for “simpler times.”

One’s feelings about the days of yore and how the world ought to be are not a great basis for taking practical steps toward increasing security.

In the real world, if school shootings really are a concern, then entrepreneurs and consumers need to work together to find practical, affordable strategies that can be implemented.

Real experience suggests, however, that consumers don’t really care that much about it. Oh sure, people say they’re very concerned about it, but their demonstrated preference is usually toward cheaper tuition or keeping their kids in public schools where the administration is more concerned with hiring another guidance counselor than with investigating practical security options. If people were really concerned about it, we’d see a mass exodus of students from public schools with lackluster security measures. We don’t see that — and maybe people really do recognize how low the odds really are.

This lack of concern is also why many hotels — like the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas — can’t be bothered with implementing meaningful security. Customers are more concerned with keeping their weekend getaways cheap, and just trusting to luck that nothing bad will happen. Steve Wynn has noted that his hotels do in fact impose surveillance on customers in the name of security — something that has been unnoticed by consumers.

But, until enhanced security becomes something that is truly demanded by both voters and consumers, we won’t see much of it. People, apparently prefer what security experts call the “security roller coaster“: panic, forget, repeat.

About the author:
*Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is the editor of Mises Wire and The Austrian. Send him your article submissions, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute.

Notes:
1. “Homicide Trends in America: 1850-1950,” Megan Sasinoski. See page 30. (http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1137&context=hsshonors)

New research shows that the loss of biodiversity can increase the risk of “extinction cascades”, where an initial species loss leads to a domino effect of further extinctions.

The researchers, from the University of Exeter, showed there is a higher risk of extinction cascades when other species are not present to fill the “gap” created by the loss of a species.

The loss of a predator can initiate a cascade, such as in the case of wolves, where their extinction on one mountain can cause a large rise in the number of deer. This larger number of deer then eats more plant material than they would have before. This reduction in vegetation can cause extinctions in any species that also relies on the plants, but are potentially less competitive, such as rabbits or insects.

Even if the loss of one species does not directly cause knock-on extinctions, the study shows that this leads to simpler ecological communities that are at greater risk of “run-away extinction cascades” with the potential loss of many species.

With extinction rates at their highest levels ever and numerous species under threat due to human activity, the findings are a further warning about the consequences of eroding biodiversity.

“Interactions between species are important for ecosystem (a community of interacting species) stability,” said Dr Dirk Sanders, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall. “And because species are interconnected through multiple interactions, an impact on one species can affect others as well.

“It has been predicted that more complex food webs will be less vulnerable to extinction cascades because there is a greater chance that other species can step in and buffer against the effects of species loss.

“In our experiment, we used communities of plants and insects to test this prediction.”

The researchers removed one species of wasp and found that it led to secondary extinctions of other, indirectly linked, species at the same level of the food web.

This effect was much stronger in simple communities than for the same species within a more complex food web.

Dr Sanders added: “Our results demonstrate that biodiversity loss can increase the vulnerability of ecosystems to secondary extinctions which, when they occur, can then lead to further simplification causing run-away extinction cascades.”

The study, supported by France’s Sorbonne Université, is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The paper is entitled: “Trophic redundancy reduces vulnerability to extinction cascades.”

A new login authentication approach could improve the security of current biometric techniques that rely on video or images of users’ faces. Known as Real-Time Captcha, the technique uses a unique “challenge” that’s easy for humans — but difficult for attackers who may be using machine learning and image generation software to spoof legitimate users.

The Real-Time Captcha requires users to look into their mobile phone’s built-in camera while answering a randomly-selected question that appears within a Captcha on the screens of the devices. The response must be given within a limited period of time that’s too short for artificial intelligence or machine learning programs to respond. The Captcha would supplement image- and audio-based authentication techniques that can be spoofed by attackers who may be able to find and modify images, video and audio of users — or steal them from mobile devices.

The technique will be described February 19th at the Network and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS) Symposium 2018 in San Diego, Calif. Supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research was conducted by cyber security specialists at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“The attackers now know what to expect with authentication that asks them to smile or blink, so they can produce a blinking model or smiling face in real time relatively easily,” said Erkam Uzun, a graduate research assistant in Georgia Tech’s School of Computer Science and the paper’s first author. “We are making the challenge harder by sending users unpredictable requests and limiting the response time to rule out machine interaction.”

As part of efforts to eliminate traditional passwords for logins, mobile devices and online services are moving to biometric techniques that utilize a human face, retina or other biological attribute to verify who is attempting to log in. The iPhone X is designed to unlock with the user’s face, for instance, while other systems utilize short video segments of a user nodding, blinking or smiling.

In the cat-and-mouse game of cyber security, those biometrics can be spoofed or stolen, which will force companies to find better approaches, said Wenke Lee, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Computer Science and co-director of the Georgia Tech Institute for Information Security and Privacy.

“If the attacker knows that authentication is based on recognizing a face, they can use an algorithm to synthesize a fake image to impersonate the real user,” Lee said. “But by presenting a randomly-selected challenge embedded in a Captcha image, we can prevent the attacker from knowing what to expect. The security of our system comes from a challenge that is easy for a human, but difficult for a machine.”

In testing done with 30 subjects, the humans were able to respond to the challenges in one second or less. The best machines required between six and ten seconds to decode the question from the Captcha and respond with a faked video and audio. “This allows us to determine quickly if the response is from a machine or a human,” Uzun said.

The new approach would require login requests to pass four tests: successful recognition of a challenge question from within a Captcha, response within a narrow time window that only humans can meet, and successful matches to both the legitimate user’s pre-recorded image and voice.

“Using face recognition alone for authentication is probably not strong enough,” said Lee. “We want to combine that with Captcha, a proven technology. If you combine the two, that will make face recognition technology much stronger.”

Captcha technology – originally an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart” – is widely used to prevent bots from accessing forms on websites. It works by taking advantage of a human’s superior ability to recognize patterns in images. The Real-Time Captcha approach would go beyond what’s required on websites by prompting a response that will produce live video and audio that would then be matched against a user’s stored security profile.

Captcha challenges might involve recognizing scrambled letters or solving simple math problems. The idea would be to allow humans to respond before machines can even recognize the question.

“Making a still image smile or blink takes a machine just a few seconds, but breaking our Captcha changes takes ten seconds or more,” said Uzun.

In trying to improve authentication, the researchers studied image spoofing software and decided to try a new approach, hoping to open a new front in the battle against attackers. The approach moves the attacker’s task from that of generating convincing video to breaking a Captcha.

“We looked at the problem knowing what the attackers would likely do,” said Simon Pak Ho Chung, a research scientist in Georgia Tech’s School of Computer Science. “Improving image quality is one possible response, but we wanted to create a whole new game.”

The real-time Captcha approach shouldn’t significantly change bandwidth requirements since the Captcha image sent to mobile devices is small and authentication schemes were already transmitting video and audio, Chung said.

Among the challenges going forward is overcoming the difficulty of recognizing speech in a noisy environment and securing the connection between the device camera and the authenticating server.

“For any security mechanism that we develop, we need to worry about the security of the mechanism first,” Lee said. “Once you develop security technology, it becomes a target for the attackers, and that certainly applies to biometric technology.”

Some 800 million people around the world depend on livestock that graze on natural vegetation for their livelihoods and food security. In a good season, grasses and other plants flourish, supporting robust herds. In a bad season, the system suffers – as do the people who rely on it. The difference between a good and bad year? One significant and increasingly volatile factor is precipitation.

A new study in Nature Climate Change reveals that over the past century year-to-year precipitation variability has increased significantly on 49 percent of the world’s grazing lands, affecting vegetation and constraining its ability to support livestock. The study’s authors, led by a team from the UMN Institute on the Environment, used climate data from 1901 to 2014 to create global maps of precipitation variability trends. While some grazing lands showed decreases in rainfall variability, the overall trend is an increase in fluctuation, both within and between years.

“Visualizing precipitation variability trends allows us to identify grazing lands that have undergone large changes – and to learn from those places where people have managed to adapt well despite increased variability,” said lead author Lindsey Sloat, a postdoctoral research associate with IonE’s Global Landscapes Initiative.

This insight is important, because grazing lands are already typically marginal: unsuitable for crops, either too dry or with poor soils.

“Even small changes in rainfall put them at more risk,” said Paul West, co-director of GLI. Furthermore, some grazing lands are even more inhospitable than others. Changes in precipitation variability especially affect these more vulnerable lands, which – adding to global risk – also tend to be home to the smallholder farmers and pastoralists who most depend on livestock for food.

The researchers found that global grazing lands already experience 25 percent more year-to-year variability in precipitation than the average global surface land area.

Regions with high year-to-year precipitation variability support lower livestock densities than less variable regions and the overall precipitation variability has increased the most in areas where grazing is predicted to be important for local food access

“This study is showing us that grazing is potentially highly vulnerable to climate change, right across the world, from Australia to Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas,” said co-author Mario Herrero of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

First, you can complain. Yell. Bang on the dinner table. Tell your family and friends the man is a dangerous fool. Explode every time you read something about him. Swear every time you see him on TV. Go ballistic when you listen to him or about him on the radio.

Complaining may feel good, but it won’t help.

Your second choice: You can bury your head in the sand. Pretend he’s not there. Stop reading the news. Turn off the TV and radio. No longer visit political Internet sites. When family or friends bring up his name, change the subject.

Burying your head in the sand may also feel good, but it certainly won’t help, either.

You have a third choice. You can get active, and make it harder for Trump to damage America. This coming November 6, 34 senate seats, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and 36 governorships will be up for election or re-election.

Support primary candidates who will resist Trump. Mobilize to get out the vote. Organize so that November 6 becomes a total repudiation of Donald Trump and all he stands for.

Start right now. Find an Indivisible group near you. Go Indivisible.org and become part of the solution. If you’re already in a blue state and want to reach out to purple or red parts of the country, visit swingleft.org or sisterdistrict.com.

Democracy is fragile, it requires all of us to protect it.

Many in Russia and the West who are now celebrating the appearance of the Mueller report on the activities of Russian trolls in the United States media space during the 2016 elections have failed to reflect how Moscow is certain to exploit this report to further repress its critics inside the Russian Federation.

This report, the US-based Russian historian says, precisely by limiting its indictments to 13 individuals and three organizations who exploited the possibilities of the Internet to try to influence the American election provides Moscow with a real opportunity to turn the tables on those who are praising it (ivpavlova.blogspot.com/2018/02/blog-post_18.html).

On the one hand, she suggests, Russian commentators will have every reason to play up the notion that “the most powerful country in the world” simply couldn’t cope with a small group of Internet trolls who simply made use of the possibilities for anonymity and duplicity which the Internet offers to many.

Moreover, Pavlova points out, the Mueller report appears to suggest that virtually unknown Russian trolls “even with 100,000 followers on Facebook could by their texts and advertisements” count the influence of Hollywood actors … who have not thousands but millions of followers” and who with rare exceptions opposed to the man the trolls supported.

This will give Moscow propagandists the opportunity to ask questions that will make the US look incompetent at best and pathetic at worst, incapable of dealing with the new virtual reality and apparently so weak that a baker’s dozen of trolls could determine the outcome of elections. Many Moscow mouthpieces have already started to do just that.

But on the other hand, the Russian historian continues, “the consequences of this step will be very serious for critics of the existing Russian regime who today, without reflecting very much, support with enthusiasm Mueller’s bill of indictment.” They will sooner than they can imagine have reason to regret their stance.

Now, in the wake of the Mueller report, “the Russian authorities on a legal basis, citing this document, have received the right to block any negative comments about Russia from the outside, presenting them as interference not only in their elections but in general in the internal affairs of the country, interference directed at undermining ‘Russian democracy.’”

And this is without mentioning “the additional problems that await those organizations which up to now the US finances to promote liberal values.”

Pavlova is right to warn about how Moscow may try to turn the tables on the US and on Russian critics by using the Mueller report. But there are three caveats to her argument that must be made.

First, throughout his career, Mueller has followed the time-tested model of pursuing a conspiracy, starting from the outside and working in. This is thus the first and not the last report he’ll be issuing. Others will involve the direct links between the Kremlin and the trolls and between Moscow and American political figures.

Because that is the case, if Moscow does try to exploit the report in the way Pavlova suggests, that effort may blow up in its face.

Second, Mueller is also almost certain to follow another time-tested model of researching this kind of criminal activity – by “following the money.” Someone paid for these trolls and their operation, and in Putin’s Russia, however murky the authorities may try to make it, the only plausible source of such funds is the Kremlin and its allies.

That too will come out, if not immediately than in the coming weeks and months.

And third, it is important to remember that in American law – and indeed, in the laws of most countries – those who attempt a crime are held responsible almost as much as those who succeed. The Russian trolls had some influence on Americans but likely far less than they claim or than others fear. But the key point is that they tried to undermine the American political system.

For that, they will be found guilty, just as those who try but fail to kill someone will be found guilty as well.

An Icelandic bill that would bar circumcision for non-medical reasons has given rise to opposition from various religious groups, including Christians as well as Jews and Muslims.

“Protecting the health of children is a legitimate goal of every society, but in this case this concern is instrumentalized, without any scientific basis, to stigmatise certain religious communities. This is extremely worrying,” commented Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, who is president of the Catholic Church in the European Union.

Circumcision is a religious ritual in both Judaism and Islam. Jewish boys are circumcised eight days after birth, while Muslim practices vary widely.

The proposed bill states that “Anyone who…causes damage to the body or health of a child or a woman by…removing sexual organs shall be imprisoned for up to 6 years.”

Female genital mutilation has been banned in Iceland since 2005.

The bill was introduced by Silja Dogg Gunnarsdóttir of the Progressive Party of Iceland, who said, “We are talking about children’s rights, not about freedom of belief. Everyone has the right to believe in what they want, but the rights of children come above the right to believe.”

The health risks and benefits of circumcision have been a topic of debate for several years in some European countries, although none have banned the practice outright.

Iceland, which has a population of around 334,000, has a small Muslim population of less than 1,500, , and an even smaller Jewish population of fewer than 250.

Agnes Sigurðardóttir, the Lutheran Bishop of Iceland, has warned that “the danger that arises, if this bill becomes law, is that Judaism and Islam will become criminalised religions. We must avoid all such forms of extremism.”

Yair Melchior, chief rabbi of Denmark, and and Yoav Melchior, rabbi of Oslo, have commented that “There is no country in the world now that bans circumcision. This sets a dangerous precedent that may affect other countries.”

Ahmad Seddeeq, an imam at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Iceland, said that circumcision “is something that touches our religion and I believe that this is… a contravention [of] religious freedom.”

By Dusica Tomovic

Montenegro’s main pro-Serbian opposition group, the Democratic Front, has accused the country’s pro-Western government of treason after Podgorica and Pristina agreed to set up an working group “to correct if necessary” the previously agreed border between the two countries.

The Front accused the Prime Minister, Dusko Markovic, of “voluntarily giving part of the country’s territory to Kosovo”.

One of the Front’s leaders, Nebojsa Medojevic, on Twitter on Monday complained that none of the other parliamentary parties, pro-Western NGOs or the state university had reacted after part of the territory of Montenegro was “gifted to the fake state of Kosovo”.

“No one [reacted] except the Democratic Front. The others are ready for treason,” Medojevic said.

On Friday, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci issued a joint statement with the President of Montenegro, Filip Vujanovic, about the controversial issue of marking the border, saying the two states had agreed to work together on identifying points of dispute.

Thaci spoke of the formation of a joint working body with Montenegro, which will identify disagreements over the border and make the necessary corrections in Cakor, the disputed mountain peak on the border.

While the two countries that both were once part of Yugoslavia signed a demarcation agreement in 2015, Kosovo’s parliament has yet to ratify it.

The agreement referred to the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution and to maps from 1974.

President Thaci said Kosovo would make “all efforts to ratify the agreement” once the dispute was cleared up.

Kosovo has failed to ratify it due to strong opposition from several parties, which claim it deprives Kosovo of territory.

The agreement was supposed to be put to a vote in the Kosovo parliament in September 2016, but ratification was postponed following violent clashes over the issue.

Opposition parties in Kosovo claim the mountain peaks of Cakor and Beluha, located on the border, assigned to Montenegro, are part of Kosovo.

Now, the opposition Front alliance in Montenegro says it fears Podgorica is preparing a “trade-off”, and is willing to give up some of the country’s territory.

On Sunday, the Front said that Montenegro could be endangered by the government’s new deal. “Such an extremely critical and dangerous situation, in which a group of irresponsible politicians trades territory, can only be solved by the courts or in a referendum,” it said.

The Eurogroup on Monday gave its support to the candidacy of Luis de Guindos for the position of Vice President of the European Central Bank (ECB).

The recommendation to the European Council, composed of the heads of state and government, should be formally adopted by the Council on February 20.

On this basis, the European Council will request opinions from both the European Parliament and the Governing Council of the ECB. It is then expected to adopt its final decision at its meeting of  March 22-23.

The new Vice President will replace Vítor Constâncio as of June 1, 2018. He will serve a non-renewable 8-year term.

(RFE/RL) — The European Union has warned Albania against “interference” in neighboring countries and Serbian officials accused Tirana of wanting to build a “Greater Albania,” after the Albanian prime minister said his country and Kosovo could one day have a single president.

Addressing Kosovo’s parliament to celebrate the country’s 10th anniversary since its declaration of independence from Serbia, Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama noted on February 18 that Tirana and Pristina already shared some diplomatic missions around the world.

“Why not a single president, as a symbol of national unity?” he added.

Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, declared independence nearly a decade after the 1998-99 Kosovo war. More than 110 countries recognize its independence. Serbia does not.

Both Albania and Kosovo have ethnic Albanian majorities.

Reacting to Rama’s suggestion, European Commission spokeswoman Catherine Ray told reporters in Brussels on February 19 that “statements which might be interpreted as political interference in neighboring countries are not helpful in building good neighborly relations.”

She added that the EU expected the six Western Balkan countries that remain outside the bloc, including Albania and Serbia, to “build constructive and cooperative relations and to focus and intensify the work on their own respective reform programs to move forward on the EU integration path.”

Meanwhile, Rama’s comments sparked furious reactions in Serbia, which in the past has accused Tirana of seeking to create a “Greater Albania” — which Albania denies.

Nenad Popovic, Serbia’s minister without portfolio in charge of innovation and technological development, said in a statement on February 19 that his country should declare the Albanian prime minister persona non grata.

He said that Rama’s comments “point to a clear and unequivocal plan for the creation of a so-called Greater Albania in the Balkans and on Serbian soil.”

Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin said that “Greater Albania must finally, after centuries, be stopped in its expansion.”

“For us, Kosovo is a part of our state and every time someone presents this kind of ideas, of course, it cannot be welcomed or accepted,” said the head of Serbia’s Government Office of Kosovo, Marko Djuric.

Officials in Kosovo have not commented on Rama’s comments.

In his speech before Kosovo’s lawmakers, the Albanian prime minister acknowledged that his suggestion was not likely to happen anytime soon, but added that “history tells us that it is not impossible for a dream to come true.”

Rama also said that in the future, “Albanians and Serbians will co-exist…like two countries with good neighborly relations that are an integral part of the European Union.”

(EurActiv) — Anti-corruption authorities in Latvia have arrested the governor of the country’s central bank, Ilmars Rimsevics, the government said Sunday (18 February), while assuring there is “no sign of danger” to the financial system.

Rimsevics, who was appointed governor in 2001, was detained by officers from the Corruption Prevention Bureau (KNAB) on Saturday and questioned for seven hours before being taken to another location on Sunday, according to a journalist from the Baltic News Agency (BNS).

Local media said anti-corruption officers also raided the governor’s residence and his offices at the Bank of Latvia.

Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis confirmed the arrest but insisted there was “no sign of danger for the Latvian financial system”.

“For now, neither I (as prime minister) nor any other official has any reason to interfere in the work of the KNAB. The office (KNAB) is working professionally,” Kucinskis told BNS, the Latvian news agency.

“When KNAB considers it possible to give additional information to the public, it will do so,” he added.

KNAB declined to comment and no reason was given for the arrest.

The anti-corruption bureau will make a comment “as soon as possible,” spokeswoman Laura Dusa said, giving no indication as to why Rimsevics had been arrested.

Finance Minister Dana Reizniece-Ozola said Rimsevics should step aside for the time being to protect the Baltic country’s reputation.

“Given that the governor of the central bank is a symbol for every country, I think that it would be sensible at this moment that Mr. Rimsevics, at least during the investigation, steps down,” Reizniece-Ozola told a news conference.

“Under the current circumstances… every day that Mr. Rimsevics remains in the post of governor of the central bank, the situation (for the reputation of Latvia’s financial system) substantially worsens,” she said.

As Latvia is part of the euro area, Rimsevics is also a member of main body of the European Central Bank (ECB), known as the Governing Council, composed of the 19 governors of the eurozone.

A spokesperson for the European Central Bank declined to comment on Rimsevics’ detention.

Latvia’s Economics Minister Arvils Aseradens, speaking on Radio Latvia, also said the governor should consider resigning.

The government is due to hold an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday.

Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis said on Twitter that he would meet the National Security Council to discuss the “situation in the banking sector”, without specifying a date.

LTV public television reported that businessman Maris Martinsons, who operates in the construction and credit industries, had also been arrested by KNAB.

Earlier this month The US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) took action against Latvia’s ABLV, one of the largest private banks in the Baltics, over concerns about money laundering and activities linked to North Korea’s weapons programme.

Turkey’s foreign minister warned on Monday, February 19 that Turkey’s military would confront any Syrian government forces entering the northwest Afrin province to protect Kurdish YPG fighters, Reuter reveals.

“If the regime is entering there to cleanse the PKK and PYD, then there are no problems,” Mevlut Cavusoglu said, referring to the military loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“However, if it comes in to defend the YPG, then nothing and nobody can stop us or Turkish soldiers.” he told a news conference during a visit to the Jordanian capital Amman.

Militias allied to the Syrian government will enter the Afrin region within hours, state media reported on Monday, after a reported deal to help Kurdish forces repel Turkey’s forces. Turkey launched an operation last month against the Syrian Kurdish YPG in Afrin. Turkey considers the YPG terrorists.

By Joshua Kucera

Azerbaijan’s president has claimed that large parts of Armenia’s territory are Azerbaijan’s “historic lands,” vowing to return to them. The fraught assertion threatens to derail any progress, however slight, in peace talks between the two countries in recent months.

“Yerevan is our historical land and we Azerbaijanis must return to these historical lands,” President Ilham Aliyev said at a congress of his New Azerbaijan Party on February 9. The speech was in effect the opening of his campaign for a fourth presidential term; earlier in the week Aliyev had unexpectedly announced snap elections to be held in April.

In the speech, Aliyev also referred to the Zangezur region, in far southern Armenia, and the region around Armenia’s Lake Sevan (known in Azerbaijani as the Göyçə region) as “our historic lands.” Azerbaijanis’ return to those territories, he added, “is our political and strategic goal, and we need to work step-by-step to get closer to it.”

Aliyev’s phrasing left some ambiguity as to exactly what he meant by Azerbaijanis “returning” to Armenia, but the spokesman for Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry, Hikmet Hajiyev, said that it did not imply any territorial claims. “It is not a territorial claim, but restoration of historical justice,” Hajiyev told Eurasianet.org by email. “Azerbaijanis have the right to return to their historical lands, to claim their properties and visit the graveyards of their great-grandfathers.”

The question of “historical lands” in the Caucasus is a fraught one. In the pre-Soviet era, the region was far less ethnically divided: Armenians did in fact represent a minority in the areas that Aliyev mentioned, and Muslims (including Azerbaijanis) the majority. But Azerbaijanis were only a small minority in Baku before the Soviet era; on the eve of World War I they were nearly outnumbered by Armenians. Armenians, meanwhile, were the majority in much of eastern Turkey before being driven out in the World War I genocide.

Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan became much more ethnically homogeneous through the course of the 20th century, and the war between the two sides in the 1990s finalized that process. There are now only tiny numbers of Armenians living in Azerbaijan, and vice versa, mostly elderly widows.

Armenian officials responded to Aliyev’s comments by casting doubt on Azerbaijan’s historical presence on its own lands. “The statement about territorial claims of the president of Azerbaijan, a state appearing on the political map of the world only 100 years ago … yet again demonstrates the racist character of the ruling regime in Baku,” said Tigran Balayan, spokesman for Armenia’s foreign ministry.

One clear effect of Aliyev’s comments seems to be a cooling of hopes for progress in talks over Nagorno Karabakh, which had made some fitful steps forward as of late. “Until Azerbaijanis rejects their maximalist, unrealistic expectations about the negotiations, but instead rave about seizing Yerevan or Zangezur, we will not harbor much hope that the issue will be resolved,” Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said at a February 12 press conference.

Aliyev has in the past made similar claims about parts of Armenia being Azerbaijan’s historical home, but Baku now appears to be laying the intellectual groundwork to make the case more aggressively. Since his speech, government officials’ Twitter accounts have been promoting a high-production-quality video, produced by the Ministry for Youth and Sport, arguing for Yerevan’s Azerbaijani origins. “The city … is clearly one of Azerbaijan’s cultural centers,” the narrator says.

“The younger generation, and the entire world, should know about that,” Aliyev said in his speech. “I am glad that scientific work is being done, films are being produced, exhibitions are organized about the history of our ancestral lands. In the years ahead we must be more active in this direction, and presentations and exhibitions should be organized in various corners of the world.”

Aliyev’s claims this time also appear to be connected with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, with which the current regime has a complicated relationship. While the government likes to use the ADR’s progressive legacy – it was the first Muslim country to give women the right to vote – it is uneasy with the embrace of the ADR by Azerbaijan’s current-day liberal opposition.

In the past, Aliyev has blamed the ADR leadership for the loss of Yerevan and Zangezur to Soviet Armenia. While his comments last week did not repeat that accusation, some pro-government commentators made the connection.

“This year is the ‘Year of the Republic,’” said one commentator, Arzu Nagiyev. “In this context, it is important to pay attention to the issue of Azerbaijan’s historical lands, to whom and by whom these lands were given away.”

“In the days [of the ADR], a discussion took place about a capital for Armenians,” wrote Farhad Mammadov, an analyst at the government-run Center for Strategic Studies, in a Facebook post on Aliyev’s comments. “The only city in the South Caucasus where Armenians were a majority was Alexandropol (today’s Gyumri), but it was then occupied by the Turks. On May 29 [1918], Fatali Khan Khoyski [first prime minister of the ADR] explained the handover of Yerevan to the Armenians, saying: ‘The concession of Yerevan is a historical necessity, but for us it is an unavoidable and bitter reality.’”

Other Azerbaijani commentators justified Aliyev’s statements by pointing to similar comments by Armenians, who at times brag about “drinking tea in Baku” after a decisive military victory over Azerbaijan. Armenians also appear increasingly uninterested in Nagorno Karabakh – the de jure Azerbaijani territory that is de facto controlled by Armenian forces – returning to its former multiethnic state.

“Unlike Armenia, where as a result of ethnic cleansing hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis and Kurds who had lived there for centuries were expelled, and which occupies Azerbaijan’s territory and is trying to legalize its territorial gains, President Ilham Aliyev speaks about Azerbaijanis returning to Yerevan and Zangezur, to the place where they historically lived, not raising the issue of joining those territories to Azerbaijan,” Azerbaijani MP Rasim Musabekov told local media. “This is one of the fundamental differences between Baku and the Armenian chauvinists who contravene international laws.”