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Scientists Accurately Model Action Of Aerosols On Clouds

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Global climate is a tremendously complex phenomenon, and researchers are making painstaking progress, year by year, to try to develop ever more accurate models. Now, an international group including researchers from the Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Japan, using the powerful K computer, have for the first time accurately calculated the effects of aerosols on clouds in a climate model.

Aerosols play a key role in cloud formation, as they provide the “seeds”–called cloud condensation nuclei–that allow clouds to form and affect their life cycle. The water in the air condenses onto the tiny particles, and gradually grow into droplets and finally into raindrops that precipitate. The action of aerosols is an important element of research on climate change, as they partially counteract the heating action of greenhouse gases.

It was previously believed that increasing aerosol density would always lead to more clouds, but recent satellite observations showed that this is not necessarily true. It is now understood that, due to temperature differences between the top and bottom layers of clouds, there is a delicate balance of evaporation and condensation, with aerosols in the lower parts of the clouds promoting cloud formation, but those in the upper parts allowing the water to evaporate.

Previously, climate models were unable to model the response of these micro-processes within the clouds to aerosol variation, but using the K computer, the RIKEN-led group combined a model that simulates the entire global weather over a year, at a horizontal resolution of just 14 kilometers, with a simulation of how the aerosols behave within clouds. Unlike conventional models, which show a uniform increase in clouds over the earth when there is an increase in aerosols, the high-resolution model, which takes into account the vertical processes inside clouds, accurately depicted how large areas experience a drop in cloud cover.

According to Yosuke Sato from the Computational Climate Science Research Team at RIKEN AICS and Nagoya University, “It was very gratifying to see that we could use a powerful supercomputer to accurately model the microphysics of clouds, giving a more accurate picture of how clouds and aerosol behave in the real world. In the future, we hope to use even more powerful computers to allow climate models to have more certainty in climate prediction.”


Mekong River Dams Could Disrupt Lives, Environment

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The Mekong River, one of the world’s largest, traverses six Southeast Asian countries and supports the livelihoods of millions of people. New efforts to provide hydroelectric power to a growing and modernizing population include more than eight proposed main-stem dams and 60 or more existing tributary dams in the lower Mekong basin.

A new article from University of Illinois and Iowa State University scientists lays out what dam construction could mean for residents and the environment in the region.

“Development projects, such as dam construction on the Mekong River and tributaries to support a booming hydropower industry, are bringing great change to ecological, agricultural, and cultural systems in this region,” said Kenneth Olson, professor emeritus in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at U of I and co-author of the article.

In the article, Olson and co-author Lois Wright Morton provide the context of this unique coupled natural-human river system – its hydrology, geology, ecology, seasonal flood cycle, and human dimensions. They also delve into the politics and the potential effects of the dams, focusing specifically on the Xayaburi Dam in Laos.

Olson and Morton report that construction on the Xayaburi Dam, the first dam south of the China border to be constructed across the main stem of the Mekong River, has been quietly underway for years and is scheduled for completion in 2018. The dam has incited worldwide opposition, as well as local protests and violence.

“Many are concerned that the Xayaburi Hydropower Dam in Laos, could cause irreversible and long-term ecological damage to a river that feeds millions of people, force the resettlement of 2,100, directly affect 202,000 people who use the Mekong bottomlands to produce food, and may push endangered fish, such as Mekong giant catfish, to extinction,” Olson said.

Morton, professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology at Iowa State, added, “The Mekong River and adjacent lands are where the poorest people in Southeast Asia live. Average annual income is less than $200. They make their living from floodplain and riverbank agriculture and fishing. Laos is a mountainous country and the fertile soils are in the floodplains, many of which will be permanently flooded with the construction of these large dams.

“Resettling rural people in uplands means the soils are different, often less fertile and not well suited to rice and vegetable crops they are familiar with. They will need to learn new agricultural practices, different fishing strategies [river vs. lake] and make or purchase different fishing equipment. This kind of change takes time and personal resources that people often don’t have,” she said.

Olson points out that the dams also affect the seasonal pulse of the river, change fish diversity and abundance, and impact downstream water flows and availability.

“Further, dams trap sediment needed as a nutrient source for fish, block fish migration, and reduce the amount of sediment deposited in the Mekong Delta,” he said. “Lower Mekong River levels have accelerated saltwater intrusion into the delta region, adversely affecting rice production, and have contributed to ground water pollution.”

The Mekong River Commission was established in 1995 by Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam to coordinate competing interests and assure the river is protected for current and future uses. However the commission is often set back by government roadblocks and receives limited support from two adjacent upstream countries, China and Myanmar, who also use the Mekong.

“The MRC is only powerful if the countries that fund it give respect and authority to its rules and regulations, even if they don’t always agree with them. This is a difficult governance challenge which they are working through,” Morton said.

Ultimately, the Mekong River presents a huge opportunity for hydropower to modernize Laos, but Olson and Morton argue human and environmental concerns are at risk. They advocate for governments in Southeast Asia to empower the MRC to carry out its mission to mitigate the negative impacts of dam building while realizing the benefits.

Indonesia: FBI Seeks Meeting With Police On Handing Over Luxury Yacht

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By Anton Muhajir and N. Nantha

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has requested a meeting with Indonesian police related to the handing over to the United States of a mega-yacht allegedly bought with money looted from Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB, officials in Indonesia said Thursday.

Indonesian and U.S. authorities last week impounded the Equanimity, a Cayman Islands-flagged vessel, while it was moored off the Indonesian island of Bali.

“The FBI has asked me if they can meet me regarding the handing over process of the ship,” Inspector Gen. Petrus Reinhard Golose, the Bali police chief, told BenarNews.

“The ship is still being held at Benoa Harbor in accordance with a court order,” he said, adding that the yacht’s captain, Rolf Andrian Henry Berry of South Africa, and its 29 crewmembers were on board.

News agencies, meanwhile, were reporting that Indonesia was preparing to hand over the yacht to U.S. authorities.

That “is in the process of being done,” Agence France-Presse quoted Indonesian national police senior detective Daniel Silitonga on Thursday.

In civil lawsuits filed in June 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that Malaysian business tycoon Jho Low, whose full name is Low Taek Jho, had paid U.S. $250 million for the 100-meter (300-foot) Equanimity by using some of the $4.5 billion allegedly misappropriated from the state fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

But Jho Low was not among the 34 people who were on the yacht when authorities raided it eight days ago, officials said. Low’s whereabouts remain unknown.

Malaysia’s police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said his office was awaiting information about the yacht.

“Malaysian police have not received any information, either from Indonesian authorities or the FBI, regarding the seizure of Equanimity on Feb. 28,” Fuzi told BenarNews on Thursday.

Inspector Gen. Setyo Wasisto, the Indonesian national police spokesman, told reporters Friday that the yacht’s Automatic Identification System, which would allow satellites to pinpoint its location, had been switched off several times in the waters around Singapore and the Philippines, before it entered Indonesian waters in November 2017.

Letter from the FBI

Indonesian police seized the Equanimity after receiving a letter from the FBI on Feb. 21 requesting help to enforce a court order, officials said.

The seizure came days before a March 16 court-mandated deadline for the DOJ to file its first report on the status of its criminal probe.

In August 2017, the department asked a California court to put aside its civil lawsuits seeking to recover real-estate and other assets because it was trying to protect evidence and witnesses in its ongoing criminal investigation. DOJ did not announce who were the targets of its criminal probe.

1MDB, at the center of money-laundering investigations in at least six countries, including Switzerland and Singapore, was formed in 2009 ostensibly to pursue projects that would benefit Malaysian citizens through development projects that primarily relied on the issuance of debt securities, U.S. officials said.

It was instead used to satiate the ostentatious lifestyle of those with power over it during a five-year period, between 2009 and 2014, according to court documents.

Low, who served as an adviser on the creation of TIA, the predecessor entity of 1MDB, publicly denied any involvement with the state fund, court documents said. He has never held a formal position at 1MDB.

Court documents obtained by BenarNews show that DOJ accused Low of laundering more than $400 million stolen from 1MDB through acquisitions of properties in California, New York and London. Other than the yacht, he also allegedly spent millions of dollars on paintings and a jet for $35 million.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who founded 1MDB in 2009, served as chairman of its advisory board, but Malaysian Attorney General Apandi Ali had earlier cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Najib and officials of the fund also denied the embezzlement allegations.

Funds shipped through multiple accounts

Equanimity, built by Oceanco in 2014 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, is equipped with a helicopter pad, an onboard gymnasium, a cinema, a massage room, a sauna and a plunge pool, according to court documents.

On Thursday, DOJ spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman also confirmed that Red Granite Pictures, a production company co-founded by Najib’s stepson, Riza Shahriz Bin Abdul Aziz, agreed to pay the U.S. government $60 million to settle a DOJ lawsuit alleging that its movies were made using diverted funds from 1MDB.

Red Granite Pictures, which produced “Wolf of Wall Street,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and big-budget comedies “Daddy’s Home” and “Dumb and Dumber To,” will pay the amount in three installments over the next 12 months, according to court documents obtained by BenarNews. The settlement agreement was filed with the U.S. district court in California on Tuesday.

“The Justice Department continues to seek to forfeit nearly $1.7 billion in assets that were acquired with public funds that the Department alleges were misappropriated from 1MDB,” Navas Oxman told BenarNews in an emailed statement.

“This settlement does not release any individual or entity from criminal liability,” she said.

Roni Toldanes in Washington contributed to this report.

Neuroticism Could Be ‘Sleeper Effect’ In Trump And Brexit Campaigns

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Regions where voters have more neurotic personality traits were more likely to vote for Donald Trump in the United States or for the Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom, revealing a new trend that could help explain the rise of fearmongering populist political campaigns across the world, according to new research published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Researchers analyzed personality traits from online surveys of more than 3 million people in the United States and more than 417,000 people in the United Kingdom. Election data was compiled from public sources.

“Our study reveals how neuroticism or psychological hardship is shaping the global political landscape,” said lead study author Martin Obschonka, PhD, a psychologist and associate professor at Queensland University of Technology in Australia. “One could also call this ‘irrational’ voting behavior because the surprising success of Trump and Brexit weren’t predicted by models that relied on a rational understanding of voters.”

Neuroticism hasn’t previously been associated with voting behavior, suggesting that it could have been a “sleeper effect” with the potential to have a profound impact on the success of populist political campaigns across the globe, Obschonka said.

The Trump and Brexit campaigns both promoted themes of fear and lost pride, which are related to neurotic personality traits that include persistent feelings of fear, anxiety, depression, envy or jealousy. Regions in the United States with greater support for Trump were very similar to areas in the United Kingdom that supported Brexit, including a higher percentage of white people and lower levels of college education, earnings and liberal attitudes. Former industrial areas that are now in economic decline also were more likely to support Trump or Brexit.

The Brexit vote in June 2016 by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union succeeded by a very narrow margin, with 51.9 percent of voters in favor. Trump’s presidential victory in 2016 also shocked many people, with him winning 30 states and the electoral vote tally even though 2.8 million more Americans voted for Hilary Clinton.

Trump’s crucial voter gains above the performance of 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney occurred largely in areas with high levels of neurotic traits, including battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio, which shifted from Democratic in 2012 to Republican in 2016. Trump’s populist campaign also was especially successful in former industrial centers that are now in economic decline, including the Rust Belt region across the Midwest and Great Lakes.

The researchers examined regions, not individuals, and were studying larger trends relating to psychological traits, not specific diagnoses of mental illness for any voters. The study also excluded Northern Ireland from the Brexit analysis because of the lack of available data.

The fears and worries of voters with neurotic personality traits should be taken seriously, and facts should be provided during political campaigns to allay those fears, Obschonka said. Education also could be a buffer against fearmongering populist political campaigns because regions with higher rates of college graduates had much lower levels of neuroticism, he said.

Poor Rural Population Had Best Diet And Health In Mid-Victorian Years

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Poor, rural societies retaining a more traditional lifestyle where high-quality foods were obtained locally enjoyed the best diet and health in mid-Victorian Britain. A new study, published in JRSM Open, examined the impact of regional diets on the health of the poor during mid-19th century Britain and compared it with mortality data over the same period.

The peasant-style culture of the rural poor in more isolated regions provided abundant locally produced cheap foodstuffs such as potatoes, vegetables, whole grains, milk and fish. These regions also showed the lowest mortality rates, with fewer deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis, which is typically associated with better nutrition.

The study’s author, Dr Peter Greaves, of the Leicester Cancer Research Centre, said: “The fact that these better fed regions of Britain also showed lower mortality rates is entirely consistent with recent studies that have shown a decreased risk of death following improvement towards a higher Mediterranean dietary standard.”

Dr Greaves explained: “The rural diet was often better for the poor in more isolated areas because of payment in kind, notably in grain, potatoes, meat, milk or small patches of land to grow vegetables or to keep animals.”

“Unfortunately, these societies were in the process of disappearing under the pressure of urbanisation, commercial farming and migration. Such changes in Victorian society were forerunners of the dietary delocalisation that has occurred across the world, which has often led to a deterioration of diversity of locally produced food and reduced the quality of diet for poor rural populations.”

Dr Greaves added: “Conversely, in much of rapidly urbanising Britain in the mid-19th century, improvements in living conditions, better transport links and access to a greater variety of imported foods eventually led to improved life expectancy for many of the urban poor.”

False News Travels Faster On Twitter Than True Stories

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A new study by three MIT scholars has found that false news spreads more rapidly on the social network Twitter than real news does – and by a substantial margin.

“We found that falsehood defuses significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth, in all categories of information, and in many cases by an order of magnitude,” said Sinan Aral, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of a new paper detailing the findings.

“These findings shed new light on fundamental aspects of our online communication ecosystem,” said Deb Roy, an associate professor of media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab and director of the Media Lab’s Laboratory for Social Machines (LSM), who is also a co-author of the study. Roy adds that the researchers were “somewhere between surprised and stunned” at the different trajectories of true and false news on Twitter.

Moreover, the scholars found, the spread of false information is essentially not due to bots that are programmed to disseminate inaccurate stories. Instead, false news speeds faster around Twitter due to people retweeting inaccurate news items.

“When we removed all of the bots in our dataset, [the] differences between the spread of false and true news stood,”said Soroush Vosoughi, a co-author of the new paper and a postdoc at LSM whose PhD research helped give rise to the current study.

The study provides a variety of ways of quantifying this phenomenon: For instance, false news stories are 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true stories are. It also takes true stories about six times as long to reach 1,500 people as it does for false stories to reach the same number of people. When it comes to Twitter’s “cascades,” or unbroken retweet chains, falsehoods reach a cascade depth of 10 about 20 times faster than facts. And falsehoods are retweeted by unique users more broadly than true statements at every depth of cascade.

The paper, “The Spread of True and False News Online,” is published in Science.

Why novelty may drive the spread of falsity

The genesis of the study involves the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent casualties, which received massive attention on Twitter.

“Twitter became our main source of news,” Vosoughi says. But in the aftermath of the tragic events, he added, “I realized that … a good chunk of what I was reading on social media was rumors; it was false news.” Subsequently, Vosoughi and Roy – Vosoughi’s graduate advisor at the time – decided to pivot Vosoughi’s PhD focus to develop a model that could predict the veracity of rumors on Twitter.

Subsequently, after consultation with Aral – another of Vosoughi’s graduate advisors, who has studied social networks extensively – the three researchers decided to try the approach used in the new study: objectively identifying news stories as true or false, and charting their Twitter trajectories. Twitter provided support for the research and granted the MIT team full access to its historical archives. Roy served as Twitter’s chief media scientist from 2013 to 2017.

To conduct the study, the researchers tracked roughly 126,000 cascades of news stories spreading on Twitter, which were cumulatively tweeted over 4.5 million times by about 3 million people, from the years 2006 to 2017.

To determine whether stories were true or false, the team used the assessments of six fact-checking organizations (factcheck.org, hoax-slayer.com, politifact.com, snopes.org, truthorfiction.com, and urbanlegends.about.com), and found that their judgments overlapped more than 95 percent of the time.

Of the 126,000 cascades, politics comprised the biggest news category, with about 45,000, followed by urban legends, business, terrorism, science, entertainment, and natural disasters. The spread of false stories was more pronounced for political news than for news in the other categories.

The researchers also settled on the term “false news” as their object of study, as distinct from the now-ubiquitous term “fake news,” which involves multiple broad meanings.

The bottom-line findings produce a basic question: Why do falsehoods spread more quickly than the truth, on Twitter? Aral, Roy, and Vosoughi suggest the answer may reside in human psychology: We like new things.

“False news is more novel, and people are more likely to share novel information,” Aral said. And on social networks, people can gain attention by being the first to share previously unknown (but possibly false) information. Thus, as Aral puts it, “people who share novel information are seen as being in the know.”

The MIT scholars examined this “novelty hypothesis” in their research by taking a random subsample of Twitter users who propagated false stories, and analyzing the content of the reactions to those stories.

The result? “We saw a different emotional profile for false news and true news,” Vosoughi said. “People respond to false news more with surprise and disgust,” he notes, whereas true stories produced replies more generally characterized by sadness, anticipation, and trust.

So while the researchers “cannot claim that novelty causes retweets” by itself, as they state in the paper, the surprise people register when they see false news fits with the idea that the novelty of falsehoods may be an important part of their propagation.

Directions for further research

While the three researchers all think the magnitude of the effect they found is highly significant, their views on its civic implications vary slightly. Aral said the result is “very scary” in civic terms, while Roy is a bit more sanguine. But the scholars agree it is important to think about ways to limit the spread of misinformation, and they hope their result will encourage more research on the subject.

On the first count, Aral noted, the recognition that humans, not bots, spread false news more quickly suggests a general approach to the problem.

“Now behavioral interventions become even more important in our fight to stop the spread of false news,” Aral said. “Whereas if it were just bots, we would need a technological solution.”

Vosoughi, for his part, suggested that if some people are deliberately spreading false news while others are doing so unwittingly, then the phenomenon is a two-part problem that may require multiple tactics in response. And Roy says the findings may help create “measurements or indicators that could become benchmarks” for social networks, advertisers, and other parties.

The MIT scholars said it is possible that the same phenomenon occurs on other social media platforms, including Facebook, but they emphasize that careful studies are needed on that and other related questions.

In that vein, Aral said, “science needs to have more support, both from industry and government, in order to do more studies.”

For now, Roy said, even well-meaning Twitter users might reflect on a simple idea: “Think before you retweet.”

A Peculiar Galactic Clash

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Galaxies are not static islands of stars — they are dynamic and ever-changing, constantly on the move through the darkness of the Universe. Sometimes, as seen in this spectacular Hubble image of Arp 256, galaxies can collide in a crash of cosmic proportions.

350 million light-years away in the constellation of Cetus (the Sea Monster), a pair of barred spiral galaxies have just begun a magnificent merger. This image suspends them in a single moment, freezing the chaotic spray of gas, dust and stars kicked up by the gravitational forces pulling the two galaxies together.

Though their nuclei are still separated by a large distance, the shapes of the galaxies in Arp 256 are impressively distorted. The galaxy in the upper part of the image contains very pronounced tidal tails — long, extended ribbons of gas, dust and stars.

The galaxies are ablaze with dazzling regions of star formation: the bright blue fireworks are stellar nurseries, churning out hot infant stars. These vigorous bursts of new life are triggered by the massive gravitational interactions, which stir up interstellar gas and dust out of which stars are born.

Arp 256 was first catalogued by Halton Arp in 1966, as one of 338 galaxies presented in the aptly-named Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. The goal of the catalogue was to image examples of the weird and wonderful structures found among nearby galaxies, to provide snapshots of different stages of galactic evolution. These peculiar galaxies are like a natural experiment played out on a cosmic scale and by cataloguing them, astronomers can better understand the physical processes that warp spiral and elliptical galaxies into new shapes.

Many galaxies in this catalogue are dwarf galaxies with indistinct structures, or active galaxies generating powerful jets — but a large number of the galaxies are interacting, such as Messier 51, the Antennae Galaxies, and Arp 256. Such interactions often form streamer-like tidal tails as seen in Arp 256, as well as bridges of gas, dust and stars between the galaxies.

Long ago, when our expanding Universe was much smaller, interactions and mergers were more common; in fact, they are thought to drive galactic evolution to this day. The galaxies in the Arp 256 system will continue their gravitational dance over the next millions of years, at first flirtatious, and then intimate, before finally morphing into a single galaxy.

This spectacular image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). It is a new version of an image already released in 2008 that was part a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken for Hubble’s 18th anniversary.

After Apartheid, South Africa Veers Toward Vengeance – OpEd

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By Trey Dimsdale, J.D.*

South Africa’s institutionalized national sin of radical and often violent racial segregation, officially known as Apartheid, ended in the early 1990s. Changes in law, however, do not necessarily mean that there is immediate social transformation. The deep civic wounds that this dark period inflicted on the nation still fester, as evidenced in a March 1 vote by the National Assembly to confiscate white-owned land without compensation.

A national policy as thorough and systematic as Apartheid was always bound to create social problems without easy solutions, but this resolution is nothing short of thuggery and legalized vigilantism. The once violently oppressed South African majority that was once victimized by those who held the reins of state power, now liberated and democratically placed in control of those reins, have simply turned the same tools of oppression into weapons of vengeance. The National Assembly, led by opposition leader Julius Malema, will likely alter the South African Constitution so that this becomes national policy with no legal recourse. Malema is notable for saying to his supporters in 2016, “We are not calling for the slaughter of white people — at least for now.”

South Africa is a beautiful nation with vast resources and almost unbridled potential. It is one of the wealthiest and most industrialized countries in Africa, but it is still plagued with poverty, unemployment, crime, and radical wealth inequality. The factors that influence this are myriad, but the decades-long rule of a privileged elite coupled with the disenfranchisement of the majority of the South African people is certainly a prominent contributing factor. With that said, is the expropriation and redistribution of private property truly the answer to the problems that South Africa faces today?

The March 1 vote by the National Assembly, ironically, marks an inverted return to the unjust policies of the last generation. It denies large portions of the population access to justice and places in jeopardy the key to economic development — private property. Without a predictable system of ownership and a reliable system of transfer, property is only tenuously held. It may be farmed, grazed, or hunted, but the risks coincident to improvement (e.g., the building of a home, irrigation, or cultivation)—the danger that the owner will not be able to realize the long term gains—become an obstacle to development. What investor will build a factory on land to which the title is not secure?

The National Assembly has signaled that the rights to private property in South Africa are violable. Land to which title cannot be secured has value, but it is only a fraction of the commercial and economic value that it has when it can be transformed into capital that can be developed or leveraged in order that more value and more wealth can be created through business, or just through the trade that comes naturally when families put down roots and settle with confidence in their claim to land.

The frustration of the black majority is understandable. Even those who have risen into the middle class did so from a socioeconomic starting point vastly inferior to their white peers. The reasons for this disparity are profoundly unjust, but the remedy to injustice is not more injustice. This solution will only breed more distrust, contempt, and, likely, violence. South Africa has seen enough of these, and certainly does not need more. The antidote to the suffering of a historically oppressed majority is not the suffering of the privileged minority—it is the leveling of social and economic opportunities by the removal of artificial barriers to entry into the local economy and streams of commerce. There are many forms that this leveling might take, but the redistribution of wealth certainly is not one.

In order for South Africa to tap into the vast potential that it has for economic flourishing for all of its citizens, the leaders must stop pursuing a policy of revenge and begin pursuing a policy of what Tocqueville called “equality in liberty.” An entire generation of black South Africans were denied this liberty, but given that they now control a majority of the National Assembly, the progeny of that generation could act to preserve it for all South Africans. The South African Constitution is relatively easy to amend—it requires only a two-thirds vote by the National Assembly in some cases. As long as justice is not secured for some South Africans, it is only as secure as a political majority for any South African. The irony is that the perpetuation of the injustice of the past, even if it is the mirror image of that particular injustice, perpetuates the instability of society and places in peril the liberty for the black South Africans that the last generation so patiently and persistently worked to achieve.

There’s no question that the gross disparities between white and black South Africans on the whole is the direct result of nearly fifty years of institutionalized national scandal. There is surely a long road ahead for South Africans of good will who seek the genuine justice available only in the establishment of a free and virtuous society. But as long as property rights are not secure and may be taken at the whim of a tyrannical majority, the full potential of all South Africans will not be realized, and the plagues of poverty, crime, and inequality will not be vanquished. For the sake of the flourishing of this nation and region, the National Assembly of South Africa should change course and guarantee justice for all of the nation’s citizens.

About the author:
*Trey Dimsdale came to the Acton Institute from Fort Worth, Texas, where he served as the Associate Director and Research Fellow in Law and Public Policy for the Richard Land Center for Cultural Engagement. At the Land Center, Trey helped to administrate a very active calendar of events that involved students, academics, and pastors from around the broader Christian world.

Source:
This article was published by the Acton Institute.


Malaysia’s Downgrading Of North Korea Ties: More Than Symbolism? – Analysis

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Malaysia has downgraded ties with North Korea following the murder of Kim Jong Nam in Kuala Lumpur. Could this symbolically project Malaysia’s image as a responsible global citizen that upholds international conventions on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)?

By David Han*

Last month, media reports citing government sources indicated that Malaysia may consider further downgrading ties with North Korea. If confirmed, this would represent a renewed strain in bilateral relations ever since the public murder in Kuala Lumpur of Kim Jong Nam, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Nam was killed on 13 February 2017 when two women smeared the lethal VX nerve agent on him at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

As part of this potential downgrade, Malaysia could close down its embassy in North Korea permanently and shift its North Korea services to Beijing, while reducing the staff numbers in North Korea’s diplomatic mission in Kuala Lumpur.

A Symbolic Act?

It is widely believed that Malaysia’s tougher stance towards North Korea reflects the growing international pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions. However, Malaysia’s heightened disapproval of North Korea could also be linked to Kuala Lumpur’s objective of projecting itself as a responsible global citizen that advocates international norms, including a global non-proliferation regime.

Furthermore, Malaysia’s increasingly stronger stance vis-à-vis North Korea was already seeded during the Obama administration, and which has accentuated under the Trump administration.

So far, Malaysia has made several policy changes that are aligned with growing international sanctions, particularly imposed by the United Nations and the United States, against North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. For example, Malaysia has severed all trade and businesses with North Korea.

Whether these international sanctions could effectively persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions remain unclear, as previous sanctions failed to have a significant impact on North Korea’s behaviour. In spite of these sanctions, North Korea has remained adamant and refused to budge. Therefore, Malaysia’s gesture to further downgrade ties and cut economic links is unlikely to affect North Korea adversely.

However, Malaysia’s stance could be a symbolic means to project its image as a responsible global citizen that upholds peaceful usage of nuclear technology and international conventions to prevent the spread of WMD.

US Factor in Malaysia’s Posture

This stance could be attributed to Malaysia’s desire to be a middle power on the global stage. Middle Powers have been known to play a leading role in supporting multilateralism and international norms with other like-minded countries in shaping global affairs.

Malaysia’s desire to be a middle power is evident in its active diplomacy on the international stage, such as its advocacy of the interests of the Muslim world in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and ASEAN multilateralism. Thus, Malaysia’s support of international conventions on non-proliferation is an extension of its middle power ambition.

Some observers surmise that Malaysia is seeking to dissociate itself from dealings with North Korea as a result of the Trump administration’s strong push on countries in Southeast Asia to cut diplomatic ties with North Korea.

However, during the Obama administration, Malaysia and the US had been strengthening cooperation in promoting the proliferation security initiative meant to curtail the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction and their components around the world.

To support such efforts, in April 2010, Malaysia passed the Strategic Trade Act. This would enhance Malaysia’s capacity to curb the illegal shipments of WMD and their components, and ensure that the country does not become a conduit for such exports. Ostensibly, this positive step is aimed at nullifying illegal trading of WMD and parts by countries such as North Korea.

It also served to boost Malaysia’s credentials as an advocate of global non-proliferation during the Nuclear Security Summit hosted by President Obama in the United States that same year.

Malaysia’s downgrading of ties with North Korea is also an accentuation of an almost-decade long effort by Malaysia to support the US in compelling North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme. It also signals to the Trump administration that Malaysia is a committed partner which shares strategic interests with the US pertaining to the Korean peninsula.

Exceeding Malaysia’s Threshold for Flexibility

Malaysia’s foreign policy has always sought to maintain friendly and pragmatic relations with as many countries as possible, while seeking flexibility to overcome differences in bilateral ties. North Korea is no exception.

However, North Korea’s behaviour in the aftermath of Kim Jong Nam’s death was disconcerting to Malaysia. For example, North Korea’s Ambassador to Kuala Lumpur refuted Malaysian police’s findings that the VX nerve agent was used. Subsequently, North Korea prevented all personnel in Malaysia’s embassy from leaving the country.

This was in retaliation to Malaysia’s responses in the aftermath of the murder, which included the arrest of a North Korean suspect, cancellation of visa-free travel for North Koreans, the recall of its Ambassador to North Korea, and search for three more North Korean suspects. This saga was quietly resolved after sensitive negotiations between both countries.

While it has not been proven conclusively that the North Korean regime had a role in the Kim Jong Nam murder, the trust between both countries has eroded nonetheless. Malaysia is concerned for the security of its citizens and other nationalities on home soil, and the safety and well-being of its diplomats in North Korea.

Thus, the downgrading of ties by Malaysia sends a low-key but nonetheless unmistakable signal to North Korea that the national interests and security of Malaysia have to be respected. Malaysia is unlikely to cut diplomatic ties with North Korea. But given the aftermath of the Kim Jong Nam saga and mounting international pressure against North Korea’s nuclear ambition, bilateral relations are unlikely to recover any time soon.

*David Han is a Senior Analyst with the Malaysia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Balkan EU States ‘Need Reforms To Sustain Economic Growth’

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By Relja Dusek

The European Commission’s latest report said that the economies in EU member states Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania grew in 2017, but all of them failed to complete much-needed structural reforms.

The economies of Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania showed some improvements last year, but all three countries face challenges to boost growth further in 2018, said the latest European Commission country report, published on Wednesday.

Bulgaria: Growth to slow but remain strong

Bulgaria’s GDP growth in 2017 is estimated to have been 3.8 percent. In 2018 and 2019, GDP is expected to slow down but remain strong.

Despite the robust growth that is driven mainly by domestic demand, the country is catching up with the rest of the EU slowly, says the European Commission report.

In 2017, the unemployment rate decreased substantially to 6.3 per cent, while employment rates increased.

With a balanced government budget and decreased public debt, the fiscal outlook remains positive with a room to address economic and social challenges, according to the report.

The report says that Bulgaria has made “some progress in tax collection, in stepping up enforcement measures to reduce the informal economy and undeclared work, in taking follow up measures on the financial sector reviews, in facilitating the reduction of non-performing corporate loans, in improving the targeting of active labour market policies and the integration between employment and social services.”

The government however made limited progress in increasing the quality of education and health insurance coverage, reducing out-of-pocket payments and establishing a transparent mechanism for setting the minimum wage.

The Commission also warns of vulnerability in the financial sector, high private debt, and persisting challenges in the labour market.

Croatia: Growth to depend on reforms

Croatia requires structural reforms and its economic growth will increasingly depend on the capacity to implement them, the report says.

So far, the government has been unsuccessful in the implementation of the much-needed reforms, it warns.

The country has made limited progress in fiscal policy, social benefits are too large and a pension system reform has been postponed, it argues.

Mayor public administration reforms are largely at a standstill while educational reform is still pending, the report notes.

Some progress has been made in the sale of shares in state-owned enterprises and backlogs in the judicial system have been marginally reduced.

GDP growth rate in 2017 is projected to have remained at 3.2 percent, and the country’s recovery is expected to continue in the next two years but with lower growth rates.

Croatia faces challenges related to equal opportunities, access to the labour market and fair working condition, the Commission says.

Although unemployment has been reduced to 11.1 percent, the employment rate remains comparatively low, and a serious problem is migration outflows.

Romania: Buoyant growth could be unsustainable

The European Commission warns in its report that “Romania’s buoyant economic growth risks setting the stage for a hard landing”.

There is an absence of structural reforms and fiscal consolidation, the report says.

GDP growth of 6.7 percent in 2017 has been driven mainly by consumption, and it will not be sustainable in the absence of reforms to increase the economy’s potential, the Commission also warns.

Progress made in the fight against corruption has been put at risk but there are some good signs, such as the unemployment rate that in 2017 dropped to 4.9 percent, the lowest in the past 20 years.

The report says that Romania’s unfavourable demographic trends are expected to continue, and labour and skills supplies are not keeping up with the fast-changing needs of the economy.

Poverty has increased while income inequality remains high, there are no tangible results on public administration reforms and the business environment shows weakness, it adds.

Ongoing reforms of the justice laws also risk harming judicial independence and undoing progress that has been achieved so far, according to the report.

China’s 21st Century Emperor: Implications For India – Analysis

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By Brigadier Subhash Kapila

China’s NPC has voted for removing the two terms stipulation to enable Chinese President Xi Jinping continue indefinitely in power.

Concentration of unbridled power over China’s political and military organs of State coupled with a limitless tenure truly amounts to a formal installation of President Xi Jinping as China’s 21st Century Emperor and carries grave implications for global stability, Asian security and an escalation in China-India military confrontation.

Emergence of President Xi Jinping as China’s 21st Century Emperor and its implications were analysed in my Paper quoted above in 2016 (Paper reproduced as Annexure). The threat to India’s security and Asian stability has become more pronounced in the succeeding two years.

The China Threat under President Xi Jinping emerges more menacingly as unlike Chairman Mao who had only massed peasantry manpower in the PLA with primitive weapons, the Chinese military machine under President Xi Jinping has acquired not only aggressive contours with advance weaponry but also force projection capabilities in distant areas.

Globally, the rise of a highly militaristic China with a President with boundless powers and ambitions and with boundless revisionist ambitions seeking ‘strategic equivalence’ with the reigning unipolar superpower, the United States, is inevitably headed towards generating turbulent geopolitical dynamics on a wider plane.

In terms of Asian security and stability, China under its 21st Century Emperor Tenure has witnessed unprecedented China-generated military confrontation in the South China Sea against its weaker ASEAN neighbours and in the East China Sea against Japan.

China’s two satellite states of North Korea and Pakistan, both made nuclear weapons states by China and functioning as regional spoiler states at China’s behest and furthering China’s end-aim objectives of limiting the rise of its two Asian contenders—–Japan and India.

China under President Xi Jinping has subjected India to greater military confrontation on India’s Northern Borders with China Occupied Tibet. The militarisation of the Tibetan Plateau and upgradation of Chinese military infrastructure in Tibet has seen expansion in President Xi’s time.

China under President Xi has reorganised its Military Commands with the reorganised Western Military Command covering India emerging as China’s most powerful and potent Military Command.

China’s propensity under President Xi Japing to provoke and escalate military confrontation on India’s borders with China Occupied Tibet was starkly visible in 2017 over the Dokalam Plateau military stand-off between the two nations.

Global level implications basically revolve around the China-US power tussle. China is in no position directly to unseat the United States from its perch as the reigning Superpower. Admittedly, China has reduced its power differentials but is still in no position to militarily challenge the United States.

However, it is the United States itself with its acts of geopolitical commission and omissions which can give a window of opportunity to China to create turbulence enough for the United States to dent its image of invincibility. The United States still shows traces of China-appeasement contours at the cost of its committed strategic partners like Japan and India. The US State Department and the US Pentagon need to synchronise their perspectives that China is a bigger threat to US security and its pre-eminence than Russia.

Chinese President’s military adventurist policies have set in motion a polarisation and a pivot of Asian nations towards greater proximity with the United States. Chinese President’s policies have also prompted an arms race in Asia out of concern with China’s not so benign intentions.

More importantly, it has also set in motion in Asian security a movement towards indigenous geopolitical coalitions catering for an eventuality that the United States with its proclivity to appease China may not be all that seriously committed to countering the China Threat.

China’s 21st Century Emperor having captured all the levers of power in China, political and military, poses grave implications for Indian security. The Chinse Emperor realises that what stands in between China and its hegemonistic ambitions for unquestioned sway over the Asian security environment is India with its regional pre-eminence in the Indian Subcontinent.

India shares geographical contiguity with China by virtue of China’s illegal military occupation of Tibet. Coupled with the China’s sordid betrayal of India by its aggressive Sino-Indian War 1962 , China is concerned that should India replicate China’s destabilisation of Indian security by matching ripostes in Tibet and Xingjian, China’s hold on Tibet becomes that more complex and problematic.

With India no longer being the India of 1962 under Nehru, the Chinese 21st Century Emperor becomes critically challenged. Chinese ripostes in such an evolving situation would be to escalate tensions on India’s borders and even possibly a limited war.

In conclusion, it needs to be stressed that while Asian countries are engaged in capacity building of their armed forces, it is the United States which has to become alive to the historical lessons of the Second World War wherein Hitlerian Germany was not checkmated pre-emptively with disastrous outcomes.

Annexure

China’s 21st Century Emperor and its Implications for India

Paper No. 6109 Dated 03-May-2016

By Dr Subhash Kapila

China’s 21st Century Emperor emerges in the persona of President Xi Jinping who unprecedently in a short time-span has assumed total control of all Chinese military organs which create implications for Indian security.

Historically, an essential tenet of a nation’s threat assessments emanating from its military adversary was an estimation of the character and personality traits of its Commander-in-Chief controlling the military forces. In case of China which figures as India’s prime military threat, where President Xi Jinping is both the ‘king’ and China’s Commander-in-Chief of China’s vast military machine spreading its tentacles wider than before, it is essential to size-up President Xi Jinping’s personality traits and an overall assessment of what direction China follows under his leadership essentially against India.

China’s past two powerful political leaders presiding over China’s destiny, namely Chairman Mao and Deng Xiao Peng had not achieved such centralisation of military power in their hands structurally as President Xi Jinping has been able to achieve in a short span of time.

President Xi JinPing has in recent times in well-orchestrated sequential steps re-structured China’s military set-up by transforming China’s seven Military Regions into five geographical Military Theatre Battle Commands, all modernised as integrated joint theatre commands. Notably, the largest and most militarily powerful Military Theatre Command is the Western Theatre Battle Command which faces India all along its Northern Himalayan borders.

The fact that President Xi Jinping has combined the military forces and assets of the earlier two Military Regions into a single integrated Western Theatre Battle Command indicates that China’s main thrust in the 21st Century is to militarily tie-down India with a pronounced military threat. The second subsidiary aim is to ensure that with India tied down with such a pronounced China Threat, the Indian military threat to China’s concubinage military client Pakistan is that much more diluted.

Superimposed over the modernised Military Theatre Battle Commands, President Xi Ping has placed the Headquarters, Joint Military Battle Command.

President Xi Jinping then designated himself as the C-in-C, Joint Military Battle Command, even though he heads the all-powerful Central Military Commission and in that capacity controls the vast Chinese military machine. More significantly, President Xi Jinping on assuming command as C-in-C, Headquarters Joint Forces Battle Command visited the Headquarters in full military combat fatigues. Did President Xi Jinping in such a dramatic visual gesture flashed in the global media was indulging in some political or military signalling? Even Chairman Mao as the most powerful Chinese leader so far never deigned to appear in military combat fatigues. Further, contemporarily, Russian President Putin as China’s strategic ally and equally powerful in an authoritarian regime has so far not resorted to such a dramatic military gesture of appearing in military combat fatigues.

President Xi Jinping can rightfully be now designated as “China’s 21st Century Emperor” when taking into account that he wears nearly seven powerful hats in the Chinese political and military hierarchical power structure. He is General Secretary (read presiding deity) of the Chinese Communist Party; China’s President; China’s Head of State; Chairman, Central Military Commission; and ex-officio member of Politburo Standing Committee. He has also recently indulged in a political propaganda offensive to be designated and referred as China’s “Core Leader.”

To this add his new hat as C-in-C Headquarters Joint Forces Command which signals that he has superimposed himself over his Chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, which would imply that as not as a ‘Commission’ , President Xi Jinping would singularly assume ‘direct control’ of China’s new five Joint Theatre Battle Commands.

President Xi Jinping has therefore over-centralised all political and military power in his hands making him the most powerful Chinese President since 1949.

Since political analyses of President Xi Jinping’s abound abundantly in the global media, the attempt in this Paper would be to analyse the military implications of President Xi Jinping’s concentration of political and military power in his hands, both as Chairman, Central Military Commission and now as C-in-C, Headquarters Joint Forces Battle Command in relation to implications for Indian security.

Sizing-up President Xi Jinping’s personality traits and character, as gleaned from global media reports he is reputed to be ‘audacious in decision-making’; ‘loathes dissent’; ‘demands absolute loyalty’ and finally ruthless in the realisation of his goals, objectives and power-aspirations. His restructuring of the military organisational structures can be attributed not only to streamline the Chinese military machine but also as a personal desire to place in command of the new Theatre Battle Commands, military generals personally loyal to him

With such personality traits, India would be faced with a Chinese President in power who can be expected not only to be a hard-line adversary to deal with but also ruthless in indulging in military brinkmanship on its peripheries. This is already in evidence that on his ascension to power China has indulged in aggressive brinkmanship in the South China Sea but also in terms of deep incursions into Indian Territory on India’s Northern Frontiers bordering Tibet under Chinese military occupation.

In terms of implications for Indian security, this needs to be analysed in two different but inter-related dimensions of ‘Politico-Strategic Implications’ and the ‘Military Implications.’

In terms of ‘Politico-Strategic Implications’ the more salient factors that come to the forefront centre on China’s policy inclinations on the vexatious and critically significant China-India territorial dispute; the evolving China-India geopolitical power tussle; and the China-Pakistan Axis.

The entire examination of the above dimensions stand covered in detail in my latest book “China-India Military Confrontation: 21st Century Perspectives.” But some salient highlights need emphasis in brief for those who have not read that book.

China so far has not displayed any attitudinal inclinations in the genuine resolution of the China-India territorial disputes and under President Xi Jinping’s command, India should not expect any further movement on this contentious issue. On the contrary, other than rhetorical flourishes and sanctimonious protestations on China-India peace by China, India should expect hardening of stances especially on the most important issue for India and that is of the ground demarcation of the Line of Control between China and India.

The evolving China-India geopolitical tussle is likely to get more intense under the stewardship of President Xi Jinping. China under his leadership has global power ambitions and President Xi Jinping can be expected to audaciously and ruthlessly drive China in emerging as the second pole in a bipolar world. In President Xi Jinping’s strategic calculations, India is of no consequence and even if India does so in tilting towards the United States, President Xi Jinping has the option of resorting to a ‘Limited War’ on India’s Northern Borders to stifle India’s geopolitical ambitions.

President Xi Jinping last year audaciously and ruthlessly committed China to Pakistan’s side over-riding all Indian protests on the implementation of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor since it traversed the disputed territory of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. China under President Xi Jinping can be expected to indulge in more provocative diplomacy against India in the years to come on this strategic investment project in Pakistan.

In terms of ‘Military Implications’ that accrue working against India under President Xi Jinping’s regime the salient factors that come to mind comprise the impact of Theatre Battle Commands on India’s ‘design of battle’ to meet Chinese military adventurism; China’s Higher Direction of War in case of hostilities with India; and once again the military coming into play of the China-Pakistan Military Axis in case of China-India hostilities breaking out.

The restructuring of China’s Theatre Battle Commands and particularly creating the Western Theatre Battle Command encompassing the entire India’s Northern Borders under a single Western Theatre Battle Command carries a host of military implications for India. An Integrated Western Theatre Battle Command unifying all Chinese military components on the Tibetan Plateau significantly contributes to enhancing China’s ‘war waging’ military capabilities against India. India may have to counter this with a similar integration of the Indian Armed Forces, including placing India’s strategic assets under such an integrated command to ensure swift responses against China’s military brinkmanship

India needs to seriously consider its civil-military relations template to combat effectively the swift ness of China’s Higher Direction of War so emanating from the Chinese Western Theatre Battle Command in launching military aggression against India. India has far too many filters and firewalls interposed in its Higher Direction of War set-up imposing unacceptable delays in military decision-making.

The impact of the China-Pakistan Axis in terms of military implications, both in terms of a ‘Dual Military Threat’ to India and Pakistan’s likely military moves in the event of Chinese aggression against India, stands analysed in detail in Chapter 8 of my Book referred above. Chapter 8 stands entitled as “Pakistan: China’s Force Multiplier in the China-India military Confrontation,” and covers the various facets of the China-Pakistan Dual Military Threat to India.

Lastly, another dimension which should worry the Indian security establishment is that since China’s 21st Century Emperor’s authoritarian rule is likely to be politically challenged from within at some stage, coupled with economic stagnation, the Chinese President in that dire eventuality may resort to whipping up “Chinese Hypernationalsm” to divert domestic political attention. Its most significant manifestation would assume the form of a military misadventure against India. Therefore, India’s military planners in terms of Threat Assessments of China would not only have to scrutinise military indicators but also China’s domestic political indicators of a surge of political dissent against President Xi Jinping. Forewarned is forearmed.

In conclusion, what needs to be stressed is that India’s political and security establishment needs to view China under China’s 21st Century Emperor through the prism of ‘realpolitik’ and not be swayed away from such realities by Indian academics and strategic analysts preaching woolly-headed sermons of peace on India’s Northern Borders and on imperatives of appeasing China for another ten years at least. Indian political leadership too has to emerge as more audacious and robust in its policy formulations and dealings with China and its pronounced military brinkmanship that is likely to ensue in the coming years. The ‘China Threat’ to India is real and should politically never be underplayed or de-emphasised as it was done during the period 2004-2014.

Strengthening Ban On Chemical Weapons: Case Of Syria – Analysis

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By Dr Ian Anthony and Dr John Hart*

The legal framework prohibiting chemical weapons (CW) is considered the gold standard for multilateral disarmament. It features both comprehensive provisions and intrusive verification measures. Yet, in the case of Syria, this framework (which extends to the United Nations Security Council) has proven insufficient. Indeed, the use of chemical weapons in Syria has been in focus since such allegations first surfaced in 2012.[1] Failing to address these allegations within this framework will undermine confidence in the feasibility of disarmament.

The case of Syria

After Syria joined the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 2013, the prohibition on CW use was clear and unambiguous. Deliberate attacks on civilians with any weapon are always illegal, but even indirect risk of CW attacks on civilians should not arise.

However, by 2014 international investigations had concluded with a high degree of confidence that chlorine gas, sulphur mustard and sarin were used to kill and injure civilians in Syria.[2] In 2015 the UN Security Council established the OPCW–UN Joint Investigative Mechanism in Syria (JIM) in order to determine responsibility for CW use. The JIM was to base its investigation on information developed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Fact-Finding Mission (FFM). By late 2017 the JIM was, ‘confident that ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] is responsible for the use of sulfur mustard at Umm Hawsh on 15 and 16 September 2016’ and, ‘confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017’.[3]

Despite these reports, achieving consensus on the Syrian Government’s responsibility for the use of CW has proven elusive. Given the gravity of the use of CW in Syria, enforcement action falls within the purview of the UN Security Council and is, therefore, contingent on Russia’s acquiescence. Consensus that the Syrian Government is responsible for the use of CW has not been realized at the UN Security Council nor at the Executive Council of the OPCW, the body that implements the CWC. Specifically, Russia and Iran have maintained that opposition groups alone are responsible for the use of CW. Hence in April 2017 Russia vetoed a draft resolution condemning the use of CW by the Syrian Government. Later in November 2017 Russia vetoed a resolution to continue the mandate of the JIM.[4]

What then can be done to strengthen the regime banning Chemical Weapons?

The French initiative

On 23 January the French Foreign Ministry hosted the launch of the ‘International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons’.[5] Partners currently include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Kuwait, Morocco, Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Ukraine, as well as the European Union. However, the group is open to admitting other partners that are convinced Syria is not complying with its CWC commitments.

The partners have agreed on six measures:

  1. To collect, compile, retain, and preserve relevant information to support efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the proliferation or use of chemical weapons;
  2. Facilitate the sharing of such information with participating states, and international, or regional organization as appropriate, so that those responsible may be brought to justice;
  3. Use relevant mechanisms to designate individuals, entities, groups and governments involved in the proliferation of chemical weapons for sanctions, as appropriate;
  4. Publicize the names of individuals, entities, groups or governments placed under sanctions for their involvement in the proliferation or use of chemical weapons through a dedicated website;
  5. Strengthen the capacity of participating states, through national and supranational measures, to hold accountable those involved in the use of chemical weapons, including by enhancing the legal and operational capabilities of states to identify and sanction or prosecute individuals and entities involved in the proliferation or use of chemical weapons;
  6. Support, where appropriate, common positions in existing fora regarding the use of chemical weapons, for example the OPCW Executive Council and the UN Security Council and General Assembly.

There is a political dimension to the partnership which is intended to sustain the public discussion of CW use in Syria. In addition, the participants will aid each other to use their domestic laws, including criminal law, to hold individuals and groups in (and supporting) the Syrian Government legally accountable for the use of CW. It is hoped that the use of domestic criminal law will deter the possible further use of such weapons.

Many of the partners already cooperate to design and implement sanctions of various kinds. However, the new initiative could increase the likelihood of a successful criminal prosecution if information exchanges generate evidence that can be introduced into court proceedings.

Key questions

What is the likely impact of the recent initiative?

The participants in the French initiative should actively consider the inter-linkages between the initiative and existing multilateral legal frameworks, including in the context of the Fourth CWC Review Conference which will convene in November 2018. The OPCW Director-General should be kept appraised of the views and intentions of the partners vis-à-vis the Syria case, and how they will approach it at the Conference. The initiative should not contribute to any further division among CWC states parties that may harm either CWC norms or the institutional capacity of the OPCW.

How can multilateral, legal disarmament and arms control regimes and actions by groups of like-minded states become mutually reinforcing?

Russia has criticized the French initiative as a ‘restricted format meeting’ from which it was excluded and which ‘attempts to replace the OPCW and to create an anti-Damascus bloc through the proliferation of lies’.[6] However, Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, has stated that investigations into allegations of CW use in Syria continue, and if they ‘conclude that there has been the use, or likely use, of chemical weapons in any of these alleged incidents, our obligation to enact a meaningful response will be further intensified’.[7] Thus, the states participating in the French initiative believe that it will provide support to the CWC and the UN and promote respect for the shared objective of eliminating and prohibiting chemical weapons.

What contribution can domestic criminal law make to strengthening international security?

By now all states should have adopted measures to punish legal persons under their jurisdiction and control in their national legislation to implement the CWC and UN Security Council Resolution 1540 (2004). These legal obligations require states to impose criminal sanctions on individuals engaged in the proliferation of nuclear, biological, chemical weapons and missile delivery systems. However, using domestic courts to hold officials of foreign governments accountable for actions taken in their own country is a new and interesting addition to the arms control ‘toolbox’ that has far reaching implications if applied generally. To realize the potential of this approach, partners must develop a measured approach to collect and present information as evidence in court proceedings.

The French initiative is a commendable effort to hold facilitators and supporters of CW use in Syria legally accountable and thereby to help ensure that the CWC norms are not fundamentally undermined through inaction or neglect.

*About the authors:
Dr Ian Anthony
is the Director of the European Security Programme.

Dr John Hart is the Head of the Chemical and Biological Security Project.

Source:
This article was published by SIPRI.

Notes:
[1] Timeline of Syrian Chemical Weapons Activity, 2012–2018, Arms Control Association, Nov. 2017.

[2] Final Report of the United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic, New York, 13 Dec. 2013; Second Report of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria, 10 Sep. 2014; and Statement by the Director General of the OPCW to the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva, 5 Sep. 2017.

[3] Seventh Report of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism, New York, 26 Oct. 2017.

[4] ‘Russia blocks Security Council action on reported use of chemical weapons in Syria’s Khan Shaykhun’, UN News Centre, 12 Apr. 2017; and ‘Security Council fails at fresh attempt to renew panel investigating chemical weapons use in Syria’, UN News Centre, New York, Nov. 2017.

[5] French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Launch of the International Partnership against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons (23 January 2018)’.

[6] Russian Federation Ministry for Foreign Affairs, ‘Foreign Ministry statement on US allegations regarding chemical attacks in Syria’, Press Release no. 102-24-01-2018, 24 Jan. 2018; and Russian Federation Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and [Russian MFA communication regarding the unsubstantiated accusations of the USA on the Syrian “chemical dossier”’], Press Release no. 102-24-01-2018, 24 Jan. 2018, (in Russian).

[7] High Representative’s briefing to the Security Council on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2118 (2013) on the elimination of the chemical weapons programme of the Syrian Arab Republic, New York, 5 Feb. 2018.

Nepal: Madhesi Groups Splitting Again? – Analysis

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By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan

Ever since the General election results were known, both the Madhesi groups have been in talks with the UML leaders for joining the government provided their basic bottom line demand of amending the constitution is accepted. We had also in the updates said that it is in the interest of the Madhesis and in the larger interest of stability of the country that the two groups join the government.

The final results of the elections in the Parliament showed that though the UML- Maoist Centre had a comfortable majority, it did not have the magic number for a two third majority to make suitable amendments to the constitution.

The present federal constitution had many good points (see another paper on this) but it failed to be an “inclusive’ one and had not done justice either to the Madhesis or to other marginalised “janajathi” communities.

Going by the numbers, the present position of various parties in the recently held elections is-(this included both first past the post and proportional systems)

CPN (UML) ————————– 121 (80+41) direct and proportional respectively

Maoist Centre————————- 53 (36+170) —do–

Nepali Congress ———————– 63 (23+40) -do-

RJP N. (Madhesi Group) ————— 17 (11+6) -do-

SSF N (Madhesi Group) —————- 16 (10+6) -do-

It could be seen that the Grand Alliance combine (UML and MC) can get a two third majority only with either of the Madhesi groups – the one led by Upendra Yadav of SSF-N or the one led by Mahant Thakur- RJP to make any constitutional amendment, leave alone doing justice to the Madhesis.

The Madhesi Groups were fully aware that their strength lay in being united in contesting the elections and in demanding the rights of the Madhesis. They learnt a lesson by the debacle they experienced in the elections earlier to the present one and it was thought that they will be guided by the fact that the Madhesis can get justice only if they are united.

It is now seen that the groups SSF-N led by Upendra Yadav is independently negotiating with K.P.Oli for some power sharing arrangements and an “assurance” that the constitution will be amended, for joining the government.

It is said that Upendra Yadav and his two colleagues Rajendra Shrestha and Ram Sahay Yadav are demanding three ministerial posts- the foreign ministry and two development oriented ministries – the Ministry of infra structure and Planning and that of Ministry of Health. In addition they are said to be demanding the post of Vice President, Dy. Speaker of the assembly and not surprisingly the post of Deputy Prime Minister for Upendra Yadav himself.

For all the above concessions, it is believed that Upendra Yadav will be willing to ditch his alliance partner- the RJP (Rashtriya Janata Party) and join the government.

The UML has not conceded any amendment to the constitution but only has accepted in principle of a constitutional amendment and that too with a caveat- “if the need is justified.”

The UML has offered two ministerial berths and an assurance to amend the constitution and nothing else. From their point of view it makes eminent sense to take on board the Upendra Yadav’s group for many reasons. These include

  • It will be easy to deal with Terai once the leadership is split.
  • It is also easier to deal with one leader like Upendra Yadav in SSF -N rather than with many leaders in RJP.
  • It will be also easier to deal with India with a person of Indian origin as Foreign Minister after all that has happened including the elections that pushed the UML to victory on an anti Indian platform! The UML is also perhaps aware that in India, institutional memory is short and can be ignored.
  • Upendra Yadav has in the past been the fore runner in demanding justice for the Madhesis. He won the election on a Madhesi platform and he is aware that in the agitation that followed the promulgation of the constitution, over 50 innocent lives were lost because of the political leaders like him and Rajendra Mahatao.
  • Province number 2 led by the Upendra Yadav’s group will also be now part of the government both at the central and provincial levels.

It is now noticed that one of the members of his party has declared that the party has a “socialist ideology” and that it has nothing to do with the Madhesis as such. This was not the case when they contested the elections. This position ideally suits the left oriented UML group.

It would be better both for the stability of the regime and the country that both the Madhesi groups bargain together to get their rights rather than getting split on being offered a few crumbs.

Smoking And Drinking: Churchill Sets An Example Today’s Western Leaders Can Learn From – Analysis

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To understand that Western emphasis on human rights is at best a fig leaf to do business with autocrats whose rule is based on repression, contrast Winston Churchill’s encounter with Mohammed bin Salman’s grandfather, King Abdulaziz, with British prime minister Theresa May’s recent talks with the crown prince.

Meeting the king for lunch in Cairo in 1945, Mr. Churchill suggested that it was the “religion of his majesty to deprive himself of smoking and alcohol,” a reference to the king’s adherence to a puritanical strand of Islam that has dominated the kingdom since its founding in 1932.

Mr. Churchill, however, made clear that the king’s beliefs would not deter him from enjoying his smokes and drinks in the monarch’s presence. The prime minister’s rule of life “prescribes as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them,” Mr. Churchill said.

Enjoying tobacco and alcohol is certain not to have featured in Ms. May’s talks this week with Prince Mohammed. Human rights and the humanitarian cost of Saudi Arabia’s ill-fated military intervention in Yemen did.

In contrast to Mr. Churchill, who, perhaps insensitively and arrogantly, refused to compromise on his principles and pleasures, Ms. May’s statements were no more than words in what has become a ritual in interactions between democratic and autocratic leaders. The autocrats understand democrats’ need to maintain a fig leaf. The public admonishment of their tarnished human rights records is a small price to pay for the ability to conduct political and economic business.

The contrast between the two encounters is particularly significant in an environment in which abuse of human rights is on the rise and authoritarian and autocratic rule is spreading its wings across the globe from China to once liberal democracies. Democracy is on the defense.

It raises the question whether the refusal of democracies to stand up for their principles and pay a price will contribute to their demise and brutalization in a world in which the lessons of World War Two genocide and principles of good governance in warfare can be ignored with impunity. Russia and Iran-backed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s gassing and starvation of non-combatant Syrian civilians is a case in point.

Ms. May’s fig leaf approach to standing by basic democratic principles is but the latest incident in a long-standing Western willingness to pay a heavy price for sleeping with the devil in a bid to gain short-term geo-political and economic advantage.

Guilt is widespread. Its not just governments. The same is true for non-governmental organizations such as international sport associations who for decades tolerated pre-modernity curtailing of women’s sporting rights in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran by restricting their criticism to words rather than deeds.

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and author and long-time Saudi-watcher Robert Lacey noted in The Guardian that “the crown prince doesn’t listen to Saudis – why would he listen to Theresa May?”

Mr. Khashoggi, long closely associated with Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence and ambassador to Britain and the US, who often voices opinions Prince Mohammed does not want to do so publicly, went into voluntary exile last year on the eve of the crown prince’s power and asset grab under the mum of an anti-corrup0tion campaign.

One irony of Ms. May’s approach in her talks with Prince Mohammed is the fact that the kingdom is an exemplary case study of the price that democracies have paid for their toothless objections to a long-standing Saudi worldview that was intolerant, supremacist, and anti-pluralistic.

To be sure, Prince Mohammed has begun to shave off the rough edges of that worldview with his social and economic reforms but has yet to convey his willingness to achieve a clean break.

Holders of tickets for a concert in Jeddah by Egyptian pop sensation Tamer Hosny were recently surprised to receive vouchers that warned that “no dancing or swaying” would be allowed at the event. “No dancing or swaying in a concert! It’s like putting ice under the sun and asking it not to melt,” quipped a critic on Twitter.

If anything, Prince Mohammed’s reforms have been underwritten by repression of any form of dissent.

Anti-death penalty group Reprieve reported that Saudi Arabia’s execution rate had doubled since Prince Mohammed was appointed crown prince eight months ago. It said 133 people had been executed since June 2017 compared to 67 in the preceding eight months.

Equally fundamentally, the world is still reeling from at times short-sighted, opportunistic Western support for the export of Saudi-inspired Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism and at others a willingness to ignore its impact on Muslim communities across the globe.

The same can be said for support of secular autocracies like the regime of Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, whose repression, brutality and failure to deliver public goods and services offer extremism a fertile breeding ground.

It is also true for states like Baathist Syria and Iraq that fell into the Soviet orbit during the Cold War, with Iraq. after the demise of the Soviet Union, enjoying US support during its war against Iran in the 1980s.

Geo-strategist Robert D. Kaplan, writing in Foreign Policy, argued that Syria and Iraq had descended into the Middle East and North Africa’s worst mayhems that have caused enormous human suffering and cost the international community significantly in political, diplomatic, and security terms because they were artificial, colonial-era geographic constructs. They lacked the civilizational history, centuries of some kind of statehood, and deep-seated identities that have helped keep Egypt or Tunisia territorially intact.

In South Asia, the United States went during the era of conservative Pakistani president Zia ul-Haq and the US and Saudi-backed war against the Soviets in the 1980s waged by Afghan mujahedeen as far as to distribute schoolbooks that propagated Saudi-inspired jihad and precepts of ultra-conservatism. In doing so it played havoc with Pakistan, a country that since its birth has struggled with its identity.

Western democracies ignored the fact that Saudi Arabia invested heavily over decades to push its austere worldview as an anti-dote to post-1979 Iranian revolutionary zeal.

While not the only factor, the Saudi campaign created an environment in Pakistan and elsewhere in which militant Islam flourished, societies became ever more conservative and intolerant, and political violence increased.

Western democracies as well as others, including the kingdom, are paying a high price in terms of people’s lives and vastly expanded security to counter extremism and political violence.

Its an open debate whether policies that had been built on democratic values rather than support for autocracy and intolerant worldviews could have achieved similar geopolitical victories such as the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan at a lower cost and a reduced threat to those values.

What is certain, however, is the fact that the fallout of the failure to stand up for democratic values comes at an ever-steeper cost and uncertainty of how the pendulum will swing.

The unanswered question is whether in terms of cost-benefit analysis short-term hits resulting from adopting a principled stand may ultimately be a more reasonable cost and produce greater long-term benefit than the price of dealing with the fallout of policies that effectively ignore democratic principles and ultimately are likely to produce ever greater threats.

Pakistan’s Tight Rope Walk Between Iran And Saudi Arabia – OpEd

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Pakistan’s recent decision of sending a contingent of slightly above 1000 troops to Saudi Arabia apparently in violation of its own parliamentary resolution of 2015 on Yemen reflects the country’s tight rope walk between two main regional rivals i.e. Saudi Arabia and Iran and highlights the need to make arrangements for keeping the policy of neutrality intact when it comes to disputes involving Muslim states in the Middle East.

From Pakistan’s perspective, the significance of keeping neutrality can be gauged from the fact that Article 40 of the constitution of Pakistan obliges it to strengthen fraternal relations among Muslim countries. Thus, dividing the Muslim world or taking side in intra-Muslim disputes is tantamount to breach of Pakistan’s constitution.

Apart from this, Pakistan’s own sensitivity about the issue of sectarianism and the fragile sectarian harmony dictates that the country should tread the conflict ridden geopolitical landscape of Middle East with utmost caution lest it polarize Pakistan internally on sectarian lines.

Pakistan has long borne the brunt of sectarian agendas pursued by Saudi Arabia and neighboring Iran. The country’s internal vulnerability stemming from sectarianism has been exploited by foreign powers and by non-state actors alike. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal Pakistan has witnessed more than 21,900 deaths in sectarian violence since 2003. Thus, any real or perceived tilt of Pakistan towards either of the two regional rivals runs the risk of alienating either of the two. Such an eventuality is not without cost and Pakistan’s decision to avoid being drawn into the Yemen quagmire in 2015 was reflective of this realization.

Here arises a question that what are the potential reasons behind Pakistan’s latest decision to finally send troops to Saudi Arabia?

Firstly, the recent decision to send troops to Saudi Arabia comes at a time when Saudi Arabia is miserably embroiled in a costly Yemen conflict without any noticeable military and political benefits. The kingdom’s air campaign against Houthis has failed to achieve victory; on the contrary ground local Yemeni allies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE have turned the guns on each other, thus further complicating the conflict. The Houthis have, meanwhile, intensified missile attacks on Saudi targets, though most have been intercepted by the Saudi air defence systems before they could hit the targets.

Pakistan’s insistence regarding the training and advisory role of its troops being sent to the Kingdom appears more logical in this context. Drawing on its own experience of dealing with irregular war in mountainous terrain, Pakistan military is well poised to provide training and advice on Yemen conflict.

Secondly, the Arab world’s open courtship of rival India in recent times and growing pressure on Pakistan from the US over Afghanistan may have also necessitated some symbolic gestures favorable to Saudi Arabia.

However, apart from Saudi Arabia’s regional challenges, the political infighting and drastic socio-political changes within the Kingdom also would have warranted some sort of help and Pakistan’s additional troops might be employed to protect the monarchy from within.

Thus far, Pakistan seems to have steered rather successfully between Iran and Saudi Arabia apparently due to smart diplomacy. Pakistan’s insistence that the decision to send troops is in line with preexistent security agreement of 1982 and thus troops will only be deployed within Saudi territory is no doubt reassuring but the timing and lack of transparency in decision making process has raised some eye brows.

It is telling that soon after the announcement of the decision the issue was hotly debated in the upper house of Pakistan’s parliament with the Chairman senate Raza Rabbani expressing dissatisfaction over the details provided by Defence Minister Khurram Dastagir Khan.

In a nutshell, the mounting ideologically and geopolitically driven conflicts in the Middle East involving Muslim states necessitate Pakistan to reassess the utility of preexisting bilateral security and defence pacts with those countries with the aim of avoiding being sucked in to their bilateral conflicts. For, Pakistan cannot afford to fight others wars at a time when its own house needs to be set in order and its own borders need to be protected against the incursion and infiltration of terrorists. This is however not to imply that Pakistan remain indifferent about the developments in its Middle Eastern sphere of influence rather Pakistan should proactively play the role of a mediator and peace maker between the warring parties because such a strategy would surely go a long way in benefitting Pakistan. Contrarily, decisions driven by short term political and economic considerations will only cost a huge price for the country tomorrow.

*Nisar Ahmed Khan, Research Affiliate at Strategic Vision Institute (SVI)


Myanmar: Rohingya Issue Getting More And More Complicated – Analysis

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By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan

The Rohingya problem which was a local issue in Myanmar, became a bilateral one between Myanmar and Bangladesh and had then became a regional issue with the Rohingya refugees spreading out of Bangladesh.

It is now getting into international dimensions and one cannot but agree with the statement of A.M.A Muhith, the Finance Minister of Bangladesh that the Rohingya repatriation back to Myanmar will never succeed!

Baby Steps towards Repatriation and Outbursts from UN

Just when Bangladesh provided the list of the first batch of refugees to Home Minister of Myanmar Lt. Gen. Kyaw Swe in the middle of last month to begin the first “baby steps” for repatriation, the UN Assistant Secretary General Andrew Gilmour, made a statement on March 6 that it was “inconceivable” that any Rohingya would be able to return to Myanmar in the near future. He added that the nature of the violence against the Rohingyas has changed in Myanmar from one of frenzied blood letting and mass rape of last year to a lower intensity campaign of terror and forced starvation that seem to have been designed to drive the remaining Rohingyas from their homes. This statement is hardly helpful for those refugees who were being persuaded to make a beginning of “repatriation”.

The UNHCR Human Rights Chief has gone even further in calling for a new body on lines similar to the Syrian conflict to prepare criminal indictments over the alleged abuses Committed in Myanmar.

It is known that most of the refugees in Bangladesh camps have “unionised” themselves and it is said that they will not leave for Myanmar unless their safety and security are assured. Some of the additional demands now put forth by them include stationing of UN Peace Keeping Forces in Rakhine and for Aid agencies and the media to be given free access to the State. As could be seen, the demands are getting more and more political in nature and more such demands could be expected.

The first list provided by Bangladesh recently has the names of 8032 refugees from 1673 households and they will be repatriated once their prior residence is verified by Myanmar. Liaison offices at Mangdaw township of Myanmar and Cox Bazaar in Bangladesh to coordinate security and checking of cross border trade of illegal drugs said to be rampant in the border areas are yet to set up before any repatriation could begin. This is going to delay the repatriation of even the first lot any time soon.

Over 90 percent of Rohingyas are said to have fled Rakhine State.

The Irrawaddy of 23rd February has given some details of the refugees in the camps. These details were obtained by them from Myanmar government sources- the GAD, the United Nations Reports from OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). It is said that between August 25 and Jan. 27, 688,000 new arrivals were registered in the camps.

The GAD (General Administrative Department) of Myanmar have put the total Rohingya population before the latest crisis as 767,038 and this would mean that around 90 percent of the population has fled into Bangladesh and that only 10 percent (79,038) remained in the three major townships that had considerable population of Rohingyas.

Another report of The Irrawaddy maintains that despite the ongoing preparations for repatriation, more than 2500 refugees have crossed into Bangladesh just this year and according to Government statistics roughly an average of 75 Rohingyas leave the villages each day,

It is seen that the Government reports (GAD) describe the Rohingyas as “foreigner” or “Bangladeshi” and not as Bengali or Rohingya and not even as Muslim community from Rakhine State as Suu Kyi had described them once in 2016.

The Irrawaddy has also quoted some unnamed sources that most of the places of residences of Rohingyas have been razed to the ground and that would mean that the repatriated refugees will not be able to trace their former residences or stay in nearby places!

The Buffer Zone and Unregistered Refugees

For repatriation, the first priority should have been those who continue to stay in the “buffer” zone between Myanmar and Bangladesh. There are about 6500 refugees who continue to stay in the buffer zones and they will have to be verified first for repatriation before the cases of those in the camps are to be considered. Myanmar believes as mentioned by their government Spokesman U Zaw Htay that some of the militants who took part in the coordinated attacks on security posts in the Northern Rakhine State are hiding among the refugees in the buffer zone. If this is true, it is doubtful whether Myanmar would take any of those stranded in the buffer zone at all before a “thorough” verification is made and no one could say how long it would take.

Myanmar government has also mentioned that the buffer zone refugees who are not registered in any camps are still receiving food and medicines from some “groups and organisations” and it is alleged by them that these refugees are being used to put international pressure on Myanmar.

Foreign Media Coverage

The foreign media coverage in the last few months has also not been helpful in the smooth repatriation of the refugees and has only resulted in building up of fear and insecurity among the refugees. One such report was of Associated Press of February 1st that documented the discovery at Gu Dar Pyin Village in Buthidaung Township of mass graves containing the bodies of Rohingya villagers. The Government has denied the existence of such “mass graves.”

Such reports have also driven the Tatmadaw to be defensive and perhaps for the first time it has admitted of killing 10 Muslims at Inn Din village on September 2nd last year.

Government Assets Outside the Country Vulnerable

Amidst all these, there is growing concern within Myanmar of the possibility of foreign terrorists who will surely try to exploit the situation by launching attacks in coordination with the radical elements within the country. The country’s assets outside including their embassies and other entities will have to beef up their security and vigilance in the face of increased attention about the alleged atrocities on the Muslims inside Myanmar. In view of the international condemnation of Myanmar’s handling of the cirisis, more attacks by the ARSA elements who are still around among the refugees and inside cannot also be ruled out.

Conclusion

In conclusion we could make the following observations:

1. Repatriation of Rohingyas from Bangladesh back to Myanmar is not going to be an easy task and may take many years if at all that happens.

2. The issue that should have been settled bilaterally between Myanmar and Bangladesh has now acquired international dimensions and this has only complicated the issue.

3. The possibility of renewed attacks by the ARSA or of attacks of international terrorists in coordination with radical elements within the country cannot be ruled out either.

4. It is not surprising that the Bangladesh Government has built up regular permanent structures in a newly formed island from the sediments carried by the rivers to house over 100,000 refugees from Myanmar.

Progressive And Regressive Issues Of Nepali Constitution: Study In Light Of Constitution Of India – Analysis

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By Dr Vijay Srivastava and Jivesh Jha*

A painful decade of bloody Maoist insurgency and then years of failed attempts later, Nepal on September 20, 2015 got a new Constitutional document, a development that led to celebrations in Hills but 135 days long protests in southern plains that claimed more than 40 lives. There was celebration in Kathmandu and the Hill regions by lighting lamps and firing crackers. But, the Madheshis and Tharus of Nepal, the half of the national population, observed a Black Day to mourn the deaths of their community members who had been gunned down by security forces while protesting against certain discriminatory provisions of the Constitution.

The drafting process (2008 to 2015) kicked off in 2008 with the formation of Constituent Assembly (CA)-I, the unicameral body of 601-member, after its election. In fact, the demand for a new Constitution was raised by Maoist rebels, who waged a decade long civil war which ended with 2006 comprehensive peace accord. Two new political forces emerged—the Maoist with 229 seats in the CA and the Madheshi parties with 80 seats. The Maoists became the largest party in CA, leading to the abolition of 240-year old monarchy. But because of wrangles, the Assembly failed to give birth to new Constitution.

The political parties came in the CA with a two-year mandate to draw up a new statute for Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. After 2010, the CA extended its life four times till, finally, the top court intervened while deciding a writ petition and the CA dissolved on May 28, 2012 without producing any outcome. The differences within the CA led to political deadlock.

The fresh CA-II was constituted for a four-year term following its poll held a year later on November 19, 2013. The Maoists were down to 81 seats in parliament and the Madheshi forces to 40; the older political parties, the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), emerged stronger with 201 and 175 seats, respectively. The Assembly gave a deadline to promulgate the Constitution by January 2015 but it again failed to meet the deadline. After much back and forth, Nepal got its new Constitution on September 20, 2015 by approval of over 85 per cent of the 601 members of the CA, but without the stamp of approval of at least 60 Madheshi and Indigenous representatives.

“The Constitution was crafted completely by a handful of leaders of the big three parties—the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the CPN-MC behind closed doors in collusion with some political elites and technocrats and was presented in the CA for a ritual and forced endorsement,” writes Dipendra Jha, Advocate General of Province-2 of Federal Republic of Nepal in his book Federal Nepal: Trials and Tribulations.

Importantly, “The Interim Constitution of 2007 had introduced a wide range of provisions for progressive transformation, including federalism, citizenship, inclusion and secularism. The drafters of the Constitution watered down all of these provisions in 2015. As a result, the country stood psychologically divided on September 20, 2015, Nepal’s Constitution Promulgation Day,” further writes Jha.

However, apart from a few discriminatory provisions, there are provisions that have received much praise. This story seeks to undertake a study on some of the progressive and regressive provisions enshrined in the Constitution of Nepal.

Progressive provisions:

i. Language

Everybody loves mother tongue and wants to see the language given by the mother flourish. Once you know the language, it is easier for you to make good relationship with people, and establish contact through effective communication. In order to flourish the languages given by mother, its been provisioned that all the languages given by mother shall be national language (Article 6).

However, the position is different in India.

The Gujarat High Court, while hearing a PIL, had in 2010 observed that Hindi was not the country’s national language. The PIL had sought direction of the Centre and the State to make it mandatory for print details of good to be in Hindi. But the court had observed, “Normally, in India, majority of the people have accepted Hindi as a national language and many people speak Hindi and write in Devanagari script but there is nothing on record to suggest that any provision has been made or order issued declaring Hindi as a national language of the country.”

Importantly, clause 1 of Article 343 states that “The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devnagari script.” Not only this, “the Articles 350A and 350B were inserted by the Constitution (7th Amendment) Act 1956 to ensure the protection of linguistic minorities,” argues the much-admired commentator of Constitutional Law MP Jain in his book Indian Constitutional Law. To secure these goals, the charter recognizes 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule that includes Nepali, Bengali, Maithili, and Hindi.

The Constitution of Nepal (under article 7) envisages that in addition to Nepali language, a province can select one or more national languages to be used in the state if that is spoken by a majority of the people there. More or less, similar arrangement has been envisaged under Article 345 of the Constitution of India.

ii. Right to privacy

Although right to privacy is yet to be expressly mentioned in Indian constitution, the same right has been enlisted under fundamental rights in Nepal. However, right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of ‘right to life and personal liberty’ clause in India.

iii. Progressive Fundamental Rights

The provisions relating to fundamental rights have been embodies under Part-III (Article 16-48) of the Constitution. There are ample provisions which are progressive in nature. For instance, right to information, right to communication, right to justice, rights of victim of crime, right against torture, right to free legal aid, right to privacy, right to property, right to clean environment, right to language and culture, rights of women, rights of Dalits, rights of senior citizens, right to social security, and among others are the provisions which appear progressive for a number of reasons.

iv. One-third representation of women in legislative spectrum

Having gone through the constitution, one can firmly and proudly say, Nepal’s new constitution is progressive, and institutes several positive elements for the upliftment of women in the country.

The cornerstones are set by two arrangements in particular. First, ensuring rights of women as a fundamental right (FR) through legislation from the very initial stage under Article 38; second, the constitutional provision setting aside 33% representation of women in Nepal’s legislature is a major breakthrough.

Nepal sets aside 33% of parliamentary seats for women through legislation as envisaged under Article 84(8). Similarly, A-86 (2) (a) ensures that three berths shall be given in 59-member national assembly, where eights members to be elected from each province.

Regressive provisions

i. Citizenship

The persons who have solemnized marital bonding with a non-Nepali national remained deeply offended after sensing that their husband or wife or their issues would be beneath their civil and political status.

The Article 11 (3) provides that in order to acquire citizenship by descent, it must be proved that both ‘father and mother’ are Nepali citizens. However, on non-fulfillment of this clause, meaning where a child whose ‘father or mother’ is a Nepali, a person is entitled to get citizenship by naturalization.

Moreover, if his/her father is found to be a foreigner, the citizenship to such a person shall be converted to naturalized citizenship, Article 11(5). Similarly, if a foreign woman married to a Nepali citizen so wishes, she may acquire naturalized citizenship of Nepal, says Article 11(6).

Interestingly, Article 11 (7) of the Constitution allows a child born to a Nepali woman, whose father is a foreigner, to acquire naturalized citizenship. However, the authority to issue such citizenship lies with the District Administration Office under Ministry of Home Affairs which has not issued even a single citizenship certificate of that type till date.

Ironically, if a brother marries a foreigner, the children born from them would get citizenship without any hassles while the same treatment is not there with a sister marrying a foreigner. Isn’t the provision generating gender bigotry?

Despite this, Article 289 bars a naturalized citizen to hold any vital government post. In this way, Constitution itself makes clear that the naturalized citizens are inferior to descent citizens. Unfortunately, this type of derogatory provision was not embodied in Interim Constitution-2007, and other five repealed Constitutions.

ii. Electoral Constituency

The parameters for delineation of electoral constituency became the other most disputed provision.

Nepali parliament made provision of taking ‘geography and population’ both into account while delineating the electoral constituencies. Conversely, ‘population’ is only the basis for constituency delimitation in India.

In this context, it bears relevance to acknowledge the reading of former Indian envoy to Nepal Rakesh Sood who observes: “The 2015 Constitution reduces the weightage given to proportional representation. Terai (Madhesh) constitutes 51 per cent of the population but according to calculations, it would currently get only 62 out of a total of 165 seats under the first past the post system, instead of 83, as per its population. The notion of fixing electoral constituencies after taking into account ‘population and geography’ was intended to ensure that the sparsely populated trans-Himalayan districts are not left out of the democratic process.” His views appeared in an article published The Hindu.

iii. Judiciary

Independent and impartial judiciary is one of the hallmarks of the democratic government. To give the executive, cabinet or legislature an unfettered discretion in deciding the philosophy of judges is to make judiciary obedient to government.

It has been provisioned that judicial appointment shall be made on the recommendation of Judicial Council (JC), where the Law Minister shares a berth. The constitution of JC has been provided under Article 153. It envisages that the Chief Justice of Nepal will be ex-officio Chairman of the Council, whereas the Federal Law Minister, senior-most judge of the SC, a legal expert nominated by the President on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, and a senior advocate appointed by the President on the recommendation of Nepal Bar Council will be acting as members.

In India, the appointment, removal and transfer of judges of higher courts and subordinate courts have been placed entirely in the hand of judiciary, leaving no room for the influence of executive and legislature.

iv. Preamble

The second paragraph of preamble accepted the glorification of various movements in past such as people’s war and the armed conflicts. Surprisingly, it fails to acknowledge the Madhesh movements that led to the inclusion of federalism. “The Constitution has undermined three big Madhesh movements that took place in the country since 2007…. Had the Madhesh movement been recognized in the Constitution, it could have increased the acceptance of the Constitution in Madhesh.”

Concluding remarks

It may be noted that 2015 charter is the seventh Constitution before the Nepali people. The Government of Nepal Act, 1948 was the first Constitutional document in Nepal. Since 1950, the Himalayan state has experimented with various constitutions. It has had two Interim Constitutions (1951 and 2007) and three formal Constitutions (1959, 1962 and 1990).

Many thoughtful Nepalis believed that the new Constitution would succeed to end all discriminations lying in the country. But the charter, at the time of its promulgation, failed to strike a balance between dominant views (i.e., the agendas of major parties) and minority views (i.e., agendas of Madheshi parties). As a result, agitating Madheshi parties refused to give their stamp of approval to the new document, arguing that the “statute is not a broad-based document” and it would “politically marginalize the Madheshi people.”

The constitution failed to address the concerns of the Madheshi population in terms of federalism, electoral representation and citizenship, forcing the community to hold a five-month long blockade along the Indo-Nepal frontier. More than 40 people lost their lives while protesting against new statute. This Constitution has been under trouble from its inception as there was a sense of triumphalism in Hills but dissidence in Madhesh.

A just Constitution cannot be discriminatory. So, there is dire need of an amendment in it, not only for incorporating the aspirations of Madhesh, half sky of Nepal, but also for ensuring its wider ownership and everlasting progress.

*Dr Srivastava is Assistant Professor of Comparative Laws at Uttaranchal University, Dehradun, India. He can be reached at vjsrivastava009@gmail.com and Mr. Jha is student of LL.M (Constitutional Laws) at Uttaranchal University. jhajivesh@gmail.com

What Will Kim And Trump Talk About? – OpEd

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By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein*

(FPRI) — The news that North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has invited Donald Trump for talks, and that Trump has accepted, is surely a breakthrough given the past months of sky-high tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missiles program. The two are tentatively set to meet in May of this year, but there is still a long way to go: talks could falter at the planning stage over issues such as what should be on the table, or where the parties should meet (or who should represent the countries). But for now, this is at least a step back from the brink that the world looked to be standing at only a few weeks or months ago.

Still – and I hate to rain on the negotiation parade – it remains unclear precisely what the two are likely to talk about, or what the possibilities and limits are to any progress. A meeting resolves nothing in its own right, and neither the US nor North Korea has changed its most fundamental stances: the US still sees North Korean denuclearization as the ultimate goal of talks, while North Korea still seems unlikely to abolish its nuclear weapons.

Both North Korea and the US appear to be flexible enough in their positions to think it worthwhile to meet. That is a good thing. After the past months of war bluster, much of the world is probably already breathing a collective sigh of relief.

When Kim Jong-un met with a South Korean delegation in Pyongyang a few days ago, he stated that North Korea would hold back on any nuclear or missile tests while engaged in talks with the US, even if the US and South Korea go through with military exercises that North Korea sees as provocations and rehearsals for war on the peninsula. Perhaps, most importantly, South Korean President Moon’s envoy who met with Kim Jong-un, Chung Eui-yong, said Kim had stated that North Korea was prepared to denuclearize in exchange for “security guarantees.”

At the face of it, that all sounds very promising. The problem is, however, that it has never been fully clear what the US and North Korea, respectively, really expect and hope for through talks. For North Korea, “security guarantees” could mean a whole range of things. Withdrawal of US troops from South Korea may just be the beginning. After all, the US does not need to have ground troops present in South Korea to be able to target North Korea militarily should it wish to do so. What if North Korea’s demands turn out to be much more ambitious – such as US withdrawal from the region entirely, or even reciprocal curtailments of the US’s own nuclear arsenal?

In short, North Korea may come to make demands that the US would be highly unlikely to meet. For now, no one knows for sure exactly what North Korea wants in terms of security guarantees, and having seen what happened to dictators such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, or Libya’s Muammar Ghaddafi, Kim Jong-un is unlikely to put his faith in a peace treaty or the like.

Moreover, Kim Jong-un’s initiative for negotiations should not be seen merely as a sign that sanctions and “maximum pressure” are taking such a toll on the regime that it has no choice but to negotiate. Rather, it may be because Kim feels so confident in the credibility of North Korea’s nuclear deterrent that he is willing to sit down and talk. Kim’s action is likely the result of a mix of factors, from the pinch of outside pressure to confidence in North Korea’s position. After all, Kim Jong-un’s strategic situation is much stronger than that of his father was during the Six Party Talks, North Korea now having conducted successful tests of ballistic missiles that many observers believe demonstrate a capacity to strike at the US mainland. No matter what North Korea’s reasoning behind the overture may be, it would be a mistake to see it merely as a sign of weakness. For the past few months, ever since Kim Jong-un reached out to Moon Jae-in over the Olympics, developments on the Korean peninsula have been driven by North Korean actions. Moon Jae-in has proved himself a highly skilled diplomat in getting the US and North Korea to a position where both are willing to talk, but it’s important to remember that for most of the developments throughout this current crisis, North Korea has held the initiative.

The news of an upcoming meeting is progress – for now. The hardest part – actual negotiations – still lies ahead.

About the author:
* Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein
is an Associate Scholar with FPRI, focusing primarily on the Korean Peninsula and East Asian region. He is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he researches the history of surveillance and social control in North Korea, and a co-editor of North Korean Economy Watch.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Erdogan Says Turkish Forces To Enter Afrin At Any Moment

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey-backed troops had surrounded Afrin city center in northwestern Syria and were ready to enter at any moment as part of the so-called Olive Branch operation.

“Right now, Afrin city center is surrounded,” Anadolu Agency quoted Erdogan as saying at the inauguration of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party’s Politics Academy in Ankara.

He added that a total of 3,171 terrorists have been “neutralized” in Afrin since the start of Operation Olive Branch in northwestern Syria.

Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch in January, its second military intervention in Syria since 2011, after Washington said it would set up a border force comprising 30,000 Kurdish militants near Turkish soil.

Turkey has warned that the Afrin offensive could expand to the nearby Syrian city of Manbij.

Syria has slammed both Turkish and US military activities on its soil as a violation of the Arab nation’s sovereignty.

UK And Saudi Arabia Sign Deal For 48 Eurofighter Typhoon Fighter Jets

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Britain has signed a multi-billion-pound preliminary order with Saudi Arabia for 48 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets, military equipment maker BAE Systems said on Friday.

The joint statement issued at the end of the three-day visit, and published by the Saudi Press agency, indicated that both parties signed a letter of intent to supply Saudi Arabia with 48 new Typhoon fighter jets.

BAE Systems added in a statement sent to Arab News that the order would help Riyadh modernize its armed forces under the Kingdom’s ‘Vision 2030’ economic plan, while no financial details were given.

If confirmed the order will raise Saudi capabilities in the air and add 48 to the already 72 Typhoons in service with the Royal Saudi Airforce.

“The crown prince’s visit has opened a new chapter in our two countries’ historic relationship,” British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson said.

“We have taken a vital step toward finalizing another order for Typhoon jets that will increase security in the Middle East and boost British industry and jobs in our unrivalled aerospace sector,” he said.

The defense secretary was speaking after meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the third day of his visit. The two sides met at Northolt Air Base in north west London.

Upon arrival, Typhoon aircrafts soared in the skies to welcome the crown prince, who is also deputy prime minister and minister of defense.
Both national anthems were played and then they reviewed the Honor Guards’ Salute.

During the meeting, the pair discussed ways to develop bilateral relations and areas of strategic cooperation between the two countries, especially in the defense and military sectors.

They also discussed the wide-ranging opportunities in Saudi Arabia following the introduction of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, as well as international and regional developments and efforts to combat terrorism and extremism.

Prior to his departure, the UK and Saudi Arabia published a joint communique summarising the agreements, understandings, and memorandum signed in the military, defense, economic, social and cultural sectors.

Mainly the statement stressed that the two Kingdoms are strategic partners in seeing through Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Vision 2030. The two sides committed to launching an annual strategic partnership council and dialogue between the two countries.

“The crown prince’s visit has opened a new chapter in our two countries’ historic relationship,” Williamson said.

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