Save one, conflicts in the region are frozen, EU accession process or not.

By David B. Kanin*

Lacking any strategy or conceptual framework, EU and US diplomacies in the Balkans continue to consist largely of versions of the same rhetorical script that has held place since the end of the collapse of Yugoslavia. The latest EU strategy for the region includes nothing of substance; it is as insignificant as the pile of Western formulas tried out during the wars of the 1990s and will fail to make a dent in flawed regimes of Dayton and UN Security Council Resolution 1244. As with previous posturing, any document or oration that mentions “transition, “democracy” (or “democratic backsliding,”) “rule of law,” “corruption,” “transparency,” or other well-trod slogans can be safely ignored.

The Balkan Conference in Sofia on May 1 will not produce anything substantive, even though it will give Bulgaria a pulpit from which to declare the success of its turn at the EU presidency. This get together should be compared to the similar sorts of regional Balkan conclaves in the 1930s that also were much touted but had minimal impact on regional and international security. Its most important result already is in the books – the five EU members that do not recognize Kosova as a sovereign state demonstrated by the conditions under which they agreed to attend that they have no intention of changing their position, no matter more than a dozen years of American demands that they do so and promises to Pristina that this will happen. Serbian denials of any willingness to grant Pristina even a non-voting status in the UN (much less diplomatic recognition) in return for EU membership suggests another failed effort to move Belgrade off its bedrock position. President Vucic’s rejection of the EU spokesperson’s statement that the association of Serbian municipalities in Kosovo called for by the much-overrated Brussels agreement of April 2013 will be formed in accordance with Kosova’s legal system is a further demonstration of his government’s strong diplomatic position.

I have heard some former US officials say influential Serbs have told them privately Belgrade will wait until just before they qualify for EU membership to recognize Kosova’s sovereignty; those officials say Serbia should do this now. These colleagues make the common mistake of believing private assurances to them are more authoritative than public commentary meant for mass domestic and/or foreign audiences. Comments from Vucic, Prime Minister Ana Brnjabic, Foreign Minister Ivic Dacic, and others down the food chain should be taken at face value unless those public positions change. Make no mistake – Serbia is working toward getting into the EU without having to recognize Kosova and, as things stand, has a real shot at making this happen. The key to the eventual success of this goal will be achieving a “normalization” agreement under Brussels’ auspices while maintaining international acquiescence to the idea that there is something called “status neutrality” (the US failure to achieve universal EU recognition means the existence of any neutral national positions on this issue reinforces Pristina’s lack of an international status).

A recent New York Times article relegates problems in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosova/o, and throughout the region to great power rivalry, and so has things backwards. The US and Russia, much like the Powers of earlier eras, are drawn into local disputes in the Balkans and elsewhere they cannot force into conclusion. Moscow, by choosing sides, (like in Syria), is more skillful than Washington, but Putin’s setback in Montenegro reflects the same limitations on that outsider that have frustrated serial Western initiatives in the region.

As always, regional patronage bosses and governments (the two overlap as part of the largely informal economic and political actors that dominate the region) will adapt to changes in the correlation of forces existing among the larger powers they have to contend with. The ongoing shift toward illiberal politics with democratic veneers reflects gradually weakening Western influence. Growing Russia-China cooperation to weaken the US, which only partly results from the current chaos in Washington, is not unnoticed in the region. It stands in sharp contrast to US-Chinese cooperation against Soviet power that contributed to weakening Moscow’s geopolitical stance in the final decades of the Cold War – an arrangement that affected Tito’s adjustments to his non-alignment and contributed to the Western tack of his immediate successors during the 1980s.

In this context, determining what the Tito-era Macedonian republic should call itself has taken on outsized importance (whether it joins NATO is a much less important issue). The “name” problem, unlike other disputes regarding Macedonia and the rest of the region, does not intrinsically involve competition over borders, ethnicity, religion, or resources, even though all those things come into the argument. It is possible to settle on a name without changing anything else.

The contrast between the behavior of behavior of Zoran Zaev’s government and that of its proto-authoritarian predecessor has lifted hopes for a solution. Press reports suggest to two sides are closing in on some formation of “Upper Macedonia.” Whether the new name will only be used internationally or will be embedded in the country’s constitution remains unresolved. Coming to closure on this issue would provide at least a small reason for cheer among the current and former Western diplomats who have presided over the series of negotiating impasses noted above.

Even such a cosmetic success would also provide rhetorical ballast importance in the wake of Vojislav Seselj’s latest victory in The Hague. Sure, he was found guilty of a limited set of war crimes in Vojvodina, but his acquittal related to brutalities committed in Croatia and Bosnia and the Tribunal’s gift of a sentence, in effect, of time served ensures that Seselj’s narrative of patriotic heroism remains intact. He joins the pantheon of nationalistic icons in all the shards of former Yugoslavia whose memories will be nurtured by the current and future agitators who will serve as the entrepreneurs of the next round of regional conflicts. These figures, and sectarian elements ranging from clerics and intellectuals to figures in popular culture and grass-roots football fans continue to prove themselves more durable and deeply rooted than the sliver of people attached to waning Western notions of multiculturalism and liberal institutionalism.

*David B. Kanin is an adjunct professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University and a former senior intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of TransConflict.

The Islamic State (IS) has lost at least 102 fighters since the start of the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) offensive in the southern districts of Damascus, the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Saturday, May 5, Al-Masdar News reports.

The death toll is difficult to verify, given that the group does not release numerical figures regarding their losses.

Regardless, the Syrian army has been able to seize the entire southern pocket of Hajar Al-Aswad, following an intense battle with the Islamic State terrorists.

The Syrian army and their Palestinian allies are now working to take full control of the Islamic State’s northern pocket, which includes the Yarmouk Camp District.

Pediatricians report influenza vaccine delivery delays as a significant problem, particularly for the Vaccines For Children (VFC) program vaccines, leading to many missed opportunities for vaccination, according to a new survey being presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2018 Meeting.

A nationally representative survey among pediatricians was conducted from June 2017 through September 2017 to assess the extent to which delays in receipt of influenza vaccine from private and VFC program stocks pose problems and provider contingency plans in the event of influenza vaccine delays.

For private stock influenza vaccine, considering the last three influenza vaccination seasons, three percent reported delays in receipt of influenza vaccine as a major problem, 18 percent a moderate problem, 32 percent a minor problem, and 48 percent as not a problem. In contrast, for VFC influenza vaccine, 15 percent reported delays as a major problem, 32 percent a moderate problem, 33 percent a minor problem, and 20 percent as not a problem.

When either VFC or private influenza vaccine is out of stock, 56 percent reported delaying vaccination for patients whose vaccine is out of stock, 19 percent referred these patients elsewhere, seven percent postponed vaccination for all patients, and 18 percent borrowed vaccine between stocks. Among the 50 respondents who reported borrowing between stocks, almost all (98 percent) borrowed for individual patient visits while only 30 percent borrowed for influenza vaccination clinics.

Uptake of influenza vaccine among children is low compared to other childhood vaccines, and missed opportunities for vaccination play an important role in this low uptake. Problems with receiving influenza vaccine in a timely manner within pediatric practices are an important cause of missed opportunities, but little is known about pediatricians’ experiences and practices related to influenza vaccine delivery delays. Providers use a variety of strategies for addressing these delays, but in most cases, children either must go elsewhere or return to the clinic to receive influenza vaccine. To increase uptake of influenza vaccine among children, systematic changes are needed to address these delays.

Frequent sauna bathing is associated with a reduced risk of stroke, according to a new international study. In a 15-year follow-up study, people taking a sauna 4-7 times a week were 61% less likely to suffer a stroke than those taking a sauna once a week. This is the first prospective large-scale study on this topic, and the findings were reported in Neurology.

Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide, placing a heavy human and economic burden on societies. The reduced risk associated with sauna bathing was found by a team of scientists from the Universities of Eastern Finland, Bristol, Leicester, Atlanta, Cambridge and Innsbruck.

The findings are based on the population-based Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor (KIHD) study and involved 1,628 men and women aged 53 to 74 years living in the eastern part of Finland. Based on their frequency of taking traditional Finnish sauna baths (relative humidity 10-20%), the study participants were divided into three groups: those taking a sauna once a week, those taking a sauna 2-3 times a week, and those taking a sauna 4-7 times a week.

The more frequently saunas were taken, the lower was the risk of stroke. Compared to people taking one sauna session per week, the risk was decreased by 14% among those with 2-3 sessions and 61% among those with 4-7 sessions. The association persisted even when taking into account conventional stroke risk factors, such as age, sex, diabetes, body mass index, blood lipids, alcohol consumption, physical activity and socio-economic status. The strength of association was similar in men and women.

Previous results from the KIHD study at the University of Eastern Finland have shown that frequent sauna bathing also significantly reduces the risk of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality.

According to the researchers, mechanisms driving the association of sauna bathing with reduced stroke may include a reduction in blood pressure, stimulation of immune system, a positive impact on the autonomic nervous system, and an improved cardiovascular function. In a recent experimental study, the same group of scientists also showed that sauna bathing has acute effects on the stiffness of the arterial wall, hence influencing blood pressure and cardiac function parameters.

The world’s freshwater resources are in short supply. According to the United Nations, water scarcity affects an estimated 1.9 billion people and 2.1 billion people live with drinking water services that are not safely managed. The critical point of water scarcity has led scientists to look for new and efficient ways to make the most of nontraditional sources, including sea water, brackish water and wastewater.

Polymer membranes, which act as a filter to desalinate and selectively remove contaminants from various water sources, have aided water treatment, but their selectivity remains a significant challenge when it comes to filtering chemical properties — a potential risk to the environment and human health.

Chemical and biomolecular engineers at the University of Notre Dame and Purdue University studied self-assembled block polymer membranes, which allow for both customizable and uniform pore sizes, as a platform for water treatment systems. The study, published in Nature Partner Journals — Clean Water, determined the platform has the potential to advance water treatment technologies.

“Most state-of-the-art membranes for water treatment are designed to let water pass through while filtering contaminants,” said William Phillip, associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Notre Dame. “This approach limits the ability to remove or recover dissolved species based on their chemical identity. The exciting thing about self-assembled block polymer membranes is that you can engineer the nanostructure and pore wall chemistry of the membrane through the design of the block polymer molecules. This capability has the potential to open up a variety of new separation mechanisms that can isolate species based on chemical identity, which in turn could help to enable decentralized reuse of wastewater.”

Phillip and the research team focused on block polymer membranes because of their well-defined nanostructures and functionality. They were able to molecularly engineer the chemical properties of the polymer to create large areas of high-performance membrane, reduce pore size and design multifunctional pore wall chemistries for solute-specific separation. The membranes could essentially be customized depending on the water source and treatment needed.

Membranes that are more selective and more resilient to certain exposures such as chlorine or boric acid and less prone to collecting unwanted properties — or fouling — than current state-of-the-art options could improve treatment in a number of ways. They could reduce the number of filtration passes required for irrigation, control concentrations of chlorine into the system to help forestall effects of biofouling and reduce chemical demands for membrane cleaning — reducing operating costs and environmental impact.

The global applications are significant when considering those populations without suitable drinking water and limited resources.

Transitioning the technology from the laboratory setting to practice presents its own set of challenges that will need to be addressed in the coming years. However, the researchers are hopeful the transition can be made since several of the techniques used to generate self-assembled block polymers are consistent with current membrane fabrication practices.

New Oxford University research has called for an ‘open-skies policy’ around the availability of high resolution satellite imagery of Israel and Palestine.

Since 1997, the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment (KBA) to the 1997 U.S. National Defense Authorization Act, has limited the availability of high-resolution satellite imagery of these countries. Although this law only applies to the United States of America, as a global super power, with dominance over the commercial satellite imagery market, its international impact has been significant. However, new Oxford University research has called for these restrictions to be lifted immediately and set in line with the international standard.

Satellite imagery has transformed the way that scientists can investigate, map and monitor the changing human and physical landscape of the earth. The current KBA Amendment limits the resolution of U.S – produced imagery for Israel to c.2m, which is relatively blurry and means that features smaller than this are not detectable from aerial footage. As a result, the satellite images available on platforms such as Google Earth, of both Israel and Palestine, are of poor quality, significantly restricting the scientific research opportunities in these areas.

In an attempt to overcome these limitations, researchers from the Endangered Archaeology Project at the Oxford School of Archaeology, which relies on satellite imagery to identify and monitor heritage sites across the Middle East and North Africa, investigated the justification for the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, and reviewed how the regulations works in practice.

Published in Space Policy, the research conducted by Dr Andrea Zerbini and Dr Michael Fradley of Oxford’s School of Archaeology, finds that while this regulation was broadly assumed to be a static censorship, the limitations were intended to mirror the standard of satellite imagery available outside the United States. However, much stronger high-resolution images have in fact been available from companies such as Airbus in France from as long ago as 2012.

The paper also reveals that there has been some quiet resistance to the US regulation, particularly from Google Earth, where high-resolution images covering areas of the West Bank, Golan Heights and the border areas of Israel, provided by Airbus, are already available on the platform.

The findings demonstrate that these regulations need urgent review, and recommends that US imagery should meet what has become the international standard of 0.5m.

Dr Michael Fradley said: “Our research demonstrates not only how the current restrictions have hampered scientific research in this area, but also importantly highlights a clear rationale for moving on from the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment. The reduction or removal of these restrictions would open up access to modern satellite imagery, as well as historical images captured by spy satellite that remain classified due to the legal reach of the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, which could allow researchers to record longer-term landscape change.”

The minutes of the latest meetings of the U.S. regulatory body for commercial satellite imagery suggest that restrictions may indeed be lifted, potentially ushering in a new phase of remote-sensing research by archaeologists, geographers and earth scientists across this area of the Levant.

Staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who regulate the implementation of the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, have acknowledged the important role of this new research by the EAMENA team in their ongoing evaluation of regulations. The Endangered Archaeology project has already begun to identify new archaeological sites using higher-resolution satellite in the region, and its work has set a precedent for future scientific research in this area.

Commenting on the potential impact of lifting these sanctions, Dr. Brian Boyd, Program Director, Center for Archaeology, Columbia University, said: “Zerbini and Fradley’s call for an “open-skies policy” with regard to the availability of high resolution satellite imagery of archaeological sites and landscapes in Israel/Palestine has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the human occupation of this region from the earliest prehistoric times to the present day. Their research will also be invaluable in highlighting contemporary endeavors to record and hopefully preserve sites, monuments and landscapes that are under threat from political and military actions not only in Israel/Palestine but in the wider Middle East.”

By Rajeesh Kumar*

Nepal Prime Minister K P Oli’s visit to India not only refreshed bilateral relations but also contributed to the resumption of discussions on South Asian regionalism. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s response on the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit in Islamabad, an issue raised by his Nepali counterpart, conveys that India is not keen on reviving the now-defunct SAARC. Citing cross-border terrorism perpetrated by Pakistan, Modi is reported to have indicated that it is difficult to proceed with SAARC in these circumstances.1

The 19th SAARC Summit was originally scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November 2016. However, following the pull-out of India and three other countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Afghanistan) after the Uri terrorist attack, the Summit was postponed indefinitely. In March 2018, during his visit to Kathmandu, Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi sought the help of Nepal, the chair of SAARC, to revive the organisation by convening the pending Summit in Islamabad.2 Pakistan has also solicited the support of Sri Lanka in this regard.3

Two major factors, cooperative outcomes and socialisation of member states, determine the vitality and necessity of international organisations. In the case of SAARC, both these factors have been in short supply. The organisation “continue[s] to operate, but without making any progress toward its mandate”, akin to a ‘zombie.’4 Given the structural fragility of SAARC and its inability to promote South Asian regional integration, an attempt to reboot the organisation would be futile.

SAARC: An example of retarded regionalism

SAARC was founded in 1985 with seven South Asian countries — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The membership grew to eight when Afghanistan joined in 2007. The organisation aims to achieve peace, freedom, social justice, and economic prosperity by promoting a shared understanding, good neighbourly relations, and meaningful cooperation.5 Improving the quality of life in the member countries by fostering self-reliance, promoting mutual assistance, and strengthening collaboration with other regional and international organisations are its core objectives.

However, the mismatch between SAARC’s ambitions and achievements has been profound. No tangible economic or political benefits have been realised by SAARC, with analysts terming its performance as a case of ‘retarded regionalism’.6 SAARC occupies a land area larger than the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In terms of population as well, it is superior with approximately 22.5 per cent of the world populace. Nonetheless, despite such statistics, it has failed to achieve a majority of its stated objectives. South Asia, at present, is “one of the least integrated regions” in the world.7 Promoting intra-regional connectivity through trade is one of the primary focus areas of SAARC However, even after three decades of existence, intra-SAARC trade stands at a meagre five percent of South Asia’s total trade.8

International Relations literature describes three different types of regional and international organisations — alive, dead, and zombie. The first refers to organisations that are alive and functioning. The second type consists of those that have died, though this happens rarely. Finally, ‘zombie’, organisations are those that continue to operate but without making any progress toward their mandates.9 Zombie organisations maintain “a level of semi-regular operation, but output in terms of progress on their goals falls below expectation.”10 This type of organisation may accomplish some of its goals. SAARC is a case in point. The agreements on free trade (2006) and preferential trade (1993) are accomplishments, but these are ranged against SAARC’s failure to attain productive cooperation in the field of security and development.

How and why SAARC became a ‘zombie’?

A range of factors including the motives of an international organisation’s formation, its structure, mandate, working methods and the relationship among member states have undeniable sway on the outcomes it produces and the success it attains. In the case of SAARC, all these contribute to its zombie status in varying degrees. First, for the member countries, SAARC was an unwanted child. Secondly, various structural and organisational issues make SAARC not only vulnerable but reforms implausible as well. Finally, conflict and power asymmetry among members impede it from making any progress in regional cooperation.

An Unwanted Child

The motives that trigger the creation of a regional organisation play a significant role in its success. Theories of regionalism identify four principal motives that individually or collectively work as catalysts in the creation of regional organisations: functional, instrumental, normative–contractual and solidarist.11 The functionalist logic that technical and economic cooperation will lead to political harmony played a vital role in the development of regionalism in Europe. The EU was an outcome of intense longing for political rapprochement and rebuilding through economic integration after the devastation of the Second World War.12 In contrast, the instrumental, security motive – a wish to dampen intra-regional differences and band together to deal with an external security threat – drove cooperation in South East Asia.13 While the formation of the Economic Commission for Latin America illustrates the normative–contractual rationale,14 the African Union is an example of the role played by shared identity (solidarist) in forging regional integration.15

In the case of South Asia, however, the need to evade the embarrassment of being a region devoid of a regional entity was the principal instigator for the formation of SAARC. South Asia was one of the few regions that did not make any attempt to build a regional organisation until the 1980s and the idea of SAARC was borne out of this dilemma. This perceived lacuna, not a genuine concern for economic or security cooperation or shared identity, pushed South Asian countries to create an institution.16 In other words, it was not the pursuit of economic and developmental cooperation as a means to lift the region out of poverty17 or shared threat perception or even shared identity18 that pushed South Asian countries to establish a regional organisation.

In short, for member countries, SAARC was an unwanted child not only when it was conceived but after its birth and adolescence as well. In the last 33 years, SAARC has held only 18 Summits, and many have been postponed or cancelled due to various issues.19 Further, in the last decade, the frequency of summits has also reduced compared to the first two decades. While the first decade witnessed eight Summits, the second had six, and the third only four.20 The cancellation and postponement of regular meetings embody the persistence of this indifference today as well.

Structural Problems

SAARC’s emphasis on the principle of unanimity for decision making and exclusion of contentious bilateral issues from deliberations makes the organisation fragile and vulnerable. Its Charter says: “decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity” and “bilateral and contentious issues shall be excluded from the deliberations.”21 While the unanimity clause enables any member at any time to veto any proposal, the prohibition on the raising of bilateral issues reduces the possibility of solving conflicts among, and addressing concerns of, the member states. Given the level of suspicion, power asymmetry and persistence of bilateral conflicts, it has seemingly proven hard for SAARC countries to come to a unanimous agreement on vital issues.22 The trans-South Asian road connectivity project is a case in point of how one member could hinder a regional initiative that was supported by the rest.23

Contrasting SAARC’s decision-making process with those of the EU and ASEAN, which employ the qualified majority and consensus procedures, respectively, shows how the decision making procedure of an organisation influences its success and failure. In the EU, one of the most successful cases of regional integration, a decision requires only 55 per cent of member states (16 out of 28) to vote in favour. Besides, to block a decision at the European Council, four members representing at least 35 per cent of the EU population is necessary.24 These structural characteristics not only make the decision-making process in the EU relatively easy but vetoing a decision hard as well.25 Similarly, though ASEAN employs consensus to arrive at decisions, unanimity is not an absolute in decision-making. Additionally, to circumvent the painstakingly slow consensus process, ASEAN developed a new stipulation, ‘ASEAN minus X’, which allows members to opt-out.

Similarly, barring discussions on contentious bilateral issues also contributes to making SAARC a zombie. South Asian countries are beset by many inter-state and intra-state conflicts. It is a region that has “witnessed five full-scale inter-state conflicts, and some of its states have earned the distinction of becoming a part of the hub of global terrorism.”26 There is no doubt that these conflicts, especially hostile bilateral relationships, affect the regional integration process. Unless and until all members discuss bilateral disputes with an intention to resolve them, the chances of enhancing regional cooperation will remain dim. By prohibiting the discussion of bilateral issues at its summits, SAARC has crippled itself.

Conflicting interests of members

To be sure, violent conflict among members does decrease organisational vitality.27 Since its inception, the regular activities of SAARC have been restrained by the tense bilateral relationships including violent conflicts among its members. Scholars contend that two factors, power-asymmetry and lack of common strategic thinking, make South Asia an unusually fragile strategic environment where genuine cooperation is impossible.28 When one of the constituents is too big and powerful compared to the rest, it will naturally affect the progress of cooperation.29 In the region, the basis of power-asymmetry is India’s preponderance, which represents more than “two-thirds of the region’s area and more than three-fourths of the region’s population, GDP, and military strength.”30

India’s dominance causes mistrust and suspicion about its motives in the smaller South Asian countries. As Bimal Prasad had noted, the smaller states consider India as the “main source of threat to their security” even if they continue to express “interest in maintaining friendly relations with India.”31 While India considers its neighbours as an integral part of its security system, the latter perceive it as a threat to their security. This perception among the smaller countries of South Asia has enabled external powers such as the United States and China to acquire a role in the region, which, in turn, introduces a further stumbling block for regional cooperation.

India has been particularly chary of the idea of a Chinese role in South Asia since that would severely restrict its own influence in the region.32 For their part, India’s neighbours have “always tried, and often succeeded, in evading Indian pressure, by internationalising their bilateral conflicts by turning to either great powers or international organisations for support.”33 Thus, while China has been a key security concern for India, others, particularly Pakistan and Nepal, have for long viewed China as a balancer against Indian preponderance.34 And with China emerging as the principal trading partner of many countries in the region as well as the leading supplier of arms to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,35 the issue of granting China membership in SAARC has gathered momentum. While India opposes the move, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the Maldives are all in favour.36

But the most important factor for making SAARC dysfunctional is the conflict between India and Pakistan. While SAARC has survived various Indo-Pak crises, the organisation could not isolate itself from their ill effects completely. In particular, the lingering Kashmir dispute has become a significant obstacle to regional integration, with Pakistan insisting on a settlement before normalisation of the bilateral relationship with India and greater bilateral and regional cooperation. Further, this state of affairs keeps the threat of open conflict a possibility, as the Kargil War demonstrated and is also contributing to the persistence of cross-border terrorism and tensions along the Line of Control.

Though SAARC has made some progress in the last three decades, India-Pakistan bilateral issues have hampered meaningful regional cooperation. For instance, even 22 years after India granted Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to Pakistan, the latter has not reciprocated citing pending bilateral disputes. India perceives Pakistan’s conduct in SAARC as obstructive as well as a means to restrict Indian influence in the region. According to New Delhi, Islamabad has a history of obstructing significant initiatives under SAARC. It has opposed connectivity initiatives and pulled out of the SAARC satellite project a well.37 Pakistan’s dilemma in SAARC is apparent. It realises the impossibility of avoiding development cooperation with other countries in the region, but fears genuine integration in a group where India is the dominant actor. It also fears that greater cooperation with India would imperil its political and strategic identity as the not-India.38 But, at the same time, Pakistan continues to blame India for the failure of SAARC. According to Islamabad, it was New Delhi’s unwillingness to develop the SAARC satellite as a collaborative project that led to Pakistan’s exit from the project.39

Is revival realistic and possible?

Two questions are pertinent for any discussion on reviving SAARC: Is it realistic? And, is it possible? International organisations achieve cooperative outcomes through the transmission of information40 or socialisation.41 States use organisations to both reduce transaction costs and create information, ideas, norms, and expectations. States also legitimise or delegitimise particular ideas and practices and enhance their capacities and power through international organisations.42 These functions constitute “international organizations as agents, which, in turn, influence the interests, inter-subjective understandings, and environment of states.”43 An organisation can only be useful if member states share the view that it meets, or at least has the potential to meet, their respective interests.

In the case of SAARC, a fragile structure, weak mandate, mistrust and misperceptions, and conflict among member countries have impeded it from performing any of the above mentioned functions smoothly. For instance, SAARC has two sets of goals. First, the immediate and non-political aims such as national development through regional socio-economic and cultural cooperation. Second relates to the long-term, political objective of creating a durable, stable, and peaceful regional order.44 The organisation was a product of the functionalist optimism that economic cooperation will circumvent political issues. However, it could contribute to solving neither economic problems nor political issues. Further, it has also failed to modify the perceptions and conduct of its members. At this juncture, the idea that economic integration will lead to peace and that the ‘peace dividend’ will bring progress and development to the whole region is far from reality. Therefore, even if reinvigorated through structural reforms, the organisation will not be able to contribute to regional cooperation and development.

But can the structural and other issues be fixed? First, the likelihood of amending the SAARC Charter to make the organisation’s structure and mandate effective is limited due to the conflicting views of member countries to structural reforms. For instance, India “remains convinced that more harm than good would come from amending the Charter.”45 In contrast, Pakistan argues for Charter reform and especially amending the provision pertaining to the discussion of bilateral security issues in the regional platform.46 While Bangladesh shares India’s position, Sri Lanka supports Pakistan’s viewpoint.47 Since the unanimity principle of the organisation provides veto power to each member, amending the Charter will be extremely difficult.

Second, the chances of resolving India-Pakistan conflict, the prominent factor behind the comatose status of the organisation, are limited. Kashmir is the bone of contention between these two leading South Asian powers. On the one hand, neither the use of force nor diplomacy is expected to bring peace to Kashmir in the near future. On the other, the likelihood of India-Pakistan relationship deteriorating further appears high. The steep increase in ceasefire violations in recent months and the recurrence of Pakistan backed terrorist attacks on Indian soil have intensified tensions. Since India’s decision to boycott the Islamabad meeting of SAARC and its cancellation, more than 350 ceasefire violations have been reported in Jammu and Kashmir.48 The year 2017 has been the “bloodiest on the LoC, and the international border in the Jammu sector since the ceasefire agreement (CFA) was agreed to in 2003” with more than 160 soldiers losing their lives.49

Finally, since India-Pakistan rivalry has been the primary factor hampering the process of regional integration, many analysts have proposed a SAARC minus one.50 This could be a SAARC without India or without Pakistan. Both prospects, however, have serious drawbacks. First, without involving Pakistan, the possibility of integrating South Asia and resolving the economic and security challenges that the region faces will be almost impossible. The most pressing issue in the region is terrorism and Pakistan stands at its core as both perpetrator and victim. Moreover, the other members of the organisation, who have a good relationship with Pakistan, are not likely to favour the idea of a SAARC minus Pakistan. The consequence of an Indian exit from SAARC51 is likely to be worse. It would possibly cause the death of the SAARC ‘zombie’. India enjoys substantial regional influence across South Asia due to its size, population, and economic might. Without India, meaningful regional cooperation in South Asia would not be possible.

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

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

Source:
This article was published by IDSA.

Notes:

• 1. Transcript of Media Briefing by Foreign Secretary on the visit of Prime Minister of Nepal, April 08, 2018, http://www.mea.gov.in/media-briefings.htm?dtl/29799/Transcript_of_Media_…
• 2. ‘Abbasi, Nepali leaders discuss BRI, Saarc,’ http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2018-03-07/abbasi-nepali-leaders…
• 3. Tweet of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, March 09, 2018, https://twitter.com/pid_gov/status/972161410515062784
• 4. Julia Gray (2018), ‘Life, Death, or Zombie? The Vitality of International Organizations,’ International Studies Quarterly, 62, p. 1.
• 5. See ‘Charter of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation’, http://saarc-sec.org/saarc-charter
• 6. P. V. Rao (2012), ‘South Asia’s retarded regionalism’, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, vol. 8, no.1, p. 37.
• 7. The World Bank (2017), ‘One South Asia’, http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/south-asia-regional-integration
• 8. In contrast, intra-regional trade constitutes 35 per cent of East Asia’s total trade, and 60 per cent of Europe’s. See, ‘The Potential of Intra-regional Trade for South Asia’, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2016/05/24/the-potential-of…
• 9. Note 4, p. 1.
• 10. Ibid.
• 11. Sarah Eaton and Richard Stubbs (2006), ‘Is ASEAN powerful? Neo-realist versus constructivist approaches to power in Southeast Asia,’ The Pacific Review, vol.19, no.2, pp: 135-155; Also Andrew Hurrell (1995), ‘Explaining the Resurgence of Regionalism in World Politics,’ Review of International Studies, vol. 21, no. 4, pp: 331-358; Rick Fawn (2009), ‘Regions’ and Their Study: Wherefrom, What for and Whereto?’ Review of International Studies, vol. 35, no.1, pp: 5-34
• 12. Ernst B. Haas (1970), ‘The Study of Regional Integration: Reflections on the Joy and Anquish of Pre-theorizing’ International Organization, vol.24, no.3, PP: 607-646. Also see David Mitrany (1968), ‘The Prospect of Integration: Federation or Functional?’ in Joseph S. Nye Jr. ed., International Regionalism: Readings, Boston: Little, Brown and Company; Rajeesh Kumar (2011), ‘Memories and Myths/illusions: Historical (De) Construction of European Union Identity and the Politics of Exclusion/Inclusion’, Area Studies, vol.5, no.2, pp: 102-139.
• 13. Kripa Sridharan, (2008), ‘Regional Organizations and Conflict Management: Comparing ASEAN and SAARC,’LSE Crisis States Working Papers Series No. 33, p. 1. Also see Shaun Narine (2002), Explaining ASEAN: Regionalism in Southeast Asia, Bolder: Lynne Rienner.
• 14. Bjorn Hettne (1999), ‘Globalization and the New Regionalism: The Second Great Transformation,’ in Bjorn Hettne, Andras Inotai, and Osvaldo Sunkel eds., Globalism and the New Regionalism, New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• 15. Tim Murithi (2007), ‘Institutionalising Pan-Africanism: Transforming African Union values and principles into policy and practice,’ https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/98931/PAPER143H.pdf
• 16. Note 13, p. 13.
• 17. Ibid, p.14
• 18. S D Muni (1996), ‘Regionalism Beyond the Regions: South Asia Outside SAARC’, South Asian Survey, vol.3, no.1&2, pp: 327-338
• 19. Manzoor Ahmad (2017), ‘SAARC Summits 1985-2016: The Cancellation Phenomenon,’ IPRI Journal, vol, XVII, no.1, p.45.
• 20. Ibid, p. 47.
• 21. Article X of the SAARC Charter, See note 5.
• 22. People often use consensus and unanimity or unanimous consent synonymously. While consensus denotes general agreement or agreement of the majority, unanimity means the agreement of all.
• 23. Harsh V. Pant (2016), ‘Once Again, Pakistan Scuttles South Asian Regional Connectivity,’ https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/once-again-pakistan-scuttles-south-asian…
• 24. Council of the European Union, ‘Voting System’, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/qualified-maj…
• 25. See Elizabeth DeGori (2008), ‘Majority Voting in the EU: Beneficial or Just Equally Harmful,’ http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&contex…
• 26. S.D. Muni (2013), ‘Conflicts in South Asia: Causes, Consequences, Prospects,’ ISAS Working Paper No. 170, p.2
• 27. Note 4, p. 5.
• 28. Kanti Bajpai and Stephen Cohen (1993), South Asia after the Cold War: International Perspectives, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, p. 4.
• 29. Partha S. Ghosh (2013), ‘An Enigma that is South Asia: India versus the Region,’Asia-Pacific Review, vol.20, no.1,p.106
• 30. Ibid.
• 31. Bimal Prasad (1999), ‘Prospects for Greater Cooperation in South Asia’, in Eric Gonsalves and Nancy Jetly, eds., The Dynamics of South Asia: Regional Cooperation and SAARC, New Delhi: Sage, p. 72.
• 32. Note 29, p. 115.
• 33. Christian Wagner (2016), ‘The Role of India and China in South Asia,’Strategic Analysis, vol. 40, no.4, p. 314.
• 34. Kanti Bajpai (1999), ‘Security and SAARC’, in Eric Gonsalves and Nancy Jetly, eds.,The Dynamics of South Asia: Regional Cooperation and SAARC, New Delhi: Sage, p. 77.
• 35. Manoj Joshi (2018), ‘Expect greater rivalry between India and China in South Asia,’https://www.orfonline.org/research/expect-greater-rivalry-between-india-and-china-in-south-asia/
• 36. Tanvi Madan (2014), ‘China’s role in SAARC,’ https://www.brookings.edu/research/chinas-role-in-saarc/
• 37. Note 18.
• 38. S.D. Muni, (1999), ‘Regionalism beyond the Region: South Asia outside SAARC,’ in Eric Gonsalves and Nancy Jetly, eds., p. 123.
• 39. Record of the Press Briefing by Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson on 05 May 2017, http://www.mofa.gov.pk/pr-details.php?mm=NDk3Nw
• 40. Note 4.
• 41. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink (1998), ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,’International Organization vol. 52, no.4, pp: 887–917.
• 42. Kenneth W. Abbott and Duncan Snidal (1998), ‘Why States Act Through Formal International Organizations,’The Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 42, no. 1, pp:3-32.
• 43. Ibid. p. 8.
• 44. Ross Masood Hussain, (1999), ‘SAARC 1985-1995: A Review and Analysis of Progress’, in Eric Gonsalves and Nancy Jetly, eds. p. 27.
• 45. Note 11, p. 12.
• 46. Parvaiz Iqbal Cheema (1999), ‘SAARC Needs Revamping,’ in Eric Gonsalves and Nancy Jetly, eds., p. 103; Also see, Arndt Michael (2013), India’s Foreign Policy and Regional Multilateralism, London: Palgrave, p. 97.
• 47. Laurie Nathan (2010), ‘The Peacemaking Effectiveness of Regional Organisations,’ LSE Crisis States Working Papers Series no. 81, p. 12.
• 48. Ceasefire Violations Data, Indo-Pak Conflict Monitor, 13 April 2018, http://indopakconflictmonitor.org/cfv.php
• 49. Happymon Jacob, ‘The unquiet front,’ Indian Express, February 8, 2018.
• 50. C Raja Mohan (2016) ‘Raja Mandala: SAARC minus one’, Indian Express, September 29, 2016; Manjari Chatterjee Miller and Bharath Gopalaswamy (2016), ‘SAARC Is Dead; Long Live SAARC,’ https://thediplomat.com/2016/11/saarc-is-dead-long-live-saarc/; Akhilesh Pillalamarri (2016), ‘One Step Further: It’s Time for SAARC to Expel Pakistan’, https://thediplomat.com/2016/09/one-step-further-its-time-for-saarc-to-e…
• 51. Chandan Mitra, (2016), ‘India Should Not Just Boycott SAARC, But Exit It Completely,’ https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/india-should-pull-out-of-saarc-lead-new-organization-1434635

By Filip Rudic

Serbian-born basketball coach Igor Kokoskov has been hired to lead the US team Phoenix Suns, becoming the first head coach in National Basketball Association history born outside North America.

“I have been preparing for this for 18 years and I’m not afraid of any challenge,” Kokoskov, 46, told the Serbian daily Vecernje novosti on Friday.

Kokoskov will begin his duties as Suns head coach following the conclusion of the Utah Jazz season, the Phoenix Suns said in a press release.

“Igor has been a pioneer throughout his basketball career and he brings a wealth of high level coaching experience to our club,” said General Manager Ryan McDonough.

Before signing up for the Suns, Kokoskov had a string of achievements under his belt.

Notably, he coached the Slovenian national team to its first 2017 EuroBasket gold medal, which was the first European title in the history of Slovenia.

He started his career coaching the Youth Basketball Club Belgrade and Partisan Basketball Club. In 2000, he became the first full-time non-American assistant coach in NBA history, for the Los Angeles Clippers.

He was also an assistant coach of Detroit Pistons from 2003 to 2008, the Phoenix Suns from 2008 to 2013, Cleveland Cavaliers from 2013 to 2014, then joined Orlando Magic for one season in 2015 before becoming assistant coach to his current team Utah Jazz.

Kokoskov was an assistant coach of the state union of Serbia and Montenegro team at the 2004 Summer Olympics, and the 2005 EuroBasket.

The disintegrating state union did poorly in both competitions, with its worst Olympic finish in history, ending in 11th place and being eliminated in the play-off stage of EuroBasket.

In 2008, Kokoskov was named head coach of Georgia’s national basketball team and led it until 2015, after which he became the head coach for Slovenia.

By Slavoj Žižek*

Donald Trump should not receive the Nobel Peace prize. But will he? The French have a beautiful expression, “voyons voir,” which can be roughly translated as “let’s wait and see what happens.”

Four US presidents have already been awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter (after leaving office), and Barack Obama in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people.” Now, this explanation was complete fakery, and it merely expressed the hope that Obama would act like that going forward.

As unbelievable as the proposal for Trump to get the Nobel Peace Prize is, we should nevertheless react to it in three ways.

First, we should bear in mind that the great compromise which enabled the breakthrough towards a peaceful resolution of the Korean crisis was made not by Trump but by Kim Jong-un. It was Kim who made the key concession, which means any prize should be directed to the pair jointly. And the weakness of this idea is obvious – it would invite ridicule to hand the Nobel Peace Prize to the head of arguably the most oppressive regime in the world.

Second, remember how, a little while ago, Trump was competing with Kim about the buttons to trigger nuclear missiles that they have at their disposal, with the American claiming his button is bigger than that of his counterpart in Pyongyang.

As such, the extreme oscillations in the public perception of the Korean crisis are significant. One week, we are told we are on a brink of nuclear war; then there is a week of respite, then the war threat explodes again.

Different vibes

When I visited Seoul in August 2017, my friends there told me there is no serious threat of a war because the North Korean regime knows it cannot survive it. Yet, the South Korean authorities have often prepared their population for a nuclear war.

And, lately, our media has reported on the more and more ridiculous exchange of insults between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. But the irony of the situation is that, when we get (what appears to be) two immature men letting go of their rage and hurling insults at each other, our only hope is that there is some anonymous and invisible institutional constraint preventing their rage to explode into a full-on war.

Usually, we tend to complain that in today’s alienated and bureaucratized politics, institutional pressures and constraints prevent politicians from expressing their personal visions. But, in this case, we hope such constraints will prevent the expression of all too crazy personal visions.

Thus, should Donald and Kim really be rewarded just for performing a sudden U-turn and not acting as crazy as we feared?

Third, the unpleasant truth (for leftist liberals) is that, far from being just the bellicose crazy US leader, Trump hasn’t turned out so bad in comparison with Hillary Clinton.

Indeed, asked by The Guardian whether she truly believes Clinton would be more dangerous than Trump, the actress Susan Sarandon responded: “I did think she was very, very dangerous. We would still be fracking, we would be at war [if she were president]. It wouldn’t be much smoother.

“Look what happened under Obama that we didn’t notice. She would’ve done it the way Obama did it, which was sneakily. He deported more people than have been deported now. How he got the Nobel Peace Prize, I don’t know,” she added.

Indeed, we should thus always bear in mind that, at his worst, Trump is mostly just continuing the politics of his predecessors.

Close shave

Who, then, really deserves the Nobel Peace Prize? Probably, those who, for sure, will never get it. Try to recall a frightening detail from the Cuban missile crisis: only later did we learn how close to nuclear war we were during a naval skirmish between an American destroyer and a Soviet B-59 submarine off Cuba on October 27, 1962.

The destroyer dropped depth charges near the submarine to try to force it to surface, not knowing it had a nuclear-tipped torpedo. Vadim Orlov, a member of the submarine crew, told the conference in Havana that the submarine was authorized to fire if three officers agreed. The officers began a fierce shouting debate over whether to sink the ship. Two of them said Yes and the other said No.

“A guy named Arkhipov saved the world,” was a bitter comment of a historian on this accident.

Do we not all silently count on something similar in the heated exchange between the US and others – that, at a decisive moment, a single individual will find strength to cut short the mad circle of nuclear threats and counter-threats?

A similar act, much less known, was also committed in the Soviet Union in an even darker time. Sophia Karpai was the head of the cardiographic unit of the Kremlin Hospital in the late 1940s. Her (accidental) misfortune was that it was her job to take twice the electrocardiogram of Andrei Zhdanov, on July 25 1948 and on July 31, days before Zhdanov’s death, due to heart failure.

The first ECG, taken after Zhdanov displayed some heart problems, was inconclusive (a heart attack could be neither confirmed nor excluded), while the second one surprisingly showed a much better picture (the intraventricular blockage disappeared, a clear indication that there was no heart attack).

Doctor’s plot

In 1951, she was arrested on charges that alleged, in a conspiracy with other doctors treating Zhdanov, she falsified the data, erasing the clear indications that a heart attack did occur, thereby depriving Zhdanov of the special care needed by a victim of cardiac arrest. After harsh treatment, including a brutal beating, all the other accused doctors confessed. “Sophia Karpai, whom her boss doctor Vinogradov had described as nothing more than ‘a typical person of the street with the morals of the petty bourgeoisie,’ was kept in a refrigerated cell without sleep to compel a confession. However, she did not confess.” (Jonathan Brent and Vladimir P. Naumov, Stalin’s Last Crime, New York: HarperCollins 2003, p. 307) And the impact and significance of her perseverance cannot be overestimated: her signature would have dotted the ‘i’ on the prosecutor’s case on the “doctor’s plot,” immediately setting in motion the mechanism that, once rolling, would lead to the death of hundreds of thousands, maybe even to a new European war (according to Stalin’s plan, the “doctor’s plot” should have demonstrated that the Western intelligence agencies tried to murder the top Soviet leaders, and thus served as an excuse to attack Western Europe).

She persisted just long enough for Stalin to enter his final coma, after which the entire case was immediately dismissed. And her simple heroism was crucial in the series of details which, “like grains of sand in the gears of the huge machine that had been set in motion, prevented another catastrophe in Soviet society and politics generally, and saved the lives of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people.” (Op.cit., p. 297)

This simple persistence against all odds is ultimately the stuff true heroes are made of. We learn about such cases only sometimes and only years later. So, if there is to be a minimal justice in who gets the Nobel Peace Prize, it should be given neither to active politicians for their present acts (i.e., for just no being as brutal as one expected them to be) nor to politicians for their future expected acts; the prize should be given retroactively, to nameless heroes like Arkhipov and Karpai.

*Slavoj Žižek is a cultural philosopher. He’s a senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London.

(RFE/RL) — The Pentagon has launched a new naval command to bolster the U.S. and NATO presence in the northern Atlantic Ocean, citing an increased Russian presence in those waters.

“The return to great power competition and a resurgent Russia demands that NATO refocus on the Atlantic to ensure dedicated reinforcement of the continent and demonstrate a capable and credible deterrence effect,” Johnny Michael, a Pentagon spokesman, said on May 4.

The new NATO command “will be the linchpin of trans-Atlantic security,” he said. Outlines of the plan were approved at a February meeting of NATO defense ministers as part of a broader effort to ensure the security of the sea lanes and lines of communication between Europe and North America.

The Pentagon’s decision reflects growing worries across Europe and within NATO about Russia’s increased military presence and patrols in the Atlantic region.

Russia has increased its patrols in the Baltic Sea, the North Atlantic, and the Arctic, NATO officials say, although the size of its navy is smaller now than during the Cold War era.

Despite evidence that Russia’s weak economy forced Moscow to slash military spending by 20 percent last year, Czech Army General Petr Pavel, the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, told RFE/RL in an interview that NATO still must build up its defenses.

“Russian military capabilities, both conventional and nuclear, are significant,” he said. “And we simply cannot be blind to an increase of defense capabilities in all services, all domains. That’s why we have to react.”

Under the new plan, the United States will set up NATO’s new Atlantic Command headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, where the Pentagon is also offering to host a proposed NATO Joint Force Command.

Russia ‘More Assertive’

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in February that “we have seen a much more assertive Russia, we have seen a Russia which has over many years invested heavily in their military capabilities, modernized their military capabilities, which are exercising not only conventional forces but also nuclear forces.”

He said the new Atlantic Command will be vital for the alliance to be able to respond. NATO also created a new logistics command, which is expected to be located in Germany.

At the same time, the U.S. Navy is re-establishing its 2nd Fleet command, which was eliminated in 2011 in a move to save costs.

Admiral John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, said the move comes as the security environment “continues to grow more challenging and complex” now that “we’re back in an era of great power competition.”

The Navy said the command will oversee ships, aircraft, and landing forces on the East Coast and northern Atlantic Ocean, and will be responsible for training forces and conducting maritime operations in the region.

Restarting the command was one of several recommendations in a Navy study done following two deadly ship collisions last year that killed a total of 17 sailors.

The command will begin operations July 1. It will report to U.S. Fleet Forces, and will initially include 11 officers and 4 enlisted personnel. Those numbers will eventually increase to more than 250 personnel, the Pentagon said.

Southeast Asia’s transnational organized criminal economy is booming alongside increasing flows in legitimate regional trade, with underworld syndicates raking in more than U.S. $100 billion in annual revenue from narcotics smuggling and other illicit enterprises, the United Nations said Thursday.

The U.N.’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed this staggering figure in a statement it issued as some 200 diplomats and officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathered in Bangkok for a high-level conference to discuss ways to improve border management and counter organized crime.

Trade flows within Southeast Asia have quadrupled over the past decade and are estimated to reach U.S. $375 billion per year by 2025, UNODC said.

“In parallel to these positive achievements, the criminal economy of East and Southeast Asia is growing, with conservative estimates of the value of transnational organized crime revenues exceeding U.S. $100 billion annually – more than the gross domestic product of several ASEAN-member states,” the U.N. agency said.

Thai Deputy Prime Minister Prajin Juntong, who addressed the conference, warned that criminal syndicates and other nefarious groups could try to take advantage of the growing volume of legitimate commerce across the 10-member regional bloc.

“ASEAN economic and trade flows will continue to increase. While this is positive, it also provides increased opportunities for transnational crime groups who do not respect our borders,” he said.

“Illegal activities like trafficking often mirror legal flows and movements of goods and services, and as the economy expands criminal and even terrorist networks will look for ways to benefit,” added Prajin, who is also the justice minister.

During the conference, Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, Thailand’s minister of transport, underscored the relevance of border management, as he highlighted major investments in infrastructure across the region.

Arkhom was apparently referring to a massive project to build roads and bridges in the region as part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s landmark geopolitical strategy known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a modern-day Silk Road that aims to connect China to the rest of Asia and beyond.

“What we see as opportunities for economic and social development are seen by others as openings to expand cross-border criminal activity,” he said.

A significant increase in synthetic drug production and trafficking, growing timber and wildlife trafficking, as well as indications of new human trafficking and migrant smuggling patterns have been recorded in Southeast Asia, UNODC said.

China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) into ASEAN-member countries remains relatively small at 6.8 percent of the total net inflows in 2015, but Chinese corporations were currently involved in major infrastructure projects across the region, Singapore-based economist Weiwen Ng told Bloomberg News.

China accounted for 14 percent of net FDI inflows into Thailand last year, 8 percent in Vietnam and Indonesia, and 6 percent in Malaysia, Ng said. The Philippines received a marginal share of 0.14 percent, he said.

By Catherine Stupp

(EurActiv) — European Commission officials who pushed through new cybersecurity legislation set to take effect next week are expecting EU countries to introduce high fines against companies that disobey the rules.

So far, only the UK has announced the level of fines that firms will face if they do not inform regulators when they suffer a major cybersecurity incident. British authorities can impose sanctions of up to £17 million, or €19 million, if firms do not report serious data breaches.

The British fine is similar to the high sanction level that companies face if they break the EU data protection regulation, known as the GDPR, which will also take effect two weeks after the cybersecurity law. Under the GDPR, companies can be hit with fines of up to €20 million or 4% of their global turnover, whichever is higher.

Commission officials expect other EU countries to set similarly high fines under the cybersecurity law.

“Everybody is talking about the GDPR, but the NIS directive will make a very big difference,” one official said, referring to the cybersecurity law, known as the network and information security directive.

Companies operating “critical infrastructure” like banking, transport and water management systems, as well as digital services including cloud providers or online marketplaces, will be forced to tell authorities when they are hacked, under the new cybersecurity rules.

The directive is the first piece of EU-wide cybersecurity legislation, and national governments will need to start enforcing the law on 9 May. Under the new rules, national governments can choose the maximum level of fines that regulators can raise against companies.

Commission officials told reporters on Friday (4 May) that they are still waiting until 9 May to see what exact level of fines other countries will choose.

“We expect other member states to go for high fines,” one official said.

EU countries are required to send the Commission their national versions of the directive by next week. So far, only Cyprus has notified the EU executive of its law. Another “five to ten” countries are ready to send their legislation next week, while others might be delayed, the official said.

Some serious data breaches might require companies to alert different national authorities under both the cybersecurity legislation and the GDPR. The Commission will publish a document explaining how authorities should make sure that they do not double up on fines if companies break both of the laws by failing to report those incidents.

“We need to make sure once we have the full mapping of how the member states have transposed [the NIS directive], that there is no overlapping, no unnecessary accumulation,” one official said.

The legislation also requires national governments to appoint a team of experts that will respond to cybersecurity incidents and communicate with authorities in other EU countries when hackers attack critical infrastructure.

Officials said most member states have already started setting up those units. They pointed to last year’s massive WannaCry and NotPetya attacks, which hit companies across Europe, as the first test of that new network. Shortly after those incidents, authorities around the EU informed each other about the impact on firms in each of their countries.

Cybersecurity is a sensitive area of EU policy because national governments are wary of sharing too much sensitive information about security vulnerabilities with other countries.

But one Commission official said last year’s attacks helped European politicians to recognise the importance of the new cybersecurity law.

“The news has very much brought this to the attention of decision makers,” the source said.

“The understanding, the knowledge and the willingness to act on cybersecurity at the European level has grown, as well as the investments domestically.”

Separately from the NIS directive, the Commission proposed another piece of EU legislation in September 2017 that will give more power to the bloc’s cybersecurity agency ENISA and introduce an EU-wide system for certifying the security level of internet-connected products. That legislation is currently in negotiations in the European Parliament and among national diplomats.

The twin shocks of Brexit and the election of President Trump have not killed globalization, or even put it in reverse — at least not yet.

That’s the good news from the latest book by Pankaj Ghemawat, The New Global Roadmap: Enduring Strategies for Turbulent Times. The bad news is that global business has perception problems and anger to deal with on top of the usual competitive concerns. But moving forward, these can be managed by understanding and applying two enduring laws of globalization and related strategies, as outlined in the book.

Brump, its Causes and Effects

Brexit and Trump are shortened to “Brump” in these pages. Post-Brump, the headlines may shout “Globalization Is Dead!” but its march quietly continues. In fact, Ghemawat cites some preliminary data from his next biennial DHL Global Connectedness Index that shows globalization continuing to grow, albeit not as quickly as before. “Data across all components of the DHL Global Connectedness Index isn’t available yet, but [together it] will probably reinforce the conclusion that neither ‘Leave’ nor ‘America First’ has managed to stop globalization, let alone throw it into reverse,” he writes.

Still, the anger that made Brump possible is real — anger at globalization, for one thing. But is the anger justified by verifiable facts? Ghemawat’s research indicates that at least some of the problems often blamed on globalization really have primarily domestic root causes. Consider the popular idea that globalization caused the current extremes of income inequality. Ghemawat asks, “If the Netherlands can preserve a relatively reasonable income distribution despite having a trade-to-GDP ratio six times that of the United States, how can we blame the much higher level of inequality in the U.S. economy on globalization?”

To counter misperceptions about globalization and its harms, Ghemawat suggests arming ourselves with accurate facts, education, and even working to fix distributional issues when possible. That may mean looking at how firm salaries are structured and more. (Those are three of a six-point program identified as “FRIEND” in the book.)

Taking the Broader View

“For businesses to respond and contribute better to society, they must begin to recognize some of the problems that underpin the backlash against both globalization and big business,” Ghemawat writes.

Tackling these timely “nonmarket issues” and more, this book is structured in two parts. Part One maps globalization to explain what is — and what isn’t — changing, with some numbers and maps to illustrate. Part Two offers strategies for managing globalization — including how to compete, where to compete, how to connect and the aforementioned nonmarket issues — i.e., “anger and its management.”

Resist the Yo-Yoing: The Case of Coca-Cola

In the opening pages, Ghemawat refers to Coca-Cola’s global journey to demonstrate the dangers of “the globalization yo-yo effect.” Yes, even one of the world’s most recognized brands has had problems with its globalization strategy in the past.

Until the 1980s, Coca-Cola’s country managers were given wide berth. As one former CEO explained (as quoted in the book), there were only two rules: “You can’t change the formula and you can’t steal the money.” But then came centralization and standardization; HQ was staffed up, taking decision-making away from the field.

Entering the 21st century, a new motto took hold: “think local, act local.” Along with downsizing HQ in 2000, decision-making went back to the field. Yet the decentralized approach hurt the quality of marketing and scale economies suffered. A few years later, after results lagged expectations and it became clear another change was needed, Cola-Cola’s then-CEO partially recentralized, but with a more nuanced approach.

In retrospect, Coca-Cola wasted substantial resources by yo-yoing between fairly extreme views of how to handle globalization. One aim of Ghemawat’s latest book is to warn readers not to fall prey to the overhyped swings of globalization. Remember that we are still in a state of semiglobalization and what you previously knew about the benefits of globalization still holds true.

To know more, see “Globalization Under Fire: How Should Leaders Respond?” and “Two Laws for Global Business“

Thank you for Minister El-Garhy for your kind introduction. I am very happy to be in Cairo, and honored to see that we are joined this evening by such a distinguished group.

I would like to thank the Government of Egypt for agreeing to organize this conference with the IMF. I offer particular appreciation to Central Bank Governor Amer and Finance Minister El-Garhy for their support—both for this opportunity to discuss issues relevant to Egypt’s future, and, more broadly, for the spirit of cooperation in our work.

This conference comes at a crucial moment for Egypt. In 2016, this country faced severe economic challenges. The response then was bold.  It has been sustained, and it has succeeded.

The results are clear: macroeconomic stability and market confidence have been restored, growth has resumed, inflation has fallen, and the public debt ratio is expected to fall for the first time in nearly a decade. Many people in this room have played a role in this success, and the Egyptian people themselves have been called upon for patience through a disruptive time.

But now the time has come to take advantage of the hard-won macroeconomic stability and push on to create jobs and raise living standards through sustainable growth. That may be difficult, but it would provide the payoff for all the efforts to date.

Many countries have escaped financial jeopardy and achieved a measure of macro-stability. But a smaller number have sustained that stabilization and gone on to complete a modernization driving sustained, inclusive growth. Egypt now is at the point where it has a chance to do so.  That will require broadening and deepening the reform agenda.

We have come to Cairo to participate in a forward-looking conversation about those next steps—to ask what can be done to create greater opportunities for all Egyptians, especially the millions of young women and men looking to build a better future. Broadly speaking, we all know the answer involves strengthening private sector-led economic activity and enhancing openness to be able to invest more, export more and create more jobs.

Let me be the first to say I am not an expert when it comes to your country.  So, my intention this evening is not to lay out prescriptions, but to set the stage for our discussion by highlighting other countries’ experiences and successes that you may find relevant.  My starting point, something we at the Fund have learned over decades, and something Egypt has just demonstrated, is that effective economic policies need to be built upon consensus and ownership at home. I hope we can advance a policy agenda that will be embraced by Egyptian society—government, business, civil society, and the population at large.

So, let me offer a few words on the global setting for your efforts; a quick review of the road you have traveled; and finally, some thoughts on the economic challenges that remain.

The Global Economy and Egypt

The global economy is improving as trade and investment show strength we have not seen in a decade. These forces are benefiting most countries, including Egypt. Our recent World Economic Outlook projects a continued expansion in the immediate future, with global growth of 3.9 percent this year and in 2019. That favorable external environment provides a good window of opportunity for Egypt to undertake reforms; a window that may not be open for too long.

That is because the medium-term outlook is more uncertain. We should expect interest rates to head higher and financial conditions to tighten.  And we are all aware of the uncertainty hanging over the global trading system, which could mean less favorable conditions at some point.

In other words, now would be a good time for Egypt to shift growth and job creation into a higher gear.

To see what is at stake, just look how far you have come.  In 2016, the Egyptian economy was suffering from low growth, lagging investment, rising inflation, and growing government debt. In truth, it was at risk of instability. In your Fund-supported reform program, you liberalized the foreign exchange market and tightened monetary policy. You put in place a three-year fiscal-consolidation effort, including subsidy reforms. You also took decisive measures to strengthen the business climate and improve the management of public finances.

Exports and tourism are recovering, and the current account deficit is falling. Confidence has improved, and investment has picked up. As a result, growth so far this year is at a 5.2 percent pace and inflation should decline to 11 percent. There is clear evidence that the Central Bank of Egypt’s monetary policy control has contained the second-round effects from the pound’s depreciation, the increases in fuel prices, and the VAT.

The subsidy reform has freed up some of the funding needed for targeted social assistance. And it has moved fuel prices in the direction of their true cost. Subsidy reduction makes possible a more efficient allocation of resources across the economy—which will be an important element in unlocking Egypt’s economic potential.

Experiences from Other Countries

The experiences of other countries show that it is not easy to maintain stabilization efforts, unless you push on to produce growth and benefits all citizens can perceive. In many countries, stabilization without deeper reforms leads to fatigue, complacency and opposition from vested interests that undermine momentum. Like a bicycle, unless you pedal, eventually you slow and then you wobble.

In Egypt, there are several immediate reasons to press ahead with reform. Public finances certainly are on a firmer footing, but public debt remains very high. A strong effort is needed both to consolidate and to make room for spending in key areas such as health and education. Delays in following through on the reform of energy subsidies could again leave the budget at risk from higher global oil prices.

But more than anything else, Egypt cannot delay on jobs. By 2028, Egypt’s working age population will increase by 20 percent. That works out to a labor force of 80 million Egyptians just 10 years from now.  Creating jobs for all those people has to be Egypt’s biggest economic challenge.

But at the same time, your biggest challenge, employing the youth, is also your biggest opportunity.  If this country can tap the potential of its young people—by bringing unemployment and labor force participation to the level of many other emerging market countries—their absorption into the economy could boost growth into the range of 6 to 8 percent. That would be a transformation.  It would mean improving living standards for large segments of the population.

Is that possible?  Hard to know.  But it has happened in some other emerging market countries.  Their histories could hold lessons relevant to Egypt. That is why we have invited policymakers from India, Korea and Malaysia to offer their perspectives here tomorrow.

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s look briefly at three countries that have surmounted several of the hurdles that Egypt now confronts.

First, Indonesia. Indonesia emerged from a deep crisis in 1998 needing to break free of cronyism and the central government’s control of its sprawling economy. Reforms ended government monopolies and empowered the private sector, shifted resources and decision making to local authorities, and promoted market-oriented economic policies.  The economy has become more and more dynamic and has grown steadily.

Second, Mexico.  In 2013 Mexico took a set of decisive actions aimed at lifting productivity growth. The energy sector, long dominated by the state, was opened up, and oligopoly control in telecommunications and finance was replaced by freer competition. Energy exploration is taking off, and telecommunications costs have plummeted, with widespread benefits.  They also set out to draw people out of informality and into the mainstream economy, through labor reforms that allow more flexible hiring arrangements—including hiring for training and trial periods.  The result was the creation of 3.5 million jobs in the last five years, more than in the prior 12 years combined. Employment in the informal sector has fallen as the rate of formal employment growth has increased at double the rate of GDP growth.

And third, India.  One set of goals India and Egypt share is to strengthen the social safety net, making it reach more of the population, and reducing bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption in benefit systems.  India went at this by using biometric data as a form of identification, creating a payments architecture based on the ID system, and then channeling direct payments of subsidies and benefits via that system. The program has simplified the bureaucracy of the social safety net, and, most importantly, reduced the opportunities for corruption. It also has deepened financial inclusion by bringing nearly 300 million people into the formal economy.

India’s experience shows how countries can mobilize new technology to overcome obstacles to development. This is a crucial point. It is just not the case that technology only benefits advanced economies. It can be a game-changer for this country as well.  But technology is moving fast, and any country that does not keep up risks being left behind.

The Role of the Private Sector

All of this points to the need for policies in Egypt to encourage the growth of a healthy private sector—because that is the only realistic source of the jobs that are needed. What will it take?

Let me end by proposing a list of items to consider and discuss in the conference tomorrow.

A business climate in which the rules of the game are simple, transparent and respected, in which small businesses can grow into medium-sized and even large companies.

Greater regulatory certainty to encourage investment and competition.

A less heavy footprint of the public sector in the economy, especially in business and commerce, to clear away room for the growth of the private sector and to relieve entrepreneurs from the un-winnable matchup of competing with the public sector.

Enough labor market flexibility to allow young people to find jobs.

Reduction of non-tariff barriers and protections for domestic industries so that Egyptian companies can become part of the global supply chain, and can expand to capture a bigger share of the global marketplace.

And an economic system built on fairness and free of corruption.

This may sound like a daunting list. In fact, I think it is.

But I suspect much of it needs to be tackled for Egypt to create a modern economy, meet the expectations of its young people, and raise living standards.

The IMF stands ready to help, through our program and beyond, bringing experiences of other countries that might prove useful to Egypt.  A big part of what we do is to help disseminate the success stories of our members. I am already often telling others about how ownership and boldness has delivered results here in Egypt.  We can help you do the same with regard to reform and modernization. This is a commitment we meet with our advice, technical assistance and training.

Ultimately, it is up to Egypt to face up to the task of building a better country that meets the needs of all Egyptians. Let us see that this conference helps identify and prioritize policies that can advance this outcome.

I look forward to working with you to advance Egypt’s economic success.

Thank you.

By Jennifer Loy

The Arctic Circle’s once inhospitable environment is changing dramatically, and the geopolitics of the region is shifting with it. Russia planted their flag on the seabed of the North Pole in 2007 and have been building up military installments ever since. China has been interested in the Arctic since the 1980s, and in January this year, published its first white paper on the region. President Trump, with his “America First” campaign and denial of global warming, has left behind various vacuums for other nations to pursue their interests. This is particularly true of the Arctic.

The Arctic’s littoral nations consist of the United States, Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Iceland, and Russia. Along with Sweden and Finland they form the Arctic Council, an international institution that was created in 1996. The Arctic Council also comprises of 13 observer nations. Besides attending meetings, these states are required to contribute to the group, and can propose projects and present written statements. Following decades of interest in the region, China became an observer in 2013. A major focus of the Council is the melting icecap, as it not only affects the coastal nations, but the rest of the world due to global climate change and the search for energy resources.

China has been interested in the polar icecaps since at least 1981, when it established the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration (CAA). The department has five divisions: general affairs, policy and planning, operations and finance, science programs, and international cooperation. It has a training base in Heilongjiang Province, in northern China. The CAA has eight objectives, including national strategies and laws, undertaking expeditions, science projects, and international cooperation. Besides extensive Antarctic activities, the CAA organized six Arctic scientific expeditions from 1997-2014. Additionally, it established an Arctic base in Norway and has been gathering data there since 2004.

The CAA has established two polar bases, one on Svalbard Island and the other in Iceland; next it hopes to set up a new base in Canada.  The organization has a largely scientific focus. Four Chinese universities, in cooperation with six Nordic ones, created the China-Nordic Arctic Research Center in 2013.

China’s invitation to the Arctic Council paved the way for its current engagement in the region, but there’s another major initiative drawing the Middle Kingdom to the far north.

The One Belt One Road Initiative is China’s new Silk Road and the Ming Dynasty maritime push combined. It is the world’s largest economic endeavor, potentially involving 60 nations and more than 4.4 billion people. Chinese President Xi Jinping figuratively discussed it in his 2015 statement at the UN. A major component of the speech was his promise of “win-win” situations all over the world. As planned, OBOR would open unfettered pathways to Europe, Africa, and ultimately Latin America. Scott Kennedy of CSIS believes the OBOR will see promote economic and cultural cooperation across Asia. In January, China released its new Arctic policy white paper, in which it self-identified as a “near-Arctic State.” Beijing has also extended OBOR funding to support a Polar Silk Road.

China is clearly setting some highly ambitious goals in terms of economic cooperation, and in doing so it is staking new claims worldwide – claims that are making some democracies uneasy.

China’s Arctic Policy

China’s Arctic Policy has five main objectives under which ‘respect, cooperation, win-win results, and sustainability’ will be pursued. The plan is to further China’s understanding of the Arctic via scientific and climate change research, ‘using Arctic resources in a lawful manner, to participate in international cooperation, and to do all of this peacefully.’ Thus far, the Polar Silk Road seems comparable to OBOR.

Beijing has deemed scientific exploration and research to be a priority, utilizing multi-disciplinary sciences involving but not limited to biology, geology, economy, meteorology, and chemistry.

The new Arctic policy’s secondary objective involves climate change. The country’s scientists are trying to find ways to preserve the Arctic environment, and perhaps improve it in the face of growing climate pressures.

Finally, China’s Arctic policy promises to maintain all legalities concerning the Arctic. The government pledges to abide by UNCLOS in not claiming sovereign rights and respecting EEZs of littoral nations. China will continue its scientific endeavors, as well as newfound joint ventures in energy extraction, in full accordance to previous and current arrangements and treaties.

Responses to China’s Arctic Policy

Sherri Goodman is a Senior Fellow at the Wilson Center and former U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense in environmental security.  In a recent interview, she touches down on how China’s Arctic Policy responds to global warming:

China clearly recognizes that that climate change is happening…so they make no bones about wanting to confront it and adapt to it. In fact, they’re using it, in many ways, as a source of strength. It is in part what spurs their interest in the Arctic because there is greater access to the region and the energy and mineral resources that are just now becoming ice-free.

In Svalbard alone, China has more than 500 scientists, but Greenland and Iceland are what interest them most in terms of OBOR.  Beijing is taking advantage of this opportunity to capitalize on new and potentially extensive natural resource deposits. If properly embraced, this could be a tremendous business opportunity for US companies.

At a recent Wilson Center Ground Truth Briefing, the gathered experts had mixed feelings on China’s foray into the Arctic. A retired ambassador for oceans and fisheries, David Balton, claimed that Chinese involvement in the Arctic was not yet controversial, but he warned that Arctic nations should be wary as China asserts itself in the region. He was also unsure if littoral nations would welcome Chinese investment.  Robert Daly, Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States noted: “the [Chinese white paper] also speaks continually about a ‘shared future for mankind’ … This is really Xi’s most important phrase for framing China and China’s rise – the role it wants to play in the international order – as benevolent.”

There was some agreement among participants that, whatever China’s ultimate intentions in the Arctic, the United States under President Trump is not rising to meet them with any new Arctic policy from the U.S. side.

Two others points from the briefing are significant. Michael Sfraga, director of the Polar Initiative explained, that as the region warms, more opportunities will open, and the U.S. should welcome this, but be cautious. The second is from Captain Lawson Brigham, a professor of Geography and Arctic Policy, who noted that the word ‘military’ is not used throughout the entire white paper.

China will not be turning away from the Arctic any time soon. Clearly it is determined and ready to deepen its involvement in the region on multiple fronts. Taking into account these ambitions, however lofty they may seem, the U.S. could read this scenario in two ways: as a cooperator or a competitor. Which one it chooses remains to be seen.

Many nations, regardless of their latitude, are involved in scientific research in the Arctic. The shifting geopolitics of the region is something to watch, especially since many US allies are already participating and investing, whether littoral or not. China’s goals in the north are not a concern to the United States, nor any of the Arctic nations – at least for now.  Until proven otherwise, maybe the U.S. should try engaging with China and forging new scientific and financial joint ventures in order to explore this great unknown together.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

The Rohingyas are victims of a ‘slow-burning genocide’ that is perpetrated as a national project in Buddhist Myanmar (formerly Burma). Some 700,000 Rohingyas have been forced out of their ancestral homes in western Rakhine (formerly Arakan) state since September 2017 to seek refuge inside Cox’s Bazar of Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have also been living as internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside the Apartheid Myanmar since 2012.

The International Rescue Committee (Nov. 15, 2017) estimated that there were 75,000 victims of gender-based violence (meaning rape), and that 45% of the Rohingya women attending safe spaces in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh had reported such attacks. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of the crackdown alone. Credible estimates suggest that tens of thousands of Rohingyas may have been killed by Tatmadaw (Myanmar security forces that are more commonly known as the ‘rapist army’) and their civilian partners-in-crime within the mostly Rakhine Buddhist population.

According to satellite imagery (March 2018), more than 360 Rohingya villages had been partially or completely destroyed by Buddhist forces since August, with at least 55 villages completely bulldozed, removing all traces of buildings, wells and vegetation.

An international conference on “Rohingya Crisis and Solution” was convened on May 2, 2018 in Cologne, Germany. It was hosted by the Hasene IGMG (a not-for-profit organization of Turkish people working in Germany) and attended by some 500 participants from all over the globe and comprised representatives from the diplomatic corps, international organisations, human rights groups, academia, civil society, non-governmental organisations and media, as well as leaders of the Rohingya organisations.

Muhammad Turhan, Mesud Gulbahar and Kemal Ergun from Hasene IGMG welcomed the attendees to Cologne, which is the fourth most populated city in Germany. The keynote speech for the morning session was delivered by Philip Ruddock, ex-MP (1973-2016) who had served as a cabinet minister during the Howard Government and then as the Attorney General. He highlighted the importance of holding the murderous Myanmar regime accountable for its genocidal crimes. The speakers and panelists included Professor Abid Bahar (from Montreal, Canada), Prof. Michael Charney (University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies), Jacob Sterken (from Canada) who is the co-founder of the Euro-Burma Office, and Nurul Islam, Chairman of ARNO (Arakan Rohingya National Organization). They discussed various aspects of history of Arakan showing the indigenous root of the Rohingya people there.

Mr. Islam thanked Bangladesh government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for letting the fleeing Rohingya refugees to take shelter inside Bangladesh and for bringing their plight to the international community, including the UN. He and other speakers urged the Government of Bangladesh not to forcibly resettle the refugees inside Myanmar until and unless they are truly secured with equal rights as citizens of Myanmar.

The keynote speaker for the second session was Tansri Dr. Syed Hamid Albar who had held multiple ministerial positions in Malaysia, including the foreign ministry. He discussed how the government of Myanmar had abused the openness shown by the ASEAN that did not want to interfere in internal affairs of a fellow block member. The speakers and panelists included (besides myself) Dr. Maung Zarni (from the UK) – a fellow human rights activist and Burmese dissident, Imam Dr. Abdul Malik Mujahid (Chairman, Burma Task Force, USA) and Mehmet Ozturk of Anadolu Agency.

The theme of the second panel discussion was around genocidal crimes against the Rohingyas of Myanmar. We stated categorically that genocide is a process that goes through several stages; it does not happen by accident but is a deliberate act with warning signs. We also reiterated that Myanmar had committed four out of the five acts of genocide as spelled out by the 1948 Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, while just one of those acts is sufficient to incriminate a group or state for such crimes.

We urged the international community to punish the criminals – state and non-state actors – including those (e.g., fascist academics like Dr. Aye Chan and bigoted monks like Wirathu) who provoked (and continue to provoke) genocidal crimes against the Rohingya people. Dr. Mujahid shared the opposition routinely faced by Burma Task Force – an advocacy group for human rights in Burma – from the lobby groups representing India, Indonesia and the Jewelry merchant group in the U.S. State Department. He also shared information that the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – two of the major human rights groups – are opposed to any comprehensive sanction imposed on Myanmar, thus, making the task of changing the policy in Washington D.C. an arduous one, if not a zero-sum activity.

We, the speakers, highlighted the fact that genocide against Rohingya has continued this long because of ignoring early warning signs since at least the early 1990s when some 270,000 Rohingyas were forced to take shelter inside Bangladesh when Pyi Thaya operation was launched by the Myanmar security forces. It was the second such massive operation in 14 years when Naga Min (King Dragon) operation in 1978-79 forced the exodus of nearly 300,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh. Even the 2012 genocidal pogroms that led to internal displacement of nearly 150,000 Rohingyas were not taken seriously by the international community, including the next-door Bangladesh government, despite serious urging from human rights activists and genocide experts/scholars.

The keynote speaker for the third session was Professor David Scheffer who is the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law, and Director, Center for International Human Rights at the Northwestern University, Chicago, USA. He joined via Skype and discussed issues surrounding genocidal and war crimes. The speakers and panelists included Dhaka University (Bangladesh) professors of International Relations: Drs. Chowdhury R. Abrar and Imtiaz Ahmed. The other speakers included Harn Yawnghwe who is the Executive Director of Euro-Burma Office (and son of Burma’s fist president – Sao Shwe Thaike) and Amir Ahmic, Liaison Officer at International Criminal Tribunal (Bosnia).

The speakers shared their experiences in dealing with genocidal crimes perpetrated against the Rohingyas and Bosnians (in former Yugoslavia). They called for ‘Protected Return to Protected Homeland’ for the Rohingya people. They highlighted the importance of providing formal education to the Rohingya children in refugee camps. They also raised the issues surrounding raped victims, their pregnancy and children, and that more international funding is necessary to address such issues immediately. The speakers also discussed the ‘Suu Kyi’ factor and how democracy went backward rather than moving forward under her de-factor leadership in Myanmar. She is a complicit to the genocidal crimes perpetrated by her security forces. They also urged concerned global citizens, esp. lawyers and legal experts, to file cases implicating members of the Myanmar government and military for their genocidal crimes against the Rohingya people.

They also urged all to boycott Made-in-Myanmar products to create pressure on the criminal government of Myanmar to change its course so that the Rohingyas are integrated as equal citizens with all their rights preserved inside their ancestral homeland of Arakan.

The last session of the day was chaired by Dr. Graham Thom who has worked as Amnesty International Australia’s Refugee Coordinator since May 2000. Regina Paulose, J.D., an attorney specializing on International Criminal Law and Razia Sultana, a Rohingya lawyer who grew up as a refugee inside Bangladesh, and is the founder of Rohingya Women Welfare, joined via Skype, sharing their views on international law as these pertain to Myanmar’s genocidal crimes against the Rohingya people, esp. females.

Munira Subasic who had lost 22 family members in Srebrenica in July 1995 to Serbian genocidal criminals and was a primary eye-witness at The Hague International Court shared her insights about dealing with the pains of being a survivor to genocide, esp. the fact that while the Bosnian genocide stopped some two decades ago the Serbian criminals that killed his family members and raped so many women (and little girls) are still alive and continue to work and roam around unscathed within the Serbian territory of the new republic. She urged resoluteness in dealing with the Rohingya genocide and never to give up in demanding and to seeing justice carried out against the perpetrators of a genocide.

Beini Ye who works as the Legal Officer of Open Society Justice Initiative in the UK shared her expertise in legal matters dealing with the Rohingya genocide. She said that the Myanmar’s rapist military have been using rape as a weapon of war to terrorize the Rohingya community permanently. The ‘rapist’ military has had used similar tactics in its war against ethnic rebels in the border territories.

A lively questions and answers session followed each panel discussion. The conference ended with a note of solidarity with the Rohingya people and called upon the international community to stop the Rohingya genocide and to prosecute the criminals for perpetrating and/or inciting genocidal crimes against them.

The speakers and attendees thanked Hasene International and its organizers for their generosity in hosting this much-needed international conference in Germany.

In 1888, Marx wrote, “philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”

On this 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx we focus on Marx as a political activist, rather than what he is best known for, an economist and philosopher who wrote some of the most important analyses explaining capitalism and putting forward an alternative economic model.

In the “Communist Manifesto”, Marx wrote, “The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.” He believed political change stems from the history of conflicts between people who are exploited against the people who are exploiting them. This exploitation leads to conflict and revolt, Marx posited revolution as “the driving force of history.”

The root of the political struggle for Marx was the economic system creating a struggle between classes. This conflict has varied throughout history, e.g. the serfs vs. the lords in the Feudal Era, the slaves vs. their owners in the era of slavery and today between workers and their bosses or capitalists.

Marx Was a Political Activist Working to Change the World

In an interview with Immanuel Wallerstein, Marcello Musto described Marx’s political activism, noting:

“For all his life, Marx was not merely a scholar isolated among the books of London’s British Museum, but always a militant revolutionary involved in the struggles of his epoch. Due to his activism, he was expelled from France, Belgium and Germany in his youth. He was also forced to go into exile in England when the revolutions of 1848 were defeated. He promoted newspapers and journals and always supported labor movements in all the ways he could. Later, from 1864 to 1872, he became the leader of the International Working Men’s Association, the first transnational organization of the working class and, in 1871, defended the Paris Commune, the first socialist experiment in history.”

Wallerstein adds that Marx played a major role in organizing people on an international level and that “Marx’s political activity also involved journalism. . .  He worked as a journalist to get an income, but he saw his contributions as a political activity. He had not any sense of being a neutral. He was always a committed journalist.”

At 24 years of age, Marx was writing fiery articles opposing Prussian authoritarianism. The newspaper he edited was closed in 1842 by the government, he was exiled and moved to Paris from where he was expelled in 1844.

In 1848, Marx and Engels published the “Communist Manifesto.” “The Manifesto” was written as a declaration of the principles of socialism for the Communist League in Brussels. It remains a statement of the core principles of socialism to this day. At 45 years of age, Marx was elected to the general council of the first international where he was active in organizing the International’s annual congresses.

Marx’s vision of socialism had nothing in common with one-party dictatorships like the former Soviet Union that declared themselves to be socialist or communist. For Marx, the key question was not whether the economy was controlled by the state, but which class controlled the state. A society can only be socialist if power is in the hands of workers themselves.

Our Tasks: Expose Inequality, Create New Economic Systems

Marx’s critique of capitalism focuses on how it inevitably leads to concentration of wealth. Marxism was seen as extinct after the Reagan-Thatcher eras and the end of the Soviet Union. But, now after nearly 40 years of neoliberalism, the inequality of deregulated global capitalism has made the occupy meme of the 99 percent versus the one percent a factual reality.

The Independent reports on Marx’s anniversary:

“Unsurprisingly, several decades of neoliberalism have been the greatest testament to how a deregulated capitalism, red in tooth and claw, siphons wealth to the top 1 per cent or even 0.1 per cent. Recent figures show that the wealthiest eight billionaires in the world (whom you could fit into a people carrier) have as much wealth as the bottom half of the global population, or some 3. 5 billion people. Astonishingly, the equivalent figure was the 62 wealthiest billionaires in 2016. Back in 2010 it was more than 300. This is how rapidly wealth is being sucked up to the top – this may be termed the vacuum-up effect as opposed to the myth of trickle-down economics.”

In the United States, three people hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the domestic population, “a total of 160 million people or 63 million American households.” Roughly a fifth of USians “have zero or negative net worth.” That figure is even higher for black and Latino households, the result of decades of discrimination. In some US corporations, the CEO earns more than 1,000 times the average worker, i.e. workers would have to toil more than nine centuries to make as much as the CEO makes in just one year.

The contradiction between extreme wealth and widespread poverty and economic insecurity, between the efficient production of goods and services and the refusal to share the prosperity created by efficiency, and between the use of natural resources and the destruction of the planet and enormous threats of climate change are leading people to see the failures of capitalism.

In 2017, the National Review reported that a poll found as many as 40 percent of people in the U.S. “now prefer socialism to capitalism.” A 2016  YouGov survey found that respondents younger than 30 rated socialism more favorably than capitalism, 43 percent vs. 32 percent. “Socialism” was the most looked-up word on Merriam-Webster’s site in 2015. “Socialism has been near the top of our online dictionary look-up list for several years,” said editor-at-large Peter Sokolowsk.

In 2014, David Harvey, a top Marxist academic, wrote, in Seventeen Contradictions And the End of Capitalism, that the extreme contradictions are leading to major transformations:

“It is in a political climate such as this that the violent and unpredictable eruptions that are occurring all around the world on an episodic basis (from Turkey and Egypt to Brazil and Sweden in 2013 alone) look more and more like the prior tremors for a coming earthquake that will make the post-colonial revolutionary struggles of the 1960s look like child’s play.”

How will that change occur? The answer is in part up to what those working for change do. Youssef El-Gingihy writes in the Independent of one likely possibility:

“The transition of capitalism to an alternative political and economic system will likely play out over a protracted period, even if it is catalyzed by revolution. Much in the same way that feudalism evolved into capitalism through the dual industrial (economic) and French revolutions (political), in which the bourgeoisie superseded the aristocratic order preceded by the 17th-century English civil war.”

We see the slow transition in process with the development of a myriad of economic democracy projects that give workers control of their employment through worker cooperatives, give communities control over their development through land trusts, give people direct control over budget decisions through participatory budgeting and democratize banking through public banks. These are some efforts to create an economy that serves the people without limiting control to workers, whose numbers are shrinking due to automation. Many of these new economic models are in their early stages of development.

Marx believed that: “No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.”

The lessons of Karl Marx show that our tasks are to heighten class conflict by exposing the reality of abhorrent inequality and create new systems to replace failing capitalism.

If you wonder why prices at the gas pump have been climbing recently and are expected to continue to climb, look no further than the sharp drop in crude oil production in Venezuela, the Saudi Arabia of the Americas.

Counting its huge tar-sands deposits, Venezuela has more crude oil than any other country in the world. Nevertheless, oil output in that failed socialist state has fallen to its lowest level in nearly 30 years, largely because of mismanagement and corruption. The production collapse there coincides with announcements by Saudi Arabia and Russia of coordinated efforts to bolster world oil prices, which have climbed more than 60 percent since last summer, reaching a three-year high.

U.S. consumers are among the biggest losers because we use more oil than any other place on Planet Earth. If domestic gas prices rise by $1 per gallon, the economic gains from last year’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act will be wiped out completely. Hurt most by such a price spike, of course, are low-income households who spend proportionately more of their budgets on fuel for transportation.

Saudi Arabia and Russia have been able to keep their own oil production levels relatively stable because of the unfortunate, but entirely predictable events in Venezuela, all the while benefitting from the rise in world oil prices.

But that could change. Should those two nations decide to reduce their own outputs significantly, global oil prices will soar even more. Higher oil prices would enable the Saudis to expand their political power in the Middle East and encourage Russian attempts to destabilize democratic institutions in other countries.

The recent gas price rise is a real concern and addressing it is important for all Americans. The solution lies partly in increasing domestic production, meaning permitting greater access to shale formations and offshore oil resources.

Let’s start with shale oil, which has enabled the U.S. energy outlook to shift from one of scarcity to one of abundance. According to IHS Markit, since 2015, shale production has accounted for more than 70 percent of the new oil and 80 percent of the new gas entering the market. The last three years also have been a time of turbulence, though. Shale production and pipeline construction are opposed by environmentalists and other special-interest groups lobbying to keep oil and gas in the ground. New York State and Maryland have imposed bans on fracking, even though it has proven to be safe, by and large.

Offshore, the oil and gas industry has become much more efficient when drilling in deep waters. Simpler, standardized designs make drilling platforms less expensive and less likely to experience costly construction delays. Energy companies are transferring the technology they developed for shale production to increase output in deep-water wells.

Smarter pipeline siting and construction also are reshaping the oil and gas industry. Automation is one of the industry’s most important developments. In remote areas, robots are inspecting pipelines and other equipment. Although human beings remain indispensable in critical safety roles requiring complex decision-making, automation is transforming the oil and gas workforce.

Huge benefits from high-technology solutions for oil production and transportation have helped the United States remain at the forefront of energy globally. The ongoing energy revolution has helped sustain U.S. economic growth, not yet recovered fully from the Great Recession: from 2008 to 2014, lower energy prices saved the average household more than $700 a year. The shift from burning coal to natural gas for generating electricity has helped continue dramatic improvements in air quality.

U.S. energy production matters, not just geopolitically, but also as an object lesson for people like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who think that socialism is superior to market capitalism. The collapse of Venezuelan oil production, a commodity that once accounted for a quarter of that nation’s GDP, is a symptom of the well-known failures of central planning. It may trigger the overthrow of President Nicolas Maduro and push Venezuelans who cannot leave even deeper into abject poverty. The contrast with a robust U.S. energy industry could not be starker.

This article was published by The Beacon.

By Ronald J. Colombo*

Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will render a decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. At issue is whether Jack Phillips, a Denver-area baker, could lawfully refuse to create a cake for a same-sex wedding celebration. This case puts to test two critically important concepts.

The first is the Supreme Court’s understanding of liberty. Writing for the Court in the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Anthony Kennedy famously remarked that “[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Masterpiece Cakeshop will reveal how seriously Justice Kennedy and the Court takes this dictum.

For at the heart of Masterpiece Cakeshop is the liberty to define one’s own concept of love. To Phillips, and other similarly situated bakers, photographers, and florists, love is not about giving or telling someone what they want. Rather, love is about doing what is objectively right and good, for others as well as one’s self.

To the extent that Phillips genuinely believes that same-sex marriage is wrongful, it would not be an act of “love” for him to help others celebrate such a thing.

His detractors call this “hate,” but that is belied by the fact that in practically every one of the cases concerning a wedding vendor’s conscientious objection to same-sex marriage, the record is quite clear: Never have the objecting proprietors refused goods or services to their gay or lesbian customers on any other occasions for any other reasons.

The second concept to be tested is whether recognition of same-sex marriage does indeed represent what economists refer to as Pareto efficient advancement and progress, in which everybody wins and no one really loses. Recall the dismissive jeer: “If you don’t like same-sex marriage, don’t marry a person of the same sex.” For Phillips at least, it hasn’t worked out that way.

Once again, let us recall the words of Justice Kennedy. In writing the Supreme Court opinion that recognized same-sex marriage as a constitutional right (Obergefell v. Hodges), Justice Kennedy declared that:

… it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.

Did the Court really mean this? Does this extend to teaching by example? Is the Court genuinely committed to a liberal, live-and-let-live society, where individuals are free to marry whom they choose, and where other individuals are free to oppose certain marriages – to the point of avoiding any involvement in such marriages altogether, commercial or otherwise?

Masterpiece Cakeshop brings to mind history’s most famous conscientious objector to a particular marriage, that of St. Thomas More. No one doubted More’s love of King Henry VIII, whom More had served zealously throughout his entire career. But when Henry embarked upon a course of action that More could no longer follow, love did not win. More was ultimately beheaded, famously dying “the King’s Good Servant but God’s first.”

Masterpiece Cakeshop also brings to mind those religious dissenters who, only a generation or so after Henry VIII, refused to embrace the spirit of their times and suffered grievously under Queen Elizabeth. Although not all lost their lives, countless individuals labored under heavy fines and penalties for remaining true to their religious convictions rather than yielding to the dictates of the State. This persecution helped birth the American nation, as pilgrims seeking to live out their lives in accordance with their deeply held religious beliefs fled England to breathe the free air of America. Hopefully, Masterpiece Cakeshop won’t spur another wave of pilgrims, this time departing from, rather than fleeing to, America’s shores in search of religious freedom.

About the author:
*Ronald J. Colombo is a Professor of Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law. He is the author of The First Amendment and the Business Corporation (Oxford University Press, 2014)

Source:
This article was published by the Acton Institute.

The UK will be leaving the European Union at precisely 11 pm on March 29, 2019 . There will be significant consequences for Israel.

Israel’s current relationship with the EU, of which Britain has been an important member for the past forty years, might best be described as “creative tension” – a constant tug-of-war between trade interests and politics. The truth is that the political objectives of the EU have inhibited trade with Israel from expanding at the rate, or to the levels, that might have been possible.

A prime example is the EU’s 2015 decision to enforce a special labelling system for Israeli goods produced beyond the temporary boundaries that delineated sovereign Israel prior to the Six Day War in 1967. The EU regards those lines, which simply mark where the Arab and Israeli armies stopped fighting in 1949, as Israel’s international borders – a position fraught with anomalies. The EU asserts that East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory, but does not acknowledge West Jerusalem to be part of Israel. It objected strongly when US President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital, even though he left wide open the possibility of an eventual separate or conjoint Palestinian capital in the Jerusalem municipality. Indeed, recent reports indicate that he will be asking Israel to relinquish control of four neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem to allow this to take place.

The legal basis for Israel’s trade relations with the EU is the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which came into force in June 2000. Over the past eighteen years it has certainly fostered healthy, although somewhat unbalanced, trade between the parties. Israel currently has a trade deficit with the EU – in other words, it imports more than it exports. Latest available figures show IsraeIi imports in excess of €21 billion, against exports to the EU of some €13 billion. Britain’s departure from the EU should not adversely affect this bilateral EU-Israeli trade, even though EU-Israeli political relations are not cordial.

The same cannot with justice be said of the UK-Israeli relationship. Both Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, and its foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, have made no secret of their friendship towards the Jewish State. The latest manifestation is the recent announcement that the first-ever official royal visit to Israel will take place in the summer of 2018, when Prince William tours the Middle East.

That projected visit follows the recognition and celebration by the British government last November of the centenary of the Balfour Declaration. Prior to that, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas twice called upon the British government to apologize for what he characterised, in his address to the UN General Assembly, as “this infamous declaration”. The official UK response ran: “The Balfour Declaration is an historic statement for which Her Majesty’s Government does not intend to apologize. We are proud of our role in creating the State of Israel. The task now is to encourage moves towards peace.”

Peace through trade is what Britain has been assiduously fostering for the past few years. Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, announced on February 27, 2018, that bilateral trade between the UK and Israel had increased by 25% in 2017 to a record £6.9 billion. Speaking at the UK Israel Business Awards dinner, Regev called the rise from £5.5 billion in 2016 to £6.9 billion in 2017 remarkable: “It demonstrates the momentum behind our economic relationship.”

The pace is only likely to increase as Brexit approaches, and once the UK finally leaves the EU, the current Association Agreement will no longer apply. The two countries will be free to determine the best deal for themselves. In anticipation, ever since March 2017 the two governments have been negotiating a new Free Trade Agreement. Such an Agreement will open up the UK market to more Israeli exports, in both goods and services, and make a huge contribution to Israel’s economy. It will also foster increased interest by UK companies in the Israeli market, and give Israeli consumers a wider range of product choice.

The Anglo-Israel Chamber of Commerce is a major driving force behind expanding UK-Israel trade. In the past two years it has encouraged more than 30 Israeli firms to open operations in the UK, investing £152m and creating almost 900 jobs, After Brexit, many Israeli firms will want to use the UK as their main hub outside Israel.

The UK is easily accessible in terms of distance and time zone, and is a convenient base to access Europe and elsewhere. Moreover the UK government has been actively promoting foreign investment. The UK’s Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and its Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) already offer UK taxpayers incentives to invest in early-stage firms, and reduce the costs in the event of failure. These schemes, which enable Israeli companies to operate from Britain while keeping their Research and Development in Israel, make the UK an especially attractive place for Israeli start-ups. Once Britain is free of EU restrictions, such schemes will undoubtedly be extended.

In addition the UK government offers grants to companies in certain industrial sectors. Israeli entrepreneurs in fields such as electric vehicles and agricultural technology are already choosing to base their entire business in the UK, partly because of targeted government grants which go hand in hand with British expertise. After Brexit incentives like this will not only be maintained, but almost certainly expanded.

The fact of the matter is that the UK is already so attractive to Israeli entrepreneurs − especially, but not exclusively, those engaged in start-up enterprises – that once Britain has cast off the shackles of restrictive EU regulations, the prospect is that the UK-Israeli trade relationship will flourish as never before. Floreat Brexit!