By Col R Hariharan*

Q: What are the misconceptions about India in South Asia, when it comes to security related issues as a threat to State Sovereignty? Why do these perceptions exist? And how can India move past these misperceptions?

India’s cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic soft power dominates the entire South Asian region from Afghanistan on the West to Myanmar on the East and from Nepal in the North to Sri Lanka in the South. Its shared historical, political and commercial links spread over two thousand years overwhelms India’s smaller neighbours.

With India clocking over 7 percent growth and emerging as the fastest developing economy in the world, next only to China, its increasing military power and advances in science and technology makes it a dominant power not only in South Asia, but also in the Indian Ocean Region. At times India’s overbearing conduct in dealing with smaller neighbours, due to its domestic political compulsions or in its own strategic interest, has created the image of acting like a “Big brother” among smaller countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. So smaller neighbours of India are wary of Indian domination subsuming their own identity.

India’s military interventions that led to the creation of Bangladesh (1971) and to ensure ethnic peace in Sri Lanka (1987-90) have shown that India was capable of using its military power to achieve its strategic objectives. This has created latent feeling of insecurity among sections of society, who are wary of their own distinct identity, religion, culture and economy from being overwhelmed by India. Political parties in these countries have exploited the anti-India sections among the population to their own advantage; governments in these countries have also leveraged it to gain maximum advantage while dealing with India.

With China making inroads in South Asia, latent anti-India feelings are exploited by China to further its interests. So India has to factor neighbours sensitivities, not only on aspects of security, but in all dealings more than ever before, retain its influence in the region.

Q: Rajen Harshe (South Asia analyst) similarly points out that while the strategic community in India tends to construe India’s military interventions in neighbouring countries in defensive terms, this is not the perception of its neighbours. He argues that India’s neighbours, particularly the smaller neighbours, “have viewed such interventions in terms of the outward projection and demonstration of India’s military might.”(Harshe, 1999) He further adds, “To put it more sharply, India’s military interventions in Bangladesh (1971), Sri Lanka (1987-9) and Maldives (1988) have only added to the insecurity as well as fear of Indian hegemony among India’s neighbours. Do you agree? Is this fair? And how do we move past this? While from India’s perspective, its military interventions were justified on the basis of its own security interests and concerns, this was not how others saw it.

I don’t agree with Mr Rajen Harshe’s contention or understand how he gauged the neighbourhood perceptions. Unless there is empirical evidence, I will question such conclusions. It is absured to call Indian military intervention in Maldives in 1988, at the request of the President to prevent a coup by mercenaries, as Indian show of force. Similarly, in Sri Lanka, troops were sent at the invitation of President Jayawardane (in terms of the Ind0-Sri Lanka Agreement) as he feared the Tamil militants (particularly the LTTE) might refuse to lay down arms, after Sri Lanka army was sent back to the barracks.

I don’t know which “others” you refer to, I presume it is some academic. Nations always intervene in another country, directly or indirectly, to safeguard their own national security interests or to achieve a strategic security objective like protecting their areas of strategic influence. In India’s case areas of strategic influence include Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar and Indian Ocean Region including Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius.

Generally, nations intervene in what is called in strategic terms as “spheres of influence.” So the so-called “justification” is invariably to satisfy international community, lest it draws flak from superpower manoevures in the UN Security Council. This is how conflicts take place when big powers intervene in countries, even in far off places.

Q: In Sri Lanka, India had concerns over the influx of Tamil Refugees, as it did in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971. India was also apprehensive about external powers in Sri Lanka, such as China, Pakistan, Israel and even the US. However, on hindsight, some feel “India’s peace keeping action proved counter-productive, alienating the Tamil community, the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government.” (Mukherjee & Malone, 2011).

India and Sri Lanka are geo-strategically linked together, like Nepal and Bangladesh. India and Sri Lanka relations have always related to three major issues: the status of people of Indian origin in Sri Lanka, geo-strategic security of the region including the Indian Ocean, and the Tamil populations’ quest for democratic rights. Issue relating to Tamils of Indian origin occupied a large space in India’s policy horizon till were signed.

The geo-strategic issue dominated Indian thinking in the Cold War era. It was overtaken by the Tamil issue when the ‘Black July’ pogrom against Tamils carried out in July 1983. This triggered a large flow of Tamil refugees to Tamil Nadu. This coincided with the end of single party rule in New Delhi. The new era of coalition rule at the Centre increased the influence of rival Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu as useful allies of national parties. This suited the Congress party that had developed cracks in its monolithic framework.

India’s strategic concerns laced with desire to help Sri Lanka amicably resolve the Tamil issue culminated in the signing of the India –Sri Lanka Agreement 1987. It reflected the holistic Indian approach to building strong bonds between the two countries because it halted the Tamil separatist insurgency, while underwriting Sri Lanka unity. At the same time it ensured the Sri Lanka constitution is amended to create provincial councils in traditional areas of Tamil habitation with partial powers in recognition of their distinct identity, culture and language. To call ISLA a failure is debatable, even after India’s unhappy experience during its military intervention from 1987 to 90 that ended in fighting with the LTTE.

After the LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in 1992, India’s focus shifted to a more benign and less active approach on the Tamil question. There is no question of alienation of India among Tamils; even now Tamil politicians always seek India’s support just as the government seeks to resolve ethnic crisis.

Q: In the creation of Bangladesh, India’s role “was widely viewed internationally and in the region as primarily an attempt to dismember an arch rival.” (Mukherjee & Malone, 2011) Moreover, contrary to India’s expectations, “the assistance it rendered to Bangladesh did not win it an ally but rather produced a neighbour that has often proved prickly and resentful.” (Mukherjee & Malone, 2011)

I totally disagree with this view point. The Indian intervention in 1971 should be viewed in the backdrop of Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. India did not render “assistance” to win an ally in Bangladesh, nor is it a “prickly ally”. To describe the umbilical relations of the two neighburs in such terms would be trivialising them. India waged war in East Pakistan with multiple objectives:

a. To strategically reduce the potential threat posed by a united Pakistan on India’s vulnerable Eastern flank.

b. To support assertion of Bengali identity and independence against Pakistan’s military authoritarianism, after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman found Bengalis democratic claim for sharing power in Pakistan was not recognised, despite their parliamentary majority.

c. The massive military crackdown by Pakistan army in Eastern wing resulted in a human tragedy with ten million refugees seeking safe sanctuary in India. Mrs Indira Gandhi sought international assistance to tackle the situation politically. The US, then an ally of Pakistan, under President Richard Nixon’s dispensation saw it in terms of Cold War and forced the military option upon India. (See the notorious Anderson Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Anderson_(columnist) for details.)

Q: How would you explain the threat perceptions against India in Sri Lanka? Or in relation to Sri Lanka? How should we deal with it? Have these interventions had an impact on India’s neighbourhood policy in the long run?

Already answered.

Q: Why do India’s neighbours see it as more threatening than China? Or is this not so? Why do they lean towards China, is it just balance of power, which happens all the time international relations?

I don’t know whom you are quoting to say neighbours see India as more threatening. If you mean the neighbours feel threatened by India’s huge size army next door and fast growing economy dominating them, then I would agree. Yes, they are unnerved by India’s sheer size. China’s size does not intimidate them the same way because China is a few thousand kilometres miles away. While I understand their concerns, neighbourhood is not by choice but by geography. They also understand it, so they try to manage with India’s presence.

Of course, it is only natural that India’s neighbours try to balance their relations with two big powers, but at times they play India and China against each other to garner maximum advantage. This is what all nations, including India and China, do all the time.

Q: How do we resolve this?

Foreign policy formulations of India should be viewed holistically, one cannot have special foreign policy only for neighbours because it has to fit in India’s national vision. So we need to understand how PM Modi strategizing India’s neighbourhood policy.

Stephanie M L Heng, a visiting fellow at New Delhi based Observer Research Foundation, writing on India’s foreign policy formulation last year said: “Today, most countries use a combination of soft power and hard power, together called ‘smart power.’ Since Modi became prime minister in May 2014, India has employed such a blend, but with a strong focus on soft power.

PM Modi, though seen as a strongman at home, has sought to position his efforts abroad as diplomacy by consensus – not bullying – which India’s smaller neighbours have complained of in the past. Modi explaining his strategy in July 2014 said: “Look foreign policy is not about changing mindsets….foreign policy is about finding the common meeting points. Where do our interests converge and how much? We have to sit and talk with every country.”

Q. According to Dhruva Jaishankar of Brookings, Modi’s public articulations, combined with nature, outcomes, and timings of Modi’s diplomatic activities, offer a clear picture of India’s priorities and strategic objectives. They are essentially five-fold:

5. Advancing Indian representation and leadership on matter of global governance.

• Prioritizing an integrated neighbourhood; “Neighbourhood First.”
• Leveraging international partnerships to promote India’s domestic development.
• Ensuring a stable multi polar balance of power in the Indo-Pacific;Äct East”
• Dissuading Pakistan from supporting terrorism.
• Advancing Indian representation and leadership on matter of global governance.

I agree with him.

[This is an edited compilation of answers to questions raised by an Indian research scholar on India’s relations with its smaller neighbours.]

*Col R Hariharan, a retired MI specialist on South Asia, served as the head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 90. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies, South Asia Analysis Group and the International Law and Strategic Analysis Institute, Chennai. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info

By Shebonti Ray Dadwal*

In its newest proposed fiscal plan (released May 30), Puerto Rico’s fiscal oversight and management board appears set to use disaster relief funding to finance debt, while proceeding with spending cuts and an austere fiscal plan.

“The Board certified a fiscal plan that makes steep cuts to public services in the pursuit of a budget surplus that can be used for debt repayment,” a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which analyzes the plan, concludes, “despite clear instructions that none of the [hurricane relief] support received can be used for debt repayment.”

“The people of Puerto Rico continue to receive little support from their elected officials; rather, they are being asked to shoulder a greater burden, despite the hardship imposed on them, with an estimated thousands of people likely dying due to Hurricane Maria, and thousands more left without power for months after the hurricanes hit last September,” CEPR researcher Lara Merling, who coauthored the report, said.

The CEPR report examines the new fiscal plan proposed by Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board (the Board), as well as a previous plan (released April 19). It finds that “The labor reforms that are at the center of this plan will surely erode labor rights in Puerto Rico,” and that wages, even with mandated benefits included, are lower than on the US mainland, even with a comparable cost of living. “It is unlikely that in the context of Puerto Rico’s depressed economy this approach will lead to an increase in employment,” the paper concludes.

The Board is also requesting work requirements be added for Puerto Rico’s welfare recipients, despite the high unemployment rate and weak labor market. The Board’s fiscal plan calls for further cuts to other government agencies, especially to education and health care. The plan also targets municipalities and local governments for budget cuts, despite that these are increasingly burdened with providing essential services. The Board’s plan mandates expenditure cuts of $9.5 billion, or 2.2 percent of GNP, and would privatize utilities.

These cuts, the report notes, may result in greater out-migration from the island to the mainland US, where Puerto Ricans could influence elections and the political climate in Washington. Greater out-migration would also prolong the island’s economic downturn, as a number of prominent economists have warned in an open letter.

“The Board sadly does not appear to have Puerto Ricans’ safety and well-being as its top concern,” Merling said. “Puerto Rico remains in a serious humanitarian crisis, one that has already claimed thousands of lives. Preventing more needless deaths and economic deprivation should be the priority of all responsible authorities, including the governor and up to the president of the United States.”

“In general, the rural moneylender as a species has proved surprisingly resilient, even in countries such as India …. where it has been a declared objective of state intervention in financial markets to suppress him.” — Hulme and Mosley, Finance Against Poverty

A sense of deep despair runs through the lives of farmers in India. They have lost all hope – and also the will to fight. An increasing number have opted for permanent escape from their physical and emotional pain by ingesting deadly pesticides.

Almost every farmer in India’s massive rural swathes is tethered, in one way or another, to the sahukar, the Indian variety of the moneylender, the ubiquitous, ravenous loan shark. For centuries, moneylenders have monopolized rural Indian credit markets. Families have lost land and their bare but precious assets, they have been asked to prostitute their wives to pay off debts, and, when all else has failed, they have tied the noose to end their misery.

Yet the public image of menacing debt collectors does not reflect the actual plight of India’s farmers. The rapacious moneylender, who plugs the huge gaps in credit supply in a hassle free process, is an integral part of a rural family. He is the first port of call in a distress situation and is also the man they can turn to in times of need. They are such an important part of the rural economy that the banks have become secondary, or even redundant, for a small farmer.

Moneylenders have been around for generations, but their business has boomed ever since India’s economic priorities shifted, with globalization, from agriculture to industry. According to an ancient Indian proverb, a village can be formed wherever there come together “a river, a priest, and a moneylender.” Adams and Delbert Fitchett dedicated a 1992 book they edited on informal finance to “the much maligned moneylender because of his ability to walk barefoot where bankers fear to tread.”

A current of dread runs through generations as inescapable cycles of debts pass from husband to widow, from father to children. Most villages are locked into a bond with village moneylenders — rarely an intimate bond, but mostly a menacing one. They have to deal with an assorted bunch of predators—there are several creditors who have the moneylender’s instincts and skills but operate in various guises. . Popular cinema and classic literature narrate many pathos-filled narratives of India’s poor caught in that karmic cycle of poverty after suffering finaical ruin at the hands of the moeylender . Those stories inevitably end in tragedy.

Farmers who fall into the moneylending trap find themselves locked in a white-knuckle gamble, juggling ever-larger loans at usurious interest rates, in the hope that someday a bumper harvest will allow them to clear their debts — so they can take out new ones. But there seems no sign of the rainbow as farmers continue to chase this vain chimera. Unable to pay the interest, let alone the principal, they borrow more get onto a treadmill recklessly driven by the cruel money-lenders. This mirage has locked them into a usurious spiral. This pattern has left a trail of human wreckage. The moneylenders don’t explain the accounts, often inflating the numbers to keep the farmer perpetually in debt. Unable to liberate himself from his mountain of debt, the farmer is forced to become an indentured servant to his creditors. He is tempted to choose an easier way out.

Farming distress has attracted a class of neo moneylenders–anyone with some disposable cash. From shopkeepers and the input dealer government officials to the policemen and village teachers now lend money in the hope that they make a killing. They are extending credit at highly extortionate rates–sometimes exceeding 50 percent, which keeps borrowers in lifelong penury.

Shylock demanded only a pound of flesh. But moneylenders bay for blood. Crushing debts are pushing farmers into the darkest of pits. There is a story that has now become a farmland fable. A man ploughing the field was so distressed that at first, he sold his kidney to an organ mafia—including doctors and hospitals—which sold the organ to a desperate patient for an insane amount. When the farmer found that the price of his kidney could not take him very far, he had no choice but to tie a noose around his neck.

It was expected that in socialist India banks would become an extremely popular port of call for clients seeking loans. In fact, these financial institutions recorded a surge in the social banking era of the 1970s but the populist policies left a cruel legacy of dud loans. This sour experience made bankers very wary and they turned off the spigots. Institutional credit is now mired in thickets of red tape stymied by bankers who are bedeviled by a highly contaminated credit culture. Hence moneylenders continue to thrive. Moneylenders are now a key part of India’s economy. They charge sky-rocketing, interest rates but require few formal guarantees and offer hassle-free services. For the bulk of low-income households, moneylenders are the only dependable source for money when emergencies arise.

Moneylenders operate in a variety of ways. In sharp contrast to banks and other lending institutions, there are no steel and glass buildings; neither are there any leather couches or coffee vending machines at the moneylender’s workplace. Processing is generally quick and simple with money often handed over immediately .The borrowers don’t have to sign so many knotty documents as they do in banks. Most transactions entail personalized relationships and create durable social bonds that function like contracts rather than standardized forms of legal covenants. The downside is that there is no protection against predatory practices because of the control moneylenders have over their clients.

Vithal Radke’s business is registered as a shop because he hasn’t met the legal standards required to call it a finance agency. Vithal stumbled into the moneylending business eight years ago after failing at a number of other businesses. He doesn’t look like how you would imagine a loan shark which, to most, is cunning, tough, maybe with a streak of violence running underneath the refined exterior. “It has always been business as usual. Shylocks are still in great demand,” Vithal says. ““Shylocks give you that instant fix. You aren’t asked for security or guarantors.” “I borrowed again this year and it is going well. I think that because of the ease of it, borrowing becomes addictive,” says a cash-strapped farmer.

Loan sharks also do not ask questions regarding your borrowing history, meaning that the defaulters find a safe haven with them. Then there are those who are seeking to hide because of the shame of borrowing. Seeing that the transactions are quick and the requirements minimal, the moneylenders might seem like the perfect solution for those seeking a quick fix. Their customers agree that they are a working solution — as long as you do not default on your loan.

In Bina, a small farming village about 40 kilometers from Nagpur in central India, where I spent almost two years during my career in development finance .I relentlessly pursued a one-point agenda: banish the moneylender. But as all such social and economic experiments and policies have shown, a moneylender is an all-season creature whose unique DNA makes has made him resistant to all types of social, economic and political antibiotics. In every village, moneylenders are reviled, and their business seen as squeezing out the blood of poor farmers. Yet villagers know there is no life without the loan shark. You can’t banish him from the financial planet; he remains indelible.

I found that nearly all inhabitants in Bina had been compelled at some time or the other to call on the sahukar. No matter how much distaste he provoked, the sahukar was the key person in the village. He was its banker, its moneylender, its pawnbroker, and very often its vampire. One must ask, as I did while living in rural India, where the capital of the poor came from, since that is the one permanent requirement. In poor countries across the world, you will find most tiny businesses being financed by moneylenders.

When I asked, I would get the ubiquitous answer:

“I get my money where everyone else does.”

“Where is that?”

“Everyone knows. I get it from a five-six.”

“What is a five-six?”

“It is the place where you borrow five rupees in the morning, and pay back six rupees in the evening.”

“It is possible to get day loans in the vegetable market that provide 100 rupees in the morning but have to be repaid with 10 rupees interest by dusk.”

I was shocked! “Why are you doing that?” I asked.” Our bank is for you! “

“Well,” they responded, “the moneylender gives us money whenever we need it, the amount that we need, where we need it, for however long we need it, and lets us repay in whatever way we want. Yes, he’s expensive, but it’s a fee that we are willing to pay.”

In Bina village, all dirt tracks converged at the house of the sahukar, like the threads in a spider’s web. Along the tracks came desperate families. Some brought their wives’ ornaments wrapped in bits of rags; others brought the produce from their fields. Sometimes women would walk in and remove their glistening nose studs, their wedding chains, and bangles, and hand them to the moneylender. Others had nothing to pledge but their own bodies. The moneylender swallowed everything, and nothing that entered came out; his house grew and bulged. The moneylenders had already sucked the poor dry of their assets and their sleight-of-hand accounting had left the villagers’ principal debt untouched by their repayments, which were marked up against the interest.

During my engagement with rural India, I found that moneylenders would survey potential customers with the sleepiness of crocodiles and pose an instant offer. Despite the heavy interest, the offer would be a tempting solution to the customer’s financial woes. As long as you keep paying the moneylender’s monthly interest on time, you will find him the sweetest person on earth. All moneylenders carry the air of messiahs, as long as you allow them to bleed you.

The authors of a landmark study of the system of credit and household indebtedness published by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the early 1950s, the All-India Rural Credit Survey, scrutinized the role and operations of the moneylender, who then enjoyed a dominant position as a source of finance. They wanted to explore and define his exact role, and institute necessary safeguards, because, in India, agricultural credit presented a “twofold problem of inadequacy and unsuitability.”

They envisaged only a minor place for him in their proposed solution, which took the form of a system of cooperatives covering all villages: “The moneylender can be allotted no part in the scheme [of cooperatives] … It would be a complete reversal of the policies we have been advocating … when the whole object of … that structure is to provide a positive institutional alternative to the moneylender himself, something which will compete with him, remove him from the forefront and put him in his place.”

The authors of the survey did not, of course, lay out a formal model of India’s rural credit system as it then existed, nor did they provide a formal analysis of the effects of introducing a system of cooperatives upon its workings. The authors were strongly convinced that the moneylender possessed considerable market power, the exercise of which was made very profitable by peasants’ pressing needs.

Despite legions of committees and reports that have outlined ways of replacing moneylenders through stepping up institutional credit, the moneylender still remains the backbone of the rural financial system. It is a bitter truth which we have to swallow.

The picture which Nobel Laureate Gunnar Myrdal presented in his memoir Asian Drama almost five decades ago remains the same despite gigantic efforts from both the private and public sector in bringing large swathes of people into the folds of formal finance. “When the moneylender sees that he can benefit from the default of a debtor he becomes an enemy of the village economy,” Myrdal wrote. “By charging exorbitant interest rates or by inducing the peasant to accept larger credits than he can manage, the moneylender can hasten the process by which the peasant is dispossessed.”

But the cheerful news for me is that today Bina is moneylender free; it’s a very heartening feeling for me. Three years back, the village struck coal and that signaled the financial death of the moneylender. Every inch of land got a price tag. Bina’s 3,000-strong community is slowly abandoning the village, which is being acquired by coal barons. Lalita Jangde, whom I lent 5,000 rupees to relieve her of a moneylender’s debt, is a transformed women now. I still remember how excited Lalita was about what the bank and its manager might mean for them, but her husband tried to dispel what he considered her silly notions that any bank would actually help her .“I don’t want to have anything to do with the bank,” he said with a dismissive toss of his hands to his wife who he felt was being taken for a ride by a charlatan banker.

I assured her that if she made a serious attempt and yet failed, we would not divest her of her bare belongings in the way a loan shark does. We would walk with her through her climb out of her distress.

There was scariness in her face when she came barefooted to me, lacking the barest courage to speak. She now owns assets of around Rs 6 million. Her house is far more plush and grander than mine. But she still values those 5,000 rupees that I pressed in her palm as she’ looked with disbelieving eyes.”It was more valuable to me than today’s fortune” she chuckles with a youthful glint in her eyes. “It was a great event in my life. It just didn’t liberate me from the chains of a moneylender; it saved me the shame in my community”.

That picture is one sliver of my memory that remains green and verdant till day. It refuses to fade. It is encounters like these that keep renewing our trust in poor but honest and heroic women

The US, under Trump, tries diverse approaches on Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs; such custom approaches with cooperation could be useful.

By François Godement*

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is begging for a trip to Pyongyang as Donald Trump prepares for a summit with Kim Jong-un. Hollywood would reject such a script as outlandish, yet the scenario offers a reminder of the connections among Syria, Iran and North Korea – and some justification for different treatment by the current US administration. The US president expresses hope of signing a denuclearization agreement with North Korea after tearing up the US agreement with Iran, inspiring easy comments on the irrationality of Trump’s foreign policies. Breaking the convergence between the North Korea and Iran may prove essential.

The relationship between Iran and North Korean proliferation is deep and longstanding. The parallel between the two nations is real, with mutual help and cover at critical junctures, along with a converging connection to Syria, and separating the proliferators makes sense. This was true in 2017, when Iran announced resumption of its long-range missile program, a decision publicly floated at the height of the international standoff with North Korea over its missile launches and nuclear tests. During this period, according to a UN report, two North Korean ships delivered crates to Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center, the same chemical weapons-research center destroyed by a joint US-France-UK strike in April – a detail adding intriguing context to Assad’s plan to visit Pyongyang.

North Korean–Iranian ties go back to the first Gulf War. In the early 1990s, North Korea considered supplying mid-range ballistic missiles to Syria, creating enough angst in Israel that it sent to Pyongyang an unprecedented exploratory mission. Syria signed a scientific agreement with North Korea, in 2002 undertaking a covert nuclear reactor project provided by North Korea – destroyed by Israel in 2007. Iran signed its own deal with North Korea in 2012; cooperation was apparent before and after the Joint Cooperation Plan of Action was signed in 2015.

The comparison stops there. Iran recovered some financial resources with the 2015 agreement, while North Korea has endured increasingly biting sanctions. Iran is only a threshold nuclear power while North Korea, after decades of efforts starting with Soviet help in 1955, is a nuclear weapon state. Iran is a major regional threat, as the mullahs finance and arm militias in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Iran, as exposed by Israeli spying and previous International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, was close to the design and supplies for a nuclear weapon. Given North Korea’s proliferation record towards Pakistan and the Middle East, as noted by US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, little prevents North Korea from sharing designs for nuclear warheads or selling missile parts. The nation carried out missile sales in the past, repeatedly expecting compensation to stop the practice.

Like a jigsaw puzzle, Iran and North Korea expose gaping holes in nonproliferation policies.

First is the permanent failure to ban development of ballistic capabilities along with nuclear weapons. The Missile Technology Control Regime is a voluntary export regime. No UN resolution on North Korea or Iraq has formally declared testing of ballistic missiles as illegal, though several pushed for a halt. Famously, the Iran agreement did not include such a prohibition. By contrast, North Korea did sign an agreement covering missile launches, then argued that satellite launches were not included. The spectacle of Iran developing more ballistic missiles or a nuclear submarine, when it’s supposed to desist from nuclear weapons, is a farce played on agreement signatories.

The second gap is the time limit, to 2025 and 2030, set by the Iran agreement for high-grade nuclear enrichment. The agreement may have been the best available, but still a huge can was kicked down the road, reminiscent of the US–North Korea Geneva Agreement of 1994: constructing a civilian nuclear plant in return for North Korea’s agreement to account for its plutonium production and desist from future efforts. The replacement plant was supposed to be built by 2003, with verification of nuclear activities as certified by the IAEA. Chief US negotiator Robert Gallucci is said to have privately noted that the North Korean regime would collapse by 2003. Instead, construction stopped that year with the agreement formally denounced in 2006. By then North Korea had started its nuclear-enrichment program.

Formally, Iran did not demonstrably cheat on the 2015 agreement. But it has developed a massive ballistic program and presents a regional threat. North Korea is accustomed to cheating yet presents less regional danger, except in preemptive and suicidal self-defense. Still, North Korea tested the submarine-launched ballistic missile and supplied pocket submarines to Iran that could be used against the Ormuz Straits. The design of Iranian and North Korean conventional submarines share commonalities; Iran has the cash to develop nuclear propulsion.

Successful arms-control agreements have started with limitations on missiles, going on to nuclear warheads. For example, to this day, many withdrawn US and Russian warheads remain in storage. Cheating is expected in halfway agreements, whether formal like Pyongyang’s open defiance or in spirit like Iran’s pursuit of ballistic missiles without warheads. Among non-democracies, only Libya abandoned its program without regime change. North Korea’s recent outburst against what it regards as excessive requests emphasizes that Libya was not yet a nuclear power and not rewarded.

By happenstance or design, Trump’s initiatives build on the differences between Iran and North Korea. For Iran, the missile issue is paramount. The allied US-France-UK strikes on Syria and devastating Israeli hits on underground structures deliver the message that Iran’s missile sites could also be hit. Nuclear weapons without missiles are relics, the line apparently taken by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo whereas National Security Adviser John Bolton demands immediate, complete denuclearization.

Eliminating the missile threat against the United States leaves regional allies exposed. That was also the case with arms-control agreements of the Cold War era – for example, the SS20-Pershing controversy of the 1980s, when Europe and Japan feared exposure. The expanding US nuclear arsenal, including low-yield weapons, could be used as a bargaining chip. Ending North Korea’s nuclear program, as suggested by Pompeo, but not mentioning existing stock goes along with stray promises to refrain from seeking regime change and making North Korea as rich as South Korea.

The current path cross between immediate delivery and down payment, as favored by part of the Trump administration, and the “phased and synchronous denuclearization” pushed by Kim Jong-un and China.

The 2015 Iran agreement addressed fissile materials while a plan for North Korea could start with missile categories. A breakthrough requires a change of behavior. The administration cannot negotiate arms-control deals and push regime change at the same time: Trump professes to abandon the latter, and the North Koreans are correct about the need for security guarantees. Against all expectations, Kim’s propaganda machine is balancing China, while giving huge domestic exposure to developments underway with South Korea, China and the United States.

Trump is likely to disappoint regional allies, especially Japan, by leaving in place shorter-range missiles and perhaps warheads.

Regime change for Iran – through a domestic process – remains a tempting option for the US and regional allies. President Hassan Rouhani does not have complete control. With or without the 2015 agreement, Iran remains bound by IAEA inspections, forced to choose between staying within international law or going rogue. Trump removed most incentives for Iran to comply and must bank on regional allies – Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt – to contain Iran. He must also hope that Europeans, despite anger over US withdrawal, persuade Iran to abide by the agreement.

Withdrawing from a UN-sanctioned agreement is a loss for the international system, since Iran did not demonstrably cheat. Yet Iran used the agreement to expand regional influence and pursue a ballistic race. Overextended Iran must make choices.

So much security depends on US policy staying power. If US policy on Iran stays erratic, or becomes so on North Korea, that will embolden adversaries to a degree not seen before. Europe has few alternatives, and ending the Western alliance would be suicidal. Instead, Europe must rise above political debates and push for steady US policies, demonstrating to Iran that compromise on missiles is required, while liaising with regional Asian partners to ensure that negotiations do not neglect fissile materials.

*François Godement is the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Asia & China program and a senior policy fellow. He is a non-resident senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, and an outside consultant for the Policy Planning Staff of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His last published book is Contemporary China: Between Mao and Market, Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

Less than a fortnight after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was elected to a second six-year term, the EU’s foreign ministers decided to draft new sanctions against officials close to Maduro. The EU insisted that new sanctions are designed to alleviate Venezuelans’ plight after years of deep economic crisis, and would not affect the average Venezuelan, though the bloc did not offer up any details on how it would accomplish this.

On top of the proposed new sanctions, the EU is also following the United States’ lead and demanding that Venezuela hold new presidential elections, refusing to recognise those held on 20 May. Much like Washington, Brussels took the unusual step of denouncing Venezuela’s elections before they had even occurred. This is particularly problematic given that the EU refused to send observers to monitor the recent elections. As MEP Ramon Jauregui has commented, the EU seems content with claiming that the election was essentially undemocratic, without being able to decisively prove that Venezuelans didn’t in fact vote freely.

Such a hard-line response from the European bloc is surprising, given its efforts to deescalate disputes with Tehran and other countries where decades of sanctions have proved ineffectual. The strategy also has a high probability of backfiring, and actually strengthen Maduro’s regime while further tanking the Venezuelan economy and the wellbeing of its citizens. If anything, Western sanctions will render the country even more defiant, as the president’s reaction to past censure has demonstrated. The more Maduro feels attacked, the more bombastic his rhetoric becomes – and Maduro has already pounced on the threat of further EU sanctions, deriding the European Union’s intervention as the return of colonialism.

Paying a heavy price

If past examples are any indications, this new bout of sanctions is virtually guaranteed not to touch the very people they’re designed to put pressure on—Venezuela’s ruling elite—and will instead only serve to make life harder for the Venezuelan people who are already struggling under a humanitarian and economic crisis of staggering magnitude.

Since late 2016, low global oil prices, mismanagement, and Western sanctions have sent Venezuela into the depths of a severe economic crisis. The country has the world’s worst hyperinflation, at more than 80 per cent a day. The Venezuelan currency, the bolivar, is so worthless that drawing on one and selling it as art can raise the value of the bill by 5,000 per cent. On the black market in June 2017, one US dollar fetched a little over 10,000 bolivars—by January 2018, it could be exchanged for a staggering 201,000 bolivars. Food and even the most basic medicines are in chronic short supply, even for those few who can afford them; the average Venezuelan has lost 19 pounds since the beginning of the crisis. One doctor described conditions in his hospital as “like something from the 19^th century”: without soap or water, he and his colleagues are forced to wash their hands with bottled seltzer water before performing surgery. Venezuelans, especially newborns, are increasingly dying from conditions that would be easily treatable with proper care.

Sanctions will do nothing to “alleviate their plight”, no matter how loudly EU bureaucrats claim this to be the goal—rather, they will further restrict Venezuela’s ability to raise enough cash to import essential medicines. During the embargo imposed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003, for example, infant mortality shot up 150 per cent, as basic commodities became 1000 per cent more expensive.

Diplomacy first?

History has shown time and time again that sanctions, especially unilateral ones, often have the opposite effect to that intended and only serve to concentrate economic power in the hands of the state. Over the past 70 years, the U.S. has sanctioned more than 20 nations—Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Myanmar, and Côte d’Ivoire among them. Not once have these sanctions led to political change.

Instead, until South Korea offered the carrot along with the stick and proposed multilateral diplomatic negotiations, North Korea’s leadership plodded along unfazed by sanctions and the country’s nuclear program made steady progress. While leaving the ruling elite unaffected, sanctions on North Korea’s minerals trade have hit engineers, miners, truck drivers and related service providers hard. Similar disparities have played out in Iran and Cuba. American sanctions have on average increased the poverty gap in sanctioned countries by 3.8 per cent, prompting commentators to call instead for diplomacy, cultural exchanges and the strengthening of the middle class in a bid to bolster change from within.

The EU has a long history of devising and promoting such policies. Unfortunately, in this case Brussels has let an opportunity slip by copying Washington’s hard-line tactics against Venezuela rather than ratcheting tensions down and crafting a rational solution which truly would alleviate the nation’s plight.

*Carolina Muñoz grew up in the suburbs of Miami after my parents fled the escalating conflict in their native Colombia. She studied Political Science and Latin American Studies at the University of Florida, and is now working for a small non-profit in Miami and doing research on human rights in South America.

The mechanical, robotic striving of university politburos and their jack boot managers have always been interesting when it comes to one particular topic: the role of technology and its adoption. For it is in technology that the mediocre paper clip shuffler can claim to have achieved something – on someone else’s back, naturally.

The shift to Google by universities as a storage and communication mechanism was something taken with a breezy obliviousness to its implications. For Google, it was a magical boon: mass concentration of staff and student data, cloud facilities, the magic of information. Such decisions are generally taken without asking the staff who actually use it – the nature of university management is piously anti-democratic, with all the usual balloons of sentiment about faux consultation and the like.

Google’s move into the university sector with a mixture of predatory zeal and seductive wooing was inexorable, mimicking the cyber colonisation drive of Steve Jobs at Apple (“computers are bicycles for the mind”).

In schools, Google has built a relentless, unquestioned empire, taking root in such systems as Chicago Public Schools, the third largest school district in the United States. As the New York Times noted in May 2017, such an event heralded “the Googlification of the classroom.” Teachers became Google grunts advertising products to other schools, bypassing school district officials. Students became Google converts, effectively disabled from considering any alternatives and indifferent to pure knowledge. They have become the new worker bees.

University managers were tickled and thrilled by the jargon, the applications, the idea of productivity, sending out such messages to staff as follows:

“The College is Going Google! What does this mean? How will it impact teaching and learning at The College? Many K-12 school districts are using Google Apps for Education, providing their students with access to Google productivity tools as early as primary school. Students coming to The College in the next five years may never have opened Microsoft Word, but will be familiar with the sharing, collaborating, and publishing with Google tools. Are you ready?”

Such gush and wobbly prose characterised the nature of such unwanted missives. (Most staff, at least the sentient ones, could not have cared less.) And Google was certainly winning over its competitors, most notably Microsoft. In 2011, it scored the coup of coups by netting University of California at Berkeley.

The Californian giant displayed those usual budgetary considerations typical of such decisions: Google, for one, was cheaper and easier on the bottom line. Office 365 would also require the initial installation and configuration of local software as a preliminary for any migration to be effectuated. “Office 365 offers an integrated experience for on-premise and cloud users,” went the explanatory document comparing Google and Office 365. “This comes at a greater ongoing, operational expense and complexity of maintaining central infrastructure.”

Google, on the other hand, would be able to do amply more with significantly less – and at goggle eyed speed. “A UC Berkeley migration to Google [from CalMail] can start faster and with less infrastructure investment.”

But some universities, after conducting their whirlwind Google romance, soured over the giant company. UC Berkeley students and alumni contended in a law suit in 2016 that Google had given the false impression that email accounts would not be scanned for commercial purposes.

In 2015, Macquarie University reconsidered a move it undertook in 2010 to migrate some 6,000 staff from its Novell GroupWise to Gmail. Students had already commenced using Gmail in late 2007.

Again, as with UC Berkeley, it is worth scrutinising why the university initially decided to go with Google over Microsoft, that ever contending beast in the tech boardroom. The reasons are crusty as they are old: “The university rejected Microsoft as an option at the time,” explained Allie Coyne in ITNews, “for being too expensive.”

Being careful to market such economic reasons appropriately, the Macquarie public relations unit was keen to emphasise that the university had only gone with Google after being reassured that generated data would be hosted in the European Union. With data protections being more securely moored in the EU, this was a consideration decorated to sell. To have hosted it in the US would have naturally brought the US Patriot Act and Digital Millennium Copyright Act into play.

With a change in hosting policy on the part of Google, Macquarie found itself veering into the arms of Microsoft and Office 365. That company had, it so happened, opened two Australian data centres in 2014, a point that alleviated the infrastructure impediments that bothered the paladins at UC Berkeley.

The move to Office 365 is simply exchanging one demon’s credentials for another, and the rosy line being parroted by university management must be unpacked with diligence. The example offered by RMIT University, for instance, in abandoning Google is fittingly opportunistic, with one email circulated amongst staff finally revealing why one of Australia’s largest teaching institutions is moving to Office 365: “RMIT strategic vision is to expand into China. Google is NOT supported in China.” A truly mercantilist sentiment.

Russia and South Africa have recently stepped up efforts towards finalizing “the most significant issues” relating to the 10th edition of BRICS Summit scheduled to take place from 25-27 July in Johannesburg, South Africa.

According to official documents, BRICS is an informal association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The group, founded in June 2006 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), first known as BRIC prior to inclusion of South Africa in 2009. It has yearly rotating chairmanship among its five members.

After Jacob Zuma’s resignation in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin has maintained very close working contact and cooperation with the new South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa.

The Kremlin speaks about a very high strategic level of partnership while praising the joint activities of the two countries in the area of foreign politics, in particular within the United Nations, BRICS (an association of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

In mid-May, Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov meeting with South African Deputy President David Mabuza expressed high optimism when he said: “Our presidents talked not so long ago, on March 23. They agreed to continue a course toward the comprehensive development of our relations in all areas. And, of course, we agreed to have a special meeting during the BRICS summit to take place in Johannesburg at the end of July.”

In his turn, Mabuza thanked Lavrov and handed him a special message from the South African president addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin which experts interpreted as part of the preparations towards the next BRICS summit. As protocol demands, Mabuza did not disclose its contents.

Instead, Mabuza laid emphasis on his country’s interest in enhancing foreign policy coordination with Russia and praised its consistent line of principle on supporting the efforts of the African community to find consensus-based solutions to the continent’s political and socio-economic issues.

On May 17, as a follow-up to series of consultations on the summit, Deputy Foreign Minister and Russia’s BRICS, Sherpa Sergey Ryabkov, also met with Ambassador of South Africa to the Russian Federation, Nomasonto Maria Sibanda-Thusi. During that meeting, Ryabkov reaffirmed Russia’s readiness to provide all the necessary support to its South African friends in holding a successful BRICS summit.

The officials had a mutually engaging discussion on a number of issues on the broad agenda of multifaceted cooperation within BRICS. Both sides expressed confidence that during South Africa’s BRICS presidency the group will make great strides in strengthening strategic partnership in all three key areas of the organisation’s focus: peace and security, economy and finance, and cultural and humanitarian ties.

Brics-Africa Dialogue
Russia is very instrumental in deepening constructive dialogue between BRICS and African countries, including through the “BRICS Plus” mechanism. This year, the chairmanship plans to invite Africans to the 10th anniversary BRICS summit in Johannesburg.

Early March, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated in an interview with the pan-African monthly Hommes d’Afrique magazine in the run-up to his tour of African countries: “We support deepening the BRICS-Africa dialogue, which was launched in Durban in 2013 during the meeting between the association’s member-countries, the African Union leadership and the leaders of eight leading regional integration associations.”

“We believe that the ‘BRICS Plus’ concept approved last year lays the foundation for making the practice of inviting chairpersons of the African Union and, possibly, other African regional associations to the BRICS summits systemic,” he explained.

As South Africa has taken over BRICS chairmanship, Lavrov is particularly pleased to note that “our South African friends intend to make African issues part of the BRICS agenda, discuss the key problems and challenges facing the continent,” he said. “For our part, we welcome this approach.”

NDB Financed Projects
The BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and Business Council are two significant features, among others, of BRICS group. The NDB finances projects while the main tasks of the Business Council is to identify problems and difficulties, which hinder growth of economic, trade, business and investment cooperation between BRICS countries.

The bank’s first non-sovereign project was a $200 million loan to Brazil’s Petrobras for an environmental protection scheme and the second a $200 million loan to South Africa’s Transnet to reconstruct a port in Durban. The NDB has also extended funds for projects in Karelia, Russia. The NDB is currently considering to extend another substantial loan for two projects in Russia – the Amur gas processing plant (GCP) and the petrochemical plant in Tobolsk – by the year-end, according to the Russian Finance Ministry.

As expected, African leaders and Experts believe that the NDB pays particular attention to the viable projects on African continent. “The New Development Bank is just starting its operation but it will soon work in full swing,” Lavrov explained. “Projects discussed at the initial stage pertain only to the territory of five BRICS countries. Potential projects outside BRICS is the next stage. However, special attention will be clearly paid to the African continent because an office of the BRICS New Development Bank will be situated in South Africa.”

The agreement on establishing the BRICS New Development Bank concluded on July 15, 2014 in Brazil’s Fortaleza. The bank’s starting capital was set at $100 bn. The Shanghai-headquartered bank has been set up to finance infrastructure projects and sustainable development projects in BRICS member countries and in other developing countries.

Future Steps
On June 4, the BRICS Council of Foreign Ministers held a meeting in Pretoria, South Africa. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs report that meeting was largely aimed at outlining significant tasks for future and that include a wide range of issues pertaining to the maintenance of international peace and stability, the global economy, interaction between the BRICS countries and the coordination of their positions in the complicated conditions of global political turbulence.

There were in-depth talks on the situation in the world’s trouble spots and common goals in the face of new challenges and threats, primarily efforts against international terrorism and for international information security.

One of Russia’s priorities is to promote strategic partnership among the BRICS countries. Over the past years, this group of five large rising economies has developed from an interest club into a comprehensive mechanism of multifaceted strategic partnership. The group has developed a network of industry-specific cooperation, contacts and cooperation between their business and research communities and civil societies.

The five BRICS countries are working towards indivisible security, stronger international stability in all dimensions, collective efforts to settle crises by political and diplomatic means, and multilateralism. They reject military interventions, unilateral economic enforcement measures, protectionism and unfair competition. The BRICS countries are working together to protect the system of multilateral trade based on the central role of the WTO as the only universal platform for formulating the rules of global trade.

The BRICS countries are working to find new sources of economic growth. The group played a major role in promoting the reform of the IMF. It has created the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement to help modernise the architecture of global governance and financial security.

The five BRICS countries support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
The BRICS countries focused on consolidating and diversifying the mechanisms of multifaceted cooperation and finding new spheres of cooperation. BRICS is open to the world and consistently expanding its ties with concerned countries and integration associations.

The BRICS member countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) collectively represent about 26% of the world’s geographic area and are home to 2.88 billion people, about 42% of the world’s population. Report By Kester Kenn Klomegah in Moscow.

Dramatic changes on the horizon indicate an uncertain future for the engineering and construction (E&C) industry and its more than 100 million employees worldwide.

Advancing digital technologies, which include building information modelling, prefabrication, wireless sensors, automated and robotic equipment and 3D printing, are affecting the entire industry. The substantial impact of full-scale digitization could help the industry escape its decades-long lack of productivity progress and generate an estimated $1.0 trillion-$1.7 trillion in annual cost savings.

In parallel, global megatrends should motivate E&C companies to rethink industry practices that have not advanced over the years. Rapid urbanization – with more than 200,000 people a day relocating from rural areas into cities – climate change, resource depletion and the widening talent gap are just a few of the most powerful of these trends. Shaping the Future of Construction: Future Scenarios and Implications, a new report from the World Economic Forum and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), is the first to integrate consideration of the new technologies and trends into consistent scenarios of the future.

“The investigated scenarios and their implications clearly show that incremental change is not an option any more. By redefining the ultimate frontier, leapfrogging innovations in construction will finally help to address major societal challenges, from mass urbanization to climate change,” said Michael Buehler, Head of Infrastructure and Urban Development at the World Economic Forum. “The widespread adoption of game-changing innovations that consider a variety of possible futures is going to make a serious impact, socially, economically and environmentally.”

Over the past year, the World Economic Forum and BCG worked with more than 30 leading companies from the E&C industry, conducting workshops in Berlin and London. The result of those workshops was the development of three future scenarios for the E&C industry. Although all three scenarios, outlined in the report, are extreme, they are plausible. In the “building in a virtual world” scenario, which many experts consider highly likely, design and engineering software systems are powered by artificial intelligence, and autonomous construction equipment replaces most manual work throughout the E&C value chain.

Although the report indicates that it remains unclear which scenario or scenarios will unfold, there is little doubt that the future will include elements of all three. Michael Burke, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at AECOM and co-chair of the World Economic Forum Future of Construction initiative, said: “Current business models, strategies and capabilities will not be sufficient in any of these future worlds. This underscores that players along the construction value chain need to prepare strategically to thrive in the face of anticipated disruption.” In addition to recommending specific actions in response to each of the scenarios, the report provides a set of actions that will be relevant in any possible future.

The report states that 74% of the E&C company chief executives who participated in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2018 in Davos in January said they considered that attracting new talent and improving the skills of the existing workforce to be among the top three actions for keeping pace with upcoming disruptions. The other two priorities they named were improving integration and collaboration along the value chain (65%) and adopting advanced technologies at scale (61%). For each scenario, the report describes the most important changes that E&C companies must anticipate; explains how customer requirements, segment demand, regulations, processes and technologies would change; and provides details on how the competitive position of existing industry players would be affected, what new entrants could be expected and what new business opportunities will arise.

Luis Castilla, Chief Executive Officer of Acciona Infrastructure and until recently a co-chair of the World Economic Forum Future of Construction initiative, summarized the relevance of the new report: “The construction industry’s decision-makers should understand the disruption outlined in the future scenarios as a wake-up call and use the identified key actions as a foundation for companies in the construction industry to prepare and shape a prosperous future that will allow the industry to fulfil its role in promoting economic growth, social progress and environmental responsibility.”

Pakistan and India’s vastly divergent political trajectories are often treated as a puzzle. Despite the fact that the people of both countries had a common past, India has ended up as a vibrant democracy with elected governments firmly in control, whereas Pakistan has witnessed a series of direct military interventions in the past and though it has an elected government in place for some time now, the army still controls Islamabad’s foreign and domestic policies from behind the scenes. This has created a severe civil-military imbalance that is retarding Pakistan’s progress. By institutionalising fundamentalism Gen Zia ul Haq sowed the seeds of sectarianism and due to this Pakistan is today reaping a bitter harvest of religious intolerance and it is ironical that India which Islamabad accuses of being a ‘Hindu nation’ has a far better record of ethnic and communal diversity than Pakistan.

The prevailing situation in Pakistan is grim because those misleading the masses by misusing religion have succeeded in attaining such phenomenal influence and sweeping powers that even the Pakistan army seems to be helpless. An example of this is DG Pakistan Rangers Punjab Maj Gen Azhar Naveed distributing cash envelopes in order to placate members of Tehrik Labbaik Ya Rasool, a fundamentalist organisation that had paralysed Islamabad by staging a sit-in at Faizabad! The fallout of such pandering to groups with extremist ideology is that word secular is virtually absent from Pakistan’s social discourse, both in letter and spirit. The voices of those who understand that secularism doesn’t imply atheism and wish to see the correct interpretation of Islam are drowned by the fanatics and the fear of being charged with blasphemy forces them to remain quiet and silently endure the sorry state of affairs.

Muslims in India and Pakistan are roughly the same in number, but even though Indian Muslims comprise only 18% of the nation’s population being predominantly moderate they are a progressive society. On the other hand, regional inequality in Pakistan has created widespread turmoil. Balochistan is a land endowed with natural resources but the genuine demand of its people for their basic rights is being crushed with an iron fist by the Pakistan army and atrocities being committed on innocent civilians have given birth to an insurgency. Instead of giving the Balochis their fundamental rights and a fair share of the income that Pakistan is getting from natural products being extracted from Balochistan, the army is instead terrorising its people by following the infamous ‘kill and dump’ policy. The prevalent unrest, due to extreme poverty, instability and the systematic looting of natural wealth of the resource rich province, is being accentuated by the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that is looked upon as yet another attempt by the federal government to fully colonise the region.

The anguish of the people residing within this restive province remains unheard since the region is being kept behind the proverbial iron curtain by the government and the army. Media is almost non-existent and local protests are suppressed with an iron hand; local Baloch activists simply disappear from the face of the earth.

Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), formerly called the Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA), is the larger political entity of the occupied territories with an area of 72,496 square kms. It is directly administered by Pakistan as a de facto dependent territory, i.e., a non-self-governing territory. However, it has ostensibly been granted “full autonomy” on August 29, 2009. However, the residents of GB have seen through Islamabad’s game plan

and are no longer ready to take things lying down. They are coming out in large numbers to protest against the arbitrary manner in which they are being treated. “People of Kashmir feel Pakistan has been ruling over us through the Kashmir Council. It needs to be abolished,” said a leader of the United Kashmir People’s National Party (UKPNP). Such protests have been intensifying of late.

The CPEC is designed to pass through the occupied territory of Gilgit-Baltistan and since this region is internationally recognised as disputed area, Pakistan’s approval of this alignment is in itself, completely illegal. It is also immoral to the extent that permission for the passage has not been sought from the locals. Had Islamabad and the Pakistan army treated residents of GB with due respect and made them feel part of Pakistan things could have been different. However, the Pakistani establishment has brazenly indulged in persecuting natives of GB on one pretext or the other and crushing dissent by large scale use of security forces. The most despicable thing is Islamabad’s attempt to subdue public resentment by changing the demography of the region!

People in GB are virtually living in a colonial era where they are being subjected to unspeakable oppression and human rights violations. Director of the Washington-based Gilgit Baltistan Institute, Senge Hasnan Sering has summed up the pitiable condition of GB residents by saying, “”We don’t have the right to elect our own representatives in Pakistan’s Parliament. We don’t have a judiciary and constitutional rights. The region is run by the executive orders of the Minister for Kashmir Affairs from Islamabad.”

Despite the way minorities are being treated in Pakistan and its step motherly treatment towards Pakistan administered Kashmir (PaK), the Hurriyat continues to press for Indian administered Kashmir (IaK) joining Pakistan. There may be resentment against New Delhi in IaK but this doesn’t justify our jumping into Pakistan’s hands. A pluralistic society with a tolerant culture like ours will obviously be seen as a threat by the fanatical elements in Pakistan that preach sectarianism, will these forces allow us to uphold our centuries old religious, cultural and social practices and values? In the mid nineties we saw how foreign militants had banned Kashmiris from paying obeisance at dargahs and how a Pakistani militant named Mast Gul had desecrated Charar-e-Sharief by moving in there with guns and bombs.

Charar-e-Sharief happened a long time ago and memories of this tragic event have almost faded. However this tragic incident forewarned us about the existence of a very dangerous mindset that symbolises present day Pakistan. As this perverse outlook has no regards whatsoever for the religious sentiments of others and considers forcible imposition of a particular set of beliefs on others I have a suggestion for the Hurriyat – please look before you leap!

*Farooq Wani is a Kashmir senior journalist and political analyst.

After many unanswered phone calls made to Nicaragua’s Embassy Press Secretary Arturo Mcfields, my doubts were increasingly vanishing in regards to the real causes of violence in this Central American Republic.  Mcfields’ hush encouraged and further attracted my attention on current affairs in Managua so that I could ascertain the true reasons of his strange silence while innocent Nicaraguans are being quieted indiscriminately over the last two months.  After a few weeks I understood why Nicaragua’s Embassy in Washington was ignoring my calls; its well-paid diplomats were simply trying to hide their superior’s inhumane dictatorship in Managua.

At a time when the death toll among Nicaragua’s anti-government peaceful protesters has reached a tragic number of more than 112 deaths and hundreds of citizens are wounded with real ammunition used by the country’s police, Ortega’s embassy in Washington DC is hesitant to answer any questions.

The killing of peaceful protesters; the 23-year-old teacher Carlos Lopez (with a bullet fired into his chest last Sunday night) and the widely reported killing of Álvaro Manuel Conrado Dávila (one of a dozen youngsters killed during the social security reforms’ protests of April 20, 2018, while supplying bottles of water to protesting students); has sparked an internal conflict that will certainly succumb Nicaragua into economic stagnation and domestic turmoil for years.

While reconciliation talks were interrupted last month, government violence that erupted again last Sunday and Monday is a clear violation of human rights and the use of snipers against unarmed civilians is a brutal criminal act that must be condemned by international humanitarian organizations and multilateral bodies.

According to the Nicaraguan Association for the Protection of Human Rights (ANPDH), over the weekend there were five citizens killed and over 62 people injured from anti-riot police and paramilitary forces faithful to Ortega.

Nicaraguan residents have built self-defense barricades to protect their families from brutal police force and are using improvised homemade mortars and Molotov cocktails to deter government forces from using excessive force. Meanwhile, police have accused local protesters as “criminals with firearms, mortars and Molotov cocktails” of looting and “creating terror and panic among residents”.  Furthermore, last Sunday a police officer was killed and subsequently security officers, according to AFP, rounded up civilians in attempts to execute them.

Nicaragua’s Catholic Church had initiated a negotiations round table where protesters’ representatives had been mediating with the government, unfortunately this dialogue was in vain and was suspended in the second week of May.  The killing of 16 civilians on May 30 convinced the Catholic Church that dialogue with Daniel Ortega’s government is futile and will not resume until the repression and murder of innocent Nicaraguan citizens has not stopped.

In his lucid analysis, Stephen Kinzer, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs of Brown University, states:  “the protests have since broadened to voice frustration over corruption, the autocratic style of Ortega and Murillo, limited options to change the country’s politics in elections, and the president’s control over the congress, the courts, the military and the electoral board.  Protesters have taken to the streets, demanding that Ortega stand down. Authorities have been accused of using “lethal force” to crack down on the protests.”

In a report published by Aljazeera, on May 30, snipers inside Managua’s Dennis Martinez stadium were shooting at unarmed civilian protesters; those casualties were added into more than 100 deaths and over a thousand wounded Nicaraguans since the inception of such protests.

Citizens of Nicaragua are demanding judicial reforms, war against corruption and strengthening of democracy. On the other hand, Ortega continues to hold power and won’t budge unless tangible international pressure is evident.

While Nicaragua is home of Russia’s secret intelligence base and host of an advanced surveillance satellite network (since 2015) run by Kremlin, violence and conflict in the Central American country will escalate in the coming months.

A bloody civil war is looming over Nicaragua and its neighboring countries must take immediate measures, to pressure and contain Ortega’s dictatorial rule, so that public disorders and violence will not spill over into the region and subsequently a large flow of Nicaraguan immigrants flocking into the bordering countries of Costa Rica, and violence-torn Honduras.

Poverty-stricken Nicaragua has over 2.5 million citizens living in extreme poverty, it is a nation full of contradictions where a wealthy few accumulate revenues at the expense of a growing poor population, a trend that has prevailed since Ortega came to power in 2007 (with a  60 percent popularity rate). Ortega’s police brutality, not only has wounded protesters, but it has abruptly destroyed local popularity towards the Sandinista Front and his incumbent government; he is inadvertently making Nicaragua a hotbed of conflict where organized crime anda  black market economy will further flourish; regional weapons trade will be rampant and drug trafficking from the Mosquito Coast towards US’ Florida Coast will certainly rise.

Furthermore, political turmoil and autocratic regimes are on the rise in Central America, consequentially all tools of statecraft must be employed by the United States Government to curtail overwhelming Russian Influence and Chinese economic interventions in Nicaragua; above all Washington must do its best to root out a regime that oppresses journalists and has useless diplomats, corrupt bureaucrats in Washington.

For a proper understanding and analysis of the intricate and very serious problem created by the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Agreement, a proper comprehension of all of the aspects related to the Agreement and the decision of US’ withdrawal from it is worth.

According to a BBC report titled, ‘Iran nuclear deal: Key details’ dated 8 May 2018, “Before July 2015, Iran had a large stockpile of enriched uranium and almost 20,000 centrifuges, enough to create eight to 10 bombs, according to the Obama administration”. To compel Iran to give up its alleged intentions of producing nuclear weapons, US and EU along with UN had imposed severe sanctions on Iran.

According to the same BBC report those sanctions cost Iran more than USD 160 bn in oil revenue alone from 2012 to 2016; “In 2015, Iran agreed a long-term deal on its nuclear programme with the P5+1 group of world powers – the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany”; “Under the accord, Iran agreed to limit its sensitive nuclear activities and allow international inspectors in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions”; and “Under the deal, Iran gained access to more than $100bn in assets frozen overseas, and was able to resume selling oil on international markets and using the global financial system for trade”. (1) The plan of action to implement this agreement was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA).

US’ Confirmations That Iran Was Fully Abiding By the Agreement

Since then the inspectors of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been conducting the required inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities and each time found Iran abiding by the agreement. In that context, following extracts are noteworthy:

a. US Department of State (document) certified, “The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified that Iran has implemented its key nuclear-related measures described in the JCPOA, and the Secretary State has confirmed the IAEA’s verification. As a result of Iran verifiably meeting its nuclear commitments, the United States and the EU have lifted nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, as described in the JCPOA” (2).

b. On 16 January 2016 US Department of State (document) published confirmation by US’ Secretary of State, “I hereby confirm that the International Atomic Energy 0Agency has verified that Iran has fully implemented its required commitments as specified in Sections 15.1-15.11 of Annex V of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The U.S. sanctions-related commitments described in Sections 17.1-17.5 of Annex V of the JCPOA are now in effect”. — January 16, 2016 John F. Kerry, Secretary of State” (3)

c. Charleston Gazette-Mail of West Virginia, US has also mentioned on 11 May 2018, “Because of the Iran deal, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been in Iranian nuclear facilities, making sure they aren’t working toward weapons. (And they haven’t been, under the deal.)”.(4)

Economic Benefits Drawn By EU Countries from the Agreement

It is also well-known that while all through Iran verifiably continued to fully abide by the conditions of JCPOA, EU countries had also started economically benefiting from this agreement in a big way. In that context, a report of BBC titled, ‘Iran nuclear deal: The EU’s billion-dollar deals at risk’ dated17 May 2018 highlighted that since the deal took effect in 2016 major European firms have rushed to do billions of dollars’ worth of business with Iran, including thousands of related jobs; and that, EU exports to Iran in 2017 (goods and services) totalled €10.8bn (£9.5bn; $12.9bn), and imports from Iran to the bloc were worth €10.1bn. The value of imports was nearly double the 2016 figure. (5).

Opposition by Donald Trump and US Withdrawal from the Agreement

However, Donald Trump vowed to pull US out of this agreement even during his election campaign; and he actually did so on 8 May this year. A week later, according to a report published in The Guardian on 17 May 2018, “The US treasury said the move would cut off Iran’s access to the critical bank network.

The US has said it will progressively reintroduce the main sanctions against Iran, starting with the automobile and civil aviation sectors on 6 August. Energy and finance will follow on 4 November”; and “The US has given all firms, not just European ones, between three and six months to wind down their business dealings with Iran, with the timeframe dependent on the nature of the business” (6).

Endeavour by EU to Save the Agreement

That action by Donald Trump understandably greatly alarmed even the closest of US’ European allies, especially Germany, France and UK. There was a flurry of diplomatic consultations amongst the signatories of this agreement as how to circumvent the ‘threatening’ US’ sanctions against those firms / companies which continue doing business with Iran. According to a DW report dated 17 May 2018 there was even talk in EU of activating the 1996 law that would prohibit European companies from complying with US sanctions on Iran; however effective application of that law was found to be difficult because, “In addition, its regulatory language is nebulous, and the measures it lays out to block European companies from bowing to US sanctions could prove difficult to enforce, in part due to the international banking system and the significance of the US in international financial markets”. (7)

Then there was an effort to work with Iran to add certain additional conditions to the agreement to bring Donald Trump back to the agreement – as reported by the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, “We have to get away from the name “Vienna Nuclear Agreement” and add a few additional elements — only then will President Trump agree and lift the sanctions,” a top EU diplomat told the paper” (8).

US’ Adamant Attitude and ‘Threatening’ Demands from Iran

However, even that attempt has been blocked by US’ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his speech on 21 May 2018 when he announced additional sanctions including 12 Demands from Iran if Iran wanted to avoid being economically ‘crushed’ by US. Taking a note of those 12 Demands announced by Pompeo is extremely important to gauge US’ most likely intentions. Those details were published by Joseph Trevithick in The Drive on 21 May 2018. It mentions: “Pompeo’s comments seemed to suggest there would be additional sanctions on top of the ones that had been in place prior to the JCPOA coming into effect in 2015, but he offered few specifics on what they might entail”; and, “These will be the strongest sanctions in history by the time we are complete,” Pompeo said; “After our sanctions come into full force, [Iran] will be battling to keep its economy alive”; further, “The Secretary of State said the United States would halt these plans if Iran met its demands, which are as follows:

• “First, Iran must declare to the IAEA a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear program, and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity.”
• “Second, Iran must stop uranium enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing. This includes closing its heavy water reactor.”
• “Third, Iran must also provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country.”
• “Iran must end its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems.”
• “Iran must release all U.S. citizens, as well as citizens of our partners and allies, each of them detained on spurious charges.”
• “Iran must end support to Middle East terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hizballah [Hezbollah], Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
• “Iran must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi Government and permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias.”
• “Iran must also end its military support for the Houthi militia and work towards a peaceful political settlement in Yemen.”
• “Iran must withdraw all forces under Iranian command throughout the entirety of Syria.”
• “Iran, too, must end support for the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan and the region, and cease harboring senior Al Qaida leaders.”
• “Iran, too, must end the IRG [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] Qods Force’s [Quds Force’s] support for terrorists and militant partners around the world.”
• “And too, Iran must end its threatening behavior against its neighbors – many of whom are U.S. allies. This certainly includes its threats to destroy Israel, and its firing of missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It also includes threats to international shipping and destructive – and destructive cyberattacks.” (9).

Even a cursory look at these extremely aggressive US’ Demands from Iran fully support the title of this article given by Joseph Trevithick (The Drive), i.e. ‘Pompeo’s 12 Demands For Iran Read More Like A Declaration of War Than A path to peace’.

Similar expression has been made by William A. Galston in his article published in The Wall Street Journal on 22 May 2018. The title of that article is, ‘Trump Courts Disaster With Iran The administration’s strategy alienates Europe and risks war in the Mideast’. William A. Galston holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program; former policy advisor to President Clinton and presidential candidates; an expert on domestic policy; also College Park Professor at the University of Maryland; prior to January 2006, he was Saul Stern Professor and Acting Dean at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland; director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy; founding director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE); executive director of the National Commission on Civic Renewal; and is the author of eight books and more than 100 articles in the fields of political theory, public policy, and American politics (10). Following extracts of his views / inferences are worth noting:

a. “Mr. Pompeo’s speech wasn’t well received in Europe”.

b. “In the short run, the Trump administration will probably be able to force the Europeans to halt economic dealings with Iran because their stake in the U.S. economy is orders of magnitude greater. In the longer run, however, this course of action risks permanent damage to the trans-Atlantic alliance”.

c. “This prospect does not worry President Trump, who appears to regard the alliance as an outdated burden that limits American freedom of action without delivering commensurate benefits”.

d. “It is possible, I suppose, that the Iranian regime will collapse under the weight of U.S. pressure. But the odds are low, especially if the two non-Western Iran deal signatories—China and Russia—refuse to go along and instead step up their economic dealings with Tehran. If the Iranians continue to abide by the terms of the agreement, they can probably ride out the storm while deepening the split between the U.S. and Europe. Tehran can also further unleash its regional proxies, forcing the Trump administration to extend America’s military involvement as the head of the anti-Iranian coalition”.

e. “We are on a path that could lead to war with Iran. The administration had better consult Congress and the American people before it reaches the point of no return” (11).

Reaction in the Public of the Effected European Countries

It may not be out of place, however, that William A. Galston’s remark that Mr. Pompeo’s speech wasn’t well received in Europe was a bit ‘mild’ in the context. Factually, while the European governments might be ‘mindful’ of their respective country’s ‘economic entanglement’ with US, European countries’ public has already started becoming estranged with US’ current policies under Donald Trump. In that context DW has published a survey report about Germany’s public opinion on 18 may 2018. That survey was conducted by Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) which is a non-profit independent German public television broadcasting service (12). According to that survey, eighty-two percent of Germans believe that their country cannot count on President Donald Trump’s United States as a reliable partner in international relations; fourteen percent of respondents believe that Trump’s US remains a reliable partner; just 4 percent said “I don’t know” when the question was posed to them.

The DW report also mentions, “Sixty-five percent of respondents said parties should keep the international nuclear deal with Iran alive after Trump unilaterally withdrew the US earlier this month, while 28 percent expressed skepticism about the accord”. (13)

Real Reason of US Aggressive Attitude in Withdrawing from the Agreement

One more aspect which requires particular attention is as to why after all Mr. Donald Trump has been advocating so aggressively against the Iran Nuclear Agreement right from the days of his election campaign? In that context an answer has been provided by Anthony Zurcher who is an American journalist​ based in Washington, D.C.​ He is a senior North America reporter at BBC News​, where he covers culture and politics. In his article titled ‘Three reasons behind Trump ditching Iran deal’ dated 8 May 2018, he mentioned that the reasons are: ‘Shredding the Obama legacy’; ‘A pivot to Netanyahu’; and ‘New faces in the room’ (referring to the replacement of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Advisor HR McMaster with Mike Pompeo and John Bolton respectively, and both are considered Iran hawks. (14)

However, in his mentioned context of ‘A pivot to Netanyahu’ approach, Anthony Zurcher does not explain the underlying ‘linchpin reason’ for this current extremely pro-Israel policy of Donald Trump.

Factually Donald Trump’s approach is not related to the person of Mr. Netanyahu; rather the ‘linchpin reason’ underlying this policy is based upon the Evangelical and Christian Zionism religious beliefs of President Donald Trump, his Vice President Mike Pence, and their supporters (mainly Evangelicals and Christian Zionists). That fact is brought forth by much of the published information.

Importance of Religious Beliefs in US Policy Making

An understanding of the religious beliefs of the current President and Vice President of US is essential to grasp the importance of the religious belief of US’ public in US’ policy making, especially in the current scenario. In that context the paper published by Utica College Center of Public Affairs and Election Research US provides important information. Some of its extracts worth due attention are: “Religion has played a major role in shaping political leadership, the presidency, and presidential elections throughout U.S. history. Because of this, presidential candidates have long recognized the importance of emphasizing religious beliefs in order to elicit support from major religious groups. Since the 1970’s, evangelical Protestants have positioned themselves as one of the most impactful religious voting blocs, even with recent declines in religious affiliation and salience. Donald Trump was able to garner the vast majority of evangelical support in the 2016 election despite being among the least religious presidential candidates in modern history. Faith mattered for evangelicals in 2016, but partisanship mattered more in determining who they would support”.

“Still, Trump was able to maintain the evangelical/Republican alliance, receiving approximately 80 percent of the evangelical vote, more than Mitt Romney in 2012, John McCain in 2008, and George Bush in 2004 with 78 percent” (15).

About those religious beliefs, very briefly; evangelicalism, evangelical Christianity, or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide crossdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity. Its largest concentration is in US, where it forms a quarter of nation’s population, and is politically important (16).

And about Christian Zionism, Donald Wagner, Professor of Religion and Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University in Chicago and executive director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, wrote his commentary titled ‘An Historical Account of Christian Zionism’, which was published in five parts in The Daily Star, October 2003. According to him Christian Zionism is a movement within Protestant fundamentalism that sees the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and thus deserving of political, financial and religious support. Christian Zionists work closely with the Israeli government, religious and secular Jewish Zionist organizations. Both the secular and religious media place Christian Zionism in the Protestant evangelical movement, which claims upward of 100-125 million members in the US. However, one would more accurately categorize it as part of the fundamentalist wing of Protestant Christianity (17).

About the religious faith of Donald Trump, the book titled ‘The Faith of Donald J. Trump A Spiritual Biography’ by David Brody, Scott Lamb is apt. Its introductory note highlights the rarely discussed, but deeply important, religious beliefs and worldview of Donald J. Trump and his advisors. It mentions that Donald J. Trump was raised as a Presbyterian (i.e. belonging to Protestant Church) and has praised both Christianity and the primacy of the Bible. In the Oval Office, he has surrounded himself with close advisors who share his deep faith.

In this deeply reported book, David Brody and Scott Lamb draw on unparalleled access to the White House to explain President Trump’s connection to the Christian faith, the evangelical right, the prosperity gospel, and the pressing moral and ethical issues of our day. In part, the authors argue, President Trump won over evangelicals not by pandering to them, but by supporting them and all their most important issues without pretending to be something he’s not (18).

About US Vice President Mike Pence’s Christian Zionism connection a detailed article has been published in a UK-based political website ‘Open Democracy’. Its title is ‘Trump, Pence, Jerusalem: the Christian Zionism connection’. Its author is Paul Rogers, Professor in the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University, UK. About the lobbies in US, he clarifies that the talk about the power of Jewish Lobby in US is misleading, the more correctly described Israel Lobby wields far more electoral power thanks to the reinforcement by the Christian Zionists. About Mr. Pence he mentions, “Although Pence’s family background is Irish-American Roman Catholic, he embraced a markedly evangelical perspective at college and has maintained that faith orientation ever since. It includes a particularly strong Christian Zionist perspective”. Besides that, the article highlights, that Mr. Pence is the first sitting Vice President of US who delivered a key note address to the annual meeting of Christians United for Israel, which is one of the two most powerful groups of Christian Zionists which are linked to the pro-Israel lobby.

This article also mentions the remarks of the scholar Daniel G Hummel, “Christian Zionism has a long history in American politics, but it has never captured the bully pulpit of the White House. Past administrations often used the biblical language in reference to Israel, but never has the evangelical theology of Christian Zionism been so close to the policy making apparatus of the executive branch” (19).

Another Aspect of Donald Trump’s Israeli Connection

An article of Tara Isabella Burton, who holds a doctorate in Theology from the University of Oxford, has been published by Vox – an American news and opinion website. Some of the extracts of her article, which succinctly clarify the connection with Israel of US’ Evangelicals / Christian Zionists, led by Donald Trump (and Mike Pence), are: “Many evangelical speakers and media outlets compare Trump to Cyrus, a historical Persian king who, in the sixth century BCE, conquered Babylon and ended the Babylonian captivity, a period during which Israelites had been forcibly resettled in exile. This allowed Jews to return to the area now known as Israel and build a temple in Jerusalem. Cyrus is referenced most prominently in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, in which he appears as a figure of deliverance”.

“That comparison has become more and more explicit in the wake of Trump’s presidency. Last week, an Israeli organization, the Mikdash Educational Center, minted a commemorative “Temple Coin” depicting Trump and Cyrus side by side, in honor of Trump’s decision to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem” ….. “Monday, however, an even higher-profile figure linked Trump and Cyrus. During his visit to Washington, DC, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu heavily implied Trump was Cyrus’s spiritual heir. Thanking Trump for moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, Netanyahu said, “We remember the proclamation of the great King Cyrus the Great — Persian King. Twenty-five hundred years ago, he proclaimed that the Jewish exiles in Babylon can come back and rebuild our temple in Jerusalem. And we remember how a few weeks ago, President Donald J. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Mr. President, this will be remembered by our people throughout the ages.” (20)

The Geopolitical Aspects relating to the Zionists Plan of ‘Greater Israel’

One more aspect which has to be clearly grasped, to understand as to why after all Donald Trump government is so aggressively acting to destroy Iran’s military potential and Iran’s political outreach in Middle East. That aspect of Donald Trump’s anti-Iran posture is factually a ‘link’ of the efforts of many of the successive US’ governments to at least favour, if not out-rightly assist, the Israel governments in gradually working to fulfill the old Zionist plan of establishing a Greater Israel as a major Jewish State and the dominant regional power in Middle East. Donald Trump, however, has come out to openly and aggressively assist Israel, by trying to destroy the military, economic and political potential of Iran which, in the current timeframe, is the only challenger to Israel’s ambitions to aggressively ‘expand’ its writ in the Middle East. Many publications are available in that context. Brief mention of three of those is presented in this paper.

Stephen Lendman is from Boston, MA. He writes on major world and national issues. He is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient. (21). In one of his paper relating to Greater Israel he mentions: “A near-century ago, the World Zionist Organization’s plan for a Jewish state included: historic Palestine; South Lebanon up to Sidon and the Litani River; Syria’s Golan Heights, Hauran Plain and Deraa; and control of the Hijaz Railway from Deraa to Amman, Jordan as well as the Gulf of Aqaba. Some Zionists wanted more – land from the Nile in the West to the Euphrates in the East, comprising Palestine, Lebanon, Western Syria and Southern Turkey”….. “Hardliner Ze’ev Jabotinsky opposed peaceful coexistence with Arabs, calling it unattainable. Arguing for “an iron wall of (superior) Jewish military force,” his idea was to discourage Arab hopes of destroying Israel – followed by a negotiated settlement based on Israeli-dictated terms”. (22)

In another article titled, ‘Israeli High Court Approves Illegal Ethnic Cleansing’, Stephen Lendman brings to fore the extremely inhuman acts of the Israel’s government and its state institutions, in stark contravention of even the UN orders, to which of course US and its allies turn a blind eye. In that context he mentions: “Under international law, ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity – defined as the forced removal of ethnic or racial groups to benefit others” ….. “In 1992, the UN General Assembly called forced ethnic cleansing “a form of genocide,” a war crime under international law” …..“Genocide includes the forced expulsion of individuals from their land and homes with intent to harm or destroy an ethnic or religious group in whole or in part – longstanding Israeli practice throughout the Territories” ….. “On May 24, Israeli High Court Justices ruled against Palestinian Bedouin Khan al-Ahmar communities, located east of Jerusalem, home to about 1,400 residents” ….. “According to the High Court ruling, the Netanyahu regime may ethnically cleanse all community residents, seize their land, as well as destroy their homes and other structures – the court authorizing criminality prohibited under international law”. (23)

Another detailed paper titled ‘Greater Israel: The Zionist Plan for Middle East The Infamous Oded Yinon Plan’, written by Israel Shahak with introduction by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, has been published by Global Research on 17 May 2018. It was originally published in 2013. It contains a map of the Zionists-desired Greater Israel, and also a translated version of the Yinon Plan. It basically draws its inferences from the geopolitical dimensions of the Yinon Plan. It is therefore worth to have the basic understanding of Yinon Plan, because its knowledge appears not to be common in public.

About the background, application and geopolitical effects of the Yinon Plan sufficient details are available in Wikipedia, which is owned by Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, an American non-profit and charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, US. Some extracts from Wikipedia, which provide the significant information are: “The term Yinon Plan refers to an article published in February 1982 in the Hebrew journal Kivunim (“Directions”) entitled ‘A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s’.

Kivunim was a quarterly periodical published by the World Zionist Organization’s department of Information in Jerusalem. The article was penned by Oded Yinon, reputedly a former advisor to Ariel Sharon, a former senior official with the Israeli Foreign Ministry and journalist for The Jerusalem Post. It is cited as an early example of characterizing political projects in the Middle East in terms of a logic of sectarian divisions. It has played a role in both conflict resolution analysis by scholars who regard it as having influenced the formulation of policies adopted by the American administration under George W. Bush, and also in conspiracy theories according to which the article either predicted or planned major political events in the Middle East since the 1980s, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein, the Syrian Civil War and the rise of the Islamic State. The claim has been made that Yinon’s article was adopted by members of the Institute for Zionist Strategies in the American administration until it was putatively taken up as a way to further American interests in the Middle East, as well as achieving the Jewish dream of a state “from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”, encompassing the majority of the Middle East, as written in the Hebrew Bible” (24).

As for the mentioned detailed paper by Israel Shahak with introduction by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, two of its extracts suffice to convey the essence: “According to the founding father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, “the area of the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”  According to Rabbi Fischmann, “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.” ….. “The “Greater Israel” project consists in weakening and eventually fracturing neighboring Arab states as part of a US-Israeli expansionist project, with the support of NATO and Saudi Arabia. In this regard, the Saudi-Israeli rapprochement is from Netanyahu’s viewpoint a means to expanding Israel’s spheres of influence in the Middle East as well as confronting Iran. Needless to day, the “Greater Israel” project is consistent with America’s imperial design” (25).

The assertions of Stephen Lendman and Israel Shahak in these publications and the clarification about Yinon Plan provided in the Wikipedia, clearly bring to light the ‘actual latent design’ of US-Israel combine in the region in proximity of Israel (Middle East and North Africa) for actualising the Zionist dream of establishing Greater Israel. These assertions and clarification are (underlining added):-

a. In one of those assertions, Stephen Lendman quotes the Zionist Ze’ev Jabotinsky, “Hardliner Ze’ev Jabotinsky opposed peaceful coexistence with Arabs, calling it unattainable. Arguing for “an iron wall of (superior) Jewish military force,” his idea was to discourage Arab hopes of destroying Israel – followed by a negotiated settlement based on Israeli-dictated terms”. In that context it may not be out of place to mention that Ze’ev Jabotinsky, MBE was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leader, author, poet, orator, soldier and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. With Joseph Trumpeldor, he co-founded the Jewish Legion of the British army in World War I. Later he established several Jewish organizations in Palestine, including Beitar, HaTzohar and the Irgun (26).

b. On his part Israel Shahak has asserted, “The “Greater Israel” project consists in weakening and eventually fracturing neighboring Arab states as part of a US-Israeli expansionist project, with the support of NATO and Saudi Arabia. In this regard, the Saudi-Israeli rapprochement is from Netanyahu’s viewpoint a means to expanding Israel’s spheres of influence in the Middle East as well as confronting Iran. Needless to day, the “Greater Israel” project is consistent with America’s imperial design”.

c. The clarification in the Wikipedia highlights: The Yinon Plan by Oded Yinon, reputedly a former advisor to Ariel Sharon, a former senior official with the Israeli Foreign Ministry is cited as an early example of characterizing political projects in the Middle East in terms of a logic of sectarian divisions. The claim has been made that Yinon’s article was adopted by members of the Institute for Zionist Strategies in the American administration until it was putatively taken up as a way to further American interests in the Middle East, as well as achieving the Jewish dream of a state “from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”, encompassing the majority of the Middle East, as written in the Hebrew Bible.

The application of this ‘actual latent design’ of US-Israel combine in the region in the proximity of Israel, as clearly highlighted in the above-mentioned quotations / clarification, was commenced by US with its allies almost immediately after the collapse of Soviet Union resulting in the destruction / division of Iraq, Libya, Yemen, etc, and then the devastation of Syria has been in the process. However, in Syria the US-Israel combine’s intervention has recently met an effective ‘checkmate’ when Russia intervened to block US’ efforts to dislodge Syrian government which was supported by Iran. Although by now Syria already stands devastated by the US’ intervention, yet the Russian intervention which strengthened Iran’s resilient opposition to US intervention, has effectively frustrated US’ attempt to achieve its final objective in Syria. Probably it is this frustration in which US’ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has delivered the aforementioned ultimatum with the ‘maddeningly unrealistic’ 12 demands from Iran.

Inferences Drawn

Based upon the aforementioned discerned realities obtained from the information available in the credible sources of information, following inferences are drawn.

First, keeping in view the current state of US vehement disregard of repeated requests by its EU allies for not abandoning the Iran Nuclear Agreement, it is more likely that US will enforce its sanctions commencing from 6 August this year on all firms – European and others – which engage in business with Iran.

Second, as for Iran, it is more likely that it will not declare abandoning of the Agreement, thereby providing sort of a political Modus Vivendi to those countries which want to do business with Iran by circumventing, if not out-rightly opposing, US sanctions. Application of that Modus Vivendi may as well not be much difficult also, because the US announced sanctions do not have the UN cover – and that cover is certainly not likely to be obtained by US because of the most certain veto by Russia and China in such an eventuality.

Third, though at this stage it is a bit complex to ascertain the extent of the ‘actual’ acceptance of these US’ sanctions by the countries now trading with Iran and the effect of these sanctions on Iran, yet a number of the ground economic and political realities do provide realistic assessment framework. In that context cognizance of the current data of Iran’s exports and imports is essential.

As for Iran’s export data the report by Trading Economics highlights, “Oil and natural gas are Iran’s most important exports, accounting for 82 percent of the country’s export revenues. Other exports include chemicals, plastics, fruits, ceramic products and metals (27)”. And Iran’s news agency IRNA has published a report on 6 March 2018. It shows Iran’s export of crude oil and gas condensates in just one month, i.e. February 2018. The report is titled ‘Europe purchases 40% of Iran’s exporting oil in February’. It mentions, “Asian and European countries bought around 1.16 million barrels of crude oil and 430,000 barrels of gas condensates from Iran. Asian and European share from this purchase was around 60 and 40 percent, respectively. China, India, South Korea and Japan are the biggest oil customers in Asia. Dutch-British Shell, France Total, Italian ENI and Saras companies, Greek Hellenic Petroleum, Spain Repsol and Hungary MOL are Iran’s crude oil customers in Europe” (28)”.

About Iran’s imports, a report of Trading Economics mentions: “Iran main imports are: non-electrical machinery (17 percent of total imports), iron and steel (14 percent), chemicals and related products (11 percent), transport vehicles (9 percent) and electrical machinery, tools and appliances (7 percent). Main import partners are: United Arab Emirates (31 percent of total imports) and China (17 percent). Others include: South Korea, Turkey and Germany” (29). In another report by Iran Partner it is highlighted that “During the past Iranian year, Iran Import totaled at just more than USD 43.6 billion. China, the UAE, and South Korea accounted for 48% of total Iran import. China alone sold more than USD 10.5 billion worth of products to Iran in 1395 (this is the number of the previous year according to the Iranian calendar; the current Iranian year is 1396). On the other hand, the European countries on this list contributed only 19% of the total exports to Iran. Germany’s exports stood at USD 2.5 billion followed by Italy and Switzerland’s USD 1.2 billion (30)”.

This pattern of Iran’s export and import clearly shows that Iran’s trading activities are much more reliant on the Asian countries and much less on the European countries. So, even if some European countries feel reluctant to even circumvent the US’ sanctions, their reduction / stoppage of business with Iran is not really expected to ‘ditch’ Iran’s economy altogether. In the case of Asia, a number of countries will be economically compelled to doing business with Iran; to quote just few examples:

Pakistan has already learnt bitter and devastating lessons for siding with the unreliable US’ policies, and Pakistani masses will not allow any government in the country to go against Iran on behest of the US.

China and India are the major importers of Iranian oil, India has already announced its unwillingness to abide by US’ sanctions which are without UN cover; China is also most likely to follow suit. Full obedience of US’ sanctions are not really foreseen from Japan and South Korea either. Besides that, it may not be out of place to mention that this US’ decision of imposing sanctions on Iran with the aforementioned ‘maddeningly unrealistic’ 12 Demands, in total disregard of the views of majority of world countries, may meet the same fate when US’ similar ‘deciding alone’ decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem was voted against by almost two third majority of countries of the world (including France, Germany and UK) – supported only by such countries as Guatemala, Honduras, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Togo and Israel (31).

In essence, therefore, it is comparatively more likely that while these US’ sanctions will create problems for Iran, yet US will not be able to crush Iran’s economy to the extent where Iran will be “battling to keep its economy alive” (aforementioned threat of US’ Secretary of State).

Fourth, there are news that contemplating the possibility that the European companies will ultimately have to stop doing business with Iran due to US’ sanctions, the Russian and Chinese companies are pushing to fill that vacuum by increasing their business investment in Iran. In that context Middle East Monitor has published as recently as 30 May 2018 a report titled, “Report: Russia, China companies prepare to replace Europeans in Iran”.

The report highlights, “Russian and Chinese companies are taking advantage of the return of US sanctions on Iran to strengthen their investments in the oil rich country after the European companies withdrawal from Tehran for fear of losing their share in the US market”. This report also gives some details of the existing and planned Russian and Chinese business investments (in billions of USD worth) (32). A similar detailed report has been published on 28 May 2018 by Morning Star which is an investment research and investment management firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, United States. That report similarly provides further details in that context (33).

These developments are certain to change the geo-economic complexion of this region at the cost of European countries and with no ultimate success of US.

Fifth, the current major US’ policies affecting the international arena, with the new US’ extremely unjustifiable ‘onslaught’ on Iran on top of such policies, has started reflecting racism, religious extremism, and bullying; thereby alienating many countries which matter geopolitically. To mention just few examples: Public of all three of its important European allies UK, France and Germany is becoming alienated (example – the aforementioned survey by Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen reflecting German public’s alienation). And that alienation is bound to increase throughout Europe when their companies will be compelled to wind up their business with Iran and losing related jobs. Donald Trump’s calling the countries of non-white poor people – black and Latino people –‘shithole’ countries (34), has obviously aroused the public of many effected countries against US. US extremely unreliable and unjustified policies have finally led to the estrangement of its relation with Pakistan – so vitally important for US’ desired peace in Afghanistan. US is also gradually losing its geopolitical hold in South East Asia – has to comprise now even with North Korea. US is therefore losing its ‘geopolitical space’ in many parts of the world and its latest policy, of its blatantly unjustifiable withdrawal from Iran Nuclear Agreement merely to serve the Christian Zionism cause, is more likely to accentuate and accelerate that process.

On the other hand, China and Russia are enlarging their influence space through geo-economic and geopolitical moves – the mentioned US’ ‘losing of geopolitical space’ is one of the factors which is also helping China and Russia in that context.

As for China, its success in expanding its ‘geopolitical space’ through its String of Pearls Strategy is already much known. Similarly its developing success in its gradual ‘militarisation of South China Sea’ – to which US continues to show ‘concern’ – is also known. However, what is more noteworthy is China’s success in finding a geo-economic / geopolitical foothold in Europe. In that context the European Commission paper, ‘JOINT COMMUNICATION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Elements for a new EU Strategy on China’, dated 22-6-2016 is worth reading. The European Commission proposed to EU to “Seize new openings to strengthen its relations with China; Engage China in its reform process in practical ways which result in mutual benefits for our relations in economic, trade and investment, social, environmental and other areas”, with certain other recommendations (35).

Similarly, a Brief of European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) of February 2017 discusses the pros and cons of China’s ingress in EU’s eastern and southern neighborhoods. However, about the Chinese offered Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this Brief also mentions, “Not surprisingly, given the ever stronger economic links with China, the BRI was met with a rather warm welcome from the EU’s eastern partners. For certain EaP countries, China is already one of the most important economic partners” (36). (The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is an initiative of the European External Action Service of the European Union (EU) governing its relationship wuth the post-Soviet states. Its membership includes EU, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine).

Another noteworthy aspect is China’s slow but clearly discernable ‘influence entry’ in Afghanistan through certain development projects.

Russia too is enlarging its geopolitical space gradually. Its aforementioned intervention in Syria to checkmate US’ intervention in that country marks the major ‘re-entry’ of Russia in the Middle East. Besides that, the establishment and development of the Eurasian Economic Union is also worth taking a note of. Some of the relevant information about this Union is: Officially it is abbreviated as EAEU, but sometime it is also referred as EEU, or EAU. It is a political and economic union of states located primarily in northern Eurasia. It came in force in on 1st January 2015. Its members are Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia. The presidency is rotated year-wise; currently it is with Russia. There have been discussions on free trade negotiations with over 30 different countries.

According to The Guardian newspaper, Putin’s plan is for the Eurasian Union to grow into a “powerful, supra-national union” of sovereign states like the European Union, uniting economies, legal systems, customs services, and military capabilities to form a bridge between Europe and Asia to balance the EU and the U.S (37). And, to add further, Eurasia Future has published a report on 17 May 2018 that Iran has also now signed an agreement to enter a three year provisional free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). This report also mentions that EAEU has existing free trade agreements with Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Moldova; Vietnam and other ASEAN states including Indonesia and Thailand have been in early level discussions about the possibility of a free trade arrangement with the EAEU; while Serbia and Turkey have also considered joining (38).

Sixth, keeping in view the strange and strong-headed pattern of Mr. Donald Trump’s decision-making, and the strong anti-Iran ‘push’ by Mr. Netanyahu, the world has also to be watchful of the worst case scenario of US’ ‘militarisation’ of its anti-Iran actions. Such actions may include attack on Iran’s and its allies’ troops / deployments etc. in Syria / Lebanon by US’ military / proxy and Israel; or US’ action directly against Iran by US military / proxies in Afghanistan; or US’ effecting a blockade of Iran’s maritime routes; or a combination of these actions. Proper analysis of this worst case scenario will certainly be lengthy; however, in essence it may suffice to mention that any such action by US and or Israel shall not be able to brow-beat Iran; Iran and its allies shall certainly fight back – surely including the methods of asymmetric warfare; and the ensuing military conflict will cause wide-spread devastation which will not be limited to Iran alone, rather which shall certainly (may be greatly) include devastation of US’ and Israel’s troops / installations / interests too.

About the author:
*Brigadier (Retd.) Dr. Ahsan ur Rahman Khan is a retired officer of Pakistan Army, a war veteran, a post-retirement PhD relating to Afghanistan from University of Peshawar, lectured in social sciences in the universities of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi for about 11 years, and a published free-lance research-analyst. His articles, etc. can be read on www.intrinsicoverview.com which is updated about once a month.

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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed the understanding reached between UN agencies and Myanmar on creating conditions that would allow hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to voluntarily and safely return to their homes in the country’s Rakhine province.

The Memorandum of Understanding, signed by the Government of Myanmar, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), on Wednesday, concerns the UN system’s support to creating conditions conducive to voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable refugee returns from Bangladesh, and their reintegration in the country.

“As these conditions are not yet in place, [the Secretary-General] welcomes the agreement by the Government of Myanmar to take this first step to address the root causes of the conflict in Rakhine,” read a statement issued by the UN chief’s spokesperson.

The Secretary-General also encouraged Myanmar to take “decisive steps to implement the agreement” and reiterated his call for an end to violence, accountability for perpetrators, redress for victims, humanitarian access to all areas in Rakhine state, and the implementation of the recommendations of the Rakhine Advisory Commission.

Ahead of the signing, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, Knut Ostby, said in an exclusive interview with UN News that the two most important conditions for their safe and voluntary return are citizenship rights and an end to violence.

“People need to have an identity, they need to be able to exist as normal people in society, they need to be able to move around so they can enjoy services and livelihoods,” he said.

“And there needs to be an absence of violence. People need to be able to return in peace,” he added.

Since August last year, some 700,000 mainly-Muslim Rohingya have fled Rakhine state, in majority-Buddhist Myanmar, for neighbouring Bangladesh. Most say they were fleeing violence and persecution, including a military campaign by Myanmar forces, which began in response to violent attacks by Rohingya insurgents.

The Memorandum of Understanding will give UNHCR and UNDP access to Rakhine state, including to refugees’ places of origin and potential new settlement areas that the UN has so far been unable to access since the violence escalated at the end of last August.

The access, once verified, will allow UNHCR to assess local conditions and help the refugees to make informed decisions on voluntary return.

The agreement will also allow UNHCR and UNDP to carry out needs assessments in affected communities and strengthen the capacity of local authorities to support the voluntary repatriation process.

The Advisory Commission on Rakhine State – a neutral and impartial body composed of six local experts and three international experts, chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan – has proposed concrete measures for improving the welfare of all people in the province.

Its recommendations include establishing a clear and voluntary pathway to citizenship and ensuring freedom of movement for all people there, irrespective of religion, ethnicity or citizenship status.

The Rohingya have not been granted any level of citizenship, or citizenship rights, which is a major impediment to their return home.

By Frank Kane

Most investors in Saudi Arabia are committed to real estate as their main investment vehicle, but many are looking outside the Kingdom for opportunities in the property market, according to a new survey of investment patterns among residents.

Some 85 percent of Saudi residents have invested in property at some stage, but over half of respondents are considering putting their cash into international real estate, the survey, by market research firm YouGov on behalf of British property developer Select Group, reveals.

“Investor confidence is only further evidenced by the frequency in which investments are being made. The results found that almost a quarter (23 percent) of investors based in Saudi Arabia look to make a new investment at least every three months.

“Respondents were asked to consider their previous and potential future investments in bonds, stocks and real estate – both domestically and internationally – as well as mutual funds, bank products, gold and precious metals, cryptocurrency and fine art. Across every category, respondents demonstrated a desire to increase their level of investment in the coming years,” the report said.

Despite cryptocurrency being in its relative infancy as an asset, 5 percent of respondents based in Saudi Arabia declared they have already spent over $500,000 in the digital currency, though investment levels collectively still trail far behind more traditional asset classes, such as real estate.

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority has warned of the “risky and speculative” nature of crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, while welcoming blockchain as an innovative financial technology.

“The results show that investors in this region are highly motivated and it’s interesting to see the mix of key investment choices among the varying demographics. It’s promising to see that Saudi Arabia residents are also inclined to make regular investments, constantly keeping an eye on the market and looking to capitalize on the latest opportunities,” said Adam Price, managing director at Select Property Group.

Investors in Saudi Arabia and the UAE accounted for the highest proportion of the “very knowledgeable” category in the survey.

In the wider Gulf, most investors looking at overseas property were interested in residential real estate (44 percent) with 27 percent eyeing commercial property.

The UAE is the preferred market for 28 percent of GCC investors, with 16 percent interested in the US and 1 percent naming the UK as their preferred destination. Some 11 percent looked favorably on Turkish real estate.

By Diana Moukalled*

There is no value to any verbal assurances about Iraq’s water security, which is being threatened by Turkey and Iran. Images showing the interruption of the flow of the Tigris River through the destroyed city of Mosul due to the starting of operations at Turkey’s Ilisu Dam, which holds more than half of the river’s water from Iraq, are shocking and show the extent of the disasters in this country. The Tigris is no longer the historical river that was associated with Iraqi literature, poetry and life. It has become a stagnant area surrounded by ruined neighborhoods and huge destruction.

Particularly for Mosul, which suffered the destruction of nearly 90 percent of its old neighborhoods last year because of the war on Daesh, the dryness of the Tigris has come to complete the task of killing the town, while its people live in refugee camps in its surroundings.

Turkey has decided to operate the dam and has stopped the flow of water. And the Tigris, which represents an Iraqi sentiment penetrating the city and forms a divide between the two sides, has now become a swamp. The Turkish move has an impact on this city in particular. The five bridges that linked the banks of the river had already been blown up by Daesh, which made the Tigris a divide between two Mosuls, then came the siege and war to complete the mission of destruction. Today, with the river dried up, the city will be subject to a dramatic transformation that promises nothing but further destruction.

This is what the images of thousands of dead fish and stagnant water on the banks of the ruined city show.

While Turkey is seeking to build a dam on every drop of water emanating from its territory during the next 10 years, as its projects show, its ambassador to Baghdad says that his country does not seek to harm the Iraqi people. But the truth is quite the opposite. And another truth is that Iran is also contributing to depriving Iraq of water. Tehran is constantly cutting off every watercourse that ends up in Iraqi territory as part of a clear strategy. This has been repeated many times over the years, yet Iranian officials say they support water security for Iraqis.

The disaster that surrounds the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is certain, and it is increased by the absence of any commitment from the upstream countries to respect global agreements on the use of international rivers and the failure and negligence of successive Iraqi governments. This opens the door to future conflicts that are constantly being warned against by the international community.

The Tigris has become smaller than its original size. All the assurances obtained by Iraq over its water security are inaccurate: They are political attempts to calm the situation and avoid provoking Iraqi public opinion, which has realized, for the first time, the extent of the catastrophe for which the operation of the Ilisu Dam is just a prelude.

It is hard to convince Iraqis as they watch their rivers dry up, the death of their fish and the demise of their environment that these steps are “friendly.” Future Iraqi generations will bear the consequences of these crises.

Extraordinary wars have been fought on the lands of Iraq and Syria, and the countries that are making these two nations thirsty today are those that caused a large part of this destruction. Talking about confronting Iraqi crises in a manner that has been tried and failed repeatedly over the past years is futile and ineffective for the future. Will Iraqi officials face up to the realities or be swept away by political and regional biases at the expense of their country?

So far, there have been no serious steps in the face of drought, especially in this hot summer. And the disaster that began to loom will not be dispelled by the words of Recep Tayyip Erdogan or the smiles of Hassan Rouhani.

Iraq is entering a new tragedy, one that will affect other countries and peoples if not remedied.

*Diana Moukalled is a veteran journalist with extensive experience in both traditional and new media. She is also a columnist and freelance documentary producer. Twitter: @dianamoukalled

By Wilder Alejandro Sanchez

President Donald Trump met with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan on 16 May, an important breakthrough after the isolationism of the Karimov regime. What is noteworthy about the meeting is that President Mirziyoyev is the second Central Asian leader that President Trump has met so far this year, after a meeting with President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan which took place in January.

Kazakhstan is generally regarded as the leader of Central Asian countries, given its level of development and proactive foreign policy. However, Uzbekistan’s President Mirziyoyev is keen on improving his country’s ties with the rest of the world. While the international community wants to see two Central Asian success stories, governmental ambitions and competitiveness may mean that Astana and Tashkent will eventually clash —though hopefully through non-violent means— for regional hegemony.

Kazakhstan: Central Asia’s De Facto Leader

Much has been written about Kazakhstan’s accomplishments (as well as the country’s ongoing problems), so for the sake of brevity, we will provide a cursory list in order to focus more on analysis.

Kazakhstan is Central Asia’s geographically largest country, with a population of 18 million. The Kazakh government has supported a liberalized and open market structure as it attempts to attract investors and diversify its pool of trade partners. Apart from its significant trade relations with direct neighbors like China (which are being intensified due to the Belt and Road project) and Russia, the Central Asian country recently began exporting uranium to Brazil and, according to the Wall Street Journal, also plans to sell shares of the state-owned large uranium mining company KazAtomProm this year. Kazakhstan relies heavily on its significant oil, gas. and mineral resources, particularly its uranium. According to the World Bank, Kazakhstan’s GDP  in 2016 was USD$137 billion, making it the highest in the region.

Additionally, the government has invested heavily in education in recent years. According to the 2016 UN Human Development Report, Kazakhstan ranks 56th spot in educational achievements, at the top of the “high human development section” between Bulgaria and the Bahamas. One important initiative carried out by the Ministry of Education is the Bolashak scholarship program, which has brought thousands of young Kazakhs to study in U.S. and Canadian universities since the late 1990s (afterwards the students return to Kazakhstan to work there for a number of years).

Finally, Kazakhstan’s foreign policy is well known for its global aspirations. It was the first Central Asian country to serve on the United Nations Security Council (2017-2018), and has played a mediating role (albeit unsuccessfully) in Syria, and may attempt to do so in Ukraine as well.

President Mirziyoyev Opens Uzbekistan to the World

As for Uzbekistan, it has yet to achieve its full potential since becoming independent after the fall of the Soviet Union, due to the corrupt and authoritarian regime of Islam Karimov. The late dictator focused less on developing the country and more on enriching family and allies, like his daughter Gulnara Karimova.

Uzbekistan has a large population, around 32 million people, and its main industries include gold, oil and gas, not to mention cotton (a controversial industry due to forced and child labor). The country’s GPD in 2016 was USD$67 billion. As for its location in the Human Development Report, the country ranks in the 105^th spot, at the bottom of the “high human development section,” between Maldives and Moldova.

Unfortunately for Uzbekistan, Karimov pursued isolationist policies, shying away from regional integration. For example, he withdrew Uzbekistan from GUUAM and expelled various NGOs operating in the country. The 2005 Andijan Massacre made Uzbekistan an international pariah. The incident led to the U.S. military closing its military base in Khanabad, as per order of the Uzbek government following Washington’s criticism of the Karimov regime after Andijan.

President Mirziyoyev served as Karimov’s Prime Minister since 2003. He became interim leader in September 2016 upon the longtime ruler’s demise, and was officially elected president in December 2017. His main rival, Rustam Inoyatov, head of the National Security Service, was dismissed in January 2018, which helped secure the president’s control over the government.

Over the past year, the Uzbek leader has focused on changing the perception of the international community (specifically the U.S. and Europe) regarding his country in order to create new partnerships and attract foreign investment and technology to promote development. Political prisoners have been freed, and there will apparently be more tolerance towards freedom of expression as, in a significant move, Voice of America journalist Navbahor Imamova has been granted accreditation to work in Uzbekistan. Additionally, Tashkent has promised to do away with controversial programs like child labor in cotton fields.

Which is on the ascent as Central Asia’s regional hegemon: Uzbekistan or Kazahkstan?

Trying to define a “power” in international affairs is complicated, just as it is difficult to quantify “influence.” It is somewhat easy to do so for global powers (such as China, Russia, or the U.S.) as one can look at the size of armed forces, nuclear arsenals, GDP and support from allied nations in fora like the United Nations. On the other hand, understanding what constitutes a “regional power” is more complicated (see academic literature on the subject: here, here and here).

As previously mentioned, Kazakhstan is generally viewed as Central Asia’s leader in recent years particularly due to its foreign policy achievements, such as joining the UNSC and its role in peace negotiations. Should Uzbekistan under President Mirziyoyev want to achieve a “regional power” status, we would expect Tashkent to have an ambitious foreign policy akin to Astana. For example, Uzbekistan could attempt to join the WTO (it currently has observer status while Kazakhstan joined in 2015), or try to mediate a conflict. Tashkent is already pursuing this route, as a major peace conference on Afghanistan was held in Tashkent in March 2018; that same month a gathering of Central Asian heads of state took place in Astana, at the initiative of President Mirziyoyev.

The author would argue that in the short run, Kazakhstan’s prominent role is secure. For example, Kazakhstan’s GDP is twice that of Uzbekistan, and it would take years for industries to be developed, production to improve, and new investment-friendly laws to be put into place in order to raise the Uzbek GDP. As one Central Asia expert explained to the author: “What the Uzbeks are doing now, Kazakhstan started doing two decades ago; Astana started earlier so they are ahead.”  Another Central Asia expert stressed how “Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are members of regional organizations, but Kazakhstan is in the lead (Eurasian Economic Union, Collective Security Treaty Organization, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Commonwealth of Independent States) whereas Uzbekistan is only a full member of SCO and CIS and either not a member or a passive member of other organizations.” Even more, Uzbekistan has outstanding border issues with some of its neighbors, not to mention water-related issues. In other words, Uzbekistan still has a lot of catching up to do in the diplomatic arena.

With that said, a particular concern for Astana is that Uzbekistan’s population is almost twice that of Kazakhstan. Thus, should Tashkent manage to capitalize on its massive population (by Central Asian standards), this human resource could shift the regional geopolitical and economic balance.

There is an important question that will be answered in the coming years, which is: If Uzbekistan’s star rises, will Kazakhstan’s prominent role evaporate? Central Asia is a small region in terms of area, market, and number of countries (six, if you count Afghanistan). The region is bordered by global powers like the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, with India, Iran, and Pakistan not that far away. There’s also Turkey, whose goal is to be leader of the pan-Turkish world. In other words, there is not much metaphorical and literal space for two Central Asian regional powers to share.

Uzbek-Kazakh Relations

As a final point in this discussion, it will be important to monitor Kazakh-Uzbek relations. So far bilateral relations seem to be improving as the leaders of both countries met in late 2017. Even more there have been people-related initiatives like the resumption of a bus service between the two countries and there was even a Kazakh educational event in Samarkand in late May 2018.

With that said, international relations is the study of changes, and while bilateral relations are enjoying a honeymoon phase, it is reasonable to assume that this may not last. For example, should Uzbekistan start receiving more investment in the coming years, threatening Kazakh industries, or should regional governments support Uzbek membership to the UNSC, Astana may start behaving in a more competitive manner towards its neighbor.

Final Thoughts

The rise of President Mirziyoyev to power in Uzbekistan, a country rich with untapped potential, could signal a shift in Central Asian geopolitics, including changes to Kazakhstan’s current status as the region’s powerhouse.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any institutions with which the author is associated, and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

The author would like to thank the various Central Asia experts consulted as part of this analysis.

The climate throughout Mars’ early history has long been debated – was the Red Planet warm and wet, or cold and icy? New research published in Icarus provides evidence for the latter.

Mars is littered with valley networks, deltas and lake deposits, meaning it must have had freely flowing water at some point, probably around 4 billion years ago. But climate models of the planet’s deep past haven’t been able to produce warm enough conditions to allow liquid water on the surface.

“There are people trying to model Mars’ ancient climate using the same kind of models we use here on Earth, and they’re having a really hard time doing it. It’s difficult to create a warm ancient Mars because the sun was a lot fainter then. The whole solar system was cooler,” said Briony Horgan, an assistant professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at Purdue University. “While a lot of people are using climate models, we’re coming at this from a unique perspective – what does the volcanic record of Mars tell us?”

Volcanism was abundant throughout Mars’ early history. There are large, broad volcanoes on some of the planet’s widely studied regions, but less is known about a region of low and smooth topography in the southern highlands known as Sisyphi Planum. Here, there are more than 100 flat-topped mounds known as the Sisyphi Montes, which could be volcanic in origin.

When volcanoes erupt beneath ice sheets and glaciers on Earth, the combination of heat and melt water create flat-topped, steep-sided mountains called “tuyas,” or table mountains. When subglacial eruptions don’t breach the surface of the ice, the tops of the volcanoes remain cone-shaped instead of becoming flat. The minerology produced during these events is unique due to the interaction between hot lava and cold glacial meltwater.

Sheridan Ackiss, a Ph.D. candidate at Purdue and lead author of the paper, used images from NASA’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometers for Mars (CRISM) to find out if the mineral makeup of the region was consistent with subglacial volcanism.

CRISM detects both the visible range and shorter wavelengths of light, which helps the instrument’s operators identify a broad range of minerals on the Martian surface. At visible wavelengths, the way light is reflected is strongly influenced by iron, whereas at infrared wavelengths, CRISM can pick up features from carbonate, sulfate, hydroxyl and water incorporated in mineral crystals.

“Each rock has a specific fingerprint, and you can identify that with reflections of light,” Ackiss said.

The findings identify three distinct mineral combinations in the region, dominated by gypsum, polyhydrated sulfates and a smectite-zeolite-iron oxide mixture – all of which have been associated with volcanoes in glacial environments.

“We now have two sets of data, minerals and morphology, that say there had to have been ice on Mars at some point in time,” said Ackiss. “And it was probably relatively late in Mars’ history.”

Ackiss’ team hopes their findings can be used as a reference point for other regions on Mars with a volcanic history. If researchers could find evidence for volcanic activity under ice sheets elsewhere, it would solidify the case for a very cold ancient Mars. But fear not, space enthusiasts, this doesn’t eliminate the possibility of past life on Mars.

“Even if Mars was a cold and icy wasteland, these volcanic eruptions interacting with ice sheets could have created a little happy place for microbes to exist,” Horgan said. “This is the kind of place you’d want to go to understand how life would’ve survived on Mars during that time.”

Someday, the gasoline you buy might trace its heritage to carbon dioxide pulled straight out of the sky rather than from oil pumped out of the ground. By removing emitted carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into fresh fuels, engineers at a Canadian firm have demonstrated a scalable and cost-effective way to make deep cuts in the carbon footprint of transportation with minimal disruption to existing vehicles. Their work appearsin the journal Joule.

“The carbon dioxide generated via direct air capture can be combined with sequestration for carbon removal, or it can enable the production of carbon-neutral hydrocarbons, which is a way to take low-cost carbon-free power sources like solar or wind and channel them into fuels that can be used to decarbonize the transportation sector,” said lead author David Keith, founder and chief scientist of Carbon Engineering, a Canadian CO2-capture and clean fuels enterprise, and a professor of applied physics and public policy at Harvard University.

Direct air capture technology works almost exactly like it sounds. Giant fans draw ambient air into contact with an aqueous solution that picks out and traps carbon dioxide. Through heating and a handful of familiar chemical reactions, that same carbon dioxide is re-extracted and ready for further use–as a carbon source for making valuable chemicals like fuels, or for storage via a sequestration strategy of choice. It’s not just theory–Carbon Engineering’s facility in British Columbia is already achieving both CO2 capture and fuel generation.

The idea of direct air capture is hardly new, but the successful implementation of a scalable and cost-effective working pilot plant is. After conducting a full process analysis and crunching the numbers, Keith and his colleagues claim that realizing direct air capture on an impactful scale will cost roughly $94-$232 per ton of carbon dioxide captured, which is on the low end of estimates that have ranged up to $1,000 per ton in theoretical analyses.

That price-point is low enough to use direct air capture to start tackling the roughly 20% of global carbon emissions that result from driving, flying, trucking, and other ways of getting people and goods around.

“Electricity from solar and wind is intermittent; we can take this energy straight from big solar or wind installations at great sites where it’s cheap and apply it to reclaim and recycle carbon dioxide into new fuel,” Keith said, adding that “Making fuels that are easy to store and transport eases the challenge of integrating renewables into the energy system.”

The resulting fuels, including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, are compatible with existing fuel distribution and transportation infrastructure. Thanks to ultra-low life cycle carbon intensities, they are a promising route for reducing carbon emissions in heavy transportation and other sectors of the energy system that are demanding and difficult to electrify.

Centuries of unchecked human carbon emissions also mean that atmospheric carbon dioxide is a virtually unlimited feedstock for transformation into new fuels. “We are not going to run out of air anytime soon,” added Steve Oldham, CEO of Carbon Engineering. “We can keep collecting carbon dioxide with direct air capture, keep adding hydrogen generation and fuel synthesis, and keep reducing emissions through this AIR TO FUELSTM pathway.”

Keith and Oldham are optimistic that they have reduced scale-up risks by implementing direct air capture at reasonable costs using standard industrial equipment. That means that all the pieces are in place to move on to full-size plants capable of manufacturing 2,000 barrels of fuels per day– totaling over 30 million gallons per year across plants. Commercialization of such plants would allow direct air capture to make a dent in transportation emissions by connecting low-cost renewable energy to low-carbon transportation fuels using Carbon Engineering’s AIR TO FUELSTM pathway.

“After 100 person-years of practical engineering and cost analysis, we can confidently say that while air capture is not some magical cheap solution, it is a viable and buildable technology for producing carbon-neutral fuels in the immediate future and for removing carbon in the long run,” said Keith.

New research published in The Journal of Physiology demonstrates that adult offspring born to older mothers are more susceptible to heart risks in later life. These results could be crucial in developing preventative treatments for children born to older women.

Older motherhood is associated with an increased risk of complications during pregnancy with a greater likelihood of delivering a child that is premature or born small. As giving birth at an older age is becoming more common, it is important to understand the consequences for these children in adulthood.

The research, conducted by investigators at the University of Alberta, Canada, highlights the need for improved access to healthcare for children born to older mothers. It also suggests that intervention strategies should be tailored according to sex, as female offspring did not demonstrate the same susceptibility to heart problems or impaired blood vessels as male offspring.

To investigate the impact of the age a mother gives birth on the health of her offspring, older female rats, which were equivalent to a 35-year-old human, were mated with young males. At 4 months, their offspring’s blood vessel and heart function were tested. In future studies, the researchers will look into whether or not the findings are true in human subjects.

The principal investigator on the project, Sandra T Davidge, said: “This research is important because it improves our understanding of the impact of giving birth at an older age on the health of offspring in later life. We are further analysing the mechanisms that might be contributing to these adverse effects on the offspring of older mothers, in particular focusing on the role of placental function.”

Chinese Catholics are concerned about a State Administration for Religious Affairs circular that requires organizers of religious activities at temporary sites to seek guidance from government-recognized church organizations.

They fear it will mean that Catholic underground communities and Protestant house churches will come under greater control.

It was reported that the June 1 circular was a result of revised religious affairs regulations implemented on Feb. 1.

The notice stated that religious believers who were registered residents, had no criminal record and possessed certain religious knowledge can apply for temporary religious activities.

Sites must apply to local authorities for a three-year validity period. The number of people attending activities was also stipulated.

Article 13 stated: “Religious groups have guiding responsibilities for the activities of temporary events. The activities of temporary events should receive guidance from religious organizations.”

On June 2, Professor Ying Fuk-tsang, director of the divinity school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, wrote on his Facebook page that if a house church applies for a temporary site, the China Christian Council and the national committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement can provide “opinions” about the applications.

“It is well known that many house churches are reluctant to register and are willing to be an illegal organization because they do not want to be under the two organizations,” he wrote.

“The notice that requires family churches to accept guidance by the two organizations is an attempt to use the name of guidance to force the family church to establish a substantial relationship with them.”

Ying questioned whether the move might interfere with the arrangements of religious affairs, such as sacraments, ceremonial rituals, theological interpretations, and pastoral training and cultivation of believers.

He said many family church co-workers were not recognized because they had not registered with authorities.

Ying stated last month that the recent crackdown on various Catholic and Protestant communities was the result of more than two years of organization and preparation at provincial, city and county level through the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly powerful United Front Work Department,

Father Wang of northeast China told ucanews.com that the notice was intended to control Catholic underground churches and Protestant house churches, and they would not be allowed to hold religious activities at temporary sites.

He said underground churches were illegal and would not be registered on their own initiative, so the provisions would have little effect on them, but he believed they would impose many restrictions on open churches.

Hebei Catholic Philip and Henan priest Peter both believed if the notice was strictly enforced, it would be more demanding for the Catholic Church because the Patriotic Association would be in control. “How is this possible?” Philip said.