The world risks crossing the point of no return on climate change, with disastrous consequences for people across the planet and the natural systems that sustain them, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Monday, calling for more leadership and greater ambition for climate action, to reverse course.
The pledge made by world leaders in the Paris Agreement three years ago to stop temperature rising by less than 2-degree-Celsius and working to keep the increase as close as possible to 1.5-degree-Celsius, “were really the bare minimum to avoid the worst impacts of climate change,” said Secretary-General Guterres, in a landmark speech on climate action, at UN Headquarters in New York.
“The mountain in front of us is very high but it is not insurmountable. We know how to scale it,” he continued.
“Put simply, we need to put the brake on deadly greenhouse gas emissions and drive climate action,” he added, calling for a shift away from the dependency on fossil fuels towards cleaner energy and away from deforestation to more efficient use of resources.
The UN chief went on to say that such a shift in thinking is where “enormous benefits await humankind.”
“I have heard the argument – usually from vested interests – that tackling climate change is expensive and could harm economic growth. This is hogwash. In fact, the opposite is true,” he stressed.
In his message, Mr. Guterres highlighted the huge economic costs of climate change and the opportunities presented by climate action.
“Climate action and socio-economic progress are mutually supportive, with gains of 26 trillion dollars predicted by 2030 compared with business as usual, if we pursue the right path,” he said, citing the findings of the recent Climate Economy report from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate Change.
The benefits transcend monetary figures.
“Climate-resilient water supply and sanitation could save the lives of more than 360,000 infants every year, clean air has vast benefits for public health [and] in China and the United States, new renewable energy jobs now outstrip those created in the oil and gas industries,” explained Mr. Guterres, noting several examples from across the world of climate action resulting in enormous benefits for countries and communities.
Underscoring that important strides are being made, the UN chief highlighted the imperative to speed up these transitions.
“And for that to happen, the leaders of the world need to step up. The private sector, of course, is poised to move, and many are doing so.
In his remarks, Secretary-General Guterres highlighted the skewed impact of the climate crisis on vulnerable nations and urged richer countries to do more to assist them.
Looking ahead, the UN chief emphasized that he would be reiterating this message at the General Assembly’s high level segment later in the month as well as at other key events, including the G7 and G20 meetings of world leaders; and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings.
“The time has come for our leaders to show they care about the people whose fate they hold in their hands. We need them to show they care about the future,” he stressed.
Mr. Guterres further announced that in September 2019, he will convene a Climate Summit to bring climate action to the top of the international agenda and unveiled the appointment of Luis Alfonso de Alba, a former Mexican diplomat, as his Special Envoy to lead its preparations.
The Summit, he said, will focus on the heart of the problem – the sectors that create the most emissions and the areas where building resilience could make the biggest difference – as well as provide leaders and partners the opportunity to demonstrate real climate action and showcase their ambition.
“I am calling on all leaders to come to next year’s Climate Summit prepared to report not only on what they are doing, but what more they intend to do when they convene in 2020 for the UN climate conference and where commitments will be renewed and surely ambitiously increased,” he said.
In the same vein, the Secretary-General called on civil society and young people to push the agenda of climate action.
“There is no more time to waste. We are careering towards the edge of the abyss,” warned Mr. Guterres, adding that though it is not too late to shift course, “every day that passes means the world heats up a little more and the cost of our inaction mounts.”
“Every day we fail to act is a day that we step a little closer towards a fate that none of us wants – a fate that will resonate through generations in the damage done to humankind and life on earth.”
Three researchers have conducted a study of war, specifically the current conflict in Syria that’s been raging since 2011, to arrive at the creation of a new predictive model for multilateral war, which is called the Lanchester multiduel.
The research, published in the August edition of the INFORMS journal Operations Research, is titled “The Attrition Dynamics of Multilateral War,” and is authored by Moshe Kress and Kyle Lin of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and Niall MacKay of the University of York in the United Kingdom.
The researchers found that by studying the conflict in Syria using existing attrition models, certain factors were lacking that required the creation of a new model.
Legacy combat models focus on scenarios where only two players battle to defeat the other. In those models it is assumed that 100 percent of the effort is focused on defeating one other opponent. In this new predictive model, scenarios are considered where three or more players are engaged.
In the new Lanchester multiduel model, each player’s objective is to maximize its surviving number after defeating all others–if it can achieve a victory–or minimize the eventual victor’s surviving number. In creating this new attrition model, the researchers have shown that unless there exists a player so strong that it can guarantee to win regardless of what the others do, the outcome is a gradual stalemate that culminates in mutual annihilation of all players.
“This new predictive model takes into consideration that there can be three or more players, a truel, which stands in contrast to a range of results for sequential-engagement scenarios,” said Niall MacKay.
The researchers used the war in Syria since 2011 as the “motivating example” of their model because it offered a different paradigm than typical two-side, force-on-force engagements. Several players – the Assad regime and its Iranian and Hezboulla affiliates, Free Syrian Army, Kurdish militia, ISIS, and Jabhat al-Nusra – all have been fighting for dominance over territory and population.
“Based on our study of this conflict and our new multiduel attrition model, we cautiously speculate that absent an overall agreement among the various players, the war in Syria will prolong toward mutual annihilation,” said Moshe Kress. “The one thing that can change this prolonged stalemate is if a significant and largely invulnerable external force, such as Russia, intervenes to make one player dominant.”
“We say one player is dominant if it can defeat the alliance of all other players,” added Kyle Lin. “In other words, a dominant player can guarantee a win regardless of what the other players do. A player is pseudodominant if it can guarantee a tie for itself, where no others can win, regardless of what they do.”
Abrupt end to US funding of UNRWA education and health care for Palestinian refugees could destabilize the Middle East.
By Dilip Hiro*
With a curt declaration, the United States struck a blow at nearly seven-decades old UN project to provide humanitarian aid to the millions of Palestinian refugees and aligned itself further with Israel. The move threatens to produce serious social-political consequences and inflame Palestinian militancy.
The US State Department capped its 31 August decision to discontinue its financial contribution to the UN Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA, declaring that the 69-year-old organization’s work is an “irredeemably flawed operation.” In its robust riposte, the office of UN Secretary-General António Guterres applauded UNRAW’s “high quality education, health and other essential services, often in extremely difficult circumstances.”
In the words of Pierre Krähenbühl, the UNRAW’s commissioner general, Washington’s move was “an evident politicization of humanitarian aid.” Quite so. At the root of this US-induced crisis lies the unannounced strategic decision of the Trump administration to remove all permanent status issues between Israel and Palestinians, to be settled bilaterally according to the 1993 and 1998 Oslo Accords – including the Palestinian refugees’ right of return and the mutually agreed status of Jerusalem – from the negotiating table .
The UN General Assembly condemned Donald Trump’s 6 December decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by 128 votes to nine in a rare emergency session. Stung by this humiliating blow from the international community, his administration cut a scheduled UNRWA payment of $130 million by half and demanded unspecified reforms. During the subsequent months, the United States failed to notify UNRWA of the specific reasons for the dramatic cut.
UNRAW is charged with providing education, medical care and emergency assistance to more than 5 million Palestinian refugees in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Its monthly budget is $90 million, with about a third coming from the United States since 1974. After January of this year, UNRWA scrambled for increased financial assistance from other donors to continue operating. It managed to secure $150 million from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. A further $88 million came from Canada, Norway and Turkey. Those cash injections are on the verge of exhaustion.
The precipitate cancellation of US funding has left a shortfall of $217 million, according to UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness. He warned that “After September we won’t have enough money to run our schools, health clinics and our relief and social services programs.” Of its 30,000 employees, 22,000 are teachers.
The scale of the agency’s operations can be judged by the fact that 252 UNRWA schools serve 240,400 students in the Gaza Strip. Of the Strip’s 1.8 million inhabitants, 70 percent are registered as refugees. Given the self-governing territory’s 30 percent unemployment rate, more than one million people survive on food aid from UNRWA. Unsurprisingly, crowds stormed a UNRWA compound in Gaza to protest the US cuts.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior official of Hamas, which administers the Gaza Strip, tweeted: “The US decision to cancel aid to UNRWA aims to remove the right of return and represents a serious American escalation against the Palestinian people.” On the West Bank, where a third of its 2.4 million inhabitants are registered as refugees, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah described the US move as “its latest blatant aggression against the rights of the Palestinian people, international law and UN General Assembly Resolution 302 of 1949, which specified that the UN agency was established to provide its services in all areas until the refugee issue is resolved.”
Subsequent to that resolution, the UN secretary-general established UNRWA at UN offices in Vienna. That meant having to deal with 914,221 Palestinians of whom some 500 000 qualified for UNRWA relief. Israel’s seizure of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip during the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War created another 335,000 displaced Palestinians, of whom 193,600 were eligible for the agency’s support.
As expected, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the US decision to cut aid to the humanitarian organization. He claimed that UNRWA was formed “not to absorb the refugees but to perpetuate them.” In the past he has argued that the agency should be abolished and its functions transferred to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR. It is worth noting that the UNHCR, founded in December 1950, came into existence one year after UNRAW.
In collusion with Israel, the Trump administration is pursuing a two-track policy: emasculating UNRAW of funds and calling for a redefinition of the term “refugee.” David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, refers to “so-called refugees” from other countries, “who have never spent a day of their lives in Israel.” However, there is no prospect of the United Nations altering its 69-year practice of treating the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees as refugees.
The consequences of weakening or abolishing UNRAW would be dire, most specialists on the Middle East have warned. Adnan Abu Hasna, the UNRWA spokesman in Gaza, said that if the agency’s network in the territory collapsed, all those school students would be in the streets: “There would be more negative energy – that’s a security danger not only for Gaza… but also for Israel. It’s a gift to terror.”
Outside of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the country most affected by the collapse of UNRAW would be Jordan. Of its 9.5 million inhabitants, 2.1 million are Palestinian refugees. Little wonder that its government has sponsored an emergency fundraising conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly due to open in New York on 18 September. Meanwhile, King Abdullah II of Jordan summarily rejected the Trump administration’s call to take over UNRWA’s Jordanian educational network. Jordan’s fear of regional destabilization caused by a debilitated or abolished UNRAW – likely to lead to the strengthening of such militant organizations as Hamas – is shared by the Arab Gulf monarchies and the European Union.
Noting that UNRWA’s funding crisis is fueling uncertainty, Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas addressed a letter to other EU foreign ministers, stating that Germany was ready to raise its agency contribution from the present sum of $94 million this year. In recent years, the European Union has been the second-largest contributor to UNRWA, accounting for $142 million in 2017. Expressing regret about the US decision, the EU said, “It is committed to secure the continuation and sustainability of the agency’s work which is vital for stability and security in the region.” From that perspective, contributions by EU member-states could be seen as part of their national security budget.
While the current financial crisis can be defused, the Trump administration is preparing to raise diplomatic barriers. According to Israel’s Channel-2 TV report, citing senior Israeli sources, the United States will not prevent the Gulf States, Arab nations and others from providing emergency funding to keep UNRWA running this year. Afterward, the United States will consent to further funding by Washington’s Arab allies only on a reevaluation of UNRWA’s role and a redefinition of whom the agency defines as a Palestinian refugee.
If so, it remains to be seen which Arab state will fall in line with Trump’s diktat, which expects aid to be offered only to those Palestinians displaced in 1948-1949 and 1967, but not to their descendants, thereby reducing the total by 90 percent. That would mean unilaterally usurping a right that rests exclusively and legally with the United Nations.
*Dilip Hiro is the author of A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East (Interlink Publishing Group, Northampton, MA. Read an excerpt. His forthcoming 37th book is Cold War in the Islamic World: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Struggle for Supremacy (Oxford University Press, New York/; Hurst & Co, London; and HarperCollins India, Noida).
The Archdiocese of Santiago in Chile has requested that the country’s Court of Appeals send an “exhorto” or judicial request, to the Vatican Secretary of State, asking the Vatican to provide all available information about the abuses perpetrated by Fr. Fernando Karadima. The request comes amid litigation following a lawsuit that has accused the archdiocese of covering-up Karadima’s actions.
“This request seeks to obtain all the information that may help determine the facts of the case,” the archdiocese wrote in a statement.
In Chilean judicial proceedings, an “exhorto” is akin to a subpoena for documents or information.
In 2011, Karadima was declared guilty of sexual abuse by the Vatican, which sentenced him to “a life of prayer and penance, also in reparation of the victims of his abuse.” In addition, the Vatican prohibited him from “the public exercise of any ministerial act, in particular confession or the spiritual direction of all categories of persons.” Controversially, he was not laicized.
In 2015, Juan Carlos Cruz, José Andrés Murillo and James Hamilton, three of Karadima’s victims, filed a lawsuit for “moral damages” against the Archdiocese of Santiago and requested the compensation of 450 million pesos (about $640,000) in addition to a public apology by the Church for the alleged cover-up of abuses.
In March 2017, after an investigation and more than 30 statements given, the Chilean court determined that there was no cover-up by the archdiocese and so dismissed the case.
The plaintiffs appealed the ruling and the lawsuit is now being reviewed by the Court of Appeals.
Archdiocese of Santiago spokesman Nicolas Luco said in a recent statement that “the judicial proceedings have not shown any evidence of cover-up as the lower court determined and for that reason it’s important to discover any new evidence in this matter.”
On April 28-29, the victims of Karadima met with Pope Francis in the Vatican. Those attending said that “the pope formally asked forgiveness in his own name and in the name of the universal church.”
Six-year-old Camila placed the pouch of chocolate milk she was carrying on top of her pink and purple Princess backpack and smiled at the camera, oblivious of the tragedy that surrounded her.
We were standing on the side of the road that connects Cúcuta, the largest border town in Colombia just a bridge away from Venezuela, with the interior of Colombia, as I interviewed Rosa, Camila’s mother.
Rosa told me that she had left her hometown in Venezuela because she could not afford enough food to feed her family or medicines to treat her daughter’s kidney stones. So they traveled through Venezuela by bus for hours and crossed the border into Colombia, heading for Medellín, where Camila’s father was waiting for them.
But without legal papers to stay in Colombia, they were unable to purchase a bus ticket and decided to walk to a town from which they would travel to Medellín. The hike through the hills, including areas with freezing temperatures, takes more than 47 hours on foot.
An Image “Unprecedented in Latin America”
Camila and Rosa, whose real names I haven’t used for their protection, are among the more than 200 Venezuelans who set out on foot from the border each day to try to reach a destination either in Colombia or elsewhere in the region.
A survey conducted in July by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs found that the Venezuelans who leave here on foot are walking an average of 16 hours per day and expected to walk for about 13 days. Some, like Rosa and Camila, walk because they have no papers. Many others cannot afford a bus ticket.
Most, unlike Rosa, had left their children behind in Venezuela. Few had enough resources to cover their journeys, many were not getting enough to eat, and more than 90 percent were sleeping in the streets. We heard story after story describing these same problems.
The Colombian Red Cross has set up tents on the side of the road, where an average of 80 Venezuelans a day stop to drink water, eat cookies, rest, and make phone calls, a volunteer told me.
Other Venezuelans cross to Roraima state in Northern Brazil, where the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in coordination with the Brazilian federal government, has set up 10 shelters that house more than 4,000 Venezuelans. In two of the shelters, hundreds of members of the Warao indigenous community sleep on colorful hammocks and get food to cook their own meals. In others, Venezuelans from all over the country get three meals per day and sleep in white tents or special refugee housing units — an image that reminds one of refugee camps in other parts of the world and is unprecedented in Latin America.
Many others, including entire families, are not so lucky. They’re sleeping on the streets, using public bathrooms with poor hygienic conditions, and eating at a church that gives out meals daily.
Despite the dramatic conditions they’re facing, which some have told me are humiliating, every one of the dozens of Venezuelans I interviewed in these circumstances said they were better off abroad than in Venezuela.
These Venezuelans are some of the most desperate faces of the massive exodus of Venezuelans who are fleeing a humanitarian crisis, a ruthless government crackdown, violent crime, and hyperinflation at home.
Over 2.3 million Venezuelans have left their country since 2014, according to the United Nations. Many others out of a population of 32 million have left without registering with government authorities abroad.
A Regional Crisis
Rosa worked at a shoe store back home, but her salary wasn’t enough to purchase adequate food for her child. She told me that many times she didn’t eat to be able to feed Camila. Her husband, a construction worker, left Venezuela months ago, and had just been able to wire her enough money for them to travel to the border.
Colombia has received by far the largest number of Venezuelan immigrants worldwide, with over 1 million people arriving there from Venezuela since March 2017. The Colombian government has made enormous efforts to address an overwhelming situation, adopting measures to provide Venezuelans with legal status and access to urgent health care, and allowing Venezuelans to enroll their children in school. Other initiatives in coordination with UN agencies and local groups provide services including meals, vaccinations, and shelter.
However, many Venezuelans in Colombia who have not registered with the government still have an irregular status and face an array of difficulties.
Other South American governments have also adopted special rules to provide Venezuelans permits to stay. These permits have provided legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, helping them rebuild their lives abroad.
Recently, however, some of these governments have made it much harder to obtain these permits. Chile, Peru, and Ecuador announced they would require Venezuelans entering the country to present their passports. Although Peru and Ecuador partially backtracked, it is important to note that this is an insurmountable hurdle for many. It sometimes takes as long as two years to get a passport in Venezuela these days.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans remain in an irregular situation in the region, which severely undermines their ability to obtain a work permit, send their children to school, and get health care. This makes them more vulnerable to labor and sexual exploitation, and human trafficking, as well was less likely to report abuses.
In some Caribbean islands, Venezuelans are being arrested arbitrarily and deported, or face xenophobic attacks. And after a violent attack by Brazilians accusing Venezuelans of being implicated in a crime in the border state of Roraima in August, hundreds of Venezuelans crossed back to Venezuela.
In the United States, Venezuelans have become the leading nationality requesting asylum. There were more than 72,000 Venezuelan asylum seekers in the United States as of June.
Putting Human Rights First
Responding to Venezuelan emigration has become a major challenge for governments in the region. While governments aren’t obligated to take in everyone, everyone should have the right under the 1951 international Refugee Convention to apply for asylum if they have a well-founded fear of being persecuted on racial, religious, political, or certain other grounds.
In addition, 15 governments in the region have incorporated a broader definition of “refugee” included in a nonbinding document, the Cartagena Declaration, into their legal frameworks. Under this declaration, people fleeing “massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order” may also be considered refugees. A Brazilian Supreme Court judge recently ruled that, by doing so, Brazil has a “duty of humanitarian protection” toward people fleeing Venezuela.
There is no easy solution to deal with the Venezuelan exodus. But an approach that is consistent with human rights requires treating Venezuelan immigrants humanely, and it is critical to coordinate a regional response to do so. Governments should carefully consider the claims of all Venezuelans who apply for refugee status.
They should also consider adopting legal pathways to offer legal status and protection to other Venezuelans fleeing the crisis, including the adoption of a region-wide temporary protection regime for Venezuelans. In addition, they should provide humanitarian assistance to Venezuelans who need it, and carry out awareness campaigns to fight discrimination and xenophobia.
As long as the Maduro government pursues abusive policies, Venezuelans will continue to flee, and Venezuelan walkers will continue walking, with or without help. Other governments should ensure that they can do so safely, and continue to press the Venezuelan government to address the crisis that is generating the exodus.
I left Rosa and Camila at a Red Cross tent, eating some candy and resting before moving on with their journey. The image of Rosa walking behind Camila on the narrow side of the road by a cliff, holding her daughter’s backpack and telling her to be careful, remains in my mind.
*Tamara Taraciuk Broner is a senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch. She’s a coauthor of the HRW report “The Venezuelan Exodus.”
The youth of ASEAN are highly optimistic about the impact of technology on their job prospects and incomes, according to a survey from the World Economic Forum.
Some 52% of the under-35 generation across South-East Asia said they believe that technology will increase the number of jobs available, while 67% said they believe that technology will increase their ability to earn higher incomes.
The survey, which was run in partnership with Sea, one of South-East Asia’s leading internet companies, gathered results from 64,000 ASEAN citizens through users of Garena and Shopee, Sea’s online games and e-commerce platforms, respectively. The majority of respondents were from six countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Singapore and the Philippines.
The degree of optimism about the impact of technology on the future of work varied strongly by country. The youth of Singapore and Thailand were much more pessimistic in their responses, while the youth of Indonesia and the Philippines were much more optimistic. In Singapore, only 31% said they believe that technology would increase the number of jobs, compared to 60% in the Philippines. The results also vary by level of education. Among those who stated they have no schooling, some 56% said they believe that technology would increase jobs. Among those with a university degree or higher, only 47% felt the same way.
“Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies like artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and self-driving vehicles will bring significant disruption to the job market,” said Justin Wood, Head of Asia Pacific, and Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum. “No one knows yet what impact these technologies will have on jobs and salaries. Globally there is concern that technological change may bring rising inequality and joblessness. But in ASEAN, the sentiment seems to be much more positive.”
Jobs in multinationals and government considered most desirable
The survey also asked young people to reveal what type of company they work for today and where they would like to work in the future. Today, 58% of the respondents work for small businesses – either for themselves, for their family business, or for a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME). A significant portion of youths (one in four) aspire to work for themselves and start their own business. However, many working for SMEs said that they would like to work for a different organization. Today, 17% work in an SME, but only 7% said that they would like to work in an SME in the future. In contrast, the results show a strong preference to work for foreign multinational companies (10% work for one today, but 17% want to work for one in future) and for governments (13% today compared to 16% in future).
These results suggest a preference for income stability, given the more unpredictable nature of employment in small organizations versus large ones. But there are nonetheless some countries that show a rising appetite for entrepreneurialism and the associated risk-taking it involves. In Thailand, for example, 26% of young people work for themselves today, but 36% said they would like to in future. In Viet Nam, 19% work for themselves today, compared to 25% that say they want to be self-employed in future.
Santitarn Sathirathai, Group Chief Economist at Sea, said: “It is encouraging to see such strong entrepreneurial drive among ASEAN’s young population, with one-quarter of respondents wanting to start their own business. However, the findings also suggest that SMEs may struggle for talent in the future, with a smaller share of the region’s youth willing to work for SMEs. Looking ahead, it will be important to continue to enhance SME adoption of digital technologies to ensure young entrepreneurs and small businesses have the resources they need to succeed.”
The survey also reveals that, across ASEAN, the youth spend an average of six hours and four minutes online every day, with 61% of that time spent on leisure, and 39% spent on work activities. Among the countries surveyed, the youth of Thailand spend the most time online – an average of seven hours and six minutes. The youth of Viet Nam spend the least time online – an average of five hours and 10 minutes.
It is not merely a denial to participate in the first ever joint military exercise within the framework of BIMSTEC (The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) from a close neighbor Nepal rather specific parallel developments in China-Nepal relations that would cause serious concerns within the Indian strategic circle.
Nepal is now poised to participate in a 12-day long joint military exercise with China termed as Sagarmatha Friendship-2 scheduled to be undertaken from September 17 to 28 in Chengdu. It is worthwhile to mention that even while it took 17 years for BIMSTEC to establish a permanent secretariat in Dhaka in 2014, India is recently making concerted attempts at invigorating the sub-regional initiative in the face of enhancing Chinese sway in the region.
In this context, Nepalese backtrack from joint military exercise on the ground that the initiative is meant for development and not to serve military purpose was bound to raise skepticism about bilateral ties in New Delhi.
In another development, in a meeting in Kathmandu, Chinese and Nepalese officials finalized the protocol of Transit and Transport Agreement (TTA) which would allow Nepal access to four Chinese ports in Tianjin, Shenzhen, Lianyungang and Zhanjiang including access to dry ports and roads facilities. This carries serious implications for India as it would go a long way in diminishing Kathmandu’s trade dependence on New Delhi.
It is fresh in memory that the communist leadership of Nepal extended warm welcome to Indian Prime Minister Modi on his visit to Nepal in May 2018, however, KP Oli government’s decision that the Nepalese Army will not participate in the first ever joint military exercise of BIMSTEC scheduled to be held from September 10, 2018, its willingness to participate in a joint military exercise with China and its attempts at lessening Nepal’s economic dependence on India by securing port and road facilities in China unambiguously point to the fact the South Asian neighbor is more within the Chinese orbit of influence than that of India.
India under Narendra Modi’s leadership underlining the importance of the South Asian neighborhood to realize the objective of rising beyond the region adopted a ‘neighborhood first’ policy. In line with this policy framework, he not only invited the leaders of the South Asian countries to his swearing in ceremony, he started his foreign visits with state visits in the neighborhood – Bhutan on 15-16 June, 2014 followed by Nepal on 3-4 August in the same year.
Further, in line with its ‘neighborhood first’ policy, New Delhi played a leading role in the deliberations of the 18th SAARC Summit held at Kathmandu on November 26-27, 2015 to strengthen the regional integration process and took initiatives in introducing connectivity proposals on road, rail and power (electricity) but in vain. However, the summit raised Indian concerns when specific South Asian countries including Nepal expressed their willingness to induct China from an ‘observer’ status to full membership in SAARC indicating the fact of rising Chinese influence in India’s neighborhood.
Nepalese distaste for India’s primacy in South Asia stems largely from New Delhi’s erratic policies towards its neighbor. Kathmandu not only viewed New Delhi’s support for the institution of Monarchy and then redirecting its support to democratic forces and its alleged involvement in undermining the rise of communist parties as opportunistic but India’s interference in its internal affairs. Use of economic blockade as a pressure tactic to bring in political influence in Nepal contributed to souring of bilateral relations in 1989-90.
Further, New Delhi has been implicated and criticized towards the end of 2015 for its alleged unofficial role in forcing an economic blockade in favor of Madhesi population as way to exert influence on the constitutional developments in Kathmandu. Although New Delhi claimed that the new Constitution of Nepal was allegedly framed in way to discriminate against Madheshi population who shared ethnic identity with similar groups in India and therefore it sought changes in the constitutional provisions to accommodate interests and rights of Madhesis, such claims could not dispel distrust in Kathmandu which was built upon Nepalese suspicions of Indian hegemonic intentions. New Delhi has had also ignored several Nepalese requests for assisting in the repartition of Bhutanese refugees which has been of crucial importance to Kathmandu.
While New Delhi has earned reputation in dispatching humanitarian missions soon after natural disasters or humanitarian crisis affected any of its South Asian neighbors and quickly responded to Nepalese crisis following an earthquake in 2015, this purely non-military and assistive role which should have enhanced India’s soft power in the neighborhood – astonishingly and ironically, drew criticisms from Nepalese because the Indian media was alleged to be insensitive and biased in its coverage of the disaster.
It is noteworthy that apart from training Nepalese soldiers every year, India lent support to train and equip Nepali police. Both India and Nepal have established security mechanisms like Nepal-India Bilateral Consultative Group on Security Issues. India has special Gurkha regiments comprising soldiers recruited from Nepal within its armed forces to bolster security ties between the two countries.
Despite these bilateral ties, as the Chinese foray into the South Asian region looms large given that the infrastructure projects under Chinese ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) have already taken off in the form of construction of roads, railways and air ports in landlocked Nepal to creation of ports, bridges and airport facilities in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives, any sign of Nepalese disagreement with Indian proposal (the proposal for the joint military exercise within BIMSTEC was made by the Indian Army in June 2018) and uptick in China-Nepal relations would indicate India’s inability to win trust in its neighborhood.
India, a country with mammoth size and large population drawn from diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic communities sharing commonalities with similar groups in the neighborhood and the fact that India and its neighbors share common geographical borders in the Himalayas and Indian Ocean engender perceptions of New Delhi’s legitimate security interests in the neighborhood to defend its territorial integrity from adverse political and military developments in the region, therefore, these developments in the neighborhood would be seriously viewed in New Delhi and would propel the security establishment to devise ways and means in order not to allow relations with Kathmandu sink further.
Russia’s troops are in Syria at the invitation of Syria’s Government and they have provided crucial assistance to restore the Government’s control over areas that the jihadists (sometimes called “Radical Islamic Terrorists” or otherwise) had seized. Consequently, unlike the Turks and the Americans, who are invaders of Syria, Russia is instead a defender of Syria, and is committed to doing there only what the Syrian Government authorizes it to do and what Russia is willing to do there.
Both Democratic and Republican U.S. federal officials and former officials are overwhelmingly supportive of U.S. President Trump’s newly announced determination to prohibit Syria from retaking control of that heavily jihadist province, and they state such things about Idlib as:
It has become a dumping ground for some of the hardcore jihadists who were not prepared to settle for some of the forced agreements that took place, the forced surrenders that took place elsewhere. … Where do people go when they’ve reached the last place that they can go? What’s the refuge after the last refuge? That’s the tragedy that they face.
That happened to be an Obama Administration official expressing support for the jihadists, and when he was asked by his interviewer “Did the world fail Syria?” he answered “Sure. I mean, there’s no doubt about it. I mean, the first person who failed Syria was President Assad himself.”
The U.S. Government in 2003 said that Saddam Hussein had failed Iraq and so America and its allies invaded and occupied there in 2003; and then America and its allies said that Muammar Qaddafi had failed Libyans and so invaded and occupied there in 2011; but, unlike Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, neither of those two heads-of-state was backed by Russia, and Assad is. That’s the main difference between him and those others. But the U.S. Government still demands ‘victory’ there; and, so, the world stands at the brink of WW III, the war to end all wars and (unlike its two predecessors) to end ourselves.
Therefore, unless Assad will simply hand Idlib over to adjoining Turkey, there will be war between the U.S. and Russia over Idlib. Since neither side will publicly admit its defeat in that U.S.-Russia war, the loser in it will naturally invade the other; and, regardless of whether the U.S. or Russia will be the first to do that (go nuclear), each of the two sides will still be able to annihilate the other after the other’s sudden blitz nuclear attack; and the end-result will be not only an unprecedentedly nuclear-contaminated planet, but a nuclear winter following it, in which agriculture will collapse, and the survivors will wish that they weren’t.
The way for the plan to avert that outcome to be carried out would be:
Assad and Putin both will announce that due to the complaints from the U.S. Government and from the United Nations and from the Turkish Government, Syria will give up Idlib province, and will construct on the border between it and the adjoining areas of Syria, a DMZ or De-Militarized Zone, so that not only will the residents in Idlib be safe from any attack by Syria and its allies (such as America and its allies have been demanding), but Syrians — in all the others of Syria’s provinces — will likewise be safe against any continued attacks by the jihadists that have concentrated themselves in Idlib.
This way, Turkey’s President Erdogan can safely keep his 50,000 troops in Idlib if he wishes; America’s President Trump can claim victory in Syria and finally fulfill his long-promised intention to end the U.S. occupation of (most of the jihadist-controlled) parts of Syria (which they’ve occupied), and maybe WW III can be avoided, or, at least, postponed, maybe even so that people living today won’t be dying-off from WW III and its after-effects.
If this peaceful path to ending the prelude to WW III — to avoiding the jump off a nuclear cliff — succeeds, then the world will be able to continue debating who was right and who was wrong in all of this. But, otherwise, that debate will simply be terminated by the war itself, and everyone will end up losing.
Here is how these and associated matters are being taught to school students in the United States. It’s a magazine that’s handed out free to school students in the U.S. to teach them the ‘history’ behind these current events, though it conflicts with the actual history behind them: but, of course, those children won’t know that history, because it’s not being taught to them.
*Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010.
The ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau (often referred as the “third pole of the Earth”) is highly susceptible to climate change. Using precipitation and temperature records along with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data, Dr. Ting Hua from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources and Prof. Xunming Wang from the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, analyzed the temporal and spatial variations in the relationship between factors controlling climate and vegetation dynamics over the Tibetan Plateau during the period 1982-2011.
Dr. Hua explains their findings: “In the central and southeastern Plateau, there were continued decreases in the otherwise positive and significant correlations between vegetation activity and precipitation prior to the growing season in the mid-1990s, whereas at the same time the correlation coefficients between temperature and NDVI increased to become significant and positive, which suggests that the dominant climate factor controlling the vegetation activity in this region may have switched from precipitation to temperature in the mid-1990s.”
They further conclude that the changing climate condition in the context of global climate warming might be the potential contributor to this shift in the climate factors controlling vegetation dynamics on the central and southeastern Plateau.
Should it matter this much? A wealthy, successful individual expressed fury at the most popular object of vitriol in any sport. The umpire or referee is only ever neutral in the eyes of a falsely contrived standard: that someone must be objective, neutral and mindful of enforcing the rules of the game. In the eyes of the player, the figure who judges and assesses the course of a match can become an enemy, a monster of burden. In the US Open Women’s Tennis Final, that beast was umpire Carlos Ramos.
It all began with coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who seemed to be signalling to Williams during the match, thereby committing a violation in attempting to steer the game. Williams lost one point as a result. Calls of “liar” and “thief” followed, resulting in another violation. Matters escalated, and Williams was held to have committed another code violation in demolishing her racquet. Her call of fury: “Sexism!”
Williams was truculent, justifiably at first instance for not necessarily noticing her coach and being punished as a result. But a person who has won 23 times at the highest level is bound to feel slighted by certain decisions, notably those that throw her off her stroke. The blood, and mind, has adjusted to glory. It did not take time for the machine of social media and commentary to boil down the details and decide that a strict reading of the rules by Ramos entitled him to be pilloried. He was all establishment, all power, and poor discretion. A woman, accused former world number one Billy Jean King, is deemed hysterical if she disagrees with an umpire’s ruling; a man, she suggested, is considered outspoken and forthright, the bad boy to be celebrated.
King went so far as to see the entire spectacle in terms of archaic laws and an “abuse of power”, a small step towards throwing the entire rule book out, along with its musty ridden representatives. She fantasised about the injustice of the whole thing, and proceeded to strain the scene of every single implication of identity: “The ceiling that women of colour face on their path to leadership never felt more impenetrable than it did on at the women’s US Open final on Saturday.”
Commentators focused on the denial of Williams’ entitlement for a suitable comeback “just one year after having a baby and fighting for her own life after childbirth.” Destiny had been confounded. Shaded into obscurity was Williams’ victorious Japanese opponent Naomi Osaka, herself of colour and her country’s first Grand Slam title winner, and of a state not exactly renowned for splashing out on hand clapping ceremonies of racial tolerance and cuddly harmoniousness.
As is rarely the case in such suppositions, a closer examination of the Ramos record to men and women would have been instructive, including those super stars who feel they are above reproach from the person in the chair. Many less robust umpires prefer to let the hotheads be; we live in an age of extreme trigger warning laced sensitivity.
Ramos, for his part as a firm, if pedantic umpire, has stared down players of all sorts, merits and vintages. The men should know. Novak Djokovic received a fault for time violations during the 2017 French Open; the inevitable loud retort landed him a code violation. Andy Murray received a rap over the knuckles for uttering “stupid umpiring” during the 2016 Olympics. Ditto the perennially volatile infant-in-a-man’s body Nick Krygios, whose abuse of a towel boy earned him a violation that same year.
The issue of gender never featured during this particular final, bar an anguished cry from Williams suggesting it might have. For Ramos to have not issued code violations could just as well have led to arguments of sexism in reverse. Attempts to read it otherwise return to the traditional hostility (archaic or otherwise) shown towards a figure touted as neutral when he is deemed sporting kind’s appointed enemy. This was a more traditional spat between sports performer and the ruling figure, one imposed upon the players by authority and regulation. Williams bucked it and was duly punished. Her opponent could only watch and feel embarrassed.
Mouratoglou, who has bleached himself of blame, added further grist to that troubled mill in the match’s aftermath, suggesting that all coaches breached the code during matches. He, however, had not been caught doing it – at least till now. “All coaches are coaching throughout the match. But check the record. I’ve never been called for a coaching violation in my career.” It’s not a violation if you’re not caught.
He also found time to dash off other locker-room opinions, showing an urgent need to sing for his supper: “The star of the show has been once again the chair umpire. Second time in this US Open and third time for Serena in a US Open Final. Should they be allowed to have an influence on the result of a match? When do we decide that this should never happen again?” The umpire will always have an influence on the outcome of a match because decisions change the course of proceedings. Perhaps a ceremonial and deterrent lynching might be in order? (King makes a more modest recommendation: permit coaches latitude to be involved during the match.)
Gender codes and socially stretched theories have a habit of denying the individual free will. Forget it, banish it; the spectator, commentator and agonisingly opinionated will foist one upon you. Agency is banished, subordinated to a superstructure. Williams is not treated as a grand slam champion and athletic phenomenon (her track record heavenly screams it), but a creature crushed by the “male” perception that looms large, or some other impediment that does wonders to distract from her brattish appeal. (During the 2009 US Open, the brat was in full flight when Williams threatened to deposit a tennis ball down an unfortunate lineswoman’s throat.)
This was a battle of wills, and Williams lost it. We return to the old story: the umpire did it, and thank the confused deities above he did. He has always been responsible for the Great Flood, syphilis and famine. He might be cruel to children, perhaps even eat them. He will always be and coming out in defence of the umpire in any sport is much like siding with Colonel William Bligh against the mutineers. We all need our anointed alibis to justify defeat and loss.
Ambassador of Mauritius to the Russian Federation, (H.E.) Mr. Maheshwar Singh Khemlolive, has visited the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation to discuss about the investment, trade and economic potential of Mauritius and the development of new areas of cooperation with Russia.
Mr. Khemlolive expressed satisfaction with the current level of bilateral relations, and suggested that further steps were necessary to deepen Russia-Mauritius cooperation especially in trade, economic and tourism areas.
On September 19th, Moscow will host the next presentation of the investment and economic potential of Mauritius, after that from November 19th to 23rd Mauritius will host the 2nd Mauritius-Russian Investment Forum.
An important basis for the economy of Mauritius is the development of tourism, he said, and acknowledged further that “a special role in establishing and strengthening mutually beneficial bilateral contacts is played by business associations and chambers of commerce and industry.”
He pointed to the fact that strengthening ties with Russia is an important factor for the country’s further development and the trade relations between Mauritius and Russia have great potential.
Mauritius is a direct gateway to the markets of Africa, India and China, therefore, Russian business can use this opportunity to establish business ties. Russian investors will find a very comfortable business climate for doing business in Mauritius, Mr. Khemlolive said.
The tourism assets are its main strength backed by well-designed and run hotels, reliable and operational services, and infrastructure, he noted.
With this background, the Ambassador described the ocean economy is seen as the next driver of growth, transforming the small island state into a 1.9 sq. km into an Ocean State.
In order to realise this economic goal, seven priority areas have been identified:
• Seabed exploration for hydrocarbon and minerals
• Fishing, seafood processing and aquaculture
• Deep ocean water applications
• Marine services (including marine finance, marine ICT, marine biotechnology and ship registration)
• Seaport-related activities
• Marine renewable energies
• Ocean knowledge cluster
Last November, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Seetanah Lutchmeenaraido, headed a business delegation to a similar forum looking for long-term partnership in high technology, transport, fishing and tourism.
At the same time, the delegation show-cased the transition of Mauritius from an offshore financial centre to a full fledge regional financial hub and promoted investment opportunities across various sectors. It portrayed the island as a strategic platform for structuring investments and managing operations in Africa.
Whether in theory or practice, Russia is prepared to share its technologies and developments in the field of mining, the building of transport infrastructure, in the energy sector, information technology and agriculture. But, Russia is seriously lagging behind in developing trade-economic ties with Africa.
Experts have often suggested that there was the need for both Russians and Africans to make bridges for establishing practical contacts, not only Mauritius business, but also other countries and/or regions in Africa. Further, Russia and Africa have to design strategies for improving overall public diplomacy.
Mauritius is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 km) off the southeast coast of the African continent. It is ranked high in terms of economic competitiveness, a friendly investment climate, good governance and a free economy.
Besides, it is a country with dynamically growing economy, high living standards and favorable conditions for doing business. The World Bank report in 2016, said Mauritius occupied the first place among African countries south of the Sahara on the business climate.
It has strong and friendly relations with various African and foreign countries. Mauritius and Russia have good diplomatic relations. In March 2018, Mauritius marked its 50th year of diplomatic relations with Russia.
A list of 26 predominantly Muslim countries considered sensitive by China reflects Chinese concerns that they could reinforce religious sentiment among the People’s Republic’s Turkic Muslim population with potentially far-reaching consequences if the Islamic world were to take it to task for its crackdown in Xinjiang, the most frontal assault on Islam in recent history.
The list compiled by Human Rights Watch as part of a just published report on the crackdown in China’s strategic north-western province details the roll-out of the world’s most intrusive, 21st century surveillance state as well as an attempt to re-educate a population of 10 million that includes primarily Uyghurs, an ethnically Turkic Muslim group, as well as Muslims of Central Asian origin.
The re-education is designed to reshape the population’s religious beliefs so that they adopt an interpretation of Islam that is in line with the Chinese Communist Party’s precepts rather than prescriptions of Islamic holy texts in a bid to counter Turkic Muslim nationalist, ethnic or religious aspirations as well as political violence.
China’s crackdown, according to a plan developed by the Baluntai Town government in north-central Xinjiang, involves targeting among others Turkic Muslims who remain in contact with family and friends abroad, people who have stayed abroad “too long” and those who have, independently and without state permission, organized Hajj pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia. China is particularly concerned about Uyghur contact with Muslim countries.
“It was 2 a.m. and my daughters (in a foreign country) were chatting with their father (in Xinjiang) on the phone. You know, they’re daddy’s girls and they were telling him all their secrets … when suddenly my daughters ran in to tell me, ‘The authorities are taking away daddy!’” Human Rights Watch quoted Inzhu, a 50-year-old mother, who lives in an unidentified country, as saying.
The Muslim world’s silence constitutes for China a double-edged sword. China’s campaign in Xinjiang is effectively enabled by the silence, driven primarily by a desire of governments, many of which are deeply indebted to China, to preserve economic relations, and allows it to largely ignore criticism by Western nations, human rights groups as well as the Uyghur Diaspora.
On the flip side, silence potentially gives Muslim countries a degree of leverage. Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad seemingly exploited that leverage with China treading carefully in the face of an anti-Chinese election campaign that returned the 93-year old to office in May and Mr. Maharthir’s subsequent suspension of US$22 billion of Chinese-backed, Belt an d Road-related infrastructure projects.
The risk for China is that mushrooming publicity about its crackdown in Xinjiang that includes pressure on Uyghurs abroad to return to the Chinese province and risk incarceration and has led to countries like Egypt, Afghanistan the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia, extraditing Uyghurs to China, will make it increasingly difficult for Muslim countries to remain silent.
The risk is also that the crackdown could have a boomerang effect, fuelling radicalization at home as well as abroad. A study, by Qiu Yuanyuan, a scholar at the Xinjiang Party School, where officials are trained, that was quoted in The New York Times, warned that “recklessly setting quantitative goals for transformation through education has been erroneously used.. The targeting is imprecise, and the scope has been expanding.”
The risks are enhanced by black swans such as a recent court case in Kazakhstan that has forced the government in Astana to walk a fine line between avoiding friction with China and shielding itself from accusations that it is not standing up for the rights and safety of Kazakh nationals.
Kazakhs were taken aback when 41-year-old Sayragul Sauytbay, a Chinese national of Kazakh descent, testified in an open Kazakh court that she had been employed in a Chinese re-education camp for Kazakhs only that had 2,500 inmates. She said she was aware of two more camps reserved for Kazakhs.
Ms. Sauytbay was standing trial for entering Kazakhstan illegally. She said she had escaped to Kazakhstan after being told by Chinese authorities that she would never be allowed to join her family because of her knowledge of the camps. Ms. Sauytbay was given a six-month suspended sentence and allowed to stay in the country where her recently naturalized husband and children reside.
The inclusion of ethnic Kazakhs, a community in China of 1.25 million people, in the crackdown sparked angry denunciations in Kazakhstan’s parliament. “There should be talks taking place with the Chinese delegates. Every delegation that goes there should be bringing this topic up… The key issue is that of the human rights of ethnic Kazakhs in any country of the world being respected,” said Kunaysh Sultanov, a member of parliament and former deputy prime minister and ambassador to China.
Beyond economic leverage, China has so far benefited from the fact that Muslim politicians and leaders see more political mileage in pushing causes like the Palestinians rather than ones that have not been in the Islamic world’s public eye.
There are fresh reports of heightened violence and insecurity in Afghanistan. Kabul regime supported by NATO is unable to exercise power and control its territory. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is making the second tour to Afghanistan within two months. Imran Khan, the newly elected PM of Pakistan, primarily worried about fixing governance at home is distracted over the situation in Afghanistan. On 30 August 2018, the PM spent eight hours, with Pak Army and ISI chief in GHQ Rawalpindi discussing how to handle difficult neighbourhood of Pakistan.
Afghanistan’s location at the crossroads of the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia for centuries has made a friendly neighbourhood elusive. Although religious, ethnic, economic, and cultural ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan run deep and wide, the two countries have frequently been at odds with one another. During the Cold War, Afghanistan became a battleground in the global conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States, with Pakistan as a key ally to the U.S.
It is true that Pakistan fears an Afghan government patronized by India, potentially helping encircle Pakistan, and an unstable Afghanistan that becomes—as has already happened—a safe haven for anti-Pakistan militant groups and a dangerous playground for outside powers. Whether the recent warming of relations between the two countries, following a change in government in Pakistan in August 2018 when Imran Khan becomes prime minister, translates into lasting and substantial changes in Afghanistan’s policy remains is yet to be seen.
If Afghanistan continues to harbours‘ groups’ that infiltrate Pakistan on behest of India, then even the newly elected most confident PM of Pakistan would be struck up in internal security and not be able to extend help to the US or even to Afghanistan.
A section of people in Afghanistan blames Pakistan for Afghan misfortunes. However, most people do understand that Pakistan cannot undermine own security by endangering next door neighbour Afghanistan. Pakistan has been making efforts to facilitate a dialogue based solution for complex Afghan problem. Pakistan on the other hand keeps expressing its sincerity and one way of this expression is facilitating dialogues between various factions, tribes and countries to resolve Afghan issue. However, there are limits to Pakistani influence over the Afghan Taliban and their splinter groups.
Pakistan has itself suffered enormously because of recent Afghan quagmire. With over 60,000 losses to life and of over 118$ Billion to the economy, the country stands behind only Afghanistan in sufferings. Pakistan has always offered and executed its sincere offer of help to Afghanistan on multiple fronts in an unparalleled way. However, the insurgency in Afghanistan is forceful and real and not in control of any neighbouring country.
The blame game of involving each other ’s internal affairs is on the turf again. Afghanistan is accusing unobstructed flow of militants infiltrating from the Pakistani side of the border to Afghanistan. Afghanistan has no regard of Pakistan ’s troops deployment along the border to prevent any infiltration across and its successful operations in Swat, South Waziristan and elsewhere. Without giving recognition to Pakistan’s substantive effort against the militants, Afghanistan’s rhetoric ‘to do more’ is spoiling the trust and confidence. Afghanistan has also failed to satisfy Pakistan on its counter accusations that many Indian consulates in Afghanistan appear to be indulging in undesirable activities against Pakistan. Compared to Pakistani efforts, the Afghan efforts including NATO troops are not only negligible but extremely limited.
The most important aspect is to avoid blame game and look to the positives. Pak Afghan relations have witnessed numerous ups and downs. Recently Pakistanis as well as the Afghan analysts have declared the political developments in Pakistan as positive. Let us hope, the charismatic PM of Pakistan, Imran Khan is able to bring peace in the region. However, Mike Pompeo should also realize the limits of Pakistan influence over the Afghan Taliban and should not ask for the moon. Neither Taliban nor the US can win Afghanistan militarily; the earlier it is realized the better.
*Atta Rasool Malik hails from semi-tribal areas of Pakistan. He is a veteran and holds an M Phil degree in international relations’ from National Defence University in Islamabad. His interests include politics of South Asia, the Middle East and Islamic & Jewish theology.
Every year, the world leaders gather for conference at Munich to discuss global peace and security. But, the conference of 2007 is of exceptional nature because of the famous speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose speech was not very different from that of the ‘Great Funeral oration’ by famous ancient Athenian General Pericles, which was patriotic and concerning peace of the world.
Perhaps, there is a need of Hermeutic and philological approaches to understand the interpretation of verbiage of his speech. Vladimir Putin painstakingly gesticulated various dimensions of the global political transformations that took place in the Post-cold war arena. The key focus of the speech was global security architecture and the failure of the unipolar world order to maintain peace and stability. Moreover, the speech also pinpointed the future dimension of security in Europe and Eurasia, involving NATO and Russia. Because, various significant political and strategic development occurred at the global level since 2007, including Russian-Georgian Fiasco (2008), Arab Spring (2011), and Russian-Ukrainian Conflict (2014).
In the beginning of the speech, Putin divulged his intentions about the global security that must be maintained based on the multi-lateral diplomatic process involving all the States, which have in one way or another holds stakes in shaping world order. Referring to the ideological confrontation of the cold war, he said:
“Only two decades ago, the world was ideologically and economically divided and it was the huge strategic potential of two superpowers that ensured global security—This global standoff pushed the sharpest economic and social problems to the margins of the global Community’s and world’s agenda. And, just like any war, the Cold War left us with live ammunitions, ideological stereotypes and Cold War bloc thinking.”
Indicating the failure of unipolar world order, he said:
“The unipolar world that had been proposed after the Cold War did not take place either. The history of humanity has gone through unipolar periods and seen aspirations to the World supremacy that always ended up in tragedy—It is the world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And, at the end of the day, this is pernicious not only for those within the system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.”
Putin also specified certain issues of multiple qualifications especially in due respect to her European Partners, which see Russia as a threat to European security. And, the so-called Western Liberal-Centric media outlets that broadcasts fake news on Russia based on fallacious facts. For instance, the fake story of Russian delivery of Nuclear sample to Iran in the 1990s was speculated by the Western Media. Mentioning the global nuclear Future, Putin reiterated:
“It is impossible to sanction the appearance of new, destabilizing nuclear weapons hi-tech weapons—Needless to say, it refers to measures to prevent a new area of confrontation, especially in outer space because Star Wars are no longer a fantasy; it is a reality.”
Recently, Donald Trump administration in the US has decided to create space force to protect the outer space, that could forge other countries like India, Russia and China to follow the suit. In contrast, the Hi-tech based arm race seems vivid in the foreseeable future especially among the incumbent nuclear nations. On the Contrary, Putin also raised his concerns regarding the bureaucratic centralization in the Organization for security and cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is a major barrier in disrupting cooperation between member states. Referring to the OSCE’s performance, Putin said:
“ What do we see happening today? The balance of Cooperation in the OSCE, is clearly destroyed. People are trying to transform OSCE into a vulgar instrument designed to promote the foreign policy interests of one or a group of countries. This task is also being accomplished by the OSCE’s bureaucratic apparatus.”
Likewise, if we overhaul the principles written in the founding documents of OSCE regarding the humanitarian domain; it solely aims at assisting the member country to keep the International Human rights norms. But, there is no mention about the interference in the internal political matters of the member state under the guise of organization platform. The OSCE’s interference policy was clearly pinpointed by Putin in his speech.
In contrast, the speech was clearly describing the double standards perused by the western democracies while dictating Russia towards democratic transition. The 125 foreign experts that came to Russia under Boris Yeltsin regime failed to transform the Russian institutions instead their actions raised concerns in the kremlin’s inner circle about the hidden intention. This is how the cooperation gap widened between the Russian and western officials, that still continues today. The West in particular the US administrations have ignored the serious Political warning of Russia at different forums. Therefore, in 2013, the Russian defense ministry’s annual strategic plan titled; “ The defense of Russia”, predicted a serious global or regional conflict involving Russia before 2023—it could be Syria.
*Shahzada Rahim is a student at International Islamic University, Pakistan, pursuing a Masters in Politics and International Studies with interests in writing on history, current affairs, geopolitics and the international political economy.
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia held a service to dedicate the Church of the Holy Martyr Tatiana in Kogalym, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District – Yugra, on Sunday. The construction of the new church was funded by the LUKOIL Charitable Foundation, while the design and survey work was financed as part of a cooperation agreement between LUKOIL and the region’s government.
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill delivered a primatial address and bestowed a miraculous reliquary with relics of Saint Tatiana upon the newly dedicated temple. The relics had been donated earlier by the Roman Catholic Church in honor of the Russian Orthodox Church.
For assistance in the construction of the Church of the Holy Martyr Tatiana the President of PJSC LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov was awarded the Order of Glory and Honor of the third degree, Vice-President of PJSC LUKOIL, General Director of “LUKOIL-Western Siberia” Sergey Kochkurov and several other employees of the Company were awarded Patriarchal letters.
“With the award of the Order of Glory and Honor of the third degree, Vagit Alekperov becomes a full custodian of this highest order of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are very few such people in our country,” – His Holiness Patriarch Kirill said.
“Your Holiness, I am happy to receive such a high award. I am confident that today all the thousands of LUKOIL personnel have been honored to receive this award. A unique temple in Kogalym was built according to your will,” – said the President of PJSC” LUKOIL “Vagit Alekperov.
After the service, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia paid a visit to the mission of the Puhtitsa stauropegic Convent of Dormition and viewed a commemorative pillar in honor of the dedication of the convent by the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Russia, Alexis II, in September of 1998.
His Holiness also visited Kogalym’s integrated social-security center providing healthcare and rehabilitation services to welfare beneficiaries as part of 29 inhouse-developed programs. In 2017, assistance was provided to 7,275 people.
The impact of the globalization process, which has brought unprecedented changes in societies and accelerated the pace of the scientific and technological development has caught the human beings unprepared and there is still a number of issues at mega and micro levels which need to be examined with great care to protect ethical and human values, as well as, the unique characteristics of societies.1
Abdul Majid Jaffry, writing in Islamic City views globalization as a Western veiled form of cultural colonization and alienation:2
“However, when we cut through the elitist’s rhetoric of globalization, we find ourselves twinkling around at the glimmering light of the western world. The culture and liberal capitalism that is being pushed, under the cover of globalization, in the Muslim countries is not global; it is but a western culture based on the core values and core achievements of the western civilization. It’s simply an attempt at imposing of the cultural-forming institutions of the dominant west on the feeble and frail nations – nations who suffered cultural degeneration during the long colonial rule and incapable of mounting any formidable resistance against the onslaught of western social, cultural, and political ideology.”
In the context of globalization, the safeguarding of the cultural specificities of Muslim people has become an essential factor to preserve their identity and a vital element that enriches cultural diversity and the expected dialogue among cultures and civilizations.3 Throughout their history, original education institutions have played an important role in protecting the Islamic identity and withstanding any attempt to obliterate or dissolve it.4 They have, indeed, significantly contributed to raising human, economic and social development indicators in the Islamic countries by reducing illiteracy rates and enabling young people access the labor market by providing them with theoretical and practical training and infusing them with the values advocating action and income-generation. Now, there is a need to enhance this education in the light of cultural and economic requirement of the modern world: dialogue, tolerance, peace, gender issues, employment, etc.5
The Scourge Of Illiteracy
Courtyard, Al-Qarawiyyin University, Fes. Morocco, the oldest in the world. Photo by Khonsali, Wikipedia Commons.Illiteracy among Muslims is still the most dangerous scourge and challenge that impede any optimum investment of human resources in the implementation of the national development plans in their countries. Due to many complex factors related to the political, cultural, economic, social and demographic conditions, the efforts led so far in several Muslim countries to combat and eradicate this scourge still prove inadequate. Worse even, this scourge has taken on alarming proportions in countries with a long-standing record of political and social instability. The truth of the matter is that illiteracy is besides being an economic scourge on the individual, his family and country, it is also a danger on the stability of people and social and political institutions, given that such citizens can be easy prey for extremists that use them to achieve their vile and dangerous objectives.6
Under the sweeping changes being witnessed in the world of technology and applied science and the corollary prosperity in the industry of information, the sector of services, and the developments in the labor market and the production systems, it has become necessary for the international and regional bodies active in the field of education as well as the competent ministries, centers for studies, prospection, planning and school counseling across the world, to initiate revision of the existing educational plans and policies in order to chart the strengths and weaknesses in the educational systems7 all over the world, and to draw up a roadmap for actions likely to qualify the educational systems in the world to effectively contribute to the much-desired human and societal development.8
Defending Spiritual And Scientific Knowledge
The modern university is expected to aim at addressing the epistemic crisis resulting from the separation between knowledge and religion and the stripping of science of religious values and contents and of philosophical insights. It, also, seeks to further understanding of Islam along with its intellectual and philosophical trends, and to take stock of human expertise in the different fields of knowledge and assimilate it in the structure of Islamic thought, in a sound and reasonable way.
Other aims include asserting the importance of integration and creative coexistence between natural, human and social sciences, on the one hand, and between copying, reasoning and educating on the other. The ultimate goal is to build the well-balanced Muslim personality which draws in its thinking, methods and behavior on harmony between rational, spiritual and scientific knowledge.
Islam was the first civilization and culture ever to balance unity and diversity. It was, indeed, the melting pot of different peoples and cultures who rallied around this monotheist religion that provides for the right to diversity and difference, without any discrimination or segregation. It is a call for mutual acquaintance and concord, as Allah says in the Quran:
“O mankind! We created you of a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other, not that you despise each other (emphasis mine, Mohamed Chtatou). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God is he who is the most righteous” [Al-Hujurat (the Dwellings) 49:13],
and, also,:
“And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colors” [Ar-Rum (the Romans) 30:21].
As a result of this avant-garde cultural vision, the peoples of the Islamic Ummah proceeded to writing their languages in the Arabic script so as to remain spiritually linked to the Quran9, and to its culture, language, sciences, arts and literature, as well as, to the noble tradition of the Prophet Muhammad. Thus, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Bengalis and others wrote their languages in Arabic, similarly as the Hausas, Fulanis, Swahilis and others, known as Ajami script10. These languages have greatly progressed and the literary, artistic, scientific and cultural heritage of their people registered significant improvement, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of manuscripts housed in libraries and documentation centers.
With regard to indigenous cultures11, delays in the adoption of a universal convention on the protection of popular arts, traditional know-how and genetic resources confirm the economic and cultural challenges inherent to this issue. With this in mind, emphasis must be laid in this sensitization process on the role of traditional know-how in sustainable development. Indeed, it is not enough to guarantee the right of linguistic minorities to cultural expression, but, also, their right to monitor the exploitation of their intellectual heritage.12 Furthermore, and considering the major role the civil society plays in this regard as the link between national policies and the strategies of sustainable development international organizations, the scope of partnerships with civil society organizations and institutions will be broadened to achieve the desired objectives.13
Taj Mahal, India.
Islamic countries have always placed greater emphasis on the promotion of social and human sciences policies and programmes at national, regional and international levels. As such, action will have to be taken to facilitate implementation of national social and human policies through the convening of various events with the objective to advance knowledge, standards, freedom and human dignity and to enable Islamic countries to adopt social transformations in accordance with the Islamic spirit and values.
Efforts to support education and research programmes14 of the institutions to prepare suitable human resources and to enable researchers to identify and solve social, cultural and human problems arising from the development of new trends and reactions in the society will have to be sustained. Research results will be utilized to contribute to policy formulation and implementation of action according to the real needs of populations.15 Emphasis will also be laid on enhancing the roles of various sections of society through wider dissemination of knowledge, and understanding of social and human issues so as to enable the general public to play an effective role in determining the trends of society.
Athar Osama and Nidhal Guessoum in an article entitled: “Scientific research: Are these the dark ages in the Muslim world?”, argue quite rightly that a survey of Muslim institutes of higher learning finds them lagging behind the rest of world when it comes to providing quality science and tech education 16:
“It is a well-known fact that 1.6 billion Muslims contribute a disproportionately smaller share to the world’s knowledge. This global community – forming the majority population of 57 countries and spanning virtually every single country of the world – has had only three Nobel laureates in science in the history of this prestigious prize. The number of universities from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation member countries in the top 500 universities of the world is only a little better than that.
Clichés aside, there is a widely shared view that science in the Muslim world is significantly lagging behind the rest of the world. This view is partly based on indicators, such as global university rankings, research spending, researchers per million people, performance of pre-university students etc. The causes of this bad performance and potential remedies are hotly debated.”
And go on to say, with much emphasis:
“Universities of the Muslim world have not ranked highly in the various global university rankings. In the 2014-15 edition of the QS World University Rankings, no university of the Muslim world was in the top 100, and only 17 ranked among the top 400 (11 between 300 and 400). Similarly, the most recent Times Higher Education World University Rankings had only 10 universities from the Muslim world in the top 400 (five of them between 300 and 400). This has often led to repeated calls to enhance rankings of universities in the Muslim world and to create world-class universities. While there has been some advancement on the former, the latter has remained largely inaccessible.
Safeguarding Rights
Muslim mother and daughter.
Recognition of human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in politics and culture, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to education, is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) provided basic foundation to proclaim that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Islam has always promoted human, civil, economic and social rights; asserting these rights provides firm foundation for peace and justice and allows all human beings to live with each other with dignity and freedom.17
Woman is equal to man in pursuits of knowledge and same vital to life. The status of women in Islam constitutes no problem. Islam grants equal right to woman to contract, to enterprise, to earn and to posses independently. Efforts will have to be continued to promote gender equality and balance. Acknowledgement of social rights of women is an urgent necessity and has undeniably to be followed by projecting women’s role in social development, keeping in view Islamic principles and values.18
Conferences, seminars and symposia will have to be organized to examine women progress towards empowerment and gender equality and social, economic, political and cultural obstacles, to increase their capacity. Projects will have to be implemented to strengthen their role in social development through cross-cutting themes especially related to poverty alleviation in poor localities. In order to uplift women especially in rural and urban areas. Formal and non-formal education and training will be utilized in order to alleviate their role and provide equal opportunities in the social development of their societies and to achieve self-fulfillment.
Advocating Dialogue And Tolerance
As a result of new threats and the outbreak of violent inter-ethnic conflicts in many parts of the world in recent years, violent terrorist incidents, international level propaganda against Islam, as well as the introduction of new technologies and certain scientific developments and the process of globalization, an increased surge in social problems has been observed. Societies and communities have also observed an increase in intolerance and hatred among human beings on the basis or fundamentalism, extremism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related Intolerance. In order to respond to the challenges emerging in modern societies, it is necessary to adopt an integrated approach to combat racism, discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance. Islamic countries will have to take step to combat all forms of racism, xenophobia and discrimination and to promote dialogue among civilizations in order to resolve all kind of differences and bring conformity in the creation of peaceful social conditions.
It is a fact that intolerance exists in the Muslim world among a minority of fundamentalists and followers of the infamous al-Qaeda and ISIS but the truth is that the majority of Muslims in the 54 countries of the Islamic world are peace-lovers and fully tolerant and open to the other in his “otherness.” In this regard, Syed Imad-Ud-Din Asad debugs the myth of Islamic intolerance in an article in Islamic City:19
“In fact, tolerance is an essential religious and legal obligation imposed upon the Muslims. Muslims have been instructed to promote the message of Islam by way of engaging in religious dialogues with non-Muslims and in this process Muslims have been told to employ the most respectful and polite methods: “Call to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation, and argue with them in the best manner…”. (Quran 16:125) And if the non-Muslims incline to disagree with the message of Islam, despite all the arguments and logic produced by the Muslims, the latter are still not to resort to any form of religious compulsion or violent reaction.
God declares: “There is no compulsion in religion…”. (Quran 2:256) “But if they dispute with thee, say: I submit myself entirely to God and (so does) he who follows me. And say to those who have been given the Book and the Unlearned (people): Do you submit yourselves? If they submit, then indeed they follow the right way; and if they turn back, thy duty is only to deliver the message…” (Quran 3:19) “
and he goes on to say that Islam forbids coercion in religious practice whatever it is and instead calls for wasatiyya, a philosophy of moderation and calibration in belief, faith and way of life:
“In fact, tolerance is an essential religious and legal obligation imposed upon the Muslims. Muslims have been instructed to promote the message of Islam by way of engaging in religious dialogues with non-Muslims and in this process Muslims have been told to employ the most respectful and polite methods: “Call to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation, and argue with them in the best manner…”. (Quran 16:125) And if the non-Muslims incline to disagree with the message of Islam, despite all the arguments and logic produced by the Muslims, the latter are still not to resort to any form of religious compulsion or violent reaction.
God declares: “There is no compulsion in religion…”. (Quran 2:256) “But if they dispute with thee, say: I submit myself entirely to God and (so does) he who follows me. And say to those who have been given the Book and the Unlearned (people): Do you submit yourselves? If they submit, then indeed they follow the right way; and if they turn back, thy duty is only to deliver the message…” (Quran 3:19)
So whatever violence and intolerance is expressed by any group in the name of Islam is pure mystification made use of for purely ideological reasons and political gains as in the case of fundamentalist groups which use Islam to gain power in undemocratic way. Syed Imad-Ud-Din Asad, goes on to say in his article:
“And if thy lord had pleased, all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them. Wilt thou then force men till they are believers?” (Quran 10:99) “And say: The Truth is from your Lord; so let him who please believe, and let him who please disbelieve…” (Quran 18:29) These verses clearly establish:
(1) Islam denounces forced-conversion; and
(2) Islam does not enjoin Muslims to wage war for the spread of faith.
Not only Muslims are prohibited from forcing Islam on non-Muslims, they have also been ordered to deal with them in a just and kind manner: “God forbids you not respecting those who fight you not for religion, nor drive you from your homes, that you show them kindness and deal with them justly. Surely God loves the doers of justice. God forbids you only respecting those who fight you for religion, and drive you forth from your homes and help (others) in your expulsion, that you make friends of them; and whoever makes friends of them, these are the wrongdoers.” (Quran 60:8,9)
The International Conference on Fostering Dialogue among Cultures and Civilizations through Concrete and Sustained Action, which was organized in Rabat in 2005, jointly between ISESCO, the OIC, UNESCO, ALECSO, the Danish Center for Culture and Development, and the Anna Lindh Euro Mediterranean Foundation for Dialogue between Cultures, provided an occasion to examine concrete and sustained initiatives in dialogue among cultures in the areas of education, culture, communication and science. The conference was crowned with the Rabat Commitments.
These commitments constitute a successful outcome of the efforts in reflection about the ways of instilling the values of tolerance, dialogue, and openness onto other cultures, civilizations and religions, into the minds of children and the youth in schools, through integration of concepts serving that purpose into educational programs of formal and non-formal education institutions, to uproot the causes of violence and discrimination that might result of cultural, ethnic and religious differences.
Fighting Poverty
Poverty is a global problem and the phenomenon is alarming in the third world including the Muslim Countries. Three broad categories of poverty alleviation measures have been analyzed. According to Abul Hasan M. Sadeq (International Islamic University, Malaysia and Chairman of Social Science Institute, Bangladesh) fighting poverty can take the following path:20
First, the positive measures which include income growth, functional distribution of income, and equal opportunities to all.
Second, the preventive measures which are control of ownership and prevention of malpractices in economics and business that lead to income concentration.
Third, corrective measures which include compulsory transfer payments, recommended transfer payments, and state responsibility.
The positive measures are expected to lead to high level income and its equitable distribution, the preventive measures are expected to limit concentration of wealth, while the corrective measures are meant for correcting imbalances in the distribution of income and wealth, and to upgrade economic conditions of the worse‐off population in the society. If these measures are applied, the problem of poverty could be solved quite substantially. The paper concludes with some recommendations with respect to poverty alleviation in the context of Muslim countries.
Alleviation of poverty, a scourge that is widely spread in the Islamic countries, has always remained a target under various programmes of international organizations. In view of the significant impact of poverty on sustainable economic development, Islamic States will have to initiate policies, projects and national plans and support the implementation of appropriate strategies and solutions to reduce the plight of poverty. Activities of Non-Governmental Organizations working in the field of social and human sciences were strengthened to tackle issues of vital concern for populations living in poor localities.
Initiatives will have also to strengthen the action of the parties engaged in the alleviation of the suffering of impoverished populations. Training programmes are to be conducted to foster the capacities of the underprivileged and physically-handicapped people of the society. Creation of economic opportunities for the unemployed and empowerment of women will also remain a targeted area of action. Islamic States will have to work jointly with the United Nations agencies both in the organization of conferences and seminars and in the implementation of in-field projects to alleviate poverty.21
Muslims will have, also, to undertake efforts and implement actions to deal with social and human problems and issues which are not resulting from poverty or emanating from an extreme form of it. Special projects and awareness campaigns will have to be launched to enhance understanding among religions and cultures. Propaganda against Islam will have to be countered through provision of knowledge about Islam’s principle of peace and tolerance.
Today, it is axiomatic that the development of education, science, culture and communication hinges on security and peace, within or between the Member States both at the regional and international levels. No development will be conceivable under a climate filled with ethnic, sectarian and religious tensions. The same is true for the lack of justice and mutual respect, which are key elements for creating international relations that could promote prosperity and human development.
Also, it is internationally recognized that the alliance of civilizations represents the sole means that can restore balance to the world and establish peace, respect for diversity and the acknowledgment of the legitimate cultural rights and cultural specificities of the different peoples and nations.
Today, there is no doubt that challenges to building intercultural dialogue include: building intercultural competencies, promoting interfaith dialogue, and reconciling conflicting memories.22
Intercultural dialogue requires intercultural competencies – the ability to engage effectively and appropriately when interacting with those who are linguistically and culturally different.
Interfaith dialogue is a crucial dimension of international understanding, and thus of conflict resolution. Misunderstanding and ignorance of religion heighten tensions.
Divergent memories have been the source of many conflicts throughout history. The different forms of institutional memory preservation and transmission tend to embody alternative views of the past, each with its own logic, protocols and perspectives.
And the Muslim world must meet these challenges at once to be able to dispel allegations of intolerance, extremism and dislike of the other.
A Last Word For The Muslim World
Muslim prayer beads. Photo by Muhammad Rehan, Wikipedia Commons.
The Muslim world has the human potential, youth in many countries constitute half of the population and are ready to step into action with determination and even zeal if they are given the opportunity and are fully empowered with education, training, capital and trust. Millions of young men and women are poised to develop the Muslim world, but political will has to allow them to take over the destiny of their countries, at once.
The Muslim world has, also, the needed resources: arable agricultural land, sufficient water resources, abundant mineral ore, diverse trade opportunities and numerable tourism capabilities, but what is needed is good economic planning, equal distribution of opportunities and willingness to see development as a beneficial strategy for creating wealth and moving forward.
However, most importantly, the Muslim world needs badly democracy and rule of law to move forward and give hope to its people in the future.
Endnotes:
1. https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/globalizations-challenge-islam
2. https://www.islamicity.org/3860/globalization-and-the-muslim-society/
3. https://www.eurasiareview.com/26032017-s-globalization-a-postmodern-form-of-imperialism-analysis/
4. http://tafhim.ikim.gov.my/index.php/tafhim/article/download/58/82
5. https://www.eurasiareview.com/16042017-on-globalization-cultural-diversity-and-education-analysis/
6. https://muslimstatistics.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/800-million-muslims-out-of-1-4-billion-are-illiterate-dr-farrukh-salem/comment-page-1/
7. http://www.academia.edu/34615974/Globalization_and_Parental_Education_in_the_Muslim_World_Today
8. http://www.unesco.org/education/GMR2006/full/chapt8_eng.pdf
9. Chtatou, M. 1992. Using Arabic Script in Writing the Languages of the People of Muslim Africa. Rabat: Institute of African Studies.
استعمال الحرف العربي في كتابة لغات شعوب إفريقيا المسلمة
This book reproduces the lecture given by Professor Mohamed Chtatou at the Institute of African Studies on March 26th, 1992, within the activities of the chair of the Moroccan-African Heritage Program.
10. http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/afrikanistik/tasia/schedule/abstracts/Chtatou-Using%20Arabic%20Script%20in%20Writing%20African%20Languages,%20Revisiting%20ISESCO’s%20Experience%2025%20Years%20Later%20Field%20Successes%20and%20Shortcomings.pdf
11. Adeeb, K. 1999. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. University of California Press. 400 pages. ISBN: 9780520213562
Adeeb Khalid offers the first extended examination of cultural debates in Central Asia during Russian rule. With the Russian conquest in the 1860s and 1870s the region came into contact with modernity. The Jadids, influential Muslim intellectuals, sought to safeguard the indigenous Islamic culture by adapting it to the modern state. Through education, literacy, use of the press and by maintaining close ties with Islamic intellectuals from the Ottoman empire to India, the Jadids established a place for their traditions not only within the changing culture of their own land but also within the larger modern Islamic world. Khalid uses previously untapped literary sources from Uzbek and Tajik as well as archival materials from Uzbekistan, Russia, Britain, and France to explore Russia’s role as a colonial power and the politics of Islamic reform movements. He shows how Jadid efforts paralleled developments elsewhere in the world and at the same time provides a social history of the Jadid movement. By including a comparative study of Muslim societies, examining indigenous intellectual life under colonialism, and investigating how knowledge was disseminated in the early modern period, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform does much to remedy the dearth of scholarship on this important period. Interest in Central Asia is growing as a result of the breakup of the former Soviet Union, and Khalid’s book will make an important contribution to current debates over political and cultural autonomy in the region.
12. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-an-ancient-muslim-scientist-cast-his-light-into-the-21st-century
13. https://www.isesco.org.ma/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Cult-strategy-for-islamic-world.pdf
14. https://www.isesco.org.ma/fumifuiw/blog/strategy-for-the-promotion-of-university-education-in-the-islamic-world/
15. http://www.sesric.org/files/article/394.pdf
16. https://scroll.in/article/811284/are-these-the-dark-ages-in-the-muslim-world
17. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2018/06/islam-and-human-rights-clash-or-compatibility/
18. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/empowering-women-the-muslim-world
19. https://www.islamicity.org/2835/myth-of-islamic-intolerance/
20. https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/eb018797?journalCode=h
21. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244017697153
The new “democratic socialists” want to make their followers believe that one could redistribute wealth and income and socialize a large part of the economy without harming production and productivity. They claim that a comprehensive control of the economy by the government would bring more justice and more prosperity. The democratic socialists want more planning and less market. Yet this postulate ignores that socialism does not fail by accident or circumstance. Socialism fails because it suffers from four fundamental design defects.
First, socialism eradicates private property and markets and thus eliminates rational calculation.
Second, socialism allows soft budgets, so there is no mechanism in place to discard inefficient production methods.
Third, abolishing private property and replacing it by the state distorts the incentives.
Four, the socialist system with its absence of private property and of free markets inhibits the economic coordination of the system of division of labor and capital.
The Importance of Market Prices
Socialism cannot bring prosperity because it destroys the market functions of private property. Under socialism, private ownership of the means of production no longer exists, and thus there are no market prices for capital goods available. Institutionally, socialism consists in abolishing the market economy and replacing it with a planned economy. By doing away with private property of the means of production, one wipes-out market information and valuation. Even if the socialist administration puts price tags on the consumer goods, and the people may own consumer goods, there is no economic orientation about the relative scarcity of capital goods.
Many supporters of socialism suppose that business management is nothing more than a kind of registration or simple bookkeeping. Vladimir Lenin believed that the knowledge of reading and writing, and some expertise in the use of the basic arithmetic operations and some training in accounting, would be enough for the conduct of business operations. The socialists promote engineering and science, but they believe that there is no need for the entrepreneur. The regime may spend heavily on education but when there is no entrepreneurial economy, the people will stay poor, nevertheless.
The Role of Scarcity
The socialists ignore scarcity. They assume that a plan could stipulate the allocation of goods and services according to needs and wants. Yet the planners must answer how such a plan should find its standards of valuation. Without prices and markets, there is no orientation about which factors of production are more and which are less valuable. The socialist planners have no knowledge of the costs of the production process. Without markets, the prevailing value structure remains unknown.
Supply in relation to want makes goods valuable. In a market economy, the relative prices show the degrees of scarcity. By observing the prices, the market participants receive the information that guides them to align their economic decisions to the market signals. The price system informs about relative scarcities. There is no need for a comprehensive system of detailed information about the origin and nature of the scarcity beyond the prices to make a rational decision. The price system reduces complexity for the individual decision maker to the single number of the price. In a market economy, the economic participants need only partial knowledge to act rationally. In capitalism, the motivation to gain profits and to avoid costs work as an incentive to behave rationally. In a market economy, the prices provide information and incentives simultaneously for the seller and the buyer.
All production faces the problem of an almost unlimited number of ways how to produce a good. One can manufacture a commodity with very different raw materials, technologies, and combinations of the production factors and in an endless variety of designs.
Setting Priorities
Along with the technological feasibility of a project, one must calculate its profitability. Without costs in relation to sales, a technical evaluation makes no sense. That a project is technically viable does not mean that its realization is also worthwhile. What appears efficient from a technical point of view need not be so in terms of economic expediency. With costs left out of the consideration, socialist production is blind to the risk of producing goods that cost more than they are worth. In a socialist economy, even a benevolent dictator could not provide the right mix of goods in terms of price and quality
Socialists suppose that to implant their rule on the economy all that is necessary is to socialize the private companies, replace the management, and install worker councils, and the new economic order would flourish. The early socialists expected that abundance would follow not least because now the workers would get what before went into the hands of the capitalists as profits. Yet the socialists ignored that the socialization of the means of production was just the beginning. They failed miserably in running the economy.
The error of socialist economic planning is to assume that business management could also continue as before after socialist operators take over the capitalist management. While the socialist regime can train administrators and engineers and put the party members in the position of directors, these new leaders cannot decide according to relative scarcities because there is no longer a private property-based entrepreneurial price system available.
The reality of socialism is the command and obedience. Without orientation from markets and prices, brute force rules the allocation of the goods. The claim to combine socialism and democracy is as much a fraud as the assertion that socialism would bring prosperity. Socialism’s true face is totalitarian despotism .
It is no wonder that even a degenerate capitalism produces more prosperity than the best socialism. Therefore, the task ahead cannot be to remove capitalism in favor of socialism but to make capitalism better. In other words: make it more capitalist.
About the author:
*German-born Antony Mueller teaches economics at the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS) in Brazil. See his website, blog, youtube channel, tumblr.
Who in US presidential history even comes close to Trump? While corporations run America for all intents and purposes, it has been unusual for a hardcore businessman to take the helm. Founders like Washington and Jefferson were plantation owners. Most were lawyers, military (9 generals), political hacks (including lots of governors, senators and VPs), even a university president (Wilson, Yale). But businessman? Who bragged of making and losing and making a fortune?
None of the previous 44 presidents are listed as businessmen, though Andrew Jackson (1767–1845, president 1829–1837) cries out as Trump’s prototype. Jackson’s parents emigrated from northern Ireland, he was orphaned at 14, used his wiles to become a “frontier lawyer”, and made a fortune in speculation of lands which by law were Cherokee, but which hungry settlers were stealing at gunpoint. That made him a gentleman plantation owner and businessman. (Think: Trump Towers, casinos)
He despised President Washington for the Jay treaty (1795) during the Napoleonic war, which gave preference in (free) trade with Britain (it was, after all, controlling the oceans), and refused to go to his funeral, though he was already a rising star as Tennessee’s sole congressman. (Think: Trump’s tariff wars and McCain’s funeral)
He was an enthusiastic imperialist, gaining fame in the war of 1812, when congress finally joined the fray, conveniently after Britain had exhausted itself fighting Napoleon. The US was officially neutral in the Napoleonic wars, careful not to be caught on the losing side (even though Jackson for one was rooting for France). This clever politics secured a nice finale for the US. The British, apart from burning down the White House, gained nothing. Attempts to hold back further settlement westward in the US were unsuccessful, and Canada was hardly a prize, cold and distant, full of French-speaking Catholics.
But Jackson put it to good use in self-promotion. Unprompted, he invaded Florida, defeated British and Spanish forces in a short skirmish, taking all of Florida at his own initiative, decamped to New Orleans and defeated the British occupiers in a brilliant but pointless victory, as hostilities had officially ended a month earlier in the Treaty of Ghent. Spanish Florida was returned to Spanish control, but the Louisiana Purchase had already given the US New Orleans. Squatter settlers continued to encroach on Florida, supposed in pursuit of Indian rebels. Jackson came back into action in Indian wars from 1817 on, and Spain finally threw in the towel in 1821.
The real losers were the natives on both sides. (Think: Standing Rock) British strategy for decades had been to create a buffer state to block American expansion. The Americans refused to consider a buffer state and the proposal was dropped. Article IX of the treaty included provisions to restore to Natives “…all possessions, rights and privileges which they may have enjoyed, or been entitled to in 1811″—but the provisions were unenforceable. In any case, the British soon lost interest in the idea of creating an Indian buffer state and stopped supporting or encouraging tribes in American territory. I.e., the US won, as it gobbled up the nice bits of the rest of the continent.
Jackson milked the prestige of defeating both British and Spanish troops in Florida and New Orleans. Alexis de Tocqueville despised Trump (sorry, Jackson), later writing in Democracy in America that Jackson “was raised to the Presidency, and has been maintained there, solely by the recollection of a victory which he gained, twenty years ago, under the walls of New Orleans.”
Jackson vs Trump
In describing Jackson, De Tocqueville eerily describes Trump. (I have inserted a few points for colour, though the reader can add his/her own examples for Trump):
*General Jackson is the agent of the state jealousies; he was placed in his lofty station by the passions that are most opposed to the central government. It is by perpetually flattering these passions that he maintains his station and his popularity.
*General Jackson is the slave of the majority: he yields to its wishes, its propensities, and its demands—say, rather, anticipates and forestalls them. … General Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority;
(Jackson was famous for his people’s inauguration ball, which a cross-section of US business types and their families stormed, climbing through windows and in their drunken debauchery, trashed the place. Think: Trump’s embarrassing inauguration)
*but when he feels that his popularity is secure, he overthrows all obstacles in the pursuit of the objects which the community approves or of those which it does not regard with jealousy.
(Think: Trump’s transgender rulings)
*Supported by a power that his predecessors never had, he tramples on his personal enemies, whenever they cross his path, with a facility without example;
*he takes upon himself the responsibility of measures that no one before him would have ventured to attempt.
(Think: North Korea)
*He even treats the national representatives with a disdain approaching to insult; he puts his veto on the laws of Congress and frequently neglects even to reply to that powerful body.
A big difference is on vetoes. Trump has yet to act on his many veto threats. Jackson was considered President Nyet, racking up 12 vetoes, more than all 6 presidents before him combined. He was not afraid of anyone, and increased the power of the presidency. Trump, on the other hand, is all bark, and has been unable to use his executive powers to much effect.
Jackson’s hobby horse was the National Bank. He finally managed to dismantle it, but then squandered the precious ability to create money and regulate banking greed, caught in his disdain of centralized government and ignorance of how a sophisticated capitalist economy worked. Land speculation was rampant, and the Panic of 1837 eventually led to a reassertion of banker control of money.*
Another big difference is that Trump was a draft dodger, with no military heroics to get him elected. As with other draft dodger presidents (Clinton and George Bush) that can mean warmongering to make up for any whiff of cowardice. Jackson didn’t invade other continents, but his empire building in Florida at the behest of Munroe (Think: Monroe Doctrine) and his condoning of the Trail of Tears more than makes up for his lack of interest in foreign wars. Trump’s brash moves — on North Korea and Russia, Iran, the EU, tariff wars on one and all — are his attempt to show his bravery, and are subverted by his many enemies.
From slavery to petticoats
The Supreme Court is a subject where both have similar crucial roles. Jackson appointed 6 Supreme Court judges, including the Chief Justice Taney** Solidly pro-slavery Taney would become infamous for the Dred Scott decision (1857) long after Jackson died, denying citizenship to a slave even if born in the US. It held that “a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves”, whether enslaved or free, could never be an American citizen and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States.”*** Taney foolishly thought his ruling would settle the slavery question, but it backfired and became a catalyst for the American Civil War.*^
Now Trump is responsible for setting the tone of the split Supreme Court. If his nominee Kavanagh triumphs, the court will be solidly conservative for a long time to come. A present-day Taney could overturn liberal legislation; especially worrying is abortion rights. We could be cursing Trump long after he’s gone.
Then there are Jackson’s embarrassments around marital propriety. It turned out the divorce of Jackson’s wife Rachel had not been valid, so he had to divorce and remarry her, having thus ‘lived in sin’. This whiff of bigamy was titillating in the 1790s, although it was not uncommon on the frontier for relationships to be formed and dissolved unofficially, as long as they were recognized by the community.
The “Petticoat affair” was the National Enquirer sensation of his career, concerning Secretary of War Eaton and his wife Peggy Eaton. Rumors were that Peggy, as a barmaid in her father’s tavern, had been a prostitute. Allowing an ex-prostitute in the family of a Cabinet member was unthinkable. Secretary of State Martin Van Buren shrewdly took the side of Jackson and Eaton (which parlayed him into the vice presidency and presidency) and the scandal was quelled.
In the process, Jackson former the Kitchen Cabinet, an unofficial group of advisors to the president, where apparently prostitutes’ husbands were welcome. Jackson replaced 10% of the government officers he held power over, a high percentage compared to his predecessors. For this, Jackson is credited with what he called “the principle of rotation in office,” but others would label it the spoils system.
The comparisons with Trump are rife. Jackson was the first crazy populist to storm the White House at a time when all of the features of today’s US were in place, including worship of the military, (wage) slavery, racism, religious bigotry, a stacked Supreme Court. The new republic was already imperial (Monroe was Jackson’s mentor). Hawaii and the Philippines were a few decades away, but the makings of the US empire were there, and Jackson epitomized them.
As president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the common man against a corrupt aristocracy (though as a nouveau riche planter, he was part of it) and to preserve the Union. Ditto Trump.
Jackson’s one potentially great legacy could have been to trounce the bankers once and for all, but that needed a statesman, of which, sadly, there are few among the 45 (Lincoln, FDR, JFK). Trump talked about going after “international bankers” during the election, but put all the culprits in place after he gained power. More evidence of his ‘all bark, no bite.’
So who should rule?
Adam Smith would not doubt have been horrified at the thought of Jackson (let alone Trump) as US president, as he distrusted businessmen, despite the ‘invisible hand’ myth he has been saddled with.*^^ He condemned “the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind.”
Smith had written his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) as his social theory, but the racey stuff in Wealth of Nations (1776) was all that people were interested in, ignoring his blasts there against merchants, notably, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public.”
He didn’t have much use for aristocrats either, who by the 18th century were just as money-grubbing as the merchants. It’s not clear who Smith wanted to govern. His ‘invisible hand’ supposedly acted as a constraint on greed (fight fire with fire), but that doesn’t mean much in the reality of merchants and aristocrats fighting over spoils. Presumably he hoped everyone would read his Moral Sentiments and become uncorrupted. Instead we got capitalist democracy, Jackson and, now, Trump.
Soon after the declaration of independence, Washington and the authors of the Constitution were determined to keep the likes of Jackson out of leadership,*^^^ fearing mob rule, but the US was fated by its popular revolution to become the first populist democracy, as property requirements for voting dropped by the wayside, and ‘checks and balances’ just didn’t do more than produce gridlock.
In the 2018 Presidents and Executive Politics Presidential Greatness survey, Trump came last in the overall greatness rating, along with Buchanan and Harrison, with Jackson in the middle. Trump ranks (with Lincoln and Jackson close seconds) as the most polarizing president.
Jackson is perhaps best remembered for his military exploits, though New Orleans was pointless and the rest shameful, supporting the violation of
Jackson riding Duke at New Orleans. Statue dedicated in 1853. Inscription: OUR FEDERAL UNION. IT MUST BE PRESERVED
treaties culminating in the Trail of Tears and decimating natives. His record as a cruel slave owner are ignored.*^^*
He left Taney as a time bomb supporting slavery, contributing to the onset of the civil war. (Think: time to remove his statues?*^**) He bungled and ultimately lost his battle with the bankers. It was Lincoln who overcame Jackson’s real ‘legacy’ by ending slavery and outwitting the bankers, creating the money necessary to finance the war sans banksters. And for his good deeds, was assassinated.
America and mob rule are now synonymous. Now, if only Trump had the courage to take on the banks. Though despised in official ratings, and despite Trump’s many scandals and insulting behaviour, he is still likely to gain another term. Jackson did. General Trump is “the slave of the majority: he yields to its wishes, its propensities, and its demands—say, rather, anticipates and forestalls them.”
xxx
*The National Bank Act of 1863 and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
**Strangely, he was denied his first nomination as a mere supreme court judge.
***Dred Scott had been taken by his owners to Wisconsin territory, where slavery was illegal, and Dred attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Taney, the court denied Scott’s request, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Bill of Rights, requiring each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people, including all non-citizens, within its jurisdiction.
*^It was superseded by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1868, which gave African Americans full citizenship.
*^^It was intended only to point out a narrow logical truth given perfect information, relying only on man’s greed
*^^^The electoral college, ‘checks and balances’, property requirements for voter eligibility
*^^*Jackson permitted slaves to be whipped to increase productivity. He posted advertisements for fugitive slaves who had escaped from his plantation, offered “ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred.”)
*^**The three copies, by Clark Mills, are at the White House, the Tennessee State Capitol and in the Vieux Carre in New Orleans.
Afghanistan has suffered negative economic growth after the withdrawal of large portion of international coalition forces. Also, a new report from World Bank indicates more than 50 percent of the Afghan population is living under the poverty line. Moreover, based on statistics of Ministry of Economy population growth is faster than economic growth, which conveys an excessive poverty with its all outcomes for the future. In such scenario, Thomas Robert Malthus an English scholar theory comes to subjectivity implying: that, “Excess population growth would lead to starvation, poverty and war which would eventually bring the per capita supply of resources back to its original level”.
In this crucial and fragile economy condition, the government is stepping up to rescue by implementing reforms in many economic sectors that resulted to increase export volume and trade balance change. Recently major actions took place that evaluates Afghanistan’s absolute advantages, comparative advantages and competitive advantages for performing better on multilateral trade.
Nevertheless, the Malthus Catastrophe theory proved wrong with respect to the economic growth model of Bangladesh in which the country identified its strengths and weakness and utilized its advantage for the best. The country has pursued export-oriented industrialization, however, based on Malthus theory, Bangladesh should have suffered from excessive poverty and famine, but the country has utilized its low labor cost with available resource and transformed into a major exporter on clothing and textiles.
Considering the above facts, Afghanistan has taken important measures to revolutionize trade turnover and doing business environment. The first and foremost important goal is to increase export volume to 1 billion USD by the end of 2020. As a result of the reforms tangible outcomes appeared such as gradually improvement on export from 596 million USD in 2016 to 720 million USD in 2017. Moreover, the establishment of air corridors, focusing on alternative routes to reduce dependency on Pakistan transiting sea ports, easing business environment, developing national export strategy, prioritizing a private sector driven economy and even recruitment of highly qualified commercial attaché through an open competitive process are major government actions taken for better international trade performance which will be discussed below.
Reforms on Doing Business Environment and Trade
Afghanistan has inherited traditional trade environment and old laws with protectionism manner that brings up challenges in many cases. But at least from two years back comprehensive meetings held among stakeholders including government entities, private sector and relevant international organization for streamlining business environment, amendment of laws and developing new laws, for instance: business license can be acquired in one stop shop with 200 AFN much cheaper than 35 thousand AFN a couples of years back.
By implementing above mentioned reforms Afghanistan is expected to improve its worth ever ranking in World Bank DBI. That will include trading across borders and starting a business as well. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is set to complete its commitment of post accession of WTO. Afghanistan has recently become 164th member of WTO after more than a decade of being observer member.
Launch of National Export Strategy
Ministry of Industry and Commerce has developed a comprehensive National Export Strategy (NES) through which comparative advantages of the country is identified and export with appropriate goods and markets are aligned. The (NES) has been completed with close collaboration among Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Private Sector, Relevant government entities and international organizations. EU has provided financial support and technical support. The strategy elaborated thanks to technical assistance of International Trade Center (ITC).
Collaboration and close following up of participant such as organizations, businessmen, entrepreneurs, and experienced individuals made (NES) a functional tool. A total of 500 firms and individuals shared their applied experiences on comparative and competitive advantages of Afghanistan’s products as a result 6 sectors were identified and included in (NES). National Export Strategy will cover potential markets, competitors, preferential treatment and required standards.
The 6 product includes: saffron, fresh fruits and vegetables, dried fruits and nuts, carpets, marble and granite, precious stones and jewelry. This strategy is developed for 5 years and provides a framework for Afghan exporters.
Air Cargo Initiative
Afghanistan has been facing challenges exporting seasonal products due to relying on neighboring countries sea ports. But, air corridor initiative is an alternative way to export Afghanistan noble products to different destinations and has a great impact on trade balance. Exports by air corridor reached to approximately 323 million USD in first 10 months of 2017. Since first establishment of air corridor an amount of 2600 tons of Afghanistan product has been exported and it is set to reach amount of 6000 tone by the end of 2018 as new markets and destination agreed for air corridor.
Currently, Afghan goods are transported through air cargo to India, Turkey, Kazakhstan and KSA soon other destination such as Indonesia, EU and China will also be connected by air cargo. Despite challenges of Afghanistan products conformity with EU standards, this trade zone is crucial for Afghanistan because of high value markets, high purchasing power and 500 million buyers. Very recently air cargo agreement was signed with Saudi Arabia, during first 3 months 1 ton of Afghan saffron exported to KSA. With all facts mentioned above we are expecting a positive impact on saffron export and overall Afghanistan export volume this year.
WTO advantages
On 29 July 2016 after ratification of the parliament, Afghanistan became 164th member of WTO. However, the original package was accepted on 10th WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi, Kenya and become 36th least developed member of WTO on December 2015. World Trade Organization grants special and differential treatment to Least developed Counties (LDCs) that allows them to derogate from basic WTO principles. Meanwhile, Afghanistan can enjoy from Generalized System of Preference GSP scheme that allow Afghan products as LDCs to EU markets with zero tariff duty.
Within the structure of WTO there is a sub-committee working on LDCs and providing technical assistance for theme as required. The sub-committee also helping LDCs on market access and WTO post accession commitments implementations. The mentioned body is mandated to closely observe systematic issues of interest of LDCs in multilateral trading system. There are provisions for LDCs requiring all WTO members to safeguard trade interests of LDCs. WTO provides technical support on dispute settlement for LDCs, therefore Afghanistan can utilize this opportunity and file a lawsuit against Pakistan for discrimination of free transit as the mentioned country closing the trading ports by their willing that many times made afghan fresh fruits and vegetables spoiled.
Lastly, is should be remembered that the Afghanistan permanent mission to WTO representative and ambassador has outstanding performance. Despite hurdles and issues, he’s been doing great so far he’s chairing important working groups introducing new Afghanistan.
Alternative Routes
Afghanistan is a land lock country that heavily costs trading across borders for the country but, meanwhile, it’s a land bridge that connects South Asian countries with Central Asian countries that provides exceptional opportunity for trade off. Afghanistan can utilize her crucial geographic location for smoothly running the trading. However, on a typical old method for transiting Afghan products into international markets which were solely dependent on Pakistan and Iran sea ports, the border would have been closed with almost no reason.
But in a modern trade off their interest in mega projects such as CASA 1000, TAPI project, transiting electricity and fresh water issues make them obey international rules and respect the agreements. Moreover, Lapiz Lazuli route, air cargo corridors, Cha-bahar trilateral agreement are alternatives to diversify tools for international market access for Afghanistan products. The very first trial shipment through Lapiz Lazuli Route is set to start in coming days. The trial shipment that includes carpet and gemstones will reach black sea in 6 days. The Lapiz Lazuli Route starts from Aqina and Torghondi ports from Faryab and Herat provinces continue to Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. In conclusion, all conditions seem optimum and promising for an export oriented future in coming years. To add to it, the surveying phase of 3 thousand Km rail road is completed for a required infrastructure.
Challenges
Security situation is directly linked with business cycle. As the security condition improves investments get better, industries thrive and export volume rises. Recent government efforts for peace are bold. Corruption is another big hurdle for the trade. The government is closely persuading as recently a spokesman expressed a big amount is embezzled in custom borders, a fundamental change is needed. Electronic governance is required to implement a comprehensive system that tackles the corruption. Also, conformity of Afghan products to international standards is very important as it is set to penetrate into new international markets.
*Shir Mohammad Farukh, Afghanistan Deputy Commercial Attache to EU
“The President is a puppet of Vladimir Putin!” That sums up the revelations of the just-released blockbuster movie “Active Measures.” It debuted in theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
This couldn’t be more timely as we approach the US November midterm elections. We’ve seen Republican candidates get a real boost from a Trump endorsement in recent special elections. Will Republican candidates be propelled to victory in November on the strength of Trump’s support?
If Trump really is a puppet of Putin’s do we want to let that happen? Are we headed for another “attack on America’s democracy” in the wake of what happened in 2016? This could have very serious consequences.
As I watched Active Measures from start to finish I had a couple of pointed reactions. The first was to observe the apparent strength of conviction the cast of characters seems to have regarding the movie’s avowed theme. The second was to realize that the strength of evidence they produced pales by comparison.
Active Measures has a star-studded cast. It includes former presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and the late John McCain, former US envoy to Moscow Michael McFaul, the former presidents of Georgia and Estonia, and a host of others. Each appears in the role of an interview subject. There’s no host asking questions — just the commentaries and quips from the interviewees alone.
Now, some of you may wonder just what the movie title Active Measures means. It is a term I first heard from a former State Department intelligence official. It was coined during the Cold War era to describe a variety of Soviet political warfare activities that included propaganda, disinformation, and others. Active measures is definitely a pejorative term, much in keeping with the movie’s theme.
Indeed what is that theme? According to the International Movie Database (IMDb): “Russian president Vladimir Putin attacks the 2016 American Presidential Election in collaboration with The Trump Campaign.”
That theme is in effect a premise for the film’s implied and explicit conclusions. The theme has been all over the news throughout the past two years. You can’t miss it. As a media business analyst and senior fellow at American University in Moscow I’ve devoted a lot of attention to examining that premise and searching for factual confirmations. As a result I was quite interested to learn what Active Measures had to offer. Is there indeed convincing proof that Trump is Putin’s puppet?
One fact stood out clearly. This is a movie that seems intent on convincing audiences of its premise. But it doesn’t offer much proof of anything.
For instance, Clinton says of Putin, “He wants to be the richest man in the world.” How in the world does she know that? I’ve never seen any assertion of that goal by Putin. What’s the point of Hillary’s comment? It’s simply a hyperbolic disparagement I think.
Then there is McCain’s comparison of Putin with the rise of Hitler. McCain was a widely lionized senator, respected by many. But he had a long history of making vacuous, diminishing statements about Putin. He could have been more constructive if he had focused on reality-based problems with the Russian president in the US-Russia relationship. Instead McCain just joined Clinton with more hyperbolic disparagement.
That approach to things is more worthy of mindless bar room banter than of honest and serious discourse. McCain had acknowledged that he made some mistakes during his career. His negative fixation over Russia seems to have been one of them .
Other characters in the movie touched on issues that are very well known to me. For starters there’s a comment by Jonathan Winer. He brought up the 2006 polonium poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko. Winer said it was a “murder that was very directly linked to Russia.” That alludes to the long-running mainstream narrative that Putin was behind it all. But that is a false narrative. I meticulously studied the Litvinenko case at the behest of the International Federation of Journalists. Subsequently I wrote two books about it. They document that the popularly believed narrative is actually a magnificently perpetuated hoax orchestrated by a political enemy of Putin’s. I don’t know whether Putin had anything to do with Litvinenko’s death. But my books prove that the people who made the case against Putin were lying.
What did Winer know about the Litvinenko case? According to the State Department he’s a former official from its Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. He was State’s special envoy for Libya. Perhaps more interesting is information from a February 2018 Weekly Standard article. It reports that Winer had been “old pals” with Christopher Steele, the guy of Trump Dossier fame. That’s the document that plays a key role in the ongoing Robert Mueller Russiagate probe. The Weekly Standard article claims Winer and Steele were at one time “both in the business of selling ‘business intelligence,’ much of it involving Russia.”
More recently, according to CNN, Winer was “the man who gave the [State Department] the Steele dossier.” The document has since been largely discredited and tied to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Next up is the matter of Russia’s media problems. This dates back to the early days of Putin’s presidency. He was widely accused of clamping down on the press freedom that had been nurtured under Yeltsin. In Active Measures former State Department official Daniel Fried claimed that “Putin started forcing the independent media to knuckle under, putting in state control, turning them into propaganda outfits.”
The only problem with Fried’s claims is that there had been no real press freedom for Putin to have clamped down on. Right from the start Yeltsin had instituted laws that made it practically impossible for media companies to operate profitably and be self supporting. That thrust the outlets into the clutches of government officials and oligarchs. They put money into the loss-making media companies in return for the opportunity to color the news to their own favor. The media were “propaganda outfits” right from the start. How could Fried have missed all that?
At one time he was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Why, he had even been on the staff of the National Security Council and a special assistant to president Bill Clinton!
If Fried got the press freedom issue so wrong, one wonders what other issues he bollixed. Well actually he tells of another in Active Measures. After misrepresenting the press freedom quagmire so badly he goes on to claim that Putin started “going after independent journalists.” Fried said, “They ended up dead.” That’s an allusion to another mainstream myth about Putin, It is that when Putin became president, journalists who wrote unfavorably about Russia’s president suddenly were becoming victims of murder.
The facts speak differently, however. The Committee to Protect Journalists maintains statistics on journalists murdered in the line of duty. Those stats show there was actually a precipitous drop in the number of journalist murders when Putin took over. The reality is the opposite of what Fried contended in Active Measures. And there’s no evidence that any of the murders were tied to silencing oppositional voices.
What’s going on here? This Active Measures cast of characters is beginning to look more like a rogues’ gallery.
Some of their assertions seem to belie a level of confusion. That’s what I saw in the comments of former ambassador Michael McFaul. Speaking about the alleged 2016 election hacking he said “They stole the data. Let’s be clear about it… This is theft. If the Russians walked into my house and took something out, this is exactly the same thing.”
But if Russians had walked into McFaul’s house and walked out with, say, his TV there would be no more TV in the house. It would be gone. With a data breach, the data owner still has the data.
What’s lost is the secrecy of the data, not the data itself. I don’t want to minimize the significant problems that can emanate from a data breach. But it surely is not “exactly the same thing” as McFaul contended. A more consequential matter is that of Putin’s KGB background. Past reports had often repeated McCain’s line, “I looked into his eyes and saw three letters: a K, a G and a B.”
Now Active Measures says this about Putin’s KGB past: “His role in the KGB was to support Russian intelligence officers living under assumed identities under deep cover inside the United States and developing active measures to impact the policies of the United States.” That is a quote from Jeremy Bash, identified as CIA chief of staff 2009-2011. I could find no evidence that Bash has any particular Russia expertise. So I sought to examine his comment from a security service point of view. To do that I called upon a colleague in whom I have considerable trust. He has extensive expertise both in security matters and Russian issues. I showed him Bash’s statement and requested his analysis.
Here is my distillation of what I was told: –As a non-Russia expert in the CIA it is unlikely that Bash would be privy to who was doing what in the KGB during the 80s. –Putin’s actual role in the KGB was extremely insignificant, virtually that of a clerk assigned to a backwater posting in Dresden, East Germany. –As to running an American operation, Putin couldn’t even speak English at the time; his specialty was Germany. Putin didn’t learn English until late into his presidency. –Upon returning from his Dresden assignment Putin was fired by the KGB. It is well known that agents involved with foreign deep cover operations can neither be allowed nor forced to leave the service irrespective of their personal qualities or performance. –Russia’s undercover operations are known to be run directly out of Moscow, and not from a remote outpost such as Dresden. For twenty years General Yuri Drozdov was understood to be the boss of the foreign deep cover work, certainly not Putin.
Active Measures presents even more specious, factually unsupported stories to advance the movie’s primary premise. For example, there is the matter of the 2016 Republican platform with regard to Ukraine. There’s also the mysterious death in Washington DC of the head of Russia’s English language broadcasting arm. These and other vignettes follow the same pattern of deception as the stories above that I examined in depth.
I’m not saying that every word spoken by cast members is untrue. But the ultimate impact of all the words is to mislead the audience to a conclusion that is at odds with the truth.
I was a high school student during the Soviet era. And I recall in a course titled “comparative government” the teacher defining propaganda this way: It is the presentation of half truths and fabrications with the goal of misleading an audience toward a false conclusion. That’s exactly what I found in Active Measures. Cast members state unfounded premises as if they are facts. Then they draw conclusions based on those premises. Audience members unable to tag the premises as false will likely be drawn into accepting the conclusions without realizing they’ve been hoodwinked.
That’s the danger presented by Active Measures.
The false stories form a specious mosaic that can then be used to validate additional false stories. It’s the perpetuation of misinformation. Aside from the Russia-specific content, Active Measures also deals with Donald Trump’s business activities and finances. That’s an area in which I have no expertise. As a result, I don’t know whether or not the information presented by cast members is honest. Taken by itself I might even have had an inclination to believe some of it. But having seen the deception employed by the cast regarding Russian issues, I’m inclined to seriously question anything that they say. I’m not suggesting that all cast members are liars. There may be some outright liars within their midst. But there are others who simply have blindly adopted beliefs based on misinformation that they’ve heard from others. And there are also cast members who have publically become so personally tied to the mainstream false narratives they espouse that they lack the courage to back away from the fraud. Perhaps even some were innocently drawn into participating in the film without realizing what they were getting into.
But whatever brought these individuals to this course of deceit, I think they certainly should not be given a presumption of honesty or reliability. Their words deserve extreme scrutiny.
Here are the cast names and affiliations as presented in Active Measures: Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State (2008-2013): Toomás Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia (2006-2016); Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia (2004-2013): Senator John McCain, Senate Armed Services Committee; Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Senate Judiciary Committee; Congressman Eric Swalwell, House Intelligence Committee; Steven Hall, CIA Chief of Russia Operations (1985-2013); Michael McFaul, US Ambassador to Russia (2012-2014); Nina Burleigh, Journalist and Newsweek Correspondent; Craig Unger, Journalist and Vanity Fair Contributing Editor; James Woosley, Director of Central Intelligence (1993-1995); John Mattes, Bernie Sanders Organizer, Investigative Journalist; Richard Fontaine, President, Center for New American Security; Michael Isikoff, Author, Russian Roulette; John Dean, White House Counsel to President Nixon (1970-1973); Dr. Herb Lin, Director Cyber Policy and Security, Stanford University; Clint Watts, Former FBI Special Agent on Joint Terrorism Task Force; Evan McMullin, US 2016 Presidential Candidate, CIA Operative (1999-2010): Dr. Alina Polyakova, Brookings Institution, Foreign Policy Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe; John Podesta, Chair, Hillary for America, Founder, Center for American Progress; Jonathan Winer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement (1994-1999); Jeremy Bash, CIA Chief of Staff (2009-2011), Pentagon Chief of Staff (2011-2013); Ambassador Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2005-2009); Scott Horton, International Law and Human Rights Attorney, Columbia Law School; Heather Conley, Kremlin Playbook Author, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Steven Pifer, US Ambassador to Ukraine (1997-2000), US Department of State (1978-2004); Asha Rangappa, FBI Special Agent on Counterintelligence (2002-2005), Associate Dean of Yale Law; Molly McKew, Information Warfare Expert; Alexandra Chalupa, DNC Consultant .
So what does this all add up to? Is Active Measures truly actively deceptive about Russia? Of course it is. And the irony of it all is that Active Measures is itself an actual exemplar of active measures.
