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Pope Francis Urges Reconciliation In Message To Church In China

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By Hannah Brockhaus

Pope Francis sent a message Wednesday to encourage Chinese Catholics to work toward reconciliation and communion with one another following a deal between the Vatican and China on the appointment of bishops.

Francis said the message, published Sept. 26, offers a few of his reflections on the just-signed agreement as well as “spiritual pastoral” input for the new phase about to be embarked upon.

Because for the Church, he wrote, the provisional agreement between the Holy See and China is as much about the “spiritual calling” of the Church in that country as it is about promoting respect for human values in and outside of China.

Now Chinese Catholics can begin the process of restoring full communion, healing the wounds of the past, and proclaiming the Gospel, he said.

The pope’s message to Chinese Catholics came just a few days after the signing in Beijing of a provisional agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China on how to appoint Catholic bishops.

The Sept. 22 announcement of the deal did not give details, but in a press conference on a flight to Rome Tuesday night, Francis said it provides for a dialogue about eventual bishop candidates, though they will ultimately be appointed by him.

At the same time, the Holy See announced the pope’s decision to recognize seven illicitly ordained Chinese bishops, who had been appointed by the government without papal mandate.

This means for the first time all the bishops of China are in communion with Rome, after years of division between the “underground” Catholic Church in China and the government-backed Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

In his letter, Francis emphasized that though the Church in the country had to go clandestine out of concern for preserving the Catholic community from the control of the State, this “is not a normal part of the life of the Church.”

He said he decided, “before the Lord and with serenity of judgment, in continuity with the direction set by my immediate predecessors,” to grant reconciliation to the seven illicit Chinese bishops and to lift canonical sanctions against them, readmitting them to full communion with the Church.

The deal follows years of discussion, he said, and on his own part, a thorough examination of individual situations and of listening to different points of view: “I have devoted much time to reflection and prayer, seeking the true good of the Church in China.”

“Regrettably, as we know, the recent history of the Catholic Church in China has been marked by deep and painful tensions, hurts and divisions, centered especially on the figure of the bishop as the guardian of the authenticity of the faith and as guarantor of ecclesial communion,” he said.

So, to support the continuation of the Gospel in China, and to re-establish “full and visible unity” in the Church, the pope wrote that it was “essential” to first deal with the issue of the appointment of bishops.

Recognizing that the deal had provoked different reactions and concern for the future of the Catholic communities in China, he said he is aware of the “flurry of thoughts and opinions” which may have caused “a certain confusion.”

He noted that some Chinese Catholics may be feeling abandoned by the Holy See, questioning “the value of their sufferings endured out of fidelity to the Successor of Peter,” while others may have hopeful expectation for the outcomes of the agreement.

Pope Francis acknowledged that the provisional agreement has its limits but expressed hope in the fact that for the first time, “the stable elements of cooperation” are set up so that the State authorities and Church authorities can provide good shepherds for the Catholic community.

The agreement is just an instrument, not a solution to all of the existing problems, he said, and “it will prove ineffective and unproductive, unless it is accompanied by a deep commitment to renewing personal attitudes and ecclesial forms of conduct.”

No Christian can be excluded from the task of offering gestures of reconciliation and communion and of working to build a society which respects the dignity of every person, he said.

Speaking to the universal Church, he said it is now the time to taste “the genuine fruits of the Gospel sown in the ancient ‘Middle Kingdom’ and to raise to the Lord Jesus Christ a hymn of faith and thanksgiving, enriched by authentically Chinese notes.”

He asked the leaders of the People’s Republic of China to continue to dialogue with trust, courage, and foresightedness, so that China and the Apostolic See “will be able to act more positively for the orderly and harmonious growth of the Catholic community in China.”

Francis concluded his message by invoking the maternal protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, praying that she would “present to the Lord of history the trials and tribulations, the petitions and the hopes” of all who pray to her; and that she would be a refuge for all who “weep amid their trials.”

“Mary, Help of Christians, for China we implore days of blessing and of peace.”


Merkley Files Lawsuit Asking Courts To Intervene, Halt Kavanaugh Confirmation

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Oregon Democrat Senator Jeff Merkley announced he is filing a lawsuit arguing that the Trump Administration’s actions to withhold substantial parts of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s record have violated the constitutional separation of powers and hindered Senators from fulfilling their constitutional duty of advice and consent on the President’s nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Merkley’s suit asks the courts to intervene to prevent the process from continuing until Kavanaugh’s full record is available for public scrutiny.

“The events of the past ten days have only underscored how critical it is that the Senate conduct a careful and comprehensive review of a nominee before giving its consent,” Merkley said. “But this President has gone to lengths never seen before to make sure we can’t do that job. The unprecedented obstruction of the Senate’s advice and consent obligation is an assault on the separation of powers and a violation of the Constitution. The President and Mitch McConnell want to ram through this nomination come hell or high water, without real advice or informed consent by the Senate, but that’s just not how our Constitution works.”

Currently, key Republicans are pushing for a vote as early as the end of this week, despite the fact that critical unanswered questions about Judge Kavanaugh’s character and record hang over his nomination, according to Merkley.

Specifically, the lawsuit names as defendants President Donald J. Trump; Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who worked with the Trump White House to conceal documents; and William Burck, a lawyer and personal friend of Kavanaugh’s who has been screening Kavanaugh’s documents on behalf of the Bush and Trump White Houses. It also names Julie Adams, Secretary of the Senate; and Michael Stenger, Senate Sergeant at Arms, as agents of McConnell and Grassley; and the National Archives, as an indispensable party in producing the documents.

The lawsuit emphasizes “Three Acts of Direct Interference” by which President Donald Trump, the Senate leaders who conspired with the White House, and lawyer William Burck concealed from the U.S. Senate vast troves of documents necessary for senators to fulfill their constitutional duty, violating the separation of powers and the advice and consent clause.

  1. The Defendants conspired to conceal from the Senate and public all of the documents from Kavanaugh’s three most formative professional years, as Staff Secretary in the George W. Bush White House.
  1. The Defendants conspired to conceal 100,000 documents from Kavanaugh’s time of service as a lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office under President George W. Bush. The Defendants empowered Mr. William Burck, a partisan lawyer with profound conflicts of interest, to utilize executive privilege on behalf of President Trump to block Senate access to the relevant documents.
  1. The Defendants conspired to further limit access to documents by utilizing the services of William Burck to label 141,000 pages “Committee Confidential,” limiting the ability of Senators to speak about them and to communicate with experts and members of the public about the contents.

The suit seeks to end the massive violation of the separation of powers by remedying the executive branch interference in the advice and consent deliberations of the Senate. Specifically, it seeks injunctive relief by ordering that President Trump withdraw his excessive invocation of executive privilege and produce a privilege log for documents truly subject to executive privilege, and that Senator McConnell, Chairman Grassley, Secretary Julie Adams and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger not hold or permit a vote on the Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation until the National Archives releases his records, and there is sufficient time for the US. Senate to review the documents and conduct a careful review of the newly released documents. Further, it asks the court to order the National Archives to expedite the production of the documents to the earliest date practical. Finally, it asks the court to order defendant Burck to cease and desist from usurping the traditional role of the National Archives.

“We are witnessing a U.S. Supreme Court nomination process that, from its onset, is an executive branch power grab giving the President unchecked authority over choosing this important lifetime appointment without a vigorous review of the nominee’s records,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “At every turn, this process has been one shrouded in secrecy and is discordant with the process as laid out in the Constitution. Americans deserve a Justice whose lifetime appointment is not tainted by political gamesmanship and whose appointment comes after full release and examination of his records. The Chairman’s torturous logic in continuing the nomination process without the full record of the nominee is an affront to our constitution. We must protect and defend the ‘Advice and Consent’ role of the Senate, an essential and necessary check on Presidential power. Through obstruction, and concealment of tens of thousands of relevant records, the President and Senate leadership are preventing Senator Merkley and his Senate colleagues from exercising their constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent on the fitness of the nominee.”

Civil rights firm Mehri & Skalet is serving as co-counsel with the Lawyers Committee.

A copy of the full suit can be found here.

The Geopolitics Of Ports And The Silk Road Of The Sea – Analysis

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By Asanga Abeyagoonasekera*

The expertise of a country’s diplomats and the effectiveness of its armed forces are not the only variables determining its rise. Geographical factors must also be considered. Influencing the overall prosperity of a nation are its access to raw materials and trade routes, its climate, and – most critical in informing foreign policy – its strategic location.

In this light, it was no coincidence that the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned the translation of the works of the ancient geographer Strabo. The ‘subordination’ of Asian countries to Western powers began in 1798 when Napoleon led a 40,000-strong French army into Egypt, ostensibly to protect French trade interests. Shortly afterward, issues concerning trade resulted in Western countries driving a wedge between China and India. Economic interests have similarly followed military interests on several occasions in the arc of history, and history could repeat itself. This time, though, the difference will be an Eastern power as the most significant player in the global arena.

Southern Sri Lanka has become a geopolitical hotbed after the construction of the Hambantota harbour and the recent relocation of the Galle Southern Naval Command next to Hambantota Port. There are more than 700 naval officers engaged in maritime security efforts who are based next to the harbour premises leased by China. The relocated post in Galle will be occupied by the Sri Lankan coast guard to further protect the oceans using its new military hardware. In doing so, scholars have suggested that Sri Lanka should opt for the P-3C Orion naval reconnaissance anti-submarine aircraft instead of Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs). This aircraft enables scanning a larger area and has been proven effective by many other countries. According to the latest statement by Prime Minister Wickramasinghe, Sri Lanka should prepare for anti-submarine warfare.

On a recent visit to the port of Hambantota, the Japanese Defence Minister, Itsunori Onedera, stated, “Despite the lease there was an agreement that the port remains free of military activities.” This statement reflects concerns over the leasing of the facility to China for 99 years. Onedera was the first Japanese defence minister to visit Sri Lanka in a period in which the island finds itself in the spheres of influence of India, the US, and China. Unfortunately,the expectation that Hambantota should remain free of Chinese military activities – as well as the other details of the lease agreement– has received little attention from the general public of Sri Lanka.

China’s geopolitical presence is rapidly expanding under the aegis of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Starting with ports such as Sittwe, Gwadar, Djibouti, Hambantota, and Dar es Salaam, China is testing a strategy of using its economic influence to advance its security interests, much like Western powers have done in the past. To counter China’s influence through BRI, the ‘Quad’ (the US, India, Japan, Australia) was formed.

It has been argued that Sri Lanka has benefited from Japan’s hedging strategies in the South Asia region. A tactic that could unfold into a larger strategy was the agreement signed on 12 April 2017 aimed at the ‘Deepening and Expansion of Comprehensive Partnership between Japan and Sri Lanka’. The agreement covers three areas: First, Japan is to expand its maritime cooperation with Sri Lanka; second, Japan is to improve Sri Lanka’s maritime capability by providing two OPVs in support of the bilateral defence partnership; and third, Sri Lanka is to participate as an observer in the next Japan-India joint exercise between coast guards. New alliances such as with Sri Lanka will further support and cement the core strategy between the US and Japan in the Indo-Pacific.

Djibouti is a former French colony with a small population and scarce natural resources. The country’s GDP remains below US$ 1.8 billion and it has only one significant geopolitical offering: its strategic location. Sitting at the eastern edge of the African continent and the western shore of the Indian Ocean, Djibouti has become a multi-military base and logistics operational hub. Even Japan’s first overseas military base since World War II is found in this strategic location. Within Djibouti, a Chinese logistics base also sits merely eight miles away from Camp Lemonnier. There are 4,000 personnel from the US Combined Joint Task Force stationed in the Horn of Africa. From a realist lens, of the various countries who have leased property for military bases, China has a strategic advantage due to the billions of dollars of financial support it has offered continuously to Djibouti. One example is an infrastructural mega-project in the form of a railway connecting Djibouti and Ethiopia.

Outside powers pledging non-interference to the region and neighboring countries has significant economic and military implications. Other new ports emerging in the region could copy Djibouti’s model in the years to come. Sri Lanka is not unique in this sense. Currently, Sri Lanka’s Trincomalee Port is planned to be jointly developed by India, Japan and Singapore; Hambantota Port is already leased to China, and the adjoining Mattala Airport will be operated by India, all in a bid to counter-balance China’s influence. Merely moving a Sri Lankan naval post next to the plot leased by China for 99 years will not guarantee the ability to secure economic or military interests in the future.

Fluctuations in the frequency, scope, and intensity of diplomatic and military engagements are inherent to a volatile, multipolar world. China’s rise, made possible by its economic advances, is seen by many observers also as a result of it winning every move on the geopolitical chess board. Djibouti was the initial victory in the Indian Ocean and presumably, other small states will give in to this tide.

 

*Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is Director General of the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSSSL), Ministry of Defence, Government of Sri Lanka. Views expressed are the author’s own.

After Marawi: Time For Broader ASEAN Approach? – Analysis

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Winning the War after the Battle for Marawi requires greater cooperation among ASEAN states. The continuing challenge posed by violent extremism must be met by a wider “community of practice”.

By Joseph Franco*

Nearly a year after the Battle for Marawi ended, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s martial law over Mindanao has not fully addressed the threat posed by other Islamic State-linked groups. Manila continues to grapple with the challenges of countering violent extremism (CVE). A series of bombings in Sultan Kudarat, North Cotabato, and South Cotabato by members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) underscore the gaps in kinetic military approaches.

ASEAN was quick to act when the fighting erupted in Marawi. Singapore was one of the first countries to send in humanitarian supplies to the beleaguered city. Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines put into place joint, trilateral border patrols to prevent the spread of armed conflict. Aside from dealing with the consequences of the Marawi siege, Southeast Asian countries cooperated closely in sharing knowledge to confront violent extremist groups. The ASEAN defence ministers have been discussing the establishment of the “Our Eyes” Initiative that seeks to institutionalise further pre-existing intelligence sharing mechanisms.

Winning the War After Battle

Winning the war after the battle is a familiar refrain for those looking at post-conflict scenarios from Mosul to Marawi. The ruins of what was once the commercial heart of Marawi stand testament to the long-term disruption posed by violent extremism. The razing of dozens of mosques and madrasahs in Marawi imperils the city’s status as the Philippines’ centre for Islamic learning.

Delayed reconstruction of the city would only lead to resentment and create the wellspring for terrorist narratives in the future. The military defeat of the Maute Group and its IS-linked allies in Marawi is only the first step in rebuilding the city.

Information operations by the Philippine military complemented its combat operations during the Battle for Marawi. Confronting terrorist ideologies online denied IS-linked groups full control of the informational space. Partnerships with major social media companies and other states led to the systematic takedown of harmful content.

Communities of Practice Against Other “Extremisms”

As communities of practice emerge around CVE initiatives, there is recognition among stakeholders in the security sector, civil society organisations (CSOs), and academia of the complex policy environment. Growing polarisation within states can lead to the emergence of other potential “extremisms” aside from the brand of violence associated with the so-called Islamic State and other resurgent groups such as Al Qaeda.

This is apparent in ASEAN, which has witnessed the continuation of sectarian violence. Violence has come from a broad range of actors from inchoate nationalist movements to secessionist groups.

Rather than a fixation with counter-narratives, there is an emerging consensus that CVE has more in common with non-securitised digital literacy and public education programmes. Southeast Asian youths remain vulnerable to recruitment by violent extremist groups. Developing critical thinking skills especially among the youth may lead to benefits beyond the CVE realm. Life skills that help inoculate against violent ideologies are also relevant in mitigating the effects of deliberate online falsehoods or information operations by hostile parties.

Unfortunately, there is an uneven distribution of government capacities to pursue holistic CVE among ASEAN member-states. One way to level the playing field is to share lessons learned and identify gaps, through events such as the upcoming counter-terrorism symposium to be held in Singapore in October 2018 organised by the S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and the government.

ASEAN’s Potential Contributions to CVE

ASEAN’s push to create a resilient and networked community of peoples could manifest with states acting as enablers for joint initiatives. ASEAN’s long record of accomplishment in fostering Track 1.5 and Track 2 initiatives would mean not having to reinvent the wheel in terms of harnessing the efforts of states and CSOs. CSOs have a better grasp of ‘ground truth’ while states have access to resources to build inclusive CVE programmes.

Beyond upstream efforts to inoculate vulnerable populations from violent extremism, ASEAN can help bring needed quality-of-life improvements in Mindanao. The recent signing of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) is expected to bring meaningful political and economic autonomy to Filipino Muslims. The BOL’s success rests on the ability of local elected officials to take the lead in bringing progress to their communities.

Given the uneven levels of local governance in Mindanao, ASEAN can help tip the scales by focusing on capacity-building programmes. Addressing the socioeconomic roots of conflict in Mindanao is of course a long-term project. However, its benefits go beyond dissipating the sources of rage that violent extremists tap into for their radicalisation activities.

Gaining valuable experience in promoting good governance could pay dividends even in non-security issues across Southeast Asia. Economic and political development forges stronger communal bonds. This could help stem the increasing appeal of populist politics and the intolerance it breeds within states.

Multilateral security mechanisms should just be the start of holistic CVE efforts. Across ASEAN, national-level best practices can be found, involving either or both states and non-state entities. The challenge lies in taking what works from one country and adapting it to suit local conditions in another country.

Adversaries like IS are continually evolving, seeking to exploit emerging technologies and building their own illicit networks. States and their partners, whether technology firms or CSOs, need to adapt quicker. The destruction wrought by IS-linked militants in Marawi is a cautionary example of what happens when drivers of conflict are not systematically addressed and security services become complacent.

*Joseph Franco is a Research Fellow with the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

India: Top Court OK’s Biometric ID Program

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India’s Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the biometric identification project, Aadhaar, on September 26, 2018, Human Rights Watch said.

In its ruling, the court said that the government could make Aadhaar a requirement to access government benefits and for filing income tax, but restricted it for other purposes. The government should create adequate safeguards to ensure that an Aadhaar registration requirement does not prevent poor and marginalized people from getting essential services that are constitutionally guaranteed, including food and health care.

“Aadhaar has led to further marginalization of the poorest and most vulnerable people by denying them access to critically needed subsidies and benefits,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should ensure there that is greater accountability and transparency by Aadhaar and not impose unnecessary identification requirements that violate privacy rights.”

While the ruling disappointed privacy advocates in upholding the mandatory and sweeping program of government biodata collection, the court did impose important limitations on the widely spreading use of Aadhaar identification. The four-to-one majority judgment barred private companies from demanding Aadhaar and also said that schools, banks, and telecom companies cannot make Aadhaar compulsory for their services.

The dissenting judge said that the entire Aadhar program since 2009 had raised constitutional concerns and violated fundamental rights and called the law in its entirety unconstitutional. India’s central government welcomed the ruling and the Information and Technology Minister called it “historic.”

The Aadhaar project is run by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), a statutory body of the Indian government set up in 2009. It collects personal and biometric data such as fingerprints, facial photographs, and iris scans, and issues 12-digit individualized identity numbers. Aadhaar was initially meant to be voluntary, aimed at eliminating fraud in government welfare programs and giving people a form of identification.

However, the Aadhaar Act of 2016 and subsequent notifications and licensing agreements dramatically increased the scope of the project, making Aadhaar enrollment mandatory for people to access a range of essential services and benefits including government subsidies, pensions, and scholarships. It was also linked to services such as banking, insurance, telephone, and the internet.

Access to Essential Services

Numerous reports by media, researchers, and rights groups found that shops providing subsidized food grains as part of the government’s public distribution system to people living in poverty denied supplies to eligible families who did not have an Aadhaar number or had not linked it to their ration cards, or because the authentication of their biometric data such as fingerprints failed. Local human rights groups and media have reported some cases in which people starved to death as a result. Poor internet connectivity, machine malfunction, and worn out fingerprints such as those of older people or manual laborers have further exacerbated the problem of biometric authentication.

Rajasthan state activists reported that between September 2016 and June 2017, after the Aadhaar authentication was made mandatory, at least 2.5 million families were unable to get food rations. In October 2017, the central government instructed states not to deny subsidized food grains to eligible families merely because they did not have an Aadhaar number, or had not linked their ration cards to it. However, reports of denied benefits continued.

The court said that the authorities should investigate cases in which authentication failed and adopt alternate methods for identification. Indian authorities should ensure that problems with biometric authentication or bureaucratic delays do not prevent people from accessing their entitlements or fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said.

In his dissenting ruling, Justice D. Y. Chandrachud said: “Constitutional guarantees cannot be subject to the vicissitudes of technology. Denial of benefits arising out of any social security scheme which promotes socioeconomic rights of citizens is violative of human dignity and impermissible under our constitutional scheme.”

Philippines: Anger Erupts Over Mindanao Muslim ‘Massacre’ Medals

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By Bong Sarmiento

Human rights groups have condemned Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for praising 17 army special-forces men for their involvement in the killing of seven young Muslims.

The president awarded medals to the wounded soldiers at a military hospital in the town of Jolo, Sulu province, in a Sept. 24 visit that was described as a “strictly military affair.”

The soldiers were injured after a reported clash between troops and fighters from the Abu Sayyaf terror group in the town of Patikul on Sept. 14.

The military maintained that there was an armed encounter with about 100 terrorist gunmen.

Human right groups said, however, that the seven young men killed were not part of the terror group and were caught up in the fighting.

Their relatives denied they were members of Abu Sayyaf, which has pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State group.

The families maintained that those who died were fruit pickers working on a nearby farm.

Bishop Antonio Ablon of the Philippine Independent Church described the incident as a “massacre”, adding that the men were “summarily executed” by the soldiers.

Lt. Col. Gerry Besana, spokesman of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, insisted that the seven men were terrorists killed in a “legitimate military operation.”

Jerome Succor Aba, chairman of the Voice of the Bangsamoro group, said Duterte’s visit to the wounded soldiers was a “desperate attempt to wash the blood off the hands of the soldiers.”

Aba said martial law across the southern Philippines had “emboldened state forces to commit violence against the Bangsamoro people.”

The Human Rights Commission in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has expressed “grave concern” over the safety of people in Sulu province following the killings.

Commission chairman, Abdulnasser Badrudin, said “the incident shows an excessive use of military authority and failure to exercise due diligence.”

He reminded the government that the right to life continues to be inviolable even during military operations and martial law.

The Philippine Center for Islam and Democracy, a Muslim think tank in Manila, called for an investigation into the incident.

Amina Rasul, its president, said the government should “act proactively” and address violent extremism, “bearing in mind potential problems with the implementation of martial law.”

The organization urged Duterte to review martial law in Mindanao and investigate reported human rights violations not just in Sulu but in other parts of the region.

On Sept. 25, human rights group Karapatan reported that a female human rights defender was killed in Maguindanao province on Sept. 23.

Mariam Uy Acob, 43, a paralegal from the Kawagib Moro Human Rights Alliance, was gunned down by suspected agents of the military, Karapatan said in a statement.

The human rights group described Acob as a “staunch critic of militarization in Moro communities” who “consistently denounced aerial bombardment and encampment in communities.”

Neutron Star Jets Shoot Down Theory

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Astronomers have detected radio jets belonging to a neutron star with a strong magnetic field — something not predicted by current theory, according to a new study published in Nature today.

The team, led by researchers at the University of Amsterdam, observed the object known as Swift J0243.6+6124 using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico and NASA’s Swift space telescope.

“Neutron stars are stellar corpses,” said study co-author Associate Professor James Miller-Jones, from Curtin University’s node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).

“They’re formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and undergoes a supernova, with the central parts of the star collapsing under their own gravity.

“This collapse causes the star’s magnetic field to increase in strength to several trillion times that of our own Sun, which then gradually weakens again over hundreds of thousands of years.”

University of Amsterdam PhD student Jakob van den Eijnden, who led the research, said neutron stars and black holes are sometimes found in orbit with a nearby “companion” star.

“Gas from the companion star feeds the neutron star or black hole and produces spectacular displays when some of the material is blasted out in powerful jets travelling at close to the speed of light,” he said.

Astronomers have known about jets for decades but until now, they had only observed jets coming from neutron stars with much weaker magnetic fields. The prevailing belief was that a sufficiently strong magnetic field prevents material getting close enough to a neutron star to form jets.

“Black holes were considered the undisputed kings of launching powerful jets, even when feeding on just a small amount of material from their companion star,” Van den Eijnden said.

“The weak jets belonging to neutron stars only become bright enough to see when the star is consuming gas from its companion at a very high rate.

“The magnetic field of the neutron star we studied is about 10 trillion times stronger than that of our own Sun, so for the first time ever, we have observed a jet coming from a neutron star with a very strong magnetic field.

“The discovery reveals a whole new class of jet-producing sources for us to study,” he said.

Astronomers around the world study jets to better understand what causes them and how much power they release into space.

“Jets play a really important role in returning the huge amounts of gravitational energy extracted by neutron stars and black holes back into the surrounding environment,” Associate Professor Miller-Jones said.

“Finding jets from a neutron star with a strong magnetic field goes against what we expected, and shows there’s still a lot we don’t yet know about how jets are produced.”

Taller Species Are Taking Over In A warming Arctic

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Until now, the Arctic tundra has been the domain of low-growing grasses and dwarf shrubs. Defying the harsh conditions, these plants huddle close to the ground and often grow only a few centimetres high. But new, taller plant species have been slowly taking over this chilly neighbourhood, report an international group of nearly 130 biologists led by scientists from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the German Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre today in Nature. This has led to an overall increase in the height of tundra plant communities over the past three decades.

The study, initiated by a team of researchers supported through the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), analysed the most comprehensive data set on plants in the Arctic tundra available. The study encompassed almost 120 tundra sites, most of them located in Arctic regions of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and Siberia.

“The increase in height we saw was not just in a few sites but nearly everywhere,” says lead author Dr Anne Bjorkman, who now works at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and who conducted the study at the iDiv research centre, the University of Edinburgh, and Aarhus University.

The researchers identify climate warming as the underlying cause. Temperatures in the Arctic have risen by about 1 degree Celsius in summer and 1.5 degrees in winter over the three decades covered by the study, some of the fastest rates of warming on the planet.

A detailed analysis showed that not only do individual plants grow taller with warmer temperatures, but that the plant community itself has also shifted. “Taller plant species, either from warmer pockets within the tundra or from southern areas, have spread across the tundra”, says Dr Nadja Rüger, a scientist at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and at Leipzig University and a co-author of the study.

This move is far from over, as Bjorkman points out: “If taller plants continue to spread at the current rate, the plant community height could increase by 20 to 60% by the end of the century.” Surprisingly, the researchers found no evidence that this “invasion” of taller species is currently leading to a decline in shorter species.

Arctic regions have long been a focus for climate change research, as the permafrost underlying tundra vegetation contains one-third to half of the world’s soil carbon. When the permafrost thaws, greenhouse gases could thus be released.

An increase in taller plants could speed up this process as taller plants trap more snow in winter, which insulates the underlying soil and prevents it from freezing quickly and deeply in winter.

“Although there are still many uncertainties, taller tundra plants could fuel climate change, both in the Arctic and for the planet as a whole”, Bjorkman concludes.

In contrast to plant height, researchers found that six other measures, such as the size of leaves and their nitrogen content, showed no consistent change over the last thirty years. These other plant characteristics were strongly influenced by moisture levels in addition to temperature.

The researchers conclude that the response of the plant community as a whole to climate warming will depend on whether the tundra becomes wetter or drier over time. Rüger says: “In order to predict how the plant community in the tundra will react in the future, it is necessary to not only take into account alterations in temperature, but also in water availability. If precipitation or the water cycle change, or if the timing of snowmelt shifts, this may have severe effects on the tundra vegetation.”


Your Facebook Friends Don’t Mean It, But They’re Likely Hurting You Daily

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Social media sites often present users with social exclusion information that may actually inhibit intelligent thought, according to the co-author of a University at Buffalo study that takes a critical look not just at Facebook and other similar platforms, but at the peculiarities of the systems on which these sites operate.

The short-term effects of these posts create negative emotions in the users who read them, and may affect thought processes in ways that make users more susceptible to advertising messages.

What’s particularly alarming is that the social exclusion present in these posts is not intentional. Users are not callously sharing exclusion information with their friends. Social media sites, nevertheless, by design make most information available from one friend to another and the consequences resulting from the interpretation of these messages are significant.

“These findings are compelling,” says Michael Stefanone, an associate professor in UB’s Department of Communication and an expert in computer-mediated communication and social networks. “We’re using these technologies daily and they’re pushing information to users about their networks, which is what the sites are designed to do, but in the end there’s negative effect on people’s well-being.”

The results of the study with lead author Jessica Covert, a graduate student in UB’s Department of Communication, appear in the journal Social Science Computer Review.

“These findings are not only significant because we are talking about individuals’ emotions here, but it also raises questions about how exposure to these interactions affect one’s day-to-day functioning,” says Covert. “Offline research suggests that social exclusion evokes various physical and psychological consequences such as reduced complex cognitive thought.

“Considering the amount of time individuals spend online, it is important to investigate the effects of online social exclusion.”

At a glance, the posts at the center of the study seem harmless. Users open Facebook to sees exchanges among friends which unintentionally excluded them.

It happens all the time. Right?

“Yes,” says Stefanone. “It happened to me the other night. I see my friends are doing something while I’m sitting at home. It’s not devastating, but there’s that moment when I felt badly.”

The point, says Stefanone, is the messages can be interpreted in a way that people feel left out. And that feeling, as innocuous as it might seem, is not easily dismissed.

“Social exclusion, even something that might seem trivial, is one of the most powerful sanctions people can use on others and it can have damaging psychological effects,” says Stefanone. “When users see these exclusion signals from friends – who haven’t really excluded them, but interpret it that way – they start to feel badly.”

It’s at this point that the brain’s self-regulating function should take over, according to Stefanone.

That self-regulation quickly moderates the negative feelings that can result from the interpretation, but self-regulation consumes mental resources that inhibit intelligent thought.

“If users are busy self-regulating because of what they read on Facebook there’s evidence that doing so reduces a level of intelligent thought, which can make them more open to persuasive messaging.”

“Facebook’s entire business model is built on advertising. It’s nothing but an advertising machine,” says Stefanone. “Given Facebook’s annual ad revenue, I think it’s a conversation worth having, that regular, benign and common use of this platform can lead to short-term inhibition of intelligent thought.”

For the study, Covert and Stefanone created scenarios designed to mirror typical interactions on Facebook, and 194 individuals participated in an experiment ensuring exposure to social exclusion. The researchers presented one group with a scenario involving two good friends, where one of those friends had shared information that excluded the participant. The other group saw a feed that presented no social exclusion information.

Results indicated that individuals exposed to social exclusion information involving their close friends experienced greater negative emotions than the control group. They also had a tendency to devote more mental resources toward understanding their social networks, making them particularly sensitive to stimuli such as advertising.

Stefanone says plans for the future include replicating the current experiment and then measuring changes in intelligent thought using standardized test questions.

“I think the most important thing we all have to remember is to think carefully about our relationship with these corporations and these social networking platforms,” says Stefanone. “They do not have our best interests in mind.”

President Sirisena Urges World To Look At Sri Lanka With Fresh Perspective

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Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena called upon the international community to look at Sri Lanka with a fresh perspective and consider the tremendous progress made by the government towards reconciliation, restoration of democratic freedoms, human rights and the rule of law and extend the fullest support to the build a progressive, democratic, free and equal society.

Addressing the 73rd Session of the United nations General Assembly in New York on September 25 (26th morning in SL time), he said Sri Lanka is taking action to consolidate peace and forge ahead to develop the economy, and such a nation deserves the support and understanding of the international community. “I urge the international community to allow Sri Lankan people to solve their problems on their own,” he said.

As an independent country we do not want any foreign power to exert influence on us. We want to appeal to the international community to give us the room to resolve the problems that we are facing so that the right of the Sri Lankan people to find solutions to their problems is respected, he said.

The President said that the government is working to eliminate fear and suspicion among different communities.Quoting from the Buddha’s preaching in the Sallasutta of Samyuktha Nikaye in Thripitaka, he said if a man is pierced with a dart, he will suffer physical pain. When he worries about it, he suffers more pain. Hence, there are two kinds of pains suffered by the man. When it comes to Sri Lanka, it is the people who suffered pain due to war and they continue to feel pain when they think about it. Therefore, I take this opportunity to call upon your support and cooperation, he said.

The President pointed out that the exodus of refugees is a major issue in international politics and urged the United Nations to play a bigger role because of the paramount importance of the issue.Sri Lanka is following a nonaligned policy. In fact, Sri Lanka hosted the Non-aligned Summit in 1976 and it was the most successful summit. Sri Lanka has a policy of friendship with all and the country does not have any enemy nation in the world, he said.

President Sirisena said that Sri Lanka’s Executive President had been vested with more powers than any other leader in the world, and he had curtailed those excessive powers of the Executive Presidency and transferred those powers to the Parliament.President Sirisena emphasized the need to eradicate poverty. At present, the whole world is engaged in an attempt to free itself from poverty and he said the United Nations must play a bigger role in the endeavour.

“I must mention that, today, the whole world is facing challenges posed by severe changes in climate. I would like to propose that the community of nations must focus on implementing the Paris Accord that the world reached in 2015, by further improving the unity that we reached by signing that accord. We must remember that the Paris Accord is critically important to the future of the entire biosphere and humanity,” he said.

The President categorically stated that the government is committed to work tirelessly to achieving reconciliation by fostering understanding among all ethnic and linguistic groups, while eliminating mutual suspicion and hatred in order to create a society where all can live freely and harmoniously. “Further, we are dedicated to ensure that the country will accomplish economic prosperity. Specially, my government is committed to the creating a fair and just society by strengthening the rule of law”, he said.

He said that during the last three and a half years, the government has taken several important steps that are necessary to consolidate democracy, freedom, good governance, media freedom and independence of the judiciary. “Through such transformative steps, we have laid the foundation necessary to forge national reconciliation, communal harmony and ensure non-recurrence of conflict in our country,” he said.

“As a country that has suffered violent conflict for 30 years, we are drawing from experience and lessons learned to strengthen national reconciliation, and we are determined to prevent the recurrence of conflict. We have given priority in this context to consolidate freedom and democracy in our country, and through a strong foundation of national reconciliation forged through unity and friendship among communities,” the President said.

President Sirisena pointed out that the most ruthless terrorists were defeated by the armed forces and the nation honour the valiant soldiers who made many sacrifices to bring peace to the country and safeguarded then unity and sovereignty of th nation with utmost commitment.

He emphasized that the vision of the government is to ensure sustained economic development through the increase of domestic agriculture and industry under an environment friendly policies and programs. He emphasized the imperative need to adhere to the Paris Protocol on Climate Change for the sake of the future of the human beings as well as flora and fauna.

“Sir Lanka has always been a country that has respected its treaties and conventions, agreements and rules and regulations of the United Nations. As such, in our country’s journey where we protect our independence and sovereignty, we respectfully request the support of the international community for us to go on a moderate but steady path to achieve our targets in order to find sustainable solutions to the allegations leveled against us,” the President said.

President Sirisena called on the world leaders to take a collective action for eradication of narcotic drugs and illegal pharmaceuticals. He said he wanted to draw the attention of the respected General Assembly of the United Nations to the problem of drugs that poses a serious threat to human society and asked the world body to play a bigger role in eliminating drugs.

The President said that in the international politics, the issue of Palestine is very important and reiterated Sri Lanka’s support to the people of Palestine.

Over 100 Spanish Cultural Activities To Tour Main Moroccan Cities Until December

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The Minister for Culture and Sport, José Guirao, presented the 2nd ‘Visages. Cultura española hoy’ programme in Rabat alongside his Moroccan counterpart, Mohammed el-Araj, and the Spanish Ambassador in Rabat, Ricardo Díez-Hochleitner. This cultural exchange and promotion project seeks to strengthen and consolidate the cultural ties that exist between Spain and Morocco.

The Spanish Embassy in Rabat, the network of Cervantes Institutes in Morocco and the Moroccan Culture and Communication Ministry are also involved in organising ‘Visages’.

At a press briefing, the Spanish Minister for Culture and Sport announced that Spain will be the guest country at the Casablanca Book Fair in February 2019 and that a technical committee will be set up between the Spanish and Moroccan culture ministries to explore lines of action in various cultural spheres, ranging from technical issues involving heritage to musical connections between the two countries, with a special focus on flamenco.

At the ‘Visages’ presentation, José Guirao recalled that, “in today’s globalised world, building bridges for closer ties and understanding between peoples is a basic necessity in laying the groundwork for cooperation” and that culture “plays a major role in bringing us closer to understanding the reality shared by Moroccans and Spaniards”.

José Guirao believes that ‘Visages’ understands “creativity and talent as the wheels on a joint journey that is breaking down borders and nourishing the seed of other partnerships on the horizon”.

To get the ball rolling, the Spanish Minister for Culture visited an exhibition entitled ‘Internitencias’ by the painter María Jesús Garcés. The day will continue with the presentation of a Spanish Cross of the Order of Civil Merit to Mehd Zouak, Director of the National Institute of Fine Arts in Tetuan, and Dris Khrouz, former Director of the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco. Finally, José Guirao will attend a dinner with Moroccan writers in Spanish organised at the residence of the Spanish Ambassador in Rabat.

Bosnia, Erdogan’s ‘Jerusalem At The Heart Of Europe’– OpEd

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It is now up to the Bosnian leaders to determine their own destiny, which must inexorably be linked to full membership with the EU if they want to grow and prosper while embracing full democracy. In the interim, they must be cautious in their dealings with Erdogan, who manipulates them by using Islam to pursue his sinister political agenda.

By Alon Ben-Meir and Arbana Xharra*

As Turkey’s President Erdogan runs out of money, he is now, more than any time before, using religion to exploit the Balkans, especially the states that are more susceptible to Islamic influence. Bosnia is at the fore of Erdogan’s ambitious Islamic agenda, where he is sparing no political capital or financial resources, even under his current economic hardship, to assert his influence and distance the country away from the EU’s reach. Obviously, the Bosnians cannot survive simply on being devout Muslims, with the youth unemployment rate at almost 60 percent. Turkey is unlikely to economically recover anytime soon, and Erdogan’s promises to provide financial aid and investments will ring hollow in the face of his deepening financial crisis.

The war of words, hyperinflation, US sanctions, and reckless investments on borrowed money have steadily been chipping away at the value of the Turkish Lira. Five years ago, $1 was worth 2 lira; today, six liras are exchanged for a dollar, but that has not discouraged Bosnian leaders from seeking closer association with Erdogan.

Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosnian Muslim leader and the chairman of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, said last May (in front of thousands of Turkish expatriates and Bosnian supporters of Erdogan who travelled from all over Europe to Sarajevo) that “God has sent [our] nations one person to return them to their religion… He is Recep Tayyip Erdogan. We remain standing with God’s help.” The crowd cheered when a leader of diaspora Turks equated and idealized Sarajevo as “the Jerusalem at the heart of Europe”.

Bosnia was more than willing to open the door for the Turkish president to organize an election rally in Sarajevo, especially following the EU’s refusal to allow him to campaign in its member states. For Erdogan, the Balkans is the region that can put him in a position to realize his political goal of reviving some semblance of the Ottoman Empire while undermining the EU’s influence in these countries.

Bosnia consists of two entities: The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose population is made up of Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats; and Republika Srpska, where Orthodox Serbs are a majority. About half of Bosnia’s 3.8 million citizens are Muslims, many of whom consider Erdogan their trusted leader, if not their savior.

For more than a decade, Erdogan has invested heavily in spreading his influence among Balkan states, and Bosnia was and still is one of his main targets. He pledged a multi-billion dollar investment in a key motorway connecting Serbia and Bosnia. Turkey and Bosnia signed a letter of intent for the construction of a highway connecting the two Balkan capitals, a project estimated to cost $3.5 billion, which has not yet started because of lack of financial resources.

Meanwhile, the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA)—a vehicle through which Turkey spreads its Islamic agenda in the Balkans—has completed more than 800 small projects in Bosnia, mostly related to religious institutions.

European leaders have already been voicing concerns over Turkey’s influence in the Balkans. Only a few months ago, French President Emmanuel Macron declared “I don’t want a Balkans that turns toward Turkey or Russia”.

During his May speech in Sarajevo, Erdogan urged supporters to actively participate in European politics to counter anti-Turkish sentiment. “You need to be in those parliaments instead of the ones who betray our country,” he said, referring to European lawmakers with Turkish roots.

In a conversation with us, Orhan Hadzagic, a political analyst from Bosnia, said that Erdogan is adulated by Bosnians as more than just a foreign leader. He rhetorically asks, “From Erdogan’s last visit to Bosnia, what was the benefit for Bosnian citizens from that rally, an event featuring the heads of two parties who support one other?”

Hadzagic is convinced that his country is risking its accession to the EU by opening its doors to Erdogan, from where he is challenging Brussels directly. “Many NGOs”, he said, “are close to Turkey; they receive financial support to change the negative image and the perception about the rising authoritarian rule in Turkey, among Bosnians.”

Although a large majority of Bosnians do not see any alternative to the European Union, they are passionate in their support of Erdogan. In a poll conducted by the International Republican Institute and released in March of this year, 76 percent of Bosnians said they had positive views about Turkey’s role in their country.

For Erdogan, Bosnia occupies a special place and he will endeavor to maintain his image both as a religious leader and economic savior. That said, “Erdogan’s list of priorities is growing, so Bosnia is inevitably descending on that list,” said Hadzagic, “which will reduce [Erdogan’s influence on] the state, NGO, and media organizations here in Bosnia. Consequently, it will lead to the reduction of Ankara’s influence.”

As such, Erdogan is increasing his focus on the local media outlets and non-governmental institutions in Bosnia by providing them with some financial aid to support his political agenda. But even that is becoming financially burdensome, making it more difficult to continue with his media campaign.

Sead Numanovic, a well-known journalist from Bosnia, told us that “The EU and US are still (and I fear they will continue to be) very passive in the Balkans, this environment gives an additional space for Erdogan to work easily on his anti-Western agenda.” This explains why Erdogan’s AK Party has recently opened an office in Sarajevo, its first official branch in the Balkans.

A spokesperson from the Turkish Embassy in Sarajevo told Foreign Policy that Turkey firmly supports the NATO and EU membership process of Bosnia and Herzegovina—“Turkey is not [in Bosnia] to seek influence, but to encourage political stability for the sake of the entire region.” There is nothing further from the truth.

Xhemal Ahmeti, a historian and expert on Southeast European issues, said that Bosnia’s Muslims currently are most loyal to the Turkish autocrat. “Bosnian Muslims have lost their hopes that their Trinitarian state will become an EU member. That’s why they rely on Turkey to survive, given that they are sandwiched between Catholics, conservative Croats, and Orthodox jurisdictions”, said Ahmeti. “Paradoxically, though, while the Bosnians Muslims seek Erdogan’s protection from the Orthodox (Serbs and Russians), Erdogan’s close allies are Putin and [Serbia’s Prime Minister] Vucic.”

Bosnian leaders and citizens must realize that Erdogan is moving ever closer to Russia and Iran. The EU has already made it clear that since full adherence to its charter, especially regarding human rights, freedom, and democracy, are prerequisites to EU membership, Bosnia must not cozy up to Erdogan because he has flagrantly abandoned the EU’s founding principles, and the development of a full-fledged democracy in Bosnia does not serve his interest.

It is now up to the Bosnian leaders to determine their own destiny, which must inexorably be linked to full membership with the EU if they want to grow and prosper while embracing full democracy.

This does not suggest that they should sever relations with Turkey as a regional power, with which they will need to intensify the development of a mutually gainful relationship once Erdogan departs the political scene.

In the interim, they must be cautious in their dealings with Erdogan, who manipulates them by using Islam to pursue his sinister political agenda.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

Arbana Xharra authored a series of investigative reports on religious extremists and Turkey’s Islamic agenda operating in the Balkans. She has won numerous awards for her reporting, and was a 2015 recipient of the International Women of Courage Award from the US State Department.

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

Cyprus And Turkey: East Med Gas Aspirations – Analysis

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By Antonia Dimou *

The discovery of the Egyptian Zohr giant gas field accelerated Cyprus’ declaration of the 3rd International Licensing Round. The geological structures of the Zohr field are similar to the auctioned Cypriot offshore blocks, suggesting the existence of significant gas reserves and exploitable oil deposits. The Zohr field’s expedited development positively affects Cyprus’ initial plans to export gas destined for the domestic market of Egypt, as well as plans for liquefaction at the Idku and Damietta facilities to re-export gas to Europe.

A general vote of confidence in the Cyprus EEZ is indicated by the attraction of international majors and the subsequent distributions of various exploration blocks. This includes the awarding of exploration block 6 to the ENI Cyprus Ltd and Total E&P consortium; of exploration block 8 to ENI Cyprus; and, of block 10 to the consortium of ExxonMobil Exploration & Production Cyprus Ltd and Qatar Petroleum International. ENI’s gas discovery in Block 6 offshore Cyprus with Calypso 1 NFW that could contain more than 230 bcm of gas paves the way for focused exploration leading to successful drillings.

Political tensions however as consequence of the collapse of the Cyprus Peace talks and competing EEZ claims between Cyprus and Turkey can impact negatively regional energy cooperation. The prevention of ENI’s Saipem 12000 drill ship from reaching block 3 southeast of Cyprus by military means highlights not only the exercise of unilateral steps by Turkey as a third country in the Cypriot setting but also the existence of accrued problems related to maritime boundaries and to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Various arbitration cases are considered as model for the settlement of competing EEZ claims between Cyprus and Turkey with most prominent “The Philippines arbitration case vs China over South China Sea” or alternatively the Malta-Libya arbitration case on the basis that Turkey is not signatory to the UNCLOS.

Turkey seems to solidly promote its potential as a trading hub, on the basis that the country’s geographic location and growing demand for natural gas- reflected by its annual imports of approximately 48 bcm- qualify it as a trading hub rather than a transit country. The trading hub is envisioned in proximity to the East Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Europe with Turkey at the epicenter.

It is in this context that Turkey promotes policies for turning natural gas into an economic benefit in the form of transit fees and trading facilities and looks into filling the East Mediterranean’s energy infrastructure gap. In fact, Turkey has heavily invested in its energy infrastructure over the last three years to increase daily capacity through two new Floating Storage Regasification Units (FSRU) that are online in south and northwest Turkey; the expansion of the Marmara Ereğlisi LNG Terminal; and, investment in two gas storage facilities in the central Anatolian province of Aksaray and in Istanbul province.

Concurrently, Ankara proceeds with market liberalization and regulatory reform in cooperation with private oil and gas companies; intends to create a reference price to be able to influence the pricing of gas in the region; and, plans to increase oil and gas exploration and production activities so that the country turns into a viable energy hub for Europe. Electronic trading of natural gas in Turkey’s energy stock market started in April 2018 with expectations centering on the creation of a benchmark price for the market that will contribute to price security empowering Turkey in negotiations of long-term contracts with its suppliers.

It is noteworthy that the normalization of Turkish relations with Russia falls within Ankara’s broader strategy to become a competitive regional market player and a strong transmission system operator. The reason is that Ankara’s emergence as a prominent regional energy player can be achieved through the development of adequate physical entry and exit points for capacity allocation, thus securing diversification of supplies and energy liquidity. Turkey, which imports 98% of its gas, must diversify energy sources but its energy dependence is connected to Russia. It is no secret that long-term energy contracts and a “take-or-pay” clause tie Russia and Turkey together for at least 8 more years. According to the take-or-pay provision, the contract places the danger of worsening energy market conditions on the buyer, by requiring the buyer to always be accountable for the payment of a minimum purchase commitment, thus leaving the seller to deal only with the market price risks.

Pessimism seems to prevail over monetization of East Mediterranean gas due to the lack of sufficient gas quantities available for export and pertaining political obstacles like the Cyprus conflict and cold Israel-Turkey relations. Political tensions can impact negatively regional energy cooperation. For example, it is widely acknowledged that the pipeline project connecting the Israeli Leviathan gas field to the Turkish coast is currently not feasible, as the pipeline’s route would have to cross Cyprus EEZ. Thus, Nicosia would effectively veto the pipeline under its rights as a signatory of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).Additionally, in view of Turkey’s worsening relations with European countries and radicalization of its regional policies, Ankara has become increasingly isolated and therefore it does not currently present an attractive option for transporting gas from Israel, Egypt and Lebanon to third markets like Europe.

Additionally, the declared decision by Turkey to carry out seismic surveys off Cyprus’s southwestern Paphos along with the its intention to proceed with offshore exploration in the northern part of the island through its state-owned Turkish National Oil Company highlight the shift of its focus on exploration efforts to the Mediterranean region. The latest gas discoveries in the East Mediterranean coincide at a time of tension in Turkish-US relations. Turkey so far appears cautious in not crossing a threshold beyond which Washington would be forced to respond decisively as evidenced by the unimpeded arrival of ExxonMobil’s Med Surveyor and Ocean Investigator to Limassol port. The operation of Exxon Mobil’s chartered research vessels in Cyprus’s southwest coast falls within the American position that Cyprus has the right to develop energy resources within its EEZ.

It seems that commitment on resolving the Cyprus problem is important and, in the meantime, implementation of concrete confidence building measures such as Track-II diplomacy between Greek and Turkish Cypriots on the future use of the East Mediterranean natural gas resources could invalidate any third country’s meddling in Cyprus.

Evidently, the principle of good neighbourly relations should unequivocally commit the East Mediterranean’s littoral countries so that prosperity becomes a shared gain; or otherwise intensified tensions run the risk of trapping the region in a state of persistent stagnation.

About the author:
*Antonia Dimou
is Head of the Middle East Unit at the Institute for Security and Defense Analyses, Greece; and, an Associate at the Center for Middle East Development, University of California, Los Angeles

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

In Blow To Media Gun Narrative, Homicides Down In 2017 – OpEd

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By Ryan McMaken*

The FBI released new homicide data this week, and at the nationwide level, the 2017 homicide rate fell slightly, dropping to 5.3 homicides per 100,000 from 2016’s rate of 5.4.

According to the report, there were 17,284 homicides in 2017. For context: drug overdoses killed 63,632 Americans in 2016 and more than 37,000 people were killed in motor vehicle accidents in 2016.

The US homicide rate remains down considerably from the 1990s, when the homicide rate reached 9.8 per 100,000 in 1991:

 Homicide rates had reached a 51-year low in 2014, but have climbed since then.

Nationwide, homicide rates also varied widely by state. The US states with the highest homicide rates in the new report were Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Maryland, and Arkansas. The states with the lowest rates were New Hampshire, North Dakota, Maine, Idaho, and Rhode Island. (I have added the most recent data from Canadian provinces for additional context.)

 We can see some geographical patterns if we look at the data in map form:

 Northern states tend to have much lower homicide rates overall with some of the lowest rates being found in New England, the northern plains, and the Pacific Northwest.

Interestingly, the legal environment for gun ownership can vary widely in states with similar homicide rates. Massachusetts, for example, which is considered a restrictive state in terms of gun ownership, has a homicide rate nearly identical to that in Wyoming — where gun ownership laws are extremely lax. New Hampshire, which is also notable for having very lax gun-ownership laws, has the lowest homicide rate in the nation.

Moreover, as noted in earlier articles on this topic, many of the states with the highest homicide are seeing their rates driven up by homicides in just a handful of cities and neighborhoods — many of which, like Chicago and Baltimore — have very restrictive gun-ownership laws.

Moreover, as total gun sales in the US have increased in recent decades, homicide rates look to continue a long-term decline. According to the New York Times:

Overall crime has been steadily decreasing for the last 30 years in the United States. Inimai Chettiar, director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center, said the F.B.I.’s statistics — and her organization’s own projections — showed that the rise in crime in 2015-16 was most likely a blip in that trajectory, not the start of a crime wave.

Media pundits, however, have attempted to create a narrative in which there is increasing violence. For example, a current strategy employed by gun-control advocates is to fixate on “school shootings” as evidence of increasing violence, even as homicide rates decreased. However, much of the data used to support this narrative has been flawed. Last month, National Public Radio revealed that many school shooting incidents in a recent federal report had been exaggerated, or were completely false. This was a further blow to attempts to create a new narrative of mounting violence in the face of historical data showing that school violence overall, including school shootings, declined considerably after the mid-1990s.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that school violence is increasing in just the past two or three years — even while overall homicides fall. It’s not difficult to see what gun control advocates would fixate on school shooting in attempts to obtain more government restrictions on gun ownership. School shootings are dramatic events that make for good press conferences for politicians who pledge to “do something” for the children.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of homicides are a product of far more “mundane” factors, like gang violence and domestic violence, don’t make for nearly as exciting news events. Thus, the fact that progress is clearly being made on those fronts is ignored while attention is drawn repeatedly to school shootings — which are then themselves reported at higher rates than is actually the case.

Perhaps predictably, politicians have also attempted to take credit when falling homicide rates are acknowledged. As The New York Times reported, Jeff Sessions has attempted to portray the federal government as a key factor in falling rates:

“But our work is not done,” he said. “While we have made progress, violent crime and drug trafficking continue to plague our communities and destroy the lives of innocent, law-abiding Americans.”

In truth, there is no evidence at all that the federal government has had any role in falling homicide rates. If anything, the federal government’s role in violent crime is a negative one as it continues to prosecute the war on drugs, making the illegal drug trade more lucrative and more violent.

Similarly, local police have shown little ability or willingness to confront homicides where they exist. As reported last month by USA Today, police are finding and prosecuting homicide suspects at lower and lower rates:

The national murder clearance rate — the calculation of cases that end with an arrest or identification of a suspect who can’t be apprehended — fell to 59.4 percent in 2016, the lowest since the FBI has tracked the issue.

The data tells a grim story of thousands of murders in which no one is held accountable, Adcock said.

“If we don’t address it, the issue is just going to get worse,” said Adcock, who recently started the Mid-South Cold Case Initiative , a nonprofit that aims to provide assistance to departments looking to bolster their cold case units. “The hole we’re in is just going to get deeper and deeper.”

The issue of murder clearance rates is in the spotlight as Chicago officials struggle to solve gun violence that’s plaguing the city. But the nation’s third-largest city, which only cleared 26 percent of its homicides in 2016, is just one among many big cities struggling to quickly solve gun crimes, according to FBI data and crime experts.

Part of this problem arises from the fact that police departments often prioritize going after petty drug violations and other minor crimes instead of homicides. Concentrating on drug offenses also bring financial rewards to police departments. Moreover, investigating drug cases offers numerous opportunities for making arrests and bringing revenue into the department via asset forfeiture laws. Given how police personnel are rewarded, drug investigations offer police staff more opportunities for professional advancement than does long hours devoted to homicide investigations that may or may not yield many promising leads.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that a lower “clearance rate” simply means that the police are being careful. It’s possible that, in the past, clearance rates were higher because police were less concerned about finding the right person. Clearance rates in themselves don’t tell us that the police actually arrested the right person.

In either case, the fact that the police in many major cities are only making arrests for one-quarter of homicides reminds us why private gun ownership is so important for self-defense.

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

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

Five Ways The West Gets African Development All Wrong – OpEd

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By Ibrahim B. Anoba*

In the last few weeks, Africa witnessed two major events that could influence the continent’s economic landscape in the coming decades. First was the visit by British Prime Minister Theresa May and her pledge of $5.1 billion in investments continent-wide, as the UK prepares for life after Brexit. Next followed the gesture of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who offered $60 billion in loans and aid to African leaders at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing. These two offers ironically sum up the status of the continent: Africa is the new economic frontier that needs a tremendous amount of help – and the proper way to help is seldom understood by the West. Unfortunately, what development efforts should promise, and how they should be implemented, are questions both African leaders and their partners have gotten wrong for years. But here are a few things the world must understand about helping Africa.

1. Africa is not transparent enough for loans

Among the many questions economists find hard to answer are: What total amount of loans does the continent need? And do beneficiary countries have the structural requirements to successfully pay off debts without experiencing financial problems?

The answer is simple: The financial administrative structures across Africa are not transparent enough to allow for proper accounting of state finances.

For instance, the IMF and World Bank loan facilities in the 1980s intended for industrializing the continent were a monumental failure because of the lack of transparency in recipient countries. Within a short period of acquiring billions in loans, most governments could not balance their books. And instead of creditors demanding that existing loans be paid back, they gave out more loans.

Eventually, governments could neither keep up the debt service nor point to successful development projects, and creditors had to cancel the debt through the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative in 2005.

Unfortunately, as it was then, so it is now. In fact, China is drowning the continent in more debt through its indiscriminate loans.

For instance, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari asked China for a $380 million loan to build a power plant just weeks after his administration announced the disbursement of $322 million. The funds had been recovered from the Swiss bank account of former military dictator Sani Abacha, who is believed to have stolen them from the treasury during his years in office. Why Buhari cannot use the recovered money to finance this project rather than redistributing it to the poor – just ahead of an election – and seeking a loan from China is a question resonating among nearly all African leaders.

2. Foreign aid is the new chain of slavery

The noble intentions of international donors has harmed both them and their African recipients gravely. They have almost destroyed the private sector, which is bedrock of the African economy, and turned the continent into an economic dumping ground. When foreign donations pour in to address a short-term crisis, the donations rarely alleviate the problem. Instead, they push local businesses out of the market through unfair competition with free goods.

For instance, many of the international donations of food and clothing for victims of Boko Haram’s insurgency in northeastern Nigeria were sourced outside the country. However, Nigeria has indigenous industries that could have met that demand. This charity merely succeeded in putting many local traders out of business. A similar scenario caused economic problems for Rwanda after its civil war and, at other times, damaged businesses in Zaire, Ethiopia, Somalia, and many other nations.

Presently, aid influx is affecting the performance of local businesses across the Sahel region, where famine and drought attract foreign donations. But Africa has the capacity to provide its own products. Foreign aid to sub-Saharan Africa peaked at around $40 billion. However, corruption costs Africa as much as $148 billion every year. Eliminating corruption could more than replace this revenue source.

3. Taxation cannot guarantee progress

The notion that poor countries can increase taxes to generate funds for development programs is absurd. Africa cannot simply tax itself out of poverty for two reasons. First, the average income in Africa is low and, second, economies prosper only when people are allowed to keep most of their earnings.

If more than half of the continent is already living below the poverty level, how much of their earnings can they justly be asked to surrender to the government in the form of higher taxation? And should companies that risk everything to invest in the continent be subjected to exorbitant tax rates because governments, which have a poor record of integrity, say they need more money?

Presently, many countries have a multi-tiered tax systems, which permit the central, provincial, and municipal government agencies to collect taxes from businesses regardless of the firms’ financial condition or size.

This ignores the fact that most business owners already lose money, because they often have to bribe their way through those who administer the numerous laws regulating businesses – and then pay dues to labor unions on top of that. To suggest government increase taxes, considering the financial condition of Africans, will only make things worse.

4. Centralization fuels poverty

Most African governments are too big, too bureaucratic, and too corrupt to function, let alone show any level of transparency. But things were not always like this.

Before colonialism, Africa used to be a place of distinct tribes, with independent governments under systemic checks and balances. The colonialists only amalgamated tribes under a single administrative unit because of the ease of governance, not because of their own relationships – and certainly not to serve the interests of Africans. Today, the international community has helped most African countries further institute and ingrain these unmanageable administrative systems in the spirit of helping Africa.

Development cannot be orchestrated from these bureaucratic central governments, when the need of each tribe constituting these fictitious unions differ. Only local councils genuinely know the needs of their people and, thus, are best positioned to meet them.

The pictures that appeal to foreign aid donors are poor people in remote rural communities. But many of these people are cut-off from central administration. Rather than working directly with these rural communities and considering their dynamics, foreign donors give all assistance to central governments that lack adequate knowledge of these communities. In fact, most governments simply use these resources as a means of purchasing political loyalty.

5. “Let justice roll down like waters.” Everything depends on a proper administration of justice

Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations made a compelling case that an unbiased judicial system aids economic progress. He emphasized the importance of the legal system acting as a fair broker in disputes between the state and its citizens, as well as between citizens of different social stations. Justice is the great need of Africa today. If partners can admonish African governments to consider improving their judicial systems, other reforms may well take root.

Limiting the power of the government and its cronies, and tempering bureaucratic overreach with a firm respect for individual rights, are prerequisites for economic progress. But across Africa, the judicial system often favors the state and its cronies, especially in cases of property disputes and abuses of fundamental rights.

For example, the South African government’s proposed land expropriation policy, which divides the country along racial lines and has already had negative effects on the agricultural sector. Likewise, neighbouring Zimbabwe crumbled due to similar experimentation not long ago. In both cases, power-hungry politicians found a legal rationale for policies that violate the laws of God and man.

Innocent Africans have suffered greatly at the hands of selfish leaders. The only thing they deserve moving forward is the right to fulfill their potential, and to pursue happiness without the heavy hand of the state or its unintentional enablers overseas. A seemingly altruistic policy is only truly noble when it is applied with a thorough consideration of all its consequences.

About the author:
*Ibrahim Anoba
 is acting executive director of the African Liberty Organization for Development, and an African political economy advocate with Young Voices. You can engage him on Twitter at @Ibrahim_Anoba.

Source:
This article was published by the Acton Institute


Turkey Now Controls Syria’s Jihadists – OpEd

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Because of the US Government’s repeated threats to start World War III against Russia on Syrian territory if Russia will assist Syria’s Government to eliminate the jihadists who control Syria’s Idlib province, Russia’s Government agreed, on September 17th, with Turkey’s Government, that Turkey’s Government will control Idlib, which is Syria’s most jihadist-friendly province.

Consequently, the threatened US-and-allied bombing campaign to overthrow Syria’s Government and replace it with one that would be controlled by the royal family of Saudi Arabia (the Sauds) has been placed on hold, because such a bombing campaign would now mean the US going to war against not only Syria’s Government and Russia’s Government and Iran’s Government, but also against Turkey’s Government, which is a NATO member and (because of its location) has been an essential part of the American Empire.

Turkey is thus now balanced on a knife’s edge, between the US and its allies (representing the Saud family) on the one side, versus Russia and its allies (representing the anti-Saud alliance) on the other.

Historically, the Sauds have competed against the Turkish Government for leadership of the world’s Muslims. Gradually, the Sauds came to ally themselves first with the British Empire, and then with the rising American Empire, which two Empires merged into one right after World War II.

Turkey was the head of the Ottoman Empire — that was actually the Turkish empire — and Turkey became defeated in World War I by the British side, including the leader of the Saud family. As a result of the epoch-making September 17th agreement about Idlib, Turkey, which for nearly a hundred years was an important ally of America, no longer is a US ally, but is vacillating between alliance with Russia, versus alliance with the US

The Historical Background

Some historical background is helpful for understanding where we’re coming from, and where we are heading to, here:

In 1811, the fundamentalist-Sunni Wahhabis of Arabia, led by the Saud family, revolted against the non-fundamentalist Sunni Ottoman Turks, and were crushed by the Ottomans.

In 1830, “The Great Game” started, in which the British Empire unsuccessfully tried to colonize Afghanistan next door to the world’s most natural-resources-rich land, Russia, but Britain gave up in defeat in 1895, and therefore Afghanistan remained neutral.

As British historian Martin Ewans wrote in his 2002 Afghanistan: A Short History (p. 12), “Although never colonized, Afghanistan is part of the colonial history of Tzarist Russia and British India, with a strategic importance that in 1884 brought the two empires to the brink of war.” Ewens indicated (p. 66) that Russia’s opposition to Britain’s colonizing Afghanistan was based upon Russians’ fear that Britain would use the fundamentalist-Sunni Afghans as proxy boots-on-the-ground to spread into and take over parts of Russia.

John David Blom’s March 2009 “The Decline of Anglo-Saudi Relations” noted (p. 7) that, “The major areas of British imperialism in the Middle East during the nineteenth century were the Ottoman and Persian Empires, the Trucial states along the Persian Gulf, Aden, Oman, and Egypt. The Ottoman and Persian Empire provided a buffer against Russian expansion south.” Furthermore, Blom observed (p. 11) that after the Saud family came to recognize that in order for them to dominate against the Ottoman Turks for control over the Islamic world, “The Anglo-Saudi Treaty of 1915 recognized Ibn Saud’s position as ruler of Najd, El Hassa, Qatif and Jubail. It guaranteed British protection of these regions in exchange for control of Ibn Saud’s foreign policy.” Of course, the defeat of Turkey was the real focus of that, otherwise called Treaty of Darin. But the decline of Anglo-Saudi relations was merely the opposite end of the rise of US-Saudi relations. After WW I, this British alliance with the Sauds was effectively taken over on 23 May 1933 by Standard Oil of California (a Rockefeller oil company, now called Chevron) when the existing oil-discoveries in Saudi Arabia failed to excite British and European investors sufficiently. Three years later, Texaco joined SoCal. Then, in 1938, these American drillers made the first big oil-strike in Saudi Arabia. In 1943, the company became renamed Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), and the previous British Empire now effectively became the American Empire. The alliance between the Saud family and the US aristocracy has remained solid ever since.

Further contributing to the Sauds’ increasing reliance upon the US aristocracy instead of upon the British aristocracy, has been this: In The West at the end of the 1800s, the British Empire adopted the British mining-magnate Cecil Rhodes’s plan for their Empire to become joined with the soaring new American Empire, which combination during World War I won against the then-soaring German Empire (and against its allied Japanese and Italian Empires) and then won against Germany yet again in WW II, this time because Russia and its Soviet allies basically conquered the Germans in the east. The US, emerging then essentially unscarred from WW II which had devastated all of America’s allies in that war, became, more clearly than ever, the Saud family’s winning horse, to carry them closer to final victory.

In the 1915 Treaty of Darin, between the United Kingdom and Abdul-Aziz al-Saud (sometimes called Ibn Saud, who then led only part of what subsequently became the larger Saudi Arabia) both parties agreed that Saud would join UK’s war to conquer (Ottoman-led) Turkey; and that, in return, the British Empire (UK) would protect and defend the Saud family’s imposed rule, anywhere that it might become challenged.

Turkey’s Government was thus conquered, and then it ended its moderate-Islamist Ottoman Empire, after Turkey’s participation on Germany’s side in WW I produced General Ataturk’s creation of the secular Turkish state in 1923, and the end of the Turkish Caliphate the following year. Ataturk created a Turkey whose laws were almost completely independent of the Quran.

However, after the success of the US-Saudi war against Russia in 1979 by means of spreading Wahhabist and other fundamentalist-Sunni mosques and especially funding and creating mujahideen, Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ultimately ISIS fighters, all against Russia and against Russia’s ally Iran — that is, against the two countries which the Sauds and America’s aristocracy are the most determined to conquer — the Islamist Tayyip Erdogan in 2003 rose finally to power in Turkey, so as to support that US-Saudi cause, against Russia, and against Iran.

Turkey, of course, is on Syria’s northern border. The accession to power of an Islamist leader of Turkey constituted a disastrous turn against the adjoining Syria, which country now was almost completely surrounded by hostile governments (controlled by fundamentalist Sunnis, except Israel, which is controlled by fundamentalist Jews). Erdogan was very much America’s leader of Turkey.

However, the US aristocracy wanted Fethullah Gülen, who was even more dependent upon the US, to take over Turkey. So, on 15 July 2016, a US-NATO-backed coup-attempt to replace Erdogan by Gulen occurred and failed. It failed because Russia’s Putin informed Erdogan in time to save Erdogan’s life. This did not, however, turn Turkey immediately and 100% against America’s aristocracy, but it certainly did start that. This is the reason why Russia’s Astana Peace Process to settle and end the war in Syria includes Russia, Iran, and Turkey — and not US, Saudi Arabia, or any other outright enemies of Russia and of Iran.

America’s CIA has actually been trying ever since 1949 to place the Middle East’s only committedly anti-sectarian, pro-secular, nation, Syria, under the control of the fundamentalist-Sunni Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia and cooperate with US oil companies.

The Recent Background of the September 17th Agreement on Idlib

That brings us to the U.S-Saudi-Israeli war against Syria, which is called by the aggressors ‘the Syrian civil war’ in order to blame it against Assad instead of against themselves.

Early in this invasion of Syria, Turkey was a leading participant, and provided pathways both for international jihadists — all of them fundamentalist Sunnis — and for the weaponry for them, to enter into Syria.

Qatar, which is owned by its fundamentalist-Sunni royal family the Thanis, likewise was essential to the invasion and occupation of Syria, and funded the Muslim Brotherhood in order to assist the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad (as the Thanis did more successfully in Egypt with their installation of Mohammed Morsi). But then, on 5 June 2017, the Sauds decided that the Thanis aren’t sufficiently anti-Shia and anti Iranian; so, the Sauds tried to blockade Qatar and to crush the Thanis. Whereas America’s aristocracy turned against Erdogan, Saudi Arabia’s royal family turned against the Thanis. So: both Turkey and Qatar are now on the fence and no longer committed to the US-Saudi side against Syria.

Throughout the recent phase of the 7-year-long jihadists’ war to overthrow Syria’s Government, almost all of the surviving jihadists who did not surrender to Syria’s Government have been killed on the spot where they were, and all of the jihadists who did surrender were bussed by Syria’s Government into Idlib, which consequently is now even more jihadist-friendly than it was at the war’s start. Here is how this happened:

When Barack Obama came into the White House in January 2009 he was hoping to overthrow Syria’s Government. Also in 2009, UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron’s Government was actively planning to do it.

The pro-jihadist Thani family, as the main funders of the Muslim Brotherhood and owners of Qatar, have been almost as important cooperators with US oil and gas companies as are Saudi Arabia’s royal family. The Thanis’ Al Jazeera network reported, on 13 March 2012, that already Idlib was “opposition-held” and that “The Free Syrian Army is based in Turkey and its border is the most likely location for getting arms into Syria.” That’s how The West was transporting weapons to the jihadists. Al Jazeera’s correspondent said that the Syrian Government’s campaign to defeat its opponents there “was ‘Shooting fish in a barrel’ — these people can’t escape, they can’t help themselves, they have very little weaponry, what can they do but sit there and take it?” The West was thoroughly sympathetic, and supplied weapons to the supposedly helpless jihadists.

On 29 July 2012, when the US Government still had not yet made clear that it was planning to hand Syria over to the Saud family, the New York Times headlined “As Syrian War Drags On, Jihadists Take Bigger Role” and already noted that, “Idlib Province, the northern Syrian region where resistance fighters control the most territory, is the prime example.” Their report observed, without any indication of the significance of the fact, that, “A central reason cited by the Obama administration for limiting support to the resistance to things like communications equipment is that it did not want arms flowing to Islamic radicals. But the flip side is that Salafist groups, or Muslim puritans, now receive most foreign financing.” The significance was that Washington was taking its lead from the Sauds and the other fundamentalist-Sunni Arab oil monarchs. The article did, however, note that, “Significantly, most of the money flowing to the Syrian opposition is coming from religious donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region whose generosity hinges on Salafi teaching.” “Salafi teaching” is fundamentalist-Sunni teaching. It originated with Mohammed ibn al-Wahhab, the man who in 1744 authorized the Saud family to conquer the world for Allah. As the NYT reported there, Saudi fundamentalist-Sunni teaching was now taking over in the most-Sunni parts of Syria, because that’s what was being funded by the war’s financial backers:

The attitude prompts grumbling from fighters used to the gentler Islam long prevalent in Syria. Adel, a media activist from Idlib interviewed in Antakya, Turkey, in June, complained that “the Islamic current has broken into the heart of this revolution.” When a Muslim Brotherhood member joined his group in Idlib, he said, inside of a week the man demanded that the slogans that they shouted all included, “There is no god but God.” “Now there are more religious chants than secular ones,” Adel groused. …

Ahrar al-Sham in particular enjoys the support of Sheik Adnan al-Arour, a Sunni Muslim media star in exile, who blasts Shiites and Alawites on his television show and on what appears to be his authentic Twitter account. “We buy weapons from the donations and savings of the Wahhabi children,” said one recent Twitter posting, referring to the Islamic sect prominent in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. …

Abu Zein, a spokesman for Sukur al-Sham, said the organization included Syrians plus other Arabs, French and Belgians. “The Qaeda ideology existed previously, but it was suppressed by the regime,” he said in a Skype interview. “But after the uprising they found very fertile ground, plus the funders to support their existence,” he added. “The ideology was present, but the personnel were absent. Now we have both.”

Bill Roggio, of Long War Journal, reported on 4 August 2012 that “Al Nusrah Front conducts joint operation with Free Syrian Army”. Nusrah was the name for Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, and the FSA were controlled by Turkey’s Government. These were America’s key allies on this matter.

On 15 November 2012, Roggio concluded that, “The al Qaeda-linked Al Nusrah Front has been the most active jihadist group in Syria.” He also clarified, which the July NYT report had not, that, “The Ahrar al Sham Brigades is a Salafist-jihadist group that operates in Idlib and the surrounding areas, and has numerous foreign fighters in its ranks. Sheik Adnan al Arour, a prominent Syrian cleric who has often appeared in the media, backs the Ahrar al Sham Brigades.”

Roggio reported on 19 December 2012 that, “The Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group that is fighting Bashir al Assad’s regime in Syria, and allied jihadist groups took control of the last major Syrian Army base in western Aleppo after a two-month-long siege. The base is believed to be involved in Syria’s chemical weapons program.” So, that might have been one of the incidents when jihadists obtained chemical weapons to blame subsequently against Syria’s Government.

On 25 February 2013, the New York Times bannered, “Saudis Step Up Help for Rebels in Syria With Croatian Arms” and reported, regarding those ‘rebels’ (who were actually being led by Al Qaeda — but the NYT kept this fact a secret) that, “Washington’s role in the shipments, if any, is not clear. Officials in Europe and the United States, including those at the Central Intelligence Agency, cited the sensitivity of the shipments and declined to comment publicly.” (Already, any honest newspaper would have abandoned using Obama’s ‘rebels’ label for them and would honestly have instead said “jihadists” in order to refer to them, but the US major media clearly aren’t honest.)

On 8 March 2013, Britain’s Telegraph bannered “US and Europe in ‘major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb’: The United States has coordinated a massive airlift of arms to Syrian rebels from Croatia with the help of Britain and other European states, despite the continuing European Union arms embargo, it was claimed yesterday.” This newspaper reported that, “Western officials told the New York Times that the weapons had been bought from Croatia by Saudi Arabia, and that they had been funnelled to rebel groups seen by the west as more secular and nationalist.” Since virtually all “rebel groups” in Syria actually worked under Al Qaeda’s leadership and training, calling them “more secular and nationalist” was simply to lie — someone had lied there, too.

Dr. Christof Lehman on 8 August 2013 presented considerable support for the view that “Ultimately, the designated function of the Muslim Brotherhood (AKP) administration of Tayyip Erdogan is the dismantlement of the Turkish Republic and the subsequent establishment of smaller US/NATO client states along ethnic and sectarian lines.”

On 22 June 2014, Dr. Lehmann reported that, “The green light for the use of ISIS brigades to carve up Iraq, widen the Syria conflict into a greater Middle East war and to throw Iran off-balance was given behind closed doors at the Atlantic Council meeting in Turkey, in November 2013, told a source close to Saudi – Lebanese billionaire Saad Hariri, adding that the US Embassy in Ankara is the operation’s headquarter. … The summit was, among others, attended by Turkey’s President Abdullah Gül, US Energy Secretary Ernst Monitz, Atlantic Council President Frederick Kempe, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former US National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft.”

On 12 June 2015 (less than four months before Russia, at Syria’s request, was to enter the war on 30 September 2015, to prevent a Saud takeover of Syria), the Washington Post reported that, “because of regime losses in Idlib and elsewhere, … many people are starting to openly talk about an endgame for Assad and Syria.” Victory for the US-Saud-Turkey-Qatar-al-Qaeda side seemed now to be almost assured.

Then, Dr. Christina Lin wrote on 19 September 2015, that “Turkey-backed Chinese Uyghur terrorists are gaining a stronghold in Syria from which to launch attacks on China” and “3,500 Uyghurs are settling in a village near Jisr-al Shagour that was just taken from Assad, close to the stronghold of Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) that is in the Turkey-backed Army of Conquest. They are allegedly under the supervision of Turkish intelligence that has been accused of supplying fake passports to recruit Chinese Uyghurs to wage jihad in Syria.” Turkey was recruiting Al Qaeda’s Uyghur Chinese Turkmen into Syria. America and its allies seemed confident that Assad would soon be overthrown.

The Debka File was the only honest English-language reporter on the top news-story of 30 September 2015 (if not of that entire year), the historic day when, as they headlined it with unique honesty, “Russia enters Syrian war with air strikes, jolts the Mid East into new era” — and the Washington Post headlined as the journalistic bad joke that that neoconservative-neoliberal propaganda-sheet is, “Did the Russians really strike the Islamic State?”. And CNN bannered with the ambiguous, but less dishonest and far less ludicrous “Russia launches first airstrikes in Syria”. However, CNN’s heavily propaganda-laden ‘news’ report even contained some lies, such as the sub-headed one, “Russia: Coalition strikes on ISIS illegal,” which falsely suggested that Russia was against bombing ISIS in Syria, when the reality was instead that the US was against bombing ISIS and had not done it until Russia did first, which was on that very day. The US regime was simply bewildered at what had just occurred, which is that the war in Syria was now a superpower war on both of its sides, and no longer only on one side, as it had been until that moment. Putin decided, at that time, that he had had enough of Western aggression, and that he wouldn’t take it anymore: he would come to the defense of that ally. France24, being in line with the US regime, bannered “Russia hitting all of Assad’s opponents: analysts” and opened with the likewise falsifying “Syrian rebels who oppose both the regime and the Islamic State group have been hit hardest by Russian air strikes, showing Moscow’s determination to defend President Bashar al-Assad against all enemies,” as if the French Government, too, were not up to its neck in that war on the jihadists’ side, and as if Russia’s Government had not been consistently ferocious against the spread of jihadism.

The West was already deep in blood on this matter, on the devil’s side of it.

America’s “PBS” Public Broadcasting System TV headlined on 1 October 2015, “Mike Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, talks about why Russia deployed airstrikes in Syria” and Morell told interviewer Charlie Rose about Vladimir Putin:

This guy is a thug. This guy is a bully. The second point I’d make is that he only understands relative power — who’s got more power, who’s got less power. That’s how he thinks about relationships. Third, I will tell you that he tries to create the image that he is this great strategic thinker. He’s not at all. He is a very good tactician, very good reacting to situations taking advantage of situations but he’s not particularly good at thinking them through. You know, I think that he is actually the biggest loser over the long term in the Ukraine crisis and I think he’s miscalculated what he’s doing in Syria now.

What a perfect description he gave there of himself, and of his bosses.

On 25 October 2015, Dr. Christina Lin headlined “Qatar’s jihad and mideast failing states” and reported: “This week Qatar’s foreign minister Khadlid Al-Attiyah said Doha is mulling military intervention in Syria alongside Turkey and Saudi Arabia to fight Assad, rather than ISIS.” The real story always had been that the US is on the side of jihadists, as cheap boots-on-the-ground to do the US aristocracy’s dirty-work abroad.

On 16 November 2015, Dr. Lin reported that, “Chinese Turkistan Islamic Party, Uzbek Imam Bukhari Jamaat and Katibat Tawhid wal Jihad have planted themselves in Idlib. In Aleppo, a May 2015 USAID report on Central Asian fighters in Syria, referred to three Uzbek militant groups allied with Al Nusra as “Aleppo Uzbeks”: Imam al-Bukhoriy Brigade, Uzbek Brigade of Jabhat al Nusra, and Seyfullah Shishani Jamaat. Now, various intelligence sources estimate there are around 5,000 Uzbek, 2,000 Chechens and more than 1,000 Chinese militants in Syria.”

On 24 November 2015, she bannered “NATO, Turkey, annexation of north Syria like north Cyprus?” and ripped into Erdogan as the snake that he is. And she noted: “While Russian jetfighters are flying over Syrian territory at the invitation of the sovereign government of Syria, Turkish jetfighters are flying over Iraqi territory to bomb Kurdish rebels without the consent of the Iraqi government, prompting the Arab League to issue a statement on 4 August condemning Turkey’s violation of Iraqi sovereignty.” He’s like America’s current and recent Presidents. She pointed out that, “as NATO member Turkey is transforming from a secular, democratic system to one of an increasingly Islamist and autocratic presidential system under Erdogan, it appears the alliance is also transforming from a value-based alliance of human right, democracy, and rule of law to one that is increasingly interest-based.” Was she talking about Trump, Obama, and Bush? She closed: “as Erdogan continues to goad NATO to stand in solidarity with Turkey and its territorial expansions in the Levant, it appears the world is now entering a dangerous new phase of an increasingly post-western and illiberal world order.”

But now that Putin had saved Erdogan from being killed by Obama, Erdogan is no longer an American stooge. What he is, is whatever secret deals he has secretly committed himself to.

So: Trump threatened WW III in order to protect the people in the only province in Syria that even at the war’s start were about 90% preferring Al Qaeda and/or ISIS over Assad’s secular Government (and which is even far more jihadist today). As a result, on 17 September 2018, Putin and Rouhani — at least for the time being — offered to hand control of Idlib over to Erdogan, because doing this would postpone if not end that US-and-allied threat, of destroying the world in order to conquer the US aristocracy’s main targets.

*Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010.

The Unbelievable Cruelty Of GOP’s Kavanaugh Charade – OpEd

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By Jill Richardson*

This past week, my private reality and the public reality playing out on the television have diverged. It’s hard to believe that I live in the same world as Senator Chuck Grassley, the Senate judiciary chair trying to Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court.

When Christine Blasey Ford first alleged Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her — and when talking heads on TV began doubting her veracity, or insisting that the assault was not a big deal — a different conversation began.

It’s a private conversation, one-on-one, mostly. A few of us posted about sexual assault in general or about our own past assaults on our Facebook pages. Then the private messages began.

In some cases I knew my friends had been assaulted. Sometimes I knew because we were friends when it happened, and they’d told me at the time. In other cases, the rapes or assaults occurred long before we met, up to four decades ago.

In other cases, I found out this week.

Often, I don’t know the details of what happened to my friends. The details are painful to talk about. They’re painful to hear.

I know: I re-lived each of my past assaults in the last week. Four of them.

To those who think something that happened decades ago can’t be that big of a deal, you’re wrong. When you’re sexually assaulted, you can suffer long-term consequences, stored in your body. My body learned early on that sex is dangerous, and it keeps me safe with pain.

Since my first sexual experiences were assaults, I’ve never once had a sexual experience that wasn’t painful. I’m afraid of sex. I don’t desire it. Why would I? It just hurts.

I’m in therapy now, trying to recover from what happened in a college dorm room 18 year ago. I’ve spent the entire past week with a migraine because of the nonstop talk about sexual assaults and the government’s unwillingness to take sexual assault allegations seriously.

Hearing people on TV say that an assault in one’s teens isn’t a big deal, or that the woman cannot be believed, and so on, feels personal. It feels like they’re shouting at me, that I can’t be believed either.

In all of my private conversations with other survivors, there’s a common understanding. We all know that if we spoke out publicly about our past assaults, most of us wouldn’t be believed either. So often there are no witnesses. One shower and one load of laundry destroys the evidence.

It’s hard to admit to oneself that one was powerless. Weak. A victim. I like to see myself as strong, independent, and decisive. If someone tried to do something to me that I didn’t want, I would resist. And yet, I didn’t.

Instead of accepting a narrative of myself as weak, I dealt with what happened by attempting to forget it. I mostly did forget it — but my body remembered.

On TV, politicians say that it’s unreasonable to hold a man accountable for an assault he committed decades ago. Why on earth not? His victim is almost certainly still suffering from it.

I wish the politicians could hear what I’ve heard in all of the private, one-on-one conversations of the past week. But speaking out makes one vulnerable. That’s why most of these conversations remain private.

Shouting at women to silence them might get your man onto the Supreme Court. It worked for Clarence Thomas, and it can work for Brett Kavanaugh. But it doesn’t change reality, or make you right.

OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in San Diego. Distributed by OtherWords.org.

$100 Oil Is A Distinct Possibility – Analysis

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By Nick Cunningham

An oil price spike is starting to look increasingly possible, with a rerun of 2008 not entirely out of the question, according to a new report.

The outages from Iran are worse than most analysts expected, and bottlenecks in the U.S. shale patch could prevent non-OPEC supply from plugging the gap. To top it off, new regulations from the International Maritime Organization set to take effect in 2020 could significantly tighten supplies.

Put it all together, and “the likelihood of an oil spike and crash scenario akin to the one observed in 2008 has increased,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote in a note. BofAML has a price target for Brent at $95 per barrel by the end of the second quarter 2019. In 2008, Brent spiked to nearly $150 per barrel.

The supply picture is looking increasingly worrying, with Venezuela and Iran the two principal factors driving up oil prices in the fourth quarter. Notably, the bank increased its estimate of supply losses from Iran 1 million barrels per day (mb/d), up from 500,000 bpd previously.

U.S. shale can partially make up the difference, but the explosive growth from shale drillers is starting to slowdown, in part because of pipeline bottlenecks. BofAML sees U.S. supply growth of 1.4 mb/d in 2018 but only 1 mb/d of growth in 2019.

That means that there isn’t the same upward pressure on WTI as there is on Brent, largely because infrastructure bottlenecks in the shale patch keep supplies somewhat stuck within the United States. And it isn’t just in West Texas where the constraints are causing problems. “[B]ottlenecks in the Permian basin could well extend to other areas such as the Bakken or the Niobrara, and we do not even rule out temporary export capacity constraints in the Gulf Coast as domestic output overwhelms logistics,” BofAML said in a note.

Meanwhile, the demand side of the equation is not as clear. For now, demand still looks strong. The IEA puts demand growth for 2018 at 1.4 mb/d, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch agrees. But BofAML says three important demand-side factors to watch, which could undermine the high price scenario.

First, the dollar is strong, which would likely prevent a run up in prices in the same way as in 2008. Second, higher debt levels in emerging markets means that many countries are in a weaker spot than they were in 2008. Third, capital could continue to flee emerging markets because of rising interest rates from the Federal Reserve, U.S. corporate tax cuts and U.S. tariffs.

Why the focus on emerging markets? Beyond the possibility of contagion, emerging markets represent the bulk of oil demand growth, so any faltering would upset the global demand picture. The strong dollar, higher debt and capital flight means that “significant [emerging market] oil demand destruction could follow if Brent crude oil spikes above $120/bbl,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch said.

Nevertheless, there are some ingredients in place that could lead to dramatic price spikes, even if the corresponding demand destruction makes the spike only temporary. BofAML puts total global supply outages at around 3 mb/d, only a bit lower than the recent peak of about 3.75 mb/d in 2014. And that doesn’t take into account the unfolding losses from Iran. In other words, if Iran loses around 1 mb/d of supply due to U.S. sanctions, as looks increasingly likely, total global supply outages could balloon to their highest in about two decades, not seen since the roughly 5 mb/d of outages during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War.

Finally, the 2020 IMO regulations will force marine fuels to lower sulfur content from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent. This will lead to a sharp increase in demand for diesel and other low sulfur fuels as the deadline for implementation approaches. “[T]he transition to a lower sulfur fuel specification will not likely be smooth,” BofAML notes.

At a minimum, it appears that bearish sentiment from within the oil and gas industry has evaporated. Bloomberg notes that on the earnings calls of 22 major energy companies for the third quarter, not once was the phrase “lower for longer” mentioned, the first time since 2015 that was true. It wasn’t too long ago that blistering U.S. shale growth was thought to have permanently lowered the marginal price of production, which would lead to a period of lower oil prices for the foreseeable future.

That mantra seems to have been fleeting as a growing number of analysts see higher prices ahead with concerns about the possibility of triple-digits.

“The market does not have the supply response for a potential disappearance of 2 million barrels a day in the fourth quarter,” Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. co-founder Daniel Jaeggi said in a speech at the S&P Global Platts Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference, according to Bloomberg. “In my view, that makes it conceivable to see a price spike north of $100 a barrel.” Meanwhile, the co-head of oil trading at Trafigura, another top oil trader, said that $100 oil was possible by the end of the year.

One of the key factors that will determine whether this happens or not is how Saudi Arabia responds.

“Our plan is to meet demand,” said Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih. “The reason Saudi Arabia didn’t increase more is because all of our customers are receiving all of the barrels they want.” His comments came after the OPEC+, which ended with no plans to increase output.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Saudi Aramco has told its customers that might be running short on Arab light crude in October, and that in the long run, it won’t be able to meet demand if Iran is knocked offline. “[W]e are heading to a price spike, likely $90 to $100” an oil trader told the WSJ. “It’s not just Iran that will suffer. It’s going to have a boomerang effect with rising gasoline prices” in the U.S.

Worse, Saudi Arabia has officially said that it could cover for Iran’s losses, even if most of Iran’s production goes offline. In the past, Saudi officials have suggested that they could produce up to 12.0-12.5 mb/d if it the market needed it. But Saudi sources told the WSJ that producing “11 million is already a stretch, even for just a few months.” With output already up to about 10.4 mb/d, that leaves a significantly smaller pile of spare capacity than is commonly thought.

“It’s tearing higher,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodities strategy at Saxo Bank A/S, according to Bloomberg. “Technicals and fundamentals seem to be pointing in the right direction at the moment and that can be quite a potent cocktail.”

Source: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/100-Oil-Is-A-Distinct-Possibility.html

Global Watchdog Takes Saudi Arabia To Task For Lax Anti-Terrorism Finance Measures – Analysis

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A Financial Action Task Force (FATF) report criticizing Saudi Arabia’s anti-money laundering and terrorism finance measures puts the kingdom on the spot 17 years after the 9/11 attacks and casts a shadow over its diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar on the grounds that the Gulf state supports militants.

In a nod to the kingdom, the international watchdog described as “understandable” the fact the kingdom’s “almost exclusive focus of authorities on domestic (terrorist financing) offences means the authorities are not prioritizing disruption of support for threats outside the kingdom.”

The 246-page report contrasted starkly with US President Donald J. Trump’s assessment expressed in his address to the United Nations general assembly. “Following my trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Gulf countries opened a new centre to target terrorist financing. They are enforcing new sanctions. They are working with us to identify and track terrorist networks and taking more responsibility for fighting terrorism and extremism in their own region, Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump, by design or default, did not take into account the flow of substantial amounts of Saudi money to militants in the Pakistani province of Balochistan that borders on Iran. Mounting indications suggest that the Islamic republic’s detractors may be moving to stir unrest among Iran’s ethnic minorities in a bid to change the regime in Tehran.

The flow of funds leaves open the possibility that the kingdom’s laxity in cracking down on funds flowing to extremists beyond its frontiers may be deliberate.

To be sure, Saudi Arabia has been strengthening its anti-money laundering and terrorism finance regime ever since the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in which the perpetrators were primarily Saudi nationals and Al Qaeda attacks in the kingdom itself in 2003 and 2004.

Writing in Forbes, journalist Dominic Dudley noted that the FATF report may not have taken into account new anti-money laundering and terrorism finance-related laws adopted last year by Saudi Arabia. “The new laws were coming in just as the FATF was conducting its research for this report and it is too soon to judge how effective they have been,” Mr. Dudley said.

Even so, it was only with the ascendancy to the throne of King Salman in 2015 and the rise of his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that the kingdom began to review its more than four decades long global funding of intolerant, anti-pluralistic, supremacist, ant-Shiite and anti-Iranian ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim groups and institutions.

While financing has been severely curtailed and funding vehicles like the Muslim World League have been refashioned to propagate moderation and inter-faith dialogue, the kingdom, as in the case of Balochistan, continues to support ultra-conservatives where it serves its geopolitical goals.

In what apparently reflected frustration with the kingdom’s progress in countering money laundering and terrorism, FATF did not mince its words in its report. “Saudi Arabia is not effectively investigating and prosecuting individuals involved in larger scale or professional (money laundering] activity” and is “not effectively confiscating the proceeds of crime,” the report said.

FATF suggested that the problem was the kingdom’s implementation of anti-money laundering and terrorism finance measures rather than its legal infrastructure. “Saudi Arabia has a legal framework that provides it with an adequate basis to investigate and prosecute ML (money laundering) activities… Saudi Arabia is not effectively investigating and prosecuting individuals involved in larger scale or professional ML activity. Investigations are often reactive rather than proactive, and tend to be straightforward and single layered.,” the report said.

The report’s wording left the possibility open that poor implementation was the result of either a lack of political will or the fact that there is widespread criticism of Prince Mohammed’s reforms within the bureaucracy and the kingdom’s religious establishment despite a crackdown on any form of dissent.

That possibility gains currency given the fact that FATF acknowledges that “Saudi Arabia has demonstrated an ability to respond to the dynamic terrorism threat it faces in country. Saudi Arabian authorities have demonstrated that they have the training, experience and willingness to pursue TF (terrorism finance) investigations in conjunction with and alongside terrorism cases.”

The report noted that Saudi Arabia seldom convicted funders of political violence who were not directly involved in attacks. “This includes TF cases in relation to funds raised in the Saudi Arabia for support of individuals affiliated with terrorist entities outside the kingdom, particularly outside the Middle-East region, which remains a risk. Saudi Arabia’s overall strategy for fighting terrorist financing mainly focuses on using law enforcement measures to disrupt terrorist threats directed at the kingdom and its immediate vicinity,” the report said.

FATF’s criticism is embarrassing for a country that ever since the 9/11 attacks has been attempting to shed its image of having fuelled militancy, position itself as a leader in the struggle against militancy and extremism, and project itself as a 21st century knowledge hub by liberalizing its strict social and cultural norms, including the recent lifting of the ban on women’s driving.

It is also awkward because the report puts Saudi Arabia in the position of the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to the 15-month-old Saudi-United Arab Emirates-led boycott of Qatar because it allegedly funds and supports militancy. Saudi Arabia’s failure to garner widespread international support for its boycott or force Qatar to concede heightens the awkwardness.

That is even more the case given that Saudi Arabia together with the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt is demanding among other things that Qatar “consent to monthly compliance audits in the first year after agreeing to the demands, followed by quarterly audits in the second year, and annual audits in the following 10 years” – something the kingdom would be unlikely to accept if hypothetically asked in the wake of the FATF report to submit to a similar regime.

China And US Perceptions Of Each Other’s Intentions In South China Sea – Analysis

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The visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month to MalaysiaSingapore and Indonesia signals a new era of competition between the United States and China in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea. China critics in the U.S. frequently warn of what they assume are China’s dangerous intentions regarding the South China Sea – and what it may do to achieve its goals.  They say it wants to dominate the sea militarily as part of its ambitious and aggressive expansionism and that therefore it will continue to militarize the features it occupies and undertake major naval exercises there.  They say China may interfere with freedom of commercial navigation and essentially control all activities there including fishing and oil and gas exploration and development.  To accomplish this, it will continue to intimidate its rival claimants, coerce them via economic aid and ‘debt traps’, and defy – and change – the existing applicable intentional rules.

Reinforcing these warnings, the U.S. has officially declared China a “strategic competitor and a “revisionist nation”.  It has thus made clear that it considers China a potential enemy, and it is presumed that “the gnomes in the basement” of the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department are constructing and planning for worst case scenarios — including war.  More specifically, the U.S. has repeatedly criticized China’s claims, actions and policies in the South China Sea and has even publicly embarrassed it by barring  it from its world’s largest 27 country Rim of the Pacific  naval exercises until it has “ceased all land reclamations activities in the South China Sea” and ‘removed all weapons from its land reclamation sites.’ http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2018/09/11/asean-and-china-should-seize-the-opportunity-in-the-south-china-sea/

But we do not read as much about what China’s strategic thinkers believe the U.S. intentions are in the South China Sea and what they think the U.S. might do to achieve its goals there.  Indeed, because of this information deficiency—or what the U.S. calls “lack of transparency” – – U.S. strategic analysts are left to speculate on China’s intentions.  However in doing so, they may be underestimating China’s ability to project and plan for what it views as worst scenarios regarding the U.S. ‘threat’.  Therefore it may be useful to begin a discussion of China’s perspective regarding the South China Sea with a hypothetical tapestry of China’s thinking.

Some strategic thinkers in China have concluded that China and the U.S. are almost certain to clash militarily because of ‘civilizational’ and ideological differences –as well as the sheer desire of both to dominate. Indeed, some think the U.S. wants to continue to dominate the South China Sea militarily as part of its overall strategy to contain and constrain China.  They expect various specific U.S. moves to try to reach this goal. http://en.nanhai.org.cn/index/research/paper_c/id/181.html#div_content

From their perspective the U.S. is trying to prevent its rightful domination of its ‘near seas’ like the South China Sea and in doing so is supporting former Western colonies that have been ‘stealing’ its fish and petroleum for decades in collaboration with outside Western entities. Much to their chagrin, they point out that after agreeing in the 2002 China-ASEAN Declaration on Conduct of the Parties in the South China Sea to resolve the disputes “through friendly consultations and negotiations by sovereign states directly concerned_ _ ,” some of the other claimants have welcomed the U.S. and even its and their former arch enemy Japan to ‘intervene’ in the issues.

 

In the military sphere they expect the U.S. to increase its operations there as well as its exercises with, and port visits to allies and friends in the region, and to attempt to obtain access to more ‘places’ for refurbishing and refreshing its military.  They also expect the U.S. to increase the frequency and scope of its freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) challenging China’s claims, and to try to persuade its allies to participate—or at least to undertake their own. Validating these fears ,US FONOPS targeting China’s claims in the South China Sea have already increased under President Donald J. Trump’s administration, and Japan’s largest Maritime Self Defense Force naval vessel –the helicopter carrier JS Kaga –and its escorts have just exercised with the US Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike group in the South China Sea. https://thediplomat.com/2018/09/chinese-navy-frigates-trail-japanese-helicopter-destroyer-in-the-south-china-sea/.   Moreover, just a few days ago, a U.K. warship challenged China’s claimed of baselines around the Paracel Islands.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/royal-navy-china-warship-challenge-south-sea-islands-hms-albion-uk-freedom-of-navigation-a8525206.html

These analysts also project that the U.S. will continue to interfere in the ASEAN-China negotiations to formulate a code of conduct for the South China Sea. http://www.bworldonline.com/us-reaffirms-position-in-south-china-sea-code-negotiations/.  They also expect the U.S. to increase its efforts to pull China’s rivals like the Philippines and Vietnam deeper into its orbit with economic and military assistance, and veiled threats of ‘punishment’ if they stray too far toward China. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2163415/weary-and-wary-philippine-president-rodrigo-duterte-takes-china

In a worst scenario they think that the U.S. will encourage these rivals to take unilateral actions against China’ claims and actions in the South China Sea with vague hints of backing them up if they are attacked. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2160086/us-will-be-good-ally-philippines-if-beijing- Also in a worst scenario, they project that the U.S. will implement a blockade of its economic lifeline –particularly of its oil and gas imports– traversing the Malacca Strait and the South China Sea.

In the broader strategic arena, these analysts expect the U.S. to stoke the Taiwan issue and to encourage Japan to step up its military activities in the East China Sea as  ways of distracting and pressuring China regarding the South China Sea. They also see the US Indo-Pacific Strategy and the Quad—a potential—but unlikely—partnership between Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. –as a means to constrain and contain it –in general –and in the South China Sea.

One may argue that some or all of this is paranoia on the part of both—and some of it  may well be. Nevertheless this is a realistic hypothetical description of the strategic view from China. You may have a different set of assumptions and hypotheses.  But the point is that a one-sided perspective is unhelpful and only stimulates a spiral of worst scenario thinking and formulation of plans to counter them.

Yes, China has behaved badly in the South China Sea. So have other claimants–and the U.S.  All need to tone down rhetoric, incorporate balance in their strategic analyses and be realistic in diagnoses, prognoses and prescriptions. Above all is a need for both China and the U.S. and their strategic analysts — to understand how the other sees the problem.  They should look for areas of possible compromise rather than simply spin out worst scenarios based on questionable assumptions.

*Mark J. Valencia, Adjunct Senior Scholar, National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China

This piece first appeared in the South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2165653/south-china-sea-how-well-do-china-and-us#comments

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