As France still struggles to get a grip on the massive protests that have been raging through the country for weeks, President Emmanuel Macron has admitted that the country is in a state of “economic emergency.”

“Today, we are forced to admit [it]. Today, I am announcing an economic emergency in our country,” Macron said, addressing the nation on Monday and calling for “support” for the French economy.

His address comes after four weekends of protests that started over the increase of fuel prices and turned into major discontent with his economic policies that demonstrators said favored the rich. The protests throughout the country boiled over into riots, clashing with police who resorted to using tear gas.

“There is no justification to the anger and all those violent clashes,”Macron insisted in his speech although admitting that the public has “right to indignation.”

The president then announced that the “minimal wages will be … increased by €100 ($113) per month” starting in May 2019. He also pledged to cancel taxes on overtime labor and introduce special tax exemptions for people earning less than €2,000 ($2,270) per month.

Macron, who is often criticized for allegedly only serving the interests of the rich in France, also announced that he ordered the prime minister to develop proposals that would allow “enterprises and the richest members of our society to contribute” to the program of the national economy support, yet he refused to reinforce the so-called “wealth tax.”

Macron scrapped the Solidarity Tax on Wealth (ISF) that forced all French households with assets of over €1.3 million ($1.48mn) to pay an additional percentage in 2017, provoking a wave of criticism from the public and the opposition politicians. French MP and the left-wing ‘Unbowed France’ Party leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon dubbed Macron a “President for the Rich.” In his Monday, speech, Macron still defended his stance on the issue by saying that the wealth tax “did not really help” France.

Macron also effectively blamed his predecessors for the poor state of affairs in France. He said that the living standards have been deteriorating for some 40 years against the background of the increasing income gap, which together fueled the social tensions. “It has been impossible to fix that in the recent years,” the president said.

“We will respond to the economic and social urgency with strong measures, by cutting taxes more rapidly, by keeping our spending under control, but not with U-turns,” Macron said.

The people, however, did not quite believe the bright future Macron painted in his speech as many called such measures populist while arguing that they would not bring any real changes or would even make the situation worse.

“For 13 minutes, Macron distributed money without announcing any economic [reforms],” one person wrote on Twitter, calling such approach “irresponsible.” Others insisted that a “reform of the institutions” and more public control over the government expenses is what is in fact needed.

Some people hailed Macron’s announcement as an actual victory for the Yellow Vest movement – an umbrella group behind the massive protests. “In six weeks, the Yellow Vests got what the trade unions did not get in 30 years,” one Twitter post read.

However, there were also those, who praised Macron for his “courage” and congratulated him on his “brave” decision

By  Benjamin Fox

UK Prime Minister Theresa May told MPs on Monday (10 December) that she would return to Brussels to seek new concessions on the Irish ‘backstop’ as she postponed a vote in parliament to give herself one last chance to salvage her battered Brexit deal.

After another morning of chaos in Westminster, May delayed the vote planned for Tuesday on her Withdrawal Agreement struck with EU leaders in November, after her ministers warned that she was heading for a heavy defeat.

News of the postponement, which came less than an hour after May’s spokesperson told reporters that it would still take place, rattled the markets and sent the pound to a 20-month low against the dollar.

More than 100 MPs from May’s governing Conservative party had confirmed that they planned to vote against the Withdrawal Agreement.

The delay also prompted a row with the Speaker of the House, John Bercow, who described the move to unilaterally delay the vote as “deeply discourteous” to Parliament. 164 MPs had already spoken in the first three days of a five-day marathon debate ahead of the Tuesday vote.

May is now expected to head to Brussels on Tuesday ahead of a European Council summit on Thursday and Friday, but MPs from all sides warned that minor concessions would not change anything and would “merely be postponing the inevitable”.

May refused to be drawn on a new date for the MPs’ vote but hinted that it would take place in the new year just ahead of a deadline of 21 January.

In response, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that the prime minister had “lost control of events”, while a series of MPs from all sides called for May to call a second referendum.

“There will be no successful and enduring Brexit without compromise on both sides,” said May, adding that her opponents should be honest about the consequences of a second referendum or leaving with no deal.

“If you want a second referendum that overturns the result then be honest that this risks dividing the country again when we should be striving to unite it, and if you want to leave without a deal you must be honest that this would cause significant economic damage to parts of our country that can least afford to bear the burden,” she added.

However, May reiterated that she was committed to striking a deal with EU leaders and did not want a ‘no deal’ scenario.

The European Court of Justice ruled on Monday (10 December) that the UK can unilaterally halt the Brexit process as Theresa May moved towards delaying a crunch vote on her EU Withdrawal Agreement in the UK parliament.

“Even though I voted Remain I have known that my duty is to deliver on the result,” she said, adding that she was “determined to get this deal over the line.”

EU officials have repeated that there will be no changes to the Withdrawal Agreement.

For his part, the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt tweeted: “I can’t follow anymore. After two years of negotiations, the Tory government wants to delay the vote. Just keep in mind that we will never let the Irish down.”

By Dr Sandip Kumar Mishra*

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in several bilateral and multilateral meetings on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Argentina. Such meetings are not unusual. However, this year, two trilateral meetings that PM Modi was apart of drew significant attention. One meeting was held between India, Japan and the US, called JAI (Japan, America and India), and the other trilateral was called RIC (Russia, India and China). The composition of these meetings,representing countries that are often in contest, with India as the only common participant, is a positive development from India’s perspective. While some may consider this Indian opportunism or a ploy to benefit from both formations, itis more useful to recognise India’s intention to work as a bridge between differing world views. It is an open message from India: that both groupings have important roles to play in achieving a stable, prosperous and peaceful global order. Any future economic and security architecture of the region must be inclusive, and India is willing to take the diplomatic leap to emphasise this point.

JAI was the first trilateral meeting of its kind. All three participating countries stressed the import of a “free, open, inclusive and rule-based” order as essential for peace and security in the Indo-Pacific. Modi spoke of “shared values” as the basis for regional economic growth. He noted that the acronym JAI translates as “success” in Hindi, and that cooperation would undoubtedly “enhance connectivity, maritime cooperation and stability inIndo-Pacific.” India suggested five action points for the grouping: connectivity, sustainable development, disaster relief, maritime security and unfettered mobility. It is important to remember that the US, Japan and Australia, along with India, have been articulating their Indo-Pacific strategy, which is considered to be aimed at containing China’s ‘assertive’ behaviour in the region.

The articulation of the quadrilateral network and annual joint Malabar naval exercises are seenas elements of this same broad strategy. India is viewed as a consequential member of this formulation, and there have been several calls for more active participation. While India’s role and significance in the Indo-Pacific arisesfrom its geopolitical positioning and as a lynchpin in restraining future Chinese disruption, for India, the vision finds consonance with its goal of afree and fair global order in which any country that plays by the rules is an equal partner. India feels that if China is able to exercise discretion in its behaviour, it could contribute immensely  to the region on both the economic and security fronts. This was underlined by Modi at the Shangri La Dialogue in June 2018, where he said,“India does not see the Indo-Pacific region as a strategy or as a club of limited members. Nor as a grouping that seeks to dominate. And by no means do we consider it as directed against any country.”

India’s participation in RIC meeting must also be seen in light of the above. This was the second trilateral meeting between India, Russia and China, held after a gap of 12 years. The leaders of the three countries acknowledged that their friendship and cooperation would “enhance world peace.” It also announced that all three countries give importance to reform and strengthening of multilateral institutions. In this context, an example of India pursuing balanced and consistent relations with both the US and Russia is its deal with the latter to buy the S-400 missile defence system, despite signs of displeasure from the US. Similarly, India has sought to maintain working relations with China, with Modi most recently meeting President Xi Jinping for an informal summit meet to ‘reset’ India-China bilateral relations in April 2018. India is clearly interested in maintaining its relations with a diverse set of countries, some of whom are often at odds with each other.  

The most significant takeaway from the two trilateral meetings is that India is confident and transparent in its intent to work as a bridge between the two apparently contesting articulations for the regional economic and security order. India seeks a ‘third way’ in which cooperation rather than contestation between the US and China is the dominant principle, which will help bring peace, prosperity and stability to the region. These two meetings must thus be seen as complimentary, and in contradiction of each other.

*Dr Sandip Kumar Mishra is AssociateProfessor, Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, JNU,and Visiting Fellow, IPCS.

“I am a Tariff Man,” Trump tweeted last week. “When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so…. We are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN.”

I’m sorry, Mr President, but you got this wrong. Tariffs are paid by American consumers. About half the $200bn worth of goods you’ve already put tariffs on come almost exclusively from China, which means American consumers are taking a hit this holiday season.

These tariffs function exactly like taxes. By imposing them, you have in effect raised taxes on most Americans. You have made Americans poorer.

Worse yet, they’re regressive. The middle class and poor pay a larger percentage of their incomes on these tariffs than do the rich.

I needn’t remind you that your Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed last year, slashed taxes on big corporations and the rich by about $150 billion annually. You claimed it would cause companies to invest more in America and thereby create more American jobs. They didn’t. (See General Motors.)

They spent most of their tax savings buying back their own shares of stock. This gave the stock market a steroidal boost. Not surprisingly, the boost was temporary. Last week the stock market erased all its gains for 2018, and worse may be in store. The whole American economy is slowing.

Your tariffs could put us into a recession. The world’s other big economies are slowing, too. In 1930, congressmen Smoot and Hawley championed isolationist tariffs that President Herbert Hoover signed into law. They deepened the Great Depression.

Your economic advisers are trying to put the best possible face on all this, arguing that your tariffs are designed to improve your bargaining leverage with China.

The middle class and poor pay a larger percentage of their incomes on these tariffs than do the rich

But your recent US-China trade deal is already unraveling. More accurately, the deal never happened. Your claims about Beijing agreeing to buy more US agriculture and natural gas weren’t backed up by your own administration or the Chinese government. Sort of like your “great” deal with Kim Jung-un.

Some of your advisers say your real aim isn’t about trade at all. It’s to get China to stop stealing American technology. This presumably was the reason behind last week’s arrest of the chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei Technology. (Hint: That arrest won’t make it any easier to reach an agreement with China.)

I’m not sure why you’re so interested in helping American corporations protect their technology, anyway. That technology doesn’t belong to the United States. It belongs to those corporations and their shareholders. They develop and share it all over the world.

Most of these corporations have been willing to share their technology with China in joint ventures with Chinese companies, because that’s the price of entering the lucrative Chinese market. They still come away making lots of money.

Of course, they could make even more if the Chinese didn’t take the technology. So maybe, as with the tax cut, you just want to make big corporations richer.

But let me give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to assume your real concern is America’s national security, and that this whole “tariff man” blunderbuss is designed to prevent China from racing ahead of us in technologies that are critical to national defense.

John Bolton, your national security adviser, has said the real issue is “a question of power”, and the theft of intellectual property has “a major impact on China’s economic capacity and therefore on its military capacity”. Bolton advises you, right?

But if this is your real motive – and, quite frankly, I can’t come up with another reasonable one – might I suggest a better way to protect national security?

You have the authority to stop foreign corporations from buying any American corporation whose technology is critical to national security. So why not prohibit American corporations that possess such critical technology from sharing it with China, even if that’s the price of gaining access to China’s lucrative market?

Bar them from entering into joint ventures with Chinese corporations, prevent them from teaming up with Chinese state-owned companies, and demand that they guard their technology, under penalty of law.

Sure, these America corporations would have to sacrifice some profits, but so what? Your job isn’t to make them more profitable. It’s to protect the United States. And isn’t this a better way to protect American security than to impose a hugely regressive tax on average Americans and risk a global recession?

There is much ignorance about the state of the constitutional law as it applies to Christmas celebrations in the public schools. To cut to the quick—they are permitted.

A Christmas play by the Minden Junior Service League, performed at Minden High School in Webster Parish, Louisiana, was recently the source of much controversy. Two of the 35 minutes of the play discussed Jesus, and some objected, including the Webster Parish School Board.

The Superintendent Johnny Rowland was sympathetic to those who wanted the play, but insisted that there is a “federal court order [that] clearly spells out what is allowable and what is not.” Despite attempts to censor the play, it was performed anyway, and was greeted with a standing ovation.

Officials at Manchester Elementary School, which is part of the Elkhorn Public Schools in Nebraska, got all ginned up over Christmas and decided to ban displays of Santa Claus, Christmas trees, Christmas songs, and the colors red and green. Candy canes were also banned. Thanks to  Liberty Counsel, the decision was reversed and sanity prevailed.

What is permissible at Christmastime in the public schools?

In 1995, Secretary of Education Richard Riley issued a directive on this subject at the behest of President Bill Clinton. Here is the language of how the operative paragraph begins: 

“Official neutrality regarding religious activity. Teachers and administrators, when acting in those capacities, are representatives of the state and are prohibited by the establishment clause from soliciting or encouraging religious activity, and from participating in such activity with students.”

This first part makes good sense: it is not the business of school officials to lead students in religious activities. But the second part also makes good sense, yet it is frequently ignored.

“Teachers and administrators are also prohibited from discouraging activity because of its religious content, and from soliciting or encouraging anti-religious activity.”

In other words, school officials cannot ban voluntary, student-led religious activity at Christmastime. Students cannot be punished for singing Christmas carols, distributing Christmas cards, wearing red and green, giving Christmas presents, writing Christmas poems, giving speeches paying tribute to Jesus, etc.

No federal court has ever ruled that Christmas must be censored in the public schools. It’s about time the superintendents and their lawyers got up to speed and stopped listening to cultural fascists bent on banning Christmas: they know nothing about the First Amendment provisions regarding freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

By Giriraj Bhattacharjee*

On December 6, 2018, the Khango Konyak-led faction of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K-Konyak) announced the decision to revoke the 2015 pronouncement of unilateral abrogation of the cease-fire agreement (CFA) with immediate effect. ‘President’ and ‘Chairman’ Khango Konyak and ‘general secretary’ Isak Sumi, in a joint statement, called upon Union Government to respond,

The undivided NSCN-K, on March 31, 2015, had unilaterally abrogated the April 28, 2001, CFA stating, “it was no use extending the ceasefire without discussing the issue of Naga sovereignty.” Later, on April 28, 2015, the Union Government of India too announced the suspension of the CFA and followed up by banning NSCN-K for five years, on September 16, 2015, under the Unlawful Activities [Prevention] Act (UAPA), 1967. Subsequently, on November 16, 2015, the Central Government declared NSCN-K a terrorist organization.

On June 20, 2017, in the aftermath of the death of its founding ‘chairman’ S. S. Khaplang on June 9, 2017, Khango Konyak was made ‘chairman’. However, in August 2018, a vertical spilt occurred within group, leading to the formation of two splinters. A ‘party emergency meeting’ held on August 17, 2018, at the ‘council headquarters’ in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, ‘elected’ Yung Aung, a Myanmarese national, as the new ‘acting chairman’. Khango Konyak left Myanmar along with his supporters and reached Yongkhao village under Tobu sub-division in the Mon District of Nagaland on October 16, 2018. Konyak became the leader of this faction.  

The announcement of the resumption of the ceasefire was not sudden, as reports indicated that both Nagaland Gaon Burha Federation (NGBF) [Federation of Traditional Village Headman] and the Naga Mother’s Association were involved in back-channel peace parleys with the NSCN-K-Konyak. NGBF in a statement on November 14, 2018, disclosed,

NGBF also disclosed that NSCN-K-Konyak had placed a four-point demand before the Union Government for consideration. It includes lifting of the ‘ban’ imposed on the NSCN and removal of the “terrorist” tag; rescinding the ‘bounties’ placed on NSCN leaders; repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and Disturbed Areas Act in “Naga areas”; and unconditional release of NSCN cadres who were arrested after abrogation of the ceasefire and were undergoing trial or serving sentences in prisons.

NGBF reportedly handed over a letter by the Khango faction to R.N. Ravi, the Deputy National Security Advisor (Internal Affairs) and the Centre’s Interlocutor for Naga talk’s. On November 14, 2018, NGBF claimed that, during a meeting between NGBF and the interlocutor, Ravi reportedly accepted ‘many’ of the demands. Ravi, however, at the same time clarified, “India has a commitment to solve the Naga issue with one comprehensive solution and, therefore, cannot have many agreements and is not in a position to take up 3^rd party with fresh negotiation.”

Significantly, since the abrogation of the CFA on March 31, 2015, and till Khaplang’s death on June 9, 2017, the ‘undivided’ NSCN-K emerged as the most violent group in the entire Northeast. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), out of a total of 431 fatalities (121 civilians, 65 Security Force, SF, personnel and 245 militants ) recorded in the entire Northeast region during this period in which the identity of the involved group was established, NSCN-K was linked to 39 fatalities (seven civilians and 32 SF personnel). The Saoraigwra faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB-S) was a distant second with 18 fatalities (17 civilians and one trooper). Moreover, in another sign of NSCN-K’s heightened activities on ground, it lost a total of 40 of its cadres during this period, second only to NDFB-S which lost 44 militants.

However, the effectiveness of NSCN-K was greatly reduced during Khango Konyak ‘chairmanship’ (June 20, 2017-August 16, 2018). According to SATP data, only five NSCN-K linked fatalities (one civilian, one trooper, and three NSCN-K militants) were recorded across Northeast during this period.

After the August 2018 split, the Konyak-led group had shown interest in talks, while the Aung Yung faction sought to continue its ‘fight’ against the Indian state.

Indeed, the Aung Yung faction (NSCN-K-Yung) has decided to continue with violence and, in a release to media on October 20, 2018, declared,

On December 3, 2018, the Indian Army’s 12 Para Special Force (SF) commandos killed three militants in an area between the Wangla and Oting villages in the Mon District along the Indo-Myanmar border. According to reports, the commandos laid an ambush after receiving specific inputs about movements of around six militants along with a civilian, reportedly a guide. Though dead bodies of the two slain militants were recovered after the ensuing encounter; their identity is yet to be ascertained. The body of a third slain militant could not be retrieved. The militants reportedly belonged to NSCN-K-Yung and the Independent faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA-I), had entered India from Myanmar. Significantly, the last major incident (resulting in three or more fatalities) involving the undivided NSCN-K was recorded on June 17, 2018. On that day, undivided NSCN-K militants laid an ambush near the Tenyak River on the outskirts of Aboi Town in the Mon District, killing two Security Force (SF) personnel. Another six troopers were injured in the ambush. One of the injured troopers died later, on June 18. ULFA-I had claimed that it was also part of the ‘operation’.

Further, according to SATP data, there was not a single incident of NSCN-K-linked killing since the August 2018 split, till the December 3 incident.

Worryingly, there are signs of emergence of strong bonding between ULFA-I ‘commander-in-chief’ Paresh Baruah and Aung Yung. Baruah, in a recent interview published on November 24, 2018, endorsed Yung’s succession declared, “We will grow with a new leadership”.

It now remains to be seen whether the Government is able to accommodate NSCN-K-Khango in the framework of the lingering talks  to resolve the Naga issue, or stands on its ‘decision’ not to accommodate any 3^rd party. The decision to accommodate may further widen the scope of the Naga peace process beyond the Isak Muivah faction of NSCN (NSCN-IM) and the Naga National Political Groups (NNPG), but would, at the same time, threaten further delay in any ‘final outcome’. 

Whatever the Government decides, counter insurgency (CI) operations based on specific intelligence, especially in the ‘last remaining hub in Northeast’ along the Indo-Myanmar border, will continue, with improving coordination amongst the State Police and Central Forces operating, in order to block any renewed militant consolidation.

*Giriraj Bhattacharjee
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

By Muzliza Mustafa and Hadi Azmi

Malaysian police said Monday they had foiled an alleged plot by the Islamic State (IS) terror group to attack places of worship in the capital Kuala Lumpur, by arresting two suspects last month.

The pair were among seven suspected militants taken into custody through a series of raids in launched between Nov. 19 and 28 in Kelantan, Selangor, Sabah and Kedah states that also netted alleged members of the Philippine-based Abu Sayyaf militant group, officials said. In all, police arrested five Malaysians and two Philippine citizens.

Police Inspector-General Mohamad Fuzi Harun said one of the two suspects apprehended in Kelantan had been in contact with Akel Zainal, a Malaysian citizen fighting alongside IS in Syria.

“The 28-year-old who worked as a honey seller was arrested in Kelantan on Nov.19. He received instruction from Akel to launch an attack in Malaysia,” Fuzi said in a statement released on Monday that did not name the suspects.

Another suspect, a 35-year-old driving school instructor, had also received instructions from Akel, according to Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, the director of the police’s counter-terrorist special branch. He said the duo planned to strike early next year.

“They were planning to launch attacks at places of worships in Kuala Lumpur and police stations in Kelantan. Their targets were unknown as they were still in planning stages,” Ayob told BenarNews.

“January is just around the corner. We do not want to take any risks, so we rounded them up as a proactive measure. For us, we should not take any risks,” Ayob said.

An initial investigation showed that the two had been communicating with Akel since early this year, according to Ayob.

The delay in tracking them resulted from Akel adopting a method used by Malaysian terrorist Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi to recruit new members before Wanndy was killed in Syria last year. In October, Ayob told reporters that Akel took the lead in efforts to recruit Malaysians to Syria following Wanndy’s death in Raqqa in April 2017.

Akel adopted Wanndy’s method of recruiting individuals to serve a specific role and only communicate with the mastermind of an attack, according to investigators.

“One person would be tasked to do one thing, the other to work on different things. It was a method to make sure that each has no clue of the other person’s identity. It took us some time to connect the dots. It was a method to slow us down,” Ayob said.

Wanndy used this method to successfully orchestrate an attack in Malaysia in 2016 where a grenade tossed at a nightclub near Kuala Lumpur injured eight people, the police official said.

Other arrests

Among the latest arrests, a suspect taken into custody on Nov. 20 was identified by police as a 52-year-old Malaysian petroleum engineer who allegedly funneled 14,000 ringgit (U.S. $3,350) to Wanndy between 2016 and 2017 to fund terror activities.

A 26-year-old van driver in Kedah was arrested for allegedly providing funds to a pro-IS terrorist network, Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), which was linked to attacks on police stations in Central Java in April 2017. JAD was also blamed by Indonesian police for suicide bombings in the city of Surabaya in May 2018, where three churches were attacked by a radicalized Muslim family.

Police also arrested an alleged member of Abu Sayyaf on Nov. 21 in the Borneo state of Sabah. Officials identified the 45-year-old farmer as a Philippine citizen.

In addition, on Nov. 28 police arrested a 48-year-old Filipino in Tenom and his Malaysian wife for not disclosing knowledge of the presence of Abu Sayyaf members in the state.

Fuzi said the suspects were being investigated under the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act. Since January, police in Malaysia have arrested 452 individuals linked to alleged terror activities.

By Michael Lelyveld

China’s government has restored heat to hundreds of frigid households after an “improper” ban on burning coal highlighted problems with anti-smog policies for the second year in a row.

In early November, an inspection team from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment was sent to the capital of northern China’s Shanxi province following complaints that residents were burning furniture to keep warm, according to state media and independent reports.

The problem for households in the Kangle district of Taiyuan city followed a local ban on coal-fired heating, an order that the official English-language China Daily called “improper” in a report on Nov. 23.

Exactly who ordered the ban remains unclear, but news accounts of the episode suggest that central government authorities were eager to defuse public anger and avoid blame.

The local coal ban was part of the government’s campaign to reduce smog in Beijing and other northern cities during the heating season under a fuel-switching program launched with difficulty last year.

Last December, the initiative backed by the environment ministry and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) ran into trouble when children were photographed sitting outside in the cold to escape chillier conditions in unheated schools.

After an outcry, inspectors found that officials had barred coal-fired heating before natural gas and electricity projects were complete and adequate supplies were assured.

This year, the powerful NDRC planning agency sought to soften the seasonal ban by making it more flexible and ordering local authorities to make sure that alternate heat sources were on hand.

In August, Vice Minister of Finance Liu Wei said that a “matching supply source” for alternate fuels must be secured with winter contracts before coal cutoffs could proceed.

In October, Vice Premier Han Zheng repeated the requirement, telling local officials it was “absolutely forbidden” to leave residents without heat.

‘We have no choice’

Despite the advance warnings, officials in Taiyuan enforced the coal ban on 400 households and 1,500 residents, giving them electric heaters without checking to see whether they could afford to run them or whether homes were properly wired, China Daily said.

The higher cost of electric heating with mostly coal-fired power drove poorer households to burn old furniture and scrap wood, despite the environmental consequences.

“We have no choice but to burn this. We’re not allowed to burn coal and it costs too much to use the heaters,” said one resident, according to the New York-based Epoch Times, citing a China News Service report.

The central government reacted by sending eight teams to meet with residents and “seek their suggestions,” China Daily reported, indicating a high degree of concern.

As with the gas and electricity problems last December, the coal ban was rescinded for the affected households.

“Residents will be offered free clean coal to warm their homes and they can also request more electric heaters if required,” the paper said.

Common elements

It was unclear whether the problem of paying for more costly electric heating had been solved.

Although the circumstances were different from those last year, the coal cutoff cases in Taiyuan shared common elements.

In imposing the ban, local officials initially responded to residents’ needs with authoritarian and administrative measures to implement government policies.

Little thought was given to the outcome. And the responsibilities for poor planning and implementation were never fully addressed.

“In some ways it is a repeat of last year, but with differences,” said Philip Andrews-Speed, a China energy expert at National University of Singapore.

“The difference is that this year the households are taking matters into their own hands by burning wood,” he said.

The practical effect of policies on poorer citizens also appeared to be a secondary or belated consideration. The government’s approach seems likely to pose problems for air quality improvements in the years to come.

“The key issue is price, and coal will always be cheaper than gas and electricity, even if subsidized a bit,” Andrews-Speed said.

The experience so far this year also raises doubts that the fuel-switching policy is working.

The government has largely blamed a series of smog alerts across northern China in recent weeks on adverse weather conditions. But the explanation may not wash with citizens who have already been forced to pay for fuels more costly than coal.

Resentment of central government environmental initiatives may also rise if more incidents like the Taiyuan heat problem arise while smog alerts continue as before.

The winter cutoff cases are reminiscent of events in 2010, when the central government pulled out all the stops in an eleventh-hour effort to meet five-year energy efficiency targets.

In the process, the NDRC ordered electricity supplies to be curtailed or cut off entirely to some homes, factories and even hospitals before the end-of-year deadline for calculating the energy efficiency data.

Local anger at the government ran so high that the NDRC was forced to promise that it would never withhold energy supplies from the public again.

Breaking the commitment

The Taiyuan episode may come dangerously close to breaking that commitment, perhaps explaining why state media publicized the actions of the inspection teams to see that the local heating problems were addressed.

The cancellation of the local coal ban may only give residents temporary relief from government mandates, however, since the entire district is “going to be demolished and rebuilt soon,” the Taiyuan city government said in a press release.

The China Daily report mentioned the planned demolition almost in passing, raising further doubts about the government’s response to citizens’ concerns.

The government’s campaign against smog is only the visible part of its battle for improved air quality, while international concerns have focused on China’s contribution to climate change.

A report released last week by the Global Carbon Project found that China’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen at a substantially faster pace this year despite increases in renewable energy.

The international group of climate scientists estimated that China’s energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) climbed 4.7 percent in 2018, accelerating from growth of about 1.3 percent last year.

China was seen as the leading factor in the global growth of carbon emissions in 2018 to 2.7 percent from 1.6 percent a year earlier.

“The biggest change in CO2 emissions in 2018 compared with 2017 is a substantial increase in both energy consumption and CO2 emissions in China,” the study said.

China’s coal consumption is projected to rise 4.5 percent this year.

While most of us don’t have access to the inner workings of the Trump administration to know exactly what is going on with its negotiations with China, given the public accounts and statements, it seems workers have clearly lost. Trump seems to have made the concerns of companies like Boeing, who want more help maintaining their control over technology, his top priority. The impact of an under-valued Chinese currency, which has led to a large U.S. trade deficit, seems to have been dropped from discussion.

The disappearance of currency “manipulation” from the discussion is more than a bit ironic, since Trump made this a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. He ran around the country complaining that China was a world class currency manipulator. He pledged that he would declare China a currency manipulator on Day One of his administration and apply corresponding trade sanctions.

We’re getting close to Day 700 and there is still no declaration on China’s currency practices. Furthermore, the topic has been virtually dropped from public discussions.

What is highlighted is that Trump is pressing China to end practices that require U.S. companies to transfer technology to Chinese partners and also to stop corporate espionage where Chinese companies infiltrate U.S. companies to obtain their latest technology.[1] Most of the media cover this as though Trump is pursuing a genuine national interest in pressing this issue, as opposed to the interest of a small number of large corporations.

This is seriously wrong. In fact, if Trump is successful to pushing his “anti-intellectual property theft” agenda with China, it will actually be bad for most of the nation’s workers.

At the most immediate level, suppose Boeing, GE, and the rest know that they can now set up operations in China without having to take on a domestic partner and transfer key technologies. Fans of economics would say that this change would make them more likely to establish manufacturing facilities in China. In other words, this is a great victory for outsourcers.

Let’s look at other dimensions of this issue. Suppose that Trump’s tough line on intellectual property means that Boeing and GE can have more profits from China. Suppose also that greater respect for U.S. patents and copyrights increases the profits of Microsoft, Pfizer, and Disney.

This is all very good news for the folks who own lots of stock in these companies, and probably for their top executives as well, but it’s a bad story for the rest of us. After all, if China has to pay these companies more money for their intellectual property claims, then it has less money to buy other items from the United States.

The way this works out in the market is that if China needs to pay more royalties, licensing fees, and other payments associated with intellectual property claims it increases their demand for dollars. This raises the value of the dollar against the Chinese yuan, other things equal. With the dollar more highly valued, U.S. produced goods and services are more expensive for people living in China. Conversely, the higher valued dollar makes Chinese produced goods and services cheaper for people living in the United States. This will make our trade deficit larger in items other than intellectual property charges.

There is another aspect to this issue that continues to get virtually zero attention. Patent and copyright monopolies are one mechanism for financing research and creative work. They are not the only one (for example we do spend tens of billions on direct government funding through the N.I.H. and other agencies) and they may not be the most efficient mechanism.

There is an ongoing debate on inequality in the U.S. with the almost universally held view (at least according to major media outlets) that those who have mastered technology are getting ahead, while those relying on less-skilled work are falling behind. The length and strength of patent and copyright monopolies directly determine the payoffs to people who master technology. Bill Gates would still be working for a living without his government-granted monopolies on Microsoft’s software.

In the story of U.S. trade negotiations with China, the Trump administration is very directly pushing to make patent and copyright protections longer and stronger. He wants to make sure that Chinese companies and individuals have to pay as much to U.S. companies for their patent and copyright claims as do companies and people in the United States. This means yet more money going to those at the top.

If anyone thinks this is a nationalist issue as opposed to a rich people’s issue, think a bit more carefully. The Chinese economy is already close to 25 percent larger than the U.S. economy. It stands to be almost twice as large as the U.S. economy in a decade. China also invests a considerably larger share of its GDP in research and development.

Given these basic facts, China is virtually certain to have much more technology to “steal” than the United States in the very near future, if it does not already. If there is no system of well-developed rules on respecting intellectual property claims, the United States stands to gain more from using technology developed by China without paying for it than China does by using technology developed by the U.S.

I have literally not seen this point made anywhere in the U.S. business press. Perhaps I don’t read enough, but this rapidly changing balance seems a central part of the picture. Implicit in the idea that the U.S. as a whole benefits by locking down technology, is the view that we have more technology at risk than does China. But with that clearly not being the case, or surely not the case for long, there is no national interest in setting up strong rules protecting intellectual property claims.

There is of course the narrow interest of the companies and individuals who benefit from these claims. They will get still richer at the expense of the rest of us. And then, the philanthropically minded among them can finance research by well-credentialed academics on the causes and cures for inequality. Some reporters may even write some good pieces on the topic.

Just to step back for a moment, it would be desirable to have international mechanisms for ensuring that the costs of research and development are shared in some equitable manner across countries. But this hardly requires the patent and copyright monopolies that we now have. We could instead rely on more modern mechanisms that focus on making information free and openly available.

Unfortunately, the people designing our trade policy have little interest in promoting the development of technology or economic efficiency. They want to maximize the amount of income going to the top. Anyone who thought Trump was on the side of the ordinary worker should realize from his actions on trade with China that this was a bad joke, if they had not already come to that conclusion.

Notes.

[1] This is a practice that U.S. companies engage in as well. For example, Uber was sued by Waymo after it hired a top engineer in the effort to design self-driving cars. The engineer brought Uber a large number of discs containing software developed by Waymo. So corporate espionage is not a uniquely Chinese story. It’s not clear if Chinese firms are more likely to engage in illegal infiltration of their U.S. competitors than other companies.

This column originally ran on Dean Baker’s blog.

Populations of indigenous people in southern Africa carry a gene that causes lighter skin, and scientists have now identified the rapid evolution of this gene in recent human history.

The gene that causes lighter skin pigmentation, SLC24A5, was introduced from eastern African to southern African populations just 2,000 years ago. Strong positive selection caused this gene to rise in frequency among some KhoeSan populations.

UC Davis anthropologist Brenna Henn and colleagues have shown that a gene for lighter skin spread rapidly among people in southern Africa in the last 2,000 years.

This is a “rare example of intense, ongoing adaptation in recent human history and is the first known example of adaptive gene flow at a pigmentation locus in humans,” according to the paper published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Dec. 10.

The findings are based on research by multiple scientists. The primary author, Meng Lin, conducted the research as a graduate student at Stony Brook University, working with anthropologist Brenna Henn, now of the University of California, Davis, Genome Center and Department of Anthropology. Lin is now a post-doctoral researcher in genetics at the University of Southern California.

In previous work, the researchers looked at pigmentation variation in two KhoeSan populations from South Africa by performing a genome-wide association analysis in about 450 individuals. They followed up on the top associated gene, SLC24A5, by simulating population histories with and without positive selection. The DNA and pigmentation sampling took place in the Northern Cape of South Africa in the southern Kalahari Desert and Richtersveld regions.

Gene plays a role in lighter skin pigmentation

Individuals who carry two copies of the lighter pigmentation gene are 14 percent lighter-skinned than the population average, the researchers said. The gene SLC24A5 plays a key role in the genetic basis of light skin pigmentation.

While light skin is often associated with European ancestry, even in South Africa, the present-day Khoekhoe and San did not experience enough recent migration to account for the frequency of the gene. Rather, strong positive selection during the past 2,000 years was the only way to explain the current distribution. The gene, which is also present in people from the Near East and eastern Africa, was probably initially brought into the region by only a small number of individuals.

The actual source of the positive selection is not clear. The researchers theorize that a shift from consuming vitamin D-rich marine animals to consuming pasture animals, or a reduction in exposure to ultraviolent rays, might have changed skin pigmentation over time.

“While the biological cause of the selective event merits further investigation, we have demonstrated an unusual rapid case of selection for lighter skin pigmentation based on a recently introduced allele less that 2,000 years ago, the first case of pigmentation adaptation from migration in humans,” the paper concludes.

It was a gathering of activists masquerading as deep thinkers. Ostensibly, it was to celebrate seven decades of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one devised in the aftermath of a traumatised world and easier to do so for that fact. But this gathering on Lonsdale Street, Melbourne which featured irritatingly optimistic speakers showed the lamentable weaknesses in the human rights project. Human rights continues to be ever susceptible to personalisation and haggling, a manipulated concept that all too often serves the select.

Human rights remains as much fashion and political statement. In Australia, the idea that such rights have truck with the political classes is a very flimsy notion indeed. A country that praises itself constantly as a paragon of freedoms and liberties is bound to find common ground with those people’s democracies who insist on keeping political prisoners and confining individuals indefinitely. Australia’s record on matters regarding the UDHR remains abysmal: indefinite detention regimes outsourced and funded on tropical Pacific islands; permitted, open-ended control regimes for those who have served their time in prison yet still remain a matter of interest to the state; and various infractions committed after September 11, 2001 in anti-terrorist operations.

Rights documents, be they the universal declaration itself or a charter that might embed those provisions, is also politically difficult to sell. When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd received the report from Father Frank Brennan on having a Human Rights Act he insisted, rather uncharitably, that he had been served a shit sandwich. (Scatological references were a favourite theme with him.) Despite going through the exercise of having such a consultation committee, the project for a human rights act would be shelved; the sense that Australia remains resistant to such abstract notions as free speech and privacy remains strong. Many thanked their stars that the decision by Rudd had essentially set back the discussion of rights in Australia by a generation.

The Charter of Rights movement is yet another grouping of human rights activists and lawyers in Australia attempting to encourage the country’s citizens to embrace something tantamount to a Bill of Rights. It uses the bland measures of advertising and mild condescension, more in the hope that citizens will succumb to the sheer power of persuasion.

But even these advocates cannot, nor want to see the implications of having a firm, entrenched civil and political rights document immune from the predations of Parliament. Shen Narayanasamy, Human Rights Campaign director at the lobby group GetUp!, managed a sneer at the idea of free speech, largely because it was the sort that might be embraced by affronted conservatives and self-satisfied bigots.

Lee Carnie of the Human Rights Law Centre, a fellow panellist, argued that any charter would necessarily have to be subordinate to the wishes of Parliament. The “legislative dialogue model”, as it is termed, still privileges the role of that all-powerful, and often erratic body, one that can imprison, separate from the judiciary, any citizen or resident who supposedly impugns and impairs its functions. Parliament, notably one run by majoritarian instincts, remains a constant threat to the liberties of the citizenry.

Such views seem to come from the harsh bottlebrush of Australian suspicion: we have rights, but these are revocable by the whim of the legislature; we have rights, but these are susceptible to modification by judicial and parliamentary fiat. The result is a rather meagre appreciation for the very idea of rights, one stifled by process.

What, then, are Australians left with? The Universal Declaration, or what lawyers suggestively term “soft law”, comes to mind. As “soft” law, it should not be treated as irrelevant and without utility; its crawling influence has been significant and long lasting, even if removed from any direct enforceable mechanism. It is not the stuff to make black letter lawyers swoon; in some cases, it causes them considerable bowel disruptions of discomfort.

In the words of Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “It has withstood the tests of passing years, and the advent of dramatic new technologies and social, political and economic developments that its drafters would have foreseen.” As the United Nations information site claims, “the UDHR has inspired a rich body of legally binding international human rights treaties.” With confidence the organisation insists that “more than 80 international human rights treaties and declarations, a great number of regional human rights conventions, domestic human rights bills and constitutional provisions” have been birthed in that vortex of inspired drafting.

Scepticism and criticism of it remain. It has been accused of ethnocentrism, Western-oriented tendencies and presumptuousness. Ajamu Baraka sees the document as nobly inspired but hopelessly applied, historically bound and shackled to bad habits of history. “The historic project temporarily diverted by the war as a result of the German bringing the horrors colonial domination unleashed by the European invasion of what become the ‘America’s’ in 1492, back to Europe, and applied to other Europeans.” (He avoids any mention of Japanese brutalities and the World War undertaken in the East which had its own variant of domination at play.) His suggestion is one of decolonising the declaration.

Aspirational gloss has always been central to such a document; application continues to be, if not poor, then non-existent in some cases. We are left with the imperfect callings of soft law, one that seeks to move and germinate, rather than becoming, in of itself, an enforceable document it can never hope to be.

By Riad Kahwaji*

Ballistic missiles constitute the main strategic weapon in the arsenal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has an advanced program to develop and build these missiles that help consolidate its deterrence posture. Iran also possesses an advanced nuclear program that many countries suspect it could have military uses in the future.

Ballistic missiles are regarded as a strategic weapon that can cross borders and even continents, and are suitable delivery vehicles for non-conventional warheads – like chemical, biological or nuclear. These missiles have a strong psychological impact and can terrorize targeted communities. Their conventional warheads vary in weight from half a ton to one ton of explosives, which gives them strong destructive power especially if their speed of descent from above the Earth’s atmosphere is taken into account. Ballistic missiles can travel for thousands of kilometers and are very suitable to countries that cannot afford or are not able to acquire an advanced air power capable of penetrating their enemies’ airspace.

Ballistic missiles have always been regarded strategic weapons possessed by states only because of their size and high maintenance requirements, which necessitates the presence of skilled manpower and proper storage sites and the knowhow to fire them accurately at their targets in other countries. Their capability to carry non-conventional warheads is the main reason they were only procured by states. But the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has changed the rules of the game and has been providing ballistic missiles and the technology to build them to its allied militias in Yemen, Iraq and Syria and probably even Lebanon for the past two years. This development has a huge security and military consequences that will affect the balance of power in the region and increase tension and the probability of a regional war.

Yemen

The Arab Alliance led by Saudi Arabia commenced its operations in Yemen in late 2014 to restore the power of the legitimate government of President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi. Few months after the start of the offensive and the capture of Yemeni territories by the Arab Alliance, the Iranian-allied Houthi militias started firing ballistic missiles at targets in Saudi Arabia and inside Yemen in June 2015. The international community was surprised from early on with the number and quality of ballistic missiles used by the Houthis, and suspicion rose about their source. The Yemeni Armed Forces did possess prior to the conflict a small arsenal of ballistic missiles that was mostly made up of aging Soviet-era Scud-B and SS-21 Tochka missiles. Although there were never specific recorded numbers to these missiles in Yemen, it was generally believed to be around 30 by the intelligence community. These missiles were originally acquired by South Yemen during the North-South civil war in the nineties.

In 2002, a Spanish patrol ship in the Indian Ocean intercepted a shipment of ballistic missiles from North Korea bound to Yemen. The 15 missiles were Huwasong-5, which is the North Korean version of Scud-B missiles. They were allowed to continue their way to Yemen. Some Western intelligence agencies believe that Yemen did receive, during the same period, another similar shipment from North Korea, which could raise the number of Huwasong missiles in Yemen to 30. Therefore, by the start of the Yemen conflict, the Armed Forces there possessed up to 60 ballistic missiles. However, the Houthis have so far fired nearly 150 ballistic missiles at targets in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, which indicated that a foreign power has been providing the militia with ballistic missiles or the technology to build them.

The Houthis have announced that they were building ballistic missiles and have identified two versions named Qaher-1 and Qaher-2. The Qaher family is believed to be repurposed SA-2 surface to air missiles that were converted into ballistic missiles. These missiles typically have a warhead that weighs around 200 kg. Western intelligence agencies suspect that the IRGC helped the Houthis reconfigure the SA-2 and use them as ballistic missiles because neither the Yemeni Armed Forces nor the militias were known to have this technical capability. In 2016 the Houthis introduced a new missile to the battlefield under the name of Burkan-1, which very much resembled the Iranian Qiam-1 missile that is believed to be the Iranian version of Scud-C missiles. The Houthis then used what they called Burkan-2, which according to the militia, has a longer range that can reach 700-km. A United Nations inspection committee, that examined pieces of several missiles fired at Saudi Arabia, concluded in July 2018 that the Houthi Burkan missiles contained parts manufactured in Iran, which proved IRGC role in proliferating ballistic missiles in Yemen. What remains unknown is when did Iran start providing the Houthis with ballistic missiles? How much, and whether it is still doing so or if it did build secret missile factories to the Houthis in Yemen to produce them domestically?

The continued ability of the Houthis to fire ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia despite the siege it is under, proves that the militia has received a large number of missile parts from IRGC that are being assembled locally at factories that can also build short range ballistic missiles. The international community has now the evidence which proves that Iran has done the unprecedented action of proliferating ballistic missiles to a non-state actor – a militia. The Houthi militia now has the capability to put together and to fire missiles like Burkan-2, that has a range of 550-km, which is threatening Arabian Gulf countries from the south.

Iraq, Syria and Lebanon

At the end of August 2018, Reuters quoted what it described as Iranian officials and intelligence sources in Iraq and the West, as saying that the IRGC handed the Iranian-allied militias in Iraq, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), some 24 ballistic missiles. The Fateh-110 and Zolfaqar ballistic missiles were delivered to the Iraqi militias during the summer of 2018. The missiles have ranges of 200 and 700 kilometers, and hence can reach Saudi capital Riyadh and most U.S. bases in the area. The Iraqi government refused to comment on the report. Western sources told Reuters that Iran was using the Iraqi militias to have a forward ballistic missiles base. Reuters also quoted Western and Iraqi sources as saying that the IRGC was building two factories to the PMF to enable them to build ballistic missiles domestically. The two reported factories were in Al-Zafarania, east of Baghdad, and in Jurf al-Sakhar, north of Karbala. If true, then Iran would be involved in violating the United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 that bars Iraq from possessing or building ballistic missiles with ranges over 150 km.

The London Times newspaper reported in late summer 2018 that Iran has started building a ballistic missiles factory near the Syrian port city of Baniyas, which is not too far from the Russian naval base there. The location of the factory will place it under the protection of Russian S-400 air defense system, and mainly protect it from Israeli warplanes that have been attacking Iranian targets in Syria for over a year. According to the report, Iran is trying to transfer to the Syrian regime forces the technology of a more accurate ballistic missiles. The Syrian regime has already used most of its old arsenal of Scud missiles in attacks against the rebel forces and the cities under their control in the ongoing civil war ravaging the country.

It is worth pointing out that the Syrian regime forces are heavily dependent on Shiite militias from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq supplied and armed by the IRGC to help the regime in its war against the Syrian rebel forces. Hence, some of these ballistic missiles, which Iran is building and proliferating in Syria, will be in the hands of these militias as well as the IRGC units there. Western intelligence sources also believe that the IRGC has been trying to transfer ballistic missiles to its ally in Lebanon – Hezbollah. Israel has published maps showing sites of what it claims to be ballistic missiles bases for Hezbollah in Lebanon. It is largely believed that Hezbollah has received from Iran Fateh-110 and Zelzal-3 missiles.

Iran has not only been proliferating ballistic missiles, but in the Fall of 2018, it used them in targeting its enemy bases in north Iraq and eastern Syria. Iran said it fired Fateh-110 missiles at a Kurdish rebel group in northern Iraq, and a week later it also announced that it fired ballistic missiles at the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters near the city of Al Bukamal on the Iraqi-Syrian borders. Most experts believe that Tehran used ballistic missiles in both attacks to send a message to the United States and Israel that it is capable of striking them if its forces come under attack. All U.S. bases in the Middle East are now within range of Iranian ballistic missiles in hands of militias.

The Implications of the Ballistic Missiles Proliferation by Iran

Proliferating ballistic missiles throughout the region through the IRGC or their allied militias has magnified Iran’s capabilities. It has enabled Tehran to wage war against many countries in the Middle East region, and even in parts of Europe, through its proxy allies. By using proxy non-state actors, Iran will have the power of deniability and will not be held legally accountable to actions of militias in foreign countries. These militias can even target oil and gas fields and even nuclear sites in the Middle East, which will have severe impact on international security. Iran’s strategy has all along been based on subjecting its adversaries to a war of attrition whereby it uses its proxies in other countries to attack the targeted countries without getting directly involved. The Yemen war is a strong example where it supplied the Houthi militias with weapons and ballistic missiles, and hence confined the confrontation on Yemeni and Saudi territories, while its homeland remained intact. Same scenario could be repeated in Iraq or Syria where its proxy militias can use their ballistic missiles to target other countries and the retaliation by targeted states will be against Syria or Iraq only, even though Tehran is the perpetrator.

By using its proxies to deploy ballistic missiles in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, Iran has practically surrounded the Arab Gulf states from all sides: Yemen in the south, Iraq in the north and Syria to the west. The existing missile defense systems for the Arab Gulf states already face Iran to the east. Now, and due to Iranian ballistic missiles proliferation to the militias, the Arab Gulf States will have to reconsider the deployment of their missile defense systems, and will likely have to invest more money and manpower to bolster their defenses to deal with ballistic missile threats from all directions. This situation will prompt some Middle East countries to reconsider their defense strategies and to weigh in the possibility of establishing their own ballistic missiles capabilities to increase their deterrence posture vis-à-vis Iran. Hence, Iranian proliferation of ballistic missiles will only increase the regional arms race and raise prospects of an all-out war.

The militias that do not recognize or adhere to international law are known to have connections with the underworld of organized crime. This fact has been repeatedly proven over history with links between militias in South American countries or Asia or Africa with cartels involved in drug or human trafficking, arms smuggling and money laundering. So the Iranian-allied militias in the region will not be any different and they will – if not already – establish links with organized crime cartels, which in turn would be linked to other militias and terrorist groups including ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Therefore, there is a strong possibility that ballistic missile technology and missile parts could be sold to other militias or terrorist groups via the underground world of organized crime. Moreover, terrorist groups or militias that have access to chemical or biological weapons will be able to use these ballistic missiles to increase their outreach and blackmail states close and far away. Hence, Iranian proliferation of ballistic missiles to militias has far adverse consequences on a global scale.

Proposals to Deal with Situation

Arab Gulf States as well as other Middle Eastern and European countries must raise the issue of Iranian proliferation of ballistic missiles at the United Nations and other international forums. By deploying missiles in Iraq, Iran has already violated U.N Resolution 687 as already stated. Hence legal framework for U.N action is already there. These states must underline the level of the threat to regional stability and its potential impact on the spread and use of weapons of mass destruction by non-state actors and terrorist groups. These states must also highlight the possibility of these militias possessing, in the future, ballistic missiles with longer outreach. Iran already produces missiles with a range up to 2000 km, such as Shahab-3, and is trying to go beyond. Iran has handed the militias now missiles that have a range up to 700 km, and there is no telling when it will give them more advanced ones that can threaten further countries in Europe and even in North Africa.

Arab countries must unify their efforts along with allies to confront this phenomenon of arming militias with ballistic missiles at all relevant international organizations. Major multinational oil and gas companies must take this new emerging threat with their respective governments to prevent the nightmare scenario of being one day blackmailed by militias and terrorist groups with ballistic missiles.

Now that Iran has used its proxies to surround its Arab Gulf foes with ballistic missiles from all sides and possessing the ability to use militias to threaten with their ballistic missiles the U.S. and Western basis and assets in the region and even threaten oil and gas fields and refineries, all concerned parties must unify their military resources to deal with this situation. Arab Gulf States must link up their missile defense systems with one network that should be connected to the early warning platforms and systems of their Western allies to maximize the ability of early detection, quick interception and a counter attack to destroy missile launchers or basis. No one state is capable of dealing alone with this new missile threat scenario created by Iran. It must be a collective effort depending on a multi-layered defense to ensure better outcome.

Regional and international action is required to obstruct the Iranian proliferation of ballistic missiles to its allied militias. This action must be done either through introducing resolutions at the United Nations or making collective decisions to hold Iran directly responsible to any attack by these militias with ballistic missiles against any sovereign country. Under such a scenario the targeted country could hold Iran directly responsible for this aggression and resort to its right of self-defense by retaliating against Iranian territories directly. The severity of the current ballistic missile threat in the hands of Iranian-backed militias in the region should not be tolerated and ignored by regional players and the international community. Rules of the Iranian-imposed regional game of using proxies to wage its wars with strategic weapons like ballistic missiles should be halted and changed swiftly before it is too late. If the UN Security Council cannot lead the way in rectifying this situation, then Arab Gulf States should mobilize their regional and Western allies to do so as soon as possible.

Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkan-2
http://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/missile-threat-and-proliferation/todays-missile-threat/non-state-actors/houthis/
https://www.janes.com/images/assets/330/72330/Yemeni_rebels_enhance_ballistic_missile_campaign.pdf
https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/un-finds-iranian-components-in-houthi-missiles-fired-at-saudi-arabia-1.740426
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/region/un-panel-finds-further-evidence-of-iran-link-to-houthi-missiles
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-iraq-missiles-exclusive/exclusive-iran-moves-missiles-to-iraq-in-warning-to-enemies-idUSKCN1LG0WB
https://www.foxnews.com/world/iran-guard-claims-missile-attack-on-separatist-kurds-in-iraq
https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/intelligence-sources-say-iran-deploying-missiles-in-iraq-and-syria-1.765448
https://www.newsweek.com/iran-bringing-new-missiles-iraq-syria-defend-us-israel-reports-say-1099850
https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/hezbollahs-rocket-arsenal/

*Riad Kahwaji, is the founder and director of INEGMA with a 30 years of experience as a journalist and a Middle East security analyst.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif underscored that the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 has not prohibited Iran’s missile activities.

“I can make it clear as the foreign minister that the issue of missiles has never been subject to negotiations and that in Resolution 2231 nothing has been approved or ratified about its prohibition for the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Zarif told Tasnim on Tuesday.

“Our defense doctrine is basically founded upon deterrence and is defensive, not offensive,” the top Iranian diplomat underlined, saying the Islamic Republic of Iran has proved its commitment to such a doctrine throughout its history.

His comments came after Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh confirmed reports that Iran has recently carried out a missile test, saying it was a major test.

On December 1, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned what he described as Iran’s testing of a medium-range ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads as a violation of the UNSC Resolution 2231.

Resolution 2231 calls upon Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”

Iranian officials have time and again underscored that none of the country’s missiles have been designed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads, because nuclear weapons have basically no place in Iran’s defense doctrine.

By Najia Houssari

Iran was accused on Tuesday of sabotaging the formation of a government in Lebanon as President Michel Aoun intervened to try to end the impasse.

Political negotiations have been deadlocked since elections in May, in a row over representation in the Cabinet for six Sunni members of Parliament allied with Hezbollah. The 30 ministerial posts are allocated according to a sectarian political system.

“The issue is associated with what Iran wants and what it is given, to agree to the formation of a government or to continue hampering it,” the Minister of Refugees Affairs, Moeen Al-Marabi, a member of Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Movement parliamentary bloc, told Arab News.

President Aoun said: “We are launching an initiative … and it has to succeed, because if it doesn’t … there is a catastrophe, we want to say it with all frankness, and this is the reason for my intervention.” 

He has held meetings with Hariri, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah representative Mohammed Raad MP. 

Hariri left Lebanon on Tuesday to attend an economic forum in London on investment and structural reforms in Lebanon. “God willing, we will find solutions,” he said.

“There are those who wish to form a government while others do not. We must give the president the chance to conduct his consultations.

“Everyone will be held accountable if a solution is not reached, not only the president and me.

At least three people have been killed and 12 others injured in a shooting incident in the northeastern French city of Strasbourg, close to one of the oldest and biggest Christmas markets in Europe.

The suspect had engaged police in a shootout before fleeing the scene and is still on the run. According to some reports the assailant was allegedly wounded by Sentinel soldiers, while others suggested he might have injured a police officer. 

The gunshots were fired close to one of Strasbourg’s Christmas markets at the Kleber Square located right in Strasbourg’s old city, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.

The entire Great Island (Grande Ile), where the historic center of the city is located, has been cordoned off by the police. All bars and restaurants located in the area have been closed with visitors and tourists asked to stay inside. The investigators are treating the tragedy as a terrorist incident.

The French Interior Ministry has called on public to remain indoors amid what it called a ‘serious security event’ in the city. A video posted on social media allegedly shows people injured in the shooting lying on the street.

Following the incident, the city was put on lockdown. As a precaution, the European Parliament building was also closed. The local media reported also that public transport was not working.

The shooter, who is still on the run, has been identified, the French media said. Authorities believe their target is listed on the ‘Fiche S’ list of potential security threats, was born in February 1989 in Strasbourg and may have been radicalized only recently. He was to be arrested Tuesday morning in a homicide-robbery case, yet when the investigators arrived at his home, he was not there. Grenades were found during the search, according to French media.

The search and response brigade, BRI, as well as the RAID, two French specialized intervention units, are currently engaged in an active search for the shooter. They are being aided by a helicopter deployed to track down the suspect.

The assailant entered the perimeter of the Christmas market via the Corbeau bridge at around 8:00pm local time, armed with an automatic weapon. After opening fire on the crowd he then fled the scene and, according to some reports, was wounded by a Sentinel strike team during his escape. The shooter was later allegedly encircled in the district of Neudorf, where exchanges of fire reportedly were heard around 10:00pm local time, yet there was no official confirmation that the shooter had been cornered. 

The attack left three people dead and and at least a dozen wounded, according to the French Interior Minister. Previously the local prefecture had reported that four people had been killed in the shooting.

A cardinal holds a beatification ceremony in Algeria for 19 monks, nuns and other Catholics who were killed during Algeria’s civil war in the 1990s.

Pope Francis addresses an international conference celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights wherein he highlights the rights of the unborn.

It is not a stretch to say that most Americans would think that the second story would merit the most coverage; both appeared in the last few days. They would be wrong. 

The first story on the beatification ceremony was picked up by the Associated Press, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Florida Times-Union, Post-Courier, Sunday Telegraph, Washington Post, and the Winston-Salem Journal. All these newspapers ran at least a part of the AP story by Nicole Winfield.

Not a single newspaper in the nation picked up the AP story on Pope Francis’ address.

What’s going on? Abortion. That’s what.

Some may say that there is no news here: everyone knows the Catholic Church opposes abortion. But for the pope to give the rights of the unborn the prominence he did while celebrating an historic event—on a subject where there are dozens of other human rights that could have been mentioned—this is at least as worthy of note as the Algerian story.

Moreover, in its release on the pope’s address, the Vatican News listed 18 human rights that the Holy Father has spoken about in recent years. It listed at the top, “The right to life, particularly of the unborn and the elderly.” It also cited, in its introductory commentary, the pope’s critical remarks on ideological colonization (or gender ideology), i.e., the belief that male and female are interchangeable, not rooted in nature.

On economic issues, Pope Francis typically holds to a more liberal interpretation, but on moral issues he skews toward a more conservative position. This explains why the media give him plenty of coverage when he speaks on the former and is so dismissive when he speaks on the latter.

Media politics are very much at work.

How does one explain Canada’s contradictory foreign policy regarding Palestine and Israel? On Dec. 4, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat, praised Canada’s commitment not to follow in the footsteps of the US by transferring its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

But there is little worth praising here. Respecting the internationally recognized status of Jerusalem is a legally binding commitment to international law. The fact that the US chose to violate the law hardly makes the opposite act heroic.

Only five days earlier, Canada joined a tiny minority of states — alongside the likes of Israel, the US, Australia and the Marshall Islands — to vote “no” on a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution titled “Peaceful Settlement on the Question of Palestine.R

The Canadian government, which is keen to present itself as a model, neoliberal, progressive country, even the antithesis to the US’ hawkish policies, voted against a resolution that calls “for intensified efforts by the parties… to conclude a final peace settlement.”

If you find such behavior confusing, then you are not paying attention. Canada has not changed at all. It is our understanding of Canadian foreign policy that has almost always been marred by a true lack of understanding. And there is a good reason for that. The Canadian government has mastered the art of political branding. The only period in modern American history that is comparable to Canada’s successful political propaganda was the presidency of Barack Obama.

But Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau — seen as the “human face of neoliberalism” — is an even more successful brand than Obama. While positioned as the political opposite of conservative former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, they are both committed to the ideology of neoliberalism.

Trudeau’s “human face of neoliberalism” is nothing than a carefully constructed mask meant to hide the hypocritical and militant policies that Canada continues to pursue. And nothing better exemplifies this than its record on Palestine.

In the first 18 months of Trudeau’s mandate, Canada voted against 15 UNGA resolutions that were critical of Israel.

It has been argued that Canada’s foreign policy and its UN voting records are often inconsistent. This, however, seems to apply only to Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

When Trudeau defeated Harper, many breathed a sigh of relief, particularly because of the latter’s blind support for Israel. So is Trudeau really different?

Let’s consult the facts. The page on the Trudeau government’s website entitled, “Canadian policy on key issues in the Israeli-Palestine conflict” is almost an exact replica of Harper’s, with one notable exception. On Trudeau’s page, his government recognizes the “experience of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, who were displaced after 1948.” This is a misconstrued version of history that has been injected by Zionists whenever the rights of Palestinian refugees — who were displaced by Jewish militants during the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine — is brought up. The very first “key issue” for Trudeau’s government is “Support for Israel and its security.”

Trudeau makes the claim that his government’s assessment of UN resolutions is guided by “its merits and consistency with (Canadian) principles.” Harper seemingly defied these “principles” on numerous occasions, notably when his government voted against UN resolutions critical of Israel, including 66/17 in 2012, 67/23 and 68/15 in 2013, and 69/23 in 2014.

But Harper’s exit did not usher in a new moral age for Canada. On the contrary, Ottawa’s love affair with Israel intensified. Aside from carrying on with the same anti-Palestinian attitude at the UN, on Nov. 24, 2015, the Trudeau government even voted against UNGA resolution 70/15, which reaffirmed the “illegality of the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.” Such a vote even goes against Canada’s own declared position on the illegal Jewish settlements.

This should not come as a surprise, though. Take Ottawa’s stance on terrorism, for example. In its “key issues” on Israel and Palestine, the Canadian government “condemns all acts of terrorism,” but it later qualifies this.

“Canada has listed Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, and other groups as terrorist organizations,” it elaborated. Not only did it fail to list any Jewish group as terrorist, or at least emphasize the need to prosecute war criminals (in this case, Israeli leaders), it only linked Palestinians and Arabs to acts of terrorism. 

But what if Palestinians decided to use popular, non-violent and democratic means to display resistance? They did, and were still condemned for it. In 2016, with much personal enthusiasm from Trudeau himself, the Canadian Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of a motion that condemned the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Since then, the anti-BDS policy has become a fixture in the government’s attitude toward the Palestinians. 

Last month, in a speech he made to apologize for Canada’s immoral act of rejecting Jewish refugees escaping Nazi atrocities in 1939, he directly linked BDS with antisemitism. “Antisemitism is still far too present,” he said, as “Jewish students still feel unwelcomed and uncomfortable on some of our colleges and university campuses because of BDS-related intimidation.”

Linking BDS with his country’s disgraceful antisemitism against refugees decades ago might have been a masterful stroke by his pro-Israeli speech writers. However, swapping historic hate for Jews with modern hate for Palestinians shows that Canada has learned nothing from its sordid past.

Trudeau and his government will certainly be judged by future generations, just as his predecessors were judged for their past sins, for choosing, despite the passage of time, to stand on the wrong side of history.

(RFE/RL) — The United States has placed Pakistan on its blacklist of countries that violate religious freedom, a move likely to further worsen troubled relations with Islamabad.

The State Department’s annual report on religious freedom, released December 11, removed for the first time since 2006 Uzbekistan as a “Country of Particular Concern,” something that had irked the government in Tashkent.

However, the State Department did, however, include Uzbekistan on a special Watch List. That designation included Russia, where the department said dozens of religious groups have been targeted including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, Lutherans, and others, since a 2016 law was passed criminalizing certain kinds of missionary activity.

Washington has issued an annual ranking of countries and their treatment of religious groups annually since the passage of a 1998 law on the issue. Being ranked low, or placed on a watch list, can result in economic sanctions.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he listed Pakistan among “countries of particular concern” in the congressionally mandated annual report.

The downgrade means that Islamabad could face U.S. sanctions although Pompeo waived the penalties, as has been done for other countries in the past.

In Pakistan, where the dominant religious is Sunni Islam, human rights groups have long expressed concern about the treatment of religious minorities, including Shi’ites, Ahmadis and Christians.

Others on the “Country of Particular Concern” blacklist, which singles out “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom,” included China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

Uzbekistan, meanwhile, was removed from that designation– for the first time since 2006, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told reporters.

That designation had long irked the governments in Tashkent. Under the late President Islam Karimov, independent religious expression, particularly by devout Muslims who shunned officially sanctioned mosques, was harshly repressed.

Since Karimov’s death in 2016, the Uzbek government under President Shavkhat Mirziyoev has sought to lift many of Karimov’s more repressive policies and attract investment from Western nations.

Several Islamic militant groups have also been designated as “entities of particular concern” since they do not meet the definition of countries.

They include the Al-Nusra front in Syria, Al-Qaeda, the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia’s Al-Shabab, Boko Haram in West Africa, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the Islamic State and the Taliban.

“In far too many places across the globe, individuals continue to face harassment, arrests, or even death for simply living their lives in accordance with their beliefs,” Pompeo said.

“The United States will not stand by as spectators in the face of such oppression.”

By Cornelia Meyer*

The news flow on the important summit of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP24 has been all but drowned out amidst the Brexit drama, the OPEC meeting and political news from the US and Middle East. The summit convened in Poland in the city of Katowice, which in itself is very pertinent. Poland’s electricity grid and industry are heavily reliant on coal, which is the fossil fuel emitting the most carbon dioxide. The city of Katowice is all about coal.

If we backtrack three years, it was the COP21 summit in Paris that saw a breakthrough in global consensus and cooperation on climate change. A total of 196 countries signed on the dotted line to agree to keep man-made global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius and commissioned a study that was released in late October. It forecast a doomsday scenario in case temperatures rise by more than 1.5 C. The world would need to achieve zero emissions sometime between 2030 and 2050 in order to achieve the 1.5 C goal.

There were rumbles when four nations, including the US, refused to agree to the conference “welcoming” the report that they had helped commission. Instead they only wanted to “take note” of it. There was consternation when the US delegation actually voted against the findings of the report. Observers are now doubtful as to whether the 200 countries can agree on a communique by Friday, when the conference ends.

This goes to show that a lot has changed since 2015. The Obama administration was deeply committed to combating climate change. China had come around too. In three consecutive five-year plans, climate and the environment figured high on the agenda. That change of heart of the Chinese leadership was based on good reasons: Pulmonary disease has become the biggest killer in the country and many of its major cities, like Shanghai and Beijing, are situated on the Pacific coast and would therefore be gravely impacted by rising sea levels.

Fast forward three years and a new US administration with a different outlook on climate change has made all the difference. Thought leadership on the topic is moving away from the US, and China is eager to pick up the mantle.

In the meantime, it is not just governments that lead on the subject; investors are becoming increasingly active. There are the activist groups that managed, for instance, to change Shell’s stance on the matter. As of 2020, the oil major will no longer just have an eye on its own carbon footprint, but also that of its customers. A Netherlands-based activist group threatens to table a similar resolution at BP’s AGM early next year. 

Pension funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors increasingly demand of industry that they measure and mitigate against their carbon emissions. In August of this year, the chief executive of the world’s largest reinsurance company, Munich-Re, sent a letter to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper vowing to cease doing business with companies that derive more than 30 percent of their revenues from burning coal. That was not just a watershed moment but also a double whammy. It means that, rather than just starving those companies of investments, it will also become increasingly more difficult to insure activities that emit carbon dioxide.C

The investment firm Schroders estimates that there could be roughly $23 trillion of losses a year if we are not able to keep global warming below the 1.5 C level. It is easy to see how investors, especially insurers, can reach these conclusions when looking at the damage caused by hurricanes, flooding and wildfires. The planet seems to be raging.

This being said, the AXAs, Vanguards and BlackRocks of this world still hold sizeable investments in coal.

Like with all things, a balanced approach is required. We need to take care of the planet for future generations because it is the only planet we have. Averting the costs and displacements global warming will bring about is important too. In the meantime, we need to be realistic about what costs we will incur while we strive to achieve those worthwhile goals. We will not go from where we are now to zero emissions overnight. We also need to ensure that the policy measures make sense. 

Sometimes, well-intentioned policies can have an adverse effect on what they are trying to achieve. One example is Germany, which now emits more carbon dioxide than before it embarked on aggressive renewables targets and the “Energiewende.” Renewable energy is intermittent and the peaks and troughs need to be compensated with other sources of energy. Coal has become the most cost effective option to do that, which leads to the obvious consequences in carbon dioxide emissions. On the other side of the Atlantic, the US walked away from the previous administration’s climate change agenda. However, because shale gas was relatively inexpensive, the country’s carbon dioxide emissions went down.

It will not be easy for governments to calibrate their policies to have the desired effect. Investors and industry will help us get there because they have their eye on the bottom line. COP24 is important in that context because 200 governments are taking part, as are non-governmental organizations and businesses on the margins. This UNFCCC framework may not be optimal, but it is the best forum we have got.

• Cornelia Meyer is a business consultant, macro-economist and energy expert. Twitter: @MeyerResources

The European Union will establish a mechanism to facilitate non-dollar transactions with Iran in the near future in an attempt to circumvent sanctions imposed by the United States against Tehran, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says.

“I will expect this instrument to be established in the coming weeks before the end of the year as a way to protect and promote legitimate business,” Mogherini told reporters in Brussels on Monday.

The top EU diplomat did not offer any other details following a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels, but said work on creating the mechanism was “advancing well.”

US President Donald Trump withdrew his country in May from the landmark Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and decided to re-impose unilateral sanctions against Tehran.

Under the deal, reached between Iran and six major powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — Tehran agreed to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions.

The Trump administration announced early in November the re-imposition of the “toughest” sanctions ever against Iran’s banking and energy sectors with the aim of cutting off the country’s oil sales and crucial exports.

A first round of American sanctions took effect in August, targeting Iran’s access to the US dollar, metals trading, coal, industrial software, and auto sector.

The US administration hoped to get the other parties to the deal with Iran to likewise scrap the deal, but instead, they stressed that not only would they stick to the agreement, but they would also work to sustain it in the face of increased US pressure.

Iran and the 28-nation bloc have been discussing various ways to continue doing business with Iran and bypass US sanctions.

On September 24, Iran and its five partners released a joint statement announcing the setting up of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to facilitate continued trade with Iran, bypass the US financial system, and avoid any impact of America’s secondary sanctions.

Late in November, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi warned that Tehran’s patience is running out over the failure of the European Union’s economic pledges to deliver any “tangible results.”

He said the EU’s efforts were encouraging but added: “We have not yet seen any tangible results.”

“So, they [Europeans] are promising us that they are doing their best to be able to translate all that they have said in political terms and to turn it into realization, in other words, to materialize what they have said,” Salehi said.

Despite Washington’s withdrawal, Iran has not left the landmark nuclear deal yet, but stressed that the remaining signatories to the agreement have to work to offset the negative impacts of the US pullout for Iran if they wanted Tehran to remain in it.

The other parties to the JCPOA have repeatedly announced that the deal is working and should stay in place.

Original source