By Al-Shorfa

By Faisal Darem

A Yemeni court on Tuesday (November 12th) handed prison sentences to nine crew members of an arms-laden vessel “from Iran” intercepted in Yemeni territorial waters in January.

The specialised criminal court in Aden handed sentences of one to 10 years to the men, accused of “collaborating with Iran” and “smuggling arms from Iran to Yemen” aboard the ship named Jihane.

The ship, captured January 23rd by the Yemeni coast guard, carried explosives and sophisticated weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles.

In court, the defendants said they had received training in Iranian camps on the use of weapons and explosives, in sniper and urban warfare, and on maps, marine navigation and the use of sophisticated means of communication, the official Yemeni news agency Saba reported.

They also admitted to concealing dangerous weapons, explosives, ammunition, tools and equipment on board the Jihane, the news agency said.

On Tuesday, the court upheld the confiscation of weapons in favour of the Ministry of Defence, and the ship, $30,000 and the rest of the seized items in favour of the state, Saba said.

Yemeni Interior Ministry director general of public relations and moral guidance, Brig. Gen. Mohammed al-Kaedi, praised the coast guard for intercepting the ship and revealing its cargo, which he said was well-concealed and had passed through more than one country without detection.

“Investigations revealed that the arms shipment contained sophisticated weapons, making it difficult to believe these are owned by individuals, rather than states,” he said.

“I condemn such acts, not only those against my country, Yemen, but also acts that undermine security, stability and public order in general,” he added.

“We in Yemen condemn the Iranian intervention into Yemen’s internal affairs, both on the political level and on the popular level,” said Yemeni presidential advisor Fares al-Saqqaf, who heads the Centre for Future Studies.

“We reject the interference into Yemen’s sovereignty, both on its territory and in its territorial waters, because no country has the right to violate the sovereignty of another, and this blatant intervention is an encroachment on not only Yemen but the international community,” he told Al-Shorfa.

Al-Saqqaf described the vessel as a “ship of death for the Yemeni people” and said it carried sophisticated weapons that could have stirred conflict in the country.

“Iran has repeatedly tried to refute this accusation by dispatching delegations to Yemen and claiming that unofficial parties are the culprits,” al-Saqqaf said. “But the recurrence of these interventions, in not only Yemen but in more than one country in the region, including Lebanon and Syria, clearly reveals Iran’s ambitions, desires and aims, which everyone rejects and condemns.”

Al-Saqqaf praised the Yemeni courts for handling the matter “with responsibility” and the Yemeni Coast Guard for staying vigilant and protecting Yemeni territorial waters.

Iranian interventions into Yemeni affairs “do not help the people improve their living conditions, nor advance culturally or intellectually, but rather the opposite”, said Mohammed Azzan, a researcher specialising in Islamist groups.

“They are interventions that serve Iran’s interests and directly impact the political decisions taken by the Yemeni state”, he told Al-Shorfa.

Such weapons, which may have been preceded by other shipments, can “do nothing but bring destruction and desolation to Yemen, ignite infighting and violate sovereignty”, Azzan said.

“We condemn and denounce these interventions, which are rejected by the people,” he said.

“We were expecting the arrival of relief ships carrying flour and grain to help the poor, not ships laden with weapons,” said Abdo Massaad, 32, who works at a clothes shop in Sanaa.

“Iran as an Islamic state should help Yemen out of its crisis instead of sending arms shipments” that can ignite conflict inside the country,” he said, adding that Yemen has “suffered much” due to political and security unrest.

Yemenis do not need weapons, but rather stability, so they can conduct their business and earn a living, said university student Mohammed al-Saneh, 24.

“I reject and condemn these interventions and the international community must work jointly with Yemen to stand against Iran’s destructive ambitions,” he said.

The article Yemen Reasserts Sovereignty With ‘Iran Death Ship’ Verdict appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Al-Shorfa

By Ebrahim Omar

Preparations for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are in full swing, with major infrastructure projects expected to create about 120,000 jobs a year over the next two years and trigger a surge in economic growth, according to a recent report issued by Qatar National Bank (QNB).

The direct and indirect effects of accelerated spending on major infrastructure projects is anticipated to translate into an increase in real GDP growth, from 6.2% in 2012 to 6.8% in 2014, the report said.

This spending could generate an increase in economic growth as a result of the rise in demand for cement, steel, labour and services, and will have an indirect impact as the labour force will require food, housing, transportation and other services, including banking, it said.

This surge in demand should not have any negative effects in the long term, as the national economy is quite robust and capable of absorbing any pressure on services, said economic analyst Abdul Rahman Abu Bakr, who writes for multiple local trade magazines including “Trade and Industry”.

Projects currently under way include the Doha Metro and a railway, which the Qatar Railways Company is constructing in co-operation with international companies, Abu Bakr said, noting that the total cost of these two projects will surpass $35 billion.

Other infrastructure-related projects will include sports stadiums built for the World Cup, as well as hotels and tourist resorts, he told Al-Shorfa.

“In my estimation, these labour-intensive projects will require thousands of skilled workers who are not currently available in the Qatari market but can be brought in from abroad,” he said.

“Thousands of job opportunities will be available in the Qatari market in the coming years, and will surpass the QNB’s projections, if we look at the size of the mega-projects currently being implemented and those that are yet to be implemented. They are all labour-intensive,” said Abdullah Abdul Samad, an economist at the new Doha-based al-Reem Centre for Economic Studies.

The Qatari government is planning to spend $65 billion on infrastructure as part of the Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-2016, Abdul Samad told Al-Shorfa.

The government has identified a three-part strategy to develop Qatar’s transportation network, establish special economic zones and construct new workforce housing, he said.

The transportation network will include the construction of a new airport and a seaport in Doha with a combined annual capacity of 50 million passengers, in addition to the construction of the Qatar-Bahrain bridge, which will traverse the waters of the Arabian Gulf.

Special economic zones will be established with regulatory frameworks conducive to investment, such as the Qatar Science and Technology Park, the Qatar Foundation, the Qatar Logistics City near the new airport and industrial zones.

Finally, 18,000 new housing units will be constructed to accommodate the surge in the number of workers expected to arrive in the country over the next few months, Abdul Samad said.

Qatar’s population could surpass two million this year, the QNB report said, rising to 2.2 million in 2014.

Such a population increase would have a positive impact on the growth of non-oil sectors as a result of the anticipated increase in demand for goods and services, the report said.

At the same time, the report said, the new wave of foreign workers is expected to put upward pressure on rents, as well as on the Doha infrastructure — roads, schools and health facilities.

“The Qatari government allocated $12.39 billion for 900 kilometres of roads in the coming years,” said Ibrahim Abdul Hamid, a journalist specialised in economic affairs who has also written for “Trade and Industry”. “In my opinion, the construction of those roads would alleviate any potential pressures on the [transportation] networks.”

The article Qatar: New World Cup Projects To Bring Jobs And Growth appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By FPIF

By Nancy Snow

The bull’s eye of Japan’s nation-branding campaign isn’t Hello Kitty or AKB48, the pop idol girl group whose short-skirted, candy-licking members could have originated from the imagination of a pedophiliac CGI artist. The cat without a mouth and the “idols you can meet” are making a few a lot of money, which is typically how everything operates in Japan. But those who focus on foreign affairs are less concerned with the growing omnipresence of Japanese otaku (geek) culture worldwide than with Brand Japan’s main attraction, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe is the persuader-in-chief of Japan, and the whole world should be aware of his every policy move. Instead of an akushukai (handshake event) with pop idols, why not a meet and greet with the country’s CEO and main PR spokesman? Step right up and you might hear the famous refrain misattributed to P.T. Barnum about suckers and their prodigious birthrate.

Abe has managed to rebrand himself into a second coming of economic might in which the hopes and dreams of all the Japanese people must be invested.

Lack of Alternatives

What alternative do they have in this country, whose Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has so dominated national politics since the mid-1950s that even Communists might be envious? (Ironically the Japanese Communist Party predates World War II, while the LDP originated in 1955.) The Left, after all, barely exists in Japan.

The 15-year-old center-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is all but a Dead Party of Japan, and the prime minister sits without any viable opposition in both houses of the Diet. Even the No Nuke activists of the 2012 Summer of Discontent have dwindled to negligible numbers that garner little press attention, despite the fact that Japanese public opinion remains overwhelmingly opposed to nuclear power.

What people care most about here, no different from anywhere else, is the old-fashioned pocketbook issue: the cost of living. Gas and electric prices are at historic high levels, while the 49,000-employee-strong and leadership-weak Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which manages the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and serves 29 million households and businesses in Greater Tokyo, reported a hefty net profit of $6.2 billion for the first half of 2013.

It’s enough to make a small-d democrat’s head spin, except that living here now as I do, everyone seems to be going about their own business. Where is the public outrage? A quick study of civic participation in Japan is that the boiling frog has been slow cooking for the last two decades. During the country’s economic miracle decades of the 1960s through the 1980s, the world watched in amazement as the Land of the Rising Sun taught us all lessons in focused discipline and determination. All of us of a certain age can remember the fears of the economic superpower that might take over all the real estate in the United States. An oft-quoted illustration in the 1980s was that the estimated value of the Imperial Palace Grounds alone exceeded all the real estate in California.

At one time it didn’t matter whether or not the public had a voice in its representation. No one cared because everyone was reaping the rewards of Japan, Inc. But now everyone is too tired to care and too fiscally worried to act. Japan is a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy, but such a system cloaks the “shadow government” of certain handpicked industrial heavyweights that continue to work in concert with political elites. Bigger is always better in Japan when it comes to business-government relations, and this wealthy minority that owns stocks is getting wealthier.

The Abe Makeover

Abe has an uncanny ability to remake himself, reemerging as Abe 2.0 after suddenly leaving office in disgrace in 2007 amid several political scandals. This time around he is receiving mixed reviews but plenty of attention abroad. At home his numbers are misleading. Although he personally enjoys 60-percent approval ratings and some people bizarrely believe that women wearing red lipstick again signals support for the Abe 2.0, only about one quarter of Japanese believe that Abenomics will positively impact their lives. Most experts see a widening gap between the haves and have-nots. The contradiction can be explained in a renewed nationalistic pride and domestic confidence on the one hand, and a sense that this is a last-ditch measure for Japan to recover from its 20-year reverse momentum on the other.

David Pilling of the Financial Times calls Abe’s second coming more Sauron, the evil necromancer, than Gandalf, the benevolent wizard. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz sees promise in the prime minister’s risk-taking in a country where 73 percent of Japanese report that they avoid risk-taking. “There is every reason to believe that Japan’s strategy for rejuvenating its economy will succeed,” Stiglitz wrote in April. “The country benefits from strong institutions, has a well-educated labor force with superb technical skills and design sensibilities, and is located in the world’s most (only?) dynamic region.”

Nearly a year after Abe staged his comeback, many here are not so confident about this “dynamic” region shadowed by natural and geopolitical dangers. But Abe is wearing pinstripe suits and strutting confidence: “I am convinced our road is the only way,” he says.

The Japanese public is thinking along the lines from so far so good to shigata ga nai (it can’t be helped). Growth is up 4 percent in the first half of 2013 and the weakened yen has helped spur exports and huge profits for shareholders, but the middle class is getting squeezed. A good illustration of this is what Counterpunch writer Mike Whitney said about Abenomics. Break it down into 14 words: “Ferrari sales are going gangbusters in Japan, but beer sales have started to fizzle.” In Japan you are either uchi (in the group) or soto (outside the group). These days the uchi are driving fast cars.

Nuclear Nonsense

TEPCO is the most hated Godzilla among Japan’s infamous nuclear village industries that put shareholders and bondholders before the public good but turn to the taxpayer for bailouts when things go bad.

People of little faith in nuclear power have to put their faith in a nuclear village leader like Abe, who has promised a radical restart of the economy through fiscal stimulation, loosening of monetary restrictions, and structural reform. This third element will be the hardest because Japan has no history of reforming its top-heavy industries that lie in bed with the ruling party. The Japanese people, for their part, are on the sidelines waiting to accept their fate, even while the Fellini drama of Fukushima and TEPCO incompetence dominates global news headlines. A government advisory council recommended that the Abe government take the lead in the Fukushima cleanup and decommissioning of Japan’s 50 nuclear power plants. Of course, government-led means taxpayer-funded.

Abe 2.0 is so confident that he confidently reassured the members of the International Olympic Committee that everything was “under control” at the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the same week that radiation levels spiked and contaminated water continued to spill into the Pacific Ocean. On the heels of the winning bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics—a rhetorical show of confidence steeped in anything but reality—Abe is seeking to strengthen and expand state secrecy laws as part of his administration’s new national security framework that includes a more aggressive stance against its regional rivals.

Abe may be the main attraction these days in Japan’s nation brand to the world, but the global press is far more turned on by the growing misperception that Japan’s younger generation has stopped getting it on for real in favor of cuddle cafes and animated companions. In a casebook study of pack mentality that began with the The Guardian asking, “Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex?” and continuing through the BBC’s sophomoric documentary, “No Sex Please, We’re Japanese,” a good chunk of October was taken up with the world declaring Japan the most celibate nation on the planet. The term “Celibacy Syndrome” attached to Japan now has its own Wikipedia page, though without citations.

Thankfully Halloween arrived just in time for Fox TV in Japan to stage a “zombie walk” at Tokyo Tower in my Minato-ku neighborhood as a promotional tie-in for a new season of The Walking Dead. Casual observers could be forgiven for mistaking this publicity stunt for just another visual representation of Japanese politics.

Nancy Snow is an Abe/Social Science Research Council Fellow and visiting professor at Keio University’s Institute for Media and Communications Research (MediaCom). A contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, she is completing a book on Japan’s nation brand image since 3/11. The Abe Fellowship is named after Abe’s father, Shintaro Abe, Japan’s longest serving postwar foreign minister who advocated closer ties between the United States and Japan. 

The article Branding Japan – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IESE Insight

Demographics point to an increasing number not only of elderly but of chronically ill people across Europe. The challenge for policymakers and caregivers is to provide quality long-term care (LTC) while keeping things financially viable.

Traditionally, LTC jobs have been perceived as inherently unrewarding, unattractive and, consequently, unstable.

Is there really an “attractiveness gap” between LTC jobs and others in the health-care sector?

To address these questions, IESE’s Stefano Visintin, Marta Elvira and Carlos Rodríguez Lluesma compared the current stability and attractiveness of LTC jobs relative to other health-care related occupations in and across 26 European countries during the period 1992-2011.

Using job stability as a uniform indicator of attractiveness, the study reveals that, on average, LTC jobs are as attractive as other health-care related jobs in most European countries.

Regional European Differences

Having said that, differences emerge across countries, classed into three broad categories.

Countries where LTC jobs are least stable and, as such, least attractive are clustered in southern and eastern European countries, including Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

Countries where LTC jobs are notably more attractive are in central and northern Europe, including Belgium, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

This leaves the rest, including the United Kingdom and France, where the “attractiveness gap” with other health-care jobs seems the least marked.

Risk of a Shortage of Caregivers

What accounts for these cross-country differences? They can be partly explained by regional and policy frameworks, according to the authors.

Apart from regional differences, perhaps the most important finding is the suggestion that southern and eastern European countries appear most at risk of facing a shortage of caregivers relative to their central and northern European neighbors.

Any shortage would inevitably cause costs to spiral out of control, posing even greater budgetary challenges, not to mention serious social consequences.

To avoid this scenario, policymakers in these countries need to have the foresight to create the career conditions that would attract and retain a steady supply of LTC jobseekers.

Further research could help by exploring the factors that influence LTC worker and job profiles, for example, as well as institutional frameworks.

The article Enhancing Attractiveness Of Long-Term Care In EU appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Al Bawaba News

Hundreds of Syrian families from Qalamoun and the outskirts of Homs have fled to Arsal, northeast Lebanon, the Social Affairs Ministry said Saturday, in what one official from the border area described as an “unprecedented” influx of refugees into the country.

“The eastern Bekaa Valley region, particularly the town of Arsal, witnessed Friday night and [early] Saturday a large influx of Syrian families and they number some 1,200 families, the majority of whom are from Qalamoun and the outskirts of Homs,” a statement from the ministry said.

The Qalamoun, a mountainous area lying roughly north of Damascus and adjacent to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, is expected to be a new front in the war between rebels and forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar Assad.

Ahmad Fliti, Arsal’s deputy mayor, told The Daily Star earlier Saturday that more than 1,200 Syrian families had arrived in his town since Friday morning, adding that mosques and wedding halls were being used to accommodate what he said was an “unprecedented record number” of refugees.

Fliti said 90 percent of Qara, in Syria’s Qalamoun, had been evacuated after the Syrian army issued warnings it would launch an attack on rebel groups there.

He also appealed to humanitarian organizations for help, saying their immediate assistance was needed.

Although the exact number of Syrians to arrive in Arsal could not be determined, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees described the flow of refugees to the Lebanese border town as “much higher than usual.”

“Local authorities were speaking of over 800 Syrian refugee families having arrived from Qara to Arsal, mostly between yesterday [Friday] and this morning [Saturday],” Dana Sleiman told The Daily Star.

An Arsal-based activist told The Daily Star that more than 500 pick-up trucks had transported the families from Qara into Arsal, estimating the number of refugees at more than 10,000 by early Saturday.

The activist, who works with refugees, added that the crossing of Syrians into Arsal had abated by Saturday morning.

The influx marks a significant increase in the number of refugees in Arsal, a town that already hosts a refugee population of more than 30,000.

Lebanon’s Social Affairs Ministry said it was responding to the increase in refugee numbers entering the Bekaa Valley, particularly Arsal.

“Concerned agencies at the Social Affairs Ministry were put on full alert to confront this influx,” it said in a statement.

The statement said a team from the ministry, accompanied by a team from the UNHCR, was dispatched to the area to assess the situation and take “the necessary measures.”

Steps taken by the ministry included health checks for the majority of refugees that arrived Friday night, the provision of immediate assistance and temporary accommodation.

The ministry said it had managed to register 420 families so far and “the operation [to register the refugees] is ongoing.”

Lebanon has increasingly felt the impact of the lingering conflict in its Arab neighbor and hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees in the region.

In its latest report on the Syrian refugee situation in Lebanon published Friday, the UNHCR said the number of displaced in the country stood at 816,000, with around 11,000 newcomers between Nov. 8 and Nov. 15.

The movement of refugees into Arsal comes only days after a security source told The Daily Star two Syrian aircraft targeted the outskirts of the northeastern Lebanese area.

According the source, two Syrian gunships fired rockets Thursday at locations linking Qalamoun to Arsal, a predominantly Sunni town which strongly supports the uprising against Assad.

Original article

The article Thousands Of Syrian Refugees Flee To Lebanon appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By RT

The US State Department has revealed it is offering a $10 million reward for any information on the attack at its diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. It comes amid ongoing controversy and criticism surrounding the investigation of the attack.

Four Americans – including US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, a State Department worker, and two ex-Navy Seals – were killed in the attack on the loosely-guarded diplomatic mission on September 11,2012.

The US Administration, particularly former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has been repeatedly criticized for its handling of the deadly attack.

Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed the bounty in a letter to Republican lawmaker Michael McCaul, who chairs the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee and had enquired about the reward.

The bounty, which is a part of the ‘Rewards for Justice’ program, is available for those coming forward with data that leads to the arrest or conviction of any individual involved in the attack. It is unknown whether any money yet been paid.

The announcement was not published on the Rewards for Justice website, due to security concerns, the department said.

“Due to security issues and sensitivities surrounding the investigation, the event-specific reward offer has not been publicly advertised on the RFJ website. RFJ tools can be utilized in a variety of ways, without publicizing them on the website,” the State Department’s official statement said.

A State Department official told AP that it is unusual not to advertize offers of rewards, but added that investigators have other ways of making sure the information is known “as needed.”

He also said that the reward has been in place since January 7, when Clinton was still secretary of state.

House Republicans have repeatedly raised concern over the department not doing enough to catch those behind the Benghazi attack. They had asked for an explanation as to why the suspects were not included in US government’s ‘Terror Tip’ program.

Back in May, AP learned that the FBI identified five suspects connected with last year’s attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi. However, officials said they wanted to collect more evidence before making arrests and trying them in court.

In August, the US filed charges against former Libyan militia Ahmed Abu Khattala, who was suspected of taking part in the attack, according to American media. Officials said he and an unspecified number of others were named in the sealed complaint filed in the US District Court in Washington.

According to The New York Times, Khattala was charged with murder. And while his exact role remained unclear, witnesses said they saw him directing other fighters on the night of the Benghazi attack, the paper wrote. Khattala, however, denied any involvement in the incident.

The Obama administration has come under fire following the deadly assault, for the low level of security at American diplomatic posts in hot spots and for allegedly downplaying the scale of the attack.

Several GOP legislators have taken issue with delays in the investigation, evidently caused by infighting between the FBI and the Departments of Justice and State.

In October, Senator John McCain went so far as to allege that President Obama had been dishonest during initial media appearances regarding the Benghazi attack.

The article US Secretly Offers $10-Million Bounty For Info On Benghazi Attackers appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ria Novosti

Some 1.6 million people have been forced to live under the open sky as refugee camps became quickly overcrowded after Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, NHK news channel said Saturday.

The camps set up by local authorities and humanitarian organizations can house only 20 percent of the refugees, while a total 80 percent have been unable to find shelter and have been forced to build houses from trash found at the collapsed buildings, the report says.

Although a total of 23 countries, including Russia, the US and China, have offered assistance, humanitarian aid packages have failed to reach most victims over transportation problems.

Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Yolanda, swept across the Philippines late last week, leaving up to 3,600 people dead, while another 1,200 have been unaccounted for, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. The typhoon has destroyed over 160,000 houses and damaged another 126,000.

The article Philippines: Around 1.6 Million Displaced From Typhoon Haiyan appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By EurasiaNet

By Joanna Lillis

Just over two years ago, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair signed on as a political consultant with the government of Kazakhstan. His performance as an adviser to the Central Asian nation remains a source of contention. But what is indisputable is that Kazakhstan’s democratization record is far poorer today than it was when he started.

Blair’s multi-million-dollar consultancy deal, agreed to in October, 2011, reportedly expired a couple of weeks ago. His office has not commented on whether the consultancy has been renewed. In addition, Blair representatives deny that the deal was worth as much as $25 million, and insist that the former prime minister did not personally profit from the arrangement, explaining that Kazakhstani cash was used to support pro bono work in Africa.

Rights activists aren’t satisfied with the explanations and are accusing Blair of providing political cover for a Kazakhstani government crackdown on basic freedoms. “We’ve not documented or been informed of any tangible positive human rights improvements as a result of Tony Blair’s two years of work,” Hugh Williamson of Human Rights Watch (HRW) told EurasiaNet.org.

Tony Blair Associates faced criticism almost immediately after signing on with President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s administration. Critics accused Blair – dubbed the Master of Spin in the UK for his media-savvy governing style – of burnishing the image of a Central Asian autocrat.

On October 30, HRW published an exchange of letters with The Office of Tony Blair, in which the watchdog asked it to address “serious concerns about the human rights situation” in Kazakhstan, amid Astana’s own “unwillingness” to act.

“Over the last two years there has been a marked decline in respect of fundamental freedoms such as freedom of religion, freedom of association, assembly, and speech, freedom from torture, and the right to a fair trial,” HRW wrote to Blair’s office in December 2012.

In response, Blair’s team acknowledged that there is “much to do and a long distance to go in democratic and human rights” in Kazakhstan, but offered a robust defense of Astana’s record on everything from giving up nuclear weapons in 1991 to its security cooperation with the West over Afghanistan.

Hailing Kazakhstan as “a solid ally of the West whilst keeping good relations with the East,” the letter added: “[W]e are aware of the concerns around human rights, but it does show that it is a country that has demonstrated positive leadership on many issues of fundamental importance to the world and that it is doing so in a region of real complexity.”

Such arguments echo Astana’s mantra that Kazakhstan is an “evolving democracy.” As Nazarbayev – who at home enjoys the title of Leader of the Nation amid a flourishing personality cult – put it in April: “the democracy and freedom that exist in the West […] are for us the final goal, and not the start of the path.”

Rights activists see such talk as masking resistance to meaningful reform. Blair’s consultancy has seemed to be more about promoting “the image of one person – the current president” than pushing for reform, commented opposition leader Amirzhan Kosanov.

Civil society activists in Kazakhstan say that since Blair’s team began advising Astana, they have come under mounting pressure in a crackdown that began after fatal unrest in oil-rich western Kazakhstan in 2011, when 15 civilians died in a hail of police gunfire after an oil strike turned violent.

While acknowledging some responsibility, the government heaped most of the blame on its political foes. Opposition leader Vladimir Kozlov and strike leaders were jailed on charges of fomenting the disorder; Kozlov’s party, Alga!, and dozens of critical media outlets were shut down.

The “deplorable result” of this pressure, journalist Oksana Makushina (who was deputy editor of one closed newspaper, Golos Respubliki) told EurasiaNet.org, is that now “there’s no opposition press on the market in Kazakhstan, just as there are no [political] opposition forces.” She dismissed Blair’s work as “lobbyist tricks.”

Blair has on a few occasions publicly raised the need for reform. In one example, a speech last year at Astana’s Nazarbayev University, he told students; “The status quo is not an option.”

“There has to be the development of proper systems of democratic participation,” he added, calling for “competitive political parties; a responsible but free press; adherence to Kazakhstan’s hard won reputation for religious tolerance; judicial and other reforms to enhance the rule of law; and an attack not just on corruption but on the systems in areas like public procurement that sustain it.”

Such rhetoric is welcome, but many in Kazakhstan want to see more tangible democracy promotion. “I haven’t seen any results from Blair’s work as adviser to Nazarbayev,” Kozlov’s wife Aliya Turusbekova told EurasiaNet.org. “And I definitely won’t see any,” she added pessimistically.

On November 11 Turusbekova visited her husband in his labor camp in Petropavlovsk, 1,700 kilometers from their hometown, Almaty, where – she wrote on Facebook – she found Kozlov under “tough moral pressure” and “in total isolation.” Three months ago he applied for transfer closer to home (his legal right) so that his pregnant wife could visit more easily, but his request has gone unanswered.

The international community continues expressing concern over Kozlov’s case. The European Parliament passed a resolution in April – which Astana ignored – calling for his release and that of “all persons convicted on the basis of vague criminal charges which could be considered to be politically motivated.”

Given international concern, does Turusbekova believe Blair has quietly pressed her jailed husband’s case behind the scenes? “I doubt if Blair’s at all concerned about the fate of Vladimir Kozlov,” she said, “so he won’t offer Nazarbayev any advice on this.”

Joanna Lillis is a freelance writer who specializes in Central Asia.

The article Kazakhstan: Blair Criticized For Cozying Up To Astana appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Mike Whitney

“As a first line of defense, we have a variety of supervisory tools, micro- and macro-prudential, that we can use to attempt to limit the behavior that is giving rise to those asset price misalignments.”  Janet Yellen’s  circular, Greenspan-like response to a simple question about How the Fed should deal with “asset bubbles”.

On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee conducted  hearings to decide whether Janet Yellen would be confirmed as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.  Yellen, who was nominated by President Obama, is in line to replace acting Fed chairman Ben Bernanke in January 2014.

Despite the controversy surrounding the Fed’s unconventional monetary programs, which have buoyed stock prices to record highs but failed to pull the economy out of the doldrums, the hearings were largely uneventful. For the most part, senators were civil and reserved, while Yellen was courteous and attentive.   Aside from some predictable grandstanding, there were no hardball questions, no hectoring, and no impassioned denunciations of Central Bank policy. The Committee’s performance was as perfunctory as any ever given on Capital Hill. Yellen was never in trouble nor was her confirmation ever in doubt. She breezed through the 3 hour confab without as much as a scratch.

Yellen is as slippery as they come. She skillfully dodges tough questions by poring over arcane economic theory that sounds like an answer, but really doesn’t reveal anything about how she plans to lead. She also has a good sense of how her diminutive appearance works in her favor making it impossible for male senators to be too tough on her without being seen as “sexist” or “bullies”. Also, she’s already mastered the opaque language of the Fed, that is, she knows how to use circuitous, jargon-laden koans and pompous-sounding gibberish to conceal the Central Bank’s real agenda which is to shift more wealth to its constituents on Wall Street.

On the two questions that were on everyone’s mind–QE and asset bubbles–Yellen was characteristically evasive.  While she opined that she would continue to “support the recovery” (in other words, keep the money flowing to Wall Street.) she obliquely added, “the  program cannot continue forever.”

How’s that for clarity?  In other words, “We’re going to keep doing the same thing, but we’re going to stop, too…. probably.”

To no one’s surprise, the Committee found this answer entirely satisfying.

Yellen was also asked whether the Fed would cut the rate it pays on excess reserves at the banks, to which she replied,  “It certainly is a possibility.”

Yes, Janet, we know it’s a possibility. We also know that’s not an answer.  What the Committee wants to know is what you plan to do as Fed chairman. At least, that’s what one would expect elected representatives to ask if they had even minimal critical thinking skills …which they don’t.

Instead of grilling the candidate on conspicuously-flawed policies that have failed to produce a sustainable recovery after 5 years,  ingratiating senators, like Chuck Schumer, felt their time would be better spent congratulating Yellen and singing her praises.

“I think you’ll make a great chair, and your Brooklyn wisdom shines through,” beamed the Senator from New York.

Thanks for that, Chuck. You’re a great American.

Yellen’s finest moment —if you can call it that–was her “bubble-denial” performance which makes her a shoo-in for this year’s Oscar awards. Yellen dismissed the idea that the Fed’s $3 trillion liquidity surge had made markets more frothy.

“I don’t see evidence at this point, of asset prices, misalignments. Although there is limited evidence of reach for yield, we don’t see a broad buildup in leverage, where the development of risks that I think at this stage poses a risk to financial stability.”

“Limited evidence of reach for yield or buildup in leverage”? No asset bubbles?  Are you kidding me?

Is Yellen aware that margin debt on the NYSE (the money that investors borrow to buy stocks) is now at its highest level EVER. ($401 billion) That’s higher than 2008 before the crash!  Wouldn’t you think that would send off a few alarms at the Central Bank where regulators are supposed to be monitoring these things?

And what about corporate stock buybacks which are up by nearly 20 percent this year and are on track to beat their previous peak in 2007. In fact, stock buybacks–which are just a way for corporations to juice their stock prices without adding any real value to their companies–is leaps and bounds higher than real non-residential fixed investment. In other words, corporate fatcats are swapping paper to make bigger profits instead of investing in factories, equipment or improvements which add tangible value. It’s all a big paper chase which has been amplified many times over due to the Fed’s low rates and the ocean of liquidity that’s been pumped into the system.

But Yellen says she doesn’t see any of this. (“I see nothing. Nooothing.”) How credible is that?

Then there’s this from the Testosterone Pit:

“Bubble data keep piling up relentlessly. IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) so far this year amounted to $51 billion, the highest for the period since bubble-bust year 2000, the Wall Street Journal reported. Of them, 62% were for companies that have been losing money, the highest rate on record…..

It’s even crazier in the land of bonds….. So far this year, $911 billion in bonds were issued, also a Dealogic record. Emerging-market bond issuance hit $802 billion, a notch below their all-time record last year…”(“The Day The Bubble Became Official, And Everyone Was Happy”, Testosterone Pit)

Everything is bubbly. Everything. Which is what happens when you pump $3 trillion into financial assets. (The Fed’s balance sheet has exploded to nearly $4 trillion mainly due to QE.)

And did you catch that part about investors dumping $51 billion into companies that ARE LOSING MONEY.  Chew on that for a minute. This is just like the dot.com craze when rates were so low that speculators loaded up on everything they could get their hands on. It didn’t matter what you bought, because the loose-goosy monetary policy and uber-leverage kept driving stocks higher by the day. Then–without notice– Greenspan  pulled the rug out from under the markets by raising rates which sent equities into the shi**er.   Remember that? And now we’re seeing the same thing all over again. It’s like Back to the Future 2.

But Yellen sees none of it, in fact, she wants to keep the money flowing for as long as possible,  until the bubble is so humongous that the slightest pin-prick puts the financial system into a death spiral and the real economy slumps back into recession.

It’s madness. Just like it’s madness for the committee to even consider a candidate with Yellen’s dodgy resume. Do we really want someone running the Fed who argued “against” deflating the housing bubble because she thought it would only be “a good-sized bump in the road, but that the economy would be able to absorb the shock”?

How’s that for poor judgment? By my estimate, that “bump in the road”  amounted to more than $8 trillion in home equity losses, 5 million foreclosures, 14 million jobs,  and a thoroughly decimated US economy.  That was a bad call on Yellen’s part, and in a sane world it would have disqualified her from contention. But we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a world where failing upwards is a reality and where the best jobs go to the apple-polishers who nose their way to the front of the line by doing what they’re told and keeping their mouths shut.

And that’s why “punch bowl” Janet is going to get the Chairman’s Suite in the Eccles Building. Because she knows how the game is played.

The article The Coronation Of Janet Yellin – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By VOA

Online gambling is gaining a toehold in the United States, but the phenomenon is so new the financial and social consequences are not yet known.

The state of Nevada, the home to the gambling mecca of Las Vegas, started allowing online poker games earlier this year. But two states on the eastern U.S. seaboard, Delaware and New Jersey, are expanding the online gambling options to include a variety of other games, including blackjack, roulette and slot machines.

The gambling has been limited, through the use of geospatial technology, to wagers placed by people physically within the boundaries of the three states. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has estimated online gambling could yield as much as $180 million annually in new tax revenue for his state, but the gain for Nevada and Delaware is expected to be less than $4 million a year in each state.

Unlike in some other countries, there is no national U.S. lottery, although multi-state lotteries often draw a frenzy of players as jackpots reach several hundred million dollars. Only two of the 50 U.S. states have not authorized any form of gambling, and many states have lotteries and casinos.

U.S. legal authorities two years ago signaled they would not block most forms of Internet wagering, leading to the tentative roll-out in the three states, with other states beginning to consider it. But there has been no national debate about whether widespread Internet gambling should be allowed, and lawmakers in Washington have mostly ignored the issue.

Corporate gambling interests have been generally supportive of the new form of wagering, even though it could limit the number of people who visit casinos. But one prominent casino magnate, Sheldon Adelson, has taken the opposite tack, calling on Congress to ban Internet gambling as a danger to society.

He says online gambling could prove tempting to weak-willed people and would be a “societal train wreck waiting to happen.”

The article Online Gambling Gaining Toehold appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By EurActiv

(EurActiv) — European foreign and defence ministers will discuss how to deploy drones for civilian operations, ranging from disaster prevention to deterring human traffickers on the EU’s borders, in a two-day meeting that opens in Brussels today (18 November) .

The unusually long conclusions of this Defence council will include progress in several areas, according to one diplomat.

The text will stress the importance of advancing the development of common European capabilities on drones and air-to-air refueling technologies, thought essential for European air forces in distant operations.

Several ideas will be discussed, including developing a specific research ‘action’ focused on defence, with a different budget line from Horizon 2020, the EU framework programme for research for the 2014-2020 period.

One of the ministers’ first objectives will be to make sure that drones can receive EU research funds as dual-use capabilities, meaning that they can be used for civilian and military purposes.

The Commission and some member states intend to push for a clearer budget line for military research, which would include drones. But this option remains controversial.

On Tuesday (19 November), a meeting of the European Defence Agency steering board, composed of European defence ministers, will address shortfalls in drones development at the EU level “with the objective of laying the foundations for a European solution in the 2020-2025 timeframe,” according to a preparatory document for the meeting.

Any steps forward may herald a breakthrough at the EU Summit in December, which will deal with defence matters.

Such a development would be welcomed by the EU industry, which has openly supported a joint drone programme.

Last June, France’s Dassault Aviation, European aerospace giant EADS and Italy’s Finmeccanica said a joint programme would “support the capability needs of European armed forces while optimising the difficult budgetary situation through pooling of research and development funding.”

In a joint statement the three companies said they were prepared to work together on the creation of a European MALE (medium-altitude, long-endurance) drone, which allows surveillance of vast areas over 24 hours.

The Mediterranean opportunity

Debates on launching a joint drone programme are not new. But the prospect of high-level discussions, and a new push for improving border controls are increasing the potential for movement.

Ministers will today be briefed by the Italian Foreign Minister, Emma Bonino, on a proposal to launch a military mission in the Mediterranean Sea to tackle human trafficking. This follows the recent tragedy in which hundreds of migrants drowned off the coast of Lampedusa, attempting to reach Italy.

The services of the EU High Representative for Foreign and Defence Policy Catherine Ashton have prepared a list of future options, including a fully-fledged military operation.

An alternative may be further strengthening the activities of the EU agency for border management, Frontex, whose role is already under review by a specific task force set up after the Lampedusa tragedy.

Drones may come to be seen as a fitting solution, as they would greatly improve the capacity of patrolling borders, and also act to deter human traffickers.

The article EU Ministers Discuss Deployment Of Drones appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By PanArmenian

By Karine Ter-Sahakian

The ninth meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents will take place in Vienna on Nov 19.

The U.S. Co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement, James Warlick, has already arrived in the Austrian capital in anticipation of the talks. However, ambassador Warlick’s optimism seems to have no ground, as the regular meeting will apparently have the same result as those previously held in Kazan, Saint Petersburg and Sochi.

According to some sources, President Serzh Sargsyan will stress the necessity of bringing the Nagorno Karabakh Republic back to negotiations.

Azerbaijani leader’s reaction and the following developments are quite predictable: Ilham Aliyev will slam the door. The Co-chairs will follow him to persuade to come back. They might succeed. Then, as usual, Baku will blame the failure on Yerevan and its “destructive” policy. Afterwards, the Co-chairs will issue a statement saying that there is a chance to continue talks.

The conflict is unsolvable, in principle. No change of power, ‘color’ revolutions or Arab Springs will help. Baku has just habituate itself to the fact that Artsakh had never been and will never be a part of Azerbaijan, irrelative of the number of false ‘scientific’ works written about it.

It should also be noted that the OSCE Minsk Group does nothing but maintains the status quo and organizes presidential meetings, which always have the same scenario: the mediators meet with the Presidents and Foreign Ministers, then a date for the presidential meeting is set. After Sargsyan and Aliyev spend several hours talking behind closed doors, the Co-chairs issue a standard statement to say that the “sides agreed to continue the negotiating process for a peaceful solution to the problem.”

According to U.S.-base Azerbaijani political analyst Alek Rasizade, the OSCE MG annual budget makes about 1 million euros. He also notes that with oil reserves waning, Azerbaijan’s possibilities to win over world powers will diminish as well. The expert says that the powerful Armenian Diaspora has counterbalanced the ‘oil lobby’ in Washington.

Thus, having failed to gain a diplomatic victory through interested in Azeri oil, Aliyev is trying the ‘Russian card’ in the dialogue with the United States and NATO.

The article Sargsyan-Aliyev Meeting: Standard Scenario Or Anything New? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By PanArmenian

Terry Gilliam has announced a new attempt to complete The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Digital Spy said.

The writer/director will once again tackle the adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes’s seminal novel following a series of failed attempts.

“I’m going to try to do Don Quixote again,” Gilliam told Coming Soon. “I think this is the seventh time. Lucky seven, maybe.

“We’ll see if it happens. This is kind of my default position, going back to that. I actually just want to make it and get rid of it. Get it out of my life.”

Production on The Man Who Killed Don Quixote began in 2000, with Jean Rochefort as Quixote and Johnny Depp in the role of Sancho Panza.

A series of freak accidents including a flash flood and Rochefort suffering a herniated disc led to the cancellation of shooting. These events are catalogued in the Lost in La Mancha documentary.

Several failed attempts to get the production back on track have been made in the intervening years.

Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem premiered during this summer’s festival season and will be released in cinemas on March 14.

The article Terry Gilliam Makes New Attempt To Complete ‘Don Quixote’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

(CORDIS) — No internet user can have failed to notice the explosion of online videos. And with video traffic already accounting for more than 90 percent of consumer content, the trend is set to continue.

But the internet, and in particular mobile internet, was not designed with videos in mind and, as a consequence, its architecture is very inefficient when handling video traffic.

The EU-funded project MEDIEVAL (‘Multimedia transport for mobile video applications’) sought to design a new internet architecture able to support the requirements of video traffic.

To do so, project researchers, led by France’s Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, focused on specific enhancements making it possible to move video data from one computer to another.

Today’s internet protocol architecture is made up of a layered structure, with higher-level layers in the stack being more flexible and evolving through frequent innovations.

Middle-level layers are more stable. MEDIEVAL partners reasoned that the new architecture would have to have a cross-layer design, exploiting the interaction between layers and thus raising performance to previously unattainable levels.

The team’s research focused on:
- enhanced wireless access support to optimise video performance;
- novel IP mobility architecture adapted to the requirements of video traffic;
- transport optimisation for video distribution;
- network-aware video services that interact with underlying layers.

The result is technology designed to improve the quality of experience for users. The solution also takes into account the requirements for commercial deployment. This meant, for example, reducing the associated operational costs for network operators.

By the time the project came to an end in June 2013, the team had developed new architecture solutions and validated them – both on a test-bed and through simulation activities – in three separate valuation scenarios for internet TV, personal broadcasting and video-on-demand. These solutions are now available as commercial products on the marketplace.

The project’s success was dependent upon contributions to standardisation and early incremental testing. The project’s dissemination campaign involved exchanging the results with other European projects, the scientific community and with relevant standardisation bodies, including the IETF, IEEE and 3GPP.

The three-year MEDIEVAL project received EUR 3.5 million in EU funding and involved 9 partners from 6 countries.

The article Paving Way For More Efficient, Video-Rich Internet appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

Patients affected by a bacterial infection can usually be treated with an antibiotic. But sometimes a resistant bacterial strain is causing the infection. In a hospital setting, doctors ideally want to know if they are dealing with such bacteria and which drugs they should choose. But if the doctor runs a test it can take days to get a result. Now, a European project is paving the way for much more rapid tests using DNA biochips. The aim is to rapidly screen disease-causing bacteria using a microarray to spot which resistant genes are present in bacteria.

The scientists, as part of the Antiresdev project, developed an array that could test for 116 antibiotic resistant genes from one class of bacteria, and 90 resistant genes from the other class of bacteria. The “arrays” contain pits with a DNA probe that lights up if a specific gene is present.

It is important to search for many resistance genes because bacteria have a habit of exchanging bits of DNA that make for useful anti-drug defences, making the bacteria resistant or even untreatable. This is bad news for patients infected with a superbug. “A lot of these resistance genes are on mobile elements. They can transfer all sorts of different resistant genes if they are put under the right pressures,” explains project scientist Peter Mullany, who is also a molecular microbiologist at University College London, UK. He adds: “There are lots of resistance genes too, with at least 30 for tetracycline [an antibiotic] alone.”

Quick detection technologies could therefore provide a diagnostic without delay to help direct the therapeutic choice. “The chip arrays are rapid and will tell us if any of the resistance genes on the array are present in a particular environment. If resistance genes are present, which allow the bacteria to resist a clinically important antibiotic, clinicians may choose to use an alternative antibiotic to which no resistance genes are present,” Mullany tells youris.com.

The team also discovered a new genetic fragment that gives bacteria an ability to resist an antibiotic called minocycline and an antiseptic for wounds called cetrimide bromide. Identifying the fragment’s presence could allow doctors to take steps preventing its spread to harmful bacteria.

Until now, the DNA biochips were used to investigate how various antibiotics influenced the kinds of resistant bacteria that were present. It also helped determine which persisted at various sites in the human body – mouth, skin and nose. This gave insight into how antibiotics affect ‘friendly’ microorganisms naturally present in our bodies. “There are a lot of unknowns in this area, as the majority of microorganisms can’t be cultured,” says Mullany. “But if you can get rapid knowledge about which antibiotics genes are present, you have a better chance that treatment will be successful.”

Experts welcome this development. Microarray allows the simultaneous detection of a large number of genes in the bacterial cell in one test. “The result which is obtained is a complex pattern of spots or dots, representing the individual resistance genes, which is read by machine and tells us which genes are present,” explains Chris Teale, head of antimicrobial resistance at the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency in the UK, “This technique is a great benefit when screening isolates for resistance because so many different genes can be screened at the same time.”

The threat of antibiotic resistant pathogens is global, notes Richard Goering professor of medical microbiology and immunology at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, USA, whose research deals with antibiotic resistance genes in Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). “The issue in dealing with these is two-fold, diagnosis and treatment. There are long standing worldwide problems with slowdown in pharma research and development for new drugs but still the bottom line is that the sooner the diagnosis is made the better the potential therapeutic outcome,” Goering explains.

Quick detection is therefore a positive step. “So, genomics and the ability to rapidly sequence bacterial chromosomes holds great promise in identifying bacterial genes associated with accurate detection of both the bug and what is it susceptible to treatment,” Goering tells youris.com.

However, more work lies ahead. “More such tests are needed especially for use in resource-poor regions where morbidity and mortality associated with infectious disease are always high,” he adds, concluding that just because a gene is present, does not mean it is actively expressed, and therefore that molecular techniques will need to address this issue too.

The article Rapid Detection Of Superbugs appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Radio Zamaneh

All but 15 percent of Lake Oroumiyeh, Iran’s largest inland lake, has disappeared, environmental experts say.

Hassan Abbasnejad, the head of the Western Azerbaijan Province Department of the Environment, told IRNA on Sunday November 17: “Only six percent of the southern part of the lake currently remains and in total 85 percent of the lake area has been lost.”

Abbasnejad added that the lake’s drying up has multiple consequences, including an increase in cancer and respiratory diseases. He added that agricultural development in the region is not feasible given the damage caused to the lake.

Many experts have pointed to agricultural development and dam building as the main causes of Lake Oroumiyeh’s rapid depletion in recent years.

The article Iran: Experts Put Dramatic Figure On Lake Oroumiyeh’s Depletion appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Radio Zamaneh

193 Iranian physicians have called on the president to end the house arrest of MirHosein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karroubi.

The Kaleme website reports that the physicians urge Hassan Rohani and the head of the Supreme Council of National Security to “seriously consider and bring about” an end to the house arrest of the opposition leaders, who have been detained since 2011.

The Chairman of the Expediency Council, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, also reportedly called for an end to the house arrest of Mousavi, Rahnavard and Karroubi during his latest meeting with the leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khamenei.

Meanwhile over 150 Iranian activists have also written to Ahmad Shaheed the UN rapporteur on human rights in Iran to request a visit with these opposition leaders who have been under house arrest for over a thousand days.

These activists express grave concern regarding the health of these individuals under house arrest and insist that the judiciary has no legal justification for their treatment.

The three leaders have never been officially charged by the judiciary but they are practically cut off from the outside world and only get short visits from their immediate family members on rare occasions.

The article Iran: Doctors Urge Rohani To Free Opposition Leaders appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Civil.Ge

(Civil.Ge) — Georgia PM-designate Irakli Garibashvili named on November 18 the same cabinet, which has been in place over the past one year, to face parliamentary confidence vote expected this week.

Standing along with current cabinet members in the headquarters of the Georgian Dream coalition in Tbilisi, PM-designate Irakli Garibashvili said on November 18 that all the ministers, who took their posts in October 2012 in PM Ivanishvili’s government, will retain their seats in his cabinet.

Garibashvili, 31, who has served as interior minister since October 2012, named earlier this month 28-year-old head of the Tbilisi police department, Alexandre Tchikaidze, as a candidate to replace him on the post of the interior minister.

“I have worked with this team for a year,” Garibashvili said on November 18. “I have tested them in work.”

“Last year Mr. Ivanishvili gathered people, who are distinguished by their honesty, sense of responsibility and professionalism,” he said and added that this government worked “without significant mistakes.”

“As batoni Bidzina says this is genuinely European team. Our ministers have proven that they are ready to serve their people and the country” Garibashvili said. “So I propose to you the same cabinet without any changes.”

Also on November 18 President Margvelashvili signed a decree naming Garibashvili as a candidate for PM.

Parliamentary committees will start hearings into nominated cabinet on November 19 and the parliamentary session is expected to discuss the cabinet on November 20, according to GD lawmakers.

UNM lawmakers have complained about GD trying to hastily go through that parliamentary procedures required for confirmation of the cabinet.

The article Georgia: PM-Designate Names Cabinet, No Changes appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Al Bawaba News

A Syrian helicopter gunship raided Monday the Bekaa Valley border town of Arsal, killing two of the mayor’s relatives, security sources said.

The sources told The Daily Star that “according to information obtained by police” Youssef Hujeiri, 31, and his brother Khaled, 33, were killed in a helicopter gunship raid over Wadi Mira on Arsal’s outskirts.

They said the brothers are relatives of Arsal’s mayor, Ali Hujeiri.

The bodies were taken to a hospital in Arsal, the sources added.

Arsal, a northeastern town on the border with Syria, has in the last couple of the days seen a significant influx of refugees fleeing villages in the Qalamoun, a mountainous region roughly north of Damascus which is expected to be the next front between rebels and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Original article

The article Syrian Gunship Targets Lebanon’s Arsal, Kills Town Mayor’s Relatives appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Al Bawaba News

Libyan intelligence chief General Yusuf al-Atrash was killed and deputy intelligence chief Mustafa Nah was abducted, according to Al-Arabiya news reports from Monday. The killing and kidnapping coincide with US military plans to train Libyan troops, andreports that militias responsible for last week’s violence in Tripoli have been ordered to leave the capital within 72 hours.

Al-Atrash was reported dead in the western city of al-Ujailat, while Nuh was kidnapped in Tripoli only hours before he was scheduled to travel abroad. No one has yet claimed responsibility of al-Atrash’s death.

The death and capture of the two intelligence officers follow a weekend of fatal militia attacks that left more than 40 people dead and hundreds wounded in the country’s capital. Reports from Monday indicate that the militias responsible for the attacks, most of whom hail from the town of Misrata, have been ordered to leave the capital within 72 hours, according to Agence France-Presse.

The US military has further responded to the growing violence in Libya, telling reporters Sunday that it is planning to train 5,000-7,000 members of the Libyan security and special operations forces to maintain order in their country and carry out counterterrorism missions, according to Reuters.

According to the head of US’s Special Operations Command, Admiral William McRaven,”Right now as we go forward to try and find a good way to build up the Libyan security forces so they are not run by militias, we are going to have to assume some risks. Suffice to say that there is going to be a kind of conventional effort, to train their conventional forces, between 5 and 7,000 conventional forces. And we have a complementary effort on the special operations side to train a certain number of their forces to do counter-terrorism.”

He did not provide further details on the proposed training, but said that the project was still under negotiation.

A US defense official, however, told Reuters on the condition of anonymity that the US plans to “involve training of smalls groups on a rotational basis over years in Bulgaria.”

Libya’s government has struggled to maintain order in the post-Gaddafi era with rival militias competing with the weak centralized government for power, territory, and control. The instability of the north African nation has thus become a point of worry for not only Libya’s neighbors, but also world powers vying for stakes and influence in the region as well.

Original article

The article Libya: Misrata Militias Ordered To Leave Tripoli Following US Military Training Proposal appeared first on Eurasia Review.