By MISNA

The UN Security Council approved a resolution authorizing military action by France in support of an African mission in the Central African Republic (CAR). The go-ahead comes while, despite a curfew, Bangui is rocked by violence and summary executions.

The unanimously approved UN resolution allows French forces “to take all necessary measures” for a temporary period to support the African Union-led force known as MISCA.

The mandate of the African peacekeepers foresees the protection of civilians, restoring security and commitment to dealing with the humanitarian emergency. With the go-ahead of the UN, the French troop presence will increase from 250 to around 1,200. The resolution also foresees an arms embargo on Bangui and the creation of a commission to investigate human rights violations committed in CAR. The text also foresees a transformation of MISCA into a UN mission.

The UN vote comes after dramatic hours in Bangui, characterized by armed clashes and violence in different areas of the city. According to the media, the bodies of some 80 people were found in a mosque in the Pk-5 area and surrounding streets. Other witnesses reported around sixty bodies, apparently victims of summary executions resulting from the conflict between supporters and rivals of the former rebel Seleka coalition that carried out the coup last March.

The article Central African Republic: UN Gives Green Light For French Intervention appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By MISNA

Up to 30,000 Eritreans have been abducted since 2007 in the Sinai, based on a report to be presented today to the European Parliament, entitled “The Human Trafficking Cycle: Sinai and Beyond”, and according to direct testimonies of 230 Eritreans.

The report, a first thorough look at a widely ignored phenomenon by the media, was authored by three researchers, two from the Netherlands and one Eritrean residing in Sweden, indicates that thousands of young Eritreans are abducted by Eritrea’s army and deported to Sudan. Where after being tortured, ransoms are demanded from their families for their release with the threat of being sold to human traffickers in the Sinai.

In some cases, even after the ransom is paid, the Eritrean army consigns them to the traffickers who torture them and demand another ransom. Over the past seven years, it s estimated that at least $600million has been extorted from families in ransom payments.

A key role in the abductions is attributed to Eritrea’s Border Surveillance Unit, led by General Teklai Kifle: they often abduct Eitreans between the ages of 16 and 17, forced by the regime to complete their studies serving in the military for a year at the Sawa military base. Once abducted, the Eritreans are tortured and detained in underground prisons. The women are repeatedly raped, often even in public, and family members are made to listen to their screams over the phone. A ransom of $10,000 is normally demanded for young Eritreans.

According to the researchers, many Eritreans do not survive the traffickers and torture. “Many Eritreans do not survive the trafficking and the torture. They estimate that between 5,000 and 10,000 of the hostages died or were killed in captivity. In some groups as many as half lost their lives. Children as young as two or three years old are among the victims”, the researchers told the British Guardian newspaper.

For years human rights organizations have denounced the living conditions of the population, some 6-million people, in the Eritrea of Isaias Afewerky, defining it “an open air prison” and a sort of “North Korea of Africa”. Young Eritreans, men and women, are forced into military service that can even last up to 40 years. The government of Asmara however allows its nationals to flee, with the risk of being captured by traffickers, but on arrival in a new nation the State demands a 3% tax on all their remittances. The inferno of these migrants all takes place in the silent complicity of nations where many of them have obtained a political refugee status. Based on UN estimates, some 3,000 Eritreans leave their homeland each month.

The article Eritrea: Migrants Abducted And Tortured By Army appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Margaret Kimberley

The level of hostility that most white Americans have towards black people is endless. Nothing proves that point like the reaction to the court decision which affirmed that Detroit, Michigan is officially bankrupt. If the media, pundits and readers commenting to newspapers are to be believed, Detroit had no problems other than having too many freeloading black people living within the city limits.

According to news reports the damage done by moving money and other resources to the mostly white suburbs was not a problem. Neither were the disastrous Wall Street derivatives deals which robbed the city. The Republican takeover of the state legislature wasn’t an issue either, despite the fact that the emergency management plan was instituted against the wishes of Michigan voters who rejected it in a referendum. According to conventional wisdom none of these factors and none of the bad actors are responsible for the decision to make the people of Detroit liable for the connivance of the 1%.

The corporate media say nothing about the fact that Barclays bank gets paid first, so that it can then pay Bank of America and others. They say nothing about how creditors from civil litigants to vendors will have to settle for pennies on the dollar. They don’t mention that city of Detroit retirees couldn’t pay into Social Security and have nothing to live on except their soon to be decimated pensions. Of course they also fail to say that the state’s constitution specifically protects pensions from cuts announced by the emergency manager. That law is no longer worth the paper it is written on.

The dice were cast long before judge Steven Rhodes ruled that the picking clean could begin in earnest. There was no way that the ruling classes would permit true democracy to function when there was a fresh carcass to scavenge. The evil doing was made all the more easy by a system still fueled by heavy doses of racism.

In 2008 the mortgage-backed securities house of cards fell apart but the international banksters weren’t prosecuted or even really blamed by the masses of people. In the minds of too many white Americans, the housing bubble was caused by black people buying homes they couldn’t afford. That same line of reasoning says that Detroit is bankrupt because of overpaid city workers and greedy retirees. Some of those black people who worked on automobile assembly lines were also blamed for the struggles of the big three car makers. Even black people who have jobs are considered shiftless bums who must pay a price for just about anything that the reptile racist brain can imagine.

The terror of the shock doctrine is now in full force around the country. The word Detroit is now being used the way the word boogeyman was used to keep children fearful and compliant. In New York City, municipal workers are being told not to expect retroactive wage increases when a new mayor takes office in January. After all, no one wants New York to end up like Detroit.

But racism is a two edged sword, capable of hurting white people, too. Black people may be punished first but the swath of destruction won’t leave white people untouched for long. Black people are the most vulnerable and the easiest to victimize but are not the only Americans depending on pensions to survive. Judge Rhodes made history and in a terrible way. There will be nothing to protect the few Americans who still have defined retirement benefit plans. They can now begin kissing those plans good-bye.

Cities and counties all over the country were defrauded by the derivatives schemers. Corporate greed will ensnare many more and make a mockery of the idea that America is a democracy. Other state legislatures and municipalities will also reach figurehead status and other voter referendums will be rendered null and void.

California cities like Stockton and San Bernardino are in court seeking bankruptcy protection. So far unions have successfully argued that pension plans should be untouched, but with Rhodes’ ground breaking decision, all that may change very quickly. It is certain that the rest of financial services sector sat up and took notice when Detroit’s fate was sealed in the court house.

Detroit is now the dead canary in the coal mine. The banksters have taken jobs, homes and now a major city. Legislation and the popular will mean nothing when the fat cats set their sights on something they want.

As for the few people left in Detroit they will watch as their pensions, jobs and public resources disappear. They will be the first to see such a level of theft and devastation but they will not be the last.

The article Blaming Black People In Detroit – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Observer Research Foundation

By Rashmi Dhandia

The opposition of many African governments to the International Criminal Court (ICC) is not new. Since 2008, when former ICC prosecutor Moreno Ocampo launched charges against Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, African governments, acting within the framework of the African Union (AU), issued a number of declarations expressing increasing discontent about the process of the ICC on the continent.

The recent surge in the AU’s opposition to the ICC arose with specific reference to the ongoing cases against the newly elected leaders of Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice-President William Ruto.

The investigation by the ICC in Kenya is regarding the 2007-2008 post- presidential election violence. The Electoral Commission of Kenya officially declared that the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki had been re-elected; supporters of the opposition candidate Raila Odinga accused the government of electoral fraud and rejected the results. A series of protests and demonstrations followed, and fighting-mainly along tribal lines-led to many deaths, injuries and displacements. Kenyatta and Ruto who were on opposite sides during the violence, have joined hands now after the current elections. Kenyatta and William Ruto, are accused of orchestrating this large-scale violence. After failed attempts to conduct a criminal investigation of the key perpetrators in Kenya, the matter was referred to the International Criminal Court by Waki commission, a commission which was established for the Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence. The indictments relating to post-2007 election violence in Kenya were the first instances of the ICC proactively targeting an African leader.

The government of Kenya and the National Assembly both attempted to stop the ICC process. The government appealed to both the United Nations Security Council and the Court itself regarding the admissibility of the case. The National Assembly voted in favor of removing Kenya as a State Party to the Rome Statute, the International Treaty which established the ICC. Despite this opposition, the accused cooperated with the proceedings and attended preliminary hearings in The Hague.

In another letter addressed to the ICC, the AU reiterated its earlier communications with the court and requested the court “to allow the Head of State of Kenya and his Deputy to choose the sessions they wish to attend”, having regard to the Constitutional obligations that they are required to discharge as leaders of Kenya’s government. Following the ICC’s response, that the request the AU made does not constitute a request legally presented within the court’s framework, the AU called for a Summit to debate the future of Africa’s relationship with the ICC.

In light of this discontent, the agenda of the Summit challenged not only the legitimacy but also the very future of the ICC. The lack of confidence that African member states expressed could lead to reluctance on their part to co-operate with the ICC. This seriously threatened the ICC’s ability to effectively and successfully adjudicate these cases. Although it was prominent on the agenda of the AU summit, the mass withdrawal of African member states from the ICC was an unlikely outcome.

A resolution was proposed by African states at UNSC (United Nations Security Council) to suspend the trial of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto for a year. Seven Council members voted in favor of the text (Azerbaijan, China, Morocco, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Rwanda, and Togo), none voted against, and 8 abstained (Argentina, Australia, France, Guatemala, Luxembourg, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom, United States). However, lacking the requirement of nine affirmative votes, the resolution failed. The draft was, therefore, not adopted. The resolution put forward by Rwanda, with the backing of the African Union, complained that the ICC trials were distracting President Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, from responding to the September attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi. But for African nations this vote, which they knew would never pass, had larger meaning – it was also a protest against what they see as an institutional bias in the ICC against Africa.

African diplomats called it a watershed moment, complaining that the vote betrayed a lack of trust in Africa. France and Britain, who opposed the resolution, have been upset with this “for us or against us” rhetoric. They’re worried about a rift opening up. There was an angry reaction from African diplomats to the voting. They said it would change the way the continent interacts with the International Community. The representative of the United States said the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, which oversaw the Court’s administration, would meet to help address outstanding issues. Since the Court and the Assembly were the proper venues for addressing the concerns of Kenya and the African Union, the United States abstained rather than voting against the draft resolution. France’s representative said the vote had been unnecessary when the Council was in the midst of consultations with African States. The United Kingdom’s representative stressed that the sponsors had failed to establish the Charter VII threshold beyond which the Court’s proceedings against the Kenyan leaders would pose a threat to International peace and security. Guatemala’s representative said it was offensive to suggest that those who had not voted in favor of the draft were somehow against Africa. The Russian Federation’s representative said African Countries had presented compelling arguments at a critical time for people in Kenya, whose military was playing a key role in Somalia. Their request did not undermine the integrity of the Rome Statute, and there had been no attempt to turn them against the Court. Rwanda’s representative emphasised that the Council was indeed the proper place to discuss the issue, and expressed his delegation’s deep disappointment at what had transpired.

The vote undermined the principle of sovereign equality and confirmed the long-held view that International mechanisms were manipulated to serve select interests. Article 16, which refers to deferral of investigation or prosecution, had never been meant to be used by an African State; it appeared to be a tool used by the Western Powers to “protect their own”, he added. The representative of Ethiopia spoke in the country’s capacity as current Chair of the African Union, stressing that the Rome Statute’s Article 16 gave the Council authority to defer cases.

The Assembly of State Parties (ASP) has now approved three amendments to the ICC rules affecting the cases of President, Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President, William Ruto. The ASP allowed an amendment to Rule 68 that will accept prior recorded evidence. Kenya successfully lobbied the ASP delegates for an insertion to rule 134 that will allow Uhuru and Ruto to be represented by their lawyers and be away from their trials, if the trial court agrees. Also the Rule 100 has also been replaced by a new rule to allow a change of venue for the trial.

The United States welcomed the amendments because they will protect the rights of both defendants and victims, and ensure that the trials continue without delay. During the assembly and break-out meetings, some delegates argued that such an amendment would entrench impunity and undermine the ICC. MPs from Kenya attending the ASP have welcomed the decision to amend the ICC rules. Justice and Legal Affairs Committee chairman, Samwel Chepkonga says Uhuru and Ruto will now be able to perform their duties as the ICC cases proceed in their absence.

The ICC’s continuing legitimacy problems have been compounded by the Kenyan situation. A central part of Kenyatta and Ruto’s defense have been conducted outside the courtroom in the Court of public opinion. Opponents for the ICC claim that, ICC only investigates African leaders while apologists to ICC believe, this is not strictly true, and nor it is completely the Court’s fault. Its hands are tied by a complicated referral process which means, only crimes in the very weakest or unpopular states can be investigated. The AU-ICC confrontation is likely to continue unless an amicable compromise is arrived at. ICC is no longer about finding justice for the victims as many wrongly assume and believe; rather the process is now about whether an ICC faced with prosecuting cases that don’t belong there, can do so and render a verdict that can be deemed fair and just.

(The writer is a Research Intern at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

The article Africa And The International Criminal Court – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Maan

A military court in the Gaza Strip on Thursday sentenced a man to death by hanging.

The Hamas-run court found the man – identified only as A.K. – guilty of collaborating with Israeli authorities, without providing further details.

On June 22, the Gaza government hanged two men accused of collaborating with Israel. Under Palestinian law, collaboration with Israel, murder, and drug trafficking are all punishable by death.

However all execution orders must be approved by the president before they can be carried out. Hamas no longer recognizes the legitimacy of incumbent Mahmoud Abbas, whose four-year term ended in 2009.

Hamas has executed 17 people since taking over Gaza in 2007, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The article Gaza Court Issues Death Sentence To Suspected Collaborator appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By JTW

By Hasan Selim Ozertem

A meeting of the NATO ministers of foreign affairs was held in Brussels in 3-4 December 2013. This was a key event, because this also prepares the agenda elements for the leaders’ summit. Every two years the leaders of NATO member countries come together for a summit. The past two summits saw the adoption of NATO’s new strategic concept (2010 Lisbon) and the articulation of “Smart Defence” and clarification on policies regarding ballistic defence systems (2012 Chicago Summit). Next year, after a more than 20-year break, the U.K. will again host the NATO Summit this time in Wales. As the meeting of the NATO ministers of foreign affairs left behind we should now focus on the agenda of Wales.

Three major issues are expected to loom large at the summit. They are (in order) Smart Defence, the Afghanistan strategy, and Connected Force Initiative. These issues will have regional and global repercussions and will stand out as NATO’s reasons for existence after 2014. Accordingly, they have already been subjected to heated debates in Turkish bureaucratic and political circles—especially Afghanistan. For when it comes to Turkey, an active member of the NATO alliance since 1952, NATO’s roadmap for the coming period has the potential to significantly affect its own security strategies.

Smart defence strategy targets a burden-sharing regime capable of adapting NATO forces existing capabilities and capacities to present conditions. Conceptualized during Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen term, this strategy has several underlying logics. The first of these is the budget cuts starting in allied countries. Due to the financial crises in Western economies defence spending is being slashed. While NATO emphasizes that member countries need to allocate 2% of their GDP to defence spending, 20% of that budget should be designated for purchasing weapons and equipment for the army. Defence budgets, therefore, should not be limited only to maintenance and personnel expenses; they must also allow for increases in army assets and capabilities. In some cases it is likely that 2% spending won’t be enough. The second logic of the issue stems from the armies having similar needs and being able to reduce costs through coordination. It’s emphasized that in order for this to work there must be collaboration and a common defence strategy to avoid redundancy in expenditures. So, spending the necessary amount on their own defence would be difficult for individual countries, but burden-sharing through the joint projects and coordinated capacity growth of smart defence strategies can make these expenses manageable.

The effects of the ongoing financial crisis in the U.S. and Western European countries are manifest. In these circumstances even if Washington is willing to remain the primary bearer of NATO’s burden, it does expect its other allies to assume more of the load. Considering the countries struggling to stretch their current budgets, the smart defence is a logical strategy. The heart of the problem here is that NATO’s structure is inter-governmental rather than supranational. When studying the character of defence policies, decision-making processes need to be evaluated in the context of the principle of sovereignty. In other words, though the idea is a very important initiative, there are certain structure-related limitations on joint action. In this context the recent Patriot missile delivery to Turkey from the Netherlands and Germany can be viewed as a concrete reflection of the practice of joint action. However, the issue is not always so simple, and sending troops and equipment should be assessed as a matter of domestic politics for allied countries. In this respect, issues such as how crisis situations are perceived, how NATO is perceived, and how elements shaping peoples identities are influenced by external factors can place important limitations on action.

Afghanistan: Changing Strategy

NATO has been in command of ISAF since 2003. However, as of 2014, NATO combat forces are expected to be replaced by a smaller force (approximately 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers) mostly responsible for training and support. Aside from the role the decreasing NATO forces will play after 2014, the route to be used by withdrawing soldiers is a separate, contentious discussion topic. Another issue is how the 350,000 person-strong Afghan security forces will be politically and economically maintained. In order for these security forces to be sustained support from the international community will be needed to help cover their $4.1 billion cost.

In terms of the Alliance, allies and partner countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Georgia appear to have gained experience in coordinated action in crisis situations. A big question is how this common culture will be maintained in the next period. Within the framework of this associated forces strategy, it’s being argued that there is a need to perform simulation exercises and real-time, large-scale exercises in the field. These military exercises, though they cannot be compared to initiatives launched under real circumstances in Afghanistan, will at least help protect this common culture and language.

Here, “Connected Forces” means more than having common equipment; it refers to a culture of cooperation that includes joint decision-making processes, information-sharing, and the ability to share the same spaces. Apart from the 28 member states, countries that cooperate with NATO are questioning how the culture developed thus far will be protected and on which bases they will establish relations with the other actors like China and India. With this regard, the meeting in the UK will seek to answer how NATO will establish partnerships after 2014 and how existing partnerships will be preserved and developed.

In summary, the 2014 summit in the UK, like 2010 and 2012, will be a meeting in which Afghanistan will again be on the agenda as a practical matter. But the intellectual background of the meeting will be defined by burden sharing, collaboration, and issues such as how to respond to emerging asymmetric threats and how will NATO be structured as it approaches 2020. From this perspective, the Afghanistan strategy has started coming into focus. Turkish authorities are willing to remain in this country as long as Afghanistan is in need. Turkey has already spent more in defence spending than required, and in this respect is comfortable in NATO. For Turkey the main question pertains to its attitude regarding connected forces and the steps it will take.

Translated from Turkish by Yağmur Erşan

The article Foreign Ministers Met In Brussels, But Post-2014 NATO To Be Discussed In Wales – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

In Thursday’s Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council (TTE) afternoon session, which was devoted to transport issues, the Member States adopted a General Approach on the Deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure Directive, which will allow the Member States to establish and maintain a minimum level of alternative fuels infrastructure in the EU.

“It is the first EU-wide legislation of this kind, setting the general framework for development of infrastructure for electric vehicles as well as liquefied natural gas (LNG), compressed natural gas (CNG) and hydrogen powered vehicles and vessels. Once adopted it will set basic requirements for development of the European transport infrastructure and will contribute to the functioning of European Single market.” – said the Chair of the Council, Minister of Transport and Communications of Lithuania Rimantas Sinkevičius.

The main objective of the Directive is to increase the usage of alternative fuels and thereby to reduce the negative impact of transport on the environment. Common technical standards at the European level will enable interoperability of alternative fuels infrastructure.

Setting of common standards is important also for manufacturers as it will allow focusing investments, reducing the cost of manufacturing and ensure that users can use the alternative fuels infrastructure across the EU.

“ In my opinion, the Council’s compromise will provide a clear, transparent and realistic signal to the market, as well as contribute to the increase of availability of alternative fuels and vehicles”, – said R. Sinkevičius.

The Lithuanian Presidency also informed the Council about the results achieved during its term in the sector of railway transport and aviation.

The Council took note of the progress on the European Railway Agency (ERA). This Agency, in close collaboration with the national railway safety authorities, is expected to be issuing safety certificates and vehicles’ authorization in the EU.

In the field of aviation, the Council took stock of progress in updating of the EU rules on air passenger rights. During the Lithuanian Presidency the Member States have extensively discussed this legislative package and achieved good progress in establishing a common view on it.

The Council meeting authorized the European Commission to start negotiations with the Federal Republic of Brazil on a comprehensive air services agreement.

Suggested by the Danish delegation, the Council took up an item on aviation project funding. In the discussion it was highlighted that legislation prepared by different European Commission’s general Directorates is not beneficial for further development of this sector. For example, the regulation on trans-European network (TEN-T) states that the priority in the field of aviation should be given to the growth of airport capacity and performance. However the new state aid guideline project presented by the European Commission limits the investments in airport development even more whereas the newest EU structural support documentation concentrates investments in the environment. The ministers expressed concerns that this could restrict the further sustainable development of airports and their options for increasing global competitiveness.

The article EU Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive May Make Change Towards Cleaner, Efficient And Sustainable Transport appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

The EU and the Republic of Azerbaijan officially launched a Mobility Partnership. Today Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ambassador Fuad Isgandarov, Azerbaijan, and the Ministers responsible for migration from the eight EU Member States participating in this partnership (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia) signed a Joint Declaration establishing a framework for the future cooperation in the field of migration and mobility.

“The launch of this Mobility Partnership is yet another important step towards bringing European and Azerbaijani citizens closer. Thanks to dialogue and specific cooperation, we can better ensure the joint and responsible management of migration in the interests of the Union, Azerbaijan and the migrants themselves”, commented Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström, speaking in the margins of the Justice and Home Affairs Council in Brussels.

The EU-Azerbaijan Mobility Partnership establishes a set of political objectives and identifies a number of areas in which further dialogue and cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan will continue in order to ensure that the movement of persons is managed as effectively as possible.

Measures will be launched to enhance Azerbaijan’s ability to manage legal and labour migration, including circular and temporary migration; to improve the way it deals with issues relating to asylum and the protection of refugees; to prevent and combat irregular migration, including smuggling of migrants and trafficking in human beings; and to maximise the development impact of migration and mobility.

The article Mobility Partnership Signed Between EU And Azerbaijan appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By PanArmenian

Ukraine has signed a long-expected deal to cooperate with China on constructing an energy plant to convert coal into synthetic natural gas, RIA Novosti said.

The project will allow about 4 billion cubic meters of natural gas to be replaced annually with the synthetic coal-based product, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said in a statement Thursday, December 5.

The statement said the plant would provide a market for the production of 10 million tons of coal annually and create over 2,000 jobs.

Ukraine’s state gas and oil company Naftogaz signed a $3.7 billion credit agreement last year with China’s state-owned Development Bank to finance the program.

China’s National Chemical Engineering contractor and its subsidiary, Wuhuan Engineering, will provide Ukraine with the technology to build the plant.

Synthetic gas production is a multibillion-dollar pollution-reduction project in China, which as of September had approved 18 of its own plants capable of producing 75 billion cubic meters of gas annually, according to the World Resources Institute.

The idea has drawn criticism from environmentalists, however, who say the amount of greenhouse gases produced in the conversion process could accelerate climate change.

Synthetic gas is a cheap energy alternative for Ukraine, which is desperately trying to cut its dependence on costly Russian natural gas.

Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom says Ukraine is currently $2 billion behind on gas payments.

The article Ukraine, China Ink Synthetic Gas Production Plant Deal appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

Agriculture is one of the most climate-sensitive of all economic sectors, and without a clear plan for aligning agricultural policies with climate change, the livelihoods of rural populations are at risk, according to the World Bank publication Reducing the Vulnerability of Moldova’s Agricultural Systems to Climate Change.

The book notes that in many countries, such as in Moldova, the risks of climate change are an immediate and fundamental problem because the majority of the rural population depends either directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods.

“The rural poor will be disproportionately affected because of their greater dependence on agriculture, their relatively lower ability to adapt, and the high share of income they spend on food,” said William Sutton, an author of the book and a Lead Agriculture Economist at the World Bank. “Climate impacts could therefore undermine progress that has been made in poverty reduction and adversely impact food security and economic growth in vulnerable rural areas.”

The study projects impacts of climate change on agriculture across Moldova’s three agro-ecological areas through forecast variations in temperature and rainfall patterns so crucial to farming. According to the report, over the next 40 years climate change will grow more severe in Moldova. Average warming will be about 2°C, compared with the less than 0.6°C increase in temperature observed over the last 50 years, and precipitation will become more variable.

The annual averages, however, are less important for agricultural production than the seasonal distribution of temperature and precipitation. Temperature increases are projected to be higher, and precipitation declines greater, during the crucial summer growing period. Summer temperature increases can be as much as 7°C in southern Moldova by the middle of the century. These conditions have been confirmed by farmers as already affecting their actions and production results. Farmers in Moldova are not suitably adapted to current climate. This effect is sometimes called the ‘adaptation deficit’, which in Moldova is large.

The direct temperature and precipitation effect of future climate change on crops in Moldova will be a reduction of most yields. The report authors also project water supply and demand in Moldova under a changed climate, and forecast substantial water shortages for the Raut and Nistru River basins in the future, meaning that there will be insufficient water available to irrigate crops. As a result, the total effects of climate change could lead to losses for farmers of from 10 to 30 percent for crops like maize, wheat, alfalfa and vegetables under the medium impact scenario. Fruit crops like grapes and apples will not be as severely affected, but they are still projected to suffer losses of from 0 to 10 percent if nothing is done to adapt.

Sutton added that “At the same time, climate change can also create opportunities, particularly in the agricultural sector. Increased temperatures can lengthen growing seasons, higher carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations can enhance plant growth, and in some areas rainfall and the availability of water resources can increase as a result of climate change.”

According to the publication, the risks of climate change to agriculture in Moldova cannot be effectively dealt with—and the opportunities cannot be effectively taken advantage of—without a clear plan for aligning agricultural policies with climate change, developing the capabilities of key agricultural institutions, and making needed investments in infrastructure, support services, and on-farm improvements. Developing such a plan ideally involves a combination of high-quality quantitative analysis, consultation with key stakeholders, particularly farmers and local agricultural experts, and investments in both human and physical capital.

“This book offers a map for navigating the risks and realizing the opportunities. It identifies practical solutions for introducing what is known as ‘climate-smart agriculture’ for farmers in Moldova,” said Dina Umali-Deininger, Agriculture and Rural Development Sector Manager in the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region. “It demonstrates that the solutions are those measures that increase resilience to future climate change, boost current productivity despite the greater climate variability already occurring, and limit greenhouse gas emissions.”

Reducing The Vulnerability of Moldova’s Agricultural Systems to Climate Change: Impact Assessment and Adaptation Options applies this approach to Moldova with the goal of helping the country mainstream climate change adaptation into its agricultural policies, programs, and investments.

“Reducing Moldova’s vulnerability to climate change is a top priority of World Bank Group support to the country,” said Abdoulaye Seck, World Bank Country Manager for Moldova. “Cyclical weather calamities are having debilitating effects on the country’s agriculture and people and we are working to address these challenges through enhancing disaster risk management capacity and boosting adaptation capacity to climate variations.”

This is one of four country studies that were produced under the World Bank’s program, Reducing Vulnerability to Climate Change in European and Central Asian Agricultural Systems. The other countries included in this series are Albania, FYR Macedonia, and Uzbekistan.

The article Reducing Vulnerability Of Moldova’s Agriculture To Climate Change appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

Latin America and the Caribbean is a region of entrepreneurs. The share of business owners per capita is larger than in other regions at similar income levels. Still, according to a new World Bank report, “Latin American Entrepreneurs: Many Firms but Little Innovation,” the region’s future will depend on having more “transformational” entrepreneurs than it has today.

According to the report, nearly one of every three workers in the region is self-employed or a small employer and, contrary to popular belief, the share of formally registered firms is also comparably large. But few of these entrepreneurs ever hire workers. Most remain very small even after decades of operation.

“The fact that there are so many small firms may be a symptom of an unhealthy imbalance – too many firms with low growth potential and not enough of what we call ‘transformational’ entrepreneurs, who are essential to create quality jobs and boost productivity,” said Augusto de la Torre, Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank, who presented the report at an event sponsored here today by The Wall Street Journal. “When we dig into this imbalance in the region we start to find an insufficient drive to innovate among large firms, who are precisely those that need to grow to generate good jobs.”

According to the report, successful entrepreneurs are individuals who transform ideas into profitable commercial enterprises — a process that requires a capacity to innovate, to introduce new products, and to explore new markets. Quality job creation is largely done by these entrepreneurs but with much less vigor in Latin America than elsewhere. Successful firms remain small in the region. Firms with 40 or more years in business employ about 110 employees in the region, whereas in East Asia they employ close to 170, in Eastern Europe around 220, and in high-income countries, 250.

The report finds that Latin America’s business reality is fraught by low innovation:

• Latin American firms introduce new products less frequently than firms in other developing regions. Countries such as Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico and Venezuela introduce or develop new products at a rate that is less than half that of countries such as Thailand or Macedonia.

• With the exception of Brazil, which invests 1 percent of GDP in Research and Development (R&D), on average the region invests much less (below 0.5 percent), which is one third the level of China and one fourth the level of high income countries. What’s more, the government as opposed to the private sector does most of Latin America’s investment in this area.

• Not surprisingly the region is behind others when it comes to patents. In Bolivia, Paraguay, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Peru, the number of patents per one million people is less than one, much lower than it should be for their level of development.

• New World Bank sponsored research on management practices finds that firms that employ 100 people or more don’t use the most updated performance based talent management systems. The survey data also reveal that the proportion of family-owned firms (which, on average, tend to be less well managed than publicly traded companies) is almost twice as large in Latin America as in the United States.

Perhaps more surprising is that even Latin America’s largest firms suffer from this dearth of innovation, the report finds. Even in the region’s big exporting nations, such as Chile, Colombia or Mexico, firms export far less frequently than what may be expected given their level of development.

Multilatinas from the manufacturing sector invest on average a mere $0.06 per $1,000 of revenue on R&D. Meanwhile, multinationals invest $2 per $1000 in China and $2.6 per $1000 in high-income countries. Even affiliates of foreign multinational corporations in Latin America and the Caribbean tend to be less innovative.

In order to thrive, transformational entrepreneurs require favorable economic and institutional environments that enhance the expected returns of their innovative ideas. Strengthening human capital, encouraging competition, and improving intellectual property rights can help tip the scale.

In recent years, Latin American policy has focused on assisting small and medium size enterprises. But such efforts need to be also directed at new firms. It is a small subset of the young firms that tend to grow, the report argues.

Fortunately there are some promising developments. Export promotion agencies are helping export companies in several countries, while scientific advances have positively transformed agriculture in others. When pressed by competition, dynamic firms in the region explore new export markets. The emergence of multilatinas is a positive development with respect to previous decades.

“It is also encouraging to know that policy makers in the region are now far more able to focus efforts and resources to spur growth,” De la Torre said. “After years of addressing macro-financial weaknesses, they can now focus on building the foundations for productivity growth.”

Transformational entrepreneurs will be central to that effort and while there is no set ideal for how many a society needs, the fact is that Latin America’s future will depend on having many more.

The article World Bank Report Seeks To Understand Latin America’s Shortage Of Innovative Entrepreneurs appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ramzy Baroud

Chances are dim that elections will be held in Yemen next February. Yet without elections, the push for reforms and change that were inspired by the Yemeni revolution would become devoid of any real value. Yemenis might find themselves back on the street, repeating the original demands that echoed in the country’s many impoverished cities, streets and at every corner.

It is not easy to navigate the convoluted circumstances that govern Yemeni politics, which seem to be in a perpetual state of crisis. When millions of Yemenis started taking to the streets on January 27, 2011, a sense of hope prevailed that Yemen would be transferred from a country ruled by elites, and mostly beholden to outside regional and international powers, to a country of a different type: one that responds to the collective aspirations of its own people.

Instead, after a long stalemate that pinned most of the country and its political representatives against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his supporters, Gulf countries brokered a power transfer deal. The deal however sidelined Saleh, but not his family and their proponents.

It is of little help that interim President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was elected to guide the transition for a two-year period in 2012, is no revolutionary. True, he seemed sincere in his attempt to curb Saleh’s still prevailing influence over many of the country’s institutions, but that is hardly enough. Saleh’s supporters are still powerful and the former ruling class is fighting back for relevance and influence. This results from a combination of deepening poverty and a failure to translate any of the revolution’s demands into any tangible solution that could be felt by the country’s poor and marginalized classes.

The target of Saleh’s supporters is the Conference of National Reconciliation (CNR). It convened on March 18 to explore common ground between all strands of Yemeni society, draw-up a new constitution and organize national elections. The 565 members of the conference found out that their differences were too many to overcome. Exploiting Yemen’s political woes, tribal and sectarian divisions, the old regime used its own representatives at CNR, and sway over the media to derail the process.

In remarks before the Security Council, Jamal Benomar, the United Nations envoy to Yemen, sounded the alarm to the staged comeback. A statement of his remarks was made available to the media on Nov 28. It said that there was a “well-funded, relentless and malicious media campaign” to undermine Hadi, so that he either prolongs his mandate or leaves offices. “Some elements of the former regime believe they can turn back the clock,” the envoy said. These elements have become a “persistent source of instability.”

The dialogue itself has been extended, with little evidence that anything concrete is on the way. What is even worse is that 85 delegates representing south Yemen, which until 1990 was a state of its own, decided to permanently leave the conference. The separatist movement in south Yemen has grown massively in recent months. The country is more vulnerable than ever before.

If Hadi leaves, a political vacuum could spark another power struggle. If he stays by extending his term in office, the dialogue is likely to falter even more. There can be no win-win situation, at least for now.

Considering that Benomar himself played a key role in shaping the current transitional period, his gloomy reading of the situation in Yemen is hardly encouraging.

As talks are derailed and the prospects of a compromise are at an all-time low, the Southern separatist movement Al-Hirak continues to gather steam. The movement grew increasingly more relevant following the Oct 12 rallies, when tens of thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of Eden, mostly demanding secession from the north.

What is happening in Yemen these days is in complete contrast to the collective spirit that occupied the streets of the country nearly three years ago. In Jan 2011, a large protest took place in the Yemeni capital Sana’a demanding immediate reforms in the country’s corrupt family and clan-based politics. Within a week the rest of the country joined the initial cry for reforms. On Feb 3, both Sana’a and Eden stood united under one banner. It was a momentous day because both cities once served as capitals of two warring countries. The youth of Yemen were able to fleetingly bridge a gap that neither politicians nor army generals managed to close despite several agreements and years of bloody conflicts. However, that collective triumph of the Yemeni people was only felt on the streets of the country, overwhelmed by poverty and destitution, but also compelled by hope. That sentiment was never truly translated into a clear political victory, even after Saleh was deposed in Feb 2012.

The Gulf-brokered agreement under the auspices of the UN and other international players stripped the revolution of its euphoria. It merely diverted from the massive popular movement that gripped the streets for many months, allowing politicians, representatives of tribes and other powerful elites to use the NDC to simply achieve its own interests, be it to maintain a handle on power – as is the case of the ruling General People’s Congress (GPC), or to ignite old hopes of secession. The party that was closest to the collective demands of ordinary Yemenis was the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), representing the opposition. However, conflict soon ensued between members of the JMP themselves, especially between the Islamic-leaning Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah) whose core supporters are based in the North, and the secularist Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), based in the South.

Considering the mistrust in the very process that is meant to lead the country towards permanent reforms and democracy, and in the very representatives guiding the transition, it is no wonder that Yemen is once more at the brink of tumult. The country’s unity, achieved in May 1990, after bitter struggle and war between a Marxist-Leninist South Yemen, and North Yemen, is now at risk. Equally as dangerous is that the south, although represented by the all-encompassing Al-Hirak, hardly speaks in one voice.

Al-Hirak itself is divided and at times seems incapable of taking one solid political stance. Following a statement in which Al-Hirak announced that they “completely withdraw from the conference (holding) all the parties that placed obstacles in our path responsible for this decision,” another statement surfaced on Nov 28, also attributed to Al-Hirak “denying the walkout and affirming that the Southern movement remains committed to the national dialogue,” reported Asharq Al-Awsat.

Yemen’s divisions are copious and growing, allowing the old regime to find ways to once more dominate the country. It could easily rebrand itself as the party capable of uniting all Yemenis and saving Yemen from complete economic collapse and disintegration.

Still empowered by the spirit of their revolution that underscored the resilience and discipline of one of the world’s poorest nations, Yemenis might find themselves back on the streets demanding freedom, democracy, transparency and more, demands of which nothing has been accomplished, nearly three years on.

The article Impossible Dialogue: The Choice In Yemen – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Agentura

By Andrei Soldatov

As the date for the Olympic Games in Sochi draws closer, Russia’s siloviki are becoming more active in terms of collecting data from Russians and foreigners. Although they can at least partially justify their decision to register every Russian who comes to Sochi during the Olympics with the desire to prevent terrorist attacks, the decree that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed Nov. 8 has no relationship whatsoever to that goal.

That decree expressly authorizes the government to collect data on telephone calls and Internet contacts made by the Olympic Games’ organizers, athletes and foreign journalists.

Irina Borogan and I have already published an article in The Guardian in October explaining how the authorities had installed an advanced wiretapping and surveillance system in Sochi, but Medvedev’s order adds significant scope to those activities.

The decree provides for the creation of a database for the users of all types of communication, including Internet services at public Wi-Fi locations “in a volume equal to the volume of information contained in the Olympic and Paralympic identity and accreditation cards.” That is, the database will contain not only each subscriber’s full name, but also detailed information guaranteed to establish his identity. What’s more, the database will contain “data on payments for communications services rendered, including connections, traffic and subscriber payments.”

That is called “gathering metadata” in the language of intelligence agencies.

The disclosure made last summer by U.S. National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden on Washington’s metadata collection activities sparked outrage over the unlawful government intrusion into the private lives of citizens. It turned out that, every 90 days, a judge from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued a warrant authorizing the collection of vast amounts of data on U.S. citizens’ e-mail communications.

Although the NSA did not intercept the content of electronic communications, the public outcry in the U.S. was still huge. Authorities were still able to intercept data about a person’s contacts, the frequency of their communications and where that person is located at any given moment.

The Snowden leaks caused an uproar not only in the U.S. The collection of metadata provoked sharp criticisms from pro-Kremlin agencies specializing in the study of human rights violations in the U.S. For example, the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation headed by Anatoly Kucherena, who also serves as the lawyer to Edward Snowden, directly stated in a report titled “Human Rights in the United States in 2013″ that the collection of metadata on U.S. citizens violates the U.S. Constitution.

But what Kuchurena failed to mention is that when Russia’s intelligence agencies collect metadata without a court order, it violates Russian laws. In September 2012, the country’s Supreme Court issued an interpretation stating that both a subscriber’s phone number and the connections between subscribers are confidential elements of phone conversations. The court ruled that “obtaining such information is an invasion of privacy and abridges citizens’ constitutional right to confidential telephone conversations” and that “agencies performing operational and search activities must obtain a court order to gain access to such information.”

Which individuals will be included in the database authorized by Medvedev’s decree? According to the text of that document, Russian authorities will be monitoring the organizers and participants of the Games, including members of the International Olympics and Paralympics Committees, the World Anti-Doping Agency, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, national Olympics committees, as well as athletes, team doctors and technical assistants and even referees and event judges.

But that’s not all. A separate clause lists foreign news agencies and media services, and one paragraph lower, accredited journalists and photographers are mentioned a second time just in case.

What’s more, the information collected during the Olympic Games will be stored for three years and the Federal Security Service will have “round-the-clock remote access to the subscriber database.” That means the FSB, operating from a remote location, will have three years to explore to whom, when and how often athletes, judges and journalists attending the Games made calls.

There are two curious things about this. First, this was not a secret decree. It was made fully public. Second, the decree instructs Russia’s Olympic Organizing Committee, not the FSB or even phone operators, to maintain the database. That means Russian authorities consider the surveillance of Olympic guests such a natural thing that they did not hesitate to give the responsibility to their Olympic Organizing Committee. Apparently committee members have no problem with the decision either.

Now the question is: Will Kucherena of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation issue an opinion regarding Russia’s collection of metadata, and if he opposes it, will anybody listen?

Published in The Moscow Times 21.11.2013

The article Russia: FSB’s Metadata Collection At The Sochi Olympics – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By FPIF

By Patrick Smith

By asserting its rights over some rocks in the Pacific and the airspace high above them, China has suddenly thrown into question the structures of power and sovereignty in the Pacific, top to bottom. We have begun to witness the future arriving, as always clumsily and a little fearfully, and the reassuring past receding—meeting the resistance and reaction that are also reliable features of all historical transitions.

The immediate questions Beijing has pushed to the front of the table are complex, technocratic, and material: They are at bottom functional problems. But we have a forest-and-trees matter before us now, and it is immense and simple all at once. China’s new, assertive, and decidedly militarist president, Xi Jinping, has just announced that the People’s Republic will now take its place as a world power. Instantly it is evident that no one—not the mainland’s neighbors and not the United States—is ready to respond coherently (to say nothing of intelligently).

China’s emergence has been an active idea these past several years, but primarily in the abstract. Now the reality of it is rolling at the Obama administration like a big, black bowling ball. Vice President Joe Biden is in Asia this week, the China question more or less his full agenda. This is as it should be—somebody ought to be there. But sending a former Delaware senator with no experience of Asia and no evident knowledge of its workings? The State Department has long been short of Asia hands, notably since a generation of good ones were hounded into exile or suicide or second-rate universities during the early Cold War years. (Remember the “Who ‘lost’ China?” debate after Mao took Beijing?) Biden simply reminds us: Washington does not have the technology to address what is now upon us.

Having dwelt in Asia for three decades, I’ve come to think it odd that power (im)balances, security structures, and the region’s diplomatic données went 40 and then 50 and then 60 years without a rethink. Even during the Cold War’s later years this remained an unmentionable. After Germans took down the Berlin Wall, correspondents who addressed the problem of sclerosis in East Asia did so gingerly.

The surprise and confusion we now see in Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul is the price of this naked emperor who went unacknowledged. But this is too damn bad for those who insisted on looking the other way as the planet’s most dynamic region evolved. It changes nothing now. Xi’s thesis as to 21^st century Asia begins with, “Ready or not, here we are.”

Earth, Air, and Water

Immediately at issue and in all the headlines these days are two questions new only to those not paying attention. One concerns a few barren rocks in the East China Sea, administered by Japan but claimed by Tokyo and Beijing. Sovereignty is at issue, yes, but the substance of the islands dispute lies in the resource deposits beneath the Senkakus (Diaoyus to the Chinese). The other question stunned everybody (and ought not have) when Xi’s government pushed it into play 10 days ago. China now asserts jurisdiction over airspace off its shores that has long been the preserve of Japan and (to a lesser extent) South Korea and Taiwan.

Both of these questions require attention, but it is a certainty they will eventually resolve. Beijing and Tokyo came near to an agreement five years ago to develop the oil and gas beneath the islands under a joint condominium, and this remains the likely outcome—the current fracas notwithstanding. As to the airspace claim, my money is that China will get its way, and there are reasons why this is a smart bet. (I offer odds, actually. Please use the comment box. Bitcoins accepted.)

Washington was right to stay clear of the Senkakus argument, even as it is obliged by treaty to stand for Japan’s security. Despite the occasionally nerve-wracking suggestions of military alternatives, this is two households fighting over the backyard fence. But the airspace claim ups the ante to the point the United States cannot stay out of it any longer. It is all about the bigger question of power in the Pacific now. And there is only one way this can turn out well. A new settlement is required that recognizes the imperative of power-sharing in order to achieve a re-imagined stability.

We should look at the islands question with this in mind. Japan first took the Senkakus in 1895, when it was extending Emperor Meiji’s empire; dynastic China was collapsing, and anyone interested in the carve-up could intrude without serious resistance. The Senkakus fell to the United States in 1945, and Japan resumed sovereignty when Tokyo and Washington settled up on the postwar “reversion” deal in 1972. This was Cold War boilerplate by that time.

There is no self-evident sovereignty over the islands, then. China purports, with supporting texts, to have discovered them by 1400. But the most substantive claim would make them Taiwan’s. So it is politics and circumstance that now have to be addressed. Contention between Beijing and Tokyo has increased since mineral deposits were found in the late 1960s. But only now does the problem tip over into assertions of great-power status.

We come now to the airspace question. It is not so complicated as it seems if you consult a map, and the New York Times has drawn a good one. Japan’s claims to jurisdiction are grandiose, far to the south and west of Okinawa’s shoreline, ham-handedly close to China’s bulge into the East China Sea. The claims of Taiwan (as the Republic of China) and South Korea are less ostentatious, but they, too, suggest a certain pretension.

These three—one nation, one just-created nation, and one rarely recognized nation—were Washington’s principal Cold War allies in East Asia; the United States drew these lines for them in the early 1950s. In essence, the map shows us what containment policy in the Pacific looked like from, say, 35,000 feet.

To the map once more: China’s new claim intersects with those of its neighbors. Certainly it is disruptive and baldly assertive. But is it also defensible as a corrective. This is to say it represents an insistence that history has turned since the 1950s. And here is Washington’s position: It has not. (Now you know why I offer odds on the outcome.)

Assertion, Not Aggression

Much has been made of China’s pugilistic manner as it asserts its new jurisdiction. It requires pre-notification of all flight plans routed through the zone; it reserves the right to respond to transgressors with force, having already scrambled fighter jets as if they were patrolling police cars. Xi is a prideful nationalist given to articulating status by way of military display. But “aggression” is the wrong term, popular as it is among American commentators. All nations defend their airspace claims, sometimes with force. Several European nations invoked air rights earlier this year to prevent Edward Snowden’s flight from Moscow to one or another Latin American capital. “Aggression” might apply when, obviously at Washington’s insistence, the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced down in Austria with the idea Snowden was onboard.

Xi’s Beijing at least has the virtue of consistency. Washington and its allies have been slapdash by contrast. Japan’s commercial carriers observed the Chinese rules—good judgment—until the Abe government told them not to—reckless judgment—and then told them, yes, observe the rules—sound if messy. The Obama administration also issued a “guidance” (a week after the fact) advising American carriers to play by the rules. It was advertised as precautionary, and fair enough, but Obama’s hawkish critics will be right when they say it is a prelude to accepting China’s claim—which is precisely what makes Obama sensible this time.

South Korea, Japan, and the United States have all sent military aircraft into the zone without notification—a childishly pointless pout. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel proved the most obtuse official on any side: Sending B–52s into the disputed zone rang every wrong bell in the temple for any Asian with a memory of the Vietnam War. Those planes are totemic omens of Western aggression at the other end of the Pacific. He ought to have understood this.

Washington wise men of both main stripes now talk of maintaining American “credibility,” asserting the necessity of “standing up” to China. This is no longer where American credibility lies, however often (or not) it may have once. Everybody knows about the ridiculous defense budget and the Strangelovian obsessions with technological killing devices. America has suffered a credibility deficit for some time, but primarily because it has proven incapable of facing history and radically unpracticed at agile diplomacy that responds to the world as it is.

Enter Biden

Good diplomacy does not lie in making “stability”—that grand Cold War word—the object of idolatry. It consists of shaping policies that respond honestly and thoroughly to change, which is what makes it imaginative and even brave (which is why, in turn, there is not much of it around). Biden’s journey to East Asia—Tokyo, Beijing, and Seoul, in this order—will bear this out the regrettable way. “Yes, some question our staying power,” Biden said in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun on arriving in Tokyo. “But Japan knows that we have stayed for more than 60 years, providing the security that made possible the region’s economic miracle. We have been, we are, and we will remain a resident Pacific power.”

This is not promising. The reference point is yesterday, not now or tomorrow. The U.S. position going into this crisis is to refuse history, paradoxically, by insisting on history. It is true the Japanese and Koreans are nervous about their dependence on U.S. leadership. But nursing their insecurities is not leadership: It is to follow. Leadership would require that Washington show a new way forward (starting with acknowledging the need for it).

“Resident Pacific power” is an especially worrisome bit of plain chicanery. It is carefully encrypted code, of course. The United States has much frontage on the Pacific lake, but it is resident in Biden’s meaning only by virtue of a forward position established during the Cold War. The nub here is simple: America is a Pacific power, check; it is not an Asian power—uncheck the box. China now obliges the United States to recognize the distinction and stop pretending otherwise.

For one thing, Xi comes to power as the Communist Party’s control is under mounting threats—economic (income disparity and attendant discontent), sociological (rising aspirations of numerous varieties), and political (over-the-top corruption, the more-than-faint mumbles of democratic dissenters). Mandarins in Beijing have used challenges from abroad to identify power with nation since the Opium Wars—and times 10 since the Japanese invasions. Xi needs to assert if he is to ride the restless tiger for his decade on its back; he already has the Chinese roused over the islands and the airspace question. It is a question whether Washington understands this as a compelling drive.

For another, Northeast Asia is in fundamental flux, and Washington looks like some intruding missionary from afar as it tries to walk around in this movie. Japan and China, Japan and Korea, South Korea and China, North Korea and everybody except China. No one in Northeast Asia is getting along. At the root of this are two realities:

• China was a civilization before it was a nation. Its neighbors were tributaries. So we have another paradox: China sees the future in its past. The Southeast Asians have been mostly supine in the face of China’s rise. It mostly means money in the bank, and they resume tributary status with more or less grace (having little alternative). Not so the Northeast Asians. It is plain that a very old sphere of influence is re-emerging, but this brings the second reality to the fore.

• That is, the nation-state is an imported technology to all Asians, arriving from the West in the course of the late 19^th century (and in some cases the 20^th). As a machine it operates cumbersomely. National identities are obviously strong, but these are put on somewhat as one puts on clothes—which can make them, if anything, stronger still. Old forms of relations have to be re-interpreted, then. They will be, but this is by definition an entirely Asian affair. Once again, there is no role for the Westerner in the process, which will be long.

A note of optimism is always good at the finish. There is one here. Biden (and all the State Department people to follow) will say misleading things in Tokyo and Seoul to reassure heavy hearts that all is as it has long been. In the middle, Biden will tell Xi that the best Washington has by way of savvy horse-traders will soon arrive to start talking in Beijing. Comrade Xi, we are going to correct an old, destructive imbalance now, Biden will also confide before he climbs out of water far too deep for him. The people from State will take over now, easing the Pentagon people gradually aside, where they ought to have been all along.

Put it in the “best outcomes” file. And do not count unhatched chickens.

Patrick Smith was a correspondent abroad for many years and now writes foreign affairs commentary. His most recent book is Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century (Yale, 2013). He is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

The article China’s Struggle Over Air And Sea – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

Replacing forests with snow-covered meadows may provide greater climatic and economic benefits than if trees are left standing in some regions, according to a Dartmouth College study that for the first time puts a dollar value on snow’s ability to reflect the sun’s energy.

The findings suggest more frequent logging or deforestation may better serve our planet and pocketbooks in high latitude areas where snowfall is common and timber productivity is low. Such a scenario could involve including snow cover/albedo in existing greenhouse gas exchanges like the Kyoto protocol or a cap-and-trade program or ecosystem services market in which landowners are paid to maintain snow cover and produce timber rather than conserve forests and store carbon.

Previous studies have put a price on many ecosystem services – or services that nature provides to humans that have both economic and biological value, such as drinking water and crop pollination — but the Dartmouth study is the first to do so for albedo, or the surface reflection of incoming solar energy.

The findings contrast with the dominant paradigm that including forest climate mitigation services such as carbon storage on compliance markets will lead to the conservation of forests. Instead, the findings show that in some areas, it is better to have snow act as a natural mirror if you want to use forests for climate-related purposes.

The findings will be presented Dec. 12th at the American Geophysical Union’s annual fall meeting in San Francisco in the Global Environmental Change High Profile Topics session.

Climate change mitigation projects, such as the Kyoto Protocol, encourage reforestation because growing forests take up carbon dioxide, but previous studies have suggested the cooling aspect of surface albedo could counterbalance the benefits of forest growth.

The Dartmouth researchers placed an economic value on timber through wood prices as well as on albedo and carbon by using a sophisticated model of the climate and economy called an integrated-assessment model. They then examined the potential impact of these values on hardwood and softwood forest rotations in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. A rotation period begins when new trees are planted and ends when most of the trees are harvested.

Their results suggest that including the value of albedo can shorten optimal forest rotation periods significantly compared to scenarios where only timber and carbon are considered. For instance, in spruce and fir stands, very short rotation periods of 25 years become economically optimal when albedo is considered. The researchers attributed this to the low timber productivity and substantial snowfall in the White Mountain National Forest. Thus, they expect that in high latitude sites, where snowfall is common and forest productivity is low, valuing albedo may mean the optimal forest size is near zero.

The researchers note that increased timber harvesting may harm biodiversity and other ecosystem services, so they recommend forest managers take those factors into account as they try to maximize the flow of timber, carbon storage and albedo in mid- and high-latitude temperate and boreal forests.

The article More Logging, Deforestation May Better Serve Climate In Some Areas appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

The discovery of a giant planet orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance has astronomers puzzled over how such a strange system came to be.

An international team of astronomers, led by a University of Arizona graduate student, has discovered the most distantly orbiting planet found to date around a single, sun-like star. It is the first exoplanet – a planet outside of our solar system – discovered at the UA.

Weighing in at 11 times Jupiter’s mass and orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance, planet HD 106906 b is unlike anything in our own Solar System and throws a wrench in planet formation theories.

“This system is especially fascinating because no model of either planet or star formation fully explains what we see,” said Vanessa Bailey, who led the research. Bailey is a fifth-year graduate student in the UA’s Department of Astronomy.

It is thought that planets close to their stars, like Earth, coalesce from small asteroid-like bodies born in the primordial disk of dust and gas that surrounds a forming star. However, this process acts too slowly to grow giant planets far from their star. Another proposed mechanism is that giant planets can form from a fast, direct collapse of disk material. However, primordial disks rarely contain enough mass in their outer reaches to allow a planet like HD 106906 b to form. Several alternative hypotheses have been put forward, including formation like a mini binary star system.

“A binary star system can be formed when two adjacent clumps of gas collapse more or less independently to form stars, and these stars are close enough to each other to exert a mutual gravitation attraction and bind them together in an orbit,” Bailey explained. “It is possible that in the case of the HD 106906 system the star and planet collapsed independently from clumps of gas, but for some reason the planet’s progenitor clump was starved for material and never grew large enough to ignite and become a star.”

According to Bailey, one problem with this scenario is that the mass ratio of the two stars in a binary system is typically no more than 10-to-1.

“In our case, the mass ratio is more than 100-to-1,” she explained. “This extreme mass ratio is not predicted from binary star formation theories – just like planet formation theory predicts that we cannot form planets so far from the host star.”

This system is also of particular interest because researchers can still detect the remnant “debris disk” of material left over from planet and star formation.

“Systems like this one, where we have additional information about the environment in which the planet resides, have the potential to help us disentangle the various formation models,” Bailey added. “Future observations of the planet’s orbital motion and the primary star’s debris disk may help answer that question.”

At only 13 million years old, this young planet still glows from the residual heat of its formation. Because at 2,700 Fahrenheit (about 1,500 degrees Celsius) the planet is much cooler than its host star, it emits most of its energy as infrared rather than visible light. Earth, by comparison, formed 4.5 billion years ago and is thus about 350 times older than HD 106906 b.

Direct imaging observations require exquisitely sharp images, akin to those delivered by the Hubble Space Telescope. To reach this resolution from the ground requires a technology called Adaptive Optics, or AO. The team used the new Magellan Adaptive Optics (MagAO) system and Clio2 thermal infrared camera – both technologies developed at the UA – mounted on the 6.5 meter-diameter Magellan telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile to take the discovery image.

UA astronomy professor and MagAO principal investigator Laird Close said: “MagAO was able to utilize its special Adaptive Secondary Mirror, with 585 actuators, each moving 1,000 times a second, to remove the blurring of the atmosphere. The atmospheric correction enabled the detection of the weak heat emitted from this exotic exoplanet without confusion from the hotter parent star.”

“Clio was optimized for thermal infrared wavelengths, where giant planets are brightest compared to their host stars, meaning planets are most easily imaged at these wavelengths,” explained UA astronomy professor and Clio principal investigator Philip Hinz, who directs the UA Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics.

The team was able to confirm that the planet is moving together with its host star by examining Hubble Space Telescope data taken eight years prior for another research program. Using the FIRE spectrograph, also installed at the Magellan telescope, the team confirmed the planetary nature of the companion. “Images tell us an object is there and some information about its properties but only a spectrum gives us detailed information about its nature and composition,” explained co-investigator Megan Reiter, a graduate student in the UA Department of Astronomy. “Such detailed information is rarely available for directly imaged exoplanets, making HD 106906 b a valuable target for future study.”

“Every new directly detected planet pushes our understanding of how and where planets can form,” said co-investigator Tiffany Meshkat, a graduate student at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. “This planet discovery is particularly exciting because it is in orbit so far from its parent star. This leads to many intriguing questions about its formation history and composition. Discoveries like HD 106906 b provide us with a deeper understanding of the diversity of other planetary systems.”

The article Astronomers Discover Planet That Shouldn’t Be There appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

Although vegetation growth in the Arctic is boosted by global warming, it’s not enough to offset the carbon released by the thawing of the permafrost beneath the surface, University of Florida researchers have found in the first experiment in the Arctic environment to simulate thawing of permafrost in a warming world.

Twice as much carbon is frozen in Arctic permafrost as exists in the atmosphere today, and what happens to it as it thaws – releasing greenhouse gases that fuel climate change – is a key question, said professor Ted Schuur, who heads the Permafrost Carbon Network and the Ecosystem Dynamics Research Laboratory in the UF department of biology.

Schuur, postdoctoral researcher Susan Natali and their team report the results of the three-year study in the journal Ecology, released this week online.

“The plants like it when they’re warmer, so their growth is increasing, and if you just watch the tundra in the summertime and you look at the balance between what the plants are doing and what the soil is doing, the plants actually offset everything that happens in the soil. They’re growing faster, getting bigger and taking carbon out of the air,” Schuur said. “From the perspective of climate change, that’s a good thing, tundra vegetation is making up for any carbon you’re losing from the soil.”

The hitch? The Arctic’s short summers do not make up for the long winters.

Researchers are interested in the permafrost of the polar regions because these soils – permanently frozen at great depths and for tens of thousands of years – are vulnerable to global warming.

“We continued to measure emissions in the winter, and what happens is the plants are shutting down, they’re dormant, but the microbes continue to eat the soil, and it turns out that they release enough carbon during the winter to offset everything the plants gained in the summer, and possibly even more,” Schuur said.

As the experiment continues into the next three-year cycle, Schuur said he is looking for a point at which the plants hit a growth limit and stop absorbing more carbon, while the thawing permafrost continues to release carbon.

Scientists estimate that 20 to 90 percent of the organic carbon pool in permafrost can be decomposed by microbes, converting it to greenhouse gases that warm the atmosphere. The warmer atmosphere causes additional thawing, creating a cycle that gets warmer and warmer.

For the study, the research team built snow fences to create snowdrifts in the winter to warm the soil of the Alaskan tundra beneath.

“This will be interesting for Floridians, but if you catch a whole bunch of snow in a giant pile, that actually keeps the tundra warmer than it would be,” Schuur said. “It’s like a giant blanket that insulates the tundra soils from the cold air.”

The extra snow, however, would cause an artificially late spring, and the research team needed to measure typical spring warming.

“So we go up to Alaska and shovel all these drifts of snow away in April,” Schuur said. “Alaskans think it’s crazy.”

One of the successes of the experiment, Schuur said, was finding a way to model carbon release from permafrost in the environment on a year-round basis. Previous studies had used miniature greenhouses in summer months, but creating a warming situation in the winter was more challenging.

“We wanted to warm the tundra and cause the permafrost to recede. This is the first experiment to isolate that effect in the field, so the first thing we show is that we’re able to simulate what will happen in a future world when the permafrost degrades,” Schuur said.

Laboratory experiments, too, remain vitally important, Schuur said. A recent study in Nature Climate Change in which Schuur participated, examined 12 years of permafrost samples, an unusually long time frame for such studies. The research showed that the water content of the samples – whether the soils drained or remained waterlogged – had a large effect on how much carbon the soils released, with well-drained soils releasing more carbon.

And in a recent report in Global Change Biology, Schuur and postdoctoral researcher Christina Schadel synthesized the data from sites across the Arctic Circle, as part of the Permafrost Carbon Network, started at UF by Schuur with a National Science Foundation grant. That study showed that the ratio of carbon to nitrogen in permafrost soils helps determine how much carbon the soil releases upon thawing. The ratio could be a useful tool in ecosystem modeling because the ratio could be measured in any soil sample.

The studies confirm that a significant amount of carbon is released from thawing permafrost and highlight that there are factors beyond simply temperature that affect carbon release, Schuur said.

The article Researchers’ Experiment First To Simulate Warming Of Arctic Permafrost appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

(CORDIS) — An innovative new three-year research project will see the aquaculture, agriculture and biogas sectors working together to develop renewable energy. The initiative demonstrates how improving sustainability, reducing waste and achieving operational efficiencies can be achieved simultaneously.

Indeed, the EU-funded project, known as BIFFiO, will play an important role in contributing towards the EU goal of sourcing 20% of Europe’s energy demands from renewable energy systems by the year 2020.

The agriculture and aquaculture sectors are under tremendous pressure to improve sustainability and reduce their environmental impact. Both sectors produce a great deal of waste, which is often untreated and unused. The BIFFiO project aims to tackle this issue by developing an economic and resource efficient system for handling mixed waste agriculture and turning into usable energy.

Indeed, the main concept of the project is to mix waste that is readily available from fish farms and manure waste from the agriculture industry in a reactor for production of biogas, which in turn can be used to fill the need for renewable energy in the aquaculture industry and supply fertilizer products to the agriculture industry.

The project, which was launched in November 2013, will first of all investigate how waste can best be used to create renewable energy, and examine what nutrients can be recovered for other uses. The next objective will be to shrink current state-of-the-art technologies used in large scale waste treatment to farm-scale, so that efficient and economical biogas energy can be produced locally on or near a farm site.

Over the next three years, the project team will also address the challenges currently faced by industry, and look at new ways of meeting regulatory requirements. A best practice guide for handling mixed waste from aquaculture and agriculture for the production of energy, and further use of digested waste, will be developed.

Finally, the project aims to have a positive impact on local social and economic conditions. This will be achieved through improved hygienic and environmental standards in closed fish farming, and by reduced greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution burdens from the agriculture sector.

A multi-national collection of SMEs and end user partners from the agriculture, aquaculture and bio-energy sectors are taking part in the project, together with three RTD partners. These are the Teknologisk Institutt (NO), the University of Liverpool (UK) and aqua consult Ingenieur (DE). The project, which will receive EUR 1.7 million in EU funding, is scheduled for completion in October 2016.

The article Turning Agriculture And Aquaculture Waste Into Renewable Energy appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Trend News Agency

By Abbas Akhundov

Azerbaijan and Turkey have started work on the design of the railway, which will connect Kars with Nakhchivan, Turkish Minister of Transport, Shipping and Communications Binali Yildirim said at a press conference at the third Caspian Forum in Istanbul on Thursday.

“The two presidents have instructed on this project implementation during the third session of the Supreme Council on Strategic Partnership between Azerbaijan and Turkey, held in Ankara in November,” he said.

“The Kars- Susuz -Diludzhu- Nakhchivan railway project will take shape during the next meetings with the Azerbaijani side,” Yildirim added.

Yildirim said that this project will become more important after commissioning the Baku -Tbilisi-Kars railway.

“There were some delays with the project implementation connected with technical issues,” he said. “In particular, there were problems with control issues on the Turkish- Georgian border. It will partially pass through the railway tunnel. All these issues were resolved. Of course, the problems with political and financial support for the project are out of the question. The railway line will be commissioned in 2014.”

The length of Kars-Susuz-Diludzhu-Nakhchivan will amount to 223.6 kilometers, according to the preliminary data.

It is planned to construct a new 105-kilometer branch of the railroad as part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, the railway’s Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda section will be reconstructed in Georgia, which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of cargo per year. Peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons of cargo. This figure will be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo at the initial stage.

Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (NAR) is blockaded due to Armenia’s occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territories. Communication with NAR is implemented either by air or by road through Iran.

The Minister also talked about the significance of the Caspian Sea to which this forum was dedicated. He believes that against the background of changes in the global economy, the role of this region will increase in the world.

The third Caspian Forum organized by the Caspian Strategic Institute (HASEN) brought together the senior officials, representatives of companies and leading experts from all over the world.

The projects in the spheres of energy, transport, and finance in the Caspian Sea region are being discussed and the opportunities for future cooperation will be studied at the forum.

The article Minister: Azerbaijan, Turkey Start New Railway Design appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By EurActiv

(EurActiv) — Polls across Europe have predicted the rise of the extreme right in next year’s EU elections, but plans for a second Eurosceptic group in Parliament could signal a demise of the current EFD faction.

Fears of a eurosceptic takeover of the next European Parliament have risen considerably since French extreme-right politician Marine Le Pen paid a visit to The Hague to meet her Dutch populist counterpart, Geert Wilders.

Le Pen and Wilders announced their plans to form a group of nationalist parties who defend a ‘common political agenda’. The French Front national (FN), the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), the Flemish Vlaams Belang (VB), the Swedish Democrats and the Italian Lega Nord are almost certain to join forces.

On 14 November, party representatives discussed their coalition plans in Vienna, Austria. “PVV did not attend,” a source present at the meeting told EurActiv, but “many others did and were interested in our plans”.

“We discussed a draft text of issues we want to address, like immigration and asylum, or the Turkish membership negotiations with the EU,” the source added, calling it a rough sketch of what will most certainly become the new, extreme-right group after the elections on 22-25 May 2014.

A political group in the EU Parliament must reach a minimum threshold of 25 MEP seats, and must include parliamentarians of at least seven EU countries.

The extreme-right parties are confident they will get the seats to form their new group, with the six parties mentioned as the basis of their cooperation. The French FN on its own could deliver a significant part of the needed seats. And smaller parties from other countries have been approached, which would easily lock up the threshold of seven countries.

EFD group threatened

But while the pieces of the puzzle are falling in place for the new, eurosceptic group, this might endanger the other far-right parliamentary group: Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD).

At the moment, the EFD consists of 32 members representing voters from 11 EU countries. But that includes Lega Nord’s MEPs, who will leave the group, a move that will cost EFD a handful of seats, depending on the election results.

Other MEPs are certain to leave Parliament, like the Belgian independent Frank Vanhecke. This would mean that the EFD will not only lose seats but also crucial representation across EU member states.

EFD will have to look for alternatives to secure a new firm base, says Yves Bertoncini of the Paris-based think tank Notre Europe: “They will have to gather MEPs from different member states, and will likely try to attract some from other political families. But it will be challenging, for sure.”

The EDF could be reduced to a strong UKIP, with others like the Finns Party (formerly True Finns), the Polish Solidarity party and mostly single MEPs to complete their ranks.

Marley Morris, who has analysed right-wing populism at the UK-based organisation Counterpoint, argues that “EFD’s difficulty after the EU elections will be to work together: there are plenty of disagreements on EU issues between the member parties – much more so than the parties involved in the new coalition. If EFD has to reach out to fringe MEPs in order to form a group, they will be even more fragmented.”

A group in the European Parliament has benefits such as a guarantee of seats in the parliamentary committees, a certain amount of speaking time in the plenary sessions or a monthly allowance to hire staff.

“But to form a group, MEPs have to present a political programme to which they all agree,” Bertoncini explains. And agreeing on issues is more difficult for the far-right than for any other party or group, research has shown.

This is, among others, illustrated by the group ‘Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty’, that was set up in January 2007. The group united FN, FPÖ and the Belgian VB with the Italian party of Alessandra Mussolini – granddaughter of the former fascist Italian dictator – and other fringe extremists. But the group collapsed that same year because of continuous friction between its members.

Analysts dispute influence of eurosceptics

Analysts’ estimations of the number of eurosceptic MEPs after May 2014’s elections range from 90 up to one-quarter of all seats, corresponding to 190 seats.

But even if the next EU Parliament includes two far-right groups, this doesn’t guarantee them influence in EU affairs, many say.

Data from the transparency organisation VoteWatch, in a publication by Counterpoint, shows that far-right MEPs have less impact on EU legislation because they show up less often for roll-call votes and end up most often in the losing corner when coalitions are built to reach a majority.

In a recent study, Notre Europe estimates that “the likely rise in the share of ‘populist’ MEPs will make a grand coalition even more likely”, and that the number of seats of populists (both left-wing and right-wing) will matter even less compared to the “actual power” they have on the workings of the EU Parliament.

Paul Taggart of the University of Essex adds that he is “always struck by the diversity of the positions the eurosceptics have, even if they’re frustrated with the same institutions. Eurosceptics on a European level are not the sum of their parts, really”.

The article Eurosceptic Tug-Of-War Expected In Next EU Parliament appeared first on Eurasia Review.