By Eurasia Review

Eni said Monday it has made a new offshore oil and gas discovery in the Norwegian Barents Sea, approximately 240km from Hammerfest.

The well, which is located in the Skavl prospect in the PL532 license, has been drilled five kilometres south of the Johan Castberg area. It was drilled in approximately 349 metres of water and reached a target depth of 1,700 metres.

The well has confirmed good quality oil and gas in Jurassic and Triassic sandstone, with volumes of recoverable oil estimated at between 20 and 50 million barrels. The discovery is part of Eni’s joint venture exploration activity to develop the Johan Castberg field.

Following completion of Skavl, the drilling rig will move 16 kilometres north where it will continue its exploration campaign in the execution of an additional exploration well on the prospect of Kramsnø.
Statoil is the operator of production license PL532 with a 50% stake; the remaining shares are held by Eni Norge AS (30%) and Petoro AS (20%).

Eni has been present in Norway since 1965, with current production standing at approximately 110,000 boe per day through its subsidiary Eni Norge AS. Eni is operator of the ongoing development of the first oil field in the Barents Sea, the important Goliat discovery, and of the Marulk gas field in the Norwegian Sea. Furthermore, in Norway Eni has interests in the country in a number of exploration licenses and fields under development and in operation, including Ekofisk, Norne, Åsgard, Heidrun, Kristin, Mikkel and Urd.

The article Eni Makes New Offshore Oil And Gas Discovery In Norwegian Barents Sea appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Balkan Insight

By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

Serb politicians in Macedonia have called for calm after ethnic Albanians vandalised a recently-erected statue of the Serbian Tsar Dusan in Skopje at the weekend

A group of Albanians seriously damaged the statue of the medieval Serbian emperor as they attempted to topple it from its pedestal on the new ‘Bridge of Civilisations’ in central Skopje under cover of darkness in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Later on Saturday, a group of Albanian opponents of the Serbian monument tried to cover it with a black shroud, which they said represented “shame”, but were prevented by police.

While many Serbs honour Tsar Dusan as a national hero, his statue, which was erected last week, has angered some representatives of the country’s Albanian minority that makes up a quarter of the country’s population.

An ethnic Albanian NGO in Macedonia called Wake Up described the emperor as an “occupier” and said that his statue has no place in Skopje.

“Erecting a monument to a Serbian occupier speaks of an identity crisis, or of the Serbophilia of those who put it there,” the NGO said in a press statement on Friday.

The small Democratic Party of Serbs, which is part of the government coalition, condemned Saturday’s attack.

“The Bridge of Civilisations, which portrays in a unique way the dignitaries of all the peoples and communities that live in Republic of Macedonia, witnessed in action the core difference between our two civilisations, ours and theirs,” the party’s leader Ivan Stoiljkovic said in a statement.

“I call upon the Serbian community members to calmly continue their everyday communication with all the peoples in Macedonia, to be calm, peaceful and not to succumb to any provocations,” he said.

Albanian-language media in Macedonia published video footage of the incident, adding that some of the highest representatives of the junior ruling party, the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, were present during the incident, while the police did nothing to stop it.

The DUI has not yet issued a reaction to the claims, nor has the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

Dusan was one of Serbia’s most successful rulers and under his reign Serbia became the paramount state in the region. According to historical records, he was crowned Serbian Emperor in Skopje in 1346, where three years later he promulgated a constitution for the Serbian Empire.

Albanians in the Balkans, however, do not recall Serbian rulers with nostalgia or sympathy, largely because the Kingdom of Serbia made off with significant amounts of territory in which Albanians were the majority community following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Europe in 1912.

Police have said that they will check video surveillance tapes to identify the perpetrators of Saturday’s attack, while the Democratic Party of Serbs said it would see that the statute was restored as soon as possible.

The article Macedonia Albanians Attack Bronze Serbian Tsar appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By JTW

By Ali Hussein Bakeer

Over the last decades Saudi Arabia has faced many difficult challenges both internally and externally. These challenges have grown since the Iranian revolution in 1979, with the Iraq-Iran war, the (second) Gulf War and its implications during the 1990’s, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its geopolitical consequences, and last but not least, the outbreak of the Arab uprisings at the end of 2010.

Throughout out all these challenges and almost until 2011, the nature of the regional and international balances and alliances were helping the kingdom overcome these challenges. Saudi Arabia had managed to use other players on the geopolitical chess board effectively: Iraq at one stage, Egypt and Syria at another, and of course the U.S. – its major ally during all those times – was always a part of the equation.

However, with the outbreak of the Arab uprisings, Saudi Arabia seemed to face its biggest challenge to date, especially with the breakup of the regional balances and the US decline in the Middle East.

It was obvious that the United States didn’t have a definite, general position regarding the Arab uprisings. The U.S. has been hesitant and reluctant and has evaluated each case separately. These evaluations lead the U.S. administration to intervene against the Qaddafi regime in the Libyan case, stay out of the Tunisian and Egyptian cases, and to make a deal with the Assad regime in the Syrian case.

During all these stages, Saudi Arabia, a country known to prefer silent diplomacy, has shown an unusual and uncustomary boldness in its foreign policy. Saudi Arabia has presented several rare challenges to the American line: perhaps the most important being the decision to deploy the Peninsula Shield Force to Bahrain and its public calls to arm the Syrian opposition since its formation.

Syria is a very critical issue for Saudi Arabia and other regional countries like Turkey, Qatar, Iran, and Israel in the geopolitical game. United States allies expected at the least the same level of support and commitment from Washington that Assad is getting from Moscow and Tehran, something which hasn’t happened.

The kingdom has expressed its dissatisfaction and frustration with the United States policy in many ways. One of them was in February 2012 when the Saudi foreign minister walked out of a Friends of Syria meeting in Tunisia upon the U.S. refusal to arm the Syrian opposition.

This frustration and distrust reached its peak when the Obama administration’s decision to leave its allies in the cold and strike a deal with Russia on Assad’s chemical weapons was followed by warming relations between Washington and Tehran.

For the kingdom, this comes at the end of a long list of criticism of U.S. policies since 2003. In October of 2013, Saudi Arabia stunned the world when it declined a UN non-permanent Security Council seat after a year of preparation and campaigning. The decision came a few weeks after it had declined – for the first time – its turn to deliver its annual speech before the UN General Assembly.

A few days later many sources circulated a statement from Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief Bandar Bin Sultan telling European diplomats that he plans to scale back cooperation with the U.S. to arm and train Syrian rebels in protest of Washington’s policy in the region.

There is no doubt that these actions are very important messages to express the kingdom’s anger and the deep frustration at what is going on regionally, and towards the U.S. disregard for the interests and concerns of its allies. But how far can Saudi Arabia take this? And to what extent such steps can move important pieces on the chessboard?

Notably, these actions have thus far been passive. In other words, declining the Security Council seat will not change the balances on ground or the game itself. Saudi Arabia can respond by ignoring U.S. regional concerns and interests on certain issues. In that sense the kingdom has the ability to be a disruptive player, creating problems for U.S. in the region. The kingdom cannot persist, however, in this behavior unless it is willing to turn into another Iran.

The response from Saudi Arabia should be in the form of a strategic move with a clear vision, and based on long-term interests with regional players. The kingdom should also work for a more unified GCC and cooperate closely with regional powers who have interests in the prosperity and stability of the region, like Turkey.

However, Saudi Arabia has to first realize that it made a strategic mistake by supporting the coup in Egypt, and because of that support, Egypt, one of most important regional players and a Saudi ally for decades, is dysfunctional.

The struggle in Syria hasn’t yet ended and is not expected to end soon, with the chaos on the ground giving no hints as to whether there will be a negotiated solution or a battle drawn out to the end. Saudi Arabia can play an important role by militarily supporting opposition no less than Iran supports Assad – however this should be done in a very well-planned and well-executed way and in collaboration other regional powers under a common agenda.

Perhaps the only good outcome of the U.S. latest solo chemical deal is that it is a good lesson for its regional allies to start depending less on the U.S. and more on their national power. If they wait for the United States to take actions or decisions to secure their own interests rather than securing them themselves they will end up waiting for a long time.

This article was first published in Analist Monthly Journal, in December, 2013.

The article Saudi Arabia And The US: How Far Can The Kingdom Go? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SATP

By Mrinal Kanta Das

The decline in violence notwithstanding, the CPI-Maoist retains sufficient capacities for disruptive dominance in large parts of the State. Bihar’s persistent and excessive dependence on Central Forces, without any urgent effort to expand and improve the capacities of the State Police, can only leave the State and its people vulnerable to Maoist violence, whenever the rebels decide that an escalation could be strategically advantageous. — Bihar: Persistent Vulnerabilities

Eight Policemen were killed when Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres blew up the vehicle in which they were travelling on the Tandwa-Nabinagar Highway in the Aurangabad District of Bihar on December 3, 2013. The Police party was returning to the Tandwa Police Station from a meeting on crime in the Nabinagar Block when the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) went off. Those killed included Ajay Kumar, Station House Officer (SHO) of the Tandwa Police Station, five personnel of the Special Auxiliary Force, a driver from the Home Guards, and a Bihar Military Police (BMP) constable, who belonged to a nearby village and had taken a lift. Some weeks earlier there were reports of Maoists having harassed a panchayat (rural local body) representative in the area, after which search operations had been carried out by the Police.

Barely 72 hours before the Aurangabad attack, in a daring operation in the evening of November 30, the Maoists killed three General Railway Police (GRP) personnel in Munger District. Nearly two dozen Maoists, travelling in civil dress on the 13235 Sahibganj-Danapur Inter-city train, opened fire on the escort party when the train crossed a tunnel between Jamalpur and Ratanpur railways stations, killing the three GRP personnel and decamping with their weapons. Two persons, including a civilian, were also injured in the incident.

Earlier, on November 10, 2013, the Maoists killed three persons and injured as many at Amkola village in Gaya District. Among the dead was one Sanjay Yadav, who had recently deserted the Maoist rank. The Maoists also burnt Yadav’s vehicle. The Maoists were angry with Yadav, as he was suspected to have leaked information to the Police leading to several raids on the Maoists and the recovery of arms and ammunition.

In yet another incident, suspected to have been perpetrated by Maoists, though this is yet to be confirmed, a vehicle was blown up in an IED blast killing all seven occupants in Pathara village in Aurangabad District on October 17, 2013. The victims included Sushil Pandey, a suspected Ranvir Sena (an upper caste landowners’ militia) activist and husband of Zila Parishad (district level local self-government institution) member Usha Devi. The Maoists suspected Pandey’s hand in the killing of their cadres by the Ranvir Sena, in the Magadh region. Significantly, the ‘revenge’ attack came barely a week after the Patna (Bihar) High Court acquitted all the 26 accused in the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre case for lack of evidence. Maoists hold the Ranvir Sena responsible for the Bathe massacre, which claimed the lives of 58 dalits (lower caste Hindus) on the night of December 1, 1997.

On June 13, 2013, a group of around 200 Maoists had attacked the Dhanbad-Patna Intercity Express at Bhalui halt near Jamui District, killing three persons and injuring six passengers.

Prima facie, the Maoist problem in Bihar is worsening again, after the tentative gains of 2011 and 2012. According to South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) data a total of 46 persons, including 21 civilians and 25 Security Force (SF) personnel have been killed in LWE-related violence in 2013 in Bihar. Interestingly, there has, so far, not been a single Maoist fatality in the State in 2013. Civilian and SF casualties in 2013 have also exceeded last year’s casualty figures. On the other hand, arrests of and surrenders by Maoists have also gone down considerably. In 2012, 203 Maoists were arrested and 75 surrendered; in 2013, 76 Maoists have been arrested and just two have surrendered, according to partial data compiled by SATP. MHA data on arrests also confirms this trend, with 409 Maoists arrested in 2012, as against 260 Maoists arrested in 2013, till December 2, 2013.

According to SATP data, seven major incidents have taken place in Bihar till December 7, 2013, out of which six have been reported from Aurangabad (3), Gaya (2) and Jamui (1) Districts, while one is from Munger.

In an earlier assessment, it was noted that 60 per cent of Maoist violence in Bihar occurred in just three Districts: Aurangabad, Gaya and Jamui.

Recently, the Joint Intelligence Committee of the Union Government has accused the Bihar Government of being soft towards the CPI-Maoists. “There has been continual deterioration in most parameters of the counter-insurgency grid in Bihar,” a JIC report observes, underlining the fact that, while there has been a substantive decline in Maoists violence across the country, Bihar has registered an increase. “Our concern is not only sharp increase in security forces casualties but also the fact that not a single Maoists cadre has been killed in counter-insurgency operations this year compared to five Maoists killed during the same period last year,” the report notes. While 17 encounters with Maoists took place in 2011, the number of cross-firing incidents between SFs and Maoists decreased to 12 in 2012 and, till August this year, only six encounters took place in Bihar. The recovery of weapons has also shown a downward trend — 171 in 2011 and 47 in 2013. Another report discloses that Maoists had snatched as many as 38 weapons in 2013 in the State, accounting for nearly one in every two weapons snatched in India by the Maoists.

State officials, however, quite surprisingly claimed that Bihar had, in fact, been carrying out specific intelligence-based operations and been quite successful in arresting the ‘maximum number’ of Maoists in 2013. A top State Police official thus asserted, “Only killing Maoists is not a sign of big operations”, adding that the clearing of the entire Chakarbanda area in Gaya District — which had once been a Maoist stronghold where Police did not even think of entering — was an example of how the State has been doing intelligence-based operation quietly.

The Nitish Kumar Government has still not abandoned its delusions of fighting Maoists with ‘development’. On December 2, 2013, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar declared that Bihar did not have a “magic wand” to stop the Maoist attacks, and the answer lay in initiating multiple measures including socio-economic development.

Amidst all this, the State Police has taken initiatives to cripple Maoist leaders financially by confiscating their property under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), an approach that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) believes other States should emulate. According to data accessed from Police Headquarters, Patna, 21 Maoist leaders’ immovable property, including approximately 44 acres of land and movable property worth over INR 20 million had been seized under the drive. On the other hand, the State has only recently announced its surrender and rehabilitation policy, formulated on the basis of UMHA recommendations.

Further, the State has announced a reward of INR 300,000-500,000 for the capture of seven top Maoist leaders. A reward of INR 500,000 has been declared for Arvind Kumar alias Arvind Singh, a member of the CPI-Maoist Central Committee. A reward of INR 300,000 has been announced for Vijay Yadav alias Sandip, who is a member of the ‘special area committee’ that covers Bihar, Jharkhand and northern Chhattishgarh. Similar rewards have been declared for Shiv Shankar Dhobi alias Tayagi, Parvesh alias Anuj, Ram Babu Ram, Prajapat and Chirag. Most of these Maoist leaders are from Jehananbad, Aurangabad, Gaya, Jamui and Motihari, considered strongholds of Maoists.

Bihar’s reluctance to take effective steps to counter the Maoist threat at a time when other States are at least putting some pressure on Left Wing Extremists (LWE), has made Bihar the favourite hunting ground for the Maoists. The failure to mount sustained pressure against the rebels has created a perfect theatre for them to extend their areas of influence and activity, at a time when these are contracting sharply in other States, and provide the Maoists with the safe haven and retreat where they can fine tune their strategy and tactics for the revival of a movement which, in their own assessment, is at a “critical stage”.

Mrinal Kanta Das
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The article India: Downward Slide In Bihar – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SATP

By Giriraj Bhattacharjee

On December 3, 2013, an angry mob lynched a militant-extortionist, identified as Raban Basumatary, belonging to the Ranjan Daimary faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB-RD), at Sengimari area under Krishnai Police Station in Goalpara District. Another militant, Kamal Khakhlari, was also reported to have been critically injured. “The duo had threatened a businessman in the area and demanded money from him. But, when they came to fetch the money, angry people gheraoed them and started beating them up,” a Police officer explained.

This incident comes just days after the signing of a six months long tripartite Suspension of Operations (SoO) with NDFB-RD, the Central and the Assam Government on November 29, 2013, at the Headquarters of the Special Branch (SB) of Assam Police at Kahilipara. The agreement was signed in the presence of Shambhu Singh, Joint Secretary (Northeast) in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA), State Home Secretary, G.D. Tripathi, Additional Director-General of Police, Special Branch (ADGP-SB), Pallab Bhattacharyya, ADGP-Law and Order A.P. Raut, and a six-member delegation of NDFB–RD leaders. The NDFB-RD delegation was led by Ranjan Daimary alias D R Nabla. The group now joins another 12 militant groups who have reached accommodation with the Government: the Pro-Talks Faction of NDFB (NDFB-PTF) with whom an SoO was signed on May 24, 2005; the Pro-Talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA-PTF), with whom an SoO was signed on September 3, 2011; the Karbi Longri North Cachar Hills Liberation Front (KLNLF), which surrendered arms on February 11,2010; as well as the Adivasi Cobra Military of Assam (ACMA), the Birsa Commando Force (BCF), the Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA), the United Kukigam Defence Army (UKDA), the Kuki Liberation Army (KLA), the Hmar Peoples Convention-Democratic (HPC-D), the Adivasi People’s Army (APA), the All Adivasi National Liberation Army (AANLA) and Santhal Tiger Force (STF), all of whom laid down arms on January 24,2012.

According to the latest SoO, two designated camps will be set up in Lalgudam in Udalguri District and at Panbari in Dhubri District for 579 cadres of the NDFB-RD. According to a November 30, 2013, report, the faction had earlier deposited 40 weapons with the Police, but was told at the meeting to deposit the remaining weapons within six months. Daimary, who signed the agreement, submitted a list of 602 cadres, but after the verification process, the actual strength was found to be 579. NDFB-RD leaders are reported to have been told in clear terms that all their cadres would have to stay at the designated camps, and could not leave the camps without obtaining prior permission from the Superintendents of Police (SP) of the respective Districts. The designated camps will be guarded by Police personnel, and Close Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras will also be installed. The NDFB-RD had, earlier, declared a unilateral ceasefire in April 2011, after several setbacks over the preceding three years. The NDFB-RD’s shift to a negotiated settlement commenced after the ‘handing over’ to India of its ‘chairman’ Ranjan Daimary, by Bangladesh, in May 2010. This was quickly followed by the ‘handing over’ of ‘vice-chairman’ NDFB-RD, Rajen Goyari alias G. Rifikhang and ‘finance secretary’, Dorsang Narzary, on April 20, 2011.

Joint–Secretary (Northeast) Shambhu Singh, who represented UMHA at the signing of SoO, disclosed that the ground rules were more stringent in the present case, and “The process of depositing of arms should be over on or before the next date of review and the weapons will be kept in Police armoury.”

On November 23, 2013, during the annual conference of Directors General of Police, Union Home Minister (UHM) Sushilkumar Shinde had highlighted the adverse affect of such agreements, noting, “Many of these (ceasefire) agreements are being flouted by the militants, who are indulging in extortion affecting the lives of common people. Recently, there have been public protests in certain areas against such extortion activities. The State Police Forces need to enforce the ceasefire agreements so that relief could be provided to the people.”

Sources indicate that the signing of the ceasefire agreement with the NDFB-RD is likely to improve the effectiveness of counter-insurgency (CI) operations against the I.K. Songbijit faction of the NDFB (NDFB-IKS). Sources pointed out that the Security Forces (SFs) were having trouble in differentiating between the two groups. However, after the signing of the ceasefire agreement with the NDFB-RD, members of this outfit would be restricted to their designated camps and would all be given photo identity cards. This will help the SFs to separate the cadres of the two formations and focus operations against the NDFB-IKS.

Unfortunately, SoO agreements in the past have mostly led to splits and violence within SoO groups, including the earlier undivided NDFB.

The undivided NDFB’s tryst with peace started when the original group, then led by Ranjan Daimary, declared a ceasefire on October 8, 2004, following the State Government’s offer of negotiations. This was followed by the signing of a tripartite SoO. Little was achieved between 2005 and late 2008. However, following the naming of Ranjan Daimary as the prime accused in the October 2008 serial blasts, which left more than 90 people dead and 300 injured, the first split occurred in the group, with two faction emerging, one led by Ranjan Daimary and the other led by the then ‘vice president’ B. Sungthagra alias Dhiren Boro. On December 15, 2008, an ‘NDFB General Assembly’ replaced Ranjan Daimary with Dhiren Boro as a new ‘President’, on the grounds that Daimary was involved in the serial blasts. The Government continued the SoO with NDFB-PTF led by Dhiren Boro and started peace talks after the faction dropped the issue of ‘sovereignty’.

NDFB-RD is now also trying to ‘reach out’ to other factions – NDFB-IKS and NDFB-PTF – to join it in the peace talks. According to a December 1, 2013, report, Daimary admitted that he had recently got in touch with Songbijit, and tried to persuade him to join the peace process. Replying to a question regarding Songbijit’s decision to split from the NDFB-RD at a time when he was the outfit’s ‘commander-in-chief’, Daimary stated, “I was in jail when the division took place. Songbijit might have been frustrated with the delay on the part of the Government in responding to our unilateral ceasefire. As Songbijit is in Myanmar, the possibility of him coming under pressure from Paresh Baruah, ‘commander-in-chief’ of the Independent faction of United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA-I) and SS Khaplang, of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) also cannot be ruled out.” NDFB-IKS has so far not commented on the issue.

The NDFB-IKS’ split was announced on November 20, 2012, by the then NDFB-RD’s Myanmar based, ‘army chief’ I.K. Songbijit, who, vowed to “work and fight together with vigour and determination to liberate Boroland” and “Western South East Asia (North-East India)”. The split was announced following a November 13-14, 2012, meeting, leading to the formation of the I.K Songbijit faction [NDFB-IKS]. Worryingly, since its formation, NDFB-IKS has been found to have been involved in killing, abduction and extortion incidents across the Bodo Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD). In the latest incident, six persons, including three children, were injured in a grenade blast by suspected NDFB-IKS cadres at Bongaigaon town in Bongaigaon District on November 25, 2013. One of the minors, two-and-a-half-year-old Sumit Barman, succumbed to his injuries on November 27.

Meanwhile, NDFB-PTF’s continued engagement with the Government has not resulted in any breakthrough apart from the extension of the SoO periodically. SoO with NDFB-PTF was last extended on September 12, 2013, and will expire on 31st December 2013. NDFB-RD’s ‘Chairman’ Daimary had expressed the hope of a meeting with NDFB-PTF in the near future, noting, “NDFB-PTF is already in peace dialogues with the Government and now we too have come forward. I hope someday we will meet at some point.” NDFB-PTF had on the other hand said that any dialogue is not possible till Ranjan Daimary places its demand before the Government.

NDFB-PTF has also been found to be involved in cases of abduction and extortion during the period of the SoO. According to a February 11, 2012, report, SFs arrested 46 NDFB-PTF cadres on charges of abduction and extortion and recovered 37 weapons from them, between 2005 and 2011. More worryingly, a February 8, 2012, report stated that a total of 108 NDFB-PTF militants fled their designated camps between 2010 and 2012.

While peace overtures between the various NDFB factions move tentatively forward, NDFB-RD has shown no such desire for reconciliation with its bitter rival, the now-disbanded Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT). NDFB-RD described the 2003 Bodo Accord signed with the BLT as a failure. The Bodo insurrection has led to two accords till date, both without the involvement of the NDFB. The first of these was with the All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) and its political wing, the Bodo People’s Action Committee (BPAC), in 1993. This was followed by the 2003 Accord, which was signed with the Hagrama Mohilary led BLT, and led to the formation of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).

Besides the Bodo outfits, the non-Bodo formations like the Adivasi and Kamtapur militant groups are also active in Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) areas and engage in criminal activities including extortion and intimidation. Recently, a Bengali militant outfit named National Liberation Front of Bengalis (NLFB) led by Abhijit Das, its “commander-in-chief”, announced its formation on November 20, 2013. NLFB took responsibility for planting bombs in the Alipurduar-Kamakhya Inter-city Express and also in Chirang and Kokrajhar Districts, in protest against the Government’s alleged failure to check extortion and abduction of Bengalis living in BTAD. All the bombs had, however, been safely recovered by November 21.

The presence of multiple militant formations in BTAD areas adds to the tense ethnic relations between different groups, variously due to competing ethnic assertions, compounded by land alienation and the problem of illegal immigration, which led to the ethno-religious clashes between Bodos and Muslims in 2012. UHM Sushil Kumar Shinde, expressing his concern about prevailing situation in the area on November 23, 2013, stated, “Special efforts are required to check the growing mistrust, particularly between Bodos and non-Bodos in the BTAD and its adjoining areas.”

Unfortunately, the situation has been further destabilized by the declaration supporting the formation of a separate Telangana State, to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh, by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on July 30, 2013, and its subsequent endorsement by the Union Cabinet on October 3, 2013. This has resulted in the renewal of the demand for various separate Tribal States to be carved out of Assam, including Bodoland and Kamatapur, demands that had been diluted earlier on the grounds that non new States could in principle be established unless a new State Reorganisation Commission had defined the fundamental criteria for such divisions. Worryingly, the territories of both the proposed Kamtapur and Bodoland State overlap. Further, the demand of the proposed Bodoland is strongly opposed by non-Bodos in these areas. Moreover, the State Government has ruled out any division of Assam.

The SoO with NDFB-RD will be one more addition to the long list of agreements signed between the Government and rebel formations, but any enduring solution to the ethnic polarization in Assam, and to the ‘Bodo issue’, will remain elusive, unless the polarization of communities in the region, and the desire to ‘resolve problems’ by creating majoritarian enclaves, each with its own alienated minorities, is abandoned.

Giriraj Bhattacharjee
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The article India: Piling Up On Non-Solutions In Assam – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By American Forces Press Service

By Karen Parrish

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel took part today in what a senior defense official called a “positive, warm and engaging” meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, Finance Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, National Security and Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz, and other officials also took part in the meeting.

Greeting his host beforehand, Hagel told Sharif that he had just left Afghanistan, adding, “We have a lot of our common interests and mutual interests we can discuss.”

The secretary also conveyed President Barack Obama’s regards to Sharif.

“I bring you greetings from President Obama. He very much appreciated the meeting he had with you when you were in Washington,” Hagel said.

That’s all of the engagement that reporters could see, but senior defense officials who took part in the subsequent discussion said the dialogue was friendly, wide-ranging, and roughly evenly split among four topics:

– Counter-terrorism;

– U.S. and coalition forces’ ground supply transport routes through Pakistan;

– Regional security; and

– Pakistan’s economy.

The issues are linked, said officials, noting that while none were resolved today, all were amicably discussed and will be worked on further.

It was the leaders’ fourth meeting, officials said, but the first time a secretary of defense has visited the country since then-Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates did so in January 2010.

Hagel and Sharif met during the Pakistani leader’s visit to Washington in late October. The two leaders became acquainted when Hagel was a senator.

Between Gates’ visit three years ago and Hagel’s today, animosity has flared between the two nations over several issues. Most notably, a November 2011 combat engagement near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in which 24 Pakistani troops were killed when U.S. forces responded to what they reportedly thought was an enemy attack.

Following that tragedy, Pakistan closed some of its border crossings to U.S. and coalition forces. The United States then suspended aid to Pakistan, which has resumed since Islamabad reopened the ground supply routes.

Relations have improved in recent months, with high-level engagements and discussion resuming, and senior officials today said Hagel’s visit is a good step toward resuming what was, just a few years ago, a promising military-to-military relationship.

Officials said the men agreed broadly on counter-terrorism goals, but agree they “need to discuss means.” Pakistani officials and leaders have regularly protested the United States’ use of unmanned drones in counter-terrorism operations.

The ground supply routes are open, but the main route at Torkham Gate hasn’t seen supplies flow through at all in December, officials said, because protests on the Pakistani side of the border pose a security risk.

Afghanistan, regional security and Pakistan’s economy are related issues, officials said: regional trading relationships, secure transportation routes and international investment are all linked, one official explained.

“[Pakistanis] really need a stable neighborhood to enhance and increase their trade, and bring in hard currency,” one official said.

According to Assistant Pentagon Press Secretary Carl Woog, the secretary emphasized that as International Security Assistance Forces draw down over the course of 2014, U.S. and coalition partners remain resolved to not let militants destabilize the region.

Another senior official noted that today’s meeting was “a launching point for a continued dialogue on these issues.” Specific approaches toward resolving the issues immediately were not discussed in this meeting, which was more strategic in nature, he added, but it was “a very good dialogue.”

Hagel’s first stop after arriving in Pakistan was Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, where he met with newly appointed Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raheel Sharif.

From Pakistan, Hagel will travel on to Saudi Arabia and Qatar before returning to Washington. His first stop on this trip was Bahrain, where he spoke at the Manama Dialogue on U.S. Middle East strategy.

The article Hagel Visits Pakistani Prime Minister, Army Chief appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

Libyan authorities should urgently announce the results of promised investigations into at least two deadly clashes between protesters and militias during 2013, said Human Rights Watch. The clashes killed dozens of people and injured hundreds.

Six months after 32 people died in Benghazi on June 8, 2013, in what came to be known as “Black Saturday,” the authorities have made no known arrests, have been silent on the identities of any suspects, and seem unwilling to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation, Human Rights Watch said. In the second clash, on November 15 in Tripoli, at least 46 people died and 500 were injured.

“The authorities urgently need to work out a feasible plan to question witnesses and militia members in connection with these deadly attacks on protesters,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s bad enough the authorities seem to be powerless to defend Libyan citizens, but they need to make greater efforts to investigate the deaths of dozens of people.”

On June 8, demonstrators gathered in Benghazi in front of the headquarters of a militia, the Libya Shield Forces 1, demanding that its members clear out of the city. Militia members fired on the protesters, and the resulting exchange of fire, including heavy weapons and anti-aircraft weapons, killed 32 people and injured dozens. Members of the army special forces, al-Sa’iqa, were present and, according to witnesses, participated in the exchange of fire, but the government has yet to clarify their role in the incident.

On June 9, Libya’s General National Congress (GNC) called on the general prosecutor, Abdelqader Radwan, to investigate the Benghazi incident and bring those responsible to justice. In a meeting with Human Rights Watch on December 5, Alaejeili Teitesh, the head of the General Prosecutor’s Office, said the investigation is “ongoing,” but provided no concrete details. Six months after the killings, there is no indication that the authorities have identified, interrogated, or detained any suspects in connection with the killings.

The government has also apparently been slow to investigate the large-scale attack on protesters in Tripoli on November 15. Militias, mainly from the city of Misrata, fired heavy weapons at what appeared to be a largely peaceful protest. The ensuing clashes resulted in the killing of at least 46 people and wounding of 500. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the police and military police were present, accompanying the organized demonstration, yet failed to intervene.

Almost three weeks later, Teitesh told Human Rights Watch that, based on a general prosecutor’s decision [No. 265/2013], a seven-member prosecution committee, headed by Tripoli Appeals Court Attorney General Omar Zinbeel, had opened an investigation into 47 deaths.

He said the committee was analyzing videos obtained from monitoring cameras adjacent to the where clashes took place and planned to issue arrest warrants “no matter who the perpetrators are,” after it finished collecting evidence and statements from witnesses. In addition, according to media reports, it appears that a militia unit in Tripoli is detaining at least one suspect, Abdelmajid al-Drat, a member of a Misrata militia based in Gharghour, in connection with the incident. But there is no indication that the Libyan authorities have interrogated or officially detained any other suspects.

According to media reports, other militia commanders and militia members who were involved in the attacks left Tripoli after the events and returned to Misrata. There is no confirmation of how many people Misrata militias detained during the clashes, or their whereabouts.“Militias have been able to defy the government and enjoy de-facto immunity from prosecution for two years now,” Whitson said, “Libya’s future stability is at risk unless there is a concerted effort by the Libyan authorities to change that and start indicting wrongdoers.”

The article Libya: Six Months On, Scant Action On Protester Killings appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By RT

The world’s leading technology companies have addressed Washington in an open letter to demand a radical overhaul of surveillance laws, an international ban of bulk data collection and for the US to lead the way in restoring trust in the internet.

Apple, AOL, Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo and Microsoft whose combined value is estimated at $1.4 trillion published an open letter Monday advocating radical reforms.

The letter states that while the leaders of these companies understand the duty of government to protect their citizens the balance has tipped too far away from the rights, enshrined in the US constitution, to individual privacy.

“This summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide. The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and way from the rights of the individual – rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for a change,” the letter reads.

Seven of the above mentioned companies also created a special website where they listed what they believe are the key principles regarding the use of the internet and state surveillance, which should be adopted by government.

The top of this list was limiting the government’s authority to collect users’ information.They also called for a clear legal framework, which intelligence agencies must adhere to when collecting information, including an independent adversarial process.

The technology companies also warn that governments should not require service providers to locate infrastructure within a country’s borders or operate locally or inhibit access by companies or individuals to lawfully available information that is stored outside of the country.

The companies argue that governments must work together to agree new international standards regulating surveillance and hint at legal disputes and a damage to international trade otherwise.

“In order to avoid conflicting laws, there should be a robust, principled, and transparent framework to govern lawful requests for data across jurisdictions, such as improved mutual legal assistance treaty or MLAT processes,” they say.

The companies claim the revelations of NSA surveillance by whistleblower Edward Snowden have damaged the public’s faith in the internet, which is having a direct effect on their business interests.

“People won’t use technology they don’t trust. Governments have put this trust at risk, and governments need help restore it,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel.

His words were echoed by the chief executive of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer:

“Recent revelations about government surveillance have shaken the trust of our users,” she wrote.

In September Facebook and Yahoo followed Google and Microsoft in filing motions to the FISA court that would allow them to make public NSA data requests.

The principles as stated by the seven web giants are similar to cross party legislation proposed by Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee and Jim Sensenbrenner, the Republican author of the Patriot Act.

Both the internet giants of Silicon Valley and these key players in Congress agree that the NSA should no longer be able to indiscriminately gather huge quantities of information from individuals its doesn’t even suspect of terrorism but just to detect patterns or in case it might need it in the future.

In a closed session last month, the US Senate Intelligence Committee approved draft legislation by Senator Dianne Feinstein that would make the NSA’s bulk collection of domestic telephone metadata legal. The bill will cement phone metadata collection into the business records provision of the Patriot Act, which strengthens NSA operations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).Feinstein has been accused of being a cheerleader for Washington’s intelligence community but as the Democrat representative for California it puts her in direct opposition to Silicon Valley and some of her state’s most important tax payers and employers.

Feinstein does agree with the Leahy/Sensenbrenner bill that there should be more opportunity for advocates of personal privacy to argue against intelligence agency requests. Critics of the bill say it doesn’t go far enough to protect American’s privacy.

The article Internet Giants Demand Sweeping Changes To Spy Laws In Open Letter To Obama appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By TransConflict

UN reform of peacekeeping seems to mean mainly focusing on two instances – when civilian deaths in a conflict or failing state are actually or potentially bad enough to make it too politically embarrassing to appear to be doing nothing, and when a UNSC mandate can provide cover for counter-terrorism.

By Gerard M. Gallucci

UN peacekeeping has entered a new phase with a focus on protection of civilians and counter-terrorism, both through use of force.  This represents a more robust though minimalist effort reflecting the realities of continuing conflict and the limited interest of major powers – especially the US – in activist multilateral intervention.

The UN Charter authorizes peacekeeping by the international community in order to “maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”  Though the term “peacekeeping” is nowhere found in the Charter, the UN has been doing it since sending its first mission to the Mideast in 1948.  Since then the UN has deployed 68 peacekeeping missions, acting mostly under Chapters VI, VII and VIII of the Charter, with 55 of those since 1988.  More than 3100 UN personnel – military, police and civilians – have died while serving and they come from all 120 countries that have supplied peacekeepers to these missions.

UN peacekeeping before 1988 was mostly about conflict between states.  Since then, the UN has increasingly been drawn into dealing with internal conflict.  These have been as a result of ethnic or tribal violence within states and/or from the breakdown of order within states.  The most recent examples of new UN missions for countries so affected are in Mali and the Central African Republic.

The 1990′s were a particularly challenging period for the international community.  The break-up of Yugoslavia, ethnic strife and failing states in Africa and violent de-colonization in East Timor created crises clearly representing “breaches” of international peace.  Missions mandated by the UN Security Council went to many of these places according to the political requirements of the member states and most specifically of the UNSC Permanent Five.  Some of these missions went well, others didn’t.  UN peacekeeping experienced particular failure in Rwanda, Somalia and the Balkans (Srebrenica).  The world’s big powers – especially the biggest, the US – momentarily lost their appetite for multilateral peacekeeping.  But in light of continuing conflicts and crises around the world, the temptation to deal with problems that few really cared about – but nevertheless wanted to appear to be doing something about – by sending UN missions there was too great to long resist.  The US held out the longest, seeking to use UNSC mandates to undertake essentially unilateral interventions or to simply act without UN approval as with Kosovo in 1999 and in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11.  (For a somewhat understated but still biting critique of the US unilateral approach, see The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building.)   Currently, there are 15 UN peacekeeping missions with some 119,000 personnel in the field.

Drawing lessons from the experience of the ’90s, the UN Secretaries General – starting with Kofi Annan and continuing with Ban Ki-moon  – and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) sought to better prepare for peacekeeping.  The UN Secretariat undertook a sustained reform effort beginning with the Brahimi Report in 2000, which sought to examine how the UN “plans, deploys, conducts and supports peacekeeping operations.”  In 2004, the UN produced The Secretary General’s High-level Panel Report on Threats, Challenges and Change.  This report sought to crystallize a shared international conception of the threats to peace that might require response.  In addition to the traditional issue of inter-state conflict, it added economic and social threats (including poverty, infectious diseases and environmental degradation), internal conflicts (including civil war, genocide and other large-scale atrocities), WMD (nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons), terrorism and transnational organized crime.  This was a mixed bag meant to include something for everyone:  poverty for the general membership and terrorism and WMD for the West.

When I arrived Kosovo in 2005, as chief of the UNMIK regional office for the north, there was no UN doctrine or guidelines for how to do peacekeeping.  The UN got around to fixing that with its Capstone Doctrine in 2008.  This was watered down a bit under pressure from the member states who preferred something more like “lessons-learned” than committing the organization to real do’s and don’ts.  But it did clearly reaffirm the three basic principles of peacekeeping that had traditionally guided the organization:  consent of the parties, impartiality and non-use of force except in self-defense and defense of the mandate.

All of this was essentially an extended “conversation” with the member states – especially in the form of the UN Security Council and General Assembly – to gain their support for a more focused, better managed and fully resourced form of peacekeeping foreseen for the 21^st Century.  Finally, in 2009, the UN shared an “internal” document entitled A New Partnership Agenda (New Horizons).  This included a direct challenge to the Security Council to act in a more unified manner and to provide clearer and more achievable mandates.  It also sought to delineate peacekeeping as essentially an effort to provide “transitional security” while a sustainable peace was achieved, including with assistance in “peacebuilding.”  While lip-service was given to more political goals – and the possibility of transitioning DPKO peacekeeping missions to political ones run by the UN Department of Political Affairs  (DPA) – absent was any talk of “nation building” or “democratization.”  DPKO was essentially telling the PermFive not to send it to do impossible tasks with inadequate resources (and in fact had successfully rebuffed the UNSC in 2008 when some Western powers wanted to mandate a full-fledged peacekeeping mission for Somalia despite the lack of security there or any peace to keep).

But the New Horizons document – following on the Report on Threats – also paved the way for a new more robust if limited form of UN peacekeeping.  Force could be used more aggressively in defense of the mandate where traditionally it had only been reactive.  This year, the Security Council authorized such use of force first in Mali and again in eastern Congo.  In the Congo, the UNSC authorized a new intervention brigade meant to protect civilians through active pursuit of threatening forces and alongside a national army.  This broke the doctrine of impartiality in order to meet the responsibility to protect (R2P).  DPKO has also announced that it will be using unarmed drones for observation there.

The Dutch government has recently announced it will be sending intelligence and special forces units to join the UN force in Mali.  The UN has usually not had such capabilities.  But it clearly represents a Dutch (NATO?) focus on conducting counter-terrorism against jihadists in the Maghreb.

UN reform of peacekeeping has emerged as essentially an attempt to gain agreement on using DPKO missions where there is actually enough PermFive interest to mandate and support them properly.  This seems to mean focusing mainly on two instances:

• 1. when civilian deaths in a conflict or failing state are actually or potentially bad enough to make it too politically embarrassing to appear to be doing nothing – i.e., send the UN but don’t expect it do much more than keep the worse from happening.
• 2. when a UNSC mandate can provide cover for counter-terrorism – e.g., by Western or maybe Russian and Chinese forces dealing with their own external threats.

This may be the only form of UN peacekeeping that we can practically undertake at this stage of development of the human community.  It may allow lots of bad things to happen and leave UN missions in place for a long time simply to prevent the worse.  But if it helps limit unilateralism and meets the test of “first do no harm,” it won’t be all bad.

Gerard M. Gallucci is a retired US diplomat and UN peacekeeper. He worked as part of US efforts to resolve the conflicts in Angola, South Africa and Sudan and as Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council. He served as UN Regional Representative in Mitrovica, Kosovo from July 2005 until October 2008 and as Chief of Staff for the UN mission in East Timor from November 2008 until June 2010. He will serve as Diplomat-in-Residence at Drake University for the 2013-14 school year.

The article The New UN Peacekeeping – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Trend News Agency

By Fatih Karimov

The budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year has been finalized and will be submitted to the parliament tomorrow, the Mehr News Agency quoted Iranian president Hassan Rouhani as saying on December 7.

The next Iranian year starts on March 21, 2014.

Rouhani did not provide any further details about the budget bill.

On November 30, the Tasnim News agency quoted Iranian presidential deputy for planning Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht as saying that the U.S. dollar exchange rate will be fixed in the budget bill.

Moreover, the budget bill has envisaged that the second phase of the subsidy reform plan will be implemented in the next year, he added.

The article Iran Finalizes Next Year’s Budget Bill appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By MISNA

Just eight months since taking office, President Nicolás Maduro’s PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) maintained its place as front running political force after yesterday’s local elections, despite a significant advance of the opposition that took five large cities.

Based on “irreversible” results released by the Supreme electoral tribunal, though not final, the PSUV and allies obtained 49.2% of votes against the 42.7% of the right-wing opposition. “The people of Venezuela told the world that the Revolución Bolivariana is continuing reinforced”, stated Maduro, celebrating with his supporters in the Plaza Bolívar square in Caracas.

The PSUV and allies took 196 municipalities, while the MUD (Mesa de Unidad Democrática) conservative coalition and allies 53. Among these are the two so-called “joyas de la corona” (crowned jewels), i.e. the administration of the metropolitan district of Caracas and that of the second city of the nation, the Maracaibo oil metropolis, in addition to other more populated cities, Valencia, Barquisimeto and the more symbolic Barinas, stronghold of Hugo Chávez’s family.

After yesterday’s vote, “the message is very clear. Venezuela is a divided nation and has no owners”, stated in a news conference Henrique Capriles, the opposition leader who still refuses to concede defeat by Maduro in the April 14 presidential election by a mere percentage point and a half.

The article Venezuela: ‘Chavist’ Party Maintains Lead, But Opposition Advances appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By EurActiv

(EurActiv) — The prospects of agreeing a proposed Europe-wide data privacy rules by spring next year, a key objective of the European Commission, look in doubt after EU ministers last week failed to agree on the concept of a one-stop-shop for data protection.

Justice ministers representing the 28 member states attempted to reach agreement on the proposed data protection regulation at a meeting in Brussels last week (6 December).

The reform aims to unify national data protection regimes, making it easier for businesses operating across territories who would deal with a single data protection authority – a so-called ‘one-stop-shop’ – in the country where they are based. The proposal also envisages that citizens should be able to rely on such a one-stop shop across the bloc’s 28 individual data protection authorities to safeguard their data protection rights.

Germany resists a one-stop-shop

But Germany proved the most resistant to the one-stop-shop proposal at last week’s meeting, and received backing by ministers from the Czech republic, Denmark and Hungary.

“This proposal involves replacing all of the German consumer rights on data protection – which is around 100 pages – and we therefore have to be careful that our high standards remain,” Ole Schrӧder, secretary of state in the German federal ministry of the interior said at the outset of the meeting.

“Harmonisation, yes, but not at any price,” Schrӧder added, when asked if he believed whether – in the light of the NSA scandal – the data protection regulation should be pushed through more quickly.

Meanwhile the UK and Sweden, whilst favouring the one-stop-shop proposal, continue to argue that the regulation should instead be a directive, allowing member states greater flexibility in transposing the rules.

“We worked intensively during the entire period of our presidency on this, however there is a significant gap in member states positions on this,” said Juozas Bernatonis, the Lithuanian justice minister who was chairing the meeting.

Ministers agreed in principle to the one-stop-shop principle in October, so the failure represented a blow to achieving agreement on a complicated dossier.

“Today’s meeting was a disappointing day for data protection… today we have moved backwards and I am very disappointed about that, because a swift agreement would be important for our citizens as well as our companies,” said Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner.

Parliament’s rapporteur reacts angrily

Lawmakers in the European parliament’s civil liberties committee voted in October to strengthen Europe’s data protection laws, including plans to impose fines of up to €100 million on companies such as Yahoo!, Facebook or Google if they break the rules.

The Parliament, and Reding, have consistently tied the need for stronger data protection to acknowledge alleged privacy abuses arising from information leaked by former US espionage contractor Edward Snowden.

“It’s just ridiculous. The German government has talked about data protection throughout the last months, Chancellor Angela Merkel said it is priority and then the German interior minister is going to Luxemburg and Brussels and doing exactly the opposite,” said German Green MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht.

“They use the argument that they are safeguarding German consumer rights, but these arguments are lies, because the Parliament has insisted on consumer protections which are of exactly the same standards as those in Germany,” Albrecht added.

The article Data Protection Reform In Peril As Germany Stymies Deal appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By EurActiv

(EurActiv) — Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy urged more unity for Europe and said a banking union for the region should be finalised this month, El País reported in an interview published on its website late yesterday (8 December).

Spanish politicians are not impervious to the consequences of corruption, Rajoy told El País, and he denied any parallel accounting in his party in relation to a slush fund scandal that has dogged the centre-right People’s Party this year.

The country recently tumbled 10 places to rank 40th in a global index of perceived official corruption following a spate of scandals in the ruling People’s Party and the royal family.

Spain was at the heart of the eurozone debt crisis last year, but emerged from recession in the third quarter and is funding itself comfortably on the money markets once more following a European Central Bank pledge to defend the euro at all costs.

Rajoy said the worst was over for Europe and member states must now work towards greater growth and integration.

“What concerns me most is that all European governments, especially that of Germany […] have a clear view of where we are headed.”

The remaining details regarding the supervisory banking union for the monetary union must be sewn up in December, he said.

“It’s very important that all the decisions about the design of the banking union are finalised in December,” he said. “The priority for Spain is that the matter is closed.”

France too hopes a deal will be clinched on a European banking union before the end of 2013, the country’s Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said yesterday (8 December).

In Berlin on Friday European finance ministers and senior EU officials met to try to forge a compromise on rules to wind down stricken banks, with time running out to reach a deal by a year-end deadline.

“I hope that on Tuesday evening, maybe in the night of Tuesday, we’ll reach a deal and if we don’t succeed then we will succeed the following week when we meet on 18 December,” Moscovici said ahead of next week’s regular gathering of European finance ministers in Brussels.

Moscovici said Friday’s meeting had been useful.

“Everyone moved a little,” he said.

The sticking point is staunch opposition from Germany, and some of its northern European allies, to proposals that would give the European Commission new powers to wind down banks.

The European Union has said it wants to agree a deal on bank resolution, a key plank of its ambitious “banking union” project, by year-end. Failure to meet that goal could lead to significant delays in implementation because of looming European Parliament elections and changes in the makeup of the European Commission.

The article Spain, France Say Banking Union Possible By Year’s End appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Robert Reich

The Justice Department has just obtained documents showing that JPMorgan Chase, Wall Street’s biggest bank, has been hiring the children of China’s ruling elite in order to secure “existing and potential business opportunities” from Chinese government-run companies. “You all know I have always been a big believer of the Sons and Daughters program,” says one JP Morgan executive in an email, because “it almost has a linear relationship” to winning assignments to advise Chinese companies. The documents even include spreadsheets that list the bank’s “track record” for converting hires into business deals.

It’s a serious offense. But let’s get real. How different is bribing China’s “princelings,” as they’re called there, from Wall Street’s ongoing program of hiring departing U.S. Treasury officials, presumably in order to grease the wheels of official Washington? Timothy Geithner, Obama’s first Treasury Secretary, is now president of the private-equity firm Warburg Pincus; Obama’s budget director Peter Orszag is now a top executive at Citigroup.

Or, for that matter, how different is what JP Morgan did in China from Wall Street’s habit of hiring the children of powerful American politicians? (I don’t mean to suggest Chelsea Clinton got her hedge-fund job at Avenue Capital LLC, where she worked from 2006 to 2009, on the basis of anything other than her financial talents.)

And how much worse is JP Morgan’s putative offense in China than the torrent of money JP Morgan and every other major Wall Street bank is pouring into the campaign coffers of American politicians — making the Street one of the major backers of Democrats as well as Republicans?

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, under which JP Morgan could be indicted for the favors it has bestowed in China, is quite strict. It prohibits American companies from paying money or offering anything of value to foreign officials for the purpose of “securing any improper advantage.” Hiring one of their children can certainly qualify as a gift, even without any direct benefit to the official.

JP Morgan couldn’t even defend itself by arguing it didn’t make any particular deal or get any specific advantage as a result of the hires. Under the Act, the gift doesn’t have to be linked to any particular benefit to the American firm as long as it’s intended to generate an advantage its competitors don’t enjoy.

Compared to this, corruption of American officials is a breeze.  Consider, for example, Countrywide Financial’s generous “Friends of Angelo” lending program, named after its chief executive, Angelo R. Mozilo, that gave discounted mortgages to influential members of Congress and their staffs before the housing bubble burst. No criminal or civil charges have ever been filed related to these loans.

Even before the Supreme Court’s shameful 2010 “Citizens United” decision — equating corporations with human beings under the First Amendment, and thereby shielding much corporate political spending – Republican appointees to the Court had done everything they could to blunt anti-bribery laws in the United States. In 1999, in “United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers,” Justice Scalia, writing for the Court, interpreted an anti-bribery law so loosely as to allow corporations to give gifts to public officials unless the gifts are linked to specific policies.

We don’t even require that American corporations disclose to their own shareholders the largesse they bestow on our politicians. Last year around this time, when the Securities and Exchange Commission released its 2013 to-do list, it signaled it might formally propose a rule to require corporations to disclose their political spending. The idea had attracted more than 600,000 mostly favorable comments from the public, a record response for the agency.

But the idea mysteriously slipped off the 2014 agenda released last week, without explanation. Could it have anything to do with the fact that, soon after becoming SEC chair last April, Mary Jo White was pressed by Republican lawmakers to abandon the idea, which was fiercely opposed by business groups.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is important, and JP Morgan should be nailed for bribing Chinese officials. But, if you’ll pardon me for asking, why isn’t there a Domestic Corrupt Practices Act?

Never before has so much U.S. corporate and Wall-Street money poured into our nation’s capital, as well as into our state capitals. Never before have so many Washington officials taken jobs in corporations, lobbying firms, trade associations, and on the Street immediately after leaving office. Our democracy is drowning in big money.

Corruption is corruption, and bribery is bribery, in whatever country or language it’s transacted in.

The article JP Morgan Chase, The Foreign Corrupt Practice Act, And The Corruption Of America – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By JTW

By Ihsan Bal

No matter how much events in the Middle East and the approaching local elections may be occupying Turkey’s agenda and absorbing its energy, events are occurring in Europe—the lodestar of our fifty-year foreign policy adventure—events which Turkey cannot ignore but rather must analyse and whose effects Turkey must expose. Foremost among these come the growing racism, radicalism, and extremism in Europe.

The opening of the 22nd Chapter of the EU’s Acquis Communitaire has excited us and could bring Turkish-EU relations—relations suspended for the last three and a half years—back onto our national agenda. But just as we concentrate our attention on items concerned with the political, social and economic affairs on this agenda, we also need to read correctly the spread of racism and extremism, both socially and politically, in Europe.

Racist rhetoric-using extreme right-wing parties are now generating excitement at the ballot boxes. A good many parties formerly considered marginal and unworthy of discussion are now a serious issue for Europe, from Greece’s Golden Dawn to France’s National Front, and from the UK’s British National Front to Denmark’s Danish People’s Party.

We are facing a new period in which young people, carried away by these parties’ racist language based on ‘otherisation’ and xenophobia, are becoming radicalised and militant. Racism and radicalism are not new concepts to Europe; both have an historical background. But since the Second World War, a view has prevailed that movements of this kind can be forestalled with the European Union project. The main plank of this view was multiculturalism within a framework of “unity in diversity.”

This approach took multiculturalism to be the principal view of politics and civilisation throughout the Union. The cultural deepening of the Union, its economic development, and its progress in political integration had led to a more sophisticated and pluralist view being defended ever more convincingly each day.

However, it is clear that Europe has awakened from its fifty-year, post-Second World War dream of having left fascism behind to see that it faces serious threats. The economic crisis has created a broad social and political basis for a racism and extremism combined with an Islamophobia which has grown stronger since the 11 September attacks.

It can be ignored no longer

The economic crisis in the European Union has dominated a succession of leaders’ summits, and as a result debates on racism, radicalism, and extremism have not been given the same importance. However crime statistics that reveal rapidly-growing dossiers on racism and extremism suggest that the problem has recently grown more visible. The huge shock in Norway over Anders Breivik, the NSU case in Germany, and the trials related to the Golden Dawn Party in Greece are pushing debates about the phenomenon to a breaking point.

Turkey’s role

It is unthinkable that Turkey should stay away from a Europe which is reopening discussions on pluralism and multiculturalism and broaching the subjects of racism-radicalism and extremism on its own quarters. The newly-revived relations are important for establishing partnerships that can find solutions on these issues. Indeed, Turkey is not merely a passive partner importing a notion of civilization produced and developed by Europe; it can also be a partner, contributing to the development of Europe’s system of values, and playing an active role in eliminating emerging problems.

Ihsan Bal, Head of USAK Academic Council

The article Turkey-EU Relations And Racism – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Radio Zamaneh

A spokesman for the Iranian government is denying reports published by a number of Iranian websites that the government has decided to send Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to the funeral service of former South African president Nelson Mandela.

The ceremony commemorating Mandela will take place on Tuesday December 10 at a soccer stadium in Soweto.

The Keyhan daily, a prominent hardline voice in the Islamic Republic establishment, blasted those who are calling for President Rohani to attend the ceremony in person, writing: “They are trying to push Rohani toward meeting with Obama.” Keyhan has been a strong voice against the re-establishment of relations with the United States.

Former prime minister Mohammad Khatami has expressed his wish to attend the ceremony honouring the South African leader. Khatami was barred from travelling abroad during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency.

Nine prominent reformist figures in Iran issued a letter calling on Rohani to try to clear the way for Khatami to attend tomorrow’s ceremony.

The ceremony will be attended by more than 60 foreign leaders and dignitaries, including Barack Obama and three former U.S. presidents, the leaders of France, Brazil and Britain as well as Willem Alexander, the King of the Netherlands, and Prince Philip of Spain.

The article Mandela Memorial Becomes Lightning Rod For Iranian Political Intrigue appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

The EU’s Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) updated Monday its guidance on the use of portable electronic devices on board (PED), including smartphones, tablets and e-readers. It confirms that these devices may be kept switched on in “Flight Mode” (non-transmitting mode) throughout the journey (including taxiing, take-off and landing) without a risk to safety.

EU Transport Commissioner, Vice President Siim Kallas has asked EASA to accelerate its safety review of the use of electronic devices on board in transmitting mode, with new guidance expected to be published early in 2014.

“We all like to stay connected while we are travelling, but safety is the key word here,” Kallas said. “I have asked for a review based on a clear principle: if it’s not safe it should not be allowed, but if it is safe, it can be used within the rules. Today we are taking a first step to safely expand the use of in-flight electronics during taxiing, take-off and landing.”

Kallas added, “Next we want to look at how to connect to the network while on board. The review will take time and it must be evidence-led. We expect to issue new EU guidance on the use of transmitting devices on board EU carriers within the next year.”

The updated safety guidance refers to portable electronic devices (PED) used in non-transmitting mode, better known as “flight mode”. It allows, for the first time, the use of personal electronic devices in flight mode in all phases of the journey, from gate to gate.

Prior to this all personal electronic devices had to be completely turned off during taxiing, take-off and landing.

Kallas has asked the EU’s Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to accelerate the review of the safe use of transmitting devices on board – with new guidance to be published in the coming months.

In general, airlines do not currently allow phone or wi-fi connection from the time the aircraft doors have closed until the aircraft has arrived at the gate and the doors are open again.

The article EU Extends Use Of Electronic Devices On Planes appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

16.2%: that’s the size of the gender pay gap, or the average difference between women and men’s hourly earnings across the EU, according to the latest figures released Monday by the European Commission. The figure remains the same from a year ago.

According to a report published by the European Commission, the pay gap between women and men is still a reality in all EU countries, ranging from 27.3% in Estonia to 2.3% in Slovenia. Overall figures confirm a weak downward trend in recent years, with a decrease of 1.1% between 2008 and 2011. Today’s report shows the biggest problem in fighting the EU pay gap is the practical application of equal pay rules and the lack of legal action brought by women to national courts.

“With laws guaranteeing equal pay for equal work, equality in the workplace and minimum rights to maternity leave, gender equality is a European achievement. But there is still a way to go to full gender equality. The pay gap is still large and it is not budging. To make things worse: much of the change actually resulted from a decline in men’s earnings rather than an increase for women,” said Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner. “The principle of equal pay for equal work is written in the EU Treaties since 1957. It is high time that it becomes a reality in the workplace as well.”

The report assesses the application of the provisions on equal pay in practice in EU countries, and predicts that for the future, the main challenge for all Member States will be the correct application and enforcement of the rules established by the 2006 Equality Directive.

The Commission as the Guardian of the Treaties has ensured Member States have correctly transposed EU equal treatment rules, launching infringement cases against 23 Member States regarding the way these Member States transposed a number of EU gender equality laws. All but one of these cases have been closed.

However, the report confirms the effective application of the equal pay principle is hindered by the lack of transparency in pay systems, the lack of clear benchmarks on pay equality, and by a lack of clear information for workers that suffer inequality. Increased wage transparency could improve the situation of individual victims of pay discrimination who would be able to compare themselves more easily to workers of the other sex.

The article Women In Europe Still Work 59 Days ‘For Free’, According to EU Commission Report appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SA News

US President Barack Obama has arrived at Waterkloof Air Force Base, ahead of the official Memorial Service of later former President Nelson Mandela.

President Obama is being accompanied by former US President George W. Bush, his wife Laura Bush, as well as former US President Bill Clinton, along with his wife, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter and his wife.

He was welcomed by International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.

In a rare moment in history, Obama is one of 91 Heads of State and Government and 10 former Heads of State who are expected to attend the historic event at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.

Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane said yesterday that government had extended a warm welcome to all guests arriving in the country.

Government had advised the visiting leaders, some of whom arrived today, to attend tomorrow’s memorial service, rather than Sunday’s burial in Qunu in the Eastern Cape.

The article Obama Touches Down In South Africa appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SA News

Not even the rain has deterred mourners and sympathisers from attending the historic Memorial Service of late former President Nelson Mandela on Tuesday morning.

By 7am, people were flocking in large numbers to the stadium armed with survival kits – umbrellas, windbreakers, hoodies and hats – to witness the unprecendented event that has attracted thousands of mourners from around the world.

Outside the stadium, people showed off their memorabilia to fellow mourners and foreign media as they joined those who danced and sang struggle songs in tribute of Madiba.

From the inside, the calabash was starting to fill up as people ignored the rain, In African culture it is regarded as a blessing when it showers during a period of bereavement.

The article South Africa: Mandela Mourners Not Deterred By Rain appeared first on Eurasia Review.