By Trend News Agency

By Rahim Zamanov

Giant oil companies such as Shell and Total need to use the full capacity of Iran’s domestic manufacturers in order to carry out projects in the country’s oil and gas sector, Deputy Oil Minister Emad Hosseini said on Jan. 14, the Mehr News Agency reported.

“Domestic manufacturers also need to boost the quality of their products in order to meet global standards” he explained.
“The cost of oil and gas projects has been increased by three to four times in the past few years,” Hosseini said.
He made the remarks at the sideline of the 10th edition of Kish International Energy Exhibition.

Iran on Dec.4 named seven Western oil companies it wants back in its vast oil and gas fields if international sanctions are lifted and said it would outline investment terms in April next year, Reuters reported.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh named the seven in order: Total of France, Royal Dutch Shell, Italy’s ENI, Norway’s Statoil, Britain’s BP and U.S. companies Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips.

Iran has the world’s fourth-largest proved national reserves of oil – most of it cheap to produce – and is home to the biggest proved reserves of natural gas, some 18 percent of the global total.

With nationalization in the Islamic revolution of 1979, the oil companies were thrown out and Iran’s share of world oil production fell to below 40 percent by 1997 from 55 percent in the 1970s. They drifted back in the 1990s, and Zanganeh oversaw that return as minister in the reformist government of 1997-2005.

Total moved back into onshore fields in 1997 and Shell in 1999, both while Zanganeh was minister, and both in defiance of U.S. sanctions. President Bill Clinton had blocked a Conoco project in 1995.

But Iran’s production stagnated through the 2000s amid growing international tensions over its nuclear program. The more effective sanctions instituted in 2012 have choked out foreign investment and sent output down to 2.65 million barrels a day in November from an average of 4.3 million in 2011.

Iran reached an interim deal last month with six western powers to limit its nuclear program, under which sanctions on oil investment and trade with Iran may be eased next year – although for now the agreement does not explicitly include a relaxation of the controls on Iranian oil sales.

Speaking to reporters at an OPEC meeting, Zanganeh said he was already talking with some companies, although so far not those from the United States.

“We had no limitations for U.S. companies. Twenty years ago there were limitations against them from their own administration. For doing projects in Iran, we have no limitations,” Zanganeh said.

He is due to meet senior executives from Western oil companies including Eni and Shell on Thursday, an Iranian oil official said.

Zanganeh made no mention of Russian, Chinese or Japanese companies or those of other nationalities. Asked whether he would like to see Asian, Indian or Chinese companies coming to Iran as well, he said: “Yes, but now we are discussing with European (firms)”.

He said contract terms would be better than those in post-war Iraq, which limited oil companies to operating fees rather than the share of production deals they prefer.

“I cannot say more about the detail,” Zanganeh said.

The article Iran Sets Pre-Condition For Oil Contracts With Shell, Total appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Agentura

By Andrei Soldatov

When Dokku Umarov, the leader of the Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, issued a statement six months ago promising a strike on the Olympics in Sochi, Russian authorities were faced with two major questions. Experts and the secret services asked whether militants still possessed the capabilities to hit beyond the North Caucasus, and whether they had recruits willing to carry out suicide bombing attacks. Now both of those questions have been answered.

Almost two years ago Umarov promised not to attack civilians in central Russia, ostensibly in response to the large-scale anti-Putin protests in Moscow. The bombing at Domodedovo airport in January 2011 was the last large-scale suicide bombing in central Russia until late October when Volgograd was hit for the first by a female suicide bomber who killed seven people on a city bus.

These 32 months of relative calm do not mean there were no terrorist attacks at all – bombings and shootings exacted a deadly toll in the North Caucausus almost on a weekly basis.

But nobody in central Russia seemed to care.

Meanwhile Russian secret services insisted that the terrorist attacks ceased thanks to their efficiency, not because of the embargo imposed by Umarov.

After Doku Umarov’s threat against Sochi, we have now seen a series of bombings in Central Russia, all of them in Volgograd. The series are probably meant to send a message that the militants have capabilities, people and a resurgent organisation (the ringleader in charge of the 21 October Volgograd attack had already been killed by security forces but it didn’t stop terrorists targeting the train station and then a trolleybus in the same city). But unfortunately that is not the worst-case scenario. What the secret services should now presume is that the Volgograd bombings were intended as a diversion, to distract their attention from Sochi.

It has happened before, and the tactics are well known: before the Beslan school siege in North Ossetia in September 2004, two planes which took off from Moscow were brought down by female suicide bombings. Days before Chechen militants took 850 people hostage at Moscow’s Dubrovka Theatre in October 2002, a car had been blown up in a different district of the Russian capital.

Ensuring security at the Sochi Olympics was already a nightmare for the secret services long before Umarov’s statement or the bombings in Volgograd. The area’s proximity to the North Caucasus, and to the unstable and poorly governed republic of Abkhazia is one thing. The other is that the Olympics presents a tempting opportunity for many young and ambitious militants to make their name.

Over the last 12 years the strong censorship in Russian media has deprived the militants of attention, but for the Olympics the eyes of all major global news organisations will be on Sochi. The younger generation are desperate to forge a reputation for themselves, and they envy Umarov, who came to prominence in the late 1990s. Meanwhile, Russian secret services are still plagued by problems surrounding coordination and intelligence sharing between agencies and even departments, mostly due to a lack of interdepartmental trust.

In these difficult circumstances, the way in which the Russian secret services is responding to the threat looks questionable at very least. When the FSB (Federal Security Service) was tasked in 2010 with providing security for the Olympics, the agency named its main spy hunter, not the head of the counterterrorism department, as chairman of the operations staff.

The FSB has also much put effort into installing cutting-edge surveillance technologies in the Sochi area – but many of them are not intended to detect terrorists. The latest initiative, announced in November, involves the gathering of metadata on all participants of the Games, including sportsmen, judges and journalists, which will be be stored for three years. The agency is also keen to use drones, which are useless in detecting a suicide bomber, but could help in disrupting protests.

It seems the Russian secret services do not understand that maintaining control over everyone and everything (essentially the idea inherited from the Soviet past) and preventing a terrorist attack are far from being the same thing.

Andrei Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist and security services expert who co-founded and edits Agentura.Ru, an information hub on intelligence agencies. His book with Agentura co-founder Irina Borogan, The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB, was published in 2010.

Published in The Daily Telegraph 31.12.2013

The article Volgograd And An Olympics Under Threat – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

In November 2013 compared with October 2013, seasonally adjusted industrial production grew by 1.8% in the euro area (EA17) and by 1.5% in the EU28, according to estimates from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In October, industrial production decreased by 0.8% and 0.5% respectively.

In November 2013 compared with November 2012, industrial production increased by 3.0% in both the euro area and the EU28.

Monthly comparison

In November 2013 compared with October 2013, production of capital goods grew by 3.0% in the euro area and by 2.6% in the EU28. Durable consumer goods increased by 2.2% and 1.5% respectively. Energy rose by 1.8% in the euro area and by 1.2% in the EU28. Non-durable consumer goods gained 1.4% and 0.9% respectively. Intermediate goods grew by 1.0% in the euro area and by 0.8% in the EU28.

Among the Member States for which data are available, industrial production rose in sixteen, remained stable in three and fell in six. The highest increases were registered in Ireland (+11.7%), Sweden (+6.4%), Malta (+3.8%), Croatia (+3.0%), the Netherlands (+2.5%) and Germany (+2.4%), and the largest decreases in Lithuania (-3.5%), Denmark (-3.0%) and Greece (-2.2%).

Annual comparison

In November 2013 compared with November 2012, production of capital goods rose by 4.4% in the euro area and by 4.7% in the EU28. Intermediate goods grew by 3.3% and 3.5% respectively. Non-durable consumer goods increased by 3.1% in the euro area and by 2.7% in the EU28. Energy decreased by 0.5% and 1.4% respectively. Durable consumer goods fell by 0.8% in the euro area and by 0.3% in the EU28.

Among the Member States for which data are available, industrial production rose in nineteen and fell in six. The highest increases were registered in Ireland (+13.2%), Slovakia (+12.7%), the Czech Republic (+8.8%) and Romania (+8.7%), and the largest decreases in Malta (-8.6%) and Greece (-6.2%).

The article Industrial Production Up By 1.8% In Euro Area, Up By 1.5% In EU28 appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Palestine Chronicle

By Shafiq Morton

Ariel Sharon, former Israeli Prime Minister, has passed on at the age of 85. After a lingering coma induced by a stroke in 2006, his body has finally shut down – and the curtain has fallen on what can only be described as a colorful, if not chequered career.

Although I never met him personally, Sharon’s presence appeared to haunt me wherever I went in the Middle East. Larger than life, his brazenness has seen him enjoying a career in which a bull in a china shop has seemed like a ballet dancer.

Indeed, no amount of apologetic obituaries will be able to wish away the fact that Ariel Sharon was one of Israel’s most belligerent political figures – the word “political architect” (as used by a US journalist) is certainly inflated language for a man whose solution in 2000 was to suggest the killing of arch foe Yasser Arafat.

Sentimental tributes written about him being an “avuncular figure”, a “warrior statesman” or a “complicated man” wrestling with the inevitability of a Palestinian settlement, are as authentic as Count Dracula being a teddy bear.

The truth is that the arrogantly imperial Sharon was never about peace. “Pragmatic” he may have been, but his chief business was ethnic separation between Israelis and Arabs. As a soldier this meant enforcement by the gun; and as a politician it meant concrete walls, razor wire and illegal settlements.

His response to Ehud Barak’s Camp David talks with PLO leader Yasser ‘Arafat is a typical example of his lack of subtlety. His Al-Aqsa mosque walkabout, accompanied by over 1,000 guards, lit the fires of the second Palestinian Intifada.

As I dig through old notebooks, Sharon’s name crops up time and again. Unit 101, a special “retaliation” force created by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion – of which Sharon was a 25-year old major – features as prominently as the Deir Yasin massacre.

For in August 1953, Unit 101 attacked the Gazan refugee camp of Al-Bureij, killing at least 20 refugees. This was followed by Sharon leading the Qibya massacre in Jordan two months later. This time there were 69 fatalities with the victims, mainly civilians, being dynamited whilst in their homes.

The Qibya attack was condemned by the UN and the US State Department, but no-one was ever held accountable.

Sharon’s trail of destruction did not end there. In Gaza in 1971, as head of the IDF southern command, he’d bulldozed 2,000 homes, rendered 16,000 people homeless and assassinated over 100 resistance fighters.

As a politician his hand was no less heavy. The Negev Bedouin do not have happy memories of him as Agriculture Minister. In 1979 he declared a 1,500 square kilometer area a “national park”, denying the Bedouin access to their ancestral land.

He created a para-military unit called the Green Patrol that uprooted 900 Bedouin encampments and almost saw the extinction of the black goat, whose wool provided material for traditional nomad tents.

But it was in Lebanon that Sharon, as Defense Minister, became a household name. Space does not permit more than a summary background to Israel’s 1982 invasion, essentially aimed at chasing Yasser Arafat’s PLO out of the Levant and neutralizing the Syrian presence.

Bashir Gemayel, leader of the Kata’ib Party, had been voted into power with the help of western intelligence. Unfortunately, one of his neighbors was a Syrian agent, who blew him up whilst addressing party members. Sharon’s response to the assassination was to blame the Palestinians.

The PLO had just withdrawn from Beirut and Kata’ib – or Phalangist – forces were in the vicinity of the Sabra and Shatila, which were now defenseless Palestinian neighborhoods. In violation of a ceasefire accord, the Israeli IDF had reoccupied the area, sealing off Sabra and Shatila.

According to reports, Ariel Sharon and IDF chief of staff, Rafael Eitan, met with Phalangist units, inviting them to enter Sabra and Shatila. Hours later about 1,500 militias under the command of Elie Hobeika moved in. Watched by Israeli forces, and aided by IDF flares, the raping, mutilation and killing began.

All in all, it’s believed that about 2,000 people were massacred by Phalangist forces whilst the IDF looked on. The UN General Assembly condemned the killings as “genocide” and Israel’s own Yitzhak Kahan Commission fingered Sharon. However, Prime Minister Menachim Begin refused to fire him.

I visited Sabra and Shatila some 15 years after the massacre to do research for a book. Although some buildings were still burnt out and pockmarked with bullets, most of the neighborhood had been rebuilt.

But in the dark and cramped alleys there was still a somber mood. Those who’d survived asked why nobody had protected them and – unsurprisingly – had emotional difficulty recounting events. In Shatila I discovered that the mosque floor had been dug up to bury the dead because of lack of space.

I visited the main graveyard of the massacre, an open, cold space devoid of tombstones. “Too many bodies,” said my translator, “too many bodies.”

But that was not the end of the story. People kept on talking about a secondary massacre, when hundreds of people had been detained and questioned at the sports stadium, some disappearing without trace.

“There are hundreds bodies under the Rihab Gas Station,” I was told.

This took me by surprise, for not even The Independent’s Robert Fisk – who had reported on the stadium events – had spoken about this particular graveyard.  Were these yet more trampled ghosts of Sharon’s past? I do not have the answer.

But who exactly was Sharon? The acerbic Israeli commentator, Uri Avnery, describes Sharon as an “Israeli Napoleon”, the ultimate integration of personal and national egocentrism. What was good for Sharon was good for national interest – and whoever wanted to stop him had to get out the way for Sharon, and Sharon alone, could save Israel.

He thought he was well on his way to doing this via Kadima when he met his Waterloo, a debilitating stroke that saw his dream of an ethnically cleansed Israel – with Palestinians finally crammed into Jordan and Gaza – condemned to an inter-space of chronic comatose incapacity between life and death.

- Shafiq Morton is an award-winning Cape Town photojournalist and author. He has covered the anti-apartheid struggle, the release of Nelson Mandela and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as well as conflict worldwide. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

The article Ariel Sharon: The Israeli Napoleon Who Never Was – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ria Novosti

By Kevin O’Flynn

Intrigue, ideology and victory against the odds – an exhibition in Moscow held to coincide with the upcoming Sochi Olympics explores that and more about the history of Soviet participation in the Winter Games.

The show brings together Games-related ephemera, photographs and a trove of declassified documents from Central Committee meetings, including one on a doomed Sochi hosting bid.

Soviet authorities only agreed to send athletes to the Winter Games for the first time in 1955, and even then, only after doing whatever they could to ensure their competitors would be best positioned to come out on top.

The Soviets had considered entering the Winter Olympics in 1952 – their athletes took part in the Summer Olympics that year – but demurred over concerns about where the athletes would live.

With the 1952 Winter Olympics taking place in Oslo, Norway, a NATO member, the Soviets delayed their debut until the Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, in 1956 as a mood of relative political liberalization had taken hold.

The exhibition, called “The White Games. Top Secret. USSR and the Winter Games, 1956 to 1988,” shows how the decision to lift the country out of international sports isolation was taken at the highest level.

The Central Committee received detailed reports on how many athletes would go, as well as updates on training, how much foreign currency they were to be given, and how many days each team member would be allowed to remain abroad.

Unsure of success before their winter debut, the Soviets tried to have the decidedly non-wintry sports of boxing, gymnastics and chess added to the Winter Olympic Games roster.

The need for assured victories required some adaption. Russians traditionally played bandy, a sport resembling ice hockey but played outside with a ball.

Viktor Shuvalov, 90, a member of the Soviet team that won the 1956 hockey Olympics gold medal, recalls their first attempt at the foreign variation as a frustrating exercise.

“We were used to hitting the ball, not sliding [the puck] in Russian hockey. How we got fed up with that puck,” he told Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper. “After training we were covered in bruises, scratches … It was horrible to see.”

But the preparations paid off. The Soviets won the Ice Hockey World Championships in 1954, before winning the Olympic gold two years later. In fact, the Soviet Union won the most medals at the 1956 Games, thus beginning a dominance of winter sports that lasted until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

If many of the documents on display deal with the minutiae of sports organization – the plan for training sportsmen was fulfilled to 75.6 percent, Kremlin officials were told at one point –there are also glimpses into how ideology was never far from the lives of the sportsmen.

One display shows a letter to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev from champion speed skater Lidiya Skoblikova, who won four gold medals at Innsbruck in 1964, asking to be made a member of the Communist Party.

As Skoblikova explains, when asked at a press conference in Innsbruck whether she was a party member, she could only answer that she belonged to the party’s youth section. In the end, Khrushchev came through and granted her the long sought-after membership.

Another telegram in 1979 signed by the national hockey team’s top players, including legendary goaltender Vladislav Tretyak, reached then Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. It is written in finest Sovietese: “Dear Leonid Ilyich, we inform you that Soviet hockey players have fulfilled the mandate of the motherland, and in an exceptionally hard-fought sporting battle beat a team made up of the strongest professional players from the USA, Canada and Sweden.

“This victory we dedicate to the Communist Party which has brought us up, and the Soviet people, who are preparing for the glorious event – the elections in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.”

A more secret report on the 1978 World Ice Hockey Championships in Prague talks about a “pro-Western mood” among Czechoslovakian hockey supporters, who not only backed their own side, but also any Western team. The account takes exception to the anti-Moscow mood created by people in the crowd, including schoolchildren, egging on teams facing the Soviets.

When the Soviet side won, the report complains that local officials fled rather than having to perform the standard congratulation rites.

One letter from 1972 touches on the theme of corruption and bias among ice-skating judges. It complains about a Polish ice-skating judge who reneged on a deal with a Soviet judge to place the Soviet pair in fourth place in exchange for the Poles getting sixth. Other judges listed in the letter are also accused of bias against Soviet skaters.

By the 1980s, the Soviets were still leading the pack, but looked around at increasingly confident rivals with concern, especially with their own facilities either crumbling or simply nonexistent.

Astoundingly, the Soviets managed to win the two-man bobsled event at the 1988 Games in Calgary, despite the country lacking its own course. Vladimir Kozlov, who was on the team, told Moskovskiye Novosti that local factories were used to create a bobsled for athletes and that a track was created by manually packing snow.

The exhibition briefly hints at the discontent felt by some athletes in a Central Committee report written after two-time Olympic ice skating pair champions Oleg Protopopov and Lyudmila Belousova defected to Switzerland in 1979.

In the 1980s, the Soviets were beginning to consider putting in a bid to host the Winter Games for the first time.

During a Central Committee discussion on putting forward St. Petersburg as a host for the 1996 Games, one official argued in favor by pointing to the example of Yugoslavia, which earned a tidy profit by holding the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.

Controversial International Olympic Committee chief Juan Antonio Samaranch, who earned his position thanks to Soviet support, makes an appearance in an early 1980s transcript of a meeting with Heydar Aliyev, a top Communist Party functionary who was later to become president of Azerbaijan.

“It is undoubtedly many times easier to organize Games in socialist countries than in the United States, so I am calm about Sarajevo, but Los Angeles will create a lot of difficulties and problems,” said Samaranch, speaking of the 1984 Winter and Summer Olympics.

Samaranch’s parting words in the meeting are “I have a good memory, and I remember my friends.”

St. Petersburg’s bid failed all the same, and when the idea resurfaced in 1989, Moscow considered three sites: Krasnaya Polyana/Sochi, the venue of next month’s Games, Alma-Ata, then-capital of Soviet Kazakhstan, and Bakuriani in Georgia.

The options were finally narrowed down to Sochi, but the breakup of the Soviet Union ended its bid.

Officials estimated the Black Sea resort would require an investment of 650 million rubles if it was to host the Games. Even accounting for inflation, that figure amounts to roughly 70 times less than the $50 billion or so it has cost to prepare for the 2014 Games.

“The White Games. Top Secret. USSR and the Winter Games, 1956 to 1988” runs until Feb. 23. More details available at www.rusarchives.ru

The article The Sochi Games That Got Away – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Radio Zamaneh

A spokesman for the Iranian Atomic Agency has announced that representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency are scheduled to arrive in Tehran on January 18 to initiate the first steps in implementing the Geneva agreement.

Meanwhile, the U.S. president once again urged Congress to refrain from imposing fresh sanctions on Iran and give the agreement a chance.

Obama added that he is prepared to veto any new sanctions approved by Congress.

Iran has agreed to greater IAEA supervision over its nuclear program and the suspension of uranium enrichment at the 20 percent level, while world powers have, among other incentives, agreed to refrain from imposing new sanctions on Iran for the next six months.

Following the implementation of the Geneva agreement, the parties reportedly will meet in February to finalize a more comprehensive deal to end the disputes over Iran’s nuclear activities.

The article Nuclear Inspectors To Arrive In Iran This Weekend appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By TransConflict

A way should be found to ensure Mayor-elect, Krstimir Pantic, can take his place without further delay, whilst the Quint should make clear to Pristina that it will not allow efforts to delay or derail implementation.  This new opportunity to move forward with peaceful change could yet be lost.

By Gerard M. Gallucci

Despite the progress made through the Brussels dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, it seems there is still much left to be done to “regularize” the situation of north Kosovo.  Elections have been held and enough northern Kosovo Serbs participated to mark them minimally successful.  But as ever, the devils are in the details and they have shown their faces in the weeks since.  The essential issue remains what it has always been, most Kosovo Serb not surrounded by Albanians still refuse to be absorbed into an “independent” Kosovo state.  That is a reality as much as is Kosovo independence.

In 2013, the Quint – the EU and US – seemed to have finally understood that force could not impose submission to Pristina on the north.  The EU-led negotiations appeared to offer the possibility of a status-neutral approach to reaffirming Kosovo’s territorial integrity – including the north – within an Ahtisaari Plus framework allowing the northern Serbs local autonomy with links both to Belgrade and Pristina.  This had become the state of affairs south of the Ibar since the Quint allowed Pristina’s use of force to bully the Serb-majority areas there into acceptance.  The Brussels negotiations offered a way to bring the north into a similar arrangement but without overt submission to Pristina.  The north would participate in Kosovo elections overseen by the OSCE – which is still bound by UNSCR 1244 – and the resulting local governments – recognized by all – would operate within a Kosovo context with internationals taking the place of direct Pristina involvement.  Serbia would disband its own “parallel” institutions and fold its police and judicial officials into a Kosovo system.  Key would be implementing these steps in a status-neutral manner, with no direct involvement by Pristina nor any imposition of Kosovo state symbols.

Belgrade could go as far as it did in the negotiations to accept the practical loss of Kosovo only if it was not also forced to accept anything that would imply its outright recognition of Kosovo independence.  The deal seemed to be that the EU would find this sufficient to begin Serbia’s move into eventual EU membership.  The German Ambassador to Serbia reportedly has even suggested that recognition of Kosovo is not a requirement as long as Pristina and Belgrade regularize their relationship in some mutually acceptable manner.

The Kosovo Albanians accepted negotiations reluctantly and only under US pressure.  They want the north whole and on their terms and have made clear that they consider Kosovo an Albanian enterprise, as reaffirmed in the recent joint government session with Albania.  They may have been surprised that Belgrade accepted the form of compromise offered by the Quint as it does formally accept the factual loss of governing authority over its “province.”  But faced with the actuality of finding the north locally autonomous, recognized by the internationals, still with links to Serbia and beyond direct control, Pristina has tried to raise every obstacle it can to obstruct implementation in a status-neutral manner.  It will also drag its feet on remaining issues, including the courts, customs fees and property issues.

No detail goes unused by Pristina in its effort to prevent smooth implementation.  It apparently insisted that officials elected in the north – already by a minority vote – sign papers with Kosovo state symbols on them.  Someone among the internationals understood that no northern Serb could sign such a thing.  So they covered the state symbols up with glue and paper.  One poor local Kosovo Serb official swore he could not see through the glued-on paper and couldn’t even peel it off!  But the mayor-elect of North Mitrovica refused to sign.  His refusal may lead Pristina to call another election.  The Quint should stop playing games with glue and paper and ensure genuinely status-neutral means to implement the Brussels agreements.  A way should be found to ensure Mayor-elect Pantic can take his place without further delay.  And the Quint should make clear to Pristina that it will not allow efforts to delay or derail implementation.  This new opportunity to move forward with peaceful change could yet be lost.

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 Kosovo: Perhaps The Quint Still Doesn’t Understand The North? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By James Petras

Significant changes in Latin America have mystified writers, journalists, academics and policy-makers who purport to comment on developments in Latin America. The case of Bolivia and two term President Evo Morales (2006 – 2014) is illustrative of the utter confusion in political labelling.

A brief survey of his ideological pronouncements, foreign policy declarations and economic policies highlights a very astute political regime which successfully manipulates radical rhetoric and applies orthodox economic policies with a populist style of politics which insures repeated electoral victories and an unprecedented degree of political stability and continuity.

The Morales Regime in Perspective

From a comparative-historical perspective the Morales regime would probably be considered as the world’s most conservative radical regime or the most radical conservative regime. This apparent contradiction is resolved by examining the policies and practices of the regime. But what is not in question is that the Morales regime, his advisers and government, have extraordinary wide backing. His allies include leaders of the social movements at home, as well as overseas investors and mining executives, trade union leaders and domestic bankers; agro-business exporters and business leaders and Indian coca farmers, all enthusiastic supporters of the “First Indian President” in Latin America and the region’s leading advocate of extractive capital!

The Morales regime has won every election, six in all, since 2005, including two Presidential elections, each by a larger margin. His vote has increased from 50% to 60% and Morales, looking to national elections in 2014, promises to garner 70% of the ballots. No President in the history of Bolivia has secured consecutive electoral victories, and ruled democratically for such an extended period of time (8 years)with political stability.

The Morales Formula: Radicalism at the Service of Orthodoxy

The most striking aspect of the eight year rule of Evo Morales is his rigor and consistency in upholding orthodox economic policies – right out of the handbook of the international financial organizations.

Fiscal Policy

The Morales regime has exercised tight control over government spending, ensuring a budget surplus and keeping social spending and public investment at levels comparable to previous neo-liberal regimes. Pay raises for public sector workers are modest, barely keeping ahead of increases in the cost of living . The government has held the line against public sector unions, strongly resisting strikes and other forms of labor pressure. As a result, bankers and business people, both national and foreign, have benefited from low taxes, a stable currency and business friendly fiscal incentives.

Trade Policy

The Government has aimed for and secured favorable trade balances, based on the export of mineral and agricultural commodities. The Morales regime has used the billion dollar surpluses to triplicate foreign reserves, $14 billion dollars, guaranteeing foreign investors access to hard currency, when it comes to remitting profits. The boom in export earnings is a result of high commodity prices and an increase in government royalties. Only a small share of the high earnings has gone into public investments in manufacturing and social programs; most funds remain in the banks. At best the regime has increased spending on infrastructure to facilitate the transport of agro-mineral exports.

Investment Policy

The Morales regime has encouraged and protected large scale foreign investment in mining and agriculture. It has not nationalized any large mining operation. Instead it has bought shares in forming joint ventures and increased taxes to a modest and acceptable degree. Corporate profits are high, remittances are unencumbered, environmental and safety regulations are lax and labor conflicts are at historical lows.

Labor Policy

The Morales regime has encouraged labor union officials under its influence, to negotiate, hold down wage demands and accept moderate increases, just above the rate of inflation.

Morales has not increased labor’s power and prerogatives at the workplace, nor allowed labor any influence in shaping its extractive capital development strategy. Increases in the minimum wage have been incremental; the majority of labor, especially in the rural sector, live at or below the poverty line. Morales has rejected any notion of workers co-participation in public sector enterprises and upholds the authority of capital to hire and fire workers without adequate indemnification except under specific circumstances.

Morales, via his party (MAS – Movement to Socialism) exercises decisive influence over the leaders of the labor confederation (COB) and Indian movements, thus ensuring social stability and political certainty for the business elite. His period of labor peace is in sharp contrast to the general strikes and popular rebellion of the previous decades.

Class Harmony: Landlords and Indians, Mine Owners and Miners

Among the greatest achievements underlying Morales successful implementation of orthodox economic policies, has been his success in building a political and social coalition including historical adversaries.

During the first four years of his term as President, Morales faced strong and at times violent opposition from the regional elite in Santa Cruz, the wealthiest region in the country. He also faced powerful ‘personalist’ (caudillos) political opponents in Cochabamba and Sucre. Using his mass base and the military he crushed the most violent opposition and negotiated political and economic pacts with the leading business and agricultural families. Henceforth agro-business plantation owners received subsidies and tax exemptions to encourage exports and land-reform for landless peasants was relegated to marginal public lands,while small landholders received title to their existing plots Promoting agro-export became an integral part of Morales development strategy. Morales extended his electoral coalition to incorporate the elites in Santa Cruz, formerly the bastion of the Right.

To counter US destabilization, Morales terminated the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) activity, and expelled US Ambassador Goldberg following his blatant intervention in regional politics. Morales convoked a constituent assembly to write a new constitution for a “plurinational state” which consolidated Indian allegiance to the Morales regime. Decentralized cultural diversity ensured conformity to centrally planned orthodox economic policies

Foreign Policy: Radicalism Abroad Complements Orthodoxy at Home

While working closely and in conformity with agro-mineral, banking and foreign MNC interests at home, Morales launched a series of anti-imperialist manifestos against US intervention in Venezuela; repeatedly denounced the US blockade of Cuba; opposed the US backed military coup in Honduras’ and defended Argentina’s claim to the Malvinas Islands (what the Anglo-Americans call the Falkland Islands). Morales joined the radical regional bloc, ALBA, initiated by President Chavez and supported ‘regional integration’ which excluded the US. He denounced the TPP (The Trans Pacific Pact) as a ‘neo-liberal project’.

Evo Morales praised Edward Snowden and his revelations; denounced NSA spying and was especially indignant with Spain and France when his flight from Moscow was diverted and denied landing rights. At the same time that he was denouncing European collaboration with the US Empire, he was addressing major investors in Spain urging them to invest in Bolivia under favorable terms. In other words Evo’s radical pronouncements were directed at imperial interventionist policies, especially coup-promotion and integrationist schemes that isolated Bolivia from its political allies and Latin American economic partners. At the same time, Evo was careful to differentiate between imperial militarism which threatened his regime and foreign investment (economic imperialism) which fit in with his economic development strategy. In this context, friendship with Fidel Castro provided radical legitimacy for his overtures to the world’s leading mining conglomerates.

The Social Policies of a Radical Conservative

On December 22, 2013, Evo Morales surprised his enthusiastic leftist backers when he pronounced his support and defense of child labor and opposed ILO’s (International Labor Organizations) global campaign to ban it. According to Morales child labor was essential to supporting poor family income. According to Morales, Bolivia’s 850,000 child laborers (about one-fifth of Bolivia’s labor force) employed in factory, field and mining developed a “social conscience” in sweat shops. Inadvertently Morales revealed the extraordinarily lax labor code and lack of concern for the education and health of growing children. In fact in Bolivia low-wage child labor depresses wages for adult workers ..Child labor serves a “reserve army” allowing employers to replace militant adult workers. Cheap labor is rampant in Bolivia, which has the lowest minimum wage in South America: 90 cents an hours (USD) and the lowest monthly salary ($143 USD). Despite nearly $15 billion in foreign reserves and trade surpluses, 51.3% of the population lives on less than $2 a day. More to the point, social expenditures have only marginally increased and have been accompanied by increases in inequality: the top tenth percentile receives 45.4% of household income and the bottom 10 percentile 1%. The gini coefficient which measures inequality is 58.l2 (2009) compared to 57.9 in (1999).

Bolivia still depends on the export of raw materials and the import of finished goods. Its main exports are oil and staples and it imports petroleum products, finished goods and prepared foods. The promise to “industrialize” iron ore, petrol, zinc and tin has yet to take place. The major agricultural export crops, soybeans, cotton, sugar cane, coffee are produced by large plantation owners grouped in the Santa Cruz ‘100 families’. The most lucrative export for small farmers and peasants is coca leaf – the raw material for cocaine.

Conclusion

The Morales regime has successfully imposed a political economic model which has generated an unprecedented decade of political and social stability and a growth rate between 4% and 6%. He has secured joint ventures and investments from over fifty of the biggest multi-national corporations and is in good standing with the international financial organizations. Morales has received financial aid from both leftist (Venezuela) and rightist regimes (European Union). The Morales regime has sec ured an ever increasing percentage of votes, over the past decade, ensuring the continuity of policies, personnel, institutions and the class structure. Morales has successfully co-opted formerly militant trade unionists and peasant leaders, through radical rhetoric, stipends and subsidies. He has successfully converted them into “guardians of the status quo”. He has converted Santa Cruz oligarchs into political allies. Morales has isolated and stigmatized dissident peasant organizations and environmental groups protesting infrastructure and agro-mining projects devastating the environment as “tools of imperialism”. Even as he invites imperial MNC to take over natural resources.

Morales has been a master, without peer in Latin America, at justifying orthodox, reactionary policies with radical rhetoric. In defense of extractive capitalist depredation he cites Pachamama the Indian goddess of the Mother Earth;in defence of the exploitation of child labor he claims work inculcates social consciousness and contributes to family income. He provides a ‘bonus’ for school children while more than a third are out of school slaving at below minimum wage jobs (and achieving a “social conscience”). He provides a minimum pension that does not even cover basic survival living while he boasts of budget surpluses, a stable currency and the addition of billions annually to foreign reserves. He speaks to anti-imperialism yet embraces their neo-liberal economic orthodoxy. He describes his regime as a “government of workers and the poor” while his economic and social policies favor the top10%.

Evo Morales has secured a political-economic formula which has succeeded in gaining the support of the left and right, Fidel Castro and the IMF, the Santa Cruz agro-oligarchy and the Indian peasant coca farmers. He has defeated US destabilization and intervention by expelling AID and the DEA and strengthened the capitalist state and increased capitalist profits.

The Morales model of ‘radical conservatism’ is probably not for export to other ruling classes in Latin America. After all how many Indian presidents with a mass following and orthodox economic policies are there in the world? How many leaders can proclaim a “plurinational decentralized state” and centralize political power and economic decision-making in the hands of a small mestizo technocratic elite?

There is no doubt that Evo Morales is an exceptional leader, his multi-faceted politics reflect his genius as a political manipulator. He is not a social revolutionary or even a consequential social reformer. His regime is certainly not a government of workers and the poor. But Evo Morales is Bolivia’s most successful democratic capitalist ruler and he is still expanding his electoral base. The question is how long the “other 50%” will swallow his political chicanery.?

The article The Most Radical Conservative Regime: Bolivia Under Evo Morales – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Syria Comment - Joshua Landis

By Matthew Barber for Syria Comment

A new Twitter account that appeared last month is making waves within the jihadi community and rebel groups of Syria. It has not yet been noticed by the international media, but if the author’s claims are legitimate, it may significantly help to shape our understanding of ISIS.

The author of the @wikibaghdady Twitter account claims to be leaking inside information about the background and activities of ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, the most powerful al-Qaida force fighting in Syria). He started posting on December 10, and continues up to today. He presents a cursory sketch of the history of the Islamic State in Iraq (al-Qaida in Iraq), Jabhat al-Nusra, and the background leading up to ISI’s attempt to subsume Nusra within a larger, unified jihadi command, the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

The first question that emerges is whether this posted material is authentic or cleverly-composed fiction. If it is the latter, it is very clever indeed. The author doesn’t give information that would identify himself. Did he belong to ISIS/Al-Qaida in Iraq and defect? One thing that seems possible is that the account may take a position sympathetic to Jabhat al-Nusra. The author is ready enough to reveal all information about ISIS, but he never frames Nusra in a negative light. In responses to angry accusations by ISIS members on Twitter that the leaks are spurious, some connected observers have asserted that the author’s knowledge is real and all the material is true. It waits to be seen whether the account represents internal dissatisfaction with ISIS or part of the recently-deepening rift between ISIS and Nusra.

Though not highly detailed, the leaks do present us with some interesting insights into the structure of al-Qaida in Iraq, including protective strategies used to insulate key leadership figures, as well as al-Qaida’s readiness to embrace thievery and extortion to fund their own operations. What is also interesting is the claim that Nusra was created by al-Qaida in Iraq, not because they were serious about fighting the Syrian front, but merely as a measure to preserve their own powerbase in Iraq, which they feared might erode if too many became enthusiastic about participation with the jihad in Syria. Nusra’s fame would then grow to overshadow ISI’s, and the U.S. adding Nusra to the terror list further bolstered their prestige, fueling an eventual competitive clash between the two factions. The author of the leaks also claims that ISI ordered Nusra to attack FSA commanders.

One of the most significant insights that the leaks can provide is the alleged role of a previously-unknown figure, Hajji Bakr, who ostensibly acted as al-Baghdadi’s right-hand, but who in reality seems to have been the real power and mastermind of the group. (For background on al-Baghdadi and al-Julani, the leaders of ISI and Nusra, respectively, see these posts by Pieter van Ostaeyen: 1, 2) Unconfirmed reports have recently claimed that Hajji Bakr has been killed in Tel Raf’at, in Aleppo province, in clashes with other rebels. It’s all a bit odd; no one had ever heard of this person before this twitter account went live, and soon after he is reported dead. His death was reported by some Islamic Front rebels. There is still a question about the existence of this individual and we need more information that can confirm these claims. Following reports of Hajji Bakr’s death, a video parody participating in the online “Hitler meme” appeared online; all the names used in this parody rely heavily on the @wikibaghdady tweets.

We can’t establish the authenticity of the leaks, but as they do appear reasonably credible and likely true, we are posting selected translations of the leaks, below. (While we were preparing this post, al-Akhbar released an article reporting on these leaks.)

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The author began his twitter feed (December 10) with a series of prefacing questions that he planned to answer:

The first account to expose the secrets of the Dawlat al-Iraq wa al-Sham organization [ISIS] and who runs it… Who is al-Baghdadi? Have you seen his picture? The names of his council? What are his plans? Wait for us soon…

He tweeted that message several times, tagging well-known anti-ISIS/pro-jihadi figures on twitter, then asked more rhetorical questions:

Why did al-Baghdadi come to Syria?! And when?! Who was the first to welcome him?! Who are the sharia’a legislators who gave fatwas saying bayaa should be given him?! Who is the Iraqi officer that accompanies him?! Soon, here…

Who are the closest people to al-Baghdadi? What are their names?! Who are they who support him from outside, especially from Saudi Arabia?! Who manages the anonymous twitter handlers that support him?! Soon, here…

Where does al-Baghdadi get his money from?! Is [his organization] infiltrated?! And How?! Who gives him the fatwas for killing?! Soon, here…

Who supports al-Baghdadi in Saudi Arabia: who is the former Saudi officer Bandar al-Shaalan?! What is his role in moving and supporting the Daesh movement in Saudi Arabia?! Soon, here…

On December 14 he began to provide answers to the questions he laid out:

We will now start tweeting with Allah’s permission.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a real person but who uses a fake name and title, and everyone around him does the same thing. There’s no member of al-Baghdadi’s council [his inner circle] who uses his family name or real title.

Everyone of al-Baghdadi’s council are 100%  Iraqi; no other nationality is accepted because he doesn’t trust anyone.

The size of al-Baghdadi’s military council increases and decreases between 8 and 13 people.

al-Baghdadi’s military council is led by 3 people from the former Saddam army who belong to the Ba’ath party.

Those three are led by [the chief of the 3 is] Staff Brigadier General Hajji Bakr who was a former officer in the Saddam Baathist army.

Who is Hajji Bakr?! And what is his relationship to al-Baghdadi and when did it start?! That’s what we’ll talk about an hour from now with Allah’s permission.

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[Briefly in the meantime,] Who writes under fake, Daesh names?

Here he gives a list of those twitter accounts supposedly corresponding to members of ISIS:

Who is Abu Doujana @almohajer9225

Who is AlHezbr @Alhezbr_

Who is Haqiqat Al Sororia @hnt1433

Who is Qorin Kalash @K_L7

Who is Gharib @kmkmmmsmsm

Who is Salafi from Iraq @abdalrahmaniraq

Who is Al Sarouria Tabor Khames @bmr8000

And the list goes on. We’ll reveal 5 names to you every so often.

————————————————————

1) As we said, al-Baghdadi’s military council is led by 3 [individuals] and those 3 are headed by a former officer in the Baath party named Staff Colonel Hajji Bakr.

2) Colonel Hajji Bakr joined the Islamic State in Iraq when the state was led by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. [former ISI leader]

3) Hajji was a military member who offered his military service along with his experience in the Ba’ath army to al-Baghdadi’s organization.

4) Staff Colonel Hajji demonstrated his commitment and his repentance from the Ba’ath party and he is considered the most important military commander close to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.

5) There was no previous acquaintance between the two; he was recommended to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hafs al-Muhajir by middlemen and he was accepted under the condition that he connect them with leadership [commanders] and useful information in the army.

6) The Staff Colonel was brought close to the leaders of the Islamic State in Iraq as a military advisor for Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hafs al-Muhajer.

7) The Colonel Hajji Bakr provided the leadership with military information and plans and connected them with former military commanders from the remnants of the Ba’ath party.

8) Within a few weeks, Colonel Hajji Bakr became closer and closer to the leadership of Dawlat al-Iraq because he was a military treasure and an important commander.

9) The strange thing about Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Da’esh today, is that he wasn’t present in the command council of the previous leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi [he didn't join the council] until [around the time of] the death of the latter.

10) Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was a member in the organization of Islamic state of Iraq outside of the organization’s command. He resided in western Iraq, specifically in Al-Anbar Province, specifically in Falujah.

11) He had been in the command as an adviser for al-Baghdadi and Al-Muhajer for nearly 50 days when the catastrophe hit the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Baghdadi and Abu Hafs were targeted with a shell and they all died.

12) Colonel Hajji Bakr was not harmed but the top commanders of the Islamic State were all killed at the same time and all the command was vacant [وكلمت حجي تقدير الجميع - ?]

13) There is another Colonel who is a friend of Hajji Bakr named Mazen Nahir and he often visits Hajji Bakr. He went with him to Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi one time as a collaborator with the organization and an unofficial member.

14) This other colonel Mazen Nahir is regarded by Hajji Baker as a trustworthy agent who [can be used] to inflitrate the regime; [therefore] he doesn’t like to appear in the organization’s leadership or its councils.

15) After the assassination of the leaders, colonel Hajji Bakr told people close to him and from the leadership that he gave bayaa to a new emir to lead the Islamic state of Iraq and that being Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

16) The news was a surprise to everyone! In another meeting soon we’ll talk about the Islamic state of Iraq under the leadership of the new emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his constant companion Colonel Hajji.

Addendum: Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the companion of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi is Egyptian and his name is Abd Al-Moneem Izz Al-Din Badawi. He had two other nicknames before he joined al-Baghdadi: 1. Abu Ayub 2. Abu Hafs

The next meeting with deal with the new commander of the Iraq State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the real engine behind his state: Colonel Hajji Bakr

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December 15

The new era of Dawlat al-Iraq under the command of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Staff Colonel Hajji Bakr – Part 1

1) When Colonel Hajji Bakr suggested the emirship to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a private meeting in the first hours after the death of the leader al-Baghdadi (the first) and al-Muhajir, Abu Bakr expressed concerns.

2) Colonel Hajji Bakr gave assurances and said that he would provide support and assistance from the background; this is what al-Baghdadi has confided to those close to him since the begining of his leadership.

3) A new era began for the Islamic State in Iraq with two leaders, the leader in the front, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the leader in the shadow, Staff Colonel Hajji Bakr.

4) ISI began to work amid concerns about the presence of an emergent figure, Haji Bakr, who is very close to and the right-hand man of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

5) The image of the clean-shaven Colonel next to the leader disturbed the members of the State and both leaders, al-Baghdadi and the Colonel, noticed it.

6) The Colonel started growing his beard and changing his appearance and the way that he talked in the first weeks, and no member was allowed to question anything about the leadership,

7) because questions plant doubts and planting doubts is breaking the ranks which might permit blood and assassination in one way or another.

8) Nobody in the Dawlah organisation knew the Colonel 2 months prior to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi taking the leadership.

9) Colonel Hajji Bakr started meeting privately with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to restructure the new State and the first agreement was to give attention to two apparatuses:

10) An apparatus that could protect the cohesion of the State and protect it from the inside through security units that eliminate any threat to the entity and another apparatus that guarantees financial resources.

11) First, the security apparatus: the first secuirty steps were taken by the Staff Colonel Hajji Bakr to protect the leader in the front, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, by keeping him from meeting the leadership of the subdivisions,

12) so as not to affect him with influence or guidance [so that other commanders wouldn't influence al-Baghdadi]. And the emir’s orders came through the leaders of the Shura Council, which was formed by the Colonel later.

13) Colonel Hajji Bakr became a permanant fixture next to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and doesn’t leave his side anywhere, like a personal minister, but in reality he is the leader in the shadow.

14) The second step in creating the security apparatus was to set up security detachments that carry out eliminations and secret assassinations. It was created by the Colonel with 20 people in the beginning.

15) It then reached 100 people; these detachments take their orders directly from the leadership and do not follow any regional emir.

16) These people were selected by the Colonel. Most of them come from his former occupation within the desolved Iraqi Baathist regime and are highly trustworthy.

17) Their mission is to secretly eliminate anybody showing signs of dissent or disobedience: whether members of ISI or even field commanders or sharia legislators.

18 ) So that assassination orders don’t go through the chain of command of the men of ISI and then become leaked, the Colonel appointed these detatchements to an officer and a former colleague of his named Abu Safwan Rifai.

19) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi started to feel very safe and was grateful to Colonel Hajji Bakr and he started seeing him an as indispensable man,

20) to the point that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi felt that he couldn’t remain in control without Colonel Hajji Bakr because, with his military background, he plays the role of both the defense and intelligence ministries.

21) Second, the financial resources: the State of Iraq with the leadership of the former commander Abu Omar al-Baghdadi made great strides in bringing in high financial resources based on the following:

22) First: Confiscating the money of all Shi’a, Christian, and Druze minorities, and all regime agents, even if they were Sunnis.

23) Second: The takeover of oil resources and generation, power and oil stations, government factories, and any governmental financial resources because [they consider] its money as owned by Dawlat al-Iraq.

24) Third: Any companies that have contracts with the al-Maliki regime are agents [of the regime], whether a maintenance or cleaning company, or fuel stations, or telecommunications companies.

25) And if something can’t be seized completely, the owner receives a death threat or a threat to blow up the company or the store, if monthly taxes are not paid and the money gets paid in fear for his [the owner's] property.

26) Fourth: Placing checkpoints on long roads to take money from commerical trucks, as high as $200 in some cases

27) Under the leadership of Abu Bakr and the Colonel, Dawlat al-Iraq came to possess very large and very alluring amounts of money that increased salaries and rewards and military operations.

28) With the increase in financial stature and a large income, the love of joining al-Dawla grew and the Iraqis were the most loyal.

29) A financial command was put in place for Dawlat al-Iraq and oddly, this command was handled by Colonel Hajji Bakr himself along with his military command, and he positioned 5 other managers with him.

30) During this period, the colonel put together advisers and called them the Shura council of Dawlat al-Iraq. They were between 7 to 13 [members] with no non-Iraqi among them, out of fear of a breach.

31) I will leave Dawlat al-Iraq for now and move to:

32) What is the origin of the idea for Dawlat al-Iraq wa al-Sham; who made the suggestion; al-Baghdadi’s entry to Syria 3 weeks before its announcement; and where did he live

33) Why was the announcement rushed? [This is in reference to the public declaration of an Islamic state in April of last year that involved Ayman al-Zawahiri and which Nusra felt was premature, earlier post here] And why did he chose to live by the Turkish borders before the announcement?! And why did he choose to live in a portable room made of steel not too far from refugees?!

34) And what is the threat that he sent to Abu Mohammed al-Joulani [leader of Jabhat al-Nusra] before the al-Dawla announcement? What did he ask of al-Joulani to do, either nullify Jabhat al-Nusra or dissolve it?!

35) There’s a picture of al-Baghdadi with his advisers taken at the Turkish borders a week before the announcement of Dawlat al-Iraq wa al-Sham and the dissolution of Jabhat al-Nusra that we will publish later if it helps you.

We’ll answer all these questions in a coming meeting….

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n1sefj [the author compiled his own tweets here]

——————————————————————–

December 17

1) The Syria revolution started and the attention of the members of Dawlat al-Iraq turned to Syria, especially among the non-Iraqis and the Syrians.

2) Colonel Hajji Bakr feared losing members of Dawlat al-Iraq [to Syria] which would cause a weakening and fracturing in the State and an excuse

3) for some members and commanders within Dawlat al-Iraq, who were looking to defect, to use Syria as their escape door from al-Dawlat.

4) Colonel Hajji Bakr advised Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to instruct all the commanders not to think about going to Syria and that anybody that went would be considered a defector and an outsider.

5) Indeed, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did deliver that instruction, loaded with the threat, the apparent reason [stated in his instructions] being that the situation is not clear and that they should hold off on Syria.

6) There was a boiling excitement within Dawlat al-Iraq which pointed toward possibilites of defections and leaks and flight, especially among non-Iraqis, to Syria, out of control.

7) Colonel Hajji Bakr suggested the formation of a group of non-Iraqis that would go to Syria under the command of a Syrian, in order to block any Iraqi commander in al-Dawla from going.

8) He saw that this would protect Dawlat al-Iraq from defections and the new command in Sham would bring in non-Iraqis and attract new members from outside.

9) Jabhat al-Nusra was established and started to grow under the leadership of Abu Mohammed al-Joulani until its name grew and swelled and the name of Abu Mohammed al-Joulani rose up internationally.

10) Many mujahidin from the Gulf, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Europe, and Yemen started flocking to Jabhat al-Nusra in great and frightening numbers.

11) This surge in numbers became alarming to the Colonel and al-Baghdadi because there was no loyalty to Dawla al-Iraq or to al-Baghdadi within the ranks of Jabhat al-Nusra.

12) Colonel Hajji Bakr was afraid of the growth of Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Joulani which might threaten Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Dawlat al-Iraq [due to their own] absence from the field.

13) Hajji Bakr compelled al-Baghdadi to order al-Joulani to annouce with an audio clip that Jabhat al-Nusra officially belongs to Dawlat al-Iraq under the command of al-Baghdadi.

14) al-Joulani promised to think and ponder the issue. He took days without releasing anything. al-Baghdadi sent him a rebuke and censure and he [al-Joulani] promised to think and consult those who are around him from mujahidin and scholars.

15) al-Joulani sent a letter to al-Baghdadi that said that the annoucement would not be in the interest of the revolution, in the opinion of everyone in his Shura council.

16) The Colonel was outraged and al-Baghdadi was angry and they sent spies in the disguise of mujahidin and Shura from al-Baghdadi’s branch, to be close to al-Joulani and monitor his movements.

17) Out of fear of any [unwanted] orders or [an order to] merge with another group, al-Joulani was very worried and started limiting his movement and actions, and would praise Dawlat al-Iraq and al-Baghdadi to those that sit with him.

18) [He made a pretense of complimenting al-Baghdadi as a practice of] taqiya, fearing that mistrust in him would grow and that he would get assassinated. His worries grew and his fear for his safety grew very strong.

19) America started droning on about adding Jabhat al-Nusra to the terrorist list and al-Joulani to the top wanted list.

20) It was an opportunity for al-Joulani to hide from the people sent by al-Baghdadi to monitor him and to isolate himself in a closed command circle of people of his choosing.

21) America adding Jabhal al-Nusra to the terror list and al-Joulani to the most wanted list in Syria increased the fears and worries of Colonel Hajji Bakr and al-Baghdadi about Nusra competing with al-Dawla.

22) Abu Mohammed al-Joulani was a rational politician trying to walk a middle ground to reassure al-Baghdadi.

23) But the fears of the Colonel and al-Baghdadi outweighed al-Joulani’s assurances, which made the Colonel consider advanced steps to merge Jabhat al-Nusra with Dawlat al-Iraq.

24) Colonel Hajji Bakr advised al-Baghadi to direct al-Joulani to carry out a military operation against the commanders of the Free Army during any meeting in Turkey that would contain any possible targets from among commanders of the Free Army [in other words, to hit any FSA commander they could reach]

25) And al-Baghdadi did indeed send an urgent letter to al-Joulani ordering him to carry out two bombings, one in Turkey and one in Syria, the two of which would target gatherings of Free Army commanders.

26) And this was justified as the targeting of future Sahwat, agents of America, and eliminating them before they built themselves up in al-Sham and their popularity became strong.

27) Commanders of the Free Army were specified for assassination by name (we withhold the names) [author's words, not SC] and the orders were received by the command of Jabhat al-Nusra like a lightning strike [i.e., the order was too much to handle].

28) A meeting of the Jabhat al-Nusra Shura was convened and the order was rejected in the meeting. A detailed reply was sent to al-Baghdadi that Nusra with its Shura had rejected it.

29) It justified the rejection on the basis that they’re Muslin and because Turkey cannot be targeted because it is a very sensitive country and a big supporter of the revolution and it would disrupt the march of Jihad,

30) and that the Jabhat with its councils sees the reality up close. The anger of the Colonel Haji Bakr and al-Baghdadi grew and they saw in this an explicit rejection of obedience (الطاعة).

31) The Colonel and al-Baghadi sent a strongly-worded letter and gave al-Joulani two choices: either execute the orders or Jabhat al-Nusra will be dissolved and replaced with the creation of a new entity.

32) al-Joulani stopped replying and the Colonel and al-Baghdadi waited for a reply and the wait was long. al-Joulani appeared reasonable in ignoring them because the sweetest of the two choices was sour.

33) al-Baghdadi sent a messenger to meet with al-Joulani and hear from him and al-Joulani tried to apologize for not meeting because of his situation and the messenger waited for a long time and went back.

34) al-Baghdadi felt the real danger, that Jabhat al-Nusra saw itself as a bigger entity than him and outside of his control, so the Colonel suggested to al-Baghdadi what follows:

35) To send Iraqi subdivision commanders  to meet the subdivisions of Jabhat al-Nusra and test their pulse and suggest the dissolving of Jabhat al-Nusra and see how receptive they are to al-Baghadi and how popular he is.

36) And indeed that happened; the Colonel and al Baghdadi sent tens of Iraqis to Jabhat al-Nusra and they entered the ranks of the mujahidin for 2 weeks.

37) And they met with the mujahidin and a few influentional people in Jabhat al-Nusra and especially the khalijis [Gulfers] and particularly the Saudis. The feedback was mixed between support and rejection.

38) There was a large group that supported the ambition and general Islamic dream of a state that stretched from Iraq to Sham under one leadership.

39) And the most supportive group were the new members in the Jabhat and those who had a history of conflict with the command of the Jabhat, in cases where the Jabhat would prevent the declaration of takfeer [applying the theological category of "infidel" to enemies] and would punish for doing so.

40) There were those who felt supressed by Jabhat al-Nusra for expressing inflamatory and takfiri feelings or who were punished for doing so by the Jabhat and who would love any entity that would give them more freedom.

41) Nusra imprisoned, punished, and confiscated the weapons of its memembers who propagated takfeer.

42) Of those imprisoned by Nusra were Abu Ritaj al-Sussi and Abo Omar al-Abadi (Tunisians), Abu DamDam al-Husni and Abu al-Hajaj al-Nuri (Moroccans), and Abu Bakr Omar al-Qahtani (Saudi).

43) The Saudi Omar al-Qahtani was punished by Jabhat al-Nusra who took away his weapons and imprisoned him 3 times on account of spreading a takfiri and inflammatory ideology against those who opposed Jabhat al-Nusra.

44) This group that was punished by Jabhat al-Nusra and people like them were the core of support for al-Baghdadi’s inclinations, which found an echo inside Nusra.

45) This last Saudi became a general Sharia councilor in Dawlat al-Baghdadi later on and was the first to defect when al-Baghdadi annouced the dissolving of Jabhat al-Nusra.

46) Two weeks later, the 10 spies of al-Baghdadi returned to Iraq with a foggy image about the acceptance of members of Jabhat al-Nusra were it to be dissolved [and folded into] a one-state entity.

47) Colonel Hajji Bakr suggested to al-Baghdadi not to make any decision to dissolve Jabhat al-Nusra and that the Colonel and al-Baghdadi himself travel and see the reality on the ground,

48) because the announcement of Dawlat al-Iraq wa al-Sham with Baghdadi not in Syria wouldn’t give it flare and [attract] many followers, since the people would wish to see al-Baghdadi and that his presence is effective.

49) al-Baghdadi accepted the Colonel’s idea and sent those who would arrange a place of residence and prepare a secure and secret place. He was called and a safe place near the Turkish border was selected.

50) The departure of al-Baghdadi from Iraqi was arranged by his personal bodyguard and Colonel Rokn Hajji Bakr and only three others.

51) What did al-Baghdadi do after entering Turkey, what location did he live in exactly, and how many days did he stay before announcing the dissolvement of Jabhat al Nusra?!

52) What did he do before the announcement?! Did Julani known about the arrival of Baghdadi or not?! And who did al-Baghdadi meet before the announcement?!

When did Baghdadi enter Syria? Where did he live? Who did he meet? And how was the annoucement of the dissolving of Jabhat al-Nusra made? And what role did Saudi officer Bandar Shaalan play in creating Baghdadi’s new state?

———————————————————-

December 18

1) Baghdadi and Hajji Baker and their company entered Syria 3 weeks before the dissolving of Jabhat al-Nusra. They headed directly to the residence quarter at the Turkish border.

2) The preparations were as follows: Portable metal rooms were reserved in a place not too far from a Syrian refugee camp that was more secure for him and away from prying eyes.

3) Baghdadi and his company lived in these rooms on the basis that Baghdadi would meet Jabhat al-Nusra’s subdivisions’ commanders and make them feel like they’re dependents of his.

———————————————————-

The account continues at great length and translating it is time consuming. We’ll stop translating for now, but we may provide more translation later, depending on how useful readers find it to be.

The article New ISIS Leaks Reveal Particulars Of Al-Qaida Strategy – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By FPIF

By Martin Murphy

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Sixteen years after Hong Kong’s return to China, the city is mired in political gridlock, anti-mainland sentiment has seeped into everyday life, and prospects for promised democracy are facing a rocky road.

Hong Kong’s reversion to Chinese rule in 1997 was heralded as one of several acts that would end China’s “century of humiliation.” The final act, peaceful reunification with Taiwan, remains a Chinese dream.

Ironically, China’s late premier Deng Xiaoping devised the 50-year “one country, two systems” formula now governing Hong Kong as a model for Taiwan, anticipating the island’s eventual reversion to Chinese sovereignty. But with China’s clumsy efforts to win the hearts and minds of Hong Kong’s people littered with embarrassments, neither Hong Kong nor Taiwan has been impressed.

Growing Unrest

Beijing and Hong Kong are now on a collision course over the city’s future. Pro-democracy groups and ordinary citizens have been preparing for “Occupy Central,” a large-scale civil disobedience sit-in scheduled for later this year in Hong Kong’s financial district, unless there is an acceptable plan for a one-man, one-vote system for the election of Hong Kong’s next chief executive in 2017.

A recent poll showed that 62 percent of Hong Kong’s people want part of that plan to include the right to nominate candidates, rather than delegating that role to a small, unrepresentative nominating committee that could screen out “unpatriotic” candidates. Absent an acceptable roadmap within the next six to eight months, Hong Kong faces the prospect of civil disorder, mass arrests, and the international business community’s loss of confidence. There has even been mention in the local press of deploying the People’s Liberation Army to put down protestors, with Beijing’s local propaganda chief recently reminding the city that the central government had the power to impose a “state of emergency” if the Hong Kong government lost control.

As Hong Kong now settles in for a five-month period of consultations aimed at reforming its nomination and election system, it may be a good time for Beijing to think about hitting the reset button. That would mean a new soft power strategy and a fresh team to oversee Hong Kong’s affairs. It would also require that China reorient its “one country, two systems” framework back toward a greater accommodation of Hong Kong’s long-held and growing aspirations for a more democratic and representative governing system.

For the past 16 years, Beijing’s secretive Central Government Liaison Office in Hong Kong has been monitoring the Hong Kong government’s implementation of “one country, two systems” and has increasingly shown a willingness to intervene in purely local affairs that should fall under the jurisdiction of the Hong Kong government.

Problem is, Beijing’s Liaison Office has little expertise in foreign affairs or in dealing with foreign societies. And Hong Kong is still “foreign,” despite its overwhelmingly Han Chinese population. As a result, Beijing’s shadow government in the city regularly misreads what drives Hong Kong’s 7 million residents, most of whom cherish freedom, rule of law, and an independent judiciary.  

Creeping Encroachment

So how did Hong Kong-mainland relations descend to some of their lowest depths since the handover?

Observers point to several misjudgments by the Chinese leadership, but trace the roots of tensions to a pivotal event in 2003, when 500,000 Hong Kong residents took to the streets in protest against Article 23, a now infamous internal security law that Beijing expects Hong Kong to implement in order to fulfill requirements of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.  Opponents argue that its vague provisions against treason, secession, and certain political activities would curtail Hong Kong’s political and personal freedoms, if the article is ever adopted.

The size of the demonstrations took China’s leaders by surprise, and their response sowed the seeds of a gradual but significant shift in Beijing’s governing attitude — from a laissez-faire emphasis on “two systems” to a sharpened focus on patriotism and “one country.”

But China’s more interventionist approach has produced a number of embarrassing missteps that have highlighted its general lack of understanding of much of the city’s thinking. Its recent failure to impose “national education” is a case in point. Anyone familiar with Hong Kong could have predicted the sit-ins and demonstrations that followed against what was widely perceived as a propagandized curriculum. Critics castigated the government’s proposed teaching booklet, “The China Model,” for referring to China’s ruling party as “progressive, selfless, and united,” criticizing multiparty systems as disastrous, and whitewashing parts of Chinese history, such as the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Another telling episode took place in October 2012 after two ferries collided in Hong Kong harbor. When government officials visited victims at a local hospital, it was the Liaison Office’s deputy director who talked to reporters, with Hong Kong’s chief executive standing meekly in the background. Such images heightened concerns that the Hong Kong government was no longer calling the shots, even on purely local matters.

Such displays are not new. By 2008, Beijing was raising eyebrows with its insensitivities to the Hong Kong government’s separation of powers, particularly the city’s cherished independent judiciary.

When then-Vice President Xi Jinping visited Hong Kong just prior to the Beijing Olympics, he told local officials, legislators, and judges that there should be “solidarity and sincere cooperation within the governance team.” This prompted a quick rebuke from the Hong Kong Bar Association, which reminded Xi that Hong Kong’s judiciary was independent and not part of any “governance team.” Critics also condemned Xi for flouting the basic tenets of “one country, two systems.”

The River and the Well

That Chinese officials continue to misread Hong Kong, with its own “foreign” Cantonese dialect and alien culture, is now a daily reality for most Hong Kongers. Some have suggested that savvier foreign relations experts from the mainland should oversee Hong Kong’s affairs. But China’s diplomats are not winning hearts and minds these days either — especially in their own backyard, where the country is facing growing isolation and a regional arms race is building steam.

With 34 years still remaining under “one country, two systems,” Beijing would do well to return to a policy articulated by former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who once quoted a Chinese proverb advocating a more hands-off mainland approach to Hong Kong: “Well water does not pollute river water, and river water does not pollute well water.” To do otherwise risks deepening internecine feuding, hardening anti-mainland China sentiment, and ensuring years of political paralysis and poor governance.

At the end of the day, a lighter hand in Hong Kong would be a positive sign of China’s evolving soft power, still lacking in much of the region, but few here in Hong Kong are counting on it.

Born in Hong Kong, Martin Murphy is a former U.S. diplomat and was head of the Economic-Political Section at the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong from 2009-12. He has contributed to the South China Morning Post, Global Post, and Wing Chun Illustrated. He can be found at www.hongkongreporting.com. 

The article Can China Win Back Hong Kong? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By OilPrice.com

By Nick Cunningham

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a rule on January 9, 2014 requiring oil and gas companies using hydraulic fracturing off the coast of California to disclose the chemicals they discharge into the ocean. Oil and gas companies have been fracking offshore California for perhaps as long as two decades, but they largely flew under the radar until recently.

An Associated Press story in August 2013 revealed that oil and gas companies had engaged in hydraulic fracturing at least a dozen times in the Santa Barbara Channel – the site of the nation’s first offshore drilling site as well as the first major oil spill. The 1969 well blowout in the Santa Barbara Channel became the impetus for a series of environmental laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act.

Documents published through a Freedom of Information Act request showed that federal regulators have allowed drillers to dump chemicals into the ocean without an environmental impact statement assessing the effects of doing so. This was largely unknown to California regulators and the general public. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement – the federal regulator responsible for regulating offshore oil drilling – has issued “categorical exclusions” for fracking offshore California, essentially giving frack jobs a pass on environmental assessments. The logic is that offshore fracking has largely occurred in existing wells, locations for which companies already jumped through all the environmental hoops long ago.

Offshore fracking could be much more widespread than even federal regulators are aware. According to the Environmental Defense Center, BSEE only began to learn about the extent to which fracking was occurring offshore when pressed to respond to FOIA requests.

The industry maintains that hydraulic fracturing is safe, and BSEE officials point to the fact that fracking offshore requires only a fraction of the water needed to do the job onshore.

But offshore fracking differs from the onshore practice in at least one important way. After an onshore well is fracked, the waste water is often re-injected into the ground for storage. However, offshore drillers often simply dump the waste water into the ocean – although the industry claims the water is treated before entering the marine environment.

The latest EPA rule would merely require companies to report the chemicals that they are discharging into the ocean. The rule is a weak one because relies upon companies to self-report their activities.

EPA’s announcement is a new wrinkle in the story of fracking in California, which has been much more raucously debated onshore. Last year, the state passed a controversial law that introduced the first regulations on fracking. It requires companies to disclose the chemicals used in the drilling process, obtain permits, and monitor air and water quality. Environmentalists rejected the law and are calling for a full moratorium.

Governor Jerry Brown does not support a ban on fracking and insists the new law is rigorous. Despite the complex geology that could prevent California from ever living up to its oil and gas potential, the industry and many policymakers remain in favor of trying to exploit the vast oil and gas reserves in California – both on and offshore.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/EPA-Issues-New-Rule-to-Require-Chemical-Disclosures-for-Offshore-Fracking.html

The article New EPA Rule Requires Chemical Disclosure For Offshore Fracking appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SETimes

By Erl Murati

The Albanian government decided to seek foreign experts to help carry out the country’s reforms on its path to EU membership and specifically address crime and corruption.

The EU did not give Albania a candidate member status last month, requesting the country undertake additional reforms with emphasis on these two issues prior to reviewing its candidacy status in spring.

Officials said getting assistance from foreign experts will increase the pace of the reforms and provide much needed expertise to bring about positive changes.

“Today, there is no lack of Albanian professionals, but foreign advisors and their experiences are necessary in some areas. Our economy needs to be acquainted with all the variables of the international environment,” Gjergj Buxhuku, director of Konfindustria, Albania’s textile industry giant, told SETimes.

The government has been encouraged to seek foreign expertise because of its positive experience with the professional services firm Deloitte that it hired, just days after it assumed power last September, to determine government’s debt to private businesses.

Now the government has signed a two-year agreement with British firm Crown Agents to audit and assist with the reforms of Albania’s customs service. Among the primary goals of the agreement is for the company to identify ways to eliminate reduce corruption as well as ways to optimally increase wages.

“Modernising the customs administration is important. This process has already started through implementing projects with assistance of our collaborators,” Elisa Spiropali, director general of Albania customs, told SETimes.

Reform in the customs administration is urgently needed; the state coffers are empty and the government needs to implement justice, which is why it was voted in, said Finance Minister Shkelqim Cani.

“By supporting the customs administration this company will help us [reach a point when] all local businesses pay their financial obligations to the state without exception instead of bribing state leaders and paying millions to them,” Cani said.

Experts said hiring foreign consulting companies to assist managing customs services has brought mixed results in the region and elsewhere.

“Crown Agent’s consulting has brought in productive for the customs of … Bulgaria, Latvia, Kosovo, Macedonia and others,” Eduard Zaloshnja of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation told SETimes.

The government also decided to seek a foreign company to accredit Albania’s universities. Officials said the choice will fall on an organisation that can certify the quality of the universities and provide them status compatible with foreign schools.

The decision is an attempt to make Albanian diplomas recognised throughout Europe, Lindita Nikolla, education and sports minister, said.

“This is a very important development for us. This practice, not applied before, aims to increase quality by meeting contemporary standards to accredit our universities,” Nikolla told

In addition to relying on foreign companies, Prime Minister Edi Rama appealed to Turkey for additional technical assistance and know how as needed.

Rama met Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu recently and agreed to receive assistance from Turkey for reforms in the fields of energy, security, economy and healthcare.

“Turkey is a strategic partner,” Rama said.

The article Albania Seeks Foreign Experts To Increase Pace Of Reforms appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IPCS

By Sheel Kant Sharma

The global nuclear power scenario showed signs in 2013 of gradually emerging from the post-Fukushima freeze. The impact of Fukushima remained still formidable in Japan as the year saw the trickle of persistent bad news from the Daichi units in Japan and TEPCO struggling to cope with the problems. Prime Minister Abe, however, has made concerted effort to bring some traction to the Japanese nuclear industry. As the year ended, sixteen Japanese nuclear power units had filed applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Authority for restarting the power production. Globally, the diminishing trend in both capacity and output witnessed in 2011-12 due to Fukushima induced shut-downs in Japan and Germany seems to have stopped in 2013. While four reactors were permanently shut down in the US, new reactors were connected to the grid elsewhere, three in China and one in India (Kudankulam). Thus, the total number of operating reactors worldwide remained the same. Nuclear power’s share of world electricity production also remained around 11 per cent.

For the first time since 1974, construction commenced of two new reactors at two sites in the US. These new reactor projects were among ten that started worldwide, including one in UAE. Who in the 1970s would have imagined that the Emirates too would launch nuclear power projects?

The US posted the best global figures so far regarding the actual generation of power from existing nuclear plants. The US achieved through steady improvements high load factors and its best performing reactors now make up nearly half of the global top 50 performers – even as the four reactors that were shut down were reported to have diverse insurmountable problems that had plagued their continuation. At the other extreme, the Philippines, which had mothballed its 621 MW nuclear power reactor, built by the Westinghouse in the 1980s, was actively considering restarting it – the IAEA in a study done in 2008 had concluded that the plant could be run safely and would be economical too if suitable upgrades were done. The Korea Electric Power Company which was hired to conduct a feasibility study for the Philippines government had recommended that the plant be refurbished.

In the context of the rising power demand, it is yet to be seen whether the severe winter storms that have raged in North America and Europe would reinitiate the skepticism about nuclear power’s role in the energy mix; skepticism that was spawned by the Fukushima aftermath. It is not wind nor solar that could provide an assured base load in such emergencies.

As for new reactor designs, while the fast reactors still remain promising for the future, the SMR (Small Modular Reactor), also made headlines during the year, with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission giving it a nod. As the US Secretary of Energy stated “Small modular reactors represent a new generation of safe, reliable, low-carbon nuclear energy technology and provide a strong opportunity for America to lead this emerging global industry.” The US Department of Energy also authorised funding for SMR and reflected the drive in the US for new technological options for future energy challenges. It is relevant to quote the US Secretary of Energy in this context – “We think these technologies, and there are a multiplicity of them, as you know, (and) are very, very, very promising. Very interesting features, passive safety features, nice security features, underground siting, factory production, hopefully driving down costs, more flexibility, including flexibility in financing inherent to the scale, but of course we won’t really know about the cost performance until we get small modular reactors out there.” In the light of these clear positions it would not be correct to underestimate, as some anti-nuclear campaigners in India persist in doing, the true potential of India-US nuclear cooperation in diverse ways.

China remained the leader in new constructions even though in terms of global power outputs so far China figures near the bottom of the graph where lead entries are from Russia and the OECD countries such as US, France, UK, OECD Europe and South Korea. While China’s agreement to supply four nuclear power reactors to Pakistan has been in the news, what is not examined carefully is whether China may bid to emerge as a major exporter of nuclear power plants in the coming decades. According to a US energy analyst the International Marketing Head for China Nuclear Power Engineering Company – China’s largest nuclear plant builder – plans to dominate the nuclear power market worldwide, just with present technology. Thus while others debate about the Generation 4 technology and explore options to effectively answer nuclear power critics on safety, security, non-proliferation and waste management, not to mention public perceptions, the Chinese nuclear juggernaut might be heading its own way on just what China has. If such perceptions are valid, the sheer size of Chinese nuclear enterprise might cast a different spell on NSG proceedings. Who would in the suppliers’ cartel cross-examine China? India’s place is almost invisible in the global capacity graph for nuclear electricity with less than 5000 MW out of the global total of 375000 MW. So much for the realisation of promises articulated ten years ago.

Sheel Kant Sharma
Former Permanent Representative to UN Office in Vienna & IAEA

The article Nuclear Power: An Annual Report Card appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By CNA

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal-designate Pietro Parolin met Jan. 14, focusing their discussions on the Middle East, the Syrian conflict, the Sudan situation and religious freedom issues in the U.S.

“The encounter was extremely fruitful and rich in content,” said Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., of the Vatican Press Office.

He characterized the one hour, forty minute meeting as “very important” and “intensive.”

“The mood of the meeting was a positive one. It was a constructive encounter, an important one and the length of time it lasted is indicative of its underlying significance.”

Kerry is on an international diplomatic tour to promote an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, Vatican Radio reports. He is also working for the success of the Geneva 2 Conference for peace in Syria, which is scheduled to begin Jan. 22.

Fr. Lombardi said the meeting centered on Middle East issues, especially the conflict in Syria. The Syria conflict between rebels and the government has killed more than 100,000 people while internally displacing 6.5 million people. Over 2.3 million registered refugees from Syria are living in nearby countries.

The U.S. is backing the rebels and has periodically threatened military strikes against the government. In September Pope Francis led a worldwide vigil for peace in Syria after the U.S. said the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons justified military action. The U.S. later backed down after Russian president Vladimir Putin proposed that the Syrian government give up all chemical weapons.

Fr. Lombardi said the meeting voiced a desire for a peaceful solution in Syria and for humanitarian aid for the conflict’s victims.

The meeting also discussed negotiations between Israel and Palestine “in an effort to encourage, pursue and hopefully achieve the aspired for positive result.”

The“increasingly dramatic” situation in Sudan was also a subject of discussion. The participants voiced hope that the new violence may be ended by mediation.

U.S. domestic issues also drew attention. According to Fr. Lombardi the Holy See “expressed its concern, shared by the bishops of the United States, regarding rules regulating the health reform relating to guaranteeing freedom of religion and conscientious objection.”

The Health and Human Services mandate requires most employers to provide employees coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some drugs that can cause abortion. The mandate’s narrow religious objection means that many Catholic organizations and Catholic-run businesses are being forced to assist in providing drugs and procedures that violate Catholic beliefs or face heavy fines.

The mandate is currently being litigated in court. President Obama’s efforts to combat poverty were also discussed at the meeting.

The meeting included Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, and U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Ken Hackett. Three staff members of Kerry and two officials of the Roman Curia also attended.

The article John Kerry, Vatican Secretary Of State Hold ‘Positive’ Meeting appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Pambazuka News

By Maker Mayek Riak

As the fighting continues in full swing in South Sudan, there is a growing amount of commentary that has been made and more is still in the making about the genesis of the problems and how best they can be resolved.

Two accounts have been given as to how the problems started. The government of South Sudan has impressed upon the idea of a coup – the intention to overthrow a democratically elected president. The rebels, led by Riek Machar– on the other hand –are trumpeting the line of a “cooked up coup” – aimed at dressing up the actual root cause of the crisis – which they claim lies in President Salva Kiir’s authoritarian proclivity.

Both accounts seem believable – at least – to anyone who is not conversant with South Sudan’s politics. In fact, even South Sudanese themselves, who have known both President Kiir and Dr Riek Machar for a very long time, are confused as well. They do not know what and who to believe.

Some observers of South Sudan’s politics have concurred with Machar’s narrative. That the “coup” tale was President Kiir’s twisted lie to prevent a democratic movement within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). In other words, to them, it’s a good intention gone wrong. Depending how well you know the personalities behind the “democratic movement”, it’s up to you to believe their account or not.

Of course, it is true that President Kiir has been sleeping on the job. He sat on a recliner and forgot about ethnic sensitivities in the country. The president also became extremely complacent about the personal ambitions of Dr Machar. The president forgot about Dr Machar’s attempt in the past to overthrow the late SPLM leader Dr John Garang during the days of the struggle against President El Bashir’s north. The president also forgot about the history of the country and the reason why South Sudan seceded from the larger Sudan in the first place. In short, it is true President Kiir went completely nuts and became absolutely authoritarian.

But what about Dr Riek Machar himself: why should anyone believe his account of a movement for democratic transformation within the ruling party? There is no clear reason to. Let me shed some light on the key figures behind the democratic movement. We begin with Dr Riek himself. Enough has been said and written about Dr Riek Machar. It is obvious he is a very ambitious man. He wants to be the president of South Sudan by all means. His lofty ambitions are mainly encouraged by the predictions allegedly made by a certain “prophet”, Ngundeng, who lived around the 19th century. “Prophet” Ngundeng had allegedly “foreseen” that a left-handed man with a gap in his teeth was going to ascend to power and propel his country to glory. To Dr Machar and his supporters, these physical features are visible in him. He is the one foretold in Ngundeng’s prophecy. He is not going to let anyone stop the “prophecy” from materialising.

This is not to say Dr Machar does not mean well for the country. But often, his intentions are overwhelmed by his actions and high-end ambitions. He is impatient. Dr Machar also knows that he has the backing of his tribe, the Nuer, to support his quest for the top seat.

The other key leaders behind the “democratic movement” are SPLM veterans but their records are murky. Pagan Amum Okiech, the former SPLM Secretary General has his own political ambitions. He wants to become the president of South Sudan as well. But his performance as the SPLM Secretary General has put him at odds with the party stalwarts. He is seen as the reason behind the poor performance of the SPLM and the party’s loss of vision. It is also said that Pagan used the party machinery to strike commercial deals and amass wealth for himself.

There are also figures like Deng Alor Kuol, Kosti Manibe, Oyai Deng Ajak, Gier Chuang et al, who are part of the “democratic movement”. Some of these individuals, before being detained, were under investigation for corruption. They are also victims of the government reshuffle – which was intended to curb government spending to accommodate austerity measures. In one way or another, it is difficult to believe that they are genuine agents of democratic transformation in the country. In any case, they are disgruntled old guard who are crying foul for the loss of prestigious seats at the high table. Why did they not agitate for reforms when they held plum ministerial positions in the government? In fact, every bit of what they are complaining about happened when they were still ministers. But none of them ever raised their hand in protest.

Perhaps, the only two members in the “democratic movement” who have legitimate claims as being victims of President Kiir’s authoritarianism are the two former governors: Taban Deng Gai (Unity State) and Chol Tong Mayai (Lakes State). These two individuals were unconstitutionally ousted from the positions they were democratically elected into. Under the constitution, the president can only remove an elected governor for reasons of national security. There were no such threats of national security in both cases.

But the real crux of the matter now is not about who started what and the reason for doing so. It is about finding the solution to the problems. An untold destruction has been exacted on the people – in lives, property and hopes. People are desperate. The on-going talks in Addis Ababa will only provide a temporary solution to the problems. The talks are important. They will provide a respite to the suffering of the people. It will help end hostilities, at least, for now. The international community must continue to exert pressure and provide leverage to the talks. But the permanent answer to the South Sudanese problems does not lie in the agreements that will be reached in Ethiopia; the answer is in the SPLM itself.

The SPLM is in essence, out-of-date and unconstitutional. As much as it is a historical movement with symbolic undertones, it is the source of the problems in South Sudan. It is legitimate machinery for perpetration of violence, corruption and assorted depravities. If South Sudan cares about its prosperity, is serious about ending the current violence and preventing its reoccurrence in the future, it must do away with the SPLM. The movement must be dissolved.

In the current South Sudan’s political climate, one’s hierarchy in the SPLM determines one’s influence in the country. If you are high up the ranks in the party, you are guaranteed a decent size of the national cake. You can hire and fire anyone. You can ascend to any position. The latter is the reason why the current problems started in the first place.

Riek Machar desperately wants to be the president of South Sudan. But he cannot become one unless he is the chairman of the SPLM. Chairmanship guarantees the holder an automatic ticket to run for presidency as the party’s candidate. And once you are an SPLM candidate, you have presidency under your sleeves. This is the only reason why Riek Machar is fighting hard to replace President Kiir. The President does not intend to vacate the position yet. He has powerful individuals that are steadfastly pushing for him to stay in the office as long as possible. They are beneficiaries of the system and they do not want the system to be taken over by someone else. President Kiir is an implement of other people’s ambitions.

For this reason, no one should expect the president to vacate the chairmanship for any one any time soon. Dr Riek Machar, of all people, has zero chance of occupying that office. If the international pressure comes to bear on President Kiir, he would rather pick another Nuer as his heir – possibly, the current Chief of General Staff, James Hoth Mai. But Riek will take that as an affront. Riek sees himself as the leading luminary of the Nuer tribe and none of the other guys will come before him. In that fact, he will fight to the bitter end as long as the SPLM is alive. And oh! He will not accept to be kicked out of the party either because that would spell the death knell of his presidential ambitions. Dr Machar understands all this.

Therefore, the only solution would be to reach a national consensus, so that the SPLM is dissolved for the sake of ending wars in the country. As idiotic and painful the idea sounds, it is the only prescription to problems in South Sudan. The dissolution of the SPLM will mean that the army will be nationalised as the South Sudan defence force not the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) as it stands. Politicians will be able to form independent political parties and work hard to win the hearts and minds of the populace. One’s political ambitions will be less tied to membership in one dominant political party. And above all, South Sudanese will start to forge political alliances along ideological inclinations – and less tribal leanings.

Maker Mayek Riak is a lawyer and a postgraduate student of law at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Twitter handle: @MakMayek

THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/S AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

The article The Single Solution To South Sudan’s Problems – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IDN

By Jutta Wolf

Austerity policies in several countries around the world are denying work to millions of people and leaving vast production opportunities unused, says a new study by the German-based World Future Council (WFC), which places the value of lost production at 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars annually. This corresponds to Britain’s gross domestic product. Losses in the 18-nation Eurozone triggered by public austerity alone are estimated at a minimum of 580 billion Euros each year.

“Given the huge challenges we face including stopping climate change and overcoming poverty, it is shocking that such a large economic potential remains untapped because of misguided policies,” says WFC and Right Livelihood award founder Jakob von Uexkull. To address the situation of the global economy realistically, the study uses an evaluation approach that relates unemployed labour to underused productive capital.

“According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), 200 million people are unemployed. If public austerity was ended, many of them could work to produce sustainable products or perform much-needed services. Instead, we lose their productive potential and condemn them to often long-term unemployment,” adds von Uexkull.

In the Eurozone, which is particularly affected by public austerity policies, the value of its lost annual production is calculated at 580 billion Euros. This is more than three times the gross domestic product of Portugal.

“Austerity may make sense if all economic resources such as labour and physical capital are used to capacity. However, such a situation is rare. Due to the current under-utilisation of production capacity, we are wasting the potential to invest in protecting the planet from climate change and environmental collapse as well as improving education and medical care,” explains Matthias Kroll, economist at the World Future Council and author of the study,

Kroll points out that contrary to the widespread view, austerity policies are not only practiced since the 2008 global financial crisis, but have been implemented for over 30 years. Many countries are living below their potential because they do not use their existing production capacities, creating idle real capital and large-scale unemployment.

In fact the term austerity has undergone a significant transformation. It was originally used in Britain during the Second World War when the challenge was how to maximise the output of war materials and how to ration popular consumption. Today the term stands for an economic policy, which from a microeconomic standpoint has become a savings policy for the national economy.

The study explains: “The national economy as a whole can save by cutting public expenditure in a crisis like economies on the micro level (that is, households) can. However, what is applicable on the micro level is not directly transferable to the macro level.

“On the contrary, spending cuts worsen economic crises. In a recent study the IMF estimates fiscal multipliers to be considerably in excess of one, meaning that reduced public expenditure causes a relatively stronger depression/reduction of economic productivity. “

Methodologically, neoclassical economic theory can neither explain mass unemployment nor unused production capacities. The study takes to a heterodox approach to explain the under-utilisation of productive capacities in a real world market model. It indicates that additional demand frequently results in additional production rather than increased prices.

‘Cradle to cradle’

The study adds: “Absurdly, while living below our economic potential we are living above the means of our finite raw materials and produce excessive CO2 emissions. The win-win response is to reduce our CO2 emissions and our over-consumption of finite raw materials by utilising our free productive capacities to expand renewable energies and redesign our production, as far as possible, according to the ‘Cradle to Cradle’ principle of closed loops.”

The study finds that there are huge global un-utilised productive resources that – with an income multiplier of two – can generate initial job-creating projects for the sustainable transformation of our energy and production systems at a cost of US $1.14 trillion per annum. Excessive demand and inflationary dangers would not occur even if these projects were funded with newly created money as the new production would absorb this.

The study highlights:

Climate protection investments: In the global climate protection debate it is generally accepted that annual investments of three figure billions of dollars are needed to transform our energy production from burning CO2-heavy, fossil raw materials to using renewable energies. It is also clear that the slow speed of this transformation is not due to limited industrial production capacities – for example, in the photovoltaic branch about half the world’s 60 Gigawatts of production capacity stands idle – or a lack of qualified labour.

Investments in a green industrial revolution: The key to an ecological transformation of production lies in the use of raw materials in – as far as possible – closed material circuits as in the ‘Cradle to Cradle’ model. Failure to implement this is not because we do not have enough engineers or scientists but because of ineffective regulation and insufficient financing.

An efficient health sector: Sufficient trained medical personnel, technical equipment and medication are the foundations of an efficient health sector. There are no objective reasons why these cannot be supplied. But health sector resources have been cut in many countries due to self-imposed austerity.

Meeting global educational needs: The education sector requires adequate schooling facilities, sufficient teachers, professors and other education staff. A fundamental lack of productive resources that hinders the expansion of the education sector cannot be identified.

Ensuring food security: To ensure adequate nutrition for all necessitates sufficient food production and a functioning distribution infrastructure. Insufficient resources to provide this have not been identified.

These examples are not exhaustive, notes Kroll. “They show that solutions to some of the most significant global challenges are not being thwarted by a lack of productive resources but by a lack of financing facilities. However, monetary resources are not per se a scarce resource but a good which can be produced at will.

“The international banking sector has shown that the provision of monetary resources in large quantities is possible. First it financed unproductive and speculative spending on a massive scale and in doing so created a financial bubble. Once this bubble burst the central banks tripled their money creation to prevent the financial system from collapsing. It would of course be more effective to use part of this money creation to finance real investments that help solve the acute humanitarian and environmental challenges the world faces.”

The article Austerity Generates Gigantic Costs – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Observer Research Foundation

By Rahul Prakash

Although India’s entry into the field of cyber security has been relatively late and much of the internal institutional streamlining is yet to take effect, the level of cooperation between India and the US in the field of cyber security has been substantial – something unimaginable a decade ago.

Cooperation between India and the US on cyber security started following the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to the US in 2001. The visit facilitated the establishment of the India-US Cyber Security Forum which focused on “cyber-security, cyber-forensics and related research and” aimed to work “…towards enhancing co-operation among law enforcement agencies on both sides in dealing with cyber crime”. Both governments planned to use the Forum as a platform for increased cooperation between Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) and the US National Cyber Security Division, defence services, industry as well as technology and between the standardisation agencies from both sides. The forum, which grew out of the larger counterterrorism dialogue between India and the US, hit a stumbling block when a spying scandal involving Indian and American officials participating in the forum came to light in 2006.

After a lull, the cooperation between the two countries on cyber gained momentum when the Indo-US strategic dialogue was initiated in 2010. Stemming from the foundation laid by the bilateral strategic dialogue, New Delhi and Washington signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to promote increased cooperation and exchange of information on cybersecurity in 2011. The MoU facilitates sharing of cybersecurity-related intelligence and cooperation on a whole range of other operational and technical issues between the CERTs of the two countries.

The topic of cyber security gained prominence in the subsequent bilateral strategic dialogues held between New Delhi and Washington. During the fourth round of India-US Strategic Dialogue held in June 2013, “Minister Khurshid and Secretary Kerry emphasized the need for the United States and India to develop stronger partnerships on cyber-security, including through the next iterations of the Cyber Security Consultations, the Strategic Cyber Policy Dialogue, and the Information and Communications Technology Working Group”. The two countries also agreed to “hold another round of whole-of-government Cybersecurity Consultations chaired by their respective national security councils to coordinate positions on cross-cutting cyber-security issues that impact international and economic security”. These consultations will include topics such as “cyber security best practices, supply-chain security, and norms of responsible state behavior in cyberspace”.

A Strategic Cyber Policy Dialogue was also initiated in 2013, which was chaired by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the US State Department. “Norms of responsible state behavior in cyberspace, internet freedom, internet governance, and cybercrime cooperation” were discussed during the dialogue.

Besides these high-level interactions, Indian and American officials have also been participating in several bilateral and international exercises and programmes aimed towards capacity building and enhancing mutual understanding, such as the US Cyber Storm national cyber incident response exercise. Additionally, India has also been an active participant within the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Information Security, where it has worked with the US and other members to shape norms of behaviour in cyberspace.

While the Snowden revelations had an impact on America’s bilateral relations with many countries, it had a limited affect on Indo-US relations including on cyber security. Even as the two nations have tried not to let the occasional hurdles derail the larger process of deeper cooperation on cyber security, concerns still remain on both sides. For instance, an area where Indian security agencies require assistance from the US is creating a working mechanism to combat the use of the internet and social media by anti-social, criminal and terrorist networks. India appears to be unsatisfied with the current state of affairs and is demanding the US owned service providers to be more responsive towards requests sent by Indian security agencies. This was highlighted during the recent US-India Police Chiefs conference held in New Delhi in December. On the other hand, the American side still finds it difficult to demystify the Indian cyber bureaucracy since for a long time it remained uncoordinated and opaque.

With the launch of the National Cyber Security Policy (NCSP) by India, many of these hurdles are expected to be removed. While the streamlining of Indian cyber bureaucracy has started with implementation of the NCSP, the process of implementation itself has been slow. However, the steps initiated by India are expected to open avenues for deeper cooperation. The NCSP emphasises “develop[ing] bilateral and multi-lateral relationships in the area of cyber security” and enhancing “…global cooperation among security agencies, CERTs, Defence agencies and forces, Law Enforcement Agencies and the judicial systems”.

Today, India is aiming to provide internet connectivity to the remotest corners of the country, hoping to use the digital sphere to deliver essential services to its citizens. The challenge would be to make these networks secure and resilient as any disruption could have the potential to affect the lives of millions. This would require large-scale support from the global players such as the US who could provide the necessary equipment and share best practices. Although there has been positive movement towards deeper cooperation between the two countries in matters related to cyberspace, there is substantial room for improvement to take the cooperation to a truly strategic level. Despite occasional hurdles, the congruence of notions of democracy, freedom of expression as well as market dynamics will make India and the US natural partners in cyberspace and ensuring its security. These shared interests and concerns should be the principles guiding the process forward.

(Rahul Prakash is a Junior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

Courtesy: ORF Cyber Monitor

The article India-US Cyber Relations – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Al Bawaba News

Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was admitted to a Paris hospital Monday for a “long-planned check-up,” reported Reuters Tuesday.

State news agency APS reported that Bouteflika, who is now 76, is making steady progress, but will remain in the hospital until Friday.

“To complete his health assessment, started in Algiers, and under a routine medical control … planned since June 2013, the President of the Republic Abdelaziz Bouteflika is staying at Val-de-Grace hospital,” APS said. “The president’s health is improving certainly and progressively.”

The Algerian president suffered a stroke last year, and has made very few public appearance since.

The leader still has yet to announce whether he will run for re-election this year, despite Algeria’s ruling FLN party citing him as the country’s only candidate.

Original article

The article Algerian President In Paris Hospital appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Hudson Institute

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty officially confirmed that Hudson Institute Senior Fellow David Satter has been expelled from the Russian Federation as an “undesirable,” and barred from further travel or work in Russian territory for a period of five years. Satter had been residing in Moscow while researching a book on post-Soviet history and serving as an advisor to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Hudson Institute condemns Russia’s arbitrary and punitive moves against David Satter in the strongest possible terms, demands that his expulsion and ban be immediately reversed, and urges the U.S. government and international community to make every possible effort to ensure that David Satter is allowed to continue his scholarly activities in Russia without further delay or interference.

“David Satter is a valued colleague and friend who is one of America’s leading authorities on contemporary Russia,” says Hudson Institute President & CEO Kenneth R. Weinstein. “He has Hudson Institute’s unequivocal support.”

RFE/RL President and CEO Kevin Klose called the expulsion and travel ban “entirely without foundation or explanation” and “a fundamental violation of the right of free speech and journalistic liberty.” The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has lodged a formal diplomatic protest with Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Satter is the author of three books on Russia, most recently “It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past” (Yale University Press, 2011), and director of a documentary on late-Soviet Russia, “Age of Delirium,” which won the Van Gogh Grand Jury prize at the 2013 Amsterdam Film Festival.

Satter began reporting on Russia in 1976 as the Moscow correspondent for London’s Financial Times. His essays and articles regularly appear in a wide variety of major U.S. and international publications, and he is a frequent guest—interviewed in both English and Russian—on Radio Liberty, BBC’s Russian Service, BBC World, Voice of America, CNN, PBS, C-SPAN, and other broadcast networks.

The article Hudson Institute Statement On Expulsion Of Senior Fellow David Satter From Russia appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Andy Worthington

A month ago, Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who was cleared for release under President Bush and President Obama, reported that prisoners — himself included — had resumed the hunger strike that raged from February to August last year, and, at its peak, involved up to 130 of the remaining prisoners. As the Observer described it, in a phone call with Clive Stafford Smith, the director of Reprieve, the legal action charity whose lawyers represent 15 men still at Guantánamo, Shaker “revealed there [were] 29 Guantánamo hunger strikers, including him, of whom 19 [were] being force-fed.”

That number has now increased. In its latest press release, Reprieve used testimony by the prisoners to “reveal that 33 men detained in Guantánamo are on hunger strike, with 16 being force fed.” When the Joint Task Force at Guantánamo announced at the start of last month that they were no longer going to state how many prisoners were on hunger strike, because they did not want to “further their protests,” just 15 of the prisoners were refusing food, all of whom were being force-fed.

Reprieve also revealed that the authorities at Guantánamo are punishing hunger strikers by sending them to Camp V Echo, described as “the strictest of the camps.” One prisoner represented by Reprieve’s lawyers said, “My cell in the dreadful Camp V Echo is constructed in a strange manner. It is designed to torture the person who is held there. All the surfaces made of steel. The bed is steel. The walls are steel. The floor is steel. The ceiling is steel. There is no toilet, but the hole in the ground is made of steel.”

Recounting his own experiences, Shaker Aamer said, “[I was] strapped to the bed for 24 hours except to use the toilet. The [force-feeding] tube was in 24 hours a day. We would be fed for 30-40 minutes each time, with Ensure cans, two cans, three times a day. Some of the prisoners became zombies, as if they were already dead. I dropped weight to 130 pounds. I told the doctors, ‘I want to die peacefully. I want no intervention.’ But they refused this.”

The increase in the number of prisoners on hunger strike over the last month is troubling, especially given the authorities’ refusal to provide figures regarding those on hunger strike. It suggests that the prisoners understand that, although there has been some progress in the months since President Obama, spurred by international criticism provoked by the hunger strike, promised renewed action on Guantánamo, and has since released 11 prisoners, it is also likely that the release of prisoners will not be made a priority, or will not happen swiftly enough if the prisoners do not, again, risk their lives to remind the world — and the president — of their ongoing plight.

After all, 76 of the 155 men still held were cleared for release at least four years ago, and some, like Shaker, were actually cleared for release by military review boards under President Bush, in 2006 and 2007. It is unsurprising if these men are not entirely convinced that they too will be released soon.

While campaigners — myself included — work out the best ways to keep exerting pressure on President Obama, I’m posting below Shaker’s latest statement from Guantánamo, which Clive Stafford Smith made available to the coalition of groups in Washington D.C. on Saturday, where myself and others were calling on the President to keep releasing prisoners, including the Yemenis who make up the majority of the cleared prisoners, and, of course, including Shaker. 2014 must be the year that the excuses for inaction come to an end.

Shaker Aamer’s Statement on the 12th Anniversary of the Opening of Guantánamo

Today is the twelfth anniversary of the establishment of Guantánamo Bay. It has been a blot on the reputation of America, and will remain that until, first, it is closed, and second, lessons are learned from it that can help prevent any repetition in the decades to come.

It will soon be 12 years that I have been in Guantánamo. I arrived on the day my youngest child Faris was born (February 14th, 2002). Even then, I had already spent some two months in US captivity, undergoing terrible mistreatment. Those are twelve years that are lost to me forever.

What I have missed most has been the opportunity to do my part to fill up my four children’s reservoir of love. The early years of a child’s life is a parent’s best chance to show them what love is, before they become more distant with approaching adulthood. Losing this, my opportunity and obligation, is my greatest regret.

However, we must look forward, rather than backwards. Even though British agents supported the Americans in my abuse, I wish them no ill. I do not even want to see them punished. I want only to come home to my family so that I can try to make up to them what I have been unable to provide for all these years.

I am on hunger strike once more. The US military wants to repress the truth about Guantánamo, but the truth will always come out. Others suffer even more than I do. All hunger strikers in Camp VI are now being brought over for a dose of the worst medicine the military can provide here – Camp V Echo, the Alcatraz of Guantánamo Bay. The cells are all steel, and the metal chills the bones as if you are trying to sleep in a refrigeration unit. They now punish us with force feeding, and they punish us with hypothermia, all because we call for justice.

Yet justice will be restored — justice must be restored.

I must say one thing to people out there about January 11: My biggest fear is that someone will do something stupid on the anniversary. When anyone does something wrong on the outside, we on the inside have to pay the price for it. When there was that incident in Yemen, the Americans banned the Yemenis from going home — even though it had nothing to do with the Yemenis here in Guantánamo Bay. I am grateful to those who support us. But if anyone wants to demonstrate on our behalf against the black stain that is Guantánamo, please do it in good faith and good humour, and above all practice no violence.

The article Shaker Aamer Reports 33 Guantánamo Prisoners On Hunger Strike, Issues Statement On Prison’s 12th Anniversary – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.