By RSIS

The Thai Government has imposed a state of emergency in Bangkok and its immediate surroundings for 60 days to end the demonstrations and blockade of the city aimed at bringing down Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. A veteran political observer in Bangkok analyses the historical and cultural factors underlying the protests and discusses a possible solution to the imbroglio through the Thai Middle Way.

By Jeffrey Race

Deposed former prime minister police lieutenant colonel Thaksin Shinawatra brought something new to Thailand. It is what is preventing a peaceful settlement of the conflict now raging in Bangkok’s streets, and it is not his political opening to the rural underclass as the press and public commentary superficially explain.

News coverage and editorial comment in the world press are both devoting increasing attention to the current conflict, now headed for a 2 February election which the main opposition party will boycott. Local Bangkok press and public personalities are vigorously critical of much international coverage as ignorant and distorted by the obsessions and political histories of completely different cultures.

Need for deeper understanding of conflict

Unsolicited comments by foreign officials have further inflamed local sentiment. Foreign coverage typically casts the conflict as a struggle for advantage between social classes. While that aspect exists, such superficiality misses other planes of the conflict, obscuring how it might end in a way consistent with Thai culture and history.

The current conflict has brought hundreds of thousands into Bangkok’s streets periodically since 2006, coalescing around two great coalitions that are struggling to control the Thai state – a cornucopia of tangible benefits. Within just a few years as prime minister before his 2006 fall from power, Thaksin rose to become one of the richest men in Asia.

In a pattern common to Thai politics, one coalition is thus centered on a party, originally Thai Rak Thai before its judicial dissolution in 2007 for electoral misconduct, then the People’s Power Party, and now Puea Thai, or “For the Thai”, as the vehicle to advance the interests of the Shinawatra clan and associates.

Puea Thai and its previous incarnations have attracted many financially and politically influential supporters who have calculated that this tie-up will pay more than the alternatives. This party now dominates the state, more strongly in the civilian ministries, less in the military and quasi- independent agencies. While ornamented with such emotive terms as “democracy”, “justice” and “the public welfare”, its leaders have no goal other than personal benefit. But this is the norm of politics in every country, though definitions vary from place to place as to what is legitimate and what not.

Thaksin’s variously named parties are the only recent political force to push policies bringing substantial and genuine uplift to rural areas. At the same time, many of their policies were and are specious, unsupportable in the long run, and fountains of self-serving corruption.

His party vehicles excite the imagination and galvanise public involvement in political demonstrations of those lower in the social scale often from economically stressed regions. These are the so-called “Red Shirts”, who began their 2010 demonstrations in the normally polite Thai mode but ended up torching the World Trade Centre and other buildings in the middle of Bangkok and as victims of state violence.

On the other side are hundreds of thousands of people now occupying central Bangkok, whom the Thais genially call the “mob” although they usually are well behaved. Over the years they have been inspired by figures generally from the business community and in some cases with previous ties to political parties opposing Thaksin’s family vehicle. High-level financing is clear to the naked eye, including free meals, sophisticated transport systems for protesters, communications equipment, a satellite TV channel and 72-inch LCD monitors placed throughout the assembly areas.

The financiers are generally those squeezed out by the Shinawatra plan to dominate the local economy through a series of monopolies and concessions, or what informed commentators and Thai academics call “policy corruption”. Only occasionally are figures from these financier families seen at the public demonstrations.

The bulk of the “mob” consists of people from all walks of life, mainly from Bangkok, surrounding areas and southern provinces. They comprise young and old people, the well dressed and the simply dressed, people walking, riding bikes and scooters or driving in expensive SUVs, mostly Thai Buddhists, but many, from their attire, clearly Muslims. They were universally in a jolly mood.

A salient aspect of this “mob” is its high-status leaders, the ones who provide the legitimacy and cover for the lower-status members to occupy public spaces. They are not motivated by material interests but, like volunteers participating in local politics everywhere, by a craving for excitement, fun with friends and involvement in some uplifting public purpose. Understanding the motives and the minimal position of these high-status legitimators is key to perceiving the future of this struggle.

Ruling patterns and the Middle Way

Thais differ culturally from every other people in ways that are important for economics, politics and, above all, personal relations. Every aspect of life is influenced by Theravada Buddhist concepts of the Noble Eightfold Path and the Middle Way.

At the apex of society sits the king, who in a classical Indic pattern but of intense relevance today must reign (formerly rule) according to the Ten Kingly Virtues. His ministers may be imperfect but he sets the moral tone of the community which ensures the survival of the state. Without understanding these matters one will not get far in understanding Thai politics or the possibilities for the present situation.

Control of the modern Thai state has been through a gentlemanly alternation of elites, the composition of which has gradually changed since the end of absolute royal rule in the early 1930s. In keeping with the Middle Way, political figures have been moderately corrupt but with sensitivity to the transience of life (again a Buddhist notion) and thus the need eventually to move on with what one has accumulated, or even give it up.

No one until recently attempted to dominate either the state or the economy. Sometimes the politically powerful required a nudge (public demonstrations, tanks in the streets, a whisper from the king), but Thai politics continued its circulation of elites so everyone had a chance for a piece of the pie.

Thaksin’s rise and fall

A clever manipulator but lacking in judgment and common sense, Thaksin left police service while still young to pursue a variety of commercial ventures which fared poorly until he found a winning formula: a series of sweetheart deals with the government. First was the supply of Motorola radios to the police, and then distribution of Motorola mobile handsets to the Thai market, at a time when Motorola was the industry leader. But Thaksin again had a gimmick to enrich his family: locking the sale of cellular service (via the GSM SIM card) to the sale of the user’s handset.

This violated an international agreement but it succeeded in raising local handset prices to three times their international level, with the increment (on Motorola handsets) going to Thaksin’s family and yet more captive customer money going to Advanced Information Service (AIS), his family’s cellular firm at the time.

This monopoly arrangement from early in Thaksin’s political career prefigures the manipulation and abuse of market processes which characterise Thaksin’s and his affiliated political party’s current approach to public policy. Nonetheless, Thaksin’s energy and persuasive demeanour led to political roles of increasing importance in which he clearly distinguished himself as a “can-do” figure capable of energising the then-sluggish state bureaucracy.

After Thaksin’s push for bureaucratic streamlining and rejuvenation, Thai citizens experienced a dramatic improvement in daily dealings with officialdom. Thaksin built around himself the Thai Rak Thai Party, a vehicle to enrich his family and associates in a very traditional Thai pattern. But against tradition, this coalition of interests began to squeeze all sectors of the economy and polity. The public wherewithal to do this came from a series of populist policies still paying electoral benefits today.

Some see Thaksin’s unwillingness to compromise, unwillingness to move on and “winner takes all” obsessions in both politics and the economy as growing out of his unhappy treatment as a youth in a family of Chinese origin in Northern Thailand. Whatever the source, Thaksin’s motivations and resulting actions led to his rejection by powerful elements of Thai society, uneasy with unprecedented corruption and with his tense relationship with the present monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

He was overthrown in a coup d’etat in 2006, following which investigations into misconduct in office led to his criminal conviction for abuse of power and seizure of part of his ill-gotten fortune. His party was deregistered due to extensively documented violations of the law. Thaksin fled abroad in 2008 to avoid imprisonment from where he has financed and directed the reconstruction of policies and political vehicles to continue his rule over Thailand, most recently installing his younger sister, Yingluck, as his proxy prime minister after Puea Thai won mid-2011 elections.

Yingluck’s government is working hard using perfected “policy corruption” techniques to maintain a torrent of funding to the Shinawatra family and friends. Tried and true populist policies keep the votes coming in. Many of his Red Shirt followers accept that of course Thaksin is corrupt; that’s the whole point of being in office in Thailand. But at least he gives them something in return, not just hope but also substantial life improvements.

Different Rule Sets

Some view Thailand’s entrenched conflict as no more than two business coalitions competing to plunder the nation. In fact, they operate by very different rule sets. These differences make the present situation intractable but they are seldom captured in press analysis.

The forces now in opposition to the Shinawatra family machine have been generally content over the years to go through democratic forms, to liberalise the economy, to maintain the openness of the press, public life and public debate, and slowly to improve the reliability of the judicial system. Culturally, they follow the Middle Way, including its corollary – taking only so much while leaving something for others, and when it’s time to go, going gracefully. In practice, they are indifferent to the cause of rural uplift.

Thaksin’s ‘My Way’

In addition to its opening to those lower in the social scale, the Shinawatra family machine has introduced a new rule set to Thailand, not the Middle Way but ‘My Way’, in which they have shown they do not know when enough is enough – something most Thais sense is important and have no difficulty accepting.

During the 2001-2006 period of solid electoral power, the Thai Rak Thai machine began a programme of dominating every sector of the economy and state on behalf of Thaksin’s family and friends: banking, communications, media, foreign affairs, the courts, the police. At the end they were moving on the military and the last bastion of resistance – the royal palace. While they did not reach the depths of present-day Argentina, the direction was clear.

No “people’s council” or agreement on “democratic procedures” is going to end or even mitigate the present turbulence in Bangkok. The legitimators of today’s protests, indeed of the opposition to Thaksin since the start of the civil unrest leading to his overthrow, have lived with rebalancing of economic interests between classes in the kingdom and could again. They can do deals with Red Shirt leaders, as they have in the past.

Legitimators’ minimum obsession

The legitimators of the current protest movement have one minimum obsession. For them, the idea that a fugitive criminal, and indeed a perceived enemy of the king, should by remote control run Thailand for himself and his family is not just unacceptable but inconceivable. Thaksin’s approach to rule is so alien to Thai cultural values. It has little to do with economic interests or the division of political power. Ideas of “sharing power” or “a clear reform plan” or “democratic processes” are irrelevant to the core of the present conflict.

But for Thaksin it is arguably all about money and control. His corruption conviction in 2008 was actually quite even-handed: the court seized the equivalent of US$1.5 billion of his funds as ill-gotten gains (the legal basis for the judgment is factually unassailable) but left him almost another billion as not clearly the result of abuse of power. It was a typically Thai-style invitation to move abroad, where he maintains substantial financial assets.

Therein lies the rub of today’s struggle in Bangkok: Stable politics assumes some fit between public political behaviour and strongly-held cultural expectations. Thaksin’s behaviour does not conform. One can see anger on his face in his TV appearances – a no-no in Thai culture; he wants power back personally; he wants his billion dollars back; and he does not want to go to prison, even though the court ruled he earned much of his money from abuse of power.

Thaksin argues that the legal cases against him were politically motivated, certainly correct in the sense that he had squeezed so many people and institutions (the press, banks, military and royal palace) that he had lots of political enemies. And it is certainly true that judicial proceedings against him resulted directly from the 2006 coup d’etat ending his prime ministership.

But that hardly delegitimates the prosecutions: while in power, Thaksin and his family were above the law, and the convictions themselves were immaculate. This writer has reviewed the full Thai texts of the judgments against him and his Thai Rak Thai party which show they are not just beyond reasonable doubt but beyond any conceivable doubt.

It is Thaksin’s refusal to follow the cultural pattern of sharing and moving on – which accounts for the relatively gentle nature of power transfers in Thailand over many decades – that makes him intolerable to those in the streets today. For them, Thaksin is a “foreign” object, to be rejected, and if that requires a temporary breach with democratic formalisms, that is a regrettable necessity to preserve the special agreeableness of Thai community life and the relative lack of viciousness of Thai politics which so distinguish the country.

Conditions for Middle Way solution

The legitimators hope to preserve the Thailand they know from Thaksin’s import of alien values. And for them this matter is supremely urgent, because coming changes at the apex of Thai society may make their goal impossible. Thus a condition for ending the present turmoil is that Thaksin agree to remain permanently in exile, that his family agree to abjure power, and that his coalition abandons its innovative “winner takes all” political rule set.

But that’s only one of two conditions to enable Thailand to resume a safe and healthy path to national development. Watch for this first key development, however unlikely though it might seem at present.

Serious conflicts over ideology, power and money have regularly occurred in Thailand over much of the past century. But because of its Buddhist norms, Thailand has never experienced the horrendous violence of its neighbours or of many other countries in the world faced with similar conflicts. Instead of fights to the death in the streets of Bangkok, those whose moment has begun to pass have often left the country – starting in 1935 when King Prajadhipok abdicated and moved to the United Kingdom to die in exile.

In turn, Pridi Phanomyong, the famous leader of the political movement that forced Prajadhipok’s exile, thrice exiled himself, in 1934, 1947, and definitively in 1949. He later died in Paris in 1983. Pridi’s nemesis, Police General Phao Sriyanond, lost out in a power struggle in 1957 and moved with his fortune to Geneva, finally dying there without seeing his homeland again.

In 1973, Field Marshals Thanom Kitthachorn and Prapat Charusathien went into temporary exile in Taiwan and the United States, eventually returning to quiet lives in Bangkok. In 1976, respected economist Dr Puey Ungphakorn, on the wrong side of political currents of the day, moved to exile in London.

Thaksin’s opponents also have some very practical reasons to wish him away, starting with his poor judgment. For example, any person in Thailand of normal judgment knows one thing before all else: one cannot advance in the kingdom acting, or even thinking, against the king. But Thaksin is widely perceived as flouting this iron rule, with inevitable bad consequences for himself and for the country. The same poor judgment was apparent in many economic policy choices.

What is needed for genuine stability

A second element is Thaksin’s aversion to the substance of democracy, despite his party’s appeals to this ideal in its conflicts with those now in the streets. Ironically, Thaksin himself was the beneficiary of the gradual strengthening of democratic institutions in the decades since the first flowering in the mid-1970s, being the first elected prime minister to complete his full term of office.

But Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party, even as such a beneficiary, was dismantling democracy’s supporting elements as fast as it could through threats and strong-arming of the press, use of bank credit for commercial blackmail, prejudicial use of the police, and intimidation and bribery of the courts. For the Shinawatra family, ruling the state is a business, similar to running a telecom firm. Elections, blackmail and bribes are all tactics their affiliated political parties use to keep the money coming in. The opening to the lower classes is just another tactic that will be abandoned as soon as it is safe, and plenty of Red Shirt leaders are worried about just this.

Understanding the possibilities for the future may be clearer with this explanation of the real motives of the participants. Most Thais are exquisitely sensitive to the feelings of others and respond appropriately. But they have a charming expression for what must be done to social deviants: aw may tii hua or, “you have to hit them on the head with a club”. That’s what the people in the streets of Bangkok are now trying to do.

The immediate turmoil in the streets will stop when Thaksin and his family figure out that they can make no lesser sacrifice than did their predecessors, everyone from royalty on down. But even with this sacrifice, the social stresses that the Shinawatra family so cynically exploit will continue until some as yet unidentified fragment of the elite develops a competing – but honest, practical and durable – programme for rural uplift.

This actually happened during a preceding period of great domestic conflict in Thailand, in 1973 with the collapse of the amiable but out-of-touch military dictatorship. A group of bankers and aristocrats joined to found the Social Action Party, which went on to implement a series of policy innovations, dramatically changing the rural-urban terms of trade through alterations in rice taxation policy and import duties on agricultural inputs.

The remarkable puzzle today is why no group of political entrepreneurs has emerged to compete against Thaksin in this great empty space in the Thai political marketplace. That is (as it was in the 1970s) the second condition for genuine stability. If and when that happens, outsiders might begin to feel confident again about the future of Thailand.

Jeffrey Race is a Harvard-trained political analyst and Bangkok-based business consultant. This article was first published by Asia Times Online on 13 January 2014. Copyright 2014 Jeffrey Race.

The article The Conflict In Thailand: Cultural Roots And The Middle Way Solution – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Arab News

By Nilofar Suhrawardy

It is ironical that at times diplomatic, political and media viewpoints on an issue can differ substantially. Of late, differences in views expressed on India-Pakistan ties with a specific reference to Kashmir fall in this category. One cannot deny that the two nuclear neighbors are miles apart from resolving their differences on several issues, one of which is Kashmir. The prospects of the two traditional rivals using military option over this issue cannot be ruled out.

Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, recently said that only dialogue between the two sides could help settle the differences on key issues.

“Wars in the past have never solved any problem and will not solve any issue in future.” He also pointed out that only peace in the region can help people in both the countries prosper.

Recent history has been witness to India and Pakistan exploring prospects of enhancing their economic ties. A key pointer in this direction is holding of talks between commerce secretaries of both the countries on sidelines of the SAARC ministerial meeting in New Delhi. This would be followed by a second annual conference on normalizing India-Pakistan trade ties, which would be attended by businessmen, academicians and trade experts from both countries.

Surprisingly, the Indian media and many politicians are skeptical over any major breakthrough in Indo-Pak economic ties. Rather, greater importance has been accorded to internal differences within India, particularly regarding the Kashmir issue. An opinion voiced by an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader over calling for referendum in Jammu and Kashmir (J &K) on deployment of armed forces in J&K has gained substantial media coverage and also ample criticism from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

On the other hand, little importance has been accorded to an apparent change in the stance of certain J&K leaders’ approach toward Indian and Pakistani governments. It may be noted that the Hurriyat Conference has always been known for its criticism of New Delhi’s stand on Kashmir. This group and its members have also kept themselves disassociated from the Indian political functioning in J&K. The change in this group’s approach has become visible by the Hurriyat Conference, led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, recently describing the “changing” Indo-Pak relations as “encouraging.” This clearly signals that the Hurriyat leaders have accepted that improvement in Indo-Pak relations is necessary to ensure peace in Kashmir and to help resolve the issue.

Despite J&K government led by Omar Abdullah and Hurriyat Conference never known to be politically friendly toward each other, their holding a similar approach on a crucial issue cannot be ignored. This also implies that in essence, most Kashmiris are hopeful of progress in Indo-Pak ties being encouraging for them and their state.

Besides, history has taught them that wars will not solve their problems. So, irrespective of how long it takes for the settlement of the Kashmir issue, they want it to be resolved through dialogue and not through war.

Politically, howsoever diverse may be views of non-Kashmiri Indian politicians regarding Kashmir issue and Indo-Pak relations, they have so far succeeded primarily in securing substantial media coverage for the same.

Indian media has been to a degree subjective in overplaying the noise made by various politicians, including Congress, BJP and AAP leaders on Kashmir.

Ironically, not much importance has been given to definite steps taken by India and Pakistan to maintain their nuclear diplomacy. This year also began with India and Pakistan exchanging lists of their nuclear facilities. This exchange, a part of a 1988 pact that prevents them from attacking each other’s nuclear installations, has been held each year on New Year’s Day since 1992. India handed over its list to the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, while Pakistan handed over its list to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

In keeping with their agreement signed on May 21, 2008, the two countries also exchanged list of nationals held in their respective jails. This list is exchanged twice each year, Jan. 1 and July 1. The lists indicate India has 396 Pakistani prisoners of which 257 are civilians including 139 fishermen. There are 281 Indians in Pakistani jails, among whom 232 are fishermen.

History bears witness to nuclear policies of both India and Pakistan having acted as a deterrent in preventing both countries from indulging in an open conflict. Continuous exchange of their nuclear lists points to the importance given by both sides in maintaining their nuclear diplomacy. Even the United States, known to have always been critical of their nuclear capabilities has apparently toned down its approach. Initially, US experts lashed out at their nuclear policies, making noise about their heading toward Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The US, however, still maintains this approach but has ceased making much noise about it. Stephen P. Cohen, a well-known American political scientist and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, recently expressed his views on Indo-Pak relations while delivering a lecture on peace in South Asia at Administrative Staff College of India in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh). In Cohen’s opinion, nuclear capability was good to some extent, as it would act as a deterrent from aggression from any side. “But, if there is any accident between the two countries resulting in a nuclear war, nobody would exist in the aftermath,” he said.

Whatever be US viewpoint, India and Pakistan have certainly come a long way from even considering indulgence in open conflict. Every year when they exchange lists of their nuclear capabilities and each time they consider options of improving their ties, the important role played by their nuclear diplomacy stands out. Yet, more political noise is made, perhaps to earn media coverage, about differences held regarding Kashmir and other issues as irritants in Indo-Pak ties. Some importance needs to be given to bridge communication gap prevalent in various sections regarding Indo-Pak relations.

- The author is an Indian freelance journalist who has written extensively for national newspapers. Email: nilofarsuhrawardy@hotmail.com

The article Indo-Pak Ties: Let’s Sort It Out Across The Table – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By MINA

US scientists have developed a series of mini-satellites tasked with patrolling the Earth’s orbit. The so-called “space cops” are intended to help satellites avoid collisions with space junk.

The Space-Based Telescopes for Actionable Refinement of Ephemeris (STARE) is the brainchild of researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California.

The program envisions deploying scores of tiny satellites to work in low-Earth orbit. The satellites would then relay information about potential collisions between satellites and space debris to operators back on Earth, who would then correct their orbits from the ground.

The scientists used a series of six images over a 60-hour period taken from a ground-based satellite to prove that a satellite’s orbit can be refined in low-Earth orbit.

Using the ground-based satellite, the researchers refined the orbit of the NORAD 27006 satellite, based on the first four observations made within the initial 24 hours. The team managed to successfully predict NORAD’s trajectory to within less than 50 meters over 36 hours.

The team believes their success with NORAD 27006 can be replicated with other satellites as well.

“Eventually our satellite will be orbiting and making the same sort of observations to help prevent satellite-on-satellite and satellite-on-debris collisions in space,” said Lance Simms, lead author of a paper appearing in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Small Satellites.

The scientists say that with the current technology, it is only possible to determine the pace of a space object within a one-kilometer range. This lack of precession means ground operators are inundated with 10,000 false alarms for every close call or collision.

Due to an excessively high frequency of false alarms, satellite operators rarely correct a satellite’s course, even when the threat turns out to be genuine.

Cutting down this window from 1000 to 50 meters could be a godsend for operators navigating a space junk laden orbit.

Millions of pieces of space debris currently inhabit the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The debris consists of space exploration leftovers including spanners, nuts, bolts, gloves, and shards of spacecraft.

The majority of the 100 million pieces of space junk are orbiting some 700 to 1,000 kilometers above the planet’s surface and do not pose a direct threat to man-made satellites.

The problem area is in low orbits where satellites are likely to be placed. While most of the debris is too small to be hazardous, there are currently 21,000 pieces of wreckage no smaller than a grapefruit hurdling through lower orbit at up to five miles per second. A collision with such an object could prove disastrous for satellites.

Apart from the potential of collisions, experts also believe the debris could eventually interfere with global positioning systems, international phone connections, and television signals.

The article ‘Space Cop’ Satellites To Patrol Earth’s Orbit appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By TransConflict

What might a world citizen look like while there is still no world government? The first example might be Edward Snowden. Whether he meant to or not, his disclosures have served the interest of people around the world in the privacy of our communications. In other words, world citizens may think and act outside the confines of the sovereign entities they inhabit.

By Gerard M. Gallucci

And now for something completely different.  I will in this posting suggest possibilities that might be considered a bit crazy and might even get me added to the FBI (or NSA?) watch list:  that we have reached the point in human history, and the onrush of globalization, to begin thinking – at least thinking – about world government.  To begin with, we might perhaps agree to start with the United Nations and consider how we as world citizens might move it in the direction of a European Union model as it could be applied to the current 193 members.

This possibility came to me after reading a recent piece by Stewart Patrick in Foreign Affairs (January/February issue) entitled “The Unruled World.”  Patrick argues that the world’s multilateral institutions have become atrophied since the UN was founded after World War II.  They hold meetings, issue reports and muddle through dealing with transnational issues.  The UN Security Council has failed to keep up with changing international power relations, the WTO is “comatose” and NATO “struggles” to find its role.  The importance of the UN has declined, the UNSC has shown itself repeatedly stymied by political differences among its members.  This all comes while the need for international cooperation is ever increasing.

The world’s leading power, the US, increasingly has operated outside the UN context often relying on more malleable regional organizations.  Global governance – “the collective effort by sovereign states, international organizations, and other nonstate actors to address common challenges and seize opportunities that transcend national frontiers” – suffers within the context of an “anarchic” system of international politics “composed of independent sovereign units that recognize no higher authority.”  Power realities based on sovereign states make change in the structure of international institutions unlikely.  Patrick concludes that as “the current global disorder…is clearly here to stay” the challenge is to make it work “as well as possible.”  He suggests an approach of “good enough governance” based on “ad hoc coalitions of the willing, regional and subregional institutions, public-private arrangements, and informal codes of conduct.”

It is hard to argue that the current international system doesn’t leave much to be desired or that the UN works as well as it might.  Meanwhile, we human beings live in a violent world, intensely and increasingly interconnected and with a concentration of wealth in which Oxfam estimates the 85 richest individuals have as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion of our total population.  (Oxfam notes that the global 1% have 65 times the wealth of the poorest half of humanity.)  None of the sovereign state governments show any real interest in reducing global inequality – and few care much about domestic inequality either, including the US – and none of the major powers have shown themselves ready to deal effectively with violent conflicts, environmental degradation and climate change.

But why abandon the UN in favor of work-arounds?  The UN remains the only truly global assembly we have and the countries that have signed the Charter commit themselves to collective action and the use of force only through the UNSC.  Allowing the leading powers to use their coalitions of the willing to pursue their own interests (and demons) seems more to increase international disorder rather than decrease it.  Aristotle noted long ago that the many are more likely to reach good decisions than the few.  If global governance is insufficient to resolve the myriad of challenges the human race faces in the 21^st Century, then maybe it’s time to talk about moving toward a genuine world government?

I live in a country in which many are deeply suspicious of any government, much less a world one.  Some of these still fear the intrusion of UN “black helicopters” that may come over the horizon at any moment to steal our freedom.  But many others around the world might see it differently, from the point of view of those for whom the current order leaves too much injustice, too much disorder, too much undone, too many grievances that nurture violence?  Might it be time for we citizens of the various sovereign states to see ourselves also as citizens of the world, citizens of a government that does not yet exist but may need to come into existence for our own collective good?   Perhaps we can at least begin talking about world government?  What it might be, how we might get there, where we might start?

What might a world citizen look like while there is still no world government?  The first example that comes to mind might be Edward Snowden.  Whether he meant to or not, his disclosures – clearly illegal under US law – have served the interest of people around the world (and the IT companies that serve us) in the privacy of our communications.  In other words, world citizens may think and act outside the confines of the sovereign entities they inhabit.

As it remains unlikely that we can achieve anything like a truly global polity with its own sovereign institutions in any foreseeable time, how might world citizens begin to think about practical steps in that general direction?  The EU comes to mind as a possible model to guide evolution of the UN.  The EU is a system of institutions and organizations built from, and over, a number of independent sovereign states.  Might we move toward making the General Assembly eventually an elected body as is the European Parliament?  Not much real power but providing a way for we as a species to begin gaining the experience of acting together as citizens of that future world polity?  Might the UNSC evolve into something like the European Commission with a larger membership perhaps based upon states willing to take on certain collective responsibilities? And here is a possible sweetener for the US:  maybe the Fed can play the role of the German Bundesbank in establishing a world central bank and a common currency?

As I suggested at the outset, just a few crazy and possibly dangerous thoughts.

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 Time To Begin Thinking About World Government? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By MINA

Any pilot flying holidaymakers between Manchester and Ibiza must be prepared for outlandish sights.

But perhaps nothing so apparently unworldly as this.

The captain of a Thomas Cook airliner flying tourists back from the Spanish holiday island to the north of England reported a “near miss” with a “rugby ball”-shaped UFO, which passed within feet of his jet.

The encounter, over Reading, Berks, was reported to the aviation authorities, who launched an investigation. But no earthly identity for the object could be established.

The encounter was disclosed earlier this month by the Telegraph, following the publication of a report into the inquiry. The document did not identify the aircraft involved.

However, following an analysis of flight data recorded on the internet, the Telegraph has established it was a Thomas Cook plane, with the flight number TCX24HX. It was an A320, with the registration G-KKAZ, which was made in 2003.

The jet was flying to Manchester International airport, from Ibiza, on July 19th 2013. For years, the island has enjoyed a hedonistic reputation, attracting thousands of tourists each summer, many attracted to its vibrant nightlife. In recent years, it has attracted an increasingly upmarket clientele, among them David and Samantha Cameron.

The aircraft was flying at 516mph, at an altitude of 34,000ft, when it was passed by the UFO.

The encounter occurred in daylight, at around 6.35pm. It only emerged following publication of the report, which concluded it was “not possible to trace the object or determine the likely cause of the sighting”.

The captain said he spotted the object travelling towards the jet out of a left hand side, cockpit window, apparently heading directly for it. He said there was no time to for the aircrew to take evasive action.

He told investigators he was certain the object was going to crash into his aircraft and ducked as it headed towards him.

The incident was investigated by the UK Airprox Board, which studies “near misses” involving aircraft in British airspace.

The report states: “(The captain) was under the apprehension that they were on collision course with no time to react. His immediate reaction was to duck to the right and reach over to alert the FO (First Officer); there was no time to talk to alert him.”

It adds: “The Captain was fully expecting to experience some kind of impact with a conflicting aircraft.”

He told investigators he believes the object passes “within a few feet” above the jet.

He described it as being “cigar/rugby ball like” in shape, bright silver and apparently “metallic” in construction.

Once it had passed, the captain checked the aircraft’s instruments and contacted air traffic controllers to report the incident. However, there was no sign of the mystery craft.

As part of the inquiry, data recordings were checked to establish what other aircraft were in the area at the time. However, all were eliminated. The investigation also ruled out meteorological balloons, after checking none were released in the vicinity. Toy balloons were also discounted, as they are not large enough to reach such heights. Military radar operators were contacted but were unable to trace the reported object.

A spokesman for Thomas Cook Airlines said, “All our pilots are trained and required to report any unexpected events that occur during the flight to the aviation authorities.”

The Ministry of Defence closed its UFO desk in December 2009, along with its hotline for reporting such sightings. Following that change, the Civil Aviation Authority took the decision that it would continue to look into such reports, from aircrew and air traffic controllers, because they could have implications for “flight safety”.

In 2012, the head of the National Air Traffic Control Services admitted staff detected around one unexplained flying object every month.

The article Airliner Nearly Misses Rugby Shaped UFO? appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

An Indian army court of inquiry’s dismissal of all charges against five officers for the high-profile killing of civilians in Jammu and Kashmir state demonstrates the military’s continuing impunity for serious abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Indian government should urgently act on the recommendations of several commissions and repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which provides effective immunity for military personnel implicated in human rights violations.

On January 24, 2014, the army said it was closing the case for lack of evidence against the army officers, who were accused in the March 2000 extrajudicial killings of five civilians in Pathribal and falsely claiming the civilians were terrorists who killed 36 Sikh villagers. The army’s case was only filed after it used the AFSPA to block the case brought by the civilian Central Bureau of Investigation against Brig. Ajay Saxena, Lt. Col. Brahendra Pratap Singh, Maj. Saurabh Sharma, Maj. Amit Saxena, and Subedar Idrees Khan.

“Five villagers were abducted and murdered, yet the army has been allowed to absolve itself,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Armed Forces Special Powers Act should be repealed so that soldiers who commit serious crimes against civilians face trial in civilian courts and can no longer be protected from prosecution.”

The AFSPA prohibits prosecutions of military personnel in civilian courts without government approval, allowing the government and its agencies to shield officers and soldiers from being tried for serious offenses. It grants the military wide powers to arrest, to shoot to kill, and to occupy or destroy property in counterinsurgency operations. Indian officials claim that troops need such powers because the army is only deployed when national security is at serious risk from armed combatants. The AFSPA, which has been in force for decades in Jammu and Kashmir and India’s seven northeastern states, has provided effective immunity to members of the armed forces for killings and other serious human rights violations.

In a 2006 report, Everyone Lives in Fear, Human Rights Watch documented the role of army personnel in the killings in Pathribal.

On March 20, 2000, on the eve of a visit to India by then-US President Bill Clinton, armed men entered the village of Chattisinghpora in Anantnag district at night, lined up male residents outside, and opened fire, killing 36 and wounding several others. On March 25, the security forces claimed that five militants responsible for the massacre had been killed in an armed encounter at Pathirabal. The army handed over the bodies to the police and filed a police report. The bodies were badly mutilated, with three completely charred and another that had been decapitated.

Meanwhile, five villagers from the district had been abducted on March 24, and reported missing to the local police station. Villagers went to the site of the killings of the alleged militants, where they found some items of clothing belonging to two of the five missing men. Local residents asserted that those killed were not militants but the abducted men who had then been murdered in a fake encounter. An army spokesman dismissed the allegations, saying: “Genuine terrorists have been killed. Do not give much credence to these reports about a fake encounter. People are twisting facts.”

The villagers held several protests and a judicial inquiry was eventually ordered. The bodies were exhumed and through DNA testing were identified to be the missing villagers. The Central Bureau of Investigation took over the investigation in February 2003 and in March 2006 filed murder charges against the five army officers. However, the army opposed any civilian prosecution. There was an appeal to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the army could choose between prosecution by a military court or a civilian court. In June 2012, the army agreed to a court martial.

“The Supreme Court gave the army a test as to whether it could hold its personnel accountable,” Ganguly said. “The army has now failed this test, showing yet again its inability to fairly prosecute abuses by its personnel.”

Victims, activists, and members of the public in Jammu and Kashmir and in the northeast have long campaigned for repeal of the AFSPA. Irom Sharmila, an activist in Manipur, has been on a decade-long hunger strike demanding repeal following a massacre of civilians by troops there. The government has responded by keeping her in judicial custody to prevent her from committing suicide and ordered her force-fed through a nasal tube.

In 2004, following widespread protests after the murder of Manorama Devi in Manipur, the Indian government set up a five-member committee to review the AFSPA. The review committee submitted its report on June 6, 2005, recommending the repeal of the law. In April 2007 a working group on Jammu and Kashmir appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also recommended that the act be revoked.

However, the cabinet has not acted on these recommendations because of strong opposition from the army. In February 2013, P. Chidambaram, the former home minister, said that the government wanted amendments to make AFSPA a more “humanitarian” law, but explained that the army “has taken a strong stand against any dilution of the AFSPA.” In 2012, during the Universal Periodic Review of India before the United Nations Human Rights Council, member states recommended that the AFSPA be repealed.

“The government has long indulged the army’s objections to civilian accountability by repeatedly ignoring the demands of official commissions, the United Nations, and many concerned citizens,” Ganguly said. “India needs to show it is committed to accountability and justice by repealing this terrible law.”

The article India: Military Court Fails Victims In Kashmir Killings, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Palestine Chronicle

By Iqbal Jassat

Much has been written and talked about Ariel Sharon since his death following an eight year long coma. Not surprisingly, Israeli leaders have been rather subdued in their praise despite liberal use of metaphors to categorize him among those who played a pivotal role in defining the regime’s military ‘prowess’.

Some may wonder whether the sense of hesitancy displayed by Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and even Ehud Olmert has to do with internal rivalries that stretch back to Sharon’s removal of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip or with his gung-ho style of leadership.

Others may suggest that Sharon’s arrogance, bullying and reckless military forays have turned out to be a huge liability for Israel rather than any glory Peres or Netanyahu sought to project.

Whatever the reasons may be, my reading of the events since his death was announced, is that Israel is afraid of opening a can of worms especially at a time global solidarity for it is waning.

On the contrary and much to Israel’s shock and horror, the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] is growing at a phenomenal rate. This frightening reality is at the core of frenzied debates currently among the ruling elite. They grudgingly realize that as international solidarity around BDS grows, none of their western allies and America in particular, will be able to stem the tide.

The timing of Sharon’s death has not augured well either. Israel knew that in dealing with any ceremonial ‘last rites’, commentators and analysts including media would necessarily have to unearth his past records. That these are mired in controversy goes without saying. However, the tough challenge faced by the regime’s Hasbara [propaganda] units has been how to downplay Sharon’s bloody legacy.

One of the routes they opted upon seems to have been a rush to get his burial over. This they hoped would minimize the extent of public exposure of his vicious crimes. In addition they opted to whitewash Sharon’s wilful massacres by deceptively painting over it in colors they vainly hoped will hide his rusty side. In this regard Tony Blair’s deployment as one of Sharon’s ‘praise-singers’ was to be expected. Not only did Blair excel in whitewashing the murderer as a ‘great statesman’, he did so blatantly and without any regard for his own credibility as an envoy for the Quartet.

Not that Blair enjoys any credibility given the atrocities committed under his reign by the British as allies of America’s destructive and wholly illegitimate ‘war on terror’.  Like Sharon, Blair is a war criminal and perhaps appropriate too that in paying tribute to the former military commander, he unwittingly gave impetus to human rights organizations to redouble their efforts in securing his conviction at the Hague.

Sharon may have escaped the noose but the edifice of injustice and apartheid that carries his signature awaits demolition. The armory possessed by global solidarity activists to bulldoze Israel as a colonial settler entity is no different to the ammunition used by anti-apartheid freedom warriors: boycott, divestment and sanctions.

Hasbara, notwithstanding the fact that its active units in various regions around the world enjoy unlimited funding from state coffers, failed dismally to prevent a profile of Sharon by the international media that’s at odds with its ‘whitewash campaign’. The correct profile depicts him as a war-monger whose entire career – whether in the military or as a politician – was devoted to crushing Palestinians at any cost.

For South Africa’s Hasbara unit it’s been worse. Here they had hoped that Sharon’s murky past which placed him squarely in the corner of the apartheid regime with intimate ties to its intelligence and military, would remain buried and forgotten. I could well imagine their predicament of having to counter well-established facts by credible researchers of his perverse collaboration in a climate where the country as a whole celebrates the end of apartheid.

A country that is freshly inspired by memories of the struggle and sacrifices endured by the nemesis of apartheid Nelson Mandela, cannot be expected to be sympathetic to people of Sharon’s ilk who not only supported an obnoxious system, but also actively undermined the freedom struggle.

“Brothers in Arms” is how Sasha Polakow-Suransky describes this unholy relationship in his ground-breaking study “The Unspoken Alliance” which reveals Israel’s secret ties with apartheid South Africa and Sharon’s despicable role.

“Sharon, Eitan, and many of their contemporaries were convinced that both nations faced a fundamentally similar predicament as embattled minorities under siege, fighting for their survival against what they saw as a common terrorist enemy epitomized by Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress [ANC] and Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO]”.

Sharon’s policy of overwhelming force against Arafat’s PLO and the Palestinians was shared by Pretoria’s generals in their combat of so-called “terrorist” groups.

The subdued atmosphere marking Sharon’s burial and efforts to cast him as a “great statesman” reflects how desperate Israel is to fend off an unstoppable BDS tsunami threatening its legitimacy and existence as a settler regime.

- Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the Media Review Network, Johannesburg – South Africa. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit: www.mediareviewnet.com and follow him through Twitter: @ijassat.

The article Subdued Atmosphere At Sharon’s Burial: The BDS Tsunami – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

In his weekly address, President Obama said that the Administration has taken another important step to protect women at college by establishing the White House Task Force on Protecting Students from Sexual Assault. An estimated 1 in 5 women is sexually assaulted at college, and the President said that we will keep taking actions like strengthening the criminal justice system, reaching out to survivors, and changing social norms so that all Americans can feel safe and protected as they pursue their own piece of the American dream.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
The White House
January 25, 2014

Hi, everybody. This week, I called members of my Cabinet to the White House to deal with a challenge that affects so many families and communities – the crime, the outrage, of sexual violence.

Sexual assault is an affront to our basic decency and humanity. And it’s about all of us – the safety of those we love most: our moms, our wives, our daughters and our sons.

Because when a child starts to question their self-worth after being abused, and maybe starts withdrawing… or a young woman drops out of school after being attacked… or a mother struggles to hold down a job and support her kids after an assault… it’s not just these individuals and their families who suffer. Our communities – our whole country – is held back.

Over the past five years, we’ve stepped up our efforts stop these crimes. And this week, we took another important step to protect young women at college. An estimated 1 in 5 women is sexually assaulted at college – and that’s totally unacceptable. So I’ve created the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. We’re going to help schools do a better job of preventing and responding to sexual assault on their campuses. Because college should be a place where our young people feel secure and confident, so they can go as far as their talents will take them.

And we’re going to keep working to stop sexual assaults wherever they occur. We’ll keep strengthening our criminal justice system, so police and prosecutors have the tools and training to prevent these crimes and bring perpetrators to justice. We’ll keep reaching out to survivors, to make sure they’re getting all the support they need to heal. We’re going to keep combating sexual assault in our armed forces, because when a member of our military is attacked by the very people he or she trusts and serves with, that’s an injustice that no one who volunteers to protect our nation should ever endure.

Some of this is a job for government. But really, it’s up to all of us. We’ve got to teach young people – men and women – to be brave enough to stand up and help put an end to these crimes. We’ve especially got to teach young men to show women the respect they deserve. I want every young man in America to know that real men don’t hurt women. And those of us who are fathers have a special obligation to make sure every young man out there understands that being a man means recognizing sexual violence and being outraged by it, and doing their part to stop it.

Perhaps most important, we need to keep saying to anyone out there who has ever been assaulted: you are not alone. We have your back. I’ve got your back.

I’m going to keep pushing for others to step up – across my administration, in Congress, in state capitals, college campuses and military bases all across our country. This is a priority for me, not only as President and Commander-in-Chief, but as a husband and a father of two extraordinary girls. And I hope it’s a priority for you. Because here in the United States of America, every man and woman, every girl and boy, has the right to be safe and protected and to pursue their own piece of the American dream.

Let’s all do our part to make it happen. Thanks, and have a great weekend.

The article Obama: Taking Action To End Sexual Assault – Transcript appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By VOA

Police in the eastern U.S. state of Maryland say three people were killed in a shooting Saturday at a shopping mall, including the suspected gunman, who appeared to have killed himself.

The mall in the Baltimore suburb of Columbia, Maryland, is just under 50 kilometers north of Washington.

Authorities say they were alerted to the shooting by an emergency phone call in the late morning.

Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon told a news conference the shooting occurred outside of a store on the upper level of the Mall of Columbia near the food court. He said the two people killed by the shooter were employees of the store, one male and one female, both in their 20s.

Media reports have indicated the shooting may have been a domestic incident. McMahon said authorities have no knowledge of that but are investigating. He said the suspect used a shotgun and had a “large amount” of ammunition. Five people were injured, but only one is reported to have suffered a gunshot wound.

Moe Moe Htun, an employee with Voice of America’s English Web desk, was at a Starbuck’s in the mall with her husband when the shooting took place.

“I heard bang, bang, bang, you know, very, very loudly, three times, and I thought, ‘Oh, you know, it’s from the construction,’ because there’s construction going on in that parking lot,” she said. “So it was really, really very loud, and then it sounded like it came just across from where I was standing in Starbuck’s in the mall. So then, just a few seconds later, there is a lady, and then she was running and then screaming ‘someone is shooting!’”

Htun, originally from Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, described a chaotic scene.

“People were so scared. You [could] see it on everybody’s faces. People were just running out of the mall and grabbing the hands of their kids and just running out of the mall. People did not look back, just getting out of the mall as fast as you could.”

Htun says she and her husband ran out of the mall and hid behind parked cars in case the shooter emerged outside.

“When I started running, I did not think twice, and I did not look back. I just ran, I was so frigthened.”

Police were soon there to help clear people from the mall and announced on Twitter a little more than an hour after the emergency call that the shopping center was believed to be secure.

But that is little consolation to witnesses like Htun, who says she shops at the Columbia mall often.

“Now, I don’t feel safe to go to the mall,” she said. “It’s like wherever you go, you have to keep your eyes and ears open, and then if you hear something, just don’t think twice, just run because you can be a target.”

The article Three Dead In Shooting At Maryland Shopping Mall appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By RT

The Republican National Committee has passed a resolution pushing conservative lawmakers to put an end to the National Security Agency’s blanket surveillance of American citizens’ phone records.

The resolution also calls for an investigation of the NSA’s metadata collection practices, which it labeled a “gross infringement” of the rights of US citizens. Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the NSA has been authorized to collect and store the records of nearly all domestic phone calls – the phone numbers involved and duration of the calls, but not the content of the conversations themselves.

Specifically, the RNC will push Republican lawmakers to pass amendments to Section 215 stating that “blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence — electronic, physical, and otherwise — of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court.”

The resolution also adds that “the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

While Republicans have generally been split on their reaction to the NSA’s spying programs – libertarian-leaning lawmakers have been more critical of the NSA than national security “hawks” – Time reported that no RNC members spoke out against the new resolution when it came up for a voice vote. It reportedly passed with an “overwhelming majority.”

Exactly how lawmakers will receive this new resolution remains unclear. Despite the apparent widespread support within the RNC to reign in the NSA, the party’s Republican legislators are not obligated to vote according to these suggestions.

Still, the move reflects growing unease concerning the NSA’s practices within the conservative movement and will undoubtedly be embraced by civil liberties advocates who have called for an overhaul of the surveillance program ever since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began leaking details about the agency’s behavior to the press.

Last week, President Barack Obama announced reforms of his own regarding the surveillance efforts while simultaneously defending the program as necessary. He stated that going forward, government officials will need to obtain a court order to access the archive of data collected by the NSA. Though Obama did not say who would be in charge of overseeing the archive, he called on Congress, intelligence officials, and Attorney General Eric Holder to take the next steps.

“I believe we need a new approach,” Obama said. “I am therefore ordering a transition that will end the Section 215 bulk metadata collection program as it currently exists, and establishes a mechanism that preserves the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk metadata.”

While Obama’s proposals were welcomed, some civil liberties groups – such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch – stated that he did not go far enough, offering only “vague assurance” that the government would not abuse its powers.

The article Republicans Vote To End NSA Bulk Phone Metadata Surveillance Program appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By RFE RL

(RFE/RL) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he will not sign a security pact with the United States unless Washington launches a genuine peace process with Taliban insurgents.

Karzai has repeatedly refused to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) which would allow some U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond the planned withdrawal of NATO forces by the end of this year to train and assist Afghan soldiers.

Karzai told reporters on January 25 he will not sign the BSA “under pressure.”

He said, “If America wants to stay as an ally with us, it should work with us as an ally not as an opponent.”

The United States is pushing for the BSA to be signed so that NATO can schedule its withdrawal.

Karzai has suggested a final decision could be made by his successor after presidential elections due in April.

The article Karzai Says No Pact Without Taliban Talks appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations 65 years ago in December of 1948. The U.S. didn’t ratify the Genocide Convention for another 40 years. The late Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, took up the task in the 1960s of getting the convention ratified. He assumed it would be easy. But it was not. He ended up giving 3,211 speeches on the floor of the Senate, a different speech every day for 19 years, until it was ratified.

It took two more years before President Ronald Reagan finally signed the measure into law on Nov. 5, 1988 — in a hangar at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.

After the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, the world said “never again,” but the list of genocides since then is long and sorrowful: Cambodia in the 1970s, nearly 2 million dead; Rwanda in 1994, 800,000 dead; Bosnia in the 1990s, 250,000 dead; Chechnya between the years 1994 and 2000, nearly 250,000 dead, 200,000 missing and 500,000 – nearly half the population internally displaced; Democratic Republic of the Congo an estimated 6 million people have perished in the past 20 years. In George W. Bush’s wars, 20,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2001 alone, and another 655,000 to one million in Iraq between 2003 and 2006, which can only be described as war crimes.

And how about Myanmar, also known as Burma? And how about its Rohingya people, who are recognized by the UN as one the most persecuted people on earth?

The Rohingya people of Myanmar, who mostly live in the western part – the Rakhine (formerly Arakan) state, bordering the Muslim-majority Bangladesh, are undoubtedly the most suffering people in our time. As it has become almost a norm in the Thein Sein era, earlier this month at least 48 Muslims were massacred when Rakhine Buddhist mobs attacked Du Chee Yar Tan, a village in the Rakhine state. This violence, part of the on-going genocidal activities against the Rohingya people appears to be the deadliest in a year.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she had received credible information that eight Rohingya Muslim men were attacked and killed in Du Chee Yar Tan village by local Rakhine Buddhists on January 9. This was followed by a clash on January 13 in the same village, following the reported kidnapping and killing of a police sergeant by Rohingya residents. Police did nothing to stop a Buddhist mob that entered later that night with knives, sticks and swords, witnesses and rights groups said.

The village has been emptied and sealed off since the massacre. The humanitarian aid group, Medicins san Frontiers, or Doctors Without Borders, which has several clinics in the area, said it has treated at least 22 patients, including several wounded, who are believed to be victims of the violence.

The United Nations has called on the government to carry out a swift, impartial investigation and to hold those responsible accountable. Pillay said, “By responding to these incidents quickly and decisively, the government has an opportunity to show transparency and accountability, which will strengthen democracy and the rule of law in Myanmar.”

While the government agencies inside Myanmar have mastered the Goebbels-style propaganda in undercounting the casualty figures, let alone denying such extermination campaigns, the undeniable fact is more than a quarter million Rohingyas have fled their homes since May of 2012. It is probably this exodus of the Rohingya people which is both emboldening and encouraging the rogue regime and its savage, murderous Buddhist mob to get rid of the Muslim population one way or another.

Denied citizenship in this Buddhist majority country, the Rohingyas have simply become the most unwanted people in our planet. The nearby Bangladesh does not want the persecuted Rohingyas to settle there either. In desperate attempts to save their lives, many Rohingyas have become now the ‘boat people’ of our time!

Yet Myanmar has gone through a change in recent years. The former military general Thein Sein is the poster-boy of reform inside the country. With him as the head of the state, a quasi-civil-military government runs the fractured country. Myanmar had its election, too – an imperfect one – in which some opposition politicians had managed to get elected in the limited seats available to them within the parliament. The new regime has also released many political prisoners (mostly Buddhists) who were once rotting in many of Myanmar’s notorious dungeons. [Many released ones have since been re-imprisoned.] In reaction to such ‘positive image-building’ initiatives, which I call calculated gimmicks, the western world has reciprocated by lifting its political and economic sanctions against the once hated military dictatorship that has ruled the country for almost its entire life since earning independence from Britain in January 4 of 1948.

There was much expectation – probably too unrealistic and too premature – that the Thein Sein government was serious about ‘real’ reform and that the Rohingyas will be integrated as citizens at par with other ethnic/national groups inside Myanmar. What we have witnessed instead is worsening of their situations. They are now victims of a highly organized genocidal campaign in which even Buddhists like Aung Saan Sui Kyi – touted one-time as the democracy icon – are sadly, either silent or willing partners in this gross violation of human rights. Since May of 2012 an estimated 250,000 Rohingyas have fled their homes. Tens of thousands of Muslims living in other parts of Myanmar have also been victims of organized mob violence, lynching, and wholesale destruction of their homes, schools, mosques and businesses. Many of the Muslim Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) now live in squalid camps with no provisions and are counting their days hopelessly to be relocated to their burned homes. And yet, such a provision seems unlikely. In recent days, Rakhine Buddhists have organized demonstrations protesting any resettlement of the Rohingya and other Muslims.

Bottom line – they want the Rohingya and other Muslims out of Myanmar, if not total annihilated.

What is worse, the international NGOs, esp. from the Muslim countries, continue to be barred from helping out the Muslim victims. In the face of reported protests from the Rakhine Buddhist community, the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) could not even open an office to carry out its much needed humanitarian relief work in the troubled region.

Many international observers and some experts, including human rights activists, were surprised by such outbreaks of ethnic cleansing drives last year against the Muslims, in general, and the Rohingya people, in particular, let alone the level of Buddhist intolerance against non-Buddhists everywhere inside Myanmar. However, such sad episodes were no surprise to many keen observers and researchers of the Myanmar’s problematic history.

In 2007 when I was invited as the chief guest and keynote speaker in an international conference on the Rohingyas of Burma, held in Tokyo, Japan, its theme was the prevalent xenophobia in Myanmar and how to address the issue so that people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds could live harmoniously. One after another the speakers spoke at length about the danger that they foresaw. We all knew that simply a transition to so-called democracy would not and could not solve the Rohingya problem. Instead of a much-needed dialogue for reconciliation and confidence-building between ethnic/national and religious groups, what we recognized and faced from the so-called ‘democracy’ leaders within the Burmese and Rakhine Diaspora was appalling Buddhist chauvinism. They would not talk with or listen to the Rohingya people; as if, their so-called struggle for democracy against the hated military regime was a purely Buddhist one, the Rohingya Muslims were unwelcome in those dialogues between ethnic/national groups.

The level of Buddhist intolerance, hatred and xenophobia had simply no parallel in our time! Those chauvinist Buddhists were in denial of the very existence of the Rohingya people, in spite of the fact that the latter group comprised more than a third of the population of the Rakhine State and that the ancestors of the Rohingya were the first settlers in the crescent of Arakan before others moved in. While the vast majority of the late comers to the contested territory were Buddhists, the Rohingyas, much like the people living next door – on the other side of the Naaf River – in today’s Bangladesh had embraced Islam voluntarily. Their conversion had also much to do with the history of the entire region, esp. in the post-13th century when the Sultans and the great Mughal Emperors ruled vast territories of the South Asia from the foothills of the Himalayas to the shores of the Indian Ocean.

As a matter of fact, the history of Arakan, sandwiched then between Muslim-dominated India and Buddhist-dominated Burma, would have been much different had it not been for the crucial decision made by the Muslim Sultan of Bengal who reinstalled the fleeing Buddhist king Narameikhtla to the throne of Arakan in 1430 with a massive Muslim force of nearly 60,000 soldiers – sent in two campaigns. Interestingly, the Muslim General Wali Khan – leading a force of 25,000 soldiers, who was instructed to put the fleeing monarch to the throne of Arakan – had claimed it for himself. He was subsequently uprooted in a new campaign – again at the directive of the Sultan of Muslim Bengal – by General Sandi Khan who led a force of 35,000 soldiers. What would be Arakan’s history today if the Muslim Sultan of Bengal had let General Wali Khan to rule the country as his client?

We need not change the course of history. But is it wrong to expect human rights for all that are enshrined in the UN? Sadly, not a single of the 30 clauses of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is honored by the apartheid Myanmar regime when it comes to its treatment of this unfortunate people. What is more shocking is the emerging fact that the so-called democracy leaders within the Buddhist opposition in Burma have very little, if any, in common with the core values and ideals of democracy. Instead, their behavior has repeatedly shown that they are closet fascists and are no democrats. Thus, all the efforts of the Rohingya and other non-Buddhist minority groups to reach out to the exiled Buddhist-dominated opposition leadership in the pre-Thein Sein era simply failed. It was an ominous warning for the coming days!

So in 2012 when the region witnessed a series of highly orchestrated ethnic cleansing drives against the Rohingya and other Muslim groups not just within the Rakhine state but all across Myanmar, like some keen observers of the political developments there I was not too surprised. Nor was I amazed with the divisive role played by leaders of the so-called democracy movement. They showed their real fascist color. But the level of ferocity, savagery and inhumanity simply stunned me! I could not believe what I was witnessing. It showed that the Theravada Buddhists of Myanmar, like their co-religionists in Sri Lanka and Cambodia, have become the worst racists and bigots of our time. With the evolving incendiary and poisonous role of Buddhist monks like Wirathu – the abbot of historically influential Mandalay Ma-soe-yein monastery and his 969 Fascist Movement, which sanctifies eliminationist policies against the Muslims, surely, the teachings of Gautama Buddha have miserably failed to enlighten them and/or put a lid on their all too obvious savagery and monstrosity.

On June 20, 2013 twelve Nobel Peace Laureates called upon the Myanmar government for ending violence against Muslims in Burma. They also called for an international independent investigation of the anti-Muslim violence. Yet, the Myanmar regime continues to ignore international plea for integration of the Rohingya and other minorities.

So the plight of the Rohingya and other Muslim minorities continues unabated inside apartheid Myanmar. In ethnic cleansing drives in this country, the victims are usually the Rohingyas and yet they end up in the prisons (and not the Buddhist marauders) overwhelmingly. A peaceful demonstration may cost them their lives in this Mogher Mulluk. The same security forces which did nothing to stop lynching of Muslim victims have no moral qualms in killing them unprovoked for staging a peaceful demonstration. Genocide of the Rohingyas is a national project in Myanmar. It is, therefore, no surprise that ignoble Aung Saan Suu Kyi is an endorser to this horrendous crime through her wilful silence to condemning it.

A reading of history shows that genocide succeeds when state sovereignty blocks international responsibility to protect its persecuted group. It continues due to lack of authoritative international institutions to predict it and call it as such. It happens due to lack of ready rapid response forces to stop it and lack of political will to peacefully prevent it and to forcefully intervene to stop it.

Since founding of the UN, at least 45 genocides and politicides have taken place in our world resulting in deaths of some 70 million people. It is a shameful record that needs to be improved.

Let’s not allow the UN to add another genocide to its shameful record of failures that either overlooked it or tried to intervene when it was too late! It must stop the war criminals in Myanmar from their genocidal crimes against the Rohingyas.

The article The Rohingya People: The Most Suffering People On Earth – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ludwig Watzal

Cynthia McKinney (ed.), The Illegal War on Libya, Clarity Press, Atlanta 2012, 314 pp. $ 19.95.

All the wars and attacks, which were started by the U. S. and its so-called allies in the wake of 9/11, have wreaked havoc. You name it, you got it: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and perhaps even Iran. The Islamic Republic is not yet off the hook. There are strong forces in the U. S. and in the Middle East that prefer war to peace at the expense of the U. S. Right now, there is a war going on in Libya against the Western installed puppet government, without notice of the corporate media.

Cynthia McKinney, a former African-American Congresswoman has edited a book on the illegal war on Libya fought by NATO members with the support of the Arab League and some despotic Arab regimes. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms in the House of Representatives before she was defeated by Denise Majette in the 2002 Democratic primary. McKinney’s loss was attributed to her support of Arab causes and to her suggestion that George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.

Those whom the Western powers and their fawning media wish to destroy must first be demonised. This was exactly what happened to Libya’s leader Muammar al Gaddafi. Just before France, Great Britain and the U. S. started the war against Libya, Nikolas Sarkozy, Silvio Berlusconi and other Western politicians courtes Gaddafi. When the Libyan leader visited Paris in 2007, he struck his tent in front of the guest house of the French government. His bizarre conduct and much more were accepted by Sarkozy in order to promote lucrative business with Libya. A few years later, he rewarded him with and his country with a bombing spree.

As a candidate for the U. S. Presidency, Barack Hussein Obama had nice things to say in December 2007: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” After he became U. S. President, he expanded drone attacks to an unprecedented scale. “As the U. S. fires its drones killing innocent Somalis, Pakistanis, Yemenis, Afghanis, and others around the world, it is my hope that this book will provide a rare prism of truth through which to view NATO’s illegal war in Libya, current and future events, and US foreign relations as a whole”, so McKinney in her introductory remarks.

In her book, Cynthia McKinney has gathered a large number of renowned authors who offer an alternative perspective of the events in Libya. Some authors even risked their life by reporting live during the war. Among them are Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Julien Teil, Stephen Lendman, Christof Lehman, Sara Flounders, Wayne Madsen, Bob Fitrakis, and many others. All of them illuminate the dark machinations of the U. S. in Libya and elsewhere. Their narrative reminds the readers of the overthrow of the Iranian, Guatemalan or Chilean democracy by the U. S. for corporate benefit. The same apparently held true for Libya.

The essays in McKinney’s anthology describe the horrors caused by the Western bombing campaign and the distorted picture of the events painted by mainstream media. Lizzie Phelan refers to a “full blown media war” and to the silence of Western journalists while Libya was “being bombed into extermination”. Although they witnessed these horrors, they found “all manner of justifications for their self and collective delusion”. Their behavior reminded the author of the riddle: “If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?” The Western media pundits played down the horrendous crimes against the Libyan people by cartooning Gaddafi as a “mad dog”.

Stephen Lendman designated the crimes committed by NATO against Libya as amounting to “a Nuremberg Level.” He added: “The US-led NATO war on Libya will be remembered as one of history’s greatest crimes, violating the letter and spirit of international law and America’s Constitution.” Whereas the “Third Reich criminals were hanged for their crimes. America’s are still free to commit greater ones“. Lendman invokes General Wesley Clark who was told at the Pentagon a few days after 9/11, that the Bush administration had already decided to attack seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq and finishing off with Iran. According to Lendman, the U. S. won’t tolerate democratic rule in Libya, for it needs a puppet regime that would follow the dictates of Washington. Beyond that, the U. S. generously used terror weapons in all its wars. Weapons of mass destruction, including depleted and enriched uranium munitions were widely used in the different Iraq wars, leding to miscarriages and severe deformities by newborn babies.

The anthology also reveals that Gaddafi bore no responsibility for the Lockerbie incident. Although he took the blame and had Libya pay millions of U. S. Dollars to the families of the victims in order to have sanctions lifted against his country, the west thanked him by overthrowing his regime. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya suggests that Libya’s main “crimes” – as seen by the West – were “how (Libya L. W.) distributed and used its wealth, its lack of external debts, and the key role it was attempting to play in continental development and curtailing of external influence in Africa. Tripoli was a spoiler that ef­fectively undermined the interests of the former colonial powers.”

Already at the International Security Conference in Munich, 2007, then President of The Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, used the strongest possible language to warn the U. S., saying that “its aggressive expansionism has brought the world closer to a third world war than it has ever been before”. So far, Putin’s diplomacy prevented U.S. aggression against Syria and Iran.

The book contains, inter alia, a scathing speech by Gaddafi, delivered at the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2009. A chronology of the NATO-led assault on Libya completes the book.

This book is a must-red. It gives its readers a premonition of things that are yet to come.

Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as a journalist and editor in Bonn, Germany. He runs the bilingual blog “between the lines” http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/

The article The Illegal War On Libya – Book Review appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

The conviction and four-year sentence of Xu Zhiyong, one of China’s preeminent rights advocates, for “gathering crowds to disturb social order” is a pretext to chill popular protests against corruption, Human Rights Watch said today.

News of the trial has been censored, as has reporting by foreign media on how relatives of top leaders keep offshore accounts to hold unexplained wealth.

Xu, age 40, became prominent for his role in organizing nonviolent protests against corruption and discrimination in education under the banner of the New Citizens Movement. Chinese courts have tried two other activists in the New Citizens Movement in the past week, including Zhao Changqing and Hou Xin. Ding Jiaxi, Li Wei, Yuan Dong and Zhang Baocheng are scheduled to be tried on January 27.

Three others were tried in December but no verdict has yet been released.

“The harsh sentence for a moderate critic who reflected widespread public concern about corruption shows just how little tolerance there is towards dissent in China today,” said Brad Adams, Asia Director. “Xi Jinping has made fighting corruption the linchpin of his presidency, but when an average citizen takes up the same cause, he is sent to prison. This hypocrisy makes a mockery of the president’s anti-corruption campaign.”

China placed Xu under house arrest in April 2013. Police took him into custody on July 16 and formally arrested him on August 2. The police transferred Xu’s case to the procuratorate on December 4.

Xu’s trial at Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court began on January 22, 2014, and was based on charges that Xu had “organized” and “incited” disruptions in front of the Ministry of Education and other locations. The charges said that protestors had “defied and obstructed” officers in charge of public safety trying to carry out their duties. The charges claim protesters “unfurled banners, made a racket” and created “serious chaos.” Because “the circumstances are serious” and he was a “ringleader,” Xu was given a four-year sentence out of a maximum of five.

At his trial only two family members were allowed to attend the hearing in a very small courtroom. No journalists were allowed in. A group of foreign diplomats were able to enter the court building but were not allowed to attend the hearing.

In protest at the unfair proceedings, Xu and his lawyer stayed silent throughout the trial. Xu made a closing statement, but he was interrupted ten minutes into reading it. Outside the court, Xu’s supporters were taken away and briefly detained while foreign journalists were manhandled by the police.

In November 2013, the Supreme People’s Court issued a document instructing courts to take steps to reduce miscarriages of justice. Courts must not make judgments because of “pressure to maintain stability,” ensure trials are open to the public, and ensure the defense has the right to cross-examine witnesses. The conduct of Xu’s trial suggests these instructions were overridden.

“How can the Chinese public gain faith in the courts when they deny the accused the most basic of fair trial rights, such as a public hearing or the ability to call witnesses?” Adams said.

The cases against New Citizens Movement members and other peaceful critics are part of one of the largest crackdowns against activists in recent years. In the past year, the Chinese government has waged a campaign against “online rumors,” punished outspoken citizens and journalists for blowing the whistle on corruption, and expanded the scope of what it regards as threats to national security such as internet and unspecified “cultural threats.”

“Instead of ‘putting power’ within a ‘cage of regulations’, as Xi Jinping has promised, the new leadership appears to be more interested in consolidating power,” Adams said. “Staging show trials of critics is wholly at odds with Xi’s self-proclaimed reformist agenda.”

The article China: Reverse Judgment In Show Trial Of Xu Zhiyong, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

“Dedicated public servants” lock up lands and resources, lock down job and economic recovery

By Paul Driessen

President Obama insists he is determined to create jobs in America. He recently announced the creation of “promise zones” for five communi ties around the nation and a “manufacturing institute” aimed at fostering more high-paying jobs in energy efficiency. He’s says he has “a pen and a phone” to “sign executive orders and take executive actions that move the ball,” where Congress has failed to implement policies he believes are needed.

Unfortunately, the executive orders and actions Mr. Obama seems to have in mind will do little to create jobs beyond the Washington Beltway – and much to do the opposite. An obvious example is his EPA’s plan to impose additional carbon dioxide emission restrictions, to save the planet from global warming, climate change, climate disruption, extreme weather or whatever term alarmists are using these days.

Another is to issue regulations and spend billions more to mandate and subsidize expensive energy efficiency, wind and solar, biofuel, alternative-fuel vehicles and other technologies, companies and financing schemes. That is what some “green” energy business leaders recommend in a report that they recently presented to the White House, promoting a “clean energy future.”

These actions will ensure employment for more bureaucrats, blue state friends and campaign contributors. But they will also ensure continued unemployment for blue collar workers and “fly-over country.” They depend on government direction and ideological compatibility, taxpayer subsidies, and crony-corporatist arrangements among businessmen, politicians and regulators.

They will make barely a dent in a chronically feeble economy in which 94 million Americans are not working; four million are long-term unemployed; the 63% labor participation rate is the lowest in 35 years; and many of the employment gains due to a magical government formula that turns 300,000 full-time jobs into 400,000 part-time positions. The President’s proposed actions likewise will not reverse the rapid increase in 49ers – companies that won’t hire more than 49 employees, because that would trigger ObamaCare and a host of other taxes and regulations, causing even more unemployment.

Extending unemployment benefits another 3-6 months, and sending our grandkids the bill, will not soften or reverse this damage. Nor will raising the minimum wage, thereby com pelling more companies to automate or find other ways to trim work forces and costs, leaving even more people unemployed. But America does offer countless opportunities for President Obama to use his executive powers to unshackle the US economy, create jobs and generate revenues.

First and foremost, he could instruct his overly zealous Executive Branch agencies to delay, pare back and eliminate regulatory and paperwork burdens. Far too many of those rules are justified only by anti-hydrocarbon ideologies, computer models, cherry-picked studies that do not reflect genuine mainstream science or medicine, and even illegal experiments on human test subjects.

The Heritage Foundation calculates that the EPA alone has promulgated more than 1,920 regulations over the past five years, including twenty “major” rules that are costing the United States more than $36 billion annually. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s latest < a href=”http://www.scribd.com/doc/144210931/Wayne-Crews-Ten-Thousand-Commandments-An-Annual-Snapshot-of-the-Federal-Regulatory-State-2013″>“10,000 Commandments” report says the total federal regulatory burden on America’s businesses and families now exceeds $1.8 trillion per year!

$379 billion of that is for environmental rules that often bring dubious benefits, and frequently impose human health and welfare costs well in excess of any supposed improvements. For example, EPA itself admitted that it was unable to quantify any direct health benefits from its costly utility “air toxics” MACT rule – and a January 2014 analysis demonstrates that the health and societal benefits of using oil, natural gas and coal outweigh any alleged “social costs of carbon” by at least 50 and as much as 500 to one.

President Obama could certainly order the issuance of permits to build the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline, and instantly create thousands of jobs. He could also order the EPA, Interior Department, Forest Service and other federal agencies to unlock the lands and resources that are now off-limits.

The President brags that “we produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years.” Indeed, domestic production rose from 5.6 million barrels per day in 2011 to 6.4 million bopd in 2012. However, production from federal onshore and offshore areas has fallen significantly under his watch – and 96% of the production increase was on state and private lands.

That is unnecessary and contrary to the public interest. America’s federal lands – onshore and offshore, in Alaska and our eleven westernmost Lower 48 States – contain numerous oil, gas, propane, coal, rare earth and other mineral deposits. Many have already been delineated, while others await discovery and development via modern, ecologically sensitive prospecting an d production technologies. However, the vast majority of these resources are off limits: officially locked up in restrictive land use categories (some of which should not be changed) or simply made unavailable by bureaucratic fiat and foot-dragging.

Technically recoverable energy resources on these onshore and offshore lands total 1,194 billion barrels of oil and 2,150 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, Institute for Energy Research analyst Daniel Simmons noted in congressional testimony. At $100 per barrel of oil and $4 per thousand cubic feet of gas, those resources are worth $128 trillion! Developing them could generate some $150 billion in bonuses, rents and royalties over the next ten years alone – plus billions more in local, state and federal tax revenues, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Using those CBO numbers, an IER study concluded:

• If the government made more of these areas available for exploration and production, America’s GDP could increase by $127 billion annually for the next seven years, and $450 billion annually in the long term. Those activities would create 552,000 jobs annually over the next seven years, with annual wage increases of up to $32 billion, hugely benefitting workers’ and families’ health and welfare.

• Over the next 37 years, opening these lands would also increase America’s cumulative economic activity by up to $14.4 trillion … employment by 1.9 million jobs per year … wages by $115 billion annually … and local, state and federal royalty and tax revenues by a cumulative $3.8 trillion!

However, Simmons points out, the Interior Department has leased only a paltry 2% of federal offshore areas and less than 6% of onshore lands for oil and gas development. It has also stalled endlessly on issuing permits to drill on lands it has leased, in areas that are supposed to be available for multiple use and energy development. Its Bureau of Land Management’s proposed regulations for hydraulic fracturing on public lands will likely delay, block and lock down the many benefits associated with fracking.

Access to metals and minerals on public lands is likewise subject to “bureaucratic discretion.” America’s “dedicated public servants” are thwarting development of Alaska’s Pebble Mine gold, copper and molybdenum deposit; Montana’s Finley Basin tungsten, copper, gold, silver and molybdenum deposit; and Arizona’s Rosemont Copper project – all of which would generate thousands of jobs and billions in payrolls and government revenues. Meanwhile they are fast-tracking permits for bird and bat butchering wind turbines – and considering 30-year eagle-killing permits for the installations.

In conducting these energy and mineral exploration and development projects, we can and must protect human health and environmental quality – from genuine threats, not speculative, exaggerated or computer scenario risks. We cannot afford to keep our lands, resources, jobs and revenues under lock and key.

If President Oba ma really does care about creating jobs and opportunities for the middle class, he will think and act outside of his ideological box, and pay less attention to his most rabid environmentalist base. We will know soon whether he is capable of doing that – and what kinds of executive orders and actions he really has in mind to move the ball on job creation. (I’m not holding my breath.)

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

The article America In Lockdown – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Arab News

The Saudi Arabia Ministry of Labor has unveiled a comprehensive project to combat fake employment.

Penalties could reach five years’ imprisonment and fines of up to SR10 million, in addition to preventing violators from recruiting expatriates, seeking loans and transferring sponsorship from business owners.

The project allows citizens to report nationalization violations, either electronically or on the phone, on a toll free number. Reports are verified through inspection visits on violating establishments.

Fake nationalization entails registering Saudis, Gulf citizens or Saudis with foreign fathers with the social insurance scheme to enhance a company’s ranking in the Nitaqat scheme without employing them.

The new list calls on nationals who are not registered with the social insurance scheme to enter their national ID numbers on the website of the General Organization for Social Insurance to ensure that they have not been registered by someone else.

Users are urged to file a report with the ministry if they have been falsely registered.

The ministry will make sure the report is accurate by calling the business owner or his deputy.

During an inspection visit, the types of fake nationalization are ascertained.

Some employers are found to register the names of Saudi or Gulf citizens who do not live in the Kingdom with GOSI without their knowledge, while others agree with Saudi citizens to register their names with the organization or register disabled workers without giving them actual jobs.

Other establishments register women to work in jobs that are mostly male-dominated, while many refrain from amending the data of Saudi employees 15 days after they leave the job.

Some establishments register civil, government or military employees.

Fake Saudization also includes transferring one company’s workers to another company that falls under the same organization in order to amend the establishment local-to-expat hiring ratio and increase nationalization rates.

The list includes a series of legal procedures taken by the ministry if bogus fake nationalization is proved. This includes amending nationalization rates and implementing penalties against business owners.

Penalties stated in resolution 50 passed by the Council of Ministers will also apply to violators.

These include halting recruitment applications, sponsorship transfers and visa renewals for workers and preventing violating businesses from entering government tenders and receiving government aid.

The article Combating Fake Saudization appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Al Bawaba News

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Saturday that talks with world powers to reach a long-term nuclear deal will resume next month.

Zarif said he agreed with EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton “to hold the first meeting of Iran and [the] P5+1 at the end of [the] Iranian month of Bahman” which ends on Feb. 19, according to Agence France-Presse.

“We wanted to hold the meeting earlier but our Chinese friends were not ready due to holidays of their new year” on January 31, he wrote on his Facebook page

Zarif, who is at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, did not specify where the talks would be held, or when the resumption was agreed with Ashton.

Meanwhile, a senior Iranian official Saturday dismissed the need for a Tehran office for U.N. inspectors tasked with monitoring Iran’s partial nuclear freeze, Mehr news agency said, according to AFP.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency had said the watchdog may ask Iran for permission “to set up a temporary office to provide logistical support,” for its inspectors.

U.N. inspectors are in Iran to monitor the implementation of a nuclear deal with Western powers that took effect on Monday, after Iran stopped enriching uranium above five percent fissile purities at its Natanz and Fordo facilities.

“In our opinion, by considering the volume of nuclear activities in the country, there is no need for setting up a nuclear watchdog office in Iran,” said Reza Najafi, Tehran’s envoy to the IAEA.

“We have not received such a request from the IAEA for setting up an office in Tehran,” Najafi told Mehr news agency.

On Friday, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said he might seek Iran’s permission for a Tehran office for inspectors.

IAEA needs to “double our staff and efforts” in order to carry out its role in monitoring the November deal which will require intensive checks over the next six months,” Amano said.

The IAEA had won backing from member states for its efforts to monitor Iran’s partial nuclear freeze, which will require an extra 5.5 million euros ($7.5 million), he added.

The United States, France, Britain and Germany were among those who had offered to contribute funds, IAEA chief said.

The IAEA currently has two teams of two inspectors each that take turns to monitor sites in Iran.

Under the interim six-month accord reached in Geneva last November, Tehran is required to freeze or curb its nuclear activities for six months in exchange for some sanctions relief while the two sides try to reach a comprehensive agreement.

The so-called P5+1 is composed of the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany.

Original article

The article Zarif: Iran-P5+1 Talks To Be Resumed Next Month appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IPCS

By N Manoharan

Left-wing Extremism (LWE) continued to remain as one of the major challenges to India’s internal security in 2013. Its intensity persisted especially in three states – Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa – apart from significant presence in West Bengal, Bihar, and Maharashtra. At the same time, the left-wing extremists have successfully managed to penetrate into some of the states of the northeast and south of India and into few of the urban areas.

The Expansion in 2013

In 2013, the Maoists continue to push the boundaries of the ‘Red Corridor’ and set up support bases in upper Assam and some of the tribal areas in the hilly interiors. The presence of Maoists is felt in pockets of Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Sivasagar, Golaghat and Karbi Anglong districts of Assam and Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh (adjoining Tinsukia). The Maoists have also been trying to extend their presence in southern India, especially around tri-junction of Tamil Nadu-Kerala-Karnataka. As far as urban areas are concerned, significant Maoist activities, especially of its front organisations, have been reported from places like Delhi and the National Capital Region, Gurgaon, NOIDA, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune, Nagpur, Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Raipur, Durg, Patna, Hyderabad, Rourkela, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati and Chandigarh.

Decline in Violence Statistics in 2013

Compared to 2011-12, the number of violent incidents and killings due to LWE has come down in 2013. However, though less in numbers, the attacks by Maoists have been intense and brutal. One of such ruthless attacks was made on a convoy of Congress leaders and workers at Jeeram Ghati in Jagdalpur district of Chhattisgarh on 25 May 2013 that claimed 28 lives and injured scores of others. Those killed included Mahendra Karma, a former Minister of Chhattisgarh and a former Lok Sabha member, Nand Kumar Patel, the state’s Congress chief, his son Dinesh Patel, and former MLA Uday Mudliyar; former Union minister Vidya Charan Shukla and Konta MLA Kawasi Lakhma were critically injured. The convoy was an ideal target because of the presence of many high-profile leaders in one place, and that too with less security cover, passing through a most vulnerable area.

The year witnessed a shrink in the number of middle- and top-level Maoist leaders due to killings or arrests or surrenders. This happened mostly in Odisha, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Yet, one cannot assert with absolute confidence that the Left-wing Extremism is on the wane.

The State Response: Two Pronged Strategy in 2013

Conflict management efforts by both Central and State governments were focused on two-pronged approach – security and development – with moderate success. On the security front, the Union government was supplementing the efforts of States that included providing Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and Commando Battalions for Resolute Action (CoBRA), sanction of India Reserve (IR) battalions, setting up of Counter Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism (CIAT) schools, modernisation and upgradation of the State Police and their Intelligence apparatus under the Scheme for Modernization of State Police Forces (MPF scheme), re-imbursement of security related expenditure under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) Scheme and filling up critical infrastructure gaps under the Scheme for Special Infrastructure in Left Wing Extremism affected States. In addition, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) stationed at the Begumpet airport were helping the ground forces to track Maoist movement. However, in the absence of proper coordination with the CRPF, the state police forces were finding it difficult to keep pace with the Maoists. For instance, in 2013 coordination issue erupted in Bihar in a major way. In addition, most of the states were found wanting in utilisation of police modernisation funds.

On the development front, funds were allocated to the LWE-affected States under various Central Schemes like the Backward Regions Grant Fund, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Prime Minister’s Gram Sadak Yojna, National Rural Health Mission, Ashram Schools, Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidhyutikaran Yojna and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. In addition, the Government was implementing the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) to address development deficit in public infrastructure and services in 82 selected Districts. There was no paucity of funds. However, these initiatives were not been optimally implemented despite the presence of a number of review and monitoring mechanisms for different aspects of LWE problem and the measures needed to deal with it.

2014: A Forecast

Overall, on analyzing trends of LWE in 2013, it is clear that the conflict is going to continue in 2014 and beyond, thus keeping both Central and State governments on its toes. What is required, at the outset, is a political desire, if not the political will, to deal with the entire gamut of the threat.

Instead of slackness on account of the prevailing disturbed environment, the administrative apparatus should work overtime to ensure that all socio-economic development and poverty alleviation programmes are implemented with high efficiency and honesty and within an urgent timeframe. Good governance is the key. Attention is also required in making sure that the criminal justice system functions with speed, fairness, transparency and honesty, it is difficult to bring down prevailing “crisis of legitimacy”.

The article India And Left-Wing Extremism 2013: The Threat Continues – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jim Kouri

Iraqi men, women and children are fleeing the violence and atrocities of the intense combat occurring in Anbar province’s cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in numbers not seen since that country’s insurgency six years ago, according to reports from United Nations aid workers on Friday.

According to U.S. news outlets on Friday, in the past week alone, at least 65,000 people fled the two cities which have become a battlefield in which the Shiite-led government and the Sunni al Qaeda-linked groups are literally fighting in the streets.

“Many of the displaced… are still in desperate need of food, medical care and other aid,” the U.N. said. “As the insecurity has spread, many families who fled several weeks ago have been displaced again.”

Since al-Qaeda in Iraq and its allies invaded the two cities in late December 2013, well over 140,000 Iraqis become homeless due to intense fighting, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration.

This is the largest evacuation by Iraqi civilians the world has seen since the sectarian violence of 2006-2008 while the U.S. and coalition forces were still in that country. The 140,000 displaced people are on top of the 1.13 million people already displaced in Iraq and who are mostly residing in Baghdad, Diyala and Ninewa provinces, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) statement on Friday.

According to reports from UNHCR staff, many of the Iraqis find it difficult, if not out-and-out dangerous, to flee from war-torn neighborhoods where there is a shortage of food and medicine.

“The UN in Iraq has asked the government to facilitate the opening of a humanitarian corridor to reach displaced and stranded families in Anbar province. In recent weeks several bridges leading into the conflict area and communities hosting displaced people have been destroyed, making access difficult. Currently it is impossible to reach the area from Baghdad and relief agencies are using roads coming from northern Iraq,” according to UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards.

“Meanwhile, other areas of Iraq — including Baghdad, Erbil, Kerbala, Salah-al-Din and Ninewa — have witnessed the arrival of thousands of displaced persons. People are reportedly without money for food and lack suitable clothing for the rainy conditions. Children are not in school and sanitary conditions, particularly for women, are inadequate,” Edwards noted.

The gunmen from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a/k/a al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQII), who invaded the Iraqi cities of Ramadi and Fallujah are refusing to withdraw despite President Bashar al-Assad’s military onslaughts and threats from local tribal leaders.

The ISIL is now firmly entrenched in the cities that were the scenes of the bloodiest battles for the U.S. military during the war in Iraq, with their attacks appearing to be well planned, coordinated and designed to spread terror.

The article Iraqi Civilians Flee From Violence And Atrocities In Anbar‏ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Iran Review

By Elaheh Koolaee

Both before the election of the ninth Iranian administration and after it, relations between Iran and Russia have accounted for one of the most important aspects of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy. As put by [the Iranian President] Dr. Hassan Rouhani, relations with Russia have an important position in Iran’s foreign relations and various developments have helped to further strengthen security and political ties between the two countries in the region. One of the most important aspects of these developments has been the recent emphasis put by the leaders in both countries on the need to promote further cooperation between the two states. Of special importance here is the recent nuclear deal [struck by Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers] in [the Swiss city of] Geneva. The nuclear deal has further underlined the importance of ties between Tehran and Moscow given the fact that the Geneva deal may lead to future improvement of Iran’s relations with the United States, in particular, and the West, in general.

The Russians have constantly tried to take the best advantage of tense relations between Iran and the West. At the same time, recent developments in the region have once more highlighted the importance of relations between the two countries more than any time before. One of these developments is extensive activities by Jihadist and Salafist forces in Syria. The enormous threat posed by such activities to the interests of Russia and Iran has increased the importance of closer collaboration between the two countries. Another factor which has further necessitated such a cooperation between Tehran and Moscow is the presence in Syria of warriors from Chechnya and other autonomous republics of Russia in the Central Asia and Caucasus. This issue has increased the importance of Syria developments for the Kremlin. Of course, when it comes to economic and trade ties, the volume of exchanges between the two countries has greatly increased, though mostly in favor of Russia. However, cooperation in social and cultural areas has not developed remarkably.

As said before, Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, have made the most of the developments that have taken place in Iran during the three decades that have passed since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in the country. Of special importance was the intensification of confrontation between Iran and the West in various areas which provided Russia with unprecedented opportunities and Moscow took extensive advantage of those opportunities. At present, new developments have taken place in Iran’s relations with the West, especially with the United States, whose early signs were visible in the recent Geneva agreement. Such developments can have direct effects on the Russia’s interests in relation to Iran. [The Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s visit to Iran under the former Iranian administration [of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] took place at a time that international pressures were piling up on Iran. Putin’s visit, which took place for the participation in the summit meeting of the Caspian Sea littoral countries, clearly revealed Russia’s upper hand in relations with Iran.

However, measures taken for the implementation of the Geneva agreement and the successful foreign policy approach taken by the new Iranian administration to building confidence with the international community will undoubtedly have immediate and direct positive effects on the country’s economy by paving the way for the all-out development of the country. As a result, Russia will be prompted to take rapid actions in order to further improve its ties with Iran and maintain the position that it has in Iran’s foreign policy. If Putin visits Iran before the end of the current Iranian calendar year (which ends on March 20, 2014) a new atmosphere of cooperation will govern the two countries’ relations. This time, the Islamic Republic of Iran will be able to engage in bargaining at different levels and in a better position in order to guarantee its interests. The increasing bargaining power of Iran and its ability to regulate its relations with Russia, can make up for the country’s past failures in various areas of foreign policy, including for determining the shares of Caspian Sea littoral states from undersea energy resources. At any rate, Russia is a powerful neighbor. Therefore, development and regulation of relations with Russia has been always of high importance to our country. As a result, any kind of expansion in Iran’s relations with the West should not be carried out at the cost of ignoring any part of the extensive benefits that good relations with Russia will have for Iran. The forthcoming visit to Iran by Putin will take place at a time that our country will be in a better position, as a result of the Geneva nuclear deal, to take decisive steps for the regulation of its relations with Russia.

Dr. Elaheh Koolaee is an Iranian political scientist and intellectual. She is professor of political science at Tehran University

Source: Etemaad Newspaper
http://www.etemaad.ir/
Translated By: Iran Review.Org

The article Putin To Visit Iran As Islamic Republic’s Bargaining Power Is On Rise – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.