By Michael Averko

I was a panelist on the January 30, US-Russia.org discussion, headed under the title of: “Why is the West Waging a Campaign Against the Sochi Winter Olympics?” Among other things, the subtitle of my below contribution to that panel (and its contents), emphasize the lack of a critical follow-up on the subject at hand.

Sochi Winter Olympics: Diversity of Frank Views Lacking Among the Higher Profile of Venues

With Russia, the adage of “no news is good news” becomes more evident, when compared to how numerous other topics are covered. Dominic Basulto aptly refers to the Sochi Winter Olympic coverage as having a noticeable “disaster porn” element.

This kind of spin includes some of the more progressive of American political commentators, who frequently appear in mass media. Katrina vanden Heuvel’s January 18 Nation piece has traces of what Basulto describes. In terms of governments with suspect human rights conditions, post-Soviet Russia does not come close to matching the Summer Olympic hosts Nazi Germany in 1936 and the Soviet Union in 1980. (The same can be said of Argentina, when it hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1978, without much of a protest.) It is therefore overly tabloid to flippantly mention the aforementioned Olympiads relative to Sochi, without noting the significant differences.

In the United States, the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and its affiliates have exclusive rights to televise the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. As reported, that network has made it a point to say that it will not be “soft” on issues pertaining to the human rights situation in Russia, as well as other Russia related matters, where negativity can be applied. In contrast, there is little, if any caution against being negatively inaccurate on this stance. Therein lies the predominating slant among American media and political elites.

Judging by the way NBC and its cable affiliate MSNBC cover Russia, there seems like there might be a calculation of sorts that negative imagery against that nation is a good marketing position. There are flat out anti-Russian biases, which regularly go unopposed, in large part because of the lack of an influential pro-Russian advocacy – an aspect which has the potential to be noticeably improved upon.

Like other great historical powers, Russia has alienated some smaller nations. This circumstance does not fully explain the predominating anti-Russian biases. Russia has also been a victim of unjust attacks and has had some noteworthy moments of good ties with Western nations. Why should “Russification” be a considerably more popularized term than “Anglicization“, when the Ukrainian language in Ukraine has been more prevalent than the native Gaelic in Scotland and Ireland? Over the course of time, Russia has attracted many non-Russians, who have been well accepted by Russians at large. This reality tends to get downplayed, in favor of highlighting the unfortunate examples of ethnic strife – something which other multiethnic countries have experienced in varying degrees.

For many Russians, the upcoming Winter Olympiad is partly an expression of national pride. There are others, who carry on like this event is a chance to stick it to the Russians. How ironic is the ongoing and impressive mantra about Russia (Putin in particular), constantly seeking to tweak the United States. Never mind what has existed vice versa, including (among other things) the Magnitsky Act and then American President George Bush’s provocative comments at a 2006 press conference in St. Petersburg, Russia. (The Magnitsky Act specifically singles out one country – Russia, unlike its predecessor, the repealed Jackson-Vanik Amendment.)

I am nevertheless optimistic that Russian-American relations can noticeably improve in the not too distant future. In historical terms, the Cold War is not so far removed from the present. In the United States, it took time for some Americans to feel more trusting of the Japanese and Germans. Post-Soviet era American and Russian attitudes of each other include mixed fluctuations. One of several examples come to mind.

In response to the 2012 Romney-Obama foreign policy presidential debate, MSNBC host Chris Matthews simultaneously chided Romney for being too negative of Russia, while lauding Obama for taking a more optimistic stance on that country. More recently, Matthews has carried on in a less upbeat way, during a segment with two guests, who added onto the negativity.

In that particular instance, Chuck Todd confidently characterized Sochi as a not so appealing place to visit. No mention that for decades going back to the Soviet period, terrorist free Sochi has been a tourist destination for vacationing Russians and other now former Soviet nationals. This reality serves as one example to explain why Sochi was selected as a candidate location to host the Winter Olympics. There is the hope that Sochi’s infrastructure improvements will make it a more appealing place. Matthews’ other guest, Evan Kohlmann, expressed ethical apprehension about joining Russia to combat terrorism. He noted the many innocents who have been killed in Russian involved military action. In comparison, it is downplayed (in some influential circles) that the same can be said of civilians killed over the course of time as a result of armed American and Israeli actions.

This last point is not intended to belittle American and Israeli security concerns. Rather, it is to highlight the seeming hypocrisy of some, who are prone to getting English language mass media slots over others, with valid and underrepresented points of view. (Todd and Kohlmann are employed by NBC.  Kohlmann is utilized by NBC and MSNBC as a terrorism analyst. Todd is the chief White House correspondent for NBC, in addition to hosting a show on MSNBC.)

At this stage, it is unrealistic to expect Obama to change his mind about not going to the opening ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Were he to suddenly change course, his chief detractors would highlight a flip flop move. I do not believe that Obama’s absence from Sochi is such a big deal. Ditto the other Western leaders who have chosen to stay away. For countless others besides myself, the Olympics is first and foremost about the athletes and the events they compete in.

In response to Sally Jenkins’ Washington Post article (mentioned at the top in Vlad Sobell’s introduction), I forwarded to her attention two articles of mine from the past year: “Overview of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics“, Eurasia Review, March 13 and “Gay Rights in Russia and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics“, Global Research, September 16. She politely responded with a thank you note, inclusive of her intention to read these articles. I replied back with a reciprocal thanks and my differences with her article. To date, this has been the extent of that exchange.

The article Politicizing The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Marjorie Cohn

“Big Brother is Watching You,” George Orwell wrote in his disturbing book 1984. But, as Mikko Hypponen points out, Orwell “was an optimist.” Orwell never could have imagined that the National Security Agency (NSA) would amass metadata on billions of our phone calls and 200 million of our text messages every day. Orwell could not have foreseen that our government would read the content of our emails, file transfers, and live chats from the social media we use.

In his recent speech on NSA reforms, President Obama cited as precedent Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty, who patrolled the streets at night, “reporting back any signs that the British were preparing raids against America’s early Patriots.” This was a weak effort to find historical support for the NSA spying program. After all, Paul Revere and his associates were patrolling the streets, not sorting through people’s private communications.

To get a more accurate historical perspective, Obama should have considered how our founding fathers reacted to searches conducted by the British before the revolution. The British used “general warrants,” which authorized blanket searches without any individualized suspicion or specificity of what the colonial authorities were seeking.

At the American Continental Congress in 1774, in a petition to King George III, Congress protested against the colonial officers’ unlimited power of search and seizure. The petition charged that power had been used “to break open and enter houses, without the authority of any civil magistrate founded on legal information.”

When the founders later put the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures into the Bill of Rights, they were attempting to ensure that our country would not become a police state.

Those who maintain that government surveillance is no threat to our liberty should consider the abuse that occurred nearly 200 years later, when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover conducted the dreaded COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program). It was designed to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” political and activist groups. During the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, in an effort to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, our government engaged in widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone with unorthodox political views. Thousands of people were jailed, blacklisted, and fired as the FBI engaged in “red-baiting.”

In the 1960’s, the FBI targeted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a program called “Racial Matters.” King’s campaign to register African-American voters in the South raised the hackles of the FBI, which disingenuously claimed that King’s organization was being infiltrated by communists. But the FBI was really worried that King’s civil rights campaign “represented a clear threat to the established order of the U.S.” The FBI went after King with a vengeance, wiretapping his phones, and securing personal information which it used to try to discredit him, hoping to drive him to divorce and suicide.

Obama would likely argue that our modern day “war on terror” is unlike COINTELPRO because it targets real, rather than imagined, threats. But, as Hypponen says, “It’s not the war on terror.” Indeed, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent federal privacy watchdog, found “no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”

The NSA spying program captures all of us, including European leaders, people in Mexico, Brazil, the United Nations, and the European Union Parliament, not just the terrorists. Although Obama assured us that the government “does not collect intelligence to suppress criticism or dissent,” our history, particularly during COINTELPRO, tells us otherwise.

Obama proposed some reforms to the NSA program, but left in place the most egregious aspects. He said that the NSA must secure approval of a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before it gets access to the phone records of an individual. But that is a secret court, whose judges are appointed by the conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, and it has almost never turned down an executive branch wiretapping request since it was created in 1978. Most significantly, Obama did not say that surveillance without judicial warrants or individual suspicion should be halted.

“One of [Obama’s] biggest lapses,” a New York Times editorial noted, “was his refusal to acknowledge that his entire speech, and all of the important changes he now advocates, would never have happened without the disclosures by [Edward] Snowden, who continues to live in exile and under the threat of decades in prison if he returns to this country.”

Snowden’s revelations will reportedly continue to emerge. And you can bet that Orwell will continue to turn in his grave for a long time to come.

The article Beyond Orwell’s Worst Nightmare – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IDN

By Jaya Ramachandran

New data launched by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that sales of arms and military services by the world’s largest arms-producing companies, which amounted to $395 billion in 2012, has increased by 29 per cent in real terms since 2003. But compared to 2011 the 2012 data represent a 4.2 per cent decrease in real terms and follow a 6.6 per cent cut in that year.

The report released at the Munich Security Conference on January 31, 2014 points out at the same time that the decrease in arms sales in 2012 was not uniform: “while sales by companies in the United States, Canada and most West European countries continued to fall, arms sales by Russian companies increased sharply, by 28 per cent in real terms”.

Arms sales are defined by SIPRI as sales of military goods and services to military customers, including sales for domestic procurement and sales for export.

SIPRI notes a rise in the share for companies outside North America and Western Europe. Since 2005 it has been increasing at 13.5 per cent, marking its highest point in the history of the Top 100, which does not include China-based companies due to lack of available data.

Russian companies saw a particularly large increase in estimated arms sales in 2012. Of the six Russian companies in the Top 100, all except United Aircraft Corporation saw increases in excess of 20 per cent, and Almaz Antei – with a 41 per cent rise – now stands in 14th place in the Top 100, the highest position taken by a Russian company since data became available in 2002, says the report.

Russia’s growing domestic sales

SIPRI data indicate that Russian arms companies continue to maintain high export levels, but the increase in estimated arms sales in 2012 mainly reflects large and growing domestic sales, as part of Russia’s $700 billion 2011-2020 State Armaments Plan. “While there remains widespread scepticism as to whether the aims of the plan can be fully achieved, it is clear that a major increase in Russian military equipment procurement is taking place,” the report notes.

“The Russian arms industry is gradually re-emerging from the ruins of the Soviet industry,” said Dr Sam Perlo-Freeman, Director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. “Nonetheless, the industry is still plagued by outdated equipment, inefficient organization and widespread corruption, which will continue to limit Russia’s ability to compete technologically with the West.”

Iraq withdrawal affects US sales

Turning to the world’s largest arms seller, the report says: Sales by the 42 US-based arms producers amounted to 58 per cent of the total arms sales of the Top 100, with 30 companies based in Western Europe making up another 28 per cent of the total. While these companies still accounted for 87 per cent of the total arms sales, the decline in arms sales in these traditional producer regions echoes the decline in military spending, which began clearly in 2011. In particular, the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq at the end of 2011 had a significant effect on a number of companies.

The largest percentage fall in arms sales in the Top 100 in 2012 – by 60 per cent in real terms – was by KBR, which provided logistic support to US forces in Iraq. Sales by companies providing armoured vehicles to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Navistar and AM General, also declined.

“The US arms industry has fallen back somewhat from the heights it reached before the Budget Control Act, when the USA was still embroiled in two wars. But it still enjoys sales and profits that are very high by historic standards,” said Dr Perlo-Freeman in a SIPRI press release.

Other significant producers

This year, for the first time, the SIPRI Top 100 includes data for Ukraine. The consolidation of much of the Ukrainian arms industry into a single holding company, Ukroboronprom – whose arms sales increased by 14 per cent in 2012, reaching $1.44 billion – puts that company clearly in the Top 100 for both 2011 and 2012, says the report.

Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer entered the Top 100 in 2010 and was one of the largest risers in 2012, by 36 per cent in real terms, climbing from 83rd to 66th position in the Top 100 with arms sales of $1.06 billion.

The growth of the South Korean arms industry continued in 2012 with a 4.2 per cent real increase in arms sales by companies in the Top 100. The total arms sales of Korean companies in the Top 100 have more than doubled in real terms since 2002.

Companies headquartered in North America and Western Europe continue to dominate the global arms industry: 73 companies in the Top 100 for 2012 are from these regions, and they accounted for 86.7 per cent of the total arms sales of the Top 100.

The total arms sales of the 43 North American companies in the Top 100 (42 from the United States and 1 from Canada) fell by 6.6 per cent in real terms in 2012 and that of the 30 West European companies fell by 3.0 per cent (compared to the same companies in 2011).

Arms sales by companies in the Top 100 from the rest of the world rose by 13.6 per cent in real terms. These companies’ share of the total arms sales of the Top 100 is now at its highest level since the start of the current coverage of the Top 100, in 2002.

The Top 100 for 2012 includes companies from 23 countries, the highest number yet. This represents an increasing diffusion of large-scale, corporate arms production around the world, although the dominance of the USA, and to a lesser extent Western Europe, continues largely unchanged.

The SIPRI Arms Industry Database was created in 1989. It contains financial and employment data on arms producing companies worldwide. Since 1990, SIPRI has published data on the arms sales and employment of the 100 largest of these arms-producing companies in the SIPRI Yearbook.

The article Global Arms Sales Up By 29 Percent Since 2003 – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By COHA

By W. Alejandro Sanchez

An obscure fact of Latin American military affairs is that the Brazilian Navy possesses its own aircraft carrier. The vessel, now five decades old, is currently undergoing repairs so that it can serve for at least a decade more. Nevertheless, given the fast pace of South American geopolitics and geosecurity affairs, serious questions should be raised whether or not Brazil actually needs a carrier in its fleet.

The Carrier

Brazil acquired its carrier from France in November 2000: the vessel is a non-nuclear, 36,000 ton, Clemenceau-type carrier, which was constructed in the early 1960s.The carrier, originally known as the Foch while it flew the French flag, “entered the dry-dock stage in Saint-Nazaire in 1957 and was launched three years later. It was towed to the Brest arsenal for completion. It entered active service in 1963 and ceased to be armed by the French Navy in 2000, when the Charles de Gaulle CVN came into service.” [1]

When it was sold to Brazil, the Foch was renamed as Sao Paulo. It is worth noting that the Sao Paulo replaced Brazil’s other carrier, the Minas Gerais, which was launched by England during World War II (then known as the HMS Vengeance). The Minas Gerais served for 41 years in the Brazilian Navy starting in 1960 until it was decommissioned in 2001. [2]

The website MilitaryFactory.com provides some additional details about the Sao Paulo, explaining that it “showcases a typical Western aircraft profile with a flat, unobstructed flight deck and starboard, … her deck allows for the launching of two fixed-wing aircraft simultaneously.” [3] The massive vessel has an overall length of 869 feet and is able to make headway at a top speed of 32 knots. According to details that have been released, the carrier has a crew of over 1,900 sailors. [4] As for the aircraft that it transports, a December 2013 press release by the French shipbuilder DCNS, which is currently upgrading the Sao Paulo, says that the Brazilian warship has 18 Douglas A-4 Sky Hawk warplanes. [5] Meanwhile, a December 2012 note in Brazilian news agency R7 explains that the carrier also has Super Puma transport helicopters and Esquilo light helicopters. [6] Tragically, the Sao Paulo has not served in the Brazilian Navy without incidents, as on-board fires in 2005 and 2012 killed and injured a number of sailors. [7]

The Sao Paulo is the only carrier currently in use by a Latin American Navy. Nevertheless, COHA has been unable to unearth information on the types of operations this carrier has been involved in during the decade that it has been flying the Brazilian flag. An analysis in the website WarisBoring.com explains that the Sao Paulo has participated in naval exercises, such as sailing with a U.S. carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan. [8] Additionally Argentine warplanes have occasionally landed on the Brazilian carrier, which serves as a confidence-building initiative between the naval forces of the two neighboring states. [9]

Upgrade

It would appear that the Brazilian Navy has plans for the aging Sao Paulo. In early January 2014, the Spanish news agency Infodefensa.com reported that the French shipbuilding company DCNS had been asked by the Brazilian Navy to inspect the Sao Paulo’s forward catapult. The repairs to the Sao Paulo began in November 2013 at a naval base in Rio de Janeiro. [10]

Regarding the rehabilitation of the Brazilian warship, a December 2013 press release by DCNS explains that “the steam catapult, which already performed over 5000 launches, is a key element for the aircraft carrier capability.” [11] The French company has praised itself for its work on modernizing the Sao Paulo as it also reported that “after the team’s intervention, the catapult was dry-fired twice, demonstrating the expected performance. The Brazilian authorities expressed satisfaction.” [12]

Brazil’s Evolving Military and Geopolitics

Thanks to its strong economy over the past decade, the Brazilian armed forces are carrying out important arms purchases which will help the Portuguese-speaking giant consolidate itself as Latin America’s foremost military power.

Throughout the past decades, COHA has written several comprehensive reports on Brazil’s military and its arms acquisitions – we will enumerate just a few of the more prominent examples here. Apart from the Sao Paulo’s upgrades, the Brazilian Navy is constructing a nuclear-powered submarine, with French aid. The submarine has been a dream of the Navy since the country’s 1964-1985 military regime. [13] Paris is also helping Brazil to build four diesel-electric submarines, variants of the French Scorpene design. [14]

Meanwhile, the Brazilian Air Force is getting a revamp as Brasilia has already selected, after several years of negotiations, the Gripen (produced by the Swedish company Saab) as its new warplane. For years, analysts such as those posted at COHA believed that the Brazilian government would choose the Rafale warplane produced by the Swedish Dassault. But in December 2013 Brasilia ultimately chose the Swedish model. [15] Brazil will purchase 36 Gripen warplanes in a deal reported to be worth around $4.5 billion USD. As for the Brazilian Army, it has purchased Shorad missiles to upgrade its arsenal. The missiles will be used to protect the skies of the cities that will host the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup. [16]

It is worth noting that defense-related foreign dignitaries regularly travel to Brazil to lobby the Dilma Rousseff government in an effort to persuade it to buy more weaponry. For example, the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu travelled to Brasilia in October 2013 to discuss the sales of the Pantsir-S1 and Igla missile system, a deal which if agreed upon in the coming months, could be worth up to $1 billion. [17] Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande visited Brazil this past December 2013 to convince the Brazilian government to purchase the Dassault warplanes – an unsuccessful visit as Brasilia chose the Swedish Gripen.

This is not to say that other nations in the Western Hemisphere have not also acquired new military equipment over the past decade. For example, the Venezuelan military has also spent billions of dollars to upgrade its own military, mostly by turning to Russia as a major weapons supplier. [18] Nevertheless, as the Russian media even admits, Russia-Venezuela military relations in the post-Hugo Chávez have not been particularly ideal for business. An October 2013 commentary in the Russian news agency Pravda explains, “All major contracts were tied to late president Hugo Chávez . After his death, against the backdrop of complications of the socio-economic situation in the country, defense cooperation with Russia actually came to a standstill … new Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is not ready to agree on new [contracts].” [19]

Threats?

The aforementioned article by MilitaryFactory.com concludes, “the Sao Paulo remains a critical cog to Brazilian Navy operations in the region, both for stability and in power across Atlantic-facing South American and Latin American waters. For any modern naval power, the aircraft carrier is the heart and soul of the fleet.” [20]

But does Brazil actually need a carrier? Certainly such a vessel is an example of a naval power as it helps Brazil’s Navy increase its power projection or powers. Rising global powers such as China acquire carriers in order to assert themselves as global naval powers. [21] On the other hand, other nations that already possess these gigantic warships are suffering from an economic crunch and are re-organizing their armed forces. An example of this is the British military, which plans to eliminate some 20 thousand military personnel across the three branches over the next years, including 6,000 sailors. [22] The British Navy is developing two new carriers, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and the HMS Prince of Wales, but they have stirred controversy because of high costs and the reduction of naval personnel.

As for Brazil, the country is largely devoid of any major security threats that would make a compelling case for its Navy to have a carrier (or plan for a new one within the coming decade). Relations between Brazil and Venezuela during the Hugo Chávez presidency were rarely troubling and commerce was a strong confidence building mechanism to prevent tensions from escalating. [23] Furthermore, in late 2013, there was a major air force exercise in northern Brazil in which several Western Hemisphere air forces participated, including the U.S. and Venezuela. [24]

Moreover, it would be bizarre to believe that a carrier is needed for protection against some of Brazil’s smaller neighbors like Guyana, Suriname or Uruguay. Likewise, relations with Peru and Colombia are generally cordial, with this being reflected in the inter-agency cooperation against transnational criminal activity like drug trafficking. [25] Furthermore, while Argentina was once a serious contender to Brazil’s military role in Latin America, today the Argentine armed forces is a fragment of what it once was. (We do not count Bolivia and Paraguay in this analysis since, even though both nations border Brazil, neither possesses sea access).

One argument for a naval build up could be that the carrier and nuclear-powered submarine will help safeguard Brazil’s coast, specially its off-shore oil platforms. The government has sold oil blocs to international oil companies, a move that Brazilian oil workers protested against in 2013. [26] It should be noted that also in 2013 the Brazilian Navy has also acquired three Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV) for protecting its ports and oil platforms from the British manufacturing giant BAE Systems. [27] Certainly, an argument can be made that the Brazilian Navy needs even more vessels to protect its coastal and off-shore installations; but which country or criminal network will want to attack them is far from clear.

As a final point, it is true that a carrier helps a nation’s naval stature, but the vessel also needs to take part in some kind of naval maneuver in order to showcase that it is operational and helpful. Military exercises with other navies are a good example of this. But one could wonder if the Sao Paulo, once it is operational again and before it is retired, could end up being used as a support vessel for some multinational security operation, either as part of the United Nations or some international coalition combating piracy off the coast of Somalia.

Conclusions

Reporting on the Gripen warplane deal this past December 19, 2013 the defense news website Defense Industry Daily explained that the Brazilian Navy “intends to buy 24 fighters of its own, to operate from the carrier that replaces Nae Sao Paulo beginning in 2025.” [28] Both an April 29, 2013 article in Defense Industry Daily as well as an April 2013 article a Brazilian website called Defesa Aerea & Naval also mention rumors that a new aircraft carrier currently being developed by the aforementioned DCNS (the project is called PA 2) may be sold to Brazil as France is no longer interested in acquiring it. [29]

It is likely that the Sao Paulo will retire within the next decade. This is logical since the vessel is already over 50 years old and it may prove to be more costly to constantly upgrade and repair it instead of buying a new one. Whether Brazil actually needs a carrier, be it the Sao Paulo or a new one ten years from now, remains a highly debatable issue. A case can be made that the carrier can help protect Brazil’s extensive maritime interests, but it is doubtful that the country will face any conceivable major security threats, i.e. a war with another nation, in the near future. Brazil’s carrier may be one of the least well known and used strategic assets in Latin American military history and in the future.

W. Alejandro Sanchez, Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

References

[1] “Sao Paulo catapult: A DCNS team on the bridge of the Brazilian aircraft carrier.” DCNS Group. Press Release. December 20, 2013. http://en.dcnsgroup.com/2013/12/20/catapulte-du-porte-avions-s%C3%A3o-paulo-les-%C3%A9quipes-de-dcns-sur-le-pont-du-porte-avions-br%C3%A9silien/

[2] Rob Schleiffert and CorneRodenburg. “Sao Paulo rules the Waves.” Naval Aviation News. September-October 2003. P. 14 -19. http://www.history.Navy.mil/nan/backissues/2000s/2003/so03/brazil.pdf

[3] “NAe Sao Paulo (A12) Conventionally-Powered Aircraft Carrier.” MilitaryFactory.com. January 15, 2014. http://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship_id=NAe-Sao-Paulo

[4] “NAe Sao Paulo (A12) Conventionally-Powered Aircraft Carrier.” MilitaryFactory.com. January 15, 2014. http://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship_id=NAe-Sao-Paulo

[5] “Sao Paulo catapult: A DCNS team on the bridge of the Brazilian aircraft carrier.” DCNS Group. Press Release. December 20, 2013. http://en.dcnsgroup.com/2013/12/20/catapulte-du-porte-avions-s%C3%A3o-paulo-les-%C3%A9quipes-de-dcns-sur-le-pont-du-porte-avions-br%C3%A9silien/ Also see: Alexandre Galante. “DCNS realize verificacao da catapulta de vante do porta-avioes ‘Sao Paulo.’” Poder Naval. December 26, 2013. http://www.naval.com.br/blog/2013/12/26/dcns-realiza-verificacao-da-catapulta-de-vante-do-porta-avioes-sao-paulo/

[6] “Marinha do Brasil tem porta-avioes, submarino e ate tanque de guerra que vira barco.” R7 Noticias. Forcas Armadas. September 5, 2012. http://noticias.r7.com/brasil/fotos/marinha-do-brasil-tem-porta-avioes-submarino-e-ate-tanque-de-guerra-que-vira-barco-20120905-14.html#fotos

[7]“Explosion kills one in Brazilian aircraft carrier.” Xinhua.net. May 18, 2005. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-05/18/content_2968613.htm Also see: Michael Hone. “Aircraft Sao Paulo hit by Fire.” BrazilDispatch.com. February 22, 2012. http://www.brazildispatch.com/2012/02/aircraft-carrier-sao-paulo-hit-by-fire.html

[8]David Axe. “Your Aircraft is a piece of Crap.” WarIsBoring.com (Medium.org). October 24, 2013. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/f3f52d299588

[9] David Axe. “Your Aircraft is a piece of Crap.” WarIsBoring.com (Medium.org). October 24, 2013. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/f3f52d299588

[10]“DCNS prueba el estado de la catapulta del portaaviones brasileno Sao Paulo.” Infodefensa.com. January 2, 2014. http://www.infodefensa.com/latam/2014/01/02/noticia-prueba-estado-catapulta-portaaviones-brasileno-paulo.html

[11]“Sao Paulo catapult: A DCNS team on the bridge of the Brazilian aircraft carrier.” DCNS Group. Press Release. December 20, 2013. http://en.dcnsgroup.com/2013/12/20/catapulte-du-porte-avions-s%C3%A3o-paulo-les-%C3%A9quipes-de-dcns-sur-le-pont-du-porte-avions-br%C3%A9silien/

[12] “Sao Paulo catapult: A DCNS team on the bridge of the Brazilian aircraft carrier.” DCNS Group. Press Release. December 20, 2013. http://en.dcnsgroup.com/2013/12/20/catapulte-du-porte-avions-s%C3%A3o-paulo-les-%C3%A9quipes-de-dcns-sur-le-pont-du-porte-avions-br%C3%A9silien/

[13]W. Alejandro Sanchez. “Lula wants his yellow submarine.” Report. Council on Hemispheric Affairs. October 26, 2007. http://www.coha.org/lula-wants-his-yellow-submarine/

[14] “Brazil & France in Deal for SSKs, SSN.” Defense Industry Daily. April 11, 2013. http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/brazil-france-in-deal-for-ssks-ssn-05217/

[15] W. Alejandro Sanchez. “Brazil’s warplane of choice not a Saab story for France.” Blouin Beat: Politics. December 19, 2013.

[16] “Brasil compra sistemas antiaereos Shorad para proteger el Mundial de Futbol.” Infodefensa.com. January 3, 2014. http://www.infodefensa.com/latam/2014/01/03/noticia-brasil-compra-sistemas-antiaereos-shorad-proteger-mundial-futbol.html

[17] W. Alejandro Sanchez and Ian Kowalski. “Weapons Diplomacy: Russian Defense Minister skips Venezuela during Latin American tour.” Research. Council on Hemispheric Affairs. November 11, 2013. http://www.coha.org/weapons-diplomacy-russian-defense-minister-skips-venezuela-during-latin-american-tour/

[18] “Venezuela ranked top importer of Russian arms.” RIA Novosti. December 27, 2011. http://en.ria.ru/world/20111227/170519145.html

[19] “Russia continues to conquer arms market of South America.” Pravda. October 9, 2013. http://english.pravda.ru/business/companies/09-10-2013/125848-russia_south_america-0/

[20] “NAe Sao Paulo (A12) Conventionally-Powered Aircraft Carrier.” MilitaryFactory.com. January 15, 2014. http://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship_id=NAe-Sao-Paulo

[21] “China building second aircraft carrier: reports.” Reuters. January 18, 2014. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/19/us-china-carrier-idUSBREA0I02C20140119

[22] Patrick Wintour. “Defense cuts ‘threaten UK military partnership with the U.S.’” Defense Policy. The Guardian (UK). January 16, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/16/defence-cuts-uk-military-partnership-us-robert-gates Also see: Nick Hopkins. “Royal Navy says huge size of its new aircraft carrier will be a deterrent.” Royal Navy. The Guardian (UK). September 19, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/sep/19/royal-Navy-aircraft-carrier-deterrent

[23] “Global Insider: Brazil-Venezuela relations.” World Politics Review. March 9, 2011.http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/8135/global-insider-brazil-venezuela-relations

[24] “South America’s major military air exercise takes off in north Brazil.” Mercopress.com. November 5, 2013. http://en.mercopress.com/2013/11/05/south-america-s-major-military-air-exercise-takes-off-in-the-north-of-brazil

[25] “Peru, Bolivia y Brazil reforzaran cooperacion anti-drogas.” Andina (Peru). November 14, 2012. http://www.andina.com.pe/espanol/noticia-peru-bolivia-y-brasil-reforzaran-cooperacion-antidrogas-435912.aspx#.Ut6b9c4o5QI

[26] Jeb Blount. “Protests, strike against big Brazil oil auction expand.” Reuters. October 18, 2013. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/18/brazil-oil-protests-idUKL1N0I80V620131018

[27] Grant Turnbull. “Rethinking Defense: Naval modernization in Latin America.”Naval-Technology.com. October 28, 2013. http://www.naval-technology.com/features/feature-rethinking-defence-naval-modernisation-south-america/

[28] “F-X2: Brazil Picks Saab’s JAS-39 Gripen-NG over Rafale, Super Hornet.” Defense Industry Daily. December 19, 2013. http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/brazil-embarking-upon-f-x2-fighter-program-04179/

[29] “France’s PA2/CVF Carrier Project: Stalled in the Water.” Defense Industry Daily. April 29, 2013. http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/france-steaming-ahead-on-pa2cvf-carrier-project-01621/ . Also see: Luiz Padilha. “PA2: Projeto de porta avioes frances parado na Agua.” Defesa Aerea & Naval. April 30, 2013. http://www.defesaaereanaval.com.br/?p=18863

The article Brazil Upgrades Its Sao Paulo Carrier – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By VOA

The new head of the U. S. Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, was sworn in Monday in Washington, D.C.

Yellen had been the Vice Chair of the Fed and is first woman to lead the central bank in its 100 year history.

The Fed is responsible for keeping prices stable and unemployment under control.

Some economists say Yellen’s approach is likely to be similar to that of former chairman Ben Bernanke, who pushed interest rates to historic lows as one part of the effort to pull the economy out of a slump.

Other experts say Yellen may put more emphasis on fighting unemployment.

Bernanke has joined the Brookings Institution, a group of scholars in Washington who study public economic, political, and strategic issues. Bernanke was a Princeton University economics professor before joining the Fed.

The article Yellen Sworn In As New US Fed Chief appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ralph Nader

After 94 years, on January 27, 2014, the world lost Pete Seeger. The world is the lesser for that loss. The accolades for this giant of folk songs and herald of all causes just, are pouring in from around the world. He is celebrated for regularly showing up at mass protests, for singing songs so transcendent (This Land is Your Land; We Shall Overcome; Where Have All the Flowers Gone) they are sung in many foreign languages all over the earth and for his mentoring and motivating of millions of people and children.

Pete Seeger overcame most of his doubters and adversaries. On his famous five string banjo, he inscribed the slogan, “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”

No less than the Wall Street Journal, after reprinting an ugly commentary on Seeger’s earlier radicalism, wrote: “troubadour, rabble rouser, thorn in the side of the bloated and complacent, recipient of the National Media of Arts, American idealist and family man, Seeger maintained what Mr. Springsteen called his ‘nasty optimism’ until late in life.”

At a Madison Square Garden songfest for Seeger’s 90th birthday, Springsteen added: “Pete Seeger decided he’d be a walking, singing reminder of all of America’s history. He’d be a living archive of America’s music and conscience.”

I met and spoke to Pete Seeger a few times and can attest to his steady determination and uplifting spirit. All the above are measures of this authentic man and his rare traits of character, personality, intuition, scope and focus.

The man’s character shone when he was subpoenaed before the powerful House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in August 1955, along with other outspoken entertainers and actors, he refused to take the easier way out and invoke the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. Instead, he made himself vulnerable to later prosecution by pleading the First Amendment and his right to free speech, petition and assembly.

After rejecting the Committee’s probe about whom he associated with politically and his beliefs, he suggested that they discuss the music that the committee members found so objectionable. He offered unsuccessfully to sing his songs, then and there, before the startled clenched-jaw politicians.

“I think,” he told them, “these are very improper questions for any American to be asked especially under such compulsion as this.” In those days, that was an astounding act of courageous character.

He paid the price, when he was prosecuted and convicted before winning his appeal. In those years of “commie symps” witch-hunts by McCarthyite zealots, his career nearly collapsed. Television networks banned him for over a decade; record companies shunned him; concerts dwindled. So what did he do? He continued recording, touring among everyday people around the country, learning music from them and singing on street corners, at union halls, churches, schools and what he called “hobo jungles.”

He quit a popular band he formed – the Weavers – after it did an advertisement for Lucky Strike cigarettes. More recently, according to his producer, Jim Musselman, and record label (Appleseed Recordings), he turned down an offer by BP of $150,000 to use one of his songs in a commercial, even though he could have given the money to charity.

Complementing this sterling character, Seeger possessed a stunningly functional personality. His resilience in overcoming setbacks, ideological adversaries and smear specialists was legendary. That was because he never let his ego get in the way and wear him down and he recognized the big picture of social change and how he could use his stardom to amplify the people’s efforts for peace, justice, the environment and other necessities of the good life. It helped mightily that he was married to the stalwart Toshi for seventy years.

“The key to the future of the world,” he remarked in 1994, “is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known.” In 2009, he said his task was “to show folks there’s a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet.” He placed his greatest hope in women wisely teaching their children. Three years ago, he won a Grammy for his album, “Tomorrow’s Children.”

His connection with audiences of all kinds, here and abroad, was uncannily attuned to getting them to participate and sing. For Mr. Seeger, it was not about the song or the singer – these were the means – it was about the audience’s own experience.

He disliked the overwhelming sound of rock that blotted out the lyrics. The lyrics, he believed, were what needed to be communicated and therefore had to be heard, sung and understood. That is one reason he avoided electric guitars and other electrified instruments.

In his biography by David Dunaway, titled How Can I Keep From Singing: Pete Seeger, Mr. Seeger spoke about rural traditions. “I liked the strident vocal tone of the singers, the vigorous dancing. The words of the songs had all the meat of life in them. Their humor had a bite, it was not trivial. Their tragedy was real, not sentimental.”

Arlo Guthrie, son of the great Woody Guthrie, a mentor of Seeger’s, played with Pete for nearly fifty years. He spoke to Time Magazine about his magic in getting audiences to “relax and sing along with him. My eyes just opened up and I couldn’t believe what was happening in front of me. He would just wave his hand, and you could hear people singing…Someone who has not [seen him] will find it hard to believe. It was almost as if he had some extra sense that allowed that kind of response. There’s no one else I have ever seen in my life that has had that, on any country, on any continent or in any city. Nobody came close.”

His intuition was augmented by a vast knowledge of American history, astonishing memory and what one reporter called “a vast repertoire of ballads, spirituals and blues songs.”

Seeger’s scope covered just about every social justice cause that arose from the people and some that he helped ignite such as opposing wars and cleaning up rivers. He knew what he was singing about, such as when he focused on his beloved Hudson River. He launched his famous 106-foot sloop, the Clearwater, whose journey with musicians up and down the Hudson unleashed civic and litigation energies that have greatly reduced the pollution of that storied river. Again and again, the Clearwater would take adults and children on these trips so they could appreciate the river, learn, sing, and resolve to combat the polluters, such as General Electric and its dumping of PCBs. The children, recounted Musselman, would go home knowledgeably motivated and urge their parents to act. The work done on the Clearwater is now a model for cleanup efforts in other rivers.

This man, who led sing-alongs and gave benefit concerts for the downtrodden and the defiant, would bring his audience to silence and then joyous singing. Imagine, today’s domineering, ear-splitting, flashing bands jetting their fans into frenzied, uproarious, sweaty reactions with the sounds drowning out the lyrics. That was never Seeger’s vision. Thank goodness he leaves behind hundreds of hours of music that stimulates both the ears and sweetens or alerts the minds.

Musselman related a powerful example of how Pete Seeger communicated at gatherings. He quotes Seeger as saying, “Nelson Mandela went from prison to the presidency of his country without a shot being fired. The Berlin Wall came down without a shot being fired. And did anybody think there would be peace in Northern Ireland? There is always hope when it comes to unlikely social change.”

“Pete planted many seeds all over the world,” Musselman concluded. That is why Pete Seeger lives on.

The article Ralph Nader: Pete Seeger, Character, Personality, Intuition And Focus – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SATP

By Ajit Kumar Singh

Terrorism in Pakistan has already resulted in at least 460 fatalities, including 241 civilians, 86 Security Force (SF) personnel and 133 militants in just the first month of 2014, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP). 38 major incidents (each resulting in three or more fatalities) have inflicted at least 309 fatalities, and 70 explosions have also been recorded, accounting for 167 deaths. In one of the worst attacks of 2014 targeting civilians, at least 24 Shia pilgrims returning from Iran were killed and another 40 were injured in a bomb attack targeting their bus in the Khusak area of Kanak in the Mastung District of Balochistan Province, on January 21, 2014. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) claimed responsibility for the attack.

Clearly, the ‘terror industry’ that was established by Islamabad decades ago with the primary intention of exporting mujahideen into neighbouring countries, including India and Afghanistan, to secure Pakistan’s perceived ‘strategic interests’, continues to thrive. This vast misadventure, however, turned progressively against its very creators, and, since 9/11, Pakistan has itself become the increasing target of several formerly state sponsored terrorist formations that have ‘gone rogue’, even as international pressure has forced Islamabad to undertake visibly reluctant operations against some of these groups. The process escalated after the creation of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the aftermath of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) operations in 2007, causing a spiral of violence that now threatens the very existence of the country. Pakistan’s undiminished tolerance for religious extremists has not just destroyed lives and alienated entire communities; it is destroying Pakistani society and the very idea and edifice of the nation.

Despite continuing terrorist depredations, according to a survey by the British Council published in April 2013, a majority of respondents – 38 per cent – expressed the opinion that Islamic Sharia was the best system for Pakistan, and another 32 per cent backed military rule. The smallest proportion, just 29 per cent, favoured democracy. The survey covered over 5,200 youth across the country. Ironically, more than 90 per cent of the youth surveyed also believed that the country was heading in the wrong direction.

That direction is dramatically illustrated by trends in terrorist violence, including one of the most glaring among its various parameters – the suicide attack. Before 9/11, Pakistan had witnessed just one suicide attack, when a suicide bomber rammed a pickup truck packed with explosives into the gate of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, killing 15 and wounding 59, on November 20, 1995. Since 9/11, however, the country has recorded at least 387 suicide attacks, resulting in 5,964 fatalities and 12,379 injuries. Five such attacks have already been executed in 2014, killing 28 and injuring 71. Indeed, the number and lethality of such attacks appears to be increasing again, with 43 such incidents resulting in 751 fatalities and 1,411 injuries, recorded through 2013, as against 39 such attacks resulting in 365 deaths and 607 injuries in 2012. A very dramatic decline had been recorded in 2011, with 628 killed in 41 incidents, after the peak of 2010, with 1,167 killed in 49 incidents. In one of these attacks, the Superintendent of Police, Crime Investigation Department, Karachi Police, Chaudhry Aslam Khan, was killed, along with another two Policemen, when a suicide cadre of the TTP rammed his explosive-laden car into Khan’s convoy near Essa Nagri on the Lyari Expressway in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh, on January 9, 2014.

Though total terrorism related-fatalities have shown some decline over the past years, current levels remain alarming, and much of the decline is accounted for by the diminution of terrorist fatalities, the result of operational paralysis among state Forces. According to SATP’s partial data, at least 5,379 terrorism-related fatalities were recorded across Pakistan in 2013, as compared to 6,211 fatalities in the preceding year, a decline of 13.39 percent [since media access is heavily restricted in the most disturbed areas of Pakistan, and there is only fitful release of information by Government agencies, the actual figures could be much higher]. Much of the decline was accounted for by the 31.14 per cent drop in terrorist fatalities, from 2,472 terrorists killed in 2012, to 1,702 killed in 2013. Confirming the reluctance of state Forces to confront the terrorists is a significant drop in SF fatalities as well, with 676 SF personnel killed in 2013, as against 732 in 2012, a decline of 7.67 per cent. Civilians, however, continue to pay the price for state inaction, with 3,001 killed in 2013, almost the same as the 3,007 killed in 2012. Crucially, the number of civilian fatalities in Pakistan now exceeds the number of civilian fatalities in neighbouring ‘war torn’ Afghanistan (an estimated 2744 in 2013), widely regarded as the most volatile and unstable country in South Asia.

Pakistan recorded 355 major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities) resulting in 3,268 fatalities, through 2013; as compared to 451 such incidents, resulting in 3,396 deaths, in 2012. While the total number of incidents and total fatalities declined, the lethality of these attacks has risen from an average of 7.53 fatalities per attack in 2012, to 9.21 fatalities per attack in 2013. Similarly, the number of explosions and resultant fatalities stood at 574 and 1624, respectively, in 2013, as against 652 explosions resulting in 1,007 fatalities in 2012, indicating a dramatic rise in lethality, from an average of 1.55 to 2.83 fatalities per incident. At least 128 sectarian attacks, resulting in 525 deaths, were also recorded in Pakistan through 2013, as compared to 173 such attacks and 507 killed in 2012, once again demonstrating a substantial rise in lethality, from 2.93 to 4.11 fatalities per attack, though the overall incidence declined.

The worst attack targeting civilians in 2013 occurred on January 10, when at least 105 persons were killed and over 169 were injured in two separate bomb blasts on Alamdar Road in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan. The worst attack targeting SFs in 2013 was on August 8, when 38 persons, including 21 Police officials, were killed, and another 40 were injured in a suicide blast at a funeral at the Police Lines in Quetta. January 19, 2014, has already recorded a massive attack targeting SFs, with at least 20 soldiers killed and another 30 injured when a bomb ripped through a military convoy in Bannu Town, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Pakistan maintained its ‘status’ as the most dangerous country for journalists in South Asia, with a total of 10 journalists killed in 2013, according to the South Asia Media Commission’s Media Monitor Report. 13 journalists were killed in the country in 2012.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) remain the worst affected region in Pakistan recording at least 1,716 fatalities, followed by Sindh (1,668 fatalities), Balochistan (960 fatalities) and KP (936 fatalities). The Punjab Province remains the least afflicted region of the country with 81 fatalites. In terms of civilian fatalities, however, Sindh maintains primacy, accounting for 1,285 deaths. Further, the volatile region of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) recorded 18 killings, including 12 civilians, through 2013.

The pervasive and unbridled terrorism related violence has belied expectations that had been aroused with the formation of the new Government under the premiership of Nawaz Sharif, on June 5, 2013, after Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) secured a convincing victory in the May 2013 General Elections. In evidently misplaced optimism world leaders and pundits had conveniently overlooked Sharif’s past misadventures, his entrenched connections with terrorist formations, as well as his obsession with Kashmir and India. Nawaz Sharif brought this obsession out into the open once again, in his speech at the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2013, declaring, “Suffering of the people of Jammu and Kashmir cannot be brushed under the carpet. Kashmiris should be given the right to self-determination.” He remained silent, of course, on the comprehensive denial of rights and the abysmal conditions prevailing in Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

Sharif’s unchanged orientation was also reflected in one of his first major steps, on June 12, 2013, with the announcement of a substantially augmented defence budget of PKR 627 billion for the current fiscal, year as compared to PKR 545 billion in the previous year that ended on June 30, a hike of 15 per cent.

On the other hand, describing the situation in Balochistan, Major General Ejaz Shahid, Inspector General, Frontier Corps (FC), complained, on January 22, 2014, that, out of PKR 28.5 billion promised to the FC in Balochistan for 2013-14, the Government had released only PKR 15 billion. He added that a further 30 per cent had been slashed by the Finance Division, even while “we are struggling to establish the writ of the Government along Balochistan’s western border. We are quite far away from even playing the national anthem in state-run schools in Panjgur, Turbat [Kech] and adjacent cities in Makran Division.”

Conspicuously, despite vaunting rhetoric on fighting a ‘full throttle war’ against the TTP and its affiliates, and arguing that the “cancer of terrorism needs to be treated before it eats up our country”, Sharif’s overwhelming emphasis has been on talks with the terrorist outfits. His latest initiative in this direction was announced on January 29, 2014, with the formation of a new four-member non-political team to help Government in its efforts for peace with TTP. Sharif told the National Assembly, “Entire nation will stand by Government if it decides to eliminate terrorists by force, I know it. However, we want to give peace another chance since offer of talks has come from the other side.” Sharif, however, conveniently ignored the fact that the TTP had earlier declared, “Democracy is the system of the infidels… If we believed in democracy, we would enter the political arena.” Crucially, TTP’s long-standing objective has been the enforcement of Shari’ah (Islamic Law) in the country “whether through peace or war”.

Moreover, Sharif has stalled operations against terrorists in the North Waziristan Agency, the epicentre of terror in the country. During a meeting with Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) General Raheel Sharif on January 28, 2014, Sharif asserted that no decision on launching an offensive in NWA could be taken without consensus among ‘all stakeholders’ and that any such decision must be in the best ‘national interest’.

While the Prime Minister appears conciliatory in his approach to terrorist formations in the country, his Government is pushing hard in its efforts to prosecute former President General (Retd.) Pervez Musharraf for ‘high treason’, among other charges. The Federal Government has leveled five charges against Musharraf, praying to the Special Court to award the former military ruler the death penalty or life imprisonment, setting the stage for a major potential confrontation between the civilian Government and the Army. In an effort to safeguard himself against any military misadventure in this context – his nemesis during both his earlier tenure as Prime Minister – Sharif appointed General Rashid Mehmood as Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) and General Raheel Sharif as CoAS, on November 27, 2013. Both appointees are reported to be close to Sharif’s family. Significantly, however, Pervez Musharraf had been ‘hand-picked’ by Sharif to head the Army, superseding two senior Generals, before the coup of 1999, when he deposed and subsequently exiled Sharif.

As Sharif fails to take any effective action to rein in terrorist formations operating in and from his country, the international community, particularly the US, has once again intensified efforts to cajole Pakistan to shut down its ‘assembly lines of terror’. The US interest, however, is overwhelmingly to secure the safe withdrawal of its Forces from Afghanistan through Pakistan, and Washington continues with its policy flip-flops on Pakistan, despite overwhelming evidence, provided by its own officials, among others, of continuing Pakistani malfeasance. Indeed, on December 20, 2013, after long deliberation, the US Congress passed a USD 552 billion Defense Authorisation Bill for 2014, providing for USD 80.7 billon for operations in Afghanistan and USD 1.5 billion for reimbursements to Pakistan, through 2014. The Bill is now pending with the White House for President Barack Obama to sign into law. The White House has already indicated that the President will sign the Bill.

Reciprocating the US gesture, on December 27, 2013, Nawaz Sharif warned his political rivals against the ongoing anti-drone protests, and the growing isolation of the country, declaring, “Our effort is to transform the existing friendly ties (with other countries) into mutually beneficial partnerships. We live in a globalised world where no one can afford isolation at any level.”

Indeed, on December 4, 2013, the US had announced the suspension of NATO shipments to and from Afghanistan via the Torkham Gate route of KP, following violent protests across the Province by the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its partners – Jama’at-e-Islami (JeI) and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan (AJIP) – in the KP Government. The protests escalated following the killing of then-TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud on November 1, 2013. Significantly, the Federal Government had claimed, on October 30, 2013, that 2,160 suspected terrorists had been killed in 317 drone strikes since January 2008, while 67 innocent civilians had died in these attacks. Ministry of Defence data also claimed that no innocent civilian had been killed in a drone strike since January 2012, while more than three hundred terrorists had been targeted. The official data negates the claims by local political and religious parties that US drone strikes in Pakistan have mostly killed innocent civilians, including women and children.

Despite the overwhelming damage terrorism has inflicted on Pakistan, the country’s establishment shows no signs of abandoning this device as an instrument of state policy, particularly for its strategic ambitions in India and Afghanistan. It is useful, in this context, to note that, while Pakistan has lost an estimated total of 15,000 SF personnel in the four wars that it has fought with India since 1948, it has lost at least 50,943 lives to terrorism just since January 1, 2003, according to the SATP database, including 18,373 civilians, 26,992 terrorists, and 5,578 SF personnel.

Islamabad’s long sustained policy of appeasing the extremists and terrorists has promoted their unrestrained growth, even as some of these groups have gone renegade. This unmitigated trend has neutralized the limited positives that may have emerged after the restoration of democracy. The current regime’s overtures towards extremist formations in the midst of sustained waves of terrorism can only push the country into further chaos.

Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

The article Pakistan: Terror Unbridled – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SAAG

By Bhaskar Roy

A special court in the port city of Chittagong, Bangladesh, sentenced (Jan 30) 14 to death. They were the principals in illegally importing 10 truck loads of arms, ammunition and explosives on April 01, 2004 by sea. The court ruled that the consignment was destined for Indian separatist/ terrorist organization, the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) to wage war against the Indian state.

The consignment included 1,500 boxes containing 4,930 sophisticated fire arms of different types, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 27,020 grenades, 2000 grenade launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11.41 million rounds of bullets. They were unloaded at the Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Ltd. (CUFL) jetty, which was under the ministry of Industries.

Those sentenced and the positions they held during the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami government (2001-2006) are as follows: Jamaat chief (Amir) and minister for Industries Motiur Reheman Nizami, BNP leader and minister of state for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, National Security and Intelligence (NSI) director general Brig. Gen. Abdur Rahim, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) director general Rezzakul Haider Choudhury, former NSI director wing commander Shahabuddin, former CUFL general manager (Admin) Enamul Haque, ex-managing director of CUFL Mohsin Talukdar, and ex- NSI field officer Akbar Hossain Khan. Two others, additional secretary of industry minister Nurul Amin and commander in chief of ULFA stationed in Dhaka, Paresh Barua, were also sentenced. The verdict was delivered after permission from High Court division. Those sentenced can appeal against the judgment.

The enormity of the conspiracy can only be imagined considering the size of the arms consignment. Although there was regular illegal shipment of arms through Bangladesh to Indian insurgents, this was the biggest consignment ever. Paresh Barua was in Chittagong on April 01 to receive the consignment. Unfortunately for the conspirators, the trucks carrying the arms were discovered that night in a routine check by two police officers. These officers were immediately arrested and put in jail in a false arms case. The main case was sought to be buried quietly. Babar even issued a statement that the arms consignment had been destroyed by a court order.

Had the arms crossed the border and reached Assam the devastation it would have created is unimaginable. The ULFA also may have sold parts of the consignment to other Indian insurgents like the Naga NSCN (I/B), the Mizos and the like.

Initial movement in the case was seen after the army-backed caretaker government came into position in November 2007, when the Chittagong metropolitan judge ordered further investigations in February 2008 following a prosecution petition. The trial finally began in November 2011, after the Awami League led alliance government came to power. Judge Mojibur Rehman observed that a small cantonment could have been armed with the weapons seized.

The conspiracy, it appears, involved three countries with their respective governments’ covert approval-Bangladesh, China and Pakistan. It was established by the prosecution that the arms were brought from China. Because of close bilateral relations China’s name does not appear prominently in the case.

The Chinese government, of course, denies everything. It is, however, well known that periodically arms and communication equipment were sent from China to the Indian insurgents. The more frequently used route was through Myanmar, then Bangladesh into India. Or directly from Myanmar into India. But the consignments were much smaller than in the Chittagong case.

China traditionally assisted Indian insurgents openly in the 1950s and 1960s. It was basically for the Naga separatists especially the Thankul Muivah/ Issac Swu group. The ULFA and other groups did not exist then. As soon as these groups came into existence to wage separatist wars against the Indian state, the Chinese connection was natural and inevitable. In the early 1980s in the post Mao Zedong era under Deng Xiaoping, China declared it had discarded the earlier policy of supporting nationalist movements in other countries. But in India’s case at least, covert involvement continued.

In one sense it can be said that the Chittagong arms incident was a Pakistani ISI covert operation. The Bangladeshi government elements under Prime Minister Khaleda Zia were eager partners and collaborators. The affinity between Khaleda Zia, her older son Tareque Reheman and the Jamaat-e-Islami is widely known and corroborated. Maj. Gen. Rezzakul Haider was virulently anti-India and would collaborate with anyone to damage India. Lutfozzaman Babar was the Bangladesh “manager” of the operation.

Babar emerged as the “dirty-works” chief of the BNP-Jamaat government. He was a close confidante of Tareque Reheman, the senior Joint Secretary of BNP. Tareque ran his business and politics from a building called “Hawa Bhavan”, in Dhaka. It became the virtual power center of the government. Babar’s connections extended to terrorist organizations like Jamatul Mujahidin Bangaldesh (JMB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and others. With civilian security forces under him he could extend protection to these unsavory characters and groups.

The preparation of the Chittagong arms drop started late in 2001, soon after the BNP-Jamaat alliance came to power. The time taken goes to show the amount of work required for this mission. Forces had to be tied up in different places. Reliable arms supplier to be arranged. Covert shipment line established. Finally funding. Post Mao Zedong era, China did not give arms free, but at reduced prices to special friends.

According to NSI director (Security) Shabuddin’s statement to the police, he and his boss the DG NSI Abdur Rahim had several meetings with ISI officials. The ISI brought in a Dubai based telecommunication company, ARY for certain logistic support and funding channel. The ISI had influence over ARY, being owned by a Pakistani. ARY was also used previously for money transfer of the Al Qaeda, according to reports. Therefore, it had an established track record in this kind of work.

Maj. Gen. Rezzakul Haider, who succeeded Abdur Rahim as DG NSI, got into the operation seamlessly. His proximity to Tareque Reheman helped. Two ISI officers in Pakistan High commission in Dhaka, were also part of the operation. Paresh Barua was introduced to the main operations in 2003. Meetings used to take place in NSI safe houses and even in the Combined Military Hospital (CMH).

The day the arms consignment came in both Paresh Barua and NSCM (I/M) leader Anthony Shimray were present in Chittagong. Hotel Golden Inn guest register revealed that 20 other Indian nationals were booked, but they vanished the day after the discovery of the arms.

Anthony Shimray generally lived in Manila, the Phillipines. He also had a residence in Dhaka, and used a Bangladeshi passport to travel to China periodically.

Paresh Barua had several Bangladeshi passports. Two pseudonyms used by him were Ahmed and Zaman. He may have had more aliases. Bangladeshi passports for these people were procured by the NSI.

Paresh Barua lived almost openly in Dhaka with his family. He operated several businesses including transport and hotels. He quietly left Bangladesh after BNP-Jamaat were cornered by the Army-backed caretaker government. He now lives in the hilly jungle area on the China-Myanmar border with a group of dedicated followers.

Jamaat Amir Nizami is also facing trial in the 1971 genocide case where maximum penalty is death. This case should be coming up for verdict very soon. Babar is also facing several others cases.

Some BNP leaders have called the verdict of the Chittagong arms case “politically motivated”. This was to be expected. Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami has condemned the death penalty for Nizami.

Strangely, Begum Khaleda Zia has remained silent till now. She has a lot to worry about. The case regarding the grenade attack on an Awami League rally in August, 2004 is pending and to be heard. Twenty two Awami League leaders died in that attack including Ms. Ivy Reheman, member of the party’s presidium. Information available till now in the media on the grenade attack confirms that the HUJI was used by BNP leaders to try and assassinate Sk. Hasina.

According to an investigative report in the Daily Star, October 27,2009 at a meeting at Hawa Bhavan (Tareque Reheman’s Hqrs) on August 14, 2004 it was decided that the Awami League was the arch enemy of the country and Islam, and its President Sk. Hasina must die.

Those attending the meeting, the daily said, included Lutfozzaman Babar, deputy Minister Abdul Salam Pintu, Prime Minister Zia’s political secretary Harris Choudhury, a fugitive killer of Sk. Mujibur Rehman, a top Jamaat leader, two HUJI founders, and one leader of Al Markajul Islami. The decision was unanimous- to kill Sk. Hasina. The next day, the same group sat again and decided to strike six days later at an Awami League rally. The chosen weapon was grenades, as offered by Babar. HUJI would conduct the operation.

Subsequent deposition by Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Sadeq Hussain Rumi, then the DG of Directorate General of Forces intelligence (DGFI), implicates Tareque and Khaleda Zia. There is a Pakistan connection which will come out in greater detail in due course.

The BNP-Jamaat axis has two targets. First is Sk. Hasina. She is the living symbol and spirit of Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan. She is also the driving force for secularism and democracy, and preventing a closer relationship with Pakistan if not a federal relationship.

The other target is India, simultaneously. India helped the break up of Pakistan and birth of Bangladesh. India is a friend of Sk. Hasina, the Awami League and secular and democratic Bangladesh, in that order.

When Sk. Hasina took over as Prime Minister in 2009, she promised to eradicate terrorism, and bring the killers of 1971 to justice. She is delivering on her promises. Sk. Hasina ensured that all Indian insurgent groups were rooted out of Bangladesh. This helped India to break the backbone of the ULFA.

On the other hand, the trial of the war criminals was set on track despite domestic and foreign opposition. One war criminal has been executed through diligent process of law.

It has been proved quite decisively that the BNP and the Jamaat and their small allies are enemies of Bangladesh. And they will continue to execute their agenda. The road ahead for the progressive forces led by Sk. Hasina will not be easy. But they must persevere.

(The writer is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be reached at e-mail grouchohart@yahoo.com)

The article Bangladesh Court Establishes BNP-Jamaat Fountainhead Of Terrorism – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SAAG

By Col. R. Hariharan

Interviewer: Parasaran Rangarajan, Editor, International Law Journal of London

PR: First, we would like to thank you for joining us. I understand you spent nearly three decades in the Indian Armed Forces and salute you for that and would like to ask how you started and if you can describe your journey entering the Intelligence Services of India (Intelligence Corps), more so become the Chief, which is extremely difficult to do?

RH: Thank you for providing me this opportunity for sharing with you my experience as the head of intelligence (not the chief of Intelligence Corps) of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka for the duration of its existence from 1987 to 90. I belonged to the Intelligence Corps, which is a part of Army’s General Staff Branch tasked to collect as well as deny military information in areas of security interest. It also provides tactical and strategic assessments both in peace and war on security threats including insurgency. I was commissioned as an artillery officer and took part in 1965 war as an artillery officer. Two years later I was transferred to the Intelligence Corps which was expanding in the wake of India-China war 1962.

Of course, as an MI officer for nearly three decades I have worked closely with all intelligence agencies (there are nearly a dozen of them!) including the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), India’s counter intelligence and security agency. For over two decades, as intelligence officer I gained both staff and field experience in COIN operations against about 12 insurgencies including some in Bangladesh and Burma. This could be one of the reasons why I was picked to head the military intelligence effort in Sri Lanka; but more importantly as I was the senior most Tamil speaking MI officer which is an important factor in Sri Lanka.

I served as the first and last Colonel General Staff (Intelligence) at the Headquarters of the IPKF. As the senior most Intelligence staff officer, usually I was required to assess the developing threat almost on a daily basis and give periodic assessments to help plan future operations. However, the MI role in Sri Lanka was unique as it was practically the only agency to collect intelligence on the LTTE in areas where we operated as RAW resources were mainly focused on meeting Government of India’s requirements which were largely political. All military field intelligence units in Sri Lanka operated under my direction were a great help in meeting the military requirements. Of course, my work involved close interaction and cooperation with the RAW, IB, Sri Lanka’s National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) and Tamil Nadu state police and at times with Sri Lanka police.

PR: Former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was of the view that what was taking place in Sri Lanka in the 1980’s was indeed a genocide and India should not be a simple spectator which is why many claim the RAW trained the Tamil Tigers. First, why was the IPKF dispatched to Sri Lanka, what was your role and day to day activities during that period?

RH: There are several parts to this question:

1.      Genocide Issue In 1983:

Was the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka genocide? Qualitatively and quantitatively the 1983 pogrom does not match the genocides of Bangladesh (1971), Rwanda or Cambodia.  So it might be debatable to call the 1982 pogrom as ‘genocide’ as defined by Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) accepted by the office of the U.N. Special Adviser on the prevention of Genocide (OSAPG). I would leave such debates to legal brains. Probably Ms. Gandhi calling it genocide at that time was part of the political rhetoric connected with the Tamil issue.

2.  Indian involvement:

The 1983 pogrom was organised by the Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayawardane government to cash  in on Sinhala sentiments against Tamil insurgents triggered by the LTTE’s killing of Sri Lankan (Sinhala) soldiers in an ambush. There were probably three reasons for Ms Gandhi to directly get involved in Sri Lanka in its aftermath.

a. Real politick:

In 1983, over 100,000 Tamil refugees landed in Tamil Nadu triggering a popular sympathy wave. Indian Prime Minister Ms. Gandhi needed to strengthen her political base in Tamil Nadu which was weakened after the 1971 Emergency. So she used the situation for her political advantage. And her son Rajiv Gandhi who succeeded her after her assassination in 1984 continued to go by her narrative.

b. Cold War priority:

Ms. Gandhi saw Sri Lanka was getting cosy with the U.S. even as the Cold War climate heated up in South Asia after Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty was signed in 1971.  When Soviet army entered Afghanistan to support Mujibullah regime, Cold War was joined in the sub-continent with Americans involved in proxy war against the Soviets. The U.S. probably wanted to gain yet another foot hold in India’s neighbourhood. The U.S. was perceived as using Sri Lanka as a cat’s paw for this purpose. Ms Gandhi and later Rajiv Gandhi wanted to nip it in the bud by sending a strong message of intervention in Sri Lanka.

c. Self Image of Ms. Gandhi:

Ms. Gandhi’s spectacular success in helping the creation of an independent Bangladesh added to her confidence and she probably saw herself as a saviour of the oppressed people everywhere. So the plight of Sri Lanka Tamils fleeing the country struck a sympathetic chord and induced her to strongly react. But actual intervention in Sri Lanka was ordered by her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi after his sincere efforts to mediate between the Tamils and Sri Lanka government failed to yield results. And the Indian intervention came about with the concurrence of Sri Lanka President after the signing of the India-Sri Lanka Agreement (ISLA) in 1987.

3.  Training of Tamil militants:

​Training of Tamil militants was organised by RAW and not the army. I am not sure of the details because army was excluded from the whole project. Of course, the instructors included army men. They were mainly used for weapons and tactical training. As officially there is not much of information on this, there is a lot of misinformation about army’s involvement. And when the army took on the LTTE it suited both the LTTE and the strong anti-India Sri Lanka lobby to perpetuate this myth.  The rationale for Indian action stemmed probably from its experience in training Bengali freedom fighters in the run up to 1971 liberation struggle for Bangladesh. Probably this was part of Ms Gandhi’s tactics to bring pressure on Sri Lanka President J.R. Jayawardane to force him to evolve a just solution for the Tamil minority’s grievances. In 1984 I learnt of Indian involvement in training Tamil militants. Based upon my intelligence experience in insurgency areas, I have always considered the training insurgents of another country by democratic countries as a counter-productive strategy. When I drew the attention of MI Directorate to this aspect, I was asked to advise them only when asked for; in any case, it was not relevant because army was not training Tamil militants, they said.

4. Despatch of IPKF to Sri Lanka:

Initially India sent a division minus troops to Sri Lanka the day after the signing of India-Sri Lanka agreement in July 1987. It was ostensibly at the request of JR Jayawardane to give confidence to him to help disarming of Tamil militants in terms of the ISLA. It was also to ensure Sri Lanka government (J.R. Jayawardane) adheres to its promise to introduce a level of autonomy to Tamil minority. It was to be a short term measure. The IPKF was formed only when India decided to use force to neutralise the LTTE which refused to lay down its arms in terms of ISLA and started killing members of other Tamil militant groups.

5. Experience with LTTE Chief Prabhakaran:

Thanks to our family connection with Jaffna, I had fairly long (three decades in 1987) exposure to the complexities of Tamil-Sinhala ethnic friction.  Many Sri Lankan government officials and Tamil personalities knew our family linkages with Sri Lanka. However, professionally for me it never came in handy as MI never considered Sri Lanka as a potential area of military conflict. So MI had no use for my knowledge till 1987. Among the Tamil militants the LTTE leader Kittu, who had a long convalescence in Chennai after he lost a leg in an internecine conflict, knew my kin. So the LTTE knew who I was when I landed in Sri Lanka in August 1987. Some of the local journalists and political small timers considered close to the LTTE maintained some link with me all along. In spite of this, I never tried to meet Prabhakaran separately as MI was not involved in political palaver with him. It was left to our Army Generals and Brigadiers on the ground. However, as intelligence officers tend to do, even when Indian army was in talking terms with Prabhakaran, we had collected all details of his style of functioning, security, movement, and his associates though I never imagined we would go to war with them when we landed.

PR: I believe the IPKF were cordially welcomed by the Tigers in the beginning but things turned in the wrong direction after claims of abuses by the IPKF against Tamils in Sri Lanka which led to conflict between the two. What is your take on that, did IPKF commit any atrocities, and what is your view of this scenario in general?

RH: Initially, LTTE was neutral and aloof in their dealings with the IPKF unlike other militant groups which were quite friendly. The allegations of abuses by Indian troops came only after the operations against LTTE were launched not before because we were merely spectators as LTTE took to streets against India, even while Prabhakaran was negotiating. He wanted the whole cake and not a piece of cake offered to him in the interim administration.

We never considered him as a freedom fighter though Indian forces were very sympathetic to the Tamil plight as second rate citizens. Prabhakaran had mercilessly killed leaders of other Tamil militant groups and Tamil political leaders who did not toe his line. I remember recovering a Gestapo style documentation of 102 civilians who were executed (in LTTE parlance it was called ‘dumping’ because dead bodies were dumped in garbage pits) after a ‘military court’ tried them for crimes like soliciting outside Sinhala army camp, possessing ten grams of cocaine, acting as a pimp, working as a police informer etc. Of course, there was no appeal and execution was swift. On Day 1 of conflict with Indian forces, a hapless Rupavahini TV (National TV channel) crew caught by LTTE were tied to a lamp post with tyres around their neck and set fire. We had seen the smouldering fires of their half burnt bodies. I lost even the little enthusiasm for the leadership of Prabhakaran and his concept of Eelam when I saw them. LTTE losing the war in 2009 was a logical consequence of Prabhakaran’s fixation of resolving issues only by force of arms; otherwise one cannot understand the logic of walking out of the 2002 peace talks when he was controlling more or less of the whole of Tamil majority areas in North and East.

​There are a few issues involved in analysing the allegations of atrocities by Indian troops after 25 years. In COIN operations there are always innocent civilians killed, usually described as collateral damage in the fire fight between two sides. This happened in Sri Lanka also. But there were specific instances where serious allegations were levelled. I remember two of them: massacre of patients and doctors by troops in Jaffna teaching hospital and retributive killings in the site of an ambush in Valvettithurai. I think both the army leadership and government failed to institute transparent investigations to get at the truth and disprove them or punish the culprits.   But in 1987-88 human rights was not a big issue world wide as it is now. India was no exception to this. Bigger killings were taking place in Afghanistan where the U.S. was fighting a proxy war against Soviets. India itself did not pay much attention to human rights accusations against it. But all this is hindsight wisdom. There are practical difficulties in carrying out counter insurgency operations (COIN) and ensuring adherence to rule of law unless special powers are given to return fire on unconventional forces of civilians firing on troops, without a magistrate giving clearance for such action as required by law. So those involved in COIN should have legal protection as well as have a watch dog mechanism that would follow up allegations of human rights violations. It existed in IPKF as in other military units only as a command responsibility which was not adequate.  Now Indian army has a mechanism to deal with such allegations and transparency is taking place, though the story is not the same in other wings of government.

PR: Do you feel that an international investigation into the alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka in 2009 is justified and what do you make of the recent comments by the Secretary to the President of Sri Lanka Lalith Weeratunga that if such an investigation were commenced, IPKF must also be investigated?

​RH:  Yes, I think there is sufficient ground now to determine the extent of war crimes committed by both Sri Lanka government and the LTTE and fix culpability of authority and responsibility of perpetrators of the crimes. As Sri Lanka has dithered in impartially investigating the allegations, probably an international inquiry is required. To be meaningful, it will require not only the concurrence but also the cooperation of Sri Lanka government. International real politick will ensure economic sanctions are subverted, so it’s no option for quick results. It can come through only by international pressure and not by threats.
Lalith Weeratunga as Chief Secretary was an executor of President’s orders. So he is only inventing new ways to evade Sri Lanka’s responsibility to investigate allegations of war crimes in 2009. I am not surprised he has raised the issue of investigating IPKF’s alleged war crimes. As a CEO of the government of Sri Lanka for the last 11 years he is within his rights to order an inquiry into IPKF allegations so that the veracity of the accusations can be established.

It is 25 years since IPKF operated; so why does he remember the issue only when Sri Lanka is asked to be responsible for his conduct now? His intention is clear: Sri Lanka does not want to carry out an impartial investigation. It wants to evade responsibility for its deeds during the war. That is the bottom line. Even President Premadasa who colluded with the LTTE to throw the IPKF out of the country and no lover of India did not seek such an investigation.

Even if you examine it from the point of view of national and international human rights watchdogs, why have they failed to internationally raise this (allegations of IPKF) an issue now?  They have not done so because it will only deflect the efforts take Sri Lanka to task for its lack of accountability for human rights violations and war crimes which is at a critical stage in UNHRC. So this is neither the time nor suitable environment to raise the issue; it would further delay the process by distracting global attention.

Even with my sympathy for victims of human rights violations and as a serious advocate of improved accountability of law enforcement agencies and armed forces, I feel commonsense approach is required to sell any proposition related to historical issues. This issue is one of them as many players of that time including those of the LTTE are no more or nearing the age when dementia sets in (I have fortunately escaped it I think.)

There is no reason for India to want an investigation now. It is a functioning democracy which has progressively tried to improve its human rights record. Moreover, it does not serve India’s objectives in Sri Lanka which are two-fold:

1. Ensure integrity of Sri Lanka as a single entity and discourage all efforts to create an armed insurgency to violate it because it will have security repercussions in India’s national security architecture.

2. To see that Sri Lanka Tamils’ grievances are removed and their confidence is restored in participating in mainstream political democracy in Sri Lanka on equal terms.

So fundamentally any action other than those that serve India’s objectives will not be encouraged or initiated in India. Such a demand would be ignored in India as it is going through a delicate pre-election campaign and it would suicidal for any political party let alone Tamil Nadu ones to accept it.

PR: Do you see a re-emergence of the LTTE or any militant groups in Sri Lanka?

RH:  No. It took five decades for a powerful insurgent body like LTTE to emerge because the local and global environment favoured it. It produced Prabhakaran, Padmanabha and Sri Sabaratnam and a whole genre of leaders who believed in militancy. Now the environment is changed; ideology is on deathbed in politics. Sri Lanka is no exception to this. Globally insurgents except the Al Qaeda kind are passé and even Jihadists are operating with the support of international patron-nations.  And Tamils are simply tired of war after losing two generations of their kin.  They have nothing left except their identity. Survival and livelihood are their priority. In spite of all the brave words of fringe elements of Diaspora, they have little to show on ground that the call for Eelam would attract local population to wage yet another insurgency war.

PR: As there have been calls for legal “international protective mechanisms” for the Tamils of Sri Lanka due to the expectation of the UNHRC passing a resolution for an “international investigation”, do you see a role for the Indian Armed Forces in this as usually peacekeeping forces are sent during these international investigations to protect the population providing information?

RH:  International protective mechanism (IPM) has not saved the beleaguered Palestinians from Israeli attacks as and when Israel chooses to carry out. IPM can at best be useful as a temporary measure in a situation when the hostile lines are drawn against each other. This is not the case in Sri Lanka. It is not Gaza strip or even Lebanon for that matter. The real protection can come only from a level of amity between the communities in conflict. India would not dream of sending its army again to Sri Lanka as it had courted (in the past) enough displeasure from everyone including Indians. In any case protection of population giving evidence has to be undertaken by the government of Sri Lanka; unless it accepts this responsibility no external agency can carry out investigation within the country as it involves evidence of many kinds, not merely witnesses.

PR: Do you have any final words for your listeners throughout the world, especially in terms of the mission of the IPKF, the dream of Tamil Eelam by diaspora organizations, and what you feel would be the best political solution to this ongoing drama today since the independence of the nations of South Asia?

​ RH: I am no oracle. But let me take a try. Due to its internal war Sri Lanka lost three decades of development; otherwise it could have emerged as the only Tiger in South Asia. If India despite its huge burden of poverty, illiteracy and disparities could forge ahead in last decade there is no reason why Sri Lanka cannot do so. It requires people to think ahead rather than look backward. Political rhetoric and hypocrisy has to be given up by all and build a win-win situation rather than trying to revive the cadaver of separatism or encourage the paranoia of resurgence of Tamil insurgency.

Time is the essence if Sri Lanka people want to rewrite the story for a happy ending. It requires a national movement rather than the efforts of Kandyan elite, Jaffna intellectuals or Southern conservatives and of course those looking at the Eelam template in Paris or London.

I think the youth have it. It is time young leaders who have a stake in the future replace Rajapaksas and Wickremesinghes to bring the sad tale to a happy ending.

http://www.internationallawjournaloflondon.com/interview-with-indian-peacekeeping-forces-intelligence-corps-chief-col.-hariharan.html

The article My Experience As Head Of Intelligence With IPKF – Interview appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SETimes

By Biljana Lajmanovska

The Macedonian government proposed a law that will allow professional soldiers to become salaried workers at public institutions once they retire from the military.

The measure came in response to the demands by 4,000 professional soldiers, concerned they will be left without employment after their mandatory retirement at age 45. It is a more comprehensive programme than those offered by other countries in the region.

Under the new law, soldiers can be re-assigned to public institutions as security officers, policemen, guards, forest patrolmen and similar jobs commensurate to their skills.

“Once the professional soldiers are re-assigned to service in other state institutions, they will be regularly employed and will continue to receive salaries from those institutions until they reach the conditions for retirement,” said Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

Upon retiring, the former soldiers will be eligible to receive pensions for their work in the public institutions.

In their efforts to lobby the government for the measure, soldiers cited lack of mechanisms to transfer military skills to the civilian sector in a highly competitive labour market in Macedonia.

“It is undoubtedly good news and one of our main demands has practically been satisfied,” Vele Krbaleski, president of the Independent Union of Professional Soldiers, told SETimes.

Krbaleski said the union also demands that 120 soldiers, who were forced to retire two years ago before the retirement age was raised from 35 to 45, be reinstated in the military and enjoy the benefits of the new law.

Macedonia’s programme is more detailed than others in the region. Croatian law requires officials to develop programmes for honourably discharged veterans but is not specific. Serbia offers job training to retired veterans. Veterans in other countries are sometimes employed by the state, but there is no such requirement to offer employment.

Officers said the new measure will end uncertainty about future opportunities and will reduce recidivism.

“I can say that until now some soldiers were preoccupied about what will they do after retiring at 45? … With this measure, I am certain they will remain professional soldiers and will perform their tasks until the last day of their military service,” General Gjorgji Bojadziev, former chief of staff in the Macedonian army, told SETimes.

The measure will also improve motivation among soldiers and commanding officers, and will increase interest among potential recruits, said Metodi Hadzi-Janev, professor at the Military Academy in Skopje.

“We can now expect increased interest among citizens to join professional military service, which will in turn influence on increasing professionalisation and improving selection,” Hadzi-Janev told SETimes.

The military issued a public call to employ 170 new professional soldiers last December, but needs another 1,000 soldiers to achieve the goal envisaged in the country’s security strategy plan.

State institutions will also benefit from receiving highly skilled, experienced and disciplined professionals, Hadzi-Janev said.

The article Macedonia Helps Retiring Soldiers Make Transition To Public Sector appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

Uganda’s nascent mining industry could do more harm than good for indigenous people unless the government makes reforms and mining companies start respecting rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Uganda’s government has promoted private investment in mining in the remote northeastern Karamoja region to bring economic development, but should implement reforms to respect the rights of indigenous people to determine how their lands are used.

The 140-page report, “‘How Can We Survive Here?’ The Impact of Mining on Human Rights in Karamoja, Uganda,” examines the conduct of three companies in different stages of the mining process: East African Mining, Jan Mangal, and DAO Uganda. Human Rights Watch found that companies have explored for minerals and actively mined on lands owned and occupied by Karamoja’s indigenous people. But the Ugandan government, in partnership with the private sector, has excluded customary land owners from making decisions about the development of their own lands and has proceeded without their consent. Human Rights Watch also found that donors, including the World Bank, have failed the people of Karamoja by working to enhance the burgeoning mining sector without addressing indigenous people’s rights, including the right to development.

“Mining development could be a real boon to the people of Karamoja, bringing jobs and better security, services, and basic infrastructure,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director. “However it is still unclear how the people of Karamoja will benefit, if at all, from mining, or how the government intends to protect their rights during this process.”

The article Uganda: Rights At Risk In New Mining Region, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By MISNA

Thailand’s elections took place without the feared violence , aside from tension around some electoral centers and polling stations. The block of the vote declared by the protest front worked only in part in nine provinces and totally in other nine on 77. Based on data issued by the Electoral Commission, the turnout to the polls was of around 20-million on 48-million voters, possibly 30% of which in the capital. There was therefore a significant voluntary abstention, as also a strong protest vote front, particularly in the capital Bangkok.

The government and allies were basically running alone for the election of candidates in parliament in 375 constitutencies, but the electoral commission released no results in regard. Further voting is already scheduled for February 23 after problems with advance balloting January 23 for professional reasons or other, while polls in nine southern provinces where candidates were unable to register may not happen for weeks. The government has called for a new vote in areas where voters could not go to the polls yesterday, but the commission denied a new round within a week, because additional rounds are not foreseen by the Constitution.

The Thai crisis, which began three months ago and since January 13 led to a shut down of Bangkok, enters a new phase, also with heightened uncertainty over the legitimacy of the results of the vote. The government, which appears more optimistic than expected, now prepares to intervene and arrest the protest leaders, under the state of emergency rules, which in the best scenario could cause a further paralysis. The protest front that yesterday organized another mass demonstration in the center of Bangkok, once again showed its strength in the metropolis and announced it will not give any truce to the provisional government.

A 14km march this morning along main roads gave the government a firm message, while today the central gathering points were reduced from seven to five to be less exposed to attacks and repressions that last night left two injured, according to the protest leaders.

The electoral commission could cancel the results and the supreme court may rule on the unconstitutionality of the conditions of the election. If the government should however be authorized to proceed (with the risk that those elected in the chaotic vote do not reach the necessary 95% quorum for the opening of parliament), pending corruption cases regarding populist agricultural initiatives, could lead to convictions that could undermine the credibility of the government. Also the demands by farmers for months of arrears for rice consigned to the government depots, could immediately back the new government up against a wall, due to the impossibility of finding the necessary funds and the impossibility of impeding announced road blockades and march on Bangkok for the promised funds.

The article Thailand: Nation Remains Lost After Elections appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By MISNA

Former vice-president Atiku Abubakar announced his exit from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of which he was among the founders, to join the opposition. The Vanguard newspaper today reports that this decision could change the power balances ahead of elections in a year.

The PDP of President Goodluck Jonathan in the past months was hit by a string of defections by top figures. Both key governors and top lawmakers in fact joined the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC).

Abubakar served as vice-president from 1999 to 2007 under the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo, also a founder of the PDP and today critical of the ruling party. The internal tension in the PDP is heightened by the possibility that Jonathan will run for another term in office. The President is from the Christian majority South and, according to critics, his running would violate internal PDP accords for an alternation of leaders on a regional, ethnic and religious basis.

The article Nigeria: Former Vice-President Joins Opposition appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By MINA

Europe’s largest association of hackers has filed a criminal complaint against the German government for aiding foreign spying by NSA and GCHQ, and violating the right to citizens’ privacy, basing their case on leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) in cooperation with the International League for Human Rights (ILMR) filed the complaint with the German Federal Prosecutor General’s office on Monday.

“We accuse US, British and German secret agents, their supervisors, the German Minister of the Interior as well as the German Chancellor of illegal and prohibited covert intelligence activities, of aiding and abetting of those activities, of violation of the right to privacy and obstruction of justice in office by bearing and cooperating with the electronic surveillance of German citizens by NSA and GCHQ, ” the group said in a statement on its website.

The CCC also called for former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to be invited to give testimony as a witness, and that he should “be provided safe passage to Germany” and “protection against extradition to the US.”

The hackers added that after Snowden’s revelations about US global spying activities they “now have certainty” that German and other foreign intelligence services have broken German criminal law.

The criminal complaint is meant to spark a “long-overdue investigation by federal prosecutors” into alleged law-breaking by government officials and foreign intelligence agencies.

“Every citizen is affected by the massive surveillance of their private communications. Our laws protect us and threaten those responsible for such surveillance with punishment. Therefore an investigation by the Federal Prosecutor General is necessary and mandatory by law – and a matter of course. It is unfortunate that those responsible and the circumstances of their crimes have not been investigated,” CCC member and attorney Julius Mittenzwei said on the group’s website.

The group accused government offices of being unwilling to help investigate the crimes, adding that CCC and the ILHR wanted “to bring to light more information about the illegal activities of German and foreign secret services” and bring the offenders “to account.”

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office is to process the complaint and consider whether to open a criminal investigation.

Steffen Seibert, the spokesman for Chancellor Merkel, declined to give a detailed comment, saying only that “everyone in Germany can file a criminal complaint,” AP reported.

The article Hackers Sue Merkel, German Government Over NSA Spying appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Salma Yusuf

The World Conference on Youth (WCY) is scheduled to take place from May 6 through May 10, 2014 at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall in Colombo.

The crosscutting theme of WCY will be ‘Mainstreaming Youth in the Post 2015 Development Agenda’. WCY 2014 will facilitate a process that strengthens effective youth participation in the planning, implementation and evaluation of post -2015 development agenda – which refers to the process of defining the future global development framework that will succeed the Millennium Development Goals. The Conference will also create an inclusive platform for youth that enables them to review the progress of MDGs, share ideas, experiences and innovative approaches for effectively contributing to the post -MDG framework and its implementation.

WCY is organised by an International Youth Task Force comprising of 20 young global leaders from around the world along with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development of Sri Lanka and the National Youth Services Council of Sri Lanka.

The Conference will bring together youth from every continent and region on the globe with a special focus on under-represented youth. It is expected that a total of 1500 youth will be selected representing different countries in addition to young people from groups identified as being conventionally unrepresented or under-represented being given a special place and opportunity to have their voices heard. Two official youth delegates will be selected by the government of each country. Additionally, 350 young people belonging to under-represented groups will be selected by the International Youth Task Force. Furthermore, as many as 100 youth delegates who are Sri Lankan nationals will have the opportunity to participate at the Conference.

WCY 2014 will also bring representatives of member states including Ministers of Youth, UN officials, representatives of international and regional organisations, academics, corporate leaders and other relevant stakeholders to Colombo.

The over-arching themes to be deliberated at the WCY are Achieving Good Governance & Accountability; Inclusive Youth Participation at all levels; Youth Rights; Globalisation and Inclusive Youth Led-Development; Ending systemic inequalities; Gender Equality and Empowering Marginalised Youth including Most-at-Risk Young People.

Specific focus will be accorded to the following sub-themes: Realising Equal Access to Quality Education; Full Employment and Entrepreneurship; Poverty Eradication and Food Security; Promoting Healthy Lives and Access to Health; Environmental Protection, Emergency Preparedness and Youth-Centered Urbanisation; Realising Peace, Reconciliation and Ending Violence; and Ensuring Inclusive Recreation, Sports and Cultures.

The United Nations defines youth as individuals between the ages of 15 and 24. Currently 1.2 billion young people, account for approximately 18 per cent of the global population. Youth do not constitute a homogeneous group; their socio-economic, demographic, and geographical situations vary widely both within and between regions. Notwithstanding these differences, regional-level analysis provides a general understanding of their development profile. The vast majority of the world’s youth—some 87 per cent—live in developing countries and face challenges such as limited access to resources, education, training, employment, and broader economic development opportunities.

The United Nations Millennium Declaration was adopted in 2000 by world leaders, committing their countries to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out time-bound goals on meeting the needs of the world’s poorest. These goals, to be achieved by 2015, formed the basis for what are now known as the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have been broken down into 21 quantified targets that are measured by 60 indicators.

Many youth remain marginalised from social and economic opportunities, with limited access to essential resources. Eighty-seven per cent of the youth population live in developing countries, and nearly 45 per cent of all youth globally live on less than 2 dollars a day. Youth are among the most vulnerable of all persons, the MDGs aim to reach. Whether it is poverty, hunger, lack of education, maternal mortality, unemployment, environmental degradation or HIV/AIDS, the impact on young people can be far greater than on their older counterparts. This is because many young people often lack access to information, schooling, social influence and basic rights, and are often overlooked in national development agendas. Therefore, young people’s participation and inclusion in efforts to achieve all of the goals are crucial to ensure a successful and sustainable future for the world and its inhabitants.

To this end, the WCY will facilitate a process that increases awareness on and implementation of the World Programme for Action on Youth (WPAY); To facilitate effective partnerships with youth, youth-led organisations and youth movements to further strengthen inclusive youth participation in the decision-making processes and implementation of the post-2015 development agenda; and to contribute to the establishment of a permanent youth engagement mechanism that ensures consistent follow-up with young people and further boosts their participation and partnership in the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda at national, regional and global levels.

WCY has a unique aim of producing a joint outcome document between states and youth, called “Colombo Action Plan”.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development of Sri Lanka and the National Youth Services Council of Sri Lanka believe that WCY is not intended to be a one-off event but rather one that aims to make an impact in partnership with youth.

Accordingly, it has recognised the need to invest in a youth-centered preparatory process leading to the WCY and most importantly, a commitment to a follow-up phase in partnership with young people in the implementation of the post -MDG development agenda. To this end, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development of Sri Lanka and the National Youth Services Council of Sri Lanka have undertaken a three-phased strategy.

First, a Youth Centered Preparatory Processes commenced in 2012 and was completed in 2013. During this phase, the following were achieved: The UN Secretary General’s envoy on Youth, Ahamed Alhindawi, had made the World Youth Conference part of his action plan to specifically engage UN member states on the Conference; Sri Lanka co-hosted and facilitated as the prime partner ‘YOUTH 21’ with UNDP and UNHABITAT in line with 20th Commission of Sustainable Development, Rio+20; Sri Lanka gained visibility and multiple references amounting to 21 in total for success stories of Youth development in the Report of the Secretary General on the Implementation of World Program of Action on Youth.

Significantly, Sri Lanka has obtained several preamble references in social affairs resolutions at the UN in welcoming the conference and a mandate to UNHABITAT Executive Director to work with the Government of Sri Lanka for the preparation for the World Youth Congress in 2014.

Further, Sri Lanka hosted the Annual International Coordination Meeting of Youth Organizations which was the largest of its kind bringing together 30 Youth led organisations together in 2011 in line with High Level Meeting on Youth to specifically engaging and promote a youth-centered process of governance and development. Moreover, Sri Lanka is continuing to support the Youth 21 THE NAIROBI DECLARATION in supporting the establishment of a permanent consultative mechanism for Youth in UN system.

For its second phase, the WCY will be hosted in Sri Lanka in 2014 with a focus on the participation and involvement of youth in achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including the MDGs.

The third phase of the strategy focuses on youth-centred follow-up processes beyond 2015. Past lessons clearly show that lack of investment in follow-up can derail the work, enthusiasm and energy to reach a subsequent and significant milestone. This aspect of the strategy will particularly work towards actively garnering commitment of all stakeholders in the follow-up phase so that youth can be supported to become effective partners in realisation of the development goals in the post- 2015 agenda.

This article appeared at Daily Mirror and is reprinted with permission.

The article World Conference On Youth Comes To Sri Lanka In 2014 – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Al Bawaba News

After repeated calls from the Syrian government for him to be removed, Deputy Mediator Nasser al-Kidwa has left the team handling peace talks focused on ending the war in Syria, diplomatic sources said on Monday.

“He has been sacked,” one diplomat claimed.

Effective this week, the UN confirmed his departure stating that he had informed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of his intention to vacate his post as deputy to international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi.

Kidwa, nephew of Yasser Arafat and former foreign minister of the Palestinian authority, was appointed as a deputy to Brahimi’s predecessor Kofi Annan in March 2012, and continued in the role under Brahimi.

His departure came on Friday after the first week-long group of talks, chaired by Brahimi, between the Syrian government and the opposition. Brahimi has requested that both sides return for more talks on. Feb 10.

Diplomats had previously said Kidwa’s role was controversial since they knew just before the Geneva talks began that the delegation representing President Bashar al-Assad had asked for him to be removed.

Despite rumors that he had been sidelined, Kidwa showed up anyway. His presence, sitting behind Brahimi for the day, did not rest well with Assad’s delegation.

Nominated by the Arab League to join in the mediation process, U.N. sources and Arab diplomats claim that the Damascus government had always objected to Kidwa being involved.

“The Syrian government has always said, from the beginning, they would prefer Nasser is not there. Mostly because he used to be with Palestinian leadership,” a U.N. source said.

On the plus side, the situation, according to a senior opposition negotiator, showed that “Brahimi’s main goal is to achieve a deal. He does not care if he has to sacrifice Kidwa. He also wants to get as many concessions as possible from both sides.”

Diplomats have stated that there are no candidates to replace Brahimi, 80, if he were to step down from the job of running the Syria talks.

Original article

The article Brahimi’s Deputy Leaves Syria Team appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Magharebia

By Fathia al-Majbari,  Asma Elourfi and Ali al-Gattani

Violent clashes erupted in Benghazi Thursday (January 30th) after the son of a Special Forces commander was kidnapped.

The fighting broke out when the son of Colonel Wanis Bukhmada was taken by unidentified assailants outside Benghazi University. Saiqa forces then clashed with an armed group from the Islamist February 17th Brigade, entrenched at a farm in al-Qawarsha to the west of the city.

At least one soldier was killed and two others wounded. The funeral for the slain soldier, Sergeant Haitham Ramadan Shoaib, was held in Shahat amid an outpouring of grief from residents.

For his part, Colonel Bukhmada said, “The kidnapping of my son will not change anything and I will remain steadfast in the service of Libya. I will do everything in my power to serve the nation. I will not trade my homeland for my son. I will carry out military orders even if my son is inside the compound.”

“I will not negotiate with anyone and the military institution will not either. My son is one of the sons of Benghazi and not only my son. No matter who was abducted, the decision will remain the same,” the colonel added.

For its part, the Libyan interim government condemned what it called a crime. It demanded in a statement issued Thursday that the kidnappers release him immediately and unconditionally. It also called on all parties to maintain security and to steer clear from the use of violence.

The February 17th Brigade issued a statement on Saturday denying it was involved and praising the Saiqa commander for “clearing it from responsibility”.

It called on the transitional authorities to open an urgent and transparent investigation, accusing the Special Forces of initiating the attack. It condemned killings, kidnappings and the resulting acts of torture and violations of human rights.

In other attacks, a member of the battalion of the Martyrs of Libya was assassinated on Thursday after being targeted by masked men in al-Salam neighbourhood in Benghazi.

The son of Special Forces Colonel Abdel Razek Sabak and the son of former external security colonel Abdullah al-Drissi were assassinated as well. According to paramedics, they were the target of masked men who shot them while they were inside a car in downtown Benghazi.

Meanwhile, Nasser Moataz Mansour, a 48-year-old lawyer from Benghazi, said it would be very difficult for Special Forces to confront the rogue brigades on their own, given the militants’ ties to other groups.

“In other words, if Saiqa clashes with them, then Ansar al-Sharia, the Shields, Rafallah Sahati Brigade and the rest of the militias will come as one against Saiqa,” he said.

“The Libyan people should come out but without weapons, and work to dissolve these militias, knock down their fences and also bring down the checkpoint of al-Qawarsha. Then perhaps God will guide them and they will join the people,” Mansour added.

Political activist Adel Elhasy told Magharebia that kidnappings have become a common tactic used to pressure leaders. He noted that the son of the defence minister, the head of the government as well as other officials were abducted.

He pointed to the recent arrest of four suspects allegedly in possession of a list of names of military personnel and political activists to be liquidated.

“The suspects gave information leading to the belief that these assassinations are to exert pressure for the release of some prisoners,” Elhasy stated.

He concluded that a large number of the assassinations were by groups that do not want an army, police or state institutions.

For his part, Issa Laribi said that “Libya has become a state of tribal militias, religious and regional militias and ethnic militias and self-interest militias.”

“What is happening in Benghazi is the very essence of terror: bombings and assassinations, and we sleep daily with the sound of bullets and wake up counting the number of victims,” elementary school teacher Jamila Yunus said. “It is a very unfortunate situation.”

The article Libya: Kidnapping Sparks Benghazi Bloodshed appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Observer Research Foundation

By K.V. Kesavan

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to India during 25-27 January 2014 drew a great deal of attention as the bilateral relations have assumed increasing strategic and economic significance. Further, it was also known that Abe would have his sayonara summit meeting wih Manmohan Singh since the latter had already announced his decision to step down after the parliamentary elections in May this year. It was the fourth and final round of talks that they had and both must have had the satisfaction of truly adding a great deal of strategic and economic substance to the partnership. This partnership was for a long time narrowly focussed only on economic matters like trade, investment and official development assistance; but today it has become truly diversified to include a wide range of subjects including defence cooperation, maritime security, counter terrorism, energy cooperation, cyber security, UN reforms, climate change and regional cooperation. Every joint statement following the summit meeting demonstrates the willingness of the two countries to further widen their partnership by including new subjects of importance.

Before any attempt is made to examine the Abe-Singh joint statement of January 25, it would be useful to note that the past year in the bilateral ties has been extremely productive in terms of numerous events between the two countries starting from Manmohan Singh’s visit to Tokyo in May, 2013 and his joint statement with Abe which laid out a broad vision for the two countries. Earlier, the two countries had a strategic dialogue at the level of foreign ministers in Tokyo. In November-December, Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko made a historic visit which gave a tremendous impetus to the partnership. A month after their visit, Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera came to India to conduct defence dialogue with his counterpart A.K. Anthony. Both discussed the prospects of promoting defence cooperation while simultaneously taking measures to encourage naval cooperation between the two navies.

The present meeting between the two leaders came in the wake of Japan’s formulation of a new National Security Strategy (NSS) and the new National Defence Policy Guidelines 2014. Both these are very important seeking to lay out Japan’s future postures in the security field. The establishment of the National Security Council has further added a new thrust to Japan’s future security goals in the region. That the new Japanese National Security Advisor Shotaru Yachi was with Prime Minister Abe in New Delhi further highlighted the importance of the summit from the security angle. Yachi met his Indian counterpart Shivsankar Menon and launched the first security discussion at that level. The two prime ministers in their joint statement expressed their satisfaction with the launch of regular consultations between the two top security advisors. In addition, they also expressed their “determination” to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation. Noting the successful visit of Japanese Defence Minister Onodera to New Delhi in the first week of January 2014, they also expected that the 4th Defence Policy Dialogue would be held before the end of 2014.The joint statement noted the two leaders expressing their satisfaction at the smooth progress of such dialogue mechanisms like the bilateral 2+2 Dialogue and the US-Japan-India trilateral talks.

Both countries have witnessed significant progress in navy-to-navy cooperation in recent years. Though the two coast guards have been conducting regular annual exercises for a fairly long time, the two navies started their regular exercises only after 2012. The second such exercise was held in December 2013 off the coast of Chennai. In the joint statement, both leaders “reaffirmed the importance of such exercises and renewed their resolution to continue to conduct them on a regular basis with increased frequency.” Singh has invited the Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force (MSDF) to participate in the next Malabar maritime exercise to be held in the Pacific Ocean in 2014.This is a significant development as Japan did not take part in any Malabar exercises after 2007.

Like in the May 2013 joint statement, both leaders reiterated their commitment to the freedom of navigation, unimpeded commerce and peaceful settlement of disputes based on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. In addition, as a response to the unilateral Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) drawn by China in last November that evoked considerable criticism of many countries including the US, both Singh and Abe for the first time underscored the importance of freedom of overflight and civil aviation safety in accordance with international law and the standards of and accepted practices of the International Civil Aviation and Organization (ICAO).

At their May 2013 summit, both leaders discussed for the first time the prospects of Japan supplying its US-2 (Utility Seaplane) amphibious aircraft to India and decided to set up a Joint Working Group (JWG) to work out the modalities of cooperation. Soon after, the JWG met in New Delhi in December 2013. Given Tokyo’s sensitivity to arms sales to foreign countries, its readiness to act quite fast surprised many in both countries. Though Japan modified its position on the question of export of military technologies in 2011, the subject is still a sensitive one within the country. The next meeting of the JWG, according to the joint statement, will be held in Tokyo in March this year and hopefully, both countries will decide on the modalities of their cooperation.

There was considerable expectation that Abe would come to India with an ‘omiyage’ (gift) in the form of an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation. But it did not materialise as the two countries were still in search of an acceptable formula to break the ice. The Abe-Singh joint statement merely reported “substantial progress” made in the negotiations on a civil nuclear cooperation agreement. Though this was also corroborated by media reports, very little is known about the details of the “substantial progress”. The next round of talks will be held in Tokyo and one has to wait and see whether the “substantial progress” will lead to an agreement.

Lastly, the joint statement speaks about the importance of Japan’s continued assistance to several infra-structure projects such as the Delhi-Mumbai Freight and Industrial corridors, Delhi Metro, the Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor and so on. India continues to be the biggest recipient of Japanese economic assistance. According to the Japan International Cooperation Agency ( JICA ), Japan’s overall ODA loans to India amount to 3,871 billion yen or 2,29,100 crore rupees by 2013. The bulk of it has gone into sectors such as infra-structure, irrigation, power, water and sanitation and environment. On bilateral trade, there is a strong feeling that the signing of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the two has not led to the full utilisation of the potential that exists for larger trade and investment. Further efforts should therefore be undertaken to realise those ends.

(Prof K.V. Kesavan is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

The article Did Abe-Singh Joint Statement Live Up To Expectations? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By RT

Some of the most influential companies in Silicon Valley have unveiled data regarding the national security requests they have received from the US government, detailing how many requests they receive, how many the company responds to, and other details.

The Obama administration announced Monday it had come to an agreement with Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft to allow the companies to disclose some details about the surveillance requests targeting their customers.

Apple released its own transparency report last week.

US Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a joint statement that the tech companies are now authorized to disclose the “number of national security orders and requests issued to communication providers, the number of customer accounts targeted under those orders and requests and the underlying legal authorities.”

The companies have spent months fighting for such a deal after complaining that the National Security Agency dragnet exposed last year had hurt business.

“We filed our lawsuits because we believe that the public has a right to know about the volume and types of national security requests we receive,” the five companies said in a joint statement Monday. “We’re pleased the Department of Justice has agreed that we and other providers can disclose this information. While this is a very positive step we’ll continue to encourage Congress to take additional steps to address all of the reforms we believe are needed.”

Civil liberties activists hold a rally against surveillance of US citizens on January 17, 2014. (AFP Photo / Nicholas Kamm)

Civil liberties activists hold a rally against surveillance of US citizens on January 17, 2014. (AFP Photo / Nicholas Kamm)

Reports indicate that, when the first of the Edward Snowden leaks were publicized in June, the White House was reluctant to make any deals with Silicon Valley. But with media pressure mounting and shifting polls proving that a sizable number of Americans are skeptical about the NSA surveillance, administration officials told Politico the time to negotiate had come.

“While this aggregate data was properly classified until today, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with other departments and agencies, has determined that the public interest in disclosing this information now outweighs the national security concerns that require its classification,” stated Holder and Clapper.

Facebook’s transparency report for the latter half of 2012 and the first six months of 2013 noted that only a “small fraction” of one percent of its users were the target of any surveillance requests.

LinkedIn received “between 0 and 249” national security-related requests in the first six months of 2013. Over the same time period, Microsoft said it was sent under 1,000 national security letters pertaining to fewer than 1,000 accounts.

However, the government still prohibits companies from disclosing surveillance details about a new product until two years after it was launched, a condition that has irked civil liberties advocates calling for wider change.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel and the company’s executive vice president for legal and corporate affairs, has said the government agreed to let the companies disclose requests “in bands of a thousand” and only six months after a request was made.

“Asking the public and policymakers to try to judge the appropriateness of the government’s surveillance practices based on a single, combined, rounded number is like asking a doctor to diagnose a patient’s shadow: only the grossest and most obvious problem, if even that, will be ever evident,” Kevin Bankston, policy director at the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, told Politico.

The article Facebook, Google, Others Unveil National Security Request Details appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Mike Whitney

The Fed’s easy money policies have pushed margin debt on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to record levels laying the groundwork for a severe correction or another violent market crash.

In December, margin debt rose by $21 billion to an all-time high of $445 billion.

Buying equities on margin, that is, with loads of borrowed cash, is a sign of excessive risk taking the likes of which invariably takes place whenever the Central Bank creates subsidies for speculation by keeping interest rates pegged below the rate of inflation or by pumping trillions of dollars into the bloated financial system through misguided liquidity programs like QE.

Investors have shrugged off dismal earnings reports, abnormally-high unemployment, flagging demand, droopy incomes, stagnant wages and swollen P/E ratios and loaded up on stocks confident that the Fed’s infusions of liquidity will keep prices going higher. It’s only a matter of time before they see the mistake they’ve made.

The chart below illustrates how zero rates and QE lead to excessive risk taking. The correlation between the stratospheric rise of margin debt and the Fed’s destabilizing monetary policy is hard to avoid. This is what bubblemaking looks like in real time.

The article Prelude To A Crash – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.