Quantcast
Channel: Eurasia Review
Viewing all 73339 articles
Browse latest View live

LG G2 Mini Smartphone To Launch In March

0
0

By PanArmenian

LG has announced that its LG G2 Mini smartphone will begin its global rollout in March, Digital Spy said.

The downsized handset will feature a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and a 4.7-inch display with a 960 x 540 resolution.

Other specifications include 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage expandable via microSD, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing snapper.

Available in titan black, lunar white, red and gold, the device measures in at 129.6 x 66 x 9.8mm and weighs 121g.

A Latin America edition of the phone will also be released with different specifications, coming with a 1.7GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 4i chipset and a 13-megapixel camera.

LG will showcase the LG G2 Mini at the Mobile World Congress next week.

The article LG G2 Mini Smartphone To Launch In March appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Olympics: American Born Snowboarder Wins Gold For Russia

0
0

By MINA

Vic Wild was born and raised in White Salmon, Wash. His parents are from the United States, his mother a longtime schoolteacher and his father retired. He cut his teeth snowboarding under the Team USA banner. But when he won the parallel giant slalom race here Wednesday, the gold medal for Russia was also a black mark for a U.S. Snowboarding program that otherwise has been dominant on the Olympic stage.

Wild’s explanation was simple: “Russia is the country that’s given me an opportunity to win a medal. If I was still riding for the USSA, I’d be back home.”

The USSA — the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association — doesn’t dedicate the same type of resources to Alpine snowboard racing as it does to snowboarding disciplines such as the halfpipe, slopestyle and other events popularized by the Winter X Games.

The Russians provided their team members with private jets, plenty of finances in order to better prepare them for the Olympics. It looks like it worked.

The article Olympics: American Born Snowboarder Wins Gold For Russia appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Hot Markets Gone Cold – OpEd

0
0

By Mike Whitney

Higher rates, higher prices and weak fundamentals have sent home sales crashing in last year’s hottest markets casting doubt on the sustainability of housing recovery.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, home “sales plunged to a six-year low”…. while prices dropped 4.3 percent from a month earlier. (Los Angeles Times) Additionally, sales of new and existing homes and condos fell to their “lowest level for the month since 2008″, the peak of the financial crisis.

Similarly, Dataquick announced that “January was the worst month for home sales in nearly 3-years for Southern California.” Here’s more from Dataquick:

“Southern California logged its lowest January home sales in three years…The median price paid for a home dipped from December…The number of new and resale houses and condos sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month (was) down 21.4 percent…in December, and down 9.9 percent…in January 2013.”…

“The economy is growing, but Southland home sales have fallen on a year-over-year basis for four consecutive months now and remain well below average. Why? We’re still putting a lot of the blame on the low inventory. But mortgage availability, the rise in interest rates and higher home prices matter, too,” said John Walsh, DataQuick president.” (Southland Home Sales Drop in January; Price Picture Mixed), Dataquick

Low inventory is the favorite excuse of realtors who want to conceal what’s really going on in the market. The fact is, the higher rates (since the Fed announced its scaling back of QE) and higher prices have weakened demand and sent moneybags investors racing for the exits. Weak fundamentals (Stagnant wages and high unemployment) have added to housing’s troubles. Unemployment remains stubbornly high in the Golden State. It’s currently locked at 8.7 percent, a full percentage point above the national average.

Sales have also dropped sharply in Las Vegas and Phoenix, which were red-hot in 2013. In Vegas, “sales dropped in December to the lowest level for that month in six years … Total December home sales were the lowest for that month since December 2007.” (Dataquick)

In Phoenix, it’s the same deal. Check out this article in the Phoenix Business Journal which explains the situation without placing the blame on low inventory. Here’s an excerpt from the article titled “Has the Phoenix housing market finally balanced out? 2014 could provide the answer”:

“Despite the fact that there were 36 percent more homes on the market Valleywide in December than a year earlier…demand has continued to fizzle since July…In fact, single-family home sales were down 17 percent year-over-year, the report said. Even with a 12 percent increase in listings priced below $150,000…sales in that range plunged by a whopping 47 percent…

Demand has been falling for several reasons. Rising interest rates and poor consumer confidence, largely ignited by the government shutdown, are among them. On top of that, many wannabe buyers don’t have the money for a down payment or have poor credit from a previous foreclosure or short sale…

Additionally, Wall Street-backed investors have been losing their interest in the Valley as home prices rebound and foreclosures lessen. Institutional investors made up 19.3 percent of Valley home sales in December — less than half their peak market share in July 2012, Orr said… (Has the Phoenix housing market finally balanced out? 2014 could provide the answer, Phoenix Business Journal)

There it is, in just two paragraphs, everything you need to know. Sales are “fizzling” because rates are higher, prices are higher, and the economy stinks. The whole inventory-thing is a red herring, in fact, if you comb the data you’ll see that inventory had been increasing for a full year until August 2013, when the banks realized that they were in big trouble.

Why?

Because the Fed announced that it was going to reduce its asset purchases (QE) which pushed up mortgage rates by a full percentage point overnight. That’s what killed demand. (Mortgage rates had been in the 3-percent range, now they’re in the 4′s.) Two months later, the banks started reducing their inventory in order to keep prices artificially high and avoid more balance sheet hemorrhaging. It is a tale of blatant collusion that can be proved by simply browsing at a chart of housing inventory for the last couple years. (See chart here.)

Now take a look at this chart of mortgage rates and you can see how they spiked shortly after the Fed made its announcement in June. Rates have never really come down since. This is from the Mortgage Reports:

whit1

Mortgage rates rose last week, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS).

Housing expert Mark Hanson predicted the current sales collapse back in September 2013 in a post titled “Housing…Where we sit” which we cited in an earlier article. Here’s a clip from the post:

”Starting in Q4 2011 “housing” was injected with arguably the greatest stimulus of all time; a 2% “permanent mortgage rate buy down” gift from the Fed. As a result of rates plunging over a very short period of time…purchasing power was created out of thin air…

Some think the rate “surge” (note: The recent rate increase) will have little impact…while the bears…think the rate surge was a rare and powerful “catalyst” only rivaled two times in the last seven years. The first, when the housing market lost all it’s high-leverage loan programs all at once in 2007/2008; and the second, on the sunset of the Homebuyer Tax Credit in 2010.

In both these previous instances … when the leverage/stimulus went away … housing “reset” to the current supply/demand/lending guideline/interest rate environment, which in 2008 resulted in the “great housing crash”, and in 2010 the “double-dip”. Here we sit in a eerily similar situation.” (“Housing…Where we sit“, Mark Hanson)

In other words, the higher rates are going to send housing sales off a cliff. Which they have. Hanson was right and the media Pollyannas were wrong. In the absence of –what Hanson calls–”the greatest stimulus of all time”, the sales-slide should continue for some time to come.

The distortions in housing are so extreme –due to the persistent meddling of the Fed, the government, and the banks–that traditional areas of market strength have gradually eroded while speculation has reached fever-pitch. For example, in December, firsttime homebuyers–the “Mother’s milk of the housing industry–slipped to just 27 percent of all sales while all-cash buyers represented a full 42 percent of all residential sales. This illustrates the impact the Fed’s “easy money” policies are having on the market. Everything’s upside-down; organic demand is steadily declining, while speculation is at levels never seen before. It’s crazy and it won’t end well.

Just this week, the California Association of Realtors (CAR) released its Traditional Housing Affordability Index which confirmed that buying a home is increasingly out-of-reach of ordinary working people. The report found that “only 32 percent of home buyers could afford to purchase a median-priced, existing single-family home in California…..To purchase a median-priced home in California, homebuyers needed to earn a minimum annual income of $89,240. Compared to 2012, where homebuyers needed to earn an income of $66,860….The median home price for California was $431,510 in Q4 2013.” (“Housing Affordability Drops in California“, DS News)

(Note: The median income in California is just $58,000.)

The fundamentals are not strong enough to support today’s prices, which is why sales are tanking. The market has peaked, the bull run is over. Even the banks know it, which is what makes the chart below so interesting, because it suggests that the nation’s biggest lenders are planning to dump more of their backlog “shadow” inventory onto the market before prices drop and they’re left holding the bag. Check out the sudden reversal in foreclosure filings in January.

whit2

Will you look at that! It looks like the banksters are getting ready to jump before the old Housing Hindenburg slams into the powerlines and explodes into sheets of flames.

Like we said earlier: This won’t end well.

The article Hot Markets Gone Cold – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Guantánamo Experiment: A Harrowing Letter By Yemeni Prisoner Emad Hassan – OpEd

0
0

By Andy Worthington

155 men are still held at Guantánamo, and yet, despite the fact that most of these prisoners have been held for 12 years without charge or trial, many of them are completely unknown to the general public.

A case in point is Emad Hassan, a Yemeni prisoner whose representation has recently been taken on by Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity whose founder and director is Clive Stafford Smith. Reprieve recently received a letter from  Emad, after it was unclassified by the Pentagon censorship board that evaluates all correspondence between prisoners and their lawyers — and the hand-written notes of any meetings that take place — and decides whether it can be made available to the public.

When the cleared letter was released, Reprieve secured publication of it in the Middle East Monitor, where it was published to mark the 12th opening of the prison on January 11. In the hope of securing a wider audience for Emad’s words, I’m cross-posting it below, not only to let people know about Emad’s particular story — to humanize another of the men so cynically dismissed as “the worst of the worst” by the Bush administration — but also because of his detailed description of how hunger strikers at Guantánamo are being abused by the authorities.

First, though, allow me to introduce Emad, who is one of the 55 Yemeni prisoners in Guantánamo who were cleared for release in 2010 by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established when he took office in January 2009. After a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried and failed to blow up a plane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, with a bomb in his underwear, and after it was discovered that he had been recruited in Yemen, President Obama imposed a ban on releasing any Yemenis from Guantánamo, despite the recommendation of his task force. This ban stood until May last year, when, in response to the prison-wide hunger strike at Guantánamo that began last February and attracted worldwide criticism of President Obama’s inaction, the president responded by finally dropping the ban, although no Yemenis have been released in the last nine months.

The Yemenis’ release was also blocked by Congress, which imposed general restrictions on the release of prisoners, particularly from 2010 onwards. These restrictions were only finally eased in December, in amended legislation that was  introduced by the Senate Armed Services Committee, under the leadership of Sen. Carl Levin, but although these changes are important, it should be noted that, all along, President Obama had the power to override Congress if he regarded it as being “in the national security interests of the United States,” and, as he has repeatedly demonstrated in his eloquent speeches, it is demonstrably clear that the ongoing existence of Guantánamo is not “in the national security interests of the United States.”

Emad Hassan, then, is one of the Yemenis who needs to be released to break this absurd and unjust refusal of the US government to release Yemenis that its own Presidential task force said should be released, but who is he?

I have previously written about him, in my book The Guantánamo Files, and also as one of 15 prisoners seized in a house raid in Faisalabad, Pakistan, on the same night that another house raid led to the capture of Abu Zubaydah, who was mistakenly identified as a senior figure in al-Qaeda, and for whom the CIA’s torture program was specifically developed.

Most of the men in the house in which Hassan was seized have maintained, throughout their long imprisonment, that it was a student house, providing accommodation to young men studying at the nearby Salafia University. Moreover, in May 2009, in the District Court in Washington D.C., as I explained in an article entitled, “Judge Condemns ‘Mosaic’ Of Guantánamo Intelligence, And Unreliable Witnesses“:

Judge Gladys Kessler, ruling on the habeas corpus petition of one of the men, Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, savaged the government for drawing on the testimony of witnesses whose unreliability was acknowledged by the authorities, and for attempting to create a “mosaic” of intelligence that was thoroughly unconvincing, and she also made a point of stating, “It is likely, based on evidence in the record, that at least a majority of the [redacted] guests were indeed students, living at a guest house that was located close to a university.”

Many of the men seized in the house raid have since been released (see here, here, here and here).

As I also explained in an article in 2010:

In Guantánamo, Hassan has repeatedly stated that he never set foot in Afghanistan (until the US took him there after his capture), and that he was near the end of a seven-month trip to the university to study the Koran when he was seized. He has also explained that, while in Pakistani custody, “the person who was in charge came and told us we didn’t have anything to worry about,” and that “our sheet was clean.”

As I also explained, it may be that Hassan “aroused the wrath of the authorities in Guantánamo because of his refusal to accept the conditions in which he and the other prisoners are held,” and noted:

In 2006, one of his lawyers, Douglas Cox, explained how he was “regarded as a leader by other detainees,” and how he “went on a hunger strike. A few months into it, military doctors started force-feeding him by inserting a tube through his nose. The process was so painful that Hassan felt he couldn’t take it anymore. He didn’t want to quit, though, because he thought he would be letting down the other detainees.” Weight records released by the Pentagon show that, although Hassan only weighted 113 pounds on arrival at Guantánamo, his weight dropped at one point in December 2005 to a skeletal 85 pounds (PDF).

What I didn’t know, until recently, when I spoke to Clive Stafford Smith about Emad Hassan, and read Reprieve’s profile of him, is that he has been on a persistent hunger strike since 2007 (I identified two other long-term hunger strikers here).

As Reprieve explained:

Hunger strikes are a universally regarded form of peaceful protest. Yet the Guantánamo authorities do not share this view – they have compared their response to strikers to adapting to new warfare tactics. Strikers are punished for their disobedience, violently removed from their cells, strapped to a chair and have tubes shoved up their noses through which a nutritional supplement is pumped. This has led to dire health problems for Emad. He has severe pancreatitis and one of his nasal passages has completely closed up. In his own words:

“Sometimes I sit in the chair and vomit. Nobody says anything. Even if they turned their backs I would understand. I’m looking for humans. All I ask for is basic human rights.”

I also learned from Reprieve that Emad had initially traveled from Yemen to Pakistan to study “as he was not able to access specialised higher education in Yemen.” Reprieve described him as “an intellectual with a passion for poetry, ranging from the great Sufi poets like Rumi, to English poets such as Wilfred Owen.”

As Reprieve also explained, during an interrogation that followed his capture, Emad “was asked if he knew Al-Qaeda and he responded: ‘Yes, I know Al Qa’idah well.” He was talking about a small village near where he grew up in Yemen. But this didn’t matter.”

As Reprieve also noted, since December the prison authorities have “stopped providing any information on hunger strikers in a bid to stop attention to their cause,” although Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, recently reported that 35 men are currently on a hunger strike, and 17 of them are being force-fed.

Emad is one of them. As Reprieve explained, he “would like nothing more than to be released, as promised, back to the arms of his loving family. But because the US considers Yemen to be a dangerous a place to send former Guantánamo detainees, he is being punished for his nationality. Emad has said that he will continue on his peaceful protest until he and his fellow cleared men can go home where they belong.”

It is time for the cleared Yemenis — the 55 cleared for release by the task force, and a 56th man, recently cleared for release by a Periodic Review Board — to be sent home, without further delays and obstruction.

Emad Hassan’s letter is posted below:

The Guantánamo Experiment: A letter from Emad Hassan to mark the 12th anniversary of the opening of the prison
Middle East Monitor, January 10, 2014

Here we are in Guantánamo as we come to the 12th anniversary of this terrible place. The treatment here is often described by the public relations officer as next door to perfect. Indeed, now I am into my seventh year of being force fed, it’s quite a Club Med holiday camp!

We heard some good news about President Obama wanting to send people home, but we do not want to hang our hopes on it. Hope is like a mirage; you can see it, but can’t touch it.

It does not really need to be said, but it is a grave violation of professional ethics for doctors to participate in torture or cruel treatment. Surely health care professionals should not condone any deliberate infliction of pain and suffering on detainees? This would seem to be a fairly basic proposition.

Yet who is better than a doctor to cause excruciating pain without damaging the body? There is a wide divergence here between the morality of a doctor’s role and the reality of his actions. It is very, very sad. When a surgeon no longer uses his scalpel to cure a disease, he becomes no better than a butcher.

In 2005, when the doctors were still human beings, the hunger strikers didn’t worry about their health because there was level of trust with the medical team. One of the doctors refused to go along with force feeding, because he believed that his medical ethics were more important than the order of a military colonel. But then things changed. The military only recruited doctors who agreed, before they arrived here, that a military order was more important than morality. The new wave of doctors allowed the military officers to instruct them on how to conduct the medical procedure of force feeding.

As a child, I was taught to disdain German doctors for what they did in World War II, experimenting on prisoners. Yet here the doctors now experiment to try to find the best way to force us to bend to the military’s will: is it more effective for them to make the force feeding process more painful, by forcing the liquid down my nose faster and by pulling the 110 centimeter tube out of my nostril after every feed? Or, is it more effective to refuse my request for a blanket to keep me warm, now that my weight has fallen so low? They experiment all the time, and this is virgin territory for experimental science, since no other doctor would be allowed to force feed a prisoner at all.

But in recent days, sad to say, I have seen the truly ugly faces of those doctors, nurses, and other medical staffers. I have been subjected to a novel regime for 36 days. This new system is not an occasionally “uncomfortable procedure,” as the public relations has described it. No, it has been a HORRIFIC, BARBAROUS TORTURE. I am not even sure I can find the words to tell you truly what it is like …

It is difficult to take it anymore. First they force the 110 centimeter tube in me. They cannot do it in the right nostril any more, as that is now firmly closed up. So they have to force it up the left nostril. It is very painful these days, but that is no bar to medical practice. They used to leave the tube in so that we did not have to undergo this pain, but then a general said they wanted to make our peaceful protest less “convenient,” so they came up with the less “convenient” system of pulling the tube out each time.

That has been a technique since 2006, so it is nothing new. But the latest experiment is different. Now they begin with 1500cc of formula called TwoCal — four cans in the morning and four in the night, served up each time with 700cc of water. Once I finish each ‘meal,’ they fill the feed bag with 50cc of an anti-constipation medication and 450cc of water. As this scientific study shows — at least in the experience of this guinea pig, your correspondent — this method accelerates the stomach function and makes the hunger striker defecate on himself in the chair.

When this stage is complete, they add another 700cc of water — why? Have I not suffered enough? When I dared to ask this question, the medical professional answered sarcastically, “to wash the feeding bag.” This process is completed in 30-45 minutes, which is much faster than before, but then why allow the detainee to be fed slowly when you could cause much more pain by speeding up the process? Yet it is not over quickly, as they leave you in the torture chair for two hours, suffering. Then they pull the tube out of your nose again, ready to force it back in for the next session.

If I vomit on myself at any time during the procedure, they start the atrocity all over again, though they don’t necessarily let me wash off before it begins.

And that’s exactly what has been happening to me every day, twice daily. Except for last night — which will long burn alive in my memory. But I will write about it in the next message, God willing.

As you enjoy your holiday season, please spare a thought for those of us who continue to hold the embers, trying to keep the flame alive in Guantánamo Bay — even as the doctors try to break our peaceful hunger strike protest. And remember, if you will, that all we ask for is what President Obama keeps promising: freedom or a fair trial.

December 16th 2013
Emad Hassan (ISN 680, cleared for several years…)

The article The Guantánamo Experiment: A Harrowing Letter By Yemeni Prisoner Emad Hassan – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

China Has Little To Gain From Pressuring North Korea – Analysis

0
0

By RFA

Beijing has little to gain and much to lose from putting pressure on North Korea over widespread human rights abuses, say analysts, after China hit out at allegations of “complicity” in Pyongyang’s rule of terror, which has been likened to Nazi-era atrocities in Europe.

“China has very serious human rights issues of its own,” Yang Liyu, professor of East Asian Studies at Seton Hall University, told RFA’s Mandarin Service.

“So of course it’s not likely to step up the pressure on North Korea to improve its own human rights situation,” Yang said after a U.N. panel investigating rights abuses in North Korea said at the weekend that it has written to the country’s leader Kim Jong Un that he could be hauled before an international court for leading a regime blamed for committing rights abuses on a scale unparalleled in modern history.

The Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea had warned China, North Korea’s key ally, that its forced repatriations of North Korean migrants and defectors might amount to “the aiding and abetting [of] crimes against humanity.”

According to Li Xiaobing, director of the Western Pacific Institute at the University of Central Oklahoma, the issue of North Koreans in China is a very sensitive one for Beijing.

“The issue of the North Korean refugees is a human rights issue, seen from the outside world, from an international perspective,” Li said.

“But to China, it is a factor in its bilateral relationship with North Korea.”

Warnings dismissed

Beijing has dismissed the warnings by the U.N. panel, which in its voluminous report detailed human rights violations including “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence” in North Korea.

The report also cited “concerns relating to China’s policy and practice of forced repatriation” of North Korean citizens who escaped across the border into its northeastern provinces.

The U.N. panel said it was particularly concerned about reports that Chinese officials had given information on North Korean refugees to the Pyongyang regime.

Beijing should “caution relevant officials that such conduct could amount to the aiding and abetting of crimes against humanity,” it said.

Beijing hit out at the allegations on Tuesday, saying it had consistently dealt with North Korean defectors “in accordance with international law and humanitarian principles.”

“We totally reject this accusation,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

“On the North Korean defector issue, our position is very clear,” she said. “We deal with it appropriately, in accordance with international law and humanitarian principles.”

Economic migrants

She repeated Beijing’s official view of North Korean refugees, saying that they enter China illegally “for economic reasons.”

Yang said Beijing had refused all along to regard North Koreans fleeing hunger and human rights abuses to escape to neighboring China as refugees, for fear of being swamped once their international legal status was recognized.

“It would be amazing if they admitted that they were refugees at all,” he said.

“But how many can they take? Can [China] receive two million of them?”

Kim ‘no puppet’

Yang said Beijing has a hard time influencing Pyongyang on any subject, even if it wants to, as in the case of the isolated Stalinist regime’s nuclear program.

“Kim Jong Un doesn’t do as he is told,” he said. “He’s no puppet.”

“North Korea is a regime that doesn’t behave responsibly in the world, and is completely devoid of democratic thinking and of any consideration of human rights,” he said.

“And China doesn’t want to lose its position as North Korea’s only friend.”

Claims rejected

The U.N. report, which was based on a one-year probe and based on interviews with victims and witnesses, said the scale of human rights violations in North Korea amounted to crimes against humanity.

It cited evidence provided by individual victims and witnesses, including the “harrowing treatment” meted out to the regime’s estimated 80,000-120,000 political prisoners, some of whom said they would catch snakes and mice to feed malnourished babies.

Others told of watching family members being murdered in prison camps, and of defenseless inmates being used for martial arts practice.

The findings were based on testimony from 80 witnesses at four public hearings last year and more than 240 confidential interviews with victims and others.

North Korea said the report was an “instrument of a political plot aimed at sabotaging the socialist system” and defaming the country.

The rights violations listed in the report “do not exist in our country,” it said in a statement.

China is impoverished North Korea’s main diplomatic and economic ally but has shown growing irritation with Pyongyang’s war threats, and backed tough U.N. sanctions against its hardline communist neighbor for its defiant nuclear and missile tests last March.

However, President Xi Jinping has also warned against international “interference” with any country on China’s doorstep.

Reported by Yang Jiadai for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

The article China Has Little To Gain From Pressuring North Korea – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Panama: Preliminary Accord Allows Canal Works To Resume

0
0

By MISNA

The Panama Canal Authority (PCA) and the GUPC (Grupo Unidos por el Canal) consortium that was hired to widen the waterway reached a preliminary agreement, which will allow a resumption of works today after a two week suspension. The PCA also indicated that the parts will also seek accords to other pensing issues within 72 hours.

The dispute was sparked by the PCA’s refusal to pay 1.6 billion dollarsn to cover unforeseen cost overruns requested by the GUPC, headed by the Spanish Sacyr and Italy’s Salini-Impregilo. The accord foresees that as soon as work is taken up again, the PCA will hand the consortium 36.8 million dollars, representing work invoiced in December, so that GUPC workers can receive their pending pay and obligations with suppliers can be met.

The deicison to resume the works was taken following phone conversations between the PCA and GUPC, though there are other pending issues. Following the accord, Sacyr shares rose by 4% at the opening of Madrid’s stock market.

Panama is expecting that the crisis will cause a delay in works to widen the canal, pushing the completion date from 2014 to December 2015. The GUPC however indicated that further disputes could cause ulterior delays of up to five years.

The article Panama: Preliminary Accord Allows Canal Works To Resume appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Nigeria: President ‘Sacks’ Central Bank Governor

0
0

By MISNA

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan suspended Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi, appointing his deputy as acting-governor. Sanusi, whose term was set to end in June, had created political-financial turmoil in the past months by presenting evidence to parliament showing that the state oil company Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had failed to remit around $20 billion that it owed to federal government coffers.

The NNCP has denied the allegations claiming to have paid the entire amount between January and August, but the documentation presented by Senusi in parliament only shows $7 billion. The naira fell more than one percent to 165.80 to the dollar on the news.

A statement by the presidential spokesman said in regard that “Sanusi’s tenure has been characterised by various acts of financial recklessness … inconsistent with the administration’s vision of a Central Bank propelled by the core values of focused economic management”.

The former governor, who contributed to the wide perception of rampant corruption in the oil sector, also warned that the mismanagement of finances is strongly reducing state foreign currency resources, which are necessary for the national currency.

Sanusi was named as the Central Bank Governor of 2010 for both the African continent and the entire world, by the prestigious Banker magazine. The reform of the Nigerian financial system applied under his direction was called the “Sanusi Tsunami”, allowing the recovery from mismanagement if five key national credit institutes.

The article Nigeria: President ‘Sacks’ Central Bank Governor appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Centre-Left Seen Taking Lead In EU Election Race

0
0

By EurActiv

(EurActiv) — The European Socialist political family is likely to win the most seats in EU Parliament elections in May, a survey showed on Wednesday (19 February), boosting the group’s chances of also securing the presidency of the European Commission.

Data suggests the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group will gain up to 29.4% of all seats in the next EU Parliament, according to a new survey aggregating polling data from all EU member states.

With 221 seats, the socialist group would overtake the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) group, at 202 seats. The EPP would see its majority shrink to 26.9%. There are 751 seats in the European Parliament.

The polling data is gathered by PollWatch2014, an initiative launched by transparency organisation VoteWatch Europe and led by professors at the London School of Economics and Trinity College Dublin.

Polling far behind these two major forces, are the other political groups: the Liberal ALDE is projected to get 64 seats; the far-left GUE/NGL group 56; The Greens/EFA group 44 seats; the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) 42 seats; and the far-right EFD 30 seats.

While the survey predicts the EPP will lose seats along with the Liberals, the traditionally large parties are still expected to hold about 70% of the legislature.

Close race

“It is going to be a very close race on who will be the biggest group in the European Parliament. It is a high uncertainty,” said Simon Hix of LSE, at the launch of the initiative on Wednesday (19 February).

The next European Parliament is expected to be considerably more polarised than the current one, the researchers underlined, with fewer seats for the centrist groups and more seats for the radical left, radical right, and anti-Europeans, according to the researchers Kevin Cunningham, Simon Hix and Michael Marsh.

They remain cautious in their predictions, however, saying support for the EPP and S&D “depends significantly on the fortunes of a small number of large parties in Germany, France and Italy,” which have tended to swing over the past years due to the financial and economic crisis.

“Given the situation of Socialists in France, Germany and Italy, the uncertainty is probably slightly larger for the Socialists than for the EPP,” the researchers write.

“We’re confident on the pattern – there will be a big swing away from the centre and towards the radical left and right,” Hix said.

‘Campaign hasn’t started yet’

The outcome in May of this race between Europe’s two main political forces could have heavier consequences than in previous elections. As parties put forward designate candidates for the post of president of the EU Commission, the largest group will get the initiative to suggest their candidate for the top job.

The S&D have selected Germany’s Martin Schulz, the current president of the European Parliament, as their candidate to succeed José Manuel Barroso as head of the Commission, a job with powers affecting 500 million Europeans.

“This poll will energise our activists and member parties,” said Achim Post, secretary general of the Party of European Socialists (PES), which supports Schulz. “We are feeling optimistic and it looks like voters agree with us that it’s time for a change in leadership in Brussels,” he told EurActiv.

The centre-right EPP, which has been the largest political force since 1999 and currently holds the presidency of the EU executive, will select its top candidate at a congress on 6-7 March. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker is currently in the lead to take the position.

The EPP’s spokesman, Kostas Sasmatzoglou, told EurActiv the poll “shows a prediction at a time when the largest political party – us – has not selected a candidate yet. It gives a snapshot at a time when the campaign hasn’t started yet. Our internal polls also have us in a clear lead.”

Shuffle in Parliament factions

While the S&D and EPP groups are likely to remain relatively stable in terms of member parties, for the smaller groups all depends on which national parties will join which factions after the elections.

EurActiv reported earlier that political groups will engage in tough competition to recruit new members, especially on the right side of the political spectrum.

The PollWatch survey forecasts that if the far-right formed a grouping that included the National Front and Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, it could win 38 seats, potentially doubling the far-right’s presence in the parliament.

On the left side of the spectrum, much remains unclear too. PollWatch predicts the Italy’s populist 5-star movement, led by comedian Beppe Grillo, could win up to 18 seats, but it is unclear which group they will join – or whether they will join a group at all.

Grand coalition versus Eurosceptics

The predicted breakdown of seats shows a more polarised European Parliament than the outgoing one. This would have significant effect on the workings of the European Parliament, PollWatch analysts argue.

“We are going to see a grand coalition [being formed] in the next European Parliament,” Hix predicted, “because the centre groups are squeezed together, and because of the German incumbent grand coalition: the German Koalition casts a long shadow over Brussels.”

“In that case, it is very easy for protest groups to say: ‘we told you these elections don’t have an impact [on EU policy making]. But it is not unhealthy to have critical voices … and voters can then see there is an actual debate being held in the Parliament,” Hix continued.

According to PollWatch data, the number of Eurosceptic MEPs could make up The total number of non-attached members – generally sceptical of the EU – would rise to 92 seats but this number does not include eurosceptic parties affiliated to the EFD group (like Lega Nord, projected at 4 seats, or UKIP, at 18 seats) or the far-left GUE/NGL group.

Big six

While these projections are based on most recent polling data, the eventual outcome still depends greatly on the upcoming election campaign. The six biggest EU member states are key for European parties. Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Poland together make up almost half of the MEP seats.

Mainstream parties in these countries are under pressure, polls show. As socialist parties and/or centre-right parties often carry the torch in European coalition governments, the pressure is on these parties to fend off criticism from more radical political forces.

One uncertainty is how voters will react to the new grand coalition government in Germany. In Italy, the Socialist Party in government is going strong but support could collapse due to political instability within the party itself. The UK’s Conservatives, in a coalition government with the Lib Dems, could even fall back to become the third largest party in the European Parliament, after UKIP.

The model for the PollWatch website was used in last European Parliament elections in 2009. At that time, it predicted correctly the outcome of 720 of the then 736 seats, PollWatch stated.

The article Centre-Left Seen Taking Lead In EU Election Race appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Saudi Arabia: Women Want More Female Doctors After Haia Action

0
0

By Arab News

By Fouzia Khan

Saudi women have reacted strongly to reports of women being prevented from visiting hospitals without a male guardian by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Haia) recently.

The Haia members acted after a member of the Council of Senior Scholars issued a “fatwa” (edict) prohibiting women from seeing male doctors without being accompanied by male guardians.
The women demanded that the authorities hire female doctors especially for conducting ultra sound and in gynecology departments.

“The Haia should order hospitals to hire female doctors, especially for ultra sound procedures and MRI’s because even if a male guardian accompanies her, the doctor does not let him into the examination room. So what’s the point of imposing this restriction? Instead, the Haia should emphasize the hiring of more female doctors,” said Hina Ashraf.

Huda Abdulaziz said it will be difficult to implement the order as sometimes the men of the house don’t have time to go to the hospital. Moreover, women usually go with a female companion and even then she is not allowed into the examination room. “Does it mean that now a woman visiting a shop or going in a taxi will need a male guardian? What about male drivers? Will a woman need a male guardian, if she were to go out of her house?” she questioned. It is better to have a good education and upbringing than to impose restrictions, she added.

Saima Ahmed agreed that there should be female doctors for female patients. “Why can’t an older woman accompany the female patient?” She wondered why the guardian had to be male. “In some cases it might be highly inappropriate to have a male around anyway,” she noted.

She said that the Ministry of Health should also have male doctors and nurses treating male patients only.

“It is usual practice for a patient to be accompanied by a relative and the doctor to have a nurse, trainee or assistant beside him when he sees the patient. Why are they making an issue of this?” She added that it should be all right for a female patient to be accompanied by a female relative if no male relative is around at the time.

The article Saudi Arabia: Women Want More Female Doctors After Haia Action appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Failure In Bosnia – OpEd

0
0

By TransConflict

Bosnia’s future as a single, unified state has never been promising, but without effective leadership the future will be bleak indeed. The recent riots need to be seen as a “wake up” call — not for political recrimination and scapegoating, but for intelligence, creative solutions, and cooperation.
By Steven E. Meyer

The devastating riots in Bosnia have been a long time in coming, but they are the inevitable result of a broken political system.  While the riots have been much more widespread and destructive in the Federation, the Republika Srpska too has witnessed demonstrations.  This is the most serious blow to the viability of Bosnia – and its entities – since the signing of the Dayton Agreement in 1995.  There are two underlying causes for the riots, which have finally been brought to the surface by a series of proximate events.

First, Western policy begun in the 1990s – and continued ever since – forced the construction of a state that satisfied Western interests, but had little to do with the interests and desires of the people who actually live in Bosnia.  Bosnia is the result of Western expediency—establishing the successor states of Yugoslavia quickly, from the top down and virtually in isolation from each other.  Western policymakers never understood the ethnic bases of political community in the Balkans and, therefore, found ethnicity to be an unacceptable foundation for modern society.  The attitude in Washington, Brussels, Berlin and London was – and is – that a political community based on ethnicity is a false, broken ideology that was inconsistent with the modern “enlightenment” of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Western ambassadors to Bosnia have seen themselves more as “viceroys” in the traditional British sense of the term – charged with overseeing the development of Bosnian society – than as true representatives of their countries.  The main occupation of too many American Ambassadors to Bosnia has been to guide Bosnia to a “better, more stable, prosperous future” – whether the people and leaders of Bosnia wanted their help of not.  In the event, these “well-meaning” officials have made conditions worse by creating an atmosphere of dependence and expectation among the residents of Bosnia that too often is inconsistent with the interests and aspirations of Bosnian residents.

Second, Bosnian leaders – indeed, leaders throughout the Balkans – have been unwilling or unable to determine futures of their countries.  Their reluctance is psychological – the product of generations of domination by outsiders which has led to a leadership class afflicted by self-doubt, insecurity and timidity.  The net result is a sense that they need to have everything they do approved by one or more Western capitals.  There is a sense that we are “too weak, too small and too poor” to act on our own for  the benefit of our own communities.

Clearly, this has been less true in the Republika Srpska (RS), and, indeed, the RS leadership often defies this trend.  But even in the RS leaders at times are too willing to “look over their shoulders” to see what the West thinks.  The RS has taken refuge in Article IV (the current Bosnian constitution) of the Dayton Agreement which means it still finds it necessary to stay tied to a failed, nearly fictional state. The Federation has never found its political footing; Article IV is almost meaningless.  Political community in the Federation is defined by political infighting, damaged leadership, poorly designed programs – or no programs at all – and ill-fated attempts by the U.S. Embassy to “correct the problems.”

While these two underlying issues have crippled Bosnia ever since 1995, the current violence has been brought on by the impact of the post-2008 economic and financial crisis.  Bosnia already had one of the most depressed economies in Europe and the current economic/financial crisis has made it even worse.  Levels of unemployment, poverty, public debt and corruption are already among the highest in Europe almost certainly will increase.  There is no evidence that these riots are the result of political plots by malcontents and thugs to destabilize one entity or the other.  They are the result of widespread desperation brought on by economic and financial conditions and the inability and unwillingness of the leadership to chart a way forward.  Bosnia—and the entire Balkans—are unlikely to become European “economic engines” any time soon, but they can become stable, productive, economically viable countries if political leaders in the region can find the courage and resources to actually lead—and say NO to Western embassies and capitals.

Bosnia’s future as a single, unified state has never been promising, but without effective leadership the future will be bleak indeed.  The Federation will become even more dysfunctional than it already is.  The gulf between the Federation and the RS will deepen, hastening the disintegration of Bosnia.  The EU will become an even more distant goal than it is now and investment will dry up even further.  In short, these riots need to be seen as a “wake up” call—not for political recrimination and scapegoating, but for intelligence, creative solutions, and cooperation.  If this does not sit well in Western capitals—so be it; they will learn to live with it.

Steven E. Meyer is a partner in the firm TSM Global Consultants and a Fellow at the Center for Public Justice in Washington, D.C. Before that he worked for many years at the Central Intelligence Agency, where his last position was as a Deputy Chief of the U.S. Government’s Interagency Balkan Task Force during the wars of the 1990s. After leaving the CIA, Dr. Meyer taught national security studies, American foreign policy and comparative politics at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. Earlier in his career, he taught at the University of Glasgow and the Free University of Amsterdam. He received bachelor’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin, an M.S. degree from Fordham University in New York and a PhD from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., both in comparative politics. He has published in several journals and is working on a book on the changing structure of the international system.

This article was originally published by Serbian daily “Politika” and is available by clicking here.

The article Failure In Bosnia – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

US: Yemen Drone Strike May Violate Obama Policy, Says HRW

0
0

By Eurasia Review

A deadly US drone strike on a December 2013 wedding procession in Yemen raises serious concerns about US forces’ compliance with President Barack Obama’s targeted killing policy, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 28-page report, “A Wedding That Became a Funeral: US Drone Attack on Marriage Procession in Yemen,” calls on the US government to investigate the strike, publish its findings, and act in the event of wrongdoing. The December 12 attack killed 12 men and wounded at least 15 other people, including the bride. US and Yemeni officials said the dead were members of the armed group Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), but witnesses and relatives told Human Rights Watch the casualties were civilians. Obama said in a major address in May that US policy requires “near-certainty” that no civilians will be harmed in targeted attacks.

“The US refusal to explain a deadly attack on a marriage procession raises critical questions about the administration’s compliance with its own targeted killing policy,” said Letta Tayler, senior terrorism and counterterrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “All Yemenis, especially the families of the dead and wounded, deserve to know why this wedding procession became a funeral.”

Four Hellfire missiles struck an 11-vehicle procession transporting the newlyweds to the groom’s village outside the central Yemeni city of Rad’a, destroying a pickup truck and damaging nearby vehicles. Witnesses and a Yemeni government source said three or four men fled the truck before it was struck. US and Yemeni officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the target was on Yemen’s “most-wanted terrorist” list and was wounded but escaped. A Yemeni government official said that another man who fled was also on Yemen’s “most-wanted terrorist” list.

The US has not officially acknowledged the strike. Neither the US nor Yemen has offered specific information, such as drone video footage, to support their assertions about the circumstances or the targets.

Witnesses and relatives told Human Rights Watch that no members of AQAP were in the procession and provided names and other information about those killed and wounded. They said the dead included the groom’s adult son and the bride received superficial face wounds. The local governor and military commander called the casualties a “mistake” and gave money and assault rifles to the families of those killed and wounded – a traditional gesture of apology in Yemen.

“The actions of local authorities, coupled with accounts of witnesses, suggest that at least some of those killed and wounded were civilians,” Tayler said. “If the procession included members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the United States needs to explain who they were and why they were lawful targets.”

In his May announcement on targeted killings, Obama also said US policy required “near-certainty” that the target is present, poses a “continuing and imminent” threat to the US, and could not feasibly be arrested. Human Rights Watch said the US has not shown that the attack met these criteria.

The attack on the wedding procession also may have violated the laws of war by failing to discriminate between combatants and civilians, or by causing civilian loss disproportionate to the expected military advantage. The US should investigate and publish its findings on any laws-of-war violations.

Had members of AQAP deliberately joined the wedding procession to avoid attack, they would have been committing the laws-of-war violation of using “human shields.” That would not, however, justify an indiscriminate or disproportionate attack by US forces.

“Rather than instilling confidence that its targeted killings are lawful and adhere to US policy, the Obama administration’s silence is magnifying concerns,” Tayler said. “The US failure to address any harm to civilians also risks turning Yemeni allies into enemies.”

The article US: Yemen Drone Strike May Violate Obama Policy, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Egypt’s High Price Of Dissent

0
0

By Eurasia Review

Egyptian authorities in recent months have demonstrated almost zero tolerance for any form of dissent, arresting and prosecuting journalists, demonstrators, and academics for peacefully expressing their views.

Prosecutors on January 29, 2014, referred three Al Jazeera English journalists to trial on politicized charges such as disseminating “false information” and belonging to a “terrorist organization,” some of which carry prison sentences ranging from five to 15 years. At least 17 other journalists and opposition figures face similar charges in the same case, with the trial scheduled to begin on February 20. On January 19, prosecutors referred 25 people to trial on charges of “insulting the judiciary,” including Amr Hamzawy, an academic and former member of parliament.

“Journalists should not have to risk years in an Egyptian prison for doing their job,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The prosecution of these journalists for speaking with Muslim Brotherhood members, coming after the prosecution of protesters and academics, shows how fast the space for dissent in Egypt is evaporating.”

The three detained Al Jazeera journalists – Egyptian nationals Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed and an Australian, Peter Greste – face charges including editing video footage to “give the appearance that Egypt is in a civil war,” operating broadcast equipment without a license, membership in a terrorist organization, and possession of material that promotes the goals of a terrorist organization.

The charges against Hamzawy relate to a June 2013 Twitter message saying that the conviction of 43 employees of pro-democracy organizations demonstrated the “politicization” of the judiciary. Other defendants in this case include Mustafa al-Naggar, also a former parliament member, and Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a well-known activist who had been detained since late November on false charges of organizing a demonstration without notification.

In early January 2014 authorities charged another prominent academic, the American University in Cairo political science professor Emad Shahin, along with senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders, with conspiring with foreign organizations to harm Egyptian national security. Both Shahin and Hamzawy had been vocal critics of President Mohamed Morsy’s government, but they had also criticized the bloody repression of the Brotherhood after the military removed Morsy from power. Authorities placed Hamzawy under a travel ban and his case has been referred to trial but no date has been scheduled. Shahin had left Egypt before the charges against him became known later in January.

Police have relied on a repressive November 2013 protest law to violently disperse and arrest hundreds of peaceful protesters under the pretext that they assembled without a permit. A court used this law in December to sentence three leading activists – Ahmed Maher, Mohamed Adel, and Ahmed Douma – to three years in prison.

In late December, the interim government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist organization,” citing recent attacks on security installations and officials but providing no evidence linking the Brotherhood to those attacks. Although the designation does not have the force of law unless issued by a court, officials have used it to arrest and prosecute people who have any contact with Brotherhood members, such as the Al Jazeera journalists.

Egypt’s new constitution, in article 65, protects freedom of thought and opinion, and in article 71 states that no one shall be imprisoned for “crimes committed by way of publication or the public nature thereof.”

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights, Egypt is required to protect freedom of expression. Article 19 of the ICCPR guarantees the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.” The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body of experts that reviews countries’ compliance with the ICCPR, has written that the freedom of expression is “essential” to the full enjoyment of the right to participate in public affairs and vote.

More than 50 foreign correspondents issued a statement on January 13 calling for an end to the imprisonment of the three Al Jazeera journalists, saying that their arrest had “cast a cloud over press and media freedom in Egypt.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists named Egypt among the top three deadliest countries for journalists in 2013.

“Egyptian and international human rights organizations have for years called on Egyptian authorities to amend the country’s penal code, whose overly broad provisions were the government’s main legal tool to lock up dissenters.” Stork said. “Today, prosecutors have at their disposal an even greater arsenal of repressive laws that criminalize legitimate expression, assembly, and association.”

The article Egypt’s High Price Of Dissent appeared first on Eurasia Review.

US Gasoline Inventories Generally High As Refinery Turnarounds Approach – Analysis

0
0

By EIA

Since it became the prompt contract at the close of trading on January 31, the Nymex futures contract for March delivery of RBOB (the petroleum component of gasoline) in New York Harbor has increased 19 cents per gallon (cpg), reaching $2.82/gal on February 19 (Figure 1).

Despite the recent price rise, the gasoline market remains well-supplied as the spring refinery maintenance season approaches.

Inventory trends are a handy measure to roughly gauge supply/demand dynamics in a given market. One explanation for the recent price rise is that gasoline inventories have fallen in recent weeks at a time when they typically build.

After reaching 235.3 million barrels (bbl) on January 17, total U.S. gasoline inventories fell 2.2 million bbl to 233.1 million bbl on February 7; typically over this period, inventories build 3.8 million bbl (Figure 2).

twip140220fig2-lgHowever, inventories increased slightly the during the week ending February 14, and even considering the recent draws, inventories remain above five-year average levels and modestly above levels at this time of year during the past two years. Gasoline inventories typically build gradually from early November and peak in early February. This year, inventories rose over a shorter period, but the builds were very pronounced. A period of particularly strong builds occurred from mid-December to mid-January when gasoline inventories increased 15.4 million bbl, 4.6 million bbl (43%) more than typical over this period. At their January 17 peak, total U.S. gasoline inventories were 8.2 million bbl above the five-year average, so even after recent draws inventories still stood 2.7 million bbl above the five-year average on February 14. Inventories can provide a key source of supply during refinery turnaround season, which typically runs from roughly January to April, but can vary regionally.

High refinery runs have helped keep inventories above their five-year average for every week since March 2013. For the four weeks ending February 14, gross inputs into U.S. refineries averaged 15.5 million bbl/d, 1.0 million bbl/d more than the five-year average, and about 0.9 million bbl/d more than last year at this time. With refinery runs high, gasoline production has been rising. During the first 11 months of 2013, gasoline production averaged 7.8 million bbl/d, 230,000 bbl/d more than the five-year average. Most of this incremental production has been on the Gulf Coast, where strong margins and a modestly lighter crude slate, which includes increasing amounts of Eagle Ford and Permian Basin crude, have helped increase gasoline supplies. With refinery inputs continuing to exceed typical historical levels in EIA’s recent weekly data, it is likely gasoline production has remained high in the first months of 2014. However, not all regions have seen gasoline production grow. Production at East Coast refineries was 100,000 bbl/d below the five-year average through November 2013, because of reduced refining capacity. As of January 1, 2013 (the most recent date for which refinery capacity is available), operating refinery capacity on the East Coast was 400,000 bbl/d lower than it was at the start of 2008.

Gasoline inventory levels are high in all Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts (PADDs), with the exception of PADD 2 (Midwest). In the Midwest, gasoline inventories are below five-year average levels. Midwest gasoline inventories were 0.7 million bbl above the five-year average level on January 10, dropped to 1.8 million below on January 31, and built during past two weeks but are still 1.3 million bbl below the average level. Trade press reports indicate that Midwest refiners were hit hard by cold weather in mid-January, leading to brief periods of reduced refinery runs. PADD 2 gross refinery inputs fell from 3.6 million bbl/d during the final full week of December to 3.3 million bbl/d for the week ending January 17, before rebounding above late-December levels in recent weeks.

With refinery turnaround season approaching, EIA projects that reduced gasoline production will lead to additional inventory draws. However, inventories are expected to remain above five-year average levels. In the February Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA projects total U.S. gasoline inventories to fall from current levels of 233.1 million bbl to 215.2 million bbl in May, which would still be about 3.7 million bbl above typical levels. As a result of tightening supplies, STEO projects the U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline to increase to an average of $3.59/gal in June, up from $3.38/gal on February 17. EIA projects significant regional variation in peak retail prices, with the highest prices expected on the West Coast at a June average of $3.88 /gal, and the lowest prices expected on the Gulf Coast at $3.42/gal.

Gasoline and diesel fuel prices increase again

The U.S. average retail price of regular gasoline increased seven cents to $3.38 per gallon as of February 17, 2014, 37 cents lower than last year at this time. Prices increased in all regions of the nation, with the Rocky Mountain price increasing the most to $3.24 per gallon, 10 cents higher than last week. The Gulf Coast price gained nine cents to $3.18 per gallon and the Midwest price was up eight cents to $3.36 per gallon. The East and West Coast prices increased six cents, to $3.41 per gallon and $3.57 per gallon, respectively.

The national average diesel fuel price was up one cent to $3.99 per gallon, 17 cents lower than last year at this time. Prices increased in all regions of the nation except the Gulf Coast, where the price dropped a penny to $3.78 per gallon. The largest increase was in the Rocky Mountains, where the price gained four cents to $3.91 per gallon. The Midwest price was $3.99 per gallon, up two cents from last week, and the East Coast price increased a penny to $4.13 per gallon. The West Coast price was up less than one cent to remain at $4.00 per gallon.

Propane inventories fall

U.S. propane stocks fell by 1.2 million barrels to end at 26.7 million barrels last week, 24.4 million barrels (47.7%) lower than a year ago. Gulf Coast inventories decreased by 0.5 million barrels, and East Coast inventories dropped by 0.4 million barrels. Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories decreased by 0.2 million barrels, and Midwest inventories fell by 0.1 million barrels. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 13.1% of total propane inventories

Residential heating oil and propane price decrease

Residential heating oil prices decreased almost 2 cents per gallon to nearly $4.23 per gallon during the period ending February 17, 2014. This is 5 cents per gallon higher than last year’s price at this time. Wholesale heating oil prices fell by over 4 cents per gallon last week to almost $3.40 per gallon.

The average residential propane price decreased by less than 13 cents per gallon last week to nearly $3.64 per gallon, $1.32 per gallon higher than the same period last year. Wholesale propane prices decreased 43 cents per gallon to a price just shy of $2.18 per gallon as of February 17, 2014.

The article US Gasoline Inventories Generally High As Refinery Turnarounds Approach – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

‘GMA’ Adds To ‘Philomena’ Lies – OpEd

0
0

By William Donohue

On today’s ABC show, “Good Morning America,” which featured a segment on “Philomena”,  GMA interviewed Steve Coogan, a producer and screenwriter of “Philomena.” In the voice over, the following was said: “Philomena is based on a true story about an Irishwoman played by Judi Dench who travels to the U.S. to track down the son she was forced to give up for adoption when she was a teenager.”

In his remarks, Coogan said that 50 years ago in Ireland, women who were pregnant out-of-wedlock, and abandoned by their family, would go to homes run by nuns where “your child would be sold to Catholic, often American, wealthy American couples.”

Regarding the lie that Philomena Lee went to the U.S. to look for her son, here is what Suzanne Daley and Douglas Dalby wrote in the New York Times on November 29, 2013: “In fact, much of the movie is a fictionalized version of events. Ms. Lee, for instance, never went to the United States to look for her son with Mr. Sixsmith, who is played by Steve Coogan, a central part of the film.”

Not only did Philomena voluntarily sign an oath when she was 22 giving her son up for adoption, in the film itself, Dench says, “No one coerced me. I signed of my own free will.”

Regarding the lie about the baby being sold, in the book by Martin Sixsmith upon which the film is based, he says, “While neither the NCCC [National Conference of Catholic Charities] nor Sean Ross Abbey [the convent where Philomena resided] charge any fees, it is customary for the adopting party to make a donation….” Moreover, nuns at the abbey today insist that no fee was charged.

These lies are being aided and abetted by many in the media, for reasons that only underscore the existence of the Catholic League.

The article ‘GMA’ Adds To ‘Philomena’ Lies – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Hindus Welcome Saudi Move To Protect Indonesian Maids’ Rights

0
0

By Eurasia Review

Hindus have welcomed reported Saudi Arabia moves to protect the rights of Indonesian maids.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, termed it as a “step in the right direction” for the desert kingdom, although long overdue. Zed further urged Saudi Arabia to similarly protect the rights of all maids and other domestic workers working in the country.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, stressed that every human being; whether a maid or CEO, a migrant or a citizen; was entitled to basic dignity, freedom, respect and human rights. Reasonable and timely wages, sick leave, fixed working hours, paid vacation and scheduled time-off were the minimum the employers should do for the hardworking maids and other domestic workers.

Rajan Zed pointed out that abuse and maltreatment of maids and other domestic workers and slavery like working conditions should not be acceptable in 21st century world. There are reportedly about 1.5 million migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.

Maids were also human beings like all of us, Zed added.

The article Hindus Welcome Saudi Move To Protect Indonesian Maids’ Rights appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Saudis And CIA Agree To Arm Syrian ‘Moderates’ With Advanced Weapons – OpEd

0
0

By Syria Comment - Joshua Landis

The news that the “Saudis Agree to Provide Syrian Rebels With Mobile Antiaircraft Missiles,” as reported by the Wall Street Journal (article copied below), will change the battle field in Syria.

The newly formed “Southern Front” led by Bashar al-Zoubi, will be the main recipient. The WSJ says Zoubi has a direct line to Western and Arab intelligence agencies in a military operations room in Amman. He will be the primary recipient of these new, more lethal weapons. He went to Geneva for the talks with the Assad regime.

Zoubi was included in my “Syria’s Top Five Insurgent Leaders.” He was #5. That ranking will now likely change. Here is what I wrote about him on Oct. 1, 2013:

5: Bashar Al-Zoubi, the Commander of Liwa al-Yarmouk in the south of Syria around Deraa. The Supreme Military Command (the US backed leadership of the Free Syrian Army) has named him the commander of the Southern Front. He is the only member of this top-five who has not expressed a wish to see an Islamist Syria.

Michael Weiss wrote this of Zoubi in Aug. 2013

Zoubi (aka Abu Fadi) is a wealthy businessman who made his fortune in the tourism industry and hails from a clan in Syria that numbers as many as 160,000. (The al-Zoubis are, in fact, transnational, with some residing in Syria and others residing in Jordan, which makes them particularly well-placed as interlocutors between Amman and the opposition in Deraa and Damascus. In a sense, they strongly resemble the Jarba clan, which has retained prominence in both Syria and Saudi Arabia, and whose most recognizable member is the current, Saudi-backed head of the Syrian National Coalition, Ahmad Jarba.)

Abu Fadi told me in a Skype interview that he’s got 4-5,000 men under his direct command in the al-Horan region. In total, 30-40,000 troops subscribe to the SMC, albeit without anything like a top-down command-and-control structure. The SMC is effectively a political and coordination apparatus.

I asked Abu Fadi why the south was relatively free of al-Qaeda in comparison with the north. “The only reason folks starting fighting with Jabhat al-Nusra,” he said, “was the lack of any real support to the FSA, weapons and ammunition being delivered to us.” Mostly, the FSA has been successful from Damascus to Deraa because of its integration with local tribes and communities.


video of Zoubi

Jamal Maarouf and the norther Syria Revolutionaries Front

Jamal Maarouf

Jamal Maarouf

Jamaal Maarouf is the other commander that the US and Gulf Arabs seem to be betting on. He is presently the commander of the Syria Revolutionaries’ Front in Norther Syria. This group was made out of remnants of the FSA after Idriss and the Supreme Military Council was expelled from Syria. This is what I wrote about him last Oct.

Jamal Maarouf (Abu Khalid) of Shuhada Souria, Syrian Martyrs’ Brigade, Idlib governate, FSA. Jamal claims to have 18 ,000 fighters between Idlib and Aleppo, but like all troop estimates, this should be taken with a grain of salt. He’s a non-Islamist leader. He is both religious and conservative, but not Ikhwan and not salafi, just not ideological.

Aron Lund wrote this on Dec 13 about Maarouf and his The Syria Revolutionaries’ Front

On December 9, a group of Syrian rebel factions created yet another alliance, called the Syria Revolutionaries’ Front (SRF). According to the SRF’s first statement, it includes fourteen different factions….. Some of these groups are well-known and have a strong presence in their local areas, but most seem to have their glory days behind them.

Jamal Maarouf’s Syria Martyrs’ Brigade was also once a formidable force in the Idlib region and a primary recipient of Saudi support. But Maarouf has been widely accused of diverting resources for his own use rather than deploying them to the front lines. Islamist rivals disparage him as a warlord and “a highway robber.” From early 2013, the Syria Martyrs’ Brigade seems to have lost much of its support, and Maarouf’s influence has dwindled.

Ahrar al-Shamal is another very active group in the Idlib region, while Afif Suleiman’s Military Council has long been a foreign-backed player in arms distribution. He, Maarouf, and the Ahrar al-Zawia Brigades have all been viewed as local rivals of the Idlibi Islamist leader Ahmed Abu Issa, whose Suqour al-Sham Brigades have now joined the Islamic Front.

Even if most of these groups are now second-tier actors and the SRF has a strong Idlibi flavor, real unity between them could create a significant force on the ground, especially if backed by strong foreign funding.

Rania Abouzeid wrote this about Jamal Maarouf last month before he was slated to get U.S. assistance:

Maarouf, the most public face of the SRF, has declared war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a move that has rehabilitated his image in the eyes of those who also describe themselves as FSA. By the end of 2013, he was looking like a spent force. Many of his colleagues had long taken to calling him Jamal Makhlouf, pinning him with the surname of Assad’s cousins who hold business monopolies in the country thanks to nepotistic corruption. Commanders frequently complained that Maarouf was more of a showman and warlord than a fighter, promising to participate in a particular battle, securing the funding for it from sponsors (mainly Saudi Arabia), and then withdrawing soon after the fight began after filming enough footage to upload to YouTube to boast of his group’s participation. It was a common complaint. Now, many of those same men speak with admiration of how Maarouf is personally fighting and how his men are pushing back ISIS with vigour.

Maarouf has always been in Saudi Arabia’s orbit, but to date the Saudis haven’t markedly stepped up their assistance to their people, according to a Syrian weapons distributor responsible for dishing out Saudi state-sponsored guns and money to rebels in the north. The SRF is a natural recipient, as is one of the components of the Islamic Front (IF), the Army of Islam, which is increasingly looked at by other Islamists as a Saudi project to potentially weaken more conservative Islamists.

Maarouf’s second wind, however, hasn’t won him many friends among the more hardcore Islamists, even those who have their quarrels with ISIS, like the IF and Jabhat al-Nusra. “Maarouf won’t live long”, a senior JAN fighter in Turkey said. “Everybody wants his head.”

Hassan Hassan حسن ‏@hhassan140 tweeted this picture. “Ahmed Jarba (bald headed man) tells rebels in Idlib that ‘advanced weapons will now be flowing till we liberate Syria’. Maarouf is the one in military fatigues.”

Hassan Hassan حسن ‏@hhassan140 tweeted this picture. “Ahmed Jarba (bald headed man) tells rebels in Idlib that ‘advanced weapons will now be flowing till we liberate Syria’. Maarouf is the one in military fatigues.”

Jarba traveled to Kansafra, Idlib to visit Maarouf and offer condolences to the family of Yasser Qazoz, the head of Liwaa al Jabalen, a Syria Revolutionaries Front group under Maarouf’s command. Yasser Qazoz was killed by a Jabhat al-Nusra fighter. On January 25th, Yasser explained that he was shot by a neighbor and guest — someone whom he thought was his friend. He died on Febraury 5th.

Yasser Qazoz, head of Liwaa al Jabalen

Yasser Qazoz, head of Liwaa al Jabalen

Hussain Mortada says that the clash between Qazoz and Nusra was provoked by a dispute over divvying up loot plundered from ISIL after kicking it from their area. Ziad Benjamin says that Nusra attacked Qazoz over an insult to God.

Despite the confrontation which might have sparked a broader war between Maarouf and Nusra, their differences were quickly smoothed over. Liwaa al Jabaleen posted a joint statement under the name of both Nusra and the SRF refuting the rumors of a dispute and affirming their brotherhood in God. In the statement they insist that they fight in the same trench and brush aside any differences as a personal dispute that was rapidly resolved the following day.

Jarba’s visit to Idlib and meeting with Jamal Maarouf may have been more than to simply promise him an endless supply of arms. It might have been an attempt to instigate Maarouf against Nusra, the al-Qaida affiliate, which the U.S. and Jarba will eventually demand that he confront.

Will the Islamic Front accuse the new “moderate” groups cooperating with the CIA of being Sahwa?

Western and Arab support for the new groups will not go over well with the Islamic Front, an alliance of conservative, religious rebel factions that recently coalesced as the biggest fighting force in Syria. The Islamic Front is mainly a Qatari-Turkish supported coalition. Saudi Arabia might not be as keen on them as many at first thought. Saudi Arabia does seem to favor Zahran Aloush’s Islam Army, one of the more prominent militias that joined with the Islamic Front in December.

Trying to keep these advanced weapons out of the hands of Islamists will be difficult because everyone works with everyone to some extent – and they need to in order to defeat the Syrian Arab Army.

The new targeted funding will open up bitter feuds among the militias. Those that get Western and Saudi largesse and work closely with Western officials will be accused of becoming Sahwa. It is not known if an Israeli is included in the  operations room in Jordan. The WSJ only had this to say:

The operations room hosts officials from the 11 countries that form the Friends of Syria group, including the U.S., Saudi Arabia, France and the U.K. Mr. al-Zoubi was also among a select group of rebel commanders who joined the political opposition in Geneva for the latest round of peace talks.

But even if Israel is not represented directly in the room, its influence will be felt. Ehud Ya’ari writes of the “operations room” in Amman where “Jordanian military and intelligence officers coordinate military assistance to local rebel groups alongside Saudi and Western advisors.” He adds, “the Israeli part of the effort should be viewed as complementing but not necessarily coordinated with the Jordanian endeavor.”

All the same, he writes that Israel has developed “a system of communications and frequent contacts have been established with the local rebel militias that operate near the Golan.”

Jordan and Israel share an interest in keeping the region around their borders with Syria friendly and under local supervision. Both are concerned lest Islamists and particularly Jihadist groups become ensconced along their borders.

-End-

Saudis Agree to Provide Syrian Rebels With Mobile Antiaircraft Missiles
U.S. Also Giving Fighters Millions of Dollars for Salaries
By Maria Abi-Habib and Stacy Meichtry
Feb. 14, 2014

AMMAN, Jordan—Washington’s Arab allies, disappointed with Syria peace talks, have agreed to provide rebels there with more sophisticated weaponry, including shoulder-fired missiles that can take down jets, according to Western and Arab diplomats and opposition figures.

Saudi Arabia has offered to give the opposition for the first time Chinese man-portable air defense systems, or Manpads, and antitank guided missiles from Russia, according to an Arab diplomat and several opposition figures with knowledge of the efforts. Saudi officials couldn’t be reached to comment.

The U.S. has long opposed arming rebels with antiaircraft missiles for fear they could fall into the hands of extremists who might use them against the West or commercial airlines. The Saudis have held off supplying them in the past because of U.S. opposition. A senior Obama administration official said Friday that the U.S. objection remains the same. “There hasn’t been a change internally on our view,” the official said.

The U.S. for its part has stepped up financial support, handing over millions of dollars in new aid to pay fighters’ salaries, said rebel commanders who received some of the money. The U.S. wouldn’t comment on any payments.

The focus of the new rebel military push is to retake the southern suburbs of Damascus in hopes of forcing the regime to accept a political resolution to the war by agreeing to a transitional government without President Bashar al-Assad.

But if the Manpads are supplied in the quantities needed, rebels said it could tip the balance in the stalemated war in favor of the opposition. The antiaircraft and Russian Konkurs antitank weapons would help them chip away at the regime’s two big advantages on the battlefield—air power and heavy armor.

“New stuff is arriving imminently,” said a Western diplomat with knowledge of the weapons deliveries.

Rebel commanders and leaders of the Syrian political opposition said they don’t know yet how many of the Manpads and antiaircraft missiles they will get. But they have been told it is a significant amount. The weapons are already waiting in warehouses in Jordan and Turkey.

Earlier in the conflict, rebels managed to seize a limited number of Manpads from regime forces. But they quickly ran out of the missiles to arm them, the Western diplomat said.

Rebel leaders say they met with U.S. and Saudi intelligence agents, among others, in Jordan on Jan. 30 as the first round of Syrian peace talks in Geneva came to a close. That is when wealthy Gulf States offered the more sophisticated weapons.

At the meeting, U.S. and Gulf officials said they were disappointed with the Syrian government’s refusal to discuss Mr. Assad’s ouster at the talks and suggested a military push was needed to force a political solution to the three-year war.

President Barack Obama this week acknowledged that diplomatic efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict are far from achieving their goals.
“But the situation is fluid and we are continuing to explore every possible avenue,” Mr. Obama said.

The weapons will flow across the border into southern Syria from the warehouses in Jordan and across the northern border from Turkey, the Western diplomat said. Rebel leaders said the shipments to southern Syria are expected to be more substantial because opposition fighters are more unified in that area and there is a lower risk the weapons will fall into the hands of al Qaeda-inspired groups—a big concern for the U.S.

With the rebels still deeply divided and infighting growing, the new aid is aimed squarely at the more moderate and secular rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that the U.S. has always favored.

The plan coincides with the reorganization of rebel forces in the south, where 10,000 fighters have formed the Southern Front. The new front aims to break the government’s siege of the southern suburbs of Damascus.

Last month, rebels in the north unified into the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, turning their weapons on the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the most deadly al Qaeda-inspired rebel faction. The SRF, along with other groups, forced ISIS to retreat from key territories across the north. Both the northern and southern forces are technically under the FSA’s umbrella.

Western and Arab support for the new groups won’t go to the Islamic Front, an alliance of conservative, religious rebel factions that is helping the northern front rebels fight the more radical ISIS.

The Southern Front is under the leadership of Bashar al-Zoubi, who has a direct line to Western and Arab intelligence agencies in a military operations room in Amman, rebels say.

The operations room hosts officials from the 11 countries that form the Friends of Syria group, including the U.S., Saudi Arabia, France and the U.K. Mr. al-Zoubi was also among a select group of rebel commanders who joined the political opposition in Geneva for the latest round of peace talks.

The Southern Front has captured a string of government-held areas and military bases since it launched its first offensive in late January.

But any push toward the capital from the south faces formidable challenges. An arc south of the capital is the domain of the army’s Fourth Division, elite troops led by Maher al-Assad, the president’s brother. Closer to the capital, Syrian forces are fortified by elements of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia from Lebanon.

The regime has been ruthless in snuffing out any hint of escalation by rebels in the south.

“The Saudis and Emiratis at the same meeting said that their priority is to lift the siege on the entire southern area of Damascus,” said an aide to a rebel leader who attended the meeting in Amman on Jan 30. Once we reach this stage, it will become political pressure and Assad will have to listen to the international demands,” the aide said.

At the meeting between leaders of the Southern Front and Western and Arab intelligence agencies last month, rebel leaders said they were given salaries for their fighters and equipment such as military rations and tents.

Rebels said the U.S. spent $3 million on salaries of fighters in the Southern Front, delivering the payments in cash over two meetings in Jordan—one on Jan. 30 and the other late last year.

The opposition will also ask Congress next week for weapons to help rebels fight al Qaeda. That mandate would give the opposition a better shot at securing arms than previous requests for support to topple the regime.

Congressional aides confirmed there are scheduled meetings with opposition leaders next week to discuss their request for more advanced weapons. But Congress remains sharply divided about the conflict in Syria. Some lawmakers favor stepped-up support to moderate opposition groups, but others question the wisdom of providing heavy weapons.

“We’re trying to assure the international community that they can support moderates without the threat of arms falling into the hands of al Qaeda,” said Oubai Shahbandar, a senior adviser to the Syrian opposition.

—Sam Dagher and Suha Ma’ayeh contributed to this article.

The article Saudis And CIA Agree To Arm Syrian ‘Moderates’ With Advanced Weapons – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Egyptian Historic Breakthrough With Russia, Not A Strategic Shift Yet – Analysis

0
0

By Nicola Nasser

The recent two-day first official visit in forty years by an Egyptian defense minister to Russia of Egypt’s strongman Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, accompanied by Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, was indeed an historic breakthrough in bilateral relations, but it is still premature to deal with or build on it as a strategic shift away from the country’s more than three-decade strategic alliance with the United States.

The US administration sounds not really concerned with this controversy about an Egyptian strategic shift as much as with the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s welcome of al-Sisi’s expected candidacy for president.

“Egypt is free to pursue relationships with other countries. It doesn’t impact our shared interests,” said State Department deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf, on this February 13.

The United States, which has been waging, by military invasion and proxy wars, a campaign of “regime changes” across the Middle East, was miserably hypocritical when Marie Harf invoked her country’s “democratic” ideals to declare that her administration “don’t think it’s, quite frankly, up to the United States or to Mr. Putin to decide who should govern Egypt.”

However, Pavel Felgenhauer, writing in the Eurasia Daily Monitor on this February 13, described the visit as a “geopolitical shift” that “could, according to Russian government sources, ‘dramatically reorient international relations in the Middle East’.” The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, on the following day described it as an “historic breakthrough” in Egyptian-Russian relations and a “transformation in the strategic compass of Egyptian foreign policy from Washington to Moscow.”

The main purpose of al-Sisi’s and Fahmy’s visit was to finalize an arms deal reportedly worth two to four billion US dollars, al-Ahram daily reported on February 13. The joint statement released after the meeting of both countries’ ministers of defense and foreign affairs in Moscow on the same day announced also that the Russian capital will host a meeting of the Russian-Egyptian commission on trade and economic cooperation on next March 28.

This is serious business; it is vindicated also by the arrival in Cairo on this February 17 of the commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force, Lieutenant General Victor Bondarev, heading a six-member team of his commanders, on a four-day visit, according to the Egyptian Almasry Alyoum online the following day.

Egypt is the biggest strategic prize for world powers in the Middle East. “Egypt – with its strategic location, stable borders, large population, and ancient history – has been the principal power of the Arab world for centuries, defining the movement of history there like no other,” Germany’s former Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor Joschka Fischer wrote on last July 26. No wonder then the flurry of speculations worldwide about whether Egypt’s Russian pivot is or is not a strategic shift.

In the immediate proximity, this “new concern” has been “preoccupying Israel’s strategists in recent weeks. They are beginning to worry about the high momentum” with which Putin is capitalizing on America’s “hands off policy” in the Middle East, according to DEBKAfile report on February 16. Al-Sisi’s trip to Moscow, which “put him on the road to the independent path he seeks” has “incalculable consequences” the report said, adding that “he is investing effort in building a strong regime that will promote the Nasserist form of pan-Arab nationalism, with Egypt in the forefront.” “This policy may well bring Egypt into collision with the state of Israel,” the report concluded.

Nonetheless, two former Israeli cabinet ministers of defense, namely Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Ehud Barak voiced support for al-Sisi. The first publicly supported his bid for presidency. Barak said that “the whole world should support Sisi.” However, their voices seem to fall on deaf ears in Washington D.C., or sounds like it.

Both men’s support is consistent with Israel’s instructive official “silence” over the developments in Egypt, which is still committed to its thirty five –year old peace treaty with the Hebrew state. “Israel’s main interest,” according to Israeli officials and experts, quoted by The New York Times on last August 16, “is a stable Egypt that can preserve the country’s 1979 peace treaty and restore order along the border in the Sinai Peninsula,” which extends 270 kilometers (160 miles) from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea Israeli resort of Eilat.

Within this context can be interpreted Israel’s closed eyes to the incursion of Egyptian tanks and warplanes into what is designated by the treaty as a “demilitarized” “Area C” of Sinai.

The Litmus Test

Herein is the litmus test to judge whether al-Sisi’s eastward orientation and his supposed “Nasserist” loyalties indicate or not a strategic shift that trespasses the Israeli and US red line of Egypt’s commitment to the peace treaty.

Senior associate of the Carnegie Middle East Center, Yezid Sayigh wrote on August 1, 2012 that the United States “will continue keeping a balance between its relations with the (then) Egyptian president (Mohamed Morsi) and the Egyptian army. The balance will always shift to the side that ensures the continuity of Egypt’s commitment to the following: The Camp David Peace Treaty, the retention of a demilitarized Sinai, retaining multinational troops and observers led by the US, maintaining gas exports to Israel, isolating Hamas, resisting Iran’s efforts to expand its influence, resisting al-Qaida, and keeping the Suez Canal open.” (Emphasis added).

These are the bedrocks of Egypt’s strategic alliance with the US and because they were and are still safe in good hands under both the removed president Morsi and the prospective president al-Sisi, it will be premature to conclude that the revived Egyptian – Russians relations indicate any strategic departure therefrom.

Preserving or discarding these Egyptian commitments is the litmus test to judge whether Egypt’s revival of its Russian ties is a strategic maneuver or a strategic departure.

Other indicators include the financial and political sponsorship of al-Sisi’s government by none other than the very close Arab allies of the US, like Jordan and in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, who had already together pledged twenty billion dollars in aid to al-Sisi and reportedly are funding his armaments deal with Russia.

Saudi Al Arabia satellite TV station on this February 13 quoted Abdallah Schleifer, a professor emeritus of journalism at the American University in Cairo, as sarcastically questioning President Barak Obama’s performance: “What an extraordinary accomplishment President Obama will take with him when he retires from office – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which provided (late Egyptian president) Anwar Sadat with both moral and financial backing to break with the Russians in the early 1970s and turn towards the United States – may now finance an Egyptian arms deal with the Russians,” Schleifer said.

Al-Sisi’s supposed “Nasserist” and “pan-Arab” orientation could not be consistent, for example, with inviting the defense ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Bahrain, Morocco, and their Jordanian counterpart Prime Minister Abdullah al-Nsour to attend the 40th anniversary celebrations of the 1973 October War. Syria was Egypt’s partner in that war and Jamal Abdul Nasser’s major “pan-Arab” ally, but it was not represented. The countries which were represented were seriously against Abdul Nasser’s Egypt and its pan-Arab ideology, but more importantly they were and still are strategic allies of his US-led enemies and peace partners of Israel.

US Aid Counterproductive

US whistleblowers warning of an Egyptian strategic shift are abundant as part of blasting Obama for his foreign policy blunders. For example, US foreign policy scholars Tom Nichols and John R. Schindler, quoted on this February 13 by The Tower.org staff, who agree that they rarely agree on anything, are agreeing now that Obama’s administration is undermining “nearly seven decades” of bipartisan American efforts aimed at “limiting Moscow’s influence” in the Middle East.

But Nael Shama, writing on Middle East Institute website on last December 16, said: “It can be argued that Egypt’s flirtation with Russia does not mean a shift in the country’s foreign policy away from the United States as much as an attempt to induce the United States to shift its Egypt policy back to where it was before … in order to pressure the United States and to arouse concern among American politicians about the prospect of losing Egypt, encouraging them to amend unfavorable policies.”

The Obama administration welcomed al-Sisi’s assumption of power by calling off the biannual joint US-Egypt military exercise “Bright Star” and halting the delivery of military hardware to Egypt, including F-16 fighter jets, Apache helicopters, Harpoon missiles, and tank parts and when Last January the US Congress approved a spending bill that would restore $1.5bn in aid to Egypt, it was on the condition (emphasis added) that the Egyptian government ensures democratic reform.

Le Monde Diplomatique in November last year quoted veteran arms trade expert Sergio Finardi as saying that the US aid money “never leaves US banks, and is mostly transferred not to the target country but to US defense manufacturers that sell the equipment to Egypt.”

More important, US aid money is attached to Egypt’s commitment to the peace treaty with Israel. Such a commitment is compromising Egyptian sovereignty in Sinai, which has become a no-man land where organized crime, illegal trade in arms and terrorist groups enjoy a free hand with a heavy price in Egyptian souls and governance.

Either the provisions of the peace treaty are amended, or the American conditions for aid are dropped altogether or at least reconsidered to allow Egypt to fully exercise its sovereignty in Sinai, or Egypt would look elsewhere for alternative empowerment, for example to start “a new era of constructive, fruitful co-operation on the military level” with Russia as al-Sisi told his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, according to the official Egyptian news agency MENA on last November 14.

All the foregoing aside, Egypt wants to modernize its military-industrial complex per se. Shana Marshall, associate director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and research instructor at the George Washington University, quoted by http://www.jadaliyya.com/ on this February 10, called this “Egypt’s Other Revolution.” The thirty five-year old arrangements with the United States are not helping out, but worse they have become the main obstacle to fulfill this aspiration.

All these and other factors indicate that al-Sisi is in fact pursuing vital Egyptian national interests and not seeking a strategic shift in his country’s alliance with the US. The Russian opening is his last resort. It is highly possible that he might backtrack should Washington decide not to repeat its historical mistake when it refused to positively respond to similar Egyptian military and development aspirations in the fifties of the twentieth century, which pushed Egypt into the open arms of the former Soviet Union.

‘Abject Failure’ of US Aid

For Egypt to look now for Russian armament and economic help means that the Egyptian – US strategic cooperation since 1979 has failed to cater for its defense needs and development aspirations.

Thirty five years on, during which a regional rival like Iran stands now on the brink of becoming a nuclear power with an ever expanding industrial military complex while the other Israeli rival is already a nuclear power and a major world exporter of arms, Egypt’s military stands weaker, seems stagnant, underdeveloped and pushed out of competition while its population have become much poorer.

Nothing much has changed since the US Middle East Policy Council in its winter edition of 1996 published Denis J. Sullivan’s piece, “American Aid to Egypt, 1975-96: Peace without Development,” wherein he pointed out that “the reality is that Egypt is far from a “model” of effective use of (US) foreign assistance.”

The country, despite the fact that “the US aid program in Egypt is the largest such program in the world” and that “in 21 years, Egypt has received some $21 billion in economic aid from the United States plus over $25 billion in military aid,” Egypt “remains poor, overpopulated, polluted and undemocratic … In short, Egypt in 1996 continues to exhibit virtually all the characteristics the United States has claimed to want to change since it began its massive economic aid program in 1975,” Sullivan wrote.

Seventeen years later David Rieff, writing in The New Republic on this February 4, described what Sullivan said was a “failure” as an “abject failure” of “the US development aid to Egypt.”

Militarily, Carnegie’s Yezid Sayigh’s paper of August 2012 quoted an assessment of US embassy officials in a 2008 cable leaked by WikiLeaks as saying that “tactical and operational readiness of the Egyptian Armed Forces has degraded.” He wrote that “US officers and officials familiar with the military assistance programs to Egypt describe the Egyptian Armed Forces as no longer capable of combat.” He also quoted “leading experts on Egypt Clement Henry and Robert Springborg” as saying that the Egyptian army’s “training is desultory, maintenance of its equipment is profoundly inadequate, and it is dependent on the United States for funding and logistical support … despite three decades of US training and joint US-Egyptian exercises.”

US Back Turned to Egypt

The Tower.org on February 13 reported that the “White House two weeks ago pointedly declined to invite Egypt to a summit of African leaders.”

That was not the first indication that the US foreign policy has been alienating Egypt since Field Marshal al-Sisi assumed power early last July in response to a massive popular protest on last June 30 against the former president Mohamed Morsi.

Since US Secretary of State John Kerry’ visit to Egypt last November, who in this capacity toured the region more than eleven times and seems to spend more time in the Middle East than in US, Kerry has been dropping Egypt out of his itinerary. His president Obama, who is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia next March, receive Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu early in the month and had received King Abdullah II of Jordan on this February 14, had no reported plans either to receive al-Sisi or to visit his country, which was previously a regular stop for US top visiting officials.

Is it a surprise then that al-Sisi’s first visit abroad was to Moscow and not to Washington D.C., to meet with the Russian president and not with his US counterpart?

Al-Sisi in an interview with the Washington Post early last August accused the US of “turning its back” to Egyptians. “You left the Egyptians, you turned your back on the Egyptians and they won’t forget that,” he said.

However, al-Sisi does by no means dream of disturbing the existing political order in the Middle East, or coming to loggerheads with Israel or the US, but it seems obvious that he’ is fed up with the preconditions attached to US aid that have rendered his country’s military and economy backward in comparison to regional highly upgraded rivals. The US did not help Egypt become a “success story in economic development” as the USAID claims on its website.

Pavel Felgenhauer wrote on February 13 that, “It is clear Egypt is ready to accept Russian aid and weaponry as it did during the Cold War in the 1950s–1970s to show the US it has an alternative source of support.”

Indeed, al-Sisi thanked his Russian counterpart for “giving the Egyptian people economic and defense aid.” Putin said that he was “sure we can increase trade to $5 billion in the future.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: “We agreed to speed up the preparations of documents that will give an additional impulse to the development of military and military-technical cooperation.” It is noteworthy that all is without preconditions, political or otherwise.

The Associated Press on February 13 quoted Abdullah el-Sinawi, whom the AP identified as “a prominent Cairo-based analyst known to be close to the military,” as saying that al-Sisi “wanted to send a signal to Washington.” “Egypt needs an international entrusted ally that would balance relations with America. Egypt will be open to other centers of power without breaking the relations with the US,” he said.

Abdel-Moneim Said, another Egyptian analyst, wrote in Al-Ahram Weekly on last November 21 that Egypt is “merely seeking to expand its maneuverability abroad” and that “the Russian ‘bear’ that had come to Egypt has had its claws clipped”: “Soviet Union has collapsed, the Warsaw Pact is dead, and the Cold War is over … (and) the US GDP … is eight times more than Russia’s;” moreover the US-led world alliance accounts “for 80 per cent of global gross production and a larger percentage of the world’s modern technology.”

True, Egyptian Foreign Minister Fahmi said on last October 18 that the “Egyptian-American relations have changed after 30 June for the first time in 30 years to a peer relationship” and that “Egyptian decision making is now independent from any state.” A day earlier he told the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper that the bilateral relations were in “a delicate state reflecting the turmoil in the relationship.” “The problem,” he said, “goes back much earlier, and is caused by the dependence of Egypt on the US aid for 30 years.”

Therefore, “Egypt is heading toward Eastern powers,” Saeed al-Lawindi, a political expert at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Xinhua on February 14, but Talaat Musallam, a strategic and security expert and a former army general, described al-Sisi’s Russian pivot as “a kind of strategic maneuver.” Musallam was vindicated by Fahmi’s repeated assertions that “Egypt’s closeness with Russia is not a move against the US,” i.e. not a strategic departure from the United States.

However, international relations are not static; they have their own dynamics. Should the US passive sensitivity to Egyptian aspirations continue to be hostage to the 1979 Camp David accords and the Russian opening continue to cater for Egypt’s military as well as economic vital needs, the “strategic maneuver” could in no time turn into a strategic shift.

The article Egyptian Historic Breakthrough With Russia, Not A Strategic Shift Yet – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Roads To Deeper European Integration – Analysis

0
0

By VoxEU.org

Despite substantial integration, national borders still provide a large obstacle to trade in Europe. This column shows that much of these ‘iceberg costs’ can be attributed to underdeveloped infrastructure, namely roads. Improving international roadways to the level of national ones could substantially raise gains to trade.

By Henrik Braconier and Mauro Pisu

Over the past 60 years, increasing European integration has brought peace and security, besides contributing to large social welfare gains (through lower prices and a larger variety of products). Still, national borders matter a lot within Europe and a vast literature has documented the large negative effect of national borders on trade – also known as the border effect (Nitsch 2000, Head and Mayer 2000, Anderson and van Wincoop 2003, de Serres et al. 2001, Chen 2004).

There are several reasons why national borders impact negatively on trade, including language and cultural differences as well as other trade frictions. However, while virtually all studies in the area have found that these factors are important, they are insufficient to fully explain the border effect (see e.g. Anderson and van Wincoop 2003). Poor international transport networks could be another factor hindering international trade. As more than 70% of merchandise trade among European countries is transported by road, the effect of poor international road links could be particularly harmful for inter-European trade.

The workhorse model to estimate the border effect on trade is the gravity equation, whereby trade between two locations is increasing in their GDP (or population) and decreasing in the great circle (‘as the crow flies”) distance between the locations. The former is assumed to proxy potential trade opportunities, and the latter, the transport costs between the two locations.

One problem with this approach is that goods transported by road rarely fly like crows, but rather use existing road networks. Another problem is that the speed of transport is a key component of transport costs (as Benjamin Franklin wrote, time is money). If international road connections systematically have lower quality by being longer and slower than national ones, gravity estimates based on great circle rather than road distance can only explain part of the border effect.

To correctly infer the quality of the main national and international road connections, we downloaded road distances and travel times between 220 continental European cities – the ten most populous cities in each country – from Bing Maps Route Service (Braconier and Pisu 2013). The data for the 48 180 city pairs reveals that road distance exceeds the great circle distance by around 30%, on average (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Intercity road and great circle distance in continental Europe

Source: Bing Maps Route Service.

Source: Bing Maps Route Service.

 

More importantly, simple regression analysis suggests that national road connections are 10% shorter than international ones, given the size of cities and great circle distance between them. National road connections are more than 15% shorter than international ones for the Baltic countries, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, but less than 5% shorter for Germany, France and Austria (see Figure 2). Austria is the only country for which the length difference between national and international road links is not significant at the 5% level. Thus, everything else equal, European road networks provide longer – and therefore more costly – connections between countries than within them.

Figure 2. Country-specific road-distance difference between national and international connections

Source: Braconier and Pisu (2013).

Source: Braconier and Pisu (2013).

 

International road links are not only longer; travel speeds are also slower, further increasing international transport costs with respect to national ones. Travel speed (time) for national road links is around 5% higher (shorter) than for international ones, controlling for city populations and road distance. Figure 3 shows country-specific speed differences between domestic and international road trips. Speed differences are even more heterogeneous across countries than road-connection lengths. For the majority of countries the speed on national links is higher than on international ones. For Luxemburg and the Netherlands the opposite is true, probably because in these (small) countries – which are key European transit corridors – international transport will use motorways to a larger extent than in other countries.

Figure 3. Country-specific estimates of the speed difference between national and international connections

Source: Braconier and Pisu (2013).

Source: Braconier and Pisu (2013).

 

Using the distance between the 48 180 city pairs, we computed population-weighted road distance and travel time within and between countries, capturing national and international transport costs respectively. These population-weighted distances take account of the relative importance of cities as arrival and destination points, thus gauging shipping costs more reliably than the simpler measures, such as the distance between capital cities (Head and Mayer 2010).

We then use these new road distance and travel time measures to estimate traditional gravity equations of bilateral trade flows. The estimates based on road distance yield border effects that are roughly 15% lower than estimates based on traditional great circle distances. Remaining border effects are largest for countries with longer international road connections in comparison with national ones, and for industries whose products are more costly to transport by road. Accounting for travel time lowers the border effect by an additional 10%.

From a policy perspective these findings suggest that improving international road connectivity can significantly enhance European trade and market integration. Enhancing the quality of international road connections to the same level of national ones could raise international trade by more than 15%, according to these estimates, yielding large welfare gains.

However, several caveats apply. First, the coincidence of national borders and geographic obstacles – for instance in terms of rivers and mountains – may render international links inherently more costly to build than domestic ones. Compensating fully for such disadvantages with more road transport investment is not socially efficient. Second, the results presented in this study indicate that the relative spending on cross-country links with respect to national one could be increased, but are mute on whether road investment is too low or too high. Finally, implementation and coordination problems and persistent optimism-bias in infrastructure cost-benefit analyses is considerable, and could be even bigger in international projects. This calls for careful evaluation of cross-European road projects to ensure that benefits outweigh building costs.

Authors’s note: This column reflects the views of the authors writing in their personal capacity.

About the authors:
Henrik Braconier
Senior Economist in the Economics Department, OECD

Mauro Pisu
Economist, Economics Department, OECD and Policy Associate, Leverhulme Centre for Research on Globalisation and Economic Policy

References
Anderson, J E, and E van Wincoop (2003), “Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle”, The American Economic Review, Vol. 93(1), 170–192.

Braconier, H and M Pisu (2013), “Road connectivity and the border effect: Evidence from Europe”, OECD Economics Department Working Paper, No. 1073, OECD Publishing

Chen, N (2004), “Intra-national versus International Trade in the European Union: Why Do National Borders Matter?”, Journal of International Economics, Vol. 63(1), 93–118.

De Serres, A, P Hoeller and C de la Maisonneuve (2001), “The Width of the Intra-european Economic Borders”, OECD Economics Department Working Paper, No. 304, OECD Publishing.

Flyvbjerg, B (2009), “Survival of the Unfittest: Why the Worst Infrastructure Gets Built – and what We Can Do about it”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 25, No. 3.

Head, K and T Mayer (2000), “Non-Europe: The Magnitude and Causes of Market Fragmentation in the EU”, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Vol. 136(2), 284–314.

Head, K and T Mayer (2010), “Illusory Border Effects : Distance Mismeasurement Inflates Estimates of Home Bias in Trade’”, in Brakman, S. and P. van Bergeijk (eds), The Gravity Model in International Trade: Advances and Applications, Cambridge University Press.

Nitsch, V (2000), “National Borders and International Trade: Evidence from the European Union”, The Canadian Journal of Economics / Revue canadienne d’Economique, Vol. 33(4), 1091–1105.

The article Roads To Deeper European Integration – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Spain: Parliament Approves Law On Improving Protection For Part-Time Workers

0
0

By Eurasia Review

In Spain a significant number of people will now have access to a retirement pension under the new formula. The proposed solution covers all workers and maintains the principles of contribution and equality that govern the public system.

On Thursday, 20 February, the Spanish Lower House of Parliament approved the Law on Protection for Part-Time Workers and Other Urgent Measures of an Economic and Social Nature, including the amendments incorporated into the text following its passage through the Upper House of Parliament.

This law stems from Royal Decree-Law 11/2013, of 2 August. During the ratification process, the Minister for Employment and Social Security, Fátima Báñez, said that the regulations will improve benefits for over 2.5 million people. The law proposes increased flexibility for the required qualification period of 15 years to receive a contributory pension so it is no longer necessary to demonstrate the equivalent of 15 years worked on a full-time basis, which previously required the payment of national insurance contributions over many more years on a part-time basis.

These regulations amend the model used to recognise periods of contribution by part-time workers in terms of their access to various benefits from the Social Security System, in accordance with rulings handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Constitutional Court.

The definitive approval of this legal text enshrines the agreement reached to improve the conditions for access to social protection by part-time workers signed by the Minister for Employment and Social Security and representatives from the CCOO and UGT trade union organisations, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations and the Spanish Confederation of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in an Act of Parliament.

The regulations approved today reduce the minimum contribution period from the previous 15 years required by workers paying National Insurance contributions on part-time employment. More specifically, the required minimum contribution period will depend on a coefficient applied to the part-time employment accredited over the course of the working life of these workers. This coefficient can be found in the General Information on National Insurance Contributions [Fichero General de Afiliación].

This coefficient is linked to the corresponding part-time employment percentage (when compared with full-time employment). For example, if a worker has a part-time employment coefficient of 50% (a working day that is half a full working day), the minimum contribution period he or she would need to accredit for retirement would not be 15 years but rather 7.5 years.

A certain percentage is applied to this calculation basis according to the number of years-worth of contributions paid, which will then produce the final amount of any pension entitlement. The minimum contribution period for the worker will be used as a starting point, to which a rate of 50% will be applied to the calculation basis. Any time over that minimum period will increase the percentage according to the general standard retirement scale.

The article Spain: Parliament Approves Law On Improving Protection For Part-Time Workers appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Obama To Tighten Fuel And Emissions Rules

0
0

By IPS

By Bryant Harris

In an effort to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, President Barack Obama on Tuesday directed his administration to develop new fuel efficiency and emissions standards for trucks within the year.

The new directives follow a previous mandate to set tightened emissions standards for cars and smaller vehicles and encompass the president’s next step in trying to address U.S. emissions without needing to go through the U.S. Congress.

Speaking Tuesday, he made a point of touting the successes of his administration’s previous fuel-efficiency standards.

“Our levels of dangerous carbon pollution that contributes to climate change has actually gone down even as our production has gone up,” the president stated. “And one of the reasons why is because we dedicated ourselves to manufacturing new cars and new trucks that go farther on a gallon of gas — and that saves families money, it cuts down harmful pollution, and it creates new advances in American technology.”

The president did not stipulate any specific fuel efficiency standards that his administration wants to establish. Instead he noted that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation would have until March 2015 to develop a proposal for the newest round of fuel efficiency standards.

The new announcement constitutes the third round of Obama administration fuel efficiency standards, the second of which came into effect only last month.

The EPA and Department of Transportation have already implemented standards for model year 2012 to 2025 passenger vehicles and model year 2014 through 2018 heavy-duty trucks and buses. The latest regulations will be applicable to model years from 2018 and onwards.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), an advocacy group, anticipates that previously established fuel efficiency standards for trucks made between 2014 and 2018 will reduce oil consumption by 390,000 barrels per day in 2030. They will also cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 270 million metric tonnes.

“Oil is the biggest contributor to climate change emissions in the U.S.,” Don Anair, the research and deputy director of UCS’s Clean Vehicles Programme, told IPS. “The administration already finalised fuel-efficiency standards for cars, which are the biggest consumers of oil, and trucks are second only to those.”

Although trucks, busses and long-haul tractor trailers only comprise seven percent of traffic on U.S. roads, they account for more than 25 percent of oil used on the roads and contribute to about 20 percent of carbon pollution in the transportation sector. In total, motor vehicles emit a third of carbon pollution in the U.S.

“In terms of tackling the climate impacts of transportation, trucks are the next biggest thing, and we’ll have significant oil emission reductions,” Anair said.

UCS also foresees the new standards creating over 40,000 jobs by 2020 and over 70,000 a decade later.

In response to the president’s declaration, the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA), a trade association, indicated that it would continue to design more fuel efficient engines and vehicles.

“EMA and its members have a long and successful record of working cooperatively with … regulatory agencies,” said EMA President Jed Mandel. “Our past efforts have resulted in … lower greenhouse gas emissions and improved fuel efficiency from medium and heavy-duty diesel vehicles.”

Some advocates of greater efficiency have suggested that research and development funding could potentially be raised by ending tax breaks on oil companies.

“There is potential for investing those funds in technologies that we know we need for addressing our oil consumption, climate change impacts, and air pollution,” UCS’s Anair said. “Making those investments in the technology of the future rather than continuing to provide tax incentives for established industries makes a lot of sense.”

Indeed, Obama himself has repeatedly called on Congress to end these subsidies.

“We need to get rid of, I think, the 4 billion dollars in subsidies we provide to oil and gas companies every year at a time when they’re earning near-record profits,” the president noted in 2011, “and put that money toward clean energy research, which would really make a big difference.”

Global challenge

As the United States seeks to ameliorate carbon emissions through fuel efficiency standards, the Obama administration is also trying to encourage developing countries to lower their greenhouse gas emissions to ward off climate change.

On a visit to Indonesia on Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry urged the country to take a more active role in combating greenhouse gas emissions, going so far as to name it as big a security risk as terrorism.

“In a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction,” Kerry said in Jakarta.

Climate change poses a particularly acute risk to Indonesia, an archipelago composed of more than 17,000 islands, as higher temperatures melt glaciers and ice, causing the sea level to dramatically rise and putting many Pacific islands at risk.

“This city, this country, this region is really on the front lines of climate change,” Kerry said. “It’s not an exaggeration to say to you that your entire way of life that you live and love is at risk.”

The article Obama To Tighten Fuel And Emissions Rules appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Viewing all 73339 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images