By MINA

The amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates.

The $30 trillion increase from $70 trillion between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compares with a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8 trillion, according to the Bank for International Settlements and data compiled by Bloomberg. The jump in debt as measured by the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS in its quarterly review is almost twice the U.S. economy.

Borrowing has soared as central banks suppress benchmark interest rates to spur growth after the U.S. subprime mortgage market collapsed and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy sent the world into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yields on all types of bonds, from governments to corporates and mortgages, average about 2 percent, down from more than 4.8 percent in 2007, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Broad Market Index.

“Given the significant expansion in government spending in recent years, governments (including central, state and local governments) have been the largest debt issuers,” said Branimir Gruic, an analyst, and Andreas Schrimpf, an economist at the BIS. The organization is owned by central banks and hosts the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which sets global capital standards.

In the six-year period to mid-2007 global debt outstanding doubled from $35 trillion, according to data compiled by BIS.

The article World Debt Exceeds $100 Trillion appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By EurActiv

(EurActiv) — The Swedish minister for migration, Tobias Billström, has urged the European Commission to act against countries that do not follow EU rules when it comes to shared responsibility for accepting refugees.

90% of asylum seekers in the EU are currently dealt with by only nine countries, but they are now tired of this situation, the Swedish minister has said, according to the TV station SVT.

Out of the 80,000 Syrians who have until now sought protection in Europe, more than 50,000 have gone to Sweden and Germany alone.

Cecilia Malmström, the commissioner for home affairs, is currently investigating migration-related violations in 12 EU member states and is threatening to take the offenders to court unless there are improvements.

Greece and Italy are the main gateways for migrants into the EU, but the people fleeing oppression or poverty rarely seek asylum there and usually head straight north.

According to European Commission data, 20,000 Syrians have crossed the borders of Greece and Italy last year, but only 1,100 have sought asylum in those two countries.

For Sweden, which has seen a growing influx of asylum seekers, the main challenges are to provide child care, education and housing for the asylum seekers.

Billström told the Wall Street Journal that he did not buy the argument from Italy and Greece that the financial crisis was preventing them from processing and accepting more refugees.

“Let’s not forget that a country like Italy is a G20 country,” he said.

European countries have debated ways to “share the burden” of asylum seekers for more than 20 years without making much difference on the ground.

The EU’s 28 heads of states and government expressed “deep sadness” after the Lampedusa tragedy, which saw hundreds of African migrants lose their lives in October as they tried to reach the small Italian island, which acts as a gateway for asylum seekers trying to enter Europe.

French President François Hollande said the EU’s agreed approach was based on three principles: acting on countries of origin and transit, strengthening border controls and fighting against human traffickers.

The article EU Countries Must Share Responsibility For Refugees, Sweden Insists appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Binoy Kampmark

“If you want to help me, help me by helping everyone: declare that the indiscriminate, bulk collection of private data by governments is a violation of our rights and must end.” — Edward Snowden, Testimony, Mar 7, 2014

The case of Edward Snowden is an object study about why whistleblowers have mountains to climb when it comes to revealing abuses within a system. Last Friday1, Snowden detailed a series of answers to submitted questions from the European Parliament outlining what those mountains were.

One particularly troubling one is the pressure exerted by the US intelligence community to spread the web of surveillance through its allies, notably by means of a “European bazaar” of intelligence transfer and sharing. “One of the foremost activities of the NSA’s FAD, or Foreign Affairs Division, is to pressure or incentivize EU member states to change their laws to enable mass surveillance.” Legal teams at the NSA and Britain’s GCHQ “work very hard to search for loopholes in laws and constitutional protections that they can use to justify indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance operations that were at best unwittingly authorised by lawmakers.”

Specific examples include pressure on Germany to degrade its G-10 law “to appease the NSA”, the effect of which would diminish civil liberties protected under the Constitution. Agreements are then made with various countries that seemingly protect their citizens while allowing the NSA to spy on others. Just because the NSA promises not to spy on German citizens in Germany does not mean they will not do so from Denmark. The noose is thereby tightened. Each “individual contribution is enabling the greater patchwork of mass surveillance against ordinary citizens as a whole.”

Snowden ventured no less than 10 times2 to make formal complaints about the various government spy programs before releasing information. The National Security Agency disputes3 such efforts claiming that, “after extensive investigation, including interviews with former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowden’s contention that he brought these matters to anyone’s attention.”

Presidential Policy Directive 194, a measure that supposedly grants federal employees scope to question classified programs, did not prove very useful. At a news conference in August, President Obama pointed out that Snowden might well have availed himself of “other avenues”, suggesting that PPD 19 was one.

The directive itself “prohibits retaliation against employees for reporting waste, fraud and abuse” and protects employees serving in the Intelligence community or those “eligible for access to classified information”. As with any of these directives, the measure is designed to avoid any disclosure outside the structured channels advocated by the President, keeping it within the remit of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The impediment to Snowden was one that private contractors with access to government information find – the protective loop is simply not there. Governments can effectively evade the internal restrictions placed on their employees via an outsourcing mechanism. “As an employee of a private company rather than a direct employee of the US government, I was not protected by US whistleblower laws, and I would not have been protected from retaliation and legal sanction for revealing classified information about law breaking in accordance with the recommended process.”

The intelligence fraternity, like any other bound by oaths, is bound by self-assumptions of archaic loyalty and sinister practice. The very idea that aspects of it might be questioned is highly problematic. Snowden’s descriptions of reactions to his concerns fell into two camps. The first involved “well-meaning but hushed warnings not to ‘rock the boat’.” Remember the fates, he was cautioned, of those other NSA whistleblowers, such as Wiebe, Binney and Drake. “Everyone in the Intelligence Community is aware of what happens to people who report concerns about unlawful but authorised operations.” The second response tended to be the dismissive one – it was someone else’s problem. Besides, complaining about it would not necessarily result in ending the unlawful program while more than likely ending a career.

Snowden’s testimony put more meat on the body of the security states whose complexes he has so spectacularly exposed. It demonstrates the intelligence communities in question are not so much interested to abide by rules than evade them through agreements, forum shopping and outsourcing. They do so, of course, at the behest of their executives and not-so-bright parliamentarians.

While these programs have the effect of chipping away at the corpus of civil liberties, they are fundamentally worthless – “no western government has been able to present evidence showing that such programs are necessary.” People have tended to be saved, as Snowden ventures with the example of the Underwear Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, not through mass surveillance as good, old fashioned incompetence. Things as they stand are “the inevitable result of subordinating the rights of the voting public to the prerogatives of State Security Bureaus”.

The article The Snowden Testimony – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute

By June Teufel Dreyer

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s actions with regard to the unrest in Ukraine put the Chinese leadership in an exceedingly delicate position. A cornerstone of the country’s foreign policy since 1954 has been its adherence to the Pancha Shila, or Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, with their insistence on non-aggression and non-interference in the sovereign affairs of other countries.[1] China’s “principled stance” on non-aggression and non-interference has been used, among other instances, to object to the United Nations effort to force Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to relinquish his takeover of Kuwait,[2] against the decision of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to induce the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to halt the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, and in defense of regimes in the Middle East during the Arab Spring. Putin’s actions clearly violated the Five Principles and should therefore have been unequivocally condemned.

That didn’t happen. Although the Russian foreign ministry announced that the two countries had “broadly coinciding views” on the situation in Ukraine, “broadly” is a conveniently ambiguous term that can obscure inconvenient but important differences of views. Foreign Minister Wang Yi as well as official spokespersons have dispensed largely meaningless anodynes about deep concern for the crisis and on the need for dialogue even as Putin effects a fait accompli, with Russian troops fanning out in key positions in the Crimea and a date set for a referendum in which Crimeans will vote on whether they want to stay in Ukraine. The latter is at variance with the country’s constitution, which says that the entire country would have to vote on such matters. For China to accept this has uncomfortable implications for Beijing’s position on the independence of Taiwan: it has consistently held that all citizens of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—to which Taiwan has never belonged—should have the right to vote on the island’s independence.

Yet China has important reasons for supporting Putin and, indirectly, the incursion itself.  Official pronouncements typically refer to the country as China’s most reliable strategic partner. The PRC’s strategists see the Ukraine as in the midst of a tug of war between East and West, with their country’s interests solidly on the side of the East. The Russian and Chinese leaderships have similar views on such matters as democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, as well as a common interest in supporting autocracy. Beijing sees a diminution of its own position if Ukraine becomes better integrated with the West. This view has an eerie resonance with Chairman Mao Zedong’s famous advice to the Soviet Union in 1957: the west wind must not be allowed to triumph over the east wind. When, this past November, Putin appeared to think this might be happening, he offered Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych $15 billion in economic assistance to become part of the Russian-sponsored Eurasian Customs Union rather than move toward a closer relationship with the European Union. Yanukovych’s acceptance infuriated pro-Western Ukrainians, resulting in charges that he had been bribed and massive demonstrations that led to Yanukovych’s resignation from power.  Chinese sources have mentioned the involvement of foreign forces in this, though carefully not specifying either the names of the putative interferers or the means the foreign forces are employing to do so.

There are also economic reasons why China does not want to incur Putin’s displeasure. Russia is an important source of energy for China. After a dispute with Ukraine in the 2005-2009 period, Russia temporarily cut off gas supplies, and could do the same to China. Doubtless mindful of this, Beijing has announced its unequivocal opposition to imposing sanctions on Russia.

On the other hand, common views on opposition to democracy and human rights do not necessary make close allies. Neither side is unmindful of the tensions that have caused periodic problems in their relations in the past, and each is wary of the implications of the rise in power of the other, as can be seen in the negotiations about how many troops each will contribute to periodic joint military exercises, and what territories they may pass through.  Although it ratified Putin’s actions in South Ossetia in 2008, Beijing was palpably uneasy with their implications for its problems with separatist-seekers in China. If, as seems likely, Russia does gain control over the Crimea and, ultimately, predominant influence over Ukraine, it will have extended its reach further into what Russian strategists call the Near Beyond—i.e., the sway of the former Soviet empire. The Baltic and Eastern European states have already expressed uneasiness that they will be next.  Georgia has reported Russian helicopter incursions of its airspace, believing that their purpose is surveillance of its border posts. With a land area a third the size of Russia itself, Ukraine has far greater significance than these. An old saying has it that Russia without the Ukraine is just a country, while Russia with the Ukraine is an empire.[3] This is an empire that Chinese leaders have unhappy memories of, and no wish to see re-created. For its part, Russia is concerned with the rise of China and worried that the large influx of Chinese immigrants into the heretofore sparsely populated Russia Far East may portend a loss of Moscow’s control over that area. Moscow’s willingness to sell advanced fighter planes to India and Vietnam, with whom Beijing has prickly relations, contributes to the Chinese leadership’s concern about being encircled.

Meanwhile, the Western states also struggle to cope with the changing geopolitical implications of an expanding Russia. Washington has few options. Sanctions, on the rare occasions they work, take a long time to do so, by which time Russia’s presence will have been consolidated. Economic arrangements are typically undertaken because they are mutually beneficial, and therefore sanctions tend to hurt not only the country sanctioned but the sanctioners as well. Britain has already indicated it is reluctant to participate in financial sanctions because of the effects on its economy; the Japanese fear that they will destroy the country’s fragile recovery from a twenty-year financial slump, and the Chinese have refused point-blank. Their financial exchanges are, respectively, the third, fourth, and seventh largest in the world.

As for energy sanctions, suggestions that America compensate European states for the loss of Russian gas with the products of its fracking are not feasible since current U.S. production is less than a sixth of what would be needed. Faced with the virtual certainty of loss of influence over the Ukraine, the Obama administration seems resigned to accepting the inevitable while assuring nervous Baltic and Eastern European states of its support.

Contrary to assessments that China has issued a “soft nyet” to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine,[4] Beijing has chosen to employ verbal acrobatics to substantiate its claim to uphold the principle of non-intervention while in fact supporting intervention. Having carefully weighed the uncomfortable alternatives, the PRC will support Russian expansion. Its obfuscatory rhetoric notwithstanding, China has chosen power politics over principled policy.

About the author:
June Teufel Dreyer is a Senior Fellow in FPRI’s Asia Program as well as a member of the Orbis Board of Editors. She is Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. Formerly senior Far East Specialist at the Library of Congress, she has also served as Asia policy advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations and as commissioner of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission established by the U.S. Congress. She is author of China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition (2012, eighth edition).

Source:
This article was published by FPRI and may be accessed here.

Notes:

[1] The Five Principles are 1. mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; 2. mutual non-aggression; 3. mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; 4.equality and mutual benefit; 5. peaceful co-existence.

[2] When it was pointed out that Saddam had already violated the Five Principles by invading Kuwait, the Chinese response was that “two wrongs do not make a right.”

[3] Feng Yujun, director of the Institute of Russian Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR, one of the PRC’s leading think tanks) cited this saying, though attributing it to Zbigniew Brzezinski, Renmin Ribao, February 24, 2014.

[4] Elizabeth C. Economy, “China’s Soft ‘Nyet’ to Russia’s Ukraine Intervention,’ Forbes. March 5, 2014, http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabetheconomy/2014/03/05/chinas-soft-nyet-to-russias-ukraine-intervention/

The article China And Ukraine: Principled Policy Or Power Politics? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jim Kouri

Iraq’s beleaguered prime minister on Saturday accused two Arab nations, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, of providing material support and weapons to terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and other insurgent groups, during an appearance on a TV news show in Europe.

In an interview with a French television station, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki accused the two oil-rich countries fighting a war on Iraq by proxy.

Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are monarchies with large-numbered royal families.

Maliki also told the news anchor he believed the Saudi Arabian government is a major supporter of terrorist organizations throughout the world and the Saudis continue to export their brand of extremist Islam known as Wahhabism, according to an Examiner news story.

Iraq is currently experiencing a disturbing number of deadly and destructive terror attacks which is attributed to the malcontent Sunni Muslims who are a minority in the country. Maliki also blamed the civil war in Syria for the upswing in violence.

Maliki, a member of the majority Shiite Muslim sect, claims that radical groups connected with Saudi Arabia and Qatar are seeking to setup a caliphate in Iraq instead of a western-style democracy..

In 2013, Iraqis witnessed the highest number of deaths since the insurgency was on the decline in 2007, according to the United Nations. According to UN figures, the violence last year caused close to 9,000 deaths and tens of thousands of casualties.

The article Iraq’s Prime Minister Slams Saudi Arabia, Qatar For Supporting Terrorists – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Civil.Ge

(Civil.Ge) — Georgia’s Parliament adopted on March 6 GD-proposed resolution on Ukraine calling on the west to take “political, economic and diplomatic measures” to help Ukraine amid Russian “aggression”.

The resolution was passed by a vote of 74-0, but lawmakers from UNM parliamentary minority group did not vote for it citing GD majority’s refusal to include in the text direct calls for international sanctions against Russia.

Despite two days of negotiations between GD and UNM lawmakers in an attempt to come up with a bipartisan text, the parties failed to agree and each group put on vote its own separate resolution. UNM’s draft was rejected by a vote of 27-6.

Main cause of disagreement was related to UNM’s insistence to include in the text a point that would have called on the Georgian government to “carry out active diplomatic campaign for the purpose of diplomatic isolation of and imposing sanctions against” Russia. UNM lawmakers said this point was of “principle” importance.

Discussions on two separate drafts grew into heated debates during which UNM parliamentary minority group was accusing some GD lawmakers of being, as one MP put it, “loyal” to Russia because of their reluctance to include sanctions clause in the resolution and GD MPs were blaming opposition of trying to “impose”, as one GD MP put it, “scandalist” and “provocative” policies pursued by UNM when it was in power.

Parliament speaker, Davit Usupashvili, who was the last speaker in debates, said that instead of staying on-topic and focusing on developments in Ukraine, lawmakers spent most of their time in mutual accusations.

“This is one of the hardest days for me in this Parliament and today I am not proud that I am the member of Parliament,” Usupashvili said in his speech and said that the GD-proposed text and its wording is “absolutely right”; he also accused UNM of trying to derail attempts to draft a joint text even before talks were over on March 5.

Text of Resolution

Below is unofficial translation of text of resolution on “Supporting Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity of Ukraine”, which was proposed by the Georgian Dream and adopted by the Parliament:

“The recent aggressive acts carried out by the Russian Federation against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including use of military units on the territory of Ukraine in violation of provisions of the bilateral agreements and threat of large scale military aggression, pose a serious threat not only to our friendly Ukraine, but to Georgia and entire Europe as well.

Georgia experienced firsthand Russia’s armed aggression in 2008 and other similar processes (distribution of Russian passports, setting up of illegal armed formations, military exercises near the state border, military intervention under the pretext to protect its own citizens, etc.) that resulted in occupation of Georgia’s two regions and ethnic cleansing. Ukraine faces the same threat today.

Therefore, the Parliament of Georgia:

Text of UNM-Proposed Draft

Draft of resolution proposed by the UNM, which was rejected, was calling on the Georgian government to “carry out active diplomatic campaign for the purpose of diplomatic isolation” of Russia. It said that Russia’s “political aggression” against Ukraine, which aimed at forcing Kiev to change its foreign policy course, now grew into “military aggression.” It also said that Russia’s actions pose “existential threat” not only to Ukraine, but to Georgia as well. According to the text Russia’s actions against Ukraine follow patterns similar to those applied by Moscow against Georgia in the lead up to aggression in August, 2008, including distribution of Russian passports, followed by military intervention under the pretext of protecting its citizens; use of local “puppet leaders” for the purpose of legitimizing aggression; use of illegal armed groups and deployment of Russian troops.

The text then continues by saying that the Georgian Parliament:

Debates

Debates were held over the two separate drafts before they were put on vote.

“Reference to sanctions in the text turned out to be a red line for the parliamentary majority, which it failed to cross and we believe that it is the major difference,” UNM MP Zurab Japaridze said, adding that UNM’s insistence to include sanctions clause in the resolution “is not something out of the ordinary” as western leaders have also been speaking about it.

MP Japaridze said that while some GD members were inclined to agree on UNM-proposed text, most of them were against which made it impossible to reach an agreement. “There is a majority [within GD], who is more loyal towards Russia rather than towards Georgia’s interests,” he added.

“What the Georgian Dream calls constructivism towards Russia is in fact nothing else but fear before this so called ‘great neighbor’; what the Georgian Dream calls pragmatism [in relation with Russia] is simply infantilism, which may cost a lot to our country. It is high time for the GD to revise its foreign policy approach [in respect of Russia],” he added.

GD MP Victor Dolidze, who was involved in drafting of the text, said that “measures” mentioned in the GD-proposed resolution also imply sanctions. He said that UNM was insisting on use of term “sanctions” because it wanted to “make headlines out of it.” “Our work is not based on making headlines; we are result-oriented and we will bring that result,” he added. “This [GD-proposed] resolution is result-oriented and concrete.”

UNM lawmaker, Givi Targamadze, responded: “Yes it should be in headlines that Georgia, which has suffered [from Russia] like Ukraine, demanded isolation of and sanctions against Russia.”

MP Targamadze also said that he has a “firm impression” that GD is “agreeing text” of resolution with Russian officials. “We [UNM] will never vote for any document, which is being agreed with Russia and which is being adopted as a result of giving up Georgia’s interests,” he added.

GD lawmaker, Gia Zhorzholiani, said that GD-proposed resolution makes a reference to sanctions by calling on the EU and the U.S. “to take efficient political, economic and diplomatic measures” to protect Ukraine from Russia’s aggression and for achieving Georgia’s de-occupation. He said that with these debates UNM only aimed at “justifying” its wrong policies pursued by the party when it was in power and trying to create its “political platform” out of developments in Ukraine. He also mentioned former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been in Kiev for past several days to, as Saakashvili himself said, help the Ukrainian authorities with “advice”.

“Saakashvili, who cannot walk in the streets of Tbilisi, is searching for places from where he can carry out a political campaign and his team is trying here to impose his political campaign on us,” MP Zhorzholiani said. “We should not be diverted from the policy that we pursue… and we should not become dragged into squabbles. There is no rational answer to these absurd and irrational analysis and discourse that we hear today from [UNM]. We should realize well that this is just a political campaign aimed at putting us on the path of scandalistic and provocative policy, which was pursued by the UNM, which now wants us to continue their legacy. No, we will not do that.”

GD MP Eka Beselia accused UNM of “pseudo-patriotism” and using developments in Ukraine for scoring political points.

UNM MP Giorgi Gabashvili said that debates show fundamental difference between two opposing principles and compared this difference to the one that existed in Europe between those  who followed a policy of appeasement of Hitler and those how opposed it in the 1930s.

“Your conceptual mistake is that you can’t even mention word ‘sanctions’,” MP Gabashvili said and added that Georgia should be in forefront of supporting Ukraine. He told GD lawmakers that they remain fixated on slamming Saakashvili, who, he said, speaks to western television channels, commenting on developments in Ukraine and defending Georgia’s interests, “unlike your silent, hidden, frightened Prime Minister” Irakli Garibashvili. “Should not the Georgian Parliament say that we support sanctions against those people who are cancer for the free world? Should not we dare to say it?” MP Gabashvili said and added that GD did not want to make reference to sanction in the resolution because of trying to avoid “upsetting” Russia. “But that’s not what may upset [Russia]. Whether they will be upset or not… depends on whether you [the Georgian government] will really go towards NATO and EU or not… I really want to believe that you will really go towards NATO and EU and in that case you can’t avoid confrontation [with Russia] and in this confrontation you should be standing next to the international community,” he said.

Parliament speaker, Davit Usupashvili, whose speech concluded debates, said that he and his colleagues from the GD ruling majority spared no effort during consultations on draft resolution with the UNM lawmakers for past two days to avoid the kind of the debate on the issue that had taken place in the Parliament. Usupashvili said that instead of speaking about “how to help Ukraine” lawmakers wasted “98% of time and energy” on mutual accusations.

Usupashvili also said that when on March 5, while consultations were not yet over and attempts were still ongoing to come up with bipartisan text of resolution, UNM lawmakers started speaking publicly about points of disagreements between the parties, it made reaching of agreement even more difficult.

He said that when in the middle of negotiations one starts speaking about the details of talks before TV cameras, trying to score political points, “it means that you are aiming at thwarting” the process.

“The good news is that while we are arguing here, the executive government is in touch with Kiev, Brussels and Washington on daily basis; relevant documents calling for sanctions have been sent to the Council of Europe. Yes we are working and we’ll keep on working and that’s the good news. But I think we all have to apologize on behalf of the parliament before ordinary Ukrainian citizens because of what happened here in this chamber today and because of our failure to make Ukraine, instead of something else, a priority in this chamber today,” Usupashvili said.

The article Georgia Parliament Adopts Resolution On Ukraine, Fails To Show Unanimity appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IDN

By Bernard Schell

The sigh of relief some two months ago that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran had reached an agreement on the three disputed islands near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, was rather short-lived. Only six days later, the report was denied by Iran. Now on March 10, the 22-nation Arab League has slammed Iran for refusal to accept the UAE’s sovereignty over the three islands in the strait between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, through which about 20% of the world’s petroleum, and about 35% of the petroleum traded by sea passes.

Quoting an unnamed high level UAE source, the U.S. Defense Journal reported on January 15 that the UAE and Iranian officials had engaged in secretive talks with the help of the Omani government over the previous six months, adding: “A deal has been reached and finalized on the Greater and Lesser Tunbs . . . For now, two of the three islands are to return to the UAE while the final agreement for Abu Musa is being ironed out.”

Six days later, on January 21, the Farsi News Agency (FNA) stated quoting Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham that the U.S. media report is “completely false and (that) no agreement has been made.” Afkham described the report as a propaganda effort made to harm the policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She said the “fabricated report” of the US Defense News aimed to influence the public opinion, and said, “No change has been made in the Islamic Republic’s positions on the Iranian islands.”

A day earlier, on January 20, Rapporteur of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Seyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini also slammed the U.S. media outlet for releasing “a completely forged and untrue story”, saying that the West is seeking to trouble Iran’s good and improving relations with other Persian Gulf littoral states.

“Iran has never negotiated over its trio islands, as it sees this issue which falls under our country’s territorial integrity as basically non-negotiable,” Naqavi Hosseini told FNA. “The three islands of Abu Musa, the Greater Tunb and the Lesser Tunb are inseparable parts of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s soil,” he stressed.

FNA reported: “International documents clearly show that the three islands of the Greater Tunb, the Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa which were historically owned by Iran, temporarily fell to British control in 1903. The islands were returned to Iran based on an agreement in 1971 before the UAE was born.”

Arab League jumps in

Challenging Iran’s claim, the 22-nation Arab League stressed on March 10 the UAE’s “absolute sovereignty” over the three islands and called for a resolution to the dispute. The Arab League Ministerial Council’s 141st criticized Iran’s occupation of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, saying it breached the UAE’s sovereignty.

The UAE state news agency WAM said in a communique at the conclusion of its 141st session the Arab League’s ministerial council had “slammed the continuation of Iran to consolidate its occupation of the three islands, violating UAE sovereignty, and destabilising security and stability in both the region and the world”. The council also censured the construction of houses by the Iranian government on the three UAE islands for its citizens.

The communique deplored Iranian military manoeuvres on the three islands and in the regional waters and airspace, as they are “inseparable parts of the UAE”, calling on Iran to stop the violations and provocations deemed an interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. It added that, “such moves will not help build confidence, but threaten the security and stability of the region and expose regional and international navigation in the Arabian Gulf to danger”.

The communique also condemned Iran for opening two offices on Abu Mousa Island, calling on Iran to remove those illegal premises and respect the UAE’s territories. It added that such conduct does not go along with efforts to settle the issue amicably. The council praised the UAE initiatives to find a just solution to the issue of the three islands being occupied by Iran.

According to WAM; the ministerial council called on Iran “to translate into action its declaration to improve relations with the Arab countries, adding that Iran has to respond to sincere calls of the President, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), friendly countries and UN Secretary-General to settle the issue of the three islands peacefully in accordance with international laws and norms”.

UN help sought

The communique called on the UN Secretary-General and President of the UN Security Council to keep the issue on the agenda until Iran ends its occupation and the UAE recovers its full sovereignty over the three islands. It also urged the Arab League Secretary-General to follow the issue and present an update to the council in its next ordinary session.

The importance of the UAE for the Arab League lies in the fact that it is located in the southeast end of the Arabian Peninsula on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman to the east and Saudi Arabia to the south, as well as sharing sea borders with Qatar, Iran and Pakistan. Comprising the constituent emirates of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain, the country has the second largest economy in the Arab world after Saudi Arabia, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $377 billion in 2012.

Dubai is the most populated with 35.6% of the UAE population. The Emirate of Abu Dhabi has a further 31.2%, meaning that over two-thirds of the UAE population of close to 5 million live in either Abu Dhabi or Dubai.

On the same day as the Arab League ministerial council bashed Iran, the FNA said in a report from Tehran that, according to Dubai customs’ authorities the UAE’s trade transactions with Iran increased by 7.6 percent in 2013 in comparison with the previous year despite the U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

Dubai has traditionally been a major trading partner of Iran but that link has been hurt since late 2011, when Washington imposed banking sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program that forced Dubai to cut back business sharply.

Merchandise trade between Dubai and Iran plunged 31 percent to Dhs25bln in 2012. But in 2013, it rebounded slightly to about Dhs26bln, representing 2 percent of Dubai’s non-oil trade, FNA said.

“Although the banking sanctions remain in place, Iranian traders say their activities have become easier since last August, reducing geopolitical tensions and helping to stabilize the Iranian rial currency,” the news agency reported.

“Dubai’s bilateral trade with Iran goes in line with international obligations,” the Dubai customs authority said in an emailed reply to Reuters questions, FNA said, adding that in mid-January, Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum had urged the international community to lift economic sanctions against Iran.

“Iran is our neighbor and we don’t want any problems,” Sheikh Mohammed, who is also vice-president and prime minister of the UAE, said in a televised interview with BBC News. Sheikh Mohammed said that wider relief from sanctions would mean “everyone will benefit”.

The article Iran-UAE Three Islands’ Dispute Unresolved – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Latinamerica Press

By Jennifer Ávila

Despite the fact that Honduras is a signatory to two important conventions on women’s rights and has approved laws to protect women, the state is still blind to the reality that kills the women of Honduras, points out Nohemy Dubon, defender of the human rights of women.

In 2013, 635 women between the ages of 20 and 30 years of age suffer a violent death, according to the Violence Observatory of the National Autonomous University of Honduras. In 2012 the Observatory confirmed 606 female violent deaths, of which 52.6 percent, or 319, were femicides.

According to data from the Movement of Women for Peace “Visitación Padilla,” known as Las Chonas, every 12 hours a woman suffers a violent death, and 97 percent of the cases remain unpunished. Las Chonas have registered more than 40 violent deaths of women in the first two months of this year.

Honduras is a signatory to the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women, as well as International Labor Organization agreements such as agreement 100 on equal remuneration, agreement 111 on employment and occupation discrimination, and agreement 156 regarding workers with family responsibilities. Moreover, there are national laws in place such as the law against domestic violence and the equal opportunities for women law.

Despite more than 10 years of struggle to include the crime of femicide in the Honduran legal framework and the fact that the National Congress changed the Penal Code on Feb. 21, 2013 to classify femicide as a crime punishable with 30 to 40 years in prison, feminist movements ensure that this is only a government strategy to say that something is being done, but in reality the situation has not improved.

Extreme violence

“Violence against women is expressed through discrimination and is always accompanied by sexual assault, mutilation, violence is specific in the case of women,” explains Dubon. “Violence against us is extreme, in addition to all the [types of] violence that we women suffer in private and public [life]. […] The extreme is femicides, massacres of women happen and this government gives no response. There is a 97 percent impunity rate, cases are not prosecuted.”

A report published at the end of 2013 by the National Commission on Human Rights (CONADEH), reports that at least 3,616 women lost their lives violently between 2000 and June 2013, and 50 percent of these cases occurred during the mandate of former President Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014).

Domestic violence is, at the national level, the most reported form of violence against women, ensures Maria del Carmen Garcia from the nongovernmental organization Integral Development of Women and Families Unit (UDIMUF). Cases are many, but the justice system does not protect women even when there are laws aimed at reducing this calamity, she points out.

Adalinda Hernández is a Lenca indigenous woman who survived domestic violence and who today, through the Marcala Women’s Network, attempts to end this cycle for many women in her community, located in the western department of La Paz and whose culture is deeply rooted in the patriarchal system.

“In the Lenca culture we believe that men are the center of everything, that is how I grew up and when I married the first thing I was told is that [he] was the owner of my life and if he had to whip me, well, I had to endure it,” explained Hernández.

Likewise, the Garifuna women of African descent in the Honduran Caribbean ensure that domestic violence is a serious problem in their communities, in addition to other types of violence that affect them. The Hope for the Garifuna Women of Honduras Organization groups women of different communities to work on issues like the seizure of their lands by foreigners, violence due to drug trafficking in that part of the country and the lack of access to healthcare.

Comprehensive Care Model

Violence against women prevails in discriminatory and misogynistic ways of thinking that are present when women or families of the victims demand justice and are again faced with victimization when they are made to tell again and again how they suffered from violence in addition to making them responsible for the aggressor’s violent behavior.

In this context, the work on gender violence prevention that the UDIMUF has been doing for six years in the La Ceiba municipality of the Honduran Caribbean is a model that should be extended to the national level for women’s organizations.

Maria del Carmen García, a UDIMUF lawyer, explains to Latinamerica Press that to ensure access to justice and respect to the victims, in La Ceiba the procedure to report violence against women happens through a joint effort between the Public Ministry, the Health Secretary and the network of women’s organizations.

She added that the Network Against Violence towards Women — made up of civil society organizations, including UDIMUF, the Violence Observatory and church organizations — audits the reports of violence against women and execution of justice to ensure respectful and just trials for women.

“It is a hand-holding support, demanding, and denouncing strategy on this issue. It has trained and made people more sensitive to the issue in a joint manner and now we also inspect the safe house which depends on the mayor’s office of La Ceiba because we want to have a place to guarantee safety in a criminal process for women,” specificied García.

The Network Against Violence towards Women has made it a goal to nationally replicate the Comprehensive Care Model (MAI), which for now is only in place in La Ceiba. This model combines the Public Ministry, the Health Secretary and the Supreme Court of Justice to carry out trials that do not re-victimize women as occurs currently through the national system.

However, there are many challenges to export this model to the entire country, ranging from arbitrary laws to conflicts between the women’s organizations and public institutions that worsened since the 2009 coup d’état that overthrew former President Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009).

“For example, in Honduras the emergency contraception pill is illegal and thus a comprehensive health and safety protocol has not been established to care for victims of sexual violence, even with La Ceiba’s MAI,” ensured Garcia. “There must be political willpower from the institutions in charge of safety and justice in Honduras. There is now a bill to take this model to the national level. We hope it happens.”

The article Honduras: Impunity Encourages Femicides appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By CNA

A group of Greek Orthodox nuns in Syria, as well as women from their convent’s orphanage, were returned safely Sunday, following their kidnapping by the rebel al-Nusra Front.

“God did not leave us,” said Mother Pelagia Sayyaf of the convent of St. Thekla, when they arrived in Damascus Monday, March 10.

One dozen nuns and three workers were abducted from St. Thekla convent in Ma’loula, located 35 miles north of Damascus, when the town was seized by al-Nusra Front Dec. 2. They had been held three months in the nearby town of Yabrud.

The abductees were brought through a rebel-held border crossing to Arsal, a Lebanese border town, where they were given to Lebanese officials, and then driven to Syria, where they have been taken to the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Damascus.

“As God is my witness, I tell you the al-Nusra Front treated us well,” one of the nuns told the press.

They explained that they were not forced to remove their crosses, but Mother Sayyaf said they did so “because we were in the wrong place to wear them.”

The nuns’ abduction had prompted objections and concerns from around the world. Pope Francis called for prayers for the nuns in his Dec. 4 general audience. They appeared in a video broadcast on Al Jazeera in December.

Gregorios III, Melkite Greek Patriarch of Antioch, said the nuns’ release was “a sign of hope in this time of crisis.”

“I think they were not treated too badly, as it is not in the interest of the kidnappers to do this,” he told Aid to the Church in Need March 9.

Yabrud is now the focus of a major military campaign by the Syrian army and fighters of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Islamist movement.

Greek Orthodox Bishop Louka al-Khoury credited the military action, saying “what the Syrian army achieved in Yabrud facilitated this process.”

Patriarch Gregorios said that Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X of Antioch had intervened to help secure the nuns’ release, adding that the secret services of Qatar and Lebanon helped mediate the negotiations.

The BBC reports that officials from Qatar and Lebanon negotiated the deal, quoting a Lebanese general, Abbas Ibrahim, who was involved in the talks. It said the nuns’ release was part of a deal with the Syrian government, which agreed to release around 150 female prisoners.

Sana, the Assad regime’s news agency, quoted the regime’s information minister, Omron al-Zoubi, as saying that only 25 prisoners were released in exchange for the nuns’ freedom, and that Qatar was not involved. Sana has acknowledged Lebanon’s role in their release.

Syrian officials have said the nuns were abducted to intimidate Syria’s Christians, while al-Nusra Front have said they were protecting the nuns from government shelling.

The rebels first took Ma’loula for three days in September. Twelve people were killed during that time, including three men who refused to renounce their Christian faith.

The Syriac Orthodox patriarch of Antioch, according to Sana, said that the nuns’ return “is a divine message to the Christians to cling tenaciously to this land in fraternity with Muslims.”

Sana added, “the Patriarchate expressed in a statement hope that freeing the nuns is a step forward on the road to genuine national reconciliation and the return of all the abducted and the missing, including bishops Boulous Yazigi and Yohanna Ibrahim, to their homes.”

Greek Orthodox Archbishop Boulous Yazigi of Aleppo and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim of Aleppo were abducted in April 2013. Their fate is unknown, though there are rumors that only one bishop is still alive, and is being kept in either Syria or Turkey.

Approaching its third anniversary, the Syrian conflict has claimed the lives of at least 100,000 persons, and as many as 130,000.

The conflict began March 15, 2011, when demonstrations protesting the rule of Bashar al-Assad and his Ba’ath Party sprang up nationwide. In April of that year, the Syrian army began to deploy to put down the uprisings, firing on protesters.

The civil war is being fought between the Syrian regime and a number of rebel groups. The revels include moderates, such as the Free Syrian Army; Islamists such as al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; and Kurdish separatists.

Some 40 percent of Syria’s population have fled their homes because of the civil war. There are 2.4 million Syrian refugees in nearby countries, most of them in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, and an additional 6.5 million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced by the war.

The article Abducted Orthodox Nuns Released By Syrian Rebel Group appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IPCS

By Sheel Kant Sharma

The news stories of the past week are a powerful throwback to an era to which we thought the world bid goodbye in the 1990s – the mutually opposing stance of Russia and the West on the developments in Ukraine, Russian troops in Crimea and the US-Europe combined talk of sanctions against Russia are heating up the theatre. The attack on President Putin by the US State Department through a point-by-point rebuttal and Moscow’s repartee thereto are vintage Cold War stuff. Still, John Kerry and Lavrov have held meetings in Paris and Rome and the US and EU are working on exploring diplomacy alongside threats of visa refusals to Russians, sanctions, and even skipping the G8 meet in Sochi – the list is growing by the hour. The problem can be characterised in a number of ways. It is bilateral between Russia and Ukraine, European because of Ukraine being under Russian coercion against joining the EU, transatlantic because of the 1994 agreement about Ukraine between the US and Russia, and multilateral in view of its shadow over the G8 summit.

This puts paid to the hope that came to life in September 2013 with a breakthrough on Syria between the US and Russia and the successful launching of chemical disarmament of Syria under OPCW, the historic November 2013 agreement in Geneva of Iran with the Group of 6 i.e. US, EU, France, Germany, Russia and China – which hinges on the removal of on Iran. It is anybody’s guess how Russia could endorse continued sanctions on Iran by the same powers who are threatening it with sanctions about actions which Russia considers dictated by its legitimate interests. China, which has been building a closer and closer partnership with Russia over the past decade has suddenly lapsed into its Cold War style equivocation of ‘be good’, ‘be peaceful’ advice to both sides without any word to show its understanding with the Russian position on Ukraine. To Iran’s credit so far, its team in Vienna and Paris are carrying on the positive track set by the November agreement and subsequent arrangements worked out in January this year. Iran has even stated that Ukraine would have no influence on its continued work with its interlocutors.

While the resolution of the Iran imbroglio seems like work in progress, questions arise about a full-range of bilateral, regional as well as multilateral agendas. What will happen to bilateral nuclear accords between US and Russia? This is not only about reduction in strategic arms but also important processes like the Megatons to Megawatts programme whereby Russian-origin HEU is down-blended and burned in nuclear power plants to produce power, which is substantial and earns revenue for Moscow up to as much as USD 25 billion. Will sanctions under consideration in the US derail this process that started in 1995 around the same time that newly independent Ukraine surrendered the strategic weapons on its territory to Russia and acceded to the NPT? Even the burning of excess plutonium as MOX has been part of the US-Russia cooperative threat reduction programme.

The process which has since continued over the past two decades comprises valuable assets in diplomacy. Russia has worked with US and its Western allies on practically all disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation initiatives. President Obama’s Prague speech and subsequent launch of the biennial Nuclear Security Summits has so far received Russian cooperation with participation at the summit level in Washington and Seoul. Will warnings issued now from Washington and others from the G7 to skip the Sochi Summit in June affect Putin’s approach to the Hague Summit later this month? That seems more and more likely as the East-West contention over Ukraine gets worse. The NSS with the participation of 53 countries has meant a lot in a time of multilateral paralysis on nuclear disarmament and arms control. Without Russia, it will be much less credible.

The actions of both sides seem to come in a time warp – the Russian missile test of last week and possibly another to come soon, the invoking of NATO’s article IV by some US allies led by Poland for consultations, the hard-liners in Washington making reckless demands (including expulsion of Russia from the Security Council?) on a president they consider weak and indecisive, Secretary of State John Kerry’s tough warnings despite continued contacts with his Russian counterpart, talk about Russian troops in Crimea implying end of diplomacy are ominous pointers to what might go wrong. With all unresolved tensions still festering in Asia and the Middle East, the entrenchment of a Cold War mentality is bound to be for no one’s gain. Putin may show military muscle to drum up nationalism and brandish Russian strategic systems but will he gain anything? The Europeans are still looking for saner options and seeking to dispel tensions by cooperation with Russia and Ukraine but Russian refusal to meet the new leadership in Kiev is like Western refusal to do anything with the besieged ruler of Syria. Will money from the EU, IMF and other institutions to Ukraine uplift its sinking economy; especially if the worsening situation in Crimea can derail Russian economic interdependence with the rest of Europe? There is too much at stake and even if Europeans succeed in defusing the crisis, chances for which seem fainter than ever before, the taste of bitterness may persist and would virtually stall all forums engaged in diplomacy based on global coordination among great powers and emerging countries. Non-proliferation and arms control will be just the thin end of such a cold war redux.

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

The article Ukraine: Implications For Global Nuclear Diplomacy – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IPCS

By Chintamani Mahapatra

The US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visit to China exemplified a complex dynamics of relations between the existing superpower and an aspiring one.

The US’ “Manifest Destiny” and China’s “Middle Kingdom Mentality” appear ready to accelerate cold confrontation between the US and China. Both the US and Chinese officials reject the theory of “Great Power Transition” that stipulate armed conflict between the departing hegemonic power and the new hegemon.

Former Chinese President Hu Jintao was of the opinion that war was not inevitable between a declining power and a rising power. His successor, Xi Jinping, is pushing for a new kind of Great Power relations.

On the eve of Kerry’s trip to China, Evan Madeiros, a senior US National Security Council official, remarked, “We’re aware of the historical predictions that a rising power and an established power are destined for rivalry and confrontation. We simply reject that premise.”

Although a military clash between the US and China is progressively becoming improbable, a kind of cold confrontation between them has been quietly developing in the Asian theatre.

The Sino-US cold confrontation is the result of an altered geopolitical order in the Asia Pacific from the early years of 21st century. As the US stayed engaged in warring against the Afghan insurgents and the Al Qaeda activists; indulged in misplaced military intervention in Iraq; and experienced a faltering economy, Chinese economic influence in Asia sky-rocketed, and its military modernisation perceptually began to threaten US hegemonic presence in the region.

The People’s Liberation Army of China developed anti-access and area-denial capability, threatening the hitherto uninterrupted movement of the US naval vessels in the region. The wide-ranging debate over the relative decline of the US influence and China’s drive towards a superpower status reflected an indisputable contest for influence in the Asia Pacific.

Currently, the US consternation that China may surface as an Asian hegemon, and the Chinese angst that the US intends to restrict the growth of the Chinese power, will shape strategic landscape in Asia in coming years.

The current Sino-US cold confrontation has taken the shape of a passionate competition for regional influence, an occasional show of force, and conflicting positions on bilateral and regional disputes.

Instances of the Sino-US cold confrontation are discernible in critical differences between Washington and Beijing on the North Korean and Iranian nuclear issues; the Syrian civil war; the Sino-Japanese disputes over the Shenkaku/Diaoyu islands; the Sino-Filipino disputes over Mischief Reef and the Scharborough shoal; and the Chinese declaration of a nine-dash-line encompassing its sovereignty in the South China Sea.

China’s muscle flexing in the region has bamboozled the Obama Administration. In 2012, Chinese ships occupied a reef 125 miles off the coast of the Philippines and blocked access to Filipino ships. In November 2013, China declared an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in East China Sea and in December 2013, a Chinese ship, by design, came close to a US-guided missile destroyer Cowpens, and risked dangerous collision.

In January 2014, China’s Hainan Province announced a new law requiring “all foreigners or foreign ships” to get approval before they could fish in the two million square kilometer of the sea. More recently, in February 2014, China parked three ships on a disputed reef, about fifty miles from the Malaysian coast and reportedly held a ceremony to “safeguard sovereignty and territorial interests.”

The US reacted to China’s declaration of ADIZ by flying two B-52 bombers and endorsing similar moves by Japan and South Korea. The US has called for a multilateral approach to resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea and considers the Chinese nine-dash-lines as “inconsistent with international law.”
China’s anger is actually its response to Obama’s strategy of the Asian rebalance. China has since picked fights with most US allies and strategic partners in the region. Notwithstanding the voluminous explanations from the US officials, the Chinese leadership reads a new containment strategy in the Asia rebalance strategy.

China fumed, when, during his visit to China, Secretary Kerry cautioned the Chinese against declaring any ADIZ in South China Sea. It advised the US to be mindful of Chinese sovereignty and stressed that “no one can shake” China’s determination to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Asian security will indubitably hinge upon the nature of the US-China relations in coming years. The US allies have found in China a constructive economic partner, but they continue to rely upon Washington’s security commitments.

China realises the importance of economic cooperation with the US to sustain its economic growth, but it has issues with the US hegemony in Asia. Its military modernisation is aimed at stimulating Chinese influence and constraining the US’ hegemony in the Asia Pacific. A Sino-US bipolar cold confrontation will thus be the dominant paradigm of the Asian security discourse in the coming future.

Cold confrontation, nonetheless, will remain within limits and will not escalate to armed confrontation. The complex Sino-US economic interdependence will preclude a Cold War.

Chintamani Mahapatra
Professor, School of International Studies, JNU

The article US-China Cold Confrontation: New Paradigm Of Asian Security – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Geopolitical Monitor

By Ronan Keenan

Last month, a US State Department review indicated the Keystone XL pipeline was unlikely to have a significant impact on climate change; one of President Obama’s key concerns about the project. For a little while, it looked like the controversial pipeline might finally be nearing approval. However, as has often been the case with this project, things weren’t as they seemed. Buried deep in the details of report were some critical comments from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and at time of writing the Keystone XL’s fate is as hazy as it has ever been.

Environmental concerns have been the most publicized aspects of the pipeline, with opponents arguing that the project could accelerate climate change by enabling increased production in Alberta’s oil sands, which create 17% higher greenhouse gas emissions than the average crude used in the United States. President Obama will ultimately make the final decision on the pipeline and, given his campaign against climate change, it is difficult to imagine him defying the EPA and his core Democrat base, especially with midterm elections looming later this year. Then again, some labor unions will be furious if he cancels the pipeline and the many thousands of jobs it could create. Given the powerful interests on both sides of the debate, it’s not surprising that he has taken so long to come to a decision.

Keystone XL: Then and Now

A lot has changed since TransCanada first proposed the project seven years ago. Back in 2007, there were still concerns that “peak oil” was imminent and demand for energy was booming in the pre-financial crisis environment. The pipeline was initially viewed by many as a much-needed tool to develop Canadian oil reserves and ease supply concerns. But now the United States is apparently nearing energy independence and the Keystone XL project is widely seen as an environmentally unsafe method of transferring oil to major refiners on the Gulf Coast.

Oil companies have not been sitting idle during this prolonged approval process. Instead they have been working on other methods of transporting Canadian oil. The refiner Valero signed on to receive oil from the Keystone XL pipeline early in the project’s life cycle and has spent billions upgrading its equipment to handle the type of heavier crude produced in Canada. So to make good on their early investment, the firm has invested in rail terminals at its refineries to help get the oil in. Last month, Exxon Mobil announced the construction of a rail facility in Alberta that will be completed early next year.

Oil-by-rail has attracted public scrutiny following a series of recent accidents, most notably a crash in Quebec last year that killed 47 people. Safety concerns might bring additional regulation such as railcar modifications, but such developments will only result in a short-term slowdown in rail expansion. Companies will continue to aggressively pursue this transportation method as long as the Keystone XL pipeline remains in limbo.

The Economic Impact of Keystone XL

The economic impact of the pipeline has generated much debate, but despite heated arguments from both sides, its potential effect remains unclear. TransCanada claims Keystone XL will support approximately 42,100 direct, indirect, and induced jobs in the United States, providing a substantial increase in tax revenues for local counties along the pipeline route, with 17 of 27 counties expected to see revenues increase by 10% or more. It added that the project will result in “spending $7 billion stimulating the local economy.”

These claims have been countered by the Cornell Global Labor Institute, which says the project budget that has a direct impact on US employment is between $3 and $4 billion. Moreover, any jobs created would be temporary and between 85-90% of the people hired to do the work would be non-local or from out-of-state. It also warned of the economic risks from possible pipeline spills, pollution, and the rising costs of climate change. But there is no way of quantifying these risks.

The Consumer Impact

Another argument revolves around the potential impact on oil prices. Intuition would say that the more oil coming into the US, the cheaper prices become. But the market isn’t so straightforward. Since 2011, refineries in the Midwest have benefitted from a glut of oil produced in the region and Canada, which was easily accessible thanks to an array of pipelines that were granted approval. This has seen US WTI crude oil trade up to $20 less than the global benchmark, Brent, over the last year. The spread was about $8 last week. However, if the Keystone XL pipeline enables the efficient transport of oil from Canada to the Gulf, then more refiners will be bidding for the oil. It is feared that increased competition for the Midwest oil glut will see an increase in prices.

Yet, like predicting anything in financial markets, there is no certainty about future prices. Nobody knows how much oil will cost next year, but the logical policy is to create the most efficient oil transportation network so that supplies can be maximized, thus lessening the impact of a price shock brought about by unexpected events.

Efficiency demands the full development of the Keystone pipeline. Even if Obama rejects the proposal, companies will pursue other methods of transporting oil from Canada, and as has been demonstrated, oil-by-rail is not a risk-free alternative. Rejecting Keystone XL won’t reduce the production of heavy oil in Alberta. That will only happen when better energy alternatives are promoted.

Ronan Keenan is a contributor to Geopoliticalmonitor.com

The article Does The Keystone XL Still Matter? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IPCS

By C Uday Bhaskar

A tragic industrial accident occurred on 07 March on a naval warship under construction in the Mazagon Docks, Mumbai, resulting in the death of a naval officer. The fire-fighting equipment on board the Kolkata class destroyer was being tested and a malfunction of the valves led to the sudden discharge of carbon-dioxide and the subsequent death of Commander Kuntal Wadhwa – the engineer officer designate of the ship.

This missile destroyer is to be commissioned in the Indian Navy later in the year as the INS Kolkata and will be followed by two other ships – the Chennai and Kochi. Part of the Indian Navy’s ambitious indigenous design and ship-building effort, when inducted, these three ships will add considerable punch to the country’s overall naval capability.

While this ship is still under construction and yet to be handed over to the Navy by the shipyard, the fact that another naval officer lost his life – albeit in an industrial accident – soon after the loss of two other naval officers on the submarine INS Sindhuratna in February 2014 adds to the sadness of the Navy as a family. The loss of life is always cause for anguish and hopefully this will be the last of such mishaps for a long time.

Operational mishaps for the military as an institution occur often during peacetime training and depending on how and when they occur, the necessary lessons are learnt and policy correctives applied. The Indian Navy has had a particularly challenging phase since August 2013 when the INS Sindhurakshak had an explosion on board while in the Mumbai harbour that resulted in the loss of precious lives. The submarine is yet to be salvaged from where it is still semi-submerged. In the intervening months some sections of the print and audio-visual media have given inordinate attention and space to every operational lapse of the Navy, thereby creating a perception that all is not well with the Indian navy and its top leadership.

Regrettably, the senior political leadership was stampeded by this dominant perception in the public domain and unable to take a confident and informed professional assessment about this string of incidents and accidents and the Naval Chief at the time, Admiral DK Joshi, was chastised in public. While recognising the democratic principle that the political leadership has the mandate and responsibility to monitor and admonish the highest echelons of the military, there is a certain protocol that needs to be maintained on all sides and sadly this was not the case which led to the unprecedented resignation of Admiral Joshi from the high-office of the Chief of Naval Staff on 26 February.

More than ten days have lapsed since this resignation and at the time of writing, the Government is yet to announce the successor to Admiral Joshi. It needs little reiteration that the military as an institution is based on well-defined hierarchy and related operational responsibility and the opaque uncertainty that now prevails in the Navy ought to be redressed at the very earliest.

The kind of media focus that recent naval incidents and accidents have received in the public domain has led to some very undesirable perceptions and misplaced conclusions. Even as the Indian Navy was undergoing a trial by the audiovisual media in particular – most of the operational units of the service were deployed in the biggest annual exercise – TROPEX – in the Indian Ocean region. This exercise included the deployment of the aircraft carrier, a nuclear submarine, missile destroyers and the recently inducted maritime reconnaissance aircraft. Some aspects of the exercise also involved units of the Indian Air Force. This should set at rest the invalid perception that the Indian Navy is ‘all at sea’.

Concurrently, a statement by the Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram in relation to the spate of naval accidents has led to some disquiet. Yes, the Finance Minister is the guardian of the national exchequer and it is a tenet going back the Chanakyan era that every rupee garnered from the citizen through taxes should be spent wisely and in the larger collective interest. In the course of his remarks, one part notes: “I sincerely hope that the defence forces will learn a lesson and make sure that the money allocated to them is spent more wisely and more efficiently on essential matters.”

Presuming that this statement is accurate in every word – the inference that follows is disturbing. Have the Defence Ministry and the armed forces not spent the funds allocated to them ‘wisely’? If so, this must receive the immediate attention of the CAG and the legislature and accountability sought. Given the probity associated with Defence Minister AK Antony, this observation is intriguing.

On the other hand, if the recent naval accidents are being attributed to less than ‘wise’ leadership – this perception must be clarified. In many of the incidents related for example to the submarine mishaps – the leadership and courage displayed in managing the exigency was of the highest order and professional competence. Commander Sandeep Sinha, the CO of the INS Sindhuratna, which had a fire on board while underwater displayed rare personal courage and competence and led from the front in dealing with the emergency that had arisen. The officer is still in hospital recovering from a serious lung condition.

The lack of wisdom and perspicacity which ails the management of national security lies at the higher levels of India’s defence management. Denying the armed forces adequate funds for capital expenditure to modernise and upgrade major platforms and inventory is one example and the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) is the highest forum for such deliberations and decision-making.

The defence forces must be held to the highest standards of professional competence and probity, and the citizen who dons the uniform does so with the full knowledge that when called upon – his or her life will be at stake.

But concurrently, a certain empathy is expected from state and society – not calumny – however unintended.

C Uday Bhaskar
Member, Executive Committee, IPCS

An earlier version of this article appeared in Dainik Jagaran in Hindi.

The article Indian Navy: Responding To Perceptions Of Being ‘All At Sea’ – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Nava Thakuria

Expressing grave concern over helpless working condition of
media persons in northeast India, particularly the private television
journalists, the Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) has urged both the
Indian Union labour ministry and province governments of the alienated region to look into the matter. The Assam based scribes’ body argued that nearly 80% working journalists of the region are still performing their duties with pitiable salaries (read monthly financial package), unlimited working hours and without many facilities recommended by the country’s labour laws.

The JFA in a statement issued by its president Rupam Barua and
secretary Nava Thakuria pointed out that the reporters and camera
persons, engaged with the satellite news channels of northeast India, have to work in a vulnerable atmosphere with low wages, more than 8 hours working period in a day, without weekly off-day, no leaves in need and with no facility for life & health insurance coverage.

Assam hosts all the seven privately owned satellite news channels of
the region which beam news & other programs in various languages like Assamese, English, Hindi, Bengali and various regional languages to virtually cater the need of over 60 million populace of northeast India, bordering Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet (China), Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The region has more than 100 morning dailies in different languages.

Whenever the demand for higher financial packages for the
privately-owned television channel employees is put forward, the
owners argue that they are running a loss-making business. Similar
versions are also being aired by the newspaper owners time to time
that they are not earning money from the media business.

The JFA however contradicts with the views of the owners of media
outlets in the region alleging that most of the news channels &
newspapers managements prepare their loss-making balance sheets hiding huge amount of money at the sources.

“Except few, it’s a common practice for all the media barons to divert
funds from the collected amount of money from the advertisers to other non-media enterprises owned by them. Thus the owners continue siphoning away the essential resource of the media groups for their selfish interest only to showcase the media business as an
unprofitable endeavour,” asserted the JFA statement adding that the
process may establish the media business as loss-making, but the
bounty of the wieners always goes up.

Hence the JFA demands a social media audit in the region where the
readers/viewers can find a transparent picture of the financial
dealings involved with their favourite news papers and news channels.

The media audit should address many vital issues relating to the media bazaar in the country. It would also help the journalists and
non-journalist employees to get their due benefits supported by the
law, the statement asserted.

Meanwhile, welcoming the recent Supreme Court (of India) verdict
upholding the constitutionality of the Majithia Wage Board for
journalists & non-journalists, the Assam Media Employees Federation (AAMEF) advocated for full implementation of the recommendations of the statutory wage board in every media house in Assam.

Extending gratitude to The Assam Tribune group of newspapers in
Guwahati for being the first in India to implement the wage board
recommendations, the AAMEF president Hiten Mahanta and general secretary Keshab Kalita also appealed the Tarun Gogoi led Assam government to take steps to get the wage board recommendations implemented by all newspaper houses in the State.

Nonetheless, the JFA appealed to the chief ministers of eight State in the region to take personal initiatives for facilitating a minimum
starting salary of rupees 15,000 (1 USD= 60 rupees) for the media
persons, engaged with the media houses with a daily working period of 8 hours or less, and a dignified leave arrangement. It also stated
that all the employees working in newspaper or news channels should get the facilities of provident fund, employee’s state insurance according to the law of the land and also a comprehensive health & life insurance coverage without any discrimination.

The article India: Journalist Body Demands Dignified Patronage For Media Employees appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By OilPrice.com

By James Stafford

How much faith can we put in our ability to decipher all the numbers out there telling us the US is closing in on its cornering of the global oil market? There’s another side to the story of the relentless US shale boom, one that says that some of the numbers are misunderstood, while others are simply preposterous. The truth of the matter is that the industry has to make such a big deal out of shale because it’s all that’s left. There are some good things happening behind the fairy tale numbers, though—it’s just a matter of deciphering them from a sober perspective.

In a second exclusive interview with James Stafford of Oilprice.com, energy expert Arthur Berman discusses:

• Why US gas supply growth rests solely on Marcellus
• When Bakken and Eagle Ford will peak
• The eyebrow-raising predictions for the Permian Basin
• Why outrageous claims should have oil lawyers running for cover
• Why everyone’s making such a big deal about shale
• The only way to make the shale gas boom sustainable
• Why some analysts need their math examined
• Why it’s not just about how much gas we produce
• Why investors are starting to ask questions
• Why new industries, not technologies will make the next boom
• Why we’ll never hit the oil and gas ‘wall’
• Why companies could use a little supply-and-demand discipline
• Why ‘fire ice’ makes sense (in Japan)
• Why the US crude export debate will be ‘silly’

Arthur is a geological consultant with thirty-four years of experience in petroleum exploration and production. He is currently consulting for several E&P companies and capital groups in the energy sector. He frequently gives keynote addresses for investment conferences and is interviewed about energy topics on television, radio, and national print and web publications including CNBC, CNN, Platt’s Energy Week, BNN, Bloomberg, Platt’s, Financial Times, and New York Times. You can find out more about Arthur by visiting his website: http://petroleumtruthreport.blogspot.com

Oilprice.com: Almost on a daily basis we have figures thrown at us to demonstrate how the shale boom is only getting started. Mostly recently, there are statements to the effect that Texas shale formations will produce up to one-third of the global oil supply over the next 10 years. Is there another story behind these figures?

Arthur Berman: First, we have to distinguish between shale gas and liquids plays. On the gas side, all shale gas plays except the Marcellus are in decline or flat. The growth of US supply rests solely on the Marcellus and it is unlikely that its growth can continue at present rates. On the oil side, the Bakken has a considerable commercial area that is perhaps only one-third developed so we see Bakken production continuing for several years before peaking. The Eagle Ford also has significant commercial area but is showing signs that production may be flattening. Nevertheless, we see 5 or so more years of continuing Eagle Ford production activity before peaking. The EIA has is about right for the liquids plays–slower increases until later in the decade, and then decline.

The idea that Texas shales will produce one-third of global oil supply is preposterous. The Eagle Ford and the Bakken comprise 80% of all the US liquids growth. The Permian basin has notable oil reserves left but mostly from very small accumulations and low-rate wells. EOG CEO Bill Thomas said the same thing about 10 days ago on EOG’s earnings call. There have been some truly outrageous claims made by some executives about the Permian basin in recent months that I suspect have their general counsels looking for a defibrillator.

Recently, the CEO of a major oil company told The Houston Chronicle that the shale revolution is only in the “first inning of a nine-inning game”. I guess he must have lost track of the score while waiting in line for hot dogs because production growth in U.S. shale gas plays excluding the Marcellus is approaching zero; growth in the Bakken and Eagle Ford has fallen from 33% in mid-2011 to 7% in late 2013.

Oil companies have to make a big deal about shale plays because that is all that is left in the world. Let’s face it: these are truly awful reservoir rocks and that is why we waited until all more attractive opportunities were exhausted before developing them. It is completely unreasonable to expect better performance from bad reservoirs than from better reservoirs.

The majors have shown that they cannot replace reserves. They talk about return on capital employed (ROCE) these days instead of reserve replacement and production growth because there is nothing to talk about there. Shale plays are part of the ROCE story–shale wells can be drilled and brought on production fairly quickly and this masks or smoothes out the non-productive capital languishing in big projects around the world like Kashagan and Gorgon, which are going sideways whilst eating up billions of dollars.

None of this is meant to be negative. I’m all for shale plays but let’s be honest about things, after all! Production from shale is not a revolution; it’s a retirement party.

OP: Is the shale “boom” sustainable?

Arthur Berman: The shale gas boom is not sustainable except at higher gas prices in the US. There is lots of gas–just not that much that is commercial at current prices. Analysts that say there are trillions of cubic feet of commercial gas at $4 need their cost assumptions audited. If they are not counting overhead (G&A) and many operating costs, then of course things look good. If Walmart were evaluated solely on the difference between wholesale and retail prices, they would look fantastic. But they need stores, employees, gas and electricity, advertising and distribution. So do gas producers. I don’t know where these guys get their reserves either, but that needs to be audited as well.

There was a report recently that said large areas of the Barnett Shale are commercial at $4 gas prices and that the play will continue to produce lots of gas for decades. Some people get so intrigued with how much gas has been produced and could be in the future, that they don’t seem to understand that this is a business. A business must be commercial to be successful over the long term, although many public companies in the US seem to challenge that concept.

Investors have tolerated a lot of cheerleading about shale gas over the years, but I don’t think this is going to last. Investors are starting to ask questions, such as: Where are the earnings and the free cash flow. Shale companies are spending a lot more than they are earning, and that has not changed. They are claiming all sorts of efficiency gains on the drilling side that has distracted inquiring investors for awhile. I was looking through some investor presentations from 2007 and 2008 and the same companies were making the same efficiency claims then as they are now. The problem is that these impressive gains never show up in the balance sheets, so I guess they must not be very important after all.

The reason that the shale gas boom is not sustainable at current prices is that shale gas is not the whole story. Conventional gas accounts for almost 60% of US gas and it is declining at about 20% per year and no one is drilling more wells in these plays. The unconventional gas plays decline at more than 30% each year. Taken together, the US needs to replace 19 billion cubic feet per day each year to maintain production at flat levels. That’s almost four Barnett shale plays at full production each year! So you can see how hard it will be to sustain gas production. Then there are all the efforts to use it up faster–natural gas vehicles, exports to Mexico, LNG exports, closing coal and nuclear plants–so it only gets harder.

This winter, things have begun to unravel. Comparative gas storage inventories are near their 2003 low. Sure, weather is the main factor but that’s always the case. The simple truth is that supply has not been able to adequately meet winter demand this year, period. Say what you will about why but it’s a fact that is inconsistent with the fairy tales we continue to hear about cheap, abundant gas forever.

I sat across the table from industry experts just a year ago or so who were adamant that natural gas prices would never get above $4 again. Prices have been above $4 for almost three months. Maybe “never” has a different meaning for those people that doesn’t include when they are wrong.

OP: Do you foresee any new technology on the shelf in the next 10-20 years that would shape another boom, whether it be fossil fuels or renewables?

Arthur Berman: I get asked about new technology that could make things different all the time. I’m a technology enthusiast but I see the big breakthroughs in new industries, not old extractive businesses like oil and gas. Technology has made many things possible in my lifetime including shale and deep-water production, but it hasn’t made these things cheaper.

That’s my whole point about shale plays–they’re expensive and need high oil and gas prices to work. We’ve got the high prices for oil and the oil plays are fine; we don’t have high prices for the gas plays and they aren’t working. There are some areas of the Marcellus that actually work at $4 gas price and that’s great, but it really takes $6 gas prices before things open up even there.

OP: In Europe, where do you see the most potential for shale gas exploitation, with Ukraine engulfed in political chaos, companies withdrawing from Poland, and a flurry of shale activity in the UK?

Arthur Berman: Shale plays will eventually spread to Europe but it will take a longer time than it did in North America. The biggest reason is the lack of private mineral ownership in most of Europe so there is no incentive for local people to get on board. In fact, there are only the negative factors of industrial development for them to look forward to with no pay check. It’s also a lot more expensive to drill and produce gas in Europe.

There are a few promising shale plays on the international horizon: the Bazherov in Russia, the Vaca Muerte in Argentina and the Duvernay in Canada look best to me because they are liquid-prone and in countries where acceptable fiscal terms and necessary infrastructure are feasible. At the same time, we have learned that not all plays work even though they look good on paper, and that the potentially commercial areas are always quite small compared to the total resource. Also, we know that these plays do not last forever and that once the drilling treadmill starts, it never ends. Because of high decline rates, new wells must constantly be drilled to maintain production. Shale plays will last years, not decades.

Recent developments in Poland demonstrate some of the problems with international shale plays. Everyone got excited a few years ago because resource estimates were enormous. Later, these estimates were cut but many companies moved forward and wells have been drilled. Most international companies have abandoned the project including ExxonMobil, ENI, Marathon and Talisman. Some players exited because they don’t think that the geology is right but the government has created many regulatory obstacles that have caused a lack of confidence in the fiscal environment in Poland.

The UK could really use the gas from the Bowland Shale and, while it’s not a huge play, there is enough there to make a difference. I expect there will be plenty of opposition because people in the UK are very sensitive about the environment and there is just no way to hide the fact that shale development has a big footprint despite pad drilling and industry efforts to make it less invasive.

Let me say a few things about resource estimates while we are on the subject. The public and politicians do not understand the difference between resources and reserves. The only think that they have in common is that they both begin with “res.” Reserves are a tiny subset of resources that can be produced commercially. Both are always wrong but resource estimates can be hugely misleading because they are guesses and have nothing to do with economics.

Someone recently sent me a new report by the CSIS that said U.S. shale gas resource estimates are too conservative and are much larger than previously believed. I wrote him back that I think that resource estimates for U.S. shale gas plays are irrelevant because now we have robust production data to work with. Most of those enormous resources are in plays that we already know are not going to be economic. Resource estimates have become part of the shale gas cheerleading squad’s standard tricks to drum up enthusiasm for plays that clearly don’t work except at higher gas prices. It’s really unfortunate when supposedly objective policy organizations and research groups get in on the hype in order to attract funding for their work.

OP: The ban on most US crude exports in place since the Arab oil embargo of 1973 is now being challenged by lobbyists, with media opining that this could be the biggest energy debate of the year in the US. How do you foresee this debate shaping up by the end of this year?

Arthur Berman: The debate over oil and gas exports will be silly.

I do not favor regulation of either oil or gas exports from the US. On the other hand, I think that a little discipline by the E&P companies might be in order so they don’t have to beg the American people to bail them out of the over-production mess that they have created knowingly for themselves. Any business that over-produces whatever it makes has to live with lower prices. Why should oil and gas producers get a pass from the free-market laws of supply and demand?

I expect that by the time all the construction is completed to allow gas export, the domestic price will be high enough not to bother. It amazes me that the geniuses behind gas export assume that the business conditions that resulted in a price benefit overseas will remain static until they finish building export facilities, and that the competition will simply stand by when the awesome Americans bring gas to their markets. Just last week, Ken Medlock described how some schemes to send gas to Asia may find that there will be a lot of price competition in the future because a lot of gas has been discovered elsewhere in the world.

The US acts like we are some kind of natural gas superstar because of shale gas. Has anyone looked at how the US stacks up next to Russia, Iran and Qatar for natural gas reserves?

Whatever outcome results from the debate over petroleum exports, it will result in higher prices for American consumers. There are experts who argue that it won’t increase prices much and that the economic benefits will outweigh higher costs. That may be but I doubt that anyone knows for sure. Everyone agrees that oil and gas will cost more if we allow exports.

OP: Is the US indeed close to hitting the “crude wall”—the point at which production could slow due to infrastructure and regulatory restraints?

Arthur Berman: No matter how much or little regulation there is, people will always argue that it is still either too much or too little. We have one of the most unfriendly administrations toward oil and gas ever and yet production has boomed. I already said that I oppose most regulation so you know where I stand. That said, once a bureaucracy is started, it seldom gets smaller or weaker. I don’t see any walls out there, just uncomfortable price increases because of unnecessary regulations.

We use and need too much oil and gas to hit a wall. I see most of the focus on health care regulation for now. If there is no success at modifying the most objectionable parts of the Affordable Care Act, I don’t suppose there is much hope for fewer oil and gas regulations. The petroleum business isn’t exactly the darling of the people.

OP: What is the realistic future of methane hydrates, or “fire ice”, particularly with regard to Japanese efforts at extraction?

Arthur Berman: Japan is desperate for energy especially since they cut back their nuclear program so maybe hydrates make some sense at least as a science project for them. Their pilot is in thousands of feet of water about 30 miles offshore so it’s going to be very expensive no matter how successful it is.

OP: Globally, where should we look for the next potential “shale boom” from a geological perspective as well as a commercial viability perspective?

Arthur Berman: Not all shale is equal or appropriate for oil and gas development. Once we remove all the shale that is not at or somewhat above peak oil generation today, most of it goes away. Some shale plays that meet these and other criteria didn’t work so we have a lot to learn. But shale development is both inevitable and necessary. It will take a longer time than many believe outside of North America.

OP: We’ve spoken about Japan’s nuclear energy crossroads before, and now we see that issue climaxing, with the country’s nuclear future taking center-stage in an election period. Do you still believe it is too early for Japan to pull the plug on nuclear energy entirely?

Arthur Berman: Japan and Germany have made certain decisions about nuclear energy that I find remarkable but I don’t live there and, obviously, don’t think like them.

More generally, environmental enthusiasts simply don’t see the obstacles to short-term conversion of a fossil fuel economy to one based on renewable energy. I don’t see that there is a rational basis for dialogue in this arena. I’m all in favor of renewable energy but I don’t see going from a few percent of our primary energy consumption to even 20% in less than a few decades no matter how much we may want to.

OP: What have we learned over the past year about Japan’s alternatives to nuclear energy?

Arthur Berman: We have learned that it takes a lot of coal to replace nuclear energy when countries like Japan and Germany made bold decisions to close nuclear capacity. We also learned that energy got very expensive in a hurry. I say that we learned. I mean that the past year confirmed what many of us anticipated.

OP: Back in the US, we have closely followed the blowback from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed new carbon emissions standards for power plants, which would make it impossible for new coal-fired plants to be built without the implementation of carbon capture and sequestration technology, or “clean-coal” tech. Is this a feasible strategy in your opinion?

Arthur Berman: I’m not an expert on clean coal technology either but I am confident that almost anything is possible if cost doesn’t matter. This is as true about carbon capture from coal as it is about shale gas production. Energy is an incredibly complex topic and decisions are being made by bureaucrats and politicians with little background in energy or the energy business. I don’t see any possibility of a good outcome under these circumstances.

OP: Is CCS far enough along to serve as a sound basis for a national climate change policy?

Arthur Berman: Climate-change activism is a train that has left the station. If you’ve missed it, too bad. If you’re on board, good luck.

The good news is that the US does not have an energy policy and is equally unlikely to get a climate change policy for all of the same reasons. I fear putting climate change policy in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians more than I fear climate change (which I fear).

See our previous interview with Arthur Berman.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Interviews/Shale-the-Last-Oil-and-Gas-Train-Interview-with-Arthur-Berman.html

The article Shale, The Last Oil And Gas Train: Interview With Arthur Berman appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Neville Teller

Al Jazeera, the TV news station broadcasting round the clock in Arabic and English, is owned by the government of Qatar. From the moment the station went on the air, back in 1996, its officials and spokespersons have maintained that it has complete editorial independence. And indeed, the professionalism of its news coverage, and the comparatively wide range of political opinion it permits during its discussion programs, make it an unprecedented phenomenon in the Arab world, and account for its undoubted success. Any TV station that has managed, in its 18 years of life, to have ruffled the feathers of countries as diverse as China and Egypt, and raised the ire of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, must have something going for it.

Yet Al Jazeera’s assertion of editorial independence has been challenged more than once. The leak of diplomatic cables by Wikileaks in 2010 included a number of internal US Department of State communications claiming that the Qatar government intervenes from time to time to manipulate Al Jazeera coverage.

In July 2009, the US embassy said the channel “has proved itself a useful tool for the station’s political masters”. In another dispatch, the US ambassador, Joseph LeBaron, wrote: “Al-Jazeera’s ability to influence public opinion throughout the region is a substantial source of leverage for Qatar, one which it is unlikely to relinquish. Al Jazeera remains one of Qatar’s most valuable political and diplomatic tools.”

These assessments seemed justified in September 2012, when Al Jazeera’s director of news stepped in to ensure that a speech made by Qatar’s emir to the UN led its English channel’s coverage of the debate on Intervening in the Syrian civil conflict. As Dan Sabbagh of The Guardian reported at the time: “Journalists had produced a package of the UN debate, topped with excerpts of President Obama’s speech, when a last-minute instruction came from Salah Negm, the Qatar-based news director, who ordered the video to be re-edited to lead with the comments from Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.”

Despite protests from staff, the two-minute video was re-edited and Obama’s speech was relegated to the end of the package. The episode was described by some staff as the most heavy-handed editorial intervention at Al Jazeera, which continued to maintain that it operates independent of its Qatari ownership.

Suspicions about the extent to which Al Jazeera is, in the final resort, subject to instruction from the government or directly from Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Qatar’s youthful new ruler, might be less troubling to the world in general, and Qatar’s neighbouring Gulf states in particular, if Qatar were not something of a maverick state in the region.

When the Sheik succeeded his father, who abdicated in June 2013, he declared that he would continue to pursue Qatar’s assertive, independent-minded foreign policy. Most of the Gulf states have long opposed the Muslim Brotherhood, and regarded with suspicion, and even fear, its aim of subverting existing governments and substituting its version of Sharia law. Qatar is the exception, and has long been a pro-active supporter of the Brotherhood, to the intense annoyance of other Gulf states.

On March 6, 2014 the long-simmering row exploded into the open. In a joint statement, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain declared that they were withdrawing their ambassadors from Qatar, citing that country’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which they regard as a major threat to their internal security and political stability. Moreover. they accused Al Jazeera of following the Qatari government line on the Muslim Brotherhood, and claimed that the TV station has a record of actively supporting pro-Brotherhood individuals and movements during the Arab Spring.

The same accusation has been levelled by Egypt’s interim government, not only against Al Jazeera journalists, but those from other media. On December 29, 2013, Egyptian security forces arrested four Al Jazeera journalists in Cairo – correspondent Peter Greste, producers Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, and cameraman Mohamed Fawzy. They, together with four others, were held in custody. Another 12, who were charged in their absence, managed to leave the country before being arrested.

The interim government of Egypt, led by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and has jailed hundreds of its leading figures. It has also clamped down on the Brotherhood’s offshoot, Hamas, the de facto rulers in Gaza, and destroyed or closed the tunnels through which they were importing goods and weapons from Egypt. On March 8, Saudi Arabia, following Egypt’s lead, and in justification of their action against Qatar and their condemnation of Al Jazeera. formally denounced the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization

According to the Qatari Arabic daily, Al Sharq, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are pressuring their citizens to resign from positions in Qatari media following the breakdown in their relations with Qatar. And indeed, on March 8 two UAE journalists, Fares Awad and Ali Al Kaabi, resigned from Al Jazeera.

As for the four Al Jazeera journalists arrested in Egypt, their trial is currently under way. They are charged with supporting the banned Muslim Brotherhood, and therefore deposed president Mohamed Morsi, and accused inter alia of broadcasting inaccurate reports.

Prosecutors say the defendants falsely portrayed Egypt as being in a state of “civil war,” a possible reference to the broadcaster’s coverage of a government crackdown in which more than 1,400 people, mostly Morsi supporters, were killed in street clashes.
Al-Jazeera has denied the charges in respect of the nine defendants on its staff.

The case has given rise to a worldwide outcry about press freedom. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said it “deplores the government’s continuing violations of the fundamental freedoms that are guaranteed and protected in the new constitution.” And Human Rights Watch asserts that the authorities “have demonstrated almost zero tolerance for any form of dissent.”

The principle of press freedom must be cherished. However it is perhaps unsurprising, even if deplorable, that the Egyptian interim government, still struggling to assert itself against its overthrown opponents, is clamping down on those whom it believes are supporting its enemies. A problem for Al Jazeera is that, despite what it claims for itself in terms of editorial independence, there are some grounds for believing that the pro-Muslim Brotherhood political views of the Qatari government may have influenced the broadcaster.

One positive aspect of a complex situation is that the trial is taking place within Egypt’s judicial structure, which is notably independent of government although, regrettably, trial by jury is not part of the system. Nevertheless, we can hope for a fair trial and a true verdict.

The article Al Jazeera And The Qatar Squabble – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Adfar Shah

The stable social or political systems can just be imagined today for disorder is the order of the day! In the contemporary world’s democratic anarchy, chaos prevails everywhere, clearly visible still in the establishments which are presumed and labelled as stable, functional and useful – such as the power regime and actually the New World Order!

The contemporary cultural orientations too now are majorly political in nature (there is nothing purely cultural now, even a folk dance, not to talk of the world renowned Zubin’s Mehta’s much publicized music concert some time back in Kashmir valley-for a selected few). The dominant culture is everything but the people’s culture. The culture that prevails today, however, is the one shaped by small numbers of people, political riches and white collar goons. Culture, in its quintessential sense, has been meted out a brutal violence even by the holy men of culture (even faiths not being spared-by god’s (unholy men). Religion, money minting and lust go together – strange bedfellows these, yet they all seem to coalesce in a not so heterogeneous dichotomy! The self-proclaimed leaders of culture mostly proliferate cultural aggression, orthodoxy, rigidness and misinterpretation of cultural norms and values. Such creatures preach culture either by culture of alienation or by the culture of violence (the culture of violence and bloodshed, sectarian hatred, a plethora of “Islam’s” within the one core Islamic identity etc.). Some believe in destroying culture, some later in probing culture, crisis handling and mishandling culture, some in corrupt culture and a few in the protest mode Hartal-chalo) culture as well (but all in vain). There are also those who believe in the “paper work” culture (Babu’s and higher trained clerks) with a nauseating history of lip service, some in (un)democratic culture (nothing more than elections).We have, though, moulded and developed in every culture in a not very creditable manner but brutally failed our agriculture (uncontrolled land mafia everywhere).

On the developmental front, now it is political and economic nomenclatures that determine everything, even the normative structure (Van Gennep’s-rites de passage) of the societies, ironically enough, is wholly governed by politics. The civic culture (basically a blatant myth in parochial and subject zones) is actually the same subject (subject political culture) – one where the so-called civilised majority just expects the outputs without actually participating in the system (even if they participate-they turn street politicians). What is done, in turn, by the myriad of literally illiterate masses, is simply to curse the system and more often politics and politicians, forgetting that politics is equally as important an institution as family, marriage, economy or religion and they, themselves, form the same system. No one criticises fairly and objectively (without gains). People hardly criticise without any bias and those who speak, even speak for themselves or speak factually and even politically incorrect fallacies (TRP crazy, frivolous debates, tweeting and verbal diarrhoea, to mention a few!).

While we know that political satisfaction is an Utopia in the developing world, where corruption of every sort has wreaked havoc and the cream of society never feels the heat (the culture of pauperization) but the poor common man is grilled by all social and economic forces and subjected to these pressures (every time one experiences the rise of the dollar and the fall of the poor). The existing social order is actually a chaotic state of affairs but a maintained one (by the truth regime) where selective people are fixed at significant positions to keep the equilibrium and maintain the command (of oppressors). There are many other players also (indirect foxes, disappointed political players, lobbyists) who turn (self-styled) social engineers/reformers unnecessarily (social work for nothing) and penetrate (though not deep) into the social system to maintain not the communities, but their own imagined norms (the order). However, things happen and keep on happening despite all types of engineers experimenting by these agencies (the blurred vision of social intervention). Even disasters themselves talk about disaster management.

Undeniably, conflict destroys the field badly and virtually turns it into a kind of experimental laboratory for the amateurs (in the Kashmir valley-the best example-GO’s & NGO’s mess). The agencies that rank high on the tackling syndrome, often fail to see the outputs and cost of their own adventures. It goes without saying that strong, humane and politically empowered decisions change the fate of people, not just the ivory tower ideas of peace, PPT’s (presentations in conferences), preconceived perceptions (white man’s burden), faulty diagnosis (field taken for granted), myopic vision (no foot work), arm-chair researches (unknown field), poor home work or fairy tales – everything You can think of, is manipulated!

Stable systems just exist in idealist minds, I am sure. Still they shout social development (where is that?) and preach economic development (how will that happen and for whom?) and talk “big” about the preservation of culture (preservation of whose culture – that of elites or of the common man? Or the one decaying in museums?) And also deliver sermons on morality – which one, one would like to ask-political, economic, social or cultural? And who is moral-they themselves? The emergence of the civic culture and high levels of prosperity (corrupt) and eventually the post-materialist values (are there any?) are yet to be understood in a proper perspective because they – the privileged ones -always mean that the public should adopt it all (what about them?). The fact remains that even today when ‘We’s and Them’s’ remain a clear dichotomy, bridging the social divide seems almost impossible! The need of the hour is to have a collective introspection regarding all the evils we create and all the instabilities (in the system) we, as the people, are responsible for and of all the mess our bosses impose upon us by demolishing and demonising the innocent via labelling. The intolerance has reached its heights and even if a young mind supports or cheers for a Pakistan cricketer, he is charged with sedition (we really need to grow up and think beyond narrow-minded religious biases).Today we are a nation where public vs. public is being fuelled by vested interests on religious issues, cricket issues, party affiliation issues and so on.

The incompetent always resort to repression, to silence the dissenting voices with brute force. The culture they mean can never flourish among the damned. The system needs a reboot and the Trojan horses a move to chest (but who will bell the cat?) Have we any political option there?

Let the culture of justice be born and a political morality where the masses know who they are, what they mean and what they choose, comes into existence. We need a political morality of our own based on the people’s ideas not a borrowed one (as usual). At the moment the fact remains that our culture and morality, both are nothing but the culture of political immorality. The New World Order (to be shaped by war mongers) will be based on a high level of political immorality for it aims at the destruction of the weaker. Actually our fault is that we just take the shit from everywhere and reproduce the same despite the fact that we claim vociferously to be inspired from our rich past.

Today, when even the mass culture has turned to the culture of intolerance, we have to devise ways to develop some tolerance so that we, as a responsible public, can stop all communal, undemocratic and ill-minded forces from exploiting us and our vulnerable sections. We need to accept each other’s choices, be that of supporting any cricket team or having affiliation to any political or social party. The fact remains that acute politicisation of the public sphere destroys the collective social ethos and breeds nothing but intolerance and mutual hatred (that we saw in the much publicised Meerut case). We need to understand the vulnerability of Kashmiri youth throughout the country and try to understand their political and social frustrations. Instead of rehabilitating them, guiding them, empathising with them, some of us are hell bent on irritating them, treating them as anti-national elements, branding them as terrorists, throwing them out of our institutions and abusing them, etc. On the one hand, so much of goodwill is being established to build a peaceful Kashmir but on the other hand, Kashmiri’s time and again are given a feeling of being foreigners in their own land (even gifted sedition charges). Branding Kashmiri’s is highly unacceptable and if the Centre is really serious about peace in Kashmir, it should firmly direct all institutions to be Kashmir sensitive, so that all Indians can understand and share the pain of Kashmiris. The fact is that even after two and a half decades of armed conflict in Kashmir; most of the Indians do not know what the issue is all about and what went wrong in Kashmir! Mirza Galib insightfully says:

“Ya Rab Woh Na Samjhen Hain Na Samjhenge Meri Baat
De aur Dil Unko Jo Na Dey Mujko Zubaan Aur.”

(Adfar Shah is a New Delhi based (Kashmiri)Sociologist. Mail at adfer.syed@gmail.com.Views expressed are personal).

The article On Cultural Orientations And Political Morality In Kashmir – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Lloyd Marcus

Mary and I spend most of our time on the road traveling the country working to get conservative candidates elected in key races. I am Chairman of Conservative Campaign Committee. We had a rare few weeks at home. I enjoyed it; worked on neglected honey-do projects and piddled around in “Lloyd’s Place” my catch-all shed/workshop.

We live in Florida. When we moved into our home nine years ago, we were excited about the orange tree in our back yard. Unfortunately, the oranges were very bitter and unpleasant. A friend suggested that I draft bark from a sweet orange tree to our tree. He claimed that over time our tree would bear sweet oranges. I never got around to implementing his suggestion.

So, for almost ten years, this tree with bitter fruit which we have never eaten, has been taking up space in the middle of our back yard.

Suddenly, it occurred to me to cut down the tree and replace it with a new sweet orange tree. Mary suggested that we also add a lemon tree. Then I thought, I love cumquats. Why not plant a cumquat tree as well? I got excited.

Wow, look how my thoughts broadened and horizons grew, the moment I opened myself up to change.

Funny how we become accustom to living with useless and unpleasant things in our lives that hold us back from new experiences and fulfilling dreams.

Duty called Mary and me back on the road; headed to Michigan. A half hour before our driver to the airport was scheduled to arrive, I felt there was something else I need to do before leaving home. I ran to my workshop, grabbed my saw and cut down that bitter tasting orange tree. It felt good.

The first order of business upon my arrival back home is to dig up the stump.

The article Lloyd Vs The Bitter Orange Tree & Chuck Morse Interview‏ – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By ISN Security Watch

Despite the opportunities represented by the Arab Spring, why has Algeria’s Berber community failed to enhance its status and identity within the country? According to the CSS’ Lisa Watanabe, it’s because it continues to reject the Arab-Islamic vision that has defined the post-colonial Algerian state.

By Lisa Watanabe

Lisa Watanabe is a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS). The following Q&A is based on her book chapter, “Religion, Ethnicity, and State Formation in Algeria: ‘The Berber’ As a Category of Contestation” in State Formation and Identity in the Middle East and North Africa.

What can you tell us about ethnic Berbers, their role in regional history and their status as group today?

Ethnic Berbers are located in a vast stretch of territory that runs from Egypt’s western desert, across North Africa and down to Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. The historical narrative employed by many Berber activists is one of constant and continued resistance to external conquest that dates back to the Arab conquests and more recently has found expression within the context of French colonialism. However, the Berber are by no means a homogeneous group, which partly explains why no grand narrative or truly transnational movement has emerged. While the experiences of Berbers in different North African and Sahelian states are different, their growing activism has, nevertheless, acted as a site of contestation within many of the post-independence regimes.

Berber self-identification and activism can tell us a great deal about nationalism and state formation. In the Algerian context, the Berber quest for recognition illustrates how post-independence Algerian state-and nation-building has been linked to projects of Arabization and Islamization following the French colonial experience. In addition to highlighting the relationship between religion, ethnicity and state formation in Algeria, the Berber struggle is also interesting to look at as a potential driver of greater pluralism and inclusivity in the country.

Tell us about your chapter, how have Berbers shaped the history and culture of modern Algeria?

The Berber struggle in Algeria is very much rooted in competing visions of the nation and the fight for independence from France. Within the mainstream Algerian nationalist movement, Berber leaders often expressed an oppositional force that supported an independent Algeria as secular and multicultural – an Algérie algérienne (an Algerian Algeria) as they termed it. However, this vision did not conform to the dominant Arab-Islamic definition of the nation espoused by other nationalist figures, resulting in the supporters of a multi-ethnic Algeria being successively excluded from the nationalist movement.

In fact, the Algiers Charter of 1964, the de facto constitution of the newly-independent Algeria, declared Algeria to be an “Arab-Muslim country”. This definition of the nation was linked to the National Liberation Front’s (Front de libération nationale, FLN) role as a revolutionary party that had played a central role in the fight for independence and its subsequent effort to forge a national consensus around itself as the inheritor of the revolution. Since the FLN and the state were essentially one and the same until the early 1990s, when a separation between the ruling party and the state occurred, efforts to endow the state with legitimacy have been embedded in a narrative of the revolution in which a single Arab-Islamic colonial subject rose up spontaneously against oppression.

Within this dominant vision of the Algerian nation, the Berber identity found no place. Berber activists, nevertheless, sought to appropriate Algeria’s revolutionary past into the current Berber struggle for cultural and linguistic recognition. In part, this represents an effort to reinsert Berber particularity into the definition of the Algerian nation and to challenge the totalizing ‘official’ vision of an Arab-Islamic nation. Berber activists have, for example, claimed that the Algerian language was more closely connected to Berber dialects and the Arab dialect spoken in Algeria than with modern standard Arabic. They have also sought to contest the Islamic identity attributed to the nation, preferring secular or Marxist orientations. These competing visions of the nation remain a point of fracture in Algerian society.

What roles do religion and ethnicity have in Algeria? How have these roles changed over the years?

Religion and ethnicity have played central roles in the post-independence Algeria. State formation and legitimation has been connected to the promotion of a vision of the nation as Arab and Islamic. Since the state was synonymous with the ruling party until the early 1990s, regime legitimacy has also been tied to religion and ethnicity. Indeed, the ‘official’ representation of the Algerian nation has been accompanied by efforts on the part of the government to manage the discourse on national identity through various means, including control of the press, the political system and the social space. In the face of growing support for the Islamist movement in the 1980s, the regime’s efforts to prove its Arab-Islamic credentials intensified. Arabic was declared the only official language of the Algerian state in the 1989 constitution, and the Arabization of society has been pursued both through the use of Arabic in the educational and public spheres. The regime also sought to associate itself more closely with Islam as a means of legitimizing its rule.

Sections of the Berber community have, in turn, responded with efforts to re-appropriate the cultural and political symbolic space in order to promote ‘the Berber’ as a legitimate category within the nation. The Berber Cultural Movement (MCB), for instance, opposed compulsory Arabization and sought recognition of Berber culture and language, as well as a calling for Western-style liberalization and democratization. In 1980, the Berber movement came into open opposition with the authorities in what became known as the “Berber Spring”. While the immediate cause was the Arabization of the education system, increasing Berber activism was also prompted by the increased Islamization of Algerian society.

Following the “Berber Spring”, very little changed. While efforts were made by the government to mollify Berbers, ultimately it was inattentive to their grievances. Tensions reached a peak again in 2001 with the so-called Black Spring that took place as civil protests swept through the Berber region of Kabylia. Once again, Berber activists sought to contest the exclusion of Berber identity and language within the nation-building projects of the regime. They called for acceptance of Amazigh demands of identity, language and culture, and that Tamazight (the Berber language) be recognized as a national and official language. Some concessions were made in 2002. Tamazight was recognized as a national, though not official language, in the constitution. The struggle for recognition of a legitimate Berber category within the Algerian nation and the challenge to the notion of religious and cultural unity of Algerian society imposed by the state thus remains ongoing. The place of Berbers within the cultural and political life of Algeria continues to be the source of one of Algeria’s social struggles and points of fracture within society.

Why is “the Berber question” a contested one in Algeria?

As explained, the “Berber question”, as it has come to be known, is closely tied to the post-independence state-building project and needs to be understood against the historical backdrop of French colonialism in Algeria and the evolution of the nationalist movement. Just as Algeria had to be re-appropriated from colonial discourse so too did “the Berber” within competing visions of the nation. Within the FLN’s totalizing project, “which became the official post-independence definition of the nation” the Berber was not recognized as a legitimate category with which people might identify. Following the immediate post-independence years, as the regime failed to deliver and dissatisfaction with the FLN grew, regime legitimacy came to rely more and more on successive efforts to increasingly Arabize and Islamize society.

The doctrinaire insistence of the post-independence regime on the Arab identity of the Algerian people and the program of linguistic Arabization has made “Berber identity” into a highly charged and volatile site of contestation and opposition in independent Algeria. Given that the regime’s legitimacy has been so closely tied to the vision of the nation as Arab and Islamic, Berber identity reimagined in opposition to the rigid Arab-Islamic identity of the nation has become a powerful expression of dissidence in today’s Algeria, making the “Berber question” a contested one.

What are some of the most likely scenarios for an outcome (or important developments) on this question in the medium- long term?

An ideal outcome on the “Berber question” is dependent on the emergence of a more inclusive vision of the nation that would enable cultural and linguistic diversity to be recognized and promoted by the state. However, such an outcome would most likely depend on the emergence of greater democracy, understood in a broad sense. The human rights culture in Algeria would need to be more firmly embedded than it is, particularly since Berber activists have increasingly embedded their struggle within a human rights discourse.

While the Arab uprisings did prompt a surge in Berber activism across North Africa and potentially greater openings for the recognition of their cultural and linguistic rights in a number of countries, those openings remain small in the Algerian case. Given the largely cosmetic reforms undertaken within the context of “managed transition” in the country, Berber activists still face an uphill struggle in the medium term. However, gains made in neighboring transition countries could help pave the way for greater recognition of minority and thus Berber rights within Algeria over the longer term.

Lisa Watanabe is a senior researcher in the Swiss and Euro-Atlantic Security Team of the Think Tank at the Center for Security Studies (CSS). She recently published the chapter, “Religion, Ethnicity, and State Formation in Algeria: ‘The Berber’ As a Category of Contestation” in State Formation and Identity in the Middle East and North Africa.

The article Religion, Ethnicity And State Formation In Algeria – Q&A appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By JTW

By Ozdem Sanberk

The two leaders in Cyprus restarting, albeit cautiously, talks for a UN-supervised comprehensive solution has revived hopes. It is crucial for the stability, security, and welfare of the Eastern Mediterranean and its surrounding regions that the two leaders as well as the international public seize upon this emerging opportunity.

While the bloodbath continues all around the Middle East, the Joint Statement by the island’s Turkish and Greek communities declaring the recent decision to restart negotiations for a comprehensive, UN-supervised solution has revived hopes.

The fact that some sort of a balance was established between the fundamental demands put forth by both parties—demands which they’ve been sensitively urging all along—underpins the emergence of such an optimistic atmosphere. Indeed, when Anastasiades and Eroğlu declare that the new state is to be established as a single legal entity with singular sovereignty over its domain, they also clarified that the solution will be based on political equality between the Turkish and Greek communities separated into two distinct political zones. In this scheme both constituent states (political zones) would have full residual authority exclusive of the central government’s authority, and the distinction between these two legal domains would be clearly defined by the new state’s constitution. The entitlement of being a constituent state and the rule that constituent states will have the outright authority to administer their own legal affairs respectively—two conditions for reunification which the Greek political entity has long denied the Turkish party—have been the backbone of the Turkish demands since the beginning of negotiations. This rule is also in line with the principle of subsidiarity set forth by the European Union. What really matters within the EU is that the member states simply hold on to their basic authority while delegating limited authority to the supranational institutions of the EU. Similarly, the Joint Statement suggests that neither side will be able to claim legal authority over the other, which is a clear indicator that the principle of equality was also fully accepted in line with the demand of the Turkish party. However, maybe the most important clause of the Joint Statement is the one that calls for the Turkish and Greek administrations to hold separate but simultaneous referenda following the solution.

Equality in word, but in deed

The Joint Statement is of capital importance because it proves a convergence of understanding regarding the essential issues explained above. The consensus implies that the Turks on the island will have de jure and de facto liberty in making decisions related to their own society and their own daily lives without being dependent on the central authority. A federation established on such grounds will provide Turkish Cypriots with equality not in word but in deed—though only, of course, if in the coming period the negotiation process which has started so well doesn’t completely go off the rails.

Is there such a possibility? The answer is yet to be revealed. However, it turns out, not only Anastasiades but now the majority of the population are hoping for a solution. If this was not the case, it would have been out of the question for the Greek party to assent to simultaneous referenda after the experience of the Annan Plan process. Nevertheless, whether or not the Greek Party (which looks to be in favor of a resolution) will consent to a concrete offer for a resolution in the coming period will be revealed as the negotiations progress and the subject of shared sovereignty comes to the table.

Turkish-Greek balance

It is not enough to approach the Cyprus issue considering only the two separate communities.. The independent state of Cyprus was established with the Treaties of London and Zurich which were signed between the UK, Turkey, Greece, and the island’s Turkish and Greek communities more than half a century ago. These treaties provide political equality to Turks and Greeks on the island, and equal rights for the members of both communities at the individual level. Moreover, these treaties affirm the Turkey-Greece security balance over the maritime region covering the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean that was established through the Treaty of Lausanne. Turkey’s interest in Cyprus derives from its will to preserve bilateral relations with Greece in a cooperative, friendly, and neighborly manner as much as it derives from an urge to protect (in its capacity as a guarantor state defined by the Treaties of London and Zurich signed in 1959 and 1960, respectively) the legally vested rights of the resident Turkish community on the island. Just like yesterday, today maintaining Turkey’s constructive relationship with Greece deeply depends on the ability of all parties involved to maintain the security balance over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea. Therefore the resolution of the Cyprus dispute will help normalize Turkey’s relations with Greece and with the West at large. Behind the silent but effective endeavors of Turkish diplomatic institutions to re-prepare the conditions for a resolution lies the fact that Turkish diplomacy is well aware of the larger mechanism explained above. That these endeavors center on the United States—an ally of both Greece and Turkey—is also worth mentioning.

Greece’s responsibility

Another reason why the Cyprus dispute has been unresolved for the last half a century is that nobody wants to remember Greece’s responsibilities as a guarantor state. As a matter of fact, Greece pulled itself away from the Cyprus issue after the Greek Administration in southern Cyprus attained membership in the EU. Athens is not actively and constructively making an effort to resolve the dispute on a bilateral basis. It has always refrained from directly engaging Turkish Cypriots. Such an attitude from Greece forms the basis of Turkish doubts and a feeling of uncertainty over whether Greece actually wishes to reach a solution. Whereas it should be noted that Turkish PM Erdoğan received Greek Cypriot journalists and a delegation of Greek Cypriot NGO members in Ankara in 2010—leading to an enormously constructive and positive meeting.(*)

We hope that the Joint Statement, which opened the door to contacts across both sides of the island and from Athens and Ankara, will help remove mutual distrust.

The U.S. and energy diplomacy

The Cyprus dispute had actually been off the international agenda until quite recently. However, relatively recently rich reserves of natural gas were discovered to lie beneath the maritime territories belonging to Israel and the Greek administration in Cyprus and. The discovery of energy riches beneath the Eastern Mediterranean maritime zone brought the Cyprus dispute to Washington’s agenda once again. Indeed, Turkish diplomatic initiatives make it clear that this emerging context has not escape Turkey’s notice. That is because it is well-known that the energy deposits in question would most safely and reliably be transported to global markets through Turkey. However, realizing such a lucrative scenario requires first finding a solution to the Cyprus dispute. On the other hand, shipping energy resources through Turkish territory directly concerns Israel’s national interests too, bringing a strong incentive to repair Turkish-Israeli relations.

Win-win formula

From Washington’s perspective, three regional allies’ convergence on the fields of peace-building, energy cooperation, and economy is a win-win formula. Thus, in all likelihood the U.S. will continue to stand behind efforts to resolve the Cyprus dispute. For solving the dispute over Cyprus will not only yield results merely related to maintaining energy-security around the Eastern Mediterranean; it may also have positive effects such as the opening of new chapters in Turkey-EU negotiations, overcoming the bottleneck in NATO-EU cooperation, and creating further opportunities for NATO-Israel relations and even NATO-Cyprus relations.

The European Union

As it is obvious that developments in this vein will yield favorable results for Brussels as well, EU support for the new round of negotiations on Cyprus dispute would be a rational course of action. One natural dimension of this support would be lifting the vetoes obstructing the negotiation process with Turkey. For if Turkey renounces its EU policy vision it won’t make resolving Cyprus any easier—to the contrary it will make it impossible. However we are well aware that at this stage not all members of the EU have enough political will to support efforts for a peaceful solution in Cyprus. For now, it’s clear that the U.K.’s attitude will be decisive, and the policy line that London pursues will be shaped in accordance with how it assesses the future of its military bases on Cyprus.

Russia

What is unclear at this juncture is Russia’s attitude, though it is well-known that Russia has a special relationship with Southern Cyprus. Since the advent of the Arab uprisings and the Syrian crisis Russia has demonstrated its capacity to influence political and strategic developments around the Mediterranean and the world at large. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, its interest in Mediterranean affairs as well is manifest. Moreover, it is no secret that Russia is a candidate power center within the newly emerging and gradually forming multipolar international order of the early 21st century. Therefore a newly initiated negotiation process that does not secure Russian support alongside strong backing from the U.S. and the EU, may end up a great disappointment.

The new trend in ethnic conflicts is partition

A point worth stressing is that the principle of national borders’ immutability has been losing its importance throughout Europe since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As Mustafa Kutlay correctly pointed in his study, the underlying dynamic in ethnic-based border disputes in Europe and the Balkans is no longer a force favoring unification, but disintegration.(**) Therefore, it is crucial that the two leaders as well as the international community seize upon the recent decision to restart negotiations for a UN-supervised, comprehensive solution in Cyprus for the sake of the stability, security, and well-being of the Eastern Mediterranean and its surrounding regions.

Ozdem Sanberk, Director of USAK

(*) Hugh Pope, A Little Something New: Cyprus Talks Begin, Crisis Group, 11 February 2014.

(**) Mustafa Kutlay, “Kıbrıs sorununda çözüme ne kadar yakınız?”, Radikal, 10 February 2014.

The article The Cyprus Joint Statement: A Product Of Silent Diplomacy – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.