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Dead Pigs Resurface In China’s Yangtze River

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Authorities in regions bordering the Yangtze River in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi are once more faced with massive numbers of floating dead pigs, local authorities said on Wednesday.

Hundreds of pig carcasses, which swamped Shanghai’s Huangpu River and appeared in the Yangtze near Yichang city last March, have now begun to appear on the Ganjiang to Nanchang section of China’s longest river, local reports said.

“We had fished out a total of 131 dead pigs [from the river] as of Tuesday evening,” the municipal government of Nanchang, Jiangxi’s provincial capital, said in a statement on its official account on the popular microblogging service Sina Weibo.

“Tests by the health and environmental protection departments on samples taken from water processing plants showed that quality was nothing out of the ordinary,” it said.

In March last year, Shanghai’s water quality made world headlines after thousands of swollen and rotting dead pigs were found dumped in the city’s Huangpu River, prompting many residents to turn to bottled water in spite of assurances by local officials that supplies were up to standard.

Jiangxi media reports quoted an employee of a water supply company as saying that the fast-running river had likely washed many of the carcasses past before they became entangled with water treatment plants.

Clean-up underway

An official who answered the phone at the agriculture and fisheries department of the Nanchang city government declined to comment on the reports, however.

“We can only give face-to-face interviews but we can’t speak to you directly like this,” the official said.

But he confirmed that clean-up operations were still under way to pick up more carcasses.

“We will be undertaking a full check [of the area],” he said.

‘Irresponsible behavior’

Former photographer and Huaihe River activist Huo Daishan said the government’s assurances weren’t reliable, however.

“Maybe it’ll be polluted tomorrow or the next day, even if it’s not polluted today,” Huo said.

“This will definitely pollute the water eventually.”

Huo said the focus should be on the fact that the carcasses should never have ended up in the water in the first place.

“They were thrown in after the animals died, which is a reprehensible act in itself,” Huo said. “The important thing is to ask why something like this … has happened again.”

He said he believed the cause lay in a lack of moral responsibility for environmental damage.

“This is extremely irresponsible behavior towards the environment and towards all the people who live downstream,” Huo said.

“There should be an effective punishment for those responsible, once they are found; that is the government’s duty,” he said.

He blamed local government officials for failing to implement China’s exemplary environmental protection laws and to educate the local population into greater environmental awareness.

“This is a moral issue and an issue with implementation,” Huo said.

‘Pork soup’ jokes

Chinese netizens were quick to pile in with a slew of bad-taste jokes following last year’s explosion of ridicule and satire around the dead pigs.

“So Nanchang residents get to eat pork soup for free,” wrote one commentator, in a wisecrack that was repeated in various forms across China’s tightly controlled Internet on Wednesday.

A Jiangxi-based student surnamed Zhang said local people were alarmed by reports, but felt there was little they could do.

“We all eat in the canteen, and the water used by the university canteen comes from the treatment plant,” Zhang said. “We have no other option.”

“How many more bizarre happenings will there be, ad infinitum,” wrote another online commentator.

Another wrote: “Dead pigs again. This madness could only happen in the total absence of any sort of policy.”

Chinese consumers are reeling in the wake of a string of public health scandals affecting foodstuffs and medicines in recent years, including melamine-tainted infant formula milk, used “gutter” cooking oil, and tainted vaccines.

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


Turkey: President Dismisses Foreign Plot, Contradicts PM

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President Abdullah Gul has dismissed suggestions that outside forces are conspiring against Turkey, openly contradicting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s assertions that a corruption scandal shaking the country is part of a foreign-backed plot, Reuters reported.

The graft inquiry swirling around Erdogan’s government has grown into the biggest challenge of his 11-year-rule. He has repeatedly cast it as a scheme by political enemies at home and abroad to damage him ahead of March 30 local elections.

“I don’t accept allegations about foreign powers and I don’t find them right … I don’t believe in these conspiracy theories as if there are some people trying to destroy Turkey,” the Hurriyet newspaper quoted Gul as telling reporters during a visit to Denmark.

“Of course Turkey has its long-standing opponents in the world. Certain groups have praised our work for the past 10 years… Now that they are criticizing us, why is this an issue? These types of comments are for third world countries,” he said.

“The political atmosphere we are in is not making any of us happy. It doesn’t make me happy. I am both troubled and saddened by the things we are going through,” Gul was quoted as saying, according to Reuters.

Gul has been under growing pressure from both within and outside Turkey to calm tensions generated by the graft scandal and is seen as a potential successor to Erdogan as prime minister and head of the AK Party, should Erdogan decide to run for the presidency in an August vote.

He and Erdogan had appeared to have closed ranks since the graft scandal erupted in December, with Gul approving controversial laws tightening Internet controls and giving the government greater influence over the judiciary – moves seen by Erdogan’s critics as an authoritarian response to the probe.

Erdogan himself has repeatedly denied any suggestion of corruption and has accused his former ally, U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, of orchestrating the graft investigation through a “parallel state” of his supporters in the judiciary and police. Gulen denies the allegations.

Dr. Seth Shostak: ‘We Are Going To Find Life In Space This Century’

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(CORDIS) — Are we alone in the universe? It’s a question that has always fired the human imagination. The more we learn, the more unlikely it seems that Earth is a lone miracle inhabiting life amid galaxies of lifeless planets. Many eminent scientists are positive that it is just a matter of time before we find other life in the universe . But exactly how we’ll encounter our inter-galactic neighbours, and whether they’ll be just a few cells or full-blown ET lookalikes, they are less sure.

‘We are going to find life in space in this century,’ Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) said emphatically at last week’s European Commission Innovation Convention. ‘There are 150 billion galaxies other than our own, each with a few tens of billions of earth-like planets. If this is the only place in the universe where anything interesting happening then this is a miracle. And 500 years of astronomy has taught us that whenever you believe in a miracle, you’re probably wrong.’

How will discover life in space? Dr Shostak sees it as a ‘three-horse race’ which will probably be won over the next 25 years. We will either find it nearby, in microbial form, on Mars or one of the moons of Jupiter; we will find evidence for gases produced by living processes (for example photosynthesis) in the atmospheres of planets around other stars; or Dr Shostak and his team at SETI will pick up signals from intelligent life via huge antennas.

Dr. Suzanne Aigrain, Lecturer in Astrophysics at Oxford University, who studies extrasolar planets or exoplanets (planets around other stars than the sun), represents horse number two in the race. Speaking at the Convention, Dr Aigrain noted that, based on her studies, she would also bet that we are not alone. ‘We are very close to being able to say with a good degree of certainty that planets like the Earth, what we call habitable planets, are quite common [in the universe] … That’s why when asked if I believe there’s life on other planets, I raise my hand and I do so as a scientist because the balance of probability is overwhelmingly high.’

Dr. Aigrain, and the groups that she works with, have so far been using light – electromagnetic radiation – as their primary tool to look for planets around stars other than the sun. Habitable planets are defined as those that are roughly the size of the earth where the surface temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on the surface. The life ‘biomarkers’ that Dr. Aigrain and her colleagues look for are trace gases in the atmospheres of the exoplanets that they think can only be there if they are being produced by a biological source like photosynthesis.

Dr Shostak and SETI, meanwhile, seek evidence of life in the universe by looking for some signature of its technology. If his team does discover radio transmissions from space, Dr Shostak is quite certain that they will be coming from a civilisation more advanced than our own. ‘Why do I insist that if we find ET, he/she/it will be more advanced than we are? The answer is that you’re not going to hear the Neanderthals. The Neanderthal Klingons are not building radio transmitters that will allow you to get in touch.’

If we do find life on other planets or intercept a radio signal, what are the consequences? Finding a microbe that isn’t an earthly microbe will tell us a lot about biology, but there will also be huge philosophical consequences. In Dr Shostak’s words, ‘It literally changes everything’.

Syria: The Northern Storm Brigade: It’s History, Current Status And Why It Matters – Analysis

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By Chris Looney for Syria Comment

The Northern Storm Brigade (NSB: Arabic – Liwa Asifat al-Shamal) has been called many things since it was first formed in the early days of the uprisings in Syria. For some, it is a part of a contingent of secular FSA groups that represent the best chance for the West to counter the Islamification of the revolution. For others, it is a brigade of opportunists – smugglers and kidnappers with an ill-defined agenda willing to revise their ideology in order to maintain their influence and power.

In reality, the NSB is all of the above. In many ways, its story mirrors the story of the revolution; early on it was unable to coordinate effectively with other rebel groups or to secure significant western support, and later its downfall at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) foreshadowed the expanding role of extremists in the conflict. Because of these parallels, the NSB is to some extent a microcosm of the revolution, making its story essential for a thorough understanding of the war.

The Formation of the NSB and the Liberation of Azaz

The NSB was formed midway through 2011 in Azaz, a town in northern Aleppo right across the border from the Turkish city of Kilis. Strategically, this area was very important because of the Bab al-Salam border crossing, one of the main conduits for goods and people flowing into Syria. According to one founding member present at the initial meeting, the group rallied unanimously around Ammar Dadikhi, known to his followers as Abu Ibrahim.

Dadikhi had his roots in `Azaz, where he was a prominent businessman before the uprisings. While he had been known to tell reporters that he was in the fruit trade, activists and even members of the NSB acknowledge that he was a smuggler. However, it is important to note that this was not an entirely stigmatized profession in border towns, and in fact was seen by many residents as a natural part of the economy. While he focused primarily on cigarettes, the conflict opened new opportunities to expand the group’s operations into fuel and weapons trafficking.

Funding for the group came mostly through the business elite (smugglers) of Azaz, who were eager to contribute to the fight against Bashar al-Assad. Members of the NSB deny having received any sort of foreign backing, state or private, though this is impossible to confirm. But activists familiar with the NSB speculate that their story is true – support within Azaz and profits gained through continued smuggling were likely enough to sustain the small, local brigade.

This is in part why the NSB rarely coordinated with other brigades early on. Its geographical scope was at the start limited to Azaz, and that coupled with its self-sufficiency gave Dadikhi little incentive to integrate with other groups or, later, with the Supreme Military Council (SMC). As one activist put it, “(the NSB) was independent because smugglers like full control over everything.”

But this was hardly problematic as the NSB, alongside two other rebel brigades, fought the Syrian Army for control of Azaz. According to activists and members of the NSB, the group enjoyed widespread support during this period. When the town was finally liberated in July of 2012, the group turned over the task of governing to a local council, and despite some squabbles with residents retained its popularity.

Early Divisions

Still, during the battle for Azaz there was some discord within the brigade. In early 2012, a commander known as Ahmed Ebed split from the NSB and formed a new group called the Amr bin al-Aas Brigade. A schoolteacher before the revolution, Ebed was upset with Dadikhi’s focus on smuggling and unnerved by his secularism. He was by no means an extremist, caution two people familiar with the situation, but did believe politics should be informed by Islamic principles.

Because of Dadikhi’s popularity among his men, Ebed was not able to take many NSB fighters with him. Moving his operations outside of Azaz, he began to fill this void by recruiting and training the slow trickle of foreigners that had begun to make their way into Syria. According to the sources mentioned above, the first two men to join Ebed were two Iraqis who went by the noms de guerre of Abu Suhaib al-Iraqi and Abu Staif al-Iraqi. Both had extensive networks throughout the Muslim world, and they were able to leverage them in order to bring more fighters into Syria. By the end of 2012, the Amr bin al-Aas Brigade had largely fallen apart, many of its members leaving in order to join two newly formed groups with a more radical tilt – Jaysh al-Muhajereen and Jaysh Muhammad.

Jaysh al-Muhajereen was formed during the summer of 2012 by Abu Omar al-Shishani, a Chechen who later would become the northern commander for ISIS. In March of 2013, it merged with Jaysh Muhammad and another group to form Jaysh al-Muhajereen wa-Ansar (the Army of Emigrants and Helpers) under al-Shishani’s leadership. After its forces were consolidated, al-Shishani reportedly controlled over 1,000 fighters. He would later leave and join ISIS, taking some of his fighters with him.

The Battle for Menagh Airbase

The NSB was at the height of its power when Azaz fell. One senior member estimates the group’s strength to have been roughly 1,100 at the time, though others have estimated it to be as high as 2,000. Yet its influence was concentrated almost exclusively in Azaz. It had no competition for the town, as Ebed and Shishani were operating elsewhere in Aleppo province. So with a hard fought victory now under its belt, the NSB quickly moved south to Menagh Airbase, a Syrian Army stronghold between Aleppo and Azaz that was being used by Assad to carry out airstrikes on Aleppo city.

The siege of Menagh began in August of 2012 but quickly stagnated. The base was surrounded by open fields and heavily fortified with tanks, artillery, and snipers, making it difficult for the rebels to break through.

Complicating the situation for the NSB was the fact that the battle took a heavy toll on its senior leadership. In January of 2013, Dadikhi was wounded in a skirmish and evacuated to Turkey, where he would later pass away. Other commanders, including Hadi Salo and Samir Akkash, were killed during the campaign as well, forcing younger, less experienced fighters into high-ranking roles.

In addition, the NSB began to lose some of its forces to brigades with more Islamist orientations. According to one source close to the group, these defections were not too substantial, but did signal the growing role of Islam in the conflict. “(At this time) a lot of Syrians (were becoming) much more religious because of the war,” he says.

As the siege of Menagh wore on, the groups taking part in the fighting mushroomed. By the time the base finally fell on August 5, 2013 extremist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria) and ISIS had played important roles in its capture. The NSB was part of this victorious coalition, but came out of the fight somewhat weakened.

Hostages, McCain, and Amouri

During the struggle for Menagh, the NSB was also dealing with three separate issues that, according to its members, would profoundly affect the future of the organization. The first stemmed back to an incident that had occurred on May 22, 2012. A bus full of Lebanese citizens had been making their way home from a Shi’a pilgrimage in Iran when they were stopped by the NSB at a checkpoint outside of Azaz. In an interview with NPR, Dadikhi claimed the men in the group introduced themselves as military experts from Hezbollah, believing he and his troops to be government soldiers. The NSB would hold 11 of the men captive, setting off a hostage crisis that would last 17 months.

Dadikhi’s claims were vehemently denied by both the hostages and their families, and were met with intense speculation in the media. Yet the debate within the NSB and other rebel groups was not over the identity of the prisoners – of that they were certain. Rather, it was over what they should be exchanged for. For Dadikhi and many of his followers, they hoped to barter for the release of activists held by the Assad regime. Yet this was hardly unanimous. Liwa al-Tawhid, a moderate Islamist group that enjoyed a friendly relationship with the NSB, pushed Dadikhi to return the hostages only in exchange for a significant supply of weapons. According to one source, this became a mild dispute between Abdul Qader Saleh, Liwa al-Tawhid’s leader, and the NSB.

On May 27, 2013, with the hostages still being held and negotiations largely stalled, a visit from US Senator John McCain would again push the NSB into the spotlight. McCain traveled to Azaz with General Salim Idriss, then the commander of SMC, to meet with a contingent of FSA leaders from across Syria. Among these groups was the NSB, and McCain drew considerable criticism for allegedly crossing paths with Dadikhi and Muhammad Nour, another member of the brigade that was directly involved in the kidnappings. Despite the fact that at this point Dadikhi had been killed and the connection to Nour was later refuted, the speculation still sullied McCain’s visit and made his push for further funding of the FSA ring hollow.

Circled are: Abu Youseff left, and Muhammad Nour, right. Two men Lebanese reports claim were responsible for the border kidnapping and continued detainment of 11 Shiite pilgrims.

Circled are: Abu Youseff left, and Muhammad Nour, right. Two men Lebanese reports claim were responsible for the border kidnapping and continued detainment of 11 Shiite pilgrims.

But according to members of the NSB, the aftermath of the visit was much worse for the brigade. At this point, the group had taken significant losses in the battle for Menagh, and was hoping McCain’s trip would translate into tangible aid. “We expected him to at least send food, if not weapons or money” spat out one fighter, bitterly. “But he did nothing.”

As several other fighters and activists explained it, the visit turned out to be an inflection point for the brigade. Not only did they fail to secure the support necessary to revive the NSB, ISIS later used McCain’s visit (among other things) as an excuse to attack Azaz. Despite the fact that the fighters acknowledge that this would have happened anyway, the hostility with which McCain is held by many NSB members suggests that he became a scapegoat for the group’s problems as their situation deteriorated.

Another reason the NSB had begun to decline was the death of Dadikhi. While he was alive, his fighters had described him as a “charismatic leader”, a sentiment still echoed today. He is remembered with nostalgia and spoken about with reverence, his followers reminiscing about how he was “more concerned about civilians than his fighters” and “cared about his people” rather than personal gain.

This contrasts heavily with their opinions regarding Samir Amouri, who would take Dadikhi’s place after his death. Amouri had been a political leader within the brigade and was in charge of the Bab al-Salam border crossing, an important source of revenue for the NSB. One journalist recalls being charged up to $300 to cross into Syria, and with Dadikhi gone this proved to be an important source of power for Amouri.[1] In addition, he also had several family members in influential positions within the brigade and thus was the natural successor to Dadikhi, a decision that it seems was not highly controversial at the time. Though in hindsight several NSB members say they knew it was the wrong decision, there is no evidence presented of anyone actively opposing Amouri or splintering away from the group at the time.

Under Amouri’s leadership, however, the hostage crisis would eventually be resolved in a complex deal brokered by Qatar that involved the NSB, the regime, Lebanon, and Turkey. Believing the Turks had the ability to influence the NSB, a group calling themselves the Visitors of Imam Ali al-Rida kidnapped two civilian Turkish pilots in Lebanon on August 9, 2013 and held them as collateral for the release of the Shi’a hostages. By this point, only nine men remained with the NSB, as the group had released two as a gesture of good will. Despite claims in the media that they had been transferred to another rebel group known as the al-Islam brigade, NSB members assert that the prisoners were never outside of their control. Eventually, a deal was struck that released the hostages in October in exchange for 200 women being held by the Assad regime and the Turkish pilots.

ISIS Takes Over Azaz

According to one member of the NSB, after the fall of Menagh, ISIS “went straight for Azaz.” In reality, the group had established a presence there as early as July 2013 through the provision of services and da’wah outreach to the local population. Yet up until September there was no military component to this, and while the NSB remained wary of ISIS there were no outright clashes because the ISIS contingent was at the time very small and did not directly challenge NSB authority.

But this precarious peace did not last. In mid-September, tensions escalated because of a German doctor working in the local hospital in Azaz. ISIS accused the doctor of being a foreign spy and charged the NSB with aiding him, using this as an excuse to send in military reinforcements and begin attacking Azaz. What followed has been documented in great detail, with Liwa al-Tawhid temporarily securing a ceasefire between the two groups that ISIS would later violate, leading to renewed clashes and the eventual takeover of Azaz by ISIS in early October.

What has not been widely reported is the nagging reluctance within the NSB to engage in combat against ISIS, even after ISIS had begun to assassinate its leaders. While one senior commander in the NSB says he was suspicious of ISIS during the battle for Menagh and warned other brigades about them, within the rest of the group this conviction appears to hardly have been universal. Two activists tell of a meeting in a local mosque that occurred shortly after the incident with the German doctor, where dozens of members of the NSB and locals debated the escalating clashes with ISIS. The room was divided, says one of the men present at the meeting, but eventually those present agreed that they should avoid further conflict if possible and seek a mediated solution. The rationale behind this was not based on the fact that the NSB felt they were not powerful enough to take on ISIS; rather, it was founded on a hesitation to fight with their “Muslim brothers.”

It must be stressed that this was before ISIS, as one activist put it, “revealed (its) true colors.” After having fought alongside the group at Menagh, some members of the NSB were still uncertain of ISIS’ true intentions and skeptical that skirmishes between the two would evolve into full-fledged warfare. Wanting to return their focus to the regime, a quick, peaceful resolution to the dispute seemed not only practical, but also possible.

Of course, ISIS had other plans, targeting NSB’s already weakened leadership and decimating it even further. Now, NSB members say that ISIS fighters are “less than animals… We will burn them.” The war is now entirely against ISIS, they add. “We can deal with the regime after we deal with (them).”

Naddom and the Current Situation

Though some NSB members initially had doubts about direct confrontation, ISIS’ disregard for the agreement mediated by Liwa al-Tawhid quickly spurred them to action. Yet the brigade was no match for ISIS. According to one member, they were fighting with only Kalashnikovs and two machine guns at their disposal, and thus were easily overpowered. Another problem was leadership. Amouri proved to be entirely inadequate in battle, fleeing into Turkey as ISIS gained control. “We failed because of him,” says one senior commander, who notes with a wry smile that Amouri is now wanted by both ISIS and the NSB.

Taking his place would be Mahmoud Naddom, who by all accounts has been a much more effective leader. He would continue the resistance against ISIS, moving what was left of the brigade outside of Azaz and continuing to strike when he had the opportunity. Yet he was constantly losing men and thus had little impact. There were few leaders left, and many fighters fled into Kilis, the Turkish city just across the border. Here, the group remained organized, changing its strategy in an attempt to remain afloat. Realizing it needed help, the NSB began reaching out to other groups in an attempt to develop relationships and begin coordinating with other rebels, something it had been hesitant to do in the past. Its leaders are now actively seeking foreign support as well, maintaining that they are the West’s best hope to counter the Islamification of the revolution. “By encouraging the NSB and supporting us, we can get others to defect from Islamic groups,” says one member.

But there is little evidence that these efforts are working. On February 28, ISIS withdrew from Azaz in order to reinforce its positions in other parts of the country. At the time, one senior member of the NSB estimates that the group had only 300 men inside Syria. While some fighters (~70-100) went back to Azaz from Turkey, Liwa al-Tawhid still took control of the town. In addition, approximately 150 NSB members left the brigade to join Tawhid, leaving the current number of NSB troops inside Syria hovering around 200. Despite this, the group’s leaders are still confident that they can rebuild the brigade and are unwilling to merge with any other factions.

Conclusion

In many ways, the story of the NSB parallels the story of the revolution. Originally formed to combat the regime, internal funding interests impeded the group from actively coordinating with others, hurting the cohesiveness of the rebellion. The influx of foreign fighters and extremists would later weaken the NSB to the point where it ceased to be a factor on the ground. In the wake of the uprisings against ISIS, it now sees the opportunity to reestablish itself. But the road ahead will not be easy, and in a large part depends on securing foreign support. The NSB is not perfect, as one of its fighters acknowledged, but “we are good people… focused on combating (extremism).” Adds another, “we just want freedom for our country.”

About the author:
 Chris Looney: chris@sreo.org Research Analyst at the Syria Research and Evaluation Organization (SREO) based in Gaziantep, Turkey

Source:
This article was published at Syria Comment and may be accessed here.

Notes:
[1] It is important to note that during the summer of 2013 the border post came to be shared with Liwa al-Tawhid. None of the NSB members interviewed were able to give adequate responses as to why this occurred or what the relationship entailed.

Presidential Election In Afghanistan: Local Media On The Front Line

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Reporters Without Borders is publishing a report on Afghanistan ahead of the presidential election scheduled for 5 April. The fruit of a fact-finding visit to the northern provinces of Parwan, Kapisa and Panjshir in September 2013, it is entitled “Presidential election in Afghanistan: local media on the front line.”

The report evaluates the current state of freedom of information in Afghanistan on the eve of the election, in which the media will have a key role to play in providing news coverage despite the uncertainties and dangers to which they are constantly exposed as the withdrawal of foreign troops approaches.

“The credibility of this election is crucial in the run-up to the departure of the US-led coalition’s troops,” said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire. “Given the risks of fraud and corruption, the media will have a key role to play as a source of information for the population and as observers of a free and democratic election.

“We have drafted specific recommendations for the authorities, who we urge to comply with their duty to guarantee journalists’ safety. This report is also targeted at the main candidates, who must give clear undertakings to ensure that freedom of information is firmly rooted in the Afghan people’s daily lives.”

During its visit in September, Reporters Without Borders conducted an information campaign aimed at improving the preparation and protection of journalists while covering the election.

Attacks and threats against local journalists in connection with their reporting are increasing in frequency. Since the start of the campaign in February, Reporters Without Borders has registered more than 20 cases in various parts of the country especially the cities of Kabul, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif. Supporters of candidates have been responsible for some of these attacks and threats.

Reporters Without Borders has a Handbook for Journalists during Elections that it published in partnership with the International Organization of the Francophonie. Persian and Pashto translations were produced to help Afghan journalists covering this election, one that is particularly sensitive and important for the country’s democracy.

Copies were distributed to journalists attending a seminar that Reporters Without Borders held in Kabul and to 40 northern journalists who attended the meeting that RWB organized in Sayad, in Kapisa province, on 28 September.

The report condemns the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for acts of violence and harassment against journalists, most of which take place outside the capital. At least 19 journalists have killed in connection with their reporting since 2002.

Women journalists in particular are often the targets of violence and intimidation. Afghanistan currently has 30 women running news media, most of them privately-owned. Although the government is supposed to ensure that 30 per cent of civil servants are women, none of the 68 state-owned media is run by a woman.

The report also analyses the growth of the Afghan media and the uncertainties that affect them, which are related to their economic situation and the withdrawal of foreign troops.

In its recommendations, Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities to revive the investigations into past crimes of violence against journalists that have remained unpunished; to ensure better cooperation between police, prosecutors and judges so that those responsible for violence against journalists can be brought to justice more quickly; and to adopt the law on access to information before the election.

Reporters Without Borders also urges the government and the religious authorities to defend and promote the right of women to work as journalists, just as men do, including in the broadcast media.

Read the report

Washington Sanctioning Democracy And Hailing Nazism – OpEd

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Today US President Barack Obama has extended the sanctions against Russia, introduced earlier by an executive order declaring “a national emergency” in view of the “actions and policies of persons — including persons who have asserted governmental authority in the Crimean region without the authorization of the Government of Ukraine – that undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.”  This order blocks all property and interests in the United States  that belong to individuals under sanction, suspends entry into the United States, as immigrants or non-immigrants, of such persons, prohibits any type of donations to or benefitting such persons, and even forbids “any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order.”  Section 10 of the order eliminates the possibility of challenging these sanctions in any court:

“This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.”

Thus, the US president has essentially authorized the extrajudicial expropriation of any foreign-owned property located within the territory of the United States. This executive order is unprecedented.  Never before has the United States introduced sanctions against individuals who have peacefully exercised their right to self-determination, as vested in them by the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

“All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

Ironically, in July 2009 the United States officially stated in a reference to the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo:

“The legal principle of territorial integrity does not prevent non-state entities from peacefully declaring its independence.”

The double and even triple standards of the US in regard to the situation in Crimea have already been fully unmasked by many international analysts (read e.g. Henry Kissinger in Washington PostJeffrey Taylor in Foreign Policy David Hendrickson in The National Interest, Chris Kanthon in the Nation of Change or Paul Craig Roberts in a number of posts). Thus, the Russian refusal to consider the unscrupulous and baseless claims made by the West in regard to the issue of Crimean sovereignty and reunification is widely seen as justified and exemplary. Tuesday’s decision by Russia to grant the request of the overwhelming majority of Crimeans who voted on Sunday to rejoin Russian Federation is in reality a prime example of “democracy in action” in its most classic form.  Watching the delighted public celebrating this reunification all over the Crimean peninsula in the last few days, only the most shameless presstitutes could insist that the 1.2 million Crimeans who opted for a Russian Crimea (of the 1.5 million registered voters on the peninsula) cast their ballots “at the gunpoints of the Russian occupation forces.” Faced with this fundamental reality, the political impotence of the Western power groups that have an interest in reincarnating the Cold War and marginalizing Russia is evident. The announced sanctions seem even more ridiculous once one realizes that since 2013 Russian internal legislation has forbidden any Russian official or legislator (the US sanctions list includes only individuals from this category) from legally owning or exploiting any kind of personal assets abroad.  As a matter of fact, Obama’s executive order encourages the enforcement of Russia’s internal legislation, which is intended to consolidate elites, and it exposes the hypocritical approach of the United States to its declared mission of “promoting democracy and the rule of law.”  Today we see that Russia is the real bastion of democracy and justice, any ally can reckon on. Because while the West exports chaos, Russia brings order and peace.

In this context, the Western policy toward the self-appointed “government” in Kiev and the role of the US and EU in ousting President Yanukovych appear even more short-sighted.  We now have a clearer picture of the Western-sponsored coup d’état in Ukraine.  The latest evidence presented by the former chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, Alexander Yakimenko, suggests that the ultranationalist storm troops operating at the site of “Euromaidan” were under the full control of the Western intelligence officers stationed in Kiev.  Expanding on the earlier revelations from the Estonian minister of foreign affairs, Urmas Paet, about the Ukrainian opposition groups that were involved in hiring unknown snipers who killed both protesters and riot police on Feb. 20, Mr. Yakimenko said that shots were fired from the building of the Philharmonic Hall in the Ukrainian capital, which was under the full control of the opposition forces and particularly the so-called Commandant of the Self-Defense of Maidan, Andriy Parubiy, who was appointed secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine after the coup.  Furthermore, the former security chief believes that Parubiy has been in contact with US intelligence agents who could have coordinated the assault.  He also said that according to the available intelligence, those snipers could have been foreign nationals, including mercenaries from the former Yugoslavia, as well as ex-undercover agents from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.

The use of mysterious snipers has become a hallmark of every “color” revolution sponsored by the West.  We remember perfectly well the poorly investigated cases of shootings by an unidentified sniper in Tehran in 2009 and Tunisia in 2011 (the video of “boar hunters” with British and Swedish passports captured on the streets of Tunisia needs no further comment). Before that, there were reports of sniper fire from the roof of the American embassy in Moscow during the tragic civil confrontation in October 1993. But the earliest false-flag incident involving sniper shooting in modern history is well-documented.  According to the confessions of the former minister of national defense of Lithuania, Audrius Butkevičius, armed men under his command, including snipers trained by US special services, shot at the crowd during the storm of the Vilnius TV tower in January 1991, when what was then Soviet Lithuania was plagued with civil unrest [for details, see the documentary history The Fool’s Ship (in Lithuanian), a book written by Vytautas Petkevičius, a former activist from the Lithuanian nationalist Sąjūdis movement].  It’s no wonder that the same destabilizing techniques were used in Kiev last month.

In the end an ugly picture emerges: US foundations and secret services invested billions of taxpayer dollars into a chimerical ultranationalist project for Ukraine, with the intention of removing this nation from Moscow’s sphere of influence. The immediate result of this investment is the establishment of a weak, neo-Nazi-backed puppet “government” in Kiev, an escalating wave of political repression against the new (pro-Russian) opposition leaders there, and the very real threat of civil war and the disintegration of this failing state in the center of Europe. [For details read “Who is in charge of Ukraine today?”]  This is a classic example of how an arrogant and primitive foreign policy can cause serious damage to the image of a nation that wants to be seen as “a beacon of democracy.” As the Voice of Russia argued earlier this month, the US sanctions on Ukraine would be more appropriately used against the “Euromaidan” activists and the illegitimate government in Kiev and its Western backers, who have virtually destroyed the constitutional order and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

What Do Children Need? – OpEd

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Apart from having its physical needs met, the primary needs of children are for stimulus and attention.

Children are genetically programmed to move about to explore their world and to focus their attention on an endless succession of natural phenomena which stimulates their emotional, intellectual and physical development.

However, if you confine a child in a pram, pusher, basinet, cot or any
other ‘imprisoned’ space, and particularly if you leave it inside a house or other building (devoid of natural stimuli such as sun, wind, rain, rocks, sticks, leaves, earth, sights, sounds and smells), the child is denied a natural range of movement and the environmental stimuli it needs for its development, including the development of its capacity to become self-reliant. See ‘Why Violence?‘  and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice‘.

Consequently, the child will now ‘require’ the attention (that is,
stimulus) of another individual (which, in a nuclear family, will most
usually be a parent) and delusionary artefacts such as toys, to compensate for the lack of natural stimuli in its confined and artificial space. The child’s natural capacity to pay attention to itself and its environment is thus systematically destroyed and this increases the pressure on parents to provide ‘endless’ amounts of ‘outside’ stimulus for the child which is vastly beyond what evolution intended and not what the child actually needs.

The point is that children need a certain amount of stimulus, and some of this in the form of attention from other humans, so that its innate potential to develop a full range of emotional responses and to speak, for example, is realised. But it will make phenomenally good use of natural stimulus (and require a great deal less attention from others) if it has the opportunity to do so. And it will use this learning to become self-reliant.

The Importance of Listening

The most important form of attention that anyone, including a child,
requires is listening. Listening, in this context, has a precise meaning
and it is invariably done extremely badly, particularly by parents in
relation to their own children.

Did you know that the simple act of not listening to how a child feels
destroys it emotionally and makes it powerless? If you want to destroy a child, you do not have to do anything else. Unfortunately, all parents do not listen (to a greater or lesser extent) to the feelings of their children. Hence our world of powerless individuals.

When someone speaks, apart from uttering words, they also convey feelings (which might be very subtle). Therefore, any communication consists of intellectual and emotional content and both of these elements need to be heard if you wish to understand what a speaker is trying to convey. Given that human beings are taught to focus on the intellectual content of any communication and learn to fear its emotional content, it is not surprising that few people are naturally good listeners and few people have benefited from the effort made in recent decades to learn some of the art of listening (through, for example, workshops that teach ‘reflective listening’).

Virtually all humans learn to unconsciously screen out the emotional
content of the communications of other people. Why? Because listening to the feelings of another person is likely to ‘trigger’ feelings in the listener, and this can be frightening. For example, if someone is angry with you, do you find it easy to calmly listen to their anger and then reflect, for example, ‘You sound very angry that I did not listen to you’ and, if necessary, to then listen more while they tell you how angry they are with you? Most people ‘listening’ in this circumstance are immediately frightened into a defensive reaction which exacerbates the speaker’s sense of being unheard and their fear and anger in response to this. And the ‘listener’ is now scared and needs listening about their own fear as well. So the competition to ‘get the listening’ (usually in the form of an
argument) quickly spirals down into ‘no-one is listening’.

There are, of course, more mundane reasons for not listening to a child.

How many parents are able to listen to a child say that it doesn’t want to go to school? Listening to this might be quite inconvenient for the parent. And frightening if it becomes the norm. For most parents, it is easier to not listen (that is, to ignore the child’s communication) and to fall back on violence: force the child to attend school.

If you cannot listen to someone’s feelings, then you cannot listen to all of what they are trying to communicate. And, in order to listen well, it is necessary to be unafraid of any of your own feelings that might be raised by their communication.

Given that virtually all people are scared of feelings (which are often
seen as ‘inappropriate’ in particular social contexts) and the power these feelings give the individual to resist their own oppression, there is ‘good’ reason why children are systematically terrorised into suppressing their awareness of how they feel. After all, if you want an obedient slave who fits readily into one of the approved roles in existing society, it is vital that its emotional power is destroyed. People who are emotionally powerful make appalling slaves.

And we do want slaves. If we wanted people to be genuinely free and
powerful, and to know what words like ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ really meant, then we would give freedom and democracy to our children, including the right to choose whether or not they go to school. You cannot force a child to attend school – where it is imprisoned under the charge of a controlling adult who directs all activities under threat of violence (even if we delude ourselves by calling it ‘punishment’) for the slightest disobedience – and then expect it to genuinely comprehend the meaning of (as distinct from mouth the rhetoric of) words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.

If we are to effectively tackle the full range of violent problems we face in the world – including war, environmental degradation and economic exploitation – then our strategy must include tackling violence at its source: the violence we adults inflict on children because we are afraid to listen to them and to let them make choices (and mistakes) for themselves.

If you wish to join the worldwide movement to end all violence, you are welcome to sign online ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘.

The true art of listening is to hear that which is unspoken.

Too Early To Predict Onset Of New Cold War – OpEd

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By Gwynne Dyer

CRIMEA is going to be part of Russia, and there is nothing anybody else can do about it. The petty sanctions that the United States and the European Union are currently imposing have been discounted in advance by Moscow, and even much more serious sanctions would not move it to reconsider its actions. But Vladimir Putin still has to decide what he does next.

One option, of course, is to do nothing more. He has his little local triumph in Crimea, which is of considerable emotional value to most Russians, and he has erased the loss of face he suffered when he mishandled the crisis in Kiev so badly. If he just stops now, those sanctions will be quietly removed in a year or two, and it will be business as usual between Moscow and the West.

If it’s that easy to get past the present difficulties in Moscow’s relations with the US and the EU, why would Putin consider doing anything else? Because he may genuinely believe that he is the victim of a Western political offensive in Eastern Europe.

Paranoids sometimes have real enemies. NATO’s behavior since the collapse of the Soviet Union, viewed from Moscow, has been treacherous and aggressive, and it doesn’t require a huge leap of the imagination to see the European Union’s recent policy in Ukraine as a continuation of that policy.

After non-violent revolutions swept the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe from power in 1989, the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev made a historic deal with US President George H.W. Bush. It was unquestionably the most important diplomatic agreement of the late 20th century.

Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to bring all the Soviet garrisons home from the former satellites, and even to allow the reunification of Germany, a very difficult concession when the generation of Russians that had suffered so greatly at Germany’s hands was still alive.

In return, the elder President Bush promised that the countries that had previously served the Soviet Union as a buffer zone between it and Germany — Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria — would not be swept up into an expanding NATO. They would be free, but NATO’s tanks and aircraft would not move a thousand kilometeres closer to Moscow.

It was a wise deal between two men who understood the burden of history, but they were both gone from power by the end of 1992 — and Gorbachev had neglected to get the promise written into a binding treaty. So it was broken, and all those countries were in NATO by 2004 — together with three other countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, that had actually been part of the Soviet Union itself.

NATO’s eastern frontier is now only 120 km (75 miles) from Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg. The Russians were burned again when NATO encouraged the secession of Kosovo from Serbia (a handy precedent for Crimea’s secession from Ukraine), and once more when NATO got Moscow’s agreement to an emergency military intervention in Libya to stop a massacre, and expanded it into a campaign to overthrow the ruler, Muammar Qaddafi.

To Russian eyes, what has been happening in Ukraine is more of the same. If Putin believes that, then he thinks he is already in a new Cold War, and he might as well go ahead and improve his position for the coming struggle as much as possible. Specifically, he should grab as much of Ukraine as he can, because otherwise the western part will be turned into a NATO base to be used against him.

Crimea is irrelevant in this context: The Russian naval bases there are nostalgic relics from another era, of no real strategic value in the 21st century. What Putin does need, if another Cold War is coming, is control of the parts of Ukraine where Russian speakers are a majority or nearly so: Not just the east, but also the Black Sea coast. But he shouldn’t occupy western Ukraine, because he would face a prolonged guerilla war if he did.

This is all extremely paranoid thinking, and perhaps it never passes through Putin’s mind at all. But if it does, then he knows that he has just over two months to make up his mind.

If Putin allows Ukraine to hold the scheduled national election on May 25, then even the preposterous pretext he has been using for the past month to justify his meddling — that he is intervening to protect Russian-speakers from a “fascist junta” in Kiev — will vanish. So we should know fairly soon which way he is going to jump.

My money says that Putin will stop with Crimea, because he’s not that paranoid, and because he understands how weak Russia is economically and how quickly it would lose a new Cold War. He has already saved his face; why run further risks? But I have been wrong in the past, once or twice.


Kazakhstan Foreign Policy Concept for 2014 – 2020 And Ukraine Crisis – Analysis

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By Gulay Mutlu

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakh President Nazarbayev has succeeded in sustaining stability and order in Kazakhstan by using the experience of his Soviet background, the country’s ethnic diversity, the potential for ethnic conflict, and even appealing to nationalist politics. In the early years of independence he rightly prioritized economic development and a “multivectoral” foreign policy. Due to its ingenious balance in both domestic and foreign policy, today Kazakhstan is one of the world’s 30 most developed countries.

On December 16th, 2012, on the anniversary of Kazakhstan’s independence, Nazarbayev delivered a speech in which he announced “Strategy Kazakhstan 2050” which encompasses the political, economic, and social development of the country over the coming decades. As stated in “Strategy Kazakhstan 2050”, the country’s balanced foreign policy has become a great asset that continues to see benefits [1]. However, in Richard Weitz’s words, Nazarbayev split the longer-term goals of Kazakhstan 2050 for two reasons. “First, there is an increasing demand for Kazakh energy resources; so they can follow the new kind of modernization. Second, Nazarbayev sees the importance of the “Silk Road” as a means of transportation” [2]. For example Kazakhstan signed agreements on construction railroads with China.

Geographically, Kazakhstan is in between Europe and Asia—which defines its new vision of becoming a regional and global actor. In January 2014, Nazarbayev announced the “Foreign Policy Concept for 2014-2020 of Kazakhstan” while adding important details about “Strategy Kazakhstan 2050.” The 2030 strategy was the first step to establish and resettle the state beyond the fundamental level. Kazakhstan is enlarging the foreign policy concept of “Strategy Kazakhstan 2050” by adding more emphasis of foreign policy with the “Foreign Policy Concept for 2014-2020.”

What is Kazakh Foreign Policy?

The first leg of the 2020 strategy is regional stability both economically and politically. Astana intends to diminish the potential for conflict, resolve socio-economic problems, tackle water-energy issues, and other considerations within Central Asia. From the beginning of its founding, Kazakhstan has insisted on “intra-regional integration in Central Asia” and international integration of the region. So that priority is still on Kazakhstan’s foreign policy agenda.

Kazakhstan developed its foreign policy capabilities through political economy. The 2020 strategy highlights the importance of political economy under the “Foreign economic policy” section, which describes how to exploit the economic and resource, transit-transport, and export potential of the country. Among the priorities are “industrial-innovation development, expanding international cooperation in order to attract investment, ensuring the country’s full-scale participation in international economic organizations and financial institutions, developing economic and trade diplomacy, and providing diplomatic means to promote and protect Kazakhstan’s governmental interests and its citizens [3].” For the Eurasian economic integration, the strategy states that “Kazakhstan will strengthen the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space in order to build the Eurasian Economic Union on its basis.”

In addition, according to its strategy regarding international economic organizations another priority is to join the World Trade Organization on terms favorable to Kazakhstan. However there are some challenges for Kazakhstan within the Eurasian Union. Since it is still premature organizations and the membership of Kazakhstan is criticized by some experts.

There is another section of the strategy document which bears mentioning. The “country and regional priorities” section explains Kazakhstan’s foreign policy approach. As mentioned above, after gaining independence Kazakhstan seized upon a well-tempered policy line regarding its relations with Russia, China the United States, and European countries. In the document Astana declares that “it will deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership with China within the framework of high-level political dialogue to develop energy, investment, and technology (…).” However, this phrase is preceded by an affirmation of Kazakhstan-Russia relations: “Kazakhstan will continue to strengthen relations with Russia in all spheres of political, economic, and cultural cooperation.”

The two countries signed the “Treaty on Good-Neighborliness and Alliance in the 21st Century”. On the other hand, the focal point of the document is related to the United States. According to the document, Kazakhstan will continue to strengthen its strategic partnership with the U.S. in addition to efforts to continue developing full-scale relations with the EU. This foreign strategy is not limited to just these four, but for today’s conjuncture it is important to highlight Kazakhstan’s “multivectoral” foreign policy.

Kazakh Foreign Policy and Ukrainian Crisis challenges

Recently, the complicated international conjuncture, especially regarding relations between Ukraine, Russia, and EU, rightly concerned Kazakhstan. Russia’s aggressive posture toward Ukraine regarding the “Crimea is keeping the whole former Soviet Union up at night” [4]. Some experts are saying that the situation is working against Kazakhstan. However, as I mentioned before, Nazarbayev has kept the Kazakh citizens in a peaceful and stable environment. Kazakhstan’s foreign policy also “is based on the principles of multi-vector, balance, pragmatism, mutual benefit, and solid defense of its national interests” [5] which means they will continue cordial cooperation with Russia, the West, and the East at the same time.

Today, Kazakhstan—as it has a Russian minority (23.7%) in its northern regions—has called for a “peaceful regulation of the crisis in Ukraine on the basis of the preservation of Ukraine’s sovereignty [within] the norms of international law [6].” Kazakhstan has a strategic partnership with Russia, and at the end of the day it can be affected by the sanctions, used by the western country to Russia, indirectly through the Eurasian Union. On the other hand, Kazakhstan is still continuing talks for induction into the World Trade Organization, though it would be difficult to join when it is a member of the Customs Union with Russia and Belarus.

To sum up, the international system experienced an unpredictable series of events in the Ukraine and Crimea. However it is important to state that Kazakhstan has followed an even-keeled strategy towards Russia till today, it will continue to develop a deeper strategy, and by refining its foreign policy Kazakhstan will maintain its sovereignty. In addition Kazakhstan declared switching on mechanisms and tools for implanting its foreign policy of it while Ukraine experiencing the crisis. Its foreign policy concept demonstrates that Kazakhstan has found the right formula to avoid any conflict with Russia.

[1] Güner Özkan, “Geraring up: Strategy Kazakhstan 2050,” The Times of Central Asia, 2013

[2] Richard Weitz, “Assessing Kazakhstan’s Revised National Development Strategy” http://www.cacianalyst.org/publications/analytical-articles/

[3] “Foreign Policy Concept for 2014 – 2020 Republic of Kazakhstan,” January 2014

[4] Marlene Laruelle, Sean Roberts, “Why Ukraine’s crisis keeps Central Asian leaders up at night” George Washington University http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/

[5] “Foreign Policy Concept for 2014 – 2020 Republic of Kazakhstan,” January 2014

[6] Birgit Brauer, “Crisis in Crimea: Will Kazakhstan Be Next?” http://www.jamestown.org/regions/centralasia/

Nepal: Why All This Fuss Over Local Elections? – Analysis

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By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan

One notices that the present government of Nepal led by the Nepali Congress-UML combine gets into unnecessary and trivial controversies that would only further delay its primary task of getting a new constitution in time. In this process, the faith the people had put in them in electing them in overwhelming numbers in the last interim assembly elections also gets eroded.

A case in point was the unseemly controversy over who should finally approve or authenticate the new constitution- the President or the Speaker with the Nepali Congress opting for the President and the UML opting for its representative- the Chairman of the interim assembly. After days of intense debate and discussions, it was finally decided that while the chairman of the Assembly would approve the new draft, the President would “unveil” it! One could ask- Does it make any difference at all?

It took almost four months after the elections, for the assembly to finalise its rules and regulations and the hard part of deciding on the contentious issues in the new constitution is yet to take place. The rate of progress has been painfully slow.

Yet the government is dilly dallying on an issue that is not directly relevant to the constitution making but yet would definitely have an impact on the ability of the present government to decide on hard and contentious issues- here the local body elections.

One of the points agreed to between the Nepali Congress and the UML in forming the government was that local body elections will be held within six months. In fact this point was agreed to even earlier during the interim regime of Khil Raj Regmi when all the four groups, the NC, the UML, the UCPN ( Maoist) and the Madhesi Groups agreed to hold the local body elections within one year.

Even at that point of time, the problems that will be faced in conducting the local body elections were very well known and yet the decision had the unanimous acceptance. But what has changed now is that the Maoists had since lost- lost very badly in the interim CA assembly elections and is not confident now of doing well in the coming local body elections. Hence the U turn and the demand by the Maoists to have elections only after the new constitution is promulgated.

Some in the Nepali Congress are seen to be having second thoughts now over conducting the elections under the charge of the present Home Minster Bom Dev Gauthan of UML It is said that earlier when the local body elections were held years ago, Bom Dev Gautham as Home Minister had “bull dozed” his way. But this need not be so now when the Nepali Congress is heading the government. The problem appears to lie elsewhere-in Koirala who is seen be very indecisive.

Meantime, the Maoists (UCPN -M) have opposed the electionsbeing conducted before the new constitution. According to Dahal, conducting the elections earlier would be a “political blunder” He has given three reasons for opposing the elections. 1. It would distract the parties from the more important task of writing the constitution. 2. It would spoil the cordial relations that exist among the parties 3. In the interim constitution there is no provision for local elections.

The reasons given are not weighty enough to postpone the elections and the interim constitution can be amended to conduct the elections. But what is under “test” is the “ability” of the present government to go ahead with what it had decided and deemed to be good for the country.

Dahal is also putting pressure by getting closer to the Baidya faction. One of the two points of agreement between the two Maoist groups is to warn the Nepali Congress and the UML to desist from holding the local body elections. There is an indirect threat of taking the issue to the streets!

Dahal in joining hands with the Baidya group claimed that he was ready to revise his ideological approach to India if that would help the two parties to come together and offset the party’s perceived compromise on national sovereignty issue- ( an attack on India). Dahal is known for shifting the goal posts and those analysts in India who seem to have “immense faith” in Dahal should note his current pronouncements.

Elections to the local bodies were held sixteen years ago and with the intervention of Maoist insurgency, the local bodies were allowed to go into a limbo from 2002 onwards. From then on till after the first constitutional assembly elections, the Maoists had a complete sway in the country side. The VDCs and their members were the main targets during the insurgency and the government’s writ in the country side had not run for the last twelve years.

There is therefore a need to conduct the local body elections as soon as possible.

There is also another view point that now there has been no local body for twelve years, nothing will happen if it is delayed for another year.

Perception matters and the present government should not be seen to be weak. Either way the Government of Sushil Koirala should take a firm decision quickly and go on with its primary task of constitution writing.

Will Obama Rebalance Further? – Analysis

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By Shreya Upadhyay

How is China and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region responding to the US rebalancing act? Will this affect the original scope and objectives of the US policy? Will the US rebalance its own strategies towards the region further?

China’s Military and Political Strategy: Resisting the Rebalance

Beijing views Washington’s diplomatic moves as coming toe to toe with China. The US rebalance is viewed as an attempt to stunt China’s rise and tantamount to a new Cold War in the Asia-Pacific. An increased US military engagement and alliances in the region has provided China with an excuse to ramp up its own weapons systems. Beijing has increased its military spending by 12 per cent to $131 billion in 2014. China now seeks to develop more high-tech weapons and beef up coastal and air defences the East and South China Seas and as well as in the western-Pacific and Indian Oceans.

On the diplomatic front, China considers the US involvement in maritime issues of Southeast Asia as direct provocation. As Washington pushes forward with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, China is enhancing its ties with the ASEAN, and is establishing a mechanism of regional economic cooperation to counter Washington’s manoeuvres.

Southeast Asia and India: Straddling the Fence

Almost every other regional power in Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia maintains two stances towards the US’ rebalancing act. Many have drawn from the classic balance-of-power thinking and “rebalanced” their own positions closer to the non-threatening great power. They welcome stronger US commitment to the region, and yet are keen to avoid taking sides openly.

States like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India are trying to straddle the fence. Australia and New Zealand too have welcomed the rebalance policy, but neither wants to upset China, and especially not their economic ties.

The nations in the region are attempting to develop contingency plans to preserve their interests in the face of new challenges posed by China’s rise, and simultaneously seek a mutually beneficial relationship with the country. They also see closer relations with the US as a hedge against China.

Japan and South Korea: Welcoming the Rebalance

China’s muscle-flexing in the region has led to countries once sceptical of the US military presence such as Vietnam or the Philippines to welcome American forces. Singapore has outdone several regional US allies to embrace close strategic cooperation with what it appreciates as a “stabilising influence” in the region. However, Japan and South Korea have been the most vocal vis-à-vis greater US security presence in the region.

It is not a coincidence that both are embroiled in territorial and security disputes with China over maritime and territorial claims. However, the ongoing friction between the two over the disputed Dokdo/Takeshima islands in the Sea of Japan has frustrated US efforts to forge a coherent security policy in Northeast Asia. Rising nationalistic sentiment in both countries too threatens to corrode the rebalancing goals.

Rebalancing Further: New Moves by the US

There are lingering doubts regarding the long-term US commitment to rebalance. Internally, the US finds itself severely restricted by fiscal troubles. Analysts wonder if the US plan is comprehensive and coherent or if it has been hurriedly planned and implemented thereby running the risk of political and logical dissonances.

Thus, when US President Barack Obama cancelled his visit to Malaysia, the Philippines, and the APEC, EAS and US-ASEAN summits due to the government shutdown last year, doubts vis-à-vis Washington’s commitment to the region rose. The Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, in his speech, expressed the general regional sentiment, stating that “Obviously we prefer a US government which is working to one which is not, and we prefer a US president who is able to travel and fulfil his international duties to one who is preoccupied with his domestic preoccupations.”

This has created a pressure for Washington to reiterate the Pivot’s status as a long term national strategy. Obama’s rescheduling of the visit to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines to April 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent stop over in Indonesia, China, and South Korea, and the inauguration of the US-ASEAN Defence Forum point that the US interest in the region is not ephemeral.

The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review has also reaffirmed the “rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific region” as a priority. There have been plans regarding modernisation of surface ships, aircraft and submarines to meet 21st century needs. The Department of Defense has stressed on its use of the US territory of Guam in the west-Pacific Ocean as an alternative strategic hub. With Congressional approval of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2014, funding has also been granted for the Asia program.

At present, the US in the process of shifting military capacities—especially naval and air capabilities involving surface ships, aircraft carriers, intelligence and surveillance capabilities and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the Asia-Pacific.

While critics have argued that large military bases are declining along with the number of military personnel deployed, what needs to be looked at is that the global infrastructure of small overseas bases is multiplying rapidly. The Pentagon is developing flexible Forward Operating Sites and Cooperative Security Locations nicknamed “lily pads” in the Asia-Pacific as well as in the rest of the world. These small bases have a limited number of military specialists, minimal amenities, weaponry and supplies. These would allow Pentagon to respond quickly to developments taking place in different parts of the world.

Shreya Upadhyay
Research Intern, IPCS
vini.shreya@gmail.com

Serbia Vote Shows Citizens Back EU Integration

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By Igor Jovanovic

The landslide victory of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the snap elections show that the country is not only ready to continue on its path the EU, but also that citizens dismiss any opposition to the country’s European future, experts and analysts said.

The SNS, which places European integration, economic reforms and the fight against corruption and crime at the centre of its platform, will be able to form a government on its own after winning an estimated 50 percent of the March 16th vote, or 158 of the total 250 seats in parliament.

None of the parties opposed to European integration managed to pass the 5 percent election threshold.

In his first public address after the announcement of the election results, Aleksandar Vucic, who will most likely be the new prime minister, said the state would continue its path to the EU and carry out numerous economic reforms.

“We have difficult reforms ahead of us,” Vucic said. “Serbia has a future in which its children will live far better than they do today. It will not be easy to reach that goal, but the citizens have recognised a great opportunity for us to be more responsible, to work harder and to act differently.”

Maja Bobic, secretary general of the European Movement in Serbia, told SETimes that the SNS now has the capacity to implement the necessary reforms for European integration on its own.

“That should create a stable framework for the European integration process, but it will also be a test for the new government, which will have to include many other social actors into a job that is essentially the government’s job,” Bobic said.

The new cabinet will not change the outgoing administration’s positions on key political issues, such as Kosovo and the EU, Dejan Vuk Stankovic, a professor at the University of Belgrade, told SETimes.

“That includes the implementation of the Brussels agreement with Kosovo and the continuation of European integration, which will now depend on the capacity of the political elite and society on the whole to reform themselves as efficiently as possible,” Stankovic said.

The party’s victory also shows that citizens have made it clear who the dominant political force is, and who is responsible for the work that has been done, he said.

“The new government will be compact and enjoy the population’s absolute support, as shown by the elections, hence it has more responsibility for undertaking reforms,” Sasa Djogovic, an Institute for Market Research associate, told SETimes.

However, Predrag Simic, a Belgrade Faculty of Political Sciences professor, told SETimes that Serbia’s prospects not hinge only on the new cabinet, but also on events in the world.

“External circumstances will have a crucial impact on Serbia’s European integration,” Simic said. “Foremost, what is happening between the EU and Russia in Crimea. That could provide a certain incentive and suppress the effect of EU enlargement fatigue, but I think in the end the deciding factor will be the caution of European voters, especially in Germany and other countries, as far as Serbia’s admission is concerned.”

Jobs Fails To Keep Pace As US Economy Grows – Analysis

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By Ashok Bardhan

(Yale Global) – The US economy seems to suffer from a bout of schizophrenia, as it cannot decide whether it’s doing well or not. There has been stable, albeit not spectacular, growth in the post-crisis phase, but analysts point to many headwinds. The bubble word is back, this time in the stock markets, and above all else increasing employment seems stubbornly resilient to macro-management.

There is a school of thought that is optimistic about a number of developments and innovations in the US economy. The booming domestic energy sector will soon make the United States the world’s largest oil and gas producer, and the resultant significant drop in the price of natural gas has had a positive impact on diverse industries, such as steelmaking, plastics and a range of energy-intensive manufacturing sectors.

Overall manufacturing output has grown faster than the broader economy over the last four years, with manufacturing’s share in the economy increasing for the first time since World War II, for last three consecutive years. The prospects of 3-D printing – the technology that allows production of goods by layered “printing” of material – has given these scholars ground for cautious hope.

The attributes of niche specialization and customized manufacturing challenge the strengths of those economies, such as China, dependent on economies of scale, with highly concentrated agglomerations specializing in large-scale manufacturing. High-tech niche manufacturing, in addition to large-scale enterprises, have contributed to Japan and Germany still retaining significant industrial sectors. Combining craftsmanship with manufacturing, 3D printing could be the US route to manufacturing resurgence, or so many think, although the employment implications are unclear.

Bullish

All this has prompted some analysts to be bullish about the prospects of the US economy in general and manufacturing in particular. According to them the bogey of offshoring has been laid to rest. They point to a number of firms announcing plans for new manufacturing facilities or bring back offshored activities. The trend has been validated by the intellectual rite of passage for any phenomenon of our times – the bestowing of a new term. New words for this manufacturing spurt include in-shoring, re-shoring, next-shoring and other imaginative neologisms.

The growth prospects for services sectors, which contribute over 80 percent to US GDP, are critical to the long-term health of the US economy. In that connection, the ongoing big data revolution has also fed the enthusiasm of commentators. A number of factors have come together to make this possible. The possibility of merging extremely large datasets from diverse sources – publicly available databases maintained by governments, proprietary company databases and internet generated data streams, and huge advances in data storage and cloud computing as well as the new synthesis of computer science based data-mining techniques with statistical tools have wrought a sea change in data analytics. Add to this mix the economic sense and sensibility introduced by economists and domain experts, and it’s easy to see why a field that’s not new per se has now reached a critical mass of resources and capabilities.

At the same time, the emerging market economies, many of which were the recipients of offshoring largesse in manufacturing and services jobs from the US, themselves may be in a pickle. Their economies, especially Asian giants China and India, are slowing down. China is grappling with a potential housing bubble, a runaway shadow financial sector and uncertain municipal finances while India is caught in a complex vice of budget and current account deficits, inflation and supply-side constraints.

Capacity of emerging economies may be limited

The key attraction of offshoring, China’s overall manufacturing cost advantage, is steadily eroding. Chinese urban worker wages have quadrupled in dollar terms since 2000. The benefits of China’s industrial clusters, extensive and efficient supply chains, and smoothly functioning infrastructure and logistics may have run their course. Further improvements, some argue, can only bring marginal efficiencies. Moreover, headlong rush in the pursuit of lower costs has come at the cost of a blind eye to the management and organizational complexities of offshoring. Those who say that offshoring is dead also argue that the capacity of emerging economies to absorb any further offshoring, given educational and work-skill shortfalls may now be severely limited.

While all of these trends are genuine, there remain serious questions regarding both their sustainability as well as what they imply for job creation in the United States. While manufacturing output has recovered somewhat, the pre-recession peak has yet to be attained. US manufacturing industries have added about 500,000 jobs since the trough in 2010, but the total number is still about 2 million less than in 2007 – before the crisis hit, and while there are no figures on reshored jobs, they are unlikely to be substantial.

It may be true that the impact of urbanization and industrial clusters seen in China are one-time events, with whatever economic benefits possible already squeezed out. However, two significant factors must be taken into account:  Increased and rapid urbanization, involving rural-to-urban migration of another 300 million to 400 million people over next few decades is the explicit goal of Chinese policy.

This latest stage of urbanization, together with the newly constructed high-speed rail network and widespread internet usage, has created the basis for a renewed push toward greater efficiencies and cost savings, as well as a further fillip to both innovation and agglomeration. Interior and smaller cities of China have yet to reap the full rewards of offshoring. The job outlook for manufacturing in the US still faces the continuing twin headwinds of globalization and technological change.

Global locations

McKinsey & Company studies have pointed out that a large number of specialized firms have emerged in the US that can provide data, models and tools for data analytics, and companies will have to make a tough call on what to outsource and what to keep in-house. The needs of data privacy and proprietary analytical models may work in favor of an internal solution. On the other hand, the demands of training data analysts in-house are considerable. Also, analytics may not be a core focus of expertise and the managerial and organizational requirements of running it effectively can be formidable.

From domestic outsourcing to offshoring is but a step, albeit not a trivial one, and the US corporations’ propensity to outsource may lead to offshoring. It’s been suggested that the United States may face a shortage of up to 190,000 data scientists and analysts, in addition to more than a million related jobs in management and support services. Many elements of data analytics can play to the strengths of some emerging economies in statistics, economics, math or software, and the weakening currencies of at least some of these countries can restore the cost advantage.

The pace of US offshoring, especially in manufacturing, has slowed. Partly, this is because the low-hanging fruit has been plucked and cost-push offshoring, mostly initiated by large multinational corporations, has reached a mature stage. Also, rising wages abroad and management, logistical and operational issues have bedeviled offshoring.

On the other hand, there are signs of pull-factors, such as initiative coming from specialized niche consulting firms, from India and China, which ferret out specific operations in services and manufacturing that can be offshored. High-value added innovations such as 3D printing and big data, among others, underscore the increasingly tenuous link between innovation and employment growth. Ultimately, the logic of globalization and a market economy leads globally active firms to resort to global locations, whether for their markets, core assets, inputs or labor.

Ashok Bardhan is co-editor of ‘The Oxford Handbook of Offshoring and Global Employment.’ This article was first published on March 13, 2014 with the headline The US Economy Grows, But Jobs Don’t on Yale Global.

Palestinian Authority: Israel’s Doppelgänger – OpEd

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By Vacy Vlazna

In popular idiom, doppelgänger hails from the German, meaning “look-alike” in behaviour or physical appearance.

The frontline of Palestinian non-violent resistance in the West Bank of the State of Palestine, is not in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the PLO and the Palestinian National Council (PNC), but in the many villages, like Bill’in, Nil’ilin, Nabi Saleh, Kufr Kaddum, Al Maasara, Hizma, Al Walaja, Bab Al Shams, Burin, Budrus, that the PA supposedly is meant to represent and protect.

Village heroes and heroines courageously and willingly battle, in the name of justice and freedom, toxic fumes from high velocity Israeli teargas projectiles, Israeli live ammunition, Israeli rubber-coated steel bullets, Israeli tenacious skunk water, Israeli stun grenades, arrests, torture in Israeli detention, all of which tragically ends for many in death or maiming.

Given every week Palestinian villagers put their lives directly on the front line, face to face with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and extremist militia colonists, what is causing the inertia of progress towards full Palestinian sovereignty?

Excluding the obvious superior Israeli might buttressed by the clout of US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia and a spineless UN, close by, there is a corrupted internal counterforce to Palestinian national aspirations on planet Ramallah.

Circled by 4 impoverished refugee camps, Ramallah, replete with mansions, luxury apartments, a new government compound and foreign diplomatic missions, seems to be groomed to replace East Jerusalem as a future capital. Former PA Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Hatem Abdel Khader stated, “I have to be honest with you and tell you that we have lost the battle for Jerusalem… One of the reasons is because the Palestinian government doesn’t really care about Jerusalem.”

In Ramallah, members of the PA, PNC and PLO enjoy 5 star hotels, gourmet restaurants, nightclubs…and, as demonstrated in the documentaries, Five Broken Cameras and Budrus, from time to time, compelled solely by a camera opportunity, pop by village demonstrations for a few safe minutes.

The PA counterforce to Palestinian political rights, was the Machiavellian conception of Israel and was birthed in the 1993 Oslo Accords by the Palestinian midwife, Arafat who had treacherously accepted Resolutions 242 and 338,

“When the PLO accepted Resolution 242 after fighting against it since it was issued in 1967, in reality, it abandoned  everything to do with the Palestinian cause.” – Anis Fawzi Qasim

and who had been meticulously warned, well in advance, by renowned international lawyer, Francis Boyle and Palestinian head of delegation, Dr. Haider Abdul Shaffi, of the inextricable sabotage of Palestinian independence embedded in the Accords that blatantly omitted the key issues of borders, refugees and Jerusalem.

Even blind Freddy’s dog would have understood the Bantustan implications of the partitioning of the West Bank and Gaza into Areas A, B, and C that would drive a 21 year stake into the heart of Palestinian unity – Israel’s nemesis.

Oslo was proof that Israel had learned the lessons of the mass grassroots unity of the First Intifada, thus the establishment of the PA,and its then 50,000 strong security forces (PASF) armed, trained, and funded by the US, Israel, guaranteed a compliant partner, a proxy police force, tasked to undermine Palestinian unity and police Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. A sure win-win for Israel.

Since Oslo, Palestinians were doomed to face, not only Israeli violence, but PA security forces attacking them in the name of protecting Israel and its occupation, and doomed to suffer PA live ammunition, PA rubber-coated steel bullets, arbitrary arrests, torture in PA detention, and a tragic end  for some in senseless death, such as Amjad Falah Odeh, 38 or maiming as with Ibrahim Abdul-Razaq Shkukani, 22 at Askar refugee camp in 2013.

Like Israel, the PA presents a hasbara face to the world that normalizes its own state violence and the impunity thereof. The 2013 report to the AHLC donors by the PA, is a self-congratulatory jolly paean to a fictitious rule of law;

“The efforts of the 13th Government [PA] have resulted in a significant improvement in public order, promoting the rule of law, safeguarding rights and freedoms, safety, and high-quality police and security services. Administrative and financial transparency and accountability have been considerably improved, and closer relations now exist between the security sector and civil society.”

Yet, the Amnesty International, Palestinian Authority Annual Report, 2013 intones a dirge of human rights abuses;

“In the West Bank, PA security forces arbitrarily arrested and detained hundreds of people, including members of Fatah; most were denied due legal process. Hundreds of Hamas supporters were detained, mostly for up to two days, when President Abbas visited the UN in September… Both the PA and Hamas arbitrarily restricted the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association, and their security forces used excessive force against demonstrators.”

The PASF is an assemblage of mainly the National and Preventive Security Forces, civil (Mukhabarat) and military (Istikhbarat) intelligence, police, and the elite Presidential Guard. Not to mention the former death squads in Gaza set up in 1994 by Fatah thug, Mohammad Dahlan who was later promoted to a Ministership (resembling Israel’s promotion of IOF killers). Since 2007 Fatah-only recruits to the Presidential Guard and NSF are vetted by the US, Shin Bet and Jordanian and PA intelligence and are trained in Jericho and Jordan respectively. The PASF commander-in-chief is the President; previously Arafat, now the unelected Mahmoud Abbas heading the illegitimate exclusively Fatah government.

Suffocating Palestinian citizens in a ‘culture of fear ‘ by stifling dissent and dreams of freedom, the PASF total 65,000 (including inactive paid personnel in Gaza)  with approximately 1 per 50 civilians in the West Bank over an area of 5640 km2 whereas  over 7.6 million km2, in Australia it is 1 per 187 civilians.

Outwardly, the PA appears to have large support, however a 2012 poll revealed 71% of Palestinians are afraid to criticize their government because of intimidation, fear of arrest and losing their jobs in the PA nepotistic employment system. The International Crisis Group (ICG) reported, “A secular Ramallah resident said, “few respect the Palestinian security forces, but we do fear them” and “The security forces contribute directly to the fragmentation of the Palestinian social fabric and undermine democracy … They generally behave like they’re beyond the law. In the last three years, we have regressed as a society. This isn’t progress”.

Even in PA controlled areas, the PASF is restricted to operating between 6am and midnight, leaving the Israeli military free to terrorize Palestinians with its night raids on homes. It takes operational orders from the Israeli Military coordinator in the governorates. On the morning of 27th February, 2014, 200 Israeli troops mounted a raid in  Birzeit shelling the home of Muataz Washaha, 24, and killed him. It was reported that the normally visible PASF had conveniently vanished suggesting the PASF knew beforehand of the operation against Muataz and were ordered to keep out of the way. Furthermore the PASF would most likely have provided  Israeli intelligence with information about Muataz. A security force that protects its people would have warned Muataz so, it begs the question if they didn’t warn Muataz to save his life, are they accessories to his murder?

So, it makes good sense for Palestinians to fear the PASF for its violations of local Palestinian law and international law, and fear its far more sinister collusion and full coordination with Israeli intelligence agencies and military,

“From Israel’s standpoint, coordination has reached virtually unprecedented levels as a result of the fight against common enemy, namely Hamas. With certain exceptions […], the General Intelligence Service (Shin Bet) provides its Palestinian counterparts with lists of wanted militants, whom Palestinians subsequently arrest. IDF and Israeli intelligence officials take the view that, in this regard, ‘coordination has never been as extensive’, with ‘coordination better in all respects’ (ICG)

A sample study in the damning report, ‘Detention Policy’ produced by the Arab Organization for Human Rights in UK (AOHR) in 2012 revealed, “In response to the question, “Have you been detained before by the occupation?” 98 per cent answered yes; 59.7 per cent of the sample clarified that Israeli courts charged them based on information provided by PA security agencies, while 99.7 per cent believed that their detention was carried out in coordination with the occupation authorities.”

Hana Shalabi the 43 day hunger-striking heroine from Jenin who was forcefully exiled to Gaza  for protesting  Israeli illegal administrative detention was, according to an article by Lina Alsaafin, betrayed by the PA, “In the case of Shalabi, an interview in al-Akhbar English conducted by this author with her family revealed that Hana’s security file was built by the PA and handed to the Israeli army, which told her family, who demanded to know the reason for her arrest, to refer to the PA for answers. This follows a pattern of coordination between PA security forces and the Israeli army.”

When Palestinians in the West Bank demonstrated against the horrific war crimes perpetrated against their Gazan brothers and sisters in the 2008-9 Operation Cast Lead,  PA coordination with Israel plunged to the nadir of treachery as Nathan Thrall’s piece, Our Man in Palestine, elucidates,

“The most damage to the reputation of the Palestinian security forces occurred during the Israeli war in Gaza, which began in December 2008. In plainclothes and uniform, PA officers in the West Bank surrounded mosques, kept young men from approaching Israeli checkpoints, arrested protesters chanting Hamas slogans, and dispersed demonstrators with batons, pepper spray, and tear gas. The trust between Israeli and Palestinian forces was so great, Dayton said, that “a good portion of the Israeli army went off to Gaza.” …

Barak Ben-Zur, a former head of counterterrorism in Israeli military intelligence and later special assistant to the director of the Shin Bet, told me that  “in Israeli Arab cities there were more protests against the war than in the West Bank,” thanks to the “total quiet kept by the Palestinian security services.” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman later said, “Mahmoud Abbas himself called and asked us, pressured us to continue the military campaign and overthrow Hamas.”

The evidence mounts that in PA-speak, ‘rule of law’ means severe restrictions on freedom of expression, freedom of the press, assembly and association through arbitrary arrests and detention, intimidation of journalists and the use of excessive force. The AOHR UK report states,

“It’s worth noting that detentions and summons executed by the PA security agencies surpassed those by the Israelis.”

Of further concern, is the PA’s boasting to the UN of its rule of law infrastructural reinforcement of the ‘rule of law’,

“To scale up security-related infrastructure, the Government has finalized construction of the correction and rehabilitation centre in Jericho and allocated land for the construction of an additional three centres in Dura, Jenin, and Qalqiliya. An Nawei’ma, Jericho, Palestinian National Security Training Complex in An Nawei’ma, Jericho, was completed”

yet it regularly refuses the International Red Cross access to its detention centers about which human rights NGO’s consistently report political prisoners are held without charge or in defiance of Palestinian High Court release orders, suffer torture, threats, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment, are beaten, blindfolded, shackled, held in solitary confinement, lack adequate medical and hygiene care, denied access to lawyers and family visits.

Recourse to these methods that follow, to the letter, the Israeli model is not by chance. PASF personnel are trained and supervised by Israel, the United States Security Coordinator (USSC) team and the CIA. Hundreds of millions of US dollars have poured into equipment, infrastructure and capacity building in the strategies and methods of oppressing Palestinian civilians particularly those with affiliation to Hamas. Nathan Thrall writes,

“that the head of the Palestinian National Security Forces told the Israelis, “We have a common enemy,” and the chief of Palestinian military intelligence said, “We are taking care of every Hamas institution in accordance with your instructions”
By targeting Hamas, the PA, power hungry and fattened on US dollars, has been and is, at its paymaster’s bidding, the willing instrument to aid the Zionist strategy of divide and rule – the kiss of death to Palestinian unity,

…The Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto, former UN envoy to the Quartet, wrote in a confidential “End of Mission Report” that the violence between Hamas and Fatah could have been avoided had the US not strongly opposed Palestinian reconciliation. “The US,” he wrote, “clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fateh and Hamas.” (Nathan Thrall)

The PA not only targets Hamas officials and fighters, it apes the collective punishment imposed on Gazans by Israel. In November 2013, the Palestinian Human Rights Center (PCHR) called on the PA to urgently provide  medication for leukaemia patients who were ‘in grave danger of complications and death’ because they had been ‘without medicine since Dec.2011’ which can only be obtained through the Ministry of Health Ramallah.

Hamas, too, has to take responsibility for its contribution to the malignancy of political disunity. Amnesty International makes it clear that “Arbitrary arrests and detentions by both the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and the Hamas de facto administration in the Gaza Strip continued, particularly of their respective political opponents. In both areas, security forces tortured and otherwise ill-treated detainees with impunity…. Both the PA and Hamas arbitrarily restricted the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association, and their security forces used excessive force against demonstrators.”

To understand the mark of Cain stamped on the PA, read George Orwell’s satiric analysis of revolutionary corruption, ‘Animal Farm’. The farm animals, led by the pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, and inspired by the commandment “All Animals are Equal” overthrow the farmer.. A new oppressive ‘All animals re equal but some are more equal than others’ regime  emerges under Napoleon who exiles Smowball and the pigs now strut about on hind legs, carry whips, police the farm with bloodthirsty attack dogs and make alliances with neighboring farmers. The animals can no longer distinguish between the pigs and the humans.

In effect, Israel has a phalange of 65,000 (plus PA bureaucrats, officials and diplomats) Palestinian collaborators who have Palestinian blood on their hands – and it costs Israel nothing to annihilate Palestinian resistance and rights thanks to Western donors. Meanwhile the settlements relentlessly devour precious Palestinian land and the PA is indirectly constructing the expansion brick by brick.

Ultimately, The Question arises; what if there had been no Oslo Accords and no PA that has cheated Palestinians of 20 years of potential freedom and collaborated in the sham of peace talks and in the martyrdom of thousands of sacred lives?

It is conceivable that a sovereign Palestine may have existed for the last 15 years and baby Ahmad Abu Nahl would, at this moment, be undergoing treatment for his enlarged heart in a first class Gaza hospital, toddlers Hala Abu Shbeikha and  Omar Jihad Mashharawi would still be delighting their parents, Itemad Ismail Abu Mo’ammar’s children would still see their mother’s smile, Shadi Mohammad Shahin would never have  been tortured to death in PA police custody, Ziad Awad Salayma would have enjoyed this 17th birthday party, Mustafa Tamimi  would have harvested his family’s olives last November, and grandfather, Saher Milat would tomorrow be puffing on an aromatic argilla with his friends.

“In the case of the State of Palestine, the law has at best been sidelined and, at worst, it has been transgressed in the most egregious manner.The human rights of the Palestinian people have been systematically violated.  The humanitarian rights of the Palestinian people as protected persons continue to be trampled.   The rights under the Charter are perpetually denied, particularly the right to self-determination.”  The Palestinian Statement to, UNSC, 19-2-2014, speaking about Israel (?)

- Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was convenor of  Australia East Timor Association and coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Obamacare’s Risk Corridor ‘Bailout’ Just Got Bigger, Much Bigger – OpEd

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Last Friday, the Obama administration quietly released 280 pages of rules that, among other things, increases Obamacare’s risk corridors (a.k.a. insurers’ bailout):

We propose to implement an adjustment to the risk corridors formula….. Such an adjustment could increase a QHP issuer’s risk corridors ratio if administrative expenses are unexpectedly high or claims costs are unexpectedly low, thereby increasing risk corridors payments or decreasing risk corridors charges. We propose to raise the administrative cost ceiling by 2 percentage points, from 20 percent to 22 percent. We also propose to increase the profit margin floor in the risk corridors formula (currently set at 3 percent, plus the adjustment percentage, of after-tax premiums). Such an adjustment could increase a QHP issuer’s risk corridors ratio if claims costs are unexpectedly high, thereby increasing risk corridors payments or decreasing risk corridors charges. We propose to raise the profit margin floor by 2 percentage points, from 3 percent to 5 percent. (p. 56)

An example reveals how much this change increases the “bailout.” The table below shows an insurance plan with $10 million cost target versus $11 million of allowable costs. Actual medical claims are $8.8 million. Using the formula for calculating its payout from the risk corridor, allowing 20 percent of administrative costs, the plan gets a $410,000 “bailout” (panel A). If it can add administrative costs up to 22 percent of allowable costs, the payout increases to $635,641 — an increase of 55 percent (panel B).

Health insurers continue to win with Obamacare.

Table: Risk Corridor Payouts to a Qualified Health Plan

Panel A (20% administrative costs allowed) Panel B (22% administrative costs allowed)
Qualified Health Plan Target Medical Costs $10,000,000 Qualified Health Plan Target Medical Costs $10,000,000
Qualified Health Plan Allowable Cost (including 20% administrative costs) $11,000,000 Qualified Health Plan Allowable Cost (including 22% administrative costs) $11,282,051
Allowable/Target 110% Allowable/Target 113%
108% of Target $10,800,000 108% of Target $10,800,000
Allowable Cost Minus 108% of Target $200,000 Allowable Cost Minus 108% of Target $482,051
 .
Risk Corridor Pays 2.5% of Target $250,000 Risk Corridor Pays 2.5% of Target $250,000
Plus 80% of Allowable Cost Minus Target $160,000 Plus 80% of Allowable Cost Minus Target $385,641
Total Risk Corridor Payment $410,000 Total Risk Corridor Payment $635,641

* * *

For the pivotal alternative to Obamacare, please see the Independent Institute’s widely acclaimed book: Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, by John C. Goodman.


Iranian FM Lauds Success Of Nuclear Talks

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Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said upon his return to Iran that the two sides in the nuclear negotiations have come a long way in bridging their differences.

“We had a deep perceptual distance with the other negotiating party, and this gap has now been eliminated.”

Iran’s state media quote Zarif saying: “We had a deep perceptual gap with the 5+1 because they did not understand the objectives of our nuclear activities and so they had illusions in their minds that had nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear program.”

Iran just came out of a two-day round of talks with the 5+1 delegation in Vienna on March 18 and 19, which both sides assessed as useful and constructive.

The talks will continue after the Iranina New Year celebrations, which begin today and will continue for two weeks.

Nuclear Security Summit 2014: The Way Forward – Analysis

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By Arun Vishwanathan

The third edition of the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) is being held at The Hague on 24-25 March 2014. Leaders and officials from fifty-four countries and three international organisations (IAEA, INTERPOL and the UN) are expected to assemble for the international nuclear gala. As in the 2010 (Washington DC) and the 2012 (Seoul) avatars of the NSS, the main issues which are likely to be discussed at the Hague 2014 NSS are inter alia nuclear materials security and preventing nuclear terrorism.

Perusing the commentaries and op-eds leading up to the 2014 edition of the NSS and the communiqués put out after by the earlier editions of the NSS, one gets a sense that mindsets needs to change if the objective of a making the world a safer place is to be realised.

First, much of the discussions seem to be more in the nature of the US and the West lecturing the rest of the world about nuclear security. There is an assumption that nuclear materials and facilities are safe in the West and the problem lies in the rest of the world. This is hardly the whole truth. A case in point is the 28 July 2012 break-in by three senior citizens into the US’s weapons-grade uranium storage facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The fact that the trio managed to cut across four perimeter fences and were able to roam about freely around the Category-1 facility for almost ninety minutes without being challenged is cause for grave concern.

This then brings us to the point that in order to actually improve the security of nuclear materials and facilities it is important for world leaders to understand that there needs to be a ‘reset’ in the way the issue is approached. As Charles Perrow writes in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, “our current approach to risk is ‘probabilistic’ … but we should also consider a worst case approach to risk, the ‘possibilistic’ approach.” Simply put, currently countries are always preparing on the basis of the last attack but are generally ill-prepared for the attack that has never happened before.

One of the possible solutions would be to pursue a ‘systems-approach’ to security. As Perrow argues, in complex systems like nuclear facilities, security must be more reliable and tightly regulated. Focusing on the people providing physical security to these facilities, it is important to be cognizant of the fact that many a time, it is a situation where very bright people are engaged in very boring jobs. This is a recipe for disaster as brought out in the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, Tennessee and more recently in the case of cheating by US missilliers in their proficiency tests. Constant motivation, upgradation of training techniques and ensuring high morale in these personnel – who are the first responders in case of an incident – should be the first priority.

Another issue, mentioned in Professor PR Chari’s article, Mixed Bag, for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which comes up quite frequently in most commentaries, is the issue of transparency. Somehow, there is a sense that if countries would just be more transparent all problems can be solved. It has been argued that because India and other countries are not transparent, all is not well in these countries.

Though it is agreed that increased transparency and better communication will help in building trust and is important during crises, it is important to realise that given the catastrophic nature of events in case of a successful attack, governments cannot be completely transparent or free in sharing their plans beyond a point.

India does put in a lot of effort in securing its nuclear material and facilities but the Indian government leaves much to be desired in publicising its efforts. However, such information is definitely being put out in the public domain and is there for one’s taking. A case in point is the wealth of information shared by the Indian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) about its efforts on nuclear materials security in the workshop organised jointly by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore and the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Also, India has done much in terms of tightening its domestic laws, its national export control lists (SCOMET) and as a party to various international conventions. The DAE uses the best practices while deciding on siting of facilities, working on design safety, during transportation of nuclear material and in cyber security at nuclear facilities. Somehow, all these efforts are missed by most commentators when they focus solely on ‘transparency’ which has become somewhat of a panacea for all ills.

The objectives outlined by the Nuclear Security Summit will make the world a safer place. However, in order to realise them, a rethink of current practices and an appreciation that the problems are global and the solution can be achieved only through international cooperation is needed.

Arun Vishwanathan
Assistant Professor, International Strategic and Security Studies Programme, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore
Email: arun_summerhill@yahoo.com

Vatican Observatory Hosts Conference On Life Beyond Earth

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Are we alone in the universe? The ultimate question of life beyond Earth and the solar system takes center stage in a science conference led by the Vatican Observatory and a University of Arizona this week.

Nearly 200 scientists are attending the conference, called “The Search for Life Beyond the Solar System: Exoplanets, Biosignature & Instruments,” which runs from March 16 through 21 in Tucson, Ariz. The Vatican Observatory is co-hosting the conference with the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory.

“Finding life beyond Earth is one of the great challenges of modern science and we are excited to have the world leaders in this field together in Tucson,” said event co-chair Daniel Apai, assistant professor of astronomy and planetary sciences at the UA Steward Observatory, in a statement. “But reaching such an ambitious goal takes planning and time. The goal of this meeting is to discuss how we can find life among the stars within the next two decades.”

Rev. Paul Gabor of the Vatican Observatory, the conference’s other co-chair, added that scientists will give more than 160 research presentations during this week’s conference.

According to the organizers, the conference will cover the technical challenges of finding and imaging exoplanets and identifying biosignatures in the atmospheres of far-flung worlds. Other presentations will discuss the study of life forms that live in extreme environments on Earth, which could be apt analogs for life on other planets.

The 2014 Elections To European Parliament: Towards Truly European Elections? – Analysis

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The crisis and the reforms introduced by the Lisbon Treaty are a double-edged weapon. They entail opportunities for the true Europeanisation of the elections to the European Parliament in May 2014, but also significant risks.

By Daniel Ruiz de Garibay

Five years ago neither had the Eurozone crisis started nor had the changes introduced to the Treaty entered into force. For these two important reasons, the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament (EP) in May 2014 will be very different to the previous ones in 2009. Elections to the EP were traditionally a set of separate national polls presented by national political parties as second-rate versions of domestic elections. Issues affecting the EU and its policies were rarely the key issues under discussion. However, the current crisis in Europe has brought the EU and its policies to the centre of the political debate in all of the EU’s member states, without exception. Furthermore, for the first time since the first direct elections to the EP in 1979, European citizens in May 2014 will be electing a Parliament whose composition will eventually determine who is elected head of the Commission, the so-called EU executive. Some commentators expect the changes to eventually mobilise the electorate and produce the sort of legitimacy the Union has failing to achieve since its creation. Constraints and opportunities will have to be balanced if the EU is to engage its citizens in a truly pan-European electoral process that will boost its legitimacy. But the process will not be without its share of technical difficulties. First, it is not that simple to obtain candidates to ‘fight’ the elections. Secondly, a highly EU-centred political campaign in the context of the current crisis could give rise to highly Europhobic parliament. Thirdly, while it is expected that politicising the elections by linking them to the election of the President of the European Commission will make them more ‘interesting’ to the voters, both the EP and the Commission may see their institutional role undermined and/or put to question.

Analysis

The crisis and the Lisbon Treaty: two decisive factors for a ‘different’ type of elections

For years the elections to the European Parliament (EP) have been considered second-rate events. It was understood that little if anything was at stake. The perception was not entirely ill-founded as the election results influenced had no influence on the appointment of the President of either the European Commission or the Council –the two institutions that set the course of the EU’s political direction–. Additionally, national parties had so far refused to focus their campaigns on issues related to EU integration, preferring to give the priority to issues related to national politics.

Given this background, it is hardly surprising that the elections to the European Parliament have stubbornly shown two distinct trends.

Graph 1. Turnout at European elections, 1979-2009 Turnout at European elections, 1979-2009 Source: European Parliament Website.

Graph 1. Turnout at European elections, 1979-2009
Turnout at European elections, 1979-2009
Source: European Parliament Website.

First, as shown on Graph 1, turnout has decreased dramatically, to the extent that voter participation in EP elections has dropped from 62% in 1979 to a record-low 43% in 2009. Secondly, voters have used these elections to punish parties in government or to vote for parties that they would not otherwise vote for in national elections. This explains, in part, why minority parties –including Europhobic parties– gain considerably better results in European elections than in national ones. As shown on Graph 2, a significant number of the seats in the 2009 EP were held by MEPs from political parties other than the European Peoples Party (265) and the European Socialists (184). However, the 2014 European elections are taking place in a substantially different context to all previous ones. Hence, the trends prevailing up to now might come to an end.

Graph 2. Composition of the Constituent 2009 European Parliament Composition of the Constituent 2009 European Parliament Source: European Parliament Website.

Graph 2. Composition of the Constituent 2009 European Parliament
Composition of the Constituent 2009 European Parliament
Source: European Parliament Website.

For the first time, electors will indirectly choose the person who will lead the European Commission. This is because the President of the European Commission will be chosen according to the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, which provides that it will be the responsibility of the EP. Thus the head of the ‘EU Executive’ is elected on the basis of a proposal made by the European Council taking into account the European elections (article 17, paragraph 7 of the TEU). This is a significant improvement since the Treaty of Nice only provided for the EP to approve the designation of the President of the Commission.

In order to fully implement the spirit of the Lisbon Treaty and to make full use of its new prerogatives, the EP approved a resolution [1] urging the political groups to nominate candidates for the Presidency of the Commission. The candidates are expected to play a leading role in the electoral campaign and are expected to present the political programmes of their respective groupings in each member state. This is a historic change. For the first time there is ‘something’ at stake in the elections to the EP and, furthermore, something that can easily be understood in terms of political choices for the electorate. Voters will be able to ‘put a face’ on their vote. For the first time political parties in the member states are expected to make it clear to the electorate which European political family they belong to and which candidate they are supporting.[2] This means that for the first time in the history of the elections to the EP it will be possible to see a truly pan-European campaign.

Many analysts argue that the changes could play a role in boosting public awareness and interest in the EU elections. Indeed, according to the Eurobarometer,[3] 73% of Europeans believe that more information about candidates’ European political affiliations would encourage people to vote, while 62% think that having party candidates for the Presidency of the Commission and a single voting day would help boost the turnout. In addition to linking the results to the election of the Commission’s President, the Lisbon Treaty has significantly improved the EP’s position in the EU’s political architecture. The so-called co-decision procedure will become the ordinary procedure in almost all initiatives, making the EP and the Council co-legislators. The EP will also decide on the entire EU budget together with the Council. However, these powers are unlikely to attract more electors to the polling stations.

In addition to the changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty, the 2014 European elections will take place in a very particular context. The current crisis has brought the EU and its policies to the centre of the political debate in the member states and the ‘debate over Europe’ is likely to stay there during the next European campaign. Unlike previous elections, the EU and its future policies are likely to dominate the campaign. Additionally, national parties have been asked[4] to nominate their candidates ahead of the elections so as to allow the candidates to mount an EU-wide campaign that concentrates on European and not on national issues, as was the case in previous elections. This is a novelty for a type of elections that for years have been fought in national terms and have excluded issues regarding European integration and/or European policy choices, including the type of European integration supported by the various contenders. However, it is still unclear whether or not there will be a truly pan-European debate on the EU’s political choices, including the type of European integration to be pursued during the new parliament’s five-year term.

Will the 2014 EU elections be so different?

In the forthcoming elections the electorate will be able to clearly identify the different political options available and ‘put a face’ (the future President of the European Commission’s face) on the different political options. Thus, it should be easier for Europeans to choose their preferred model of European integration. This challenges the previously perceived ‘irrelevance’ of the elections to the EP in terms of political choices. In addition, the various bailouts and subsequent austerity measures have put EU policies on the political agenda of every member state. Voters are increasingly realising how decisions taken in ‘Brussels’ affect specific policy choices in their own member states. In this context, the current crisis provides an opportunity for establishing the necessary political dialogue in every democratic polity between electors and those to be elected. Unfortunately, the crisis has also generated a discourse that sees the EU as part of the problem rather than as part of the solution. Even worse, there is a feeling that democratic policies in the EU have been bypassed and the crisis has aggravated the trend. As an example, the EU’s finance ministers met in May 2010 and as a result the Union’s economic governance was reshaped overnight. Many historic decisions followed, including the creation of a €750,000 stability mechanism for the Euro. In the meantime, several member states –particularly Greece and other countries in the Eurozone periphery– were asked to apply austerity measures.

This is the paradox of the EU crisis. On the one hand, the relevance of the EU’s political choices have been clearly revealed; on the other, some see the EU as the villain of the piece, dictating unpopular economic policies to its member states. According to a recent Eurobarometer survey,[5] the level of trust in the EU’s institutions has fallen to a historical low of 60%. This is part of a general trend of decreasing levels of trust in political institutions, as shown on Graph 3. The idea that sharp cuts in public spending have been ‘imposed’ by the EU, together with the increasing distrust towards the EU, provides ammunition for the Europhobic parties to run successful campaigns that encourage voters to cast an anti-EU ‘protest’ vote. Another possible scenario is that alienated voters will simply choose not to vote.

Graph 3. Evolution of trust in national governments and parliaments and in the EU (August 2004 to September 2013) Evolution of trust in national governments and parliaments and in the EU (August 2004 to September 2013) Source: European Commission, Eurobaromerter Public Opinion in the EU, July 2013.

Graph 3. Evolution of trust in national governments and parliaments and in the EU (August 2004 to September 2013)
Evolution of trust in national governments and parliaments and in the EU (August 2004 to September 2013)
Source: European Commission, Eurobaromerter Public Opinion in the EU, July 2013.

In both cases, the EP might find itself facing problems of a different nature. The European elections might see a strong mobilisation of voters in favour of radical nationalist and anti-EU parties. A recent Gallup poll[6] highlighted that Euroscepticism is on the rise even in traditionally pro-EU countries like France, where a third of respondents said they would vote to leave the EU in the event of a referendum being held. Another study,[7] based on public opinion data gathered from all 28 EU member states in July-August 2013, found that overall as many as every seventh MEP could be a right-wing Eurosceptic.

In addition, two potential risks should be considered when linking the results of the EP elections to the election of the President of the Commission. First, from an institutional point of view, politicising the EP’s elections by linking them to the appointment of the President of the European Commission may not be the most obvious way of preserving the Commission’s institutional role or the EP’s. The Commission’s role as an impartial ‘guardian of the Treaties’ will undoubtedly be questioned if its President is elected on the basis of an ideological campaign. However, in any case, the President’s cabinet will continue to be determined by a delicate bargaining process between member states and political groups. Conversely, the EP’s role as the body entrusted with providing parliamentary control might eventually be questioned if a majority in the Parliament is seen to be trying to protect ‘its’ President. Secondly, it might not be easy to find the ‘right’ political figures to run for President of the European Commission. This might lead Europe’s citizens to have to elect the parties’ ‘second choices’. In theory, it should not be very difficult for each political group to choose a candidate. However, so far only the Party of the European Socialists and the Party of the European Left have declared their choice. The reticence of the other parties might have to do with the fact that it is not clear why ‘top political figures’ will take the risk of presenting themselves to be elected President of the European Commission while the positions of President of the European Council, President of the EP and President of the Eurogroup, in addition to High Representative/Vice-President of the Commission, will be chosen in a less politically risky manner, probably beyond public scrutiny.

Conclusion:

The forthcoming elections to the EP in May 2014 will be different to all of its previous elections since its establishment in 1979. On the one hand, the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon has changed the rules of the game. Electors will be voting for both the EP’s membership and the President of the European Commission. Furthermore, candidates are expected to present their programmes in every member state. This change in the rules provides an enormous opportunity for the development of EU-wide political campaigns based on issues related to European integration, which could break the tendency of European elections being treated by both political parties and electors as second-rate elections where ‘nothing’ is at stake. In addition, the current economic crisis has already brought the ‘issue of Europe’ to the political arena in all member states and it is likely remain there at least until the elections. National parties have a great opportunity to run well-structured and well-thought-out political campaigns that could provide the necessary debate on the ‘political choices’ they would like to see in the EU. In other words, Europe’s citizens can have the possibility of choosing –for the first time– what type of European integration model they would like to see implemented during the next five years.

Parties might accept the challenge but it still seems a very risky business for ‘top politicians’, especially when the other ‘top EU jobs’ will be assigned in a more secretive manner in which the ‘losers’ will not be disclosed. The rising Euroscepticism generated by the crisis and the perception that the EU is more part of the problem than a solution might not encourage national parties to risk annoying their traditional voters with a highly EU-centred political campaign. However, the risk of not doing so is to leave a free rein to the Europhobic parties. Thus, both the crisis and the reforms introduced by the Lisbon Treaty are a double-edged sword. If used carefully, knowing the danger involved, they might not only boost voter turnout but also serve to explain ‘Europe’ to its citizens and to break the trend of European elections mainly being an excuse for national parties to practice their political campaigns for the next national elections while an apathetic public choose to either ‘experiment’ with their vote or simply ignore the ‘noise’.

About the author:
Daniel Ruiz de Garibay
PhD candidate at the Department of Politics and International Relations of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute and may be accessed here.

Notes:
[1] European Parliament Resolution of 22 November 2012 on ‘The elections to the European Parliament in 2014’(2012/2829(RSP)).

[2] European Parliament Report of 12 June 2013 on “Improving the practical arrangements for the holding of the European elections in 2014″, (2013/2102(INI)).

[3] European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 364 – TNS Political & Social, March 2013

[4] European Parliament Report of 12 June 2013 on “Improving the practical arrangements for the holding of the European elections in 2014″, (2013/2102(INI)).

[5] European Commission, Eurobarometer Public Opinion in the European Union, July 2013

[6] Gallup 2014 EU Election – The French and the EU June 2013

[7] See Policy Solutions’ analysis: The left could win next year’s EP elections. Access 11.11.13

Khartoum: Really Out Of The Terrorism Business? – Analysis

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By Eric Reeves

Given the U.S. intelligence community’s eager relationship with Khartoum, it would be convenient if the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime were no longer in the business of supporting international terrorism and no longer on the State Department list of state sponsors of international terrorism. Of course, the domestic terrorism wrought in Darfur, Blue Nile, South Kordofan, Abyei, and among those who would resist the regime’s brutal tyranny seems of little concern to the Central Intelligence Agency and other of the myriad intelligence-gathering agencies dealing with the very real and ongoing threat of international terrorism. Indeed, there seems to have been a general loss of moral balance in how the intelligence community thinks and operates, even as its influence in domestic and foreign policy continues to grow rapidly.

For example, so eager was the CIA to improve relations with the Khartoum regime that in 2005 the agency decided to fly to Langley, Virginia (CIA headquarters)—on executive jet—Major-General Saleh Gosh, then head of Khartoum’s intelligence services and, critically, minder of Osama bin Laden during his time in Khartoum: 1992 – 1996, formative years for al-Qaeda. It mattered little that Gosh’s hands were covered with the blood of political detainees and any perceived opponents of the regime. And it mattered little that Gosh was instrumental in carrying out the genocidal counter-insurgency campaign in Darfur, then at its height. He had information the CIA wanted, and the price to be paid was a trip to Washington.

An extraordinary piece of investigative journalism by the Los Angeles Times revealed the attitude of the U.S. intelligence community during the Bush administration. For despite President Bush’s 2005 reiteration of the genocide finding against Khartoum for its actions in Darfur, first announced in September 2004 by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the CIA ‘proudly’ flew Gosh to Washington. In an unusually detailed depiction of the controversy over this visit within the Bush administration, the Los Angeles Times reported on June 17, 2005:

‘The CIA and Mukhabarat [Khartoum's intelligence and security services] officials have met regularly over the last few years, but Gosh had been seeking an invitation to Washington in recognition of his government’s efforts, sources told The Times. The CIA, hoping to seal the partnership, extended the invitation. ‘The agency’s view was that the Sudanese are helping us on terrorism and it was proud to bring him over,’ said a government source with knowledge of Gosh’s visit. ‘They didn’t care about the political implications.’

The cynicism reflected in this attitude—the ‘pride’ in bringing a known génocidaire to the United States—almost beggars belief.

The ‘political implications,’ of course, included Khartoum’s canny understanding of the significance of Washington’s willingness to invite a man not only complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Darfuris but a regime official directly responsible for many tens of thousands of ‘disappearances,’ extrajudicial executions, instances of brutal torture, political arrests, and other violations of human rights. These have been regularly chronicled for many years by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies (UK), among others.

As the Los Angeles Times dispatch continued:

‘An internal debate erupted after word of the invitation [to Gosh] spread to other government agencies. Their concern stemmed in part from a 2004 letter that 11 members of Congress sent to Bush, which accused Gosh of being a chief architect of the violence in Darfur. The letter said Sudan had engaged in a ‘scorched-earth policy against innocent civilians in Darfur.’ It identified 21 Sudanese government, military and militia leaders as responsible and called on the administration to freeze their assets and ban them from coming to the U.S. Gosh was No. 2 on the list.’

Several sources, including a State Department official, said the question of the propriety of the visit provoked sharp divisions at that agency. Similar opposition emerged at the Justice Department, where officials discussed arresting Gosh, according to two sources.

Ted Dagne, a Sudan specialist with the Congressional Research Service, said State Department officials believed Gosh’s trip would ‘send a political signal to the [Sudanese] government that Darfur would not prevent Sudan from winning support in Washington.’

This painfully cynical attitude toward Khartoum as a valued partner in the ‘war on terrorism’ is just as prevalent in the Obama administration as in the Bush administration. Indeed, in terms of deception and disingenuousness, the Obama administration may have an edge. The most glaring example was provided by former special envoy to Sudan Scott Gration, a man singularly without diplomatic skills, regional knowledge, relevant languages—or common sense. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee shortly after being appointed to this most challenging diplomatic undertaking, he was asked specifically about Sudan and support for international terrorism. His reply was an example of shocking mendacity, or ignorance:

‘There’s no evidence in our intelligence community that supports [Sudan] being on the state sponsors of terrorism. It’s a political decision,’ Gration said.’ (Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, DC, July 31, 2009) Let’s examine this claim more deeply than the Senate did, and see just what the historical record suggests about Khartoum’s support for international terrorism.

Most recently, with considerable international attention, the Israeli Defence Forces reported that on March 5, 2014 they seized a Panamanian-flagged freighter, with a Turkish captain, as it was approaching Port Sudan on the Red Sea. The ship was Iranian, the Klos-C. In the cargo-hold, under bags of cement, were dozens of Syrian M-302 rockets—not, evidently, the most advanced version of this rocket system, but with a very large warhead and a range of approximately 100 kilometers (a number of photographs have been publicly released).

The rockets—originally from Syria and delivered to Iran—were to be transported overland from Port Sudan through Egypt and on to Gaza and presumably Hamas (with which Iran is trying to repair relations) or Islamic Jihad (Iran’s proxy in Gaza). Both are designated as terrorist groups by the U.S. The rockets would bring a tremendous number of Israeli citizens within range of these powerful rockets. Notably, Hamas continues to have an office in Khartoum—as it did when Gration made his claim that the designation of Khartoum as a sponsor of terrorism was merely “political.”

Beyond this most recent episode, there is a good deal of evidence that Khartoum has been complicit in attempts to smuggle weapons to Gaza through Egypt for a number of years. But if we look back further, to the years after bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan, there is also a good deal of revealing detail about Khartoum’s ongoing support for terrorism. A good deal of this information has come from ‘Wikileaked’ U.S. diplomatic cable traffic, which is candid because it has been assumed to be completely secure.

We should note first that the August 2010 State Department assessment of international terrorism found that ‘al-Qa’ida-inspired terrorist elements as well as elements of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and HAMAS, remained in Sudan in 2009’—the very year in which Gration testified. Khartoum was of course aware of and acquiesced in this presence. Moreover, U.S. intelligence knew that as recently as March 2009 Sudan had a role in supplying Iranian arms for Hamas in Gaza. The Guardian (UK) reported in December 2010 on ‘Wikileaked’ State Department cables from both January and March 2009:

‘State department cables released by WikiLeaks show that Sudan was warned by the U.S. in January 2009 not to allow the delivery of unspecified Iranian arms that were expected to be passed to Hamas in the Gaza Strip around the time of Israel’s Cast Lead offensive, in which 1,400 Palestinians were killed.’ (December 6, 2010)

U.S. diplomats were instructed to express ‘exceptional concern’ to Khartoum officials, but those warnings evidently went unheeded. The Guardian goes on to report:

In March 2009, Jordan and Egypt were informed by the U.S. of new Iranian plans to ship a cargo of ‘lethal military equipment’ to Syria with onward transfer to Sudan and then to Hamas.

The cables don’t specify what the disposition of this ‘lethal military equipment’ was. But Hamas is considered a terrorist organization not only by the U.S. but Canada, the European Union, and Japan. So what to make of Gration’s claim of July 2009 that there is ‘no evidence in our intelligence community’ that Khartoum supports terrorism’? Perhaps he came to regret the misrepresentation. For shortly after his Senate testimony, Gration would shamelessly lie to Darfuris in a Radio Dabanga interview, claiming he’d never suggested that Sudan be removed from the State Department list of international sponsors of terrorism, as if there were no obvious syllogism in his claim that Khartoum’s presence on the list was not because of support for terrorism, but merely for (domestic) ‘political’ reasons.

Obama’s intelligence community seems to have made a convert of the President himself. In April 2008 candidate Obama expressed ‘deep concern’ that the Bush administration was making an unseemly deal with the Khartoum regime as a means to bolster the fledgling but already failing UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID):

‘This reckless and cynical initiative would reward a regime in Khartoum that has a record of failing to live up to its commitments. First, no country should be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism for any reason other than the existence of verifiable proof that the government in question does not support terrorist organizations.’

The disparity between this strenuous rhetoric and the reality of the past five years has been striking, something I have explored at length previously.

But what happens if we look further back? Do these more recent actions follow a previous pattern? In the days following September 11, 2001, a number of revealing reports quickly emerged, demonstrating that bin Laden’s departure for Afghanistan did not end his relationship with the Khartoum regime. For example, the Boston Globe, CNN, and Reuters all reported on the continuing role of al-Shamal Bank in financing Osama bin Laden’s campaign of terror against the United States. Unsurprisingly, al-Shamal Bank is in Khartoum. Moreover, the National Islamic Front (as it was known during bin Laden’s sojourn) also gave bin Laden many lucrative opportunities not only in banking, but in agriculture and construction. And as the al-Shamal Bank example suggested, bin Laden continued to derive extensive support from Khartoum well after his departure for Afghanistan. The Boston Globe offered a particularly telling example:

‘Bin Laden could be using the [al-]Shamal bank to gain access to US banks,’ [Senator Carl] Levin said, calling for new laws that would prevent such access. Levin cited an instance in which $250,000 was wired from [al-]Shamal Bank to a bin Laden associate in Texas, who used the money to buy a plane for bin Laden.’

According to CNN (September 26, 2001), bin Laden had provided $50 million in start-up capital for the al-Shamal Bank. It’s simply not credible that the Khartoum regime wasn’t fully aware of such a large financial presence in its banking system. And as the Boston Globe also notes in reporting on the years in which bin Laden was actually in Sudan: ‘U.S. officials said bin Laden controlled some of the largest commercial enterprises in Sudan, generating both profits and a cover for terrorist activities.’ In yet another revealing moment in the Boston Globe report, we learn that:

‘[Bin Laden's] businesses were not just focused on the bottom line, U.S. prosecutors [in the Tanzania and Kenya embassies bombing trial] say. In one transaction, a bin Laden company sent sugar from Sudan to Afghanistan. But on its return flight, the rented Sudan Airways cargo plane was loaded with Milan rockets and Stinger missiles.’

Moreover, al-Qaeda never fully left Khartoum and Sudan, even after bin Laden’s departure. The April 2001 State Department report on state sponsors of terrorism declared emphatically: ‘[In 2000] Sudan continued to be used as a safe haven by members of various groups, including associates of Usama Bin Ladin’s al-Qaida organization.’

The broadest and most authoritative picture was provided by Africa Confidential, and much of what was said over a decade ago remains true today:

‘The N[ational I[slamic] F[ront] political and security apparatus is intact, as are the NIF’s and the international Islamists’ control of the economy. Many of those running terrorist training are still in security and ministerial jobs. So, well informed Sudanese doubt that the NIF will hand much of value to U.S. investigators. The NIF is as Islamist as its friends Usama and the Taliban. This regime believes in what it does. Any concession is intended only to protect the greater cause. Secondly, any major betrayal would be suicidal, just as dangerous as holding free elections.’ (Africa Confidential, Volume 42, No. 19, September 28, 2001)

British Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, disclosed in the wake of 9/11 that:

‘…these bin Laden companies were key assets in the al-Qaeda terrorist campaign. Since 1989, Osama bin Laden has established a series of (Sudanese) businesses to provide income for al-Qaeda, and to provide cover for the procurement of explosives, weapons and chemicals, and for the travel of al-Qaeda operatives,’ said a report tabled in the British parliament. (The Citizen [Ottawa], October 12, 2001)

In the same account The Citizen reported (along with many others):

‘The FBI has confirmed that Mohamed Atta, who piloted one of the commercial jetliners into the World Trade Center, “wired money to Mr. bin Laden’s former paymaster in Sudan, Shaykh Sai’id el Masry, also known as Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad, on the eve of the terrorist attacks…. Shaykh Sai’id [Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad] controlled the bin Laden financial network in Sudan through a company called Taba Investments, and used profits from related Sudanese banks and businesses to finance and cloak terrorist training.’

The Associated Press reported that Ali Mohamed, who pled guilty to conspiracy in the 1998 east African embassy bombings, said

‘he [Mohamed] arranged security for a meeting in the Sudan between Hezbollah’s chief and bin Laden. Hezbollah provided explosives training for al-Qaida and Islamic Jihad, Mohamed said, while Iran supplied Egyptian Jihad with weapons and used Hezbollah to supply explosives that were disguised to look like rocks,’ (Associated Press, October 12, 2001)

The Washington Post, on October 11, 2001 reported that ‘Tens of millions of the $100 million provided by bin Laden to the Taliban since he arrived in Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996 has been directly traced to bin Laden entities through banking and other transfers.’ These transfers would certainly have involved the Taba Investments Company and al-Shamal Bank in Khartoum, which received $50 million in start-up capital from bin Laden when he was in Sudan.

The Post had earlier reported: ‘Aldy el-Attar, a 53-year-old surgeon who had a practice in the city of Neu-Ulm in the state of Bavaria, met separately both with alleged hijacker Mohamed Atta and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, an alleged financier for Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network, the sources said. El-Attar traveled frequently in Europe and between Germany and Sudan’ (October 9, 2001).

The Los Angeles Times reported on October 7, 2001 that a unit of Islamic moujahedeen in Bosnia had been financed by bin Laden ‘by means of small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan, according to Mideast sources.’

And The Guardian of October 1, 2001 reported in detail on the financial background of bin Laden and al-Qaeda:

‘United States investigators believe they have found the ‘smoking gun’ linking Osama bin Laden to the September 11 terrorist attacks, with the discovery of financial evidence showing money transfers between the hijackers and a bin Laden aide in the United Arab Emirates.’

The man at the centre of the financial web is believed to be Sheikh Saeed, also known as Mustafa Mohamed Ahmad, who worked as a financial manager for bin Laden when the Saudi exile was based in Sudan, and is still a trusted paymaster in bin Laden’s al-Qaida organisation.

Perhaps the most chilling and explicit report was that of September 28, 2001, from the National Post (Canada). Citing documents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the National Post reported on two disturbing developments:

[1] Sudanese leaders agreed in 1998 to use their embassy staff in New York, London and Rome to raise funds for Osama bin Laden, according to documents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

[2] The documents, filed in Federal Court, also claim the Sudanese agreed to arrange for diplomatic credentials for bin Laden followers, allowing them unfettered travel around the world. The alleged agreement was struck between bin Laden’s top aide, Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahri, and ‘Sudanese Islamic leaders,’ the CSIS brief said.

This report found its counterpart in the Hindustan Times (New Delhi) of September 20, 2001:

‘According to a senior police official, fresh evidence gathered by them has revealed that Ismail, the first secretary in the Sudanese embassy, was not only operating as a conduit of Osama bin Laden in the Capital [New Delhi] but was also trying to recruit more operatives for subversive activities.’

[See also my overview account of the banking, investment, and commercial intertwining of the Khartoum regime and bin Laden and al-Qaeda at: ‘Osama bin Laden’s Ongoing Commercial and Financial Connections to Khartoum’, September 19, 2001 and ‘Khartoum and a 'financial war on terrorism': connecting the dots,’ November 2, 2001, http://sudanreeves.org/2004/12/22/khartoum-and-a-financial-war-on-terrorism-connecting-the-dots-november-2-2001/ ]

[See also transcripts of the 1998 embassy bombings trial, which had recently concluded. The trial for these acts of terrorism clearly indicated the responsibility of bin Laden and his terrorist network al-Qaeda. Companies such as Talisman Energy and the Government of Canada must certainly have had considerable knowledge of bin Laden's, and thus Sudan's, role in the embassy bombings when Talisman officially entered Sudan in October 1998. For transcripts of the trial, revealing much about bin Laden’s financial and commercial connections to Sudan, see the analysis of those transcripts by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies: ]http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/binladen.htm.]

Has Khartoum really changed?

And just who is the man and the organization that Khartoum chose to have as such a close ally and business partner?

Bin Laden makes little distinction between American civilians and soldiers. ‘You say I am fighting against the American civilians,’ he told one interviewer. ‘My enemy is every American man who is fighting against me, even by paying taxes.’ (Los Angeles Times, September 15, 2001)

The same attitude prevails in many powerful quarters in Khartoum, as suggested by the willingness to assist in the transfer of powerful rockets to Gaza, where their only targets can be Israeli civilians, taxpaying and otherwise. General Gration’s claim that only domestic ‘politics’ keeps Sudan on the State Department list of state sponsors of international terrorism reflects either disabling ignorance or cynical mendacity; in his case it’s a tough call to make. But the U.S. intelligence community knows full well all that I report here—and still chooses to attempt to define U.S. Sudan policy through the lens of counter-terrorism ‘cooperation’ with Khartoum.

[For a more comprehensive analysis of how the intelligence community defines Obama administration Sudan policy, see ‘What Really Drives the Obama Administration's Sudan Policy?’ October 10, 2011, ]http://sudanreeves.org/2011/10/10/what-really-animates-the-obama-administrations-sudan-policy/]

Eric Reeves teaches at Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063. See his book-length study of greater Sudan (‘Compromising With Evil: An archival history of greater Sudan, 2007 – 2012; www.CompromisingWithEvil.org )

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

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